Don’t know. Some significant number – I definitely believe genes are involved in intelligence.
None of this actually constitutes a single piece of evidence that black people have inferior genes for intelligence.
I see no reason to believe this. I don’t believe that 16th century Japan is dumber than modern Mexico (or vice versa, for that matter).
Maybe not completely meaningless, but I think its utility is greatly exaggerated. But it’s awfully convenient that you totally dismiss a huge swath of IQ data when it suggests something you don’t like.
It really is strange how invested you are in this. Strange – especially because you’re totally unwilling or uninterested in recreating the Scarr study.
Considering the history of racism and discrimination in this country, this isn’t a stretch at all. It would be a stretch to consider that there is no significant obstacle to black students of all economic levels that aren’t there for white students.
This is all wrapped up with the “opportunity” explanation, of course. If these obstacles exist due partially to societal racism, then this absolutely constitutes reduced opportunity for black people.
Jewish and Asian students don’t experience the same things as black students. Considering our history, in which black people were treated far, far more abominably than any other group (except perhaps Native Americans, who have similarly depressed academic and economic achievements), it’s not at all a stretch to believe that there are unique obstacles that exist for black students that don’t exist for white, Asian, and Jewish students, regardless of economic background.
While reading about something else, I stumbled upon this: The epigenetics of being black and feeling blue
Let’s say that science does actually find that African Americans (the descendents of American slaves) are predisposed to learning difficulties, but this disadvantage can be directly linked to the generations of poverty and trauma endured by their ancestors. This would explain why black children raised in middle-class homes are, on average, still outperformed by whites and Asians in the classroom. The absence of key epigenetic markers in other members of the African Diaspora (west and central Africans, Afro-Caribbeans) and the positive correlation of these markers with familial poverty and geographic residence time in slave and Jim Crow states would be the two strongest lines of evidence used to support this hypothesis.
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I have no doubt that some progressives would reflexively argue against these findings. But I also have no doubt that just as many racialists would challenge them too. I’m curious how the posters here on either side would react.
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I think the liberal/progressive policy response would be very predictable. “Let’s come up with some ways to ameliorate the effects of generational hardship and trauma on everyone, but especially on the descendents of slaves, since society has benefited materially from all that hardship and trauma.”
What would be the policy response from those who already believe black people are genetically inferior? If there’s evidence indicating that biological propensities can be altered through intensive environmental intervention, why wouldn’t everyone, not just idealistic progressives, be in support of such measures?
This is a terrible argument.
‘South Asia exports brains’ is mostly nonsense. The only place this is really true is in the United States and maybe Canada. The Indian and Pakistani diasporas in other countries (Malaysia, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Guyana, Trinidad, South Africa, Kenya, Madagascar, for that matter England) are not composed overwhelmingly of highly educated professionals, although in many cases they may be somewhat more educated than the mean population. In places like Trinidad and Malaysia, they were brought over largely as laborers, not educated professionals. The most recent Indian diaspora, in the Arabian Gulf countries, is probably substantially more educated than the native population (it’s drawn largely from one of the most literate and educated state), but still, a lot of those imported malayalis are doing menial labour.
India has nuclear weapons, great scientists, advanced technology etc. mostly because it has a billion people, and even if your IQ is fairly low, a billion people gives you plenty of folks at the extreme upper tail of the distribution. Same is true of Pakistan, 180 million is still plenty enough to have quite a few very smart people. Not particularly indicative of the average, though.
Aren’t most Afro-Caribbean people also descended from slaves?
You guys are never going to resolve the issue of racism and its lingering effects in the US. Might I suggest you forget the idea of cracking the code with data takin in the US and look at data from elsewhere?
I’d be strongly in favour of whatever measures we can take to help people overcome any biological propensities to learning difficulties.
I see lots of focus on intelligence but in my limited personal experience behavior seems to be a primary if not the primary factor in educational performance. Although intelligence (probably more importantly memory) clearly makes the job easier, motivation and habits makes all the difference in the world.
