Politics and Race: John Derbyshire fired by National Review

[Guest profgunner]

John Derbyshire was fired today by the National Review for an article he wrote titled "The Talk: Non-black version". Below is a link to the article. I don't agree with everything Derbyshire says, but I do think he has a right to his opinion.

http://takimag.com/article/the_talk_nonblack_version_john_derbyshire/print#axzz1rSErbKEw

[Guest kirkosaurus]

And they have the right to fire him for being a racist bigot.

[Smith]

I may be wrong but I think he was making a parallel to the black "The Talk" to show the racist nature it fosters and propagates. Kudos to him for that. If that was not his intent then I fully understand his firing and wonder why the numerous articles he refereed to on the other side did not fire their authors as well.

That being said, he probably should be fired anyway for not being able to write very well. A+ for research. F for writing comprehension.

Edited April 8, 2012 by Smith

[Guest 6.8 AR]

I think he was, too, but it might have been too much for the weenies at National Review. They aren't what they

used to be.

[Oh Shoot]

...That being said, he probably should be fired anyway for not being able to write very well. A+ for research. F for writing comprehension.

I thought it was quite well written indeed. Also, links in most every paragraph were quite effective for additional clarification and nuance while keeping the basic essay lean and pithy.

My terse take: science, statistics, and common sense sans political correctness.

- OS

[Guest cardcutter]

It is indeed unfortunate.However I agree with much of what he wrote.Young blacks have been told all their life that the world is against them.They have raised generations of angst filled young who have a built in excuse for their shortcomings and a ready culprit to blame for their lackings. It is sad indeed.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Who told them?

[Guest cardcutter]

Their parents, The media, and every liberal politician available for the last forty years.

[Guest cardcutter]

The black community has been sorely used . They have been told " it's not your fault your stupid. the shcools are set upfor the white kids so we are going to dumb down the curriculum and if you don't pass then don't worry we will promote you anyway. If any one dares to say anything we will call them racist.

Its not your fault you cant get into colledge because you wasted your time in high school we are going to make the colledges take you anyway no mater what grade you got and if they don't we will brand them as racist.

Its not your fault you wasted your time in colledge with race based studies and now you have no marketable skills. If you can't get the job you want we will make them hire you and call it afirmative action. If they complain we will call them bigots and racist . we will boycot any business that has the gaul to hire workers based soley on their qualifications alone.

It is truly sad and a miscarriage of justice that they have been fed this bill of goods for so long.

There is ababsolutelyo reason a young black child cannot do anything a similar aged child of any other color can.

I believe that most of the differences are learned. I have had the pleasure working with,serving with ,and being friends with too many people of different races to buy into the racial inferiority crap they have been fed for years.

Edited April 8, 2012 by cardcutter

[Guest Lester Weevils]

The numerous comments on that blog page seem about evenly split. About equal numbers either affirming or denying Derbyshire's premise.

Some of his observations do not match my experience but I have no reason to suspect the fellow of lying about his experiences. It would be pointless to either confirm or deny his ideas by claiming that my experiences are truer than his, or that my hearsay is better than his hearsay.

Am not making excuses and if it turns out that asians really are naturally smarter and more talented than europeans, then it would be pointless to deny. And if it turns out that asians are NOT naturally smarter than europeans, then arguing in the affirmative would not make it so.

Just sayin that intelligence is poorly understood. We don't even know what intelligence is. Our knowledge of intelligence is not greatly more advanced than Justice Potter Stewart's knowledge of porn, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it."

That is not to say the topic should never be discussed. Merely caution that we know little about it.

An interesting unsolved puzzle is the Flynn Effect--

http://en.wikipedia....ki/Flynn_effect

The Flynn effect is the name given to a substantial and long-sustained increase in intelligence test scores measured in many parts of the world. When intelligence quotient (IQ) tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. When IQ tests are revised they are again standardized using a new sample of test-takers, usually born more recently than the first. Again, the average result is set to 100. However, when the new test subjects take the older tests, in almost every case their average scores are significantly above 100.

