Interesting rhetorical sparring point taking place in the U.S. election that relates to rationality here at LW.
In the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton referenced bias when discussing the recent spate of police shootings of African Americans. Clinton said “implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police,” and went on to say “I think, unfortunately, too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other,” and “I think we need all of us to be asking hard questions about, ‘why am I feeling this way?’”
In the VP debate last night, again in the context of recent police shootings, Dem candidate Tim Kaine said, “People shouldn’t be afraid to bring up issues of bias in law enforcement. And if you’re afraid to have the discussion, you’ll never solve it.”
Clinton/Kaine have predictably drawn criticism from the Red Team for the comments (who try to paint the Blue Team as anti-police), but it seems to me the Dems have been more defensive than they need to be, given it seems obvious to me (from my time at LW) that humans are biased, and this bias would obviously be likely to play a role in high stress situations (like when guns are involved).
It will be interesting to me to see how this is adjudicated according to public opinion. Do people generally accept everyone has biases and of course this would affect police officers in high stress situations? Or do they view bias as a rare condition that only affects people without the proper virtue? Is this argument actually over different definitions of the word “bias”? Is it just a Red v. Blue argument that has little to do with facts?
I, for one, think Kaine and Clinton’s comments were correct and made a very salient point. (But I’m biased against Trump.)
The problem is that the statistics don’t show the claimed bias. Normalized on a per-police-encounter basis, white cops (or cops-in-general) don’t appear to shoot black suspects more often than they shoot white suspects. However, police interact with black people more frequently, so the absolute proportion of black shooting victims is elevated.
The fact that the incidence of police encounters with blacks is elevated would be the actual social problem worth addressing, but the reasons for the elevated incidence of police-black encounters do not make a nice soundbite.
None of this is important of course because, as is usual for politics, the whole mess degenerates into cheerleading for your team and condemning the other team, and sensitive analysis of the actual evidence would be giving aid and comfort to the hated enemy.
The problem is that the statistics don’t show the claimed bias. Normalized on a per-police-encounter basis, white cops (or cops-in-general) don’t appear to shoot black suspects more often than they shoot white suspects. However, police interact with black people more frequently, so the absolute proportion of black shooting victims is elevated.
Can you provide any sources for this?
The fact that the incidence of police encounters with blacks is elevated would be the actual social problem worth addressing, but the reasons for the elevated incidence of police-black encounters do not make a nice soundbite.
Is the incidence of police encounters with blacks elevated?
For example, there were 4,636 murders committed by white people and 5,620 murders committed by black people in 2015 (source). On the per-capita basis this makes the by-white murder rate to be about 2.2 per 100,000 and the by-black murder rate to be about 16.2 per 100,000.
As with any complex phenomenon in a complex system, there is going to be a laundry list of contributing factors, none of which is the cause (in the sense that fixing just that cause will fix the entire problem). We can start with
Genetic factors (such as lower IQ)
Historical factors, which in turn flow into
Cultural factors (such as distrust of the government / law enforcement) and
Economic factors (from being poor to having a major presence in the drug trade)
The opinions about the relative weights of these factors are going to differ and in the current political climate I don’t think a reasonable open discussion is possible.
Historical factors, Cultural factors, Economic factors
Is it your view that past slavery in America still has a large impact on African Americans in the present day U.S.?
It seems obvious to me that it does, and that the effects are wide and deep, as slavery (and Jim Crow) is relatively recent history—We’re only a handful of generations from a time where a race of people was enslaved and systemically kept from accumulating wealth and education.
...I don’t think a reasonable open discussion is possible.
Meh. Maybe. I’d like to believe I’m a reasonable guy. My views on these issues are largely ignorant and I’m open to learning.
The raw data is plentiful—look at any standardized test scores (e.g. SAT) by race. For a full-blown argument in favor see e.g. this (I can’t check the link at the moment, it might be that you need to go to the Wayback Machine to access it). For a more, um, mainstream discussion see Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve. Wikipedia has more links you could pursue.
Is it your view that past slavery in America still has a large impact on African Americans in the present day U.S.?
My view is that history is important and that outcomes are path-dependent. Slavery and segregation are crucial parts of the history of American blacks.
open to learning
Your social circles might have a strong reaction to you coming to anything other than the approved conclusions...
Is it your view that past slavery in America still has a large impact on African Americans in the present day U.S.?
What do you mean with that question? How do you compare the present state of the US with a counterfactual US where African Americans weren’t in slavery?
I think it’s pretty easy to hypothesize about the possible effects of slavery vs. no slavery.
In the context of this thread, it was mentioned that the murder rate was much higher for blacks versus whites. If there are socioeconomic reasons for this, then I’m curious about slavery’s contribution to those factors.
Politically, I’m generally empathetic toward ideas like affirmative action in the U.S. on the basis of race because there has been serious discrimination in the U.S. on the basis of race in the past. It makes practical sense to posit it created a “headstart” for races who were not… enslaved… and otherwise discriminated against and it makes ethical sense to employ measures to even the score.
I’m open to the idea ideas like AA may not actually practically work and could be persuaded as such by the evidence.
I’m open to the idea ideas like AA may not actually practically work
While we are at the topic of cognitive biases, how do you know that’s the case? Quite many people believe that they are much more open than they are.
The fact that you for example didn’t follow up with the request to explain your own view in this thread is a sign that you don’t put effort into engaging in the kind of actions that require you to actually express your ideas explicitly enough to find flaws.
While we are at the topic of cognitive biases, how do you know that’s the case? Quite many people believe that they are much more open than they are.
I don’t know. I’m probably biased. But I feel pretty strongly that I’d like to know the truth. I’m sure I’m subject to the same deep, irrational Red v. Blue tribalism as most other humans, but I try to be as rational as I can.
The fact that you for example didn’t follow up with the request to explain your own view in this thread is a sign that you don’t put effort into engaging in the kind of actions that require you to actually express your ideas explicitly enough to find flaws.
Ah. I assumed your earlier comment in this thread was misplaced and you intended, “Lumifer: I, like Brillyant, am also interested in hearing your view.” I am flattered you care about my view.
As I mentioned, I consider myself ignorant on the issue. That is, quite literally, I admit I don’t know and have low confidence in my views..
I think I’ve eluded to those views in this thread...
Politically, I’m generally empathetic toward ideas like affirmative action in the U.S. on the basis of race because there has been serious discrimination in the U.S. on the basis of race in the past. It makes practical sense to posit it created a “headstart” for races who were not… enslaved… and otherwise discriminated against and it makes ethical sense to employ measures to even the score.
and
It seems obvious to me that [past slavery in America] does [have a large impact on African Americans in the present day U.S.], and that the effects are wide and deep, as slavery (and Jim Crow) is relatively recent history—We’re only a handful of generations from a time where a race of people was enslaved and systemically kept from accumulating wealth and education.
One premise is that if a significant deficit in, say, wealth or education is created for a group of people, then it will be a persistent disadvantage that causes that group of people to lag behind.
Another premise is that slavery wasn’t that long ago, relatively.
If, 150 years ago, we had person A start with $100,000 in inherited wealth, a solid education, a well-developed relevant skill in the marketplace, a well-established social and professional network, and a family with a good reputation. And then we had person B start with no money, no education, no marketable skills, no network, no family, no reputation...
If person A and B set out and lived their lives and had offspring, person A with the mentioned significant advantage over person B, I would imagine their offspring would be born into similar circumstances, with the offspring of person A maintaining an advantage over the offspring of person B because of all the obvious reasons people with advantages in wealth, education, etc. tend to maintain an advantage. The advantage may have narrowed (or maybe widened), but the advantage would be carried into the next generation.
Continue this forward 5-7 generations. What would we expect to see? I think we’d see line A maintain an advantage. The advantage may have narrowed (or maybe widened), but the advantage would be carried through generations.
Of course line B could “catch” and surpass line A. It’s easy to imagine exceptional scenarios. But it seems probable that line A would enjoy an ongoing advantage.
And this scenario assumes a level playing field for descendants of line A and line B. I don’t believe that’s been the case in America for blacks and whites. Since the end of slavery, there has been significant discrimination against blacks, much of which continues to the current day.
One premise is that if a significant deficit in, say, wealth or education is created for a group of people, then it will be a persistent disadvantage that causes that group of people to lag behind.
Sorry, doesn’t hold. Some more convincing studies examined the outcomes of Georgia land lotteries which were effectively a randomized controlled trial where the “intervention arm” got a valuable piece of land (by winning the lottery) and the “control arm” didn’t get anything. See e.g. this and other studies.
Now, if you have a continuing advantage (IQ) that continues to hold while your group mostly intermarries, things are different.
Culture, on the other hand, persists across generations relatively well.
By the way, while slavery was ended 150 year ago, segregation remained in force until after the WW2 and so is a much more recent phenomenon, within living memory.
Sorry, doesn’t hold. Some more convincing studies examined the outcomes of Georgia land lotteries which were effectively a randomized controlled trial where the “intervention arm” got a valuable piece of land (by winning the lottery) and the “control arm” didn’t get anything. See e.g. this and other studies.
Interesting.
In regard to the scenario (person A and person B) I gave above, I’m not sure your study refutes what I’m saying. Wealth can be squandered, sure. But wealth, along with a solid education, a well-developed relevant skill in the marketplace, a well-established social and professional network, and a family with a good reputation can be much more persistent.
The opportunity to have enough money to live and have free time plus a good basis for how to live and use that wealth can be sustained over generations.
I am who I am, in part, because of who my parents are. They taught me, for better or for worse, how to handle money; how to relate to people; how to study, work, play, etc. And my parents are who they are, in part, because of their parents. And so on. Generations of my family incubated the new generation’s growth into their own efforts to create sustainable wealth. Perhaps this is some of what you mean when you say...
Culture, on the other hand, persists across generations relatively well.
Can you give me some examples of what you mean by “culture persists across generations”?
By the way, while slavery was ended 150 year ago, segregation remained in force until after the WW2 and so is a much more recent phenomenon, within living memory.
Absolutely. And racism still persists and has an effect even today.
But wealth, along with a solid education, a well-developed relevant skill in the marketplace, a well-established social and professional network, and a family with a good reputation can be much more persistent.
The claim is that most of that is biology and heritable. Your ancestors had good genes (again, IQ but not only) which allowed them to gain a skill in the marketplace, construct a social network, create a family with good reputation, and acquire wealth. You have skills in the marketplace, able to adroitly navigate society, etc. primarily because you share genes with your ancestors, not because you inherited some money.
my parents … taught me
This is the nature vs nurture debate and lately the nature side has been winning. Who and what you are is considerably more determined by your genes rather than by your upbringing. Gwern posted about this here, on LW, or you can google up twin studies (studies of (genetically) identical twins who were separated at birth and brought up by different people in different circumstances).
Can you give me some examples of how “culture persists across generations”?
I’m not sure I believe genetics are more important than other factors. And this is not necessarily a simple nature vs. nurture issue. In the case of African Americans’ treatment in U.S. history, it’s an extreme set of “nurture” circumstances that robbed a group of people of all opportunity for many generations, based on race. I’m not sure “good genes” simply overcomes extremely lopsided (often systemically unfair) circumstances.
Anyway, it won’t be resolved here. Thanks for your thoughts.
I should clarify. I accept genes are a big part of the picture. I’m more of a nature guy in the debate between nature and nurture.
In the specific case of African Americans’ treatment in U.S. history and their current status, I’m not convinced genetics are more important than other factors. Because this specific case is more than just a simple nature vs. nurture issue—it is a very special case where an extreme deficit was created using slavery. And then segregation. And racism and discrimination all throughout up to the present day.
What evidence you cite above is compelling to you? What do you believed based on this evidence?
I’m not sure I believe genetics are more important than other factors.
