Does Anyone *Actually* Believe in the Blank Slate?

[Elixir]

They want an egg from a smart woman.

WHO DOESN'T? I like eggs...

 

[ronburgundy]

Unequal environments are to a large degree parenting--not something that society can do a lot about without being way too intrusive.

Untrue, unequal environments are everywhere and include everything from the widely variable exposure to toxins (such as the lead poor people and thus minorities were disproportionately exposed to) to unequal nutrition, to unequal schools, etc..

Also, plenty of aspects of unequal parenting are the result of more societal level inequalities, such as those that lead to lower income people having less time and more stress which impacts the quantity and quality of parenting.

Furthermore, the leftist position leads to rampant discrimination and reduces the value of personal effort and rewards sloth--exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.

You mean rewarding sloth, like allowing kids born into privilege to inherit massive wealth without earning it? That's the sloth conservatives encourage. The rightist position that all current inequalities result from innate differences is by far the #1 source of unjust discrimination and undeserved rewards given simply for having already benefited past random luck.
There are flaws and opportunities for abuse in the leftist approach, but promoting unjust inequality is what rightist ideology is all about.

I don't desire inequality but I recognize that without inequality there is no reward for effort--society can't exist without it.

Since inherited wealth reduces reward for effort in the next generation, you must be against that I assume?

Some amount of unequal outcomes is inevitable to a just society that rewards effort. However, massive inequality in outcomes is rarely the result of commensurate inequalities in effort, but rather inequalities in opportunity, power, and luck. Inequalities in those things all undermine incentive of effort, so any honest person concerned with effort would be just as concerned about those given unequal opportunity, power, and luck. But conservatives never are. They only rant about the poor getting a free ride, because they only really care about preserving inequality of outcomes, not preserving the value of increased effort.

I do not believe there are any groups that are inherently inferior

Then you have little in common with the vast majority who would be considered a conservative or rightist in the modern US. (Note, obviously most of them lie about such beliefs, but the reality is exposed by their actions and arguments).

I think the left is more prone to going too far than the right

You are clearly wrong about that, given that the US is by any stretch waay too far to the right and being harmed by extreme and every widening outcome gaps that are not due to effort.
The vast majority of political injustices now and throughout history are rooted in beliefs about the innate foundation of differences between people.
I get into more arguments with leftist on this board, not because they are worse than rightists, but because they are better. They at least aren't sociopaths lacking any empathy for others and think all people deserve basic human rights and decency, unlike most on the right. The "too far" leftists are still reachable and are the potential allies of anyone with post-enlightenment values, which includes personal liberty when properly understood in the context of the society where the actions of each person constantly threaten the liberty and rights of others.

OTOH, none of the evidence for biological influences on these things is evidence that group level (such as between races or genders) are biologically based. Virtually all the evidence is at the level of variance between individuals within such groups, and it is logically fallacious to infer that it equally applies at aggregate group levels. Suppose that running speed variation was 50% genetic. And suppose that war veterans average a run speed that is 20% slower than the general population. It is fallacious to infer that 50% of that speed differential for vets is due to vets being genetically prone to slowness. 100% of that speed difference could be environmental, such as because vets have experiences that blow off their legs or wound them permanently.

I won't go quite this far--there are genetic differences. They're minor, though. (There's little doubt that genetics plays a big role in the blackness of the NBA. On average blacks are slightly taller than whites--completely irrelevant at the center of the curve but when you look at the very tail of the curve it matters. The very tallest people are very disproportionately black and height is a big deal in basketball.)

I didn't say no racial differences exist. I said that the scientific evidence regarding variance tied to genetics lends no support that any differences in those traits between racial groups is genetic. For example, none of the science related genetics and IQ or other cognitive traits lends any support to notions that differences between groups on these traits is at all genetic.

 

[fromderinside]

I didn't say no racial differences exist. I said that the scientific evidence regarding variance tied to genetics lends no support that any differences in those traits between racial groups is genetic. For example, none of the science related genetics and IQ or other cognitive traits lends any support to notions that differences between groups on these traits is at all genetic.

Now you are going too far. Differences between two individual is, at base, genetic. There is not sufficient time nor differences between groups to conclude the differences imply, at base, group genetic differences That is way different from saying that there is no genetic evidence for difference which is what I just read in your post.

 

[DBT]

Perhaps we could rename this 'The false dichotomy thread'.

Anyone who argues that genetics don't matter is just as poorly informed as anyone who argues that environment doesn't matter.

To get a degree from Harvard obviously requires contributions from both genetics and environment; and due to the recombination that occurs during meiosis, there is no particular reason to expect that a person whose ovum came from a Harvard graduate will be born with a degree of intelligence that would allow them to do the same, even given an ideal environment in which to develop.

Genetics ain't nothing; nor are they everything.

Yep, it's not one or the other but an interaction of genes and environment. Babies are not blank states but neither do they know much of anything about the world and its conditions...

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Untrue, unequal environments are everywhere and include everything from the widely variable exposure to toxins (such as the lead poor people and thus minorities were disproportionately exposed to) to unequal nutrition, to unequal schools, etc..

Toxins I will agree with--but how big a factor is that?

Nutrition--parenting.

Schools--schools reflect the parenting of the students.

Also, plenty of aspects of unequal parenting are the result of more societal level inequalities, such as those that lead to lower income people having less time and more stress which impacts the quantity and quality of parenting.

And how much of this is parenting? Remember, we have a woman on here who thinks having the money to raise a child is irrelevant to childbearing decisions. I've seen similar attitudes from others, also. And even without such disregard, low income parenting is very often the result of contraceptive carelessness--once again, parenting.

You mean rewarding sloth, like allowing kids born into privilege to inherit massive wealth without earning it? That's the sloth conservatives encourage. The rightist position that all current inequalities result from innate differences is by far the #1 source of unjust discrimination and undeserved rewards given simply for having already benefited past random luck.
There are flaws and opportunities for abuse in the leftist approach, but promoting unjust inequality is what rightist ideology is all about.

I don't think they consider it all innate--they see upbringing as a big factor. I do agree they see it all as due to the parents (whether genetic or not), but that's a lot closer to reality than the leftist position that it's all due to society.

I don't desire inequality but I recognize that without inequality there is no reward for effort--society can't exist without it.

Since inherited wealth reduces reward for effort in the next generation, you must be against that I assume?

The problem is getting rid of inherited wealth causes more harm than benefit. The left attaches far more blame to inheritance than the actual reality. When you look at the super-rich they very often had an upper middle class upbringing--no student loans but no big pile of cash, either.

Some amount of unequal outcomes is inevitable to a just society that rewards effort. However, massive inequality in outcomes is rarely the result of commensurate inequalities in effort, but rather inequalities in opportunity, power, and luck. Inequalities in those things all undermine incentive of effort, so any honest person concerned with effort would be just as concerned about those given unequal opportunity, power, and luck. But conservatives never are. They only rant about the poor getting a free ride, because they only really care about preserving inequality of outcomes, not preserving the value of increased effort.

At the very top luck is a big factor--the Bill Gateses of the world were in the right place at the right time. However, there are also the Warren Buffets of the world--he simply saw what others missed. His billions don't come from the right time or the right place.

However, below the Forbes level it's mostly one's own merits.

I do not believe there are any groups that are inherently inferior

Then you have little in common with the vast majority who would be considered a conservative or rightist in the modern US. (Note, obviously most of them lie about such beliefs, but the reality is exposed by their actions and arguments).

I think you're mixing up genetics and culture. I don't think the right cares if it's genetics or upbringing, they just see that the problems breed true to a considerable extent.

I won't go quite this far--there are genetic differences. They're minor, though. (There's little doubt that genetics plays a big role in the blackness of the NBA. On average blacks are slightly taller than whites--completely irrelevant at the center of the curve but when you look at the very tail of the curve it matters. The very tallest people are very disproportionately black and height is a big deal in basketball.)

I didn't say no racial differences exist. I said that the scientific evidence regarding variance tied to genetics lends no support that any differences in those traits between racial groups is genetic. For example, none of the science related genetics and IQ or other cognitive traits lends any support to notions that differences between groups on these traits is at all genetic.

Height isn't genetic?? (What's going on is that in the tropics it's warm, having a greater body surface area is good. In colder climates you're better off with less surface area. While there wasn't enough time for any major evolution there is a slight pattern towards tall and lanky in those of tropical genetics vs short and squat for cold genetics.)

 

[Trausti]

I didn't say no racial differences exist. I said that the scientific evidence regarding variance tied to genetics lends no support that any differences in those traits between racial groups is genetic. For example, none of the science related genetics and IQ or other cognitive traits lends any support to notions that differences between groups on these traits is at all genetic.

Now you are going too far. Differences between two individual is, at base, genetic. There is not sufficient time nor differences between groups to conclude the differences imply, at base, group genetic differences That is way different from saying that there is no genetic evidence for difference which is what I just read in your post.

There's been plenty of time for human group differences to develop.

Link

Add in admixture with archaic humans.

Pacific Islanders Appear to Be Carrying The DNA of an Unknown Human Species

So,

 

[ronburgundy]

Toxins I will agree with--but how big a factor is that?

It's a huge factor. Toxins impair countless aspects of neural development impacting everything from IQ to aggression and impulse control. Overall reduction in toxin exposure (such as lead) may be the main factor behind the Flynn Effect
Plus, pollutants cause other health problems that indirectly harm schooling and cognitive development.

Then there is exposure to more infectious diseases that also impair learning, and that exposure is inherent to having less wealth and thus being exposed to others with less wealth and poor health care.

Hell, even noise pollution is relevant to cognitive development. And there is recent research showing a direct causal impact of being exposed to "natural" non-urban environments has immediate benefits to cognition. And no, whether a parent can afford to live in where there are more trees and parks does not make this factor merely attributable to your "parenting". Besides, it isn't just a matter of income. Historical accident plays a huge role where one is born, regardless of income.

Nutrition--parenting.

Only if all parents have equal ability and means to make the most optimal choices regarding their kids nutrition, which is patently untrue. IOW, your philosophy is that if a child is malnourished because their 70 hour per-week working parent doesn't have the time and money required to make them 3 nutritious meals every day, then this is simply bad parenting and nothing that society should be concerned with or try to help with?

Also, parents do not have 100% 24-7 control over everything their child consumes. Kids in urban areas have far greater access to low nutrition unhealthy crap. They pass dozens of stores filled with nothing but such crap every single day. That isn't true of kids who live in wealthier burbs, where there are often no convenience stores or fast food places for miles from their home. Plus the nutrition of the food in the retail locations that are nearby various directly with the income levels of the residents. The exact same parent can act identically to their child, but if they move from the burbs to the city, their kid will eat less nutritiously overall.

Schools--schools reflect the parenting of the students.

Complete bullshit. School quality reflects school funding, which is based in local income levels. Individual parents often have no control over the quality of schooling their kid receives.
The only thing that most parents of kids in good schools did was to be richer, and that was mostly just dumb random luck.
Basically, if a kid gets hit by a bus that ran a red light, you blame the parent for raising their kid in an area that has buses.

Your attribution of these to "parenting" presumes that not being rich is a simple "parenting decision".

And how much of this is parenting? Remember, we have a woman on here who thinks having the money to raise a child is irrelevant to childbearing decisions.

And we have a sociopathic man on here who thinks that a child starving to death because their parents are poor is something that society should care or do nothing about.

I've seen similar attitudes from others, also. And even without such disregard, low income parenting is very often the result of contraceptive carelessness--once again, parenting.

But people born into more wealth are also careless with contraception and child bearing decisions. They often put no more thought into it, but their kid gets lucky that their is enough wealthy, that despite no better decision making or parenting choices, they are shielded from the harms by that wealth. Two teens screw around and get pregnant and both are Catholic so they rule out abortion. How much each kid is harmed by this parenting will be determined by how much wealth that teen's parents have, wealth to not only supply the kid's need, but also to hire a lawyer to go after the father for child support. IOW, the variable that makes the difference is wealth not differences in parenting.

Also, countless parents lose much of their income after having their kids for reasons from health issues, job loss, death of one parent, etc.. My own father had a thriving construction business when he chose to have 5 kids. 8 years after the last kid, the recession of the 70's hit and he went bankrupt, lost his home. Our nutrition notably declined and we were forced to move to a more urban area with worse schools and more crime, and my father was forced to work 50% longer hours away from us. To assert these negative changes to our environment were the result in a change in my father's "parenting" is absurd, but that is what your entire post assumes.

You mean rewarding sloth, like allowing kids born into privilege to inherit massive wealth without earning it? That's the sloth conservatives encourage. The rightist position that all current inequalities result from innate differences is by far the #1 source of unjust discrimination and undeserved rewards given simply for having already benefited past random luck.
There are flaws and opportunities for abuse in the leftist approach, but promoting unjust inequality is what rightist ideology is all about.

I don't think they consider it all innate--they see upbringing as a big factor. I do agree they see it all as due to the parents (whether genetic or not), but that's a lot closer to reality than the leftist position that it's all due to society.

No it is not. The science shows that parenting has far less impact on kids than other aspects of environment.
That's why adopted kids tend to grow up to have no more in common with their adoptive parent's or siblings than random strangers, and why genetic siblings are about as similar to each other, whether raised by the same parent's or not.

Also, conservatives irrationally ignore the massive role the larger environment has in determining parenting behaviors. They act as though all variance in parenting is just some completely free will choice, and thus implicitly attribute parenting itself entirely to innate differences in the parents. So, it all comes back to some people just being better than others because they were born better and their parents were born better.

Plus, the impact of genes on various traits is far greater than the impact of genes on actual life outcomes, because those traits have only weak and inconsistent impacts on life outcomes, heavily moderated by the environment.
For example, IQ accounts for only 25% of the variance in school GPA. That's because IQ tests are designed to minimize the impact of the environment by always being administered in sterile controlled environments and by using problems that depend minimally on past learning and are devoid of any real-word meaning or relevance (such as Raven's progressive matrices).

