Evidence of the dumbing down of uk exams and kids

by Tommy Monk Sat Apr 01, 2017 12:37 pm

South Korean students finish Welsh GCSE maths paper in 15 minutes

Three Welsh teenagers swapped school life in Pembrokeshire for lessons in South Korea to find out why the country's students perform so well in Pisa tests.

The tests involve 15-year-olds in more than 70 different countries sitting the same exams in maths, science and reading, every three years.

One obvious difference between the education systems is the long hours South Korean pupils put in.

Sunday Times education editor Sian Griffiths, who took the trio to Seoul, gave pupils there a Welsh GCSE maths exam to sit.

Questions were selected to form an hour-long paper, but some of the local students finished in just 15 minutes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-38115296

Are the teachers failing our children?

Are they spending too much time spouting their left wing nonsense about 'diversity and equality' etc, instead of actually teaching kids how to read/write and add up...!?

by Syl Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:04 pm

I don't know if the teachers are at fault, or the curriculum is letting down some kids, I do think the average 15 year old is not as knowledgeable as the average 15 year old of my own generation, where the majority finished school at 15 (optional) or 16 and embarked on a full time working life.

It does amaze me the free time kids have once they leave secondary school and go on to college.
My youngest grandson had 4 hours spare mid day 3 times a week, where no lessons were offered to him.

by 'Wolfie Sat Apr 01, 2017 1:12 pm

Tommy Monk wrote:
South Korean students finish Welsh GCSE maths paper in 15 minutes

Three Welsh teenagers swapped school life in Pembrokeshire for lessons in South Korea to find out why the country's students perform so well in Pisa tests.

The tests involve 15-year-olds in more than 70 different countries sitting the same exams in maths, science and reading, every three years.

One obvious difference between the education systems is the long hours South Korean pupils put in.
Sunday Times education editor Sian Griffiths, who took the trio to Seoul, gave pupils there a Welsh GCSE maths exam to sit.

Questions were selected to form an hour-long paper, but some of the local students finished in just 15 minutes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-38115296

Are the teachers failing our children?

Are they spending too much time spouting their left wing nonsense about 'diversity and equality' etc, instead of actually teaching kids how to read/write and add up...!?

You really are a clueless twat, Tommy...

You really don't have any children of your own, do you ?

It's the government (through your country's Education ministry/department/secretariat..) that sets education standards and curriculum.. Not your imaginary "left wing nonsense" teachers...

Your ignorant RW-fascist proclivities are shining though in your comments here, you moronic dunce.

by Raggamuffin Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:06 pm

Did the S Korean pupils actually pass the exam though? It doesn't say.

by HoratioTarr Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:29 pm

I remember my daughter's English teacher telling me at a parent's open night many moons ago, after I complained that I felt her spelling and grammar were not up to scratch, that the school didn't put a premium on such things and that creativity was much more important for kids than being able to spell or construct sentences. Needless to say, a whole generation couldn't even put together a letter for a job application. I used to work for an Admin Director of a big company back in the 80's and the amount of CV's and application letters that looked as though they were written by 5 year olds was appalling. They just got screwed up and chucked in the bin. I'm sure some schools are better than others and perhaps things have changed but in the mid 80's I think education took a bit of a dive.

Ironically, my daughter now works as a PA and has great spelling and grammar. No thanks to her school though.

by Tommy Monk Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:32 pm

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:
Tommy Monk wrote:
South Korean students finish Welsh GCSE maths paper in 15 minutes

Three Welsh teenagers swapped school life in Pembrokeshire for lessons in South Korea to find out why the country's students perform so well in Pisa tests.

The tests involve 15-year-olds in more than 70 different countries sitting the same exams in maths, science and reading, every three years.

One obvious difference between the education systems is the long hours South Korean pupils put in.
Sunday Times education editor Sian Griffiths, who took the trio to Seoul, gave pupils there a Welsh GCSE maths exam to sit.

Questions were selected to form an hour-long paper, but some of the local students finished in just 15 minutes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-38115296

Are the teachers failing our children?

Are they spending too much time spouting their left wing nonsense about 'diversity and equality' etc, instead of actually teaching kids how to read/write and add up...!?

You really are a clueless twat, Tommy...

You really don't have any children of your own, do you ?

It's the government (through your country's Education ministry/department/secretariat..) that sets education standards and curriculum.. Not your imaginary "left wing nonsense" teachers...

Your ignorant RW-fascist proclivities are shining though in your comments here, you moronic dunce.

Do you think it is govt policy to have kids being deliberately innumerate and illiterate as school leavers...!?

Or do you think it may be the teaching is failing the kids!?

by Syl Sat Apr 01, 2017 3:52 pm

HoratioTarr wrote:I remember my daughter's English teacher telling me at a parent's open night many moons ago, after I complained that I felt her spelling and grammar were not up to scratch, that the school didn't put a premium on such things and that creativity was much more important for kids than being able to spell or construct sentences. Needless to say, a whole generation couldn't even put together a letter for a job application. I used to work for an Admin Director of a big company back in the 80's and the amount of CV's and application letters that looked as though they were written by 5 year olds was appalling. They just got screwed up and chucked in the bin. I'm sure some schools are better than others and perhaps things have changed but in the mid 80's I think education took a bit of a dive.

