1900 words
100 posts!! A nice special post today, Robert Lindsay’s accusation of HBD being ‘racist’ is on the table today. As always, I want to hear what you want me to write on so send me an email, address is in the sidebar.
Robert Lindsay asks “Is HBD an Ideology of Hatred and Racism?” It, of course, isn’t. Today I’ll rebut his piece saying that it is “hatred and ‘racism’ (whatever that means)”. He says that HBDers who resist ‘racism’ (which I will address later) are “swimming against the tide” and “probably have to exercise a bit of self-control to not go over to the dark side.” What is he even talking about? What “dark side” is there? Being ‘racist’?
This is because HBD facts tend to lend pretty regularly to quite a bit of racism and the hatred that goes along with it. And if you notice, the more hardcore the HBD’er is, the more racist they tend to sound.
Of course these facts lead to ‘racism’, however, these ‘racists’ will be ‘racist’ with or without the facts of HBD. I will touch more on that later. In the meantime, he says “the more hardcore the HBD’er is, the more racist they tend to sound.” Robert, are you just making broad generalizations? Do you have anything to back your claim on this statement? Or are you just talking out of your ass?
HBD in and of itself is not racist of course, not in any sane sense of the word.
I agree with him saying that the Left has destroyed any “meaning” that the word “racist” has. However, even without the overstating of the word “racist”, HBD itself would not be a racist ideology. It is, however, racist to the average person who doesn’t know the science involved in racial differences. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary has two definitions for ‘racism’. It defines ‘racism’ as:
a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
- Racial prejudice or discrimination
Well, “superiority” is meaningless. Race is not a primary determinant of human traits as there is a lot of crossover. However, there are racial/ethnic differences in phenotype which of course are caused by differences in genotype. That is not up for discussion, but the term ‘inherent superiority’ is.
Of course to the average person, HBD is seen as ‘racist’. But is researching/reading about human differences and being interested in their causes and what they mean today really ‘racist’ or a want to learn more about human evolution and how and why we got here?
But the ones who are very deep into it and talk about it all the time, well, it’s quite clear that they have a pretty low opinion of NAM’s. Even worse, a lot of them are just out and out racists. Some are even vicious racists. And almost all of them have the worst rightwing politics, usually Libertarian, that you could imagine.
‘Racists.’ There’s that word again. I did say at the beginning of the year that we should petition to have ‘racist’ changed to ‘ethnocentrist’, as what is being described when one cries ‘racist’ is actually ethnocentrism in action. This is mediated by the brain hormone oxytocin. I would wager that ‘racists’ and other, closely related people (ie Arab Muslims with high consang rates) would have higher levels of this brain hormone. This would be the reason why these groups stick to those who are phenotypically to themselves; it’s hormonally driven, like most, if not all things in life. Stop using the word ‘racist’ and use ‘ethnocentrist’ as it makes much more sense.
More importantly, HBD is a profoundly pessimistic doctrine. Just to give you an idea, they hate the idea that the environment or even free will has any role to play human affairs. Look at how furious they get about the Flynn Effect. Look at all the bending over, twisting themselves into weird yoga positions, hand waving, magic wand waving, “Don’t look over there”, and “just-so” explanations they have come up for to deny what is an obvious rise in human intelligence. The idea that the environment could actually increase intelligence fills them with rage because they are all wrapped up in this “intelligence is purely genetic” argument. (Bold is my emphasis)
Yes HBD is pessimistic, as is life, Robert. Who hates the idea that environment has any role in intelligence? Any sensible individual would acknowledge that environment does play a role, but would also know that intelligence is highly heritable. I’m pretty sure he’s just talking about the average ‘racist’, as I’ve never seen an HBD blogger every state that intelligence is fully genetic. Sure there are some intelligence researchers (a minority) who believe that intelligence is fully genetic but just like extreme environmentalism in regards to causes for IQ, extreme hereditarianism is also a stupid view to hold. Genes and environment interact to give the phenotype. We can take an African from, say, South Africa and place him in America. Due to better nutrition and better schooling among other things (like lessened parasitic load and disease), in my opinion African IQ would be about 10 points higher, give or take a few points. We know that environment and genetics (GxE) affects all phenotypic traits, but those like Robert like to play up Flynn gains as if they are on actual g – they aren’t. Flynn Effects are not genetic and are UNRELATED to race differences (Rushton, 2000).
On another note, I seem to have been wrong with my statement that Flynn gains were 3 points per decade in every country. I would wager that since intelligence is affected by nutrition that those countries with lower Flynn gains that showed the least improvement with nutrition would show the lowest IQ gains. I will write on this in the future.
Of course, that argument is a death knell for Blacks and other NAM’s. These people have enough problems as it is, but HBD just drives a stake through their heart to make sure the Black man (or other NAM’s) never rises again. It pretty much condemns them forever as genetic inferiors in sense.
They have enough problems as it is because of their biology which HBD speaks about, the supposed ‘racist ideology’. It pretty much does ‘condemn them’ as ‘genetic ‘inferiors” (whatever that means), but that’s Nature! Nature is not a kind Mistress. Nature is harsh, nature doesn’t care about feelings.
Intelligence isn’t either fully genetic nor fully environmental, but shifted considerably over to the hereditarian position.
It says “niggers ain’t got no brains,” and while that may be true in a very ugly and racist sense that most us don’t want to think about, instead, the HBD’er is overjoyed at this fact. “Black people are stupid!” he hollers to the sky with joy. “And they will stay that way forever!” he yells gleefully. “Environment can’t help them. They are condemned!” At this point, he is nearly gleeful and ready to party.
I laughed out loud at this. Environment can help, to a point (if they come from Africa or some other down-and-out place), but mainly, as seen in the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, blacks didn’t end up doing better than whites when environments were equalized.
And most of them are racist lousy people, but they are quite smug about their racism because now their racism is given the imprimatur of science. “If science says it’s true, I can’t be racist,” he chortles.
Idiotic. Everyone is ‘ethnocentric’ to a degree, whether consciously or subconsciously. Robert, you are an HBDer yourself whether you admit it or not since you recognize racial differences, so I guess you are ‘racist’.
After all, science isn’t racist. I agree, but distortion of science for racist means sure is, and delighting in the disturbing “racist truths” of science is doubly so.
Sure, gay men are at very high risk of HIV, and up to 20% are infected. That’s a fact of science. So does that make you want to get up and party for 30 days and 30 nights? I hope not, and if so, you are one ugly homophobe.
Science is not racist. But, as Leftists love saying ‘Data isn’t racist, interpretation of it is!!!’ is idiotic. Of course a lot of people distort racial science, but that doesn’t mean that it’s ‘wrong’. Like with making myths on how Europeans were always in Europe 40kya (not true) or how Europeans were always white (not true) he is right here. Most people do not keep up to date on the newest data that comes out so they still hold to these ‘mythologies’ and ‘identity politics’ and push out outdated and straight untrue statements. But all that means is that they are extremely misinformed.
What would I do with that stat of gay men and HIV? Be cautious around gays, just like I’d be cautious around blacks knowing how much crime and murder they committ as a group. This is a sane position to hold. One group is overrepresented in a certain (negative) stat? Keep an eye out while around those of that demographic. That makes sense. Self-preservation always wins out. Robert is of course using the Leftist playbook on ‘racist’ namecalling. Most everything in this article I’ve seen around countless times being spewed to any HBDer who went against conventional wisdom. The term ‘racist’ is just used as a silencing tactic. Robert, you are a Leftist HBDer. You do know that a lot people you align yourself with politically consider you ‘racist’ right?
This notion that anyone who believes HBD is ‘racist’ or any other buzzword is used to shut down any and all discussions on matters. Something that, it seems, flew over his head. When one cannot rebut something an HBDer puts out, they get called ‘racist’. However, the term is pretty much close to meaningless nowadays as it’s been so overused by the Left. All of the HBD bloggers I follow are not racist (hell, one who is most certainly not racist is PumpkinPerson who has a very unhealthy obsession with Oprah. =^) You know it’s true, PP). Others like Razib Khan, JayMan, hbd chick, and Cochran and Harpending, just to name a few, have gotten numerous accusations of being racist. Hell, Razib Khan was hired and fired the same day by the NYT after going on board as a science writer when someone discovered his ‘racist’ writings.
Whether or not people believe HBD doesn’t change how true it is. Racial and ethnic differences still persist, so by just disregarding it we completely go over causes of it other than ‘systemic racism’!!! HBD is true and a valid, non-racist (whatever that means) ideology. We segregate with people like us. Hell, even you, Robert, prefer whites over others (oh no, racist!!!!). Once we start understanding how and why people are ethnocentric (with oxytocin playing the main role), then we can have a more peaceful society as we understand causes for actions, both negative and positive, and better curb violence.
HBD itself is not a hateful ideology, it’s just one based on facts and solid reasoning. Just because people use HBD to justify their own preconceived notions or to use ‘hate facts’ doesn’t mean that it’s a racist ideology. Nice job using the word ‘racist’ as invented by Trotsky. But knowing your political leanings, Robert, that’s AOK, right?
It’s worth noting that Robert banned me for my politics. He claims his comments are ‘free speech’, yet when I said the truth about socialism and the amount of deaths it caused (way more than National Socialism), I got an immediate ban. Truth hurts, huh?
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
No Science or ‘ology’ is inherently ‘good or evil’ (VERY subjective terms anyway) at all.
It’s how it’s used, imho.
Just a few thoughts;
-Some people might use HBD as an *excuse* to behave very tribally, because ‘they know it’s just natural’ and harm perfectly fine people of other races.
-Others might be the just opposite, now knowing that they have sub-conscience tendencies to behave in such a way, and will prevent themselves from acting like that.
-HBD makes the ‘burden of proof’ for racism a lot higher, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist (i.e. being purposefully obtuse to actual IQ statistics and cooking the to make your race look better, not that I see that anywhere in the HBD sphere).
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Yea ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are extremely subjective. One person’s enemy is another’s hero.
I agree, but then again, those who are drawn to HBD probably are like that already anyway. I do agree that it’s pretty simplistic and a bonafide copout for a lot of people, but that doesn’t change the reality of GST and oxytocin, to name a few things.
Great thought. My view on everything is ‘If we’ve been doing it for X amount of time, it’s probably beneficial and we should continue doing it’ rather than be tinkering with things that don’t need to be tinkered with (like our diets post-Industrialization).
Where do you see people cook stats? But most people use the term ‘racist’ for talking about completely normal things. This is where I agree with Lindsay that the Left has made the word ‘racist’ and ‘racism’ meaningless.
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I’m a big fan of Robert generally, but I agree he shouldn’t have banned you just for talking about famines in Communist countries. There also were some major flaws with the piece you are responding to here.
Robert is a guy who is a very sincere liberal. His father was a teacher in LA Public Schools, and one of literally the only teachers who stayed to teach at predominately Black school after Watts. His father was a fierce denier of HBD, but his mother, who is a Psychologist, was always an HBDer. Because of the fact that Robert taught in a few highly Black public schools himself, and the amazement at the fact that one of his mother’s Mestizo colleagues was also an HBDer, Lindsay became one himself, but he says all the time he wishes it wasn’t true and seems to reject social Darwinsm.
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My friend, it was more than ‘famines’ that killed all those people.
But yea he has a bias, and so do I. We are all biased to our views. No one is exempt from that. But what matters is who can defend their viewpoint more concise and logically.
