I just turned to NYTimes.com and read this: “The family of George J. Stinney Jr., who was put to death at 14 for the murder of two white girls, is seeking exoneration in South Carolina, a state where racial matters still simmer.”
Where exactly is a place with a lot of races living closely together and “racial matters” don’t still simmer? The only places where racial matters don’t simmer are in homogeneous societies like Japan and Oregon.
* Was there such an uproar when we held the Olympics in the totalitarian state of China? How is Russia any worse than China? Russia, it seems to me, has much more freedom.
Posted inRace|Comments Off on Simmering Racial Matters
Larger brains correlate with higher IQs. Brains in whites start getting smaller after age 25, in Asians after 35. Asians have larger brains, higher IQs and wider hips than do whites who in turn have larger brains and wider hips than some other groups.
Older women with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids in their blood had slightly less brain shrinkage than women with low fatty acid levels in a new study.
The results may suggest that omega-3s protect the brain from the loss of volume that happens with normal aging and is seen more severely in people with dementia, the researchers say.
“The brain gets smaller during the normal aging process – about 0.5 percent per year after age 70, but dementia is associated with an accelerated and localized process of brain shrinkage,” said James Pottala, who led the study.
Notice how it is OK in the Reuters article to talk about brain size and Omega-3s but it is not ok to notice the ethnic differences in brain size, which correlate with IQ.
The New York Times will talk about how lead poisoning and other things lower IQ, but in other sections of the paper will deny that IQ measures anything important.
Have you ever noticed how in the New York Times’ universe, IQ is unquestionably valid and terribly, terribly important in the Health section of the newspaper? (See, for example, the NYT’s recurrent coverage of the effects of the exposure to lead in reducing I.Q.)
In this Health section article, for example, the Times is getting worked up over an IQ test given to 2-3 year olds, which is pushing the age limits of IQ testing. And the sample size is only 53. And yet, there’s absolutely zero quibbling about the usefulness of IQ testing in this article. It’s simply assumed that, of course, everybody knows that a difference in average IQ scores of about eight points is a big deal.
Yet, in the Education section of the Times, where you might think IQ would be even more relevant, it rarely comes up. And when it does put in an unwelcome appearance, it is often dismissed as discredited.
And here’s the headline in the Washington Post, “Epilepsy Drug in Pregnancy May Lower Child’s IQ,” which links to the AP’s article by Mike Stobbe. It too simply assumes that IQ is a valid and important thing.
I always love how the New York Times is oh-so-skeptical about IQ testing in general, except when it supports something they like, and then credulity is the order of the day. Look, there is no IQ test for 1-year-olds. What Levitt did in this paper is show that a test of infant liveliness (e.g., how often the infant babbles) that has a low but positive correlation with childhood IQ doesn’t show the normal differences between the races at age 8 to 12 months. Indeed, the highest IQ children (Northeast Asians) do the worst on this test of infant vivacity. With a typical Freakonomic leap of faith, Levitt and Fryer suggested that this shows that IQ differences aren’t genetic but are caused by environmental differences, presumably between age 1 and the earliest ages at which IQ tests are semi-reliable.
Of course, all Levitt actually did was show that this test of infant liveliness is a racially biased predictor of IQ. Why is it racially biased? Well, there are lots more ways for something to go wrong than to go right, but one obvious possibility is that the test of infant alertness might measure traits that differ on average between the races, but aren’t related to IQ differences between the races. For example, within a race, babies that babble more turn out to be a little bit smarter on average than more taciturn babies. Yet, Asian infants don’t babble as much on average as other babies, but that doesn’t mean they’ll turn out to have lower IQs on average than babies from races that babble more. But pointing out that this test of babies is racially biased is not as sexy a story as claiming it shows Nurture Triumphs Over Nature.
Hey, wait a minute, I thought that IQ was a discredited, obsolete, fraudulent, racist concept yada yada yada … This reminds me of 2002 when the NYT editorial board thought IQ tests were great when the Supreme Court mandated their use to save low IQ murderers from the death penalty.
As part of my continuing series on the causes of the 60s, let’s consider Kevin Drum’s revival (”America’s Real Criminal Element: Lead”) in Mother Jones magazine of the recurrent theory that lead poisoning leads to the decline of civilization.
Posted inHealth, IQ, Race|Comments Off on The Importance Of Brain Size
When I drive to work, I’m serene. The traffic rarely gets to me. I don’t use my horn much. I’m largely unruffled. I enjoy the show “Take Two” on KPCC. My commute takes about 20 minutes. My ride is smooth without a lot of herky jerky. I’m fine.
