Begging the question.

The white kids may not practice as much because they may focus on other areas. There are all sorts of potential confounds that you're not considering as part of the analysis.

The jump to genetic factors is far too hasty.

The example of track and field is even more fitting than football. There isn't much money in track and field, outside the absolute most famous, so I don't think many blacks look at the 100 meters as their path out of the ghetto. I'm guessing that most Americans have no idea who Tyson Gay is. I also would be shocked if track and field is part of black culture the way basketball or football are. It is also a sport that removes the potential selection bias that football could have. A coach can't deny a white sprinter than runs a faster time than a black sprinter. I'm wondering what your sports background is Durka. It's not like the white kids growing up aren't trying. You seem to still be ignoring the concept that there are all white schools that have whites at every position. A lot of these schools have very good football programs. Believe me, the whites at these schools that play WR, CB, or RB are busting their asses.

Sure, the jump to genetics at this point is hasty. Of course, the jump to societal factors is hastier still.

Genetics is only one of the plausible explanations that must be investigated further. I happen to think it's the most plausible, some happen to disagree, but the one thing we should all be able to agree on is that further research on genetic differences is needed.

It's not just one NFL observation. It's two different NFL positions, MLB positions (and do you seriously think managers wouldn't put the faster guy in center and the slower guy in left, ceteris paribus, just because one is black?), MLB stolen base rates (everybody gets a chance to steal), MLB stolen bases with age (remember this is a sport of ~10% blacks), and various sprint results across the world where blacks dominate the top end.

One statistic, or one sport, maybe there's a sociological explanation. MLB makes no sense sociologically. Sprinting across the globe makes no sense sociologically.. In the last olympics, 80 people showed up, and it breaks down as (approximately, I'm assuming Fabio Cerutti isn't a black guy, etc)

Qualifying heats, 80 entrants: ~47 black, 33 nonblack
Quarterfinals, 40 left: 29 black, 11 nonblack
Semifinals, 16 left: 15 black, 1 nonblack
Finals, 8 left: all black

That doesn't even do the story of the quarterfinal round justice. Other than the one who qualified, in every other heat, the nonblacks were in the bottom positions. The other 10 non-blacks literally didn't beat a single black guy, at all, except for somebody who presumably stumbled or something (he ran a 10.93, which is just awful, slowest in QFs by over half a second, after running a 10.22 in heats. 10.22 was faster than any of those nonblacks' heat or QF times). And all kinds of countries with olympic histories were represented with nonblacks and completely failed.

The point of giving sociological explanations comes when you ACTUALLY HAVE ONE that shows that blacks were overrepresented because they were disproportionately the ones in the population given a chance. You haven't begun to show that. You can whine about NFL, but you've shown no evidence. MLB is quite slanted against blacks (~10% black), yet they're massively overrepresented in speed statistics that have no reasonable sociological explanation (fast white guys like Ellsbury and Gardner play center and steal bases too, nobody is unaware of their existence, but whites are horribly underrepresented at CF and atop SB lists). Again, where is your evidence?

And the track and field results really make no sense for you. You have blacks who were born, live, and train in a bunch of completely different places coming out on top of the nonblacks, and the only thing in common is ancestral homeland a few hundred years ago.

There isn't "a sociological explanation" for this. There would have to be a bunch of explanations in widely distributed places, among widely distributed people, among people who would be hugely +EV if they noticed all these supposed actual or potential top-end-whites-who-weren't. Sorry, that's not anywhere near even money. Not even close.

You missed the point. Let's take only high school for this analysis. In every single event in high school track, including sprints, there are more whites nationally competing. However, the fastest high school times in the nation every year are absolutely dominated by black athletes, despite being out represented by whites in total number. There is no sociological explanation for this. They do not train "harder" as you seem to suggest, which I find a ludicrous notion given my extensive experience in track. They train how they are instructed to by the coach, same as everyone else. You cannot account for their domination of high school sprinting purely on sociological factors.

I really don't understand the obsession here with sprinting. I created this thread to discuss less trivial matters like the genetics of intelligence and behavior, and all anyone wants to talk about is running speed. Why are people so afraid to confront the wider implications of racial genetics?

Because if durka won't admit that there are genetic differences when it's apparent, he'll never admit there are genetic differences when it's more complicated.

Personally, I think we should be discussing whether whites or blacks are better at absorbing vitamin D.

Well, my first post in the thread was along the lines of 'if different races are different physically, why couldn't they be different mentally?' and people disagreed with my assertion that different races are different physically.

The other more fundamentally erroneous aspect of this dialogue is the notion that races exist as biological facts.

Having said that I don't think we have considered seriously the exiting threat s to the superior 4 of the twelve sexes composing the human species.

