This seems like a ridiculous (and deliberately offensive) claim- I don’t see how you can say it makes any sense at all.
The adequacy ofthe data you have is measured relative to what you’re trying to do with it, and that’s where you’re falling short.
Bottom line remains that in order to construct something based on “I can’t think of any reason for …” you need to have a really really good understanding of what potential reasons there might be. And if you don’t, you’ve got nothing.
The fact that you might have more data than someone else who is not trying to use this line of reasoning is completely irrelevant.
And it’s worth noting two other points:
- You’ve undermined your own argument to an extent, in pointing out (WRT to another aspect, where it was advantageous for you) that there’s a cost involved in developing a higher level of intelligence. What this implies is that in order for your argument to work, you not only need to be confident that there are no reasons for selection for intelligence to vary by environment, but you also need to be confident that there are no reasons for the traits which represent the cost of that intelligence to vary either. Which is a much bigger stretch, especially if you can’t be sure precisely how that cost would manifest itself altogether.
IOW, suppose the price to be paid for higher intelligence is less of an ability to have Advantageous Trait X (ATX). Then even if there was absolutely no difference in selection for intelligence among different populations, if there was some difference in selection for ATX, that itself would be enough of a reason for intelligence too to vary by population. And especially when you consider that exactly what ATX might be is itself speculative, let alone what environmental pressures might exist in regards to it, then your argument is even weaker than it would otherwise be.
- You always need to bear in mind in these discussions that we are talking about very very small differences in population. In ordinary circumstances, tiny differences of this sort would be ignored as insignficant. E.g. if there was a size difference between two species that was of the magnitude of what’s being suggested here, no one would waste any time speculating about it or applying principles of natural selection to try to explain the difference. What’s different here is that we’re talking about people, who are the subjects of much greater interest and scrutiny, and within people we’re talking about intelligence which is itself an extremely pivotal and sensitive subject. For these reasons, there is a focus on small differences that would otherwise be ignored.
For this reason, to expect to find significant differences in environmental selection pressure, of the type which would produce the type of differences that one might typically find in species whose differences are being studied, is a mistake.
I don’t recall where I saw this, but I’m pretty sure it was not a racist source.
The source did not offer a possible rationale for it, but ISTM that cross-mating might have been correlated to socio-economic status, which is itself corrolated to intelligence.
Regardless, your comment about offensiveness deserves some note. In reality, the offensiveness of an idea has little logical bearing on the likelihood of it being true. But that’s not how people think, and I think this issue underlies discussion of this sort and threads of this type.
I’m noting that the claim (to refresh memories, the claim is that those whites who mated with blacks have lower IQs than those who didn’t) appears to be the type of claim made to denigrate and inflame- that is, that it’s hard to imagine that such a claim wasn’t made (by the originator, not you) with that express purpose. On it’s face it seems ridiculous. It hardly seems worth discussing, especially since there doesn’t appear to be any data in support of it. And this seems so obvious to me that I’m surprised that you said “it sounds like something that makes sense”.
How on earth does it make sense? Even the assumption that such matings were from lower economic class whites doesn’t appear to make sense, considering how commonly rape was tied with slavery.
I’m not equating “offensiveness” with any likelihood of being true- I’m just noting that this claim appears to me to be the type specifically offered to inflame (hence “deliberately offensive”) opinion, and not offered in good faith.
To expand on why I think this is so obviously ridiculous- wealthy whites (slave-owners) would have had “access” to far more black people then poor whites during the time of slavery.
This too is reasonable. That’s why I suggested this possibility as well, in the post that you quoted. But ISTM that it’s also possible that it was the other way around, especially in the years after slavery was abolished.
This reminds me of the time I was reading this small offshoot White Nationalist message board. The posters were mostly paranoid losers, convinced that the world was run by secretive Jews, who were hiding their Jewishness and had infiltrated every center of power and mass movement in the world, including the White Nationalist movement. This included a lot of accusations against each other of being secret Jews and infiltrators.
I remember one guy in particular who posted in a thread regarding the OP of that thread. He said “so-and-so seems to be trying really hard to demonstrate that he hates the Jews as much as we all hate them and as much as they should be hated. I’m starting to wonder about so-and-so …”
Hilarious stuff (especially because I thought at the time that the guy making the accusation was the only true infiltrator of the bunch and was having a good old time at their expense).
It doesn’t seem worth discussing this claim, data-free as it is. I’m curious where you read it (and skeptical that it wasn’t from a racist source), but it’s not important to this discussion.
I think I addressed this in the OP of the thread:
It’s certainly within your rights to choose to ignore such arguments and posters, but I don’t think it’s fair to challenge my motives or beliefs because I choose to challenge (or mock) them.
I think it was here, bottom of page 7.
On looking around just a bit, ISTM that there is some basis for the income correlation, though not especially dramatic. Google Toldson and Marks (I can’t find their original study online, but there are a lot of references to it).
