Re: Andre Carson: Tea party wants blacks 'hanging on a tree' Read more: http://www.p
Merriam Webster dictionary is not the authority which defines what the term racism means. For that claim to be true we'd have to discount other dictionaries which offer different definitions.
The part in bold is false.
All real dictionaries are legitimate authorities on the meanings of words. One does not cancel out the other. You may wish for that to be the case, but it isn't.
Well, so much for your contention that an appeal to authority is valid when the authority is the entity which defines a term. Now he have conflicting authorities and meaning is muddled.
They aren't conflicting. In order for their to be conflict, the definitions would have to oppose each other. One definition would not be able to coexist with the other. If we cannot consider a dictionary to be an authority on a word's meaning, then words
lose all meaning.
And below you claim that you're in academia. Give me a break. This addled thinking is good for comedic effect but really doesn't belong in a serious discussion. Now the people you're debating are supposed to know what your favored dictionary is.
No, the people I'm debating only need to know my favored dictionary if they are going to make the claim that I was engaging in "selective referencing". In order to engage in selective referencing, I must be making my choices based on which
definition I prefer,
not which dictionary I prefer. The only evidence that could exist which showed that I am doing this would be if I used different dictionaries
based on my personal preference regarding the definition in question.
Someone who was
actually in academia would actually
research their hypothesis before claiming it as fact. I can see why you might form said hypothesis while remaining ignorant of the facts, but to claim that the hypothesis as true while remaining ignorant of the facts shows that you have zero credibility in your assessments. It sghows that you are willing to build your claims upon a foundation of ignorance.
You asked and I delivered.
You delivered nothing. You actually refused to provide sources for that particular post for me. Instead you provided a link to a totally different thread with many different
Do you not recall our PM exchange. I followed the practice I use with everyone, so I'm not revealing any privileged information of our discussion. For arguments that I've already made in an earlier thread, I provide a link to that discussion and all of the supporting evidence I cite. I won't jump through hoops where the person I'm corresponding with wants me to repeat, for their benefit, all the work that I've already done. I would tell anyone, and I usually do, to get off their lazy butt and read the link(s) I sent them and then I inform them if they had any further questions that arose from that material that I'd be happy to engage them on those questions. I give you my permission to release that e-mail if you think it helps your case in this matter.
And this incompetent understanding of how one cites sources in academia is absolute proof that you are not familiar with academia. Imagine what would happen to a doctoral student who decided to not cite sources for her dissertation and took the stance, when sources were requested, that she put all those sources in their master's thesis and if the lazy doctoral review board wasn't interested in sifting through all of her other work in order to find the sources used in
this work, she wasn't about jump through hoops" citing sources with competence.
I'll tell you what would happen. She'd never get that PhD. If you actually knew what you were talking about, you wouldn't take this lazy, plagiarizing stance on providing citations for every post in which you cite sources.
Your academic incompetence is not a reflection on those who wish for you to be academically competent, despite what you may claim from your foundation of ignorance.
When your defense is an admission that you use citations incompetently, it isn't really a defense.
If you're going to make accusations then you should at least TRY to base them on evidence:
Irony. You has it.
RiverDad: This is actually the least controversial point I've made in this entire discussion. Those numbers are seen all throughout the literature. No one is disputing them. The dispute, as it is, centers on whether the numbers arise from genes, environment or a combination of both factors. The extremist creationists argue for environment, the moderates argue for genes and environment.
No one argues for genes alone.
The part in bold is
known to be a false claim because we
know that
you do argue for genes alone creating the variation between races because you claim that
evolution causes the variance seen between races.
While you might not actually understand what that
means, when evolution is cited as the
causal factor for variance it means that the
only role that environment plays in the variance is in determining the genetic differences between races which, in turn,
leads to the variance.
There is a reason that I worded my statement to which you responded in the way that I did. Notice that I said, very specifically, the fact that environmental factors
also exist hampers your
evolution hypothesis.
I very specifically did
not say that the presence of environmental factors hampers the hypothesis that their is a
genetic influence on
overall IQ variation.
I also carefully highlighted the word "also" in my post for a reason.
Instead of taking a moment to assess what your response to that very carefully worded statement might say about your overall argument, you instead made it very clear that the
variance between races was not caused by environment. You actually stated,
very clearly, that you could "shoot down" any environmental factor.
You clearly stated that the very thing that determines race is
also the thing that causes the racial variance in IQs.
The entire superiority-inferiority framework presupposes that it is possible to rank racial groups from superior to inferior. On what basis does this ranking occur? Therein lies the fallacy of this framework. We are all the sum of many parts. Are taller people superior to shorter people? How about the tall child molester, is he superior to the short nurse? How about smarter people, are they superior to less intelligent people? How about the smart serial killer, is he superior to the average intelligence person who is a cop working to put him in prison.
Most of these are false analogies because what you are doing is ranking groups of people, not individuals. Individuals won't be similar across a multitude of characteristics that have clear inferior and superior classifications the same way that groups will. Comparing Bill to Tom directly will have
many more differences between variables than comparing all of the world's Bills to all of the world's Toms would.
Only one of your examples actually meets the criteria for a valid comparison and that would be the smarter people vs. less intelligent people example. when these groups are separated out by their intelligence, the other natural traits that they have will actually become far less varied. The average heights of both groups will only vary insignificantly, for example. Thus, the two groups will be for all intents and purposes identical save for one trait. In comparing the two groups, one can claim that one is superior to the other on this particular trait. With all other traits being equal or not having an inferior/superior dichotomy, the superiority of one group is based entirely on the single trait that
can be considered one that has superiority or inferiority characteristics.
Thus, those who believe in a rank ordering of races are racists.
So are you claiming that you've never given a rank ordering of races based on IQ?