Reaching out to racists

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EgalitarianJay
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by EgalitarianJay »

mr friendly guy wrote:To be fair, people who believe Rushton aren't exactly budding scientists. They may even WORSHIP science, but fail more importantly to UNDERSTAND it. It becomes a struggle using analogies to explain to them something blatantly obvious why that is bad. For example I have debated some people use the following comparisons to illustrate a difference between races, at the same time saying I am not judging which difference is better (but we both know the intelligence difference is the one they hark on).

That is an important point to consider on this topic. Most supporters of Rushton's research are not scientists themselves. They find Rushton's work to be emotionally appealing because they believe it gives credibility to their racist ideological agendas that require there to be mental differences between races.

My most persistent opponent that I have encountered on the internet who has debated me on this topic debated me obsessively for around two years. Any time I made a thread about Rushton he entered the thread and stretched out debate to ridiculous lengths by dissecting my posts into 10 or so quotes deliberately trying to drag on discussion and wear me down until I stopped debating due to not having the time to keep responding to his drivel so he could make it look like he won.

Over the course of these exchanges I began to notice patterns in his debate style which revealed the limits to his knowledge and reasoning skills. One advantage he had over me was that because he was obsessed with the topic of race and I was only casually interested he had more sources to hit me with. Most of his sources were coming from racialist websites like American Renaissance and Vdare where Rushton himself writes articles on his racial theories. After awhile it became clear that all this guy was doing was parroting Rushton. He could explain Rushton's argument as he understood it fairly well but when he encountered new information from counter sources he didn't know how to handle them. His first approach was to try to discredit the source in some way. Then he would try to nitpick at random things he thought he could respond to and when I rebutted him point by point he became angry and frustrated. He was reduced to personally attacking me and throwing temper tantrums over my refusal to acknowledge the validity of his arguments.

One of the key sticking points for him was his belief that race was a valid and meaningful biological construct. He tried to prove this by pointing to its relevance and use to scientific fields including Forensic Anthropology, Population Genetics as well as biomedical research. His agenda ofcourse was to claim that because it is used as a scientific tool in some of these disciplines it is equally valid to use in the field of Psychometrics and therefore Rushton's theories at least on mental differences (I had shown very clearly that his specific evolutionary arguments had no credibility at this point) were plausible because they were supported by IQ research. Some of my sources had responded to the claims that these fields prove human races exist. My opponent desperately tried to attack their credibility by appealing to authority.

For instance Joseph Graves wrote some articles on why medical doctors were misguided in using race to look at health differences between ethnic groups. His point was that racial models were inapplicable to human genetic variation and that it was dangerous to make certain assumptions about genetic ancestry and medicine based on the belief that there were biological races. My opponent fixated on this point and claimed Graves was not qualified to speak and medical research he was not a licensed medical research or medical doctor. I made the point that as an Evolutionary Biologist he was qualified to speak on aspects of medical research that are relevant to evolutionary genetics. One thing that really angered him is that when we had a dispute I emailed scholars to strengthen my argument. I emailed Graves for a comment on his medical knowledge.

This was his reply:

Joseph Graves wrote:Dear (EgalitarianJay), Answers to your questions follow:



Do you have any medical training?



I have no formal medical training. However you need to recognize that medicine is not a scientific discipline. Medicine is a practice that relies on a variety of scientific disciplines, including physiology, biochemistry, and genetics. During my PhD training and scientific research career I am amply trained in all three of these areas. Finally, much disease is age-related; therefore if you do not have a correct theory of aging, you miss many very important things about the way disease works (see my most recent paper: Graves, J.L, Evolutionary versus racial medicine: Why it matters, in Race and the Genetics Revolution, Krimsky and Sloan, Eds. (New York, NY: Columbia University Press), 2011.)


How did you go about conducting detailed medical research?



My research is considered biomedical. For most of my career this was done using the model organism, Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly.) Due to the evolutionary rationale for aging, all metazoans (including insects and mammals) share the fundamental population genetic mechanisms which account for it (see Graves, J.L., General Theories of Aging: Unification and Synthesis), in Principles of Neural Aging, 1997. Over recent years I expanded my work to include evolutionary medicine in general (for a thorough statement of its principles see Nesse, R. and Williams, G.C, Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine), 1994; as well as health disparity.



Also how have your views on race and medicine been received in the medical community and scientific community at large?



