# From a purely genetic standpoint, how does it make sense that the average IQ of African Ams is 85? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 23, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041 "2013-10-23T17:08:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/361 "2013-11-04T12:44:03Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Blows your mind, don’t it, grasshopper? Honestly, I don’t even know where to start. If you want to claim that race has a basis in biology, then we need genetic criteria. _Self-identification is not a genetic criteria_. Can’t you see the problem with this? > [@](#): > > The reason for your confusion is that you have gotten sucked down the “biological race” path and your entire egalitarian paradigm is constructed upon this mistaken assumption: For two groups with disparate outcomes to have genes as a principal driver for that disparity, they must be otherwise tightly-grouped genetically. Therefore if we can’t define “race” genetically, we can’t suggest differences are genetic. > > It is this pervasive assumption that is badly wrong, and it’s unfortunate that it’s so blithely accepted. Are you done jerking off in my face yet? Oh? Good. I never said that you couldn’t suggest genetic differences. There are real, measured genetic differences between populations. They’re quickly recognizable for the most part and not nearly as large as you would claim, but if you want to debate differences, start there. Present evidence for differences in genetics. Don’t act like “black” means anything at all biologically when all it means to you is “person who self-identifies as black”. > [@](#): > > We know, absolutely and without any scientific debate at all, that the average genetic pool for even self-assigned “race” groups differs. Yes, but at that point, you’re not drawing clear lines whatsoever. Your thought process completely and utterly loses any pathetic semblance of rigor that you may have aspired to. You toss out any chance to account for confounding factors, and you _don’t group by actual genetics_, you group by _societal perception_. That’s not biology, that’s sociology, and you need to understand why this completely shreds any argument you have. It’s like if you set up groups by handedness, and then noticed that left-handed people score, on average, worse on the SAT. _It’s meaningless_. You could draw those lines where you want, because you’re sure as hell not drawing them based on anything biological. > [@](#): > > We know this because we have measured real genes with real penetration frequencies. Yes. We’ve also measured differences between populations. We’ve noticed that essentially no population is monocultural; there are no “pure races”. We’ve seen that humans are extremely similar - whereas a dog or a wolf might have fairly severe genetic variance within the species, we don’t. But you know what? No scientist has extrapolated from “this measured haplotype affects X” to “this unmeasured haplotype probably affects Y (and also, Y has a ton of confounding factors, but oh, never mind, not important)”. You know why? Because it’s _lunacy_. It’s utterly unscientific, drawing conclusions with absolutely no basis in reality. You don’t have the genes. You haven’t controlled for confounding factors. You have _nothing_. > [@](#): > > Therefore there is absolutely nothing extraordinary or confused about assigning an average outcome discrepancy to a putative gene difference as long as the characteristic is known to be linked to genes. So… Where did we prove that intelligence is linked primarily to genes? Oh wait, we didn’t, because the list of non-genetic factors involved is about a mile long, most of them _demonstrated_ to have a very large effect. > [@](#): > > OK, you might say, but is it so ridiculously arbitrary for self-assigned “race”? Well, no; it is not. The reason why is related to the long pattern of migration and evolution in humans that underpins this self assignment in the first place. And you don’t see any problem with more than half of human variance self-identifying as “black”? > [@](#): > > But this notion you have that it’s ridiculous to assign a genetic underpinning when we can’t “define a group biologically” is absolutely incorrect. It has no basis even without the history of human migration and evolution, because even arbitrarily or self-defined defined categories with outcome differences (tall and short, e.g.) might still have that difference because of genes. Well, I’d say it’s ridiculous to apply a genetic underpinning if you can’t do one of the following: a) Account for important confounding variables to the point where you can say “genetics is the only or most reasonable factor involved in this” or b) _Show me the money_. But in your case, the problem with assigning genetic underpinning without biological definition goes a whole step further, because you are taking _sociological groups_ and treating them as though they were biological. You’re clumping a gigantic degree of genetic diversity into one group defined primarily by the “one drop rule” and individual classification within the utterly unscientific victorian races. That’s phenomenally stupid. Now, maybe it wouldn’t be quite so phenomenally stupid if you could provide actual evidence that the _sociological_ self-identification of these people matched up to any _biological_ identifiers to a reasonable degree. But you’d need to actually do that, and so far, you’re a little light on the evidence. [From what I can tell,](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21254216) [data](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/) [is muddled](http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3363573/). And even then, we’d be considerably better off drawing the lines _along those markers_ rather than using sociological terms that lead to misinterpretations. Really, at this point, all you’ve got is weak hypothesis after weak hypothesis, each propping each other up in a pathetically unscientific manner. Oh, and because you’re wondering, the “one drop rule” (which you could have googled pretty easily) is the reason many consider George Zimmerman hispanic and Tiger Woods black. From the wiki: > [@](#): > > The one-drop rule is a historical colloquial term in the United States for the social classification as Negro of individuals with any African ancestry; meaning any person with “one drop of Negro blood” was considered black. The principle of “invisible blackness” was an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status. …Essentially, it doesn’t matter how non-black you are, if you’re black, you’re black. It doesn’t matter what genes, doesn’t matter what parents, doesn’t matter if your skin is a creamy milk chocolate or you’re [this guy](http://static2.fjcdn.com/comments/I+am+the+Niggest+_58eaf8d54d668119935fbe1e3088dfee.png), you’re black. And this does still have a huge effect on both outwards and inwards classification of race. > [@](#): > > You gotta get away from the newspaper columnists and the like and learn about the science. Which is funny, as my primary source is a science writer in two extremely well-sourced videos, drawing primarily from the scientific literature. You probably haven’t watched them, despite the extensive degree to which I’ve linked them here. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/362 "2013-11-04T14:38:26Z")
[QUOTE=brazil84] I’m a little confused by your response. Are you disputing the quotes I found which indicate that retarded people can work? [/quote] Some of them can, yes. I’m confused by your confusion…“supervision” and “work” are not mutually exclusive. Most people are supervised at work, as a matter of fact. Most people are not supervised at home…but the mentally disabled are. [QUOTE=brazil84] Do you dispute that your own quote says explicitly and unconditionally that mentally retarded people can become fairly self sufficient? [/quote] Some can, yes. [QUOTE=brazil84] That’s an important question, but I think it’s a bit off-topic. The claim under discussion, or at least what I thought was under discussion, is that just from simple observation, one can reject the claim that African countries have very low average IQ. If simple observation yields evidence which is consistent with very low average IQ, then the claim fails. If you would like to concede that point and move on to the next question I am willing to do so. [/quote] It’s not at all off-topic. The mere existence of problems is not evidence of very low IQs, _unless they are the sort of problems that a very low average IQ would cause._ Low IQ doesn’t explain corruption, or tribalism, or the effects of colonialism, or the effects of socialism. We can speculate on what a low-IQ society would look like. I’ve done just that, only to have you ignore it, in favor of a poor agriculture/commerce/military = low IQ argument, which is specious at best. Conditions other than low IQ can cause poor agriculture, commerce, and military performance. Further, it’s not remotely clear that low IQ would cause the particular problems faced by African nations, and not _an entirely different set of problems_, such as the need for life-long looking after for a massive chunk of the population, or the inability of many schoolchildren to be educated. > [@brazil84](#): > > Well before I put much credibility in the anecdotal reports of anonymous people online I would like some indication that they can make an objective assessment. Are you sure **your** assessments are objective? In either case, I of course cannot provide any follow-up to others’ posts. > [@brazil84](#): > > Earlier in the thread (Post #10) a cite was provided that their average IQ is 85. Since IQ tests are generally set up to have a standard deviation of 15 and generally exhibit a distribution which is roughly normal in shape, it’s reasonable to assume that the standard deviation for African Americans is roughly 15 and roughly normal in shape. > > With those assumptions, and checking a normal distribution table, gives an approximate figure of 25.5%, which I rounded down to 20% on the assumption that the average IQ and standard deviation figures I used might be a bit off. Is this finding replicated by special-education departments at public schools, I wonder? > [@brazil84](#): > > What’s the minimum percentage to make a trait “typical”? More than half, I suppose. What’s your answer to that question? > [@brazil84](#): > > Which you admit that they very well might be. Very poor agriculture; very poor commerce; etc. It’s possible, but it’s much less persuasive than other explanations. Again, mental disability has observable characteristics of its own. > [@brazil84](#): > > Assuming that’s true, it doesn’t necessarily follow that such people would “perish.” They might lead difficult lives, of course. But that’s a different issue. Not to a man, but certainly they’d perish in great numbers. > [@brazil84](#): > > Well it would depend on the degree of outside involvement. Generally speaking, poverty, people living in miserable conditions, disease, dependance on outside help, widespread illiteracy etc. Like Detroit on steroids. But this could be ameliorated to a large extent by outside involvement. For example if such a society were blessed with natural resources, it might be able to reduce the level of poverty quite a bit. Alright, now what would characterize a society with an average IQ around 100, which was afflicted, in succession, with tribalism, colonialism, and socialism? Because we’ve seen that pattern in non-African nations, and they ended up with the problems you describe (Indochina, for instance). How can we tell what role, if any, a very low average IQ played? ---
