Third-year Harvard law student, and Law Review editor, Stephanie Grace, has caused a poop-storm of controversy by putting in writing her views that state, “I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent”.It seems that she spoke out six months ago in an email follow-up to a private dinner conversation. One of the email recipients - Yelena Shagall - recently decided, for yet known reasons, to ‘out’ Ms. Grace. In any event, there’s a whole lot of damage control going on from all sides, including the law school Dean, Martha Minow, who is under consideration by Obama for the high court.
It is not so much what Ms. Grace said, but rather that she was so evidently having a conversation that is not allowed. To correct her, what is absolute is that we are not allowed to talk, in any forum, about the possible origins of an intelligence gap that seems to influence/explain the performance gap we experience, between White and Black.
The fact that Blacks score, on average, one standard deviation below Whites on IQ test and under perform on a myriad of standard empirical measures, across all education levels, establishes a basis, however incomplete, for Ms. Grace’s statement. This incomplete basis stands, and will remain as the ‘best case’ line of reasoning in the censored mouths of all, until the point which it is openly and critically debated. For this debate to happen, people like Ms. Grace must not be crucified.
Factors of intelligence are genetic, indeed, but not in the negative manner implied by this layman banter of terms. Good science to-date provides that nothing about having black skin genetically predisposes anyone to less intelligence. However, the correlation of black skin and lower measured intelligence does indicate that normal human distributions of intelligence could reasonably pre-date ethnicity, in expression. That these differences may be expediently visible through today's lens of race, while having other origins, is the missing piece of the puzzle, blocked by not encouraging open scientific dialog.
Differences of race, at and beneath the surface, have occurred in concert with other key events in recent human evolution (last 10,000 years). The proper assignment of cause and effect demand a critical analysis of event time lines, particular with respect to evolving homo sapien brain physiology, and including what evidence we have of recent brain mutations (genetic disorders) that might explain the pronounced disparities we see, or errantly think we see.
James C. Collier
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Technorati Tags: Harvard Law Student Kicks Up Racial Ruckus, Stephanie Grace, Inferior, Genetic, Acting Black, Acting White
I personally don't find anything shocking about what the girl said. I'm one of those who believe that inter racial differences in intelligence are partly or even mostly genetic in origin. it just seems obvious to me at this point.
ReplyDeleteI guess it does stress that one must be very careful in sharing candid thoughts about racial differences.
Thomas Sowell has written quite a bit about IQ differences between various groups. Read "Race and Culture". I'm also attaching a link to an article on the subject.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.capitalismmagazine.com/culture/racism/1958-Race-and.html
The University of Pennsylvania Trishkoff Lab (African Genetic Diversity Project) found that "people who identify as African-American may be as little as 1 percent West African or as much as 99 percent" -- so good luck in finding a African American control group to prove/disprove a predisposition of African-American genetics and intelligence.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the young lady, however; I'd have to say that the predisposition is cultural and not genetic. If you look at blacks in other societies such as Western Africa and the Caribbean, their IQ and overall academic performance far surpasses that of blacks in America. This could be easily attributed to cultural and societal norms that strongly advocate two parent households, self reliance, and the importance of education as the keys to a successful life.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, black America has the all too convenient white boogieman excuse that absolves the race of any responsibility for our own destinies and makes taboo any serious discussion and remediation of the problems that affect our communities. We also have a government whose mission is to keep us loyal supporters of everything they do without question by financing the very behavior that's been dumbing down black children everywhere for the past 50 years... in exchange for votes.
This woman has obviously not seen the very special episode of "Diff'rent Strokes" in which Willis and Arnold were denied admittance to a fancy prep school.
ReplyDeleteThey performed poorly because the admissions test contained "common sense" questions that had answers that made no sense to them.
Miss Grace is entitled to her opinion, but should remain cognizant that the world does not move to the beat of just one drum. What might be right for her, might not be right for some.
Do the IQ studies compare people from the same socio-economic status and level of education? Because otherwise these studies will prove little to nothing in terms of racial differencies.
ReplyDeleteI mean, if whites have on average more degrees and a better economic position than blacks (for historical reasons), IQ would be most likely related to wealth and access to education, and not necessarily to race.
In my opinion, I think it's a matter of culture and class. All poor people test lower than their racial and ethnic peers of higher economic classes.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteThe University of Pennsylvania Trishkoff Lab (African Genetic Diversity Project) found that "people who identify as African-American may be as little as 1 percent West African or as much as 99 percent" -- so good luck in finding a African American control group to prove/disprove a predisposition of African-American genetics and intelligence.
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Yeah I'm sure this is a totally and utterly impossible task, lol. I mean, everybody knows that there are millions and millions of black people who look like walter white or thurgood marshall. Totally hopeless task to have any confidence whatsoever in having gathered a population of essentialy west-african ancestry. You know, i bet even in Lagos there are nigerans whose black ancestry spans that range ou cited. So i guess one can't reasonably assemble a group of nigerians whose black ancestry is 90%+ with any certainty. Totally impossible task i tell you!
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8:40 AM
Blogger Sean said...
This woman has obviously not seen the very special episode of "Diff'rent Strokes" in which Willis and Arnold were denied admittance to a fancy prep school.
They performed poorly because the admissions test contained "common sense" questions that had answers that made no sense to them.
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Nothing like a good ole sitcom episode to disprove scientific studies hey :)
When i went to school in the usa, i had to take standardized tests. At the time i had been speaking english for barely 2 years and I had come from a totally different country. In other words I was not especially familiar with US culture. Somehow that didn't stop me from attaining higher scores than the vast majority of my native classmates. Surprising ? No. That's what reasonably smart people do, that's all. High IQ people of any race do that routinely. That's why i never care much about all this cultural bias stuff. Smart people usually get high scores on all the standardized tests and cultural bias can at most lower their scores a little bit, that's all.
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This is what I mean about higher learning:::they teach Darwinism as FACT and people who believe it could hide their beliefs for a while but it eventually comes out. Darwin and Lincoln were born hours apart. Although people had feelings about blacks being 'inferior', Darwin made it stick. His book came out two years before our civil war..What people saw that was inferior is that the people didn't know anything but slavery. Any people could be that way not just blacks. Survival of the Fittest, had a strong effect on our colleges and again, later in our schools. If you go on answersingenesis.org, you will see a different view
ReplyDeleteI also may add;;;two-parent households ,where the parents get along are the key, also more traditional for boys also help. Teach them about working on their cars, etc. at 16. have them get dirty..Sports are fine, even music. Tonal not just 'poetry' RAP. BUT they need to learn to get dirty (cars,construction,) and the like.mechanics are ALWAYS NEEDED even in a bad econony.
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