The word "pseudo" means fake. The surest way to spot a fake is to know as much as possible about the real thing -- in this case, about science itself. Knowing science does not mean simply knowing scientific facts (such as the distance from earth to sun, the age of the earth, the distinction between mammal and reptile, etc.) It means understanding the nature of science -- the criteria of evidence, the design of meaningful experiments, the weighing of possibilities, the testing of hypotheses, the establishment of theories, the many aspects of scientific methods that make it possible to draw reliable conclusions about the physical universe.
Because the media bombard us with nonsense, it is useful to consider the earmarks of pseudoscience. The presence of even one of these should arouse great suspicion. On the other hand, material displaying none of these flaws might still be pseudoscience, because its adherents invent new ways to fool themselves every day. Most of the examples in this article are related to my field of physics, but similar beliefs and behavior are associated with iridology, medical astrology, meridian therapy, reflexology, subluxation-based chiropractic, therapeutic touch, and other health-related pseudosciences.
Pseudoscience displays an indifference to facts. Instead of bothering to consult reference works or investigating directly, its advocates simply spout bogus "facts" where needed. These fictions are often central to the pseudoscientist's argument and conclusions. Moreover, pseudoscientists rarely revise. The first edition of a pseudoscience book is almost always the last, even though the book remains in print for decades or even centuries. Even books with obvious mistakes, errors, and misprints on every page may be reprinted as is, over and over. Compare this to science textbooks that see a new edition every few years because of the rapid accumulation of new facts and insights.
Pseudoscience "research" is invariably sloppy. Pseudoscientists clip newspaper reports, collect hearsay, cite other pseudoscience books, and pore over ancient religious or mythological works. They rarely or never make an independent investigation to check their sources.
Pseudoscience begins with a hypothesis -- usually one which is appealing emotionally, and spectacularly implausible -- and then looks only for items which appear to support it. Conflicting evidence is ignored. Generally speaking, the aim of pseudoscience is to rationalize strongly held beliefs, rather than to investigate or to test alternative possibilities. Pseudoscience specializes in jumping to "congenial conclusions," grinding ideological axes, appealing to preconceived ideas and to widespread misunderstandings.
Pseudoscience is indifferent to criteria of valid evidence. The emphasis is not on meaningful, controlled, repeatable scientific experiments. Instead it is on unverifiable eyewitness testimony, stories and tall tales, hearsay, rumor, and dubious anecdotes. Genuine scientific literature is either ignored or misinterpreted.
Pseudoscience relies heavily on subjective validation. Joe Blow puts jello on his head and his headache goes away. To pseudoscience, this means jello cures headaches. To science this means nothing, since no experiment was done. Many things were going on when Joe Blow's headache went away -- the moon was full, a bird flew overhead, the window was open, Joe had on his red shirt, etc. -- and his headache would have gone away eventually in any case, no matter what. A controlled experiment would put many people suffering from headaches in identical circumstances, except for the presence or absence of the remedy it is desired to test, and compare the results which would then have some chance of being meaningful. Many people think there must be something to astrology because a newspaper horoscope describes them perfectly. But close examination would reveal that the description is general enough to cover virtually everyone. This phenomenon, called subjective validation, is one of the foundations of popular support for pseudoscience.
Pseudoscience depends on arbitrary conventions of human culture, rather than on unchanging regularities of nature. For instance, the interpretations of astrology depend on the names of things, which are accidental and vary from culture to culture. If the ancients had given the name Mars to the planet we call Jupiter, and vice versa, astronomy could care less but astrology would be totally different, because it depends solely on the name and has nothing to do with the physical properties of the planet itself.
Pseudoscience always achieves a reduction to absurdity if pursued far enough. Maybe dowsers can somehow sense the presence of water or minerals under a field, but almost all claim they can dowse equally well from a map! Maybe Uri Geller is "psychic," but are his powers really beamed to him on a radio link with a flying saucer from the planet Hoova, as he has claimed? Maybe plants are "psychic," but why does a bowl of mud respond in exactly the same way, in the same "experiment?"
Pseudoscience always avoids putting its claims to a meaningful test. Pseudoscientists never carry out careful, methodical experiments themselves -- and they also generally ignore results of those carried out by scientists. Pseudoscientists also never follow up. If one pseudoscientist claims to have done an experiment (such as the "lost" biorhythm studies of Hermann Swoboda that are alleged basis of the modern pseudoscience of biorhythms), no other pseudoscientist ever tries to duplicate it or to check him, even when the original results are missing or questionable! Further, where a pseudoscientist claims to have done an experiment with a remarkable result, he himself never repeats it to check his results and procedures. This is in extreme contrast with science, where crucial experiments are repeated by scientists all over the world with ever-increasing precision.
Pseudoscience often contradicts itself, even in its own terms. Such logical contradictions are simply ignored or rationalized away. Thus, we should not be surprised when Chapter 1 of a book on dowsing says that dowsers use newly cut twigs, because only "live" wood can channel and focus the "earth-radiation" that makes dowsing possible, whereas Chapter 5 states that nearly all dowsers use metal or plastic rods.
Pseudoscience deliberately creates mystery where none exists, by omitting crucial information and important details. Anything can be made "mysterious" by omitting what is known about it or presenting completely imaginary details. The "Bermuda Triangle" books are classic examples of this tactic.
Pseudoscience does not progress. There are fads, and a pseudoscientist may switch from one fad to another (from ghosts to ESP research, from flying saucers to psychic studies, from ESP research to looking for Bigfoot). But within a given topic, no progress is made. Little or no new information or uncovered. New theories are seldom proposed, and old concepts are rarely modified or discarded in light of new "discoveries," since pseudoscience rarely makes new "discoveries." The older the idea, the more respect it receives. No natural phenomena or processes previously unknown to science have ever been discovered by pseudoscientists. Indeed, pseudoscientists almost invariably deal with phenomena well known to scientists, but little known to the general public -- so that the public will swallow whatever the pseudoscientist wants to claim. Examples include firewalking and "Kirlian" photography.
