That is what i do with every "I just found this link" link
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Racist calls Sam Seder to defend the Bell Curve!
- Thread starter unpopularblargh
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That is what i do with every "I just found this link" link
I've listened to his podcast with Murray. Although he accepts the evidence put forward by Murray (as many scientists do, even if many also do not), Harris:
a) repeatedly points out that average IQ differences between groups tells you exactly nothing about an individual's IQ;
b) questions why this ever needed to be studied, saying he can see nothing good coming from this information;
c) points out that according to the same data, Asian people have a higher IQ on average, so it can't be used as an argument in favour of White supremacy.
It's an interesting podcast. Even if you feel uncomfortable with The Bell Curve (as I do), it's well worth listening to.
Dude Abides
Banned
None of this contradicts what I said.
Harris also spends a large portion of the podcast fellating Murray for his bold truth-telling and shows not an ounce of skepticism toward Murray's research or his conclusions. Which is not surprising since Harris's primary reason for inviting Murray on the show was apparently to confirm Harris's priors.
Sam Harris chews over the positives of racial profiling and nuking the middle east.
Sam Harris supports Ben Carson over Noam Chomsky's politics because the former "really gets the problem of Islam".
Sam Harris invites known racist Charles Murray on his podcast for a prolonged interview and doesn't question his controversial views on race.
Sam Harris rails against BLM and calls them regressive leftists.
I'm tired of Sam Harris fans saying people misrepresent his views. The guy is just awful all around at pretty much everything he does. His work on philosophy isn't much better either.
Edit: I think the biggest problem with his politics is that he legitimizes a lot of reactionary views to an audience that would otherwise be liberal. I think this was at its worse when he invited Charles Murray on his show. What a joke.
Sam Harris supports Ben Carson over Noam Chomsky's politics because the former "really gets the problem of Islam".
Sam Harris invites known racist Charles Murray on his podcast for a prolonged interview and doesn't question his controversial views on race.
Sam Harris rails against BLM and calls them regressive leftists.
I'm tired of Sam Harris fans saying people misrepresent his views. The guy is just awful all around at pretty much everything he does. His work on philosophy isn't much better either.
Edit: I think the biggest problem with his politics is that he legitimizes a lot of reactionary views to an audience that would otherwise be liberal. I think this was at its worse when he invited Charles Murray on his show. What a joke.
Another ridiculous obsession to measure the worth of a person/race solely on the basis of one aspect. Not to mention having a high IQ, if that can even be measured accurately in a general sense, doesn't always lead to prosperity. Studying differences in groups of people is a worthwhile scientific endeavor even if the results can be uncomfortable, but the starting intentions of The Bell Curve seemed like the opposite of an honest inquiry.
All of those topics Sam has more nuanced opinions about than what you are saying. You are flattening his positions on each of those topics into a "with-us-or-against-us" categorization that is dishonest.
I've been reading into the Bell Curve all morning and have not read anything directly from Murray that shows he's a racist. Yet I keep seeing people in this thread calling Murray a racist for his book that's propped up by actual racists based on THEIR misinterpretation of the book. Which is ironic....
TimeEffect
Member
Absolutely fascinating.
DyslexicAlucard
Member
I fucking love Sam Seder. He's the most consistently intelligent commentator on the left, while also keeping his integrity intact.
I wish the only two reasonable people from The Young Turks (Ben Mankiewicz and Michael Shure) would leave and join the Majority Report. Highly unlikely, considering the size and scope difference, but a man can dream.
I wish the only two reasonable people from The Young Turks (Ben Mankiewicz and Michael Shure) would leave and join the Majority Report. Highly unlikely, considering the size and scope difference, but a man can dream.
You can't just read a single text and take it at face value. Don't be silly. Finish reading it and then read the criticisms. Then make your opinion.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
Isn't it obvious? He didn't even have the self-awareness to realise he contradicted himself in, like, two minutes.
I got to be honest in that I have no idea what you mean by "with-us-or-against-us" categorization, but take (for instance) Sam Harris' support for profiling Muslims. That's a stance that he actually takes -- it's not dishonest to not lay down in essay format all the ins and outs of his opinions if I'm accurately stating a belief he holds. And he really did say he supported Ben Carson's foreign policy against Noam Chomsky's on the same podcast where he praised the work of neoconservative pundit Douglas Murray (who literally wrote a book called: "Neoconservatism: why we need it") among many other stupid things he's done.
I see it all the time; Sam Harris and his fans constantly complaining no one really understands him 100%, when really he just has terrible views people disagree with.
Airola
Member
If certain physical things such as some facial features can be traced to be determined by genetics, wouldn't it be possible that it's like that with brains too?
I don't think that assumption in general is bad. It becomes bad when we start valuing these things as something that makes someone better than the other by default.
I mean, if some people with certain genetics are more or less intelligent on average than some other people with different genetics, so what?
First of all it doesn't mean the least intelligent person from the "less intelligent" group would be less intelligent than the least intelligent person from the "more intelligent" group. And it doesn't mean the most intelligent person from the "more intelligent" group would be more intelligent than the most intelligent person from the "less intelligent" group. It's just about the averages.
And secondly, does intelligence matter that much? I've been saying for years and years that intelligence is overrated anyway. It's as if you are intelligent, you automatically become more valued than someone who is less intelligent. Yet the super intelligent person could be the most asshole person in the history of everything. Sometimes people who are not that good at logical problem solving could be really good in interacting with others because of the simpler way that person deals with logic.
It shouldn't be a factor in judging who is better or more human than someone else.
But it's worrying that if this theory indeed would be true, I'm not sure we could ever get rid of people who want to use it to discriminate as people in general LOVE to call others idiots. They love to hear stories of someone doing something "idiotic" and then call that person an idiot. If this is something that happens even within common people without racist motivations, there's no way it ever stops being used by racists with their agendas.
So, if we'd want this to stop being a problem someday, we should stop raising intelligence so damn high in things that we value in a person.
The bolded part is a problem.
The notion that less intelligence = dumb is poisonous.
Less intelligence doesn't necessarily mean anything else than someone being less good at solving certain types of logical problems. The word "dumb", however, has connotations that go beyond that. It is often used to value the quality of a person. A person who isn't good at solving some logical problems can be the most wonderful person you ever meet. But to call that person "dumb" is most often used with derogatory intent.
So, to immediately assume that talking about someone being less or more intelligent means the other is dumber, is very poisonous in a long run.
And yes, I know the word "dumb" is also defined as connected to intelligence is dictionaries, but I think these definitions should be completely thought through again and reworked.
I don't think that assumption in general is bad. It becomes bad when we start valuing these things as something that makes someone better than the other by default.
I mean, if some people with certain genetics are more or less intelligent on average than some other people with different genetics, so what?
First of all it doesn't mean the least intelligent person from the "less intelligent" group would be less intelligent than the least intelligent person from the "more intelligent" group. And it doesn't mean the most intelligent person from the "more intelligent" group would be more intelligent than the most intelligent person from the "less intelligent" group. It's just about the averages.
And secondly, does intelligence matter that much? I've been saying for years and years that intelligence is overrated anyway. It's as if you are intelligent, you automatically become more valued than someone who is less intelligent. Yet the super intelligent person could be the most asshole person in the history of everything. Sometimes people who are not that good at logical problem solving could be really good in interacting with others because of the simpler way that person deals with logic.
It shouldn't be a factor in judging who is better or more human than someone else.
But it's worrying that if this theory indeed would be true, I'm not sure we could ever get rid of people who want to use it to discriminate as people in general LOVE to call others idiots. They love to hear stories of someone doing something "idiotic" and then call that person an idiot. If this is something that happens even within common people without racist motivations, there's no way it ever stops being used by racists with their agendas.
So, if we'd want this to stop being a problem someday, we should stop raising intelligence so damn high in things that we value in a person.
The bolded part is a problem.
The notion that less intelligence = dumb is poisonous.
Less intelligence doesn't necessarily mean anything else than someone being less good at solving certain types of logical problems. The word "dumb", however, has connotations that go beyond that. It is often used to value the quality of a person. A person who isn't good at solving some logical problems can be the most wonderful person you ever meet. But to call that person "dumb" is most often used with derogatory intent.
So, to immediately assume that talking about someone being less or more intelligent means the other is dumber, is very poisonous in a long run.
And yes, I know the word "dumb" is also defined as connected to intelligence is dictionaries, but I think these definitions should be completely thought through again and reworked.
