Misconceptions Based on Race, 'Genetics', et. al.

Racists are obsessed with the idea that there are genetic differences related to intelligence between races. If the racist narrative were true then they could claim that differences in IQ score averages indicate innate differences in intelligence between races thereby establishing that some groups are racially inferior. Science does not support this position. While it is perfectly true that genetics are an important factor in intelligence level which no one denies the environment is also very important. Bringing up the fact that scientists have discovered intelligence genes in no way supports your argument. The Race & IQ argument is based on a fallacy. The fallacy is the presumption that we can infer genetic causality from the observation of phenotypic differences between genotypes that are reared in different environments. To understand why your argument is fallacious you must first understand experimental quantitative genetics.

Richard Lewontin, a scientist who revolutionized the field of population genetics, addressed the Race & IQ question by using the example of a well known heritability experiment. It's is a well known fact that if you grow plants in soil with different nutrient quality the plants that receive the better nutrients will grow taller even if the plants are genetically identical. If they are genetically identical they have the same potential to grow, but the difference in environment is 100% the cause of the difference in growth. Same genes, different outcomes.



Now let me propose a hypothetical experiment. Suppose we took a pair of identical twins and raised them in radically different environments. The first twin gets raised in an environment with great parents, great schools, great neighborhoods and great nutrition. The other twin is raised in an environment with no parents, no school, no neighborhood and poor nutrition. Essentially the second twin is raised in a lab in virtual isolation with only the most basic necessities for survival. Now let's give them an IQ test. The first twin will do well because he has good genetics along with a great environment. The second twin will do very poorly despite the same genetics because he can't read or talk, his behavior is feral and he won't even understand the test. Same genes, different outcomes.

So now that I have explained how environment has a profound impact on IQ even when there are no genetic differences between the subjects in question let us return to the subject of race and genetics. In order for the racialist theory to be true that there are genetic differences related to intelligence between racial groups the races in question must be different in ways that would make this true. However we know that populations that are called races differ very little in their genetic composition. There is actually more genetic variation within human populations than there is between them on the order of 85% within variance vs. 15% between. This small genetic difference accounts for all the observable differences we can see between so-called racial groups. Racists argue that even if the difference is small it is still there and could account for differences in intelligence. However we know that intelligence is a polygenic trait. The trait is determined by the expression of multiple genes. For the racist claim to be true you must prove that many genes have been affected by some sort of selection mechanism that influences intelligence. From an evolutionary standpoint this is not only unlikely it is unreasonable.

 

There are actually around 14 known genes linked to iq and they all differ between whites and blacks in favor of whites.

http://therightstuff.biz/2015/09/02/race-and-iq-genes-that-predict-racial-intelligence-differences/

BTW, when are you ever planning on answering the last question I posed to you?

 

You seem not to understand the latest developments and implications of the latest discoveries in the field of genetics and intelligence. You seem to admit genetics plays a role but you want to downplay that role and claim that environment is the most important determinant of intelligence....absolutely wrong and science has proven that theory wrong......in a nutshell and without overwhelming you with scientific data...... Heredity places an upper and lower limit on the IQ that can be attained by a given person. The environment determines where within these limits the person’s IQ will lie.

Then you want to throw in some research regarding plants and genetics....laughable and totally irrelevant. Just a red herring.

BTW twin studies have been done....and even with the dominance of political correctness in the arena of geneticl studies....such studies indicated (done before the latest discovery of intelligence genes)the dominance of heritability being the most important factor in intelligence.

You simply fail to comprehend the game changing event of the discovery of intelligence genes.

 

You never answered my question either, Rayznack.

 

Political Correctness and Science:



Most scientists will tell you that race has no biological basis–it is, in academic-speak, a “social construct.” But a new book by distinguished journalist Nicholas Wade challenges that assumption, concluding that race is real and human social behaviour is subject to natural selection just like everything else.

As the New York Review of Books put it, in its coverage of Wade’s A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, there is now a “statistical sense” in which races are real. Scientists can tell, based on genetic variance, which continent a DNA sample comes from. That might not sound revolutionary to you, but it’s only recently that we’ve had the computer processing power to do it.

Wade doesn’t shy away from the disquieting implications of his theories: our genes, he says, could explain why some countries are wealthy while others languish in penury. In fact, the more we discover about ourselves from genomics, the more it becomes apparent that science and ideology are on a collision course.

Why? Because it’s totally unacceptable to say in public these days that different races might have different behavioural characteristics, and that those characteristics might be genetically determined… even though that’s the way the science seems to be pointing.

To be fair, it’s easy to understand why researchers get cagey. The all-consuming cult of equality struggles with any suggestion that social behaviours might be genetically determined: that habits and predilections might have diverged along with skin colour. No scientist wants to be responsible for research that justifies crude observations about white sexual mores or black dietary preferences.