**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:** [November 4, 2013, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/363 "2013-11-04T14:54:14Z")
**Budget Player Cadet:** As with many posters here and columnists (video or otherwise) in the field, you want to turn this debate into a debate about how to genetically define a race. That’s not the debate I’m interested in participating in. I’m interested in promoting this argument: The basis for the persistent average black-white gap for performance skillsets is genetic in addition to nurture. You can bluster all you want about defining race biologically, but you are incorrect to suggest that one can only advance a genetic argument for categories themselves genetically bounded. Let’s try to help you with a thought experiment. Imagine a subgroup (let’s call them Pima) who are genetically highly predisposed to gallstones. Anothe group, the Nonpimas, have a very low incidence of gallstones. The town of Choleyville has 50% Pimas in it. Another town, Noncholeyville, has only 5% Pimas and 95% Nonpimas. We allow townspeople from both groups to self-idenitfy with their town. It turns out they do this with surprising accuracy, and then we examine the outcome difference for gallstones. Choleyville’s incidence is remarkably higher, and it’s remarkable higher because of gene pool differences. It is irrelevant whether or not I can create a marker for, or otherwise biologically distinguish an individual Choleyvillian from a Noncholeyvillian. The self-identification results in a different outcome for the groups because the gene pools are different, on average. One can rage at will against lumping Choleyvillians together into a “group,” or even against letting them lump themselves into that group, but in gallstone outcome studies, the reason Choleyvillians as a group have more stones is genetic. If I want to fund cholecystectomies, I will want to direct more funds to Choleyville, even if I wish that both towns had equally distributed genes in their pools. I should not create a social policy that gives cholecystectomy funding by number of people per town. Despite the absence of a tight genetic boundary for Cholevillians, they–as a group–have outcomes related to their overall gene pool. Again; I recommend additional reading, and I suggest you post cites that look at how well biological and evolutionary/migratory factors underpin “race” groups. But in any case, you won’t get rid of the “gene” disparity problem by pursuing the usual pap filled with weasel words about how “race” is not a tightly defined biological construct. It’s not, and it makes no difference that it isn’t. ---
**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:** [November 4, 2013, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/364 "2013-11-04T15:15:34Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Honestly, I don’t even know where to start… > > So… Where did we prove that intelligence is linked primarily to genes? Oh wait, we didn’t, because the list of non-genetic factors involved is about a mile long, most of them _demonstrated_ to have a very large effect. If you don’t mind, would you start with support for the “mile long” assertion? I’ve seen a lot of WAGs but very few studies. Of the studies I have seen, there seems to be a different explanation for every situation and a special case exemption needed just for the black group versus other groupings. And since (as you will see in this and other threads) I agree that measuring “intelligence” between human populations is problematic, let me ask you to substitute the actual term I do use: skillset performance. And further, let’s take two skillsets: power sprinting athletics and standardized test scores for the ACT and SAT. Now I argue that not a single proposed non-genetic explanation for those persistent average SIRE group performance differences has held up to scrutiny. It’s not that nurturing doesn’t influence outcomes; it’s that nurturing along doesn’t explain the stubbornly persistent residual gaps after controlling for nurturing. I argue that nurturing influences such as SES fail to explain the gap. I further argue that the gene pools of the two specific groupings of “black” and “white” have biological underpinnings, and I support this contention by outlining the long history of human migration and evolution, and a specific division point at the exodus of humans from africa 70kya (In mtDNA haplogroup terms, just before the M/N split.) So instead of asking for a “mile-long” list, I have a request: After SES, what are the top two or three things on that list that you find persuasive to explain the black-white gap in SAT scores in the United States, and do you mind giving me a cite that supports it to help me understand the basis for your position? How about the disproportionate black representation in the NBA? How about sprinting sports in international competition? Can you give me the top two or three things from your mile-long nurturing (non-genetic) list that you find particularly persuasive? ---
**Author:** ![Enginerd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bcef8e/32.png) [@Enginerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enginerd)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/365 "2013-11-04T15:41:27Z")
Your thought experiment works because you begin with a defined genetic population (the Pima) and your sociological proxies are positively correlated with that genetic population - Choelyvillians are ten times more likely to be members of the Pima than Noncholeyvillians are. When you try to translate that concept to self-identified race, you’re not starting with a distinct genetic population, and therefore there aren’t correlations between your sociologically grouped populations and any particular genetic population. Your thought experiment doesn’t refute the weaknesses that **Budget Player Cadet** points out in your thinking - it highlights them. ---
**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:** [November 4, 2013, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/366 "2013-11-04T15:42:05Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > …Now, maybe it wouldn’t be quite so phenomenally stupid if you could provide actual evidence that the _sociological_ self-identification of these people matched up to any _biological_ identifiers to a reasonable degree. But you’d need to actually do that, and so far, you’re a little light on the evidence. [From what I can tell,](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21254216) [data](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/) [is muddled](http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3363573/). And even then, we’d be considerably better off drawing the lines _along those markers_ rather than using sociological terms that lead to misinterpretations. Really, at this point, all you’ve got is weak hypothesis after weak