# Are there any proven hereditary psychological differences (intelligence or other) between "races"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 17, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771 "2010-03-17T17:20:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Ruminator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Ruminator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruminator)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/121 "2010-03-21T03:11:32Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Why does it have to start with the assumption that it’s the _primary_ cause to the exclusion of all else? Well, I can’t control how people discuss this subject and people simply start with that assumption. That’s the default. Yes, if we stay within a ideal world of pure objective scientific inquiry, it doesn’t have to start with that assumption. However, legislative programs are not the execution of scientific inquiry, they assume socioeconomic factors as indisputable fact. > [@](#): > > , it’s not hard to see why such programs would be funded. I’m totally aware of why programs build support and get funded. I’m simply saying that this complaint about standards-of-proof is not applied equally to both sides of the argument. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/122 "2010-03-21T03:16:16Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > On a purely theoretical level, I agree with you. > > But that’s part of the problem. We (society) don’t just shoot the breeze about this topic theoretically. We spend **real money** on various social programs that don’t work. The temporary experiments to equalize society morph into special-interest factions. > > So on one hand, the level of empirical proof has not been established to prove genetics – but at the same time, we don’t require the same level of proof of socioeconomics to continue funding social programs. It’s like having one’s cake and eating it too! So you acknowledge that this is fundamentally a political dispute about government policy? Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. Any government policy that applies to the 20 million or so black Americans with sub 90 IQ’s also applies to the 20 million or so Latinos, and the 60 million or so whites with sub 90 IQ’s Can you cite one large government program that is available to blacks but not to whites? Anti poverty programs are available to anyone who qualifies, and there are more whites than blacks on welfare. Government backed minority scholarships don’t fit the bill, the money spent on them is trivial. Affirmative action at selective colleges doesn’t fit the bill either. Most colleges aren’t selective, and the number of slots designated for minority applicants are few. Ballot measures have effectively ended most affirmative action in government funded institutions in California, Michigan, and many other states. We will soon reach a point where government backed affirmative action is banned in a majority of states. What then is the problem you seek to remedy? Perhaps you want to implore the folks who run Harvard to end their affirmative action recruitment of black students. These days, most black students at Harvard are high IQ foreigners from Africa and the Caribbean, typically children of their countries’ elites with test scores comparable to the rest of the Harvard class. Black Americans are fairly rare on Harvard’s campus. Now if you want to make the case that discrimination laws are evil and should be abolished, make that case. With evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/123 "2010-03-21T03:21:08Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > I think the phrase, _“don’t have to know… exactly what factors contribute”_ is being coy. We all know the factors the programs are trying to compensate for is “nurture” and not “nature.” > > That’s not what my emphasis on reverse logic is saying. I’m saying that the social program funding starts with a priori assumption of socioeconomic disadvantage as the primary cause. They don’t write the legislation with wording saying it’s a temporary experiment (e.g. limited to 25 years) with genuine scientific open-mindedness of accepting the possible outcomes – GOOD or BAD. No, if the outcomes are bad, then it means the _not enough money_ was spent, or that the program was _poorly executed_. That entire a priori mindset is insistently maintained throughout. This is a much lower standard of proof than the “nature” proponents are subjected to. So this is an argument for abolishing anti poverty programs unless they are proven effective? Make that case then. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/124 "2010-03-21T04:10:57Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > All I’m doing is pointing out that your claims about the level of scientific support for the hypothesis you’re advocating are wildly exaggerated… Simply name-calling data presented to you a “wild exaggeration” is meaningless. Perhaps you’d like to comment on which of these are wild exaggerations: 1. Blacks are substantially over-represented in the NBA despite a nurturing advantage to whites 2. Whites and asians substantially outscore blacks on the SAT (and every other standardized, quantifiable test), and neither income level, nor parental education nor opportunity nor stereotype threat accounts for the differences. In point of fact, no explanatory nurturing differences have been advanced that have reached a level beyond idle speculation despite an overwhelming support for the hope that one might be found. 