xenog123

Not really sure what your point is - when you mentioned the San people initially I thought you were trying to argue that IQ is not the prime determining factor of survivability, but now it seems like you're trying to make the argument that abstract reasoning or general intelligence has been selected for only so recently that there hasn't been enough time for it to be encoded into genetic differences. What kind of timeline are you looking at there? I'd guess something like g has been selectable since as early as agrarian societies and the existence of spoken language and alphabets.

So if you admit at least some genetic component to IQ, do you think that just determines baseline cognitive ability, and that through education/plasticity and equalizing environmental conditions everyone can in principle reach the same upper limit on human intelligence? I suppose that's possible, but consider the analogy to other physical traits/organs/system. Take something like muscle strength, for example. There are both genetic and environmental components to an individual's muscle power - proper nutrition and exercise can improve muscle development, and muscles can be said to be plastic in a sense. Yet clearly there is still an upper limit determined by one's genes - not everybody has the innate capacity to become a power-lifter, for example. The same could be said for other traits, like height, running speed, etc. So it seems like a pretty extreme case of exceptionalism to think that the brain, also a physical organ no more distinct from others, should be otherwise. It's not impossible of course, but... It's true that IQ tests were not initially intended as measures of general cognitive ability, but they were pretty quickly adapted to that use, and it has been the consensus for quite a while that g is a highly useful/meaningful factor, whatever it actually is. If you're going to reject that by the same standards you might as well throw out all social sciences. As for the idea of g being artificial or representing abstract abilities that don't correlate with practicality/survival, I think the fact that it is a good determiner of most mental functioning and correlates pretty highly with success in complex modern societies seems to imply it's not just some arcane construct only useful for book-learning. The counter examples you cited are kind of exceptional cases (the autistic savant types with high measured IQ but low practical sense or survivability, clearly a unique/deficient kind of phenotype) or the bush-folk that can survive in harsh environments despite their low IQ (again, a sponge with no brain can survive in places humans can't) that seem beside the point. Yeah that's a good point - why harp on about this at all. Like if this was your water cooler talk it'd be weird -"Oh hey Jamal, nice to see you. Hey, did you know that people of your ethnic background are statistically far less likely to pass a first year Calculus course? Well, see you at lunch." Anyways I gave my reasons for why its important in one of my earlier responses.

Man really.

Okay man I think I'm done splitting hairs with you - your analysis still has errors but we've strayed pretty far from the original point and I don't think it's worth wasting more time on this. You've also been insulting. Good day.

Well, a couple things. The estimate of 70 to 90 was from a cursory search. 70 to me seems pretty low, I would guess the average is actually higher. So if you're taking the absolute lowest estimate the yes it might seem unrealistic. Your math on the mean IQ of the migrant population doesn't make sense. You seem to think that a sample population with a mean IQ of 115 would have to be drawn from the proportion of the larger population that is above an IQ of 115, but that doesn't follow. If you're drawing a random sample from all those above 115 the mean of that sample will be > 115. I wouldn't assume that IQ and SES correlate that tightly - there could be plenty of bright Nigerians from less affluent backgrounds. I'm not sure about your stats on the size of the Nigerian American population - if the total population at a given date was some value, then it doesn't imply that that exact value immigrated all in that year. Presumably there would already have been some established migrants. I think those qualifying characteristics you mentioned would filter out more than 10%. An IQ of 85 is already pretty low and that's the 15th percentile, I'd imagine most migrants would probably be at least average. Well I don't know what anyone else has said about Appalachians but I would think genetics is a large factor in their low IQ - that particular sub-population was probably drawn from the lower proportion of the Scots-Irish distribution and has also been inbreeding for a while. It also wouldn't really be hypocritical to deny a genetic component anyways, since their environment is clearly impoverished.

I don't care too much about your insults but what irks you about the username? It's just a random pseudonym.