hypothesis, each propping each other up in a pathetically unscientific manner. > > Oh, and because you’re wondering, the “one drop rule” (which you could have googled pretty easily) is the reason many consider George Zimmerman hispanic and Tiger Woods black. From the wiki: > > …Essentially, it doesn’t matter how non-black you are, if you’re black, you’re black. It doesn’t matter what genes, doesn’t matter what parents, doesn’t matter if your skin is a creamy milk chocolate or you’re [this guy](http://static2.fjcdn.com/comments/I+am+the+Niggest+_58eaf8d54d668119935fbe1e3088dfee.png), you’re black. And this does still have a huge effect on both outwards and inwards classification of race. On the point of your cites: The first one says this: “…these correlations were due to racial differences in the distribution of both FEV(1) and gene expression…” The second one says this: " Thus, ancient geographic ancestry, which is highly correlated with self-identified race/ethnicity—as opposed to current residence—is the major determinant of genetic structure in the U.S. population." The third one essentially argues (I think) that there are various reasons underpinning self-identification with “race” if you have mixed heritage. I agree with all of this, so maybe we are coming together, huh? I can certainly agree with the third cite that there are various reasons for self-identification, and I can certainly agree with your first two cites (one of which((Tang)) I quoted in my own post above). After we let people self-identify, we find a surprisingly accurate correlation with biologically clustered genes. I should not have been so casual with my pretense not to know the “one drop” rule. I was trying to inject some humor. But as Tang’s (and other) studies show, self-identification of the one-drops–and even the Navin Johnsons–among us is not enough to prevent very consistent clumping of SIRE groups by genetic clusters at the average level. And of course it’s those averages which are so confoundingly consistent in the patterns we observe. The reason for that, again, is our human history of migration and evolutionary changes that penetrate only to descendant populations. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/367 "2013-11-04T15:43:10Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Are you done jerking off in my face yet? All right, that’s enough. BPC, that’s too much for GD. That’s worth a warning and never do it again. ---
**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:** [November 4, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/368 "2013-11-04T16:00:40Z")
> [@Enginerd](#): > > Your thought experiment works because you begin with a defined genetic population (the Pima) and your sociological proxies are positively correlated with that genetic population - Choelyvillians are ten times more likely to be members of the Pima than Noncholeyvillians are. When you try to translate that concept to self-identified race, you’re not starting with a distinct genetic population, and therefore there aren’t correlations between your sociologically grouped populations and any particular genetic population. > > Your thought experiment doesn’t refute the weaknesses that **Budget Player Cadet** points out in your thinking - it highlights them. But you are missing the point because I agree that one can approach “race” as a totally arbitrary classification without a biological boundary. At least, without a sharply-defined boundary. What I am say is that, if we create two arbitrarily-defined groups, it is not the case that outcome differences between the two groups cannot be genetic simply because the categories themselves do not have an over-arching genetically-defined boundary. The whole point is that a biological definition (boundary) around race is one discussion, and a “genetically-based differences for average outcomes” is a different discussion. I am much more interested in the latter because “race” is all jumbled up with language and social sensitivities. If gene pools in two different groups contain different average prevalences for genes, it doesn’t matter whether or not I can otherwise biologically group them in order to support an argument that average outcomes are driven by average differences in the gene pool. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/369 "2013-11-04T16:18:11Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > **Budget Player Cadet:** > > As with many posters here and columnists (video or otherwise) in the field, you want to turn this debate into a debate about how to genetically define a race. That’s not the debate I’m interested in participating in. > > I’m interested in promoting this argument: The basis for the persistent average black-white gap for performance skillsets is genetic in addition to nurture. Right. And first you’d need to clarify what “black” and “white” are. And you have: they’re sociological definitions based on self-selection which correlate decently with certain genetic markers but are not definitive and encompass groups with very extensive interior genetic variance, extremely high variance in essentially every social ideal, in a society still dealing with the aftermath of systemic racism along these very same sociological lines. …We’re not off to a great start. The fact of the matter is that the actual genetic variance _possible_ (did you watch that video I linked multiple times and explained as the basis of my citation? If so, this will sound familiar), even if a skill is _extremely_ heavily linked to genetics, in a standard deviation because of basic transcontinental genetics, is fairly low. But all of this is irrelevant, because we have perfectly adequate societal factors to account for it, and absolutely zero evidence of any such genetic link. As for your thought experiment, [C0nc0rdance addresses this kind of thing as well](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=vVmj8dDx9yY#t=1291). I understand where you’re coming from but it does absolutely nothing to further the argument you made above. ---