There is no simple answer to that question. For example, my first book: The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium, received a very positive review in the Journal of the American Medical Association. I also taught Darwinian medicine for 1 semester at Midwestern Osteopathic Medical School in Glendale, AZ. Evolutionary medicine in general is getting more serious consideration by major medical schools. On the other hand, many medical and biomedical research journals still utilize 19th century racial categories (as explained in The Race Myth 2005).


Dr. Joseph L. Graves Jr.
After this detailed explanation by Graves on his knowledge of medical research my opponent mocked the idea that his research was biomedical harping on and on about how Graves had no clinical medical training by how own admission. So in my opponent's mind his medical sources had greater authority to talk about the usefulness of race as a tool in biomedical research while Graves was no more qualified to speak about it than Rushton was to talk about human evolution. He even claimed Graves was a fraud for calling his research biomedical (insinuating he was the real quack).

At this point it became obvious that this guy didn't know what he was talking about and shouldn't be taken seriously in debate.

These are the type of logical fallacies you will find from semi-literate supporters of Rushton and racialist research in general.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by mr friendly guy »

The problem with using race in medicine, is that is not applied in the same way racists apply it in their arguments that race has biological meaning. For example Sickle cell anaemia is more common in Blacks (so we may suspect it in Blacks), but blacks who don't carry the genes are still Blacks. Just like my athlete example, Blacks that can't sprint fast are still Blacks.

We know sickle cell is more common in Blacks, but we don't define Blacks by having sickle cell. We know some blacks don't respond so well to cardiac drugs because of a different gene vs say most white people, but a lot of blacks do not have this variant, and they have the same gene as a white person. Or to put it another way, in the second case, its not so much that races have different genes, its that the genes occur in different frequency. As such I don't see why this should be looked at as a variation between races, as opposed to variation between individuals.

So the racists still have the problem of showing race has biological meaning. Ultimately for race to have meaning, every time we compare say a Black man's DNA to a White man's and another Black man's, the DNA between the two Black people should be closer compared to the White person's every time. It isn't, because the features we associate with being Black and being white are only governed by a small porportion of the genes in the human genome. Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza published these studies to that effect (ie the difference between within a population is larger than the difference between the means of population), and was quoted in the Suzuki debate.

What tthey will reply with is, that well if science can't tell race apart on a genetic level, its simply because we don't have advance enough science. My reply was to the effect - thats like saying the reason we can't create a square circle, is because our mathematics is not advance enough. Rather than the term simply being nonsensical. So just like the square circle not being definable in maths, race in biology isn't definable for the same reason. Its literally nonsensical. Race however has more meaning when we think about it as a cultural and social construct.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Broomstick »

mr friendly guy wrote:The problem with using race in medicine, is that is not applied in the same way racists apply it in their arguments that race has biological meaning. For example Sickle cell anaemia is more common in Blacks (so we may suspect it in Blacks), but blacks who don't carry the genes are still Blacks. Just like my athlete example, Blacks that can't sprint fast are still Blacks.

We know sickle cell is more common in Blacks, but we don't define Blacks by having sickle cell. We know some blacks don't respond so well to cardiac drugs because of a different gene vs say most white people, but a lot of blacks do not have this variant, and they have the same gene as a white person. Or to put it another way, in the second case, its not so much that races have different genes, its that the genes occur in different frequency. As such I don't see why this should be looked at as a variation between races, as opposed to variation between individuals.
The flip side of this is that we also don't define "white" as "lacking the sickle-cell gene". While it's much more common in black people when medicine has found white and Asia people with sickle cell their racial status doesn't change because they're a "white" person with a "black" disease. At base, the medical types don't care if the white or Asia person has sickle-cell due to an unknown African ancestor or an independent mutation, they're just interested in diagnosing/treating the disease. Rinse and repeat for every "racial" genetic disease whether it's Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, or something else.

For racists, though, having a trait (good or bad) from the "wrong" group is a disaster, not a statistical oddity.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by EgalitarianJay »

I recommend watching the documentary Race and Intelligence: Science's Last Taboo. The documentary covers the history of the controversy and follows a journalist's quest to investigate the research of scholars in the scientific community who claim there are mental differences between races and hear the perspectives of scholars with diverse views on the subject who both support and reject the theory of mental differences between races. You can find the full documentary on Dailymotion. Rushton is one of the scholars interviewed.

This segment of the documentary covers views on genetic differences between races:


http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb9iip ... rch_algo=1
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by madd0ct0r »

think i cracked an approach when i was in the shower.

this is for real life talking, not internet debates.

