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tailcalled


				

				

				

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tailcalled


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2022 October 30 12:04:53 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


You did not respond to that allegation. Why should we waste time sorting through the pilpul of a confessed propagandist if we are in any way interested in epistemics, as you purport to be?




I am not aware of any epistemic rules which say that you can't use moral judgements to decide whether something is silly or ugly.




Let me also cut through what feels like a lot of unnecessary argumentation and simply ask you this: how can you explain the correlation between cognitive skills and genetic closeness depicted in this figure without acknowledging substantial genetic heritability? How is any sort of null hypothesis even necessary with this kind of direct evidence in hand?




I agree that they are heritable. Turkheimer also agrees that they are heritable.


				

				

						

							

								
    
									
									
									
									
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not talking about how things morally ought to be, I'm trying to figure out how the world is actually like. For the purpose of e.g. doing evolutionary psychology, such as with the linked study, it is relevant to know that heritability is of no evidentiary value.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have already read his point about the phenotypic null hypothesis, so your argument can't exactly persuade me to un-read it, whatever that would mean. And having read it, I've come to the conclusion that it's a critically important point for understanding heritability. Reading his paper and understanding his argument screens off whichever virtue or vice he might have.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I agree that either both CRT and HBD should be permissible to discuss, or neither should be, with the current situation being unjust against HBD. I used to lean towards "both", wanting the free market of ideas to sort it out. However, the free market of ideas doesn't seem to work, as evidenced by lots of things including HBDers not understanding the phenotypic null hypothesis, so now I don't know what to think anymore.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I didn't interpret Turkheimer as judging it ugly rather than true on moral grounds, I interpreted him as judging it ugly rather than silly or unobjectionable on moral grounds.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I appreciate you trying to bring nuance to the conversation, but without some examples it's still not clear to me what sorts of things you disagree with HBDers about exactly.




I gave an example? The linked study? It's absolutely absurd methodology for testing the stated research question.




I think the most relevant question is the extent to which the gaps in intellectual achievement, employment in various professions, and crime rates could realistically be changed by policy interventions.




There are many possible questions one can come up with, and this is one of them, but it's not the one I'm making the threads about.


I'm making the threads about the phenotypic null hypothesis, which is a critical question for how to interpret various other kinds of evidence like twin studies.




As far as I can tell, you're saying that heritable traits might be caused along the way by others treating people differently based on their phenotype, and if that differential treatment were to go away, the presumably so would the heritability. Is that a fair summary?




Yes that is part of it, for instance if you are smart due to genetics then people will give you more education credentials and more money, and if instead people gave everyone a random amount of money, the heritability of income would disappear.


However it doesn't technically speaking have to be others treatment. It might also be your own treatment, or a result of other things like disease or physics or lots of things. Basically, variables affect each other across different levels, and that prevents heritability from distinguishing biological from nonbiological levels.




And as an aside, I find the name "phenotypic null hypothesis" to be a bad name for two reasons: 1) It's not descriptive, and 2) it seems to be playing a rhetorical game by calling itself the "null hypothesis". I prefer to discuss evidence for and against various claims rather than arguing about who has the burden of proof.




I think it has a good reason to call itself the null hypothesis. It would be absurd to claim that the heritability of income or marriage was not due to the way other people treat you phenotypically. You can't have a serious debate about HBD without the phenotypic null hypothesis being properly understood.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Reliance on the "phenotypical null hypothesis" is uninteresting




Is the goal to be interesting or to figure out the truth?




and really I find the name to be ridiculous as it is just simply asserting an unearned null hypothesis status




It's not unearned, it's a fundamental property of heritability that it transfers through phenotypic causality, and there's lots of phenotypic causality to go through.




It's the same kind of critique that the possibility that we're actual brains in a vat means I can't be certain about measurements during woodworking.




No, the phenotypic null hypothesis agrees that the measurements work, it just points out something about what they mean.




But you understand that this doesn't actually impact policy discussion right? I don't need proof against solipsism to accurately measure a cut of wood and I don't need a unified theory of genetic determinism to find out that the policy proposals of blank slatists fail in every conceivable way and we should stop listening to their batshit theories.




I understand that the phenotypic null hypothesis is not a knockdown argument against HBD, and that it is not meant to be. Instead it covers the validity of various types of arguments.


