The Feminist Paradox

Actually, Finns' response is a non sequitur. Those professors wrote that report while he was teaching, and comparing the earth's rotation around the sun has nothing to do with this subject.

The 'mythic' Harvard professor's work was the talk of the psych department when I was in university. It had just made it from the journals to the texts. Revolutionary for some of us to consider.

Yes I recall some years ago it was two Harvard guys, a psych professor and I can't remember the discipline of the other that conducted a study comparing the average I.Q. of blacks to whites. I'm really working from ancient memory here, but I believe they interpreted their own study that there was a possibility that blacks were overall less intelligent than whites but that this was not conclusive.

I am quite sure subsequent studies conducted on criteria that would not be influenced a great deal by experience or other external criteria would show conclusively no important differences in I.Q. between the races.

cicerone imposter wrote:

From Business Week:
" Even in retrospect, it is difficult to know fully what contributed to the notoriety surrounding The Bell Curve. None of the book's major arguments were new to the educated public. Herrnstein, a Harvard psychology professor, and Murray, an American Enterprise Institute political scientist, argued that intelligence is best thought of as a single property distributed within the general population along a bell-shaped curve. <snip>"

<snip>
from obituary

Quote:

Outside academia, Professor Herrnstein came to national attention for his work on intelligence in a famous Atlantic article in 1971. He pointed out that intelligence was substantially (though not completely) inherited, that success in life was correlated with intelligence, and that the more the environmental factors were equalized, the more social and economic success would become an inherited trait. In 1994, this does not sound so improbable; in 1971, the intellectual heyday of egalitarianism, it was heresy, and Professor Herrnstein paid a heavy price. It wasn't just that he was called a racist when he had not even written about race, nor that his clearly stated views were twisted out of all recognition in the journalists' retelling. He also discovered that colleagues could betray him and that an institution he adored could hold him at arm's length, not because he was wrong, but because they were afraid.

http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/bell-curve/murray-hstein-obit.html


http://goinside.com/98/3/postmod.html - a review

Quote:

Is there anyone left with access to a microphone, television camera, or printing press who has not unburdened himself of an opinion of The Bell Curve? The reason, of course, is its provocative discussion of inherently controversial subjects: intelligence, genetics, race, and the relationship of this trinity to success or failure in American society.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Summaries/V99I1P78-1.htm

It is pertinent, I think Finn, only to the point that there are/may be/could be/might be inate differences hard wired into us by virtue of our gender and/or race and/or ethnic group and/or cultural conditioning.

More importantly it comes down to whether anybody is allowed to be curious about things such as whether there are differences in intelligence or ability between the genders/races/cultues/ethnic groups. Summers is being crucified for being curious.

Then "regression to the mean" should trump evolution.

Intent is not required for effective selective breeding.

Slaves were propagated through two general means:

1) Via the master
2) Via the black male who survived the rigors of slavery

It is, I will agree, dubious that American slave owners had a wide spread breeding strategy, however we can not ignore the unintended consequences of a slave owner's avarice and cruelty.

Unless we cannot agree that the weak slaves did not long survive, we have to acknowledge that those children born of slaves were, in the main, sired from the most vital of male slaves. This is as an intentional a method of selective breeding as evolution.

Generally speaking, there is a better chance that the progeny of the White Master did not have to undergo the hardships of the children of the "Buck Nigre, " and so there is every reason to expect that regresion to the mean will have its effect on this population, but there remains the imperative of natural selection...whether driven by human design or otherwise.

Nevertheless, the real question is why is it so utterly predicable that a iconic Liberal such as yourself would have a visceral reaction to the notion that human beings caught within an unnatural environment (slavery) might respond to unnatural forces in their short term development?

It is pertinent, I think Finn, only to the point that there are/may be/could be/might be inate differences hard wired into us by virtue of our gender and/or race and/or ethnic group and/or cultural conditioning.

More importantly it comes down to whether anybody is allowed to be curious about things such as whether there are differences in intelligence or ability between the genders/races/cultues/ethnic groups. Summers is being crucified for being curious.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Then "regression to the mean" should trump evolution.

It seems that you know as little about elementary statistics as you do about evolution.

Typically glib Joe, but what the hell does it mean? Do try to argue something of substance for a change.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Intent is not required for effective selective breeding.

Quite true. But then selective breeding only works if it is practiced extensively and continuously. That's how evolution operates. If, on the other hand, it is practiced sporadically and over a limited duration, then the limited effects of selective breeding are diluted and dissipated over time. That's how regression to the mean operates. Breed poodles with poodles over generations and you end up with poodles. Breed poodles with a variety of dog breeds over generations and you end up with generic mutts.