3. Blacks substantially underscore white and asian groups on post-college and post-graduate exams even when they have attended the same schools and taken the same curriculum 4. Blacks substantially underperform white and asian groups in every cognitive arena in every political system in the world 5. No program or effort to provide equal or better opportunity, anywhere, anytime under any government or private agency has been able to eliminate differences in race-based groups 6. There are no examples, anywhere, even in political systems where blacks are the majority power, where blacks outperform whites and asians on any cognitive tests or financial success, and no examples where whites outperform blacks at power sports such as sprinting and basketball 7. It is anathema in modern academia and politics to publicly profess a position that races are innately unequal 8. Every available study for decades in every system everywhere shows a persistent performance gap and no studies exist where equalizing opportunity equalized results on any significant scale. (At least, I am not aware of a single one.) But if you have a good one, please post it so that we can evaluate it against the thousands and thousands of school systems across the entire country that find exactly the same results over and over and over again. Here’s a link to the Illinois tests if you want to start paging through them: [http://iirc.niu.edu/Default.aspx](http://iirc.niu.edu/Default.aspx) It is for these reasons and more, and what I see to be the obvious conclusion (along with attitudes such as yours which pretend to be objective but are overwhelmingly biased toward protecting egalitarianism) that I await genetic elucidation. Not so I can “gleefully” gloat but so that we can get past this ridiculous obfuscation of the obvious and get on with creating a decent world. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/125 "2010-03-21T04:31:12Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > no examples where whites outperform blacks at power sports such as sprinting and basketball Nitpick: I wouldn’t characterize either of those as power sports, and I think I’d reverse the stereotype here. For example, strong man competitions are dominated by Russian, German, Eastern European, and Nordic peoples, AFAIK. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/126 "2010-03-21T04:42:23Z")
> [@Chief Pedant](#): > > Perhaps you’d like to comment on which of these are wild exaggerations: Most of them are just plain misinterpretations, misstatements, or false assertions. Point by point: > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > 1. Blacks are substantially over-represented in the NBA despite a nurturing advantage to whites Your alleged “nurturing advantage to whites” is imaginary. As the article I cited above notes, the environmental pressures for developing basketball skills are much greater on the whole for blacks than for whites. And by the way, **Chief** , I’ll ask again: what happened to the Jewish superiority in basketball skills relative to other white players, which was so apparent in the mid-twentieth century and has since been completely eliminated? Hmm? Did American Jews just somehow lose their “basketball gene”, or what? > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > 1. Whites and asians substantially outscore blacks on the SAT (and every other standardized, quantifiable test), and neither income level, nor parental education nor opportunity nor stereotype threat accounts for the differences. In point of fact, no explanatory nurturing differences have been advanced that have reached a level beyond idle speculation despite an overwhelming support for the hope that one might be found. But just because a particular **subset** of environmental factors, such as income level and parental education, doesn’t account for all the differences doesn’t mean that **all** environmental factors have been ruled out, so this proves nothing. > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > 1. Blacks substantially underscore white and asian groups on post-college and post-graduate exams even when they have attended the same schools and taken the same curriculum Again, this argument relies on the assumption that taking the same courses at the same school counts as equalizing **all** environmental factors, which is just silly. > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > 1. Blacks substantially underperform white and asian groups in every cognitive arena in every political system in the world This statement is so broad as to be meaningless. You don’t have data from every cognitive arena in every political system in the world, so you’re just making a sweeping generalization from more limited data. And again, none of this data represents studies that truly equalize all non-genetic factors. > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > 1. No program or effort to provide equal or better