You’ll have to be a bit more specific. “More important” for what and “other factors” from which set?
it’s an extreme set of “nurture” circumstances that robbed a group of people of all opportunity for many generations, based on race.
What do you think are transmission mechanisms which would show how having, say, great-great-grandparents who were slaves affects you now?
You might find it interesting to compare them to East European Jews who 150 years ago certainly weren’t slaves, but they were segregated and discriminated against, they faced limitations on what they could own, where could they live, and what could they do, plus once in a while a mob of angry peasants would come and burn down a village. They weren’t rich either.
Do you think the somewhat worse conditions of the American blacks explain the gap in outcomes looking at the present day?
“More important” for what and “other factors” from which set?
In regard to social issues, such as the murder rate by race you cited earlier, I’m not compelled to believe blacks are genetically wired to behave poorly and kill more often. Rather, as I’ve said, I believe there has been an extreme set of circumstances in the U.S. that have led to lots of problems.
What do you think are transmission mechanisms which would show how having, say, great-great-grandparents who were slaves affects you now?
As I’ve said—and as you’ve said by saying culture can be persistent through generations—I am who I am, in part, because of who my parents and family are. Of course, genetically. But there is more than this. Partly because of material wealth, partly because of availability of education and the opportunity to learn marketable skills, partly because of access to social and professional networks—Simply, there was a deficit created by slavery that takes a while to even out. Slavery wasn’t that long ago.
And again, even apart from slavery, there has been, and continues to be discrimination against African Americans in the U.S. Both legally through segregation and just plain old racism (implicit and explicit).
If we compare it to a 100 meter race, it’s not as if this was just a simple 20 meter head start for whites because of slavery; it’s also that hurdles have been placed every 10 meters in the African American lane through segregation and discrimination.
Do you think the somewhat worse conditions of the American blacks explain the gap in outcomes looking at the present day?
Imagine something like this type of discrimination is happening at all sorts of levels in the U.S.—Blacks are just less likely to be successful in a professional capacity simply because they discriminated against because are black, and apart from any consideration of actual merit.
So, it takes 15 resumes (instead of 10) to get a callback. Then the black candidate is 33% less likely to score an actual interview from that callback. Then 33% less likely to get to the second interview; 33% less likely to get to the 3rd and final interview.
Then they’re employed… How much less likely is it a black person receives a promotion? How much less do they make on average?
Edit: Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems you discount the idea slavery, segregation and discrimination has had ill effects for African Americans in the U.S. up to the present day...Why is that?
Partly because of material wealth, partly because of availability of education and the opportunity to learn marketable skills, partly because of access to social and professional networks
It’s not hard to find people whose ancestors 150 years ago were poor, uneducated, lacking skills and access to social networks… I think you’re just describing an average peasant. And yet, there are different outcomes.
you discount the idea slavery, segregation and discrimination has had ill effects for African Americans in the U.S. up to the present day...Why is that?
As I mentioned in my post upthread, I agree it’s a factor. I just don’t think it’s the sole factor or even the most important factor.
It’s not hard to find people whose ancestors 150 years ago were poor, uneducated, lacking skills and access to social networks… I think you’re just describing an average peasant. And yet, there are different outcomes.
Ongoing segregation and discrimination against blacks in America since slavery doesn’t seem to be making it into your math here. Why? It’s significant and should be considered.
And it’s not hard to imagine how “peasants” might do well when compared to former slaves...(1) being poor and being a slave are very different (2) It’s much tougher to segregate and discriminate when everybody looks basically the same. It’s easy when their skin color is different.
As I mentioned in my post upthread, I agree it’s a factor. I just don’t think it’s the sole factor or even the most important factor.
I don’t see any ongoing segregation (though, interestingly enough, some Black movements nowadays are trying to revive it, in some places even successfully).
I’ve mentioned Jews upthread—they were very consistently discriminated against until after the WW2. Did they have similar outcomes?
On the other hand you have SubSaharan Africa which is doing pretty badly by pretty much any criterion. That includes countries which were colonies only for a very very short period (such as Ethiopia, which is also mostly Christian and the former Emperor of which traced a direct lineage line to King Solomon and Queen of Sheba).
Do tell: What is the most important factor? Why?
Genetics, in particular IQ. Why? IQ is really really important.
Not backed by the gov’t through the present day but, as you mentioned, since WW2 and certainly long after slavery ended.
But discrimination based on race is still very common. I cited the study showing resumes with black sounding names receive significantly fewer callbacks than resumes with white sounding names...
You’ve not mentioned this study in your replies—Is this sort of discrimination not consequential in your view?
IQ is really really important.
As a bit of a thought experiment, can you imagine a scenario in a society where a high IQ group of people was discriminated against to the extent where they couldn’t overcome the discrimination, despite their advanced higher IQ?
How would the circumstances be different than what blacks have faced in the U.S.? How would they be similar?
Is this sort of discrimination not consequential in your view?
I don’t know about the study, I have a generic suspicion of social sciences studies, especially ones which come to highly convenient conclusions, and hey! they happen to have a what’s politely called “replication crisis”. I am not interested enough to go read the study and figure out if it’s valid, but on my general priors, I believe that people with black names will get less callbacks. However it seems to me that people with names like Pham Ng or Li Xiu Ying will also get less callbacks. People certainly have a bias towards those-like-me, but it’s not specifically anti-black, it’s against anyone who looks/feels/smells different.
can you imagine a scenario in a society where a high IQ group of people was discriminated against to the extent where they couldn’t overcome the discrimination, despite their advanced higher IQ?
Sure.
How would the circumstances be different than what blacks have faced in the U.S.?
Um, the IQ would be different? It’s not a mystical inner quality that no one can fathom. It’s measurable and on the scale of large groups of people the estimates gets pretty accurate.
On the clearly visible level there would be very obvious discrimination—quotas on admissions to universities, for examples. These discriminated-against people would be barred from reaching high positions, but at the level they would be allowed to reach they would be considered very valuable. Even if, for example, such people could not make it into management, managers would try to hire as many of them as possible because they are productive and solve problems.
As to similarities, I was about to write that the discriminated-against will never rise to the highest positions in the society, but oh look! there is that Barack Hussain fellow...
As an example of how such discrimination can be rational and indeed reasonable...
You have a resume. It provides some noisy data about someone. Including that person’s race. Let’s trim it down. You have an IQ test result and the person’s race. Let’s say that two candidates has the same IQ in the test, but one came from a group known to have a significantly lower IQ on average.
If we assume that an IQ test result has any measurement noise—and they do—then the Bayesian conclusion is the candidate from the group with higher average IQ is likely to actually have a higher IQ.
Now resumes constitute very noisy data. People often even lie in their resumes. There are large differences between groups in the US. The dispute is about the reasons for the differences not whether they exist.
A study would need to overcome these effects to demonstrate irrational discrimination. They would need to show that e.g. there was consistent out-performance for the group discriminated against post recruitment.
The two kinds of discrimination -- (1) because I prefer people-like-me, and (2) because I have informative priors about groups—can perfectly well co-exist.
People certainly have a bias towards those-like-me, but it’s not specifically anti-black, it’s against anyone who looks/feels/smells different.
It’s debatable whether or not it’s specifically anti-black. Or anti-some-other-group. At any rate, a bias against those-not-like-me would be sufficient in this case to cause blacks a significant deficit in opportunity for employment in a historically majority white nation.
Um, the IQ would be different?...
As usual, I phrased my comment poorly. Let me try a different tack...
You are saying black Americans have a genetic deficit in the form of lower average IQ. Because IQ is heritable and very important toward social “success”, this is a (or even the?) major factor in why they lag behind in certain social metrics (avg. income/wealth, crime rates, etc.) in American society.
I’m saying slavery/segregation/discrimination has created a very significant deficit for blacks to overcome in America, to the extent that we would expect to see something like we see in terms of the disparity in avg. income/wealth, crime rates, etc. I’d hypothesize slavery/segregation/discrimination has been consequential to the extent that even if blacks had a higher average IQ than whites, they would still be in a similar situation. (i.e. the discrimination is that bad and that significant.)
Plainly, advanced IQ (or other genetic advantages) aren’t enough to overcome significant discrimination in all cases. The disadvantages can be too steep in a given society.
I’d propose a good portion of the U.S. is a bit more racist than I think you are taking into consideration. And this may have caused a deeper deficit for blacks than you are appreciating.
As to similarities, I was about to write that the discriminated-against will never rise to the highest positions in the society, but oh look! there is that Barack Hussain fellow...
a bias against those-not-like-me would be sufficient in this case to cause blacks a significant deficit in opportunity for employment in a historically majority white nation.
Will it? I agree that it will cause some harm, but I’m not sure about “significant”. Note that race-based discrimination is explicitly illegal and agencies such as EEOC do prosecute. Moreover, EEOC uses the concept of “disparate impact” which basically means that if you statistically discriminate regardless of your intent, you are in trouble.
Also, did a bias against those-not-like-me cause employment problems for, say, the Chinese? Why not?
You are saying black Americans have a genetic deficit in the form of lower average IQ.
I am saying people with African ancestry (regardless of their citizenship) belong to a gene pool which has average IQ lower than that of people with European ancestry. Lest you think that the whites are the pinnacle of evolution, the European gene pool has lower average IQ than, say, Han Chinese.
I don’t know if “deficit” is a useful word—there is no natural baseline and the fact that the IQ scale has the average IQ of Europeans as the “norm” (100) is just a historical accident. I think it’s more correct to just say that different gene pools have different IQ distributions.
There are two separable questions here. The first one is do you agree that people with African ancestry have lower average IQ (by about one standard deviation) than people with European ancestry? That question has nothing to do with slavery and segregation. If you do not, we hit a major disagreement right here and there’s not much point in discussing why contemporary black Americans have different outcomes than whites or Asians. If you do, we can move on to the second question: what is the relative role of various factors which determine the current state of the black Americans?
I might suggest the following approach. If you agree that the average IQ of blacks is lower, then let’s estimate the effect of that on social outcomes. It might be that this cause will explain a great deal of what we observe. If so, there’s no need to bring in the history of slavery and segregation as a major factor because there wouldn’t be much left to explain.
I’d hypothesize slavery/segregation/discrimination has been consequential to the extent that even if blacks had a higher average IQ than whites, they would still be in a similar situation.
Ashkenazi Jews have higher average IQ than whites and were segregated and discrimated against. Are they in a similar situation? Were they in a similar situation at the time when the segregation was just ending?
Besides, you’re forgetting that one can just go and measure IQ. There is a lot of data on the average IQ of racial groups in the US. Hint: American blacks do not have higher IQ.
Plainly, advanced IQ (or other genetic advantages) aren’t enough to overcome significant discrimination in all cases.
Yes, but we’re not talking about “all cases”. We are talking about the very specific case of the United States of America.
Will it? I agree that it will cause some harm, but I’m not sure about “significant”.
I’d submit it’s a matter of definition.
Note that race-based discrimination is explicitly illegal and agencies such as EEOC do prosecute. Moreover, EEOC uses the concept of “disparate impact” which basically means that if you statistically discriminate regardless of your intent, you are in trouble.
Great point. I didn’t know this. I’ll have to do more reading. Generally though, I’d concede anti-discrimination laws have an impact.
Also, did a bias against those-not-like-me cause employment problems for, say, the Chinese? Why not?
Well, the Chinese weren’t enslaved. And it’s my experience there is not nearly as much racism against Asians as against blacks in America, but that is just my anecdotal experience.
I am saying people with African ancestry (regardless of their citizenship) belong to a gene pool which has average IQ lower than that of people with European ancestry. Lest you think that the whites are the pinnacle of evolution, the European gene pool has lower average IQ than, say, Han Chinese.
I’ve looked into this only briefly, and I’ll take your word for it.
