site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   5326 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for January 22, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

6
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Does anyone know of a good overview of the Race and IQ debate for someone who's completely ducked the topic until now and is basically ignorant?

EDIT: Thanks for the responses everyone!

People who are see-no-evil-pilled typically need a quick introduction of why anyone would even think races might have varied intelligence. A quick (outdated by now) copypasta that used to get posted:

The average African-American IQ is 85, compared to the average White IQ of 100. (popocateptl note: one more recent large study in the 00s puts it at 90, but this was contested by another study that showed no change. As far as I know, no large scales studies on this have been done since.)

http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997mainstream.pdf

Human intelligence is highly heritable.

http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v16/n10/abs/mp201185a.html

Scientific consensus is that IQ tests are not racially biased.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289608000305

Very poor Whites are comparably intelligent to very wealthy blacks.

http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html

Privately, intelligence experts hold more hereditarian views than they express in public. (popocateptl note: An anonymous survey from the mid 10s, which I'll see if I can find, polled experts and had on average them privately thinking about 50% of the achievement gap is genetic.)

http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1994egalitarianfiction.pdf

Black children raised in White households have similar IQs to black children in black households.

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1977-07996-001

The average African IQ is estimated at 79.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886912003741

The white-black gap in SAT scores, a proxy for IQ, is increasing. (popocateptl note: the gap is actually narrowing now, but slowly.)

http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html

Genes for large brains, linked to high IQ, are common everywhere except Africa.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB115040765329081636

Intelligence has a 40-50% genetic basis.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/10/news/la-heb-genetic-study-intelligence-20110809

IQ scores are the best predictor of success in Western society.

http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf

IQ is 75% heritable among Whites.

http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf

And now for refutations. The most common response to the above syllogism is that whites in America have a shared environment. As such, things like twin studies and adoption studies which purport to show IQ as genetic, actually only show that a smart white child adopted by dumb white parents still benefits from a community and culture that cultivates their intelligence. (Systemic Racism).

For the most interesting refutation of a black-white intelligence gap, read the series of articles Chisala Chanda wrote for the Unz Review. A large part of his argument is that modern transplant populations from Africa to the UK and USA, as opposed to the descendants of slaves, do not show an achievement gap with the native populations.

EDIT: I should clarify that I'm not versed in the latest state of the art in this debate -- I made my conclusions about ten years ago now and don't find the topic that interesting, except as an example of ideological constraints causing otherwise rational societies to act in incredibly stupid ways.

There's an old meme that the best way to get help for Linux is not to ask for help on X, but to publish an overly-confident flawed diatribe about how Linux sucks because it can't do X. I suspect Race IQ debates work the same way.

For the most interesting refutation of a black-white intelligence gap, read the series of articles Chisala Chanda wrote for the Unz Review. A large part of his argument is that modern transplant populations from Africa to the UK and USA, as opposed to the descendants of slaves, do not show an achievement gap with the native populations.

The most obvious refutation of that refutation would be that those populations are highly selected for intelligence. I am sure if someone like me who knows next to nothing about the topic can thing of this caveat, Chanda can think of it too. Does he address it?

Yes, he (why did I think Chisala Chanda was a woman?) does. @popocatepetl elaborates further in a sibling comment.

To tldr Chanda's hypothesis: non-African people (especially Europeans and Asians) have a more restricted (canalized) phenotype, as do women. American Blacks are stupider than African Blacks because they have genetic admixture from low-class Whites. The genes that make Seamus a bit stupid and aggressive make Tyrone very stupid and very aggressive, while Shaneequa won't be affected as much, but her sons will.

There are some studies I can think of that should be able to support or weaken this claim, like:

  • middle-class children of ADOS fathers and White mothers should be smarter and less aggressive than middle-class children of White fathers and ADOS mothers

middle-class children of ADOS fathers and White mothers should be smarter and less aggressive than middle-class children of White fathers and ADOS mothers

I don't see how that follows. Shouldn't our prima facie assumption be that the genetic information that contributes to [aggression and stupidity] is passed on patrilineally as well as matrilineally?

Since females are more canalized and we assume that ADOS genomes are saddled with Borderer alleles, an ADOS male of with a substantial IQ is more likely to have fewer of these alleles than an ADOS female with a similar IQ, since her phenotype is more restricted.

Since we are not restricting the selection to specific low-class groups, a White male and a White female with an equally substantial IQ are much less likely to bear a significant load of the alleles we're trying to avoid, so they should be coming from the ADOS parent if they appear in their offspring.

than an ADOS female with a similar IQ

Why are we comparing similar IQs? If the axiom you mention were true, we would expect to see lower IQ in ADOS men on the left tail of the distribution than in ADOS women on the left tail of the distribution, beyond what would be expected from the Greater Male Variability hypothesis. Is this the case?

Because I'm using different sexes having the same IQ as a proxy for having different genetic load: IQ 100 ADOS men probably have "cleaner" genes than IQ 100 ADOS women. If the children of ADOS women slip further left on the tail, then it's probably true. If the children inherit the same IQ, then it's probably false.

Ah, gotcha. Thanks.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats