Article reveals racial IQ gap is not genetic

Essentially the same conclusion that I had reached and was about to post myself.

Given the shortcomings of IQ testing we might as well be asking how long is a piece of string? The variables involved in attempting to compare IQ's across groups are sufficiently complex as to render anything based such findings to fall into the category of pseudoscience.

This effectively NULLIFIES the specious allegations made by those who attempt to use IQ as a blunt instrument to push their nefarious agenda.

 

No, it's an issue of credibility. Scientists have a responsibility to the public to present research that is meets acceptable academic standards for legitimate scientific research. If they violate society's ethical or educational standards then they do not deserve funding, invite criticism and should be fired by any organization that does not want to be associated with them.

You can't go to work naked and dance in front of your co-workers while soliciting them sex and expect to have a job afterwards, not to mention be charged with indecent exposure and sexual harassment. Society has rules. In Canada Rushton's association with the Pioneer Fund and promotion of racist research violated Canada's laws on hate speech.

A scientist can not announce to the world that they are trying to create a super virus that could kill all of humanity if it were inhaled and released to the public. They would be labeled a mad scientist and a genocidal maniac and rightly so. Pointing out associations of the Pioneer Fund is pointing out who has a racist ideological agenda within academia. The quote from Sussman's book shows not only the pseudoscientific nature of Rushton's claims (in various fields including psychology) but the school of thought his ideological lineage descends from as well as a source for his motivation for promoting a racist ideological agenda.

PSEUDOSCIENCE begins with a hypothesis— usually one which is appealing emotionally, and spectacularly implausible— and then looks only for items which appear to support it. Conflicting evidence is ignored. Notice how often, when you are asked by a friend about what should be a question of fact if the topic were not pseudoscience, the opening phrase is, “Do you believe in ESP?” (or flying saucers, or prophecy, or Bigfoot)... not, is the evidence good, but rather, do you believe, without raising dull questions of evidence. Generally speaking, the aim of pseudoscience is to rationalize strongly held beliefs, rather than to investigate and find out what’s actually going on, or to test various possibilities. Pseudoscience specializes in jumping to “congenial conclusions,” grinding ideological axes, appealing to pre-conceived ideas and to widespread misunderstandings. Not just Creationists, but 20th Century pseudoscientists of all flavors, from J. B. Rhine and Immanuel Velikovsky to Rupert Sheldrake, have underlying their claims and assertions an anachronistic world-view that essentially rejects all or most of the tested, reliable findings of science as “unacceptably materialistic!” The general public tends to view pseudoscientists as “mavericks” who are working slightly beyond the “accepted” boundaries of science. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Pseudoscientists invariably represent a world-view which is not simply unscientific or pre-scientific, but rather militantly antiscientific.

- Rory Coker

I don't recall making an issue about the number of cites but rather the number of academic textbooks that accept Rushton's racial theory. That is very much relevant to any scientific discussion. Where is the evidence that this claim is based on objective reasoned science and is represented within the academic community? You can have tons of citations and most of them be criticisms or citations unrelated to the subject being discussed in a debate.

Yes it is Empress and I will not address any further distortions or deviations from my stated position in this thread. You can either address the scientific research presented in the opening post or you can not. There is no wiggle room here for you to attack strawman arguments.

 

Decades of very specifically WESTERN 'studies'. Good for you. Because the Chinese clearly know nothing about fostering IQ etc.

 

Thank you!!

 

It's made clear that most of the studies were carried out in the West. It's not responsible to claim a study covers a region not included in its dataset.

You're obviously confused.

 

Yes, it's ideological bell-ringing. Even if nobody posts Rushton's work on psychology, you have been intermittently trotting out the personal attacks against him for work outside his expertise which literally NOBODY is discussing.

If I post a sentence of his criticizing a psychological study from Turdheimer on its merit in psychology, you veer off topic and post an attack about Rushton's penis collection and racial theories.

These are off-topic and do not address anything discussed in the threads. I have been patient with such off-topic tangents so far, but if they continue, I will be forced to flag any further such posts.

Nobody here is discussing Rushton's race theories or penis collections.

I've not distorted anything. From where exactly do you say the environmental causes of the black/white IQ gap from? In your repeatedly citing things like "discrimination, poverty, Jim Crow" you are necessarily invoking historical white villainy, are you not?

Further, where are all these big environmental influences that are causing a large population-level IQ gap that can be traced to factors shown to be major impacts of adult IQ in light of sharply decreasing environmental impact on intelligence as people enter adulthood?

 

It's about high time you admit the obvious: Your personal studies into measures of cognitive ability are very insubstantial and your disagreement comes from personal animus at unequal test results.

 

The topic of THIS thread is the article in the opening post (Graves, 2013). I will discuss any work in my thread relevant to the research I presented. You can't expect me to take you seriously as a debater when you make childish potty-humor insults against my sources (e.g. Nisbutt and Turdheimer), ignore evidence presented to you, misrepresent my position and use all kinds of logical fallacies to avoid responding to research at the core of my argument. I won't entertain this nonsense any more. If you are serious about a scientific debate step up on a science message board and present your argument as I and others have done. This is a political message board. One of many. I've proven that I am not afraid to debate anywhere as long as I am treated fairly. Can you say the same? There's really no need for me to keep debating you on a scientific topic where you question the credibility of a position while displaying an inability to understand basic concepts related to the argument (ex. why your heritability arguments are irrelevant to the research in the opening post which is supported by scientific consensus).

 

Ironic of the shortcomings in your own subject matter knowledge duly noted.

