The arguments in this thread are ridiculous. As far as I know nobody disputes the fact that studies have shown that there is an IQ discrepancy between white Americans and black Americans and nobody disputes the fact that there is a significant genetic factor involved with intelligence. There is nothing racist about acknowledging either of these things. What is racist however is making the leap that this implies that there must be a significant genetic reason for the difference in IQs measured between the races.

As has been already pointed out, the idea that black/white is a good proxy for genetic diversity is false. There is more genetic similarity between Africans and Europeans than there is between Americans and Europeans. This knowledge should make anyone view claims that the IQ disparity is largely due to genetics with suspicion. As far as I can tell the general consensus is that genetics probably does play a minor role, but that environmental factors are likely to be more significant (even the survey juan linked has >50% of respondents saying environment plays a bigger role than genetics).

The reason this subject gets people riled up so much is that far too often the minor role of genetics in causing the disparity is used to argue that the disproportionate number of black people in the lower social classes is justified by this innate difference. In doing so this trivialises the major role that the centuries of oppression has had in shaping society as it exists today.

Buddy you're literally incapable of grappling with the academic consensus on whiteness as a concept and race as a social construct. Like mainstream sociology, How the Irish Became White, etc. stuff just completely goes over your head.

You aren't even capable of grasping my argument against you, or answering simple direct questions, which you lambast Kels for.

Seriously, not even trying to be a condescending dick. You aren't even grasping my simple issue with youre, admittedly, 9th grade level writing. You should though, since I'm probably at a similar level.

This is what's so wild about it. Sam Harris tells this self-serving bull**** story about how the academic community is suppressing these views... but everyone knows this stuff.

It goes back to the bubble, the IDW hook is always that they are the brave renegades telling you what other people are too scared to confront(which is a really good hook for their audience of insecure loners, just by believing AM radio bull**** they are actually joining an elite intellectual community of secret-holders), but for that **** to work the audience needs to generally be coming in tabula rasa.

That's why their audience runs young and socially awkward and STEM degree if college educated, they need people who've never thought seriously about these issues at all and who will believe that nobody else has thought seriously about it before.

Wilid's post here is like, the normal reasonable educated NPR listener conventional wisdom. It is a refutation of the Bell Curve, not a state of ignorance enforced by the Cultural Marxist gatekeepers of Forbidden Knowledge.

Nobody in this thread has argued in favor of a genetic superiority. The subject got riled up because Fly came in furious on the subject, and has made the most bat **** insane accusatory assumption filled arguments for like 3 days. This has literally been my point this entire time. Kels has taken it like a hero tbh as hes approached it head on with good faith.

I'll admit I was baiting a little along the way.

The article you posted was a scathing indictment of the 9.9% yet you seem to be proud to be one of them so I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make with it. You also seem to imply that in providing your kids with the means to remain in the 9.9% you're somehow different from those he's describing when in reality that is a major identifier of the 9.9%.

It is undoubtedly true that there are a number of upper-class "SJWs" who are actually hypocritical and don't really act on the values they consider themselves to have. However you seem to think that your experience of these people is representative of the entire group of "SJWs". In reality the majority of people who I would consider "SJW"s are not even close to the 9.9% and are truly motivated by seeing social change - they certainly aren't involved in some grand scheme (knowingly or otherwise) to entrench themselves a privileged position as you seem to be suggesting.

coordi- If you don't understand, even after Trolly and Willd's posts, what conversation people are having when they talk about Charles Murray because you've never heard of AFDC and TANF, you don't know what the AEI is, don't know what the political debates of the early 1990s were...

OK. That's fine! That's pretty wonky ****. Not everyone needs to be an expert in social safety net legislation.

But if the only point you want to make is the recitation of IQ scores by race with no conclusions or elaboration on policy implications allowed, what exactly is the discussion you imagine would happen if we weren't getting sidetracked by them dang SJWs and their accusations?

To put it another way, I don't know why anyone would be motivated to post about this subject if the end stage of your contributions is gonna be "I'm not racist, I just have no idea what you guys are talking about!"

Yes, I understand the argument against him overstepping the data and applying racial assumptions on a genetic level. I know that was why Murray was lambasted, 25 years ago btw. Your takes aren't some unique ****ing beacon of knowledge, its level one **** that anyone with an interest in the study of IQ has been come across.

This was your first post on the subject: (your post was the first post on the subject of Murray itt btw)

You are looking for a fight, and you continued to pick that fight, and have ignored any attempted to prod your own take on anything beyond Murray = racist = Harris = you.
There are a million interesting questions like how to better detect IQ, how to better exploit IQ, why IQ may or may not be important, is individualistic education a potential benefit, what are the merits of g score, would conflating IQ with something like decision making skills make it less of a touchy subject, is there anything we can do with genetics to improve the human race, can we improve environment for the human race?

Just a rough idea; quantifying IQ, detecting at an early age, and understanding where it comes from and how to "exploit" (positively) in a way that turns education and foreign aid into and IRR situation over altruism. Instead of assuming that pumping money into things helps out, we can quantify it and justify various expenditures on a more defined level. I dunno, its not hard to have an interesting conversation on the topic that doesn't involve flinging poo and insulting people.

edit: And, I'll just add, my big takeaway from WN's article on Murray is that we don't actually know enough to have scientific conversations on the effects of genetics and IQ. That is what I mean in my comments on the Chopsticks Problem. It seems like hes more saying that we don't have the knowledge to know the difference between a false or positive flag. I am reading into the context of things he said later in the article though.

And denying the importance of recognizing the facts of the data, that ethnic groups score significantly different at standardized testing, and how that correlates with household wage differences to this day...