That study is interesting - if I've understood it correctly they linked educational attainment to particular genes in a sample of genomes of Black and White populations, estimated the degree to which those genes had been influenced by selection effects, and then calculated the expected differential in mean IQ between the populations based on some kind of simulation that made use of this information. They found the expected difference to be less than that of what hereditarians have claimed, and concluded that that position is not well supported. That's pretty cool and if the methodology is sound it's a useful advance, but I don't think it conclusively disproves the hereditarian (or at least "soft hereditarian") position. Educational attainment is just one imperfect metric, and there is a lot of room for error to leak in with the methods they used. I'll have to dig up one of the twin studies I'm talking about later. The reasons I cling to hereditarian ideas are the following: Your mind is your brain. Your brain is a part of your body. I don't see how you can deny that it is subject to genetic influence. Assuming IQ is a valid measure of some property of the mind (brain), the historically measured gaps in IQ (and their measurement is basically factual) have persisted for so long and across so much societal change it seems difficult to imagine how they could be purely environmental in origin. Even just looking at score results from say the early 20th century to the 1980s (before the more recent data) the gap remained fairly constant even with the Flynn effect. If this was the result of improvements to environmental conditions, it seems unlikely that both populations would experience nearly identical rates of improvement if the sole cause of the disparity to begin with was environmental factors.

Well regarding the nature vs. nurture debate it seems kind of obvious it's a combination of both. I would think genes set the upper limit on IQ and then environmental factors determine the rest. Twin and adoption studied are pretty telling - from what I recall reading if you take, say identical twins from a lower SES and place one with an upper middle-class family and one with a family of low SES, the one raised in the richer environment will end up with a higher IQ than his twin, but still lower than that of his adopted family. If environment was purely the determining factor you'd think his IQ would rise to exactly that of the adoptees. As for what IQ measures the whole point is that it's supposed to be general intelligence, since most cognitive abilities are found to strongly inter-correlate (see culture-fair tests). For the example of the survivalist bushman with the 70 measured IQ, that sounds like saying that like, a sea sponge with no brain rivals a human's intelligence because it can survive on the ocean floor where a human being would just drown.

Well the logic is basically something like this - assume you have two groups of identical IQ distributions. If you're selecting some subset of one to move to the other based on even rudimentary selection criteria (high school education, some work experience, no criminal record, knowledge of opportunities in other countries) you're implicitly filtering out people below some IQ threshold, and so the minority population in the new country will have a higher average IQ than the natives. That's interesting to hear about new research in the field. I didn't get the impression when reading Jensen that he was actually manipulating data. In terms of "grand narrative" fallacy it seems there might be the opposite trend now towards an egalitarian spin that sees everything as socially constructed. Those SNP studies are really not conclusive in my view, since we still have such a poor understanding of which genes are linked with measured intelligence. And I just can't fathom anyone who would do away with any hereditarian ideas entirely. Look at something like twin studies, for example. Or even the idea that you could have identical twins whose every physical trait is identical (clearly because of their shared genes) but their brains are somehow immune to this.

Uh okay man

Those kinds of programs aren't the ones I'm talking about - I'm referring to things like affirmative action. If you look at university admissions in the States, for example, you'll find that in an effort to yield a "fair" distribution ethnic groups that are more objectively qualified as measured by metrics such as GPA and exam results are discriminated against in favour of those with inferior qualifications (Chinese-American males are actually the most severely discriminated against in this regard). So in this case the idea of meritocracy is being jettisoned in favor of equity or whatever, obviously not an ideal policy.

Why are you even assuming I'm white? And yes it's pointlessly rude.

Who are you addressing here exactly? That's kind of out of line whoever the target may be. And it doesn't even really make sense to refer to a White person as "bleached" if they were born that way, if that's what you meant. Yeah that was just the first study a search turned up. I haven't read Rushton's work directly but am familiar with Jensen's. As for the gap narrowing there is some evidence it might have narrowed a bit, perhaps from 1 to roughly 0.7 standard deviations below the mean, but the most recent studies that I looked at are still kind of mixed. Even if it's narrowed that much due to an improvement in the (presumably) asymmetrical life conditions that caused the disparity in the first place it still seems like a pretty massive gap. And I kind of wonder at just how much you have to equalize environmental factors anyways - does education actually improve fluid intelligence (one would think not by definition), or is it enough that one has adequate nutrition and other material necessities? I would agree that the hard delineation idea is simplistic though. Does the 1000 genome study you mention refer to genetic links between races and IQ or just genes and IQ in general?

