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Transracialism
April 28, 2020 6:38 am / 3 Comments on Transracialism
Rachael Dolezal attracted media attention in 2015 since she, as a white women, presented and 'acted' what Americans would describe as (the socialrace) "black." She was the former chapter president for the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and former Africana studies instructor; when it was discovered that she had two white parents she resigned from the chapter. Her white parents then came out and said that she was "passing as black." And, from looking at her appearance, one would be hardpressed to say that she did NOT look black and that she DID NOT attempt to make her appearance LOOK what the average American would describe as (the socialrace) "black." In any case, though, the controversy is an interesting one: should she be able to self-identify as black, even though none of her (recent) ancestors derive from the African continent? I will discuss Quayshawn Spencer's (2019) take on the Dolezal controversy then I will discuss my own thoughts on the matter.
The earliest use of the term "transracialism" I can find is from 2004, from Overall (2004) who states that transracialism is the "use of surgery to assist individuals to "cross" from being a member of one race to being a member of another" and that, if it is "morally acceptable" for one to have a surgery to have the sex they feel they should be, then it should be morally acceptable for one to have a surgery to change their race. (With this, I am reminded of the South Park episode where Kyle wanted to be black and play basketball so he went and got a "Negroscopy.") Others, though, argue that transracialism does not exist (Botts, 2018). In any case, transracialism can be defined as the feeling of being a race other than what society has said your race is—even though, by attempting to "pass" as another race, society may see the individual in question as "black", for example.
If one is black in America then, surely, there is a high chance that they have experienced what it is like TO BE, black in America, socially. In this specific case, has Dolezal ever experienced any sort of racial discrimination based on how she looks and presents herself, as a black woman? She claims to have been the victim of anti-black hate crimes by police, went to a HBCU (historically black college university) and, as stated, has changed her appearance in order to give off the "aura" that she is black, by tightly curling her and lightly tanning her skin—what black Americans would term a "high-yellow." Her ex-husband is black. She ticks off the "black/African American" box on job applications. So, knowing all of this about Dolezal, and how she presents herself to the public, is she "black" socially?
"I was actually identified when I was doing human rights work in north Idaho as first transracial" Dolezal, 2015
When Dolezal filed anti-black hate crimes with the Spokane police, she was asked about her experience and then the reporter asked her if she was black. Dolezal responded by then ending the interview. Then, ABC found her birth parents who admitted that she was true of Caucasian (European) descent. Case closed? But wait: Dolezal eventually admitted that she was indeed born white, even though she used the terms "black" and "African American" to describe herself.
One debate was about whether Dolezal could accurately claim to be racially Black without posessing what was called Black ancestry in the conversation. 50 Furthermore, this debate was at least partially motivated by a genuine concern about whether Dolezal was taking away educational or employment opportunities that were intended for people with Black ancestry. For example, during Dolezal's interview on The Real, co-host Loni Love said that she didn't care about how Dolezal racially identified, but she did care about whether Dolezal marked 'Black' on her college applications because that act could have taken away scholarship money from a student with Black ancestry. 51 Interestingly, Dolezal said that Howard's college application didn't ask about race, but she did say that she marked 'Black' on her job application to Spokane's Office of Police Ombudsman Commission. Furthermore, Dolezal said she marked 'Black' because "we all have human origins in Africa." (Spencer, 2019: 252)
However, even though Dolezal may be "black-passing", under her carefully constructed persona, she does look like a typical white American woman—indeed, I have seen many white women with hair like hers (not all had their hair done to look that way, either). In a 2015 interview, her adopted brother said that what Dolezal was doing was "blackface." He recalls:
"She told me not to blow her cover about the fact that she had this secret life or alternate identity," Ezra Dolezal said Saturday. "She told me not to tell anybody about Montana or her family over there. She said she was starting a new life … and this one person over there was actually going to be her black father."
Let's say that Dolezal did do this; she 'constructed' herself a fake 'family' where she has a black mother, black father and black siblings. She then goes out with them and the public sees them together. Rachael, by extension of being with her family, is now treated as "black"—since being "black" in America is social—is she now "black"? BUT, Dolezal seemed to be using "white privilege" when she would attempt to "black-pass" when convenient while "white-pass" when convenient—for instance, when she sued Brown for discriminating against her because she is white! Did she mark "black" on this application and then sue for being discriminated against for being white?
An example of this debate can be found once again during Dolezal's interview on The Real. In that interview, co-host Tamar Braxton expressed exactly [the concern that Dolezal is a 'race-shifter'] when she asked whether Dolezal thought she had "walked the walk of a Black woman." Interestingly, Dolezal responded, "Absolutely," and followed that up with, "the police mark 'Black' on my traffic tickets." (Spencer, 2019: 253)
But it is easy to show that Dolezal's claim about us all having African ancestry so there is nothing wrong with her putting "black" on employment forms and whatnot—racial membership is about "genomic ancestry, not ancestry simpliciter" (Spencer, 2019: 277, note 52). All living humans have African ancestry but not all living humans have genomic African ancestry. While the social is involved in OMB race theory, other conditions need to hold for one to be a member of a race.
Those that appear and present themselves as white are still considered black (Ginsberg, 1996; Hobbs, 2016). One could, for example, imagine an extremely light-skinned black—say like Beyonce—and ALMOST say "Oh, she's white", but something is off about the appearance, she does not look what the average American would term WHITE and so, after more inspection, she is—rightly—deemed 'black.' Thus, just because one presents themselves as a certain race, this does not mean that they ARE or BECOME that race. Race is NOT like a costume that one can choose to dress in and take it off at the end of the day—and while RACE is, partly, about one's lived experiences in a racialized society, it is also about how society treats the individual they have deemed to be a certain race as well. While people are torn on Dolezal, the fact remains that she has altered her appearance considerably enough to "pass for" black.
'White-passing blacks', of course, have a ton of white (European) ancestry—which is how they can have light skin while still keep certain prominent 'black' features, such as the lips and nose. One story of a family that 'white-passed' is given in A Chosen Exile:
In California, the young woman passed as white. She married a white man, and they had children who never knew they had black blood. Then, one day, years later, her phone rang.
It was the woman's mother with distressing news: Her father was dying, and she needed to return home immediately to tell him goodbye.
The cousin replied, "I can't. I'm a white woman now."
She missed her father's funeral, and never saw her mother or siblings again.
Did this woman all of a sudden become white since she disavowed her family since she is "a white woman now?" If society treats her as 'white', is she white, disregarding her racial ancestry? Using Hardimon's (2017) socialrace, yes, she would then be 'white' in America—but she, biologically, would still be 'black.'
Asian eyes, white eyes?
Stories like this make me think back to a book I read in the seventh grade called Goodbye Vietnam (Whelan, 1993). From what I recall in the book all those years ago, the Vietnamese girl described Asians getting surgeries to change their eyelids (called a blepharoplasty) so they can 'white-pass', which would be 'transracialism' under Overall's (2004) definition. Take this story from a plastic surgeon:
Millard first considered altering the human eye while reconstructing eyebrows for burn victims. He began to keenly study the eye, socket, and folds, musing how to change it from "Oriental to Occidental."
Upon researching the operation, Millard found that surgeons in Japan, Hong Kong, and even Korea were already performing double-eyelid procedures for both medical and cosmetic reasons. Unable to find any publications about the surgery that were written in English, Millard devised his own operation. He decided to raise the nasal bridge and widen the eyes to reduce the "Asian-ness" of his patient's visage. Millard first transplanted cartilage to the nose. He then tore the inner fold of the eyelid, removed fat resting above the eye, and sutured folds of skin together, creating a double eyelid. The interpreter was pleased with Millard's work, and reported that after the operation, his ethnicity was often mistaken for Italian or Mexican.
For example, Kaw (1993: 75) writes that "the attempts by Asian American women to get the double-eyelid surgery "is an attempt to escape persisting racial prejudice that correlates their stereotyped genetic physical features ("small, slanty" eyes and a "flat" nose) with negative behavioral characteristics, such as passivity, dullness, and a lack of sociability." The first writings of such a surgery in Asia, though, was in the 18th century, long before a strong European presence on the continent (Nguyen, Hsu, and Din, 2009) but I'm sure one can say that they saw Europeans over the ages and attempted to emulate what they saw. Nevertheless, this does seem to be a good case study into the Asian eyes, white eyes claim—they needed to attempt to 'white-pass' so they would not go to the concentration camps for the Japanese.
This is a good example of transracialism as stated by Overall; they attempted to 'white-pass' but it was for a reason—to live free. They would, presumably, then blend into society as their chosen race (or unchosen race), showing that one can, indeed, change their race by changing their outward appearance since race in America is partly (or fully depending on your view) based on one's physical appearance—one's phenotype, which they have some degree of control over.
Is Dolezal black? No, she is not. She can 'black-pass' all she wants, she can say that "We're all African" all she wants, she can say that police mark her as black all she wants (and while she would be socially 'black', which is what she is going for, she is not 'black' in the OMB way), she can say that she ticks off the "black/African American' box on applications, but this would only very weakly mean that she is 'black.' In virtue of having NO recent African ancestry, Dolezal is NOT black and is, therefore, running around in blackface. One cannot change their biological race, but it may be possible to change their socialrace—which race society says one is.
The many cases one can find on blacks that 'white-pass' and even those blacks that have NO IDEA that they ARE black speaks to the complex nature of 'race' in America. Yes, race is partially socially constructed and if we are going plainly off of how Americans in society state what 'race' is, just based on appearance, one would be hardpressed to say that Dolezal is not 'black'—she 'looks' it, right? So Dolezal can be said to be 'black-passing' just as the woman mentioned above could be said to be 'white-passing'—but this does not CHANGE THEIR RACE!
