Ännu fler slutord

Fredrik DeBoer beskriver min brasklapp (1b) på ett mycket mer övertygande sätt.

 

Antropofagi skriver:

 

"1b. Vad jag förstår som 'ras' kanske inte är samma sak som 'genetiskt kluster' (historiskt exempel del 1 och del 2; idéhistoriskt exempel). Här är jag fortfarande lite intrasslad i socialkonstruktivismen, men det finns väl viss överhängande risk att iaf. amerikanskans 'race' har bäring; vilket också konsensuslistan (som talar om bl.a. african americans) indikerar."

 

DeBoer:

"Simply consider the differences in the paths of genetic information we’re talking about here. While unsolved questions still abound in genetic research, the general mechanisms through which genetic information is passed down within families have been well understood for decades. We know how parents contribute genetic material to children, and we thus know how grandparents and great-grandparents influence genotype too. If we say that a particular trait runs in families, we can look through very clear lines of descent to show how genetic information is pass along. We know more or less how an individual genotype is formed, we know how various generational connections contribute different pieces of genetic data, and we know more and more about how genotype defines phenotype.

Contrast that with the construct of race. What does it mean to call two people 'Asian'? The connection between, say, a third generation Hmong American college student whose family came to Santa Barbara as refugees from Vietnam and a Indian IT specialist whose family has lived in Madurai for generations seems, uh, unclear to me. Yes, I understand that there are phenotypical markers which often (but not always) indicate closer common ancestry between individuals. But “closer” here still can mean people whose families branched off the family tree hundreds of generations ago, making the genetic connections extremely distant. Low-cost genetic testing has revealed vast complexity in the genealogy of individuals and groups, with once simple stories of descent everywhere complicated by intermixing and the tangled lines of history. (I have bad news for the alt-right: the volk does not exist and never did.) Meanwhile, the concept of race entails vastly more baggage than just genetic lineage, all of the cultural and social and linguistic and political markers that we have, as a species, decided to package with certain phenotypical markers, historically for the purpose of maintaining white supremacy. To suggest that this process of racialization must be implied by acknowledging genetic influences on individual human outcomes is, well, thinking like Charles Murray.

If nothing else, I think it’s profoundly important that everyone understands that the belief that genetics influence intelligence does not imply a belief in 'scientific' racism. In fact, most of the world’s foremost experts on genetic behaviorism believe the former and not the latter."

 

Ännu mer intressant, för den som lägger vikt vid miljöfaktorer vad gäller gruppskillnader (som i exemplet afroamerikaner vs. vita amerikaner) är vad eliminerandet av miljöskapade får för implikationer.

 

"In any event: as long as we value intelligence in the way we do, progressive people must be willing to be honest about the existence of inherent differences between individuals in academic traits. When we act as if good schooling and committed teachers can bring any student to the pinnacle of academic achievement, we are creating entirely unfair expectations. Meanwhile, failure to recognize the impact of genetics on academic outcomes leaves us unable to combat an increasingly rigid social hierarchy. I often ask people, what happens after we close the racial achievement gap? What becomes the task then? Precisely because I don’t believe in pseudoscientific racism, I believe that we will eventually close the racial achievement gap, if we are willing to confront socioeconomic inequality directly and with government intervention. But what happens then? We will still have a distribution of academic talent. It will simply be a distribution with proportional numbers of black people, of women, of LGBTQ people…. Does it therefore follow that those on the bottom of the talent distribution will deserve poverty, hopelessness, and marginalization? I can’t imagine how that could be perceived as a just outcome. But if progressive people fear getting involved in these discussions out of a vague sense that any link between genetics and academic ability is racist, they will not be able to help shape the future." (Antropofagis fetstil.)

 

Argumentet minner om detta, detta och framförallt detta:

 

"Ett ojämlikt samhälle, där resurserna distribueras (ojämlikt) utan att ras eller kön har någon prediktionskraft, är fortfarande ett ojämlikt samhälle. Självklart är det orättvist att hur rik eller fattig någon är, vilket jobb eller vilken bostad någon kan få, eller hur många övergrepp från partner/polis/arbetsköpare någon tvingas utstå, beror på t.ex. melanin-mängd eller kromosomuppsättning. Däremot kan ett icke-rasistiskt, icke-sexistiskt samhälle fortfarande vara ojämlikt. Det grundläggande problemet är då inte löst, bara den godtyckliga selektionsmekanism som bestämmer vem som hamnar längre ner på samhällsstegen."

 

Grupp-IQ-skillnader som de i USA mellan afroamerikaner och vita är ett utfall av en rasifierande ojämlikhet, där de fattigare utsätts för så brutala miljöer att deras IQ försämras, vilket blir ett starkt negativt bidrag i den nedåtgående spiralen som är den självamplifierande ojämlikhetens eviga följeslagare.

 

(Relaterat: Slutord.)