Racism or Correlations of Race with IQ / Physical Attributes

[RationalBiker]

Those small judgments about people based on (non-genetic)appearances are not always true. They're just usually true in the same sense that you might find certain racial stereotypes to be usually true. Why, then, is making a preliminary assessment about someone based on general traits(specifically genetic traits) wrong?

I, for one, would not necessarily assume that such preliminary assessments are wrong. What is at stake based on your need to make such seemingly small judgments? To what extent will you act in relation to these preliminary assessments?

If you are walking down a poorly lit street at night and four shabbily dressed men appear to take deliberate actions to cross the street so they can pass in close proximity to you, are you going to be concerned about whether they are black or white?

From your perspective, do you see any purpose served by making these "small judgments" which may later turn out to be wrong? How are you going to treat a given individual based on such small speculations? What is the larger context involved in your encounter with the person? How does it serve you to speculate whether a person is rich or not based on his height? How does it serve you to speculate on whether a dirty person is poor? Are either of those things in and of themselves going to have any significant impact on how you decide to associate with that individual?

Knowing those things may serve me well if I'm going for a job interview but they may not serve me well if I'm trying to decide on my associations with those people. And in general, such small judgments are likely to have small, if any, impact at all. Perhaps the dirty person is a shipyard worker on his way home to work. Perhaps the tall rich person is an assassin.

I think reality dictates that we make some assessments of people in a variety of different circumstances based on limited information because we owe it to ourselves to protect our interests based on available knowledge. Yes, you may be wrong in the end, but that is the nature of judgment sometimes.

[IAmMetaphysical]

Those small judgements about people based on (non-genetic)appearances are not always true. They're just usually true in the same sense that you might find certain racial stereotypes to be usually true. Why, then, is making a preliminary assessment about someone based on general traits(specifically genetic traits) wrong?

On my way to work I came up with an illumination which may help yopu to see the point I am trying to make.

I am not denying the existence of race, or the correlations of behaviour that do occur; the "true stereotypes" if you will. I am concerned with the method. On any two-possible-outcome choice, it is possible to flip a coin to come up with one of those choices, and if there is a right choice, one will pick the right choice 50% of the time. This does not make flipping a coin a good method or even a fair method of choosing correctly. The same for faith, or racial stereotypes. Racial stereotypes may turn out to be correct some of the time, but they are not a proper method for a rational person to come to conclusions about an individual in an individual situation.

[aequalsa]

On my way to work I came up with an illumination which may help yopu to see the point I am trying to make.

I am not denying the existence of race, or the correlations of behaviour that do occur; the "true stereotypes" if you will. I am concerned with the method. On any two-possible-outcome choice, it is possible to flip a coin to come up with one of those choices, and if there is a right choice, one will pick the right choice 50% of the time. This does not make flipping a coin a good method or even a fair method of choosing correctly. The same for faith, or racial stereotypes. Racial stereotypes may turn out to be correct some of the time, but they are not a proper method for a rational person to come to conclusions about an individual in an individual situation.

I don't think of my decision making process as primarily one dimensional. Some decisions are very black and white(no punn intended) But often times a decision must be made based on a certain amount of intuition. When you have to make a decision about a large number of concretes that you do not have time to full integrate. You might not even have time to gather all of the relevent information. In circumstances like that, making educated guesses is a part of life. That is primarily when probabilities become relevent to me. So I do not disagree that there is always a right answer based on the individuals character, which when possible should be found. I just disagree that you always have the luxery of devoting the necessary time to the decision.

I go the impression earlier that you were denying that these differences existed. I now see that this is not the case. I'd like to repeat back what I thnk you are argueing to see if I undersdtand correctly. You believe that these difference are less likely to yield the correct answer with regard to another person then knowing them personally would. Is that correct? If so, then I agree completely.

[IAmMetaphysical]

Not just less likely, but fundamentally the wrong way. Race is not causal.

[aequalsa]

Not just less likely, but fundamentally the wrong way. Race is not causal.

Absolutely right, it is correlational. So is your stand then that correlational data ought never to be taken into account or only with regard to race?

[IAmMetaphysical]

I don't know if it should never be taken into account, but certainly not ever with regard to race, unless you are talking about sickle cell anemia or something where race is relevant.

