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Post 240

Monday, July 2, 2012 - 10:14amSanction this postReply
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Brad wrote,
Low-IQ Islamic fundamentalists with high birth rates are spreading genes that help perpetuate the ideology. Even though the ideology itself is 100% cultural, the susceptibility to religious-type thinking is partly genetic and is greater among Muslim populations than among higher-IQ, less religious inhabitants of Western countries (who presently have much lower fertility rates).
He cited the following study:

http://www18.homepage.villanova.edu/diego.fernandezduque/Teaching/PhysiologicalPsychology/zCurrDir4200/CurrDirGeneticsTraits.pdf

Brad, you say that ideology itself is 100% cultural but susceptibility to religious-type thinking is partly genetic. What do you mean by "religious-type" thinking? Are you again using the term "religious" metaphorically to refer simply to a tendency toward dogmatism? because the authors of the study you cite do not appear to be using it that way, but rather in its normally understood sense. Accordingly, they claim that religiousness is partly heritable. This doesn't make sense to me. Since belief in a religion is not inherited, I don't understand how religiousness could be.

The authors also refer to "right-wing authoritarianism." What about left-wing authoritarianism? No mention of that. This suggests to me a certain intellectual bias. Just how well recognized and accepted are the conclusions of this study? Have they been widely duplicated, and what kind of consensus do they enjoy among social scientists?



Post 241

Monday, July 2, 2012 - 2:42pmSanction this postReply
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Bill,

Might I suggest that "religious type thinking" is not thinking at all, instead, it is letting others think for you / telling you what to think -- instead of figuring out things yourself. Figuring things out yourself requires intellectual power/ intelligence and motivation to actually do it.

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Post 242

Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - 12:43amSanction this postReply
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I refer Ed, William, and interested others to the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart.  At the very least, the summary is worth reading:

http://web.missouri.edu/~segerti/1000H/Bouchard.pdf 

It finds IQ to be about 70% heritable and a wide range of personality traits including religiosity to be significantly heritable to varying degrees.  (More recent twin studies put IQ heritability at 75%-85%).

William writes:
 If you say, in accordance with the study you cited, that your political orientation or your disposition to think objectively (or non-objectively) is solely dependent on your genes
I don't say that.  Nor do the studies. 


Since belief in a religion is not inherited, I don't understand how religiousness could be.
The fact that many humans are religious means that religion is tapping into something innate, something that humans have that frogs, for example, don't, since there are no religious frogs.  So judged as an entire species, human susceptibility to religion is 100% genetic.  If that susceptibility were perfectly equal among all humans, then individual susceptibility to religion would be 0% genetic.  We aren't all equal.  Some people are born more likely to choose to become religious, given the same upbringining, than others.  Religiosity is about 40% heritable.  That's no minor obstacle to overcome if you're an advocate of reason.  

I remind you that choice isn't transcendent; it emanates from one's biologically given nature in interaction with one's environment.

(Edited by Brad Trun on 7/03, 12:47am)


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Post 243

Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - 8:54amSanction this postReply
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Brad,

Question: Is your purpose and premise for your argument and posting all of your studies with their data to convince all who read it that immigration to the United States should be limited to individuals with high IQ's? And this can be accomplished most easily by discriminating against ethnic profiles that have not historically demonstrated a large percentage of members with high IQ's? Apparently Muslims qualify for discrimination because their "religiosity" qualifies as a sort of "reverse" IQ test.

Is it truly impossible for you to see how contrived your argument seems and how convenient it would be for a determined bigot to use these arguments?

I don't believe the data supports your conclusions. I don't believe IQ scores and intelligence are perfectly correlated. I think none of your arguments support discrimination against a particular individual of whatever race. I don't think IQ test scores can be controlled for cultural influences. Our ability to hold some concepts in our minds may be dependent on ideas we were exposed to at an early age. In addition, other traits than intelligence, like honesty and integrity and work ethic are equally important in judging the value of a person to a society. My uncle, who raised me, had these qualities in abundance but never went beyond the eighth grade and I'm sure never took an IQ test in his life. Two things he said often "It's a free country", and "It's takes all kinds to make a world". The first one may no longer be true but I believe the second most certainly is.

