# Chief Pedant, come on down! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 11, 2015, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363 "2015-10-11T22:09:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/281 "2015-10-13T20:56:19Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Check out [the breeding experiment the Russians did](http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/mans-new-best-friend-a-forgotten-russian-experiment-in-fox-domestication/). [Videos here.](http://cbsu.tc.cornell.edu/ccgr/behaviour/Fox_Behavior.htm) > > They didn’t just breed for tame, they also bred the other way, as an experiment. > > Traits are passed on through the code. We don’t know all the secrets, but we do know many things are passed on. It’s that we know for a fact that characteristics, both behavior as well as physical and so forth, are in our genes, that makes the subject so incredibly complex. We just don’t know that much. Yet. > > But everybody knows that some things are in our genes. What does that have to do with your previous statement, “The very idea that traits are passed on by genetics, not culture, not upbringing, but something in the very nature of humankind, in the code, is a real problem.”? ---
**Author:** ![robertliguori](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@robertliguori](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robertliguori)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/282 "2015-10-13T21:05:32Z")
> [@Evil\_Economist](#): > > OK, fair enough. People with none of the 10 genes (group A) have an IQ of XXX and people with at least 1 of the 10 genes (group B) have an IQ of X. > > Now the two populations mix, and we end up with a mixed population with some combination of the genes from group A and group B. What’s the average IQ of the mixed group? Hmm. Let’s assume each gene is a straight 50% up-or-down expression. For a person with parents A and B, they’ll have a 50% chance of expressing the A or the B group, 10 times over. So, 1023/1024 times, the hybrid will express an IQ of X. 1/1024 times, the hybrid will express XXX. So, (1023/1024) + (3/1024). Or, 1.002 Xs expressed IQ for the hybrid group, in the case of a 50% admixture between A and B, functionally indistinguishable from group B by any test social science can muster. Which is my point. I don’t think this toy model with this set of genes is anything close to accurate, but because genes don’t interact addatively or linearly, the above study proved a heck of a lot less than some people thought it did. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/283 "2015-10-13T21:19:49Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > What does that have to do with your previous statement, “The very idea that traits are passed on by genetics, not culture, not upbringing, but something in the very nature of humankind, in the code, is a real problem.”? **MtV** Trolling troll be trolling. If you read through his comments in this thread you’ll notice they don’t make any sense. He’s just messing with you. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/284 "2015-10-13T21:26:21Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > What does that have to do with your previous statement, “The very idea that traits are passed on by genetics, not culture, not upbringing, but something in the very nature of humankind, in the code, is a real problem.”? It’s a huge “problem”, in that we both know that so many things are absolutely a matter of inheritance. Nobody argues about the obvious and well known things. The science involved in the fox breeding is fascinating, because while they were going for one thing, they found all these other traits are connected to the genes that they were selecting for. And being scientific about it, they know it’s absolutely not a matter of upbringing, you can’t make a tame fox into an aggressive one, and you can’t make a mean one gentle. It’s in the genes. We know so little about these foxes, but the lesson is pretty obvious. Natural, or un-natural selection is a real thing. We know this extensively with all kinds of animals. There is no doubt about genetics being a major factor, in intelligence as well as all kinds of other traits. Ancient beliefs, religions and myths about humans are absolutely rooted in these concepts as well. To try and sweep it all aside as racism is to not only throw the baby out with the bathwater, it’s to insist the babies parents don’t matter as well. It’s a real problem because while for every last creature and plant we know genetics is usually the most important factor. But when it comes to people, we want to pretend it has no effect at all, in regards to things that we consider human traits. In essence, humans are excluded from what we know about all other living things. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2015, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/285 "2015-10-13T21:41:16Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > It’s a real problem because while for every last creature and plant we know genetics is usually the most important factor. But when it comes to people, we want to pretend it has no effect at all, in regards to things that we consider human traits. In essence, humans are excluded from what we know about all other living things. Who wants to pretend it has no effect at all? ---
