In video 9, Rushton is extremely convincing and, sorry, Graves and others sound embarrassingly like fools. You could hear the spectators giggling about some of the contorted evasive answers. Race does not exist. Asked if they had 100 Chinese in a shower, 100 Kenyans in a shower, 100 Englishmen. Can they identify which is which? They still could somehow argue how they could not sort this out. EgalitarianJay, thank you very much for these videos. They are very informative. I will watch them all. From what I have seen so far, they make me much more certain in my conviction. If these arguments is all they can come up with, then there is no way to refute Rushton. I have a hard time how serious scientist can fudge and fumble like Rushton’s opponents and still be taken seriously.Asked about exactly our example Koreans or Africans adopted by white middle class parents, Graves had the balls to argue that they live in a different environment, because there is a societal expectation for blacks to underachieve. a) For someone who says "race does not exist" this is quite amazing. If they can not discern the different races, how can they discriminate? b) all these claims without scientific proof. Test your hypotheses scientifically, Dr. Graves. Is this just me who sees a University professor Rushton present clear research against a bunch of embarrassingly unscientific guys defending indefensible hypotheses?
Here is a playlist of the entire Rushton-Graves discussion about Race and IQ. Interesting summary of facing off the ideological opponents to Rushton’s theory. See all the videos in one piece here.http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=DC0F78B62A560851
Accidentally, one video got in there from another discussion. I left it in, because it actually contributes to the discussion and is a refreshing variation. Rushton mentioned the temperament differences that make racial peace and acceptance difficult. I focussed too much on IQ. He explained that demands of cold winter required special planning, a new strategy that was not required before leaving Africa. The worst winters were in Africa
Some of the words I “put in your mouth” were actually said by Frank and others, and not you. So I apologize for that. But nonetheless, you seem to support him.
And I am sorry, I never meant to degrade whites as evil. I only said something in defense of the blacks.
I absolutely don’t believe that whites are evil. But I also don’t believe that cold blooded crimes are in any way better than hot blooded impulsive crimes. If anything, they are worse because the hatred is nurtured for a long time.( And women usually commit more cold blooded crimes.)
I can appreciate your desire to do research and find the truth, but you seem to be too eager to jump to conclusions that support your one sided view. Any fool can do some research with funding, it is however really difficult to do credible research especially in the fields of social sciences and psychology.
Also, it’s one thing to collect statistics, and it’s an entirely different thing to do science. In science you need to have a testable hypothesis. The context of social sciences does not even allow you to form a testable hypothesis.
I have never lived in a black community, so perhaps I know less. Nonetheless, it is hard for me to sympathize with you when a lot of the things that are said here are outright demeaning to the blacks. I don’t know anything about you personally. It’s possible that you have had some bad experiences with blacks. Nonetheless, I believe you shouldn’t generalize.
You and EJ seem to have conflicting statistics. But even if I assume that blacks commit far more violent crimes, it does not prove that blacks have a “gene” for violence, since most blacks are still innocent.
I could probably have more sympathy for you if you attacked the censorship or even the quotas that are not merit based and political correctness that are involved in racial issues. But it seems to me that you are not attacking the censorship or quotas so much as you are attacking blacks themselves. And I dare say, strong words have been used against blacks. That’s why I can’t support you here. Perhaps you should switch to “race and censorship” from “race and intelligence” and write about how many old english novels are getting censored(words like “nigger”). At least, that will make this site look more credible.
And lastly, let’s assume that black communities are really violent. Compare them to toxins. Botulinum toxin is a devastating killer toxin. But if diluted enough, they can be used in medicine and anti-aging products. How about diluting the blacks? How about spreading the blacks up and absorb them in the bigger community, than to put them in one ghetto and demonize them?
“How about diluting the blacks? How about spreading the blacks up and absorb them in the bigger community, than to put them in one ghetto and demonize them?”
This often ends in increased crime rates for the host population. In addition, the schools usually suffer. How do I know? Personal experience. White flight occurs for a reason not just because they do not like someone’s skin color. This goes beyond skin color. Live in a black neighborhood for a week and it will all make sense to you.
The “Flynn effect” casts doubt, in my mind anyway, on the extent to which IQ depends on genetics. “Ulric Neisser estimates that using the IQ values of today the average IQ of the US in 1932, according to the first Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales standardization sample, was 80. ” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)
I doubt that the racial or genetic constitution of the US has changed that much since 1932.
The Flynn effect is startling. I believe Rushton debunked it but I admit my laziness to have studied it in detail. Somewhere here Rushtons published paper was cited where he debunked a few people, especially Nisbett.
