Let's Talk About Race

[hammegk]

Oh I've got tons of the latter, but I only introduce it when I suspect the other party of the same

No it's not (and I hope you're not invoking the pc/lib conspiracy here?). Whilst the pc "bias" is that issues of race need to be treated with some degree of sensitivity, there's plenty of evidence out there that the DeGobineau classification (caucasian/mongoloid/negroid) does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. It's a cultural construct, and needs to be addressed on that basis (and boy, there's tons of work in that field!).

Yes, there is. Too bad there isn't much published on genetics in dog-breeding. The subjects of IQ, race, and fitting into life in the first world effectively raises too many hackles.

Sorry, but excuse me if I'm a little sceptical about any evidence drawn from these sources; regardless of political bias, there's the simple bias of trying to fit a complex issue into the media format.

Agreed.

Really? You don't see the methodological problems with using a typology defines all blacks as anyone with any degree of sub-Saharan African ancestory, whereas all whites are people of European Caucasiod descent regardless of any degree of sub-Saharan African ancestory? You'd consider this rigorous for research into genetic factors? Would this be an example of that irrascable intractability you mentioned earlier?

In terms of ancestory, certainly; but as we're all pretty much mongrels anyway, it's not really relevant to the issue at hand?

Are the problems insurmountable other than the funding & publishing problem for such non pc'ness? I don't really know; do you? I suspect reasonable could be drawn from such a study, but we'll never know will we?

50-90% depending on country of origin of researchers, participants and and aspect of intelligence tested. From the same source

With differing bias. What results do you lend more credence to?

My thinking is that the 90% is getting close to correct. And ignoring all other human attributes -- like skin color -- I suspect you do agree that g is a strong correlator to many measures of success, and given 2 candidates to choose from who were exactly equal in all other aspects (like ability to finish a task which doesn't correlate to g) why would you accept the one with lower IQ? Yes, I can think of jobs I'd rather have the dumber one doing; please move past that.

I'll admit I don't know enough about Head-Start to offer any kind of informed opinion, except to state the obvious that a one-year intervention followed by a return to the environment the intervention was meant to address is not going to produce any stable gains. As for nurture vs. nature, genetics is the new sexy subject and nurture is just so 1960s

You seem to know a lot about something you say you "don't know about".

The race card is kind of insulting, particularly as it's supported by spurious statistics (critique linked to previously), written by two authors with little to no experience in the area, with a very clear agenda which directs their work and funded by a rather--um--questionable--group of people. Apart from that it's a typical political work; it's just not science.

As opposed to say "Mismeasure of Man" as the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Ignore the race card. What are you comments on the results using solely caucasian cohorts?

I have no comment to offer wrt your understanding; however essentially you are correct but the problem is always in how anti-bias strategies are implemented, how effective they are, and ultimately how rigorous the researcher is prepared to be.

Umm. well, yes. That & peer-review ....

 

[Dancing David]

quote from hemmegk
This is borne out by the abject failure of Head-Start and the like; if any program had ever demonstrated tangible & lasting increases in IQ it would be world headlines
_______________________________________________
Oh, come on even an argument about this seems wierd.

1/4 of the kid's in Head Start have major learning disabilities, so surely that shouild be factored into your condemnation, I have come to expect more from you than such broad brush strokes.

Lets see we will start a program to help disadvantaged children get help withj school and now some how this becaomes support for a genetics based definition of race?

I thought that the greatest school program of all time was Sesame Street.

I sit the social enginering that youy don't like about Headsatrt, your arguement sound a lot like, all the money used to treat old people diseases is wasted because they go and die anyway.

Peace
dancing David

 

[hammegk]

[diatribe]
Altruism on a personal basis makes us human, but we are discussing policies that distribute our coerced tax dollars for feel-good reasons much of it imo race-based. Does race exist? As I understand dna info, yes. Can some "racial" correlation be made to superficial body features, also yes. Does Spearman's g correlate meaningfully with success in a given social group, again, yes. Can tests of one kind or another approximately measure g? I'd say yes.

