Re: What Are the Race Deniers Denying?

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Ron Kephart wrote:
>
> Duncan@drmac.demon.co.uk ("Duncan R. MacMillan") wrote:
> >
> > I get the impression that a lot of people who rubbish "The Bell Curve"
> > seem to think that IQ was used to assign the subjects to their racial groups,
> > instead of the other way round.
>
> No, that's not the problem. The problem with the Bell Curve and other
> pseudo scientific attempts to correlate "race" and "IQ" is that people
> are assigned to "races" based on the US folk racial taxonomy, and then
> differences (real or otherwise) between these groups are projected
> onto their biology. The groups are NOT biological, but CULTURAL
> constructs, and thus the conclusion that differences in "IQ" reflect
> differences in genetics is wrong, wrong, wrong.
>
> Of course, there is also a problem with the whole concept of "IQ" and
> the notion that it represents anything more than performance on a test
> which happens to be called an "IQ Test." The idea that the number
> arrived at by analyzing performance on one of these tests represents
> a genetically coded for "thing" inside the heads of people is also
> wrong, wrong, wrong.
>
> Ron Kephart
> University of North Florida

If TBC is pseudoscience, then I would have to describe your attack
here as pseudoanalytical.

If races are cultural constructs, then why do we have medical
conditions that statistically correlate with racial groupings under
similar environments? Because there are biological differences between
races. The brain is just another organ. That you or I may view the
difference as "small" is kind of irrelevent, if that difference makes
a difference in outcomes of a racial group when in statistical
competition with other groups. Race matters, in other words. Why
should we care? We shouldn't, but in a society that tries to engineer
equal outcomes according to racial groupings, we have to. Who would
care about this subject, but as an antidote to gov enforcement of
racial egalitarianism? Who uses statistical "race data" to demand free
money, rights, and opportunity, and to browbeat other groups? Not us.

As for IQ testing, your argument is as old as the testing itself, and
pretty pointless. Yes, there is such a thing as smart and dumb. That
people have multiple qualities is perfectly true, and doesn't mean a
thing in this context. IQ testing tries to measure a particular root
aspect of intelligence, and does it pretty well. That aspect of
intelligence does make an enormous difference in statistical outcomes,
and so it matters.

--

Anders

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