Race, Intelligence and the value of scientific inquiry
 

I wasn’t sure where to post this, politics (hehe just kidding), knowledge or philosophy but I think philosophy will be best.

Recently, perhaps one of the worlds best known living scientists dropped this bombshell.


Now we have a Nobel prize winning geneticist saying that blacks are not as smart as whites. Hes 79 years old, which leads me to three possibilities. Hes just crazy old and saying what he feels off the cuff like crazy old people do. He is looking for free publicity and man he is going to get it here, or perhaps he is old enough not to care, its not like he is in line for any grants or chairmanships which can be revoked. Copernicus didn’t release his theory that the planets revolved around the Sun until his deathbed for obvious reasons, and perhaps this is a bit of the same. His age makes him untouchable.

Regardless that doesn’t matter, none of the above makes him right or wrong.

Now being a news piece and having not read his book it contains no details here.

One quote does stand out though..

"There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

This is true. Its also a non-judgmental statement if it stands alone. All of the races have somewhat different abilities in general . There is more than skin color that makes a race, and had we been isolated long enough I can say without a doubt we would have been different species at some point. That didn’t happen, and we ‘remixed’ soon enough to prevent that, but still we do have some differences.

There is NO reason to expect intelligence to be different in this. Yet perhaps the quickest route to hell as a scientist is to claim there is a measurable difference. When those differences are found the culprit is almost universally labeled as the test, and it was testing biased which is claimed to have caused the difference, not real intelligence. Hell we can’t even make claims of differences in males vrs females in brain function and development without catching hell and those are in fact well documented.

Added to this you have typical variation where there will always be overlap. Even if the race as a whole were less intelligent compared to another race there would be a great deal of overlap.

So the question here isn’t are blacks less intelligent than whites, none of us has fair data to make this claim, no matter what your personal thoughts are.

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?

In an ideal world, the one we don’t live in, you could argue that it would be a just cause for accepting lower test scores into schools, or perhaps adjusting curriculums to fit different educational goals. Being we don’t’ live in said world, the real use of such data would be justification of racism and further segregation. Also while perhaps such data would be true for the populations it would not be true for individuals. Exceptional individuals from the intellectually inferior race may be pressured to not pursue goals which would require high intelligence. This would be grossly unfair and detrimental for society as their contributions would be lost.

So for me the question that needs to be answered isn’t are whites as a group smarter than blacks, or are Asians really the best at math, but if any benefit can come from such information.

Ugh. That article mischaracterizes the arguments presented in The Bell Curve. Race is only discussed in one chapter of the (very long) book. It also mischaracterizes the criticisms. Herrnstein & Murrary received a lot of criticism, but less from leading scientists who actually examine individual differences.

A couple of things to note:

1) Scores on an IQ score do not equal "Intelligence". Intelligence is a psychological construct. IQ scores are an approximation of that construct.
2) Independent of "Cultural Bias", IQ scores predict many academic, economic, and social outcomes in the United States (and other Western nations). Intelligence is culturally specific. What is intelligent in the United States is unlikely to be what is intelligent in sub-Saharan Africa. IQ scores are unlikely to predict as much in other cultures.

To answer your question: The modern IQ test may be the most reliable psychology test ever invented. It's predictive validity is well established. I don't see any harm in giving someone a test. What you propose to do with the scores is more of an issue. I suppose knowing your own strengths and weaknesses may help you make decisions about career tracks. Though most research I have read indicates that interests trump abilities when considering job satisfaction. (The Strong Occupational Interest Inventory better predicts job satisfaction that any test of ability).

moments like this bring milton freidman of all people to mind. one of freidman's positions is that when a corporation tries to act ethically, it steps outside of its collective competence--which is making money--and in so doing begins making serious errors. to go after this statement requires that one step behind it and take apart the assumptions on whcih it is based (particularly the separation of economic rationality from other areas of human activity)---but putting that aside, and the political problems that go along with friedman, and just looking at the claim itself, i think it applies quite well to watson. so there's no reason to take seriously what he says as a public figure. outside his field--and even (apparently) when it comes to make extrapolations based on his research areas that run into more complicated social questions, there's no reason to take him seriously.


on the question, though, it seems that the classical chicken-egg question of context vs. abilities comes in here.

how exactly does one go about controlling for contextual factors?

much of subsaharan africa performs (in various ways) the implications left to open by european colonialism. like it or not--there's no way around it. this obtains at one level or another across a host of areas of social life, from education to organization of agricultural production, from the nature and role of the state to questions of medical policy. so much of the infrastructure remains marked by its history since 1960 (say)...if the infrastructure if a wreck, and if education is an element of infrastructure, then it seems logical that the "post-colonial" or neocolonial history of these areas is a overwhelming factor--and that attempting to develop an "intelligence test" that would erase this as a factor seems little more than running away from the legacy of colonialism itself.

just another attempt to quantify an exercise in blaming the victims of colonialism for the effects of colonialism.

this is of course a very general statement and should be broken up as the conditions it refers to in general are differentially distributed and differentially important--but i raise it to indicate a general problem with the idea ustwo puts forward in the op.

I pretty much tuned out the article after Watson's quotes myself. It seemed to be pretty standard fare for this kind of topic.

Still though, I'd be interested in your thoughts if such a true 'intelligence' test were possible.

Agreed. He appears to be speaking outside of his area of expertise.

Well, when considering intelligence as measured by IQ tests, we can use behavior genetic methods (adoption studies, twin studies, family studies, etc.) to partial out genetic effects, shared environmental effects, and unshared environmental effects). These methods are at least better than the standard approach (it must all be caused by the environment).

I picked sub-saharan Africa randomly. My point was that IQ tests are culturally specific. Intelligence will be different in subsaharan africa, what it takes to be "successful" in subsaharan africa likely differs from what it takes to be successful in Chicago.

Presumably, we could design an intelligence test for that culture that could predict outcomes within that culture. So, the effects of culture would be minimized, presuming that everyone within that culture experiences those effects equally. Who knows whether intelligence as measured by that culture's IQ scores would be heritable. It's quite possible that social forces account for a greater proportion of the variance in social outcomes than scores on an IQ test. The effects of colonialism might have less of an effect within culture. Again, I'm not comparing IQ scores in America to IQ scores on an American test in subsaharan africa.

