So in this thread, there’s a lot of talk about whether intelligence differences are genetic, cultural, or due to external influences like racism, poverty, etc…
All that aside, let’s say for the sake of hypothetical argument that there ARE measurable genetic intelligence differences between groups, and a few are noticeably smarter, and a few are noticeably less smart, to the point where taken as a group, the smarter groups are noticeably more socially and financially successful, and the dumber groups are noticeably more impoverished and less socially successful.
What’s to be done about it? I can’t help but think that anything that tried to level the playing field would be seen as both punitive and patronizing by the smart and dumb groups. Kind of a rob from the smart to give to the stupid, if you will.
Do we just let both groups go on their merry ways with the recognition that there are differences, and hope that over time, interbreeding levels things out?
It is pretty strongly indicated that there is at least some genetic (note: I am not talking about racially genetic, just genetic) component to intelligence.
Although obviously not 100%, like tends to be attracted to like, so the “smarter” people tend to pair up, same with “less smart” ones.
I don’t think anyone is about to dispute either (1) or (2). (3) is debatable, but I consider it true. So, if all three are true, we already have groups of people that are factually, provably, smarter than others, with (2)+(3) perpetuating and reinforcing such groups in the future. Unless some techniques are developed to increase human intellect, either in offspring or in the populace itself, but I suspect such techniques will still work better on the “smarter” people.
“Leveling the playing field” will not work unless such a society employs strict forced eugenic-based procreation directed at leveling it genetically (and of course levels the “nurture” side as well). Don’t think that is in the cards.
The only question, then, is whether such groups/genetic variations correlate to “race”. Since “race” is a vague concept anyway, I don’t think that question is important.
It seems to me that the question of whether differences between racial groups are rooted in genetics or not should not influence policy. Smart policy remains the same regardless.
The government should treat members of all races the same. Attempts to artificially “level the playing field” through means like affirmative action and busing are bad ideas. On a practical level, they harm exactly the people they’re intended to help, and everyone else too. On a moral level, they reinforce the idea that it’s vital to even out the racial distribution of every single institution.
Frankly we can survive with institutions that don’t match the racial distribution of the country. If the class of top basketball players happens to be mostly black, then the NBA should be mostly black. No one is harmed by that. And if the class of top mathematicians happens to be almost entirely white and Asian, Ivy League math departments should reflect that. No one is harmed by that either.
I would assume the opposite: that there are diminishing returns to increasing intelligence, so any pharmacological or early childhood intervention we develop (I’d actually really be interested in pharmacological methods) would have stronger effects on the lower half of the distribution.
Anyway, assuming we did identify drugs that could strongly promote cognitive development, I’d reserve them for people with lower (expected) IQs, so that we could pretty much get the vast majority of people up to, say, 95 or higher. I don’t really have much interest in making smart people smarter, but I’d like to narrow the overall variation in IQ and get people to be more similar.
The problem (3) that you cite (assortative mating, i.e. high IQ people dating/marrying other high IQ people) is also a problem that I’d like to see changed, but it’s also a much easier problem to solve than ‘raising the IQ of low-IQ people’, so we can deal with it later.
Judging by history, I expect we’d have “dealt with” it a long time ago by exterminating them. You don’t see many Neanderthals running around, do you? A group that was genuinely less intelligent than other humans would have long since been overrun and destroyed.
Someone did some back of the napkin math about women in Computer Science, but the same would apply to race I think. Any reasonable difference in intelligence would not account for the huge disparity we see today in most fields. Even if (assuming similar variance) the mean “intelligence” for a given race (as fuzzy as that is – intelligence isn’t even one thing) is almost certainly not low enough that it should affect opportunity to such a degree. For it to be that low, I imagine a significant percentage of black/hispanic/<marginalized> people would be functionally incompetent.
So if there was a measurable genetic disparity it may influence our ideal distribution of races, accounting for the natural lower intelligence, but it’s unlikely to affect the fact that such numbers wouldn’t be that low.
(Yes, I realize that slideshow isn’t exactly peer reviewed research, but I think the point is compelling)
Well it depends if there’s an overlap between the groups’ distributions.
In the real world, whatever differences there may be between groups, there’s a huge amount of overlap. So however much some people would instinctively like to generalize, and treat groups differently, there’s not much basis for doing so.
But in a hypothetical where virtually everyone in group A is smarter than virtually everyone in group B…then that’s certainly something society would have to explicitly come to terms with, and certainly not make any attempt to level the playing field (although FTR, I’m against AA in this world too).
Even if there were some divergence in intelligence happening, I strongly suspect that the effect right now is swamped by other factors like improved nutrition in the developing world, and will be swamped in the future by technology: drugs / gene therapy / electronic augmentation / nanotech etc.
