Scientific Racism & Racial Theory

[ajblaise]

A good story I heard that challenges racism against black people is one that takes place in Japan. Apparently, there is a ethnic group in Japan who is genetically and physically identical to regular Japanese people, but the group has a history of oppression and discrimination towards it. And this group scores an average of 15 points lower on IQ tests than regular Japanese. Black people in America also score an average of 15 points lower than whites.

This helps make the case that IQ disparities have more to do with oppressed/discriminated minorities, than the actual race of the minority.

 

[professor goodstain]

Every biologist I speak to tells me that there is no genetic basis for race.

Is it possible though that many have used their ancient tongue for so long (3000+) years only to have had to adapt to a totally diffrent one within 300 some years that there is at least a lingual property to an individual running paralel with their native origin.

 

[Mole]

And although there is no biological basis for race, there is certainly a political one.

MBTI itself grew out of the politics of race. "Personality Types", was written to complement the race theory of the day.

So it is no surprise to find that while race has no basis in biology, MBTI has no basis in psychology.

So whether to choose MBTI or not is a political decision.

 

[Mole]

And interestingly anti-racism is the talisman of the Hard Left. Mainly because they had so few successes in the 20th Century, except for anti-racism in South Africa. Where, all agree, it was a resounding success for the Hard Left.

So the Hard Left wish to build on their anti-racism credentials by extending anti-racism to other areas.

And surprisingly the Hard Left support Islamism so it is only natural they extend their anti-racism to Islamism

So now if you oppose Islamism you are called, "an Islamophobe".

And being called, "an Islamophobe", is equivalent, in the mind of the Hard Left, to being called, "a Racist".

So calling someone, " an Islamophobe", is a successful form of political intimidation.

But just as there is no basis in biology for race; and no basis in psychology for MBTI; a phobia of Islam is unknown to medicine.

Medicine does successfully cure phobias. But I have never heard of anyone trying to cure Islamophobia. This is because it is a political term posing as a medical term.

 

[ajblaise]

And interestingly anti-racism is the talisman of the Hard Left.

Not just the Far-Left, but all of the Left. Anti-racism sure won't find a home on the Right.

 

[Shadow]

Not just the Far-Left, but all of the Left. Anti-racism sure won't find a home on the Right.

Wrong. Well, outside of America anyway. I know that's not true for Europe. I've been on an anti-BNP protest with the Conservatives.

 

[Shadow]

And interestingly anti-racism is the talisman of the Hard Left. Mainly because they had so few successes in the 20th Century, except for anti-racism in South Africa. Where, all agree, it was a resounding success for the Hard Left.

So the Hard Left wish to build on their anti-racism credentials by extending anti-racism to other areas.

And surprisingly the Hard Left support Islamism so it is only natural they extend their anti-racism to Islamism

So now if you oppose Islamism you are called, "an Islamophobe".

And being called, "an Islamophobe", is equivalent, in the mind of the Hard Left, to being called, "a Racist".

So calling someone, " an Islamophobe", is a successful form of political intimidation.

But just as there is no basis in biology for race; and no basis in psychology for MBTI; a phobia of Islam is unknown to medicine.

Medicine does successfully cure phobias. But I have never heard of anyone trying to cure Islamophobia. This is because it is a political term posing as a medical term.

Yeah, like in Britain at the moment it seems like it's fine to be anti-semitic (because the leftists are pro-Palestine and often think Jew=Israel govt), but if you express the slightest annoyance at the fact that Islamic fundamentalists are preaching hatred in this country the leftists will consider you anti-Islamic, therefore Islamaphobe, therefore racist, even though there's patently no correlation and no reason to believe that you're anti-Islam.

 

[professor goodstain]

Yeah, like in Britain at the moment it seems like it's fine to be anti-semitic (because the leftists are pro-Palestine and often think Jew=Israel govt), but if you express the slightest annoyance at the fact that Islamic fundamentalists are preaching hatred in this country the leftists will consider you anti-Islamic, therefore Islamaphobe, therefore racist, even though there's patently no correlation and no reason to believe that you're anti-Islam.

The hard left has in itself become a fundamentalist religion. They believe in their fundamentals as much as any religion out there. They just havn't writin their scripture yet. Oh, wait, congress is doin that as we speak.

 

[01011010]

I would imagine this is why so many East Asians and Indians seem to be more intelligent than a lot of white people as well. It's to do with your values at your upbringing. In Japan and China, for example, they're working almost all the time! It's totally frowned upon if you're not intelligent or don't get excellent results at school. So people try a bit harder than if it was seen as not a big deal. This probably means they develop less well in other aspects than other races, such as other races (maybe 'cultures' is a better word?) might come out as less intelligent in IQ tests but might have more practical or emotional intelligence. It's down to cultural values.

Reactions?