**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:** [November 4, 2013, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/370 "2013-11-04T17:34:49Z")
I will watch the video and respond as soon as I get a real internet connection; I should also soon have access to my personal library of articles. My apologies about not being able to do it sooner. In the interim, would you be willing to post the top two or three of the non SES factors related to “the after effects of racism” (or any other factors) that you find persuasive? One of the things that bugs me is the general tendency to dismiss genetic factors where SES is not only normalized but reversed, and then pull out the “racism” card as if that were sufficient to quell the discussion. Which particular explanation do you find persuasive to explain why wealthy black children from highly educated households underscore poverty-stricken whites from households with poorly educated parents? I’ve given you the reason their gene pools might be different, and given you examples proving their gene frequencies are different. It is not up to debate, as far as I know, that there are substantial average differences in the black-white gene pool caused by the division of those groups at the point of africa exit. So it seems to me that anyone arguing against genes when SES–the traditional explanation for decades if not longer–has been dismissed should actually have alternative and specific explanations. If I’m making social policy, at a practical level I have to decide why I should preferentially admit highly SES-advantaged blacks to medical school when their scores are substantially lower than SES-disadvantaged students from other groups. What are the reasons I should advance to defend preferentially admitting them? Why are their scores still so low compared with their SES peers? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/371 "2013-11-04T20:46:51Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > In the interim, would you be willing to post the top two or three of the non SES factors related to “the after effects of racism” (or any other factors) that you find persuasive? Well, there’s the _current_ racism present (see also: threads like this). That’s something. Also, does SES account for which school they go to? Because if not, then [the fact that blacks are overwhelmingly more likely to go to schools in poor neighborhoods](https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/factsheet-erm.aspx) could very well play a role. [That black children raised in white families have better test scores seems to be a bit of a confounding factor to your hypothesis](http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/j/jencks-gap.html). Also, if it was genetic, you certainly wouldn’t expect [this kind of erratic change this fast](http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/PICBWGAP.pdf). That same paper offers a lot of potential explanations worth looking into. [Of course, accounting for SES has also been thrown into question](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612001062). > [@](#): > > One of the things that bugs me is the general tendency to dismiss genetic factors where SES is not only normalized but reversed, and then pull out the “racism” card as if that were sufficient to quell the discussion. Well, without evidence, dismissing genetic factors seems quite rational. There’s no reason to pay the theory any heed without actual evidence. > [@](#): > > If I’m making social policy, at a practical level I have to decide why I should preferentially admit highly SES-advantaged blacks to medical school when their scores are substantially lower than SES-disadvantaged students from other groups. Well, if you’re looking for the support behind affirmative action as it currently exists, then look elsewhere - I think we’re way better off dealing with low-SES students rather than students of particular races. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/372 "2013-11-04T21:04:25Z")
**CP** , still crushing it. > [@Human\_Action](#): > > Again, mental disability has observable characteristics of its own. I would like to suggest the possibility that it is an ethnocentric assumption to call an IQ of 70 a “disability” in and of itself. Certainly it can be a _result_ of a disability; but if the genetic hypothesis is correct, maybe it can also be that the natural properly formed brain of most human genetic populations will have an IQ of that level. This might make no difference if IQ was an all-encompassing measure of brain performance. But no one argues that it is. It is representative of a skill set, as **CP** has been saying. So what if this IQ level among certain populations (with a greater percentage of ancestry that left Africa longer ago) is indicative of a either a malformed or a damaged brain; but among other populations still or recently residing in Africa, is the level of skill in that area that someone with a normal brain will have? I submit that if we measured for Gardner’s multiple intelligences, or had a measure that was both broader and more finetuned, we would discover a number of misfiring mental mechanisms in the former group not found in the latter. Another way of framing this is in regards to special education (as I have mentioned, my wife teaches special ed to children in the lower grades). In children who are intellectually disabled, the new term for mentally retarded, there is sometimes an effort to describe them as being at a \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ level age equivalent. But what my wife has noticed is that this is a very crude metric that is not very useful. A seven-year-old that is described as being at a three year old age equivalent does not act or learn like a normal, healthy three year old. There are likely to be some areas where they are more mature acting; but there are also a number of ways they may be more chaotically mentally disturbed then a normal three-year-old–from their sense of balance, to violent tendencies, to tics and repetitive motions, etc. Point being, I can easily imagine that a putative continent populated by humans who have an average IQ of 70–but whose brains were made by a long history of evolution to have that IQ, and who may have other types of intelligence not measured by IQ–doing much better than some experimental colony