And you are able, I suppose, to to argue against the extensive and continuous nature of slave (intentional or otherwise) breeding? Considering that there are any number of Americans alive today who can trace their lineage to actual slaves, it is difficult to see how the scale of "regression to mean" applies.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Slaves were propagated through two general means:

1) Via the master
2) Via the black male who survived the rigors of slavery

Dimestore eugenics.

At the risk of redundancy...glib Joe but your point is? Do you mean to suggest that this was not the way that slaves were propagated? Just what do you mean to suggest? Give us the Haute Couture analysis...please.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

It is, I will agree, dubious that American slave owners had a wide spread breeding strategy, however we can not ignore the unintended consequences of a slave owner's avarice and cruelty.

What?

Duh? Let me attempt to 'splain for you: American slaver owners may not have had eugenic intentions, but that doesn't mean that similar results were produced through different intentions.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Unless we cannot agree that the weak slaves did not long survive, we have to acknowledge that those children born of slaves were, in the main, sired from the most vital of male slaves. This is as an intentional a method of selective breeding as evolution.

Well, it appears that your knowledge of evolution and statistics is matched by your knowledge of the history of American slavery. Not all slaves were culled by hard field work. Many slaves worked in the plantation houses, or in artisanal trades. The myth of the "black buck," impregnating slave women like some thoroughbred stud, is just that: a myth.

Predictably, you have pounced upon the argument you are inclined to pursue. "Not all slaves were culled by hard field work." Brilliant observation Joe. Now please explain how and when I asserted otherwise.
Many slaves did work in the Big House, but if you knew something of the history of the time you would know that the vast majority of "house niggers" were the illegitimate children of slave owners or their intended conquests. This being the case, I refer you to my prior statement regarding the two primary means for propagating slaves.

That male slaves physically capable of enduring the hardships of slavery were most likely to propagate is simple logic. I suppose you are of the opinion that slavery wasn't all that bad and the meek, mild and nebbish Africans had as much of a shot as passing along their genes as the "Black Buck."

Furthermore, the population statistics show that the "rigors of slavery" were not severe enough to prevent a massive increase in black population in Antebellum America. Granted, both the life and life span of the average slave did not equal that of the average slave owner, but it probably was similar to that of the average urban factory worker of the industrial era. Using your reasoning, we should expect that the grandsons and great-grandsons of Polish meatpackers and Croatian steelworkers would be dominating every major sport today.

Please direct us all to a post wherein I have advanced the notion that African Americans, understandably, dominate every major sport today. Try as you might, you will find the contrary. Sorry Joe, but you really need to read the postings before you fire off with your "Iconic Liberal" replies.

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Generally speaking, there is a better chance that the progeny of the White Master did not have to undergo the hardships of the children of the "Buck Nigre, " and so there is every reason to expect that regresion to the mean will have its effect on this population, but there remains the imperative of natural selection...whether driven by human design or otherwise.

Unintelligible nonsense.

This from Chicago Joe?

Finn d'Abuzz wrote:

Nevertheless, the real question is why is it so utterly predicable that a iconic Liberal such as yourself would have a visceral reaction to the notion that human beings caught within an unnatural environment (slavery) might respond to unnatural forces in their short term development?

What are you trying to say? And when did I become an "iconic liberal?"

I see no need to restate my point. Try harder to fathom it Joe.I don't know precisely when you became an "iconic Liberal," only that in A2K you are one. Your position on this subject serves as proof enough.

I didn't react to Foxfyre's post as an "iconic liberal" (whatever the hell that means); I reacted to it as someone who knows something about statistics and American history, both of which strongly contradicted her claims. And, I suspect, they strongly contradict yours.

Talk is cheap.

I didn't react to Foxfyre's post as an "iconic liberal" (whatever the hell that means); I reacted to it as someone who knows something about statistics and American history, both of which strongly contradicted her claims. And, I suspect, they strongly contradict yours.

FreeDuck wrote:

Both genders are awash in hormones. There's no reason to expect that the hormones of one would incapacitate them mathematically. The fact that there are women who can and do perform at the highest levels is proof that your hypothetical claim is not true for all women. If that were not that were not the case then I might find it easier to believe. My point, and I'll make it again, about the danger of subscribing to the theory that women just are not able to succeed at that level is that they will be discouraged from pursuing it early on. After all, what would be the point? Thus the pool of talent would be reduced.

(As you might expect) I beg to differ.

Given a basic understanding of the effect of endocrinological secretions, there is every reason to expect that hormones might influence the way in which an individual thinks. To the extent that one gender is awash in Hormone A and the other is awash in Hormone B, there is, again, every reason to believe that that the one will think and/or behave differently than the other.

