On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Marco Simons wrote:
> In article you wrote:
> : And I thank Marco Simons for his explanation of
> : what the null hypothesis is all about. Were that
> : it were applicable in this case! The hidden
> : assumption is that it is clear whether the null
> : hypothesis is refuted or not. So, I could claim
> : that the null hypothesis of population
> : differences in innate intelligence has been
> : handsomely refuted by Jensen, Shockley, Rushton,
> : and several others and that any *reasonable* man
> : would accept the reasoning of Jensen & Co. as
> : being, for now (as always), decisive.
>
> Could you give me citations for these? I really would like to see the
> evidence. I have failed to reject the notion of racial equality because I
> haven’t found a convincing study against it; I have not, however, done an
> exhaustive search of the literature.
>
> It might be helpful to know which of these authors you consider the most
> convincing; that would give some focus to the discussion, especially in
> the definitions of race and intelligence.
I think the most persuasive books are Arthur Jensen, _Educability and
Group Differences_ (1973) and J. Philippe Rushton, _Race, Evolutino, and
Behavior_ (1995). Bear in mind also Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O.
Wilson, _Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutinary Process_ (1981),
which is not about race but does show how rapidly (the “thousand year
rule”) significant divergences can happen.
I hesitate to mention these books, since this thread may get consumed in
denouncing them, while I am only interested in what the *other* side has
to say in defense of their position. How persuasive you will find these
books depends, quite largely I think, on how strongly you hold views that
are antagonistic to them. The goddam Fundamentialists have extremely high
standards when it comes to accepting evidence for the theory of
evolution; indeed, they demand that scientists agree on every aspect of
the theory. And, if you’ll browse alt.revisionism, you’ll find that the
Holocaust skeptics demand very high standards of proof for the
National Socialist conspiracy (yes, that’s exactly what it was!) to kill
the Jews within their grasp. I’m glad for the challenges in these areas:
it has made their proponents get their act together and really marshall
the evidence. Interestingly, Establishment historians on the Holocaust
were so sure of themsevles that their histories just repeated a dozen or
so direct pieces of evidence about the gas chambers. The skeptics
promptly attacked each of these pieces, while the Establishment just
remained sullen. But at last, a gas station/convenience store assistant
manageer in Canada, named Ken McVay, and *not* any professor, started his
own archive on the Web and got together a large body of evidence that
existed, to be sure, but was scattered all over the place. *He* had to do
the work of professional historians for them. The skeptics are still
there but are really pathetic. It’s been a number of years now since any
skeptic has published a new, sensational book.
It’s strange in a way, since whether the gas chambers were real or just
one more example of wartime propaganda is not nearly so important in the
larger scheme of things as the theory of evolution. It seems thatafter
you have invested a cerain amount of mental energy into a hypothesis, you
are reluctant to see it go. This is very much true of socialism: the term
has shifted from centrally-planned economies to the Big Welfare State,
though hope lingers on (in academia!) for this new thing called “market
socialism.” I daresay that if Jensen, Rushton, and Co. found evidence FOR
racial differences in intelligence that is as compelling as the evidence
for the infeasibility of centrally-planned econommies, the definition of
equality would likewise shift.
Old paradigms die hard.
Frank
From [email protected] Sun Feb 4 11:14:23 PST 1996
Article: 77843 of alt.politics.correct
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,
alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!
newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Evidence FOR Racial Equality??
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory
,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,
alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 16:57:13 GMT
Lines: 73
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:59801 sci.philosophy.meta:15688 sci.anthropology:488
talk.politics.theory:56080 alt.politics.reform:49560 alt.politics.democrats.d:50984 alt.activism:26009
alt.discrimination:42474 alt.politics.correct:77843 alt.politics.usa.constitution:48564
alt.politics.nationalism.white:13271 talk.politics.misc:322919
On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Marco Simons wrote:
> In article you wrote:
> : And I thank Marco Simons for his explanation of
> : what the null hypothesis is all about. Were that
> : it were applicable in this case! The hidden
> : assumption is that it is clear whether the null
> : hypothesis is refuted or not. So, I could claim
> : that the null hypothesis of population
> : differences in innate intelligence has been
> : handsomely refuted by Jensen, Shockley, Rushton,
> : and several others and that any *reasonable* man
> : would accept the reasoning of Jensen & Co. as
> : being, for now (as always), decisive.
>
> Could you give me citations for these? I really would like to see the
> evidence. I have failed to reject the notion of racial equality because I
> haven’t found a convincing study against it; I have not, however, done an
> exhaustive search of the literature.
>
> It might be helpful to know which of these authors you consider the most
> convincing; that would give some focus to the discussion, especially in
> the definitions of race and intelligence.
I think the most persuasive books are Arthur Jensen, _Educability and
Group Differences_ (1973) and J. Philippe Rushton, _Race, Evolutino, and
Behavior_ (1995). Bear in mind also Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O.
Wilson, _Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutinary Process_ (1981),
which is not about race but does show how rapidly (the “thousand year
rule”) significant divergences can happen.
I hesitate to mention these books, since this thread may get consumed in
denouncing them, while I am only interested in what the *other* side has
to say in defense of their position. How persuasive you will find these
books depends, quite largely I think, on how strongly you hold views that
are antagonistic to them. The goddam Fundamentialists have extremely high
standards when it comes to accepting evidence for the theory of
evolution; indeed, they demand that scientists agree on every aspect of
the theory. And, if you’ll browse alt.revisionism, you’ll find that the
Holocaust skeptics demand very high standards of proof for the
National Socialist conspiracy (yes, that’s exactly what it was!) to kill
the Jews within their grasp. I’m glad for the challenges in these areas:
it has made their proponents get their act together and really marshall
the evidence. Interestingly, Establishment historians on the Holocaust
were so sure of themsevles that their histories just repeated a dozen or
so direct pieces of evidence about the gas chambers. The skeptics
promptly attacked each of these pieces, while the Establishment just
remained sullen. But at last, a gas station/convenience store assistant
manageer in Canada, named Ken McVay, and *not* any professor, started his
own archive on the Web and got together a large body of evidence that
existed, to be sure, but was scattered all over the place. *He* had to do
the work of professional historians for them. The skeptics are still
there but are really pathetic. It’s been a number of years now since any
skeptic has published a new, sensational book.
It’s strange in a way, since whether the gas chambers were real or just
one more example of wartime propaganda is not nearly so important in the
larger scheme of things as the theory of evolution. It seems thatafter
you have invested a cerain amount of mental energy into a hypothesis, you
are reluctant to see it go. This is very much true of socialism: the term
has shifted from centrally-planned economies to the Big Welfare State,
though hope lingers on (in academia!) for this new thing called “market
socialism.” I daresay that if Jensen, Rushton, and Co. found evidence FOR
racial differences in intelligence that is as compelling as the evidence
for the infeasibility of centrally-planned econommies, the definition of
equality would likewise shift.
Old paradigms die hard.
Frank
From [email protected] Sun Feb 4 15:53:29 PST 1996
Article: 26009 of alt.activism
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,
alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!
newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Evidence FOR Racial Equality??
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,
alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <311[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 16:57:13 GMT
Lines: 73
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:59801 sci.philosophy.meta:15688 sci.anthropology:488
talk.politics.theory:56080 alt.politics.reform:49560 alt.politics.democrats.d:50984 alt.activism:26009
alt.discrimination:42474 alt.politics.correct:77843 alt.politics.usa.constitution:48564
alt.politics.nationalism.white:13271 talk.politics.misc:322919
On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Marco Simons wrote:
> In article you wrote:
> : And I thank Marco Simons for his explanation of
> : what the null hypothesis is all about. Were that
> : it were applicable in this case! The hidden
> : assumption is that it is clear whether the null
> : hypothesis is refuted or not. So, I could claim
> : that the null hypothesis of population
> : differences in innate intelligence has been
> : handsomely refuted by Jensen, Shockley, Rushton,
> : and several others and that any *reasonable* man
> : would accept the reasoning of Jensen & Co. as
> : being, for now (as always), decisive.
>
> Could you give me citations for these? I really would like to see the
> evidence. I have failed to reject the notion of racial equality because I
> haven’t found a convincing study against it; I have not, however, done an
> exhaustive search of the literature.
>
> It might be helpful to know which of these authors you consider the most
> convincing; that would give some focus to the discussion, especially in
> the definitions of race and intelligence.
I think the most persuasive books are Arthur Jensen, _Educability and
Group Differences_ (1973) and J. Philippe Rushton, _Race, Evolutino, and
Behavior_ (1995). Bear in mind also Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O.
Wilson, _Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutinary Process_ (1981),
which is not about race but does show how rapidly (the “thousand year
rule”) significant divergences can happen.
I hesitate to mention these books, since this thread may get consumed in
denouncing them, while I am only interested in what the *other* side has
to say in defense of their position. How persuasive you will find these
books depends, quite largely I think, on how strongly you hold views that
are antagonistic to them. The goddam Fundamentialists have extremely high
standards when it comes to accepting evidence for the theory of
evolution; indeed, they demand that scientists agree on every aspect of
the theory. And, if you’ll browse alt.revisionism, you’ll find that the
Holocaust skeptics demand very high standards of proof for the
National Socialist conspiracy (yes, that’s exactly what it was!) to kill
the Jews within their grasp. I’m glad for the challenges in these areas:
it has made their proponents get their act together and really marshall
the evidence. Interestingly, Establishment historians on the Holocaust
were so sure of themsevles that their histories just repeated a dozen or
so direct pieces of evidence about the gas chambers. The skeptics
promptly attacked each of these pieces, while the Establishment just
remained sullen. But at last, a gas station/convenience store assistant
manageer in Canada, named Ken McVay, and *not* any professor, started his
own archive on the Web and got together a large body of evidence that
existed, to be sure, but was scattered all over the place. *He* had to do
the work of professional historians for them. The skeptics are still
there but are really pathetic. It’s been a number of years now since any
skeptic has published a new, sensational book.
It’s strange in a way, since whether the gas chambers were real or just
one more example of wartime propaganda is not nearly so important in the
larger scheme of things as the theory of evolution. It seems thatafter
you have invested a cerain amount of mental energy into a hypothesis, you
are reluctant to see it go. This is very much true of socialism: the term
has shifted from centrally-planned economies to the Big Welfare State,
though hope lingers on (in academia!) for this new thing called “market
socialism.” I daresay that if Jensen, Rushton, and Co. found evidence FOR
racial differences in intelligence that is as compelling as the evidence
for the infeasibility of centrally-planned econommies, the definition of
equality would likewise shift.
Old paradigms die hard.
Frank
From [email protected] Sun Feb 4 15:55:25 PST 1996
Article: 322919 of talk.politics.misc
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,
alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Evidence FOR Racial Equality??
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,
alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 16:57:13 GMT
Lines: 73
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:59801 sci.philosophy.meta:15688 sci.anthropology:488
talk.politics.theory:56080 alt.politics.reform:49560 alt.politics.democrats.d:50984 alt.activism:26009
alt.discrimination:42474 alt.politics.correct:77843 alt.politics.usa.constitution:48564
alt.politics.nationalism.white:13271 talk.politics.misc:322919
On Mon, 29 Jan 1996, Marco Simons wrote:
> In article you wrote:
> : And I thank Marco Simons for his explanation of
> : what the null hypothesis is all about. Were that
> : it were applicable in this case! The hidden
> : assumption is that it is clear whether the null
> : hypothesis is refuted or not. So, I could claim
> : that the null hypothesis of population
> : differences in innate intelligence has been
> : handsomely refuted by Jensen, Shockley, Rushton,
> : and several others and that any *reasonable* man
> : would accept the reasoning of Jensen & Co. as
> : being, for now (as always), decisive.
>
> Could you give me citations for these? I really would like to see the
> evidence. I have failed to reject the notion of racial equality because I
> haven’t found a convincing study against it; I have not, however, done an
> exhaustive search of the literature.
>
> It might be helpful to know which of these authors you consider the most
> convincing; that would give some focus to the discussion, especially in
> the definitions of race and intelligence.
I think the most persuasive books are Arthur Jensen, _Educability and
Group Differences_ (1973) and J. Philippe Rushton, _Race, Evolutino, and
Behavior_ (1995). Bear in mind also Charles J. Lumsden and Edward O.
Wilson, _Genes, Mind, and Culture: The Coevolutinary Process_ (1981),
which is not about race but does show how rapidly (the “thousand year
rule”) significant divergences can happen.
