# The looming crisis in human genetics **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 1, 2009, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571 "2009-12-01T09:22:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 13
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/241 "2009-12-17T09:15:26Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > To put it nicely, basketball and football are average first choices for those who can perform them best; even academic professional careers tend to be second choices for those who have a choice. But there is no system whereby we can truly know who can perform the best beyond trying our best to figure who is the most talented amongst those who have chosen to dedicate themselves to the sport. The decision to attempt to become a professional athlete is something most people with “better” options don’t seriously entertain because they know that it is such a long shot because doing so will close many doors along the way. You really need to take a look at the types of people that tend take those odds; poor people. Poor people actively pursue a career in professional athletics for the same reason they play the lottery more often ([twice](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/cmu-wpa072408.php) as much in some studies). They play the lottery because they wrongly see it as the best way of dramatically improving their circumstances. A rich White kid is far less likely to entertain pipe dreams whether they be playing in the NBA (where Blacks dominate), the MLB (where White dominate), the EPL (where Americans lag far far behind), or buying a lottery ticket. To more affluent people, the money used for a lottery ticket is better spent on something more likely to pay off. In the same way, the hour spent practicing free throws for a more affluent kid is better spent studying for a history exam. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Now what this means at a practical level is that the starting pool of potential NBA players is larger for whites than it is for blacks, but as the children mature, they are gradually weeded out as the superior athletes outperform them. In theory this would be true, but fails for a number of reasons. Most people don’t get their choices weeded out for them based on their deficiencies. For most of us, you never reach your level of incompetence; you generally gravitate towards what interests you, what is culturally important to you, and what comes easiest to you. Your innate skill set is important, but most people never travel far enough down the road to ascertain what they are truly good at. I’m sure you did not decide to become a doctor because superior lawyers, architects, pornstars, rappers, pianists, grifters, and tv news anchors outperformed you in those fields. Do you really know whether you would be a great Mahjong player, cricket player, or archer? > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > No one would argue that blacks have more opportunity–more nurturing along the way. No; they have a harder road to climb and yet they climb it more successfully. You assert this, but IME, this is simply not true. Blacks do have more opportunity and nurturing. In general, poorer (Black) people in the city have more basketball courts closer to them. More importantly, there is a dearth of most other athletic fields. They also have more opportunity to play, and play a style of ball that is dominate in the current NBA, against competition weeded out based on skill level rather than age (as it generally is in the majority White suburbs). Many also have fewer “distractions” (involved parents, family vacations/dinners, SAT classes, etc.). I currently live in Washington, DC. I can find a basketball game, within 5 miles of me, going on from morning to midnight during most months of the year. Where I grew up (playing basketball), near Princeton, NJ, it was difficult to find pickup games outside school sanctioned events. When I do play here, my level of playing time is directly proportional to how I stack up against the people playing at that time. You rarely play against people you are much better than (except by choice). If you suck, you don’t get to play. If you lose, you get off the court. The playground system is one that rewards superior athletes with more practice, against better competition, on a more regular basis. In the suburbs, most people play against others their age regardless of skill, or (as adults) whoever is around. I would guarantee that a dedicated Black player in the city would have played far more hours of basketball against better people than a similarly determined White kid in the suburbs. In the end, that’s what will make all the difference. Even though there will initially be more White kids playing basketball, they will largely be playing against substandard competition in a relatively small, isolated area. Even though the aggregate is numerically greater, the effective competition is smaller in number and inferior in skill. The average Black kid goes to a larger school with a larger talent pool. This is why high school sports are generally segregated by school size. As a result, the best coaches are generally located in cities and prep schools (which often recruit from the city). This list of the top [25](http://www.maxpreps.com/rankings/basketball/1/national.htm) high school basketball teams does not include