Every 12 year old, college prodigy (united states) is usually Chinese. If not, some Asian descent. I agree, values play a vital role.

Education is important on a cultural level, for Asians. Getting into high school in Japan, is similar to getting into college in the States. Japan has a high teenage suicide rate due to academic pressure. I am also the product of early college acceptance. However, I'm not inherently more intelligent than others. I was just educated more vigorously as a youth. Reading by pre-k, Algebra by 1st. That was taught to me at home, along with the typical public school curriculum. If all groups of people were taught on that level, it would equal the playing field. It's not about having a higher IQ. It's just education. Most people are capable of absorbing facts.

Every biologist I speak to tells me that there is no genetic basis for race.

Exactly

 

[Ezra]

Your statement was;

In this case, skin colour does not determine intelligence,

That's the context of my comment. I'm afraid you are rather transparent, and it's not likely you'll be able to hide behind "well that's not what I said" here, FWIW.

That's a statement, not a question. There's a difference.

But just as a tip, Ezra my ENTJ friend, if one is trying to come off as sincerely open-minded and interested, it's probably best *not* to include sentences that refer to the "logic" of black people being less evolved/closer to primates than white people. Yes, yes, it was your friend, I got that, but still. Just a tip.

Okay, I'm not open-minded or interested. I just want to force an opinion and get feedback.

Intelligence is a much, much more different animal. The basis for improved intelligence is not some "white" person's inherent genetic inclination; it might be now, but it definitely wasn't way back. Intelligence and complexity of thought patterns are improved not by sheer luck: they are shaped by any form of interaction between humans, peaceful or hostile. Geographic factors also play a role in this: there's a reason why Europe is in the center of most world maps, because basically, even though civilization didn't quite start off there, it certainly made its quantum leaps there and around the Mediterranean littoral zones, while at the same time the still-black people of Africa kept stagnating. They certainly didn't have much choice: As you may well know, the lands of Africa aren't known for their agricultural generosity, something Europeans, Mesopotamians, Asians and the Americans (back when we didn't know about them) greatly enjoyed. And you definitely don't need to be a genius to know that the agricultural revolution fueled premodern civilization.

Premodern civilizations, you say? Well that's just the beginning, and where the story actuallly starts (well even before that, actually, but it's a loooooong one). Just read up on the Greek and Roman empires, their formations and economic systems and you'll start to get an idea as to how they evolved the way they did. I'm feeling too jaded to type even more, but know this: Civilization cradled the mind, and the mind cradled civilization. Something the Africans did not ever get to do.

Your last statement is debatable. After all, where does civilisation come from?

As for the rest, you speak of African stagnation. Why did it stagnate, while Europe did not? Why did Europe progress, when Africa did not?

 

[pure_mercury]

William Saletan provides evidence for the belief that there is a genetic component to intelligence difference by race:


Race, genes, and intelligence. (1) - By William Saletan - Slate Magazine

 

[Anonymous]

To be quite frank, the reasons for this are glaringly obvious, even without the science to back it up. And by "this", I mean most of what's being discussed, such as "intelligence", "race", and culture.

On intelligence: As stated earlier, this depends very much on how you were raised. It also depends on what kind of intelligence is being needed. It'd be pretty useless for someone who lives off the land in the African savanna to cultivate a kind of intelligence that can be useful for engineering computer chips now, wouldn't it? And good luck to an engineer who decides to go live on the savanna.

On "race": 01011010's link already addressed this. (Here's the link again: AAA Statement on "Race") There's just not enough diversity to break it down into smaller categories.

On culture: The reason many African countries are screwed up is because the colonizers thought that their way of life (which was working just fine, though it did have it's downsides and upsides, like everyone else) was bad, due to the fact that it was different, so they thought it was their God-given responsibility to go in there and "help" them. And by help, I mean exploit the people, rape the women, dislocate everyone, and then leave them after three generations of being disconnected from the culture which allowed them to survive in Africa. That's why many African nations aren't doing so well (though there are many more places in Africa which are doing just fine. People are resilient, and what you see on TV isn't all of Africa)

 

[Mole]

The hard left has in itself become a fundamentalist religion. They believe in their fundamentals as much as any religion out there. They just havn't writin their scripture yet.

Their scripture is Das Capital. In it Marx speaks of the necessity to eliminate whole peoples. And that is just what they did. Over a seventy year period, across the world, Marxists killed 100 million of their own people. Not 100 million of the enemy, but 100 million of their own people.

This has been documented by a group of left-wing French historians in, "The Black Book of Communism".

 

[Mole]

...the leftists are pro-Palestine and often think Jew=Israel govt)...

In Das Capital Marx speaks of the need to eliminate whole peoples. And in Mein Kampf the author speaks of the need to eliminate the Jews. And in the Koran the author speaks of the need to eliminate infidels and enslave dhimmi.

And it is on this basis that the Marxists have made common cause with the Islamists.

