Re: Andre Carson: Tea party wants blacks 'hanging on a tree' Read more: http://www.p
So we're back to the point I made originally - the definitions are the result of some political/ideological, etc process that is negotiated and debated amongst dictionary editors. Anyone who relies on appeal to dictionary as the basis for their argument is simply playing the appeal to authority logical fallacy.
rof appeal to authority is not a fallacy when teh "authority" being appealed to is
actually the authority that defines what is being discussed. For example, if I am talking about a law, and I appeal to the authority of the legislation which defines the law, I am
not guilty of a fallacy.
The words "primary" and "inherent" are not synonyms. The two definitions take on different meanings when modified by these two words. By your argument, that a dictionary definition is a true representation of a concept, there should not be two different meanings to the same specific instance of a concept, in this case, that race is a determinant of behavior. The Merriam Webster dictionary would allow someone to posit that race is a "SECONDARY determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race" and thus escape being defined as a racist. The Dictionary.com definition allows someone to believe that "NON-INHERENT differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others" and escape being defined as a racist.
You seem to be under the impression that multiple, subtly different definitions cannot coexist. This is a false impression. If you qualify for the label of racist under
any of the definitions, then the label is accurate when applied to you, so long as the person does not
equivocate on which definition applies. Nobody
escapes the label simply because they don't qualify under one specific definition. I made that clear in my posts by specifically pointing out that there was a difference in how the definitions would apply.
Those are two totally different slants on the idea that they're trying to capture. The editors are doing a poor job of accurately defining the feature of racism that they target because they don't know enough about the topic to accurately define the parameters of the concept.
the part in bold is just unsubstantiated nonsense you made up because you do not wish for
your ideas to be labeled as racist. As I said, if you have them, then you should have the balls to accept the label when accurately applied.
Second of all, there are different editors at different dictionaries. They are conveying the definition that they wish to convey.
You quoted a definition that appealed to your sensibilities and you tried to pass it off as being the definitive statement on the issue.
I quoted a real definition of the word that also happens to be one of the most common correct usages of the word and then clearly specified that this was the definition that I use. I don't give a rat's ass if you don't
like that definition. As I said, tough ****. If you don't like it, invent a new language for yourself and then you can eliminate all of the real definitions of words that cause you to get a mental boo-boo because they aren't nice to be called. How's that sound?
If you had quoted the Dictionary.com definition then your argument would have vanished into thin air.
I used the same dictionary I
always cite in my arguments. If you wish to know the exact meaning I am using for a word that might be ambiguous, look at that dictionary. If I am using a word incorrectly based on the definitions present in that dictionary, let me know and I will cease to use that word in that way and admit that I was using it incorrectly. You are under the false impression that I scoured a bunch of dictionaries looking for the one I wanted to use, but in truth, and you can check this, I use webster's as my primary dictionary in all debates.
This selective referencing of evidence would, if you were in academia, get you shunned and would be severely damaging to your reputation.
I
am in academia, so spew your bull**** toward someone else who might be dumb enough to believe you know what you are talking about. what you inaccurately label as "selective referencing" is actually abiding by a standard. And any person too cowardly to actually cite their sources in a post (meaning
you) shouldn't pretend to know anything about academia. You'd be busted out of any place for plagiarism for your lack of citations in posts (one's I've asked very kindly for sources for). So again, spew your bull**** elsewhere. I know that you don't know how to provide references adequately in a post. I've witnessed it in action and repeatedly requested references only to have those requests go unfulfilled. Not only would that damage your reputation in academia, it would get you
removed from academia.
So don't play pretend with me.
In the real world it just diminishes your credibility, and in your case, you don't have much of that left, so you should probably shepherd what little you have left with great care.
No evidence exists which would imply that you are a competent judge of credibility. Whilst my credibility with
you might be diminished based on the fact that I used a definition that you didn't
like (and clearly stated that I was using that definition), I consider you to be an incompetent judge of credibility for various reasons, not the least of which being, an inability to use a dictionary with competence.
