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Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - nadiatims - 2013-04-24
I think it's within a university's rights to apply whatever selection criterion they like, standardized tests, interviews, portfolios etc. Even choosing to deliberately diversifying their campus by enrolling more minorities if that suits their objectives is OK. It's when it's not voluntary (government imposed) that it becomes problematic.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - Animosophy - 2013-04-24
Based on the direction this thread is going, I figured I may as well look into current figures.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-01/americas-schools-graduation-rates-better-than-you-think
Quote:The numbers are striking. During the 2009-10 school year, 78.2 percent of high school students got their diploma on time, up from 73.9 percent in 2002-03. All ethnic groups have shown improvement. The performance of Hispanic students stands out, with a nearly 8 percentage point gain from two years earlier. The estimated graduation rate for black students was up nearly 5 percentage points over the same period. The trend suggests that aggregate efforts such as the school accountability movement, the Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind, the Obama administration’s Race to the Top, and other initiatives are translating into progress.Improvements in environment, and...
Quote:Students (and their parents) have responded to the poor economy and lousy job prospects by staying in school. Business loves to complain about a lack of qualified workers. Guess what: Students are making investments in boosting their human capitalIncentive, albeit negative, for academic success, which =/= intelligence. That much is obvious.
Quote:Diane Ravitch, a research professor at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, points out that U.S. schools with less than 10 percent low-income students outperformed the top-scoring schools of Finland, Japan, and Korea.I think the impact of a poor/disadvantaged/unstimulating background on academic success, and by extension, intelligence/creativity, ought to be acknowledged as significant. There is little practicality in arguing over the relative influence of genes vs. environment when they're one in the same and there's already a clear correlation between living standards and school performance. In other words, we'd better focus on what can be improved, which involves a lot of things.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - Irixmark - 2013-04-24
toshiromiballza Wrote:Nice try. But the blog post confuses "military personnel" and "recruits." It is irrelevant if military personnel is mostly East German. That's not the sample they used. Hence the question becomes one of selection bias because of avoidance of military services. Turns out the the possibility to avoid military service in Germany is correlated with educational achievement: young German men who go to university are 2-3 times more likely to become conscientious objectors. This means the sample would be biased against the conclusion reached by the authors, i.e. on average the better educated Germans with higher IQs would be overrepresented at first in East Germany, but then increasingly less so as they avail themselves of the means to avoid conscription. The blog author doesn't understand basic statistics. That's fine because he has a contract at Laval editing papers rather than doing research, which is probably a blessing.Irixmark Wrote:Yes, except that IQ is not mostly genetic (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intell.2012.07.007).Oh, look what I found: http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2012/09/east-germans-are-getting-lot-smarter.html
toshiromiballza Wrote:I'm quite happy with the fact that Shanxi, Sichuan and Fujian are 95-99% Han Chinese and still have IQs four points lower than Jiangsu, which is impossible if IQ measures are reliable and mostly genetically determined across different populations. In fact Jilin should have a higher average IQ because at least it has 4% Koreans according to Wikipedia who, according to Lynn's data, have an average IQ of 106.Irixmark Wrote:More entertaining, however, is this blog post: http://theslittyeye.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/iq-geography-in-china/From the same article:
Quote:The relatively low IQ level regions in China largely overlap with the geographical region that has high minority populations with harsh geographical and climatic environment. It is unclear, however, about the role of ethnicity profiles in this observation. This study contains no data about the ethnicity of the participants. Hence, it is inconclusive to say that minorities have a lower IQ tendency compared to Han Chinese in this study, though it is probably the case in realityNow cling to the author's claim that it is "inconclusive to say that minorities have a lower IQ tendency" like your life depends on it. Whatever you need to shield yourself from the harsh reality.
Irixmark Wrote:It follows that IQ variability within China is so greatExcept for the regions with high minority populations, which have lower IQs from the average Han Chinese (gee, who would have thought?), the variability between majority Han provinces is not "great" at all, but mere 2-3 points.
Maybe this is all a little difficult to understand. Just take my word for it then. I'm ethnically Polish, Austrian and Ashkenazi Jewish, so assuming I'm average for my ethnic mixture, my IQ according to Lynn's data is probably at least 107-115, higher than that of pureblood Han Chinese. Not to mention that I have a higher alcohol tolerance and can consume dairy products in large amounts without feeling ill, so my offspring will not only be smarter, but also taller than the average Chinese, and as I pointed out earlier, less likely to be shortsighted. In fact my only weakness might be that I can't eat Sichuan spicy food without getting hiccups... oh, I can feel it welling up now, we are the true Herrenrasse...!
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - toshiromiballza - 2013-04-24
@IceCommie (clever, I know!):
Quote:... Heritability ...Please tell me what concept of it I haven't grasped, since I've already read all of that and nothing I've said is in any disagreement with it.
Quote:The American Psychological Association has said that while there are differences in average IQ between racial groups, there is no conclusive evidence for environmental explanations, nor direct empirical support for a genetic interpretation, and that no adequate explanation for differences in group means of IQ scores is currently available.[3][4]I couldn't track the source for reference [3], but what they're saying in [4], in response to The Bell Curve, essentially, is that blacks do indeed have lower IQ, and that the tests are not biased towards whites, however, they simply "cannot" explain why these differences are there. Look no further than Rushton (or even the discoverer of DNA, Watson) to find this "mysterious" answer.
Quote:The position of the American Anthropological Association is that variation in intelligence cannot be meaningfully explained by dividing a species into biologically defined races.[5]Wow, a reference to an unscientific, cultural Marxist, PC inspired message from the AAA.
Quote:According to a 1996 statement from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, although heredity influences behavior in individuals, it does not affect the ability of a population to function in any social setting, all peoples "possess equal biological ability to assimilate any human culture" and "racist political doctrines find no foundation in scientific knowledge concerning modern or past human populations."[6]Wow, another reference to an unscientific, cultural Marxist, PC inspired message, this time from the AAPA.
Quote:The decoding of the human genome has enabled scientists to search for sections of the genome that may contribute to cognitive abilities. However the geneticist, Alan R. Templeton suggests this question is muddled by the general focus on "race" rather than on populations defined by gene frequency or by geographical proximity, and by the general insistence on phrasing the question in terms of heritability.[99] Templeton points out that racial groups neither represent sub-species or distinct evolutionary lineages, and that therefore there is no basis for making claims about the general intelligence of races.[99] He also finds that phrasing the question in terms of heritability not helpful because heritability "by definition is not applicable to between-population phenotypic differences" and is therefore "completely irrelevant to the question of genetic differentiation for any trait, including intelligence, among human populations." Templeton says that the only way to design a study of the genetic contribution to intelligence is to the correlation between degree of geographic ancestry and cognitive abilities. He states that this would require a Mendelian "common garden" design where specimens with different hybrid compositions are subjected to the same environmental influences, and that when this design has been carried out, it has shown no significant correlation between any cognitive and the degree of African or European ancestry.[99]Another politically inspired nonsense from a famous race denier. This is like taking an evolution denier serious. Lewontin, Gould, Kamin, Rose, Templeton, etc. are as credible as Fred Flinstone and their only contribution to the scientific field is their politically inspired corruption of data.
Irixmark Wrote:This means the sample would be biased against the conclusion reached by the authors, i.e. on average the better educated Germans with higher IQs would be overrepresented at first in East Germany, but then increasingly less so as they avail themselves of the means to avoid conscription.In the original 1999 study, all the narrowing between East and West happened between 1992 and 1995. Such an increase within just 3 years is due to a change of the pool of candidates, as the author of the blog claimed.
I like however, how the 2012 study affirms that immigrants score less and that this causes a stagnant or shrinking IQ, ultimately nationwide. Of course, this has nothing to do with the fact that most of the immigrants come from a different genetic background, right? Keep telling yourselves that.
Study Wrote:Fortunately for German youth, but unfortunately for intelligence researchers, conscription became more selective toward the end of the 1990s, and each year, a smaller share of young men served. Therefore, the IQ data obtained after 1998 are unreliable.
[...]
The West German city states Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen pose a problem with high GDP, high educational expenditure and stagnant or shrinking IQ.
[...]
This has been explained by the high share of students from immigrant families (Prenzel et al., 2008).
[...]
Children from immigrant families had much lower mean scores in PISA 2006 than children with German parents (Prenzel et al., 2008). Ebenrett and Puzicha (1999) do not report the share of conscripts from immigrant families, but census data indicates that it was probably higher in 1998 than in 1992 and this may have affected the stagnant IQ scores in West German cities.
Irixmark Wrote:I'm quite happy with the fact that Shanxi, Sichuan and Fujian are 95-99% Han Chinese and still have IQs four points lower than Jiangsu, which is impossible if IQ measures are reliable and mostly genetically determined across different populations. In fact Jilin should have a higher average IQ because at least it has 4% Koreans according to Wikipedia who, according to Lynn's data, have an average IQ of 106.As you yourself said, "the data is not that great" considering it comes from "netizens." And even if it is accurate, a difference of 4 IQ points is not "great" as you seem to believe, it is quite small, and could be completely environmental. This does not disprove the fact that IQ is mostly genetic.
Ashkenazi Jews have the highest IQ of all people, which is due to centuries of selective breeding. This selection process eventually led to high intelligence, but unfortunately to some genetic diseases as well, some of which are even related to high intelligence. So yes, on intelligence alone, one could consider Ashkenazi Jews as the "Herrenrasse" (many Jews do, in fact, especially Israelis and Zionists), but not without some issues that come with it.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - IceCream - 2013-04-24
toshiromiballza Wrote:@IceCommie (clever, I know!):is that supposed to be an insult? Cute.
toshiromiballza Wrote:um, yeah, this is why you need to worry about your IQ. Everything you've said is in disagreement with it.Quote:... Heritability ...Please tell me what concept of it I haven't grasped, since I've already read all of that and nothing I've said is in any disagreement with it.
e.g.
toshiromiballza Wrote:The vast majority of AA recipients in America are not "less intelligent" simply because they come from a poor background, THEY JUST ARE! The environment as a factor of intelligence for 18-year-olds and adults is only about 20 percent, the rest is completely geneticNo, that's exactly what the heritability page states repeatedly that it doesn't mean. What it says is that 20-30% of the varience within a population can be accounted for by the environment.
e.g.
toshiromiballza Wrote:As I said, the vast majority of AA recipients are less skilled because they were born like that. Why were they born like that? Because their parents are not as skilled/intelligent. Is that a disadvantage? Yes it is. Can you do anything about that? No, you can'tAgain, this directly contradicts what the page says, not only the first part, but also the idea that you cannot do anything about it. Firstly, you have the wrong concept of what heritability means. Secondly, the heritability figure has nothing to do with whether actual intelligence levels can change; intelligence levels can go up while the heritability figure remains the same, and vice versa. Thirdly, the heritability figure itself can change.
e.g.
toshiromiballza Wrote:Does the environment matter? Sure it does, especially in children, where the environment sets in motion the child's genetic side of intelligence which then unfolds and increases over time accordingly.Again, this is a complete misunderstanding of what heritability is, and how genes work. Animosophy has also pointed this out. It's nowhere near as simple as there being a "genetic side" to intelligence, which is fixed. If you cannot understand the basic concepts, you have no right to be arguing about it.
toshiromiballza Wrote:Another politically inspired nonsense from a famous race denier. This is like taking an evolution denier serious. Lewontin, Gould, Kamin, Rose, Templeton, etc. are as credible as Fred Flinstone and their only contribution to the scientific field is their politically inspired corruption of data.Which part of "phrasing the question in terms of heritability [is] not helpful because heritability "by definition is not applicable to between-population phenotypic differences" and is therefore "completely irrelevant to the question of genetic differentiation for any trait, including intelligence, among human populations." do you not understand?? This is basic logic, not politics.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - nemuro - 2013-04-24
I come from a poor and disadvantaged background. I could not read until I was 9 but finally got help. Did very well academically from that moment on and subsequently in business. I am academically minded in that I love study but the last person I would listen to for advice or guidance is an academic.
I would have found positive discrimination patronizing. Rather, I would prefer to increase the teacher pupil ratio to 1:15. I agree with most cuts at the moment but would raise tax for this. It would also solve many social problems. There are just too many feckless parents now. We have to use schools.
I would ban private schools tomorrow. However, to IceCream and others, don't fool yourselves into thinking they are not that bright and only do well because of privileged position. Most I have met and employed are very bright but more, are ambitious and competitive. Competitive not against state schools but themselves. Believe me they earn their A Stars. The chinless wonders are really a thing of the past.
