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Yes. First, whenever a person is called a racist for saying "X is a safe area because it has fewer Black people". Or much more likely, (I've seen this so many

Yes. First, whenever a person is called a racist for saying "X is a safe area because it has fewer Black people". Or much more likely, (I've seen this so many times) it is implied that people who fear areas that have high crime and also large number of Black people, or who associate Black people and crime, are racist. While these people don't use the world "regression" or "coefficient" the reasoning and evidence is the same. Finally, in "Bowling for Columbine" Michael Moore accuses Charlton Heston of racism when Heston suggests that US crime rates are higher not because of guns, but because of "demographics". (I'm not sure that Heston is 100% right here because race only accounts for some of the differences between crime in the US and other countries, and using race as a right hand side variable in cross-country comparisons doesn't have as much validity)

mikeash 13y ago
Well, in the case of Heston and "demographics", I'd have no problem calling that racist because he almost certainly means it as "black people are inherently less intelligent and/or more prone to crime", while ignoring the centuries of systematic and brutal oppression based race.
- gizmo686 13y ago
  You need to be able to state that we observe black people to be less intelligent before you can begin to discuss possible explanations. Once you can say the above, then you can begin asking why it is so, and you may determine that it is in-fact because of a systematic oppression.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    You only need to be able to state that if it is in fact what is observed. Which of course it is not, because "intelligent" is an extremely vague and ill-defined concept. That's really the root of the problem, I think. People take data like, "blacks scored X percent lower on the John Doe IQ test (1987 edition)" and in turn say "black people are less intelligent". Then when you criticize it, they tell you not to shoot the messenger and they're just reporting what the data says. This kind of shortcut is pretty common, of course. "People with net worth below X have a higher rate of conviction" becomes "poor people commit more crimes" and nobody really bats an eye. But that doesn't mean it's correct, it just means that people generally don't care. Do this in the context of race, though, and suddenly people do care. And why shouldn't they? There's a long history of abuse in this area. IQ tests have long been biased toward the culture (and thus, almost inevitably, its majority race) of those who create the tests. People have then taken the results from these tests, concluded that their disfavored race is inherently inferior in some way, and used that to justify all kinds of bad treatment. And of course this is not a solved problem, not by a long shot. Truly unbiased IQ tests are an open problem, and then there's a whole extra layer of exactly what IQ is, why it's worth measuring, and what it leaves out. By all means, discuss the data. But don't use the data to reach an unsupported conclusion that sounds kind of like data, proclaim it as fact, and then complain about "political correctness" when you get shut down. And think very, very carefully about what exactly the data says, versus what you think it implies, before making factual statements.
    - gizmo686 13y ago
      Yes, social sciences are extremely hard to get right, and in general you have to be very careful anytime you try to paraphrase (or even quote) a scientific paper. However, my point is that the response to claims such as "black people are less intelligent" should be rooted in intelligent responses, such as the ones you made. What I am objecting to is responding to such claims by calling them racist, which completely fails to explore why they are incorrect.
      - mikeash 13y ago
        I agree that the responses should be intelligent as well. But that does not make "we observe black people to be less intelligent" to be any more of a reasonable statement, nor does it mean that we need an environment in which you can say that without repercussions in order for knowledge to be gained.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  How did you manage to deduce that from his statement? As a statistician, it seems like the obvious issue is that if the US is obviously different from other countries (having a large minority population that disproportionally commits crimes), then its crime rates cannot be compared with other nations without taking this into account. You have precisely demonstrated the bias that I referred to earlier. You assume that Heston is saying something that he is not (that Blacks are more prone to crime, genetically, rather than the simple fact that they commit more crime), because Heston is not qualified to speak on these issues. Unless you have some other reason to believe this about Heston, in which case please elaborate.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    I have a few reasons for saying what I said. First, my personal experience when discussing crime in America is that "demographics" is always a code word for "black people are inferior and it's unfortunate that we have so many of them". Although looking up the actual quote, it was "mixed ethnicity." I think that would fall into the same category. Second, Heston was at the time a conservative Republican and gun nut, both groups which heavily lean towards subtle racism. Finally, Heston himself has a history of subtle racism. In his autobiography, he states his dislike of the term "Native American" and claims that he himself is one because he was born here. He made statements about a "culture war" in which WASPs are being oppressed, which I find to be racist as it completely ignores the massive advantages that white people still have in American society, and generally tends to be slightly-veiled pining for the good old days when minorities knew their place. He said, "Why is 'Hispanic Pride' or 'Black Pride' a good thing, while 'White Pride' conjures shaven heads and white hoods?" Either he was very, very, very stupid and doesn't understand why generations of KKKers murdering minorities in the name of "White Pride" might give that term a certain stigma, or he thinks that minorities should just ignore systematic oppression and let white people keep on enjoying their advantageous position.
    - yetanotherphd 13y ago
      What you are saying is not really that different from my original point. I claimed that ordinary people were not allowed to reference certain facts, because they had not proven that they would interpret these facts in the right way. E.g. an ordinary person cannot say that Black people commit more crime, because they cannot be relied on to believe that the cause of this is not, for example, genetic. You on the other hand think that it is reasonable to extrapolate from things people say (e.g. crime rates are due to the America's "mixed ethnicity") from things that you imagine that they think, provided that you know that person is a conservative. In both cases, the problem with this reasoning is that we think better of people who have wrong opinions, which sets up some perverse incentives. While the particular facts that a person chooses to focus on do indeed say a lot about their political beliefs, we should only discourage people from saying things that are wrong.

