No, it isn’t. A vague sense of xenophobia, maybe, but stop blaming evolution for everything that’s wrong with your personality.
Because sometimes “explanation” is used to describe a write-up that includes multiple factors. But here the focus has been whether there is a genetic factor at all, so it’s misleading to parry that by saying that something else is “the best explanation”.
No, I meant why would it have been significant at the time you posted it? I’m explaining why your post was misleading.
This is not about us, it’s about the survey of experts, and there’s no mention there of a “test-score gap”. It just says “What are the sources of U.S. black-white differences in IQ?” That’s it.
Now obviously the notion that there are black-white differences in IQ is itself known through tests. But the question doesn’t mention it. So your claim that it’s understood to mean “black-white differences after correcting for economics” is invalid.
To what extent you can correct for various other factors is itself part of the question being asked of those experts. Your interpretation is tortured.
The general concept of correcting for other factors is not something that would have to be explained to them. But the question of how much can or has been corrected for is itself subject to divergent views.
Bullshit.
Yes, but how divergent? In the past I have looked at the current consensus and what I have found before is that the vast majority of scientists agree with what iiandyiiii is saying.
Mind you, that is based on what the history of the science is telling us, and the history also tell us that the ones that do favor pseudo-science just look at the minority opinion, (opinion, as the evidence is not as strong as they want it). The point here is that in this subject one has to conclude that there is a lot of false equivalence in saying that there is a controversy.
Leaving aside that iiandyiiii keeps going back and forth so that it’s unclear precisely what he’s saying, what we’re discussing here is a specific anonymous survey of scientists which shows significant divergance (in that particular sample).
You can claim that you’ve seen otherwise elsewhere, FWIW, and you could be right. I don’t know. But right now we’re discussing this one survey.
Again, in that particular survey, only 17% believe 0% of the difference is genetic, so that’s very much the minority opinion. As above, I think an 18% response rate could be off by a lot, but that’s what that particular survey says, FWIW.
No I’m not. You seem to be going back and forth about what you’re saying about my position, though.
And I’m not discussing that survey*, but what I saw before in previous discussions, when the main proponents that are pointed out as supporters of the genetic explanation are the same controversial researchers as before. By contrast one can find plenty of researchers that do not follow the genetic explanation as being as important, in fact in a recent discussion made in the journal Nature even the one playing the advocate of the ones supporting the controversial researchers was of the view that their position had not much going for, but that research should not be stopped, as even a conservative cited puts it, most of the research has shown that the environment is affecting the differences more anyhow.
- What I did notice in the survey you mentioned is the same problem as even books of proponents of the genetic explanation on the subject (previous surveys) had, there was a lack of experts in genetics or anthropologists in the survey.
The focus has been on what the data and evidence suggests, and I argue that it does not suggest that the best explanation is genetic; and in fact, data like the Scarr study suggests that the best explanation is something other than genetics (and even that genes are not involved at all).
We’re so far removed with this that I don’t know where we’re at. It doesn’t seem particularly important to my overall point, so I’m not terribly inclined to dig and figure out exactly what you’re asking about.
I take that “black-white differences in IQ” as another phrase for “test-score gap”, and I think that both take into account the corrections that have been made for economic status.
It’s “understood to mean” that because that’s how I understand it, and that’s how I think that most of the folks who have been arguing either side of the point in this thread and others understand it. We’ve gone over the corrections for economic status many times, as I’m sure the intelligence researchers have as well, to the point that it doesn’t even need to be mentioned. The interesting question is about the gap that remains that hasn’t already been explained (i.e. corrected for), not the part of the gap that we already know the cause of.
To me it’s the only reasonable interpretation. It’s like asking researchers about the cause of lung cancer – there’s been plenty of research, and the research always would correct for various factors (like whether one’s parents had lung cancer) – researchers would assume they’re talking about the causes once all these factors had been taken into account.
