I’m referring to the comments of olivesmarch4th, regarding Charles Murray & crime disparities.
In terms of psychometric scores in Africa, Richard Lynn quite explicitly mentions nutrition as a factor depressing scores.
Isn’t strange that you are not then taking NDD to task for the conclusions and solutions he continues to propose here then?
What solutions?
Not paying attention?
Must be the genes, 
he has proposed to get rid of affirmative action, No Child Left Behind and support for many countries with black populations thanks to his peculiar interpretations of research that more often than not is concentrating on medicine and forensic issues.
Well, I think Chief Pedant has pointed out that if society wants lower scoring groups proportionally represented then you need to discriminate in favour of them. I think that discrimination will be never ending because there is no sign that gaps are going to disapear.
In terms of NCLB, I’m not familiar enough with that to comment.
In relation to support for countries with black populations, I think that this needs to be linked to contraceptive use. For instance, China adopted a one child policy to control population pressure and African birthrates are unsustainable.
Sure, it is always hard to go against a supporter like NDD when he is wrong, no?
I thought I’d made it clear upthread that I read Murray’s book Losing Ground. The research on nutrition and poverty of which I speak was published far later than The Bell Curve, so I’m pretty sure his book didn’t address it.
Any scientist who makes such bold statements as ‘‘the nature-nurture debate has been solved’’ loses credibility with me. Even more so if that scientist has no training in the area in which he makes the claims. The nature-nurture debate is far from over. In fact, epigenetics research indicates that environment affects genetic expression. The latest research on mental illness supports the diathesis stress model of mental illness. The more we learn about nature-nurture the more it’s clear that nature-nurture are intimately connected, rather than the dichotomy you presume them to be.
Of course, Steven Pinker didn’t say a word about the inferiority of black people, did he?
There is no way to access the pages you cited using the link you provided.
It is not clear at all where these charts came from. According to your link they were modeled by a wikipedia user but the data source is not clear.
I already offered a perfectly plausible explanation for this - the fact that randomized controlled experiments have shown that merely reminding someone of his/her race affects performance on standardized tests.
No. I think every country and ethnic enclaves within each country have unique cultural and environmental circumstances that contribute to the success of some groups over others. It’s not a very radical proposition.
[QUOTE=Chen019]
Would you describe Steven Pinker as a real scientist?
[/QUOTE]
Oh, look what I found.
[QUOTE=your own cite]
Penke, Denissen and Miller argue that a mutation-selection standoff is the explanation for why we differ in intelligence. Unlike personality, where it takes all kinds to make a world, with intelligence, smarter is simply better, so balancing selection is unlikely. But intelligence depends on a large network of brain areas, and it thrives in a body that is properly nourished and free of diseases and defects. Many genes are engaged in keeping this system going, and so there are many genes that, when mutated, can make us a little bit stupider.
The search for I.Q. genes calls to mind the cartoon in which a scientist with a smoldering test tube asks a colleague, “What’s the opposite of Eureka?” Though we know that genes for intelligence must exist, each is likely to be small in effect, found in only a few people, or both. In a recent study of 6,000 children, the gene with the biggest effect accounted for less than one-quarter of an I.Q. point.
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Bolding mine.
You obviously consider this guy a real authority, so would you mind explaining why his position doesn’t contradict yours?
Well, I can assure you that these authors do refer to factors such as nutrition.
Again, it’s not news to any of these authors that nature and nurture interact.
Did you do a search for East Asian, or Jewish crime rates? I’m not sure why the link isn’t allowing you to access those pages.
There was a recent meta-analysis that found publication bias in terms of these studies. Overall, the effect was generally small and did not generalize to non-adapted standardized tests or high-stakes settings.
How does that contradict what I’ve said? I said that you were incorrect to suggest that the likes of Murray & Jensen are unaware that environmental factors can depress cognitive development.
Linky no worky.
Sorry try this http://www.isironline.org/meeting/pdfs/old/program2009.pdf. Wicherts and de Han (2009) presented at a meeting the results of a meta-analysis where they found publication bias and concluded that “Stereotype threat cannot explain the difference in mean cognitive test performance between African Americans and European Americans”. This has not yet been published though. There is a discussion of the various papers on the subject here. http://statsquatch.blogspot.com/2011/01/stereotype-threat-and-measurement.html
I’m sorry, I assumed you were siding with NDD on the notion that some races are more intelligent than others. The cite you linked to indicates that we’re not even close to having evidence that genetics makes a meaningful difference in the distribution of intelligence.
I accept that The Bell Curve talks about environment. You would know.
Given the claims here, I’d be curious to see a breakdown of IQ/test performance based on family wealth, not family income. Do you know if such a thing exists?
Certainly little progress has been made to date in identifying specific genes linked to cognitive abilities. Researchers like Robert Plomin suggest there could be thousands of genes involved, of small effect.
Behavioural genetics research though does indicate that a substantial portion of the variation within a population is due to genetic variation. There is some interesting research on this, including this by UCLA neuroscientist Paul Thompson & also this research from Melbourne.
The amount of variance attributable to the environment increases if you have a particularly bad environment. For instance, someone who is exposed to high levels of alcohol in utero is going to have their development stifled. In that case, the variation with the rest of the population is largely due to their environment.
I feel like there are two different issues at stake here.
- Are the racial disparities in standardized/IQ tests explained by SES, poverty, malnutrition and other environmental factors such as stereotype threat? Based on the information provided and my own knowledge base I would still say the answer is yes, but the stereotype threat research gives me something to chew on. I would have liked to take a look at that in detail.
Let’s assume for a moment that all of the social research done on this issue were nonexistent.
We still have this question:
**
2. Is it true that intelligence is a racially inherited trait?**
I have seen no evidence to support this. I don’t understand how we get ‘‘If not X, Y, Z, then Q,’’ when Q is just one among thousands of possibilities and we have no evidence of Q.
So, let me just ask: Do you believe that blacks are genetically inferior to whites? On the basis of what evidence? Because proving that it’s not just poverty doesn’t prove that it is genetics.
I don’t know anyone who says it is a “racially inherited trait”. My understanding of Jensen’s position is that he says that individual differences are due to both environmental and genetic variation. And if you aggregate individuals into groups, part of the statistical differences are due to environmental and genetic factors. If you want to go through the various arguments for/against, the issue of June 2005 issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law is dedicated to that debate.
More generally, for a discussion of why it’s not implausible for statistical group differences to arise, see here or this discussion of Greg Clark’s data.
The Nonsense and Twaddle side has exhausted its time. And now, the response from the Facts and Reality side:
Thank you, Facts and Reality side. So, the observed outcomes are the same, but the chain of cause and effect is actually racism causing problems, not vice versa as asserted by the Nonsense and Twaddle side?
Yes, I’d say that sums it up neatly.
Harold Meyerson’s column, which you linked to, is excellent. It in no way counters what I have written in this this and other threads.
Meyerson’s point is that the Republican Party helps the corporate elite enrich itself by pauperizing the middle and working classes.
My point is that this is possible because white blue collar workers have legitimate concerns about black social pathology, which Democrats find excuses for. In addition, Hispanic immigration, which the Democrat Party promotes, places downward pressure on wages. The Hispanic crime rate, while lower than the black crime rate, is higher than the white crime rate. Because they live closer to to blacks and Hispanics, white blue collar workers are more threatened by crime.
In The Communist Manifesto Karl Marx wrote, “The working men have no country.” In the United States the white working class has no party. The Republican Party is the Party of the rich. The Democrat Party is the party for third world minorities that are less evolved because they are closer in number of generations to the stone age.