where i’m coming from

too many politically correct people (erroneously) assume that hbd’ers are racists (in the bad sense of the word) or supremacists or neo-nazis who have eeeeeevil intentions.

not me. and not a lot of other hbd’ers either, i think.

to get an idea of where i’m coming from, just read james crow‘s “Unequal by nature: a geneticist’s perspective on human differences.” i agree whole-heartedly with everything he wrote in that article — 110%. here’s a little excerpt:

“It is important for society to do a better job than it now does in accepting differences as a fact of life. New forms of scientific knowledge will point out more and more ways in which we are diverse. I hope that differences will be welcomed, rather than accepted grudgingly. Who wants a world of identical people, even if they are Mozarts or [Michael] Jordans?

“A good society ought to provide the best kind of environment for each person and each population. We already do this in part. We give lessons to musically gifted children. We encourage athletes and give them special training (and sometimes dubious drugs). Students elect courses according to their abilities and interests. We have special classes for those with disabilities, and such classes are becoming more specific as the causes of the disabilities are understood.

“We cannot, of course, tailor-make a special environment for every individual, but we can continue to move in this direction. Finding a genetic basis for a trait doesn’t mean that environment is unimportant. Indeed, more environmental influences on the human organism are constantly being discovered, often through genetic studies.

“A test of our democratic institutions will be the degree to which people can accept all our differences and find ways to fit them into a smooth-working, humanitarian society. And I argue that we should strive not only for maximum personal satisfaction but for maximum contribution; each of us owes society the fruits of our special gifts. I believe strongly that research into the genetic and environmental causes of human differences should continue and be supported. The newer procedures brought about by molecular advances and computers will greatly accelerate discoveries.

“I believe that knowledge, even unpleasant knowledge, is far preferable to ignorance. I hope that American society can be less fearful of learning the truth about biological inequalities and more courageous in using discoveries in ways that are humanitarian and promote human welfare.“

couldn’t have said it better myself.

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systemizing

theodora has posted sacha simon baron-cohen‘s systemizing and empathy quotient tests. i took them both many moons ago, but i don’t know where i filed away my scores (i’m not very systematic in that sense), so i just took the systemizing one again. (they’re a bit awkward to take since you’ve got to score them manually.)

btw, systemizing according to baron-cohen means:

“[A] person’s strength of interest in systems (defined as the drive to analyse or construct a system). A system in turn is defined as anything that follows rules, key classes of systems including mechanical systems, natural systems, abstract systems, and collectible systems. Rules in turn are defined as repeating, lawful patterns.”

for interpreting the results of the test:

“What your score means

“On average women score about 24 and men score about 30.

“0-19 = You have a lower than average ability for analysing and exploring a system.
“20-39 = You have an average ability for analysing and exploring a system.
“40-50 = You have an above average ability for analysing and exploring a system.
“51-80 = You have a very high ability for analysing and exploring a system. Three times as many people with Asperger Syndrome score in this range, compared to typical men, and almost no women score this high.”

my score? 83. heh. i’m so abnormal. (~_^)

baron-cohen’s also got a whole bunch of other tests to try out if you’re looking for some fun, online time-wasters.

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sat scores and chicks

steve sailer has a post up about sat scores and racial groups, but he’s also included the differences between guys and dolls:

so, guys outscore women across the board. the differences are not so great on the verbal scores as on the math scores. i don’t find that surprising ’cause if women are good at anything, it’s being catty chatty! (~_^)

i’m not really interested in debating this ’cause, afaict, these scores are just another bit of evidence that shows that, on average, men have a higher iq than women. that’s what all the research shows — that’s been my experience in life. ’nuff said, really.

i didn’t take the sats, i took the act. my composite score was 30 (i did better on the natural sciences test = 33; i s*cked on the math test = 27). a 30 act score is something like a 1340 sat score (new scoring, i presume). so, i’m smarter than your average bear, but i ain’t no einstein. (~_^)

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how bad i am at math

chris pointed out a neat link to an online test to check out one’s number skillz:

“Panamath measures your number sense and Approximate Number System (ANS) aptitude. After answering a brief set of questions about yourself, you will complete the Panamath test. On each trial of the test, a brief flash of yellow and blue dots will appear, and you will respond whether you think there are more yellow dots or blue dots. At the end, you will see an output of your results and how you stack up compared with others who have taken the test.”

some of the trials are harder than others — the dots can vary in size and (what was a little tough for me) the difference in the number between the yellow and blue dots can be close or not-so-close. it’s harder when they’re closer together in number (at least for some of us it is!):

so, i don’t have totally s*cky math skillz (for my age) — my results were pretty close to, or in, the 90th percentile — but fell short for the harder tests. (~_^)

these scores sound pretty good — and they are, all things considered — but i think they’re prolly pretty s*cky compared to what i imagine a lot of hbders’ scores would prolly be — i’m thinking of someone like the audacious epigone or a reluctant apostate. compared to them, i’d bet that my scores s*ck! *sigh* ah, well. c’est la vie! (^_^)

the other thing is, my response times were also pretty sloooooow. iow, i’m not the sharpest math tack in the box — but i already knew that. (~_^) accuracy quite good — response time, not so much (and i thought i was so speedy!):

i’m smart, but i ain’t no savant. (^_^)

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just for the record…

…i don’t give a sh*t what other peoples get up to.

i’ve recently had a couple of posts up about the gender imbalance issue in china and india, but that’s only because i was annoyed that mara hvistendahl blames the imbalance on westerners|western science (at least partly, anyway). aside from that, i don’t care that chinese people and indians abort female fetuses at greater numbers than male ones. that’s up to them. i find it interesting, but it doesn’t bother me on a personal level.

(well, in one way i do care ’cause i’m concerned about the prospects of war with all those young men hanging about with nothing better to do — and us getting dragged into it. i’m just saying i don’t feel morally upset over how some other peoples conduct their affairs.)

i bring this up because a commenter on another post mentioned the gender imbalance in india and differences between the muslim and christian populations there. he wrote it in such as way that it sounds like an indictment of indian muslims. maybe he didn’t mean it that way, but that’s how it reads anyway.

which made me just want to make it clear that i really don’t give a sh*t how muslims — or any other peoples, for that matter — arrange their societies and live out their lives. like i mentioned above, i am sometimes concerned when what they do might impact me and mine, but on a moral, gut-feeling level, i feel it’s none of my business. i don’t care if women are in burkas or not allowed to drive or have their clitorises cut off — or if some papua new guineans eat their neighbors — that’s up to them. THAT’S human biodiversity!

i just don’t want all that human biodiversity in my country (or anywhere in the west, either).

so, just to be clear, this blog is not about being critical about how other peoples live their lives. it’s (hopefully) more of an exploration of why all the diversity exists in the first place.

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not a neanderthal

i’m not much of a neanderthal. at least not according to interpretome (and the 84 snps that they check for neanderthalism):

*sigh* i was kinda hoping i wuz (a neanderthal, that is).

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i’m abnormal

but you probably already worked that out. (~_^)

dennis posts about a new paper by rushton and irwing on a g-factor of personality. they describe people who score high on the first four of the big 5 personality characteristics (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness [bah-humbug!]) and low on the fifth (neuroticism) as having “good” or “normal” personalities. if you don’t, you’ve got a “difficult” or “abnormal” personality.

*ahem* (~_^)

here’s me (test taken here) — openness = 65 percentile, conscientiousness = 35 percentile, extraversion = 3 percentile(!), agreeableness = 32, percentile, neuroticism = 90 percentile(!) [click for larger view]:

yeah. i’m more neurotic than woody allen! not very agreeable (man, do i hate working with other people!), and quite a wallflower. not very conscientious, either, for that matter. but i AM pretty open to new experiences! *whew*

i can’t help but think that most contrarian thinkers (like hbd-ers) can’t be very agreeable types (thinking of greg cochran here (~_^) ). you can’t go around agreeing with the herd (i know that’s not exactly what agreeableness means, but it is related) if you’re an hbd-er! at the same time, an hbd-er needs to be open to new|other ideas.

dunno about the rest of the personality quirks.

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this one’s for the gameboyz

altho i’m sure none of you fellas would ever go so far. (~_^)

_____