Pseudoscience attempts to persuade with rhetoric, propaganda, and misrepresentation rather than valid evidence (which presumably does not exist). Pseudoscience books offer examples of almost every kind of fallacy of logic and reason known to scholars and have invented some new ones of their own. A favorite device is the non sequitur. Pseudoscientists also love the "Galileo Argument." This consists of the pseudoscientist comparing himself to Galileo, and saying that just as the pseudoscientist is believed to be wrong, so Galileo was thought wrong by his contemporaries therefore the pseudoscientist must be right too, just as Galileo was. Clearly the conclusion does not follow! Moreover, Galileo's ideas were tested, verified, and accepted promptly by his scientific colleagues. The rejection came from the established religion which favored the pseudoscience that Galileo's findings contradicted.
Pseudoscience argues from ignorance, an elementary fallacy. Many pseudoscientists base their claims on incompleteness of information about nature, rather than on what is known at present. But no claim can possibly be supported by lack of information. The fact that people don't recognize what they see in the sky means only that they don't recognize what they saw. This fact is not evidence that flying saucers are from outer space. The statement "Science cannot explain" is common in pseudoscience literature. In many cases, science has no interest in the supposed phenomena because there is no evidence it exists; in other cases, the scientific explanation is well known and well established, but the pseudoscientist doesn't know this or deliberately ignores it to create mystery.
Pseudoscience argues from alleged exceptions, errors, anomalies, strange events, and suspect claims -- rather than from well-established regularities of nature. The experience of scientists over the past 400 years is that claims and reports that describe well-understood objects behaving in strange and incomprehensible ways tend to reduce upon investigation to deliberate frauds, honest mistakes, garbled accounts, misinterpretations, outright fabrications, and stupid blunders. It is not wise to accept such reports at face value, without checking them. Pseudoscientists always take such reports as literally true, without independent verification.
Pseudoscience appeals to false authority, to emotion, sentiment, or distrust of established fact. A high-school dropout is accepted as an expert on archaeology, though he has never made any study of it! A psychoanalyst is accepted as an expert on all of human history, not to mention physics, astronomy, and mythology, even though his claims are inconsistent with everything known in all four fields. A movie star swears it's true, so it must be. A physicist says a "psychic" couldn't possibly have fooled him with simple magic tricks, although the physicist knows nothing about magic and sleight of hand. Emotional appeals are common. ("If it makes you feel good, it must be true." "In your heart you know it's right.") Pseudoscientists are fond of imaginary conspiracies. ("There's plenty of evidence for flying saucers, but the government keeps it secret.") And they argue from irrelevancies: When confronted by inconvenient facts, they simply reply, "Scientists don't know everything!"
Pseudoscience makes extraordinary claims and advances fantastic theories that contradict what is known about nature. They not only provide no evidence that their claims are true. They also ignore all findings that contradict their conclusions. ("Flying saucers have to come from somewhere -- so the earth is hollow, and they come from inside." "This electric spark I'm making with this electrical apparatus is actually not a spark at all, but rather a supernatural manifestation of psycho-spiritual energy." "Every human is surrounded by an impalpable aura of electromagnetic energy, the auric egg of the ancient Hindu seers, which mirrors the human's every mood and condition.")
Pseudoscientists invent their own vocabulary in which many terms lack precise or unambiguous definitions, and some have no definition at all. Listeners are often forced to interpret the statements according to their own preconceptions. What, for for example, is "biocosmic energy?" Or a "psychotronic amplification system?" Pseudoscientists often attempt to imitate the jargon of scientific and technical fields by spouting gibberish that sounds scientific and technical. Quack "healers" would be lost without the term "energy," but their use of the term has nothing whatsoever to do with the concept of energy used by physicists.
Pseudoscience appeals to the truth-criteria of scientific methodology while simultaneously denying their validity. Thus, a procedurally invalid experiment which seems to show that astrology works is advanced as "proof" that astrology is correct, while thousands of procedurally sound experiments that show it does not work are ignored. The fact that someone got away with simple magic tricks in one scientific lab is "proof" that he is a psychic superman, while the fact that he was caught cheating in several other labs is ignored.
Pseudoscience claims that the phenomena it studies are "jealous." The phenomena appear only under certain vaguely specified but vital conditions (such as when no doubters or skeptics are present; when no experts are present; when nobody is watching; when the "vibes" are right; or only once in human history.) Science holds that genuine phenomena must be capable of study by anyone with the proper equipment and that all procedurally valid studies must give consistent results. No genuine phenomenon is "jealous" in this way. There is no way to construct a TV set or a radio that will function only when no skeptics are present! A man who claims to be a concert-class violinist, but does not appear to have ever owned a violin and who refuses to play when anyone is around who might hear him, is most likely lying about his ability to play the violin.
Pseudoscientific "explanations" tend to be by scenario. That is, we are told a story, but nothing else; we have no description of any possible physical process. For instance, former psychoanalyst Immanuel Velikovsky (1895-1979) claimed that another planet passing near the earth caused the earth's spin axis to flip upside down. This is all he said. He gave no mechanisms. But the mechanism is all-important, because the laws of physics rule out the process as impossible. That is, the approach of another planet cannot cause a planet's spin axis to flip. If Velikovsky had discovered some way that a planet could flip another's spin axis, he would presumably have described the mechanism by which it can happen. The bald statement itself, without the underlying mechanism, conveys no information at all. Velikovsky said that Venus was once a comet, and this comet was spewed out of a volcano on Jupiter. Since planets do not resemble comets (which are rock/ice snowball-like debris with connection whatsoever to volcanoes) and since Jupiter is not known to have volcanoes anyway (or even a solid surface!), no actual physical process could underlie Velikovsky's assertions. He gave us words, related to one another within a sentence, but the relationships were alien to the universe we actually live in, and he gave no explanation for how these could exist. He provided stories, not genuine theories.
Pseudoscientists often appeal to the ancient human habit of magical thinking. Magic, sorcery, witchcraft -- these are based on spurious similarity, false analogy, false cause-and-effect connections, etc. That is, inexplicable influences and connections between things are assumed from the beginning -- not found by investigation. (If you step on a crack in the sidewalk without saying a magic word, your mother will crack a bone in her body; eating heart-shaped leaves is good for heart ailments; shining red light on the body increases blood production; rams are aggressive so someone born in the sign of the ram is aggressive; fish are "brain food" because the meat of the fish resembles brain tissue, etc.)
Pseudoscience relies heavily on anachronistic thinking. The older the idea, the more attractive it is to pseudoscience -- it's the wisdom of the ancients! -- especially if the idea is transparently wrong and has long been discarded by science. Many journalists have trouble in comprehending this point. A typical reporter writing about astrology may think a thorough job can be done by interviewing six astrologers and one astronomer. The astronomer says it's all bunk; the six astrologers say it's great stuff and really works and for $50 they'll be glad to cast anyone's horoscope. (No doubt!) To many reporters, and apparently to many editors and their readers, this would confirm astrology six to one!
This table contrasts some of the characteristics of science and pseudoscience
Science Pseudoscience Their findings are expressed primarily through scientific journals that are peer-reviewed and maintain rigorous standards for honesty and accuracy. The literature is aimed at the general public. There is no review, no standards, no pre-publication verification, no demand for accuracy and precision. Reproducible results are demanded; experiments must be precisely described so that they can be duplicated exactly or improved upon. Results cannot be reproduced or verified. Studies, if any, are always so vaguely described that one can't figure out what was done or how it was done. Failures are searched for and studied closely, because incorrect theories can often make correct predictions by accident, but no correct theory will make incorrect predictions. Failures are ignored, excused, hidden, lied about, discounted, explained away, rationalized, forgotten, avoided at all costs. As time goes on, more and more is learned about the physical processes under study. No physical phenomena or processes are ever found or studied. No progress is made; nothing concrete is learned. Convinces by appeal to the evidence, by arguments based upon logical and/or mathematical reasoning, by making the best case the data permit. When new evidence contradicts old ideas, they are abandoned. Convinces by appeal to faith and belief. Pseudoscience has a strong quasi-religious element: it tries to convert, not to convince. You are to believe in spite of the facts, not because of them. The original idea is never abandoned, whatever the evidence. Does not advocate or market unproven practices or products. Generally earns some or all of his living by selling questionable products (such as books, courses, and dietary supplements) and/or pseudoscientific services (such as horoscopes, character readings, spirit messages, and predictions).
This table could be greatly expanded, because science and pseudoscience are precisely opposed ways of viewing nature. Science relies on -- and insists on -- self-questioning, testing and analytical thinking that make it hard to fool yourself or to avoid facing facts. Pseudoscience, on the other hand, preserves the ancient, natural, irrational, unobjective modes of thought that are hundreds of thousands of years older than science -- thought processes that have given rise to superstitions and other fanciful and mistaken ideas about man and nature -- from voodoo to racism; from the flat earth to the house-shaped universe with God in the attic, Satan in the cellar and man on the ground floor; from doing rain dances to torturing and brutalizing the mentally ill to drive out the demons that possess them. Pseudoscience encourages people to believe anything they want. It supplies specious "arguments" for fooling yourself into thinking that any and all beliefs are equally valid. Science begins by saying, let's forget about what we believe to be so, and try by investigation to find out what actually is so. These roads don't cross; they lead in completely opposite directions.
Some confusion on this point is caused by what we might call "crossover." "Science" is not an honorary badge you wear, it's an activity you do. Whenever you cease that activity, you cease being a scientist. A distressing amount of pseudoscience is generated by scientists who are well trained in one field but plunge into another field of which they are ignorant. A physicist who claims to have found a new principle of biology -- or a biologist who claims to have found a new principle of physics -- is almost invariably doing pseudoscience. And so are those who forge data, or suppresses data that clash with their preconceptions, or refuse to let others see their data for independent evaluation. Science is like a high peak of intellectual integrity, fairness, and rationality. The peak is slippery and smooth. It requires a tremendous effort to remain near it. Slacking of effort carries one away and into pseudoscience. Some pseudoscience is generated by individuals with a small amount of specialized scientific or technical training who are not professional scientists and do not comprehend the nature of the scientific enterprise -- yet think of themselves as "scientists."
One might wonder if there are not examples of "crossovers" in the other direction; that is people who have been thought by scientists to be doing pseudoscience, who eventually were accepted as doing valid science, and whose ideas were ultimately accepted by scientists. From what we have just outlined, one would expect this to happen extremely rarely, if ever. In fact, neither I nor any informed colleague I have ever asked about this, knows of any single case in which this has happened during the hundreds of years the full scientific method has been known to and used by scientists. There are many cases in which a scientist has been thought wrong by colleagues but later -- when new information comes in -- is shown to be correct. Like anyone else, scientists can get hunches that something is possible without having enough evidence to convince their associates that they are correct. Such people do not become pseudoscientists, unless they continue to maintain that their ideas are correct when contradictory evidence piles up. Being wrong or mistaken is unavoidable; we are all human, and we all commit errors and blunders. True scientists, however, are alert to the possibility of blunder and are quick to correct mistakes. Pseudoscientists do not. In fact, a short definition of pseudoscience is "a method for excusing, defending, and preserving errors."
Pseudoscience often strikes educated, rational people as too nonsensical and preposterous to be dangerous and as a source of amusement rather than fear. Unfortunately, this is not a wise attitude. Pseudoscience can be extremely dangerous.
Penetrating political systems, it justifies atrocities in the name of racial purity Penetrating the educational system, it can drive out science and sensibility; In the field of health, it dooms thousands to unnecessary death or suffering Penetrating religion, it generates fanaticism, intolerance, and holy war Penetrating the communications media, it can make it difficult for voters to obtain factual information on important public issues.
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Pseudoscientists invent their own vocabulary in which many terms lack precise or unambiguous definitions, and some have no definition at all.
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Pseudoscience relies heavily on anachronistic thinking.. The older the idea, the more attractive it is to pseudoscience -- especially if the idea is transparently wrong and has long been discarded by science.
[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 28 March 2005).]
quote:Originally posted by rasol: Pseudoscientists invent their own vocabulary in which many terms lack precise or unambiguous definitions, and some have no definition at all.
This is halarious! I'm ROTFL because this is exactly what evil Euro and Abaza do..... Let the games begin..
p.s. Negroid vs negroid? LMAO....
Posts: 318 | From: PA. USA | Registered: Jan 2005
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If you agree with the AAA rasol why are you always talking about race. That is clearly the subject that dominates every waking thought you have. You can't have it both ways?
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: If you agree with the AAA rasol why are you always talking about race. That is clearly the subject that dominates every waking thought you have. You can't have it both ways?
Horemheb you see how this truly defines you, abaza, and evil euro's manner of arguing. The racialization of AE was done by people of European descent and is still perpetuated with subtle lying by ommision and visually.
Anyway I think this thread is fun! Under true scientific scrutiny and tests Eurocentric Egyptology is demolished and torn to threads.
Posts: 318 | From: PA. USA | Registered: Jan 2005
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There is no such thing as a Eurocentric Keins. That is a little fantasy cooked up in the minds of people who are preoccupied by their race, like yourself. Keins...you are black, you were born black and you will die black. Why spend all of the years you have PREOCCUPIED by blackness. Join the world, go out and lead a full life and leave the bitterness to the racists like rasol. IBM and GE don't care if you are green. If you can make them money you have a place in the world. This need globalism CREATED by western society and led by the US and UK has a place for everyone , regardless of race.
Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: There is no such thing as a Eurocentric Keins. That is a little fantasy cooked up in the minds of people who are preoccupied by their race, like yourself. Keins...you are black, you were born black and you will die black. Why spend all of the years you have PREOCCUPIED by blackness. Join the world, go out and lead a full life and leave the bitterness to the racists like rasol. IBM and GE don't care if you are green. If you can make them money you have a place in the world. This need globalism CREATED by western society and led by the US and UK has a place for everyone , regardless of race.
you're bitterly deluded. Go read the Racial Contract by Charles Mills. Posts: 134 | Registered: Mar 2005
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BigMix....I read a critique of the book on the net a few minutes ago. That the west is mired in 'social contract theory' I agree. The problem I see for Mr. Mills position is that it is in conflict with the goals of global capitalism. Every valuse seems to have been pushed aside for the sake of profits and the health of the sysyem. Nationalism, patriotism, personal morality etc have all be put in a subordinate position. None of us would contend that racism has been eliminated but the new globla capitalism is the best thing that could have possibly happened to blacks and other minorities. It may not be the best world, but it is the best possible world considering the alternatives.
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no use in you replying rasol...you would not know social contract theory from a cook book....go away.
Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: There is no such thing as a Eurocentric Keins. That is a little fantasy cooked up in the minds of people who are preoccupied by their race, like yourself. Keins...you are black, you were born black and you will die black. Why spend all of the years you have PREOCCUPIED by blackness. Join the world, go out and lead a full life and leave the bitterness to the racists like rasol. IBM and GE don't care if you are green. If you can make them money you have a place in the world. This need globalism CREATED by western society and led by the US and UK has a place for everyone , regardless of race.
First of all my life is more fulfilled emotionally, financially and sexually than yours can ever be! It is sad that you have your self-esteem built on attaining money and material possessions. You seem to have no value for truth, honestly, character and humanity or nature. You talk of this capatilistic society that does not care about race once you can bring them money but the people make this system work.
The ones who have preoccuppied about race is on general white americans. Blacks and black american are just more likely and willing to honestly talk about these issues out loud in hopes of solving problems. It is mostly on the part of white americans like yourself whom pretend that all is fair when you know in your hearts the ill feelings, prejudices and biases about black people and non white people. You provide proof to the about statement, you are obviously preoccuppied and hateful by the language you use on this board. You do this while pretending to have morals, and pretending to care for people and humailty as a whole. Ironically I learned this with the help of some very good white friends who know how some of their families and white borthers and sisters think, act and what they say only when they are in the trusting company of other likewise whites.
You are right, I was born black and will die black and I love that and would not have it any other way. Being born black is a natural blessing, however I will not get into the scientific reason (I now understand) that make me appreciate this fact.
All of this has no direct connection to AE besides showing the eurocentric pleade to cultural biases to maintain a faux projection and preception of Ancient Egypt to sustain the current structure of power and wealth in this world. I will not play along with you emotional distractions horemheb.
Posts: 318 | From: PA. USA | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: [B] The problem I see for Mr. Mills position is that it is in conflict with the goals of global capitalism.
that's where you're wrong. Theoretically capitalism is solely for profit, but in practice it is a crude hybrid of race and profit.
One cannot deny the racial opinions that have intertwined itself in Western thought, and to say that one can simply divorce themselves from racial opinions for the sake of profits is ridiculous, since the profiting in a large part is dependent upon the rules of the game of which race is important.
Capitalism as a direct creation of the Enlightenment period comes necessarily with the racial baggage of the Enlightenment period of which this baggage helped to construct society for its economic ends according to its own theorizing.
Anyway, its a good book. Only 133 pages. You can read it out in one sitting.
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Big Mix--- I totally disagree. Racism has been around throughout the modern era but it is was a product of the agricultural sector of the west much more so that catitalism. lets look at the two distinct periods of western reform in the area of race relations.....(1) the civil war, and (2) the post war civil rights movement.
In both cases it was the agrarian componets of society that wanted to maintain the status quo and the industrial/captialist sector that wanted to reform it. Most civil war historians now view the war as a conflict between capital and agriculture and I think that is clear.
western society moved to reform race relations because it was in their interest to do so. You may simply be impatient and that is understandable but race relations are getting better. Now.....they are getting better for those minorities with talent. The plaight of the others is a different subject altogether.
quote:Originally posted by ABAZA: CENTER FOR EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
[b]The Self-Esteem Fraud: Why Feel-Good Education Does Not Lead to Academic Success. By Nina H. Shokraii.
Executive Summary
Which comes first, achievement or self-esteem? This question is at the heart of an important educational controversy. Traditionally, public schools have thought that students’ satisfaction will follow on the heels of their academic success. In other words, children who perform well in class will consequently feel good about themselves. But more recent educational theories have reversed this logic. They say that students must secure high self-esteem before they can hope to achieve. In other words, they must feel good about themselves before they can perform well in class.
For all of its current popularity, however, self-esteem theory threatens to deny children the tools they will need in order to experience true success in school and as adults. Compelling research from around the world lends empirical proof to the traditional claim that achievement precedes self-esteem. There is, in fact, almost no correlation between low self-esteem and any number of social pathologies, including poor school performance, drug abuse, and teenage pregnancy.
Black children are common targets of self-esteem theory, which in their case often goes by the name of Afrocentrism. Yet they are also some of the most vulnerable, since many of them desperately require the same basic academic skills that self-esteem theory subordinates to a shallow, feel-good classroom experience. One study has even shown that inflated self-esteem among adolescent black males can encourage violent behavior.
Schools must abandon their mindless pursuit of empty self-esteem and return to the fundamental task of helping students do their best. Traditional academic preparation best teaches children how to achieve old-fashioned academic success.
