"In Between"

There's tons of interesting information about the history of American public opinion on this site which has some tables made from the American National Election Study dataset. Here we see answers to the question "Are you in favor of desegregation, strict segregation, or something in between." I really couldn't say what that "something in between" would be, but it sure seems to be a popular answer. Between 1964 and 1968, the rise in support for the "in between" position seems mostly driven by the decline in support for segregation, which is all to the good. Then in 1970, support for desegregation reaches its peak as both segregation and desegregation decline.

But then in the next three surveys, support for desegregation consistently declines as more and more people shift into this mysterious middle ground position. It's too bad that they stopped asking this question in 1978 because public opinion was shifting throughout the 1970s and not just in the predictable sense of a steady decline in support for segregation.

Comments

What's so mysterious about the middle ground? It's just letting people live, work, and go to school, wherever the hell THEY want to, instead of forcing them apart, OR forcing them together. That's about as unmysterious as a middle ground can get.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 19, 2007 5:45 PM

"In between" = "no busing"

Posted by j mct | November 19, 2007 5:48 PM

I don't think "no busing" is really the "in-between" position. It's the "not-in-my-backyard" segment of the population that doesn't want integration, but doesn't want to be associated with the kinds of folks blocking doors to black students.

Posted by James Hare | November 19, 2007 5:51 PM

Brett, you left out a word:

It's just letting white people live, work, and go to school, wherever the hell THEY want to

Posted by k | November 19, 2007 5:52 PM

I suppose the reaction in the comments section should give Matt the clues he needs to figure out this conundrum.

Posted by freddiemac | November 19, 2007 5:58 PM

I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from editing what I write to conform with your prejudices as to what I must think. I wrote exactly what I meant.

Segregation is the process of forced separation.

Desegregation is the process of undoing said forced separation.

At some point, and that point was decades ago, the forced separation is all taken care of, and if you persist at 'desegregation', you're as guilty of violating peoples' rights as the segregationists were.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 19, 2007 5:59 PM

It's got to mean busing. That was THE big desegretation issue at the time. Busing was unpopular with a lot of people, and as it became more common, it pushed more people into the "something in between" camp.

Posted by too many steves | November 19, 2007 6:01 PM

Everyone knows what you meant Brett:legal segregation bad, de facto segregation good!

Posted by Rob | November 19, 2007 6:03 PM

Nope, legal segregation bad, de facto segregation... just a morally neutral brute fact.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 19, 2007 6:06 PM

I'd say in Brett's defense that "de-facto" segregation exists and exists in some pretty progressive communities. I lived and attended school in Fairfax County, Virginia and I had very few black classmates. From third grade until seventh grade, I had none. The only time I was at a school that seemed truly integrated was in high school. It was mainly a function of living in a neighbourhood that was mostly white folks (the neighbourhood has changed a bit now, and most of the white folks are leaving).

Strangely enough, the most integrated school I have ever been in was Prince Edward High School in Farmville, Virginia. Prince Edward County has the dubious distinction of being a part of the strategy of "massive resistance." In Prince Edward they closed the public schools and opened a private school for whites only (it's still around today, but now allows black students).

Posted by James Hare | November 19, 2007 6:17 PM

I think we've got to clear this up: What's the problem with segregation? The violation of human liberty inherent in forcing people to live, work, piss, or whatever, where the STATE wants them to? Or the deviation from strict homogeneity? I think it's the former, and on that basis, compulsory moves to negate de facto segregation are nothing but the same evil as segregation, wearing a smile instead of a frown.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 19, 2007 6:19 PM

Other than busing, it was likely indicative of white sentiments about high rates of black crime, riots, drug use, and street intimidation of non-blacks combining to make whites conclude living alongside blacks was a bad thing for their families and white flight the answer.

It would be interesting if the survey had continued past 1978.

I suspect that few Asian, white, hispanic people would like to live in a completely desegregated neighborhood. The Obama family down the block, great! The TV Huxtables, why that would be fine, too. A housing project full of black thugs and lowlifes? No thanks.

Nor is this preference racist, but common sense instead.
Though it is highly un-PC to discuss this reality in certain quarters, particularly with liberal Democrats.

To see the real truth of the matter, let us take a look at the Department of Justice document Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2005....In Table 42...
In the United States in 2005, 37,460 white females were sexually assaulted or raped by a black man, while between zero and ten black females were sexually assaulted or raped by a white man.

DOJ stats also show blacks now commit the majority of investigated murders, rapes, and armed robberies in the USA.
A white man is 35 times more likely, an Asian 47 times more likely be a victim of a major violent felony by a black stranger, as a black is to
be a victim by a stranger of those races. Hispanic numbers are qualified because DOJ cannot assess the degree of crime on illegals by other hispanics and blacks, though it is known to be very high.

Ironically, the trend in some poorer neighborhoods is efforts by Asian and Hispanic immigrants, now in the majority, to resegregate their schools and neighborhoods to make them safer by ethnically cleansing out the underclass blacks. LaShawn Barber of http://lashawnbarber.com/ has written of the violent efforts, including killings by hispanic and Asian gangs, and economic pressure by their political and civic leaders to move blacks completely out of some of their traditional Los Angeles, Phoenix, Houston neighborhoods and High Schools.

Posted by Chris Ford | November 19, 2007 6:46 PM

It's the "not-in-my-backyard" segment of the population that doesn't want integration, but doesn't want to be associated with the kinds of folks blocking doors to black students.

You mean Yankees. Forced busing was opposed in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Seattle, and San Francisco. Reagan won important victories in these states by signaling Northern racists that his administration would fight these policies in court. Call it Reagan's Northern Strategy.

Posted by Just Karl | November 19, 2007 6:51 PM

Yup, Karl, there's no motive but racism for somebody finding it objectionable to move into a neighborhood with nice schools, pay the taxes to finance them, and then have the government order them to put their kid on a bus for a couple hours a day to be taken to a much worse school. I mean, who could find that objectionable but a racist?

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 19, 2007 6:57 PM

I agree it would be interesting to see where this question went over the years, it's not that good a measurement. Something tells me that a lot of the "in between" increase is in segregationists convincing themselves that really they're moderates.

Posted by Aaron S. Veenstra | November 19, 2007 7:15 PM

Re: The Obama family down the block, great! The TV Huxtables, why that would be fine, too. A housing project full of black thugs and lowlifes? No thanks.

But that's a class issue, not a race issue. Most middle-class white people would also say No to having a run-down trailer park full of "white trash" in their neighborhood too. And many middle-class Blacks, those who joined the white flight to the suburbs, gave their opinion of inner city "thug" culture thereby.

Chris Ford: the reason there are more white crime victims than black crime victims is because there are more white people period. Like, duh.

Posted by Jonf | November 19, 2007 7:17 PM

Brett, in the 70's school boards were re-drawing district lines in order to maintain these segregated schools. There was discrimination in housing and mortgages. The courts found that these were systematic efforts to keep the schools segregated. You are arguing that there is nothing wrong with separate and unequal as long as white people have choices about which neighborhoods and school systems they can afford.

Posted by Just Karl | November 19, 2007 7:29 PM

It's busing, especially busing in the North.

Thomas Sowell once wrote a brilliant article pointing out that the Civil Rights revolution was fought back-asswards, starting with Brown v. Board of Education in 1954, which was largely a dead-letter until Southern de jure segregation was ended in the first two years of the Nixon Administration 1969-70. Then started the war on de facto segregation of schools in the North, which alienated huge numbers of white parents.

Starting with the schools in 1954 was absolutely the wrong way to start because voters value their children's safety and futures more than anything else, so Brown gave white Southern demagogues a wonderful issue to exploit. Instead, the most immediately successful law change was the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which finally provided a level playing field for politicians, and quickly eliminated traditional white politico demagoguery because it didn't pay anymore (e.g., George Wallace made his comeback in the 1979 with heavy black support).

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 7:32 PM

For a recent example, look at the 2002 New Jersey gubernatorial election between the WSJ's favorite candidate Brett Schundler, running on a statewide voucher and the Democrat, that guy who got into the scandal for putting his (possibly) Mossad agent boy-toy on the terrorism commission.

The Republican Schundler favored a statewide voucher that would let poor kids from the 'hood attend any public school in a wealthy suburban district they wanted. The moderate voters in the wealthy suburban districts, who tend to have a lot of their life savings tied up in home values that are linked to the test scores in the local school, said "Hell, no" and voted Democratic.

Voters care about their kids.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 7:39 PM

I don't think "no busing" is really the "in-between" position.

As someone who was starting school in Boston in 1972, I can tell you, j mct has it right. Busing was the issue at the time, partly because they decided to send kids from the poorest neighborhoods in Roxbury to schools in the poorest neighborhoods of South Boston. Partly because it was so in-your-face. But most of all, because they kept switching your school year after year.

My parents pulled me from the public schools after I'd been assigned to my 3rd new school in 3 years. I didn't come back until junior high school, after things had settled down.

Posted by J K | November 19, 2007 7:47 PM

By the way, I realize Matt hasn't let the dread words "James Watson" pass his keyboard, but William Saletan, the human sciences columnist for Slate, is displaying a tremendous courage right now in his on-going three part series in defense of Watson. Here's the first part:

http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178123/

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 7:47 PM

And here's the concluding paragraph of today's second section of William Saletan's trilogy on "Race, Genes, and Intelligence" in Slate:

"When I look at all the data, studies, and arguments, I see a prima facie case for partial genetic influence. I don't see conclusive evidence either way in the adoption studies. I don't see closure of the racial IQ gap to single digits. And I see too much data that can't be reconciled with the surge or explained by current environmental theories. I hope the surge surprises me. But in case it doesn't, I want to start thinking about how to be an egalitarian in an age of genetic difference, even between races. More on that tomorrow."

http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178124/

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 7:51 PM

Brett,

You quite clearly meant that if white people (or whatever the majority group happens to be) want to systematically exclude black people (or some other minority group) from living or going to school or working where THEY want, that is OK as long as when the State goes to enforce the majority's rights over the minority's rights it says that it is doing it to protect "Freedom of Association."

