481–490 of 756 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because that is what most "socialists" want, meaning your definition of socialism and theirs are probably very different.
Is that what "socialists" want, or what people that get called "socialists" by detractors want?
If Chomsky’s solutions are bunk, what is the value of his argument? See also: the last 250 years of economic history.
And 250 years of economic history shows that unhindered capitalism is a disaster. The only reason capitalism appears so so successful is because it has been balanced with more progressive policies.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The research isn't specifically about group differences, or differences between populations anyway. That issue inevitably gets all the attention, but it's just one dimension. The vast majority of genetic differences between any two individuals have nothing to do with whatever arbitrary groups society categorises them with, and most genetic differences that do correlate with anything like race are basically cosmetic.…
The backlash by progressives is usually specifically centered around the group differences part. And I don't buy that's the one that gets all the attention - all the negative one maybe, but most accepted and talked about genetic research isn't about that at all.
That stuff is basically all interesting but largely meaningless because it’s so binary. It doesn’t matter if your part of a group that’s 10x as likely to be lactose intolerant, you are either lactose intolerant or your not. Sure the dairy industry might care, but the only impact on individuals is what they can bring to very large family gatherings.
Even where it is actually meaningful to an ethnic group, people rarely from a single ethnic group. A large chunk of African Americans are whiter genetically than their black.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You know nothing about my teaching or what I do for my students. Did I say a good fraction of the students can’t learn algebra? I never said or implied anything of the sort. All I said is that some people can’t learn it. I gave an extreme example of such a person. I didn’t say anything regarding how large the set of people who can’t learn algebra is other than that this set is larger than the set of intellectually di…
> You know nothing about my teaching or what I do for my students. I actually do because I read all of your comments in this thread.
When I mention that I just mostly pass my students now they understand that grades are an administrative aspect to the job and know that this is detached from my desire to get as many students as possible to learn as much as possible. People with extensive experience don’t harp on my statements about grading. At most they’ll claim they don’t lower their standards but they don’t make any wild conclusions about me like you did.
But you, you’ve made wholly unjustified conclusions about me and that says you don’t know the nuances involved. You don’t immediately understand that one can think not everyone can learn a topic and still be passionate about learning.
Genetics has a huge influence on what someone is predisposed to and what they can achieve. Certain ethnic groups and families, on average, are more likely to have certain traits and less likely to have others. But genetics doesn't matter , in that just because you have "bad" genetics doesn't mean you'll suck, whether it comes to weightlifting, intelligence, temperment, etc. Maybe you won't be in the top 0.0001%, but…
Sure, that's a good point generally but doesn't seem at all the problem the article is addressing. Skimming it, it's about progressives denying group differences at all and calling those who research them 'equivalent to Holocaust Deniers'. From following genetics research and researchers, I've seen plenty of that, and I don't see the relevance of your point here.
In my experience, it depends on the group. It seems conservatives are more likely to defend the idea of IQ differences among racial groups, but also more likely to reject the studies showing that liberals tend to have higher IQ's than conservatives[1].
Fundamentally, though, I'm not sure what the use of highlighting group differences is. I tend to skeptical of such studies (in my own experience datasets can be very misleading if sliced the wrong way), but if the studies about political alignment are true, then what? Should I start separating people based on what group they belong to? As the above poster said, when you're measuring an individuals aptitude then the group aptitude is basically meaningless.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/26/liberals.atheists.sex....
Chomsky wrote the definitive progressive answer to all this 50 years ago: https://libcom.org/files/chomsky%20-%20iq%20building%20block... Still timely and fresh, especially considering that he was critiquing Herrnstein 20 years before The Bell Curve. Because he's smart and unafraid, either of science or the truth, Chomsky never denies the possibility of a genetic component to IQ, even IQ/race. What he denies are the…
Except that the argument Chomsky makes about the fact that this research would have no purpose in a society that treats people as individuals, ie not a racist society, is certainly valid, but the current progressivism is to do the opposite, ie to define people by their race/sex, and to count the number of people of each race or sex in organisations, and to call racism/sexism if it is not exactly the population distri…
To me that sounds like reasoning along the lines of the physics professors answer: "First, let's assume that all cows are spherical..."
Not always a useful assumption.
Generalizations are necessary for a human to function. Something like 90% of all daily activities are repetition and you would become psychotic if you tried to make a conscious effort to evaluate and re-evaluate everything all the time.
This goes for how we view people too, obviously. Especially those that we do not know.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't try, just trying to argue that it would be inhuman to expect us to succeed every time.
Genetics has a huge influence on what someone is predisposed to and what they can achieve. Certain ethnic groups and families, on average, are more likely to have certain traits and less likely to have others. But genetics doesn't matter , in that just because you have "bad" genetics doesn't mean you'll suck, whether it comes to weightlifting, intelligence, temperment, etc. Maybe you won't be in the top 0.0001%, but…
It does matter in what regards intelligence because lots of professions require an IQ higher than the 85 or 90 needed for brick layers.
You need that to have a stable and functioning highly developed society.
Many criminals commit crimes, not because they're intrinsically "evil" but because they have very low impulse control, or difficulty in even understanding their victims feelings from the hurt they can cause them.
You can circle around with irrelevant stuff such as if an European has the same probability of winning a marathon than a Kenyan, that will get you nowhere but maybe that's the plan.
Fully understanding how intelligence works and how genetics influence it is paramount for any greater advance for Humanity. But that's rayciss I guess, as Mars won't have any base from the Somalia Space Association any time soon.
From the article: Over the next year, a biosciences working group revised the program’s funding guidelines, stipulating in the final draft that it would not support any research into the first-order effects of genes on behavior or social outcomes. The fact that this area is controversial suggests to me that it is worth exploration. I’ve taught mathematics at community colleges for over 20 years and I’m absolutely con…
It seems like you're essentially implying the mean value theorem here. Because there exist some people who cannot do algebra (folks with mental disabilities), and there exist some people who can, there likely must be some sort of transition point where someone doesn't have mental disabilities but can't do algebra. In that graph, you're implying that "mental intelligence" is the independent variable(s) and algebraic a…
IQ is misunderstood by most people and the common misconceptions are extremely harmful. In reality IQ matters much less than people think. The top 5 rated chess player of all time (Hikaru Nakamura) has a ~105 IQ. People with an average IQ are capable of performing at the 0.1% level with the proper structured training and time. In my experience IQ mostly impacts the rate at which you learn things. So it took you 2 yea…
If Chomsky’s solutions are bunk, what is the value of his argument? See also: the last 250 years of economic history.
And 250 years of economic history shows that unhindered capitalism is a disaster. The only reason capitalism appears so so successful is because it has been balanced with more progressive policies.
"it has been balanced with more progressive policies."
That doesn't sound like unhindered capitalism.