The case of blepharoplasties is interesting and further lends something to this discussion—certain Asian groups in America, and back home in their countries, attempted to have the double-eyelid surgery in order to change their appearance—some of them doing so to 'white-pass' so that they would not get sent to the concentration camps in America.
Lastly, there was a woman a few years back who had melanin injections in her skin and had botox and whatnot to change the appearance of her lips—her change is shocking, to say the least, and is an example of Overall's definition of transracialism.
I did not discuss the Hypatia controversy (Tuvel, 2017) (I will do so in the future), but here is Tuvel's argument:
(1) We accept the following premises about trans people and the rights and dignity to which they are entitled; (2) we also accept the following premises about identities and identity change in general; (3) therefore, the common arguments against transracialism fail, and we should accept that there's little apparent logically coherent reason to deny the possibility of genuine transracialism.
Race, Gender, and the SAT
April 22, 2020 10:20 pm / 8 Comments on Race, Gender, and the SAT
IQ-ists like to talk about the correlation between "IQ" tests and scholastic achievement tests like the SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test) and how this is one piece of evidence for the 'validity' of IQ—the same kinds of score distributions noted on the SAT are also noted in the 'standard IQ tests.' However, a confusion rests with the IQ-ists. They, circularly, point to the fact that there is a high correlation between "IQ tests" and the SAT. But what they fail to realize—and what I rarely see discussed—is the process of item selection and removal has a strong impact on scores. Such score differences are, indeed, built-in to the SAT, just as they are for IQ.
The SAT was created in 1924 by eugenicist Carl Brigham—one of the psychologists who also worked on the Army Alpha tests. When he created the test, it was called the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Harvard then used the test as an admissions test and then other Ivy League schools used it as a scholarship test. The SAT was developed directly off of the first IQ tests—so they are intricately linked. First, I will talk about gender differences; second I will talk about race differences. Then I will discuss how and why these differences persist.
Gender differences in the SAT
Differences in IQ were built-out of the test (like with Terman's Stanford-Binet test), but for the SAT, items and subtests were directly chosen BECAUSE they showed a gap in knowledge between the two groups. Men have always scored higher on the SAT than women since the test's inception which was due to men's higher math scores while this was partially off-set by women's higher verbal scores. However, the ETS then changed the test in the late 80s, stating that there was then "a better balance for the scores between the sexes" (quoted in Rosser, 1989: 38)—which was an eleven-point score advantage for men. They had added more verbal items that favored men, but they did not add more math items which favored women. BUT, interestingly, girls have higher GPAs than boys.
For example, of all of the SAT math questions, the one that produced the largest gender gap was a question in which the win-loss record of a basketball team needed to be computed, which is noted by Rosser (1989: 40-41) in tables 2 and 3:
Interestingly, Rosser (1989: 19) reports that in one county in Maryland, where boys and girls took the same advanced math courses, girls outscored boys academically, but they had SAT-M scores 37-47 points lower than boys. The kinds of items that go onto a test are tried-out on a sample of children, and then the kinds of distributions the constructors want is what they get. For example, by adding/subtracting certain questions and subtests, they can get what they want to see. Rosser (1989) notes that "if the 10 most "pro-boy" items were replaced with items similar to the 10 most "pro-girl" items, boys nationally would outscore girls by about 29 points thus eliminating more than a third of the existing gender gap" (pg 23). Further, for the 1986 SAT, if the ten items that favored boys the most were removed and were replaced by items that favored girls more, then girls would outscore boys by 4 points. In virtue of what was the current test the 'right' one, and what justifies the assumptions of the ETS? But in Rosser's (1989) analysis, "Hispanic" women showed the largest gap while African-American women had the lowest gap when compared with men of their own 'race.' See some examples from the Appendixes on some of the items which showed the most extreme sex differences (pg 156-161):
Looking at types of questions such as these—and understanding how the SAT has evolved regarding gender differences since its inception since the mid-1920s—will understand how and why boys and girls score differently. For, if different assumptions were had on the 'nature' of 'cognitive' differences between boys and girls, more questions favoring girls would be added and then, we would be having a whole different kind of conversation right now.
When it comes to math, though, Niederle and Vesterlund (2010: 140) conclude:
… that competitive pressure may cause gender differences in test scores that exaggerate the underlying gender differences in math skills.
Women are, furthermore, less likely to guess (that is, less likely to risk-take) compared to men. This then translates to the testing environment where a guess is penalized while leaving it blank is not.
The new SAT has disadvantaged female testers; the AEI has stated that such differences have persisted for 50 years. Yes, SAT-M score differences are there, but, as noted above, when children were taught in the same advanced maths classroom, girls outperformed boys but they ended up scoring lower on the SAT-M section than boys—and looking at the SAT-M questions points us to why this paradox occurs. And, to top it all off, the SAT "underpredicts first-year college performance for women and overpredicts for men — thus violating one of the testers' own, specially designed standard of validity" (Mensh and Mensh, 1991: 71).
Race and the SAT
Now, we turn to race and the SAT. Kidder and Rosner (2002) studied 100000 SAT test-takers in 1989 and also included another database of over 200000 people in New York. They examined around 580 SAT questions between the years 1988-89 and noted the percentage of questions that white, black, and Mexican students answered correctly. If 60 percent of whites answered a question correctly and only 20 percent of blacks did, then the racial impact was 40 percent for that question. For 78 verbal items, whites answered 59.8 percent correctly while blacks answered 46.4 percent correctly, for a racial impact of 13.4 (Kidder and Rosner, 2002: 148).
How are such differences explained? Of the six sections on the SAT, the ETS uses one of the sections for experimental test items. By using whites as a reference, if blacks or another group answers more questions correctly than whites, the item is discarded as invalid. Kidder and Rosner (2002) note that for an item with medium difficulty, whites scored 62 percent correctly while blacks answered 38 percent correctly. But, comparing a question with similar difficulty showed that blacks outscored whites by 8 percent, and 9 percent of women outscored men on the same question. Au (2008: 66) explains:
Test designers determined that this question, where African Americans scored higher than hites (and women higher than men), was psychometrically invalid and was not included in future SATs. The reason for this was that ETS bases its test question selection on statistics established by performance averages on previous tests: The students who statistically on average score higher on the SAT did not answer this question correctly enough of the time, while those who statistically on average score lower on the SAT answered this question correctly too often. By psychometric standards this means that this question was an anomaly and therefore was not considered a "valid" or "reliable" test question for a standardized test such as the SAT. White students outperform black students on the SAT. Higher-scoring students, who tend to be white, correctly answer SAT experiemental test questions at higher rates than typically lower scoring students, who tend to be non-White, ensuring that the test question selection process itself has a relf-reinforcing, racial bias.
Rosner, in his article On White Preferences, explains this well:
I don't believe that ETS–the Educational Testing Service, the developer of the SAT and the source of this October 1998 test data–intended for the SAT to be a white preference test. However, the "scientific" test construction methods the company uses inexorably lead to this result. Each individual SAT question ETS chooses is required to parallel the outcomes of the test overall. So, if high-scoring test-takers–who are more likely to be white–tend to answer the question correctly in pretesting, it's a worthy SAT question; if not, it's thrown out. Race and ethnicity are not considered explicitly, but racially disparate scores drive question selection, which in turn reproduces racially disparate test results in an internally reinforcing cycle.
My considered hypothesis is that every question chosen to appear on every SAT in the past ten years has favored whites over blacks. The same pattern holds true on the LSAT and the other popular admissions tests, since they are developed similarly. The SAT question selection process has never, to my knowledge, been examined from this perspective. And the deeper one looks, the worse things get. For example, while all the questions on the October 1998 SAT favored whites over blacks, approximately one-fifth showed huge, 20 percent gaps favoring whites. Skewed question selection certainly contributes to the large test score disparities between blacks and whites.
So, in order to attempt to rectify this situation, the College Board wants to award out "adversity points". Their SAT scores would be compared to their parental SES level and adjustments would then be made to their scores. Further, there was discussion on whether or not to give 230 "bonus points" to blacks, 130 to "Hispanics" and penalize Asians by 50 points.
But why do Asians score slightly higher than whites? Simple: they, too, would be in the group of higher-scoring students and, therefore, the test items would—indirectly—be shaped to them. The same holds for 'Hispanics' and blacks, as Kidder and Rosner note (regarding test questions), and so, the same would hold for Asians and whites. I think such discussions of "bonus points" and penalization on such tests, while a start, does not get to the assumptions so baked-in to these kinds of tests. Such tests are biased in virtue of the content on them—that is, the item content.
Kidder and Rosner (2002: 210) conclude:
… by reminding readers that, based on our empirical findings and review of the educational measurement literature, the process currently used to construct the SAT, LSAT, GRE, and similar tests unintentionally operates to select questions with larger racial and ethnic disparities (favoring Whites).
While, of course, test-prep can be identified as a factor that causes X group to score higher than Y group, other, more valid hypotheses can be—and have been—considered. Analyzing the items on these tests, we see that they are far from 'objective' 'measures' of 'ability.' The IQ-ist will cry that there is some'thing' being measured in virtue of the correlation between the SAT and IQ—but, no 'thing' is being measured by any of these tests (Nash, 1990); they were created for the sole purpose of justifying and reproducing our current social hierarchies (Mensh and Mensh, 1991; Au, 2009; Garisson, 2009).
One needs only to know how such items are selected for inclusion on these tests. Andrew Strenio writes in his book The Testing Trap (1981: 95):
We look at individual questions and see how many people get them right, and which people get them right. We consciously and deliberately select questions so that the kind of people who scored low on the pretest will score low on subsequent tests. We do the same for the middle or high scorers. We are imposing our will on the outcome.
Only one way, though, exists for test constructors to do so—and this is to presuppose, a priori, who the high, middle and low scorers are and construct the test accordingly.
