State Senator Meeks (Chicago, Naperville, Evanston: mortgage, lawyers, neighborhoods)

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by GMarshfield

...there is human diversity and we are supposed to celebrate it, not deny it like communists. It is dangerous to deny race , gender, nature, diversity, etc...

Of course there great human diversity! But "race" is often a meaningless way to define this diversity if you want to talk about genetic abilities. There is more diversity within races than between races when it comes to natural intelligence.

[Anthera]

UPDATE

"In preparation for the second week of school, I would like to update you regarding the plans for the arrival of students from the Chicago Public Schools to our area on Tuesday, September 2, 2008. As of this writing, State Senator Meeks has indicated that twenty-five buses will arrive at the west campus of New Trier Township High School at approximately 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday. There will be a team of administrators from New Trier, as well as the other Township schools greeting the students and their parents upon their arrival. Once this process is completed, the buses will be boarded and will relocate to a venue where a rally will be held."

Looks like Meeks won't get his photo op.

[Anthera]

Originally Posted by hsw

IMO, best genes vs environment vs achievement analyses are easily achieved when one examines such data as: Wharton undergrad finance summa c.l.'s; Stanford undergrad CompSci/EE's annual top 20 students (per GPA)....top 100 hedge fund earners....and highest net worth <40yo guys in SiliconValley...look at data over past 10-15+yrs.....prob 99% guys, rare women; lots of random white guys from middle-class Midwest, etc; Indian Americans; Jewish Americans; Indians recently arrived from India; other Asians; some trust fund kids (e.g., Mr. Gates in tech and many, many guys in hedge fund world) etc etc....a truly motley crew of misfits....let markets decide who's most talented and most profitable....besides, suspect truly smart, shrewd guys will figure out how to maximize their own wealth at a young age, no matter usual discrimination/jealousies/stereotypes/socialist agendas of humans everywhere.....

I find your definition of success kinda of limited. You seem to be limiting it to the finance/tech world. I am speaking as someone who goes to GAIM and Mar-Hedge every year. I know the group you are speaking about very well. Money isn't the only criteria of success. I think someone who teaches law or classics is in some ways more success than a hedge fund manager. It depends on what you value.

[GMarshfield]

Originally Posted by Lookout Kid

Of course there great human diversity! But "race" is often a meaningless way to define this diversity if you want to talk about genetic abilities. There is more diversity within races than between races when it comes to natural intelligence.

There is diversity between races and it exists. It isn't meaningless. Celebrate diversity!!! Blacks and whites are different and diverse.

Come on Lookout, even Mr. Meeks knows this basic fact.

I predict with utter certainty that no matter how much money is spent, and whatever "ideas" they come up with (that haven't already been tried), that in 50 more years the very same educational/performance gap will persist. Even if there is a macro short-term gain somehow (which has never been achieved yet), there will still always be a regression back to the mean, and the gap with persist.

Look, I don't like it any better than you do, but if we're going to get some educational systems that truly work for the kids, we have to acknowledge reality. It has been proven that pushing a kid into a high-powered law school (say Ivy under affirm action) when he doesn't belong in that stratum is detrimental, because that same kid could have gone to a 2nd or 3rd tier law school and done just fine and then prospered.

[ndfmnlf]

In the United States most black people were yanked out of their homes from a specific region of Africa, and were partially isolated from white society for hundreds of years. So clearly there is a common culture between the descendants of slaves. But new immigrants from Africa often feel little bond to the African-Americans that are already here. It's the common culture and history shared by African-Americans that is responsible for much of what it means to be "black" in this day and age.

Race is a meaningless concept. It is a non-scientific classification of people based on superficially observed physical characteristics (i.e., the phenotype). In the case of Africans, they are lumped into one race (black) because of skin color and other supposedly correlated phenotypic characteristics. But why should skin color be the defining criteria for race? Why not use blood type, or the presence of the lactase gene, or a million other physical characteristics that are not visible to the naked eye? Skin color is an arbitrary criterion for defining race. But it is widely used because it's visible to the naked eye. Racists use it because their thinking doesn't go beyond the superficial. Also, they are simply ignorant of genetics.