"Right, you're saying that black people have a lower intelligence. Well, think of it like height. On average, Germans are a little taller then Brits, but if you meet a random German guy, his height could be anywhere between 5'5" and 6'4". Same for the British guy, people height is a pretty variable thing."

follow on with

"And yeah, intelligence is like that too. It varies a hell of lot inside each race. And you know how each generation seems to be a little taller? They also seem to have higher IQ's. The scientists reckon it's to do with eating more and eating healthily when you're a kid. So rich countries do better, and richer people inside countries do better too. Plus they reckon the brain can be improved with exercise, just like any muscle."

"Yeah, mate. But look at the crime rate. Watch one of those police video shows. It's always a black guy."

"If you look at the stats, poor black people and poor white people get about the same rate, it's just that a lot more of the tiny black population is poor. And once you've got a criminal record, you'll probably stay poor. Add in the much higher chance of being stopped and searched when you're black and you get a lot more stuff being picked up on then in a white group. I've never been stopped for cannabis because I'm tall, white and have a posh accent when i need it. Doesn't mean I was never carrying."
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Purple »

If you don't mind me asking a question. As you said it your self, you meet these people in real life and many of them are your work colleagues. You have also admitted that it is highly unlikely for you to change their mind on the subject. Hence I have to ask, why do you feel the need to bring up such a highly polarized topic in the first place? I mean, racism is not something one can switch off once convinced. I am relatively certain it is a fundamental part of many of these peoples personalities. And knowing that these are people who you can't convince and with whom you will inevitably have to interact with for a long time to come would it not be wiser to avoid any topic that will lead to open public debates and disagreement? I mean, I might be getting this wrong. I probably am getting this wrong. But it sounds to me like you are almost going out harassing these people at work debating them. And no matter how righteous your cause that can't be good for a healthy and productive workplace environment. Know what I mean?
It has become clear to me in the previous days that any attempts at reconciliation and explanation with the community here has failed. I have tried my best. I really have. I pored my heart out trying. But it was all for nothing.

You win. There, I have said it.

Now there is only one thing left to do. Let us see if I can sum up the strength needed to end things once and for all.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by madd0ct0r »

I don't think i've ever brought it up, but it has come up quite a few times*. When i hear someone saying something stupid I wouldn't let it go for a quiet life.
It's the kind of low grade racism that persists because nobody ever calls them on it, not because they're particularly dedicated to the cause.

It's not the academic surgery / screaming match you might get here or elsewhere online. More friendly banter. You're not trying to prove them wrong, just make them think about it a little more. And construction you have a lot of different people from different backgrounds interacting and you've got to manage tensions.

*Christ mate, these fucking Vietnamese, they never do the job properly and won't listen to anyone.
*Hey Boris, this is P. He's English, but it's ok, he works!
*Tell you what mate, I'm fucking moving to Australia. They know how to deal with immigrants there.
*(Looking out at the rain at 6am)- In my country it's 30degrees... and they think we want to stay!
*This time round mate, I'm definitely voting BNP. If you take away the name and ask the average bloke about their policies, he'll agree.
*I think I'm going to have to go back to Pakistan. Don't want my kids growing up here with the gays at school.
*Christ, there's some many fucking poles here now we've even got a little Polish deli. They do do good sausages mind you.
*What I'd like to do right, is get all of the immigrants and ship them off, and then give their jobs to the lazy bastards on the dole.
*It's in the fucking Koran mate, attacking them first is our best defense.
*I hate Singaporeans, they always generalise everything.
* Bleeding illegal immigrants. Should be against the law. You know they've been stealing our fish?

und so weiter.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Purple »

Oh, I did not realize you were on the receiving end of racism. I don't tend to hang out too much outside of testing and the SF section and all. So to me it just sounded like you were one of those people (and there are people I know) who are on a crusade. Sorry for the mixup.
It has become clear to me in the previous days that any attempts at reconciliation and explanation with the community here has failed. I have tried my best. I really have. I pored my heart out trying. But it was all for nothing.

You win. There, I have said it.

Now there is only one thing left to do. Let us see if I can sum up the strength needed to end things once and for all.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Vashon »

Ultonius wrote:You could try disproving the 'stupidity' claim by talking about famous black thinkers like George Washington Carver and W.E.B. Du Bois. As for the 'higher crime rate' claim you could point out that white inner city youths and black middle class people have similar crime rates to their respective black and white counterparts. Suggest that this implies that poverty and lack of educational opportunity is a bigger factor in crime than race, and that the black crime rate only seems greater because black people are more likely to be poor than white people. Further suggest that they are more likely to be poor because they were denied opportunities to better themselves by slavery and the 'Jim Crow' laws that followed Emancipation.

