Nonscientists are already beginning to stitch together highly speculative conclusions about the historically charged subject of race and intelligence from the new biological data. Last month, a blogger in Manhattan described a recently published study that linked several snippets of DNA to high I.Q. An online genetic database used by medical researchers, he told readers, showed that two of the snippets were found more often in Europeans and Asians than in Africans.
No matter that the link between I.Q. and those particular bits of DNA was unconfirmed, or that other high I.Q. snippets are more common in Africans, or that hundreds or thousands of others may also affect intelligence, or that their combined influence might be dwarfed by environmental factors. Just the existence of such genetic differences between races, proclaimed the author of the Half Sigma blog, a 40-year-old software developer, means “the egalitarian theory,” that all races are equal, “is proven false.”
Wonderful. And here's another dunce.
Yet even some self-described liberals argue that accepting that there may be genetic differences between races is important in preparing to address them politically.
“Let’s say the genetic data says we’ll have to spend two times as much for every black child to close the achievement gap,” said Jason Malloy, 28, an artist in Madison, Wis., who wrote a defense of Dr. Watson for the widely read science blog Gene Expression. Society, he said, would need to consider how individuals “can be given educational and occupational opportunities that work best for their unique talents and limitations.”
Gene Expression is NOT a place liberals hang out. There's a couple of faux liberals there, but they're all the Alan Colmes type at best. They might as well have quoted vdare.com.
“When was the last time a nonblack sprinter won the Olympic 100 meters?” he asked.
When was the last time a non-Black sprinter trained as hard? They're all going for sports that pay a salary.
What a stupid question...
“There are clear differences between people of different continental ancestries,” said Marcus W. Feldman, a professor of biological sciences at Stanford University. “It’s not there yet for things like I.Q., but I can see it coming. And it has the potential to spark a new era of racism if we do not start explaining it better.”
Relax, Marcus. People have seen flying cars and nuclear fusion coming for how long now?
In DNA Era, New Worries About Prejudice
By AMY HARMON
When scientists first decoded the human genome in 2000, they were quick to portray it as proof of humankind’s remarkable similarity. The DNA of any two people, they emphasized, is at least 99 percent identical.
But new research is exploring the remaining fraction to explain differences between people of different continental origins.
Scientists, for instance, have recently identified small changes in DNA that account for the pale skin of Europeans, the tendency of Asians to sweat less and West Africans’ resistance to certain diseases.
At the same time, genetic information is slipping out of the laboratory and into everyday life, carrying with it the inescapable message that people of different races have different DNA. Ancestry tests tell customers what percentage of their genes are from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas. The heart-disease drug BiDil is marketed exclusively to African-Americans, who seem genetically predisposed to respond to it. Jews are offered prenatal tests for genetic disorders rarely found in other ethnic groups.
Such developments are providing some of the first tangible benefits of the genetic revolution. Yet some social critics fear they may also be giving long-discredited racial prejudices a new potency. The notion that race is more than skin deep, they fear, could undermine principles of equal treatment and opportunity that have relied on the presumption that we are all fundamentally equal.
“We are living through an era of the ascendance of biology, and we have to be very careful,” said Henry Louis Gates Jr., director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University. “We will all be walking a fine line between using biology and allowing it to be abused.”
Certain superficial traits like skin pigmentation have long been presumed to be genetic. But the ability to pinpoint their DNA source makes the link between genes and race more palpable. And on mainstream blogs, in college classrooms and among the growing community of ancestry test-takers, it is prompting the question of whether more profound differences may also be attributed to DNA.
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Race doesn't exist, but the word encourages these idiots.
"Race" doesn't exist as a matter of biology. We all know that. Skin color and ethnicity groups exist and have become more important sociologically because of systemic denigration, subjugation and exploitation based on skin color and ethnicity, which DOES exist. Is there any reason why the latter has to be called "racism"?
The fact is that for so long as Black and white people insist that race exists, in some form, there will be white supremacists scientists and bloggers who come along periodically and try to invest that "race" idea with new white supremacist meanings.