This is a huge subject and I am not sure of all the answers but now I am getting on a bit, sadly, I have come to the conclusion I was wrong in my youth. Left wing liberalism which was so attractive to me is actually the cause of many of our problems not least in education. It is harder to climb the ladder now than it ever was. Those that did 30- 50 years ago have raised the drawbridge behind them. I don't see their kids around my old schools. So much for equality and positive blah blah.
I have, in fact, used positive discrimination but it has rarely been successful. Though I did read once that state school A-level students do not do as well a private school students, but if they do get to Oxford or Cambridge et al they do better in their degrees than the private school counterpart. I also have sympathy for the kid as I was once but life is not fair.
I was a good footballer on the wing but too skinny to go Pro. Life is not fair; you have to deal with it. How silly would it have been if I said to the right back "please don't tackle me too hard, I am bit skinny and you need to give me a chance in the spirit of positive discrimination. It only fair".
Also, the other thing that disturbs me about this subject is the Chinese Indian, Nigerian etc immigrants come with nothing (I mean here in Britain). They live in poor areas, at least to start, with and just go for it. Look how well they do at school with the same disadvantage. It really down to attitude and whether you value education or not. Maybe your generation will miss out but the next one will make it. They have.
Anyway.
I hope this is not too out of turn. IceCream. I fancy the pants off you!
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - Irixmark - 2013-04-24
toshiromiballza Wrote:In the original 1999 study, all the narrowing between East and West happened between 1992 and 1995. Such an increase within just 3 years is due to a change of the pool of candidates, as the author of the blog claimed.Factually wrong. There's zero evidence that the pool of candidates changed in that way.
toshiromiballza Wrote:OK, you just don't get it. This is all irrelevant because the selection effects would lead to the opposite. In fact even the population movement of educated people from East to West Germany would bias the result against an increase of East German IQ. The percentage of immigrants in East Germany is less than 1%, of which the majority are not citizens, so they won't be drafted and weren't in the sample.Study Wrote:Fortunately for German youth, but unfortunately for intelligence researchers, conscription became more selective toward the end of the 1990s, and each year, a smaller share of young men served. Therefore, the IQ data obtained after 1998 are unreliable.
[...]
The West German city states Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen pose a problem with high GDP, high educational expenditure and stagnant or shrinking IQ.
[...]
This has been explained by the high share of students from immigrant families (Prenzel et al., 2008).
[...]
Children from immigrant families had much lower mean scores in PISA 2006 than children with German parents (Prenzel et al., 2008). Ebenrett and Puzicha (1999) do not report the share of conscripts from immigrant families, but census data indicates that it was probably higher in 1998 than in 1992 and this may have affected the stagnant IQ scores in West German cities.
Do you understand the idea of statistical bias? Or how sampling works?
toshiromiballza Wrote:4 IQ points from 100 to 104 is approximately from 50th to 62nd percentile in the Chinese population.Irixmark Wrote:I'm quite happy with the fact that Shanxi, Sichuan and Fujian are 95-99% Han Chinese and still have IQs four points lower than Jiangsu, which is impossible if IQ measures are reliable and mostly genetically determined across different populations. In fact Jilin should have a higher average IQ because at least it has 4% Koreans according to Wikipedia who, according to Lynn's data, have an average IQ of 106.As you yourself said, "the data is not that great" considering it comes from "netizens." And even if it is accurate, a difference of 4 IQ points is not "great" as you seem to believe, it is quite small, and could be completely environmental. This does not disprove the fact that IQ is mostly genetic.
Do you understand the concept of a normal distribution, and a statistically significant difference in the means of a measure in two populations?
