[Changleen]

i've raised the same point on slashdot. such posts have gotten me +5,

Name dropper.

 

[BurlyShirley]

What is especially funny is that people like Opie get differences in personal religious belief and political agenda confused with racism. I'm not really sure how as one is 100% nature, the other 100% nurture, but anyway... I was accused by Opie and Burly of being racist for, as they saw it, hating Jews.

What is especially funny is that you're unable to tell when people are just ****ing with you to get a response. I guess that's something we Americans should come to expect when dealing with stiffs like you and fluff from the UK.
But back to the argument, If you look at the degree of difference between say, a Kenyan and an Eskimo, I think you'd find that its nature who has selectively bred people to best fit environments, much like its people that selectively breed dogs to fit their specific needs. To say that there can be such a huge level of physical difference between races and NO level of mental difference is kind of silly IMO, but that just seems like common sense to me. I bet if a study were done on Asian kids raised in both an Asian culture and an American style culture, you'd still see them excelling in academics.

 

[LordOpie]

What is especially funny is that you're unable to tell when people are just ****ing with you to get a response.

aww, fluff's a good guy, his sense of humor is just far more subtle and I think i've only seen him get upset once or twice ever. But Chang's a sad poster who doesn't understand that people are just fvcking with him even when the say they are.

Changleen's still a racist tho who wears a white hood over his shaved head and has a swastika on his one remaining good tooth.

 

[Toshi]

Name dropper.

slashdot is one of two places where i don't post with my real name tho, so you have no idea who i am there . there's only 750,000 users to go through, i suppose, so i guess you could find out eventually...

 

[nicklin]

Changleen's still a racist tho who wears a white hood over his shaved head and has a swastika on his one remaining good tooth.

I dissagree, I look at Changleen's posts and see one of those spiffy looking guys in respectable clothes who desperately tries to seperate himself rom the stereotypical Hitler sympathizer that you described, he sounds like a person who wants to solve the Jewish problem with words and invented morality lectures.

 

[Changleen]

What is especially funny is that you're unable to tell when people are just ****ing with you to get a response. I guess that's something we Americans should come to expect when dealing with stiffs like you and fluff from the UK.

No, I just find threadjacking by retarded fools with no actual point to make pathetic and pointless.

But back to the argument, If you look at the degree of difference between say, a Kenyan and an Eskimo, I think you'd find that its nature who has selectively bred people to best fit environments, much like its people that selectively breed dogs to fit their specific needs. To say that there can be such a huge level of physical difference between races and NO level of mental difference is kind of silly IMO, but that just seems like common sense to me.

No, that's not what I was saying. I was saying that 'racism' proper is a differentiation based on genetics, and the human race has a lower genetic diversity than dogs. For sure there are pronounced physical differences beween a Saharan African and an 'Eskimo' but if you did a swap at birth your Eskimo's brain wouldn't overheat or anything dumb like that.

When most people are 'racist', they are not directly having a go at slanty eyes, flat heads, or other physical characteristics actually defined by race anymore, we live in a highly mixed society - what people don't like is cultural, behaviour oriented, communicational differences. The trouble is they themselves often do not think enough about their feeling to realise this.

I'm just trying to differentiate between what 'racism' actually is - e.g 'I hate all (given race) because of their (physical characteristic)' and what people generally do these days: 'I hate (social group, political group, cultural group) because of their (politics, behaviour, opinions, clothes)' - The difference is the second example is not 'racism'. It's bigotry, or prejudice or politics, or whatever. Nurture based differences, not nature.

I bet if a study were done on Asian kids raised in both an Asian culture and an American style culture, you'd still see them excelling in academics.

I agree, but it's not because they're Asian per say, it's because oriental societies place a lot of weight behind schooling, and encourage their children to do well. If American families placed the same weight on academic achievement, I'm sure you'd see the same results. Again, Nurture is the major player here, not nature.

 

[Changleen]

Changleen's still a racist tho who wears a white hood over his shaved head and has a swastika on his one remaining good tooth.

You are a pathetic little tosser who has nothing better to do with his time than 'try and **** with people on the internet'. In 95% of your last 200 posts you have more substance in your ironically headed 'your sigs too long' signature than in your posts. I think that says a lot about you.

 

[MMike]

This is racistist

 

[BurlyShirley]

No, I just find threadjacking by retarded fools with no actual point to make pathetic and pointless.

He's still mad! Bwaaaaaaaahahahahhahahha!

Anyway, my entire response wasnt directed at you, but with regard to the last part, my assertion was that American families DONT place the same weight on education as do Asian families, but still the Asian kids would do better as a result of NATURE. And Im not saying an Eskimo would overheat in Kenya, although he clearly wouldnt be as comfortable, Im just saying he wouldnt win marathons like they often do. There ARE physical differences, so I cant see why on earth there wouldnt be mental ones. This is largely in response to Toshi, BTW, quit being so self important.

