Why are most western Buddhists white?

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waterchan
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by waterchan »

culaavuso wrote:the original premise that race was a direct causal factor was a faulty premise
No, there was no implication of causality from the start. This study was done while I was at the University of Miami, whose psychology department is one of the most prestigious in the country. It's inconceivable that any proposal implying causality from the outset would have made it past the very initial approval stage.
culaavuso wrote:The result of the study mentioned seems to be that IQ results varied between schools and there happened to be a correlation between ethnicity and attendance of any particular school.
The result of the study maintained that the correlation between ethnicity and IQ test scores is very real. When people take IQ tests, they may tick a box indicating what general ethnicity they are, and from collecting this raw data you can observe a strong correlation between skin color and IQ. Of course that doesn't imply causality. Attendance as you said is one factor, but there are many others. One is that in asian countries, it's quite the cultural norm for women to engage in studies that require critical thinking, such as mathematics, science, engineering, and philosophy. It's quite the norm for women to become computer programmers, technicians, scientists, and robotics engineers. The Japanese in particular stand out as highly adept test-takers; they have to take highly competitive entrance exams just to get into high school.

Similarly, the correlation between skin color and university entrance test scores is very real. One of the reasons is simply that young asian students are more used to taking tests than other races, and have more test-taking experience.

To the non-scientific readers of this post, I want to make one thing absolutely clear. When one says that there is a correlation between skin color and IQ score, this statement implies only one thing: that people of some races are better at taking IQ tests than others. Don't read into it what is not there.
culaavuso wrote:A more directly useful question at the outset would have been "what makes some students perform significantly better or worse on IQ tests than others, and how can IQ test outcomes be improved?"
I agree that investigating some questions can lead to the discovery that the question itself was misguided, but I disagree that this is a more useful question in research, simply because it is too broad. When you choose a topic of research, you never start with a broad topic. You always start with a narrow topic, e.g. "Why are Asian students who go to middle-class universities scoring higher than others on the SAT?" and then as you gather more data you may find it desirable to broaden the focus of your research at some point.
Last edited by waterchan on Fri Mar 07, 2014 7:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by DNS »

waterchan wrote: To the non-scientific readers of this post, I want to make one thing absolutely clear. When one says that there is a correlation between skin color and IQ score, this statement implies only one thing: that people of some races are better at taking IQ tests than others. Don't read into it what is not there.
The way that is written, it looks to be racist. There is no correlation between skin color and IQ score. I am sure you did not mean that, but I can see how some might read it that way. There is perhaps a correlation between ethnicity / culture due to some of the factors you mentioned but absolutely not color. If for example a child of European or African ancestry were raised by Asian parents, then the score would just as likely be high, according to the other factors you mentioned.
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by binocular »

David N. Snyder wrote:The way that is written, it looks to be racist. There is no correlation between skin color and IQ score. I am sure you did not mean that, but I can see how some might read it that way. There is perhaps a correlation between ethnicity / culture due to some of the factors you mentioned but absolutely not color. If for example a child of European or African ancestry were raised by Asian parents, then the score would just as likely be high, according to the other factors you mentioned.
It is safe to assume that there is a correlation between ethnicity /culture and skin color. Hence when there is a correlation between a characteristic and ethnicity / culture, there is therefore also correlation between said characteristic and skin color.
If for example a child of European or African ancestry were raised by Asian parents,
Which seems like a statistically rare occurence.
Of course there are white rappers, for example.
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waterchan
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

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David N. Snyder wrote: The way that is written, it looks to be racist. There is no correlation between skin color and IQ score. I am sure you did not mean that, but I can see how some might read it that way. There is perhaps a correlation between ethnicity / culture due to some of the factors you mentioned but absolutely not color. If for example a child of European or African ancestry were raised by Asian parents, then the score would just as likely be high, according to the other factors you mentioned.
Heh, I knew someone would raise this point about ethnicity vs color...

Those are rare exceptions, David, as binocular has pointed out above. Scientific research is often cold-hearted, as you probably know yourself as a Ph.D, and not every research takes into account minutiae such as the possibility that a white person might be raised by Chinese parents, or the possibility that some students in the data pool might have Down's syndrome, or the possibility that some students might have a hard time using a pen because they are missing three fingers (I had a friend like that), or the fact that clinical depression is most commonly diagnosed among white people.