**Author:** ![IDtenT\_Error](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@IDtenT\_Error](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IDtenT_Error)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2015, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/286 "2015-10-13T21:43:06Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I bring this up because I think there’s a lot of people who _actually believe_ that having a black friend (or even a black spouse or black adopted child) means they aren’t and can’t be racist – that racism is “I want to kill/enslave/hurt black people”, and anything short of that is not racist. You forgot to mention being raised by a ‘Mammy’. 😉 ---
**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:** [October 13, 2015, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/287 "2015-10-13T23:38:44Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > That seems like a very silly article. > > It compares a self-selected group of immigrants to native-born populations, it relies heavily on anecdotal data, and it misunderstands basic concepts like regression to the mean to make specious points. Unz is way ahead of your underwhelming reply. > **[Closing the Black-White IQ Gap Debate, Part I](https://www.unz.com/article/closing-the-black-white-iq-gap-debate-part-i/)** > > On Breeders' Equations and Readers' Equivocations > [@](#): > > WHICH MEAN DO WE MEAN? > > One of the biggest problems I had with the commenters were readers who apparently were only exposed to the statistical concept of Regression to the Mean from outside the IQ debate. Perhaps because they do not know exactly how it has been used as an empirical tool in hereditarian arguments, they understood my argument as being as follows: “Black African immigrants to the UK and the US are supposed to have children who have the same average IQ as everyone else in Africa through Regression to the (African) Mean; since they do not, I have just falsified all of hereditarian science since Francis Galton.” This made them immediately think it was an easy task to correct me by simply explaining (repetitively) that “that’s not how regression works,” or “those immigrants are not representative”, and so on, until they beat the poor straw man to its grave. > > My actual argument was a bit less simplistic than that (and my goal was specifically to falsify the hereditarian conclusions on the question of the cognitive potential of blacks globally – it was not to “disprove” the validity of heredity or human population genetics as such; I’m not a “blank slatist”). The problem is not that the black immigrant children were not regressing to the point of equaling their source population mean IQ (that’s also not what hereditarians predict either), but that they were clearly not even moving (or being pulled) towards that extremely low IQ, as hereditarians predict. If the parents only barely survived the UK cognitive environment because they were a highly select group, then any such expected steep regression towards the black or African mean would ensure that their children would absolutely fail to survive in that complex environment, but it appears they do just as well as white children, if not better. Which means that either the regression to the mean principle has suddenly stopped working, or their source population genetic IQ potential average is much higher than what has been estimated by hereditarians; and these “impressive” parents were in fact not far above that average to begin with, which falsifies the models that led to such low genetic estimates. > > The data indicates that the mysterious cognitive gap between blacks and whites in America would persist even if the whites were replaced with black Africans. > [@](#): > > It is very important to remember that my argument does not actually depend on immigrant selection being absent or negative (it is the hereditarian defence that depends on it being absurdly high, just to have any chance of surviving the cruel data). The racial hereditarian case is so weak that even if we grant that these immigrants are highly selected for intelligence, all the way up to something as ridiculous as 2 standard deviations above the African mean (because that’s what you supposedly need to realize that the UK is better than Nigeria and to borrow some air ticket money from family and friends already there), the hereditarian predictions are still even then defied. > > Remember our reason: the African children do not perform anywhere near as badly as the children of much more highly selected black American elites (the 200,000 dollar family income kind – all degree holders from Western universities) relative to white children, when hereditarians predict that they should perform much worse or similarly bad, at best. Their actual performance is so opposite of that prediction that there is now even a discussion of whether some of the African ethnicities in the UK have sometimes beaten the infamously “testocratic” Chinese students themselves on average (see part 2 for more convincing data on that question) when the discussion should really have been on whether they can beat the Irish Travelers who, according to hereditarian estimates, are supposed to have a higher average IQ than the elites of Africa! > > That’s as falsified as a system of models can get, and if you think it is super easy to explain all this away without contradiction or concession, trust me: it is because you do not understand it. Yet. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/288 "2015-10-14T00:04:03Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > Unz is way ahead of your underwhelming reply. > > [Closing the Black-White IQ Gap Debate, Part I, by Chanda Chisala - The Unz Review](http://www.unz.com/article/closing-the-black-white-iq-gap-debate-part-i/) He’s misrepresenting what he wrote in the article in response to the criticism he received. (Carefully read his third and fourth paragraphs.) But even in his revised version he falls short in 1) attacking a strawman, i.e. the notion that the entire measured gap is due to genetics (I should note that he also did this a lot in his original article too, though I forgot to mention it initially) and 2) ignoring that children of immigrants have acculturation advantages over their parents which tend to offset the regression to the mean. ---
**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:** [October 