Is it even possible for populations of the same species to develop different levels of intelligence over the span of a little more than 150,000 years?
On a global scale, the iq gap DOES correlate with SSA ancestry, not just AA ethnopolitical identity. The average SSA has an iq of 70, and I'd guess that the median of west indian nations isn't much higher. The median for predominately white countries is about 100. So it's worth noting that iqs of west indian immigrants aren't representative of the general population of their home countries.
The mean (average) IQ score of 70 for SSAs is misleading. Mean IQ may vary quite a bit from one country to another and from one ethnic group to another.
Further the mean (as opposed to median) of predominantly white (I assume you mean European countries) isn't 100. The mean IQ for white Americans is 100. Mean IQs for European countries vary; some are as low as 95/93 or so and some as high as 102, Italy's for example. One can't blame the low scores on the presence of outsiders either. Many of these countries do not have significant immigrant populations.
Thank you for correcting me, I meant to say mean, not median.
G-man wrote:
There are geneticists who are involved in this as well. The hostility to engaging in this kind of research is intense in Western countries for obvious reasons. I predict much the research will shift to places like China in the future.
Not that I don't believe you, but can you show me some geneticists who are involved in this?
G-man wrote:
It's a common claim that the main proponents of the genetic theory are eugenicists. Many if not most are not. Most, however, are supporters of the concept of human biodiversity, and some of these people do support eugenics. Simply believing in significant genetic differences among human beings, including something called intelligence isn't the same thing as the support for improving human stock through selective breeding, which is what eugenics is.
Well its obvious that there are significant genetic differences among human beings, and it's also obvious that some people are naturally more intelligent than others. But that's much different from saying that whole populations are naturally more or less intelligent. According to this guy...
"Physical differences which are determined not by one, but many different genetic variants, are unlikely to split neatly by population. Intelligence is probably one of the most complex traits humans possess. It is almost certainly affected by variants in many different genes, and many of those genes have other important functions in the body. That means this: two different human populations could have easily developed differences in skin color between them, but differences in intelligence would have been extremely hard to develop, by chance or by natural selection."
I'd also argue that people who believe that evolution only affected appearance and body type and had no affect at all on mental function, temperament, etc, among humans are more akin to supporters of intelligent design as they are more resistant to scientific inquiries into human biodiversity.
But nobody really argues that evolution had no affect on mental function, they argue that there are not population specific genes that control human intelligence.
G-man wrote:
What if science discovers that cognitive functioning can be more or less accurately measured and there are average differences in that functioning between population groups? "Eugenicists" won't be the people who play the role of Christians who believe in intelligent design then. That role will be assumed by egalitarians and other modern progressives who find this information threatening to their ideology.
There already are average differences in cognitive functioning between population groups, assuming that iq tests are the most accurate measure of cognitive functioning.
You're right that if science discovers that there are in fact genetic differences between populations that affect cognitive skills, it would threaten progressive ideology. And if science doesn't find any such genes, the "human biodiversity" types will refuse to accept it, as their own ideology is at stake. They're not driven by a passion for scientific inquiry anymore than progressives are.
The hostility to engaging in this kind of research is intense in Western countries for obvious reasons. I predict much the research will shift to places like China in the future.
I disagree. Hostility undoubtedly exists among politicians and demagogues of all stripes, but this has not slowed the pace of research in this field. As long as funding is available (and it is) and as long as interesting data are uncovered (and they are), geneticists as well as cognition and developmental scholars will continue to investigate it. Among important recent studies are:
Block, Ned. 1995 "How Heritability Misleads About Race." Cognition 56:99-108
Dickens, Kane, and Schultze. Does The Bell Curve Ring True? Brookings.
Shuey, Audrey. 1966 The Testing of Negro Intelligence. Social Science Press.
Jensen, Arthur R. 1981. "Obstacles, Problems and Pitfalls in Differential Psychology" In Sandra Scarr, ed., Race, Social Class, and Individual Differences in IQ. Hilldale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Jensen, Arthur R. "The Nature of the Black-White Difference on Various Psychrometric Tests: Spearman's Hypothesis." Behavio0ral and Brain Science 8:193-258.
Jensen, Arthur R. and C.R. Reynolds. 1982 "Race, Social Class, and Ability Patterns on the WISC-R." Persinality and Individual Differences 3:423-38.