Where exactly have I claimed to have made "personal studies into measures of cognitive ability"? All of the links that I have been provided are to well researched scientific studies,

That you have resorted to ad hominems says volumes regarding the vacuity of the content of your posts as demonstrated in the quote above.

 

I am sorry this is not correct.

Invoking genetic fallacy such as "Pioneer Fund" is not a scientific rebuttal nor is invoking Rushton's undiscussed, unmentioned "racial theories" and "penis studies." It's an ideological alarm bell in lieu of a scientific rebuttal; an attack on a person instead of his argument. Nobody in their right mind is going to take seriously someone who instead of responding to a scientific point they made - within their field of expertise - lifts their leg and sprays as if to mark the target as a no-go zone based on a genetic fallacy argument for violating an irrelevant political standard sans scientific response.

Genetic fallacy and guilty by association claims are not arguments. Invoking hostile activist attacks on someone is not an argument. Addressing scientific claims is an argument. You can't accuse me of logical fallacy as part of your reason for not wanting to discourse with me and then turning around and rationalizing your use of logical fallacy.

Reputations in science are made by strength of work in one's field, not attacks by activists and haters.

First you complain I am using "potty-humor," am supposedly "ignoring your sources" (even though I have repeatedly addressed them directly in detail showing the specific errors in them that make them untenable), "misrepresent" your position (which you apparently now refuse to clarify even though I asked you to specifically on this thread), allegedly use "all kinds of logical fallacies" while you continuously invoke genetic fallacy repeatedly in digressing to either "Pioneer Fund" or Rushton papers about penises, and dadgumit, "won't entertain this nonsense any more" except if I go to an unnamed "science forum" of your choice (though you actually invited me HERE in the first place for this very debate) even though you see "no need to keep debating me" while I supposedly "display an inability to understand basic concepts related to the argument"?

You understand, of course, that makes zero sense and you're completely contradicting yourself.

What you actually are doing is that you're unhappy with moderating here, are apparently struggling with balancing your temper with posting rules, and would like to coax me onto a forum of your choosing which has a history of banning people on the spot not for conduct infractions but rather for their beliefs as reported by other posters who hate them because of the prolific biases of moderator staff there. You have no intention on discussing anything with me as you've already admitted. This is just about spite and seeing me banned someplace.

You invited me here. I came here. Now you're trying to renege. Discuss the subject or not, and by your repeated refusals to address the serious shortcomings in your own sources (nobody on this earth claims that "childhood SES causes adult IQ"), you obviously can't and are using things like "potty humor" as an out.

 

The VETSA scientific studies have found a correlation between childhood SES and adult cognitive abilities.

http://www.vetsatwins.org/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780387/

https://www.maelstrom-research.org/mica/individual-study/vetsa#/

https://medschool.ucsd.edu/research/actri/clinical/Documents/7_FranzCognitiveResilience.pdf

 

Reputations in science are indeed made by the strength of work in one's field but also by their actions as a scientist. For example James Watson built his reputation as a co-discover of DNA which earned him a Noble Prize. Then he disgraced himself by promoting Scientific Racism and in reaction to criticism from the Scientific Community sold his medal at an auction for money. Rushton built his reputation as a psychologist and then ruined it with pseudoscientific, crackpot arguments which in addition to unethical research practices which got him reprimanded by his University are the reason why many reputable scientists such as Joseph Graves dismiss him as a racist quack. Pointing this out is absolutely relevant to the topic of this thread since Rushton is mentioned in the article and his credibility as a scientist was brought up by you.

Yes Empress, potty-humor! You gave two scholars nicknames with the words "butt" and "turd."

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Potty humor

Joke, or a humorous statement, relative to sh*t, defecation, urination or anything that relates to the toilet. I was full of sh*t, but I just went to the toilet and took it all out - that's an example of a very poorly constructed potty humor joke.

We could call it toilet humor if you prefer. This is extremely childish behavior which has no place in an a debate but since you are allowed to attack sources on this board apparently it is ok.

I still disapprove.

You pick and choose what you want to respond to and you play games with reporting posts and complaining to moderators to get posts deleted. You don't know how to play fair so there's no reason for me to engage you in debate with these silly tactics. If you were serious about having a scientific debate the platform would not bother you. I have debated you on Youtube and boards where you have moderation power or influence. My request for a board with a higher standard is not unreasonable. Also it doesn't have to be Sciforum. We could agree to any science message board where neither of us has moderation power or influence. But since you have requested that I not reply to you by private message under threat that you will report my to moderators there's really no reason to believe you are interested or capable of discussing a scientific topic with a more scientifically literate audience.

I've already debated you at length and you have shown that you don't understand the argument. Regarding childhood SES it is a fact that environment has a strong impact on the nurturing of intelligence. Family income and environmental conditions in childhood have a tremendous impact on what kind of person you will become as an adult. Imagine if a person who grew up in a trailer park, in an abusive home, with poor nutrition, bad parents, bad neighbors and went to a bad school instead grew up in a mansion with good parents, excellent nutrition and received a first rate education?

Their IQ and life outcomes would be very different and that is all I was talking about. This is a less extreme version of the barrel vs. home-reared boys argument. The more different the environment between the genotypes the more likely you are to have differences between the phenotypes exhibited by those genotypes. You could test this experimentally by raising identical twins separated at birth one dirt poor and the other rich and test their IQs as adults to see if they score identically on IQ tests or comparably the same. If two genetically identical people can have differences in measured intelligence and behavior because of differences in environment then two groups who have the same genetic potential can have differences in measured intelligence and behavior because of differences in environment.

