I don't deny physical differences between biological races...then again, I don't deny physical differences within races either. I didn't ignore any data. Again, I think you have the wrong poster. Btw, I'm not an egalitarian.
Again, no one claimed a "white" gene. There are genetic clusters. Semantic categories are used to describe observable patterns, and statistical theory is applied to understand them. We know that everything that makes a human is mediated by genetics, and these statistics are used to help us see the differences. When someone says "white" or "black," their brain is identifying a cluster that has phenotypic and behavioral representations in the real world. No one said it was a perfect category. Can't help but separate them? It is a convention shared by virtually all academic departments, for very good reasons. I find it hilarious that you must mix them in order to fit your agenda--as if "East Asia" weren't an inclusive enough category.
There are plenty of clusters and some overlap. Conveniently, those who are of multiple races have to pick one or another. The black race has many phenotypes many overlapping into other categories. This is why I prefer region/ethnicity to race.
They don't have to pick anything, and no one is asking half Japanese/half white people to "pick" one. Sure, the categories aren't perfect and more precision would be desirable, but I'm not sure how you propose to meaningfully organize and apply this information in the real world. I can only imagine a questionnaire with 500 different options under "ethnicity." The categories that we have now are pretty good and have been in use for a while. Trying to change them at this point would probably do more harm than good. My argument is basically a pragmatic one, if you are condoning physical and mental differences between different ethnic/racial groups
There are plenty of clusters and some overlap. You have those who are of multiple races who have to pick one or another. The black race has many phenotypes with many overlapping into other racial categories. This is why I prefer region/ethnicity to race. There exist every type of behavior for each of the races. Your last sentence talking about behavioral representations is simply a support for stereotyping and propaganda. Africans/"Blacks" are the most genetically diverse yet people think they can pinpoint phenotypes, colors, and behaviors. Can't take it serious. Yes, I'm calling it out the splitting of the Asians. The need to separate the Asian race and not the Black or White ones undermines the "race" argument.
Nothing you just said makes any sense. I can see I will get nowhere with you. You've already admitted that you are terrified of ethnic cleansing and eugenics, and you have said that you will oppose anything that you think increases that risk, even if it is valid. Basically, you have admitted that you can't be objective about this subject.
And you don't have an extreme bias? I admitted I was terrified of ethnic cleansing and eugenics? No. I admitted no such thing. I simply said that as long as the case can't be made to equate race to IQ, extermination would be delayed. Listening to you try to equate phenotypes and behaviors to race in the manner that you do and then talk about eugenics, I wasn't wrong. I believe what I believe. If it bothers you, put me on ignore. Since it sounds like you had enough, goodbye, but I'll continue to say what I want to say. [HR][/HR] [HR][/HR] [HR][/HR] What is wrong with grouping the Asians into one group the same way the "Blacks" and "Whites" are grouped? I'm asking because we're supposed to see race as "phenotypic and behavioral representations". However, going by sterotypes, Asians are the least phenotypically or behaviorally diverse enough to warrant different groupings. Meanwhile, the most genetically diverse group in the world, the so-called Black race, gets a single group and only negative attributes associated with it. I'm saying all this to highlight the different standards that are employed to make the ridiculous "racial" idea work. Just ask some people, Are Jews White? Are Albinos White? Why do some light-skinned people resent being called "White?" Why weren't the Irish, Italians, and other ethnic Europeans called White when they first came to America? What group should dark-skinned Indians fall under, Asian or Black? Why is there an "Other" group? How can a white person produce a "black" person, but a "black" person cannot produce a "white" person? You'll get different answers because race is just stereotyped phenotypes for different shades of people.
Darkskies, your reasoning is similar to Suzuki's in his debate with Rushton. [video=youtube;zF9hOY6OzoQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zF9hOY6OzoQ[/video] I agree with you. In fact I posed similar questions in a debate on another message board..... My opponent didn't answer these questions. He said it would take large essays to answer all of them. Rickysdisciple, would you care to answer these questions? Also Nisbett's book has entire chapters on this subject (ex. Chapter 8 is titled, "Advantage Asia?" and Chapter 9 is titled "People of the Book"). I will need to read the full book to understand all of his arguments and the sources backing them up. Then we can have a proper debate. In the mean time regarding Asian IQ will say that I can also easily distinguish certain Northeast Asians from Southeast Asians by physical appearance. But I can also tell many African ethnic groups apart (ex. West African from East African from Khoisan). Northeast Asians and Southeast Asians are more genetically similar than the diverse people of Africa so on what evolutionary basis are you claiming only Northeast Asians have high intelligence?
Just as 'black race' is a construct. Those who hold skin color to be somehow representative of a certain race or culture are racist themselves.
There are no continental genetic clusters. So there is no European ('White') genetic cluster. Tishkoff et al. 2009 See how there is a smooth gradient/cline connecting West Eurasian populations to North Africans, and the latter to Sub-Saharan African populations; the only exceptions are local isolated populations where sharper genetic discontinuity is found because of reproductive isolation/strong endogamy, e.g. Hazda.
