On Mon, 14 Jan 2019 10:14:30 -0500, Wolf K
wrote:

On 2019-01-13 21:42, Eric Stevens wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jan 2019 21:13:31 +0000, ? Good Guy ?
wrote:

On 13/01/2019 20:44, Peter Jason wrote:

Not the first man hanged for speaking up.
Ever since the end of colonialism in the 1960s
Africa has gone back to be the feotid steaming bog
of old, with any of its wealth ending up in Swiss
banks and overseas real estate.

One thing I have noticed is that people talk about "unsupported by
science" but when somebody publishes a paper about these things, they
are fired or prosecuted or strip off everything they have achieved in
their lifetime like in this case!!. How can you you have scientific
evidence if the rules are against them and other scientists are not
allowed to continue with the research!!.

Mind you I am against anybody making any claims without proof

Read 'The Bell Curve'.

You can't infer individual characteristics from a bell curve, or _any_
averages. Yet that is what proponents of "average scores" want to do.
Else why bother?

Good Guy said " I am against anybody making any claims without proof".
I merely gave him a reference to someone who had. Make what you like
of it.

The fact is that a bell curve means there are multiple factors affecting
the thing you're measuring. You don't know what those factors are.
What's more, it's devilishly difficult to figure out what those factors
might be, and to discover the extent of their influence. What's more,
you can be sure that any one factor's effect will depend on at least one
other factor's effect.

The difficulty is especially the case when you are measuring the end
result of of some developmental process. Eg, consider height. Suppose
you find that Italians on average are shorter than Swedes. Check the
overlap of the two bell curves. If the averages are 1 SD or less apart,
then the majority of each group will be within the same range of
heights. You'll find more of one or the other only at the extremes (and
even there, the differences will be small). The same goes for
differences in any other measurable feature.

There are studies that claim to quantify the effects of environment and
genetics on human development. Problem is, the effect of genetics
depends on the environment, and vice versa. Take height again: If you
don't get enough food while growing up, you will not reach the
genetically determined limit of your height. And that's a simple
relationship. Most of our traits depend on the interactions of genes
with the environment and other genes; and for many of these, there's a
timetable.

Sure, there are more tall black NBA players than white ones. But while
height is very useful if you want to play basketball, it's not enough.
That's why most tall people, of any race, do not become NBA players.

That, and the fact that reaching the top in the NBA is not the
ultimate ambition of many people.

but I
allow them to produce the proof which can be scrutinised by the
academics and people with the relevant experience and knowledge. I am
also against anybody silencing anybody who makes controversial
statements. People should be allowed to say whatever they want as long
as there a "right-of-reply" which is given equal prominence.

Allow the converse: any quack or nutbar then has the right to "reply" to
well-supported insights with his nonsense, and has the right to claim
equal prominence. Yup, and that's why so many people these days believe
and disbelieve whatever they want.

Slow, careful analysis takes time and effort. It also takes a kind of
humility: accepting that your gut feelings are wrong is difficult.

Conversely, accepting that the result of a slow and careful analysis is
wrong is probably even more difficult.

Both methods of arriving at the truth suffer from the same two fatal
flaws: a) the available evidence is always limited; and b) a single
"inconvenient fact" is enough to destroy the inference.

The best we can do is an approximation to the truth. (And the past
century's work on the foundations of math/logic imply that not even
axiomatic systems are exempt from this uncomfortable insight.)
--

Regards,

Eric Stevens