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Dear LEGO,

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Welcome back. I hope you had a pleasant weekend and managed to rest up a bit.

Thank you for your recent posts though I think I have already replied to most of the points you raised, during the course of our previous lengthy discussions. There is not much point in repeating that all over again but let me know if I have overlooked anything or if something is not clear.

A major element of our divergence of opinion seems to be the chromatic signs of intelligence you claim to be capable of perceiving in human beings. You have not mentioned other animal species but they too are intelligent. Can you recognize their different degrees of intelligence from those chromatic signs too?

Take for example black crows compared to, say, white doves. If we follow your logic, white doves should be more intelligent that black crows.

In fact, it seems that the contrary is true. A scientific study carried out by Nathan J Emery entitled “Cognitive ornithology: the evolution of avian intelligence”, published in 2006 by The Royal Society, found that “in reviewing the evidence for avian intelligence, corvids (crows) and parrots appear to be cognitively superior to other birds and in many cases even apes”:

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/361/1465/23

The UK Daily Mail reported in 2014 that another study revealed that crows are even as clever as a seven-year-old human:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2590046/Crows-intelligent-CHILDREN-Study-reveals-birds-intelligence-seven-year-old.html

Another major element of our divergence of opinion is the infinite amount of confidence you place in IQ tests as a valid means of measuring intelligence. Not only are IQ tests inoperative in the case of other animal species, they are also highly contentious in relation to cultures that are different from those for which they were intended.

Consider, for example, the 10-item Original Australian Intelligence Test based on the culture of the Edward River Australian Aboriginal community in North Queensland. To understand the cultural difficulty of IQ tests one should compare the questions with the answers:

Questions: http://wilderdom.com/personality/intelligenceOriginalAustralian.html

Answers : http://wilderdom.com/personality/intelligenceOriginalAustralianAnswers.html
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Have you ever noticed, LEGO, people with great IQs sometimes make really stupid decisions?

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Dear Craig,

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Thanks for introducing me to Roger Waters. I’ll investigate a little further …

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No, LEGO, you confuse correlation with causation.

<<What I have is a very strong, cohesive argument, whose various components cross connect, makes perfect sense, and conforms to observable reality which ordinary people can relate to.>>

Ordinary people could also observe and relate to a flat earth.

<<That is why you are losing badly.>>

Says the only one here committing fallacy after fallacy.

<<People [cannot] even consider your argument because you refuse to even post one up …>>

“The problem for you here is two-fold. Firstly, you haven’t controlled for environmental factors, so you can’t know to what degree genetics plays a role (if any at all) on a macro level. Secondly, your scientifically debunked 19th century racial theories don’t address the problem of which came first: low intelligence or disadvantage.” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18533#330972)

<<You stated previously that I did not explain to what degree environmental factors were more important than genetic factors in crime.>>

Not quite. I asked how you had controlled for environmental factors, and then pointed out the fact that you hadn’t when you avoided answering the question a few times.

<<Hey, that's your job, mate, not mine.>>

No, it’s the job of anyone who wants to assert that genetics plays a role across large populations. This is the Shifting of the Burden of Proof fallacy (http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof). That’s five fallacies now. You’re on a roll.

<<I thought that you might at least have tried to write 350 words on your implication that imported ethnic crime is the result of bad post codes, bad parenting, and bad nutrition.>>

Why bother when there are thousands of papers spanning more than 100 years demonstrating this. You’re just trying to waste my time. Although, I will be generous enough to do your Googling for you. Here you go, 50,800 results for you to choose from:

http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?start=10&q=%22crime%22+socio-economic+factors+determinants&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

<<But if you had, I would have easily countered it by saying that dumb people live in bad postcodes, are bad parents, and eat rubbish.>>

“Secondly, your scientifically debunked 19th century racial theories don’t address the problem of which came first: low intelligence or disadvantage.” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18533#330972)

Continued…

…Continued

<<There were the usual hot button "links" which nobody bothers to click on [in your response].>>

Yes, and I’m sure you rely on that to get away with repeating yourself. No one has to click on them, though. They do their job just being there.

<<Next, you stood on your dignity about me using the word "denote" in the trite saying "correlation does not denote causation" which just happens to be the way the saying is usually expressed.>>

No, I pointed out the fact that you altered to wording for deceitful reasons. I don’t know what that has to do with my dignity though.

<<I have submitted a reasoned argument which makes perfect sense. Unless you can do the same thing, then your opinion has no credibility.>>

Not quite, LEGO. You still have these two little problems:

“Firstly, you haven’t controlled for environmental factors, so you can’t know to what degree genetics plays a role (if any at all) on a macro level. Secondly, your scientifically debunked 19th century racial theories don’t address the problem of which came first: low intelligence or disadvantage.” (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=18533#330972)

So you still haven’t addressed anything I’ve said, and that which you have addressed, deliberately missed the point. Five fallacies and zero rational arguments.

Try again, LEGO.

G'day Craig,

I respectfully disagree with your comment that " ..... If the Taliban had stayed around and tried to impose a regime that didn't suit the people they would have soon found themselves booted out."

Afghanistan under the Taliban was not really a democracy, you know. Yes, it was far more like one back in the days of the monarchy, when girls could go to school and women could freely (or maybe more freely) go to university, the keystones of progress. Then, in around 1976, the communists overthrew the monarchy, in an effort to replace the relatively good by the relatively perfect, and it was on for all and sundry.

Anyway, back to topic: [I'm amazed how discussion so often moves from 'topic' in all sorts of directions; fascinating]. On balance, what is owed to Indigenous people ? How guilty should every white person feel for whatever may have happened in the past ?

I was talking with a friend about the ration system in early South Australia: Indigenous people's right to hunt, fish, gather, etc., etc. was implicitly recognised from 1836, and explicitly in legislation from 1851 in all pastoral leases. i.e. people could use the land as they always had done. Actually, they still can in law.

The problem with a ration system, equivalent to a loaf of bread each day per person, a pound of meat per day per person, sugar, tea, two ounces of tobacco each week, medical care, blankets, fishing gear and boats and guns, free education, etc., is that people don't go out and hunt and fish and gather as much as they used to. Or at all. (There were up to seventy ration stations, usually on pastoral stations, around South Australia by 1900.)

But more than that: in traditional conditions, droughts would

[TBC]

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droughts would decimate groups: young children and old women would be left to die as the groups scattered in search of sustaining food and water. A five-year drought would put a ten-year hole in the demographics. Old men would die off before they could gather the young men together for initiations and instruction. A longer drought could be catastrophic to the existence of a group. One drought in around 1200 lasted for thirty years in much of Australia.

Maybe as a rough guide, populations would have declined at 3-5 % per year for each year of drought, mainly from the complete absence of births.

BUT with the ration system, everybody got rations for the entire duration of a drought. People would all be assured of survival, congregating near ration stations, where old men could prepare the young men, women could be assured of raising their children, old women would be cared for. And when the drought broke, the young men could go back out and work.

So the SA ration system probably strengthened Aboriginal culture. It's quite a shock to realise this. Didn't pastoralists drive people off their leases ? No, no evidence of it, they would have voided their leases. Didn't missionaries herd people onto missions ? No, no evidence, especially since Aboriginal people have never been sheep or puppets. There's never been a people-fence around any mission to keep them in.

Hmmmm, what other atrocity can whites be blamed for ? Massacres ? No unequivocal evidence in SA, except the 'Maria' massacre in 1840. Missionaries forcing people to speak English ? Quite the contrary: it was the missionaries who learnt and taught in the local languages.

Yeah, but whites are all bastards, we all know that. There must be something. Still working on it :)

Cheers,

Joe