S/He’s a good writer and has been educational.
But I don’t think anybody is making any such claim. The point is not that different populations have identical gene distributions, which they don’t. It’s simply that individual genetic variations don’t always and necessarily add up to outcome variations across populations. Which is why we can’t reliably assume that observed differences at the super-population level are necessarily influenced by genes—although, of course, they might be, and AFAICT nobody’s claiming they can’t be.
There I don’t follow you. Yes, climate systems are chaotic, but AFAICT the basic physical phenomena of adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and the consequent increase in atmospheric trapping of infrared radiation, hence global warming, are not. People shouldn’t need the heavy artillery of chaos theory to understand at least qualitatively why anthropogenic CO2 emissions predictably increase global temperature.
She, and why thank you. 
This is silly.
I am unaware of any group genetically disposed to surviving smallpox.
There is no “racial” component to surviving malaria.
There is no “racial” component to adult lactose tolerance.
There are genetic aspects to lactose tolerance/intolerance and to sickle-cell anemia, but they appear and do not appear in multiple “racial” groups.
OK, I’ll bite. How does “Chaos Theory” explain gene distribution? Or, is that a just a buzz word? Or, does it only apply to human activity with regard to climate change? How does this relate to genetics–please enlighten us (since you brought it up).
No one is saying that a set of a million people will have identical gene distributions in the sense of alleles or SNPs or other types of variation. The fact that they will not is the point of research initiatives like the 1000 Genome Project.
The former, of course. But that does not mean genetics is the reason for the difference.
On a pure genetics level, no, I would expect the differences in any multivariate aptitudes to average out between groups - or, at least, any groups large enough to not be bound to limited environments like islands.
The distributions are different.
Chaos theory, simplified, is that in non linear systems minor changes to initial conditions have highly divergent outcomes. In essence, anything that can effect the non linear system does so in non predictable manners.
With the idea that genetic distribution differences in groups leads to different outcomes, the question is how can different distributions NOT lead to different outcomes if non linear systems are that sensitive to initial parameters? In time as tools progress stronger correlations will be found. Will we ever be able to say gene x which is 3% more common in arbitrary population y is responsible for 0.4% difference for the 0.01% outliers in each group? Doubtful.
In 5-6 more generations this may not even be relevant though.
Yes - the distribution of malaria resistance is geographic, tied to malaria distribution; and that of lactase persistance is tied to cattle domestication. Which means - not racial in the slightest.
Yeah, I get that–the so-called butterfly effect.
So, black people are Stoopid, but they can run fast? Especially, when chased by the cops?
???
I don’t know why you are calling black people as a group Stoopid. That’s rude.
But since you took my comment into far far left field let me explain. In 60-100 years it’s likely, imho, that machine AI will have surpassed human intellect. And debates about which group has a higher percentage of the 0.00001% fast runners will be irrelevant. Btw, this is one reason why I’ve come around to a guaranteed basic income.
Very broadly accurate.
Can you name one person in the whole world who has ever argued different distributions DO NOT lead to different outcomes?
If you can’t then this is a rather obvious strawman.
Again.
And what does any of this have to do with intelligence? The whole rant seems like a massive red herring.
Unless you are seriously suggesting that genetic contributions to intelligence are chaotic. That isn’t what you are suggesting are you?
My apologies. I was thinking of another poster’s sentiments. My bad.
I appreciate your explanation of your thinking.
So? Is there a point to this remark?
You held up lactose intolerance, resistance to malaria, and resistance to smallpox(?!), as examples of (apparently) “racial” differences. However, they are not “racial” in the real world, but geographic. Sickle Cell, for example, has no appearance in several regions of Africa, while it does appear, (if less widely reported), in Europe and Southern Asia where malaria was historically endemic. Acting as though Sickle Cell has a “racial” distribution undermines your argument when your claim is factually inaccurate.
All I’m saying is that different groups have different distributions and different distributions in genes have different distributions of outcomes. Now how those groups are defined is a puzzle I’m not about to attempt.
Got it, you will blindly defend the position of absolute ignorance on the subject such that we can’t make any determinations one way or the other until the end. So be it.
But for the record, you missed the point about variability between groups and you ignored observed stats.
Average age of language learned does not vary you say, then ignore the observed differences in iq tests and educational attainment and standardized test scores that crop up across different population groups.
We have no evidence of average differences in the age at which language is learned between populations, we do for iq, or tests and achievements tied to iq.
If you reject such links, again, don’t be a coward and come out and state openly you don’t think iq tests or sat scores or educational attainment differences are credible evidence of either the individuals aptitude, or the aptitude of populations. But don’t sit there and keep throwing mud and dirt on the topic to make it less clear.
Same thing on sex ratio differences, we don’t notice different ratios of males/females being born across different races/populations, this suggest that this is NOT the kind of thing that is variable in the way other things are.
Taking your golden examples of cross population similarity and using that to attempt to express doubt on the general observations of actual differences we see in the real world is again, an absurd standard.
Good luck with that.