There is overwhelming evidence in favor of Rusthon, and occasionally there is one single piece of evidence that seems to be contradicting him. In that case we need to check Rushton’s recent publications.
But even if Flynn were right, there still are many decades to go before blacks would catch up. Contrary to rumors, most honest scientists would love to see Blacks equally productive, law abiding and intelligent as Asians and Whites, contributing to any nation’s riches.
I don’t believe that is true because Rushton has persistently tried to deny the Black American gains in IQ score and academic achievement which correlate with Black academic improvement and improvement in standard of living. Rushton constantly publishes theories of racial differences because he wants to believe in them not because he has compelling evidence they exist. He is obsessed with intelligence and behavioral differences between groups.
Not just between races but between genders, social classes and even religions. Recently Rushton spoke at a conference where he claimed that backward customs in Islam were the product of genetic differences. Rushton did not debunk Nisbett and he isn’t taken seriously by actual experts on genetics and biology fields where he has received tremendous criticism.
Rushton simply isn’t a credible scientist and if you take the time to read the criticisms against him it is obvious why he is not taken seriously.
This section about race really wants me to be question its motive. This section somehow stands out from most of the other ones. It seems to me that this section is not much so much about pointing out stupidity resulting in suffering and injustice, but a sad desire to establish supremacy.
Whether or not races exist, individual differences definitely do exist. But I am not so sure why it is so important to claim superiority for one group at the cost of degrading another group as dumb and evil.
I have already stated the main points of my views; and really, I don’t have the time, energy or patience to continue a debate here. So I will just leave the admin with a video with Richard Lewontin explaining how genes and environment interact.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=US&feature=relmfu&v=we4ZzjKxFHM
One of the things he did was to point out the fallacious assumptions of Jensen and Rushton that there is a general pattern to how genes and environment interact(at around 18:20) – that one who is lowest in the deprived environment is also the lowest in enriched environment. Lewontin gives example to show that this is not true -How a change due to a single environmental factor can be very unpredictable.
Frank said that whites may be more likely to seek out more intellectual environment. Even if that were true, “more likely” does not mean that there are no blacks who want to be intellectuals, Nor can someone demonstrate how seeking an ‘intellectual” environment is better than or preferable to an “athletic” environment.
Let’s look at crimes – SERIAL KILLERS. The serial killers are disproportionately white males. I remember a watching a documentary on serial killers that confirmed it. Cold blooded orders to drop nuclear weapons or napalm bombs on innocent people have also been mostly a white activity.
How can someone say that to commit crime is only “black”?
Don’t get me wrong – whites are awesome! But what is being done here is just unfair!
And women commit far less violent crimes than men statistically. I don’t see the admin saying how “superior” the women are.
My own analysis –
Average white male= High testosterone + Higher serotonin
Average black male = High testosterone + Lower serotonin.
Low serotonin makes one impulsive. High testosterone gives one goal oriented aggression. But neither defines morality or empathy or kindness.
It just explains why the two groups commit different KINDS of crime(on AVERAGE).
We have a compulsion to research the truth. Even if the truth about race and iq is unpopular.
If quoting statistics about higher crime rate and lower IQ is considered “degrading as dumb and evil”, what can I do? I am actually just citing research and refraining from drawing political conclusions what to do with this knowledge.
Except that it is wrong to claim discrimination if the less intelligent get less spaces in Universities.
That seems to be true. Now, using your own words, you are degrading whites as evil. But I have nothing against researching and stating the truth. I will not even defend serial killers.
Thank God, there are not as many white serial killers as there are black gang bangers, street robbers and street thugs. So statistically, black murder rate is still much higher. This does not give me satisfaction, I wish there was zero murder rate everywhere. Or if black murder rate, and crime rate in general, was as low as the Asian murder rate, inner cities could become a peaceful place with some poverty but devoid of crime and violence.
This is very different. It is disciplined way to obey orders of politicians. Not impulsive criminality. Then we have to discuss the morality of war, a very different topic.
But if you add in African genocide with machetes, that is just low tech mayhem. But we are getting into anecdotal discussions, I prefer scientific statistic analysis by people who really studied the topic.
And we are discussing security and crime in non-war situations. In everyday neighborhoods.
You are putting words in my mouth that I never said. I am very sorry about white crime. But if you move into a black neighborhood you unfortunately increase your chances of becoming a crime victim.
Feminists actually use this to suggest that men should be eliminated. And totally controlled by biased rape laws, by taking away of due process. Men’s free free speech is taken away with harassment laws.
Sorry folks! Wrong link to post # 22:
http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=77355
“EgalitarianJay” (Morpheus) self-destructs on the phora:
http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=7735
Interesting debate on race the cause…
I could guest post here once in awhile. Maybe I will transform my car variation post into a dog world post in order to meet your standards.
Maybe that pygmies don’t win Olympic Marathons like Kenians is socially constructed. Similarly that a sausage dog can not win a greyhound race has to do with social prejudice and expectations.
Somehow cars seem too remote from genetics to me and cars don’t react to social environment and upbringing.
MORPHEUS: “Geographic human populations are more like foxes. There are different species of foxes that vary in morphology and live in different climates however there is no observable intelligence or temperamental differences between these species.”
FRANK: So we cannot tell observable differences in behaviours and physical stature between a Fennec Fox and an Arctic Fox?
How about temperament? Cape foxes are not territorial by nature while Red Foxes are territorial by nature. This would indicate a natural predisposition to greater levels of violence on the part of the more territorial beast…
The Swift Fox spends most of its time lounging around hiding from predators in a den while other fox breeds are combating each other for land, mates and dominance while killing everything they can get day or night.
The logic we see from Morpheus (EgalitarianJay) is the same lunacy you saw from Graves in the video who argued that even visible racial groups cannot be told apart because his ideology omits such classifications. Morpheus simply chooses to use foxes as his example.
Excellent answer. Frank, do you want to guest-post here? With a slightly different focus:
The psychology, dogma, blindness of the arguments.
For example:
25 arguments against race differences, and how they were debunked.
The 12 most absurd arguments for racial equality.
Jokes about why races must be equal
Translate Graves et al. arguments into the “dog world”: Greyhound’s race winnings are socially constructed and poodles could easily win if promoted at birth.
The numerous problems with Nisbett can be found here…
http://www.thephora.net/forum/showpost.php?p=995171&postcount=62
There are additional detailed links to studies on the VDare links contained in the above link…
The problem with Flynn may be found in the same post where I explain the flaw in the mathematics…
Flynn allegedly argues that the black and white IQ gap has decreased over the years. The average White American IQ is 99-100. By age 14 the American black IQ was 89.4, this would support that the gap has closed by 5 points. At age 18 the scores were 87 proving a gap closure of 2 points.
However, when the subjects were again tested at age 24, we see that the subjects had a score of 83.4.
EgalitarianJay or “Morpheus,” as we know him argues that the gap has closed even though the math proves that gap has ultimately increased by 1.6 points, the average American black mean is 85.
This was discovered in a debate Flynn had with Charles Murray. The debate was “Closing the Black/White IQ Gap?” It appeared in in Reason Online in December of 2006.
In addition, Native Indians are not consider Mongoloid anymore…
Mongoloids: One of the major human racial groups, distributed widely through Asia from the Caspian Sea eastwards. They are also found on many islands off the Asian mainland and, as Inuits and Aleuts, in northern Canada and in Greenland. The NATIVE AMERICANS and Amerindians, the other indigenous peoples of America, were formerly sometimes grouped with the Mongoloids, but this is no longer considered accurate.
SOURCE: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O48-Mongoloids.html
For those who would like to see a debate between myself and EgaltarianJay on the issue can go to the following thread:
http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=71485
You will find out what is wrong with the studies of Flynn and Nisbett
Frank
Great link. Can you please link directly to where you refute Flynn and Nisbett? This is the missing link here.
Instead of your car example, I would use dog races as examples. Dog races are a social construct. They actually are socially constructed, by breeders, but most people can tell the difference between a poodle and a St. Bernard. And people who got bitten by an attack dog know there are differences in character and aggressiveness. And the existence of stray dogs does not invalidate the concept of dog races either.
Most arguments by Graves and others are simply pathetic. It is interesting how people have a pre-formed opinion and then invent thousands of reasons to back up their immutable opinion.
For example, I don’t care about r-K selection, Rushton explains the selective pressures with his own logic, needing no other support. If this, by any chance, does not fit the r-K selection scheme, so be it.
And the American Indians: maybe they derived from a few less intelligent mongoloids. Or they had selective pressures favoring less intelligence. Whatever, it does not disprove the theory, it does not disprove that Japanese are more intelligent then Kenyans.
I can not remember the other examples where Graves et al. put up a straw man to then disprove it.
Graves arguments can hardly be called strawmen when he is analyzing the very claims that Rushton is making.
Rushton uses r/K selection theory to explain his view of racial intellectual inequality so logically scholars would critique his explanation.
The Native American conundrum is significant because it is a problem for Rushton’s theory. If Native Americans are descended from East Asians and of the same race why don’t they have high IQs and comparable or equivalent cultural achievements? This needs to be explained. Speculation will not suffice. Instead of coming up with a scientific explanation Rushton chooses to abandon the study of Native Americans excluding them from his 3 race model an only focusing on populations he wants to classify as races. This isn’t scientific.