If we look beyond skin color, the concept of race quickly becomes meaningless. If we look at the genotype of Africans, we find that there is actually greater genetic diversity between blacks in Africa than between Europeans. See this: Europeans Less Genetically Diverse Than Africans
The Distribution of Human Genetic Diversity: A Comparison of Mitochondrial, Autosomal, and Y-Chromosome Data

What this means is that if race is defined as a group of people who possess very similar genotypes (genetic composition), then Kenyans should belong to a different race than Nigerians. But that's not how the white supremacists on this forum define race. The white supremacists here see a person from Africa with black skin. That's all they need to see to label this person as a member of the black race. Black skin is supposed to be a marker for inferiority. This is laughable, especially given the fact that all humans of whatever skin color descended from African ancestors. Europeans would not even exist had it not been for their African forebears.

This is obviously an off-topic discussion, but this happens to be my area of interest (genetics). If you want to talk about this in detail, then I suggest you go to the science forum.

[GMarshfield]

I see we have a "Bell Curve" denier above.

Yawn.

For every apologist and denier above, there are plenty that don't try to hide science. The decoding of the human genome will prove it all in the end. Deniers will become like creationists, on the fringe.

Denial is akin to denying differences in gender too.

[ndfmnlf]

I see we have a "Bell Curve" denier above.

Yawn.

For every apologist and denier above, there are plenty that don't try to hide science. The decoding of the human genome will prove it all in the end. Deniers will become like creationists, on the fringe.

Denial is akin to denying differences in gender too.

For all your pseudo-scientific rantings on this forum, you have failed to do one basic thing: define race. I bet you will not be able to come up with a coherent definition.

It's funny you latch on to the decoding of the human genome, as if the genome will show the superiority of the white race. As I said above, you have not defined race, so how can you use the human genome project to show the superiority of that which you haven't even defined?

Secondly, you fail to understand that the human genome is not a static entity; it evolves. As the environment changes, so does the genome. The genome is nothing more than a statistical composite picture of the genetic composition of the human species that happens to be predominant at the present time. But whatever "good genes" you find depends entirely on whether they are a good fit for the currrent environment. Change the environment, and those genes that previously controlled for traits that aided survival may no longer be the genes that will aid survival tomorrow.

Case in point: the "intelligence gene" (if it even exists) that you presume white people have an abundance of, and non-whites have a deficiency of. The point of life on earth is survival. Procreate as much as you can and transmit your genes to future generations. You win if your genes survive; you lose if your genes are eliminated from the gene pool. That's really what it's all about. Intelligence (or having complex nervous systems that includes brains) is merely one adaptation that aids survival, but there are numerous other organisms that have survived without benefit of brains. Cyanobacteria cyanobacteria are one example. They have been on earth much longer (3.5 billion years) than humans. Long after humans have become extinct, I suspect cyanobacteria will still be around. Talk about resilience. Talk about "superior genes", the cyanobacteria have it.

The point is, all your talk about white people being superior because they have superior genes unmasks a basic flaw in your understanding of evolutionary processes and science itself. If you want a nuanced discussion of race and genetics, the science forum is where this topic belongs. I have a hunch your knowledge of genetics does not go beyond sophomoric readings of pop science books like the "Bell Curve". Believe me, you are not as intelligent as you imagine yourself to be.

[fairmarketvalue]

Originally Posted by ndfmnlf

For all your pseudo-scientific rantings on this forum, you have failed to do one basic thing: define race. I bet you will not be able to come up with a coherent definition.

It's funny you latch on to the decoding of the human genome, as if the genome will show the superiority of the white race. As I said above, you have not defined race, so how can you use the human genome project to show the superiority of that which you haven't even defined?