Such exceptions may be addressed in the details of the research paper, but when you're presenting it to an audience, it's usually African = black, European = white, South American = Hispanic, and Asian = Asian, and everyone is reasonably healthy. And when your sample space contains literally billions of samples spanning a few decades, that's not a terribly unreasonable assumption at all.
Last edited by waterchan on Fri Mar 07, 2014 8:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by DNS »

waterchan wrote: Such exceptions may be addressed in the details of the research paper, but when you're presenting it to an audience, it's usually African American = black, European = white, South American = Hispanic, and Asian = Asian, and everyone is reasonably healthy. And when your sample space contains literally billions of samples spanning a few decades, that's not a terribly unreasonable assumption at all.
That is fine, but you can't make the cause sound as if it is skin color when it clearly is not. It is obviously culture, socioeconomic status and other factors, nothing to do with color.
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waterchan
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

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David N. Snyder wrote: That is fine, but you can't make the cause sound as if it is skin color when it clearly is not. It is obviously culture, socioeconomic status and other factors, nothing to do with color.
Of course, David, the cause is not skin color, we all know that. I don't recall ever using the word "cause" in this thread, and I wish people would stop equating correlation to cause. But as it has been pointed out,

strong correlation between skin color and ethnicity
plus
strong correlation between ethnicity and X

automatically implies a strong correlation between skin color and X.

I'll repeat again so that everyone understands: correlation does not imply causation, and correlation has nothing to do with cause. Drop the mental association between the words "correlation" and "cause".
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by mikenz66 »

Hi David,

It's not clear to me exactly what your objection is. It's a fact that in may countries, including my own, people of some races/skin colours/ethnic groups/however-you-want-to-do-the-classification/ do worse at certain tests. It's not racist, it's a measurable correlation. That's a matter of concern that I, for one, am keen to address because it's not good for my country.

The causes of these correlations are, of course, complex, and fixing the problems is not a trivial matter. It will take generations...

:anjali:
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by DNS »

Yes, that is fine; as long as it is understood that the color is not a causation. I just want to make that clear. There have been some objections that just having this discussion is racist and want to make sure that this discussion remains on track and not misunderstood, that is all. It is clearly culture and other factors.
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by mikenz66 »

Yes, it's clear that colour/race is not causation. However, in some cases (such as in apartheid-era South Africa) there were some rather strong causal factors: being black automatically meant completely different treatment.

The same applied/applies, to a lesser extent, in many other countries, including my own.

:anjali:
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waterchan
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by waterchan »

It seems we are mostly in agreement that this discussion is not racist by nature.

Soooooooo... going back to the topic,
David N. Snyder wrote: However, socio-economic class also has a lot to do with it and as more African-Americans come out of poverty, there will be greater participation. I have met several African-American Buddhists, but admittedly most have been middle to upper-middle class.
Are you sure socio-economic class has a lot to do with whether one is attracted to the Dhamma or not? Did most of the Buddha's disciples come from a particular caste?
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

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waterchan wrote: I'll repeat again so that everyone understands: correlation does not imply causation, and correlation has nothing to do with cause.
It can if a statement is made without qualifications. That is why it is important to discuss the factors and to show what is true and what is spurious. The correlation can be made by other factors which can and should be mentioned.
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

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waterchan wrote: Are you sure socio-economic class has a lot to do with whether one is attracted to the Dhamma or not? Did most of the Buddha's disciples come from a particular caste?
We are not discussing practitioners from the time of Buddha. We are talking about a much more heterogeneous society that we have in modern times.

During the time of the Buddha, participants didn't need to pay thousands of dollars to attend a one week retreat, for example (plane fares, time off work, cost of the retreat, dana for the teachers, etc.).
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waterchan
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

Post by waterchan »

David N. Snyder wrote:
waterchan wrote: Are you sure socio-economic class has a lot to do with whether one is attracted to the Dhamma or not? Did most of the Buddha's disciples come from a particular caste?
We are not discussing practitioners from the time of Buddha. We are talking about a much more heterogeneous society that we have in modern times.
Does the heterogeneity of today's society make any difference, though? Certainly it seems that religions of all kind attract people from all levels of society, especially free services like church. So why should socio-economic class be a factor in people gravitating to free Dhamma talks in Buddhism?
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

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waterchan wrote: Does the heterogeneity of today's society make any difference, though? Certainly it seems that religions of all kind attract people from all levels of society, especially free services like church. So why should socio-economic class be a factor in people gravitating to Buddhism?
I think you responded while I was editing my post, when I was adding this to my post above:

During the time of the Buddha, participants didn't need to pay thousands of dollars to attend a one week retreat, for example (plane fares, time off work, cost of the retreat, dana for the teachers, etc.).
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Re: Why are most western Buddhists white?

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Speaking generally of course; when people are consumed with most of their time on economic issues and how they are going to pay rent, mortgage, put food on the table; generally don't go out examining other religions and tend to stick with their birth-religions if they have any at all. (of course there are exceptions, but in general this is the case)
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