RE: Babies just 15 months old show racial bias when picking playmates

Congratulations - you have the thinking capacity of a 1 year old.

were the babies in the study from the south by any chance?

Even Black guys prefer white women, so that proves the study wrong.

Now wait a minute. All they found was that among a group of mostly white kids, most of them preferred to play with the researcher who gave extra toys to white kids. At most they're taking advantage of someone else's racial bias.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Now wait a minute. All they found was that among a group of mostly white kids, most of them preferred to play with the researcher who gave extra toys to white kids. At most they're taking advantage of someone else's racial bias.

Did you ever notice every "study" seems set up to show whites are biased? And did you notice most of you are so brainwashed with self-hate you go right along with it? Did you ever notice that statements like the previous illicit a knee-jerk, self-hate reaction? A reaction that makes you want to jump up and prove you're not racist? Did you notice that other races can engage in racist behavior toward whites and it's not called racism? Like black "youths" attacking and / or murdering whites and "officials" are always quick to tell us that race wasn't an element in said crimes. Wake up. People naturally stick up for their own. Except sissy whites.

There is lots of research on the innate moral intuitions of babies - this works with babies of all races and the key is they identify more strongly with people who look like them (and it happens with every race). Some of the more uncomfortable findings are that, as we have shows that babies already have a moral since about fairness, they still show preferential bias to wrongdoers of their own race in scenarios where they are punitive of wrongdoers if the actors are all their same race.

Not hard to get evolutionarily - for most of human history, strangers were things you didn't encounter much and if you did it was probably bad news.

Bloom's new book talks about all these studies:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/just-babies-the-origins-of-good-and-evil-by-paul-bloom/2013/12/20/b995464a-56c1-11e3-835d-e7173847c7cc_story.html

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-moral-life-of-babies/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

naxz wrote:

Which animal is not "biased" to their own at birth?

For instance do wolves play with rabbits?

Is there a youtube clip of hyenas and impala frolicking in the savanna?

I seriously hope that you are trolling. You do realize what constitutes being a different species, don't you? Let me fix your wolf analogy for you. In the pack, do wolves with gray/white fur play with those with black fur?

The wolf anology isn't good because fur color doesn't mark off strangers in a society of highly competitive societies.

The problem with the OP's question is he is making the naturalistic fallacy - that something being natural means it is right (that is, no respect for the Is/Ought distinction). Infant bias of this sort is another example of evolutionary mismatch - something that was the least costly error for most of our human history no longer has the adaptive value that it had in an era of small bands generally in hostile relation to strangers.

The baby bias generally is only against males as well (see Bloom's book or podcast interviews he has done on it).

This implies that humans must fight their evolutionary

tendency to do certain that is not considered right.

This is why mankind is doomed to war etc.

Global probably can't be fought (if it it real -that it is another debate) since we are more interested in short-term

gains.

I'm not racist at all but if I had a choice to have a beer with a white guy or black guy I've never met before I'd pick the white guy. First, I dont think black people in general have a very high opinion of whites so why would I want to have a beer with someone that doesn't like me? Second, I have more in common with white people. The same reason I'd have a beer with a guy in his fifties as opposed to a guy in his twenties. I have more in common with an older guy, being older myself.

Brian wrote:

The wolf anology isn't good because fur color doesn't mark off strangers in a society of highly competitive societies.

I didn't bring up the wolf analogy, he did; I just fixed it for him in the context of species, basically reminding him that all humans are the same species. Maybe my fix would have been better if I had said the alpha male in an established pack would treat a lone male wolf with black fur coming into the pack's territory in the same way it would treat a lone male wolf with gray fur coming into its territory.

Brian wrote:

The problem with the OP's question is he is making the naturalistic fallacy - that something being natural means it is right

Need not apply this to homosexuality though! ("But they're born that way!!")

There is probably a natural genetically dictated tendency to identify with one's immediate family, group, or tribe, which probably includes identifying with people that look like us.

However, genetic predisposition, when it exists does not answer the ethical or moral question of whether someone should act on that predisposition.

To take an obvious and indisputable example, men are genetically predisposed to commit crimes, as the fact that 90% of murderers are men illustrates. The young male tendency toward violence and risk taking is genetically adaptive in some ways but also leads to many acts that most people view as immoral. Just because young men may be genetically predisposed to commit murder doesn't make murder ethically or morally permissible.

A tendency toward tribalism or racism may also be genetic but that does not mean that it's moral or ethical or socially desirable.

Toast Burn wrote:

Did you notice that other races can engage in racist behavior toward whites and it's not called racism? Like black "youths" attacking and / or murdering whites and "officials" are always quick to tell us that race wasn't an element in said crimes.

Because it's not you moron. Here is how the knockout game goes for a group of african americans "Hey, I'm bored, let's go punch someone". Never "let's go punch a white person". Just person. They often don't attack other black people because they know the odds of them getting beat up by said black person is much higher than it is for a white person. The really wussy ones are the ones who go for old ladies. You never see the news stories though about the kids who attack elderly black men, that happens ALL THE TIME. News never reports it though, all you and the media latch on to is the black on white so you can spin your own narrative.

Racially motivated attacks are those that used to happen where a group of white guys in a truck would drive around looking for a black guy to either tie up and drag behind their truck or hang from a tree. ALL BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN. That's true racism, true evil.

naxz wrote:

Wow, what a revelation.

Which animal is not "biased" to their own at birth?

For instance do wolves play with rabbits?

Is there a youtube clip of hyenas and impala frolicking in the savanna?

Black rabbits play with white rats

Dennis Reynolds 2.0 wrote:

[quote]:

Never "let's go punch a white person".

Bull. Sh_t.

Never? So you've interviewed everyone who was ever involved?

Nah, just more confirmation you are a complete idiot.

Tadpole wrote:

I'm not racist at all but if I had a choice to have a beer with a white guy or black guy I've never met before I'd pick the white guy. First, I dont think black people in general have a very high opinion of whites so why would I want to have a beer with someone that doesn't like me? Second, I have more in common with white people. The same reason I'd have a beer with a guy in his fifties as opposed to a guy in his twenties. I have more in common with an older guy, being older myself.

That is interesting because I am not the same way at all. As a white guy in my thirties, I would love the opportunity to have a beer with a black guy from a different "socioeconomic" group. I think it would be great to meet someone new and hear their perspective on things.

I don't really get to interact with many black people anymore, unfortunately. I mean, not due to choice, but just by circumstance. I am busy at work and with my kids, so most of my activities revolve around the family. My daughter has a black kid in her class and his father and I chaired an event at the school together last Spring. He is awesome and we keep up, but he travels a lot for work and I barely see him now.

Anyway, just noting that I view it totally different than you. I am not saying that I am better, just different.

coachella wrote:

Brian wrote:

The problem with the OP's question is he is making the naturalistic fallacy - that something being natural means it is right

Need not apply this to homosexuality though! ("But they're born that way!!")

The burden is on the anti-gay folks to tell me why it is wrong (it always comes down to sanctity and disgust, not harm or anything). If you want to regulate private behavior, the public good has to be compelling and lead to greater flourishing in the long run than that which you are curtailing. That could be possible with socially valent things like this, but I haven't seen the evidence (or any respect from the anti- side that this is even a tradeoff to consider).

IN our evolutionary history, we have had to tradeoff morality that helps individuals flourish for morality that helps groups compete and we have the luxury of getting more of the former now.

yyy wrote:

This implies that humans must fight their evolutionary

tendency to do certain that is not considered right.

This is why mankind is doomed to war etc.

Global probably can't be fought (if it it real -that it is another debate) since we are more interested in short-term

gains.

Not so sure it is as bleak as all that as we have competing and inconsistent moral intuitions (just watch people try to explain their contradictions/inconsistencies or give reasons for why they think certain things are wrong - it is a comical failed enterprise of people trying to rationalize emotions that have no basis in having been reasoned out). Some can come to the fore as others receded given environmental changes.