From: Dr Sebby (drsebby@hotmail.com)
Date: Wed May 26 2004 - 15:18:26 MDT
...we freely grant truth to the concept that different ethnic regions will
produce slight differences in phenotype, so why is it such a stretch to
imagine that minor mental differences would exist as well? keep in mind
that in an instrument as incredibly complex as the human brain - which then
creates even more complex 'output' on multiple fronts over many decades;
even miniscule differences would, in the end product, become extrapolated
into rather visible differences. not necessarily in potential, but
certainly in methodology of learning, or even different orientation (e.g.
spatial, logical, math, etc..) ordering.
...following this, we must keep in mind that the modern industrialized world
of today has pretty much been created by "the white man" and his culture.
when europe went into africa and took it and its people apart...they left it
with their religion, their government philosophy, even their borders drawn
up by wealthy aristocrats with no regard to local african tribal treaties
and conflicts.
...all this taken into account plus the fact that the american black
population has long been the victim of economic and educational inequality,
diet, and persistant jim crow laws, it is no wonder they have continuing
problems today...it was just a couple decades ago that they were officially
2nd class citizens.
DrSebby.
"Courage...and shuffle the cards".
----Original Message Follows----
From: "rhinoceros" <rhinoceros@freemail.gr>
Reply-To: virus@lucifer.com
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: virus: Re:Leaded gas, racial differences, IQ, and crime
Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 11:59:09 -0600
[Jonathan Davis]
This is interesting, but as the author points out correlation does not
establish cause
[rhinoceros]
Of course it doesn't. Masters talks about a 0.97 correlation between violent
crime and leaded gas sales 18-19 years before. He says "parenatal exposure
to lead is a plausible hypothesis".
Agreed, a high statistical correlation does not establish a cause. Take, for
example, the number of cars. Logically, the number of cars would go together
with gas sales and would have the same correlation with violent crime as
long you don't pay attention to the use of leaded or unleaded gas (assuming
the author's hypothesis is correct). Also, there can be other unrelated real
causes which just happen to go together with leaded gas sales.
On the other hand, a high statistical correlation does tell you where to
look for causes. This is what we have here, when Masters looked into the
physiological effects of toxic metals.
[Jonathan Davis]
also, we need to see evidence that Blacks have higher lead levels, the
Flynn effect affects all groups, the score differences are also found in the
UK where black immigrants were often housed in the same if not superior
housing as whites.
[rhinoceros]
This theory is prof. Masters' pet peeve. I cannot retrieve the full study he
posted from the files folder of the Evolutionary Psychology yahoo group --
there must be a technical problem. This one seems to be related:
http://www.crime-times.org/97d/w97dp1.htm
From what I can see in the few lines he posted, his argument is that the
same lead exposure (same environment) had different physiological effects on
what he calls "Blacks".
[Jonathan Davis]
I am certain the explanation is environmental or cultural, but I think this
one is a long shot.
[rhinoceros]
I can see why this hypothesis looks suspect: It does not cohere with the
paradigms we usually follow when talking about matters of criminality and
race (whatever that means). However, I have yet to see any "bad science" in
the hypothesis. This is from the link posted above:
<quote>
Masters et al. stress that "neurotoxicity is only one cause among many, at
most functioning as a catalyst which, in addition to poverty, social stress,
alcohol or drug abuse, individual character, and other social factors,
increases the likelihood that an individual will commit a violent crime."
But reducing even this one risk among many is an important goal, they say,
"given the extraordinary level of violence that persists in urban America
and the failure of traditional policies to meet it."
<end quote>
---- This message was posted by rhinoceros to the Virus 2004 board on Church of Virus BBS. <http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=61;action=display;threadid=30371> --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l> _________________________________________________________________ Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail --- To unsubscribe from the Virus list go to <http://www.lucifer.com/cgi-bin/virus-l>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed May 26 2004 - 15:19:16 MDT