any school from a small or rural area. Newer basketballs, better gyms, and fancy uniforms generally don’t make you a better better player. Neither does having a better funded, more formal system if there are informal systems that supplement those in place which are more capable of producing desirable outcomes. Lastly, you forget how players are filtered at the higher levels which tends to favor Blacks from certain circumstances. NBA players are generally not drafted from small liberal arts schools or Ivy-league schools. Draftees usually are not hard science majors, or people who plan to attend grad school. Colleges scout based on stand outs from AAU and other club teams (which are more common in cities), and large high schools. Bigger tournaments are held in larger venues, and are more widely reported and scrutinized. Consequently, a player with a greater, larger stage will consistently get more opportunities to play at a higher level. > [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > I am arguing for something much simpler: where we see disproportionate representation among race-based cohorts, genes is a reasonable explanation where we can show that opportunity has been normalized. Perhaps, but when opportunity has obviously not been normalized, and their are other substantiated factors in play, it seems foolish to assume causation based on scientifically dubious claims. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/242 "2009-12-17T15:10:47Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > No one would argue that blacks have more opportunity–more nurturing along the way. This is the crux of the whole NBA debate, though, and if it was true no one would be arguing with you. I contend that blacks are a lot more positively pressured to take up basketball than whites are. It’s the more unreasonable view that whites and blacks are as equally motivated to take up this one particular sport. I mean, just mathematically speaking, this would be impossible. Can we all agree that whites have access to more sports (hockey, soccer, wrestling, baseball, biking, etc) and more non-sport opportunities (e.g. IB programs in high school)? If nurturing is different between blacks and whites in these areas, it follows that they are different with respect to basketball too. That’s what happens when you steal from Paul to pay Peter. If your son told you he wanted to become a rapper when he grew up and make a million dollars, would you and his peers encourage his dreams or would you all shake your heads in dismay, wondering got into his head? What you are saying is unconvincing because you’re asking us to accept–_without evidence_–an idea that runs completely counter to what we observe in the real world on a daily basis. By your reasoning, if there is any disparity in group representation within a particular field that theoretically has “open access” to all, then we should assume a genetic basis. The prestige and income associated with the NBA is actually a red herring, since there’s no plausible reason why blacks and whites should suddenly share the same affinities when we’re talking about a high-paying career, but be different when we’re talking about average to low-paying ones. Disparities between groups are commonplace. For instance, there more females going into [veterinary schoo](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340187/)l than males. Do females have a “veterinary” gene that men lack? Why would it be silly of me to reach this conclusion following the logic you’ve laid out for basketball and blacks? I just can’t see why the absurdity in your argument isn’t more obvious to you. Seriously, if you want to make a case that blacks are superior athletes, there are probably much more compelling ways to argue that. But so many fallacies are present in your current rationale that it’s like shooting crabs in a barrel when you post on this subject. And it would be one thing if you weren’t trying to use the NBA to argue about differences in intelligence between races, but the fact that you are adds an extra layer of :smack: to this whole bloody debate. Even if evidence came out tomorrow that blacks are more likely to possess genes that make better basketball players than whites and others, guess what? This still doesn’t prove anything about intelligence. So not only are you wasting time by arguing ineffectively about athleticism, but you are also wasting time arguing a non sequiter. _We already know that certain characteristics expressed by genes show up in some “racial groups” more than others._ ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/243 "2009-12-17T15:37:40Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > _We already know that certain characteristics expressed by genes show up in some “racial groups” more than others._ I’m good with leaving it there for now. That’s progress beyond many threads. I see that you and **brickbacon** are not persuaded that the starting group for potential NBA careers is as large for whites as it is for blacks, or that whites have better nurturing. It doesn’t seem likely I’ll dissuade you of that. What both of you are discounting is the fact that the NBA is a career–not just a “sport” and you seem to make the assumption that whites do not choose a path toward that as a primary choice. This is wrong. Sure; if a kid decides at age 6 that all he wants to be is Michael Jordan, an