Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Quote of the Day: Thomas Sowell on Identity Politics
This quote is from Sowell’s book Intellectuals and Race, a subset of his 2012 tome Intellectuals and Society. He understands how today’s intellectuals formulate their approach to race, and sees right through them.
Whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, or the Western Hemisphere, a common pattern among intellectuals has been to seek, or demand, equality of results without equality of causes–or on sheer presumptions of equality of causes. Nor have such demands been limited to intellectuals within the lagging groups, whether minorities or majorities. Outside intellectuals, including intellectuals in other countries, have often discussed statistical differences in incomes or other outcomes as “disparities” and “inequities” that need to be “corrected” as if they were discussing abstract people in an abstract world.
The corrections being urged are seldom corrections within the lagging groups, such as Hume urged upon his fellow Scots in the eighteenth century. Today, the prevailing tenets of multiculturalism declare all cultures equal, sealing members of lagging groups within a bubble of their current habits and practices, much as believers in multiculturalism have sealed themselves within a bubble of peer-consensus dogma.
There are certain possibilities that many among the intelligentsia cannot even acknowledge as possibilities, much less try to test empirically, which would be risking a whole vision of the world–and of themselves–on a roll of the dice. Chief among these is the possibility that the most fundamental disparity among people is in their disparities in wealth-generating capabilities, of which the disparities in income and wealth are results, rather than causes. Other disparities, whether in crime, violence and alcohol intake or other social pathology, may also have internal roots. But these possibilities as well are not allowed inside the sealed bubble of the prevailing vision.
It sounds like a great description of how minority communities are kept in their unequal and poverty-stricken conditions, by the intellectuals who wish to be seen as their advocates, or maybe “saviors.”
Published in Group Writing
[ Slaps forehead. ]
When this happens to me, I am always mildly mortified when I realize that I can only edit my own original mis-step. Not any Comment wherein it has been re-displayed, and wherein my blunder has been preserved like an unattractive beetle in ancient tree sap.
For that reason, I am editing the present Comment to delete all memory of the fox paw, as the French say.
I may even be persuaded to erase it from my first Comment. Write up an offer and we can talk. I’m a bourbon man, but can be bought with a good rye or Scotch. If the Meetup is at She’s, I’m sure there will be gin-and-tonics on offer. That would do, too.
I disagree: That was a funny error. And what about plumbers sharing their valves?
Man, you don’t mortify easy, do you! I wish I were as humble as you are, delighting in the joy that my muck-ups create in others, instead of having my pride hurt.
Roger Scruton on multiculturalism, in How to be a Conservative (Bloomsbury, 2015):
This series of comments proves once again that Ricochet is the best repository of sense of humor anywhere!
It sounds like, at a 50/50 split, you acknowledge that IQ testing is of little help in defining the abilities of ethnic groups from a public policy perspective? Exactly Sowell’s point. So you agree with Sowell. At that ratio, cultural factors would swamp the data seeking race or ethnic differences supposedly identified as immutable racial differences in IQ.
Can you tell me exactly what “Intelligence” is that is being measure in IQ testing?
The benefit of IQ testing is in predicting academic performance for individuals. Sort of Binet original intent. That’s about it. No real place in public social policy, including affirmative action, or in differentiating groups. Certainly not in Eugenics policy. That was Sowell’ s conclusion as well. That invocation of Michael Mann is hardly silly, as it appears to me to characterize your utterly blinkered view of IQ testing, which you, nor anyone else, can actually define. Other than circularly. You seem to have a powerful confidence in something you don’t understand. It is characteristic of “scientism” and social “scientists” who wish to curry political favor to promote their theories. Kind of like Christine Romer, whose research showed the Keynsian multiplier was less than one, proclaiming at her political master’s (Obama) insistance that, no the Keynsian multiplier is greater than one, to promote his blowout stimulus spending.
Please tell me what “Intelligence” is that you are measuring? Or what consciousness is? Or what is “qualia”?
@flicker
Psychological sterilization was the point of Roe v. Wade, coupled with Planned Parenthood (which was established by dedicated Eugenicists like Alan Guttmacher). At least per the views of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Been there, done that. A perverse atrocity. As sick as the Holocaust. Per the Vision of our Anointed Elites. A supposedly kinder, gentler approach to Eugenics. Paul Lombardo (Attorney and Historian at Georgia State University who has written extensively on Eugenics) advances this view and extols the wondrousness of Roe. v. Wade, as a great and humane advance over forced sterilization.
Not.
There seem to be a lot of Ricochetti who are favorably disposed toward at least some of the ideas of Eugenics. Please don’t confuse me with any of them.
You didn’t ask me, but I am sure that you want to know what everyone here thinks, not just Paul.
First, no one can answer any question of the form, “what is X?” because the question implies a false premise about the relationship of verbal tokens (words) like whatever “X” is to reality. I call this fallacy the “reification of language”, or the “confusion of definitions with facts”.
But I can say this. I know for sure that humans differ in this scientific metric: the ability to solve particular problems by the realistic application of the general method of rational thinking.