Ironically, my daughter now works as a PA and has great spelling and grammar. No thanks to her school though.

I agree with this. My son was educated in the 80's and 90's...some of the teaching was dire.

Apart from spelling and grammar not seeming to be that important, times tables were stopped, we taught our grandkids these at home , school didn't. I still remember and use them off by heart today.
I have worked places with younger people where adding up is vital, and I have been the only one who didn't need a till or a pen and paper to total.

by veya_victaous Sun Apr 02, 2017 2:01 am

Actually i wrote about this in the home school thread it is because Adults in the Uk disrespect teachers, this is seen and emulated by kids that then don't pay attention because they heard Tommy say the teacher was a 'left wing twat anyway'

Culturally the west has too many adults that lack decent education and have an anti-intellectual anti-academic biased that has been handed down to the children. Largely due the right wing denial of facts that they find annoying, easiest one to point out today is Climate change. Rolling Eyes

by Guest Sun Apr 02, 2017 3:21 am

veya_victaous wrote:Actually i wrote about this in the home school thread it is because Adults in the Uk disrespect teachers, this is seen and emulated by kids that then don't pay attention because they heard Tommy say the teacher was a 'left wing twat anyway'

Culturally the west has too many adults that lack decent education and have an anti-intellectual anti-academic biased that has been handed down to the children. Largely due the right wing denial of facts that they find annoying, easiest one to point out today is Climate change.

Pure unadulterated gibberish.

by nicko Sun Apr 02, 2017 6:00 am

Any excuse by Veya to "have a go" at the British !

by Syl Sun Apr 02, 2017 12:56 pm

veya_victaous wrote:Actually i wrote about this in the home school thread it is because Adults in the Uk disrespect teachers, this is seen and emulated by kids that then don't pay attention because they heard Tommy say the teacher was a 'left wing twat anyway'

Culturally the west has too many adults that lack decent education and have an anti-intellectual anti-academic biased that has been handed down to the children. Largely due the right wing denial of facts that they find annoying, easiest one to point out today is Climate change.

Living here, seeing children and grandchildren through school, colleges and now uni, I believe that the majority of parents do respect good teaching and good teaching practices.
Not all of it is good, and I do believe and in my experience in the past certain aspects of teaching were overlooked, so why not comment on that?

The West also has many adults who have had brilliant educations. Manchester alone has educated some brilliant brains that have benefited the world, past present and no doubt future.

by nicko Sun Apr 02, 2017 4:25 pm

Veya is the font of all knowledge, ----------he reads the papers don't you know?

by veya_victaous Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:37 am

I said westerners You Brain dead twats.
I worked in education for the last 7 years. My Mother, 3 aunties and an Uncle where all teachers.
And they will all say the same

It's Same down here
The White Australian parent disrespects educators and expects special treatment for their little snowflake that can do no wrong..
the Asian and Indian kids parents don't and back the teacher. they make their kids do home work and will get involved in further academic activities beyond school.

and Koreans and Chinese are some of the larger immigrant groups down here. Most of Asian share the culture that places high value on Education

Whites Don't. Whites have 'tommy's' saying shit like

Are the teachers failing our children?

Are they spending too much time spouting their left wing nonsense about 'diversity and equality' etc, instead of actually teaching kids how to read/write and add up...!?

which is straight up saying that 'Teacher is wasting time'. Kids read that and take from it listening to teacher is a waste of time.

And Nicko How fucking old do you think I am 'Newspapers'
Get fucking in the modern world you geriatric geranium they haven't been anything but entertainment of 15 bloody years!!!!
And it you that say shit but doesn't even know anyone in that demographic... So tell me WHAT is wrong with British students then??
Come on answer the OP you dumb piece of shit.
Is the answer just Brits are Dumb?
Why do Koreans Have so much higher standards? Why do all the developed Asian Nations have Far higher standards and far better results?

by veya_victaous Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:45 am

Syl wrote:
veya_victaous wrote:Actually i wrote about this in the home school thread it is because Adults in the Uk disrespect teachers, this is seen and emulated by kids that then don't pay attention because they heard Tommy say the teacher was a 'left wing twat anyway'

Culturally the west has too many adults that lack decent education and have an anti-intellectual anti-academic biased that has been handed down to the children. Largely due the right wing denial of facts that they find annoying, easiest one to point out today is Climate change.

Living here, seeing children and grandchildren through school, colleges and now uni, I believe that the majority of parents do respect good teaching and good teaching practices.
Not all of it is good, and I do believe and in my experience in the past certain aspects of teaching were overlooked, so why not comment on that?

The West also has many adults who have had brilliant educations. Manchester alone has educated some brilliant brains that have benefited the world, past present and no doubt future.

And the Asian Parent Would NOT be s presumptuous as to assume they knew better
WHAT studies have you done? how many years of research into teaching methods?

Yes some Westerners Have a good education BUT not the statistical majority which is why Korean Students on average smashed British Students (as they do all western students in average outcomes and performance ) Culturally Education is given FAR MORE value than westerners have ever given it.
The Highest term of respect in Chinese is 'Sifu' which literally translates to 'master teacher'. teachers are more respected than doctors in Asian culture.

by 'Wolfie Mon Apr 03, 2017 2:39 am

TOMMYKINS AND FLICKO are living proof that the British education system, successive British governments and British media have been letting their children down for decades...

Not just the past few years..

Following in the footsteps of the USA, and with Canada, Oz and NZ also looking down that slippery slope. Just look at the rankings from four years ago :

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/pisa-rankings-2013-12

And Finland's reversal of fortunes :

http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3749880

by Syl Mon Apr 03, 2017 11:26 am

veya_victaous wrote:
Syl wrote:

Living here, seeing children and grandchildren through school, colleges and now uni, I believe that the majority of parents do respect good teaching and good teaching practices.
Not all of it is good, and I do believe and in my experience in the past certain aspects of teaching were overlooked, so why not comment on that?

The West also has many adults who have had brilliant educations. Manchester alone has educated some brilliant brains that have benefited the world, past present and no doubt future.

And the Asian Parent Would NOT be s presumptuous as to assume they knew better
WHAT studies have you done? how many years of research into teaching methods?

Yes some Westerners Have a good education BUT not the statistical majority which is why Korean Students on average smashed British Students (as they do all western students in average outcomes and performance ) Culturally Education is given FAR MORE value than westerners have ever given it.
The Highest term of respect in Chinese is 'Sifu' which literally translates to 'master teacher'. teachers are more respected than doctors in Asian culture.

I don't have any years of professional studies and have never claimed to have.
I said I have experience first hand seeing and being involved with children and grandchildren going through the education system.
The newer generation faring better than the one before in re to decent teaching methods.

Sometimes practice teaches more than theory.

by HoratioTarr Mon Apr 03, 2017 11:53 am

knowledge comes from experience not just from text books

by Syl Mon Apr 03, 2017 12:04 pm

HoratioTarr wrote:knowledge comes from experience not just from text books

That's what I said. Laughing

I had a friend who studied years to become a social worker. Eventually she passed all her exams, then she would come to me and ask what I would do if I knew of someone who had such and such a problem.
To put it simply, she was text book perfect with little knowledge of human experience in regard to problems.

by veya_victaous Tue Apr 04, 2017 2:28 am

Syl wrote:
veya_victaous wrote:
Syl wrote:

Living here, seeing children and grandchildren through school, colleges and now uni, I believe that the majority of parents do respect good teaching and good teaching practices.
Not all of it is good, and I do believe and in my experience in the past certain aspects of teaching were overlooked, so why not comment on that?

The West also has many adults who have had brilliant educations. Manchester alone has educated some brilliant brains that have benefited the world, past present and no doubt future.

And the Asian Parent Would NOT be s presumptuous as to assume they knew better
WHAT studies have you done? how many years of research into teaching methods?

Yes some Westerners Have a good education BUT not the statistical majority which is why Korean Students on average smashed British Students (as they do all western students in average outcomes and performance ) Culturally Education is given FAR MORE value than westerners have ever given it.
The Highest term of respect in Chinese is 'Sifu' which literally translates to 'master teacher'. teachers are more respected than doctors in Asian culture.

I don't have any years of professional studies and have never claimed to have.
I said I have experience first hand seeing and being involved with children and grandchildren going through the education system.
The newer generation faring better than the one before in re to decent teaching methods.

Sometimes practice teaches more than theory.

Sorry I thought you where saying that it is getting worse Evidence of the dumbing down of uk exams and kids 4211521542

Because that was really my point is that Culturally, People like tommy Do Not trust Techers and position them as the 'bad guy' when really there are many people in the system that dedicate their lives to vocation of education.

But there is evidence and studies that show the kids that perform poorly come from families that don't value education and statistically this Is much higher amongst westerners that Asians (and I mean real Asians not everybody east of Turkey) Indians also have a more respect for educators in there culture than the west.

Middle eastern cultures do not preform better, which is likely due to their cultural focus theocratic teachings
In the west it probably comes down to the ideals of individuality that make the likes of tommy believe their opinion is equal to dedicated professionals.
Although like the middle easterner there is a 'faith like' component too, where they attack evidence that disagrees with their simplistic world view fed to them by their favorite news feed (normally owned by Murdoch) Much like the denial of anything conflicting with the Koran, which is why tommy teaches young kids to not respect teachers and simply ignore everything they try and teach as 'Left wing bullshit'

by Syl Tue Apr 04, 2017 12:13 pm

I think throughout the decades there will always be many teachers who devote their lives to teaching, dedicated people that can instil knowledge and have a positive effect on young minds that can last a lifetime. I bet we can al relate to a teacher like that, no matter how long ago we were in school.
They should be respected, and hopefully they are, no matter where or what they teach.

by Syl Tue Apr 04, 2017 5:15 pm

just to big up the teachings of British education ....a ground breaking method of extracting salt out of sea water, making it suitable for drinking, which will potentially help millions/billions worlwide has just been publicised...research has been done at Manchester university, England.

http://www.itv.com/news/granada/2017-04-03/manchester-uni-develops-sieve-that-turns-sea-water-into-drinking-water/

by nicko Tue Apr 04, 2017 7:13 pm

Veya, your inferiority complex is getting worse,,you have to keep talking yourself up, because deep down you know your not as clever as us Brits.Pity really, but never mind you'll grow out of it !

by Raggamuffin Tue Apr 04, 2017 7:16 pm

Do they teach them good manners in Australia? Surprised

by Tommy Monk Tue Apr 04, 2017 7:20 pm

veya_victaous wrote:I said westerners You Brain dead twats.
I worked in education for the last 7 years. My Mother, 3 aunties and an Uncle where all teachers.
And they will all say the same

It's Same down here
The White Australian parent disrespects educators and expects special treatment for their little snowflake that can do no wrong..
the Asian and Indian kids parents don't and back the teacher. they make their kids do home work and will get involved in further academic activities beyond school.

and Koreans and Chinese are some of the larger immigrant groups down here. Most of Asian share the culture that places high value on Education

Whites Don't. Whites have 'tommy's' saying shit like
Are the teachers failing our children?

Are they spending too much time spouting their left wing nonsense about 'diversity and equality' etc, instead of actually teaching kids how to read/write and add up...!?

which is straight up saying that 'Teacher is wasting time'. Kids read that and take from it listening to teacher is a waste of time.

And Nicko How fucking old do you think I am 'Newspapers'
Get fucking in the modern world you geriatric geranium they haven't been anything but entertainment of 15 bloody years!!!!
And it you that say shit but doesn't even know anyone in that demographic... So tell me WHAT is wrong with British students then??
Come on answer the OP you dumb piece of shit.
Is the answer just Brits are Dumb?
Why do Koreans Have so much higher standards? Why do all the developed Asian Nations have Far higher standards and far better results?

Far east Asians as a race/ethnic group have been shown to have a significantly higher IQ on average than other racial/ethnic groups...

If you care to look into the studies and findings... and then consider that the far east nations you are talking about, don't have mass immigration of huge numbers of lower IQ groups of people, whereas here in the uk we do have mass influx of huge numbers of lower IQ groups... Maybe you can join the dots and work out a reason why standards/levels/results are lowering here, and why exams have consistently been being made easier over the last 20-30 years or so...!?

Is it any wonder why white british parents are so unhappy/disillusioned with the state of education their children are getting when they are leaving school barely able to read/write/add up properly but they know everything there is to know about 'equality/diversity/Muslims/homosexuals' etc and how brilliant labour and the eu are...!!!???

by Guest Tue Apr 04, 2017 10:10 pm

IQ and race

The three great strategies for obscuring an issue are to introduce irrelevancies, to arouse prejudice, and to excite ridicule.... ---Bergen Evans, The Natural History of Nonsense
Ask white supremacists about the racial hierarchy, and you are in for a pseudoscientific lecture concerning the biological differences between the races. You are likely to be told that there is something in Caucasian blood or genes that makes whites naturally more intelligent, moral and hardworking. --Harari, Yuval Noah. Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (p. 134). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.

"IQ" stands for "intelligence quotient." A person's IQ is supposed to be a measure of that person's intelligence: the higher the IQ number, the greater the intelligence. This is inaccurate, however, since it assumes that there is only one kind of intelligence. Most people recognize that there are some people with fantastic memories, some with mathematical minds, some with musical genius, some with mechanical expertise, some with good vocabularies, some good at seeing analogies, some good at synthesizing, some at unifying, etc. Some people excel at more than one of these behaviors. It would be more accurate to speak of human intelligences than of intelligence. Also, the fairness of IQ tests--whether they are culturally biased--is a frequent topic among critics of such tests. Furthermore, the typical IQ test doesn't even measure rational decision-making ability.* An IQ test, therefore, should be considered a measure of some kinds of intelligence, but not all. The most accurate claim one can make about an IQ test is that it measures IQ, whatever that means..

Another accurate claim that can be made is that however IQ is measured it has been increasing with each generation over the past sixty years or so. James R. Flynn discovered this when he analyzed the data for all the countries that keep records of IQ scores. This trend is now called the Flynn effect. It could be due to more people with higher IQ breeding or taking the test, fewer people with lower IQ breeding or taking the test, the test getting easier, or social/cultural factors. The latter seems the most plausible. Flynn thinks that the hypothesis most in accord with the data regarding the relationship of IQ tests and intelligence is that "IQ tests do not measure intelligence but rather correlate with a weak causal link to intelligence."

The research on IQ and race by Arthur Jensen, William Shockley, Herrnstein and Murray (The Bell Curve) and others have not found any significant correlations between race and intelligence. They have found correlations between race and IQ, which has been used to support the notion that some races are intellectually inferior to others. Not surprising is the fact that different researchers using different data get different results. Richard Lynn and James Flynn came to quite different conclusions regarding Asian IQ, for example.

Data showing that the Japanese had higher I.Q.s than people of European descent, for example, prompted the British psychometrician and eugenicist Richard Lynn to concoct an elaborate evolutionary explanation involving the Himalayas, really cold weather, premodern hunting practices, brain size, and specialized vowel sounds. The fact that the I.Q.s of Chinese-Americans also seemed to be elevated has led I.Q. fundamentalists to posit the existence of an international I.Q. pyramid, with Asians at the top, European whites next, and Hispanics and blacks at the bottom.
Here was a question tailor-made for James Flynn's accounting skills. He looked first at Lynn's data, and realized that the comparison was skewed. Lynn was comparing American I.Q. estimates based on a representative sample of schoolchildren with Japanese estimates based on an upper-income, heavily urban sample. Recalculated, the Japanese average came in not at 106.6 but at 99.2. Then Flynn turned his attention to the Chinese-American estimates. They turned out to be based on a 1975 study in San Francisco's Chinatown using something called the Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Test. But the Lorge-Thorndike test was normed in the nineteen-fifties. For children in the nineteen-seventies, it would have been a piece of cake. When the Chinese-American scores were reassessed using up-to-date intelligence metrics, Flynn found, they came in at 97 verbal and 100 nonverbal. Chinese-Americans had slightly lower I.Q.s than white Americans. (Gladwell 2007)

In his monograph on Asian Americans and IQ, Flynn claims that Chinese Americans' occupational achievements well exceed their IQ. He argues that the best explanation for this is environmental, and is due to such things as education, work ethic, and family values. Flynn also argues that the Asian-American dominance in math has been in spite of their IQ, not because of it (Gladwell 2008: 231n). In chapter eight of Outliers: the Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell presents the case that the main cultural factors that explain Asian dominance in math are rooted in the history of rice growing and the way numbers are named, written, and conceived.

Few deny that there are several races or that there are obvious physical and cultural differences among different ethnic groups. Since the publication of Richard Lewontin's 1972 article "The Apportionment of Human Diversity" in Evolutionary Biology the view that race is a social construct has been accepted by most scientists. That view has been challenged by Armand Marie Leroi, who argues that Lewontin's error was that

he looked at one gene at a time and failed to see races. But if many—a few hundred—variable genes are considered simultaneously, then it is very easy to do so. Indeed, a 2002 study by scientists at the University of Southern California and Stanford showed that if a sample of people from around the world are sorted by computer into five groups on the basis of genetic similarity, the groups that emerge are native to Europe, East Asia, Africa, America and Australasia—more or less the major races of traditional anthropology.

Basically, Leroi's view is a return to the view that dominated before Lewontin's view took over. It had become a widespread belief that race is genetically determined in much the same way as, say, eye color. Having a certain gene or set of genes means you have blue eyes. Likewise, having a set of genes makes one Caucasian. It has always been accepted that a person's genetic makeup is a significant factor in individual intelligence in particular areas and in physical features associated with different races, such as skin color, breadth of nose, shape of eyes, etc. There is, of course, a tremendous variation in intelligence among individuals of any race.

A number of studies have tried to quantify the level of genetic diversity of the human genome. The most recent estimates suggest that the vast proportion of genetic diversity (85 to 90 percent) occurs within so-called races (i.e., within Asians or Africans) and only a minor proportion (7 percent) between racial groups.... Some genes certainly vary sharply between racial or ethnic groups— sickle-cell anemia is an Afro-Caribbean and Indian disease, and Tay-Sachs disease has a much higher frequency in Ashkenazi Jews— but for the most part, the genetic diversity within any racial group dominates the diversity between racial groups— not marginally, but by an enormous amount. This degree of intraracial variability makes “race” a poor surrogate for nearly any feature: in a genetic sense, an African man from Nigeria is so “different” from another man from Namibia that it makes little sense to lump them into the same category.
For race and genetics, then, the genome is a strictly one-way street. You can use genome to predict where X or Y came from. But, knowing where A or B came from, you can predict little about the person’s genome. Or: every genome carries a signature of an individual’s ancestry— but an individual’s racial ancestry predicts little about the person’s genome. You can sequence DNA from an African-American man and conclude that his ancestors came from Sierra Leone or Nigeria. But if you encounter a man whose great-grandparents came from Nigeria or Sierra Leone, you can say little about the features of this particular man. The geneticist goes home happy; the racist returns empty-handed. (Mukherjee, Siddhartha. 2016. The Gene: An Intimate History (Kindle Locations 5947-5955). Scribner. Kindle Edition.)

Clearly, environment plays a significant role in the development of intelligence. Over the long haul, environment determines which physical features evolve in the group. Whatever genetic differences exist among the races are due to mechanisms like natural selection and sexual selection. The notion of a "pure" race is an absurdity. Even if the Christian fundamentalists are right and there was an original Adam and Eve, no race can claim to be "pure." Each race evolved according to natural processes such as natural selection.

some race data

"There's about a 15 percent genetic variation between any two individuals," according to science writer Deborah Blum. "Less than half of that, about 6 percent, is accounted for by known racial groupings....A randomly selected white person, therefore, can easily be genetically closer to an African than another white" (Blum 1995). Others contest these figures, arguing that genetic clustering is less likely to be evident in studies that use a small number of genetic markers. The greater the number of markers used, the greater the genetic clustering (Tang et al.: 2005).

Joseph Graves, an African-American evolutionary biologist at Arizona State University-West in Tempe, notes that most people and researchers who try to establish correlations between various natural abilities and skin color are not geneticists.

These people don't know evolutionary genetics. They talk about interesting issues in race and biology. And since, I think, there are no real races, I wonder what these issues are. It makes me angry that I have to take time from my research (on the genetics of aging) to argue about something that shouldn't even need to be discussed (Blum).

C. Loring Brace, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, claims that "race is a four-letter word with no basis in biological reality" (Blum). Others claim that the assertion that race is biologically meaningless is politically motivated.* There is also the problem of different scientists defining 'race' in different ways.

In any case, genetic clustering occurs due to geographical isolation over long periods of time, and continues through inheritance when individuals leave their native area and breed with others of similar background. Physical features such as skin color, shape of eyelid, color of eyes, texture of hair, etc., are genetically determined. (For example, about 90 to 95 percent of African Americans and 98 to 99 percent of Asians are Rh-positive.*) It is also true that an individual's capacity for any particular kind of intelligence is largely dependent on genetic factors. As far as I know, nobody has yet found a correlation between the genes that determine, say, musical talent or the power to visualize or to think abstractly, and the genes that determine a set of physical characteristics that most would readily recognize as European or African. If you want to find out why Asians are over-represented in California's universities while blacks and Hispanics are underrepresented, you will probably search in vain for a genetic answer. Those who are interested in such things would do better to look at family structure, ethnic traditions, and social conditions.*

spurious correlations

To correlate race and intelligence in the name of science and have the world pay attention to you is no small feat. Could it be the numbers, the statistics, which impress people? Not likely. Even the most sophisticated numerical analysis which showed a correlation between phlogiston and ether wouldn't get a hearing today. So, why does the race/intelligence bit get a hearing? How can any rational person take seriously notions such as the Aryans or racial purity? Some probably assert these things as a matter of establishing power. Being a member of a pure race is a quick and simple way to establish one's superiority. Membership is easy. You're born into it. Being the right race gives one a right to superiority and justifies inequality, regardless of one's individual deficiencies. It also justifies racism, since if inferior people are succeeding they must be cheating the truly superior people out of their just inheritance. It also justifies believing things about oneself that have no objective validity. A truly inferior being can justify thinking of himself as superior because of his race membership. He can rationalize any failures or inadequacies and attribute them to the unfair advantage given to those he considers inferior. He can even fool himself into thinking his non-white skin is white and that he somehow deserves to share in the accomplishments of anyone in his "white" race. (I have been expected to check "white" on a number of forms concerned about my "race", although when compared to a white sheet of paper, my skin color is clearly not white, but light brown. I have met very few "white" people who are white. At least they are not white in the skin areas generally exposed in public. Truly white people—albinos—come in all races.)

However, even if there were such a thing as a pure race, that fact would not justify considering that race superior to any other. One might even make a case for the inferiority of such a race. Nature clearly favors variation. Chances of survival under varied and changing conditions increase as the species is more varied. Too much similarity could mean racial disaster, extinction; while variation could mean the survival of some members of the species if disaster should strike. Likewise, a species with several varieties of intelligences, as well as individuals with varying degrees of those intelligences, could well be a sign of superiority, at least in terms of the survival potential of the race.

Are the studies of no value that show African-Americans or Asians doing differently than so-called "white" Americans on standardized IQ tests? That is, is the work of people like Herrnstein and Murray worthless? No. It is valuable data, but it is also explosive data because of our racist political history. The data is also often wrong.* Such data will inevitably be exploited by white supremacists, twisted for their own political goals and used not to improve racial relations in America but to encourage further racial strife. Such data consists mainly of correlations. And while correlations should convince orthodox empirical scientists of nothing, to the racist researcher, correlations are the heart and soul of their work. The furor that The Bell Curve caused died down quickly because there occurred an ongoing saga which usurped its political and entertainment value: the O. J. Simpson trial. In fact, Herrnstein and Murray, in chapter after chapter, call for social reforms to improve the status of blacks in America. They may be disingenuous calls, but they are nevertheless inconsistent with the notion that the social condition of blacks in America is due to genetic factors. If genes led to the black underclass of young thugs who murder each other on a daily basis in almost every city in America, then there would be no point in calling for educational or vocational programs, no point in urging a change of focus for black men and women in their families, as even the black supremacist Louis Farrakhan has recommended with his million man march.

