Race is non-existent

Great Debates
641

After some thought, I have come up with an analogy to frame this debate.

Let us consider two populations: the population of my office (i.e., me), and the population of the office next to me (i.e., that other guy). Now, the two populations have genetic differences. For example, I have the genes for “dashing good looks,” while the guy in the office next to me has the genes for “slightly resembles a toad.” In addition, we have different test score results. For example, I passed the CPA exam. The guy in the office next to me not only didn’t pass the CPA exam, he never even took it.

Now, **Chief Pedant **would no doubt argue that the reason I passed the CPA exam was because of my genetic background. His argument would probably consist of pointing out the genetic differences (“look at those high cheekbones, that flawless skin. This person clearly has different genes than that other toad-looking fellow”). The egalitarians (I’m still not sure what that word means) would instead point out the environmental differences (“Of course that other guy never passed the CPA exam; he’s an engineer!”)

I’m sure the debate would rage. Chief Pedant would focus on heritability (“none of the other guy’s ancestors passed the CPA exam either. And his parents also kind of look like toads”). The egalitarians (does it mean “horse-lovers?”) would focus on the environmental differences (“the other guy never even took any accounting classes!”), and the fact that **Chief Pedant **hadn’t shown any actual link between genetics and passing the exam.

Of course, we know the reason **Chief Pedant **wouldn’t be able to show a link between “good looks” and “passing the CPA exam”, is because there isn’t one. But I bet he could put up a damn good argument, so long as he was careful to avoid having to actually show proof. He could dazzle the onlookers by pointing out the genetic differences (“look at those beautiful long eyelashes”) and the test score differences, and he could proabably sound fairly convincing, but he’d be wrong.

642

Not to speak for Chief Pendant, but as one of those people with a number in his user name, I’ll say that what you wrote does not accurately portray something I ascribe to, and I don’t think CP ascribes to. The big problem is with the word “must” here:

[QUOTE=Evil Economist]
Therefore test differences must be due to genetics
[/QUOTE]

I think that it certainly is a possibility, and that there is some indirect evidence (which CP has done a good job of supplying) that genetics might account for the differences indicated in test scores. I also think Chen’s link provided more direct evidence. But to say that because of this evidence, genetics MUST be the reason, or even a reason, is just sloppy logic.

Also, I think you are much to forgiving in your characterization of the opposing side, while the last line in the bulleted list is a fair summation. But the insistence by that side that there is “zero evidence” supports CP’s position is ridiculous. That’s conflating evidence with proof. This has been explained in detail by me and even better by others.

I think you should ask yourself why in your characterizations of the two sides, you make one side “must be due to”, while the other is allowed to say “are probably due to”. Methinks I see an perfect example of confirmation bias.

643

Ridiculous. Starting with this:

I really think you need to reread the thread. You have not grasped his, or my, position to an astounding agree. Wow!

644

You’ll find a more accurate summary of my positions in Post 622, just above.

Perhaps the reason you need to summarize them for me in such a half-assed fashion is that you don’t have any specific alternate evidence to present.
As to the points you summarize for what is apparently your side:

  1. There is no evidence whatsoever that eliminating environmental differences eliminates the gap. To the contrary, traditional differences such as family income and parental education do not account for the difference in black/white/asian test scores. Wealthy and educated black parents have children who underscore the children of poverty-stricken and poorly-schooled whites. Other putative causes have been advanced, but never been able to be eliminated.
  2. The test score gaps narrowed in the late 1900s with concerted efforts to improve black opportunity, and then stalled. They have remained stalled despite concerted efforts. This is consistent with improving environmental gaps but an inability to improve genetic gaps, much the same way that better coaching can improve a player but not turn him into a star.
  3. In terms of IQ, the notion of rising IQ advanced by Flynn may or may not be correct, but its application in the the black-white argument requires a belief that the average adult black intelligence as lately as 1972 was 79 points. This is in the range of intellectually handicapped for the entire black population, and the current black average Flynn uses is 85 for adult blacks. The Pedant does not believe this is a tenable proposition. It seems more likely to me that these numbers are incorrect.
  4. Every study of intelligence and intellectual ability acknowledges a hereditary influence for that skillset. We know that intelligence is “genetic” in the broad sense, and that we cannot create intelligence by simply supplying the right environment. All the right environment can do is maximize the potential coded for in the genes. This is why children from the same family and the same environment have intelligences within a general range, but still markedly different from one another. In the words of Frank Sweet, “smart parents have smart kids, and dumb parents have dumb kids.” The inheritance of intelligence in general is not a controversial point.
645

An artificial fig leaf considering that discredited people like Rushton, Linn and others are still being used.

Still the assumed differences in genes driving a fussy intelligence gap is a moot point as even the good researchers being quoted reported already.

646

You sneakily slip in the word “eliminates” here; there’s plenty of evidence that eliminating environmental differences reduces test-score gaps. Flynn’s example of the “environment” changes between 1945 and 1995 eliminating the test-score gap between 1945 white people and 1995 white people is a good one, but there’s plenty of other data too. There’s no evidence that the gap is immutable, and no evidence that supports the genetic explanation to the exclusion of all others.

You say this as if the late 1900s is ancient history! Whether or not the gap has shrunk in very recent years (and there’s data that suggests it may have), a lack of movement for a few decades is hardly indicative of a permanent problem. If you believe, like I do, that such efforts to close it have been weak and political in nature, it’s not surprising if the gap isn’t changing very much.

This is a posterior-derived assertion (and you’ve even admitted your poor knowledge of psychometrics), but I’m curious- Rushton (and his allies) suggest about a 1.1 Standard Deviation difference between the test scores of white and black people- what would 1 or 1.1 Standard deviation be for IQ test scores? Do you care to learn the answer?

You bring this up all the time, but no one is really arguing it. Yes, there is a genetic component to intelligence, and yes, at least part of intelligence is heritable. Ok, no need to bring it up again. It says nothing about the test-score gap between black and white people.

647

Let me help you.
Take two populations, self-identified as “black” and “white.” Give one population high SES status; give another low SES status. Administer tests for the ability to grasp a subject that have been carefully vetted not to create or reflect any cultural bias to thousands and thousands of students in each group. Examine the difference among SIRE group scores.
Accept the highest-scoring blacks into pre-medical and pre-law college curriculae–the identical schools to the ones whites and asians attend. Create special programs to make sure neither money nor study opportunity nor external help is a barrier to success. Test the sudents again at the end of their curriculae. Examine the difference among SIRE groups.
Accept the highest-scoring blacks again into medical school and law school. At the end of identical schooling (again, with extensive support programs specifically directed toward black students), test the students again. Examine the difference among SIRE groups.
Accept the highest-scoring blacks again into specialty residencies, identical to the ones whites attend. At the end of the specialty training, examine the difference in scores among SIRE groups.
Now switch gears and go out to the business world. Examine thousands upon thousands of work aptitude exams, again designed specifically to eliminate cultural bias and designed to test a specific body of knowledge, the contents of which are given equally to both groups. Examine the difference in scores among SIRE groups.

Entertain a hypothesis to suggest that there is some fundamental, innate difference that accounts for this persistent gap even when SES and opportunity are normalized. Review population genetics, evolutionary principles and human migration history to see whether or not there is evidence the genes within those groups might themselves be different. Test for gene prevalence difference to see if these are widespread, or if all human populations are fairly homogeneous. As a further test, take subsets of blacks, or subsets of whites to see if they seem to have genetically driven differences within those subsets. If they do, then come to a working hypothesis that entire populations can, in fact, have average outcome differences driven by prevalences for genes advantageous for those skillsets.

648

A standard deviation for IQ is usually given as 15 points.
I don’t care what Rushton thinks.

I’m only interested in defending what I think. It’s GIGObuster who is constantly straying over to this idea that if I think something and it’s similar to what some other guy thinks in one area, I’m supposed to suddenly be aligned to everything that person thinks.

I don’t know what to do with psychometric exams. If you think the current black IQ is 85 and it used to be 79 in 1972, great. OK. Those numbers seem ridiculously low to me.

What I do think is that the persistent gap in black-white test scores in the United States has no reasonable environmental explanation, and that there is evidence that gene prevalences differ in those two SIRE groups. Because we know some of the genes that differ have been positively selected, including ones driving neurobiological functions, it’s reasonable to draw a conclusion that these persistent test score gaps reflect an average difference for genes underpinning those skillsets.

649

Oh! oh oh!, can I play?

Take a group of people.
Subject them to hideous atrocities.
Deny them civil rights.
Eventually give them civil rights, but delay it long enough that the majority of that group alive today were also alive before they had civil rights.
Make sure that all members of that group are easily identifiable, perhaps by skin color.
Institute pervasive, far-reaching discrimination against members of that group, that exists today among huge swaths of the population, including among the elected representatives sworn to represent them, employers, and educators.
Make sure that they are disproportionately affected by poverty and its associated ills.

Now, test their IQ against % of group membership, and find no statistically significant correlation, which should be all the evidence any thinking person would need that there is no genetic component to IQ differences.

Go ahead and claim that IQ differences are due to genetic inferiority anyway!

What do I win?

650

Then don’t quote him for support. Dump him as most Psychologists do.

Once again, tell me who you bring to a discussion and I will tell you who you are.

And researchers that you have insisted on ignoring their conclusions report that it is not supported and a moot point to boot.

651

So what’s the magnitude of the test-score gap, if not about 1 SD? Flynn asserts that in 1972, the magnitude of the gap was more than 1 SD, and had shrunk to 1 SD by 2002.

652

In the case of relying on discredited researchers one has to conclude that the “eventual victory” fallacy they rely on is still one, Rushton and Lynn died last year and so the pickings of the “race realists” are fewer. And looking at what the experts report on their legacy one notices the huge meta-cognition failure on some posters that still insist that they are on the side of science.

The** Evil Economist** nailed it. The effort that remains is then to continue to claim that most researchers are supporting something when they do not, as the Chief mentioned “The Pedant does not believe” on the basic position that researchers like Flynn are reporting, it is indeed an acknowledgment that there is no science here, just a belief that has to be pushed, no matter what the evidence actually says and what the experts do report.

653

It’s not clear to me exactly what your argument here is. What is “test their IQ against % of group membership”?
Are you suggesting that past atrocities against prior generations drive current IQ? Current performance of children born to a population that had atrocities in the past but now has high SES status (using the example of high SES black children underscoring low SES white children)? How long do these effects last, and do they only work against you if you are black?

You wouldn’t, for instance, suggest that Ashkenazi Jews score disparately low, would you? What about children of Japanese interred during WWII?

Or is it that we need a very special case for the black population’s deficient performance but not any other group?

654

Different tragedies and atrocities have different ramifications today. Undoubtedly an attempted (and partially successful) genocide over a decade or two is going to affect the world, the victims, and their descendants differently then hundreds of years of brutal enslavement followed by another century of brutal repression (including hundreds of years of institutionalized acceptance of white supremacy). Not that one is worse than the other (both are unspeakably bad), but they’re very different, and it’s not surprising that the victims and their descendants did not adjust in the exact same way. Looking at it as “both groups were victims of mass atrocity, so why aren’t they in the same place now” is a very simplistic and deceptive way to look at it.

655

I can give you the magnitude of scholastic test scores, because I understand them.
I do not pretend to understand psychometric testing, nor have I paid much attention to it. As I said, if the numbers you want to support are an average adult black IQ of 79 in 1972 and 85 now, I don’t have other data. Those numbers just seems ridiculously low. I don’t pay much attention to IQ testing. It’s not that I think there is something wrong with it; it’s just not an area of interest for me.

As far as academic test scores, most of these are posted for any given standard academic test. Here are a few.
LSAT: Here, P 23

MCAT: Here.

SAT: Here.

SATs across SES:Here.

656

How many standard deviations? Those links were long.

657

If you want to actually test whether race affects IQ, then you do the following test: you do a multiple regression where the dependent variable is IQ and one of the explanatory variables is percentage of European heritage. If in fact there is a race component to IQ, then percentage of European heritage will be positively correlated with IQ at a statistically significant level. This addresses the genetic question as directly as possible with the available data.