mikeash 13y ago

Well, in the case of Heston and "demographics", I'd have no problem calling that racist because he almost certainly means it as "black people are inherently less intelligent and/or more prone to crime", while ignoring the centuries of systematic and brutal oppression based race.

gizmo686 13y ago
You need to be able to state that we observe black people to be less intelligent before you can begin to discuss possible explanations. Once you can say the above, then you can begin asking why it is so, and you may determine that it is in-fact because of a systematic oppression.
- mikeash 13y ago
  You only need to be able to state that if it is in fact what is observed. Which of course it is not, because "intelligent" is an extremely vague and ill-defined concept. That's really the root of the problem, I think. People take data like, "blacks scored X percent lower on the John Doe IQ test (1987 edition)" and in turn say "black people are less intelligent". Then when you criticize it, they tell you not to shoot the messenger and they're just reporting what the data says. This kind of shortcut is pretty common, of course. "People with net worth below X have a higher rate of conviction" becomes "poor people commit more crimes" and nobody really bats an eye. But that doesn't mean it's correct, it just means that people generally don't care. Do this in the context of race, though, and suddenly people do care. And why shouldn't they? There's a long history of abuse in this area. IQ tests have long been biased toward the culture (and thus, almost inevitably, its majority race) of those who create the tests. People have then taken the results from these tests, concluded that their disfavored race is inherently inferior in some way, and used that to justify all kinds of bad treatment. And of course this is not a solved problem, not by a long shot. Truly unbiased IQ tests are an open problem, and then there's a whole extra layer of exactly what IQ is, why it's worth measuring, and what it leaves out. By all means, discuss the data. But don't use the data to reach an unsupported conclusion that sounds kind of like data, proclaim it as fact, and then complain about "political correctness" when you get shut down. And think very, very carefully about what exactly the data says, versus what you think it implies, before making factual statements.
  - gizmo686 13y ago
    Yes, social sciences are extremely hard to get right, and in general you have to be very careful anytime you try to paraphrase (or even quote) a scientific paper. However, my point is that the response to claims such as "black people are less intelligent" should be rooted in intelligent responses, such as the ones you made. What I am objecting to is responding to such claims by calling them racist, which completely fails to explore why they are incorrect.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      I agree that the responses should be intelligent as well. But that does not make "we observe black people to be less intelligent" to be any more of a reasonable statement, nor does it mean that we need an environment in which you can say that without repercussions in order for knowledge to be gained.
yetanotherphd 13y ago
How did you manage to deduce that from his statement? As a statistician, it seems like the obvious issue is that if the US is obviously different from other countries (having a large minority population that disproportionally commits crimes), then its crime rates cannot be compared with other nations without taking this into account. You have precisely demonstrated the bias that I referred to earlier. You assume that Heston is saying something that he is not (that Blacks are more prone to crime, genetically, rather than the simple fact that they commit more crime), because Heston is not qualified to speak on these issues. Unless you have some other reason to believe this about Heston, in which case please elaborate.
- mikeash 13y ago
  I have a few reasons for saying what I said. First, my personal experience when discussing crime in America is that "demographics" is always a code word for "black people are inferior and it's unfortunate that we have so many of them". Although looking up the actual quote, it was "mixed ethnicity." I think that would fall into the same category. Second, Heston was at the time a conservative Republican and gun nut, both groups which heavily lean towards subtle racism. Finally, Heston himself has a history of subtle racism. In his autobiography, he states his dislike of the term "Native American" and claims that he himself is one because he was born here. He made statements about a "culture war" in which WASPs are being oppressed, which I find to be racist as it completely ignores the massive advantages that white people still have in American society, and generally tends to be slightly-veiled pining for the good old days when minorities knew their place. He said, "Why is 'Hispanic Pride' or 'Black Pride' a good thing, while 'White Pride' conjures shaven heads and white hoods?" Either he was very, very, very stupid and doesn't understand why generations of KKKers murdering minorities in the name of "White Pride" might give that term a certain stigma, or he thinks that minorities should just ignore systematic oppression and let white people keep on enjoying their advantageous position.
  - yetanotherphd 13y ago
    What you are saying is not really that different from my original point. I claimed that ordinary people were not allowed to reference certain facts, because they had not proven that they would interpret these facts in the right way. E.g. an ordinary person cannot say that Black people commit more crime, because they cannot be relied on to believe that the cause of this is not, for example, genetic. You on the other hand think that it is reasonable to extrapolate from things people say (e.g. crime rates are due to the America's "mixed ethnicity") from things that you imagine that they think, provided that you know that person is a conservative. In both cases, the problem with this reasoning is that we think better of people who have wrong opinions, which sets up some perverse incentives. While the particular facts that a person chooses to focus on do indeed say a lot about their political beliefs, we should only discourage people from saying things that are wrong.