Black people often say "my race." Well, of course if Blacks are a separate "race" then white will continue to imbue that "race" with negative meaning. Whites try to imbue everything that is unique to Blacks with negative meaning. So, as long as we insist on being a unique "race" we can expect whites to continue to insist that we are uniquely inferior.
What epigentetics did the
What epigentetics did the "racists" ignore? I didn't see any citations here.
Is there any reason why
So people know what I'm talking about withut having to explain so much they forget the actual topic.
Seriously, that's it.
I've been through vocabulary disputes before, Francis. Just accept that I will never use your preferred terminology because my target audience doesn't use it. That doesn't mean YOU can't use it. I'll know what you mean.
Doesn't make any sense
History informs us that we didn't have to insist on anything, even the concept of race for whites to insist that we were/are uniquely inferior. That history makes your triangulation flawed on its face. But then, what's the alternative?
First, Whites say "my race" too. So what does that claim to uniqueness do to them? Have a consistent and thorough theory or scrap it. With such a glaring absence of mind, you just made Blacks unique regarding something in which they definitely are not. Perhaps there is a different way for you to charge Blacks with being responsible for continuing somebody else's racism.
You also would do well to interrogate those Whites who say/think "my race." Of course, they are not responsible for continuing racism. Always blameless in something they create, perpetuate, perpetrate and pass down from generation to generation. No. It's Black people's fault...
If women...
If women would stop thinking men are jerks and women are especially vulnerable to being raped then there would be little or no sexual assaults, huh Francis?
Racists ignore epigenetics
All domestic dogs are CANIS FAMILIARIS. Dog breeds do not exist as all dogs have 99% of their DNA the same. All dogs are equally violent and equally trainable. The link between dog DNA and dog trainability/performace is unconfirmed. With sufficient training, poodles can consistently kill a pit bulls. Your local police prefer poodles for K-9 dogs. Greyhounds train harder in order to outrun dachshunds. Chihuahuas make good hunting dogs; they are also good for herding sheep. Given a proper environment and nurturing, and given SUFFICIENT MONEY, the DOG ACHIEVEMENT GAP can be eliminated----------------All humans are HOMO SAPIENS: humans are EXEMPT from the fundamental rules of BIOLOGY.
Okay, I'll admit I find
Okay, I'll admit I find these vocabulary disputes foolish. They don't change anything...ever.
Anonymous:
Anonymous:
I had the choice between engaging you, devoweling you or ignoring you.
Believe what you need to to support your ego.
So I don't have to be annoyed
Anonymous, and Rob:
Until you can prove you're some different kind of human than everyone else I don't want to hear from you.
You should change the name
You should change the name of this post to "I sure hope there are epigentic factors that exactly counteract these alleles."
Dog breeds are so totally the same. St. Bernards are all just to lazy to run as fast as whippets.
Document what the alleles
Document what the alleles under discussion do.
We're not talking about dogs. Not that you can distinguish St. Bernards and whippets genetically anyway.
Whippets Do Not Exist!
Not that you can distinguish St. Bernards and whippets genetically anyway.
Quite an assertion you got there:
"Experts agree that 99.9 percent of dog DNA is the same, and only 0.1 percent makes the difference between, say, a Chihuahua and a great Dane. Once the canine genome was mapped out in 2004, biotech companies started developing ways to test mixed breeds' DNA by identifying certain markers that match up to the genetic material of recognizable purebreds... Now two biotech companies are in the race to track down canine DNA of mystery mutts... The results, which identify up to 130 breeds, are mailed directly back to the vet with a health and wellness plan for the dog"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/chi-1111_dna_mutts_nnov11,1,7201137.story
Gray Dave:
Gray Dave:
Dogs are not the topic of discussion. Rob is...HE can't distinguish a St. Bernard from a whippet genetically.
You guys need a new argument.
OH! That's what this is supposed to be! But what was said in the article..."We don't have that for intelligence."
Until you can point out genetic differences, the traits they code for and how those traits are expressed as the superior intellegence you claim, you're a bunch of racists repeating the same old shit. And I don't want to hear from you.