I hesitate to mention these books, since this thread may get consumed in
denouncing them, while I am only interested in what the *other* side has
to say in defense of their position. How persuasive you will find these
books depends, quite largely I think, on how strongly you hold views that
are antagonistic to them. The goddam Fundamentialists have extremely high
standards when it comes to accepting evidence for the theory of
evolution; indeed, they demand that scientists agree on every aspect of
the theory. And, if you’ll browse alt.revisionism, you’ll find that the
Holocaust skeptics demand very high standards of proof for the
National Socialist conspiracy (yes, that’s exactly what it was!) to kill
the Jews within their grasp. I’m glad for the challenges in these areas:
it has made their proponents get their act together and really marshall
the evidence. Interestingly, Establishment historians on the Holocaust
were so sure of themsevles that their histories just repeated a dozen or
so direct pieces of evidence about the gas chambers. The skeptics
promptly attacked each of these pieces, while the Establishment just
remained sullen. But at last, a gas station/convenience store assistant
manageer in Canada, named Ken McVay, and *not* any professor, started his
own archive on the Web and got together a large body of evidence that
existed, to be sure, but was scattered all over the place. *He* had to do
the work of professional historians for them. The skeptics are still
there but are really pathetic. It’s been a number of years now since any
skeptic has published a new, sensational book.
It’s strange in a way, since whether the gas chambers were real or just
one more example of wartime propaganda is not nearly so important in the
larger scheme of things as the theory of evolution. It seems thatafter
you have invested a cerain amount of mental energy into a hypothesis, you
are reluctant to see it go. This is very much true of socialism: the term
has shifted from centrally-planned economies to the Big Welfare State,
though hope lingers on (in academia!) for this new thing called “market
socialism.” I daresay that if Jensen, Rushton, and Co. found evidence FOR
racial differences in intelligence that is as compelling as the evidence
for the infeasibility of centrally-planned econommies, the definition of
equality would likewise shift.
Old paradigms die hard.
Frank
From [email protected] Sat Feb 10 08:49:03 PST 1996
Article: 13590 of alt.politics.nationalism.white
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 00:54:28 GMT
Lines: 47
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60103 sci.philosophy.meta:15756 sci.anthropology:544
talk.politics.theory:56353 talk.politics.misc:325369 alt.politics.reform:50443 alt.politics.democrats.d:52247
alt.activism:27124 alt.discrimination:42704 alt.politics.correct:79149 alt.politics.nationalism.white:13590
James White ([email protected]) wrote:
: On Feb 08, 1996 21:16:13 in article , ‘[email protected] (frank forman)’ wrote:
:
:
:
: >Pleased to supply a quote: _New York Times_, 1996 January 30, pp. C1, C8:
: >”Second Greatest Toolmaker?: A Title Crows Can Crow About,” a fascinating
: >write-up by Malcolm W. Browne about a species of crow whose members
: >fashion tool in standard forms, something that non-human apes are not
: >known to do. The article, near the end, places the new findings in
: >a wider context:
:
:
: This is not a true statement no matter where you saw it. Chimpanzees, the
: nearest primate relative of humans, fashion tools. They use tools, shaped
: sticks, to get termites from their nests. Termites are a favorite food of
: Chimps. There are numerous examples of tool making by other members of the
: primate family.
Not so, Jim: I should have emphasized “in standard forms.” That’s the
difference between the species of crow and what the non-human apes do.
It’s a fascinating article!
: >”Zoologists are revising traditional views of the relative importance of
: >genes and learned behavior in young birds.
: >
: >”Experiments have shown, for example, that birds are born with an innate
: >ability to sing the songs of their species, but that young birds need the
: >examples provided by their elders to master the fine points of avian
: >melody; a laboratory bird raised in isolation from others of its species
: >never becomes expert in the songs of its race.”
:
:
: I will not flame you this time.
What a welcome change of policy!
[rest snipped, not that I can’t or won’t quarrell with some things you
say, though I would like to know whether the various cultural factors you
speak of are sufficient to close the gap we see in IQ scores. Your
giving a list of possibles, not actuals, really.]
Frank
From [email protected] Sat Feb 10 08:49:05 PST 1996
Article: 13593 of alt.politics.nationalism.white
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.nationalism.white
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: A Jobless World
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politcs.nationalism.white
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 02:03:14 GMT
Lines: 95
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60110 sci.philosophy.meta:15757 sci.anthropology:545
talk.politics.theory:56359 alt.politics.reform:50458 alt.politics.democrats.d:52267 alt.activism:27154
alt.discrimination:42709 alt.politics.correct:79176 alt.politics.usa.constitution:48919
alt.politics.nationalism.white:13593
This deserves a thread of its own.
James White ([email protected]) wrote:
[snipped to here]
: In the context of an industrial society moving into the age of information.
: In the age of information the task will be to find out what to do with the
: people who are in the normal range between 85 and 115. We are developing a
: society which will not need these people as workers at all.
:
: My company recently installed a computerized reception center for a major
: HMO. A member of this HMO enters the reception area and puts an ID card
: into a scanner. The scanner looks for his records then proceeds to ask
: questions which the member answers. The computer then routes the patient
: to the appropriate nurse who uses computer aided diagnosis to determine the
: disposition of the patient. This is enabling the HMO to lay off at least
: 20 people per operating location. After the nurse talks to him additional
: information is entered into the computer which then reschedules the patient
: for what ever he needs and if medicine is prescribed it locates it and
: dispenses it prior to departure. Very little intervention is required by
: humans. This is what the age of information is bringing in. Society will
: need the two sigma highs and above who can design systems, professionals
: such as physicians and lawyers but will not need routine clerks the people
: who fall in the normal range.
:
: >And I find it humorous that you could site an example of someone writing
: >a bad test intentionally and reach the conclusion that all test are bad.
: >Such grand leaps of illogic!
:
: His point may be difficult for you to grasp but nevertheless it is a very
: valid point. Nor is it illogical no more so than the original question.
: We have entered the age of information. At this point in time no one knows
: how it will turn out any more than peole knew what to expect of the
: industrial revolution.
You are onto something of unsurpassing importance here. Let me add that
jobs come in a cognative hierarchy. If someone is below the minimum
cutoff point (not nec. of IQ–“Western industrial age-type IQ, even–but
not much research has been done on other aspects of ability) for a given
occupation, it’s not that he can’t do the job well, or that he can’t do
it quickly, it’s that he can’t do it *at all*.
Second principle: the economy is increasingly getting more and more
efficient at narrowing down the range of abilities to be found in any
occupation, esp. those lower down the hierarchy (really hierach*ies*,
since it’s people skills that makes for a good CEO or politician, not so
much IQ, though there is a minimum there also). In other words, suppose
farming takes a minimum IQ of 90 (I don’t know the actual figure). It
used to be that you’d find farmers of IQs 120 or above. Today, a budding
farmer with an IQ of 100 would rarely be found on the farm; he’d wind up
in an occupation that required a minimum IQ greater than 90. And if he
had an IQ of 130, he’d would most likely get a scholarship to a good
four-year college or university.
This you can learn from _The Bell Curve_, and it’s called “cognative
sorting.” One critic of the book questioned the authors’ evidence that
such sorting has *increased* as much as the authors seem to imply, though
he presented no evidence for how fast it is *in fact* increasing. (I
really do want evidence FOR something, as you might have gathered.)
I add here that, if there will be few *jobs* for those of IQ 120 (yes, I’d
prefer a vector rather than a scalar and even began a doctoral
dissertation (economics) about this), then they will have to accept jobs
that pay only at the rate IQ-minimum 100 jobs pay.
We’re seeing this already happening! There are plenty of middle managers
that have been fired due to delayering that may never again make *half*
of what they had been making.
And I add that there will be IQ-minimum 100 jobs for a good while (fifty
years?), since *people* can *still* do things the best robots and computers
cannot, namely those things like cleaning house (that’s a less than
100-IQ minimum job, actually), because parallel processing software and
hardware is not yet up to the task. Quite lowly animals, in fact, can do
things that the fanciest computers cannot.
Pick your own numbers here, for I’m just laying following up to your
general idea.
I say that, within two hundred years, we’ll all be out of work. For a
fictional treatment of what things will be like when only *most* of us
are out of work, read Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, _Player Piano_ (1952).
Another thing, as the demand for bright-normal-IQ-minimum jobs
decline, those having bright-normal IQs will enter the labor market
competing with those of normal and dull-normal IQs for the normal-minimum
and dull-normal-minimum jogs. This will depress the wages of all those in
these jobs. Inequality of incomes will grow. Indeed it already has. And I
also predict that the dull normals will increasingly be unable to find
any jobs *at all*, certainly not above the statutory minimum wage.
And this, too, is already happening. *None* of the current political
ideologies are up to handling what looks like the future. I will accept
no ritualistic invocations of their Equality or the Free Market.
Frank
From [email protected] Sat Feb 10 13:00:00 PST 1996
Article: 13607 of alt.politics.nationalism.white
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 01:16:22 GMT
Lines: 38
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60134 sci.philosophy.meta:15760 sci.anthropology:556
talk.politics.theory:56373 talk.politics.misc:325640 alt.politics.reform:50529 alt.politics.democrats.d:52359
alt.activism:27276 alt.discrimination:42729 alt.politics.correct:79289 alt.politics.nationalism.white:13607
Laura Finsten ([email protected]) wrote:
: [email protected] (Michael Spertus) wrote:
: >So the question has no clear answer. Each area of biological specialty has
: >its own notion of race and we don’t know which to apply to humans.
: So why not ask human biologists? The consensus among human biologists is
: that race is not a useful biological construct, because it focuses on a
: small number of superficial (and often ill-defined) traits while ignoring
: far greater variation in virtually all others.
I have a strong suspicion that this focusing is true throughout *all*
animal evolution, since mating is done on the basis of just a few
characteristics that are within the sensory capacity of the organism.
This does not mean that studying the evolution of genes that animals
could not possibly sense is useless, for quite the opposite is the case:
biologists use this sort of information (now that they have it) all the
time in order to trace evolutionary descent and further to try to get a
handle on dates, since the rate of mutations over periods of intermediate
length seems to be constant. (See _NY Times_, “First Branch in Life’s
Tree Was 2 Billion Years Ago,” Pp. C1 and C9, 1996.1.30. The article
points out the controversy over trying to establish dates that old on the
basis of a molecular clock.)
What is going on is that the gene counters have beyond the proper
limits of their methods in some cases, or so other biologists claim. This
is a matter of continuing controversy, as you can read in _Science_
articles (if you follow such matters), E.O. Wilson’s autobiography,
_Naturalist_, and John Brockman’s series of interviews i _The Third Culture_.
So I wouldn’t haul out any “consensus of experts” among human biologists,
because there isn’t one. Whether we humble Internetters should rush in
and decide these matters ourselves is something else, but in principle we
certainly can do so. Call me an egalitarian here, if you wish, or an
Objectivist, or just a follower of Mr. Jefferson.
Frank
From [email protected] Sun Feb 11 10:58:05 PST 1996
Article: 27124 of alt.activism
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 00:54:28 GMT
Lines: 47
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60103 sci.philosophy.meta:15756 sci.anthropology:544
talk.politics.theory:56353 talk.politics.misc:325369 alt.politics.reform:50443 alt.politics.democrats.d:52247
alt.activism:27124 alt.discrimination:42704 alt.politics.correct:79149 alt.politics.nationalism.white:13590
James White ([email protected]) wrote:
: On Feb 08, 1996 21:16:13 in article , ‘[email protected] (frank forman)’ wrote:
:
:
:
: >Pleased to supply a quote: _New York Times_, 1996 January 30, pp. C1, C8:
: >”Second Greatest Toolmaker?: A Title Crows Can Crow About,” a fascinating
: >write-up by Malcolm W. Browne about a species of crow whose members
: >fashion tool in standard forms, something that non-human apes are not
: >known to do. The article, near the end, places the new findings in
: >a wider context:
:
:
: This is not a true statement no matter where you saw it. Chimpanzees, the
: nearest primate relative of humans, fashion tools. They use tools, shaped
: sticks, to get termites from their nests. Termites are a favorite food of
: Chimps. There are numerous examples of tool making by other members of the
: primate family.
Not so, Jim: I should have emphasized “in standard forms.” That’s the
difference between the species of crow and what the non-human apes do.
It’s a fascinating article!
: >”Zoologists are revising traditional views of the relative importance of
: >genes and learned behavior in young birds.
: >
: >”Experiments have shown, for example, that birds are born with an innate
: >ability to sing the songs of their species, but that young birds need the
: >examples provided by their elders to master the fine points of avian
: >melody; a laboratory bird raised in isolation from others of its species
: >never becomes expert in the songs of its race.”
:
:
: I will not flame you this time.
What a welcome change of policy!
[rest snipped, not that I can’t or won’t quarrell with some things you
say, though I would like to know whether the various cultural factors you
speak of are sufficient to close the gap we see in IQ scores. Your
giving a list of possibles, not actuals, really.]
Frank
From [email protected] Sun Feb 11 10:58:07 PST 1996
Article: 27154 of alt.activism
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.nationalism.white
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: A Jobless World
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politcs.nationalism.white
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 02:03:14 GMT
Lines: 95
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60110 sci.philosophy.meta:15757 sci.anthropology:545
talk.politics.theory:56359 alt.politics.reform:50458 alt.politics.democrats.d:52267 alt.activism:27154
alt.discrimination:42709 alt.politics.correct:79176 alt.politics.usa.constitution:48919
alt.politics.nationalism.white:13593
This deserves a thread of its own.
