Is Racial Nationalism Acceptable?

You have crossed the line from accepting races as possibly different to being a racist, positing that a race is better than another. You also implied that blacks are more likely to be criminals due to their genes, when it is clearly a result of their environment. Here you have to be the one to back up your racist propaganda that you're spitting out. Have you even read any of the opposing views here before taking such a position? I don't think that you have.

When did I imply racial superiority? All I've said is that differences could possibly lead to conflict. That, to me, says that you view both of those positions as one in the same. I.e., difference and superiority.

Besides, we're discussing the significance of these positions. I've already said that I'm agnostic.

cogarian888 wrote:1. That's the point of contention at the moment.

In that case, you must demonstrate the validity of several herediterian assumptions. Biological determinists venture the claim that interracial achievements gaps are predominately genetic in origin and that attempting to rectify such by exogenous means would ultimately prove futile. This is a premise I reject on the grounds that it lacks reliable evidence and rests upon faulty methodologies as well as reductionism.

Rushton, Jensen, Lynn, Murray and Herrnestein, et al. have been debunked time and again. Their work persists in online discussion forums whose function is to legitimize white nationalism and other reactionary ideologies as well as the conference rooms of bourgeois politicians, where they serve as ideological instruments of repression, justifying reductions in public services and the taxation of wealthy political donors.

2. The same could be said of ethnic nationalism. Deciding on who you want to live with is not exploitative.

No, you do not seem to understand. The premise that discrimination should be based on the differential capabilities of various groups is one that applies to the internal as well as the external policies of a social formation.

And I have no doubt that there'd be exceptions.

There are always exceptions. The deviations in the case of racial variation are self-evident, and no serious scientist contends that all members of a particular racial category share the same traits. We are discussing group averages, which are essentially meaningless even if proven correct, as they do not in and of themselves legitimize discrimination.

3. The idea that Blacks would have to be of subhuman intelligence in order for racial segregation to be justified is your opinion.

I did not assert that no justifications can be offered. Racists have maintained the legitimacy of separation long before the ideology of sociobiology came to prominence as a supposedly valid scientific field of inquiry. They have done so because their position is ultimately irrational and founded upon little more than blind prejudice. My argument was simply that if we are to undertake a policy of racial discrimination, there should be a strong basis for doing so, because otherwise it simply whittles down to the subjective opinions of individuals, and those do not make for sound policy.

I'm posting from a mobile device atm. I'll respond to the longer posts more in depth when I'm on a computer.

I will say this, saying that Blacks and Whites would be better off separate because it may cause conflict is not a justification of oppression based on intellectual ability. In that case, not associating with assholes is oppression. Again, this has nothing to do with denying anyone any rights. It's about what would lead to the greatest amount of happiness and equality for all groups.

I haven't argued the Hereditarian position, true. But this has to do with my posting from a mobile. I'll outline some of their arguments for refutation later. I'm asking for sources against them because I don't like these conclusions, so the idea that I'm some racist who's simply justifying my prejudice is absurd.

cogarian888 wrote:I'm posting from a mobile device atm. I'll respond to the longer posts more in depth when I'm on a computer.

Fair enough.

I will say this, saying that Blacks and Whites would be better off separate because it may cause conflict is not a justification of oppression based on intellectual ability.

Yes, but such a statement (even if true) is meaningless without political and social ramifications in the form of policies. Otherwise, it simply describes a factual reality at most.

To quote Chomsky:

"The question of the relation, if any, between race and intelligence has very little scientific importance (as it has no social importance, except under the assumptions of a racist society) … As to social importance, a correlation between race and mean I.Q. (were this shown to exist) entails no social consequences except in a racist society in which each individual is assigned to a racial category and dealt with not as an individual in his own right, but as a representative of this category … In a non-racist society, the category of race would be of no greater significance [than height]. The mean I.Q. of individuals of a certain racial background is irrelevant to the situation of a particular individual, who is what he is. Recognizing this perfectly obvious fact, we are left with little, if any, plausible justification for an interest in the relation between mean I.Q. and race, apart from the ‘justification’ provided by the existence of racial discrimination."
Chomsky, Noam. 1972. ‘I.Q. Tests: Building Blocks for the New Class System.

"Even if we grant every factual conclusion for which some shred of evidence is claimed, nothing of interest follows, except on assumptions that reflect ideological fanaticism, not science."

In that case, not associating with assholes is oppression.

Do not be silly. Deciding to dissociate oneself from others is different from legislating discriminatory practices on the basis of such uncontrollable features as race. "Assholes," in the generality of all cases, are fully capable of rectifying their character flaws. Nobody is arguing that individual whites, should they be disinclined, be forced to befriend blacks (which is ridiculous). The question is one of national directive.

Again, this has nothing to do with denying anyone any rights. It's about what would lead to the greatest amount of happiness and equality for all groups.

It has everything to do with rights, for a "science" that alleges the existence of a fixed human nature (dependent upon our genes) lends itself to politics. After all, is it not infinitely more difficult to attempt to surmount "natural" human proclivities? To quote one of the most respected sociobiologists of all time, E.O. Wilson:

"If the decision is to mold cultures to fit the requirements of the ecological steady state, some behaviors can be altered experimentally without emotional damage or loss in creativity. Others cannot...We do not know how many of the most valued qualities are linked genetically to the more obsolete destructive ones. Cooperativeness towards group mates might be coupled with aggressivity towards strangers, creativeness with the desire to own and dominate. If the planned society, the creation of which seems inevitable in the coming century, were deliberately to steer its members past those stresses and conflicts that once gave the destructive phenotypes their Darwininan edge, the other phenotypes might dwindle with them. In this, the ultimate genetic sense, social control would rob man of his humanity."
E.O. Wilson. Sociobiology, 575.

Did not Jensen, in his 1969 article How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?, set out to demonstrate that political and social measures to raise IQ would ultimately prove futile (and should presumably be discontinued)?

Nobody would form a political party in opposition to biological death. Likewise, it becomes possible to defend hierarchies and oppression as intrinsic to human "nature." Exclude blacks due to racial antagonisms? Very well. Why not exclude women from the workplace due to lower mean IQ (as Richard Lynn's studies suggest) and personality traits (males are aggressive, rational, and dominant, and females are the opposite). What about class? Aren't capitalists entitled to their wealth and status since they supposedly represent the most entrepreneurial, creative, and intelligent amongst us?

It should be noted that ethnic nationalism is considerably more inclusive than race. Cultural factors are far more significant, and so is their influence. It is true that importing millions of Swahilis into Iceland would produce ethnic shocks, but this would in large part be due to cultural disparities as opposed to racial distinctions. I have at least as much in common with a working class black as a European aristocrat, for example.

I haven't argued the Hereditarian position, true. But this has to do with my posting from a mobile. I'll outline some of their arguments for refutation later.

I am well aware of the standard arguments biological determinists employ, having read many of the seminal works in the fields of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. I once subscribed to them, but after educating myself, I view them now as unconvincing and implicitly ideological. From the assumptions they take for granted to their methodological studies to the reductionist epistemologies they rest upon, both draw conclusions that are severely flawed.

I'm asking for sources against them because I don't like these conclusions.

I suggest you read the works of Richard Lewontin, Stephen J. Gould, Leon Kamin, Steven Rose, Jerry Fodor, Robert C. Richardson, David Buller, and Paul R. Erlich for a comprehensive start. Peter Schönemann has dismantled the statistical construct known as the g factor in psychometric testing. In addition, I recommend that you listen to the lectures by Richard Lewontin here and here.

I could expand the list, but I am not inclined to at the moment, and Celtiberian can doubtlessly provide you with numerous others, as he is more knowledgeable.

cogarian888 wrote:If differences are genetic, a racial division of labor would emerge, and Whites would leave Black areas due to them being prone to crime.

Most Caucasians don't live in Black areas as it is, so that's sort of a non-issue.

Racial animosity would grow as Whites begin to view other races as less useful(janitors are a dime a dozen, surgeons are not. This doesn't mean janitors aren't valuable human beings or that they're unnecessary, but if Blacks are viewed as adding nothing to society while being a drain, Whites won't like them.) And Blacks will dislike that they have fewer doctors than the other races.

Aside from the bourgeoisie, the individuals who disparage unskilled and manual laborers most frequently are members of the coordinator class, i.e., the roughly 20% of the population involved in managerial work and other highly trained professions. They do this because they hold a monopoly on empowering tasks and are given authority over other workers. Capitalism also socializes people into viewing its remunerative norms as fair and just, so naturally those remunerated more highly have a sense of superiority over the rest of society. With the implementation of a socialist mode of production, however, the basis for remuneration will be changed so as to distribute the social product according to the only thing any of us has any control over: effort—as opposed ownership (or lack thereof) of productive assets, luck (in workmates, tools, and the sector of the economy one works in), or genetic endowment. Positions of political and economic authority will also be granted and held directly accountable by the individuals who are affected by the decisions leaders make. Under such an equitable arrangement, we can reasonably expect that the manner by which people are judged will alter substantially.

With respect to how Black people in particular are currently judged in society, Caucasians are typically most angered by the fact that many of them happen to be on welfare. This outrage is fueled by right-wing propagandists, who have fabricated a myth that millions of able-bodied Blacks choose to abstain from working and are instead riding in limousines to the welfare office—whilst gabbing with their friends on the latest iPhone—to pick up checks which are subsidized by Caucasian tax dollars. Purposely omitted from this myth, of course, is the fact that employers and landlords systematically discriminate against Black applicants, a significant percentage of Caucasians pay no federal income taxes at all (and are instead the beneficiaries of a number of social services themselves), welfare is only enough to subsidize a relatively austere existence, and the environmental conditions Blacks live under serve to disadvantage them in the labor market. If people were presented with the actual facts regarding welfare and its recipients, I suspect that racial animus would subside to an extent.

This is less important within groups, because people don't tend to generalize about their own group. At least not in my experience.

Of course they do, at least insofar as their own ethnic group is concerned. You honestly don't think that Caucasian elites disparage the Caucasian working class? Under conditions of ethnic homogeneity, if anything, class divisions are exacerbated. The following is a rather revealing quote from a wealthy landowner (Félix Moreno de la Cova) who was dispossessed of his exploitative property during the Spanish Civil War: "As an individual, a worker may be good, bad, or indifferent; the same as a boss, the same as a businessman, the same as anybody. And yet, collectively, they're terrible. The workers as an entity will always be selfish. They have never considered the country's well-being as a whole." Having had a few bourgeois family members myself, I can attest to this absurd view being rather pervasive amongst the upper classes.