Plus, even the seemingly large "heritability" estimates of things like IQ are all massively inflated by environment contingent genetic effects. Every aspect of the environment that has any correlation to any aspect of biology winds getting counted as part of "heritability" and thus as part of genetics by conservatives who don't understand the science. Every time a person gets treated differently by other people (from their teachers to the classmates to cops) because of any aspect of their biology (from race to attractiveness to disability) this gets counted as part of the heritability estimate.

I don't desire inequality but I recognize that without inequality there is no reward for effort--society can't exist without it.

Since inherited wealth reduces reward for effort in the next generation, you must be against that I assume?

The problem is getting rid of inherited wealth causes more harm than benefit.

The problem of not having a strong safety net and aid to children of low income parents causes way more harm than is caused by having one. The hypocrisy of conservatives in how they selective apply such arguments reveals that they justifications are dishonest and expose the bigotries and lack of human decency underlying their preferred policies.

The left attaches far more blame to inheritance than the actual reality.

And the right attaches far more blame to lack of effort and incentive on the part of the poor than the actual reality.
The difference is that denying inheritances merely denies people who already grew up in privileged lives with massively greater opportunities from also getting large sums of wealth as adults, whereas denying aid to the poor denies kids basic nutrition, health, and safety. The fact that conservatives are far more concerned with the former than the latter reveals a sociopathic lack of human empathy.

Some amount of unequal outcomes is inevitable to a just society that rewards effort. However, massive inequality in outcomes is rarely the result of commensurate inequalities in effort, but rather inequalities in opportunity, power, and luck. Inequalities in those things all undermine incentive of effort, so any honest person concerned with effort would be just as concerned about those given unequal opportunity, power, and luck. But conservatives never are. They only rant about the poor getting a free ride, because they only really care about preserving inequality of outcomes, not preserving the value of increased effort.

At the very top luck is a big factor--the Bill Gateses of the world were in the right place at the right time. However, there are also the Warren Buffets of the world--he simply saw what others missed. His billions don't come from the right time or the right place.

Luck is big factor at every income level, and Buffet would never had made his fortune without massive luck. First, he was lucky to be born a white male or many of the advantages given to him would not have been, such as the brand new all white high school he attended. He was lucky to be born to a well-off Congressman able to live in a wealthy burb of DC and attend newly built well funded middle and high schools. He was lucky to have a grandfather who owned a grocery store and handed him an unmerited job through which he got various goods at costs and thus could create a side business selling those goods door to door. He was lucky that his dad, himself the son of a business owner, became a bussiness owner and stock broker, from where Warren obviously gained the awareness of the stocks, etc.. He was lucky to attend Columbia and encounter his greatest financial mentor Ben Grahm, an encounter that would never have happened had he not been a white male (women were not admitted until 1982). And if you examine his various ventures, the early one's on which all his latter one's would depend could easily have failed, and luck (factors behind his own control) were certainly a major part in that as well.

However, below the Forbes level it's mostly one's own merits.

That is quite seriously an absurd fairytale woo on par with young-earth creationism. Most events that happen in every persons life depend upon an infinite series of random contingencies, just as their very existence itself does.
The good fortune to be born into greater wealth and/or better parenting is not in any way "one's own merits", and the evidence is definitive that such circumstances hugely impact one's future wealth and health. Even after controlling for other factors (such as parental IQ), parental income is among the strongest predictor of their child's future income, and that relationship is actually strongest for incomes that vary between 0 and 150,000.

Not to mention the huge impact of the quality of your parent's marriage and where you happen to be born, which are in turn contingent upon centuries of contingencies and many random events. And every single additional opportunity breeds further opportunities. Your bussiness owning dad gives you your first job paying more than you really deserve, then that salary directly increases the salary your next employer offers and so on, such that the benefits accrue over the entire lifetime.

Then, there are just the countless ever-occurring random happenstances that impact every outcome. These range from accidents that impair your health and thus income, to whether you happen to have a coworker that brings you in on some opportunity, to whether your boss happens to share your hobby, to hearing about a job from a parent at your kids bday party, etc.. No matter what your income, you can be 100% certain that their are millions of people dumber and less industrious who make more, and millions who are smarter and work harder who make less.

I do not believe there are any groups that are inherently inferior

Then you have little in common with the vast majority who would be considered a conservative or rightist in the modern US. (Note, obviously most of them lie about such beliefs, but the reality is exposed by their actions and arguments).

I think you're mixing up genetics and culture. I don't think the right cares if it's genetics or upbringing, they just see that the problems breed true to a considerable extent.

