Race, Intelligence, & Genetics or How James Watson pissed off a lot of people.

[Dinner]

Genetically speaking I doubt there is much difference between the various European nationalities. There will be minor changes in frequency of alleles between some populations but likely they're all dealing with the same basic groupings.

There may have been other human populations where genes didn't travel very far but from ancient times populations moved pretty freely in Europe and they spread their genes along the way. I'd bet in the broadest sense the whole continent is filled with a bunch of mutts.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Genetically speaking I doubt there is much difference between the various European nationalities. There will be minor changes in frequency of alleles between some populations but likely they're all dealing with the same basic groupings.

There may have been other human populations where genes didn't travel very far but from ancient times populations moved pretty freely in Europe and they spread their genes along the way. I'd bet in the broadest sense the whole continent is filled with a bunch of mutts.

That's not my point. The point is that there isn't much difference between all of us. The genetic difference between me and some Chinese dude is likely to be less than the difference between me and some other dude from Britain. There are no "races" of human beings in a genetic sense. In fact it has been shown that we all share a common ancestor who lived after 500 BC IIRC.

Race is a social concept, not a scientific one. There is no real genetic basis for it. Hence, speaking of race, genetics and intelligence is fundamentally idiotic, and is just conscious or unconscious racism. What we call "races" are either distinguished on the basis of appearance, or in other cases by a common history. Biologically speaking, race is a dead end.

This is just an excuse for people like Cali to revisit their favourite crypto-nazi theory of Aryan supremacy. The funny thing is I've seen his picture, and it seems his ancestors were not particularly interested in racial purity.

[Lorizael]

You're slow, Agathon. I made this point a few pages back.

[Jaguar]

Originally posted by VetLegion

As you perhaps know, correlation of .3 is considered low in this area.

First of all, that's a fair point. I based that claim from what Levitt wrote about his own work. Had I read that the correlation was .3, I wouldn't have used the phrase "highly correlated."

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/19/james-watson-black-intelligence-and-new-research-by-fryer-and-levitt/

In my work with Fryer, we analyzed a newly available nationally representative survey of children ages two and under, done by the Department of Education. Included in this study are tests of mental ability around a child’s first birthday. While you might think it would be impossible to capture anything meaningful at such a young age, it turns out that these measures of one-year-olds’ intelligence are somewhat highly correlated with IQ scores at later ages, as well as with parental IQ scores.

On the other hand, the strength of the correlation, provided that it's statistically significant, is fairly irrelevant. The point is that it has some validity as an intelligence test, and children of different races perform roughly equally at that age.

I'm not trying to make any particular point about this issue; I don't really care. My goal was just to provide a link for those who might find it interesting. Your goal is to be a jerk because I showed you don't understand that multiple variables can have significant correlation.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lorizael
You're slow, Agathon. I made this point a few pages back.

Sorry. I skimmed through the thread, and I must have missed it.

[Lorizael]

I'll never forgive you.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Lorizael
I'll never forgive you.

I'm scarred.... scarred...

[DaShi]

Actually, it's point that bears repeating.

[Elok]

My Dad just learned about this today, says he isn't surprised: "the first time I saw Watson, he was drunk as a skunk, running around in his underpants throwing water balloons made out of condoms at pretty girls." Dunno how much of that is true, but it's possible that he's seen Watson in a partying-type situation, as my grandfather was a pretty significant and sociable biophysicist...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
If intelligence and race are to be scientifically correlated to each other, then both ought to be scientifically respectable concepts. However, race, as it is used in contemporary discussions is not a scientifically respectable concept, so attempts to correlate intelligence with it are doomed to failure from the start.

Race as used in real science is always identified with genetic lineage, which is a scientifically respectable concept.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Berzerker
So a speeded up process produces variations in intelligence? It works on us too... As groups spread out across the world everyone was subjected to different environmental pressures with the globetrotting groups selected even more for intelligence - the dumb are more likely to perish during the trip or when times get tough in a new land.

And as I said, the difference in degree is so vast that you can't compare it. Humans were not generally subject to artificial selection, and when they were it was at most for 2-4 generations. Not enough to produce the effect you so desperately want.

Not race so much, but geography and history. Where you live and where your ancestors lived all along the way influences your intelligence. Race is just another symptom of evolution...

Your meaningles semantic jerkoff doesn't refute my point in any way.

[Berzerker]

And as I said, the difference in degree is so vast that you can't compare it. Humans were not generally subject to artificial selection, and when they were it was at most for 2-4 generations. Not enough to produce the effect you so desperately want.

I could care less if the races are equally intelligent or not or which group is the smartest, I do know evolution has everything to do with intelligence. To say the races are equally intelligent requires us to believe evolution stopped before we split up. Just how do you get equally intelligent races?

Your meaningles semantic jerkoff doesn't refute my point in any way.

This was your "point"

we should assume that under identical social conditions race has no influence on intelligence.

So you think every race has seen identical social conditions (and environmental pressures?) over the last 100,000 years? And who said race influences intelligence? Race is a symptom of evolution just like intelligence - and evolution influences variations among and within the races. I'm surprised you dont know this, hopefully your intelligence will be making an appearance shortly.

[Dinner]

Berz: I wouldn't say all of humanity has/had the same social, environmental, or selective pressures. Instead I would say that there are so many selective pressures interacting in so many different ways that the positive force selecting for slightly higher intelligence likely was not a dominant or maybe not even a significant factor.

Through most of human evolution other traits would have been far more important. The ability to resist disease (having the black death kill off 1/3 of the human race was a powerful selective force and it was just one epidemic), the ability to out run predators, skills like charisma for social cohesion, being tall and muscular to attract ladies, or having a fashionable nose/hair color/eye color/forehead shape/what ever were all likely stronger selective pressures. Also key would have been the ability to live off of small amounts of food without dying so they could survive periods of famine.

That last adaptation is the bane of several Native American tribes which were traditionally hunter gatherers. For thousands of years those with the slowest metabolisms survived while everyone else starved so genetically these people are well adapted for long periods without proper nutrition. The problem is they're now Americans with modern American eating habits and those super efficient metabolisms are resulting in whole tribes being massively obese and suffering cronicly high rates of heart disease.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker

Race as used in real science is always identified with genetic lineage, which is a scientifically respectable concept.

Nope. Sorry dude. Genetic tests do not indicate that separate human subspecies exist. People with common ancestry will share some genes, but nothing that anyone else doesn't have, and nor are there consistent patterns of genes that differ among human beings.

Genetic lineage is an historical concept. It is not an essentialist concept. So, for example, Jews can be a separate group considered historically, since they have a shared history (and in some cases a shared descent), but genetically speaking, there is nothing that makes the group of Jews essentially different from any other group of human beings.

You could say the same about many animals. They will have different historical lineages, but that is completely different from the question of whether they are separate subspecies. Race is only interesting if it is the second kind of thing, which it isn't, so it's not interesting.

[Berzerker]

And all these other factors produced equal intelligence among the various races? Being smart enough to avoid an early demise sure is an important factor, migrations add to the danger of survival and weed out the not-so-smart leaving behind those who were smart enough to survive. Ironically the populations with a lower overall intelligence probably had it easier for the longest periods, the less intelligent stand a better chance of survival in familiar surroundings and a more stable society. The fact there are many variables does not mean selection for greater intelligence doesn't exist or is insignificant. Y'all want to argue about how much of a factor, I dont care how much. I'm disputing the silly notion that the races are equally intelligent...