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - nadiatims - 2013-04-24
nemuro Wrote:I would ban private schools tomorrow.I would go the opposite direction, and slowly dismantle public education which is basically a monopoly. The private sector would find practical solutions to educating the the poor at substantially lower cost. We need greater choice in education to reflect that every child is unique and has unique circumstances, rather than the one size fits all factory model.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - Irixmark - 2013-04-24
nadiatims Wrote:That would be nice, but you need to give every child a voucher for a free school education, and let only students choose schools, not schools choose students.nemuro Wrote:I would ban private schools tomorrow.I would go the opposite direction, and slowly dismantle public education which is basically a monopoly. The private sector would find practical solutions to educating the the poor at substantially lower cost. We need greater choice in education to reflect that every child is unique and has unique circumstances, rather than the one size fits all factory model.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - HonyakuJoshua - 2013-04-24
Irixmark Wrote:HonyakuJoshua, the fact that you're studying Japanese and got to where you are now is admirable. All the more so since you sometimes come across as slightly derangedI must say you typing "admirable" and "where you are now" comes across as naive to me. I got paid to go to Japan. the pictures are on my facebook, on the link next to my name on here. I have passed translation agency tests and this means a lot to me. I have been offered jobs in London etc
However I have a very low standard of living, no friends who haven't been to prison, ocd that wrecks my life anti sociable and self-destructive habits etc. I wrecked my relationship of 4 years with a girl who wanted to marry me and to be honest I probably destroyed her life.
I think your thinking that education is the "solution" to people with not good enough childhoods is wrong. I have no life now and it is the same for many people like me. I dont think the fact that I educated myself can be admirable
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - dizmox - 2013-04-24
yudantaiteki Wrote:Sorry, I read "succeed" as "succeed in school", where "success" is getting respectable grades.dizmox Wrote:It depends somewhat on your definition of "succeed", but absolutely not. It's the great American conservative/Republican fantasy, and the rich like to parrot it to avoid accepting the truth of their own massive advantages..yudantaiteki Wrote:There is a definite problem with people from disadvantaged backgrounds when they enter school, and we need to get away from the stigma associated with that and stop pretending that if everyone just works hard they can succeed.Well, isn't that true, unless they have a learning disability?
You can retake exams an infinite amount of times and go to university in the UK for free (at the cost of a temporary graduate tax later on) at any age, so I don't think there's a bar to entry, just a bit of extra work. If you do the most "fair" thing and adjust all exam results to reflect everyone's circumstances (including natural intelligence, whether they were brought up to be a hard worker, etc.) then everyone will be getting more or less the same grades and entry into higher education (and to some extent jobs) just becomes a lottery... plus you run the risk of lowering standards further for certain groups, leading them to endeavor less. It's not like the majority of deprived, ethnically British school kids who are lagging are studying 12 hours a day. I think this cultural factor contributes to the seeming lack of social mobility in Britain, rather than systematic issues.
Essentially, I believe the issue is cultural disparity within the population with respect to attitudes towards education. If you took the same education system with an Asian culture, most people regardless of background would be studying about the same (ie. lots) and social mobility (as a measure of people going from poverty to riches and vice versa), while not perfect would be increased. Similarly, if you take an easy going culture where everyone just studies a little, the playing field is level and the statistics would suggest greater social mobility, even if the underlying system is exactly the same. I think the best thing that can be done is encourage everyone to have the same attitudes towards education from an early age. I guess this expands on what nemuro was saying.
nadiatims Wrote:So, the poor get a low cost solution while everyone else gets what their money can get them? That's sure to work out.nemuro Wrote:I would ban private schools tomorrow.I would go the opposite direction, and slowly dismantle public education which is basically a monopoly. The private sector would find practical solutions to educating the the poor at substantially lower cost. We need greater choice in education to reflect that every child is unique and has unique circumstances, rather than the one size fits all factory model.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - nadiatims - 2013-04-24
dizmox Wrote:So, the poor get a low cost solution while everyone else gets what their money can get them? That's sure to work out.It's like that anyway. Rich people can afford better everything. But in places like India and Kenya, slum dwellers increasingly send their kids to private schools because the quality is better than free public schools. Likewise, Hyundai produce better affordable cars than anything the soviet union ever could. What's better, higher quality at affordable prices or terrible quality for free?
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - dizmox - 2013-04-25
I can't think of where to start to respond, but I think you're suggesting something that would reduce social mobility, overly maligning the quality of teaching in UK comprehensives and confusing the main problem at hand.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - nadiatims - 2013-04-25
What I'm envisioning is a situation where low-cost education needs would be served by the market place. In each city you might have 3 or 4 big chains in direct competition with each other as well as countless smaller schools serving all sorts of niche markets (vocational schools, elite schools, creative arts schools etc). The state would give parents a voucher of say $3000-$5000 (which is probably about on par with a low end private school in Australia) per kid to use on education although it may well be possible to go much lower than that as privatization and scale of business brings the cost way down. The schools would also have incentive to get smart kids so they'd probably offer scholarships and so on. And remember, everyone would be paying less taxes so private schooling would be a lot more affordable than you might think.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - toshiromiballza - 2013-04-25
IceCream Wrote:is that supposed to be an insult?You must be living in some weird part of the world where being called a communist is not an insult.