[aequalsa]

I don't know if it should never be taken into account, but certainly not ever with regard to race, unless you are talking about sickle cell anemia or something where race is relevant.

sickle cell has a causal relation. If correlational data is valid in some situations, why is it never valid with regard to race? What is the fundemental difference?

[IAmMetaphysical]

The thing about sickle cell is that genetics is related to it, so race is a factor.

I also didn't say that correelational data is valid. I have to do more thinking on the subject.

[Solid_Choke]

Just to add some food for thought in my favorite sport, Mixed Martial Arts, there are very few black champions. The #1 ranked heavyweight fighter in the world is from Russia. In fact most of the successful heavyweights are either Russian, Americans(primarily whites), or Brazilian(lighter skinned Portuguese descendants). Also in the lightweight and welterweight classes you see a lot of Japanese champions. Just adding some things to think about.

[DavidOdden]

It is true that some many white people can be stupid, and many black people can be very smart, but exceptions don't disprove the rule.

That's exactly what exceptions do. More concretely, they show that you have identified the wrong rule. In this case, what it means is that test performance is not caused by racial genetics, but is caused by something else (in the domain of mental activity, it's predominantly a consequences of a person's choices, with a possible small role for familial brain properties defining your mental nature).

So let's imagine you saw two white men who looked and acted alike except that one had blonde hair and the other had brown hair. Would you automatically put your trust in the guy with brown hair? If not, why not? The answer (if you didn't know) is that hair color does not cause untrustworthiness. If you've had more bad experiences with blond haired guys than with brown-haired guys, as a rational and non-ignorant person, that would simply be an irrelevant fact for you in understanding what causes or signals untrustworthiness. Same with skin color.

To reiterate, the complete lack of experimental controls on racial genetic IQ studies puts the intrinsic racial IQ hypothesis in the realm of the arbitrary, which is to say, epistemologically beneath contempt, worst that accepting a false hypothesis.

Did you get a chance to look at the other study, though? That one seems to be more solid.

The runner study? They left out some possibly stronger conclusions, though I think that might be required because of the usual human subjects rules which prevent giving information that identifies the subjects. I bet that they could have concluded that "This capacity is highly correlated with being a member of the Kalenjin tribe". There is no serious question that being black does have some physical entailments. One of them is black skin. Then -- if we're talking about Africans -- the kinky hair. (I don't know what to say about people who are racially black and not black, which is pretty common -- I'm not comfortable with embracing contradictions). Anyhow, to me it is perfectly ordinary that Kalenjins especially, but lots of East African tribes who live in the Nilotic / Cushitic occupied parts of East Africa, are physically great runners, for many reasons, and these are facts in their genetics. However, these are not generally valid for the whole race (remember that we're talking about race and not one of these undeniable lower-level genetic facts). And it's also important to not equate a fact about your physiology with a fact about your mind. The point is that there is not a shred of evidence to indicate that African minds or brains are at all genetically differentiable from Caucasian or Asian brains.

And I don't think people can will their way to a higher IQ.

We have a difference of opinion then. Of course I don't think you can just wish it and have it happen, but it is under volitional control.

Well assume it is a dilemma. And you don't know anything except their skin color...or, if you'd like, everything but the skin color is equal in their appearance.

We have a special place in hell for dilemmas, you know. You create a special rhetorical universe that doesn't actually exist, and then say "and now what?". But fortunately, I've specialised with dealing with dilemmas. So in this case, you get out your E-meter and scan their souls, to determine who is more trustworthy. (If you demand that I suspend reality in such a way that I "have to" trust somebody and there is no overt behavioral evidence that allows me to base my decision, then I insist that you have to accept that I have an E-meter).

The central question is what it means to "judge", especially judging people. Judging is different from estimating / guessing -- you can guess that Jones was a great runner based on physical inspection of his corpse. Judgment is of a person's mind, and there is no rational basis for judging a mind except by observing what it does. It is a conclusion, reached by logically integrating the facts. That is why an emotional impression, based on skin color or (natural) hair color, is not a rational judgment -- it's just an emotional feeling. This doesn't mean that people don't confuse feelings and rational judgments; but it is wrong to think of them as the same thing.

[Seeker]

...In this case, what it means is that test performance is not caused by racial genetics, but is caused by something else (in the domain of mental activity, it's predominantly a consequences of a person's choices, with a possible small role for familial brain properties defining your mental nature). ...

