Talk About Fulfilling Stereotypes
My alma mater’s administration tries so hard to move away from its roots and be like that Other University. But Aggies keep messing the P.R. job up by being good at Aggie stuff, like beef jerky:
Recently, however, beef jerky has earned a shred of respectability. In Texas, where all things beef find their meaning, researchers have been applying actual science to make better jerky at the E. M. “Manny” Rosenthal Meat Science and Technology Center, at Texas A & M University. The resulting Aggie jerky is apparently a breakthrough. As the Web site thrillist.com put it, it’s “a Unified Theory of Meat available by the ½-pound bag.”
The Aggie-culture-hating administration must cringe: a research program at A&M makes the New York Times for beef jerky. But I think most Aggies would agree: turning beef jerky into an engineering optimization problem is pretty cool.
And yes, there’s a website: beefjerky.tamu.edu. Lest anyone laugh, this is actually pretty complicated. I had a Food Engineering class where we were actually using little pistons hooked to computers to measure the “crunch curve” (newtons plotted over time) of a tortilla chip. The folks at Frito-Lay have a much tougher engineering job that just about anyone.
This probably won’t help the Newsweek rankings (which is mostly weighted towards what snotty college administrators think about other colleges), but that’s ok. Too much attention could ruin the environment over at what the liberals (affectionaly I’m sure) call Crackerland.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:24 am
First off, better Beef Jerky is totally cool. Maroon carrots are not. (What’s next maroon oranges?)
Second, I note that it was an aggie professor calling A&M “crackerland” in your linked letter. (Notice how he was resigning, but only if he found another job? Wow, what a backbone!)
Third, as a graduate of the “Other Univesity” I could type stories all day about the back flips that schools administration has done to try and advance diversity. Of course no matter what they do, the racism charges continue. (Apparently increases in Asian numbers don’t count).
Anyway, students and prospective students should be judged on the “content of their character and not the color of their skin.” There’s a statue of the man that said that on the East Mall of the campus at that “Other University.” The Civil War heroes are on the South Mall.
November 12th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
Ah, a case study in political warfare: how is it that the man who retailed a message that he wanted people to be judged by the content of their character actually supported policies that were “affirmatively” based on the color of their skin?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/epstein9.html
Could it be that our secular saint MLKJ was just another lying politician, using grand words to hide his true intentions? Could it be that he was a shrewd one at that, all the time realizing that “equal opportunity” would inevitably be twisted by the liberal judiciary and federal bureaucracy into “equal outcomes”, because to admit that justice was otherwise possible would undermine the entire equalitarian worldview?
Was Pareto (Italian economist and discoverer of the 80/20 principle) right when he said:
Political warfare in a multicultural society is nasty, and woe to him who takes things at face value.
November 13th, 2007 at 1:03 am
I have been told that if there were not some form of affirmative action, quota et al. at The Airforce Academy their enrolement would be 80% Asian American. Interesting.
One more anecdote: (this was such a hot topic/battle at the Other University I could type all night) Shortly after I graduated a Houston State Senator suggested legislation mandating a student population at the Other University that mirrored the racial makeup of the football team. One of my classmates quipped, “I think it should match the National Champion Swim Team”. (We were selfish that way).
November 13th, 2007 at 8:47 am
You know, it used to surprise me when people like “Revs” Sharpton and Jackson would channel the spirit of MLK, when it was so obvious that they were just spewing racialist tripe, and (based on the rhetoric and the “official history”) King’s philosophy so transcended race, eg Mitch’s “I Have A Dream” snippet above. Now, having done some of my own checking, “unplugged from the Matrix,” as you say, Tom, I’m even more surprised when self-described “conservative” pundits don’t expose him for the fraud he was.
But then, there is kind of a third rail about diverging from the “Who is the Oppressor? The White Man is the Oppressor” social catechism. And our neocon masters have already proven to the world they don’t have much in the way of courage, moral or otherwise.
BTW, Tom, you don’t know a guy named Goldstein, do you?
November 13th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Mitch, there may be something to be said for that demographic mix. In WWII, armed with the technologically superior Mitsubshi Zero, the Imperial Japanese “Divine Wind” was an awfully deadly aerial force. Combined, of course, with their zealous pilots’ willingness to die for Empire and honor, there may be some component of this that ties back to NE Asians’ extremely high average IQ that produced such a deadly man-machine weapon. Add the “strange forked lightning in the brain” that American Asians may have developed, and it could only get better.
Of course, it would be ridiculous — and political suicide — for anyone to suggest even making such a connection.