Being an HBDer used to be common sense, then the 60s happened. Though the science was pretty horrible, the idea was right. It seems like a lot of psychologists are HBDers. Maybe because they have an outstanding understanding of the human mind.
Just because you reject Social Darwinism doesn’t mean that it stops. It’ll always happen, no matter how badly one wants to resist it or have it not be true.
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Hi. My Mom worked for a psychologist. She’s not a psychologist. She’s pretty much been a housewife her whole life working at regular type jobs. The mestizo was not a colleague but her boss, the psychologist she worked for.
I do not believe that the facts of HBD are racist, if they are facts at all, are racist. The thing is, in general, we have not proven that they are even facts! Officially science is still agnostic on this stuff. Nevertheless, HBD is a perfectly legitimate position to take and it’s not a racist position at all, assuming it might be true, and perhaps quite a bit of it might be true.
It’s absolutely wrong for the Left to say that believing in HBD is racist. It’s not racist at all, and even less so if it’s true! That’s a bad definition of racism. Even the “superior or inferior” argument is crap because even leaving aside HBD, statistics show that different races score either superior or inferior on various metrics. Clearly Whites have a superior or lower crime rate than Blacks. If you point this out, you’re racist? Insane! Even pointing out that presently, intelligence tests show that Whites are smarter than Blacks (true even leaving HBD aside) is somehow racist! But that’s just true! It’s a fact of science.
Nevertheless, look around you. 98% of HBD’ers are some pretty nasty, ugly, vicious racists, aren’t they? Or is it even more than that? And the rest of them are not all that nice. How many HBD’ers do you meet who seem like they actually like those nasty NAM people? Zero? How many HBD’ers do you meet who actually like those nasty “low IQ” people, most of whom are not even low IQ (human IQ is 89 average and HBD’ers routinely claim that IQ’s at that level are “low.” Zero! How many HBD’ers do you meet who don’t think that higher IQ are superior to lower IQ people? Zero!
These people are just ugly. Nasty, nasty, nasty people.
Now I agree that some are ok, but they barely even seem HBD. I had no idea Will was even HBD because he’s so mild. Tulio is much the same way.
These people suck.
Well of course they’re all reactionary shits. That’s another reason no one wants anything to do with them. Progressive or liberal HBD’ers are like four leaf clovers. There’s not many about.
Whenever I meet someone spouting HBD, I check and see what sort of a person this is. Almost inevitably, it’s someone who leans rightwing, usually hard rightwing. Usually they are aligned with the Alt Right. Usually they hate NAM’s, low IQ people and think people with higher IQ’s are superior to people with low IQ’s. And usually they give off a very ugly vibe somehow.
Now this philosophy either attracts people who are already racist shits or it turns people that way. It’s up in the air. But it’s still pretty much poison. What good does talking about this HBD crap do? The only reason 99% of HBD’ers talk about this crap all the time is so they can use it as a club to beat up those evil NAM people and those scummy “low IQ” people. That’s why they talk about it all the time.
Just because something is true doesn’t mean we have to talk about it. I took some shits in the past month. That’s a fact. They had a certain consistency about them, though it was variable. If I wanted to, I could have charted all my shits and taken some photos and made a nice essay called “My September Turds.” 100% fact. 100% science. 100% true. But why should I talk about that? Why would anyone want to hear about that? They wouldn’t.
Can someone tell me why we need to talk about this HBD crap all the time? Someone give me a reason why this needs to be discussed all the time. What good does it do? All the HBD’ers say HBD means everything is hopeless anyway. If it’s all hopeless, why talk about it. I always say if you don’t have a solution to ameliorate a problem, don’t bother talk about it. HBD’ers admit there is no ameliorating HBD facts (they are wrong by the way). Well if there is no way to better these problems, then why in God’s name are we talking about them? Why don’t we rail about the horrible problem of death? There’s no solution to that either.
There’s no evidence that the world naturally sucks or that people are lousy or that the world is a vicious, nasty place. There’s also no evidence that Social Darwinism is the natural state of man. These are all just opinions. We don’t live in jungles. Unliek wild animals, we can actually decide not to live by the law of the jungle. Wild animals can’t make decisions like that. Conservatives think the world is a nasty, vicious place because their philosophy is nasty and vicious and typically they are nasty and vicious little shits themselves. It’s all self-serving belief.
Nice try with the oxytocin and other biological attempts to justify racism. Sure humans are often racist fucks. That doesn’t mean it’s normal to act that way. That doesn’t mean we are doomed to act that way. Every racist person made a conscious decision to feel racist. There’s no oxytocin bullshit that made him feel that way.
People’s ethnocentrism varies all over the world. You go to San Fransisco or Hawaii these days and there’s really no such thing as ethnic or racial ethnocentrism. It’s gone.
Don’t want to get into the Communism death toll bullshit, but you ought to know that India probably killed 200 million more people than Communist China did, even under Mao. Even looking at the Mao era, India killed 100 million more than Mao did. We know that as of 1979, India had killed 100 million more people than Mao. I assume that nothing has changed since and India killed another 100 million since then. That’s 200 million MORE than Mao. Communist death toll, get real.
Most of those deaths were from starvation and malnutrition. Since 1986, capitalism starves 14 million people to death every single year. Most of those deaths are in South Asia. That’s 420 million starvation deaths in the world since 1986, mostly in South Asia. Communism didn’t kill one of those people. How many people did Communism kill since 1986?
Mao set a world record for doubling life expectancy in the shortest period of time. That’s called saving lives. Sure Mao killed people, but he saved so many more lives and he gave so many people more time on Earth.
You’re not allowed to promote rightwing ideology on my site. It’s in the comments rules. If you want to talk about Commie famines or whatever, you have to do so from the Left or at least the center. You can’t attack them from the Right. You can criticize Communism all you want on my site, but I do not allow anti-Communist propaganda. You were also warned and you refused to abide by the rules. This is why you were banned. It’s right there in the Rules. Go read em.
