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Re: BELL CURVE CRITIC EXPOSED?
Martin Hutchison (mhutchison@cc.weber.edu)
31 Jan 1995 14:04 MST
In article <3gllpk$ns7@usenet.rpi.edu>, turtom@goya.its.rpi.edu (Michael Andrew Turton) writes...
In article <3gjjmi$g5p@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu>,
Ken Arromdee <arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu> wrote:
>In article <3ghaet$f20@usenet.rpi.edu>,
>Michael Andrew Turton <turtom@rebecca.its.rpi.edu> wrote:
>>>Untrue. If a classification system has some problem cases, it's still
>>>possible to make statements about the classified sets if these statements
>>>are about characteristics being more or less likely in each set, and thus
>>>do not have to apply to every member of the set.
>> But we're not talking about "members of a set" Ken, we're talking
>>about *people*. And now, I'd like your classification system, please.
>
>Are you telling me that people cannot be members of a set? That's about
>equivalent to saying that people cannot be counted, and that therefore
>when a bus has 10 people on it and one more enters, there can be 20 people,
>since mathematics is such a cold, impersonal, thing that cannot be applied to
>real live human beings. How can I _do_ this, applying tools of _mathematics_
>and _logic_ to _people_?
Not what I meant at all, Ken. What irks me is the way you use the
warm, fascinating science of mathematics as a shield behind which to hide
your refusal to think about "others" as "people."
****
Only because you are too stupid to understand science and think scientifically,
perhaps?
>
>(I'm surprised you ask me for a classification system since one was already
>given earlier: ask someone what 'race' they are. It'll be ambiguous
sometimes but not often enough to make it impossible to talk about 'races'.)
>--
>Ken Arromdee (email: arromdee@jyusenkyou.cs.jhu.edu)
Self-selection is a perfectly acceptable definition of race for
certain purposes, but not for claiming that "intelligence" is inherited.
As an article in _Utne Reader_ a couple of issues ago pointed out,
on standardized tests and other documents people shift race quite actively.
My wife and I make a point of it -- though our favorite answer is "human."
If I can shift race at will -- merely by getting on a plane,
what have I inherited? Besides which, most of the people of subSaharan
africa, according to classic European racist
science, would have got the answer wrong 100 years ago.
And now Ken, no more evasions. What is YOUR description of those
traits which can sort people into races -- I'm not interested in the way
other people see themselves. I am interested in the views of that man
of science, Ken Arromdee, bravely surging forward to label millions of
people with his fuzzy definition of race. What is your fuzzy definition
of race, Ken?
****
Why can't you accept what we already classify as race?
Related, you are either a blond, a redhead, a brunette, or a mutt.
Is that so hard to accept? But hey, flakes like you find it much easier to
alter your image of reality than to actually deal with something realisticly.
MKH
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