Can we have an honest discussion about race?

[LordFall]

@Heart of Space For someone trying to make a point for intelligence, you make quite remarkably stupid points. This is not a personal attack, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, your original posts and all your following comments fit the 5 definitions of the word stupid.

 

I actually agree that we should open up controversial topics for discussion but none of your arguments stand the test of scrutiny. Are you aware of how the metric of IQ is defined and how it was invented in the first place? You didn't really answer Leo's point on how you can't judge a group in a vacuum, you have to access the history of that subgroup. What's your answer to the Japanese having higher IQ than white western countries? How do you even define a race? Do you judge the anglo Saxons the same as the white Eurasians? They have drastically different average IQ scores. What do you even consider black? Are black Brazilians included in this? 

You would at least think that if you're trying to make an argument for intellectualism you would cover your bases.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by LordFall

[Thought Art]

This dude literally just shared an article and was like “if only you did a few seconds of digging” then didn’t read the whole article which then actually made an argument directly against his main point here in the thread. Then, he doubles down on his point. “You guys just don’t get it. It’s science. Some scientists agree. But only in private”. Which some how he knows what people think in private but not publicly. Yeah? So what if some people agree with you. Plenty more don’t. 
 

There’s not gonna be any point of speaking to this guy. He is aggressively, stubbornly ignorant in his opinion and claims to be “scientific” ahah

You can walk a donkey to his own reflection and say “this, this is you! Just fucking look” and the donkey will still say “nee haa”

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Thought Art

[trenton]

 

I think this video is relevant. Vaush does a good job of explaining how environmental differences can lead to genetic differences. Although these genetic differences may coincide with race, it is not inherent to race itself.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Heart of Space said:

You hate science. 

Either that, or you hate blacks.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Leo Gura

[zurew]

5 hours ago, Heart of Space said:

You hate science.  

You're being so difficult lol

Its interesting, that you tried to paint a picture about yourself as being "objective" and "scientific", and it seems like that your position can't be moved at all, because you just refute anything that goes against your narrative and you have a defensive response to anything that doesn't agree with you. 

Notice, that you haven't done any significant research about this topic, and you try to justify your position afterwards you already made up your mind about it (this is not just an assumption, because if you would have done significant research, you would have changed your position or you would have provided your strongest evidence already).

You didn't reason your way to arrive at your position, you just assumed your position of being true, and now you trying to backfill it with rationalization.

[Heart of Space]

Guys, cool the constant ad hominem attacks for your own sake.  You're only burning yourself by getting upset.  It basically just makes you look emotional and biased when all you have is some form of "you're an idiot" as a response.  

[Lews Therin]

Let's dissect what you are saying so we get to where our gap in understanding lies.

Propositions:

p1: there is a genetic component to inteligence - I believe most people here agree on this.

p2: Different races have different levels of inteligence - I prefer to say ethnicities, as race is not a scientific concept, and you claim to want to have a scientific conversation. As someone mentioned before, there is more genetic difference between different groups of "black people" than between most people of different "races". That said, there PROBABLY are differences in inteligence.

p3: Black people tend to score lower on IQ tests and other inteligence related tests - This is true and has been observed in a variety of studies.

p4: The gap in IQ or general inteligence between races (p3) can't be solely due to historical, social and cultural factors and probably has to do with genes (p1 and p2) - Here you need to provide some evidence. Accepting p1 and p2 as truth doens't mean they have any connection to p3. As Leo said, it may very well be that after we equalize social and cultural factors black people start scoring higher than both white people and east asians on these tests.

 

This conversation is essentially worthless untill you provide some evidence that can connect p1 and p2 to p3.

As of right now, we KNOW that historical, social, and cultural factors have a GREAT DEAL of influence on black people scoring lower on these tests (and also their countries having lower GDP), and we have NO REASON to believe that these factor aren't responsible for 100% or more of the difference in IQ.

As the person who made the initial claim, now it falls on you to provide evidence on that missing link and demonstrating WHY social factors can't explain the gap in inteligence.

[Heart of Space]

@Lews Therin Is there a genetic component to intelligence at all?  

Are all human attributes based on genetics, but the very moment we get to the brain all of a sudden it's this thing completely existing in a vacuum of purely environmental variables in terms of what shapes it's qualities?