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I will respond to this in my next article.
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Eh I’m kind of ambiguous.
Premise : People in different environments have different selective pressures on natural variation.
Oversimplification : Have a population run in the desert from lions day and night, with a scarcity of resources, and you get a population exceptionally good at reflexes and sprinting, but not very well-concerned with the futures of tomorrow.
Oversimplification : Have a population consistently bombarded with puzzles and challenges, requiring long-term solutions to things like recurring droughts. famines and other environmental problems, and you get a population equipped to think about efficiency / storage / delayed gratification / systematic implementation of generalized solutions to environmental conditions.
Remove those environments and put them in today in equalized conditions. Observe the differences of environmental selection.
Some advocate for self-segregation, some advocate for subjugation, some advocate for elimination, some advocate for deportation, some advocate for selective elimination, some advocate for stronger selection pressure – mismatched populations with means of traits that are unsuited to certain societies.
Some societies rebuild after a war, some don’t.
Some societies can make great technologies and advances, others never do.
Personally, I don’t see any good in extending life human expectancy if people don’t have the same quality of life as they do in their younger years. I also don’t believe that giving birth to people with a high predisposition to genetic risk factors like Huntington’s due to high # of repeats or unwanted traits is responsible, nor do I think that giving hospice or $1,000,000 treatments to have a single individual survive worth it. No right of mind parent would want their ‘genes’ – offspring be endowed with worthless detrimental genes, although some things are in a continnum of trade-offs like being resistant to disease A but not B because of different receptor-types, pathways, recycling mechanisms, etc – but things that are clear cut like.. genetic load (malformed blood cells in an area where we don’t need to fight malaria, dysfunctional limbs, poor eyesight) – clear cut decisions, I cannot advocate any person in ‘their right of mind’ before conceptualizing birth to ‘agree’ to letting their child be born of such rights.
Furthermore, I don’t agree with birth to
– People who can’t determine the consequences of their behavior
– People who have no empathy / mirror neurons to other individuals
– People who can’t have some form of impulse control and inhibition, with some proficient level of executive functioning and control
– People who don’t have a cognitive aptitude to do everyday basic human tasks, and at least, some tasks that provide value to society
I guess that makes me a eugenicist, although the clear rationalization is that there is a much greater preponderance of suffering when society can’t develop technologies to overcome problems, society consumes more resources than it regenerates, society plays the hedonistic card too often before the consequences catch up to them (dumping tires in ocean?? disposing cosmetic intermediates/catalysts into city water??), high levels of corruption and mistrust, etc which are all symptoms of having a high abundance of low cognitive aptitude and the aforementioned traits.
I support the motion of limiting prospects of individuals to being imported in any great numbers and deporting instead of jailing whenever possible. The second systematic solution that follows would be a reduction in resource expenditures/net exports of infrastructure/food/rations to countries where you have a preponderance of such a population combined with an authoritarian government which practices limited political, economic and civil freedoms – which generally generates a bad place where no one wants to be and has no human development whatsoever.
It is the duty and prerogative of a society that holds such values to protect its foundations and focus on k-selection over r-selection, with a strong investment in sustenance/subsistence/equilibrium dynamics for its future. Such societies that endeavor to such efforts will ultimately enjoy ever-increasing technological advancements that can precisely identify correlates and reductionist principles and properties that improve the overall well-being of humanity, as well as being able to live in a society where you don’t need to worry about being ‘raped’, being ‘stalked’ nor being ‘killed’ or ‘coerced’. You also enjoy people who stop appealing to ’emotional’ knee-jerk reactions, nice-sounding good ‘PR rhetoric’ and various other decreases in susceptibilities to niceties and meaningless time-wasting consortiums like corporate lobbyists and banks. A society that is immune to schemes is one that will reduce inefficiencies and maximize benefits to itself, as opposed to an ignorant representative democracy that has no care for any form of trial policies (run like drug trials) nor empirical data nor the future of the populace (merely the maintenance of the status quo).
Once such a society has proven to develop such great technologies from an individualistic and without harm, yet collectivist mindset of mutual trust and development, we will clearly see that we will have flourish, and traveled to space/colonize other unsuitable places where our predecessors and competitors have not and that we will have the precise molecular machinery to ‘create haplotypes’ that are conducive to human reproducibility, and long-term viability / prosperous futures.
I do not endorse things like the foreign investors jacking up prices of land prices, and various sorts of schemes and ideas purely in the form of an idea of perpetuated scarcity fueled by notions of ‘self-directed greed’. When a society consumes more, it saves less. When it saves less, there is less development via research and development. We also see that excess makes us complacent and wasteful (overweight + obesity, high energy/water usage).
Therefore, to summarize the conclusion of my arguement. I endorse a mild form of discrimination on the grounds of genetics because I wish to minimize the reproducibility of suffering, and wastefulness/costs of subsidizing lives living in misery, whether by determinants of inherited traits, and our relative differences in preferences (I prefer industriousness to thievery, aggression in risk-taking – not in killing, etc) and maximize the genetics capability / potential for humans to be the very best they can be, or to at least exceed their limits without inviting trouble / causing repercussions down the line where you get a populace of ideologically driven / emotionally susceptible / unstable people causing unwanted phenomena (bombings).
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The Minnesota Adoption Study has been roundly debunked. It was even debunked by the folks that conducted the study. If you don’t know that you’re too stupid and too uninformed to have this discussion.
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Please explain. Let’s discuss the study.
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Race Realist, this is the Sandra Scarr study. Chinedu is not telling the whole truth about the study. The study was not debunked by the people who did the study.
I know all the details about this and I can describe this in depth here if you wish. Let me know.
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Robert, I know what study he’s speaking of. I know most of what people say about it as I’ve had numerous discussions on adoption studies in the past.
