Nobody's Writing Stories About The Lack Of Ashkenazi Jews In Pro Basketball
Pro basketball is extremely lucrative, yet no one is calling for more "representation" of Jews in the sport. The same goes for Asians.
"Black Microbiologists Push for Visibility Amid a Pandemic," goes The New York Times headline.
Katherine J. Wu writes in the NYT:
Despite years of progress, Black people continue to be underrepresented in science and engineering. Whereas more than 13 percent of the United States' population identifies as Black or African-American, Black people make up less than 7 percent of students who earn bachelor's degrees in science or engineering fields and less than 5 percent of people granted doctorates in microbiology each year, according to the National Science Foundation.The number of Black scientists has "been largely stagnant over the past decade," said Johnna Frierson, assistant dean of graduate and postdoctoral diversity and inclusion at the Duke University School of Medicine. In some fields, representation has even begun to decline -- a trend that has worried experts. "There's something in the system that is not optimized in order for us to continue diversifying in the way we hope to," Dr. Frierson said. A former virologist, she will participate in a panel on Monday focused on education disparities in the Black community.
...Dr. Taylor, whose work at Carnegie Mellon University centers on the new coronavirus, first began pursuing a career in infectious disease in college, some 15 years ago. But it wasn't until a year and a half ago that she met another Black female virologist -- Chelsey Spriggs, Black in Microbiology's sponsorship team lead and a virologist at the University of Michigan. It was such a stunning moment that the two women snapped a picture together and put it on Twitter.
"Sometimes I feel like you internalize that there's just not that many of us, we're not that visible," Dr. Kozik said. "It's hard to explain what it means to know I'm not the only one out here in the world."
Scientists I know see "us" as "other scientists" -- not scientists who have the same background as they do.
I find this notion that there is something wrong that there aren't this or that group of people in a field and they must be pushed and pulled in to be extremely infantilizing. I find the notion that is is racist and horrible that there aren't that many black microbiologists -- or Jews in the NBA -- to be based on a faulty assumption: that it's important that all groups be equally "represented" in each area.
I'm not somebody who would do well in physics or basketball. Should I be pushed to go into either or both just to shore up the numbers of women or Jews? Of course not.
A few NYT commenters get it. Here's one:
Nom de Plume
We don't care at all about what color our microbiologist is. Stop making every issue about race.
Here's another:
Joshua Stephen
Your ethnicity, race and gender have nothing to do with science. Take all of that energy and passion and apply it to excelling in your field of study. What have you achieved in the laboratory? While you are busy kvetching about "representation", you could be in the laboratory making strides for science. These individuals prove that black Americans have every opportunity to achieve success within science if they have the drive and the natural talent. What patent or new idea have any of the people in this study contributed to the field of microbiology? Being black doesn't count as a contribution to science, I'm sad to report.
Oh, and don't forget this -- the giant hoovering "diversity" wand:
Iggy
It seems a lot of the talented black undergrads who are interested in science get heavily recruited by medical schools. It is very difficult for biology grad programs to compete.
And about that "racism":
ms
The low numbers of Black people in science is a complex, multi-faceted one. I write this as a minority (Asian-American), middle-aged woman who sits on the board of a nonprofit, international scientific organization. After our international meetings, we always ask for feedback. Out of hundreds of comments, there were 2 asking us why we did not have more scientists of color represented. Setting aside the issue they seem to miss the Asian- and Latinx-American presenters/ moderators as minorities, it did make me pause.We offer scholarships to underrepresented groups (not just ethnic/ racial but scientists from poor/ rural backgrounds) to attend our meetings but selecting who presents or chairs a session is based on their scholarship. Indeed part of the selection process is blinded and based on reading abstracts with no names/ identifying information. So I don't really know how to resolve that: quality is and should remain the top factor.
The problem goes all the way back to elementary school science education and the environment kids are raised in. On the one hand, young students suffer from poor science education and prejudice from teachers but on the other hand, the people surrounding the young person also needs to support them. In my family, education was stressed and my mom taught me you can learn/ look up to anyone: they did not need to look like you. Also, my community considered high grades "cool". I am not sure how to solve these issues.