where we dropped off a group of Americans with Northern European ancestry who measure at this IQ level and are much more likely to have some kind of brain injury or chromosomal defect. To expand upon this hypothesis, consider some other traits that it is relatively uncontroversially believed that people of Northern European ancestry (including the people who conquered and colonised and dominated and still mostly dominate the administration of the U.S.) have. –They are better adapted than most ethnic groups to living in northern climes, including the ability to synthesise vitamin D without a great deal of sunlight. As a result, they established the majority of the industrial and manufacturing economic base of the country in its north (this has shifted, but only really since the advent of air-conditioning), leaving the African-Americans who came north for jobs in the Great Migration to suffer from lack of vitamin D and being miserable in cold weather. –They have the ability to digest lactose easily on into adulthood, something that is rare outside of their ethnic group. But since they have been for so long the dominant culture of the US, they treat consumption of milk as a given, and describe anyone without that special adaptation as being “lactose intolerant”, as though it were some sort of birth defect. And they continue to push a dominant paradigm within the medical and education systems of it being highly necessary–for children and adult women especially–to drink lots of milk. –And I submit that they also have developed higher than ordinary levels of ability in the intellectual skill set **CP** refers to. Again, due to being the dominant group and seeing things in an ethnocentric way, they have developed the notion that intellectual ability in this skill set is equivalent to general intelligence–and beyond that, to general merit as a human being. They have structured their educational, governmental, and economic institutions around this skill set, and designed their standardised tests to measure it. > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > We’ve noticed that essentially no population is monocultural; there are no “pure races”. Straw man. **CP** has repeatedly demonstrated (as, I would like to think, I have done also) why this is both true and irrelevant to the debate. > [@](#): > > Where did we prove that intelligence is linked primarily to genes? Oh wait, we didn’t, because the list of non-genetic factors involved is about a mile long, most of them _demonstrated_ to have a very large effect. Still missing the point here. Have you read about the Native American/Indian tribe that had the US and Mexican border cut it roughly in half? Those on the US side were more assimilated into the dominant culture. As a result, they have incredibly high levels of obesity, alcoholism, and Type II diabetes. On the Mexican side, they live much more closely to the way their forebears dead, and they are much thinner and healthier. I have no doubt that there are people in the “nurture only” crowd who see this as a slamdunk for their position. But I would call that a great misreading of the data. For the population on the US side of the border does not just have worse health outcomes them their brethren on the Mexican side, but also much worse than the average American. It is fairly well established that humans in general evolved to a different kind of diet and are not well evolutionarily adapted to the modern industrialised nation diet and to its abundance of cheap calories. But I think these native peoples, who have been exposed to Western food for a much shorter period of time, are even less well adapted. So while it is certainly changes in their environment that are the proximate cause of their misfortune, it is a genetic lack of adaptability to that diet which is the differential factor given that they do live on the side of the border they do. What we call races or ethnicities are really just extended families, as Pinker points out (with the catchall “black” being the most flawed example, as it contains many ethnicities within it that are invisible to the dominant culture). And we know that within modern industrialised western society, obesity runs in families–even when we factor in “nurture” elements by studying adopted twins and so on. But your objection about IQ–that there is a long list of nongenetic factors–would be no different from my saying that fundamentally, people cannot become obese, no matter what their genetics, if they do not have access to enough calories to create that fat. In both cases, we are saying that if we hold the environmental factors constant, there will be a difference in outcomes that can be attributed to genetic differences. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/373 "2013-11-04T21:13:37Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > **CP** , still crushing it. Can you explain how? “Because I happen to agree with him” is hardly “crushing it”, which seems to be the criteria with which you are judging. > [@SlackerInc](#): > > Straw man. **CP** has repeatedly demonstrated (as, I would like to think, I have done also) why this is both true and irrelevant to the debate. Again, how so? As **CP** has already stated, his criterion is “self-identified” race. That’s not genetic. Nor does it control for the fact that the African-American population consists of people whose genetic legacy is provably very wide. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/374 "2013-11-04T21:18:46Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I would like to suggest the possibility that it is an ethnocentric assumption to call an IQ of 70 a “disability” in and of itself. Certainly it can be a _result_ of a disability; but if the genetic hypothesis is correct, maybe it can also be that the natural properly formed brain of most human genetic populations will have an IQ of that level. This might make no difference if IQ was an all-encompassing measure of brain performance. But no one argues that it is. It is representative of a skill set, as **CP** has been saying. > > So what if this IQ level among certain populations (with a greater percentage of ancestry that left Africa longer ago) is indicative of a either a malformed or a damaged brain; but among other populations still or recently residing in Africa, is the level of skill in that area that someone with a normal brain will have? I submit that if we measured for Gardner’s multiple intelligences, or had a measure that was both broader and more finetuned, we would discover a number of misfiring mental mechanisms in the former group not found in the latter. > > Another way of framing this is in regards to special education (as I have mentioned, my wife teaches special ed to children in the lower grades). In children who are intellectually disabled, the new term for mentally retarded, there is sometimes an effort to describe them as being at a \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ level age equivalent. But what my wife has noticed is that this is a very crude metric that is not very useful. A seven-year-old that is described as being at a three year old age equivalent does not act or learn like a normal, healthy three year old. There are likely to be some areas where they are more mature acting; but there are also a number of ways they may be more chaotically mentally disturbed then a normal three-year-old–from their sense of balance, to violent tendencies, to tics and repetitive motions, etc. > > Point being, I can easily imagine that a putative continent populated by humans who have an average IQ of 70–but whose brains were made by a long history of evolution to have that IQ, and who may have other types of intelligence not measured by IQ–doing much better than some experimental colony where we dropped off a group of Americans with Northern European ancestry who measure at this IQ level and are much more likely to have some kind of brain injury or chromosomal defect. Any actual evidence for your hypothesis? You’re proposing some rather profound differences between the brains of Africans and non-Africans, surely these differences are detectable. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/375 "2013-11-04T21:19:02Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > [That black children raised in white families have better test scores seems to be a bit of a confounding factor to your hypothesis](http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/j/jencks-gap.html). That would only be a confounding factor if it had been claimed that IQ was due solely and entirely to nurture, and I don’t think that is what is claimed. I read your cite, but I did not see where it claimed that black children raised in white homes had IQ scores indistinguishable from white children with comparable SES. Regards, Shodan ---
**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:** [November 4, 2013, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/376 "2013-11-04T21:19:14Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I would like to suggest the possibility \ All of this is very nice, but there’s no genetic evidence for it. Basically, there’s nothing except for the disparate outcomes themselves to suggest that any groups are genetically inclined to higher or lower intelligence. And considering that the disparate outcomes themselves have had different groups at the top or bottom of various academic, athletic, and crime statistics in different time periods and regions of the world, I see little reason to believe that the statistics _now_ and _here_ are so special. Whatever social factors that put the Irish and Chinese immigrants at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder a hundred and fifty years ago are likely still in effect now, if in different forms and significance. So no, CP is not crushing it. CP believes that outcomes _now_ are special, and just the fact that different groups _might_ have different likelihoods of genes for various characteristics is reason enough to conclude that they do. It’s not, and he’s wrong. ---
**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:** [November 4, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/377 "2013-11-04T21:53:59Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Well, there’s the _current_ racism present (see also: threads like this). That’s something. Also, does SES account for which school they go to? Because if not, then [the fact that blacks are overwhelmingly more likely to go to schools in poor neighborhoods](https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/factsheet-erm.aspx) could very well play a role. [That black children raised in white families have better test scores seems to be a bit of a confounding factor to your hypothesis](http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/j/jencks-gap.html). Also, if it was genetic, you certainly wouldn’t expect [this kind of erratic change this fast](http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/PICBWGAP.pdf). That same paper offers a lot of potential explanations worth looking into. [Of course, accounting for SES has also been thrown into question](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612001062). > > Well, without evidence, dismissing genetic factors seems quite rational. There’s no reason to pay the theory any heed without actual evidence. > > Well, if you’re looking for the support behind affirmative action as it currently exists, then look elsewhere - I think we’re way better off dealing with low-SES students rather than students of particular races. Within any given school, the rank order of average performance will be the same. Run through the scores for states that publish theirs and you’ll see. Asians on top for maths; blacks at the lowest tier. 15 years ago, Jencks and Phillips published their Black-White Test Score Gap book, linked by you above. I have this book, have discussed it in other threads, and have read it and its sources carefully. Here’s my summary of it: In the 15 years since this very optimistic book was published, nothing has improved for test scores. We (the US) have established aggressive programs at primary, secondary and university school levels, predicated upon these earnest and well-meaning theories of why this gap is so stubborn. It is clear the gap is a combination of nurturing and nature, and no one disputes improvement in nurturing with