I’d like to hear your thoughts on it though.
Also if you’d unban me that’d be cool. You have a lot of smart people on your site and there are many great discussions I’d like to be a part of. I won’t discuss politics on your blog. And excuse me for breaking your rules.
Hope we can come to an understanding.
You’re also more then welcome to use my content as long as you link to me.
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The people who conducted the Minnesota Trans-racial Adoption Study described it as “inconclusive.” They have, in fact, debunked their own study if indeed they were trying to prove racial hierarchies in intelligence. And one has to wonder, if the very people that did the study did not reach any conclusions as to racial hierarchies in intelligence, why are HBDers and sundry other racists misrepresenting the study to indicate that they did?
Anybody presenting this “study” in a court of law as some sort of expert testimony would be laughed out of the building. A young child could pick it apart.
I think this blogger is being intentionally obtuse when he claims he hasn’t encountered the copious criticisms of this study. Even the Wiki article on this study includes some of the criticisms, including its dismissal by the very people that conducted it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption_Study#Interpretations
Moreover, other studies have yielded different results. For example, the study of pure white and half black German kids of American GI’s showed no difference in IQ.
You people will never be taken seriously as long as you continue to cheerypick data while ignoring the data that doesn’t conform to your worldview. You will never be taken seriously as long as you fail to conduct rigorous due diligence on data before running with it like idiots. For example, once we begin to ask pointed questions about the Minnesota study: test subjects, age of subjects at adoption, pre-natal environment, early childhood environment, stereotype threat, trauma of being placed with white parents, etc, the “study” collapses like a house of cards.
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Are you saying that others can’t look at the data and draw other conclusions? How bout Levin and Lynn who pointed out that the average IQ and school achievement scores of the black children directly reflected their amount of African ancestry. At both age 7 and 17, the adopted children with 2 black parents had lower average IQs and worse school achievement tests than those with one black parent and one white parent. This is the only study to test at adulthood, the other studies cited don’t test at adulthood.
I go through the adoption studies here.
There is an intelligence gap. The black-white IQ gap is genetic in nature.
Why are you citing Eyferth. The children weren’t tested again at adulthood. Twenty-five percent of the ‘black’ sample were French North Africans. There are numerous other problems such as 30 percent of the sample being turned away due to low IQ (IQ clearly doesn’t matter) and IQ of parents not being tested. This sums up Eyferth:
Age of adoption after age 7 has no effect on IQ. For prenatal environment, the mullato children had white mothers. White mothers have a better prenatal environment. Early childhood environment a rich affluent area. People still bring up Stereotype Threat? Fifty-five published and unpublished studies show that it’s not real. It’s overcooked, overstated, and oversold.
Trauma of being placed with white parents? I guess a better overall environment brings a ton of trauma to a kid.
There is no value in denying reality.
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Thank you RR. You were banned for breaking Comments Rules and not for those numbers you have in your email. There are definitely some pretty hardcore HBD’ers on my site and one of them is Black!
I see you are petitioning for an unban. You accept your petition and I will unban you. You seem pretty reasonable and I think you will hold to your word. You’re certainly welcome over there at my site as you definitely know a lot of stuff and we are an HBD site! A really weird HBD site, but an HBD site nonetheless.
I want to point out that merely believing in HBD does not make you racist. There are nonracist and possibly even antiracist HBD’ers! But they are not common at all.
Also it is not racist to merely prefer your own kind. However, a very large percentage of people who prefer their own kind seem to be some pretty ugly racists who use that as an excuse. However as a background mindset from folks who are not vocal about it, it is quite common. I know a Black women who prefers to be around Blacks. I know a Pakistani guy who prefers to be around his own kind. As long as you prefer to be around your own kind but you aren’t racist and hateful towards others, it’s all good!
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Make a test comment so I know who you are because no doubt you were banned by IP and I have no way of knowing what that is unless I can dig through comments and find it.
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Hi about the Minnesota study.
The people who conducted the Minnesota Trans-racial Adoption Study described it as “inconclusive.”
This comment is a dodge. The truth is that when the first study was published, I am not entirely sure what exactly was concluded. I believe that perhaps they tried an environmental explanation that the Blacks began to experience heavy racism in adolescence which then crashed their IQ’s back down. Whether they concluded something different earlier, I have no idea. However, soon after the study was published, Scarr, a very leftwing and nonracist woman, was barraged by a machine gun nest of attacks from all over academia. The cries were Racist Racist Racist Racist! Black academics, especially Black female academics, were quite prominent here.
My understanding is that the barrage of criticism unnerved Scarr. Perhaps there were threats to cut her funding. Perhaps she could not get published. Perhaps her job was in jeopardy. Anyway she she completely caved under the pressure. Whether at this time was when she adopted the environmental finding of racism causing the decline or not is not known as I do not know what the original conclusion was.
Anyway, Scarr was going around saying that the study just proves that racism ruins Black IQ and trying to salvage her reputation that way. But the Black still kept massacring her. Now whether she caved even more after that and renounced the whole study is not known. Perhaps that is her position now. If she now says it was inconclusive, that was not an early conclusion as the early conclusion was “racism ruins adolescent Black IQ.”
I followed the debate a lot in the early 1990’s when it was going strong in the journals and it was ugly as Hell. And Scarr was backpedaling furiously and trying to salvage her reputation. And the Black academics were still massacring her. I believe that she tried to speak at conferences and there ere boycotts and protests outside the conference halls. Perhaps there were protests from her students. Anyway, it was a great big mess.
The Minnesota Study is immaculate. There’s nothing wrong with it. Anyway, the Black children’s IQ’s skyrocket to a very high level in childhood, far above that of their parents. This shows that the environment is great for making Black kids smarter! Black kids’ IQ’s can absolutely be raised! Yay! However, by age 18-24, I believe that most if not all of the rise is wiped out and there is little if anything left. So environment can have a dramatic effect on the Black IQ in childhood, but these gains are oddly not preserved in adulthood.
