I am equally sure you are about to be lynched, but if you’d like to provide a citation or two that compare violent crime rates in predominantly black nations with other states that are similarly economically situated I would be interested in reading them.
The tables do not break down versus socioeconomic status. I read a report (which I will try to find and post - please be patient I am at work) that compared crime and incarceration rates of poor inner-city African Americans/whites, poor rural African Americans/whites, middle class suburban African Americans/whites, etc… It can be difficult to fully measure the effect of racism when just comparing African Americans to whites even when controlling for poverty as so many more African Americans live in inner city ghettos while the poor whites live in rural areas. Anyway, I will try and re-locate the study I read.
We’re too testosterony.
(Which is, by the way, the San Francisco treat!)
Could you provide a citation that shows current racial bias in testing design or methodology?
No, but (we’ve been through this oh so many times) there is no genetic evidence of such differences between population groups. By “genetic evidence”, I mean “here’s the genes/alleles, here’s their relative frequencies in these different populations, and here’s how the presence of these genes/alleles correlates to criminal activity”. That would be evidence of genetic tendencies of certain groups towards criminal behavior. There is no such evidence.
In hundreds–thousands?–of identified physiologic differences, it’s pretty obvious the genetic pools are different. Measure testerone or creatine phosphokinase in “self-identified” black or white populations, and you have different reference ranges. Unless you think our culture or society somehow affects those physiologic parameters, I suggest each self-identified race/ethnic group has access to a different set of alleles, on average. So my point is simple: one should not rule out, a priori, that physiologic differences can drive behavioral differences among groups. The behavioral differences of men and women are clearly driven by different physiologies, and the behavioral differences within a group of men are also clearly driven by different physiologies. I am not arguing for any particular identified difference–your straw man of “show me the allele tied to violence.” I am arguing that it is unscientific to rule out, a priori, that such differences exist when so many other differences have been shown to exist. The OP suggests that a genetic predisposition is “insane” (in fairness, he qualifies that as “massive”). I suggest discarding genetic differences as a driver is premature, since there are genetic differences and there is no reason to presuppose genetic differences creating different physiology cannot drive different behavioral outcomes.
You’ve never heard of a black Russian?
India: Violent crime rate 3.4; Purchasing Power Parity per capita $3,700.
South Africa: Violent crime rate 32; PPP per capita $11,000.
I do not know what it would be in either country adjusted for PPP of the violent. I do not think the dirt poor in India have anywhere near the violence rate of the dirt poor in South Africa, but I admit this is based on personal experience within each country and not a formal statistic.
In any case, my point was that “black violence” is not unique to the USA or our history. It is prevalent across the world, in every system of justice and every political climate. Here, for example, is a Swedish column stating that “…crime is not simply an economical issue. The report from the Crime Prevention Commission clearly shows that some immigrant groups have a very low crime rate (such as those from East Asia), despite their relatively low incomes. Other groups have much higher crime rates, although they often are better educated than the average Swede.”
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that, as a SIRE group, asians are lowest on the violent crime rate list, and that this pattern is generally repeated across the world. Obviously the more finely you select a subpopulation, the more reasonable a comparison can be made. It’s always a game of averages when comparing large and coarsely-divided populations, but this does not mean that genetics cannot be the driver for some of the differences that are observed, since we know that even at large SIRE group levels, there are in fact average physiologic differences (as, for instance, with laboratory reference ranges).
India Gini Coefficient (income inequality- higher is less equal) = 0.669
South Africa Gini Coefficient = 0.763
For reference, Japan is 0.547 and China 0.550. Here is the US Gini Coefficient mapped with the murder rate. See a trend?
No; I guess I don’t see the trend. Or maybe I don’t see the point.
Are you suggesting that a lower Gini “coefficient” means poor Indians are therefore less predisposed to crime than similarly poor South Africans?
Are you suggesting the crime rate in Sweden is the same for asian immigrants and black immigrants?
Have you got any sort of data that says that it’s being poor that’s the basic culprit? Or is it just one of those supposed factors that’s thrown out there? Any data that says that inequality of income per se is the reason blacks murder one another 10:1 over whites? Can you cite some countries where this ratio is reversed? Is the basic idea that in South Africa black on black murder and rape is because whites have all the money?
I’m not trying to be argumentative…I’m just saying that dismissing a priori the proposal that physiologic differences do exist, and that physiological differences can drive behavior, is unsupported.
I realize the Nurture crowd is going to holler. Well they should. There’s absolutely no question that Nurture drives criminal behavior. In my research it’s equally correct that Nature drives Nurture–i.e. our genes also help drive the kind of cultures and society we are able to build. Neither I nor anyone else should go around trumpeting “case closed” for why the violent crime rate–particularly impulsive violent crime–is so much higher in blacks. However there is no scientific compelling data of which I am aware that says arguing the difference is physiological is “insane.”
I haven’t ruled anything out. I just don’t believe things are a certain way until there’s evidence for it. There’s no genetic evidence that supports the genetic explanation. Until there is, there’s no reason to believe it’s the best explanation for “achievement gaps”.
This thread is about impulsive aggressive behavior gaps, I think, right? Not “achievement.”
Anyway, you might be interested in pursuing some reading on animal behavior and genes. One commonly cited research category involves the domestication of the silver fox, which is a pretty fascinating story of breeding for selective tame genes (or at least, breeding out aggressive genes).
See here and here for a start.
The notion that genes drive impulsively aggressive behavior, far from having “no genetic evidence,” has very strong support in scientific literature.