....the final fatal flaw in The Bell Curve is ... a fact buried so inconspicuously in a single throwaway paragraph in an eight-hundred-page book that it virtually disappears. If you take African-Americans and whites with identical IQ scores, say 105, and measure their performance in various subtests for intelligence, black children often score better in certain sets (tests of short-term memory and recall, for instance), while whites often score better in others (tests of visuospatial and perceptual changes). In other words, the way an IQ test is configured profoundly affects the way different racial groups, and their gene variants, perform on it: alter the weights and balances within the same test, and you alter the measure of intelligence.
The strongest evidence for such a bias comes from a largely forgotten study performed by sassy Scarr and Richard Weinberg in 1976. Scarr studied transracial adoptees— black children adopted by white parents— and found that these children had an average IQ of 106, at least as high as white children. By analyzing carefully performed controls, Scarr concluded that “intelligence” was not being enhanced, but performance on particular subtests of intelligence. (Mukherjee, Siddhartha. The Gene: An Intimate History (Kindle Locations 6074-6078). Scribner. Kindle Edition.

One can't deny that the majority of young men killing each other in gang wars are minorities. But one can deny that the reason they are so violent and immoral is because of their genes. That is false and an insult to the majority of blacks and other minorities who are decent, law-abiding persons. One can't deny that minorities are undereducated as a group and underrepresented in our colleges and universities, and in the professions and skilled trades. But one can deny that the reason minorities are underrepresented is that their genes makes them inferior and incapable of competing with "white" America. Even so, it is true that many minorities are not in college or working as doctors or lawyers or teachers or auto mechanics, etc., because of their race. There are social factors, such as racism and poverty, that continue to adversely affect black progress in America. There are also cultural factors that need to be addressed, but when they are—even by black leaders—they are often met with the same kind of resistance that Jensen and Shockley experienced.
It is possible that some day we may be able to look at people of different races and see them as human beings without losing sight of what is special and unique about racial or ethnic membership. We do not need to be colorblind, nor should we strive to ignore racial differences. But they should be seen in a proper perspective: significant in forming us, but irrelevant to our status as human beings capable of both the highest moral and intellectual behavior and of bestial depravity and moronic incompetence.
In the meantime, we should heed Peter Singer's words:

...the genetic hypothesis does not imply that we should reduce our efforts to overcome other causes of inequality between people.
...the fact that the average IQ of one racial group is a few points higher than that of another does not allow anyone to say that all members of the higher IQ group have higher IQs than all members of the lower IQ group....

And, having a higher IQ does not justify racism (Singer, 1993), or any other kind of -ism, for that matter.

http://skepdic.com/iqrace.html

by veya_victaous Wed Apr 05, 2017 6:56 am

Thanks guys for proving Nicko Wrong

I went to an academically selective high school with mainly Asians, It was generally accepted that the white kids got there through raw intellect while the Asians studied hard and had pushy parents. Again this comes back to the Culturally superiority of Asians in regards to Education.

LOL and tommy are you saying the gap between the Aussie Intellect and British is only going to get wider since most of immigrants are Asian?

by veya_victaous Wed Apr 05, 2017 7:01 am

nicko wrote:Veya, your inferiority complex is getting worse,,you have to keep talking yourself up, because deep down you know your not as clever as us Brits.Pity really, but never mind you'll grow out of it !

So then If Brits like you are so Smart, Why are you Falling behind Asians (and Aussies too for that matter) Again?
Can You please address the OP for once?

Australia 2013 education index is 0.927
Britain 2013 education index is 0.860
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index

My god, you make Wolf look like an 'always on topic poster' Cool

by 'Wolfie Wed Apr 05, 2017 10:13 am

veya_victaous wrote:
nicko wrote:Veya, your inferiority complex is getting worse,,you have to keep talking yourself up, because deep down you know your not as clever as us Brits.Pity really, but never mind you'll grow out of it !

So then If Brits like you are so Smart, Why are you Falling behind Asians (and Aussies too for that matter) Again?
Can You please address the OP for once?

Australia 2013 education index is 0.927
Britain 2013 education index is 0.860
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_Index

My god, you make Wolf look like an 'always on topic poster'

Nicko and Tommy seem determined to demonstrate just why it is that Britain has slipped so far behind in academic measures over the last few decades.

Their recent posts above there are nothing more than pure and unadulterated fantasy..

***************************************************************************************

I can name eight members on here who can regularly be posting "off topic", when they're on here, more often than I do -- seven Brit's and one Yank...

Four of them are also the most frequent culprits when it comes to "parachuting" into threads and "tag teaming" their opponents.. Basketball

by nicko Wed Apr 05, 2017 11:53 am

Waste of time reading your posts, your so up your own arseholes you think your right on every subject, tell you what, you don't mention my name on any of your posts and I will not comment on any of yours, all right?

by veya_victaous Thu Apr 06, 2017 6:56 am

nicko wrote:Waste of time reading your posts, your so up your own arseholes you think your right on every subject, tell you what, you don't mention my name on any of your posts and I will not comment on any of yours, all right?