Take a thought experiment in a world in which our society was reversed. Blacks outscored whites and had better life prospects and the same holds for men and women. The hereditarians in this imagined world would then see that the scores on these tests correlated with smaller brain sizes, a lower amount of neurons, and whatnot. What, then, could the test constructors say justify how women and blacks scored higher than men and whites?
Though these are 35-year-old questions, I fail to see why there would be any changes in 2020—test construction has not changed. Such assumptions are, as argued at-length, built into the test. The outcome of these tests, of course, is determined by the nature of the content of the test—the test's questions. IQ-ists, then, point to the score differentials between groups (men/women, blacks/whites, etc) and then say "See! There are differences so we are not all-the-same-blank-slates!" But statements like this fail to appreciate how tests are constructed—they believe that these tests are 'objective "measures"' and that it, in a way, shows one's 'genetic potential'—and this claim is false.
If the nature of the test's questions—which items are chosen for inclusion on the test—are determined by test constructors and the experimental questions on the SAT—of which whites are more likely to score higher—then it will indeed follow (and empirical evidence shows this) that what drives such large score disparities between whites and blacks on the SAT is, in fact, biased test questions. The same, too, holds for the differences between men and women. Change the assumptions, change the nature and the outcome of the test, then change what you study to 'find' the differences 'causing' such test score differences between groups. Hopefully, putting it in this way will show the absurdity of using biased tests to show that 'biology' is somehow responsible for score differences between groups.
Such inequalities in standardized test scores like the SAT—just like IQ—then, is structured into the test itself—so, tests like this only reproduce the differences between groups that they claim to 'measure'—which is a circular claim. Studies like this show the folly of thinking that one group is 'genetically smarter' than another—which is what the hereditarians set out to prove. Too bad they have no meausuring unit, object of measurment or measured object.
Chinese IQ, Cheating, Immigrant Hyper-Selectivity and East Asian "Genetic Superiority"
April 19, 2020 8:36 am / 8 Comments on Chinese IQ, Cheating, Immigrant Hyper-Selectivity and East Asian "Genetic Superiority"
The East Asian race has been held up as what a high "IQ" population can do and, along with the correlation between IQ and standardized testing, "HBDers" claim that this is proof that East Asians are more "intelligent" than Europeans and Africans. Lynn (2006: 114) states that the average IQ of China is 103. There are many problems with such a claim, though. Not least because of the many reports of Chinese cheating on standardized tests. East Asians are claimed to be "genetically superior" to other races as regards IQ, but this claim fails.
Chinese IQ and cheating
Differences in IQ scores have been noted all over China (Lynn and Cheng, 2013), but generally, the consensus is, as a country, that Chinese IQ is 105 while in Singapore and Hong Kong it is 103 and 107 respectively (Lynn, 2006: 118). To explain the patterns of racial IQ scores, Lynn has proposed the Cold Winters theory (of which a considerable response has been mounted against it) which proposes that the harshness of the environment in the ice age selected-for higher 'general intelligence' in East Asian and European populations; such a hypothesis is valid to hereditarians since East Asian ("Mongoloids" as Lynn and Rushton call them) consistently score higher on IQ tests than Europeans (eg Lynn and Dzobion, 1979; Lynn, 1991; Herrnstein and Murray, 1994). In a recent editorial in Psych, Lynn (2019) criticizes this claim from Flynn (2019):
While northern Chinese may have been north of the Himalayas during the last Ice Age, the southern Chinese took a coastal route from Africa to China. They went along the Southern coast of the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia before they arrived at the Yangzi. They never were subject to extreme cold.
In response, Lynn cites Frost's (2019) article where he claims that "mean intelligence seems to have risen during recorded history at temperate latitudes in Europe and East Asia." Just-so storytelling about how and why such "abilities" were "selected-for", the Chinese score higher on standardized tests than whites and blacks, and this deserves an explanation (the Cold Winters Theory fails; it's a just-so story).
Before continuing, something must be noted about Lynn and his Chinese IQ data. Lynn ignores numerous studies on Chinese IQ—Lynn would presumably say that he wants to test those in good conditions and so disregards those parts of China with bad environmental conditions (as he did with African IQs). Here is a collection of forty studies that Lynn did not refer to—some showing that, even in regions in China with optimum living conditions, IQs below 90 are found (Qian et al, 2005). How could Lynn miss so many of these studies if he has been reading into the matter and, presumably, keeping up with the latest findings in the field? The only answer to the question is that Richard Lynn is dishonest. (I can see PumpkinPerson claiming that "Lynn is old! It's hard to search through and read every study!" to defend this.)
Although the Chinese are currently trying to stop cheating on standardized testing (even a possible seven-year prison sentence, if caught cheating, does not deter cheating), cheating on standardized tests in China and by the Chinese in America is rampant. The following is but a sample of what could be found doing a cursory search on the matter.
One of the most popular ways of cheating on standardized tests is to have another person take the exam for you—which is rampant in China. In one story, as reported by The Atlantic, students can hire "gunmen" to sit-in on tests for them, though measures are being taken to fight back against that such as voice recognition and finger-printing. It is well-known that much of the cheating on such tests are being done by international students.
Even on the PISA—which is used as an "IQ" proxy since they correlate highly (.89) (Lynn and Mikk, 2009)—though, there is cheating. For the PISA, each country is to select, at random, 5,000 of their 15-year-old children around the country and administer the PISA—they chose their biggest provinces which are packed with universities. Further, score flucuations attract attention which indicates dishonesty. In 2000, more than 2000 people protested outside of a university to protest a new law which banned cheating on tests.
The rift amounted to this: Metal detectors had been installed in schools to route out students carrying hearing or transmitting devices. More invigilators were hired to monitor the college entrance exam and patrol campus for people transmitting answers to students. Female students were patted down. In response, angry parents and students championed their right to cheat. Not cheating, they said, would put them at a disadvantage in a country where student cheating has become standard practice. "We want fairness. There is no fairness if you do not let us cheat," they chanted. (Chinese students and their parents fight for the right to cheat)
Surely, with rampant cheating on standardized tests in China (and for Chinese Americans), we can trust the Chinese IQ numbers in light of the news that there is a culture of cheating on tests in China and in America.
"Genetic superiority" and immigrant hyper-selectivity
Strangely, some proponents of the concept of "genetic superiority" and "progressive evolution" still exist. PumpkinPerson is one of those proponents, writing articles with titles like "Genetically superior: Are East Asians more socially intelligent too?, More evidence that East Asians are genetically superior, Oriental populations: Genetically superior, even referring to a fictional character on a TV show as a "genetic superior." Such fantastical delusions come from Rushton's ridiculous claim that evolution may be progressive and that some populations are, therefore, "more evolved" than others:
One theoretical possibility is that evolution is progressive and that some populations are more "advanced" than others. Rushton, 1992
Such notions of "evolutionary progress" and "superiority"—even back in my "HBD" days—never passed the smell test to me. In any case, how can East Asians be said to be "genetically superior"? What do "superior genes" or a "superior genome" look like? This has been outright stated by, for example, Lynn (1977) who prolcaims—for the Japanese—that his "findings indicate a genuine superiority of the Japanese in general intelligence." This claim, though, is refuted by the empirical data—what explains East Asian educational achievement is not "superior genes", but the belief that education is paramount for upward social mobility, and so, to preempt discrimination, this would then be why East Asians overperform in school (Sue and Okazaki, 1990).
Furthermore, the academic achievement of Asian cannot be reduced to Asian culture—the fact that they are hyper-selected is why social class matters less for Asian Americans (Lee and Zhou, 2017).
These counterfactuals illustrate that there is nothing essential about Chinese or Asian culture that promotes exceptional educational outcomes, but, rather, is the result of a circular process unique to Asian immigrants in the United States. Asian immigrants to the United States are hyper-selected, which results in the transmission and recreation of middle-class specific cultural frames, institutions, and practices, including a strict success frame as well as an ethnic system of supplementary education to support the success frame for the second generation. Moreover, because of the hyper-selectivity of East Asian immigrants and the racialisation of Asians in the United States, stereotypes of Asian-American students are positive, leading to 'stereotype promise', which also boosts academic outcomes
Inequalities reproduce at both ends of the educational spectrum. Some students are assumed to be low-achievers and undeserving, tracked into remedial classes, and then 'prove' their low achievement. On the other hand, others are assumed to be high-achievers and deserving of meeting their potential (regardless of actual performance); they are tracked into high-level classes, offered help with their coursework, encouraged to set their sights on the most competitive four-year universities, and then rise to the occasion, thus 'proving' the initial presumption of their ability. These are the spill-over effects and social psychological consequences of the hyper-selectivity of contemporary Asian immigration to the United States. Combined with the direct effects, these explain why class matters less for Asian-Americans and help to produce exceptional academic outcomes. (Lee and Zhou, 2017)
The success of second-generation Chinese Americans has, too, been held up as more evidence that the Chinese are 'superior' in their mental abilities—being deemed 'model minorities' in America. However, in Spain, the story is different. First- and second-generation Chinese immigrants score lower than the native Spanish population on standardized tests. The 'types' of immigrants that have emigrated has been forwarded as an explanation for why there are differences in attainments of Asian populations. For example, Yiu (2013: 574) writes:
Yet, on the other side of the Atlantic, a strikingly different story about Chinese immigrants and their offspring – a vastly understudied group – emerges. Findings from this study show that Chinese youth in Spain have substantially lower educational ambitions and attainment than youth from every other nationality. This is corroborated by recently published statistics which show that only 20 percent of Chinese youth are enrolled in post-compulsory secondary education, the prerequisite level of schooling for university education, compared to 40 percent of the entire adolescent population and 30 percent of the immigrant youth population in Catalonia, a major immigrant destination in Spain (Generalitat de Catalunyan, 2010).
