The Pseudoscience of J. Philippe Rushton

I already told you. A GWAS based on 69 loci is pointless.

 

It doesn't matter at all, but it doesn't stop racists with an agenda from trying to disparage others in order to feel better about themselves.

 

Why then did you question the existence of the field of Biological Anthropology?

They do. Their research on cranial capacity is indicative of their conclusion that brain size is not a causative factor in intelligence differences.

3 out of 38 studies corrected for body size. You would know this if you'd read my quotes of the Lieberman article or read the article yourself.

No, it's not good enough because as I said it ignores genetic variability within these populations, interbreeding between these populations and variation in head size within the groups in question.

My evidence is the Lieberman article.

These are the studies in question:

1. Jenkins, M. D. (1936). A socio-psychological study of negro children of superior intelligence.
Journal of Negro Education, 5, 175–190.

2. Willerman, L., Naylor, A. F., & Myrianthopoulos, N. C. (1974). Intellectual development of children from interracial matings: Performance in infancy and at 4 years. Behavior Genetics, 4, 84–88.

3. Scarr, S., Pakstis, A. J., Katz, S. H., & Barker, W. B. (1977). Absence of a relationship between degree of White ancestry and intellectual skills within a Black population. Human Genetics, 39, 69–86.

4. Loehlin, J. D., Vandenberg, S. G., & Osborne, R. T. (1973). Blood-group genes and
Negro–White ability differences. Behavior Genetics, 3, 263–270.


Here is Rushton's comment:

Of the studies cited by Nisbett he only addresses the Eyferth study and posts counter studies to the other types of studies listed by Nisbett without addressing them directly.

No, I haven't because there are no links available. Can you provide them?

Tell us why your quack misinterpreted and ignored the findings of Beals, Smith and Dodd (1984).

Your name-calling does not bother me. You don't have a valid argument so you have to resort to obnoxious taunts.

Good point and honestly I don't feel that racists such as Mikemikev and Rayznack need to be engaged. Their argument relies on the scientific validity of the theories of racialists. Since this research is proven to be pseudoscience there's no reason to hammer the point home any further. This isn't science and arguing with these individuals is like arguing with a Creationist. Besides even if they were right it would not change my moral views on racism so what is the point? I'm finished with this debate. I'll let my arguments stand as they are now and ignore Mikemikev and Rayznack's trolling of the forum with their peddling of blatant pseudoscience.

 

Here's a review of Rushton's book in case anyone wants to read more about it.

Racialism and Racist Agendas

C. LORING BRACE University of Michigan Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective. J. Philippe Rushton. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995. 334 pp.



Virtually every kind of anthropologist may be put in the position of being asked to comment on what is contained in this book, so, whatever our individual specialty, we should all be prepared to discuss what it represents. Race, Evolution, and Behavior is an amalgamation of bad biology and inexcusable anthropology. It is not science but advocacy, and advocacy for the promotion of "racialism." Tzvetan Todorov explains "racialism," in contrast to "racism," as belief in the existence of typological essences called "races" whose characteristics can be rated in hierarchical fashion (On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993, p. 31). "Racism," then, is the use of racialist assumptions to promote social or political ends, a course that Todorov regards as leading to "particularly catastrophic results." Perpetuating catastrophe is not the stated aim of Rushton's book, but current promoters of racist agendas will almost certainly regard it as a welcome weapon to apply for their noxious purposes.


The author, J. Philippe Rushton, professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario, received his doctorate in social psychology at the London School of Economics, focusing on social learning theory. He takes evident pride in claiming to represent the continuity of the "London School" tradition founded by Sir Francis Galton, identified as a "spiritual fascist" by the late Sir Peter Medawar (Times Literary Supplement, January 24, 1975 p. 83).