Excerpt with a couple of putative suggestions for how the genes alter the phenotypic expression…
“In the foxes selected for domestication, the activity of the HPA axis is reduced at all levels (Fig. 4B-E). This includes the total GCs pool, the in vitro GC production by the adrenals, the basal ACTH level in plasma, and the adrenal response to stress.(49,50) The expression of the proopiomelanocortin (POMC) gene, whose protein product includes ACTH and β-endorphin in the pituitary, was also reduced, and the expression of the corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), the releasing factor for ACTH, tended to decrease in the hypothalamus.(51) It is also of importance that the total GCs pool in blood was considerably decreased during pregnancy and lactation in the tame foxes.(52,53) As a consequence, the entire embryonic and early postnatal development of the tame offspring proceeded on the background of lower maternal GCs. With the multifarious effects of GCs on development,(54) the impact of their changes on developmental processes is evident. They are directly associated with the expression of the GC receptor (GCR) gene, whose promoter region has a complex structure. The multiple and tissue-specific promoters provide fine regulation of changes in GCR gene expression in different early environments.(55,56) Most importantly, the GCR gene expression in the hippocampus, a brain structure modulating the regulation of behavior and activity of the HPA axis and in the frontal cortex is higher in the domestic animals.(57) Thus, the effects of selection for tame behavior on the HPA axis are manifest at all levels, from phenotypic parameters to the expression of the CRH, POMC, and the GCR genes.
Domestication also affects the developmental neurotransmitter systems. The role of neurotransmitters in development regulation has been discussed(58) and recently revaluated.(59) The brain serotonin system deserves special attention with reference to domestication. Its contribution to the inhibition of aggressiveness in animals, including foxes, has been recently discussed in Bioessays.(60) The studies of the brain serotonin system showed that the domesticated foxes differed from farm-bred in higher levels of serotonin and its main metabolite 5-hydroxyindol acetic acid in a number of brain structures. Differences in the activities of monoamine oxidase, the principal enzyme in serotonin degradation, and of tryptophan hydroxylase, the key enzyme in serotonin synthesis, were also demonstrated. It was shown that the activity of tryptophan hydroxylase was higher in the tame than in the non-tame foxes. The higher activities of this key enzyme and the higher level of serotonin in the brains of domesticated foxes agree well with the data concerning the inhibitory influence of serotonin on a number of aggressive types of behavior.(49, 60) Thus, it is important to emphasize the role of serotonin in development. Previous(58) and recent(61) publications have shown that serotonin acts as multifarious signal molecules important during development and capable of eliciting a cascade of gene activations.”
I’m aware that aggression in general can have a genetic basis. And it’s very likely that some human aggression has a genetic basis. But there’s no genetic evidence that any ethnic groups have any greater or lesser likelihood towards aggression.
You’re not telling me anything new.
Chief Pedant, I’m not disputing the fact that genetics influence human behavior in lots of ways. But there’s no genetic evidence that any particular population/ethnic groups have any greater or lesser tendencies towards certain behaviors. None. Sure, there could be someday. But there’s not any now. So why should I believe that any “race” is, on average, more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior (or greater/lesser intelligence or whatever)? There’s zero genetic evidence for it.
Well admitting aggression in general can have a genetic basis is a pretty good first step, and I’ll take it.
Aggression does, in general, have a genetic basis.
And so when two comparison groups have such a marked difference in their tendency toward impulsive aggression, I’ll just truck along here in my assumption that it’s very reasonable to attribute the difference to a difference in genes, since aggression in general can have a genetic basis.
If you find some other really good reason for two given groups to have a broad, average difference in aggression, let me know what it is, and how you came to that conclusion.
Isn’t it obvious that genetics direct us towards certain behaviours? I doubt we’d have our levels of literacy if it there was no genetic predisposition towards it.
Considering the incredible myriad ways that aggression can manifest itself, I’d say it’s not even close to clear that “two comparison groups have such a marked difference in their tendency toward impulsive aggression”- unless you describe “impulsive aggression” in an extremely narrow way (like just violent crime).
So I disagree that it’s in any way established fact that any given (racial/ethnic/etc.) groups have a broad, average difference in aggression.
If all aggression could be quantified, and some groups actually did show higher levels of aggression, then we’d be a lot closer to your argument than we actually are. But we’d still have zero genetic evidence, and it would not be logical or reasonable to conclude that this difference in aggression is due to innate genetic tendencies among different races/ethnicities/whatever towards aggression.
Yes (to your first question). But there’s no genetic evidence that indicates that different races/ethnicities have any different genetic tendencies towards any given behaviors.
There are markedly different patterns for aggression among populations. In every nation, every political climate and every history, the same patterns for the same groups appear.
So one person says, “It’s just happenstance, and you cannot properly quantify nurturing to see if it has been normalized across settings. There’s no proof it’s genetically based. It could be nurturing. Show me which allele is doing this, or I’m just going to choose Nurture for my explanation.”
The other person says, “I don’t have a study showing which genes are responsible. I know that these two groups have different prevalences for many genes. I know that there is evidence aggression is genetically driven. I see the same pattern regardless of nurturing environment. I see very specific animal studies showing the contribution of genes to impulsive aggression. I suspect the differences in human groups are also due to genes and not nurture.”
Regardless of which position you take, the genetic explanation side is not “insane” nor should it be dismissed out of hand as if it is “racist” and that’s the end of that.