race and iq

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farmer cjm	cjm's corrolary to Aunt Nellie's post	#261	[-]
Posts: 279 (01/04/04 11:35:50) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	"The ideal society will be ordered in such a way that it allows all gifted individuals to excel". Gifted individuals are not all that common and to overlook anyone of them is to stunt mankind's potential. To illustrate this point in a rather crude way, I wish to refer to a pocket biographical dictionary I own. It basically covers recorded history. It contains the names of some 4000 people (according to my calculations). Some of these VIP's are villains - so one cannot even bank on the fact that they all were a boon to society. Very few people thus have had a dramatic impact on society. One cannot of course discount the possibility that a particular society may owe a large measure of its success to a general population with a better than average IQ - without any particular outstanding individual. But in the end, the gifted individuals should be afforded all assistance to realize their potential.
Unregistered(d)	Blacks lack intellectual firepower	#262	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/04/04 14:48:13) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	As a collectivity blacks lack intellectual firepower. Iq tests show this. The lack of black achievement shows this. The state of black nations shows this. Our everyday encounters with blacks shows this. Hell, this thread of 200+ posts shows this.
Unregistered(d)	Nope	#263	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/06/04 04:02:47) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	It just shows how gullible you racists are.
all moving parts stand still	Re: Nope	#264	[-]
Posts: 191 (01/06/04 13:14:44) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	who's gullible? i've given you 52 phds, scientific studies from prestigious institutions such as scientific american, as well as my own arguments and have gotten nothing but the faithfully dogmatic repetion of the precepts of pc in return.
Unregistered(d)	52 is not good enough	#265	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/06/04 13:50:43) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	A raw canibal from Papua New guinea replete with mad cow's disease has more brains in his big toe that all your racialist Phd scribes put together
all moving parts stand still	Re: 52 is not good enough	#266	[-]
Posts: 191 (01/06/04 15:06:17) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	good enough for what? it's a lot better than zero! and you have yet to argue WHY they are wrong, just that (you believe) they are. your only counterargument has been to question the validity of the concept of race, which 1) is not necessary for the alternative version of the original argument 2) has been refuted by the multiple instances cited in which the concept of race has been used in scientific contexts, including medicine, and by the scntfc amrcn article.
Unregistered(d)	The real thing	#267	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/07/04 04:37:04) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	www.journals.uchicago.edu...24642.html Am. J. Hum. Genet., 72:578-589, 2003 0002-9297/2003/7203-0009$15.00 2003 by The American Society of Human Genetics. All rights reserved. Human Population Genetic Structure and Inference of Group Membership Michael J. Bamshad,1,2 Stephen Wooding,2 W. Scott Watkins,2 Christopher T. Ostler,2 Mark A. Batzer,3 and Lynn B. Jorde2 Departments of 1Pediatrics and 2Human Genetics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City; and 3Biological Sciences, Biological Computation and Visualization Center, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge "Our analysis is based on samples from regions of Africa, Asia, and Europe that are widely separated from one another. Accordingly, these samples also maximize the degree of genetic variation among populations. The performance (and, hence, the power) of these markers to differentiate among populations from these continents would be reduced if samples were included from regions geographically intermediate between the regions sampled here (e.g., the Middle East, Central Asia). Indeed, detection of population structure and assignment of samples to the correct genetically inferred cluster was less accurate for samples from geographically intermediate southern India. Importantly, the inclusion of such samples demonstrates geographic continuity in the distribution of genetic variation and thus undermines traditional concepts of race. The results of our power calculations, however, are important because they set a minimum for the number of markers that must be tested to make strong inferences about detecting population structure when groups are widely dispersed. " This is part of the original paper referred to in the Scientific American.
Unregistered(d)	i forgot where i are	#268	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/07/04 08:27:41) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	some general comments on race and iq: 1)we must keep in mind that we are only speaking about averages of large numbers and not individuals. anecdotal references to individuals are therefore irrelevant ("i work with a lot of smart black guys"; "the chinese guy down the street is kind of slow"; "Langston Hughes was a great poet"; etc) 2) ad hominem arguments, in which an argument is dismissed merely on the basis of some unsavoury qualities of the person who made it, are also irrelevant. just because adolf hitler said that 2+2=4 doesn't mean that 2+2 doesn't in fact =4 (re: pioneer fund, dr.lynn, etc.) 3)the cultural bias of iq tests is far from evident. in fact, the main argument for beleiving that they are is the underachievment of some groups on these tests. this is a circular argument. iq tests involve mostly culturally neutral elements such as numbers, shapes, and patterns. 4) iq involves only one particular kind of intelligence. this is not the same as saying that it is separate from intelligence. the kind of intelligence measured by iq tests is relevant for the aquisition of a wide range of skills that are valued in the contemporary marketplace. 5) challenges to scientific validity of the concept of race are instances of the "line drawing fallacy": just because a group cannot be defined such that all x are either within or without the group does not mean that the concept of the group is meaningless. for example, baldness is not clearly defined: how few hairs do you have to have on your head to be considered bald? no one knows, but this does not stop us from successfully referring to baldness. the concept of race is increasingly being used by scientists to track genetic disorders (ty sachs [sp?] in the jewish poulation, sickle cell amongst blacks, etc.) please see steven pinker's recent book, the blank slate, for more on this. 6)the burden of proof lies with those who wish to argue that the average iq of(negroes, blacks, african aborigines, bantus, whatever) is not in fact lower than that of other groups, as a variety of factors besides the tests indicate that it is: a)the theory of evolution. there was a long period during which some groups were migrating out of africa while others remained. it is inconceivable that the forces of natural selection brought to bear during this period exclusively affected things such as nose shape and hair texture while leaving the brain unaffected. b)history. the lag in iq is often explained in terms of the oppression