...And it's also important to not equate a fact about your physiology with a fact about your mind. The point is that there is not a shred of evidence to indicate that African minds or brains are at all genetically differentiable from Caucasian or Asian brains.

But to clarify, is there a contradiction between there being a possibility of a small role for familial brain properties defining your mental nature, and there being not a shred of evidence to indicate that African minds or brains are at all genetically differentiable from Caucasian or Asian brains? Would it be wrong to think that in both cases the salient point is whether or not evidence exists that genetics plays a role in determining intelligence, which is an either-or proposition? Or is that not the entire crux of the debate? Is it not the case that once some evidence for that proposition is established, it raises the claim beyond "arbitrary"? I'm confused.

Edited November 16, 2006 by Seeker

[DavidOdden]

But to clarify, is there a contradiction between there being a possibility of a small role for familial brain properties defining your mental nature, and there being not a shred of evidence to indicate that African minds or brains are at all genetically differentiable from Caucasian or Asian brains?

Absolutely, because this possibility means that there is definitely evidence for such familial relations, as opposed to there definitely not being any evidence for racial genetic effects on the mind. Possible doesn't mean imaginary, and the claim for a racial genetic effect on the mind is, indeed, arbitrary. Or, alternatively, possibly known to be false, depending on the how you deal with data involving mixed-race individuals.

One important point about arbitrary vs. possible claims is that if you use false evidence to support a claim, it doesn't advance the claim from being arbitrary. The non-false evidence that might be taken to support a racial genetic theory does not specifically support a racial genetic theory, rather it supports an "either racial genetic, or sociocultural" theory, and other evidence shows that the racial theory is actually false.

[Seeker]

I see, I see ... I misunderstood the sentence about there being a "possible" small role for familial brain properties defining your mental nature then. Thanks for the clarification.

Edited November 16, 2006 by Seeker

[Viking]

My point about pointing out "blacks" as a group is to illustrate that there is no such existent as "blacks", just as there is not such existent as "society", do you understand that second part, because that is what I am appealing to.

"Blacks" is a group of people. Are you saying a group of people cannot have certain characteristics?

Sorry, but reality demands there is at least one other option, trust neither of them. You can't alter reality to fit your scenario. If you are going to pose a hypothetical scenario it must contain all the necessary context and it must conform to reality. My experience is that most scenarios are lacking in either or both of those requirements.

Well, when I say you have to do this, I mean that if you do not, you will die. So, all other options beside 1 and 2 will lead to your death. Excuse me if I presumed that you would rather choose 1 or 2, than die.

(I tried to post this earlier, but this website has been extremely unreliable for me.)

[Viking]

In reply to David:

Maybe it was misleading of me to use the word "rule", since that implies it is always the case. What I was trying to show is that when you do not have any information about someone except their race, the race can give you useful information in the form of probabilities, and exceptions to the probability don't invalidate it.

In your blond vs brown hair example, are you implying that you would never choose based on correlation? I agree that hair color does not affect trustworthiness, but if there was a high correlation between one hair color and untrustworthiness, would you not take that into account at all? I certainly would, and I think it would be foolish to ignore it.

The point is that there is not a shred of evidence to indicate that African minds or brains are at all genetically differentiable from Caucasian or Asian brains.

That is not the case according to this study, and I got the impression of many others.

http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/r...SizeMatters.pdf

I wouldn't want you to read the whole thing, but look at page 6 for example.

http://www.miex.org/python/Race_Evolution_Behavior.pdf

The one above looks pretty interesting as well, I haven't gotten to read it all yet, but I intend to. His first section is called "Race is not only skin deep."

We have a difference of opinion then. Of course I don't think you can just wish it and have it happen, but it is under volitional control.

You surprise me. Would you put any limit on this? Because I would certainly agree that if you concentrated really hard, and got really motivated, you would be able to get a higher IQ temporarily, but I don't think you can will your way to a significant higher IQ generally.

We have a special place in hell for dilemmas, you know. You create a special rhetorical universe that doesn't actually exist, and then say "and now what?". But fortunately, I've specialised with dealing with dilemmas. So in this case, you get out your E-meter and scan their souls, to determine who is more trustworthy. (If you demand that I suspend reality in such a way that I "have to" trust somebody and there is no overt behavioral evidence that allows me to base my decision, then I insist that you have to accept that I have an E-meter).