No, conservatives view culture as genetically based. Just like they (and you) completely ignore the countless happenstances that determine an individuals outcome, they completely ignore the happenstance events that determine cultural practices.
They treat cultures they find inferior as the product of the inherently inferior people who created those cultures. When a conservative talks about black culture (and "bad parenting"), all they are saying is that those people are inherently inferior, and that inferiority includes their bad parenting. If disfunctional aspects of culture and/or parenting were not genetic but environmental (such as a product of 500 years of slavery and government supported subhuman treatment), then blaming it on culture or parenting would really mean that those who responsible for that environment are to blame. Conservatives deny any societal responsibility for any unequal outcomes, so they must treat culture and parenting as proxies for genetics.

I didn't say no racial differences exist. I said that the scientific evidence regarding variance tied to genetics lends no support that any differences in those traits between racial groups is genetic. For example, none of the science related genetics and IQ or other cognitive traits lends any support to notions that differences between groups on these traits is at all genetic.

Height isn't genetic?? (What's going on is that in the tropics it's warm, having a greater body surface area is good. In colder climates you're better off with less surface area. While there wasn't enough time for any major evolution there is a slight pattern towards tall and lanky in those of tropical genetics vs short and squat for cold genetics.)

Again, nothing you said has any relevance to what I said. Yes, there are genetic differences between groups. But the evidence is directly about those group differences. What I am saying is the fact that a trait has a genetic influence that causes some of the variance between individuals has zero bearing on whether group differences on that trait have any genetic basis.
IOW, none of the evidence from twin studies on the heritability of IQ has any bearing at all on whether the racial gap on IQ has any genetic component. And since virtually all the evidence about any psychological trait and genes comes from studies that only speak to individual-level variance, that means there is virtually no evidence that any racial group level differences in behaviors or psychological traits have a genetic basis. The fact that conservatives so consistently engage in the fallacy of using that evidence (like twin studies) to support racial arguments shows that they are dishonest and motivated by an anti-science bias to assume such differences, because they prefer a world where others can be treated as inherently inferior.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There's been plenty of time for human group differences to develop.

10,000 to 15,000 generations--but the pressures are for the most part small, that doesn't make a big difference. The important one was the skin color mutation and that one is basically universal in the temperate population.

 

[bilby]

Speciation not only requires time, but genetic isolation. Humans travel widely and are indiscriminate breeders, forming a 'small world' network. There's not much reason for any mutation to concentrate in a particular sub-population, unless the evolutionary pressure is particularly high in that sub-population, and there is a countervailing selection pressure in the population at large. Classic examples of this are skin pigmentation, where high levels protect against melanoma in the tropics, but cause vitamin D deficiency at high latitudes; and Sickle Cell Anaemia, where the gene provides protection against malaria, but causes other heath issues that dominate in non-malarial regions.

 

[Trausti]

Speciation not only requires time, but genetic isolation.

Well, we've got that. The last time an Irishman and a San had a common ancestor may have been 350,000 years ago. And evolution and natural selection can act rather quickly (in relative terms).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Schools--schools reflect the parenting of the students.

Complete bullshit. School quality reflects school funding, which is based in local income levels. Individual parents often have no control over the quality of schooling their kid receives.
The only thing that most parents of kids in good schools did was to be richer, and that was mostly just dumb random luck.
Basically, if a kid gets hit by a bus that ran a red light, you blame the parent for raising their kid in an area that has buses.

Except the inner city schools generally are not getting less funding.

I do agree that individual parents don't control the school quality, that's an aggregate of the parents.

Note, also, that good schools do very little for poor students. The only data we have is the effect of when students move into a better district--and that's clear, it doesn't work. Perhaps if they started out in the better district but we have no way to measure that.

Your attribution of these to "parenting" presumes that not being rich is a simple "parenting decision".

I'm not asking for rich. Just don't have kids until you can move to a decent school district.

And we have a sociopathic man on here who thinks that a child starving to death because their parents are poor is something that society should care or do nothing about.

1) Irrelevant to the topic.

2) My issue with schools is that we can't fix the situation. Put crap students into a school, you'll get crap results. Period. The closest we can do to this is separate the students out by ability but the SJWs will scream about throwing away the ones that aren't going to learn much of anything anyway.

Also, countless parents lose much of their income after having their kids for reasons from health issues, job loss, death of one parent, etc.. My own father had a thriving construction business when he chose to have 5 kids. 8 years after the last kid, the recession of the 70's hit and he went bankrupt, lost his home. Our nutrition notably declined and we were forced to move to a more urban area with worse schools and more crime, and my father was forced to work 50% longer hours away from us. To assert these negative changes to our environment were the result in a change in my father's "parenting" is absurd, but that is what your entire post assumes.

1) Finding one counterexample does nothing about the overall trends.

2) You still had one big advantage--parents who cared about your education.