The peer-reviewed, published journal study that did this test found no statistically significant relationship between percentage of European heritage and IQ. So, when we say that you’re wrong, we have the science to support us.

In fact, every study I have seen that was published in the last 40 years on race and IQ says that you are wrong. When we say that you’re ignoring the science in favor of your own uninformed speculation, that’s why.

Also, you seem to think the the test gap between whites and blacks is fixed, when in fact it is narrowing, which is exactly what we would expect if the group was subject to improving environmental condiditons.

You ignore actual published IQ research data showing that the IQ gap is narrowing in favor of your own uniformed gut feelings.

You use irrelevant genetic data to argue a point that no actual IQ researcher supports, and then claim that the reason no actual published researcher supports you is because of a conspiracy.

Maybe–consider this–there’s not a conspiracy, youre just wrong?

658

Wow, no correction for income, background, geographic location, anyhting. This “analysis” doesn’t even rise to the level of crap. Someone who claims to “understand” scholastic test scores should know how useless these raw numbers are.

659

And here is why these test scores differences are a practical issue:

*"As a consequence of this (SCOTUS) decision, it has been suggested by both proponents and opponents of race-based affirmative action that there is a viable alternative that could achieve similar results. According to this theory, if school assignments were to be based on family income levels, a significant amount of racial diversity would be achieved because of the simple fact that blacks make up a disproportionately large segment of the low-income population.

Our view is that this theory is mere wish-ful thinking. Socioeconomic affirmative action admissions plans, whether they be in K-12 education or at the college level, are just short of a useless substitute for race-sensitive plans if one’s goal is to achieve a significant level of racial diversity…
A look at the results of standardized tests used for college admission shows that, under a straight nonracial but socio-economic affirmative action admission plan, almost all places at America’s highest-ranked universities would be taken up by nonblacks.

According to statistics supplied to JBHE by The College Board, college-bound white students from families with low incomes score considerably higher than college-bound blacks from families with low incomes. For example, for white students from families with incomes below $10,000, the median SAT score in 2006 was 488 on the critical reading portion of the test and 505 on the math portion. For blacks from families with incomes below $10,000, the median SAT score was 398 on the verbal portion and 395 on the math. A similar 90 to 110 point gap occurs at other low-income levels such as those for families with incomes between $10,000 and $20,000 and for families with incomes ranging from $20,000 to $30,000. In fact, the SAT score gap between blacks and whites in the lower-income brackets mirrors the gap for the test-taking population as a whole…

Asian Americans would undoubtedly be the major beneficiaries of affirmative action programs based on socioeconomic status. Asians’ average scores on standardized tests are even higher than the average scores for whites. There are many recent immigrant families from Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, and other Asian nations that have not achieved middle-class status but whose children perform extremely well in school. High-achieving Asian students from these lower-income families would garner many places at the nation’s most prestigious universities which previously had gone to blacks under race-sensitive admissions."*

As I have mentioned before, this is a pretty consistent and resilient pattern, unexplained by the standard “we are poor and oppressed and disadvantaged” mantra. It’s not that that disparity does not also exist. It’s that it is not the explanation for performance differences.

660

Actually, it seems like you entered the debate late, and didn’t read carefully.

(Did you see the SATs across SES link? You’ll notice high income blacks score at about the level of poverty-stricken whites, for example.)

Start here to correct impressions you apparently carry that these differences are due to the usual explanations of things like income or parental education. There are lots more studies, and I’ll let you dig them up. Or, if you like, present me with studies showing that the things you want to promote actually make a difference when comparing like for like situations.

I know it’s tough to let go of prejudices you’ve had that poverty, oppression and lack of family education make a difference, but when comparing groups with similar backgrounds, it turns out the gaps still exist. From the link:

*"But there is a major flaw in the thesis that income differences explain the racial gap. Consider these three observable facts from The College Board’s 2005 data on the SAT:

• Whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000 had a mean SAT score of 993. This is 129 points higher than the national mean for all blacks.

• Whites from families with incomes below $10,000 had a mean SAT test score that was 61 points higher than blacks whose families had incomes of between $80,000 and $100,000.

• Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000."*