# Let's say that one ethnic group is proven stupider than the rest. What are our obligations? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 31, 2010, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075 "2010-01-31T01:39:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![CJJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecc23a/32.png) [@CJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CJJ)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2010, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/41 "2010-02-01T22:52:40Z")
> [@Ruminator](#): > > There are 6 billion people. We inevitably have to resort to thinking of everyone in terms of groups instead of individuals. We have a job position to fill and 500 resumes. There’s not enough time in the world to force our brains to consider 500 individuals as 500 separate measurements. We mentally filter out the 500 into various groups. Saves time. Stereotyping is a fair method to reduce the work in making choices. However, there is always a harm in using a stereotype, and the benefit must be weighed against it. This harm must be considered from the perspective of: [ul] [li]the person applying it (i.e. the likelyhood the stereotype may produce a bad result for me), [/li][li]the person(s) it’s applied to (i.e. how does the stereotype directly harm an individual that is a member of a group), and [/li][li]the detriment to society in general (i.e. would widespread application of the stereotype create undesireable results for societies that have these different groups as members)[/li][/ul] Stereotyping based on race in, say, choosing an employee produces unacceptable harm in all three cases: It can often lead to ehiring a poor employee (assuming, as most data now shows, racial employment preference isn’t based on objective data), it decreases the freedom of employment (and hence the economic status) for a member of the targeted race, and it creates a less productive society (e.g. because folks think the game is rigged for or against them anyway, so why work harder?). But stereotyping based on race when choosing a security line at the airport (like in the recent film _Up in the Air_, where the lead character always made a point of choosing the line with the most Asians because it moves faster) produces very little harm. Note that I didn’t say zero harm, but in proportion to using the same standard to weed out job applicants it’s not even close. If a stereotype must be employed, it should be chosen in a way that minimizes these harms (you can never make them zero). On the employment question, a stereotype based on, say, education credentials would produce less harm than one based on race. At the very least then, it is immoral to use a race-based stereotype when one knows that a substantially less harmful one exists. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2010, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/42 "2010-02-02T07:05:43Z")
> [@athelas](#): > > [Here](http://www.halfsigma.com/2007/11/dtnbp1-gene-and.html), and we’re just scratching the surface. For some reason someone’s political blog doesn’t seem very authoritative or scientific to me. Just for the laugh of it though, the author of it has updated it in the past few days, to whit: > [@](#): > > UPDATE 1/30/2010 > More than two years after I wrote this, this post suddenly appeared on the front page of reddit. > I was just playing around with the HapMap project when I wrote this post. Although I do believe that the ability to accurately predict a person’s IQ based on their genotype will be possible in the not-too-distant future, there aren’t yet enough genes identified in the literature for an armchair geneticist to determine the average racial IQs differences between whites, Asians and Nigerians. > > UPDATE 2/1/2010 > I already admitted I was just over-exuberantly playing around with the HapMap project and I’m now aware that the method was flawed. At the blog Gene Expression, you can read a more detailed explanation of why this specific analysis doesn’t prove much. ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/43 "2010-02-04T00:21:06Z")
To elaborate on Dissonance’s post: [http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2010/02/half-sigmas-flawed-post-on-dtnbp1.php](http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2010/02/half-sigmas-flawed-post-on-dtnbp1.php) > [@](#): > > # You cannot simply add up SNPs from the same gene or chromosome. Half Sigma simply adds the observed effects of the SNPs to one another, ignoring that the alleles are highly correlated with one another, and not independently inherited, which is referred to as linkage disequilibrium (LD). The study that Half Sigma used provides the following table of LD for its SNPs: > > ``` > rs2619539 rs3213207 rs1011313 rs2619528 rs760761 rs2619522 rs2619538 > > ``` > > rs2619539 - 0.156 0.111 0.0 0.0 0.001 0.055 > rs3213207 1.0 - 0.014 0.334 0.403 0.34 0.076 > rs1011313 0.916 1.0 - 0.037 0.033 0.036 0.081 > rs2619528 0.024 0.955 1.0 - 0.838 0.737 0.128 > rs760761 0.015 1 1.0 0.96 - 0.854 0.166 > rs2619522 0.04 0.955 1.0 0.867 0.96 - 0.182 > rs2619538 0.242 0.823 0.825 0.648 0.772 0.778 - > > As can be seen in this table, pairwise LD goes as high as 1.0, meaning that two of the alleles are always inherited together. Adding these SNP’s together is therefore like counting them twice. > > # Group comparisons require replication in both groups. Because different populations have systematic genetic and environmental differences, an effect in one group may not occur in another. The study that Half Sigma uses relies primarily on a (small) sample of Dutch people. It is unclear whether these effects would exist in a population of African ancestry, let alone another European one. > > # Candidate-gene association studies are not reliable. This is the most important point. Candidate gene association studies have largely failed to replicate. In fact, there have been no common IQ polymorphisms which have been replicated. Genome-wide association studies, which don’t suffer as severely the various biases of candidate-gene association studies like publication bias or the winner’s curse have not shown common SNP-associations with IQ. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/44 "2010-02-04T00:25:30Z")
> [@](#): > > It’s undeniable that minorities - blacks especially - suffer serious discrimination Yeah? Kanazawa at London School of Economics found otherwise: > [@](#): > > The analyses of the General Social Survey data from 1974 to 2000 replicate earlier findings from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth that racial disparity in earnings disappears once cognitive ability is controlled for. The results are robust across many alternative specifications, and further show that blacks receive significantly greater returns to their cognitive ability than nonblacks. The trend data show that there was no sign of racial discrimination in the United States as early as 1970s. > > The analyses call into question the necessity of and justification for preferential treatment of ethnic minorities. > **[MDE2005.pdf](https://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/MDE2005.pdf)** > > 119.55 KB ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/45 "2010-02-04T01:47:17Z")
Who needs a formal test? Wait for the apocalypse and see which communities continue to hunt, fish and live off edible plants. Anyone who can’t pass that fundamental test doesn’t need to be put on an ice floe or fed to the wolves – they will literally die from ignorance or be spared by the kindness of smarter communities. ---
**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:** [February 4, 2010, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/46 "2010-02-04T02:25:53Z")
> [@kevlaw](#): > > It will take a strong leader - probably a black one - to make the case that equality of opportunity is a more realistic goal than equality of outcome. It would also be fairer - and more effective - to focus affirmative action efforts on equal opportunities for poor kids rather than kids from an ethnic minority. > > It’s undeniable that minorities - blacks especially - suffer serious discrimination but I think that everyone would be better served by dropping quotas and focusing instead on making sure that academic success depends on your ability rather than your parent’s bank balance or the colour of your skin. Unfortunately, the practical effect of this would be to greatly diminish the already small pool of black matriculants. The only way to attain even a partially diverse group in secondary education is to heavily skew selection criteria toward race and not opportunity. Only race-based quotas will achieve racial diversity and secondary schools do not have the luxury of taking poor whites over wealthy blacks simply because the opportunity of poor whites was diminished. We need to maintain race-based quotas (or some mechanism that allows consideration of race), or secondary schools will be full of high-scoring whites and asians. Non-black ethnicities with low-opportunity backgrounds still outscore blacks with higher-opportunity backgrounds. To date no schooling feeder system of which I am aware has had equal results across its racial groups, even within the exact same system. In Illinois, for instance, you can look at the standardized score profiles for any school and predict which racial/ethnic categories are associated with which scores, even within the same school and the same service neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/47 "2010-02-04T02:42:44Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Yeah? Kanazawa at London School of Economics found otherwise: > [http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/MDE2005.pdf](http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/MDE2005.pdf) No, Kanazawa claimed otherwise. His methodology has been challenged for many of his papers that attempted more than pop psychology and his inclusion of Murray and Herrnstein in his meta-analysis on that topic demonstrates that his efforts are not serious (or that he does not care to vet his sources). He might be right, (by accident), but it seems unlikely and his “analysis” has not done what he has claimed. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/48 "2010-02-04T03:26:05Z")
I’m a libby fool, so if Lemkos or Quechua or Luxembourgers or whoever are proven stupider (for commonly accepted metrics of stupidity), I would lobby for special federal and state educational aid to their communities, possibly including remedial instruction in Lemko-Ukrainian or Quechua or Letzebürgisch until they’re ready to keep up with the general school population in English. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/49 "2010-02-04T03:54:47Z")
> [@](#): > > He might be right, (by accident), but it seems unlikely and his “analysis” has not done what he has claimed. Sorry, but that’s not good enough to dismiss a published paper. What specifically do you disagree with? ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2010, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/50 "2010-02-04T04:17:45Z")
Just in terms of Kanazawa using the NLSY data, economist Bryan Caplan did a similar thing more recently in reviewing Tim Harford’s ‘The Logic of Life’. > [@](#): > > But is it really true that the market fails to reward blacks for getting more education? Is it even true that the market rewards them less? I tested these claims using one of the world’s best labor data sets, the NLSY. The results directly contradict Tim’s self-fulfilling prophesy story. Blacks actually get a substantially larger return to education than non-blacks! The same goes for experience, though the result is not statistically significant. The real lesson of the data is that if you are young, gifted, and black, you should get a ton of education, because it has an exceptionally large pay-off. > **[The Truth Hurts: What Harford Didn't Say About Statistical Discrimination -...](http://www.econlib.org/archives/2008/02/the_truth_hurts.html)** > > I’m a fan of Tim Harford’s Logic of Life, and I’m a big promoter of the explanatory power of statistical discrimination (see here, here, and here for starters; also check out my lecture notes). So naturally I’m thrilled that Tim’s new book devotes a... ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2010, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/51 "2010-02-06T01:59:05Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Sorry, but that’s not good enough to dismiss a published paper. What specifically do you disagree with? I deny his major. I doubt that he has done anything more than cherrypick a few points to make a claim, basing his claims on such nonsense as the Bell Curve (as he claims, himself). If his input is garbage, I see no reason to open up the 30 gallon trash bag to carry away his output. Note that he is not doing primary research. He is doing meta-analysis on others’ works. I do not deny the potential validity of meta-analysis, but when it is based on nonsense or bias, any good outcome is going to be the result of an error that happened to accidentally correct for the original error. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/52 "2010-02-09T04:52:55Z")
The “No Child Left Behind” bill passed. There is also money for adult education. It is there for the taking. > **[President Obama's quest for a renewed, tougher No Child Left Behind](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/05/AR2010020503727.html)** > > IT'S GOOD news that the Obama administration will seek reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act . Also welcome is its interest in fixing some of the law's failings, such as the fact that states have been able to game the system with low... ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/53 "2010-02-19T05:05:54Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Yeah? Kanazawa at London School of Economics found otherwise: > > [http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/MDE2005.pdf](http://personal.lse.ac.uk/Kanazawa/pdfs/MDE2005.pdf) [Satoshi Kanazawa:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Kanazawa) > [@](#): > > Kanazawa’s theories on race and intelligence are controversial. Kanazawa has argued that Asian cultural traditions and/or character inhibit Asian scientific creativity[11] and that “political correctness” is a bigger threat to American evolutionary psychology than religious fundamentalism.[12] As a result, he has been accused of promoting racist stereotypes.[13] In 2006 Kanazawa published a controversial paper suggesting that poor health of people in some nations is the result, not of poverty, but rather lower IQ.[14] In the British Journal of Health Psychology George T. H. Ellison wrote that the theory is based on flawed assumptions, questionable data, inappropriate analyses and biased interpretations. Ellison wrote that Kanazawa mistook statistical associations for evidence of causality and falsely concluded that populations in sub-Saharan Africa are less healthy because they are unintelligent and not because they are poor.[15] > > * * * > > 1. ^ Health, wealth and IQ in sub-Saharan Africa: Challenges facing the `Savanna Principle’ as an explanation for global inequalities in health British Journal of Health Psychology, Volume 12, Number 2, May 2007 , pp. 191-227(37) ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2010, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/54 "2010-02-19T15:12:59Z")
> [@](#): > > Kanazawa has argued that Asian cultural traditions and/or character inhibit Asian scientific creativity Don’t know about the rest of the paragraph, but having lived in Asia for over half my life, I would definitely be inclined to back this particular assertion. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [February 22, 2010, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075/55 "2010-02-22T05:01:50Z")
> [@](#): > > , basing his claims on such nonsense as the Bell Curve If the Bell Curve was true what would be different? Its findings continue to be backed up. See Philip L Roth’s meta analysis of 6,246,729 corporate, military, and higher education samples confirming a 1.1 SD b - w difference in g. Roth et al. found that the IQ gap between non-Hispanic whites and Hispanics is 10.8 points. Roth et al, 2001 Personnel Psychology, 54, 297-330. Also, I’d recommend the June 2005 issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law which is dedicated to this debate. [http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/](http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/) In terms of the general observations about cognitive ability predicting a range of social outcomes, research keeps backing this up too. Academic performance - see Intelligence and educational achievement Deary et al (2007) [http://www.elsevier.com/authored\_subject\_sections/S05/S05\_357/top/intel.pdf](http://www.elsevier.com/authored_subject_sections/S05/S05_357/top/intel.pdf) Health: [Why do intelligent people live longer? | Nature](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v456/n7219/full/456175a.html) And a number of other outcomes. Gottfredson, L. S. (1997). Why g matters: The complexity of everyday life. Intelligence, 24(1), 79-132. > **[1997whygmatters.pdf](https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997whygmatters.pdf)** > > 3.82 MB [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/lets-say-that-one-ethnic-group-is-proven-stupider-than-the-rest-what-are-our-obligations/527075.md?page=2)