Okay THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE
Respond to the OP
Not a single Post of your has even mentioned the Topic
STOP dropping in just to insult people.

No one mentioned you until YOU attacked other poster for no reason and in no relation to the topic

And I want to here YOUR explanation for WHY the British student are doing worse than so many others?

If your not here to debate Fuck Off, Delete your account.

by nicko Thu Apr 06, 2017 8:11 am

YOU delete for me you big headed self important tosser,
Who the fuck do you think you are? jumped up little tinpot dictator of a tiny little of no account forum, stupid geranium.

by 'Wolfie Thu Apr 06, 2017 10:25 am

Day by day, we are seeing just why so many western societies are slipping down the ranks in these scholastic results...

We don't have to look any further than the anti-teacher, anti-science, disrespectful rhetoric coming from the usual suspects..

******************************************

Re: Flicko the nuckwit, and his increasingly wild attacks on his opponents on here...

Last time I saw him actually debate a topic seriously was back around Christmas !!!
He really should get those med's checked -- he's becoming worse week by week.. Evidence of the dumbing down of uk exams and kids 474684931

Evidence of the dumbing down of uk exams and kids 474684931

by nicko Thu Apr 06, 2017 10:42 am

Yawn.

by HoratioTarr Thu Apr 06, 2017 10:45 am

This thread is turning into a bully fest. So you don't all agree? So what?

by Tommy Monk Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:00 pm

veya_victaous wrote:
nicko wrote:Waste of time reading your posts, your so up your own arseholes you think your right on every subject, tell you what, you don't mention my name on any of your posts and I will not comment on any of yours, all right?

Okay THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE
Respond to the OP
Not a single Post of your has even mentioned the Topic
STOP dropping in just to insult people.

No one mentioned you until YOU attacked other poster for no reason and in no relation to the topic

And I want to here YOUR explanation for WHY the British student are doing worse than so many others?

If your not here to debate Fuck Off, Delete your account.

If you're not going to do anything about the constant stream of abusive/trolling posts from your friend fleakeeper... then it's a bit rich that you make a fuss about other posts that are far milder in comparison...!

by Raggamuffin Thu Apr 06, 2017 7:19 pm

Tommy Monk wrote:
veya_victaous wrote:

Okay THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE
Respond to the OP
Not a single Post of your has even mentioned the Topic
STOP dropping in just to insult people.

No one mentioned you until YOU attacked other poster for no reason and in no relation to the topic

And I want to here YOUR explanation for WHY the British student are doing worse than so many others?

If your not here to debate Fuck Off, Delete your account.

If you're not going to do anything about the constant stream of abusive/trolling posts from your friend fleakeeper... then it's a bit rich that you make a fuss about other posts that are far milder in comparison...!

Good point.

by veya_victaous Fri Apr 07, 2017 11:17 am

Nicko is worse than wolf he still hasn't even mentioned the op.

Maybe if you took off your nazi coloured glasses you see that
Nicko never comments on the op. Wolf is at least us on topic a third of the time.

by veya_victaous Fri Apr 07, 2017 11:20 am

HoratioTarr wrote:This thread is turning into a bully fest. So you don't all agree? So what?

How Can we have A debate when Some One still wont even
Refer to the OP ?

by nicko Fri Apr 07, 2017 11:52 am

Where does it say I have to?

by veya_victaous Fri Apr 07, 2017 12:08 pm

nicko wrote:Where does it say I have to?

So you admit being here to disrupt threads and prevent civil debate ?
If you are not Interested in the OP than don't open the thread

any way WHY do you think British students are doing SO poorly ?
why do you think western students preform worse than Asian students ?

by Tommy Monk Fri Apr 07, 2017 12:32 pm

veya_victaous wrote:Nicko is worse than wolf he still hasn't even mentioned the op.

Maybe if you took off your nazi coloured glasses you see that
Nicko never comments on the op. Wolf is at least us on topic a third of the time.

And you say that with a straight face...!?

So you are saying that 66.6% of the time, Wolf is not posting on topic...!?

Yet you and other mods do nothing about it...!!!???

Look at wolf's last 100 posts and tell us how many are not abuse/trolling of some kind...!!!???

I'll await your reply...

by Tommy Monk Fri Apr 07, 2017 12:34 pm

veya_victaous wrote:
nicko wrote:Where does it say I have to?

So you admit being here to disrupt threads and prevent civil debate ?
If you are not Interested in the OP than don't open the thread

any way WHY do you think British students are doing SO poorly ?
why do you think western students preform worse than Asian students ?

I told you... far east Asians have a higher average IQ... and our country is being flooded with other 3rd world types who have an average lower IQ... thus dragging our overall average results down.

by Tommy Monk Fri Apr 07, 2017 1:13 pm

Plus leftie teachers and their agenda driven methods mean that bright kids needs are ignored while all the attention is given to the slower kids... and more and more we find kids leaving school with less ability in reading/writing/arithmetic but know everything there is about 'equality/diversity/Muslims/homosexuals/pc nonsense' ..

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