Other findings included:
* Rates of diabetes among the South Asian (8.1 per cent) and black (8.5 per cent) groups were twice as high as among white (4.2 per cent) and Chinese (4.3 per cent).
* Obesity was five times more prevalent among white (14.8 per cent) and blacks (14.1 per cent) than Chinese (2.5 per cent). The prevalence of obesity among South Asians was 8.1 per cent.
* Black women were more likely to be physically inactive and obese than the overall population.
* South Asian and Chinese women were also less likely to participate in daily physical activity than the overall population.
In related racism…
Cultures do promote some things. A city-dwelling culture, for example, will typically adopt policies and practices that promote grain consumption, as grain stores better than fresh foods and provides a food supply buffer against hunger and civil unrest. True, individuals set the policies and implement the practices, but to deny there are systemic causes at the cultural level affecting diet is misleadingly reductionist. Look at potatoes in Europe in the late 18th century and early 19th century. The governments promoting them heavily as food (which was resistsed for along time–“potato-eater” being an insult), because potatoes are nitrogen-fixing whcih meant fields dcould skip being fallow during crop rotation. Ultimately, mashed potatoes, French fries, and such became part of the general culture, which helped sustain their steady consumption. Again, one woul dmiss most of the causalities to ignore happenings at the cultural level.
“Cultures don’t promote anything. Individuals promote things.”
Well, that’s precise. But cultures heavily influence what individuals promote. To say the least.
To labour the point, have I ever abetted the religious sacrifice of a human victim through the ripping out of his beating heart? Not that I’m telling you. Did dead Aztecs ever do such a thing? Yes they did. ‘Cause of their culture.
An group’s “average IQ” is surely just the IQ test results of that group, however it is defined, averaged. Now, I am a maths dunce – hardly proud of it – but even I know how to come up with an average.
Do all women develop breast cancer? No. Do some men develop breat cancer? You betcha. Are women more likely than men to develop breast cancer? Oddly, yes.
re. Phantom’s post @1:35 – yes, that’s my main objection to fetishizing IQ. IQ tests test how well one performs on IQ tests. “I’ve come up with a test that measures intelligence.” “How do you define ‘intelligence’?” “Intelligence is what’s measured by how well you do on my test.”
Well, that’s tautological.
(Aztecs who are currently dead, of course…)
Of course I should ask you, Kathy, to substantiate your opinions. You are a strong supporter of ‘national’ and ‘racial’ IQs.
Since you support racial differences, I presume that you have a reason for doing so – you are not just a news reporter. You’ve made a choice to support the views of Lynn (National or ethnic group IQ) and Rushston (‘race’ IQ). You are accountable for your choices.
And the fact that a forensic anthropologist can indeed tell physiological characteristics from bones does not mean that he can tell the brain and neurological characteristics of that same person.
Equally, a child can tell physical differences of skin colour, size, weight, but none of these have any correlation to intelligence. Therefore they are utterly irrelevant.
cconn – yes, we have changed our physiology over time, due to nutrition. We are taller and live longer.
phantom and vitruvius have explained it all perfectly. Thanks to them.
Don’t correlate physical attributes with mental attributes. The brain doesn’t operate like the liver or heart. It’s a learning system so to speak, like a computer-that-learns and builds on its knowledge. That’s what is so remarkable about the human brain; its capacity to think and learn. No liver or heart or ear or eye does that.
Knowledge isn’t genetic; it’s a learned accumulation and gathered by many individuals over many years. So, you can’t define a population as all having ‘the same brain’ because you have to explore the knowledge-result of that brain.
In the colloquial epistemological sense, yes, Murray. Metaphysically, no. Thus, when the question is metaphysical, it is inadequate to rely simply on colloquial epistemological devices. Otherwise that’s quite fine, of course, outside of a dog. Inside a dog, it’s too dark to read.
Did dead Aztecs ever do such a thing, Black Mamba?
Some individual Aztecs did. Some individual Aztecs did not.
And the Southern French are thinner and have lower rates of heart disease than the northern French. Seperate races or just different diets?
Same thing for areas of Spain….it is diet that drives weight and heart disease…which are somewhat seperate questions by the way…..
There can be evolutionary changes or adaptations that happened in remote isolated populations based on some things in their diet.