opportunity, anywhere, anytime under any government or private agency has been able to eliminate differences in race-based groups But no program or effort has actually eliminated all differences in environmental factors across racial groups either, so that doesn’t prove anything. Note also that IQ differences, for instance, have significantly decreased between blacks and whites over the past several decades, so it appears that equalizing efforts have indeed had a non-trivial effect on differences in outcomes. > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > 1. There are no examples, anywhere, even in political systems where blacks are the majority power, where blacks outperform whites and asians on any cognitive tests or financial success, and no examples where whites outperform blacks at power sports such as sprinting and basketball Again, this sweeping generalization depends on the vagueness of the statement. In particular, speaking of “power sports SUCH AS sprinting and basketball” disingenuously conceals the fact that you deliberately cherry-picked two specific sports where blacks, whatever their innate abilities may be, definitely have an advantage in environmental factors. > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > 1. It is anathema in modern academia and politics to publicly profess a position that races are innately unequal This is not a statement about the level of scientific support for your preferred hypothesis. Unless you’re trying to insinuate that scientific support for your preferred hypothesis is being suppressed as “anathema” by academic and political bias, which I gotta tell you is not the way to make yourself look LESS like a conspiracy theorist. > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > 1. Every available study for decades in every system everywhere shows a persistent performance gap and no studies exist where equalizing opportunity equalized results on any significant scale. (At least, I am not aware of a single one.) It is certainly true that over the decades, making racial opportunity and racial socio-cultural factors more equal has overall made outcomes more equal. It’s also true that outcomes have not been totally equalized, but then, neither have opportunity or socio-cultural factors been totally equalized, so that’s a wash. And again, we’re left back where we started: we know that measured racial differences may be due to genetic differences or to environmental differences or to both, but we don’t know which. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/127 "2010-03-21T05:35:18Z")
> [@](#): > > **Kimstu** wrote > > Originally Posted by Chief Pedant > \*2. Whites and asians substantially outscore blacks on the SAT (and every other standardized, quantifiable test), and neither income level, nor parental education nor opportunity nor stereotype threat accounts for the differences. In point of fact, no explanatory nurturing differences have been advanced that have reached a level beyond idle speculation despite an overwhelming support for the hope that one might be found. > \* > > But just because a particular subset of environmental factors, such as income level and parental education, doesn’t account for all the differences doesn’t mean that all environmental factors have been ruled out, so this proves nothing. As noted above, David Rowe found no X factor that is depressing scores for any particular group. > [@](#): > > Note also that IQ differences, for instance, have significantly decreased between blacks and whites over the past several decades, so it appears that equalizing efforts have indeed had a non-trivial effect on differences in outcomes. Again, as James Lee noted in the review of Nisbett’s book. > [@](#): > > A similar picture emerges from the NAEP results; the black–white difference has narrowed substantially, but stagnation since the mid-1980s still leaves gaps ranging from .70 to 1.05 standard deviations (Gottfredson, 2005). > > Of course, an environmentally induced shrinkage of the black– white IQ difference does not necessarily imply that the remainder is also environmental in origin. Since this remainder is factorially dissimilar to ongoing secular trends and has proven resistant to change, any pronouncements regarding its causes and future status must be treated with skepticism. Review of intelligence and how to get it: Why schools and cultures count’ James Lee, Personality and Individual Differences 48 (2010) 247–255 > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by **Chief Pedant** > 7. It is anathema in modern academia and politics to publicly profess a position that races are innately unequal > > \*\*Kimstu \*\*wrote > This is not a statement about the level of scientific support for your preferred hypothesis. Unless you’re trying to insinuate that scientific support for your preferred hypothesis is being suppressed as “anathema” by academic and political bias, which I gotta tell you is not the way to make yourself look LESS like a conspiracy theorist. Anyone who has read about the various protests and assaults on researchers (Eysenck, Herrnstein, Jensen) or efforts to break peoples tenure (Gottfredson (see below article), would not be so glib. Of course social and professional pressure deters people from researching these issues. The Snyderman Rothman anonymous survey was revealing in that 3 times as many of the 661 academics surveyed considered genetic and environmental factors contributed to group differences as those who considered environmental factors alone were implicated. > **[2009academicfreedom.pdf](https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2009academicfreedom.pdf)** > > 193.49 KB Gottfredson, L. S. (in press). Lessons in academic freedom as lived experience. Personality and Individual Differences. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.01.001 ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/128 "2010-03-21T13:49:22Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Most of them are just plain misinterpretations, misstatements, or false assertions. Point by point: > > Your alleged “nurturing advantage to whites” is imaginary. As the article I cited above notes, the environmental pressures for developing basketball skills are much greater on the whole for blacks than for whites. > > And by the way, **Chief** , I’ll ask again: what happened to the Jewish superiority in basketball skills relative to other white players, which was so apparent in the mid-twentieth century and has since been completely eliminated? Hmm? Did American Jews just somehow lose their “basketball gene”, or what? I assume you are just being silly here, since IIRC 😉 , the professional basketball in the 20’s was neither the epitome of professions that it is today, nor was the track to it very open to black athletes. I am pretty sure you have the capacity to grasp that, in order to evaluate over-representation, the following criteria should be met: 1. A reasonable estimation of the numbers in the starting pool of candidates 2. A reasonable estimation that the primary preference of that starting pool for the pursuit exceeds other available pursuits Is it your contention that in the 1920s basketball was a pursuit equally sought after by all, across a broad representation of society within a framework of availability equally open to all? Are you contending that the stars of the SPHA reflected the best talent out of a pool of all whites? Are you sort of thinking 5’ 4" Barney Sedran’s superstardom with the Whirlwinds makes a good case that the starting pool broadly encompassed the whole nation?\* I’m not so naive to think culture and environment never plays a role in which folks get the top-dog status at a particular moment. I do argue that the current starting pool of NBA wanna-bes is much larger for whites than blacks, and the opportunity given to white wanna-bes is much greater than it is for blacks. Moreover, the practical obstacles faced by blacks are a substantial offset to the advantage of any “environmental pressure.” While you may disagree, calling the alternate position a “wild exaggeration” is what stuck in my craw. > [@Kimstu](#): > > But just because a particular **subset** of environmental factors, such as income level and parental education, doesn’t account for all the differences doesn’t mean that **all** environmental factors have been ruled out, so this proves nothing. Perhaps you have some alternate suggestions for “all” those other environmental factors? Or do you just have some vague laundry list that creates a pretense of an untestable comparison because we can never account for “all” variables? > [@Kimstu](#): > > Again, this argument relies on the assumption that taking the same courses at the same school counts as equalizing **all** environmental factors, which is just silly. > > This statement is so broad as to be meaningless. You don’t have data from every cognitive arena in every political system in the world, so you’re just making a sweeping generalization from more limited data. And again, none of this data represents studies that truly equalize all non-genetic factors. > > But no program or effort has actually eliminated all differences in environmental factors across racial groups either, so that doesn’t prove anything. Note also that IQ differences, for instance, have significantly decreased between blacks and whites over the past several decades, so it appears that equalizing efforts have indeed had a non-trivial effect on differences in outcomes. > > Again, this sweeping generalization depends on the vagueness of the statement. In particular, speaking of “power sports SUCH AS sprinting and basketball” disingenuously conceals the fact that you deliberately cherry-picked two specific sports where blacks, whatever their innate abilities may be, definitely have an advantage in environmental factors. > > This is not a statement about the level of scientific support for your preferred hypothesis. Unless you’re trying to insinuate that scientific support for your preferred hypothesis is being suppressed as “anathema” by academic and political bias, which I gotta tell you is not the way to make yourself look LESS like a conspiracy theorist. > > It is certainly true that over the decades, making racial opportunity and racial socio-cultural factors more equal has overall made outcomes more equal. It’s also true that outcomes have not been totally equalized, but then, neither have opportunity or socio-cultural factors been totally equalized, so that’s a wash. > And again, we’re