This board as a search feature which allows for pretty specific search parameters to be used. Find me an instance where I've argued that race is a primary determinant for IQ.
A number of highly educated, upper middle class white couples and the children they adopted were studied over multiple decades. The children in the study were grouped as follows - biological children of the couples, children born to two white parents, children born to a white parent and a black parent, children born to two black parents. The racial variance in intelligence presented itself.
If you contend that environment is the cause of racial variance, then the specific environmental factors which TOTALLY cause this variance must be factors other than maternal education, family socioeconomic status, neighborhood environment, child's peer network, quantity of school resources, quality of teachers, for these children were all raised in the same families and yet their IQs showed racial variance.
You toss out a environmental factor that you think is responsible and I'll shoot it down. Then pick another one and I'll shoot it down. Pretty soon you're going to be pinning all your hopes and prayers on only a few variables, likely ones that are unmeasurable, and those variables WILL have to have an immensely powerful effect.
This evolution-denying line of argument that you're advancing is precisely my complaint with liberals.
Lastly, why does it matter if you already concede the IQ variance is there and that there hasn't been any real closing of the gap despite the trillions of dollars that we've dumped into a sinkhole based on the premise that environmental remediation will solve the problem? Here is the reality that we're living with, deal with it honestly.
(Please note the complete and utter lack of citation here, despite direct reference to these studies. That's a
big non-no in academia, so don't bother bull****ting with me about academic credibility anymore, mmmkay? You have none.)
In response to:
The problem with this is that the IQ literature also shows that environment plays a significant role in determining IQ, which considerably hampers the hypothesis that the racial variance in IQ is caused by evolution.
(Note the italics? That was present in the original.) Also take note that I did
not say, as you falsely claimed, "...that environment is the cause of racial variance..." I said that the evidence about environment hampers the
evolution hypothesis.
In order to push your
evolution hypothesis, you said that you could "shoot down" any environmental factor that may be a factor. Now, since you cravenly decided that you would not actually cite your sources with as little as the titles of the articles that you gathered your information from, I could not continue the discussion honestly because I would be forced to trust your interpretations of these data as accurate, something I am totally and completely unwilling to do given your penchant for not comprehending what you have read.
While you might
think that your argument was not based on a belief that racial factors are a primary or inherent determinant (whichever one you want to use), but when the above is taken in conjunction with this post 102 from the same thread:
http://www.debatepolitics.com/break...n-warming-call-me-crazy-3.html#post1059740102
And your agreement with Risch about:
"This shows that people's self-identified race/ethnicity is a nearly perfect indicator of their genetic background"
You are actually incorporating the idea, through a near perfect correlation, that genetic background and racial identity are near perfect synonyms, if that statement by Risch is correct. This is because they become reversible due to the near perfection. genetic background would, by necessity, be a near perfect indicator of racial/ethnic self-identity if the reverse is true.
So when you make an argument that genetics alone is the cause of racial variance in IQ by way of evolution, you are saying that it is an inherent difference between the races
caused by the very thing that is a nearly perfect indicator of one's racial self-identity. Since you consider IQ to be an accurate measure of intelligence, and you believe that one race is inherently inferior in this regard (In general, with obvious allowances for exceptions to the rule), even if you consider all other traits to be equal, you must consider that race to be inherently inferior to the other, because if all things but one are equal, and that one thing is superior in one group over the other, then the whole thing is inferior due to the differences in that single trait.
For example, if we have two cars that are identical in all but one trait, and that trait is gas mileage, then the car with the superior gas mileage is superior to the car with inferior gas mileage.
Now, whether or not this particular argument is
accurate has
no bearing on whether or not it is
racist. It
is possible for a racist view to be accurate, despite what society might
feel about the view or racism in general. The
only thing that matters is that it fits the description of
at least one real definition of the word racism. And it
does. The one I specifically cited when I applied the term.