James White ([email protected]) wrote:
[snipped to here]
: In the context of an industrial society moving into the age of information.
: In the age of information the task will be to find out what to do with the
: people who are in the normal range between 85 and 115. We are developing a
: society which will not need these people as workers at all.
:
: My company recently installed a computerized reception center for a major
: HMO. A member of this HMO enters the reception area and puts an ID card
: into a scanner. The scanner looks for his records then proceeds to ask
: questions which the member answers. The computer then routes the patient
: to the appropriate nurse who uses computer aided diagnosis to determine the
: disposition of the patient. This is enabling the HMO to lay off at least
: 20 people per operating location. After the nurse talks to him additional
: information is entered into the computer which then reschedules the patient
: for what ever he needs and if medicine is prescribed it locates it and
: dispenses it prior to departure. Very little intervention is required by
: humans. This is what the age of information is bringing in. Society will
: need the two sigma highs and above who can design systems, professionals
: such as physicians and lawyers but will not need routine clerks the people
: who fall in the normal range.
:
: >And I find it humorous that you could site an example of someone writing
: >a bad test intentionally and reach the conclusion that all test are bad.
: >Such grand leaps of illogic!
:
: His point may be difficult for you to grasp but nevertheless it is a very
: valid point. Nor is it illogical no more so than the original question.
: We have entered the age of information. At this point in time no one knows
: how it will turn out any more than peole knew what to expect of the
: industrial revolution.
You are onto something of unsurpassing importance here. Let me add that
jobs come in a cognative hierarchy. If someone is below the minimum
cutoff point (not nec. of IQ–“Western industrial age-type IQ, even–but
not much research has been done on other aspects of ability) for a given
occupation, it’s not that he can’t do the job well, or that he can’t do
it quickly, it’s that he can’t do it *at all*.
Second principle: the economy is increasingly getting more and more
efficient at narrowing down the range of abilities to be found in any
occupation, esp. those lower down the hierarchy (really hierach*ies*,
since it’s people skills that makes for a good CEO or politician, not so
much IQ, though there is a minimum there also). In other words, suppose
farming takes a minimum IQ of 90 (I don’t know the actual figure). It
used to be that you’d find farmers of IQs 120 or above. Today, a budding
farmer with an IQ of 100 would rarely be found on the farm; he’d wind up
in an occupation that required a minimum IQ greater than 90. And if he
had an IQ of 130, he’d would most likely get a scholarship to a good
four-year college or university.
This you can learn from _The Bell Curve_, and it’s called “cognative
sorting.” One critic of the book questioned the authors’ evidence that
such sorting has *increased* as much as the authors seem to imply, though
he presented no evidence for how fast it is *in fact* increasing. (I
really do want evidence FOR something, as you might have gathered.)
I add here that, if there will be few *jobs* for those of IQ 120 (yes, I’d
prefer a vector rather than a scalar and even began a doctoral
dissertation (economics) about this), then they will have to accept jobs
that pay only at the rate IQ-minimum 100 jobs pay.
We’re seeing this already happening! There are plenty of middle managers
that have been fired due to delayering that may never again make *half*
of what they had been making.
And I add that there will be IQ-minimum 100 jobs for a good while (fifty
years?), since *people* can *still* do things the best robots and computers
cannot, namely those things like cleaning house (that’s a less than
100-IQ minimum job, actually), because parallel processing software and
hardware is not yet up to the task. Quite lowly animals, in fact, can do
things that the fanciest computers cannot.
Pick your own numbers here, for I’m just laying following up to your
general idea.
I say that, within two hundred years, we’ll all be out of work. For a
fictional treatment of what things will be like when only *most* of us
are out of work, read Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel, _Player Piano_ (1952).
Another thing, as the demand for bright-normal-IQ-minimum jobs
decline, those having bright-normal IQs will enter the labor market
competing with those of normal and dull-normal IQs for the normal-minimum
and dull-normal-minimum jogs. This will depress the wages of all those in
these jobs. Inequality of incomes will grow. Indeed it already has. And I
also predict that the dull normals will increasingly be unable to find
any jobs *at all*, certainly not above the statutory minimum wage.
And this, too, is already happening. *None* of the current political
ideologies are up to handling what looks like the future. I will accept
no ritualistic invocations of their Equality or the Free Market.
Frank
From [email protected] Sun Feb 11 11:52:01 PST 1996
Article: 325369 of talk.politics.misc
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism
,alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 00:54:28 GMT
Lines: 47
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60103 sci.philosophy.meta:15756 sci.anthropology:544
talk.politics.theory:56353 talk.politics.misc:325369 alt.politics.reform:50443 alt.politics.democrats.d:52247
alt.activism:27124 alt.discrimination:42704 alt.politics.correct:79149 alt.politics.nationalism.white:13590
James White ([email protected]) wrote:
: On Feb 08, 1996 21:16:13 in article , ‘[email protected] (frank forman)’ wrote:
:
:
:
: >Pleased to supply a quote: _New York Times_, 1996 January 30, pp. C1, C8:
: >”Second Greatest Toolmaker?: A Title Crows Can Crow About,” a fascinating
: >write-up by Malcolm W. Browne about a species of crow whose members
: >fashion tool in standard forms, something that non-human apes are not
: >known to do. The article, near the end, places the new findings in
: >a wider context:
:
:
: This is not a true statement no matter where you saw it. Chimpanzees, the
: nearest primate relative of humans, fashion tools. They use tools, shaped
: sticks, to get termites from their nests. Termites are a favorite food of
: Chimps. There are numerous examples of tool making by other members of the
: primate family.
Not so, Jim: I should have emphasized “in standard forms.” That’s the
difference between the species of crow and what the non-human apes do.
It’s a fascinating article!
: >”Zoologists are revising traditional views of the relative importance of
: >genes and learned behavior in young birds.
: >
: >”Experiments have shown, for example, that birds are born with an innate
: >ability to sing the songs of their species, but that young birds need the
: >examples provided by their elders to master the fine points of avian
: >melody; a laboratory bird raised in isolation from others of its species
: >never becomes expert in the songs of its race.”
:
:
: I will not flame you this time.
What a welcome change of policy!
[rest snipped, not that I can’t or won’t quarrell with some things you
say, though I would like to know whether the various cultural factors you
speak of are sufficient to close the gap we see in IQ scores. Your
giving a list of possibles, not actuals, really.]
Frank
From [email protected] Wed Feb 14 07:50:18 PST 1996
Article: 13773 of alt.politics.nationalism.white
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.couples.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.misc,
alt.politics.nationalism.white,soc.culture.intercultural
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!news.cyberstore.ca!math.ohio-state.edu!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.couples.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.misc
,alt.politics.nationalism.white,soc.culture.intercultural
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Tue, 13 Feb 1996 01:29:45 GMT
Lines: 27
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60372 sci.philosophy.meta:15804 sci.anthropology:590
talk.politics.theory:56521 talk.politics.misc:327271 soc.couples.intercultural:15224 alt.politics.reform:51030
alt.politics.democrats.d:53123 alt.activism:28119 alt.discrimination:42843 alt.politics.correct:80094
alt.politics.usa.constitution:49152 alt.politics.nationalism.white:13773
Fanquesp ([email protected]) wrote:
: Would someone mind starting this thread all over, leaving
: Soc.couples.intercultural out of it. While many of you out there might
: enjoy musing over racist propoganda, many of us here in sci are quite
: tired of it. Please phase this thread out of this newsgroup.
I have already complied with the request and have removed
soc.couples.intercutlural many times from the thread (although I once
neglected to do so). Someone else, not me, added this to the threadbut
*every* respondent will have to remove your group himself. I sent the
original thread only to groups that I thought might have someting to
contribute to the discussion, but since the respondents usually don’t say
which group they are replying from, I don’t know whether I put in too
many groups.
Apparently, this sort of problem will never be solved entirely, but I think
that the ability to rope in other groups that may be appropriate for a
discussion is a very good idea. I’m only sorry that someone
inappropriately added in your group.
NOte: just checking this before I sent it, apparently in this case,
someone mistook your group for soc.*culture*.intercultural when retyping.
But I’ve also seen both intercultural groups on the thread. I put the
last group back in, since we’ve gotten some very good postings (from
David Saab, who did identify where he was reading from) from that group.
Frank
From [email protected] Sat Feb 17 09:49:16 PST 1996
Article: 13936 of alt.politics.nationalism.white
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 02:03:59 GMT
Lines: 43
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60768 sci.philosophy.meta:15848 sci.anthropology:615
talk.politics.theory:56816 talk.politics.misc:329538 alt.politics.reform:51846 alt.politics.democrats.d:54106
alt.activism:29124 alt.discrimination:43024 alt.politics.correct:81349 alt.politics.nationalism.white:13936
In article <[email protected]>,
Loren King wrote:
>Matt Nuenke wrote:
>
>> Do you submit that because race is a bogus classification, then
>> affirmative action has no basis, since it is based on racial
>> classifications?
>
>I think the point is that race is a biologically, genetically
>ambiguous category, not that it isn’t a deeply rooted social category
>of very real consequence in political and economic affairs.
>Affirmative action policies based on race aren’t predicated upon the
>biological significance of “race” (which is ambiguous), but upon the
>political salience of “race” (which is very real, and based upon what
>people think “race” is).
>
>Affirmative action policies aim to redress historical inequalities
>attached to morally arbitrary traits, such as sex and skin colour.
>
>Now, whether these inequalities outght to be redressed by the state,
>or whether affirmative action really accomplishes what it seeks to —
>these are important questions. But they are not questions that turn
>on the biological basis and significance of “race.”
I think you put it very well. My thread, “Evidence FOR Racial Equality??”
has generated several new threads, including this one. I am after
evidence for the belief, apparently quite widespread, that Affirmative
Action and other programs are in fact capable of achiveing equal outcomes
in education and jobs in what the layman and the government calls race.
These groups may or may not be true biological subspecies, but they are
breeding groups and, as such, may very well differ psychologically as
well as physiologically. Egalitarians I define for the present are those
who believe in equality for psychological factors while denying it for
physiological factors.
Of course, what the *aims* of Affirmative Action, Civil Rights Laws, and
so forth are, or ought to be, is an additional problem.
I am not asking for “proof” of equality, or for evidence that would
convince every last “bigot” (I’ve been called that several times), but
just whatever evidence, good or bad, anyone has.
Frank
From [email protected] Sat Feb 17 11:16:07 PST 1996
Article: 29039 of alt.activism
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politcs.nationalism.white
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!news.cyberstore.ca!math.ohio-state.edu!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: A Jobless World
Message-ID:
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 1996 20:05:13 GMT
Lines: 425
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60728 sci.philosophy.meta:15842 sci.anthropology:609
talk.politics.theory:56787 alt.politics.reform:51772 alt.politics.democrats.d:54034 alt.activism:29039
alt.discrimination:43002 alt.politics.correct:81249 alt.politics.usa.constitution:49527
References: <[email protected]>
Sender:
Distribution: inet
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
In article ,
Fred G. Athearn wrote:
>[email protected] (frank forman) writes:
>)
>) Another thing, as the demand for bright-normal-IQ-minimum jobs
>) decline, those having bright-normal IQs will enter the labor
>) market competing with those of normal and dull-normal IQs for
>) the normal-minimum and dull-normal-minimum jogs. This will
>) depress the wages of all those in these jobs. Inequality of
>) incomes will grow. Indeed it already has. And I also predict
>) that the dull normals will increasingly be unable to find any
>) jobs *at all*, certainly not above the statutory minimum wage.
>) And this, too, is already happening. *None* of the current
>) political ideologies are up to handling what looks like the
>) future. I will accept no ritualistic invocations of their
>) Equality or the Free Market.
>
> I don’t want to argue about equaity but it seem to me
> that there is no need to jumble up this very real
> issue with stuff about the much less real question of
> IQ.
>
> Those who would somehow justify what is going on like
> to talk about “merit” and “education” and the “work
> ethic” etc. etc. as well as “IQ”. But the fact is
> that the way the system is set up there would be the
> same layoffs and downsizing even if everyone in the
> world had exactly the same I.Q., training and work
> ethic.
Please explain what this “system” is and how it operates. I’m an
economist and am reasonable familiar with the ways markets work. What I
think is going on is that businessmen are unable to invent jobs to
replace those made unprofitable by the information revolution that will
pay what the abolished jobs did. That’s all.
> It seems to me that all this talk about mental
> differences just serves to cover-up the what is realy
> going on. People can do lots of things that machines
> can not and other people would like those things and
> would pay for them if they could. It is not that we
> don’t need people any more, it is that there is no
> money to pay them. That is the probem we need to look
> at.
What people can do that machines cannot (yet) do are things involving
massive parallel processing. ONe example is walking across a room: very
lowly animals can do it but robots do it with great difficulty. Cleaning
house is another and one that requires *human* level intelligence, though
not oof a very high order. Jobs requiriing only a low order of *human*
intelligence do not pay well, since most people have at least a low order
of it. It’s just what we economists call a falling demand curve.