Like if HBDers keep using argument that are invalid due to the phenotypic null hypothesis, and they refuse to learn about the phenotypic null hypothesis, then surely critics of HBD are in the right in dismissing HBDers as clueless about behavior genetics. You can't expect anti-HBDers to want to spend infinite time knocking down nonsense arguments. (Of course that point is symmetric - anti-HBDers also often come up with nonsense.)




Maybe there is some allergen with a simple intervention that will equalize all populations on average on IQ tests and achieve racial achievement equity and I'll celebrate that discovery more than you can image, but you don't get to call it a null hypothesis when literally no evidence has ever pointed to it being true.




The null hypothesis isn't about race differences in IQ, it's about within-population heritability in all sorts of things.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Phenotypic null hypothesis isn't an obscure methodological limitation, it is a fundamental property of concepts like "heritability" and "genetic correlation" which can easily be derived in simulation studies. If you don't understand how it works then you shouldn't use concepts like heritability and genetic correlation at all in the first place.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Racial differences in sports accomplishment sound likely due to bodily differences in sports abilities. Next question please.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Dude, read a few twin studies, they find that pretty much everything is heritable, of course heritability is of no evidentiary value.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm much more interested in the science side of things than the policy side of things, so I don't really have any strong examples at hand. It's just that I think that obviously people who refuse to understand the phenotypic null hypothesis should be purged from discussions of behavior genetics, so if HBDers don't like getting purged from discussions they should make sure to understand it.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well so here are two models:


    

  1. 

    People start with meritocracy as a value and then try to figure out the factual questions about how abilities work.
    

    2. 

  2. 

    People start with some policy opinions or alliances or something and then work to rationalize those.
    

    3. 



Model 1 is debunked because if people were trying to figure out the factual questions, they would take basic concepts like the phenotypic null hypothesis into account, and they would be upset about having signal-boosted terrible studies like the IQ/effort one. It's possible that there is some alternative to model 2 that people follow, in which case you should feel encouraged to share what that alternative is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I mean I can try, but I already wrote an explanation in my blog post, so I'm not sure how much more I can say about it. Is there some specific part of my linked post that you find confusing?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I ask since it looks like we are taking the presumptive priors of environmentalism, slapping it with a 'null hypothesis' label and saying that it now beats out the presumptive priors of hereditarianism. I don't see how this changes anything. Other than framing the discussion in a way where your enemy is ignorant and hasn't considered something when in reality I am pretty sure most HBD'ers are pretty well acquainted with the environmentalist worldview.




It's the phenotypic null hypothesis, not the environmental null hypothesis.




To me, as an illiterate HBD'er, it just seems like skirting the actual issues. If you don't have an alternative theory of reality to human biology to supplant the HBD one then what is the point of this? Assert we can't know anything about anything and then what? This topic isn't worth discussing outside the context of two competing explanatory worldviews.




There are various things that can be done to reduce the problems. For instance in the case of homophobia and mental illness, you can look at environmentla correlations rather than looking at genetic correlations (though that requires good measurement).


However, before one can apply these solutions, one has to actually know what the problem is.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


That's a rather lazy strawman. Whenever this comes up here, people say that their primary motivation is to show that the progressive argument "outcome disparities, therefore discrimination, therefore reverse discrimination is necessary" does not hold and leads to unfair treatment. You can very much come at it from an egalitarian point of view.




I'm basing my experience more on the Twitter debates that hover around Erik Turkheimer than I am on the discussions that happen on The Motte, as I don't have much experience with The Motte. It's quite possible that The Motte is different.




You lost me here. Could you elaborate for the innumerate?




I think if you're innumerate you should just not rely on quantitative studies such as twin studies because they require numeracy to interpret.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't buy that his arguments have only a coincidental corration to truth. He is biased, yes, but there is also an important signal.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't think the phenotypic null hypothesis is directly applicable to racial differences because we have a lot of specific evidence on race and IQ that makes it not a general thing. Rather, it has effects on what sorts of arguments are relevant for race and IQ.




Also what evidence would raise your priors of a trait being genetic not merely heritable, other than finding the {X-gene} ?




Correlation with anatomy, especially directly relevant anatomy (IQ correlates with brain size).


Being consistently expressed regardless of context.