Posted by k | November 19, 2007 7:55 PM

Chris Ford: the reason there are more white crime victims than black crime victims is because there are more white people period. Like, duh.
Posted by Jonf

Like duh, indeed! One of the dumbest statements I've ever heard.

To continue with your logic, the reason blacks murder the majority of people in this country is that there are more white people, period.

And the reason that 37, 460 white women were raped by blacks vs. under 10 black women raped by whites is that there are less blacks.

I think the likelihood is you are so brain-stupified by PC you can't grasp objective data.

Posted by Chris Ford | November 19, 2007 7:58 PM

William Saletan, the human sciences columnist for Slate, is displaying a tremendous courage right now

Considering the popularity of Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, its obvious that defending racist views in this country takes no courage at all.

Posted by Jinchi | November 19, 2007 8:06 PM

Crime rates by race?

Who are you going to believe, politically correct dogma or your lying eyes?

From the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics:

In 2005, homicide victimization rates for blacks were 6 times higher than the rates for whites. ...

In 2005, offending rates for blacks were more than 7 times higher than the rates for whites

http://ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

Amazing! It's looks like your lying eyes are right and politically correct dogma was wrong. Who woulda thunk it?

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 8:10 PM

Chris Ford:

Another statistic I've seen is that today something like one-third of all the urban black men in America are currently either dead or in prison, with huge additional numbers having been crippled for life.

If this totally astonishing figure is actually correct, I think we can assume that the impact has been largely upon those with the most violent tendencies.

Just imagine what the crime rates would be otherwise be without this "ameliorative" situation...

Posted by RKU | November 19, 2007 8:18 PM

The legal push against segregation didn't "start with the schools in 1954." The legal push against segregated schools took something like 30+ years and probably started the day after Plessy v. Ferguson was decided. Read Simple Justice. Also, if I recall correctly, racial covenants went before segregated schools -- Shelley v. Kraemer was decided in the 1940s.

Posted by Steve V | November 19, 2007 8:19 PM

K, what I clearly meant is what I freaking said. If you've got some kind of ideological filter causing to to read exactly what you expect people to say, regardless of what actual words they type out, that's your problem.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 19, 2007 8:30 PM

For example, busing was carried out in LA in the 1970s to end de facto segregation caused by whites and Non-Asian Minorities (NAMs) tending to live in different neighborhoods.

So, how'd that work out? Today, the student body of the LA Unified School District, home to so many Hollywood liberals, is 9% white.

Atlantic contributor Sandra Tsing Loh has written a fun guide to upper middle class parents in LA on how to weasel their kids into the small number of LAUSD schools with high test scores:

http://www.sandratsingloh.com/index.php?pr=Guide_to_Schools

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 8:31 PM

Why is all this generation-old history important for young progressives to understand today?

Because the reason you've switched your name from "liberal" to "progressive" is precisely because the word "liberal" is still tainted in the voters' minds largely by the holier-than-thou smugness over race that upper middle class white liberals living sheltered lives inflicted on run-of-the-mill white people in the 1970s.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 8:36 PM

... and it was only a generation ago that the Supreme Court finally invalidated anti-miscegenation laws. Good history to know, indeed.

Posted by Steve V | November 19, 2007 8:41 PM

Sailor, what do the stats say about the percentage of AA students attending college today vs 1970?

Posted by Just Karl | November 19, 2007 8:42 PM

I think the commentators here have it nailed. That when integration meant recognizing the rights of blacks to work and live where they wished, it was popular (relatively). But when the liberals of the time pushed it to actually mean forced busing and racial preferences/reverse discrimination (which was another issue that grew big in the 1970s), people decided that if that is what integration meant, they were against it and in favor of something else. I think the something else they were in favor of was integration as they originally understood it and supported it, not integration as meaning all the racial items on the liberal political wish list being forced upon them. I am actually surprised that Matt has to be told this.

I am also surprised that Matt did not draw the connection between this post and his 'Reagan is a racist' posts. The funny thing about Krugman and Matt's belief that Reagan was trying to signal that he was a racist with his state's right speech in Neshoba Miss. is that the Civil Right's laws of the 1960's were popular, and that Goldwater, in standing against them, went down to thunderous defeat. It was only when the liberals made the laws do things that many people of the time did not believe the laws said to do that many nonracist voters turned away from being liberal and became conservatives.

It almost makes one wonder ... was Reagan really 'secretly signalling' to voters that he was on the side of the segregationists who had lost every national political battle for 15 years and that he was going to reinstitute old fashioned segregation like the Civil Rights act did not exist; or was he signalling, or just flat out telling the much greater number of voters that were not segregationists or racists that he understood and shared their belief the federal government had gone too far in instituting what we would now call Political Correctness? Given that the first answer is easier, more fun, and comes complete with a nice feeling of moral superiority for liberal New York Times columnists and bloggers, how can we be surprised at its popularity? Matt's graph suggests the truth is not so simple.

Posted by Counterfactual | November 19, 2007 8:42 PM

Unstated anywhere in this thread, of course, is the conservative solution to the problems of persistent segregation and ghettoization that prompted government action in the first place, or any sense of outrage at its persistence some 100+ years after the passage of the Reconstruction amendments.

Posted by Steve V | November 19, 2007 8:58 PM

If contemporary progressives want to win elections they have to fight against their holier-than-thou urges.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 9:02 PM

I think there's a more parsimonious explanation for these poll results. It's a bad poll.

According to Matt, the question was:

"Are you in favor of desegregation, strict segregation, or something in between[?]"

"Something in between" is the only passive answer and covers a vast central swath of the ideological spectrom (compared with two distinct, active, and ideologically extreme alternatives); it allows the respondent to avoid taking a position on a controversial issue. Imagine if a poll asked:

Are you in favor of toppling Musharraf by invasion, continuing to fund his regime at current levels, or something in between?

Are you in favor of forced abortion, a ban on all abortions, or something less absolutist?

Do you believe women are smarter than men, men are smarter than women, or something more complicated?

Should we give southpaw $100, steal $100 from southpaw, or take another approach?

It's just totally rigged.

Posted by southpaw | November 19, 2007 9:10 PM

Brett, I agree that you meant what you typed and when in the context of the discussion you say "instead of forcing them apart, OR forcing them together" you quite clearly mean that white people should be able to completely exclude black people from their lives. I don't see how that statement can be reasonably be taken to mean anything else.

When a black person walks down a street where a white person lives who doesn't want to see black people, whose rights should the State protect? If you say "the black person's" then you didn't really mean it when you said that people shouldn't be forced together. So do you mean what you type or not?

Posted by k | November 19, 2007 9:17 PM

Funny, it seems to me the holier-than-thou racial "liberal" attitudes of the 60's and 70's that Steve Sailer finds so objectionable are the very ones that Brett Bellmore is so upset about when he thinks I am saying he doesn't share them.

Posted by k | November 19, 2007 9:33 PM

William Saletan, the human sciences columnist for Slate, is displaying a tremendous courage right now
Considering the popularity of Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, its obvious that defending racist views in this country takes no courage at all.

It does in academia.
Deviants from the official faculty Party Line can expect punishment. From marginalization to denial of tenure to dismissal. Larry Summers was taught a lesson, Nobel Laureate Watson was drummed out despite his desperate POW apologies that he had been treated most excellently - as an abject lesson to all.

The media is another place that enforced orthodoxy when TV, major newspapers, Hollywood, radio, music firms, magazine and publishing houses were dominated by a few owners who were left-Centrist to Communist and mostly Jewish - outside Hearst, Luce, and McCormick families. 40 years ago, Limbaugh&Malkin&Coulter would have been discussed after synogogue then at a private meeting and been blacklisted from media. That has changed now with wider access to media and publishing and loss of control of private families who sold out to corporations at a hefty price. But enough remnant power exists in academia, MSM for journalists wishing to sell to a broad spectrum of outlets that consequences await for center or left deviants from orthodoxy like Saletan. That it is rare as Sailer said to speak out - especially as punishment is being meted out. No one spoke up for Summers in the USA but a few heretics from the feminist camp. Europe was a bit freer about the Harvard faculty quashing him.

Posted by Chris Ford | November 19, 2007 9:37 PM

Prominent protestors against the effective firing of James Watson, who is likely America's most distinguished man of science, over the last 5 weeks have included Richard Dawkins, Pat Buchanan, Edward O. Wilson, John Derbyshire, and not too many others.

So, it shows more than a little bravery for William Saletan to speak up so forthrightly in a Washington Post-owned publication.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 9:43 PM

For example, ten days into the Watson Ritual Humiliation, I checked National Review Online's archives and only John Derbyshire had spoken out on Watson so far.

As we can see by the enormous number of journalists and bloggers who couldn't wait to put the boot in when the great man was down, and by the negligible number who came forward to defend the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, the chattering classes of the 21st Century are composed, by and large, of bullies and/or cowards.

Why did so many so enthusiastically sign up as auxiliaries of the Thought Police?

Because it's fun.

The psychology of those who rushed to attack Watson was memorably outlined in Orwell's 1984, when the interrogator O'Brien explains to his prisoner Winston Smith the exciting future envisaged by the Party:

"Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face—for ever. …The heretic, the enemy of society, will always be there, so that he can be defeated and humiliated over again. … The more the Party is powerful, the less it will be tolerant: the weaker the opposition, the tighter the despotism. Goldstein and his heresies will live for ever. … Always we shall have the heretic here at our mercy, screaming with pain, broken up, contemptible—and in the end utterly penitent, saved from himself, crawling to our feet of his own accord."

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 9:47 PM

It wasn't the children of the Ted Kennedy's of the world who were bused to integrated schools in the 1970's anymore than their counterparts today are having their wages driven down by illegal immigrants.

It's been 40 years since the Democratic party turned it's back on working people and today's "liberals" (or "progressives" or whatever the hell they call themselves these days) don't have any more connection with the working class in this country than does a Wall Street investment banker.

We've always had one party that represented the elites, now we have two, which of course really means we no longer have two parties.

Posted by kafka | November 19, 2007 9:48 PM

K, if that's what I really mean, how come you had to add so many words I didn't write?

Take a deep breath, find your happy place, and treat what I wrote as an exercise in sentence diagramming. Maybe you can overcome this problem yet.

In the mean while, the population of Montana is only 0.4% black. Clearly there's no solution except forced relocation of populations, right? Since letting blacks chose not to live in Montana isn't acceptable.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 19, 2007 9:51 PM

Are you serious, k? Do you really think that when people say they don't want the government to get involved in forced integration they mean they don't want white people to have to see a black person walking down the street if they don't want to?Seriously?

Posted by withnail | November 19, 2007 9:54 PM

SS, you are right that there is a social stigma associated with saying racist things. I don't really know why that upsets you.

Brett, actually I originally only added one word and that is what set you off. I guess I struck a nerve.

Posted by k | November 19, 2007 9:59 PM

k, you're being deliberately obtuse.

Posted by southpaw | November 19, 2007 10:06 PM

"I really couldn't say what that "something in between" would be..."

Really? Wouldn't it be something like Dalton? ~9% black students, but blacks like Wesley Snipes's kid. In other words, a smattering of racial diversity, but without the social pathologies that would come with the sort of sample you'd find in a typical public school.

Posted by Fred | November 19, 2007 10:17 PM

Sailor, where are you? Did I miss the statistics on the number of African-Americans in college today vs 1970? I haven't looked it up, I'm waiting on the expert. It's only been two generations since George Jefferson was movin on up. The first generation to be truly equal is just hitting the middle class, now. Their kids are making it, along with the bused kids, and the affirmative-action kids of the next generation. Programs like affirmative-action are vital to the long-term reconciliation and integration of black and white. The white flight is finding out that the sub-urbs and xurbs are not as white as they used to be. It's the progressive belief that this policy of integration is succeeding and needs to continue. Racists always want to tell you why that's not possible.

Look, I've got statistics! Well...where are they?

Posted by Just Karl | November 19, 2007 10:38 PM

Dear Just Karl,

I guess you haven't learned by now not to challenge me on the data, have you?

From "Middle-Class Dream Eludes African American Families," By Michael A. Fletcher, Washington Post, November 13, 2007:

"Nearly half of African Americans born to middle-income parents in the late 1960s plunged into poverty or near-poverty as adults, according to a new study -- a perplexing finding that analysts say highlights the fragile nature of middle-class life for many African Americans.

"Overall, family incomes have risen for both blacks and whites over the past three decades. But in a society where the privileges of class and income most often perpetuate themselves from generation to generation, black Americans have had more difficulty than whites in transmitting those benefits to their children."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/12/AR2007111201711.html?nav=rss_print/asection

Various things are going on here (such as competition from immigrants hitting African-Americans, especially black males, harder, and the decay in Arican-American culture with the rise of illegitimacy and gangsta rap), but nother factor is regression toward the mean. Parents whose IQs average well above or below the mean tend to have children whose IQs are closer to the mean. The problem for high IQ blacks is the black mean that their relatives regress toward is around 85, rather than 100 for whites (or about 105 for Northeast Asians or about 112 for Ashkenazi Jews).

We see the same regression toward the mean with siblings. Arthur Jensen looked at IQ test scores for all the children in a school district. Among those children with average IQs over 120, their siblings averaged 113, while the black students' siblings averaged 99. In other words, the white siblings regressed back to 13 points above the white mean and the black siblings back to 14 points above the black mean.

So, let's do a thought experiment involving two middle income couples, all four of whom have IQs of 100. The expected average IQ of the white couple's kids is also 100 because there is no regression up or down because the parents are already at their ancestral group's mean. But the expected average IQ of the black couples' kids can be expected to regress about half or two-fifths of the way toward the black mean: say 93.

Now, 7 points isn't a big difference for any individual, but as the average difference between two large groups of people it has predictable impacts on real world performance for things like income.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 19, 2007 11:14 PM

The comments to this thread are causing my brains to leak out of my lily-white ears. Don't cripple our Race like this you jerx!

Posted by tps12 | November 19, 2007 11:23 PM

I assume nobody's listening to our resident racist and VDARE contributor's masturbatory fantasies about the supposedly politically correct persecution of James "“people who have to deal with black employees find this not true" Watson, right?

"SS, you are right that there is a social stigma associated with saying racist things. I don't really know why that upsets you."

There's a lot of that going around -for example, Doug Chapman (Dog the Bounty Hunter)'s furious caught-on-tape rant that his son dump his black girlfriend, because otherwise Doug would have to actually refrain from goin' n****r this, n****r that when she was around, for fear of it getting out and ruining his career (isn't that ironic), They see that they're being, at long last, finally marginalized, and it enrages them.

Anyway,

"While many of us may harbor separatist inclinations, our racially and economically segregated real estate markets are not inherently natural. They are the result of a host of intentional public and private interventions that created homogeneity even where the existing tendency was toward race or class inclusion. Beginning in the 1930s, the Federal Housing Administration, which underwrote one-third of all mortgages in its first three decades, instructed all private lenders who offered FHA-backed loans that it was "necessary that properties continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes." Our neighborhoods still suffer from the consequences of that form of segregation.

Current interventions also steer us apart. From local zoning codes that prevent mixed-income or affordable housing, to private marketing data bases that skew public funding and private development toward affluent, heavily white neighborhoods, to still-pervasive racial steering of black and Latino home buyers to "appropriate" areas, our public and private institutional policy choices result in communities of great abundance and communities of great need.

2004 WashPo piece, "Race, Class and Real Estate.
_____
Really, though I think we've got to clear this up: What's the problem with slavery? The violation of human liberty inherent in forcing people to live, work, piss, or whatever, however the MASTER wants them to? Or the deviation from strict homogeneity? I think it's the former, and on that basis, compulsory moves to negate de facto slavery are nothing but the same evil as slavery, wearing a smile instead of a frown. Right?
______
Of course, intentional, 'prideful' racism isn't even necessary for segregation - the idea of racism as being the cross-burning KKK member rather than a vast complex of attitudes, perceptions, prejudices, structures and institutions is far too simplistic, and mainly serves to reassure people that they're not bad like those segregationists, while completely shrouding the actual nature of the issue.

"We find that the percentage young black men in a neighborhood is positively associated with perceptions of the neighborhood’s level of crime, even after controlling for two measures of neighborhood crime rates and other relevant individual and neighborhood characteristics.
-Black Neighbors, Higher Crime? The Role of Racial Stereotypes in Evaluations of Neighborhood Crime [pdf]

It doesn't help that "large numbers of white Americans incorrectly believe that blacks are as well off as whites in terms of their jobs, incomes, schooling and health care, according to a [2001] national survey . . . 40 percent to 60 percent of all whites say that the average black American is faring about as well and perhaps even better than the average white in these areas . . .In fact, government statistics show that blacks have narrowed the gap, but continue to lag significantly behind whites in employment, income, education and access to health care. . . The pervasiveness of incorrect views seems to explain, at least in part, white resistance to even the least intrusive types of affirmative action. And more broadly, these mistaken beliefs represent formidable obstacles to any government effort to equalize the social and economic standing of the races . . . whites with accurate views of black circumstances were more likely (69 percent versus 57 percent) to say the federal government has an obligation to make sure black and white children attend schools of equal quality. Informed whites also were more likely to say the government had an obligation to ensure that the races were treated equally by the courts and police (79 percent versus 60 percent)."

I ('d like to) think this all may be what's tripping Brett up. All else being equal, mutually voluntary segregation - while a serious risk for future inequality and balkanization - isn't in itself a desperately bad thing. Of course, none of these conditions hold - all else isn't equal, and it's not, when you get down to it, mutually voluntary by any means. It's like a three-state Iraq with no revenue sharing.

Posted by Dan S. | November 19, 2007 11:37 PM

"But in a society where the privileges of class and income most often perpetuate themselves from generation to generation, black Americans have had more difficulty than whites in transmitting those benefits to their children"

Part of this is the wealth gap, part of this has to do with various forms of segregation, etc, but 'nother aspect is that . . .

"The results of these studies were startling. Among those with no criminal record, white applicants were more than twice as likely to receive a callback relative to equally qualified black applicants. Even more troubling, whites with a felony conviction fared just as well, if not better, than a black applicant with a clean background. Racial disparities have been documented in many contexts, but here, comparing the two job applicants side by side, we are confronted with a troubling reality: Being black in America today is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job."

