22 minutes ago, xenog123 said:

Hmm interesting

Yes it is.
The only other person I know of, who tosses around IQ comparisons as if they mean something, is Donald Trump.
Draw whatever conclusions you wish from that ...

12 minutes ago, TheVat said:

We don't, actually, because this is a science forum not a Far Right garbage conspiracy theories forum. White males who get demoralized because brown people and women turned out to be smart at science too are responsible for their own biases and mood disorders. If that causes them to stomp their feet and blow off study sessions, then maybe they're too fragile to do science. Best leave it to people who know how to work hard.

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.

11 minutes ago, MigL said:

Yes it is.
The only other person I know of, who tosses around IQ comparisons as if they mean something, is Donald Trump.
Draw whatever conclusions you wish from that ...

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.

20 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Except they didn't. Their paper really did not add any data. It was explicitly written as a model proposal and as far as I recall they only vaguely indicate that their model is based on some data, while acknowledging that independent verification is needed (or something to that extent). There have been different narratives on how that paper came to pass, but in one of them both basically fiddled around with models to try to see what fits the existing information. At that point however, both A and B forms were likely and some of Franklin's data pointed more towards A, which makes sense, as it is more ordered and more likely to occur during the crystallization process. I think Watson at some point also commented that he was luck not to seen Franklin's full data set as it would have undermined his model a fair bit.

And that is what Franklin was doing- proposing multiple models in alignment with her data. Watson pushed one more but not based on existing evidence or further confirmation. Jumping the line, so to speak.

Or ego. After all, people tend to forget all the times you were wrong and if your ego can take it, more power to you.

I don't really think so. In some ways yes, but only in fairly recent times.

That statement likely was based on the horrible book "The Bell Curve" a rather controversial book that tries to make a quasi biological argument for race. In most serious areas of genetic and related research it has been severely discredited (and serves as a cautionary tale if folks like e.g. psychologists extrapolate things in other disciplines based on their own).

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 controversial.

Edited November 25Nov 25 by xenog123
typo

52 minutes ago, xenog123 said:

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 controversial.

It depends really, we have had multiple discussions on this forum regarding IQ. There are multiple issues ranging from what IQ really measures, which is not entirely clear, given that it was initially developed to detect deficiencies and not as much as a scoring something on a hierarchy. An associated with that, we have seen first a rise of IQ over the years (Flynn effect) but more recently the reverse was observed, especially in developed countries. Given these and many more issues, population-wide averaging of such psychometric measures and drawing conclusions from them are hugely problematic. They depend a lot on how a given test cohort was formed and there are many cultural elements regarding formats. Folks like Rushton and Murphy largely overlooked such details to spin out there big narratives and this where the controversy (and bad science) resides.

In a way it is another story of a big leap of ideas, only one that turns out not be substantiated independently.

43 minutes ago, CharonY said:

It depends really, we have had multiple discussions on this forum regarding IQ. There are multiple issues ranging from what IQ really measures, which is not entirely clear, given that it was initially developed to detect deficiencies and not as much as a scoring something on a hierarchy. An associated with that, we have seen first a rise of IQ over the years (Flynn effect) but more recently the reverse was observed, especially in developed countries. Given these and many more issues, population-wide averaging of such psychometric measures and drawing conclusions from them are hugely problematic. They depend a lot on how a given test cohort was formed and there are many cultural elements regarding formats. Folks like Rushton and Murphy largely overlooked such details to spin out there big narratives and this where the controversy (and bad science) resides.

In a way it is another story of a big leap of ideas, only one that turns out not be substantiated independently.

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.

6 minutes ago, xenog123 said:

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.

As I understand it, one of the objections to attempting to correlate "race" (i.e. skin colour) with IQ is that skin colour is no more fundamental to the human genome than say eye colour or the presence or absence of ear lobes. So it would be a bit like correlating cancer incidence with TV ownership.

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

As I understand it, one of the objections to attempting to correlate "race" (i.e. skin colour) with IQ is that skin colour is no more fundamental to the human genome than say eye colour or the presence or absence of ear lobes. So it would be a bit like correlating cancer incidence with TV ownership.

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.

6 hours ago, xenog123 said:

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.

What when did that happen? Last thing I heard he was Harvard's president and only resigned recently from that position (not sure if he is teaching), because of his association with Epstein. Nothing about that the story says "poor man" to me.

And I do find it highly controversial for suggesting that someone with a certain skin color is destined to be an underachiever plus a long history of abusing female postdocs who he did not consider first tier, yet not doing so with male postdocs of the same caliber. As someone with power over other's careers, this is highly problematic.

3 hours ago, xenog123 said:

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.

The key factor here being genes isolated from gene flow. Most studies have shown that populations found in a geographic location, regardless of superficial features such as skin color are highly mixed. This is why data suggests higher diversity within such groupings than between. Geography and gene flow are determining factors, and the correlation of such groups using such high-level features such as skin color just doesn't work.

3 hours ago, xenog123 said:

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.

Except they arent' in isolation. In the US life outcomes are not only correlated with skin color, but even more so zip code. I.e. the social and socioeconmic background is the biggest factor for many elements that we can measure (including biological parameters, such as life expectancy). It just so happen that these are also co-correlated with skin color.

Yet if one were only to look at the genetic level, and fully ignore things like socieconomic status and skin color you won't find markers that are associated with high intelligence which are enriched in white or Asian populations.

That is not to say that there is no genetic component, but the issues range from the measurement itself (either IQ or g, which have different methodologies) to identifying potential genetic markers and then the assumption that they are not only correlated with certain populations, but somehow these populations also correlate what we superficially consider to be "races". The latter being historically coded by a weird mix of skin color, but also some moral/social determination (e.g. Obama considered being black, which obviously does not fit his actual heritage). Fundamentally one can make it easier, most human populations, especially in modern times are mixed so patterns should are really expected to emerge in highly isolated groups which tend to have low genetic diversity (say, Amish, or uncontacted Indigenous group). In virtually all other groups the idea that skin color or similar features are genetically deterministic of things fails to yield reproducible results. Anyone working on genetics should know that by now (though to be fair, Watson was a biochemist and not a biologist).

6 hours ago, exchemist said:

As I understand it, one of the objections to attempting to correlate "race" (i.e. skin colour) with IQ is that skin colour is no more fundamental to the human genome than say eye colour or the presence or absence of ear lobes. So it would be a bit like correlating cancer incidence with TV ownership.

More importantly, it is not a good indicator of genetic composition, virtually all populations are patchwork of sorts. Black folks in Brazil are for the most part closer to white folks in Brazil than black folks in the US, for example.

 

Edit: to comment on this bit.

8 hours ago, xenog123 said:

I do find it a bit unfortunate that we're so squeamish in the West about saying so many things though

I find the contrary to be true. In the past it was far too often that capable folks had their careers cut short in competitive fields because it was assumed that they were less competent or just a bad fit (or risk of pregnancy, perceived lack of leadership qualities and so on). What many folks making that arguments assume is that there are indeed qualitative differences in certain groups, which in turns is based on the flawed assumption that we have objective and near perfect measures of quality. What it fails to take into account is that a homogenous group of folks tend to perceive themselves in a better light than any member of another outgroup. This, inevitably skews perception (which is now called unconscious bias).

Propagating this type of bias, cements perception and assumptions as facts, which, ultimately, is unscientific.

19 hours ago, MigL said:

A lot of scientists do some things that are detestable.
@exchemist has already mentioned some, but R Feynman liked dating female undergrads, F Haber and W Heisenberg were staunch NAZI supporters, and @swansont has been accused of being an authoritarian moderator ( 😄😄 ).

Accomplishments and character have little to do with each other.
I can even admire B Mussolini for making the trains run on time, and A Hitler for rebuilding the German economy, while detesting the methods used to accomplish such things.

James Randi supported Social Darwinism BTW. The thing is that intellect and personality are largely independent, the probablility of being in the top 1% of the smartest people (however understood) AND top 1% of people with best personality a the same time is 1%*1%=1 in 10,000. Very few people statistically speaking.

11 hours ago, xenog123 said:

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.

OK if you can indicate what measured differences you have in mind, we could perhaps take a look at what might be responsible.

We would need to bear in mind @CharonY 's point that mixing of genes has some interesting results, e.g. that "black" Brazilians are more genetically similar to "white" Brazilians than they are to "black" Americans.

(We would of course also need to bear in mind the effects of culture when it comes to evaluating measured behavioural attributes.)

1 hour ago, exchemist said:

OK if you can indicate what measured differences you have in mind, we could perhaps take a look at what might be responsible.

We would need to bear in mind @CharonY 's point that mixing of genes has some interesting results, e.g. that "black" Brazilians are more genetically similar to "white" Brazilians than they are to "black" Americans.

(We would of course also need to bear in mind the effects of culture when it comes to evaluating measured behavioural attributes.)

A similar argument was used in the past to justify social inequality within western societies themselves, i.e. poor people are poor because they are stupid. There was also a supposed hierarchy of races within what is today considered white people, i.e. the British were (unsurprisingly) considered to be at the top of the hierarchy while Eastern Europeans, Southern Europeans and the Irish were considered to be at the bottom. This directly led to Hitler's racial theories which combined with Italian Fascism and German nationalism (Volkism) resulted in Nazism.

TL;DR: Not the best vibes IMHO.

EDIT: The most rational explanation is that Westerners and East Asians are simply better at taking the IQ tests due to education. Good nutrition and lack of diseases might also be a contributing factor.

Edited November 26Nov 26 by Otto Kretschmer

1 hour ago, CharonY said:

What when did that happen? Last thing I heard he was Harvard's president and only resigned recently from that position (not sure if he is teaching), because of his association with Epstein. Nothing about that the story says "poor man" to me.

And I do find it highly controversial for suggesting that someone with a certain skin color is destined to be an underachiever plus a long history of abusing female postdocs who he did not consider first tier, yet not doing so with male postdocs of the same caliber. As someone with power over other's careers, this is highly problematic.

The key factor here being genes isolated from gene flow. Most studies have shown that populations found in a geographic location, regardless of superficial features such as skin color are highly mixed. This is why data suggests higher diversity within such groupings than between. Geography and gene flow are determining factors, and the correlation of such groups using such high-level features such as skin color just doesn't work.

Except they arent' in isolation. In the US life outcomes are not only correlated with skin color, but even more so zip code. I.e. the social and socioeconmic background is the biggest factor for many elements that we can measure (including biological parameters, such as life expectancy). It just so happen that these are also co-correlated with skin color.

Yet if one were only to look at the genetic level, and fully ignore things like socieconomic status and skin color you won't find markers that are associated with high intelligence which are enriched in white or Asian populations.

That is not to say that there is no genetic component, but the issues range from the measurement itself (either IQ or g, which have different methodologies) to identifying potential genetic markers and then the assumption that they are not only correlated with certain populations, but somehow these populations also correlate what we superficially consider to be "races". The latter being historically coded by a weird mix of skin color, but also some moral/social determination (e.g. Obama considered being black, which obviously does not fit his actual heritage). Fundamentally one can make it easier, most human populations, especially in modern times are mixed so patterns should are really expected to emerge in highly isolated groups which tend to have low genetic diversity (say, Amish, or uncontacted Indigenous group). In virtually all other groups the idea that skin color or similar features are genetically deterministic of things fails to yield reproducible results. Anyone working on genetics should know that by now (though to be fair, Watson was a biochemist and not a biologist).

More importantly, it is not a good indicator of genetic composition, virtually all populations are patchwork of sorts. Black folks in Brazil are for the most part closer to white folks in Brazil than black folks in the US, for example.

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).

10 minutes ago, xenog123 said:

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).

I agree it seems more than likely that there is a hereditary component to intelligence. Intelligent parents tend to have intelligent offspring, though it is notoriously hard to disentangle heredity from upbringing and culture. But you are proposing something quite different: that there could be an innate level of intelligence that correlates with race.

While that can’t be wholly excluded, there are good reasons to be highly suspicious of it, given that “race” has such a superficial genetic significance. Culture, on the other hand, has a very great deal to do with the collection of characteristics that people have in mind when they assign someone to a race. And we know that culture and upbringing have quite an effect on how people perform in intelligence tests.

I’m not expert on this but my understanding is that the main genetic difference between people of largely European and those of largely African descent is that the European genome often has a small residual Neanderthal component, from interbreeding with Neanderthals in prehistoric times. Perhaps someone could select samples with and without this residue and attempt to correlate that with intelligence. I suspect however that the signal to noise ratio would be so poor that no conclusion could be drawn.

6 hours ago, exchemist said:

Perhaps someone could select samples with and without this residue and attempt to correlate that with intelligence. I suspect however that the signal to noise ratio would be so poor that no conclusion could be drawn.