But when talking weight and heart disease and diabetes (the latter being diseases of civilization) the weight of a few 100,000 years of what we ate largely outbalance any of the specifics. In general, human beings process carbohydrates, protein and fat the same way, and do the same things with them. How effecient any particular individual is at dealing with those macronutrients is another question, one that has huge variants within families let alone “cultural populations” or “races”
Kind of a silly study, when the answer is better found at the dietary trends within those populations, not so much genetics.
ET, there are indeed genetic factors that affect intelligence. For example, the ability to form myelin coating on heavily-used neural pathways within the brain is a large contributor to inteliigence. This is influenced by many factors, including diet, repetition of tasks and variations engaging those pathways, and genetics. One cannot focus on one set of factors to the exclusion of the others.
“Beauty is only skin deep “ is something ugly people say.
And “There is no such thing as IQ” is something people with unimpressive IQ score say.
black mamba – but Lynn, who promotes national and ethnic group IQs hasn’t done the actual measurements of whole or even statistically significant populations. His work is primarily speculative.
And as has been pointed out, the brain is not similar to any other organ in the body; it operates differently. It MAKES networks; the liver and heart and eyes don’t do that; they’d better operate as they were genetically programmed to so – without changes – or else. The brain, however, is a plastic action rather than a stable ‘thing’.
As an action, it makes networks, it sets up connections ..and we aren’t sure how or what, but we know that these connections enable us to think, to set up ‘images’ of external reality and to make logical connections between these images. So, we can see a cat and conclude that it’s either a house pet or a very large non-house tiger. The heart and eyes can’t do this networking analysis.
Since the brain is so flexible, and since it relies on external knowledge for its ‘meat’, then this means that the individual can learn. He can become, actually, smarter.
Now, are there limits? Yes, we can’t ignore that some INDIVIDUAL brains are able to connect faster and broader than others, so, they can tell you the result of 156 times 3,478 in an instant. Without a calulator. But these are individual not group brains.
There’s no such thing as group brains tied to physiology or ‘race’.
Yes, Murray, yet I think that it doesn’t matter in principle. The normative genetic factors are essentially irrelevant to the individual, unless one’s job involves the provision, deployment, and management of supplies and services thereto in practice. The factors that matter about an individual in principle are the facts of said individual, not the statistical norms that may or may not apply, to varying degrees, via various claimed collectivisms to which an individual may be subject to via the claimed authority of various others.
…so how bout them Pens.
Coming late to this debate, the back and forth seems to arise from, without actually grappling with, bayesian theory and the error of extrapolating the characteristics of the group to an individual.
Classifying individuals according to such characteristics as “race” is useful if we intend to use that characteristic to improve the efficiency of screening for the thing we’re really looking for such as diabetes, or difficult intubation. But it does not tell us directly that the individual will actually have that thing. Thus the inanity of group IQ valuations. Knowing the average IQ of a group based on “race”, or country of origin, or eye color tells me nothing about the IQ, or better yet, the performance of any individual within that group. And minor differences in the location of the mean of that group are equally without value for they tell me nothing useful about the individual in front of me.
Ethnicity may be helpful for screening for some diseases because the likelihood of those diseases may be higher in some ethnic groups thereby resulting in a greater efficiency in the allocation of screening resources, but there the utility ends. Because once the individual is tested and either has or doesn’t have the characteristic for which one is screening, they should be treated on the basis of the characteristic one sought to identify not the pool from which they were screened. Indeed, the value of ethnicity as a basis for screening may well disappear for some characteristics sought as the various ethnic source groups intermingle in a country such as Canada since ethnicity itself may be a surrogate marker for diet, lifestyle etc.
We can get into a discussion of the term “race” at another time, but in essence while there are genetic and phenotypic variations in groups of homo sapiens who were reproductively isolated for some time, race is a cultural construct and in cultures with a great deal of intermixing e.g. Brazil, has been abandoned in favor of other lines of demarcation such as “typo”.
Vitruvius – but what’s the question, then? Are we wondering whether any individual’s attributes and behaviour can be reliably predicted based on their membership in a group? Well, any individual is a member of a huge number of groups, and then again, of course, he is an individual. But does that mean that information on group attributes – cultural, test-results, what have you – is not significant?