As for your dog breeds analogy. Here’s the thing.
We know the evolutionary history of dogs and humans are not the same. Dogs were selective bred by humans to express certain traits. If people wanted a big dog they bred big dogs together. If they wanted smaller even tiny dogs they bred smaller dogs together. If they wanted dogs with a certain color of hair that was rare among their breed they bred dogs with that color together until they formed a new breed.
If they wanted an aggressive dog or a friendly dog they bred dogs that exhibited those personalities together.
Geographic human populations are more like foxes. There are different species of foxes that vary in morphology and live in different climates however there is no observable intelligence or temperamental differences between these species.
One an individual level you will find intelligence and temperamental differences between humans. They may even be more common among families however unless there is some selection pressure which results in large populations spanning entire continents there is no reason to assume that differences in geography will result in differences in mental traits.
You often get morphological differences in different climates because they are more advantageous to different climates. Intelligence is beneficial in any climate.
What this really comes down to is cultural arrogance and the racialist perception that physical appearance is correlated with mental traits. There are many different reasons why cultural trends may be more common to one population over another that have nothing to do with genetics. There are too many holes in the genetic hypothesis to consider it to have any credibility. It’s nothing more than promotion of an ideological agenda.
There’s obviously observable variation in anatomical traits within the human species. Proponents of the no biological race position are not denying variation. What they argue is that no human population meets the criteria for classification as sub-species (races). Their criteria for classification is based on phylogenetics. The argument of Disotell in this presentation was that human variation is not structured into evolutionary distinct lineages that can be identified by external anatomical trait complexes.
This position is an attempted debunking of the traditional taxonomic concept of race utilized in anthropology since the 19th century when races were defined as human groups with essential traits that were unique to each race.
Some scholars have defined race in different ways. I recently read an article by Robin O. Andreasen who defines races using the cladistic concept of grouping breeding populations with similar characteristics. She also argues that Biological Realism and Social Construction are not incompatible concepts. She refers to the essentialist model of race that Disotell rejects as the typological subspecies concept and which is distinguishable from what she calls the geographical subspecies concept, which is based on a cladistic model of classification.
What Rushton had done is basically synthesize the geographical subspecies concept with folk racial categories which are in fact socially constructed. The problem I find with doing that is first of all folk races are defined differently in different regions of the world and therefore do not represent an objective measure of genetic variance. Secondly aggregating populations that may be similar ignores withing group variation which may be biologically significant.
The so-called race deniers are not trying to deny biological reality in the name of political correctness but conceptualize human variation in an objective way in the name of scientific correctness. It’s possible that some concepts of race are invalid while others can be scientifically useful. So semantics is a problematic issue for this debate.
I recommend The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium by Joseph L Graves.
He covers most of the major racial theories throughout history including the concept of biological races, Race and IQ as well as Race and Disease.
There is bias in scholarship and a lot of what is posted on the internet is garbage. You should always consider the credibility of the source and evidence they put forward for their theories. This subject is highly volatile. It is a topic that many debaters get emotional over. I don’t think Rushton can be easily dismissed. He is very intelligent and a diligent researcher. However so are his critics. I don’t believe it is stupid to be skeptical of theories about race which conclude that races are fundamentally unequal
in their capacity to succeed at life.
I believe that racism is evil. I believe that racialism is an attempt to validate racist views.One could argue that detesting racist attitudes and racist atrocities does not invalidate the reality of racial differences. One could also argue that racial theories themselves develop from racist attitudes some based on perception and others based on advocating sinister agendas.
I take issue with racialists attempting to take the scientific high ground merely by claiming that they have scholars conducting research and proposing theories. The empirical evidence is what really matters because we can disagree on ideology but we cannot reject facts because they are inconvenient.
The Admin obviously has a position and he’s sticking to it. I would however recommend that he start looking at views from the other side and at the least critique them. Tell us why the points brought up by Graves in his lecture on evolution and gene x environment interactions are wrong. What is wrong with the research of James Flynn and Richard Nisbett?
Address the opposition to Rushton et al. instead of just promoting their work to reinforce your views.
My guess is that if the race-deniers had truth on their side, they’d be able to come up with more non-fallacious arguments (rather than basically none). This, for example, is a disingenuous strawman.
‘First of all, as any modern biologist will tell you, race – or subspecies – in general is something that’s more often created by the person doing the taxonomy, not mother nature.’
Nobody here said otherwise. The same is even more true for species, yet we don’t see race-deniers also insisting that “species is a social construct.” A three month old baby can tell human races apart; many species of birds, for example, can be distinguished only by specialists almost as rare as hens’ teeth.