14, 2015, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/289 "2015-10-14T00:12:00Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#): > > He’s misrepresenting what he wrote in the article in response to the criticism he received. (Carefully read his third and fourth paragraphs.) > > But even in his revised version he falls short in 1) attacking a strawman, i.e. the notion that the entire measured gap is due to genetics (I should note that he also did this a lot in his original article too, though I forgot to mention it initially) and 2) ignoring that children of immigrants have acculturation advantages over their parents which tend to offset the regression to the mean. So IOW there are indeed advantages that are not genetic. I think the overall point stands and it has to be noted that the strawman you are talking about came from the infamous Bell Curve book. > [@](#): > > Notice how rightly cautious scientists like Murray and Hernstein are about their claims here. They can not say for sure that intelligence was selected for even at the time in the past when it was extremely challenging for an immigrant to settle in the US. They knew that even then it was merely a plausible proposition (unlike more sure traits like initiative, determination, energy, bravery etc). Contrast this with the new intellectuals who are fully certain that intelligence is obviously being highly selected for today (among immigrants from everywhere), despite the fact that the challenging obstacles that would have made this claim merely plausible have largely dissipated, especially with the growth of the welfare state. > > The bottom line is that all those extra intelligence points being thrown at the black migrants (to explain why their children are so smart) have very little basis in reality. There is probably more evidence for a negative selection than a positive one (generally), as the Bell Curve itself implied. There is certainly no evidence for the extremely high selection estimates from Africa asserted by the new HBD hereditarians. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/290 "2015-10-14T00:21:10Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > So IOW there are indeed advantages that are not genetic. I think the overall point stands and it has to be noted that the strawman you are talking about came from the infamous Bell Curve book. Of course there are advantages that are not genetic. I don’t believe that the Bell Curve book denied this. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/291 "2015-10-14T01:16:41Z")
> [@Idle\_Thoughts](#): > > Or pausing while on a boardwalk with the hot dog halfway up to your mouth, raising your head, eyes bulging, already wondering what the fastest way to the nearest computer terminal is so you can start in with your wasteful dreck…maybe you even drop the hot dog, it totally forgotten in the new, gleeful thoughts of how you NEED to get there in order to defend racism to its last like the racist, idiotic, enormous troll you are! I wonder if Idle Thoughts will remember that he is a moderator, with the power to ban trolls and other such forum lowlifes. \ Nope, I guess not. ---
**Author:** ![dasmoocher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@dasmoocher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dasmoocher)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/292 "2015-10-14T01:21:34Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I hold that people who assert that black people are inherently intellectually inferior do so based on some sort of racial bias or animus rather than based on any actual reasonable evidence, since there’s not any. I don’t see it as different than those who believe Jews are inherently greedier. C’mon now. The Jews wandered in the desert for 40 years because someone dropped a coin in the sand. My cite? The Bible! **dasmoocher** now ducks and runs for cover. Hey it’s all there. And before you reply; check your online sarcasm meter. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/293 "2015-10-14T01:34:43Z")
This is the entirety of this thread: Non-racist: You know, we really are still learning how genes interact with all the non-genetic factors with regards to intelligence. And we don’t really have a good definition of intelligence yet. And we haven’t found any clear way to map genes to social constructs of race. So, we can’t make definitive statements about how genetic factors related to intelligence break down on socially constructed racial lines. Racist: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? Non-racist: Um, I didn’t actually claim any of those things. Racist: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? Non-racist: No, see, I didn’t claim any of those things. You just keep repeating that stuff as if I claimed it. Racist: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? Repeat ad-naseum. Except maybe for **FXMastermind**. I can’t really tell what his position is, since he refused to answer my questions, so I’ll just put his posts off to the side. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/294 "2015-10-14T02:33:55Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > This is the entirety of this thread: > > Non-racist: You know, we really are still learning how genes interact with all the non-genetic factors with regards to intelligence. And we don’t really have a good definition of intelligence yet. And we haven’t found any clear way to map genes to social constructs of race. So, we can’t make definitive statements about how genetic factors related to intelligence break down on socially constructed racial lines. I would add: therefore, when people make statements about racial groups, like blacks are dumber than whites, but they’re better at Jazz, we find those statements racist. When there’s a pernicious history of racist posts, we find the poster racist as well. > [@](#): > > Racist: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? > > Non-racist: Um, I didn’t actually claim any of those things. > > Racist: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? > > Non-racist: No, see, I didn’t claim any of those things. You just keep repeating that stuff as if I claimed it. > > Racist: Why are you claiming that everybody has the exact same traits? Why are you claiming that genes don’t influence intelligence? > > Repeat ad-naseum. Good times. Which is why we’re in the Pit, and we can just call bullshit. > [@](#): > > Except maybe for **FXMastermind**. I can’t really tell what his position is, since he refused to answer my questions, so I’ll just put his posts off to the side. He’s just stirring the pot. Troll, in other words. ---
