tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post5326257227543405516..comments2024-03-27T17:15:37.606-04:00Comments on Triablogue: Biracialism in ScriptureRyanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17809283662428917799noreply@blogger.comBlogger97125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-87120579669318339902018-07-07T13:09:18.225-04:002018-07-07T13:09:18.225-04:00Steve Jackson
"The Roma have an IQ in the lo...Steve Jackson<br /><br />"The Roma have an IQ in the low 70s. They have been in Europe for a thousand years. Why are there no Roma Newtons, Teslas, etc.?"<br /><br />How would you know what the average Roma or Romani's IQ was a thousand years ago? Did IQ tests (equivalent to modern IQ tests) exist a thousand years ago? <br /><br />"Yes, if Newton had been born among the Aborigines he would probably have been forgotten to history."<br /><br />If this is true, then why couldn't it likewise apply to a hypothetical Romani Newton? If there was a Romani Newton, why couldn't he have been forgotten to history since his people are an itinerant people, never putting down roots, always moving from place to place, gypsies keeping to themselves, etc.?Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-48042424200381455502018-07-07T12:14:18.692-04:002018-07-07T12:14:18.692-04:006. What about race? How would you define race?
a...6. What about race? How would you define race? <br /><br />a. Of course, there's the side that race doesn't exist, scientifically speaking. That race is primarily a social or cultural construct. That sort of thing. But obviously that's not you.<br /><br />b. Since you're a genetic hereditarian, I assume you'd define race as something like "genetically distinct populations or subspecies in the same species". Is that about right? Would you change it? Add or subtract from the definition? Would you add phenotypical characteristics? Morphology? Would these populations have to be allopatric populations, that is, separated by geography to some degree, though not necessarily completely isolated? Or would they have to be completely isolated? These are the sorts of basic questions (to say nothing of more complex questions) that even a fairly vanilla definition of race based on genetic hereditarianism have to grapple with. <br /><br />c. <a href="http://www.genetics.org/content/161/1/269" rel="nofollow">According to many geneticists</a>, Africans who are from the regions of East Africa (especially the Great Rift Valley) have considerably more genetic variation among one another than they do with (say) whites or East Asians. <br /><br />The evolutionist's explanation for this is that East Africa is the origin of humanity. The birthplace of archaic then modern humanity. (I'll leave an exception like <i>Sahelanthropus</i> alone for now since it's less mainstream.) Humans in East Africa evolved for millions of years in this region before they ever migrated out of Africa. Humans evolved for a longer period of time in East Africa than humans have evolved since leaving Africa. It's thought humans diverged from chimpanzees approximately 7 million years ago, while the first migration "out of Africa" occurred around 250,000 years ago at the earliest.<br /><br />Moreover, many geneticists and evolutionists argue human populations that migrated out of Africa have approximately 5% Neanderthal DNA, whereas human populations that remained in Africa do not have Neanderthal DNA. That's because human populations that migrated out of Africa intermingled with Neanderthals, while human populations that remained in Africa did not.<br /><br />Now here's the question. How would genetic hereditarians who do not accept human evolution (which I presume you do not but correct me if I'm wrong) explain the larger genetic diversity between Africans and other Africans than between Africans and other races (e.g. white, Asian)?<br />Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-16103546467198973412018-07-07T12:14:04.735-04:002018-07-07T12:14:04.735-04:005. If you wish to talk about things that are hard ...5. If you wish to talk about things that are hard to explain, what about intelligence itself? <br /><br />a. Intelligence is hard to explain! How would you define intelligence?<br /><br />b. Intelligence is hard to measure too. How well do IQ tests measure intelligence? <br /><br />c. What IQ tests were used in the various studies to come up with black, white, and other races/ethnicities' IQs? Were they all the same IQ test or at least equivalent? Were they all standardized across various time periods, for surely IQ tests taken in c. 1950 would be different than IQ tests taken today? <br /><br />d. What do the IQ tests consist of content-wise? For example, Raven's progressive matrices would seem to be a more fair component of an IQ test than IQ tests involving questions like how many cylinders is in the engine of this or that car model (which was actually a question in the earliest IQ tests), because Raven's progressive matrices attempt to remove as much cultural bias as possible. <br /><br />e. To my knowledge, the most commonly used IQ test in the US is the Wechsler Scale (WAIS). Briefly, it tests four major components of intelligence: verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed. Each of these is debatable as to how reliably they reflect intelligence. <br /><br />For example, verbal comprehension attempts in part to measure "degree of general information acquired from culture". If Albert Einstein were instantly reanimated today in order to take the Wechsler IQ test, he would have no general information about our culture, so he might not do as well on the verbal comprehension component as someone who is immersed in our culture would.<br /><br />Another example is what Peter Pike pointed out earlier. A calculator has greater memory as well as processing speed than most human beings, likewise other electronic devices like smartphones and computers, but that wouldn't imply the calculator or computer is more intelligent than most human beings, because a calculator or computer is basically just a dumb machine invented by humans.Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-9906504850110960112018-07-07T12:13:37.481-04:002018-07-07T12:13:37.481-04:00Steve Jackson