Having a clear evolutionary/theoretical reason to expect being biological.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I'm not saying I'm disagreeing with the core HBD conclusion. I'm saying HBDers ought to have a sufficiently good understanding of the phenotypic null hypothesis that they roll their eyes at studies claiming to find evidence for evopsych by finding traits to be heritable.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Maybe the cause of the differences is on an environmental factor that is hard to intervene on.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
What's wrong with "HBD proponents think heritable T is mraningful evidence for evopsych on T, even though it's not"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


What about purging people like Turkheimer, who explicitly put their ideology above science? Are you giving them a pass, and instead prefer to focus on those who inappropriately address your methodological pet concern?






Look, to me, you seem to be more interested in purging people and silencing the discussion, instead of in using science to learn about reality and have these learning inform our behavior and policy.




I am interested in promoting people who can help me learn things and purging people who introduce noise and waste time.


It just so happens that there are a number of very general principles that must be taken into account, as they affect the results everywhere you go. HBD is one of them! For instance, racial differences in intelligence cause a whole bunch of racial inequality in outcomes, and if you don't realize that, there's going to be a comprehensive mysterious pattern, which might make you falsely infer something like "everything is racist". However, the phenotypic null hypothesis is another one! Phenotypic causality causes a whole bunch of heritability and genetic correlations, and if you don't realize that, there's going to be a comprehensive mysterious pattern, which might make you falsely infer some sort of genetic solipsism (especially in combination with measurement error, which suppresses environmental correlations).


If someone keeps spamming racial inequality studies and talking about structural racism, while being difficult to convince to even think of alternate hypotheses, then a healthy behavior genetics group should consider purging them and finding someone more productive to talk to. But if someone keeps spamming twin studies and talking about genetics, while being difficult to convince to even think of alternate hypotheses, then a healthy behavior genetics group should again purge them.


Why? Partly to avoid noise and waste, but also partly to align incentives to actually learning things, and so on.




You can’t even provide any example why your pet concern is relevant for me at all!




You're not interested in behavior genetics, you admit so yourself! Of course a key principle of behavior genetics is not going to be interesting to you.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The phrase "phenotypic null hypothesis" captures a point that is critically important to understand in these sorts of discussions. It can definitely be misused, shouting "phenotypic null hypothesis" is definitely necessary in contexts where people aren't taking it into account. If there are any of my tweets where you feel like I've abused it then feel free to point at them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Yes, but that probably says something about female interest in STEM, which is probably somewhat correlated with aptitude. You could of course argue that this, too, is caused by an all-pervasive patriarchy, but given that the presence of such programs in a society has a negative correlation with female interest in STEM (i.e. the so-called "gender equality paradox"), I find that harder and harder to believe.




AFAIK just about all sex difference correlate with gender equality, including obviously-societal ones such as gender differences in names:


https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/1432940616653152259


(And of course it's been shown to apply to e.g. gender stereotypes too, though that could very well be due to stereotype accuracy.)


I don't know why they correlate like this, but I feel like this gives you something equivalent to the phenotypic null hypothesis for the gender equality paradox: if the paradox applies to some variable X, and X is causally upstream of some variable Y, then a priori you'd expect the paradox in X to create a paradox in Y.




There are more people with an interest in, and a knack for, STEM to be found within the male than within the female population. Given that environmental interventions have rather spectactularly failed to reverse course in this regard, Occam's razor would suggest that biology plays a factor here.




The thing is, as kids, boys will look at what men do and mimic that, whereas girls will look at what women do and mimic that. I don't know whether it is the sex difference in programming etc. that is biological, or if it is the sex difference in mimicry that is biological. I wouldn't expect it to be both, because what would that lead to if you took all the world's female programmers and male elementary school teachers and had them create a society where they raised a generation of ordinary children? Would the boys in this society do programming (and thus be mimicking women), or mimic men (and thus do teaching)?


Since I don't know the answer to this question, I can't tell if the sex difference in programming is innate or not.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Don't most girls not participate in such programs? You can only really expect to have an effect on the ones who participate, so if most don't participate, you are closer to not having the program at all than you are to having it for all the girls.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Language and kind of also religion would be an exception, yes.


But beyond those exceptions, and a few others, it seems to me that there are an enormous number of traits where heritability shows up. Already at vocabulary and religiosity do you see a ton of heritability. Pretty much all personality traits and all interests are heritable. Of course the classic HBD point is that abilities tend to be heritable and highly genetically correlated. Relationship to parents, peers and teachers is heritable, I believe. Having a dog in your mid-life is heritable. Etc.


The point is that pretty much everything is heritable, so the prior for heritability is extremely high, not that absolutely everything is heritable.