Oblong Schlong
Member
Obviously the caller is a floundering racist and wearily checks off the laundry list of white supremacist vocab (Cuck? Really? Is originality this dead?). He's a low value asshole.
However, watching the video I was actually more annoyed by Sam's friends jumping in and cross-talking than any of the limp 4chan verbiage coming from the caller. It's jarring.
Why are their voices so much louder in the mix? Why do they all warble their failed zingers over one another? Sam was handling it much better, drawing out the guy's silly poison ("I definitely see myself as an alpha") and setting him up for the knockout defeats.
Maybe it's because Sam's the only guy on-screen, but the others come across as well-intentioned Salacious Crumbs.
However, watching the video I was actually more annoyed by Sam's friends jumping in and cross-talking than any of the limp 4chan verbiage coming from the caller. It's jarring.
Why are their voices so much louder in the mix? Why do they all warble their failed zingers over one another? Sam was handling it much better, drawing out the guy's silly poison ("I definitely see myself as an alpha") and setting him up for the knockout defeats.
Maybe it's because Sam's the only guy on-screen, but the others come across as well-intentioned Salacious Crumbs.
What is the scientific definition of race?
While we're at it tell me the scientific definition of kind as well. This should be fun.
What does a black brain look like? What about a Chinese kidney? etc etc
The assumption is bad because it isn't backed by science. And if there isn't a scientific basis for these assumptions then it's because you are either ignorant or a racist.
:edit:
Just so we're on the same page I recognize what genetic traits are. However rosacea doesn't make one of the Irish race. A nobel prize doesn't make one of the Jewish race. Speaking spanish doesn't make one of the hispanic race. These are all traits that can occur in any permutation of human. Traits that we arbitrarily collected and categorized as a society. There is no scientific basis for race which is why you're both having a hard time presenting evidence to back up your assertions that there is. I have no interest in engaging in a semantic discussion about language. If you claim race has a scientific basis show me the scientific consensus that lead you to your conclusion.
JordanN
Banned
The bell curve is complete fiction. Take any person from the 21st century and send them back to an earlier time period.
Would a caveman know how to use a smartphone? Or would a King know how to drive a car? Yet it's very unlikely the 21st century person of any race would struggle with these, because they possess some knowledge of these systems.
Or another flaw. Some study tried to equate a 6 year old white European was on the same level as adult African tribesmen. Yet put the 6 year old in the same desert conditions and would they survive? Definitely not.
Would a caveman know how to use a smartphone? Or would a King know how to drive a car? Yet it's very unlikely the 21st century person of any race would struggle with these, because they possess some knowledge of these systems.
Or another flaw. Some study tried to equate a 6 year old white European was on the same level as adult African tribesmen. Yet put the 6 year old in the same desert conditions and would they survive? Definitely not.
1. I wouldn't say he spent time "fellating" Murray. They discussed the problem with silencing people based on a perception of intolerance. A valid concern.
2. Harris relates that from his reading of the book Murray's statistical conclusions were accurate. To that end you need to understand what The Bell Curve actually argues and what Sam Harris believes. Sam Harris pursued a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience. Sam Harris believes in the research he did. His research is largely built around the biological prediction of genetics. So he is predisposed to agree with Murray's conclusion in The Bell Curve that our intelligence is 50-80% a product of genetics.
Which is what Murray was actually outlining in The Bell Curve. That genetics, per the information he had, was the dominant factor in determining intelligence. Where Sam Harris failed to follow up, likely because this is a harder item to merit test, is that much of the information Murray used came from Pioneer Fund studies. The progressive response attempting to negate IQ tests as having any merit is a flawed tactic in responding to The Bell Curve as IQ tests are, in fact, pretty accurate at determining innate cognitive ability. Instead they should attack what IQ tests and how they were administered by the other Pioneer Fund studies. It is entirely likely that Murray was acting in good faith but simply with bad data.
Additionally, Harris did challenge Murray on the environmental constraints on reaching maximum potential, his "malnutrition" example. This is basically the Flynn Effect (unequal educational experience, but through an inaccurate lens) in it's more accurate form. The Flynn Effect from The Bell Curve argues that the data doesn't prove black people are receiving a 1940's education while white people are getting a 1980's/1990's education (depending on when the data was collected). The actual argument they should have been testing is that in the world globally but in the U.S. in particular wasn't that we're giving black students a 1940's education but instead whether or not we're literally starving their cognitive development.