Wrong all the way through. For anyone who genuinely seeks knowledge with regard to racial realities, I recommend Race: The Reality of Human Difference by Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele, 2004. Your fallacious nitpicking and dissimulation just above are utterly debunked in Chapter 6.
Argument from abject ignorance. Henry Harpending, anyone? Cochran? The 10,000 Year Explosion? How about Gene Expression – even Discover Magazine Online has been seduced by the Klan Conspiracy, oh my! Just because you’re ignorant about scientific research with regard to race doesn’t mean everyone has to be. By the way, it gets tiresome slogging through your post, since everything in it is utterly false in content and fallacious in logic (where there is any attempt at logic at all).
There’s some severe misunderstanding of the word “race” going on here. Our blogowner seems to think it means “any observable difference within a species”. It does not.
First of all, as any modern biologist will tell you, race – or subspecies – in general is something that’s more often created by the person doing the taxonomy, not mother nature. You can have a population for example, where there are clearly different types at two extremes of the population’s range, but which are connceted by a smooth genetic variation from one end of the range to another? Are the two extremes, then, properly subspecies? It’s a debate that’s gone on for centuries in biology and isn’t likely to be resolved soon.
As for the argument which opens this article – “If one can differentiate between 100 kenyans, 100, Chinese and 100 Englishmen, race msut exist” – it’s fairly stupid. In the first place, for the same reason mentioned above: there are no isolated human breeding groups of any significant dimensions and there never have been in evolutionary terms. The so-called “races” are clinactically linked, so where you decide to place your dividing line between one race and the other is an arbitrary decision left up to you, not an objectivelt descried barrier created by mother nature.
Secondly, it’s stupid because differentiating between types doesn’t ipso facto mean “race” exists: I can differentiate between Italians and Irish, so those must be two different races, right? Likewise, I can differentiate more clearly between, say, certain San groups and Ethiopians than I can between Australian natives and certain Africans. So this must mean the San aren’t the same race as the rest of Africa, but Australians and Africans are the same race… right?
Finally, it’s blazingly stupid because looks do not necessarily follow genes. This is obvious to any Brazilian, for example – less obvious, I suppose, to Americans who really believe that “white” and “black” are clear cut types.
And this, ultimately is what’s wrong with all of Rushton’s work on race and I.Q.: how does he define who’s black and who isn’t? Unless he’s going to do somesort of mDNA genetic assessment and link it to test results, he has no proof of what the genetic make up is of the people he accepts as black (or as white, for that matter) in his study. He just ASSUMES that what they say (or he thinks) is “black” is really a cohesive genetic package labled “black”.
Rushton is ultimately working within the bounds of an enormous tautology: he accepts social definitions of blackness as indicative of genetics, even though someone labled “black” in the U.S. might be labled “white” in Brazil. He also accepts what he feels are visual indications of “blackness” as indicative of genetic make-up. So someone like, say, Noble prize-winner James D. Watson can have only 75% European ancestry and be “white” while Brazilian singer Neginho da Beija Flor has 67% European ancestry and is considered black.
Yes, I’m aware that there may be errors in Watson’s DNA test. The general point still stands: it is not at all unheard of for people judged white to be far from genetically European in their origins and people judged black to be majoritarily European in their origins.
This is just one of the largest and simplest problems with Rushton’s assertions. I won’t even get into the fact that the I.Q. tests that he compares don’t use the same methodology, that many of them (such as the 1916 U.S. Army tests) have been thoroughly debunk as deeply flawed, that IQs in general have increased over time, which shouldn’t happen if they were genetically determined, that white southern rural IQs routinely score lower than black, northern, urban IQs…
In short, what’s truly stupid is the attempt to revive a thoroughly discredited and debunked 19th century notion of human biodiversity when we have much better theories today which deal with the observable proof much better.
Rushton is the last high priest at the altar of biological race. It’s sad that people who pride themselves on their skepticism would be so thoroughly taken in by this elderly peddler of snake oil.
Read some L.L. Cavali-Sforza (the man’s actual works and not the bastardizations available on the internet) and be enlightened.
Rushton recognizes that US blacks have a certain percentage of white genes and thus are more intelligent then African blacks.
Can you differentiate Italian from Irish bones in a grave? Even an Italian from an Irish corpse?
And the different looking Africans faced different physical challenges and specializations, but basically the same kind of mental challenges (no Siberian winter)
In Brazil there is more mixture.
Nevertheless, Lynn showed a clear differential in riches, IQ, etc between North and South, as anyone can see with their own eyes. How does the crime rate of Ilheus compare with the crime rate of Blumenau?
