What if there really are racial/sexual differences between people?

[Jacco]

Put down your pitchforks and torches, I'm not saying there are. Hear me out.

Today I was chatting with a (philosophy major) friend and we got onto the subject of science and how it's not quite as infallible as we like to believe. He mentioned something that peaked my interest and the more I think about it, the more I think he's right.

His comment was that science is just as beholden to the whims of society as we are. That's a scary thought, but it's true.

When the whole global warming debate was going on a few years ago, I remember the deniers getting shouted down with research and threats. It is to the point now that we believe so strongly that global warming is happening, that any claim to the contrary is immediately rejected, regardless of its evidence (or lack thereof).

Consider this: if there really were measurable differences between, say, the average intelligence of black people and white people, would that research every truly come to light? If someone tried to publish a finding like that in a paper or journal, they would immediately be called a racist, dozens of other papers would show up explaining how their methods were wrong or evidence was confounded, etc because we believe so strongly as a society that there are no racial differences, any evidence to the contrary would be suppressed or attributed to something else. 100 years ago, there was "legit" science to support the fact that blacks WERE inferior intellectually to whites. Now, of course, we dismiss that as "bad science" but that just goes to demonstrate my point. They were as positive in their research as we are in ours. So why would someone risk their career and reputation to study something like that if they know they will be chastised for presenting their findings?

Obviously, I'm not advocating for any of the above actually being the case, I'm just voicing a thought I had about it today and am wondering what you guys' opinions are about it. If scientific results are dictated by societal values, how can we really know what the answers are?

 

[Vault101]

"proper" science shouldn't be, thats not to say scientists don't have bias and wont come under fire

but the belive that blacks were inherently inferor or that guys could be cured were all busted as psudo scienfitific werent they?

 

[Jacco]

"proper" science shouldn't be, thats not to say scientists don't have bias and wont come under fire

In a perfect, world, yes, proper science shouldn't be beholden to societal whims.

but the belive that blacks were inherently inferor or that guys could be cured were all busted as psudo scienfitific werent they?

And did you even read my post? Or are you purposely missing the point?

 

[Vault101]

In a perfect, world, yes, proper science shouldn't be beholden to societal whims.

the problem is I can't say what is/isn't true because I don't have the deep understanding of science, so I (like many od us) have to put our faith in people who know more about it than we do

 

[TheIceQueen]

Way back when in the very dark days of psychology, plenty of eugenics studies were done in an attempt to justify treating immigrants from certain countries differently. One example of this bad science you feel the need to put in quotes was how the testers gave their test in a language the immigrants did not understand and when they scored low, those low scores were held up as proof that '[x] are dumb!' Turns out, though, that testing the intelligence of a person by using a language they don't understand is kind of a very flawed research method. So, yeah, it's pretty fucking bad science.

But most scientists don't let societal whims get in their way. I had access to plenty of research on gender differences for my research project and all of them were fairly recent, as ordered to me by my teacher. Science, itself, is unbiased, no matter if scientists themselves are. One study can never be held up as proof of anything. Studies are endlessly repeated to see if the data replicates, even controversial ones, and then the methods are changed or different variables are manipulated to see if a different outcome or maybe use a different sampling process and the same would go for your hypothetical study on racial differences of intelligence. Out comes this study that says black people are less intelligent than white people on average. What method they used is extremely important. What sampling process they used is extremely important. It's quite possible that black people are less intelligent on average than white people, just to roll along with this hypothetical. Is it because of something biological in black people, though? Or is it because of a third variable that grossly effects black people more than white people? Is it something genetic in black people or perhaps that black people have less access to education? That study is going to get picked apart, yes. Its methods are going to be called into question. Its variables are going to be looked at for confounds. The research might be attributed to something else and yes, the data is going to be examined by many other scientists - a very common enough procedure in peer-reviewed journals. You know why? Because that's what scientists do.

