The Pseudoscience of J. Philippe Rushton

If there is a low correlation it means that most of the data doesn't fit the pattern. Some of it does, most of it does not.

Name them.

Beals, Smith and Dodd have the appropriate background to interpret the relevant data.

I don't feel like sifting through studies looking for ones that Rushton ignored. Consider the subject dropped. Let's have a new discussion.

 

What's funny is you don't seem to grasp the fact that positive correlation between race and brain volume no way helps your argument regardless how low it supposedly is; but helps mine.

The meta-analysis should do:

http://www.govrel.vcu.edu//news/Releases/2005/june/McDaniel-Big Brain.pdf

What's their background in medicine and science?

So that means you lied originally claiming Rushton ignored studies? Otherwise, how could you repeatedly claim he ignored studies if you haven't bothered to look?

 

So pick one trait, any one you want. Show how any collection of data sets for any one trait are "incomparable" with each other.

Note also that accusing a scholar of poor sourcing without going through his sources is lying. Parroting someone who does that is also lying.

 

It doesn't support your argument that there is a causative relationship between brain volume and intelligence. The relationship is weak at best.

So there is a slight (0.33) positive correlation between brain volume and intelligence. It's a stretch to say based on this evidence that there is a causal relationship between brain volume and intelligence and that genetic factors cause the difference in the relationship.

KENNETH L. BEALS is Professor of Anthropology at Oregon State
University (Corvallis, Ore 97331, U S.A.). Born In 1940, he was
educated at the University of Oklahoma (B.A., 1966; M.A., 1968)
and the University of Colorado (Ph.D., 1971) His research interest
is human variation. His publications include "Head Form and Climatic
Stress" (American Journal of Physical Anthropology 37:8592);
with A. J. Kelso, "Genetic Diversity and Cultural Evolution"
(American Anthropologist 77:566-79); and, with Timothy Baugh,
Biocultural Evolution (Minneapolis: Burgess, 1978).

COURTLAND L. SMITH is also Professor of Anthropology at Oregon
State University. Born in 1939, he received his B.M.E. from Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute in 1961 and his Ph D. from the University
of Arizona in 1968. His research interests are human
adaptation and computer-aided instruction. Map outlines and plotting
of points for figures included in this paper were adapted from
instructional computer programs developed at Oregon State. His
publications include Salmon Fishers of the Columbia (Corvallis:
Oregon State University Press, 1979) and "Human Behavior Incorporation
into Ecological Computer Simulations" (Environmental
Management 6:25 1-60).

STEPHEN M. DODD was born in 1947. After receiving his B.Sc.
from Oregon State University in 1975, he graduated from the University
of British Columbia (M.A., 1978). His research specialties
are linguistics and computer modeling. He is currently engaged in
fieldwork with urban Arabic and Muslim populations in the United
States and Canada.

I didn't say that I hadn't bothered to look only that I'm not going to look for specific studies right now. That topic is done. Stick to the new discussion which is Rushton's overall research. Do you have any defense against my statements in the opening post? Do you object to Rushton's research being called pseudoscience?

 

So you admit you can't back up you claims of "incomparable" data sets, have not in fact looked at any data sets, and were just name-calling and lying, and are now changing the subject to get out of it?

P.S. This "faulty data sets" point is in your OP (the copy pastes). Most of what you wrote is name-calling.

 

I didn't say anything like that. Stop making stuff up.

 

Where did Rushton eschew comparability? Is this just gratuitous name calling and disparagement which has no actual meaning in your mind?

 

His studies on brain size do not control for variables and thus are not comparable.

 

Which variables?

 

The ones identified by Tobias.

 

Guess you don't know what you're talking about. Again:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2668913/

Actually, the relationship between brain volume and IQ is moderate, not weak. Feel free proving a moderate correlation disproves causation.

It's a stretch to assume you know what you're talking about. I'm curious how you can justify your conclusion based off the math.

Feel free explaining the Black-White brain volume gap caused by something other than genetics. Be sure to back your beliefs up with the appropriate science and/or researchers.