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Post 244

Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - 10:40amSanction this postReply
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Trun writes:
The fact that many humans are religious means that religion is tapping into something innate, something that humans have that frogs, for example, don't, since there are no religious frogs. So judged as an entire species, human susceptibility to religion is 100% genetic. If that susceptibility were perfectly equal among all humans, then individual susceptibility to religion would be 0% genetic. We aren't all equal. Some people are born more likely to choose to become religious, given the same upbringining, than others. Religiosity is about 40% heritable.
Notice that that kind of fallacious logic can be applied to ANY kind of reasoning, as long as frogs can't do it, and the particulars vary (as opposed to everyone holding the same particulars). It is a complete nullification of choice and reasoning. It make the genes the source of all ideas (as long as there is variety and the kind of ideas aren't held by frogs). Trun goes on to write:
I remind you that choice isn't transcendent; it emanates from one's biologically given nature in interaction with one's environment.
My brain, as a flesh and blood organ, is a product of my genes as expressed by both embrology and physical development (in concert with environmental effects). But the exercise of choice - that is, the individual choices made - were not encoded in my genes, waiting for the right moment to come popping out as environmentally triggered. No one here has claimed that choice (or any other human trait) is able to operate without a human being or the human being's required physical compents. I don't think that Trun will ever grasp these distinctions. He is on a mission.

Post 245

Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - 5:06pmSanction this postReply
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Question: Is your purpose and premise for your argument and posting all of your studies with their data to convince all who read it that immigration to the United States should be limited to individuals with high IQ's? And this can be accomplished most easily by discriminating against ethnic profiles that have not historically demonstrated a large percentage of members with high IQ's? Apparently Muslims qualify for discrimination because their "religiosity" qualifies as a sort of "reverse" IQ test.

Mike, I was under the impression from an earlier post that you had judged my motivations to be bad based on your interpretation of a couple comments I made and weren't going to communicate with me.  But you demonstrate a lack of comprehension of what I've stated explicitly are my positions. 

The government of a country whose inhabitants wish to be free from terrorism, Sharia zones, and religiously motivated aggression against and subjugation of women should indeed discriminate against Muslims in its immigration policy -- because political Islam is a national security threat, not because of IQ per se.  You can reject everything I've said about racial IQ heritability and still believe, as Peikoff does and Ayn Rand almost surely would, that Western countries ought to defend their borders from the threat of Islamification. 

Religiosity per se is not a threat.  A benevolent religion might have taken hold in the Arab world, but it didn't.  So we have to deal with the reality that political Islam is a maleveolent, conquest-oriented cultural creation that is spreading demographically. 

As for the problem of non-Muslim, low-IQ immigration, you could get people who are more likely to be productive and less likely to engage in crime by requring some test of basic mental ability and civic knowledge and demonstrated job skills or educational commitments.  You could still have a temporary guest worker program for people who can't meet the threshold for permanent residency or citizenship. 

Race is important insofar as you want the children of immigrants to also have high IQs.  Blacks with high IQs have children who tend to revert toward the black mean because children inherit a parent's genotype, not the parent's particular genome.  

And as I've said, IQ isn't the sole reason for using race as a criterion for immigration.  I've suggested that Japan could rationally seek to limit the number of Swedish immigrants it takes in just as the Swedish could rationally seek to limit the number of Japanese they take in, even though both populations are high-IQ and culturally benevolent.  There are still cultural and aesthetic differences that both populations could want to mutually seek to prevent from being mixed out of existence.  US immigration policy under which Ayn Rand became American was designed to preserve the existing racial balance and virtually barred all Asian immigration for aesthetic reasons. 

I don't prescribe such a policy for all countries, but I hold that immigration criteria, even if based on entirely arbitrary distinctions such as astrological sign, don't constitute rights violations under a proper, negative conception of rights.  I demonstrated this to William by showing that any private land area that restricts movements into it could be an inspient nation that does the same exact thing in the same exact area, meaning nobody's freedom status outside it changes.  Ted Turner owns more land than the land area of many soverign nations.  Turner's land or the same geographical area that becomes "Turnerlandia" the nation do not violate rights by refusing entry for any reason to anyone living outside the area.  

