No, I apologize. I should have been more specific. Everything I said is for an average, normally functioning human brain. Just as some people will inherit better organs, some will inherit better brains. But there is still no correlation between race and intelligence.
(now quoting so the two conversations are more easily distinguishable)
No correlation that I know of. It seems to me like one of those things where any research on the topic would have been branded racist and summarily removed from libraries and archives. While the proof of evidence lays on my shoulders, I should remind you all that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. That is my closing statement.
Well, I actually see where you're coming from, John. I certainly am not happy that the government decided to make this proclamation, as I do feel that our government should be completely religion neutral. But, at the same time, I don't feel violated by this new proclamation. I just think it's stupid.
To follow the analogy, why are you scared? There is a powerful document in place that already protects your ability to eat kebabs in peace. It's unfortunate that people look at you funny because you're not a pizza person, but what can government do about that? They can't tell people to play nice and accept your strange kebabness. They can only protect your right to eat kebabs.
Well, I actually see where you're coming from, John. I certainly am not happy that the government decided to make this proclamation, as I do feel that our government should be completely religion neutral. But, at the same time, I don't feel violated by this new proclamation. I just think it's stupid.
To follow the analogy, why are you scared? There is a powerful document in place that already protects your ability to eat kebabs in peace. It's unfortunate that people look at you funny because you're not a pizza person, but what can government do about that? They can't tell people to play nice and accept your strange kebabness. They can only protect your right to eat kebabs.
They can pass a legislation saying that they respect kebabs and those who eat kebabs. Then I'll feel safe. Until then, the pizzarians have an upper hand.
Also, Behemoth, I'm afraid I don't agree on your little psychology lesson. You may have read books on it and I have not, but let me ask if any of the science behind this information involves statistics? How much trust to you put in statistics? By nature, statistics show trends without securing any actual facts, so if this is statistical science, then it doesn't matter how many books you've read, you still don't know anything about it for sure. You were getting remarkably "black and White" on some of that discussion while simultaneously talking about all the "Shades of Gray" stuff is what I'm getting at. My personal thought for what it's worth (I don't claim any expertise mind you) is that while the environment can affect a persons intelligence, genetics can play a role too. How each end factors in to what degree is an old debate and I doubt there are any answers clear enough to determine the balance.
EDIT: This may now be a moot point as several post appeared in the time I spent writing it.
Sorry it took so long and I already addressed both issues. No, not statistics. Real studies with full information about how the study was performed. Instruction by a doctor of psychology, instruction by a doctor of psychiatry, and independent research. and my edit from above just for the hell of it.
EDIT: I'm not being specific enough again. At first glance, the article about the twins seems rather concrete. However, it does not truly rule out all environmental variables. The identical twins will have shared many more identical experienced in life than the fraternal twins. By the simple virtue of looking different, they will be treated differently. The parents of the identical twins will place a far greater emphasis on equal treatment, especially since there will be no immediate visual cues to alert the parents of to whom it is they are speaking.
For example. Imagine there are fraternal twins, one wears glasses, one doesn't. The activities of their lives will be dramatically changed by just this one simple inconvenience on the part of the one. Say he gets picked on in school, he will now exhibit behavior consistent with low self-esteem. He will place less importance on his school-work than will his popular brother or sister. You really have to look closely at studies like these. The focus group isn't large enough to draw any reliable conclusions. Also, the one with adoption doesn't address the issue of time spent together during the most essential first 6-12 months of life. Believe it or not, your personality is set by the age of 6 months. It can be altered afterwards. Nobody is doomed to live life as they were shaped in the first year of life, but it will always remain an underlying factor. This can determine work ethic, as in study habits.
Anyway, I need sleep now, and I'll be busy the next few days. I'm serious. Read full texts, not just articles. An article doesn't give you the proper background of knowledge necessary to understand the implications of the study. I'm sorry to say, but your background does make a huge impact on how you will interpret what you read. The information cannot stand on its own because you don't know all of the implied factors that are universally understood by the people producing these reports. And without a full understanding of the field of study, you're missing all of the essential steps that were taken to reach this latest conclusion.
All I was saying before, though, is that for all intents and purposes, since you haven't studied anything yet, if I say something regarding something with which you are unfamiliar, you'll have no choice but to take my word for it or just blindly dismiss it. I'd prefer that you be able to make an informed conclusion when reviewing new data.
EVEN STILL: this is not anywhere close to being a full argument. This is why I say I am going to stop now and wait for everyone who wants to discuss it to build up their own background in the discipline. Frankly, I don't have enough time or energy to write a book right now, and other people already wrote books that more than adequately answer all of the questions posed.
It seems to me that you're saying there's been no conclusively proving tests, but also no tests that disprove it either. Also, could you recommend any books? I honestly have no idea where to start aside from an amazon search.