There are two separable questions here. The first one is do you agree that people with African ancestry have lower average IQ (by about one standard deviation) than people with European ancestry? That question has nothing to do with slavery and segregation. If you do not, we hit a major disagreement right here and there’s not much point in discussing why contemporary black Americans have different outcomes than whites or Asians. If you do, we can move on to the second question: what is the relative role of various factors which determine the current state of the black Americans?
It makes sense to me to separate this into two questions like you propose. As I said, I’ll defer to your research and knowledge on the first point (and suspend my skepticism in the process), and move to your second question.
As to that second question—what is the relative role of various factors which determine the current state of the black Americans—I’m interested to know what you think, given your view that people with African ancestry have lower IQs...
I might suggest the following approach. If you agree that the average IQ of blacks is lower, then let’s estimate the effect of that on social outcomes. It might be that this cause will explain a great deal of what we observe. If so, there’s no need to bring in the history of slavery and segregation as a major factor because there wouldn’t be much left to explain.
...You’ve stated it’s complex, but roughly, what percentage of contemporary social outcomes experienced by blacks in America are a result of genetic differences (“nature”), and what percentage are a result of environmental factors (nurture)? Of that percentage that you deem to be the result of environmental factors, what portion is a result of slavery/segregation/discrimination? Again, just looking for a rough sketch from your mind here, as I recognize you have stated it’s complex and difficult to parse.
Also, I’m wondering how the idea people with African ancestry have lower average IQ than people with European ancestry informs your politics?
Well, you can probably go about it in the following way. IQ is and was a controversial concept. One of the lines of attack against it was that it is meaningless, that the number coming out of the IQ test does not correspond to anything in real life. This is often expressed as “IQ measures the skill of taking IQ tests”.
To deal with this objection people ran a number of studies. Typically you take a set of young people and either give them a proper IQ test or rely on another test which is a decent IQ proxy—usually the SAT in the US or one of the tests that the military gives to all its drafted or enlisted men. After that you follow that set of people and collect their life outcomes, from income to criminal records. Once you’ve done that you can see whether the measured IQ actually correlates to life outcomes. And yes, it does.
I don’t have links to actual studies handy, but you can easily google them up, and you can take a look at a not-fully-rigorous description of the various tiers of IQ and what do they mean in real-life terms.
Basically what these studies give you is the cost of an IQ point, cost in terms of a lot of things—income, chance to end up in prison, longevity (high-IQ people are noticeably healthier), etc.
Given this, you can calculate the expected outcomes for the US black population. If their average IQ is 10-15 points lower, you can translate this into expected income (lower than the US mean), expected chance of a criminal conviction (higher than the US mean) and other things you’re interested in. Once you’ve done that, you can compare your expected values with ones empirically observed. Any remaining gap will be due to something other than the IQ differential.
informs your politics
On a macro level it does not. There are smart people, there are stupid people, and the correlation to some outwardly visible feature like the colour of the skin doesn’t matter much. I am not a white nationalist, I do not think the Europeans should re-colonise Africa for the natives’ own good, etc.
On a micro level it does. For example, I find affirmative action counter-productive. For another example, I don’t believe the claims that inner-city schools (read: black) lag behind suburban schools (read: not black) because of lack of funding or because of surrounding poverty. Throwing money at the problem will achieve nothing.
There are smart people, there are stupid people, and the correlation to some outwardly visible feature like the colour of the skin doesn’t matter much.
How do you mean? You’re saying you believe it to be true that, generally, people with black skin color are more likely to have a significantly lower IQ than people with white skin color… And you believe that IQ is correlated with life outcomes. How can this not matter much?
I find affirmative action counter-productive.
I also have the sense this may be true in many instances. The theory seems solid, but I’m not sure it works as intended in practice.
For another example, I don’t believe the claims that inner-city schools (read: black) lag behind suburban schools (read: not black) because of lack of funding or because of surrounding poverty.
Why do they lag behind? Is it because of the IQ difference you believe exists between black and whites?
...
You say you’re not a white nationalist...I’m curious about your reaction to those who are? In regard to segregation, for instance… You say you don’t think the Europeans should re-colonise Africa for the natives’ own good—Why not?
Is it because of the IQ difference you believe exists between black and whites?
Lumifer likely believes that IQ predicts school performance and there are many studies that back this claim. He quite specifically said that you can calculate outcomes.
However not all white/black people are the same. Statements about the average IQ are statements about averages. Not all white have the same IQ and not all black people have the same IQ. Low IQ white people have low IQ children.
In Germany a white child named “Kevin” is likely to have a lower IQ than a child named “Jakob” and if you run your implicit bias tests you find that there’s bias against the child named “Kevin”.
Stupid people are still people. They have rights. Their propensity to make stupid decisions is not sufficient to take away from them the power to make decisions.
Is it because of the IQ difference you believe exists between black and whites?
Yes.
your reaction to those who are?
Is a shrug :-) People have all kinds of political beliefs, I don’t find the white nationalists to be extraordinary.
As to re-colonising Africa, see the first paragraph :-)
Hm. These views seem very likely to lead to racism.
I’ve read Breitbart frequently since Steve Bannon was added to Trump’s campaign because I’m fascinated with how Trump (an obvious hustler/fraud/charlatan in my view) has managed to get this close to the Oval Office. It’s been illuminating (in a disturbing way) in understanding where I now believe a lot of the Trump support is coming from.
I’m confident a portion of his support is just Red-Team-no-matter-what Repubs. And some are one issue Pro-Life Christians. And some are fiscal conservatives who are sincerely just concerned about the debt and spending. And some are blue collar workers in areas (Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.) where the global economy/technology caused manufacturing to dry up decades ago and they are mad as hell about the facts of the world and will just keep voting to change something, anything until they day they die...
But there is also this (disturbingly large) element of the movement that think non-white people are less than white people. Like, this group of Trump supporters are literally white supremacists—they believe white people are better suited for civilization. And, of course, no one can say that and politically get away with it in 2016, so they use all sorts of dog whistle-y language to imply it—including the main Trumpian slogan, “Make America Great Again™”
Under a common definition of racism as belief in meaningful differences between races, these views are racism. So?
I mean “racism” in a way that is significantly consequential for those who are discriminated against. An active racism.
If there truly are meaningful genetic differences between races, then so be it. But that seems to be the justification for the portion of “white supremacist” Trump supporters I mentioned above. It’s an angry racism that seems likely to be problematic.
I’m saying slavery/segregation/discrimination has created a very significant deficit for blacks
Citation required. What is strange about this is that when you go looking, you don’t see good studies that track people through generations and show that this is in fact the case.
This idea “slavery is the cause” seems not to be an actual active idea but only functions as a thought terminating cliche.
It could have been slavery so it was.
It reminds me of religious apologists talking about the problem of evil, and how it ‘could’ be caused by man’s sin (causing human evil) and possibly by Satan’s sin (causing natural evil), which is required if we are to have free will. There is zero, I mean zero, interest in exploring just how ‘sin’ causes all the various forms of evil. How does sin cause our flawed DNA which allows cancer? Etc.
Citation required. What is strange about this is that when you go looking, you don’t see good studies that track people through generations and show that this is in fact the case.
The idea that slavery/segregation/discrimination has created a very significant deficit for blacks seems beyond dispute in my view. The words “very significant” could be disputed based on how we defined them, but that’s a technicality. I’m honestly shocked to hear this idea challenged...
It’s stated that “African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed and they earn nearly 25 percent less when they are employed.” The study itself shows significant discrimination based on race in the beginning stages of the hiring process.
Lumifer seemed to accept the basic premise, but was nonetheless skeptical and too uninterested to look into the study. I’d be interested to know what you think.
Regardless, it is evidence that employers discriminate against blacks. And employment is tied to income...and wealth...and opportunity. And that is passed on generation after generation.
This idea “slavery is the cause” seems not to be an actual active idea but only functions as a thought terminating cliche. It could have been slavery so it was.
Again, it seems indisputable to me that slavery has an effect. Segregation and discrimination, too. I honestly don’t understand how it couldn’t. The only question that is left is in regard to the significance of the effect. And if there are other factors. I’d love to hear some of your evidence for other factors.
And as for this...
It reminds me of religious apologists talking about the problem of evil...
I strongly disagree. People being enslaved based on race for hundreds of years, segregated for a hundred more, and then discriminated against until the present day, and that leading to some problems within that race has zero, and I mean zero, to do with the concocted, magical-causal “explanations” of religion.
How about this...
Man A is freed from slavery at 40 with no skills, no education, no family and no professional or network.
Also at 40, man B has a small fortune, an education, is skilled in a trade, has a large family, a good reputation, and a wide network of business and social contacts.
Assuming the offspring of each man—A1 and B1—has identical DNA, which offspring has the highest probability of graduating from an elite university?
Which—A1 or B1—will be more likely to have a successful career?
Which will pass on the largest inheritance to A2 and B2?
Why?
And what do you expect to change in subsequent generations?
(One thing that could change are laws eliminating discrimination...)
This is about as weak as an argument can possibly get.
Again this is not evidence.
this study
Does not demonstrate irrational discrimination. They did not consider the possibility that a person’s race actually gives you useful information about them.
Consider the following example:
There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.… After all we have been through. Just to think we can’t walk down our own streets, how humiliating.
Remarks at a meeting of Operation PUSH in Chicago (27 November 1993). Quoted in “Crime: New Frontier—Jesse Jackson Calls It Top Civil-Rights Issue” by Mary A. Johnson, 29 November 1993, Chicago Sun-Times (ellipsis in original). Partially quoted in “In America; A Sea Change On Crime” by Bob Herbert, 12 December 1993, New York Times.
I have looked at the study before it is well known.
And if there are other factors. I’d love to hear some of your evidence for other factors.
IQ is known to be highly heritable and highly correlated with many measures of success. As are other psychological dimensions such as the Big 5. Source: any psychology textbook.
Perhaps you have heard the saying “rags to riches to rags in three generations”. When I look at my family tree I see this happening many times.
Where I live a lot of the local whites are descended from prisoners who were slaves. They do not form an underclass in any way shape or form. In fact it is high status to have convict ancestry.
Or consider Jews, against whom there was massive discrimination until very recently. They have been very successful.
This is about as weak as an argument can possibly get.
The idea that slavery/segregation/discrimination in America has had an effect is not in dispute. The argument is regarding it’s significance.
[Your hypothetical case study] is not evidence.
I fully agree. I was trying to distill the issue into simple terms. I would argue it’s nearly self evident that opportunity is passed on over generations, and that a head start for a group of people based on race could be persistent over multiple generations.
[The study you linked which shows resumes with black sounding names are less likely to receive callbacks for job opportunities than white sounding names] does not demonstrate irrational discrimination. They did not consider the possibility that a person’s race actually gives you useful information about them.
Are you saying it is appropriate for employers to discriminate based on race?
Jesse Jackson says something about his contrasting intuitions about black and white people...
Per capita murder rates are no doubt higher among blacks. The question is what caused this.
Perhaps you have heard the saying “rags to riches to rags in three generations”. When I look at my family tree I see this happening many times.
You are not being discriminated against (or segregated) as a minority race.
Where I live a lot of the local whites are descended from prisoners who were slaves. They do not form an underclass in any way shape or form. In fact it is high status to have convict ancestry.
They are not being discriminated against (or segregated) as a minority race.
Edit: Regarding evidence slavery having an effect on current day conditions… Here is a study showing “the 1860 slave concentration is related to contemporary black-white inequality in poverty, independent of contemporary demographic and economic conditions, racialized wealth disparities and racial threat. [This] research suggests the importance of slavery for shaping existing U.S. racial inequality patterns.”
Are you asking, “why do black people kill more people”? Isn’t that gonna vary on a case by case? Like, you don’t get murder orders from Skin Color Command. People kill for all sorts of reasons, or none at all.
