Posted on 12/19/2012 9:22:47 PM PST by Olog-hai
No, it doesn't assume anything, and neither should you. The data is what it is, and the math indicates a strong correlation.
The "tabula rasa" theory is the basis of free enterprise and personal liberty. It implies that anyone has the potential to rise above their circumstances through effort.
IQ is considered determinative, which makes it a convenient tool for nanny-state authoritarians to maintain their power over everyone else.
If a talent isn't applied nor developed, it doesn't mean squat. That is my point.
ALL other things being equal, your numbers will work out every time. Otherwise, you don't have a valid experiment.
But all other things are not always equal, and thus, you will find among those ranks people who applied what they had to work with and did better than those who may have had a higher IQ.
Adios!
While everybody should have the same opportunity, people are different. Some people have high aptitudes in some areas (math,science, etc.) that others don't. The facts are incontrovertible: if you don't have the necessary high intelligence for a lot of jobs that need people with high IQs or aptitudes, you're not going to succeed. And the sexes are different as well as a number of studies have conclusively proved.
Nope. It's the basis of the idea that mankind is infinitely malleable, that he can be changed and molded to fit the new socialist world.
It's the human equivalent of Lysenkoism, that genetics is a lie.
Eugenics is not the study of human differences and how they are (or are not) inherited, it's the promotion of selective breeding (or forced non-breeding by sterilization).
But let's assume that the Nazis and others who supported eugenics in the 20th killed 15M people.
The most aggressive supporters of the tabula rasa theory are Communists, since they can then dodge the question of how they're going to get around innate human nature. According to them, there IS no innate human nature. Tabula rasa.
The TR boys killed upwards of 100M people in the 20th, possibly as many as 150M.
If we're going to discredit a theory because of how it is used, shouldn't it be TR that's discredited, not eugenics?
I was a bad bad boy back in the 60’s and 70’s. Anyone remember those Minnesota test’s?
I never ever answered one correctly, I just randomly marked them.
Okay, I think I confused “tabula rasa” with human potential for maturation and adaptation. More than anything else, the notion of the mind as a blank slate implies a neutral state, that under the proper direction can be influenced, or set into motion, and through work, acquire whatever skill and understanding required to do what they want.
I was primarily referring to the intellectual capacity, which is what IQ tests claim to measure— much less to motivation, though this is also influenced externally.
I guess I should have wiki’d the term before jumping; I didn’t realize that as you imply ‘tabula rasa’ means it is of some totally plastic or malleable substance. There is an elastic core to people and I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise.
If you know of an appropriate term for this notion, I’d appreciate hearing it. And, thanks for the correction.
Not in the sense that John Locke referred to it-- his definition of the individual was more general and complex.
Eugenics is not the study of human differences and how they are (or are not) inherited, it's the promotion of selective breeding
I understand this, but determinism is implicit in genetics. Eugenics is it's practical application.
The most aggressive supporters of the tabula rasa theory are Communists,
Classic Liberal thinkers also, but not carried to the absurdly simplistic-- ultimately deterministic--extent of Stalin and Mao.
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