Introduction
Americans have lost confidence in their public schools. A Washington Post survey recently asked people what worries them about the future. They were given dozens of choices, from sky-high crime rates to increasing drug usage to old-fashioned economic anxiety. Of all these problems, however, Americans identified the deterioration of public schools as the country’s most pressing problem. "The American educational system will get worse instead of better" feared 62 percent of them.1
This is not exactly a new concern. Frustrated by everything from a long-term decline in test scores to the recent rise in juvenile violence, many Americans are left scratching their heads in bewilderment. What has gone wrong? What can reverse these trends? Desperate for anything that might boost the academic achievement of their charges, many schools have turned to self-esteem theory, which says that teaching children to feel good about themselves will help them perform better as students. This pedagogical approach has begun to dislodge the more traditional emphasis on subjects like reading, writing, and arithmetic.2
This is fundamentally wrongheaded. There is little reason to believe self-esteem leads to academic achievement, or even that self-esteem is necessary for academic success. It is therefore crucial to delegitimize the education establishment’s mindless glorification of self-esteem. As Richard Weissbourd has written, schools gripped by self-esteem theory "are, in essence, producing a generation of poorly educated adults who will lack the habits of hard work and perseverance that have historically been necessary to achieving true success."3
What Is Self-Esteem?
There is no shortage of ways to define self-esteem. Perhaps the simplest one is found in Webster’s Dictionary, which says that self-esteem is "satisfaction with oneself."4 The Basic Behavioral Science Task Force of the National Advisory Mental Health Council offers a fuller explanation: "Self-esteem begins to develop early in life and has been studied in children as young as seven years of age. As children learn to describe aspects of themselves, such as their physical attributes, abilities, and preferences, they also begin to evaluate them. Researchers conclude that, contrary to intuition, individuals have not one but several views of their selves, encompassing many domains of life, such as scholastic ability, physical appearance and romantic appeal, job competence, and adequacy as a provider."5
Psychologists generally split self-esteem into two types: earned self-esteem and global self-esteem. The concepts of each differ in critical ways:
Earned self-esteem. This is the self-esteem that people earn through their own accomplishments –- satisfaction from having scored well on an exam, for example. The psychologist Barbara Lerner says that earned self-esteem "is based on success in meeting the tests of reality -- measuring up to standards at home and in school."6 Earned self-esteem possesses all of the positive character traits that ought to be encouraged and applauded, because it is ultimately based on work habits.
Global self-esteem. This refers to a general sense of pride in oneself. It is not grounded in a particular skill or achievement. This means that an underachieving student can still bask in the warmth of global self-esteem, even if the door to earned self-esteem is shut. Advocates say that this feeling of self-worth will inspire academic success. The reality is different. At best, global self-esteem is meaningless. At worst, it is harmful. William Damon, an educational psychologist at Brown University, warns that heightened global self-esteem can lead children to have "an exaggerated, though empty and ultimately fragile sense of their own powers ... [or] a distrust of adult communications and self-doubt."7 The fundamental difference between earned self-esteem and global self-esteem rests on their concepts of academic achievement. The idea of earned self-esteem says that achievement comes first and that self-esteem follows. Global self-esteem theory –- which is more popular in schools -- says that self-esteem leads the way and achievement trails behind. Earned self-esteem, of course, can take care of itself. It will develop almost naturally when children have accomplished something worthwhile. Global self-esteem, however, is artificial. It requires active intervention on the part of teachers, parents, and other authority figures. It is more than mere encouragement –- something all children need. Instead, it involves tricking kids into thinking that anything and everything they do is praiseworthy.
Self-Esteem and Academic Success
In 1986, a group of California state legislators convinced themselves that low self-esteem was the root cause behind a variety of social and economic problems such as drug abuse, teen pregnancy, and poor school performance. Before taking this line of thinking too far, however, they decided they needed some research to back up their claims. So they established the awkwardly-titled California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility. The Task Force published its findings in a book called The Social Importance of Self-Esteem. The editors might as well have called their book The Social Unimportance of Self-Esteem, however, because they found practically no connection between self-esteem and any of the behaviors they studied. As Neil Smelser noted in his introduction, "One of the disappointing aspects of every chapter in this volume ... is how low the associations between self-esteem and its consequences are in research to date."8 Over the years, other reviewers have offered similar readings of the available research, pointing to results that are unimpressive or characterized by "massive inconsistencies and contradictions."9 Most remarkable about the California Task Force, it was not a disinterested group of scholars. They wanted to find a link. But when their research failed to turn one up, they had the honesty to admit it.
Student Performance in Asia
Scholars focusing on the connection between high global self-esteem and academic success have run into similar barriers.10 When psychologists Harold W. Stevenson and James W. Stigler tested the academic skills of elementary school students in Japan, Taiwan, China, and the United States, the Asian students easily outperformed their American counterparts. That came as no surprise. But when the same students were asked how they felt about their subject skills, the Americans exhibited a significantly higher self-evaluation of their academic prowess. In other words, they combined a lousy performance with a high sense of self-esteem. As Stevenson and Stigler point out, Asian schools teach their students to indulge in self-congratulation only after they have paid their dues, through years of learning and hard work. While educators in most countries frown upon pride -- one manifestation of a high self-esteem -- American teachers actually encourage it as a positive personality trait.11
Part of the problem, Stevenson and Stigler found, lies in American teachers’ priorities in the classroom. They focus much more on sensitivity to the students’ needs, whereas Asians concentrate on their ability to explain things clearly. Indeed, roughly half of the Asian teachers surveyed said that clarity is one of the most important attributes required to be a good teacher. Only 10 percent of them said that sensitivity is equally important. Given the same set of choices, American teachers reversed priorities. Moreover, American teachers avoid exposing their students’ poor performance, fearing damage to their self-esteem. Japanese and Chinese teachers, on the other hand, regard mistakes as an index of what remains to be learned through persistence and increased effort. In other words, American schools worry more about how students view themselves than about their actual academic performance.
