Here is what eugenicist has to say about the above cartoon:
I’m staggered by the intellectual dishonesty behind this comic. Let me illustrate:
1. “There’s a certain ‘scientific’ theory that…[whites] are inherently, genetically smarter than blacks!” This idiot thinks that putting quotation marks around the word scientific, and making the theory sound distasteful, disproves it. For an analogy: “There’s a certain ‘scientific’ theory that…light and heavy objects fall at the same rate!” Same level of intellectual content.
2. Mr. Labcoat is correct, but a bit dishonest, in stating that black Americans score 15 points lower than white Americans, on average. (A better, more accurate term would be “one standard deviation,” since IQ tests use different scores and systems.) This gap is not a product of biased testing; it is remarkably consistent, no matter what test(s) you use. So, a few points for that.
3. Could the IQ gap be because blacks are “inherently, genetically” not as smart as whites? Quite possibly. This theory has not been disproven; it’s simply too horrible for most intellectuals to consider, so they act as if there’s conclusive evidence against it, when all they have is their own disgust. That’s anti-science.
4. It’s possible that the liberal thesis is correct, i.e. that the gap is entirely due to environmental factors. The problem is, we can’t know the reason for the gap when certain theories are viewed as heretical. It’s like saying “Well, we can study the planets and the universe, so long as we conclude that the earth is the center of the solar system, because to suggest otherwise goes against God.” That’s anti-science.
5. The whole slave narrative “experiment” assumes that, before slavery, Africans had intellects at or above the level of whites, but ill treatment degraded their potential. In reality, black Americans routinely score 10 to 25 points higher on IQ tests than black Africans, including Africans in countries where there is no history of colonialism, apartheid, slave trading or any real white presence. In some sub-Saharan African countries, the median IQ is somewhere in the 60s.
Maybe all the smart blacks were shipped over here. Maybe some special conditions degraded black IQs more steeply in Africa than America. Maybe the fact that black Americans are, on average, 1/5th white has something to do with it. Maybe not. But as long as this cowering fear of “racism” persists, we won’t know why.
6. “IQ tests designed by privileged black Africans.” Oh, don’t make me laugh! The reason that IQ tests are used isn’t because they were designed by “privileged” Americans, it’s because they correlate with success in western societies. If Africans designed an “IQ test” that correlated with success in African societies, blacks would probably do better than whites. And you could claim that those skills are the real intelligence. By this rubric, a Robert Oppenheimer, or a Hubert Henry Harrison for that matter, is “privileged” over a Bushman because, while the latter can survive and thrive in the Kalahari, the former can “only” understand advanced physics or give extemporaneous lectures on a wide variety of subjects. Such a viewpoint baffles me, frankly.
7. “If…you’ve proven the hypothesis!” You don’t have to go through this sadistic rigmarole to do it. We can now sequence DNA; it would be easy (but expensive) to take a large cross-section of the populace, sequence their DNA, study their lives from age 5 to 30 and document everything, like the NLSY did. Would black Americans in homogeneously black, upper-income neighborhoods score higher on IQ tests than dirt-poor whites? Does divorce affect IQ? And how predictive are gene sequences for lifetime success when divorced from environmental factors? It would be fascinating stuff, but any time someone would draw an unorthodox conclusion, it would go from being scientific to being “scientific,” however well-documented or thorough.
8. If white Americans have abetted black American dysgenics for hundreds of years, it doesn’t disprove the genetic hypothesis. It might even prove it, since black slaves were presumably bred for certain traits for generations. (Chris Rock discussed this in a comedy special.)
9. It’s possible that the IQ gap exists, solely or mostly, because of centuries of ill-treatment of blacks by whites. That is useful knowledge, the same way it’s useful to know that childhood abuse hampered you in adult life. But there’s no way to reverse trauma that’s already happened, and the traumatizer can’t deal with your issues for you.
10. I must also take issue with the tone of this comic. It is sadistic and sarcastic and dishonest. It wants to give whites a “taste of their own medicine” for daring to contradict liberal orthodoxy. It misunderstands science and relies on arrant misrepresentation. It aims to intimidate people rather than inform them. It may be pro-intellectual, but it is (no pun intended) anti-intelligence.
“But it’s just a comic,” I hear you say. (Well, I don’t actually hear you, or hearyou, because I’m anticipating an imaginary reader’s response in my head.) “What do you expect, a proof in symbolic logic?” No, but I expect some basic honesty and common sense. Tom the Dancing Bug is a fairly popular comic published in newspapers, alternative weeklies and boingboing.net.
If you find the idea of inherent group differences disgusting, there are many ways to express that without bullying the opposition or suggesting they be enslaved. You could also conduct, support or publicize scientific studies that address these issues, instead of entertaining revenge fantasies and calling your opponents names. In other words, you could act like an adult.