Also, just out of interest, was the asterisk following 'racist' meant to refer to a footnote that you forgot to put in?
That will just get the whole "exceptions are irrelevant" thing brought up. Just prove that intelligence of the children is generally dictated by both levels of wealth and levels of education and that certain trends come from generations and not mere decades. They are multiple times where Blacks had established themselves economically and culturally to be basically self-suportive then certain whites gathered up and iniated pogroms, mass theft and looting, lynchings and etc. Not to mention being forced away from available jobs. This ultimately led many Black community to assosciate jobs and education with danger and unneccesary drama. The Blacks that disliked and disdained education legitimately were lazy asses started sounding like they had something to say. The Blacks that wanted a piece of the American dream and busted there ass for it kept getting screwed over. For multiple generations. This made selection slightly more favored towards the lazy and criminal. Not by much, mind you, but it happened. Then the riots associated with MLK jr's death happened. Then many Black men and women simply began toblose faith.


But it started with the pogroms. General racial oppresion for the shit of it went on in the South and Blacks generally had little chance to begin with. But out west and in the north, many times that Black communities would form in ways similar to other Ethno-towns pogroms would happen and other riotous nonsense would occur. The Black families that had it in them to leave and make the best of what opportunity presented itself were near-permanently disappointed and fucked over. So the ones who thought education was the key along with hard work got screwed over and the ones who lazied about and kept out of sight passed on both their genes and more harmfully, their attitude and beleifs.


This is starting to be halted and possibly reversed. But not from anything good. Its because of the sheer massive rate of incarceration of Black men. Whether they commit more crimes or simply get caught more often is irrelevant, most Black men in America WILL see Jail time and likely prison time. So while some of them may have kids, there attitudes are being restricted from passing on. Now while prison was for a time glorified in all poor communities, it is slowly starting to reverse.

Put simply, the Bell Curve was true. But it can be reversed. MultiGenerational Poverty and lack of Education andworse, lauding of the same, is the cause. It can be reverted.

But the damage done to the Black community by both dickhead racist, and more recently/tragically, themselves, will only be repaired by time. Time and perserverance.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Rye »

Regardless of whether racial groups as they are now generally follow trends, on the whole, people will be floating around average across races, hence the term "average". The differences where they exist, will likely have a mixture of factors going into them, not least the population control apparatus that systematically discriminates against people from the poorer classes, disfavoured races, etc.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Elfdart »

Broomstick wrote:
mr friendly guy wrote:The problem with using race in medicine, is that is not applied in the same way racists apply it in their arguments that race has biological meaning. For example Sickle cell anaemia is more common in Blacks (so we may suspect it in Blacks), but blacks who don't carry the genes are still Blacks. Just like my athlete example, Blacks that can't sprint fast are still Blacks.

We know sickle cell is more common in Blacks, but we don't define Blacks by having sickle cell. We know some blacks don't respond so well to cardiac drugs because of a different gene vs say most white people, but a lot of blacks do not have this variant, and they have the same gene as a white person. Or to put it another way, in the second case, its not so much that races have different genes, its that the genes occur in different frequency. As such I don't see why this should be looked at as a variation between races, as opposed to variation between individuals.
The flip side of this is that we also don't define "white" as "lacking the sickle-cell gene". While it's much more common in black people when medicine has found white and Asia people with sickle cell their racial status doesn't change because they're a "white" person with a "black" disease. At base, the medical types don't care if the white or Asia person has sickle-cell due to an unknown African ancestor or an independent mutation, they're just interested in diagnosing/treating the disease. Rinse and repeat for every "racial" genetic disease whether it's Tay-Sachs, cystic fibrosis, or something else.

For racists, though, having a trait (good or bad) from the "wrong" group is a disaster, not a statistical oddity.
This reminds me of the sickle cell screenings back in elementary school when I found out that it wasn't just blacks who were at risk for the disease. All the black kids, plus one Lebanese kid and two Sicilians got to skip our godawful music class to get tested. I tried to sneak out with them but the assistant principal sent me back to class -and another note home to my parents.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Vashon »

Rye wrote:Regardless of whether racial groups as they are now generally follow trends, on the whole, people will be floating around average across races, hence the term "average". The differences where they exist, will likely have a mixture of factors going into them, not least the population control apparatus that systematically discriminates against people from the poorer classes, disfavoured races, etc.
The way this post is written keeps setting off my latent ADHD.