Now how you can explain that via theory I do not know, but go ahead. Hereditarians say that traits become more genetic as we age and that profound environmental changes in behavior, etc. from our genotype are possible in childhood, however they seem to wash out with age as genes tend to kick and somehow the effects of environment wash out. Now why this occurs, I have no idea but it is a regular finding in behavioral genetics.
The study is perfect. It’s a model study. And if they say it’s crap, then apparently it’s nonsense that the Black kids saw that skyrocketing rise, right? I mean assuming they were poorly chosen and the study design was crap. You can’t say the study design was great for the findings you like (massive IQ gain in childhood) and then say that this great study turned to crap when the findings changed (IQ crash back in adulthood).
PS My official position is that Whites are more intelligent than Blacks by 15 IQ points. This is proven by perfectly valid IQ tests were are 100% scientific. Note that even taking this 100% scientific position is suicidal this days, and the deniers reject the basic science of IQ testing altogether.
Now whether that difference is due to genes or environment, I am officially agnostic, but the environmental advocates have not done a good job of proving their case and the studies done so far argue for a heavily genetic effect.
The best consensus now is that the IQ differences between Blacks and Whites are due to some combination of genetics and environment. I agree with that assessment, but even that is a death warrant nowadays.
So there you have it! I hope this is helpful RR.
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You know what, Robert/Bob? I’m glad that your WordPress account has been taken offline for a second time. Only this time, it should be gone for good along with all of your other accounts because of all the bullcrap that you posted online like the spoiled little brat you are. Since you’re a big fat excuse for a Christian, you deserve to be in Hell, especially because of your hypocrisy and support bullying.
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[…] is my response to Is HBD an Ideology of Hatred and Racism?: A Reply to Robert Lindsay by NotPoliticallyCorrect. His piece is also on my site […]
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Robert,
It makes no difference what the alleged political motivations of the critics were. They pointed out major flaws in the methodology of the study. Period. Once a study is found to be deeply flawed as this one was, its results are worthless.
Scarr agreed with the critics that her study was worthless because that is the conclusion that any intelligent person would arrive at given the preponderance of evidence. Whether she did so due to pressure is irrelevant.
Citing as proof of ridiculous HBD theories a study whose very authors have rejected is a sort of fraud. But that is par for the course among HBDers. They will readily resort to lying and deception in order to advance their so-called cause.
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Chinedu, are you saying that others can’t look at the data and draw other conclusions?
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RL: “look around you. 98% of HBD’ers are some pretty nasty, ugly, vicious racists, aren’t they? …. These people suck …. they’re all reactionary shits. That’s another reason no one wants anything to do with them.”
Yes, and that’s why the whole “debate” about whether or not HBD is in and of itself racist is foolish. No, of course the facts themselves are not intrinsically racist. But the fact that the facts are overwhelmingly the preoccupation — the gleeful, masturbatory and misanthropic preoccupation — of racist cockroaches means that the facts MIGHT AS WELL BE intrinsically racist, for all the difference it makes. Is it even possible to mention the facts without, automatically and necessarily, adverting to a toxic rats-nest of racism and racist scumbags? I don’t think so. The field is so dominated by the scumbags — “reactionary shits” — that it is all but impossible to see anything else. Hence the fact that the facts themselves are not intrinsically racist is effectively a trivial one. It is a fact, but it is all but invisible in the face of the much more salient fact that this whole field is a giant racist cesspool. The tail is wagging the dog, yes, and the HBD’ers made it that way.
“WHO YOU ARE speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you are saying”. — Anon. <— THIS, in spades!
…………………………………………………
and now:
Notes and Advice to Racist Scumbags
Unsolicited, but Sincerely Offered, FWIW
If you were somewhat less racist and scum-baggy, you MIGHT be able to attract a real community of non-racist scientists or others to discuss the facts that so titillate you, and that you claim (disingenuously) are so important to you as scientific facts. Perhaps the conversation could grow to the point where it started getting the kind of attention that you think it deserves.
Yes, you might be able to advance your racist agenda, but only by becoming less racist! Isn't that a hum-dinger of an irony, and a pisser?
In order to do this, and in order to become less racist, you'll have to think creatively and with a much more open mind about the possible explanations for your facts. There is a world of unexplored potential environmental, cultural and social explanations for your cherished "race realist" facts. You'll have to become truly REAListic about the totality of influences on people and on races in the REAL world, and how these things might impact intelligence and other characteristics. That includes things like structural, systemic racism and ALL of its ramifications, including its biological ramifications on whole classes of people. You'll have to be come REAListic about the fact that our understanding of both the biological and the environmental determinants of things like intelligence is still in its infancy, with many more chapters yet to be written, probably for many decades to come. You'll have to become REAListic about our current poverty of knowledge, and about the breadth of what may be (and likely is) yet to be discovered. You'll have to become REAListic about the dodginess of the very concept of "intelligence", and the way in which psychometricians have attempted to monopolize the concept in a self-serving fashion, ignoring a rich history of definition, as well as contemporary alternative definitions, informed by much more breadth than anything to be found in the literature of psychometrics. You'll have to become REAListic about the fact that the heritable is NOT to be confused with the genetic, the hard-wired. You'll have to become REAListic about the whole new world (just opened up as of ~15 years ago) of the epigenetic, and the rather large realm of persistent — including trans-generationally persistent — BUT NOT GENETIC (in the usual sense of hard-wired) influences on character and behavior. You'll have to become a REAL realist — yet another big irony. Not quite what you had in mind when you took that smug "race realist" label. But essential in order for the issues that you so fervently believe to be important to have a chance of making it in a broad discussion, outside the present HBD realm.
