Dumb and Dumber Are development experts becoming racists?

[Marshall]

I often find I'm holding several contradictory ideas in head at once---wouldn;t want to be caught without the ability. On the other hand I'm not happy that, in this context, I have no hard facts to go on. I remember reading some 20 or 40 years back that intelligence (how measured? don't know) is some percentage like 47% or 57% *heritable*.

What that means (assuming for the moment that it reflects some reality and is not mere twaddle) could equally well be called "genetic determinism" and "genetic non-determinisim". It means if you are lucky (in your parents, teachers, environment) you can overcome being dealt a mediocre hand of gene cards. And if you aren't you can waste a beautiful hand by playing it wrong. So call that non-determinism. But it also means that genetic endowment in the brains department is a tremendous asset. Especially in a statistical sense. So call that determinism.

I think my dim memory of some substanial percentage of "heritable"-ness was based on twin studies. Could have seen it in the SciAm sometime in the 1970s.

What I get from my meager store of information is that the words "genetic determinism" do not mean anything and are just rhetorical turd that people leave on each other's doorstep, or some other pejorative rhetorical token that belongs to the elaborate rituals of human squabbling and name-calling.

But I could be wrong. The term could have some definite meaning.

On the other hand I have an enormous respect for what genes can give somebody that contributes to their own and others' happiness. How good a person sounds when they sing in church. How high they can jump how well they can dance. Whether they are likely to learn to play the piano well. Whether solving algebra equations comes easy. Whether they love proving geometry theorems. Whether they understand machines and circuit diagrams and poetry.

I have the impression that there is a huge amount of potential good and delight in people that is heritable. And also there are conveniences like having strong bones instead of brittle, and not dying young from some genetic predisposition. And having knees that don't hurt so much when you get old. My immediate family is not being hit so bad, at least for the present, but my friends' families are enduring travail and sorrowful blows these days. Everything from knee-replacements to the death of beloved sons and inlaws in their mere 40s. And huntingtons chorea which can be really tough.

So I take DNA really seriously. I want people to be able to choose and take responsibility for the genetic makeup of their offspring, and not pass it off on "God" or some other excuse. It might take 100 or 200 years before that dream of choice and responsibility is realizable. But I have the hope. Longterm optimism.

You could say I'm a genetic "determinist" because I think DNA is so important (in an overcomeable 47-53 sense) but I would rather say I'm a "voluntarist". I believe in giving people choice and seeing where that goes.

[CanadysPeak]

Marshall,

I don't mean to argue whether genetic determinism is valid or not. I am far too ignorant about genetics to get very far with that. I was saying that an argument which describes an existing condition, and in the same sentence mentions something widely thought to have determined that condition genetically, is an argument based on genetic determinism. It seems such a prima facie point to me. Perhaps it is more subtle than I can see?

[mtbturtle]

I moved this to the Politics Forum.

I was more interested in Kenny's suggestion that those kinds of view are growing within the community. Is there a growing academic consensus on why "some countries are rich and others are poor is tacking closer to the shoals of genetic determinism"? Point towards "deep causes"???

I haven't but more than glanced at some of the papers Kenny's cites (and Marshall posted direct links to earlier - thanks!).

Since there was so much fuss about Derbyshire I swallowed hard and went to review the piece again. While there I came across a recent article of his on Multiculturalism. For anybody seeking to defend Derbyshire, he really didn't mean it, genetic determinism blah blah blah or whatever you'll probably want to check that piece out.

Making it to the end of that article, Derbyshire starts tossing out some science (I suppose) that I don't recall having come across before.

1. Who is the "The Ulster Institute for Social Research. It is a little (142 pages) handbook titled Race and Equality: The Nature of the Debate"?

2. Lewontin Fallacy - he links to this http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 5/abstract

3. Fixation Index - http://www.enotes.com/topic/Fixation_index & Henry Harpending

I haven't taken much time but quickly figured out the Ulster Institute isn't worth wasting any time on when I saw the connection to the Pioneer Fund!

