You’ll have a big ole straw family in this thread at this rate.
Nobody has yet made that claim in this thread. Nor has it been a common claim in the several and interminable and regular similar threads on the topic that seem to pop up every few months.
Rather than try to jump ahead and defend against arguments that haven’t yet been made (and ones that aren’t regularly made around here anyway), how about addressing the atrociously bad (and in bad faith) arguments you are defending (poorly)?
Your spidey-sense could use some work.
Fine. Evidence? Being inclined to believe things is fine. But note it’s not the side stating there’s no definitive genetic evidence that’s made absolute statements about it, either.
Whatever will we do? Until we know this answer, life is meaningless! I will have to treat people as my equals instead of assuming they’re sub-human based on the color of their skin!
What evidence do you have that it has anything to do with culture?
Black kids who preform well in school tend to be more popular and well adjusted in their peer group than high performing white students, which would tend to disprove the claim that 'African American culture doesn’t value academic achievement."
First, you just granted in our most recent exchange that there IS evidence. Second, in your second sentence here you re-erect your straw man bigger and grander than ever. No one has argued that genes, exclusively, are the cause. Certainly not gthe hypothetical Fotheringay-Phipps offered. (Assuming it’s a cause at all.)
It really would serve the discussion well if you would stop with the straw colossus(es).
Well that could certainly be his claim. In fact I believe it is. I’ve already said that he might be claiming that in certain studies the environmental factors might be eliminated or accounted for. But that’s not what we’re discussing.
The question here: is if the average IQ (let’s use it as a proxy for intelligence for illustrative purposes here) of blacks is X and the average IQ of whites is X + Y, how much of Y is due to genetic factors versus environmental factors? There are possible answers other than 100% and 0%. For the past good number of your posts, it has sounded remarkably like you were insisting that CP’s position is that the answer wouuld be 100%, which I doubt. Now it sounds like you’re saying something else.
The reason this is relevant is that happens to be the form of the question that the experts were asked:
These experts are giving answers to the question above: how much of Y is genetic? And 83% think some of Y is genetic.
In response, you said (#734) “Even looking at that poll, based on the percentages, most of the respondents would disagree with the assertion that black people having inferior genes for intelligence is the best explanation for various test score disparities”.
As I said at the time, the idea of a “best explanation” only makes sense if you assume that there can only be one cause of the disparity - if 100% or 0% was genetic - and the question was thus reduced to “what’s the likeliest reason for the discrepancy?” But if there could be more than one factor then the notion of a “best explanation” makes no sense - there no one single explanation but rather multiple factors.
Your response - as I understood it earlier - was that CP did in fact maintain that 100% of Y was due to genetics, and therefore the 95% of experts who believed that the number was less than 100% contradicted him.
But now you seem to be backing away from that claim, or clarifying or whatever, and just saying that CP is only claiming that nurture factors have been accounted for and this proves that there is some gap - some percentage of Y - that is due to genetics.
In that case, CP is with the 83% of experts who responded to that poll and you are with the 17%. And the likelihood that CP is an ignorant bigot while you are an unbiased and educated font of wisdom is thus lessened significantly.
I lived in Asia for a long time and saw a merciless test-taking obsession and fixation on relentless, grueling study. (Note: I’m not saying this is a **good **thing. I’m just making an observation.)
A maxim/saying of some Asians in my area was that “You should spend one hour studying per day per grade level” - i.e., if you’re in 5th grade, you should study 5 hours a day, etc.)
Asians often scored highest in tests. Rote memorization? Perhaps. Unhealthy? Perhaps. But the culture is different.
Which doesn’t dispute what I just said. I said no genetic evidence (i.e. the genes for intelligence being less prevalent in black people), and no evidence of other kinds that points exclusively to genes as the answer.
CP has argued that genes are, exclusively or nearly exclusively, the cause of the remaining test score gap.
This accusation makes no sense, because I was specifically addressing F-P’s hypothetical, and explaining how I would approach a discussion with this hypothetical poster.
Given the nature of this stuff and its history, which is as unscientific as it is sordid, the fair approach is to discount the hypothesis until overwhelming evidence emerges. Things that don’t count as “overwhelming evidence” include periodically forgetting what a race/SIRE is, made up trivia about condom sizes, and invented IQ scores for entire countries.
I only skimmed some of your posts earlier. When listing reasons for the testing gap, did you include generations of systemic racism backed by laws and violence, much of which was intended to deny black people education and economic opportunity, segregate them from white people, and keep them from having a say in government, followed by widespread poverty and persistently unequal treatment from the judicial system? I’m just saying that might’ve had some persistent effects. Maybe I’m nuts.
