If IQ group differences will be proven to be genetic, how'd you feel about AA?

[NoTrump]

If group differences in IQs will be proven to be genetic (as in, the reason that, say, there are few geniuses among the poor) is genetic, will your position on affirmative action change?

[NoTrump]

I'm confused. How is being poor genetic

I meant that having a low IQ is genetic.

Basically, right now, one can argue in favor of affirmative action on either economic or racial grounds by arguing that poor people/Blacks/Hispanics underperform on academic tests due to their poverty. However, if we will find out that the reason for this underperformance is genetic (just like Asian and Ashkenazi Jewish overperformance on academic/IQ tests could be genetic), then this argument in favor of affirmative action gets destroyed.

[NoTrump]

I'm confused. How is being poor genetic

I meant that having a low IQ is genetic.

Basically, right now, one can argue in favor of affirmative action on either economic or racial grounds by arguing that poor people/Blacks/Hispanics underperform on academic tests due to their poverty. However, if we will find out that the reason for this underperformance is genetic (just like Asian and Ashkenazi Jewish overperformance on academic/IQ tests could be genetic), then this argument in favor of affirmative action gets destroyed.

I think the argument you're making is absurd and borderline racist.

So, are the people who argue that the higher-than-average Ashkenazi Jewish average IQ might have a genetic basis to it racist? :

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-jewish-iq18-2009apr18-story.html

Also, this article might be both interesting and useful for you:

http://akarlin.com/2012/04/race-denial-vs-racism-a-false-dichotomy/

Indeed, as the article above states, speculating that group differences in IQ might have a genetic basis to them and supporting a generous welfare state is much more humane than, say, believing that Blacks and Hispanics don't perform as well on academic tests because they don't try hard enough and opposing a generous social safety net is.

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You have to explain why exactly affluent Blacks underperform poor Whites--let alone wealthy Whites:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/1995-SAT-Income2.png

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True, IQ isn't everything. However, if you have a better test for intelligence, please let me know.

[NoTrump]

I'm confused. How is being poor genetic

I meant that having a low IQ is genetic.

Basically, right now, one can argue in favor of affirmative action on either economic or racial grounds by arguing that poor people/Blacks/Hispanics underperform on academic tests due to their poverty. However, if we will find out that the reason for this underperformance is genetic (just like Asian and Ashkenazi Jewish overperformance on academic/IQ tests could be genetic), then this argument in favor of affirmative action gets destroyed.

I think the argument you're making is absurd and borderline racist.

So, are the people who argue that the higher-than-average Ashkenazi Jewish average IQ might have a genetic basis to it racist? :

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-jewish-iq18-2009apr18-story.html

Also, this article might be both interesting and useful for you:

http://akarlin.com/2012/04/race-denial-vs-racism-a-false-dichotomy/

Indeed, as the article above states, speculating that group differences in IQ might have a genetic basis to them and supporting a generous welfare state is much more humane than, say, believing that Blacks and Hispanics don't perform as well on academic tests because they don't try hard enough and opposing a generous social safety net is.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You have to explain why exactly affluent Blacks underperform poor Whites--let alone wealthy Whites:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/1995-SAT-Income2.png

You must be logged in to read this quote.

True, IQ isn't everything. However, if you have a better test for intelligence, please let me know.

Just speaking from personal experience, I've known very wealthy black people and dirt poor white people - and the wealthy black people obviously came across as more "educated" than the extremely poor white people. Now obviously I have no clue how these individuals did in school or on their SATs, but I personally did terribly in school but have been given an IQ test and scored 115, so perhaps how well you do in school doesn't always correlate to how smart someone is.

True, there can certainly be some variation in one's performance on academic/IQ tests.

As for your friends, though, I wonder if your friends were good representations of wealthy Blacks and poor Whites. Indeed, how do you know that they weren't outliers?

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Oh, sure, one can have a high IQ and lack common sense. Alternatively, one can have a high IQ and be a vile, evil person like Hitler was.

Indeed, IQ certainly isn't everything. However, IQ does appear to have a lot of predictive validity when one looks at large groups of people:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2015/09/19/iq_and_success_can_a_test_score_determine_later_outcomes_in_life.html

Also, please keep in mind that I support a generous social safety net as well as (in the future) promoting technologies (such as gene editing for embryos) which will significantly raise IQ. Indeed, I think that such technologies should be free for poor and middle class people.

Frankly, my issue is allowing less qualified people to get jobs that other, more qualified people have applied for. For instance, I want the most qualified people to be my doctors because they would probably be the least likely to screw up with their surgeries, et cetera.

[NoTrump]

I'm confused. How is being poor genetic

I meant that having a low IQ is genetic.