Posted by Dan S. | November 19, 2007 11:59 PM

"I assume nobody's listening to our resident racist and VDARE contributor's masturbatory fantasies about the supposedly politically correct persecution of James "“people who have to deal with black employees find this not true" Watson, right?"

Dan S.,

Anyone who is honest and has had a non-trivial number of interactions with black and non-black employees at the DMV, a credit card or cell phone company's customer service line, or behind the cash register at a national retail store chain wouldn't be dismissive of Watson's statement. You are either dishonest or you don't have a lot of experience with black employees. That particular statement of Watson's was tactless and perhaps gratuitous, but it was a pretty accurate generalization. Does that mean that it describes all black employees? Of course not. But you knew that, didn't you?

Posted by Fred | November 20, 2007 12:00 AM

Absurd, Sailor. Not only did you not answer my question, but you post this shit!

The relevant portion of the article was

And income for white women, who were less likely than black women to work outside the home a generation ago, has grown faster than it has for black women. Black women earned a median income of $21,000 in 2004, almost equal to that of white women. Black men had a median income of $25,600, less than two-thirds that of white men.

Perhaps the children of the trailblazing generation of blacks were a little neglected because it was more likely that their mother and father were both busy working twice as hard to earn 2/3 as much as white people. That's a disgrace!

IQ is shit, but your "statistics" tell us that blacks are either genetically regressing (DNA mutating) or that genetics does not play a 100% role in IQ. The drop (still greater than the mean) could easily be the result of stress in the environment caused by the added pressure and burdens of constantly having to prove yourself to people that see you as sub-human. I can see how it might be easier to grow up foreign than black.

Where are my numbers of college graduates? That tells me success.

Posted by Just Karl | November 20, 2007 12:03 AM

"IQ is shit, but your "statistics" tell us that blacks are either genetically regressing (DNA mutating) or that genetics does not play a 100% role in IQ. The drop (still greater than the mean) could easily be the result of stress in the environment caused by the added pressure and burdens of constantly having to prove yourself to people that see you as sub-human."

Why don't you just admit defeat, Just Karl? If IQ was "shit" you wouldn't be so worked up about it; Sailer never claimed it was 100% genetic; and he pointed out that regression to the mean applies to all children, not just the children of black parents.

Posted by Fred | November 20, 2007 12:33 AM

You can see the median income figures for people in their 30s (I believe, but I could be wrong) from 1974 to 2004 on the graph here:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21759075/

Income for white men dropped a couple of thousand dollars over those 30 years (from $42k to $40k in constant dollars), versus a drop of more than $3,000 for black men (29k to 26k).

Interestingly, median income for black women was triple that of white women in 1974 (due to so many white women being fulltime housewives). White women caught up to black women in median income in 1985 and they've been pretty similar ever since, with white women now about one grand ahead.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 20, 2007 12:37 AM

Fred has experience with black employees.

My sister has a structured settlement firm and an excellent working relationship with a bunch of law firms who have handled civil rights cases.

If you can identify Fred I'll work out a finders fee. This thread alone would bury his ass.

Posted by Ed Marshall | November 20, 2007 12:44 AM

I retract that for now, I don't want to know who Fred is, but the fact that the wrong color had to work for him makes me wish I knew who his employees were so they could have a heads up.

Posted by Ed Marshall | November 20, 2007 12:48 AM

Just Karl demands: "Where are my numbers of college graduates? That tells me success."

From the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education:

"For blacks in the 25- to 29-year-old age group, 18.6 percent hold a four-year college degree. This is only slightly better than the rate for black adults as a whole [18.5%]. For whites in this age group, 34.3 percent hold a four-year college degree. This is 3.3 percentage points higher than the white adult population as a whole [31.0%]. Therefore, the college completion rate gap between young blacks and young whites is actually larger than for the population as a whole."

http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/56_b_w_disparities.html

Look, the point of all this is that the reigning dogmas aren't driven by the facts, but by intense emotions, most of which stem from one set of white people wanting to see themselves as superior to another set of white people.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 20, 2007 12:51 AM

What Sailor is ultimately claiming, is that American blacks were bred to the point of intellectual inferiority. And yet, in return for the genetic damage of 300 years of captivity, he makes the argument that they deserve only one generation of opportunistic advantage in things like admissions and hiring.

Posted by Just Karl | November 20, 2007 12:58 AM

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education was founded 10 years ago.

Posted by Just Karl | November 20, 2007 1:14 AM

Certainly busing has much to do with this. Putting kids in buses for 3 hours a day certainly wouldn't seem to help their quest for excellence in education by any stretch of the imagination. And one idiot judge in Boston wreaked havoc on that city.

In the end I think there's much more tolerance around the country for mixed neighborhoods and blacks being able to move up and out, and that was much the point. Ethnic groups will always have their "ghettos" (which don't have to be poor) where they will settle together. The ability to be mobile and escape if desired and the ability to get proper government services in any area are the 2 big issues I see, not balancing ethnic makeup across neighborhoods or schools.

Posted by Desider | November 20, 2007 1:19 AM

In-between means: desegregation when the lion lies down with the lamb.

Posted by SqueakyRat | November 20, 2007 1:21 AM

"What Sailor is ultimately claiming, is that American blacks were bred to the point of intellectual inferiority."

Now you're just pulling stuff out of your ass. Sailer never claimed that, and the average IQ of American blacks is higher than the African black average. You'd know that if you knew anything else about this topic.

Posted by Fred | November 20, 2007 1:29 AM

the average IQ of American blacks is higher than the African black average

Is that 'cause of race mixing, Fred?

The ability to be mobile and escape if desired

How does one develop this ability? Is it innate? Well, sometimes, as with Jordan. My family always preached that education was the path to advancement, but then again, they had seen my jump shot. It's my belief that we have a moral duty (perhaps it's simply emotion) to offer the black community every opportunity for a quality education. I believe that those opportunities should begin with busing and continue until they are on the job.

Why waste time trying to prove that blacks are inferior and why it's a lost cause instead of spending time figuring out ways that will improve the system. The free market didn't work at providing opportunity to black people. It's not time to go back there.

Posted by Just Karl | November 20, 2007 2:32 AM

"Now you're just pulling stuff out of your ass. Sailer never claimed that, and the average IQ of American blacks is higher than the African black average. You'd know that if you knew anything else about this topic.

Posted by Fred | November 20, 2007 1:29 AM"

He has spent his career trying to prove that blacks are genetically inferior. You should be ashamed of yourself for defending him. This is a guy who, after being adopting, starting wondering if he was Jewish because he had "an inquisitive mind." How fucked up as a person do you have to be to think "wow, I like asking questions. I must be genetically pre-disposed to that, which means I'm Jewish!"

Posted by Reality Man | November 20, 2007 3:07 AM

Dan S - whites with accurate views of black circumstances were more likely (69 percent versus 57 percent) to say the federal government has an obligation to make sure black and white children attend schools of equal quality. Informed whites also were more likely to say the government had an obligation to ensure that the races were treated equally by the courts and police (79 percent versus 60 percent)."

There are problems with those 2 wishes past the ability of government to correct.

1. For years liberals thought school disparities in educational attainment could be corrected by throwing more money at underclass-majority schools. More amenities, smaller classes, "superteachers", whites forced into the schools that by proximity or something - were supposed to raise black learning and test scores.
It didn't happen. Not even when they jacked per pupil expenses up in the range of 25,000 bucks in experimental schools and pilot programs and led a pack of dysfunctional black kids to the water...while of course Asian immigrants in the most rotten inner city schools nearly all graduated and went on to college...many stellar in their educational attainment.
The problem of course is that school quality and attainment is mainly a function of the ability and desire to learn of the kids and their parents. Thus an all-white school in Maine that spends 5500 on each eager student and supportive parent that wants their family and kids to move out of a collapsed small manufacturing town already has a supreme edge on quality over a super-premium school in a dysfunctional black community sucking up 25,000 a student to provide all the bells and whistles.
That is mirrored overseas. I was on a delegation that visited N India, Korean schools that outperformed US public schools in all measures. In both locales, spending per pupil was a few thousand bucks, class size 40-50, concrete floor, coal stove, no real amenities. Yet all the kids were disciplined and the classrooms hummed with the questions of well-prepared kids. It was the same in Romania. And we saw the opposite in Liberia....a disaster.

2. It is hard for the races to be treated equally in courts and by the police when black crime is 3 to 35 times that of other races, by type of crime. Even white collar crimes, where blacks in professional jobs are 3X more likely to steal or do frauds.
It is a black and a liberal "fools dream" to insist that only 13% of police-citizen interactions or arrests be those of blacks to mirror their population percentages.
And in court, the problem of blacks having longer rap sheets influencing sentencing and more serious felonies of crimes of violence than other races guarantees disparate results and sentencing if true justice is to be served.

Posted by Chris Ford | November 20, 2007 6:32 AM

"aren't driven by the facts, but by intense emotions, most of which stem from one set of . . . people wanting to see themselves as superior to another set of . . . people."

Hey, when he's right, he's right . . .

"Anyone who is honest and has had a non-trivial number of interactions with black and non-black employees at the DMV, a credit card or cell phone company's customer service line, or behind the cash register at a national retail store chain wouldn't be dismissive of Watson's statemen"

You know, he's right again - there's a real difference. The black employees generally have darker skin than the white, non-black employees!

To be fair, I'm sure he does sees a significant difference, just like the employees looking at otherwise identical resumes or interviewees in studies, or the orchestra folks listening to men and women auditioning before they started doing them behind a curtain . . .