educated parent with connections would try to steer him toward alternate choices and a black kid might not have that sort of family structure. No argument there and it’s fair to say the white kid does have more alternatives. But that’s not exactly what happens. What happens is that the white kid is given every advantage to determine whether or not he has potential and only when it becomes evident he is not going to reach the top tier are alternatives explored. So all the white kids who are substandard in grade school lose their NBA dream. All the white kids who are substandard in high school lose it next. Then college. This may well leave a final selection pool disproportionately represented by blacks, whose nurturing circumstances have given them fewer alternatives, but all of the original advantage was–on average–for those white kids to succeed, and there were way more of them. So the final disproportionate representation reflects the absolute best from the original grade-school pools. The ones who dropped out along the way were never going to be NBA caliber. To your point about this being a non-sequitur for success in other endeavors: of course an NBA skillset is unrelated to success elsewhere. But I have used it as an archetype because it so obvious an example for disparate outcomes NOT being the result of skewed opportunity. I want to start there to establish the general principle. If we are determined, as a society, not to eliminate race categories or the charge that disparate racial outcomes must be from disparate opportunity, we do well to examine whether or not that premise is correct. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/244 "2009-12-17T17:11:19Z")
> [@What Do PHILOSOPHERS DO?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-philosophers-do/57641/30): > > What both of you are discounting is the fact that the NBA is a career–not just a “sport” and you seem to make the assumption that whites do not choose a path toward that as a primary choice. Rapping is a career, too. And.? Doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to expect white kids to choose this path in parity with black kids any more than its reasonable to expect the same with basketball. > [@](#): > > Sure; if a kid decides at age 6 that all he wants to be is Michael Jordan, an educated parent with connections would try to steer him toward alternate choices and a black kid might not have that sort of family structure. No argument there and it’s fair to say the white kid does have more alternatives. Okay, no disagreement from me either. > [@](#): > > But that’s not exactly what happens. What happens is that the white kid is given every advantage to determine whether or not he has potential and only when it becomes evident he is not going to reach the top tier are alternatives explored. And this is where you stray into unreasonableness. White kids are given _every_ advantage to determine all of their potentials? Really? Not only are you using absolutes like “every” and “only”, but you even go so far as to emphasize the absolutes, which further reduces the credibility of what you’re writing. Moreover, it can’t be reconciled with what you wrote just a paragraph before. A child of two physicians very well might be the next Michael Jordan. But how he is going to be given _every_ advantage to determine his potential in athletics when his background so heavily favors an academic/medical career track? These parents aren’t sending him to basketball camp, when they’d rather have him in the hospital shadowing Daddy. It’s unlikely that the child of hockey fans is going to be groomed for basketball either. > [@](#): > > To your point about this being a non-sequitur for success in other endeavors: of course an NBA skillset is unrelated to success elsewhere. But I have used it as an archetype because it so obvious an example for disparate outcomes NOT being the result of skewed opportunity. It’s not an _obvious_ example of disparate outcomes being the result of reasons other than skewed opportunity (as its just as contentious if not moreso than the theory that some races are smarter than others), so perhaps it’s time you pick another example to work with. Your basic argument is pretty simple: it’s possible that there is a gene or genes related to intelligence that are found disproportionately in some racial groups than others. All it takes to support this argument is citing _known_ (as opposed to _speculative_) examples of such a phenomenon. For example, it is a documented fact that Asians as a group as less able to metabolize [alcohol](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_flush_reaction) due to a lack of certain enzymes. This is largely why alcholism is less prevalent among Asians. This is a reason that has more to do with _nature_ than _nurture_. Ergo, therefore, yadda,yadda, it is _possible_ that intelligence follows a similar mechanism. See how easy it was for me to put together a straightforward, noncontroversial argument to support _your_ position? There is absolutely no need to appeal to the mythology of the “dumb brute”, which is a trap you fall into time and time again when we debate this subject. When you find yourself drawing the same kind of speculative conclusions that pundits did decades ago when assessing all those Jewish basketball players, consider that it’s time to start thinking like a scientist in the 21th century. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/245 "2009-12-18T04:48:36Z")
