We only have statistics for intelligence test-scores for the past few decades. We do know that there have been times in history when Jews and Asians were at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder. There’s no evidence for different genes for intelligence among different groups, but I bring this up because it’s often cited by the pro-“blacks are dumber”-side that black people have been at the “bottom” of the pyramid of societies in all of history. Whether true or not (it’s not), it tells us nothing about genetics, just as the fact that Jews or the Chinese have been at the bottom of the social pyramid at various times also tells us nothing about genetics.
This is the lamest ad hominen tack I’ve seen yet. Guilt by association has no bearing on whether or not a given position is itself correct.
May I suggest you try to stick to this topic, present the evidence, and debate the merits?
It’s not clear to me that you’ve read the antecedent arguments very carefully, either, particularly with respect to evolution. **iiandyiiii’**s fundamental positions are as follows:
- The exact genes driving putative differences among SIRE groups are not yet identified.
- There are adequate nurturing explanations for observed differences. (In particular, he has championed bad parenting, low teacher expectations and oppositional culture as the best-supported explanation for the black-white test score gap.)
- Given these prior two points, there is “no evidence” of a genetic explanation.
The reason I am opposed to this line of thought is evolution, plain and simple. If genes did not evolve, it would be reasonable to say there is “no evidence” for a genetic difference. The default assumption would be that all humans appeared somehow fairly recently, wandered off into various populations, and are still more or less the same. But iiandyiiii (and most reasonable people) agree that the point of our appearance was a couple hundred thousand years ago. The migratory history of humans shows that populations diverged from one another tens of thousands of years ago, and there’s excellent genetic evidence that these separations have been long enough, and persistent enough, to drive measurable differences in gene prevalences for all sorts of genes. Above I posted a paper showing clustering for asian, european and african groups for 1800 genes or so. (Among those genes was a group involving neuronal function).
Evolution drives changes in all genes. To argue that it is more likely than not that evolution has failed to drive changes in genes affecting brain or physical functions in separated groups is an anti-evolutionary view. For reasonably separated groups, an advantageous gene that is positively selected will be driven to a higher prevalence in a descendant population (which can simply inherit the genes) than in a separated population (which must hope to acquire that advantageous gene by migratory introgression into the separated population pool.)
The view that skillsets which vary by population are a result of only nurturing variability is a faith-based position. It accepts on faith that no significant evolution of genes has occurred in separated populations, and it accepts this view even where many many other genes can be shown to have evolved, and achieved prevalence disparities, for all sorts of physiological functions.
They have not typically been in the bottom tier for long, nor have they been in the bottom tier everywhere. On average, those two groups have been able to assimilate new situations–even when beginning as displaced immigrants or exported laborers–and achieve relative success.
The Jews have often been persecuted precisely because of their success. For example when they got kicked out of Spain and Portugal around 1500, they were frequently in positions of prominence and professional success. That success drove resentment against the Jewish minority.
I agree that if you want to find a broad pattern you cannot use isolated examples. What examples would you cite of black SIRE groups not being ending up on the bottom SES tier when juxtaposed with other SIRE groups throughout history? What examples would you be inclined to cite of blacks not ending up on the top for sprinting, basketball and other similar athletic endeavors when juxatposed with other SIRE groups?
These sorts of patterns suggest that the observed outcomes are driven by average differences for gene prevalences for the skillsets which those gene differences drive.
Again the implication that every single human characteristic must vary, genetically, by population. And, somehow, there are lots and lots of “brain or physical functions” that do not appear to differ at all between populations. There’s no reason to believe that intelligence is special. So no, you have no evidence, and there’s no reason to believe that genes for high or low intelligence must vary between populations.
So yeah, it is indeed bullshit to claim that we or most scientists are not taking evolution into account, they do, it is just that the annoying thing for Chief Pedant and others is that it is still the genes being mostly skin deep.
As pointed before, this localized evolution has been reported many times, but at the end of the day, since very “unfortunate” things for race realists are still taking place (like the fact that all humans can still breed no matter where they come from) the differences are not enough to declare them as separate races.
This bullshit that claims that scientists or others in this discussion are against evolution or being creationists remains bullshit, and a good pointer to demonstrate how ridiculous and silly the points of the Chief and others are. The creationist tactics used show what wells of information some in this discussion are using or used originally to get their Quixote ideals in place.
The point stands, such points are baseless and coming from racist organizations, any scientist, (and this has been seen many many times in citations from the Chief,) that is conscious of the constant effort of those unsavory organizations of poisoning the well does a conscious effort of telling them (in the papers themselves even) to take a hike when they attempt to use the current medical research and apply it to matters like intelligence. Me and many others like Colibri have noticed how you ignore conclusions and recommendations like that from the researchers.