Basically, right now, one can argue in favor of affirmative action on either economic or racial grounds by arguing that poor people/Blacks/Hispanics underperform on academic tests due to their poverty. However, if we will find out that the reason for this underperformance is genetic (just like Asian and Ashkenazi Jewish overperformance on academic/IQ tests could be genetic), then this argument in favor of affirmative action gets destroyed.

I think the argument you're making is absurd and borderline racist.

So, are the people who argue that the higher-than-average Ashkenazi Jewish average IQ might have a genetic basis to it racist? :

http://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-jewish-iq18-2009apr18-story.html

Also, this article might be both interesting and useful for you:

http://akarlin.com/2012/04/race-denial-vs-racism-a-false-dichotomy/

Indeed, as the article above states, speculating that group differences in IQ might have a genetic basis to them and supporting a generous welfare state is much more humane than, say, believing that Blacks and Hispanics don't perform as well on academic tests because they don't try hard enough and opposing a generous social safety net is.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You have to explain why exactly affluent Blacks underperform poor Whites--let alone wealthy Whites:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d0/1995-SAT-Income2.png

You must be logged in to read this quote.

True, IQ isn't everything. However, if you have a better test for intelligence, please let me know.

Just speaking from personal experience, I've known very wealthy black people and dirt poor white people - and the wealthy black people obviously came across as more "educated" than the extremely poor white people. Now obviously I have no clue how these individuals did in school or on their SATs, but I personally did terribly in school but have been given an IQ test and scored 115, so perhaps how well you do in school doesn't always correlate to how smart someone is.

True, there can certainly be some variation in one's performance on academic/IQ tests.

As for your friends, though, I wonder if your friends were good representations of wealthy Blacks and poor Whites. Indeed, how do you know that they weren't outliers?

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Oh, sure, one can have a high IQ and lack common sense. Alternatively, one can have a high IQ and be a vile, evil person like Hitler was.

Indeed, IQ certainly isn't everything. However, IQ does appear to have a lot of predictive validity when one looks at large groups of people:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2015/09/19/iq_and_success_can_a_test_score_determine_later_outcomes_in_life.html

Also, please keep in mind that I support a generous social safety net as well as (in the future) promoting technologies (such as gene editing for embryos) which will significantly raise IQ. Indeed, I think that such technologies should be free for poor and middle class people.

Frankly, my issue is allowing less qualified people to get jobs that other, more qualified people have applied for. For instance, I want the most qualified people to be my doctors because they would probably be the least likely to screw up with their surgeries, et cetera.

A few final points I'd like to make:
1; anyone who supports any kind of eugenics is awful.
2; I obviously don't know if the people I've known were good representatives of poor whites and wealthy blacks - I can only go on personal experience
3; if you're saying someone is less qualified for a job because of their race, that's textbook racism.

I would like to make a response to your points #1 and #3 here.

In regards to point #1, I would like to point out that what I am advocating here is completely voluntary. Indeed, parents can choose not to raise their children's IQs and thus decrease their chances of success in life. Frankly, I am certainly not advocating forcing anyone to do anything.

Indeed, I don't see anything wrong with allowing people to improve their children's odds of success in life by altering their genes while they are still embryos. After all, if your embryo had a gene for criminality, would you not want to remove this gene?

In regards to point #3 here, you are straw-manning me and putting words into my mouth. I certainly did not say that people should not be hired due to their race. Rather, I said that people should not be hired due to their IQ. Indeed, the two are not synonymous--after all, there are high-IQ people of every race and low IQ people of every race. Rather, what differs is the frequency of high and low IQ people for various races and ethnic groups (for instance, Jews are disproportionally represented among geniuses).

[NoTrump]

True, but high IQs are certainly a benefit when it comes to jobs which are complex and/or require a lot of brainpower.

[NoTrump]

It wouldn't make much difference; I'd still be largely against group-based preferences but in favor of efforts to recruit from underrepresented communities. Group differences in IQ are in terms of distributional averages, so it would tell you nothing about a particular individual.  It would just be even more reason to try to aim for an economy where people can have a decent living without necessarily having the kind of the skills that are associated with high IQ.

Also, I agree with this.

So do I, actually.

Also, as I have previously stated, I certainly support income redistribution to help poor and low IQ people as well as IQ-boosting technologies (such as gene editing for embryos and IQ selection for embryos) to allow people--everyone, but especially low IQ people--to have (very) high IQ children and descendants if that is what they want.

Indeed, it would certainly be a wonderful place if we will have 1 million or even 1 billion people of Albert Einstein's or John von Neumann's intelligence running around.

[NoTrump]

First, IQ is not exactly a good way of measuring intelligence, there are many more components to intelligence and also there is a lot of subjectivity surrounding the issue.

What exactly do you think is a better test for intelligence?

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http://akarlin.com/2012/04/race-denial-vs-racism-a-false-dichotomy/

Also, no one is disputing that there are some extremely small Blacks and Hispanics and some not very smart Whites and Asians; indeed, what I am talking about here are frequencies: