[Meteorshower]

(Original post by NB_ide)
> I'm in China and I see an oriental person. I can either speak English to them, or Chinese. Which should I use? Then I see a white person who dresses like a Westerner. Which language should I choose? Or should I just stay silent and not speak to anyone?

> I have the opportunity to make a free bet on a 100m sprint final. There are some black guys, and some white guys. I know nothing else about them, can I help my chances by intentionally picking either a black or white person?

> I have to buy a birthday present for a female colleague who I know nothing about. What should I pick, flowers or beer? Or should I just refuse to get involved?

> I'm going on a date with a girl who I don't know very well. Should I talk to her about that hot woman at work, football and fighting? Or should I save that for my new male housemate who's just moved in, instead of trying to start a conversation with him about his hopes and dreams for the future?


Can you tell me exactly how I should behave in those situations? What would you do, do you just avoid all forms of social interaction in case you commit the sin of assumption?




Gender, "skin colour" and sexuality are superficial things?




Why is them being about to "control" it of any relevance? If anything, surely things they can't control, i.e. things that are fixed, are much safer bets to base our assumptions on? This suggests to me that it's more of a moral concern of yours, rather than a practical issue of what things offer us real hints as to a person's character.

1) If you can speak chinese, speak chinese first because you're in China... that seems like a good deciding factor to me.

2) Learn something about them, don't be so damn lazy. If you were betting on a race between random people of the same build you'd rarely do better than random picking based on ethnicity.

3) Learn something about her before buying her something! Again you're just being lazy.

4) This just takes the cake. If you have pre-selected conversation plans based on superficial factors of people you might meet then you're being very silly indeed.

There are very few things that gender actually has an actual bearing on so yes for the most part it is superficial. I shouldn't need to explain why sexuality and skin colour are superficial really...

[NB_ide]

(Original post by Meteorshower)
1) If you can speak chinese, speak chinese first because you're in China... that seems like a good deciding factor to me.

OK, let's say I'm in Germany with students who I know are either Chinese, or English. Which language should I speak to each type? Basically, is it ever proper to assssssuuuummmmmeeee where someone is from, and what language they speak, based on something as superficial and irrelevant as their ethnicity?

2) Learn something about them, don't be so damn lazy. If you were betting on a race between random people of the same build you'd rarely do better than random picking based on ethnicity.

3) Learn something about her before buying her something! Again you're just being lazy.

You're avoiding the question, come on. Can we make any good guesses based just on the info I had there. If you had to choose, beer or flowers. Or a voucher for a strip club vs. a box of chocolates. Which would you choose for a man, or a woman. Are you actually incapable of judging that?

4) This just takes the cake. If you have pre-selected conversation plans based on superficial factors of people you might meet then you're being very silly indeed.

hehe well that's just silly old me! Always being silly and treating different people differently, *giggle*

There are very few things that gender actually has an actual bearing on so yes for the most part it is superficial. I shouldn't need to explain why sexuality and skin colour are superficial really...

Weird. I've never met anyone like you (obviously you're not actually like this and you're probably quite normal in person) except on TSR, where everyone's desperately clambering to be the most air-headed and unaware person they possibly can.

I have come to agree with you, though, and from this day on I will basically do nothing, to anyone, in case I make an assumption of some kind and get it slightly wrong occasionally

[Meteorshower]

(Original post by NB_ide)
OK, let's say I'm in Germany with students who I know are either Chinese, or English. Which language should I speak to each type? Basically, is it ever proper to assssssuuuummmmmeeee where someone is from, and what language they speak, based on something as superficial and irrelevant as their ethnicity?



You're avoiding the question, come on. Can we make any good guesses based just on the info I had there. If you had to choose, beer or flowers. Or a voucher for a strip club vs. a box of chocolates. Which would you choose for a man, or a woman. Are you actually incapable of judging that?



hehe well that's just silly old me! Always being silly and treating different people differently, *giggle*



Weird. I've never met anyone like you (obviously you're not actually like this and you're probably quite normal in person) except on TSR, where everyone's desperately clambering to be the most air-headed and unaware person they possibly can.

I have come to agree with you, though, and from this day on I will basically do nothing, to anyone, in case I make an assumption of some kind and get it slightly wrong occasionally

Oh come on, I didn't condemn assumptions, only those based on a few basic superficial things. Whether or not it's ok to make other assumptions is a significantly more nuanced matter.

I'm not going to reply more fully because you're being ridiculous...

[NB_ide]

(Original post by Meteorshower)
Oh come on, I didn't condemn assumptions, only those based on a few basic superficial things. Whether or not it's ok to make other assumptions is a significantly more nuanced matter.