3. Harris then followed up his interview with Murray by having Siddhartha Mukherjee on to provide an alternative perspective, and gave Mukherjee every bit the platform and far more praise than he gave Murray. Mukherjee pointed out what I said above, claiming that Murray over-interpreted what he called "muddy studies". He also reiterated his "malnutrition" example.
4. I would personally argue that given the dubious origin of the data used by Murray, the dubious nature by which they did away with the Flynn Effect, and other methodological factors finding black, white, and asian intelligence to all be within roughly one standard deviation from one another actually paints a pretty damn strong argument against the notion of substantial difference based on a gross simplification like race.
When you consider that white men in the U.S. (where most of the data was collected from my understanding) have spent a good 300 years killing all the black men who dared speak up (likely the most intelligent, since intelligence chafes most under oppression) it also isn't hard to imagine that putting a slant on the genetic pool available. Robbing the black population of their greatest minds and thinkers through murder, assassination, and wrongful incarceration is the second greatest injustice committed by white America on black America (the first obviously being outright fucking slavery).
But Sam Harris is a devout nature over nurture guy. He's intelligent to be sure, and raises a lot of very good points in most of his podcasts, but everyone has their biases.
g-factor is not just certain types of logic. Empirically we know that people who are good at say math also are good at other cognitive skills like language, working memory, spatial abilities and so on. This relationship is what good IQ tests test for (g-factor). IQ is well studied and it's just nonsense to say that it doesn't mean anything.
My takeaway from the post was that even though being inferior won't necessarily impact your life it is still important to know who is inferior.
...showing my lack of IQ by quoting and posting before reading the whole thing..
I could have phrased this better. I didn't mean your post. I meant theirs.
(forgive my inferior non white brain for struggling)
Dude Abides
Banned
They discussed how poor Charles Murray has been treated so unfairly because he dares to tell the truth about how black people are less intelligent than poor people. This lines up nicely with Sam Harris's incessant whining about how unfairly he is treated because he dares to speak the bold truth that Muslims are violent savages, so it's not surprising that he and Murray are simpatico.
This is inaccurate. Sam Harris's PhD dissertation is his only academic (using the term very loosely) work and has nothing to do with genetics. And he had no prior academic training in neuroscience, statistics, or anything other than undergrad philosophy so his opinion on the validity of The Bell Curve holds no more weight than anyone you might grab off the street. Harris used MRI machines (or, actually, other people did since he didn't actually do any of the experiments) to try to prove that religious people think differently than non-religious people. So the only area in which Harris's and Murray's interests are really congruent is they like to think of themselves as bold iconoclasts for saying things that reactionaries like to hear and couching it in the language of science, objectivity, and rationality.
Airola
Member
I don't quite believe in races as we are all humans. We are all the same people. It's just that some people ended up living in different areas in the world and have differences that have been molded by evolution, environment and culture.
The fact is that there are differences between people of different ancestries. There of course are the obvious differences in physical appearances, were it hair or skin color, eyes, noses, etc. Then there are things that aren't so obvious, like differences in cerebral hemodynamic response to high altitude. So, if there is are differences between some races (meaning people of different ancestry) what comes to blood in brains in high altitudes, why there couldn't be other brain related differences too? I guess the question here is if intelligence can be traced to be anyway dependent on how the brain is formed in each individual. If it is so, I can't see how genetics couldn't have anything to do with intelligence. Surely it's not the only thing that has an effect on intelligence as things as schools and simply just training certain logical problems can help raising the IQ points. But I can't say genetics have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence.
Brains don't have to look different to have differences between other brains. Surely if someone would put an "European kidney" or an "Asian kidney" in front of me, I couldn't tell any differences between them. But it doesn't mean there can't be any differences in how they work. If Asian people were more adapted to have their kidneys work in a certain way compared to the kidneys of European people, then it is so. It doesn't mean all of the Asian kidneys have the exact same attributes but on average they can have an emphasis on some certain direction.
Anyways, my point about overhyping intelligence still stands even if there are zero differences between the brains and intelligence between people originated from different areas. People want to have a high IQ and people fear to have a low IQ. As if that really matters in the long run. And people then give some extra attributes to themselves and others based on what their IQ is when it doesn't tell much more than how well someone is able to deal with certain logical problems and I don't think that ability is that important for us. Hell, intelligence has brought us weapons of mass destruction and mass industrialization with tons of pollution with it.