Scarr, Sandra, ed. 1981. Race, Social Class, and Individual Differences in IQ. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.
Scarr, Sandra and R.A. Weinberg. 1983. "The Minnesota Adoption Studies: Genetic Differences and Malleability." Child Development 54:260-67.
Scarr, Sandra, and others. 1977 "Absence of a Relationship Between Degree of White Ancestry and Intellectual Skills Within a Black Population." Human Genetics. 39:69-86
Weinberg, Richard A., Sandra Scarr, and I.D. Waldman. 1992. "The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study: A Follow-Up of IQ Tests Performance at Adolescence." Intelligence. 16:117-35
Willerman, Lee, Alfred F. Naylor, and Ntinos C. Myrianthopoulos. 1974 "Intellectual Development of Children From Interracial Matings: Performance in Infancy and at 4 Years." Behavior Genetics. 4:84-88.
I would be happy to post more references, if anyone is interested. This is an exciting field, about which much more is known today than even 20 years ago. The consensus is that the genetic hypotheses have been thoroughly demolished. On the other hand, theories of societal expectations, parenting skills, and oppositional culture are still very much in the running. While theories of parental (or grandparent) economic or educational level are just barely surviving.
Maya, if you ask the question in that way, then there is no test-score gap in the U.S. either. There is no test-score gap in the U.S., "between people with significant SSA ancestry (various admixture proportions) and people with significant Euro or Asian ancestry." To paraphrase your question, a USAmerican with 70/30 Afro-Euro and a USAmerican 90/10 Afro-Euro (assuming they have the same socioeconomic status), in fact, do not show significant test-score differences. Dozens of studies have confirmed and replicated this fact over and over.
I hate to keep asking what is, on the surface, a stupid question, but if you had read the commentary on the Kristol article as I did perhaps you'd ask the same question.
My reasons for phrasing the question as I did are quite simple: People still believe that there is a clear, umambiguous and persistent genetic reason for the aggregated I.Q. gap between majority SSA nations or ethnicities and majority Euro or Asian nations/ethnicities. This is not just about U.S. test scores - just read the comments on the articles. It is EXTREMELY important to answer the question of genetics publically, in a variety of ways, and to refute distortions. Obviously if the refutation of "study after study" was sticking in the public sphere then no one would profess skepticism about findings that contradict the notion that the aggregate I.Q.s of various populations majority SSA ancestry (across the world, not just the U.S.) are lower than those of many majority Euro and Asian nations/ethnicities. Why haven't the dozens upon dozens of studies testing the Flynn effect dislodged that thinking? Obviously there are people, Jensen included, who would rather believe that SSA genes are the cause of "lower intelligence" (operationalized as I.Q.) and find confirmation in "study after study." Their skepticism goes with the cultural grain (of SSA inferiority) and no amount of political correctness and liberal handholding is going to fundamentally change that.
Just read Kristol's article, for example, something that millions of people forwarded the week it was published. Where does he mention the lack of a test score gap/I.Q. gap in Brazil? My question "why does no one point this out" is a musing about why this painfully obvious contradiction of genetic causality isn't a part of the general dialogue like the Flynn effect has become.
fwsweet wrote:
Sigh. It has been pointed out. It has been pointed out over and over again. Dozens of studies, collections of studies, and meta-studies of studies have been published over the past two decades showing the absence of positive (indeed, slight negative) correlation between Afro admixture and test-scores. Please, please, please read at least Chapter 3 of the book cited above.
I have read it, as well as most all of the studies/books you cited in a subsequent message. Again, if the data are so obvious, so unimpeachable and so widely corraborated, then why don't journalists presenting refutation of the genetic argument give a rundown as they do for Flynn data, etc.?
All I am pointing out is that, clearly, what academics and interested individuals think is a dead argument is not dead. This reminds me of the argument about intelligent design vs. evolution - deeply cultural and faith-based interests using science to equalize two point of view that are really not equal. Yet, ask most people (in the U.S.) and many will support the notion that intelligent design is a viable countertheory to evolution.
