[quote]hspder wrote:
Interesting article, however I some points for you (that goes into the difference between racial-based AA and a potential gender-based AA). I’d be happy if you addressed them one by one:
- Men vs Women
a) Even though many feminists can be pissed off by this, it is a known fact that women’s brains are visibly (albeit not radically) different from men - both in structure and brainwave patterns
b) It is also a known fact that hormonal levels influence our behavior tremendously, and women have almost always very different hormonal levels than men
c) All across the board - i.e., if you take into account ALL areas of knowledge - we have seen the percentage of women vs men entering college has been increasing year after year and it is actually expected that sometime in the very near future there’ll be MORE women in college than men. That is also observed at existing college, since more women are getting employed than men. [/quote]
I think this is all correct. I will also reference what I wrote to Mufasa in another thread concerning male/female differences w/r/t IQ/SATs:
“Females have higher average test scores [I should have noted that the difference in average scores is not statistically significant], but their scores are distributed differently than male scores. On a bell curve, female scores cluster more around the median – thus females have fewer really high scores and fewer really low scores than do males. This leads to relatively more males who have the scores to be competitive at top universities. This is also the basis of claims that the PSAT was sexist because not enough women were making National Merit Scholar Qualifying level scores.”
Also, from an article on Slate that I just read, it seems that the genetic difference between males and females is around 2% – which is the same as between a male human and a male chimp, or between a female human and a female chimp. That’s a lot of room for differences based upon genetics.
So those differences in average spatial perception abilities and abstract thinking are probably not solely because little boys play with legos and 3-d toys while little girls often prefer dolls. I’m sure there are many more genetic secrets that we will discover are the basis for differences between the sexes.
[quote]hspder wrote:
2. Race vs Race
a) As far as I know, no study has ever showed any consistent differences in brain function - not in structure, not in brain activity patterns - between people of the same gender but of different races. I once read somewhere that it is possible to guess the gender of somebody from an MRI, but NOT the race.
b) To the same effect, no consistent hormonal differences have been observed between races, i.e., even though the averages might be slightly off, the differences are minimal and you CANNOT guess the race of somebody by looking at their hormonal levels (but you can do a very good guess at their gender) [/quote]
There are genetic differences between members of the same sex and different races, but they seem to be very small. We don’t really understand enough about genetics to say that there couldn’t be genetic differences, but I don’t believe that anyone has shown there are significant genetically based differences.
[quote]hspder wrote:
c) Some races are still disproportionally absent from EVERY SINGLE knowledge area, meaning that all across the board their % in college is far from their % in the general population. This same pattern is reflected also in their ability to find a job.
[by the way, sport doesn’t count - we’re talking about white collar stuff] [/quote]
Well, however one wants to ascribe the blame, there are significant racially based differences in IQ measurements. Whether one wishes to argue that they are due to cultural differences in sub groups that happen to correlate with race [the explanation I believe is correct] or whether one wishes to blame genetics or racism, the fact of the matter is that it’s not a problem with the tests. Insisting that the tests are racist is counterproductive if the tests are in fact accurate, and they are.
The tests measure what they are set up to measure, which is a certain amount of background knowledge and a certain set of logical thinking skills. That knowledge and those skills make it much more likely that those who have them will succeed in higher education
– and if you combine them with actual achievement to that point (grades, whether you’re referencing high school grades or college grades), they do an excellent job of predicting academic success. Given that academic success correlates with both white collar professional success and attainment
of positions in academia, one can
make a very good argument that, in fact, the distribution of successful professionals and academics is precisely as “expected”.
[quote]hspder wrote:
3. On all other accounts - culturally imposed differences and discrimination - gender bias and race bias are possibly equally common (somepeople can actually argue that racial bias is still more common, but that’s impossible to substantiate so let’s ignore that).
- Hence…
Women and men are consistently different enough that it might be possible and even expected that women are better than men at some tasks but worse at others. So it’s quite possible that in some areas of study there is naturally a much higher percentage of men than women - and others where the opposite is true.
So the behavior we are seeing - women less present in science, but more in other areas, and across the board - it is not only normal, it is expected.
On the other hand, the absence of some races from college and white collar jobs is NOT normal and expected (as in, explained by science).[/quote]
See above.
The problem that needs to be addressed
is why certain groups tend to score worse than others on tests that measure preparation for academic and professional success.
As I indicated above, I think there are a lot of non-genetic factors that come in to play – particularly cultural factors that affect how much value parents place on academic success (assuming a set of parents is
available to raise the kids). Also important are more nation-wide
factors such as the resources available to prepare students for success based upon the economics of their school districts – poor kids tend to get the short end of the
stick w/r/t resources, and certain racial groups are more likely than others to be in lower economic strata. Maybe it would make you feel better to include “racism” in this group, but I think that only clouds the core issues.
I think the combination of the cultural and economic factors go a long way to explaining the differencesin average IQ scores that are measured between races – and I think the fact that each race has scorers in the highest and lowest groupings would tend to belive a gene-based explanation.
Thanks!