You can differentiate between San and Watutsi bones in a grave, which would mean that they are both “different races” according to your model, right?
One can differentiate between different European types as well. I’m not enough of a specialist to say whether there are observable differences between Irish and Italians, though I would presume that there are because scientific racists made clear physical distinctions between the two back in the day based on biometry alone.
There are literally millions of human physcial traits and most are passed along genetically. As our science gets better, we can differentiate human remains on an ever more precise basis.
What’s considered a “significant” difference in this game is absolutely arbitrary, as world-renowned human biologist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza points out. Cavalli-Sforza goes so far as to say that one can plausibly physically differentiate, on a statistical basis, between the residents of Venice and Verona. So if statistically significant variation is enough to declare some group of humans a “race”, there are probably over 200,000 human races on the planet.
Now, if you are truly sticking to science and want to make the argument that any observable, patterned variation in human biology constitutes a race, well and good. But if that’s true, this whole distinction between “black” and “white” races is ridiculously naive. The genetic distance between two peoples considered to be “black” might very well be much greaterthan between two peoples considered “black” and “white”.
As for “clear differences in IQ, riches and etc.” between north and south, again, Occam’s Razor should come into play here: what is more likely to have created these things, some undiscovered gene complex or history? What’s the evidence?
Well, as for genes, we have zero correlation between “wealth, IQ, and etc.” and any known gene or complex. So one needs to presume such a thing exists with no evidence at all to back it up.
As for the effects of history… well we have plenty of evidence for that.
The north of Brazil was the largest slave society known to man. It was heavily exploited in order to make money for the Portuguese empire. After independence, little resources were directed to it in terms of infrastructure or education. There’s a huge clinein education quality between the north and south of Brazil as well as a huge cline in terms of income and economic activity. This isn’t caused by race, but by the fact that the Brazilian NE has had little significant capital invested in it from the late 18th century until the later part of the 20th century. CAPITAL creates jobs and income, not race.
The proof of the pudding in this is the exact same thing that showed up in the first U.S. IQ tests in the 1910s and which Franz Boas analyzed so well (and which Rushton, unaccountably, completely ignores – odd, given that the’s supposedly such a “no bullshit” kinda guy): Northern urban U.S. blacks had better IQ scores than Southern rural whites.
Your problem, Admin, is that you mistake linkages for causality.
Finally, the main point I raised isn’t even addressed by Lynn: what’s the definition of “black” and “white” used in these studies? As someone who lives in Brazil and speaks Portuguese (neither of which Lynn does), I can very confidently say that many of those people Lynn includes as “white” in the North would be called “black” in the U.S. or the Brazilian south.
Lynn’s study has a huge methodological hole in the middle which I’m suprised you can’t see, Admin: it presumes that “black” is a coherent and stable genetic category which means the same thing, everywhere, in terms of its biological essence.
But if people who have 60% African ancestry are called “white” in some places and people who have only 10% African ancestry are called “black” in others, then that needs to be taken into consideration in any comparative analysis of how biology impacts on IQ, doesn’t it?
In short, Lynn and Rushton assume that blackness is a biological constant when it is in fact a biological variable. One cannot plausibly attribute causality to a variable in a scientific study such as the one they undertake.
But there is indeed a constant to “blackness” throughout the Atlantic world: wherever blackness has been attributed, the group it is attributed to has spent much of the last three centuries as a dominated group. Racism, colonialism and slavery are FAR MORE constant in this equation than any black biological or genetic “package” which could plausibly account for such complicated behaviors as intelligence or the ability to accumulate wealth.
So there are many, many reasons why Rushton’s argument is, essentially, pants. People are attracted to it because it’s a simplistic “hust so” story which jibes with their prejudices. In biological and genetic terms, however, Rushton and company are out cooking on Venus.
TL;DR verion:
There is no stable “black” genetic package, observable across all the populations tested, which could plausibly cause the variation in IQs and wealth observed. There IS, however, a relatively stable socio-historical phenomenon which can be observed in all these societies: ideological white supremacy.
First of all, thanks for posting. Please check other topics you might have an opinion on:
http://human-stupidity.com/irrationality/stupid-dogma/prostitution
http://human-stupidity.com/irrationality/stupid-dogma/teenage-sexuality
http://human-stupidity.com/irrationality/stupid-dogma/child-porn-witch-hunt
Now about the topic here.
1) we could leave Brazil out, due to the confusing racial mixture. There are strong enough results comparing Korea to Kenya.
2) But, according to Lynn, the gradual differences from Northern Brazil to Southern Brazil in skin color (and weather) give a very clear pattern in diffreences in intelligence and economic success.