The ethnic factor there could still be explained by immigrant selection. The gender trend is quite clear though. As far as I know recent IQ testing hasn't shown a growing disparity between males and females, so my first thought would be to ascribe that to just differences in work ethic or enthusiasm moreso than pure cognitive ability. I think historically males and females had similar mean scores on formal tests line this so that's a remarkable divergence, especially if IQ hasn't changed. But I'd have to do more research. Anyways I've got to take a break from this for a bit.

I mean it says right in that article that applicants have to meet some requirements for education, job training and work experience. There's also the self-selection factor, in that those who choose to apply are more ambitious, driven, higher IQ. Yeah clearly environmental factors are huge as well, I'm not denying that. The only reasons one should care about heredity or group differences are, imo: Zeal for scientific truth To inform better policy making In the West the assumption that race or gender based disparities are mostly or entirely due to discrimination has informed a lot of social justice-style corrective policy that is probably just totally wrong-headed or impractical.

No, that doesn't follow. I just mean elites in terms of useful skills/education, who presumably would be more likely to have the ability to immigrate. If you're assuming that this distinction is due solely to environmental factors then you're begging the question. In general immigrants are more likely to be admitted if they are rich/educated/skilled, all of which correlate with IQ. If you wanted to be super thorough you'd have to look at the relevant country's immigration policies I guess but some basic filtering is evidently there (criminals, super low IQ people).

Well one (I would think fairly obvious) explanatory factor for both of these cases would be selection bias. Whites in their native countries come from all backgrounds, while minority ethnic groups are more likely to be fairly recent immigrants who were selected from the higher strata of their home countries. So you're comparing the cream of the crop of Nigerian woman (estimates for mean IQ of Nigeria range from 70 to 90) against the entire White American population, or elite Chinese against all White British. There's also the secondary fact for the stats about Nigerian women that educational attainment and raw IQ are not perfect correlates. For those British university stats there's also no mention of gender as far as I can see.

Interestingly what you actually find is that this disparity between Black and White scores persists even with the Flynn effect - so even as the measured IQ of both groups increases over the decades the gap remains roughly the same. My guess for the cause of the Flynn effect is that the increase in average IQ is driven mainly by just eliminating really obvious detrimental environmental factors, like poor nutrition, childhood injury/abandonment, and so on. So for the population of people who have their material necessities met the overall level of cognitive sophistication is not dramatically different from a hundred years ago.

Well that article pretty clearly says that it's white working-class students (as selected by their eligibility for free school meals) that are under-performing, not just white males in general. Well for IQ differences between Blacks and Whites in America the data is pretty much everywhere - here's one source though: https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf Researchers have consistently found a ~15 point difference between Blacks and Whites (85 and 100 mean IQ, respectively) for pretty much the entire century since this kind of testing began. 15 points is massive, that's an entire standard deviation. That means that there will be ~17 times as many Whites with IQs greater than 130 as there are Blacks.

The Neanderthal mixing is actually pretty interesting, and probably affects cognition to some extent, maybe more so the quality than just the magnitude; from what we know about Neanderthal brains it seems they had a more mechanistic/spatial form of reasoning compared to the predominantly symbolic/social cognition of "pure" homo sapiens. So it's possible it contributes to overall IQ without being the only factor. Yes you are correct for mentioning the full quote and context there - I omitted it only for brevity in my post. Yeah it wasn't my intention to stir an in-depth discussion regarding race and IQ or whatever but it is a large factor in why he's condemned by some, so it's worth examining the issue a bit to try and discover to what extent he may or may not be justified in saying certain things. It's been a while since I've looked at up-to-date research on the topic but I wasn't aware whether or not the idea of genetic differences between groups (even those with "fuzzy" boundaries) had been completely debunked. As far as I know the measured differences in IQ still exist and are pretty substantial.

Yeah that incident was in 2005, he resigned from the presidency of Harvard in 2006. Uh the more recent stuff with Epstein is pretty disappointing though, yeah. Are you referring to Watson's comments about race and IQ? The only specific comment I'm familiar with is that he said he was "gloomy" about improving life in Africa because one has to assume that their innate intelligence is equal to "ours" [Whites]. Regarding genetic markers in populations: as far as I know no conclusive studies have been done linking specific genes to intelligence, or identifying those genes in various populations, so you can't say anything conclusive about the genes in Asian or Black Brazilian populations. The hypothesis that measured differences in IQ have a hereditary basis is just that, an hypothesis. There's got to be at least some meaningful hereditary component to IQ though. It seems pretty absurd a priori to admit that all other physical traits are subject to genetic influence but that your brain alone is this mysterious organ that's immune. So unless you're a hard-core mind-body dualist or something you have to admit that cognition is subject to laws of heredity as well. The main motive I think for this kind of denialism is that people in the West are loathe to let go of their feel-good egalitarianism and are (justifiably) afraid of sliding back into Nazi-style eugenics (which, interestingly enough, was adopted much earlier and practiced for much longer and more stringently in Britain, America and Canada than Nazi Germany).

The best possible hypothesis for racial hereditarianism that I know of would be something like the following: strictly speaking, discrete races do not exist, but different populations that evolved in isolation from one another for at least some time would have different frequencies of certain genes across the population, as well as seemingly trivial phenotypical traits that distinguish them from one another. So Sub-Saharan Africans differ from Northwestern Europeans in some superficial ways, but these surface-level differences are just correlates with underlying real genotypical differences that arose due to their adaptation to different environments. So there are no rigid natural delineations between these groups and they can intermix, but you'd still expect to see emergent average hereditary differences in behaviour (like cognitive ability). Empirically you have to account for why it is that measured differences between racial groups are so consistent over time and across different societies; if skin color was just arbitrary why are these differences so stubborn.

Yeah I mean the uncontroversial part is just the recording of the scores as such, the rest is more complicated. Personally I lean towards the concept of general intelligence and IQ testing to be well-founded but there are still a lot of issues (and in any case that's kind of beside the point of this discussion). I do find it a bit unfortunate that we're so squeamish in the West about saying so many things though - Watson's controversial comments are tactless but I don't think ill-intentioned and not totally unreasonable to speculate on. It reminds me of the Larry Summers scandal back in 2005-ish; poor man was driven out of his job at Harvard just for suggesting that maybe sex-based differences it achievement and representation in prestigious STEM positions could be at least in part due to factors unrelated to systemic/societal discrimination, and suggested a few potential causes. Seemed unnecessary.

Well maybe "psy-op" is too strong but there are certain ideological trends that are hard to ignore. I personally don't really buy into the idea that it could trigger such a wide societal shift but thought it might be worth bringing up. Well IQ/g is a pretty well-established metric in the social sciences. I think Trump actually famously bragged about acing a dementia screening test, hilariously, which is so much worse. I'd have to take the time to do a thorough study of their work but from my initial reading it looks like they drew on range of data from different labs. Regarding Chinese IQ score most IQ testing data has consistently shown that North-east Asians score ~105 on average, whatever the underlying cause may be, so that's not really uncontroversial.

Hmm interesting - do you have a link for the under-performing white male stats? Watson did also say that Chinese males have a higher average IQ so he might not have been completely out to lunch haha. Also have to consider the effect of demoralization psy-ops against white males in the Anglosphere (maybe that's a paranoid take). I recall reading a study a while ago that found that the number of super high IQ males had been declining to the point of vanishing in the West since like the 1970s or something, which was pretty weird. Have to wonder at what might cause that, assuming such a report is accurate. One theory behind the disparity between the sexes in STEM achievement had been the greater variability hypothesis, so it'd be interesting to see why that might be incorrect or a fading phenomena if it was true in the past.