Secondly, you fail to understand that the human genome is not a static entity; it evolves. As the environment changes, so does the genome. The genome is nothing more than a statistical composite picture of the genetic composition of the human species that happens to be predominant at the present time. But whatever "good genes" you find depends entirely on whether they are a good fit for the currrent environment. Change the environment, and those genes that previously controlled for traits that aided survival may no longer be the genes that will aid survival tomorrow.

Case in point: the "intelligence gene" (if it even exists) that you presume white people have an abundance of, and non-whites have a deficiency of. The point of life on earth is survival. Procreate as much as you can and transmit your genes to future generations. You win if your genes survive; you lose if your genes are eliminated from the gene pool. That's really what it's all about. Intelligence (or having complex nervous systems that includes brains) is merely one adaptation that aids survival, but there are numerous other organisms that have survived without benefit of brains. Cyanobacteria cyanobacteria are one example. They have been on earth much longer (3.5 billion years) than humans. Long after humans have become extinct, I suspect cyanobacteria will still be around. Talk about resilience. Talk about "superior genes", the cyanobacteria have it.

The point is, all your talk about white people being superior because they have superior genes unmasks a basic flaw in your understanding of evolutionary processes and science itself. If you want a nuanced discussion of race and genetics, the science forum is where this topic belongs. I have a hunch your knowledge of genetics does not go beyond sophomoric readings of pop science books like the "Bell Curve". Believe me, you are not as intelligent as you imagine yourself to be.

Wow, I am actually posting on a thread that has nothing to do with real estate- or does it? As for the race issue- I am NOT a white person who thinks I or my race is superior. I am, however, a white male, 44 yr. old, white collar businessman, married w/4 children who thinks we are talking about "nature vs. nurture" here, on many levels. To save myself time, NO ONE put it better than BILL COSBY did a few years ago- NO ONE. The problem is forever challenged becasue the enviornmental issues never change and many posters have already listed what those are. You can give a man a fish to eat, but better to give him a fishing pole and teach him to catch his own. As I plagiarize this quote, I think how "poignant it is".

Our school system in this nation is a mess, and while money plays a part, so does the city in which the money is given from. I know our taxes are outrageous in DuPage Co. and the large %age that goes to schools is something we all conform to becasue we're told we have to. I will also not be hypocritical to say that we don't live where we live because of this political mess of sending our kids to good schools. So in the end, real estate is involved isn't it.

CPS are flooded with low income, no home enviornment families and kids who have had NO DIRECTION from birth. I feel for these kids that are the product of something that is no fault of theirs. Tell me what suburb has to get on the phone and "remind" parents/homes that school is starting and "make sure your child shows up". I remember the first time I head this "campaign" on the news and was flaborgasted. School officials were going door to door! And even if they do have a good home enviornment, the families can't afford to move to the "better school districts" because it's just not possible. So either way, based on how our nation's school system is set up, all this becomes relevant. And we pride ourselves on "free education"? please!

So what do we do? I dont' know. But let's not just assume its race. Our suburbs and schools like New Trier are FULL of overpriveledged kids with "in your face" parents who think since they live where they do and pay the taxes, they deserve to have what they have and how dare anyone disrupt that. These types of "entitlement generation" kids are going to be just as detrimental to our society as the under priviledged are, just a differnt type of "bad influence". We have our share of those "types" of parents and families in our school system too. But how about we all try to think about THE KIDS, the future of our nation, and perhaps fix a HUGELY broken system that spans way beyond Sen. Meeks and his protest to "rattle" New Trier and its district residents.

[sgresident]

what if i tried to take my son, from our more rural Kaneland district, to the Naperville school district that has the really nice nequa valley high school. Do you think they would let us just register? no friggin' way! I don't think race is the issue here.

[cdc3217]

Originally Posted by sgresident

what if i tried to take my son, from our more rural Kaneland district, to the Naperville school district that has the really nice nequa valley high school. Do you think they would let us just register? no friggin' way! I don't think race is the issue here.

Although I thought some districts (I read this somewhere about Stevenson, actually) would allow some number of out of district kids to register and pay an out of district fee to attend their school. I have no evidence, so if some can put this in the urban myth category please do.