But repeated refutation over the course of centuries does present the probability. Like I said, and truth it is, at this point, we are long past the point where any assertion of scientific racism must be held to the standard of “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”
You’re divining a kind of teleological purpose from a small, unscientific sample. In Scotland, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian individuals have lower health outcomes generally and life expectancy in particular than whites. Pakistani individuals perform worse than Indians in education outcomes according to “Ethnic Minorities’ Economic Performance” (2001) - is that attributable to genetic difference? In their countries of origin, Indian and Chinese people have lower health and education outcomes.
I find this argument particularly unconvincing. There’s probably more that we don’t know than we do know about why some genes tend to be more common in one place than another, and much of what we think we know is speculative.
This seems like a logical error. If something is more correlated to one factor than to another, that does not imply that it’s not also tied to the second factor.
This seems self-refuting. Because it’s fairly obvious that the height of children is highly correlated to the heights of their parents. (It also seems to be pretty accepted that some populations are taller than others - Dutch are pretty tall IIRC - but this is not my primary point.)
Jeepers, those racist imbeciles still have no idea how science and genetics works.
Please, stop procreating with your parents and siblings.
I’m not sure I agree with the Pakistani/Indian comparison. As above, everyone agrees that there are also other factors that influence education outcomes beyond genetics, and proving that genetics does not account for all the difference between populations is no indication at all that it doesn’t account for part of it.
That said, I agree with the broader point. Immigrants to the US are mostly a self-selected group, and for the most part the Asian immigrants who come here are a particularly ambitious and driven group, and they may have been more intelligent than their compatriots even before they came. You can’t compare them to African-Americans who were brought here as slaves. (OTOH, to the extent that this is true, there may be valid basis for the assumption that some of these immigrant groups in the US are genetically favored, although it would be based on selection rather than ethnicity.)
Heck, I’ll be impressed when a geneticist can do a blind test in which he is given 100 unlabeled human genomes and can say with accuracy which came from Caucasians, Negros, Asians, etc. Until then, or until some genetic markers for intelligence are identified and their prevalence within certain populations is statistically estimated with some confidence, the genetic argument is pure fantasy.
I don’t think it would be extraordinary at all. Either way. Given the array of physical characteristics that align with specific populations, what is so extraordinary that genes might also account for cognitive differences? You just want to deem the position “extraordinary” to serve your own purposes. That way the “racialists” become crackpots. Your game is too obvious though.
Nothing at all, what would be extraordinary is if the alleles for higher intelligence turn out to be distributed exactly equally among all ethnic and racial groups.
It’s known that the alleles for simple traits like blood type are not distributed equally. It’s also known that the alleles for more complex traits like skeleton shape are not distributed equally. Yet the Leftists insist that cognitive ability is special – the very essence of special pleading.
They’re not just here for the hunting, as they say.
Nothing. But “you can’t prove it isn’t true, therefore we should assume it is (or is probably) true until sufficient counterevidence is provided” is not a reasonable stance to take, whereas “you can’t prove it’s true, therefore we should assume it is (or is probably) not true until sufficient evidence is provided” is considerably moreso.
Well consider that every allele has to originate somewhere and there’s no reason to assume there’s been enough time for higher intelligence alleles to make it to every last corner of the globe.
That’s a false dichotomy.
The excluded middle is “you can’t prove it’s true and you can’t prove it isn’t, so it remains uncertain until sufficient evidence is provided”.
The idea that we need to take a definitive stand in the absence of evidence has no logical basis.
Which is why I didn’t phrase it in absolute terms.
But you’ll note that the bulk of the opposition here to those claiming that differences in intelligence among racial groupings in genetic is not (despite brazil84’s strawmanning) “all races are equal” but rather “you have no reliable evidence for that whatsoever”. It’s the ones asserting the genetic basis for differences in particular populations who are taking a definitive stand in the absence of evidence.
Well, honestly, that’s the correct view of the dope, as you’ve already pointed out. This forum is peachily A-OK with racism. And the racists are absolutely desperate to have these conversations, over and over, because they have nothing else. They wouldn’t be allowed to have them other places. But the board steps up and says, “Oh, we’ll give you a platform!” If the board doesn’t want to look like a haven for racists, the board should stop being a haven for racists.
These guys want to have the conversation, again and again. They steer conversations to race. Everything is about race for them, and they can’t talk about it in places where anyone knows them, so they come here and hope they get an opportunity.
I don’t think anything is wrong with the motives of people who argue with them, though.
I’m not sure anyone is claiming that the difference is definitively genetic. Just that it might be, and given the facts offered concerning populations that show specific physical characteristics and tests scores and the like, that that avenue of inquiry should be open, not demonized.
That’s my position, anyway.
Which is a good starting point. The problem comes when it also turns into the finishing point. And since there is actual evidence to show that phenotypes do not correlate to genotypes, to continue to assert that differences between populations defined by phenotype or subculture or geography are genetic when the evidence suggests otherwise tends to indicate that the people asserting it are not interested in “open avenues of enquiry” and actual scientific investigation.
I’ll grant you that the position you set out is intuitive, but what the genes show is counterintuitive.
ISTM that a lot of people on both sides are making pretty absolute claims. And you specifically offered those as the only two options.
ISTM that - unless I’ve misunderstood what you’re saying here - this does not logically follow, as I demonstrated earlier with my example of dogs in different neighborhoods.
FWIW my position is that it’s reasonably certain that the difference is genetic in large part.
Just like it’s reasonably certain that smoking cigarettes cause lung cancer.
Note that I am not saying the difference is all due to genes. Of course, the more effort is put in to equalizing environments, the greater the amount of the difference is due to genes.
FWIW I do not engage with this poster due to his refusal to answer reasonable questions about his position.
That’s nice. We’re all more than happy to afford your position WIW.
I am not an expert but you seem to be confusing the notions of evidence versus proof. Statistical evidence is still evidence, isn’t it?
I can’t PROVE that the IQ is the result of genetic differences between blacks and whites but I do have evidence that there is a heritable IQ gap between the population that defines themselves as black and the population that defines itself as white.
There have been enough peer reviewed studies over time that have controlled for environmental factors (obviously there are some factors that canot be controlled, like stereotype threat and the psychological effects of racism and racist expectations) that you almost have to believe that America is as racist a country today as it was almost a century ago to believe that there isn’t a genetic component to the IQ gap.
How would YOU test it? Or is your position not disprovable until we can identify the IQ gene (which almost certainly doesn’t exist as a discrete gene, which makes you wonder if there is such a thing as g)?
Because you are emphasizing the uncertainty that exists in ALL statistical analysis and saying, well that means we just don’t know enough to be able to say either way. We know enough to say that SOME of the gap is LIKELY caused by heritable factors. The studies your post seems to be dismissing are statistically sound and point to non-environmental factors being a likely factor in the IQ gap.
The main reason is because its an extremely racist statement to make without PROOF or at least a lot more evidence than we currently have.
I don’t know why people make these sort of arguments in your neck of the woods but in the DC beltway, this argument is largely a stalking horse for eliminating affirmative action and absolving ourselves of any historical blame for the socioeconomic differences we see between blacks and whites today. After all if there is a genetic difference in something as fundamental as intelligence between races then we have to wonder if we aren’t already where we would be anyway without the history of slavery, segregation and racism and any further remedial action would be overcorrection.
If the folks I met who argued your point of view weren’t also consistently against affirmative action and didn’t consistently minimize the effects of 3 centuries of slavery and a century of segregation and ongoing racism today, I might feel differently.
Its not that everyone who believes in this genetic difference in IQ is racist, but almost every racist seems to have unshakable faith in this genetic difference in IQ (they also seem to be overwhelmingly conservatives).
We have peer reviewed statistical analysis. You don’t need to be a biologist.
Isn’t it more like someone saying that green parrots lay more eggs and as proof showing a statistical analysis that shows green parrots lay more eggs than red or yellow parrots under similar circumstances even if they aren’t able to identify the gene that would cause the higher rate.
Why is the claim extraordinary?
Anthropologists seem to be able to tell with some accuracy based on bones.
I think that the staistical data provides enough evidence that the burden shifts to the other side to prove the flaw in the analysis, not merely state that all statistical analysis comes with some uncertainty.
I don’t know about the “in large part” language otherwise, yeah, we can no more PROVE that there is a genetic difference than we can PROVE that smoking causes lung cancer (and tobacco companies hid behind this inability to “PROVE” the causal link for decades). But we have enough statistical analysis that its hard to explain it any other way.