Median household income (2016 US$)
1 Asian - 80,720
2 White - 61,349
3 All households - 57,617
4 Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander - 57,112
5 Hispanic or Latino (of any race) - 46,882
6 Some other race - 44,798
7 American Indian and Alaska Native - 39,719
8 Black or African American - 38,555

2017 Mean SAT Scores, and Percentage Meeting Benchmarks, by Race and Ethnicity

Group Reading and Writing Mathematics Met Both Benchmarks
American Indian/Alaska Native 486 477 27%
Asian 569 612 70%
Black 479 462 20%
Latino 500 487 31%
Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 498 488 32%
White 565 553 59%


...is doing a ****ing disservice to the races you all desperately want everyone to believe you defend.

I'm definitely a little sauced right now, and obviously I'm biased, but I feel like you just got ****ing dunked on.

Dubious because a) there is so much genetic mixing within the whole human population, b) intelligence is not some simple phenomena and c) the lack of a fitness factor that quickly selects differently for intelligence by race.

Clearly the environment is incredible ****ed. Historical and on-going racism is a disaster

Well if you need Murray to realise that what we achieve is hugely impacted by our early years (which in turn is hugely impacted by our parents lives/status) then score one for Murray I suppose. Nothing to do with genetics of course and hard to believe this isn't ****ing obvious to you (as opposed to the dubious genetics link)

and I believe in intervention. Positive discrimination being part of that.

There another fundamental error which is to do with any tests measures capability. If you score X in any test then it means that you have the capability to achieve X in that test - it does not mean that you do not have the capability to score higher.

So the fact some identified group score lower doesn't prove they have a lower capacity. There are reasons why the group can do worse even when they have the same capability

Seems like low household incomes cause low standardized test scores.

A is idiotic babble that I already addressed ITT (you're in good company since some ivy league hotshot that WN quoted is almost as dense), B is meaningless since they're worse across the board no matter how you look, and C is words that are found in a dictionary and used grammatically correctly that dont form an intelligible thought.


And how do you know that the environment is actually ****ed to a degree that matters across the country? Because people ****ing researched it.


It's obvious that parental status matters in achievement even for white people because of money. It's completely not obvious, absent any data, that growing up in a bad environment makes you *literally stupid* instead of simply ignorant It's completely not obvious, absent any data, that, say, racism against black adults and the criminal justice system sicced on black teens is insufficient to explain the extra achievement gaps.


This is weather=climate level derping. Black people arent tanking the GRE ffs.

I dont know why you struggle with these ideas so lets move on for now

Research is important for the specific, the general is obvious. It's like those who did research into whether motivation mattered for test results - no **** sherlock, it does.


I think you need to think more about the impact of preparation, practice, motivation and expectations on outcomes. And then the impact of historic and current racism on them.

No. The way you express them is literally moronic. Even the guy WN linked agrees that there are significant genomic differences between African blacks and everybody else, so trying to handwave at that level is. completely disingenuous anti-empirical bull****. Handwaving at the next level (what the princeton guy did, saying 7/8 white 1/8 black people are counted as black, therefore the argument is invalid) was addressed earlier and is actually a hilarious self-own, but apparently this is still difficult to grasp, which says something about the brain-warping that this issue causes because it doesnt take a ****ing genius to figure out why that guy's argument is really, really bad.

When blacks come out behind on every sub-measure, it doesnt matter how you define intelligence, they'll come out behind on it. Trying to argue otherwise- or that intelligence doesnt even exist- is more utterly disingenuous anti-empirical bull****. You're not just full of ****, you're full of **** *and* denying facts that Fly just got done calling common knowledge.


I picked the GRE precisely for that reason. Again, nobody's tanking that. You can also take MCAT, LSAT, or GMAT, which are competitive among blacks for entrance to the top schools, and they get crushed there as well. These are motivated people incentivized to do their best and they get destroyed on average and in right-tail rate. The effect is real and you're just denying facts in evidence again.

No it isn't moronic, literally or otherwise. The fact of significant genomic difference is beside the point.

That's just irrelevant to the point even if it's true and I'm not denying any facts at all.

Not denying any facts. You're somehow denying that test scores indicate minimum capability when almost no-one achieves the highest score they possibly could (apart from the 100%ers).So just about everyone could have done better. It's then a tiny wee step for you to understand that some identified groups could under perform more than others without literally being more stupid.

The idea that the GRE is some magic test where everyone magically performs to their highest possible capability is just plain bizarre.

That may well be the case and I believe you when you say it is about Murray

But I tend to approach it by giving the opposing view as much credit as possible and the my point about the problem for someone like Murray remains even if his conscious intentions are as good as possible, and his research as rigorous and objective as he can possible make it. The fact that in reality most will fall far short of those standards is obviously true.

Shocking to find out that there are no Youtubes of the 1936 Olympics.

LMFAO, the management booted out most of the liberal posters and gave you guys your own specially-curated platform and now you want to talk about people who need protection.

Yet liberals posters still exist here. Strange.

Don’t worry, WN will ban me again in due time.

FWIW the "liberal" posters literally get their posts deleted if they respond to coordi's substantive, insult-laden inanities and it they complain about it they get temp-banned.

cool thread

so GRE is the new LSAT?

I’ll expand later on this concept when I am not as busy, but I think this post illustrates a lot where the disconnect is coming from. By most people’s objective measure, this statement isn’t true. I don’t know if management actually booted out any liberal posters. As far as I know everyone who left can log into their account and post here. Certainly most of the posters can.

However, Trolly isn’t making a literal point, he is making an emotional point. He feels what happened (I actually don’t know what happened) was management symbolically booting the liberal posters. And for good or bad, the adage, “you can’t tell me how I feel” is very true, so it is very unlikely anyone is going to change Trollys mind on this. All we can do is point out how and why our perspective differs and move on.