So there isn’t any need to report that you are a racist, there is no need because clearly you are just a clueless messenger that clearly ignores on purpose that the evidence shows that we did evolve, we continue to evolve, and as the medical focus shows it is very likely that we will skip any race divisions and concentrate on the individual genetic make up for treatments of many conditions.
For the last several tens of thousands of years, the primary tool for adaptation for humanity was culture, not genetics. There were some genetic changes, but none we know of that had much of an effect on human behavior. The reason culture is the adaptive tool is because it’s so much better than genetics. An adaptive culture can save us from rapid climate or environmental change. And culture, unlike genetics, actually allows group adaptation- the change in behavior of a large group of people to increase the chances of survival for the group.
So anytime we find differences, the first place to look should be culture. Usually, culture will be the answer. There’s no evidence that culture (in some manner) is not the answer for the test-score gap. And there’s no evidence that genes are the answer.
Just to clarify, that last bit was directed to Chief Pedant.
What we have to be aware also is that there are also politics involved here, and this are coming courtesy of brasil and others, and that is another pile of bull, even conservatives can report how it is silly to declare that this “egalitarianism” regarding intelligence is just a leftist agenda, there is no good reason to claim that there are important genetic differences in intelligence among races.
Easy, before you get too breathless about mother nature only evolving skin and hair genes.
From here:
*"By these criteria, 1.6% of Perlegen SNPs were found to
exhibit the genetic architecture of selection. These results were
confirmed on an independently generated data set of 1.0 million
SNP genotypes (International Human Haplotype Map Phase I
freeze). Simulation studies indicate that the LDD test, at the
megabase scale used, effectively distinguishes selection from other
causes of extensive LD, such as inversions, population bottlenecks,
and admixture. The 1,800 genes identified by the LDD test were
clustered according to Gene Ontology (GO) categories. Based on
overrepresentation analysis, several predominant biological
themes are common in these selected alleles, including host–
pathogen interactions, reproduction, DNA metabolismcell cycle,
protein metabolism, and neuronal function.(from the Abstract)
It is intriguing that a significant fraction of inferred selected
alleles are found in most of the examined populations (Fig. 4).
Although the calculated intraallelic coalescence time for many of
these alleles in European and Asian ancestry populations is similar,
the same allele exhibits a more rapid LDD, and hence a longer
coalescence time in African ancestry populations. The model that
best explains these data is the ongoing balanced selection for these
alleles for at least the last 40,000–50,000 years after the out-of-
Africa expansion (from p 139
Homo sapiens have undoubtedly undergone strong recent
selection for many different phenotypes, including but certainly not
limited to the general categories we have defined in this work (Fig.
5). Such inferred selective events are not rare (Fig. 3). The numbers
obtained, however, are similar to estimated numbers obtained for
artificial selection (by humans) on the maize genome . Given
that most of these selective events likely occurred in the last
10,000–40,000 years, a time of major population expansion out of
Africa followed by regional shifts from hunter–gatherer to agrarian
societies, it is tempting to speculate that gene–culture interactions
directly or indirectly shaped our genomic architecture."*
Note that this paper doesn’t just look at any old genes; it’s looking for ones that have positive selection pressure. And it, like most papers within population genetics, simply takes it as a baseline default that population cohorts such as SIRE groups (her, I think they used asian, european and african) have different prevalences for mutated genes.
I realize a magazine guy wants to put his own little egalitarian spin on a journal article, but I think it’s safer to stick to original cites. Don’t you?
I agree, it is bullshit to claim that it is against what I and the article reports, that was citing the scientist’s work BTW.
We do not ignore evolution, and you are using creationists tactics, there are no easy pickings to support your points so the solution you have is to claim something that we do not, we do not ignore evolution, and we are still Homo sapiens, as they report.
Chief Pedant, you appear to mischaracterize the contents of other’s posts.
You are also making assertions without valid scientific evidence to back your claims.
Until you do otherwise, it is highly likely that your posts will be taken as nothing more than the somewhat veiled belief in racially-based superiority. This is the 21st Century, after all, and people have been bloviating about such matters for centuries. The result of all of this emptiness is that evidence-based studies have disproven the hypothesis that genetics can be directly linked to test scores. Much the same as phrenology is no longer accepted by the mainstream of biologists as a valid method of predicting mental abilities, the idea of race as a factor in any meaningful biological manner has been discarded.
Pretending otherwise is foolish, no matter the eloquence by which you state your deeply held beliefs.