What I think your saying is that when the national govt and media both are run by a majority ethnic group and this ethnic group is either wealthy all out of proportion or simply holds a majority of the wealth that they favor viewpoints and policies which favor and enrich their ethnic group and usually they also favor their economic class. This is either by ignoring the minorities or explicitly at there expense, especially if the minorities fail to assimilate in amanner deemed acceptable to those in power. It is irrelevant whose fault the failure is.


This is both natural and expected. Its as much a part of civilization as a lingua franca to communicate and trade. Said lingua franca favors those who can successfully export it, normally by means of dominating either by method of trade or be method of military superiority. Usually both in concurrency. This typically results in languages that are insufficiently established being wiped out over generations and pcenturies, atlhough being wiped out in decades or even less isnt unheard of. Sometimes the languages are simply rendered utterly irrelevant, with total extinction being either delayed or just barely averted.


This will continue until nation states simply arent a relevant thing to even bother about. As in, passports and even citizenship.


Is this what you were referring to?
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by madd0ct0r »

only the first paragraph i think - monopolization of the sources of wealth by the ethnic majority within a country.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Vashon »

Its inevitable and expected. Its not exclusive to any particular nationgroup and for the first few millenia, ethno-domination and subjugation/exploitation of minorities was how empires were built and civilization constructed. It was a form of unification and a neccesary step for civilization to develop.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by madd0ct0r »

and massive infant mortality was an inevitable and expected predessor of decent birth control.

however, in a modern society, it neither inevitable or necessary. same with racism. As a society should we not grow beyond the primitive colonisation mode?
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Vashon »

madd0ct0r wrote:and massive infant mortality was an inevitable and expected predessor of decent birth control.

however, in a modern society, it neither inevitable or necessary. same with racism. As a society should we not grow beyond the primitive colonisation mode?
We should try. First step is making race be irrelevant to getting hired amd getting higher education. Which means getting rid of both positive and negative racism. With this step, let people believe and think how they want at home, that can wait.


Now, as of right now, it does humanity little good if the West goes this route while the East utterly refuses to. So...humanity as a whole for now is staying ethno/racial centric with religion/ideology being pretty sprinkles. Cyanide sprinkles but pretty none the less.

Time. Put your hope in time. Once cultural assimilation becomes the norm for racial minorities, then slowly but surely race will barely matter. Then a freer form of cultural fusion begins. Then eventually culture will jave been so naturally blended across the globe then the rest of the walls come down. Will this all happen in our generation? Nope. Our lifetime? Some of it. Just remember, its our grandkids that will finish the job, but we need to get the tools ready for our children to begin using.


Or WWIII hits within the next 150 years and shitloads of us die.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by KhorneFlakes »

What the fuck is positive racism? What the hell are you trying to say?

EDIT: Goddamnit, sorry. I thought you were one of those wierdos who use the term "positive racism" in some bizzare fashion removed from the original term. I ran into some of them a few days ago. :banghead:
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by madd0ct0r »

Vashon wrote: We should try. First step is making race be irrelevant to getting hired amd getting higher education. Which means getting rid of both positive and negative racism. With this step, let people believe and think how they want at home, that can wait.


Now, as of right now, it does humanity little good if the West goes this route while the East utterly refuses to.
whut? you are saying there is no benefit to America if it stops picking on black americans but china dosen't?

We're not talking about some mystic epic of clash of civilizations here. Just the every day 'never really thought about it / stands to reason' dross I come across on a frequent basis.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Vashon »

madd0ct0r wrote:
Vashon wrote: We should try. First step is making race be irrelevant to getting hired amd getting higher education. Which means getting rid of both positive and negative racism. With this step, let people believe and think how they want at home, that can wait.


Now, as of right now, it does humanity little good if the West goes this route while the East utterly refuses to.
whut? you are saying there is no benefit to America if it stops picking on black americans but china dosen't?

We're not talking about some mystic epic of clash of civilizations here. Just the every day 'never really thought about it / stands to reason' dross I come across on a frequent basis.
It does no good for Humanity as a whole in the long run.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Simon_Jester »

Suppose, every month, someone hit you over the head with a club for no reason.

Would it do good for Humanity as a whole in the long run if they stopped doing that? Because by your argument, we can't make street crime go away, muggings will always be with us, therefore it doesn't actually matter if you personally stop getting mugged.

Bullshit. Of course it matters if you personally stop getting mugged.