If there is a measurable intelligence gap between genetic populations, would it not be extraordinarily obvious to consider the possibility that a portion of that gap is explained by genes?  

It's as if none of you even consider the possibility that even 0.5% of that gap is explained by genes.  The genetic explanation is extremely plausible and I believe that you guys do not consider it because it conflicts with the anti-racist utopian fantasy you have about reality.

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Heart of Space

[something_else]

@Heart of Space At the end of the day the burden of proof is on you, and you haven't really provided anything substantial.

[Heart of Space]

12 minutes ago, something_else said:

@Heart of Space At the end of the day the burden of proof is on you, and you haven't really provided anything substantial.

Did you just get here, skim one or two posts and write that?  Why consider responding when you have nothing substantive to say? 

[Thought Art]

@Heart of Space We are open to, and realize that genetics play a factor in intelligence. I think that’s been said many times throughout the thread. 
 

However, we are saying that because there are many factors at play for a demographic’s IQ we can’t single out genetics. 
 

You can assume it’s because we don’t want to come off as racist. But, that isn’t the case. 

I have openly pondered and researched this years ago. I came to the ideas that there’s simply many factors and that environment, economic, social factors play the biggest role for entire populations development with IQ, values, spiral development etc..
 

Who are you listening to out there promoting these ideas for you?

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Thought Art

[something_else]

4 minutes ago, Heart of Space said:

Did you just get here, skim one or two posts and write that?  Why consider responding when you have nothing substantive to say? 

If asking for proof of what you're saying is not substantiative, I don't know what is.

You just don't have any proof, so you have to resort to deflective tactics. You also complained about ad hominem attacks against you above yet this is dangerously close to one.

Edited October 25, 2022 by something_else

[Heart of Space]

3 minutes ago, Thought Art said:

@Heart of Space We are open to, and realize that genetics play a factor in intelligence. I think that’s been said many times throughout the thread. 

You can assume it’s because we don’t want to come off as racist. But, that isn’t the case. 

I have openly pondered and researched this years ago. I cameWho are you listening to out there promoting these ideas for you?

Don't say 'we' when you speak for yourself.  People actually are arguing for zero genetic inferiority between races for intelligence.

No one, I come to this conclusion on my own because it's blatantly obvious based on all the current evidence and our understanding of genetics and evolution.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Heart of Space

[Consept]

I just want to get in some stuff before this inevitably gets locked. 

@Heart of Space How would you account for the fact that Nigerian-Americans are actually more educated than white americans, with 59% of them over 25 having at least bachelors degree compared to only 33% of white americans. 

I also found these interesting points from a paper that ill link to, i would like to hear your take on them  - 

—When black or mixed-race children are raised in white rather than black homes, their preadolescent test scores rise dramatically. Black adoptees’ scores seem to fall in adolescence, but this is what we would expect if, as seems likely, their social and cultural environment comes to resemble that of other black adolescents and becomes less like that of the average white adolescent. 4

—Even nonverbal IQ scores are sensitive to environmental change. Scores on nonverbal IQ tests have risen dramatically throughout the world since the 1930s.5The average white scored higher on the Stanford-Binet in 1978 than 82 percent of whites who took the test in 1932.6 Such findings reinforce the implications of adoption studies: large environmental changes can have a large impact on test performance.

—Black-white differences in academic achievement have also narrowed throughout the twentieth century. The best trend data come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which has been testing seventeen-year-olds since 1971 and has repeated many of the same items year after year. Figure 1-2 shows that the black-white reading gap narrowed from 1.25 standard deviations in 1971 to 0.69 standard deviations in 1996. The math gap fell from 1.33 to 0.89 standard deviations.7 When MinHsiung Huang and Robert Hauser analyzed vocabulary scores for adults born between 1909 and 1969, the black-white gap also narrowed by half. In a country as racially polarized as the United States, no single change taken in isolation could possibly eliminate the entire legacy of slavery and Jim Crow or usher in an era of full racial equality. But if racial equality is America’s goal, reducing the black-white test score gap would probably do more to promote this goal than any other strategy that commands broad political support. Reducing the test score gap is probably both necessary and sufficient for substantially reducing racial inequality in educational attainment and earnings. Changes in education and earnings would in turn help reduce racial differences in crime, health, and family structure, although we do not know how large these effects would be.