[Marshall]

About Africa, what can one say? First that it is incredibly complicated. Next that our "expert" foreign policies and development aid strategies even when well-intentioned can actually be misguided and do harm. We've seen that happen. Forced privatization in Latin America might be a case. World Bank not always helpful. (I think, but I don't really know.)

When I first entered grad school in the early 60s there were a number of bright Nigerians and I chatted with one or two of them in coffee room and they explained to me that they were IBO (now I see it is called Igbo)
http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/vi ... 6f7baeeb60
They were roundfaced and broad nosed just as it says in the article.
They said the other Nigerian tribes (Hausa, Fulani, and I think Yoruba) did not like them because they got all the civil service jobs and were better traders etc. One of these coffeeroom folks explained that the Hausa and Fulani were more long-faced and tended to be Muslim, and live in the north away from the coast. The Ibo were roundfaced and coastal. (Southeast part of Nigeria.) I think they considered themselves analogous to the Jews. This article mentions "the jews of africa" idea which may be partly myth or stereotype. I remember hearing that phrase. Anyway then eventually there was the independence attempt and people say something like genocide. Biafra (the breakaway Ibo region) was re-absorbed. I think many of these highly educated Ibo disappeared. Made the mistake of returning to Nigeria at the wrong time. Apparently, if you believe the article, there is now some racial or tribal prejudice against the Ibo, who used to be so successful and now may be relatively miserable.

I feel despair when I think about these things. It seems no wisdom is to be had. Intervention even if well-meant may make things worse. Multinationals can be predatory in ways beyond the ken of uninformed people like myself. A bright grad student named Kwaku Akuti whom my parents were fond of returned to Nigeria and was never heard of again. Of course the Biafra war was partly Oil Company business. Organized Greed can get in bed with Tribal politics.

That's why my thoughts always turn towards the situation here at home. Our own situation is buffeted by the destructive force of racial resentment being channeled into crazy anti-government zeal. Look what government did to us. It put dimwit DMV Ladies into HUD and education and post office jobs so we must sabotage government and privatize and crush the dullards who were unfairly affirmed. Sadistic pleasure in imagining people crushed by predatory lending, foreclosures, creditcard debt, student loans. But it is self-destructive of the economy and beneficial state institutions that we all share. In its rage the American middleclass is cutting off its own limbs.
It is hard to think about Africa when we are messing up so badly at home. and in large part because of the channel Derbyshire shows us: of racial resentment flowing into antigovernment fury.

Or am I wrong? Maybe this is not what's going on and we should be talking about strategies for economic development in Africa.

[CanadysPeak]

I can help you with Lewotin. He argued in a paper in the 70s that race was not a valid construct for taxonomy. The right wing howled at this and "refuted" it with studies showing that one could make "racial correlations" of genes.

To me, that seems about as statistically meaningless as finding a correlation between liking extremely violent hockey players and cheese steaks (for those in the hinterland, think Philadelphia). However, I am statistically dumber than a post and can be dissuaded from my belief.

Even should there be such a race as "Black" (only an idiot supposes that cross-tribal marriages were so common as to have a single race), there would remain the real question as to whether that determines the generally lackluster performance of African economies. If that case should be presented, I would invite the person doing that to visit southeastern Kentucky and explain what race lives there that the economy never develops. Many of the same conditions are found there as are found in Africa, save most of the people are clearly of Scot-Irish descent.

[CanadysPeak]

The term has been used three times in this thread so far. What the hell is a "DMV lady"? Is that a euphonism for "uppity Black"? I've been active against racism for half a century now and have no clue what a DMV lady is.

[Marshall]

The term has been used three times in this thread so far. What the hell is a "DMV lady"? Is that a euphonism for "uppity Black"? I've been active against racism for half a century now and have no clue what a DMV lady is.

I googled hard to find out and got nothing I could make sense of.
I think it is a freefloating stereotype that is defined by how it is used. Derbyshire uses it to represent incompetent inefficient service at a government agency by someone presumably hired because of affirmative action policy.
He says (to the child he imagines instructing) that if you go to a public agency and there are two clerical workers you will get better cooperation from the non-black.

The hidden agenda here is that we should privatize federal agencies, make more stuff "for-profit", reduce the scope of government. Affirmative action (hiring black Ladies at the DMV) is the unforgivable sin with which government is rhetorically branded.