If you believe this is so, why not quote one of these unsupported assertions and challenge Chief Pedant to back it up?
Otherwise, it looks like you are the one making unsupported assertions.
And by the way, I am still waiting for Belowjob2.0 to back up his claim that the test score gap in black Americans follows ethnic identity, not African ancestry.
Easy to claim that when the replies are not taken into account, a more proper reply to brasil84 is over here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15943292&postcount=448
Somehow, I don’t believe anyone would care for you to white-knight them.
And, it is the responsibility of the person making the assertion to support their claims. The OP has done so. Chief Pedant and you have failed to do so in my opinion.
Perhaps you would be so kind as to give an example where I have mischaracterized a position.
While we are on the topic of mischaracterizing positions, I’d like you to show me where I’ve said genetics can be “directly” linked to test scores. My position is that these genes remain unidentified, but the evidence is that the cause of the difference is genetics and not nurture.
It does not appear you have read my posts if you are still chasing after “race as a factor in any meaningful biological manner.” Perhaps you could read my earlier comments in this thread around that topic before you carry on discrediting a position I have not taken.
Lol, nice ad homenim.
All you are doing is asserting a conclusion while refusing to back it up. So ironically, you are guilty of the exact wrong of which you accuse me and Chief Pedant
If you feel I have made an unsupported claim, why not simply quote it and challenge me to support it?
Why not?
I am afraid I cannot parse this out. Are you able to rephrase it?
I am wondering if you thought the article I quoted from did or did not expand on the idea of how many gene prevalences vary by SIRE groups. I understood you to give a cite which seem to imply these prevalences are (literally) mostly just skin deep. In return, I showed you an example of a good study that shows there are hundreds (1,800) of known prevalence differences, including genes for neuronal function.
What “creationist” tactic am I using, exactly? My sense is that the basic Creationist concept around the human gene pool is that we were created recently, we don’t evolve much, and we are therefore sons of a fairly recent ancestor (Noah and his wife) who is common to all our genes. I am adamantly opposed to this view.
We are many diverse populations which have diverged from one another starting almost a couple hundred thousand years ago, with extensive mutations of genes in all of those populations. Those mutations are driven into prevalence by factors such as environmental pressures, population bottlenecks, genetic drift, natural catastrophes wiping out large proportions of populace, and positive selection pressure for advantageous mutations. Homogeneity of prevalences among diverse groups has been limited by migration patterns, in turn due to things like climate changes and natural “gates” that open and close based on these large-scale climate changes. In the past few thousand years, there has been increased mobility because of technology, but gene prevalence differences among populations remain, and there are many good examples.
Are you able to tell me which of the above you find a “Creationist” tactic? Or are you just interested in some sort of ad hominem by proxy attack?
Haha, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Gagundathar’s position seems to be based more on emotion than on logic. He knows that you must be wrong somehow, so therefore you must be making unsupported claims and/or attacking strawmen.
Nope, you are just missing the point, the creationist tactic was to continue to use the band wagon fallacy, the Inevitable Victory, instead of creationism it is just using medical research on human groups to demonstrate something else, it is really lousy evidence.
When the historical evidence is that most biologists, geneticists and anthropologists actually stopped supporting your peculiar views.
The point here is that you don’t even have good support for that inevitable victory. And I’m just saying that it is very naive to ignore that tactics like that one are coming from creationists or racist circles. Just a heads up to you and others that continue to use the bullshit that most scientists ignore evolution or that there is an inevitable victory when history has showed the opposite.
Yes there is. I gave you some specific genes linked to educational outcomes that vary across populations earlier. I’ve also given you an example of Australian Aborigines having 25% larger visual cortex than Europeans and also performing better on visual memory tests.
Also, populations differ in average brain shape and size (brain size is linked to g).
I also pointed you to this Rindermann paperwhich suggests that genes are a factor in country differences (as they are in individual differences).
Then there is the example of Ashkenazi jewish intelligence cited above. Did you read that paper?
The default position should be that the causes of the differences between populations of arise from the same genetic and environmental factors that account for individual differences within each population.
I wasn’t certain you would actually catch the insult. My estimate of your base intelligence will be adjusted accordingly.
When someone counters your unsubstantiated claims, then you have been known to attribute the opposition to ‘emotions’ rather than ‘logic’. This seems to be a common ploy with you, brazil84. This is indicative of your inability to support your claims. Such failure in such simple matters has been noted often by others here. After all, if you consider something to be true, then surely you can elucidate why you do. If not, then why even make an assertion? You should know by now that your claims will be solidly thrashed. Of course, the implied supposition in that assertion is that you are, in fact, trainable. Evidence seems to indicate otherwise.