Jobs that require a higher level of intelligence (actually, we might as
well use the word training or education) pay more, because fewer people
have this higher level than who have at least a low level.
What is remarkable about people also is that they are pretty adaptable,
compared to robots. If you lose a job as a middle manager, you can still
learn lots of other trades, so long as your inherent limitiations are not
exceeded. But if there are no longer very many jobs demanding the minimal
abilities of middle managers, you’ll have to settle for one that will pay
less.
I suggest a good book on economics. The first one I read was Henry
Hazlitt, _Economics in One Lesson_. I’ll let others make some
recommendations.
Frank
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.
politcs.nationalism.white
Subject: Re: A Jobless World
Summary:
Expires:
References: <[email protected]>
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution: inet
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Keywords:
Cc:
In article ,
Fred G. Athearn wrote:
>[email protected] (frank forman) writes:
>)
>) Another thing, as the demand for bright-normal-IQ-minimum jobs
>) decline, those having bright-normal IQs will enter the labor
>) market competing with those of normal and dull-normal IQs for
>) the normal-minimum and dull-normal-minimum jogs. This will
>) depress the wages of all those in these jobs. Inequality of
>) incomes will grow. Indeed it already has. And I also predict
>) that the dull normals will increasingly be unable to find any
>) jobs *at all*, certainly not above the statutory minimum wage.
>) And this, too, is already happening. *None* of the current
>) political ideologies are up to handling what looks like the
>) future. I will accept no ritualistic invocations of their
>) Equality or the Free Market.
>
> I don’t want to argue about equaity but it seem to me
> that there is no need to jumble up this very real
> issue with stuff about the much less real question of
> IQ.
>
> Those who would somehow justify what is going on like
> to talk about “merit” and “education” and the “work
> ethic” etc. etc. as well as “IQ”. But the fact is
> that the way the system is set up there would be the
> same layoffs and downsizing even if everyone in the
> world had exactly the same I.Q., training and work
> ethic.
Please explain what this “system” is and how it operates. I’m an
economist and am reasonable familiar with the ways markets work. What I
think is going on is that businessmen are unable to invent jobs to
replace those made unprofitable by the information revolution that will
pay what the abolished jobs did. That’s all.
> It seems to me that all this talk about mental
> differences just serves to cover-up the what is realy
> going on. People can do lots of things that machines
> can not and other people would like those things and
> would pay for them if they could. It is not that we
> don’t need people any more, it is that there is no
> money to pay them. That is the probem we need to look
> at.
What people can do that machines cannot (yet) do are things involving
massive parallel processing. ONe example is walking across a room: very
lowly animals can do it but robots do it with great difficulty. Cleaning
house is another and one that requires *human* level intelligence, though
not oof a very high order. Jobs requiriing only a low order of *human*
intelligence do not pay well, since most people have at least a low order
of it. It’s just what we economists call a falling demand curve.
Jobs that require a higher level of intelligence (actually, we might as
well use the word training or education) pay more, because fewer people
have this higher level than who have at least a low level.
What is remarkable about people also is that they are pretty adaptable,
compared to robots. If you lose a job as a middle manager, you can still
learn lots of other trades, so long as your inherent limitiations are not
exceeded. But if there are no longer very many jobs demanding the minimal
abilities of middle managers, you’ll have to settle for one that will pay
less.
I suggest a good book on economics. The first one I read was Henry
Hazlitt, _Economics in One Lesson_. I’ll let others make some
recommendations.
Frank
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.
politcs.nationalism.white
Subject: Re: A Jobless World
Summary:
Expires:
References: <[email protected]>
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution: inet
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Keywords:
Cc:
In article ,
Fred G. Athearn wrote:
>[email protected] (frank forman) writes:
>)
>) Another thing, as the demand for bright-normal-IQ-minimum jobs
>) decline, those having bright-normal IQs will enter the labor
>) market competing with those of normal and dull-normal IQs for
>) the normal-minimum and dull-normal-minimum jogs. This will
>) depress the wages of all those in these jobs. Inequality of
>) incomes will grow. Indeed it already has. And I also predict
>) that the dull normals will increasingly be unable to find any
>) jobs *at all*, certainly not above the statutory minimum wage.
>) And this, too, is already happening. *None* of the current
>) political ideologies are up to handling what looks like the
>) future. I will accept no ritualistic invocations of their
>) Equality or the Free Market.
>
> I don’t want to argue about equaity but it seem to me
> that there is no need to jumble up this very real
> issue with stuff about the much less real question of
> IQ.
>
> Those who would somehow justify what is going on like
> to talk about “merit” and “education” and the “work
> ethic” etc. etc. as well as “IQ”. But the fact is
> that the way the system is set up there would be the
> same layoffs and downsizing even if everyone in the
> world had exactly the same I.Q., training and work
> ethic.
>
> It seems to me that all this talk about mental
> differences just serves to cover-up the what is realy
> going on. People can do lots of things that machines
> can not and other people would like those things and
> would pay for them if they could. It is not that we
> don’t need people any more, it is that there is no
> money to pay them. That is the probem we need to look
> at.
>–
>Fred G. Athearn [email protected] http://www.sover.net/~fga
> [see above for information
> on gnus 5.x newsreader]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Was man the first animal domesticated by man?
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.couples.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Cc:
Bcc:
In article <[email protected]> you write:
>Charles Fiterman wrote:
>
>>How do you know? Leaky discovered human ancestors from about 6,000,000
>>years ago.
>
>Not true. The earliest evidence of hominids dates to about 4.0-4.5
>million years ago (in Nature), and there is some dispute about
>whether they actually do represent the earliest known members of
>the human family, or whether they are early apes. Not enough
>specimens yet to be more certain.
>
>>They were clearly using tools just like modern chimps, parrots
>>and crows.
>
>The earliest evidence of tool use dates to 2-3 million years ago.
>
>>How do you know they weren’t keeping slaves just like modern
>>ants? Slavery seems a fairly simple invention for a herd animal. How
>>do you know it isn’t 12,000,000 years old?
>
>There is a difference between a “herd animal” and a “social animal”.
>Historically and cross-culturally, slavery has never been known to
>have occurred in a society that lacked social stratification. Social
>stratification has never been known to occur in a society that
>lacked agriculture (with the lone exception of the NorthWest coast
>of North America), because of its capacity for producing large
>surpluses and supporting an upper class. Agriculture has only been
>around for about 10,000 years.
>
>
>
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.
politcs.nationalism.white
Subject: Re: A Jobless World
Summary:
Expires:
References: <[email protected]>
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution: inet
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Keywords:
Cc:
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.
politcs.nationalism.white
Subject: Re: A Jobless World
References: <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
In article ,
Fred G. Athearn wrote:
>[email protected] (frank forman) writes:
>)
>) Another thing, as the demand for bright-normal-IQ-minimum jobs
>) decline, those having bright-normal IQs will enter the labor
>) market competing with those of normal and dull-normal IQs for
>) the normal-minimum and dull-normal-minimum jogs. This will
>) depress the wages of all those in these jobs. Inequality of
>) incomes will grow. Indeed it already has. And I also predict
>) that the dull normals will increasingly be unable to find any
>) jobs *at all*, certainly not above the statutory minimum wage.
>) And this, too, is already happening. *None* of the current
>) political ideologies are up to handling what looks like the
>) future. I will accept no ritualistic invocations of their
>) Equality or the Free Market.
>
> I don’t want to argue about equaity but it seem to me
> that there is no need to jumble up this very real
> issue with stuff about the much less real question of
> IQ.
>
> Those who would somehow justify what is going on like
> to talk about “merit” and “education” and the “work
> ethic” etc. etc. as well as “IQ”. But the fact is
> that the way the system is set up there would be the
> same layoffs and downsizing even if everyone in the
> world had exactly the same I.Q., training and work
> ethic.
I’m not sure what you mean by “system” here. I’m just talking about good
old supply-and-demand economics. I’m not sure what the best introductory
text is, and I’ll let others make recommendations. In any case,
businesses layoff workers and downsize in order, hopefully, to increase
their profits.
> It seems to me that all this talk about mental
> differences just serves to cover-up the what is realy
> going on. People can do lots of things that machines
> can not and other people would like those things and
> would pay for them if they could. It is not that we
> don’t need people any more, it is that there is no
> money to pay them. That is the probem we need to look
> at.
What people can do that machines cannot do (yet) are those tings
involving massive parallel processing. One example is just walking across
a room, which very lowly animals can accomplish. Another, which requires
*human* intelligence but not very much of it, is house cleaning. What’s
going on in the information revolution is that people *with* machines can
do the work that took many more people formerly and now costs less.
secretarial work is a good example. One secretary with a word processor
can outperform several secretaries with only typewriters, and word
processors are cheap. And businessmen have been unable to find a way to
offer jobs, profitably, to unemployed secretaries that pay as well as
their old jobs did. Yes, they can indeed find work for them that requires
human intelligence but not as much of it. By the fundamental law of
demand, since there are more people who can (say) clean house, as opposed
to those who can do secretarial work, these unemployed secretaries will
have to take lower-paying jobs. *This* is what is going on in the
economy, and to say there isn’t enough *money* around misses the point.
I could explain all this in more detail, but there have been many writers
who have done a far better job than I have. So, I’ll ask the readership
here for some suggestions.
Frank
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory
,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.
politcs.nationalism.white
Subject: Re: A Jobless World
Summary:
Expires:
References: <[email protected]>
Sender:
Followup-To:
Distribution: inet
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
Keywords:
Cc:
In article ,
Fred G. Athearn wrote:
>[email protected] (frank forman) writes:
>)
>) Another thing, as the demand for bright-normal-IQ-minimum jobs
>) decline, those having bright-normal IQs will enter the labor
>) market competing with those of normal and dull-normal IQs for
>) the normal-minimum and dull-normal-minimum jogs. This will
>) depress the wages of all those in these jobs. Inequality of
>) incomes will grow. Indeed it already has. And I also predict
>) that the dull normals will increasingly be unable to find any
>) jobs *at all*, certainly not above the statutory minimum wage.
>) And this, too, is already happening. *None* of the current
>) political ideologies are up to handling what looks like the
>) future. I will accept no ritualistic invocations of their
>) Equality or the Free Market.
>
> I don’t want to argue about equaity but it seem to me
> that there is no need to jumble up this very real
> issue with stuff about the much less real question of
> IQ.
>
> Those who would somehow justify what is going on like
> to talk about “merit” and “education” and the “work
> ethic” etc. etc. as well as “IQ”. But the fact is
> that the way the system is set up there would be the
> same layoffs and downsizing even if everyone in the
> world had exactly the same I.Q., training and work
> ethic.
I’m not sure what you mean by “system” here. I’m just talking about good
old supply-and-demand economics. I’m not sure what the best introductory
text is, and I’ll let others make recommendations. In any case,
businesses layoff workers and downsize in order, hopefully, to increase
their profits.
> It seems to me that all this talk about mental
> differences just serves to cover-up the what is realy
> going on. People can do lots of things that machines
> can not and other people would like those things and
> would pay for them if they could. It is not that we
> don’t need people any more, it is that there is no
> money to pay them. That is the probem we need to look
> at.
What people can do that machines cannot do (yet) are those tings
involving massive parallel processing. One example is just walking across
a room, which very lowly animals can accomplish. Another, which requires
*human* intelligence but not very much of it, is house cleaning. What’s
going on in the information revolution is that people *with* machines can
do the work that took many more people formerly and now costs less.
secretarial work is a good example. One secretary with a word processor
can outperform several secretaries with only typewriters, and word
processors are cheap. And businessmen have been unable to find a way to
offer jobs, profitably, to unemployed secretaries that pay as well as
their old jobs did. Yes, they can indeed find work for them that requires
human intelligence but not as much of it. By the fundamental law of
demand, since there are more people who can (say) clean house, as opposed
to those who can do secretarial work, these unemployed secretaries will
have to take lower-paying jobs. *This* is what is going on in the
economy, and to say there isn’t enough *money* around misses the point.
I could explain all this in more detail, but there have been many writers
who have done a far better job than I have. So, I’ll ask the readership
here for some suggestions.
Frank
From [email protected] Sat Feb 17 11:16:09 PST 1996
Article: 29122 of alt.activism
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politcs.nationalism.white
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: A Jobless World
Message-ID:
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References:
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 01:52:46 GMT
Lines: 5
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60767 sci.philosophy.meta:15847 sci.anthropology:614
talk.politics.theory:56815 alt.politics.reform:51841 alt.politics.democrats.d:54099 alt.activism:29122
alt.discrimination:43022 alt.politics.correct:81343 alt.politics.usa.constitution:49562
A follow-up of mine got repeated several times in the same message. I
have no idea how it happened. I’m using the trn Newsreader instead of
tin, and apparently I’m on a learning curve. I hope it will be steep!