Genetic Similarity Theory suggests that race isn't arbitrary.  Genetic Similarity Theory is supported by implicit association tests tell us that aesthetic preferences for people of one's race are largely innate and can be observed in infants as young as 6 months.  A biologically objective attraction toward racial phenotypes resembling one's own is "is hardwired into the brain and operates unconsciously because areas that detect ethnicity and control emotion are closely connected, according to scientists" (http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20120626/10458/racism-decision-cognition-emotional--ethnicity-human-brain-psychology.htm). 

This dovetails with research by Putnam showing that racial diversity is corrosive to communities and reduces basic measures of happiness such as level of trust in others:

diversity generates withdrawal and isolation. The thousands of people surveyed were not intolerant, bigoted or even hostile; they were merely miserable. This is mass depression, the kind associated with loss, quiet resignation, and hopelessness...

Like many social scientists living in symbiosis with statists, Putnam doesn't confine himself to observations; he offers recommendations. Having aligned himself with central planners intent on sustaining such social engineering, Putnam concludes the gloomy facts with a stern pep talk. Take the lumps of diversity without complaining! Mass immigration and the attendant diversity are, overall, good for the collective. (Didn't he just spend five years demonstrating the opposite?)
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/putnam-59065-diversity-social.html


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Post 246

Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - 6:39pmSanction this postReply
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Diversity and Multiculturalism: The Destructive Consequences of Egalitarian Race Denial

Not my videos:

5 Reasons Why Diversity Is Bad For Societies (in under 5 minutes)
http://youtu.be/OS_U5-enDrg

Question Diversity
http://youtu.be/8P1leFIavw4 

Does Diversity Cause Conflict?
http://youtu.be/i-V0eUKBGFA

Diversity is a Weakness
http://youtu.be/kH1aJ-t4plk

My video:

The Demographic Decline of the United States and the Western World
http://youtu.be/St3G_DbV7Mc

(Edited by Brad Trun on 7/03, 7:03pm)


Post 247

Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - 10:39amSanction this postReply
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In post 239, I wrote:
If the same person takes an IQ test multiple times, the scores are 90% similar (0.90 correlation). And concerning the two kinds of twins I mentioned before -- identical (MZ) and non-identical or fraternal (DZ) -- the correlation between identical twins is 0.86 and between non-identical twins it is 0.60. That means that between these two kinds of twins, there is a difference of 0.26. This brings to mind 5 questions:
1)
What would the difference in correlations be if IQ was 0% genetic?

2)
What would the difference in correlations be if IQ was 25% genetic?

3)
What would the difference in correlations be if IQ was 50% genetic?

4)
What would the difference in correlations be if IQ was 75% genetic?

5)
What would the difference in correlations be if IQ was 100% genetic?
Ed

p.s. I will provide answers to these 5 questions in 72 hours if you have failed to respond by then.
It's been over 48 hours, and I cannot wait any longer (I can't stand the anticipation) -- so I have to answer.

In the case of the same person taking the same test twice, or multiple times -- and having their scores correlate at 0.90 -- the 10% (0.10) variation in their scores is due to the environment. Maybe they got good sleep one day, and not the other. Maybe they had coffee one morning, and not the other. The point is that environmental factors explain why even the same person does not perform exactly the same on the same test, taken multiple times.

There are 4 components of someone's outcome (of their performance) on an IQ test:

A) additive genetic factors
B) non-additive genetic factors
C) shared environmental factors
D) non-shared environmental factors

Note: It will be assumed that each of the genetic factors (A and B) have equal weight, and that each of the environmental factors (C and D) have equal weight. Additionally, it will be assumed -- as is the case with homozygous recessive dynamics -- that non-addtitive genetic factors lead to only one fourth the outcome correspondence when applied to DZ twins, as compared to the outcome correspondence applied to MZ twins. This leads to the following equation for difference in correlations between MZ and DZ twins:

(A + B) - (A/2 + B/4) = difference in correlations

Having that, now we can answer the 5 questions:

1) If IQ was 0% genetic ...

