Jeb Bush likes controversial sociologist Charles Murray's books

[bobloblaw]

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said on April 30 that he likes Charles Murray's books. Murray is a controversial conservative author who says that African-Americans are dumber than whites. Will this hirt him among a general election audience?

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/jeb-bush-charles-murray-the-bell-curve

he isnt going to make it to the general election, so it is moot

[bobloblaw]

Why am I not surprised that racist apologists like Charles Murray?

I didn't know you were a fan. Which book of his do you find most interesting?

I'm sick and tired of racists on this forum masquerading as believers in a post-racial consensus where "they don't see color". Charles Murray's focus on IQ scores is unforgivable. It isn't not a mere flaw or a slight negative: Charles Murray played a significant role in resurrecting the grand intellectual project of justifying racism.

Do you realize how demeaning it is when scholars claim that your "race" is objectively "dumber" than another "race", which happens to be their own "race"? Can you fathom what it means for Latinos, Africans and South Asians when racist pseudo-scientists indirectly support eugenics, racial segregation and racial hierarchies as being in accordance with "evolution"?

My ethnic background and my genetic line is suspect. My so-called intelligence is thought of as an "outlier" by Americans; an expression of my lack of "Mexicanness", something that pseudo-scientists like Murray and Nicholas Wade might think is due to my half-white background. Meanwhile, you think that being called a racist is a form of oppression, some expression of a race-based animus on my part. Get over yourself, man. If you think getting called out is uncomfortable, imagine the core of your identity being questioned and demeaned since you were a small child. This is one of the wonderful gifts that Charles Murray has helped bestow upon the world: the gift of racism that is intellectually justified.

The irony is that those who believe in creationism can believe that everyone is created in God's image equally. But in evolution it takes quite a leap of faith to believe that all creeds, races and ethnicities have evolved exactly equally from apes and after millions of years are all at the exact same place in their evolution.

[bobloblaw]

Why am I not surprised that racist apologists like Charles Murray?

I didn't know you were a fan. Which book of his do you find most interesting?

I'm sick and tired of racists on this forum masquerading as believers in a post-racial consensus where "they don't see color". Charles Murray's focus on IQ scores is unforgivable. It isn't not a mere flaw or a slight negative: Charles Murray played a significant role in resurrecting the grand intellectual project of justifying racism.

Do you realize how demeaning it is when scholars claim that your "race" is objectively "dumber" than another "race", which happens to be their own "race"? Can you fathom what it means for Latinos, Africans and South Asians when racist pseudo-scientists indirectly support eugenics, racial segregation and racial hierarchies as being in accordance with "evolution"?

My ethnic background and my genetic line is suspect. My so-called intelligence is thought of as an "outlier" by Americans; an expression of my lack of "Mexicanness", something that pseudo-scientists like Murray and Nicholas Wade might think is due to my half-white background. Meanwhile, you think that being called a racist is a form of oppression, some expression of a race-based animus on my part. Get over yourself, man. If you think getting called out is uncomfortable, imagine the core of your identity being questioned and demeaned since you were a small child. This is one of the wonderful gifts that Charles Murray has helped bestow upon the world: the gift of racism that is intellectually justified.

The irony is that those who believe in creationism can believe that everyone is created in God's image equally. But in evolution it takes quite a leap of faith to believe that all creeds, races and ethnicities have evolved exactly equally from apes and after millions of years are all at the exact same place in their evolution.

I'm not sure what point you're trying to prove. There's ample evidence that suggests that humans have physically evolved and that geographic isolation has increased the likelihood of small physical mutations having large effects of people but there's no evidence of "genetic intelligence". Even if we were to assume that IQ tests weren't a severely flawed metric of intelligence, most deviations in IQ scores can be explained by literacy, nutrition and lack of exposure to detrimental diseases like malaria; all of which have a marked effect on mental performance.

