Ustwo, I appreciate all the quotes... you actually illustrated more of my side of the argument. That is where my training lies, of course, being an anthropologist. No one is telling you to pretend that human genetic variation doesn't exist. Quite the contrary. I have not said that, none of those other anthropologists that you quoted said that, no one on TFP has said that. We have all said that it's very clear that such variation exists... that's not the problem. Repeat: biological evidence of human genetic variation (with clinal distribution) is a very clear fact, and no one is arguing about that.

The problem is when people start assigning meaning to those genetic variations... intelligence, morals, values, abilities, etc. I think you'd even agree with me that this is stretching things. Phenotype has nothing to do with intelligence, morals, values, abilities... and yet, the historical idea of "race" purported to assign these meanings to otherwise meaningless phenotypes. And that is where "race" becomes troublesome, as the AAA position paper points out most clearly. Race is a very heavily loaded word, going back to colonial times and earlier, when classification was used to denigrate particular groups based on their phenotypes, which were assumed to be linked directly to their intelligence, etc. And that is just scientifically untrue, as social scientists and biologists since Boas have proven (although again, the Nazis tried to use the old definition to justify their extermination of "lesser" races); do you have any argument with that?

So unless you have an argument with that, I think the fundamental problem we have in this discussion is YOUR definition of "race," Ustwo... and others who have taken your position. Are you really talking *only* about human genetic variation, phenotypically expressed, when you say "race?" Or are you talking about race in the traditional sense, which is to assess intelligence and moral values based on whether or not a person has dark skin, shovel-shaped teeth, etc? (My impression is that it's the former, but I'm sure you'll correct me if I'm wrong.)

The thing is, any random person who hears you use the word "race" wouldn't know what you really meant, unless they asked you. That's why the word itself is so problematic... it means so many different things to different people, which means it doesn't have much use as a valid, reliable descriptor. Using the more accurate, biological term of clinal variation, or human genetic variation, or ancestral DNA, etc... clarifies that you are not assigning meaning that isn't there.

It doesn't mean you're ignoring human variation, quite the contrary. It means you are recognizing that there is more human variation under the sun than can possibly be described using the old Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negroid labels. And I think you've already admitted that you recognize that fact, a few posts back when I quoted you earlier.

So, in light of all that, why are you so attached to the word "race?" I'm genuinely curious.

its kind of amazing the distance that separates how my last post reads from what i thought it meant when i was writing it.
when i was writing it, i was just relaying something of my teaching experience. when i read it again, i sound like an ass.
sometimes things just get away from you, i guess.
its a bit embarrassing.

anyway

the question abaya poses above are central.
since ustwo is for some reason inclined to defend the notion of race as something more than a very limited descriptor which isolates and correlates certain physical attributes, i guess the ball is in his court.

this post is a form of squirming about in the face of embarrassment.

(Thank goodness thoughts are fluid!)

If you define race as "self identified" (which no one has here that I have noticed), there are reliable group differences in IQ scores between individuals that self-identify as members of different races. IQ is not the same as intelligence, but predicts a lot of outcomes within western cultures that are typically associated with intelligence. (I talked earlier about whether or not IQ is intelligence). Those group differences in IQ scores are not particularly amenable to environmental intervention. Adoption does seem to close much of the gap, but differences remain (Scarr, 1996; etc.). If these group differences exist, then self-identified race is more than a correlation of physical attributes.

I'm not making an argument about where such group differences come from or what such differences mean. Nor am I trying to justify treating members of different ethnic groups differently based on average group differences on a test. However, if there are group differences in IQ scores and those differences are related to important social outcomes, shouldn't someone investigate those group differences in order to equalize those social outcomes?

Personally, I don't think that measures of Big "g" (the WAIS or the WISC, etc.) are appropriate for studying group differences. Nor am I particularly interested in studying group differences.

sapiens: it would seem to me that self-identification as the main way to link persons and race bumps the matter squarely onto ideological grounds--except that instead of focusing on the contents/definitions of the category, you focus on the effects of internalizing the category.

what these results would mean would be a function of how you decided to stage the relation of race as a category to other categories that indicate a sense of social identity or position or place.
or of a decision to treat these self-positioning markers as neutral, not problematic.

but how would you go about that?
simply exclude the problem at the level of method?

I'm not sure what you mean.

Whether or not the categories are problematic seems to be independent from whether or not the categories predict anything.

I think self-identification as black (or any other ethnicity) is more than simply internalizing the stereotypes associated with that category. I think that there likely social, economic, and cultural factors associated with that self-identification that contribute to the social outcomes I alluded to. Beyond that, there may be biological differences associated with the clines/races. What such differences are, what they mean, and whether you could ever adequately establish that those differences are biological in origin are separate questions.

Certainly, at least until "race" as a social category gives way to something more productive (as rb points out). This is exactly why the census continues to ask about "race," because of the social outcomes... and why every sociological study asks the same kinds of questions. Race as a proxy for so many other things...

The only question is, by asking people to continually "self-identify," are we creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by perpetuating the social acceptance of "race" as valid? I mean, let's say everyone did as I did :p and checked the "Other" box under "race." Then the census, and every social scientist out there, would be forced to find something else--hopefully something more productive/accurate--to use for grouping people and studying social outcomes.

I don't think that the effect of race is simply a function of internalizing racial stereotypes - like the argument stereotype threat researchers make.

Self-identified race, at least in America, is linked with a variety of social outcomes. Those links persist even if we control for SES. I believe that they also persist if we control for IQ, but I don't have the references handy. If a predictor (like an answer to a race/ethnicity question on a test) has a relationship with a variety of criteria, why would you toss it? It gives some information about where to look. I don't think that removing "race" from research will improve the social outcomes typically associated with race.

No, I don't think that either...quite the opposite. If my post came out sounding that way, then it was my own mistake. But I just wonder, sometimes, whether the constant question of "What are you?" (from the powers that be) perpetuates the need to self-identify with "race" in general, even a little bit... that's what I meant.

In any case, I don't think "race" can be removed as a predictor, not for a long time. And removing it right now certainly would not help with improving social outcomes... it would probably make things worse, in fact, because social programs would not be able to accurately assess which groups need help, etc. if they didn't have that data.

So I agree with you here. In order to know what the relationship is between self-identified "race" and social outcomes, we have to keep asking the racial question. It will probably be hundreds of years, if not more, before that can change.

Sidenote: someone may point out that the only reason I can get away with marking "Other" as a race (at least in the US) is because of my current level of privilege. I am aware of that fact, even if I don't like it. It's the same reason I can get away with never shopping at Walmart (as an ideological thing)... because I can afford to have those kinds of ideals. Most people don't have those choices, and I get that.

sapiens: i think you and abaya have basically addressed my question.

the trade-off involves the fact of some indexical value for the category race as a self-identified position--that the category may well be ideological/problematic in itself doesnt prevent its functioning as an index---folk use it even if it is not at all obvious waht it means when you think about it.

so i assume the metholodogy sections of papers which use this data make some gesture in the direction of acknowledging that the category is problematic (if the investigators see it so) and by doing that control for whatever problems one might have with the meanings assigned to the category socially.

Abaya, I’m a biologist and my research field is (non-human) evolutionary genetics. I’ve published a lot in population genetics, but haven’t cited myself here yet :)

I know what you mean about blinking slowly …. I like to ask people: if you start walking east from Berlin, when do you start saying people are Asian? And the answer is: in Berlin! The point being that we are mobile and 100% interfertile.

On the subject of the census in your later posts, it is interesting that the 2000 census allowed multiple answers on the race question, and almost 7 million people identified themselves as more than one race; 800,000 said they were both white and black.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/13/na...aa2721&ei=5070

Similar but slightly smaller numbers did the same on the 2005 census.

It’s probably controversial to say it, but I consider that progress. As more people become aware of the arbitrary nature of those categories, and of their own ancestry, they will continue to reject the idea that they must be pigeonholed in that way. It’s unfortunate that society seems to force the idea of racial singularity, which is absurd.

Tiger Woods calls himself Cablinasian (Caucasian, Black, American Indian, and Asian). We’re all mixtures, and there are no boundaries.

Yep. I would say that’s clearly the most profitable and (dare I say?) intelligent line of discussion from this point.

Good to know... somehow, I'm not surprised! :) I'm still curious about what field sapiens is in, but perhaps he likes a little mystery. :) I've never heard that about Tiger Woods before, but that's awesome. My husband is Lebanese, so we also joke that our kids will be "ThaiceLebandic," hehe... but of course, we don't really care "what" they are. (I've said it before, but I'm all for "hybrid vigor.") :)

I’m sure your post will be very informative about gulls, salamanders, and butterflies (maybe we’ll finally get the sunspot kind too if we’re lucky), but unfortunately it will be not be relevant whatsoever to Homo sapiens, because H. sapiens is not a ring species.
Willful refusal to understand?

Of course it would be different. Every mixed pair would spike towards positive infinity.
How would you divvy up your “races” then if all you have is a genetic continuum? How would you show that one classification is any better than any of a million others? Why would european/asian be better at dividing eurasia than, say siberian/indian? Or anything else?

Of course you need discrete genetic units above local families. Otherwise you’ll just work up a sweat waving your arms around and squinting your eyes to separate shades of gray. That ain’t scientific inquiry, I’m afraid.

Tell you what. Go ahead and propose the criterion set that is commonly used by evolutionary geneticists for delineating species boundaries, or subspecies boundaries, or racial boundaries. Use any ring species you want, if that works for you.

Then I’ll be happy to take your criterion set and show that it is flat-out useless in delineating any genetic races in humans.

Or, try this. Tell us what you believe all the races are in humans. Then I’ll show that your groupings are arbitrary and have absolutely no objective, quantifiable basis in genetics.
This is the most revealing thing you’ve written in this entire thread.

Here is exactly the arm-waving that I’m talking about. You have an internalized, personal, arbitrary, and subjective preconception of how different a face must be to qualify as a different genetic race. And you think your personal, subjective preconception is somehow the biological truth, and can be quantified. I hate to have to break this to you, but your personal hunch is not science. It’s not quantifiable. It’s not objective. It’s just a garden-variety taste, like whether you like salt on your peas or not.

And let’s also keep in mind that humans are experts at recognizing tiny differences in faces, practically from birth. That means that what registers psychologically as a “very large” difference in facial dimensions or expressions, can be nothing more than a twitch of a muscle, or a change in one DNA base pair out of billions.

If you want to make a coherent argument about human evolutionary genetics, I’m afraid you’ll have to do a bit more than this.

I'm still waiting for the "race"-defenders to come back and answer my three questions from post #101. May be a while, given the punch that raveneye has just delivered...

The agnostic, dyslexic insomniac then thinks:
"Dog, I'm so happy you made me a humanist. Otherwise all the know-all-ege would be tiresome rather than entertaining."

P.S. I'm definitely marking "other" next time I have the chance.

Heh, apparently the punch was fatal. What happened to you all?

I haven't really been reading this thread since page one but I do have something to say. Way to toot your own horn, there. And I thought I was self-absorbed... >_>

Anyway, everyone knows there are distinguishable differences between races. We black folk are, after all, naturally gifted physically :D

(That's a joke. Don't take it seriously.)

I forgot about this thread tbh. Though since this thread I happened to be reading a new book and it mentioned more about Watson in his early years. The guy was quite the scientific stud, shame to see his name being dragged in the mud when he was crazy old.

Who are you talking to, and what are you talking about? And no, sorry to say, you're not the only asshole on this board. :D

another asshole
Will freely tell you all, mine,
We are not the same.

Heinz 57, going..going..

Do I hear 58 anyone??

Gavel coming down....

I race against this;
life which does not know itself.
IT IS JUST US HERE.

May I say further that most of our mistakes come from our teachings (regarding this).

I've been meaning to get to this post, and I shall now do so, my apologizes for the delay.

Check.

I disagree, pretty much completely. Its been demonstrated by twin studies that phenotype has everything to do with intelligence. Identical twin studies prove it. Two identical twins raised in different families are almost identical in measured intelligence, FAR more so than fraternal twins raised by the same family (Bouchard, 1979). In fact it seems that intelligence no matter how you define it is almost completely defined by genetics. There is evidence with morals, values and abilities too. This is all phenotype as determined by the genotype. The order of importance for intelligence is Genetics > influences in womb > family.

Its politically troublesome. I am not here to argue the political ramifications of racial prejudices, just the scientific aspects of the genetic variation. How race has been misused is not important to the discussion, its like saying you are an atheist because religion has been misused. Its a poor reason.

Assuming there are no racial differences to various types of intelligence is foolhardy. I would be far more shocked if there weren't differences. Again, because someone wants to claim such differences make them superior is no matter to me in this. Intelligence is hard to measure, so no real conclusions can be made but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Lets take a completely different example of a racial difference to explain how it can exist but be difficult to measure. There is the concept that black males have larger penises then other races. This is true, they have larger penises then Asians and slightly larger then Caucasians on average, key word being average. What is different is they are twice as likely to have an 'exceptionally' large penis as a white male. So while the average racial difference is minor the extremes are definitely in their favor, its just that its still a small enough number that it gets lost. There may well be more of one race at the top of the intelligence spectrum as compared to another, but such would be lost and meaningless to the masses.

Why are you asking this? It should be abundantly clear I'm talking genetics and phenotype. What I think your problem is you dont' seem to understand just how deep genetics goes into ones personality. It is your basic assumption which is wrong here, and demonstrably. Now can I say its been shown that such a race is more moral than another or more intelligent? No, but I'm not going to pretend that genetics don't play a part in both of those things. Not everything is as clear cut as lactose tolerance when it comes to racial genetics.

I am not worried about what a random person thinks in this. This isn't a discussion for random people but people who have an understanding of genetics and heritable traits. I am painfully well aware of how politicians can misuse scientific data and twist it to their own ends due to a poorly educated public. What calling it something besides 'race' does is nothing but PC it, I am not doing a social crusade here.

Yes in that there should be MORE races than the basic ones, but saying Mongoloid does narrow it down quite a bit, and thats what language should do. Most of your substitutions are more complex then needed.

For the same reason I'm attached to the word green, or sun, or wolf. Its a descriptive word that has a lot of information in it. If you change the word you will either make it longer (inefficient) or just do what the blacks do ever few decades and make up a new less 'offensive' word which later becomes offensive. Nigger, colored, black, african american. Same thing. So if you want to call whites something else and asians something else be my guest but it doesn't' really CHANGE anything. Race doesn't tell ones true genetic heritage, but its a rounding off point. If you say 'he is Caucasian' it narrows down where his most likely migration out of africa came from and when. There are sub groups to track, and local differences (northern europeans are different than southern) etc, but its a start and a good start. How the public as a whole abuses this is irrelevant, they will abuse it regardless of the language as long as they perceive a difference, and nothing is easier to perceive than race among humans.

Sooo, can we live on the same planet?
OK, kick me, I surely deserve it.

I carry Daniel Goleman's book, 'Emotional Intelligence' as a cloaking device.
Please carry on.

Heritability estimates of intelligence range from 0.4 to 0.8 (on a scale from 0 to l). So, I wouldn't say "almost completely", but I do agree with your point generally. Intelligence as measured by an IQ test (probably the WAIS or WISC) is quite heritable, especially comparing it to measures of other psychological constructs. Intelligence as measured by an IQ test also predicts a great deal WITHIN western cultures.

What references are you using to support your argument about the heritabilities of morals and values?

The identical twin study in question was .86 raised together, and .76 raised apart, while fraternal twins raised together were a .57 (I think) and I have a thing for twin studies in this sort of thing. Interestingly a person taking the same test twice yielded a .87 on average.

As for morals and values, I don't think anyone has studied many moral traits specifically, what I think is that our moral codes and values are based on our genetically determined instincts.

I'd have to dig up the references but lets take incest. Incest between brother/sister or family as a whole is frowned upon in just about every culture. When it has happened it becomes a historical anomaly and is always associated with royalty not the commoners. There is an apparent developmental aversion to sex with children you grow up with in constant contact, and when people in modern society tend to break this 'taboo' they were almost always raised apart. This would indicate this is an instinct. I can go into this more if needed.

Posted today on Slate:

http://www.slate.com/id/2178122/entry/2178124/

ustwo, just to back up a bit, what do you mean by 'random people'

I am truly curious to understand.

another question for you ustwo:

do you see linkages between your views of the role of genetics in explaining whatever measures you deem important and your conservative politics? does one reinforce the other? how?

i could run out an interpretation, but it'd be more interesting to hear from you.

People without the educational background either self taught or otherwise to understand the continued emerging complexity of the human genome (or any genome for that matter).

Highschool biology or even college basic won't cut it, and you need to keep up, what I learned 15 years ago is no longer 100% valid with new information coming forth. Odds are what I know now is outdated a bit by a year or two.

This sounds arrogant, but you need to have the credentials to really follow it without just taking someones word for it.

can a self taught person still have credentiality in your perspective?

I do understand that information comes in almost daily.

maybe it could be compared to surfing a wave, how to read all the influences,
stay on top of it all, and still hold a sense of the waves you have known before, knowing the next one will be as different as we are told all snowflakes are.
The adrenaline rush of gaining more understanding is understandable.
I would put forth the idea that keeping it all in perspective is daunting yet exciting.

It depends on the person but I'd think so yes.

I'd recommend starting with a college level biology text to start if you don't have the background, focusing on the genetic sections so you understand the basic base pairs, groupings, and how that all works in the cell.

I've had so much both formal and informal its sort of hard to say what I learned on my own and what I've learned in a traditional class, but I'm a firm believer that you can become an expert in a lot of fields just by doing reading.

You won't know HOW to say run a PCR or an acrylamide gel (and you are not missing much) but you will know how both are used and what they are used for, which is whats important when talking about theory.

I used to work for Beckman Instruments back when they were associated with Smithkline..I need to brush up for sure, thanks for responding.

Well in order for intelligence to be “defined” by anything, it has to be defined. Since cognitive psychologists haven’t been able to come up with a definition that doesn't give at least a third of them a conniption (and not for lack of trying), I rather doubt that genes could do the job.

Perhaps you could give us a definition of “intelligence” in which variation in intelligence in any population is “almost completely” explained by genetics?

Not even performance on an IQ test is completely explained by genetics: heritability of this particular trait is anywhere from 30 to 80% depending on what study you want to believe, as sapiens pointed out.

And in any case, the heritability of test performance is irrelevant to the question of group differences, because the causes of within-group differences tell us absolutely nothing about the causes of between-group differences, in any trait. This is one of the most fundamental statistical truths about heritability, as pointed out by the originator of the concept, RA Fisher himself.

Intelligence is not even possible to measure. There is no yardstick. The concept itself is a cultural construct that varies from place to place and from time to time. We currently have an IQ test; a hundred years from now we might be attempting to test musical improvisational ability, or skill in real-time oral argument, or deftness at manipulating a person’s emotions, or talent in moving up a social hierarchy, or real-time situational problem solving, like the ability to survive a month in the Kalihari. None of these is even vaguely quantified by anything remotely resembling any IQ test. These tests are inherently circular anyway because they simultaneously define the construct in terms of the operation and the operation in terms of the construct.

Whatever test you claim shows that Group A has a higher intelligence than Group B, I guarantee I can construct a dozen different tests that show the exact opposite.

Or look at it from this angle: if a dentist can confidently pronounce the field of human evolutionary genetics “asinine” because it points out that there are no genetic races, then I think it’s time to throw up our hands and admit that the concept is irreducibly subjective.

Foolhardy? Since it’s impossible to even know why any particular person is more “intelligent” than any other particular person, going through life with an assumption of genetic equality can’t possibly hurt you in any way whatsoever.
I’d be more worried about drunk drivers, myself.

“Mongoloid” might narrow it down by a few percent, whereas knowing where a person’s parents were born narrows it down by about 80%. Numbers like that, by the way, are one of the values of scientific inquiry. They lead to conclusions like “the use of ethnicity alone will often be inadequate as a basis for medical treatment” (Manica, 2005).

Of course it is easy to “perceive”, that’s because people are compulsive classifiers, they can’t help it. Over the years we’ve seen the “Aryan race” the “German race” the “Jewish race” the “Italian race” the “French race” the “Irish race” the “English race” the “Scottish race” the “Puritan race” the “Hispanic race” the “black race” the “white race” the “red race” the “yellow race”, ….. you name it. Every culture and every generation has its own preferred list of races. In Brazil they “easily” recognize brancas, loras, morenas, mulatas, pretas, depending on subtle differences in the waviness of the hair, the width of the nose and lips, and the tint of the skin. You can have all 5 in one extended family. Hell you can probably have all 5 in one terribly confused person.

What any of this has to do with genetics, perhaps you can tell me, since “nothing is easier”?

And by the way, I see we now know the “value of scientific inquiry” for some folks: its value is to tell them what they already know. If it doesn’t, they simply toss it aside, call it “asinine,” and believe what they want.

Was that the answer you were shooting for in the OP?

Uh, those figures are correlations not heritabilities. Here’s the mean heritability calculated from these numbers: (0.86 - 0.57) x 2 = 0.58. However there is enormous spread in the correlations within each of Bouchard’s categories, so the mean doesn’t tell us much. If you take the spread into account, you get a range of calculated heritabilities from 0 to 1, which is the entire range possible. He, perhaps not surprisingly, didn’t point that out in his paper.

So in other words, your twin studies show a heritability muddling around somewhere in the middle, which is the same result as all the others.

And again, this is completely irrelevant to the subject of group differences in any trait whatsoever, let alone a trait that is inherently impossible to measure.

I agree with that, and would add that it helps to know how to calculate heritability.

This is why I like the term Heinz 57.
All sarcasm aside,
Raveneye person I think you summed it up in my head by saying"these tests are inherently circular because they simultaneously define the construct in terms of the opertion and the operation in terms of the construct"

How do we find all the threads of hereditary influence past the point of so many variables?

Your doubts don't concern me really. Spatial intelligence is definable and testable, verbal, deductive reasoning, its only the package together that gives people fits. Cleaving rabbits on this doesn't diminish anything.

Men are better at spatial tasks than women, very well documented. Are you saying thats due to upbringing?

And he also generally agreed with me. It actually doesn't matter if its 99% or 9%, genetics would play a role either way. Even at the lowest end, 30% of what you are intelligence wise was due to genetics. I think its far higher.

And?

So what I'm not arguing the validity of IQ tests. But I ask you, would you rather have your doctor have an IQ of 160 or 60? After all you can't measure it, according to you, so it shouldn't matter right?

If you want to measure various variables in intelligence do so, and maybe some will be different. They have looked for some intelligence genes and found some, but its obviously going to be a multi-loci aggregation. Did you know that even symmetry can be linked to intelligence? The reason should be obvious, but the genes we are looking for may have nothing directly to do with the brain but parasite resistance or the immune system.

No I said dismissing the concept of race was assine. You seem to be trying to belittle me because I'm a dentist and therefore unqualified to speak on this. I also graduated with a degree in Ethology, Ecology, and Evolution from the University of Illinois, I worked in a lab while there looking for DNA homologs of a brain expressed protein that seemed to cause neuron growth in adults and to look for the homologs in the animal kingdom as a whole. I spent a year doing prep work for a masters in ecology before deciding I had enough and went to dental school. No idea what your background is, but if I didn't bother to get a doctorate and another masters after I'd be officially a evolutionary biologist. So please, quit trying to belittle me on this, its a straw man, and you have no idea who you are dealing with.


Again, don't care. What you do with the data doesn't really matter.

Not the question, doesn't matter.

Which is why I say there are more races not none. Scandinavians are different than Greeks even if they are both 'white'.

ok enough

We are not arguing genetics anymore but the value of the inquiry, which this topic no longer is about. When I started this I didn't expect people to take the absurdest stance that race doesn't exist, or that genetics doesn't determine your intelligence. It does and it does.

Personally I think you are just arguing with me to argue, this shit is pretty basic.

I believe it is as simple as people having pre-conceived (ignorant,knee- jerk reactions to the word race itself.)

I am female and I would be the first to attest that my 'spacial relations'
have skewed my intelligence tests dramatically.

I am the progeny of two very well tested individuals.

Other genetic factors are there as well.

Exactly what is the disagreement here?

Testing methodology continues.. I will sit back and pay closer attention to you all.. that know more...

Agreed. (Though I do think that the low estimates are quite low. Most studies find higher heritabilities).

I agree that intelligence tests (and intelligence "the construct") are culturally specific. I also agree that IQ tests are a measure of intelligence, not intelligence itself. However, the WAIS and the WISC predict "real-world" outcomes in Western cultures. I doubt that musical improvisational ability would do the same.

Researchers have done this. Constructing an IQ test that eliminates group differences results in a test with low predictive validity. Somewhere I have references, but I'm nowhere near them right now.

You're not talking to me, but I'd have to say the same to you, buddy... your opinion is never going to change on this (and neither is mine, nor anyone else around here who disagrees with you), which makes further discussion of it pretty unproductive.

Please answer MY points then.

You say intelligence isn't heritable, do you have proof of this?

I think you made up your mind on race, and your own mixed race heritage seems to be your blind spot. Because you do not belong to a race does not mean there are not races.

Scientifically you have shown really nothing. Its all about feelings and perceptions and prejudice. The science is sadly for you on my side here. Quit trying to be political with science, it sucks, and its stupid for two intelligent people to do so.

Ustwo, I recognized in my last post that it would be futile and truly a waste of my time to respond to you on this subject. There is no point, unless I enjoy banging my head on a brick wall. You are not going to change your opinion, I am not going to change mine. Others here have far more education, experience, and knowledge than I do on this topic, and I cannot say anything better than what has already been said, particularly by raveneye... and if you are not even listening to them, then I'm done.

I will respond to this, however: I believed in race for a long time, because I didn't know any other way TO believe until I began to study social science. As a kid I marked "Asian," because growing up, that was my "minority" identity, and therefore advantageous... a very political thing, you must admit. Asking for people's race in a box, in order to decide how to dole out funds, IS a political question, far more than a scientific one (you don't see everyone in the US running to get their DNA analyzed before every census, at least not yet... if they do, now THAT would be very interesting).

I no longer mark Asian. I don't mark anything, because I am too many things. The fact is that ALL humans are "too many things;" if you get your DNA analyzed, you'll find that it's actually pretty difficult to mark one box, to the exclusion of all the other little pieces that make up your genetic code. There is no "cut point." There is no "pure" member of each "race." There are only different kinds of hybrids, mixed and mixed and mixed again.

I agree that IQ tests correlate with western culture outcomes, but am pointing out that outcomes are not the same as intelligence, by a very long shot. The I in IQ has always been a misnomer. We should change the name to something like “WCOT”, just another acronym like GRE, LSAT, MCAT etc.

And I certainly agree that musical ability won’t predict much in our culture, but that doesn’t mean an Art Tatum isn’t a genius, even if he can’t hold down a job and lives in poverty or has a low IQ.

I tend to think that there is no such thing as "Big g", no General Intelligence. I think that it is more likely that there are intelligences. People score differently on tests of different primary mental abilities, different primary mental abilities have different heritabilities, people exhibit very specific deficiencies in cognitive functioning, very specific strengths, etc. However, I do think that proponents of 'Big g" and the associated tests have a reasoned argument- many of the things we associate with intelligence are positively correlated with scores on the WAIS.

Regarding genius: I certainly don't think that genius is a score on an IQ test. Most individual differences researchers I know/know of would agree. (In support of your Art Tatum argument). There are plenty of people walking around with very high scores that aren't recognized by "society" as geniuses, and there are plenty of geniuses who probably would not score outrageously high on an IQ test.

I see, we can add the «Scandinavian race» and the «Greek race» to the lengthening list.

And of course the same argument can be applied to any two geographic regions, since their citizens will be «different» from each other, so we can add the «Denmark Race» the «Sweden Race» and the «Norway Race» too. And of course since genetic variation is clinal, we can't leave out the borders: we gotta distinguish the «Sweden/Norway Border Race» from the «Denmark/Sweden Border Race» too if we want to be scientifically accurate. And by the same logic any two cities will be different, giving us the «Stockholm Race» and the «Sverige Race». And within any of those cities we'll have gentically different families, so we then have the «Jagerskiold Race» and the «Filssunu Race». And within any family there will also be differences, so that we're now safe calling weird uncle Thorsten the sole member of his own personal, unique race, the «Weird Uncle Thorsten Race».

So how many intersecting races does that give us then, about 20 billion? My calculator conks out on me here.

Wow, so RA Fisher was wrong about heritability, and everybody else, too. Heritability is not a statistical property of a population, it's a developmental property of a single individual. Developmental biologists will be excited to find out that genes build half the brain, and the environment the other half.

You should write all these bold findings up and submit them to a journal, I guarantee the editor will frame the manuscript and hang it on his wall.

abaya, your posts are eloquent and authoritative. Thank you for taking the time and effort.

Y'all are freaking me out with your intelligence and your racism, and I'm not qualified to say that. IJUHP!

specists.. wordists... sapienists..unite.

Howard Gardner wrote Frames of Mind that described that there are many different forms of intelligence... so many I did not even bother reading about them all. If there was this hypothetical perfect intelligence test that examined all quantifiable aspects of different intelligences, by all means cross reference it with genetic traits of people and races. I still feel that this data would not incorporate the power of the human will. The great part about our brain is through determination and perseverance, we can train ourselves to learn the things we want to know. I thought I was just maybe some fool hearted optimist but I saw this from you, Ustwo:

I can become an expert just by doing the reading? Is that part of my original genetic makeup? For this test you would have to run a follow up test to look at the anomalies; and marvel at those that boldly went beyond their skills into places the test concluded they would not.

I'm not sure what you are asking here. Some people would not be able to become an expert by reading on a subject, others can, and part of that is their genetic makeup.

Most testing puts my mathematical skills as 'average' for someone of my education level. I can agree with this, for math is one of my weaknesses. That being said I worked my ass off and was able to get out of some very unpleasant math classes in college by testing out of them, while my more mathematically gifted peers were stuck doing calc 120 at 8am, 5 days a week. Still I doubt that I would ever been known as a great mathematician no matter how much effort I put into it. Its always 'work' for me.

On the other hand one of my strengths is being able to comprehend a new subject or idea very quickly, this too I believe is innate, as I had no additional training that others in my peer group have had. This means I need to spend less effort to understand new material, making learning new concepts easier.

So really yes you can make up for your deficiencies with effort, but how far is debatable. I think its safe to say that most geniuses are born not made.

My questions from before were rhetorical. I forget that others understand me better in person as I am an animated talker and exagerate the tone in my voice... things I rarely try to express with text, styles, and fonts.

Yes, genetics plays an important role, I can't be so arrogant/insolent/ignorant as to deny that fact. Some people have it really bad, others have it really good. I know people that have mental problems that work tirelessly to be able to do what they like. And then I see the others that do nothing more than flaunt their abilities with nothing constructive in mind. Personally, I worked hard to get where I am. I was poor in academics when I was young, and by high school and college some of my professors let me run the lectures.

I will always feel the human will is more powerful than any test could ever measure. This makes nothing beyond us, and human potential is infinite.

Off Topic- Yeah I could guess you are a motivated person that quickly gathers information. I have seen your posts throughout the forum and you present your arguments in precise and concise detail that presently I can only wish for. That said, I freely admit when I saw that your post had my response in it, I went, "Damnit! Why did I open my mouth?"

I'm not convinced that phenotype affects "intelligence". I do think that genetics does. Can anyone elaborate further or can discuss this idea in more detail?

Anyways, here is an interesting little article. Food for thought.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071128...e_071128185555

I'm thinking
We know each other
If we want

An editorial from today's NY Times that sheds a little more light on this discussion... answering the question, "Is there a genetic difference between blacks and whites that condemns blacks in perpetuity to be less intelligent?"

Interesting read but he highlights the flaws in other studies while accepting evidence on the other side without comment.

He also glosses over perhaps that which would be more controversial than genes. If what he was saying is true and the reason blacks do worse on IQ tests was 'environmental' then a fair hypothesis is that black parents are inferior parents, or that black culture is inferior to IQ development.

Its really a far more racially charged article than is apparent at first reading.

I was a conservative before I had anything beyond a basic understanding of genetics.

In the Eugenics heyday it was strongly embraced by both those who would be considered conservatives today and socialists alike.

Our thoughtforms
and wishes and goals
are the same.

I used to believe that intelligence was based on survival rather than the amount of knowledge one possesses. If you are alive then you are smart; however, as of... right now, I think it has more to do with HOW you survive in accordance with the universal laws that are set in motion. I don't think intelligence can be measured by some test or DNA sampling. One could have read all the books in the world, and traveled far and wide the information on the internet and not be able to put what's learned into practive. How well do you use your gifts and abilities for the better good of all? That's true wisdom. Knowledge in action.

I have to agree with you Ays, I think it comes back to the human will. We can overcome our faults through diligence and effort. My next question is, is there a gene that can be linked to human will? /Not really/

Well, surely, there is.
It just wants a little more.
"Knowledge in action".

There's only one race, the human race.

B-I-N-G-O,
and Bingo was his name, oh!
Thanks a lot, Lubeboy!

I wanted to highlight this after all this time as I was just reading about the success of the Kenyan middle distance runners and how they have come to dominate middle distance running. I will paraphrase what the author, Nicholas Wade, write in "Before the Dawn":

Kenyans hold all the fastest 3,000 metre steeplechase times and about 50% of the best 5k and 10K times in the world. Within Kenya, most of these fastest times are held by Kelanjin speaking people of the Great Rift Valley, particularly a small group of this population called the Nandi. They comprise less than 2% of the general Kenyan population but are the largest single group of elite runners in the country and have won more than 20% of the elite middle distance running events in the world the last few years.

Interestingly, Kenyan attempts to extend their track dominance to the sprints has failed completely - the best Kenyan 100 metre time ranks about 5,000th on the all time list.

John Manners, an author of various works on running, ascribes a genetic component to the Nandi success at middle distances. Not only do they live at a 2,000 metre altitude, one of their customs may have led to a genetic preference for excellent distance running.

The Nandi have a custom of cattle raiding - this raiding is done over long distances. The better a man was at running for distance, the better his success at raiding. The more success he has at raiding, the more wives he can afford - consequently, men who are good raiders (and thus, good runners) have many more children than men who are not good runners/raiders.

I have a personal rebuttal against this. It has no real basis in proof other than history and may make me sound extremely racist and bitter. But, here goes. Sorry if I offend anyone, but now you will know how I felt when this article was published.

It's not a black versus white thing. I don't think it ever was. It's modern Westerners versus indigenous tribes. Africans, Australian Aborigines, Native Americans, etc. have always been considered backwards ignorant savages that new nothing of how the world was supposed to work. They wore less clothing than Westerners. Many were nomadic. Their customs and society were so different from traditional Western Christian values, that they had to be heathens. Europe began the colonization of Africa and Australia, disrupting the way of lives of many suddenly displaced and oppressed peoples. America began importing African slaves and also began a continuous westward expansion destroying the American Indians in the process. Eventually, these backwards ignorant savages became absorbed into the Western way of life. Now, Africa is ripped apart by civil war, disease and famine. Not a good way for the first civilization on Earth to end up. Native Americans are living in third-world countries right in our own backyards.

These were peoples who lived with the land, not on it. They worked with nature, they did not control it. They shunned technology and one result of that was the absence of a population explosion. They were often nomads and as a result did not scar the Earth with cities and other permanent dwellings. There were no problems like crime, traffic and pollution. They lived in a peaceful coexistence with the world around them. It could be argued, and rightfully so, that they almost lived like animals.

Fast forward to 2008. Over population, global warming, violence, etc. These were not problems of these "savages" these problems are the result of this "civilized" Western way of thinking.

Keeping all that in mind, I ask you: Who's really of inferior intelligence?

Again, I apologize to anyone I have offended. Just something to think about is all.

While I agree that some of the people of the more "primitive" parts of the world have not destroyed their environment nor created many of the problems of the modern world, the fact is that many have utterly wrecked their own environments and many live in utterly murderous societies that can hardly be held up as paragons of virtue.

The Easter Islanders, for instance, destroyed their own society by using up all the trees on their island, and ended up reverting to a more primitive and poorer society. They manufactured and experienced their own man-made environmental disaster and were certainly not the only tribes to have done so.

The Yanomamo Indians of South America are incredibly violent, and death from the hands of another is expected. The Mojave Indians considered 30% casulaties to be normal and the Mae Enga tribe of New Guinea experienced 40% losses.

Many, if not most, hunter-gatherer societies were every bit as nasty and cruel and as stupid as modern societies.

While all of that is true (and I am taking your word for it) did these things happen before or after interaction with Westerners? For example, many (many, but not all) wars between American Indian tribes were due to them being forced from their homes by European settlers and forced to encroach on the territories of neighboring tribes. War is human, regardless of color, nationality or level of "civilization" but I'd be willing to go out on a limb and guess that the Western world is responsible for many more wars than any primitive society. Again, this is all an educated guess. History's not really my thing. My knowledge in these subjects are limited at best.

Before and after - if you look at the history of Central and South America for instance, and their well documented empires, wars and human sacrifices, it's pretty evident they were every bit as brutish as Europeans, Asians, Egyptians, Persians, or any one else.

Many anthropologists would argue that "civilized" societies are much more peaceful than hunter-gatherer type societies - that we (the civilized) have largely evolved so as to be able to get along with one another, to live in close proximity to each other, to invest in shared resources, without resorting to violence in our everyday lives. Whereas many hunter gatherer tribes consider violence to be part of their everyday lives because they have never had to learn to get along with their neighbours in the same way "we" have.

The value of scientific inquiry is additional understanding, right?
If we cannot find our oneness (pretend I said commonality), we ain't gonna get there.

IJUHP!

OP = No, my question is this. If you had an airtight test to gauge a persons intelligence, no claims of cultural bias could be made, would it be ethical to use it on a population? Normally I am always for the truth scientifically. It doesn’t matter how inconvenient that truth is or how unpopular. In this scenario though, I have to wonder, what good it would do?


This could be a question that sees fruition in the US -- look at the current admin's view on testing. In the end I'm not sure IQ testing the masses would serve many purposes of good. Speaking sociologically I think that at some point each of know someone smarter than ourselves (or at least we wonder if they may be), and I think we each tend to gravitate toward what we can understand and where we can be be understood to some degree no matter how small. Which makes global education the utmost value. Zapatisa, baby!

You are in fact far out on a limb.

War is just what we humans do, its practically a universal across the globe.

We westerners just seem to be very good at it (the ones were weren't good are no longer around to complain), so we win more than we lose and then some of us feel guilty about our fathers, grandfathers, greatX5 grandfathers winning those wars and then think its all our fault.

Violence is FUN!

Western civilization invented war. wow.

What kind of anthropologists have you been talking to?? Citation needed, por favor.

From Before the Dawn, by Nicholas Wade.

Further, and here Wade quotes Allan Johnson and Timothy Earle from the Evolution of Human Societies:

Further, an examination of hunter-gatherer societies in such diverse regions as New Guinea, Africa and South America shows just how violent these societies can be. Richard Borshay Lee in his book The !Kung San finds that the murder rate amongst the !Kung is 3 times that of the United States, easily the most murderous of Western nations.

The Nobel Savage is just a figment of the Western mind.

Further, Keeley in War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage says that more than a third of the Yanomamo males, on average, died from warfare.

The beating of wives is commonplace.

I think there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that settled, urban societies are, in their day-to-day lives, more peaceful than many, perhaps most, hunter-gatherer societies.

Now obviously, we - due to our technology and large nation-states - are capable of inflicting more death in war, but the average guy or gal sitting in front of his computer monitor is likely to be less violent than a Yanomami or !Kung or New Guinea tribesman, IMO.

I'm well aware of that, Ustwo, and I also agree with it heartily. I think that idea is just as naive as it is arrogant to think that only industrial societies have evolved to be non-violent.

Highthief, thanks. However respectable he may be, Nicholas Wade is a science reporter, not an anthropologist. When I asked for a source, I was looking for peer-reviewed work that showed quantitative evidence of violent activities from society to society, controlling for socio-economic levels and population size. If you could show me a study like that, I might be more convinced.

Thing is, the problem is not that I think all hunter-gatherer societies are singing kumbaya and waving flowers around peacefully... quite the contrary. I'm well aware of scale of violence in many of those types of societies, that's nothing new. You're right about Richard Borshay Lee and the !Kung--and while I tend to agree with the materalist approach of the book you mention by Johnson & Earle, Marvin Harris' ideas--the source of materialist theory--just can't be used to explain every aspect of cultural evolution.

To make an all-encompassing statement that industralized societies are more peace-loving and less violent than hunter-gatherers is rather absurd. Have you lived among hunter-gatherers? I have. We're ALL capable of being violent assholes, depending on our circumstances... not because we're more "evolved." Let's put you in the middle of the 9th Ward or the Superdome during Hurricane Katrina and see how peace-loving you manage to be.

I was also reading along with your Wade quote, and came to the last sentence: "the different set of intellectual capacities that is rewarded by the institution of property."... what do you take from that? What does the institution of property have to do with intelligence? Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but tell me what you got from that.

Yeah, yeah, the famously violent Yanomamo. That's anthropology 101, no need to bring them up.

Does it occur to you WHY the "average" guy--who happens to own a computer, and have the time to sit in front of it, rather than trying to get the next meal from the Savannah--MIGHT be less violent than someone who isn't sure of where their next meal is coming from? Come on, you can come up with a better argument/example than that.

I wonder, again, what happened to "Race, Intelligence, and The Value of Scientific Inquiry"?

It seems to have drifted, which may be a good thing, given that it's a very odd
topic, but pussyfooting around it by distracting from it isn't helping the evolution of our philosophies regarding it.

This just proves the point. The nature of our lives allows us to be non-violent.

No one is saying we are 'better' as humans, but our society allows us to have internet arguments rather than worrying about who is going to bash us over the head with a stone axe. When that sort of violence does happen, we have elaborate infrastructure (police, courts) to punish the aggressor.

I'm honestly not sure what you are defending here.

Extreme violence was the currency of Central and South America prior to Europeans, the Moche make the Aztec's look like pacifists for example. We had cannibalism and highly defended settlements in the American south west in Chaco canyon. We had/have violent hunter gatherer types in the South Pacific and Asia. Even the Hawaiian islands were nothing but constant warfare and raiding until Kamehameha united them violently.

I don't think its a stretch to say our society is less violent than a pre-industrial one. Just look at our own history for that.

Its sort of telling that the oldest European corpse was found with an arrow in his back.

Close. I would say that the socio-economic status of our individual lives helps most individuals to have less reason to be violent... certainly, I'm not making excuses for violence, but there are contexts that must be considered.
Well, that was the gist I was getting from this portion of the thread... that humans living in an industrialized society are more innately peace-loving than those humans who are living in hunter-gatherer societies. And yes, I do take issue with that. However, if you are not saying that, then no, obviously I have nothing to defend.
... part and parcel with the Europeans, let's not forget. I already stated that I think the Noble Savage idea is a crock of shit, but my addition is that the West is not morally superior by sole virtue of its level of material development. Just because we've developed more sophisticated, efficient methods of killing does not make us somehow less violent by nature.

As I already said, we're all potentially violent assholes at heart, given a particular context--and I'm not talking about how "civilized" our society is, as a context. I'm talking about distribution of resources, etc... and that can happen well or poorly at any level of social evolution.

Abaya,

I provided you with quotes from Wade - a scientist and graduate of Cambridge although not an anthropologist - his expertise is more noted in genetics but I don't think that invalidates his work (which is endorsed by Edward Wilson and Lionel Tiger, noted anthropologists), Lawrence Keeley (prof of Anthropology at University of Illinois), and Allan Johnson and Timoty Earle, anthropologists and authors of anthro textbooks. I think you can ignore the line that is confounding you as in this passage he is linking several things together.

You cannot dismiss the Yanomami just because it is "Anthro 101" - you have to refute the argument with your own evidence, not simply wish it away as being too basic. How about your own evidence (without resorting to Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, perhaps?) to refute my position?

Even Jared Diamond, that great defender of the "noble savage", admits the New Guinea tribes have a great history of violence. Now he takes an opposite approach and suggests because New Guineans have to survive by their wits they are in fact more intelligent than "civilized" people.

The approach I endorse, to come back to your question, is that people whose ancestry is attached to advanced nation states have indeed evolved to become more cooperative, to be able to deal with more complex societies, laws and day to day living. Those who in our deep past could not handle living in close proximity to their fellows got banished or killed or were generally less successful in propagating their lines. Whereas the people able to adapt peacefully to complex social rules generally propogated and delivered their genetic predispositions for advanced social intelligence to their progeny. Just as we have deliberately domesticated wolves and turned them into dogs, and aurochs and turned them into cows, so have we domesticated ourselves (albeit not deliberately) with a resultant genetic shift in our society.

Their are exceptions of course - Genghis Khan famously fathered hundreds if not thousands of children so that today 8% of Asians may carry his genes. But even then, though he was a violent so and so, there's no doubting his intelligence and ability to administer a complex empire.

It's interesting - earlier in the thread the issue of the Ashnekazi Jews was brought up and how they have scored higher on intelligence testing. I was not sold on their innate intellegence at the time, but the more I consider the matter, the more I think I agree that due to the occupations Jews were forced into in Europe in the Middle Ages, the greater their average intelligence became, as those successful at finance and similar occupations, were more genetically successful.

Just skimming the net and found this article from the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/displaystor...ry_id=10278703

Kim Hill reports in the Journal of Human Evolution in 2007 that

Hill K, Hurtado AM, Walker RS. 2007. High adult mortality among Hiwi hunter-gatherers: implications for human evolution. J Hum Evol 52:443-454.

To think it took "5 million years" of "Nobel savages" to get here.

(I must own that the term "Nobel Savage" has truth in it, Ustwo.)

I am amazed this has gone on so long...

Alright, I took some time to think about this thread before coming back to reply.

RE: Wade, I did not say that he was an unintelligent man, nor that his work was invalid. However, anthropology is still not his field... he does an admirable job of synthesizing a lot of different ideas in one place, definitely. But as with many journalists (and even Jared Diamond, who commits grave errors in pulling everything into his "grand narrative," most notably in Collapse), we still have to be cautious of what his "big picture" is... and whether or not that is scientifically sound. I just have my doubts, that's all... I'd like to see more of his work before I go accepting ALL of what he writes as being true.

As for the Yanomami, I don't know what we're arguing about there. We both agree that they're one of the most well-known violent people groups in the world. You want me to give more evidence to refute a position that you already agree with?... I'm confused.

Now, as to your approach: Okay. What I hear you saying is that you think individuals living in advanced nation states and complex societies are, by sole virtue of being born into those societies, more peaceful and "domesticated." Is that right? And conversely, you believe that any individual born into a "hunter-gatherer" society, whether yesterday or thousands of years ago, will be innately more violent and prone to killing and injuring other people. Am I following you?

So it doesn't matter what kind of human being you are... it only matters what kind of society you are born into, right? So those groups of Kenyans massacring each other over the weekend?... violent because they were not born into an advanced nation state, and for no other reason. They'll never stop being violent. And those 400-500 murders that take place each year in Philly, New York, etc... violent because... they were born into an advanced nation state?... The people who were violent and dangerous during Hurricane Katrina, getting in fights over food and water... hunter gatherers? Oh wait, they were born into a civilized society, so I thought they were supposed to be more cooperative and domesticated?