It isn't solid sample sizes that are of particular importance, it is controlling for confounding variables (maternal diet, diet, subculture, relationship of subculture to main culture, education, etc.). As I said earlier, I am pretty sure that if you took the couple of genes responsible for skin color and ran them against IQ test scores, you would find statistical significance (using a reasonable sample size, lets say n=100 for each race). I posit that this would be the case if you somehow controlled for all other genes. Unfavored groups score crappy academics, IQ, etc. In other words, dark colored people have lower IQ scores largely due to the fact that they are dark colored (cross the non-genetic correlates of being dark skinned).

You find disparities in measures of success (IQ is just one example) within every country between ethnic groups. Catholic Irish score about 1 SD below Protestant Irish. Korean's score over 1 SD lower than Japanese on IQ tests (but only in Japan, they both score similarly in an above average range in the US - we can't tell them apart). In the US, Poles were considered to be genetically inferior for quite a while, but due to the extra work they have to put in during first grade in learning nearly the whole alphabet in order to write their names, they have largely been able to overcome their genetic lack of intelligence.

The IQ average for India has been estimated at 81 (pretty darn dull), but yet, Indians who move to the US are disproportionately involved in seemingly high IQ careers: entrepreneur, medical doctor and IT. Somehow I doubt that it is their cool accent that helps them succeed.

A very funny (to me) example is in South Africa. People of English descent have way higher IQs than those who are descendents of the Netherlands. In the rest of the world, the Dutch are known for being clever (and tall). The English are largely known for not not believing in dentistry or orthodontics and finding Mr Bean to be amusing.

Don't tell me what I can and can't do If I want to look at a couple of alleles, you can't stop me. It is a free country. (more serious answer to follow)

Phenotypical variance is genes x environment. Where the environment is shown to be different between two populations, and that specific environmental cause has been shown to effect phenotype expression, you can't claim genetics as the cause of phenotypical difference between two populations without further information.

And, yes, phenotype tends to follow normal distributions. Environmental factors are largely continuous. Alleles are all di/tri/multi-chotomous. Environmental factors tend to smooth out the distribution of phenotype.

(apologies for the wall-o-text)

I was amazed at how smart the Indian students were when I was in engineering school. But then I found out that they all take a test to come over here and only the very top ones make it to the US and only the very very top ones make it to the top US engineering schools.

One of the Indian guys I used to play poker with was like number 4 in the whole country when he took the test.

Well, that's how I remember it... I'm sure some Indian guy will now explain to me that I have it all wrong but I am accurately recounting the story as I remember it...

You might be arguing with the wrong person then.

Given: Blacks clearly are way less better at reflecting light, and that is almost purely due to genetics.

Not sure about absorbing vitamin D, but I think that is more of an empirical research study than something that can be resolved in a talky-talky forum.

Take a step back and argue with my viewpoint, rather than Durka's. It might do us both well.

See above. I think I have agreed earlier that it is possible. See my post #160, and we can start from there.

I am not sure whether you have crystallized your opinions or not. If you want to try to see whether you are wrong (the only reason to argue), and are willing to admit that you are likely wrong, I am willing to keep the discussion going with you.*

I do agree that sprinting is probably not the correct starting off point for this discussion. That is why I keep bringing up relative reflectiveness.

For what it is worth, I expect that certain other players in this argument will have more to offer than me, but

*see my private message to you.

So, you believed a story... told by a clever person... You do know that there is no "come to the USA test" enforced by the USA, right?

It is India, not Soviet Russia. There is no "you are allowed to leave" test.

Plus, the whole "number 4 in the country" is extremely suspect. Do you know anyone who scored in the top 4 on the SAT, or GRE or GMAT? I expect that the best possible score is shared with multitudes.

Very funny.

So we at least know in theory that it's possible for phenotypic differences to arise in different groups of people

Well, dark-skinned people who go far from the equator are known to be at risk for D deficiency, which fits the evolutionary hypothesis. But it doesn't much matter, the higher quantities of melanin in people with dark skin is the basic issue.

I haven't followed the whole thread, but your position seems less extreme from recent posts. If your position is that based on our current evidence, we can't conclude that recorded differences in this or that trait among groups of humans of differing ethnicity are a result of genetic factors, then I don't disagree. Though I find the idea of some genetic influence plausible. Then again, the idea that the differences are entirely genetic is implausible.

I figure with respect to most of these differences, there is some genetic component and there are a number of social components. I don't think it's always easy to draw the line, there are too many intersections of "genetic" and "environmental" factors, and in theory it's almost impossible to really establish the difference.

I can't take any hardline stance here; the whole subject is too confused.