to which blacks have been subjected (slavery, colonialism, apartheid), but this is to invert the "causal arrows" that indicate what caused what and what was caused by what. the oppression of blacks was made possible by their lack of technology, which in turn can best be explained by low average iq, as this kind of intelligence is relevant for technological pursuits. we should note that this dearth of technology in subsaharan (black) africa includes the absence of any written language or numerical system. therefore, it is the low iq which caused the oppression and not the other way around. c) comparative anatomy. i am unaware of any successful refutation of the claim that average cranium size is lower amongst blacks than other groups. rather, attempts are made to dismiss the relevance of cranium size to intelligence, which is to invert the burden of proof once again. that cranium size is correlated with mental capacity is evident when comparing the lower animals. if it is irrelevant in the case of comparing humans, we would need to see a cogent argument to that effect. d)performance on other tests such as those for school admissions remain lower for blacks even within groups of the same economic status in many different countries across the globe. so what is the conclusion of all this? what is the relevance to contemporary society? well, for one thing it does not mean that we can just look at a black person and presume that s/he has limited intelligence. this would be to ignore point#1)stressing the difference between group assessments and those of individuals, as well as point #4) about different kinds of intelligence. on the other hand, it does mean that there is no reason for us to expect that harvard's student body should be 12% black or that wits' should be 75% black. i beleive that what is necessary is for other kinds of intelligences besides that measured by iq to be accorded places of value, allowing all groups, as well as all individuals, to excel in their own way. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/15/03 10:08 pm) Reply Full circle -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Until you are able to define race, the entire argument is meaningless. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/16/03 12:56 am) Reply Race -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The End of Race? By Salim Muwakkil \| 6.20.03 print \| email \| comment As the sciences discredit long-held notions of racial taxonomy, racism endures. Im not sure if many Americans have noticed, but the concept of race has taken some devastating hits in recent years. Everywhere one looks in academia these daysfrom the abstract precincts of critical theory to the hard laboratories of molecular geneticsonce-mighty notions of racial taxonomy have fallen hard. The latest assault on race was a three-part PBS series, Race: The Power of an Illusion. Produced by California Newsreel, the series covers a wide range of race-related issues. But the programs title is its major point: Racial differences are illusory. For many Americans, this is pretty radical stuff. Well before the republic was founded, the belief in racial hierarchy was deeply embedded in our national culture, and there it endures. A persons economic and social well-being remains closely correlated to racial identity. Notwithstanding those socio-economic distinctions, the idea of racial difference seems obvious; people with a certain skin color and hair texture also tend to have common behavioral traits. However, science is revealing that those observable, natural differences are social constructions rather than biological facts. The Difference Between Us, the first episode of Race, explains that humanity emerged in Africa about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago and began migrating out about 70,000 years ago. As humans spread across the planet, populations intermingled, creating a variety of genetic interrelationships. These are not always what one might expect: Some Europeans have more genes in common with Nigerians than do Nigerians with Ethiopians, and so on. Most variation is within, not between, races. The first segment also notes that many of our phenotypic characteristics, like skin color, evolved recently, after we left Africa. But traits like intelligence, musical ability, and physical aptitude are of a more ancient genetic vintage and thus are common to all populations. As if on cue, a recent archeological find provided corroborating fossil evidence for this genetic view of human history. The June 12 issue of Nature revealed that scientists working in northeast Ethiopia found the 160,000-year-old remains of two adults and a child that are said to be the earliest human remains ever discovered. According to Tim White, the University of California paleoanthropologist who led the team, this discovery means our roots are African. According to the New York Times, the theory of an African genesis of humanity had gained wide support in the last two decades thanks to the research findings of the growing science of molecular genetics. These genetic studies, based on evolutionary changes in mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mother to daughter, have concluded that humanity had a common ancestor in Africathe so-called African Eve. Before the advent of high-tech genetics, the reigning doctrines of white supremacy discouraged any consideration of an African genesis of humanity. And despite increasing archaeological evidence, many anthropologists resisted tracing humanitys origins to the so-called Dark Continent. The more radical white supremacists postulated that there was a multiregional evolution, in which Europeans evolved from another branch of hominids altogetherthe hearty Neanderthals. However, genetic studies have revealed no Neanderthal DNA in modern humans. A preponderance of genetic evidence reveals the ironic fact that the same Europeans who created the idea of race and white supremacy are genetic progeny of the Africans they devalued. With this view of history, its clear that the concept of race is an insidious fiction created primarily to justify exploitation, slavery, and imperial conquest. Races second episode, The Story We Tell, explores this sordid history, tracing the origins of the racial idea to the European conquest of the New World and to the American slave system. We see how the logic of racial hierarchy, which placed Africans on the lowest rung of humanity, allowed self-professed Christians to justify the institution of racial slavery. New York University historian Robin D.G. Kelley points out that the Enlightenment idea of freedom led to the ideology of white supremacy: The problem that they had to figure out is how can we promote liberty, freedom, democracy on the one hand, and a system of slavery and exploitation of people who are non-white on the other? They did it by dehumanizing enslaved Africans. The episode notes that by the mid-19th century, the idea of racial hierarchy and its corollary, white supremacy, had become conventional wisdom. The idea found fruition in racial science, Manifest Destiny, and our imperial adventures abroad, reads the PBS Web site for the episode. The final episode, The House We Live In, focuses on the ways U.S. institutions and policies advantage some groups at the expense of others. It outlines the historical trajectory of racial disadvantage and shows how it remains easily discernable in the wealth gap and disparities in other social indices. The segment also examines the unmarked race of white people. Here the documentary slides in some of the insights developed by the nascent Whiteness movement, which defines the very idea of white identity as an ideology of racial domination. Race: The Power of an Illusion concludes that racial inequality will remain a feature of this nations social structures until we seriously address the legacy of past discrimination and confront the historical meaning of race. The producers hope their series will blow some fresh air through a stagnant social debate and stir some new interest. I hope theyre right, but I doubt it. Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983, and a weekly op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He is currently a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute, examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in leadership positions in the black community. weasel Unregistered User (7/16/03 6:13 am) Reply only the Mighty Jesus can race ahead of us all -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh I keep shouting woo woo woo for the Mighty Jesus! Woo woo! Oh my Jesus! Woo woo! The Mighty Jesus is the only race worth considering. All the rest is satan's work. Woo woo for the Mighty Jesus. Woo woo! Sir Lancelotuk Unregistered User (7/16/03 7:27 am) Reply Red Ed, you OK? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now who the hell is this camel jockey, Salim Muwakil? There is no such thing as race. You born blind, boy? Open thine eyes and cast a glance around and you gonna see different races. Next you are going to tell us there are no different species of animals. Undoubtedly you are the most plumb ignorant fellah I ever come across and believe me I come across many highly stoopid people. But I guess you take the cake. I hereby designate you the ClubAfrica Mpara of the week. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/18/03 7:13 pm) Reply How do you define race? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm keen to see your scientific definitions. national acrobat Unregistered User (7/23/03 11:31 pm) Reply race/iq -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st of all i would like to know how my post migrated to this forum from the m&g site where it had originally been posted as a response to another post by sir L which is also no longer there. i have never been to this sit befor in my life. why does my m&g assigned password work on this site? with respect to the scientific validity of the concept of race, you should refer back to my discussion of the line drawing fallacy. just because a concept cannot be defined such that all members of the domain (in this case human beings) are either included or excluded does not mean that the concept is meaningless. if my example of baldness (do you have a scientific def of that, ed?) is not enough to convince you8, consider that my 5 month pregnant sister wqas asked by her doctors if she had any black, american aborigine or jewish people in her family so as to determine if sickle-cell or ty sachs testing was in order. this is but one (personal) example of the use of the concept of race in a medical, and hence scientific context. with reference to the pbs show (and remember, it is just that, a show), such programs know what their audience is and on what side their bread is buttered (and let us not hear any skwaks about pbs being public and removed from vested interests)their audience, as well as that of other us tv shows consists of the mainstream "dont worry, be happy" people who wish to beleive in an undifferentiated blob of humanity existing solely for the purpose of pleasure. it is for this decadent audience, and not for the sake of truth that their programs' content is tailored. if you ar still unsure about the scientific validity of race or of its correlation to iq, please see the dec 14 (or thereabouts) letters page of the wall st journal where 75 phds in psych, genetics, and other fields signed a letter arguing for the truth of just such a correlation. national acrobat Unregistered User (7/23/03 11:41 pm) Reply oops! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the year of the wsj letter was 1994 Sir Lancelotuk Unregistered User (7/23/03 11:56 pm) Reply No mystery -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I posted on race and iq many months ago. I noticed a few days ago you made a reply and this thread suddenly emerged . Now Sir Lancelot was displayed as the originator of the thread. Now he has been banned for being a "racist". Obviously the visibility of the name frightened the moderator and the whole thread was wiped out completely, utterly and totally. Now someone must have pasted and copied part of it here before it was wiped out. You will find out that other non PC threads tend to disappear. Sir Lancelotuk Unregistered User (7/23/03 11:57 pm) Reply No mystery -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I posted on race and iq many months ago. I noticed a few days ago you made a reply and this thread suddenly emerged . Now Sir Lancelot was displayed as the originator of the thread. Now he has been banned for being a "racist". Obviously the visibility of the name frightened the moderator and the whole thread was wiped out completely, utterly and totally. Now someone must have pasted and copied part of it here before it was wiped out. You will find out that other non PC threads tend to disappear from the MG site. At the moment there there is quite a squabble about censorship there by the site devotees. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/24/03 9:24 am) Reply Still no definitions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Any racial classification is arbitrary. Therefore I ask again, what scientific definitions are you using? BMFO Registered User (7/24/03 9:30 pm) Reply Race? Race? Race? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Struth! All this about race. I agree with Ed the Red that race is some non-scientific description of what appears to be different. The so-called Coloreds [Coloureds] are what race? Sudanese, after millenia of mixinbg with Arabs, are what race? I cannot describe a so-called white person cos not one of the gits is the same. Race? It's the same as the labelling on a tin of paint. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/24/03 9:49 pm) Reply my bleeding heart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- you need a label to know what's inside Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/24/03 10:18 pm) Reply Post under your own name. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twit national acrobat Unregistered User (7/27/03 11:14 pm) Reply def race, etc -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "race: Biology: a population of organisms differing from others in the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits" -- Webster's dictionary what about Bulldogs, bloodhounds, and Greyhounds? Are these "arbitrary" terms? are they meaningless just because some dogs are the result of crossbreeding? are you disputing the fact that the average running speed of the greyhound is faster than that of the other 2? are bulldogs not generally stronger than the other 2? don't bloodhounds have a better sense of smell? the exact date of the statement in the wsj was dec 13, 1994. it can also be found in the academic journal "intelligence", 1997, vol. 24, pp 1-320 on july 30, 02, the new york times published an article about dr. neil hirsch and his documentation of the utility of the conept of race in tracking genetic diseases. also from the new york times, on sept 17, 02 there was a book review of dr. steven pinker's book, the blank slate, and a discussion of his argument that intelligence is for the most part genetically determined. as far as your mentioning the show on pbs, we should 1st note that while i have given you a convergeance of data among the fields of psychometrics, academic standardized tests, the theory of evolution, history, and anatomy that indicates that average negro intelligence is lower than that of asiatics and caucasians, as well as access to the names of 52 phds who agree with this claim. i have also given you the names of 2 phds who testify to the truth of particular aspects of my argument. in response, you have given me A TV SHOW! in this tv show, we hear the hoary plattitude that there are more variations between members of the same race than there are between members of different races.