Stop Talking About Race and IQ

Does WILLIAM SALETAN deny the humanity of blacks?

My heading above is copied from a recent, very long-winded article by Saletan, who is a sort of token conservative among prominent journalists. Saletan accepts that there are large differences between black and white IQ averages but thinks we should not talk about it.  To help us think about the matter, let us look at some hypothetical statements about dogs:

Long tails in dogs are hereditary
Great Danes have long tails
Therefore long tails in Great Danes are hereditary

That conclusion seems pretty reasonable, does it not?   From my memory of my studies in formal logic of over 50 years ago, I think it is in fact a valid syllogism.

Here is another very similar syllogism that refers to the centrepiece of the   Saletan article.

Low IQs are hereditary
Blacks have low IQs
Therefore low IQs in blacks are hereditary. 

Is that syllogism not as valid as the first?

Saletan wants to say that that conclusion is NOT logical or is at least unproven.  The only way he can do that, however, is to attack one or both of the premises.  He attacks the statement that low IQs are hereditary.  He says that statement is overly broad.  It may be that among blacks IQ is not hereditary or is hereditary in some different way.

But there have now been many studies of brain function (GWAS studies) which show that IQ involves a large number of brain components and the most recent studies have in fact shown that neuron size is heavily involved in IQ. Smart people have bigger neurons.  And note that the brain is almost entirely composed of neurons.

So Saletan is saying that all those GWAS features are different in blacks.  He is denying the humanity of blacks. He is in effect saying that blacks are a different species, almost something extra-terrestrial.  I am betting that he does NOT want to say that but his argument leads to it.  He would not want to say that because he places great stress on kindness to blacks as being a big issue in the debate. Telling blacks that they are on average dumber and can't change that is unkind. 

I don't think it is unkind.  It is lies that are unkind.  As Eysenck often said, the policies you derive from low average black IQs could as well be kind as anything else. By having lower expectations of blacks, you could be relieving stresses on them to keep up in various ways, for instance.

And we do in any case ordinarily make it very clear to all blacks that they are on average dumber.  That is the famous educational "gap". In their school studies, blacks lag behind white pupils by about the degree you would expect from their much lower average IQ.  And the best brains among American educators have for years striven mightily to find ways of closing that gap.  Many things have been tried but nothing works.  The gap remains no matter what is tried.  It remains just as it has to be if it is genetically-based on IQ.

And all that educational failure is vividly brought home to blacks time and time again.  They are repeatedly shown that they are on average dumber than whites and that nothing will fix that.  Many blacks drop out of education as as result.  They just can't do the work but know that whites can.

So we already make plain to blacks exactly the message that Saletan want to avoid.  So the lies about black IQ come to naught anyway.

Saletan also bows down to convention in saying: “Race science, the old idea that race is a biologically causal trait, may live on as an ideology of hate. But as an academic matter, it’s been discredited"

It is Saletan who has been discredited.  In recent years, there have been  a number of factor-analytic and other studies which have shown that the traditional racial categories do emerge in international data. Saletan might want to start here if he wants to catch up with the research concerned.  Does he really believe that there is no biological cause for the many obvious differences between blacks and whites?  Do you get born black or white at random?  Insane.

Note that I am not the lone psychometrician in pointing to genetics as the cause of black/white IQ differences.  In 2013, a survey of 228 intelligence researchers found that the typical scientist in this field agrees:



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A Good Economy Is Bad for Democrats

Fresh off the socialist May Day protests, Hillary Clinton's hilariously bad socialist/capitalist blame game and a day ahead of Karl Marx's 200th birthday, there's some positive news for our lower-taxed, less-regulated, free-market economy.

April saw another 164,000 jobs created, which isn't fantastic but it's progress, and the headline unemployment rate dropped to just 3.9%, an 18-year low. The fuller measure of unemployment fell to 7.8%, a 17-year low. Black unemployment hit a new record low of 6.6% — doubly interesting in the midst of the Kanye West controversy. March's jobs numbers were revised up from 103,000 to 135,000. Government payrolls declined by 4,000. People applying for unemployment benefits for the first time is now at the lowest level since 1973. Wages grew at an unimpressive 2.6% annualized rate, which bewilders experts, but according to the Employment Cost Index, first-quarter wages grew at the fastest pace in 11 years. That would be prior to the Democrat-caused financial collapse of 2008 for those keeping score.

The lone dark cloud was that unemployment dropped in part because more people aren't even looking for work. As Reuters reports, "236,000 people dropped out of the labor force. The labor force participation rate, or the proportion of working-age Americans who have a job or are looking for one, fell to 62.8 percent from 62.9 percent in March." That said, job growth can't help but slow when the labor market is at essentially full employment.

Meanwhile, the Commerce Department recently announced its estimate for first-quarter GDP growth of 2.3%, which is better than expected. Of course, Americans who rely on nightly newscasts didn't hear about that good news. Other news organizations spun it in a negative light for President Donald Trump.

And that right there is the key. A lot of the Leftmedia churn undermines consumer confidence, and the economy is all about confidence. To the extent Democrats — with the help of their Leftmedia allies — can erode confidence in the administration, the more they undermine the economy. The trick is for Republicans to hammer home the message of tax cuts, deregulation and a growing economy.

SOURCE 

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Trump refugee policy favors Christians over Muslims, 3-1

President Trump’s move to change U.S. refugee policy has led to a radical change in the religious makeup of the population, with Christians now outnumbering Muslims by some three to one, according to the State Department.