Oh, and another reality. Wanna go nowhere in science right now? Be a white guy.
SteveRR
The pipeline for students of color to progress from undergrad to PhD's are filled with folks and institutions tripping over themselves trying to encourage qualified folks of color to start and then finish STEM fields.We do a disservice to all communities of color when we trot out the old tropes about lack of opportunity and unwelcoming environments.
Many communities of color do not value education - and especially advanced education. And if I hear another anecdote about someone touching someone's hair without permission I may just scream.
The problem isn't insufficient diversity in STEM fields. The problem is too many people with "studies" degrees trying to make a name for themselves.
Conan the Grammarian at September 30, 2020 7:51 AM
The average IQ of US Blacks is 85 (https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf), that of African Blacks is even lower.
The number of Blacks who will have an IQ of 130 or more, 2 deviations or so out from the mean, which predicts an ability to be competitive in a STEM field is going to be vanishingly small.
The few Blacks who do well in STEM are the extreme outliers.
A careful reading of the NY Times article shows that the featured Black "scientists" are primarily known for their activism and participation in the diversity communities and their contribution to the Grievance Study literature, not for their scientific contributions. In short, most of them are quota hires, and their white and Asian colleagues know this, but are constrained from openly stating this. Blacks are over represented in government jobs and universities because they are given special preferences and because these are sheltered communities where the ability to do a job well does not factor into one's perfomance score.
Daniel Wallach at September 30, 2020 8:58 AM
It's a problem in the educational pipeline from K through 12, not a problem of insufficient willingness of universities to admit and educate minority STEM students or of employers unwilling to hire qualified minority applicants. Hard to believe that the professionals quoted in the NYT don't understand this completely.
I remember about 8 or so years ago reading an article about law schools lower admission standards for black and hispanic students. The activists cry out that there is not proportional (or higher) representation in the law school student body. Nobody wants to keep the statistics, or to discuss them, but this article did so in discussing the U of Michigan: in the prior year, the number of black law school applicants in the entire country who achieved the minimum GPA and LSAT for UM standards was shockingly low. In fact, UM would have had to attract every single one of those students in order to fulfill their diversity goals! Needless to say, those same minority students are being wooed by EVERY elite law school in the country.
I feel for all the poor kids born into stressed families, living in stressed neighborhoods, going to stressed public schools. I really do. There but for the grace of G-d/dumb luck go I. Their chances of becoming microbiologists are very slim. Those activists who want to force quota-like changes at the university level know damn good and well that their energies would actually make a difference if they used their time, talent, and fundraising to directly interact with the public school kids.
RigelDog at September 30, 2020 10:35 AM
The problem starts at birth. Differences in how kids are raised, what sorts of opportunities they have, etc.
It's like the summer vacation gap. Wealthy kids (and white kids skew wealthier) have gone to specialty summer camps, or museums, or traveling, or read a lot of books and come to school with more knowledge, where as disadvantaged kids who didn't get the same enrichment fall further behind.
There was a corona gap, too. There were parents who took kids outdoors, checked out insects and leaves, read books, did puzzles, and then there were kids who played video games for six weeks.
The reality is home environment is much more important than school. Sure some kids can rise above that. Most can't.
NicoleK at September 30, 2020 11:53 AM
At u of Montana, they have a diversity goal of X blacks--they would have to attract every single black person of all ages (children too) in Montana to reach that goal.
There is a cultural problem: books are not a thing in black households.
cc at September 30, 2020 5:25 PM
OTOH. Right now the Lakers are up 95 - 75 over the Miami Heat in Game 1 of the NBA Finals.
Spiderfall at September 30, 2020 8:14 PM
This is not my own, but bears re-posting.
Life is a multi-generational intelligence test, and blacks are not high scorers. They had a head start over everyone else, yet never accomplished anything significant. No human group that advanced further than the neolithic stage of technological and cultural develechnology Every human group that has developed an advanced culture and has Neanderthal, Dennisovian or possibly homo erectus ancestry. This excludes sub Saharan Africans.