The sociobiologist of the 21st century will have to overcome a political correctness based on what the academic world wants to be true: that there is no fundamental difference among various cohorts and that various human cohorts all have essentially the same potential. Every proposal seeking to clarify whether that is true will fight an uphill battle against the presupposition that study design is inherently biased, untestable or racist, because we have already decided to promote genetic egalitarianism as the default truth. The looming crisis in human genetics is that the sociobiologists will be proved correct; geneset (mal-)distribution will be proved to be the case; and not long after specific elucidation of gene function will be clarified. Each and every step of the way there will be protest, because the truth is difficult. There will be those who–like you–want to take a simple and obvious example like the NBA and argue that whites somehow choose every high-paying high-profile high-exposure career in which to be successful except professional basketball, where they choose to be underrepresented at a 1:4 ratio despite outnumbering blacks 4:1, despite funding programs that groom white players at much higher levels than those which groom black players; despite having an active fan base for the sport which is overwhelmingly larger than the total black fan base; despite grooming their children for maximum possible success. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the mismatch in those numbers and you don’t need to be a scientist of any kind to see through the pretense that the road for black success in basketball is somehow paved so much better than that for whites that blacks attain such a spectacular superiority just from better nurturing or because whites have somehow decided to hand over that plum. And you don’t have to be very educated at all to figure out that professional basketball back when it was supposedly dominated by Jewish players had absolutely nothing in common with the highly paid high-status career it is today. It was neither of equivalent interest to all whites like it is now nor was it even open to blacks. It is an embarrassingly bad example of grasping at straws. But if you have gotten at least far enough to understand that gene frequency distribution does pattern along racial lines, that’s a big start and I commend you for getting there. As with past conversations, I caution you about demanding clarification for genes you don’t want to vary in frequency before you will accept that, because that clarification is coming. The day when we can hide behind “unfair testing” and critiques of “study design” is going away, to be replaced with quantifiable genetic markers. I wish you the best but I do not envy those who buy into your arguments and build their world view on a foundation about to be shaken. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/246 "2009-12-18T05:20:01Z")
> [@](#): > > that gene frequency distribution does pattern Chief Pedant, steve hsu had a post about that a few years ago. > **[Metric on the space of genomes and the scientific basis for race](https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2007/01/metric-on-space-of-genomes-and.html)** > > \[Note: the science has advanced considerably since I wrote this post. See here for a nice picture of clustering by ethnicity. I've added so... ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/247 "2009-12-18T07:17:15Z")
> [@](#): > > The looming crisis in human genetics is that the sociobiologists will be proved correct; geneset (mal-)distribution will be proved to be the case; and not long after specific elucidation of gene function will be clarified. Each and every step of the way there will be protest, because the truth is difficult. Probably not. We already know that the facts are more complicated than you’ve been willing to acknowledge. Further research will in all likelihood bring further complexity. We’ve discussed epigenetics, and the the profound and permanent effects that environment can have on the human brain. I don’t think we’ve discussed interaction between genes, but that’s a major factor as well. Your arguments here have their basis in the US political system and it’s peculiar history. You begin with political categories - blacks, whites, etc. - and try to use them as the basis for scientific inquiry. It’s bound to fail because it confuses political categories with scientific ones. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/248 "2009-12-18T12:49:02Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Probably not. We already know that the facts are more complicated than you’ve been willing to acknowledge. Further research will in all likelihood bring further complexity. We’ve discussed epigenetics, and the the profound and permanent effects that environment can have on the human brain. I don’t think we’ve discussed interaction between genes, but that’s a major factor as well. > > Your arguments here have their basis in the US political system and it’s peculiar history. You begin with political categories - blacks, whites, etc. - and try to use them as the basis for scientific inquiry. It’s bound to fail because it confuses political categories with scientific ones. There’s no doubt genetic elucidation will