What do you mean by a "true intelligence test"?

The whole notion of "intelligence" is western and caucasio-centric. To say, "oh, look, those people from other cultures--they're not as good at us at the things we, as a culture, do" isn't exactly breakthrough thinking.

The problem comes from a application of value to the term "intelligence". In reality, being intelligent (however it's defined) isn't any more valuable than not being intelligent--above some baseline survival-level capacity, anyway.

Intelligence in the IQ sense, perhaps. But do you have any evidence that individuals from non-western cultures do not distinguish between bright and less bright individuals within their own culture?

It depends on what you value. Within the United States, intelligence as measured by an IQ score predicts a great deal. It also predicts many outcomes beyond "survival". (If it predicts anything it, it must predict beyond survival level capacity - you must survive to both take the test and be measured at a later date).

One where you could erase the cultural bias all together, a measure of intelligence potential. I'm only speaking hypothetical as no such test exists.

Twin studies have already shown that intelligence is indeed heritable, it would be somewhat foolhardy to assume that interracially there are not genetically determined differences in the brain.

I'd be fascinated to see raw data on any double blind studies done by reputable organizations or schools involving the relationship between race and intellect. While controversial, this is the kind of thing that allows us an amazing look back at our development as a species. I don't care if people think it's racist. Proven and unbiased data can't be racist.

I have no clue as to whether one race may or may not be more intelligent than any other, but having known intelligent people of many races, it either isn't true or isn't obvious.

I find that this theory fits quite nicely in my own personal theory that all people are idiots, at least part time. Intelligence, unlike dick measuring, can not be quantified in a number. But like dick measuring, it is completely pointless.

I don't think that intelligence is a universal psychological construct. What is intelligent in one culture may very well be considered clueless in another. So, there could never be a "true intelligence test" for everyone in the world.

I would consider using American IQ tests to evaluate the intelligence of members of non-western cultures to be culturally biased. Within the United States, scores on an IQ test predict a variety of outcomes regardless of your race/ethnicity. Because the IQ test predicts social outcomes regardless of race or ethnicity within the united states, I don't consider it to be culturally biased when used within the united states.

If there was such a thing as a "True intelligence test" (again, most evidence suggests that there is not), I'm not sure what benefit would come from testing everyone.

Incidently, there is debate within the field of intelligence about whether intelligence is a domain general ability (like a general problem solving ability), or a number of domain specific abilities. (Few deny the predictive power of IQ scores, but they do debate what an IQ score represents). Thurstone forwarded Primary Mental Abilities theory which argued that we don't have one ability (as represented by an IQ score), rather we have many specific intellectual abilities. He included verbal comprehension, word fluency, number, spatial ability, associative memory, perceptual speed, and reasoning or induction. Others, like Gardener, have argued for even more specific abilities. These conceptualizations suggest that individuals in diverse cultures would be considered "intelligent" to the extent that the individual possesses the specific abilities necessary to succeed in that in those specific environments.

There are reputable studies done by reputable researchers at reputable schools and published in reputable peer-reviewed journals. I don't have time to give you examples right now. Off the top of my head, the National Longitudinal Study of Youth is one reputable data set. The raw data is available, but what would you do with the raw data? And how would double-blinding help? Most IQ tests are administered via a paper/pencil test. The outcome data is objective and demographic. Plus, this is all correlational research, not experimental.

I don't particularly care whether self-identified members of one ethnic group score differently than self-identified members of another ethnic group, but my experience with people of many races is irrelevant - personal experience is not aparticularly good source of data.

Tell that to a girl who ended up with a 4 incher.

My question though isn't if it is an idiotic thing to say. Its easy to argue its an idiotic thing to say for a lot of reasons.

My question is, is it an idiotic thing to say, even if its true?

Or a 14 incher, for that matter.
I don't think it's idiotic. It lacks tact, certainly.

Double blind helps to keep people honest. I'd want to see how the study was done to ensure fairness and reliability of the numbers and to give the outcome proper context.
It was more of an off hand ascertain (or guess) than anything else. I really have no clue.

Speaking briefly to the IQ test, assuming you have people who have similar backgrounds and cultural influences of different races are tested, and then having more and more of that, it's not unreasonable to think the data may be reliable. Yes, the IQ test is not the end all be all of measures of intelligence, but it's one of the best tools we have.

I'm aware of what a double-blind test is - both experimenters and participants are unaware of the experimental group the participant is in. I'm just curious to know how it would be done using the correlational methods used in intelligence research. If you are studying IQ, typically you are collecting data on a variety of demographic variables up front, including race. IQ tests are typically administered using paper and pencil forms. 1) How will you blind the paper form to race? 2) How will you blind the participant to their own race?

I'm not sure what you mean. If people have similar backgrounds, how can you test cultural influences? If you mean that they all need to come from similar socioeconomic status, they do not. Differences in IQ due to SES (or any other variable) can be controlled statistically as long as you have a sufficient sample size. I do agree that more studies showing the same results increases confidence in the validity of the results.

The standard IQ test (probably the WAIS) is probably the most valid test of intelligence that exists.

Ah... Ha... I laughed when I read this.

At the risk of sounding like a racist, it's usually whites (People of European decent) who could, in general, be classified as 'less inteligent'. The only reason I say this is because, historically, Europe has typically lagged behind other non-European cultures in terms of advances in math, science, medicine, engineering etc. Screw what IQ tests. I'd rather look at history.

I remember standardized testing in schools. They asked my ethnicity, but never (until like a minute ago) did I think they may be using that to qualify my race's intellect. If it's just one of many black dots, I'd guess that only a few people may guess what it is.
Make it a part of a questionnaire to throw them off the trail.

Yes, a bigger sample and more tests would be best before conclusions were drawn.
I like it (probably because i do well on it).

The guns/germs/steel advantage translated to quicker advancing science, math, medicine, and engineering in Europe. Read Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel".

Yes yes... I've read it before. The book basically asserts that European dominance is/was the direct result of a favorable environment while ignoring other important factors (Such an imperialism and/or colonialism).

