Race differences

[Ramo]

Ramo, this type of long cut and paste discussion is hard for me to follow. Also it seems like you glide from objection to objection. Let's try to be fair to each other and dissagregate the issues and deal with them individually.

What do you mean, exactly? Anyways, I'll seperate the divisions you created with underscores...
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The first thing is to decide what we are discussing here. What are the topics of debate.

1. Does intelligence vary for different races.

Not inherently. But intelligence can be dependent upon nutritional, educational, cultural backgrounds, so intelligence ends up differing between "races."

2. What is the basis of this difference (genetic, environment, both, what percentages)

Almost entirely, if entirely, genetic.

For instance, would you accept that IQ has a strong genetic component (i.e. runs in families)?

Yes, intelligence is heritable.

1. How closely did you look at The Bell Curve? Just glance at in the bookstore? Or check out a copy from the library and read at least some sections of it?

Read several chapters closely, skimmed most of the book. (I checked it out.)

In return, I ask that you take a read of The Bell Curve. Ok?

Sure, I'll check it out closer.
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1. They are upfront about stating their libertarian leanings.

I wouldn't call it particularly libertarian...

Let's try to keep the "reports of IQ variability" seperate from the "what we should do about IQ variability".

Yep, just pointing out the clear bias.

I'm going to respond to the various remarks that you made. But I think you should remember that when I referred to the Bell Curve it was as a source of study on IQ differences by race. (There is a lot more in that book.) I wonder if you have some specific issues with the study that they did using NLSY data. And if you can point me to studies that were more effectively done. If you think that was such a crappy study.

Well, there are quite a few objectionable aspects of NLSY data/interpretation alone:

First of all, the data on socio-economic status rests ultimately on self-reports of kids. Not to say that the data is not relevant, but isn't comparable to quantitative test scores.

Another thing to note is that there's at least one instance where Hernstein and Murray used the smooth normal curve they derived to determine data a couple standard deviations away from the mean, even though NLSY data sharply contradicted these obviously tenuous pieces of extrapolation (this is referring to the part about blacks and Latinos getting high-IQ occupations supposedly out of proportion given the IQ distribution).

But, again, the main reason why I can't take such an analysis seriously is the total lack of cultural status (not bias) in such studies, which I see almost as important as socio-economic status. Not to say that the reasearchers are necessarily being lazy; this is difficult thing to determine. But I've never seen its inclusion in an IQ study.

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2. They are upfront about the limited nature of the knowledge on this issue. "Keeping in mind that we are hoping to do no more than establish a range of possibilities...."

As far as I'm concerned, he shouldn't leap to conclusions...

3. Regarding ME and SE Asian numbers, it's not that H and M blow off considering them. They state explicitly that they don't have reliable surveys on these poulations. They do state that these groups along with "other" constitute 11% of immigrants in the 80's (Statistical abstract of the US, 1992 as source.) They state that they omitted these groups from the computation. Do you think they were slipshod and missed reliable surveys on these groups? Do you have some? I'm sure that they'd love to have them. If you put in your numbers from those surveys, how does it change the results? I'll leave it to you as a math exercise, to determine how much these groups would have to differ from 100 to change the direction of H and M's calculation.

If SA's and ME's have a mean IQ approximately a couple standard deviations higher than white (given the possible error they admitted), his assertion is broken.

But that's assuming his attribution of IQ scores to "Latinos" is valid. H & M didn't attribute any source to it, to Lynn or otherwise.

Also, the range in the scores he asserts for East Asians is pretty damn big. Why did H & M use a lower bound?

One thing to note is that the scores that he asserts for the general ethnic groups are from Lynn.

Another interesting thing to note about this sections is that black immigrants from Africa apparantly have a mean IQ 5 points (1/3 a standard deviation) higher than domestic blacks.
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I'm really intrigued here. How would amend the regression? What specific factor would you isolate? Think about it. Or at least explain it more clearly to me. They did run SES as a seperate variable.

"Culture" is difficult to quantify. You'll have to ask a better sociologist than myself.

And SES is clearly not related to culture. Look at the uses they put SES to in their charts, specifically in comparing blacks and whites.

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1. This touches on a different issue here. Is there such a thing as general intelligence? Does IQ measure it? So what do you think?

I don't have the same lingual skills that most other high IQ people have, while the converse is true with regards math. That makes the existence of a "general intelligence" sound odd to me.

2. The radical school is self-identified as such.

That section smacked of ad hominen sniping to me...

3. The radical school refuses to try to quantify and test the "multiple intelligences" idea.

What do you mean?

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I beleive that he wrote a review* article or book. Rather than performing studies himself. But I haven't actually read any of his stuff. Have you?

I agree, and no.

1. Can you suggest another author who has done a better review of IQ testing in Africa? Since you think that Lynn is biased and slipshod.

I asked you for IQ studies, remember?

2. Are there some specific studies that he omitted? That support your point of view?

Incidentally, on the Progressive Matrices Test, there's a sample where blacks' mean score was 1/44 higher than the white sample on which the tests' norms were established.

This is pretty interesting. I've actually done some work looking at these kinds of things in job performance talent surveys. What was the shape of the distribution curve in the Progressive Matrices test? Degree of skew?

I don't have information on that.

1. I'm not sure since I haven't read Lynn** (...and I bet you haven't either! ), but one possible reason for some of these complaints is that Lynn ran a meta-analysis...so that he actually looked at several different surveys...many of which may have flaws. This is a Bayesian method.

