I don’t think I did a good job at all of making my earlier point, and I conflated a couple of concepts in that post.
If you wanted to look at whether or not introgression of european genes has been beneficial to the IQ US black populations, wouldn’t the right study be to take the whole US black population (it’s predomoniately, but not exclusively, west african), with an average of 25% european genes, and compare whatever that IQ estimate is with the estimated IQ of west african populations?
I don’t follow IQ studies, and have no expertise or insight into how they are administered or what the nuances are, so maybe you can enlighten me here. I don’t think it would be appropriate to use academic scores for standardized tests because of the large differences in educational systems. Use of immigrant populations would not be reflective of a cross section for source populations because of reasons we’ve already discussed in this thread.
I don’t know what a “blood marker” is. Blood type, maybe? I’m not sure about “ancestry” interviews. It’s not clear to me how any proxy other than genetic measurements of genomes for percent admixture would give you much of an idea…
May I bother you to re-state this?
I just can’t figure what you are saying.
Are you talking about Coyne, and did I call him an idiot?
It’s certainly possible. I have been known to post in haste and repent at leisure…just to be clear, I was referencing the comment that Coyne makes about being an “outlier” when pretending there is no such thing as race. The other link is not Coyne’s, but a reader of his.
That wouldn’t work. You’d end up comparing two groups of people from different countries, with different levels/types of nutrition, education, income, inequality, child-raising techniques, climate, etc., etc., etc. You’d basically end up with a model incorporating literally every possible environmental difference. If there were genetic differences they’d be utterly lost in the noise. What you’d probably end up with is an estimate of the impact of country-level economic development on IQ; which is probably the last thing you want.
What we want to do is to eliminate the environmental difference. We should compare groups that are as much alike as possible except for some invisible, unknowable (to them) indicator of european/african heritage.
I don’t have the study in front of me, but it’s Scarr 1977.
Agreed. I don’t know much about genetics, but “genetic measurements of genomes for percent admixture” sounds like just the thing. Now you have your phd thesis, you should get to it (or assist someone who is looking for a topic)
Your position is really nonsensical. You keep saying there is zero evidence, and that you would insist that ALL environmental factors be taken into account. So, if All minus one were controlled for, you’d still be chanting your “zero evidence” mantra. Is that right?
We’ve been over this. I’ve put it in many different ways- different groupings can “strengthen” or “weaken” any explanation when one is eliminated depending on how they are grouped, there are an unknown number of possible non-genetic explanations- so eliminating one could have a statistically insignificant effect on the rest, and I’ve laid out the actual evidence I’m looking for. Because of all this, treating all the explanations as if they are statistically equally “likely” is nonsensical- they all have to be evaluated on their own merits. That’s all I’m asking for- actual evidence for the genetic explanation, not just against one or two or three particular other explanations. Indirect evidence can be helpful, I just don’t think anything cited so far as indirect “evidence” for the genetic explanation is anything close to convincing. I’ve suggested a biosphere-type experiment that might actually come close to “normalizing nurture”- but even that wouldn’t rule out some explanation that hasn’t been suggested yet (as well as being logistically and ethically impossible to set up). The genetic explanation requires genetic data. Find the genes. That’s it.
The analogies to things like smoking don’t work for many reasons- including the overwhelming positive evidence for the link between smoking and cancer (the correlation is known, the mechanism of action is known, the various ingredients in cigarettes that are carcinogenic is known, etc).
I think it’s reasonable to hold that “intelligence” is a more complex thing than a typical trait such as creatine kinase production.
Let’s take creatine kinase, for starters. For a simple physiological difference like that, what I’m opposed to is a statement that there is no genetic evidence until the gene is identified. By that standard, there is no environmental evidence. It’s just an observed difference. OK. But my sense is that you want a default hypothesis to be environmental, with much less onus to show an environmental difference than the onus to identify a gene. And with most such differences, unless there is a fairly obvious environmental variable, the default assumption is genes and not nurturing. I think the average scientist in the field would say, “It’s likely a genetic difference.”
When it comes to “intelligence” the first problem is define what we mean. The easiest way to approach the topic narrowly for me is, “the skillset for taking an IQ test,” or perhaps “the skillset for mastering taught content.” Those two things obviously do not encompass the breadth of human brain function–not even the breadth of cognitive functions. They are just ways to quantify one aspect of intelligence.
Now, if we talk about SIRE group differences, we can couch those differences in terms of something that can be quanfied: outcome on these sorts of tests. And it becomes much simpler to control for variables because we have narrowed the definition of what we are looking at. With IQs, we can try to create tests that are free of cultural bias and free of situational history; indeed we could design an IQ test that could be applied to a monkey or a pig or a bird. For mastery of taught content, we can control for environment by looking at things like home life and educational opportunity.