1. I'll note you haven't re...Steve Jackson<br /><br />1. I'll note you haven't responded to most of my points and questions to you. Of course, that's your prerogative. <br /><br />At the same time, it's my prerogative to answer or not answer as well. Or to answer in ways I believe to be better - which I'll opt for here.<br /><br />2. I'll start bigger picture and painting my own position. To my knowledge, it seems fair to say the three main positions in this debate over race/ethnicity and intelligence as measured by IQ tests are: <br /><br />a. The genetic hereditarian position. Intelligence among races/ethnicities is primarily or purely influenced by genetics.<br /><br />b. The environmental position. Intelligence among races/ethnicities is primarily or purely influenced by environmental factors (e.g. upbringing, culture, socioeconomic status).<br /><br />c. The genetic-environmental position. An even split between the two. <br /><br />3. Speaking for myself, I'm essentially agnostic about all this. At this point in time, I don't think we can conclusively say one way or the other. Like I alluded to earlier, there's nothing wrong with saying "I don't know".<br /><br />However, if I was forced to pick one of the three, then I'd pick the genetic-environmental position, because I think I see the arguments and evidence pointing in both directions. <br /><br />Actually, I think it'd better to say it's a triad: genetics, environment, and mind. All three influence intelligence to one degree or another. Fundamentally speaking, though, as I've said above, I think intelligence is mind-based inasmuch as the mind is distinct from the physical brain, though the physical brain mediates the mind. However, I'm no philosopher, so I'm sure this could be improved upon.<br /><br />4. As far as your questions, I think the more fundamental issue is I don't agree with the assumptions behind the questions. I think it'd better to challenge the assumptions behind the questions. In that vein I pointed out a few assumptions I think may exist in my reply about regression to the mean above. I'll point out more below.<br />Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-61709650782915199762018-07-06T19:22:10.300-04:002018-07-06T19:22:10.300-04:00Steve,
"i) The development of writing is onl...Steve,<br /><br />"i) The development of writing is only a few thousand years old, and disseminated through process of cultural diffusion. Were preliterate humans less intelligent?"<br /><br /><br />Some were and some weren't. Some groups are innately more intelligent than others.<br /><br />ii) Many geniuses never had an opportunity to flourish. If you're a medieval Eskimo genius, what are your opportunities to develop or record your genius? <br /><br />Yes, if Newton had been born among the Aborigines he would probably have been forgotten to history.<br /><br />But Newton was born in a high IQ society and at a time when society was on the rise, so to speak.<br /><br />Again, I just don't know how your points make it likely that all ethnic groups have the same or even roughly the same innate intelligence. There is nothing in history that indicates this.<br /><br />The Roma have an IQ in the low 70s. They have been in Europe for a thousand years. Why are there no Roma Newtons, Teslas, etc.?<br />steve jacksonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07536102007821807299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-36184347033594658342018-07-06T07:43:57.716-04:002018-07-06T07:43:57.716-04:00Regression to the mean is hard to explain. I'...Regression to the mean is hard to explain. I've never seen a good explanation of why black IQs regress to a lower mean, particularly in siblings, who share a similar environment. What's your explanation?<br /><br />Likewise, why do Hispanics and Blacks have higher IQs the more European ancestry?<br /><br /><br />steve jacksonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07536102007821807299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-45965535961139388242018-07-05T15:12:34.948-04:002018-07-05T15:12:34.948-04:00Steve Jackson
"regression to the mean"
...Steve Jackson<br /><br />"regression to the mean"<br /><br />"I'm taller than my parents. There are always exceptions."<br /><br />1. Of course, regression to the mean is a statistical phenomenon. It's observed at the level of a population, not at the level of individuals. Indeed, it's notable how all this talk about race and IQ is based on statistical phenemona which apply across populations rather than at the level of individuals. Yet what's true of populations may or may not be true of individuals in a population. Hence, for instance, questions like Steve Hays's question are quite relevant: "Is it exceptional that a genius child is smarter than his parents, or is that typical? Is it exceptional that some siblings are smarter than other siblings, or is that commonplace?" (Perhaps this is partly because <i>The Bell Curve</i>, which kicked off much of the debate about race and IQ, is a book that is fine when it comes to sociology and statistics, but is lacking when it comes to the sciences such as genetics and neuroscience.)<br /><br />2. Also, regression to the mean when applied to race and IQ makes several assumptions which need to be justified:<br /><br />a. One has to assume IQ is as simple to measure as height when analogies are drawn between height and IQ as examples of regression to the mean. That an IQ test (e.g. Stanford-Binet) measuring intelligence is as "accurate" as a stadiometer or tape measure or ruler measuring a person's height. <br /><br />b. One has to assume there are no other factors involved that could influence the data (e.g. social, cultural, economic). Obviously that's hotly debated. Nature vs nurture. Biology vs environment. <br /><br />c. One has to assume races are discrete rather than continuous. But that's another hotly debated topic. <br /><br />d. One has to assume the genetic variation among (say) the black population is the same as it is across the white population. Yet many geneticists have argued there is far more genetic variation between blacks and other blacks than there is genetic variation between blacks and whites (e.g. see <a href="http://www.genetics.org/content/161/1/269" rel="nofollow">here</a>). This is expressed phenotypically too. For example, the Maasai are among the tallest people in the world, while the Pygmy peoples are among the shortest. Black populations differ more from one another than from non-black populations.Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-90774510196511696392018-07-05T13:54:48.026-04:002018-07-05T13:54:48.026-04:00Here's something relevant Richard Lewontin has...Here's something relevant <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/may/26/its-even-less-your-genes/" rel="nofollow">Richard Lewontin has said</a>:<br /><br />A major problem in understanding what geneticists have found out about the relation between genes and manifest characteristics of organisms is an overly flexible use of language that creates ambiguities of meaning. In particular, their use of the terms "heritable" and "heritability" is so confusing that an attempt at its clarification occupies the last two chapters of <i>The Mirage of a Space Between Nature and Nurture</i>. When a biological characteristic is said to be "heritable," it means that it is capable of being transmitted from parents to offspring, just as money may be inherited, although neither is inevitable. In contrast, "heritability" is a statistical concept, the proportion of variation of a characteristic in a population that is attributable to genetic variation among individuals. The implication of "heritability" is that some proportion of the next generation will possess it.<br /><br />The move from "heritable" to "heritability" is a switch from a qualitative property at the level of an individual to a statistical characterization of a population. Of course, to have a nonzero heritability in a population, a trait must be heritable at the individual level. But it is important to note that even a trait that is perfectly heritable at the individual level might have essentially zero heritability at the population level. If I possess a unique genetic variant that enables me with no effort at all to perform a task that many other people have learned to do only after great effort, then that ability is heritable in me and may possibly be passed on to my children, but it may also be of zero heritability in the population.Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-53907351704481736862018-07-05T11:48:43.715-04:002018-07-05T11:48:43.715-04:00"If Aborgines and Sub-Sharan Africans never d..."If Aborgines and Sub-Sharan Africans never developed the wheel, writing, math that isn't evidence of lower innate intelligence? What would constitute evidence?"<br /><br />Incans never "developed" the wheel, writing (they used quipu), or math (beyond numerical counting), yet they built an entire civilization.<br /><br />"If you don't like Nobel prizes as a metric, then on what metric would you put the intelligence of Sub-Saharan Africans and Aborigines on even close to the same level as whites?"<br /><br />1. I never said I don't like Nobel prizes as a metric. Rather, I was responding to you on your own grounds. You were the one who brought up Nobel prizes as a metric. I argued they don't get you to where you want to go.<br /><br />2. Peter Pike brought up good examples about intelligence among hunter-gather type societies. Likewise Steve Hays made good points about preliterate humans. <br /><br />3. To tack onto what they've said, it's possible the Incans had very intelligent people, otherwise it doesn't seem likely they would have developed such an advanced civilization, but since the Incans didn't keep written records, we don't know. <br /><br />4. It sounds like you are assuming the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. <br /><br />"It's conceivable that I win the lottery."