You are knocking down straw men, the same way darkskies was. You guys would prefer to make no distinctions between people, regardless of whether or not we can put them into highly predictive statistical categories--that is the real goal of egalitarianism and multiculturalism. Yes, race is essentially a statistical construct, which is not a rebuttal at all--in fact, it's totally irrelevant. It's like saying a psychopath, a schizophrenic, or a bipolar person is "just a statistical construct." I will respond to the arguments in that post sometime today, if I can find time. As the other poster suggested, it will take some time.
Pointing out that your highly consistent racial matrix is based on confirmation bias by showing inconsistencies is not a straw man. Go ahead and take your time answering these questions. But understand the point of them. Selectively citing data to support a hypothesis while ignoring invalidating evidence violates the Scientific Method.
I answered some of your questions in another thread and, I don't know about you, but it's getting a little unmanageable for the 7 or 8 of us to keep splitting our arguments across 5 different threads. I think it is time to start a thread in which we figure out how to even structure this debate, and then to create one large thread, or multiple issue-specific threads, and get this debate resolved.
I agree. Actually I'm going to take a break from posting. I have two books to read on this subject that I've been putting off for awhile. When I am finished I will come back with new threads and better arguments.
Cool. I would like to request that you wait to post the thread/s until we can come to an agreement on what we are arguing and how we are going to argue it. For instance, I do not want to be restricted to arguing against Nisbett on some arcane detail--I don't even have Nisbett's books. I think we can agree that we need to take a holistic approach to this issue. My arguments is that there are racial differences in cognition (IQ, personality, etc.), generally speaking. I am not going to argue about one or two specific details, like brain volume or the difference between Poles and Russians, because I think it detracts from the issue.
Nope, the Celts came from north Africa. You must be confusing ginger Russians for Celts. The fingers are not Celts, they are Norwegian and russian
The DNA evidence is pretty conclusive, Britain was heavily Neolithic farmer by DNA, which are virtually identical to Anatolian Neolithic farmer people by DNA, before Yamanya culture peoples bought in their DNA from the Steppes of Ukraine / Russia. British Isles are about 45% - 50% Neolithic, and about 40% - 45% Yamnaya culture by DNA according to the Eurogenes K6 spreadsheet.
Russians are quite a bit bigger than Polish in cranial capacity, however Polish are also a little more brachycephalic than Russians. Brachycephalic brains are more modern, being more frontal brain dominant. But, there's other factors going on too, not just brain capacity. Things like higher metabolism, and higher levels of certain neurotransmitters can also impact intelligence significantly. Jews have smaller cranial capacities than Europeans, but they're very brachycephalic, and probably have high metabolisms since most Jews are scrawny. But, only Ashkenazi Jews score high IQ scores, I suspect mixing with Central - East European benefited them significantly.
Native Americans have pretty high cranial capacities. The issue of Native Americans probably comes down to slow metabolism, as they tend to be hefty people. Probably because farming was introduced to Native Americans later than most, they stuck to hunter gathering longer, thus didn't adjust their metabolisms to speed up to consume more readily farmed food. Although this is highly suspect on my part. Even so, Native Americans couldn't have been too stupid, considering the Mayan calendar. and Mayan temples etc.
There are too many overweight people who are smart that contradict this. I suspect the connection we are seeing is purely correlation. Overweight people lack self-control more than most, which is connected to frontal-lobe function (highly connected to intelligence). I don't think metabolism is a causative factor.
Yes, but a lot of big people also have big heads, and presumably big brains. Slow thyroid definitely leads to less cognitive ability. Low self control also is linked not only with the frontal - lobe brain, but also with dopamine levels. Dopamine also can impact cognitive ability too.
But slow thyroid is not what's causing the obesity epidemic, at least not directly. People have metabolic disorders due to the food they eat. Agreed on dopamine levels, to a degree. You would have to explain the, sometimes, high IQ averages of people who are considered to have less dopamine (numerous studies of ADD).
The abundance of food at our disposal has fostered obesity, sure. But, Mexico which isn't very rich, is by some studies slightly more obese as the U.S.A. How come? Also obesity is certainly partially genetic, I've seen a lot of thin guys who eat a lot. But, yes slow thyroid is linked with less cognitive ability. As for dopamine, it seems to be a complex matter. Too high Dopamine is linked with schizophrenia, which is of course delusional thinking. While it seems people with low dopamine like ADHD have attention issues, many of them are highly creative, and independent thinkers. Judging by men having low dopamine, and women having high dopamine, it would appear as low dopamine makes people less studious, but more adventerous, independent thinkers, and perhaps more creative. Dopamine blocks acetylcholine another neurotransmitter linked with creativty. That might be what some call the Edison gene, perhaps those with very high acetylcholine have a different kind of intelligence more creative, than those with very high dopamine. But, this is highly theoretical. More studies need to be done.
Metabolism isn't only based on thyroid, even if that's the big one. Histamine, and Norepinephrine also speed up metabolism. These are also involved with intelligence. Histamine is an interesting one that needs to be studied more, it's very stimulatory, in fact you get Histamine rushes in the morning to wake you up, not to mention why many people get sleepy when put on anti-Histamines. As with all stimulants, we can expect to see increase cognitive ability. But, the thing is Histamine blocks other stimulatory neurotransmitters like Norepinephrine. From my understanding too low Histamine, but also too high Histamine don't seem to be optimal for intelligence. Although people with high Histamine seem to be highly motivated / ambitious individuals.