I would guess that the concept of bias as used in cognitive psychology is not well known in the broad public. It’s generally mixed up with the concept of having a conflict of interest.
Most people also don’t think in terms of probability which you need to think about implicit biases the way it’s conceptualized in cognitive science.
Even someone like Obama had episodes like his “it’s 50/50” comment in the hunt for Bin Ladin.
I would guess that the concept of bias as used in cognitive psychology is not well known in the broad public. It’s generally mixed up with the concept of having a conflict of interest.
Can you explain the difference a “bias” in cognitive psychology and how you think Cinton/Kaine used the term?
I’m not speaking about the difference in how they used the term but in the way it’s understood in the public. Clinton likely has a decent idea of what the academic concept of implicit bias happens to be.
It’s interesting that nobody asks why White people get shoot so much more than Asian people when the ratio of them getting shoot is equivalent to the ratio of White people vs. Black people.
Per million, 5.03 Blacks, 5.02 Whites and only 0.72 Asians get shoot in this year by the police.
The focus on implicit bias is interesting. It’s like blaming the weather. We can agree that the weather is bad but that doesn’t change anything. The DNC emails suggest that it was DNC policy to not want to commit to any real demands of Black Lives Matter but simply focus on telling their narrative.
If they wanted real change they could proclaim that there a need for a new federal department that focuses on police accountability and in the future that department will persecute misdeeds by officers so that officers don’t get persecuted by their buddies anymore.
Clinton said “implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police,”
This doesn’t mean cognitive bias in a LW sense, it means everyone is racist, specifically against black people. I also don’t think its true—if everyone is a little bit racist, why would people get into interracial relationships? Its possible that the majority of people prefer their own race but don’t admit it, indeed the fact that racial groups cluster in cities could be argued to show this is the case via revealed preferences, but it seems obvious that some people have no racial bias.
Dem candidate Tim Kaine said, “People shouldn’t be afraid to bring up issues of bias in law enforcement. And if you’re afraid to have the discussion, you’ll never solve it.”
This, like all politics, is far from rational. It starts by painting the issue in terms of ‘people who disagree with me are cowards’ and proceeds to assume that this discussion must conclude that the bias exists.
This doesn’t mean cognitive bias in a LW sense, it means everyone is racist, specifically against black people. I also don’t think its true—if everyone is a little bit racist, why would people get into interracial relationships?
There are many attributes of possible partners that make me less likely to data them but that at the same time aren’t deal breakers.
The fact that I have a theistic girlfriend doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t prefer a girlfriend who isn’t theistic all things equal.
It depends whether we are using ‘racist’ to mean ‘believes that some races are superior to others in certain respects’ or ‘has less empathy for other races’. In the first case, sure, maybe you would date someone of another race, because group differences aren’t so important when dealing with individuals. But in the latter case… if you are less able to empathise with people of other races it would seem really weird to date them.
It depends whether we are using ‘racist’ to mean ‘believes that some races are superior to others in certain respects’ or ‘has less empathy for other races’.
We are using it here to mean “implicit racism”. That’s a term that used in the literature. There are studies that measure it.
Implicit racism also isn’t something that’s only found in white people (in Clinton’s words it’s a problem for everyone). Black people also have implicit racism that makes them treat white people better in many instances.
This doesn’t mean cognitive bias in a LW sense, it means everyone is racist, specifically against black people.
I don’t think it means that. I don’t think she meant that. (Though I guess it depends on your definition of “racist”.)
if everyone is a little bit racist, why would people get into interracial relationships...
My understanding is that humans have a tribal in/out group mentality that may use race as way to classify other humans as “others”. They can also use religion, class, culture, etc.
My understanding of Clinton’s (and then Kaine’s) remarks was that everyone has biases of which they are unconscious...and that these biases affect their thoughts...and therefore sometimes their actions.
I don’t think it means that. I don’t think she meant that.
I’m pretty sure that is what she means. There is a big controversy in the US over whether the police are racist, not over whether the police have cognitive biases. I would be overjoyed if presidential candidates really were discussing cognitive biases.
My understanding is that humans have a tribal in/out group mentality that may use race as way to classify other humans as “others”. They can also use religion, class, culture, etc.
There is a big controversy in the US over whether the police are racist, not over whether the police have cognitive biases.
Hm. I don’t think it’s this clear a distinction. Clinton seems to be suggesting there is perhaps more nuance to the issue than just arguing about whether or not lots of cops are racist.
I would be overjoyed if presidential candidates really were discussing cognitive biases.
Interesting. I was very happy to hear Clinton speak of implicit bias because it seemed to be a way to advance the discussion to something more rational.
because it seemed to be a way to advance the discussion to something more rational.
Why do you think that? The Gender studies folks that speak most about implicit bias aren’t the demographic that tries to create evidence-based policing policy. It also doesn’t seem to be a group of people who are on good terms when it comes to speaking with police departments about how to design their policy.
Why do you think that [Clinton speaking of implicit bias seems to be a way to advance the discussion to something more rational]?
Because people have implicit cognitive biases. It’s useful to discuss them.
Peoples’ cognitive maps aren’t the territory. And people aren’t always conscious of the mistakes. Further, many people I’ve heard discuss politics in this election cycle seem unaware that there even could be errors in their map.
Instead of arguing over our competing maps, one good first step is to acknowledge our maps have errors, which is what I think Clinton’s line about “implicit bias” did.
Because people have implicit cognitive biases. It’s useful to discuss them.
The fact that a claim is true doesn’t automatically mean that it’s useful to discuss it.
Instead of arguing over our competing maps, one good first step is to acknowledge our maps have errors, which is what I think Clinton’s line about “implicit bias” did.
No, it’s not an admission of Clinton that her maps have errors. In general people ability to interactually recite “all maps have errors” doesn’t mean that they use that belief for interacting with their own maps differently.
When it comes to having a rational discussion this is even bad, because it allows people to easily play motte-and-bailey.
The fact that a claim is true doesn’t automatically mean that it’s useful to discuss it.
It doesn’t? In what way would it not be useful?
I think it’s extremely useful to discuss how the brain you are using to solve problems has flaws that may be inhibiting you from solving those problems, or even recognizing the problems accurately. (It’s why I was on LW originally...)
(Maybe you’re using “automatically” here as a qualifier to make your statement technically correct—Is that what you mean? Like, people could discuss cognitive biases in a really stupid and irrational way that would make it unproductive? If that’s what you mean, then, yeah. Of course.)
No, it’s not an admission of Clinton that her maps have errors.
It’s not? I thought she said we all (i.e. humans) have implicit biases? Wouldn’t that include Clinton?
Whether a discussion is useful depends on the results of the discussion. There are a lot of true things you can say that don’t advance a discussion into a direction that leads to a positive outcome.
I think it’s extremely useful to discuss how the brain you are using to solve problems has flaws that may be inhibiting you from solving those problems
It wasn’t a discussion of how implicit bias works but an uncited assertion that it has effects in certain conditions.
It’s why I was on LW originally
That might be true but it’s not what the LW mission of rationality that’s about systematic winning is about.
I understand the mission to be about finding thinking strategies that lead to making winning decisions.
It’s not? I thought she said we all (i.e. humans) have implicit biases? Wouldn’t that include Clinton?
You can make an argument that logically it includes Clinton. You can also look at the decision making literature and see what saying “everyone has biases” does to a person self awareness of their own biases. It generally does little.
Whether a discussion is useful depends on the results of the discussion. There are a lot of true things you can say that don’t advance a discussion into a direction that leads to a positive outcome.
People could discuss cognitive biases in a really stupid and irrational way that would make it unproductive? If that’s what you mean, then, yeah. Of course.
It wasn’t a discussion of how implicit bias works but an uncited assertion that it has effects in certain conditions.
Yeah? It wasn’t really the format for a CFAR plug.
That might be true but it’s not what the LW mission of rationality that’s about systematic winning is about. I understand the mission to be about finding thinking strategies that lead to making winning decisions.
Right. Like approaching policy debates with a reduction in mind-killedness. Acknowledging implicit bias is a great step.
You can also look at the decision making literature and see what saying “everyone has biases” does to a person self awareness of their own biases. It generally does little.
It does more than not acknowledging people are biased—this was literally what Clinton’s critics said in regard to her comment. They essentially denied that implicit bias exists.
You seem to making a black or white argument that Clinton’s comment isn’t useful because it’s not that useful—it won’t solve anything or make rationality win U.S. policy on this issue. I am not under the illusion her one sentence will un-mindkill U.S. politics. I’m merely contrasting the (a) acknowledgement of bias with (b) being apparently unaware that it exists.
People could discuss cognitive biases in a really stupid and irrational way that would make it unproductive?
The way she discussed it wasn’t productive. There also the general field of Gender studies. As a field it doesn’t encourage open and data driven debate about the subject. When you start a discussion with saying that your opponent holds their position because of implicit bias that doesn’t tend to be a discussion where it’s easy to focus on rational argument.
Yeah?
The problem is that you are making claims that are wrong. It wasn’t a discussion of how implicit bias works. If you want to analyse claims about a debate it’s useful to stay with the facts.
You seem to making a black or white argument that Clinton’s comment isn’t useful because it’s not that useful
No.
Focusing a discussion on implicit bias means to not focus the discussion on “How can we solve this problem?”
It’s a rhetoric strategy to signal concern about Black Lives Matter while at the same time not having to actually discuss policy solutions to the problems.
There’s also a good chance that a conservative person who hears the debate is harder to educate about the concept of implicit bias after listening the debate.
The intellectual toolkit of Gender studies with includes asserting that the opponent is driven by implicit bias and privilege is not useful for having rational discussions. The communities that engage in that toolkit generally don’t want to let data decide.
The also don’t ask the obvious questions such as whether the fact that more Whites get killed than Asians is also due to implicit bias. That a very straightforward question if you look at the data and want to use implicit bias as a cognitive tool for explaining the data of police killers.
They also don’t ask the obvious questions such as whether the fact that more Whites get killed than Asians is also due to implicit bias. That a very straightforward question if you look at the data and want to use implicit bias as a cognitive tool for explaining the data of police killers.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Can you restate it?
Gender studies
You mentioned “gender studies” a couple times in a negative light—Why? It doesn’t have anything to do with this discussion.
...
Generally, the idea that (a) we all have implicit biases based on how our brain works and our life experiences, (b) these biases may significantly obscure our map of the territory, and (c) in the special case of police—where men and women need to quickly make highly consequential decisions under extreme stress—this obscured map may lead to irrational, “non-winning”, decisions seems uncontroversial. Certainly nothing you’ve said has rebutted it.
For the record, I don’t think every police shooting is racist. Not even close. And I think the left goes way too far trying to spin this.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Can you restate it?
Why aren’t you seeking to explain why White’s get more likely to be killed by police than Asian’s? Why do you think it’s a question that people like Clinton don’t address?
You mentioned “gender studies” a couple times in a negative light—Why? It doesn’t have anything to do with this discussion.
Because it’s difficult to have a conservation about the quality of the public debate without accounting for the cultural forces that are responsible for the public debate being the way it currently is.
where men and women need to quickly make highly consequential decisions under extreme stress—this obscured map may lead to irrational, “non-winning”, decisions seems uncontroversial. Certainly nothing you’ve said has rebutted it.
Making winning decisions is about agency. Hillary Clinton could say that she wants that all police wear body camera’s. If she can win a majority for that policy she can implement it.
On the other hand you can’t pass a law that people shouldn’t have implicit bias anymore. Speaking about it is useful if Hillary Clinton wants to engage in virtue signaling but not actually focus on getting policies changed.
If she wanted to do rational policy making she could say: “We should do controlled trials that try different policies in different area’s to find out which policies actually help with changing the status quo.”
For the record, I don’t think every police shooting is racist. Not even close. And I think the left goes way too far trying to spin this.
