I really don't like what you are insinuating. You appear to be implying that some people are inferior due to the ancestry of their parents, or the daily practices of their parents.
You should learn something: that variance within groups is far larger than variance in the averages of groups; and thus race and culture are poor signals for use in judgement. To protect against this bias, we do hold to equality across racial and cultural lines; to do otherwise, is to be racist and simply morally wrong.
No, the implication is that P(inferior | race X) != P(inferior | race Y).
...we do hold to equality across racial and cultural lines;
There are two types of equality under discussion:
a) Statistical equality - P(Q > cutoff | race X) == cdf(Q > cutoff| race Y), where Q is some quality measure which is not a function of race.
b) Equality of treatment - using the same cutoff value for race X and race Y.
Which type of equality are you referring to?
Indeed, the myth of equality across racial and cultural lines must be protected at any cost.
The context at hand appears to be in making decisions about people's lives. I don't see how to read it in any other way than "people should discriminate on the basis of race and culture"; and given reinhardt's previous comment against positive discrimination, he can only mean negative discrimination. Statistical equality does not seem relevant at all; I don't know why you brought it up. I'm suspicious that you are dissembling.
I don't want to take sides in this debate, but I often see your above post appearing on debates about this issue.
Can you explain what your first three sentences even mean? It is basically vague, ambigiuous and devoid of any meaning (while sounding academic - perfect for online debates).
That spiel is known as Lewtonin's Fallacy (please look it up).
PS: typed from cellphone so please forgive typos.
Is this just willful blindness? Do you really believe all ethnicity are perfectly matched in their potential?
It's hard to study academia because we don't understand the brain well enough, but do a little reading about ethnicity and genetics as it relates to sports.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=...
"Do African immigrants make the smartest Americans? The question may sound outlandish, but if you were judging by statistics alone, you could find plenty of evidence to back it up. In a side-by-side comparison of 2000 census data by sociologist John R. Logan at the Mumford Center, State University of New York at Albany, black immigrants from Africa average the highest educational attainment of any population group in the country, including whites and Asians."
http://thesouthern.com/news/opinion/editorial/page/article_2...
I think it is more cultural than genetics.
I'm not taking neither reinhardt's nor your side. But this 'don't touch this subject because it's sensitive' strategy is getting old and pretty ridiculous to resource to.
A few lines after you wrote this
__You should learn something: that variance within groups is far larger than variance in the averages of groups; and thus race and culture are poor signals for use in judgement.__
So, race and culture are poor signals for use in judgement, but you still admit that they are signals (poor or not) and that their averages does vary, even if less than within the group.
All I can conclude is that you are afraid to touch the subject. You start by saying that it doesn't exist then you prove it is not relevant. That is not coherent, you can't believe them both because they are exclusive.
Not saying that I agree or disagree with you, but if we're going to have discussions about this topic we're getting nowhere if we're stuck to the old taboos.
I live in a poor area of London. Racism isn't an abstract taboo; it's a daily sight, and it's disturbing to hear the rationales some people come out with. It's clear they didn't come up with it themselves.