Excellent troll thread. Duped a lot of folks.
Excellent troll thread. Duped a lot of folks.
Jkj wrote:
Excellent troll thread. Duped a lot of folks.
Belated thanks. I know that a couple posters were wise, but this has actually been my best effort so far. (My posts/threads are almost always straight--just like to try some trollage now and then.)
Troll or not, the OP described my experience with the book pretty accurately.
agehw wrote:
Troll or not, the OP described my experience with the book pretty accurately.
The OP and you have no real cultural experience. You need to get out and see the "real" world, and that doesn't mean visiting a large city Paris or Rio de Janeiro.
Here is a great quote:
“There is not very much to learn in the city. It is time to walk in the forest again.” Moi (Huaorani Indian Leader) after visiting Washington DC to defend his Amazon homeland against plans for oil drilling.
Here is though for you Americans to ponder. Why is that Asian students outperform American students on college tests, despite the fact the the IQ of American is higher?
I wouldn't expect an a smart and anti-racist book to be popular on Letsrun.
This site has never been closer to stormfront than it is now.
Nigerians have the highest educational attainment of any national descent group in the United States. What does this do for the racial theories that so many of you are spinning?
There is more genetic diversity in Africa than anywhere else. Nigerians, on average, have a higher IQ than many other ethnic groups in Africa.
El Jefe is correct about his point. That's not to say that IQ is the answer to Yali's question, but is to say that it was unscientific of Diamond to dismiss it as a possible factor a priori.
I agree with the posts highlighting the importance of other traits for success. I think motivation is huge, and would rather have a highly motivated person of average intelligence working for me than a slacker with high intelligence.
Part of the problem as well is that people don't know how to think about the meaning of a distribution. If the mean intelligence of one group is higher than that of another group, that tells you nothing about differences between 2 individuals selected from the groups. There is a huge overlap between curves, and so there are plenty of people in the group of lower mean intelligence that are more intelligent than a good portion of the group with higher mean intelligence.
It's not racist to accept the substantial evidence for differences in intelligence between groups, but it is racist to draw conclusions about individuals on the basis of that evidence.
But it is racist to assume that IQ is the singular answer to the level of intelligence. Westerns assume IQ is fixed. You cannot become smarter than your IQ. Asians have proven that IQ is not the singular answer to level of intelligence.
Moi (Huaorani Indian Leader) wrote:
Here is though for you Americans to ponder. Why is that Asian students outperform American students on college tests, despite the fact the the IQ of American is higher?
I've been enjoying reading some of the linked articles. This one (http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/mainstream.html) states: "The bell curves for some groups (Jews and East Asians) are centered somewhat higher than for whites in general."
Meaning that your premise is flawed: average IQ for Easians is *higher* than average IQ for Americans. Which, in fact, could be one reason that "Asian students outperform American students on college tests."
Whom? Hmm... wrote: Meaning that your premise is flawed: ...
Ummmm, ever heard of peer review? How about academic references? No, I didn't think so.
Your reference is a list of beliefs made by "commentators" and not by academic experts. Not a single supporting academic source is listed for the numbered intelligence "conclusions." The article is a statement. It is not an academic article.
Now, if you bothered to do some actual research you would know that your linked article is highly flawed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Science_on_IntelligenceIn 1996, Donald T. Campbell, a former president of the American Psychological Association, included his own analysis of the Wall Street Journal statement, previously drafted as a letter to that newspaper. Campbell first remarked that: "Of the 52 signatories, there were 10 whom I would regard as measurement experts. I do not have a list of those who were asked to sign and refused, but I know they included Lee Cronbach, Robert Sternberg, and myself."
He remarked that the rhetorical organization of points in the statement, inadvertently or deliberately, seemed to him to build up to the conclusion that the black-white racial gap had a genetic cause. He pointed out that already at point 5, no provision had been allowed for differences in educational opportunity. Later on in point 14, he judged that the statements on heritability had been made without mentioning that it was based on twin studies, where environmental opportunities had been excluded as possible factors."
Moi (Huaorani Indian Leader) wrote:
Whom? Hmm... wrote: Meaning that your premise is flawed: ...Ummmm, ever heard of peer review? How about academic references? No, I didn't think so.