Think about a question with no good answer; would any social group be better served in any longer term by identifying its highest potential members, and ensuring they received a larger share of scarce resources, or by treating every individual as though no differences existed? And how many potential Einsteins or Hawkings are there? Who *will* "make a difference"?

Note that socialism can provide equal misery for all, although implementations to date have just redefined the haves v the have-nots. Capitalism and individual initiate provide more pie to share, but share it very unequally. In the 1st world of technology, education is required. Who gets the time & effort expended on their education? At government level we are making poor decisions if test scores and graduation rates have any meaning, and parents who can afford to switch out of public schools do so if they ever notice what the public schools are providing.
[/diatribe]

Just my 3 cts .. take anything you like, ignore the rest ...

 

[Dancing David]

Sorry I had problems posting yesterday.

I can agree with the coerced tax dollar thing, but then I have to pay to make defense contractors rich, and the friends of Dubya rich as well.

We are a society, the lowest in our society are part of that society, Headstart is not nessecarily race based, I thought it was income based, If giving all those kids a free breakfast and extra education keeps them out of trouble and moving forward I think it is a good thing.

You raise a very interesting point that I am still struggling with.

A. I believe that while there are cultural differences in humans they are all basically the same, given the same upbringing most humans will achieve the same.(IE I don't believe in race, I do believe in culture)

B. I live in a society that is filled with all sorts of bigoty and unequal acsess to resources.(There are people who act based upon thier bigotry, you can get into law school with poor grades because your father went there, money talks)

C. I believe that there needs to be equal acsess to resources for all and that there may be some poor half steps that are better than no steps. (IE affirmative action, set asides for school admissions)

D. Since the lack of equal acsess falls anlong the lines of class and bigotry C. leads to tracking acsess to resources.

E. This means supporting the notion of 'race' in tracking because it is part of bigotry and discrimination.I think that we need to track a lot of other things as well.

So while I don't belive that there are seperate races I end up supporting a system that tracks them to have more equal acsess to resources.

Argh!

Peace
dancing David

 

[Earthborn]

Let's assume the world is Black and White

 

[hammegk]

Er, is that article supposed to be new news?

Given a 6 year old black child with an IQ of 120, and a 6 year old white child with IQ of 80, I go with the IQ 120 to get a larger share of the educational dollar.

Given 2 kids IQ 120, what difference does the skin color or other "racial" features make regarding the share of educational funding they receive?

It is only the unfortunate fact that as groups the 15 point difference exists that make even talking about it such a hot-button topic. It is also an unfortunate fact that no published studies -- or even anecdotal results -- show any early intervention program to offset substandard nurture that has ever provided an adult level IQ gain over the IQ predicted by earliest testing. I'd be happy to read any such study anyone could cite.


dancing David, I wish I had any kind of suitable answer either. If we as a society continue to pretend there is no problem, only inequal treatment & unfair funding, nothing changes for the better for anyone. Again, studies don't even get proposed, let alone funded, for the merest suggestion is "racist". I'd also be happy to be advised by anyone that new studies are being proposed and funded.

 

[dmarker]

[diatribe]
Altruism on a personal basis makes us human, but we are discussing policies that distribute our coerced tax dollars for feel-good reasons much of it imo race-based. Does race exist? As I understand dna info, yes. Can some "racial" correlation be made to superficial body features, also yes. Does Spearman's g correlate meaningfully with success in a given social group, again, yes. Can tests of one kind or another approximately measure g? I'd say yes.

Can you prove that the DNA race to race differs?

 

[hammegk]

Can you prove that the DNA race to race differs?

I did not say "differs". I refer to dna "markers" that correlate to ethnicity, and which do not seem to receive much publication in major media.

For example:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9106543&dopt=Abstract

To me the abstract strongly implies my assertion, and this study was made several years ago.


Can anyone cite any studies that show such markers do not exist?

 

[Earthborn]

Er, is that article supposed to be new news?

No, it is just a clear restatement of the obvious.

Given a 6 year old black child with an IQ of 120, and a 6 year old white child with IQ of 80, I go with the IQ 120 to get a larger share of the educational dollar.

Given 2 kids IQ 120, what difference does the skin color or other "racial" features make regarding the share of educational funding they receive?

Good, we agree on that then.

It is only the unfortunate fact that as groups the 15 point difference exists that make even talking about it such a hot-button topic.

It is also a largely irrelevant fact: for the vast majority of people it makes no difference whether there is or isn't a difference in intelligence between 'races'.

What it makes such a hot topic is not so much that the difference exists (or seems to exist). It is that certain political groups use it to justify their ideas. The fact that it is largely irrelevant also means that the question is justified why such research is conducted. Do researchers want to prove a particular political point? If so, then their research should be viewed with suspicion and cannot be relied upon as evidence.

It is also an unfortunate fact that no published studies -- or even anecdotal results -- show any early intervention program to offset substandard nurture that has ever provided an adult level IQ gain over the IQ predicted by earliest testing.

I would be surprised if you find a decent study that shows that a certain early intervention program failed. Studying the effects of early intervention is extremely difficult as other factors are almost impossible to isolate. Factors such as socio-economic status, upbringing, neighbour safety etc. should all be considered. Just because there are no successful intervention programs does not mean the difference is purely genetic.

 

[Bjorn]

Earthborn,

It is also a largely irrelevant fact: for the vast majority of people it makes no difference whether there is or isn't a difference in intelligence between 'races'.

And yet every time it has been discussed on the Forum there are heaps of people denying that a difference exists and/or claiming that it is some proof of being a racist if one points out what seems to be a difference.

The fact that it is largely irrelevant also means that the question is justified why such research is conducted. Do researchers want to prove a particular political point? If so, then their research should be viewed with suspicion and cannot be relied upon as evidence.

If 'Asians' continue to score higher than 'Caucasians' in university admission tests, isn't it one bit interesting to find out why? Are they on average more 'intelligent', or are there other reasons?

Honestly I think many posters find it so important to be PC that they don't even bother to think through the questions. It is PC to assume that women are more able in certain fields (language springs to mind), but not equally PC to assume that males are (in other fields) unless one adds some socio-upbringing-indoctrination reason why it might, just might, be so.

 

[Earthborn]

And yet every time it has been discussed on the Forum there are heaps of people denying that a difference exists and/or claiming that it is some proof of being a racist if one points out what seems to be a difference.

Not what I meant but... yeah.

What I meant is this: suppose you let a number of people, black and white, take tests and these results are presented to the scientists who claim that there is a difference between black and white IQs. Could they, by looking at the test results, determine who's black and who's white? I say they can't. Only when they have thousands of tests available could they get a result that is just slightly statistically significant. This would prove IMHO that this whole black-white intelligence thing is largely meaningless.

If 'Asians' continue to score higher than 'Caucasians' in university admission tests, isn't it one bit interesting to find out why? Are they on average more 'intelligent', or are there other reasons?

I don't say that there could be no legitimate reasons to do such research. All I say is that it is justified to ask why researchers want to do it. What do they want to prove?

The fact that Asians score best is also usually ignored in discussions about this issue. Maybe because the white supremacists hate to admit that negroes are best in sports, Asians are highest in intelligence and whites are mediocre in everything?

Yes, it is interesting why Asians do better in these tests. I favour the education hypotheses. Look at some of the math questions Japanese 12 year olds need to answer:
http://www.japanese-online.com/MATH/index.htm
How is it even humanly possible to answer these in such a short time!

Honestly I think many posters find it so important to be PC that they don't even bother to think through the questions.

Equally bad are those that insist on being anti-PC: accusing everyone of PCness (as if it is an insult) if they dare to propose a different explanation than a biological/genetic one. As if it is somehow morally wrong to be skeptical about scientific findings that may be abused to legitamize discriminatory policies. IMHO it is ones duty to seriously question whether such things are even true, and not immediately assume it is good scientific research if the book is full of nice numbers and graphs.

It is PC to assume that women are more able in certain fields (language springs to mind)

Yes, but it is not so PC to assume that women are better at language because of some biological-genetic-unchangeable-innate reason. There are socio-upbringing-indoctrination reasons that need to be considered too. Since these different reasons are very hard to isolate it is still a controversial issue what reasons are most important. It is much too early to declare a winner at this moment in time.