So none of these guys has a degree in biology or related field?

What does that mean? You've claimed half-a-dozen times Rushton ignored/cherry-picked studies. Now you're saying you can't find any, or that you didn't look. So you lied originally, in other words (and that was after specifically claiming Rushton ignored admixture studies; so now you've compounded your lie).

And the bottom line is the only author proven to cherry-pick studies has been Nisbett.

 

Your quote is not relevant to the research I presented.

Correlation does not equal causation. That's an established fact.

It hasn't been established that there is a Black/White brain volume difference to begin with.

So none of these guys has a degree in biology or related field?

I said I'm not going to bother to cite them right now because I don't feel like sifting through studies. That doesn't mean I've never found any of haven't looked.

That's a dubious claim considering he might not have even been aware of the other studies in question.

 

They have degrees in Biological Anthropology making them qualified to speak on matters of human variation and evolution.

 

I wonder if the racists realize that even IF there was a correlation between IQ and race (and I doubt there is), it still does not justify their racist views.because we are talking about averages here. That means that even if blacks, on average, scored lower in IQ tests than whites or asians, there are still blacks that are more intelligent than the average white or asian. and there are asians and whites that are less intelligent than the average black.

 

Your doubt is completely without merit. There is no question that such a correlation exists, rather the debate is whether or not the correlation is a function of genes or environment, and the evidence strongly points to the former rather than the latter.

What is a "racist view?" Although there are theoretically some blacks who are more intelligent than most whites or Asians (the mean and standard deviations show that the number of such blacks is miniscule) and not even the most virulent "racist" would deny this, the public policy implications of the fact that blacks and other groups are genetically disadvantaged in terms of intelligence has obvious public policy implications re: immigration and affirmative action. However IQ is not the only reason to oppose the race replacement of White people in White nations (and only White nations.) I wouldn't want my people replaced by high IQ foreigners either. My people have a right to exist.

 

Simply stating that you "doubt" that there is such a correlation does not negate the fact that there is such a correlation. The only question being debated here is whether or not low black IQ relative to whites is a function of genes ore environment.

What is a "racist view?" The view that White nations have a right to exist? The view that mass immigration of low IQ groups and the social promotion of low IQ individuals through affirmative action are not good for society?

The standard deviation and means show that the number of such high IQ blacks is very small. But nobody, not even the most virulent "racist" has ever argued that all blacks are unintelligent anyway so it's unclear what your point is supposed to be.

 

I'm not aware of a sub-field known as 'biological-anthropology'. But being qualified to speak on human variation and evolution makes them qualified to determine if brain volume is causative for intelligence...how?

 

You claimed Rushton did not adjust for body size and other physical variables for calculating brain volume and IQ correlation coefficients.

The quote clearly summarizes Rushton has adjusted for these variables. You were wrong - again.

I asked how you mathematically prove something is causative based off its correlation coefficient.

Try reading.

You're basing this off...what, exactly? Ignoring the MRI evidence and over dozen skull and head measurements amounting to 10's of thousands of samples?

No; Beals et al. have no degrees in biology or related field from the quotes you provided.

It also looks like Graves is a liar; there have been numerous studies and samples comparing White and West African brain, skull and head size.

Funny he never challenged Rushton on the statistics.

So your previous claim that Rushton didn't address/cite admixture studies is a flat-out lie? Got it.

The fraud, Nisbett, has a reputation for cherry-picking; this has been covered before.

Intentional or not, he, not Rushton, has been found to selectively cite studies.

I suggest you write half-a-dozen posts on Nisbett selectively citing studies rather than Rushton next time.

 

Well, the people on this site who support this have yet to give definitive evidence.

Yes, human beings have the right to exist.

 

What are you left to conclude when the arguments you offer in support of your view are cut down while the arguments of race-realists remain standing?

EJ flees every time his argument is refuted or he's been caught lying. Eg., the other thread he claimed multiple times Rushton was caught omitting data by Nisbett - including specific claims regarding admixture studies - only to have him now claim he has to 'go through' Rushton's work (why Rushton and not Nisbett who supposedly found these omissions?) to find the examples.

