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You realize this isn't much of an argument, don't you? That's because I'm no longer arguing with you. You haven't pieced together much that's cogent enough fo

by pius 19y ago

You realize this isn't much of an argument, don't you? That's because I'm no longer arguing with you. You haven't pieced together much that's cogent enough for me to debate and your conclusions are nearly as despicable as they are preposterous. You're trying to argue that black people are biologically less intelligent than whites and other races, a view controversial enough that the burden of proof lies with you. Let's review how you've set out to prove it. You tried to discredit Gladwell's article with fuzzy math and attacking the strawman; I exposed it. You failed. Then you tried citing other people's research into IQ to support your views. Unfortunately there's no serious research that supports your world view, so you were left citing "studies" that have been widely discredited and debunked. (For example, "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" literally concludes that most of Africa is functionally retarded.) Reductio ad absurdum, you fail. Then you gave up citing research into IQ and g, and started citing cultural phenomena that clearly are not relevant to the biological innateness topic at hand. Even the cultural phenomena you bring up aren't particularly compelling. (For example, you're comparing the plight of cultures conquered by the Ottoman empire that fell in the 1600's to that of African nations occupied and conquered by the British empire, which didn't leave in many cases until the late 1960's and, in the case of Zimbabwe, until 1980.) Failed again. Finally, you got frustrated and started blurting out that it's "trivial" to conclude that blacks just aren't intelligent as other races, figuring that a few upmods on YC.News will make you seem right without proof. Fail. I'm sure you're going to find another flawed study funded by known white supremacy groups to justify your beliefs. Or maybe you'll start citing phrenology or Nordic theory. I don't know what you'll pull out next, but I can assure you that I won't care, unless it's got some legitimate scientific basis. You're making a fool of yourself.

politrix 19y ago
It's often the dumb ones who take the stance on discussing other people's intelligence. There is a wealth of circumstances and complexity of the issue that never crosses this posters mind, yet he is quick to make definitive claims of such gravity. Racism has the interesting tendency of exposing the fools even amongst the most educated individuals. Oh, where would I start... The structure of the brain? Our understanding and concept of what is "intelligence"? Nonexistentent genetical variation between the so called "races", which are themselves based on fallacious premises? The theory of races after all started in Germany as measured by the differences in the shapes of skulls, and was mainly categorized as an issue of beauty. With Germans obviously appointing themselves (aryans) the most graceful and beautiful "race" of them all. And now people are trying to retrofit genetic explanations on such an old theory based purely on pseudo-science? There is at maximum 5-15% genetic variation between the continental populations, and note that this is not the same as our naive notions of "race". There is less genetic variation in humans than in any other mammalian species. Worldwide genetic variation in humans is less significant than in 2 closely related chimpanzee species having evolved closely together in western Africa, to give you some magnitude for comparison. 90% of the genetic variation occurs on a local level as opposed to globally, if you can wrap your head around what that means? And every instance of "child genius" that has been studied has boiled down to no innate ability, but rigorous practice from an early age. Meaning that "intelligence" is largely learned, mind is an empty plate of neurons waiting to be connected. The only thing conceivably affecting their training are chemical balances, malnutrition, toxicity of the environment, and so on... Basing your theories directly on empirical evidence about the economies of the world obviously can't factor in all the relevant facts. You say that all the African countries with no whites are poor? Did you know that a lot of them have been paying the debts created by the colonialists ever since they were "liberated"? Do you know how the West still sponsors guerillas and pays diamond merchants in many parts of Africa? Only a secluded mind could have such delusions of grandeur. I recommend debating with some intellectual and educated black scholars.
- whacked_new 19y ago
  At the current state of research, nobody claims to know enough about how the brain works to conclude that the mind is "an empty plate of neuron waiting to be connected." Trisomy 21, or Down Syndrome, can be classified as mental retardation, and you might call it an abnormal lack of mental capacity. This is a completely genetic abnormality. Obviously, they go through the same stages of neonatal development, neuron pruning, etc., but their ability to form neuronal connections, like yours and mine, is limited, at birth. I picked a rather extreme example just to illustrate the point. I don't disagree with everything you wrote, but it is a mistake to believe early manifestations of genius have nothing, or even little, innate roots. Daniel Tammet is your living example. If his brain were a bit different, he'd be just another Kim Peek. It will be very hard to argue that this is due to rigorous practice from an early age. Kids with autism don't just gradually lose their aptitude to comprehend emotions by lack of practice. They are born with a dysfunctional empathy circuit. Kids with epilepsy don't just develop their symptoms. They are testable and predictable, and heritable. I'm not saying what you say is wrong -- it depends on what you mean by intelligence. But you're being unspecific about "intelligence" while being specific about how it is related to genetic, inborn traits. This opens the door wide to attacks like mine -- just pointing it out. One more thing. The statement "The theory of races after all started in Germany" evaluates to false. I assume you're referring to early 20th century Germany. It started with the European colonialists, which wasn't even such a German thing. That's also the Eurocentric interpretation of the word. I'm sure other cultures had their own ideas of race dating to much earlier. The Chinese always called the people outside their country borders barbarians. And Orthodox Jews consider themselves the chosen people. Take that interpretation, then I'm among the unchosen barbarians, or race, whatever.
  - politrix 19y ago
    The genetic diseases you mentioned are significant mutations leading into strong dysfunctionalities in how the brain is supposed to function. Leading it not to function correctly. This is far from evolutionary path leading one population of people into some sort of mental retardation, especially when evolutionary selection would be against it. In addition most of the mentioned diseases are recessive which is the only reason they have survived, as any offspring with the disease won't survive to pass the genes on. Autism is a different case because it's not necessarily genetic (although I'm not sure if there are also genetic cases). In fact autism cases have exploded in recent history, so environmental factors are likely a contributor. One such theory is the vaccines containing mercury which is a strong neuro-toxin decaying neuron connections which would result into the observed behavior. I'm not going into that discussion however. I'm being unspecific about intelligence because it's inherently a very ambiguous concept, which is one of the fallacies of the IQ testing and the arguments given by the racists like in this thread. I can see short comings and non-objectiveness in almost every IQ test I have seen. And that without even taking into account the fact that they're "adjusted" periodically to reflect the norm which obviously means they're not perfectly objective to begin with. I was referring to 18th century Germany and for example theories created by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumenbach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumenbach

by pius 19y ago

politrix 19y ago

It's often the dumb ones who take the stance on discussing other people's intelligence. There is a wealth of circumstances and complexity of the issue that never crosses this posters mind, yet he is quick to make definitive claims of such gravity. Racism has the interesting tendency of exposing the fools even amongst the most educated individuals. Oh, where would I start... The structure of the brain? Our understanding and concept of what is "intelligence"? Nonexistentent genetical variation between the so called "races", which are themselves based on fallacious premises? The theory of races after all started in Germany as measured by the differences in the shapes of skulls, and was mainly categorized as an issue of beauty. With Germans obviously appointing themselves (aryans) the most graceful and beautiful "race" of them all. And now people are trying to retrofit genetic explanations on such an old theory based purely on pseudo-science? There is at maximum 5-15% genetic variation between the continental populations, and note that this is not the same as our naive notions of "race". There is less genetic variation in humans than in any other mammalian species. Worldwide genetic variation in humans is less significant than in 2 closely related chimpanzee species having evolved closely together in western Africa, to give you some magnitude for comparison. 90% of the genetic variation occurs on a local level as opposed to globally, if you can wrap your head around what that means? And every instance of "child genius" that has been studied has boiled down to no innate ability, but rigorous practice from an early age. Meaning that "intelligence" is largely learned, mind is an empty plate of neurons waiting to be connected. The only thing conceivably affecting their training are chemical balances, malnutrition, toxicity of the environment, and so on... Basing your theories directly on empirical evidence about the economies of the world obviously can't factor in all the relevant facts. You say that all the African countries with no whites are poor? Did you know that a lot of them have been paying the debts created by the colonialists ever since they were "liberated"? Do you know how the West still sponsors guerillas and pays diamond merchants in many parts of Africa? Only a secluded mind could have such delusions of grandeur. I recommend debating with some intellectual and educated black scholars.

whacked_new 19y ago
At the current state of research, nobody claims to know enough about how the brain works to conclude that the mind is "an empty plate of neuron waiting to be connected." Trisomy 21, or Down Syndrome, can be classified as mental retardation, and you might call it an abnormal lack of mental capacity. This is a completely genetic abnormality. Obviously, they go through the same stages of neonatal development, neuron pruning, etc., but their ability to form neuronal connections, like yours and mine, is limited, at birth. I picked a rather extreme example just to illustrate the point. I don't disagree with everything you wrote, but it is a mistake to believe early manifestations of genius have nothing, or even little, innate roots. Daniel Tammet is your living example. If his brain were a bit different, he'd be just another Kim Peek. It will be very hard to argue that this is due to rigorous practice from an early age. Kids with autism don't just gradually lose their aptitude to comprehend emotions by lack of practice. They are born with a dysfunctional empathy circuit. Kids with epilepsy don't just develop their symptoms. They are testable and predictable, and heritable. I'm not saying what you say is wrong -- it depends on what you mean by intelligence. But you're being unspecific about "intelligence" while being specific about how it is related to genetic, inborn traits. This opens the door wide to attacks like mine -- just pointing it out. One more thing. The statement "The theory of races after all started in Germany" evaluates to false. I assume you're referring to early 20th century Germany. It started with the European colonialists, which wasn't even such a German thing. That's also the Eurocentric interpretation of the word. I'm sure other cultures had their own ideas of race dating to much earlier. The Chinese always called the people outside their country borders barbarians. And Orthodox Jews consider themselves the chosen people. Take that interpretation, then I'm among the unchosen barbarians, or race, whatever.
- politrix 19y ago
  The genetic diseases you mentioned are significant mutations leading into strong dysfunctionalities in how the brain is supposed to function. Leading it not to function correctly. This is far from evolutionary path leading one population of people into some sort of mental retardation, especially when evolutionary selection would be against it. In addition most of the mentioned diseases are recessive which is the only reason they have survived, as any offspring with the disease won't survive to pass the genes on. Autism is a different case because it's not necessarily genetic (although I'm not sure if there are also genetic cases). In fact autism cases have exploded in recent history, so environmental factors are likely a contributor. One such theory is the vaccines containing mercury which is a strong neuro-toxin decaying neuron connections which would result into the observed behavior. I'm not going into that discussion however. I'm being unspecific about intelligence because it's inherently a very ambiguous concept, which is one of the fallacies of the IQ testing and the arguments given by the racists like in this thread. I can see short comings and non-objectiveness in almost every IQ test I have seen. And that without even taking into account the fact that they're "adjusted" periodically to reflect the norm which obviously means they're not perfectly objective to begin with. I was referring to 18th century Germany and for example theories created by Johann Friedrich Blumenbach. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumenbach http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blumenbach