When I assign a name to that attribute of a person, the name is always “intelligence“!
I am not suggesting that my private word-definition pair, between the verbal token “intelligence” and the above definition, is conventional.
I do suspect that most people who have thought critically about the subject of problem-solving would endorse it. It’s an ability that is so practically important to society that it cries out for an unambiguous, clear word-definition that would allow us to communicate ideas about it to each other.
And what existing English word today has, among its conventional definitions, one that more precisely corresponds to that important real-world concept than “intelligence”?
Why do humans differ in this capacity to solve particular problems by the realistic application of rational thinking? And is that characteristic fixed, permanent, and inherent? Psychometricians seem to want us to think so. Or is there a way to modify it in a given individual? Are we sure that ethnic and racial groups differ in this inherent capacity? And should we forcibly sterilize such groups, or limit their reproduction in some fashion? Or limit their educational or employment options by government policy?
IQ scores apparently correlate closely with SAT and ACT scores.Why is IQ treated as something inherent and sacrosanct while SAT and ACT testing can be repeated to try and improve scores and enhance the liklihood of college acceptance? And tutoring services can be purchased to purportedly enhance performance on these tests? But not for IQ tests?
Kurt Godel showed that human reason is inherently flawed. What about that? But he also showed that we can affirm the truth of propositions that cannot be formally proven. that is something of a transcendent capacity. What of that?
The student who graduated first in my medical school class had an eidetic memory. He never studied except to “read” the textbook (he would page through the book) the night before the exam, and invariably score the highest score on the exam. He spent his weekends drinking beer. He became a good general internist but didn’t set the world on fire in terms of brilliant advances in medicine, or win a nobel prize, or anything of the sort. And what do you make of Louis Terman’s famed “genius” study?
What is consciousness?
SAT was changed from testing reasoning to testing if information had been memorized
This Comment seems to show someone else’s Comment as mine. Am I reading it wrong or did you make an editing error?
I have no idea. I will try again.
If you re-read the thread, I think that you will find that the comment you attributed to me, starting “Why do humans differ..”, was in fact from Nanocelt the Contrarian.
I think it is fixed now. If not, I will delete the whole thing.
Though they disagree on certain scientific issues, Thomas Sowell has gone out of his way to praise Charles Murray and defend him from unfair attacks.
I re-read Sowell’s 1995 critique of Murray’s The Bell Curve: he praises most of the book and, where he disagrees, his argument has the air of one looking for loopholes. Even such a great mind as his is subject to human frailty.
There is a note on the review, by the editor of the American Spectator I think, reminding us that, over time, the heights of different ethnic groups have changed. Yet that does not refute the fact that height is very much influenced by one’s genes.
Imagine a plot of evenly fertilized land, with short grass planted on one half, and long grass on the other. The short grass grows to a height of 1 foot; the long grass, 2 feet. Then you put down an improved fertilizer on both halves: the short grass now grows to a height of 2 feet. Aha, you think, you’ve just disproven the hereditarian height theory. And then you notice that the long grass is now 4 feet tall.
Here’s a fun trick. I asked a liberal if border collies are more intelligent than other dogs. He immediately started babbling about their intellectually stimulating environment! Obviously they are bred for intelligence. You might as well claim that Great Danes are larger than Chihuahuas because they have better dog food.
Adopted children mostly resemble their biological parents in intelligence; their adoptive mothers, slightly; their adoptive fathers, not at all.
And it’s a good thing environment has little role in this, or blind and deaf people would be mentally retarded.
And yet I knew a lot of middle class white women back then who supported unrestricted abortion so that their own lives and careers would not be inconvenienced by unwanted babies. And then there were the people worried about the “population bomb” who wanted all Americans and Europeans regardless of race and status to have fewer babies–and you can take as evidence for this the fact that they were highly critical of even wealthy people who had more than two children.
I’m not sure what you mean exactly by “defining the abilities”. That is a curious verbal construction. Who has said that here? All I’ve seen are statements that IQ tests are very useful in assessing intellectual ability.
I don’t like “so you agree with me” verbal sleights of hand. Can you be more courteous?
As Taras showed in her 11:41 comment, cultural factors do not “swamp” genetic factors.
Are you not satisfied by earlier comments? And why is an exact definition of intelligence needed in order to recognize that IQ tests are very good assessments of intellectual ability/abstract reasoning/etc?
Also job performance. The more cognitive ability required, the higher the desirable scores.
Wrong. The claim that IQ has nothing to do with achievement has resulted in all sorts of useless and harmful “affirmative action” policies whereby differences in outcome are assumed to be proof of discrimination–discrimination which must be remedied by “affirmative action” (quota) polices: Such quotas harm the institutions they are imposed upon, their members and employees, the supposed beneficiaries of those policies, and society at large.
Yes, but I would also point out that government policies and “outside” cultural factors can have various detrimental effects. For instance, generous welfare benefits can corrupt people into lifelong failure. And did you know that being on welfare was once widely seen as shameful and people would do all they could to avoid taking welfare? Sixties leftists worked hard to change that, characterizing welfare as a “right” which poor people were entitled to because they were “exploited”.