Okay: Don’t let’s profile young men named Mohammed at airports. Most Mohammeds don’t blow up planes. A Japanese grandmother, on the other hand, just might blow up a plane. Who knows? She’s an individual. Maybe they lost her luggage. (Cultural generalization – they’re a vengeful people. Movies told me so.)
ET – I’m not familiar with Lynn, but I rather like your line on brain plasticity – gives a person hope. As I said, I have grave reservations about IQ testing. “Race”, however, seems to me to be a workable concept; and a group average of some individual measurement pertaining to members of a group is just that. That isn’t to say the average is stable, or even that it is significant. That being said:
Friend of the USA – I was tested when I was 12, and I’ll tell you I did real good, like. I doubt my IQ’s gone up since then, however, so if they want me to take another test they’re going to have to trick me; and if they manage that, well it probably proves right there that I’m not all that bright.
Anyway, I’ve been long-winded enough, and I have nothing more to add.
Quite so, Black Mamba: as far as I can tell there is no well-formed question on the floor here (sadly, Robert’s is not in scope). And I must say: well said, DrD! Still there’s a remaining problem I have with these sorts of discussions, though. Why do we say race with respect to humans when we say breed with respect to every other case of in-species variations? Look at how Kate and I parlayed the breed/individual issue above, without bringing the race of our dogs into it.
Look, here’s the deal: race is a scam. Its only modern purpose is fraud, extortion, and protection rackets. Meanwhile, it remains the case that we humans happen to come, in practice, in varying breeds (just like other domesticated animals). And, indeed, it is not the case that all beagles are stupid, or that all poodles are smart.
“Yes, Kate, yet when I take Spook to the vet,
I expect said vet to treat Spook, not to treat
Keeshond.”
Expect whatever you want. Your vet still sees “Keeshond”.
If the problem is “drinking too much water”, he’s going to first rule out hyperparathyroidism, not because he’s “Spook”, but because he’s a Keeshond.
http://www.keeshondrescue.org/Primary%20Hyperparathyroidism.pdf
If he was there for surgery, and the vet saw “Greyhound”, he’d adjust the anesthesia level. If he saw “Doberman”, he’d be on watch for prolonged bleeding.
Isolated sub-populations within species acquire differing gene frequencies and mutations due to environmental selection, founder effect, and the level of consanguinity.
Agreed, to a degree. That’s why I said “yes, yet”, not “no” or “but”.
The phantom said,
»But some groups do better than others, which just goes to show the old saw about all cultures being equally valid is poo poo. They’re not. Some cultures promote thought, mental flexibility, agility, invention, tool use, etc. Some don’t.»
In other words,
Everything is unequal except IQs.
Woah.
See the similarity with Kate’s point?
»The only cultural influence at work here, ET, is a culture within academia that contends that the forces of evolutionary selection apply to all living organisms except humans»
I rest my case.
Statistical norms are what we use when reality is too messy, and we can’t figure out how it works. ~:D
ET, I thank you for the high praise, and I’m pleased that all my expensive book larnin’ hasn’t dribbled out my ear over the centuries since I was a lad.
In answer to Kathy’s earlier point about bones, while a bone -is- identifiable to a particular sex and population group, that bone functions exactly the same in all populations. Asian foot bones work like White man foot bones.
But, and this is where the fun begins, bones are also identifiable by occupation. Because of differential wear and tear. Also by habitual footwear. (High heels, anyone?) Also by diet, and blah blah blah.
Bottom line, if an Eskimo can move to the Kalahari, get married, have kids and live to a ripe old age, (and they can!) then all these genetic predispositions don’t account for a hell of a lot. Do they?
Its my considered opinion that MOST of the political and junk science interest in racial differences comes from people who are primarily focused on increasing The State and decreasing personal freedom. Communists, fascists and socialists of various stripes in other words. If they can “prove” that people are stupid and must be controlled, they can bend public policy to that end.
Let me state categorically that Kathy Shaidle is NOT included in the above. She’s made her bones, she’s on my team.
But we Canadians are sitting at the top of an 80 year manure pile of this “people are stupid” bullsh1t. Everything that sucks about Canada can be traced DIRECTLY to that premise. IMHO we should all think very hard about that and what it means to Conservatism, and us individually.
