What do you consider more important.....

[tunot]

Re: What do you consider more important.....

I'm not trying to debate anything. I'm asking you to consider it in any argument in favor or against inferiority, primitiveness, and low IQs.

My argument from the beginning has been that we are all homo-sapiens. Therefore we all produce people with higher IQs and people with lower IQs, if that is the way to measure intelligence (not my way, mind you! But it has clearly been the way of some people in this thread, including some of our scientists). Essentially, what makes us all equal in every way is our ability to learn from experience, solve problems, and use knowledge to adapt to new situations — this is based on the very descriptive definition that one of our scientists on this thread posted earlier of intelligence, though the credit of this sophisticated and academic definition of intelligence goes to some person called Myers — plus, if I may add, having the capacity for linguistic and artistic competence among many other things. In other words, race is not a determining factor for high intelligence, something that Mouse is argue against. Although Siggie likes to pretend that she does not agree with Mouse's argument, she does support correlational statistics that have apparently proven beyond a shadow of doubt, despite their slight imperfections, that blacks are fifteen points behind the whites on IQ-tests.

Now argue why everyone in the world is capable of learning a language among many other "skills," yet is inferior or superior to someone else depending on which race they were born into.

Btw, it may make the likes of Mouse and Siggie happy to know that Armenians beat the Chinese at this year's Chess Olympiad. Apparently there is no guarantee for an Asian to beat another race at the most intellectual game that we know: chess. Not to mention that the Japanese are barely in the top 40, if I remember. And the Koreans.. let's not even mention them. Including the fact of course, that beside Japan, the rest of Asia is a complete and utter mess.

[Anonymouse]

Re: What do you consider more important.....

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I was actually following the Chess Olympiad and I am so happy that the Armenians are number 1! Such things always happen, but why is it that in most hospitals, and classrooms, Asians make up the bulk. Also, Japan is technologically ahead of almost every country there is and Japan doesn't have to worry about multiculturalism or sensitivity training or affirmitive action or litigation nor discrimination. In fact, East Asia, the Koreas, China, Japan, are far more racially conscious not to mention homogenous and what you zealots of tolerance call "xenophobic".

To the topic at hand, however, I am not an expert in linguistics. But I will tell you that even in language, there are your social interactionists who insist language is nothing more than a bunch of causal and environmental associations, and those like Chomsky, who are innatists. And while anyone can observe and learn a language, that does not mean anything at all. It only means that humans have the potential to learn and acquire new things. You are arguing a straw man here, since no one ever denied this. The question is in the potential to. But if it makes you happy to argue a straw man, you can be my guest. And by the way, just because humans can learn, again, doesn't make us, or anyone, or anything, equal. Nothing is equal, unless otherwise proven, because it is unestablished. Those who keep asserting the supposed fact without establishing it need to demonstrate just what it is they are talking about. Like Wittgenstein, you keep complaining about definitions of words (and IQ), yet what do you call equality? If there ever had to be a word that is vague and obscure and cannot be pinpointed, that would be the word, yet I don't hear you whine and complain about that. Why is that?

In my experience with language, not all languages are equal and complex. I know it's popular in the linguistic community and the cultural anthropologists post-Franz Boas to maintain that everyone is equally capable and all languages are equally complex and easy to learn. The fact that most of the mathematic and scientific contributions and thought have been a result of peoples from the Eurasian land mass explains alot. You brought up chess earlier, and Armenians. Even for Armenians, for a little people, they have had their fair share of talents, compared to Africans as a whole, much less Azerbaijanis. Mathematics requires abstract thought, and the ability to handle abstract ideas and relationships, which it seems many Africans have been lacking in that department. Ask Sip how many blacks or Mexicans did he observe in his upper division mathematics or physics courses while in UCLA? Abstract thought is one of the requirements of intelligence. You may not like it, but what else can explain this gaping disparity? And in order to make up for it, you brought up how "in tune" Africans were with nature.