I also asked a question about a previous statement that I'm hoping you'll address:
fwsweet wrote:
Still, the speculation should be testable in theory. Consider for instance the grandchildren of immigrants from Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, etc. Most probably consider themselves A-As and see their grandparents' origin as a curiosity, personally unimportant to themselves. And yet genetically, they are West Indians not A-As.
What did you mean by this? Is there a genetic difference between West Indians and others, aside from average or modal admixture?
I'd also argue that people who believe that evolution only affected appearance and body type and had no affect at all on mental function, temperament, etc, among humans are more akin to supporters of intelligent design as they are more resistant to scientific inquiries into human biodiversity.
But nobody really argues that evolution had no affect on mental function, they argue that there are not population specific genes that control human intelligence.
I should rephrase that: Many people believe that evolution had no affect on intelligence. Mental function is a very broad term, and yes there are people who fiercely believe this, and they outnumber those who do not.
BlackHaze wrote:
G-man wrote:
What if science discovers that cognitive functioning can be more or less accurately measured and there are average differences in that functioning between population groups? "Eugenicists" won't be the people who play the role of Christians who believe in intelligent design then. That role will be assumed by egalitarians and other modern progressives who find this information threatening to their ideology.
There already are average differences in cognitive functioning between population groups, assuming that iq tests are the most accurate measure of cognitive functioning.
You're right that if science discovers that there are in fact genetic differences between populations that affect cognitive skills, it would threaten progressive ideology. And if science doesn't find any such genes, the "human biodiversity" types will refuse to accept it, as their own ideology is at stake. They're not driven by a passion for scientific inquiry anymore than progressives are.
You assume incorrectly that human biodiversity is an ideology. It is simply the recognition that there are significant average biological differences among human populations.
There are ideologues-usually those who embrace some kind of racist ideology-that embrace human biodiversity and selectively incorporate it into their ideologically-based world view, but human biodiversity itself isn't an ideology.
Those who do this often reject the notion of mean intelligence or willfully misunderstand the concept when looking at certain human populations. For example, if the mean African American IQ is 85 (which it is), they assume there can be no African American surgeons or physicists because ALL African Americans have an IQ of 85, which is too low for these kinds of endeavors. Hence, those AAs who are in these endeavers must be in way over their head or they simply don't exist.
A recent specific example are some opinion makers in cyberspace who conclude that Obama cannot be intelligent because he's (half) black African or if he is intelligent he must have inherited ALL of his intelligence from his mother. His father's intelligence evidenced by his background in Econometrics and schooling at Harvard played no role apparently.
Also, they tend to be resistant to the possibility that mean IQs can increase over time (or decrease) for groups or can positively/negatively change due to environmental factors or even better/worse nutrition.
Many people believe that evolution had no affect on intelligence. Mental function is a very broad term, and yes there are people who fiercely believe this, and they outnumber those who do not.
I imagine that this is the same 60+ percent of the U.S. population who reject all adaptation and change through natural selection. Anyone who accepts that speciation is driven by natural selection must accept that intelligence is subject to selection, just like any other trait. Otherwise we would still be in the trees.
I also asked a question about a previous statement that I'm hoping you'll address:
fwsweet wrote:
Still, the speculation should be testable in theory. Consider for instance the grandchildren of immigrants from Haiti, Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, etc. Most probably consider themselves A-As and see their grandparents' origin as a curiosity, personally unimportant to themselves. And yet genetically, they are West Indians not A-As.
What did you mean by this? Is there a genetic difference between West Indians and others, aside from average or modal admixture?
Not to my knowledge. I was merely saying that: Any hypothesis that a bizarre adaptation unique to the U.S. has produced unusual stupidity among members of the A-A community (but not among, say, West Indians) should be testable. One possible test would be to see if 3rd generation descendants of BWI immigrants display a test-score gap (which their immigrant grandparents do not display). If so, then the gap cannot have a genetic component, since genes do not change in 3 generations.
Regarding the intrasigence of folk-beliefs in the face of scientific evidence, I am not an expert on the phenomenon. My own take is that some people are trained in scientific thinking (objective definition, falsifiability, replicable findings), and some are born with a knack for scientific thinking, but many others quite simply cannot reason thus and go through life seeking authorities who reveal eternal unquestionable "truth." Popular media pander to the latter because they outnumber the former.
Now and then, the Skeptical Inquirer has articles by psychologists or cognition experts on the phenomenon and its exacerbation by the popular media. As I recall, it has something to do with a subconscious search for parent-figures on whom people can unload the responsibility to make reasoned choices. If you wish, I shall try to find articles on the subject.
Not to my knowledge. I was merely saying that: Any hypothesis that a bizarre adaptation unique to the U.S. has produced unusual stupidity among members of the A-A community (but not among, say, West Indians) should be testable. One possible test would be to see if 3rd generation descendants of BWI immigrants display a test-score gap (which their immigrant grandparents do not display). If so, then the gap cannot have a genetic component, since genes do not change in 3 generations.
Regarding the intrasigence of folk-beliefs in the face of scientific evidence, I am not an expert on the phenomenon. My own take is that some people are trained in scientific thinking (objective definition, falsifiability, replicable findings), and some are born with a knack for scientific thinking, but many others quite simply cannot reason thus and go through life seeking authorities who reveal eternal unquestionable "truth." Popular media pander to the latter because they outnumber the former.
Now and then, the Skeptical Inquirer has articles by psychologists or cognition experts on the phenomenon and its exacerbation by the popular media. As I recall, it has something to do with a subconscious search for parent-figures on whom people can unload the responsibility to make reasoned choices. If you wish, I shall try to find articles on the subject.
Thanks, I got it now.
Please do share the articles if you can find them.
Posted: Wed 24 Jun 2009 17:23 Post subject: Distribution?
Statistics is not my strong suit. However shouldn't the distribution of AA IQ scores give a clue. If there is something about the test itself then examining the standard deviations over all the results should indicate something. I am talking about cultural differences. AAs are not an assimilated group due to the color line and other factors. Shouldn't the scores be different since the test focuses on certain skills. I am not saying the test are unfair or hinting at an excuse for the gap. However if the distribution of scores in the AA group is different then that would be scientific evidence to indicate that something is different si going on with in the group than other groups.
Joined: 07 Feb 2007 {Posts: 1829 } Location: Lookin DC Metro, Feelin Geneva
Posted: Wed 24 Jun 2009 18:29 Post subject: Re: Distribution?
holdtight wrote:
Statistics is not my strong suit. However shouldn't the distribution of AA IQ scores give a clue. If there is something about the test itself then examining the standard deviations over all the results should indicate something. I am talking about cultural differences. AAs are not an assimilated group due to the color line and other factors. Shouldn't the scores be different since the test focuses on certain skills. I am not saying the test are unfair or hinting at an excuse for the gap. However if the distribution of scores in the AA group is different then that would be scientific evidence to indicate that something is different si going on with in the group than other groups.
This would not make sense, AAs are far more assimilated than an Asian born in Asia (as about 50% of Asian Americans are) but Asian Americans score higher generally than white Americans on IQ test, especially in visual-spatial ability (not so much language).
I guess one can argue that if it is culturally bias they lucked out in that it was bias in their direction over the average white.
Please do share the articles if you can find them.
CSI (Committee For Skeptical Inquiry) is dedicated to exploring (and tirelessly debunking) counterfactual but strongly held beliefs. Its flagship publication is Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Each issue has articles on specific counterfactual beliefs promulgated by the media, and efforts being made to counteract them. But most issues also have one or two scholarly articles on cognition and why people want to be fooled.
The current issue has an article on correlations between beliefs. Some correlations are expected: people who disbelieve natural selection also believe astrology. But some correlations are unexpected: those who most strongly claim the science can solve mankind's problems are also those who most strongly believe astrology. The article has not been posted online. If they do not post it within a couple of weeks. I shall go ahead and summarize its findings here.
Last edited by fwsweet on Wed 24 Jun 2009 21:41; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Wed 24 Jun 2009 19:19 Post subject: Re: Distribution?
Dragon Horse wrote:
holdtight wrote:
Statistics is not my strong suit. However shouldn't the distribution of AA IQ scores give a clue. If there is something about the test itself then examining the standard deviations over all the results should indicate something. I am talking about cultural differences. AAs are not an assimilated group due to the color line and other factors. Shouldn't the scores be different since the test focuses on certain skills. I am not saying the test are unfair or hinting at an excuse for the gap. However if the distribution of scores in the AA group is different then that would be scientific evidence to indicate that something is different si going on with in the group than other groups.