In my scenario, I could have listed million options beneath 1 and 2, such as going to sleep, farting, checking the internet, etc. I did not include them, because they aren't relevant, they wouldn't work. I thought this was implied, sorry.

The central question is what it means to "judge", especially judging people. Judging is different from estimating / guessing -- you can guess that Jones was a great runner based on physical inspection of his corpse. Judgment is of a person's mind, and there is no rational basis for judging a mind except by observing what it does. It is a conclusion, reached by logically integrating the facts. That is why an emotional impression, based on skin color or (natural) hair color, is not a rational judgment -- it's just an emotional feeling. This doesn't mean that people don't confuse feelings and rational judgments; but it is wrong to think of them as the same thing.

Even if I agree that there is no evidence of mental differences between races, I would still think it was rational to expect someone with one characteristic to do something if that action is highly correlated with that characteristic. You would certainly be more successful at predicting activity than someone who payed no attention to it whatsoever.

[RationalBiker]

Well, when I say you have to do this, I mean that if you do not, you will die. So, all other options beside 1 and 2 will lead to your death. Excuse me if I presumed that you would rather choose 1 or 2, than die.

You will die. That's kind of an important detail to leave out. So I'm thinking you really haven't thought your scenario through and you just want someone to pick black or white because you think it will prove some hypothesis you have. You'll have to do better.

What is the specific scenario? Give far greater context than you have so far and expect more questions to flesh it out. Death may be a viable alternative depending on the totality of the scenario so trust neither is STILL an option.

"Blacks" is a group of people. Are you saying a group of people cannot have certain characteristics?

Okay, describe the group of people who are "blacks" and distinquish how "blacks" are an existent.

Edited November 17, 2006 by RationalBiker

[RationalBiker]

Would you still claim that the information above is "unimportant," and pull out a quarter instead? Give me a break.

Ahh, I missed this little tidbit before, the "Give me a break" part. You think you already know which one we'd choose so it really doesn't matter how we answer. That's quite insulting actually so don't do it again.

[Viking]

You will die. That's kind of an important detail to leave out.

Fair enough, I should have included it, but it still eludes me why you people would assume you were living in some wierd twisted universe, or had the brain power of a quarter, rather than this simple explanation. When people say "you don't have a choice" what do they usually mean, that you are physically unable to choose something else, or that choosing something else would lead to your demise? In my experience, it is the latter.

What is the specific scenario? Give far greater context than you have so far and expect more questions to flesh it out. Death may be a viable alternative depending on the totality of the scenario so trust neither is STILL an option.

I'll respond like you:

So I'm thinking you are afraid of answering the question, and want specific details about the scenario so you can try to find some loophole out of it. You'll have to do better.

Sorry, couldn't resist. But really, I don't understand how a specific scenario is relevant. All you will get out of that is character names, setting, backstory, etc, and you can be damn sure I will construct it in a way where none of those things are relevant, and the options I listed are in fact the only options available (again...to avoid death.) Or, are you really trying to say that it is impossible to create such a scenario?

Okay, describe the group of people who are "blacks" and distinguish how "blacks" are an existent.

I'm not sure how this is relevant. What do you hope to accomplish with this line of questioning? The group blacks doesn't have certain characteristics, but the people in it do. Would you agree?

Ahh, I missed this little tidbit before, the "Give me a break" part. You think you already know which one we'd choose so it really doesn't matter how we answer. That's quite insulting actually so don't do it again.

You have grossly misinterpreted/misunderstood. It very much matters how you answer. If you answer that you would trust the black man, I would argue that you're illogical, and that you would have a lower chance of survival than someone who picked the white man. Same thing if you flip a coin. If you answer you would trust the white man, I would argue that you're inconsistent. Edited November 17, 2006 by Viking

[RationalBiker]

Fair enough, I should have included it, but it still eludes me why you people would assume you were living in some wierd twisted universe, or had the brain power of a quarter, rather than this simple explanation.

(my bold emphasis)

I told you not to make generalizations without proof, and I particularly don't want ones that insult the user base.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

You should have. Set up the context or don't, your choice.