Loyalty and honesty are somewhat different than intelligence in that intelligence is a trait (or a set of traits) that you possess, loyalty and honesty are virtues composed of lots of free choices that we make given our personality traits. One person might be more strongly tempted to dishonesty than another, due to their makeup, but both of them still can choose to be honest, or dishonest.
I wouldn’t consider a claim that ‘Group X has stronger temptations to be dishonest/untrustworthy to outsiders, for genetic reasons’ to be racist, though. It’s a claim which might be true, or false.
So both of these statements:
“black people have both inferior genes for intelligence, on average, and stronger genetic temptations towards aggression, rape, and violence, on average”
and
“Jews have stronger genetic temptations towards greed and dishonesty, on average”
are not racist statements, in your mind?
It was a general statement about what I do or do not object to.
That’s OK. But it’s a bit confusing, because the post you quoted and ostensibly disagreed with was about that survey specifically.
Again, the question was asked as to what extent the difference is genetic. The difference is the overall difference. The question is their assessment as to what extent it’s genetic versus other causes. Your claim that there were unspoken assumptions that certain causes have already been eliminated makes no sense.
More importantly, what we’re discussing is what “difference” the question was referring to. I’m saying it refers to differences in the general population. You’re claiming it refers to differences remaining on specific but unmentioned other tests, on which one particular factor (economic) had been accounted for. All of which the respondees were supposed to understand by themselves, with no mention from the question.
I agree with you that we’re losing track of the discussion and in this regard it should be noted that even if you would be right about all the above - which of course you’re not - it still doesn’t get you anywhere. Bottom line is that the responses were clearly addressing multiple factors in their responses, and giving percentage impacts to each - versus a binary either/or view as you pretended. So the fact that 83% said that genetic differences accounts for >0% of the difference - be that on whatever tests you’d like - means that 83% of the respondents in this survey disagreed with your continued claims that this is a baseless notion.
They might make no sense to you, but it’s the only interpretation that makes sense to me. Otherwise, why would 5% of respondents reply with 100%? Even Steve Sailer acknowledges that economics must be corrected for.
It’s my understanding because the ‘test score gap’ (or various similar phrases about the difference in IQ scores between various populations) is a very commonly understood topic in this academic field, and when people discuss the gap, they’re discussing the part of the gap that has not yet been explained. There’s no point in including the gap that has been explained – that part is already accepted by everyone.
Of course I am. 
I haven’t used the phrase “baseless notion”. I’ve said that there is no evidence that points to “genes” as the cause over all other possible causes, and that there is evidence that explicitly points against genes as the cause. If some researchers still think that genes are part of the cause, that doesn’t change this. And they can still believe this (as anyone can) even if they recognize that there is no evidence that points to genes above all other causes. Every human has biases, including me, and including researchers. And even you!
Now I’m sure some researchers totally disagree with my point. Those researchers are wrong.
So that poll is not particularly interesting to me, and (obviously) continues to offer no evidence that genes is the “best explanation”, and no evidence that genes is a better explanation than all other explanations, and no evidence that suggests that genes are more likely to be part of the cause than all the other possible causes.
I’m still curious, F-P, why my motivations (and not just my motivations about this digression about the survey) are “interesting”, but the motivations of those who claim that black people have inferior genes for intelligence, on average, are not.
I’m also curious, F-P, about your thoughts on whether claims like the ones in post #830 are racist claims.
There is no “cause over all other possible causes” and no “the cause”. What’s significant - both in that survey and in these threads - is whether genetics might be a cause, not the cause, or cause above all other causes.
This has been rehashed again and again and there’s no legitimate reason for you to keep framing it this way.
Of course. They could be biased. And frankly, I would be quite comfortable making the exact same argument in this particular case if the results were the opposite (especially if - unlike this one - it was not an anonymous survey). But a person whose position depends on a decent percentage of published researchers being biased is a somewhat weaker position than someone who is not, so it’s worth noting.
Two or three reasons, offhand.