Scientists pick each other's studies apart to hell and back and they fight over even the most seemingly innocuous bullshit ever, like a ten year *****-fight between two particular scientists over whether mental images are visual or verbal (a real fight, by the way). That's what science does. It picks apart studies in every last little way, does them with slightly difference changes, or else just does them exactly and tries to replicate the data as is to see if the data itself is as cold and hard as science requires it to be. That's what happens with science. Your peers review it. Everyone questions it. That's what science just does because science doesn't just want one study, it wants a mountain of studies and if these scientists can't accept that their study is going to be treated in this manner, then it was probably a bad study. As one of my teachers said, "A study that doesn't make us question, that doesn't provoke more research, is a bad study." Scientists like to fight each other. They want to come up with as many possible explanations for something because there really are a lot of variables that you have to look at and examine. Even when it comes to the most trivial things, science never stops cracking the whip.

As long as they don't commit legit fraud like Andrew Wakefield, nothing is going to happen to your hypothetical scientists that doesn't already happen with other areas of research. If they don't purposefully skew their data, their job and reputation is no more in question than other scientists' reputation is. Their methods are going to be questioned, but that's okay. That happens with everyone. Other variables will be blamed, but that's okay. That happens with everyone. That's a really good thing, actually, and it just doesn't stop scientists from their endless pursuit of knowledge. It hasn't in the past. It hasn't now. It won't in the future.

 

[Erttheking]

If there was differences, I think my view would be "And?" Men throw harder than men, women throw more accurately. And? What does it matter? Society should treat people equally. Just because a racist man suddenly has some scientific basis for his hatred doesn't make him any less of a bigoted fuckhead.

And no, the Global Warming case doesn't count, people are angry because deniers have been sticking their head in the sands for years, arguably causing long lasting damage to the environment. It's like claiming that we're going too far against the anti-vacine groups. It's hard not to justify anger towards people who are blatantly ignoring scientific evidence.

 

[das_n00b]

Way back when in the very dark days of psychology, plenty of eugenics studies were done in an attempt to justify treating immigrants from certain countries differently. One example of this bad science you feel the need to put in quotes was how the testers gave their test in a language the immigrants did not understand and when they scored low, those low scores were held up as proof that '[x] are dumb!' Turns out, though, that testing the intelligence of a person by using a language they don't understand is kind of a very flawed research method. So, yeah, it's pretty fucking bad science.

But most scientists don't let societal whims get in their way. I had access to plenty of research on gender differences for my research project and all of them were fairly recent, as ordered to me by my teacher. Science, itself, is unbiased, no matter if scientists themselves are. One study can never be held up as proof of anything. Studies are endlessly repeated to see if the data replicates, even controversial ones, and then the methods are changed or different variables are manipulated to see if a different outcome or maybe use a different sampling process and the same would go for your hypothetical study on racial differences of intelligence. Out comes this study that says black people are less intelligent than white people on average. What method they used is extremely important. What sampling process they used is extremely important. It's quite possible that black people are less intelligent on average than white people, just to roll along with this hypothetical. Is it because of something biological in black people, though? Or is it because of a third variable that grossly effects black people more than white people? Is it something genetic in black people or perhaps that black people have less access to education? That study is going to get picked apart, yes. Its methods are going to be called into question. Its variables are going to be looked at for confounds. The research might be attributed to something else and yes, the data is going to be examined by many other scientists - a very common enough procedure in peer-reviewed journals. You know why? Because that's what scientists do.

Scientists pick each other's studies apart to hell and back and they fight over even the most seemingly innocuous bullshit ever, like a ten year *****-fight between two particular scientists over whether mental images are visual or verbal (a real fight, by the way). That's what science does. It picks apart studies in every last little way, does them with slightly difference changes, or else just does them exactly and tries to replicate the data as is to see if the data itself is as cold and hard as science requires it to be. That's what happens with science. Your peers review it. Everyone questions it. That's what science just does because science doesn't just want one study, it wants a mountain of studies and if these scientists can't accept that their study is going to be treated in this manner, then it was probably a bad study. As one of my teachers said, "A study that doesn't make us question, that doesn't provoke more research, is a bad study." Scientists like to fight each other. They want to come up with as many possible explanations for something because there really are a lot of variables that you have to look at and examine. Even when it comes to the most trivial things, science never stops cracking the whip.