It ignores the things that didn't factor in, yes. One of the best books ever written.

This guy is a scientist so he knows how the game works. Put up all the evidence to back up these claims. If they are solid, they stand. So he should have some interesting data to back him up. Right?

Erm... What??? Please, please, please, explain to me how they didn't factor in.

Imperialism and colonialism are proximate causes - they are causes that are themselves effects of the ultimate causes that Guns, Germs, and Steel addresses.

There was one period of time where the 'white' nations fell behind Arab and Asian powers and that was after the fall of the Roman empire left it a mess. Prior to and since the renaissance, you would be very wrong. There is a reason we refer to them as the 'dark ages'.

Regardless there has never been a time when the black kingdoms of Africa were more advanced, unless you play revisionist history with Egypt. This is what would be would be germane to Watson's topic, but not to the topic as presented.

Still, such advances like say powered flight, wouldn't be indicative of a greater intelligence in the first place. When the Chinese were at their peak, and the most powerful 'nation' on earth, their own policies turned them from expansionist and inventive, to isolationists, which in let others catch up and surpass them. Does that mean one people were more intelligent than the other?

No, sometimes circumstances will trump intelligence when it comes to such measures.

Bingo.

/me wonders how long one of us would survive in THEIR little corner of the world...

Ummm... No. Even though I shouldn't, I'm gonna' quote Wikipedia here.

So, assuming what you say is true, then why isn't Europe under Chinese rule? As I said in my earlier post, Guns, Germs, and Steel can't answer this question, because it over-simplifies human interaction by arguing that European dominance is a result of favorable environmental factors.

Right and wrong, as contrary idiocies, both have the same problem; neither is right.

"Race" has nothing to do with what we are.

To the original question. IF you could come up with an unbiased test for intelligence, I am not convinced it would have any value and would ultimately cause more trouble than the "truth" would be worth.

Well outside of issues with malaria pretty damn well historically.

The environmental conditions which helped create the races have mostly been 'beaten'.

If any of us were moved into a 'natural' environment we would still survive, not as well as those adapted though. If we were in isolation, odds are, after a few 1000 generations we would look more like the current natives then we do now, at least in pigmentation, though I'd expect other changes as well.

From Guns, Germs and Steel (pp 411-412), by Jared Diamond:
At this same time, Europe was expanding navally at an exponential rate. Fleets from Europe spread everywhere.

BTW, when I said Guns, Germs, and Steel, I meant the book.

I believe the term 'Dark Age' was first coined in the 14th or 15th century (Somewhere around that time) and was used to indicate a period of social decline, stagnant technological advances and few historical records. Today the term is rarely used academically as we have a much better understanding of period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance. ...Just saying.

Anyway, I find it funny that you mention 'leaving an area in a mess'. Did you know that the Renaissance was almost immediately followed by European colonialism? If not well... Now you know.

But, you see, you'd be wrong. That's okay. I forgive you. Not to deviate too much (And not to sound too... Ummm... Beligerent), but when the European invaded and conquered most African cultures, they assimilated the knowledge the knowledge they liked, claiming it as their own, and destroyed what they didn't like. While he was alive, my grandfather always said that European's set the world back a couple of hundred years. I've always found a bit of truth in that statement.

*Shrugs*

But, as we all know, history is written by the victors. So, meh, whatever.

The article makes extremely good points, specifically the nearly inargueable My curiosity is how do people actually feel about lawsuits against this man for a scientific 'theory' which nobody can disprove, nor can he actually prove. Though, for pretty much anyone who really thinks about it, it makes perfect since going back to the quote I have right up there.


perhaps it has nothing to do with what we are as a human being but physically and mentally I absolutely believe it has a huge amount of impact.

Have fun trying to find books on the subject, but it's fairly widely accepted that west african decendants, are a physically superior race than caucasians, not only that but it's pretty common knowledge than kenyans are a devastating force in running events such as marathons.

If you'd like to read about it, there is very few writers willing to delve into it because of the bullshit backlash they get for moving into these types of 'racial profiling' even when the facts point directly to the correct findings. But one that comes to mind is a book called "Taboo" written by a man named John Entine. Excellent book on the subject.

I do not see why mentally there wouldn't be a difference as well.

I'd disagree with that - blacks of West African descent tend to make better sprinters and tend to do well in sports requiring explosive bursts of speed. But that is only one facet of athleticism - the top power lifters tend to be white, for instance. UFC? I think you'll find more white champs than black.

As for Kenyans, they are East African, not West.

I think the best athletes - and I'm thinking of some of the greats including decathletes like Brian Clay and Daley Thompson, Muhammed Ali, Tiger Woods, have been mixed race.

Nobody said that blacks will be better than whites in every single sport/physical activity there is.

Also did not mean kenya is west african, that was meant as two different circumstances.

It's just true they are physically built better for it than whites.
Though you should check out the UFC site, there are many, many, very adept and capable fighters that are black, including 2 champions. Actually over the last year, the champions have been very near 50/50 black/white.

(meh editted a post fuckup)

Not to belabour the point but you said:

"...it's fairly widely accepted that west african decendants, are a physically superior race than caucasians,"

Which is the comment I respond to.

Think about it some more, and how many West Africans have become successful middle and long distance runners? I can't think of any, whereas although the East Africans are currently dominant, we've also had very succesful white and Asian long distance runners. No West Africans, which perhaps lends credence to the long-held belief (some would say racist belief) that black (i.e., American black of West African origin) lack stamina in athletic performance.

Additionally, while MALE West African sprinters are on top of the pile, the division is not so clear cut among FEMALES (who make up half of any "race" we may be talking about). We've seen a great deal of success from white female sprinters (100m to 400m) from OUTSIDE the US - from Britain, Australia, Russia, Germany, etc.

Hell On Earth!

It's Just Us Here, People.

Why make it complicated?

Are blacks better atheletes than whites? On the whole...

With all that I've said, and the reiteration and additions you've made, I think you'll find the answer to be yes.



Thats the point I meant, and the entire point of the scenario was that if blacks are physically more adept on the whole, it sure makes sense that some other race may have the upper hand in some other aspect, mentally in thise case.