Well that hypothesis is easy to test and the latest analysis on Neanderthal DNA has shown a gradient from west to east. I.e. while east Asians do have higher levels of Neanderthal DNA than Sub-Saharan Africans (on average), they are also lower than in Europe (on average). So if that was a driver for IQ scores, you would expect highest levels in Europe (and likely lower in white populations elsewhere due to increased intermixing).

While I cannot discount a genetic racial or inherited component to intelligence, keep in mind that a newborn's brain doubles in size during the first year, and is 90% of adult size by age 5.

"This rapid development is driven by the creation of billions of neural connections that are strengthened by positive experiences like responsive caregiving, nurturing interactions, and a stimulating environment. A healthy environment, good nutrition, and consistent routines are crucial for building a strong foundation for future learning, problem-solving, and emotional well-being"

I would think this is the main cause of, or lack of, intelligence.
This OP is not about race; stop trying to make it so.

7 hours ago, xenog123 said:

improving life in Africa because one has to assume that their innate intelligence is equal to "ours" [Whites].

The critical bit is the second half, where he adds that all testing suggests otherwise. And he added that people who deal with black employees would agree. He also reiterated in various other places that IQ differences between black and white folks is genetic. Watson has at various points endorsed the book by Rushton and Murphy (which suggests strong genetic differences between white and black folks, in a range of parameters ranging from reproduction, physical strength and IQ, all of which have been refuted by broader studies).

1 minute ago, MigL said:

This OP is not about race; stop trying to make it so.

I think part of OP is that Watson had strong beliefs regarding racial differences, which ultimately are not sufficiently supported by science but has detrimental effects if assumed to be true regardless. For many, this is at least one element of why Watson was considered controversial (plus a host of other elements). I think much can be attributed to being an old man, and whether one considers that as an excuse or not is a different issue (there are other old men who have been much better at following the science and treating their folks better).

30 minutes ago, MigL said:

While I cannot discount a genetic racial or inherited component to intelligence, keep in mind that a newborn's brain doubles in size during the first year, and is 90% of adult size by age 5.

"This rapid development is driven by the creation of billions of neural connections that are strengthened by positive experiences like responsive caregiving, nurturing interactions, and a stimulating environment. A healthy environment, good nutrition, and consistent routines are crucial for building a strong foundation for future learning, problem-solving, and emotional well-being"

I would think this is the main cause of, or lack of, intelligence.
This OP is not about race; stop trying to make it so.

On road today, can't type much on this device, so my thanks for your post cutting to the heart of this tiresome race mythology. And to @CharonY too for reminders of the pitfalls of the statistical data.

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

Well that hypothesis is easy to test and the latest analysis on Neanderthal DNA has shown a gradient from west to east. I.e. while east Asians do have higher levels of Neanderthal DNA than Sub-Saharan Africans (on average), they are also lower than in Europe (on average). So if that was a driver for IQ scores, you would expect highest levels in Europe (and likely lower in white populations elsewhere due to increased intermixing).

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.

2 hours ago, CharonY said:

The critical bit is the second half, where he adds that all testing suggests otherwise. And he added that people who deal with black employees would agree. He also reiterated in various other places that IQ differences between black and white folks is genetic. Watson has at various points endorsed the book by Rushton and Murphy (which suggests strong genetic differences between white and black folks, in a range of parameters ranging from reproduction, physical strength and IQ, all of which have been refuted by broader studies).

I think part of OP is that Watson had strong beliefs regarding racial differences, which ultimately are not sufficiently supported by science but has detrimental effects if assumed to be true regardless. For many, this is at least one element of why Watson was considered controversial (plus a host of other elements). I think much can be attributed to being an old man, and whether one considers that as an excuse or not is a different issue (there are other old men who have been much better at following the science and treating their folks better).

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.

11 hours ago, CharonY said:

The critical bit is the second half, where he adds that all testing suggests otherwise. And he added that people who deal with black employees would agree. He also reiterated in various other places that IQ differences between black and white folks is genetic. Watson has at various points endorsed the book by Rushton and Murphy (which suggests strong genetic differences between white and black folks, in a range of parameters ranging from reproduction, physical strength and IQ, all of which have been refuted by broader studies).

I think part of OP is that Watson had strong beliefs regarding racial differences, which ultimately are not sufficiently supported by science but has detrimental effects if assumed to be true regardless. For many, this is at least one element of why Watson was considered controversial (plus a host of other elements). I think much can be attributed to being an old man, and whether one considers that as an excuse or not is a different issue (there are other old men who have been much better at following the science and treating their folks better).

