Wednesday, December 05, 2007

"Proof" that blacks are less intelligent than whites

Reuters reports:

"Black Americans are 10 times more likely to be imprisoned for illegal drug offenses than whites, even though both groups use and sell drugs at the same rate, according to a study released on Tuesday."

This must be because blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites. What other explanation could there possibly be? I guess Dennis Bider was right all along. I'm so sorry, Dennis. Please come back. I miss you so much.

8 comments:

Don Geddis said...

Just in case people don't click through on the article, the real reasons are about the choice of drugs typically used by the racial groups: [T]he mandatory federal sentence is the same for possession of 5 grams (0.2 ounces) of crack, more associated with blacks, as 500 grams (18 ounces) of cocaine, which is more often used by whites.

You start with a cultural difference (crack vs. cocaine), and then add wildly different sentencing laws, and the outcome is pretty easy to guess.

This is separate from the question of whether the sentencing guidelines should be different (or the same), of course; but given that they are different, incarceration rates follow naturally.

Ross said...

Ron, I would alter the title of this posting (a little). As in '"Proof" that blacks are less intelligent than whites' I knew your position on this issue and I still didn't want to look at this article because the title is so emotionally charged.

Ron said...

An excellent suggestion. Thanks.

Don Geddis said...

Since Ron continues to enjoy this race vs. IQ topic, here's a NYT article today (12/9) which is highly supportive of environmental influences for IQ (which nobody disputes), but also highly skeptical of genetic influences (which I found very interesting).

Ron said...

I should have mentioned this earlier, but better late than never: there is precedent for surprising linkages between mental and physical traits. My favorite example is a Russian experiment that did selective breeding of foxes in order to domesticate them. After nearly 50 years, the foxes were not only more docile towards humans, but they also developed floppy ears and curly tails. This is particularly remarkable because while floppy ears are common among domesticated animals, there is only one mammal that has floppy ears in the wild. I'll leave it as a puzzle to figure out which one. :-)

Ron said...

Oh, here's a reference:

Domesticating foxes

In reading this article again I note that there was a third physical trait change that I forgot to mention: the foxes' coat lost some of its pigmentation!

Dan said...

This article is horrible "proof" of your hypothesis.

Ron said...

Yes, of course it is. That is my whole point. Your irony detector needs repair.