Author Topic: Affirmative Action  (Read 6304 times)

Offline capt. apathy

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Affirmative Action
« Reply #135 on: January 20, 2003, 03:46:17 PM »
I did read them.  The points you posted-
'Martin Shapiro, a testing specialist and psychology professor at Emory University in Atlanta, testified that using race as one of many factors in admissions is the only way colleges can offset biases in standardized tests."

It's just another man’s opinion that the tests are biased.  I know you think they are biased. I know thrawn thinks they are biased.  Apparently so does this guy.  I have heard this argument repeatedly for years.  The problem is that nobody can explain to me exactly how they are biased or provide a legitimate example of a biased question.  The only 'proof' I've seen is circular logic applied to statistics.  i.e. blacks score lower because tests are biased. We know the tests are biased because blacks score lower.

Again, I have a huge problem with this because
1. Black scores are actually farther apart on math, which would seem to be the hardest to bias against one culture, let alone a race.
2. Nobody can produce a sample question that is racially biased.  I have seen how some could be economically biased, or even culturally biased. However, I've seen no examples of racial bias.  At this point I don't even care if it is included in the SAT's just provide me an example of any racially biased question.


And as far as the drug testing goes, I really doubt that anybody went out of their way to design a test that screwed over blacks.  If this test is flawed in this way, it should be abandoned

Offline Thrawn

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« Reply #136 on: January 20, 2003, 04:12:29 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by capt. apathy
And as far as the drug testing goes, I really doubt that anybody went out of their way to design a test that screwed over blacks.  If this test is flawed in this way, it should be abandoned


I know of one test that was, that's right, the SATs.

Here's some information on the tests creator.

The SAT's inventor wrote, "American intelligence is declining, and will proceed...as the racial admixture becomes more and more extensive"

"The SAT was born in the 1920s-the product of a growing desire by American educators, led by Harvard president James Bryant Conant, to open up their universities to the best students across the country.

The SAT's inventor wrote, "American intelligence is declining, and will proceed...as the racial admixture becomes more and more extensive"
America's elite universities-Eastern establishments such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton-selected students who were the sons of previous graduates or had attended New England's finest boarding schools. Conant envisioned a "natural aristocracy," taking the place of the old elite.

Lemann writes of Conant's ideas, "The new elite's essential quality, the factor that would make its power deserved where the old elite's had been merely inherited, would be brains."

Conant asked young Harvard dean Henry Chauncey to create a program that would allow Harvard to select the brightest students from across the country.

Chauncey soon met Princeton psychologist Carl Brigham, whom Lemann calls "an ardent eugenicist." Brigham concluded in his 1922 book, A Study of American Intelligence, that "American intelligence is declining, and will proceed with an accelerating rate as the racial admixture becomes more and more extensive."

Conant and Chauncey discovered that Brigham had already created a test to judge the academic potential of students, the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT. Brigham's earliest version of the SAT, similar to IQ tests he had previously developed for the Army, contains questions remarkably similar to today's.

Lemann writes, "A few samples from the original version convey the SAT's inimitable way of being simple and confusing at the same time, its tendency to induce uncontrollable, anxious second-guessing on the part of the taker."

Brigham had begun administering the SAT to test groups in 1926, and had concluded by 1933, when he met Chauncey, that his SAT reliably predicted academic success. Conant and Chauncey seized upon this conclusion, began administering the test to students who wished to win scholarships at Harvard, and convinced many of their Ivy League colleagues to follow suit.

Soon after Carl Brigham developed the test which Conant and Chauncey used, he began to question the wisdom of using the SAT to admit college students. In an unpublished manuscript which Lemann unearthed, Brigham wrote that the standardized testing movement was based on "one of the most glorious fallacies in the history of science, namely that the tests measured native intelligence purely and simply without regard to training or schooling. The test scores very definitely are a composite including schooling, family background, familiarity with English and everything else."

http://journalism.fas.nyu.edu/pubzone/race_class/edu-matt3.htm

 

mietla said:
 
 "The purpose of the the test (whether for school or a job) is to pick the best candidate, not to spread some idiotic "social justice" and right all wrongs real or perceived. Does not matter why you fail. All it means that you have to work harder than some other person to achieve the same goal. "


What makes you think the SAT is a good system for choosing the best candidate for university?

Offline mietla

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« Reply #137 on: January 20, 2003, 04:54:47 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Thrawn
What makes you think the SAT is a good system for choosing the best candidate for university?


I'm not an expert in this area so I can't authoritatively say that they are, just like you can't authoritatively say that they aren't.

At the same time, I'm sure that it would be a very difficult task to actually design a test which detects a color of the skin.


My point was a bit different though. I don't want to argue the test itself, since as I said I'm not competent to do so. Posting some questionable links to views presented by some other (probably as incompetent as myself) people does not persuade me (MT's links are spectacularly weak).

Let me clarify my point.

If the test can be proven to be biased, change it, but whether you change it or not it has to be applied to all participants equally and has to be demanding in order to spread the scores and make it easy to eliminate everyone but the best. Not some "everybody passes" crap. Blind test and no extra points for any reason. A top number of takers pass, the rest fail. Get a tutor, go back to school and try again if you want, but no lolipops for just showing up and being a member of a particular group.