It kinda feels like people are willing to accept some differences between races if it doesn't feel it puts someone above or below some arbitrary scale, and if they think a certain difference sounds negative it then can't be true. When in reality it's just their own personal scale they have made up, and in this case it would be because they give such a big value on intelligence.
Intelligence is overrated.
Intelligence can be very destructive.
Valuing intelligence too high is poisonous.
Race is a stupid word too. There should be some other word to help determining ancestry. The differences between us is not like something like differences between different dog races.
I've listened a fair bit to Harris and what you are saying isn't an honest representation of his views, it's just not true that he think of muslims as savages. I disagree with Harris on many issues(including the subject of islam), and can't stand the cult-like behavior some of his followers display but you are proving his point of unfair treatment by throwing out nonsense like this.
it does matter though. High IQ is strongly correlated with doing well in life, so it's in everyone's interest that we do all we can to maximize everyone's IQ. And again, g isn't just a certain type of logic puzzles, it's general intelligence - language, spatial ability, numbers, logic, memory and so on.
1. Murray's lectures and the like associated with The Bell Curve, from the best of what I can gather, aren't focused on the racial differences though, that's the red meat everyone wants to keep chewing on. His primary argument he tries to push is genetic predetermination. That's a problematic view in it's own right for a lot of reasons, most notably because it requires a very presumptive view that we're at a level of understanding with genetics to where we could make such judgements, but you're acting like he hangs his hat entirely on some superiority of the races viewpoint when he really doesn't.
2. Saying that Harris depicts Muslims as violent savages is missing the boat pretty badly. Harris is a gnostic atheist. He is entrenched in the belief that religions are, effectively, a mass delusion. He's like a lot of people on this forum who claim that if we could just remove all religion the world would be a far, far better place, though missing that his hard line adherence to atheism is pretty damn similar in all but the fact that no one has, as of yet, used atheism for the rallying cry of genocidal violence. I stress the word "yet" in there. Harris and his compatriots (such as Dawkins) get closer to that line with how they condemn orthodox religion than I'm personally comfortable with and I think it's only a matter of a few generations until we see at least some radical atheist sects begin to form.
1. it's his only published work. At least according to his claims his continued though limited research is on the importance of genetics as a determining factor in who we are, at least, it's something he brings up with more regularity than literally anything else.
2. I'd argue that a PhD in Neuroscience is a pretty valid background to weigh the validity of a book like The Bell Curve, but then I'd give meaningful credence to anyone who has a strong understanding of the scientific method and statistical analysis. Which is more or less the spectrum of people who have challenged The Bell Curve. Psychologists, sociologists, statisticians, and historians have given their views, I don't see why a neuroscientist shouldn't be allowed to do so.
3. Trying to boil down either person's careers as attention seeking is reductive and only invalidates any meaningful criticism that you'd otherwise make. Anyone trying to push understanding on any field forward is effectively attention seeking and likely to fall into the role of iconoclast. I wouldn't even call either Murray or Harris an iconoclast as both have been well entrenched within their own support networks.
Funny enough, Charles Murray in his interview with Sam Harris made almost this same point, stating that racial categorization was inaccurate and that either now or in the near future a far more valid grouping of people could likely be determined using various more representative genetic indicators for ancestry.
Airola
Member
Without seeing your post I think I might've just doubled down on that on another post
Oh well, to my defense I said it doesn't necessarily mean anything else, for what it's worth :/
Huh?
What, no.
This is just the thing I mean. You use the word inferior to further give arbitrary value for intelligence. As if IQ scores could test who is inferior to someone else.
And no, I don't think measuring intelligence is important in any way whatsoever.
JordanN
Banned
The problem I have with genetics and intelligence is that intelligence is highly malleable.
It really doesn't matter if one race can score high in a test over another. The real question is, how do you determine what the ceiling for intelligence is? When someone fails a grade at school, we don't point to their genetics and say "guess they'll never graduate". We let them re-take a class until they can muster up a passing grade. We need to see an equivalent in biology where no amount of retesting can be used to raise someones intelligence.
I also made an earlier point about time. Someone who is considered intelligent today could easily be seen as being "primitive" hundreds of years from now. Do we just consider humans to have magically evolved their genetics during this time period, or do we collectively come together and raise our intelligence by coming up with breakthroughs that anyone of any race can understand?