It is WRONG to make assumptions of any kind, about anyone, but definitely based on a person's race, gender, sexual preferences, disabilities, age or religious beliefs. Those are the six most sacred yet utterly irrelevant and meaningless characteristics of people. So completely irrelevant to everything, in fact, that we need laws to make sure people don't accidentally come over all silly and start assuming things about people based on them.

For example, I should get a 10 year old boy a barbie instead of an action man because otherwise I'm being prejudiced and possibly a bit racist.

A family friend gave my sister a pink-themed birthday card once, and we reported her to the Green Party for sexism and discrimination. I will not stand for this kind of thing.

[minimarshmallow]

(Original post by Callum828)
We've actually known that this is the case for several decades now. Men are like, 3-5 IQ points smarter.

The fascinating thing is, women have recently overtaken men in the last few years.

You've got to wonder whether the people who insisted that there were no differences then will insist that there are no differences now?

Seeing as how the standard deviation of an IQ test is 10 points, 3-5 is not a significant enough difference to say they are smarter, whether that is in the direction of the men (as you say for decades) or women (if indeed they have overtaken by such an amount).

[Don John]

(Original post by Meteorshower)
If you make a decision based on someone's gender, skin colour, sexuality or anything else superficial it's an ill-informed one.

I'm not saying you should ignore anything they can control...

Lol you pretty much proved his/her point there.

[confusedexcited]

(Original post by thedifferentiator)
Where is your proof on the crime? It could simply be that more men are caught and prosecuted than women...

OP its not sexist for women to say anything about men.

The same way it isn't racist for others to say things about white people.

Right, that's just not true, it's racist to say things about white people, but as white people are the 'dominant' ethnicity they're regarded as being more resiliant to criticism than minorities. In the same way that's it's kinda socially acceptable for a poor person to criticise a rich person, but not a rich person to criticise a poor person. I'm not justifying this, merely explaining.

[Formerly Helpful_C]

(Original post by twoforjoy)
Because it isn't sexist if it is in fact, a fact.

Men are generally more violent than women.

Just have a look at this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...ber_of_victims

I can't believe that the #2 serial killer of all time got released from prison.

[twoforjoy]

(Original post by Formerly Helpful_C)
I can't believe that the #2 serial killer of all time got released from prison.

yeah there is some scary stuff on there!

[bishbash72]

(Original post by paperclip)
Well, it does show that the differences are situational rather than innate. So there are no sex difference in reality, just differences in upbringing/nurture which create an illusory correlation. Similarly, just because there might be more violent crime on a hot day, heat doesnt cause violent crime.

Not exactly. Since intelligence is primarily genetic, it could well be that men are genotypically more intelligent but are falling behind because the modern world is more suited to females. With differences this small, we don't really know.

On top of that, the larger variability among male IQ is almost certainly genetic.

[bishbash72]

(Original post by Xotol)
IQ tests are not perfect indicators of intelligence. Intelligence is a lot more ambiguous and requires a more precise definition than violence for example.

It's better to say 'men are better at IQ tests by 3-5 points' than make a blanketing statement on intelligence.

They're the best indicator of intelligence we've had for the last hundred years, and they correlate extremely well with more objective measures (brain size measurements, brain scans etc). IQ scores also correlate very well with academic achievement, work-life achievement, crime levels, health, and a host of other factors. Finally different tests correlate extremely well with eachother (suggesting that they're measuring the same thing, intelligence)

You may as well say 'smokers are more likely to test positive on a lung cancer screening'. Technically correct, but meaningless.

[bishbash72]

(Original post by minimarshmallow)
Seeing as how the standard deviation of an IQ test is 10 points, 3-5 is not a significant enough difference to say they are smarter, whether that is in the direction of the men (as you say for decades) or women (if indeed they have overtaken by such an amount).

The standard of deviation for most IQ tests is actually 15 points, but that simply measures the range under which most people fall. I think you're confusing it with margin of error, which is more like 3.5 points.

But even then, margin of error applies to individual tests. The 3-5 point difference has been shown by thousands of tests, meaning that margin of error is statistically meaningless.

[cyfer]

Because you don't want to sink to the level of some radical feminists..

Truth is, men are statistically more violent than women, so its true. In the same way if I say men have statistically more grey matter and are therefore better at spatial problems i.e. driving, it is not sexist but interpreted by some to be.

[paperclip]

(Original post by Callum828)
Not exactly. Since intelligence is primarily genetic, it could well be that men are genotypically more intelligent but are falling behind because the modern world is more suited to females. With differences this small, we don't really know.

On top of that, the larger variability among male IQ is almost certainly genetic.