Frank
From [email protected] Sat Feb 17 11:16:09 PST 1996
Article: 29124 of alt.activism
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 02:03:59 GMT
Lines: 43
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60768 sci.philosophy.meta:15848 sci.anthropology:615
talk.politics.theory:56816 talk.politics.misc:329538 alt.politics.reform:51846 alt.politics.democrats.d:54106
alt.activism:29124 alt.discrimination:43024 alt.politics.correct:81349 alt.politics.nationalism.white:13936
In article <[email protected]>,
Loren King wrote:
>Matt Nuenke wrote:
>
>> Do you submit that because race is a bogus classification, then
>> affirmative action has no basis, since it is based on racial
>> classifications?
>
>I think the point is that race is a biologically, genetically
>ambiguous category, not that it isn’t a deeply rooted social category
>of very real consequence in political and economic affairs.
>Affirmative action policies based on race aren’t predicated upon the
>biological significance of “race” (which is ambiguous), but upon the
>political salience of “race” (which is very real, and based upon what
>people think “race” is).
>
>Affirmative action policies aim to redress historical inequalities
>attached to morally arbitrary traits, such as sex and skin colour.
>
>Now, whether these inequalities outght to be redressed by the state,
>or whether affirmative action really accomplishes what it seeks to —
>these are important questions. But they are not questions that turn
>on the biological basis and significance of “race.”
I think you put it very well. My thread, “Evidence FOR Racial Equality??”
has generated several new threads, including this one. I am after
evidence for the belief, apparently quite widespread, that Affirmative
Action and other programs are in fact capable of achiveing equal outcomes
in education and jobs in what the layman and the government calls race.
These groups may or may not be true biological subspecies, but they are
breeding groups and, as such, may very well differ psychologically as
well as physiologically. Egalitarians I define for the present are those
who believe in equality for psychological factors while denying it for
physiological factors.
Of course, what the *aims* of Affirmative Action, Civil Rights Laws, and
so forth are, or ought to be, is an additional problem.
I am not asking for “proof” of equality, or for evidence that would
convince every last “bigot” (I’ve been called that several times), but
just whatever evidence, good or bad, anyone has.
Frank
From [email protected] Sat Feb 17 11:35:29 PST 1996
Article: 329538 of talk.politics.misc
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 02:03:59 GMT
Lines: 43
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60768 sci.philosophy.meta:15848 sci.anthropology:615
talk.politics.theory:56816 talk.politics.misc:329538 alt.politics.reform:51846 alt.politics.democrats.d:54106
alt.activism:29124 alt.discrimination:43024 alt.politics.correct:81349 alt.politics.nationalism.white:13936
In article <[email protected]>,
Loren King wrote:
>Matt Nuenke wrote:
>
>> Do you submit that because race is a bogus classification, then
>> affirmative action has no basis, since it is based on racial
>> classifications?
>
>I think the point is that race is a biologically, genetically
>ambiguous category, not that it isn’t a deeply rooted social category
>of very real consequence in political and economic affairs.
>Affirmative action policies based on race aren’t predicated upon the
>biological significance of “race” (which is ambiguous), but upon the
>political salience of “race” (which is very real, and based upon what
>people think “race” is).
>
>Affirmative action policies aim to redress historical inequalities
>attached to morally arbitrary traits, such as sex and skin colour.
>
>Now, whether these inequalities outght to be redressed by the state,
>or whether affirmative action really accomplishes what it seeks to —
>these are important questions. But they are not questions that turn
>on the biological basis and significance of “race.”
I think you put it very well. My thread, “Evidence FOR Racial Equality??”
has generated several new threads, including this one. I am after
evidence for the belief, apparently quite widespread, that Affirmative
Action and other programs are in fact capable of achiveing equal outcomes
in education and jobs in what the layman and the government calls race.
These groups may or may not be true biological subspecies, but they are
breeding groups and, as such, may very well differ psychologically as
well as physiologically. Egalitarians I define for the present are those
who believe in equality for psychological factors while denying it for
physiological factors.
Of course, what the *aims* of Affirmative Action, Civil Rights Laws, and
so forth are, or ought to be, is an additional problem.
I am not asking for “proof” of equality, or for evidence that would
convince every last “bigot” (I’ve been called that several times), but
just whatever evidence, good or bad, anyone has.
Frank
From [email protected] Sun Feb 18 11:11:54 PST 1996
Article: 29431 of alt.activism
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Evidence FOR Racial Equality??
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.misc
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <3102df66.[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <4[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 21:25:42 GMT
Lines: 292
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60839 sci.philosophy.meta:15859 sci.anthropology:621
talk.politics.theory:56887 alt.politics.reform:52111 alt.politics.democrats.d:54447 alt.activism:29431
alt.discrimination:43071 alt.politics.correct:81720 alt.politics.usa.constitution:49679
talk.politics.misc:330200
I thank David Saab for his excellent reply to a
posting by Matt Nuenke, which I urge one and all
to reread and which, consequently, I am
repeating unchanged below.
I am esp. intrigued by his comparison of U.S.
and Soviet cultures: “Each culture teaches its
members which patterns of thought and
problem-solving approaches are most appropriate
when confronted with particular situations. The
U.S. is predominantly factual-inductive
(ascertain facts, find similarities, and
formulate conclusions); the former Soviet Union
is predominantly axiomatic-deductive (move from
general principle to particulars, which can be
easily deduced); and, Arab cultures are
predominantly intuitive-affective (facts are
secondary to emotions). (Kaplan (1970))”
My first thought is that Ayn Rand’s thought
indeed has very strong elements of the “Soviet”
axiomatic-deductive method and not so much of
the “U.S.” factual-inductive method, which
strikes me as akin to what we generally call the
“scientific” method. She was indeed a Russian
and her interest in science was never very
strong.
But then again, Christian theology of the
European middle ages was very much an axiomatic-
deductive kind and was only replaced later with
the factual-inductive, or scientific, kind. We
Europeans pride ourselves on the *progress* we
have made in moving away from theology to
science, though the roots of Western science
very much have medieval (as opposed to
Classical–Greek and Roman) roots.^
^[(See my favorite book, Lawrence R. Brown,
_The Might of the West_ (NY: Ivan Obolensky,
1963; reprinted, Washington: Joseph J. Binns,
1979) for lots of discussion of the medieval
background.)}
So we might say that Russia has merely lagged
behind Western Europe, and so too have Arab
cultures, with their “intuitive-affective”
reasoning (recall David’s characterization:
“facts are secondary to emotions.”), and so too
has every other culture. The “end of history”
will have come when everyone else catches up
with us.
[Or maybe we are moving on to a “postmodern”
phase and everyone (including those of us still
stuck in a merely “modern” phase) will catch up
to *that*. The chief idea of postmodernism, as
*I* interpret it generously, is that Reason does
not bring forth its fruits nearly as obligingly
as Enlightenment optimists had hoped, but rather
there will always be multiple perspectives for
viewing things, none gaining absolute triumph
over the others. I would not use this apparent
fact that Reason yields its fruits rather slowly
to mean that it should be abandoned, certainly
not in favor of “Arab intuitive-affective”
methods of cognition. So I remain very much a
Randian, though not the optimist Ayn Rand was or
Mr. Jefferson was either. But this is the
subject of other threads, and indeed of a UseNet
group, alt.postmodernism.]
I would very much like to know the extent to
which there is a gene-thought pattern
coevolution at work. Are there differences in
brains among individuals that make it more
difficult for some people to get habituated
into, say, the factual-inductive problem solving
approach? *Whether* one will get so habituated
depends very much on the *prevalence* in the
general culture in which one was raised.
Certainly, no one in the paleolithic era would
have stumbled upon this approach unaided, and
indeed, this approach is to be found only in a
very rudimentary form in Greece and Rome. (These
folks, as I am fond of pointing out, never drew
a single graph showing continuous change, but
quite young children can pick it up quickly in
any culture that uses them today.)
Now the education system of the United States
does try to inculcate the methods of science in
pupils. Yet even here, and we need only witness
the advertisements in the current political
campaign, most Americans are stuck in the
“intuitive-affective mode” and use their limbic
system to think with. Others have managed to get
to the “axiomatic-deductive” level when they try
to deduce the right thing to do from certain
axioms they accept. The largest number of these
are the goddam Christians, whose axioms consist
of God’s word, but I might as well through in a
good many Objectivists and libertarians as being
overly reliant on a set of principles that are
not all that well established. I suspect there
may be genetic, as well as cultural, reasons why
some people never stop thinking emotionally
(Yes, I know a lot of intelligent liberals whose
“thinking” about politics consists of “Newt
Gingrich, ugh!”; so it isn’t a matter of IQ
alone.) and why others remain stuck as goddam
Christians.
Now my characterization of a definite
progression from thinking with your gut to
deductivism to science [[THE END OF HISTORY WILL
ONLY ARRIVE WHEN EVERYONE THINKS LIKE FRANK
FORMAN!!-The Internet Monster]] may not be at
all accurate. Perhaps Chinese and Japanese
thinking is rather different from what we call
the scientific method, and I should not neglect
the problems raised by feminist epistemologists
about how women think differently from men. My
own feeling is that these differences are, or
are becoming, variations on a basic theme, but I
certainly stand to be corrected. And who knows
how the best of us will think a century from
now, esp. as we hook up our brains to computers
directly.
But if my characterization is correct, or
reasonably so, I could ask whether there any
general genetic differences among populations of
the world that *helped* make for the emergence
of certain ways of thinking earlier in certain
places than in others. I am treading very close
to asking the taboo question about genetic group
*superiority*, but the fact remains that science
has diffused everywhere where there is a bare
modicum of intelligence, even if the bulk of the
population do not approach problems in the
scientific spirit. Elite thinking, at least, is
factual-inductive. And it could be that
empirical science emerged first in Europe
because Europeans has more people relatively
easily capable of engaging in scientific
thinking than other peoples.
But if the evidence FOR racial equality I have
been asking for on this thread materializes,
well, I’ll have to chuck a whole foot locker of
hypotheses! And if the Creationists are right,
physical anthropologists will have to chuck (so
I’ve read) about a foot locker’s worth of teeth.
That’s the way it goes.
Frank
[now here’s David’s post]:
David J. Saab ([email protected]) wrote:
: [Would it be possible to trim the ng’s? I don’t know from where you’re
: posting, but I’m only reading soc.culture.intercutlural. After this post, I’m
: going to trim the ng’s to s.c.i only.]
: > >Matt Nuenke wrote:
: > >> Sorry, but standardized tests are no longer culturally biased,
: > >> blacks are just far less intelligent than other people. All
: > >> standardized tests are cross-validated with tests that are
: > >> culturally neutral.
: > David J. Saab wrote:
: > >How does one create a culturally neutral test?
: > Matt Nuenke wrote:
: > See the Stanford Binet: Fourth Edition where scholars from many
: > different races compiled the test to be culturally neutral. In
: > addition, cultural biases can be checked statistically by
: > comparing different components of tests against different
: > populations and gender. This is a whole science in itself, not
: > new and not terribly difficult. But the modeling is beyond the
: > scope of this thread.
: A culturally unbiased or neutral test cannot be composed. Culture shapes
: cognition and problem-solving processes. Using a written test is ITSELF a
: cultural bias. “This is because writing is a double symbolic system: The
: letters stand for words that stand for ideas. Writing thus allows the
: decontextualization and formalization of thought; it promotes abstraction and
: critical thinking, or rationality. Literacy is seen here as one of the
: prerequisites of scientific reasoning” (Segall, _Human Behavior is Global
: Perspective_, 1990).
: So, how are you going to measure a culture whose reasoning is not “scientific”
: or does not have a written tradition? Would you have to compose a new test?
: And how would this test correlate to the SB:FE? Or, if you took the new
: (non-written) test, how well would you score being from a culture that promotes
: a cause-and-effect approach to problem solving and linear-thinking?
:
: > >If you look beyond the specifics of the test itself, to the presumption
: > >of a need for a test, one finds that this is itself a cultural bias.
: > >Why choose one test over another? Why not create a test that reflects
: > >the ability to survive on a coral atoll?
: >
: > Because surviving on a coral atoll will probably mean less to an
: > employer than being able to comprehend the written word, which
: > requires a high level of working memory. Training one to survive
: > on a coral atoll may not help when the environment changes and
: > problem solving has to be generalized to a new situation.
: So, now the test for intelligence has a purpose, that of pleasing an employer.
: That wasn’t clear before. Is that its only purpose? Be that as it may, it
: still doesn’t negate my position, though it may yours. By the way, would your
: problem solving abilities serve you well if you suddenly found yourself
: isolated on a coral atoll?
: Problem solving approaches also differ from culture to culture. Kaplan (1970)
: examined the problem-solving approaches and patterns of thought. He concluded
: that English-speaking persons from the U.S. were more linear and direct than
: Semitic, Asian, Romance, or Russian speakers. The Semitic individuals
: solvedproblems using a combination tangential and semidirect approaches.
: Asians employed a circular approach. Romance cultures used a more consistently
: circuitous approach, and Russians employed a combination of direct and
: circuitous approaches (- taken from Lieberman, _Ethnocognitivism, Problem
: Solving, and Hemisphericity_, in _Intercultural Communication_ by Samovar and
: Porter, 1994).
