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Rich, Black, Flunking

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Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#91

Post by kingkongrevenge »

natrius wrote: post #88
kingkongrevenge wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Races are extended families. People in a race are genetically and genealogically closer to each other than to people outside of it. This racial clustering of relatedness is empirically testable. Race is not a social construct.

You're using a fairly prescriptive definition of race. Race, as commonly used, is a social construct. Ancestry functions the way you describe, but as the example given above shows, "race" and ancestry are not directly related.

> "race" and ancestry are not directly related

Of course they are.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#92

Post by hughprime »

tome wrote: post #85
hughprime wrote: post #44

Soon after he left Ohio and returned to California, a black parent from Shaker Heights went on TV and called him an "academic Clarence Thomas." Perhaps part of these kids' problem is that they have parents who think that being compared to Clarence Thomas is an insult. Such theorists often cite the 1994 publication of The Bell Curve, which argued that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites, as evidence that nega…

I wondered what that meant when I read it. Having discovered Clarence Thomas was a Supreme Court judge doesn't help either. What did the man do wrong?

He dared to have political views which differed from those of the black establishment.

Like Colin Powell and Condi Rice, if he was a Democrat he'd have a road in every town named after him.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#93

Post by heat_miser »

I wish I could say that I didn't fall victim to this sort of thinking all through school, but I'd be lying if I say that I hadn't. There is indeed a culture of not pushing to your top potential academically, or at least there was when I was in school.

I seem to have moved on from that, and now work pretty darn hard at learning stuff, but only once I was away from my peers culturally as well as physically. It sucks but it is the truth.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#94

Post by hooande »

"On average, black students earned a 1.9 GPA while their white counterparts held down an average of 3.45"

The ratio between black and white GPAs = .55

"Ogbu worked from the 1990 census data, which showed that 32.6 percent of the black households and 58 percent of the white households in Shaker had incomes of $50,000 a year or more"

The ratio between number of blacks/white making above $50k/yr = .56

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#95

Post by philwelch »

tome wrote: post #85
hughprime wrote: post #44

Soon after he left Ohio and returned to California, a black parent from Shaker Heights went on TV and called him an "academic Clarence Thomas." Perhaps part of these kids' problem is that they have parents who think that being compared to Clarence Thomas is an insult. Such theorists often cite the 1994 publication of The Bell Curve, which argued that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites, as evidence that nega…

I wondered what that meant when I read it. Having discovered Clarence Thomas was a Supreme Court judge doesn't help either. What did the man do wrong?

Clarence Thomas is conservative.

He also allegedly sexually harassed a subordinate of his, Anita Hill, though the allegations were never substantiated. This was prior to being appointed to the Supreme Court.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#96

Post by philwelch »

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #84
natrius wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Race is a social construct. You are what people say you are.

Races are extended families. People in a race are genetically and genealogically closer to each other than to people outside of it. This racial clustering of relatedness is empirically testable. Race is not a social construct.

You're conflating two distinct concepts. By the genetic definition, a 3/4 European 1/4 African would be white. By the social definition, a 3/4 European 1/4 African would be black.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#97

Post by ilyak »

ErrantX wrote: post #56
davidw wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially if you're doing things like operating on people:-/ No restoring from backups, or rolling back to the latest working version if you fuck up.

That's the exact reason they push interns beyond breaking point. My friend regularly made silly, dangerous mistakes when tired - every time he did a serious dressing down ensued. Because he was an intern a qualified doctor always double checked him so none of the mistakes were enacted. But he learned his limits and how far it was safe to go. People put their lives in the hands of doctors; they are under pressure, ove…

Still this can be arranged as a well-defined test instead of humiliation crapfest.

Everything can be.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#98

Post by radu_floricica »

thras wrote: post #87
radu_floricica wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying there is _no_ genetic component - I would be surprised if it wasn't. Just that compared to culture it's not important. I didn't read The Bell Curve, but as far as I know (and refreshed with a bit of googling) it states that IQ is partly hereditary - I don't think anybody doubts this - and makes it easy to go further and say some groups of people are smarter. This is most likely true, but still not so i…

These books come out every so often. 5 years ago "emotional intelligence" sold copy. IQ has a heritability coefficient of between .5 and .8. The rest seems to be non-shared environment. IQ is a very good predictor of academic success and future income (.7 to .8 correlation). There's a hell of a lot of research out there that has shown this again and again. I'd like to see Stanovich's definition of "critical reasoning…

This is where I originally found him (from HN actually): http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stanovich1

But you won't find much more in this, unfortunately. For the link (or lack thereof) between IQ and critical reasoning search for Stanovich, it's mostly his own research. For link between (parts of) critical reasoning and academic success look up Mischel's marshmallow experiment. Personally I never saw 0.8 correlations with IQ mentioned anywhere, so I'd be grateful for a pointer.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#99

Post by thras »

radu_floricica wrote: post #98
thras wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These books come out every so often. 5 years ago "emotional intelligence" sold copy. IQ has a heritability coefficient of between .5 and .8. The rest seems to be non-shared environment. IQ is a very good predictor of academic success and future income (.7 to .8 correlation). There's a hell of a lot of research out there that has shown this again and again. I'd like to see Stanovich's definition of "critical reasoning…

This is where I originally found him (from HN actually): http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stanovich1 But you won't find much more in this, unfortunately. For the link (or lack thereof) between IQ and critical reasoning search for Stanovich, it's mostly his own research. For link between (parts of) critical reasoning and academic success look up Mischel's marshmallow experiment. Personally I never saw 0.8 c…

Impulse control is strongly linked with IQ.

Also, which 0.8 correlation were you asking about?

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#100

Post by dschobel »

dasil003 wrote: post #78
joshwa wrote: post #69

It seems to me that a much of the criticism could have been defused with some slightly different methodology. Some statistics that might been good ammunition (each gathered with rates of several different cohorts: white, black-non-immigrant, black-immigrant, non-black-immigrant) * # of hours spent on homework * # of hours parents spent with children on school-related activities * Rate of parental participation in sch…

I think a more scientific approach is of little help here. The issue is too emotionally charged. Most people have pre-conceived notions about where the problem lies, and they will go to great lengths to cherry pick their evidence. Ogbu's research is useful today simply because political correctness has reached a point where we can't even consider the role minorities play in their own academic achievement. 50 years ag…

This is what struck me most about the academics (!) who were criticizing his work in the article.

"I find it useless to argue with people like Ogbu," says Urban League educational fellow Ronald Ross, himself a former school superintendent. "We know what the major problems in this school system are: racism, lack of funding, and unqualified teachers."

This guy's issue isn't with any particular bit of Ogbu's methodology or logic, just the places it takes him.

How this can fly in any academic field is shocking to me.

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