I mention this here because Rushton has tried to portray those who have criticized his assumptions as being "either unable or unwilling to separate their political agendas from the scholarly pursuit of truth" (p. 256). Whether or not he identifies with Galton in his guise as "spiritual fascist" or as "dilettantish racist" and founder of the "science" of eugenics (Stocking, Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology, New York: Free Press, 1968, p. 167), he has acknowledged the continued support of the Pioneer Fund, an organization noted for its promotion of Nazi racist propaganda in the 1930s and credited by Stefan Kuhl with continuing to provide backing for what amounts to a virtual who's who of scientific racism (The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism, New York: Oxford, 1994, p. 9). While he accuses his opponents of having political instead of scientific motives, clearly it is Rushton's position that is based on the politically secured status quo rather than on science it is his own stance, and not that of his critics, that can be characterized as a manifestation of "political correctness" (American Psychologist 50:725-726, 1995).


Rushton starts with an a priori faith in the existence of "the races," of which there are basically three: "Caucasoid," "Mongoloid," and "Negroid." His justification for this is the undocumented assertion that this is how "a team of extraterrestrial scientists" would perceive things if they should arrive on earth "to study human beings" (p. 1). No criteria are ever set up to decide how these groups are established or what traits should be used in determining membership. This means that his acceptance of "race" is ultimately arbitrary and subjective. When "the races" are compared in terms of appearance and performance in the quantities of uncritically collected data assembled in his book, "racial" identity is determined by "self-assess- ment." Rushton's basic units, then, are rooted in folk belief and not in biology. The possibility that the vast majority of the human biological traits that have been shaped by evolution are clinally and independently distributed in association with the relevant selective forces is never once considered, and the word cline is simply missing.

One running concern is how these folk categories compare on such matters as intelligence and reproductive behavior. Sex rears its head again and again in the discussion, with much of the information on comparative sexual performance based on "self-assessment." Rushton is obviously much taken with the "salience of... buttocks and breasts" (pp. 167, 231) as measures of sexuality, although there is a dearth of objectively collected data. More telling is his evident fascination with the "Negroid" penis as an index of "potency" and libido. In his earlier publications on these matters, his information came from "self-assess-ment," but he has bolstered the "conclusions" at which he had previously arrived by reference to the alleged "data" gathered by a 19th-century figure identified only as a "French Army Surgeon."

These were presented in a two-volume exercise in ethnocentric prurience (Untrodden Fields of Anthropology, Paris: Librairie de Medecine, Folklore et Anthropologie, 1898 [reprinted by Krieger, Huntington, NY, 1972]) in which the author discourses at length on the size, angle, and hardness of the erections of males from all over the world. Not a single measurement is recorded, and there is no mention of how the redoubt-able chirugien acquired all that "information." Oddly enough, although Rushton cites this source for his conviction that relative sexual potency is demonstrated by comparative penile size, this was not the opinion of the good surgeon himself. It was his view that "the testicles...are the true index of manly vigour," and that these were of relatively lesser size in "the African Negro" (1898, 2:429).


The main message of Rushton's book is that African ancestry ensures a deficiency of "intelligence, law abidingness, sexual restraint, and social organizational skills" (p. 236), and that these are all genetically fixed. There is no hint at the nature and complexity of the interactions between genetic and environmental factors that influence their course of development. Correlations of 0.16 and 0.18 between head size and IQ are claimed to be "significant" (p. 40) and therefore an indication of cause and effect. The fact that correlation does not necessarily indicate cause is never mentioned, and none of the potentially relevant developmental conditions are ever considered. The focus is entirely on genetic input with no consideration for an environmental contribution. Like so many racialists, Rushton stresses high "heritability" without ever pointing out that the statistic actually is an index of the proportion of genetic and environmental input, and that it is never a fixed quantity. A high figure indicates a highly favorable environment for the development of the trait in question.


The book clearly qualifies as "bad biology," but consider some of what is passed off as anthropology. In addition to a roster of undocumented assertions and elementary errors in fact too extensive to enumerate here, we are told that, in Africa, "biological parents do not expect to be the major providers for their children" (p. 156) and that "it is almost certain that only evolutionary (and thereby genetic) theories can explain it" (p. 264). Here Rushton has taken the r/K generalizations applied by evolutionary ecologists for between-species comparisons and applied them to pass judgment on human "races." The slightly shorter African gestation length and slightly higher rate of twinning qualifies "Negroids" as committed to the r-strategy of producing offspring in quantity without much care given to their future survival. Northern "races," in contrast, favor the K-strategy of giving more care to fewer children. None of this is based on any data derived from realized-reproduction figures, and one would never guess from it that there are more than three times as many Chinese as Africans in the world.


