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> While his hope was that everybody was equal, he added, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true".
Yeah, pretty racist
This is the sort of turn-of-century Mr. Burns type racism that I don't think most Americans even remember.
Suppose for the sake of argument, there's a place where everyone has 10 IQ points less, on average, than the West.
The Flynn effect is about 14 points over a few decades.
How do you square those things? Did the West not have a society a few decades ago? Is there some reason you can't have civilization with slightly dumber people? There was a time when kids were malnourished in the west, and possibly dumber as a result. Also, not everyone in society makes decisions. It tends to be very few people, and nobody thinks politicians are intelligent either.
I've never heard an explanation of intelligence that had any actual real-world impact on a scale that matters to society.
The explanation would have to have quite a lot of depth to it, as you have to come up with some sort of theory connecting how people do on a test to whatever you think makes a good society.
Here's the strategy chatgpt came up with (amongst many other):
What Not to Say (Avoid These)
Don’t describe intelligence or talent as intrinsic, innate, or permanent. This triggers resentment and identity defense.
Don’t use language that signals “I am ahead of you.”
Don’t use your advantage to win every interaction—save leverage for important conflicts.
People tolerate talent. They hate being made aware of being lower in the hierarchy.
_____
Is it possible the backlash to Watson could be viewed from this game theocratic perspective, and not that he was racist and wrong?
How many people died in wars in the 20th century? How many of them did NOT originate in Europe and Asia?
How much of climate change that has fouled up the earth we depend is NOT attributable to economic activity in the west?
Is there a western/Asian country where late-stage capitalism and the devaluation of of the common has not taken hold?
I could go on...
Are these evidence of intelligence? This is not a rhetorical question.
I'm not sure I understand your point around late-stage capitalism and the devaluation of the common...
Are you really arguing that the western world has not been more advanced?
Also, with climate change, may I remind you of quote from Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy:
> I'd like to share a revelation during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.
Industrialization followed this pattern. Shitting where you live is a textbook case of stupid.
> The end result of it might not be desirable, but probably something these advance societies can deal with.
The people dying in extreme floods and fires tell me otherwise, and it's likely only going to get worse.
This part is (still) true. Is that fact racist?
Wilkins was the one who showed Franklin's Photograph 51 to Watson. This was without Franklin's consent and before her photographs were officially published. Watson and Crick then rushed to publish their findings before Franklin could
Said with irony? I mean, the guy was into eugenics—thought some races are smarter than others.
As for whether it's true or not, let's just say we don't know for sure because scientists either are not allowed or don't want to research this question.
Of course I'm being facetious. I know why. No one wants to ponder that because of the stigma, so everyone puts their head in the sand and avoids the uncomfortable.
If anything it's probably a healthy reminder that even "smart" people can have blinders on?
You do realize that picking a certain concept "intelligence", defining it to include certain characteristics, tying it to a certain notion of "fitness", defining "Asian", and finally, tying "asian" to "intelligence", are all matters of definition, choice, and perception and nothing fundamental about reality, right?
Race isn't biological, it's a social and political construct. The social and political construct known as "Asians" comprises about 60% of the global population. Also, IQ is not a measure of intelligence.
There are cultural reasons why some people in some "Asian" countries may do better on average in academics, such as stronger familial bonds, peer pressure and a greater cultural value placed on scholastic achievement, but that's far from proof that "Asians" are genetically and intellectually superior to other races, much less that therefore eugenics (and by extension the white supremacist ideology it was created to normalize, which ironically considered "Asians" to be subhuman) is "proven true."
People get cancelled not for saying that it is genetic, but for questioning whether it may be. Of course, we will never know if we're not allowed to ask. Cancel culture is anti-science.
Watson may have been racist, but questioning whether there is a relationship between genetics and intelligence by itself is not racism.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Research...
If you look at their source[0], there's no information about how they controlled for confounders (because it's impossible as they acknowledge[1].)
There's a strong correlation between "education of parents" and "SAT score"[2] which implies that family wealth is a strong contribution to a child's SAT score (something we all know anyway); that's also backed up by [3].
(I'd suggest that [4] also contributes to the positive correlation between familial wealth and test scores but perhaps in a more oblique "the higher goals are aimed at by kids who have the backing to contemplate them because of family support structure, tutoring, ability to pay for the degree(s), etc." way.)
(Similarly for [5], I suppose - there's a distinct correlation between what I'd say was "perceived difficulty of major" and the mean SAT scores. Again probably down to familial wealth, support, tutoring, etc.)
Someone who's an actual statistician would probably rip this apart much more thoroughly and with more rigour than I, of course.
[0] https://reports.collegeboard.org/media/pdf/2023-total-group-...
[1] "Relationships between test scores and other background or Evidence-Based Reading and Writing (ERW) and Math contextual factors are complex and interdependent. Caution is sections of each assessment in the SAT Suite: warranted when using scores to compare or evaluate teachers, schools, districts, or states, because of differences in participation and test taker populations."
[2] Bottom of page 4: "Highest Level of Parental Education"
[3] Bottom of page 5: "Median Family Income"
[4] Bottom of page 8: "Degree-Level Goal"
[5] Top of page 8: "Intended College Major"
There isn't even any concrete evidence that it's a good thing.
"Intelligence isn't genetic" is the left's version of creationism.
The claim is that race as commonly understood and defined (specifically by eugenicists like Watson) has no genetic basis, and therefore claims which follow from that definition such as "Asians have higher IQ" are not scientifically valid, and do not prove the validity of Watson's racial views.
For some reason sparkie just decided to reframe my comment around a claim I didn't make and now here we are litigating a "leftist" strawman.
I'm so tired.
So are you (probably). Do you think incest should be legalized?
> thought some races are smarter than others
What other conclusion can you reasonably come to based on the available data?
EDIT: Never mind, user krapp's comment is what I was reaching for, "Race isn't biological, it's a social and political construct."
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/PCA-clustering-Principal...
> krapp's comment is what I was reaching for, "Race isn't biological, it's a social and political construct."
Also he devoted the last 15 years of his life obsessed with longevity. Dude took anti-oxidants, tennis, and Vitamin C up the wazoo to keep living longer.