As long as they don't commit legit fraud like Andrew Wakefield, nothing is going to happen to your hypothetical scientists that doesn't already happen with other areas of research. If they don't purposefully skew their data, their job and reputation is no more in question than other scientists' reputation is. Their methods are going to be questioned, but that's okay. That happens with everyone. Other variables will be blamed, but that's okay. That happens with everyone. That's a really good thing, actually, and it just doesn't stop scientists from their endless pursuit of knowledge. It hasn't in the past. It hasn't now. It won't in the future.

Bravo! I'm quoting you because after ten minutes of trying to gather my thoughts and properly put my two cents, I realized you've summed up what I wanted to say (and more) and went way beyond it.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

There are differences, mankind is spread thin across the planet where the biosphere has shaped us in different ways for different reasons to make the most out of our habitats. It's a question of loving those differences.

 

[Thaluikhain]

I'm going to assume that the OP is arguing in good faith, and when they say they aren't suggesting this, they really aren't.

There are a lot of people asking this sort of thing, for whom this is not true. The OP seems to believe that the question of equality is settled, this is very much not the case. Lots of people like trying to bring up science to "prove" that their group is superior, this is a big ongoing thing, and isn't likely to go away any time soon.

Now, it is true, that after umpteen zillion white men made up some pseudoscience about how one race and gender was superior, and it "just happened" to be white and male, a white male who discovered this for real is likely not to be believed by people tired of the pseudoscience. But there is still a very big part of society that holds this sort of belief, in the West and elsewhere. That Japanese minister that claimed menstruation made women unsuitable to be in charge of things. Or the belief amongst the medical community that the cause of anemia in women wasn't the same as the cause of anemia in men (the GI tract), it had to be because of menstruation and stuff, cause women are different. It was only very recently this was disproved.

You are correct that societal biases are reflected in science, but "fortunately" society is still prejudiced enough that the superiority of the groups usually assumed to be superior by society still has scientist trying to prove it. OTOH, if someone fund evidence that, say, black women were superior, that'd be shouted down, yes.

 

[briankoontz]

There are a lot of things to consider - politics tends to trump science in general. So while it may not be scientifically recommended for 2.4 billion people in the world to make less than $2 a day because this leads to mental and emotional distress as well as malnutrition, maldevelopment in the young, greater susceptibility to disease, and starvation, the politics of extreme corporate capitalism likes it because the lives of those people are worthless to the system and thus are easily sacrificed to help powerful institutions and individuals became that much more powerful.

There are excuses hiding under the cover of "scientific realism" for literally every atrocity in the modern age. I suppose we should be glad - at least that means that science is powerful enough to need to be part of the propaganda system. The most common underlying reason for, let's say, 6 million people being murdered in the Congo is that they need to die in order for civilization as a whole to progress. Sort of like 75 million Native Americans needed to die in order for the superior and super-amazing European civilization to maximize it's power. Super-amazing because they can hyper-exploit the environment to give their subjects a few centuries of living luxuriously prior to an eternity of extinction. What a deal! The stupid pathetic Native Americans never even thought of that, so they had to die in order for people with superior ideas and more importantly, superior military prowess to come to power. But that's ok, really... after the genocide Tonto can be a sidekick to the European hero the Lone Ranger... so generous of the Europeans to allow such a thing and to make cages (err, "reservations") for the few remaining not-dead-yet Natives to live out lives of alcoholism and criminality in their despair. The Europeans tut-tut those weak Natives - how pathetic that they don't pull themselves up by the bootstraps after having been genocided by people seeking to destroy the world - it's all so clear to the Europeans that they themselves are the strong, manly ones... that's what you are when you conquer and destroy the world, right... manly? Such wise people! Full of generosity, bravery, and now six-pack abs and dick pics, most of which are proven by the movie 300! So amazing, so wonderful! Such GOOD people, and I know this because they tell me they are good. Utter proof which cannot be denied!

So, yeah... the wisdom of the original poster is pretty much off the chart. What's important are possible minor differences in the average attributes of people based on their race. There's nothing more important to consider in our context.

 

[Silvanus]

When the whole global warming debate was going on a few years ago, I remember the deniers getting shouted down with research and threats. It is to the point now that we believe so strongly that global warming is happening, that any claim to the contrary is immediately rejected, regardless of its evidence (or lack thereof).

It's not "regardless". If there were any compelling evidence that it's not happening, the claim would be heard, but there isn't. Claims that lack any form of compelling evidence should be dismissed.