No it is not. The science shows that parenting has far less impact on kids than other aspects of environment.
That's why adopted kids tend to grow up to have no more in common with their adoptive parent's or siblings than random strangers, and why genetic siblings are about as similar to each other, whether raised by the same parent's or not.

You realize you're arguing that it's genetics, not society?

Also, conservatives irrationally ignore the massive role the larger environment has in determining parenting behaviors. They act as though all variance in parenting is just some completely free will choice, and thus implicitly attribute parenting itself entirely to innate differences in the parents. So, it all comes back to some people just being better than others because they were born better and their parents were born better.

There comes a point where we have to assign responsibility for one's actions to the person making them.

The problem of not having a strong safety net and aid to children of low income parents causes way more harm than is caused by having one. The hypocrisy of conservatives in how they selective apply such arguments reveals that they justifications are dishonest and expose the bigotries and lack of human decency underlying their preferred policies.

Have you seen me opposing having a social safety net?? I have some problems with how it's done (we are too focused on avoiding cheating and giving to those who don't truly need it that we make it hard for people to climb out, while in the flip side rewarding sloth) but no problem with the basic idea.

Luck is big factor at every income level, and Buffet would never had made his fortune without massive luck. First, he was lucky to be born a white male or many of the advantages given to him would not have been, such as the brand new all white high school he attended. He was lucky to be born to a well-off Congressman able to live in a wealthy burb of DC and attend newly built well funded middle and high schools. He was lucky to have a grandfather who owned a grocery store and handed him an unmerited job through which he got various goods at costs and thus could create a side business selling those goods door to door. He was lucky that his dad, himself the son of a business owner, became a bussiness owner and stock broker, from where Warren obviously gained the awareness of the stocks, etc.. He was lucky to attend Columbia and encounter his greatest financial mentor Ben Grahm, an encounter that would never have happened had he not been a white male (women were not admitted until 1982). And if you examine his various ventures, the early one's on which all his latter one's would depend could easily have failed, and luck (factors behind his own control) were certainly a major part in that as well.

Most of this is simply middle class upbringing. And AFIAK he wasn't getting goods at cost, but rather buying them at bulk price and selling at individual price.

That is quite seriously an absurd fairytale woo on par with young-earth creationism. Most events that happen in every persons life depend upon an infinite series of random contingencies, just as their very existence itself does.
The good fortune to be born into greater wealth and/or better parenting is not in any way "one's own merits", and the evidence is definitive that such circumstances hugely impact one's future wealth and health. Even after controlling for other factors (such as parental IQ), parental income is among the strongest predictor of their child's future income, and that relationship is actually strongest for incomes that vary between 0 and 150,000.

While the exact path one takes has a huge luck component the overall path does not. You don't let a setback knock you off the path! That's one of the big things that separates the successful from the unsuccessful.

No, conservatives view culture as genetically based. Just like they (and you) completely ignore the countless happenstances that determine an individuals outcome, they completely ignore the happenstance events that determine cultural practices.
They treat cultures they find inferior as the product of the inherently inferior people who created those cultures. When a conservative talks about black culture (and "bad parenting"), all they are saying is that those people are inherently inferior, and that inferiority includes their bad parenting. If disfunctional aspects of culture and/or parenting were not genetic but environmental (such as a product of 500 years of slavery and government supported subhuman treatment), then blaming it on culture or parenting would really mean that those who responsible for that environment are to blame. Conservatives deny any societal responsibility for any unequal outcomes, so they must treat culture and parenting as proxies for genetics.

Except the problematic cultural aspects didn't come from slavery.

And note that you are basically calling blacks sub-humans that can't actually manage their life reasonably. Is that really what you think?? Or are they being kept that way by the SJWs who keep telling them their plight is whitey's fault?

Height isn't genetic?? (What's going on is that in the tropics it's warm, having a greater body surface area is good. In colder climates you're better off with less surface area. While there wasn't enough time for any major evolution there is a slight pattern towards tall and lanky in those of tropical genetics vs short and squat for cold genetics.)

Again, nothing you said has any relevance to what I said. Yes, there are genetic differences between groups. But the evidence is directly about those group differences. What I am saying is the fact that a trait has a genetic influence that causes some of the variance between individuals has zero bearing on whether group differences on that trait have any genetic basis.

You think the height difference doesn't have a genetic basis??

IOW, none of the evidence from twin studies on the heritability of IQ has any bearing at all on whether the racial gap on IQ has any genetic component. And since virtually all the evidence about any psychological trait and genes comes from studies that only speak to individual-level variance, that means there is virtually no evidence that any racial group level differences in behaviors or psychological traits have a genetic basis. The fact that conservatives so consistently engage in the fallacy of using that evidence (like twin studies) to support racial arguments shows that they are dishonest and motivated by an anti-science bias to assume such differences, because they prefer a world where others can be treated as inherently inferior.

You seem to be mixing up the notion of no genetic differences with no genetic differences in IQ.

 

[bilby]

Speciation not only requires time, but genetic isolation.

Well, we've got that. The last time an Irishman and a San had a common ancestor may have been 350,000 years ago. And evolution and natural selection can act rather quickly (in relative terms).

I seriously doubt that. I would be surprised if the last common ancestor of all humans was more than a few thousand years ago. It's a small world network; enough humans move long distances - particularly since the 15th century and the so called 'Age of Discovery' that the gene pool is very thoroughly mixed.

The most recent common ancestor of all humans cannot possibly be less recent than the most recent of the most recent patrilineal and matrilineal ancestors, both of which are somewhere around 150,000 years ago, based on Y-Chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA respectively. But given the propensity for a lot of people to move about a great deal, particularly in the last few centuries, it is likely much more recent than either of those. My guess would be somewhere between 500 and 3,000 years ago for the last common ancestor of all humans. The last common ancestor of an Irishman and a San is likely currently alive, and highly unlikely to be more than 200 years ago; The last common ancestor of ALL Irishmen and ALL San is (perhaps) as far back as a few thousand years.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Speciation not only requires time, but genetic isolation. Humans travel widely and are indiscriminate breeders, forming a 'small world' network. There's not much reason for any mutation to concentrate in a particular sub-population, unless the evolutionary pressure is particularly high in that sub-population, and there is a countervailing selection pressure in the population at large. Classic examples of this are skin pigmentation, where high levels protect against melanoma in the tropics, but cause vitamin D deficiency at high latitudes; and Sickle Cell Anaemia, where the gene provides protection against malaria, but causes other heath issues that dominate in non-malarial regions.

And note that you do have a fair amount of isolation between Africa and Europe/Asia--exactly the area where we saw genetic variation.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The most recent common ancestor of all humans cannot possibly be less recent than the most recent of the most recent patrilineal and matrilineal ancestors, both of which are somewhere around 150,000 years ago, based on Y-Chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA respectively. But given the propensity for a lot of people to move about a great deal, particularly in the last few centuries, it is likely much more recent than either of those. My guess would be somewhere between 500 and 3,000 years ago for the last common ancestor of all humans. The last common ancestor of an Irishman and a San is likely currently alive, and highly unlikely to be more than 200 years ago; The last common ancestor of ALL Irishmen and ALL San is (perhaps) as far back as a few thousand years.

500 years equals at most 25 generations and 20 is more like it. 2^20 = ~1 million. There were a lot more than 1 million people around 500 years ago. Thus 500 is not even possible.

 

[Trausti]

Speciation not only requires time, but genetic isolation.

Well, we've got that. The last time an Irishman and a San had a common ancestor may have been 350,000 years ago. And evolution and natural selection can act rather quickly (in relative terms).

I seriously doubt that. I would be surprised if the last common ancestor of all humans was more than a few thousand years ago. It's a small world network; enough humans move long distances - particularly since the 15th century and the so called 'Age of Discovery' that the gene pool is very thoroughly mixed.

The most recent common ancestor of all humans cannot possibly be less recent than the most recent of the most recent patrilineal and matrilineal ancestors, both of which are somewhere around 150,000 years ago, based on Y-Chromosome and Mitochondrial DNA respectively. But given the propensity for a lot of people to move about a great deal, particularly in the last few centuries, it is likely much more recent than either of those. My guess would be somewhere between 500 and 3,000 years ago for the last common ancestor of all humans. The last common ancestor of an Irishman and a San is likely currently alive, and highly unlikely to be more than 200 years ago; The last common ancestor of ALL Irishmen and ALL San is (perhaps) as far back as a few thousand years.

Why? I posted the paper about the San and the estimated 350,000 years divergence in this thread. The more the human genome is reviewed and further ancestral remains examined, the more the date of divergence gets pushed back. Once humans diverged it's not like today where people can fly around and migrate all the want. Human populations were separated geographically and genetically, in some cases, for ~300,000 years. The last common ancestor shared by Europeans and East Asians was 41,000 years ago.

Abstract
To study the male and female lineages of East Asian and European humans, we have sequenced 25 short tandem repeat markers on 453 Y-chromosomes and collected sequences of 72 complete mitochondrial genomes to construct independent phylogenetic trees for male and female lineages. The results indicate that East Asian individuals fall into two clades, one that includes East Asian individuals only and a second that contains East Asian and European individuals. Surprisingly, the European individuals did not form an independent clade, but branched within in the East Asians. We then estimated the divergence time of the root of the European clade as ∼41,000 years ago. These data indicate that, contrary to traditional views, Europeans diverged from East Asians around that time. We also address the origin of the Ainu lineage in northern Japan.