And there has also been no test to prove that the Loch Ness Monster doesn't exist, either. They've just combed the whole place with nets and sonar and found nothing. Same principle applies here. There is no correlation between race and intelligence.
Just start with any introductory level text-book for psychology. For developmental psychology, I'd suggest Educational Psychology by Anita Woolfolk. I have the Ninth Edition, if she has a newer one, you could go for it, but I know there wasn't much change from the 8th edition to the 9th. Also, if you want to read some interesting case studies, check out Anguished English by Richard Lederer, it shows the importance of understanding the material, rather than just knowing a few key words from "experts". And there's a great compilation of case-studies that I can't seem to find right now. Just check out Robyn Fivush, Katherine Nelson, Patricia Greenfield, and David Ho. They're all in it.
The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.
Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.
They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of "Godlessness."
Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.
The initiative was revealed by 82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican "exorcistinchief," to the online Catholic news service Petrus.
"Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on," he said.
"Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist.
"Thankfully, Benedict XVI believes in the existence and danger of evil - going back to the time he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." The CDF is the oldest Vatican department and was headed by Benedict from 1982, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, until he became Pope in 2005.
Father Amorth said that during his time at the department Benedict had not lost the chance to warn humanity of the risk from the Devil.
He said the Pope wants to restore a prayer seen as protection against evil that was traditionally recited at the end of Catholic Masses. The prayer, to St Michael the Archangel, was dropped in the 1960s by Pope John XXIII.
Scroll down for more...
"The prayer is useful not only for priests but also for lay people in helping to fight demons," he said.
Father Paolo Scarafoni, who lectures on the Vatican's exorcism course, said interest in Satanism and the occult has grown as people lost faith with the church.
He added: "People suffer and think that turning to the Devil can help solve their problems. We are being bombarded by requests for exorcisms."
The Vatican is particularly concerned that young people are being exposed to the influence of Satanic sects through rock music and the Internet.
In theory, under the Catholic Church's Canon Law 1172, all priests can perform exorcisms. But in reality only a select few are assigned the task.
Under the law, practitioners must have "piety, knowledge, prudence, and integrity of life."
The rite of exorcism involves a series of gestures and prayers to invoke the power of God and stop the "demon" influencing its victim.
He added: "People suffer and think that turning to the Devil can help solve their problems.
The Vatican is particularly concerned that young people are being exposed to the influence of Satanic sects through rock music and the Internet.
I know exactly what they mean. Whenever I have a bad day, as soon as I get home I crank up my Beatles music, draw a few pentagrams and start conjuring up demons to help me out. I learned how to do it on 4chan. It works much better than those old spells I learned playing D&D and Magic: The Gathering.
While this might seem silly to us in this day and age, if they really are getting a lot of requests for exorcisms (they may be more common in other countries), then increasing the number of priests who are on call to do them would be sensible regardless of the opinions of any of us here. It then is a simple matter of supply and demand. There is a demand for a service that they offer, so they are choosing to increase the supply to make the service more available.
While this might seem silly to us in this day and age, if they really are getting a lot of requests for exorcisms (they may be more common in other countries), then increasing the number of priests who are on call to do them would be sensible regardless of the opinions of any of us here. It then is a simple matter of supply and demand. There is a demand for a service that they offer, so they are choosing to increase the supply to make the service more available.
Indeed. In my high school we had a priest who's supposedly the only one in the city trained to exorcise. He's one of those nice little old men who are always smiling. I once heard from one of the "friars" (not sure if that's the correct English term) that worked at the school, that this one day he was exorcising a girl from a poor neighborhood and she started yelling "FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU", since the priest exorcises in English (he's form New Zealand), even though she knew absolutely NO English.
I know there's probably a million explanations other than this being the demon's work, but it's still a fun story.
If there is an English word that could be called most well-known around the world, it would probably be "hello", but not far behind would most definitely be "fuck".
VATICAN CITY, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The Vatican is denying reports it plans to install more exorcists around the world so possessed people can get help quickly.
"Pope Benedict XVI has no intention of ordering local bishops to bring in garrisons of exorcists to fight demonic possession,'' Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi told reporters in Rome Friday.
On Thursday, the Roman Catholic Web site Petrus said the pope planned to install more exorcists in every diocese next year and reintroduce a prayer during mass to St. Michael the Archangel, believed to be the prime protector against evil, The Telegraph in Britain reported Saturday.
Paolo Scarafoni, a priest at Vatican University who teaches how to recognize and expel Satan, said exorcists increasingly are in demand because devil worship has become so common, reported ANSA, the Italian news agency. "Priests are being bombarded," Scarafoni told ANSA.
Msgr. Amorth is a little batty, I wouldn't be surprised if he grossly misrepresented his claims that the Pope was making exorcism a priority. Although, I'm not as up to speed on Vatican politics as I should be.