This would not make sense, AAs are far more assimilated than an Asian born in Asia (as about 50% of Asian Americans are) but Asian Americans score higher generally than white Americans on IQ test, especially in visual-spatial ability (not so much language).
I guess one can argue that if it is culturally bias they lucked out in that it was bias in their direction over the average white.
I first read this thread last week. I came on today to make a comment. I was thinking about scores in the US and forgot about the world. I still would like to check on the distribution of scores within groups.
Posted: Wed 24 Jun 2009 19:34 Post subject: Re: Distribution?
holdtight wrote:
shouldn't the distribution of AA IQ scores give a clue. If there is something about the test itself then examining the standard deviations over all the results should indicate something...
That is an interesting idea. Like, for instance, whether the A-A test-score distribution is more sharply peaked, say, or is skewed one way or the other compared to the non-A-A distribution. I do not recall if anyone has looked at that. But it might be worth investigating. Lots of studies publish the raw distributions. In fact, I posted in an earlier message distribution graphs of vocabulary scores of White and Black 3-year-olds.
On another note, regarding genetic heritability, we need to keep focus on what we are talking about. There is no doubt that smarts are hereditary. As I mentioned, were this not so we would still be living in trees. And there is no doubt that smarts (or stupidity) runs in families; dumb parents tend to have dumb kids and vice-versa. And it is entirely possible in theory that large populations differ consistently in this regard, the way that blood types vary around the world.
The issue is whether any genetic differences align with the odd U.S. color line. Any proposed genetic explanation must take into account replicated findings that recent immigrants from Africa, Afro-Caribean immigrants, and pre-highschool A-A kids adopted by White parents, do not display a gap.
CSI (Committee For Skeptical Inquiry) is dedicated to exploring (and tirelessly debunking) counterfactual but strongly held beliefs. Its flagship publication is Skeptical Inquirer magazine. Each issue has articles on specific counterfactual beliefs promulgated by the media, and efforts being made to counteract them. But most issues also have one or two scholarly articles on cognition and why people want to be fooled.
Here is a online archive of past articles. Among ones you might find interesting are:
I've been looking for info on test scores of West Indian and African children but I really can't find any on the internet. @FWSweet, where did you learn that there's no test score gap between BWI and whites? I also recall you or someone else here saying that Nigerians in England score higher on cognitive tests British whites. Does anyone know which study found these results?
G-Man wrote:
You assume incorrectly that human biodiversity is an ideology. It is simply the recognition that there are significant average biological differences among human populations.
There are ideologues-usually those who embrace some kind of racist ideology-that embrace human biodiversity and selectively incorporate it into their ideologically-based world view, but human biodiversity itself isn't an ideology.
Well after browsing various human biodiversity blogs/forums for several months I'd guess that the majority of people who embrace 'HBD' do in fact incorporate it into their ideologically-based world view. For example, I was reading the comments section of one guys blog in which someone mentioned that intelligence, in the broadest sense of the word, can not be measured only by IQ tests. He mentioned that many people with Savant Syndrome have average or way below average IQ scores, but that they're capable of performing impressive mental tasks that even most high IQ people can't.
The whole point was that IQ tests aren't the be all end all of intelligence, and that it would be intellectually dishonest to say that these people aren't intelligent in their own right. As expected, many of the other reader's blasted him for being ''politically correct'' and one completely denied the existence of Savant Syndrome, saying it was a made up phenomenon--created on the spot to "disprove" the validity of the standard IQ test.
Simply put, what passes as scientific evidence in their world is basically any piece of data that supports their preconcieved notions. They don't take kindly to objecive discussion...for anyone who opposes their views will automatically be labeled a liberal, an apologist or "politically correct". That indicates that a good number of them are driven by emotions or ideology over serious inquiry.
They could spare themselves a lot of time by just admitting that they want their countries to remain predominantly white, and that this has more to do with fear/anxiety (some of which is warranted) than science. I guess some people are just so scared of being called 'racist' they feel they have to justify their beliefs with empirical data.
Nevertheless, some of the topics make for interesting discussion, and some of their racialist theories (such as blacks being able to run faster, jump higher) are personally flattering and fun to think about , but they've gone way beyond the point of ''acknowledging that there are significant average biological differences between human populations''.