And within those constraints, I argue that we can treat score results as showing something real, and we can reasonably control for nurturing variables. We can reasonably check to see if pututive nurturing variables that are untested also exist for other groups not showing a score gap. If, for example, we argued that blacks have a special environmental history of oppression, we shouldn’t then argue that such a history of oppression wouldn’t affect an Ashkenazi jewish population.
It boils down to a question of what is reasonable, and I argue the only reason you think genes remains an unreasonable explanation is that your altruism drives a desire for egalitarianism.
It isn’t the lack of evidence. It’s the choice of which evidence to find persuasive. In the case of creatine kinase, there isn’t much ramification of a genetic explanation, so it’s easy to accept that genes are the likely explanation. In the case of performance on IQ or academic tests, it’s much harder to accept that our genes are different, so suddenly the whole standard becomes non-falsifiably rigorous.
Why would the default assumption be “genes”, when the two populations observed are not “separate” populations, genetically speaking (which gets to the original point of this thread)? SIRE groups might have some correlation to genetic ancestry, but it’s very far from perfect. And I have no reason to believe that you’re correct about what “the average scientist” thinks.
I don’t buy this. The “history of oppression” between groups like African Americans and Jews is vastly different (though, obviously, both contain terrible atrocities). It makes sense that their ramifications today could also be vastly different.
I don’t think genes are an “unreasonable explanation”- I just don’t think there’s any reason to support this particular hypothesis over others. Quite the contrary, in fact, though no particular explanation is close to conclusive right now.
I disagree- with no genetic evidence, I don’t believe a good case can be made for the genetic explanation.
Though they are both very different characteristics, without genetic data I wouldn’t support a genetic explanation for differences in creatine kinase any more than I do for differing test scores.
Chief Pedant lurches from one gene to the next in his quest to prove that blacks have inferior intelligence. Soon as you extinguish one myth, he’ll use careen into another, then another, and another. In reality, despite being a (supposed) medical doctor, he knows very little of how genes work and how to properly reference human genes. It goes to show you that MCAT scores aren’t everything. Here, in this every thread, he’s talking about creatine kinase but which one is it? Is Chief Pendant talking about the cytosolic isoform, the mitochondrial isoform, the cardiac isoform or is he referring to isoform found in the brain? Either he doesn’t know or doesn’t care enough about the reader to put precisely what gene(s) he’s referring to.
In medicine, we have historically used the MB isoenzyme to look for cardiac injury; the MM (or total) CK to look for skeletal muscle injury, and the BB isoenzyme almost never. In more recent years, the use of Troponin I has largely replace the much cruder CK MB as a way to look for cardiac damage.
As you may be aware, total CK is so overwhelmingly composed of the MM isoenzyme (this is the predominate form for both skeletal and heart muscle) that a study looking at total CK reference ranges (which is the kind of study I was referring to) essentially is comparing MM isoenzymes.
I’m curious why these details seem significant to you wrt to the debate on genes. I was using CK differences by race as a general theoretical example. It wasn’t meant to be a tome on CK… It is true, however, that total CK varies by race, and that essentially means CK-MM varies by race.
I hope this helps clarify your understanding of CK, but post back if it doesn’t. I’m a little unclear what your actual point is, other than to take another opportunity to misspell my name and pretend I don’t understand genes.
:dubious: For very large values of “one”, perhaps. Just because you personally consider these definitions adequately “narrow” ways to define IQ doesn’t mean that they actually are sufficiently narrow to usefully distinguish between genetic and non-genetic effects.
If “trying” were the same thing as “succeeding”, that would be good enough. Unfortunately, it isn’t. As usual, you seem to be trying to argue that as long as we make a sincere best effort to control for differences in non-genetic factors, then we should be allowed to draw conclusions as though we had fully succeeded in controlling for differences in non-genetic factors. That’s not how science works.
There’s your problem: you think that some vague specification of “reasonably controlling” for non-genetic factors, according to your personal comfort zone of “reasonable”, is an adequate scientific criterion.
But the cultural and social dependence of IQ testing is very far from being as fully disentangled as you want to think it is. For example, there’s the phenomenon of the “Flynn effect”, in which IQ scores have been going up over several decades in many different cultures. Either you have to postulate that successive generations in those varied cultures have been selectively breeding for increased intelligence at a positively frantic rate (something that AFAIK no scientist finds at all credible), or you have to acknowledge that we do not have “reasonable control” over non-genetic factors affecting IQ test performance even in mostly single-race cultures (such as Scotland).
It’s a long thread to read over, and we’ve covered the Flynn effect a bit. I think you could pick up my thoughts on that over the past few pages. One complaint I have about using the Flynn effect is that Flynn’s analysis rests upon assigning an average IQ for adult US blacks of 85 in 2002, and 79 in 1972, with an unknown low point prior to that. Those numbers seem inappropriately low to me, for which reason I am skeptical of his research. Are you comfortable with that measurement for adult blacks in the US, both now and 40 (or 50) years ago? Further, they do not correlate with academic scores (see the notes above for SAT scores during that time, for example).
But if we do accept his basic hypothesis, which is basically that adult IQ is directed by development of the brain, and that perhaps development of the black brain is stunted by a poorer childhood environment (at least, I think that’s basically his position), then which environmental variable would you like to advance for the cause of that deficient development? SES is well studied, and doesn’t correlate. iiandyiiii has advanced poor parenting, poor teacher expectations and oppositional culture.
It’s a lot to ask, but maybe you could run through the thread so we don’t recite all of these discussions all over again. You can skip GIGOBusters; his main point is that I am a bad man, with which I agree.
To clarify my earlier post to which you replied:
I am defining “intelligence” narrowly here, not because intelligence itself is narrow, but because it is broad. I pick a narrow and quantifiable skillset for academic scores to focus with the precise caveat that it is NOT a synecdoche for all of the things that are “intelligence.”
I think you will see in the broad posts above that I have been generally more skeptical of efforts to define “intelligence” and how to measure it (another reason I’ve avoided the Flynn arguments) and instead try to use more focused and quantifiable skillset gaps. Within that narrow skillset of academic test gaps, I believe the best data shows this residual and static gap is fundamentally driven by an average genetic difference for performance on that skillset. I can’t find any environmental considerations that are persuasive for me.
I won’t be repeating every argument I’ve made above, but I will try to get back on occasion.
Of course there are not persuasive to you as we already found out that you have lots of problems on your meta cognition abilities. In this case it is clear that looking at the past posting history of Kimstu, he will just once again see even more evidence of your reliance on pseudoscience.
And just more evidence that you are assigning to others an incapability of realizing where the flaws in your points are; indeed no easy pickings, bullshit points, and straw men galore; it is not my problem that a record will remain showing for all time who is using all that flawed logic and continues to think that the even researchers that do not follow **all **of your ideas are idiots.
I’d like to point out again that the Flynn effect is entirely non-controversial, even with the small number of researchers like Rushton who support the “blacks are inherently genetically dumber, on average” idea.
I don’t have the expertise–or energy–to either defend or attack Flynn’s research. I note that I have not seen much evidence of an actual rise in intelligence, as measured by anything I can put my finger on. I’m open to suggestions of what we might look at.
I don’t see a corresponding rise in academic tests; in fact I showed a study earlier showing a progressive decline in SAT scores over the same time period requiring a re-centering of the exam norms.
IQ scores are themselves standardized so as to create a general reflection of the ability to function in daily life; against such a standard Flynn’s data yields a result of an average adult black IQ of 85 in 2002. Since the IQ distribution is roughly on a bell curve, this means half the adult black population in 2002 is below what is considered normal functioning. Worse, his data would give the adult black population in 1972 an IQ of 79; this is closer to ordinary retardation, or at least limited function. Worse still, 1972 is not a start point in his IQ rise, so extrapolation back beyond 1972 yields IQs for adult blacks in the mid or lower 70’s depending on how far back you go. I find those numbers difficult to accept, and absurdly low if we are measuring intelligence. If we are looking at test scores that don’t reflect anything substantive, that’s a different story.
If IQ reflects nothing substantive, then rising scores reflect no substantive changes, and the Flynn effect is meaningless. If it does reflect something substantive, then we put half our adult black population in the mentally handicapped range if we go back 50 years. You want to leave me with a Hobson’s choice for accepting IQ scores as meaningful, and I’m not biting. I don’t know how candidates are selected, or why the test does not correlate with academic ones in the past when it roughly correlates with academic ones today (i.e., high-scorers on an IQ test who are given equal opportunity to master material will outscore low-IQ test scorers.) This is why the whole thing doesn’t fit for me.
And I don’t think it’s a widely appreciated fact that, if you advance Flynn’s data as a great way to present evidence for genetic egalitarianism, you necessarily label our entire adult black population as having an average IQ of 85, even today (I haven’t seen any evidence the average IQ is now suddenly higher the last ten years). “Good news! Your IQ is rising, and it’s rising faster than whites! Bad news, though…you’ve only covered 6 of the 21 point gap your Daddy had 40 years ago, and you are still a full standard deviation behind whites. Worse news: Your Grandpa was retarded.” When does this rising IQ start? Where does it end?