… but results from this study show that compositional differences across immigrant groups by class origins and education backgrounds, while substantial, do not fully account for why some groups have higher ambitions than others. Moreover, existing studies have pointed out that even among Chinese American youth from humble, working-class origins, their drive for academic success is still strong, most likely due to their parents' and even co-ethnic communities' high expectations for them (e.g., Kao, 1995; Louie, 2004; Kasinitz et al., 2008).
The Chinese in Spain believe that education is a closed opportunity and so, they allocate their energy elsewhere—into entrepreneurship (Yiu, 2013). So, instead of Asian parents pushing for education, they push for entrepreneurship. What this shows is that what the Chinese do is based on context and how they perceive how they will be looked at in the society that they emigrate to. US-born Chinese immigrants are shuttled toward higher education whereas in the Netherlands, the second-generation Chinese have lower educational attainment and the differences come down to national context (Noam, 2014). The Chinese in the U.S. are hyper-selected whereas the Chinese in Spain are not and this shows—the Chinese in the US have a high educational attainment whereas they have a low educational attainment in Spain and the Netherlands—in fact, the Chinese in Spain show lower educational attainment than other ethnic groups (Central Americans, Dominicans, Morrocans; Lee and Zhou, 2017: 2236) which, to Americans would be seen as a surprise
Second-generation Chinese parents match their intergenerational transmission of their ethnocultural emphasis on education to the needs of their national surroundings, which, naturally, affects their third-generation children differently. In the U.S., adaptation implies that parents accept the part of their ethnoculture that stresses educational achievement. (Noam, 2014: 53)
So what explains the higher educational attainment of Asians? A mixture of culture and immigrant (hyper-) selectivity along with the belief that education is paramount for upward mobility (Sue and Okazaki, 1990; Hsin and Xie, 2014; Lee and Zhou, 2017) and the fact that what a Chinese immigrant chooses to do is based on national context (Noam, 2014; Lee and Zhou, 2017). Poor Asians do indeed perform better on scholastic achievement tests than poor whites and poor 'Hispanics' (Hsin and Xie, 2014; Liu and Xie, 2016). Teachers even favor Asian American students, perceiving them to be brighter than other students. But what are assumed to be cultural values are actually class values which is due to the hyper-selectivity of Asian immigrants to America (Hsin, 2016).
The fact that the term "Mongoloid idiot" was coined for those with Down syndrome because they looked Asian is very telling (see Hilliard, 2012 for discussion). But, the IQ-ists switched from talking about Caucasian superiority to Asian superiority right as the East began their economic boom (Liberman, 2001). The fact that there were disparate "estimates" of skulls in these centuries points to the fact such "scientific observations" are painted with a cultural brush. See eg table 1 from Lieberman (2001):
This tells us, again, that our "scientific objectivity" is clouded by political and economic prejudices of the time. This allows Rushton to proclaim "If my work was motivated by racism, why would I want Asians to have bigger brains than whites?" Indeed, what a good question. The answer is that the whole point of "HBD race realism" is to denigrate blacks, so as long as whites are above blacks in their little self-made "hierarchy" no such problem exists for them (Hilliard, 2012).
Note how Rushton's long debunked- r/K selection theory (Anderson, 1991; Graves, 2002) used the current hierarchy and placed dozens of traits on a hierarchy where it was M > C > N (Mongoloids, Caucasoids, and Negroids respectively, to use Rushton's outdated terminology). It is a political statement to put the 'Mongoloids' at the top of the racial hierarchy; the goal of 'HBD' is to denigrate blacks. But, do note that in the late 19th to early 20th century that East Asians were deemed to have small brains, large penises, and that Japanese men, for instance, would "debauch their [white] female classmates" (quoted in Hilliard, 2012: 91).
The "IQ" of China (along with scores on other standardized tests such as TIMMS and PISA), in light of the scandals occurring regarding standardized testing should be suspect. Richard Lynn has failed to report dozens of studies that show low IQ scores for China, thusly inflating their scores. This is, yet again, another nail in the coffin for the 'Cold Winter Theory', since the story is formulated on the basis of cherry-picked IQ scores of children. I have noted that if we have different assumptions that we would have different evolutionary stories. Thus, if the other data were provided and, say, Chinese IQ were found to be lower, we would just create a story to justify the score. This is illustrated wonderfully by Flynn (2019):
I will only say that I am suspicious of these because none of us can go back and really evaluate environment and mating patterns. Given free reign, I can supply an evolutionary scenario for almost any pattern of current IQ scores. If blacks had a mean IQ above other races I could posit something like this: they benefitted from exposure to the most rigorous environmental conditions possible, namely, competition from other people. Thanks to greater population pressures on resources, blacks would have benefitted more from this than any of those who left at least for a long time. Those who left eventually became Europeans and East Asians.
The hereditarians point to the academic success of East Asians in America as proof that IQ tests 'measure' intelligence, but East Asians in America are a hyper-selected sample. As the references I have provided show, second-generation Chinese immigrants show lower educational attainments than other ethnies (the opposite is true in America) and this is explained by the context that the immigrant family finds themselves in—where do you allocate your energy? Education or entrepreneurship? Such choices seem to be class-based due to the fact education is championed by the Chinese in America and not in Spain and the Netherlands—then dictate, and they also refute any claims of 'genetic superiority'—they also refute, for that matter, the claim that genes matter for educational attainment (and therefore IQ)—although we did not need to know this to know that IQ is a bunk 'measure'.
So if Chinese cheat on standardized tests, then we should not accept their IQ scores; the fact that they, for example, provide non-random children from large provinces speaks to their dishonesty. They are like Lynn, in a way, avoiding the evidence that IQ scores are not what they seem—both Lynn and the Chinese government are dishonest cherry-pickers. The 'fact' that East Asian educational attainment can be attributed to genes is false; it is attributed to hyper-selectivity and notions of class and what constitutes 'success' in the country they emigrate to—so what they attempt is based on (environmental) context.
Superiority, Psychometrics, and Measurement
April 16, 2020 10:49 pm / 6 Comments on Superiority, Psychometrics, and Measurement
In a conversation with an IQ-ist, one may eventually find themselves discussing the concept of "superiority" or "inferiority" as it Regards IQ. The IQ-ist may say that only critics of the concept of IQ place any sort of value-judgments on the number one gets when they take an IQ test. But if the IQ-ist says this, then they are showing their ignorance regarding the history of the concept of IQ. The concept was, in fact, formulated to show who was more "intelligent"—"superior"—and who was less "intelligent"—"inferior." But here is the thing, though: The terms "superior" and "inferior" are, however, anatomic which shows the folly of the attempted appropriation of the term.
Superiority and inferiority
If one wants to find early IQ-ists talking about superiority and inferiority regarding IQ, they would only need to check out Lewis Terman's very first Stanford-Binet tests. His scales—now in their fifth edition—state that IQs between 120 and 129 are "superior" while 130-144 is "gifted or very advanced" and 145-160 is "very gifted" or "highly advanced." How strange… But, the IQ-ist can say that they were just products of their time and that no serious researcher believes such foolish things, that one is "superior" to another on the basis of an IQ score. What about proximal IQs? Lateral IQs? Posterior IQs? Distal IQs? It's ridiculous to use anatomic terminology (for physical things) and attempt to use them to describe mental "things."
But, perhaps the most famous hereditarian Arthur Jensen, as I have noted, wrongly stated that heritability estimates can be used to estimate one's "genetic standing" (Jensen, 1970) and that if we continue our current welfare policies then we are in danger of creating a "genetic underclass" (Jensen, 1969). This, as does the creation of the concept of IQ in the early 1900s, speaks to the hereditarian agenda and the reason for the IQ enterprise as a whole. (See Taylor, 1980 for a wonderful discussion of Jensen's confusion on the concept of heritability.)
This is no surprise when you understand that IQ tests were created to rank people on a mental hierarchy that reflected the current social hierarchy of the time which would then be used as justification for their spot on the social hierarchy (Mensh and Mensh, 1991). So it is no surprise that anatomic terminology was hijacked in an attempt at forwarding eugenic ideas. But the eugenicists concept of superiority didn't always pan out the way they wanted it to go, which is evidenced a few decades before the conceptualization of standardized testing.
Galton attempted to show that those with the fastest reaction times were more intelligent, but when he found out that the common man had just as quick of a reaction time, he abandoned this test. Then Cattell came along and showed that no relationship existed between sensory perception and IQ scores. Finally, Binet showed that measures of the skull did not correspond with teacher's assessment of who is or is not "intelligent." Then, some decades later, Binet and Simon finally construct a test that discriminates between who they feel is or is not intelligent—which discriminated by social class. This test was finally the "measure" that would differentiate between social classes since it was based on a priori notions of an individual's place in the social hierarchy (Garrison, 2009: 75). Binet and Simon's "ideal city" would use test scores as a basis to shuttle people into occupations they "should be" in on the basis of their IQ scores which would show how they would work based on their "aptitudes" (Mensh and Mensh, 1991: 24; Garrison, 2009: 79). Bazemore-James, Shinaorayoon, and Martin (2017) write that:
The difference in racial subgroup mean scores mimics the intended outcomes of the original standardized IQ tests, with exception to Asian Americans. Such tests were invented in the 1910s to demonstrate the superiority of rich, U.S.-born, White men of northern European Descent over non-Whites and recent immigrants (Gersh, 1987). By developing an exclusion-inclusion criteria that favored the aforementioned groups, test developers created a norm "intelligent" (Gersh, 1987, p. 166) populationiot "to differentiate subjects of known superiority from subjects of known inferiority" (Terman, 1922, p. 656).