... then it'd 100% environmental -- and there would be no difference in the correlation of IQ scores between MZ twins contrasted against the correlation of IQ scores between DZ twins. This is because the genetic differences between these 2 sets of twins would cease to matter. It'd be just like taking two sets of random people and comparing them.

The difference in correlations would be: 0.00


2) If IQ was 25% genetic ...

... then it'd be 12.5% additive genetic factors (A) and 12.5% non-additive genetic factors (B). Plugging in the numbers, we get:

(12.5 + 12.5) - (6.25 + 3.125) = (25) - (9.375) = 15.625% difference (or a difference between correlation coefficients of about 0.16)

The difference in correlations would be: 0.16


3) If IQ was 50% genetic ...

... then it'd be 25% additive genetic factors (A) and 25% non-additive genetic factors (B). Plugging in the numbers, we get:


(25 + 25) - (12.5 + 6.25) = (50) - (18.75) = 31.25% difference (or a difference of correlation coefficients of about 0.31)


The difference in correlations would be: 0.31


4) If IQ was 75% genetic ...

... then it'd be 37.5% additive genetic factors (A) and 37.5% non-additive genetic factors (B). Plugging in the numbers, we get:


(37.5 + 37.5) - (18.75 + 9.375) = (75) - (28.125) = 46.875% difference (or a difference of correlation coefficients of about 0.47)


The difference in correlations would be: 0.47


5) If IQ was 100% genetic ...

... then it'd be 50% additive genetic factors (A) and 50% non-additive genetic factors (B). Plugging in the numbers, we get:

(50 + 50) - (25 + 12.5) = (100) - (37.5) = 62.5% difference (or a difference of correlation coefficients of about 0.63)

The difference in correlations would be: 0.63


Because it is often assumed by professionals and lay people alike that IQ is as much as 75% genetic, here are some concrete, real-world examples of what it is that you would have to find -- for the hypothesis that "IQ is as much as 75% genetic" to be true -- when you empirically look out into the world:

IQ correlations between MZ twins of, say, 0.85; coupled with IQ correlations between DZ twins of 0.38 (for a difference of 0.47)
IQ correlations between MZ twins of, say, 0.86; coupled with IQ correlations between DZ twins of 0.39 (for a difference of 0.47)
IQ correlations between MZ twins of, say, 0.87; coupled with IQ correlations between DZ twins of 0.40 (for a difference of 0.47)

If you don't find these things when you look out into the world -- e.g., if, say, IQ correlations between DZ twins are never as low as 0.40 -- then IQ cannot be as much as 75% genetic.

Ed



Post 248

Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - 11:12amSanction this postReply
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Addendum:
In the above, environment was not considered to be one of the factors which leads to a difference in IQ correlations between MZ twins and DZ twins, because that would have involved an illogical assumption: that there really is a big difference in the environments of MZ twins, when compared to DZ twins. While this may be true of some superstar MZ twins -- such as "Kate and Ashley" (who really do live in a much different environment than do common twins) -- it cannot be considered to be true for MZ or DZ twins when taken as a whole.

This does not mean that there aren't some really-existing environmental differences that matter, only that they don't matter when washed out by a statistically large number of subjects. One thing that you cannot "wash-out" no matter how large the number of subjects investigated, is genetics. The genetic relationship between MZ and DZ twins holds no matter how many subjects you investigate.

In other words, the equations above hold true as long as you are talking only about all kinds of twins raised together, or about all kinds of twins raised apart, or about all twins combined. As long as you compare IQ correlations between only twins raised together, or correlations between only twins raised apart, or all twins combined, then the equation:

(A + B) - (A/2 + B/4) = difference in IQ correlation

... is robust.

The only way around this equation is through deception -- by purposefully looking at one set of twins only raised together, and then purposefully looking at the other set of twins only raised apart. If you do that, if you compare apples to oranges (instead of apples to apples, oranges to oranges, or all fruit combined), then you can make it appear that the equation doesn't hold.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 7/04, 11:20am)


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Post 249

Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - 12:47pmSanction this postReply
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But I don't want them to immigrate en masse to European or Asian countries, either.