People are not stupid. There aren’t stupid here, they aren’t stupid in the Kalahari, and they weren’t stupid back in history either. People are different and the same, simultaneously. Messily. Inconveniently.
We are all equal before God and the Law. Or, as the Liberals and NDPee have it, we’re not. I’d prefer more of the former and less of the latter, thanks very much.
And, indeed, it is not the case that all beagles are stupid, or that all poodles are smart.
Ahem. Don’t go there.
Exactly, Phantom: Racism is an ameritocratic elitist totalitarian plot.
(Gosh this game ~ what do you call it ~ life ~ is fun 😉
Obviously there are many factors that determine a persons risk for a heart attack or stroke.
Did the participants in this study self identify or was ethnicity determined genetically? Some people, Obama comes to mind, choose identify themselves with one ethnicity over another even though they are of mixed ethnicity. Consequently, basing diagnostic or screening criteria on ethnicity alone, without considering the myriad of other factors is a waste of time, money and resources IMO.
The only time I could see justification for screening based on ethnicity alone would be if there were a set of disease’s, or illnesses that were exclusive to a praticular ethnicity or, if you prefer, race.
Kate’s reinforcing my points. The vet uses breed (or “race”) as a screening tool to improve the efficiency with which he can identify the characteristics most likely to be found in Spook and for which he is actually searching e.g. response to anesthesia (I expect he weighs Spook), likelihood of a bleeding diathesis, presence or absence of hyperparathyroidism. But ultimately he treats Spook on the presence or absence of the particular characteristics he, the vet, finds in Spook. Identification by breed is a tool for the application of Bayesian theory.
So, why do some people identify by breed not
to apply Bayesian theory, but to oppress others?
We agree about the good part. What about the bad?
Yes, ‘race’ is a scam. But what is also a scam is to consider that biological properties are the same as cognitive properties.
The heart, lungs, liver, eyes and etc do not operate the same way as the brain! The brain is a plastic flexible system that generates networks of connections that increase in complexity as the individual experiences his life. This complex network feeds on and generates ‘mental images’ that can be linked logically with each other.
What IS genetic in the brain is the capacity to make logical and causal connections rather than random links; and to understand the differences between noun and verb, so to speak. These capacities are the same in all populations with variations of type (not smart-normal-smart) found in all populations.
Since knowledge is a social or cultural construct then, ‘how smart’ we consider that a definable population is, depends on what we consider smart and the knowledge base of that group. This has nothing to do with ethnicity or body type or any physiological trait.
There’s a lot we don’t know about the brain and how it functions; but we do know that it’s plastic and like the internet, can expand its connections and increase its knowledge base as well as its capacity to connect different ‘bits’ of information.
“So, why do some people identify by breed not
to apply Bayesian theory, but to oppress others?”
I suspect because it’s often (although not always) visible, easy, visceral, and immutable. That makes it convenient and useful to the oppressor. Imagine the difficulty in trying to gin up the mob for a genocide/pogrom/riot against zoroastrian carpenters who attended community colleges and had GPAs between 2.7 and 3.6 while currently playing on a community basketball team even though they may, in fact, be the source of all our woes! The riot would fizzle out before the rioters had even googled the first fifty names in the phone book. And any one unlucky enough to be found out could simply quit the basketball team thereby getting off the hook. No good fun or mass mind control in that!
Aye!
Race is a contested concept. Using it as a rough-and-ready distinguisher for the purposes of medical treatment is legitimate. If it can help people, doctors and other medical professionals should not feel guilty or be criticized for doing so.
I can’t think of a reason why race should be a consideration for political questions (who gets what, when, and how) or anything else really.
“Imagine the difficulty in trying to gin up the mob for a genocide/pogrom/riot against zoroastrian carpenters who attended community colleges and had GPAs between 2.7 and 3.6 while currently playing on a community basketball team even though they may, in fact, be the source of all our woes!”
Kind of like Wall Street?
Right now, I’m too consumed with work, income tax, and eyestrain to put a lot of effort into this thread, but it seems to me that those who insist “THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS RACE” are mounting an argument that’s about as effective as LA!LA!LA!LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU”.