So, as one can see, this "superiority" was baked-in to IQ tests from the very start and the value-judgments, then, are not in the minds of IQ critics but is inherent in the scores themselves as stated by the pioneers of IQ testing in America and the originators of the concept that would become IQ. Garrison (2009: 79) writes:
With this understanding it is possible to make sense of Binet's thinking on intelligence tests as group differentiation. That is, the goal was to group children as intelligent and unintelligent, and to grade (value) the various levels of the unintelligent (also see Wolf 1973, 152–154). From the point of view of this goal, it mattered little whether such differences were primarily biological or environmental in origin. The genius of the theory rests in how it postulates one group as "naturally" superior to the other without the assumptions of biology, for reason had already been established as a natural basis for distinction, irrespective of the origin of differences in reasoning ability.
While Binet and Simon were agnostic on the nature-nurture debate, the test items that they most liked were those items that differentiated between social classes the most (which means they were consciously chosen for those goals). But reading about their "ideal city", we can see that those who have higher test scores are "superior" to those who do not. They were operating under the assumption that they would be organizing society along class lines with the tests being measures of group mental ability. For Binet and Simon, it does not matter whether or not the "intelligence he sought to define" was inherited or acquired, they just assumed that it was a property of groups. So, in effect, "Binet and Simon developed a standard whereby the value of people's thinking could be judged in a standard way, in a way that corresponded with the exigencies of social reproduction at that time" (Garrison, 2009: 94). The only thing such tests do is reproduce the differences they claim to measure—making it circular (Au, 2009).
But the whole reason why Binet and Simon developed their test was to rank people from "best" to "worst", "good" to "bad." But, this does not mean that there is some "thing" inherent in individuals or groups that is being "measured" (Nash, 1990). Thus, since their inception, IQ tests (and by proxy all standardized testing) has pronouncements of such ranking built-in, even if it is not explicitly stated today. Such "measures" are not scientific and psychometrics is then shown for what it really is: "best understood as the development of tools for vertical classification and the production of social value" (Garrison, 2009: 5).
The goal, then, of psychometry is clear. Garrison (2009: 12) writes:
Ranking human worth on the basis of how well one competes in academic contests, with the effect that high ranks are associated with privilege, status, and power, suggests that psychometry is premised, not on knowledge of intellectual or emotional development, but on Anglo-American political ideals of rule by the best (most virtuous) and the brightest (most talented), a "natural aristocracy" in Jeffersonian parlance.
But, such notions of superiority and inferiority, as I have stated back in 2018, are nonsense when taken out of anatomic context:
It should be noted that the terms "superior" and "inferior" are nonsensical, when used outside of their anatomic contexts.
An IQ-ist may exclaim "Are you saying that you can't say that person A has superior sprinting ability or breath-holding ability!? Are you denying that people are different?!" No, what I'm saying is that it is absurd to take anatomic terminology (physical measures) and attempt to liken it to IQ—this is because nothing physical is being measured, not least because the mental isn't physical nor reducible to it.
They were presuming to measure one's "intelligence" and then stating that one has 'superior' "intelligence" to another—and that IQ tests were measuring this "superiority". However, pscyhometrics is not a form of measurement—rankings are not measures.
Knowledge becomes reducible to a score in regard to standardized testing, so students, and in effect their learning and knowledge, are then reduced to their scores on these tests. And so, "such inequalities [with the SAT, which holds for all standardized testing] are structured into the very foundations of standardized test construction itself" (Au, 2009: 64). So what is built into a test can also be built out of it (Richardson, 1990, 2000; Hilliard, 2012).
In first constructing its scales and only then preceding to induce what they 'measure' from correlational studies, psychometry has got into the habit of trying to do what cannot be done and doing it the wrong way round anyway. (Nash, 1990: 133)
…psychometry fails to meet its claim of measurement and … its object is not the measurement of nonphysical human attributes, but the marking of some human beings as having more worth or value than other human beings … Psychometry's claim to measurement serves to veil and justify the fundamentally political act of marking social value, and the role this practice plays in legitimating vast social inequalities. (Garrison, 2009: 30-31)
One of the best examples of a valid measure is temperature—and it has a long history (Chang, 2007). It is valid because there is a well-accepted theory of temperature, what is hot and what is cold. It is a physical property of measure which quantitatively expressed heat and cold. So thermometers were invented to quantify temperature, whereas thermometers were invented to quantify "intelligence." Those, like Jensen, attempt to make the analogy between temperature and IQ, thermometers and IQ tests. Thermometers, with a high degree of reliability, measure temperature and so do, Jensen, claims, IQ tests.
So, IQ-ists claim, temperature is measured by thermometers, by definition, therefore intelligence is what IQ tests measure, by definition. But there is a problem with claims such as this. Temperature was verified independently of the measuring device originally used to measure it. Fixed points were first established, and then numerical thermometers could be constructed in which we then find a procedure to assign numbers to degrees of heat between and beyond the fixed points. The thermoscope was what was used for the establishment of fixed points, The thermoscope has no fixed points, so we do not have to circularly rely on the concept of fixed points for reference. And if it goes up and down, we can then rightly infer that the temperature of blood is not stable. But what validates the thermoscope? Human sensation. We can see that when we put our hand into water that is scalding hot, if we put the thermoscope in the same water and note that it rises rapidly. So the thermoscopes agreement with our basic sensations of 'hot' and 'cold' serve as reliability for the fact that thermoscopes reliably justify (in a non-circular way) that temperature is truly being measured. We are trusting the physical sensation we get from whichever surface we are touching, and from this, we can infer that thermoscopes do indeed validate thermometers making the concept of temperature validated in a non-circular manner and a true measure of hot and cold. (See Chang, 2007 for a full discussion on the measurement of temperature.)
Thermometers could be tested by the criterion of comparability, whereas IQ tests, on the other hand, are "validated" circularly with tests of educational achievement, other IQ tests which were not themselves validated. and job performance (Howe, 1997; Richardson and Norgate, 2015; Richardson, 2017) which makes the "validation" circular since IQ tests and achievement tests are different versions of the same test (Schwartz, 1975).
For example, take intro chemistry. When one takes the intro course, they see how things are measured. Chemists may be measuring in mols, grams, the physical state of a substance, etc. We may measure water displacement, reactions between different chemicals or whatnot. And although chemistry does not reduce to physics, these are all actual physical measures.
But the same cannot be said for IQ (Nash, 1990). We can rightly say that one scores higher than another on an IQ tests but that does not signify that some "thing" is being measured and this is because, to use the temperature example again, there is no independent validation of the "construct." IQ is a (latent) construct but temperature is a quantitative measure of hot and cold. It really exists, though the same cannot be said about IQ or "intelligence." The concept of "intelligence" does not refer to something like weight and temperature, for example (Midgley, 2018).
Physical properties are observables. We observe the mercury in a thermometer change based on the temperature inside a building or outside. One may say that we observe "intelligence" daily, but that is NOT a "measure", it's just a descriptive claim. Blood pressure is another physical measure. It refers to the pressure in large arteries of the system. This is due to the heart pumping blood. An IQ-ist may say that intelligence is the emergent product of thinking and that this is due to the brain and that correlations between life outcomes, IQ tests and educational achievements then validate the measure. But, as noted above, this is circular. The two examples given—blood pressure and temperature—are real things that are physically measurable, unlike IQ (a latent construct).
It also should be noted that Eysenck claimed that if the measurement of temperature is scientific, then so is the measurement of intelligence. But thermometers are not identical to standardized scales. However, this claim fails, as Nash (1990: 131) notes:
In order to measure temperature three requirements are necessary: (i) a scale, (ii) some thermometric property of an object and, (iii) fixed points of reference. Zero temperature is defined theoretically and successive interval points are fixed by the physical properties of material objects. As Byerly (p. 379) notes, that 'the length of a column of mercury is a thermometric property presupposes a lawful relationship between the order of length and the temperature order under certain conditions.' It is precisely this lawful relationship which does not exist between the normative IQ scale and any property of intelligence.
This is where IQ-ists go the most wrong: the emphatically state that their tests are measuring SOMETHING! which is important for life success since they correlate with them. Though, there is no precise specification of the measured object, no object of measurement and no measurement unit, so this "means that the necessary conditions for metrication do not exist [for IQ]" (Nash, 1990: 145).
Since IQ tests have a scoring system, the general impressions is that IQ tests measure intelligence just like thermometers measure temperature—but this is a nonsense claim. IQ is an artifact of the test's norming population. These points do not reflect any inherent property of individuals, they reflect one's relation to the society they are in (since all standardized tests are proxies for social class).
One only needs to read into the history of IQ testing—and standardized testing as a whole—to see how and why these tests were first devised. From their beginnings wkth Binet and then over to Terman, Yerkes, and Goddard, the goal has been clear—enact eugenic policies on those deemed "unintelligent" by IQ tests which just so happen to correspond with lower classes in virtue of how the tests were constructed, which goes back originally to Binet and Simon. The history of the concept makes it clear that it's not based on any kind of measurement theory like blood pressure and temperature. It is based on a priori notions of the structure and distribution of "intelligence" which then reproduces the social structure and "justifies" notions of superiority and inferiority on the basis of "intelligence tests" (Mensh and Mensh, 1991; Au, 2009; Garrison, 2009).
The attempts to hijack anatomic terminology, as I have shown, are nonsense since one doesn't talk in other anatomic terminology about other kinds of things; the first IQ-ists' intentions were explicit in what they were attempting to "show" which still holds for all standardized testing today.
Binet, Terman, Yerkes, Goddard and others all had their own priors which then led them to construct tests in such a way that would lead to their desired conclusions. No "property" is being "measured" by these tests, nor can they be used to show one's "genetic standing" (Jensen, 1970) which implies that one is "genetically superior" (this can be justified by reading Jensen's interview with American Renaissance and his comments on the "genetic enslavement" of a group of we continued our welfare policy).
Physiological measures, such as blood pressure, and measures of hot and cold, such as temperature, are valid measures and in no way, shape or form—contra Jensen—like the concept of IQ/"intelligence", which Jensen conflates (Edwards, 1973). Intelligence (which is extra-physical) cannot be measured (see Berka, 1983 and see Nash, 1990: chapter 8 for a discussion of the measurement objection of Berka).
For these reasons, we should not claim that IQ tests 'measure' "intelligence", nor do they measure one's "genetic standing" or how "superior" one is to another and we should claim that psychometrics is nothing more than a political ring.
Musicogenic Epilepsy
April 12, 2020 8:47 am / Leave a comment
I was watching the program Diagnose Me on Discovery Health and a woman kept having seizures whenever she heard a certain type of music—"alternative high-pitched female singing", according to the woman—but her doctors didn't believe her. So her and her husband began looking for specialists who specialize in hard-to-treat epilepsy. He recommended an endocranial EEG (images of such a surgery can be found below), which meant that the top part of her skull would be removed and electrodes would be placed onto the top of her brain. After the electrodes were placed on the brain. they played the music she said triggered her epilepsy—which was "high-pitched female singing"—and she began to seize. The doctor was shocked and he couldn't believe what he saw. They ended up finding out that a majority—not all—of her seizing was coming from the right temporal lobe. So her and her husband had a choice—live with the seizures (which she couldn't because she did not know where she would hear the music) or get part of her brain removed. She chose to have part of her right temporal lobe removed and when it was removed she no longer seized from hearing the music that formerly triggered her symptoms.
The condition is called "musicogenic epilepsy" which is a rare form of what is called "reflex epilepsy"—of which, another similar form involved hitting something which then causes seizing in the patient. (It's called "reflex epilepsy" since the epileptic events occurs after an event—music, hitting something with your foot, seeing something on the television, etc.) This occurs when certain types of music are heard, certain musical notes can trigger electrical brain activity. The cure is to remove the part of the brain that is affecting the patient. (It is worth noting that many individuals throughout the past 100 years have had large sections of their brains removed and had no loss-of-functioning, staying pretty much the same as they were.) It is important to note that the music is not causing the seizures, it is triggering them—it brings them out. Most of the seizing is localized in the right temporal lobe (Kaplan, 2003), further being localized in Heschl's gyrus (Nagahama et al, 2017). This has been noted by a few researchers since last century (Shaw and Hill, 1946; Fujinawa and Kawai, 1978) while the Joan of Arc was said to have her perception scrambled while hearing church bells; a Chinese poet stated that he became "absent-minded" and "sick" when hearing the flute-playing from the street vendor (Murray, 2010: 173).
The condition was first noted by a doctor in 1937, with the first known reference to this form of epilepsy being observed in the 1600s (Kaplan, 2003: 465). It affects about 1 in 10,000,000 people (Ellis, 2017). Critical reviews state not to underestimate the power of anti-epileptic drugs in the treatment and management of musicogenic epilepsy (Maguire, 2012), but in the case described above, such drugs did nothing to cure the woman's seizures that occurred each time she heard a certain kind of music. The effect of music on seizing, it seems, is dichotomous with certain kinds of music either helping manage or causing seizing. The same melody, however, could be played in a different key and not cause seizing (Kaplan and Stoker, 2010) and so, it seems that certain types of sound frequencies influence/screw up the electrical activity in the brain which then leads to seizures of this kind. A specialist in epilepsy explains:
In people with reflex epilepsy, the trigger is extremely specific, and the seizure happens soon thereafter. "It can be a specific song by a particular person or even a specific verse of the song," says Dr. So, who is a past president of the American Epilepsy Society. For some people, the trigger is a touch or motion. "If patients are interrupted in a particular way, if they are walking along and someone steps in front of them, they may have a seizure," says Dr. So. In Japan, seizures caused by video games have been reported, he says, but they are highly unusual.
Dr. So evaluated a woman from Tennessee who began having seizures during church when she heard highly emotional hymns. She would blank out and drop her hymn book. At other times, Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" triggered seizures. The woman had a history of small seizures, but having one while hearing music was a new development. She said the seizures would typically begin with a sense of dread and the feeling that someone was lurking by her side. Dr. So and his Mayo Clinic team attached electrodes to the woman's scalp to study electrical activity while she listened to different types of music. An electroencephalogram (EEG) showed that slow, emotional songs triggered seizure activity in her brain's temporal lobe, while faster tunes did not. Dr. So diagnosed the woman with musicogenic epilepsy, a type of reflex epilepsy where seizures are caused by specific music or types of music, and prescribed antiseizure medication. He says he's had another patient whose seizures were triggered by Rihanna's "Disturbia" and Pharrell Williams' "Happy."
Though musicogenic epilepsy is extremely rare, it may be slightly underreported since many people with the disease may not put two and two together and link their seizing with the type of music or sounds they hear in their day-to-day life. One individual with epilepsy also recounts his experience with this type of rare epilepsy:
… but I still find that certain music, high pitched noise set's off a kind of aura, I feel spaced out, have intense fear and it sounds almost like water rushing and I hear voices.
One case report exists of a man in which his later seizures were induced by music which prompted stress and a bad mood, implying that the aetiology of musicogenic epilepsy involves an association between the seizing and the patient's mental state (Cheng, 2016).
We can see how the endocranial EEG looks and how it gets done (WARNING: GRAPHIC) by referring to Nagahama et al (2019):
Intraoperative photographs demonstrating exposure and intracranial electrode placement. A right frontotemporoparietal craniotomy (A) allowed proper exposure for placement of grid, strip, and depth of electrodes (B), including the HG depth electrode. The sylvian fissure is marked with a dashed line. The HG depth electrode and PT depth electrose are marked with X symbols anteriorly and posteriorly, respectively, at their entry points at the cortical surface. Ant = anterior; inf = inferior; post = posterior; sup = superior.
Intraoperative placement of the HG depth electrode. A: The planning view on the frameless stereotactic system (Stealth Navigation, Medtronic) showing the entry point and the trajectory (green circles and dotted lines). B: The similar planning view showing the target and the trajectory. C and D: Intraoperative photographs showing placement of the HG depth electrode. A Stealth Navigus probe was used to select the appropriate trajectory of a guiding tube positioned over the entry point (C). An electrode-guiding cannula was advanced through the tube to the previously determined depth (D). An actual depth electrode was subsequently passed through the cannula, followed by removal of the guiding tube/cannula system. Note the unique anterolateral-to-posteromedial trajectory within the STP for placement of the HG depth electrode.
The average age of onset of musicogenic epilepsy is 28 (Wieser et al, 1997) while the first cases are not reported until around one's mid-to-late 30s due to the fact that most people are unware that music may be causing their seizures (Pittau et al, 2008; Generalov et al, 2018). This may be due to the fact that seizing may begin several minutes after hearing the music that affects the patient in question (Avanzini, 2003). While the specific tempo and pitch of music seems to have no effect on the beginnings of seizing (Wieser et al, 1997), many patients report that their specific triggers are due to hearing certain lines in songs (Tayah et al, 2006) which implies that it is not the music itself which is causing the seizing, but the emotional response that occurs to the patient after hearing the music and this is supported by the fact that many patients who report such symptoms are interested in music or are musicians themselves (Wieser et al, 1997).
See table 1 from Kaplan (2003: 466) for causes of musicogenic epilepsy in the literature:
As can be seen by the above table, the mood component is related to the musical type; so the music elicits some sort of emotional state in the individual which would, it seems, to be part of the cause which then triggers the seizure—though the music/emotions are not causing the seizing itself, it is bringing them out.
Going to the shops was fraught with danger. Turning on the television was like playing russian roulette. Even getting into a lift was a gamble. For 23 years my life was hugely restricted because I had epileptic fits whenever I heard music.
If it was more than a few notes, a strange humming would start in my head, immediately followed by a seizure. I didn't fall to the ground and twitch, but would wander around in a daze, my heart racing, my mind a blank. I also experienced hallucinations: people around me appeared microscopic and it felt as if I had been captured by an invisible force field. It was a terrifying experience and I felt drained for hours afterwards. (Experience: Music gave me seizures)
One woman describes her experience with musicogenic epilepsy for The Guardian. She did everything she could think of to stop the music-induced seizures—from sticking cotton balls into her ears to stop hearing sounds, to staying inside of the house (in case a car driving by played the type of music that triggered her seizing), to having a silent wedding with no music. She ended up getting referred to a specialist and she got her brain checked out. Come to find out, she had scarring on her right temporal lobe and so, surgery was done to fix it. She was cured from her condition and she could then attend social functions in which music was played.
The brain has the capacity to produce electricity, and so, in certain individuals with certain things wrong with the structure of their brains (like in their right temporal lobe), if they hear a certain kind of music or tune, they may then begin seizing. While the condition is rare (around 150 cases have been noted), strides are being made in discovering how and why such things occur. The only cure, it seems, is to remove the affected part of the brain—the right temporal lobe in a majority of cases. Such operations, however, do not always have the same debilitating effects (i.e., causing loss of mental capacity). That the brain's normal functioning can be affected by sound (music) is very interesting and speaks to the fact that our brains are an enigma which is just beginning to be unraveled.
The Eugenic Thinking of IQ-ists and Criminologists
April 5, 2020 5:22 pm / 21 Comments on The Eugenic Thinking of IQ-ists and Criminologists
In 1969, Arthur Jensen published a bombshell article in the Harvard Educational Review titled How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement? in which he argued that compensatory education has failed (e.g., Headstart) and it, therefore, should be abandoned. Jensen was a big proponent against school integration due to his research on IQ (Tucker, 2002). Tucker (1998) also argued, "that the supposed significance of the genetic influence on IQ has invariably reflected a particular ideological view of the purpose of education and its relation to the state that is rooted in conservative political thought." Such ideological leanings of the IQ-ists have been well-noted (Tucker, 2002; Saini, 2019).(Though it should be noted that school integration didn't cause any negative effects for whites and had many positive effects for blacks, see Nazaryan and Johnson, 2019). Note how the revival of "racial differences in intelligence" in the mainstream occurred after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Such ideological leanings have been incipient in 'intelligence' testing since its inception.
