(by CP: )
“1. Human populations sort biologically, and self-sort according to those biological groupings, in such a way that gene pools from SIRE groups cluster differently for different genes. In other words, we are not a homogenous species.”
Let me give you a seminal study, and then give you a chance to elaborate on why my #1 point is false… “We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. Of 3,636 subjects of varying race/ethnicity, only 5 (0.14%) showed genetic cluster membership different from their self-identified race/ethnicity. On the other hand, we detected only modest genetic differentiation between different current geographic locales within each race/ethnicity group. 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. Implications of this genetic structure for case-control association studies are discussed.”
Game one; sure–maybe the Inuit win. But in your thought experiment, the africans would, in very short order, beat the Inuit at basketball. Epstein’s point is that genetic advantages are so substantial that the popular idea frequently promoted (based on Ericsson’s research and perhaps Malcolm Gladwell’s book “Outliers,” which advances the notion) that only practice–even deliberate, optimal practice–is what separates the excellent from the mediocre, is just plain wrong.
I really think it would open your eyes a bit to read just a little more literature on the topic, and I suggest a few dollars invested in “The Sports Gene” might be a good start.
That’s an extremely odd comment for someone referencing Malcolm Gladwell.
I’ll assume that just as you weren’t aware of Rushton promoting the idea that white men have small penises you weren’t familiar with Gladwell 's 10,000 hour rule.
According to Gladwell it takes around 10,000 hours to become an elite level basketball player so it makes little sense to reference him when claiming that “the africans” who’d never played basketball would “in short order” beat the Inuit who’d been playing their whole lives.
I think Rindermann et al found the African average was about 77, while Wicherts found it was about 82. So it’s not that far out from the African-American average.
Also, why would the cause of a gap have to be either purely due to genetic variation or purely due to environmental variation? Tests have similar heritability in both groups. Individuals vary in part due to both factors, so if you aggregate individuals it’s likely both factors contribute to the average group differences.
Note that when privately surveyed, very few researchersconsidered group differences were purely environmental, or purely genetic. A much larger percentage considered both played a role.
People with mild mental retardation are capable of both memory and planning. They may not be very good at it, but they can do it. Being “fairly self sufficient” requires some degree of planning.
Besides which, we are not talking about individuals – we are talking about entire countries. If the average IQ in a country is 70, there will be many many people with IQs above 75.
For a country to have agriculture, for example, does not require that every last person – or even a majority of the people – run a farm.
So I will ask you one last time: What exactly would happen, or not happen, which would cause a country with average IQ under 75 to be “non-functional.”?
I am NOT asking about individuals, I am asking about the entire country.
Please do not evade the question.
Again you are blurring the difference between individuals and groups. Besides which, someone who is “fairly self sufficient” must in fact trade to some extent.
Do you agree that someone who is “fairly self sufficient” is capable of trading to some extent?
Do you agree that in a country with average IQ under 75, there will be many people with IQs above 75?
I don’t deny that your typical black African country is quite dysfunctional compared to the West.
Yes, but you are strawmanning. Nobody is claiming that every last African has an IQ under 75.
Please show me where I made a claim about everyone in a country having an IQ under 75. Please quote me. Failing that, please admit I made no such claim and apologize. Your choice.
Even though they make up roughly 20% of the black American population?
What is your definition of “typical”?
We won’t because if you continue to evade my question and strawman, I will end our discussion.
You are attempting to shift the burden of proof here, since the claim on the table is that one can conclusively determine, just from simple observation, that the average IQ in Africa is not something like 70.
I could attempt to dig up some evidence from actual IQ testing if you like. But if you concede that the evidence from observations does not rule out an average IQ in the mid-70s, then it might not be necessary. 70 versus 75 is not a huge difference.
Nonsense, I have simply scrutinized your vague and conclusory assertions.
But to get the average, (mean or median), down to 70 requires that a either half the population or a super plurality be less intelligent than whatever “70” measures.
In pre-industrial societies, it does require that a super majority be capable of running a farm. Are you suggesting that those people averaged above 70 up until Europeans invaded, bringing industrial farming with them?
I am not sure that there is a point to trying to answer this question since you seem to be extraordinarily intent in simply denying reality. Your claim that a society could function when half of its members required special assistance to survive is absurd.
The ability to pull a number of bills or coins out of a purse and hand over the amount of money requested for an object may be an example of trading “to some extent,” but people who are that low in intelligence do not run cash registers. They certainly do not engage in accounting, budgeting, watching over accounts payable or receivable. You are claiming that a society could function by trying to pretend that there would be an above average helper to support every below average person throughout the entire country and that buying a hamburger is the full extent to which a person needs to go to participate in commerce.
