But to say “Kenyans are more likely to be great distance runners” is less accurate than saying “People whose ancestors spent uncommonly large amounts of time at great elevation with less oxygen.”
If having such ancestors completely explains why Kenyans have that trait, then that would count as “the correlation between race and bad things is eliminated once you take the other factor into account”. So you’re not actually disagreeing with me.
If having such ancestors completely explains why Kenyans have that trait, then that would count as “the correlation between race and bad things is eliminated once you take the other factor into account”.
What other factor? If you mean “having such ancestors” then you’ve just tabooed the word “race” but I don’t see how this counts as “eliminating the correlation”.
If people of some race are more likely to have a bad trait, but that increased likelihood can be completely explained by the fact that people of that race are more likely to have some other factor, then there is no correlation between race and that trait once you condition on the other factor. That’s what “completely explained” means.
If that increased likelihood cannot be completely explained by the fact that people of that race are more likely to have that other factor, then there remains some correlation between race and that trait even after conditioning on that other factor.
Not every reply is automatically disagreement, some are expanding on or clarifying ideas. I want to clarify and focus on the idea that the actual issue is in the way people phrase things, and show specifically how the phrasing should be changed.
If there is an aspect where I might be disagreeing though, it’s in the claim that race should be included at all in these statements. Given how people get confused on this and how dangerous it’s proven to be in the past, it’s probably better not to use race at all when making these statements about tendencies caused by environment...especially since race itself has no causal relationship.
If having such ancestors completely explains why Kenyans have that trait, then that would count as “the correlation between race and bad things is eliminated once you take the other factor into account”. So you’re not actually disagreeing with me.
What other factor? If you mean “having such ancestors” then you’ve just tabooed the word “race” but I don’t see how this counts as “eliminating the correlation”.
If people of some race are more likely to have a bad trait, but that increased likelihood can be completely explained by the fact that people of that race are more likely to have some other factor, then there is no correlation between race and that trait once you condition on the other factor. That’s what “completely explained” means.
If that increased likelihood cannot be completely explained by the fact that people of that race are more likely to have that other factor, then there remains some correlation between race and that trait even after conditioning on that other factor.
The problem is that in the grandparent the other factor is just a reformulation of “have the same race” in different words.
Not every reply is automatically disagreement, some are expanding on or clarifying ideas. I want to clarify and focus on the idea that the actual issue is in the way people phrase things, and show specifically how the phrasing should be changed.
If there is an aspect where I might be disagreeing though, it’s in the claim that race should be included at all in these statements. Given how people get confused on this and how dangerous it’s proven to be in the past, it’s probably better not to use race at all when making these statements about tendencies caused by environment...especially since race itself has no causal relationship.