... Proving right there that blacks are actually smarter than whites!

I'll be here all week.

Absolutely not! Just look at curling. White players dominate that sport! And despite the popularity of Cool Runnings, whites dominate bobsledding as well. So there!


I disagree that whites "have the upper hand" mentally. As I mentioned earlier, intelligence, at least the way it is understood by people who actually study it, is culturally specific and dependent on the environment in which you reside.

Also, I don't know why you would expect some kind of balance (or a lack of balance) of abilities across "races".

The problem with the term black is that its only one characteristic of what would be a multitude of sub races.

So saying 'black athletes are superior' is a bit off. Not all blacks are good long distance runners, and likewise not all are good sprinters. My non-scientific feeling is that the black sub races tend to be more specialized athletically then their white counter parts which seem to be more generalist.

Whites too have their own 'sub' races, and no one is going to confuse a southern Italian and a Swede as being brothers.

Interesting.... While you're right that the distinction between a southern and a northern European are visible, there is historically a large amount of interbreeding among european regions. Enough so that in a recent genetic study of male-line lineage, europe was generally found to be peopled by mutts. This is the same study that was in the news a while back for discovering that a shocking percentage of Asians are descendants of Ghengis Khan.

So I think you're right about people of european descent being more generalist--they interbred more among various population centers over the last thousand years. Africa, by contrast, is much harder to get around. The geography alone would seem to promote the development of discrete genetic pools that would evolve domain-specific traits and talents.

maybe whites would be a more of an 'accuracy' superior, or something along those lines no?



-_-

I didnt say "whites" are mentally superior, i said other races, Asians are imo probably the ones with the mental superiority.


Also we aren't talking about knowledge here. Obviously someone living in a shanty hut or middle of the desert nigeria, are never going to reach any type of knowledge 'peak' if you will. (Nobody will obviously but those people wont come close)

Location will dictate your "Amount" of knowledge, not your intelligence, that is most definately a genetic thing.

Quick side note...

Moral of the story, its good to be the king.

I think you thinking much too locally and looking at one small area of sports. You are American, you watch American sports and there are a lot of black football and basketball players.

But look at the larger, worldwide sporting picture - soccer is the most popular sport on earth (by a mile) and the African nations have made great strides - but Italy won the last World Cup and I don't think there is a black guy on the team. Argentina just won the Under 20 World Cup - no blacks. Germany just won the Women's World Cup - no blacks. Shouldn't Nigeria be kicking everyone's butt if they are such superior athletes?

Rugby World Cup ongoing - England and South Africa are in the finals, two nations with large black populations. While both have black athletes, they are a distinct minority on the teams, even accounting for cultural bias (such as black athletes in England prefering to play soccer or run track than play rugby).

I think the only area we can absolutely say West African MALE blacks have a distinct upper hand (not mitigated by cultural biases - e.g., golf is a "white" sport or basketball is a "black" sport) is in areas of speed over short distances.

Other areas are tough to judge - triathlon has few elite black athletes; is it because blacks are abysmal swimmers or because poverty in the US and Africa precludes many athletes from participating in a sport where you need a $2,000 bike?

If you really want to get into it, typically racial differences in scores on IQ tests look something like this:

Asians
Jews
Whites
Blacks

But again, intelligence as measured by an IQ test like the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) is culturally specific. It predicts outcomes that you would normally associate with intelligence (or lack thereof) in Western environments. To say that white Europeans are smarter than black Africans is a misunderstanding of what the psychological construct "Intelligence" is. White europeans may score higher on the WAIS than black Africans, but that does not necessarily translate into white Europeans being more "Intelligent" than black Africans.

All of the information above is independent of the question: "Are racial differences in scores on the WAIS (or another Western IQ tes) due to differences in genes between the races?".

Jews get to be a race now?:paranoid:

Actually I don't see a problem with separating Jews from other 'whites' as they do form a sub group to some extent. The problem is the other subgroups are less well defined. This makes the data pretty meaningless.

It reminds me of when Europeans talk about violent America and our high murder rate. When I looked into this a few years ago I discovered as a young white male I had less of a chance of being murdered then a young white male in Germany, and I forget where else, and if anything at the time the US had a lower murder rate in my sub group than much of Europe (but not all). So for the subgroup of young white males the high murder rate in America didn't apply.

The same type of thinking would apply to intelligence. Simple genetic drift might apply to intelligence differences due to geographical separations, and your subgroup is the only one that matters to you.

Now lets add in the genetic mixing and it just gets to hard to classify. My children will have ancestors which come from pretty much ALL of northern Europe. The only possible predictor of their IQ will be my wifes and my own.

Exactly - there are a lot of distinct groups within larger groups. The Finns, the Welsh, and the Basque, for instance, are all "white" Europeans yet are, on the whole, genetically distinct from much of the rest of the European population, although I confess, terming Jews a "race" (given that there are very, very "white" Jews along with some pretty "black" Jews, and a whole lot of "in between" Jews) has always seemed a bit of a stretch to me.

I don't care whether or not they are a race. Their scores on IQ tests, however, do differ from other "whites".
How does this make the data meaningless? (I didn't even present data).

Again, the data examining racial differences in cognitive abilities focuses on IQ scores. IQ scores are not the same thing as intelligence. IQ tests favor certain abilities over others (those that predict outcomes in western cultures). Big "G" as measured by IQ scores isn't very informative about differences in cognitive abilities between groups anyway. IQ tests are made up of a number of different subtests. You can get an IQ of 100 a number of different ways (verbal ability, mathematical ability, spatial ability, etc.).

So would using the males of my paternal family line which have been scientists of some kind for the last 5 generations. Which is my point, its just a limited sub group and that lots of groups of whites would differ from other whites.

You seem touchy on this and I'm not sure why. The 'data' in this case would be any racial IQ which crossed so many sub groups. These data would be meaningless due to the subgrouping. Lets say you used 'whites' from Minnesota as part of your study. Even if you had 10,000 randomly selected IQ scores, you would be oversampling the Scandinavian sub group.