I’ve seen smart people perform poorly due to behavior and people not as smart perform really well due to great work ethic, etc.
Do you see low IQ on the Indian sub-continent a function of heredity, environment, or some combination of both?
I’m sure environment plays a big role: India’s a very poor, malnourished and disease-ridden country. But in the absence of strong evidence either way, I’d assume that heredity plays some role too.
One explanation I’ve seen for low IQ in this region is inbreeding depression. This would be a case where differences in environment (that is, differences in mating customs between heavily inbred and heavily outbred cultures) led to genetic difference in populations.
Yes, South Asian populations tend to be heavily inbred, which is known to lower intelligence.
Sure–let’s look at populations of black people that have not been affected by extreme colonialist or racist violence from white Americans or Europeans. For example,
The point was not to single out black people specifically, it’s mainly to highlight the following.
If intelligence is based in part on genetics, then it stands to reason that intelligence will not be constant between individuals. It also follows that since we get our genes from our parents, over time the variations in the genes that give rise to our individual intelligence can and will vary between different clusters of families and larger populations as well. This is not to be contested, just through random chance and genetic drift we observe traits like skin tone and eye color and height vary between families and different populations over time and geography. There is ZERO reason to assume that gene frequencies responsible for the variations in things like skin tone and eye color vary between different groups, but the genes that influence intelligence and the brain DON’T VARY AT ALL between groups. Why? Why do YOU assume that? Why would you or ANY reasonable person expect that?
Because equality? Because a good and just God would not allow such a thing?
The point of this argument is to blow the mental barrier apart that prevents people from even CONSIDERING the possibility that some groups, as GROUPS not individuals, might have lower aptitudes NOT because of what society did or is continuing to do to them, but because of the distributions of nature. You can’t blame nature in the same way you blame society.
Both liberals AND conservatives HATE the possibility of group differences based on genes for different reasons, and it causes them to shut their brains off and ignore the obvious.
Liberals hate the notion because if it’s really true that part of the differences in aptitude and outcome is really genetic, then there is simple altering society and institutions and resource distributions writ large will NOT eliminate the gaps. It strips the power and agency away for liberals who want to wipe away the differences that affect peoples lives.
Conservatives and to a lesser extent libertarians HATE the possibility because it undercuts the legitimacy of a meritocratic society. Does the kid who gets better grades do so because he “worked harder” or because he was smarter? It could be both but I have seen examples as a tutor where some kids come through and slough off, barely working and studying at all do BETTER than others who put in far more time and effort, and still came up shorter than the other kid. Not because they did not put in the same or more effort, but because they were not gifted with the same mind. There is NOTHING in the universe less meritocratic in the universe about how smart you are born. And that little gift of nature affects all sorts of outcomes in the modern world. You can’t completely explain away why some people do worse in the world with cheap talk about how they did just did not work as hard or study as much or have the right values, because EVEN IF THEY DID all those things, gaps in intellect would produce differential results in outcomes… at least below certain baselines.
I do think there are certain thresholds of aptitude where how much you put into something makes much more of a difference, but a lot of people are below those thresholds.
Personally, I hate group differences for ALL of the reasons listed above, but that does not make me deny their possibility and influence on the world, it makes me want to have them studied and mapped out so we can get to the HARD work of correcting the injustices of nature. When it comes to aspects of human nature and aptitude that directly affect how well they do in life, I want LESS of a lottery, not more. We have precious little idea how to do any of that now, and we won’t for decades or centuries longer if we continue to have people studying these things and in elite positions of power with their heads in the sand. I don’t think it would be useful to have this discussion on national tv, its nothing but demoralizing to discuss the possibility that some of the negative differences are outside of our control to completely solve, but I damned sure want people spending money on research to get to work on trying more creative ways to solve these issues.
When have I assumed this? Don’t put words into my mouth; don’t build up straw men.
Feel free to bring this stuff up with anyone who makes such claims.
Let me know if you want to talk about anything I’ve actually said.
This.
I applaud your support of a series of straw men.:rolleyes: