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I have a somewhat alternate theory to the standard HBD concept, one that may not be original but I haven't seen before, although I haven't delved the HBD forums much.
The standard HBD argument is that different races have different IQs, and that is the primary factor leads to all sorts of different outcomes. Instead of IQ causing so many differences, which I think might be true but is a lesser factor, I think different races are domesticated to different degrees. I read the book The Goodness Paradox about a year ago, and it was about how while humans kill each other in vastly larger scales than any other animal, we're also much less likely to try to tear each other's faces off in the woods than any other animal. The author first divides violence into two categories: reactive and pre-mediated. Sometimes violence is pre-planned and calculated, like a sniper watching carefully for the moment to take the shot. Other violence is reactive, like someone punches you or even just insults your mother and you hit back before you even think. The author presents a simple answer: That there is a relatively straightforward evolutionary process through which animals are domesticated, and domestication leads to much lower rates of reactive violence. The mechanism is that the animal is essentially forever childlike mentally. But not just mentally, also physically; that's why dogs look like wolf cubs, and domesticated foxes have converged on similar traits like floppy ears.
I think black people are similar, in that they are a more "adult" human. They tend to be physically bigger and stronger. I often see black women called masculine, and that is the explanation for why they're less attractive and do worse on dating apps- but I think it makes more sense to call them more adult(whatever the opposite of neotony is). Black women are well known for large secondary sexual characterics like big ass and breasts, that's hardly masculine. And east Asian women by contrast, a race widely considered more on the high end of genetics by HBDers, tend to be more neotonous, with smaller secondary characteristics and young looking faces. And their men tend to be smaller and less physically strong. So I think it's quite plausible that that domestication mechanism, while probably not the sole factor, is a sizeable one in making black people have such higher rates of crime and east asians such lower rates of crime.
This has been considered by HBD aficionados. There are indeed behavioral differences between the races that go beyond IQ. A good place to start is with Rushton's work on r vs K strategy.
But overall, controlling for IQ gets rid of the most of the difference in life outcomes between people of different races. But you do see a residual: for example if you control for SAT scores, black applicants to college are still predicted to perform somewhat worse (measured e.g. by GPA) than an equivalent white applicant. This is somewhat ambiguous to interpret since part of the effect will be due to regression to mean causing the true intelligence of a group of white people and black people with the same average SAT score to be different. But a part of it will be behavioral differences that can be credibly called "domestication"--traits like conscientiousness, the ability to delay gratification, the ability to follow instructions, not being impulsive enough to get kicked out, etc.
What's the argument on the percentage of observed behavioral differences that can be attributed to genetics versus culture/upbringing?
Even IQ (and general related intelligence/ability-based measurements), one of the most, if not the most robust things that can be measured to come out of the social sciences puts its predictive power on something like job performance at around 50% on the most positive studies on the topic. On something like salary, I think it's like 20% depending on the study.
I don't doubt there is an underlying genetical factor on behavior, but I believe the effect to be less than culture and environmental upbringing in influencing an individual's behaviors as an adult. I base this on the fact that even psychopaths can be conditioned to be less violent through therapy and behavioral training, especially if done in childhood. Single-family black households are at record highs compared to decades ago but there was a point in time when the amount of two-parent black households was higher than the percentage of two-parent white households today. This is more due to culture and less due to genetics. If genetics was a primary factor we would never see big shifts in behaviors across genetic populations.
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