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Post by Caligastia on Feb 25, 2005 10:13:30 GMT -5
You still don't seem to understand. I was not comparing breeds of dogs to races of humans - just using them as an example of why "genetic variation" - i.e. genetic bean-counting tells us nothing about phenotypical differences. Yet you still mention "genetic variation" as if it is relevant; "Its not only genetically that the largest variations are within populations"
Now, you state that "The point is there is no reason to beleive there has been that degree of differentation between human populations anywhere in the genome". Obviously racial differences pale in comparison to differences between humans and chimps, but there are many reasons to believe that human populations have achieved significant degrees of differentiation - isolation being one of the main reasons.
Also, your statement that "Its not only genetically that the largest variations are within populations, its also true morphometrically and behaviorally" is irrelevant with regard to the question of the magnitude of racial differences. There may be a greater variety of skin tones (for example) within a race than between races, but that doesn't mean the difference between two races is insignificant. Just because there are different shades of black and white does not mean that black and white do not exist. You are comparing variations within one race with the averages of two different races - as if that means anything. Obviously there will be more variations within than between because there can only be one average for each race. Comparing the differences between ranges and aggregates proves nothing, means nothing, and is just plain silly.
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Post by Faelcind on Feb 25, 2005 20:25:41 GMT -5
Talk to any geneticist and they will tell you how important within group diversity is. Its extremely important especially if your trying to generealize between group differences. Men and women are much more clearly biological distinct then races and even there the overlaps in behavior and morphometric curves are substantial and important obstacles when studying differnces between the two groups. If your going to try and prove the hypothesis of between group differences your going to have understand the range of variations within populations. If you don't understand that variation is as important as mean average you really have no idea what your talking about. Which you demonstrate amply in your attempted explanation for why humans would be substantial differentiated. Modern humans are an extremely mobile species and gene flow is prolific we are less variable then most other species and have less between group variation, combine that with the fact that sub species have not proven to have substantial biological divergence in other higher animals and its really hard to buy your argument.
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Post by Caligastia on Feb 27, 2005 15:42:10 GMT -5
Duh!!! Obviously within group diversity is important, otherwise you have nothing to average out! Yet again, you interpret my words incorrectly! I'm tired of trying to explain - can you at least point me in the direction of a good discussion of this topic somewhere on this board? You said it had already been discussed extensively.
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Post by eufrenio on Feb 27, 2005 15:57:41 GMT -5
Duh!!! Obviously within group diversity is important, otherwise you have nothing to average out! Yet again, you interpret my words incorrectly! I'm tired of trying to explain - can you at least point me in the direction of a good discussion of this topic somewhere on this board? You said it had already been discussed extensively. Caligastia, the topic was covered in this thread: "Fixing Africa´s problems". dodona.proboards35.com/index.cgi?board=racesoc&action=display&thread=1107733683The poster Bioman is very insightful.
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Post by Caligastia on Feb 27, 2005 17:09:15 GMT -5
Thanks Eufrenio!
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Post by Faelcind on Feb 27, 2005 17:19:30 GMT -5
Bioman, You have to kidding Eufrenio. Being able to quote Lynn and Rushton verbatim does not make you insightfull especially when don't know anything beyond high school biology in any other area.
Caligastia your the one who is missing the point, read my posts again I have explained why the differences you think exists are unlikely. Your argument is repeative and weak. Widen your literature horizons.
A good article on the subject of mentioning the issue of race and intelligence came out in the febuary issue of Scientific american. Its on page 35 titled performance without anxiety.
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Kame
Full Member
Posts: 122
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Post by Kame on Feb 27, 2005 21:54:09 GMT -5
Who takes eufrenio seriously? Bioman was a comtemptual debater, reminded me of the social-darwinist era. I made a last post on there and he has'nt come back since.
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Post by eufrenio on Feb 28, 2005 9:37:47 GMT -5
Bioman, You have to kidding Eufrenio. Being able to quote Lynn and Rushton verbatim does not make you insightfull especially when don't know anything beyond high school biology in any other area. Besides a thorough knowledge of Murray, Lynn and Rushton, Bioman proved to be a good debater. I am a bit of a sceptic regarding the Race/intelligence topic, Faelcind. I take Rushton with a grain of salt. Why do you have to act as if you were part of the PC enforcement brigade? Their side has better arguments than yours, even if based on circumstantial evidence. Kame said Do you mean contemptuous? As I said, I do not take Bioman´s side. His evidence is circumstantial. Maybe one day science will be able to refute the Murray camp, maybe not. Until then, let´s look at the facts.
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Post by nockwasright on Feb 28, 2005 9:48:24 GMT -5
I agree with Eufrenio. You can't act as if the burden of the proof of racial differences in cognitive abilities was only on he who affirms such differences, and that until they are proved (which is impossible) they do not exist.
I'ts not enough to say that the studies cited are not conclusive; of course they aren't. You should also provide a satisfactory explanation (and just citing Guns Germs and Steel is not enough), of the differences between civilizations and the differences between ethnic groups within the same country. Such differences are facts; the reason is to be proved.
If you do not provide a better explanation than innate differences in behaviour and cognitive abilities, then this last would be the best hypotesys.
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Post by Faelcind on Feb 28, 2005 20:04:06 GMT -5
I have to disagree eufrenio I think Bioman's posts were more often repative, uneducated and fallacious. Your taking about person who knows so little of evolotionary theory he tries to argue that apes are closer to humans!
I also think your mistaken if you think I am so sort of PC enforcer, I can't say I do not favor one side of the debate philosophically but I think I try to be as intellectually honest as posssible. I would never argue as many liberals do that racial differences don't exist because it conflicts with my philosophical preference for egalatarinism. In fact I have explained before that I don't think the two are connected their are clearly biological differences between people and I don't think that changes there moral value.
As for their side having better arguments I completely disagree. They have IQ tests thats it, the value of which are conterversialy.
As for for were the burden of proof lies well when your trying to prove two things are different then the burden of proof lies on you. No differences is the logical null hypothesis. Furthermore the evidence from ever other related field of science see's racial differences as negligible. Seriously if you want to understand what races mean read the literature on sub species differences in other animals.
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Post by Caligastia on Feb 28, 2005 22:08:44 GMT -5
Caligastia your the one who is missing the point, read my posts again I have explained why the differences you think exists are unlikely. Your argument is repeative and weak. Widen your literature horizons. Please...drop the attempt at sounding superior. It does nobody any favors. If you had read my reply carefully and considered what I said you would have been able to formulate an intelligent reply - bereft of vague statements. Without a position of mutual respect, nothing good can come of this. Is this the article that you were referring to? www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000AB254-3CFA-11E7-BB5883414B7F0000&sc=I100322The online version may be different from the print version... Anyway, with regard to the online version... "Steele wondered if the Michigan students suffered from a kind of self-image threat, so with colleagues Joshua Aronson and Steven Spencer, he designed a series of studies. They gave sophomores matched by SAT scores a frustrating section of the Graduate Record Examination. When first told that the test evaluated verbal ability, the black students scored a full standard deviation lower on average. But when the researchers described it as a study of problem-solving techniques unimportant to academic achievement, the scores for blacks leaped to the same level as those for whites." First of all I would like to see some of the details of this study. Have the results been peer-reviewed? How many students were involved? Do you expect me to read this and conclude that it is a "good article" on race and intelligence? At best it is a hypothesis. Secondly, the author of the article mentions the work of Kenneth Clark as an introduction to the subject of negroid self-esteem. Clark argued that because substantial numbers of Black children who attended segregated schools chose White dolls over Black ones, this showed that segregation bred feelings of inferiority. What he failed to mention was that he had shown his dolls to hundreds of Black children who attended integrated schools in Massachusetts, and that even more of these children preferred the white dolls. When an article on a subject such as this begins with a reference to a misrepresented study as a comparison to the more recent one, it does not bode well.
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Post by Faelcind on Feb 28, 2005 23:03:52 GMT -5
Tu Quoque caligastia, you accuse me of your own sins, but I will admit that I have trouble reading and seriously considering your posts, this argument is tidious and tiresome. You quite simply haven't offered cogent biological explanations for these patterns.
Your denial of the importance of variation is stupefying. Let me make this clear, we agree small genetic differences can cause huge differences in form and function. The issue is whether this true of humans. The point about variation is that the pattern we see of in most traits is more variation with in groups then between them. If you are going to postulate that specific traits(genes) differ from the genereal pattern you have to prove that. The fact that the overall pattern is little differenation between races is very important when trying to understand any sepecific difference.
You state there are many reasons to beleive that the human population is substantial differentiated. I pointed out why your main reason was not true. Do you have any argument against that point or any other reason to beleive as you do?
Yes the article is from peer reveiwed source. Here is a link to the primary article.
[ftp]http://content.apa.org/journals/psp/69/5/797[/ftp]
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Post by vela on Mar 1, 2005 2:01:08 GMT -5
This is a most fascinating topic, although evidently not without controversy!
It is not my intention of taking sides in the ongoing debate that has ensued about race and intelligence. However, after explaining the concepts that suit me best, the notions that help me grasp this subject, it is inevitable that some of you will disagree with part or maybe all of my ideas. I won’t resort to a lot of scholarly quotes because this topic isn’t something that I’m actively studying, nor I intend to, so I’ll just try to express my own thoughts.