Source? Everything i am aware of seems to disagree, Dwecks concept of implicit theories of intelligence shows that intelligence is shaped by motivation and conceptions of learning, which can quite easily be changed by changing our attitudes to the conception of "intelligence" (for example, by changing the way praise/scorn is structured in the classroom), as demonstrated inside the classroom and the lab. Furthermore, all explanations of intelligence gaps are situational, for example, why minorities tend to under perform. Actually, as far as i am aware genetic intelligence has been destroyed as a concept by the masses of critiques of Murrays the bell curve.

I would have thought situational explanations are dominate our conceptions of learning, qualifications and hence intelligence. A prime example is private schools, whose students underperform at degree level because they are not getting all the support that they are used to (i dont know if it is due to support levels, but the under performance of private school students is a very well known fact in academia). In fact, why on earth would private schools exist at all if intelligence is genetic?

Finally, what about the flynn effect? How is consistent intelligence increase explained under a biological model?

And regarding the last paragraph, what is that opinion founded on?

EDIT: I have also seen that you are talking about IQ, that has also been quite thoroughly deconstructed as a concept. General intelligence is a massive umbrella term and does not really work in practice, what exactly does it show? I have done IQ tests as part of a study i have been in, and i did pretty good, but that does not mean i will be good at mathematics, which i am pretty poor at. Although i am pretty good at psychology, politics, and various other things. What exactly does my general intelligence generalise to?

[minimarshmallow]

(Original post by Callum828)
The standard of deviation for most IQ tests is actually 15 points, but that simply measures the range under which most people fall. I think you're confusing it with margin of error, which is more like 3.5 points.

But even then, margin of error applies to individual tests. The 3-5 point difference has been shown by thousands of tests, meaning that margin of error is statistically meaningless.

I may have skipped one of the lectures where we covered intelligence testing, but I caught it up and went to the other one where I distinctly remember being told that 3-5 points is not significant.

[Tyler Varona]

Beacause we are.

[Tyler Varona]

Just the same way guys are better at sport, are stronger, are better at dealing with their emotions etc.

[bishbash72]

(Original post by paperclip)
Source? Everything i am aware of seems to disagree, Dwecks concept of implicit theories of intelligence shows that intelligence is shaped by motivation and conceptions of learning, which can quite easily be changed by changing our attitudes to the conception of "intelligence" (for example, by changing the way praise/scorn is structured in the classroom), as demonstrated inside the classroom and the lab. Furthermore, all explanations of intelligence gaps are situational, for example, why minorities tend to under perform. Actually, as far as i am aware genetic intelligence has been destroyed as a concept by the masses of critiques of Murrays the bell curve.

I would have thought situational explanations are dominate our conceptions of learning, qualifications and hence intelligence. A prime example is private schools, whose students underperform at degree level because they are not getting all the support that they are used to (i dont know if it is due to support levels, but the under performance of private school students is a very well known fact in academia). In fact, why on earth would private schools exist at all if intelligence is genetic?

Finally, what about the flynn effect? How is consistent intelligence increase explained under a biological model?

And regarding the last paragraph, what is that opinion founded on?

EDIT: I have also seen that you are talking about IQ, that has also been quite thoroughly deconstructed as a concept. General intelligence is a massive umbrella term and does not really work in practice, what exactly does it show? I have done IQ tests as part of a study i have been in, and i did pretty good, but that does not mean i will be good at mathematics, which i am pretty poor at. Although i am pretty good at psychology, politics, and various other things. What exactly does my general intelligence generalise to?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritab...tability_of_IQ

Most studies put it between 70% and 80%.

And no, IQ has never been 'deconstructed', I have no idea where you got that from. It correlates very well with academic achievement, work-life achievement and other social factors, as well as more objective measures like brain size and brain metabolism.

The Flynn effect is perfectly consistent with this. Although I find it funny that you're using the Flynn effect to defend your position, since you said four lines earlier that IQ had been 'deconstructed', and the Flynn effect is an increase in IQ levels.

[bishbash72]

(Original post by minimarshmallow)
I may have skipped one of the lectures where we covered intelligence testing, but I caught it up and went to the other one where I distinctly remember being told that 3-5 points is not significant.

What do you mean by significant? Are you referring to individuals, groups or tests themselves?

[kka25]

(Original post by miser)
Not at all. A truthful statistic that showed that black people tend to be more violent might exist, but it's still a leap to say, upon meeting a violent black person, "this person is violent because they are black." That would be an unfounded judgement based on race - in other words racism. Likewise the same is true of gender.

The modal verb 'is' you wrote, in my view obviously makes the argument invalid because it denotes the argument as if it's factual information. But how about if the person said; "this person might be violent because they are black." The person used 'might' since statistically (hypothetically of course) black people tend to be more violent, therefore, the next black person you meet might be violent. Would that be racist or even a valid argument now?