March 10, 2008
Telling It Like It Is on Immigration
It's been awhile since I checked in on Fred on Everything and remembered to do so only at a reader's suggestion about a particular piece on immigration:
One of the speakers was Phil Rushton, of the University of Western Ontario, whose specialty is the study of racial differences in intelligence. Only among the ideologically befogged is the subject beyond the pale. The evidence for these differences would be voluminous if there weren't so much of it. Further, measurements of intelligence are reproducible and highly correlated with success of both individuals and groups. The people who do these studies, as for example Rushton, are highly intelligent themselves and cautious in their conclusions.It amuses me that such as Rushton are often regarded as right-wing racists, drone. They point out that Jews are intellectually superior to other whites, which is hardly a traditional right-wing view; and that East Asians are smarter than whites, also not normally regarded as a white racist idea. Look at the IQ hierarchy they find: Jews at the top, followed by, East Asians, whites, South American mestizos, American blacks, African blacks. Now compare the intellectual achievements of the groups. Kinda sorta fits, don't it? But we can't talk about this because (a) we wouldn't like the results, and (b) because it takes an eighth-grade understanding of mathematics to grasp a standard deviation, which eliminates most of the population. ...
In a country less repressive of dissent than the US, a discussion of immigration might seem advisable. It is perfectly true that in many countries the white population is in decline—Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, and so on. It is also true that floods of arguably inassimilable immigrants from comparatively backward countries—those of Africa, South America, the Arab world—are a rapidly growing fraction of the population in these dying nations. In their own countries they have shown no ability to function at the intellectual level of Europeans. They will change utterly—are changing—their new countries. Apart from restaurants and manual labor, they seem to contribute little. If this isn't so, tell me why it isn't.
the data on jews relates to those from eastern europe-sephardic jews have never been singled out as extremely intelligent-personally i think this is all nonsense-i am convinced that environment plays the major role-a lot of africans suffered childhood malnutrition in past decades which can severely affect intelligence-then there are the east european jews-no racial component here-they were largely isolated in ghettos and barred from many trades and used learning to enter professions where they couldn't be kept out-i was raised jewish and met a lot of downright stupid jews along the way-asians have a reverence for learning-particularly chinese,koreans,indians,and japanese-the association of learning with positives rather than negatives leads to certain groups seeming to be more "intelligent"-any child not suffering from a congenital learning disability will do well on standardized tests if raised in the right environment-with the ongoing intermixture of people in the USA and other western countries ethnic "tendencies"toward intelligence will not be able to be measured-one of the most inbred communities in the world are hasidic jews and they don't produce children of exceptional intelligence or accomplishment because their education is very narrow,mainly revolving around religious studies-and lastly most jew haters don't claim jews are mentally inferior,but rather "evil geniuses" manipulating everyone around them
Posted by: joe bernstein at March 10, 2008 9:44 PMTo be sure, environment is a factor.
So is culture - a reverence for learning and achievement encourages children from a young age to celebrate their curiosity and enrich their minds.
So is genetics (I don't mean across ethnic groups - but if you're the child of two MENSA members odds are you're going to have above average intelligence yourself).
As for the environmental and cultural factors, just try explaining the "progressives" why a society that is no longer "judgmental" concern out-of-wedlock birth and welfare programs that subsidizes illegitimacy and sloth exerts a downward pull on IQ and thus are damaging to children.
Posted by: Tom W at March 10, 2008 11:02 PMright again tom w!!i attended a high school that was inner city-about 60% white(lots of jews,some italian,irish,polish) and about 40% black-almost no hispanics and not a single asian-many of us stay in touch on the web-and we all had amazingly similar outcomes(i graduated in 1963)-no one who graduated was illiterate-and aside from the ones who got into jams and wound up in the can or dead,most of us went on to what i would call successful lives with little differential by race-now one thing almost everyone had in common was two parent homes-unlike is too often the case today we had many black students who had siblings in the school and they all had the same surname-because they had fathers at home-and the demographics were strange there were two groups of whites and two of blacks-those who lived in private or 2 family homes and those who lived in apartment buildings or projects-i was in the white group from literally the wrong side of the tracks(elevated rapid transit line)and i had black classmates who lived in much nicer accomodations-there was school prayer,flag ceremonies,no-nonsense discipline and most of all,no easy way to a diploma-hey,it was a rough school and we had some gangs there and fights were commonplace-my spanish teacher once beat the living hell out of a student who assaulted him and it was no big deal-we had two cops in the school on a full time basis and yet it was a better learning environment than today's schools-and most of us really enjoyed being there-nowadays that kind of school would horrify turds like steven brown and chuck bakst(who i am sure sent their kids to private schools)-i was in the last class in the USA to be allowed school prayer at graduation(it was the 23rd psalm)delivered by a girl who later went on to be a staff attorney for the aclu(and to think i liked her)but i better stop waxing nostalgic or i'll begin sounding maudlin
Posted by: joseph bernstein at March 11, 2008 1:07 AMI reject these notions on a gut level. No other reason factual or other needs to be given. Like Ronald Reagan - I know it even if the facts do not support me. But the facts- Rushton did his work in the 1960's. He hasn't done anything since. IQ testing from the 60's is no longer considered valid- sorry all you Mensas. But Justin- or Fred- thats not the point right? The immigrants you are talking about either fit into the white category or one old Phil never bothered to study. So what is your point?
Posted by: David at March 12, 2008 4:47 PM