: Each culture teaches its members which patterns of thought and problem-solving
: approaches are most appropriate when confronted with particular situations.
: The U.S. is predominantly factual-inductive (ascertain facts, find
: similarities, and formulate conclusions); the former Soviet Union is
: predominantly axiomatic-deductive (move from general principle to particulars,
: which can be easily deduced); and, Arab cultures are predominantly
: intuitive-affective (facts are secondary to emotions). (Ibid.)
: A culture’s temporal orientation will affect problem-solving approaches. The
: Trobriand whose language is concrete (as opposed to abstract) do not problem
: solve from the cause-and-effect approach that is associated with
: linear-thinking cultures. They do not have the traditional stimulus-response
: system; thus, when confronted with a problem the solution approach is
: present-oriented. As their language has no “to be” verbs, the concept of a
: solution emerging in the future does not exist. Thus, sequential logic is not
: part of their cognitive process. Trobriand students present an excellent
: example of a negative consequence of the differences in problem solving among
: cultures. They have been refused entrance to colleges because the
: autobiographic sketches accompanying thier applications were assessed as
: lacking purposefulness and ability to plan. They were rated as questionable in
: character as well as intellectually inadequate (Lee, 1950).
: >If this
: > is difficult for you to understand I recommend you try playing
: > the part of coral, and see how long you survive below water. Then
: > try to explain to everyone that coral must be smarter than people
: > because it knows how to survive and multiply where humans can’t.
: > Try not to portray yourself as totally ignorant. Try reading
: > something about IQ before you make stupid assertions and
: > comparisons. The Bell Curve is out on tape now. Maybe you can
: > listen to it so you will not have to be bothered actually reading
: > it.
: It’s obvious that you don’t understand a damn thing about culture and how it
: affects the cognitive processes of individuals. You probably don’t even
: understand your own cultural makeup. I provided references above so you can do
: a little research on your own. In the future, I would suggest that YOU make
: the attempt to try not to portray yourself as totally ignorant or arrogant.
: You might have a piece of the puzzle, but you don’t have all of them.
: What does IQ measure? Problem solving ability? “Intelligence” (and how would
: *that* be defined)? Test-taking ability? Linear thinking? What does IQ
: measure???
: And if we were to compose a test that didn’t favor sequential, verbal,
: auditory, analytic, symbolic, abstract, temporal, rational, digital, logical,
: theoretical, cause-effect and linear thinking, but instead devised a test that
: favored nonverbal, visual, sythetic, concrete, analogic, emotional, creative,
: nontemporal, nonrational, spatial, intuitive, tactile, holistic and global
: thinking, do you think you could pass it? Would your test scores be higher or
: lower than other cultural or “racial” groups? And if this were the case, how
: would you feel about others discussing your lower IQ? And what if they used
: your lower IQ score (and the lower average of your particular group) in
: developing public policy?
: So, I ask again, what is the purpose of establishing a difference in IQ scores?
: How will this knowledge be used?
: —
: Safe journey,
: David
: [email protected]
: “People’s belief in their own local reality-tunnel keeps us all
: far stupider than we ought to be…”
: -Robert Anton Wilson, in _Prometheus Rising_.
From [email protected] Sun Feb 18 19:58:08 PST 1996
Article: 329538 of talk.politics.misc
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,
alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 02:03:59 GMT
Lines: 43
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60768 sci.philosophy.meta:15848 sci.anthropology:615
talk.politics.theory:56816 talk.politics.misc:329538 alt.politics.reform:51846 alt.politics.democrats.d:54106
alt.activism:29124 alt.discrimination:43024 alt.politics.correct:81349 alt.politics.nationalism.white:13936
In article <[email protected]>,
Loren King wrote:
>Matt Nuenke wrote:
>
>> Do you submit that because race is a bogus classification, then
>> affirmative action has no basis, since it is based on racial
>> classifications?
>
>I think the point is that race is a biologically, genetically
>ambiguous category, not that it isn’t a deeply rooted social category
>of very real consequence in political and economic affairs.
>Affirmative action policies based on race aren’t predicated upon the
>biological significance of “race” (which is ambiguous), but upon the
>political salience of “race” (which is very real, and based upon what
>people think “race” is).
>
>Affirmative action policies aim to redress historical inequalities
>attached to morally arbitrary traits, such as sex and skin colour.
>
>Now, whether these inequalities outght to be redressed by the state,
>or whether affirmative action really accomplishes what it seeks to —
>these are important questions. But they are not questions that turn
>on the biological basis and significance of “race.”
I think you put it very well. My thread, “Evidence FOR Racial Equality??”
has generated several new threads, including this one. I am after
evidence for the belief, apparently quite widespread, that Affirmative
Action and other programs are in fact capable of achiveing equal outcomes
in education and jobs in what the layman and the government calls race.
These groups may or may not be true biological subspecies, but they are
breeding groups and, as such, may very well differ psychologically as
well as physiologically. Egalitarians I define for the present are those
who believe in equality for psychological factors while denying it for
physiological factors.
Of course, what the *aims* of Affirmative Action, Civil Rights Laws, and
so forth are, or ought to be, is an additional problem.
I am not asking for “proof” of equality, or for evidence that would
convince every last “bigot” (I’ve been called that several times), but
just whatever evidence, good or bad, anyone has.
Frank
From [email protected] Sun Feb 18 19:58:09 PST 1996
Article: 330200 of talk.politics.misc
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Evidence FOR Racial Equality??
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.misc
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <3102df66.[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <4[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 21:25:42 GMT
Lines: 292
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60839 sci.philosophy.meta:15859 sci.anthropology:621
talk.politics.theory:56887 alt.politics.reform:52111 alt.politics.democrats.d:54447 alt.activism:29431
alt.discrimination:43071 alt.politics.correct:81720 alt.politics.usa.constitution:49679 talk.politics.misc:330200
I thank David Saab for his excellent reply to a
posting by Matt Nuenke, which I urge one and all
to reread and which, consequently, I am
repeating unchanged below.
I am esp. intrigued by his comparison of U.S.
and Soviet cultures: “Each culture teaches its
members which patterns of thought and
problem-solving approaches are most appropriate
when confronted with particular situations. The
U.S. is predominantly factual-inductive
(ascertain facts, find similarities, and
formulate conclusions); the former Soviet Union
is predominantly axiomatic-deductive (move from
general principle to particulars, which can be
easily deduced); and, Arab cultures are
predominantly intuitive-affective (facts are
secondary to emotions). (Kaplan (1970))”
My first thought is that Ayn Rand’s thought
indeed has very strong elements of the “Soviet”
axiomatic-deductive method and not so much of
the “U.S.” factual-inductive method, which
strikes me as akin to what we generally call the
“scientific” method. She was indeed a Russian
and her interest in science was never very
strong.
But then again, Christian theology of the
European middle ages was very much an axiomatic-
deductive kind and was only replaced later with
the factual-inductive, or scientific, kind. We
Europeans pride ourselves on the *progress* we
have made in moving away from theology to
science, though the roots of Western science
very much have medieval (as opposed to
Classical–Greek and Roman) roots.^
^[(See my favorite book, Lawrence R. Brown,
_The Might of the West_ (NY: Ivan Obolensky,
1963; reprinted, Washington: Joseph J. Binns,
1979) for lots of discussion of the medieval
background.)}
So we might say that Russia has merely lagged
behind Western Europe, and so too have Arab
cultures, with their “intuitive-affective”
reasoning (recall David’s characterization:
“facts are secondary to emotions.”), and so too
has every other culture. The “end of history”
will have come when everyone else catches up
with us.
[Or maybe we are moving on to a “postmodern”
phase and everyone (including those of us still
stuck in a merely “modern” phase) will catch up
to *that*. The chief idea of postmodernism, as
*I* interpret it generously, is that Reason does
not bring forth its fruits nearly as obligingly
as Enlightenment optimists had hoped, but rather
there will always be multiple perspectives for
viewing things, none gaining absolute triumph
over the others. I would not use this apparent
fact that Reason yields its fruits rather slowly
to mean that it should be abandoned, certainly
not in favor of “Arab intuitive-affective”
methods of cognition. So I remain very much a
Randian, though not the optimist Ayn Rand was or
Mr. Jefferson was either. But this is the
subject of other threads, and indeed of a UseNet
group, alt.postmodernism.]
I would very much like to know the extent to
which there is a gene-thought pattern
coevolution at work. Are there differences in
brains among individuals that make it more
difficult for some people to get habituated
into, say, the factual-inductive problem solving
approach? *Whether* one will get so habituated
depends very much on the *prevalence* in the
general culture in which one was raised.
Certainly, no one in the paleolithic era would
have stumbled upon this approach unaided, and
indeed, this approach is to be found only in a
very rudimentary form in Greece and Rome. (These
folks, as I am fond of pointing out, never drew
a single graph showing continuous change, but
quite young children can pick it up quickly in
any culture that uses them today.)
Now the education system of the United States
does try to inculcate the methods of science in
pupils. Yet even here, and we need only witness
the advertisements in the current political
campaign, most Americans are stuck in the
“intuitive-affective mode” and use their limbic
system to think with. Others have managed to get
to the “axiomatic-deductive” level when they try
to deduce the right thing to do from certain
axioms they accept. The largest number of these
are the goddam Christians, whose axioms consist
of God’s word, but I might as well through in a
good many Objectivists and libertarians as being
overly reliant on a set of principles that are
not all that well established. I suspect there
may be genetic, as well as cultural, reasons why
some people never stop thinking emotionally
(Yes, I know a lot of intelligent liberals whose
“thinking” about politics consists of “Newt
Gingrich, ugh!”; so it isn’t a matter of IQ
alone.) and why others remain stuck as goddam
Christians.
Now my characterization of a definite
progression from thinking with your gut to
deductivism to science [[THE END OF HISTORY WILL
ONLY ARRIVE WHEN EVERYONE THINKS LIKE FRANK
FORMAN!!-The Internet Monster]] may not be at
all accurate. Perhaps Chinese and Japanese
thinking is rather different from what we call
the scientific method, and I should not neglect
the problems raised by feminist epistemologists
about how women think differently from men. My
own feeling is that these differences are, or
are becoming, variations on a basic theme, but I
certainly stand to be corrected. And who knows
how the best of us will think a century from
now, esp. as we hook up our brains to computers
directly.
But if my characterization is correct, or
reasonably so, I could ask whether there any
general genetic differences among populations of
the world that *helped* make for the emergence
of certain ways of thinking earlier in certain
places than in others. I am treading very close
to asking the taboo question about genetic group
*superiority*, but the fact remains that science
has diffused everywhere where there is a bare
modicum of intelligence, even if the bulk of the
population do not approach problems in the
scientific spirit. Elite thinking, at least, is
factual-inductive. And it could be that
empirical science emerged first in Europe
because Europeans has more people relatively
easily capable of engaging in scientific
thinking than other peoples.
But if the evidence FOR racial equality I have
been asking for on this thread materializes,
well, I’ll have to chuck a whole foot locker of
hypotheses! And if the Creationists are right,
physical anthropologists will have to chuck (so
I’ve read) about a foot locker’s worth of teeth.
That’s the way it goes.
Frank
[now here’s David’s post]:
David J. Saab ([email protected]) wrote:
: [Would it be possible to trim the ng’s? I don’t know from where you’re
: posting, but I’m only reading soc.culture.intercutlural. After this post, I’m
: going to trim the ng’s to s.c.i only.]
: > >Matt Nuenke wrote:
: > >> Sorry, but standardized tests are no longer culturally biased,
: > >> blacks are just far less intelligent than other people. All
: > >> standardized tests are cross-validated with tests that are
: > >> culturally neutral.
: > David J. Saab wrote:
: > >How does one create a culturally neutral test?
: > Matt Nuenke wrote:
: > See the Stanford Binet: Fourth Edition where scholars from many
: > different races compiled the test to be culturally neutral. In
: > addition, cultural biases can be checked statistically by
: > comparing different components of tests against different
: > populations and gender. This is a whole science in itself, not
: > new and not terribly difficult. But the modeling is beyond the
: > scope of this thread.
: A culturally unbiased or neutral test cannot be composed. Culture shapes
: cognition and problem-solving processes. Using a written test is ITSELF a
: cultural bias. “This is because writing is a double symbolic system: The
: letters stand for words that stand for ideas. Writing thus allows the
: decontextualization and formalization of thought; it promotes abstraction and
: critical thinking, or rationality. Literacy is seen here as one of the
: prerequisites of scientific reasoning” (Segall, _Human Behavior is Global
: Perspective_, 1990).
: So, how are you going to measure a culture whose reasoning is not “scientific”
: or does not have a written tradition? Would you have to compose a new test?
: And how would this test correlate to the SB:FE? Or, if you took the new
: (non-written) test, how well would you score being from a culture that promotes
: a cause-and-effect approach to problem solving and linear-thinking?
:
: > >If you look beyond the specifics of the test itself, to the presumption
: > >of a need for a test, one finds that this is itself a cultural bias.
: > >Why choose one test over another? Why not create a test that reflects
: > >the ability to survive on a coral atoll?
: >
: > Because surviving on a coral atoll will probably mean less to an
: > employer than being able to comprehend the written word, which
: > requires a high level of working memory. Training one to survive
: > on a coral atoll may not help when the environment changes and
: > problem solving has to be generalized to a new situation.
: So, now the test for intelligence has a purpose, that of pleasing an employer.
: That wasn’t clear before. Is that its only purpose? Be that as it may, it
: still doesn’t negate my position, though it may yours. By the way, would your
: problem solving abilities serve you well if you suddenly found yourself
: isolated on a coral atoll?
: Problem solving approaches also differ from culture to culture. Kaplan (1970)
: examined the problem-solving approaches and patterns of thought. He concluded
: that English-speaking persons from the U.S. were more linear and direct than
: Semitic, Asian, Romance, or Russian speakers. The Semitic individuals
: solvedproblems using a combination tangential and semidirect approaches.
: Asians employed a circular approach. Romance cultures used a more consistently
: circuitous approach, and Russians employed a combination of direct and
: circuitous approaches (- taken from Lieberman, _Ethnocognitivism, Problem
: Solving, and Hemisphericity_, in _Intercultural Communication_ by Samovar and
: Porter, 1994).
: Each culture teaches its members which patterns of thought and problem-solving
: approaches are most appropriate when confronted with particular situations.
: The U.S. is predominantly factual-inductive (ascertain facts, find
: similarities, and formulate conclusions); the former Soviet Union is
: predominantly axiomatic-deductive (move from general principle to particulars,
: which can be easily deduced); and, Arab cultures are predominantly
: intuitive-affective (facts are secondary to emotions). (Ibid.)
: A culture’s temporal orientation will affect problem-solving approaches. The
: Trobriand whose language is concrete (as opposed to abstract) do not problem
: solve from the cause-and-effect approach that is associated with
: linear-thinking cultures. They do not have the traditional stimulus-response
: system; thus, when confronted with a problem the solution approach is
: present-oriented. As their language has no “to be” verbs, the concept of a
: solution emerging in the future does not exist. Thus, sequential logic is not
: part of their cognitive process. Trobriand students present an excellent
: example of a negative consequence of the differences in problem solving among
: cultures. They have been refused entrance to colleges because the
: autobiographic sketches accompanying thier applications were assessed as
: lacking purposefulness and ability to plan. They were rated as questionable in
: character as well as intellectually inadequate (Lee, 1950).
: >If this
: > is difficult for you to understand I recommend you try playing
: > the part of coral, and see how long you survive below water. Then
: > try to explain to everyone that coral must be smarter than people
: > because it knows how to survive and multiply where humans can’t.
: > Try not to portray yourself as totally ignorant. Try reading
: > something about IQ before you make stupid assertions and
: > comparisons. The Bell Curve is out on tape now. Maybe you can
: > listen to it so you will not have to be bothered actually reading
: > it.
: It’s obvious that you don’t understand a damn thing about culture and how it
: affects the cognitive processes of individuals. You probably don’t even
: understand your own cultural makeup. I provided references above so you can do
: a little research on your own. In the future, I would suggest that YOU make
: the attempt to try not to portray yourself as totally ignorant or arrogant.
: You might have a piece of the puzzle, but you don’t have all of them.
: What does IQ measure? Problem solving ability? “Intelligence” (and how would
: *that* be defined)? Test-taking ability? Linear thinking? What does IQ
: measure???
: And if we were to compose a test that didn’t favor sequential, verbal,
: auditory, analytic, symbolic, abstract, temporal, rational, digital, logical,
: theoretical, cause-effect and linear thinking, but instead devised a test that
: favored nonverbal, visual, sythetic, concrete, analogic, emotional, creative,
: nontemporal, nonrational, spatial, intuitive, tactile, holistic and global
: thinking, do you think you could pass it? Would your test scores be higher or
: lower than other cultural or “racial” groups? And if this were the case, how
: would you feel about others discussing your lower IQ? And what if they used
: your lower IQ score (and the lower average of your particular group) in
: developing public policy?
: So, I ask again, what is the purpose of establishing a difference in IQ scores?
: How will this knowledge be used?
: —
: Safe journey,
: David
: [email protected]
: “People’s belief in their own local reality-tunnel keeps us all
: far stupider than we ought to be…”
: -Robert Anton Wilson, in _Prometheus Rising_.
From [email protected] Sun Feb 18 21:44:47 PST 1996
Article: 81720 of alt.politics.correct
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Evidence FOR Racial Equality??
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.misc
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <3102df66.[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <4[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1996 21:25:42 GMT
Lines: 292
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:60839 sci.philosophy.meta:15859 sci.anthropology:621
talk.politics.theory:56887 alt.politics.reform:52111 alt.politics.democrats.d:54447 alt.activism:29431
alt.discrimination:43071 alt.politics.correct:81720 alt.politics.usa.constitution:49679 talk.politics.misc:330200
I thank David Saab for his excellent reply to a
posting by Matt Nuenke, which I urge one and all
to reread and which, consequently, I am
repeating unchanged below.
I am esp. intrigued by his comparison of U.S.
and Soviet cultures: “Each culture teaches its
members which patterns of thought and
problem-solving approaches are most appropriate
when confronted with particular situations. The
U.S. is predominantly factual-inductive
(ascertain facts, find similarities, and
formulate conclusions); the former Soviet Union
is predominantly axiomatic-deductive (move from
general principle to particulars, which can be
easily deduced); and, Arab cultures are
predominantly intuitive-affective (facts are
secondary to emotions). (Kaplan (1970))”
My first thought is that Ayn Rand’s thought
indeed has very strong elements of the “Soviet”
axiomatic-deductive method and not so much of
the “U.S.” factual-inductive method, which
strikes me as akin to what we generally call the
“scientific” method. She was indeed a Russian
and her interest in science was never very
strong.
But then again, Christian theology of the
European middle ages was very much an axiomatic-
deductive kind and was only replaced later with
the factual-inductive, or scientific, kind. We
Europeans pride ourselves on the *progress* we
have made in moving away from theology to
science, though the roots of Western science
very much have medieval (as opposed to
Classical–Greek and Roman) roots.^
^[(See my favorite book, Lawrence R. Brown,
_The Might of the West_ (NY: Ivan Obolensky,
1963; reprinted, Washington: Joseph J. Binns,
1979) for lots of discussion of the medieval
background.)}
So we might say that Russia has merely lagged
behind Western Europe, and so too have Arab
cultures, with their “intuitive-affective”
reasoning (recall David’s characterization:
“facts are secondary to emotions.”), and so too
has every other culture. The “end of history”
will have come when everyone else catches up
with us.
[Or maybe we are moving on to a “postmodern”
phase and everyone (including those of us still
stuck in a merely “modern” phase) will catch up
to *that*. The chief idea of postmodernism, as
*I* interpret it generously, is that Reason does
not bring forth its fruits nearly as obligingly
as Enlightenment optimists had hoped, but rather
there will always be multiple perspectives for
viewing things, none gaining absolute triumph
over the others. I would not use this apparent
fact that Reason yields its fruits rather slowly
to mean that it should be abandoned, certainly
not in favor of “Arab intuitive-affective”
methods of cognition. So I remain very much a
Randian, though not the optimist Ayn Rand was or
Mr. Jefferson was either. But this is the
subject of other threads, and indeed of a UseNet
group, alt.postmodernism.]
I would very much like to know the extent to
which there is a gene-thought pattern
coevolution at work. Are there differences in
brains among individuals that make it more
difficult for some people to get habituated
into, say, the factual-inductive problem solving
approach? *Whether* one will get so habituated
depends very much on the *prevalence* in the
general culture in which one was raised.
Certainly, no one in the paleolithic era would
have stumbled upon this approach unaided, and
indeed, this approach is to be found only in a
very rudimentary form in Greece and Rome. (These
folks, as I am fond of pointing out, never drew
a single graph showing continuous change, but
quite young children can pick it up quickly in
any culture that uses them today.)
Now the education system of the United States
does try to inculcate the methods of science in
pupils. Yet even here, and we need only witness
the advertisements in the current political
campaign, most Americans are stuck in the
“intuitive-affective mode” and use their limbic
system to think with. Others have managed to get
to the “axiomatic-deductive” level when they try
to deduce the right thing to do from certain
axioms they accept. The largest number of these
are the goddam Christians, whose axioms consist
of God’s word, but I might as well through in a
good many Objectivists and libertarians as being
overly reliant on a set of principles that are
not all that well established. I suspect there
may be genetic, as well as cultural, reasons why
some people never stop thinking emotionally
(Yes, I know a lot of intelligent liberals whose
“thinking” about politics consists of “Newt
Gingrich, ugh!”; so it isn’t a matter of IQ
alone.) and why others remain stuck as goddam
Christians.
Now my characterization of a definite
progression from thinking with your gut to
deductivism to science [[THE END OF HISTORY WILL
ONLY ARRIVE WHEN EVERYONE THINKS LIKE FRANK
FORMAN!!-The Internet Monster]] may not be at
all accurate. Perhaps Chinese and Japanese
thinking is rather different from what we call
the scientific method, and I should not neglect
the problems raised by feminist epistemologists
about how women think differently from men. My
own feeling is that these differences are, or
are becoming, variations on a basic theme, but I
certainly stand to be corrected. And who knows
how the best of us will think a century from
now, esp. as we hook up our brains to computers
directly.
But if my characterization is correct, or
reasonably so, I could ask whether there any
general genetic differences among populations of
the world that *helped* make for the emergence
of certain ways of thinking earlier in certain
places than in others. I am treading very close
to asking the taboo question about genetic group
*superiority*, but the fact remains that science
has diffused everywhere where there is a bare
modicum of intelligence, even if the bulk of the
population do not approach problems in the
scientific spirit. Elite thinking, at least, is
factual-inductive. And it could be that
empirical science emerged first in Europe
because Europeans has more people relatively
easily capable of engaging in scientific
thinking than other peoples.
But if the evidence FOR racial equality I have
been asking for on this thread materializes,
well, I’ll have to chuck a whole foot locker of
hypotheses! And if the Creationists are right,
physical anthropologists will have to chuck (so
I’ve read) about a foot locker’s worth of teeth.
That’s the way it goes.
Frank
[now here’s David’s post]:
David J. Saab ([email protected]) wrote:
: [Would it be possible to trim the ng’s? I don’t know from where you’re
: posting, but I’m only reading soc.culture.intercutlural. After this post, I’m
: going to trim the ng’s to s.c.i only.]
: > >Matt Nuenke wrote:
: > >> Sorry, but standardized tests are no longer culturally biased,
: > >> blacks are just far less intelligent than other people. All
: > >> standardized tests are cross-validated with tests that are
: > >> culturally neutral.
: > David J. Saab wrote:
: > >How does one create a culturally neutral test?
: > Matt Nuenke wrote:
: > See the Stanford Binet: Fourth Edition where scholars from many
: > different races compiled the test to be culturally neutral. In
: > addition, cultural biases can be checked statistically by
: > comparing different components of tests against different
: > populations and gender. This is a whole science in itself, not
: > new and not terribly difficult. But the modeling is beyond the
: > scope of this thread.
: A culturally unbiased or neutral test cannot be composed. Culture shapes
: cognition and problem-solving processes. Using a written test is ITSELF a
: cultural bias. “This is because writing is a double symbolic system: The
: letters stand for words that stand for ideas. Writing thus allows the
: decontextualization and formalization of thought; it promotes abstraction and
: critical thinking, or rationality. Literacy is seen here as one of the
: prerequisites of scientific reasoning” (Segall, _Human Behavior is Global
: Perspective_, 1990).
: So, how are you going to measure a culture whose reasoning is not “scientific”
: or does not have a written tradition? Would you have to compose a new test?
: And how would this test correlate to the SB:FE? Or, if you took the new
: (non-written) test, how well would you score being from a culture that promotes
: a cause-and-effect approach to problem solving and linear-thinking?
:
: > >If you look beyond the specifics of the test itself, to the presumption
: > >of a need for a test, one finds that this is itself a cultural bias.
: > >Why choose one test over another? Why not create a test that reflects
: > >the ability to survive on a coral atoll?
: >
: > Because surviving on a coral atoll will probably mean less to an
: > employer than being able to comprehend the written word, which
: > requires a high level of working memory. Training one to survive
: > on a coral atoll may not help when the environment changes and
: > problem solving has to be generalized to a new situation.
: So, now the test for intelligence has a purpose, that of pleasing an employer.
: That wasn’t clear before. Is that its only purpose? Be that as it may, it
: still doesn’t negate my position, though it may yours. By the way, would your
: problem solving abilities serve you well if you suddenly found yourself
: isolated on a coral atoll?
: Problem solving approaches also differ from culture to culture. Kaplan (1970)
: examined the problem-solving approaches and patterns of thought. He concluded
: that English-speaking persons from the U.S. were more linear and direct than
: Semitic, Asian, Romance, or Russian speakers. The Semitic individuals
: solvedproblems using a combination tangential and semidirect approaches.
