How do you close a DNA gap without genetic engineering ?

You are just being provocative, Individual :) If your post had anything to do with mine, then what you infer is outrageous. The 'Gap' is the product of social, economic, spatial and political factors, and all of their educational, health, behavioural, etc. spin-offs, and all of them surmountable. The 'Gap' IS closeable. Even the Left has to believe this, or am I mixing in the wrong cirlces ?

DNA has nothing to do with it. To suggest otherwise has an extreme right-wing tinge to it: surely the Left hasn't come to this ?

Loudmouth,
Very much to the contrary. Not trying to be provocative although I do want to provoke out of the square thinking. What makes up anything & the way it exists on this planet ? It's DNA ! If one group of people happens to have evolved which enables them to have a longer life span than that evolution is down to the genetic makeup. The social & economic disparities are due to how one group manages to cope with what's being thrown at it. This is due to intellectual & physical ability/adaptation. Where or how does this ability come into play ? Due to DNA ! Good behaviour, bad behaviour, good health, bad health, race, they're all down to DNA.
Loudmouth we must provoke different thinking & a more responsible attitude because whatever we have done to-date hasn't worked, has it ?

Of course, social & economic factors have a hefty degree of input in these kind of gaps. How do these gaps evolve in the first place ? There're people who simply have no concern for others & there are people who have no concern for themselves. The lack of concern for oneself comes from an individual or group simply getting sick & tired of having the other constantly breathing down their neck. This is a problem of attitude & attitude & this in turn is due to a person's genetic makeup. How many studies & other effort has gone into trying to find out what makes people tick ? What has been found ? We still have wars, greed & apathy all of which are factors in this gap. That's why my question, how do you change peoples' attitudes without changing their psycho/physiological makeup, the old DNA.

Thanks, Individual, but I disagree with you, that <whatever we have done to-date hasn't worked, has it ?>

Tertiary education, university education, certainly has worked: twenty six thousand Indigenous graduates by the end of this year, around ten thousand students currently enrolled, out of a nation-wide adult Indigenous population of 240,000 - that's 15 % of the entire adult population who is either a graduate or studying (or both) - surely that's something to crow about, given that (according to Michael Dodson), 30 % of the Indigenous population is illiterate ? That sort of success points two ways, to what CAN be done, and to what NEEDS to be done.

Here are another couple of stats about Indigenous involvement in tertiary education: (if you are on that part of the Left which finds this sort of thing distressing, please stop reading now):

* Indigenous women (aged 20-49) are COMMENCING tertiary study, university study, at a higher rate than NON-Indigenous Australian men;

* the average age at which Australians students commence tertiary study is around 24. In 2008-2009, the number of Indigenous people aged 24 was annually about 7,500, while annually 4200-4600 Indigenous people commenced tertiary study. Some of those were post-graduates, some transfers, some re-enrolments, but still around 3,000 Indigenous people commenced tertiary study for the first time, 90 % at degree level, in each of those years - the equivalent of 40 % of the 24-year-old age-group. And commencements have been rising slowly towards this 40 % figure for many years. In other words, of those aged 25 to 40, perhaps 40 % are either already graduates or current students.

So tertiary education, university education, is something that's working for Indigenous people - not just for some piddling elite, but for a huge proportion of the population. Some higher education experts define 'mass tertiary education' as 15 % of an age-group, some use a figure of 30 %. Either way, Indigenous people themselves have pushed their involvement up to 40 %.

[TBC]

Individual, I can appreciate that you are despondent about progress, and I get the idea that you have worked for many years in remote communities, where progress may seem elusive (to put it mildly). One can get burnt-out very quickly in that sort of environment [ a suggestion which might horrify the caffe latte set in their ergonomic chairs with A/C and harbour views].

But I can assure you that, at least in the cities (and therefore, with all sorts of provisos and qualifications, why not elsewhere ?) university education has been a success story for Indigenous people. A mass success story, and all their own work. And it won't slow down or stop, either: the next decade will see massive increases in enrolments and annual graduations.

Who knows - maybe in the next ten or twenty years, Indigenous affairs will experience a positive transformation led by Indigenous graduates based in the cities ?

Those on the Left who find this sort of information objectionable can open their eyes now :) Nah, it's easier to keep them closed, to imagine all Blackfellas stuck out there living their idyllic lives chasing lizards, in 'their natural habitat', leaving cities to Whitefellas, in 'THEIR natural habitat'.

Joe Lane