 

[Nadir]

Your last statement is debatable. After all, where does civilisation come from?

As for the rest, you speak of African stagnation. Why did it stagnate, while Europe did not? Why did Europe progress, when Africa did not?

Alright, thanks for the inquiries. Like I've said, its a long one, but I'll try to summarize it.

[I should note, after reading Victor's post below, that the following doesn't deal with the Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution etc. -- probably more up to the decline of the Roman Empire, but it is enough to illustrate the point]

Now, civilization has its roots in hunter-gatherer societies, basically the first form of civilization that ever existed. Tens of thousands BC. This is the timeframe where we set up (or find) shelter to the best of our ability, hunt animals, and try to live off them. However, this kind of lifestyle doesn't really allow for a sedentary, "settled" society, because eventually the amount of wildlife that can be hunted go down, and we need to move lest we starve. Keep in mind that during this time we're still made of tribes, and we still interact with each other and other tribes. This is important, because eventually, with time (a lot of time!), we learn a very important thing -- planting seeds. This is due to humans' learning (after all -- all this time, we observe nature's processes) and capacity for problem-solving. And eventually we come to a point where we realize that instead of being nature's slave and running off to find food, we can stay where we are and try to make nature work for us.

This is agriculture. Agriculture is critical, because it allows for a settled society. How is this important? Well, in a settled, agricultural society, two concepts appear: Divison of labor and food surplus. Basically, the society is divided into a class-system with administrators, warriors, artisans, peasants, etc. All of them have their own responsibilities, and all of them possess certain skills that make them belong to their class. Food surplus is even more important -- It's basically extra food that can be stored for the future (ensures longevity), but more importantly, it's potential tax and thereby, currency. So what happens is that, the artisan class (which is a very general term, think of the average "citizen"), over a very, very long time, produces work. Discusses things. Invents new technologies. Trades stuff, also ideas, commercializes professions. (especially around Greece and the like) Meanwhile the administrators keep the show running by taxing the peasants' extra food all this time, which is then redistributed. I'm greatly simplifying here. So as a result, humanity keeps on solving more and more problems. New tools are fashioned, new systems designed. Intellect develops greatly.

Africa, for the most part, doesn't possess the same kind of geographical advantage Europe does. Irrigation techniques made European farming possible, and irrigation needs rivers. But Africa: The lands are rather infertile, arid, there are a lot of deserts too. Quite a few rivers, you're pretty much in trouble if you're stuck inland. The temperatures are maddeningly hot. Both bad news for any farming and the people. Basically, the guys down there are cheated out of the above fun. They miss the train, and keep on being hunter-gatherers. Which shouldn't be news, we've all heard about "African tribes" one time or another. Same deal. It might sound prosaic, and I have simplified greatly, but this is pretty much the reason why they stagnated. Keep in mind that this process of honing our intellect and problem solving, takes many, many thousands of years. Agriculture was a key catalyst in speeding it up, though.

 

[Mole]

After all, where does civilisation come from?

As for the rest, you speak of African stagnation. Why did it stagnate, while Europe did not? Why did Europe progress, when Africa did not?

Good question.

For 200,000 years we lived in a spoken culture.

A spoken culture is learnt intuitively and gives rise to intuitive habits of thought, such as the Sun goes round the Earth.

However in 1440 the printing press was invented in Europe and gave rise to the dream of universal literacy.

However almost no one learns to read and write naturally and intuitively. In fact we are compelled by law to attend a special institution with specially trained staff, in order to learn to read and write.

So learning to read and write is counter-intuitive and give rise to counter-intuitive habits of thought - such as the Earth goes round the Sun.

And counter-intuitive literacy gave rise to the Enlightenment -

• And Astrology was replaced by Astronomy.
• Alchemy was replaced by Chemistry.
• Creationism was replaced by the Origin of Species.
• Exorcism was replaced by Psychiatry.
• The encyclopaedia replaced ignorance.
• Magic and sorcery were replaced by technology.
• Medicine replaced superstition.
• Usury was replaced by Adam Smith's, "The Wealth of Nations".
• Institutional slavery was abolished for the first time in human history by the House of Commons in 1833.
• Women gained their emancipation in the 20th Century.
• And in the last 15 years, child sexual abuse was prosecuted for the first time in our Criminal Courts.
• Nazism was defeated.
• And Communism was defeated.
• And Fascism was overcome.
• And racism was replaced by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• Free Speech replaced ideology.
• And the Church was separated from the State.
• And we all became equal under the Law.
• And beliefs based on evidence replaced beliefs based on divine revelation.
• And the Divine Right of Kings was replaced by Democracy.

So it was the Enlightenment that created Europe.

And it is instructive to look at those who oppose the Enlightenment today. They are Islamists, Marxists, Romantic tribalists and the New Age.

And most interesting MBTI is part of the New Age Movement.