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Your bias is a lot more apparent. For one thing, your position is further from reality. As noted, I don’t share CP’s conclusion that non-genetic factors can be ruled out as accounting for the entire difference, but I think that’s more of a judgment call, and is not as detached from reality as are the claims by you and others that there is zero basis for such a notion. In addition, I’ve not seen any indication that CP is a racist other than this one sole issue, while your objections to “racism” are far broader than this one issue. And there have been many many comments by you and others which indicate clearly that your position about the facts of this issue is intermingled with your moral concerns about its implications (e.g. post #780). In sum, while it’s possible that CP is motivated by racism, it’s completely certain that you are motivated by anti-racism.
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As I’ve noted previously, I don’t generally join pile-ons. If there are 10 people saying something, I am not going to be the 11th. Even if I was certain that CP was motivated by racism, it’s not likely that I would be harping on it because this is already being shouted from the rooftops by numerous frothing anti-racists, again and again and again and again. By contrast, the idea that maybe some of these fine anti-racists might themselves be a bit motivated by something other than a rational assessment of the facts is something that has not been nearly as noted.
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Due to a combination of the two previous factors, I find myself in these debates in disputes with the anti-racists more than the reverse. The motivations of the anti-racists therefore comes up a lot more, since these are the people I’m in the process of disagreeing with at the time.
As I’ve said before, I don’t relate to questions about whether things are “racist”. It depends on how you define “racist”, so you need to look in a dictionary or something. (If you really mean “do they prove that the claimant is a bigot?” or something like that, then you need to be more specific.)
In other words, it’s impossible to make racist statement if you add a little tag like “for genetic reasons” to the end of the phrase. This strongly implies that Hector_St_Clare is a titanic dupe.
The context you miss is that of the false equivalence that you are using, there is not much to discuss regarding your flawed implication that this survey is meaningful after noticing that, as usual, experts in biology, genetics and anthropologists are not a big part of it.
You only have the opinion of people working in measuring intelligence. It is a survey that is useful only to show the biases of few people involved in an area mostly related with psychology and sociology.
What you miss, and this a boiler plate pseudo-science move, is to ignore the levels of acceptance the proper experts actually have, as in previous discussions I have even seen experts in psychology studying now what is wrong with people that continue to see magic genes and continue to ignore the evidence.
More recently, (as you ignore what Nature showed before about the levels of respect the few researchers in favor of putting genes ahead of the environment in regards to differences based on race have) if you are correct on the levels of “how divergent” or the controversy that there is among experts, then you would not see items like this:
Once again, as I say many times in other pseudo-science discussions, if you were correct mountains of evidence would not be ignored by the proper experts, and the tune of the experts would be of indeed having to deal constantly with specific genetic evidence contrary to what they have found many times. If more was available then one would not see most experts like PZ Myers reporting that:
This, times 10.
I don’t see that, what I see so far is you making a molehill of a survey into a mountain. As pointed before, that had many flaws and ignores what the experts are actually saying.
Same thing Hector_St. Claire, what you did here makes me agree with Marley23: you are a titanic dupe.
You’re entitled to make that point of course, but you mixed into a discussion with someone else about the meaning of that particular survey. So your post was misleading, because from the context one might have thought that it too was about the meaning of that particular survey, while you’re now saying it was not.
I don’t agree that experts in studying intelligence are the wrong people to use in an assessment of intelligence.
This cite shows the exact opposite of what you cited it for. What it shows is someone who objects to race differences on moral grounds getting nervous that perhaps inconvenient scientific facts will show up and be misused.
If anything, it’s a reason to distrust scientists who disavow genetic differences.
This is about whether races are meaningful scientific concepts, which is not what we’re discussing here.
I’ve said repeatedly that I don’t think that survey is a huge deal, mostly because of the low response rate. Its relevant mainly because iiandyiiii and some others have taken such an extreme position on the other end.
In general, you can’t tell from how long an argument drags on how much of a big deal someone thinks something is. One guy says one thing, the other guy disagrees, the first guy argues back and so on. It’s just a discussion here. We’re not allocating serious resources or anything.