I suppose I'm using IQ to represent intelligence and thats where the hang up is. I took a myrid of IQ tests as a child and I was average in spatial ability, superior in verbal ability and off the charts for deductive reasoning. These tests were done when I was about 8 and have remained surprisingly true up until my last standardized test which was the GRE about 7 years ago. (and much to my chagrin they have taken the deductive reasoning section out of the GRE and rely on the basics only now). It should be easy to break down 'races' on subgroups as well if they could do it to a 8 year old child.

But my point isn't about the deficiencies of the IQ exam. Its that trying to measure any form of intelligence as applied to our current definition of race is rather meaningless.

Are Jews a race ??
And please can somebody tell me major races in world
blacks (africans), whites (Caucasian / Europeans and North America), Asians (Chinese , Japs and similar) ,South Asians (south Asia : Pak, India , BDesh etc) Middle Easterns , South Americans (what will u call 'em hispanians or something ??)
Am i Missing something ??

it seems to me that the idea of an iq test leans on so many assumptions which are socially specific that they really only measure the fit between the subject who takes the test and an abstract-to-cartoon version of the rationality dominant at the time the tests are written.

so the scale seems to me entirely normative--so what is measured, then, is fit relative to an ideal-typical image of the rationality that the creators of the test understand to be binding on themselves.

so i dont even see how iq tests are interesting or important, once you move outside the class positions occupied by those who generate such tests.

and i am not sure why or how the fact that x or y might do well on such tests is an argument for or against them on the basis of what kind of information they gather, how they weight it, and what these weightings are taken to mean.

signal is differentiated from noise by redundancy.
that there is redundancy implies nothing about value.
so it seems to me that iq tests are important because they are said to be important.


addendum:

why is the 19th century colonial residuum that is the notion of "race" of any interest?
i dont see the value of this category AT ALL and so cannot for the life of me figure out why it is at play in this thread.

The difference is that there have not been reliable differences found within "whites" other than the differences between jews and other "whites" as a group.

That is part of my concern. IQ is not the same as intelligence. Comparisons of general IQ scores (as a measure of Intelligence) across cultures are misleading. So, to suggest that a particular racial group has a higher or lower intelligence isn't accurate. Researchers have examined differences between self-identified racial groups in the US. Those differences are well established. Of course, the research itself is not very well received.

I generally have issues with talking about topics like this without any reference to actual studies. I don't have access to references right now, and even if I did, I'm not sure how the discussed would work. Off the top of my head, here are a few sources:

The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray is a good source of information about IQ. Of course, it is a very controversial book. A teacher and colleague of mine used to say that Herrnstein had the good fortune to die before the book was published. The book does address issues of race in one chapter, but the approach is descriptive, not prescriptive. It's also an interesting argument about whether or not IQ is affecting the social and economic structure of the US.

Jerry Waller did a study examining the effects of IQ on SES within family . I don't recall the particular reference. He computed average family IQ, looked at the IQ of children and their occupational outcomes. He found that if you are above the family average, you go up in social class. If you are below the family average, you go down in social class.

Sandra Scarr (1996) completed a transracial adoption study and looked at IQs.

Eyferth (Year?) found that that in the American army in Germany, there were illegitimate black/white and German mother children, but no IQ differences between those children. When one parent was white/1 black, if the mother was black, child IQ would be lower, if mother was white, higher child IQ.

There is some evidence from giant prenatal studies point out that ethnicity of mothers is important. Lee Willerman looked at the effect of the race of the mother on IQ in interracial (black-white) families.

Gerald Lesser studied the contribution of ethnicity to intellectual development. I don't recall the specific reference. He focused on more specific mental abilities than IQ (verbal, spatial, number, etc.) He also considered SES. He found that effect of SES on intellectual development varied dramatically by ethnicity. For example, there was a huge social class effect for African Americans, but barely any effect for Chinese. Jews, regardless of their social class or their geographic location, had the highest verbal and lowest spatial abilities. Chinese the world over had high spatial abilities and low verbal abilities.

This is a very limited representation of the research available.

A mainstream position on Intelligence can be found in this reprinted editorial submitted to the WSJ by many of the leading researchers in the field. The article is also hidden

I enjoy research on IQ and intelligence. I find it interesting and I do appreciate the OP. However, I'm not that interested in race/ethnicity differences.

African, Caucasians, Oceanian, East Asians, Native Americans. Isn't that it?

sapiens--we seem to be posting at the same time...i didnt see either your first post to the thread or number 51 when i was putting stuff up. you seem to have addressed one of the concerns i outlined in no. 50...thanks.

I think you'll find that to be incorrect.

Firstly, the higher scores were related to Ashkenazi Jews (basically, Jews of Central European descent) not other Jews.

Second, comparative analysis shows large variation between different European populations. Now, one can argue that the tests don;t take cultural and environmental biases into account, such that Bulgarians are scoring lower than Danes, but then the same might account for Ashkenazi Jewish scores.

I can't find the specific references related to this topic. I'm fairly certain that the statements in that post were related to differences within the United States. So, you may very well be correct that it's Ashkenazi Jews that are driving the difference I cited above. I'm not making a claim about innate differences between Jews and other white groups. Would you expect environmental biases to affect differences between Azhkenazi Jews and other "whites" within the United States?


I know that Lesser (1972?) found differences between ethnic groups supposedly across cultures. He focused on specific abilities and I don't have the article. So, I can't be sure that his Jewish sample wasn't entirely Ashkenazi.

sapiens, where'd you go to school? I've been really impressed with your level of knowledge on specific scientific knowledge.

I don't see why not - not everyone within the US lives the same way. Jews live (largely) in the US in cities. Many have special diets. Many Jews work in traditional occupations - finance, jewelry, law, medicine - which influence them and their children. Many Jews go to seperate schools. They observe many different cultural traditions. There are many factors, aside from genetics.

Personally, I think there are likely to be some differences, on average, between people of different ancestry, both physically and mentally, but I think the differences are specific not general, and there is 99% overlap between any one group versus another.

So sweeping statements like "whites are smarter than blacks" or "blacks are better athletes than whites" are inaccurate.

Here's some info from a wiki entry on the subject - make of it what you will:

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


Psychometrics research has found that Ashkenazi Jews have the highest mean score of any ethnic group on standardized tests of general intelligence, with estimates ranging from 7 to 17 points above the mean IQ of the general white population at 100, which ranges from 107 for Germany to 90 for Turkey according to Richard Lynn's estimates for 2006 [4]. These studies (see references) also indicate that this advantage is primarily in verbal and mathematical performance; spatial and visual-perceptual performance is average. However some statistic data on Israel, which has about 50% of Ashkenazi Jews in its population show that Israel achieves lower average IQ scores than countries of Europe or East Asia (IQ and the Wealth of Nations). (Israel 94, England 100, Hong Kong 107). Israel however is multicultural in nature, where Jews, Muslims (around 1/4 of population) and Christians reside. Besides being controversial, this work relies on existing studies "of questionable validity",[1] leading to results even the authors don't believe to be correct.

watson's retraction/apology about these remarks, from this afternoon's guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/internatio...193899,00.html

just to poke at this with a stick, i copied this:

because i couldnt understand it either.

So hes going with 'crazy old'.

I hate political correctness. If he would have said Asians are smarter than whites, anger, violence, slamming him in the media, or forcing this guy to apolgize wouldn't have been the reaction I would have.

If he could back up his claim with sound, peer-reviewed, and an understanding of 'why', then it could be believed.

Now there are way too many other factors to conclude that just by the color of your skin that you would be dumb. There are plenty of minority people who are smarter than whites, so the theory wouldn't pass right there. If he said it might be easier for whites to retain information in memories better, he might be able to test that theory.

It is a theory, you have to come up with a the theory, before you can test your theory right?

He can't test it yet, but look at the hype this has caused, I'm going to bet that it will cause at least a small boost in research by the believers - to prove the theory, AND by the opponents, in attempts to disprove it.

It will however be testable once they can find the DNA pieces that effect intelligence, so thats the goal is it not?




All you guys keep talking about intelligence, none of it makes any sense you are talking about IQ and etc, that's not what he is talking about. The more you learn, the better you will do on those tests. That is not intelligence that is knowledge.

At this point we cannot honestly measure intelligence, so the discussion on 'oh this jew is more intelligent than this white, and this white is more intelligent than this asian' is futile.

You can't break down a theory like this(into subgroups of each race), that is generalizing the majority of the race, to disprove it, that doesn't make sense. The whole thing is based on a majority.

This I find disappointing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7052416.stm

I remember a story from some time ago of someone involved in baseball making a comment about how slavery may have aided natural selection leading to black people in the US being more physically fit. I also recall him being chastised for it rather severely.

Why? Senility should be a valid reason for getting sacked ...

I rather doubt the motivation was senility.

Why? I know, you want to look at PC motivations, but he basically said afterwards he had no idea why he said what he did, and could not recall doing so, at least initially. Not sure if the story has changed since then.

Sounds like a crazy old fool to me!

The whole thing smacks of that good old fashioned 19th century scientific racism.

It's just us here, people.

I see argument relating to racism. There are no races.

The sexes should at least be pretending to get along, since we currently need each other.

Intelligence transcends perceived boundaries, and real ones. This is not a debate about anything useful.

I think our species needs more (and less) imagination.

Intelligence as measured by IQ is quite heritable. However, I agree with you that many ethnic differences are likely to be environmentally based. Some ethnic differences in general IQ scores do appear to be resistant to environmental intervention, but I would not discount the influence of cultural factors as well.

I wouldn't place a number like 99% on the overlap between groups. First, because the overlap is likely to differ depending on what is being measured. Second, in particular measurements, the overlap is demonstrably less, but I do think that many differences are more likely to be specific than general. (And those differences may be more interesting). Sex differences in cognitive abilities are specific rather than general (Men and women don't differ in IQ scores - General intelligence scores).

Agreed.

That was a wacky wiki entry. I have my doubts about the described evolutionary account of IQ differences between Askenazi Jews and "Whites".

I saw Watson give a talk in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. I thought he was nuts. He made a lot of racial statements, insulted several colleagues with no real explanation, complained about his salary, and kept giggling at himself for no apparent reason. While some of the things he said had grains of plausibility, the lack of tact was astonishing. I've been around a lot of eccentric scientists, but this really took the cake.

Makes me want to get his new book for comedic value.

Shame if hes gone over the deep end.

Hybrid vigor. :suave:

Anyway, clearly I missed out on the bulk of this discussion (been away in Italy for a week... and if there's any room for joking about background, I don't know how that nation descends from the Romans :D ), but didn't we just go over this whole topic (race) recently in another thread?...

Sapiens has covered pretty much everything, and he kicks my social scientific ass (and I have no idea what his genetic background is, but I'd be willing to be he's a damn good sociologist, statistician, demographer, or something of the like... professor?).

Clines, anyone? That's my paltry contribution.

99.9999999(ad nauseum)

I don't want to pretend we aren't all the same. Our mutual future lies in pretending otherwise, even if we don't have the stomach for it.

Um...thankyou?

A lot of this depends on how one defines "intelligence." Ther eare people with very high g scores, which means that they are highly adept at manipulating concepts and reasoning abstractly, who are unable to function well because they can't deal with other people well. Are they really "intelligent?" Depends on what you mean by intelligent.

IQ scores measure g, which means people with high IQs are able to do well on the sorts of tasks that IQ tests measure. It's not a proxy for success in life, though it might be a proxy for getting good grades in school. Success in life depends far more on good judgment and interpersonal schools than on raw g, at least so far as I can tell. That said, the most successful people I have met have high g and good judgment and social skills. Oh, and some good luck, too.

I can see how its possible that isolated populations could develop to have different average intelligences. in a "wild" society, it would be likely that the people would breed for physical prowess, whereas in an industrialized nation, intelligence becomes more of a factor for mate selection.

i was surprised to stumble across this article a couple minutes ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/sc...hp&oref=slogin

that is all. surprised.
i dont see this as an outcome of any "pc" phenomenon--i see it as more a situation where certain limitations on the use of one's professional position to espouse crackpot theories concerning areas not exactly in your area have kicked in. but perhaps others will disagree....

Sounds like the guy lost it and it happens.

