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Comment by daxorid | Hacker News Reader

Data point of one incoming. My "racist" beliefs originate from the inevitable conclusions reached by the voluminous research done on racial g-factor correlates, behavioral genetics, and SES-controlled twin adoption studies in the last half century. Specifically those studies which are both controlled for, and devoid of, those biases which Gould often lamented about physiognomy papers of old.

From my perspective, it is not the nationalists who have closed their minds off. The left has their own special brand of science denialism right here on this topic.

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This thread has been killed by user flags, but if it hadn't, we would've killed it on the grounds that it introduces a race war. Please see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13007847.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13055011 and marked it off-topic.

(I'll try to use groups and traits at random to protect myself from cherry-picked quotes).

Suppose we discovered that gay people have a tendency to be better at sport, and black people a tendency to be smarter. That white people have better reflexes, and asians can remember things really well. All the "discoveries" about physical attributes have a pretty good chance of being tolerated by society, all the ones about mental attributes are likely to cause a massive public outcry.

For the scientific/analytical thinkers, this taboo of researching certain things is a bit weird. There is essentially the potential for knowledge that we're not allowed to discover. The steps to gaining that knowledge can be perfectly ethical, but the knowledge itself is toxic.

This generally troubles me. This idea that I can't talk about certain things, even if it's just to try to get people to point out the flaws in my reasoning... It's like a kind of self-imposed censorship.

I think it is considered problematic because ability in the modern world (at the very least) is largely correlated with "mental attributes", and, in a meritocratic society, a group which was less able would be afforded less power. That unequal distribution of power would be in direct conflict with the democratic ideal of equal representation, leading to the tension.

If it was generally believed that the democratic will represents everyone's interests roughly equally, then this wouldn't of itself present a problem. Unfortunately, the failure of nominally inclusive establishments to address the political concerns of large sections of their societies strains the credibility of this belief, to the point of breaking, in some cases.

Beyond the political consequences, meritocratic societies have a tendency to draw a relationship between economic value and social value. Telling a group of people that they are less socially valuable just isn't very nice. Of course, these relationships aren't facts of the world - they are simply choices made be societies.

So, it would be possible to have a society where such things as you mention could be discussed openly without drawing criticism, but it would be necessary for the labelling that you were engaging in to not make implicit claims about people's social value.

And to the extent you believe e.g. the remnants of movement conservatism is on the right, this is not even a Right/Left thing, as Kevin Williamson put it, "The truth about these dysfunctional, downscale [white, working class] communities is that they deserve to die.": http://www.nationalreview.com/article/432876/donald-trump-wh...

An opinion that as far as I can tell, especially based on deeds, is shared by most of the GOPe(stablishment).

What is it specifically that you believe, and why do you believe it?

That 200,000 years of generally-isolated evolution of human population groups has resulted in distinct physical, behavioral, and cognitive traits - trait differences that a mere 3000 years of seafaring, 110 years of skyfaring, have been insufficient to eliminate.

Jayman has a decent collection of references to the relevant research on his FAQ: https://jaymans.wordpress.com/jaymans-race-inheritance-and-i...

I don't think we have a consensus as to which most behavioral and cognitive traits are related to "natural" or genetic factors or behaviors, nutrition, education, etc relating to our lives path.

The 19th century version of someone with your thought pattern would no doubt see my ancestors in Ireland as a group of simple peasant bumpkins living with livestock and not capable of basic activities, much less advanced cognitive skills. Yet my grandparents managed to get out of there in the 1940s and move to New York City. Their grandchildren are doctors, attorneys, engineers, detectives, teachers and business leaders.

So when you tell me that someone from Nigeria or Sierra Leone is statistically likely to be fundamentally dumber than myself or my family, I'm skeptical.

Ok, stipulated. What does that mean for you in your life? What do you differently because you believe this?

> My "racist" beliefs originate from the inevitable conclusions reached by the voluminous research done on racial g-factor correlates, behavioral genetics, and SES-controlled twin adoption studies in the last half century. Specifically those studies which are both controlled for, and devoid of, those biases which Gould often lamented about physiognomy papers of old.

What are your racist beliefs? It sounds like you are describing racial beliefs, which might be a different matter. A scientific documentation of biological facts about race would be, I imagine, perfectly acceptable even to liberals (although my poorly informed understanding is that, despite your claim, there is no consensus that scientific evidence of this is available—since 'race' is a cultural, not a scientific (or at best only informally scientific), notion anyway). Rather, it is the misuse of scientific evidence to promote ideas of racial superiority, or to misinform other public-policy decisions, to which a liberal (or hopefully anyone …) would object.

EDIT: Or, a longer version of what aristus (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13055137) said.

> What are your racist beliefs? It sounds like you are describing racial beliefs, which might be a different matter.

I'm not sure that most of those who would be concerned about the former would be willing or able to make a distinction about the latter.

So what the original article is talking about is believing in things like stopping interracial marriage by force (ie law)

I think you are being off topic or not linking your reasons why the science supports this?

"Don't you see? Science has objectively proved that blacks are terrible and the left denies it."

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