"Prisoner at War" <prisoner_at_war@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:e5742068-0f99-49eb-b74d-79a944489fcc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> Now this is a sensible liberal! Instead of reacting to knee-jerk
> political correctness -- the same knee-jerk reaction that conservative
> reactionary racists have, only towards different stimuli -- Mr.
> Saletan tackles the data head-on, no holds barred.
>
The knee-jerk liberal reaction to scientific evidence of differences
between
races when it comes to average scores on standardized intelligence exists
for a reason.
Given the knee-jerk reactions by racists, these scientific findings would
almost certainly be used as evidence that one race is inferior to another,
even though that isn't even close to what the re****t suggests. For
example,
if black people score on average lower on certain IQ tests, people who are
prejudiced against blacks will use this to reinforce their belief that all
black people have sub-par intelligence and use this to justify harmful
prejudicial treatment of them.
In addition, the IQ tests involved in the study were too limited to be
entirely accurate. While the tests show clear differences in IQ scores on
these certain tests, the tests themselves were mostly limited to specific
areas of intelligence in which Asians and Caucasians tend to do better.
There are entire realms of intelligence which are not normally tested by
standard IQ tests, such as motor development, recognition of the emotional
undercurrents of conversation, facial expression interpretation,
etc--things
we use on a daily basis.
The bottom line here is that racial issues are charges with emotion, and
as
such information released can inflame the situation.
It's like fuel for a nuclear plant. In the hands of the right people, it
can be used to improve the quality of life by providing cheaper energy;
but
it can't be available to just anyone who wants it because there are
terrorists and insane persons who would use it to harm others. Make
sense?
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