And here again, race is too restrictive a term. The term populations is broad and flexible enough to describe more precise groupings without all the general catch all terms of “race” with is a larger term people gravitate towards.
But populations will do, and the distribution is malaria resistance is tied to certain populations, linked to geographic realities and selection pressures populations in other geographic areas were not.
The key here is that malaria resistance is one of many areas where differential selection pressure can and did produce differential distributions of resistance.
To expand out the example, I’d imagine that more harsh climates and travel and competition would lead to higher death rates and more selection pressure for greater intelligence. The average age of learned language is not something that would necessarily lead to differential reproductive success compared to a general trait like greater intelligence. And the idea that over tens and hundreds of thousands of years of human migration that such pressures remained IDENTICAL and produces zero real variation in average human cognition, is absurd to me. The biological differences need not be great, subtle differences in the brain could produce real differences.
But again, I’m the crazy one here. It’s all equal between different “populations”
Equality must be built into nature because… nature itself is a liberal like the rest of us.
Ok good, then you are on record for genetic differences in aptitude being close to zero and almost all environmental between population groups of modern man.
You expect the differences due to genetics to average out between all populations of mankind, I don’t.
octopus, your last post makes no sense to me whatsoever.
What does this mean? Some different groups certainly have different distributions, eg there are more Mormons on Utah than in Alaska. But many groups do not have different distributions, eg I wouldn’t expect the distribution of Scots Americans and Irish Americans to be significantly different.
I literally have no idea what this means. Do you mean that different distributions in genes results in different distributions of phenotypes? Or do you mean that different distributions in genes result in different distributions of outcomes such as wealth or education? Because the former is almost tautologically true. And the latter is obviously not universally true.
Or maybe you mean something else entirely that I can’t work out.
So you know that Blacks are overrepresented in some position in pro football. But you don’t have any idea how to even attempt to define what a Black person is?
So how the hell do you know that Blacks are overrepresented? If you can’t even define what a Black person is, then how do you know whether any given athlete is Black or not? And if you can’t even tell whether an athlete is Black or not, then how can you know how many Black athletes fill any given position?
Right. You are finally starting to get it. Now if you will just bear with me for a couple more steps
There is no evidence that the age at which language is learned varies between socially defined populations. That is a strong indication that neither genetic nor environmental differences influence the age at which language is learned.
There is unambiguous evidence that performance on IQ or tests varies between socially defined populations. That is a strong indication that either genetic or environmental differences influence the age at which language is learned.
It is indisputable that environmental factors play a major role in performance on IQ tests. The Flynn effect alone bears this out. Populations have seen massive increases in IQ over time, even though the genetic makeup of those populations has remained constant. Since genetics have remained constant in these group and IQ has increased 20 points, we know that environmental factors alone can account for an IQ difference of 20 points in large population groups.
We do not have any evidence at all that genetic factors can account for an IQ difference of 20 points in large population groups. Nobody is disputing that it is theoretically possible, just that there is no evidence to that effect.
So, this is where we get to the null hypothesis. We have two socially defined groups. We know that these groups are disparate in terms of environmental and social factors. We know that environmental and social factors *can *explain a disparity in such groups in terms of IQ tests. We have shaky evidence that these groups are disparate in genetic terms because the two groups are very much intermingled. We have no evidence at all that genetic factors can explain a disparity in such groups in terms of IQ tests.
So, then someone comes up with the hypothesis “Group A performs less well on IQ tests for genetic reasons”.
Question for the class: what is the null hypothesis?
I think at this stage you will be able to answer that question and understand *why *that is the null hypothesis.
It would be nice if you would quit posting this straw man argument. No one is making this claim that you are attributing to others, so your arguments attempting to refute the idea is simply cluttering up the thread.
I would not say you were crazy, but you certainly are a bit monomaniacal arguing against a position no one holds.
As to your claim that race is too “restrictive,” (aside from the fact that nearly all uses of “race” include far more people than any identified population), please note the title of the thread and the text of the OP. The whole thread was based on a comparison of races. The earlier posts noted the error of using “race” and pointed to the more informative identifier of populations. Now, you are ignoring the actual statements of earlier posters to try to claim possession of the word population.
Your glib claim that anyone has argued that “equality must be built into nature” is simply an invention of your own. The point noted has been that for certain traits, we understand neither the genetic underpinnings nor the traits, themselves, sufficiently well to make claims regarding the superiority or inferiority of any group of people in regard to those traits.
OK.
That means that you have posited a difference between two populations. Agreed?
Yet you can not tell us what statistical test you used to determine your confidence that such a difference exists? Do you acknowledge that you have no statistical confidence in such a difference?
Remember what the null hypothesis is, what it means and when it is adopted?
Now you can answer a simple question:
What is the *scientific * position to adopt when a hypothesis proposes a difference between two populations and there no statistical confidence that such a difference exists?
I really do think that you are in the verge of a breakthrough here. If you will just work through my last couple of posts you will see understand that the *scientific *position is that no such difference exists. That doesn’t mean that you can’t *believe *it exists. It just means that such a believe is anithetical to science.