Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!oliveb!sun!livesey
From: livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: Bias on IQ tests
Message-ID: <50987@sun.uucp>
Date: 27 Apr 88 01:28:20 GMT
References: <3943@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <73600018@uiucdcsp> <48986@sun.uucp> <3104@whutt.UUCP>
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc. - Mtn View, CA
Lines: 44

In article <3104@whutt.UUCP>, mls@whutt.UUCP (SIEMON) writes:
> In article <50475@sun.uucp>, livesey@sun.uucp (Jon Livesey) writes:
> > 
> > 	If parents don't want to know how their children are doing, then they 
> > are fools.  If they consent to having their children 'condemned' to anything, 
> > then they are worse than fools.
> > 
> I tend to think, rather, that it's the majority voting for Maggie that are the
> fools.  Since legitimacy in a "democratic" polity requires an assumption of
> "consent" by the defeated party, many parents may well be in the position of
> (forced) consent to precisely that.  The political defense of privilege is
> ALWAYS done at the expense of those without the priveleges.

	If I could figure out what is being said here, I would reply to it.
What privilege are we talking about here?


> Jon, we realize from your postings that you fervently defend the Thatcherite
> position; many others do not -- and the discussion surely belongs somewhere
> else (soc.politics.misc?) than sci.misc.

	You have a reasonable point, but the wrong guy.    This discussion
began when Mr Huntbach, who does not, I think, receive soc.politics.misc,
seized on a discussion of IQ testing to make an impassioned denunciation
of proposals for changes to the UK's education system.      Since the article
was misleading, and contained a good many non-facts, as I demonstrated by
quoting a comprehensive article from the NYT Education Section, I though it 
worth answering, and did.   (However, I am not going to answer your comment 
about UK voters above, since that is really a purely political comment, and 
has no place at all here.)

	Since you have been posting here as long as Huntbach has, I find 
myself wondering why you did not invite him to take his postings elsewhere, 
around about, oh, say 9 Apr 88 19:39:21 GMT.    If you had, that would have 
cut this short from the start.   Is it possible that only postings that you 
personally disagree with ought to go to soc.politics.misc?

	Given that we have a science education problem of some magnitude in 
the US, I have to say that I think discussions about education policy, are at 
least as relevant to sci.misc as, say, discussions about astrology, a pseudo-
science at best.

	What do you say?   Am I being unfair?

jon.