On Ayn Rand on Racism

[BradTrun 0]

The following essay is a revised, condensed version that I am here sharing publicly for the first time. I invite criticism.

On Ayn Rand on Racism

Ayn Rand repudiated collectivism in all forms, but she reserved her most strident and sweeping condemnation for what she regarded as collectivism applied to racial identity. She wrote, “Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage…”

According to Rand, asserting that race carries moral or social (which subsumes political) significance constitutes racism. A Black Panther who advocates killing white babies is surely, then, a racist, insofar as he regards whites as morally less deserving of a right to life than blacks.

But a racist in Rand’s lexicon, as in the Orwellian lexicon of political correctness, could potentially also be one who studies racial variation honestly and in full context, taking into account aspects of it that are socially significant. An evolutionary biologist who offers an explanation for the disproportionate success of sub-Saharan Africans in competitive sprinting, based on their longer limbs and higher centers of gravity as compared to other races, risks facing the same charge as a militant Black Panther: racist.

Racial variation in athletic ability arguably doesn’t – or shouldn’t – carry much social significance. But intelligence – the very attribute that distinguishes the human species from all others and makes wealthy, free societies possible – surely is socially significant. A geneticist who seeks to identify markers for East Asian aptitude in mathematics, or for Europeans’ higher scores on tests of verbal ability as compared to Africans, today is likely to be branded a racist regardless of whether the findings are objectively true.

The geneticist will be condemned not for ascribing moral superiority to any one race over another, but simply for making an assertion of fact pertaining to the distribution of genes that code for cognitive capacity. The only way a geneticist or an evolutionary biologist can be sure to avoid being the target of a “racist” epithet coming from the politically correct thought police is to profess a belief that cognitive capacity is distributed roughly equally among all branches of the human species, in spite of:

• the fact that biogeographical branches, or races, of humanity possess characteristic, measurably distinguishable skull morphologies that affect brain size and structure;
  

• the impossibly low probability in evolutionary theory that cognitive adaptations would be exempt from the same adaptive processes that formed variations in physical traits;
  

• the consistency and persistency of racial IQ orderings around the world that no real-world combination of cultural, political, and economic influences has proven capable of reordering.
  

It’s not that the weight of the evidence augers against the premise that all races are equally equipped cognitively. It’s that there is no evidence to weigh in consideration of the equalitarian hypothesis even being plausible. Equalitarianism is pure idealism.

There isn’t a single nation, a single city, a single school district anywhere in the world where black students perform at or above white and Oriental students on average. Yes, some individual blacks do excel academically. Cognitive capacity, as with height, nose width, vocal strength, and other phenotypes, is distributed in a range that approximately takes the shape of a bell curve for both blacks and whites, respectively. The bell curves for blacks and whites overlap, so there is a fair chance that a random black person would be more intelligent than a white person selected at random. But there is virtually no chance that a large population of blacks would be endowed with mental hardware that functions on par with a large population of whites.

The average IQ score of blacks in the U.S. is slightly more than one full standard deviation lower than the average for whites. The IQ gap has held steady for as long as it has been measured – even going back to the days of segregated schools – increasing modestly in some years and decreasing modestly in others. Averages matter because, while not deterministic on an individual basis, they do carry predictive power for the prospects of nations, cities, neighborhoods, etc. When deciding whether an area is a desirable one in which to raise a family, averages matter more than particular assessments of individual neighbors.

If a black population were to completely replace a white population in a geographic area (as has nearly occurred in Detroit, for example, which went from 90% white to 90% black in the latter half of the twentieth century), the social consequences would necessarily be significant. They would be as predictable as the consequences of lowering that population’s average IQ by one full standard deviation. From Detroit, to Rio de Janeiro, to London, every non-African city on Earth that has attempted to integrate African populations has experienced varying degrees of these very predictable consequences, which manifest as stark disparities in educational, economic, and crime metrics.

The idealists expect what they’ve been expecting for decades: that which never has been and never will be. Ever since the landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the idea of achieving substantive racial equality has trumped recognition of racial realities.

Leading up to the Brown decision, the neologism “racism” popped into popular discourse. The increasing use of the term coincides with the rise of political correctness, which renders the pursuit of truth inseparable from and subservient to ideological imperatives.

