Yes. I suggest this goes a step further in several directions.
First, as our woke friends are fond of reminding us, we all have unconscious biases. The point of addressing actual unconscious bias is that it is unconscious; your brain does the pattern recognition and inferences regardless of your will. No matter how progressively-minded, o…
Yes. I suggest this goes a step further in several directions.
First, as our woke friends are fond of reminding us, we all have unconscious biases. The point of addressing actual unconscious bias is that it is unconscious; your brain does the pattern recognition and inferences regardless of your will. No matter how progressively-minded, or even "woke" you are, this "lower the standard for group X" will tend to produce an unconscious bias. The way to get rid of them is to train your brain to ignore race except where directly relevant -- as was the wisdom for decades -- not to focus on it.
Second, the underlying mathematical principle here is made explicit in the Harvard case. Lowering the standard for race X necessarily means that the mathematical average for that group MUST be lower. Not just as a perception, but a measured outcome There are only two mathematical exceptions to this:
(a) There are a statistically equal number of high performers to offset the lower performers. But, this would mean with the standards set equal that race X would score higher on average than other races.
(b) There are zero people from race X in the gap between the normal standard and the lower standard to pull down the average. If that is the case, then the lowering of the standard serves adds the negative perception (including unconscious bias) for no useful outcome purpose.
In the Harvard case (and similar ones), this is more explicit. Suppose the uniform standard to get into Harvard is an SAT of 1200. The problem from the woke perspective has been that this has resulted in too few black and Hispanic, and "too many" of Asian and Jewish background -- based on raw population. Indeed, it would be more fortunate if there were statistical representation by general population as an indicator of quality and fairness of primary and secondary education (and quell any statistical issues around genetic claims).
But, if we raise the required SAT for Asian students to get in, say to 1300, and lower it for black students to get in, say 1100, we create a worse problem. Now we've removed all of the lower scoring Asians from class (C, D, F) which artificially raises the academic average of Asians. Conversely, we've replaced them with black students who will tend to score worse in class grades than the Asians they replaced because of the lower SAT (1100-1200 vs 1200-1300), which would artificially lower the average scores for black students.
Of course we could continue the game of "whack-a-mole" by hiding the resulting problem. We could hide student scores. Or, we could force professors to grade based on race to get them statistically equal. But that doesn't solve the problem. The professors would know, the university would know, and other students would be able to see the difference via class participation, study groups, which students are struggling, and so forth. And future employers would notice.
What they've done is trade off the number of students of different races for artificially creating or exaggerating statistical differences in apparent intelligence and performance between races. They've made the stereotyping worse, and provide measurable but illegitimate "proof" of differences in intelligence between races by removing low-scorers of one race and adding even lower-scorers of another.
If you want to help black and Hispanic students, you can't do it by cheating the merit system. The better way to address inequities of education is to provide better education at lower grades, or adding specialized tutoring and educational services to help raise the merit of people you want to help. Whether offering such services by race instead of individual needs is another point of debate I won't bring up here, other than to point to this: https://adnausica.substack.com/p/dire-warnings-part-4-engineering
In response to comments about affirmative action - White men who did not meet Harvard's standards have gotten into Harvard for decades. I would bet that the white men who objected to affirmative action are the same white men that never objected to Harvard letting in legacy students, athletics not meeting the standards, and just rich kids whose daddy paid big bucks to get their kids in. The first time some white men objected to Harvard's admission standards was when Black kids got in. So yes, it is directly related to affirmative action.
In response to comments about stop emphasizing Harvard, although I agree our culture has an unhealthy fixation on elite educational institutions, there are some very successful Black men, Geoffrey Canada and Richard Buery to name two, who attended elite institutions and used those connections (networks) to raise millions for their nonprofits that help thousands of young people. I agree we should focus far more on vocational education, but given the current domination of the capitalist system, I would like to see more students of color in elite institutions.
Yes. I suggest this goes a step further in several directions.
First, as our woke friends are fond of reminding us, we all have unconscious biases. The point of addressing actual unconscious bias is that it is unconscious; your brain does the pattern recognition and inferences regardless of your will. No matter how progressively-minded, or even "woke" you are, this "lower the standard for group X" will tend to produce an unconscious bias. The way to get rid of them is to train your brain to ignore race except where directly relevant -- as was the wisdom for decades -- not to focus on it.
Second, the underlying mathematical principle here is made explicit in the Harvard case. Lowering the standard for race X necessarily means that the mathematical average for that group MUST be lower. Not just as a perception, but a measured outcome There are only two mathematical exceptions to this:
(a) There are a statistically equal number of high performers to offset the lower performers. But, this would mean with the standards set equal that race X would score higher on average than other races.
(b) There are zero people from race X in the gap between the normal standard and the lower standard to pull down the average. If that is the case, then the lowering of the standard serves adds the negative perception (including unconscious bias) for no useful outcome purpose.
In the Harvard case (and similar ones), this is more explicit. Suppose the uniform standard to get into Harvard is an SAT of 1200. The problem from the woke perspective has been that this has resulted in too few black and Hispanic, and "too many" of Asian and Jewish background -- based on raw population. Indeed, it would be more fortunate if there were statistical representation by general population as an indicator of quality and fairness of primary and secondary education (and quell any statistical issues around genetic claims).
But, if we raise the required SAT for Asian students to get in, say to 1300, and lower it for black students to get in, say 1100, we create a worse problem. Now we've removed all of the lower scoring Asians from class (C, D, F) which artificially raises the academic average of Asians. Conversely, we've replaced them with black students who will tend to score worse in class grades than the Asians they replaced because of the lower SAT (1100-1200 vs 1200-1300), which would artificially lower the average scores for black students.
Of course we could continue the game of "whack-a-mole" by hiding the resulting problem. We could hide student scores. Or, we could force professors to grade based on race to get them statistically equal. But that doesn't solve the problem. The professors would know, the university would know, and other students would be able to see the difference via class participation, study groups, which students are struggling, and so forth. And future employers would notice.
What they've done is trade off the number of students of different races for artificially creating or exaggerating statistical differences in apparent intelligence and performance between races. They've made the stereotyping worse, and provide measurable but illegitimate "proof" of differences in intelligence between races by removing low-scorers of one race and adding even lower-scorers of another.
If you want to help black and Hispanic students, you can't do it by cheating the merit system. The better way to address inequities of education is to provide better education at lower grades, or adding specialized tutoring and educational services to help raise the merit of people you want to help. Whether offering such services by race instead of individual needs is another point of debate I won't bring up here, other than to point to this: https://adnausica.substack.com/p/dire-warnings-part-4-engineering
In response to comments about affirmative action - White men who did not meet Harvard's standards have gotten into Harvard for decades. I would bet that the white men who objected to affirmative action are the same white men that never objected to Harvard letting in legacy students, athletics not meeting the standards, and just rich kids whose daddy paid big bucks to get their kids in. The first time some white men objected to Harvard's admission standards was when Black kids got in. So yes, it is directly related to affirmative action.
In response to comments about stop emphasizing Harvard, although I agree our culture has an unhealthy fixation on elite educational institutions, there are some very successful Black men, Geoffrey Canada and Richard Buery to name two, who attended elite institutions and used those connections (networks) to raise millions for their nonprofits that help thousands of young people. I agree we should focus far more on vocational education, but given the current domination of the capitalist system, I would like to see more students of color in elite institutions.
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