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I doubt you have done a fraction of the reading and research Murray has, and if you were ever to debate him, even a refined and reserved person like him would destroy your arguments and claims. Junk science? You are unaware of the facts.
Thomas Sowell pretty effectively dismantled Charles Murrays nonsense many years ago. I suspect he has done more reading and research than Murray and the rest of us combined.
"While Herrnstein and Murray do an excellent job of exposing the flaws in the argument that tests are culturally biased by showing that the greatest black-white differences are not on the questions which presuppose middle-class vocabulary or experiences, but on abstract questions such as spatial perceptual ability, their conclusion that this "phenomenon seems peculiarly concentrated in comparisons of ethnic groups" is simply wrong.......
Perhaps the strongest evidence against a genetic basis for intergroup differences in IQ is that the average level of mental test performance has changed very significantly for whole populations over time and, moreover, particular ethnic groups within the population have changed their relative positions during a period when there was very little intermarriage to change the genetic makeup of these groups......
The implications of such rising patterns of mental test performance is devastating to the central hypothesis of those who have long expressed the same fear as Herrnstein and Murray, that the greater fertility of low-IQ groups would lower the national (and international) IQ over time. The logic of their argument seems so clear and compelling that the opposite empirical result should be considered a refutation of the assumptions behind that logic.
One of the reasons why widespread improvements in results on IQ tests have received such little attention is that these tests have been normed to produce an average IQ of 100, regardless of how many questions are answered correctly. Like "race-norming" today, such generation-norming, as it were, produces a wholly fictitious equality concealing very real and very consequential differences. If a man who scores 100 on an IQ test today is answering more questions correctly than his grandfather with the same IQ answered two-generations ago, then someone else who answers the same number of questions correctly today as this man's grandfather answered two generations ago may have an IQ of 85.
Herrnstein and Murray openly acknowledge such rises in IQ and christen them "the Flynn effect," in honor of Professor Flynn who discovered it. But they seem not to see how crucially it undermines the case for a genetic explanation of interracial IQ differences.
The national averages have in fact changed by amounts that are comparable to the fifteen or so IQ points separating blacks and whites in America. To put it another way, on the average, whites today differ from whites, say, two generations ago as much as whites today differ from blacks today. Given their size and speed, the shifts in time necessarily have been due more to changes in the environment than to changes in the genes....."
Last edited by TheArchitect; 02-16-2021 at 03:20 PM..
Then if culture and peer pressure (say, among teenagers) is what keeps blacks and Hispanics from the academic, financial, and professional success Asians and whites achieve as groups, then why does the charge of racism exist?
As others (including some who are black themselves) have pointed out in this thread and on C-D, there are black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean who have cultural backgrounds which are noticeably different from that of many black Americans. They come here generally with their family units intact, value education, quietly study and apply themselves, and make their way up on the socioeconomic ladder. This has been the case to the extent there has been strife (not of the violent kind, but some tension, rather) between these black immigrant groups and black Americans.
Ethnically, racially - these blacks from the Caribbean and Africa are no less African than black Americans. Why does the racism that the left claim holds black Americans down appears to magically lose its power when it comes to black immigrants from the Caribbean and from Africa?
They will say it's because American blacks were subjected to slavery and then racism. But I think there is a victim mentality, and resentment of white America, that hinders some blacks.
Most people in America have been over and done with discriminating against or hating someone because of their race. That is old hat.
The issue of today is expecting equal socioeconomic outcomes among all the races. That is the elephant in the room.
Yes, I think real racism is mostly over, but they still want to explain the different success levels of different ethnic groups. So they blame systemic racism. Better than blaming themselves.
Like so many pointed out, we are spending way too much time and energy on this topic. My favorite analogy is a pack of cards. You cannot plan any card games when every card in the deck is an 8. I could give countless examples. Look at a large pack of wolves. There is a natural hierarchy that exists and the same basic hierarchy exists in mankind.
We can slice and dice and put this topic under a microscope but at the end of the day there are too many variables that differentiate us from each other. I'm not overly religious but our creator made us a certain way and as hard as we may try, none of us are equal.
Back to the pack of card analogy. Why does the 4 card harbor so much hatred and envy over the 8 card? Why does the 8 card lose sleep because they are not a Queen? The answer is obvious, it's wasted energy.