A racist in popular parlance is anyone who says anything about race that is socially unacceptable. What makes one a racist is vague, subjective, ever-changing, and ultimately ungraspable. The arbitrariness of the term means anyone can hurl an accusation of racism against anyone on virtually any grounds.

If the term ever functioned as a valid concept, Rand failed to articulate it. Instead, she conceived of racism as being anything that ties race to moral or social significance. This amounts to a mis-integrated package deal.

The reason why is illustrated by the ideas of Thomas Jefferson. The man who penned, “All men are created equal” didn’t intend to imply what modern-day egalitarians believe: that nature endowed all races with equal attributes. To the contrary, Jefferson believed that blacks were “in reason much inferior” to whites. But he regarded blacks as the equals of whites morally, as far as their basic rights as human beings were concerned.

Jefferson would have found the attempt to lump into a single concept a principle establishing moral equality with one prescribing innate equality in intelligence to be strange and unenlightened. Observations of human attributes are either accurate or inaccurate, irrespective of any notions of morality. As Jefferson urged, “Follow truth wherever it may lead.”

A conclusion that racial disparities in intelligence are explainable largely by racial genetics is not a normative assertion. It either corresponds with reality, or it doesn’t. Either the adaptive process over hundreds of thousands of years created unique physiological variations within geographically isolated branches of the human species that extend to their respective brain development, or it didn’t.

The truth can’t be deduced from moral proscriptions against racism, however one wishes to define it. The truth about race is that which corresponds to reality of race. Efforts to demonize discussions of the social significance of racial lineage are tantamount to efforts from religionists of centuries gone by to prevent astronomers from informing the masses that Earth isn’t the center of the universe.

Those who hurl the charge of “racist” against those who merely identify biological origins and properties of human races are, in effect, declaring that they regard nature itself as racist. They take their idea of racial equalitarianism as a metaphysical starting point and condemn those whose grounding is in a reality that doesn’t conform to idealistic impositions.

Racial differences that are more than skin deep inevitably do manifest in ways that are socially significant. Blacks aren’t immoral for carrying genes that endow them with less brain capacity than whites on average; nor are people who identify this fact of reality. Blacks aren’t heroic for carrying genes that give them superior running speed; nor are those who substitute an idea of innate racial equality for the racial variation that is metaphysically given.

In attempting to package two disparate standards by which racism could be identified – ascription of moral or social significance – into a single concept, Rand created an anti-concept. Without objective, conceptually essential criteria for differentiating a racist from a non-racist, “racist” has no clear meaning other than that of a vacuous insult, which is what the term as it's popularly used, overused, and abused to no end today, functions as.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

In attempting to package two disparate standards by which racism could be identified – ascription of moral or social significance – into a single concept, Rand created an anti-concept.

Context! Context! What Ayn Rand meant by "social significance" is not what others mean which she made clear in her essay on racism.

Without objective, conceptually essential criteria for differentiating a racist from a non-racist, “racist” has no clear meaning other than that of a vacuous insult, which is what the term as it's popularly used, overused, and abused to no end today, functions as.

Ayn Rand did provide a clear definition of what she meant by racism and gave numerous examples of what she considered racist. Note that the "Bell Curve" arguments made are not necessarily examples of what Ayn Rand was talking about.

She wrote:

Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage—the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character and actions, but by the characters and actions of a collective of ancestors.

Racism claims that the content of a man’s mind (not his cognitive apparatus, but its content) is inherited; that a man’s convictions, values and character are determined before he is born, by physical factors beyond his control. This is the caveman’s version of the doctrine of innate ideas—or of inherited knowledge—which has been thoroughly refuted by philosophy and science. Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. It is a barnyard or stock-farm version of collectivism, appropriate to a mentality that differentiates between various breeds of animals, but not between animals and men.

Like every form of determinism, racism invalidates the specific attribute which distinguishes man from all other living species: his rational faculty. Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.

Observe that she was not claiming there were no measurable differences between various racial groups. She disagreed that the differences were due to genetics and inherited body chemistry. She held that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits were volitionally caused, like moral character, or caused by volitionally created and maintained influences, like culture.

White Americans born 100 years ago would probably score significantly higher or lower in various "Bell Curve" measures than their descendants living here now. The differences are real, but they are due to volitional factors and not race.