I keep in my car a copy of the Torah book, Gateway to Happiness, and I usually read a few sentences before heading off to work.
I know that our willpower is strongest in the morning (and after we eat) but gets progressively weaker as the day wears on. As the afternoon rolls on, I’m increasingly impatient and ill-tempered. We only have so much willpower. It’s a resource like money. Once its spent, its gone until it can be replenished. You have to realize that as the day goes on, your willpower falls away so if you have something tough to do, you need to do it as early in the day as possible. After lunch, you’re not going to be as strong as you are at 9 am.
When I get in my car to go home, I’m often tired and cranky and frustrated and angry. My drive home — which takes 20-30 minutes — feels like a war. I feel like I’m navigating through all these horrible drivers. I speed and then slam on my brakes. I want to engage in the most dreadful stereotyping. I get upset with the slow Asian drivers. I get upset that people don’t drive close enough to one another. I feel like I can’t take much more of this. I just want to get home. I often feel like I’m on the verge of an accident. Tonight I thought this moron was going to hit me as he steered into my lane despite me having the right of way. I was shocked when I didn’t hear the scrape and bang of a collision.
I have a harder time being a mentch at work and on my drive home than about anywhere else in my life.
Road rage is a great measure of the quality of the program you’re working. If you’re really getting worked up as I sometimes do on my drive home, it shows you’re not working a strong program. I’m indulging the illusion that I can control the world around me when all I can control is my own reactions.
When I finally make it home and somebody is in my parking space, I want to hit the roof.
It takes me about 15-30 minutes to decompress and then I’m fine. I’m serene again.
As I age, I have less tolerance for silence. I’m not happy with my life and I don’t want to sit in silence and let my mind grind in on itself. So when I go to bed at night, I put on a book on CD or music to keep my mind occupied until I fall asleep. I typically wake up half a dozen times throughout the night and keep getting up to put on another CD until I can fall asleep again. If I just lie there at 2 am, I get angry and frustrated and that makes it harder for me to fall asleep. I don’t like my bed to become a battleground. I don’t want to fight to sleep. Best to distract myself with a good lecture or a piece of music until my mind turns off.
Pete* emails:
Dear Luke,
I am a native who learned to drive in L.A. If you have any experience driving in other parts of the country, drivers in L.A. are generally better drivers, and drive more aggressively than elsewhere. We also use our horns and turn signals a lot less. We depend on our cars and routinely extend courtesies to other drivers.
We also signal less but drivers here do more defensive driving which is how we get away both with less signaling and more aggressive and faster driving.
My wife, is not a native, and she gets very upset with other drivers.
I think the native Angelenos really only get upset with certain things because it shows the driver is not being considerate of other drivers. As examples pulling over to drop someone off or pick someone up in traffic. We don’t mind very much if it is done quickly. But if it holds up traffic while the people are slowly alighting from or entering the car or talking with the driver or taking their time with loading and unloading baggage, I get pissed. Same thing with people in left turn lane, not turning when there is a break in traffic, or not going far enough out into the intersection to let the car behind them be able to turn when the light changes.
However, there is the other problem which all of us have; that of being stuck in traffic. You are helpless. If there were another way to go you would have found it. All you can do is wait and wait. That saps the soul out of anyone.
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on The War Going Home
A painful sensation excited by a consciousness of guilt or impropriety, or of having done something which injures reputation, or of the exposure of that which nature or modesty prompts us to conceal.
Reproach incurred or suffered; dishonor; ignominy; derision; contempt.
The cause or reason of shame; that which brings reproach, and degrades a person in the estimation of others; disgrace.
Therapist Mark Smith: “When we grow up with a critical parent, you can’t help but take that negativity in and that harsh voice they used on you becomes a voice you use on yourself. Many times in a fight, you’ll use it on your spouse and on your children…but the number one person you’ll use it on is yourself.”
“Another characteristic of shame is being overly sensitive.”
“People spiral with shame. You’ll start out with a negative thought and it just keeps getting bigger and it lasts weeks.”
“Shame follows you around everywhere you go and it won’t come off with a shower.”
“Another quality of shame is being painfully shy. We moved a lot when I was a kid and I was called painfully shy. What I was was ashamed and unsupported and unloved. When you’re wounded and damaged, you don’t shine brightly.”
“Another quality of shame is the inability to nurture yourself well, to make time to exercise and to rest and to have fun and to do things you love. Not spending money on yourself. You’re unable to do something nice for yourself.”