 

[Casual Shinji]

People need to realize 'different' doesn't mean 'inferior'.

So just to chime in with everyone else... They are differences between people of a different race and sex. Humanity would've already gone extinct if there wasn't.

 

[shootthebandit]

Obviously, I'm not advocating for any of the above actually being the case

Youve kind of proved your own point a little. If society makes it taboo to discuss certain issues that you have to dismiss any belief in it then you see why scientists dismiss it

What would a scientist have to gain from saying black people are less intelligent? All it would prove (if it proved anything) is that black people in general come from poorer areas and therefore dont get as good an education as their white counterpart

The scientists view would also have to be inherently racist if his idea was to create a standardised test (assuming thats how you would get the data) simply to prove that black people are less intelligent.

Intelligence is also a pretty hard thing to test. You could ask a guy in the amazon some general knowledge questions and he wouldnt know jack shit but ask a western guy how to use a poison tree frog and some sticks to make a bow to hunt large animals and he probably couldnt tell you either.

Yes there are differences between black and white people. I even made a thread fairly recently about dominance of black people in athletics. I was asking if black sporting dominance could be attributed to slavery. I wasnt trying to justify slavery just that there could be a change when humans are selectively bred. Yes its a pretty grim topic but I thought was worth discussing

 

[Funyahns]

You can hardly prove overall differences because of all the variables that can go into intelligence. You can't get enough people of different races who have the same exact type of upbringing and financial situations. Then on top of that you would have to have comparable family structure and goals. If one persons parents starting teaching their child a little bit earlier and pushed them to excel it could shift the balance. Mostly you will find that the world is full of middle of the road intelligence with students who overachieve or underachieve. Then there are social issues like one kids is a bit more socially awkward than the other or gets bullied.

Main point I think is that no one race is going to be superior because a genius can come from any walk of life, of course morons are what you are most likely to find in far more abundance.

 

[Vault101]

so generous of the Europeans to allow such a thing and to make cages (err, "reservations") for the few remaining not-dead-yet Natives to live out lives of alcoholism and criminality in their despair. The Europeans tut-tut those weak Natives - how pathetic that they don't pull themselves up by the bootstraps after having been genocided by people seeking to destroy the world - it's all so clear to the Europeans that they themselves are the strong, manly ones... that's what you are when you conquer and destroy the world, right... manly? Such wise people! Full of generosity, bravery, and now six-pack abs and dick pics, most of which are proven by the movie 300! So amazing, so wonderful! Such GOOD people, and I know this because they tell me they are good. Utter proof which cannot be denied!
.

this is unrelated but today on Askreddit there was a question "what actually offends you?" the top one?

[quote/]when black americans want renumeration, look guys it was hundreds of years ago! and if they didn't have slaved youd all be in africa dying to ebola *garble garble bootstraps*[/quote]

ah reddit..don't ever change

People need to realize 'different' doesn't mean 'inferior'.

So just to chime in with everyone else... They are differences between people of a different race and sex. Humanity would've already gone extinct if there wasn't.

how far does it go though? beyond the superficial? are Asian people more pre disposed to math? are black people more predisposed to athletics? [footnote/]actually there may be a case there with all those african runners[/footnote] its fine to say different isn't inferior (which is true) but when you start using that to justify putting people in boxes...ESPECIALLY boxes they see as "benieth" them (re the whole "women belong in the kitchen" thing) I'm not saying your doing that....its just Ive seen it before

 

[Summerstorm]

Also: Let's just say "african people are less intelligent than caucasian and caucasian less intelligent compared to asian people in average" - which is what i read somewhere many years ago in some random corner of the internet. (Totally reliable)

I think it quoted differences equal to approximately ~2 IQ-points per standard test between races.

The question is: Does that warrant ANY change in treatment, opportunities... ANYTHING?

No... because we are individuals. And we are treated as such.

Let's just say i am an average white guy, and the above point would be (through rigorous, infallible tests of ALL people) somehow proven. Should i somehow be preferred for anything because the group i belong to has on average a slight advantage in one aspect over another whole group... even though both group is producing INDIVIDUALS with wildly different attributes?