[Arnold 0]

Racism is not about aptitudes or physical abilities. A racist is one who thinks there is a link between what one thinks, and his genetic makeup

Race has nothing to do with culture or ideas. It is ideas which give rise to culture, not race. If one claims a link between cultures and race, that is, that your race (genetics) determines your culture (how or what you think), then one is a racist.

Amazingly, many of the strident "anti racist" voices on hears, make no distinction between culture and race. To them, questioning a culture (the ideas one chooses) is no different from questioning one's genetics. This is the essence of racism as I have pointed out to many, which knocks them off their moral high-ground.

However, talking about genetic differences between races is a very different context which has nothing to do with the content of one's mind. This is not what is meant by racism. For example it is not racist to claim that most heavyweight boxers are black, or the best basket ball players are black, or that certain aptitudes are common in certain races. Genetic aptitudes are a reality that may flourish in certain cultures, but it is the culture that shapes your thoughts, not your race.

[Paul's Here 0]

First of all, the concept of "race" as applied to man is totally invalid. There are no different "races." Your assertion that "biogeographical," "genetic," or "IQ' differences constitute a race are absurd and baseless. The purpose of the concept is divide and group individuals to allow claims of moral or political superiority by one group over the others.

While biological scientists sometimes use the concept of race to make practical distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race is often used by the general public^[5] in a naive^[6] or simplistic way. Among humans, race has no taxonomic significance; all people belong to the same hominid subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.^[7][8] Regardless of the extent to which race exists, the word "race" is problematic and may carry negative connotations.^[9] Social conceptions and groupings of races vary over time, involving folk taxonomies ^[10] that define essential types of individuals based on perceived sets of traits. Scientists consider biologicalessentialism obsolete,^[11] and generally discourage racial explanations for collective differentiation in both physical and behavioral traits.^[6][12]

As people define and put about different conceptions of race, they actively create contrasting social realities through which racial categorization is achieved in varied ways.^[13] In this sense, races are said to be social constructs.^[14] These constructs can develop within various legal, economic, and sociopolitical contexts, and at times may be the effect, rather than the cause, of major social situations.^[15] Socioeconomic factors, in combination with early but enduring views of race, have led to considerable suffering amongst the disadvantaged racial groups.^[16]Intergroup competition fosters ingroup biases against their outgroup.^[17] Accordingly, when groups find themselves in competition with their designated outgroups, the more privileged group may subject its disadvantaged counterpart to discriminatory treatment. Racial discriminationoften coincides with racist mindsets, whereby the individuals and ideologies of one group come to perceive the members of their outgroup as both racially defined and morally inferior.^[18] As a result, racial groups possessing relatively little power often find themselves excluded or oppressed, while the individuals and institutions of the hegemony are charged with holding racist attitudes.^[19] Racism has factored into many instances of tragedy, including slavery and genocide.^[20] Scholars continue to debate the degrees to which racial categories are biologically warranted and socially constructed, as well as the extent to which the realities of race must be acknowledged in order for society to comprehend and address racism adequately.^[21]

(http://en.wikipedia....ation_of_humans)

Except for discussing the concept in its historical usage, the concept "race" is an anti-concept and should be rejected from rational discussion.

[L-C 0]

Observe that she was not claiming there were no measurable differences between various racial groups. She disagreed that the differences were due to genetics and inherited body chemistry. She held that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits were volitionally caused, like moral character, or caused by volitionally created and maintained influences, like culture.

White Americans born 100 years ago would probably score significantly higher or lower in various "Bell Curve" measures than their descendants living here now. The differences are real, but they are due to volitional factors and not race.

So, given equal conditions and barring disease or injury, is every human brain on Earth identical in terms of intellectual capacity? Is the brain exempt from the physiological differences that are manifest in every other aspect of the human body?

I do agree that the character of a healthy person is volitionally shaped, since character requires essential humanity, not genius.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

So, given equal conditions and barring disease or injury, is every human brain on Earth identical in terms of intellectual capacity? Is the brain exempt from the physiological differences that are manifest in every other aspect of the human body?

Of course not, but it depends on what you mean by "intellectual capacity." There are many different cognitive abilities and skills and we don't know which we are born with and which are learned. Ultimately, both innate and acquired mental abilities have to be exercised by the individual's own choice, and that makes all the difference practically and morally.