(wait a minute, i thought that you sais that ther were no such things! ) of course, this is true if we consider all genetic variations to be equal. if, however, we focus on 1 particular trait, such as intelligence, we find that interracial differences are greater than intraracial ones. basically, this means that while a black man has no more or less of a likelihood of having a smaller stomach, liver, or colon than a white man, he does have a greater likelihood of having a smaller brain than a white man next, we hear that the differences between races (i'm still wondering about all of this scientific study of an "arbitrary" term are restricted to superficial traits such as skin color and hair texture. this flies in the face of the already established correlation between race and disease. it also implies that a larger brain would not be naturally selected for as ice age humans migrated out of still warm africa, encountering an environment in which finding food and shelter required long organized hunts. what was their argument for this counter-intuitive claim? finally, most of your post focuses on the claim that all of humanity originated in africa, inexplicably sidestepping the fact that that my acknowledgement of THE TRUTH OF THIS CLAIM IS CENTRAL TO MY ARGUMENT! in a nutshell, humans originated in africa and evolved elsewhere. national acrobat Unregistered User (7/27/03 11:31 pm) Reply very old honkeys -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- also from my research dept.: nyt article aug 6, 02 talks about how caucasians split off from the rest of humanity much earlier than had been earlier thought (including in the pbs show) klip Unregistered User (7/27/03 11:59 pm) Reply racism or just cultural differences -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Racism, as I understand it, is a tendency to see people as genetically distinct races and to impute immutable and unique behavioral characteristics to them. My dictionary says it's "the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others." Often prejudice, which is distinct from racism, is based on unfair but not irrational generalizations about the behavior of the members of other groups. Putting it bluntly as long as black people at substantially higher rates than whites and Asians have illegitimate children, commit crimes, abuse drugs, and refuse to apply themselves in school, there will be racism; many non-blacks will prefer not to share neighborhoods with black people, and will be more reluctant to get to know black people than people of other races. Racism among humans is overwhelmingly based upon cultural differences the actual genetic differences between human "races" are so infinitesimal that making sweeping statements is rarely useful and often dangerous. Genetic differences between human races are literally superficial. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/28/03 10:01 am) Reply biological race -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For a biological race to be defined there must be unique and universal features. Easy for dog breeds because we make them so. Not so easy for humans as they tend to interbreed. trainer Unregistered User (7/28/03 10:18 am) Reply left to their own devices dogs interbreed as well -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- mongrels GreatTacklingOne Registered User (7/28/03 11:17 am) Reply Tough -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mongrels are invariably more disease-resistant, fitter, smarter and tougher than pure-breeds... national acrobat Unregistered User (7/28/03 4:19 pm) Reply race and racism -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- you say that racism is the belief that race determines character OR ability. that disjunction is critical for me. if it is the former, then i am not racist, as i have said nothing about any race/character correlation. if it is the later, i am still probably not a racist, depending on your definition of "determine" if you mean "determine" in some ineluctable, absolute sense, then no, i do not think that the simple fact of being black absolutely precludes the possibility of being intelligent, as i hope i made clear in my original post, where i stressed the difference between discussing individuals and groups. if by "determine" you mean "is corellated to", then yes, i am racist, as i believe that i have given a strong argument establishing the correlation between race and one particular kind of intellectual ability which anyone has yet to provide any refutation for. when discussing the cultuaral bases for racism, you should also refer back to my original post, where i mentioned that many oif the phenomena frequently used to explain intellectual disparity (slavery, etc)can themselves be explained in terms of low average iq. the cultural traits that you mention are derivative of the systems of oppression, which are themselves derivative of low average iq, which is the result of generalized genetic differences. in a nutshell, low iq causes one to be oppressed (by technological domination), and oppression causes an indisciplined, dysfunctional culture manifested by the social ills you refer to. the solution to many of these problems lies in treating individuals as individuals and treating groups as groups. 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Unregistered(d)	Ignore the idiot	#269	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/12/04 03:58:35) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	"Importantly, the inclusion of such samples demonstrates geographic continuity in the distribution of genetic variation and thus undermines traditional concepts of race." Your comments, natac?
all moving parts stand still	same old same old	#270	[-]
Posts: 191 (01/12/04 10:14:39) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	yes, there are grey areas in between the black and the white. this was mentioned in the very 1st post. this does absolutely nothing to deter us from making genaralizations about black and white. consider the statement "overweight people are (on average) at greater risk for heart disease". the fact that some people are in the grey area between health and obesity does nothing to invalidate this claim. the same goes with the race/iq connection.
Unregistered(d)	Damn sonny boy	#271	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/12/04 11:49:39) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	how's come you have all this time to make long winded post that only you read?.
Unregistered(d)	I have	#272	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/12/04 11:55:44) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	sucked my dummy today.