It's about what would lead to the greatest amount of happiness and equality for all groups.

I don't think that anyone would object to such a basic utilitarian proposal. All we're saying is racial nationalists overemphasize the extent to which people consider ethnic heterogeneity problematic, and that many of the (highly disputable) claims made by the so-called "race realists" are explicitly used for propagandistic purposes, in order to foment racial antagonisms. The working class should be given the right to determine how to settle the national question for themselves, but their decision shouldn't be predicated on the contentious Black-White IQ data.

I'll outline some of their arguments for refutation later.

That isn't necessary. We've already dealt with a number of them. The only remaining argument that I'm aware of is that Blacks, on average, commitment more crime than do Caucasians and Asians due to their lower IQ and allegedly higher testosterone levels. An alternative hypothesis, which I find much more persuasive, is that Blacks are disproportionately exposed to lead during their formative years, which has been linked to increased rates of violent and impulsive behavior in adult life. See, for example, Stretesky and Lynch, “The Relationship Between Lead Exposure and Homicide” (Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, Vol. 155, No. 5, pp. 579-582.); Chen, et al., “Lead Exposure, IQ, and Behavior in Urban 5- to 7-Year-Olds: Does Lead Affect Behavior Only By Lowering IQ?” (Pediatrics, Vol. 119, No. 3, pp. 650-8.); and Lanphear and Roghmann, “Pathways of Lead Exposure in Urban Children” (Environmental Research, Vol. 74, No. 1, pp. 67-73.).

Celtiberian wrote: Most Caucasians don't live in Black areas as it is, so that's sort of a non-issue.

I see plenty that do, and I would be one of them. Eventually even if this isn't the case for the majority now, it will be in the future when there is less space. Speaking from personal experience Separation is best, separate but equal. Why is the idea of ethnic republics similar to those within Yugoslavia(under tito)? All the republics are treated equally within the federation, but disidents who support separation are stomped out.

Aside from the bourgeoisie, the individuals who disparage unskilled and manual laborers most frequently are members of the coordinator class, i.e., the roughly 20% of the population involved in managerial work and other highly trained professions.

Me personally, I feel everyone should learn a specialized skill or trade. No one should be unskilled, and many are by choice. I despise those who willingly choose to leech, and in a socialist society selfish individiauls are not something to be treated well regardless of race.

Caucasians are typically most angered by the fact that many of them happen to be on welfare.

It is less about the welfare, more about the reverse racism. Race unfortunately plays a part in receiving services like welfare non-white minorities receive benefits from skin color. I am sure another factor would be affirmative action. These are two things which would anger people when the idea that we are all equal, and are all the same is constantly brought up when that isn't the case. If we are all truly equal, we should receive the same benefits, with skill and economic background(poorer background, better benefits) being the only determining factors not race.
That is my view, chauvinists callings others racist when we live in a world where if you happen to be part of a so called majority(which is really just a large group of minorities that have the same skin color) you will easily be at a disadvantage to a person who is not part of that majority because of the current systems in place.

This outrage is fueled by right-wing propagandists

Indeed.

who have fabricated a myth that millions of able-bodied Blacks choose to abstain from working and are instead riding in limousines to the welfare office—whilst gabbing with their friends on the latest iPhone—to pick up checks which are subsidized by Caucasian tax dollars.

There are enough true cases of this, although I have yet to hear about limousines... Millions though? Unlikely, there are more than enough though that it is a problem.
The fact that race gives these people an edge in the welfare process is the bigger problem.
Otherwise the problem is purely selfish people within all ethnic groups.

Purposely omitted from this myth, of course, is the fact that employers and landlords systematically discriminate against Black applicants

May have been true some decades ago, I have yet to see this.
If anything in employment blacks have an edge thanks to affirmative action.
Race shouldn't be a factor in anything, unfortunately we live in Racist/Reverse Racist Society though.

welfare is only enough to subsidize a relatively austere existence, and the environmental conditions Blacks live under serve to disadvantage them in the labor market. If people were presented with the actual facts regarding welfare and its recipients, I suspect that racial animus would subside to an extent.

You are right, welfare isn't a lot. to say that they are at a disadvantage though is a bloody joke. I have lived in the same exact environment, many people have the opportunity to rise from their conditions and choose not to. The only people who actually have a excuse are those which are taking care of children, and relatives that cannot take care of themselves.
Race is to their advantage in this regard, I'm of the view that no benefits should be given to anyone simply because of Ethnicity.

Of course they do, at least insofar as their own ethnic group is concerned. You honestly don't think that Caucasian elites disparage the Caucasian working class? Under conditions of ethnic homogeneity, if anything, class divisions are exacerbated. The following is a rather revealing quote from a wealthy landowner (Félix Moreno de la Cova) who was dispossessed of his exploitative property during the Spanish Civil War: "As an individual, a worker may be good, bad, or indifferent; the same as a boss, the same as a businessman, the same as anybody. And yet, collectively, they're terrible. The workers as an entity will always be selfish. They have never considered the country's well-being as a whole." Having had a few bourgeois family members myself, I can attest to this absurd view being rather pervasive amongst the upper classes.

I agree with this. I tend to have a generalized opinion of the Upper Middle Class, and beyond

I don't think that anyone would object to such a basic utilitarian proposal. All we're saying is racial nationalists overemphasize the extent to which people consider ethnic heterogeneity problematic, and that many of the (highly disputable) claims made by the so-called "race realists" are explicitly used for propagandistic purposes, in order to foment racial antagonisms. The working class should be given the right to determine how to settle the national question for themselves, but their decision shouldn't be predicated on the contentious Black-White IQ data.

True.

That isn't necessary. We've already dealt with a number of them. The only remaining argument that I'm aware of is that Blacks, on average, commitment more crime than do Caucasians and Asians due to their lower IQ and allegedly higher testosterone levels. An alternative hypothesis, which I find much more persuasive, is that Blacks are disproportionately exposed to lead during their formative years, which has been linked to increased rates of violent and impulsive behavior in adult life.

I wouldn't have considered Lower IQs being the result of that, rather a part of black culture which supports a more blunt form of bourgious crime.
Selling Narcotics, Stealing, etc. These are the same exact acts the bourgious commit, and thus they are bourgious.
Violent crimes on the other hand would be another result of that very same culture which promotes such a lifestyle.
Can anyone here even deny that the culture of Black Americans is a cancer. The culture I speak of is the one which the bourgious promote, and actively spread this virus further into youths so they will do these acts and further divide society to the benefit of the capitalists.

I feel the need to correct you here. What you are calling "black culture" is actually "gangster, or rap culture". It is indeed a cancer, but so is the "American Dream" which advocates the same goals: having money, hiring wage slaves, looking down at those who "couldn't make it". Their expressions may be different but they are both results from bourgeois control over production and government. Both cultures control and force in-fighting within their respective targets.

When it comes to those that people call "welfare queens", how many do you think are just lazy and how many are just hopeless. I don't mean the surface, most people lie on the surface. They know that they're screwed worse by the system; they may be uneducated but they're not stupid. What do you think happens when someone realizes that the only way possible at the moment in order to escape their situation is to use others? If they do, they play the bourgeois game. If they do not, they are called welfare queens.

The only possibility is to change the social and economic relations. When perfect freedom is reached through direct democratic government and operation, when the accumulation of capital is no longer practiced people will do what they wish. If for some stupid reason, a person wants to live in an area predominated by a certain culture, and that culture accepts that person, that's fine. I may think it stupid but if your ideas of racial preference are true they have absolutely no effect on anything and to try to make it so would violate the self-determination of individuals.

I wasn't only talking to you Balkan Beast, so don't think that I was mis-representing your position.

Balkan Beast wrote:I see plenty that do, and I would be one of them.

I live in a multiracial neighborhood as well, but I wouldn't consider it a "Black area," or what have you. What I meant was that you seldom find Caucasian people living in housing projects or in majority Black areas of town. In a number of states, it's quite common to observe minority families living in majority Caucasian neighborhoods, but they're hardly locations abounding with racial tension (though exceptions exist).

Eventually even if this isn't the case for the majority now, it will be in the future when there is less space.

Assuming demographic trends continue unabated.

Speaking from personal experience Separation is best, separate but equal. Why is the idea of ethnic republics similar to those within Yugoslavia(under tito)? All the republics are treated equally within the federation, but disidents who support separation are stomped out.

That's an option, but certainly not the only one. As I've maintained throughout this thread, it should be left to the people to decide.

No one should be unskilled, and many are by choice.

Do you have any actual data to substantiate this assertion? Much of the current antipathy toward labor is attributable to the manner by which our educational institutions are organized and the consumerist values which capitalism instills in the masses.

I despise those who willingly choose to leech

Unskilled workers cannot be regarded as 'leeches.' They are contributing to the social product, not merely taking from it.

It is less about the welfare, more about the reverse racism.

Claims of so-called "reverse racism" are typically made by White Nationalists, not average working people. The latter are far more concerned with welfare, in my experience.

If we are all truly equal, we should receive the same benefits, with skill and economic background(poorer background, better benefits) being the only determining factors not race.

Of course everyone should receive equal access to needed social services, but there is a perfectly justifiable reason why affirmative action exists (which I will address below).

There are enough true cases of this, although I have yet to hear about limousines...

The welfare queen riding in a limousine myth (or variations thereof) is widely known and, unfortunately, uncritically accepted by vast numbers of people in the United States. It was concocted during the Reagan administration and is slightly adjusted by right-wing propagandists each passing year, so as to adapt the story to current frivolous consumer trends.

Millions though? Unlikely, there are more than enough though that it is a problem.

Welfare is a means-tested program, and fraud is a felony punishable with jail time and fees (for the amount defrauded from the government, in addition to court costs). In a report conducted in 2001, the US Department of Labor found that only 1.9% of unemployment insurance recipients committed fraud or abused the program, for example. Claims to the contrary are therefore clearly exaggerated.

May have been true some decades ago, I have yet to see this.
If anything in employment blacks have an edge thanks to affirmative action.