(Source: christineam)
I couldn’t have said it better myself, eugenicist!
Whenever I want to read sub-par liberal social commentary littered with straw men and distortions, I read Tom the Dancing Bug. This one is pretty average as far as comics from that series go.
The fact that Tom the Dancing Bug has decided to do a strip on the IQ-race issue indicates that race realist ideas are starting to percolate through to the mainstream.
Some other points to be considered:
Why then do Jews and East Asians score higher on IQ tests if they are so biased? I’ll note that many East Asians lived under some pretty oppressive conditions over the last couple of centuries: Chinese Communism, Japanese occupation, Manchus and Taipings, European domination of treaty ports in China. And did the Jews of Europe show any drop in IQ owing to the events of 1933-45?
And what of your average Russian serf (only emancipated in the mid-19th century)? Yet Russians have some mighty fine accomplishments under their belts. They got the first man into space (OK, with the help of German scientists!).
For that matter, parts of Europe have been occupied by Ottomans, Mongols, Arabs, Huns and what-not over the last 1500 years. Why then do European peoples lead the world in scientific innovation?
Supposing the liberals are correct and it is all due to environment? Would they then be able to take action to correct it? Say, what if the issue were merely a matter of improving nutrition, ingesting a daily dose of DHA, and killing televisions? Would liberals take these actions? Or would their ideology preclude them from even doing this?
Anyway, all this is one more reason to keep the flag of Internet freedom flying. I wonder how many people who read this comic strip will do a google on this topic and then find the truth from this website?
One more thought here: there is another item of intellectual dishonesty in the cartoon strip. It seems to assume that the USA is still living in the age of segregation. But segregation has been over for half a century, and was over for more than that in northern states.
This is at least two generations, and in that time we have seen every liberal social engineering scheme imaginable put into place. Yet we do not see any marked improvement in such things as black college admissions, black family formation, and so forth. If anything, these are all going downhill. Look at the growing rates of black incarceration and illegitimacy. (Of course, we might ask how much of these dysfunctions are the product of liberal policies…)
The comic strip, oddly enough, seems to buy into the idea that there is a genetic factor to intelligence, that somehow high-IQ blacks were bred out of the population. But this does not jibe with liberalism, which holds that environmental factors are all that matters, and that otherwise people are tabula rasa.
So then why have half a century of liberal policies failed and failed miserably to change things?
Again, it gets back to this bizarre delusion that I see among liberals that segregation ended only yesterday. They refuse to admit that their own policies have failed miserably. So they redouble the effort to implement even more polices and ratchet up the agitprop machine.
Once again, ideology trumps reason.
You are way too kind and open minded and liberal.
3. Could the IQ gap be because blacks are “inherently, genetically” not as smart as whites? Quite possibly. This theory has not been disproven;
Rushton has taken every single possible non-genetic explanation and disproven it
Race differences in intelligence: how research changed my mind to overcome the "all races are equal" dogma.
And if it is not genetic, it is pretty ingrained, as it not has been fixed with all affirmative action.
It also is rarely said that low IQ seems to go together with high impulsiveness, low self control, and high criminality. IQ is just measured more easily.
Some of the following threads have a 100-reply-long-discussions, in great detail. Worth reading.
http://human-stupidity.com/irrationality/stupid-dogma/racial-differences-intelligence
Thank you for the links!
Unfortunately, “Occam’s Butterknife” is an incredibly versatile tool. Just recently a study found that IQ is at least 40% heritable, but that won’t stop anyone from practicing all sorts of blackwhite thinking.
I apologize for being kind and open-minded, they are known weaknesses of mine. And of course being too liberal cannot be excused.
Correction: the heritability of crystallized intelligence is estimated at 40%. Fluid intelligence (raw problem-solving ability) is at least 51% heritable. So, no surprises there for me.
Good take down. Btw. I checked the channel of the race realist You Tube girl ‘Hey Ruka’ & found she has a new video up.
http://www.youtube.com/user/HeyRuka#p/u/0/rUgSAIcduyQ
An excellent video – as usual! Thanks for sharing.
I have to wonder how the demographics pans out in the suburb in which Ruben Bolling chooses to live. AFAIK it’s just New York City, with his wife and 3 children. Went to Harvard Law School.
My guess is that the only black people he has had contact with (outside of movies) are the top 0.001% of US blacks who make it into Harvard with the help of Affirmative Action. Of course they are going to seem well mannered and cultured compared to say, those from Compton.
100 years of slavery followed by a century or so of discrimiation & oppresson has resulted in blacks scoring lower than whites on IQ tests.
I had no idea African Americans lived that long. Eat your hearts out gaint Tortoises.
Comic strip politics…about as useful and insightful as bumper sticker logic.
We’ve gone from Whittaker Chambers, Willmore Kendall and Sam Francis to “Tom the Dancing Bug” in a generation. Makes me want to cry.