Posted: Wed 11 Nov 2009 16:32 Post subject: Nature vs. Nurture
Does ethnicity determine one's IQ or test scores?
My opinion, no.
In my opinion, a person's social-economic group is a greater factor than ethnic group.
What determines ones IQ, test scores, or ability to do well in school?
Nurtue more than nature.
-----------------------------------
Research some teaching journals and magazines.
---------------------------------------
From
www.scholastic.com
Nature vs. Nurture
How much influence do you have on your baby’s intelligence?
By Craig Ramey and Sharon Ramey
PRINT EMAIL Sponsored Links:
At a Glance
• Nurturing has a profound effect on intelligence.
• Intellectual foundations are laid by the age of two.
• Young minds are shaped by genes and experience.
You undoubtedly care about the total range of your child's interests and abilities — creativity, social skills, problem-solving ability, and so forth. But like most parents, you are probably especially concerned about the skills that will enable your child to do well in the classroom — from learning to read and then memorizing Shakespeare to learning arithmetic and then mastering geometry. Here is some of what we know:
• Parents are the keys to intellectual development for almost all children in the care and education they provide and arrange. Many research studies underscore the links between parental involvement and young children's intelligence.
• By the time a child turns two, many of the intellectual foundations will have been laid to support a lifetime of learning.
• No single, short-term accelerated early learning program that concentrates on a single aspect of development has been shown to have lasting benefits.
• Instead, a child's intelligence is shaped and influenced by his cumulative experiences over time.
• Nurturing has a profound effect on intelligence. The nature-versus-nurture debate is wrongly framed — biology matters, and so does experience. Intelligence doesn't develop in a vacuum.
Your child's intelligence is being shaped, challenged, and expressed every day by experiences with people, objects, and events — especially when he is an active participant. These experiences are the raw ingredients of intelligence.
Here's more good news. These same ingredients nurture many different facets of a child's intelligence, such as the creative, the musical, the interpersonal, and the logical, as well as the Shakespeare-memorizing and geometry-learning kinds.
There are profound individual differences in children's intellectual profiles. They have different strengths and weaknesses, even in the same family, even when they receive consistently high-quality nurturing and stimulation. There is still much to study and resolve in discerning all the factors that contribute to such variations. Expect to read a lot more in the future about how genes and experiences work together to shape the brain and intelligence.
I've been looking for info on test scores of West Indian and African children but I really can't find any on the internet. @FWSweet, where did you learn that there's no test score gap between BWI and whites? I also recall you or someone else here saying that Nigerians in England score higher on cognitive tests British whites. Does anyone know which study found these results?
The source for my claim that: "Afro-descent children of British West Indian immigrants to England exhibit a temporary gap that lasts only until they acculturate," is the newspaper article here.
You definitely want to get the book if you are interested in the topic. It is becoming a bit outdated, but is still the best out there. Not only does it summarize many dozens of studies, but it gives you the names of researchers pursuing the subject, so you can follow their current work in pubmed.
BlackHaze wrote:
That's you talking in the lecture? I expected you to have a Spanish accent
That is me, all right. Funny you should mention it. Last night's SL discussion group meeting focused on "White privilege" (living your day-to-day life without ever being reminded of "race.") An A-A professor at Vanderbilt University and I were trying to get the concept across to the group. Our examples were all phenotype-based. (If you look completely Euro, as I do, no one questions you.) Perhaps we should have included some ethnocentrism examples by analogy. (If you sound completely Anglo, as I do, no one questions you.)
Off-topic: In another thread someone asked if I am ever mistaken for a Cuban. I cannot find the question now, but the answer is "Never." When I speak English I am obviously an Anglo-American from western New Jersey. When I speak Spanish I am even more obviously a Puerto Rican from the southern part of the island.
'
FAQ
Search
Register
Log in
I've been looking for info on test scores of West Indian and African children but I really can't find any on the internet. @FWSweet, where did you learn that there's no test score gap between BWI and whites? I also recall you or someone else here saying that Nigerians in England score higher on cognitive tests British whites. Does anyone know which study found these results?
, but they've gone way beyond the point of ''acknowledging that there are significant average biological differences between human populations''.