<p>Most native born Americans can’t even pass the same citizenship test immigrants have to, so I’ll go with no, they don’t have lower IQ’s than we do.</p>
<p>I have yet to see one logical, coherent, not ad-hominem (ie He’s a racist, therefore he cannot be right) arguments against this cited and professional paper. The only reason it sparks outrage is that it’s not politically correct, the same force of political correctness that in part caused the banning of books in Fahrenheit 451. In other words, Jason Richwine has in a way committed “thoughtcrime”. I doubt that even half of the people who choose to criticize this paper have read it.</p>
<p>–an Asian</p>
<p>Inane, unreasonable, unsupportable, yet the kind of dogma I read on CC most everyday. It’s just sad. The competition for education and jobs is bringing out the worst in many students. This student’s game plan is pretty clear, develop an ultra conservative reputation, get a book deal, go on Fox news, blah, blah, blah. He/she wants the fame and the money and he/she wants it now.</p>
<p>^Your ad hominem attack (the kind I discussed in my previous post) combined with the fact that what you’re saying is absolute and total BS makes me doubt if you read past the first few lines of the article, or if you even viewed the original document at all or know anything about its contents. “LOL stupid conservoFAT” was the only real rebuttal I could think of and was the only one you could think of as well.</p>
<p>While I don’t necessarily agree with the general idea that Hispanics have lower IQ’s (like Americans are all real bright…ha!) it could be reasoned that many Hispanics do not receive as good of an education as other countries can be provide and that Latino countries put less of an emphasis on education than other countries, sosomenza, so it’s not entirely “insane, unreasonable, [or] unsupportable”. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The thesis was written in 2009, not “now”. And the man wrote it to get his Doctorate, not to get rich.</p>
<p>Did you even read any of the thesis? It’s very well written and is not entirely ridiculous. He isn’t just saying, “Hispanics are all dumb”, he actually provided evidence to support his claim.</p>
<p>Here’s a coherent argument. I just read the paper and it is all based on research 10-40 years old. Some with statistical samples of less than a 100, resulting in unacceptably low confidence levels. A secondary problem is that there is no description as to how the sample sizes were selected and what actions were taken to remove language and education bias. It’s not clear to me that an orange is being compared to an orange. Lastly the author provided very little research of his own. It all seems to be a more or less a cut and paste job from previous research. A good thesis will build on the work of others but will provide new and innovative thought backed by new research, which this paper does not seem to offer. The research is old (DATED MATERIAL). The statistics are questionable (SMALL AND UNBIASED SAMPLE) and the author does little to shore up the deficiencies (LAZYNESS). The sum total of all defects makes the author’s conclusion nothing but unsupported hype. Why? see post #4.</p>
<p>The first few pages, which discuss generally what intelligence is, uses a wide range of cited sources from 0-80 years ago in 2009 (which was 4 years ago). This data comes from primary sources, and the definitions of intelligence have not significantly changed over the past few years so it is valid. (For example, the definition of “g” was the same as it is fifty years ago, as were many of the other data) Only the data that changes over time comes from relatively new sources. For example, he cites a source from 2007, 2 years ago when this paper was written, on the bottom of page 12, which states that Jews have high intelligences than non-Jew whites. To mention other sources, he mentions that blacks underperform on the SAT, but no significant disadvantages have been found. This data is from 2008 on page 13. On page 14, there is data from 2004 (only 5 years ago in 2009… think 2008 from now) suggesting that the stereotype threat is invalid. There is data on the Flynn effect from 1987 on page 14, but this Flynn effect has been happening over the past 20 years consistently, so it still continues today, as an example of something from 25 years ago valid today. </p>
<p>If you think he only cites sources from 10-25 years ago, you are concerning yourself with unchanging data, not variable data that may be right 20 years ago but wrong today. Just look at his sources: Kirikorian, Mark’s paper on the case against immigration was written in 2008 but “The theory of multiple intelligences” by Gardner regards a widely standing theory of intelligence that was just as valid in 1983 as it is today. Those data which ARE from twenty to thirty years ago are because there simply isn’t much data available to him from fairly recently. Longitudinal studies that ended in the 2000s are harder to find than those that ended in the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s combined. He often cites more than one source (ie page 61)</p>
<p>He cites a wide range of sources: APA, books, etc., most of which were written by intellectuals from Journals and Magazines. Just look at the sources, again.</p>
<p>This is a dissertation, not a doctoral thesis as I might have said. According to
[American</a> Counseling Association Weblog » Blog Archive » What Is The Difference Between A Dissertation And A Thesis? And What Exactly ARE These Things, Anyway?](<a href=“http://my.counseling.org/2011/09/07/what-is-the-difference-between-a-dissertation-and-a-thesis-and-what-exactly-are-these-things-anyway/]American”>http://my.counseling.org/2011/09/07/what-is-the-difference-between-a-dissertation-and-a-thesis-and-what-exactly-are-these-things-anyway/)
a dissertation consists mainly of piecing together material from other sources, which a thesis consists of personal research.</p>
<p>You think that the tests he cite are from a very small sample. This is simply NOT TRUE. Look at the data from page 54 (2000 children), or on page 84 (from the Census, so… yeah) </p>
<p>Your argument is hereby invalid.</p>
<p>
So maybe the conclusion would have been true 10-40 years ago; if so, what changed?
