Posted under Education & Political Correctness & Race & Science
“Since 1965, America has invested trillions in education with a primary goal of equalizing test scores among the races and genders. Measured by U.S. test scores, it has been a waste—an immense transfer of wealth from private citizens to an education industry that has grown bloated while failing us again and again. Perhaps it is time to abandon the goal of educational equality as utopian—i.e., unattainable—and to focus, as we do in sports and art, on excellence. Teach all kids to the limit of their ability, while recognizing that all are not equal in their ability to read, write, learn, compute or debate, any more than they are equally able to play in a band or excel on a ball field….. The beginning of wisdom is to recognize this world as it is, not as what we would wish it to be.” ~ Patrick J. Buchanan, Op-Ed, August 26, 2010
I wonder whether Buchanan will get any flack for his op-ed today?
It’s odd. What he writes everyone knows to be true. Yet, he is not allowed to say it. Even stranger, the left still presents religion as the enemy of science. But, in reality, it’s egalitarianism that’s at odds with science, at least with evolutionary theory. If Eurasians separated from Africans around 100,000 years ago, and Europeans and Asians separated from each other around 40,000 years ago, it stands to reason that these groups would have evolved along different paths. James D. Watson, co-discoverer of DNA, notes that genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence can be found within a decade. He writes:
“There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.”
It’s the difference between is and ought. Just because egalitarians wish for things to be equal doesn’t mean they are equal. How much longer will egalitarianism be at war with science? And how much longer will European Americans suffer because of this war?
roho on 27 Aug 2010 at 3:41 pm #
I’ve waited on this story long enough. I recently had a black, male, highschool graduate, make change for me at a local sporting goods store. My bill at the register was $16.23 for the items…I gave him a twenty dollar bill and a quarter.(Panic and confusion was all over his face as he called the mgr and asked what he should do with the quarter?) The mgr had to show him, but he never quite understood as I exited the store.
A friend of mine never could pass French at a recognized University, and chose to take it at a traditional Black College during the summer quarter. (They invited him to teach!)
Liberal Academia was one of the first to start destroying “Standards” in the USA.(Which is why our thirty something business leaders are idiots, but they have i-pods and backberries.)
Intresting to me was the road to the “College World Series Of Baseball” this past season.(Congradulations South Carolina!) But, I was fascinated by the missing black athletes in baseball?…….The regionals and finals were white as snow from California to the East Coast? (The road from the minor leagues to the major leagues is long, trying, and low pay.)……..So, black athletes prefer the fast big bucks of the NFL and NBA, before they even prove themselves as a pro athlete!(And some never do much after receiving more money than they can manage up front?)
As well, we have two different business worlds in America. The industries that conform to “Affirmative Action Legislation”, and eventually move to China…..And the Sports World, that does not, and stays in America.(Notice how only NASCAR has been slammed for lack of diversity?)………Why not the NBA?
Matt Weber on 27 Aug 2010 at 5:33 pm #
The turd commenters at TAC are already slinging the mud.
Does everyone know this to be true though? We do a phone survey, asking 100 people if they know what the ‘achievement gap’ is…how many say yes? I’d wager it’d be significantly less than 50. Do people realize, when politicians talk about more money for education, what they often really mean is more money for blacks and Mexicans? I’m not sure they do.
Part of the problem is the right itself. Instead of sticking with uncertainties like “There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically.”, statements like the former are taken as proof positive that different races have different levels of intelligence. Well, let’s wait for confirmation, as well as a good idea of what should constitute intelligence. And let’s welcome criticism of the IQ tests and methods…for people to take these things seriously means that they will criticize them. But rightists too often fly off the handle that anyone anywhere would dare to question the efficacy of the blessed tests.
I’m also leery of framing this as an evolution thing. For one, that only tells us what things are, not what they ought to be, and far from presenting nature as set in stone it presumes malleability. After all, just because blacks evolved to be smarter than whites doesn’t mean that we can’t tinker with the situation to reverse it. Indeed, I expect genetic engineering will center around attempts to do just that. Also, it takes to some uncomfortable places. Consider Watson’s second sentence: “Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so.” I’m reading this as saying that some groups of humans may not even have fully rational minds…and indeed evolution alone would not say otherwise. But whoa there! I may be a religious nut, but I almost have to stick with the egalitarians if that’s where were going.
Believer on 27 Aug 2010 at 7:04 pm #
Somewhere in time reasonable citizens will learn that if they are to insure their kids a good education thats free from politics and Atheisim, they will have no choise but to remove them from Public schools. Please start now, get your kids out of Public Schools!
Believer on 27 Aug 2010 at 7:05 pm #
That is Choice, sorry about that
RedPhillips on 27 Aug 2010 at 7:10 pm #
I would be careful about framing this in terms of evolution as well. Technically evolution can be a somewhat limited concept that few Christians should or do object to (and it is a limited concept in the context of the development of human differences). Change/adaptation of species over time based on differential survival or something along those lines. What you might call microevolution. But the problem with evolution is that it has come to inevitably mean the whole enchilada. It means rigorous philosophical materialism and naturalism, the denial of the supernatural, unguided, random molecule to man evolution, abiogenesis (life from non-life), etc. It is a direct repudiation (and I believe intentionally so) of Christian theism. This is why the doctrinaire materialists/naturalists get so hot and bothered by even the slightest deviation from this faith (ID for example).
Those leftists who embrace evolution when it is being used to club Christians over the head but run from its implications when it challenges egalitarianism are simply manifesting cognitive dissonance/practicing willful ignorance.
Bede on 27 Aug 2010 at 7:19 pm #
Most religions (even most Christian denominations) do not see a contradiction between evolution and religious belief. One can hold both.
Still, I agree with others that evolution and IQ tests may be unnecessary to highlight racial differences. Common sense and a pair of eyes will tell you the same thing.
Preston L. on 27 Aug 2010 at 7:31 pm #
@Matt Weber. You said:
“I’m reading this as saying that some groups of humans may not even have fully rational minds…and indeed evolution alone would not say otherwise. But whoa there! I may be a religious nut, but I almost have to stick with the egalitarians if that’s where were going.”
If blacks in America have about an 85 IQ on average, then a lot of them probably never reach Piaget’s Formal Operations stage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_Operations
RedPhillips on 28 Aug 2010 at 4:38 am #
The PC forces are out in force on the TAC thread for this article.
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2010/08/26/the-myth-of-equality/
I know Larison has some liberal fans. They must have drifted over to the main blog.
Matt Weber on 29 Aug 2010 at 2:16 am #
I do occasionally see Larison’s commenters on the TAC blog, but most of the liberals there don’t comment on both. TAC just appeals to liberals. They are hilarious though. “slavery, segregation, racism!” That’s all there ever is.