Tweet
I'm not so sure that the racial achievement gaps are 50%+ genetic any more. There are several reasons for this, two things have been gnawing at me for the past two years I've dealt with HBD. To come clean another motivation for re-examining the position is that it is rather inconvenient for the interpretation of Christianity I'm leaning towards being true (this of course means I've added a new bias to my evaluation of the data).
1. Height is a polygenic trait with high heritability, it is in some respects a problem similar to IQ. Changes one could have inferred as unlikely if going by interpreting twin studies on the matter (twin studies are a major but far from the only argument against the classical nurture hypothesis) have been observed over the years, example is perhaps the change of height in the Japanese. But this case really brings forth a strong possibility that the story with height is much more complex than meets the eye.
2. Israeli IQ is too low. Even if we take the idea that the dummies went to Israel while the talented went to the US. A grave simplification considering the composition of early Eastern European Jewish migration to the US. Now even taking into account the well known phenomena of IQs being lower a point or so in regions closer to the equator of people of the same stock due to the difference in parasite load the numbers still come short. Yes Askenazi Jews are not the only people in Israel but even taking Lynn's figure of 103 for Israeli Askenazi Jews seems to be to far away from the figures of the population in the US which range from 108 up to 113.
Is Israel still going to make gains in the Flynn effect that will bring them into line with US Askenazis? Seems unlikely, Israel is a pretty good place to live if one is Jewish.
Overall I'm currently of the opinion that the racial gaps deserve further investigation but that all the currently put forward explanations fall short and are unsatisfactory.
Let me however emphasise that based on current trends and data I'm quite confident that racial gaps will not close in the next 50 or so years, unless there is a breakthrough on this subject.
1. Height is a polygenic trait with high heritability, it is in some respects a problem similar to IQ. Changes one could have inferred as unlikely if going by interpreting twin studies on the matter (twin studies are a major but far from the only argument against the classical nurture hypothesis) have been observed over the years, example is perhaps the change of height in the Japanese. But this case really brings forth a strong possibility that the story with height is much more complex than meets the eye.
2. Israeli IQ is too low. Even if we take the idea that the dummies went to Israel while the talented went to the US. A grave simplification considering the composition of early Eastern European Jewish migration to the US. Now even taking into account the well known phenomena of IQs being lower a point or so in regions closer to the equator of people of the same stock due to the difference in parasite load the numbers still come short. Yes Askenazi Jews are not the only people in Israel but even taking Lynn's figure of 103 for Israeli Askenazi Jews seems to be to far away from the figures of the population in the US which range from 108 up to 113.
Is Israel still going to make gains in the Flynn effect that will bring them into line with US Askenazis? Seems unlikely, Israel is a pretty good place to live if one is Jewish.
Overall I'm currently of the opinion that the racial gaps deserve further investigation but that all the currently put forward explanations fall short and are unsatisfactory.
Let me however emphasise that based on current trends and data I'm quite confident that racial gaps will not close in the next 50 or so years, unless there is a breakthrough on this subject.
Comment