Dude Abides
Banned
So what? Does this have anything to do with Sam Harris's nodding along as Murray explained how black people are less intelligent than white people?
Yes, I know that Harris is very euphoric. He also really hates Islam and thinks it makes Muslims more likely to commit violent acts than people of other faiths.
Claims that nobody can evaluate because this alleged "research" is available nowhere. Sam Harris is a careerist huckster and his scientific pretentions are little more than marketing.
I don't know why you'd think a PhD in neuroscience (particularly a shitty one where Harris did little of the actual work) gives him authority to evaluate a book of that has nothing to do with neuroscience.
I didn't say they are iconoclasts. I said they pose as iconoclasts. Of course it isn't iconoclastic to say black people are dumb and Muslims are bad! A lot of people agree with those positions! Including the President!
Is it arbitrary though?
Race is a paradox of genetic traits and geographic/ cultural/ temporal bottlenecks that science does not recognize and yet society still accepts it primarily as a way to separate groups of people intro tribes and statistics.
There is no fixed defining feature of what a race is and yet this conversation continues as if race does exist... albeit primarily in the context of bigotry.
Which is why I mention inferiority.
If it helps you understand why I feel the way I do toward you're post I will say that I'm not sure why you insist on a lateral division of people. This concept is so far removed from both science and bigotry that I have absolutely failed to understand the value of this concept at all. Especially in the context you admitting that race is bullshit... both as a way to categorize people as well as its use in language.
I think you need to fix your quote
This isn't the first time I was trolled by the + sign.
This paragraph is so poorly constructed:
1) "there is no scientific basis for difference in races" is a sentence that doesn't make sense. That is not how you use the phrase "scientific."
Also, there are obvious physical differences in races that can be scientifically understood (e.g. melanin). Presumably, you mean "there is no genetic basis for difference in races," and you'd be wrong on that front too.
2) "it is all environmental/social construct"
Let's assume you're talking about intelligence here, since that's what the Bell Curve is about. You're wrong. A lot of studies have demonstrated that intelligence is largely hereditary, with little to no evidence supporting the belief that intelligence is environmentally or socially constructed.
3) "Intelligence is hereditary" is NOT the same as "some races are less intelligent than others." Therefore, it is not a racist claim.
I don't think that hypothetical scenario works to make an argument.
It's not "magically".
Whatever genetic influence on intelligence exists (the many, many gene variants that affect intelligence positively and negatively to result in a complex sum) was subject to selection pressure and genetic bottlenecks that largely do not exist anymore in a developed modern society. We've reached the point where higher intelligence (and educational attainment, which is highly correlated) is a negative influence on the number of children.
My point is that future gains in average intelligence will likely not be made through genetics unless we engineer them, so they'll be largerly environmental. (I'd say the Flynn effect is basically a big neon sign pointing to this conclusion, although some disagree)
But that does not disprove that these genetic changes to intelligence happened in the past and made us more intelligent (in the context of modern life, and that's all that really matters) than our distant ancestors even while controlling for everything else.
Airola
Member
Yeah, that's true.
It could be that whatever the difference in intelligence that was found in that "bell curve" thing, could be easily changed by just giving equal education to each races studied.
I don't know it that was taken into account in that study as I haven't read it and I don't know much else about it than what has been said here.
Well, I think the ability to solving logical problems can't be compared to giving people an unknown object they have never seen in any form ever.
It's as if people from 20000 years into the future would come and give us some amazing space-dimension-hypermind-device and said they could compare their intelligence to ours just based on how well we understand an object we have never even been able to imagine. Those people could still have relatively same skills in solving logical problems than us and the only difference would just be that they have been lived with that object and objects like that for thousands of years so of course they would have the skill to operate it and we wouldn't. It doesn't really have anything to do with how our understanding of logic differentiates from each other.
What comes to people seeing others as primitive, I think that is a time based bias people seem to often have. I personally don't think people a thousand or a couple of thousand or even three thousand years ago were really that primitive. People like to think they were much more stupid than us, but I think if we went to see them now they would be quite like us. They'd just have less knowledge about things. Not knowing about things that don't exist in their time doesn't mean they are not intelligent or that they are stupid. Or even primitive, whatever that means.