[ruveyn ben yosef 0]

Culture is an emergent produced by human effort. Some of it is conscious effort, some of it is an unintended side effect of choices and actions taken. In that sense cultures are -man made-. Our genetic makeup on the other hand, is largely determined by chance. Except for a few genetic modifications that current science can manage, there is little we can do to determine the genetic makeup of our children. We deal the cards blind and they get to play the hand they are dealt. We can, however, determine what we shall teach our children. All of the small incremental choices we make add up to our general culture.

Since culture is man made overall, the general rule --- garbage in, garbage out applies, as we are finding out, sometimes to our sorrow.

ruveyn

[Carlos 0]

First of all, the concept of "race" as applied to man is totally invalid. There are no different "races." Your assertion that "biogeographical," "genetic," or "IQ' differences constitute a race are absurd and baseless. The purpose of the concept is divide and group individuals to allow claims of moral or political superiority by one group over the others.

Is this really true? If you turn on the TV and watch an NBA game the players don't look like Irishmen... there must be enough of a difference to legitimately discriminate between races.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

If you turn on the TV and watch an NBA game the players don't look like Irishmen... there must be enough of a difference to legitimately discriminate between races.

They don't look like pygmy African Bushmen either, so how do you define "race?"

[AlexL 0]

... how do you define "race?"

I remember having heard this definition: individuals are of the same race if they can interbreed.

Hmm... the formulation must be adjusted for the same-sex problem, and even so, it might be false.

Sasha

[Arnold 0]

If you turn on the TV and watch an NBA game the players don't look like Irishmen... there must be enough of a difference to legitimately discriminate between races.

They don't look like pygmy African Bushmen either, so how do you define "race?"

Clearly, we are all from the same original gene pool. However, once we migrated from Africa, there were some genetic changes in various groups, from Pygmies and Bushmen to Asians and Europeans. These were all "surface" changes that were visible as common to an entire group. We have called these visible differences, which are insignificant in the bigger picture; (we are all the same otherwise) "race".

Now it is all very well to do away with the word 'race' because in reality humanity is one race in the scientific sense, but the word is also used to describe appearance, such as he "looked European." If we are to do away with "race" as a word, then what will replace it to describe these visual differences? Will we just say 'he has Somali or Asian features'? Just where is there a legitimate use for the word 'race'?

[Paul's Here 0]

First of all, the concept of "race" as applied to man is totally invalid. There are no different "races." Your assertion that "biogeographical," "genetic," or "IQ' differences constitute a race are absurd and baseless. The purpose of the concept is divide and group individuals to allow claims of moral or political superiority by one group over the others.

Is this really true? If you turn on the TV and watch an NBA game the players don't look like Irishmen... there must be enough of a difference to legitimately discriminate between races.

And what is your point here? "Irishmen" is not a race. They are the same species as NBA players, with exactly the same number of genes and chromosomes. Are you saying height is a trait distinguishing one race from another? What do you mean by "race" here? NBA players is simply a group of individuals who are tall get together to play a game. Such individual choices make a race?

You've assumed group differences arising from a social organization and then assert those differences are biological. That is exactly what the article I quote states makes "race" invalid.

[Paul's Here 0]

... how do you define "race?"

I remember having heard this definition: individuals are of the same race if they can interbreed.

Hmm... the formulation must be adjusted for the same-sex problem, and even so, it might be false.

Sasha

So what happens after menopause? No more same "race"?

[Paul's Here 0]

If you turn on the TV and watch an NBA game the players don't look like Irishmen... there must be enough of a difference to legitimately discriminate between races.

They don't look like pygmy African Bushmen either, so how do you define "race?"

Clearly, we are all from the same original gene pool. However, once we migrated from Africa, there were some genetic changes in various groups, from Pygmies and Bushmen to Asians and Europeans. These were all "surface" changes that were visible as common to an entire group. We have called these visible differences, which are insignificant in the bigger picture; (we are all the same otherwise) "race".

Now it is all very well to do away with the word 'race' because in reality humanity is one race in the scientific sense, but the word is also used to describe appearance, such as he "looked European." If we are to do away with "race" as a word, then what will replace it to describe these visual differences? Will we just say 'he has Somali or Asian features'? Just where is there a legitimate use for the word 'race'?