I'm not referring to the standard "White privilege" theory which the liberal intelligentsia obsesses over, but (for lack of a better term) rational economic discrimination. Just as innocent Black people are searched more frequently by police officers due to the relatively high rates of Black crime in society, so too are qualified Black workers and tenants discriminated against by employers and landlords due to the higher frequency of undesirable behavior found within their racial group, relative to Caucasians, Asians, and mestizos. Simply put, group membership matters. As James Flynn explains,

"There are two relevant costs: the cost of classifying blacks as members of their group, which, thanks to their appearance, is nil; the cost of determining when a black is an exception to his or her group, which can be significant. For example, take a bank that has an excess of apparently sound white applicants for loans over the amount of funds it has to lend. The bank knows that blacks on average have less managerial experience, that their businesses tend to be undercapitalized, that their failure rate is higher, that their collateral is less salable; all in all, the bank knows that the risk of nonpayment is greater. It can conduct a thorough investigation of a particular black applicant to determine whether he or she is an exception to the group. But unless its competitors also do so, it has incurred an extra cost to its disadvantage. Therefore, the bank will tend to assess the black applicant as a member of his or her group and refuse the loan.

Landlords also use race as an information-bearing trait. They may prefer Asians, particularly females, because they afford a better chance of a tenant who is docile, will please neighbors thanks to sobriety and reticence, will be prompt and reliable in paying rent. They will not prefer young black males, who on average are more likely to be criminal, destructive, noisy, and insolvent. The cost of investigating every tenant as an individual is time-consuming, the cost of classifying blacks is negligible. It is easy to show that avoiding these costs is a rational factor not necessarily tied to racial bias. Sowell (1994, 111 & 114) cites the evidence of Light (1972) and Williams (1974) that successful black banks tend to invest outside of the black community even more than whites banks do. He cites Tucker (1990), who found that black landlords as well as white landlords prefer white tenants.

Clearly, the same factors extend to other areas. Retailers who provide goods and services in the ghetto bear high costs, not only losses from theft and vandalism but from installing iron gates and hiring security guards. These higher costs are passed on to ghetto residents in the form of higher prices. The fact that employers use race as a cheap signal of an applicant's skills, motivation, and attitudes toward authority has been amply documented (Kirschenman & Neckerman, 1991; Kasinitz & Rosenberg, 1996; Kirschenman et al., 1996). They do not interpret black skin as a signal of anything good. As Sowell (1994, 89) says, 'It is bitter medicine to the fully qualified individual to be denied employment because of the racial, ethnic, or other group to which he belongs.'

A phrase used above must not pass unnoticed: that the cost of classifying an individual as black is negligible. This puts blacks at a disadvantage compared to white ethnic groups because the cost of classifying the members of those groups can be expensive. When Mr. Bell comes to your door, it may be almost impossible to determine that his father is Mr. Bellini and that he has strong ties with suspect elements in the Italian community. This disadvantage is not trivial. Imagine an omnipresent mutation that left blacks exactly as they are except their appearances became a random sample of white America. Overnight the cost of classifying blacks as such, of identifying the people who had once been black, would be far too great for anyone to pay, whether police, bank manager, landlord, retailer, or employer. Disadvantage among no-longer blacks because of group membership would fade into the lesser disadvantages of class or neighborhood. Blackness really does make a difference."
Flynn, James R. How to Defend Humane Ideals: Substitutes for Objectivity, pp. 146-7.

So while many Caucasians (including yourself) may be under the impression that the life circumstances between the races have equalized since the abolition of slavery and the legalization of integration, the evidence clearly suggests otherwise. Affirmative action programs don't provide Blacks with an unfair "advantage" over Caucasian workers, as you contend, but rather attempt to rectify the structural disadvantage which qualified minorities face in society. If Caucasians were presented with the facts regarding this issue, instead of disinformation from right-wing hacks, I believe (once again) that the current outrage over affirmative action would subside, just as it would regarding welfare.

to say that they are at a disadvantage though is a bloody joke. I have lived in the same exact environment, many people have the opportunity to rise from their conditions and choose not to.

See above.

I wouldn't have considered Lower IQs being the result of that

Exposure to lead is but one facet contributing to the Black-White IQ gap; I only mentioned it as a possible explanation of the higher rates of violent crime amongst Blacks. I provided information explaining the Black-White IQ disparity in previous posts.

rather a part of black culture which supports a more blunt form of bourgious crime.
Selling Narcotics, Stealing, etc. These are the same exact acts the bourgious commit, and thus they are bourgious.

The word you're searching for is "lumpenproletariat." Karl Marx coined the term in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon and described these "swindlers, confidence tricksters, brothel-keepers, rag-and-bone merchants, beggars, and other flotsam of society" as the "refuse of all classes." You're quite right in noting that Blacks are trapped in a culture of poverty, and I fully agree that a social zeitgeist shift is desperately needed in the Black community.

Rev Scare wrote:In that case, you must demonstrate the validity of several herediterian assumptions. Biological determinists venture the claim that interracial achievements gaps are predominately genetic in origin and that attempting to rectify such by exogenous means would ultimately prove futile. This is a premise I reject on the grounds that it lacks reliable evidence and rests upon faulty methodologies as well as reductionism.

First of all, they don't really qualify as biological determinists, because they believe the gap is partially environmental. The assumptions, at least as far as I can tell, are as follows:
1. There is an I.Q. gap between the races.
2. The races differ in genes.

Both of these are true, and I can bring up studies if you want me to. These core assumptions make the hereditarian hypothesis possible, but not true. The arguments that it is genetic are inferential based on the data.
These arguments are as follows:
1. Regression to the mean: Black and White I.Q.s regress to different means. This means that extremely intelligent Blacks tend to have children with I.Q.s which regress closer to 85, whereas Whites regress to 100. The reason for this, from a genetic perspective, is that when people mate, the genes which are passed on are random. This means that the genes which grant a greater general cognitive ability may not be passed on, so the child's I.Q. regresses towards the average. The same is true in reverse. I.e., a Black kid who has parents with an I.Q. of 70 will progress to the mean of 85.
Environmental explanation: Blacks tend to share similar environments, thus their I.Q.s would be pushed to the mean. I think this is a satisfactory explanation.
2. Intermediate I.Q.: Mixed race children have intermediate I.Q.s. That is, the average for B/W mixed children is > 85 < 100. This has been contested by the Moore adoption study, but this is contestable on the grounds that the children were young, and it has been shown that genes have a greater role in determining your I.Q. when you're older. This has been supported by the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, with B/W kids having intermediate I.Q.s.
Environmental: Moore adoption study, as has been stated. The MTAS is contestable on a number of grounds. To quote Nisbett:

First, adoption agencies may have engaged in selective placement, which could have had the effect of putting the black adoptees into families that were of relatively lower social class. Second, since the natural parents' IQs were not known, it is possible that the natural parents of the white children had higher (genotypic) IQs than the white population in general, or the natural parents of the black children had lower genotypic IQs than the black population at large, which by itself could explain why the white adoptees had higher average IQ than the white adoptees. Third, the black children were adopted at a substantially later age than the white children, and late adoption has negative implications for IQ. Fourth, the black children had more prior placements in foster homes, which is also associated with lower IQ. Fifth, the preadoptive placements of the black children were worse. Sixth, Sandra Scarr tole me that the adolescent black and interracial children had an unusual degree of psychological disturbance having to do with identity issues. Some children reported, in effect, "I look in the mirror and I'm shocked to see a black person because I know I'm really white." Other children were disturbed because they felt that they were really black and didn't know why the had been consigned to an alien white family. As a consequence of all these problems, the authors cautioned against any conclusion with respect to the role of heredity in intelligence for adolescents.

3. The more heritable the subtest, the greater the gap:
The Black/White I.Q. gap is the highest on the subtests which are shown to be most heritable through twin studies.
Environmental: The most heritable subtests are the hardest, most cognitively demanding tests. This means that having a high genotypic I.Q. confers a greater advantage on this test. Flynn compares it to basketball:

Imagine that one group has better genes for height and reflex arc but suffers from a less rich basketball environment (less incentive, worse coaching, less play). The environmental disadvantage will expand the between-group performance gap as complexity rises, just as much as a genetic deficit would. I have not played basketball since high school. I can still make 9 out of 10 lay-ups but have fallen far behind on the
more difficult shots. The skill gap between basketball “unchallenged” players and those still active will be more pronounced the more difficult the task. In sum, someone exposed to an inferior environment hits what I call a “complexity ceiling”. Clearly, the existence of this ceiling does not differentiate whether the phenotypic gap is due to genes or environment.

4. The subtests with the highest g loadings have the greatest gaps.
Environmental: Same as above.
5. Brain size and I.Q.: Brain size correlates with I.Q. at about .4 within groups, and there's a difference in brain size between the races.
Environmental: Brain size is affected by environmental factors such as nutrition. Also, the brain size gaps, if genetic in origin, can only explain about 2 points of the 15 point gap.

Rushton, Jensen, Lynn, Murray and Herrnestein, et al. have been debunked time and again. Their work persists in online discussion forums whose function is to legitimize white nationalism and other reactionary ideologies as well as the conference rooms of bourgeois politicians, where they serve as ideological instruments of repression, justifying reductions in public services and the taxation of wealthy political donors.

I don't know if the debate is actually settled at this point, because I haven't read J/P's 2010 review of Nisbett, so I'll avoid the first sentence. Yes, their work has been used to support reactionary agendas. But the same can be said of all scientific findings; this doesn't undermine their validity.

No, you do not seem to understand. The premise that discrimination should be based on the differential capabilities of various groups is one that applies to the internal as well as the external policies of a social formation.

No, the idea is that the races will voluntarily separate due to differences in cognitive ability. I imagine intelligent Whites would live among other intelligent Whites, but the differences between the two groups are great. In fact, I think only 3% of Whites score at or below the Black average, although I'm not entirely sure. This, combined with a natural tendency to associate with similar people, would lead to racial separation, not oppression.

There are always exceptions. The deviations in the case of racial variation are self-evident, and no serious scientist contends that all members of a particular racial category share the same traits. We are discussing group averages, which are essentially meaningless even if proven correct, as they do not in and of themselves legitimize discrimination.

When I said exceptions, I meant exceptions to racial homogeneity. Which is something I have absolutely no problem with. And what is a legitimate reason to associate or disassociate with people for is not up to you. It's up to each individual.

I did not assert that no justifications can be offered. Racists have maintained the legitimacy of separation long before the ideology of sociobiology came to prominence as a supposedly valid scientific field of inquiry. They have done so because their position is ultimately irrational and founded upon little more than blind prejudice. My argument was simply that if we are to undertake a policy of racial discrimination, there should be a strong basis for doing so, because otherwise it simply whittles down to the subjective opinions of individuals, and those do not make for sound policy.

I have said nothing of policy. I don't think there should or would be a law that says "NO BLACKS ALLOWED TO ASSOCIATE WITH WHITES" or whatever. What I'm proposing is that there could be racial gaps in association and social outcomes, and that assuming that these are environmental in origin could lead to proposals of integration and "affirmative action" in a future society, which may be unjustified and hurt other races. There could be claims that White racism in a post-revolutionary society are the cause of these differences, which would scapegoat Whites for what could be genetic differences.

Again, this issue is relevant; but not in the way that most White Nationalists think it is.

Celtiberian wrote:Most Caucasians don't live in Black areas as it is, so that's sort of a non-issue.

Yes, and this is considered a problem. Which it may or may not be, depending on whether or not racial differences are genetic. If they are, this is simply free association; if they are not, White racism is holding back Blacks.

Aside from the bourgeoisie, the individuals who disparage unskilled and manual laborers most frequently are members of the coordinator class, i.e., the roughly 20% of the population involved in managerial work and other highly trained professions. They do this because they hold a monopoly on empowering tasks and are given authority over other workers. Capitalism also socializes people into viewing its remunerative norms as fair and just, so naturally those remunerated more highly have a sense of superiority over the rest of society. With the implementation of a socialist mode of production, however, the basis for remuneration will be changed so as to distribute the social product according to the only thing any of us has any control over: effort—as opposed ownership (or lack thereof) of productive assets, luck (in workmates, tools, and the sector of the economy one works in), or genetic endowment. Positions of political and economic authority will also be granted and held directly accountable by the individuals who are affected by the decisions leaders make. Under such an equitable arrangement, we can reasonably expect that the manner by which people are judged will alter substantially.

I partially agree; however, a question will be asked: "Should we spend our resources, i.e., skilled labor, on these people who don't contribute anything more to society than what would be accomplished without them?" I agree with all of your other points.

With respect to how Black people in particular are currently judged in society, Caucasians are typically most angered by the fact that many of them happen to be on welfare. This outrage is fueled by right-wing propagandists, who have fabricated a myth that millions of able-bodied Blacks choose to abstain from working and are instead riding in limousines to the welfare office—whilst gabbing with their friends on the latest iPhone—to pick up checks which are subsidized by Caucasian tax dollars. Purposely omitted from this myth, of course, is the fact that employers and landlords systematically discriminate against Black applicants, a significant percentage of Caucasians pay no federal income taxes at all (and are instead the beneficiaries of a number of social services themselves), welfare is only enough to subsidize a relatively austere existence, and the environmental conditions Blacks live under serve to disadvantage them in the labor market. If people were presented with the actual facts regarding welfare and its recipients, I suspect that racial animus would subside to an extent.

This assumes that the racial gaps are environmental, and that discrimination is a significant factor. Which I won't deny, but it's an assumption which needs to be proven.

Of course they do, at least insofar as their own ethnic group is concerned. You honestly don't think that Caucasian elites disparage the Caucasian working class? Under conditions of ethnic homogeneity, if anything, class divisions are exacerbated. The following is a rather revealing quote from a wealthy landowner (Félix Moreno de la Cova) who was dispossessed of his exploitative property during the Spanish Civil War: "As an individual, a worker may be good, bad, or indifferent; the same as a boss, the same as a businessman, the same as anybody. And yet, collectively, they're terrible. The workers as an entity will always be selfish. They have never considered the country's well-being as a whole." Having had a few bourgeois family members myself, I can attest to this absurd view being rather pervasive amongst the upper classes.

This, ironically, proves my point. This is a result of group difference, or class. If you remove class, these in group judgments should go away.

I don't think that anyone would object to such a basic utilitarian proposal. All we're saying is racial nationalists overemphasize the extent to which people consider ethnic heterogeneity problematic, and that many of the (highly disputable) claims made by the so-called "race realists" are explicitly used for propagandistic purposes, in order to foment racial antagonisms. The working class should be given the right to determine how to settle the national question for themselves, but their decision shouldn't be predicated on the contentious Black-White IQ data.

Their decision will be based on current racial differences and the causes thereof.

Thanks for the studies, these should be interesting.

cogarian888 wrote:Yes, and this is considered a problem.

Only by bourgeois liberals.

Which it may or may not be, depending on whether or not racial differences are genetic. If they are, this is simply free association; if they are not, White racism is holding back Blacks.

White racism alone can't be held responsible, even if the disparity is environmentally determined (which I maintain is the most convincing position, given the existing data). One could argue that the legacy of slavery and past racism served to disadvantage Blacks, due to the poor conditions they've had to live under as a result, but that's the extent of it. The pressures of a competitive market economy have done far more to oppress qualified Black workers, as I discussed in my response to Balkan Beast. Unfortunately, Blacks will continue to suffer disadvantage until group differences sufficiently alter and/or a system of economic planning transcends market relations.

I partially agree; however, a question will be asked: "Should we spend our resources, i.e., skilled labor, on these people who don't contribute anything more to society than what would be accomplished without them?"

The distinction between skilled and unskilled labor shouldn't even factor into people's judgement. Very few working people spend time calculating the racial disparity in skilled labor as it is, and I suspect that far less of them would within a socialist society. As I stated in my previous response, members of the coordinator class are currently the ones most fixated with the distinction between skilled and unskilled labor, and it's primarily attributable to the aforementioned psychological consequences of capitalism's remunerative norms and hierarchical workplace structures.

This assumes that the racial gaps are environmental, and that discrimination is a significant factor. Which I won't deny, but it's an assumption which needs to be proven.

First of all, it isn't an assumption. It's a hypothesis with ample supporting evidence—some of which has been provided in our exchange. Secondly, even if the racial achievement gaps are primarily genetic, it wouldn't have any bearing on my argument. Qualified Blacks are discriminated against in the labor market simply by virtue of their group identity, and poor socioeconomic conditions undoubtedly prevent most Blacks from attaining their innate potential. Peter Singer (whom I despise, incidentally) argued likewise, when he wrote:

"[T]he genetic hypothesis does not imply that we should reduce our efforts to overcome other causes of inequality between people; for example, in the quality of housing and schooling available to less well-off people. Admittedly, if the genetic hypothesis is correct, these efforts will not bring about a situation in which different racial groups have equal IQs. But this is no reason for accepting a situation in which any people are hindered by their environment from doing as well as they can. Perhaps we should put extra efforts into helping those who start from a position of disadvantage so that we end with a more egalitarian result."
Singer, Peter. Practical Ethics, p. 27.

This, ironically, proves my point. This is a result of group difference, or class. If you remove class, these in group judgments should go away.

It proves a point about intergroup bias, but it undermines the standard racial nationalist contention that race identity takes precedence over other group identifications, and that conditions of ethnic homogeneity engender societal harmony. The latter claim is patently untrue within the context of capitalism, since it would result in class antagonisms becoming heightened. (Within a classless context, however, it may well foster a greater sense of solidarity.)

Thanks for the studies, these should be interesting.

No problem.

Looking at animal behaviour (and we are all animals) a great deal does not depend on cultural or ethnic origin, it depends upon the environment we live in and how we are brought up to live in that environment. This is why even some of the most wildest animals have been domesticated. It is not in their nature or their background but they have been raised to lead different lives.

In a true equal society, no matter what racial background is, everyone shall have an equal place in society. Racial nationalism is pure discrimination and in my opinion this and any form of division should have no place in the modern society we are trying to create. There will always be a place for various cultures and ethnicity, the right to feel a belonging to this and to celebrate ones own background no matter where you live. Outside this identity however, I beleive we should all work as one and not pander to division on racial lines.

cogarian888 wrote:First of all, they don't really qualify as biological determinists, because they believe the gap is partially environmental.

Simply because they happen to accept environmental contributions does not render them less deterministic. No psychometrician who wishes to be taken seriously would adopt a pure herediterian position to explain variation in group differences. Nonetheless, they are strong hereditarians and maintain that the influence of genes is preponderant in the determination of intelligence, interpreting human behavior and social processes using strictly biological premises. This makes them biological determinists.

"These three ideas—that we differ in fundamental abilities because of innate differences, that those innate differences are biologically inherited, and that human nature guarantees the formation of a hierarchical society—when taken together, form what we can call the ideology of biological determinism."
Lewontin, Richard. Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA, p. 23.

One philosophy that is frequently associated with a deterministic understanding of phenomena is reductionism, which Rushton, Jensen, and all other hereditarians share in common. They establish a false dichotomy between nature and nurture, assuming that quantifiable degrees of environmental and genetic elements influence human behavior and abilities. Thus they propound such absurd notions as upward of 80% of IQ being attributable to heredity. In fact, no such fixed contribution exists, for intelligence, as all other human traits, is the result of innumerable, insoluble, and interdependent interactions between genes, organism, and environment. There is no connection between the variation that can be ascribed to genetic differences and whether a change in environment will affect performance and by how much. The idea that something complex, such as intelligence or the brain, can be understood in terms of its simpler or more "fundamental" components (e.g., "partially environmental"), which is prevalent in sociobiology and its offshoot evolutionary psychology, is simply false.

The assumptions, at least as far as I can tell, are as follows:
1. There is an I.Q. gap between the races.
2. The races differ in genes.

Those are not the only assumptions. C. Loring Brace outlines these six presumptions of The Bell Curve:

"1) human cognitive ability is a single general entity—Spearman's "g"—in which there are individual and group differences;
2) IQ tests measure this accurately;
3) IQ tests measure how "smart" or "intelligent" people are;
4) IQ tests are fixed for much of a lifetime;
5) IQ tests are not biased in regard to "race," ethnic group, or social and economic status;
6) Cognitive ability has a heritability of between forty and eighty percent.

These six assumptions are presented at the beginning as "conclusions" that are "beyond significant technical dispute" (22). Actually, these points are taken as axiomatic to the extent that they are treated more as givens than as hypotheses open to test or falsification.

The only real concern in regard to the status of these assumptions in the whole volume is an occasional ad hoc effort to counter some of those who have demonstrated that one or another of them cannot be sustained. In truth, defense of the status quo (and particularly ante 1960) is obviously one of the main motivations. Since their first assumption regarding the reality and importance of "g" has no scientific basis (Flynn 1987b:20), assumptions two, three, and four become irrelevant. Assumptions five and six are both demonstrably false—points I shall return to later—which means that there is in fact no scientific justification for the book as a whole."
Brace, C. Loring. "Science" in the Service of Racism. Race and IQ, p. 426.

The above were enumerated specifically in response to The Bell Curve (all of them problematic), but they apply equally well to Jensen and Rushton—indeed, all hereditarians. Also assumed is the immutability of what is innate, and of course, there are the deeper assumptions pertaining to causal pathways and other such relationships, which has led to the construction of a reductionist framework and deterministic worldview.

Both of these are true

No, they are not true in any absolute sense, even granting the validity of the evidence referred to (which is weak).

and I can bring up studies if you want me to.

Please do so.

These core assumptions make the hereditarian hypothesis possible, but not true.

The assumptions are vacuous, and there is no reason whatsoever to hold such views a priori.

The arguments that it is genetic are inferential based on the data.

Highly selective and often flawed data.

Before I attend to the "arguments," I will first evince that Rushton's evolutionary hypothesis (and by extension, that of all hereditarians) regarding mean racial differences (the only natural explanation) rests upon an outdated and erroneous life history paradigm, r/K selection theory. The r/K selection regime was disproved in the 1980s by a series of experiments which have falsified its predictions across various species. Furthermore, even if r/K theory were correct, Rushton has misapplied it, and his data are wholly insufficient to test the predictions of the theory in human populations. To quote Joseph Graves (an actual life history biologist, unlike Rushton):

"Abstract

The last decade of the 20th century experienced a resurgence of genetically based theories of racial hierarchy regarding intelligence and morality. Most notably was Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve (1994), that claimed genetic causality for long-standing racial differences in IQ. In addition, it raised the time worn argument that the over-reproduction of genetically deficient individuals within our population would lead to a serious decline in average American intelligence. These authors provided no specific rationale for why these genetic differences should exist between human ‘races’. Instead, they relied heavily on the work of Canadian psychologist J. Philipe Rushton (in The Bell Curve, 1994, Appendix 5: 642–3). Rushton has advanced a specific evolutionary genetic rationale for how gene frequencies are differentiated between the ‘races’ relative to intelligence. He claims that human racial differences result from natural selection for particular reproductive strategies in the various racial groups. Rushton’s theory is based entirely on the concept of r- and K-selection, first explicitly outlined by MacArthur and Wilson in 1967. This article examines both the flaws in the general theory, and specifically Rushton’s application of that same theory to human data. It concludes that neither Rushton’s use of the theory nor the data that he has assembled could possibly test any meaningful hypotheses concerning human evolution and/or the distribution of genetic variation relating to reproductive strategies or ‘intelligence’, however defined.

...

Rushton’s technique of misrepresentation of legitimate research is similar to the tactics utilized by creationists when they assault evolution. Typically the creationist will present a large number of distortions of scientific fact, such that if the evolutionary biologist were to address them all, the audience would simply get lost in the details. Thus, it is necessary to first dismantle the core assumptions of Rushton’s work, i.e. r- and K-selection theory. Having accomplished that, it becomes easier to understand how he has misrepresented biological data to fit his bankrupt hypothesis. In addition, much of his social science data has been collected by dubious means. Thus, Rushton argues genetic causality for racial differences utilizing a discredited theory and questionable data.

Concluding Remarks

J.P. Rushton’s view of human evolution suffers from the use of antiquated and simplistic theoretical models concerning life history evolution. In addition, his methods of data analysis, results, and data sources call into question the legitimacy of his research. In the unabridged version of his book, he claims ‘to have reviewed the international literature on race differences, gathered novel data and found a distinct pattern’ (Rushton, 1995: xiii). This is fallacious on many accounts. Although the scope of the literature is international, to an extent, the data are not novel and the pattern he ‘found’ is hardly distinct from common racist stereotypes. He has only spun a tangled web of disingenuous construction speculations, in which:

1. He failed to grasp the history and formulation of density dependent selection theory.

2. He failed to review the critical experiments that falsified the central predictions of r- and K-selection theory.

3. He incorrectly applied r- and K-theory to explain human life history evolution.

4. He has presented data that are woefully inadequate to test any specific hypothesis concerning the evolution of human life histories."
Source:What a tangled web he weaves: Race, reproductive strategies and Rushton's life history theory. Anthropological Theory Vol 2(2): 131–154.

It is also patently false to suppose that tropical regions such as sub-Saharan Africa are not intellectually demanding. Natural selection would favor intelligence in any environment, and we must especially consider the social context of human existence. To quote Ken Richardson:

"IV. RACE

18. Jensen argues, in effect, that cognitive 'races' exist because genes related to human cognitive systems will have been subjected to diversifying selection in the same way as some superficial physical or physiological characters. He suggests that northern migrants would have faced particularly difficult conditions. As a result, groups of African descent will have lower frequencies of genes for superior cognitive abilities, compared with those of Caucasian or Mongoloid ancestry.

19. This completely misses the point. Our African hominid ancestors themselves evolved as a social-cooperative species in order to deal with conditions of extreme environmental uncertainty, as the climate dried, forests thinned, and former forest dwellers were 'flung out' onto the open savannah or forest margins. It is crucial to point out that when even as few as two individuals cooperate they create a new, social environment that is vastly more complex than anything experienced in the physical world. It is that complexity on the social plane which rapidly impelled the tripling of brain size and furnished the unique cognitive capacity for dealing with complexity in general - in the physical world as well as the social.

20. The uniquely adaptable, highly selected, socio-cognitive system that resulted was a prerequisite, not a consequence, of human migration patterns. Although inhabiting every possible niche, humans have only a quarter of the genetic variation of highly niche-specific chimpanzees (Kaessmann et al 1999). The system operates on a completely different plane from blind genetic selection - one which can 'model' the world conceptually, and anticipate and change it. If our heads get cold we invent hats, rather than wait for natural selection to reshape our skulls and increase the size of our brains (which is what Jensen suggests in one particularly questionable line of argument). As Owens & King (1999) point out, what minor genetic differences exist are 'quite literally superficial... the possibility that human history has been characterised by genetically homogeneous groups ("races") distinguished by major biological differences, is not consistent with genetic evidence'."
Source: Demystifying G: Book Review of Jensen on Intelligence-g-Factor (emphasis added).

For a thorough critique of Rushton and the hereditarian dogma more broadly, I refer you to Joseph Graves' essay, The Misuse of Life History Theory: J.P. Rushton and the Pseudoscience of Racial Hierarchy, in the book Race and Intelligence: Separating Myth from Science.

Since a credible evolutionary theory to account for allegedly intrinsic racial differences in cognitive phenotype is lacking, all data in support of a hereditarian interpretation (no matter the validity) become meaningless. I could end my argument here, as successful alternative, non-hereditarian theories do exist.

1. Regression to the mean: Black and White I.Q.s regress to different means. This means that extremely intelligent Blacks tend to have children with I.Q.s which regress closer to 85, whereas Whites regress to 100. The reason for this, from a genetic perspective, is that when people mate, the genes which are passed on are random. This means that the genes which grant a greater general cognitive ability may not be passed on, so the child's I.Q. regresses towards the average. The same is true in reverse. I.e., a Black kid who has parents with an I.Q. of 70 will progress to the mean of 85.

Regression to the mean is a statistical artifact and does not buttress the hereditarian (or environmental) position. It is merely a statistical phenomenon which occurs whenever two non-random samples with imperfect correlation are matched. In this case, the mean IQ subsets of parents and offspring. The regression does not inform us of underlying genetic (or environmental) relationships.

"Regression to the mean of high or low measures of IQ in one class of people (e.g., children), relative to similar measures on another class of people (e.g., parents), does not support claims that the measures are genetically determined (nor does it threaten such a theory). Such regression is no more than a restatement of the fact that the two arrays of measures are imperfectly correlated. Such regression provides no more support for a polygenetic theory of intelligence than it provides for a theory that the environments of related people are similar. The less-than-perfect correlation could occur because variables derive from different but overlapping sets of genes, but it can just as well occur because variables derive from different but overlapping kinds of environmental influences—or influences associated with measurement, per se. A finding of regression to the mean of children's IQ scores relative to their parents' IQ is no more evidence in favor of a polygenetic theory of intelligence than it is evidence that IQ scores are determined by environmental influences. The finding does not contribute to evidence that there is a unitary trait of intelligence."
Horn, John (1989). "Models of Intelligence." In Linn, Robert. Intelligence: Measurement, Theory, and Public Policy. University of Illinois Press: 63.

Environmental explanation: Blacks tend to share similar environments, thus their I.Q.s would be pushed to the mean. I think this is a satisfactory explanation.

Statistical explanation: See above.

2. Intermediate I.Q.: Mixed race children have intermediate I.Q.s. That is, the average for B/W mixed children is > 85 < 100. This has been contested by the Moore adoption study, but this is contestable on the grounds that the children were young, and it has been shown that genes have a greater role in determining your I.Q. when you're older. This has been supported by the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, with B/W kids having intermediate I.Q.s.

Nisbett has already addressed the serious methodological faults in the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study. The Eyferth, Willerman et al. (1974), Tizard et al. (1972), and Moore (1986) studies seem to contradict or at least mitigate the intermediate "hybrid" hypothesis, and they all affirm the environmental model.

African Americans are also far more likely to live in toxic environments, suffer from malnutrition (which is a crucial factor in child development), and experience a phenomenon known as stereotype threat.

This study addresses recent criticisms aimed at the interpretation of stereotype threat research and methodological weaknesses of previous studies that have examined race differences on Raven's Advanced Progressive Matrices (APM). African American and White undergraduates completed the APM under three conditions. In two threat conditions, participants received either standard APM instructions (standard threat) or were told that the APM was an IQ test (high threat). In a low threat condition, participants were told that the APM was a set of puzzles and that the researchers wanted their opinions of them. Results supported the stereotype threat interpretation of race differences in cognitive ability test scores. Although African American participants underperformed Whites under both standard and high threat instructions, they performed just as well as Whites did under low threat instructions.
Source: The difference isn't black and white: Stereotype threat and the race gap on raven's advanced progressive matrices. Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol 91(4), Jul 2006, 979-985.

Further reading: Stereotype Threat and the Intellectual Test Performance of African Americans

Stereotype threat may or may not be able to explain away the black-white racial IQ deficit in its entirety, but it certainly diminishes it to a great extent.

3. The more heritable the subtest, the greater the gap:

Heritability is not synonymous with genetic causation, and high heritability does not preclude the possibility of altering phenotype via exogenous intervention. The larger the environmental variance, the smaller the proportion of variance due to genetic contribution. It is also worth mentioning the fact that the vast majority of studies estimating heritability have focused upon middle class families; this suggests that the standard heritability figures given for IQ are misleading. For example, it has been found that socioeconomic status significantly influences heritability.