Australian researchers B.C. Hansford and J.A. Hattie scoured academic literature on the link between global self-esteem and academic achievement. And although they found a slim correlation, they also discovered that the better the research, the lower and less significant the connection. They recommended replacing efforts to boost global self-esteem with efforts to boost academic or subject-specific self-esteem -- which can only occur after students achieve academic success.12
Other studies show that programs created to promote self-esteem among elementary school students actually produce less of it than those designed to improve academic performance. The best research in this area evaluated a federal Head Start program to help children in grades 1-3, called Project Follow-Through. The researchers charged different schools to implement the project. To judge the effectiveness of self-esteem in underwriting academic success, they selected schools with differing philosophies of education. The models were then categorized into three major types: (1) holistically-oriented classrooms prone to promote self-esteem, (2) behaviorally-oriented models emphasizing traditional basic instruction, and (3) combination models that joined the two previous models. Researchers looked at 9,000 students on a variety of measures, from basic skills to cognitive and affective skills. The results were astounding. Students taught using the behavioral model received the highest scores not only in academics but also on self-esteem. The researchers could therefore safely conclude that programs designed to provide young children with the tools for academic success tend to be more successful as the children improve in both academic performance and self-esteem.13
This rule is not limited to young children. Thomas Moeller, a psychology professor at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia, examined students in grades 6 and higher. In every instance, he concluded, "academic achievement is more closely related to academic self-concept than to global self-concept."14
Other research found that although academic achievement in one grade level predicts academic self-esteem in the next grade, neither academic achievement nor academic self-esteem have any identifiable effect on global self-esteem.15 Still other research finds that grades in a given discipline affect academic self-esteem in that particular discipline only. General academic self-concept finds its roots in a school’s climate, teachers’ ratings, and students’ commitment to work.16
Adolescents’ academic performance seems not even to be a factor affecting global self-esteem. Instead, they respond to social activities.17 Beyond high school, high school performance, academic ability, and socioeconomic status affect educational attainment more than global self-esteem.18
Self-Esteem and Black Children
Because self-esteem theory advertises itself as a quick fix to poor academic achievement, it would make sense that the neediest students are also the most vulnerable to its deceptive message. Indeed, black students enrolled in Afrocentric educational programs receive a full-course diet in self-esteem enhancement, all of it positioned on the shaky theoretical ground that injecting racial pride into black children will help them overcome obstacles to academic success.19 But again, the value of self-esteem for black children is highly questionable, even if it does not come packaged in Afrocentrism.
Self-esteem theory made its first dramatic impact upon American schools in 1954, when the Supreme Court accepted that school segregation damaged the self-esteem of African-American children in its Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Low self-esteem, the Court said, "affects the motivation of a child to learn, and has a tendency to retard children’s educational and mental development." According to Barbara Lerner, this proposition makes three questionable assumptions about blacks: (1) Low self-esteem is the major cause of low academic achievement; (2) Blacks have a lower self-esteem than whites; and (3) Changing white attitudes toward blacks will raise black self-esteem. Taken together, these faulty notions provide the reasoning behind the current repudiation of high standards and expectations in our public schools.20
In reality, black children at the same grade level and in the same school system as white children display a higher sense of self-esteem. African Americans usually report "slightly higher levels of agreement with statements about taking a positive attitude toward oneself, judging oneself to be a person ‘of worth,’ and being generally satisfied with oneself."21
Studies also show that, like whites, enhancement of global self-concept is not a potent intervention for academic improvement for African-American adolescents.22 Stanley Rothman and his colleagues at Smith College’s Center for the Study of Social and Political Change found that while the self-esteem levels of blacks are now at least as high as those of whites, the average academic attainment among African-American students is still below that of whites. They conclude that the evidence "appears to show quite conclusively that the low self-esteem hypothesis is neither a necessary nor sufficient explanation of African-American achievement levels."23
Crime, Violence, and Self-Esteem
Those who think low self-esteem is the cause of high crime rates among blacks are also wrong. According to a recent study by psychologists Roy Baumeister, Joseph Boden, and Laura Smart, "first, [this notion] does not fit the transient shifts in the crime rate among African Americans, which is now reaching its highest levels as slavery recedes farther and farther into the background. Second, self-esteem levels among African Americans are now equal to, or higher than, the self-esteem levels of whites. Third, it is far from certain that slaves had a low self-esteem."24 A study by Jennifer Crocker and Brenda Major of the State University of New York at Buffalo, similarly refuted the psychological theories that claim members of stigmatized groups (blacks, for example) should possess low global self-esteem. They argued that stigmatized individuals are not simply "passive victims but are frequently able to actively protect their self-esteem from prejudice and discrimination."25
Ironically, adolescent African-American males living in impoverished neighborhoods are more likely to turn violent if schools bombard them with unearned praise. Baumeister, Boden, and Smart found that when high self-esteem is challenged by others’ negative views, egotism is threatened. People will react in one of two ways. They either lower their self-appraisal and withdraw, or they maintain their self-appraisal and manifest negative emotions toward the source of the ego threat. This response can easily become violent in individuals who place high emphasis on their self-appraisal.26
Vulnerable Children
Every day in the name of self-esteem, however, schools cheat low-income children (many of whom are black) into settling for inflated egos instead of increased knowledge. Such efforts aimed at guaranteeing minorities heightened self-esteem, coupled with lawsuits challenging minimum competency exams and proficiency tests, erroneously assume that these children’s self-esteem cannot possibly get proper nourishment in the poor households in which they are reared. Social workers and teachers create special courses and excuses for these children on a regular basis.27
In his book The Vulnerable Child, Weissbourd vehemently attacks such efforts, asserting that "although poor children are more likely to suffer an array of ... problems, the great majority of poor children are prepared to learn, at least when they begin school. Developmental delays and serious learning difficulties among children ages three to five, are higher among poor than among middle- and upper-income children ... But over 75 percent of poor children ages 6-11 have never experienced significant developmental delays, or emotional troubles, or a learning disability in childhood." Weissbourd highly discourages enrolling disadvantaged minority kids in remedial courses or special education classes, because it will only make it more difficult for them to move into the mainstream.28
From lower standards to a reduced emphasis on tests, minorities are constantly being told that their egos are somehow more fragile and thus are somehow different from the rest of America, even though they have the most to gain from traditional ways of teaching.29 In fact, blacks can flourish in this type of environment, as the experiences of schools such as Booker T. Washington (Atlanta), Xavier Prep (New Orleans), P.S. 91 (Brooklyn), and Dunbar (Washington) have shown.30 African Americans excel in these schools because they are expected to strive high and achieve. Instead of offering a broad array of extracurricular classes or dumbing down their curriculum to increase their African-American pupils’ "self-esteem," they offer a strict diet of math and reading and expect students to get the job done. As Sister Helen Struder, principal of the mostly-black Holy Angels school in Chicago, says, "After all, it’s by success that you build self esteem."31
Conclusion
After years of failed experimentation, it is time to stop touting the importance of self-esteem and start providing students with the elements real self-esteem is made of. As this Policy Brief shows, building self-esteem is not only a smokescreen vis-à-vis academic success, it can also lead to considerable harm. After all, as Weissbourd points out "to develop effective coping strategies, children, in fact, need to learn to manage a certain amount of disappointment and conflict."32
As schools turn against self-esteem theory, they must go back to the basics of teaching, reinstalling high standards and expectations, and holding children accountable for their actions. But these efforts ought not replace paying attention to children’s needs and concerns as individuals. Many educators agree on three general strategies:
Build the relationship between a teacher or parent and a child on respect for the child’s inborn strengths,
Help the child set goals and then link sustained effort with success, and
Examine the values you are promoting, because self-esteem is grounded on what a person values.33 The final and probably most important remedy is reintroducing parents in the education of their children. Experts unanimously agree that parental involvement in a child’s education remains one of the most important factors in determining a child’s academic success. Furthermore, parents supersede teachers at building earned self-esteem in their children through the special caring and positive/negative reinforcement that can only come with individualized interaction at home.34[/B]
Facts and truths have nothing to do with emotional rhetoric! Stop pleading to emotions and deal withing the realm of information, facts and truths.