left back where we started: we know that measured racial differences may be due to genetic differences or to environmental differences or to both, but we don’t know which. In summary, then, you are unable to come up with even a single example to support any contention that races are equal. You have characterized what I have given as “wild exaggeration” without even one study or one example across the entire world that supports an opposing position. You happily characterize this challenge to find something, somewhere, in the entire world supporting an alternate position as “so broad as to be meaningless” (because I could not possibly know every circumstance, everywhere) and yet you cannot cite even one example. I deliberately left that statement broad to give you every possibility of finding something. Did you? Your contention that “we don’t know which” (of genetic or environmental) only holds when you set the bar for “eliminating all differences” so artificially high that it is meaningless. See [[http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/table19-mcatpgaraceeth09-web.pdf](http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/table19-mcatpgaraceeth09-web.pdf)]here [/QUOTE] for MCAT scores, as an example I’ve given you before, and then feel free to make a defense for why the preparation opportunity for black students taking those exams was so deficient relative to whites and asians that that enormous gap can be accounted for. (These are 2009 scores, so I assume they reflect the “more equal outcomes” you are referencing.) We may not “know” which, but we can certainly say that a review of the evidence renders an opinion that innate factors are a heavy influence is more than “wild exaggeration.” \*Read more about Jews and early 20th century BB in chapter 15 (“The ‘Scheming, Flashy Trickiness’ of Jews”) of Jon Entine’s book, Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It, pp 198-203. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/129 "2010-03-21T13:57:26Z")
Corrected [MCAT link](http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/table19-mcatpgaraceeth09-web.pdf). **CP** is geezing again. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/130 "2010-03-21T17:29:32Z")
> [@kingbighair](#): > > Thank you for that. It was an interesting read. Is this the part you wanted me to notice? > _“We reiterate that nothing we report here is intended as criticism of Steele and Aronson’s (1995) original research or as a challenge to the concept of stereotype threat as an important phenomenon with relevance to testing settings. Steele and Aronson clearly showed that imposing and eliminating stereotype threat can, in laboratory settings, affect the test performance of both African American and White students, and other researchers have extended this to other groups (e.g., gender, age). This is important in that it highlights the fact that test scores can be influenced by factors other than the examinee’s true level of skill and achievement.”_ Not particularly, but I’m not surprised that’s what you chose to parse out here. > [@kingbighair](#): > > Looks to me that the whole point of this is not to show that stereotype threat does not exist, but that we should not think stereotype threat is the only reason for differences. I think that is a pretty reasonable position and I agree. I guess I am not sure why you think this supports your argument that stereotype threat does not exist. It’s not that sterotype threat does not exist; it’s that it does not exist as an explanation for observed differences on standardized scores, despite a popular conception that it does (including your use of it as an explanation). From the full text of that cite: “_They (Steele and Aronson) have shown that stereotype threat can affect the performance of some students on some tests, an important finding worthy of careful exploration. What they have not done, and do not purport to do, is to offer stereotype threat as the general explanation for the long-observed pattern of subgroup differences on a broad range of cognitive tests._” ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/131 "2010-03-21T18:10:16Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I do argue that the current starting pool of NBA wanna-bes is much larger for whites than blacks, and the opportunity given to white wanna-bes is much greater than it is for blacks. Moreover, the practical obstacles faced by blacks are a substantial offset to the advantage of any “environmental pressure.” Every time you say this stuff, you show how completely ignorant you are of how people reach the NBA. Absolutely, undeniably, hands over the eyes, fingers in the ears, ignorant. I have shown you why the opportunities to reach the NBA are much higher for blacks. It is a game you can play anywhere. Equipment and facilities mean nothing. The black community completely gets behind the game and the incentives are huge to become the best player in the area because you also become the most popular. This holds for nearly every black community. It is culturally part of the black community in a way that is in no way comparable to the white community. It is seen as the only legitimate way to be successful by a very large part of the community. You have not