The background for Rushton's approach is in his assumption that the African savanna home of human origins provided an easily acquired but unpredictable subsistence (p. 231). This supposed lack of predictability meant that there were fewer rewards for thinking ahead, and, besides, African savanna-dwellers "were largely scavengers" (p. 228). Presumably such conditions led to the mindless rabbit-strategy of child production that he believes is typical of those who have continued to live in Africa. For the real hunters in the north, by contrast, life was harsher but highly predictable-conditions that fa- vored the development of intelligence and attention to child care. Not a single study dealing with the problems of human survival either in the arctic or the tropics is cited, and these claims are nothing more than manifestations of sheer unwarranted prejudice.

Elsewhere Rushton has been quoted as saying, "I really do believe I have made a major breakthrough in understanding human evolution" (The Globe and Mail, February 4, 1989, p. A6). In fact, he has done nothing of the sort. At best, it is a recycling of an old and oft-repeated version of the kind of creation myth exemplified by the Garden of Eden story in the Judeo-Christian Bible. From the perspective of an anthropologist, the kindest thing that can be said about this is that it can be regarded as a classic manifestation of what Wiktor Stoczkowski calls "anthropologie naive," (Anthropologie savante: de 'origine de l'homme, de l'imagination et des idees regues, Paris: CNRS Editions, 1994). A less forgiving reader will recognize this as an attempt to provide a "scientific" justification for the repetition of virtually all major themes of "racial" denigration that have accumulated in the writings of the Western world since the beginning of the Renaissance. Quite evidently, it is a manifestation of blatant bigotry.

 

So every study that finds Blacks have smaller brains screwed up the control variables in the same direction and Blacks actually don't have smaller brains? Pull the other one.

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http://www.mootsf.com/index.php?/to...ables-in-race-evolution-and-behavior/?p=53717

 

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

 

I said I was unaware of a sub-field referred to biological-anthropology, but knew of it under a different name.

Do you have difficulty with basic understanding?

Really? What is their research on cranial capacity other than measuring skull size? Are they molecular biologists who've extensively studied the inner workings of the brain?

What did these three studies find, then?

Sampling studies ignore genetic variability? Actually, they don't if you calculate for standard deviation and determine confidence intervals. It's called basic statistics.

The same Lieberman who 'found' that Whites and West-Africans had equivalent brain volume?

Rushton refers to earlier authors who addressed those studies 35 years ago.

Is this from the same person who denied Black-White brain volume differences until shown conclusively via MRI study?

 

Funny how these independent strands of data complement each other.

I can't imagine someone so blind to the obvious.

There's never been a study showing equivalent head, skull or brain size between East-Asians, Whites and West-Africans.

What's more - and this is the funny part - after adjusting for height, acknowledged by Tobias to be significantly correlated with brain volume of his variables, East-Asian school-children are the shortest yet have the largest brain volume.

 

I find it hilarious that the racists totally ignore environmental causes of IQ reduction.

The lack of iodine in the diet can cause a 15 point decrease in IQ in a population. (http://www.businessinsider.com/iodization-effect-on-iq-2013-7).
Doubling the level of lead in the blood can cause a 2.75 drop in IQ. http://rachel.org/files/document/Low-Level_Lead_Exposure_and_Childrens_IQ_A_Met.pdf
Hell, even just being poor can affect the brain. http://www.sciencedaily.com/release...encedaily+(ScienceDaily:+Latest+Science+News)

If you guys still think that environmental causes cannot cause an IQ reduction, do us a favor and hit yourselves in the head several times with a baseball bat. If IQ is just genetics, you guys should be just fine.

 

Oh dear, the blood lead level claims again.