You and those who promote the racial hereditarian argument don't seem to understand is that you can not control for all variables except for racial or ethnic background. You can't do it because you can't control the way people think and how they are treated. I have explained this to you over and over and you just don't get it or don't want to so why should I bother?



Here is the relevant information again:

This is taught in college classes on Differential Psychology around the world:

(Start at 47:00)




"The degree to which each variable impacts intelligence is unknown and impossible to determine since there are too many factors to consider. What matters is that genetics can be ruled out based on sound genetic reasoning and recent research on genome-wide association studies also support this position. Asking why Group X has higher IQ than Group Y when both have been discriminated against historically is also completely meaningless as not all groups have been discriminated against in the same way and to the same extent and cultures can change over time allowing a formally oppressed group to rise in Socioeconomic Status which can also be reflected in IQ score. - EgalitarianJay02

"The fact that African-Americans or any other group may score differently from another doesn't tell you about the nature. The environmental difference, you simply can't compare the genetic basis, it's pure and simple quantitative genetics. You don't even have to know the nature of the environment. It's simply the fact the two groups are not comparably the same in environmental conditions that make any apportions in the genetic variance of a trait impossible. So you can find that in Falconer's Introduction to Quantitative Genetics. - Joseph Graves


The information above is consistent with the conclusions of the article in the OP which supports the argument with research from genome-wide association studies.

I have explained this to you many times and I could explain it to you 1000 times more and you still would not accept the argument or present a legitimate rebuttal.

Why? Because of your flawed reasoning and debate tactics.

Argument by Repetition

Description: Repeating an argument or a premise over and over again in place of better supporting evidence.

Logical Form:

X is true. X is true. X is true. X is true. X is true. X is true... etc.

PSEUDOSCIENCE appeals to the truth-criteria of scientific methodology, while simultaneously denying their validity. Thus, a procedurally invalid experiment which seems to show that astrology works is advanced by the pseudoscientist as “proof” that astrology is correct, while he simultaneously completely ignores any number of procedurally sound experiments that show it does not work in any way or sense. The fact that someone got away with simple magic tricks in one scientific lab is “proof” that he is a psychic superman, while the fact that he was caught doing his tricks in several other labs is ignored. One ESP experiment where the researchers can be shown conclusively to have simply fabricated all their positive results is invariably referenced as valid and convincing, whilst the many dozens of other ESP studies that gave chance results are left unmentioned.

A more general example of this fallacy is often called “cherry picking.” There are many "scientific studies" being published all the time, and they vary widely in reliability and methodology. Thus, you can easily find at least one study somewhere that "proves" that drinking 6 or more cups of coffee a day reduces the chance of a heart attack by 60%, that using a mobile phone more than 2 hours a day reduces the chance of developing Alzheimer's Disease by 60%, that eating a pound of dark chocolate per day reduces your chance of ovarian cancer by 60%, that chewing a plug of tobacco at least once per week reduces the incidence of dental caries by 60%... or whatever else you want!

[Crackpot critics of science generally misuse the “cherry-picking” term. Basically they seem to think that sorting out the bad data and tossing it away consists of cherry picking, and leads to all well-established scientific results being questionable. What a real cherry-picker does is pick out only bad data and ignore all the rest. And in fact the real cherry-picker ignores most of the bad data too, only pointing to the one or two goofy examples that he thinks offer support to his favorite crazy idea.] - Rory Coker


You're going to have to do better than this and toilet humor if you want to debate on my level, Empress.

 

Exactly! You haven't.

 

Oh? Your own link states that VETSA studies were,

Yeah so there's nothing there about children let alone "correlation between childhood SES and adult cognitive abilities." This study is about Vietnam veterans and war-time stressors.

 

Yes, I am a Master of Psychological Warfare. You're still whining about images in a message board post. That's Psychological Warfare 101: say and do things that you know bother your opponent. You still can't address my research. Your arguments are limited to arguing about the existence of biological races and insulting the educational background of Joseph Graves (do you have a remotely comparable educational background?). Empress chooses to confine her arguments to strawman attacks on the research of Nisbett while displaying a lack of understanding heritability, the environmental impact on the nurturing of intelligence while giving Richard Nisbett and Eric Turkheimer toilet-humor nicknames (something you would expect a 10 year old girl to say). All of this while ducking a response to the genetic research I posted and its relation to the argument of my sources which is supported by scientific consensus.

As far as "NE Asian flowers" is concerned....

"The degree to which each variable impacts intelligence is unknown and impossible to determine since there are too many factors to consider. What matters is that genetics can be ruled out based on sound genetic reasoning and recent research on genome-wide association studies also support this position. Asking why Group X has higher IQ than Group Y when both have been discriminated against historically is also completely meaningless as not all groups have been discriminated against in the same way and to the same extent and cultures can change over time allowing a formally oppressed group to rise in Socioeconomic Status which can also be reflected in IQ score. - EgalitarianJay02

That argument is clearly addressed in my post. Invoking the "Model Minority" argument to claim Northeast Asian mental superiority is meaningless. Asian-Americans and African-Americans do not have the same history of racial discrimination. They have not been discriminated against in the same ways and to the same degrees. They also have different cultural backgrounds. If you compared African immigrants to African-Americans on average there would be huge differences in IQ and academic achievement as well as there is with Northeast Asians and Southeast Asians. Even if you wanted to confine your argument to Northeast Asia in Japan ethnic Koreans face discrimination and are not as successful as ethnic Japanese.

Historically Asian-Americans have also scored lower on the SAT than White Americans in earlier decades. There are cultural reasons for why Asian-Americans score higher than White Americans academically and on IQ tests today.

