You're right, of course. Brain freeze. I am rushing through the threads and had 1971 on the brain. I was referring to their formative work, and the Atlantic essay in particular.

 

Promise Academy (Harlem Children's Zone)

• 100% of third graders at Promise Academies I and II tested at or above grade level on the math exam, outperforming their peers in New York State, New York City, District 5, and black and white students throughout the state
• Over 98% of Promise Academy II's students scored at or above grade level on the math exam, outperforming their counterparts in New York State, New York City and District 5, as well as black and white students in New York State
• In English and Language Arts (ELA), over 93% of Promise Academy I third graders tested at or above grade level, outperforming New York State, New York City and District 5 peers, as well as black and white students in New York State
• Over 84% of Promise Academy II's students scored at or above grade level in ELA, outperforming on average their counterparts in New York State, New York City and District 5, as well as black students in New York City
• In 2008, 93% of Promise Academy High School ninth graders passed the statewide Algebra Regents exam.

http://www.hcz.org/our-results

 

Before I get too excited about this I would like to know how the student bodies of the Promise Academies were selected. Even if there was not an entrance exam the students and their parents were highly motivated to begin with.

For this to be seen as evidence against The Bell Curve the students would need to be selected randomly, and there would need to be an equivalent school system for white students selected the same way.

There is little relationship between the cost of a school system and the results. There is a strong relationship between the racial composition of the student body and the results. Whites and Orientals outperform blacks and Hispanics, even when family income or the education of the parents is held constant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1995-SAT-Income.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1995-SAT-Education.png

 

Stumbler's example is not evidence against the Bell Curve.

But it is an effective anecdotal response to the anecdotal examples that you use to support the conclusions you draw from The Bell Curve.

When examples such as Stumbler's are shown to you, DL, you always seem to have a ready-tailored explanation, such as, "Well, the charter school's student body is not randomly selected, because only motivated [above-average intelligent] parents would send their children there."

But, why? Questions that you beg:

1. Why must only intelligent parents be motivated?

2. Where is the proof that above average intelligence in parents correlates with above average intelligence in their children?

3. Why would parity between "random selection" into "black" and "white" schools constitute a disproof of The Bell Curve, given that the statistics in The Bell Curve are distributions of the performance of large socioculturally diverse populations?

Stumbler's example is sound. And in fact it supports the growing body of evidence that intrinsic intelligence is not static, and can be improved with motivated cognitive training.

I must say, DL, that you are way behind the prevailing science on this one, and the conclusions that you are drawing are recklessly ill-informed.

 

Saying that does not make it true. I wonder if even you believe that.

The failure of No Child Left Behind to either meet goals or to bridge the gap in racial achievement provides fresh and graphic evidence of the assertions found in The Bell Curve.

The fact that is still dangerous to give public assent to the findings of Charles Murray, Richard Hernstein, J. Philippe Rushton and others of like mind causes me to be skeptical of arguments against them. Until it is perfectly safe to agree with them in public it cannot be said that there is a disinterested scientific inquiry going on.

People are so desperate to believe that intelligence can be significantly increased, and that there are no significant biological differences between the races, that any one who satisfies that longing can be sure of gaining an audience.

Since 1990 the race gap in SAT scores has increased. Even when blacks live in affluent neighborhoods, and attend well financed public schools they still tend to perform much less well than whites and Orientals. This cannot be explained environmentally. It can be explained biologically by a phenomena called "reversion to the mean."

I have talked to mathematics teachers in high school who have told me that very few blacks can learn Algebra II, and that many are incapable of mastering simple concepts like fractions and negative numbers. I have never talked to a public school teacher who has told me that blacks and whites are of equal intelligence.

 

Nice try.

 

Do your children attend predominately black public schools? Would you send your children to predominately black public schools if they were well financed, like the public schools in Washington, DC are?

Washington, DC is full of white liberals, but hardly any of them send their children to the public schools. Why do you think that is, Kimiko?

 

I don't believe I ever said that in relation to The Bell Curve.

 

I have submitted that the Tuskagee Airmen, the conduct of the Japanese Nation before and during WWII and the conduct of the German nation in WWII refute the premise of the Bell Curve Thingy. I have given DL examples and links to assist him in his research.

DL suggests that The Tuskagee Airmen did not perform as I have described. He has not however refuted the evidence, only demanded more evidence from me.

He has stated that the above examples are "anomalies"

DL has failed repeatedly to explain how the examples I have cited can be reconciled with the Bell Curve Thingy.

In scientific study, finding a valid exception to a premise proves the premise false, or requires a refinement of the premise to account for the exception.

Let me help DL out. The Bell Curve Thingy can't explain it. The Bell Curve thingy is a compilation of unconnected facts used to support an invalid premise. It's a theory proven false by real life events.

Kind of like the perfessor asserting that the earth is flat. One could find all manner of things to support such a premise. But reality disproves it.