This is true for all nations, races, genders, social standing, wealth and everything.

 

[Supdupadog]

How come whenever someone makes this kind of post, they don't propose what if white people are the intellectually inferior ones?

Is it because the OP is racist? Unfortunately I don't think any scientist is interested in proving such a hypothesis.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Way back when in the very dark days of psychology, plenty of eugenics studies were done in an attempt to justify treating immigrants from certain countries differently. One example of this bad science you feel the need to put in quotes was how the testers gave their test in a language the immigrants did not understand and when they scored low, those low scores were held up as proof that '[x] are dumb!' Turns out, though, that testing the intelligence of a person by using a language they don't understand is kind of a very flawed research method. So, yeah, it's pretty fucking bad science.

But most scientists don't let societal whims get in their way. I had access to plenty of research on gender differences for my research project and all of them were fairly recent, as ordered to me by my teacher. Science, itself, is unbiased, no matter if scientists themselves are. One study can never be held up as proof of anything. Studies are endlessly repeated to see if the data replicates, even controversial ones, and then the methods are changed or different variables are manipulated to see if a different outcome or maybe use a different sampling process and the same would go for your hypothetical study on racial differences of intelligence. Out comes this study that says black people are less intelligent than white people on average. What method they used is extremely important. What sampling process they used is extremely important. It's quite possible that black people are less intelligent on average than white people, just to roll along with this hypothetical. Is it because of something biological in black people, though? Or is it because of a third variable that grossly effects black people more than white people? Is it something genetic in black people or perhaps that black people have less access to education? That study is going to get picked apart, yes. Its methods are going to be called into question. Its variables are going to be looked at for confounds. The research might be attributed to something else and yes, the data is going to be examined by many other scientists - a very common enough procedure in peer-reviewed journals. You know why? Because that's what scientists do.

Scientists pick each other's studies apart to hell and back and they fight over even the most seemingly innocuous bullshit ever, like a ten year *****-fight between two particular scientists over whether mental images are visual or verbal (a real fight, by the way). That's what science does. It picks apart studies in every last little way, does them with slightly difference changes, or else just does them exactly and tries to replicate the data as is to see if the data itself is as cold and hard as science requires it to be. That's what happens with science. Your peers review it. Everyone questions it. That's what science just does because science doesn't just want one study, it wants a mountain of studies and if these scientists can't accept that their study is going to be treated in this manner, then it was probably a bad study. As one of my teachers said, "A study that doesn't make us question, that doesn't provoke more research, is a bad study." Scientists like to fight each other. They want to come up with as many possible explanations for something because there really are a lot of variables that you have to look at and examine. Even when it comes to the most trivial things, science never stops cracking the whip.

As long as they don't commit legit fraud like Andrew Wakefield, nothing is going to happen to your hypothetical scientists that doesn't already happen with other areas of research. If they don't purposefully skew their data, their job and reputation is no more in question than other scientists' reputation is. Their methods are going to be questioned, but that's okay. That happens with everyone. Other variables will be blamed, but that's okay. That happens with everyone. That's a really good thing, actually, and it just doesn't stop scientists from their endless pursuit of knowledge. It hasn't in the past. It hasn't now. It won't in the future.

For the record, I am quoting you because the Escapist doesn't have a "thumbs up" or "like" button. That was beautifully said, er . . typed.

But, it should be noted that ever human being has certain preconceived notions. They wouldn't be human if they didn't. In regards to science, many scientific lines of inquiry are started in a certain direction because someone has a certain notion they believe is true and are trying to prove. What makes scientific inquiry really work is that it doesn't stop there, but continues on, as TheIceQueen so perfectly described in her post.

I would posit that there ARE differences between ethnic groups, but I would also posit that most of those differences are attributable to cultural differences more than anything else. That is my own preconceived notion. We'll see what psychological and anthropological studies go from there in their examination of the issue.

 

[Hagi]

There's plenty actually plenty of research out there on sexual differences between people that's in no way getting shouted down, not really very hard to find at all. No issues there.

There's a lot less on actual races because, in a greater biological perspective, we don't actually have races as far as I know. As in, the genetic differences between black people, white people, asian people etc. aren't big enough to be considered different races really, at least not in the same way that we use that word in regards to other species.