But knock yourselves out. For most of us the problem is, and will always remain, balancing your eloquent and linguistically sophisticated arguments against that provided by our own lying eyes.
No, Wall Street is a different kind of race, because as Lily Tomlin said,
“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat” 😉
Of course there’s such a thing as variety.
The question is: what does it mean?
How many guilty men are we willing to set
free before we condemn an innocent man?
Kate: There is such a thing as race but it’s significance is minimal and interbreeding blurs the lines significantly. You can use it to assist in the diagnoses and treatment of disease but a more patient-specific approach will yield better results every time.
Of course there is such a thing as race. It is the result of human groups being isolated on different continents for thousands of years. If no humans had invented boats, and later radio and satellites, odds are we would have, after sufficient time, evolved into different species, just like you find different, but related, species of finches on each of the Galapagos islands.
With that said IQ doesn’t measure everything; I’m sure each of you know people with superlative logical and verbal intelligence who would find changing a tire on their car a major challenge. We are a lot more than a single number.
Culture and learning are very important, but don’t tell the whole story. For example it is well known that Blacks excel in athletic endeavors (just look at the NFL and NBA rosters). Of the 10 men holding the best-ever times in the marathon, nine are from Kenya and one from Ethiopia. This cannot be explained by culture alone.
Obama pitches baseball with his white genes, in that case.
Kate said: “Isolated sub-populations within species acquire differing gene frequencies and mutations due to environmental selection, founder effect, and the level of consanguinity.”
Absolutely. And it shows up in differential effectiveness of heart drugs, anti-depressants, all kinds of stuff.
But, differences between human populations are -small- compared to dog breeds. Really small. These drug response issues are important because of how close to death’s door the patient is, most of the time. Tiny differences count for a lot in those circumstances.
For example, GreenNeck brings up sprinting. Yes, current sprint record holders come from Kenya. In fact they all can be traced to one particular area of Kenya, which particular one escapes me for the moment.
Culture has nothing to do with their speed, as they all have the same training and coaching regimen. It comes from the fact that they have a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers in their legs, a purely genetic trait found in one extended family group (tribe) from one small geographic area. One of those rare happy accidents of mutation that comes along one in a zillion times and breeds true.
But, how much faster are these guys than the fastest German? Or Arab? Or Chinese? A whole second faster in the 100 yards? Or a couple tenths of a second? Do the Kenyans win -every- time, or just slightly more often than the other guys?
Race is a Victorian era construct created by Europeans to justify keeping the natives down in the colonies. It can’t be defended except by global warming and gun control style BS junk science. It exists in the same universe as phrenology and astrology. Its crap now, it was always crap, and there’s really no excuse for using up valuable brain cycles on it.
Population genetics on the other hand holds up under an electron microscope and in the test tube. As yet there’s no markers for smart white brain or smarter Chinese brain, or gay vs. straight brain. Bet your bootay that there’s plenty of people out there looking for it too.
When somebody shows me a neurological structure or function that differs between Asians, Africans and Europeans, y’all will be the first to hear it.
Bwahahahaaaaa! Black Mamba WINS the thread! HA!
Whereas I believe “race” exists (UN definition: a classificatory device within which the various groups of mankind may be assembled and by means of which study of evolutionary processes may be facilitated), the labels we apply often tell us more about the labeler than the labeled. For instance, who is “black”: Africans? How about those of the Indian subcontinent? How about Australian aborigines? They’re all “black” in their skin coloring yet have very distinctive genetic pools. I had a Chinese tell me in no uncertain terms that Cambodians were “black” and couldn’t understand how I could possibly think otherwise.
Likewise, who is white: Japanese? Koreans? Finns? The Ainu of Japan? How about Jewish: Ashkenazi or Sephardic? And how about them Orientals: Han Chinese vs Thai vs Tibetans? I know a girl of Korean origin was taken for Inuit when she worked up north. Was she “native” or “asian”?
Unfortunately human beings are all too keen to find the differences between ourselves, no matter how superficial, wether that be melanin content of the skin, epicanthic folds, nasal length to width ratios, or hair texture/coloring. Leftists exploit this ruthlessly. The way to end racism is to end racism, judging “Not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Meanwhile leave the “race” assignment as a screening device for medical purposes.