On the other hand I don't think crackpot theories themselves matter much these days, take a look at tilted paranoia and the otherwise intelligent people who believe pretty much any crackpot theory that fits their world view. No its not crackpot theories that are a problem, just crackpot theories that don't fit the current climate.

I doubt that has been a factor for the last couple hundred years of the industrial revolution. How smart does one have to be to do factory work? (No disrespect to anyone who does it). You arguably have to be a smarter cookie to hunt or farm your own food than to insert bolt A into widget B a thousand times a day.

Arguably, it may become important in the techology age, but I work with a lot of techies - there's precious few I'd call "smart".

The purpose of scientific inquiry, generally, is to shed light on causal mechanisms, not to describe artificial categories in terms that are inherently subjective.

Since human "races" are artificial categories, asking which "race" is more "intelligent" is like asking who is more beautiful, people whose names begin with consonants or people whose names begin with vowels. You might find an answer, but it would be meaningless as a genetic proposition because there is no genetic mechanism at issue.

Certainly it makes sense to ask questions about the correlations between genetic traits, but trying to say that these are caused by "race" confuses an unstable statistical phenomenon with a categorical one. Genetic correlations are in constant random flux in any finite group, and can arise, reverse sign, or disappear in a single generation due to the pattern of mating.

And speaking of scientific inquiry, it has shown that every person on the planet descended from the same man and woman in an African village that lived about 4000 generations ago. That's a blink of an eye in evolutionary time, and it means that we are all one race, and we're all Africans. Including James Watson.

Its one thing to over emphasize racial differences, but its another to ignore them.

There are verifiable, measurable, and real differences between what we classically call 'races' and they are genetic differences.

Its scientific dishonesty to deny this.

So what? There are verifiable, measurable and real differences between you and me, too. Does that mean we're two different races?

The are measurable and real differences between you and a cow too. Races play a part in what I do every day, and I need to know those differences. I know the chance of an Asian having certain jaw growth problems is greater than other races. This applies to every race as we all have different facial and growth characteristics as well as anomalies. For me to ignore these and treat everyone as 'equals' is bad medicine. There is overlap of course, and many of the issues are the same for all races, but it would be wrong for me to NOT understand the racial differences and treat somewhat differently based on those differences.

This same type of thing applies to other areas in medicine as well, Arizona and Colorado isn't part of the 'skin cancer belt' because of all the blacks or mongoloids there. Another example, Eskimos, a sub group of mongoloids are better adapted for a cold environment than whites who are better adapted than blacks.

So regardless of whatever feel good thing you want to put on it, the races are different and 'race' has value as a descriptor.

So, Ustwo, how would you treat my jaw? I'm exactly half Asian and half (northern) European.

As the jaw growth issue has a strong genetic component if you had early signs of it, I'd treat it as an Asian rather than Caucasian. This would delay the beginning of your treatment, perhaps by 2-3 years. Its a better safe than sorry type of treatment as while if you didn't have the growth pattern, I've just delayed your treatment, if you did and I started too early I'd have prolonged it which is worse.

But you are correct in that racial differences are less of a predictor in mixed races, but that does not diminish the value of understanding the racial differences, as the majority of people tend to have little mixing.

That may be true in some isolated areas... but you'd be surprised at how much mixing the "average Joe" has (at least, the average Joe undergrad who came in to get his ancestral DNA tested in the biological anthropology branch of my department). And we're talking about kids who have never left Pennsylvania, whose parents came from German or Italian immigrant stock generations ago, who are as whitebread as they come... and they still had mixed DNA. Talk to me about that...

Funny, I thought the subject of the thread was racial differences in intelligence, not in relatedness to cows and rates of jaw bone growth.

I look forward to your explanation of how purely statistical differences in single genes is somehow logically relevant to human “intelligence”, which is arguably the most complex phenomenon on the planet.

I can see how replacing a complicated subject with a simple one can be “feel-good” though: it gives the false impression that the world is simple and easy to understand; it encourages one to ignore complexity and replace the truth with simple, satisfying truisms; and it can be used by intellectually insecure people to rationalize one’s need to feel superior (e.g. James Watson).

It’s easy to compare people to cows. A little harder to intelligently understand intelligence, I'm afraid.

Funny you said there were no races, we were all Africans, I just showed there were and now you are back to something which is far more difficult to examine instead of straight forward things like growth or disease.

When you really want to defend that position let me know. We are all Africans, we are also all mammals, NEITHER has anything to do with racial differences today beyond when the various groups migrated out of Africa.

thats true, humans havent been in modern civilization for very long.

I would think that in a nation like the US over a long period of time, the smart should get smarter, and the dumb would get dumber.

and I think that farming and hunting is a different type of "smarts" than those needed to write windows XP, or perform any of the scientific/engineering related stuffs that allows society to advance.

Do I dare say this seems not so much like a race as a destruction derby?

We should lighten up a little.
And NO, that ain't gonna happen. It doesn't matter whose statistics you use (unless you believe a racist): intelligence springs up everywhere you look, and often where you might not think to look. I think this is indicative.

I could be a cow if I had a better imagination, or more patience.

Or maybe a lap dog.

Nope, what you showed is a very common confusion between correlation and causation.

If you want to demonstrate the existence of races, at the very minimum you need to (1) show that the genetic variation is clustered, and (2) show that the clusters coincide with your proposed “racial” groups.

You have done neither. And you never will, because human variation is clinal, not clustered, and allele similarity decays smoothly, along a long continuum, with the geographic distance between two human populations.

Refer to the following figure:

Attachment 16491
Manica, et al. 2005. Geography is a better determinant of human genetic differentiation than ethnicity. Human Genetics 118: 366-371.


Notice there are no vertical breaks. That means that you have no basis for deciding, e.g. where “european” ends and “asian” begins. You have no boundaries whatsoever. There are no natural clusters or “races” or “subspecies” whatsoever. There are only local families and local populations.

Therefore, any division of the continuum is arbitrary. The clumsy ethnic divisions that you are proposing are no better than any other set of divisions. All divisions have about the same mediocre predictive ability, which is worse than simply using geography. The fact that a few superficial traits are correlated with ethnicity is irrelevant to the question of what causes the geographic variation, which is simply the slow migration of point mutations through the single interbreeding human population.