I think you mean “BIASED” sample, but that is indeed a good reason to doubt the conclusion.
I think you mean “LAZINESS”. What’s wrong with the sources?</p>
<p>^ See my previous post.</p>
<p>
God, I hate that so much. Do you not know how to do
[quote=<username> ]
text
[/quote ]
? Well now you do. Do you not care? Then you’re wasting a perfectly good feature, basically giving the finger to the person who went through the trouble to implement it.</username></p>
<p>I’m just stating the obvious about sosomenza’s logic without going into detail about the paper. (Which is redundant after your post, but I hadn’t seen it by the time I posted. =p)</p>
<p>General comment about the paper:</p>
<p>It basically goes like this:</p>
<p>"_____ is a phenomenon.
_____ is the consequence.
If your philosophy is __<strong><em>, you might consider the consequence to be problematic, and you might be interested in this policy option: </em></strong>."</p>
<p>But that’s not my philosophy, and Richwine provides literally no reason to adopt it other than “most Americans think that way.” So I don’t consider the dissertation as anything more than an attempt to explain why things are the way they are, along with an attempt to provide an option that would satisfy certain people (people I’d call evil, not lightly). It doesn’t deserve to be treated as “Immigrants don’t deserve to be in America because they’re stupid.” If that is the point of the dissertation, then the entire thing fails because of a single appeal-to-popularity fallacy.</p>
<p>Conversely, if you buy into the philosophy on p. 126-127, and you’re convinced by the research in the dissertation, then you’d be inconsistent to argue that high-IQ immigrants are not more deserving of an opportunity to live in the country in which you live. That would be a valid reduction-to-absurdity argument against the philosophy that currently guides the US immigration policy.</p>
<p>Is it sad that I originally heard of this on the Colbert Report?</p>
<p>Richwine had initially intended for very few people(perhaps only intellectuals) to read that dissertation. Few people, especially in the general public, have the time or opinion to read such a thing. To assume that this dissertation was written to satisfy a particular kind of people or to gain popularity among them is fallacious.</p>
<p>
Richwine: “This policy makes ethical sense under this framework and most Americans think that framework is reasonable, so policy-makers who are trying to please the people should consider it.”
- me
=> Select few readers: “Okay, that’s informative.” - consistent with me
=> Large group of readers with whom Richwine is trying to win favor: “You’ve given us what we want.” - doesn’t follow from me</p>
<p>This is too controversial to even discuss here. Invariably, one will take a side to the dissertation, and I don’t believe that the resulting discussion will be helpful for anyone.</p>
<p>The short story is that a man wrote a thesis that could be portrayed as racist. Whether or not the actual thing was or not was up to Harvard, and seeing as the article doesn’t actually feature the entire document, we probably shouldn’t pass any judgement.</p>
<p>
Its logic can be examined without agreeing or disagreeing with it or thinking it’s “racist” or “not racist”.
</p>
<p>Oh sorry, I didn’t see that…</p>
<p>Also, I was stating that it appears to be second nature to take a stance on a certain issue, but yes, the thesis can be logically examined, however, I question the ability to have a purely logic-based analysis.</p>
<p>Thank you for clearing up the misunderstandings.</p>
<p>I’ve made my points. BTW This kind of statistical tripe is nothing new. I could post dated and racist research papers that point to the inferiority of a number of races. I won’t because I know its false and hurtful. BTW the paper does lack statistical legitimacy. But the main problem with the paper is that it is equating low IQ with government burden. Richwine’s conclusion completely falls apart when one considers that Hispanics traditional have a much lower welfare rate as compared to (well look it up yourself). BTW Richwine just left the Heritage Foundation. Fox news here he comes? Follow the money?</p>
<p>I’m currently endeavoring to read the whole thing, but only on page 22. The first part claims that there is no deliberate or inherent discrimination among races per the APA, but that hispanics and blacks (as a group) consistently score lower than Asians and whites. I can see how this could hurt feelings and be construed as “racist” but honestly the methodology doesn’t seem poor where I’m at. </p>
<p>It’s not like it truly matters anyway. Groups measurements only described a trend among a demographic; they say nothing about an individual. There is nothing preventing a black person from being much more intelligent than the average jew, there is just evidence that suggests that they are somewhat far down the right tail of the black IQ distribution.</p>