Between groups. The discrimination model attributes this to past treatment, but there is also evidence that Local selective pressures exerted even over several hundred years can cause big changes in cognitive function. <link>

So any test that aims to discriminate on the basis of cognitive skills will have disparate impact.

"The major legal dilemma in selection is that the best overall predictors of job performance, namely, cognitive tests, have the most disparate impact on racial-ethnic minorities. Their considerable disparate impact is not due to any imperfections in the tests. Rather, it is due to the tests' measuring essential skills and abilities that happen not to be distributed equally among groups (Schmidt, 1988). Those differences currently are large enough to cause a major problem. U.S. Department of Education literacy surveys show, for example, that black college graduates, on the average, exhibit the cognitive skill levels of white high school graduates without any college (Kirsch, Jungeblut, & Kolstad, 1993, p. 127).

This dilemma means that the disparate impact of cognitive tests can be reduced only by reducing their ability to predict job performance. In fact, this problem is so well known among personnel selection professionals that there is considerable research estimating how much productivity is lost by reducing the impact of cognitive tests by different degrees (e.g., Hartigan & Wigdor, 1989; Hunter, Schmidt, & Rauschenberger, 1984; Wigdor & Hartigan, 1988; see also Brody, this issue, for a more general discussion of the same dilemma). There are two general methods of reducing the impact of cognitive tests: lower the hiring standards only for the lower-scoring groups, or lower standards for all races and ethnicities. Double standards lower productivity less than low common standards because they maintain standards for the majority of workers. Their drawbacks are that they are obviously race-conscious and that they create disparate impact in future promotions. In contrast, low common standards have the virtue of being race-neutral, but they devastate workforce performance across the board."

<link>

Peddle your Bell Curve Neo Jim Crow nonesense elsewhere.

What's your problem or are you one of those anti-science creatons that thinks all you need to know can be written on a bumper sticker.

I'm extremely pro-science. But the claims being made here are not science. they are the same sort of pseudo-science as the Bell Curve. For example the claims of 50,000 years of evolution being germane to differences in intelligence is at best an arm-wave.

There is undeniable difference in appearance between people of different race. You won't mistake a native of Kenya with a native from China or Norway. Clearly, thousands of years resulted in rather obvious biological changes.

Why is it absurd to assume that the differences may not limited to skin color, height, facial features and the like?

Personally, I don't believe that there are inherent differences in intelligence between the races. But I cannot claim that it's impossible that these difference exist.

Indeed, that will be something that becomes clearer in time as Hsu comments:

There is no strong evidence yet for specific gene variants (alleles) that lead to group differences (differences between clusters) in behavior or intelligence, but progress on the genomic side of this question will be rapid in coming years, as the price to sequence a genome is dropping at an exponential rate.

What seems to be true (from preliminary studies) is that the gene variants that were under strong selection (reached fixation) over the last 10k years are different in different clusters. That is, the way that modern people in each cluster differ, due to natural selection, from their own ancestors 10k years ago is not the same in each cluster -- we have been, at least at the genetic level, experiencing divergent evolution.

In fact, recent research suggests that 7% or more of all our genes are mutant versions that replaced earlier variants through natural selection over the last tens of thousands of years. There was little gene flow between continental clusters ("races") during that period, so there is circumstantial evidence for group differences beyond the already established ones (superficial appearance, disease resistance).

<link>

"I'm extremely pro-science."\

Degsme is like the type David Friedman describes here:

eople who say they are against teaching the theory of evolution are very likely to be Christian fundamentalists. But people who are against taking seriously the implications of evolution, strongly enough to want to attack those who disagree, including those who teach those implications, are quite likely to be on the left.

The reasons to expect differences among racial groups as conventionally defined are weaker, since males of all races play the same role in reproduction, as do females of all races. But we know that members of such groups differ in the distribution of observable physical characteristics--that, after all, is the main way we recognize them. That is pretty strong evidence that their ancestors adapted to at least somewhat different environments.

There is no a priori reason to suppose that the optimal physical characteristics were different in those different environments but the optimal mental characteristics were the same. And yet, when differing outcomes by racial groups are observed, it is assumed without discussion that they must be entirely due to differential treatment by race. That might turn out to be true, but there is no good reason to expect it. Here again, anyone who argues the opposite is likely to find himself the target of ferocious attacks, mainly from people on the left...

<link>

Ah yes, from Bell Cure selective reasoning to Ad Hominem.

How fast the conservatives and bigots fall into Logical Fallacies.

Because its bad devil's advocate reasoning.

the difference in skin color, facial structure etc. WITHIN what you call "a race" is broader than the variance across "races". But what you are doing is picking a select set of physiognomic markers that are clearly distinct. Essentially selective cherry picking of the data set.

That's not "devil's advocate" reasoning. That's just the logical fallacy of Biased Sample

C'mon Gringo, you normally reason better than what you have demonstrated in the last day. Don't taint yourself by joining in with this clown who's data is no better than that of the Museum of Creationist Science.

Shoo troll. Your bigotry is tiresome

If illiterate rednecks can figure out that they are different physiologicaly than folks from Africa - then surely you could do that too.

And if the difference is real, then why is it IMPOSSIBLE to imagine that this difference went further than just the appeareance?

Again, I don't believe there are inherent IQ diferences between the races - but at least I respect science enough not to deny the possibility.

Perhaps because illiterate rednecks also seem to think that women are incapable of rational thought and quantum entanglement refers to "Short Boy's" attempts at sex, that I don't place much value on what they can or cannot figure out.

Your bigotry is showing.

Degsme, I must admit I chuckled a bit that you had the balls to call someone else out on the logical fallacy of the biased sample.

to visually distinguish between an African-American and European-American? Assume we are not talking about Arabs from Egypt and Boerhs from South Africa.

If what you say is true, then how can anyone discriminate against African-American?

I'm perfectly open to seeing alternative credible data.

I almost never argue from annecdotal evidence.

Where do I use "biased sample" data?