http://knol.google.com/k/the-u-s-black-white-test-score-gap-e2
Well, groups do show different discrete clusters from even a modest number of random genetic markers ( Risch et al. Genome Biol. 2002; 3(7)) . Two groups that form distinct clusters are likely to exhibit different frequency distributions over various genes, leading to group differences.
The guy clearly hasn’t read the book by Herrnstein and Murray. They don’t argue that at all.
Is there a source for this? Jason Richwine’s calculations of scores from the 2003 New Immigrant Survey of the backward digit span subtest from the Wechsler IQ test were:
European legal immigrants’ kids: 99
India: 112
Northeast Asia: 106
Southeast Asia: 104
sub-Saharan Africa 89
Mexico 82
Central America/Caribbean 83
South America 86
Again, is there a citation for any of this?
What studies is he referring to? Lee, in the review I cited above, discusses some from the 70’s when Molecular genetic technology was quite unsophisticated. Those studies failed to choose genetic markers with large allele frequency differences between Africans and Europeans.
Note that the mixed-race children from the Minnesota Transracial Adoption study children had a higher mean IQ than did the children of two black parents, and the means for each group were very similar to those for their respective counterparts elsewhere in the United States.
Although, as Lee notes above - the best test would be to compare the gene frequencies amongst populations.
The influence of genes increases as people mature.
“'The heritability of general cognitive ability increases significantly and linearly from 41% in childhood (9 years) to 55% in adolescence (12 years) and to 66% in young adulthood (17 years) in a sample of 11 000 pairs of twins from four countries, a larger sample than all previous studies combined.”
Again, this is consistent with the hereditarian hypothesis.
Source?
The accompanying article provided does not support that claim. Look at the recent results here. http://congenialtimes.blogspot.com/2009/01/race-and-educational-achievement-in.html
There are races, or (forgive me) “breeds” of human beings, as defined by relatively discreet gene pools. These are comparable to (forgive me) breeds of dogs.
Just as breeds of dogs differ in intelligence and other behavioral characteristics, so do human races.
For example, ethnic Chinese are among the most intelligent of humans, and their history reflects this in an ancient and highly sophisticated culture. Australian aborigines are among the least intelligent; their history reflects this.
Humans accidentally bred themselves into behavioral differences by traveling to widely different environments and remaining there, in relatively discreet gene pools, for tens of thousands of years.
People who support the idea of racial equivalence do so for excellent moral reasons, I’m sure; but there is no actual evidence of any such equivalence. On the contrary, there are mountains of evidence of all kinds supporting the idea of racial non-equivalence.
The racial-equivalence camp seem to believe that theirs is the default position: it must be true until conclusively proven otherwise. Not so: they also must produce evidence. But there is no such evidence.
Alas. Would that it were otherwise. It would be lovely if the races were equivalent. But no amount of social engineering can make it so. And despite our best efforts, we cannot even devise a psychometric tool which would make it seem so.
Yes, when I read about foot binding, I think “sophistication.” It’s frustrating when people try to twist scientific research to support ridiculous, outdated, and (usually) self-aggrandizing stereotypes.
Marley 23,
If you think that your disapproval of foot-binding is apposite, then you should go look up the meaning of that, and a great many other words. For example, “civilization,” and “sophisticated.”
For your information, foot-binding is both civilized and sophisticated, even if it is evil.
The Australian aborigines did not domesticate any plants or animals, and used only a few crude implements of wood and stone. Their vocabulary did not include any words for categories of things. Their IQ is lower than other race, and their ancient and recent history reflect this. By “race” I mean a relatively discreet gene pool.
Did you say self-aggrandizing? The question is not whether the idea of racial non-equivalence may be self-aggrandizing, or racist, or retrogressive or popular. The question is this: by what evidence is it supported?
And the question about the idea of racial equivalence is the same: by what evidence is it supported?
Respond, please.
Regards,
KLR 650
P.S. I know, I know: there is no such thing as I.Q. Except when you are choosing your personal physician or lawyer. THEN the various test scores have a great deal of meaning. The racial-equivalence camp is reduced to rebutting all arguments based on real evidence, while providing NO EVIDENCE in support of their own theory.
What evidence can you show that supports the idea of racial equivalence? Answer: none. Because there isn’t any.
I don’t mean moral or civic or legal equivalence. I can sing “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight” with the best of them. I mean behavioral equivalence.
This is nitpicking, of if you prefer, sophistry.
I think it’s perfectly valid to ask if this is self-aggrandizing because it always is. People who trot out these sorts of prejudiced theories always believe their own races are advanced and others are primitive. Find me an Australian aborigine who supports your views on Australian aborigines, for example. Or a black person who agrees that black people are less intelligent than whites.
And the answer remains “by no credible evidence.” Since the racial superiority side is making the extraordinary claims here, they’re the ones required to prove their case, starting with the notion that there are significant differences between races. Somehow they never quite get there, although what they lack in evidence they usually manage to make up for in sarcasm.
You choose your doctors and lawyers based on their IQ scores? Fascinating! I prefer to decide based on their professional expertise and experience, but to each his own, I guess.
Marley 23,
Right. There IS NO evidence of racial equivalence.
Regards,
KLR 650
Marley23 says, “Since the racial superiority side is making the extraordinary claims here, they’re the ones required to prove their case.” When Marley says “racial superiority side,” what he means is those people who believe that races exist, and that they are not behaviorally equivalent.
First, it’s not clear what Marley means by “prove their case.” As anyone familiar with scientific method can tell you, science never actually proves anything. It accumulates evidence to support theories. These theories may be more or less useful, more or less predictive. Einstein supposedly said that “reality” is inside a box which we can never open.
What we’re looking for is not a kind of mathematical proof. We’re looking for the preponderance of evidence.
Second, Marley makes an excellent point (for me) when he says, indirectly, that the racial equivalence camp does not have to adduce any evidence for their theory, presumably because that theory is not “extraordinary.”
That is convenient, because producing evidence for their theory is exactly what neither Marley nor any other racial equivalence theorist can ever do. Because there is no such evidence.
We are supposed to believe in racial equivalence … just because. Perhaps, as Marley might say, because it’s not extraordinary.
You may attempt to debunk or deconstruct all the history, all the statistics, all the psychometric tests; this is the sorry task that racial equivalence theorists are reduced to. Because ALL the evidence suggests that races exist and that racial differences are … exactly what we see them to be.
There is NO evidence from history, or from any socioeconomic data, or from any psychometric tool, or from ANY OTHER DATA SET WHATSOEVER to suggest racial equivalence.
In short, we are supposed to believe in racial equivalence in the complete absence of any evidence.
And by the way Marley, I didn’t say that I choose a physician or lawyer on the basis of IQ tests. Please try to read more carefully. I said we choose on the basis of “the various test scores.” One of the tests I’ve already mentioned is the test of history. My own physician is Jewish, thank G-d. His brother is a surgeon.
As for me, my own race is below Jews and several others in the UNIVERSALLY RECOGNIZED racial hierarchy. What then? I can still tell hot ashes from a cool breeze.
Racial equivalence is quite simply one of the reigning doctrines of this age, as earth-centrism was in the age of Galileo. For the faithful, no amount of evidence will ever “prove” that the earth is not at the center of the universe.
Of course there is. The fact that we all belong to the same species is, in itself evidence of equivalence. Go tell Barack Obama that black people can’t achieve like white people can. People from different groups, given the same opportunity perform equivalently.
And even assuming that such differences actually exist, there’s no reason to think that any systematic intellectual differences between genetic lineages conveniently just happen to follow arbitrary racial lines set out by Europeans a few centuries ago.
And to point out what should be obvious; one important reason why the claims of the non-equivalence side require “extraordinary evidence” is because such claims have a long history of being completely wrong, and quite often the people making them turn out to be liars. When one side of the argument has proven itself repeatedly dishonest, then extra evidence is required from them to make them believable.
I have to define your own case for you?
You specifically mentioned IQ tests as a piece of evidence, so this is disingenuous. I can find the bar test credible without believing IQ tests are an accurate indicator of intelligence. Professional tests are more specialized than a generalized IQ test - sometimes much more specialized.
Let’s drop the rest of this; this is just too interesting. You posit that not only are the races inherently unequal, but there is a defined hierarchy, and further, that there is a universally recognized hierarchy? Do tell. What’s the pecking order? If you have it in pyramid form that would be particularly helpful. I’ve always wondered how Colombians stack up compared to the Ibo.
Hello? Hello?
Is anybody there?
Is there ANY evidence of racial equivalence?
You are begging the question.
You have not yet even identified that “race” is a legitimate category, nor have you established which people can be grouped into which races.
I don’t have to prove any “equivalence” aqmong groups that I do not even believe exist outside some shallow evidence that has long since been refuted.
No one believes that the four races of Linnaeus exist. Blumenbach’s five racial groups were a better effort, but they were not sufficiently well supported to avoid being rolled into three races for 150 years. Most recently, the efforts of Noah Rosenberg et al. demonstrated genetic groups of humanity that do not correspond to any “racial” divisions. So what are you using for your claims?
No, really. Please. Any evidence at all.
As I thought, you have no evidence.
I see this statement often, but I haven’t seen some good studies or examples. Can you give some that apply at the group level?
Belonging to the same species is no evidence of equivalence at all. The idea that I could compile an NBA team from properly-nurtured pygmy tribes, or find sickle cell as widely distributed among blacks as whites is farcical.
For the sake of convenience, define “black” and “white” as you see fit, but if you want a typical definition, use “the group which self-identifies as black/white.”
Mr Obama, of course, is culturally black by his self-definition but is not representative of the most typical genetic background for the overall group which self-identifies (and is phenotypically) black, since at least half of his genome is more typical for the group which self-identifies as white and would be phenotypically identified as white.
The larger point is that an isolated individual is not a useful case study. When comparing groups, it’s the group average performance that is a sticking point.