None of these things are genetic or explained by evolutionary factors. It's quite the stretch to assume that a relatively brief period of human history lasting from 10,000 BC to the present has produced large scale effects on, say, on intelligence. This is a brief moment in evolutionary history. In all actuality, the incipient rise of agriculture had a negative effect on individual intelligence: it created vectors for mentally debilitating diseases, resulted in reduced nutrition and severely reduced life expectancy. We've only achieved significant advanced within the last 200 hundred years and none of them may be explained by genetics but rather by resource endowments and chance. Before the 18th century, East Asia had economic output that arguably exceeded Europe. European medicine was backwards. There are other examples but the idea that Europe is a particularly intelligent and intellectual continent is laughable.

10,000 years??? Human evolution has been much longer than that. Culture is also an issue in determining economic and social development

[bobloblaw]

Perking up a bit here at your mention of malaria as an explanatory variable in regional IQ differences.  There's a study that successfully controlled to find malaria as a factor, in a way that somehow eliminates the possibility of genetic intelligence being a factor?  How?

I'm not sure how you justify the statement "there's no indication of genetic intelligence," if you're simultaneously accepting the malaria studies you allude to as compelling, unless you're presenting a really narrow definition of "genetic intelligence" I'm unaware of.

It's pretty clear that malaria is a factor that affects IQ scores. I'm basing this off a development economics study I read that links the long-term effects of surviving malaria to increased mental and physical lethargy, which has obvious economic implications. Mental lethargy should register on an IQ test.

Malaria's effects on intelligence does not necessarily suggest that that there is a substantial link between genetic evolution and intelligence: the effects of malaria on cognitive functions are directly related to the effects of the disease. The effects of malaria on the brain, due to high fevers, do not necessarily impact genes. I'm pretty interested in the studies I've read about Sickle Cell Anemia and IQ scores but I can't say that I'm well-versed enough in this field to comment about them.

Anyways, I'm obviously averse to claims made about "genetic intelligence". It's worth studying but should be studied with extreme caution and a sense of ethical responsibility. I'd also add that in an age where health outcomes are increasingly unequal and biotechnology is rapidly advancing towards developing neuroenhancement procedures, I worry that we may live in an era where racism is more easily justified. This is the only area where I think being "anti-science" could make a degree of sense.

Malaria doesnt explain why East Asians have higher IQs than Europeans

[bobloblaw]

Why am I not surprised that racist apologists like Charles Murray?

I didn't know you were a fan. Which book of his do you find most interesting?

I'm sick and tired of racists on this forum masquerading as believers in a post-racial consensus where "they don't see color". Charles Murray's focus on IQ scores is unforgivable. It isn't not a mere flaw or a slight negative: Charles Murray played a significant role in resurrecting the grand intellectual project of justifying racism.

Do you realize how demeaning it is when scholars claim that your "race" is objectively "dumber" than another "race", which happens to be their own "race"? Can you fathom what it means for Latinos, Africans and South Asians when racist pseudo-scientists indirectly support eugenics, racial segregation and racial hierarchies as being in accordance with "evolution"?

My ethnic background and my genetic line is suspect. My so-called intelligence is thought of as an "outlier" by Americans; an expression of my lack of "Mexicanness", something that pseudo-scientists like Murray and Nicholas Wade might think is due to my half-white background. Meanwhile, you think that being called a racist is a form of oppression, some expression of a race-based animus on my part. Get over yourself, man. If you think getting called out is uncomfortable, imagine the core of your identity being questioned and demeaned since you were a small child. This is one of the wonderful gifts that Charles Murray has helped bestow upon the world: the gift of racism that is intellectually justified.

The irony is that those who believe in creationism can believe that everyone is created in God's image equally. But in evolution it takes quite a leap of faith to believe that all creeds, races and ethnicities have evolved exactly equally from apes and after millions of years are all at the exact same place in their evolution.

Your post proves otherwise.

So we all evolve equally. Over millions of years from apes? Exactly equally. Even though that isnt the case in other species. I can see how a creationist could believe everyone is exactly created equally.