I mean, it's easy even now to think that people from, like, 5 or 6 decades ago were not quite as intelligent as we are now, but I think that's not true at all. Just because we can now operate more complex things doesn't mean our potential for logical thinking is any better than they had.
Also, I think we don't really evolve much anymore because we have pretty much gotten rid of natural selection. Or at least we don't evolve in the way we used to. So that said, I think the people 10000 years from now in future aren't necessarily going to be evolved even nearly in the same scale people might have still evolved 10000 years back in time. And I think even then evolution wasn't happening even nearly as effectively than it was, say, 50000 years back in time. But back when evolution of humans still happened effectively, I think there could've been enough differences in genetics in different areas that they could've affected to the overall capability in such types of logical thinking that could be measured with IQ tests.
But of course this is just me talking out of my ass here so read my claims as such.
IndoAssassin
Banned
Double post.
IndoAssassin
Banned
Then he invited a geneticist on the next podcast who was against the bell curve and challenged him.
The caller's name was John Connor from LA lol.
Airola
Member
Yeah, race is a difficult thing already because there are no fine lines between whatever group of people we'd want to call whatever. Especially in the modern world as people from different parts of world are so much mixed with each other calling anything a race just seems pointless. I kinda get it that when people were still in clearer groups it might've made more sense to have a name for people from different parts of the world.
But when talking about whether there could be any differences between people from different parts of the world, I just can't deny that there are some differences. But that doesn't mean I value these people differently based on those differences. So it's not that I want to defend making lateral divisions or that I even feel the need to make such divisions. It's just that as things now are, that these studies have been made, and people are either for or against these studies and are either flat out telling nothing like that can't be true or telling this is the absolute fact, I think it's not impossible the results could be true. It's not based on skin color or anything like that but just in the thought that as anything else that can be found as showing as difference between people from two different areas, things like intelligence (or at least the type of intelligence that is measured by IQ tests) could also have been affected from that.
Now, I get that this brings up a huge problem. As intelligence is seen as something where its highness is seen as a positive and lowness as a negative, people will value and grade each other based on that. So anything that seems to defend a study like that will be obviously met with criticism. I get that this is something that nazis used and use for their agenda. That in itself is not yet a thing that disproves any study though, but there is the high possibility that, fitting for how nazis like to operate, it could just be propaganda. So obviously it feels it's better to just deny the possibility of a study like that completely.
But the thing for me here is that the results could also be true. To find out if it's true or not it doesn't help if we just bury it under "it's bigotry and nazism" claims. First of all I think we should see why this possible information connected to bigotry and nazism is dangerous. The result in itself isn't dangerous, and I don't understand why that average difference in intelligence even is a big deal, but when people begin to use it to discriminate and grade each other, then it becomes dangerous. And I think overvaluing intelligence doesn't help things at all.
So basically I would agree if you would say the world would be a better place without such studies at all since there is the possibility of it being used for evil things. But then again, should we stop all studies where the same kind of possibility exists?
But then again, if letting people examine these studies and test them and discuss them and let them do it again and again, and it would in fact end up proving there is absolutely zero connection between a "race" and intelligence, would it be a good thing then?
So I would say I think even a study as controversial as this is something that people should be able to study if it interests them.
But then again, I can't find many reasons why people would be interested in doing such studies. Surely there are scientists who just happen to be very interested in brain and intelligence related things in humans and they could be interested to see whether there are genetic differences what comes to intelligence between people from different parts of the world, and they have no racist motivations in doing so. But then again a study like this also potentially interests a lot those people who already have antipathy towards people from certain areas in the world, and it would most certainly interest them only for bad and even outright evil reasons.
So that said, it's hard to believe a study like this could be done with no ill will towards anyone because we know the history and we know how people even today are. In that sense I agree with you in that there is no value in a study or a concept like this at all.
However, after writing this massive wall of text and reading your post again, especially this great line:
"Race is a paradox of genetic traits and geographic/ cultural/ temporal bottlenecks that science does not recognize and yet society still accepts it primarily as a way to separate groups of people intro tribes and statistics."
...I think it might be better to first make some universal study on what race is, and even if race actually is a thing based on what we know now, before we start to think about what genetic differences there are between those races.
water_wendi
Water is not wet!
Thats great for a laugh but one day we are going to have to face people like that caller in combat.
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