# At what level is racialism accepted in the scientific community? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 10, 2014, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257 "2014-08-10T18:55:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/261 "2014-08-20T21:03:33Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > The lookism explanation is the most ridiculous ever postulated. Laden is a straight out gene denier. > > If you put so much weight on expert opinion why would you dismiss it when it comes to behavioral geneticists’ views about WITHIN group genetic influence – and instead give such weight to “Greg Laden”'s lonesome position. > > We see that expert opinion only matters when it supports your position. Meh, remember that you originally claimed that “A number of vocal anthropologists still claim that races are not biological in some sense. But around half of those polled argue the reverse. And the argument turns on semantics. And some vocal e.g., intelligence researchers claim that certain well known group differences are completely environmental, but the majority disagree.” Clearly your intention was to claim that the survey polled Anthropologists and Biologists, it turned out that they are just intelligence researchers. And in the Pit even some that are lukewarm to your ideas declared that the survey was very limited and with a low rate of reply. So it is really silly to claim that I’m the one looking at a “lonesome position” > [@Chuck11](#): > > Where is your survey on the matter? We discussed a letter – but this only discussed “population genetic” evidence. And no stance was taken regarding all of the evidence. And I explained why the statement was problematic. e.g., they spoke of no pop genetic support for Wade’s speculations but Wade, in fact, never speculated about natural selection for IQ. Refer back to my comments. The survey on the matter was just using logic, people that for a living look at pseudoscience conclude that you are indeed pushing the minority view. It is is also inferred by looking at what the experts discuss in their recent meets. I think I already cited that BTW. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/262 "2014-08-20T21:20:22Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > But the point is setting the cluster analysis to 3 or 4 or 5 is arbitrary unless the improvement in the fit to the data is substantially greater at one increment than another. If 2 is a terrible fit, and 3 is marginally better, and 4 is marginally better, ad nauseum, then you’re simply wrong to assert that “groupings emerge from cluster analysis.” They don’t emerge from the analysis. They emerge from cluster analysis at a certain level of analysis i.e., K=5. Other groupings for example, one which lumps all “Asians” or all “Africans” (North + Sub Saharan) together don’t. Of course, the level of analysis can’t be determined, which isn’t to say preferred. As noted, D-races don’t claim to carve out a privileged level of genetic analysis. There is no lumper-splitter problem. They don’t claim that e.g., continental level races are the _real_ races, but only that they are races. That why d-racialists move form 5 races to 55 races, further splitting the former groupings. This is also why they tend to qualify groupings with terms such as “major” or “continental” or “micro”, etc. See Wades discussion. If the question is why focus on continental level races, the answer is that such groupings are often more pragmatically useful, just as focusing on continental geographic regions is. Dobzhansky (1951): “Obviously it would not be convenient to give names to racial inhabitants of the different counties of England or of the different departments of France. But everyone will agree that the Negroes, the Europeans, and the American Indians are clearly” Lerio (2005): “[T]here is nothing very fundamental about the concept of the major continental races; they’re just the easiest way to divide things up…” Obviously you have a different concept of race in mind than the D-race one. For the D-race concept there is no True level of genetic analysis. It’s races all the way down. (Excluding 1, since races are divisions = more than 1.) Just some groupings are more practically useful and user friendly. Some races do show more variance between groups (as K-5 does relative to e.g., K= 55) some races do show more clusterability (as K=5 does relative to e.g., K=2). So there are genetic reasons for preferring this grouping to some others, given some idealized notion of race. Also, K=4/5 can be objectively picked out of a set of Ks using e.g., [Discriminant analysis of principal components.](http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2156/11/94) (It’s k=4. not 5 because there is scant Australoid data). Whatever the case, this doesn’t matter for the D-race concept. As it is, D-racialists like myself enjoy the liberty of lumping and splitting races as seen fit. To be clear, this is what I originally said: “There are many lines of evidence for (2). One is that these groupings emerge from cluster analysis **at some level of analysis**. This indicates higher within than between group genetic similarity. Which indicates higher within than between group inbreeding. Which indicates closer within than between propinquity of descent. **To be clear when I say that these are Darwin races, I am not saying that these are THE races. I am saying that were one to carve up the human species, this would represent a valid biologically natural division (i.e., one based on genealogy)** – ergo biological races.” Might I ask: where did you acquire your notion of “race”? Mine is based on what race – not anti-race – theorists since the 1700s have been saying. > [@](#): > > And you’ve not done anything to prove that point beyond citing the fact that this test is useful for estimating genetic contribution. I’d be much more interested in either (1) an actual explanation for how it controls for epigenetics or co-correlated environmental influences or (2) a published paper actually saying this. I explained that there is no room for an epigenetic confounding of h^2 unless you now argue that GCTA SNPS covary with epigenic markers. Why would that be? ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/263 "2014-08-20T21:34:28Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Clearly your intention was to claim that the survey polled Anthropologists and Biologists, it turned out that they are just intelligence researchers. And in the Pit even some that are lukewarm to your ideas declared that the survey was very limited and with a low rate of reply. So it is really silly to claim that I’m the one looking at a “lonesome position” Sorry for the confusion. That was a separate claim. Half of the polled anthropologists and biologists agree that there are “biological races” as they varyingly define the concept. Just go through and tally results from the more recent surveys: Lieberman, L., Stevenson, B. W., & Reynolds, L. T. (1989). Race and anthropology: A core concept without consensus. Anthropology & education quarterly, 20(2), 67-73. Strkalj, G., Ramsey, S., & Wilkinson, A. T. (2008). Anatomists’ attitudes towards the concept of race. South African Medical Journal, 94(2), 90 Morning, A. (2011). The nature of race: How scientists think and teach about human difference. University of California Pr. Kaszycka, K. A., Štrkalj, G., & Strzałko, J. (2009). Current views of European anthropologists on race: Influence of educational and ideological background. American Anthropologist, 111(1), 43-56 I’m not aware of any recent polls of the same specialists concerning group differences. I imagine anthropologists, at least Western ones, would overwhelmingly claim that there were no differences. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/264 "2014-08-20T21:41:21Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > The survey on the matter was just using logic, people that for a living look at pseudoscience conclude that you are indeed pushing the minority view. It is is also inferred by looking at what the experts discuss in their recent meets. I think I already cited that BTW. Actually, about the intelligence researcher poll, the support for global national (and so, presumably, global racial) differences was rather low. Only on average 15% of the variance was attributed to genes ([page 27](file:///C:/Users/John/Downloads/ThePsychologyApproachToMacroeconomic\_preview%20(1).pdf)). But that’s not my argument so I’m not about to make your case for you – and you will notice, if you carefully read my claim, that I didn’t actually argue otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2014, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/265 "2014-08-20T22:46:09Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > I could easily publish a study along these lines in e.g., Intelligence. In the NLSY 97 parents were asked about their parents’ ethnicity. And the skin color of the student respondents was measured. As expected, Black students (raced defined by parents) whose parents reported having White/European + Black parents where lighter in color than those with parents who reported having only Black parents. They also had higher IQs. This is utterly expected since individuals with one Black and one White parent have intermediate scores relative to those with two parents of the same self-identified race. All of this merely points again to the fact that race differences are passed on inter-generationally. (On average, a person with 2 B parents inherits ~100% of the disadvantage, 1 B, 1 W parent ~50%, 1 B, 3 W grandparent ~25%). > > The problem is that these types of analyses don’t disentangle shared environmental and genetic effect. And we know the the B/W gap is some combination of the two. That cite you linked to couldn’t be published in any journal. It’s filled with just awful mistakes. The extreme misunderstanding of statistics demonstrated in the link is just embarrassingly bad and the vocabulary used seems to be way out of line with the level of understanding demonstrated of even simple concepts. It reminds me of that old “[In Living Color](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izpa9D7c77U)” sketch, with the prisoner who tries to use large words to impress people. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/266 "2014-08-21T00:16:17Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > That cite you linked to couldn’t be published in any journal. It’s filled with just awful mistakes. The extreme misunderstanding of statistics demonstrated in the link is just embarrassingly bad and the vocabulary used seems to be way out of line with the level of understanding demonstrated of even simple concepts. It reminds me of that old “[In Living Color](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Izpa9D7c77U)” sketch, with the prisoner who tries to use large words to impress people. For those who haven’t visited the link, let me just quote some of the “analysis” at the link that the author could just totally publish in a prestigious journal, if he could just get around to submitting it, I’m sure. > [@](#): > > As Dalliard has mentioned, one can directly test the hypothesis of colorism by looking at the color-outcome associations within and between families. What analyses have been done to date do not seem to support this model. But more on that later! Meng Hu and I decided to explore the colorism hypothesis, for African Americans, by an alternative route. As background, we knew that for Blacks, IQ and outcomes correlated with genealogical ancestry in addition to