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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (171829)	10/3/2005 8:15:01 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Maurice, the #8 chessplayer (of both sexes) right now in the world is a woman, Judit Polgar, the sister of the lady I lost to in the simul. She's better than me, you and tens of thousands of much more serious chessplayers. In a few months, she'll play in a tournament to select the new world champion. chessgames.com Which could be her! She's higher rated than all but a very few men in history.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (171829)	10/3/2005 10:33:00 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hello Maurice. Sorry if I failed to make myself clear. I was musing about the accuracy of the paragraph you wrote stating that intelligence could be quantified. The concluding statement you took as condescending and impugning you with bigotry or racism wasn't intended that way at all. I was only putting my comments, which, by the way, agreed with your premise, in perspective. But since you didn't understand from the post I wrote, Let me say it clearly. I do agree with the premise that gender and race can be predictive of likely aptitudes. I don't think it's too hard to understand why that might be. If you believe in natural selection there are some pretty good reasons why there might be differences based on gender or the conditions that your ancestors had to deal with in order to survive. It makes sense that American Indians and Africans might have slightly stronger right brained abilities as opposed to Europeans and, by that same token, slightly weaker left brained abilities. And that European Jews would be more left brained than any of them. Is that important? As I've said before, it's not important from an individual perspective but I think it might be from some broader perspectives. There are some marked differences between the way left brained leaning people learn and the way right brained leaning people learn. We should acknowledge such differences, test for such aptitudes and develop teaching techniques that are effective. It's also important that we stop looking for bias, and only bias, when we find statistical anomalies that correlate with race or gender. There are clearly problems with bias and there are certainly cultural differences that have an impact but we should not automatically reject any studies that can substantiate physiological differences. After all, where is it written that the brains of all races and both genders have to be "just the same?" By the way, some of the articles you cited were interesting but they certainly reached a long way to try to "quantify" their findings. I especially liked the one that used the incidence of the clap among various races as the benchmark to determine the sexual drive of the various races. Do you think some poor people with poorer access to health care might be more likely to carry that disease and carry it longer? Do you think that people of color in America are more likely to be impoverished? If the answers are "yes" and "yes," then the study based on that benchmark proves little. Finally, I understand your quickness to assume that your views are being attacked as bigoted. In America it is ok to state that any minority has a particular aptitude that exceeds the aptitude of the majority but stating the converse can create an outcry. If we had Field's scholars playing against each other every week as we do some sports teams, however, I think we'd notice that there were a lot of white, male and probably Jewish people on the starting teams. It is what it is. And, by the way, males without machismo are still males with male brains. I wouldn't expect them, for that reason, to be less capable of math than guys like Governor Arnold but maybe they'd be less likely to brag about their math skills. g. Ed

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (171829)	10/4/2005 10:35:23 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

Intelligence researchers [real ones, not hobbyists] know there are various types of intelligence such as basic verbal and maths testing for a start. Because something is difficult to measure, doesn't mean it can't be. They are paid very good salaries to study intelligence and that's not done because it's some mystical thing that's a waste of time to study. It can be pinned down very well. It is all very simple. Since we can't define intelliegence, we can recognise many of the components of intelligence that we can't define precisely. We invented computers to duplicate what intelligent people can do. It's like asking, who is smarter, computers or people? We've been thinking now for more than a few thousands years (modern thinking), and we've been making computers for less than 100 years. Horses for courses Generally speaking, smart people can crunch numbers better than stupid people, but people can't crunch numbers like some computers with very fast cpus. Smart people generally know a lot of stuff. Most stupid people know very little. But no one has a memory bank equal to an array of google type disk drives. For something, it's about equal. People can still put up a good match against a computer in chess. Most smart people can learn to play chess better than most stupid people. Or course, there are still things that people can do that computers can't do. Like writing a song that will help to sell sugar water. So, if you are asking - who is smarter - people or computers - for now, I have to say people. Similarly, if you were to ask me who can play chess better - men or women? For now I would have to say men. A lot of men have been playing chess for more than several hundred years (i think). But more and more women are starting to play and better female chess players are emerging. Same goes for math and science. It could be possible that the next great (no 1) chess player, scientist, golfer turns out to be a woman or even a black woman. It could be possible that men wil forever dominate in science, chess, and golf - but that a small group of women in these fields turn out to be much better than men. Who knows how these things will turn out? Let the chips fall and see where they will land. But, to imply that you know with the data that we currently have, you are then exposed to be called a whatever(ist). It is all very simple.