 

[marxist2]

You are all racist. You are all racist haters.

 

[Bjorn]

You are all racist. You are all racist haters.

Thank you.

 

[marxist2]

Thank you.

See! you even take it as a compliment!

 

[peptoabysmal]

Yes, but it is not so PC to assume that women are better at language because of some biological-genetic-unchangeable-innate reason. There are socio-upbringing-indoctrination reasons that need to be considered too. Since these different reasons are very hard to isolate it is still a controversial issue what reasons are most important.

Wow, I guess those tuition dollars weren't wasted on that women and gender studies program!

 

[Bjorn]

Yes, but it is not so PC to assume that women are better at language because of some biological-genetic-unchangeable-innate reason. There are socio-upbringing-indoctrination reasons that need to be considered too. Since these different reasons are very hard to isolate it is still a controversial issue what reasons are most important. It is much too early to declare a winner at this moment in time.

But let us at least admit that differences exist where they do, the average man is stronger than the average woman. Next step would be to look at the 'most important' reasons for the differences.

As if it is somehow morally wrong to be skeptical about scientific findings that may be abused to legitamize discriminatory policies.

I'm not sure if you really mean what you posted - let me just state that if 'scientific findings' are real, your scepticism should be about the abuse of the findings, not about the findings themselves (unless you doubt them as such).

What I meant is this: suppose you let a number of people, black and white, take tests and these results are presented to the scientists who claim that there is a difference between black and white IQs. Could they, by looking at the test results, determine who's black and who's white? I say they can't.

Of course not, even if all statistical differences were true. The unidentified person 'clever with languages' could be a man, even if 70% of those 'clever with languages' are women.

Only when they have thousands of tests available could they get a result that is just slightly statistically significant. This would prove IMHO that this whole black-white intelligence thing is largely meaningless.

The more people you test, the more accurate the results. If the results are 'statistically significant', they are 'statistically significant' (even if you don't agree), and it would in fact prove that 'this whole thing' is not meaningless at all.

Again, if it had been proven that 'asians' are smaller than 'caucasians' we'd admit it at once - but since it seems to be some evidence that 'asians' are more intelligent, we refuse to admit it and struggle to find a way of not seeing that just as there could be a difference in body height it could be a difference in brain size or -capacity.

 

[BillyTK]

Playing catch-up Pt. 1

Yes, there is. Too bad there isn't much published on genetics in dog-breeding.

2000+ hits on Google?

The subjects of IQ, race, and fitting into life in the first world effectively raises too many hackles.

Because they're contentious subjects, particularly when the antique idea of race (white/oriental/black) is invoked.

Are the problems insurmountable other than the funding & publishing problem for such non pc'ness? I don't really know; do you? I suspect reasonable could be drawn from such a study, but we'll never know will we?

The main insurmountable problem is that at the genetic level there's no evidence for the white/oriental/black separation, regardless of the desirability of its existence for certain people.

With differing bias. What results do you lend more credence to?

Considering the variance (greater heritability in The Netherlands, less in Japan), I prefer to fence sit with my environmentalist pals!

My thinking is that the 90% is getting close to correct. And ignoring all other human attributes -- like skin color -- I suspect you do agree that g is a strong correlator to many measures of success, and given 2 candidates to choose from who were exactly equal in all other aspects (like ability to finish a task which doesn't correlate to g) why would you accept the one with lower IQ? Yes, I can think of jobs I'd rather have the dumber one doing; please move past that.

I don't accept the 90% figure (see above), and the evidence coming is suggests the situation is way more complex that a simple nature vs nurture split. I don't need a complex and expensive test to work out how middle class someone is and I'd be more interested in the specific qualities required for the job--qualities like collaborative ability for instance--which won't be revealed by some generalised indicator of success. There's always the risk that it's some bloody psychology student trying to play the odds anyway

You seem to know a lot about something you say you "don't know about".

it's not exactly specialised knowledge to know that Head Start is a one-year intervention, and if you know a little about Piaget's theory of intellectual development, you'd know there's not one critical period, but several.

