To be clear: I am maintaining that Gladwell is completely wrong.
If you don’t have the right genes, no amount of practice will overcome that. The right genes will let you rapidly overtake an individual with crummier genes for that skillset, even if they have substantially more training invested in it.
I just like how discussions of “elite” groups (by definition small, unrepresentative and tightly selected) are meant to imply things about large populations.
That’s a good point… even if elite NBA players are disproportionately black due to some genetic advantage (and this is far from settled), this says little about any disproportionate athleticism between average black people and average people of another group (like the Inuit).
And if you can’t see, immediately, what is wrong with this proposal - if you feel it reasonable to entertain that this figure means what these researchers would imply it means - then I welcome you to join Brazil84 in the pit.
I don’t think there is any such thing. Use of the term “intelligence” is shorthand for what is essentially a western concept, anyway. What I argue is that different groups have different outcomes for different skillsets because of the substantial contribution that their disparate genes make in addition to the contribution of nurturing. Bodies and minds work differently between individuals, and for groups with long enough separation, average differences among groups appear as the gene pools diverge.
When you have a good postulate for why genes related to how our minds work would be exempt from evolution in groups separated for tens of thousands of years when every other characteristic has evidence of having been altered by evolution, let me know.
And when you find a good reason why children of black parents who are well-educated and relatively wealthy substantially underscore white and asian children from uneducated and poor families on the SAT, let me know.
When you have good data showing no differences among SIRE groups in physiologic functions such as blood levels for testosterone, let me know.
When you find a broad pattern anywhere in the world under any political history, any historical context or any dominant population that is an outstanding example of an exception to the generally observed pattern (patterns such as blacks winning sprinting events in numbers disproportionate to the starting pools for that pursuit), let me know.
When you have a good study showing that gene clustering by SIRE groups does not occur, and that positive selection pressure is not a reasonable postulate for driving the high penetration in a SIRE group to create that clustering, let me know.
It is not necessary to identify an exact geneset to create a reasonable postulate that genes drive outcomes. What is necessary is to normalize for nurturing variables.
The “show me the gene” argument is the refuge for those who want to dodge the obvious. I can’t even show you “the” gene for tallness. But I can assure you that tallness is governed by genes as well as nurture, and that different groups have different average heights because (having reasonably accounted for nurture) their gene pools are different.
ISTM this is proportional to interest. Basketball is wildly popular among white kids, and ubiquitous among black kids. Where the popularity of the sport is more proportional so is the representation, like in baseball, or at the other end of the spectrum, hockey.
I don’t know of anyone who completely disregards the importance of environment on one’s intelligence and development. What I do see is people who are more extreme on the other (“nurture”) side, framing the issue in the way Steven Pinker calls the “standard model” or “blank slate.”
These people in the radical “nurture” camp (and I was raised by two of them, a sociologist and an anthropologist) almost completely discount genetics outside of extreme cases of retardation. They act outraged by the position of Pinker and others in his camp and cast them as radicals when it in fact is (or should be seen as) the moderate position, finding somewhere between a 40% and 60% role for each side: nature and nurture. Instead, we hear hisses and boos and accusations that our position is racist, fascist, right wing, etc.
Tragic, but there’s a distinction to be made between looking at an individual and theorizing that genetics plays a significant role in his or her physical and mental capacities, and looking at an entire society or racial/ethnic group and saying genetics is why they have more or fewer doctors or more or fewer criminals.
Something tells me you aren’t going to convince them.
Can we go back to “Africa has no cities” or “Africans can’t read- Gotcha!”? Or are we going to move on to the next half-thought-out talking point on the list?
Those arguing that we shouldn’t need to find a gene: no. Either you design a test which effectively eliminates all environmental factors, or you find a gene, because otherwise your theory has no grounding in reality. It is all entirely conjecture. And I’m sorry, but conjecture is not good enough, especially given the absolutely ludicrous conclusions many of the “scientific authorities” on your side have offered - “scientific authorities” being researchers often entirely discredited.
Anecdote: I walked right into this one in 1968. Sociology 101, I a college sophomore who had only just heard of the blank slate concept and to whom it hadn’t yet occurred that there were political implications hidden within.
When the young instructor finished his lecture I thought that it gave gave short shrift to genetic influences, so I raised my little smartypants hand and said so. The angry dressing down I got seemed so out of proportion to the innocence and, to me, logical nature of my observation. Made mental note not to challenge the instructors.
It took me another couple of years before I figured out the man must have thought I was a Nazi. (At least he treated me with that level of scorn one would reserve for a stupid and rude person.)
I had the pleasure a couple of years ago when I ran into him downtown one afternoon of reminding him of that day (which of course he didn’t remember) and asking him if he had some time to discuss his ideas about the blank state as it was today.
Again, it’s worth repeating that when polled very few researchersactually think the gap is entirely due to environmental variation. Even fewer think it is solely due to genetic variation. Far more consider it due to both genetic and environmental variation.
Further, heritability is similar across groups. Individual differences are both due to genetic and environmental factors, so if you aggregate those differences it makes sense that part of the difference is due to genetic factors + environmental factors.
Certainly, preliminary genomic studies suggest differences seen across countries have some grounding in evolutionary factors.
Again, that was 25 year old horse puckey as pointed before:
The survey did not include anthropologists or biologists, and few geneticists. Whoever did this survey is playing loose and fast with what an expert in the matter is, as it was in reality a grab bag of diverse fields what they surveyed.
This is using a similar tactic as the survey the global warming deniers did showing that 32000 “experts” do not see that humans are causing the current warming that is being observed:
That’s a good point, they should do the survey again considering those fields. The survey considered the following.
What’s interesting is that these aren’t exactly groups of extremists or quacks - if evidence of a purely environmental explanation was available I’m sure more would have gone with that.
The reason they didn’t is presumably the same reason to date environmental explanations have been inadequate. None of them explain the gaps.
They’re also increasingly untenable in light of genomic research, group differences in brain size etc.
Not good enough, as others pointed in a different thread you are resorting to arguments from ignorance, made worse by the fact that most of the ones in the survey are also mostly ignorant of that the genetic field is doing.
Another thing one should consider is that 25-30 years ago a lot of evidence was found to undermine many of the assumptions of the differences among humans, particular the differences in intelligence. A survey then is more likely to catch the view of the “old guard” when the new one was just coming about. And recently there is even more evidence that environmental explanations enter into the picture with a vengeance.
Actually, the last 25-30 years far more evidence has come in to support the likelihood of a genetic basis for individual and group disparities. For instance, in the 1980’s there was great sceptism about twin/adoption studies following the Cyril Burt controversy.
Since then there have been thousands of twin/adoption studies which suggest genes play a role in individual differences. Even Eric Turkheimer, whose research noted that heritability was particularly low in poor environments (similar to Bates research you mention), has commented that all behavioural traits are heritable.
One of the obvious differences I noted above was brain size which is linked to cognitive abilities. The Australian Aborigines are a classic example, with a larger visual cortex and greater spatial memory.
That’s not to deny environmental factors - but as noted above - group differences persist and even increase as you control for socio-economic background.