Been there, done that, have the t-shirt:

http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=317838&page=38&p=1063173017#post1063173017

Hong Kong had significantly higher BLL's than American whites in the 80's, yet had higher IQ.

 

Ok, so you have shown that Hong Kong has more lead contamination than the US, but you haven't shown that Hong Kong has a higher average IQ than the US. Besides, even if they had a higher average IQ than the US, it doesn't mean that lead isn't responsible for the IQ drops in other areas.

Of course, the real point I was making is that there are many environmental factors that need to be taken into account when dealing with IQ.

 

And all of them can be eliminated one by one as having an across the board effect on any one race.

 

I don't have the scientific background to argue whether or not those studies actually took environmental effects into consideration, so I will drop it. But I have to ask. If it is true that different races have different IQs, then what? What is the point? To make the whites and asians feel good about themselves have the blacks feel bad about themselves? Because it does not justify discrimination or racism.

 

If the races are not equal in cognitive ability pretending they are blames high IQ groups and we currently have policies discriminating against high IQ groups (except Jews strangely). Also mass immigration of low IQ groups towards high IQ groups would be seen as the civilization destruction it is. I think also it could be used to justify racism, considering the tendency towards tribal behavior of low IQ/low creativity (Asians) groups. If it could be established an individual didn't exhibit that behavior race could be ignored. But then race groups tend to regress to their population mean.

 

Hong Kong has an IQ of 107 according to this link: http://www.statisticbrain.com/countries-with-the-highest-lowest-average-iq/

Why you couldn't search the 'national' IQ of Hong Kong is beyond me (Mainland China has a national IQ of 100, and have even higher BLL than Hong Kong and White America; but they are still developing unlike Hong Kong)

This is in line with other sites on national IQ I found. That means children born in the 80's to parents with BLL's of 15 ug/dL are young adults today representing a significant portion of the sample population taking IQ tests.

The real point you are not making is your fallacy that the hereditarian position argues from a 0% environment/100% hereditary model.

Meaning, your lame speed bumps never adequately address the true position of hereditarians.

 

I wouldn't want groups of people with statistically higher anti-social behaviors stampeding into my neighborhood. Do you?

This changes a lot, actually. Even your claim that individual Blacks with higher IQ are equivalent to Whites with the same IQ is false; their children will statistically have lower IQ than these Whites with the same IQ:

http://www.politicalforum.com/race-relations/348538-regression-toward-mean-race-iq.html

 

How does denying that races are not equal in cognitive ability blames high IQ groups, and what are they being blamed for? As for the rest, and this is the very root of the problem with racism, it is not ethical or logical to judge an individual by their association with a group. I mean would it be fair for me to categorize you as a pompous jerk because Americans believe that the English are pompous jerks? Of course not, if I was to categorize you as a pompous jerk, it would be for the comments you make on this forum. People should NEVER be judged on what group they belong to. They should ONLY be judged by what they do. This is why racism and other forms of discrimination are wrong. Justify it with all the pseudoscience you want, from social darwinism to bell curves, but the fact is that laws based on group associations are wrong.

On a side note, I haven't heard that Asians have low creativity before. That is even stupider than the whole IQ thing.

 

You seem to be ignoring what I wrote, repeating yourself, and asserting what you need to prove.

 

I don't judge people by their group, I judge them as individuals. Judging people as a group is why racism is wrong.

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Ditto.

 

I'm glad you're against racist affirmative action, but that's off-topic.

A Black, with even the same IQ as a White, cannot be judged equally as that White due to the possibility of having children and having lower averaged IQ children.

 

So we judge people according to what their children's IQ may or may not be?

 

Rayznack probably thought by "judge" you meant how a person "measures up" vs. what you obviously meant that it is morally wrong to judge an individual based on what you think about the group they belong to. Such is the way of racist thinking.

 

That should certainly be taken into consideration.

 

Hmm... maybe we should start mapping people's genomes and only allow couples who have a higher chance of of producing high IQ offspring to have children. We could even go further and have a breeding program where the government decides who you are marry, that way we can ensure that the proper genes are being passed down.

 

That seems to be going too far to me. The first part was sensible.