[NB: All else aside, the P-51 Mustang will always have a special place in my heart among WWII planes -- there was simply no comparison.]
November 13th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
Fraud or not MLK’s most popular stances are quite useful to the word smith and conservative who desires race neautral policy.
Engineer types like Tom and Brian trend toward eugenics. I understand, but genetics only goes so far. If you were stranded in the wilderness who would you want with you? Einstein or Davy Crockett?
A bunch of low brow, poorly bred hayseeds opened up some serious whip a__ on the Huns and Japs. (And those aren’t the only ones we’ve shamed). I love the story of Roosevelt’s Roughriders. It takes all kinds.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I think references to MLK are tactical errors, as they are unconvincing to those who truly revere MLK and support the discriminatory policies he promoted, and put our people on the defensive because of media-conditioned responses of guilt.
November 13th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Brian, my understanding of the IQ data is that NE Asians have slightly higher IQ’s but lower standard deviations. This implies they have fewer retards but we have more geniuses. The differential increased contribution of the latter SHOULD compensate for the differential cost of the former, yielding a higher total in human capital.
Of course, they probably use what they have more effectively because their culture of conservatism and hard work is still intact, and even Asian kids in the US seem more resistant to the respective MTV-promoted pop culture templates of “pot-smoking skateboarding loser” or “gangsta/criminal”.
Right now, admittedly, when we consider the rational nationalist government of Japan and the master strategists running China, the obvious conclusion is that Asian societies are superior. China supposedly has a majority of engineering Ph.D’s on their ruling council. Compare that to our Congress-critters who are a bunch of car dealers or career politicians who would probably struggle to get a 1000 SAT.
But I hope the present moment is a “bad sample” for our civilization. I still have hope for the home team, but we’ve got a lot of housecleaning to do in our leadership ranks. If I’m wrong, we can comfort ourselves with the historical tendency of the Chinese towards peacefulness and the Japanese admiration of our culture.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:25 am
I can’t find the article (but this one gets close), Tom, but it seems I recently heard a discussion wherein some scientist claimed that the $1+ billion that it took to map Venter’s, et al., DNA is now in the 6-figure range, and soon will be another order or two of magnitude cheaper. So your scenario could be very close, indeed.
I don’t know if you knew this, but there is in obstetrics an “Ashkenazi battery” for testing pregnant mothers (and their babies) of that particular group of Jews, due to their extremely high propensity for birth defects — I guess there has to be a trade-off somewhere. My understanding mirrors yours, and I’d add that many medieval European socieites didn’t allow Jewish ownership of property, which pretty much drove their Jews into the merchant class, where high IQ would be a singularly desirable trait (along with business acumen).
From what I understand, the average IQ for NE Asians is around 105-110, with, as you say, a smaller standard deviation. That would suggest more geniuses on our side per capita, but I wonder what the overwhelming crush of numbers does on behalf of the NE Asians.
It really doesn’t surprise me that highly educated people would seek out political office in China, or fail to do so in the US. The market offers a much higher potential for reward here (without the problem of having to constantly compromise yourself), while it pays to be in the inner circle of power in a totalitarian country. Of course, there has been a lot of market liberalization going on in China recently; it’ll be interesting to see how that changes things there over the next several years. And with current (legal and illegal) immigration policies, I think it’ll be interesting on this side of the pond, too.
Mitch, the whole (non-Goebbelsian) “eugenics” thing — on IQ, anyway — is just stacking the deck in your favor. And guys — excepting those who would rut with a knothole in a fence if nothing else presented itself — practice eugenics every time they ask a girl out. It’s not unlike taking AP classes in high school or getting into a good college. Better opportunity is no guarantee of a better outcome: sheepskin in hand, you’re own your own.
I mean, like you said, we did beat the Japanese.
November 14th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Err… sorry… that was $3+ billion to map the genome, not 1.
November 15th, 2007 at 12:59 am
Okay, if my mere mention of “trending” toward eugenics and the resulting article/discussion didn’t prove my point, I don’t know what will.
I’m not saying I disagree with any of it (although I’d emphasize our political system(s) and our manifest destiny as well as our “pioneer stock”, when considering our success as a society) I’m just saying my experience on the internet with technical guys that operate conservative blogs or post on bulletin boards always includes detailed discussion of genetics and IQ.
November 15th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Really, there are conservative blogs about genetics and IQ? Where? That’s the sort of thoughtcrime that usually gets a respectable conservative into trouble, because it’s well-established empirical data that collapses the entire liberal program. And respectable conservatives must be the loyal opposition, resisting liberal advances at the margin with chickenpoop arguments but never really challenging the fundamentals of the liberal worldview.