What possible import is it to anybody except yourself what you want in that matter if that is what they want? It seems that either they don't realize that you are the Emperor of Immigration, or you don't realize that you're not.

Which is more reasonable?



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Post 250

Wednesday, July 4, 2012 - 2:16pmSanction this postReply
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In Post 245, Brad wrote,
I hold that immigration criteria, even if based on entirely arbitrary distinctions such as astrological sign, don't constitute rights violations under a proper, negative conception of rights. I demonstrated this to William by showing that any private land area that restricts movements into it could be an inspient nation that does the same exact thing in the same exact area, meaning nobody's freedom status outside it changes. Ted Turner owns more land than the land area of many soverign nations. Turner's land or the same geographical area that becomes "Turnerlandia" the nation do not violate rights by refusing entry for any reason to anyone living outside the area.
There is a crucial difference between a proprietary community like Turnerlandia and a country like the United States. The first is private property; the second is not. The government does not own the entire land area of the U.S. in the same way that Ted Turner owns Turnerlandia. If an outsider wants to enter Turnerlandia, he must gain the permission of its owner, but there is no owner of the United States; there are only individual property owners living within its borders. So if a foreigner wants to interact with a U.S. citizen by, for example, doing business with him or going to work for him, the government has no right to interfere with that consensual relationship. If it were to interfere with it, it would be violating both parties right to freedom of association.


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Post 251

Thursday, July 5, 2012 - 3:11pmSanction this postReply
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Craving for food is innate to all peoples, but impulse control heritable is on a continuum.  People with lower IQs tend to be more perceptual, more influenced by advertising, more susceptible to acting on and indulging in base desires.

From FAST FOOD TARGETED MARKETING (http://fastfoodmarketing.org/media/FastFoodFACTS_TargetedMarketing.pdf):

"African American youth order more items and are more likely
to purchase larger-sized, less healthy options, as compared
to white youth....African American youth order as much
as 10% more calories compared to white youth."

A greater tendency toward impulsive indulgence in food cravings is correlated with higher rates of obesity. "Blacks have a 51 percent greater prevalence of obesity than whites, and Hispanics have 21 percent greater obesity prevalence than whites, according to researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention" (http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fitness/diet/articles/2009/07/16/blacks-have-highest-obesity-rates-in-us).

IQs are not derived primarily from socioeconomic status or family background.  "Black children born to well-educated, affluent, parents have test scores 2 to 4 points lower than do White children born to poorly-educated, impoverished parents" (http://inductivist.blogspot.com/2009/05/race-differences-in-iq-for-those-of-you.html).


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Post 252

Thursday, July 5, 2012 - 7:51pmSanction this postReply
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Brad,
You have described a problem, ascribed convoluted root cause and suggested a complicated solution. Your solution is a social engineer's and bureaucrat's dream and is unnecessary. You appear to come very close to preaching the eugenics practices recommended by "progressives" in the early part of the last century.

People who uproot themselves from their homeland to go live in another country are already a self selecting group who already possess the traits you are looking for. Ending the welfare state and reaffirming the US as the land of opportunity and not the land of the handouts is what's necessary to attract the best people of whatever race or ethnicity.

Wikipedia:

"Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to the manipulation of human populations."

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Post 253

Thursday, July 5, 2012 - 9:04pmSanction this postReply
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Brad,

You're going to flip a lid when you hear this, but you've been barking up the wrong tree. The "problem" isn't the blacks, it's the Asians.

You see, I've been reading this book, Intelligence and How to Get It, and Nisbett pretty much demolishes the genetic inference for the black-white gap: (a) blacks come in many genetic varieties from 'totally African' to 'largely European' -- which is the most direct genetic evidence that there is on the matter -- and there is no correlation between black IQ scores and the extent of African v. European genes, (b) the black-white gap has dropped from 15 points to 9.5 points in the last 30 years, and (c) black IQ scores today are higher than white IQ scores from 1950, which is pretty much impossible if black genes for IQ are inferior (unless you argue that blacks today live in an environment more conducive to IQ than whites of 1950 did, which is really going out on a limb).