When I hear a black person speak English, and no matter how 'white washed' they are, I can always tell the difference between a black speaker and a white speaker. Even in music when they sing, I can tell the difference between black and white. Since there are genetic differences, it would be naive to assume that somehow our vocal chords and capabilities are all the same. Even rolling their tongue or ululating, black people sound different from white people. The fact that we can learn might mean that a natural genetic bias for a certain linguistic performance could be masked by conditioning, but that does not in any sense absolve the "language instinct". Either way, this doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, as all languages have already been set and developed by their unique peoples.

If anything, I consider this 'interesting' and 'thought provoking'.

[jgk3]

Re: What do you consider more important.....

Well, I'm neutral on the subject, but I don't see where this whole "being born into an inferior race" thing is coming from. I don't think that was ever explicitly mentioned. Maybe it was suggested by Mouse, but not by Siggie.

The issue with these intelligence tests is that the average aptitude of certain groups score lower than others, but how do we determine whether these lower scores are due to biology, or experience? How can we differentiate the causes for each one without hiding any variables?

It's a simple question, I think if we all restate our personal explanations for this, the disorientation in this thread will cease.

How about discrepencies, margins of error, are these ever stated in the statistics we use to argue with?

[tunot]

Re: What do you consider more important.....

And while anyone can observe and learn a language, that does not mean anything at all. It only means that humans have the potential to learn and acquire new things. You are arguing a straw man here, since no one ever denied this. The question is in the potential to.

Maybe in America blacks have not proved so successful in scientific fields, though I am sure you have the odd specialist in a hospital, the odd professor, and the odd physics student, in Europe I have personally met a number of "egghead" blacks. One of them, a Nigerian (Igbo, to be more specific, who spoke impeccable English with a clean British accent), was doing a PhD in aero-dynamics or some such engineering study at a renowned British university, besides which he liked to indulge in his hobby of becoming a pilot in his free time. The potential is absolutely there, in every race, in every ethnicity. It just needs to be tapped into. And as long as you do not believe in this potential and you are not willing to give it a chance, you are, in my view, not intelligent.

But if it makes you happy to argue a straw man, you can be my guest. And by the way, just because humans can learn, again, doesn't make us, or anyone, or anything, equal. Nothing is equal

Nothing is a carbon-copy, you mean. Otherwise we are equal in the way we produce, learn to walk, learn to speak, and acquire skills. This is where nature makes no distinction.

In my experience with language, not all languages are equal and complex.

There is no equality. You are right in that. If there was, then we would all speak the same language. But what do you mean by complex?

Either way, even if you can explain and argue why one language is less complex than another, you still do not explain why anyone, regardless of their race, is capable of learning a "complex" language, as we have seen often-times with adopted children.

I know it's popular in the linguistic community and the cultural anthropologists post-Franz Boas to maintain that everyone is equally capable and all languages are equally complex and easy to learn.

No language is easy to learn. When you have children, or have already had the chance to observe them, you will see the struggle they go through for five years, before reaching the stage where they begin to understand what language is and how to use it to communicate. And even then, the journey has not ended. They still need to work on vocabulary and formulating what they want to communicate. Furthermore, language proves difficult even for adults who continuously make slip-ups, even if they know the "correct" form, particularly in speech, but also in writing.

When I hear a black person speak English, and no matter how 'white washed' they are, I can always tell the difference between a black speaker and a white speaker. Even in music when they sing, I can tell the difference between black and white.

If you take corrolation, experiments, and statistics seriously, then you are wrong.

A number of tests have been done where people, regardless of race, had to listen to speech, without seeing the speaker's face, in order to guess whether the speaker was black or white.

The problem was this: some of the speakers were white but had been brought up in predominantly black areas, and others were blacks who had been brought up in predominantly white areas. Then there was a mix of both whites and blacks who had grown up in their respective neighborhoods.

You may guess the results.

[tunot]

Re: What do you consider more important.....

Well, I'm neutral on the subject, but I don't see where this whole "being born into an inferior race" thing is coming from. I don't think that was ever explicitly mentioned. Maybe it was suggested by Mouse, but not by Siggie.

They don't need to be explicit, when their implication and support for it is so obvious.

