Sabri writes: >> Who gives a shit to who is black, who is white, who is Kurdish, who is >> Armenian, who is not? >> >> Maybe David Shemano would!
I managed to go 8 years on this list without mentioning Israel or the heredity of IQ, and then both in a month. At least I tried. In the wise words of the musical Avenue Q: http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/avenueq/everyonesalittlebitracist.htm. Seriously, what the hell did I say? I think I pointed out that redefining "intelligence" into "intelligences" is not really relevant to the issue of the heredity/genetics of brain power. Does anybody disagree? If you really care about my opinion, which is based upon nothing more than personal observation and my subjective common sense, it is obvious to me that brain power is, in significant part, shaped by heredity/genetics. It takes an incredible committment to ideology to deny what all of see -- children have a great variation in abilities that is not a product of environment. Honest parents are in awe of how little influence they have over their children's intellectual development. Parents can certainly screw things up, or encourage the maximization of potential, but if the raw material is not there, there are limits on what can occur. If the preceding paragraph is true, and I believe it is, you inevitably get into a discussion of ethnicity or race. The reason you do is that again, it takes an incredible committment to ideology to deny what all of see -- homo sapiens are genetically diverse. We developed over thousands of years into sub-groups, and that is why there are obvious physical differences between sub-groups and those physical differences are the product of genetic diversity. So the question then becomes, if there are physical genetic differences (resulting in different skin color, height, susceptibility to diseases, etc.), could there be genetic differences in the brain, which would lead to differences in emotions, thought processing, etc. While I would prefer the answer be that there is no variation, I have no ideological committment to the answer to these questions. Therefore, I can't rule out a priori that there may be a genetic component of brain power that means that there is variation, on average, between identifiable sub-groups with respect to identifiable components of brain power. While Raghu would rather we not try and answer these questions, answers may be coming and we should be prepared for those answers. There are obviously political implications of all of this. For instance, why is there a variation in the success levels of identifiable subgroups in the United States and what should be done about it? If you believe that all children are born with the same potential regardless of who their parents are, you end up with explanation like institutionalized racism to explain the variation in result and propose policies that assume that explanation. If you don't believe all children have the same potential, you look for other explanations and propose other policies. On a personal level, while intellectualy interesting, these issues are pretty irrelevant to me. I believe physical characteristics are irrelevant to moral worth. I believe intellectual achievement is irrelevant to moral worth. I try and treat every individual I meet as an individual and judge them by their actions. I am sure, as the song says, "I am a little bit racist" and prejudge and stereotype, but I do my best to keep it to a minimum and make sure that my prejudgments do not lead to wrong conclusions. David Shemano