Posted by Dan S. | November 20, 2007 7:11 AM

Why waste time trying to prove that blacks are inferior and why it's a lost cause instead of spending time figuring out ways that will improve the system. The free market didn't work at providing opportunity to black people. It's not time to go back there.
Posted by Just Karl

It is not a waste of time when it prevents misallocation of societal resources and wasted time in the legal arena attempting to achieve equality of results in various areas when genetic nature is the cause not "nurture". Or it is family culture outside the ability of government workers to have any impact on "correcting".

Being willfully blind to genetic differences makes us all look stupid when we insist that white, Asian, hispanic sprinters simply lack the opportunity and coaches and government money to excel as blacks do. When we insist Harvard having 40% Jews in the underclass when they are only 2% of the population - is simply some surefire "discrimination" against Christian whites and blacks without their affirmative action quotas compensating, at work.

More studies are needed and more realistic emphasis on genetic factors and teaching what is generally true for a group does not predict the individual. All Jews are not smarter than all White Christians who are not smarter than all blacks. That Asians are not as impulsive and 8-40X times less likely to do a violent felony than a black does not signify that all Asians are obviously more moral and more deliberate than all blacks....but it does perhaps signify that Asian culture that arises from such group differences is less coarse and more successful in further reinforcing Asian societal advantage over what degraded culture underclass blacks manage to push as emulatable to eager young white liberals....

It also is valuable for the Courts to recognize these scientifically established differences and reject the now fairly discredited Leftist view that inequality of results between groups must be either about either racism&discrimination OR "poverty" conditions easily corrected by coercion from the Courts mandating quotas, employer hiring laws - or wealth transfers to implement social engineering schemes like busing and white sprinter "uplift" programs.

**********************
This is a guy who, after being adopting, starting wondering if he was Jewish because he had "an inquisitive mind." How fucked up as a person do you have to be to think "wow, I like asking questions. I must be genetically pre-disposed to that, which means I'm Jewish!"
Posted by Reality Man

Kind of funny, but Sailer's thoughts were echoed by Lenin, who said his Jewish blood and his noting that so many other Russian Gentiles of high intellectual attainment had Jewish blood - perhaps explained his inquisitive mind.

I found out I had one set German-Jewish great-grandparents. Maybe that is why I have a better than average IQ and SATs in the high 1400s. Maybe not. But it probably didn't hurt.

As we learn more about genetics, we will see many of the successful ethnic traits, let alone racial traits, people have noted throughout history, have a genetic basis. There is considerable genetic diversity within the races. Much of that is unexplored. Why are Malays not as smart as Japanese? Why is the propensity for criminal violence higher in African Congoloids of the West Coast of Africa than African Nihilotics? Why do Celtish people have so many alchoholics compared to Mediterranean stock or Hamish whites?

When we find out and have the technology to fix or improve...why not think of a day when black genes predisposing blacks as a group to lower IQ and greater prediliction for crime can be altered? Or Jews and Japanese interested can get the Congloid fast-twitch muscle fiber gene put in their offspring? What if we discover creativity genes? Or move the gene that only a few villages in Italy have that eliminates all but a trace of LDH cholesterol and cardiac problems.

That is humanity's future, I think. Uplift not by Courts and ideologues championing coercion to "remedy" victim groups and endless grievances, but by gentic technology that installs real remedies and upgrades..

Posted by Chris Ford | November 20, 2007 7:45 AM

Sailer is creating an issue. I thought I'd followed the Watson episode pretty well and I'd never heard of him being fired. (Of course, the line above is "effective firing" whatever the hell that means.) Watson aired specious racial notions. People reacted to the those notions. Watson backed down and claimed to have been misunderstood.

Who wants to "defend" Watson when Watson doesn't want to defend Watson? Who wants to prolong the issue which was settled within days? I'm guessing journalists looking for artificial controversies and political hacks looking for grievances.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | November 20, 2007 8:58 AM

Everything I've read indicates that Watson was/is a royal asshole. That's the main reason he got into as much trouble as he did (the risk of being a brilliant asshole is that people will forget the brilliant part when you misspeak).

And I guess it takes all kinds, but it definitely takes Steve Sailer to try to make proving a discriminated against minority is intellectually inferior into a noble cause.

Posted by michael farris | November 20, 2007 9:36 AM

There is considerable genetic diversity within the races. Much of that is unexplored. Why are Malays not as smart as Japanese? Why is the propensity for criminal violence higher in African Congoloids of the West Coast of Africa than African Nihilotics? Why do Celtish people have so many alchoholics compared to Mediterranean stock or Hamish whites?

When we find out and have the technology to fix or improve...why not think of a day when black genes predisposing blacks as a group to lower IQ and greater prediliction for crime can be altered? Or Jews and Japanese interested can get the Congloid fast-twitch muscle fiber gene put in their offspring? What if we discover creativity genes? Or move the gene that only a few villages in Italy have that eliminates all but a trace of LDH cholesterol and cardiac problems.

I would looooooove to see this sh*t spouted at an actual genetics research facility to real scientists. Nihilotics!! Why are Malays not as smart as the Japanese!! And other Frontiers Of Science!!!

Posted by El Cid | November 20, 2007 11:16 AM

"Nihilotics?

A dialect used by nihilists . . .

"Hamish whites"

Jeez, we really are going old-school here! (I'm assuming this is a reference to the various pseudoscientific fancies that traced racial differences back to Noah's kids . . )

"...while of course Asian immigrants in the most rotten inner city schools nearly all graduated and went on to college..."

Ah, model minority-ism. Of course, this rather whites out Asian immigrant groups who don't have high rates of academic success . . .

Posted by Dan S. | November 20, 2007 12:42 PM

When did MY's comments get crossed with Stormfront?

Posted by crack | November 20, 2007 1:16 PM

"compulsory moves to negate de facto segregation are nothing but the same evil as segregation, wearing a smile instead of a frown."

Brett,

Do compulsory moves in your mind include measures such as laws against housing discrimination? If that is the case, are you telling me that laws forbidding discrimination in housing are not only evil, but an evil comparable to Jim Crow?

Posted by eltoro | November 20, 2007 3:38 PM

Sailer -

You are Mr. Data, so, please provide the standard deviations for the IQ means you provided as well as the ANOVA indicating the means are different. What is the sample size? How were the participants chosen? And please provide the source of this data to everyone (why do I have a feeling “Bell” and “Curve” are in the title).

I can think of few people that better portray the old saying, "a little knowledge is dangerous". The reason your "colleagues" and "academics" are "persecuted" (re: ignored or patiently humored until an escape route presents itself), is because the scientists and professors actually doing research in genetics and statistics have examined these eugenic "theories" (I hate to use that word here since it implies a collection of facts), analyzed them, and found them wanting. You can practice junk science all you want. You can draw any mistaken inferences you'd like based on your rudimentary understanding of genetics, human physiology, and statistics. But, enough with the victim crap, please. It really is quite pathetic.

Oh, and Watson, was a ball and peg tinkerer and not much of an experimentalist. He and Crick were lucky enough to gain access (some would say unethical access, at least without her permission) to Rosalind Franklin’s work. I don’t believe he’s ever been able to give her due and one wonders how far they would have gotten without Rosalind’s expertise in x-ray crystallography. If he’s become a doddering old fart spewing ridiculous, uneducated racial invectives (that apparently even he can’t support) then that’s too bad, but not a very compelling argument that eugenics has somehow become a legitimate branch of genetics.

Mr. Ford –

If your IQ is so high, please pick up biology/genetics textbooks and actually learn something about genetics. And texts which contain references to “reptile-like” humanoids doesn’t count…

Posted by Rihilism | November 20, 2007 3:41 PM

Brett,

In order for legal remedies against defacto segregation to be the same evil as dejure segregation, these legal remedies would have to force people to perform acts of integration, i.e. they would have be examples of dejure INTERGRATION.

What would dejure integration actually entail?First of all, Blacks would have to move into predominantly white neighborhoods, while whites would have to move into predominantly black neighborhoods, until the required legal black-white mix was achieved. Moreover, people would have to be legally forbidden from leaving integrated neighborhoods for segregated neighborhoods, in order to maintain the required legal black-white mix. This is a far cry from laws that prevent whites from discriminating against blacks who want to move into predominantly white areas, and vice versa.

Last time I looked, no such laws were ever passed. Therefore, your implication, that all historical attempts at alleviating the destructive effects of defacto segregation were an evil akin to Jim Crow, has no factual basis.

Posted by eltoro | November 20, 2007 3:59 PM

It'll be fun watching Rihilism pick himself up off the canvas after Sailer buries him with the data (from the NLSY, I'd imagine).

Posted by Fred | November 20, 2007 4:01 PM

Can Steve or Fred or Ford explain to everyone how "race" is determined for the purposes of evaluating the effect of race on IQ? What level of "blackness", or "whiteness", or "asianness" qualifies one for a particular category? How is racial "purity" determined and what weighting is given to IQ based on the "mix".

"It'll be fun watching Rihilism pick himself up off the canvas after Sailer buries him with the data (from the NLSY, I'd imagine)."

No need to bury me, I just need a standard deviation, a sample size, a t-stat/F-stat. It really doesn't have to be complicated, either it is statistically significant or it isn't. Either the methodology is correct or it isn't.

You fools assume that if someone is able to show quantifiable, replicable and unbiased data in the scientific community that the PC police will come to take you away. Quite the contrary. These theories have been scrutinized repeatedly and rejected due to lack of evidence (let alone a fundamental misunderstanding of basic scientific principles). The only community that is even remotely likely to hear and discuss these spurious claims is the scientific community. Unfortunately, the proponents of these "ideas" are most often found in the poli-sci or history departments and their "research" consists of reading Michael Crichton and seeking affirmation for their beliefs on the web.