It is all good. You can work your way out of your self-created intellectual ghetto by becoming less racist, more open-minded, more creative, more knowledgeable, more humble in the face of (the vast field of) that which is not yet known… that is, generally, by becoming a much better human being. Now isn't that a colossal pisser? Yes, it is. It is an outrage and a terrible injustice. But it is what it is. And of course we must face the hard facts, the grim reality of what IS, rather than denying reality as would a deluded dreamy liberal pinko romantic blank-slate utopian idealist idiot. Right?
— alan2102
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Just because there is a subset in the HBD commuity of ‘racists’ (whatever that means) doesn’t–and shouldn’t–take away anything from the factual nature of what is talked about.
Please back your claim with evidence. Show me any HBD blog (keyword here, not a right-wing blog that’s HBD leaning, an actual HBD blog) that is has ‘scumbags and shits’ ‘racists’ that run them.
You’re really generalizing a whole group and saying it’s ‘racist’? Why? Show me any HBD blogger who is ‘racist’. No no, the dog is wagging the tail, the HBDers just recognize that the dog is wagging it on its own.
This is a copout. Like, a 100 percent copout. What does someone’s character have to do with what they say? If they are speaking truths, one should attempt to rebut them. One’s character has no bearing on what they say as their words should be taken into account and not their character.
Even if people with ‘racist’ views toned it down, HBD still would be shunned. Talking about any racial differences after 65 has become taboo. There are some people who argue that West African descended blacks don’t have any innate ability for sprinting competitions and the like. That’s garbage. Of course you need to train, but those who are born with the right genetic make up will succeed over the one who is born with average genetics and trains his hardest.
Like? Name some.
I am.
Care to bring up examples?
I know that intelligence isn’t fully genetic and that IQ changes depending on environmental factors. That doesn’t change group averages.
How is it dodgy? Care to give some examples of better explanations for the definition? Arthur Jensen said:
Intelligence, Race, and Genetics: Conversations with Arthur Jensen
There are still differences between groups with all things equalized. There are genetic differences between groups and they’re manifested in the phenotype from the genotype. The genotype produces a different phenotype in different environments, but when the environment is equalized no changes occur.
Do we need to talk about how differences between groups are environmental in nature as well? As a group, are West Africans and their descendants better or worse than Jamaicans and Eurasians at sprinting? As a group, are Eurasians better or worse than West Africans and their descendants at marathon running? No and no. Refer to my example above about better genetics for the sport and elite training.
Epigenetic changes aren’t frequent enough to matter. They technically are genetic though.
Epigenetics Has Become Dangerously Fashionable
Is there evidence that epigenetic changes are even a plausible cause for IQ and other differences between groups?
Also see Pinker on Behavior=Genes+Environment.
Sure we do. Who denies reality? You should take it up with them.
Extremes on both sides are stupid and meaningless. They don’t accurately describe our traits as they are an interaction between genes and environment, but some things cannot be changed as much by placement in neutral environments.
Provide examples of what you spoke on above, what you said was vague.
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“Please back your claim with evidence.”
Open your eyes and look. If you do, you’ll see the evidence. But it might take a while.
“You’re really generalizing a whole group and saying it’s ‘racist’? Why?”
Because if you talk to these guys long enough, and read enough of their posts over time, you GET IT about who they are. I did this. I spent many hundreds of hours reading their crap. Some of them are quite clever and skilled at appearing perfectly objective and science-oriented. And I actually WANTED to believe that they were objective and science-oriented. Back in those days — 1995-2000 or so — I was on their side. But I paid attention for a very long time, and I kept picking up clues that things were not as I thought.
If you pay attention for long enough, you will see that they’re all racists. They cannot help but reveal themselves, it seems. They let a few words or phrases drop, off guard, and their cover is blown. It might take a while to see this, but see it you will if you’re patient, as I was.
And btw it is to their credit that they cannot lie with perfect consistency. If they could, then they would be a bunch of psychopaths, perhaps even demon-possessed. I think that they are real, ensouled human beings, NOT psychopaths, and NOT demonic, but they have allowed the cancer of hate to grow within themselves, and they have tragically sought to justify that hate with “science”. I think they are tragically misguided, but NOT fundamentally or irredeemably evil, and that is good. My savage insults thrown in their direction should be viewed in this light. The “race realists” are my brothers and sisters, even though I snipe at them. I snipe at them because they deserve it, and because I love them as brothers and sisters.
“This is a copout. Like, a 100 percent copout. What does someone’s character have to do with what they say?”
Did you read the quote? Character comes through, loud and clear, regardless of what one says (i.e. regardless of the denotations of one’s words).
“their words should be taken into account and not their character.”
I used to think that, too. But then I grew up, and realized that I was just fooling myself; the self-fooling was enhanced by an autistic tendency. Some things are more important than the bald denotations of the words that you utter. MUCH more important.
“Even if people with ‘racist’ views toned it down, HBD still would be shunned.”
For a while, yes, and understandably. It will take a long while for HBD to live down its racist scumbaggery. But things will improve over time, if you commit to it. A couple of decades, say.
It is not just a matter of getting the other side to change, to stop shunning you. It is mainly a matter of YOU changing, so that you deserve not to be shunned. It will take a long time for you guys to actually improve yourselves and become decent human beings, free of atavistic racist tendencies, thus worthy of intellectual and general acceptance.
“Like? Name some.”
I did. I named a few things that came readily to mind. But then I have not thought about this subject much over the last ~8 years. Back in 2000-2008 I was heavy in to it, and I could have written a much longer list with lots of detail.
But there came a point when I decided that it was not an important issue, that it could be safely ignored. I stopped paying attention to it, and my memory of the details is now imperfect. The HBD crowd, I realized back then, was a tiny self-marginalized bunch with no influence, and essentially no possibility of ever having an influence, and that is good, for the most part. No need for me to fight them, since they’ve already defeated themselves. So I stopped. But maybe I will pick it up again, some day, for fun.
“Care to bring up examples?”
No. It is too much work, and not worth the effort. If you had asked me in 2006, I would have written a couple pages, off the top, joyfully.
“I know that intelligence isn’t fully genetic and that IQ changes depending on environmental factors. That doesn’t change group averages”
You need to research more deeply the nature of these groups, their place in society, the biological effects of the conditions under which they live, and the impact of those biological effectors on brain development and I.Q. It is a fascinating subject, really! I’m now burned out on it, myself, but if you are sincerely interested, you’ll find a ton of great stuff, as I did.
“How is it dodgy? Care to give some examples of better explanations for the definition? Arthur Jensen said:”
Amusing. What Jensen said is irrelevant to my point.
No, I can’t give details because I am too lazy to dig them out for you. My bad. But you can come up with your own, in abundance if you sincerely and open-mindedly investigate the subject of intelligence OUTSIDE the blinkered, narrow, self-serving, self-referential world of psychometrics.
“Intelligence” is an old concept, and many smart and (more important) WISE people have had a good deal to say about it, over the centuries, all well before anyone dreamed of I.Q. tests and psychometrics. Further, contemporary thinkers (outside the psychometrics specialty) have also written about it and have interesting things to say.
“There are still differences between groups with all things equalized.”
Amusing. ALL things equalized, huh? We are as Gods, and we know ALL the things that can be equalized!
Reminds me of an argument I had with a “race realist”, circa 2003. He said that a certain study had “controlled for nutrition”, as though the vast subject of nutrition, with all its myriad components, could be easily “controlled for”! That’s how the typical “race realist” thinks. Simplistic. Anxious to come to a conclusion LONG before the facts are in, and even before we have a clue about which facts should be sought and prioritized, and even before we have a clue about how to get a clue! “Race realists” are people who have not yet matured enough to come to the devastating moment of realization of how ignorant we all are.
Those were the days, btw, when some “race realists” went into furious denial when confronted with the glaring fact that iodine deficiency alone is enough to cause cretinism, i.e. catastrophic I.Q. loss in the scores of points. I understand why they got so furious: it is impossible to square that well-documented fact with the idea of strong genetic determination of I.Q. If I.Q. is 50% or 70% genetic (or whatever the currently-touted high number is), and severe iodine deficiency reduces I.Q. from ~100 down to ~20, as it can, then… er… uh… what happened to that 50-70%? It got blown clear out of the water, that’s what. Yes, it has been conclusively PROVEN that I.Q. is 70% genetic! Except, that is, when environmental influences reduce that figure to 5% or 20%. Obviously, the genetics numbers being tossed around don’t mean a god damn thing, when they can be blown to kingdom come by a SINGLE environmental variable.
Yes, the “race realists” have advanced since then, and now accept iodine as a critical determinant of I.Q. They are slowly, slowly catching up with the science. It seems to be a multi-decade thing that they undertake only sluggishly and grudgingly, and they are still not honestly facing the implications of things like what I just said about iodine and cretinism.
“Epigenetic changes aren’t frequent enough to matter.”
That’s not what some of the literature on the subject says. But regardless, epigenetics *proper* is just one aspect of a very complex matter.
“These intergenerational effects on gene expression are sometimes misunderstood as Lamarckian, but they’re not, because they don’t change the DNA sequence”
Irrelevant.
“… are reversed after one or two generations”
But their knock-on effects are NOT reversed after one or two generations.
“Epigenetics Has Become Dangerously Fashionable”
1. Perhaps. Anything can be overstated and over-relied on.
2. “Dangerous” perhaps to hard core genetic determinists who find the idea threatening.
“Provide examples of what you spoke on above, what you said was vague.”
See above. Thanks but no thanks. It was a drive-by post, I confess. You’re free to denounce it, and me. I’m a shiftless, lazy no-good. I’m not going to spend hours and days defending it. I wrote it because I had a few things to say, and it was fun to write, and maybe (longshot, but maybe) a soul or two out there might value it. Whatever. The subjects I introduced are things that you have to investigate for yourself, if you’re interested. There’s PLENTY to investigate, I assure you. Maybe I will become interested enough to get back to all the files and notes I accumulated, back in the day (many megabytes worth). Funny, I actually had a book in mind. If I get ambitious, I might still write it. But if I do it, it will be for fun, not because I think “race realism” or HBD is something worth spending years of my life fighting.
— alan2102
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“racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race”
If a group with a right shifted IQ bell curve produces a culture that one “prefers” and thinks of as “better” i.e. “superior” and a group with a left shifted IQ bell curve cannot produce an equivalent culture, why is that not racist?
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Racial differences produce superiority on some traits, but when looking at an organism as a whole the term ‘superior’ in regards to organisms makes no biological sense. Nicholas Wade, Razib Khan, Charles Murray, they don’t believe this notion.
Is human biology in and of itself ‘racist’? Or does evolution through natural selection incur useful traits to increase fitness for that environment?
This is why the term ‘superior’ in regards to the races of Man make no sense.
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I’m not asking whether an individual or a race is superior. I am asking if I “value” one culture over another “and if” another race cannot accomplish or continue that same culture, and the “reason” that they can’t is that that group does not have the intellectual heft to keep it going, is that not racist?
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With the accepted definition of the term yes it is ‘racist’. But, if you have an understanding of evolution, mutations, genetic drift, migration and natural selection then you’d realize that the harsh Mistress known as Nature is the cause for these ‘racist’ differences between population groups.
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“you’d realize that the harsh Mistress known as Nature is the cause for these ‘racist’ differences between population groups”
It’s nice to know that God’s not to blame.
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I do have ‘crazy’ beliefs to the mainstream, but my beliefs aren’t THAT crazy.
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