The same psychometric research you have claimed has showed a consistent Black-White IQ gap for 100 years was used to claim that certain European ethnic groups including Ashkenazi Jews were intellectually inferior to Anglo-Saxon White Americans and should be denied entry in to American Universities because of their inferior racial stock.

Finding some statistical patterns that fit your theory does not validate the claim that racist stereotypes have a genetic basis and your obsession with claiming Blacks are mentally inferior is analogous to saying that Irishmen are naturally drunkards (ex. look at Conor Mcgregor's UFC 229 press conference) and women are overly emotional or bimbos who aren't cut out for big business or politics (ex. Hillary Clinton crying during her Presidential campaign or Sarah Palin making stupid comments in interviews). Proponents of Scientific Racism are mostly White Nationalists or like-minded bigots who also believe in a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Western Civilization and deny the Holocaust. This isn't a legitimate scientific topic it is racism based on a pseudoscientific premise.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_topics_characterized_as_pseudoscience

Racial theories

• Scientific racism – claim that scientific evidence shows the inferiority or superiority of certain races.[233][234]

• PSEUDOSCIENCE often pretends to be one side of a legitimate scientifc controversy. That is, pseudoscientists like to pretend that “the jury is still out,” and that “further research” is needed to clarify the validity of their beliefs. This is essentially never the case. There is no controversy among astronomers concerning astrology— they unanimously agree it is nonsense. There is no controversy among physicists concerning Velikovsky's ideas— they are unanimously condemned as simply wrong. There is no controversy among biologists regarding “Intelligent Design”— it is dismissed as a set of religion-based beliefs empty of scientific content. There is no case known to me in which a pseudoscientist's claims have taken advantage of any genuine scientific controversy. Instead, pseudoscientists operate entirely outside science, and their claims and beliefs are not relevant to any known scientific puzzle or uncertainty. One frightening trend observed more and more strongly during the last half of the 20th Century was the incorporation of contrarian pseudoscience into the core beliefs of various fundamentalist religions, so that today a fundamentalist is almost certain to deny the facts of global warming, biological evolution, human origins, etc., and to affirm that basic scientific research is essentially of no value.
  
  There is general agreement among interested observers that, over the past two decades, Americans have grown increasingly indifferent to the often-demonstrated fact of their ignorance of even the most basic scientific discoveries of the last four centuries, and increasingly unconcerned that US K-12 students generally tie for last place in knowledge of math and science, in comparisons among 70 or more nations. An actual and naked hostility to science and scholarship has been tied up seemingly inextricably with political and religious ultra-conservatism. This attitude of distrust and dislike of science, mathematics and rational thought in general very obviously has an entirely negative educational impact. And ultimately, such hostile attitudes must result in an ever-increasing popularity for various pseudosciences, particularly those which can adapt themselves to the prevailing political and religious dogmas. - Rory Coker

 

Again, this is an attempt to rationalize addressing a smear campaign against a given person in lieu of discussing any relevant work they've done on a subject they're qualified to do, which is never, ever justifiable. If someone cites a person, don't attack the person cited, deal with whatever issue you have with his work pertaining to its scientific validity. Being ideologically offensive to someone does not invalidate their work. I do not care who is offended.

As far as the rest goes:

Graves' cite of McEwen and Gianarios (2011) States, “Complementing animal studies of stressrelated processes mediated by and affecting plasticity in the hippocampus, a growing number of human neuroimaging studies have begun to examine stress processes in association with aspects of gross hippocampal morphology. For example, individuals with stress-related psychiatric disorders, such as major depressive disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, show volumetric reductions in the hippocampus (see 11, 12)... Moreover, there is increasing support for the notion that targeting the plasticity of the hippocampus in depression and mood disorders may underpin pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatment efficacy (17, 1. In addition to disease studies, there is emerging evidence from otherwise healthy individuals for a relationship between chronic stressful experiences and changes in hippocampal morphology. Among postmenopausal women, for example, higher levels of chronic perceived stress, as measured over an approximate 20-year period of life, have been associated with reduced gray matter volume in the hippocampus and in a region of the lateral prefrontal cortex (19). Further, more than three years after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001, otherwise healthy adults living near the site of the attacks showed a reduction in gray matter volume in the hippocampus, as well as in anatomically networked areas of the amygdala and prefrontal cortex (20). In humans, as well as in animal models, there appears to be a heritable component of stressrelated plasticity in the hippocampus.”

So severe stressors that would have an effect on cognitive ability come with structural changes in the human brain. So where are the imaging studies that show black people have hippocampal morphological changes and gray matter reductions specific to them, on a wide scale, that are unique to their population?

Further, were are the large-scale diagnoses of black people with specific stress disorders associated with hippocampal changes namely PTSD or major depressive disorder? Again, these would have to be droves of these, population-wide so as to affect group IQ of tens of millions of people multi-generationally and be shown to contribute to a large gap in general cognitive ability scores.

Simply saying that “stressors can negatively impact the mind” doesn't by extension qualify a far-reaching argument in explaining the existence of a large IQ gap between two large human populations due to stressors presumably related to discrimination, slavery, Jim Crow, higher incarceration rates (which are self-inflicted), and/or lower comparable SES status which in today's society is also self-inflicted to a very large degree.

You have previously attacked statements (such as Rushton's) regarding racial differences in gray matter volume which you see as equal parts pseudoscience, offensive, and flat-out racist such as here which undercuts any argument that stressors have caused plasticity-related changes in the brains of black Americans, thus you've single-handedly ruled out stress-related gray matter losses as a viable factor of cause in the black/white IQ gap.