But he does make racial discriminations, even if he ascribes ultimate causation to differing environments. Get a load of what he has to say about the Asians (p 166-8):

... Asians are just as good as Americans at judging the validity of syllogisms that are stated in abstract terms--all As are X, some Bs are Y, and so on--but are likely to be led astray when dealing with familiar content. Asians are inclined to judge conclusions that follow from their premises to be invalid if they are implausible (e.g., All mammals hibernate/rabbits do not hibernate/rabbits are not mammals). And Asians are likely to judge as valid conclusions that are in fact invalid but which are plausible.

... Americans will sometimes judge a given plausible proposition to be more likely to be true if it is contradicted by a less plausible proposition than if it is not contradicted. The Americans assume that if there is an apparent contradiction between two propositions, the more plausible one must be true and the less plausible one must be false. Asians make the opposite error of judging a relatively implausible proposition to be more likely to be true if it is contradicted by a more plausible proposition than if it is not contradicted--because they are motivated to find truth in both of two opposing propositions.

These perceptual and cognitive differences rest on brain activity that differs between Easterners and Westerners. ...

How do we know that these differences in perception and thought are social in origin and not genetic? ... Hong Kong is known to be a bicultural society, with Chinese customs mingling with English ones. We found residents of Hong Kong to reason in a fashion intermediate between how Chinese and European Americans reason. And when Hong Kong residents were asked to make causal attributions about the behavior of fish, they reasoned like Chinese after being shown pictures of temples and dragons and like Westerners after being shown pictures of Mickey Mouse and the U.S. Capitol!
So, you see, it's not the blacks that we have to worry about, it's the Asians -- with their damn temples and dragons and whatnot. And apparently, our "final solution" (to borrow a phrase from a little-known group of like-minded people) is to blast them with cheeseburgers and Mickey Mouse, and in the process -- and unbeknownst to the unsuspecting Asians -- thoroughly 'Americanize' them!

Wuhaha ... Wuh, hah, hah, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

:-)

Get on board, Brad. Drop what you are doing, and join the infinitely-more-righteous crusade against those temple-building dragon-riders (the ones who see invalidity in valid syllogisms, and validity in invalid ones). Who is more of a threat to your well-being? A group of people centered around a mean of IQ that is modest, or a group of people whose IQs tend to be higher than people like you -- high enough to make advanced nuclear weapons -- and who (according to Nisbett) who willingly accept contradictions -- such as the double-proposition: "Peace is good, but so is the 'opposing proposition' of thermonuclear war"? 

Ed
[posing like Dr. Evil]


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Post 254

Thursday, July 5, 2012 - 11:08pmSanction this postReply
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Ed,

Nisbett's book was examined carefully and discredited thoroughly in "Race and IQ: A Theory-Based Review of the Research in Richard Nisbett’s Intelligence and How to Get It":

http://defiant.ssc.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2010%20Review%20of%20Nisbett.pdf

Epic academic pwnage, I'd say.


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Post 255

Friday, July 6, 2012 - 1:18pmSanction this postReply
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You have described a problem, ascribed convoluted root cause and suggested a complicated solution.
Mike, I've also been told that ascribing racial differences to race is overly simplistic.  Go figure.


Your solution is a social engineer's and bureaucrat's dream and is unnecessary. You appear to come very close to preaching the eugenics practices recommended by "progressives" in the early part of the last century.
No, there's a categorical distinction between forced sterilization and voluntary eugenics to counteract dysgenic fertility and immigration patterns that are lowering innate IQs throughout the Western world.  You should be more concerned about the wars being needlessly waged, the thefts, rapes, and murders being committed by low-IQ populations, and the trillions of dollars being promised to the 65+ caste as "entitlements" from the productive economy, than the idea of incentivizing smart people to immigrate and have children and dumb people not to immigrate or have children (as William Shockley proposed).  Such incentives reduce the need for police, courts, jails and boost the economy over time.  They are among the only long-term investments in freedom and prosperity that are sure to pay off with the benefits compounding over time.


