Thursday 26 January 2012 at 9:04 pm
IQ is something that people ignore until they feel it is convenient to prove their points.
The divide between these articles is along the lines of left (everyone is equal) and right (social darwinism).
Earlier studies have found links between low levels of education and higher levels of prejudice, Hodson said, so studying intelligence seemed a logical next step. The researchers turned to two studies of citizens in the United Kingdom, one that has followed babies since their births in March 1958, and another that did the same for babies born in April 1970. The children in the studies had their intelligence assessed at age 10 or 11; as adults ages 30 or 33, their levels of social conservatism and racism were measured. [Life's Extremes: Democrat vs. Republican]
In the first study, verbal and nonverbal intelligence was measured using tests that asked people to find similarities and differences between words, shapes and symbols. The second study measured cognitive abilities in four ways, including number recall, shape-drawing tasks, defining words and identifying patterns and similarities among words. Average IQ is set at 100.
Social conservatives were defined as people who agreed with a laundry list of statements such as "Family life suffers if mum is working full-time," and "Schools should teach children to obey authority." Attitudes toward other races were captured by measuring agreement with statements such as "I wouldn't mind working with people from other races." (These questions measured overt prejudiced attitudes, but most people, no matter how egalitarian, do hold unconscious racial biases; Hodson's work can't speak to this "underground" racism.) - Live Science
So far, so good. A study makes an analysis. But once you read the following, suddenly liberals declare that you are not "scientific" any more:
One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion.
James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.
The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade. - The Independent
Even though the science backs him up:
A 60-page review of the scientific evidence, some based on state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of brain size, has concluded that race differences in average IQ are largely genetic.
The lead article in the June 2005 issue of Psychology, Public Policy and Law, a journal of the American Psychological Association, examined 10 categories of research evidence from around the world to contrast "a hereditarian model (50% genetic-50% cultural) and a culture-only model (0% genetic-100% cultural)."
The paper, "Thirty Years of Research on Race Differences in Cognitive Ability," by J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Western Ontario and Arthur R. Jensen of the University of California at Berkeley, appeared with a positive commentary by Linda Gottfredson of the University of Delaware, three critical ones (by Robert Sternberg of Yale University, Richard Nisbett of the University of Michigan, and Lisa Suzuki & Joshua Aronson of New York University), and the authors' reply.
"Neither the existence nor the size of race differences in IQ are a matter of dispute, only their cause," write the authors. The Black-White difference has been found consistently from the time of the massive World War I Army testing of 90 years ago to a massive study of over 6 million corporate, military, and higher-education test-takers in 2001. - News-Medical
The images come courtesy of the Ocean Explorer team, an experienced group of Swedish salvagers that already raised an impressive collection of rare and very expensive champagne from the watery depths.
Expedition leader Peter Lindberg notes that the mystery object is 60 meters across. Lines in the ocean floor next to it almost look like a skidded landing area.
Chances are that the discovery has a much less titillating explanation than coming from another planet. It could be a sunken vessel or a flooded archeological site. There will be no answers until the team goes in for a closer look. - CNET
Wednesday 25 January 2012 at 9:43 pm
Because we are afraid of evolution itself, which changes us as we are, we like to think it's over and we've moved on to the quest for Utopia through politically correct behavior.
This requires we write off the past as ignorant, stupid and wrong, and to make fun of tradition as a pointless and hateful exercise.
Then again, as time passes and our liberal/democratic/consumerist/technological/capitalist/socialist methods fail, we're starting to see the wisdom of tradition.
In cultures that permit men to take multiple wives, the intra-sexual competition that occurs causes greater levels of crime, violence, poverty and gender inequality than in societies that institutionalize and practice monogamous marriage.
"The emergence of monogamous marriage is also puzzling for some as the very people who most benefit from polygyny – wealthy, powerful men – were best positioned to reject it," says Henrich, lead author of the study that is published today in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. "Our findings suggest that that institutionalized monogamous marriage provides greater net benefits for society at large by reducing social problems that are inherent in polygynous societies."
Considered the most comprehensive study of polygamy and the institution of marriage, the study finds significantly higher levels rape, kidnapping, murder, assault, robbery and fraud in polygynous cultures. According to Henrich and his research team, which included Profs. Robert Boyd (UCLA) and Peter Richerson (UC Davis), these crimes are caused primarily by pools of unmarried men, which result when other men take multiple wives. - PhysOrg
What, how could that be? It's like we're denying free will.
Your genes could be a strong predictor of whether you stray into a life of crime, according to a research paper co-written by UT Dallas criminologist Dr. J.C. Barnes.
The study focused on whether genes are likely to cause a person to become a life-course persistent offender, which is characterized by antisocial behavior during childhood that can later progress to violent or serious criminal acts later in life.
The framework for the research was based on the developmental taxonomy of anti-social behavior, a theory derived by Dr. Terri Moffitt, who identified three groups, or pathways, found in the population: life-course persistent offenders, adolescent-limited offenders and abstainers. Moffitt suggested that environmental, biological and, perhaps, genetic factors could cause a person to fall into one of the paths. - Science Daily
Oh wait. So this whole utilitarian, liberal-democratic, quasi-Romantic notion of free will and choice is bogus? We're just piles of nerves, acting out our genes? -- well, it's not quite that bad. But neither do we have absolute choice.
Modernity has drifted away from tradition for the selfish motivations of our worst people. End the drift -- turn back toward sanity.