IceCream Wrote:No, that's exactly what the heritability page states repeatedly that it doesn't mean. What it says is that 20-30% of the varience within a population can be accounted for by the environment.You (and these fraudulent "scientists") are ignoring the fact that they are born less intelligent AS A RACE (or if you want to sound PC, "population") to begin with. A spaniel is born dumber than a border collie and there's not much proper training (environment) can compensate for that. Denying the same for the human "populations" is sheer ignorance out of not trying to offend anyone. Cute, but unscientific.
This idea of thinking comes from cultural Marxism, where we are all "equal" and is entirely political and zero scientific. I could copy-paste this comment to the rest of your post.
Irixmark Wrote:Factually wrong. There's zero evidence that the pool of candidates changed in that way.There is no "evidence" that the IQ increased that much either, these are speculations, except that such an increase in three years makes more sense if the pool of candidates changed instead of everyone getting "smarter" one of a sudden.
Irixmark Wrote:This is all irrelevant because the selection effects would lead to the opposite. In fact even the population movement of educated people from East to West Germany would bias the result against an increase of East German IQ. The percentage of immigrants in East Germany is less than 1%, of which the majority are not citizens, so they won't be drafted and weren't in the sample.The pool in East Germany changed, IQ "increased," by 1995 East and West were on the same level, due to new laws, less intelligent delinquents who before the country was unified usually chose military service as a profession in East Germany were no longer drafted, the "East German military IQ" therefore remained higher than before the unification. The IQ tests from 2000 and above are from 15-year-olds, immigrant children (Turks, Kurds, Arabs, ...) lowered the IQ in West Germany, since immigration was not huge into East Germany, this did not happen there. Quite simple.
In reality, the 1990/1991 IQ difference between East and West was not that different, it was pretty equal: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/96258-2.pdf. There probably was a minor difference due to the communist regime and the lack of funding in the educational sector, etc., yes, but not 8%. That's the author's misinterpretation of the military IQ figures of pre and post unification East Germany and concluding it applies to the population as a whole.
Irixmark Wrote:4 IQ points from 100 to 104 is approximately from 50th to 62nd percentile in the Chinese population.Which is still not "great." Such differences can be found in white European populations, say, of Germanic stock, too. Swedes, Dutch, Icelanders, Germans, English, etc. Likewise, Han Chinese are not all the same, there is genetic variation between them just like there is between a German and an Icelander. And regardless of the IQ variation between Han Chinese, the non-Han minorities score the lowest for a reason. A genetic one.
However, this is what race-and-IQ-correlation deniers ignore due to silly political agendas, with no basis in science. Namely that certain populations/races have naturally evolved with a lesser intelligence because either high intelligence was not a reproductive advantage for them or due to environmental reasons. Yes, blame old "racist" nature for that one, not oppression, colonialism, socio-economics, etc. That's why some populations have never "invented" farming. They didn't need to, because food was everywhere, or they couldn't, because nothing would grow, and by never doing so, their IQ did not increase over the millennia as it did with some other races/populations, and thus remains lower to this very day. You could spend billions of dollars for the best imaginable education system in the world, hire the best teachers in the world, the best teaching material, but it will take you hundreds, if not thousands of years to get the average Australian Aboriginal IQ to at least 100. They simply EVOLVED with having a lesser intelligence compared to other races/populations, with their IQ ceiling being around 60, sub-Saharan African 85, white European 100, Asian 105, etc. It would require a lot of selective breeding to increase their average IQ, as it happened with Ashkenazi Jews. Simply putting them in a better environment and providing them with a superb education will probably make them a bit "smarter" than average, but it will take generations upon generations of selective breeding and/or race-mixing to get them (as a race/population, as opposed to individuals/exceptions) to the same level of whites or Asians.