IQ-ists
In any case, what was the ultimate goal of such research into racial/class differences in "intelligence"? The original application of what eventually became tests of "intelligence" were to (1) identify those with learning disabilities and (2) shoe-horn people into jobs "for" them—what Binet called his "ideal city." When IQ tests were brought to America and translated from French to English by Henry Goddard in 1911 and then again by Lewis Terman in 1916. Goddard was hesitant to force sterilization, but he did believe that those his tests designated as "feeble-minded" should not be allowed to bear children.
Proponents of IQ emphatically state that it's not a "measure of superiority" and that it's only the critics who believe that, with no evidence for the claim. However, if one reads Jensen's earliest writings on IQ, they would see that Jensen did, in fact, believe that heritability could estimate one's "genetic standing" (Jensen, 1970) and that if we continue our welfare policy that we would lead a group toward "genetic enslavement" (Jensen, 1969). Jensen ran with racists, so there is a possibility that he himself held similar types of views to the people he ran with. The following quotes show Jensen's eugenic thinking:
"Is there a danger that current welfare policies, unaided by eugenic foresight, could lead to the genetic enslavement of a substantial segment of our population?" – Jensen, 1969: 95, How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?
"What the evidence on heritability tells us is that we can, in fact, estimate a person's genetic standing on intelligence from his score on an IQ test." – Jensen, 1970, Can We and Should We Study Race Difference?
"… the best thing the black community could do would be to limit the birth-rate among the least-able members, which of course is a eugenic proposal." – A Conversation with Arthur Jensen, American Reinnasance, 1992
In a review of Raymond Cattell's Beyondism, Richard Lynn stated:
"What is called for here is not genocide, the killing off of the populations of incompetent cultures. But we do need to think realistically in terms of "phasing out" of such peoples."
I don't see how he's not calling for genocide—genocide is the systemic killing of a specific group of people. Eugenic methods are one way to accomplish this. Richard Lynn's father was a eugenicist, signing his name to a manifesto which asked the question of how the genetic constitution of the world could be improved, per Lynn (see Interview with a pioneer, American Reinassance). Lynn continues:
My father's interests did give me an early appreciation of the importance of genetics, although I think I would have adopted this position anyway since the evidence is irrefutable for a strong genetic determination of intelligence and educational attainment and a moderate genetic determination of personality. More importantly, my father served as a role model for scientific achievement and has given me the confidence to advance theories that have sometimes been controversial.
Lynn stated that he is "very pessimistic" about the future of the West, due to the immigration of individuals from low IQ countries who have a higher birthrate than Westerners along with the supposed dysgenic fertility that American white women are facing. (See Lynn, 1996, 2001 for a discussion and look into these views.) In Dysgenics, Lynn (1996: 2) writes that he hopes "To make the case that in the repudiation of eugenics an important truth has been lost, and to rehabilitate the argument that genetic deterioration is occurring in Western populations and in most of the developed world."
Raymond Cattell was also one who believed that certain people should (voluntarily) be sterilized. He created a religion called "Beyondism" in an attempt to accomplish this goal, his research, in fact, served his eugenic and political beliefs (Tucker, 2009). Compassion was seen as evil to Cattell, which is one major way it strays from other religions. Presumably, one is compassionate to those less fortunate and, therefore, the compassion would help one who Cattell deems "genetically inferior" and so compassion is evil since it leads to the propagation of those Cattell deems less fit. Cattell also stated that, from the perspective of Beyondism, the propagation of 'genetic failures' is "positively evil" (Tucker, 2009: 136). He also coined the term 'genthanasia' which was "phasing out" a "moribund culture … by educational and birth measures, without a single member dying before his time" (Cattell, quoted in Tucker, 2009: 146).
William Shockley "reasoned" that if the problems that blacks face in America are hereditary, then by attempting to halt the reproduction of blacks, there would be less racism against them. Well if there are few people to be racist against, then there would be less racism against those people. Shocking. Further, Shockley wanted to enstate what he called a "Voluntary Sterilization Bonus Plan" where individuals with IQs below 100 would, with each single point below 100, be given $1000—although the plan was never implemented (Hilliard, 2012: 50). He also wanted to institute a sperm bank of 'geniuses' (whatever that means) but, he was never told, women did not want the sperm of Shockley's short, balding self (he was 5'6" weighing 150 pounds)—although he had a 'high IQ' (he was rejected as being one of Terman's Termites)—they wanted the sperm of taller, good-looking men, regardless of their IQ (Hilliard, 2012: 20).
It is worth noting that Shockley precedes Jensen's thinking on race and IQ—Jensen was in the audience of one of Shockley's talks in the late '60s hearing him talk about racial differences in IQ. Psychology was Jensen's second choice; his first was to be a symphony conductor. Hilliard (2012: 51) describes this:
"When Shockley addressed a meeting of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford in the late 1960s, one member of the audience drawn to his discourse was Arthur R. Jensen, a psychologist who taught at the University of California–Berkeley. Jensen, who had described himself as a "frustrated symphony conductor," may have had his own reasons for reverencing Shockley's every word. The younger psychologist had been forced to abandon a career in music because his own considerable talents in that area nevertheless lacked "soul," or the emotional intensity needed to succeed in so competitive a profession. He decided on psychology as a second choice, carrying along with him a grudge against those American subcultures perceived as being "more expressive" than the white culture from which he sprang. Jensen received his bachelor's degree in that field from the University of California– Berkeley in 1945."
Shockley even disowned his son for dating a Costa Rican woman since it would "deteriorate their white gene pool" while describing his children as a "considerable regression", even though they had advanced degrees. He blamed this 'genetic misfortune' on his wife who did not have as high educational attainment as he did (Hilliard, 2012: 49). This man greatly influenced Jensen—and it seems to show in his first writings on IQ—what eventually kicked off the 'IQ debate' (which is frivolous) back in the late 1960s. (James Thompson has said that Shockley wouldn't talk to anyone if he didn't know their IQ—presumably, because he did not want to talk to anyone 'lower' than he. The idiotic 'thinking' of eugenic IQ-ists.
Shockley was involved in a car accident, and received a head injury, with colleagues noting that his views on race and eugenics came about after his car accident (Hilliard, 2012: 48). So, it can rightly be argued that if Shockley would never have gotten into a car accident then he would have never had the views he did on race and IQ, meaning that he would not be speaking for Jensen to be in the audience to then eventually write his infamous 1969 paper. So, the current revival of the race-and-IQ debate can be said to be due to Shockly's influence on Jensen, which is due (in some way) to head injuries sustained during a car accident.
IQ-ists speak of a "genetic deterioration", what is termed "dysgenics" (the opposite of eugenics). Professor Seymour Itzkoff published The Decline of Intelligence in America (Itzkoff, 1994), arguing that the decline in our country's "intelligence" is the cause of our economic and political woes. And, while he does not outright discuss eugenics in the book, he states that higher IQ people are not having children and so the national IQ is decreasing—a dysgenic effect. He is also a recipient of funding from the Pioneer Fund, published in Mankind Quarterly, and was one of the 52 signatories of Mainstream Science on Intelligence (Gottfredson, 1997).
The Decline of Intelligence in America was The Bell Curve before The Bell Curve. Itzkoff argued policy proscriptions, including encouraging certain people to breed and certain people not to breed (eugenics without calling it eugenics). Itzkoff stated that welfare policy is one reason why our "intelligence"—as a nation—has declined (see also Jensen, 1969; Lynn, 2001). Itzkoff (1994: 195) states that "Those at the bottom should be humanely persuaded, with generous gifts if deemed appropriate but for one generation only to refrain from conceiving and having children." So his views are a mixture of Jensen's, Shockley's and others. Itzkoff advocates for both positive and negative eugenics for black Americans. I have not seen any IQ-ist discuss Itzkoff's writings; I will do so in the future.
Philosopher and IQ-ist Jonathon Anomaly (see Winegard, Winegard, and Anomaly, 2020) has a paper in which he 'defends eugenics', even stating what we 'should' (cautiously) do about public policy in relation to eugenic ideas. He speaks of "undesirable genetic endowment", while couching his "moral obligation to produce children with the best chance of the best life" (Anomaly, 2018) "through mechanisms of prenatal screening, enshrined in the principle of procreative beneficence and our responsibility to not pass along an "undesirable genetic endowment" (Love, 2018: 4). (See my arguments to discourage such research here and here.) Presumably, like Itzkoff (1994), such policies will be concentrated on the lower classes, of which minority populations are the majority. Robert Wilson (2019), author of The Eugenic Mind Project writes that Anomaly (2018) fails to argue for eugenics, mischaracterizes eugenics, mischaracterizes the scientific consensus, simplifies and misleads on the history, is careless about race and IQ, appealing for moral principles, and no substance linking demography, eugenics and policy recommendations. Anomaly could hardly contain his negative eugenist views; his views being akin to more traditional, negative forms of eugenics" (Wilson, 2019: 74).
In any case, IQ tests were used as a vehicle for sterilization and barring immigrants into America in the 1920s (Swanson, 1995; Gould, 1996; Wilson, 2017; Dolmage, 2018). In his book The Eugenic Mind Project, Wilson (2017) discusses standpoint eugenics—how eugenic policies affected people and their own personal experiences with eugenic policies. In the book, Wilson argues that, to the eugenicists, there are different 'sorts' of people that can be distinguished from others. Wilson (2017: 48) writes:
This was not, however, the way of human betterment favored by the applied science of eugenics and that continues to forms [sic] a key part of The Eugenic Mind. Instead, historically eugenicists typically followed Galton in emphasizing that quality was not equally distributed in the kinds of human populations that are regulated by governmental policies and jurisdictional legislation. More specifically, they thought of such populations as being composed of fundamentally distinct kinds of people, with some kinds being of higher quality than others. Some of these sorts of people were to be improved through eugenic policies that encouraged their own reproduction; others were to be eliminated over generational time. The goal of intergenerational human improvement within the eugenics movement was thus achieved by increasing the proportion of higher-quality people in future generations, and this could be achieved in two ways under eugenic logic. Thus, eugenicists historically advocated ideas, laws, policies, and practices either that aimed to maximize the reproduction of higher-quality people—positive eugenics—or that aimed to minimalize the reproduction of lower-quality people. Or both.