The non-sense above does not do away with the sceintific facts that Anceint Egypt is African culturally, geographically, and racially!
Posts: 318 | From: PA. USA | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:The researchers collected all the relevant studies they could, including unpublished doctoral dissertations from across the United States, to carry out their analyses. The better the test used to measure self-esteem in the various studies, the more likely they were to find higher self-esteem overall among blacks, Gray-Little said.
Posting that same article over and over again accomplishes nothing. Your self esteem argument isn't working.
quote: Heru writes: Abaza, Posting that same article over and over again accomplishes nothing. Your self esteem argument isn't working.
Indeed. Resort to tactics such as off topic cut and paste spamming shows one's own lack of self respect. Why do they continue to use ineffectual tactics?
see - Pseudoscience does not progress- a favorite device is the non sequitur.
[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 28 March 2005).]
quote:Originally posted by rasol: [ Sorry Professor....my thread.
Please respond on topic or not at all, thank you.
Does he *ever* respond to the topic at hand?
quote:rasol:
Indeed. Resort to tactics such as off topic cut and paste spamming shows one's own lack of self respect. Why do they continue to use ineffectual tactics?
see - Pseudoscience does not progress- a favorite device is the non sequitur
Doubtless that the thread has been highjacked...predictably from TROLLERS!
posted
Pseudoscience begins with a hypothesis -- usually one which is appealing emotionally, and spectacularly implausible -- and then highlights only items which appear to support it.
Posts: 15202 | Registered: Jun 2004
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posted
Racial problems in the United States today, as they were in the past century, are structural, and no amount of thinking about Cleopatra and Ramses II—in brief, a past that never was— will alter this reality. What black people need is a useable present, not an ersatz past. I rest my case.
posted
Being accused of pseudo-science by an Afrocentrist is like being accused of anti-Semitism by a Nazi.
Posts: 906 | Registered: Jan 2005
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quote:Originally posted by rasol: Pseudoscientific fallacies of logic and reason include... red herring, flawed analogy and...
Argumentum ad hominem - personal attacks which seek to evade the facts presented.
Tactics with which every Afrocentrist is intimately familiar:
"Today, Afrocentrism is a racist, highly conservative, nationalist pseudo-science (by the latter term I mean: based upon phony scholarship and premises). It victimizes black students almost exclusively, since it is they who have this nonsense foisted off upon them as truth."
posted
These afrocentrist actually degarade black people by basically saying that nothing of importance happened for blacks after AE.
Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
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NARRATOR: “But Father Fischer's private scholarship was about to collide with world history. For in 1938, German forces marched into Austria, seized Stella Matutina College, evicted the priests and confiscated everything of value including art, rare books and, Seaver believes, Father Fischer's Vinland Map. Hitler's campaign of world conquest was fueled by a belief in an Aryan master race, embodied by Germans who traced their cultural roots to the Vikings. In the hands of the Nazis, the Vinland Map would be a historic claim to America and a powerful political weapon. If Seaver is right, Father Fischer used his knowledge of ancient maps and Viking history to draw the Vinland Map on an authentic piece of medieval parchment. Fischer's Vinland Map was then confiscated by the Germans, and after their defeat, the map found it's way into the hands of known fascist and Nazi sympathizer, Enzo Ferrajoli.”
[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 30 March 2005).]
quote:Thought, used some of your stuff on Greece at a dinner party last weekend and got all the laughs.
Pseudoscience is indifferent to criteria of valid evidence. The emphasis is not on meaningful, controlled, repeatable scientific experiments. Instead it is on unverifiable eyewitness testimony, stories and tall tales, hearsay, rumor, and dubious anecdotes. Genuine scientific literature is either ignored or misinterpreted.
quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: There is no such thing as a Eurocentric Keins. That is a little fantasy cooked up in the minds of people who are preoccupied by their race, like yourself. Keins...you are black, you were born black and you will die black. Why spend all of the years you have PREOCCUPIED by blackness. Join the world, go out and lead a full life and leave the bitterness to the racists like rasol. IBM and GE don't care if you are green. If you can make them money you have a place in the world. This need globalism CREATED by western society and led by the US and UK has a place for everyone , regardless of race.
quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: There is no such thing as a Eurocentric Keins. That is a little fantasy cooked up in the minds of people who are preoccupied by their race....
How could you possible deny the existence of Eurocentrism if racism and white supremacy exist, since these are the products of Eurocentrism?!!
The concept of Eurocentrism is not a recent conjure by blacks, but is a fact that has existed since Europeans or "the West" first rose as a world power! All non-Westerners, that is "people of color" not just blacks were more than aware of the mentality that is Eurocentrism! It's only been recently that white Westerners became aware of it also and are trying to correct their past mistakes. Tell me, why do you think the whole academic community of the West, especially in the heart of Western Europe, is having such a big discourse and is re-evaluating all of its past works?!
[This message has been edited by Djehuti (edited 30 March 2005).]
Posts: 26238 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
ABAZA, Great post...thats why we have people on this board who grew up in a racial fog.
Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Special pleading - is a form of spurious argumentation.