[DavidOdden]

What I was trying to show is that when you do not have any information about someone except their race, the race can give you useful information in the form of probabilities, and exceptions to the probability don't invalidate it.

In your blond vs brown hair example, are you implying that you would never choose based on correlation?

I'm not claiming to be perfect and above error, so depending on the context I might well frequently choose the brunette over the blonde in an emergency (not that I frequently, or really ever, encounter emergencies). RB no doubt has a different empirical basis for the question of emergencies, so as they say, YMMV. If I have the luxury of using reason like in a non-emergency or even most emergencies, I realize that even though there is a correlation between hair color and political philosophy (blonde strongly tend to be socialists), I also understand that the political belief is not caused by hair color, but by a chosen political philosophy widely accepted in a region of the world where the gene for blond hair predominates.

I agree that hair color does not affect trustworthiness, but if there was a high correlation between one hair color and untrustworthiness, would you not take that into account at all?

I just can't see how I would need to, since there are other better ways of determining trustworthiness. The problem is that trustworthiness is not "highly correlated" with hair or skin color, so including that factor in my decision would make my decision unreliable, and thus irrational.

That is not the case according to this study, and I got the impression of many others.

http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/r...SizeMatters.pdf

I wouldn't want you to read the whole thing, but look at page 6 for example.

If I look at page 6, I see two different things, so I'm not sure what you think this is showing me. The main question is whether there is a difference in cranial volume that is correlated with race. What I see here is that Lee & Pearson empirically develop a formula for computing cranial volume from skull measurements, using skulls of medieval Bavarians, ancient Ainus, and ancient Egyptians. This is pretty uninformative as far as race is concerned, since it's not even clear what "race" ancient Ainus or Egyptians belonged to (and in the case of Egyptians, it's unlikely that the skulls represent a single race, rather, it was probably a combination of Caucasoid and Negroid skulls, not to mention a wide range of mixtures). In other words, it is not clear that the study even includes any Negroid or Mongoloid skulls in the sample, so an extrapolation to anything about race is plainly invalid.

Apart from the problem of lousy control over the sample (stacking the deck by a predominance of Japanese, Korean and Chinese over other Asians; who knows what they are doing with Africans), there is an unproven, indeed un-tested, assumption that cranial volume is directly correlated with brain mass. And most important, there is no proof that brain mass correlates with mental ability, in developmentally normal humans.

There are a number of ways to test this: look at correlations with individuals, to see if individual IQ / skull size is highly correlated, for example. Look at high-IQ and low-IQ individuals across races (and factoring in what can be determined about a person's mixed ancestory, which is very important in considering Africans and African Americans), control for skull size and socio-cultural factors. The objection that I'm raising is not that since racism is intrinsically vile, there can never be a scientific study that establishes a correlation between race and mental ability. I am simply saying that there is no such evidence. These studies don't make the strong case (though I don't think Rushton is a crackpot).

Would you put any limit on this? Because I would certainly agree that if you concentrated really hard, and got really motivated, you would be able to get a higher IQ temporarily, but I don't think you can will your way to a significant higher IQ generally.

The main limit I would suggest is related to age; let's take puberty as the standard magic brain-hardening age. I know how to design the experiment, but it involves a mad scientist, a desert island, and massive violations of the rights of identical twins stolen at birth.

In my scenario, I could have listed million options beneath 1 and 2, such as going to sleep, farting, checking the internet, etc. I did not include them, because they aren't relevant, they wouldn't work. I thought this was implied, sorry.

The point is that the implied restrictions on reality are impossible. Maybe if you would sketch the scenario in greater detail, it would seem possible. So for example, rather than calling out to person A or person B, just close the door and keep the dog inside. I don't know why that isn't a better choice that trusting either of these strangers.

Even if I agree that there is no evidence of mental differences between races, I would still think it was rational to expect someone with one characteristic to do something if that action is highly correlated with that characteristic. You would certainly be more successful at predicting activity than someone who payed no attention to it whatsoever.