It’s one thing to say that tribal cultures have smaller trust circles; quite another to say that science can explain why black people smoke menthol cigarettes, or why Asians are good at maths. (Or, for that matter, why people with ginger hair are less sexually attractive.)

For over a decade, it has been Chinese academics, unencumbered by political correctness, who have embarked upon the race-based research enabled by genomics. The Chinese particularly enjoy IQ-versus-race league tables, because they invariably come out on top. That sort of research makes Westerners squeamish, to put it mildly–which is why today, most research into the genomics of race is still carried out at the Beijing Genomics Institute. By and large, the subject is un-fundable in the West.

Assuming we were to discover biological and behavioural differences attributable to race, does that mean we should start treating different races differently? Could we develop better addiction treatment programs for Native Americans, or more effective medication for Hispanic asthma sufferers?

Unsurprisingly, doctors have already been at this for decades. There are medicines prescribed every day in America targeted at specific racial groups, such as hypertension drug BiDil.

When BiDil was given the nod in 2005, the FDA’s Robert Temple stated plainly: “The information presented to the FDA clearly showed that blacks suffering from heart failure will now have an additional safe and effective option for treating their condition.”

But the pills remain controversial, because they undermine the idea of race as a purely social construct. One female doctor, appalled by the idea of race-based medicine, said in 2005 that she wished BiDil had never been approved, even though she knew it would save lives.

Responses like that are common even today. Nicholas Wade’s résumé is such that critics who find his ideas uncomfortable cannot simply dismiss him as a racist. Indeed, he told the Spectator podcast that only one review of A Troublesome Inheritance so far had done so.

Nonetheless, entrenched hypersensitivities persist. Journalists are often silent–or, worse, resort to name-calling–when they encounter research they find uncomfortable. Ian Steadman, a science writer for the British New Statesman, admitted he had not read Wade’s book when he referred on Twitter to extracts from it as “pretending racism is science.”

“[I’ve] read enough reviews to know what it’s pushing,” he told me later.

Steadman declined to answer further questions, but he did say he has since read A Troublesome Inheritance and intends to review it at some point in the future.

Jason Pontin, publisher of MIT’s Technology Review, wrote yesterday: “I can’t imagine what compelled a science journalist of Nicholas Wade’s stature to take on the subject of race. We don’t know much right now, and while genomics will tell us much more, it can’t yet. For a journalist to go wading speculatively into the subject is asking for career-ending trouble.”

Pontin almost certainly didn’t mean for “career-ending trouble” to sound as sinister or threatening as it does. But his choice of words is instructive: even though the jury is still out on whether race can be said to have any meaningful biological basis, only the social construct side of the argument is considered acceptable in public.

Meanwhile, prejudice may be costing lives: BiDil isn’t selling, even though it works, partly because reporters have made it such a hot potato. And as for attributing cultural habits to race, well. That’s the sort of thing that can get you permanently ostracised from the profession.

These examples serve to illustrate what a touchy subject genomics is, even for the scientists and science writers who in other circumstances–for example, in their crusades against religion–demand that evidence should be followed wherever it may lead.

In other words, although it shouldn’t take courage to write a book that outlines what genetic discoveries might one day be able to tell us about ourselves, in today’s heavily politicised scientific atmosphere, it most certainly does. Which is reason enough, I think, to applaud Nicholas Wade.

by Milo Yiannopoulos

Milo Yiannopoulos is the former Editor-in-Chief of the Kernel Magazine and author of the forthcoming book The Sociopaths of Silicon Valley.



http://www.examiner.com/article/intelligence-gene-discovered

 

By what mechanism do the authors suggest these genes impact intelligence?




​

 

Intelligence Genes Discovered by Scientists

Sarah Knapton, Telegraph, December 21, 2015

Genes which make people intelligent have been discovered and scientists believe they could be manipulated to boost brain power.

Researchers have believed for some time that intellect is inherited with studies suggesting that up to 75 per cent of IQ is genetic, and the rest down to environmental factors such as schooling and friendship groups.

But until now, nobody has been able to pin-point exactly which genes are responsible for better memory, attention, processing speed or reasoning skills.

Now Imperial College London has found that two networks of genes determine whether people are intelligent or not-so-bright.

They liken the gene network to a football team. When all the players are in the right positions, the brain appears to function optimally, leading to clarity of thought and what we think of as quickness or cleverness.

However when the genes are mutated or in the wrong order, it can lead to dullness of thinking, or even serious cognitive impairments.

Scientists believe that there must be a ‘master switch’ regulating the networks and if they could find it, they could ‘switch on’ intelligence for everyone.

“We know that genetics plays a major role in intelligence but until now haven’t known which genes are relevant,” said Dr Michael Johnson, lead author of the study from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College.

“This research highlights some of genes involved in human intelligence, and how they interact with each other.