Thomas Sowell has explicitly stated that intelligence has both biological and environmental components, and that it is an error to deny the existence of either. I believe Sowell’s position might be summarized as that although biological components cannot be changed, much can be accomplished through cultural changes–abandoning harmful attitudes and practices while adopting helpful ones. To cite one group difference he has discussed, in Malaysia the Malays show far less achievement than the Chinese minority. Much could be accomplished if Malays would emulate the more successful Chinese rather than discriminate against them.
Like Helen Keller?
Your example of short and long grass smacks of Mendelian singe gene inheritance. Which is certainly not what ‘intelligence’ is.
You make my case that psychological sterilization was the point of Roe v. Wade. And Hillary was their leader. And they voted against Trump, that vile advocate of “life.”And abortion as such was a “kinder, gentler” approach to Eugenics. At least per Alan Guttmacher and Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Or Paul Lombardo. Not limited to Blacks and minorities, or to the poor only. As you point out, Paul Ehrlich and his acolytes (one of whom wound up as Obama’s “Science Advisor”) wanted to curtail human reproduction period. The Chinese bought in to that for a while. And that may have been one of the factors in the Republican ripple in the 2022 election.
“Defining the abilities” is synonymous with”assessing the intellectual abilities” or “abstract reasoning abilities”.
I think Sowell is opposed to affirmative action and other policies based on IQ testing that harm institutions and individuals, just as you appear to be. And I agree with both of you.
It Tara showed definitively that cultural factors do not swamp biological factors, you should be able to give me a run down on the biological ranking of intelligence of different groups of humans based on racial considerations, as Francis Galton did in his infamous book, “Hereditary Genius”. He provided a racial ranking of intelligence, with the ancient Greeks, the English, the 17th Century Scots on top and African Americans on the bottom. I await your ranking with bated breath.
Tara’s example reflects single gene traits, not intelligence. And, alas, the biological component (there can only be biological and cultural factors involved in “intelligence” so the statement that “intelligence is partly determined by biological factors and partly determined by cultural factors” is a tautological sort of a statement) is even more complex than a polygenic trait, as it is likely influenced by histone methylation and gene expression controls that we know not of at present.
“Psychological sterilization” is not a scientific term, but a coinage for polemical purposes: attempting to muddy the waters, to pretend there’s no difference between persuading people not to reproduce, and sterilizing people without their permission (or even knowledge, as was still being done in Sweden as late as the 1970s).
In the years just before the Roe v. Wade decision, there was a statistic often cited, that black women with college degrees had only 1.9 children on average, while black women with 8th grade or less had 5.3. The Justices sought to make it easier for the latter group to control their reproduction, as every study showed they would have preferred fewer children, had they been better able to manage their often disordered lives.
@NanoceltTheContrarian — Yes, Helen Keller might be an example of someone who would have had every excuse to end up mentally retarded, if environment played more of a role in intelligence than it does.
In modern, Western societies, that is. In a society where there is widespread malnutrition it’s possible that environment plays more of a role in the distribution of intelligence than it does in our society, for example. Imagine a field in which you see taller and shorter grasses, but it turns out the short grasses are simply growing on poorer soil.
N.B.: In these examples it doesn’t matter whether grass height is polygenic or not. That would show up in cross-breeding experiments, with hybrids appearing with all sorts of intermediate heights.
Also, it’s properly “regression toward the mean“, not “regression to the mean“. It’s what keeps bell curves from getting wider and wider with every generation.
Finally, the reason saying that both heredity and environment are involved in intelligence is controversial is that the Left, dominant in academia for generations, claims to acknowledge no role for heredity to play at all. Saying heredity does play a role is pretty close to a career-ender.
Looked like pedantry, at first.
Then I re-read it, paying careful attention to the meaning of the words, and to the distinction being made. Well, turns out that that distinction is of the essence in this case.
I don’t know what intelligence “is”, but I know it when I see it, and I see some here!
(I try to keep track of who’s smart and who’s not. No, not to ‘judge’ my friends, but simply to help me to focus my reading time where it will be most productive. I appreciate little bits of evidence like this.)
Beat me to it: I was going to object to that coinage as being intended to de-legitimize dissenters, polarize issues, and replace rational discussion with invective.
I would add a third purpose to the ones you list: pretending that nobody ever came on their own to desire unfettered abortion rights–that it was always the result of third parties’ persuasion or propaganda. Regardless of one’s opinions about the rightness or wrongness of any abortion policy, it is dishonest to obscure or deny such motives (motives which have existed for all of recorded history.)
Agreed. For Nanocelt to claim your example is irrelevant because grass height is (or might be) a polygenic trait is absurd.
Where has Jerry proposed any eugenics policies? I don’t see that in this thread.
You repeatedly invoke eugenics when criticizing those who disagree with you. Please don’t beat around the bush: Are you accusing us of advocating such policies? Name names. Cite exact words. Or stop making insinuations.