Posted on 02/12/2010 8:43:13 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Innate Superiority: An Inferior Idea
Innate capacities do not matter so much as developed capabilities.
Mixed up with the question of fairness to individuals and groups has been the explosive question of whether individuals and groups have the innate ability to perform at the same levels, if they are all treated alike or even given the same objective opportunities.
Intellectuals have swung from one side of this question at the beginning of the 20th century to the opposite side at the end. Both those who said that achievement differences among races and classes were due to genes, in the early years of the 20th century, and those who said that these differences were due to discrimination, in the later years, ignored the old statisticians’ warnings that correlation is not causation.
The idea that some people are innately superior (usually one’s own group) goes back for centuries, but various new facts that came out in the 19th and early 20th centuries gave the appearance of “science” to such beliefs during the Progressive era.
Sir Francis Galton’s research turned up the fact of remarkable achievements among members of the same family, which he regarded as evidence of genetic superiority. The rise of IQ testing, and especially the massive mental testing of soldiers in the U.S. Army during the First World War, showed great differences in test scores among various racial and ethnic groups.
In the public schools, there were similarly large differences in which ethnic group’s children failed to get promoted. In both the Army mental tests and the schools, Polish Jews did poorly at that time. Carl Brigham — a leading authority on mental tests and the author of the SAT — said that the Army tests tended to “disprove the popular belief that the Jew is highly intelligent.”
It should be noted that all of these conclusions were based on hard data, not mere “perceptions” or “stereotypes,” as so many inconvenient facts are dismissed today. What was wrong was not the data but the inferences.
Polish Jews were among the many immigrants from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe who were relatively recent arrivals in the United States. Many of these immigrants grew up in homes where English was not spoken, as Carl Brigham acknowledged in later years, when he recanted his earlier statements. In later years, Jews scored above average on mental tests.
It is also a hard fact of history that some races had far more advanced technological, economic, and other achievements than others at particular times and places. But those who were ahead in some centuries were often behind in other centuries — the Chinese and the Europeans having changed positions dramatically after Europe eventually caught up with China and then surpassed it within recent centuries. But there was no evidence of any dramatic changes in genetics among either the Chinese or the Europeans.
While striking changes in the relative positions of different races at different periods of history undermine genetic explanations, the fact that there has been no period when their achievements have been the same undermines today’s presumption that different economic or other outcomes are due to discrimination.
Whatever the innate capacity of any race, class, or other group, what pays off in the real world are developed capabilities, and these have never been the same — or even close to being the same — for individuals or groups.
All the leading brands of beer in the United States were created by people of German ancestry, and so was the leading beer in China, not to mention breweries created by Germans in Australia, Argentina, and elsewhere. Germans were producing beer in the days of the Roman Empire.
This does not mean that beer-brewing skill is genetic, but it also does not mean that this skill — or any other skill — is randomly distributed among peoples, so that a failure to have equal “representation” of groups in a given institutions can be presumed to be due to discrimination by that institution.
Fairness as equal treatment does not produce fairness as equal outcomes. The confusion between the two meanings of the same word has created enormous mischief, much of it at the expense of lagging groups, who have been distracted from the things that would enable them to catch up. And whole societies have been kept in a turmoil pursing a will o’ the wisp in the name of “fairness.”
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
species are superior to certain things... fish for swmming... cats for doing nothing ... so why not..
If it’s not Scottish, it’s crap!
Ping Dr. Sowell article.
Some cultures are definatley superior “Races” are not. All Human Beings are made in G*D’s image and are thus devinely loved.
This is a rare bogus column by Sowell. The issue is not some generalized “inferiority” — how does one assign relative weights to looks, athletic ability, musical ability, scientific contributions? The question is whether there are racial differences in the verbal and mathematical intellectual abilities that schools (should) focus on. The evidence from IQ tests, confirmed by achievement tests like those of NCLB and aptitude tests like the SAT, is that there *is* a 1-SD deviation between whites and blacks. That makes the NCLB goal of eliminating the “achievement gap” impossible if it is true.
The dumbing of the average American, in the past 50 years, validates the article.
Well, for one thing, last time I checked all human beings were the same species.
I'm just sayin'...
I should have read it first. It’s a previous posting. Disregard jaz.
Brains vary just the same as physiques, hair coloring and athletic abilities do. Kenyans seem to be born to dominate marathons. Genetics are a large factor in this. Genetics also have a large influence on IQ. It’s ridiculous to chalk it all up to what a man does and experiences after he is born. Who are your ancestors? This has great bearing on the parameters you can develop within during yr life
LOL. good one, I assume that would include Haitians..
That’s the basis of the dichotomy of worldviews.
If you’re of “evolutionary” thought, you must logically conclude that some humans are further evolved than others and can make better decisions for others than they can for themselves.
If you’re of “created and fallen” thought, you know that no individual has sufficient moral or intellectual superiority over others to make their decisions for them.
Thanks for the ping, RQSR. This is a different title for part IV of the recent series.
“Innate Superiority: An Inferior Idea (Are certain races and cultures innately superior?”
Nope. Some are better at some things, others are better at other things.
Generally.
...the Anglo-European/Judeo-Christian culture in this country has been the most successful culture globally since World War Two....people risk their lives to try and participate in it’s riches....if people want to call that superior than I guess it is.
Is any one race superior overall? No.
Do some races excel others in specific areas? Yes, as should be obvious to anybody who pays attention to things like “Nobel Prizes in science fields” and “the Olympics” could tell you.
Do you think this “achievement gap” is based upon innate genetic factors, or do your surmise that the Jewish and Asian cultures emphasis on scholarship (and American Black cultures de-emphasis on the same) might be a contributing factor?
I think liberals are a different species.
Some human populations are better adapted to some environments and some populations are better adapted to other environments.
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