demonstrated in any way how whites are given a better opportunity to succeed in basketball. You are trying to rely on some kind of whites have more money, therefore they have access to better coaching and facilities argument. I reply that does not matter. The only thing that matters is playing as much as possible from a young age. Coaching only teaches immensely skilled players how to play the team game. I can guarantee you coaches would prefer the most skilled player they can find as opposed to the most coached. Coaching is a small part of the game. It is almost entirely up to the players. You have not demonstrated any “practical obstacles” that hamper blacks. You tried to claim that blacks have to work more because they come from poor families. Are you suggesting there are large groups of black kids aged 9-18 laboring away all day? Because that is the age where now elite players were playing 8 hours a day. Based on your replies, you appear to know just about nothing about the NBA. You see a bunch of black guys and then try to explain why you see so many. It has to be because they are black! I’ll tell you why - because they worked harder than everyone else. If white communities put everything they had into making the NBA, you would see more whites. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/132 "2010-03-21T19:55:49Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\*kingbighair \*\*wrote > If white communities put everything they had into making the NBA, you would see more whites. Maybe, but I think people acknowledge that there are athletic differences to. > [@](#): > > Several biological factors may be coming into play here. One study conducted in Quebec in the 1980s found that black West African students had significantly higher amounts of “fast-twitch” muscle fibers—the kind that are responsible for short, explosive bursts of action—than white French Canadians did. (So far, there is no evidence that even extensive training can turn slow-twitch muscles into fast-twitch ones, though moving in the other direction is possible.) > **[Why are Jamaicans so good at sprinting?](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2008/08/why-are-jamaicans-so-good-at-sprinting.html)** > > Jamaicans dominated the Olympic 100-meter sprint this weekend, with Usain Bolt setting a world record and his teammates taking all three medals in the... [http://www.jonentine.com/reviews/straw\_man\_of\_race.htm](http://www.jonentine.com/reviews/straw_man_of_race.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/133 "2010-03-21T20:14:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Are there any proven hereditary psychological differences (intelligence or other) between “races”? There is only one race, and that is the human race. We are all homo sapiens. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/134 "2010-03-21T20:49:50Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > There is only one race, and that is the human race. We are all homo sapiens. The US Department of Education disagrees. > [@](#): > > The ultimate goal of federal officials is to exert pressure on L.A. Unified and other school districts to close the achievement gap that separates white, Asian and higher-income students from low-income, black and Latino students. > **[Federal agency to investigate L.A. schools](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-mar-10-la-me-lausd10-2010mar10-story.html)** > > Federal agency to investigate L.A. schools ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/135 "2010-03-21T21:32:27Z")
> [@kingbighair](#): > > Every time you say this stuff, you show how completely ignorant you are of how people reach the NBA. Absolutely, undeniably, hands over the eyes, fingers in the ears, ignorant. I have shown you why the opportunities to reach the NBA are much higher for blacks. It is a game you can play anywhere. Equipment and facilities mean nothing. The black community completely gets behind the game and the incentives are huge to become the best player in the area because you also become the most popular. This holds for nearly every black community. It is culturally part of the black community in a way that is in no way comparable to the white community. It is seen as the only legitimate way to be successful by a very large part of the community. > > You have not demonstrated in any way how whites are given a better opportunity to succeed in basketball. You are trying to rely on some kind of whites have more money, therefore they have access to better coaching and facilities argument. I reply that does not matter. The only thing that matters is playing as much as possible from a young age. Coaching only teaches immensely skilled players how to play the team game. I can guarantee you coaches would prefer the most skilled player they can find as opposed to the most coached. Coaching is a small part of the game. It is almost entirely up to the players. > > You have not demonstrated any “practical obstacles” that hamper blacks. You tried to claim that blacks have to work more because they come from poor families. Are you suggesting there are large groups of black kids aged 9-18 laboring away all day? Because that is the age where now elite players were playing 8 hours a day. > > Based on your replies, you appear to know just about nothing about the NBA. You see a bunch of black guys and then try to explain why you see so many. It has to be because they are black! I’ll tell you why - because they worked harder than everyone else. If white communities put everything they had into making the NBA, you would see more whites. I suspect we’ve both made our points and each feel the other is talking past us. If you want to believe that the pool of young white boys who start out with NBA dreams is not larger numerically than the pool of young black boys who start out with NBA dreams, you are welcome to that position. If you want to believe that black culture emphasizing basketball as a primary goal outweighs any benefit accrued to young whites by having more formal programs and coaching, fine. If you want to believe that playing as much as possible is somehow a particular trait of skilled blacks but not skilled whites, have at it. But you haven’t “shown” me a thing. You’ve made an observation with which I disagree. I hold that although basketball may be proportionally more popular as a secondary pasttime sport for the black community, for the subset–white or black–which is filtered out as particularly skilled (and that’s the group that ends up making the Bigs), the notion that whites are undernurtured compared with blacks is baseless. If you take the enormously higher absolute number of starting pool wanna-be whites and focus on the best of the best all the way along the line, it is the whites who are given every advantage, and not blacks, particularly when all the other distractions of growing up black in a bad community are thrown in. That the white drop-outs along the way choose lacrosse while the black second-tier labors on in their passion of basketball is completely irrelevant. Those remaining top-tier white kids who have the best aptitude are not sitting around eating bon bons while their black brethren are outworking them. And the large group of second-tier blacks chooses basketball because even at a second-tier level of performance, it is still a fun option (and perhaps an only option). What is true is that we gravitate toward what we are good at. For a kid not that good at basketball, lacrosse is an attractive alternative if it exists. For a kid brilliant at basketball, it’s easy to stay focused and the secondary gain (stardom; success) keeps him–of any color–out there practicing and working hard. If you are interested in some references for studies showing some of the physiologic differences in performance ability between blacks and whites, check out the [reference](http://books.google.com/books?id=pAhzEuMPC30C&pg=PA366&lpg=PA366&dq=levesque+boulay+theriault+%22training+induced+changes+in+maximal+exercise+of+short+duration%22&source=bl&ots=8AEuMkMB1p&sig=gAsVPjnmaStjlzhouBZEXUZGtYY&hl=en&ei=G5CmS4TUEISBlAfalqR0&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=levesque%20boulay%20theriault%20%22training%20induced%20changes%20in%20maximal%20exercise%20of%20short%20duration%22&f=false) section of chapter 19 (“Winning the Genetic Lottery”) in Jon Entine’s book Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We Are Afraid to Talk About It. What you will notice, I think, is that no studies fail to show a difference between white, black and asian performances at sports, whether what is being studied is physiology or outcome. We are different across group definitions of many sorts, including racial lines, and including our capacity for sports excellence. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/136 "2010-03-21T23:54:03Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Not so I can “gleefully” gloat but so that we can get past this ridiculous obfuscation of the obvious and get on with creating a decent world. CP, There is an interesting description here of ‘God of the Gaps’ arguments by a philosophy phd: > [@](#): > > The belief in inherent equality across races in IQ has been derided as “Liberal Creationism”. The jibe is certainly well deserved. But perhaps the analogy might be even more on point were it described as “Liberal Intelligent Design”. For the defense of equality posed by more sophisticated liberals tends to be far more elaborate than the mere invocation of dogma which constitutes Creationism. It is much more akin to the detailed, if utterly strained, arguments of Intelligent Design (ID) proponents. > > To every scientific difficulty in their views, liberal advocates of equality have some answer: all physical correlates of IQ can be induced by environment; differences within groups tell us nothing about differences across groups; IQ tests are culturally biased; race is a construct; it’s the “caste mentality” or “stereotype threat” in blacks that depresses their IQ scores; etc. > > The problem is, as science has progressed, the ability to maintain the relevance of these counterarguments becomes more of an act of deep faith in a contrary proposition than anything resembling rational inference. > > ID proponents might be regarded as adopting a God-of-the-Gaps argument. ID mostly focuses on those biological or chemical facts lying behind evolution that scientists have not yet adequately explained, and trumpets that lack of resolution or understanding