The issue with these intelligence tests is that the average aptitude of certain groups score lower than others, but how do we determine whether these lower scores are due to biology, or experience? How can we differentiate the causes for each one without hiding any variables?

It's a simple question, I think if we all restate our personal explanations for this, the disorientation in this thread will cease.

How about discrepencies, margins of error, are these ever stated in the statistics we use to argue with?

These have been my essential questions ever since variables, statistics, etc. were brought into the discussion.

[Siggie]

Re: What do you consider more important.....

Well, I'm neutral on the subject, but I don't see where this whole "being born into an inferior race" thing is coming from. I don't think that was ever explicitly mentioned. Maybe it was suggested by Mouse, but not by Siggie.

The issue with these intelligence tests is that the average aptitude of certain groups score lower than others, but how do we determine whether these lower scores are due to biology, or experience? How can we differentiate the causes for each one without hiding any variables?

It's a simple question, I think if we all restate our personal explanations for this, the disorientation in this thread will cease.

How about discrepencies, margins of error, are these ever stated in the statistics we use to argue with?

I know I didn't mean that. While the average between two groups may differ, there's still a great deal of overlap you're obviously going to have lots blacks who will outscore whites.

I don't know of a way we would be able to determine if the difference is due to biology or experience because while twin and sibling studies can give us an idea of what the approximate variability explained by the environment is, but we cannot make that comparison across groups because twins and siblings would be of the same race. So, we can't hold environment or biology constant between blacks and whites. For that reason, we cannot differentiate what part of the difference is attributable to each.
Perhaps there may be a well designed study in the future that can try to match on some important environmental variables between races and that might give us a better idea, but it's impossible to control for everything. Not to say that matching on the variables that we believe would be most important wouldn't give us some clue. It'd still be worthwhile, but I think it would be a massive undertaking which may be why it hasn't been done yet.

[jgk3]

Re: What do you consider more important.....

yeah, I'd say something along those lines too, not that I could phrase it that well, but anyway :P

[tunot]

Re: What do you consider more important.....

I know I didn't mean that. While the average between two groups may differ, there's still a great deal of overlap you're obviously going to have lots blacks who will outscore whites.

I don't know of a way we would be able to determine if the difference is due to biology or experience because while twin and sibling studies can give us an idea of what the approximate variability explained by the environment is, but we cannot make that comparison across groups because twins and siblings would be of the same race. So, we can't hold environment or biology constant between blacks and whites. For that reason, we cannot differentiate what part of the difference is attributable to each.
Perhaps there may be a well designed study in the future that can try to match on some important environmental variables between races and that might give us a better idea, but it's impossible to control for everything. Not to say that matching on the variables that we believe would be most important wouldn't give us some clue. It'd still be worthwhile, but I think it would be a massive undertaking which may be why it hasn't been done yet.

Thank you for finally highlighting.

I think the main question we should ask ourselves is what the motives are behind these tests and their results.

[Anonymouse]

Re: What do you consider more important.....

Maybe in America blacks have not proved so successful in scientific fields, though I am sure you have the odd specialist in a hospital, the odd professor, and the odd physics student, in Europe I have personally met a number of "egghead" blacks. One of them, a Nigerian (Igbo, to be more specific, who spoke impeccable English with a clean British accent), was doing a PhD in aero-dynamics or some such engineering study at a renowned British university, besides which he liked to indulge in his hobby of becoming a pilot in his free time. The potential is absolutely there, in every race, in every ethnicity. It just needs to be tapped into. And as long as you do not believe in this potential and you are not willing to give it a chance, you are, in my view, not intelligent.

