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From: welsch@houxj.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: A Flame on Affirmative Action (A reply to Ms. Creighton)
Message-ID: <265@houxj.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 11-Jun-83 12:37:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: houxj.265
Posted: Sat Jun 11 12:37:53 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jun-83 02:40:11 EDT
Lines: 87

Laura Creighton makes some very good points that I would like to
respond to.  

I did not mention equality or God in my argument in support of
affirmative action programs, even if they involved quotas. First
lets talk about equality. I said that "Given the assumption
intelligence does not recognize race then ...". I believe that
intelligence is uniform across the races and I am prepared to
argue that issue. I also believe it is possible that I am
wrong, but I haven't seen any convincing evidence. Nor does Ms.
Creighton present any convincing evidence. If anybody on the net does
have convincing evidence that this is not true then please share
it with us. I am willing to learn. IQ and aptitude testing in
this country have a rather unfortunate history of being
misused to discriminate against ethnic groups and immigrants.

Let's talk about God. I didn't use God in my argument. I also
believe that God can be and often is used on both sides of
disagreements. For example, God created us all equal, but some
of us are chosen by God. I prefer to leave God and/or Gods out
of arguments and trust that She will provide evidence to the
correct side.  Another way of putting this is: God gave us all
brains, lets use them. 

Lets now move on to "everybody is identical" or "every race is
identical" or "every race is identical within 2 standard
deviations."  First I agree that if every person is identical
then every race is identical. Second I agree that if every race is
identical then every race is identical to within two standard
deviations.   I never said or assumed that all people
are the identical in any way shape or form or that all people
are equally intelligent.  I did not use the chain of reasoning
that you propose.  I agree that the chain of reasoning is false
in the assumption that all people are identical or have
identical intelligence.

How did I arrive at the conclusion that intelligence is uniform
across the races? The method I used is induction. No, I haven't
done any studies, but I have read about many studies that have
been done. All studies I have seen that purport to show that one
race is more intelligent than another have been seriously flawed
or the data has been misinterpreted. For example, the data
Shockley uses shows only a slight difference in intelligence
between the races. Whether or not that difference is
statistically significant or due to differences other that
intelligence is debatable. There is also a great deal of
evidence that shows intelligence is uniformly distributed.

Lets move on to the question of culture and occupation based on
cultural traditions. I concede that a goal of affirmative action
is to change the culture of the US such that people do not base
decisions, such as hiring, firing, etc. on race or sex. It is
currently part of the culture in the US to base such decisions
on race or sex. All the sub-cultures that make up US culture
will have to change.  The decision to effect this change was not
made by majority vote, but rather by a slow and painful process
that started in England before the US revolution of 1776 and is
related to a belief that people should be treated as individuals.

Let's next move on to quotas, Indians and police. First, I
propose the problem you mention of getting Indians to join the
police was not a cultural problem. The Indians just weren't as
dumb as the Indian Affairs committee thought they were. I'd be
willing to bet money that the Indians would have loved to be on
a committee that monitored police activity and enforced the law
on the police.  

Second, I suggest that affirmative action and specifically a
quota would have solved the problem. The quota would not be on
the Indians, but on the police. The police would have to change
their actions to convince to the Indians to join. Without the
Indians joining the police would not meet their quota and cease
to exist. In other words the problem was not with the Indians,
but with the police. Of course the little boy who said, "You will
never make a White man out of me no matter how you try." is
right.  It was the attempt to enforce a "White man's" law that
was wrong.  

Finally I agree that races are not identical. But who is to
judge that one race is "better than" or "more equal" than
another. Culture is a different matter. I am a member of the
culture of the US and I see much that should be changed and I am
going to support those changes. Racial and sexual discrimination
is a part of US culture whose elimination I look forward to.

				Larry Welsch
				houxj!welsch