Another straw man- I am not claiming that only practice “separates the excellent from the mediocre”. But you and Epstein (if he makes the same claim) are wrong, too, at least about basketball- genes might play a role, but there’s no chance in hell any group of adults, even the most genetically gifted in the world, with no experience could beat a group of healthy adults of any background with decades of expertise at basketball. Maybe after a year of expert, full-time training, they could compete- and with another 6 months, they would then start to win.
If “opening my eyes” on the topic means making ludicrous claims about basketball, than no thank you. Perhaps you could open your eyes to my actual arguments, instead of making them up.
Since you have proposed a thought experiment, it’s probably not productive to argue about what would actually happen.
But the general idea that genetics can create an enormous advantage over experience and practice is quite sound. The idea that only (deliberate and focused) practice separates experts from the less successful is very unsound.
This latter idea is probably more pervasive than you think, having been most recently popularized by books such as Gladwell’s “Outliers” and Geoff Colvin’s “Talent is Overrated.”
For example, here is Colvin in the October 2013 issue of Golf Magazine. " There’s something meaningful about that (Ericsson’s) number of hours of deliberate practice …No one’s cut from a different cloth…I’m saying you have as much innate golf talent as Tiger Woods…That is, you came into this world with the same inborn ability to play golf that he did…there’s no golf gene…"
In his book about The Sports Gene, Epstein looks at this notion carefully, and uses the NBA as a reference point. He says, for example, that for a “sitting height” of two feet, an african american boy will tend to have legs 2.4 inches longer than a European boy’s. Studies of Olympic athletes are “uniformly consistent” finding that african americans/Canadians/Caribbeans “tend to have longer legs and more narrow pelvic breadth.” NBA measurements show the average white player is taller than the average black player, but has a shorter wingspan (particularly relative to height). A group from Duke and Howard in 2010 reported that black adults have a center of mass 3% higher, which translated to a 1.5% running advantage for blacks and a 1.5% swimming speed advantage for white athletes. The data go on and on and on. I’m just giving a couple random samples.
Most telling, you will almost never see (at least, I have never seen) a study where black-white physiologic measurements are done and there is no difference.
Any lab will tell you, for example, that there are different reference ranges for creatine kinase or testosterone by SIRE group as well as gender. This makes sense, even at the SIRE group level, because even at the SIRE level, our baseline genetic pools are separated by tens of thousands of years of random evolutionary changes with successful adaptations driven into high penetration for descendant groups of that particular variation.
It’s perfectly legitimate to complain that “black” should not be a “race” category because of the vast amount of variation in that category. We don’t see Kalenjin in the NBA (although they are highly represented in marathons). Nor do we see Mbuti in the NBA. But that’s an argument about the use of labels and language.
The genetic argument about population differences says that, if you insist on a SIRE category of “black,” and “white,” then the reason we see more blacks in the NBA is because the gene pool upon which the average self-categorized “black” draws is more likely to contain advantageous genes than does the gene pool upon which the average “white” draws. Normalizing opportunity, or increasing focused practice for the “white” player will not, on average, overcome the genetically-based advantage, and the outcome differences will persist despite attempts to normalize opportunity.
Genes, along with nurture, drive outcomes. Genes vary by population subgroups, including SIRE groups. The evidence that genes account for group outcome differences in the skillset for basketball is very strong.
(And the Inuit, even if they had a long tradition of basketball, would give way to “blacks” once blacks were including in a culture/tradition of basketball. This happened with the Hebrew leagues in the 30s, and it happens in front of your eyes today every time you turn on the television.)
If you want to argue with Gladwell and Colvin, start another thread. In this thread, you should stick to arguing against actual posters.
No, there is no genetic evidence for this claim. There are disparate outcomes, of course, and your hypothesis is a possible explanation. But for now, it’s just a hypothesis, as it will remain until we actually have genetic evidence. It’s reasonable, for such a charged topic with a history of links to violent repression, to demand a high standard of evidence for such claims. You haven’t even come close.
People who are mentally retarded must be supported and cared for by those who are not, or they will perish. By definition, they cannot lead independent and productive lives. A nation in which about half of the population required this care would either suffer an enormous drain on already-strained resources, in which each adult was also supporting another, mentally retarded adult. I already told you what would happen: crops would fail, as the people assigned to plant and harvest them failed to do so. Trade would largely cease, as the people assigned to carry out the various functions of a modern economy failed at them. Armies would disperse, as the people assigned to them, unable to grasp the concepts, wandered away. You could cobble together a stratified nation of productive adults and a massive underclass of the retarded and unemployable, with a low standard of living all around, but again observation would indicate if that was the case or not.