a consequent narrowing of the score gaps in many areas through the (early) 90s. But nothing of substance has happened in 15 years, and it’s remarkable now to read all the optimism in the book about how Real Soon Now we’ll get there. Our school systems, from pre-school through advanced degrees, are extraordinarily sensitive to the problem. We have, in fact, improved pre-adolescent scores only to find that adult scores don’t change for that population of student who got the preadolescent surge. We’ve rooted out “cultural bias” on our standardized exams. We’ve got all sorts of special help programs directed very specifically at the black subgroup. We’ve got data up the wazoo…what we don’t have is any substantive change. At the low end of scores and at the high end of scores, the gap stubbornly remains. It remains here. It remains everywhere. And yet in skillsets other than academic scores, we don’t need special-case pleas to racism. We don’t need to explain why blacks aren’t able to be successful in athletic pursuits, for example. Would you like to persuade us that the average coach/sports fan is somehow more sensitive to the struggles of the black athlete than is the typical school teacher for the struggles of the black student? Do the NBA or NFL somehow have more functional affirmative action farm team systems than do academic institutions for underprivileged blacks? In your construct, there is no need to pay heed to any “genetic explanations” when so many non-genetic ones are readily available. I find those explanations unpersuasive given the futile effort to remedy them, and the stubbornly persistent pattern of outcomes that consistently favor one group for one skillset and a different group for a different skillset a powerful indicator that genes are at work. Unraveling the history of human migrations and understanding better how genes work has only added weight to the genetic evidence. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/378 "2013-11-05T05:29:57Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > We’ve rooted out “cultural bias” on our standardized exams. We’ve got all sorts of special help programs directed very specifically at the black subgroup. We’ve got data up the wazoo…what we don’t have is any substantive change. At the low end of scores and at the high end of scores, the gap stubbornly remains. It remains here. It remains everywhere. And I have complained that it is unfair to teachers and school administrators to act panicky about the persistence of the gap and to blame it on them; but it is also unfair to those students and their families. Might that so-called “soft bigotry of low expectations” actually be kinder? Imagine if mostly white schools were pressured heavily to produce track stars and basketball stars at an equivalent level to black schools. When they failed to do so, people all across the political spectrum and in think tanks everywhere would wring their hands and the federal government would want them to get their speed up or face having their coaches fired or even to have the school dissolved. Getting back to our real world: maybe it would be better to mellow out and design a less intense curriculum that would make these kids feel that they were succeeding instead of being a constant focus of worry and fretful disappointment to everyone. > [@](#): > > I find those explanations unpersuasive given the futile effort to remedy them, and the stubbornly persistent pattern of outcomes that consistently favor one group for one skillset and a different group for a different skillset a powerful indicator that genes are at work. Right. 100 years ago, there was intense, radical, blatant discrimination that prevented most African-Americans from getting Ph.D.'s at elite universities or becoming professional athletes. The Ph.D.'s started to be awarded 80 or 90 years ago. Pro sports leagues held out longer: the NBA for instance did not have a single black player until the 1950s. Yet it didn’t take long before the league was blacker than the American population at large. Why did that historical legacy of racism and discrimination not make it more difficult for that to occur? ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/379 "2013-11-05T07:42:20Z")
It occurs to me to add that while the question of whether there is a genetic elements involved here is an interesting scientific one, for policy purposes it’s really just enough to say that, as CP has pointed out, there is _something_ apparently intractable going on there. And until someone can show consistent results in experimental projects that do not involve cherry picking or self-selecting the most motivated students and parents, but which are applicable to randomly selected swaths of the population, we ought to stop assuming that this group of people can achieve the same test scores as everyone else, and that it is a failure on the part of teachers and school administrators that they have not yet done so. If we can just do that, I would be happy to allow scientists to take their time to tease out what if anything about the problem is genetic. I would caution though that if it is determined not to be genetic, and not lead (I don’t know why I’m the only one who ever brings that factor up), that pointing the finger at black culture is not going to go down easy. What are you going to tell them, to get a new culture? What if, hypothetically, an ethnic groups culture did not value the same things as Northern European origin culture? With that inherently be something we just can’t stand for? In the education policy world, that seems to be the stance as of now. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041/380 "2013-11-05T19:51:46Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Within any given school, the rank order of average performance will be the same. Run through the scores for states that publish theirs and you’ll see. Asians on top for maths; blacks at the lowest tier. On a school-by-school basis? Also, how much of this gap would you attribute to genetics and why? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-a-purely-genetic-standpoint-how-does-it-make-sense-that-the-average-iq-of-african-ams-is-85/672041.md?page=20)