Think for a minute what happens if we laugh off every individual case of a problem because we can't make the whole problem go away, it's part of History or Reality or whatever randomly capitalized word we pretentious idiots want to use.

The problem happens more often. To make a thing go away, you have to do something about it when it happens. If you never do anything, it never goes away. If you always do something, maybe it does go away.
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by madd0ct0r »

Vashon wrote:
madd0ct0r wrote:
whut? you are saying there is no benefit to America if it stops picking on black americans but china dosen't?
It does no good for Humanity as a whole in the long run.
really. can you explain this statement?
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Stark
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by Stark »

Sorry he's obviously racist. Get rid of positive and negative racism, lol.

The glib answer is that being less racist than America isnt very hard, it just takes time and inclination. Attitudes toward race can be changed by education in a few decades.
amigocabal
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by amigocabal »

madd0ct0r wrote:I come across openly racist* people quite frequently.

Given you've got a guy who's convinced black people are stupid, dangerous and is arguing crime stats and 'the Bellcurve' ect ect, how would you approach the debate?
Ask him why Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford University, and he is not. If he does not scream (n-word), you are making progress.
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EgalitarianJay
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by EgalitarianJay »

I recently received a private message from someone on Youtube who requested that I respond to a video made by another Youtuber named NoGodsOrKings.

I decided to challenge NoGodsOrKings to a debate on a message board to discuss the content of his video. NoGodsOrKings made a video that was over 30 minutes long in response to another Youtuber named SkepticalHeretic who has made videos about the subject of Race & IQ. In his video NoGodsOrKings defends the racial hereditarian position and speaks at length about the scientific support for the Black-White IQ gap in America being partially genetic in cause. NoGodsOrKings heavily cited Rushton, Jensen and other racial hereditarians. I think that this is a good video to discuss in this thread. Earlier in this thread I made the argument that Rushton's theory of a genetic basis for mental differences between races is pseudoscience and has been refuted by experts on evolutionary genetics such as Joseph Graves. Rushton and Jensen both died recently. NoGodsOrKings video is proof that their theories are not going to die with them. Their research is now a permanent part of the discourse on theories of racial differences in intelligence.

Here is NoGodsOrKings video:



NoGodsOrKings argument is that we can estimate the heritability of the Black-White IQ gap by controlling for environmental variables that have been cited as factors effecting the mean difference in IQ between Blacks and Whites. Based on the research of scholars such as Rushton NoGodsOrKings argues that there is substantial evidence that the Black-White IQ gap has a partial genetic basis. Heritability is discussed in both of the videos I posted earlier in the thread that feature Rushton in debates with experts on evolutionary genetics such as David Suzuki and Joseph Graves. Both Suzuki and Graves explained to Rushton that phenotypic variability between different genotypes is only comparable if those genotypes are reared in the same environment. Two genetically identical organisms can exhibit vastly different phenotypic expression if they are reared in different environments. Just because two populations differ in genotype doesn't mean that they don't have the same genetic potential. It doesn't matter how many variables Rushton et al. claim to have eliminated with their correlation data. You can not infer genetic causality for differences in phenotype when the environment between two genotypes is not the same.

As it is my sources at the end of the Rushton Refuted video show that Rushton's research on IQ studies is biased. He ignores and omits numerous studies that do not support a genetic hypothesis for the cause of the Black-White IQ gap. He displayed a profound lack of understanding evolutionary genetics with his attempts to identify a mechanism that could explain how and why races came to differ genetically in their mental characteristics. Many scholars have dismissed his work as racist and unscientific.

I recommend watching the following video for a brief overview of the difference between within and between group heritability (starting at 47:00):



NoGodsOrKings agreed to enter this discussion after I have made my points on his video. My central point is that the correlation data he cites can not reliably test the hereditarian hypothesis because the environment between groups can not be equalized. Not only are there differences in the standard of living between demographic groups such as White and Black Americans there are even differences in life experience that can effect test takers psychologically. The only means in which you could provide direct and credible evidence that there is a genetic basis to the Black-White IQ gap is to either identify all of the genes that effect IQ and show that there is an uneven distribution of those genes between the populations in question or show that there is a mechanism that can explain how those populations came to be differentiated genetically in mental characteristics in the first place.

My question for NoGodsOrKings is, what critical experiments are you aware of that hereditarians have conducted which show that their theory is valid?
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mr friendly guy
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Re: Reaching out to racists

Post by mr friendly guy »

You might want to propose to the mods a colleseum match. We haven't had one for ages. Invite NoGodsOrKings to debate on the colleseum. He should make the opening post.
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