I'm afraid that you are simply incorrect in the characterization of my hypothetical. I am perfectly happy with the notion that there are individual women who are capable of performing at or above the level of men when it comes to math. I do contend that, in general, men will will outperform women when it comes to math.

That no one is arguing that all women are not wired to comprehend complex mathematical concepts is immaterial. Let's say they were.

For a moment, let's assume that I am correct. Should we refrain from stating this truth because it might lead some women from pursuing mathematics? If a woman is capable and impassioned to pursue mathematics, she is hardly to be put off by some generalized position. If, on the other hand, all it takes is an authoritative voice to tell her she cannot excel to divert her from her passion, then she wa not meant for mathematics.

There is no shortage of authoritative nay sayers in this world. Gender is hardly their exclusive medium. It is a crutch to use gender as an excuse not to strive.

When accounting for eugenics in explaining black dominance in sports the point that blacks have, historically, been denied the opportunity to excel in fields other than sports and entertainment is usually missed. Is it all that surprising that truly gifted blacks would gravitate towards the fields in which their role models excelled and in which they themselves had the best chance of excelling?

So why did she who had the high aptitude choose something different; and he who had to work twice as hard to 'get it' choose his field?

I have no explanation but I am not ruling out the male and female mystique theory.

It does appear that on many, many different human attributes-height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability-there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means-which can be debated-there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population. And that is true with respect to attributes that are and are not plausibly, culturally determined. If one supposes, as I think is reasonable, that if one is talking about physicists at a top twenty-five research university, one is not talking about people who are two standard deviations above the mean. And perhaps it's not even talking about somebody who is three standard deviations above the mean. But it's talking about people who are three and a half, four standard deviations above the mean in the one in 5,000, one in 10,000 class. Even small differences in the standard deviation will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out. I did a very crude calculation, which I'm sure was wrong and certainly was unsubtle, twenty different ways. I looked at the Xie and Shauman paper-looked at the book, rather-looked at the evidence on the sex ratios in the top 5% of twelfth graders. If you look at those-they're all over the map, depends on which test, whether it's math, or science, and so forth-but 50% women, one woman for every two men, would be a high-end estimate from their estimates. From that, you can back out a difference in the implied standard deviations that works out to be about 20%. And from that, you can work out the difference out several standard deviations. If you do that calculation-and I have no reason to think that it couldn't be refined in a hundred ways-you get five to one, at the high end. Now, it's pointed out by one of the papers at this conference that these tests are not a very good measure and are not highly predictive with respect to people's ability to do that. And that's absolutely right. But I don't think that resolves the issue at all. Because if my reading of the data is right-it's something people can argue about-that there are some systematic differences in variability in different populations, then whatever the set of attributes are that are precisely defined to correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley, those are probably different in their standard deviations as well. So my sense is that the unfortunate truth-I would far prefer to believe something else, because it would be easier to address what is surely a serious social problem if something else were true-is that the combination of the high-powered job hypothesis and the differing variances probably explains a fair amount of this problem.

-snip-

One is socialization. Somehow little girls are all socialized towards nursing and little boys are socialized towards building bridges. No doubt there is some truth in that. I would be hesitant about assigning too much weight to that hypothesis for two reasons. First, most of what we've learned from empirical psychology in the last fifteen years has been that people naturally attribute things to socialization that are in fact not attributable to socialization. We've been astounded by the results of separated twins studies. The confident assertions that autism was a reflection of parental characteristics that were absolutely supported and that people knew from years of observational evidence have now been proven to be wrong. And so, the human mind has a tendency to grab to the socialization hypothesis when you can see it, and it often turns out not to be true.

It is after all not the case that the role of women in science is the only example of a group that is significantly underrepresented in an important activity and whose underrepresentation contributes to a shortage of role models for others who are considering being in that group. To take a set of diverse examples, the data will, I am confident, reveal that Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking, which is an enormously high-paying profession in our society; that white men are very substantially underrepresented in the National Basketball Association; and that Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture. These are all phenomena in which one observes underrepresentation, and I think it's important to try to think systematically and clinically about the reasons for underrepresentation.

There are three broad hypotheses about the sources of the very substantial disparities that this conference's papers document and have been documented before with respect to the presence of women in high-end scientific professions.

He has not said there is a difference between men and women.

It does appear that on many, many different human attributes-height, weight, propensity for criminality, overall IQ, mathematical ability, scientific ability-there is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means-which can be debated-there is a difference in the standard deviation, and variability of a male and a female population. And that is true with respect to attributes that are and are not plausibly, culturally determined.