“What’s exciting about this is that the genes we have found are likely to share a common regulation, which means that potentially we can manipulate a whole set of genes whose activity is linked to human intelligence.

“Our research suggests that it might be possible to work with these genes to modify intelligence, but that is only a theoretical possibility at the moment–we have just taken a first step along that road.”

In the study, published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the team of researchers looked at samples of human brain from patients who had undergone neurosurgery for epilepsy.

They analysed thousands of genes expressed in the human brain, and then combined the results with genetic information from healthy people who had undergone IQ tests and from people with neurological disorders such as autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability.

They conducted various computational analyses and comparisons in order to identify the gene networks influencing healthy human cognitive abilities. Remarkably, they found that some of the same genes that influence human intelligence in healthy people were also the same genes that cause impaired cognitive ability and epilepsy when mutated, networks which they called M1 and M3.

Dr Johnson added: “Traits such intelligence are governed by large groups of genes working together–like a football team made up of players in different positions.

“We used computer analysis to identify the genes in the human brain that work together to influence our cognitive ability to make new memories or sensible decisions when faced with lots of complex information.

“We found that some of these genes overlap with those that cause severe childhood onset epilepsy or intellectual disability.

“This study shows how we can use large genomic datasets to uncover new pathways for human brain function in both health and disease. Eventually, we hope that this sort of analysis will provide new insights into better treatments for neurodevelopmental diseases such as epilepsy, and ameliorate or treat the cognitive impairments associated with these devastating diseases.”

Earlier this year a team at King’s College London discovered that up to 65 per cent of the difference in pupil’s GCSE grades was down to genetics, after analysing genetic data fro, 12,500 twins.

They found that all exam results were highly heritable, demonstrating that genes explain a larger proportion of the differences between children, between 54 and 65 per cent.

Previously it was thought that intelligence was determined by the formation of the cerebral cortex, the outermost layer of the human brain, also known as ‘grey matter.’ Grey matter plays a key role in memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought and language.

In contrast shared environmental factors such as home and school environment contributed between 14 and 21 per cent. The rest was made up by individual external influences such as diseases or friends.

Report author Professor Robert Plomin believes that children should be genetically screened at the age of four so that an individualised curriculum could be tailored to their needs.

 

http://www.rense.com/general79/dut.htm

 

I don't see a response to my question. What you pasted seems unrelated. Why don't you just put it in your own words. Has anyone offered a mechanism?



​

 

White matter is one of the three main components of the brain, the other two being grey matter (largely containing nerve cells) and Substantia Nigra. White matter largely consists of bundles of axons, which interconnect grey matter parts and transmit impulses between nerve cells. White matter integrity refers to the quality of the axons in white matter. Better quality axons transmit impulses faster. Better the white matter integrity, higher the intelligence. The researchers found clear differences between identical and fraternal twins in the correlation of their white matter integrity with their IQ scores. “White matter integrity (FA) was under strong genetic control and was highly heritable. Common genetic factors mediated the correlation between IQ and white matter integrity, suggesting a common physiological mechanism for both and common genetic determination,” said the results of their study, which was published in The Journal of Neuroscience. In other words, white matter integrity is largely determined by genes, which suggests that the information processing capacity of humans, intelligence that is, owes heavily to genetic factors.


https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct..._pkzvKmzaNPi715sQ&sig2=KthmZPdXeT9GM-A7e1jDbw

 

My theory for both topics is that the way people are taught has a profound impact on the way they think. The fact that Ashkenazi Jews have a higher IQ than Sephardic Jews and Middle Eastern Jews supports my point. The IQ of Ashkenazi Jews is not racial and not genetic, it probably has something to do with their education. Northeast Asians developed different learning styles than Westerners so they think differently.

One or a few candidate genes can not be used to determine that genes related to intelligence differ between races. We need to discover many more genes related to intelligence and show that there is a difference in gene frequency between these racial populations.

You don't seem to have understood anything that I said. Environment is as important as genes in determining intelligence. Nature and nurture both matter. My example with the plants is not a red herring it was meant to show you the nature of heritability. My example with people should have helped you understand the importance of environment in determining intelligence but it seems to have gone over your head. Twin studies do show that intelligence is highly heritable but environmental differences between groups can still be the sole cause of differences in IQ between groups. The discovery of intelligence genes is a major breakthrough in our understand of intelligence. However it does NOT support your contention that there are genetic differences related to intelligence between races. Genome-wide association studies have actually shown the exact opposite. Joseph Graves, an evolutionary biologist, wrote an article analyzing the association between race and intelligence and determined that FST values for intelligence associated variants found in literature gave no indication of racial association.

I recommend that you read his article on the subject.

 

This writeup simply states the same thing you stated here regarding IQs worldwide. None of this negates anything I said in my response.

Anyways, here are some interesting points taken directly from this reading:

• Individual IQ can't be predicted from race. According to the data, at least 15 percent to 20 percent of black Americans exceed the average IQ of white Americans. (This point alone should blow away the genetic arguments imo).
  
• Subgroup IQ can't be predicted from race.
• Environment matters. Genetic and environmental theories aren't mutually exclusive. Hereditarians admit that by their own reading of the data, nongenetic factors account for 20 percent to 50 percent of IQ variation. They think malnutrition, disease, and educational deprivation account for a big portion of the 30-point IQ gap between whites and black Africans. They think alleviation of these factors in the United States has helped us halve the deficit.
• As it turns out, raising the lowest IQs is a lot easier than equalizing higher IQs, because you can do it through nutrition, medicine, and basic schooling.

Just for kicks, I will add the following:

Africans fare far better in elite schools than black Americans. This should not be true since the average black American contains some European DNA.

The information in here should not be possible if Africans have such low IQs:
http://www.unz.com/article/the-iq-gap-is-no-longer-a-black-and-white-issue/

Preview:

The IQ talking point probably needs to be revamped.

 

How have Jews of European descent been taught that advantages them over Europeans and non-European Jews?

I would expect you to explore your own hypothesis to cover Jews of European descent brought up in different environments, including religious and secular European Jews, and Jews who've converted to Christianity.

What are these different learning styles for European descent Jews and Northeast Asians that gives them higher IQ?

Your explanation is more half-hearted and falls flat when the IQ of Northeast Asians raised in the West is just as high as it is in Northeast Asia.

And again, why is it Northeast Asians are good at quantitative and visual-spatial ability but not as good at verbal reasoning while Jews of European descent are strong at quantitative and verbal reasoning but weak in visual spatial-ability?

That's simply your insistence. Saying something doesn't make it true. In any event, the current data speaks volumes. I'll stick with results over your claims. On the other hand, you have not addressed the data, let alone seemed to have even read the article.

Could you cite studies showing that environment is as important as genes for adult IQ?

Sorry to say, but the analogy between plant virility and adult IQ has its limits, and you have not shown the environmental differences between racial groups is as different as that between plants which were fully fed, watered and given sunlight to plants missing essential nutrients required for growth.

 

Compare averages and get back to us.

Cherry-picking Africans with university degrees to the entire Black American population is a meaningless comparison.

 

Actually it isn't meaningless. Black Americans can barely get into elite schools let alone compete with the Africans/Caribbeans who can get in. We don't have to look at the full population. Just at those who are able to get into top-tier schools and see how they fare. The result is that African Caribbeans and full Africans beat the Black American academically.

This has far more to do with culture than it does genes.

 

And you have data on top Black American and Black African students?

 

Sure...

 

I did not make the post you are referring to....how my name got on it ....I have no idea.

 

Good grief. Are you capable of reading?

The article discusses just what I said are cherry-picked statistics. Compare black Africans - all of them - to black Americans.

Immigrants are not all black Africans.

 

None of that matters!

In the same academic environment, they still outperform Black Americans. Keep in mind Black Americans live in America, have European/Mongoloid genes (Native American) and still get pushed aside by people who supposedly have a far lower IQ. The advantage should go to the Black American, but the actual results favor actual Africans.

You simply have to give up the genetic argument. Cultures is where the results lie, not genetics apparently.

Don't get upset. Cope.

 

I think one of the major problems with such testing is that people believe intelligence is what is being tested. It is not. What is being tested is performance. And performance can be affected by a lot of things. Hunger, confidence, weather, whatever. A society that can create favorable conditions will create people who perform better than another society.

For instance...when Egypt became an empire, what were the Nordic peoples achieving? When Egpyt built great cities and temples and great schools of learning which the Greeks would eventually emulate and improve upon, what were the Nordic peoples doing?

Similarly, we all have grown up on tales of the great achievements of Greeks and Romans who were- in their time- possessors of some of the greatest intellects around. However, look at them now. What happened? What happened to Rome's great superiiorty or the intellectual ingenuity of the Greeks? Do they still lead the world or are they dancing on the edge of ruin? During both the Greek and Roman era's, barely anything of cultural significance came out of the North-western European civilizations. We like to think of them as our ancestors, but they considered us a different people. Barbarians. And they invaded and colonized these peoples. But, now, Americans are- obstensibly- on top. And, if I might add, none of these civilizations are genetically "pure". They all are amalgams of different peoples from different areas. Each powerful civilization benefited from the knowledge and trade in resources and academics.

 

Please find me a single statistician, scientist, academic or researcher who will agree with you that it is valid to compare a randomized and non-randomized sample.

That certain members have agreed with your claim that it doesn't matter to make comparisons of randomized and non-randomized groups speaks to their lack of education and their overall inability to discuss issues related to science and statistics.