You can't win with a racist. But I'm trying anyhow: Could I get a little help here?

[Max Blair]

Hi. I am mildly autistic. I don't really understand how the world works. I have this friend, also mildly autistic, who believes that the overwhelming weight of peer reviewed science, most evident by the work of the late Canadian JP Rushton, decisively proves that black people are, on the average, substantially less intelligent than white people. She believes that the reason for this has been proven by Rushton to be because they have smaller brains. Yeah, I know. You can't win with a racist. I know the smart thing to do is just unfriend her, walk away, cut my losses, and blah blah blah. But hell, I haven't made a new friend that's stuck in years. I don't like to give up. This is kind of a last ditch deal here.

What would you say to my friend?

[Magda Hassan]

Well, JP Rushton would say that because his pay check depends on it. He is a long time recipient of grants by the Pioneer Fund. For ten years until his death Rushton was a director of the Pioneer Fund. The founders of the Pioneer Fund all were supporters of Nazism and sought pliable academics to fund to give a veneer of legitimacy to their junk science. Since the Human Genome Project has decoded all the human DNA it is accepted that there is no such thing as race in science. To use race as a science category is as scientifically legitimate as phrenology.

All of Rushton's racist works have been well and truly trounced by others. Your friend needs to do more reading. They clearly haven't done much at all. Rushton is not taken seriously by any one with real understanding of biology and psychology. When challenged in a public discussion with a real scientist who specializes in genetics, David Suzuki, it is clear Rushton is completely out of his depth.

There are several threads here on Wickliffe Draper here

[Magda Hassan]

More here:
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=C-jI...q=&f=false

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives...ell-curve/

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/in...oneer-fund

http://www.iupui.edu/~histwhs/h699.dir/KennyPioneer.pdf

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=UGYf...CGEQ6AEwBw

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02262739

[URL="http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/1/55.short"]http://hgs.oxfordjournals.org/content/21/1/55.short

http://www.cbc.ca/archives/categories/ar...ebate.html
[/URL]

[Adele Edisen]

Hi. I am mildly autistic. I don't really understand how the world works. I have this friend, also mildly autistic, who believes that the overwhelming weight of peer reviewed science, most evident by the work of the late Canadian JP Rushton, decisively proves that black people are, on the average, substantially less intelligent than white people. She believes that the reason for this has been proven by Rushton to be because they have smaller brains. Yeah, I know. You can't win with a racist. I know the smart thing to do is just unfriend her, walk away, cut my losses, and blah blah blah. But hell, I haven't made a new friend that's stuck in years. I don't like to give up. This is kind of a last ditch deal here.

What would you say to my friend?

Max,

Did you know that yeara ago, according to many, women were considered to be less intelligent than men because they had smaller brains, since most women tend to be smaller persons than most men.

Since there are some white men who are smaller than other white or black men, would this also imply that these smaller white men were less
intelligent than bigger black or white men?

Would your friend think that women were less intelligent than men just because they are smaller persons?

All peoples of all different sizes have the same intellectual capacities regardless of racial characteristics.

Adele

[Max Blair]

Well, JP Rushton would say that because his pay check depends on it. He is a long time recipient of grants by the Pioneer Fund. For ten years until his death Rushton was a director of the Pioneer Fund. All of Rushton's racist works have been well and truly trounced by others. Your friend needs to do more reading. They clearly haven't done much at all. Rushton is not taken seriously by any one with real understanding of biology and psychology. When challenged in a public discussion with a real scientist who specializes in genetics, David Suzuki, it is clear Rushton is completely out of his depth. There are several threads here on Wickliffe Draper here

I thought Rushton was President of and essentially became The Pioneer Fund from 2002 til he coughed black blood and died last year.
Help me explain to me crazy friend (crazier than me, at least. And I keep cats. Give them names. Try to teach them martial arts.) why this source of funding would taint anything that it was associated with, let alone writings on race. That's one of the things she just doesn't get.
The volume of my friend's reading is not really the problem. Her problem is selective dismissal. Anything she reads that supports her crazy = gold. Anything that doesn't, she goes after fine points of grammar.
I've found a lot of rebuttals. But I can never have too many. She's got a real zest for Peer Reviewed sources.
I watched the Rushton-Suzuki debate. It seemed to me that Rushton won. At least, he did by the standards of my Middle School Debate squad. He was in control, calm, clear, presented his argument cogently and understandably. Suzuki seemed rather fraught, kept repeating Lewontin without really explaining him.
Or rather, it seemed Rushton won right up until he was asked about the Pioneer Fund and lied. That was where I became convinced that I had to convince my friend that she didn't have a rhetorical leg to stand on.

[Max Blair]

Hi. I am mildly autistic. I don't really understand how the world works. I have this friend, also mildly autistic, who believes that the overwhelming weight of peer reviewed science, most evident by the work of the late Canadian JP Rushton, decisively proves that black people are, on the average, substantially less intelligent than white people. She believes that the reason for this has been proven by Rushton to be because they have smaller brains. Yeah, I know. You can't win with a racist. I know the smart thing to do is just unfriend her, walk away, cut my losses, and blah blah blah. But hell, I haven't made a new friend that's stuck in years. I don't like to give up. This is kind of a last ditch deal here.

What would you say to my friend?

Max,

Did you know that yeara ago, according to many, women were considered to be less intelligent than men because they had smaller brains, since most women tend to be smaller persons than most men.

Since there are some white men who are smaller than other white or black men, would this also imply that these smaller white men were less
intelligent than bigger black or white men?

Would your friend think that women were less intelligent than men just because they are smaller persons?

All peoples of all different sizes have the same intellectual capacities regardless of racial characteristics.

Adele

I've always considered that a pretty compelling argument. But she doesn't think so. Got any peer-reviewed love-links to maybe change her mind?

[Charles Drago]

Got any peer-reviewed love-links to maybe change her mind?

I'm ... curious.

In a post discussing race and a variation of the classic "size matters" issue, you ask for "love-links."

Please educate me: What are "love-links?"

Thanks.

[Max Blair]

Got any peer-reviewed love-links to maybe change her mind?

I'm ... curious.

In a post discussing race and a variation of the classic "size matters" issue, you ask for "love-links."

Please educate me: What are "love-links?"

Thanks.

"love-links" doesn't make sense out of context, does it? Should read "peer reviewed-love links" or "peer-reviewed-love links": links that convey peer-reviewed love. I think. I write the occasional crummy sentence when I'm tired.

[Charles Drago]

I'm afraid that "love-link" is not a very useful term of art.

On the other hand, "peer-reviewed link" avoids all confusion and keeps the conversation elevated.

FWIW.

[Max Blair]

I'm afraid that "love-link" is not a very useful term of art.

On the other hand, "peer-reviewed link" avoids all confusion and keeps the conversation elevated.

FWIW.

You're right. Do you want me to apologize? I write the occasional crummy word pairing, don't you?