If any of you self-styled scienticians actually participated in scientific discussions of genetics (as opposed to maturbating to race war fantasies) you would have learned by now that genetic make-up has no bearing on someone's skin color. The fact is, and I know this is tough for you, if you take a random sample of people, "categorize" their skin color or even allow them to self identify, first, you find how little difference there is, second you'd find no corrrelation between "race" and genetic similarities/dissimilarities.

Posted by Rihilism | November 20, 2007 4:21 PM

"Anyone who is honest and has had a non-trivial number of interactions with black and non-black employees at the DMV, a credit card or cell phone company's customer service line, or behind the cash register at a national retail store chain wouldn't be dismissive of Watson's statement. You are either dishonest or you don't have a lot of experience with black employees."

Fred,

I have had lots of experience with employees in these various areas, and it's been my experience that the vast majority of both black and non-black employees in these areas uniformly tend to provide poor service. It's rare to find someone who provides good to excellent service in these areas, and these excellent yet rare service providers are as likely to be black as they are to be white.

It has also been my experience that in jobs where customer satisfaction directly impacts a worker's pay (i.e. greater customer satisfaction=higher sales=higher commissions/tips/bonuses), black employees, both male and female, tend to be more conscientious about attending to their customers than their white counterparts. (The fact that you haven't noticed this Fred tells me that your level of experience with black workers isn't as comprehensive as you think it is.) It has also been my experience that black employees who provide poor customer service tend to be employed in jobs where there are both no disincentives for providing bad customer service (i.e. bad customer service doesn't get you fired)and no incentives for providing good customer service (i.e. you don't receive better pay or benefits when you provide better customer service).

It sounds to me Fred that need more interactions with black workers, and not just ones who hold crappy jobs, or who hold cushy jobs due to patronage.

Posted by eltoro | November 20, 2007 4:41 PM

Is Rihilism right that the data on black IQ isn't statistically significant? What does Sailer's silence say?

Posted by Where are Steve Sailer's Stats? | November 20, 2007 4:59 PM

"Parents whose IQs average well above or below the mean tend to have children whose IQs are closer to the mean."

Steve,

If IQ is primarily determined by genetics, why would this phenomenon occur? Wouldn't higher than average IQ parents tend to have higher than average IQ children, and lower than average IQ parents tend to have lower than average IQ children? Why would IQ display this tendency to drift toward the relevant population mean when other genetically determined measures like height do not?

Could it be instead that IQ is like athletic prowess, where raw ability is large factor, but where ultimate achievement is the result of dilligence in training and a drive to excel in this endeavor (which is why the children of great athletes are rarely great athletes themselves) If that is the case, maybe you and Fred shouldn't be so quick to assert that the black-white gap on IQ tests indicates a GENETIC INFERIORITY in intelligence by blacks in comparison to whites.

Posted by eltoro | November 20, 2007 5:17 PM

"What would dejure integration actually entail?"

It would look like busing: Loading children onto buses, to send to distant schools in order to achieve targeted racial balances. We're not talking about some imaginary construct, it actually did happen.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 20, 2007 5:28 PM

"If IQ is primarily determined by genetics, why would this phenomenon occur? Wouldn't higher than average IQ parents tend to have higher than average IQ children, and lower than average IQ parents tend to have lower than average IQ children?"

Yes, but lower than average IQ couples tend to have not quite as lower than average offspring, while higher than average IQ couples tend to have not quite as higher than average IQ offspring. Reversion towards the mean is a well established phenomenon which results from the statistical interaction of large numbers of contributing factors.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 20, 2007 5:37 PM

"Is Rihilism right that the data on black IQ isn't statistically significant? What does Sailer's silence say?"

Actually, the point I was trying to make was that it really doesn't matter what the "statistics" say since Steve (or anyone else for that matter) has no way to quantify "race". Therefore, ANY data he or anyone else presents regarding race and IQ is suspect. Steve would know this if he'd actually talked to some reputable scientists, but he prefers dabbling in "scientism" because it's easier to find "evidence" that confirms his "bias". It’s why people like Steve (deservedly) get laughed out of scientific discussions. There's no "there" there, so the discussion ends after a minute or so when the lack of a clear and replicable methodology (rather fundamental to scientific theory wouldn't you say) becomes apparent. It's why there is no way of attributing this "IQ difference" to any evolutionary rationale (other than some uninformed and evidence lacking reiteration of the old Jimmy "The Greek" breeding theories).

BTW, Fred, I realize you may not understand much about scientific methods, but I wanted to clarify something for you... anecdotes are not evidence.

Posted by Rihilism | November 20, 2007 5:47 PM

Rihilism makes a good point -- "race" doesn't really exist. No one can quantify it, after all. Since race doesn't exist, there was no need for Civil Rights legislation of course. After all, black people don't really exist as a distinct group from whites, that's just a societal construct. So there was no way that black people were being discriminated against qua black people. Same thing with affirmative action -- since we can't figure out scientifically who is "black", we can't figure out who to give preference too.

Thus, IQ distinctions between blacks and whites are meaningless, and there is no logical basis for affirmative action or any other policies based on race. In fact, there's no reason for us to talk about race at all, since it doesn't really exist.

Thanks for clearing that up, Rihilism.

Posted by Harry | November 20, 2007 5:57 PM

If any of you self-styled actually participated in scientific discussions of genetics (as opposed to maturbating to race war fantasies) you would have learned by now that genetic make-up has no bearing on someone's skin color. The fact is, and I know this is tough for you, if you take a random sample of people, "categorize" their skin color or even allow them to self identify, first, you find how little difference there is, second you'd find no corrrelation between "race" and genetic similarities/dissimilarities.
Posted by Rihilism

This is the moron proclaiming there is no genetic basis for race, no distinguishing anatomical characteristics by race, not even skin color --who says other people should read about genetics so they are as well informed as he is.

(For the next test we bundle off Rihilism to Sweden, where he initially guesses he is either in Nairobi or Tokyo, based on his belief that Japanese look like Swedes and how little difference there is in skin color of - as he counsels - a line up of Kenyans compared to Swedes.
Next we take Rihilism to the anthropology museum where he marvels the researchers there can tell by looking at a skull for a few seconds what race it came from....and as he denies different drugs have been found to have different effects on different races...)

His brain stupified on the PC notion that race is an artificial construct, our intrepid moron continues on his circular journey of willful self-delusion.

Posted by Chris Ford | November 20, 2007 6:26 PM

Steve Sailer and Chris Ford,

I find it interesting that while you harp upon how more likely blacks are to commit violence on whites than whites are to commit violence on blacks, you neglect to mention these statistics that place your comments in context.

According to USDJ Bureau of Justice Statistics, from 1976 to 2005, 86% of the murders where whites were the victims were committed by...WHITES. Meanwhile, 94% of the murders where blacks were the victims were committed by...BLACKS. In other words, both whites and blacks have far more to fear from members of their own respective races, than they have from members of other races.

Posted by eltoro | November 20, 2007 6:39 PM

eltoro asked:

"If IQ is primarily determined by genetics, why would this phenomenon occur? Wouldn't higher than average IQ parents tend to have higher than average IQ children, and lower than average IQ parents tend to have lower than average IQ children? Why would IQ display this tendency to drift toward the relevant population mean when other genetically determined measures like height do not?"

This is because of regression to the mean . As the wikipedia article notes, height also regresses to the mean.

Posted by James B. Shearer | November 20, 2007 6:43 PM

(which is why the children of great athletes are rarely great athletes themselves) If that is the case, maybe you and Fred shouldn't be so quick to assert that the black-white gap on IQ tests indicates a GENETIC INFERIORITY in intelligence by blacks in comparison to whites.
Posted by eltoro

Actually, a great predictor of a world-class athlete is having parents that were good to great athletes themselves. There is truth to regression to the mean, but also, as with IQ, starting off with black sprinter speed and leaping ability means that if Daddy and Mommy had 120 IQs or played collegiate or pro sports - you are far more likely to be as smart or athletic or even better than the child of couch potato parents or dummies.

There is one family of blacks in NC that since the 60s has placed 35 offspring in Pro football, college football, college basketball, college track scholarships. Genetics count hugely.

Nor does lower black IQ indicate GENETIC INFERIORITY, as you maintain in "scare-caps".
It indicates blacks are dumber, on average, than whites. So are hyenas and great white sharks. That doesn't make them inferior - they have other talents and abilities, and, in biology, what counts as success is passing on your genes to as many offspring as possible, not winning Nobel Prizes.

Posted by Chris Ford | November 20, 2007 6:45 PM

"Rihilism makes a good point -- "race" doesn't really exist..."

Since when is prejudice logical? Human beings have discriminated based on the smallest differences for millennia and obviously will continue to do so. It unfortunate that you can't distinguish between prejudice and its antithesis, science. Such misunderstandings have led to endless human misery and it's unfair to burden science with something, which it cannot now explain, notably, the irrational fear of the "other". Perhaps, in time science will progress to the point that we'll be able to diagnose and treat those with this most virulent form of paranoia. Until then, the consequences of actions taken in the name "racial purity" should be borne those who perpetuate the myth and use it to legitimize social injustice.

Please, Harry, Ford, direct me to the scientific journals that indicate that genetic markers that define race. And Ford, please direct me to the evidence that, given the same selective environmental pressures, a "Caucasian" group won't develop the same "features" as a "non-Caucasian" group. While doing your "research", I have a feeling you'll run across the same data that I presented earlier, which is that you can not quantify a group's genetic make-up based on external features, period.

There are sub-groups in species, yes. There are macro external and physiological differences, yes, that's what Darwin tells us. But there is more genetic variation within “racial” groups of humans than there is between “racial” groups. The most amusing aspect of this phenomena is that, when tested, people like Mr. Ford discover that they are more genetically similar to someone from sub-Saharan Africa than someone from Sweden (I'd pay a large sum of money just to see the look on his face).

BTW, there may be some discernable differences is skull shape due to ethnicity (mostly due to historic proximity and is still heavily influenced by environmental factors), but there is NO scientific definition of race because there is no discernable genetic difference between "races". In addition, if there were more of the "breeding" (your favorite word, Chris,…, see, I pay attention) between ethnicities, there's no reason, whatsoever, to believe that these physical differences wouldn't disappear.

No scientific differences means that studies that try to discern differences between racial groups are moot and serve NO other purpose than to provide a pseudo-scientific rationale to those seeking a reason to hate people that are “different” from themselves. So, Harry, Ford, Fred, Sailer, you might want to start looking for a new reason to hate people because the science has passed you by...

Posted by Rihilism | November 20, 2007 7:32 PM

"It indicates blacks are dumber, on average, than whites."

Please define "blacks". What is the genetic difference(s) that correlate(s) to a measurable difference in intelligence?

Believe me, if I thought any of you were in possession of such information, I'd be utterly dumbfounded, because such a finding would rock the science community and would be plastered on TV and in the newspapers. But, I'm sure that Sailer would tell us that it's "just the 'man', trying to keep him down" and those whacky liberal academicians that are trying to keep the lid on the greatest conspiracy in the history of humanity.

The facts are that eugenicists are using an unreliable measure (IQ) and trying to correlate it to something that can't be quantified (race). Garbage in, garbage out...

Posted by Rihilism | November 20, 2007 8:00 PM

Rihilism,

Why is it so difficult for you to accept what you see with your own eyes every day, that there are different races of people? Do you have difficulty accepting that there are different breeds of dogs, too? Yes, a Labrador Retriever is the same species as a German Shepherd, and there are Lab-Shepherd mixes, but does that prevent us from making some useful generalizations about Labs versus Shepherds? Of course not.

"Please, Harry, Ford, direct me to the scientific journals that indicate that genetic markers that define race."

Is this close enough for you: The Inconvenient Science of Racial DNA Profiling? DNA tests are already being used to determine race of criminals, to a statistical certainty. In this case, the DNA test demonstrated that a wanted serial killer was of 85% sub-Saharan black descent even though FBI profilers assumed the suspect would be white.

Posted by Fred | November 20, 2007 8:14 PM

Yes, Fred, whenever I'm looking for peer reviewed, cutting edge genetic science, I go out and buy a copy of Wired magazine. I can find you another molecular biologist that believes "intelligent design" is science. Does that mean that it is? Please, do tell me what methodology the FBI used to determine the race of all twenty people (whew, that was a comprehensive survey). If Mr. Frudakis can replicate his results and provide an actual replicable methodology that will predict skin color based on genetic markers (rather than trying to sell a boondoggle to the FBI in a manner that would make Uri Geller blush), then he deserves to be published and the scientific community will, in fact, be rocked. I’m not holding my breath.

And, perhaps I should remind you that anecdotes are not evidence.

"Why is it so difficult for you to accept what you see with your own eyes every day, that there are different races of people?"

There may be, Fred, but until you provide criteria with which to categorize or quantify "race", there is no testable scientific theory to evaluate the affect of "race" on IQ. What people "see" is not the same as what they can infer from what they see. The former is something we can measure, but you've not provided a scientific method for the latter.

Posted by Rihilism | November 20, 2007 8:51 PM

"Actually, a great predictor of a world-class athlete is having parents that were good to great athletes themselves. There is truth to regression to the mean, but also, as with IQ, starting off with black sprinter speed and leaping ability means that if Daddy and Mommy had 120 IQs or played collegiate or pro sports - you are far more likely to be as smart or athletic or even better than the child of couch potato parents or dummies."

Chris,

This correlation is not sufficient to demonstrate that athletic prowess is PRIMARILY determined by genetics, with environment playing a negligible role. If genetics is the primary determinant, only great athletes should be able to produce great athletes, yet as you have shown, good athletes are also able to produce great athletes. Likewise with IQ, only high IQ people should produce high IQ people, yet there are clearly many cases where people with mediocre-to-good IQs produce offspring with great IQs. If IQ and athletic prowess were primarily determined by genetics, you would not see these patterns of improvement or regression between generations, unless one parent introduces inferior genes into the mix. Even then, it would only explain patterns of regression; it would explain patterns of improvement. That's why we must remain skeptical about claims by hereditarians like Steve Sailer that genetics provides the best or primary explanation for phenomena like IQ or athletic prowess.

Posted by eltoro | November 20, 2007 9:24 PM

James B Shearer,

The wikipedia article you refer to states"Regression toward the mean refers to the fact that those with extreme scores on any measure at one point in time will, for purely statistical reasons, probably have less extreme scores the next time they are tested. Scores always involve a little bit of luck. Many extreme scores include a bit of luck that happened to fall with or against you depending on whether your extreme score is extremely high or extremely low."

If luck plays a role, how does that square with the hereditarian argument that IQ is primarily determined by heredity, with environment playing a negligible role? Doesn't logic indicate that barring the introduction of genes for lower intelligence into the genetic pool, that the difference in IQ between parent and offspring in a given population should be negligible, if IQ is determined primarily by innate ability?

The article also states that regression towards the mean occurs as a byproduct of sampling errors. It seems somewhat disingenuous of Steve to explain significant differences between parent and offspring as due to a phenomenon caused by luck and sampling errors, and yet explain significant reported differences in average IQ between racial groups as being primarily caused by innate ability.

Posted by eltoro | November 20, 2007 10:51 PM

"Why is it so difficult for you to accept what you see with your own eyes every day, that there are different races of people? Do you have difficulty accepting that there are different breeds of dogs, too?"

"It indicates blacks are dumber, on average, than whites. So are hyenas and great white sharks. That doesn't make them inferior . . ."

Sweet Madison Grant, wouldya look at that.

I really have to believe that "Chris Ford" is a parody/troll. Fred, I dunno.

Forget race war, these kinda threads make me wish for species war.

- and Matt, is there some sort of Atlantic Monthly commenting policy for this sort of thing?

Posted by Dan S. | November 20, 2007 11:23 PM

"Yes, Fred, whenever I'm looking for peer reviewed, cutting edge genetic science, I go out and buy a copy of Wired magazine."

That's clever, Rihilism, but it's too bad you didn't read that article, because it covers a lot of the concerns you seem to have about the implications of genetics and race, and how this has chilled research on race and genetics to some extent. It also gives real world examples of how DNA has been used to identify race. But, OK, the article is in a general interest magazine, so you feel free to dismiss it.

Do you have anything snarky or dismissive to offer about Stanford University? If not, and if you deign to consider Stanford a potentially reputable source of "cutting edge genetic science", you may find this of interest: "Racial groupings match genetic profiles, Stanford study finds":

"What makes the current study, published in the February issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, more conclusive is its size. The study is by far the largest, consisting of 3,636 people who all identified themselves as either white, African-American, East Asian or Hispanic. Of these, only five individuals had DNA that matched an ethnic group different than the box they checked at the beginning of the study. That's an error rate of 0.14 percent...

According to Neil Risch, PhD, a UCSF professor who led the study while he was professor of genetics at Stanford, the findings are particularly surprising given that people in both African-American and Hispanic ethnic groups often have a mixed background. "We might expect these individuals to cross several different genetic clusters," Risch said. This is especially true for Hispanics who are often a mix of Native American, white and African-American ancestry. But that's not what the study found. Instead, each self-identified racial/ethnic group clumped into the same genetic cluster...

Without knowing how the participants had identified themselves, Risch and his team ran the results through a computer program that grouped individuals according to patterns of the 326 signposts. This analysis could have resulted in any number of different clusters, but only four clear groups turned up. And in each case the individuals within those clusters all fell within the same self-identified racial group.

"This shows that people's self-identified race/ethnicity is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic background," Risch said."

Posted by Fred | November 21, 2007 12:36 AM

"Nor does lower black IQ indicate GENETIC INFERIORITY, as you maintain in "scare-caps".
It indicates blacks are dumber, on average, than whites. So are hyenas and great white sharks. That doesn't make them inferior - they have other talents and abilities, and, in biology, what counts as success is passing on your genes to as many offspring as possible, not winning Nobel Prizes."

Chris Ford,

If Blacks are dumber than whites due primarily to genetics, they are by definition genetically inferior in regards to intelligence. Likewise, if blacks are better jumpers than whites because of genetics primarily, then by definition whites are genetically inferior in regards to jumping ability. (Is this one of those talents and abilities that you believe Blacks can contribute in lieu of intelligence?)

I don't understand how could lay out assertions and arguments that lead logically to the conclusion "Blacks are genetically inferior in regards to intelligence", and then deny that conclusion. If you actually believe in the assertions and arguments that you presented, then own up to the conclusion that logically derives from those assertions and arguments.

BTW, while Nature may only care about reproductive success, Society regards winning Nobel Prizes as greater example of success than merely having offspring.

Posted by eltoro | November 21, 2007 2:21 AM

"It would look like busing: Loading children onto buses, to send to distant schools in order to achieve targeted racial balances. We're not talking about some imaginary construct, it actually did happen."