After trying to fit into this world it became clear to me, such a task was impossible. So I became a Libertarian, thinking that would be my way to explaining my disillusion with this modern world but even that was a failure.
After months of research I was slowly becoming a Conservative, enjoying the works of Disraeli, Burke, and Churchill. Yet while that seemed more comfortable to me when I finally stumbled upon the true hard – liners, the ones modern history conveniently forgot about, this was my great awakening.
Liberalism, even in a Conservative form, was a disease crippling Western civilization. It all leads back to the same source of envy from the mercantile class directed against the
aristocrats, nobles, and royalty because they rejected their right to govern and justified their hatred to the masses in the name of liberty.
Of course the peasants fell for this; they were promised that their voice will be the one that governs society. All wealth beyond your wildest dreams is awaiting you but first you must turn your back to family, community, God, and the principles of the past. In turn you become your own God, but conveniently subservient to a class of usurers, exploiters, and spiritually degraded sophists. We shall have a Heaven on Earth, this they told us was accomplishable and all horrifying acts in its name were justifiable actions.
Those are not views I subscribe to. The reality may be harsher but it should be accepted as such. Loyalty is the greatest principle one can hold and envy is one of the worst. The specter of the Left is coming; it will march out of the rubble that these people have laid our Western homelands to. It will be one which embraces racial and ethnic pride, loyalty to family and place, reverence to your God and ancestors, and shall break the clock of ‘liberty, egality, fraternity’ once and for all. - sllvnbranden
Nifty summary of both Twilight of the Idols and The Clash of Civilizations.
Prince Albert was a serious amateur composer watch a performance of his song 'Gruss an der Bruder', with Toby Spence (tenor) and Ronald Brautigam (piano)
Wednesday 11 January 2012 at 3:23 pm
How do nice people end up psychotic weirdos?
[L]eftism fills many of its adherents with contempt and hatred. It takes a person of great character and self-control to continually imbibe and mouth the mantras of the left -- that everyone on the right is sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, islamophobic, racist and bigoted -- and not become a meaner human being. If I believed just about everyone with left-wing views was despicable, I would be meaner, too.
In a previous column, I wrote about Thomas Friedman making one of the classic anti-Semitic libels when he wrote that the reason the Senate and the House gave Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing ovations was because "that ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."
How does a Jew write an anti-Semitic libel? Because he's on the left.
That was the reason Rep. Andre Carson said that members of Congress who support the Tea Party want to see blacks "hanging on a tree." Because he's on the left.
Leftists' meanness toward those with whom they differ has no echo on the normative right. Those on the left need to do some soul-searching. Because as long as they continue to believe that people on the right are not merely wrong but vile, they will get increasingly mean. The problem for the left, however, is that the moment it stops painting the right as vile, it has to argue the issues. - Dennis Prager
For social prestige, they imbibe the Kool-Aid. It forces them to see the world in binary terms.
From there, insanity reigns.
Soon, wars for democracy follow -- and bitter hatred toward not just the enemy, but anyone who does not surrender in advance.
Remember, leftists murdered a tenth of France at the guillotine.
Wednesday 11 January 2012 at 3:14 pm
WARNING: Morons, displaced from their favorite morons-pretending-to-be-geniuses Dunning-Kruger vortex Reddit, will be flooding your favorite sites on January 18.
One of the latest acts of protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act is a planned blackout by social website reddit on January 18.
Reddit admins announced the plan in a blog post on Tuesday. The post acknowledged the activism by redditors in the fight against “powerful forces trying to censor the Internet.” However, the admins explained that it was time for the next stage of the fight, and they’ve decided they will be blacking out reddit on January 18. The blackout will last all day from 8am to 8pm Eastern Standard Time. - Yahoo!
Maybe we can redirect them all back to myspace and 4chan from whence they came.
Wednesday 11 January 2012 at 09:38 am
What do you do when you have controversial political opinions, and having your real name identified with them makes you a pariah?
As many people will be aware, Metal Archives has recently had an overhaul. This has included a new "members" section, which features information on past and present participants from bands/projects. This information not only supplies full names next to pseudonyms, it provides dates of birth, cities of residence etc where available.
Upon contacting Metal Archives, I was told that this information could only be removed if there was proof I lived in a country where such information being leaked could be detrimental towards myself (ie, a Damaar kind of situation). I argued the fact that some people's public associations with their bands could affect their employability to which I was simply told that if this information was put into the public domain, then it was fair game for them to print it. This insinuates to me that the only solution is that if any musicians want to operate anonymously, the use of sites such as facebook must be ruled out. I myself use facebook privately to keep in touch with foreign, and out of town friends, I was always careful with what I posted on there and kept personal information to an absolute minimum. This said, I obviously slipped by accepting a few "fanboy" adds, which is the only place where this information has slipped. - NWN
Third-party sites like Metal-Archives will not agree to change this information because their business is involved in having such information, and it was out there on the web and so they took advantage of it. however, this damages the musicians, who need to be able to express a spectrum of dangerous ideas (from extreme environmentalism and communism to ethnic nationalism) without retaliation against their real-world personae. After all, "economic censorship" is how this world keeps unpleasant but possibly valid ideas out of public discourse.
The crux of human decision-making and our highest abstract level of choice can be summarized in this question: do we accept that physical reality is a means to an end
An anarchist/nihilist group calls us one nasty name, and says a few nice things about our writing, so we respond to open a dialogue, because that's the right thing to do if one cares about truth.