 

[BurlyShirley]

You are a pathetic little tosser who has nothing better to do with his time than 'try and **** with people on the internet'. In 95% of your last 200 posts you have more substance in your ironically headed 'your sigs too long' signature than in your posts. I think that says a lot about you.

Just say that you dont like him because he's Jewish and we can be done with this whole thing. :devil:

 

[Changleen]

Just say that you dont like him because he's Jewish and we can be done with this whole thing. :devil:

I've been trying to avoid saying this, but my wife is Jewish, the last company I worked for was Jewish, I don't hate Jews.
I do pretty much hate Opie at the moment though. Seriously, this is a debate forum. I don't come here to have stupid flame wars like a 12 year old. If he has nothing serious to say or contribute, then as far as I'm concerned he's being a fvcking prick. He has made no serious contributions, therefore I award him prick status.

 

[Changleen]

He's still mad! Bwaaaaaaaahahahahhahahha!

Always. In a quiet, reserved, kind of way.

Anyway, my entire response wasnt directed at you, but with regard to the last part, my assertion was that American families DONT place the same weight on education as do Asian families, but still the Asian kids would do better as a result of NATURE.

Hmm, I'm not sure I agree that any particular race has a greater academic potential than others - If such a differentiation does exist, then I believe that the degree of predisposition is glaringly tiny, and nuture factors would play a much greater role.

What we're asking here is: If we selected a whole bunch of newborn kids, a few from each race, put them in an institution where race was never brought up, schooled them together, had them play together, gave none of them any advantage of preferential treatment over the others, but allowed each to fulfill his or her academic poetential, would the Asian kids do best? Personally I'd say 'No' - or more precisely, I'd say that while it might be true that certain racial groups show a more natural apptitude towards a certain type of task or thinking, these differences would be tiny. I think our Brains are probably one of the least diverse areas of human physical development, but probably the most diverse areas of 'nutural' or 'environmental' development.

But I'd agree the Black kids would probably be better at basketball.

And Im not saying an Eskimo would overheat in Kenya, although he clearly wouldnt be as comfortable, Im just saying he wouldnt win marathons like they often do. There ARE physical differences, so I cant see why on earth there wouldnt be mental ones. This is largely in response to Toshi, BTW, quit being so self important.

Yah, like I said, I think there are more physical differences than mental ones, at least if you start form a clean slate, if you see what I mean. I guess what I'm saying is the brain is far more suceptable to nuture than the our physical attributes.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Always. In a quiet, reserved, kind of way.
Hmm, I'm not sure I agree that any particular race has a greater academic potential than others - If such a differentiation does exist, then I believe that the degree of predisposition is glaringly tiny, and nuture factors would play a much greater role.

What we're asking here is: If we selected a whole bunch of newborn kids, a few from each race, put them in an institution where race was never brought up, schooled them together, had them play together, gave none of them any advantage of preferential treatment over the others, but allowed each to fulfill his or her academic poetential, would the Asian kids do best? Personally I'd say 'No' - or more precisely, I'd say that while it might be true that certain racial groups show a more natural apptitude towards a certain type of task or thinking, these differences would be tiny. I think our Brains are probably one of the least diverse areas of human physical development, but probably the most diverse areas of 'nutural' or 'environmental' development.

But I'd agree the Black kids would probably be better at basketball.

Yah, like I said, I think there are more physical differences than mental ones, at least if you start form a clean slate, if you see what I mean. I guess what I'm saying is the brain is far more suceptable to nuture than the our physical attributes.

This is all a load of bull sh!t and we know this because....









Because there ain't no N8 reference in it anywhere....

:evil:

 

[BurlyShirley]

I've been trying to avoid saying this, but my wife is Jewish.

dude, we know you dont have a wife. you're gay. right?


No seriously, Opie is a standup guy. Ive met him before. You just dont have the right sense of humor to disagree with stuff and laugh about it I guess.

About your theory about jamming a bunch of kids of different races into a school like that for such an experiment , I dont think the world would ever do it because the world doesnt want to know. and Im not sure I disagree with that.

 

[LordOpie]

dude, we know you dont have a wife. you're gay. right?

no no, he is married. He married a jew to cover his hate, to help hitler finish the job... Chang sacraficed himself for the greater hate!


Am I the only one here who doesn't have a problem with racism? The opposite of racism is a homogenous planet.

 

[Changleen]

(Edit - In response to Toshi)

I also spelt potential wrong, but anyway...

I'm not relying on any particualr source of statistics or research in coming to this opinion, other than the degree of human genetic variation being extremely low.
Rather, I'd base it on experience and reported experience of the whole of human achievement. No one racial group has anything like a monopoly, or even a significant lead in academia throughout human history.
At different points throughout our fairly short (evolutionarily speaking) journey through humanity, conditions have been ripe for one or more ethnic group to temporarily take the lead, but at the end of the day, I don't think any one group has shown itself to be smarter than everyone else. Especailly now, if you consider the peaks of academia - Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard etc. in the west, whose populations are composed af many racial backgrounds, it's not all white kids, not all Asians who are coming out at the top. Year on year people from many diverse backgrounds do best in any given subject. Similarly any large multinational (which to a certain extent will reflect evolution of fitness for task) will be staffed with a variety of races, and moreover, the racial content will not follow any departmental or job type guidelines.

When compared to Atheletic achievement, however, we can see a far greater segrigation by particular skill. Asians tend to be better at sports like badminton, ping pong, shooting - hand eye/reaction speed sports, Africans tend to be better at traditional atheletic disciplines, speed, strength etc. Of course there are exceptions to these rules, but I think I'm painting a 'fair' overall picture?

Being as how I don't perceive these differentiations in academia or business, and just from my own schooling (I attended a Grammar school in the UK, a selective entrance school based on IQ/Verbal reasoning type attributes) where the population was composed fairly evenly of Whites, Blacks, Asians, Chinese in similar proportions to the local popultation. Given our school (and many similar institutions in the UK) claimed to represent the top 2% of candidates, and that the candidates were in proportion to local populations, it does not seem unreasonable to assume that academic achievement is not heavily predisposed by race.

I also saw something on the discovery channel once where a guy was saying you couldn't tell someones race just by looking at their brain, but I don't know how true that is - after all we still can't really see the brain in action...

 

[Changleen]

meh, you can't use "the degree of human genetic variation being low" to argue both sides. how does the athletic differentiation arise?

Fair point.

taking harvard as an example i'd say that it was evidence that genetics DO play a factor. asians and jews both were and are overrepresented, and this is after affirmative action culled their numbers. given that harvard draws from a diverse group of applicants (u.s. + wealthy internationals), and that legacy admissions account for a significant slice of the white population i would say that the effect quantified below is more significant even than the numbers would suggest.

Taking Harvard (or any individual school) as a specific example, I would argue that there is possibly a high degree of nurture processes going on there, leading to these figures. It is more fair to consider the populations of all leading academic institutions.
Having said that Asians and Jews (Jews are not a 'race' remember) are both culturally more inclined to encourage their kids to do well academically, furhter muddying our waters.

of course this (and your multinational corporation staffing question) is irrelevant to the discussion at hand, which is whether there is evidence for genetic markers, IGNORING the "nurture"/cultural variables that undoubtedly play a large part in producing the results above.

I'd disagree there - in every individual case there are bound to be obvious nurture influences, but we don't have the luxury of being able to split the two in our reality. The best we can do is look at the average across the board, and try to factor out major or obvious nurture influences. In this case I think the corporate world is a good place to start looking.

i'm not surprised that someone would state that it isn't possible to tell someone's race from their brain. the current state of the art in imaging, in deciphering what is actually going on in the brain, is quite low -- the technology is cool but the applications are crude as of yet. (that's why i'm idly mulling of going into that field...)

Agreed. That's what I was saying too.

 

[ALEXIS_DH]

alright, if dogs are too far apart... what about horse breeds?? or cow breeds?
could they be differentiated by a glance at the brain with XYZ method??? would they be close enough to make a parallel with humans?

and well, to add up to toshis post.

its not only in harvard and in the US that asian kids are overrepresented in academic grounds. its actually in many places i know of.
in my limited experience i see them overrepresented specially in the usually "tougher" science-related majors. even after 3 generations, in which you could say, their nurturing techniques were watered down with the local culture, they are still overrepresented.

 

[Changleen]

alright, if dogs are too far apart... what about horse breeds?? or cow breeds?
could they be differentiated by a glance at the brain with XYZ method??? would they be close enough to make a parallel with humans?

I don't know, but I tell you what, it would be damn cool if we could watch thoughts in realtime 3D and have a ****ing clue as to what we were looking at.

its not only in harvard and in the US that asian kids are overrepresented in academic grounds. its actually in many places i know of.
in my limited experience i see them overrepresented specially in the usually "tougher" science-related majors. even after 3 generations, in which you could say, their nurturing techniques were watered down with the local culture, they are still overrepresented.

Yeah, like I said, Asian culture in general values education and academic achievement higher than other cultures. It's the type of value that is a) sensible and therefore b) long lasting. It's a Nurturegasm. Or maybe a nurture meme.

 

[Changleen]

if this is the case then why are we lowering standards for blacks and hispanics (and other "underrepresented minorities) via affirmative action rather than trying to get their culture to incorporate this meme?

Because we suck at cultural management* and have a racist, religious leader and a history of genuine racism defining our society's history?

*properly integrating with these groups in the first place through sensible, controlled immigration and naturalisation programs, you know, like Canada, or France.
Not building 'projects'. Funding inner city schooling, not buying nukes. You get the idea.

Edit 2: Or, 'Because everyone always knows best.'