My thoughts on this are rather simple, I just wish I could find an easy way to explain them. Let’s start by saying that intelligence is related to brain activity or more precisely neuronal activity. We don’t need to go now into the specifics of that neuronal activity, but we can safely assume that there exist precise patterns of synaptic interconnections that are involved in generating feelings, thoughts, learning, memories, will power, imagination, creativity, etc. and all other brain processes that we commonly associate with human intelligence, actually with all human behavior. So far I don’t think many would dispute these assumptions, as these are just a broad interpretation of very complex phenomena.
A key point comes next, which is a fundamental premise for my explanation, and that is what neurobiology studies have shown: “that many neurons can be individually identified and are invariant in every member of the species”. Furthermore, this invariance applies not only to the neurons themselves but to the synaptic connections between them and even to the functional expression of their connections, that is, their excitatory and/or inhibitory nature.
I should clarify that these findings, at least until the time when I was studying these things, were derived from research done on simple nervous systems. I’m assuming that something similar occurs on higher organisms, like mammalians. After all, as every human anatomy student knows, a single anatomy treatise encompasses all races. We don’t have an anatomy book for the white race and another for the yellow race, etc. We learn that such and such organs are located in specific places and have certain characteristics. For example, a surgeon can be pretty certain where he will find a patient’s heart. Of course there are rare exceptions, but these aren’t race related. The condition known as dextrocardia, where the heart is located toward the right side of the chest is an exceptional anomaly, like many other anomalies or abnormalities that are documented in the scientific literature.
The point is this: just as there are recognizable anatomical patterns at the macro level in organisms of the same species, if we go a step further into the histological or micro level we find also repeatable cellular patterns. My conclusion: all things being equal, every healthy human being, regardless of skin color, is equipped with the underlying cellular structure that enables him/her to perform comparable brain functions, in other words, has similar potential intelligence or intellectual abilities.
However, from a psychological, sociological or anthropological perspective we perceive that distinct ethnic groups do not manifest the same abilities, capacities and overall accomplishments; intelligence measurements can vary widely from one group to another. The primordial reasons why certain groups were able to activate their intellectual potential to a lesser or greater degree are probably hidden in pre-historical times, and today are the subject of heated discussions and all kinds of speculation. What at the beginning could have been a small difference between two hypothetical groups, by virtue of constant competition and perpetual dominance of one over the other created a negative feedback loop that made the gap grow wider and wider.
So, in my opinion, we should not try to explain differences in intelligence at the genetic level; this is a matter of historical and social dominance. Just like an XOX game, the one that starts first always wins the game. Or like the tree that overshadows stunted trees and these never fully grow because they don’t get the full sun. The question is how can we break the bad cycle? And not just for a few isolated individuals but for whole segments of society around the world that so far have remained marginalized and underdeveloped?
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Post by nockwasright on Mar 1, 2005 4:26:15 GMT -5
About where the burden of the proof lies: we are not in court, where he who affirms even the most well known to the public fact, must prove it. Race is and has always been perceived as existent and important by all mankind. Almost everybody from the beginning of history up to fifty years ago would have assumed as self evident the importance of race (e.g. Russel did. Darwin did). Only now and only in a small segment of a part of the world, i.e. within the elites of the Western World, some is affirming that race do not exist. Differences between ethnic groups within the same state and between differnet ethnic states are a huge fact that needs explanation. Actually the genetic studies on human population, without being able to tell if there are or there are not differences in cognitive abilities, showed that genetically humans groups exacty as the perceived races do (see Cavalli Sforza's maps). So I think the burden lies on those who say race do not exist.
Vela, I don't understand. How can something happened in pre historical times have a social and not a genetic effect that lasts till now? I mean, if it had been only a social effect it would have disappeared now. But I'm not sure I got your argument.
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Post by Faelcind on Mar 1, 2005 4:39:10 GMT -5
NockWR your missing the point of my argument I have never said races don't exist. I beleive that they do and furthermore they are exactly the same thing as the subspecies you see in other geographically widespread species. Thats an integral part of my argument because I beleive that the biological significance of subspecies in genereal is a very important consideration when talking about humans.
Nonetheless your argument is a fallacy argumentum ad populum. Just because many people have beleived something is true does not make it so. For most of history people beleived the earth was flat and the sky revolved around it. 150 years ago irish people were considered thought to be close to chimps in inate charecteristics.
Differences betweeng groups in economic and social status are indeed huge issues that need to be understood and dealt with race has not proven to be good explanation. I have outlined on this board several times better explanations of historical processes. A cursory glance at history will show that their is no common racial factory in any level of achievment accept perhaps atheletics.
One last note my position on burden of proof is direct from the standard scientific method little to do with court room standards of proof.
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