November 15th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
I have no idea what you guys are talking about. =)
I did want to ask one question: is this discussion relevant when you’re dealing with individuals, or just groups? It seems to me that ‘averages’ can’t really apply to an individual case because there are so many variations. So, is that when it becomes racism, or at least an unproved presupposition? Isn’t there something to saying that all people have equal value, at least spiritually? Not to say that there aren’t differences (and those differences may make some people more valuable to society), but in a spiritual sense there is an equality that needs to be addressed.
I think this influences how we deal with people INDIVIDUALLY. We use other factors when we deal with groups of people (such as in choices in housing or schooling). As an example, we moved out of our old neighborhood because of the growing black population - it’s not politically correct, but there it is. However, does that mean that I treat an individual black person with disdain, or even fear? No.
What do you think?
November 16th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Ok, I’ve had a chance to think this over some more and undo my initial decision to close the comments off. Though off-topic, this is an important discussion.
What Lindsay is asking is basically why is this important, since some people may take statistical differences between groups as an excuse to mistreat individuals?
First, philosophically, truth is its own justification. And particularly when entrenched interests try to suppress expression of the truth in a particular area, it’s a good indication that the truth is important, not trivial.
The latest genetic research is important in my opinion because it essentially affirms the Christian doctrine of man as a created and fallen being. Even though many of the conclusions are explained in terms of evolution, the empirical evidence shatters the central tenet of the liberal humanist worldview that man is inherently good and perfectable.
If man and groups of men are fundamentally limited by their genetic capacities, then the architects of social engineering projects are stopped dead in their tracks.
The inequality of outcomes between ethnic groups has been a particularly useful fact for the Left. By trading on the Enlightenment assumption of man’s equality, they can point to disparate outcomes between groups as evidence of the perfectability of man. If Group A is more successful than Group B, then we just need a government program to help Group B.
These government programs are now, in our society, heavily tilted against our children and deprive them of opportunities. Only by attacking the root of the liberal assumption (that all men are equal, and thus unequal outcomes mean unequal opportunity) can we really hope to restore a meritocratic society.
And that’s exactly why this sort of research, instead of being engaged, is tarred and feathered with ad hominum attacks of racism.
So let’s deal with the racism issue, which most people understand as hating an INDIVIDUAL because of his or her affiliation with a racial group. This has nothing at all to do with scientific facts about group differences, any more than pointing out that Great Danes are, on average, larger than dachshunds would be “hateful” towards dachshunds.
No, the objective of of all of the talk of “racism” is to silence people who bring up inconvenient facts for liberals about the inequality of man. That white people are in particular charged with “racism” has nothing to do with the actual racist views of whites (who are the least racist of all groups) and everything to do with suppressing dissent among the victims of the racial extortion coalition.
Hate towards others because of race, where it truly exists (and it is vastly exaggerated in the media to push the liberal agenda, e.g. the Duke rape case), can easily be measured.
Christ himself spoke of hate when He said that calling one’s brother a fool is the same as murdering him. Morally, what Christ was saying is that acts of violence start in the mind as hate.
So based on Christ’s own words, we can measure the level of racial hate by comparing murder rates between the two groups. For example, a site which compiled statistics for 2004 (www.benbest.com/lifeext/murder.html#circumstance) found that 8.5% of murders were black perp, white victim, while only 3.5% are white perp, black victim.
When you adjust for relative population size (blacks 12% of the population, whites 80%), the data show that the interracial murder rate is 16 times worse for blacks (and given these statistics, your family’s decision to move, Lindsay, is based not on hate but rationality and the Christian obligation to provide for one’s family by keeping them out of danger).
Racism, then, is about sixteen times more prevalent in the black community than the white community. If we look at statistics for rape (a crime that is an even better proxy for hate IMO, as it is 100% about power/control/sadism), the numbers are even more extreme, for white-on-black rape is a statistical non-entity.
Yet, if racism is such a huge social problem, why is it that the primary victims of racism as manifested in interracial crime statistics are instead cast as the primary perpetrators, those most needing of reform?
No, the media push on “racism” is not an honest effort to bring sin to light (as hating an individual, for whatever reason, is a sin; so a special sin of “racism” is unnecessary just as “hate crimes” are unnecessary) but rather a carefully crafted psychological weapon to keep the sheep in the herd.
This is why Ron Paul, one of the least hateful men alive who refuses to even attack his political opponents when he probably should, is now being tarred by the neocons as a racist. The accusations are trotted out like a cattle prod whenever the rabble get riled up.