In fact, we can distinguish
In fact, we can distinguish dog breeds from DNA. So you were lying about that, or just did not know. But you might want to look for new arguments on your end.
www.azcentral.com/families/articles/0520SCI-DOG-BREEDS-ON.html
We can also distinguish human races and admixture from DNA.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9501E6DF1330F930A35755C0A9659C8B63
CHRM2
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=gene&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=Graphics&list_uids=1129
?The muscarinic cholinergic receptors belong to a larger family of G protein-coupled receptors. The functional diversity of these receptors is defined by the binding of acetylcholine to these receptors and includes cellular responses such as adenylate cyclase inhibition, phosphoinositide degeneration, and potassium channel mediation"
The mechanism leading to differenes in cognitive ability from different alleles is not clear yet. But perhaps you could show that differences in brain chemistry could not possibly affect intelligence. Or that the mind has nothing at all to do with the brain.
As it stands now, the evidence is not on the side of zero-difference between populations. It is possible that the hapmap samples happen to vary from the actual distributions in populations, or that there are other genetic differences between the races that exactly counter these associations, or that the haplotypes do not actually account for any of the variance of IQ within populations.
At least one allele frequency difference appears to favor blacks over whites .
http://www.futurepundit.com/mt/mt-altcomments.cgi?entry_id=4759
Assuming the stthe numbers are based on is accurate, then equalizing environment to the optimum will boost black IQ relative to white IQ by 2 points.
Ugh.
I'm reluctant to even join this thread for fear that doing so will encourage the likes of Mr. Anonymous.
Even if one makes the gigantic leap and accepts all this speculation about a genetic difference related to IQ (and that IQ is accurately measured), you're still talking about a distributional difference, and a very small one at that.
By a distributional difference, I mean a statistical representation of the way a characteristic occurs among the individuals in a sampled population. Even if you accept all these crackpot theories as absolutely true, you arrive at a difference in mean IQ of a couple of points.
That leads to an obvious question: So what?
Where are they headed with this? Are proponents of this tenuous theory suggesting that individuals from different populations should be treated differently? Have different rights of citizenship? Different employment opportunities?
Sorry. That's totally bogus. The stupid comment cited in the article (From an artist in Madison? Now there's an expert!) demonstrates just what I mean: “Let’s say the genetic data says we’ll have to spend two times as much for every black child to close the achievement gap,”
Why on earth would you even suggest such a thing? Even the wildest, most speculative interpretation of the data doesn't suggest that such a thing is true. A difference in the statistical average observed in a population doesn't tell you anything at all about any member of the population.
Any time you divide a population into smaller groups, you're apt to find measurable differences between the two groups. Suppose I find evidence that people whose last names begin with S are more likely to become addicted to prescription painkillers than people whose last names begin with B.
Should I withhold pain medication from Mr. Smith?
Put more simply...
Dear Mr. Anonymous,
Whether you choose to believe it, there are black people who are smarter than you. Deal with it.
It seems that I might have
It seems that I might have had a comment deleted in moderation.
We can indeed distinguish dog breeds based on DNA. Plese withdraw your assertion that we can't.
www.azcentral.com/families/articles/0520SCI-DOG-BREEDS-ON.html
I don't know why you
I don't know why you scientific racists don't get it yet, but I'm not actually debating you. I'm fucking with your nerves.
I told you, I'm not discussing dogs. I told you I don't want to hear from you until you have actual proof of your assertions about human intelligence. Until you can describe the mechanisms supporting your claims, you're the same racists making the same assertions that have been made since WW II.
Go the fuck away. Of suffer a couple more rounds of devowelling until I get bored enough to just delete your comments.
You aren't reality-based
You aren't reality-based
You wound me.
You wound me.
Nice Work, P6
One of the many things I admire about you is your refusal to debate these useless idiots. Black folks need to keep in mind that simply because someone asserts a certain proposition doesn't mean that it deserves a response, especially if what is being asserted is meaningless or absurd.
I was making it up.
Hey, that stuff I wrote yesterday about distributional differences based on your last name? I was just making it up.
As it turns out, it's all true!