In fact a war called Jihad has been declared on the Enlightenment and on us.

And it is in our interest as well as our moral duty to defend the Enlightenment and ourselves.

 

[professor goodstain]

Good question.


However in 1440 the printing press was invented in Europe and gave rise to the dream of universal literacy.



And it is in our interest as well as our moral duty to defend the Enlightenment.

I agree.

 

[miss fortune]

Of course, most of those studies are looking at "intelligence" from a strictly western viewpoint and measuring it by the same standards, so the data is biased in the first place. *shrug* Just felt like pointing that one out.

 

[DigitalMethod]

What do you gain from knowing if there is a link or not?

 

[Blackmail!]

Another view, propounded by my housemate (who is a scientist (albeit a chemist rather than a biologist, which his father is)), is that there is a single human race, but that black people are less evolved than other types of people (I will call them "races" for simplicity's sake). This is, according to him, because black people are biologically closer to apes (from which every human being evolved) than other races. Think about the logic of this: apes -> black people -> white people.

You can tell your friend he hasn't understood a single point of the evolution theory, since every living beings on Earth are just "as evolved" as any other one, because their lineages have managed to survive so far.

Current bacterias are no less "evolved" than men, since their genetic codes had to adapt over the same amount of time than our ancestors. So it depends which criteria you choose to say what "evolution" means for you. For instance, is it the length of the DNA, or the capacity to quickly produce variety and complexity? Then Orchids are, far, far more complex than us. They all have one common ancestor around 5-6 million years ago, and see the result: 35.000 known species today!

Should we have taken the stomach instead of the brain as the way to measure "evolution", then cows would be considered as the supreme dominant organism.

Furthermore, while speaking of us, no living man is closer to "apes" than the other, unless you want to mean than we all are a subspecie of chimpanzees (technically, we are). We can say every hominoids diverged from simians exactly at the same moment. Again, this proves that your so-called friend is just prejudiced, and hasn't understood a word of what "evolutionary science" or phylogenetics are.

The genetic variation of men is very tiny compared to most animals: there are far more differences between various breeds of dogs than between the Neanderthals and us, so technically, we can't use the word "race".
But on the other hand, we can use the word "haplogroup" for instance, and they reveal a very different story than most of modern myths about races, since a lot of genes can have a far deeper effect than the colour of our skins (which is only a slightly minor effect).
And there are a lot of different haplogroups within "whites", blacks" or "asians".

If there is a real difference between Africa and Europe, it's the fact that Europeans haplogroups are more diverse, and more mixed as a whole. While African ones show that the ethnic barriers have been far more rigid within this continent, that the exchanges of DNA material have been far more limited.

When we go as far as 20.000 to 50.000 years ago, a typical European group will share traces of about 20 mitochondrial "Eves" (with a maximum of 38), while an African one will have barely 3 or 4.

So technically, they prove that African people have been far more xenophobic during their long story than any other group of men. Curious, isn't it?

But sometimes, you can have great surprises. Take for instance... The Finnish people! They are caucasoids in appearance, but their dominant mtDNA haplogroup (Z) say that genetically, they are closer to Koreans than Danes...
And now, take myself! In appearance, I am a typical white guy, and within my family, you will find many people with blue coloured eyes, or blond or red hair. In theory, I am a cross between Celtic and Ashkenazic lineages. This means I should very likely be of haplogroup H something...
But I'm not.
I am a mtDNA Y, one of the most uncommon and odd haplogroups. There should only be 4 or 5 mtDNA Ys in France (counting my mother and brother), and my uncommon genotype has already caused me some issues when I had to deal with some medicines or surgical operations.

According to genetics, I should be an Ainu: you know, the northern Japanese tribe that used to live on the island of Hokkaido? I have the same kind of blood type (AB-), and my internal organs are arranged in the same way, and that means: quite out of the ordinary. My heart and my liver are not where they are supposed to be, according to the average European physiology. Let me reassure you, I'm not an alien of some sort, but there is a difference of at least 10 centimeters (in the case of my liver).
All I can tell is that my genes have travelled far, very far away to reach the western tip of Europe. Some of my ancestors did make a long journey through the wild spaces of Siberia...

Anyway.

Do my haplogroups make me more clever, more intelligent? The answer is clearly no. So far, the only genes related to intelligence are those that can impair your cognitive abilities, not the ones that can enhance them.

So according to our current scientific knowledge, there is no way you can predict the intelligence of someone when you analyze his chromosomes, unless he is suffering from a specific syndrome that will eventually lead to retardation.

And at last but not the least, there is the whole question of what is a really high intelligence? And why?
And I do not think there is an objective way to measure it, and if we ever could find one, I guess it won't look like our current IQ tests (1).

---

(1) For the sake of scientific objectivity, please read "the mismeasure of Man" of Stephen Jay Gould