Your reference is a list of beliefs made by "commentators" and not by academic experts. Not a single supporting academic source is listed for the numbered intelligence "conclusions." The article is a statement. It is not an academic article.
Now, if you bothered to do some actual research you would know that your linked article is highly flawed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mainstream_Science_on_IntelligenceIn 1996, Donald T. Campbell, a former president of the American Psychological Association, included his own analysis of the Wall Street Journal statement, previously drafted as a letter to that newspaper. Campbell first remarked that: "Of the 52 signatories, there were 10 whom I would regard as measurement experts. I do not have a list of those who were asked to sign and refused, but I know they included Lee Cronbach, Robert Sternberg, and myself."
He remarked that the rhetorical organization of points in the statement, inadvertently or deliberately, seemed to him to build up to the conclusion that the black-white racial gap had a genetic cause. He pointed out that already at point 5, no provision had been allowed for differences in educational opportunity. Later on in point 14, he judged that the statements on heritability had been made without mentioning that it was based on twin studies, where environmental opportunities had been excluded as possible factors."
dude i don't see anything in your post that actually contradicts the idea that east asians have a higher average iq or supports what you said about americans having an iq higher than the asians'.
That was boring ass book and offered no enlightenment to anyone with a brain.
Go read some Bertrand Russell or something if you want to be an "intellectual". Great writer and actually intelligent and insightful...unlike Diamond.
Whom? Hmm... wrote:
Moi (Huaorani Indian Leader) wrote:Here is though for you Americans to ponder. Why is that Asian students outperform American students on college tests, despite the fact the the IQ of American is higher?
I've been enjoying reading some of the linked articles. This one (http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/mainstream.html) states: "The bell curves for some groups (Jews and East Asians) are centered somewhat higher than for whites in general."
Meaning that your premise is flawed: average IQ for Easians is *higher* than average IQ for Americans. Which, in fact, could be one reason that "Asian students outperform American students on college tests."
Beat me to it.
madarin wrote:
Whom? Hmm... wrote:I've been enjoying reading some of the linked articles. This one (http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/mainstream.html) states: "The bell curves for some groups (Jews and East Asians) are centered somewhat higher than for whites in general."
Meaning that your premise is flawed: average IQ for Easians is *higher* than average IQ for Americans. Which, in fact, could be one reason that "Asian students outperform American students on college tests."
Beat me to it.
Ummm, did you notice that the link provided was to a biased survey?
-1/10 wrote:
Whom? Hmm... wrote:http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/mainstream.htmlUmmm, did you notice that the link provided was to a biased survey?
i didn't, i just saw that it had conclusions some people wouldn't like...
I read GG&S and agree: even if this was a troll thread, Diamond was intellectually dishonest--or at best incredibly slipshod. He was sort of like that generation's Malcolm Gladwell: pick one point and then ride it to death.
Very entertaining read, though.
Moi (Huaorani Indian Leader) wrote:
The OP and you have no real cultural experience. You need to get out and see the "real" world, and that doesn't mean visiting a large city Paris or Rio de Janeiro.
Just now seeing this. I actually think that my years in Latin America/Pacific/East Asia/SE Asia involved seeing some of the "real" world. And that experience made pretty clear, though just anecdotally, some of the things that people have been saying (and that academics have apparently been backing up) in this thread.
This whole business reminds me a good deal of Stephen Jay Gould's book The Mismeasure of Man--where, again, easily ascertainable facts were either ignored or misreported, so as to support Gould's thesis. I don't think "intellectually dishonest" is too strong a description of that one, either.
agehw wrote:
...some of the things that people have been saying (and that academics have apparently been backing up) in this thread....
LOL ... academics are never wrong. Well that is real news. How about migration out of Africa being turned on its head by the Nature Journal this week? It seems that modern man DID NOT migrate to Europe before Southern Asia. Man was there more than 80,000 years ago. Meaning that Euro-centric "academics" biased their thinking about the evolution and expansion of man. It makes more sense that man moved to Southern Asia first: similar climate, no cold-weather adapted Neanderthals to cope with. Diamond is closer to right than Euro-centric "academics." Texts must be rewritten and revised, and resold to scholars so they can teach that what they were previously teaching was untrue.