Here we go again...

[John Dailey]

When group-behavour's statistical-analysis gets 'linked' to DNA, the ringing in your ears are the sirens outside. Sharpton and Jackson will have much to say on this, no doubt. Where's Frederick Douglass when you need him?

'The Bell Curve': it tolls for us...ringing once again.

LLAP

J:D

[Chris Grieb]

Dr. Watson has broken one the taboos of our age. Let's hope he survives.

[bmacwilliam]

Dr. Watson has broken one the taboos of our age. Let's hope he survives.

From the article:

"There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

"He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

Anybody care to explain why this is a huge problem - regardless of truth or falsity of the claims?

Anyone... Anyone...

The research has been called "baseless" and "unscientific", but that just SO misses the damn point.

Discuss...

Edited October 17, 2007 by Bob_Mac

[Brant Gaede]

It's pretty obvious that Watson is operating out of a collectivist mind set. There is real racism there consequently. I belong to a group that is collectively less smart, for whatever reason, than some other groups, but that says absolutely nothing about how smart I am. Dr. Watson is considered to be a genius for his DNA work, but he did that work with a 125 IQ. Plenty of blacks have higher IQs. Some have PhDs in math, which is way beyond my personal ability and interest. I don't know if that is nature or nurture--if I could have built my brain differently.

Blacks and many others are victims of government paternalism which has destroyed their family structure. In Africa it is much, much worse. In the meantime Justice Clarence Thomas must be stupid so he should resign from the Supreme Court and don't bother reading anything ever again by Thomas Sowell?

Collectively a hundred years from now people are going to be much smarter than today because of "smart" drugs and means of mental self-evolving that will maximize human cranial space. The mental racists/elitists of the future won't be able to look around themselves for objects of their contempt. They'll have to look back, at us.

--Brant

[bmacwilliam]

I belong to a group that is collectively less smart, for whatever reason, than some other groups, but that says absolutely nothing about how smart I am. Dr. Watson is considered to be a genius for his DNA work, but he did that work with a 125 IQ. Plenty of blacks have higher IQs.

Thank you very much.

And that folks, is why it is ALWAYS ALWAYS wrong to make any claims about character or ability or any related attribute with ANY possible connection to race!

Thank you again Brant.

Bob

[John Dailey]

~ Clearly, when Watson refers to 'testing results', he can only be referring to Murray's and Hernnstein's THE BELL CURVE book. What other 'testing' on this subject can he be referring to when talking to such audiences? Given such, he has the same mindset as Shockley (anyone remember him?) and finds some aspects of eugenics acceptable.

~ As to the rest of his collectivist perspective comments, I'd guess that he's operating from merely culturally acquired impressions, as many of us do; yet we don't discuss them, 'cause they seem 'racist' (except for regarding all whites as 'oppressors', especially as verbal ones.)

LLAP

J:D

Edited October 17, 2007 by John Dailey

[John Dailey]

~ All said and done (this from a 'Caucasian'), I've little prob with statistical-testings analyses showing that Asians have a higher 'average' IQ than those in *my* group; such is so-o-o important in my life (NOT!), that I can live with it. --- Methinks that castigationally arguing about Murray's, Shockley's, Watson's or even Studs Terkel's impressions re ability-difs applied to skin-color are either self-groupingly ('collectivistly'?) showing self-accepted insecurity concerns, or 'liberal'ly over-empathizing with the perceived downtrodden.

~ What if such analyses (useful or merely trivial[!]) were applied to self-admitted religious beliefs, or, sexual-preferences? Hoo-boy!

LLAP

J:D

Edited October 17, 2007 by John Dailey

[BaalChatzaf]

~ Clearly, when Watson refers to 'testing results', he can only be referring to Murray's and Hernnstein's THE BELL CURVE book. What other 'testing' on this subject can he be referring to when talking to such audiences? Given such, he has the same mindset as Shockley (anyone remember him?) and finds some aspects of eugenics acceptable.

Shockley led the team at Bell Lab which developed the first practical transistor in 1947 and released in 1948. Shockley was also a very fervent racist.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[John Dailey]

Baal:

~ Yes. That's why I mentioned him. P. Donahue had an interesting TV-hour with him, as did Bill Buckley when Shock was trying to tout his arguments...back then.

LLAP

J:D

PS: Interestingly, R. Heinlein was accused/innuended of racism in more than one review as a result of one of his novels. FARNHAM'S FREEHOLD, I think.

PPS: Question: Is it 'sexist' to believe that the 'average' male is a better fighter than the 'average' female?

Edited October 17, 2007 by John Dailey

[Brant Gaede]

~ Clearly, when Watson refers to 'testing results', he can only be referring to Murray's and Hernnstein's THE BELL CURVE book. What other 'testing' on this subject can he be referring to when talking to such audiences? Given such, he has the same mindset as Shockley (anyone remember him?) and finds some aspects of eugenics acceptable.

Shockley led the team at Bell Lab which developed the first practical transistor in 1947 and released in 1948. Shockley was also a very fervent racist.

Ba'al Chatzaf

My parents knew Shockley in the late 1930s when his child and my sister attended the Bank Street School in NYC. IQs were a big deal in those days and all the parents IQs were recorded. Shockley's IQ was 129. My Father always said Shockley had to share the credit for the transistor with his two Bell Lab associates--forced to by Bell Labs--and that was the reason he left Bell Labs. My Mother who knew his wife and the other wives directly or indirectly said it was the other two who deserved the Nobel more than Shockley. He seems to have been a hog for the credit in any case.

When Shockley was in the news with his IQ and race stuff in the late 60s I saw him on TV and it was obvious that he was extremely intelligent and dumb about a lot of things not scientific. The irony was his placing all that emphsis on IQ though his own wasn't so high. My Father who also had a lot of brains--a gigantic IQ but not genius--shared Shockley's views and they exchanged correspondence of sorts in the mid-70s. What they really had in common was that they weren't very nice people to know or be around. Some people get unbalanced by their brains.

T.J. Rogers of Cypress Semiconductor thought Shockley, who was a teacher of his at Stanford, was one of the smartest people he had ever met, smarter than himself, and T.J. Rogers is extremely intelligent.

--Brant

Edited October 17, 2007 by Brant Gaede