All I could find about "DMV Lady"was a lame anecdote about a woman clerk at the DMV who, when she had a long line waiting at her window, took time to sharpen pencils.
That is so lame what it means to me is "DMV Lady" is a CODEWORD among these antigovernment reactionaries. It means, well, we all know what it means. We each make up our own story.

Derbyshire is pulling that particular lever too.

They would also say that Public Education hired too many black women schoolteachers and therefore we have to cut support and privatize education. They could also create codeword "AFT Lady" for american federation of teachers, the union. Float the term around and let government-haters make up their own stories to go with it.

Anyway FWIW I tried hard to find an actual meaning and I couldn't, so my suspicion is it's free-float code.

[Magister Miguel]

Facts are facts. Facts are not racist, not prejudiced, not sexist. If you're unwilling to accept the facts, well, that makes you wrong, doesn't it?

Facts are very tricky things, because we do not perceive things in themselves - every fact is an interpretation.

The universe offers us an infinity of facts. There is an infinite number of facts that might be stated about black people. What is it that makes the fact (if it is that) that they, on average, have lower IQs than whites to stand out to some, and not to others?

[Magister Miguel]

These movies are always about one group oppressed by another group (a proxy for a minority being oppressed by white man), and somebody from the oppressive group has to come and save the day because the oppressed group are completely incapable of helping themselves. I think this is essentially a common white man liberal fantasy of how he should help the oppressed races.

In all fairness, if the oppressing group has modern firearms and the oppressed group does not, and if those firearms are a major tool of oppression, the oppressed may well be at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to helping themselves.

As to 'white guilt' - it is easy to overdo but it has its place. For example, it is by no means rare to encounter a white man complaining about the unfairness of affirmative action and whatnot. The white man may well appear to have facts on his side - and he is arguing from the point of view of universal justice and not self-interest. But would he still be arguing from universal justice back in the 1950s? A certain amount of white guilt is needed to see that, and perhaps complain just a little less.

[neuro]

The term has been used three times in this thread so far. What the hell is a "DMV lady"? Is that a euphonism for "uppity Black"? I've been active against racism for half a century now and have no clue what a DMV lady is.

May this have anything to do? : After initial obscurity, 'The DMV' nickname for Washington area picks up speed

A nickname has recently emerged that could put the Washington area on the regional nickname map: the DMV. As in, D for the District, M for Maryland, and V for Virginia.

Sleek, succinct and inclusive, the name has been in common use for several years among the area's -- ahem, the DMV's -- hip-hop and go-go music crowd. It's familiar to listeners of black-oriented radio stations such as WKYS-FM and WPGC-FM, whose DJs decorate their patter with mentions of it. It also pops up as geographical shorthand ("DMV man seeks woman") on Craigslist, the classified-ad Web site.

It's safe to say, however, that most of the rest of the DMV's populace is unaware that the DMV refers to anything other than a certain sluggish city bureaucracy.

[CanadysPeak]

The term has been used three times in this thread so far. What the hell is a "DMV lady"? Is that a euphonism for "uppity Black"? I've been active against racism for half a century now and have no clue what a DMV lady is.

May this have anything to do? : After initial obscurity, 'The DMV' nickname for Washington area picks up speed

A nickname has recently emerged that could put the Washington area on the regional nickname map: the DMV. As in, D for the District, M for Maryland, and V for Virginia.

Sleek, succinct and inclusive, the name has been in common use for several years among the area's -- ahem, the DMV's -- hip-hop and go-go music crowd. It's familiar to listeners of black-oriented radio stations such as WKYS-FM and WPGC-FM, whose DJs decorate their patter with mentions of it. It also pops up as geographical shorthand ("DMV man seeks woman") on Craigslist, the classified-ad Web site.

It's safe to say, however, that most of the rest of the DMV's populace is unaware that the DMV refers to anything other than a certain sluggish city bureaucracy.

I doubt that's the reference. The phrase sounds too much like one of the standard code words used by right wing racists. I'm glad DC is finally getting a name other than WMA (which is hard to pronounce). I can't imagine the grande dames out along Chain Bridge Road ever feeling they live in the same city as the nappy-haired sistas from Capital Heights, but it's worth a try.