This.

Unless you're some nutter arguing for racial purity the the small extent that race has some basis in fact is a fleeting historical artifact being swiftly buried.

Yes there is.

Okay, maybe it's suspect. But the guy was a genius. I verified this myself by asking him for help on homework problems that I found difficult. And he came from India. And he told me that students in India take a test to get into graduate schools in the United States and they are ranked from 1 to 5million or however many and only the very top make it over here.

Now, he would've told me this story in roughly 1988, so it's been a while for me. But that is the story as I remember it.

I know at least one person that got a 1600 on the SAT. That is the best possible score.

You have done a very poor job of convincing people that there is a problem here at all. We live in a technological golden age and you are complaining that we are on the verge of collapse because you didn't like traveling in western Europe. I think most people think your view is just dumb, independent of what they think about the racial components of intelligence.

It is obv not a test to enter the US. If it is a widely taken test in India amongst college students in certain majors, many of the top scoring students could be at top US grad schools

I know people in the top 5 for the Putnam and IMO. Obv SAT and GRE don't allow scores that high, but other exams in the US (and the world) do.

People from India who are "allowed" to come to the USA to enter grad school get accepted by passing the GRE or GMAT along with the TOEFL.

Oh, and their parents would need to have enough money to pay.

The Putnam and IMO are not taken country-wide anywhere. Scoring impressively on them is certainly good if you are applying for a grad position in math, but the tests are specifically designed to draw down to winners. I am not denying that scoring extremely highly on one or the other is very impressive, but I am guessing that the average math grad student at MIT has never been involved in a math competition using either of these tests. These tests would make extremely poor entrance exams, due to the lack of sensitivity in selecting good potential students.

There aren't any widely used tests that even attempt more than 4 standard deviations above the mean (and you run into limiting factors such as vegetative states limiting the low end), and it is suspect whether it is even possible to design a test sensitive enough to measure a trait to this level of precision. 4 SD above the mean is about 1 out of every 30,000+ people. We just aren't that good at test design.

Fill out education visa form.

Get accepted into US college or university.

Pay tuition.

^ None of these qualify as a test.

Genius is not particularly rare (1 out of 400-ish). Still, assuming that you are quite smart and he was smarter, that would definitely make him very smart (and probably considered a genius by all measures).

Very funny. I had assumed that he had first hand knowledge of India.

There aren't that many college grads per year in India. Maybe 500,000 at the most per year, and I believe that my guesstimate is probably extremely high. 7%(ish) of Indians get into college each year.

I don't doubt your recollection (although you are getting rather old). I doubt that the story you were told is true. Sometimes very smart people tell stories that aren't true.

It is improbably that a test that would be specific enough in scoring to rank someone as number 4 given the number of test takers. Unless he meant that he was tied for number 4, and there were thousands of others also tied for the same ranking.

Mean 1000, SD 220(-ish, depends on the year). I bet you know quite a few. Probably some have social skills and don't mention their scores.

I never said they were the only people that were allowed to come to US grad schools.

Nobody pays to go to grad school in math/science.



I am just saying that a person can do well enough on come types of tests like the Putnam to where they are much much better than a perfect score on the SAT or LSAT and being ranked in the top 5 is possible. Nobody is saying that everybody has taken this test, but in India there are widely taken exams for entrance to elite math/science programs in which it is possible to be ranked in the top 5.

No, you are wrong.

I took your statement as meaning something more than you meant then.

Point taken. Come to think of it, other than terminal MS/MA programs and medical degrees, I don't think anyone does. Heck, I was a psych grad student and didn't have to pay.

Still, I don't see how a test score in India is going to be the determining factor insofar as gaining entrance into a US university.

I do not deny this at all. Get a score >20 on the Putnam and you are elite.

I don't see this as possible, given the number of test takers, and the inadequacies of test-making. Top one percent, easy. Top 1/10 of one percent, extremely difficult. Beyond that, I doubt the validity of the test.

As an example, one of my GRE questions was "what does ennui mean?" I got this right purely because one of the women I dated as an undergraduate had an Edward Gorey poster that I found amusing.

Esoteric knowledge is not equivalent to or predictive of ability.

I can't argue with a major new source.

I tried looking for the scoring system to see their methodology, but can't find anything. OK, I looked for a couple of minutes and got bored.

If the format for scoring is number of correct answers with time to finish as a tie breaker for equal scores, then you could potentially rank from number one to xxx (slowest 100% correct), and further down from one wrong fastest to one wrong slowest, etc.

I am just guessing the possible format though.

I admit that it is possible to come up with such a rank (using my made up scoring criteria), but I don't see the utility or validity of such a technique.