Scores on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children were analyzed in a sample of 7-year-old twins from the National Collaborative Perinatal Project. A substantial proportion of the twins were raised in families living near or below the poverty level. Biometric analyses were conducted using models allowing for components attributable to the additive effects of genotype, shared environment, and non-shared environment to interact with socioeconomic status (SES) measured as a continuous variable. Results demonstrate that the proportions of IQ variance attributable to genes and environment vary nonlinearly with SES. The models suggest that in impoverished families, 60% of the variance in IQ is accounted for by the shared environment, and the contribution of genes is close to zero; in affluent families, the result is almost exactly the reverse.
Source

The Black/White I.Q. gap is the highest on the subtests which are shown to be most heritable through twin studies.

4. The subtests with the highest g loadings have the greatest gaps.

The dubious methodology and empirical accuracy of twin studies aside (see Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984), the very Flynn article you refer to in the quote you posted establishes that g loadings are actually complexity correlations, and it concludes that "g would be of no interest were it not correlated with cognitive complexity." Heritability does indeed increase as the complexity rating of the activity in question rises (i.e., the higher the g loading), but this provides us with absolutely no understanding of the underlying causal dimensions, be they genetic or environmental in origin (though I maintain that that the two are inseparable).

Beyond Flynn, I have already informed you that the German born psychometrician and statistician Peter Schönemann has deconstructed the statistical theory and practice behind the derived principal eigenvector of a population correlation matrix, called the vector "g." For an excellent historical overview of the evolution of psychometry and its misuses, read his article Psychometrics of Intelligence.

5. Brain size and I.Q.: Brain size correlates with I.Q. at about .4 within groups,

The scientific literature does seem to suggest a (rather modest) correlation between cognitive ability and cortical density, but I have yet to find a reliable study comparing the brain size of whites and blacks. Even so, brain size correlations are of dubious value for intraspecific "intelligence" measures, and brain size differences most certainly need not be inherent. Prenatal and postnatal stimulation is never considered in studies, but such realities are certainly important for neurological development. In any case, Leonard Lieberman has refuted the arguments for racial disparities originating from craniometry and brain size analyses.

"2. Rushton’s use of aggregation is invalid. Despite the loss of support of the “race” concept among anthropologists, Rushton identifies three major “races” by reducing measurements of diverse populations to the mathematical mean, aggregating many populations from diverse studies. Aggregation is more than a casual term for Rushton; he raises it to the level of a principle: “Focusing on correlations between just two items or situations can lead to major errors of interpretation. The more accurate assessment is to use a principle of aggregation and average across a number of measures. . . . this is because the randomness in any one measure . . . is averaged out over several measures, leaving a clearer view of underlying relationships” (1997a:20). Rushton applies this principle of aggregation to measurements of cranial capacity, races, IQ, and social traits.

Several objections can be raised to this procedure (see also Cernovsky 1993). The first objection is to the assumption is that there is an “underlying relationship” shared by the “races,” a Platonic essence obscured by the variation within each “race.” In fact, the variation itself is the empirical reality; mean scores are useful data points when used in conjunction with the range of variation. The second objection is to the failure to establish the construct validity that the aggregation is supposed to produce. The various types of validity used in psychology— criterion validity (predictive and concurrent), content validity, and construct validity (American Psychological Association 1985)—all depend on measuring behavior that is directly or indirectly observable and verifiable. Content validity concerns “how well the various items on a test correspond to the behavior the test is designed to measure” (Chaplin 1985:103). Construct validity is established when one valid test can “converge or correlate with another test that measures the same or a similar construct” (Meier 1994:122–23). Meier points out that “no specific level exists for determining when differences between correlations are sufficient to proclaim a test-construct as possessing adequate convergent or discriminant validity” (p. 130). Rushton, Brainerd, and Pressley (1983:23) claim that aggregated measures give rise to correlations of .50 and .60 rather than the correlations of .20 and .30 produced when only two measures are correlated. Rushton and Ankney (1996:27–32) review correlations between brain size and intelligence in 47 studies, which range from .08 to .69. Applying Rushton’s principle of aggregation, the mean of the 47 correlations is 0.24. It has been observed that the coefficient of correlation (r) tends to overestimate the degree of relationship between x and y variables. For example, if r^2 equals 0.50, indicating that 50% of the variation in x can be attributed to y, then r equals 0.71; accordingly, r^2 is the more conservative statistic (Bechtold and Johnson 1989: 447). Rushton and Ankney’s 0.24 squared equals .058. While r at 0.24 is weak, r^2 at .058 is extremely so, clearly failing to fulfill Rushton, Brainerd, and Pressley’s (1983) claim that aggregation leads to a level of .50 or .60.

I agree with Meier that there are no absolute rules about the level at which differences between correlations indicate construct validity, but the higher the correlation the greater is the confidence that measures converge on a regularity in nature, providing that observers agree on the content validity of the tests being correlated. Construct validity is a mechanical tool that is irrelevant without content validity, and content validity is also lacking in Rushton’s claims. In other words, Rushton’s correlations are not only low but spurious in the sense that they are not based on valid measurements (i.e., diverse cranial measures, IQ assessments, and racial typologies). Many of the 47 studies cited range from head perimeter measurements to MRI data, and these data are then correlated with a variety of measures of intelligence ranging from “teachers’ estimates,” “officers’ ratings,” “grades,” “occupational status,” and “educational level” to scores on various standardized IQ tests (pp. 34–36). It appears that the claims made by Rushton about cranial size and IQ are based on a hodgepodge of cranial measurements and a stew of intelligence assessments that lack both content and construct validity."
Source: How “Caucasoids” Got Such Big Crania and Why They Shrank From Morton to Rushton. Current Anthropology Volume 42, Number 1, February 2001 (emphasis added).

and there's a difference in brain size between the races.

What is your source for this?

I don't know if the debate is actually settled at this point, because I haven't read J/P's 2010 review of Nisbett, so I'll avoid the first sentence.

The scientific debate has been settled decades ago; it is the ideological debate which persists. You will notice that the prominent strong hereditarians merely repeat their original thesis in recent years, proclaiming to offer "novel" facts to provide a veneer of respectability for bunk theories. Psychometrics is not a hard science, and sound theory is tremendously important in that field. In this regard, the hereditarian position was demolished many years ago by Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin, amongst many others. The work of Arthur Jensen faded into relative obscurity after the 1970s and only revivified due to the publication of Rushton's Race, Evolution, and Behavior and Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve, the former of which is founded upon an obsolete theory and the latter being a blatantly conservative screed.

Yes, their work has been used to support reactionary agendas. But the same can be said of all scientific findings; this doesn't undermine their validity.

Their work is reactionary and racist, as there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to expect to find such glaring racial differentials in fundamental cognitive ability on the basis of evolutionary theory. Why would anybody care to conduct such research in the first place? If one surveys the financial sources of such research, it becomes apparent that it is funded in large part by racist conservative organizations such as the Pioneer Fund, over which Rushton presides.

No, the idea is that the races will voluntarily separate due to differences in cognitive ability. I imagine intelligent Whites would live among other intelligent Whites, but the differences between the two groups are great. In fact, I think only 3% of Whites score at or below the Black average, although I'm not entirely sure. This, combined with a natural tendency to associate with similar people, would lead to racial separation, not oppression.

I am highly skeptical of this assertion. It seems to me that a classless society would serve to attenuate racial animosities and xenophobia in general. And again, there is no evidence that intractable racial discrepancies in core abilities exist.

When I said exceptions, I meant exceptions to racial homogeneity. Which is something I have absolutely no problem with. And what is a legitimate reason to associate or disassociate with people for is not up to you. It's up to each individual.

I have stated that deviations in "racial" group averages do not in and of themselves legitimize discrimination. I have conceded that racists do find justifications for their prejudicial views nonetheless. Refer to the Chomsky quote I have presented you with earlier.

I have said nothing of policy. I don't think there should or would be a law that says "NO BLACKS ALLOWED TO ASSOCIATE WITH WHITES" or whatever.

Yet this thread is titled "Is Racial Nationalism Acceptable?" How, pray tell, shall "racial nationalism" be instituted if not through some sort of policies designed to segregate or separate races?

What I'm proposing is that there could be racial gaps in association and social outcomes, and that assuming that these are environmental in origin could lead to proposals of integration and "affirmative action" in a future society,

There are no such hereditary gaps, and affirmative action is necessary in order to compensate for initial disadvantages that racial minorities face.

which may be unjustified and hurt other races.

Unjustified according to whom?

There could be claims that White racism in a post-revolutionary society are the cause of these differences, which would scapegoat Whites for what could be genetic differences.

Racism is irrational and has no place in a civilized society. As far as racial nationalism is concerned, I view it as delusional an expectation as cosmopolitan fantasies of a unified world culture.

Again, this issue is relevant; but not in the way that most White Nationalists think it is.

Unless you can offer a more persuasive set of arguments, I will dismiss the claim that "this issue is relevant."

^
Epic post.

Just to clarify a few things, I'll make a short response to some of the points which you brought up in that post - which I mostly agree with, by the way.

Rev Scare wrote:Simply because they happen to accept environmental contributions does not render them less deterministic. No psychometrician who wishes to be taken seriously would adopt a pure herediterian position to explain variation in group differences. Nonetheless, they are strong hereditarians and maintain that the influence of genes is preponderant in the determination of intelligence, interpreting human behavior and social processes using strictly biological premises. This makes them biological determinists...

Everything past this up to the next quote, I agree with.

Before I attend to the "arguments," I will first evince that Rushton's evolutionary hypothesis (and by extension, that of all hereditarians) regarding mean racial differences (the only natural explanation) rests upon an outdated and erroneous life history paradigm, r/K selection theory. The r/K selection regime was disproved in the 1980s by a series of experiments which have falsified its predictions across various species. Furthermore, even if r/K theory were correct, Rushton has misapplied it, and his data are wholly insufficient to test the predictions of the theory in human populations. To quote Joseph Graves (an actual life history biologist, unlike Rushton):

I've actually read the paper in question, and I like Joseph Graves' work on this topic quite a bit. However, I don't think one needs to accept Rushton's hypothesis in order to accept the hereditarian hypothesis. The hereditarian hypothesis(one which I disagree with at this point, by the way) is an attempt at a description of what is. Rushton's hypothesis, although within the hereditarian camp, is an explanation as to how the hereditarian hypothesis came to be true through the process of evolution. I personally think Rushton's hypothesis is a joke, and that it has been thoroughly debunked.