In data analyzed by the Pew Research Center, some 10,500 refugees entered the U.S. in the current fiscal year, of which 6,700 were Christians. Another 1,800 were Muslim.

The shift breaks a pattern of allowing equal numbers of Muslims and Christians into the U.S. from dangerous and war-torn nations.

Under Trump, the number of refugees allowed has been slashed. Under former President Obama it reached 100,000, but under Trump it is set for a fraction of that.

Also, the president has targeted some mostly Muslim nations with a travel ban, though there are millions of Muslims in other nations not hit by the ban who are seeking to flee.

In past years, some Christian groups said that Muslims were favored by refugee officials, especially during the Obama years.

Pew did the math and said, “As a result of these changes, Christians account for a far larger share of refugees admitted than Muslims the first half of fiscal 2018 (63 percent vs. 17 percent). By comparison, in full fiscal 2017 Christians (47 percent) and Muslims (43 percent) were more evenly split, and in fiscal 2016 the Muslim share (46 percent) slightly exceeded the Christian share (44 percent).”

SOURCE 

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The swamp still has the power to destroy you

On May 2, the Daily Caller reported, “House Democrat Warns Trump Team: You’ll End Up ‘Sullied’ Like Ronny Jackson,” writing, “Democratic Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen warned on Wednesday that members of President Donald Trump’s inner circle will end up ‘sullied’ like former White House physician Adm. Ronny Jackson — if they stick with the president for long.”

On May 2, the Washington Examiner reported, “Ex-Trump aide Michael Caputo warns: Investigations espousing ‘punishment strategy’ to deter future Trump-like candidates, stating, “Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign aide, said that he doesn’t think anybody should work on a Republican campaign ever again, unless they are compensated for any legal fees that may come out of it. Speaking out Wednesday evening, Caputo also said he believes there is a ‘punishment strategy’ to ‘destroy’ Trump and deter any other billionaires in the future from thinking about running for president. Just out of an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller, Caputo told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson he’s certain that federal investigators are fixated on collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Caputo said he firmly believes there was never any collusion. Caputo also griped about the crushing legal costs of being a witness in the Russia investigations. He excoriated the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday in his closing remarks, blaming the investigation for forcing his family out of their home due to mounting legal costs and death threats. He concluded the statement saying, ‘God damn you to hell.’”

On May 3, NBC News reported, “Feds tapped phones of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and caught one call with White House: NBC News,” stating, “Federal authorities wiretapped the phone lines of President Donald Trump’s long-time personal lawyer Michael Cohen, NBC News reported Thursday. At least one call between Cohen’s phone and the White House was captured by the wiretap, according to the story.”

The NBC story was later retracted, with Fox News reporting, “Sources with knowledge of the proceedings told Fox News that investigators used a pen register, or dialed number recorder (DNR), on at least one of Cohen’s phones. A pen register records all numbers dialed from a given phone number, as well as the length of each call.”

To believe that the FBI went and got a court to violate the President’s attorney-client privilege via wiretap and did not record the contents of the wiretap, it seems like bull. It’s clearly an attempt to obscure the fallout of this egregious abuse of power, to cover up the fact that the President’s attorney was under surveillance. Either way, it’s surveillance of the President’s attorney.

Are you picking up a theme?

Support Donald Trump and you will be destroyed.  It doesn’t matter if the public has ever heard your name, you will be targeted and driven into bankruptcy or worse.  The crime?  Supporting the President of the United States.

And it is all happening right before our eyes in plain sight.

It is no secret that Special Counsel Mueller is a heat seeking missile with only one goal – to take down the Trump presidency.

It is no secret that senior officials within the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Obama Department of Justice similarly sought to undermine the Trump candidacy and subsequently the legitimacy of his presidency.

It is no secret that the Democrats with the aid of some key Senate Republicans have engaged in full blown obstruction of the President’s ability to staff his own Administration.

And now, anyone can read with their own eyes that the seek and destroy campaign goes beyond just the President and those closest to him, and aims at anyone who had the audacity to work in the Trump campaign, to large donors who support conservative causes, and even to those who dare to fight for traditional constitutional governance.

The message is clear. If you dare step outside the accepted socialist orthodoxy that pervades dominant thought in the United States, you will be silenced.

But they cannot silence the people, and ultimately that is the strength of America. Unfortunately, those who seek to destroy the President and anyone who dares to support him know this and that is what the campaign of intimidation is about.

On the Cohen wiretap, it is an obscene abuse of power for the Department of Justice to use wiretaps or pen registers or whatever on the phone of the President’s personal attorney in an apparent attempt to listen to an attorney/client privileged conversation(s).  Whether at least one conversation between someone at the White House and the President’s attorney was recorded or even simply its metadata registered, this brazen judicial abuse should have civil libertarians apoplectic.

Of course, the reality is that the left can justify any action, no matter how egregious, in their effort to take down President Trump.

In the mid-terms, the people will decide if they want to reward those who are engaged in a silent coup, not just against Trump, but also against the very premises of our constitutional republic of innocence until proven guilty and the right to free speech and political activity. President Trump was elected in spite of the D.C. swamp, and threats from the swamp will do nothing but show the people who the real swamp creatures are. If the people want to maintain their freedoms, they better be taking names also.

It is clear to anyone who is paying attention that those who vowed before the election to impeach Trump if he won will stop at nothing to end or disable his presidency.  We can no longer be shocked by this ongoing abuse of prosecutorial power, the only question is how long the American people will tolerate it.

SOURCE 

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated),  a Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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