Divergence of East Asians and Europeans Estimated Using Male- and Female-Specific Genetic Markers

And the notion that the last common ancestor for the Irishman and the San might have been a mere 500 to 3000 years ago could not possibly be correct. Otherwise, there would not be this great disparity between Sub-Saharan Africans and everyone else in regards to Neanderthal admixture.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

And the notion that the last common ancestor for the Irishman and the San might have been a mere 500 to 3000 years ago could not possibly be correct. Otherwise, there would not be this great disparity between Sub-Saharan Africans and everyone else in regards to Neanderthal admixture.

I am tempted to believe that bilby is having fun.

 

[Trausti]

And the notion that the last common ancestor for the Irishman and the San might have been a mere 500 to 3000 years ago could not possibly be correct. Otherwise, there would not be this great disparity between Sub-Saharan Africans and everyone else in regards to Neanderthal admixture.

I am tempted to believe that bilby is having fun.

Hope so. Otherwise, he seems like a young-Earth Creationist.

 

[Bomb#20]

Furthermore, the leftist position leads to rampant discrimination and reduces the value of personal effort and rewards sloth--exactly the opposite of what we should be doing.

You mean rewarding sloth, like allowing kids born into privilege to inherit massive wealth without earning it? That's the sloth conservatives encourage. The rightist position that all current inequalities result from innate differences is by far the #1 source of unjust discrimination and undeserved rewards given simply for having already benefited past random luck.
There are flaws and opportunities for abuse in the leftist approach, but promoting unjust inequality is what rightist ideology is all about.

That's the Rush Limbaugh fallacy. Limbaugh says feminists want to make sure every abortion that can happen, does happen. But no matter what X you are trying to optimize for, the fact that somebody else wants an outcome with a lot less X does not mean his ideology is all about optimizing for -X. There are a million things people can optimize for, and most of them are orthogonal to the entire X to -X axis, and optimizing for any of them will give you a lot less X than optimizing for X will.

I don't desire inequality but I recognize that without inequality there is no reward for effort--society can't exist without it.

Since inherited wealth reduces reward for effort in the next generation, you must be against that I assume?

Some amount of unequal outcomes is inevitable to a just society that rewards effort. However, massive inequality in outcomes is rarely the result of commensurate inequalities in effort, but rather inequalities in opportunity, power, and luck. Inequalities in those things all undermine incentive of effort, so any honest person concerned with effort would be just as concerned about those given unequal opportunity, power, and luck. But conservatives never are. They only rant about the poor getting a free ride, because they only really care about preserving inequality of outcomes, not preserving the value of increased effort.

Um, have you considered the possibility that conservatives rant about the poor getting a free ride but not about lazy trust fund kids because the conservatives have to pay for poor people getting a free ride, whereas lazy trust fund kids don't cost the conservatives a dime? If a rich dad is willing to finance his shiftless kids' effortless lifestyles, his money, his choice.

 

[laughing dog]

Um, have you considered the possibility that conservatives rant about the poor getting a free ride but not about lazy trust fund kids because the conservatives have to pay for poor people getting a free ride, whereas lazy trust fund kids don't cost the conservatives a dime? If a rich dad is willing to finance his shiftless kids' effortless lifestyles, his money, his choice.

Your argument would be more convincing if it was simply the conservatives' money who pay for poor people. But it isn't. It is all the taxpayers and in a representative society sometime one's taxes do not go for only the goods and services one wants. From what I can tell when I pay attention to their self-serving whinges, conservatives base their whinges on some sort of morality.

 

[Bomb#20]

Um, have you considered the possibility that conservatives rant about the poor getting a free ride but not about lazy trust fund kids because the conservatives have to pay for poor people getting a free ride, whereas lazy trust fund kids don't cost the conservatives a dime? If a rich dad is willing to finance his shiftless kids' effortless lifestyles, his money, his choice.

Your argument would be more convincing if it was simply the conservatives' money who pay for poor people. But it isn't. It is all the taxpayers...

Oh well, I've long since stopped being surprised when you post idiotic red herrings.

The fact that it's all the taxpayers does not conflict with what I said. We normal humans don't like being made to pay for stuff we disapprove of; the circumstance that others are also made to pay doesn't make us like it any better; and if you understood normal human psychology you wouldn't need to have this explained to you.

and in a representative society sometime one's taxes do not go for only the goods and services one wants.

And when that happens to normal humans we dislike it.

From what I can tell when I pay attention to their self-serving whinges, conservatives base their whinges on some sort of morality.

Normal humans think it's immoral to force others to support you when you have the option of being self-supporting. Duh!

Explaining our political opponents' opinions by projecting onto them our own ideologies' fantasies of them being some sort of alien monsters, in spite of their views being perfectly well explainable as the predictable thought processes of normal human beings, is not a sound method of carrying out social science.