So any inherited differences create a new race? Your use of the word race constitutes just one of many. Nazis considered Jews to be a race. As we've seen in this thread, "Irishmen" are a race. Common visible features of an entire group make a race? Redheads, people with glasses, people who have large ears, small, tall, fat, skinny, etc. are now races? Please. You state "we have called these common features race." That is exactly the point. The word race is being used to divide people into groups. And, of course, it is typically one's own race that winds up with superior features than other groups.

[Carlos 0]

First of all, the concept of "race" as applied to man is totally invalid. There are no different "races." Your assertion that "biogeographical," "genetic," or "IQ' differences constitute a race are absurd and baseless. The purpose of the concept is divide and group individuals to allow claims of moral or political superiority by one group over the others.

Is this really true? If you turn on the TV and watch an NBA game the players don't look like Irishmen... there must be enough of a difference to legitimately discriminate between races.

And what is your point here? "Irishmen" is not a race.

The literal word usage of "irishmen" was partly as a joke. But seriously, can you point out a pale-skinned redhead in the NBA? Why are 99% of NBA players Negroid? There is apparently a common difference in potential for bursts of power between caucasoids and negroids.

They are the same species as NBA players, with exactly the same number of genes and chromosomes. Are you saying height is a trait distinguishing one race from another? What do you mean by "race" here? NBA players is simply a group of individuals who are tall get together to play a game. Such individual choices make a race?

This is conflating individual choice with obvious genetic differences. That statistically negroids dominate professional sports can't be explained by "choice". Caucasoids didn't suddenly lose interest in professional sports in the last few decades. Overall, as a statistical average, they are being out-competed because of genetic differences that favor superiority. No amount of individual-will can replace poor genetics when it comes to succeeding in professional sports. You need both.

You've assumed group differences arising from a social organization and then assert those differences are biological. That is exactly what the article I quote states makes "race" invalid.

No you said that. I'm noting the observation that professional sports players all tend to be Negroids, and this happens on such a widespread scale that it can't simply be chalked up to "individual choice". The "irishmen" comment was a joke, but seriously referring to the fact that you'd be hard-pressed to find many fair-skinned redheads playing professional sports.

[Carlos 0]

If you turn on the TV and watch an NBA game the players don't look like Irishmen... there must be enough of a difference to legitimately discriminate between races.

They don't look like pygmy African Bushmen either, so how do you define "race?"

This objection to my classification of a group of people by common physiological traits by citing a different group of people with common physiological traits doesn't invalidate the concept of race, it affirms it. Perhaps we are using race in a different way. When I use the word I'm thinking of physiological differences that are obvious with bulk populations.

[Carlos 0]

So any inherited differences create a new race? Your use of the word race constitutes just one of many. Nazis considered Jews to be a race. As we've seen in this thread, "Irishmen" are a race. Common visible features of an entire group make a race? Redheads, people with glasses, people who have large ears, small, tall, fat, skinny, etc. are now races? Please. You state "we have called these common features race." That is exactly the point. The word race is being used to divide people into groups. And, of course, it is typically one's own race that winds up with superior features than other groups.

You are conflating collectivism and racism with the physiological categorization of people by "race". It can be done in a scientific way.

Do different breeds of cats exist?

[Carlos 0]

Just as a general comment, the field of Physical Anthropology does exist, and they classify people by terms like Negroid, Mongoloid, Caucasoid, on a purely scientific basis, not because of some fictitious desire to ascribe one collective group intrinsic worth over others, or to justify ethnic cleansing. Like with cats or dogs or cows, different "breeds" of human beings do exist. There's nothing philosophical or moral or "racist" about it, it's just science.

[Carlos 0]

First of all, the concept of "race" as applied to man is totally invalid. There are no different "races." Your assertion that "biogeographical," "genetic," or "IQ' differences constitute a race are absurd and baseless. The purpose of the concept is divide and group individuals to allow claims of moral or political superiority by one group over the others.

While biological scientists sometimes use the concept of race to make practical distinctions among fuzzy sets of traits, others in the scientific community suggest that the idea of race is often used by the general public^[5] in a naive^[6] or simplistic way. Among humans, race has no taxonomic significance; all people belong to the same hominid subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens.^[7][8] Regardless of the extent to which race exists, the word "race" is problematic and may carry negative connotations.^[9] Social conceptions and groupings of races vary over time, involving folk taxonomies ^[10] that define essential types of individuals based on perceived sets of traits. Scientists consider biologicalessentialism obsolete,^[11] and generally discourage racial explanations for collective differentiation in both physical and behavioral traits.^[6][12]

As people define and put about different conceptions of race, they actively create contrasting social realities through which racial categorization is achieved in varied ways.^[13] In this sense, races are said to be social constructs.^[14] These constructs can develop within various legal, economic, and sociopolitical contexts, and at times may be the effect, rather than the cause, of major social situations.^[15] Socioeconomic factors, in combination with early but enduring views of race, have led to considerable suffering amongst the disadvantaged racial groups.^[16]Intergroup competition fosters ingroup biases against their outgroup.^[17] Accordingly, when groups find themselves in competition with their designated outgroups, the more privileged group may subject its disadvantaged counterpart to discriminatory treatment. Racial discriminationoften coincides with racist mindsets, whereby the individuals and ideologies of one group come to perceive the members of their outgroup as both racially defined and morally inferior.^[18] As a result, racial groups possessing relatively little power often find themselves excluded or oppressed, while the individuals and institutions of the hegemony are charged with holding racist attitudes.^[19] Racism has factored into many instances of tragedy, including slavery and genocide.^[20] Scholars continue to debate the degrees to which racial categories are biologically warranted and socially constructed, as well as the extent to which the realities of race must be acknowledged in order for society to comprehend and address racism adequately.^[21]

(http://en.wikipedia....ation_of_humans)

Except for discussing the concept in its historical usage, the concept "race" is an anti-concept and should be rejected from rational discussion.

Most of the things cited here is nothing but politically correct social-science mumbo-jumbo. These are the same people that say gender is purely a social-construct.

[Carlos 0]

There isn’t a single nation, a single city, a single school district anywhere in the world where black students perform at or above white and Oriental students on average. Yes, some individual blacks do excel academically. Cognitive capacity, as with height, nose width, vocal strength, and other phenotypes, is distributed in a range that approximately takes the shape of a bell curve for both blacks and whites, respectively. The bell curves for blacks and whites overlap, so there is a fair chance that a random black person would be more intelligent than a white person selected at random. But there is virtually no chance that a large population of blacks would be endowed with mental hardware that functions on par with a large population of whites.

The average IQ score of blacks in the U.S. is slightly more than one full standard deviation lower than the average for whites. The IQ gap has held steady for as long as it has been measured – even going back to the days of segregated schools – increasing modestly in some years and decreasing modestly in others. Averages matter because, while not deterministic on an individual basis, they do carry predictive power for the prospects of nations, cities, neighborhoods, etc. When deciding whether an area is a desirable one in which to raise a family, averages matter more than particular assessments of individual neighbors.

If a black population were to completely replace a white population in a geographic area (as has nearly occurred in Detroit, for example, which went from 90% white to 90% black in the latter half of the twentieth century), the social consequences would necessarily be significant. They would be as predictable as the consequences of lowering that population’s average IQ by one full standard deviation. From Detroit, to Rio de Janeiro, to London, every non-African city on Earth that has attempted to integrate African populations has experienced varying degrees of these very predictable consequences, which manifest as stark disparities in educational, economic, and crime metrics.

The differences in test-scores or IQ are more than likely cultural. Whatever difference race could have on intellectual capability must be vanishingly small compared to the much larger importance of receiving quality early education. When you are young your brain is in a very plastic stage in terms of development, and receiving rigorous education is critical during those periods. Much of your mental capacity (in terms of raw power to handle problems) is probably set at those early ages.

The culture of Africa is terrible, and blacks from America spread through much of the world as uneducated slaves. It apparently is going to take a long time for these cultural differences to equal out, and any chance of them being repaired is being ruined by Socialists who obstruct globalization, and those who exploit blacks (especially in America) as a voting block to be manipulated.

Maybe African countries could be pouring out math whizzes and scientists like Asia if Africa had been able (allowed) to develop economically in a similarly rapid way.

[Carlos 0]

Sorry, correction:

The culture of Africa is terrible, and blacks from AmericaAfrica spread through much of the world as uneducated slaves.

[Betsy Speicher 0]

If you turn on the TV and watch an NBA game the players don't look like Irishmen... there must be enough of a difference to legitimately discriminate between races.

They don't look like pygmy African Bushmen either, so how do you define "race?"

This objection to my classification of a group of people by common physiological traits by citing a different group of people with common physiological traits doesn't invalidate the concept of race, it affirms it. Perhaps we are using race in a different way. When I use the word I'm thinking of physiological differences that are obvious with bulk populations.

It depends on how you select the "population." It doesn't surprise me that there may be a larger percentage of exceedingly tall and strong American blacks than whites, but that isn't due to their African genetics. When the slavers were looking to capture men they could sell to work on cotton plantations, they picked the big guys and not the pygmies.

Even if there are a lot of tall blacks, that doesn't change the fact that what leads to excellence in sports are individual, personal choices. For every black NBA player there are dozens of blacks with the same physical endowments who are total klutzes.

[Paul's Here 0]

First of all, the concept of "race" as applied to man is totally invalid. There are no different "races." Your assertion that "biogeographical," "genetic," or "IQ' differences constitute a race are absurd and baseless. The purpose of the concept is divide and group individuals to allow claims of moral or political superiority by one group over the others.

Is this really true? If you turn on the TV and watch an NBA game the players don't look like Irishmen... there must be enough of a difference to legitimately discriminate between races.

And what is your point here? "Irishmen" is not a race.

The literal word usage of "irishmen" was partly as a joke. But seriously, can you point out a pale-skinned redhead in the NBA? Why are 99% of NBA players Negroid? There is apparently a common difference in potential for bursts of power between caucasoids and negroids.

They are the same species as NBA players, with exactly the same number of genes and chromosomes. Are you saying height is a trait distinguishing one race from another? What do you mean by "race" here? NBA players is simply a group of individuals who are tall get together to play a game. Such individual choices make a race?

This is conflating individual choice with obvious genetic differences. That statistically negroids dominate professional sports can't be explained by "choice". Caucasoids didn't suddenly lose interest in professional sports in the last few decades. Overall, as a statistical average, they are being out-competed because of genetic differences that favor superiority. No amount of individual-will can replace poor genetics when it comes to succeeding in professional sports. You need both.

You've assumed group differences arising from a social organization and then assert those differences are biological. That is exactly what the article I quote states makes "race" invalid.

No you said that. I'm noting the observation that professional sports players all tend to be Negroids, and this happens on such a widespread scale that it can't simply be chalked up to "individual choice". The "irishmen" comment was a joke, but seriously referring to the fact that you'd be hard-pressed to find many fair-skinned redheads playing professional sports.

How many "negroids" play in the NHL? "Negroids" playing in MLB has been in decline for many years. Your taking a particular sport which values a trait and then positing that trait as being racial. In other words, your group trait is socially created not biologically created. Look at it this way: how many 6-foot 5-inch tall "negroids" do you see competing in the Victoria Secret fashion show? Not too many. Because the biological trait of height is not being socially competed for. The fashion show's promoters could just as easily change their criterion to require everyone to be 7 feet tall. And I'd suppose you'd have a new race by your criterion. "Why are all the Victoria Secret models so tall?" you'd ask. Because of their race!?!?

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How many "negroids" do you see on this list: tallest men in history. Apparently, they couldn't put the ball in the hoop, so their not part of the NBA race.

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So any inherited differences create a new race? Your use of the word race constitutes just one of many. Nazis considered Jews to be a race. As we've seen in this thread, "Irishmen" are a race. Common visible features of an entire group make a race? Redheads, people with glasses, people who have large ears, small, tall, fat, skinny, etc. are now races? Please. You state "we have called these common features race." That is exactly the point. The word race is being used to divide people into groups. And, of course, it is typically one's own race that winds up with superior features than other groups.

You are conflating collectivism and racism with the physiological categorization of people by "race". It can be done in a scientific way.

Do different breeds of cats exist?

You are assuming racial differences before you even form the concept of race. If you group blacks who are tall into one race, what happens to blacks who are short? Another race? Fat blacks, skinny blacks? I am not denying that people can be grouped by common traits, but what is the validity of the concept race? And what information about human beings do you acquire by studying tall black men from the NBA that yields knowledge?

Of course we have breeds of animals. And they are called breeds. Human variation within a population has not been bred for. Those traits have been socially selected. A tall man may prefer a tall woman; if enough of that goes around there may be lots of tall people. But that is not the same as breeding animals.