MY MOM SEZ I’M SPECIAL I HAFTA BE THE BEST I WANT A PONY
People who think intelligence can be tracked to one gene - or that races can be clearly defined this way - shouldn’t hold forth on science. It just wrecks your credibility. We’re talking about pants-falling-down levels of embarrassment here. It’s the same as the “gay gene” nonsense everybody talked about a decade ago. There are a few factors correlated with sexual preference, but nobody thinks something as complex as sexuality is determined by one gene now.
Again, you seem to be serially misunderstanding what I’m saying. Maybe it’s my fault, but you’re the only one so far who seems to consistently misunderstand it.
I’ve been talking about the “test-score gap”, which, as I understand we’ve been using it, means the gap that exists when economic factors are corrected for – as CP brings up constantly (and which I don’t dispute), some test scores of the children of wealthy black folks are lower than the test scores of poor white folks. The gap that remains is the “test score gap” of which I speak, and of which CP has claimed that inferior genes for intelligence among black people is responsible.
That’s not exactly what was being asked, as I understand it, but I don’t think that ‘experts poll’, vague (and with poor participation) as it is, is particularly interesting or useful.
Even if there are multiple factors (like, for why people sweat), there can be a “best explanation” – the explanation that is most significant and is most responsible for the phenomenon being discussed.
You understood it wrong. My response, for this vague, poorly participated and strangely worded survey, was to note that only 39% of the respondents believed that >50% was caused by genes, so the remaining 60% or so (apparently) believed that genes were not the “best” (or most significant) factor.
I never made that claim. And CP is claiming that all or almost all of the remaining gap (after economics, which I guess he considers the entirety of “nurture”, is corrected for) is due to genes.
Wrong – I’m with no one on that poll. I wouldn’t even answer it – it would be like a poll that says “how many limbs do you think extraterrestrials have?” I don’t have close to enough information to answer it at all. And I took that poll to be asking about the “test score gap” as I’ve been using it – not the straight, uncorrected gap between white and black test-takers (which tells us nothing), but the gap that remains when economics are taken into acount. Otherwise, not even 5% would respond that 100% of the gap is genetic – every “race realist” acknowledges that there are economic factors that need to be corrected for.
So again, you’re misunderstanding me, and I think you’re misunderstanding the poll.
If it’s not racist to say “black people probably have inferior genes for intelligence, on average”, then it’s not racist to say “Jews probably have inferior genes for honesty”, or “Jews probably have genes for greater levels of greed”.
That is a non-standard use of the term and more importantly is misleading in context here.
But why is that significant? Your argument is that there is no evidence that any of the gap is caused by genes?
That is not a reasonable interpretation of that poll IMO. You don’t ask “what percentage is genetic after you’ve eliminated some unspecified other factors?” That would be a ridiculous way to ask a question.
I agree that that’s weird, but as above the poll had a low response rate and could be a bit skewed, and you can get a couple of percent saying almost anything on any poll, just based on typos, misreading, and the like alone.
Are you kidding? “What was the best explanation for the Iraq War?”. Does this imply there is only one explanation? Not to me.
Only because I was trying to explain my understanding of the poll results. We’re getting into “posts about posts about posts about cites” territory, which makes it rather difficult to remember exactly what we’re talking about.
My argument is that there is no evidence that exclusively points to genes as the cause of any portion of the gap. There is evidence that the gap is not cause entirely by economic factors, and in the “not-economic” category of causes, “genes” is one possibility. But there is no evidence that more strongly points to “genes” as a cause then it does to some other factors.
IMO it’s the only reasonable interpretation. Every time we discuss the “test-score gap”, it seems pretty clear to me that we’re discussing the gap that remains after we’ve corrected for the factors that we can (which are pretty much only economic factors).
Which is why I think intelligence researchers understand discussions about the test score gap are about the gap that remains after we’ve corrected for the factors that we can correct for. I don’t think this would need to be brought up again and again for researchers familiar with the topic.
I think it’s because very, very few researchers think that the remaining gap (after the corrections that have been made) is due only to genetics.
Racist ? Asshole ? Sheet-metal worker ? Redneck ? I’m probably less racist than nearly any other white guy in America. Nobody is completely bias-free. Particularly many who make that claim. Racism is hard-wired into us by evolution. We have to learn egalitarianism and develop a mistrust of our instincts.
