Key term here: diversionary. I totally agree. Race is the new ³gay marriage². Anti-Christianity is the new ³immigration². We¹ve seen all of this before. Folks who write these articles should be ashamed of themselves. It¹s old hat at this point.
Daryle On 12/12/07 2:12 PM, "Martin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > (standing ovation) > > ravenadal <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:ravenadal%40yahoo.com> > wrote: > I am so tired of this argument because it is diversionary. The truth > of the matter is this: the only difference between uneducated white > people and uneducated black people is that uneducated white people > have jobs. > > The only difference between educated white people and educated black > people is that educated white people have BETTER jobs. > > ~(no)rave! > > --- In scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com <mailto:scifinoir2%40yahoogroups.com> , > "Tracey de Morsella (formerly > Tracey L. Minor)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> > >> > All Brains Are the Same Color >> > By RICHARD E. NISBETT >> > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/opinion/09nisbett.html? > pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=opinion >> > Ann Arbor, Mich. >> > >> > JAMES WATSON, the 1962 Nobel laureate, recently asserted that he > was >> > âinherently gloomy about the prospect of Africaâ and its > citizens >> > because âall our social policies are based on the fact that their >> > intelligence is the same as ours â" whereas all the testing says > not really.â >> > >> > Dr. Watsonâs remarks created a huge stir because they implied > that >> > blacks were genetically inferior to whites, and the controversy > resulted >> > in his resignation as chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. > But >> > was he right? Is there a genetic difference between blacks and > whites >> > that condemns blacks in perpetuity to be less intelligent? >> > >> > The first notable public airing of the scientific question came in > a >> > 1969 article in The Harvard Educational Review by Arthur Jensen, a >> > psychologist at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Jensen >> > maintained that a 15-point difference in I.Q. between blacks and > whites >> > was mostly due to a genetic difference between the races that could >> > never be erased. But his argument gave a misleading account of the >> > evidence. And others who later made the same argument â" Richard >> > Herrnstein and Charles Murray in âThe Bell Curve,â in 1994, for > example, >> > and just recently, William Saletan in a series of articles on Slate > â" >> > have made the same mistake. >> > >> > In fact, the evidence heavily favors the view that race differences > in >> > I.Q. are environmental in origin, not genetic. >> > >> > The hereditarians begin with the assertion that 60 percent to 80 > percent >> > of variation in I.Q. is genetically determined. However, most > estimates >> > of heritability have been based almost exclusively on studies of >> > middle-class groups. For the poor, a group that includes a > substantial >> > proportion of minorities, heritability of I.Q. is very low, in the > range >> > of 10 percent to 20 percent, according to recent research by Eric >> > Turkheimer at the University of Virginia. This means that for the > poor, >> > improvements in environment have great potential to bring about >> > increases in I.Q. >> > >> > In any case, the degree of heritability of a characteristic tells > us >> > nothing about how much the environment can affect it. Even when a > trait >> > is highly heritable (think of the height of corn plants), > modifiability >> > can also be great (think of the difference growing conditions can > make). >> > >> > Nearly all the evidence suggesting a genetic basis for the I.Q. >> > differential is indirect. There is, for example, the evidence that > brain >> > size is correlated with intelligence, and that blacks have smaller >> > brains than whites. But the brain size difference between men and > women >> > is substantially greater than that between blacks and whites, yet > men >> > and women score the same, on average, on I.Q. tests. Likewise, a > group >> > of people in a community in Ecuador have a genetic anomaly that > produces >> > extremely small head sizes â" and hence brain sizes. Yet their >> > intelligence is as high as that of their unaffected relatives. >> > >> > Why rely on such misleading and indirect findings when we have much > more >> > direct evidence about the basis for the I.Q. gap? About 25 percent > of >> > the genes in the American black population are European, meaning > that >> > the genes of any individual can range from 100 percent African to > mostly >> > European. If European intelligence genes are superior, then blacks > who >> > have relatively more European genes ought to have higher I.Q.