That sort of seems obvious. What isn't obvious is what those high correlations are. I have noticed various highly-contextual correlations between clothing and evil, but usually I'm in a position where I can verbally determine whether a person is evil, and ignore the clothing. I will admit that one can be mistaken even looking at the "obviously relevant" evidence of what a person said and does, as in Francisco d'Anconia, but I don't know of any realistic scenario where I would be precluded from at least getting basic direct evidence (as in from an interview) that could form the sole basis of my evaluation of a person's character, which would totally override any putative correlation between race and moral character. However, I grant you that clothing can on occasion be a reliable indicator of evil, since AFAIK people who dress like Nazis (not as movie actors) are reliably evil.

[Viking]

Sorry for taking a while to respond. I've had a misunderstanding with a moderator here that I've tried to clear up, but it has proven difficult. To clarify, in case anyone besides the moderator thought I trying to insult them, that was not my intent at all. For example, when I say that I thought it was weird that you assumed you were stupid or physically restrained in my scenario, I'm not calling you stupid, I'm actually just expressing my surprise at your interpretation of my scenario.

If I have the luxury of using reason like in a non-emergency or even most emergencies, I realize that even though there is a correlation between hair color and political philosophy (blonde strongly tend to be socialists), I also understand that the political belief is not caused by hair color, but by a chosen political philosophy widely accepted in a region of the world where the gene for blond hair predominates.

Ok, but why does there have to be a causal relationship between two traits for you to take the trait into account when trying to predict behavior with reason?

I just can't see how I would need to, since there are other better ways of determining trustworthiness. The problem is that trustworthiness is not "highly correlated" with hair or skin color, so including that factor in my decision would make my decision unreliable, and thus irrational.

But if it was correlated, then incorporating that information in your decision would make it more informed, thus better. And there certainly are traits and activities that are correlated with skin color, wouldn't you agree?

If I look at page 6, I see two different things, so I'm not sure what you think this is showing me. The main question is whether there is a difference in cranial volume that is correlated with race. What I see here is that Lee & Pearson empirically develop a formula for computing cranial volume from skull measurements, using skulls of medieval Bavarians, ancient Ainus, and ancient Egyptians. This is pretty uninformative as far as race is concerned, since it's not even clear what "race" ancient Ainus or Egyptians belonged to (and in the case of Egyptians, it's unlikely that the skulls represent a single race, rather, it was probably a combination of Caucasoid and Negroid skulls, not to mention a wide range of mixtures). In other words, it is not clear that the study even includes any Negroid or Mongoloid skulls in the sample, so an extrapolation to anything about race is plainly invalid.

Apart from the problem of lousy control over the sample (stacking the deck by a predominance of Japanese, Korean and Chinese over other Asians; who knows what they are doing with Africans), there is an unproven, indeed un-tested, assumption that cranial volume is directly correlated with brain mass. And most important, there is no proof that brain mass correlates with mental ability, in developmentally normal humans.

Well, when these guys say Asians, I get the impression that they are talking about far east Asians, so not Russians and the like.

As for the correlation between brain size and IQ, isn't that fairly well established? Take the Rushton study for example, on page 24, he cites an MRI study where the corellation is found to be .44. He also cites the correlation between head size and IQ from a study, which is .20.

Nevertheless, you may be right that the Lee & Pearson study wasn't conducted well. It still seems to be consistent with other research in that area though. For example, if you look at page 24-25 of the Rushton study again, he states

"Chat 7 shows that there are race differences in brain size...The rest of this chapterdocuments that four different methods used to measure brain size all produce the same results. The methods are MRI, weighing the brain at autopsy, measuring the volume of an empty skull, and meauring the outside of the head. Note that the race differences in brain size remain even after you adjust for body size."

The main limit I would suggest is related to age; let's take puberty as the standard magic brain-hardening age. I know how to design the experiment, but it involves a mad scientist, a desert island, and massive violations of the rights of identical twins stolen at birth.

Hahaha. So, how would you encourage one of the twins to increase his IQ?

The point is that the implied restrictions on reality are impossible. Maybe if you would sketch the scenario in greater detail, it would seem possible. So for example, rather than calling out to person A or person B, just close the door and keep the dog inside. I don't know why that isn't a better choice that trusting either of these strangers.

I have made sure it is possible in reality. Lets say you will die if you do not choose option 1 or 2. Does this give you enough information?

That sort of seems obvious. What isn't obvious is what those high correlations are. I have noticed various highly-contextual correlations between clothing and evil, but usually I'm in a position where I can verbally determine whether a person is evil, and ignore the clothing. I will admit that one can be mistaken even looking at the "obviously relevant" evidence of what a person said and does, as in Francisco d'Anconia, but I don't know of any realistic scenario where I would be precluded from at least getting basic direct evidence (as in from an interview) that could form the sole basis of my evaluation of a person's character, which would totally override any putative correlation between race and moral character. However, I grant you that clothing can on occasion be a reliable indicator of evil, since AFAIK people who dress like Nazis (not as movie actors) are reliably evil.

I don't think it is hard to figure out what the correlations are. Take my prison statistic, for example. Sure, sometimes you get more information that may contradict what you would assume from the correlation, but many times you may not get enough information either way, so you are better off sticking with the correlation.

Oh, and I noticed that you are in Tromsø! I just got back this semester from studying in Trondheim (NTNU) for a year. So, are you a Norwegian?

[DarkReaver13]

I'm not sure how this is relevant. What do you hope to accomplish with this line of questioning? The group blacks doesn't have certain characteristics, but the people in it do. Would you agree?

Until the group "blacks" has some characteristics (i.e. it is defined), then there are no people in it.

[aequalsa]

Until the group "blacks" has some characteristics (i.e. it is defined), then there are no people in it.

Now this is only a guess...but I think it might have something to do with pigmentation?

[DavidOdden]

Now this is only a guess...but I think it might have something to do with pigmentation?

Clever answer and yet, from what I can see, false. It is neither necessary nor sufficient. One test is that people generally don't identify Indians (from India) as "blacks" (we should leave out the English, for whom the term identifies a different concept). But many Indians have a much deeper skin pigment than the majority of American blacks. The late T. Viswanathan, a superlative flautist, had very dark skin, but different facial morphology and very straight hair, and everybody understands that he was Indian. On the other side, we have the one-drop theory where people with one black great-grandfather are thus "black". If you cook up an objective metric of "blackness" based on wavelength of reflected light, that would tell you something about kind pigment. Officially, though, "black" is a self-designation. I could decide that I'm black, under the existing rules.

[aequalsa]

Clever answer and yet, from what I can see, false. It is neither necessary nor sufficient. One test is that people generally don't identify Indians (from India) as "blacks" (we should leave out the English, for whom the term identifies a different concept). But many Indians have a much deeper skin pigment than the majority of American blacks. The late T. Viswanathan, a superlative flautist, had very dark skin, but different facial morphology and very straight hair, and everybody understands that he was Indian. On the other side, we have the one-drop theory where people with one black great-grandfather are thus "black". If you cook up an objective metric of "blackness" based on wavelength of reflected light, that would tell you something about kind pigment. Officially, though, "black" is a self-designation. I could decide that I'm black, under the existing rules.

I said it had something to do with pigment, not that pigment was all inclusive or the only factor. If we wanted to get into the particulars, it would be a group of people with particular genetic traits including but not limited to darker skin, broader noses, and more curly hair. I say "if we wanted to", because I really don't care to and consider a conversation on the subject rationalistic. If I refer to a person as being black or caucasion, almost everyone else in the world would know exactly what traits I was refering. It is a perceptually self-evident differentiation.

Like a great many other things(masculinity and femininity, for example) it is a range. The traits exist on a spectrum and apply more to some individuals then others. So if someone were 1/2black and 1/2 white, what would I call him? 1/2 black and 1/2 white if that information was relevent.

I had a golden retriever/irish setter mix as a pet when I was a child. His existence does not nullify the difference between the different breeds. They can mate, they are the same species, they have more in common then they do different, but the differences still exist. The dilineation is descriptive. If it is not clear in any particular case, more context can be provided.

I don't care to debate identification of reality. This is an objectivist board not a nominalist one. The words don't create the reality, they are what we use to try an identify it. So if I say, "this black girl went to the store..." It means what it means and doesn't warrant the response "what do you mean by 'black'? Was she 1/2 black? What do you mean by 'store'? How about 'This'? What does 'this' mean?

Is is, is?

It is not helpful in any way to break an argument down by semantics unless you suspect them to be actually using the word wrongly, or you are sincerely trying to better understand their meaning more precisely and suspect you have different definitions then they hold. I submit, that in the present circumstance, this is not the case. People know what the term means.

My definition was meant to poke fun at this.