Unregistered(d)	What are you doing boy	#273	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/12/04 12:05:51) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	regurgitating posts again
all moving parts stand still	kind of interesting in the present context	#274	[-]
Posts: 191 (01/13/04 15:24:21) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=29495 'Indonesia Jones' theory for Africa 11 January 2004 07:39 They were Africa's Vikings. Tough, daring voyagers who sailed thousands of kilometres to pluck riches from unmapped lands known today as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and Nigeria. Centuries before Europeans, mariners from Indonesia raided and traded across the continent, filling their vessels with gold and silver for the princes of Java and Sumatra. In return they gave Africa the secrets of iron and bronze, exotic plants such as banana and yams, and a new culture enriched with music, architecture and spirituality. And then the seafarers vanished. Some died, some returned home, others inter-married with the locals. So absorbed was the Asian influence that by the time the white man came he never noticed it. So says a controversial new theory about Africa's development more than 2 000 years ago which could revive a racially tinged debate about whether outsiders fathered certain advances in technology, agriculture and art. The researcher making these claims is no professional historian. Robert Dick-Read never finished university and has no academic qualifications. But his self-confessed "obsession" with Indonesia's influence has fuelled more than 50 years' lonely slog collecting evidence which has been turned into a manuscript which will, he hopes, prove his case. Some experts have rubbished Dick-Read as misguided, but others say the "Indonesia Jones" thesis is plausible. An unrelated attempt to demonstrate that mariners from south Asia could have reached west Africa is halfway to success: an expedition which reconstructed a ship illustrated in the reliefs of an 8th century Buddhist temple in Java has crossed the Indian Ocean and reached South Africa, destination Ghana. After stopping in Cape Town last week the 15-strong crew will resume the voyage today, said Mujoko, an Indonesian crew member. "We believe our ancestors came here. When we finish I think historians will appreciate that this voyage would have been possible." It is generally agreed that approximately 1 500 years ago sailors from Indonesia and Malaysia, famed navigators who roved the Pacific, also sailed 5 920km west and settled Madagascar, a vast island off Mozambique. It might be expected that they also explored the African mainland, just 240km further away, but unlike Madagascar there is little evidence: people on the continent do not resemble or talk like Indonesians. Historians have noted fragments of Asian influence across Africa -- plants, craftwork, instruments -- but largely rejected the notion that it came via fleets of Indonesian double-outrigger canoes. Inspired by a 1959 seminar at London's School of Oriental and African Studies, Dick-Read (73) has spent decades travelling the continent bolting those fragments into a radical theory of "Africa's vikings" which he hopes to publish this year. Indonesian spices such as cassia and cinnamon which ancient Rome imported came not via India but east Africa after an epic sea voyage, he says, which would also explain how early iron age pottery spread so quickly in the first and second century AD down the coast from Kenya all the way to South Africa. Plants such as banana, plantain and yam are widely believed to have originated in Indonesia and Dick-Read cites oral and written accounts of rituals related to the food which suggest they reached west Africa too early for overland travellers. Dick-Read says pottery and bronze sculptures found in Nigeria also came from seafarers since they were too far from Saharan trade routes and too sophisticated for indigenous artwork of that time. Sir Mervyn Brown, Britain's former ambassador to Madagascar and a historian of the region, found Dick-Read's conclusions "generally plausible" and urged fresh research. "Dick-Read has not provided any great new revelations in this area but has produced more detailed supporting evidence," he said. "The influence in west Africa is not generally known, even among academics." Other historians disagree. Robert Soper, an authority on east Africa, said there was no known evidence from artefacts, for example, of Indonesians spreading the iron age down the coast. - Guardian Unlimited Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
Unregistered(d)	We are all grey then	#275	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/15/04 05:09:28) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The vast majority of the world's population would then fit in the grey area. Taking a random sample of people from the streets of New York, Sao Paulo, Cairo, Paris or Calcutta - you wouldn't be able to find a single continent of origin for most of the individuals. The generalisation is therefore false.
Unregistered(d)	Use Emoticons	#276	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/15/04 09:34:08) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	some general comments on race and iq: 1)we must keep in mind that we are only speaking about averages of large numbers and not individuals. anecdotal references to individuals are therefore irrelevant ("i work with a lot of smart black guys"; "the chinese guy down the street is kind of slow"; "Langston Hughes was a great poet"; etc) 2) ad hominem arguments, in which an argument is dismissed merely on the basis of some unsavoury qualities of the person who made it, are also irrelevant. just because adolf hitler said that 2+2=4 doesn't mean that 2+2 doesn't in fact =4 (re: pioneer fund, dr.lynn, etc.) 3)the cultural bias of iq tests is far from evident. in fact, the main argument for beleiving that they are is the underachievment of some groups on these tests. this is a circular argument. iq tests involve mostly culturally neutral elements such as numbers, shapes, and patterns. 4) iq involves only one particular kind of intelligence. this is not the same as saying that it is separate from intelligence. the kind of intelligence measured by iq tests is relevant for the aquisition of a wide range of skills that are valued in the contemporary marketplace. 5) challenges to scientific validity of the concept of race are instances of the "line drawing fallacy": just because a group cannot be defined such that all x are either within or without the group does not mean that the concept of the group is meaningless. for example, baldness is not clearly defined: how few hairs do you have to have on your head to be considered bald? no one knows, but this does not stop us from successfully referring to baldness. the concept of race is increasingly being used by scientists to track genetic disorders (ty sachs [sp?] in the jewish poulation, sickle cell amongst blacks, etc.) please see steven pinker's recent book, the blank slate, for more on this. 6)the burden of proof lies with those who wish to argue that the average iq of(negroes, blacks, african aborigines, bantus, whatever) is not in fact lower than that of other groups, as a variety of factors besides the tests indicate that it is: a)the theory of evolution. there was a long period during which some groups were migrating out of africa while others remained. it is inconceivable that the forces of natural selection brought to bear during this period exclusively affected