DrD:
Exactly, thanks!
»Race is a Victorian era construct created by Europeans to justify keeping the natives down in the colonies.»
And gravity is a construct created by thin people to make obese people feel heavy.
And how do you explain that only triangle’s angles always add up to 180 degrees?
It must be a construct created by big mean triangles to keep other geometrical shapes down.
Those triangles must have been white of course.
Because everything bad in this world is because of »whithy».
If the white race is always the vilain in every damn story, then why are you people arguing that there is no such thing as race ??????
Phantom: “Culture has nothing to do with their speed, as they all have the same training and coaching regimen. It comes from the fact that they have a higher percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers in their legs, a purely genetic trait found in one extended family group (tribe) from one small geographic area. One of those rare happy accidents of mutation that comes along one in a zillion times and breeds true.
Kenyans& the vast majority of Africans mopup on ALL the middle and long distance races caused by a higher % of slowtwitch leg muscles, which was probably caused by centuries of chasing gazelles.
The fasttwitchers are from the Caribbean, brought as slaves from one African tribe. The particular tribe was known for their height and fighting spirit(taller than whitey) and were so unruly that most were killed enroute. Some ended up in Halifax.
I don’t think anyone here is arguing that there is no such thing as race. IMO, this is one area where the left and right actually agree. Where they don’t agree is in their support, or lack thereof, for special treatment, protections or rights based on race or ethnicity.
I don’t think anyone here is arguing that there is no such thing as race.
Actually if you read the comments about 2/3 of people here are refusing the idea of race.
Some of them are saying ( in their own words ) they know there is no such thing as race because the white race created the idea of race to oppress other races.
Which is like saying :
I know I’m deaf because when people tell me I’m deaf I can clearly hear them telling me I’m deaf.
I can’t help it I have to type it again;
The idea of race was created by the white race, thus there is no such thing as race.
Funny… in a sad way…
A group has a mean or average IQ. The higher the mean IQ, the larger the smart fraction of the group. The larger the smart fraction, the higher the GDP per capita. A higher GDP/capita correlates with democracy and the wealthiest democracies have never been observed to fall into authoritarianism.
“…for a technologically sophisticated society…a nation’s per capita GDP is determined by the population fraction with IQ greater than or equal to some threshold IQ. Consistent with the data of Lynn and Vanhanen, that threshold IQ is 108, a bit less than the minimum required for what used to be a bachelor’s degree.”
http://lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm
I don’t think a drug should be “approved” for blacks only. Technically, I don’t think they should be “approved” by any government authority at all, because government personnel are not omniscient and are as prone to influence and incompetence as anyone, probably more so. But as long as the system works this way, a drug should be “approved” for human use, while the doctors who would prescribe it should know that it works better for blacks than for whites, thus they’d be more willing to prescribe it for the former while possibly choosing something better for the latter.
Leftists, one of whose subordinate goals is to confuse the hell out of everybody, cry “racism” whenever it is convenient (like if somebody obviously discriminates) while swearing race doesn’t exist or is a “construct” when it comes to issues like collecting crime stats. Examples of left-wing hypocrisy are legion.
Anyway, the really important issue is that we’re all human beings and have the same rights, no matter whether we’re “white”, “black”, “Asian” of some description, or whatever. Characteristics like IQ, drug efficacy, crime rates, etc. are irrelevant to this.
When I used the term race and ethnicity, I was referring to skin colour and distinct physical characteristics (white, black, Asian, east Indian, First Nations, Australian Aboriginals etc). I stand by my comment that no-one who commented here stated that people with different skin color and distinct physical characteristics do not exist.
That being said, the debates seems to be how much emphasis, investigation or significance should be placed on race, and/or whether or not significant or important differences exist and if so, what areas, and what should our response be to these findings.
For example; hypothetically, suppose it was unequivocally proven that white people have significantly more heart attacks than people with other skin colours. Do we:
a) Allow life insurance companies to charge higher premiums for policies issued to white people.
b) Allocate large sums of money to research to discover why white people have more heart attacks.
c) Test white people earlier and more often for signs of heart problems.
d) Give insurance policy premium discounts to non white persons.
e) Open a white only, state of the art, cardiac hospital.
f) Pass laws that force white people to buy private insurance.
g) Exempt white people from the provincial health care system because the system can no longer afford to look after the huge burden.
i) Raise and allocate large amounts of money to find a cure for white peoples heart attacks.
j) Euthanize white people who are diagnosed with heart problems.
k) none of the above
l) all of the above
m) some of the above
Try substituting any number of factors that are not within our control (gender, race, ethnicity, intelligence, body type, genetic illnesses, or diseases – *type A personality, *type B personality) and factors that are with our control (smoking, obesity, occupation, hobbies, alcohol use, recreational drug use, perscription drug use, extreme sports, regular sports, no sports or physical activity, few sexual partners, many sexual partners, no sexual partners, married, single, divorced, level of education). *debatable category
Vίtruvius, try to find decent local single herd raw cow’s milk cheese in Ontario, and you will learn how an individual is affected by culture. Fortunately thre is a culture of caseophiles, but in Ontario, but opportunities limited by the general culture funnel the caseophile culture into ‘cultured’ (couldn’t resist) sheep and goat milk products. The culture/individual interplay is similar to the interplay between language and the individual. The individual participatees in and is in part constituted by the community language, and vice versa.
By th way, there is still time left this week to invest in Ruth Klahsen’s dairy. She will be producing sheep, goat, water buffalo and horse milk products (and some cow, too) once her new operations are up and running, hopefully by May 16. She had been making a variety of excellent cheeses until her premises lease expired last year. We love her sheep milk yoghurt and her bufala milk yoghurt and I am keen to try her mare’s milk offering. Join the local cheese culture. http://www.monfortedairy.com/
DJ – that’s an invalid correlation – GDP and IQ.
The GDP functions only in a surplus or growth economy and non-industrial economies are not primarily surplus economies…and that includes Western Europe in, for example, the 9th century. Are you going to make a case that the IQ increased as the economy moved into surplus mode and trade? Heh.
Or that pre-democracy societies had a lower IQ and then changed? Or that democratic societies that moved into totalitarianism (eg Germany) dropped their IQ?
Or… I’d suggest you think a bit more and not swallow pseudo-science nonsense.
The others are right – variational physiological characteristics remain physiological. The brain doesn’t operate like the liver and there’s no proof of ‘group’ differences.
“When I used the term race and ethnicity, I was referring to skin colour and distinct physical characteristics…’
Among humans, skin colour exists as a gradient, while “race” is defined as a set of finite, discrete categories. Using the former as a defining characteristic of the latter is like trying to define a discrete number of shades of grey. You could do it, but the lines you draw along the black-white colour spectrum will necessarily be artificial.
In my opinion, the relevant issue here remains, after all that has been said, simply this: independent of whether or not what some would call race exists, and independent of whether or not intelligence has any correlation to any such race notion, population distributions certainly do exist, but distributions only apply to populations, not to individuals. That some may not understand this necessary limitation of distributions does not make it untrue.
Consider a value measured across the individuals of two differing populations. Often the resulting distributions of the two populations will be Gaussian and with similar variation, but they will not have the same average value. Nevertheless, the individuals at the highest end of the lower distribution will still have a much higher value of said measure than almost everyone in the higher distribution, and the individuals at the lowest end of the higher distribution will still have a much lower value of said measure than almost everyone in the lower distribution.
Contrawise, consider the case of two distributions with similar average value, but with differing variation. While the individuals with the highest value of the measure will almost all be from the population with the wider variation, it remains the case that individuals from the high end of the narrower distribution will have higher values of the measure than almost everyone in the wider distribution, and also, interestingly, the individuals with the lowest values of the measure will almost all be from the same population with the wider distribution that tends to contain the individuals with the highest values of the measure.
Since distributions apply only to populations, not to individuals, we must therefore hold that no individual may be judged according to any distribution measured across any population to which said individual may belong. Individuals must only be judged qua themselves.
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Davenport: True. I realize the definition of race I outlined is certainly not the “official or inclusive” definition; however, IMO, most people think skin colour and distintive physical characteristics when they hear the word race or ethnicity.
Vituvius & ET: Good points and thoughts to ponder.