As opposed to say "Mismeasure of Man" as the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Of course it is--it agrees with my viewpoint!

Ignore the race card. What are you comments on the results using solely caucasian cohorts?

Pants. Herrnstein and Murray used a sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, but due to missing variables (ie, no data recorded for that variable) had to drop approx. a quarter of the sample, which skewed the sample in favour of higher-income instances. Basically, this means they should've acknowledged the lack of confidence in the results they found. Can you say

Umm. well, yes. That & peer-review ....

Ah, you did. Tell that to Herrnstein and Murray

 

[BillyTK]

Playing catch-up Pt. 2

Great.

You seem to be saying that 'g' exists, there are some genetic factors involved, although not 'only' genetic factors. That happens to be more or less my viewpoint.

Not quite what I'm saying... I'm saying that "g" is a label applied to a range of cognitive/sensory functions, and otherwise has no other existence other than as a collective term. As such it's a problem of reification.

Discussing differences in physical abilities between 'races' would have been a lot easier - nobody calls one a racist if one claims that the average pygmy is not as strong as a the average masai, and that there might be some genetic factor involved.

That's an excellent example; where the racism creeps in is the notion that the difference between the average pygmy and the average masai is less than the difference between either and the average caucasoid.

 

[BillyTK]

I did not say "differs". I refer to dna "markers" that correlate to ethnicity, and which do not seem to receive much publication in major media.

For example:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9106543&dopt=Abstract

To me the abstract strongly implies my assertion, and this study was made several years ago.


Can anyone cite any studies that show such markers do not exist?

From hammekg's link:

this panel of markers provides significant statistical power for ethnic-affiliation estimation

To me this seems to be suggesting that there are dna markers that correspond with ethnic affiliation. *shrugs* is it a sign of significant genetic difference which manifests educational, social and/or economic success?
Ethnic Variation as a Key to the Biology of Human Disease

[...]The out-of-Africa model posits that Homo sapiens originated in southern and eastern Africa 100 000 to 200 000 years ago and that all contemporary human populations are descended from this single African population.

Polymorphic genetic markers have been used both to support the out-of-Africa model and to directly assess the genetic affiliations of human populations. If the classic concept of race were appropriate, we would expect to find that many genetic markers are restricted to one population or one group of populations. In fact, such distinguishing markers are very rare: Of the thousands of markers that have been surveyed in multiple human populations, only one (the Duffy null allele, which confers resistance to Plasmodium vivax malaria) is found in 100% of African persons and 0% of other persons.
[...]In other words, most of the genetic markers found in one population are found in others, and most of the genetic differences between two persons are not the result of coming from different populations but are the result of not being the same person (the obvious exceptions are identical twins and clones).

 

[BillyTK]

I did not say "differs". I refer to dna "markers" that correlate to ethnicity, and which do not seem to receive much publication in major media.

For example:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9106543&dopt=Abstract

To me the abstract strongly implies my assertion, and this study was made several years ago.


Can anyone cite any studies that show such markers do not exist?

From hammekg's link:

this panel of markers provides significant statistical power for ethnic-affiliation estimation

To me this seems to be suggesting that there are dna markers that correspond with ethnic affiliation. *shrugs* is it a sign of significant genetic difference which manifests educational, social and/or economic success?
Ethnic Variation as a Key to the Biology of Human Disease

[...]The out-of-Africa model posits that Homo sapiens originated in southern and eastern Africa 100 000 to 200 000 years ago and that all contemporary human populations are descended from this single African population.

Polymorphic genetic markers have been used both to support the out-of-Africa model and to directly assess the genetic affiliations of human populations. If the classic concept of race were appropriate, we would expect to find that many genetic markers are restricted to one population or one group of populations. In fact, such distinguishing markers are very rare: Of the thousands of markers that have been surveyed in multiple human populations, only one (the Duffy null allele, which confers resistance to Plasmodium vivax malaria) is found in 100% of African persons and 0% of other persons.
[...]In other words, most of the genetic markers found in one population are found in others, and most of the genetic differences between two persons are not the result of coming from different populations but are the result of not being the same person (the obvious exceptions are identical twins and clones).