It is also patently false to suppose that tropical regions such as sub-Saharan Africa are not intellectually demanding. Natural selection would favor intelligence in any environment, and we must especially consider the social context of human existence. To quote Ken Richardson:

To elaborate on this point, EvoGenVideos - a YouTube "Egalitarian" - made a video recently in reply to a racial hereditarian in which he presents evidence that the brain and cognition have been under stabilizing selection since before we left Africa; which is to be expected as you've outlined above, but has been empirically demonstrated. It's a pretty good video which some of you might find interesting:

Since a credible evolutionary theory to account for allegedly intrinsic racial differences in cognitive phenotype is lacking, all data in support of a hereditarian interpretation (no matter the validity) become meaningless.

I don't think that this follows. We don't need to know how x came to cause y to infer, and even understand how, x causes y. I agree that it hasn't been shown that genes cause the racial I.Q. gap, so this is a minor point.

Nisbett has already addressed the serious methodological faults in the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study.

Yes, I agree, which is why I don't pay the MTAS much mind. That's also why I quoted Nisbett's critiques of the study.

The Eyferth, Willerman et al. (1974)

Eyferth et al. has loads of problems, from Wikipedia:

Arthur Jensen has pointed out that the white girls in the study obtained an average IQ eight points below that of the white boys, suggesting a sampling error, because in the WISC standardization sample the average IQs of boys and girls are equal (among the mixed-race subjects in the Eyferth study, there was a small sex difference of 1 point, favoring boys). He has also noted that the IQs of the children's mothers and fathers are unknown, and that white and black G.I.'s in Germany were not equally representative of their respective populations, since about 30 percent of blacks, compared to about 3 percent of whites, failed the preinduction mental test and were not admitted into the armed forces. He further argues that the selective preferences of the German women with regard to sexual partners may have influenced the results in an unknown manner. Moreover, nearly all of the children were tested before adolescence, i.e. before the genotypic aspect of IQ has become fully manifested. Finally, Jensen suggests that heterosis may have enhanced the IQ level of the mixed race children in the study.[8]

Rushton and Jensen have further pointed out that 20–25% of the fathers in the study were not African Americans but rather French North Africans.[9]

I believe I've read somewhere that Flynn responded to these objections, but I don't recall where. If you know where, that'd be appreciated.

, Tizard et al. (1972),

The IQ tests were performed on 2-5 year olds, when genes have less of an effect.

and Moore (1986)

This is probably the strongest non-hereditarian study. Although the kids in the study were young. However, in Rushton et al. 2005 they use this figure: http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/law/11/2/images/law_11_2_235_fig3a.gif which shows that genetic influences were just as strong in the Moore study as they were in the MTAS.

Stereotype Threat is very interesting.

I agree on twin studies and heritability.

I've read Lieberman 2001, which is also a good paper.

And again, there is no evidence that intractable racial discrepancies in core abilities exist.

Agreed.

Yet this thread is titled "Is Racial Nationalism Acceptable?" How, pray tell, shall "racial nationalism" be instituted if not through some sort of policies designed to segregate or separate races?

Do you have to legislate the formation of Proletarian Nations post-revolution? Is there de jure segregation today? How about de facto segregation? I've already told you that the belief is that they'd go their separate ways voluntarily for the most part(for the most part meaning that they wouldn't be 100% homogenous), yet you attack me as if I'm some sort of rabid Nationalist demagogue who will send in the police to force blacks to sit in the back of the bus. You've read things into my (old) position which weren't there, and you seem to have taken an issue with me personally because of this.

There are no such hereditary gaps, and affirmative action is necessary in order to compensate for initial disadvantages that racial minorities face.

The latter rests upon the former, which was my point.

Unjustified according to whom?

People who believe the policies aren't justified? Lol?

Racism is irrational and has no place in a civilized society. As far as racial nationalism is concerned, I view it as delusional an expectation as cosmopolitan fantasies of a unified world culture.

At this point, I agree.

cogarian888 wrote:Is racial nationalism acceptable?

I would say no. Other than the shaky and weak scientific ground it is built on, it also have a tendency to attract mentally and physically weak people, thus weakening, and in the end destroying the group that advocate racial nationalism (just look at the contemporary far-right, and how it is self-destructing)

The good guys are simply not isolationists. But one should not have completely open boarders either, it will destabilize the rich countries. In a future where industry and wealth is more evenly distributed across the globe, open boarders might be more feasible.

A hare-Krishna book I once read, claimed that we will all be gathered in a big ball of interconnected spirits in the end. The manga-series of Buddhas life even have a drawing of it:-)

Confusion wrote:I would say no. Other than the shaky and weak scientific ground it is built on, it also have a tendency to attract mentally and physically weak people, thus weakening, and in the end destroying the group that advocate racial nationalism (just look at the contemporary far-right, and how it is self-destructing)

The good guys are simply not isolationists. But one should not have completely open boarders either, it will destabilize the rich countries. In a future where industry and wealth is more evenly distributed across the globe, open boarders might be more feasible.

A hare-Krishna book I once read, claimed that we will all be gathered in a big ball of interconnected spirits in the end. The manga-series of Buddhas life even have a drawing of it:-)

I agree. I never was really comfortable with it, and I was trying to deal with some cognitive dissonance. Also, I posted this with hopes that people with a background with ideologies like this would be able to refute it. Thankfully, I was right.

cogarian888 wrote:I've actually read the paper in question, and I like Joseph Graves' work on this topic quite a bit. However, I don't think one needs to accept Rushton's hypothesis in order to accept the hereditarian hypothesis. The hereditarian hypothesis(one which I disagree with at this point, by the way) is an attempt at a description of what is. Rushton's hypothesis, although within the hereditarian camp, is an explanation as to how the hereditarian hypothesis came to be true through the process of evolution. I personally think Rushton's hypothesis is a joke, and that it has been thoroughly debunked.

Without a sound evolutionary theory, the hereditarian hypothesis is severely undermined. Not only does the refutation of r/K selection (particularly as it is applied to human populations) collapse the work of J. Philippe Rusthon, a significant member of the strong hereditarian camp, but it takes the wind out of the hereditarians' sails. It becomes far more difficult to argue that genetic differences are the primary (or any) origins of the racial IQ gap, because we simply should not expect such a scenario. I will reiterate that no genetic connection has been found (or tested), and I encourage anybody to cite a single source providing direct genetic evidence for racial IQ disparities. To once again quote Graves:

"Despite the psychometricians' inflated claims about the genetic basis of intelligence, almost none of them have any real or practical knowledge of experimental quantitative genetics. Parroting evolutionary and ecological concepts, many of them apply these paradigms uncritically as they search for simplistic explanations for extremely complicated aspects of human society (Graves & Place, 1995). The proper utilization of core evolutionary and quantitative techniques would shatter the psychometricians' program. For example, efforts to test g experimentally would be rife with difficulties-of course, that could explain why the psychometricians avoid such a critical test. Additionally, there are several other alternative hypotheses concerning generalized intellectual ability the psychometricians have yet to test."
The Pseudoscience of Psychometry and The Bell Curve. The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 64, No. 3, Myths and Realities: African Americans and the Measurement of Human Abilities (Summer, 1995), pp. 277-294.

The hereditarian camp posits that fundamental differences in cognitive (and other) abilities between racial constructs are primarily genetically determined. Since direct genetic evidence is sorely lacking (and would be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to obtain), it must thus be demonstrated that we should expect such racial disparities in nature and describe their emergence, which necessarily invokes evolutionary theory. The difficulties which beleaguer the scientific "racialists" are precisely why evolutionary theory is so vital to their argument, as they have very little else to offer. If evolutionary processes reject a genetic hypothesis, then alternative explanations (such as those opting for an environmental model) must fill in the void.

Remember that heritability, no matter how high, does not indicate genetic causation, and the old statistical caveat that correlation does not imply causation is also crucial. If intelligence is anything like other human abilities (and we have no reason to suspect that it is not), then it should be considerably malleable. For example, it may be true that not every individual is capable of winning an Olympic gold medal in the 100 meter dash or set a record in the World's Strongest Man event, but it is nonetheless also true that drastic improvements can be attained as a consequence of environmental stimulation (e.g., extensive training, nutritious dieting, strong motivation, etc.). The same should hold for cognitive ability, and empirical evidence vindicates it. It may be true that not every individual is destined to become an Einstein, but intellectual performance can most definitely be enhanced. This is validated by the Flynn effect and the numerous known environmental influences on IQ. A theory of evolutionary neuroplasticity conforms to our existing knowledge far better than one of a rigid brain structure, which the hereditarians implicitly adopt.

To elaborate on this point, EvoGenVideos - a YouTube "Egalitarian" - made a video recently in reply to a racial hereditarian in which he presents evidence that the brain and cognition have been under stabilizing selection since before we left Africa; which is to be expected as you've outlined above, but has been empirically demonstrated. It's a pretty good video which some of you might find interesting:

I am aware of the Youtube "debates" surrounding (controversial) scientific issues. While I respect EvoGen's attempts to debunk the hereditarian position, I find Youtube "struggles" to be particularly boring and all too typical of the popular science front. Trendy and stylistic videos in which pretentious "intellectuals" compete for views often take precedence over rational discourse. I suggest you eschew the parlor games of Youtube and read the actual scientific literature for yourself.

I don't think that this follows. We don't need to know how x came to cause y to infer, and even understand how, x causes y. I agree that it hasn't been shown that genes cause the racial I.Q. gap, so this is a minor point.

See above.