Special pleading for a position in a dispute introduces favorable details or excludes unfavorable details by alleging a need to apply additional considerations without proper criticism of these considerations themselves. [Negro vs. negro]
The lack of criticism may be a simple overlook [A4 vs. A4b] or an application of double standard.
This may take the forms of exemption from principles commonly thought relevant to the subject matter, [Howells flawed dataset which lacks relevant data for native East Africans] claims to data that are inherently unverifiable, perhap as because too remote or impossible to define clearly.
quote:"Today, Afrocentrism is a racist, highly conservative, nationalist pseudo-science (by the latter term I mean: based upon phony scholarship and premises). It victimizes black students almost exclusively, since it is they who have this nonsense foisted off upon them as truth.
The fact that it is tolerated and even promoted at various universities, including the one I teach at, is a tribute to higher education's racism against black students. This kind of worthless, reactionary crap would never be tolerated if it were being purveyed to white students!"
quote:Originally posted by ABAZA: Now, this part of the above posted article, really sums up the Attitude of many Afrocentrics and their followers.
[This message has been edited by ABAZA (edited 30 March 2005).]
This is part of the reason why Black Africans do better in America than African Americans. However, all of this is due to the caste system in America. By the way, it is not just America but anywhere such a caste system exists. Go to India and see how the untouchables are working through centuries of oppression via government. Go to England and study Irish oppression. They remarks you have posted actually works well in many caste societies. I remember reading an article years ago about the complaint of Englishmen in regards to the strain on the economy due to Irish people.
Not sure what this has to do with Egypt or anthropology or trying to define the lineage and genetics of these people? Can you explain this or are you afraid that you would be too overtly bigoted in doing so?
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There are always people who feel more at home attacking to dominant power structure. It is a way of justifying their inablity to compete in the dominant culture. This is especially true in an era when Utopian philosophies are numerous. 'The Prince' and the tenents of social darwinism should be must reading for everyone. we have to understand that the strong and smart will always prevail under all possible circumstances. The weak will be subjecated and die under all possible circumstances. Even in our so called 'enlightened age' this continues to be the case, as it must be.
Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: There are always people who feel more at home attacking to dominant power structure. It is a way of justifying their inablity to compete in the dominant culture. This is especially true in an era when Utopian philosophies are numerous. 'The Prince' and the tenents of social darwinism should be must reading for everyone. we have to understand that the strong and smart will always prevail under all possible circumstances. The weak will be subjecated and die under all possible circumstances. Even in our so called 'enlightened age' this continues to be the case, as it must be.
I admire your wisdom...seriously...I'm not joking... Relaxx
quote:There are always people who feel more at home attacking to dominant power structure.
There are always people who feel threatened by new ideas and who hide inside "the Matrix" and its "dominant power structure".
quote: It is a way of justifying their inablity to compete in the dominant culture.
It is a way of justifying their inability to think for themselves or engage in factual discourse.
quote: This is especially true in an era when Utopian philosophies are numerous.
This is especially true when intellectual bankruptcy is obvious.
quote: 'The Prince' and the tenents of social darwinism should be must reading for everyone.
'The Mismeasure of Man' [Stephen Gould] is an excellent expose of those who would attempt to substitute a 'social' [darwinist] tenant, for a lack of individual merit or worth.
quote: we have to understand that the strong and smart will always prevail under all possible circumstances. The weak will be subjecated and die under all possible circumstances. Even in our so called 'enlightened age' this continues to be the case, as it must be.
The mentally strong are capable of addressing issues, directly, specifically, concisely and clearly.
The mentally weak engage in pointless meandering discourse, designed to deflect attention from and compensate for, their intellectual shortcomings.
posted
Social Darwinism- descriptive term given to a kind of social theory that draws an association between Darwin's theory of the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or evolution by natural selection, and the sociological relations of humanity.
Critics of such theories argue that by asserting that societies develop and therefore operate by "natural" laws, the real aim of "Social Darwinism" theories is to rationalize and thereby legitimize the unequal and disproportionate divisions between and within societies. Critics may make note that Darwin's own work never contained the logical and naturalistic fallacies of assuming that the existence of natural processes would mean that they could "naturally" be extended from biological systems to social systems. In essence, it justifies the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer by incorrectly applying Darwin's theory.
Mahciavellianism - being or acting in accordance with the principles of government analyzed in Machiavelli's The Prince, in which political expediency is placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described.
[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 01 July 2005).]
posted
spoken like a true Utopian rasol. The point is that if you put 10 people in a group and leave them there, one of them will take control. That individual is going to control a larger share of the groups power and resources than the others. Aristotle said it best when he defined man as motivated by "lust, rage and greed." Even racism is economic at its core. If you told white males that their personal wealth would be doubled by marrying a black woman they would all justify doing it. In other words, if you want to understand human beings....follow the money. that is the engine that makes social darwinism correct.
Posts: 5822 | From: USA | Registered: Jan 2004
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No, just someone who actually understands the meanings of the terms you toss about without comprehension.
quote: The point is that if you put 10 people in a group and leave them there, one of them will take control.
The above is an excellent example - defines facism - A political philosophy marked by centralization of authority under a dictator,and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
As usual, you fail to address the THREAD TOPIC of pseudoscience, and attempt to destract attention with retarded rantings on facism, social darwinism, and Machiavellian. Did you even realise that the operative principal of Machiavellianism is -> lying? In effect, this is what you are trying to justify.
Nevermind, it's clear that this is actually the best you can do, so no point criticising the lack of an intelligible discourse which you clearly, are simply not capable of.
good day, professor.
[This message has been edited by rasol (edited 01 July 2005).]
quote:Originally posted by Horemheb: spoken like a true Utopian rasol. The point is that if you put 10 people in a group and leave them there, one of them will take control. That individual is going to control a larger share of the groups power and resources than the others. Aristotle said it best when he defined man as motivated by "lust, rage and greed." Even racism is economic at its core. If you told white males that their personal wealth would be doubled by marrying a black woman they would all justify doing it. In other words, if you want to understand human beings....follow the money. that is the engine that makes social darwinism correct.
No, we humans are not animals, we are spiritual beings. We can transcend the fleshly desires and do things completely unpredictable. We are not govern by Darwin - we are the wildcards in the equation.
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
will alter this reality. What black people need is a useable present, not an ersatz past. I rest my case. 
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