You might want to note the title of the above paper.

Then it sounds like you’re changing your mind about the subject of your thread. You might consider that starting a new thread is a tad more productive than complaining that the subject of your thread is being addressed.

That’s right, being mammals has nothing to do with the absence of human racial differences today. Therefore your bringing up the subject of cows was a howling non-sequitur.

However, the fact that we are all one race is the undeniable conclusion from the genetic data. The argument is simple: human genetic variation is clinal, not clustered. There are no genetic boundaries, gene flow is free, unfettered, widespread, ongoing, and has been continuously throughout the history of our species, due to constant migration and interbreeding. And the time since our last common ancestor is so short that the current geographic differences are superficial and skin-deep at best. You can call our race anything you want, it makes no biological difference, but “African” is the natural choice since that’s where our common heritage begins.

And to bring this back to the subject of the OP, I’ll point out that scientific inquiry has shown that 100% of all the genetic variation known to exist in our species still exists within every continent. Therefore the claim that Africa is somehow genetically inferior to Europe is like claiming that human genetic variation is inferior to itself.

A rather absurd claim, don’t you agree?

Thank you, raveneye.

Out of curiosity, are you an anthropologist, biologist, geneticist, or anything of the sort? Most people around here seemed to just blink at me slowly when I mentioned clinal variation...

excellent raveneye.

from here it'd be interesting to pose the problem of race as an ideology all over again, and link it to the notion of culture as a discrete, self-referential social space that interacts with the "outside" only tangentially and at the risk of contamination. the above gives a good material base for it. if you put the variables together, conventional wisdom begins to come undone.

Raven, go look up with a 'ring species' is, because thats what my next post in here is about.

That graph is really meaningless as it applies to race, and you could get the same graph for different SPECIES. Its shows absolutely nothing other than there is a constant variance based on geographic separation which is to be expected. I'd be far more surprised if there were separate groups as races, as we are not talking spontaneous mutation differences (which are there but to a lessor degree).


I have to get to work here so it will be a while.

A noble thought, rb, but I think the problem around here (on all three of the race threads) is that very few people are willing to see conventional wisdom come undone, and in fact WILL NOT see it, no matter what. It happens all the time in our Anthro 101 undergrad classes, unfortunately... people do not like to see their dreamworks come undone (see Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches for a readable treatment by Marvin Harris).

abaya:
i understand the response--tfp is far more frustrating than even a low-level undergraduate class on this kind of question. in a class, i'll generally plow straight through student reticence. i figure that i warn them up front, tell them what's coming, and encourage them to drop the class. if they dont drop, then everything is fair game. most of the interest in teaching is putting students in an uncomfortable position, undermine their sense of certainty about the world, jamming them into corners such that they have to think their way out.

but i try to give them the tools required to do the thinking, if they dont already have them. its a philosophical exercise, preliminary to any political narratives.

here, you're right: there are folk who prefer the illusions that come along with categories like race. but that doesnt mean these illusions are worth anything. and destroying them can be fun.

gotta go for the moment.

Yeah, I think I lost sight of that a couple of threads back. :p

I think you are referring to "Jimmy the Greek" Snyder who was a commentator for CBS Sports and the top sports handicapper in Vegas. He claimed black superiority in sports because of breeding practices during slavery. They fired him. I wonder if there isn't even a little bit of truth in what he claimed.

You know screw ring species, I don't think that will get to the real issue here. Lets cut to the chase. I will only use that if you continue to think that 'clumping' would be required for races when it isn't even required for species.

And roachy keep posting with that smug superiority, I'd feel sad if you stopped, even when you know nothing about the topic.

What We Know and What We Don’t Know: Human Genetic Variation and the Social Construction of Race
By Joseph L. Graves, Jr.
Published on: Jun 07, 2006

Joseph L. Graves, Jr. is University Core Director and Professor of Biological Sciences at Fairleigh Dickinson University. His research concerns the evolutionary genetics of postponed aging and biological concepts of race in humans. He is the author of The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium, and The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America. He was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1994.

But lets see why the word 'race' is really opposed....

Alan Goodman is professor of biological anthropology at Hampshire College and co-editor of Genetic Nature/Culture: Anthropology and Science Beyond the Cultural Divide and Building a New Biocultural Synthesis: Political-Economic Perspectives on Human Biology. He is president-elect of the American Anthropological Association.

We shouldn't use the term race, because of racial prejudices.

And again....

Evelynn M. Hammonds is professor of the history of science and of African and African American studies at Harvard University. Her current work focuses on the intersection of scientific, medical, and socio-political concepts of race in the United States. She is completing a book called The Logic of Difference: A History of Race in Science and Medicine in the United States, 1850–1990.

Again, the problem is that finding racial differences is bad due to the inherent racism, not that there are no racial differences.

The AAA has the same stance in their position paper...

Note whats not being argued is are there racial differences, but is the CONCEPT of race good. Scientists are not arguing that their are not racial differences, but that the idea is bad.

Depending on who you look at only 6-15% of the variation found in the species is divided on racial lines. I have said so myself when I pointed out that pretty much all of human diversity is found in any given race (minus that %). That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with using race as a catigory, unless of course you are afraid at what others will do with them.

You know the more I research this the more political and less scientific it becomes. Is there a racial 'blurring' where land overlaps, is there only a small amount of human variation compared to other mammals found in humans, are the racial differences small? I'd answer 'duh' to all of those and have done so in this thread already. But that being said there ARE real racial differences, they ARE able to be quantified, they are a clear as the faces of a native of Britain next to a native of Australian (not of criminal descent) yet because everyone is so worried about racism we are being TOLD by scientists to pretend they don't exist, lest a racist public use it for nefarious purposes.

The last thing anyone wants is biologic excuses for racism, but putting ones head under the sand and pretending there is only one race is asinine.

I guess life would be more dull if we weren't so uh-maze-ing.

"If we roll in the soot we can all be labradors!"

I took a nice long walk with my labrador yesterday. We saw wildlife, and met strangers, and I daresay a good time was had by all.

It's just us(the living) here, people! Would anyone care to guess my race, or how stupid I can get?

there we are.