both phenotype (color) and genes. To show this, I, for example, correlated inferred ancestry and math IRT scores for Blacks in the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009: > > [Table typed out by me] > > ```auto > > > Race Number Score > White, student identified 13443 98.5 > White, both parents identified 9963 100 > > 1 parent white, 1 mixed 35 96.9 > student B/W or B > > BW student identified 773 93.7 > BW, 1 parent B, 1 W 134 94 > > 1 parent black, 1 mixed 17 97.1 > > Black, student identified 3019 91.1 > Black, both parents identified 1521 91.8 > > ``` > > (In this sample, parents had the option of choosing “Mixed Race.” I made the reasonable assumption that if one parent identified as “White” and one parent identified as “Mixed” and the student identified as “Black” or “Black and White”, then the parent who identified as “Mixed” was, at least in part, Black. Mutatis mutandis for “Black”,”Mixed”, and “White or White and Black.” This assumption allowed me to identify individuals who were part Black or part White on only one side, which then allowed me to create 5 “genealogical categories” based on parental race: “White/White”,”White/Black-Mixed”, “White/Black”, “Black/White-Mixed”, and “Black/Black”. I ranked these categories in terms of implied White admixture and then correlated them with the mean scores. The results: r =0.81.) OK, so this is a excerpt from a “report” that **Chuck11** claims could be published in a real journal. Further, let me point out that the “analysis” above apparently required two people to complete. Let me try explain what was done here: They took a bunch of high school scores for black students, white students, and mixed race students. They then claimed that since the black students did worse than the mixed race students, who did worse than the white students, that proves that “at least for African Americans, European ancestry was independently associated with IQ.” They manage to say this with a straight face, which is more than I could manage while reading it. So, what’s wrong with this analysis? Well, short answer: everything. That’s not a joke. Basically, at every step in the above quoted material, they made basically every mistake it was possible to make. I believe (and I seriously think I could defend this claim) that they did not do a single thing right in their analysis at any step. More specifically, there wasn’t a single step taken (except for those steps that involve quoting someone else) that didn’t involve an error of understanding. I’m not just saying this: I’m prepared to defend my statement. Pick any step in the analysis you like, and I will find an error with it. And If I can’t find an error I will apologize, and I am being completely serious. ---
**Author:** ![Meng\_Hu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/76d3ee/32.png) [@Meng\_Hu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meng_Hu)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/267 "2014-08-21T02:56:21Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > I’m also interested in this. When you say “self-identified African Americans with higher levels of European ancestry score higher on IQ tests,” I expect peer-reviewed published journal articles showing this. > > I read one of your “cites” and it not only wasn’t it a published journal article, it would never be accepted as a journal article because of the glaring errors that were immediately evident on even a cursory examination. And what if you stop playing the trolling braggart ? Is this asking too much ? Be a man. Indicate the errors in these blog articles. And I shall deal with the clown you are. I will leave you several days to let you think about those articles. That will be sufficient to an argumented answer. If I get nothing in return, I shall stick with my opinion that you were nothing more than a brainless-big-mouth moron. Good luck. ---
**Author:** ![rsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/839c29/32.png) [@rsa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rsa)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/268 "2014-08-21T03:10:59Z")
Reported. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/269 "2014-08-21T03:28:47Z")
Another Follower of [Rushton](http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/10/06/jean-philippe-rushton-is-dead/) And [Jensen](http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-files/profiles/Arthur-Jensen). Same old, Same old. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/270 "2014-08-21T03:29:09Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > I’m not just saying this: I’m prepared to defend my statement. Pick any step in the analysis you like, and I will find an error with it. And If I can’t find an error I will apologize, and I am being completely serious. > [@Meng\_Hu](#): > > Be a man. Indicate the errors in these blog articles. And I shall deal with the clown you are. I will leave you several days to let you think about those articles. That will be sufficient to an argumented answer. And, true to my word, I have spotted the error in your analysis; failure to \*comprehend \*what you have read. Score: **Evil Economist** : 1, **Meng Hu** : 0 ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/271 "2014-08-21T03:44:15Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > It’s generally acknowledged the two studies done employed inadequate methodologies. This is basic math. Speaking of basic math… > [@](#): > > 1. According to recent analyses, the mean African admixture is 20% and the standard deviation of admixture is 15%. According to Zakharia, et al. (2009). With this we can calculate an expected IQ-ancestry correlation. > > 2. In this instance the genetically conditioned difference between Blacks and White would be 0.75 SD, since we are proposing that 