But as I said earlier, I find it much easier to leave IQ for those who are expert with it, and focus on the persistent and resilient residual academic test score gap, which has been stubbornly immutable once it reached a certain point, and is very easy to normalize for SES nurturing influences. That, I believe, is powerful evidence the residual performance gap for that (relatively narrow skillset for mastery of taught content) is an average difference of innate ability.
Don’t forget, you also think blacks are dumber. A full standard deviation dumber, as measured by IQ. You just want to blame the environment, and it appears to me you think that this is a more palatable explanation than genes.
I hold that either is the luck of the draw, and neither is an accomplishment. Nor is a group average relevant to an individual or the intrinsic worth of anyone.
I don’t get the whole obsession with the “who is dumber” approach to debate. Within either SIRE group one could define all sorts of subgroups, one of which has a different average genetically driven skillset than the other. Who cares?
Except to drive social policy, it’s not a particularly important point for SIRE groups. And there, insisting upon a non-genetic explanation is going to create substantial harm, in my opinion. But I guess we can wait and see what SCOTUS does with Fisher this summer. Will you be content when Fisher gets decided for Fisher, and yet another nail is driven into the coffin of race-based AA? That is going to be a sad day for me, and I will have little sympathy for those who complain about the SCOTUS decision but who have ignored what the current studies show.
Maybe I will be happily surprised and Fisher will be decided for U Texas…
Which was about the same score as white people 50 years prior. I think it’s a reasonable suggestion that the black-white test score gap has similar causes to the 1945-white vs 1995-white test score gap, which has a very similar magnitude (for IQ tests, at least).
Again you show weak knowledge of how IQ scores are interpreted. Why are you still trying?
The same is true for white IQ scores (and most of the data Flynn has for his Flynn effect is from white IQ scores), and the Flynn effect does not suppose that these scores have been rising forever (in fact, Flynn has suggested that the effect is slowing or has stopped in recent times). Your difficulty in accepting the uncontroversial Flynn effect sets you apart from, perhaps, every single researcher that has been cited in this entire thread.
Yes, the IQ test scores (which I’m not convinced do a particularly good job of the vague concept of “intelligence”) of black people match pretty closely the test scores of white people 50 years prior. I don’t believe that white people’s genetics have changed much in 50 years, so I think Flynn’s supposition that the environment for intellectual and academic development and achievement for black people matches that of white people 50 years prior is reasonable.
You are incorrect about what I believe, yet again (hint- it’s the link between “dumber” and “IQ test scores”). Please, just stop embarrassing yourself by trying (and failing) to read my mind.
This is the funniest part of all of what you’ve said- it’s not the first time you’ve said it.
Chief Pedant believes (try not to laugh too hard) that if everyone just accepted that black people are inherently genetically less intelligent, then black people would benefit. Really. In this belief, CP, I think you truly are unique.
What I believe is that race-based AA is the only path to get a more proportionate representation of blacks across society. If, instead, we insist that there is no inherent average ability difference among SIRE groups, we will assign only nurturing opportunity, and not race-alone, as the special circumstance under which to consider admission for students with poorer scores.
It has been extensively shown that, in such a system, at every level of nurturing opportunity, blacks will so substantially underscore whites and asians that they will not be able to compete for admission.
What colleges are looking for is to be able to set aside race as a standalone criterion. Colleges know that within the various groups they seek to remain as diverse as possible, the best black candidates come from the wealthiest black backgrounds. (This is true of any SIRE group). But within that wealthy black background, blacks still substantially underscore not only whites of equal SES, but whites and asians of much lower SES. So without a special consideration for race alone as a criterion, many black students will not be able to compete.
We don’t think women should have to compete with men for a soccer program. We assign to them a biological difference, and find ways to work around it. We don’t have the same physical standard for women as men for firefighting jobs. We find ways around biological differences. We accept those differences and move on, and we do not spend much time with someone who wants to argue that it’s terrible we find ways around a “genetically” diminished performance for a given skillset.
Come back to this topic when Fisher wins her SCOTUS case. Check back in a few years–perhaps even the year after this admission year (for which students are already accepted) and let me know how much of a purist you would like to remain.
Yes. If the differences among SIRE groups for skillsets that drive how well you can do in life are genetic, and if blacks as a SIRE group underperform on those critical skillsets, and if we want to drive diversity by SIRE group, we will have to accept that there may be biological differences that need to be accommodated.
I have been known to post in haste and repent at leisure…just to be clear, I was referencing the comment that Coyne makes about being an “outlier” when pretending there is no such thing as race. The other link is not Coyne’s, but a reader of his.