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/9780815746096_chapter1.pdf

[Thought Art]

10 minutes ago, Heart of Space said:

Don't say 'we' when you speak for yourself.  People actually are arguing for zero genetic inferiority between races for intelligence.

No one, I come to this conclusion on my own because it's blatantly obvious based on all the current evidence and our understanding of genetics and evolution.

I’ve been reading other people’s responses. From what I read others are open to it. It seems pretty one sided you arguing with everyone else. So I said “we”. People are open to genetics playing a role in intelligence. But, not between genetics of entire races because their no science to support that claim.

”Our understanding of genetics and evolution” are you sure about that? The only source you share contradicted this. 

How can it be blatantly obvious given science and genetics when our current understanding says otherwise?

 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Thought Art

[Leo Gura]

8 hours ago, zurew said:

Its interesting, that you tried to paint a picture about yourself as being "objective" and "scientific", and it seems like that your position can't be moved at all, because you just refute anything that goes against your narrative and you have a defensive response to anything that doesn't agree with you. 

Ironically this makes him very scientific. That's exactly how scientists act

Edited October 25, 2022 by Leo Gura

[Leo Gura]

This thread is like watching Lex Fridman trying to convince Kanye that constantly referring to the "The Jew Media" is anti-Semitic. But Kanye just keeps on doing it.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Leo Gura

[trenton]

@Consept it is good to know that the test gaps are shrinking at a relatively fast pace. Thank you for sharing your findings.

[Lews Therin]

3 hours ago, Heart of Space said:

@Lews Therin Is there a genetic component to intelligence at all?  

Why are you pivoting the discussion? I already agreed there likelly is a genetic component to inteligence

Are all human attributes based on genetics, but the very moment we get to the brain all of a sudden it's this thing completely existing in a vacuum of purely environmental variables in terms of what shapes it's qualities?

Read my comment again. p1 and p2 where literally agreeing with this idea (genes being a factor), most people on this thread agree with this idea, the problem lies in the other propositions you were making

If there is a measurable intelligence gap between genetic populations, would it not be extraordinarily obvious to consider the possibility that a portion of that gap is explained by genes?

Saying something is obvious is the opposite of being scientific. Aristotle thought it was obvious something 10x heavier would fall 10x faster, and he was one of the most inteligent people in history. Claiming obviousness doesn't prove anything

It's as if none of you even consider the possibility that even 0.5% of that gap is explained by genes. 

We consider the possibility of it, we really do, just as we consider the possibility that said environmetal factor are responsible for more than 100% of the gap, and that black people actually have a higher natural IQ than white people.

It's just that since we can't isolate environmental and genetic factors we don't go around claiming it is one way or the other

The genetic explanation is extremely plausible and I believe that you guys do not consider it because it conflicts with the anti-racist utopian fantasy you have about reality.

You don't even know us, many of us considered that at some point in our lives. And i am telling you, THAT IS NOT WHERE THE DISCUSSION IS AT. It may be plausible that the gap is partially genetic, but you can't know that because there is no evidence that connects the claims "there is likelly a difference in inteligence between races" and the claim you made in the original post "Black people are genuinely intellectually inferior"

You said you wanted a productive and scientific discussion, if that is the case, stop repeating over and over that there is a genetic difference between races IN GENERAL and find some evidence that points that the specific gap in IQ between black and white people is genetic, or that it can't for some specific reason be attributed entirely to environmental factors IN THIS CASE.

[Heart of Space]

32 minutes ago, Lews Therin said:

You said you wanted a productive and scientific discussion, if that is the case, stop repeating over and over that there is a genetic difference between races IN GENERAL and find some evidence that points that the specific gap in IQ between black and white people is genetic, or that it can't for some specific reason be attributed entirely to environmental factors IN THIS CASE.

Notice how you erroneously assume the default position is environmental factors.  

It's accepted that intelligence is mostly heritable, meaning 55 to 80 percent genetic.  It would follow that a gap in intelligence between individuals, groups, races, or ethnicities could be partially explained by genetics as a percentage of a whole of all causes, including environmental factors.  Think a pie chart of causal factors.  

If you can't even acknowledge that, then you can't even begin to have a conversation on the subject.