[Paul Anthony]

Aren't we all descended from Africans?

[BadgerJelly]

Race, religion, nation all equate to humanities tribalism.

There are consequences of studying genetic differences especially when we are just playing a guessing game and politics can use these interpretations as they want and dress it up in "scientific facts".

Generally humanity is getting more stupid because there are too many of us communicating and sheep mentality we rule over independent thinking.

People rape and murder. Better to deal with the cause than the effect.

[Forest_Dump]

Aren't we all descended from Africans?

I realise this is rhetorical but yes.

[wolfhnd]

As I said earlier it all goes to motivation. What was the author looking for?

[Marshall]

In California DMV is Department of Motor Vehicles. there is an office, often with long lines. you go there to take a driving test or renew your license. That is where the DMV ladies and gentlemen are. It did not occur to me that the letters DMV could mean anything else, or I would have clarified earlier. A certain parochialism, I realize.

[Paul Anthony]

In California DMV is Department of Motor Vehicles. there is an office, often with long lines. you go there to take a driving test or renew your license. That is where the DMV ladies and gentlemen are. It did not occur to me that the letters DMV could mean anything else, or I would have clarified earlier. A certain parochialism, I realize.

I suppose we must allow for geographic differences, but I really thought everyone would know what DMV stood for. It is sort of the universal symbol for inefficiency.

Here in Arizona most people refer to that office as the DMV - even though the State insists on calling it the Motor Vehicle Division, or MVD. They can call it whatever they want, but language is created by society, not by government. LOL

[Forest_Dump]

Well since we are thoroughly on a tangent...

I suppose we must allow for geographic differences, but I really thought everyone would know what DMV stood for. It is sort of the universal symbol for inefficiency.

I would have said banks, mostly because they seem to operate on multiple speeds. For example, if you deposit a large cheque, it takes about a week to clear, despite this being the electronic age. However, if you write a cheque on that account 3 days later, they can process that as an NSF with lightening speed. But then, if it turns out that you actually had more than enough to cover that cheque before the deposit of the first cheque, and therefore "cleared", or in other words it was their fault, then it can be at least a month before that gets cleared up.

[CanadysPeak]

In Pittsburgh, the "DMV" (other initials) is actually fairly efficient and pleasant. Our local inefficiency model is the new Republican Governor. We have lots of Marcellus Shale drilling going on. The trucks tear up the roads, it requires a lot of monitoring to prevent spills of fracking fluid, and any abandoned wells become the headache of the state, so there are some significant costs associated with this. The larger drilling companies asked to have a modest tax imposed - enough to cover these kinds of costs plus a small "sweetener". They pay such a tax in other states, so they already have it factored into their business plans, plus they feel this will keep out a lot of the "fly by night" wildcatters who are more likely to illegally dump, and who often break up large profitable drilling plots into impractical small holdings. The Governor said "No!". He turned down free money. So, we still get all the problems, we just don't get any of the money. The Governor is White, but I personally don't think he got his job just because of that. I think he would be just as inefficient if he were Black or Brown.

[Paul Anthony]

Yes, incompetence knows no (color) bounds. It seems I find it everywhere. I'm not sure if the general public is getting dumber, or if I have become the stereotypical grumpy old man. :)

[Paul Anthony]

I would have said banks, mostly because they seem to operate on multiple speeds. For example, if you deposit a large cheque, it takes about a week to clear, despite this being the electronic age. However, if you write a cheque on that account 3 days later, they can process that as an NSF with lightening speed. But then, if it turns out that you actually had more than enough to cover that cheque before the deposit of the first cheque, and therefore "cleared", or in other words it was their fault, then it can be at least a month before that gets cleared up.

That's not inefficiency. It is a very efficient method of absconding with their patrons' money. I once asked a bank teller why the bank would put a hold on my deposit. The teller responded (more honestly than one might expect) "Because it can."