75% of the gap is genetic; the ancestry difference would be 5.3 SD, which is the number of SDs separating Blacks who are 20% White and Whites, given that 1 SD of admixture equals 15% Whiteness ((100-20)/15=5.3). The correlation between test scores and genotypic ancestry, would then be 0.75/5.3 or 0.14. > > 3. This would be the correlation for an index that had perfect reliability. Correcting for the unreliability (see 1b), the the correlation between IQ and the index would be 0.085 > > 4. This would be the correlation between IQ and Scarr’s index, assuming that the within population heritability was 1, as a lower within population heritability will attenuate the correlation. According to Scarr et al., the within population heritability was 0.48. Correcting for the lowered correlation between IQ and genes, we get 0.06 (0.085\*SQRT(.48)), which is approximately the correlation found. (We should also correct for the test reliability which is typically 0.9 –correcting for this, the expected correlation would be 0.05.) > > 5. The difference between the upper and lower thirds would then be .13, which was approximately what was found. Is this a joke? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/272 "2014-08-21T04:59:19Z")
> [@Meng\_Hu](#): > > And what if you stop playing the trolling braggart ? Is this asking too much ? > > Be a man. Indicate the errors in these blog articles. And I shall deal with the clown you are. I will leave you several days to let you think about those articles. That will be sufficient to an argumented answer. If I get nothing in return, I shall stick with my opinion that you were nothing more than a brainless-big-mouth moron. Personal insults are not permitted in this forum or any forum outside The BBQ Pit. (We even have a stickied thread title that announces that at the top of the forum’s first page.) This is a formal Warning that such behavior is not appropriate, even by a new poster. ---
**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:** [August 21, 2014, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/273 "2014-08-21T12:36:34Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > True. The dispute is over whether they have been reasonably normalized anywhere. I don’t think any non-racist who has given serious study to the history and contemporary effects of racism in the US would contend that the these effects have been reasonably controlled for in any circumstances. > > There are some genes that vary in frequency between different self-identified groupings. But that isn’t what you need to show in order to support the inference that if something has a genetic component then it probably differs across self-identified races. To show that, you need to show what I actually said when I stated your premise, which is that “Self-identified race correlates to clusters of genetic similarity/diversity such that we should expect there to be differences in gene frequencies for genes other than those tied up in the self-identification.” > > If you take an arbitrary number of groups and a huge number of genes, you are going to find differences in frequencies. But that’s a far cry from the relevant showing. > > Yes, obviously. The (sub)question is whether they drive significant differences between humans. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on why a history of ancestral oppression (uniquely) affects a black student from a wealthy and educated family to the point where he cannot perform academically on a par with white or asian students from the lowest socioeconomic tiers. His parents figured it out, but he can’t? The numbers are quite stark, if you want to look them up. This idea that we can’t possibly consider nurturing to have been normalized even when there is a huge advantage in wealth and educational opportunity seems bizarre to me. How would you see this playing out? “Oh Mom; I crapped out on the test again. I just couldn’t remember if 2 + 2 = 4 because I was so obsessed about how other blacks have been oppressed.” And note that this nurturing failure argument must be specific to blacks. It would not apply to oppressed asian histories, for example. The fact that you want to apply a “racist” label to anyone who thinks nurturing can be normalized for learning opportunity is telling. We do find gene frequency differences for all sorts of genes between descendant populations from the out of africa split point. I am not understanding your point there. They aren’t even the same gene pool for ancestral lines, given the introgression of Neandertal and Denisovan archaic pools, unless you go back to a common ancestor half a million years or more prior. But since all genes evolve, the overwhelming likelihood is that nearly every gene is different in some way, even if we have not mapped them all out yet. And what each population genetics study seems to show is that each population has unique genes. For advantageous genes that arose early at the L3/M-n split, evolutionary pressures would drive fairly high penetration into all descendant lines. It’s not like gene research is headed in the direction of homogeneous populations and homogeneous functionality. It is headed in exactly the opposite direction. It requires a far greater hope and faith in extraordinary coincidence to believe that it’s most likely evolution of all these genes post out of africa split (for both intra africa and out of africa lineages) has been egalitarian than that it has been divergent. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/274 "2014-08-21T13:03:32Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on why a history of ancestral oppression (uniquely) affects a black student from a wealthy and educated family to the point where he cannot perform academically on a par with white or asian students from the lowest socioeconomic tiers. His parents figured it out, but he can’t? The numbers are quite stark, if you want to look them up. We’ve addressed your comically simplistic and inaccurate summations – it’s not that “his parents figured it out, but he can’t”, it’s that there are obstacles that make it harder, which skew the statistics downward. Some will overcome these obstacles, some won’t. Richer kids will be more likely to overcome these obstacles, but not all will succeed. This shouldn’t really be hard to understand at all – do you really deny that being black might present some obstacles that white folks might not have to deal with? > [@](#): > > This idea that we can’t possibly consider nurturing to have been normalized even when there is a huge advantage in wealth and educational opportunity seems bizarre to me. How would you see this playing out? “Oh Mom; I crapped out on the test again. I just couldn’t remember if 2 + 2 = 4 because I was so obsessed about how other blacks have been oppressed.” God… I’ve explained this over and over again. Let me try another way: “Oh Mom; I crapped out on the test again. I don’t care – it doesn’t even matter if I try, the teacher just shits on me anyway.” Just as an example. > [@](#): > > And note that this nurturing failure argument must be specific to blacks. It would not apply to oppressed asian histories, for example. Since we’re talking about America, this makes pretty good sense. No group in America, other than Native Americans, has a history of oppression and exploitation in anywhere close to the same ball park as black Americans. > [@](#): > > The fact that you want to apply a “racist” label to anyone who thinks nurturing can be normalized for learning opportunity is telling. No it’s not, since everyone (so far) who has insisted that nurturing has been normalized also makes racist assertions like “Black people have inferior genes for intelligence”. > [@](#): > > It requires a far greater hope and faith in extraordinary coincidence to believe that it’s most likely evolution of all these genes post out of africa split (for both intra africa and out of africa lineages) has been egalitarian than that it has been divergent. Stop with the egalitarian straw-man bullshit. _No one is making this fucking argument except the fantasies inside your fucking head_. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/275 "2014-08-21T13:48:39Z")
Not to pile on, but… > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on why a history of ancestral oppression (uniquely) affects a black student from a wealthy and educated family to the point where he cannot perform academically on a par with white or asian students from the lowest socioeconomic tiers. His parents figured it out, but he can’t? The numbers are quite stark, if you want to look them up. Your prejudice is blinding you to obvious logical flaws in your reasoning. Imagine there are two twin brothers on a beach, and they want to swim out to a buoy. The tide is coming in. They swim next to each other out to the buoy, but only one of the brothers makes it. The other gets too tired from fighting the current and turns around. Can you conclude that there was no tide that day because one of the brothers made it to the buoy? That it must be that they weren’t really twins after all? Of course not. Further, your notion that family wealth and educational opportunity are both (1) the only measures of oppression that might affect educational attainment and (2) have been normalized _anywhere_ in America, is strikingly ignorant. Do you know what the black-white wealth gap _even among high-income families_ is? Do you have any scientific basis whatsoever for hand-waving away the reams of scientific studies on things like stereotype threat? What’s that, no, you just have dickish, uncharitable rhetorical questions about kids being unable to do math because they are thinking about oppression? Oh, that’s right. > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > And note that this nurturing failure argument must be specific to blacks. It would not apply to oppressed asian histories, for example. This is exactly the kind of minimization of White Supremacy that makes people think you are a racist. > [@Chief Pedant](#): > > [S]ince all genes evolve, the overwhelming likelihood is that nearly every gene is different in some way, even if we have not mapped them all out yet. I used to give more weight to your understanding of genetics, but this statement helps me to understand that you don’t really have any idea what you’re talking about. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/276 "2014-08-21T17:49:42Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Speaking of basic math… > Is this a joke? Point out the specific error. No joke. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/277 "2014-08-21T18:24:57Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Well, short answer: everything. First, this was a passing analysis, presented as part of an introduction. The analysis simply showed that individuals with 2 biological self reported Black parents performed worse on aptitude tests than those with 1 biological self reported Black and 1 White parent who performed worse than those with 2 biological self reported white parents. And individuals with 1 Black and 1 mixed or 1 White and 1 Mixed parents fell, more or less, in the expected order. I’m not sure what your _specific_ criticisms are. Obviously, were one to publish a study _like this_, one would conduct a more complete analysis of the data. Here is a published example for reference: Rowe, D. C. (2002). IQ, birth weight, and number of sexual partners in White, African American, and mixed race adolescents. Population and Environment, 23(6), 513-524. The logic is the same. Two older much cited studies are here: Witty, P. A., & Jenkins, M. A. (1936). Intra-race testing and negro intelligence. Journal of Psychology: Interdisciplinary and Applied. Willerman, L., Naylor, A. F., & Myrianthopoulos, N. C. (1974). Intellectual development of children from interracial matings: Performance in infancy and at 4 years. Behavior Genetics, 4(1), 83-90. You will see that the quality of analysis isn’t much different. Maybe you’r not familiar with publishing standards. Usually research papers don’t try to cover all issues; they present results and these are subject to further investigation/replication in other papers. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/278 "2014-08-21T18:47:29Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > Speaking of basic math… > > Is this a joke? Here is what the authors said: “The rough calculation for the estimate of the difference between upper and lower thirds of the black group proceeds as follows. If the resultant difference in standard deviations is 0.9 between the races when the mean difference in degree of Caucasian ancestry is about 0.77 (0.99 – 0.22 = 0.77) then the difference between upper and lower thirds of the black group alone should be about 0.23SD when the difference in Caucasian ancestry is about (0.35 – 0.15) = 0.20. Furthermore,\*\* if three-fourths of that mean difference is due to racial genetic differences alone the smallest expected difference is (0.75 x 0.23) = 0.18\*\*. So, about one-fifth to one-fourth of a SD would be the expected mean difference between upper and lower thirds of the black group.” According to them, a 75% genetic hypothesis would have predicted a upper/lower thirds mean difference of 0.18. They found a difference in g of 0.11. Based on their math, the genetic difference would be (G x 0.23) = 0.11 = 48%), hardly inconsistent with the claim of genetic difference. _But_ they forgot to take into account the reliability of their genetic index, which was low (Reed, 1997; Jensen, 1981). Thus there results were actually consistent with a maximal genetic hypothesis! As I said: pity that the sample sizes were so low. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/279 "2014-08-21T19:13:43Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Imagine there are two twin brothers on a beach, and they want to swim out to a buoy. The tide is coming in. They swim next to each other out to the buoy, but only one of the brothers makes it. The other gets too tired from fighting the current and turns around. Can you conclude that there was no tide that day because one of the brothers made it to the buoy? That it must be that they weren’t really twins after all? Of course not. > > Further, your notion that family wealth and educational opportunity are both (1) the only measures of oppression that might affect educational attainment and (2) have been normalized _anywhere_ in America, is strikingly ignorant. Do you know what the black-white wealth gap _even among high-income families_ is? Do you have any scientific basis whatsoever for hand-waving away the reams of scientific studies on things like stereotype threat? What’s that, no, you just have dickish, uncharitable rhetorical questions about kids being unable to do math because they are thinking about oppression? Oh, that’s right. Could you make some specific prediction regarding what a racial oppression contra a genetic hypothesis would predict? This would be a more fruitful way to proceed. For example, stereotype threat (ST) would predict that racial group differences were measure non-invariant but generally this hasn’t been found to be the case in normative IQ samples. For a discussion of this, see section 2.1 [here](http://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/lee-2009.pdf). So for this and other reasons ST doesn’t seem like a good explanation. This is just an example of how we can identify differential predications and see how the evidence falls. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Economist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c89c15/32.png) [@Evil\_Economist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Economist)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2014, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257/280 "2014-08-21T20:01:11Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > Point out the specific error. No joke. > [@Chuck11](#): > > Thus there results were actually consistent with a maximal genetic hypothesis! As I said: pity that the sample sizes were so low. This quote was sufficient to remind me who you are. You and I have argued before–on this board–probably around the time you joined in 2011. If I remember you correctly, you are the fellow who travels around the internet looking for race/IQ discussions and joining forums to only participate in those discussions. If I remember correctly, you have been banned from other boards before for doing this. And, further, if I remember correctly, your posts consist almost exclusively of copy & pastes from your blog. In fact, the quote of yours that I thought may have been a joke was in fact posted to this board (probably word-for-word identical) back in 2011. I seem to remember trying to explaining the concept of statistical significance to you back then, and you not understanding it then either. So if you want to understand any particular error that you may have made, may I suggest that you start with understanding the concept of statistical significance? Let me give you a hint; if a result is not statistically significant, then you cannot take the direction of that result as being indicative of anything. Because you don’t understand this, everything else you have said is of course also wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-level-is-racialism-accepted-in-the-scientific-community/695257.md?page=15)