Do you ignoramuses not understand that, or do you simply refuse to believe that due to your cultural Marxist PC hazmat suits? Either way, it makes you evolution deniers, not much better than creationists. So I'm done with this thread. If I wanted to discuss with ignorant and unscientific evolution deniers I'd go to a Christian creationist forum.
yudantaiteki Wrote:If a college decides they want a certain amount of racial diversity, or foreign students, or women, that doesn't mean they're turning away white men who should be getting in instead.If those white men had better scores, yes it does.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - yudantaiteki - 2013-04-25
Quote:So I'm done with this thread.I'll highlight the only part of your post worth reading.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - AlgoRhythmic - 2013-04-25
yudantaiteki Wrote:If a college decides they want a certain amount of racial diversity, or foreign students, or women, that doesn't mean they're turning away white men who should be getting in instead.Well, sure you could put it like that since it depends on what the university wants. Personally I would have a hard time taking a university seriously though that prioritizes racial diversity over people with the best results.
I like the system we have here in Sweden, where you simply apply with your grades and the people with the highest grades get in, and that's all.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - yudantaiteki - 2013-04-25
AlgoRhythmic Wrote:But what does "the best results" mean? Why must all universities want only "the best results" as defined by grades and test scores? My high school GPA was 3.18, not exceptional, but not bad either. Are you suggesting that any university that took me over someone with a 3.25 GPA was wrong? That every single one of the 2500+ colleges in the US should have rejected me when faced with anyone with a higher GPA (or higher SAT scores)?yudantaiteki Wrote:If a college decides they want a certain amount of racial diversity, or foreign students, or women, that doesn't mean they're turning away white men who should be getting in instead.Well, sure you could put it like that since it depends on what the university wants. Personally I would have a hard time taking a university seriously though that prioritizes racial diversity over people with the best results.
I can't say for certain why I was accepted to the college I eventually went to, but I am virtually certain it's not because I had a higher GPA and SAT scores than other applicants. Maybe they liked my application essay, or the fact that I had done a lot with the high school paper. Maybe my recommendation letters were good.
Quote:I like the system we have here in Sweden, where you simply apply with your grades and the people with the highest grades get in, and that's all.Since entrance exams exist I can't consider that the worst method of choosing university applicants, but I definitely prefer the US method.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - AlgoRhythmic - 2013-04-25
yudantaiteki Wrote:But what does "the best results" mean?It means what it sounds like, either higher grades or a higher result on some kind of test, something that tests your actual knowledge.
yudantaiteki Wrote:Why must all universities want only "the best results"?Must and must, I'm just stating which method I prefer. But I never said that they must only pick people with the "best results", I do believe interviews and stuff like that (or whatever other means that are used) can be useful to find people that for example are interested in the program and thus less likely to drop out. In this case I was talking about your specific example of aiming for racial diversity though, which in my opinion is not a goal that in itself carry any real value. In that case I do believe it's unfair to select someone based on race over someone with better results yes. But I'm not saying it always has to be bad to take someone with lower results.
yudantaiteki Wrote:My high school GPA was 3.18, not exceptional, but not bad either. Are you suggesting that any university that took me over someone with a 3.25 GPA was wrong? That every single one of the 2500+ colleges in the US should have rejected me when faced with anyone with a higher GPA (or higher SAT scores)?I don't know anything about you or your specific case, so of course I'm not going to say that.
yudantaiteki Wrote:Since entrance exams exist I can't consider that the worst method of choosing university applicants, but I definitely prefer the US method.Well, I would say there are pros and cons with both. In the end though I prefer the method used here since it's more objective. You can't for example turn someone down because they have the "wrong" values or something like that, there's no room for those kinds of personal opinions. But yes there are also advantages with your system, I do admit that.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - Irixmark - 2013-04-25
HonyakuJoshua Wrote:I think your thinking that education is the "solution" to people with not good enough childhoods is wrong. I have no life now and it is the same for many people like me. I dont think the fact that I educated myself can be admirableThat's not what I meant...what I meant was that you've already shown the determination to succeed in endeavours that take a lot of hard, persistent work. Take pride in that and use it to motivate yourself to get help for your other problems. Just don't expect that an internet forum frequented by a mixture of nice and smart people, smartasses, and the occasional racist c**t is the right place for that...
