O. Mahogany said...
Okay here is the short version:A Harvard Law Review member and official court clerk (her name for the purposes of defamation claims is referred to as "Crimson DNA") had dinner with member(s) of the Harvard Black Student Law Association in which a debate went on about issues concerning race. She felt her points were "shot down" during dinner so she decided to follow up with this email:
… I just hate leaving things where I feel I misstated my position.
"I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances.The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair. (Now on to the more controversial:) Women tend to perform less well in math due at least in part to prenatal levels of testosterone, which also account for variations in mathematics performance within genders...
Please don’t pull a Larry Summers on me,
CRIMSON DNA
6 comments:
This suggests to me that some part of intelligence is genetic, just like identical twins raised apart tend to have very similar IQs and just like I think my babies will be geniuses and beautiful individuals whether I raise them or give them to an orphanage in Nigeria. I don’t think it is that controversial of an opinion to say I think it is at least possible that African Americans are less intelligent on a genetic level, and I didn’t mean to shy away from that opinion at dinner.
I also don’t think that there are no cultural differences or that cultural differences are not likely the most important sources of disparate test scores (statistically, the measurable ones like income do account for some raw differences).
I would just like some scientific data to disprove the genetic position, and it is often hard given difficult to quantify cultural aspects. One example (courtesy of Randall Kennedy) is that some people, based on crime statistics, might think African Americans are genetically more likely to be violent, since income and other statistics cannot close the racial gap.
In the slavery era, however, the stereotype was of a docile, childlike, African American, and they were, in fact, responsible for very little violence (which was why the handful of rebellions seriously shook white people up).
Obviously group wide rates of violence could not fluctuate so dramatically in ten generations if the cause was genetic, and so although there are no quantifiable data currently available to “explain” away the racial discrepancy in violent crimes, it must be some nongenetic cultural shift. Of course, there are pro-genetic counterarguments, but if we assume we can control for all variables in the given time periods, the form of the argument is compelling.
In conclusion, I think it is bad science to disagree with a conclusion in your heart, and then try (unsuccessfully, so far at least) to find data that will confirm what you want to be true. Everyone wants someone to take 100 white infants and 100 African American ones and raise them in Disney utopia and prove once and for all that we are all equal on every dimension, or at least the really important ones like intelligence. I am merely not 100% convinced that this is the case.
this topic is a dead horse.. it went out with the bell curve. she should define African Americans...this is just a stupid comment from an uneducated academic. i can't be bothered to poke holes in her argument, cos the holes are very obvioud!
obvious
If this was an op-ed piece published by the Review then maybe they bring up censorship at that point.
I see the Harvard Law Review to have the same POV of Tommy Hilfiger and care less what AA's think about their brand. I expect Obama's former leadership role at the review to be the only reason we see any kind of disciplinary posture if there is one.
KP
She's a pretty little red head.
She graduated from Princeton.
A Harvard Law student you say?
This is no rural Alabama hick.
This is the opinion of an intelligent woman. If she confidently believes in this I want to hear of all the others...
Pleeeease let her speak.
I agree KP it is a "dead horse"
Still I'd like to see ohhh I don't know the Black Law Students of Howard or some other university debate Harvard (this reminds me of a Harpo film lol).
The open dialogue would be.....counterproductive? eye-opening?
certainly entertaining.
"African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent"
DUH. Can we quit pretending the Emperor has no clothes on already & move on??? The liberal rhetoric that we are all genetic clones has, and has never had, any actual basis in scientific fact. There is absolutely no evidence supporting the bizarre claim that racial IQ bell curves don't exist.
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