I saw some kind of clip showing women trying out to be fire(wo)men. I scared the hell out of me. They could not hold on to the firehose, and one of them was almost crushed by a ladder. If accepted, they themselves would present a hazard on a job.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2003, 05:01:54 PM by mietla »

Offline Thrawn

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« Reply #138 on: January 20, 2003, 04:59:17 PM »
mietla, why do you think that blacks do worse then whites on SATs?

Offline capt. apathy

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« Reply #139 on: January 20, 2003, 05:00:32 PM »
"American intelligence is declining, and will proceed...as the racial admixture becomes more and more extensive"
 so the man who invented the SAT had racist ideas.

That does not mean that the test is racist.  In highschool I worked in a restaurant, one of the cooks was racist (probably a card carry ‘n clan member) but I didn't find anything racist about the food he was cooking.

Again for about the dozenth time SHOW AN EXAMPLE OF A RACIALY BIASED QUESTION.  This mythical beast is yet to be sighted in 3 pages of posts

Offline Gunthr

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« Reply #140 on: January 20, 2003, 05:05:01 PM »
Mietla.

I agree. If the racial apologists don't like the SATS, design another one. They've certainly had the time. I wonder what it would look like? Would it resemble the language of commerce and science? I wonder.

Sometimes I feel that people take sides as if picking which football team to root for. And from that point on, tune out any ideas contrary to their team's.

Like MT?

 I'm still waiting for an answer to my question MT. I will wait as long as it takes...

"When I speak I put on a mask. When I act, I am forced to take it off."  - Helvetius 18th Century

Offline Thrawn

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« Reply #141 on: January 20, 2003, 05:05:53 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by capt. apathy
[BAgain for about the dozenth time SHOW AN EXAMPLE OF A RACIALY BIASED QUESTION.  This mythical beast is yet to be sighted in 3 pages of posts [/B]


Why do you think that a test has to have racially biased questions in order to be racially biased?

Offline capt. apathy

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Affirmative Action
« Reply #142 on: January 20, 2003, 05:09:42 PM »
because the tests are made up of questions,
 no biased questions=no biased test  

SHOW ME AN EXAMPLE OF A RACIALLY BIASED QUESTION

Offline AKS\/\/ulfe

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« Reply #143 on: January 20, 2003, 05:09:42 PM »
Why do you think that a test has to have racially biased questions in order to be racially biased?

Unless they automatically deduct 400 points if you fill in any circle other than "caucasian" for race, this statement makes no sense.
-SW

Offline AKIron

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« Reply #144 on: January 20, 2003, 05:10:49 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by capt. apathy
[BAgain for about the dozenth time SHOW AN EXAMPLE OF A RACIALY BIASED QUESTION.  This mythical beast is yet to be sighted in 3 pages of posts [/B]


Ya know when liberals get together and proclaim the inequities of the white man's world they find that they all agree so it must be true. They then take these self-serving delusions as fact. Let someone disagree and it is only perceived as further proof that "the man" wants only to further oppress the black man.

I'm not saying that there isn't prejudice and discrimination. I am saying that the way to earn prestige and respect is through effort and not lame excuses. If I were black I would find a system that claims I can't compete to be very repugnant.
Here we put salt on Margaritas, not sidewalks.

Offline Thrawn

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« Reply #145 on: January 20, 2003, 05:16:48 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by AKIron
If I were black I would find a system that claims I can't compete to be very repugnant.


If you were black I imgaine that you would have a much different view on alot of things.

Offline mietla

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« Reply #146 on: January 20, 2003, 05:17:20 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by Thrawn
mietla, why do you think that blacks do worse then whites on SATs?


Honestly? I have no idea.

It seems to me that it would not be difficult to really prove/disprove any hypothesis of why this is happening. After all we know how to reliably extract a useful signal from the noise of much larger magnitude.

The problem is that this is an explosive issue and certain theories can not be even submitted, regardless of how probable they are.

Certain outcomes are simply "not acceptable" in certain (PC) circles, does not matter whether true or not. As a result most people don't want to touch this topic with a 10 ft pole. Those who do are not critiqued for their work, they are spat on and discredited.

The heliocentric system was rejected for so long not because noone came up with this idea? It was simply "unacceptable" because it questioned an established social order of that time.

Offline Thrawn

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« Reply #147 on: January 20, 2003, 05:18:27 PM »
Quote
Originally posted by AKS\/\/ulfe
Why do you think that a test has to have racially biased questions in order to be racially biased?

Unless they automatically deduct 400 points if you fill in any circle other than "caucasian" for race, this statement makes no sense.
-SW


Sure it does.  Lets make up a test with no racially biased questions.  No lets have white people generally get a better education for this test.  

Hey, check it out, white people do better at this test.

Offline mietla

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« Reply #148 on: January 20, 2003, 05:24:53 PM »
And don't think you've "suckered" me into this. I knew exactly where this is going and I know what's next.

Offline AKS\/\/ulfe

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« Reply #149 on: January 20, 2003, 05:26:37 PM »
Then the test isn't biased, the public education system is to blame for that one.
-SW