help sort out populations with greater rigor than the loose social category of “race.” That does not mean given geneset frequencies will not be disproportionately distributed along patterns which include the “political” cohort of race, since those cohorts have already been shown to vary for certain gene frequencies. The controversy here is whether or not genesets for intellectual or physical ability can vary as opposed to only genesets for disease (for example). It’s a common mischaracterization that any arguments about racial differences are peculiar to the US. Disparities in success rates between the cohorts self-described as black, white, south asian, east asian, etc. are universal, and the rank order among those population cohorts is approximately the same the world over. When you look at sprinters you will find a disproportionate representation of individuals from West African descent; at long-distance runners a disproportionate representation of rift-valley populations; at engineering a disproportionate representation of asians, and so on. Every culture and political system has an effect on these success rates, of course, but it’s not as if the US has a disproportion of black sprinters and asian engineers while the opposite proportional distribution rank order is true in some other country. And on the world stage–the Olympics say–the same subpopulations tend to be successful within that political system and between countries, the same population cohorts have success when compared internationally. As has been pointed out, nearly all world-class sprinters are from the same black subpopulation cohort regardless of the political system which nurtured them. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/249 "2009-12-18T13:06:10Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > Probably not. We already know that the facts are more complicated than you’ve been willing to acknowledge. Further research will in all likelihood bring further complexity. We’ve discussed epigenetics, and the the profound and permanent effects that environment can have on the human brain. I don’t think we’ve discussed interaction between genes, but that’s a major factor as well. > > Your arguments here have their basis in the US political system and it’s peculiar history. You begin with political categories - blacks, whites, etc. - and try to use them as the basis for scientific inquiry. It’s bound to fail because it confuses political categories with scientific ones. And for those demanding “cites” : \*“Science is finding evidence of genetic diversity among groups of people as well as among individuals. This discovery should be embraced, not feared,” say Bruce T. Lahn and Lanny Ebenstein. **Summary** Promoting biological sameness in humans is illogical, even dangerous To ignore the possibility of group diversity is to do poor science and poor medicine A robust moral position is one that embraces this diversity as among humanity’s great assets\* [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7265/full/461726a.html](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7265/full/461726a.html) The door to an alternate way of thinking that does not prima facie demand genetic egalitarianism is cracking open, I hope. (You can read the follow-up correspondence as well, which may have relevance for those opposed to the paper’s position.) ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/250 "2009-12-18T18:48:33Z")
> [@](#): > > Disparities in success rates between the cohorts self-described as black, white, south asian, east asian, etc. are universal When you use self-description as your starting point, you’re already in trouble. Self-description varies with time and culture, and there’s also no clear way to sort out descriptions imposed by law and social custom versus self description. The lack of accurate scientific definitions for these populations is an essential flaw. There is no such thing as a universal “black” group. You’re attempting to revive classical race theory by defining widely disparate groups as “black” based on trivial similarities in phenotype. It’s been demonstrated conclusively in Brazil, for example, that African ancestry and physical appearance have decoupled. You can’t assume that someone has a given genetic profile based on what they look like. What universal group are Mexicans part of? How about Canadians of Native ancestry? Genetically they have a large Asian components to their ancestry. Somehow they haven’t found the “success” of the Koreans or the Japanese. These are political arguments, not scientific ones. The aim here is to win rhetorically what you can’t demonstrate in the laboratory. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/251 "2009-12-18T20:53:16Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > When you use self-description as your starting point, you’re already in trouble. Self-description varies with time and culture, and there’s also no clear way to sort out descriptions imposed by law and social custom versus self description. The lack of accurate scientific definitions for these populations is an essential flaw. > > There is no such thing as a universal “black” group. You’re attempting to revive classical race theory by defining widely disparate groups as “black” based on trivial similarities in phenotype. It’s been demonstrated conclusively in Brazil, for example, that African ancestry and physical appearance have decoupled. You can’t assume that someone has a given genetic profile based on what they look like. > > What universal group are Mexicans part of? How about Canadians of Native ancestry? Genetically they have a large Asian components to their ancestry. Somehow they haven’t found the “success” of the Koreans or the Japanese. > > These are political arguments, not scientific ones. The aim here is to win rhetorically what you can’t demonstrate in the laboratory. It is fair to say that self-association with race is a fairly loose and overly-broad cohort. At issue, of course, is whether even within those broad categories the differences are trivial. One often sees the expression “…the only difference is skin color…”. I am not, nor have I ever, argued that self-described “race” is a genetically uniform cohort. I have been very clear in arguing otherwise. I have pointed out that the presence or absence of a genetic family relationship has no direct bearing on whether or not a cohort’s average measurement can be said to be genetic. I’ve used (even in this thread) the example of tall and short cohorts as an example. The cohort of men over six feet can be said to be taller than the cohort of men under five feet for genetic reasons even if the cohort is not otherwise genetically related. We might let men self-categorize to “I am very tall” and “I am very short” and the average difference would still be genetic, even if it were a self-categorization and even if the two cohorts were otherwise loosely–or even completely unrelated. Having said that, elucidation of the human genome will more clearly resolve genetic family and ancestry patterns, and those patterns will likely help us understand why gene frequency distribution patterns itself along even loose categories such as race. The dilemma with race is that it is both a political (social) category and also a cohort with specific gene frequency distributions. **You with the face** mentioned some earlier, and there are many many others–the gene for hemoglobin s, for example. In general, the more tightly defined a subpopulation in genetic terms, the more marked a given pattern emerges. So we might find a modest increase in sprinting ability among the cohort self-described as “black” and upon more careful inspection find an even more marked disparate ability in a sub-cohort self-described as “black with West African ancestry” which turns out to be the population which is responsible for almost all of the sprinting ability–and so on. Where social overlays have managed to create a true melting pot, “race” becomes a useless and unnecessary categorization, and I for one look forward to a completely homogenized world. That’s not the world we live in today, and unfortunately the promulgation of race both as a political category and as a social construct is as much driven by under-represented races as anything else. We cannot, for instance, have race-based AA with promoting race, and we can’t have “black” pride with promoting self-descriptions that maintain that grouping as a cohort. It is in our genes (my opinion here) to self-identify with a tribe or band and it will take some time before modern politically-based society stamps out a long history of familiy ancestries being the primary determinate of tribe. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2009, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/252 "2009-12-18T23:53:04Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > Every proposal seeking to clarify whether that is true will fight an uphill battle against the presupposition that study design is inherently biased, untestable or racist, because we have already decided to promote genetic egalitarianism as the default truth. All this tells me is that you have a philosphical problem with the concept of the null hypothesis and the scientific method. Proving stuff is \*supposed \*to be an uphill battle. If that wasn’t the case, then anyone would be able to theorize about the world and expect to be taken seriously. Anyone would be able to publish an idea in a scientific journal. Your beef isn’t with political correctness; it’s with critical thinkers. Those same pesky people who challenged the ideas that the world was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, and that evil spirits were responsible for making people sick. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/253 "2009-12-19T02:02:27Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > All this tells me is that you have a philosphical problem with the concept of the null hypothesis and the scientific method. Proving stuff is \*supposed \*to be an uphill battle. If that wasn’t the case, then anyone would be able to theorize about the world and expect to be taken seriously. Anyone would be able to publish an idea in a scientific journal. > > Your beef isn’t with political correctness; it’s with critical thinkers. Those same pesky people who challenged the ideas that the world was flat, that the sun revolved around the earth, and that evil spirits were responsible for making people sick. Just the opposite. My beef is with those who decide first what the conclusion needs to be and complain if efforts are made to see whether or not the conclusion is true. Here’s the null hypothesis: There is no group-level difference for the distribution of genes which confer certain desirable traits such as intellect and physical ability, and all observed disparate outcomes are therefore the result of nurture. Nothing wrong with proposing that null hypothesis. Here’s another: The earth is not round and the universe is not old. It is the refusal to consider the alternatives and the complaint that even consideration or study of the alternative is somehow improper, ill-intentioned, misguided or a result of some evil ulterior motive to which I am objecting. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/254 "2009-12-19T02:26:16Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > It is the refusal to consider the alternatives and the complaint that even consideration or study of the alternative is somehow improper, ill-intentioned, misguided or a result of some evil ulterior motive to which I am objecting. No one is refusing to consider anything. Ostensibly, what you’re asking us to consider is simple, as I explained earlier. “It’s possible that some racial groups are smarter than others due to differences in gene distribution.” Okay. What’s next? After we get done considering this idea (and it takes all of 5 seconds), what more do you expect us to do? It’s an idea, nothing more, just like one thousand and one other ideas. It’s possible that there is life on another planet. It’s possible that invertebrate animals are more sentient than we realize. It’s possible that homosexuality has a genetic basis. A lot of things are possible. But do you see anyone blaming the PC police for why we generally don’t treat these _possibilities_ as proven fact already? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/255 "2009-12-19T13:32:09Z")
> [@you\_with\_the\_face](#): > > No one is refusing to consider anything. Ostensibly, what you’re asking us to consider is simple, as I explained earlier. “It’s possible that some racial groups are smarter than others due to differences in gene distribution.” > > \ > > A lot of things are possible. But do you see anyone blaming the PC police for why we generally don’t treat these _possibilities_ as proven fact already? There is a lot of pressure not to clarify relative gene frequency distribution among racial cohorts. See Steven Rose’s arguments for that position here, for instance: [Should scientists study race and IQ? NO: Science and society do not benefit | Nature](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7231/full/457786a.html) And actually, I agree with those sentiments but only if we stop using race as a political category and stop the charge that disproportionate success must be a result of racism–institutional or otherwise–or, a priori, unfair opportunity. If we are willing as a society to look only at opportunity and attack unfairness in outcome by seeking every possible means to equalize opportunity, we don’t have any legitimate motivation to obsess with race-cohort genetic studies. If, on the other hand, we either: 1. Level a charge that disproportionate success is only due to disproportionate opportunity because there is no race-based cohort gene differences, or 2. Wish to create social outcomes (proportionate race cohort representations, e.g.) based on the category of race, then it is appropriate to investigate gene frequency distributions by race. If, for instance, we a priori assume there are no gene frequency distribution differences between blacks and whites then the NBA is wide open to a charge of racial bias, and so is Ricci v DeStefano. It is the position of Chief Justice Roberts that “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” That may be true. However if the races differ in gene frequency distribution, then it’s unlikely that anyone will be satisfied with disparate outcomes until those differences are elucidated. And there are many PC police who, like Steven Rose, hold that any effort at elucidating those differences is inappropriate or ill-intentioned. But if they simultaneously demand blind acceptance that genetic egalitarianism for all cohorts must be scientifically correct, or–at minimum–be the default position, I take issue with that. Perhaps one of our most fundamental disagreements is what the default position should be. I look around the world and in every single political system, every single university, every single working world and despite every single effort ever undertaken anywhere at eliminating differences, still see various populations having disparate success rates and–on average–success rates in various endeavors that seem to pattern along the same cohort lines regardless of which political system that cohort finds itself in. That suggests to me that it is a reasonable default position that gene frequency for various skillsets varies by population, much as we wish it did not. When God told Idi Amin to expel the Indians from Uganda, surely part of Mr Amin’s motivation was that as he looked around he noticed the Indian immigrants were–on average–more successful than the natives. This has been true for that group of emigrants regardless of where they find themselves. While it may be argued that this disproportionate success rate is entirely cultural, there is nothing unreasonable about proposing that it may reflect a genetic superiority for that skillset as well, since that particular group has been less successful in other higher-profile, higher-wage endeavors such as the NBA (and thus are not simply culturally pre-disposed to success). ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/256 "2009-12-19T16:55:18Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > And actually, I agree with those sentiments but only if we stop using race as a political category and stop the charge that disproportionate success must be a result of racism–institutional or otherwise–or, a priori, unfair opportunity. I agree that charges that all differences **must** be the result of racism are counterproductive and quite probably wrong. The idea that we should stop using (perceived) race as a political category, however, is neither realistic or useful. Decisions to refuse to hire, promote, or provide housing to individuals based on perceived race are, unfortunately, real. Decisions to shape and enforce laws that skew to favor or disfavor people in perceived races are real. Eliminating “race” from political decisions simply means that those who employ it as a weapon can do so without consequences and those who allow unconscious assumptions about perceived race are never challenged to consider their decisions. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/257 "2009-12-20T06:35:03Z")
> [@](#): > > Ostensibly, what you’re asking us to consider is simple, as I explained earlier. “It’s possible that some racial groups are smarter than others due to differences in gene distribution.” > > Okay. What’s next? After we get done considering this idea (and it takes all of 5 seconds), what more do you expect us to do? It’s an idea, nothing more, just like one thousand and one other ideas. Do you need to revisit some equality type laws that allow discrimination against overrepresented groups in favour of underrepresented groups? These laws are based on the assumption that under a true meritocracy there would be equal representation? But if you accept different gene distributions then under a meritocracy you would actually expect unequal representation. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/258 "2009-12-20T16:33:16Z")
> [@Chen019](#): > > Do you need to revisit some equality type laws that allow discrimination against overrepresented groups in favour of underrepresented groups? These laws are based on the assumption that under a true meritocracy there would be equal representation? But if you accept different gene distributions then under a meritocracy you would actually expect unequal representation. There’s a difference between accepting an idea as being _possible_ and accepting it as fact, don’t you agree? Right now there is no evidence that intelligence differences exist between groups based on genetic differences. But we have plenty evidence that historical circumstances have ramifications on presentday observations. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/259 "2009-12-21T01:21:15Z")
> [@](#): > > There’s a difference between accepting an idea as being possible and accepting it as fact, don’t you agree? Right now there is no evidence that intelligence differences exist between groups based on genetic differences. But we have plenty evidence that historical circumstances have ramifications on presentday observations. Well, I think you can reasonably draw inferences from various pieces of evidence to conclude it is more likely than not that some portion of average differences are due to gene differences. For instance, the gap between Ashkenazi Jews and other groups shows no signs of abating. In terms of historical circumstances the Japanese descendants of indentured labourers in Brazil now dominate academically and have the highest average iqs. Also the descendants of children of Chinese labourers in the US seem to perform above average. Then you have the transracial adoption studies, brain size data, regression to mean etc that seems consistent with the hereditarian position. That evidence is all set out in the lead article of the June 2005 edition of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. It comes with 4 commentaries & a reply which are available here. [http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/](http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/) ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2009, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571/260 "2009-12-21T01:28:05Z")
You are right though that the actual evidence of iq affecting alles & their distributions amongst populations isn’t available. James J Lee mentioned this in his recent review of Nisbett’s book: > [@](#): > > The ultimate test of the hereditarian hypothesis is of course the > identification of the genetic variants affecting IQ and a tally of their > frequencies in the two populations. Because of their likely small effects, > we may have to identify dozens of such variants before we are > able to make any confident inferences regarding the overall genotypic > means of different populations. Although this task is currently > within our technological means, it seems practically out of reach in > the very short term. Ancestry estimation is much less costly than > gene-trait association research and thus offers the advantage of > an immediate increment toward the resolution of this issue. (page 254) Personality and Individual Differences 48 (2010) 247–255 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571.md?page=12) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-looming-crisis-in-human-genetics/519571.md?page=14)