You can repeat the mantra as many times as you like, and no doubt it will make you believe that which you repeat, but that doesn't make it so. It will make you feel good, but so what? The issue you seem to be misunderstanding is not potential, for everyone obviously has some potential, as warped and mediocre as it may be in some, but it is the degree to which that potential can stretch to. Some minds, characters and capacities are more potent than others and therein lies the distinctions, the differences, the highs and lows, and the successes and failures. That you are able to spot a black PhD candidate is not what is in question. Did I ever deny that there will not be a black PhD doctoral student in physics? The question and the point is about generalities. It is about populations and what we observe in the grand scheme of things, and the rhyme and reason of these vast groups and through time. Exceptions to the rule, while you may not like it, do not disprove the rule. You might think it does, but what you think pales in comparison to what is. If 100 people fart incessantly and have a biological propensity for farts, and 2 people out of that 100 are not so, that does not mean the other 98 people do not have a problem. Differences, as they are, are in degrees, not in kinds.

Nothing is a carbon-copy, you mean. Otherwise we are equal in the way we produce, learn to walk, learn to speak, and acquire skills. This is where nature makes no distinction.

There is no equality. You are right in that. If there was, then we would all speak the same language. But what do you mean by complex?

No, not even the potential to learn, associate, memorize, analyze or criticize is the same. The fact that we can do all those things, does not mean we are equal in the way we produce. Different individuals, as well as different groups, have different potentials to do all those things. The fact that they may have potential does not mean anything at all. All land animals have a potential to run, does mean anything? No. Your reference to production, to me at least, translates to outcome and results, which is untrue. In conclusion, nothing is equal, not production, not consumption and not presumption.

Either way, even if you can explain and argue why one language is less complex than another, you still do not explain why anyone, regardless of their race, is capable of learning a "complex" language, as we have seen often-times with adopted children.

No language is easy to learn. When you have children, or have already had the chance to observe them, you will see the struggle they go through for five years, before reaching the stage where they begin to understand what language is and how to use it to communicate. And even then, the journey has not ended. They still need to work on vocabulary and formulating what they want to communicate. Furthermore, language proves difficult even for adults who continuously make slip-ups, even if they know the "correct" form, particularly in speech, but also in writing.

If you take corrolation, experiments, and statistics seriously, then you are wrong.

A number of tests have been done where people, regardless of race, had to listen to speech, without seeing the speaker's face, in order to guess whether the speaker was black or white.

The problem was this: some of the speakers were white but had been brought up in predominantly black areas, and others were blacks who had been brought up in predominantly white areas. Then there was a mix of both whites and blacks who had grown up in their respective neighborhoods.

You may guess the results.

The fact that you have exceptions to the rule, because of conditioning and socialization are able to speak without any accentual variation, again, does not mean anything. The vast majority of cases that are observed every day, can be seen and heard. There is actually evidence that the perception of pitch, which plays a major role in music and language, is genetically determined in humans. This could, if unearthed further, explain the different races and their relation to pitch and rhythm, both in rhetoric and music. Most blacks speak in what we call "ebonics". Even if they speak perfect English without any accentual variation, that comes as a result of years of conditioning, or adoption, or what have you. When they themselves, without any conditioning or socialization, pick up a language such as English, we can observe the natural differences of their tongue, vocal chords, ululation, accentuation, and inflection.

And before a language can be considered complex, there must be a written form of it, somehow. The fact that Africans did not develop any written language prior to colonization, explains why their languages are not as complex as those which developed later in time. And anyone who maintains that complexity, which comes in the form of differences between the fusional, agglunitative, and polysynthetic languages, are irrelevent, obviously has ignored linguistics itself. You obviously wouldn't say that a language with 15 cases is the same as one with 7, would you? You should know nairi, you are into linguistics and familiar with it far more than probably anyone here. If all languages were all equally capable of being learned or express thoughts, then we wouldn't have different languages, which are a concoction of different intelligences, peoples, races and cultures, no different than their alphabets, their architectures, their susceptibility to diseases, etc. You do not have to like any of this nairi, but in this world, differences prevail as the norm.

[Anonymouse]

Re: What do you consider more important.....

Thank you for finally highlighting.

I think the main question we should ask ourselves is what the motives are behind these tests and their results.

What are the motives behind those who want to suppress such results, pretend no differences exist, manipulate data, and prohibit any exploration of knowledge with regard to the human population groups? While behind every motive, the nairis of this world see something sinister, others see something illuminating.