as “proof” that only an intelligent designer might have brought about such a phenomenon. Likewise, liberals who insist that there is no scientific evidence of genetic differences between races in IQ seek out aspects of the scientific case for such differences which are not fully understood, and insert their belief in equality in those gaps. Their view can, I think, aptly be named “Equality of the Gaps”. Under this approach, if studies show that black children adopted into families register IQs far more similar to the average of blacks in the larger population than to the IQs of white children adopted into the same families, then the explanation must lie elsewhere than genetics. It must be that black children suffer in all cases from a “caste mentality” brought about their very identification as black, or that they, as blacks, are punished by peers for “acting white” when they seek to excel at school. If white matter in the brain appears to play a crucial role in IQ, then either the relevant differences in size and quality are in all cases brought about entirely by environment, or the differences between races on this score are so engendered. And if science is not yet fully clear as to which sets of genes differentiates between races, and in what manner they do so, then race is a mere social construct, not a category grounded in biology. > > Each individual response may possess some kind of plausibility (or not). In aggregate, however, it’s impossible not to notice the pattern. These moves are quite completely predictable. They appear to be driven by beliefs that have absolutely nothing to do with science or the truth, but rather spring from a fragile and ill-conceived moral system — one far too rigid to accommodate important facts of human nature. > > Where does this leave the ongoing argument over IQ and race? > > Over time, as science has closed in on the underlying truths, the gaps in explanation have narrowed dramatically; they continue to do so. Yet those gaps never entirely disappear. For the Equality-of-the-Gaps people, that is all they require: they live on to fight another day, and another day after that. For the rest of us, we can only wait it out until they dwindle into irrelevance. > > A true paradigm shift is probably never a pretty thing seen up close. [The Vice Tightens | Liberal Biorealism](http://liberalbiorealism.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/the-vice-tightens/) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/137 "2010-03-22T02:03:52Z")
**Can we please leave sports out of this? It’s completely irrelevant.** ---
**Author:** ![kingbighair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/13edae/32.png) [@kingbighair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kingbighair)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/138 "2010-03-22T02:16:24Z")
You don’t have to yell. Jeez. The question was answered pretty quickly. No, nothing has been proven. And you already started another thread for your second question. What else are you expecting from this thread? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/139 "2010-03-22T03:18:18Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > **Can we please leave sports out of this? It’s completely irrelevant.** I’m not so sure it’s irrelevant. Hereditary differences for athletic ability, if acceded to, lay a foundation for a further accession to the more general principle that there can be hereditary differences between groups which result in differing outcomes for various pursuits (whether athletic or academic). It is for this reason, I think, that the notion is so aggressively fought by those who want to advance the argument that race is too loose a cohort, and humans too similar, for there to be any significant differences at all. While sports ability is not cognitive ability, the underlying principle is the same: outcomes that result from hereditary differences dependent upon gene(s) prevalence can vary by race. Nevertheless, it’s your thread so I’ll knock off the NBA line of argument. I’m perfectly satisfied to stick to (obvious and proven 😉 ) hereditary performance differences in cognitive arenas. I’m fine with getting back to figuring out why asians excel in Brazil. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771/140 "2010-03-22T03:22:00Z")
> [@kingbighair](#): > > You don’t have to yell. Jeez. > > The question was answered pretty quickly. No, nothing has been proven. And you already started another thread for your second question. What else are you expecting from this thread? What do you mean by proven? It’s not a mathematical problem where you have a certain answer. It’s an empirical question and you have to look at the evidence and what is the most parsimonious and logical explanation or theory. And there is a lot of evidence for the hypothesis that genetic and environmental factors contribute to group differences, as opposed to the hypothesis that differences are 100% environmental. > **[2005hereditarian-hypothesis.pdf](https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2005hereditarian-hypothesis.pdf)** > > 48.99 KB [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-proven-hereditary-psychological-differences-intelligence-or-other-between-races/532771.md?page=8)