âs > than >> > those who have more African genes. But it turns out that skin color > and >> > ânegroidnessâ of features â" both measures of the degree of a > black >> > personâs European ancestry â" are only weakly associated with > I.Q. (even >> > though we might well expect a moderately high association due to > the >> > social advantages of such features). >> > >> > During World War II, both black and white American soldiers > fathered >> > children with German women. Thus some of these children had 100 > percent >> > European heritage and some had substantial African heritage. Tested > in >> > later childhood, the German children of the white fathers were > found to >> > have an average I.Q. of 97, and those of the black fathers had an >> > average of 96.5, a trivial difference. >> > >> > If European genes conferred an advantage, we would expect that the >> > smartest blacks would have substantial European heritage. But when > a >> > group of investigators sought out the very brightest black children > in >> > the Chicago school system and asked them about the race of their > parents >> > and grandparents, these children were found to have no greater > degree of >> > European ancestry than blacks in the population at large. >> > >> > Most tellingly, blood-typing tests have been used to assess the > degree >> > to which black individuals have European genes. The blood group > assays >> > show no association between degree of European heritage and I.Q. >> > Similarly, the blood groups most closely associated with high >> > intellectual performance among blacks are no more European in > origin >> > than other blood groups. >> > >> > The closest thing to direct evidence that the hereditarians have is > a >> > study from the 1970s showing that black children who had been > adopted by >> > white parents had lower I.Q.âs than those of mixed-race children > adopted >> > by white parents. But, as the researchers acknowledged, the study > had >> > many flaws; for instance, the black children had been adopted at a >> > substantially later age than the mixed-race children, and later age > at >> > adoption is associated with lower I.Q. >> > >> > A superior adoption study â" and one not discussed by the > hereditarians â" >> > was carried out at Arizona State University by the psychologist > Elsie >> > Moore, who looked at black and mixed-race children adopted by >> > middle-class families, either black or white, and found no > difference in >> > I.Q. between the black and mixed-race children. Most telling is Dr. >> > Mooreâs finding that children adopted by white families had > I.Q.âs 13 >> > points higher than those of children adopted by black families. The >> > environments that even middle-class black children grow up in are > not as >> > favorable for the development of I.Q. as those of middle-class > whites. >> > >> > Important recent psychological research helps to pinpoint just what >> > factors shape differences in I.Q. scores. Joseph Fagan of Case > Western >> > Reserve University and Cynthia Holland of Cuyahoga Community > College >> > tested blacks and whites on their knowledge of, and their ability > to >> > learn and reason with, words and concepts. The whites had > substantially >> > more knowledge of the various words and concepts, but when > participants >> > were tested on their ability to learn new words, either from > dictionary >> > definitions or by learning their meaning in context, the blacks did > just >> > as well as the whites. >> > >> > Whites showed better comprehension of sayings, better ability to >> > recognize similarities and better facility with analogies â" when >> > solutions required knowledge of words and concepts that were more > likely >> > to be known to whites than to blacks. But when these kinds of > reasoning >> > were tested with words and concepts known equally well to blacks > and >> > whites, there were no differences. Within each race, prior > knowledge >> > predicted learning and reasoning, but between the races it was > prior >> > knowledge only that differed. >> > >> > What do we know about the effects of environment? >> > >> > That environment can markedly influence I.Q. is demonstrated by the >> > so-called Flynn Effect. James Flynn, a philosopher and I.Q. > researcher >> > in New Zealand, has established that in the Western world as a > whole, >> > I.Q. increased markedly from 1947 to 2002. In the United States > alone, >> > it went up by 18 points. Our genes could not have changed enough > over >> > such a brief period to account for the shift; it must have been the >> > result of powerful social factors. And if such factors could > produce >> > changes over time for the population as a whole, they could also > produce >> > big differences between subpopulations at any given time. >> > >> > In fact, we know that the I.Q. difference between black and white >> > 12-year-olds has dropped to 9.5 points from 15 points in the last > 30 >> > years â" a period that was more favorable for blacks in many ways > than >> > the preceding era. Black progress on the National Assessment of >> > Educational Progress shows equivalent gains. Reading and math >> > improvement has been modest for whites but substantial for blacks. >> > >> > Most important, we know that interventions at every age from > infancy to >> > college can reduce racial gaps in both I.Q. and academic > achievement, >> > sometimes by substantial amounts in surprisingly little time. This >> > mutability is further evidence that the I.Q. difference has >> > environmental, not genetic, causes. And it should encourage us, as > a >> > society, to see that all children receive ample opportunity to > develop >> > their minds. >> > >> > Richard E. Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of >> > Michigan, is the author of âThe Geography of Thought: How Asians > and >> > Westerners Think Differently and Why.â >> > > > "There is no reason Good can't triumph over Evil, if only angels will get > organized along the lines of the Mafia." -Kurt Vonnegut, "A Man Without A > Country" > > --------------------------------- > Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