Test score increases have been continuous and approximately linear from the earliest years of testing to the present. For the Raven's Progressive Matrices test, subjects born over a 100 year period were compared in Des Moines, Iowa, and separately in Dumfries, Scotland. Improvements were remarkably consistent across the whole period, in both countries. This effect of an apparent increase in IQ has also been observed in various other parts of the world, though the rates of increase vary.

There are numerous proposed explanations of the Flynn effect, as well as some skepticism about its implications. Similar improvements have been reported for other cognitions such as semantic and episodic memory. Recent research suggests that the Flynn effect may have ended in at least a few developed nations, possibly allowing national differences in IQ scores to diminish if the Flynn effect continues in nations with lower average national IQs.

The Flynn Effect implies that intelligence is a "moving target", but we don't know the trajectory.

[Guest cardcutter]

Lester

I may not convey my thoughts very well.

My point is not that any one race is better than any other but that they are all equally capable. Instead of teaching a child that he is facing a stacked deck in life the child should be encouraged to be the best at whatever he does. Instead of the black talk John Derbyshire is referencing, the kids should be taught that they can accomplish and do anything they work hard enough to do.

I don't think any child should be taught that his race is inferior.especialy not by the very peole claiming to help him.

[Guest 6.8 AR]

Their parents, The media, and every liberal politician available for the last forty years.

And they all did it for the wrong reason, except their parents. They should just be ashamed of themselves

if they said that.

You ever listen to satellite radio? If you get to you might listen to David Webb on the Patriot channel.

He's black, but you would never know it unless you saw him. He had a couple of folks on yesterday, and

it was probably a repeat, talking about this very thing with Merisa Davis, a first cousin to Bill Cosby, and

the other a guy, Janks Morton, who did a study among blacks and asked people if they could think of

any positive stereotypes for blacks. Most of the responses were "No". It was rather depressing to hear.

One of the solutions given was that the kids didn't have complete families growing up or were already

subjected to the welfare state and grew up not knowing any better. It was primarily geared to the father

not being around while the child grew up.

The family has and is continually being torn down and replaced by gang or tribal like survival, which is

totally inadequate for modern civilization. When you have generations of the welfare state to tear down,

it makes it that much harder on these kids who grow up and end up having more kids without parents

and the cycle becomes impossible to deal with.

I may be stereotyping here, but I think the majority of his callers are white, also. Interesting. It's a good show.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Lester

I may not convey my thoughts very well.

My point is not that any one race is better than any other but that they are all equally capable. Instead of teaching a child that he is facing a stacked deck in life the child should be encouraged to be the best at whatever he does. Instead of the black talk John Derbyshire is referencing, the kids should be taught that they can accomplish and do anything they work hard enough to do.

I don't think any child should be taught that his race is inferior.especialy not by the very peole claiming to help him.

Thanks Cardcutter

I wasn't responding to messages on this thread, merely some thoughts on the original blog and the hundred or so blog responses I read. Looked like over 2000 total comments thusfar, so apparently many people have a strong enough opinion to add their two centavos. Of the top 100 comments, it seemed mostly an equal mix of variously elaborate ways of saying either "Yes it tis" or "No it tisn't".

There very well could be significant genetic differences or unchangeable sociological differences, though maybe the fat lady in the jury box hasn't yet sung the final verdict. How's that for a mixed metaphor?

Regardless, what you say as how it "ought to be" most likely makes sense. People often fulfill their own prophesies, so a positive attitude, positive expectations and serious effort ought to statistically yield optimum reward regardless of whatever limitations may (or may not) be present in the "population means". The placebo effect often matches or exceeds FDA approved expensive medicines. There have been well-done, replicable studies where the expectations of a teacher can affect the performance of a student. Perhaps other relationships have also been studied, but if a student "blooms" when you fool the teacher into expecting it-- Then it would make sense that the same effect could happen if a parent has higher expectations for the child. Though it is only a guess without research. Placebos and great expectations get into "spooky" quasi-scientific territory. Not exactly mind-over-matter, but perhaps "about the same result".

Intelligence grossly correlates to wealth. The wealthiest folk will typically be smarter than the average bear, but they are rarely the "cream of the crop", at least on what the tests can measure. A hard working average person will typically out-compete a lazy smart person.