Quite strange an excuse. Wouldn't that mean re-reading the 9-page article by Nisbett EJ posted in the other thread?

 

The subfield definitely exists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_anthropology

Biological anthropology, also known as physical anthropology, is a scientific discipline in which research is concerned with the biological and behavioral variation of human beings, other non-human primates, and extinct hominin ancestors of the human species.[1] It is a subfield of the broader discipline of anthropology, and it provides a biological perspective to the systematic study of human variation.

Like Lieberman, Beals and his colleagues are able to assess the relationship between brain size and intelligence by studying the scientific literature on the subject. I don't understand how you can say that Rushton is qualified to do so when biology and psychology are different disciplines yet somehow Anthropologists are not able to do so when biology is related to their field.

This is false.

Rushton only corrected for body size in like 3 studies as the quote for Lieberman states and he didn't utilize the other variables which are standard procedure in weighing brains at autopsy and comparing brain weight.

You said that a positive correlation, even a low to moderate one, proves causation which is false.

The sample sizes are too small to be representative of entire populations and variables were not controlled for most of these studies therefore the conclusions of Rushton and other racialists on racial hierarchy in brain size lack scientific validity.

No studies to date are representative of entire populations they just took samples from demographic groups representative of those populations and generalized them as research on entire racial groups ignoring genetic variability within these populations, interbreeding between these populations and variation in head size within the groups in question. And again most of these studies cited by Rushton did not control for standard variables that validate a comparison between samples.

Rushton's research on brain size is of very poor quality. It is pseudoscientific.

It's not a lie. He said that studies were old and were addressed by Jensen years ago without getting in to specifics.

He has a bad reputation only according to racists. To actual scholars he is widely respected. Rushton cited research from fringe scholarship to make his case for cherry-picking and ignoring research on the part of Nisbett.

Actually it points to the latter. The research supporting a genetic hypothesis is full of errors and omissions and has been exposed as pseudoscience. The main researcher who advocated for a genetic basis to racial differences in IQ especially conducted pseudoscientific research as I outlined in the opening post. Read the research of more mainstream scholars showing that there are environmental explanations for the Black-White IQ gap and moreover the gap is not immutable.

1. HEREDITY, ENVIRONMENT, AND RACE DIFFERENCES IN IQ A Commentary on Rushton and Jensen (2005) Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 2005, Vol. 11, No. 2, 302–310

2. Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments American Psychologist Vol. 67, No. 2, 130–159 (2012)

Do you have evidence that immigration is actually going to replace White people in majority White countries? By replace I mean virtually eliminate not make a minority. In my experience White Nationalists make these ideological arguments that they have a right to self preservation without establishing that their existence is actually being threatened. As for Race & IQ the goal of racialists is obviously to spread racist propaganda in order to attack Affirmative Action and Egalitarianism by claiming that certain races are intellectually inferior.

Racialism or "race-realism" is nearly identical to White Supremacy. The only difference is that Asians are accepted as being at the top of the hierarchy rather than Whites. In my experience however many White racists don't acknowledge the Asian-White IQ gap or think that it is important so really "race-realism" is just White Supremacy with a new face.

 

Personally, I couldn't give a rat's rear whether some race is supposedly smarter than another, because as I said before, it doesn't matter.

 

I agree that from a moral standpoint it doesn't matter. Even if they were right I would still believe that racism is wrong and oppose it.

I see this type of research as an insult to people's intelligence as well as being socially harmful so it's justifiable to oppose this sort of propaganda if you're interested in doing so like I am. I'm in no way threatened by this research because I see racist ideology as morally wrong regardless of what differences between people actually exist. That being said it's pseudoscientific racist garbage so no one needs to worry about racialism being correct no matter how much people like Mikemikev and Rayznack insist on it.

 

So why do you have to constantly lie to attack it?

 

I don't. If you think I do go ahead and point out the lies.