Accepting a theory or premise without understanding the proof behind it is ignorant. Continuing to support a premise or theory proven false is delusional.

 

I told you. I'm not going to get sucked into this. And I've explained the fallacy in your argument until I'm blue in the face.

 

For me it is not a matter of belief. And I will explain why. But first... blacks can't learn Algebra II?

Come now, my floppy-eared XNXX friend. (Thanks for accepting, by the way! :excited: (As furious as your bigotry makes me sometimes. )) Someone told you that? Where? At a cross burning?

I know a semi-pro hockey player who will be happy to tell you, in all seriousness, that niggers can't skate. And he'll proceed with a physiological defense of his position. (Niggers have weak ankles.) And then he'll cite statistics. (Whites outnumber niggers in hockey farm leagues by 10:1, and in the pros by 50:1.)

Honestly, DL: That is exactly what you sound like.

Okay. Here's the thing. Murray and Herrnstein did not show that Asians are smarter than whites, or that Jews are smarter than whites generally, or that whites are smarter than blacks.

Here is what they showed: That some groups test better than others.

All of the other inferences that have been piled on after them are just that: inferences, piled on after them, by people who used their findings to support their predispositions. Murray and Herrnstein have been misused by both sides. Not only by bigots, who interpreted the numbers to defend their belief in racial superiority, but also by educators, who used the numbers to justify expansions in funding for public education.

Murray and Herrnstein did not claim that genetics are a 60% determinant of intelligence. They merely claimed that genetics correlate with intelligence over other correlates by a factor of 3:2.

People "like you" (sorry, but that sounds nicer than "bigots like you") interpret that correlation as meaning that the genes of some people make them smarter, and the genes of other people make them dumber.

You just might be right.

But Murray and Herrnstein did not make that claim, because they could not prove it. And you can't, either.

In order to prove causality, here is what you would have to do:


1. Specify the neural correlates of consciousness and cognition, and quantify the degree to which they are genetically determined.

2. Come up with a way to quantify the degree of consciousness and cognition between individuals.

3. Identify the specific genetic precursors, and monitor their prenatal and postnatal expression in random samples of growing individuals across diverse sociocultural groups.

4. Verify the hypothesis by correctly predicting how those individuals will test.

The whole game falls apart on the first step. We know that consciousness and cognition take place principally in the frontal cortex. We can run fMRI and PET on test subjects as they think happy thoughts, and watch their heads light up. But we do not know what is happening at a neural level. We are decades from that capability.

In the meantime, it would behoove you to stop dismissing the new studies on malleable IQ as "desperate wishes," and start to give it the credence that it deserves.

Finally, you would also have to explain how, if cognition is racially determined, there has been enough time for it to diverge. Every human on the planet lived in Africa just yesterday, in evolutionary terms. The sub-Saharan diaspora has given us barely enough time to diverge in trivial respects, such as the incidence of epidermal melanin and hair color.

As Zen River Otter said somewhere above, we have had barely enough time to evolve several varied semblances of beauty. Maybe you should think about that, and not be so zealous about spoiling what little beauty that we, as a species, have achieved.

 

http://abagond.wordpress.com/2011/03/07/cavalli-sforza-on-“the-bell-curve”/

 

The groups that test better perform better. The next time you walk through Harvard take a look at all the Orientals there. They did not get there because of affirmative action. If anything, affirmative action policies work against them.

-----------

Here is a brief list of Ashkenazi accomplishments in the last 90 years.

Nobel Prizes: Since 1950, 29% of the awards have gone to Ashkenazim, even though they represent only 0.25% of humanity. Ashkenazi achievement in this arena is 117 times greater than their population.

Hungary in the 1930s: Ashkenazim were 6% of the population, but they comprised 55.7% of physicians, 49.2% of attorneys, 30.4% of engineers, and 59.4% of bank officers; plus, they owned 49.4% of the metallurgy industry, 41.6% of machine manufacturing, 72.8% of clothing manufacturing, and, as housing owners, they received 45.1% of Budapest rental income. Jews were similarly successful in nearby nations, like Poland and Germany.

USA (today): Ashkenazi Jews comprise 2.2% of the USA population, but they represent 30% of faculty at elite colleges, 21% of Ivy League students, 25% of the Turing Award winners, 23% of the wealthiest Americans, and 38% of the Oscar-winning film directors.

Israel: In 1922, this swamp and desert land was inhabited by a impoverished population of 752,000. Today there are 7,746,000 residents, with an Ashkenazi majority that have elevated it into a high-tech entrepreneurial nation with the highest per capita income in the region.
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/pellissier20110719

 

Of course people who test better perform better. They are also afforded more choices, and make more of them, and accomplish more.

But none of that means they have superior intrinsic cognitive ability.

I do not think you are being deliberately obtuse, to rile us up. That the science of cognition is unsettled (and still in early development) appears not to matter to you; you are determined to believe what you believe. And there is nothing wrong with that. You are entitled. (Wow, do I feel like I've morphed onto a Global Warming thread to take on the believers!!!!) I am struggling over how to explain the fault in your reasoning, in a way that is plain.