Other rambling thoughts on the issue-- Old conceptions of the definition of "smart" may need at least a second glance. For instance, traditionally if a fella can do fast accurate math or remember lots of stuff, then he would be "smart" even if he is otherwise an unskilled klutz. If a fella sucks at math and doesn't have such good memory, he would be "dumb" even if he happens to have excellent skill at dance or carpentry or marksmanship or whatever.

However, when we try to teach computers the tasks-- It is pretty easy to program a computer to kick the smartest human's butt on raw calculation or remembering lots of stuff. But it turned out beastly difficult to teach a computer to walk, much less dance or build a house. It is beastly difficult to program a computer even as smart as an insect in real-world survival skills.

So our human "heavy duty data processing" may be concentrated in "trivial" things we take for granted, and such as the raw calculation of a math problem may be the easy stuff. Humans still beat machines on "abstract" thought, at least for now.

It may be that a feller who can't add 2 + 2, but who can get along with others and effectively organize groups of people, might be the smart one of the bunch. There is just so much we don't know.

[Smith]

It may be that a feller who can't add 2 + 2, but who can get along with others and effectively organize groups of people, might be the smart one of the bunch. There is just so much we don't know.

Oh we know, we just think we are "smarter" than the reality of truth. Wisdom has been traded for random "knowledge". The reason? two fold: 1. "knowledge" is easy to quantify, measure, and teach. 2. We have traded "truth/knowledge" for relativism and so the connection between facts and the ability to connect those in a consistent world life view is completely negated.

It's kinda like we have come to value have the puzzle pieces more than we value the box top picture.

Liberal education has fostered this by only measuring info retention and devaluing the ability to create. At the turn of the century we were far less "educated" and yet nearly every major technological advance happened (in the US) during that time. Since then the creative edge (creating) has been relegated to improving existing technology.

How many guys at NASA these days could build another Apollo rocket with a slide rule?

[Guest cardcutter]

Liberal education has fostered this by only measuring info retention and devaluing the ability to create. At the turn of the century we were far less "educated" and yet nearly every major technological advance happened (in the US) during that time. Since then the creative edge (creating) has been relegated to improving existing technology.

How many guys at NASA these days could build another Apollo rocket with a slide rule?

I must respectfully disagree. The explosion of technology in the last thirty years is awe inspiring.

Thinking and cognitive reasoning is what should be taught ,not rote memory like we had is schools for the last half of the twentieth century.

I made my daughter learn to think her problems through.Before you think me the tyrant let me explain.

When she would come to me with a problem , math ,history or what ever, I would not give her the answer. I would guide her to find the answer on her own and then make her back up her conclusions. If she could not prove the solution, she knew it was wrong ,and we would start over. When she got the right answer she knew it and could prove it to anyone.

She drove her teachers nuts because when she disagreed with them she could actualy back up her thinking with facts instead of regurgitating what she had been told.

My point in all this is still that kids need to be taught to be better men and women instead of spewing back the liberal claptrap they are being fed daily. Especially minority children who are getting the worst of it.

Edited April 9, 2012 by cardcutter

[Smith]

I must respectfully disagree. The explosion of technology in the last thirty years is awe inspiring.

Thinking and cognitive reasoning is what should be taught ,not rote memory like we had is schools for the last half of the twentieth century.

I made my daughter learn to think her problems through.Before you think me the tyrant let me explain.

When she would come to me with a problem , math ,history or what ever, I would not give her the answer. I would guide her to find the answer on her own and then make her back up her conclusions. If she could not prove the solution, she knew it was wrong ,and we would start over. When she got the right answer she knew it and could prove it to anyone.

She drove her teachers nuts because when she disagreed with them she could actualy back up her thinking with facts instead of regurgitating what she had been told.

My point in all this is still that kids need to be taught to be better men and women instead of spewing back the liberal claptrap they are being fed daily. Especially minority children who are getting the worst of it.

You may disagree but we said the same thing. As far as technology the leaps between one technology to the next is not nearly as significant as at the turn of the century. It's not downplaying recent advancements, but the jumps are not as significant. It's arguable I know and is only truly evaluated in hindsight. Just look at gun technology.