3) By the way, Brazil compares its school failures with Korea. Nobody ever analyses that according to Lynn the country IQ of Korea is 103, and of Brazil is 87. But you could contribute checking published lists of elite high schools in Brazil and check out the percentage of colored people in that school and the location of the school.
Maybe you start a new topic, this is getting too indented. You are even welcome to propose guest posts at Human-Stupidity …..
There are African sub groups that clearly are better long distance runners. And pigmies (sp?) that don’t excel in Marathons. They certainly constitute different genetic sub-groupings. Put a pigmy to be adopted by a Kenyan long distance runner family, I doubt that he will understand that all differences are socially constructed and win the Olympic Marathon.
This is the typical straw man argument. I don’t care how they define “race”. Call it sub-groups, if you prefer.
In a society of goat herders or other professions where long legs and good endurance running is of essence, you might end up with a “Rushton” who differentiates running ability by some sub-race, and will prove that they are different.
You mean the Zulus and the Koreans were never isolated from each other with near perfection? Are you aware that the last 500 years are like a second in evolutionary time?
By the way, one interesting point of discussion: when the Brazilians compare their school results with Korea, they miss the point that the Brazilian IQ is 87, according to Lynn, and the Korean one is 102. On average, Brazilian schools can never reach Korean standards.
Brazil publishes the top scoring high schools and colleges every year. Anyone ever dared to correlate the school scores with skin color, blackness, whiteness, etc? How many of the top scorers are in Bahia? and if they are, do they represent the average Bahian race distribution?
Precisely: the last five hundred years are like a second in evolutionary time and the groups you’re talking about have been relatively isolated from each other for the last several millennia, say 60 seconds in evolutionary time. That’s simply not enough for huge differences to evolve. It’s CERTAINLY not enough time for stable genetic evolutionary complexes to develop regulating incredibly complex behaviors like intelligence.
Do you have any idea how many genes must be involved in making something like the human brain, admin? It seems to me that you hold to a very naive view of human biology. You seem to think there’s a “smart” gene or two out there somewhere when, infact, millions of genes have an impact on something as complex as the brain.
For a evolutionary difference to have developed in intelligence, millions of genes need to be chosen for over a long period of time. YEARS of evolutionary time. And you’re talking about less than a minute here.
Furthermore, the populations you’re talking about are not absolutely isolated but RELATIVELY isolated. Between both groups stretches a continuum of others. The “huge” difference you see only exists by comparing the outter limits of that continuum and ignoring the middle completely. You thus artificially create these races by postulating their existance as isolated. But they weren’t isolated: they had neighbors and those neighbors had neighbors and so on until one group was connected to the other via a genetic contiuum.
You postulate the existence of a biological chasm between the two groups, but such a thing simply doesn’t exist.
Finally, human genes “travel” at about 20 miles a generation. To move between Africa and Korea thus takes about 8 thousand years – or maybe 16 seconds of your self-proclaimed “genetic time”. That’s not a significant distance at all in the sort of biological and evolutionary terms that have traditionally beeen used to describe race.
Now, if you want to completely rebuild the concept of race so that ANY observable difference between two groups constitutes “race”, fine. But my main question then would be Why bother? What does race give you, as a concept, which makes it superior to the clinactic view of human genetic distribution, which is what everyone in mainstream human biology uses?
You’re listening to the Flat Earth Society, Admin, and you seem to think them geniuses because you simply haven’t looked at the biological evidence that’s convinced 99% of scientists to reject the race model as insufficient for dealing with human biopatterning.
You’re probably so uninformed about this topic that you think mainstream science rejects race because we think “all humans are alike”. In fact, we reject race because human biodiversity is too fractal and chaotic to be adequately encapsuled by simplistic terms like “black” and “white”. In fact, it’s too complicated to even be done justice by those late-racialist schemes which divided, say, Europe into a dozen different races.
If we’re REALLY looking at genetically provable human biopatterning, we’re looking at 200,000 or so “races”. In that sort of picture, your terms “black” and “white” become quaint little Victorian conceits for all but the most gross purposes. They certainly can’t be used as solid biological markers for something as complex and ineffable as “intelligence”.
Admin, just because someone’s going against the grain doesn’t mean they’re a misunderstood genius. There’s a reason why Rushton doesn’t get funding from anyone but groups with an ideological agenda and it’s not because he’s a pure scientist being picked upon by politically correct harridans: it’s because he’s a crank.
Rushton, in fact, gets many more ideologically-oriented research dollars than those so-called “politically correct” scientists you pooh-pooh. I couldn’t get grants from Rushton’s funders because of my politics. No way. He could very easily get grants from my funders, however, by simply doing what every scientist is supposed to do: show one’s work.
