Are you saying that my definition of "superstition" declining is akin to Catholics saying that "superstition" is declining among pagans?
More or less, although I don't mean it venomously; I am glad to see Christianity and Islam weakening even if I do find I prefer them to their replacements.
Can you explain why it should be obvious to a non-superstitious layperson that this won't work?
The mean IQ for an American Black adult is 85, and since adult IQ is 60-80% heritable this is fairly strong evidence to start with that race itself is the cause. Attempts to test that have controlled for SES education level and other factors in early childhood, income and education level in adults, even multiple twin adoption studies where one twin was raised by higher-class whites. Consistently it has been found that not only is this gap a question of genetics, but that the degree of the gap can be predicted by knowing the proportions of the individual's racial admixture.
So, what does that mean in practice?
About 2% of Blacks will have an IQ of 115 or above, which is considered "bright" and about the level of the average undergrad or white-collar worker. Only the top 1% will have an IQ of 120 or above, which is considered "gifted" and about the level of the average college graduate. The very best 0.1% will have an IQ of 130 or above, which is considered "borderline genius" and is both the mean for PhD recipients and is the very lowest IQ Mensa will accept.
In other words, in a perfectly fair system a maximum of one in every fifty Blacks would go to college at all and half would drop out before graduating, with a tenth of those remaining being able to pursue higher degrees. About eighteen times that many Blacks enroll in college today (~38%), seventeen times that many graduate college (~17%) and four times as many are given PhDs (0.4%). Unsurprisingly most of the latter are unemployed or work in higher education themselves. These figures are proudly attributed to Affirmative Action and represent one of the biggest wastes of time and energy ever undertaken by our government.
TL;DR: There are Black Americans who are capable of benefiting from a college education, but they are the exception, and this fact is patently obvious to anyone who's even glanced at the statistics or has lived/worked on a college campus.
...In other words, in a perfectly fair system a maximum of one in every fifty Blacks would go to college at all and half would drop out before graduating, with a tenth of those remaining being able to pursue higher degrees. About eighteen times that many Blacks enroll in college today (~38%), seventeen times that many graduate college (~17%) and four times as many are given PhDs (0.4%). Unsurprisingly most of the latter are unemployed or work in higher education themselves. These figures are proudly attributed to Affirmative Action and represent one of the b
People want to tell everything instead of telling the best 15 words. They want to learn everything instead of the best 15 words. In this thread, instead post the best 15-words from a book you've read recently (or anything else). It has to stand on its own. It's not a summary, the whole value needs to be contained in those words.
I'll start in the comments below.
(Voted by the Schelling study group as the best exercise of the meeting.)