“The nature of shame is hopelessness and self-hatred and self-contempt, using that harsh voice to bludgeon yourself for making mistakes.”
“Not feeling comfortable with compliments.”
“Another nature of shame is extreme perfectionism and being unable to relax and be imperfect.”
“Part of the nature of shame is feeling unlovable. If you weren’t loved well growing up, you won’t be able to love yourself well.”
“Gravitating towards believing and cherishing negative feedback.”
“Part of shame is gravitating toward and putting up with negativity. People who are shamed will get into a job with a shaming boss and they’ll stay because it feels familiar. They are used to being treated that way and they put up with it. It doesn’t dawn on them to leave.”
“Another quality of shame is picking partners who treat you mean and abusively. It goes back to how you were loved growing up. It’s Mother Nature’s way of helping us to work on ourselves. When we’re twisted up on the inside, it determines your love life. Someone who was shamed growing up, when they’re 21 and at a party, they’ll pick the mean shaming chick because she sounds like your mother, like the way you’ve always been treated.”
“Shame scars create a sense of distrust of the universe. Paranoia. You have a negative way of viewing and interacting with the world. It feels like people are out to get you.”
“Shame scars can cause you to not see any positive or redemptive qualities in your spouse. You have a harsh voice that was pointed at you from your parents.”
“Shame scars can cause you to be defensive and dug in and viciously counter-attack.”
“It is so freeing not having to interrupt and to just listen. When you’re filled with shame, you have to defend yourself and to be snippy.”
“Shame scars can keep you from having friends, having fun, forgiving, from being able to love yourself. Shame scars can cause you to cut off your nose to spite your face.”
“Shame scars can cause you to medicate your pain with food, drugs, alcohol, sex, relationships, iPads, computers. There are so many ways to numb out and to lose yourself.”
Posted inPsychology|Comments Off on The Nature Of Shame
From Scientific American: Few issues are as provocative and as poorly understood as biological differences among the races. So loaded are statements suggesting racial superiority or inferiority that, for the most part, an anxious hush surrounds the topic. To his credit, journalist Jon Entine has tackled this problem with a no-holds-barred assault.
Not shy about poking at the issue’s softest spots, he goes after the history of sports and race science, the segregation and integration of sports, racial breeding and eugenics, sports and IQ, and the emergence of the black female athlete. Entine has put together a well-researched, relatively thorough and lucidly written case, arguing that in many sports-particularly basketball, football, and track and field-athletes of African descent show a competitive advantage.
He opens Taboo with the firm conclusion that “to the degree that it is a purely scientific debate, the evidence of black superiority in athletics is persuasive and decisively confirmed on the playing field. Elite athletes who trace most or all of their ancestry to Africa are by and large better than the competition.” While acknowledging that success in sports is a “bio-social phenomenon,” he asserts that “there is extensive and persuasive research that elite black athletes have a phenotypic advantage-a distinctive skeletal system and musculature, metabolic structures, and other characteristics forged over tens of thousands of years of evolution.
While people of African descent have spent most of their evolutionary history near to where they originated, the rest of the world’s populations have had to modify their African adaptations after migrating to far different regions and climates.” Entine adds that “preliminary research suggests that different phenotypes are at least partially encoded in the genes-conferring genotypic differences, which may result in an advantage in some sports.” Such differences are, of course, mediated by experience, from prenatal health to education. In other words, environment and culture can amplify or diminish tiny genetic variations. Considering the variance within each geographic, racial and ethnic population, such differences “may appear minuscule, but at the elite level, they are the stuff of champions.”
To support this biocultural theory, Entine supplies a wealth of anecdotal information. For example, he notes that although Asians constitute 57 percent of the world’s population, they make up a small fraction of professional runners, soccer players or basketball players. In contrast, whereas persons of sub-Saharan African ancestry comprise 12 percent of the world’s six billion people, they disproportionately represent the top athletes in those sports requiring running, jumping and endurance. During the 1960s, the National Basketball Association’s racial breakdown stood at roughly 80 percent white and 20 percent black; today that proportion has nearly reversed. In fact, a black male has a one-in-4,000 chance of playing in the NBA, compared with a white male’s one-in-90,000 chance. Meanwhile, among professional women’s basketball players, 70 percent are African-American. In the National Football League, 65 percent of players are black. In college sports, 60 percent of male basketball players and nearly half of all football players are African-American. In track and field, nearly every men’s world record belongs to an athlete of African descent-including the top 15 world running records (ranging from 100 meters to the marathon). Such talent, Entine maintains, originates disproportionately in three African regions: the West African coast, North Africa and East Africa.
LUKE SAYS: The late psychologist, J. Philippe Rushton, is the most famous professor in Canada over the past few decades. He argues that the physiological differences between blacks, whites and asians originate from the weight of brains. Asians have the heaviest brains (followed by whites and blacks), hence they have the widest hips.
Rushton debated on the Phil Donahue show.
Below is the 1989 debate on race and genetics between Phil Rushton and Canadian zoologist David Suzuki.
Posted inBlacks, Race, Sports|Comments Off on Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports And Why We’re Afraid To Talk About It
I’ve gone much of my life competing against people smarter than me. I just sense that I’m not as sharp as my peers. School was rarely easy for me. I had to slog to get As. Whatever success I’ve had has been the result of extraordinary effort and risk-taking.
I started taking an IQ test online (the classic IQ test on Queendom.com) today and gave up. It was too hard. It made my stomach hurt. I have to make peace with being 118-128 (from about ten years ago). Cathy Seipp didn’t believe that I scored that low. Her IQ was about 150, but she said it was in poor taste to reveal such things. Whatever abilities I have in the verbal area are inherited from my father (whose IQ measured 137, and he got two PhDs in 18 months each) and mother (who published a book before she died).
* On Jan. 16, 2014, Dennis Prager said: “This is the most important
thing politically happening in the United States. The attempt is to
silence conservative opposition in this country and I have a sense that talk radio is next.”
“This silencing of conservative opposition by rather nefarious means, by ruining their reputations, by having mass campaigns against any advertiser…”
The Christie bonfire has burned for a week. In that same week, The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI found nothing in the IRS’s targeting of conservative political groups that warrants criminal charges.
This conclusion struck lawyers Jay Sekulow and Cleta Mitchell as fairly amazing. Both represent conservative groups targeted by the IRS, and they say the FBI only recently got in touch with a few of their clients.
Thus, two of the most powerful public institutions in the U.S.—the FBI and the IRS—have concluded no harm, no foul, and the memory hole swallows the Obama administration’s successful kneecapping of the GOP’s most active members just as they prepared to participate in the 2012 presidential campaign. Many—ruined or terrified by the IRS probes—shut down. Mr. Obama won.
Posted inIQ, Personal|Comments Off on Not So Bright
“Maimonides famously spoke of the sense of touch as being a “disgrace to us.” The Gaon actually had the same opinion in that he regarded sex as something to be loathed and a necessary evil.”
“R. Solomon of Karlin, Shema Shelomo (Jerusalem, 1956), p. 96 (sippurim no. 59), in which we see how an unnamed hasidic figure said that he needed sex every day, a statement that shocked his bride to be.”
“Unfortunately, in our day we have seen haredi Judaism in Israel descend to a level unimaginable even ten years ago.[11] Harsh rhetoric, which on occasion has led to real violence, is now routine, and the rabbis who use the harsh, and often hateful, speech are never called to account for their actions.[12] It is only a matter of time before we see a religiously motivated murder, and we have already had close calls, including a stabbing at Ponovezh.”
“Most disappointing in this matter is R. Chaim Kanievsky who seems to think that Torah Judaism has the equivalent of a papacy, and he can thus declare that all are obligated to follow R. Steinman, meaning that there is only one Torah path.[14] This approach first surfaced when R. Elyashiv was ill and R. Kanievsky declared that the torch of leadership had passed to R. Steinman whose word was now law. See here. Have we ever had such a thing in the Lithuanian Torah world where a sage’s unquestioned leadership is formally proclaimed in this manner, as if he were a hasidic rebbe taking over for his deceased father? In the non-hasidic world the people have always chosen their spiritual leaders, as the Sages tell us: עשה לך רב. Never have they been imposed on us from above.”
How the Gaon of Vilna related to his children. “His children divulge that Elijah never once wrote a letter to any of them. Nor when he saw them, once every year or two, did he ever ask about their work or their well-being.”
Here is how the Chafetz Hayyim is described by his son: “Father had no personal friendships with anyone all the days of his life.”
“I thought nothing could surprise me anymore, but this book certainly did. It is a large two volume set, and the first half of volume one deals with the halakhot relevant to one who is serving time in prison (or as I told a friend, “the halakhot of being in jail”). The rest of the book contains words of inspiration, stories, prayers, etc. all of importance for the prisoner. As the author explains in his introduction, the book is needed because of the increase of haredim in the prisons.
התרבתה, לדאבונינו, האוכלוסייה החרדית בבית הסוהר, וגדלה פי כמה.