Brett,

The flaw in your argument is that this situation related to a policy that only applied to people who attended public schools. There were no laws that forbade parents from sending their children to private/parochial/home schools in lieu of public schools, even if these alternatives were also segregated. This doesn't mean that forced busing was a good or even just method for combating the ill-effects of defacto residential segregation; it just means that it doesn't qualify as an example of dejure integration, and therefore can't be described as an evil comparable to Jim Crow. It was simply a ham-fisted attempt to achieve a laudable goal that generated legitimate resentment, because it coerced parents to send their children to inferior schools in undesirable neighborhoods. Busing programs should have been limited to opening up opportunities for students trapped in failing schools in their neighborhoods, by allowing them to attend better schools outside of those neighborhoods.

Posted by eltoro | November 21, 2007 3:05 AM

"Reversion towards the mean is a well established phenomenon which results from the statistical interaction of large numbers of contributing factors."

Brett,

Remember that Steve's argument is that genetics is the primary factor behind IQ, with environment at best being a secondary factor with negligible impact. If Steve's argument is correct, we can't have a statistical interaction of large numbers of contributing factors which have a significant effect on our results. If genetics is the predominant factor behind IQ, we should not see the phenomenon of regression towards the mean.

For example, in a couple when one partner's IQ is 150 and the other couple's IQ is 120, then their offspring should posses IQs in the range from 120 to 150, if genetics is the primary determinant of IQ. There should be no regression toward the populaton mean of 100, since all other factors (i.e. environment) have a negligible impact. At best, should add or subtract only 1-2 IQ points in the offspring. However, if Steve Sailer is wrong, and environment has a crucial impact on IQ, then regression toward mean IQs would make sense.

Posted by eltoro | November 21, 2007 3:21 AM

Well, Fred, since we are using this single "study" to determine "racial purity", why leave out the second sentence:

"This work comes on the heels of several contradictory studies about the genetic basis of race. Some found that race is a social construct with no genetic basis while others suggested that clear genetic differences exist between people of different races."

Or this gem:

"This suggests that there isn't enough genetic difference to distinguish between people who have ancestry from northern Europe versus southern Europe, for example. Risch admitted that few people in this study were of recent mixed ancestry, who might not fall into such neat genetic categories.

Or, the apparent purpose of this research:

"But recently some researchers have moved to examining genetic differences between participants rather than relying on race and ethnicity. Their reasoning is that genetic differences may be a more precise tool for tracking groups of patients. Risch points out that this genetic analysis is costly. If people fall into the same groups using self-identified race as using genetics, then that could bring down the expanding cost of medical research."

Now, if Steve can correlate his "IQ" to his genetic make-up based on the markers found in this study, and the results are replicable, I would have no choice but to listen. However, there is nothing in this article (where was this published, btw?) to suggest that that might occur. There's even clear indications in this "study" that suggest that the results are not replicable (by the researcher's own admission and by the 2nd sentence in the article, which, btw, you conveniently chose to ignore) and that the researchers have conflated ethnicity with "race" (not necessarily maliciously, mind you) that further muddies the distinction between "racial" uniqueness (something which no one has quantified) and the effects of historic proximity (ethnicity). So, what the study tells us is that people who have lived in close proximity, over a long period of time, share similar genetic traits. Truly, a “groundbreaking” eureka discovery (that Darwin told us about some time ago).

But, until Steve has a chance to perform his “experiments”, perhaps you should review the Wikipedia blurb about "regression to a mean" so you'd understand what "statistical artifact" and "non-random samples" means.

Oh, and just so we're clear on this concept, even a collection of anecdotes is not evidence...

Posted by Rihilism | November 21, 2007 5:42 AM

Eltoro, in this context, "many factors" can include the fact that it's a highly poly-genetic trait, and the genes involved don't necessarily interact linearly.

I suggest you follow up Rihilism's suggestion to read the wikipedia entry on the subject.

Posted by Brett Bellmore | November 21, 2007 6:43 AM

I love it. "Sweetie, I'm not saying you're inferior because you're black. I'm just saying you're probably dumber, because I read this book about black people being dumber than whites. But you're still special! Maybe you can run fast, or do other things which animals do!"

Posted by El Cid | November 21, 2007 8:23 AM

"It also gives real world examples of how DNA has been used to identify race."

Does it?

"But, OK, the article is in a general interest magazine, so you feel free to dismiss it."

It's not simply dismissing it, Fred. You and Steve and others would like us to believe that there is a correlation between race and IQ. But you provide no methodology for defining "race". I cannot argue or dispute something I can't measure. And Steve cannot show a correlation between IQ and something he cannot measure. This is when we get into the realm of pseudo-science and mythology. Is race defined by the level of melatonin in ones skin? What exactly does self-identification mean? What methods did Steve (or the people Steve proclaims to represent) use to determine "race"? Are they replicable? BTW, Steve, I'm still waiting for the ANOVA that indicates that the mean IQ's you provided are different.

You'd like to get this information published in respectable journals, but you do not want to follow the criteria everyone else is required to follow (criteria which has been implemented to minimize the amount of junk & "noise" that gets published). When told that your "research" does not meet minimum requirements (which any researcher can tell you happens to them all the time when the try to publish even non-controversial findings) you simply complain of "bias" rather than admit the shortcomings of your "evidence".

"I suggest you follow up Rihilism's suggestion to read the wikipedia entry on the subject."

I suggest caution before referring to my discussion since I'm not sure I agree with your interpretation of regression analysis nor do I agree with Steve's interpretation. In particular, I believe Steve is guilty of:

"It is important to realize that regression toward the mean is unrelated to the progression of time, it is an artifact of choosing a non-representative sample in one variable and then examining another variable.

Although I am well acquainted with ANOVA (and regression analysis, which is simply a type of ANOVA), I find the Wikipedia entry is a tad, well, odd (can't quite put my finger on why I find it odd). I’m curious who the author is.

Regardless, since Steve cannot tell me what "race" means, I suggest that any statistical inferences he makes are simply artifacts. It's a common misuse of statistics that often keeps such "research" out of respected journals.

Posted by Rihilism | November 21, 2007 8:51 AM

The history of school desegregation is a clear example of the color blind application of sunk cost. Capitalist morality demanded that legal segregation end. Segregation created a legal barrier to individual agency and self-interest, and so crippled American progress. But the principle of sunk cost also suggested that ending legal segregation is all that morality demands. It would be irrational and improper, from the standpoint of sunk cost, to take into account the historical circumstances that created educational segregation and inequality when shaping current policy. The decisions that created de facto segregation--de jure segregation, red lining, etc.--are all in the past, and cannot be changed. So in a moral application of sunk cost, we can ensure that such racist decisions are not repeated by enforcing color blind policy, but we ought not to conclude that those decisions morally obligate us to redress their consequences. To do so would be to taint the rationality of progress and self-interest with the burdens of the past. This, in part, is why many liberals and most conservatives have opposed measures to actively redress de facto segretation; for such measures act on the supposition that the sunk costs of the past are morally relevant...

read on at: http://radicalnegative.blogspot.com/2007/11/implications-of-sunk-cost-for-racial.html

Posted by Blake Emerson | November 21, 2007 10:33 AM

"Eltoro, in this context, "many factors" can include the fact that it's a highly poly-genetic trait, and the genes involved don't necessarily interact linearly."

Brett,

This doesn't close the door on environment as a significant factor in determining IQ; in fact, it opens the door even wider for it to come in. The development of highly poly-genetic traits are significantly affected by environment, and the lack of a linear interaction between genetics and IQ implies that IQ is not as dependent on genetics as Steve likes to claim it is.

The reality is more likely is that genes determine the range of possibility in traits like IQ and athletic prowess, but that enviroment determines where in that range an individual will actually realize his IQ or athletic prowess. This is why we should treat IQ testing in the manner that Binet (the creator of such tests) recommended. It should be used to identify those who have had trouble realizing their potential compared to their peers, and not as a scale for measuring the social worth of individuals.

Posted by eltoro | November 21, 2007 10:51 AM

"In between" = "white folks want to be racist without SAYING they want to be racist".

And everyone knows it. Cowards just allow it to pass unsaid.

Posted by sherifffruitfly | November 21, 2007 11:50 AM

"This, in part, is why many liberals and most conservatives have opposed measures to actively redress de facto segretation; for such measures act on the supposition that the sunk costs of the past are morally relevant..."

Wow, you've tied that all up in a neat little package, haven't you.

Posted by Rihilism | November 21, 2007 12:22 PM

eltoro:

"If luck plays a role, how does that square with the hereditarian argument that IQ is primarily determined by heredity, with environment playing a negligible role? Doesn't logic indicate that barring the introduction of genes for lower intelligence into the genetic pool, that the difference in IQ between parent and offspring in a given population should be negligible, if IQ is determined primarily by innate ability?"

The hereditarian argument is that heredity is non-negligible not that environment is negligible. A severely deprived childhood environment will reduce your IQ as well as stunt your growth. Additionally parents and children differ because you only inherit half of each parent's genes. So by luck one sibling may inherit more high IQ genes than another.

"The article also states that regression towards the mean occurs as a byproduct of sampling errors. It seems somewhat disingenuous of Steve to explain significant differences between parent and offspring as due to a phenomenon caused by luck and sampling errors, and yet explain significant reported differences in average IQ between racial groups as being primarily caused by innate ability."

Luck is less important when comparing group means than when comparing individuals because random errors tend to cancel out when averaging scores over a group.

Posted by James B. Shearer | November 21, 2007 1:45 PM