# Can the Black-White racial IQ gap in the US be environmentally explained? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 1, 2012, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877 "2012-07-01T04:56:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/1 "2012-07-01T04:56:56Z")
It’s well know that there’s a Black-White racial differences in intelligence and that this difference explains a large portion of the much discussed racial “disparities.” For example, Black psychologist Ronald Fryer recently replicated the findings of Neal and Johnson (1996) and Murray and Herrnstein (1994) in his 2010 article "[Racial Inequality in the 21st Century: The Declining Significance of Discrimination](http://www.nber.org/papers/w16256). What is not well known is the cause of the difference; though, frequently it’s blamed on purported ubiquitous White racism. Given the situation, specifically the moral imputations, we are forced to ask: **Is a complete environmental explanation, consistent with the facts on the ground, possible?** I recently re-outlined the background facts [here](http://unfaircampaign.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/are-disparities-really-due-to-white-racism/) and for the sake of brevity provided an abridged summary: > [@](#): > > In the US, there is a large stubborn Black-White differential in intelligence (section A). This differential, on the individual and population level, explains a large portion of the social outcome difference. Within populations, intelligence is highly heritable. As such, the behavioral genetic default is that this differential also has a high heritability (section N). It could be otherwise, though. As such, facts on the ground need to be explored and environmental explanations need to be evaluated. The facts include: (1) the difference is a true difference in psychometric intelligence (Section B); (2) it largely represents a difference in the general factor (Section C); (3) it has shown great persistence, having decreased little in the last century (Section A1); (4) there is currently regression with age (Section A2); (5) there appears to be a robust biological component to the difference (Section E); (6) the difference shows a Spearman/Jensen Effect (Section D and G); (7) biometric analysis indicates that the gap has a sizable genetic component (Section H); (8) the difference is not caused by environmental influences unique to one or the other populations (Section I); (9) if environmental influences are causing the gap they act fairly uniformly across the population (Section K); (10) the difference is no smaller at the upper SES levels than the lower (section C and K); (11) family influences can not explain the difference, statistically explaining a decreasing amount with age (Section L and M); (12) Mixed race individual perform intermediate to monoracial individuals and this phenomena has been noted for centuries (Section O); (13) the Difference correlates with physical indexes of Caucasian admixture in the Black population (Section P); (14) environmental interventions appear to show little to no lasting effect (Section S and T); (15) causal biological explanations can not explain an appreciable amount of the gap (Section F); (16) causal cultural explanations were discussed (Section D, H, K and M and elsewhere) and it was noted that these seem to be unable to explain the Jensen Effect, the g-loadedness of the gap, the uniformity of the gap across the IQ spectrum, and the inter-individual between race stability at adulthood Can anyone explain the differences environmentally in a way consistent with the data? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/2 "2012-07-01T05:14:44Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > I recently re-outlined the background facts [here](http://unfaircampaign.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/are-disparities-really-due-to-white-racism/) From your cite: > [@](#): > > Within populations, intelligence is highly heritable. What does that mean “within populations” and what is your basis for making that claim? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/3 "2012-07-01T05:33:52Z")
The IQ of populations changes over time far faster than any genetic change can explain; that leaves environmental change. Whatever IQ measures, it doesn’t appear to be all that genetic in origin. And claiming that “within populations, intelligence is highly heritable” is not only highly questionable in itself, as **John Mace** points out it begs the question of what a “population” is. In an argument like this one, it’s probably going to turn out to be “races as defined by 20th century American racists”, despite them not being coherent populations in a genetic sense. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/4 "2012-07-01T05:38:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > > [@Chuck11](#): > > > > I recently re-outlined the background facts [here](http://unfaircampaign.wordpress.com/2012/06/23/are-disparities-really-due-to-white-racism/) > > > > From your cite: > > What does that mean “within populations” and what is your basis for making that claim? The heritability of IQ for both Blacks and Whites in the US is high. I base this on kinship studies. They don’t allow one to directly generalize from within race heritability to between race heritability because most Blacks have Black kin and most Whites have White kin. Now estimates can be made which sidestep the between/within impasse using the [new quantitative method](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21826061). But no studies in the US have been done using this method. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/5 "2012-07-01T05:49:16Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > The IQ of populations changes over time far faster than any genetic change can explain; that leaves environmental change. Whatever IQ measures, it doesn’t appear to be all that genetic in origin. And claiming that “within populations, intelligence is highly heritable” is not only highly questionable in itself, as **John Mace** points out it begs the question of what a “population” is. In an argument like this one, it’s probably going to turn out to be “races as defined by 20th century American racists”, despite them not being coherent populations in a genetic sense. IQ _scores_ do change rather quickly over time. But not the latent variables. It’s been found repeatedly that [measure invariance](http://www.rasch.org/rmt/rmt142d.htm) [does not hold for secular differences](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028960400056X). Basically, that means that score differences, across time, don’t equate with latent factor differences. Apples to Oranges. Within races IQ is highly heritable. That means that the MZ minus DZ twin correlation is high for both Blacks and Whites. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/6 "2012-07-01T05:51:54Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > Within races IQ is highly heritable. Garbage. There are no such thing as “races” genetically speaking. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/7 "2012-07-01T06:00:54Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Garbage. There are no such thing as “races” genetically speaking. I don’t know that that means. Here “race” merely refers to a type of subpopulation. You can determine the heritability of IQ in all sorts of non genetically defined subpopultions. Just look at the kinship correlations. For example, the heritability of IQ is found to be low in “Children” and high “Adults.” At young ages, it’s also found to low in the “poor” and high in the “rich.” No one is arguing that the “poor” and “rich” are genetically defined groups. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/8 "2012-07-01T06:04:34Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > It’s well know(sic) that there’s(sic) a Black(sic)-White(sic) racial differences(sic) in intelligence No, it is not “well know(sic) that there’s a Black(sic)-White(sic) racial difference(sic) in intelligence.” Yes, plenty of people makes themselves look like idiots by claiming that blacks are mentally inferior to whites, but most people would agree that racists who proclaim that “It’s well know(sic) that there’s a Black(sic)-White(sic) racial differences(sic) in intelligence”. However, people with functioning brains, who are competent and not suffering from insecurities regarding people with larger penises and darker skin tones recognize that there is no compelling evidence for such a comparison. Beyond that, the few people who are intelligent enough to function in society enough to live on their own outside their mother’s basement would be a little more articulate(apologies to any white people offended by the use of an adjective usually reserved for black people) would type something like “It’s well **known** that there’s a **black-white** racial **difference** in intelligence” rather than making a mockery of the idea that blacker were dumber but giving support to the theory that blacks had larger penises and equal levels of intelligence. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/9 "2012-07-01T06:05:35Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > The heritability of IQ for both Blacks and Whites in the US is high. I base this on kinship studies. They don’t allow one to directly generalize from within race heritability to between race heritability because most Blacks have Black kin and most Whites have White kin. Now estimates can be made which sidestep the between/within impasse using the [new quantitative method](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21826061). But no studies in the US have been done using this method. Racist bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/10 "2012-07-01T06:18:34Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > No, it is not “well know(sic) that there’s a Black(sic)-White(sic) racial difference(sic) in intelligence.” > > rather than making a mockery of the idea that blacker were dumber but giving support to the theory that blacks had larger penises and equal levels of intelligence. You need to do some more reading. Start with [IO psychology](https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/toward-better-meta-analytic-matrices-how-input-values-can-affect-research-conclusions-in-human-resource-management.pdf). ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/11 "2012-07-01T06:20:32Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Racist bullshit. That hypothesis was already tested. And it failed. Try again. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/12 "2012-07-01T06:27:50Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > That hypothesis was already tested. And it failed. Freudian psychological projection at its finest. No; it’s the fantasies of racists that have failed again and again throughout history, decade after decade. They have always proven to be both factually wrong and utterly evil. So no, I’m not going to go along with your desire to classify “black people” as subhuman so you can have them enslaved or used as experimental animals or tortured to death. ---
**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:** [July 1, 2012, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/13 "2012-07-01T06:28:00Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > I don’t know that that means. Here “race” merely refers to a type of subpopulation. You can determine the heritability of IQ in all sorts of non genetically defined subpopultions. Just look at the kinship correlations. For example, the heritability of IQ is found to be low in “Children” and high “Adults.” At young ages, it’s also found to low in the “poor” and high in the “rich.” No one is arguing that the “poor” and “rich” are genetically defined groups. > [@](#): > > “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” > “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” > > (Through the Looking Glass, Chapter 6) > **[Alice in Wonderland quotes - Alice-in-Wonderland.net](https://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/resources/chapters-script/alice-in-wonderland-quotes/)** > > Famous Alice in Wonderland quotes from the books 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking-Glass and what Alice found there, by Lewis Carroll. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/14 "2012-07-01T06:37:12Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > That hypothesis was already tested. And it failed. No, unlike the hypothesis that your command of the English language could be described as “competent”, it has not. My mother was an English teacher so if you would like some help regarding your inability to properly use the English language, I might be able to help you out by recommending some good sources. Would you like some suggestions or would you find it a bit too humiliating to accept help from someone with a darker skin tone and a larger penis? ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/15 "2012-07-01T06:40:13Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > Uh…no. There is a group of people that self-identifies as “Blacks” or “African-Americans.” These people have families. The kids of these people participate in nationally representative studies. When heritability studies are conducted using all the subjects in these studies, the heritability of IQ is found to be high. When heritabilities are broken down by subpopultions the heritability in the “Black” or “African-American” population is found to be high, though sometimes not as high as in the White population. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/16 "2012-07-01T06:41:54Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > So no, I’m not going to go along with your desire to classify “black people” as subhuman so you can have them enslaved or used as experimental animals or tortured to death. So your explanation for the racial gap in intelligence would be…? ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/17 "2012-07-01T06:47:17Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Would you like some suggestions or would you find it a bit too humiliating to accept help from someone with a darker skin tone and a larger penis? Ibn Warraq, are you a negroid? Will you be my friend? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/18 "2012-07-01T07:09:54Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > . . . The heritability of IQ for both Blacks and Whites in the US is high. . . . But income levels, and education levels, are also highly heritable. If your papa was rich, or well-educated, it’s far more likely that you will be. And wealth and education are highly correlated with IQ test scores. Kids who grow up with lots of books in the house will be “smarter” than kids who grow up without lots of books in the house. The fact that poverty, in the U.S., is also highly correlated to race leads to the fallacy of correlation. “Two things correlated to the same thing may or may not be correlated to each other.” Have IQ studies been conducted among sub-populations normalized for education, family wealth, family health, and other social advantages? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/19 "2012-07-01T07:16:33Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > So your explanation for the racial gap in intelligence would be…? You have yet to demonstrate there is such a group. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/20 "2012-07-01T07:31:49Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > So your explanation for the racial gap in intelligence would be…? That IQ tests don’t test for intelligence; that there probably isn’t a single unitary “intelligence” in the first place, that race is a social construct, everything that **Trinopus** said, and that the kind of “scientists” who produce studies with results that claim racial differences in intelligence have a history of being liars, incompetents, or self-deluded. Or of having their studies distorted by people who are those things, in order to claim differences that don’t exist. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877.md?page=2)