A hallmark of The Eugenic Mind, says Wilson, is the distinction between the 'fit' and 'unfit'. Thus, those deemed 'unfit' would be sterilized as they are different 'kinds' of people. Eugenics is seen as an applied science and so, it attempts to achieve certain goals—the propagation of the 'fit' and elimination of the 'unfit.' The first IQ tests were constructed with class, so that the test scores mirrored current racial/class divisions, justifying the social hierarchy (Mensh and Mensh, 1991). Thus, using the 'science of IQ', we could then identify 'feeble-minds' and therefore select them out of the gene pool. What really would be going on here is not selecting out 'low IQ people' but selecting out those of lower classes—one of the main reasons these types of views sprang up. A trait was 'eugenic' if it fit "folk knowledge characteristic of people" (Wilson, 2017: 70).
Eugenic-type thinking also had its beginnings in criminality, right when the first IQ tests were being constructed by Binet in 1905 (Kuhar and Fatović-Ferenčić, 2012). Lombroso's thesis of hereditary criminality also gave American eugenicists the platform for sterilization of criminals (Applegate, 2018: 438). But early eugenicists were more concerned over white female 'morons' and white lower-status, promiscuous white women being coerced and segregated in order to prevent them from breeding, it even being suggested by "one or two scientists" that the women should live on a farm performing menial tasks and should be sterilized; the eugenicists wanted state control of heredity (Applegate, 2018: 439). Mexican-American men and women were even sterilized in the 1900s (Lira, 2015). Such beliefs seem to be baked-in from political and social prejudices; not any basis in 'science.'
Eugenicists wished for state control over the "propagation of the mentally incompetent," whether through mental illness or disability. Ultimately, these beliefs would lead not only to forced detention and isolation, but also to regular affronts to human life and dignity. (Applegate, 2018: 442)
But Dr. Sullivan, the medical officer of Holloway Prison in The Eugenics Review stated that "Criminals, looked at from the eugenic standpoint, cannot be put into any single category; some of them, probably most of them, are of average stock, and become criminal under the influence of their milieu; they do not directly interest the eugenist" (Sullivan, 1909: 119-120). The "hyperincarceration of blacks" is also argued to be eugenic in nature (Oleson, 2016; Jones and Seabrook, 2017). Such race-based segregation, argues Oleson, significantly depresses the birthrate of affected groups—racialized minorities (socialgroups taken to be races, e.g., 'Hispanics' and blacks). So since minority populations are overrepresented in prison and they are less likely to procreate, it then follows that such arguments like Oleson's (2016) has some weight to it. So this then would have eugenic effects over generational time. Even today, America is still sterilizing prisoners, so, it seems, the legacy of the 20th century has yet to let up.
… the penal code is a eugenic instrument, although until today, it has been without consciousness of this function. And following the results of eugenic science, it can tomorrow widen or narrow the circle of crimes in the end of conducing to the physical and psychic improvement of the race. (Battaglini, 1914)
Hitler, noticing the American sterilization laws and the Immigration Act of 1924, instituted eugenic policies on this basis—yes, the Nazi eugenic movement was largely taken from the then-existing social policy in America at the time. Pioneer Fund president Henry Laughlin, who used data from IQ tests in front of Congress to bar certain immigrants from the United States (Swanson, 1995; Dolmage, 2018). The Nazis and Americans had extensive contact with each other, while Germany modeled their sterilization law after Henry Laughlin's laws for sterilization in US states (Cornwell, 2001; Black, 2003; see Allen, 2004; Lelliot, 2004; and Weikart, 2006 for reviews; Wittmann, 2004). But it is worth noting that Hitler was not a Darwinian (Richards, 2012, 2013). Hitler's laws in the early 1930s on eugenics "may have had some resemblance to the most extreme of American state's laws" (Wittmann, 2004: 19), since he was observing the eugenic programs implemented by certain states (eugenic laws were never federally mandated).
The IQ-ist thinking that IQ tests 'measure' intelligence led to eugenic policies and the sterilization of criminals and those with low IQs. Jensen and Shockley were the forefronts of bringing IQ-ism back into the picture, and they both had eugenic views (Shockley being way more radical than Jensen, but it is clear that Shockley was his influence here and that, without Shockley, IQ-ism may not have had the sway it does today. The IQ-ist ideology that has led to eugenic thinking and social policies, race and 'intelligence' has been there since its inception and it is clear that it still exists today (Chitty, 2007). Most of the big-name IQ-ists have, either explicitly or implicitly, stated things that can be construed in a eugenic way, and thusly, the main goal of the IQ-ist program is revealed: limit the birthrates of the lower classes, which are mostly minorities.
The eugenics movement in America—which then influenced Nazi policy—was not built on science, nor was it political (even though it aimed to be "applied science"; Wilson, 2017), it was a political movement which was erected to control social groups thought to be inferior to the higher-ups (Quigley, 1995). The link between eugenic thinking and IQ-ism in its history go hand-in-hand and some IQ-ists, even today, still advocate for such social policy based on the results from IQ tests (Herrnstein and Murray, 1994; Itzkoff, 1994).
Such prescriptions from IQ-ists for what 'should be' done with low IQ people speak to their bias in the matter. One of the great IQ-ists, so revered, Arthur Jensen was very implicit in his views in the late 1960s and early 70s about what should be done for the black population in America. His predecessors, too, had the same type of eugenic beliefs which then influenced their thoughts and values on crime and 'intelligence.' This game that IQ-ists have been playing has been going on for over 100 years; and with the advent of new genetic technology, the IQ-ists can continue their eugenic games, attempting to prevent 'certain people' from having children.
These tests, originally devised to correlate group's places on the social hierarchy, cannot be 'used for good', as the point of its inception was to justify current class hierarchies as 'genetic and immutable.' These psychologists and criminologists leave their fields of inquiry and then attempt to influence public policy using clearly biased tests, as the history of the field has shown since its inception in the early 1900s. These are yet more reasons why IQ testing should be banned, as no good can come from believing that a group or individual is 'less intelligent' than another. The eugenic thinking of IQ-ists and criminologists feed off each other, with the IQ-ist ideas being the catalyst for the eugenic policies that followed.


What does end of support for Community Edition mean for users?
As of February, 4th, 2019, Wakanda Community Edition will no longer be available for download on our website. The users will no longer be eligible for new releases or support. Only the Enterprise Edition will be available for download and support.
Will there be any new releases and upgrades in Wakanda platform?
Yes! The Enterprise Edition is still here for the long haul. Each new release will be available for download. We offer an opportunity for a 30 days free trial to test it out.
Will existing releases for Wakanda Community Edition continue to be available?
Old releases are still available on Github but there will be no new updates.
How do I get Wakanda Enterprise Edition?
You can download the 30 days free trial on our download page. Contact us to know more about how we can help you make the best of it.
Has support ended for all users already using the Community Edition?
Yes. With the Community out of support and upgrades, we recommend that customers move to the Enterprise Edition.


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Android News / Android News / ZTE A2017 Spotted On GFXBench With 4GB RAM & Snapdragon 820
ZTE A2017 Spotted On GFXBench With 4GB RAM & Snapdragon 820
By John Anon
ZTE is a company that has been making some really big strides in the smartphone world of late. In fact, ones which have seen the company producing some decent quarterly and yearly figures and ones which have led to the company expecting bigger strides going forward. However, more recently ZTE has seemed to be enduring legal issues due to claims that they have fallen foul of U.S. exporting regulations. Either way, in terms of their smartphones, it looks as though a new smartphone could be gearing up to be announced, as one has now been spotted getting benchmarked on GFXBench. One which comes with the ZTE A2017 model number and seems to be sporting some decent specs.
According to the benchmark listing and in terms of the specs, the ZTE A2017 will come sporting a 5.5-inch display which makes use of a 2560 x 1440 resolution. Inside, the ZTE A2017 will come loaded with 4GB RAM and come powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, along with an Adreno 530 powering the graphics. In terms of cameras, the ZTE A2017 looks to be equipped with a 21-megapixel rear camera (defined as 19-megapixels) which is capable of 4K recording and which will be coupled with an 8-megapixel (defined as 7-megapixel) front-facing camera. Storage looks to be set at 64GB for internal storage (defined as 51GB), although there is no mentioning of whether there will be a microSD card slot for expanding the storage. Last but not least, the ZTE A2017 is listed to come running on Android 6.0.1 (Marshmallow) out of the box.
So by any standards, the specs listed do seem to be fairly decent and certainly in line with current flagship devices. Which raises the question of whether this will be a follow up to last year's ZTE Axon smartphone. The specs would definitely suggest that this is going to be marketed as high-powered, high-performing and major device. However, as benchmark listings never provide any firm details on the likely price of a smartphone, the status and positioning of the ZTE A2017 is unlikely to be confirmed until more details come through. As is the case for when it will likely become available.
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John Anon
Freelance Contributor
John has been writing about and reviewing tech products since 2014 after making the transition from writing about and reviewing airlines. With a background in Psychology, John has a particular interest in the science and future of the industry. John also covers much of the news surrounding audio and visual tech, including cord-cutting, the state of Pay-TV, and Android TV. Contact him at [email protected]

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