No pre-contact sub Saharan African society ever created a written language, or weaved cloth, or forged steel, or invented the wheel, or plow, or devised a calendar, or code of laws, or system of measurement, or math, or built a multi-story structure, or sewer, or drilled a well, or irrigated, or created any agriculture, or built a road, or sea-worthy vessel. They never domesticated animals, or exploited underground natural resources, or produced anything that could be considered a mechanical device.
Sub Saharan Africans were still living in the Stone Age when Europeans and Asians made contact with them them.
Sub Saharan Blacks are the oldest human group, so they should be the most advanced — but they never advanced at all. Every technology they have is the result of cultural diffusion from Europe and the Near East.
People of Sub Saharan African descent lived alone in Africa, a vast continent with temperate climates and abundant resources for 60,000 years so they cannot blame slavery, racism, colonialism, culture, environment, or anything else for their failures.
Simply, life is an IQ test, and to reiterate people of Sub Saharan African descent have not achieved high scores, and even today the areas they dominate are anarchic and characterized by violence at the street level and corruption at the governmental level.
Mark Jones at October 1, 2020 11:18 AM
" No human group that advanced further than the neolithic stage of technological and cultural develechnology"
Sorry
This should read
"No human group that advanced further than the neolithic stage of technological and cultural development lived in Sub Saharan Africa."
Mark Jones at October 1, 2020 11:25 AM
An interesting side note on what Mark said (and he is right): Ethiopia, which is NOT sub-saharan but north of it, originated smelting of iron first, domesticated coffee and other crops plus and goats and sheep etc. Quite a difference.
However, Mark is not entirely right. Africans have herded cattle for a long time and have had native gardens. It is low level agriculture though.
A very interesting study found that traits of self-control (being able to plan and wait --opposite of impulsive) are higher the longer a human group had agriculture. The argument is that without self-control and planning you fail at farming. You eat all the cows and don't have any to breed, don't store enough grain, etc. I find this quite plausible.
cc at October 1, 2020 2:30 PM
A very interesting study found that traits of self-control (being able to plan and wait --opposite of impulsive) are higher the longer a human group had agriculture. The argument is that without self-control and planning you fail at farming. You eat all the cows and don't have any to breed, don't store enough grain, etc. I find this quite plausible.
cc at October 1, 2020 2:30 PM
They are also much higher in colder climates for the obvious reasons. It is one kind of agriculture to be able to pick fruit and plants and graze livestock year round, like in Polynesia. Quite another to grow enough, and preserve it and feed your livestock and kids through 8 months of winter.
The people in Northern Europe who failed at at, and also failed to defend their resources, failed to pass on their genes.
This is why intelligence tests tend to favor those who can see three or four possible consequences ahead.
Isab at October 1, 2020 3:16 PM
According to the UN, Ethiopia is sub-Saharan.
Sub-Saharan Africa: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, United Republic of Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Conan the Grammarian at October 1, 2020 3:51 PM
@ cc
"However, Mark is not entirely right. Africans have herded cattle for a long time and have had native gardens. It is low level agriculture though."
The cattle stock of the Bantu and other African herders originated in the near East. How cattle and sheep were introduced into Africa and were acquired by Africans remains incompletely understood, though this article states herd animals arrived in Africa about 2000 years ago, and herding skills spread down from the north via cultural diffusion.
https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-how-livestock-made-its-way-to-southern-africa-64256
African agriculture never progressed beyond the dibble.
What no one in academia seems to be discussing is that the Neanderthals and Denisovians would require a culture and technology similar to that of the Inuit or pre-contact native North Americans to survive northern European and Central Asian winters.
If those early humans were not smart enough to control fire, build shelters, make clothing, especially leggings and shoes, store food (make jerky or pemmican and store root vegetables), winter would have killed them off pretty damn fast.
They would also have to have had the ability to deal with and compete with wolves. A wolf pack is a fearsome predator that has a fairly decent collective intelligence.
I bet competition with wolves as a big spur to the evolution of human intelligence. The invention of archery and domestication of the horse and development of riding skills are probably what gave people the edge over wolves.
Jerry F. at October 1, 2020 8:32 PM
If you link to this on Facebook, its admins will prohibit it as "SPAM" AND remove the post you are replying to from your timeline.
You MUST recite the "woke" line.
Radwaste at October 2, 2020 8:44 AM
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