[Bioreal]

Kenny is out of touch in citing Gould. Gould's work has been trashed in various academic reviews and in a book on statistics by David Bartholomew. Worse, last year it was found he had basically lied about earlier skull research he claimed had been biased. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/14/science/14skull.html

It seems that Kenny has ignored the considerable research on this topic by the likes of Heiner Rindermann and economists, Rati Ram, Eric Weide, Garrett Jones & W. Joel Schneider. Even without arguing about the causes or IQ differences, or possible cures for the problem, the startling trend, in terms of the importance of IQ (or smart fraction) and national prosperity, should be clear to even the most reluctant observer.

The question of why some nations are rich and some nations are poor, cannot be answered by a single parameter. But after ten years of considering the relationship of national IQ (including smart fraction) and national prosperity, the relationship has held up very well indeed.

For a large number of countries Lynn and Vanhanen (2002) have published data on mean intelligence levels and compared them to wealth and productivity indicators. The correlation between intelligence and wealth was supported by studies done by different authors using different countries and controls. Based on their pioneering research two research questions were developed: does intelligence lead to wealth or does wealth lead to intelligence or are other determinants involved? If a nation’s intelligence increases wealth, how does intelligence achieve this? To answer them we need longitudinal studies and theoretical attempts, investigating cognitive ability effects at the levels of individuals, institutions and societies and examining factors which lie between intelligence and growth. Two studies, using a cross-lagged panel design or latent variables and measuring economic liberty, shares of intellectual classes and indicators of scientific-technological accomplishment, show that cognitive ability leads to higher wealth and that for this process the achievement of high ability groups is important, stimulating growth through scientific-technological progress and by influencing the quality of economic institutions. In modernity, wealth depends on cognitive resources enabling the evolution of cognitive capitalism.


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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 6911003084

International cognitive ability and achievement comparisons stem from different research traditions. But analyses at the interindividual data level show that they share a common positive manifold. Correlations of national ability means are even higher to very high (within student assessment studies, r = .60–.98; between different student assessment studies [PISA-sum with TIMSS-sum] r = .82–.83; student assessment sum with intelligence tests, r = .85–.86). Results of factor analyses indicate a strong g-factor of differences between nations (variance explained by the first unrotated factor: 94–95%).

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 4/abstract

[Bioreal]

Aren't we all descended from Africans?

Yes, but as Professor Robert Weinberg notes in this lecture for Biology 7.012 at MIT (2004):

Whatever ability you want, valued or not so valued, what if those alleles begin to come out? And here's the worse part. What if somebody begins to look for the frequency of those alleles in different ethnic groups scattered across this planet? Now, you will say to me, well, God has made all his children equal. But the fact is if you look at the details of human evolution, some of which I discussed with you a week ago, last week, you'll come to realize that most populations in humanity are the modern descendents of very small founder groups.

... So the fact is it's inescapable that different alleles are going to be present with different frequencies in different inbreeding populations of humanity or populations of humanity that traditionally have been genetically isolated from one another.

It's not as if all the genes that we carry have been mixed with everybody else's genes freely over the last 100,000 years. Different groups have bred separately and have, for reasons that I've told you, founder affects and genetic drift, acquired different sets and different constellations of alleles.

http://infoproc.blogspot.co.nz/2011/05/ ... ughts.html


Also, see "The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civlization Accelerated Human Evolution" and research discussed here by Professor Steve Hsu who is working with Beijing Genomics Institue (BGI):

Some interesting new science suggests that human evolution has accelerated in the last tens of thousands of years. The study by Hawks, Wang, Cochran, Harpending and Moyzis (of UW Madison, Affymetrix, U Utah and UC Irvine) uses linkage disequilibrium tests on hapmap SNP data to determine that roughly 7% of all genes have undergone strong selection recently. The method looks for regions of DNA with similar SNP patterns. If an advantageous gene swept through a population in a relatively short time, replacing other variants, then the pattern of nucleotide polymorphisms in that area of the chromosome will be particularly uniform throughout the group. The results imply that we are all descended from mutants who, relatively recently, out-competed and replaced their contemporaries. The distribution of mutations is not uniform in different geographical populations (i.e., races). Recent evolution is causing genetic divergence, not convergence.

http://infoproc.blogspot.co.nz/2008/12/ ... umans.html