In what kind of ontology do you believe if you think that a police shooting could be racist, even in principle? That there are some police shootings that are racists and other that aren’t?
If you want to use the word “racist” to be a property of events and not a property of people than it means something qualitatively different than what the term “implicit racism” is about.
This looks like your conceptualization of racism is the standard meaning of the word and has little to do with the academic term of “implicit racism”.
Why aren’t you seeking to explain why White’s get more likely to be killed by police than Asian’s? Why do you think it’s a question that people like Clinton don’t address?
She didn’t address it because it wasn’t relevant to the discussion at hand. Is the disparity between Whites and Asians killed by police significant? Is it an issue that is pressing in terms of it’s current effect on the body politic?
Making winning decisions is about agency. Hillary Clinton could say that she wants that all police wear body camera’s. If she can win a majority for that policy she can implement it.
On the other hand you can’t pass a law that people shouldn’t have implicit bias anymore. Speaking about it is useful if Hillary Clinton wants to engage in virtue signaling but not actually focus on getting policies changed.
If she wanted to do rational policy making she could say: “We should do controlled trials that try different policies in different area’s to find out which policies actually help with changing the status quo.”
You speak about this is a very definitive way, as if you know exactly what would work. I don’t know what would work. It seems to me these are complex issues. I just noted it was good and, I think, useful to hear someone mention the everyone is subject to bias as opposed to the same old Red v. Blue talking points. I’d have praised anyone who said something similar, regardless of which team they played for.
In what kind of ontology do you believe if you think that a police shooting could be racist, even in principle? That there are some police shootings that are racists and other that aren’t? If you want to use the word “racist” to be a property of events and not a property of people than it means something qualitatively different than what the term “implicit racism” is about.
This looks like your conceptualization of racism is the standard meaning of the word and has little to do with the academic term of “implicit racism”.
My phrasing was poor.
I don’t think race is a factor in every police shooting. Despite this, the left seems to try and make every single police shooting involving an African American into another example of blatant, explicit racism. I don’t agree with this at all and I think it detracts from the effort to improve things. Every police shooting ought to be examined based on the objective facts.
The idea that an officer (or judge, or anyone) could have an implicit bias against a group of people, and that that bias is consequential, seem to me to be worth exploring.
Is the disparity between Whites and Asians killed by police significant?
In 2016 the difference is slightly stronger than the difference between Whites and Black getting killed. It’s a fact that easily knowable if you care to look for the numbers of police killings by race.
Anybody who cares enough about the issue to know the fact should know it if the can read numbers in a straightforward way instead of just trying to validate their party line.
You speak about this is a very definitive way, as if you know exactly what would work. I don’t know what would work.
You don’t know what would work because Clinton doesn’t speak about the evidence for what works. It’s not the conversation she tries to have on the subject. There’s good evidence that body camera’s do work.
The fact that creating legal structure where police can effectively prosecuted for wrongdoing seem obvious to me. I don’t have specific evidence for it, but it feels like an elephant in the room.
Evidence-based policy making and running trials to see which policies perform best is a framework that applying rationality. In fairly confident that it’s better than blaming people for having biases and hoping that they will change as a result.
I don’t have studies that validate that claim but it again seem obviously true.
I don’t think race is a factor in every police shooting.
If you think that the logical conclusion would be that Clinton was wrong when she claimed that everybody suffers from implicit bias.
That’s exactly why it’s unproductive. You don’t actually think in terms of “implicit racism” but simply use the new name to label concepts that you already knew beforehand.
Every police shooting ought to be examined based on the objective facts.
That sounds again like a rejection of using the framework of implicit bias. You don’t see evidence of implicit bias in a case by case basis. You see it when you look in aggregate on choices.
A person with implicit bias has higher availability for certain action and thus likely reacts a little faster, even if both cases result in a dead suspect.
In 2016 the difference is slightly stronger than the difference between Whites and Black getting killed. It’s a fact that easily knowable if you care to look for the numbers of police killings by race. Anybody who cares enough about the issue to know the fact should know it if the can read numbers in a straightforward way instead of just trying to validate their party line.
Do you have a preferred source?
In fairly confident that it’s better than blaming people for having biases and hoping that they will change as a result.
Who’s doing this?
If you think that the logical conclusion would be that Clinton was wrong when she claimed that everybody suffers from implicit bias.
We have implicit biases. Biases based on race are a pretty big deal in this country, historically. In my view, the level of bias in police shootings doesn’t reach any reasonable threshold to be called anything like “racism” in many, many cases.
That’s exactly why it’s unproductive. You don’t actually think in terms of “implicit racism” but simply use the new name to label concepts that you already knew beforehand.
Perhaps this is true for you. I often think about ways my view may be biased when relating to people. And then I act to better understand and, hopefully, neutralize the bias. My efforts are clumsy and likely often fail, because I’m not particularly intelligent or skilled at overcoming bias.
At any rate, the first step toward being productive in this regard is recognizing bias exists.
You don’t see evidence of implicit bias in a case by case basis.
Sure you could. I’d agree the aggregate data would be (perhaps more) revealing, but the facts of a particular case (including the video) could also tell you something about what biases might exist and how they effected the event.
I’m tapping.
What are your political leanings? I’d like to better understand our interaction by knowing how you view yourself generally on the U.S. political spectrum. Thanks.
We have implicit biases. Biases based on race are a pretty big deal in this country, historically. In my view, the level of bias in police shootings doesn’t reach any reasonable threshold to be called anything like “racism” in many, many cases.
The academic notion of implicit racism isn’t about any other threshold than statistical significance. The tool that they developed have gotten good at picking up effects in many people so the threshold is quite low and most people suffer from implicit racism.
If you reject that concept, then it doesn’t make sense to see Hillary using it as progress.
What are your political leanings? I’d like to better understand our interaction by knowing how you view yourself generally on the U.S. political spectrum.
I’m not on the U.S. political spectrum. He Facebook political status is currently “Continental”.
My formal political associations put me left of center in Berlin.
Interesting rhetorical sparring point taking place in the U.S. election that relates to rationality here at LW.
In the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton referenced bias when discussing the recent spate of police shootings of African Americans. Clinton said “implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police,” and went on to say “I think, unfortunately, too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other,” and “I think we need all of us to be asking hard questions about, ‘why am I feeling this way?’”
In the VP debate last night, again in the context of recent police shootings, Dem candidate Tim Kaine said, “People shouldn’t be afraid to bring up issues of bias in law enforcement. And if you’re afraid to have the discussion, you’ll never solve it.”
Clinton/Kaine have predictably drawn criticism from the Red Team for the comments (who try to paint the Blue Team as anti-police), but it seems to me the Dems have been more defensive than they need to be, given it seems obvious to me (from my time at LW) that humans are biased, and this bias would obviously be likely to play a role in high stress situations (like when guns are involved).
It will be interesting to me to see how this is adjudicated according to public opinion. Do people generally accept everyone has biases and of course this would affect police officers in high stress situations? Or do they view bias as a rare condition that only affects people without the proper virtue? Is this argument actually over different definitions of the word “bias”? Is it just a Red v. Blue argument that has little to do with facts?
I, for one, think Kaine and Clinton’s comments were correct and made a very salient point. (But I’m biased against Trump.)
The problem is that the statistics don’t show the claimed bias. Normalized on a per-police-encounter basis, white cops (or cops-in-general) don’t appear to shoot black suspects more often than they shoot white suspects. However, police interact with black people more frequently, so the absolute proportion of black shooting victims is elevated.
The fact that the incidence of police encounters with blacks is elevated would be the actual social problem worth addressing, but the reasons for the elevated incidence of police-black encounters do not make a nice soundbite.
None of this is important of course because, as is usual for politics, the whole mess degenerates into cheerleading for your team and condemning the other team, and sensitive analysis of the actual evidence would be giving aid and comfort to the hated enemy.
Can you provide any sources for this?
Is the incidence of police encounters with blacks elevated?
What are the reasons?
For example, there were 4,636 murders committed by white people and 5,620 murders committed by black people in 2015 (source). On the per-capita basis this makes the by-white murder rate to be about 2.2 per 100,000 and the by-black murder rate to be about 16.2 per 100,000.
Why is this?
You asked why is “the incidence of police encounters with blacks elevated”. This is a direct answer.
If you want to know the reasons for different crime rates, this is going to get long and complicated.
Can/will you TL;DR your view?
As with any complex phenomenon in a complex system, there is going to be a laundry list of contributing factors, none of which is the cause (in the sense that fixing just that cause will fix the entire problem). We can start with
Genetic factors (such as lower IQ)
Historical factors, which in turn flow into
Cultural factors (such as distrust of the government / law enforcement) and
Economic factors (from being poor to having a major presence in the drug trade)
The opinions about the relative weights of these factors are going to differ and in the current political climate I don’t think a reasonable open discussion is possible.
What is the best source for this in your view?
Is it your view that past slavery in America still has a large impact on African Americans in the present day U.S.?
It seems obvious to me that it does, and that the effects are wide and deep, as slavery (and Jim Crow) is relatively recent history—We’re only a handful of generations from a time where a race of people was enslaved and systemically kept from accumulating wealth and education.
Meh. Maybe. I’d like to believe I’m a reasonable guy. My views on these issues are largely ignorant and I’m open to learning.
The raw data is plentiful—look at any standardized test scores (e.g. SAT) by race. For a full-blown argument in favor see e.g. this (I can’t check the link at the moment, it might be that you need to go to the Wayback Machine to access it). For a more, um, mainstream discussion see Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve. Wikipedia has more links you could pursue.
My view is that history is important and that outcomes are path-dependent. Slavery and segregation are crucial parts of the history of American blacks.
Your social circles might have a strong reaction to you coming to anything other than the approved conclusions...
What do you mean with that question? How do you compare the present state of the US with a counterfactual US where African Americans weren’t in slavery?
I think it’s pretty easy to hypothesize about the possible effects of slavery vs. no slavery.
In the context of this thread, it was mentioned that the murder rate was much higher for blacks versus whites. If there are socioeconomic reasons for this, then I’m curious about slavery’s contribution to those factors.
Politically, I’m generally empathetic toward ideas like affirmative action in the U.S. on the basis of race because there has been serious discrimination in the U.S. on the basis of race in the past. It makes practical sense to posit it created a “headstart” for races who were not… enslaved… and otherwise discriminated against and it makes ethical sense to employ measures to even the score.
I’m open to the idea ideas like AA may not actually practically work and could be persuaded as such by the evidence.
While we are at the topic of cognitive biases, how do you know that’s the case? Quite many people believe that they are much more open than they are.
The fact that you for example didn’t follow up with the request to explain your own view in this thread is a sign that you don’t put effort into engaging in the kind of actions that require you to actually express your ideas explicitly enough to find flaws.
I don’t know. I’m probably biased. But I feel pretty strongly that I’d like to know the truth. I’m sure I’m subject to the same deep, irrational Red v. Blue tribalism as most other humans, but I try to be as rational as I can.
Ah. I assumed your earlier comment in this thread was misplaced and you intended, “Lumifer: I, like Brillyant, am also interested in hearing your view.” I am flattered you care about my view.
As I mentioned, I consider myself ignorant on the issue. That is, quite literally, I admit I don’t know and have low confidence in my views..
I think I’ve eluded to those views in this thread...
and
What more would you like to know?
What are the causal steps in between slavery that happened 150 years ago and the present state?
One premise is that if a significant deficit in, say, wealth or education is created for a group of people, then it will be a persistent disadvantage that causes that group of people to lag behind.
Another premise is that slavery wasn’t that long ago, relatively.
If, 150 years ago, we had person A start with $100,000 in inherited wealth, a solid education, a well-developed relevant skill in the marketplace, a well-established social and professional network, and a family with a good reputation. And then we had person B start with no money, no education, no marketable skills, no network, no family, no reputation...