Imagine a nation that was half young children, who didn’t grow up, and you can get the idea.
Some might be, after extensive training. But, you are seizing on the fact that a few mentally retarded adults can be fairly self sufficient and using that as evidence all or even most such people can function in modern commerce. It’s not.
Of course.
What exactly are these disabled Africans doing, if not working at farms, for businesses, or the military? Do African nations have 50% unemployment?
There are many ways a country can be dysfunctional, and many causes of dysfunction. If you claim that this is the cause, you’ll need a lot of supporting evidence.
“An entire continent of them” was hyperbolic; I didn’t mean every individual. I’ve been quite clear that I understand that you’re referring to average IQ, and not peak.
Ok: And they struck you as being sufficiently capable, that a continent where they were the average, would continue to be, well, alive after a few months?
Correct.
Of the nature of, or serving as a type or representative specimen.
Suit yourself.
That claim has been supported, with citations about the nature of mental retardation. The signs of retardation, which have been articulated in this thread, can be observed. Thus, one could conclude through simple observation whether the average resident of an area exhibited the signs of retardation or not. QED.
They are supported by evidence. Your claim, (as best I can make it out), that one could not observe Africans and confidently conclude that they were not, on average, mentally retarded, remains unsupported.
(by CP: )
“The evidence that genes account for group outcome differences in the skillset for basketball is very strong.”
There is excellent evidence for gene frequency differences by SIRE groups in genes underpinning physical abilities that drive outcome success in sports, including basketball. Take ACTN3 X/X variation, thought to arise about 30kya in populations already departed from africa. We don’t find the X/X variation of ACTN3 in “black” populations but we do find it in white and asian populations. Since this variation is associated with a diminished sprinting performance skillset (no Olympic-level sprinters are X/X for ACTN3), it’s an example of how one SIRE group has a different gene frequency in their gene pool than for a gene that drives performance (in this case, the non-X/X version of ACTN3, such as the R version of the gene. Example study to read here.
Of course genes are complex. ACTN3 is certainly not the whole story for a “sprinting gene,” and its ubiquity makes it useless to predict success just because an individual has an R/R variant (although elite success with X/X variants is statistically unlikely). But given that it is a gene associated with skillset outcomes, and that it varies in frequency by SIRE group, your idea that there is “no genetic evidence” of gene-based outcome differences among SIRE populations is unsupported.
It’s not clear to me why you continue to claim “there is no genetic evidence” when none of the literature supports your statement. I think what you mean to say is, “there is no absolute proof.”
Perhaps your and my concept of the term “evidence” is what is at odds here.
That study expresses reservations about any conclusions with respect to african populations because the sample size of black athletes was so small.
Genetic evidence would look something like this: genes X and Y are found in population A in high prevalence, and in population B in low prevalence. This was verified in multiple studies with large and sound sample sizes. Genes X and Y are believed to be associated with athletics/intelligence/etc. because of [reason, such as it regulates some neurochemical or muscle elasticity or something]. The link between gene X and gene Y and the characteristic [intelligence/athleticism/etc] was verified by doing a reverse-survey, and it was found that individuals who score highly on this test of intelligence/athletics/etc. had a much greater likelihood of having genes X and Y then individuals who scored low.
That would be good genetic evidence (a start, anyway). There isn’t any yet. So there isn’t any reason, yet anyway, to believe that the genetic explanation is the best explanation for disparate outcomes in athletics, academics, crime, etc.
ACTN3 is widely studied; there isn’t any debate that I’m aware of about whether or not the prevalence disparity for X/X between african and non-african populations is a correct assessment. Because the X variant arose in groups that had already left africa, and apparently did not arise independently in any of the groups left behind, we pretty much only find X/X ACTN3 in non-african populations. It’s surprisingly well conserved, given that at least one of things X/X does is diminish performance for some types of athletic skillsets. (In simple terms, one might say X/X diminishes speed, or forceful contractions at high velocity, or sprinting, etc. Here, for an early study.
But the point is not about ACTN3 per se. The point is that there are plenty of genes whose frequencies vary by population (including SIRE groups), and whose functions for the variants found in disparate frequencies underpin athletic skillsets.
Therefore a statement that “there is no genetic evidence for group differences in athletic skillset outcomes” would be an incorrect and unsupported assertion. It seems to me you come perilously close to making that assertion. Am I correct in my interpretation of what you are saying when you use the “no genetic evidence” statement?