Do you have some good examples where reasonably large populations of whites and blacks were studied for a particular performance metric and found to be similar? As I recall, some black schoolgirls in Britain did relatively well, but such examples seem much the exception.
I can’t think of any societies where East and South Asians are not over-represented in the STEM pursuits and where blacks are not over-represented in sports pursuits requiring explosive power, such as sprinting.
Rather than re-raise every issue in the thread, I’d be interested in seeing some examples where black and white racial groups have performed equivalently. In higher education, at least, blacks and whites exposed to the same college programs do not perform equivalently on post-graduate testing; in fact the same marked differences they began with persist into LSATs and MCATS, for example.
The evidence for racial equivalence is that race is nebulously and inconsistently defined to begin with, and that all humans are the same species. That’s the basic evidence anyway. I am not a geneticist. But if KLR 650 is not interested in providing the racial hierarchy - pretty please? maybe you could arrange it bracket style, it would be a great warmup for March Madness - I will respond to the following:
This comparison is unfavorable for any proponent of racial difference, because despite centuries of Earthcentrism, Galileo’s theory won the day (despite considerable opposition - to which the likes of KLR 650 has never been subjected) because his evidence was persuasive. Racial superiorty has been a dominant theory for centuries, and just like Earthcentrists, its proponents have come up with all sorts of odd and pseudoscientific theories to justify their views. The idea that all people had more or less the same capabilities is a newish one and runs contrary to some people’s idea of common sense and the natural order of things, but it remains the simplest theory.
Actually, we can find exactly that sort of equivalence by making a minor shift to include sickle cell within the thalassaemia disease group. Both provide similar disabilities as an attempt to thwart malaria through a change in the same blood genes and both are endemic to malaria prone regions–and absent from malaria free regions–regardles of purported race. Sickle cell occurs less frequently in “white” regions, (although it is endemic in some “white” regions), only because the other thalassaemias happen to have colonized the other “white” regions first. There is not one aspect of thalassaemia or sickle cell that is “racial.”
Races are relatively discreet gene pools, like breeds of dogs.
Australian aborigines represent, or represented, a very discreet gene pool. Their IQs and their cultural achievements are among the lowest in the world. Sorry. No value judgments here. They have every right to exist. We are all one species. No question there.
Ashkenazi Jews represent a relatively discreet gene pool. Their IQs and cultural achievements are among the highest in the world.
Breeds within the same species will be seen to blend imperceptibly one with the next. This does not mean that breeds per se don’t exist.
There is Dachshund, and there is Great Dane. And there are imperceptible gradations of “dog” from one breed to the next. It will never be possible to define Dachshund or Great Dane, in a way that cannot be seriously challenged. But Dachshund and Great Dane still exist. And ask a breeder: they have behavioral differences.
It is foolishness to think that of all creatures, only Man is not susceptible to the effects of breeding.
Humans have accidentally bred themselves into different races, or breeds, by traveling to widely divergent environments and living there in relatively discreet gene pools for tens of thousands of years. Or so. Maybe hundreds of thousands.
Try reading Chen019, in this thread. The evidence for racial non-equivalence is vast.
Let’s be real, shall we? There is huge pressure of all sorts NOT to believe in “races” or in racial differences. You could lose your job. Try suggesting the POSSIBILITY of the existence of races, and racial differences, at a leading university. The mere possibility. You will be forced to recant and/or resign. THE IDEA MAY NOT BE BROACHED.
And as per usual, those advocating the theory of racial equivalence (tomndebb) have more, or less, sophisticated reasons for not adducing evidence on which to base their theory. Their theory of racial equivalence (for that is what it is) has this convenient feature: it never needs any supporting evidence. By definition. Races don’t exist. Problem solved.
Yes, definitions of “race” can be challenged. Definitions of IQ can be challenged.
To repeat. Advocates of racial equivalence will always be found debunking this or that racial concept; that is all that they can ever do. And there is a mountain of evidence to be debunked. Have at it.
Meanwhile, is there any evidence of racial equivalence? I’m serious. Any at all?
Really, now. Any sort of evidence whatsoever.
If you are going to post both sides of the debate, then have the courtesy to not post nonsense and ascribe it to your opponents.
I am perfectly willing to note that genetic populations exist and I am even willing to consider genuine evidence of differences among them. You have asserted that there are “racial” differences and have then identified a very few limited groups as being among these “races.”
When you have an actual definition of a race that matches a biological definition, get back to us. Until then, you are merely, as I first noted, begging the question.
Your “breed” analogy really does not work. There are no groups of humans who are as physically distinct as St. Bernards and Chihuahuas, (for example), and breeds are subjected to extreme breeding pressures that are not equivalent to any genetic drift in human populations. As long as you beg the question, use sloppy terminology, and employ misleading analogies, there is no reason for anyone to respond to your “challenges.”
Since this forum is entitled “Great Debates”, that’s pretty much all they need to do. One poster makes a claim. A small army of Dopers prove the claim wrong. Now that the claim has been proven wrong, you demand that they prove a negative.