It really is incredible when one thinks about this, since not too long ago it would have been simply unimaginable that such a sefer would have been needed.”
Steve Sailer writes: “In the distant past, a man who dressed stylishly and enjoyed art, theater, and sophisticated music would have been praised as a “gentleman,” but today his sexual orientation is automatically called into question. The average person’s “gaydar” has become so sensitive that a long list of traits associated with civilized living are now assumed to be prima facie evidence of homosexuality.”
A friend writes: During my trip to NY last year, I went to see “Jersey Boys” on Broadway. I thought it was a great performance, especially since I’m a big fan of The Four Seasons.
But at the end of the show, the actors broke character and went into a hard sales pitch to donate money to AIDS research. Afterward, the actors actually stood at the exits holding donation boxes! Imagine spending hundreds of dollars for a show, really feeling connected to the actors as a result of their great performance, then having them squeeze money out of you. I would have felt off putted even if this charity was near and dear to my heart, which it is not. I went to play. Not a fundraiser. I have my own charities to which I give. I don’t want to be pressured into giving to something I don’t care about.
It was obvious that others in the audience also felt very uncomfortable and most, reluctantly, succumbed to the pressure and dropped some cash in their boxes as they left. I resisted and walked past them without making eye contact.
My point is, of all the worthy secular charities, like fighting poverty and cancer, Make A Wish, etc., these Broadway actors chose a charity that is mostly supported by and affects the gay community. The fact that such bold, in-your-face, strong arm tactics are allowed to be used by gays on a mostly straight crowd is probably one of the reasons straight people are turned off by the whole Broadway scene.
Posted inHomosexuality|Comments Off on Straight Flight
Friend: “I’m not getting stuff done right, I’m a little distracted.”
Luke: “That’s understandable considering you are staring death in the face.”
Friend: “That’s not as bad as staring you in the face.”
Luke: “We’ll always remember you firing off faxes and emails of complaint until your last breath, trying to haggle with death, being the quintessential Jew to your last moment.”
* Wisdom from the rebbetzin: “I am sure that once married, you’d treat your wife 4-5 points better than the average Muslim. But the Muslims have a brain to know when to exercise his right to remain silent. Or to use his privacy settings.”
* Why don’t Jews call the Chinese and Japanese goyim? Why are only white goyim called goyim? I’m talking about social reality, not theory. A friend: “Goyim refers to the dominant culture, so faces of minorities are less likely to pop up if you say that word.”
Posted inPersonal|Comments Off on Staring Death In The Face
On election night, 1986, I was at election headquarters in Auburn, California covering the news for KAHI/KHYL radio. One candidate for office who was defeated was drunk, and that shocked me. When I interviewed her, she sang that “Que Sera Sera” French song. I had little experience with alcohol, growing up a Seventh-Day Adventist.
There was this old guy, in his 70s, who started talking about voting patterns among various ethnic groups and I was shocked. Dumbstruck. Finally I sputtered, “You wouldn’t happen to be a racist?” He exploded. He said that noticing the different ways different groups of people voted was not remotely racist. I just stood there listening. I was out of my depth. I had never thought about that before. I had years of education that you are not allowed to notice differences among different ethnic groups, that it was a horrible thing to notice such patterns. It was racist and that was the greatest social sin. I had been schooled to be dumb. I knew empirically that there appeared to be significant differences between the races, I saw that every day on the playing field and the classroom, but I thought my noticing of these patterns was racist and must be kept to myself.
It’s sad that it is verboten to notice and discuss reality. Appreciating the differences between cultures and races would be a true celebrating of human diversity. Different peoples are given different gifts in God’s world and all have a valuable role to play.
As a great sage said: “I think that one of the biggest, if not the biggest faux pas, you can make in educated society today is to say or write anything that can be construed as racist.”
When I discuss ethnic patterns in public, I usually get reactions like these: “Very Hitler of you.”
“What you are doing is disgusting. You’re becoming a bitter old man that has nothing relevant to say, so you post racist rantings.”
I love football and basketball. When I watch sports, I notice huge race differences. I can’t think, for instance, of a starting white cornerback or tailback in the NFL.
I’m working on a song.
I’m not a racist
I just want to be free
To notice patterns
And reality!
Posted inRace|Comments Off on Don’t Notice Patterns!
"This guy knows all the gossip, the ins and outs, the lashon hara of the Orthodox world. He’s an [expert] in... all the inner workings of the Orthodox world." (Rabbi Aaron Rakeffet-Rothkoff)
