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From: cam@castle.ed.ac.uk (Chris Malcolm)
Subject: Re: RACE and IQ
References: <jqbCz0Lpz.KpF@netcom.com> <CzDHyD.FJr@festival.ed.ac.uk> <jqbCzKCuM.JII@netcom.com>
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Organization: University of Edinburgh
Date: Fri, 25 Nov 1994 18:08:47 GMT
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In article <jqbCzKCuM.JII@netcom.com> jqb@netcom.com (Jim Balter) writes:
>In article <CzDHyD.FJr@festival.ed.ac.uk>,
>Chris Malcolm <cam@castle.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>I wondered a while back why people got so illogically steamed up about
>>this question, when it would be rather surprising if different races
>>did not have have different distributions of mental capabilities,
>>since they do differ in lots of physiological details. I recently
>>heard part of a radio programme which made it horribly clear that I
>>was very naive.

>>A professor of psychology, and some other academic big-wigs, were
>>asked to comment on the recent claim by some researcher that different
>>races were differently mentally endowed. *Everyone* agreed that:-

>Perhaps you could identify this handful of people that you found so impressive.
>Or would you just like to imply that their opinions are identical with those
>of the entire community of critics?

I found them impressively naive. I don't know who they were. My guess
is that if a handful of academics and academic journalists all agree
about something, then the view is likely to be at least held by a
large minority.

>There is currently no way to translate statistical differences in behavior
>among races or other social groups into genetic differences.  So claims of
>genetically produced differences in cognitive skills between such groups are
>unsupportable.

The really important question is whether this is a question of
principle, or just an accident of current experimental technology. You
phrase it as though it were contingent, but you seem to suggest it has
an importance worthy of principled impossibility.

>>	b) All the scientists who have ever asserted differently have
>>been grinding right wing political axes, and their research has very
>>easily been shown to be flawed, or even, in some cases, fraud.

>Can you rebut the claim?  Certainly many, if not most, such instances have
>been documented.  See Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man" and Lewontin et. al.'s
>"Not in Our Genes".

There's certainly a lot of it about. But this is true of BOTH sides of
the debate, e.g. the Burt controversy, and can't be used to blacken
just one side.

>>Since there are definite differences in brain quality between
>>different people, this clearly means that intelligence has nothing to
>>do with quality of brain. Which means that artificial intelligence is
>>barking up the wrong tree, since AI depends a lot on quality of
>>computer.

>Well, only if you accept as true a position that you don't believe to
>be true.  So what's your point?  That some people you heard on the radio
>said something that, ad reductio, is absurd?  Gee, how novel.

In the case of gender differences in mental capabilities the arena has
become so politicised that almost all the people left working in the
field are women, since no man could be consensually trusted to be
unbiassed. My point is that the arena of race differences in IQ has
also become so politicised that it has become unstudyable and
undiscussable by anyone who is not both black and educationally
disadvantaged, i.e., it has become a completely forbidden area.
-- 
Chris Malcolm    cam@uk.ac.ed.aifh          +44 (0)31 650 3085
Department of Artificial Intelligence,    Edinburgh University
5 Forrest Hill, Edinburgh, EH1 2QL, UK                DoD #205
"The mind reigns, but does not govern" -- Paul Valery