If person A and B set out and lived their lives and had offspring, person A with the mentioned significant advantage over person B, I would imagine their offspring would be born into similar circumstances, with the offspring of person A maintaining an advantage over the offspring of person B because of all the obvious reasons people with advantages in wealth, education, etc. tend to maintain an advantage. The advantage may have narrowed (or maybe widened), but the advantage would be carried into the next generation.
Continue this forward 5-7 generations. What would we expect to see? I think we’d see line A maintain an advantage. The advantage may have narrowed (or maybe widened), but the advantage would be carried through generations.
Of course line B could “catch” and surpass line A. It’s easy to imagine exceptional scenarios. But it seems probable that line A would enjoy an ongoing advantage.
And this scenario assumes a level playing field for descendants of line A and line B. I don’t believe that’s been the case in America for blacks and whites. Since the end of slavery, there has been significant discrimination against blacks, much of which continues to the current day.
Sorry, doesn’t hold. Some more convincing studies examined the outcomes of Georgia land lotteries which were effectively a randomized controlled trial where the “intervention arm” got a valuable piece of land (by winning the lottery) and the “control arm” didn’t get anything. See e.g. this and other studies.
Now, if you have a continuing advantage (IQ) that continues to hold while your group mostly intermarries, things are different.
Culture, on the other hand, persists across generations relatively well.
By the way, while slavery was ended 150 year ago, segregation remained in force until after the WW2 and so is a much more recent phenomenon, within living memory.
Interesting.
In regard to the scenario (person A and person B) I gave above, I’m not sure your study refutes what I’m saying. Wealth can be squandered, sure. But wealth, along with a solid education, a well-developed relevant skill in the marketplace, a well-established social and professional network, and a family with a good reputation can be much more persistent.
The opportunity to have enough money to live and have free time plus a good basis for how to live and use that wealth can be sustained over generations.
I am who I am, in part, because of who my parents are. They taught me, for better or for worse, how to handle money; how to relate to people; how to study, work, play, etc. And my parents are who they are, in part, because of their parents. And so on. Generations of my family incubated the new generation’s growth into their own efforts to create sustainable wealth. Perhaps this is some of what you mean when you say...
Can you give me some examples of what you mean by “culture persists across generations”?
Absolutely. And racism still persists and has an effect even today.
The claim is that most of that is biology and heritable. Your ancestors had good genes (again, IQ but not only) which allowed them to gain a skill in the marketplace, construct a social network, create a family with good reputation, and acquire wealth. You have skills in the marketplace, able to adroitly navigate society, etc. primarily because you share genes with your ancestors, not because you inherited some money.
This is the nature vs nurture debate and lately the nature side has been winning. Who and what you are is considerably more determined by your genes rather than by your upbringing. Gwern posted about this here, on LW, or you can google up twin studies (studies of (genetically) identical twins who were separated at birth and brought up by different people in different circumstances).
See e.g. Yvain’s review of Albion’s Seed.
I accept genes are a big part of the picture.
I’m not sure I believe genetics are more important than other factors. And this is not necessarily a simple nature vs. nurture issue. In the case of African Americans’ treatment in U.S. history, it’s an extreme set of “nurture” circumstances that robbed a group of people of all opportunity for many generations, based on race. I’m not sure “good genes” simply overcomes extremely lopsided (often systemically unfair) circumstances.
Anyway, it won’t be resolved here. Thanks for your thoughts.
I suggest you examine the evidence offered above and consider reducing your confidence in your beliefs.
I should clarify. I accept genes are a big part of the picture. I’m more of a nature guy in the debate between nature and nurture.
In the specific case of African Americans’ treatment in U.S. history and their current status, I’m not convinced genetics are more important than other factors. Because this specific case is more than just a simple nature vs. nurture issue—it is a very special case where an extreme deficit was created using slavery. And then segregation. And racism and discrimination all throughout up to the present day.
What evidence you cite above is compelling to you? What do you believed based on this evidence?
You’ll have to be a bit more specific. “More important” for what and “other factors” from which set?
What do you think are transmission mechanisms which would show how having, say, great-great-grandparents who were slaves affects you now?
You might find it interesting to compare them to East European Jews who 150 years ago certainly weren’t slaves, but they were segregated and discriminated against, they faced limitations on what they could own, where could they live, and what could they do, plus once in a while a mob of angry peasants would come and burn down a village. They weren’t rich either.
Do you think the somewhat worse conditions of the American blacks explain the gap in outcomes looking at the present day?
In regard to social issues, such as the murder rate by race you cited earlier, I’m not compelled to believe blacks are genetically wired to behave poorly and kill more often. Rather, as I’ve said, I believe there has been an extreme set of circumstances in the U.S. that have led to lots of problems.
As I’ve said—and as you’ve said by saying culture can be persistent through generations—I am who I am, in part, because of who my parents and family are. Of course, genetically. But there is more than this. Partly because of material wealth, partly because of availability of education and the opportunity to learn marketable skills, partly because of access to social and professional networks—Simply, there was a deficit created by slavery that takes a while to even out. Slavery wasn’t that long ago.
And again, even apart from slavery, there has been, and continues to be discrimination against African Americans in the U.S. Both legally through segregation and just plain old racism (implicit and explicit).
If we compare it to a 100 meter race, it’s not as if this was just a simple 20 meter head start for whites because of slavery; it’s also that hurdles have been placed every 10 meters in the African American lane through segregation and discrimination.
This is my view, yes. See above.
I cited this earlier.
Imagine something like this type of discrimination is happening at all sorts of levels in the U.S.—Blacks are just less likely to be successful in a professional capacity simply because they discriminated against because are black, and apart from any consideration of actual merit.
So, it takes 15 resumes (instead of 10) to get a callback. Then the black candidate is 33% less likely to score an actual interview from that callback. Then 33% less likely to get to the second interview; 33% less likely to get to the 3rd and final interview.
Then they’re employed… How much less likely is it a black person receives a promotion? How much less do they make on average?
Edit: Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems you discount the idea slavery, segregation and discrimination has had ill effects for African Americans in the U.S. up to the present day...Why is that?
It’s not hard to find people whose ancestors 150 years ago were poor, uneducated, lacking skills and access to social networks… I think you’re just describing an average peasant. And yet, there are different outcomes.
As I mentioned in my post upthread, I agree it’s a factor. I just don’t think it’s the sole factor or even the most important factor.
Ongoing segregation and discrimination against blacks in America since slavery doesn’t seem to be making it into your math here. Why? It’s significant and should be considered.
And it’s not hard to imagine how “peasants” might do well when compared to former slaves...(1) being poor and being a slave are very different (2) It’s much tougher to segregate and discriminate when everybody looks basically the same. It’s easy when their skin color is different.
Do tell: What is the most important factor? Why?
I don’t see any ongoing segregation (though, interestingly enough, some Black movements nowadays are trying to revive it, in some places even successfully).
I’ve mentioned Jews upthread—they were very consistently discriminated against until after the WW2. Did they have similar outcomes?
On the other hand you have SubSaharan Africa which is doing pretty badly by pretty much any criterion. That includes countries which were colonies only for a very very short period (such as Ethiopia, which is also mostly Christian and the former Emperor of which traced a direct lineage line to King Solomon and Queen of Sheba).
Genetics, in particular IQ. Why? IQ is really really important.
Not backed by the gov’t through the present day but, as you mentioned, since WW2 and certainly long after slavery ended.
But discrimination based on race is still very common. I cited the study showing resumes with black sounding names receive significantly fewer callbacks than resumes with white sounding names...
You’ve not mentioned this study in your replies—Is this sort of discrimination not consequential in your view?
As a bit of a thought experiment, can you imagine a scenario in a society where a high IQ group of people was discriminated against to the extent where they couldn’t overcome the discrimination, despite their advanced higher IQ?
How would the circumstances be different than what blacks have faced in the U.S.? How would they be similar?
I don’t know about the study, I have a generic suspicion of social sciences studies, especially ones which come to highly convenient conclusions, and hey! they happen to have a what’s politely called “replication crisis”. I am not interested enough to go read the study and figure out if it’s valid, but on my general priors, I believe that people with black names will get less callbacks. However it seems to me that people with names like Pham Ng or Li Xiu Ying will also get less callbacks. People certainly have a bias towards those-like-me, but it’s not specifically anti-black, it’s against anyone who looks/feels/smells different.
Sure.
Um, the IQ would be different? It’s not a mystical inner quality that no one can fathom. It’s measurable and on the scale of large groups of people the estimates gets pretty accurate.
On the clearly visible level there would be very obvious discrimination—quotas on admissions to universities, for examples. These discriminated-against people would be barred from reaching high positions, but at the level they would be allowed to reach they would be considered very valuable. Even if, for example, such people could not make it into management, managers would try to hire as many of them as possible because they are productive and solve problems.
As to similarities, I was about to write that the discriminated-against will never rise to the highest positions in the society, but oh look! there is that Barack Hussain fellow...
As an example of how such discrimination can be rational and indeed reasonable...
You have a resume. It provides some noisy data about someone. Including that person’s race. Let’s trim it down. You have an IQ test result and the person’s race. Let’s say that two candidates has the same IQ in the test, but one came from a group known to have a significantly lower IQ on average.
If we assume that an IQ test result has any measurement noise—and they do—then the Bayesian conclusion is the candidate from the group with higher average IQ is likely to actually have a higher IQ.
Now resumes constitute very noisy data. People often even lie in their resumes. There are large differences between groups in the US. The dispute is about the reasons for the differences not whether they exist.
A study would need to overcome these effects to demonstrate irrational discrimination. They would need to show that e.g. there was consistent out-performance for the group discriminated against post recruitment.
The two kinds of discrimination -- (1) because I prefer people-like-me, and (2) because I have informative priors about groups—can perfectly well co-exist.
It’s debatable whether or not it’s specifically anti-black. Or anti-some-other-group. At any rate, a bias against those-not-like-me would be sufficient in this case to cause blacks a significant deficit in opportunity for employment in a historically majority white nation.
As usual, I phrased my comment poorly. Let me try a different tack...
You are saying black Americans have a genetic deficit in the form of lower average IQ. Because IQ is heritable and very important toward social “success”, this is a (or even the?) major factor in why they lag behind in certain social metrics (avg. income/wealth, crime rates, etc.) in American society.
I’m saying slavery/segregation/discrimination has created a very significant deficit for blacks to overcome in America, to the extent that we would expect to see something like we see in terms of the disparity in avg. income/wealth, crime rates, etc. I’d hypothesize slavery/segregation/discrimination has been consequential to the extent that even if blacks had a higher average IQ than whites, they would still be in a similar situation. (i.e. the discrimination is that bad and that significant.)
Plainly, advanced IQ (or other genetic advantages) aren’t enough to overcome significant discrimination in all cases. The disadvantages can be too steep in a given society.
I’d propose a good portion of the U.S. is a bit more racist than I think you are taking into consideration. And this may have caused a deeper deficit for blacks than you are appreciating.
Things can change. Slowly.
Will it? I agree that it will cause some harm, but I’m not sure about “significant”. Note that race-based discrimination is explicitly illegal and agencies such as EEOC do prosecute. Moreover, EEOC uses the concept of “disparate impact” which basically means that if you statistically discriminate regardless of your intent, you are in trouble.
Also, did a bias against those-not-like-me cause employment problems for, say, the Chinese? Why not?
I am saying people with African ancestry (regardless of their citizenship) belong to a gene pool which has average IQ lower than that of people with European ancestry. Lest you think that the whites are the pinnacle of evolution, the European gene pool has lower average IQ than, say, Han Chinese.
I don’t know if “deficit” is a useful word—there is no natural baseline and the fact that the IQ scale has the average IQ of Europeans as the “norm” (100) is just a historical accident. I think it’s more correct to just say that different gene pools have different IQ distributions.