In a thread above, Stumbler has trotted out an expert who has gone on record to contend that Murray and Herrnstein are wrong. There are many such cases, but those will not persuade you, either. (Which I happen to think is okay. Their detractors are attacking the conclusions drawn, moreso than the science itself.) I figured you would at least acknowledge that Murray's formative data, being thirty years old, is hopelessly outdated. (Stumbler makes that case, too.) You are not persuaded by that, either.

Okay. I'll try analogy.

Phrenology.

It was in vogue in the Victorian era, particularly during the first big UK suffragist debates championed by Harriet Taylor, and then her daughter Helen, both of whom were represented in Parliament by a certain Renaissance man who was dismissed at the time as a laughingstock.

Opponents of Mill's The Subjection of Women, and opponents of feminism generally, used phrenology to make the case that women are intrinsically less intelligent than men, and less suitable for the professions. The field couched itself in pseudoscience, but essentially it came down to gross anatomy: cognition was deemed to take place in the brain (so far so good), and more was deemed to be better, so phrenologists rated cognitive ability by cranium size. Women have smaller heads than men. Ergo, men are smarter. There was more to it, but not much more.

Phrenology has been soundly debunked with the advance of medicine and physiology. It began to go out of vogue in the late 19th century, with advances in physiology, when researchers began to appreciate that the brain consists of roughly one-third "thinking stuff" and roughly two thirds "life support stuff."

As the early 20th century advanced, phrenology took a big, big hit when advances in the understanding of brain development taught us that the human brain undergoes several rounds of purposeful necrosis (en masse dying out of neural tissue).

How could phrenology have merit, researchers wondered, if neurons die out as people become smarter?

By the roaring 20's, phrenology was dead and buried, yet contemporary advances continue to drive nails into its coffin.

Just twenty-five years ago, it was still generally believed that personality is essentially formed by age five, and that learning ability is "locked in" by the mid to late teens (when the neural strata complete myelination). It was also believed, not so long ago, that neural cells cannot regenerate.

We now know, thanks to progressive technological advances, that all of these suppositions are false. The brain is much more malleable, even into adulthood, than was believed in the heyday of Murray and Herrnstein. Neural cells do, indeed, regenerate. Extant cells can "cast out" new axons, and grow dendritic arbors, even into adulthood. Those cells can myelinate. That is how retired men and women can pick up music, deep into retirement, and learn how to play Beethoven. Or, they can take a multi-year sabbatical in Paris, immerse themselves in a foreign culture, and learn French, as though they were still children. Is it harder for people in their fifties and sixties, than it is for children? Sure. But adults are not locked in. Old dogs can learn new tricks.

 

Shit! I meant to preview the former! I never got a chance to bring it home!

The point, DL, is that there is no physiological basis on which to conclude that men are intrinsically smarter than women.

Yes, men earn more money, and earn more Ph.D.'s, and win more awards. None of which mean that men are smarter. Any more than the dearth of black professional hockey players means that blacks cannot skate. Or that, because there are many Asians at Harvard, Asians are smarter than the rest of us.

 

One would expect parents earning more than $70,000 a year to give their children more choices than parents earning less than $10,000. One would expect parents with graduate degrees would give their children more choices than parents who graduated from high school, and never went to college.

Nevertheless, in 1995 white students with family incomes of less than $10,000 averaged higher SAT scores than black students whose family incomes exceeded $70,000 a year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1995-SAT-Income.png

Also in 1995 white students whose parents only graduated from high school averaged higher SAT scores than black students whose parents had graduate degrees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1995-SAT-Education.png

Oriental students tended to outperform whites. This cannot be explained by environment. It can be explained by a well known genetic phenomena called "reversion to the mean." Exceptional qualities are dependent on recessive genes that are unlikely to match in the children.

The average intelligence of blacks is lower than the lower average of whites, which in turn is lower than the average for Orientals.

You will probably agree that there is a correlation between intelligence, income, and level of education. If the average intelligence of the parents is held common, the children of Orientals have less to revert to.

 

I suspect that you are trying to curry favor with the XNXX enforcers of political correctness by posting comments that you do not really believe.

 

You are not exposing any fault in my reasoning. You are repeating cliches that I have refuted many times before.

 

And so it continues..

No one can debate with ignorance and bigotry..it's a pointless venture as has been proved here many times.

 

Stumbler is fond of posting a link with the implication, "This proves that I am right." Ever since I was a teenage when I defeated someone in a political argument he would give me a reading list that was supposed to prove that despite his inability to stay in the ring with me, the reading list proved that he was right anyway.

I told them what I now tell you, "If you read that stuff, explain it to me in your own words. If you can't do that, you either did not read it, or you did not understand it."

Anyone can find people on the internet who agree with them. The legitimate function of the internet is to document facts used in one's own arguments.