<br /><br />1. As an aside, it's ironic you say this, since you're the one who talked about "impossibility" (albeit in a different context, see above). <br /><br />2. I'm not speaking about "conceivable" in the way you are using it, as if anything is possible in theory. No, I'm speaking about human evolution in the context of Reich's argument. It logically follows from what Reich has said that it's "conceivable" - in fact, if you like, I'd even say quite plausible given Reich's argument - that humans will evolve such that white and black either won't be discrete racial/ethnic categories (probably something entirely different, even as different as whites are from East Asians today, as Reich himself has said) or if they remain continuous with contemporary blacks and whites that intelligences could be in reversed roles from today. <br /><br />See, that's the problem with you bringing up Reich - if you accept his conclusions, then you have to accept at least the premises on which his conclusions rest. <br /><br />"I've given you the evidence: Spearman's hypothesis, regression to the mean, brain size, Kierkegard's pre print which shows that the more European ancestry a black or Hispanic has the higher the IQ, Piffer's study on GWAS hits that correlate to intelligence, the inability to raise IQ, adoption studies, the Shaker Heights phenomenon, etc."<br /><br />1. Actually, and again, what you've mainly done is cite <b>buzzwords</b>. You cite buzzwords and related terms that other studies from other experts have challenged. It makes you sound like you know what you're talking about, but do you? Thus far I don't think so.<br /><br />2. Also, I've responded to some of these, though it'd take me a considerable amount of time to respond to everything. For example, I asked you questions about what you meant when you talked about brain size, though you originally said brain "weight", not brain size. But you never explained what you meant by brain size, whether you meant brain mass, brain volume, cranial capacity, what about the rest of the central nervous system, is it the amount of neurons, their quality, what about glial cells, what about various neurotransmitters, what about the neuroelectrical activity of the brain, what about cerebral bloodflow and its effects, and so on and so forth. These all matter inasmuch as they are part of the anatomy and physiology of the brain. Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-29883470898461466032018-07-05T11:47:44.936-04:002018-07-05T11:47:44.936-04:00Steve Jackson
"I'm not sure how you can ...Steve Jackson<br /><br />"I'm not sure how you can call these "relevant scholars." Most aren't geneticists. Lots of sociologists, law professors, etc."<br /><br />1. I took that into consideration above. At the same time, there are scientists including geneticists, and I've cited geneticists too.<br /><br />2. In fact, I even quoted several things from Reich himself which are in tension with what you've said! But I don't see you responding to any of the points Reich himself makes?<br /><br />3. As you know, Charles Murray isn't a geneticist. But he still gets a say, doesn't he? Or are we going to outright dismiss his work because he's not a geneticist (e.g. <i>The Bell Curve</i>)?<br /><br />"As I said, there is likely less variation among the mean."<br /><br />1. That's still too vague to explain the phenomena. How is that an explanation given the data? <br /><br />2. You're just using a term ("less variation among the mean") in lieu of an argument when you really need to explicitly spell out your argument. Indeed, that's been a consistent issue for you: using <b>buzzwords</b> rather than making arguments. <br /><br />3. Nobel prize winners are presumably not people "among the mean".<br /><br />"And I never said there is no cultural component."<br /><br />1. You've only admitted this recently. After our many responses to you.<br /><br />2. Still, that's disingenuous, because your point from the beginning has been that genetics <i>causally</i> influences intelligence (as measured by IQ score) among races/ethnicities. In your view, at best, culture would be secondary to biological explanations, would it not? Or are you now saying culture is on par with biology (e.g. genetics) in explaining differences in IQ scores among races/ethnicities? <br /><br />"Yes Reich seems to backtrack, but I doubt he really thinks the future research is going to disconfirm stereotypes. One can only imagine how many Jews he works with in his department. I doubt he'd bet the next mortgage payment on the idea that Ashkanazi Jews don't have a genetic advantage over Aborigines."<br /><br />All this is just speculation on your part. I've quoted Reich's exact words verbatim.Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-5874384472541255332018-07-05T10:37:21.670-04:002018-07-05T10:37:21.670-04:00"If you don't like Nobel prizes as a metr..."If you don't like Nobel prizes as a metric, then on what metric would you put the intelligence of Sub-Saharan Africans and Aborigines on even close to the same level as whites?"<br /><br />Who would last longer stranded on an island, the Aborigine or the left-coast ivory-towered white professor? If you had to track an animal through the brush or starve, who's going to live: the suburban white lawyer or the African tribesman?