There are two separable questions here. The first one is do you agree that people with African ancestry have lower average IQ (by about one standard deviation) than people with European ancestry? That question has nothing to do with slavery and segregation. If you do not, we hit a major disagreement right here and there’s not much point in discussing why contemporary black Americans have different outcomes than whites or Asians. If you do, we can move on to the second question: what is the relative role of various factors which determine the current state of the black Americans?
I might suggest the following approach. If you agree that the average IQ of blacks is lower, then let’s estimate the effect of that on social outcomes. It might be that this cause will explain a great deal of what we observe. If so, there’s no need to bring in the history of slavery and segregation as a major factor because there wouldn’t be much left to explain.
Ashkenazi Jews have higher average IQ than whites and were segregated and discrimated against. Are they in a similar situation? Were they in a similar situation at the time when the segregation was just ending?
Besides, you’re forgetting that one can just go and measure IQ. There is a lot of data on the average IQ of racial groups in the US. Hint: American blacks do not have higher IQ.
Yes, but we’re not talking about “all cases”. We are talking about the very specific case of the United States of America.
Um, things have changed. Already.
I’d submit it’s a matter of definition.
Great point. I didn’t know this. I’ll have to do more reading. Generally though, I’d concede anti-discrimination laws have an impact.
Well, the Chinese weren’t enslaved. And it’s my experience there is not nearly as much racism against Asians as against blacks in America, but that is just my anecdotal experience.
I’ve looked into this only briefly, and I’ll take your word for it.
It makes sense to me to separate this into two questions like you propose. As I said, I’ll defer to your research and knowledge on the first point (and suspend my skepticism in the process), and move to your second question.
As to that second question—what is the relative role of various factors which determine the current state of the black Americans—I’m interested to know what you think, given your view that people with African ancestry have lower IQs...
...You’ve stated it’s complex, but roughly, what percentage of contemporary social outcomes experienced by blacks in America are a result of genetic differences (“nature”), and what percentage are a result of environmental factors (nurture)? Of that percentage that you deem to be the result of environmental factors, what portion is a result of slavery/segregation/discrimination? Again, just looking for a rough sketch from your mind here, as I recognize you have stated it’s complex and difficult to parse.
Also, I’m wondering how the idea people with African ancestry have lower average IQ than people with European ancestry informs your politics?
Well, you can probably go about it in the following way. IQ is and was a controversial concept. One of the lines of attack against it was that it is meaningless, that the number coming out of the IQ test does not correspond to anything in real life. This is often expressed as “IQ measures the skill of taking IQ tests”.
To deal with this objection people ran a number of studies. Typically you take a set of young people and either give them a proper IQ test or rely on another test which is a decent IQ proxy—usually the SAT in the US or one of the tests that the military gives to all its drafted or enlisted men. After that you follow that set of people and collect their life outcomes, from income to criminal records. Once you’ve done that you can see whether the measured IQ actually correlates to life outcomes. And yes, it does.
I don’t have links to actual studies handy, but you can easily google them up, and you can take a look at a not-fully-rigorous description of the various tiers of IQ and what do they mean in real-life terms.
Basically what these studies give you is the cost of an IQ point, cost in terms of a lot of things—income, chance to end up in prison, longevity (high-IQ people are noticeably healthier), etc.
Given this, you can calculate the expected outcomes for the US black population. If their average IQ is 10-15 points lower, you can translate this into expected income (lower than the US mean), expected chance of a criminal conviction (higher than the US mean) and other things you’re interested in. Once you’ve done that, you can compare your expected values with ones empirically observed. Any remaining gap will be due to something other than the IQ differential.
On a macro level it does not. There are smart people, there are stupid people, and the correlation to some outwardly visible feature like the colour of the skin doesn’t matter much. I am not a white nationalist, I do not think the Europeans should re-colonise Africa for the natives’ own good, etc.
On a micro level it does. For example, I find affirmative action counter-productive. For another example, I don’t believe the claims that inner-city schools (read: black) lag behind suburban schools (read: not black) because of lack of funding or because of surrounding poverty. Throwing money at the problem will achieve nothing.
How do you mean? You’re saying you believe it to be true that, generally, people with black skin color are more likely to have a significantly lower IQ than people with white skin color… And you believe that IQ is correlated with life outcomes. How can this not matter much?
I also have the sense this may be true in many instances. The theory seems solid, but I’m not sure it works as intended in practice.
Why do they lag behind? Is it because of the IQ difference you believe exists between black and whites?
...
You say you’re not a white nationalist...I’m curious about your reaction to those who are? In regard to segregation, for instance… You say you don’t think the Europeans should re-colonise Africa for the natives’ own good—Why not?
Lumifer likely believes that IQ predicts school performance and there are many studies that back this claim. He quite specifically said that you can calculate outcomes.
However not all white/black people are the same. Statements about the average IQ are statements about averages. Not all white have the same IQ and not all black people have the same IQ. Low IQ white people have low IQ children.
In Germany a white child named “Kevin” is likely to have a lower IQ than a child named “Jakob” and if you run your implicit bias tests you find that there’s bias against the child named “Kevin”.
Stupid people are still people. They have rights. Their propensity to make stupid decisions is not sufficient to take away from them the power to make decisions.
Yes.
Is a shrug :-) People have all kinds of political beliefs, I don’t find the white nationalists to be extraordinary.
As to re-colonising Africa, see the first paragraph :-)
Hm. These views seem very likely to lead to racism.
I’ve read Breitbart frequently since Steve Bannon was added to Trump’s campaign because I’m fascinated with how Trump (an obvious hustler/fraud/charlatan in my view) has managed to get this close to the Oval Office. It’s been illuminating (in a disturbing way) in understanding where I now believe a lot of the Trump support is coming from.
I’m confident a portion of his support is just Red-Team-no-matter-what Repubs. And some are one issue Pro-Life Christians. And some are fiscal conservatives who are sincerely just concerned about the debt and spending. And some are blue collar workers in areas (Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.) where the global economy/technology caused manufacturing to dry up decades ago and they are mad as hell about the facts of the world and will just keep voting to change something, anything until they day they die...
But there is also this (disturbingly large) element of the movement that think non-white people are less than white people. Like, this group of Trump supporters are literally white supremacists—they believe white people are better suited for civilization. And, of course, no one can say that and politically get away with it in 2016, so they use all sorts of dog whistle-y language to imply it—including the main Trumpian slogan, “Make America Great Again™”
LOL. “Could lead to dancing”.
Under a common definition of racism as belief in meaningful differences between races, these views are racism. So?
I mean “racism” in a way that is significantly consequential for those who are discriminated against. An active racism.
If there truly are meaningful genetic differences between races, then so be it. But that seems to be the justification for the portion of “white supremacist” Trump supporters I mentioned above. It’s an angry racism that seems likely to be problematic.
Anyway, thanks for your thoughts.
Citation required. What is strange about this is that when you go looking, you don’t see good studies that track people through generations and show that this is in fact the case.
This idea “slavery is the cause” seems not to be an actual active idea but only functions as a thought terminating cliche.
It could have been slavery so it was.
It reminds me of religious apologists talking about the problem of evil, and how it ‘could’ be caused by man’s sin (causing human evil) and possibly by Satan’s sin (causing natural evil), which is required if we are to have free will. There is zero, I mean zero, interest in exploring just how ‘sin’ causes all the various forms of evil. How does sin cause our flawed DNA which allows cancer? Etc.
The idea that slavery/segregation/discrimination has created a very significant deficit for blacks seems beyond dispute in my view. The words “very significant” could be disputed based on how we defined them, but that’s a technicality. I’m honestly shocked to hear this idea challenged...
I’ve cited this study.
It’s stated that “African-Americans are twice as likely as whites to be unemployed and they earn nearly 25 percent less when they are employed.” The study itself shows significant discrimination based on race in the beginning stages of the hiring process.
Lumifer seemed to accept the basic premise, but was nonetheless skeptical and too uninterested to look into the study. I’d be interested to know what you think.
Regardless, it is evidence that employers discriminate against blacks. And employment is tied to income...and wealth...and opportunity. And that is passed on generation after generation.
Again, it seems indisputable to me that slavery has an effect. Segregation and discrimination, too. I honestly don’t understand how it couldn’t. The only question that is left is in regard to the significance of the effect. And if there are other factors. I’d love to hear some of your evidence for other factors.
And as for this...
I strongly disagree. People being enslaved based on race for hundreds of years, segregated for a hundred more, and then discriminated against until the present day, and that leading to some problems within that race has zero, and I mean zero, to do with the concocted, magical-causal “explanations” of religion.
How about this...
Man A is freed from slavery at 40 with no skills, no education, no family and no professional or network.
Also at 40, man B has a small fortune, an education, is skilled in a trade, has a large family, a good reputation, and a wide network of business and social contacts.
Assuming the offspring of each man—A1 and B1—has identical DNA, which offspring has the highest probability of graduating from an elite university?
Which—A1 or B1—will be more likely to have a successful career?
Which will pass on the largest inheritance to A2 and B2?
Why?
And what do you expect to change in subsequent generations?
(One thing that could change are laws eliminating discrimination...)
This is about as weak as an argument can possibly get.
Again this is not evidence.
Does not demonstrate irrational discrimination. They did not consider the possibility that a person’s race actually gives you useful information about them.
Consider the following example:
I have looked at the study before it is well known.
IQ is known to be highly heritable and highly correlated with many measures of success. As are other psychological dimensions such as the Big 5. Source: any psychology textbook.
Perhaps you have heard the saying “rags to riches to rags in three generations”. When I look at my family tree I see this happening many times.
Where I live a lot of the local whites are descended from prisoners who were slaves. They do not form an underclass in any way shape or form. In fact it is high status to have convict ancestry.
Or consider Jews, against whom there was massive discrimination until very recently. They have been very successful.
The idea that slavery/segregation/discrimination in America has had an effect is not in dispute. The argument is regarding it’s significance.
I fully agree. I was trying to distill the issue into simple terms. I would argue it’s nearly self evident that opportunity is passed on over generations, and that a head start for a group of people based on race could be persistent over multiple generations.
Are you saying it is appropriate for employers to discriminate based on race?
Per capita murder rates are no doubt higher among blacks. The question is what caused this.
You are not being discriminated against (or segregated) as a minority race.
They are not being discriminated against (or segregated) as a minority race.
Edit: Regarding evidence slavery having an effect on current day conditions… Here is a study showing “the 1860 slave concentration is related to contemporary black-white inequality in poverty, independent of contemporary demographic and economic conditions, racialized wealth disparities and racial threat. [This] research suggests the importance of slavery for shaping existing U.S. racial inequality patterns.”
I would also be interested in your view.
Are you asking, “why do black people kill more people”? Isn’t that gonna vary on a case by case? Like, you don’t get murder orders from Skin Color Command. People kill for all sorts of reasons, or none at all.
Source: http://www.nber.org/papers/w22399
What are the reasons? Well, beginning with the discovery of the North American continent 1492 …
Boo politics discussion during the pre-election madness.
I would guess that the concept of bias as used in cognitive psychology is not well known in the broad public. It’s generally mixed up with the concept of having a conflict of interest.
Most people also don’t think in terms of probability which you need to think about implicit biases the way it’s conceptualized in cognitive science. Even someone like Obama had episodes like his “it’s 50/50” comment in the hunt for Bin Ladin.
Can you explain the difference a “bias” in cognitive psychology and how you think Cinton/Kaine used the term?
My sense is that they are related...closely.
I’m not speaking about the difference in how they used the term but in the way it’s understood in the public. Clinton likely has a decent idea of what the academic concept of implicit bias happens to be.