Time to learn to be the captain of your own ship, play the card that you are dealt and get on with life!!!!!
Thomas Sowell pretty effectively dismantled Charles Murrays nonsense many years ago. I suspect he has done more reading and research than Murray and the rest of us combined.
"While Herrnstein and Murray do an excellent job of exposing the flaws in the argument that tests are culturally biased by showing that the greatest black-white differences are not on the questions which presuppose middle-class vocabulary or experiences, but on abstract questions such as spatial perceptual ability, their conclusion that this "phenomenon seems peculiarly concentrated in comparisons of ethnic groups" is simply wrong.......
Perhaps the strongest evidence against a genetic basis for intergroup differences in IQ is that the average level of mental test performance has changed very significantly for whole populations over time and, moreover, particular ethnic groups within the population have changed their relative positions during a period when there was very little intermarriage to change the genetic makeup of these groups......
The implications of such rising patterns of mental test performance is devastating to the central hypothesis of those who have long expressed the same fear as Herrnstein and Murray, that the greater fertility of low-IQ groups would lower the national (and international) IQ over time. The logic of their argument seems so clear and compelling that the opposite empirical result should be considered a refutation of the assumptions behind that logic.
One of the reasons why widespread improvements in results on IQ tests have received such little attention is that these tests have been normed to produce an average IQ of 100, regardless of how many questions are answered correctly. Like "race-norming" today, such generation-norming, as it were, produces a wholly fictitious equality concealing very real and very consequential differences. If a man who scores 100 on an IQ test today is answering more questions correctly than his grandfather with the same IQ answered two-generations ago, then someone else who answers the same number of questions correctly today as this man's grandfather answered two generations ago may have an IQ of 85.
Herrnstein and Murray openly acknowledge such rises in IQ and christen them "the Flynn effect," in honor of Professor Flynn who discovered it. But they seem not to see how crucially it undermines the case for a genetic explanation of interracial IQ differences.
The national averages have in fact changed by amounts that are comparable to the fifteen or so IQ points separating blacks and whites in America. To put it another way, on the average, whites today differ from whites, say, two generations ago as much as whites today differ from blacks today. Given their size and speed, the shifts in time necessarily have been due more to changes in the environment than to changes in the genes....."
A probable explanation is that the Flynn effect was measuring the effect of improving environmental conditions for the population as whole and the genetic group gap differences that continues to remain is measuring something else besides environment such as heredity. There's studies that show the Flynn effect saw improvement in the lower end bring up the average and not improvements at the higher end and that it has slowed or even reversed in recent decades in several Western countries.
A probable explanation is that the Flynn effect was measuring the effect of improving environmental conditions for the population as whole and the genetic group gap differences that continues to remain is measuring something else besides environment such as heredity. There's studies that show the Flynn effect saw improvement in the lower end bring up the average and not improvements at the higher end and that it has slowed or even reversed in recent decades in several Western countries.
No, what youre seeing with the Flynn Effect is nuanced change in mind due to cultural/civilizational and child rearing modernization.
"Perhaps the strongest evidence against a genetic basis for intergroup differences in IQ is that the average level of mental test performance has changed very significantly for whole populations over time and, moreover, particular ethnic groups within the population have changed their relative positions during a period when there was very little intermarriage to change the genetic makeup of these groups."
And a paragraph from another article (I believe Sowell has noted this in his other writings also):
"These composite mental ages also conveniently covered up test results in which literate black draftees from a few northern states outscored white draftees from several southern states. Blacks draftees from New York, for instance, scored higher than white draftees from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, while black draftees from Illinois could add Alabama and Kentucky to that list. Black conscripts from Ohio received even higher scores, bettering white draftees from all the previously mentioned states as well as Oklahoma, Texas and Tennessee (Yerkes, 1921, 690-91, tables 205, 206). Robert M. Yerkes, the director of the Army intelligence testing program tried to explain away disparate scores between northern and southern blacks by arguing that the more intelligent African Americans were clever enough to move to the North (Gould, 1981, 220). He never, however, offered any explanation for why these same northern blacks surpassed many southern whites on the exam."
These things are not at all surprising for those of us who know the actual reasons for the current IQ disparity.
A century ago, black out-of-wedlock birthrate was identical to whites. Child rearing tactics were also identical. The children born to non married black couples have obviously outpaced that of whites by a 3-1 margin for several decades now. The day-to-day child rearing practices of whites have also modernized more, while many black parental tactics remain somewhat backward and abusive.
Also keep in mind, although blacks overall received far less schooling and were more likely to be illiterate 100 yrs ago, those in the north who did get schooling, did so in an environment where they had both parents at the same rate as whites, and the waves of southern blacks had not yet totally taken over and replaced the culture of the blacks who had been in the north for generations. Who were no doubt culturally and psychologically different in many ways.
"Perhaps the strongest evidence against a genetic basis for intergroup differences in IQ is that the average level of mental test performance has changed very significantly for whole populations over time and, moreover, particular ethnic groups within the population have changed their relative positions during a period when there was very little intermarriage to change the genetic makeup of these groups."
And a paragraph from another article (I believe Sowell has noted this in his other writings also):
"These composite mental ages also conveniently covered up test results in which literate black draftees from a few northern states outscored white draftees from several southern states. Blacks draftees from New York, for instance, scored higher than white draftees from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas, while black draftees from Illinois could add Alabama and Kentucky to that list. Black conscripts from Ohio received even higher scores, bettering white draftees from all the previously mentioned states as well as Oklahoma, Texas and Tennessee (Yerkes, 1921, 690-91, tables 205, 206). Robert M. Yerkes, the director of the Army intelligence testing program tried to explain away disparate scores between northern and southern blacks by arguing that the more intelligent African Americans were clever enough to move to the North (Gould, 1981, 220). He never, however, offered any explanation for why these same northern blacks surpassed many southern whites on the exam."
These things are not at all surprising for those of us who know the actual reasons for the current IQ disparity.
A century ago, black out-of-wedlock birthrate was identical to whites. Child rearing tactics were also identical. The children born to non married black couples have obviously outpaced that of whites by a 3-1 margin for several decades now. The day-to-day child rearing practices of whites have also modernized more, while many black parental tactics remain somewhat backward and abusive.
Also keep in mind, although blacks overall received far less schooling and were more likely to be illiterate 100 yrs ago, those in the north who did get schooling, did so in an environment where they had both parents at the same rate as whites, and the waves of southern blacks had not yet totally taken over and replaced the culture of the blacks who had been in the north for generations. Who were no doubt culturally and psychologically different in many ways.
But the point remains that the median IQ increased during the 20th century for whites and blacks both more than the gap between the groups decreased. If improvements in the environment was the only factor and not heredity, then the gap should of decreased more. What the Flynn effect seem to show is poor whites, as were blacks, were facing more adverse environmental conditions particularly in the South before the later half of the 20th century bringing down their average.
If Asians come from cultures that prize hard work, education, literacy, erudition, and superior academic achievement as you say, do you think it's unfair to make Asian high school graduates score hundreds of points higher on the SAT than black high school graduates if the former are to have a chance of being accepted to the high-tier university of their choice?
Take 1000 wealthy white people from the West Side of Los Angeles and plop them down into a shantytown in Manila and then listen to middle class Filipinos blame the poor people already living there for not being able to compete.
Have you been to Asian countries, I have. There are many many many 100’s of millions who are undereducated and non ambitious. You see the ones here and assume they are all like that back home. Japan and South Korea are rich countries so they make bad examples on the whole to prop up an entire race with.
Like I said, the slice of these countries that come here are of upper echelon, which is true of Nigeria as well and the reason they do so well.
Went to school with a few blacks (regular people from modest backgrounds) who on the surface weren’t anything to mystify about. One had a 128 IQ and the other 136. Much higher than the average Japanese even. I personally don’t put much stock in IQ tests anyway but these results imply BS to the race intrinsic intelligence argument.
And if visual prejudice doesn’t exist then why has every US President been tall? What, only tall people have the cognitive ability to lead an executive branch of government? Oddly enough, you need to be tall to play basketball as well. Lol
They will say it's because American blacks were subjected to slavery and then racism. But I think there is a victim mentality, and resentment of white America, that hinders some blacks.
As a group, if you where subject to slavery and racism then are you not by default a “victim”. It’s not letting that fact take control of your life that matters. But it is a fact of life. A lot of victim blaming going on here. Let them eat cake!!
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