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How to combat "scientific racism"? (self.SRSDiscussion)

LetMeGoogleThatFoYou が 投稿

I know someone who essentially says black people commit more crime than white people because their testosterone levels are higher, and because testosterone causes more aggression, black people are therefore more aggressive and commit more crime. How to combat this scientific racism?

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[–]doommaggot 44 ポイント45 ポイント  (5子コメント)

Actual science would work.

 

Black males do not have more testosterone than white males. Ref 1, Ref 2

The link between testosterone and aggression is a weak one, and is much smaller effects like the social environment the person is living in. Ref 1, Ref 2
High doses of testosterone did not increase self reported aggression in test subjects. Ref

Testosterone is also linked with positive effects like encouraging fair behaviour. Ref 1, Ref 2, Ref 3

[–]toteslegityo 14 ポイント15 ポイント  (0子コメント)

It's also part of this weird thing people have been trying to do for a while with linking male biological characteristics to criminal behaviour, rather than talking about gender politics.

It's this whole "Men can't help being violent" shtick, and it's really fucking sad.

[–]LetMeGoogleThatFoYou[S] 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (2子コメント)

Thank you! He brought up some studies like this one http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3455741 and I didn't have any scientific evidence to dispute this but this is exactly what I'm looking for.

[–]tilia-cordata 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Except for really foundational research, citing biomedical research that's that old is pretty useless. That one is cancer research from 1986 - it's almost certainly extremely out of date.

The other trick is to take the title of the article you're given, paste it into Google Scholar, click "Cited By" and see the kinds of work that reference the article you listed. You might have to dig, but there's a good chance someone will have published something critical of it, and you can follow citation trails to see where the most recent areas of research on a given topic are.

[–]kareemabduljabbq 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (0子コメント)

There's a small essay by Robert Sapolsky called "The Trouble with Testosterone" link starts on page 39, just click out of the download option that comes up.

The whole book of essays is pretty great, and I think, IIRC, he criticizes the whole idea that testosterone is the sole cause of aggression. Sapolsky is a behavioral biologist. He shows up a lot on Radiolab.

edit: Here's the relevant quote from the article

Fair enough. Now this time, castrate an individual and restore testosterone levels to only 20 percent of normal and...amazingly, normal precastration levels of aggression comeback.Castrate and now generate twice the testosterone levels from before castration—and the same level of aggressive behavior returns. You need some testosterone around for normal aggressive behavior—zero levels after castration, and down it usually goes; quadruple it (the sort of range generated in weight lifters abusing anabolic steroids), and aggression typically increases. But anywhere from roughly 20 percent of normal to twice normal and it's all the same; the brain can't distinguish among this wide range of basically normal values

So, basically, although testosterone appears to be correlative with aggressive behavior, differing ranges of normal values of testosterone don't really produce any more aggressive behavior, therefore, assuming all People of Color aren't actively on anabolic steroids, they have the same amount of aggression or the same tendency to produce aggressive behaviors as all males producing normal levels of testosterone. Therefore, even if People of Color did typically produce more testosterone, it wouldn't matter.

[–]IsGonnaSueYou 7 ポイント8 ポイント  (3子コメント)

You could point out that race is a construct based on perceived biological differences - differences that are often not really there genetically. Note how a child who has one black grandparent would likely be considered black despite being more white than black.

I can't recall the exact fact here, but I recall learning something like: you can often find more genetic difference between two members of the same race than between two races. Sorry to not be much help, but I'm sure other posters will have decent links.

[–]Steffi_van_Essen 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (1子コメント)

There's this chart, which shows among other things that a Nigerian is more genetically distant from a San Person from Angola than an English person is from a Japanese person. It's not quite the same point you were making but it does demonstrate that those defined as black cover a very diverse genetic range.

[–]IsGonnaSueYou -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Yeah, again, I can't remember the exact fact, but this was captures the gist. Thanks for the chart.

[–]Coscott 6 ポイント7 ポイント  (0子コメント)

If someone makes a scientific claim, you should ask "Is it true?" not "How do I combat it?" If you do not know how to combat this claim, then my guess is that you do not have good reasons to disbelieve this claim. I would start by trying to research whether or not it is true. If you find out it is false, then you will have evidence to use to combat it. If you find out it is true, then you will be better for having corrected your false belief.

I made this comment because I was bothered by your use of the word "combat." You should not interpret this comment as having any opinion for or against "scientific racism."

[–]cyber_dildonics 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

black people don't necessarily commit more crime. but they are arrested more often than whites due to racial profiling. they also have higher conviction rates and are given harsher sentences than whites for the same crimes. this is largely due to the inherent biases in the system.

http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet

[–]rmc [非表示スコア]  (0子コメント)

I presume you're in USA? In which case have a look a history. Back when ye had slavery, whities thought that Africans were genetically/biologically more docile, submissive, lazy and didn't want work. The theory was that you needed to enslave them, and have overseers, and beat them to get them to do any work. There's a scene in Django Unchained which mentions this.

So how come science has been used to prove both things? Are black people biologically more docile? Or biologically more aggressive? Or was it all pseudo science and bullshit used to give a veneer of legitimacy to prevailing bigotry?