re: #90 LudwigVanQuixote

I asked for your opinion and I am grateful for it.

However, I must challenge some of your assertions. The origin of the mindset, nature or nurture is immaterial to the points. The origin of the mindsets does not affect this discussion of their implications.

As to the very anti-hierarchy way you phrased your response about some people being lesser, I have a question that gets in the way of my consistent data evaluation:

Is it not always, obviously empirically the case that some people have lesser abilities than others? I don’t mean in a moral sense per se. I certainly don’t mean anything to do with race or genetics per se.

I mean just empirically, not all of us can be an olympic swimmer or a mathematician or a concert violinist, no matter how hard we might try.

By the same token, clearly some folks are better at analytical thinking than others for whatever reason. In skills that require analytical thinking, are not those who can’t add, or reason their way out of a paper bag at an obvious disadvantage?

Do you want a moron as you heart surgeon for example?

So what is wrong with identifying a mindset that is counter to rational thinking skills? Why is it a bad thing to admit it exists? It clearly does.

Of course- there are some people with lesser capacities,but how do we make that assessment- by virtue of their politics? You more than I know there are plenty of smart people are morons- heart surgeons included. Just because one is proficient at a particular task or tasks does not necessarily mean they can fins their way out of a barn with 2 walls. On the other hand, there are high school dropouts who can fix anything.

Yes, there are some people with great analytic skills but not much else. There people with great analytic skills who make everything they touch turn to gold. And we haven’t even discussed what analytic skills means.

Most people fall somewhere in the middle

To go back, you asked if some people have lesser abilities. Yes, there are but culture has a big hand in deciding who those people are.

An Arab who goes to a psychiatrist and says ‘I don’t want to kill Jews’ is told he is crazy and can be institutionalized (not hyperbole- ask Wafa Sultan)

There are Jewish scholars of great intellect and there the righteous who walk among the people. Defining hierarchy and even abilities is a difficult thing.

Rational thinking is also not so easily defined.

Is a surgeon ‘higher up’ than a charity worker? Is the rich guy who pisses away his money more substantial than the poorer man who buys art?

Also, origins do matter. Lots of studies of twins separated at birth show marked similarities and differences.

Remember, Mensa is full of postmen and factory workers as well as scientists. And believers and atheists.

I’m not sure I’m being coherent here, but I have to get up in a couple of hours.

That’s the problem with this place- when you can have a rational conversation here, it’s hard to leave!

Plenty of smart people here.