Yes one sees this from time to time with celebrated scientists when they get old. There are several instances of them coming to believe their opinions must be right, just because of who they are. Linus Pauling and vitamin C? Hoyle and extraterrestrial origin of mad cow disease? Of course the equivalent also happens in other walks of life too. The moral appears to be not to accept the pronouncements of people just because they are famous, especially when they get old.

On 11/25/2025 at 6:49 PM, xenog123 said:

Hmm interesting - do you have a link for the under-performing white male stats?

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/203/education-committee/news/156024/forgotten-white-workingclass-pupils-let-down-by-decades-of-neglect-mps-say/#:~:text=White%20working%2Dclass%20pupils%20have%20been%20badly%20let%20down%20by,not%20achieve%20two%20strong%20passes.

10 hours ago, xenog123 said:

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.

Substantial? I admit it's been years since I last read about this, but my impression was that while IQ tests did measure a difference, it was so small that it seemed just as likely to be to do with aptitude at doing the tests, for reasons of background, culture and upbringing, as it was to any genetic effect. Do you have a source in mind that we can take a look at?

2 hours ago, pinball1970 said:

https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/203/education-committee/news/156024/forgotten-white-workingclass-pupils-let-down-by-decades-of-neglect-mps-say/#:~:text=White%20working%2Dclass%20pupils%20have%20been%20badly%20let%20down%20by,not%20achieve%20two%20strong%20passes.

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.

2 hours ago, exchemist said:

Substantial? I admit it's been years since I last read about this, but my impression was that while IQ tests did measure a difference, it was so small that it seemed just as likely to be to do with aptitude at doing the tests, for reasons of background, culture and upbringing, as it was to any genetic effect. Do you have a source in mind that we can take a look at?

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.

11 minutes ago, xenog123 said:

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.

I think this could be explained by the Flynn effect - if you gave a modern IQ test to 100 people from 1920, the average score would be around 70 which would indicate intellectual disability. I highly doubt that my great grandparents were stupid (they weren't, one of them actually ran a pretty large estate by the standards of the time).

6 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

I think this could be explained by the Flynn effect - if you gave a modern IQ test to 100 people from 1920, the average score would be around 70 which would indicate intellectual disability. I highly doubt that my great grandparents were stupid (they weren't, one of them actually ran a pretty large estate by the standards of the time).

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, access to basic educational resources, 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.

Edited November 27Nov 27 by xenog123
added detrimental factor

41 minutes ago, xenog123 said:

, not just white males in general.

You can look University entrants by ethnicity in the UK too. Whites are the lowest and have consistently been the lowest since 2006.

https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/higher-education/entry-rates-into-higher-education/latest/

1 hour ago, xenog123 said:

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.

I wonder how you excuse away the findings of The Socioeconomic Attainments of Second-Generation Nigerian and Other Black Americans: Evidence from the Current Population Survey, 2009 to 2019

With regard to educational distributions, Table 3 is consistent with the well-known findings that second-generation Asians have higher educational attainment than whites and that the latter group has higher educational attainment than third-generation African Americans. The results for other second-generation black Americans are also consistent with prior studies discussed above, which demonstrated that this group has higher educational attainment than Hispanics and third-generation African Americans. Relative to whites, the educational attainment compared with other second-generation black Americans is generally slightly lower. The only slight exception to this generalization is that other second-generation black American women are more likely to have professional or PhD degrees than white women.

The group with the highest level of educational attainment is second-generation Nigerian Americans. For both men and women, the educational distributions for second-generation Nigerian Americans are generally more highly concentrated at the upper levels than for any of the other groups shown in Table 3. For example, among second-generation Asian men, 3.6 percent dropped out of high school and 7.3 percent obtained PhD or professional degrees, whereas the corresponding figures for second-generation Nigerian American men are 0.4 percent and 14.1 percent, respectively. The specific group with the highest level of educational attainment is arguably second-generation Nigerian American women; Table 3 indicates that 71.1 percent of them have bachelor’s or higher degrees in comparison with 68.2 percent for second-generation Nigerian American men.⁹

How is it that such a cognitively challenged group as Nigerian American women outperform both their menfolk and second-generation Asian men, never mind you bleached, inbred banjo-plucking hillbilly halfwits?