<br /><br />Intelligence is a matter of context. I used to know a carpenter who could only read at junior high level, but could just glance at the slope of a roof, turn around, and without measuring or drawing a single line on a board, cut it so it would fit the slope exactly. He didn't know how to do trigonometry, and yet he would get the precise angle necessary not only one one side but on the opposite side when he's flipping the angle mentally. What metric would you use to gauge his intelligence?<br /><br />For that matter, most people think that being highly functional in mathematics makes one smart, but math has nothing to do with intelligence. Know how I know that? Because I have a calculator that's literally as dumb as a box of rocks and yet it solves math problems faster and more accurately than I, or you, or any other human being ever could. Yet math proficiency--something that can be done by a machine without a brain--is somehow a metric by which intelligence is measured. "Hey look, I can do a task that literally can be done without a brain, only not as good! Who cares that I could only survive a week without electricity? I'm clearly smarter than that guy who can't do math but who knows exactly what nights the herd is going to be at the waterhole and which nights they'll be hiding on the plain."Peter Pikehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11792036365040378473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-72925888995412548292018-07-05T10:21:37.822-04:002018-07-05T10:21:37.822-04:00i) The development of writing is only a few thousa...i) The development of writing is only a few thousand years old, and disseminated through process of cultural diffusion. Were preliterate humans less intelligent?<br /><br />ii) Many geniuses never had an opportunity to flourish. If you're a medieval Eskimo genius, what are your opportunities to develop or record your genius? <br /><br />Scientific and mathematical achievements are cumulative. If Newton was born in the Dark Ages, he'd be unable to realize his potential.stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-92055538715976999852018-07-05T10:15:11.341-04:002018-07-05T10:15:11.341-04:00What makes the circumstances more propitious for g...What makes the circumstances more propitious for genius to cluster around Classical Greece rather than other periods? What makes the circumstances more propitious for genius to cluster around the first three decades of 20C physics?stevehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16547070544928321788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-15197440523491082762018-07-05T08:30:18.590-04:002018-07-05T08:30:18.590-04:00Steve,
"Explain how the clustering of genius...Steve,<br /><br />"Explain how the clustering of genius in Classical Greece is partly genetic? Explain how the fact that scientific genius clusters around the first three decades of 20C physics is partly genetic? "<br /><br /><br />I'm having a hard time following your point. Russia in the 20th century produced far few outstanding novelists and composers than in 19th century Russians. The Russians didn't change genetically. It was, I assume, two world wars and communism.<br />steve jacksonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07536102007821807299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-57778270225324703372018-07-05T07:33:15.615-04:002018-07-05T07:33:15.615-04:006. "So even if (arguendo) "blacks have l...6. "So even if (arguendo) "blacks have lower average IQs than whites", that's only temporary. It's conceivable blacks will have higher IQs than whites in the future, given enough time. "<br /><br />It's conceivable that I win the lottery. Incidentally, James Flynn admitted that blacks Americans are losing perhaps 3/4 a point in IQ per generation due to dysgenic mating (60 percent of black births are to mothers below the average black IQ).<br /><br />7. "Unless you take the view that there are predetermined limitations on cognitive abilities between races, but then the question is where's the evidence for these predetermined limitations?"<br /><br />I've given you the evidence: Spearman's hypothesis, regression to the mean, brain size, Kierkegard's pre print which shows that the more European ancestry a black or Hispanic has the higher the IQ, Piffer's study on GWAS hits that correlate to intelligence, the inability to raise IQ, adoption studies, the Shaker Heights phenomenon, etc.steve jacksonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07536102007821807299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-51130024016764711282018-07-05T07:25:45.342-04:002018-07-05T07:25:45.342-04:00Dude:
1. "What's more, it looks like a g...Dude:<br /><br />1. "What's more, it looks like a group of 60 or so other relevant scholars have challenged Reich's piece (here). " I'm not sure how you can call these "relevant scholars." Most aren't geneticists. Lots of sociologists, law professors, etc.<br /><br /><br />2. "Yet East Asians are the second highest in terms of IQ. Shouldn't they have the second highest number of awards according to your logic? But they don't. At least it looks like to me that white people (e.g. Europeans, Americans) have the second highest number of Nobel prizes. Why is that?"<br /><br />As I said, there is likely less variation among the mean. And I never said there is no cultural component.<br /><br /><br />3. Yes Reich seems to backtrack, but I doubt he really thinks the future research is going to disconfirm stereotypes. One can only imagine how many Jews he works with in his department. I doubt he'd bet the next mortgage payment on the idea that Ashkanazi Jews don't have a genetic advantage over Aborigines.<br /><br />4. If Aborgines and Sub-Sharan Africans never developed the wheel, writing, math that isn't evidence of lower innate intelligence? What would constitute evidence?<br /><br /><br />5. If you don't like Nobel prizes as a metric, then on what metric would you put the intelligence of Sub-Saharan Africans and Aborigines on even close to the same level as whites?<br />steve jacksonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07536102007821807299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-58286154899364896942018-07-05T03:57:22.163-04:002018-07-05T03:57:22.163-04:00Reich has said