Well, the surveys are individually cited in H & M's book.

[quote]2. Did these flawed studies make it into The Bell Curve? Or is this just more stuff to show how stupid Lynn is?

Yep, it's in the book. If you want more stuff to make Lynn look stupid, I don't think I have any danger of running out at the moment.

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Are we just arguing about Bell Curve in general, now?

We can look exclusively at IQ tests if you want.

Did you look at the Jensen studies?

Nope, I'm not looking at studies to find errors. It'd take an eternity to go through all of those sources. I don't have that much free time.

What do you mean by 2 out of 3? like 3 people or 67% of a test group? Just not sure what you're driving at.

He did three different tests in the study. Two of them confirmed his hypothesis, one didn't.

Could you also explain what the situation was with the different iterations of the study? Not sure I get your point. Were there different papers (one for each study?) or different substudies in one paper?

3 different papers. One in the 90's, one in the 80's, one in the 70's. The results of the studies (the reaction times, etc.) were different each time. The information wasn't reproducable, it wasn't science.
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What's your beef? They use the same methods that people doing voter surveys or market research surveys use. They sample population in same way. Do you think all surveys are bogus?

Again, they didn't give culture any credit, a huge error.

There are two seperate issues here. a. Wether an IQ gap exists. b. Wether this gap is geneticly caused.

Extensive testing (many different surveys, some with excellent sampling methods) has shown a 15 point gap in IQ between whites and blacks in the US. Do you contest this? Note that to see a gap does not mean that the gap is geneticly caused.

No, I don't contest the gap.

What point are you trying to make?

The testing is much more imprecise and subjective.
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1. Do you think all humans are equally intelligent? Would you agree that intelligence appears to run in families? Why aren't all families equally intelligent? Have you seen the twin studies that show a genetic component to IQ? (Note just because there is a genetic component to IQ doesn't mean race difference need be genetic in origin.)

Yes, I think the heritibility for IQ are very significant. All families don't have the same intelligence because a less genetically diverse population can deal with changes less easily, and tend to be selected out. Yes, I've seen the twin studies (I don't remember the number for heritibility of IQ, though).

2. Just because you don't understand the evolutionary history for a development or because you can't hypothesize a mechanism, doesn't allow you to ignore evidence. Most phenomena are identified experimentally first...than explained later. That's how science works...unless you are an Aristotelian.

Not if there are serious problems with the data. If I get data that the conductivity of gold is about 0, I'd see if the sample of gold isn't insulated before I go knocking down the foundations of QT.

BTW, you are falling to a circular fallacy here. A mechanism you don't like is proposed based on certain evidence. You disallow the supporting evidence since "it must be wrong" since it doesn't follow from a mechanism that you agree with.

It's not simply a mechanism "I don't agree with," but one that has no scientific credibility.

It's crazy!

3. Why aren't elephants smarter than people? They have nothing stopping them, right? (It is the pressure to develop intelligence not the limiters that is the issue...)

What's the distinction? This is a semantics issue.

Their environment tends not to select smarter elephants (or limits intelligence). Intelligence doesn't help their successfulness in propagating their genes, so smarter elephants don't become dominant and so forth.
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1. No duh. You said this before. What is the rate? If you want to make this argument, you need some support.

2. How much bulk intermixing do you think there was. Mitochondrial DNA shows bulk divergence of populations (at least in female lines...mDNA is only transmitted by the mother.) mDNA has been used to study various migrations of Indians, etc.

1. Nevermind. I thought you meant a mutation that wasn't present in the genepool before the migration to Europe.

2. Well, we have people from the Southern Caucusus Mts. that conquered most of the world from Gibraltar to the Ganges, and this was only several thousand years ago, so that might give you some idea of the scale of mass-migrations that may have happened.

Does this also rule out physical differences? They can't be genetically correlated to race either?

Not at all. I was just saying that differences in intelligence become much more improbable.

[quote]There is no discernible difference in the DNA of a wolf and a Labrador retriever, yet their inbred behavioral differences are immense./quote]

That doesn't mean anything at all! Of course, if you could give me a quote that looked something like, "There is no discernible difference in the DNA of a wolf and a Labrador retriever relative to the amount of genetic variation inside wolf or Labrador populations." you might have a valid point.

I need more than that. I need a rate. What is the absolute fastest that IQ could be changed in a population? We can call that the physical limit. Than the question is how much pressure was there on the population.

Like I said, if the trait is already existent in the population, the only dependencies are on selective pressures.

[TCO]

I think we are pretty much done. I appreciate your forthcoming responses and I'm glad I asked these questions to understand your point of view.

I would summarize our positions so:

You agree that there is a valid sampled (surveyed) racial IQ gap. You also think that it's crazy that genetics could be the source of the gap. (because you don't see a sufficient driver to create this differentiation.) You also feel that there is insufficient credible evidence showing genetics as a cause.

I agree with the first point. On the third point I agree with your conclusion but not with your general feeling about work in the field. I don't think the evidence is strong enough to say what the source of the gap is. So we are in agreement on that, but I think there is more "signal in the noise" than you do. (i.e even if there are some individual flaws in pieces of work there is still some useful work being done.) On the second point, I don't have a strong feeling that it is crazy (or oppositely easy)to create this type of differentiation. I just don't know how selection works on intelligence over long times in populations.