See, this is the flaw that I see in your thinking. I do not argue with the theories of *general* human social evolution... yes, with the agricultural and industrial revolutions, we've had to come up with more laws and ways of preventing and resolving conflicts with each other, especially in densely inhabited urban environments and large, possibly unwieldy populations that are sharing limited resources. Fine and well.

But what I don't agree with is the extension of that general theory, into individual behaviors... to explain why entire societies are violent, TODAY, not in our deep history. To say that certain groups are violent because it's "in their nature," not because of their external circumstances, socio-economic status, etc. Perhaps I have misunderstood you, up until this point... feel free to let me know. But what I hear you saying is that hunter-gathering individuals, now in the 21st century, are INNATELY more violent than industrialized individuals, who are all peace-loving folk. And that just doesn't make sense.

I guess I just don't see how you can disagree with the idea that we are all capable of being violent assholes, given a particular set of circumstances and pressures. That just seems like common sense to me. But what you seem to be saying is that no, violence is only explainable by what kind of society you were born into, not by other circumstances such as marked difference in socio-economic status, inequal distribution of wealth (which, by god, still happens in advanced nation-states!!! Say it ain't so.), etc.

Am I misunderstanding your point? Please let me know. Frankly, if we are just miscommunicating about a common point, I'd rather be done with this seemingly pointless thread. :)

Re the Yanomami - you seemed to be dismissive of them because their society is talked about in introductory anthro classes. This is why I have responded as I did.

Re being born into advanced societies - generally, I think we (that is to say Europeans, Chinese, etc) have evolved to fit those societies. We have evolved to fit into these societies at a genetic level because it benefits us, and so we have learned to live in close proximity to one another without resorting to violence to resolve issues (in general) just as being a little more aggressive complements many hunter-gatherer lifestyles.

Human beings are as succeptible to ongoing evolution as ever - we have evolved to fit our environments. I don't see that as any great leap of logic.

Now, understand, this is a general not specific situation. You cannot attribute any one act - be it rioting Kenyans or murders in Detroit - to this fact. Nor does it mean that every European is less violent than the next hunter-gatherer - there is a great deal of overlap. But I do believe some general conclusions, as already outlined, can be drawn from the studies already mentioned.

I'm not sure why you see the thread as pointless, abaya. I think there has been a lot of worthwhile discussion, even if I don't agree with everyone's POV.

I do wish you would try to cite some studies yourself if you disagree with me, especially after I went out of my way to answer your question.

I see it as pointless because no one's ever going to budge on their points of view. If you inherently believe that modern, complex societies are unconditionally, on every level (controlling for socio-economic status and distribution of wealth), less violent to live in than modern hunter-gatherer societies, I just don't know what to say. We're talking apples and oranges here (especially when you start bringing in the genetic view) and nothing that either of us says on this little forum is going to change those views.

I've collected data in the Philly ghetto, and collected data in rural, dirt-poor Zambia. Let me tell you, I'd rather be living in rural Zambia on a day-to-day basis than spend a few nights in the Philly ghetto.

The reason I asked you to cite studies (and I do appreciate you doing that, btw--it gave me a better context to understand where you got your ideas from) is because you opened this section of discussion with a statement about "anthropologists." I wanted to know which anthropologists you were talking about, because most anthropologists I know are hard-core believers in cultural relativism. Not extreme relativism, mind you, but at least some degree of relativism, of looking at the behaviors of each society (and by extension, individuals in those societies) within their own particular contexts. I can't cite this as a "study" in anthropology, since it's a theoretical orientation that informs pretty much every study in the field... going back to good ol' Franz Boas, the founder of the modern discipline. So, for that, check The Mind of Primitive Man, Franz Boas, 1911.

I'm really just tired of arguing about this right now. No one on this thread is ever going to change their personal "gut feelings" about race, intelligence, etc... and every time I come back here, I just get fired up and waste my energy. That's all. Hopefully other people are reading the discussing and gaining some insight, but they're not posting here, so I don't know.

I don't think anyone said that, I think the point is we are a lot less likely to die violently.

I don't necessarily agree with Highthief in that we have evolved to fit these societies. I only have to go back a few hundred years to find Vikings in my and my wifes blood.

But abaya there is a fine line between the old 'White Mans burden' where every thing in the west was considered superior to other cultures, and trying to make everything relative. Some things we have done are perhaps superior, and many things are better. Its not really PC to say that, and I"m guessing you are surrounded by PC thought based on your postings, but there is nothing wrong with thinking that perhaps we do a few things better then people who are still in the stone age.

But you see, I DID change my POV.

I was not sold on the Ashnekazi having a greater inherent intelligence (at least the way we in the West measure it) than the average Westerner, chalking it up to many environmental factors that influence Jewish children as they grow up.

But, looking more deeply into it, I do think there is likely a genetic component to their higher tested IQ scores. Environment does factor in, I think, as well, but so does genetics.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by.

If you buy into Ashnekazi intelligence being genetically based, you really only have to go back a few centuries to discover the purported roots of their intelligence (confined to certain areas, permitted to work in very specific industries, and enjoying prolific numbers of offspring if successful in those industries).

In relatively small populations in relatively small areas (such as the Jews in question), you only need a few generations to begin to see such affects on a population as a whole.

Differences in Ashnekazi Jews and other groups in intelligence (as measured by the WAIS or some other standard IQ measure) could have a heritable component entirely independent of the adaptationist explanation you suggest above. It could just be a founder effect/genetic drift.

True, it could be a fluke effect of drift - until such time as the genes responsible for higher IQ in that population are pinned down and dated we cannot say for sure.

Still, I think given other aspects of how various populations test in IQ - even people raised together in the same socio-economic environments yet who have dissimilar ancestries - does lend credence to the concept of certain populations have an average greater ability in some mental areas than other populations, although with considerable overlap. It would be bizarre to think the human mind is immune to evolutionary forces when every other visible and readily testable aspect of our being has so obviously been shaped by evolutionary adaptation over realtively short periods of time.

I don't see this thread as pointless....
The verbal parrying that I have been listening to,has temporarily
replaced the bloody sword I feel some of us would use if circumstances
were to radically change...history has a history...
Why do I need to drag up 'sites' when what is apparent to me, about
human behavior is in plain sight in this thread,

Studying a few generations? does anyone else see the arrogance
of coming to hard and fast conclusions about something so recent and
subjective in nature?

enlighten me more..please...how can my point of view change..
if I don't even know where the window is?

Very significant genetic changes can occur - especially among smaller, restricted populations - in just a few generations.

Good examples are to be found in studying the animal biology of small islands. Within a few generations, major changes in size and behaviour can occur - human beings are not immune to similar forces within our own environment - I think it would be arrogant to think we are above such forces.

"in just a few generations" =
It's just us here, people.

I further pretend that our limited perspective contributes to our lack of it and the concept of race.
Intelligence should help us, but it obfuscates matters by using too many words, which might also help us, if we listened as much as we spoke.

A funny thing: Our retardation in these areas transcends our races, and even our intelligences.