If the rumor is factual, however, I'm not that bothered, really. I'm more worried about the recent Papal instructions on the mind-numbing minutia of everyday life, such as the Vatican Driving Tips and so on. The most skilled theologians in the world churning out that crap? It's really more suited for the Mormons, who regularly promulgate inane feel-goodery like "How Good Mormons Tend Their Lawns". The Vatican used to care more about war and poverty and slavery and all sorts of actual moral ills, however misguided we individually may think they're off the mark. This is beneath them. (Although, come to think of it, this exorcism nonsense is pretty stupid too, not unlike those Baptists spending time exorcising gay demons from Denver rather than feeding the homeless)
Why is it illegal to die in the House of Commons? Why do they throw tomatoes in Spain? Why is the Belgian king actually the king of the Belgian people and not of the Belgian state?
They're just weird traditions that seemed important/apt at the time but now seem silly.
Comments
(now quoting so the two conversations are more easily distinguishable)
No correlation that I know of. It seems to me like one of those things where any research on the topic would have been branded racist and summarily removed from libraries and archives. While the proof of evidence lays on my shoulders, I should remind you all that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. That is my closing statement.
To follow the analogy, why are you scared? There is a powerful document in place that already protects your ability to eat kebabs in peace. It's unfortunate that people look at you funny because you're not a pizza person, but what can government do about that? They can't tell people to play nice and accept your strange kebabness. They can only protect your right to eat kebabs.
Also, Behemoth, I'm afraid I don't agree on your little psychology lesson. You may have read books on it and I have not, but let me ask if any of the science behind this information involves statistics? How much trust to you put in statistics? By nature, statistics show trends without securing any actual facts, so if this is statistical science, then it doesn't matter how many books you've read, you still don't know anything about it for sure. You were getting remarkably "black and White" on some of that discussion while simultaneously talking about all the "Shades of Gray" stuff is what I'm getting at. My personal thought for what it's worth (I don't claim any expertise mind you) is that while the environment can affect a persons intelligence, genetics can play a role too. How each end factors in to what degree is an old debate and I doubt there are any answers clear enough to determine the balance.
EDIT: This may now be a moot point as several post appeared in the time I spent writing it.
EVEN STILL: this is not anywhere close to being a full argument. This is why I say I am going to stop now and wait for everyone who wants to discuss it to build up their own background in the discipline. Frankly, I don't have enough time or energy to write a book right now, and other people already wrote books that more than adequately answer all of the questions posed.
Just start with any introductory level text-book for psychology. For developmental psychology, I'd suggest Educational Psychology by Anita Woolfolk. I have the Ninth Edition, if she has a newer one, you could go for it, but I know there wasn't much change from the 8th edition to the 9th. Also, if you want to read some interesting case studies, check out Anguished English by Richard Lederer, it shows the importance of understanding the material, rather than just knowing a few key words from "experts". And there's a great compilation of case-studies that I can't seem to find right now. Just check out Robyn Fivush, Katherine Nelson, Patricia Greenfield, and David Ho. They're all in it.
I know exactly what they mean. Whenever I have a bad day, as soon as I get home I crank up my Beatles music, draw a few pentagrams and start conjuring up demons to help me out. I learned how to do it on 4chan. It works much better than those old spells I learned playing D&D and Magic: The Gathering.
Even though it might make me sound a bit pompous, hear hear.
Indeed. In my high school we had a priest who's supposedly the only one in the city trained to exorcise. He's one of those nice little old men who are always smiling. I once heard from one of the "friars" (not sure if that's the correct English term) that worked at the school, that this one day he was exorcising a girl from a poor neighborhood and she started yelling "FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU", since the priest exorcises in English (he's form New Zealand), even though she knew absolutely NO English.
I know there's probably a million explanations other than this being the demon's work, but it's still a fun story.
Msgr. Amorth is a little batty, I wouldn't be surprised if he grossly misrepresented his claims that the Pope was making exorcism a priority. Although, I'm not as up to speed on Vatican politics as I should be.
If the rumor is factual, however, I'm not that bothered, really. I'm more worried about the recent Papal instructions on the mind-numbing minutia of everyday life, such as the Vatican Driving Tips and so on. The most skilled theologians in the world churning out that crap? It's really more suited for the Mormons, who regularly promulgate inane feel-goodery like "How Good Mormons Tend Their Lawns". The Vatican used to care more about war and poverty and slavery and all sorts of actual moral ills, however misguided we individually may think they're off the mark. This is beneath them. (Although, come to think of it, this exorcism nonsense is pretty stupid too, not unlike those Baptists spending time exorcising gay demons from Denver rather than feeding the homeless)
Why is it illegal to die in the House of Commons? Why do they throw tomatoes in Spain? Why is the Belgian king actually the king of the Belgian people and not of the Belgian state?
They're just weird traditions that seemed important/apt at the time but now seem silly.