OK, here’s the original study:
So there is currently some correlation, but whether this is enough to affect that study - and whether this represents historical norms - is something I couldn’t say.
I’m not sure what you mean. India and China were each very advanced countries at one point.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that, at least in theory, genes can produce their own selection pressure. For example, in a herd of fast gazelles, there is probably more selection pressure to be a fast gazelle than in a herd of slow gazelles. Because it’s a big advantage for a gazelle to be able to outrun other gazelles when a predator is chasing. Similarly, in a tribe of smart people, there might be more selection pressure to be smart than in a tribe of stupid people.
The upshot is that a small difference in selection pressure from the general environment can at least in theory be amplified by secondary effects.
Another thing to keep in mind is that it takes time for gene to spread throughout a population. The alleles for higher intelligence must have originated somewhere in the recent evolutionary past and there is no reason to think those alleles have had a chance to penetrate every last corner of the globe.
This correlation appears to show that the wealthier a given black person is, the more likely he/she is to be married to a white person. I don’t see how that supports the point you were making.
This is just speculation; there is no evidence that any “high intelligence” alleles haven’t been around since before homo sapiens left africa.
You are correct. I wasn’t thinking clearly. My apologies.
[For some reason, in the source of the suggestion in the Nisbett paper, he added a line about blacks who mated with whites having higher than average IQs, and I conflated the two. My bad.]
Let me just quote the section of the paper immediately following the bit you quoted:
“Yet the degree of self-selection would have to be extreme to produce no phenotypic difference at all between children of purely African heritage and those of partially European origin. Self-selection by IQ was probably not very great during slavery; it is unlikely, for example, that the white males who mated with black females had lower IQs than other white males. Indeed, if such unions mostly involved male slave owners, and if economic status was positively related to IQ (as it is now), these whites probably had above average IQs. But even if self-selection were substantial in the 18th and 19th centuries, the effects of regression toward the population mean would reveal genetic differences if they were present. Flynn’s (1980) also shows that self-selection is a highly unlikely explanation of IQ pavity between children of black and white GIs. (p. 94) and that the assumption of zero heritability of the U. S. B/W IQ gap best fits the data. Flynn’s analysis of mixed race children also suggests that the IQ difference between black versus white mothers cannot be accounted for by an reasonable assumptions about selective mating and parental IQ (p. 180).”
Basically the author says “some people have said this, but it can’t possibly be right for the following reasons.” And then you only quoted the bit where he said “some people have said this.”
In fact, the guy lists 5 papers which have directly tested genentic components of black/white IQ differences, and none of them support a genetic component. One of the papers actually found that share of African heritage was correlated with higher IQ. I guess that’s 4 more papers that the “race realists” will somehow forget to cite, and one paper in particular that they will scour from their memory banks entirely.
That’s not true.
I did not quote this author at all. I said “On poking around a bit, I see some quibbling with that study”. This was one example of a quibble. The fact that this author finds it unlikely that self-selection could account for the lack of difference in that sample does not change that.
I’ll accept your explanantion. I will point out, however, that the cite you posted as an example of a quibble reached the following conclusion:
“The studies most directly relevant to the question of whether the B/W IQ gap is genetic in origin provide no evidence for a correlation between IQ and African (rather than European) ancestry. A few older studies of skin color are consistent with European superiority but most are not. The best modern study indicates little relation between skin color and IQ. One modern study of blood types weakly suggests African superiority; the other two suggest no difference between the races.”
That conclusion is probably worth keeping in mind for the next time this board has this argument.
Yep, I noticed that too, I wanted to wait if he was going to notice, but you got ahead of me. CP also has the habit of not looking at the conclusions in papers. As it was pointed before, there are good reasons why CP and Brazil are being roasted.
The existence of high IQ black Americans and Africans is well documented. So, the “high IQ genes never made it to Africa” argument doesn’t work. What you have to do is show some plausible reason why high IQ genes offered a reproductive advantage in Mediterranean Europe but not anywhere in Africa.
Most of the African societies who contributed to the black American gene pool were Iron Age cultures based in either cattle herding or farming. They were usually polygamous with the men with the most resources getting the most wives, and fathering the most children.
This should give higher IQ men and their families significant reproductive advantages. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s all random. But if that’s true, then it’s probably random everywhere.
The racialists like to talk about the cold European winters giving some sort of putative advantage to higher IQ genes. But no one’s more cold adapted than the Native Americans whose ancestors originated in Central Asia and Siberia and then crossed the Bering Straight. A High Plains winter is colder and more brutal than just about anywhere in Europe besides Russia. Why aren’t the native Americans, Mexicans, Central Americans et al dominating the world IQ ranks?
Not only do the theories of the racialists lack proof, they also lack a plausible theory to explain the proof they don’t have.