Unless Graves can point to studies which show that black Americans suffer from collective hippocampal and gray matter changes, his invoking this study is a non sequitur. What he seemed to be doing was reasoning around a hole in direct evidence by invoking environment-can-harm in general, much as Nisbutt has done, and nobody is disputing.

As far as the incredibly vague “Zhang et al 2012” cite, all I could find is a study about bisphenol production used in plastics having effects on fetal mice. Is that your cite? I know of nobody that denies that environmental toxins can harm children in utero, but it's quite a stretch to invoke such a thing as an explanatory factor in the lower average IQ of tens of millions of people relative to another group in the same national living space.

And again, with Graves' need-to-equalize-environment argument - that comes from a statement which was based on an inaccurate 50/50 influence of environment as repeated by Nisbutt. It's scientifically invalid as ample studies which show the marked decrease in environmental impact on IQ after toddler years and how age must be taken into account in calculating heritability. Since we know that environment has far lesser impacts on heritability in adults who intelligence is far more gene-derived – with no ethnic population exempt from this standard - this must be taken into account.

Can environment impact IQ anyway? Yes, as I've explained, and as also Turdheimer explained – but such impacts need to be severe such as prolonged malnutrition of the type in war zones or widespread famine. If childhood beatings aren't impacting IQ, why would stress from social shunning? You're repeatedly pointing to far less serious environmental circumstances in the United States as if they are comparable and are doing so without coupling that argument with source material. Repeatedly posting Lewontin's flower boxes isn't an argument, it just establishes that yes, nutritional deprivation can cause problems. Who denied this? I've restated this every single time you've posted those flower boxes. The very existence of that possibility does not prove this argument relates to black Americans let alone that it is a contributor to a large IQ gap. What specific nutrients are you arguing that black Americans are lacking that higher average IQ populations aren't lacking which are known to negatively impact cognitive function? I know of none. We are an overfed, overnourished country.

I have seen absolutely nothing in scientific literature that supports the idea that a lack of communistic outcome equality is a necessary element before studying heritability rates of cognitive ability in humans. There is nothing in literature remotely indicative of inaccurate results pertaining to one demographic versus another in a given shared society. Literature makes it clear that it applies to Western industrial democracies in general as the populations of those countries in general have been test subjects.

You keep posting arguments that show where environmental issues can ostensibly affect people, but you aren't following that with evidence that it IS affecting black Americans specifically and is causing/contributing to substantial gaps in cognitive ability scores compared to other groups. In that, you continue to struggle with the basics that studies on five year olds cannot be taken as representative of the susceptibility of environmental effects on the cognitive abilities of adults nor can they be on the benefits of “IQ boosting” schemes which longitudinally fade away as Wilson Effects become more prominent.

Your odd random insertion of the cite for Race, Genomics, and IQ: Slight Return is misplaced in the paragraph above it as the paragraph above it does not address FST value calculations, and the original cite which I had to dig around for is not related to the environmental-only claims of the IQ gap which you continue to cite which is the sole basis of my disagreement with you but is another subject entirely. You have a bad habit of random patchwork copy-paste jobs. Heritability of human IQ does not vary by Graves taking issue with a given definition of race and making a comment on that account.

As far as your RS Wilson cite, paste the relevant extract because I cannot find this paper online. Note I always paste relevant extracts and only write author name and year after I've pasted the extract as a reference to avoid pasting the entire extract again. Graves isn't giving paper names, but rather vague references which can be difficult to weed out.

And the guy in the video, I already responded to that months ago.

Btw, you keep posting this vague Graves cite of “Falconer's Introduction to Quantitative Genetics.” What's the specific page number for that reference?

 

LOL What? Name one "strawman attack" on Nisbutt's work I have made. I bought his dumb book and went through it. I've read articles he's written. Scholars like Lee have accurately pointed out the numerous and serious flaws in his argument. I merely summed them up.

From April 26, 2016:

You're really, really good at defending criticism against Nisbutt!

I'm not "ducking" anything - your problem is that your environment-only argument is heavily based off a mass market book by Nisbutt and you're struggling with the many flaws it has. It's not my fault you keep making arguments of high environmental impact on IQ by invoking studies on five year olds as if they're representative across the lifespan when I've posted about two dozen studies which show it's false. Oh and then there's the "IQ boost" stuff which Nisbutt "forgot" to mention longitudinally washes out as the kids get a little older.

I'm sorry, where is the "scientific consensus" that says you can take it upon yourself to apply heritability ranges found in five year olds to the entire lifespan of humanity and be taken seriously?

 

What's worse is the continued misrepresentation. He titled the video as if Suzuki "refuted" Rushton when all Suzuki did was admit he was clueless as psychology isn't his field, and my GOD will someone step up to this guy he's so terribly offensive, I can't believe we allow this on campus! What a horror!

That is "refutation" to Jay, apparently.

 

Empress, this post is sloppily written and largely incoherent. You are asking me to respond to several arguments of yours while not replying to any of the research within the article posted in the OP. This is arguing in bad faith and burden of proof shifting. I have outlined my position in this thread and defended it with the appropriate research.


This is my stated position in Post #73:


My argument is simply this: Measurable average IQ differentials between socially-defined racial groups do not have a genetic basis. Intelligence is a phenotypic trait. In order to identify the cause of measured differences in a phenotypic trait exhibited by different genotypes those genotypes have to be reared in the same environment. You can have populations that are equal in genetic potential but the cause of differences in their phenotypic traits be 100% caused by environmental differences between the groups (ex. barrel vs. home-reared boys).