: Asians employed a circular approach. Romance cultures used a more consistently
: circuitous approach, and Russians employed a combination of direct and
: circuitous approaches (- taken from Lieberman, _Ethnocognitivism, Problem
: Solving, and Hemisphericity_, in _Intercultural Communication_ by Samovar and
: Porter, 1994).
: Each culture teaches its members which patterns of thought and problem-solving
: approaches are most appropriate when confronted with particular situations.
: The U.S. is predominantly factual-inductive (ascertain facts, find
: similarities, and formulate conclusions); the former Soviet Union is
: predominantly axiomatic-deductive (move from general principle to particulars,
: which can be easily deduced); and, Arab cultures are predominantly
: intuitive-affective (facts are secondary to emotions). (Ibid.)
: A culture’s temporal orientation will affect problem-solving approaches. The
: Trobriand whose language is concrete (as opposed to abstract) do not problem
: solve from the cause-and-effect approach that is associated with
: linear-thinking cultures. They do not have the traditional stimulus-response
: system; thus, when confronted with a problem the solution approach is
: present-oriented. As their language has no “to be” verbs, the concept of a
: solution emerging in the future does not exist. Thus, sequential logic is not
: part of their cognitive process. Trobriand students present an excellent
: example of a negative consequence of the differences in problem solving among
: cultures. They have been refused entrance to colleges because the
: autobiographic sketches accompanying thier applications were assessed as
: lacking purposefulness and ability to plan. They were rated as questionable in
: character as well as intellectually inadequate (Lee, 1950).
: >If this
: > is difficult for you to understand I recommend you try playing
: > the part of coral, and see how long you survive below water. Then
: > try to explain to everyone that coral must be smarter than people
: > because it knows how to survive and multiply where humans can’t.
: > Try not to portray yourself as totally ignorant. Try reading
: > something about IQ before you make stupid assertions and
: > comparisons. The Bell Curve is out on tape now. Maybe you can
: > listen to it so you will not have to be bothered actually reading
: > it.
: It’s obvious that you don’t understand a damn thing about culture and how it
: affects the cognitive processes of individuals. You probably don’t even
: understand your own cultural makeup. I provided references above so you can do
: a little research on your own. In the future, I would suggest that YOU make
: the attempt to try not to portray yourself as totally ignorant or arrogant.
: You might have a piece of the puzzle, but you don’t have all of them.
: What does IQ measure? Problem solving ability? “Intelligence” (and how would
: *that* be defined)? Test-taking ability? Linear thinking? What does IQ
: measure???
: And if we were to compose a test that didn’t favor sequential, verbal,
: auditory, analytic, symbolic, abstract, temporal, rational, digital, logical,
: theoretical, cause-effect and linear thinking, but instead devised a test that
: favored nonverbal, visual, sythetic, concrete, analogic, emotional, creative,
: nontemporal, nonrational, spatial, intuitive, tactile, holistic and global
: thinking, do you think you could pass it? Would your test scores be higher or
: lower than other cultural or “racial” groups? And if this were the case, how
: would you feel about others discussing your lower IQ? And what if they used
: your lower IQ score (and the lower average of your particular group) in
: developing public policy?
: So, I ask again, what is the purpose of establishing a difference in IQ scores?
: How will this knowledge be used?
: —
: Safe journey,
: David
: [email protected]
: “People’s belief in their own local reality-tunnel keeps us all
: far stupider than we ought to be…”
: -Robert Anton Wilson, in _Prometheus Rising_.
From [email protected] Sat Feb 24 18:52:34 PST 1996
Article: 14447 of alt.politics.nationalism.white
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]>
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 1996 01:24:51 GMT
Lines: 108
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:61450 sci.philosophy.meta:15945 sci.anthropology:672
talk.politics.theory:57532 talk.politics.misc:335076 alt.politics.reform:53593 alt.activism:31292
alt.discrimination:43462 alt.politics.correct:84100 alt.politics.nationalism.white:14447
In article <[email protected]>,
Barnacle Bill the Sailor wrote:
>[email protected] (frank forman) wrote:
>
>> I think you put it very well. My thread, “Evidence FOR Racial Equality??”
>> has generated several new threads, including this one. I am after
>> evidence for the belief, apparently quite widespread, that Affirmative
>> Action and other programs are in fact capable of achiveing equal outcomes
>> in education and jobs in what the layman and the government calls race.
>
>> Of course, what the *aims* of Affirmative Action, Civil Rights Laws, and
>> so forth are, or ought to be, is an additional problem.
>
>Just a polite question, and maybe if you’re interested, an idea
>for a new thread.
>
>What is your definition of fair?
>
>
>”race #1″ —> Color blind process. i.e —> results may differ
>”race #2″ —> no race has an advantage depending on race
>
>OR
>
>”race #1″ —-> Process modified to —-> results must be
>”race #2″ —-> ensure equal outcomes same for both races
> ^ |
> |_____ government ____|
> intervention
>
>The process could be hiring, qualification for loans, admission
>to schools, …
>
>The results could be employment security, home ownership rates,
>completion of academic degrees, …
>
>The difference between these two models is perhaps the single
>most important factor in the AA debate.
>
>I believe that even if a true “colorblind” process could be
>posted (and I believe there to be a number), if the results
>of the process were unequal in the “wrong” way, AA proponents
>would never concede the process was “fair”.
>
>For example, look at boxing. The process is two men get into
>a ring and beat each other in the face. Blacks don’t get
>firmer gloves, nor does the ref allow the white to bring in a
>gun. The result is that blacks tend to dominate heavier weight
>categories. Is the process “racist”? Not depending on the
>first model, but it is depending on the second model.
>
>Now look at entrepreneurship and economic success. Most AA
>advocates point to the disparity in results (average net worth
>of the different races) as proof of a “racist” system. This
>is clearly using the second model. However, with the first
>model, entrepreneurship is entirely fair.
I’m not sure all AA advocates do, and I’m not even sure all AA advocates
think that *all* of the differences in results are due to “racism.” But
certainly many of them do. And I would like to see the evidence FOR their
beliefs, as you know.
>I shop at whatever store gives me the best price for what I
>want. As a result, I frequent Odd Lots, WalMart, K-Mart,
>Lowe’s, Sun, … There are absolutely no signs on the
>merchandise saying “This was built by a black wonan”, or
>”This was built by ‘The Man'”. The only indication I have as
>to who built it is if “Made in Taiwan, China, Japan, …” was
>stamped on it. My purchasing fits squarely in the “colorblind”
>category, as most everyone else’s does.
_The Wall Street Journal._ had a column some time back that aruged that
the market was the greatest dissolver of racial and other barriers, not
government.
>When I was in Kenya, though, I bought a number of things which
>were identified as being made by local craftsmen. But, that
>represents a miniscule fraction of the money I’ve spent in my
>life.
You asked for my own definition of “fairness” at the start of your
posting. In general, my concept is that all citizens be subjected to the
same laws. I am definitely not in favor of government mandated
Affirmative Action laws or even those that prohibit private
“discrimination.” The reason is that there are no such *things* as jobs,
housing, etc. To say that there are is to commit a serious metaphysical
mistake. Rather, there are *contracts* between men for work or for
exchange. These are mutual *agreements* for mutual advantage. If I don’t
want to offer you an agreement to work for me, there is no contract. For
the gummint to force me to do what an agreement might have done is to
force me into a situation I will not willingly enter.
But I am *not* a libertarian or an Objectivist, so I’m willing to
entertain arguments For such laws. And I am also willing to entertain
arguments that there should be several classes of citizenship, some with
more rights (privledges?) than others. And the question of *who* may be a
citizen of which sovereign entity is yet another matter. I am toying with
the idea of having the *county* be the basic unit of sovereignty, in
which states would have no ability to tax but get revenues only from the
counties. Ditto for the states and the country as a whole, and for the
country and still larger governmental bodies. I would much rather have take
bottoms-up, spontaneous-organizing approach and watch the results emerge
than to propound my vision of the ideal, world society and urge (if not
force) my vision on everyone else. I am only too well aware of how
ignorant I am, which is something I cannot say for a lot of other people.
Frank
From [email protected] Sat Feb 24 18:52:35 PST 1996
Article: 14448 of alt.politics.nationalism.white
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
talk.politics.misc,soc.culture.intercultural,alt.politics.reform,alt.activism,alt.discrimination
alt.politics.correct,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Biological race in humans doesn’t exist.
Message-ID:
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
References: <31044b96.280864[email protected]> <[email protected]>
<[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sun, 25 Feb 1996 01:47:29 GMT
Lines: 69
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:61452 sci.philosophy.meta:15946 sci.anthropology:673
talk.politics.theory:57534 talk.politics.misc:335083 alt.politics.reform:53595 alt.activism:31294
alt.discrimination:43464 alt.politics.correct:84103 alt.politics.nationalism.white:14448
In article <[email protected]>, Bob Harding wrote:
>Barnacle Bill the Sailor wrote:
>>
>>One last thing. My main point is this. You and I disagree,
>>as does major portions of the population. We should all
>>”agree to disagree”, and quit trying to use the government
>>to coerce certain behaviors out of those with different
>>political opinions. I’m for “Live and let live”. That’s it.
>
>Are you just being disengenuous here, or do you not notice
>the contradiction? What we disagree on is how government
>should respond to the situation. So if we “agree to disagree,”
>then why do we do it your way?
>
>Okay, back to the subject. How about a little hypothetical
>situation? There is a neighborhood of fifty houses on the
>outskirts of town. It has been there for 120 years. The
>residents of this neighborhood are at the low end of the
>socioeconomic scale. A local newspaper finds out that the
>state has an illegal waste system that has been polluting
>the air of the neighborhood for 100 years, and it has been
>scientifically proven to have been slowing the physical
>development of the inhabitants the whole time. When the
>state learns that someone has found out, it fixes the system,
>and there is no longer any health hazard.
>
>Now, the question is, does the state owe the community
>anything further? Do you, as a citizen from a far-away
>town, stand up at their meeting and say, “Live, and let
>live”?
I see what you are getting at. What you are supposing is indeed some
“scientific proof” which has not been done, as far as I know, in the case
of unequal scholastic and economic achievement between whites and blacks
in the United States. The proof you are speaking of would also have to
yield some *quantitative* measure, since we do know that physical
development (I assume you are including brains) differs by socio-economic
status. Furthermore, the harm was caused by *illegal* activities of an
on-going body, namely the state. But there’s a real problem here: the
state has no money of its own! Indeed, every last one is bankrupt, in
that politicians’ promises are far, far greater than their assets, which
were generally dubiously acquired in the first place. That said, and I
may be contradicting myself (easy to do when dealing with government), I
think governments should be bound by their own law. It is a principle,
older than the Constitution and not (as I had once believed) in the
Constitution itself, that a sovereign cannot be sued. I certainly deplore
Clinton’s ability to postpone Paula Jones’ suit until after the election!
This is an extremely difficult issue, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it
even discussed. My basic approach is that of a social contract (See my
book, _The Metaphysics of Liberty_), and the contents of the contract is
up to the contractors, not up to me to *tell* them what they have
contracted to. What I have not thought about (beyond cheering for the
right of states to secede from the union) is a provision, in the
constitution itself, for the dissolution of the government in cases of
bankruptcy. (Your example of the illegal waste dump would not probably
not bankrupt the state, though trying to make unequal races equal
probably would!) And I don’t know how any social contract could bind
future generations. James M. Buchanan in his magnum opus, _The Limits of
Liberty_ (1975), does discuss the potential of a lapse back into a state
of nature (and the power of threat to so plunge society), and I’ll have
to reread it.
Now I should go into why contractarianism can be anything more than a
fiction, but that will take a very long post indeed. Thanks for
stimulating these thoughts, such that they be.
Frank
From [email protected] Sun Feb 4 10:36:29 PST 1996
Article: 13271 of alt.politics.nationalism.white
Newsgroups: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,
alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Path: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca!news.island.net!news.bctel.net!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!
howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netcom.com!forman
From: [email protected] (frank forman)
Subject: Re: Evidence FOR Racial Equality??
Message-ID:
Followup-To: alt.philosophy.objectivism,sci.philosophy.meta,sci.anthropology,talk.politics.theory,
alt.politics.reform,alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.activism,alt.discrimination,alt.politics.correct,
alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.nationalism.white,talk.politics.misc
Organization: NETCOM On-line Communication Services (408 261-4700 guest)
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL1]
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Distribution: inet
Date: Sun, 4 Feb 1996 16:57:13 GMT
Lines: 73
Sender: [email protected]
Xref: nizkor.almanac.bc.ca alt.philosophy.objectivism:59801 sci.philosophy.meta:15688 sci.anthropology:488
talk.politics.theory:56080 alt.politics.reform:49560 alt.politics.democrats.d:50984 alt.activism:26009
alt.discrimination:42474 alt.politics.correct:77843 alt.politics.usa.constitution:48564
alt.politics.nationalism.white:13271 talk.politics.misc:322919