It’s interesting that nobody asks why White people get shoot so much more than Asian people when the ratio of them getting shoot is equivalent to the ratio of White people vs. Black people. Per million, 5.03 Blacks, 5.02 Whites and only 0.72 Asians get shoot in this year by the police.
The focus on implicit bias is interesting. It’s like blaming the weather. We can agree that the weather is bad but that doesn’t change anything. The DNC emails suggest that it was DNC policy to not want to commit to any real demands of Black Lives Matter but simply focus on telling their narrative.
If they wanted real change they could proclaim that there a need for a new federal department that focuses on police accountability and in the future that department will persecute misdeeds by officers so that officers don’t get persecuted by their buddies anymore.
This doesn’t mean cognitive bias in a LW sense, it means everyone is racist, specifically against black people. I also don’t think its true—if everyone is a little bit racist, why would people get into interracial relationships? Its possible that the majority of people prefer their own race but don’t admit it, indeed the fact that racial groups cluster in cities could be argued to show this is the case via revealed preferences, but it seems obvious that some people have no racial bias.
This, like all politics, is far from rational. It starts by painting the issue in terms of ‘people who disagree with me are cowards’ and proceeds to assume that this discussion must conclude that the bias exists.
There are many attributes of possible partners that make me less likely to data them but that at the same time aren’t deal breakers. The fact that I have a theistic girlfriend doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t prefer a girlfriend who isn’t theistic all things equal.
It depends whether we are using ‘racist’ to mean ‘believes that some races are superior to others in certain respects’ or ‘has less empathy for other races’. In the first case, sure, maybe you would date someone of another race, because group differences aren’t so important when dealing with individuals. But in the latter case… if you are less able to empathise with people of other races it would seem really weird to date them.
We are using it here to mean “implicit racism”. That’s a term that used in the literature. There are studies that measure it. Implicit racism also isn’t something that’s only found in white people (in Clinton’s words it’s a problem for everyone). Black people also have implicit racism that makes them treat white people better in many instances.
I don’t think it means that. I don’t think she meant that. (Though I guess it depends on your definition of “racist”.)
My understanding is that humans have a tribal in/out group mentality that may use race as way to classify other humans as “others”. They can also use religion, class, culture, etc.
My understanding of Clinton’s (and then Kaine’s) remarks was that everyone has biases of which they are unconscious...and that these biases affect their thoughts...and therefore sometimes their actions.
I’m pretty sure that is what she means. There is a big controversy in the US over whether the police are racist, not over whether the police have cognitive biases. I would be overjoyed if presidential candidates really were discussing cognitive biases.
No disagreement here.
Hm. I don’t think it’s this clear a distinction. Clinton seems to be suggesting there is perhaps more nuance to the issue than just arguing about whether or not lots of cops are racist.
Interesting. I was very happy to hear Clinton speak of implicit bias because it seemed to be a way to advance the discussion to something more rational.
Why do you think that? The Gender studies folks that speak most about implicit bias aren’t the demographic that tries to create evidence-based policing policy. It also doesn’t seem to be a group of people who are on good terms when it comes to speaking with police departments about how to design their policy.
Because people have implicit cognitive biases. It’s useful to discuss them.
Peoples’ cognitive maps aren’t the territory. And people aren’t always conscious of the mistakes. Further, many people I’ve heard discuss politics in this election cycle seem unaware that there even could be errors in their map.
Instead of arguing over our competing maps, one good first step is to acknowledge our maps have errors, which is what I think Clinton’s line about “implicit bias” did.
The fact that a claim is true doesn’t automatically mean that it’s useful to discuss it.
No, it’s not an admission of Clinton that her maps have errors. In general people ability to interactually recite “all maps have errors” doesn’t mean that they use that belief for interacting with their own maps differently.
When it comes to having a rational discussion this is even bad, because it allows people to easily play motte-and-bailey.
It doesn’t? In what way would it not be useful?
I think it’s extremely useful to discuss how the brain you are using to solve problems has flaws that may be inhibiting you from solving those problems, or even recognizing the problems accurately. (It’s why I was on LW originally...)
(Maybe you’re using “automatically” here as a qualifier to make your statement technically correct—Is that what you mean? Like, people could discuss cognitive biases in a really stupid and irrational way that would make it unproductive? If that’s what you mean, then, yeah. Of course.)
It’s not? I thought she said we all (i.e. humans) have implicit biases? Wouldn’t that include Clinton?
Whether a discussion is useful depends on the results of the discussion. There are a lot of true things you can say that don’t advance a discussion into a direction that leads to a positive outcome.
It wasn’t a discussion of how implicit bias works but an uncited assertion that it has effects in certain conditions.
That might be true but it’s not what the LW mission of rationality that’s about systematic winning is about. I understand the mission to be about finding thinking strategies that lead to making winning decisions.
You can make an argument that logically it includes Clinton. You can also look at the decision making literature and see what saying “everyone has biases” does to a person self awareness of their own biases. It generally does little.
People could discuss cognitive biases in a really stupid and irrational way that would make it unproductive? If that’s what you mean, then, yeah. Of course.
Yeah? It wasn’t really the format for a CFAR plug.
Right. Like approaching policy debates with a reduction in mind-killedness. Acknowledging implicit bias is a great step.
It does more than not acknowledging people are biased—this was literally what Clinton’s critics said in regard to her comment. They essentially denied that implicit bias exists.
You seem to making a black or white argument that Clinton’s comment isn’t useful because it’s not that useful—it won’t solve anything or make rationality win U.S. policy on this issue. I am not under the illusion her one sentence will un-mindkill U.S. politics. I’m merely contrasting the (a) acknowledgement of bias with (b) being apparently unaware that it exists.
A is better than B.
The way she discussed it wasn’t productive. There also the general field of Gender studies. As a field it doesn’t encourage open and data driven debate about the subject. When you start a discussion with saying that your opponent holds their position because of implicit bias that doesn’t tend to be a discussion where it’s easy to focus on rational argument.
The problem is that you are making claims that are wrong. It wasn’t a discussion of how implicit bias works. If you want to analyse claims about a debate it’s useful to stay with the facts.
No. Focusing a discussion on implicit bias means to not focus the discussion on “How can we solve this problem?” It’s a rhetoric strategy to signal concern about Black Lives Matter while at the same time not having to actually discuss policy solutions to the problems.
There’s also a good chance that a conservative person who hears the debate is harder to educate about the concept of implicit bias after listening the debate.
The intellectual toolkit of Gender studies with includes asserting that the opponent is driven by implicit bias and privilege is not useful for having rational discussions. The communities that engage in that toolkit generally don’t want to let data decide.
The also don’t ask the obvious questions such as whether the fact that more Whites get killed than Asians is also due to implicit bias. That a very straightforward question if you look at the data and want to use implicit bias as a cognitive tool for explaining the data of police killers.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Can you restate it?
You mentioned “gender studies” a couple times in a negative light—Why? It doesn’t have anything to do with this discussion.
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Generally, the idea that (a) we all have implicit biases based on how our brain works and our life experiences, (b) these biases may significantly obscure our map of the territory, and (c) in the special case of police—where men and women need to quickly make highly consequential decisions under extreme stress—this obscured map may lead to irrational, “non-winning”, decisions seems uncontroversial. Certainly nothing you’ve said has rebutted it.
For the record, I don’t think every police shooting is racist. Not even close. And I think the left goes way too far trying to spin this.
Why aren’t you seeking to explain why White’s get more likely to be killed by police than Asian’s? Why do you think it’s a question that people like Clinton don’t address?
Because it’s difficult to have a conservation about the quality of the public debate without accounting for the cultural forces that are responsible for the public debate being the way it currently is.
Making winning decisions is about agency. Hillary Clinton could say that she wants that all police wear body camera’s. If she can win a majority for that policy she can implement it.
On the other hand you can’t pass a law that people shouldn’t have implicit bias anymore. Speaking about it is useful if Hillary Clinton wants to engage in virtue signaling but not actually focus on getting policies changed.
If she wanted to do rational policy making she could say: “We should do controlled trials that try different policies in different area’s to find out which policies actually help with changing the status quo.”
In what kind of ontology do you believe if you think that a police shooting could be racist, even in principle? That there are some police shootings that are racists and other that aren’t? If you want to use the word “racist” to be a property of events and not a property of people than it means something qualitatively different than what the term “implicit racism” is about.
This looks like your conceptualization of racism is the standard meaning of the word and has little to do with the academic term of “implicit racism”.
She didn’t address it because it wasn’t relevant to the discussion at hand. Is the disparity between Whites and Asians killed by police significant? Is it an issue that is pressing in terms of it’s current effect on the body politic?
You speak about this is a very definitive way, as if you know exactly what would work. I don’t know what would work. It seems to me these are complex issues. I just noted it was good and, I think, useful to hear someone mention the everyone is subject to bias as opposed to the same old Red v. Blue talking points. I’d have praised anyone who said something similar, regardless of which team they played for.
My phrasing was poor.
I don’t think race is a factor in every police shooting. Despite this, the left seems to try and make every single police shooting involving an African American into another example of blatant, explicit racism. I don’t agree with this at all and I think it detracts from the effort to improve things. Every police shooting ought to be examined based on the objective facts.
The idea that an officer (or judge, or anyone) could have an implicit bias against a group of people, and that that bias is consequential, seem to me to be worth exploring.
In 2016 the difference is slightly stronger than the difference between Whites and Black getting killed. It’s a fact that easily knowable if you care to look for the numbers of police killings by race. Anybody who cares enough about the issue to know the fact should know it if the can read numbers in a straightforward way instead of just trying to validate their party line.
You don’t know what would work because Clinton doesn’t speak about the evidence for what works. It’s not the conversation she tries to have on the subject. There’s good evidence that body camera’s do work.
The fact that creating legal structure where police can effectively prosecuted for wrongdoing seem obvious to me. I don’t have specific evidence for it, but it feels like an elephant in the room.
Evidence-based policy making and running trials to see which policies perform best is a framework that applying rationality. In fairly confident that it’s better than blaming people for having biases and hoping that they will change as a result. I don’t have studies that validate that claim but it again seem obviously true.
If you think that the logical conclusion would be that Clinton was wrong when she claimed that everybody suffers from implicit bias.
That’s exactly why it’s unproductive. You don’t actually think in terms of “implicit racism” but simply use the new name to label concepts that you already knew beforehand.
That sounds again like a rejection of using the framework of implicit bias. You don’t see evidence of implicit bias in a case by case basis. You see it when you look in aggregate on choices. A person with implicit bias has higher availability for certain action and thus likely reacts a little faster, even if both cases result in a dead suspect.
Do you have a preferred source?
Who’s doing this?
We have implicit biases. Biases based on race are a pretty big deal in this country, historically. In my view, the level of bias in police shootings doesn’t reach any reasonable threshold to be called anything like “racism” in many, many cases.
Perhaps this is true for you. I often think about ways my view may be biased when relating to people. And then I act to better understand and, hopefully, neutralize the bias. My efforts are clumsy and likely often fail, because I’m not particularly intelligent or skilled at overcoming bias.
At any rate, the first step toward being productive in this regard is recognizing bias exists.
Sure you could. I’d agree the aggregate data would be (perhaps more) revealing, but the facts of a particular case (including the video) could also tell you something about what biases might exist and how they effected the event.
I’m tapping.
What are your political leanings? I’d like to better understand our interaction by knowing how you view yourself generally on the U.S. political spectrum. Thanks.
I use the Guardian as the source https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database
The academic notion of implicit racism isn’t about any other threshold than statistical significance. The tool that they developed have gotten good at picking up effects in many people so the threshold is quite low and most people suffer from implicit racism.
If you reject that concept, then it doesn’t make sense to see Hillary using it as progress.
I’m not on the U.S. political spectrum. He Facebook political status is currently “Continental”. My formal political associations put me left of center in Berlin.