**Author:** ![jimbuff314](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c57346/32.png) [@jimbuff314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimbuff314)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/295 "2015-10-14T03:01:57Z")
> [@John\_DiFool](#): > > I wonder if Idle Thoughts will remember that he is a moderator, with the power to ban trolls and other such forum lowlifes. > > \ > > Nope, I guess not. This seems to me to be part of the methodology of allowing non-blatant racists to post their stuff and be subjected to mockery and ridicule in order to demonstrate their failings to participants and, more importantly, readers. This is something that I think has been present from the beginning of the board or came about during its early years. The point, aside from what I said above, is that it fosters conversation and discussion in areas such as this if you have people on the other side, so long as they don’t reveal themselves to be too vile. Conversation and discussion is, of course, the lifeblood of message boards, with manageable hot-button issues an extremely important constituent. Thus, as long as trolls, racists, et al don’t get too nasty (and have a relatively thick skin), they are, well, I certainly don’t want to say welcome. Perhaps “needed” is a more accurate term. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/296 "2015-10-14T04:18:27Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > Hey, you racist shithead. I didn’t claim intelligence is “distributed equally” because that’s not even a scientific construct. I love how dumbfucks like you who don’t know anything about the topic at all run around lecturing people. > > I’ve dealt with this IQ claim in numerous threads you racist fuck. I mean seriously, how stupid do you have to be to bring up IQ scores and think that it’s meaningful in this context? IF you don’t even know the obvious arguments against using IQ as a marker for genetics, you are too stupid to be lecturing people on this topic. > > Go fuck yourself you Klan motherfucker. Hope you rot. Your nerd rage is palpable. Point on the doll where the mean old racist sodomized you? ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/297 "2015-10-14T04:43:18Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Your nerd rage is palpable. Point on the doll where the mean old racist sodomized you? You are a racist shithead. Did you get this “comeback” at your last Klan rally? ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/298 "2015-10-14T04:58:18Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > You are a racist shithead. Did you get this “comeback” at your last Klan rally? Reading your posts is like peering into the mind of a foul mouthed retard. Fascinating and scary at the same time. Probably the best argument for eugenics is the slim hope that science, even imperfect, can weed out of humanity that which plagues you. In your language “fuck dim IQ racist racist racist slobber.” I ought to make a Brightnshiny post generator. A database of 20 words and an RNG shouldn’t be hard to cobble together. You don’t even know the words you use. That’s the sad thing. ---
**Author:** ![BrightNShiny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@BrightNShiny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrightNShiny)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/299 "2015-10-14T05:01:06Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > Reading your posts is like peering into the mind of a foul mouthed retard. Fascinating and scary at the same time. Probably the best argument for eugenics is the slim hope that science, even imperfect, can weed out of humanity that which plagues you. > > In your language “fuck dim IQ racist racist racist slobber.” I ought to make a Brightnshiny post generator. A database of 20 words and an RNG shouldn’t be hard to cobble together. Whatever, you lying, racist sack of crap. It’s pretty clear that you didn’t read the entire thread before you posted. But if a racist like you wants to cry about my posts, so much the better. Evil assholes like you deserved to be called out on your racist bullshit. You are a pig-ignorant, racist asshole who doesn’t know the first thing about genetics. You are a lying, racist piece of shit. And you deserve all the invective that is hurled at you. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [October 14, 2015, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363/300 "2015-10-14T05:36:04Z")
> [@BrightNShiny](#): > > Whatever, you lying, racist sack of crap. It’s pretty clear that you didn’t read the entire thread before you posted. But if a racist like you wants to cry about my posts, so much the better. Evil assholes like you deserved to be called out on your racist bullshit. > > You are a pig-ignorant, racist asshole who doesn’t know the first thing about genetics. You are a lying, racist piece of shit. And you deserve all the invective that is hurled at you. I’m not a Dr. but Midol might help. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chief-pedant-come-on-down/734363.md?page=16)