"Genetic variations are likel...<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/opinion/race-genetics.html" rel="nofollow">Reich has said</a><br /><br />"Genetic variations are likely to affect behavior and cognition just as they affect other traits, even though we know that the average genetic influences on behavior and cognition are strongly affected by upbringing and are likely to be more modest than genetic influences on bodily traits or disease."<br /><br />It's noteworthy Reich thinks "the average genetic influences on behavior and cognition are...likely to be more modest than genetic influences on bodily traits or disease". <br /><br />Why? Let me explain. <br /><br />Just because a particular person or population has a particular gene doesn't mean they will definitely get a particular disease associated with that particular gene. For example, if a group of women have the BRCA gene (mutation) which is linked to breast cancer, it's not a foregone conclusion these women will <i>definitely</i> develop breast cancer. It makes it more likely, but it doesn't mean it's their destiny to develop breast cancer just because they have a gene that's strongly correlated with breast cancer. (Of course, different genes and different diseases will have different probabilities.)<br /><br />Now, Reich says genetic influences on cognition are likely even "more modest" than genetic influences on disease. So Reich believes there's even weaker correlation between genes and intelligence than between genes and disease. If that's true, then (<i>a fortiori</i>) it's possible just because a particular person or population has a particular IQ-linked gene doesn't necessarily mean that particular person or population is either more or less intelligent than another person or population without a particular IQ-linked gene, as a very simplistic example.<br /><br />Granted, this may or may not be how the genomics of intelligence works. (If anything, I would suspect it's far more complicated.) However, at this point, I'm simply responding to you on your own grounds.Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-78578400734791372412018-07-05T03:15:48.342-04:002018-07-05T03:15:48.342-04:00Steve Jackson
"If IQ is 50 to 80 percent her...Steve Jackson<br /><br />"If IQ is 50 to 80 percent heritable, which almost no one doubts..."<br /><br />FTFY: If IQ is 50 to 80 percent heritable, which almost no racial hereditarian doubts... Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-52072945034286255262018-07-05T03:05:59.694-04:002018-07-05T03:05:59.694-04:00Just a few more comments:
1. If you accept what R...Just a few more comments:<br /><br />1. If you accept what Reich says as correct, then one conclusion is intelligence in races/ethnicities isn't necessarily set in stone. Genetics isn't necessarily destiny. Intelligence or cognitive ability can be malleable, at least to some degree. So even if (arguendo) "blacks have lower average IQs than whites", that's only temporary. It's conceivable blacks will have higher IQs than whites in the future, given enough time. <br /><br />2. Unless you take the view that there are predetermined limitations on cognitive abilities between races, but then the question is where's the evidence for these predetermined limitations? <br /><br />3. In fact, it's possible in the future that neither white nor black will even exist as a discrete "race".Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-37772017001299609732018-07-05T02:40:10.225-04:002018-07-05T02:40:10.225-04:00More Reich (emphasis mine):
Indeed, we have known...<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/opinion/race-genetics.html" rel="nofollow">More Reich</a> (emphasis mine):<br /><br />Indeed, we have known for almost a half-century that for the great majority of human traits shaped by genetics, there is far greater variation among individuals than populations. This means that when a teacher looks around a classroom of students of diverse “races,” she or he shouldn’t see them as members of fundamentally different groups of people. <b>“Race” has trivial predictive power about an individual person’s biological capabilities.</b> Even if there are slight average differences among groups of humans, individuals from any group are capable of excelling in any realm.<br /><br />1. <b>“Race” is fundamentally a social category — not a biological one — as anthropologists have shown.</b><br /><br />3. Present-day human populations, which often but not always are correlated to today’s “race” categories...<br /><br />4. Genetic variations are likely to affect behavior and cognition just as they affect other traits, even though <b>we know that the average genetic influences on behavior and cognition are strongly affected by upbringing</b> and are likely to be more modest than genetic influences on bodily traits or disease.<br /><br />In short, I think everyone can understand that very modest differences across human population in the genetic influences on behavior and cognition are to be expected. And I think everyone can understand that even if we do not yet have any idea about what the difference are, we do not need to be worried about what we will find because <b>we can already be sure that any differences will be small (far smaller than those among individuals).</b><br />Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-67594631672329562082018-07-05T02:31:02.824-04:002018-07-05T02:31:02.824-04:00Reich said in a follow-up:
"Having been imme...Reich said in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/opinion/race-genetics.html" rel="nofollow">follow-up</a>:<br /><br />"Having been immersed in the ancient DNA revolution for the past 10 years, I am confident that anyone who pays attention to what it is finding cannot come away feeling affirmed in racist beliefs. My childhood guesses about who we are and how we’re related to one another — and about the nature of differences among people — have been shown to be wrong again and again."<br /><br />"As Hamlet says to his friend in Shakespeare’s play, 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.' And that’s what the ancient DNA revolution is reminding us repeatedly. Anyone who thinks they can guess what the nature of human variation is based on the data we had available to us before these breakthroughs is wrong."<br /><br />This echoes what I said above:<br /><br />"6. Again, I think there is some degree of genetic heritability to intelligence, but I think it's far from the whole picture. At the same time, I think the current whole picture isn't even all that clear. There's still so much we don't understand about genetics and heritability, especially when it comes to complex traits like intelligence. Molecular and cell biology including genetics (and population genetics, which is what a lot of this is about) still seems to be in its infancy or at least young adulthood as a field of study. This should make people cautious about drawing sweeping conclusions like about race and intelligence. There's nothing wrong with saying 'I don't know'."Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-45689778926624509212018-07-05T02:26:12.517-04:002018-07-05T02:26:12.517-04:00Here's a quotation from Reich in the very same...Here's a quotation from Reich in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-race.html" rel="nofollow">the very same article</a>:<br /><br />"If scientists can be confident of anything, it is that whatever we currently believe about the genetic nature of differences among populations is most likely wrong. For example, my laboratory discovered in 2016, based on our sequencing of ancient human genomes, that 'whites' are not derived from a population that existed from time immemorial, as some people believe. Instead, 'whites' represent a mixture of four ancient populations that lived 10,000 years ago and were each as different from one another as Europeans and East Asians are today."<br /><br />Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-90852927185974858782018-07-05T02:11:56.672-04:002018-07-05T02:11:56.672-04:003. What's more, it looks like a group of 60 or...3. What's more, it looks like a group of 60 or so other relevant scholars have challenged Reich's piece (<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/bfopinion/race-genetics-david-reich" rel="nofollow">here</a>). Of course, much of this may be political rather than scientific disagreement, due to the hot topic of people inferring racism from talk about race and intelligence, but even factoring this in, it looks like there are other scientists including geneticists who disagree with Reich's conclusions on scientific grounds. What do you do when experts disagree with other experts in the same field?<br /><br />4. In fact, Reich himself seems to want to have it both ways. On the one hand, he has said what you've quoted him as saying. On the other hand, Reich also believes race is largely a social construct. In fact, Reich doesn't even like to use the term "race" but prefers the more neutral "populations".<br /><br />5. If you accept Reich's conclusions, then at least to some degree you have to buy into human evolution as well as Reich's evolutionary timeline for human evolution (after all, Reich is a trendsetter when it comes to the genetics of ancient human evolution). By contrast, many other scientists (including most conservative evangtelical Christians who are scientists) have dissented from human evolution in the sense Reich would mean by human evolution.<br /><br />For example, Reich takes issue with a doyen of evolutionary biology Richard Lewontin's argument that, on average, genetic differences between "populations" are far less than the genetic differences between individuals. But Reich bases his disagreement in large part on the average time of separation between different human "populations" when they diverged from their ancestral "populations".<br /><br />6. Speaking of which, modern human populations (races/ethnicities) at best serve as surrogates for their ancestral populations (races/ethnicities). For example, there are many geneticists including Reich who argue that modern African-Americans have a not insignificant quantity and even "quality" of European DNA in their genome. So in this respect modern African-Americans aren't genetically equivalent to modern Africans or to ancestral predecessors. Yet this would be problematic for your side, the "racial hereditarian" side, which assumes genetic equivalence, or at least more genetic equivalence than what geneticists like Reich would argue for, between African-Americans and Africans and their ancestral predecessors. <br /><br />7. This further lays into the issue about whether races/ethnicities are more genetically discrete or continuous. <br /><br />8. I have a lot more to say, but it's getting late. Maybe I'll try to say more later.Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-24940297304027668242018-07-05T02:11:17.764-04:002018-07-05T02:11:17.764-04:00Steve Jackson
