Interesting article about potential future findings & taking an enlightened approach to them. Something Peter Singer & Steven Pinker have also touched on.
Human geneticists have reached a private crisis of conscience, and it will become public knowledge in 2010. The crisis has depressing health implications and alarming political ones. In a nutshell: the new genetics will reveal much less than hoped about how to cure disease, and much more than feared about human evolution and inequality, including genetic differences between classes, ethnicities and races…
Is there a debate here?
Heck, is there any evidence for the assertions being made here?
How does “The Economist” know about these secret meetings of geneticists in smokey back rooms? And if it does know then surely they aren’t secret?
Why does the whole article seem to be written by someone with a fundamental lack of understanding of genetics?
Just a bunch of politically paranoiac, “race realist,” genetically deterministic, chicken littlism.
The sky is falling, “the truth” will be revealed, the ethnic/racial underclass will be exposed, the neo-nazis will hoot, clueless/throwback liberals will gnash their teeth, and the educated will just knowingly nod their heads.
If you look carefully, this seems to be an opinion piece in The World in 2010 print edition, the guy is identified as “Geoffrey Miller: evolutionary psychologist, University of New Mexico; author of “Spent: Sex, Evolution, and Consumer Behavior” (Viking)”
Chen: You’re new around here, but it’s generally expected that an OP does more than just link to an article and post a quote. What are you wanting to debate?
It’s interesting though to see the reverent confidence the left places in the “consensus” about global warming among climate scientists, and the dismissal of the “consensus” among human geneticists.
[Mod Hat On] Chen019, please don’t copy and paste long articles onto this board. It’s against our copyright policy. A reasonably short quote and a link do the job.
[/Mod Hat Off]
I’ve never seen any kind of consensus behind major differences between races - let alone classes! I’ve seen a fair amount of garbage along the lines of “geneticists know there are differences and they’re covering it up.” This would just be the latest example.
Hmm? Psychometric differences between the races (ie between distinguishable genetic groups) are uncontroversial within the field of psychology, though a lay observer could be forgiven for not knowing about it. See here or this Google Scholar search. It is also uncontroversial that many psychometric traits are highly heritable.
I don’t think anyone is seriously saying that “geneticists are covering it up.” Certainly Miller is not saying that. The fact is we don’t have the genes yet for many of these traits - nor do we have genes for many heritable traits such as high blood pressure or height. But as genomics advances and we uncover ever more genes, it’s only a matter of time before these are discovered, and the question is how to manage the social reaction to findings of genetic differences between groups.
To those, like orcenio, who post glib content-free assurances that absence of proof is proof of absence, remember that the same logic applies to heritable traits like baldness or developing Alzheimers. The heritability of psychometric traits is not up for debate; it’s only a matter of finding the genetic markers.
Claims that genetics will one day prove the inferiority of certain ethnic groups have been made for decades. The hard evidence never actually arrives, and geneticists themselves tend to avoid the debates because the noise dwarfs the signal by orders of magnitude. The proof, the racialists say, is just around the corner. We’ll get there, just have faith.
The author of the article is an ev psych guy, not a geneticist. Ev psych as a field takes a very shrewd approach to academic survival. Actually studying the human brain and teasing out its functions and effects on human behavior is incredibly difficult and tedious. Not sexy at all. On the other hand, if you make a series of philosophical generalizations based on statistical survey data, controversial generalizations in particular, you get publishing contracts and coverage in “serious” magazines. Sell the sizzle, not the steak. Something big is just around the corner. Watch this space!
There was a great deal of excitement among the pseudo scientific racialists when Bruce Lahn discovered a gene that was supposedly responsible for brain size. They finally had their long hoped for proof. Until it was revealed that the gene was found in abundance among hunter gatherers in New Guinea, and was largely absent among the Han Chinese. When the derisive laughter had died down, the racialist went back to skulking and speculating.
Any US political policy directed towards the sub 90 IQ population will affect more whites than blacks or Latinos in the US. Higher percentages of blacks and Latinos, but many more whites in terms of absolute numbers. Short of totalitarian dictatorship, any policy that curtails the rights of 60 million white folks is a non starter.
Were you, cobber? Let’s have a butcher’s shall we?:
Is there a debate here? Nope, you provided no information on that.
*
Heck, is there any evidence for the assertions being made here?* Still zero information provided by you.
*How does “The Economist” know about these secret meetings of geneticists in smokey back rooms? *Nope, not seeing any information in you posts on this one.
*And if it does know then surely they aren’t secret? *Guess what? Still no information from you.
*Why does the whole article seem to be written by someone with a fundamental lack of understanding of genetics? *Nothing relevant form you on this topic either
So no, you aren’t providing me with any information at all.
Yes, and? If that is what the information shows then why did you quote me prior to posting it? I expressed no interest in such information.
Baldness and Alzheimer’s are caused by increasing amounts of dihydrotestosterone and aberrant cleavage of intracellular proteins, respectively. Specifically, these processes can be linked to specific genes and protein products. Assuming that intelligence is a heritable trait, it is unlikely something that abstract as intelligence is governed by one gene or even a suite of genes. It’d likely involve multiple factors that are both genetic and structural (e.g. synaptic strength, firing frequency, soma-to-axon ratio, etc) as well as the environment. All that glitters isn’t gold, yanno. It could be that sparkles-and-paste from Kindergarten.
So which is it, races, or distinguishable genetic groups. Because they aren’t the same thing you know.
None of those references seem to support your claims, Can you please quote where they show that:
A) Races are distinguishable genetic groups and
B) Psychometirc differences exist between them.
Because if a reference doens’t do both then you are misrepresenting it in a less than truthful manner.
Ahem:
“GWAS researchers will, in public, continue trumpeting their successes to science journalists…In private, though, the more thoughtful GWAS researchers are troubled. They hold small, discreet conferences on the “missing heritability” problem”
So yes, he is suggesting exactly that.
No, it isn’t.
See, I can argue form baseless assertion too.
Why is that even a question, much less the question? And who precisely is going to be doing this questioning.
There are a lot of weasel words being used in your post athelas
’
Yes it is. There has been endless debate on this issue over the past 40 years.
No it isn’t.
Good God, I wish that in the real world it was only a matter of finding the genetic markers once a trait is shown to be heritable. I would be a multi millionaire. athelas, just so I can gauge the level of my responses to you, do you understand what gene by environment interaction is? DO you understand what a complex trait is? And do you understand why they make the real world somewhat more difficult than simply “a matter of finding the genetic markers” for a desired trait"?
You know, you have a serious attitude problem of late. I ain’t the bloody OP for fuck’s sake.
Yes.
Actually my dear fellow with the massive and inexplicable chip on his shoulder, I gave you precisely the indication on that, to the fucker’s bloody background (Psych, not genetics, also noted it was an opinion piece, further explaining why the article probably read as it did). Jaysus, what the bloody fuck do you want, a fucking annotated bloody response? One fucking post for fuck’s sake.
Did you mean “races”, there, or “distinguishable genetic groups”? The two are not actually the same thing. There is an order of magnitude more genetic diversity within the “black race” than in all other races combined.
EDIT: I see that Blake has already mentioned this.