Since there is no equivalence of environments between racially stratified societies or between nations there is no credible research program that can be produced that could test the hypothesis that there is a genetic component to observed average IQ differentials. The Genetic Hypothesis is invalidated by our knowledge of gene x environment interaction and population genetic theory. The research I have presented in past discussions supports this fact. Recent Genome-Wide Association studies support this position, which are discussed in the article in my opening post and the scientific consensus of several prestigious scientific organizations supports this position.



I posted a link to the whole paper. There is no reason why you can't read it to grasp the full argument. If the link doesn't work any more or you can't access it then you can request another link but it is only fair that you read the actual article in its entirety and then address my stated position before you ask me to respond to anything else. If you can't debate fairly you can't expect someone to address everything you say to them.


In the meantime I will address specific points that I have time to discuss for now....

Psychosocial stress on brain development affects all populations and especially those with a poorer standard of living from lower income families. This is only one of many variables that contributes to the Black-White IQ gap. You don't need a nation-wide analysis of the brains of demographic groups to establish that Psychosocial stress impacts brain development. Only a representative sample will do and the research that Graves cited established this point.

No, I have referenced sources from Joseph Graves, Richard Nisbett, Scott MacEachern, David Reznick and others which show that environmental influences including psychosocial stress impact brain development (see posts #43 and #44). Rushton's thesis is that brain size/volume differences have a genetic basis resulting from human races evolving in different environments which impacted brain development (Differential K Selection Theory). There are environmental explanations for these measured differences that have nothing to do with genetics or human evolution in addition to the many other problems with the studies cited by Rushton and his interpretation which Graves outlined.

You need to do some research on heritability because you still don't understand it nor its relevance to this discussion....


http://psych.colorado.edu/~carey/hgss/hgssapplets/heritability/heritability.intro.html



The concept of heritability plays a central role in the psychology of individual differences. Heritability has two definitions. The first is a statistical definition, and it defines heritability as the proportion of phenotypic variance attributable to genetic variance. The second definition is more common "sensical". It defines heritability as the extent to which genetic individual differences contribute to individual differences in observed behavior (or phenotypic individual differences). You should memorize both of these definitions.


Because heritability is a proportion, its numerical value will range from 0.0 (genes do not contribute at all to phenotypic individual differences) to 1.0 (genes are the only reason for individual differences). For human behavior, almost all estimates of heritability are in the moderate range of .30 to .60.


The quantity (1.0 - heritability) gives the environmentability of the trait. Environmentability has an analogous interpretation to heritability. It is the proportion of phenotypic variance attributable to environmental variance or the extent to which individual differences in the environment contribute to individual differences in behavior. If the heritability of most human behaviors is in the range of .30 to .60, then the environmentability of most human behaviors will be in the range of .40 to .70.


There are five important attributes about estimates of heritability and environmentability. They are:

1. Heritability and environmentability are abstract concepts. No matter what the numbers are, heritability estimates tell us nothing about the specific genes that contribute to a trait. Similarly, a numerical estimate of environmentability provides no information about the important environmental variables that influence a behavior.
2. Heritability and environmentability are population concepts. They tell us nothing about an individual. A heritability of .40 informs us that, on average, about 40% of the individual differences that we observe in, say, shyness may in some way be attributable to genetic individual difference. It does NOT mean that 40% of any person's shyness is due to his/her genes and the other 60% is due to his/her environment.
3. Heritability depends on the range of typical environments in the population that is studied. If the environment of the population is fairly uniform, then heritability may be high, but if the range of environmental differences is very large, then heritability may be low. In different words, if everyone is treated the same environmentally, then any differences that we observe will largely be due to genes; heritability will be large in this case. However, if the environment treats people very differently, then heritability may be small.
4. Environmentability depends on the range of genotypes in the population studied. This is the converse of the point made above. However, it probably does not apply strongly to human behavior as it does to the behavior of specially bred animals. Few--if any--human populations are as genetically homogeneous as breeds of dogs, sheep, etc.
5. Heritability is no cause for therapeutic nihilism. Because heritability depends on the range of typical environments in the population studied, it tells us little about the extreme environmental interventions utilized in some therapies.

Heritability of intelligence estimates have absolutely no relevance to the cause of group differences in IQ:

Heritability estimates are only relevant within populations. Stating that variance in the intelligence of Blacks and Whites is largely genetic tells us absolutely nothing about the cause of differences in measured intelligence between Black and White populations. You seem to believe that a high heritability of Adult IQ (0.80-0.90 which is debatable) means that environment can only account for 10-20% of the variation between adults which is too small to explain large gaps in IQ between demographic groups. You are making the very error that Sternberg and many actual experts on intelligence research have cautioned against which is a claim that Rushton made which Suzuki corrected in their debate (as did many others).

You can not make claims of between-group heritability based on the high heritability of intelligence within groups.

 

Part II

No, they don't. For example you can have two identical twins with the exact same genes raised in the same household take an IQ test and have different results because one stayed up late the night before playing video games and didn't eat breakfast and the other one got a good night's rest and had a healthy breakfast. You DO NOT need dramatic differences in environmental conditions to have significant differences in measured intelligence for an individual or a group.


Have you ever heard of a person not studying for a test and then flunking the test but then studying the next time around and passing the test with a decent or high grade? This literally happens all the time in life and many factors can impact test score for certain groups more than they do others for a variety of reasons. This has been explained to you many times and you still don't understand this even though it is an obvious fact.

I copy/pasted the title of the paper in Google and a link to the abstract came write up:


http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1980-07356-001

Abstract

Early mental development is analyzed from an evolutionary viewpoint and related to the dynamic interplay of genetic programming, maturational status, and environmental influence. Data are reported from 374 twin pairs who were tested longitudinally from 3 mo to 6 yrs of age. Tests included the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, Bayley Scales of Infant Development, McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, and the restandardized version of the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test Form L-M. Monozygotic twins became increasingly concordant with age and also paralleled each other for the spurts and lags in development. Dizygotic twins became less concordant with age and eventually matched their singleton siblings as closely as one another. Results suggest that the course of mental development is guided by the intrinsic scheduling of the genetic program acting in concert with maturational status and environmental influence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

Yes and you did a great job of misrepresenting his arguments.....

My response to your interpretation:


1) This is the same thing Steve Jones said (regarding phenotypic traits).

2) Jones agrees with this too and no respected geneticist disputes this.

3) Yes, but he also said that group differences in IQ can 100% be explained by environment.

4) You called Lewontin a flaming Marxist and dismissed his opinion as irrelevant because he is a biologist (he's also a geneticist) once again showing that you didn't understand that his argument is a core concept on quantitative genetics. The illustration clearly applies to group differences and NOT with the assumption that humans are genetic clones as you suggested (there is variance in the height of plants in both pots just as there is variance in the IQ within populations while the cause of difference between them is 100% environmental).

5) I've outlined the difference between biological and social definitions recently and their relevance to this discussion (see posts #6 and #33).

6) He doesn't need to for reasons outlined by Dr. Graves.

7) His commentary on the Flynn Effect has no relevance to his overall point about the cause of group differences in IQ and your claim is false (Pietschnig, 2013). I already addressed The Wilson Effect which also has no relevance to the cause of group differences in IQ. The MISTRA study was extremely methodologically flawed and doesn't challenge the conclusion that group differences in IQ are 100 caused by environmental differences (see an overview criticisms in the scientific literature by Robert Sussman posts #98, #99 and #100).


The lecture by the Yale Professor, Dr. Paul Bloom, is consistent with scientific consensus on the cause of racial differences in IQ.

My quote comes from the debate Graves had with Rushton in their 1997 panel discussion at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (start at 1:45:40).





I would have to read that particular book to cite the page number. You could ask Graves for that specific reference but there are many sources on quantitative genetics that you can read that discuss the heritability of phenotypic traits. The sources I provided in this post support my position.

That's your personal interpretation of their debate. Suzuki's position is supported by mainstream scientific consensus. He lectured Rushton on the fallacies of his argument citing a paper written by two world class geneticists that was approved by the Genetics Society of America and published in Scientific American in 1970 which stood as the authoritative position of geneticists on the subject.

Suzuki: Now remember, neither Rushton nor Jensen is a geneticist. After Jensen published his work in 1969 The Genetics Society of America, the leading Genetics organization in the world, overwhelmingly approved a GSA statement that such work as Jensen's cannot prove a genetic basis for IQ difference in races. World class population geneticists, two of the leading population geneticists in the world, Luca Cavalli-Sforza of Standford and Sir Walter Bodmer of Oxford and Richard Lewontin of Harvard have written books on this subject!

In October 1970 of Scientific American, Bodmer and Cavalli-Sforza published the definitive popular work entitled Intelligence and Race in direct response to Jensen's work. Their opening sentence is, "To what extent might behavioral differences between social classes and between races be genetically determined?" 11 pages later, and that's a long article in Scientific American, they conclude, "The question of a possible genetic basis for the Race/IQ difference will be almost impossible to answer satisfactorily before the environmental differences between U.S. Blacks and Whites have been substantially reduced. There is no good case for encouraging the support of studies of this kind on either theoretical or practical grounds."

Rushton: I'm very disappointed in Dr. Suzuki's presentation. Dr. Suzuki says my ideas on race are too esoteric and he shows however little more than moral outrage. He says that people like me should be rooted out and if I heard correctly he actually called for me to be fired. Well...that is not a scientific argument. I don't know that there is very much of substance in what he said that I can respond to. He went on about Arthur Jensen and IQ and Genetics and completely ignored all the work on two-egg twinning and the 60 other variables that I mentioned including the ranking of the three races.


Suzuki: My position was very clear. I did not choose to discuss the points he raised because I tried to point out very clearly that Bodmer and Cavalli-Sforza indicate that the genetic relationship or the correlation of the genetic basis that allows comparison between races is simply not possible. And I did not hear you rebut that in any way. And that is the definitive work!


Beyond that he spoke on Rushton's confirmation bias, his ignorance of evolutionary biology and the quality of his data which he considered to be absolutely ridiculous that generated laughter from the audience (e.g. "Ask people how many parties they've been to!").

David Reznick's review of Rushton's work (mind you Reznick told me he had never even heard of Rushton prior to this; I emailed him after my debate with Zed at Stumbleinn who Graves called a racist fool and pointed out Reznick as one of his colleagues) is very similar to that of Suzuki.

Reznick notes on Rushton - Placing intelligence into an evolutionary framework or how g fits into the r–K matrix of life-history traits including longevity Intelligence 32 (2004) 321–328

Real Biologists, Geneticists and Anthropologists who encounter Rushton's work generally don't have any respect for him and his theories. His work is pseudoscientific racist garbage and Suzuki made ethical arguments in addition to scientific arguments because he felt that professors at his University should be stepping out to denounce him and shut him down.

He refuted his arguments point by point.

 

Pointing out that attacking a person by citing controversies in parts of their work which aren't being discussed and NOT addressing what is discussed - such as Rushton's criticisms of the conclusions of Nisbutt and/or Turdheimer or Dickens and Flynn is not "burden of proof shifting." It's ducking one's burden of proof entirely.

This is a side argument you've raised which is a fallacy based on the 50/50 quotation from Graves/Nisbutt and as such has already been completely and totally debunked as its underlying heritability assumption is not accurate.

The flip side of this is that you continue to argue that any and all gaps between populations are environment-caused, environment-only, that heritability across the lifespan is as malleable as it is in childhood, and that "childhood SES causes adult IQ." You have yet to produce studies that show poverty of the kind experienced in the US is negatively affecting adult IQs, or that "malnutrition" or "pollution" have, either.

We have no evidence that a communistic-style equal outcome society is required for researchers to assess human cognitive ability. We have no evidence that Wilson Effects do not apply to black people. We have no evidence that high heritability of adult IQ does not apply to black people. We have no evidence that childhood SES causes adult IQ, and finally we have no evidence that "psychosocial stessors" are causing cognitive problems in black Americans akin to the ones invoked by Graves in the 2011 study which speak of hippocampal gray matter changes. Zip. Nada.

You're again repeating stock talking points per Graves emails in which you leave out the beginning of that statement which is,

So your argument regarding race differences on IQ literally stems from a Joseph Graves email which gave a bad heritability cite.

It's amusing how you've taken to culling out the first part of that quote and pasting the last part or rephrasing it nearly verbatim, sans context. Rather than defending a quotation based on a false assumption of lifespan heritability - since we fully know the topic isn't five year olds - you act it's not there and push forward with Graves' statement which is directly dependent on that low false assumption of heritability. Turdheimer has already said environmental IQ effects happen in severely deprived environments and even kids subject to beating aren't suffering cognitive ability losses. As I've said nearly umpteen times at this point, if beatings aren't going to knock someone's IQ, neither is social shunning.

I've already showed about two dozen studies which disqualify this as a legitimate point in discussing environmental impact on human IQ, as researchers have specifically stated that,

Yeah so you have to take age into account and not make generalized, sweeping arguments. Scientists say so.

Again, age must be taken into account and not make generalized, sweeping arguments. Science demands it.

If environmental influences markedly decrease as studies show, then impacts resembling that of a five year old with only 50% heritability are completely and absolutely irrelevant to anyone but five year olds.

And you continue to ignore wholesale studies that contradict the high SES impact on young children IQ theory:

That SES has high impact on children is a claim that Nisbutt states as solid but in reality is highly in dispute as studies are giving results all over the place. That is just one of a number of examples of Nisbutt misrepresenting data to his advantage which is why I call him a butt and will continue to do so.

It takes a reasonably large body of data to establish something as accepted by consensus as the Wilson Effect is. These childhood SES influence studies are nowhere near that level.

So basically, you will continue to ignore data which proves your core arguments are lacking in accuracy and solidity and will continue to double-down on them instead, insisting that the doubter who posts relevant literature to show the problems in your core arguments "doesn't understand" and the like.

But hey, you have a mass market paperback by Nisbutt and some Graves quotes, right?

Oh and I found another one -

.80 heritability? But that's so... Rushtonian! Better deflect to penis collections and Suzuki rants!

This doesn't count the non-replicating data from Nisbutt, Dickens and Flynn that you cite as solid which I've pointed out several times isn't. If a study's data isn't replicating, the claim is a nonstarter and doesn't belong in a debate.

And then of course there's that now DNA can be used to calculate heritabities which matches and thus validates twin longitudinal studies:

Ignore study and insert Graves quote with a sprinkle of Turdheimer?

What whole paper? One I asked for? How about the Falconer page number reference? Graves shouldn't be citing things without titles and page numbers.

What is your evidence that a "poorer standard of living" necessarily warps the brain? That could be defined as my buying a used Geo compared to your new BMW.

And of course you do when you cite a specific paper that refers to gray matter changes in the brain relative to stressors. You've also not showed that SES has life-long impacts on IQ, let alone that "childhood SES causes adult IQ," in that you repeatedly invoke studies on five year olds and take it upon yourself to apply them liberally as if they were reflective of the human lifespan. Where are the studies that show SES inequality causes what you're basically terming in other words as brain damage?

And if you haven't time to respond properly, why bother?

 

Just because I have not PERSONALLY conducted these studies does not mean that I am incapable of comprehending the scientific studies done by qualified professionals in the field of genetics.

Exactly how many scientific studies have YOU PERSONALLY conducted into "measures of cognitive ability"?

 

Everyone with an IQ. lower than 100, should be sterilized.

 

Feeble attempt to disparage a highly reputable and recognized source of valuable factual scientific data!

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12537880

Your disingenuous attempt to DENY the factual data regarding the childhood SES experiences of over 14,000 individuals exposes the vapidity of your position. Are you alleging that all of them are LYING about the conditions they actually experienced in childhood?

The correlation between their cSES experiences and their current cognitive abilities can ONLY be measured AT THIS STAGE.

Or do the studies that you personally conduct make use of a time machine to establish the cSES conditions compared to middle aged cognitive abilities?

Furthermore disparaging veterans is a sleazy underhanded tactic since there are very few generations that never had to fight a war. The data from the Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans is probably not going to be significantly any different.

Then there are the other scientific studies done using Twin Registries that come to the same conclusions. Dr Eric Turkheimer has conducted some of these studies and essentially concluded that cSES can have a significant impact on adult IQ.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/brief-history-twin-studies-180958281/

The following article by Dr Turkheimer is well worth reading in it's entirety since it exposes the bovine excrement regarding race and IQ.

https://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/11/21/eric-turkheimer/race-iq

 

Blacks were enslaved far more than 200 years.
It seemed everybody went after them for slaves, since recorded history.


Must be because they were so smart.