While tech like this being used to boost intelligence seems far away now, even if it took centuries it would still be a relative blink of the eye compared with the pace of evolution. This is why it’s pointless talking about future human evolution, at least in a pure biological sense, IMO.
I don’t think so. They did, apparently, contributed a small amount of genetic heritage to people at some point shortly after modern humans expanded out of Africa, but shortly after that they seem to have disappeared.
Well, that slideshow starts by already assuming a fairly ridiculous divide in women’s and men’s math skills, and then shows it doesn’t really matter. Like I said, for the distributions to really be that disparate that it matters in most fields, we’re moving into territory that assumes a significant percentage of whatever minority we’re talking about is outright fundamentally incompetent. As in, “many are probably incapable of living alone” incompetent.
For individuals, genetic differences can be ignored. The spectrum of genes at play make it impossible for this to be meaningful.
At a group level, it’s impossible to define genetic groups beyond very small subsets who just happen to have a very limited ancestry. What group is this guy? What genetic group is President Obama? What about his kids?
Beyond the impossibility of a definition is the practical sensitivity that makes putting genetics in the public sphere unworkable.
What we can do at a practical level is what we already do. We let people self-assign to groups. Might be race; might be religion; might be gender…might be “ethnicity.”
Where those self-assignments create average genetic pool differences because of the history of human evolution and migrations, we can decide informally whether to ignore the average outcome differences from a policy standpoint, or whether to make accommodations. We do not have to explicitly spell out genetic versus nurturing arguments about why the accommodations need to be made, because it doesn’t make any difference; an average outcome is an average outcome. We obviously need to erase any and all opportunity differences as rigorously as we can whether or not average genetic pool differences exist.
We can, for example, make sure we accommodate female firefighters and permit women to have sports categories that do not allow men. We don’t have to spell out that men are better golfers than women because they have different genes rather than that women had lousier golf nurturing.
We can, for example, enjoy the NBA and watch self-identified blacks dominate power sprinting sports without spelling out whether the difference is an average gene pool or average superior nurturing influences.
Where the outcome differences are such that an entire group would otherwise be disenfranchised from very broad participation in society, we can set aside special considerations for that sel-identified group. In academics and the workplace, we call this “race based affirmative action.” It works just fine, in my opinion, and there is no need to call out publicly whether the difference is mother nature, or daddy environment. We are all one species and generally moving in the direction of homogenizing ourselves anyway.
Whatever the policy response would be, it would be very hard to justify sticking with the status quo.
If a minority group is found to harbor disproportionately more “low intelligence” genes, then it would be akin to finding a new learning disability in the general population. There would be a clarion call from educators over the critical need for additional resources to help this subset of students achieve their potential, as we try to do for all special needs students. Members of the minority group would be targeted for special testing and early intervention. There would be a demand for special classrooms, special curricula, and specially trained teachers. People with the “low intelligence genes” would be eligible for job placement assistance. If they are that disadvantaged, maybe they would be automatically eligible for disability.
The criminal justice system would also be upturned, if this group is disproportionately arrested and imprisoned. It’s one thing to suspect this group has received inferior education and nurturing. It’s yet another to know that there is a biological explanation for their criminal propensities.
And it seems to me that even more protections against discrimination would need to be installed, to protect the members of the group that are not handicapped. An intelligent member of this group shouldn’t have to suffer from any stigma, but we all know this would happen. And it wouldn’t matter how many Ivy League degrees he or she accrued. So there would no doubt be more EEOC lawsuits and calls to continue Affirmation Action. I think even people who against such practices would see why they were needed (the same way that people can understand how disabled people suffer unfairly from discrimination, but not able-bodied racial minorities or women).
Racialists think finding genetic-based differences in “racial” intelligence would be a game changer, and they would be right. But I don’t think their laissez-faire fantasy would play out.
The usual claim made about women’s and men’s IQs (not math skills per se) is that the means are the same but women have lower variance. So you’d expect to see fewer very smart women as well as fewer very low-IQ women relative to men. Which would play out in terms of things like, for example, fewer women scientists, but also fewer girls having extreme difficulties with high school. Which (drum roll) is…exactly what we see.
Differences in the means of two normal distributions are magnified as you move away from the mean. (Because of the nature of the normal, it’s not true of all distributions- if you do the math you’ll see this is right). If Group A has a mean IQ of 100 and Group B of 88, then Group A is going to have 2.4 times as many people above 100, 3.6 times as many people above 110, 5.4 times as many people above 118, and 7.7 times as many people above 130.