> Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids

Not aware of any grand genetic behavioral traits to things like theft, murder, violence, rape discussed in this book. Nor does it particularly concern itself with the effect of socioeconomic status or the environment(low-income, illiterate parents, lack of books/newspapers in the home etc, stigma of members of certain minorities etc). It really only concerns itself with parenting style ('tiger mom' vs 'sure you can watch TV and eat pizza') and even here he suggests that there are indeed effects of parenting on intelligence up to a certain age. And within even this limited frakework it's quite a contrarian view that many sociologists don't share, most I would even say from my experience in the field.

But beyond that, it doesn't provide an argument for the case that entire ethnic groups are genetically lesser persons. I mean really, what are we debating here. Just say it straight up, do you really believe in this idea of the untermensch ubermensch, because that's what it comes down to. I reject such a notion that one ethnic or racial group is better than the other, I'm curious if you don't.

Some immigrant groups (e.g., Vietnamese refugees) don't seem to need a "fair shot". They do well all by themselves. Why is that?

There are many reasons, because they are genetically better is not one of them according to me. And this is the overwhelming view in academia. You keep leaving me curious where you stand with questions that seem rhetorical, so as to continuously imply 'why is that? well it must be that some ethnicities or countries have better genes', not asked merely in curiosity of an answer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_minority

> Racism by the rest of society doesn't work well as the sole additional variable

Agreed, nobody said it was the sole variable. But to go against decades and decades of conclusions of the effect of discrimination is laughable, even to imply it or hint at it. Of course it doesn't mean there's zero success in people from minority backgrounds, and that the moment there's one segment of a minority who succeeds you can claim 'oh, but then racism didn't matter at all'. Why even bring this up if you know better. This will probably be my last post.

Especially as you've essentially agreed and raised the final point I wanted to make, that this indeed cuts against genetic explanations. As does the earlier wiki link I posted, where you see that each society has a model minority and they're wildly different, and are generally explained by socioeconomic status or attitudes towards e.g. education, the family etc. Again, I've lived in Europe all my life, born and raised here, I've lived with the North-African immigrants who were illiterate and uneducated people who live in little moutain villages isolated from modernity. The Arab equivalent of the stereotypical redneck with all due respect, only without literacy or any education. Of course they'll perform poorly in the city-life of a different country, culture. But I've also lived with North African immigrants with similar genes, who were university schooled and lived in cities, and they perform very well here, with no difference in genes.

>> I just don't think the story is as simple as you or the OP are making it out to be

That's fine, it indeed is a very complex subject and any posts totaling 2 pages of text of course aren't enough to explain the complete economic, cultural, social, financial and political success of natives and immigrants in tens of countries and wildly different situations. To say anything about such a large group of people in such a large set of different situations in one or two pages of text requires an oversimplification!

I agree with you here. I've merely tried to hint at some of the ideas that sociologists in my experience and study seem to overwhelmingly hold, which is simply NOT a race-based theory of genetically inferior and superior races/ethnicities/countries, I hope that much is clear.

Anyway thanks for the chat :)