Eyferth et al. has loads of problems, from Wikipedia:

Arthur Jensen has pointed out that the white girls in the study obtained an average IQ eight points below that of the white boys, suggesting a sampling error, because in the WISC standardization sample the average IQs of boys and girls are equal (among the mixed-race subjects in the Eyferth study, there was a small sex difference of 1 point, favoring boys). He has also noted that the IQs of the children's mothers and fathers are unknown, and that white and black G.I.'s in Germany were not equally representative of their respective populations, since about 30 percent of blacks, compared to about 3 percent of whites, failed the preinduction mental test and were not admitted into the armed forces. He further argues that the selective preferences of the German women with regard to sexual partners may have influenced the results in an unknown manner. Moreover, nearly all of the children were tested before adolescence, i.e. before the genotypic aspect of IQ has become fully manifested. Finally, Jensen suggests that heterosis may have enhanced the IQ level of the mixed race children in the study.[8]

Rushton and Jensen have further pointed out that 20–25% of the fathers in the study were not African Americans but rather French North Africans.[9]

The "problems" in the Eyferth study are largely fictitious. I will simply quote Nisbett:

"Children born to black and white American soldiers in World War II. A German psychologist (Eyferth, 196 I) studied the IQs of several hundred illegitimate children of German women fathered by black American GIs during the post-1945 occupation, and compared them to those fathered by white GIs. Again, take a moment to do a thought experiment here. We know there was very substantial prejudice against the mixed-race children, since it would have been obvious that they had been fathered illegitimately by foreign soldiers. We thus would expect, even under the hypothesis of zero genetic contribution to black/white IQ differences, that the mixed-race children would have suffered disadvantages that could have contributed to a lower IQ. But in fact the children fathered by black GIs had an average IQ of 96.5 and the children fathered by white GIs had an average IQ of 97. Inasmuch as the (phenotypic) black/white IQ gap in the military as a whole was close to that in the general population, these data imply that the black/white gap in the u.s. population as a whole is not genetic in origin (Flynn, 1980, pp. 87-88). These data also are not quite as probative as might appear on the surface, because the Army used a cutoff for IQ in accepting soldiers and that cutoff excluded a higher portion of blacks than whites, meaning that blacks were an unrepresentatively elite group. Flynn (1980) estimated that this could have produced no more than a 3-point difference in IQ between the black Army population genotype and the genetic composition of the black population as a whole, and probably less, but that loophole means that the study results are less than definitive. (It should be noted that some of the children were those of North African troops. Flynn (1980), however, estimated that this could affect expectations about the IQ of children born to soldiers of color by only a very small amount-unless one assumes that the average genotypic IQ for the North African soldiers was far higher than that known for any military group.)"
Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count. Appendix B: 228-29.

In one of the articles that was linked to you, he writes:

"How do Rushton and Jensen (2005) treat this study, so telling on the face of it? They give it only two sentences of description and then proceed to critique it on two main grounds. First, 20% to 25% of the “Black” fathers were North African. But one would have to assume preposterously high IQ scores on the part of the North African portion of the Black population to make up for the substantial difference between offspring of Blacks and Whites predicted by their hereditarian theory. Second, Rushton and Jensen assume that Black soldiers were more rigorously selected than Whites and so might have had IQs nearly as high as those of the White soldiers. Blacks in the military did indeed have higher IQs than did Blacks in the general population, but the same was true of White soldiers compared with the general White population. Flynn (1980) has argued that the evidence indicates that the gap in IQ between Black and White soldiers was the same as that in the U.S. population at large."
Heredity, Environment, and Race Differences in IQ A Commentary on Rushton and Jensen (2005). Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 2005, Vol. 11, No. 2, 302–310.

I believe I've read somewhere that Flynn responded to these objections, but I don't recall where. If you know where, that'd be appreciated.

The work you are most likely seeking is Race, IQ and Jensen. I am not aware of an (free) online version of the book.

, Tizard et al. (1972),

The IQ tests were performed on 2-5 year olds, when genes have less of an effect.

Or when the effects of social stratification are less prominent? Regardless, simply because heritability rises with age does not demonstrate that genes somehow produce a greater "effect" over time. That would be quite a bold statement, and I defy any hereditarian to provide empirical evidence for such an immensely complex developmental process. There is good reason to believe that the environments of children are far more diverse than those of adults (e.g., some children are raised in "cold" households with little interaction and others in "warm" households with much of it), which could possibly explain the observed rise in heritability with age.

Regardless, the hereditarian house of cards is built almost exclusively from indirect evidence, such as twin and adoption studies. They ignore or misrepresent the studies that have attempted to directly correlate the degree of African ancestry to IQ, such as skin color and "negroidness" of features, which unequivocally contradict their hypothesis.

Do you have to legislate the formation of Proletarian Nations post-revolution? Is there de jure segregation today? How about de facto segregation? I've already told you that the belief is that they'd go their separate ways voluntarily for the most part(for the most part meaning that they wouldn't be 100% homogenous), yet you attack me as if I'm some sort of rabid Nationalist demagogue who will send in the police to force blacks to sit in the back of the bus. You've read things into my (old) position which weren't there, and you seem to have taken an issue with me personally because of this.

Yes, I do believe that some form of exclusionary policies would be necessary for a racial "nation" to exist. Noting that you describe yourself as a libertarian, I have even refrained from referencing state intervention (although the vast majority of racial nationalist currents, with the exception of National Anarchism, are statist and advocate the state mandated expulsion of undesirable racial "stock") but have merely implied governance, which all collectives must accept. Including the conscious or unconscious decision to dissociate from members of other racial categories on an individual level under the banner of "nationalism" is stretching the term to the point of meaninglessness.

The bulk of U.S. history featured either legalized slavery or racial discrimination and segregation. Are you suggesting that this history (conjoined with capitalism's innate tendency toward inequality) has no bearing upon contemporary racial mistrust and disunity? I have already stated my view that the abolition of class would subdue racial tensions and xenophobia rather than inflame them. I am also of the opinion that racial nationalism is untenable.

The latter rests upon the former, which was my point.

Even if racial discrepancies were proven to be primarily biological, a case for affirmative action could nonetheless be made. Discrimination would continue to persist, and rewards on the basis of genetic advantages (which are by no means "essences" shared by all members of a particular racial construct) need not be justified.

Unjustified according to whom?

People who believe the policies aren't justified? Lol?

Who else but racists would claim that affirmative action is unjustified? It is reminiscent of the constant harping about "anti-white" discrimination. Complete rubbish.

Racism is irrational and has no place in a civilized society. As far as racial nationalism is concerned, I view it as delusional an expectation as cosmopolitan fantasies of a unified world culture.

At this point, I agree.

Good to know.

Rev Scare wrote:Who else but racists would claim that affirmative action is unjustified? It is reminiscent of the constant harping about "anti-white" discrimination. Complete rubbish.

Affirmative action is a silly policy for more than one reason. Besides the fact that schooling should be universally available to EVERYONE regardless of their origin (as if affirmative action gets poor people into school), it rests on society being a heterogeneous construct and operates at the cost of fairness. I would much rather see blacks establish their own schools, but, this thread isn't about that so I would suggest if you have any reply at all to this we move it the thread here in which affirmative action was discussed.

I do believe racial nationalism should be encompassed by left-wing nationalists.

Does race not determine the nation? If you replace all Frenchmen from France with any other nationality, does it not cease to be France?

What good is French culture if there are no Frenchmen to develop it and embrace it? How will the French culture be sustained and not undermined without any Frenchmen around?

Why bother protecting the national barriers of France if the native people (biological French people) are destined to be overwhelmed by foreigners?

I use France as one example. Muslims there are becoming an overall hazard to France's solidarity.

Egalitarian wrote:I do believe racial nationalism should be encompassed by left-wing nationalists.

Does race not determine the nation? If you replace all Frenchmen from France with any other nationality, does it not cease to be France?

What good is French culture if there are no Frenchmen to develop it and embrace it? How will the French culture be sustained and not undermined without any Frenchmen around?

Why bother protecting the national barriers of France if the native people (biological French people) are destined to be overwhelmed by foreigners?

I use France as one example. Muslims there are becoming an overall hazard to France's solidarity.

The notion of there being a single, homogenous French ethnicity is fallacious. Contemporary France is a cultural and ethnic amalgamation of various Germanic, Celtic, Basque, and Latin tribes. If you were to analyze the genetic profiles of self-identified "Frenchmen" today, you would find that ethnic markers would vary considerably from each region examined. The same applies to Europe in general. That is why Otto Bauer was correct when he argued that,

"The nation is a relative community of character; it is a community of character because, in any given era, a range of corresponding characteristics can be observed among the great majority of the nation's members, and because, although all nations share a number of characteristics by virtue of their humanity, there is nevertheless a range of characteristics that are peculiar to each nation and distinguish it from other nations. The nation is not an absolute, but only a relative community of character. . . The nation has a national character, but this national character merely indicates a relative commonality of the characteristics of individual behavior."
Bauer, Otto. The Question of Nationalities and Social Democracy, p. 22 (emphasis added).

Race can, of course, represent one of the characteristics which defines a nation, but it depends entirely on the relative emphasis members of the nation place on it. In the United States, for example, people of predominately German descent identify just as strongly with being "American" as do citizens of Polish or Italian descent. That isn't to say national sentiment itself is a transient phenomenon, but rather that the sentiment can be expressed in a variety of ways. In short, the rules for national membership should be democratically decided by the nations' themselves—and their subjective criteria need not include race as a factor.

With respect to the issue of Muslims in Europe in particular, the reason such strife is associated with them is because they immigrated to the continent exclusively for reasons of economic betterment. They haven't any interest in French or German culture, which is why they refrain from assimilating. Couple their unusual cultural practices with the fact they're being utilized by capital to reduce wages and it's a recipe for disaster.

I see this to be the same overly paranoid question people raise about strict border control and culture mixing. Most race mixing and so-called "multiculturalism" we see nowadays appears to be the result of imperialism, slavery (which is in the past now), poverty etc. which wouldn't be a problem under socialism. Asians – i.e. Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis etc. – in the UK are a perfect example; hardly any of them would have come to the UK if there were no opportunities here that they didn't have back home. If they come to England to speak their languages, eat their food, wear their clothes, celebrate their holidays, live by their manners and marry/reproduce with their own people, then why must we fear the racial salad monster or the cultural stir fry demon? In regards to the "racial foreigners" who do not wish to leave, what do we do with them? Ask them to leave nicely and drag them onto a human exports ship if they refuse?

I do agree with you guys. My primarily concerns are race-mixing and the growing communities of millions of foreigners in native land. I think both need to stopped.

Gulags I do not think are necessary. Like DSN said, lack of opportunities elsewhere in the world is a prime reason why many seek economic refuge in European nations.

With socialism worldwide, I can see people wanting to retain their homogeneous qualities and willing to accept subsidized offers to leave. Nobody needs to be brutally exiled.

Egalitarian wrote:I do agree with you guys. My primarily concerns are race-mixing and the growing communities of millions of foreigners in native land. I think both need to stopped.

Do you not believe that individual character is more important than race in determining the quality of a person? Furthermore, are not ethnocultural distinctions (which are not strictly tangent to race) more significant?