things such as nose shape and hair texture while leaving the brain unaffected. b)history. the lag in iq is often explained in terms of the oppression to which blacks have been subjected (slavery, colonialism, apartheid), but this is to invert the "causal arrows" that indicate what caused what and what was caused by what. the oppression of blacks was made possible by their lack of technology, which in turn can best be explained by low average iq, as this kind of intelligence is relevant for technological pursuits. we should note that this dearth of technology in subsaharan (black) africa includes the absence of any written language or numerical system. therefore, it is the low iq which caused the oppression and not the other way around. c) comparative anatomy. i am unaware of any successful refutation of the claim that average cranium size is lower amongst blacks than other groups. rather, attempts are made to dismiss the relevance of cranium size to intelligence, which is to invert the burden of proof once again. that cranium size is correlated with mental capacity is evident when comparing the lower animals. if it is irrelevant in the case of comparing humans, we would need to see a cogent argument to that effect. d)performance on other tests such as those for school admissions remain lower for blacks even within groups of the same economic status in many different countries across the globe. so what is the conclusion of all this? what is the relevance to contemporary society? well, for one thing it does not mean that we can just look at a black person and presume that s/he has limited intelligence. this would be to ignore point#1)stressing the difference between group assessments and those of individuals, as well as point #4) about different kinds of intelligence. on the other hand, it does mean that there is no reason for us to expect that harvard's student body should be 12% black or that wits' should be 75% black. i beleive that what is necessary is for other kinds of intelligences besides that measured by iq to be accorded places of value, allowing all groups, as well as all individuals, to excel in their own way. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/15/03 10:08 pm) Reply Full circle -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Until you are able to define race, the entire argument is meaningless. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/16/03 12:56 am) Reply Race -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The End of Race? By Salim Muwakkil \| 6.20.03 print \| email \| comment As the sciences discredit long-held notions of racial taxonomy, racism endures. Im not sure if many Americans have noticed, but the concept of race has taken some devastating hits in recent years. Everywhere one looks in academia these daysfrom the abstract precincts of critical theory to the hard laboratories of molecular geneticsonce-mighty notions of racial taxonomy have fallen hard. The latest assault on race was a three-part PBS series, Race: The Power of an Illusion. Produced by California Newsreel, the series covers a wide range of race-related issues. But the programs title is its major point: Racial differences are illusory. For many Americans, this is pretty radical stuff. Well before the republic was founded, the belief in racial hierarchy was deeply embedded in our national culture, and there it endures. A persons economic and social well-being remains closely correlated to racial identity. Notwithstanding those socio-economic distinctions, the idea of racial difference seems obvious; people with a certain skin color and hair texture also tend to have common behavioral traits. However, science is revealing that those observable, natural differences are social constructions rather than biological facts. The Difference Between Us, the first episode of Race, explains that humanity emerged in Africa about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago and began migrating out about 70,000 years ago. As humans spread across the planet, populations intermingled, creating a variety of genetic interrelationships. These are not always what one might expect: Some Europeans have more genes in common with Nigerians than do Nigerians with Ethiopians, and so on. Most variation is within, not between, races. The first segment also notes that many of our phenotypic characteristics, like skin color, evolved recently, after we left Africa. But traits like intelligence, musical ability, and physical aptitude are of a more ancient genetic vintage and thus are common to all populations. As if on cue, a recent archeological find provided corroborating fossil evidence for this genetic view of human history. The June 12 issue of Nature revealed that scientists working in northeast Ethiopia found the 160,000-year-old remains of two adults and a child that are said to be the earliest human remains ever discovered. According to Tim White, the University of California paleoanthropologist who led the team, this discovery means our roots are African. According to the New York Times, the theory of an African genesis of humanity had gained wide support in the last two decades thanks to the research findings of the growing science of molecular genetics. These genetic studies, based on evolutionary changes in mitochondrial DNA, which is passed from mother to daughter, have concluded that humanity had a common ancestor in Africathe so-called African Eve. Before the advent of high-tech genetics, the reigning doctrines of white supremacy discouraged any consideration of an African genesis of humanity. And despite increasing archaeological evidence, many anthropologists resisted tracing humanitys origins to the so-called Dark Continent. The more radical white supremacists postulated that there was a multiregional evolution, in which Europeans evolved from another branch of hominids altogetherthe hearty Neanderthals. However, genetic studies have revealed no Neanderthal DNA in modern humans. A preponderance of genetic evidence reveals the ironic fact that the same Europeans who created the idea of race and white supremacy are genetic progeny of the Africans they devalued. With this view of history, its clear that the concept of race is an insidious fiction created primarily to justify exploitation, slavery, and imperial conquest. Races second episode, The Story We Tell, explores this sordid history, tracing the origins of the racial idea to the European conquest of the New World and to the American slave system. We see how the logic of racial hierarchy, which placed Africans on the lowest rung of humanity, allowed self-professed Christians to justify the institution of racial slavery. New York University historian Robin D.G. Kelley points out that the Enlightenment idea of freedom led to the ideology of white supremacy: The problem that they had to figure out is how can we promote liberty, freedom, democracy on the one hand, and a system of slavery and exploitation of people who are non-white on the other? They did it by dehumanizing enslaved Africans. The episode notes that by the mid-19th century, the idea of racial hierarchy and its corollary, white supremacy, had become conventional wisdom. The idea found fruition in racial science, Manifest Destiny, and our imperial adventures abroad, reads the PBS Web site for the episode. The final episode, The House We Live In, focuses on the ways U.S. institutions and policies advantage some groups at the expense of others. It outlines the historical trajectory of racial disadvantage and shows how it remains easily discernable in the wealth gap and disparities in other social indices. The segment also examines the unmarked race of white people. Here the documentary slides in some of the insights developed by the nascent Whiteness movement, which defines the very idea of white identity as an ideology of racial domination. Race: The Power of an Illusion concludes that racial inequality will remain a feature of this nations social structures until we seriously address the legacy of past discrimination and confront the historical meaning of race. The producers hope their series will blow some fresh air through a stagnant social debate and stir some new interest. I hope theyre right, but I doubt it. Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983, and a weekly op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He is currently a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute, examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in leadership positions in the black community. weasel Unregistered User (7/16/03 6:13 am) Reply only the Mighty Jesus can race ahead of us all -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Oh I keep shouting woo woo woo for the Mighty Jesus! Woo woo! Oh my Jesus! Woo woo! The Mighty Jesus is the only race worth considering. All the rest is satan's work. Woo woo for the Mighty Jesus. Woo woo! Sir Lancelotuk Unregistered User (7/16/03 7:27 am) Reply Red Ed, you OK? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now who the hell is this camel jockey, Salim Muwakil? There is no such thing as race. You born blind, boy? Open thine eyes and cast a glance around and you gonna see different races. Next you are going to tell us there are no different species of animals. Undoubtedly you are the most plumb ignorant fellah I ever come across and believe me I come across many highly stoopid people. But I guess you take the cake. I hereby designate you the ClubAfrica Mpara of the week. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/18/03 7:13 pm) Reply How do you define race? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I'm keen to see your scientific definitions. national acrobat Unregistered User (7/23/03 11:31 pm) Reply race/iq -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1st of all i would like to know how my post migrated to this forum from the m&g site where it had originally been posted as a response to another post by sir L which is also no longer there. i have never been to this sit befor in my life. why does my m&g assigned password work on this site? with respect to the scientific validity of the concept of race, you should refer back to my discussion of the line drawing fallacy. just because a concept cannot be defined such that all members of the domain (in this case human beings) are either included or excluded does not mean that the concept is meaningless. if my example of baldness (do you have a scientific def of that, ed?) is not enough to convince you8, consider that my 5 month pregnant sister wqas asked by her doctors if she had any black, american aborigine or jewish people in her family so as to determine if sickle-cell or ty sachs testing was in order. this is but one (personal) example of the use of the concept of race in a medical, and hence scientific context. with reference to the pbs show (and remember, it is just that, a show), such programs know what their audience is and on what side their bread is buttered (and let us not hear any skwaks about pbs being public and removed from vested interests)their audience, as well as that of other us tv shows consists of the mainstream "dont worry, be happy" people who wish to beleive in an undifferentiated blob of humanity existing solely for the purpose of pleasure. it is for this decadent audience, and not for the sake of truth that their programs' content is tailored. if you ar still unsure about the scientific validity of race or of its correlation to iq, please see the dec 14 (or thereabouts) letters page of the wall st journal where 75 phds in psych, genetics, and other fields signed a letter arguing for the truth of just such a correlation. national acrobat Unregistered User (7/23/03 11:41 pm) Reply oops! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the year of the wsj letter was 1994 Sir Lancelotuk Unregistered User (7/23/03 11:56 pm) Reply No mystery -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I posted on race and iq many months ago. I noticed a few days ago you made a reply and this thread suddenly emerged . Now Sir Lancelot was displayed as the originator of the thread. Now he has been banned for being a "racist". Obviously the visibility of the name frightened the moderator and the whole thread was wiped out completely, utterly and totally. Now someone must have pasted and copied part of it here before it was wiped out. You will find out that other non PC threads tend to disappear. Sir Lancelotuk Unregistered User (7/23/03 11:57 pm) Reply No mystery -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I posted on race and iq many months ago. I noticed a few days ago you made a reply and this thread suddenly emerged . Now Sir Lancelot was displayed as the originator of the thread. Now he has been banned for being a "racist". Obviously the visibility of the name frightened the moderator and the whole thread was wiped out completely, utterly and totally. Now someone must have pasted and copied part of it here before it was wiped out. You will find out that other non PC threads tend to disappear from the MG site. At the moment there there is quite a squabble about censorship there by the site devotees. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/24/03 9:24 am) Reply Still no definitions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Any racial classification is arbitrary. Therefore I ask again, what scientific definitions are you using? BMFO Registered User (7/24/03 9:30 pm) Reply Race? Race? Race? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Struth! All this about race. I agree with Ed the Red that race is some non-scientific description of what appears to be different. The so-called Coloreds [Coloureds] are what race? Sudanese, after millenia of mixinbg with Arabs, are what race? I cannot describe a so-called white person cos not one of the gits is the same. Race? It's the same as the labelling on a tin of paint. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/24/03 9:49 pm) Reply my bleeding heart -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- you need a label to know what's inside Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/24/03 10:18 pm) Reply Post under your own name. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Twit national acrobat Unregistered User (7/27/03 11:14 pm) Reply def race, etc -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "race: Biology: a population of organisms differing from others in the same species in the frequency of hereditary traits" -- Webster's dictionary what about Bulldogs, bloodhounds, and Greyhounds? Are these "arbitrary" terms? are they meaningless just because some dogs are the result of crossbreeding? are you disputing the fact that the average running speed of the greyhound is faster than that of the other 2? are bulldogs not generally stronger than the other 2? don't bloodhounds have a better sense of smell? the exact date of the statement in the wsj was dec 13, 1994. it can also be found in the academic journal "intelligence", 1997, vol. 24, pp 1-320 on july 30, 02, the new york times published an article about dr. neil hirsch and his documentation of the utility of the conept of race in tracking genetic diseases. also from the new york times, on sept 17, 02 there was a book review of dr. steven pinker's book, the blank slate, and a discussion of his argument that intelligence is for the most part genetically determined. as far as your mentioning the show on pbs, we should 1st note that while i have given you a convergeance of data among the fields of psychometrics, academic standardized tests, the theory of evolution, history, and anatomy that indicates that average negro intelligence is lower than that of asiatics and caucasians, as well as access to the names of 52 phds who agree with this claim. i have also given you the names of 2 phds who testify to the truth of particular aspects of my argument. in response, you have given me A TV SHOW! in this tv show, we hear the hoary plattitude that there are more variations between members of the same race than there are between members of different races.(wait a minute, i thought that you sais that ther were no such things! ) of course, this is true if we consider all genetic variations to be equal. if, however, we focus on 1 particular trait, such as intelligence, we find that interracial differences are greater than intraracial ones. basically, this means that while a black man has no more or less of a likelihood of having a smaller stomach, liver, or colon than a white man, he does have a greater likelihood of having a smaller brain than a white man next, we hear that the differences between races (i'm still wondering about all of this scientific study of an "arbitrary" term are restricted to superficial traits such as skin color and hair texture. this flies in the face of the already established correlation between race and disease. it also implies that a larger brain would not be naturally selected for as ice age humans migrated out of still warm africa, encountering an environment in which finding food and shelter required long organized hunts. what was their argument for this counter-intuitive claim? finally, most of your post focuses on the claim that all of humanity originated in africa, inexplicably sidestepping the fact that that my acknowledgement of THE TRUTH OF THIS CLAIM IS CENTRAL TO MY ARGUMENT! in a nutshell, humans originated in africa and evolved elsewhere. national acrobat Unregistered User (7/27/03 11:31 pm) Reply very old honkeys -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- also from my research dept.: nyt article aug 6, 02 talks about how caucasians split off from the rest of humanity much earlier than had been earlier thought (including in the pbs show) klip Unregistered User (7/27/03 11:59 pm) Reply racism or just cultural differences -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Racism, as I understand it, is a tendency to see people as genetically distinct races and to impute immutable and unique behavioral characteristics to them. My dictionary says it's "the belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others." Often prejudice, which is distinct from racism, is based on unfair but not irrational generalizations about the behavior of the members of other groups. Putting it bluntly as long as black people at substantially higher rates than whites and Asians have illegitimate children, commit crimes, abuse drugs, and refuse to apply themselves in school, there will be racism; many non-blacks will prefer not to share neighborhoods with black people, and will be more reluctant to get to know black people than people of other races. Racism among humans is overwhelmingly based upon cultural differences the actual genetic differences between human "races" are so infinitesimal that making sweeping statements is rarely useful and often dangerous. Genetic differences between human races are literally superficial. Ed the Red Unregistered User (7/28/03 10:01 am) Reply biological race -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For a biological race to be defined there must be unique and universal features. Easy for dog breeds because we make them so. Not so easy for humans as they tend to interbreed. trainer Unregistered User (7/28/03 10:18 am) Reply left to their own devices dogs interbreed as well -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- mongrels GreatTacklingOne Registered User (7/28/03 11:17 am) Reply Tough -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mongrels are invariably more disease-resistant, fitter, smarter and tougher than pure-breeds... national acrobat Unregistered User (7/28/03 4:19 pm) Reply race and racism -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- you say that racism is the belief that race determines character OR ability. that disjunction is critical for me. if it is the former, then i am not racist, as i have said nothing about any race/character correlation. if it is the later, i am still probably not a racist, depending on your definition of "determine" if you mean "determine" in some ineluctable, absolute sense, then no, i do not think that the simple fact of being black absolutely precludes the possibility of being intelligent, as i hope i made clear in my original post, where i stressed the difference between discussing individuals and groups. if by "determine" you mean "is corellated to", then yes, i am racist, as i believe that i have given a strong argument establishing the correlation between race and one particular kind of intellectual ability which anyone has yet to provide any refutation for. when discussing the cultuaral bases for racism, you should also refer back to my original post, where i mentioned that many oif the phenomena frequently used to explain intellectual disparity (slavery, etc)can themselves be explained in terms of low average iq. the cultural traits that you mention are derivative of the systems of oppression, which are themselves derivative of low average iq, which is the result of generalized genetic differences. in a nutshell, low iq causes one to be oppressed (by technological domination), and oppression causes an indisciplined, dysfunctional culture manifested by the social ills you refer to. the solution to many of these problems lies in treating individuals as individuals and treating groups as groups.
Unregistered(d)	So what's the validity of Race/IQ?	#277	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/18/04 06:42:04) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The majority of the worlds population falls into the grey area between the so-called races.
Unregistered(d)	Proves my point	#278	[-]
Posts: 0 (01/27/04 03:32:09) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	That Indonesians may have been to Africa shows that humans have intermingled and cross bred since time immemorial. There is no such thing as a pure race.
GreatTacklingOne	Bravo	#279	[-]
Posts: 1258 (01/27/04 20:13:24) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	Of course there is no such thung as a pure race. We are a planet full of hybrids. However, some of the hybridisation has resulted in more successful end products than some other hybridisations. Study the settled five continents and find your answer as to the global ranking order there. It's not rocket-science.
Unregistered(d)	Not rocket science, or science at all	#280	[-]
Posts: 0 (02/15/04 08:06:27) Reply Quote More My Recent Posts Message Me Connection Blocking Invite Ignore User's Posts	The racial basis for the IQ studies was invalid, and therefore so are the studies and their conclusions.

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