"If you can find a geneticist ...Steve Jackson<br /><br />"If you can find a geneticist who says that the current understanding of genetics makes it impossible that population groups have different innate cognitive and behavioral traits then I'll get interested."<br /><br />Hm, "impossible"? That's an "impossibly" high standard. It's not "impossible" that bigfoot, yeti, or the abominable snowman exist. It's not "impossible" that UFOs are intelligent intergalactic alien species visiting Earth. It's not "impossible" panspermia is what kicked off the origin of life on our planet. It's not "impossible" that our universe is part of the multiverse.<br /><br />Or to bring it back to humans and genetics, it's not "impossible" that neo-Darwinism is correct. It's not "impossible" the standard evolutionary tree of life is correct. It's not "impossible" all life on Earth including humans ultimately evolved from a single ancient common ancestor (perhaps a single-celled organism). It's not "impossible" Neanderthals are an entirely separate hominid subspecies which modern humans interbred with such that our DNA is now part Neanderthal DNA. Indeed, there seems to be reasonable evidence for what's in this paragraph if you accept neo-Darwinism and mainstream scientific thinking on human evolution (which, by the way, and as a point of interest, David Reich certainly does as he's an expert when it comes to Neanderthals interbreeding with modern humans).<br /><br />"I don't know much about genetics, but here is geneticist David Reich in his book Who We Are (2018): 'Is performance on an intelligence test or the number of years of school a person attends shaped by the way a person is brought up? Of course. But does it measure something having to do with some aspect of behavior or cognition? Almost certainly. And since all traits influenced by genetics are expected to differ across populations (because the frequencies of genetic variations are rarely exactly the same across populations), the genetic influences on behavior and cognition will differ across populations, too.'"<br /><br />1. Actually, this is from Reich's now <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-race.html" rel="nofollow">infamous NYT op-ed</a> which caused an avalanche of public debate. I don't think Reich's op-ed is an excerpt from his book either. I have his book as an ebook in front of me, I've searched for this passage, but I don't find this passage in his ebook. It looks like it's only in his op-ed piece.<br /><br />2. In addition, the geneticist Neil Risch, whom I already quoted above to you, would dissent. Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6789188.post-83494498428715133152018-07-05T01:34:04.513-04:002018-07-05T01:34:04.513-04:00"If Australian Aborigines are as bright as As..."If Australian Aborigines are as bright as Ashkenazi Jews then where are their scientific achievements?"<br /><br />1. For one thing, since the 1700s onwards, it's arguable Australian Aborigines have been so oppressed and suppressed and all but killed off or forced into servitude by white Australians and their predecessors (predominatly British) that they wouldn't have been able to focus a whole lot on "scientific achievements". For example, see the Stolen Generations which didn't really end until the 1970s, a period of time within many people's memories today. <br /><br />2. For another, scientific achievements rarely take place in an intellectual vacuum. Even Newton and Einstein had access to the research and works of other scientists who came before them; even they "stood on the shoulders of giants". However, since the 1970s, Australian Aborigines have been extremely distrustful of white Australians thanks to things like their children being forcibly separated from them. It has made Australian Aborigines more isolated as a community (not that they're originally a single community but they've more or less had to become a loose single community over time). Even the Ashkenazi Jews were able to read about science from other Europeans when they were living in ghettos, and certainly many if not most Ashkenazi Jews were integrated and even assimiliated into European and American societies by the 1900s when the Nobels were awarded. Modern Australian Aborigines still struggle with integration let alone assimiliation into modern Australian society.<br /><br />3. If you mean prior to Europeans arriving in Australia, then there are various possibilities of why Australian Aborigines still lived in the stone age. But I'll leave that for another time because the context here is modern given talk about Nobel Prizes and IQ tests.Epistle of Dudehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07779184015407034200noreply@blogger.com