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - yudantaiteki - 2013-04-25
AlgoRhythmic Wrote:The way you phrased it made it seem quite extreme -- if you literally mean that colleges are just presented with a list of names and grades and every college takes only the highest grades with no other considerations, that sounds like a bad system. (Even if one college chose to do that I would consider that a bad method of choosing your students.)yudantaiteki Wrote:Since entrance exams exist I can't consider that the worst method of choosing university applicants, but I definitely prefer the US method.Well, I would say there are pros and cons with both. In the end though I prefer the method used here since it's more objective. You can't for example turn someone down because they have the "wrong" values or something like that, there's no room for those kinds of personal opinions. But yes there are also advantages with your system, I do admit that.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - AlgoRhythmic - 2013-04-25
yudantaiteki Wrote:The way you phrased it made it seem quite extreme -- if you literally mean that colleges are just presented with a list of names and grades and every college takes only the highest grades with no other considerations, that sounds like a bad system. (Even if one college chose to do that I would consider that a bad method of choosing your students.)The colleges here are most of them not private for starters, so that's why they all use a universal system. And yes, it is pretty much completely decided by grades (there is also a test you can take which has a smaller pool of seats, which is like a second chance if you have bad grades). You don't really write an application, you just make a list of desired colleges and programs/courses, and then your grades are compared to other peoples grades and you get one of your choices (or none). While I do agree that it has some drawbacks, I like the objectivity of it as I mentioned before. But to each his own I guess.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - Stansfield123 - 2013-04-25
HonyakuJoshua Wrote:I was tidying my house today and found some awards I had from college for "achieving from a disadvantaged background" and "overcoming adversity in education" and such the like amongst cat litter, torn up newspapers and other junk.What makes you underprivileged? Not being given things for free, the way some rich kid living in Oxford gets them?
I remember feeling quite patronized at the time, but this ties in with my thinking the entire education system was flawed.
My personal opinion is that society nowhere near respects how hard some have had to work to get any qualifications and that said people should be respected. I would even go as far to say that children of alcoholics and children with family in jail should be given more marks in exams. I live in one of the most disadvantaged cities in Europe and think it is ludicrous to suggest that a kid growing up here has the same opportunity as one growing up in Oxford etc.
I think he's over-privileged. I don't think you're underprivileged. In fact, from the sound of it, you're over-privileged too. The fact that you "feel patronized" about receiving things others didn't, is a pretty compelling sign of it.
You should check out what someone growing up in Africa or rural China has to do to get ahead in life, instead of worrying that a few people here and there are even better off than you.
HonyakuJoshua Wrote:What is everyone else's opinion of encouraging people from bad backgrounds and positive discrimination slash affirmative action?I think we should help educate children who's parents can't or refuse to. I don't think we should steal to do it, though. I think that whenever we are feeling charitable, we should each use our own money to help others.
Stealing from others to help the under-privileged is not really an act of good will, it's just lust for power.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - HonyakuJoshua - 2013-04-25
i was homeless as a child, never went on holidays, have lost friend to drugs, suicide, murder, one woman who i knew when i was 18 was killed by her boyfriend, lived on £40 a week at college, was close to being sectioned several times, am registered physically disabled, got hit by cars several times as a child and other stuff.
Your argument about people in the third world is nonsense - even on that scale the advantages of an upper middle class child to a child from where I live is obscene.
Encouraging People from Bad Backgrounds, Positive Discrimination - nadiatims - 2013-04-25
Honyaku, I can understand that you have had a rough situation growing up, but what exactly do you want? Do you think you're entitled to a better job/life/status or something because of your inherent qualities? if only you'd had your chance to shine. Employers employ people who have the skills or the potential required for the job, they don't care about social justice or who "deserves" it. Likewise university ought to be about educating people who desire to be educated not about equalizing social status. I don't get it...Do you feel like people don't respect you enough?
I've said it before and I'll say it again, but qualifications (degrees and certificates) ought to decoupled from educational institutions (universities and schools). Qualifications should be granted by private certifying bodies. So say you want to get an industry respected certification as an engineer/hairstylist/cg artist/whatever you'd go to some certification center and whether you studied at Harvard, some community college or at home, you'd be able to go through the same certification process. It would be up to each company to decide the value they place on different certifications. Meritocracy seems like the fairest system and is the one that leads to people being in the jobs they are most suited to.
I believe Salman Khan has said much the same thing so it's not just me.