People who uproot themselves from their homeland to go live in another country are already a self selecting group who already possess the traits you are looking for. Ending the welfare state and reaffirming the US as the land of opportunity and not the land of the handouts is what's necessary to attract the best people of whatever race or ethnicity.
No, you're spouting a bunch of pre-packaged egalitarian idealism -- as if I hadn't laid out any arguments or any evidence for racial inheritance being predictive of IQ, crime, and a host of other socially significant traits by reference to underlying, objective, heritable physiological traits. 


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Post 256

Saturday, July 7, 2012 - 2:57pmSanction this postReply
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"No, you're spouting a bunch of pre-packaged egalitarian idealism -- as if I hadn't laid out any arguments or any evidence for racial inheritance being predictive of IQ, crime, and a host of other socially significant traits by reference to underlying, objective, heritable physiological traits."

My ideas are formed from having worked with people from all over the world for nearly fifty years.  I live and work in the SF bay area in high tech.  Early on I did restaurant work, (bused tables, washed dishes, kitchen work preparing food), hauled junk, did construction, landscaping and tree work.  I spent four years in the Navy, attending several Navy schools and learned the basics of electronics circuits and systems.  After the Navy I worked for many electronics manufacturing companies in the SF bay area, first as a technician, later as a design engineer.  I have worked for start-ups where nearly half of the employees were working on H-1B visas.  On average the non-American workers, whether laborers, craftsmen, technical workers, engineers or scientists, were more productive and harder workers than the born in America workers.  And from the few times that I actually knew what they were being paid, they were paid less.  They all tried very hard and mostly succeeded in getting permanent resident status in the US.  They stayed and raised their families here.  As far as statistical evidence I recommend Thomas Sowell's books, in particular "Migrations And Cultures: A World View".
 
I am unpersuaded by your arguments.  Correlation does not equal causation.  Ideas matter, culture instills basic ideas and habits, not IQ.


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Post 257

Saturday, July 7, 2012 - 3:32pmSanction this postReply
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Brad,

Piggybacking on Mike's last post, if you go to the link you provided in post 254, and if you look at the bottom of the 2nd page of the document, then you will see a color-coded graph of the world with shades of orange corresponding to national IQ scores. The disturbing thing is when you focus only on those places with a national IQ of 100 or above. What you find is that those places -- Russia, China -- are or were "havens" for the immense death, destruction, poverty, and back-breaking toil of communism. In other words, if you only focus on raising a nation's IQ score, then you have done nothing to prevent terrible circumstances for yourself and fellow citizens (and you may have done something to promote such terrible circumstances).

As Mike says, correlation isn't causation, so we can't say that high national IQ scores lead to the poverty and despair of communism -- but what we can say is that high national IQ scores do not work to prevent a nation from succumbing to the tragedy of communism (because empirical evidence doesn't just dissuade, but overtly contradicts, that theory).

If you got what you want, then the U.S. might fall to communism.

Ed


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Post 258

Saturday, July 7, 2012 - 7:17pmSanction this postReply
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what we can say is that high national IQ scores do not work to prevent a nation from succumbing to the tragedy of communism

Right.  We have a natural experiment in the Koreas, which racially are nearly identical and environmentally are very similar.  The difference between North and South Korea comes down to differences in the political systems. 

Both populations have high innate IQs, which gives each the potential to build well-functioning, productive, prosperous, low-crime, property-respecting free-market societies.  Sub-Saharan African nations don't have the same potential.  Maybe they have room to improve, but not to become Hong Kong or Switzerland.  The only systems that have worked to bring about well-functioning, productive, prosperous, low-crime, property-respecting free-market societies in Sub-Saharan Africa on even a limited basis have been externally imposed colonial systems or their legacies (there are still 4 million whites in South Africa, and but for their disproportionate productivity the country would collapse economically).


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Post 259

Saturday, July 7, 2012 - 7:59pmSanction this postReply
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Trun claims that blacks don't have the potential to build well-functioning, productive, low-crime, property-respecting free-market societies.

How racist is that! No attempt to rule out culture, beliefs, ideology, education.... No, just ignore all of those as possible causes, it is skin color. Or, just claim that culture, beliefs, ideology and education are also genetically determined - innate ideas. Maybe communism is an innate idea genetically encoded in asians and whites [for any readers who didn't get it - that was sarcasm].

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