Aggregate performance was either unaffected or improved in the presence of affirmative action. This fits with history: until 1972 almost no women were admitted to MIT, but it didn't make the men perform less well for all the affirmative action they received nor cheapen their accomplishments.
This is exactly what I'm saying - whichever group gets bonus points/preferences/etc will have lower quality. In the past, that group was women. Now it's usually men, though not always (some nursing schools give preference to men [1], some liberal arts colleges do also).
[1] Defining quality here is slightly trickier since nurses of both genders are needed for specific tasks (mostly related to bathing).
Jesus. Do we live in the same reality?
http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2010/07/how_divers...
TL;DR: The Espenshade study found that African chromosomes (by the "one-drop rule") equaled 450 SAT points over Asian chromosomes as a college admissions factor.
(Not that actual genetic testing was used. It probably should be, though. Why encourage race fraud?)
Your link is to a study in which "affirmative action" is used in the sense it was originally implied, not the sense in which it is actually used:
Note that none of these constitute "reverse discrimination," an accusation affirmative action plans often face. In no case was a top-performing man denied a reward if he outperformed everyone else. The main effect the researchers found was an increase in the number of able women willing to participate.
Granted before some, perhaps most, would be below their level but it seems rather impossible to assume that nobody has now been moved artificially higher than they should have.
At what "level" are people with good connections, powerful parents etc.? Is affirmative action more effective in advancing people than pulling strings and calling in favours? Isn't this mechanism - the social status quo - what affirmative action is designed to change?
Why would one expect more incompetence from one than the other?
Could you, as an engineer, design a better system to make sure that all Eskimos are "likely" incompetent at their jobs, than promoting Eskimos over Tamils just because they are Eskimos and not Tamils?
Another cross-cultural comparison might be useful:
Witch, no. Racist, maybe.
I'll give you my standard deal - I'll admit to being a fascist, if you'll admit to being a communist. I haven't gotten any takers yet but I'm looking forward to the first.
You know what - if someone, anyone, can tell me why it's absolutely necessary to persecute racists and fascists, yet utterly and completely wrong to persecute communists, I'll go whole hog and buy the R-word. Operators are standing by...
I can even anticipate your response:
I don't need to do that.. I just need to point out that by picking an example of what one or more communists did or said doesn't make their actions a part of communism.
The only logical fallacy here is yours - I could equally point at some American murderers and say "capitalism is terrible, look at those capitalists murdering people for money".
So good job anticipating my response... the response of pointing out that your argument is basically bullshit, because sadly for you it isn't easy to back up racism.
Priceless! Where's my MasterCard?
For the record, Paul Graham kills hundreds of thousands of persons of color every year. All these capitalists are the same. Fred Wilson is walking down the street, sees some poor black homeless person he doesn't like... blam! He needs an extended magazine just to walk to work. And sells the organs, too - where do you think all this money comes from? But you never hear about it - our capitalist society is just so callous, you know, to the plight of the underprivileged.
I know there are communists out there who can spell "fascist." I just wish one of them would take my bait...
Folk in white coats with reassuring expressions maybe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_abuse_of_psychiatry_i...
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4345/is_9_32/ai_n291...
No word on treatment options.
As for implying that he is right in general because you have read an article that says that some people would like to be able, in the future, to look at classifying some racist behaviour among a very narrow class of people who already are displaying symptoms of schizophrenia, as being a part of their symptoms. Well, you seem as bonkers as he is.
From your referenced article:
"At present, the state of research is inadequate to suggest one course or another"
It could be that everyone is crazy. You and I together, comrades! If the 20th century doesn't prove the possibility of universal political insanity, what does it prove? Why is the English-speaking world somehow magically exempt from this general condition - appearing in all other places east of the Channel and west of the Pacific?
That seems to be what you're writing. And it doesn't look good.