But Rushton doesn’t do that. He simply says “Hey, let’s pretend that a black man in Georgia is biologically the same thing as a black man in Bahia because, you know, we can look at their skin and lips and maybe some parts of their bone structure and see similarities, so that means they’re biologically identical for all intents and purposes”.
In short, he asks the scientific community to play pretend, which is what needs to be done if his work is to have any meaning at all. And funders who are truly interested in science have a notorious prejudice against people who begin their grant proposals with “Let’s make believ that…”
Read some BASIC university-level human biology texts before you start praising Phil to the heavens. Hell, just use your brains and tell me how “blackness” or “whiteness” can be a biological constant when it’s applied to wildly varying genetic communities?
Do you have an idea that selection does not work on single genes but on personality treats and behavior patterns. And whatever gene patterns relate to the successful traits, they get selected for. maybe 5 million genes, if necessary.
As long Watson gets clobbered to scientific death for his utterances on African Intelligence, without clear scientific discussions on the merit of what he said, I am very gloom on any scientific research that passes the discriminatory muster in grant allocation and publication.
It is extremely amazing that Rushton manages to publish his politically incorrect opinions in respectable journals. It proves he must be extremely right on.
Brazil is actually just another small cog in the wheel of proof.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Global_Bell_Curve
“…Lynn gives many examples of these hierarchies and their history.
For example, in Brazil, it is Japanese who are today at the top.
Originally, they were brought in after the end of slavery as indentured laborers to work on the plantations. Today, the Japanese outscore whites and other racial groups on IQ tests, have higher income, and are over-represented in university places.
They are less than 1% of the total population but comprise 17% of the students at the elite University of Sao Paulo.[1]”””
One can’t dismis 100 years of CONSISTENT IQ tests given in intra-country/pan-global and across all socio-economic borders as ‘refuted’.
You can quote nisbett, graves, or God. It wouldn’t matter.
Thank you for the stimulating blog and informative entries! I also appreciate that followup email. I just started a blog up and yours will be the first I’ll add to my blogroll.
One tragic aspect of all this is that, by default, most Blacks are far from obsessed with their lower general intelligence. By this I mean they don’t automatically base their self-esteem on how smart they are compared to others. For the most part, Black resentment comes about in a big way only after the hypocritical supremacists of a certain pushy tribe – blindly backed by their White “liberal” authoritarian followers – deliberately stoke it and stir it up. The tribals and the ultimate real authoritarians are unable to see intelligence in any way that is not rigidly hierarchical. These tribals from the Middle East perceive themselves as *categorically* superior to other groups, whereas for most people, particularly White gentiles, this is not necessary. (KMacD, for one, is often highly informative on this topic.) For example, children tend to be less intelligent than their adult counterparts, but this need not imply the categorical superiority of grown-ups over kids. Yet, on a certain level, it is difficult to impossible for the chosen not to project their own tribal-supremacist mentality upon the entire world.
In a sense, Blacks are the most innocent race, and much like misbehaving children, if anything, deserve to be treated with a great deal of slack. The wealthy and powerful who use their relatively high intelligence to do evil are far more dangerous and far more responsible for their crimes, imho. Of course, this does not mean Black crime can simply be tolerated, or that it does not pose more of a danger to ordinary people of all races on a day-by-day basis.
However, the story of Jesus is chock-full of truth in this regard, as in so many others. The worst criminals are often those who write the laws, rather than those who break them. A higher IQ does not automatically imply an affection for the truth or courage to defend the right, or even a functioning conscience for telling right from wrong (even independent of perceived tribal interest, such as gauged by short-term profit) in the first place.
FWIW, the above comment was left by a friend of mine I allowed to use my computer for a night. IMHO, KMacD’s trilogy makes for interesting reading, though I find that the quality drops precipitously after part one. YMMV, of course.
@EgalitarianJay: One problem for you (and Graves) is that race differences in IQ and personality do not rise or fall on the shoulders of Rushton’s theory. These differences are a matter of empirical fact; Rushton’s theory attempts to explain this reality. Even without IQ tests, much the same is true for differences in achievement. For example, to go beyond Rushton on this question see Satoshi Kanazawa, who learns toward a substantially genetic explanation and is obviously not a white supremacist. Check out “General Intelligence as a Domain-Specific Adaptation” in Psychological Review, 2004. See also “Mind the gap… in intelligence: Re‐examining the relationship between inequality and health” in the British Journal of Health Psychology, 2006. More recent work includes “IQ and the Values of Nations” in the Journal of biosocial science, 2009 – Cambridge Univ Press. Kanazawa is with the London School of Economics – you can’t get more mainstream than that.
@Lailoken, great comment.