That’s not my assertion- I know the outcomes are different. The question is then “what is the best explanation for the disparate outcomes?”. The genetic explanation is just one hypothesis out of many- and for now, without clear genetic evidence (which would be similar to that which I described), it remains only a hypothesis.
It’s true that I’m less confident about this assertion as it relates to intelligence versus athletics. There is certainly no genetic evidence in support of the genetic explanation hypothesis for disparate outcomes in academics/test scores/etc. For athletic outcomes, it might be more accurate to say that there is nothing close to conclusive genetic evidence in support of the genetic explanation hypothesis for disparate outcomes in athletics.
You know, the differences between athletes are really not that big.
The average gym will set their treadmills, to, say 8 minute miles. This is a pace normal, healthy, young people can expect to hit with casual training. With intense training, most healthy young people can consistently run a six minute mile. Only a small, tiny subset of people are ever going to be able to run a four minute mile. Top athletes are basically doing the same thing as ordinary well-trained runners, a little bit faster. The method and outcome of their run are going to be basically the same, and really even the time differences are pretty minuscule in the grand scheme of things.
With the IQ spread being posited, the differences are massive. A person with an IQ of 70 is not generally doing the same thing as a person with an IQ of 100. Their brain in functioning in a different way, and causing massively different outcomes on a daily basis. Intellectually, they are not running, they are limping, perhaps not even in the direction of the finish line. They are not capable of reaching many of the outcomes as normally intelligent people.
There is something very big being missed here, though. We are comparing a (hypothetical) society where the average person only scores 70-80, and comparing it to large groups where only a small slice of the left end of the bell curve scores that low. It might be the case that people in the former group with those scores might be perfectly healthy and functional, while that might be less likely to be the case in the latter group.
At the end of the semester of gym class only the guy with the shriveled leg is doing 20 minute miles, you can’t then compare his performance to a group walking down the street at the same pace. They might not be able to run much faster for many different reasons.
That said, I have always been one of those with the opinion that people who took the 70 IQ thing seriously must have never met any Africans.
Also, I get the feeling I am the only person in this thread who has ever had their ass kicked at basketball by Eskimos. I have seen the thought experiment played out actually, to a small degree, not whole teams but individuals, and it is not even close. But that says more about basketball than genetics, because in basketball you use whatever traits you have to your advantage, small and quick can be as good as big and tall. Now, if we were talking about a straightforward vertical leap as opposed to a complex game, we would find a much stronger genetic component.
It’s a bit confounding to see such easily-refuted claims advanced. The complete nonsense about illiteracy, when everyone on earth was illiterate until very recently; any attempt to define Africans as a “race” when they are more genetically varied than anyone else; the “reverse Lake Wobegone” claim that everyone in Africa is below average… These sorts of claims shouldn’t be able to make it out of the claimants’ heads and into text without their patent falsehood causing the writer to pause and reflect.
I would like to emphasize this more recent part of the thread:
Well said, tomndebb. That can hardly be overstated. To take just one example, the vast majority of writing systems were copied/borrowed/stolen from neighbors or carried by conquerors. Are we to believe this thread is full of Sumerian supremacists?
I’ll just tackle this one point, since I realize it’s tough to read all the prior points made in so many threads.
It’s not whether or not africans are a “race.” That’s an argument about a language term.
Genetically, however, (sub-saharan) africans represent human lineages that have evolved in relative separation from group(s) which left africa say, 70kya. The flow of genes in descendant eurasian populations has not come back to africa with anywhere near the penetration that a given gene would flow to directly descendant populations.
As a consequence, there are many gene variants the proportions for which are disparately represented among SIRE groups. You would commonly find MCPH1 haplogroup D variant in a eurasion population line but not in a sub-saharan african population line.
That there is X amount of variation within any given group is of no consequence to a grouping mechanism which divides–in broadest terms–“sub-saharan africans” from “out of africans.” (In mtDNA haplotype groupings, pre-M/N split from post-M/N split). Obviously, the more precisely one can refer to a given subset (haplogroup, e.g.) the more precisely one can refine gene clustering against a category. But for social reasons, humans commonly self-define into Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity categories, and it is entirely correct to say that these self-defined categories have biological correlations which reflect the frequency of a given gene variant, and therefore the likelihood that an individual placing himself within that SIRE group would have a given expression of that gene variant. A common example might be that, if I place myself in a SIRE group of “black” in the US, my chance of being homozygous for the gene variant causing cystic fibrosis is much lower than if self-describe as “white.” As mentioned upthread, it turns out that these sorts of self-descriptions end up accurately reflecting source pools for genes.