A look at Exploring Psychology 9th Edition by David Myers

Egalitarianjay02 · Apr 11, 2016

I have decided to take a break from the board to read Nisbett's book and make a thread replying to two articles that critique his work. While doing some reading to prepare for the thread I decided to look at an old debate on my Youtube channel where Empress came to debate on my discussion page. During the debate Empress cited a book that she felt supported her arguments on Race & IQ.

These are some of her comments about the book:

lmaoyourekiddingme said:

Lewontin's fallacy was debunked over 40 years ago as I already told you. Rather than dealing with facts, apparently you'd rather paste from leftist agenda books and spam threads. Do yourself a favor and check out chapter 9 of Exploring Psychology. It's on Google Books.
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lmaoyourekiddingme said:

Your problem is, as I said before, posting rote copy/paste that doesn't answer questions regarding IQ and its heritability. Nor does it contradict the accepted consensus FACT in psychology of the differences of IQ in population groups. I'm not going over all this again. You're like a religious zealot. You respond to specific points with a generalized copy and paste, so many canned talking points. Again, check out that textbook by David Myers. Exploring Psychology chapter 9. Up to date, in use textbook. The IQ gaps are accepted as fact by the APA as well, which you should already know had you actually read something besides liberal egalitarians. And as I said, google "Lewontin's Fallacy." Then come up with a new gambit.
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lmaoyourekiddingme said:

The sooner you educate yourself independent of your philosophical views and learn to accept things shown scientifically valid regardless to any discomfort you may feel due to your philosophy, the better. Until then you are nothing but a parroting, partisan hack. You display the moral values system of Sesame Street. You're a postmodern, rootless, reconstructed, identity-stripped, uncultured useful idiot. I want to learn shit from the likes of you, I'll simply turn on MSNBC. Don't expect it. I left the Left and with good reason. One of them is the proclivity toward censoring and twisting science to suit your social engineering goals. At the bare minimum, learn to distinguish the views of one corner of psychology from the accepted consensus. Failing to do so is flat out DENIAL and DECEIT on your part. YES - It's accepted as consensus that intelligence runs in families. YES it's accepted as consensus that twins raised apart have the IQ of their biological parents, not adopted ones. YES it's accepted that there are group differences in IQ - call it "race" or whatever label you wish. Nothing changes. We are not clones. If you care to take psych classes and not parrot an activist group of people with a bone to pick, you shall learn these things. There is no "Nisbett answered." This is ACCEPTED CONSENSUS. Nisbett is not GOD. Listen to consensus, not Nisbett.

A direct copy and paste from the Myers textbook:

Ethnic Similarities and Differences Fueling the group-differences debate are two other disturbing but agreed - upon facts:

Racial groups differ in their average intelligence test scores.

High - scoring people (and groups) are more likely to attain high levels of education and income.

“The bell curve for Whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American Blacks roughly around 85; and those for different subgroups of Hispanics roughly midway between those for Whites and Blacks,” a statement by 52 intelligence researchers explained (Avery et al., 1994). Since that time, the Black - White test-score difference has diminished somewhat, dropping to 10 points among children in some studies (Dickens & Flynn, 2006). Yet the gap stubbornly persists, and other studies suggest the gap stopped narrowing among those born after 1970 (Murray, 2006, 2007).

THAT is what science looks like. I don't care if you don't like it. I don't care if you don't accept it.
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If you follow the discussion on Youtube you will notice that I pointed out to Empress that Myers actually used one of my primary sources on the IQ gap closing. I also acknowledged that the IQ gap persists and pointed out that she is attacking a strawman because my point of contention isn't with the existence of racial IQ gaps but with the cause of them. I decided to take a look at the book for myself. I discovered that another book by Myers with the same content (Psychology 9th Edition) is available in PDF format on the internet. So I downloaded that and took a look at the quote she is citing. I found it in Chapter 10 on page 434. What is very interesting about this section of the book is that Myers goes beyond what Empress quoted to make arguments supporting an environmental cause of group differences in IQ!

David Myers said:

Ethnic Similarities and Differences

Fueling the group-differences debate are two other disturbing but agreed-upon facts:

Racial groups differ in their average intelligence test scores.

High - scoring people (and groups) are more likely to attain high levels of education and income.

A statement by 52 intelligence researchers explained: “The bell curve for Whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell curve for American Blacks roughly around 85; and those for different subgroups of Hispanics roughly midway between those for Whites and Blacks” (Avery et al., 1994). Comparable results come from other academic aptitude tests. In recent years, the Black-White difference has diminished somewhat, and among children has dropped to 10 points in some studies (Dickens & Flynn, 2006). Yet the test score gap stubbornly persists, and other studies suggest the gap stopped narrowing among those born after 1970 (Murray, 2006, 2007). There are differences among other groups as well. New Zealanders of European descent outscore native Maori New Zealanders. Israeli Jews outscore Israeli Arabs. Most Japanese outscore the stigmatized Japanese minority, the Burakumin. And those who can hear outscore those born deaf (Braden, 1994; Steele, 1990; Zeidner, 1990). Everyone further agrees that such group differences provide little basis for judging individuals. Women outlive men by six years, but knowing someone’s sex doesn’t tell us with any precision how long that person will live. Even Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein (1994), whose writings drew attention to Black-White differences, reminded us that “millions of Blacks have higher IQs than the average White.”
Swedes and Bantus differ in complexion and language. That first factor is genetic, the second environmental. So what about intelligence scores?

As we have seen, heredity contributes to individual differences in intelligence. Does that mean it also contributes to group differences? Some psychologists believe it does, perhaps because of the world’s differing climates and survival challenges (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994; Lynn, 1991, 2001; Rushton & Jensen, 2005, 2006). But we have also seen that group differences in a heritable trait may be entirely environmental, as in our earlier barrel-versus-home–reared boys example. Consider one of nature’s experiments: Allow some children to grow up hearing their culture’s dominant language, while others, born deaf, do not. Then give both groups an intelligence test rooted in the dominant language, and (no surprise) those with expertise in that language will score highest. Although individual performance differences may be substantially genetic, the group difference is not (FIGURE 10.15).

Also consider: If each identical twin were exactly as tall as his or her co-twin, heritability would be 100 percent. Imagine that we then separated some young twins and gave only half of them a nutritious diet, and that the well-nourished twins all grew to be exactly 3 inches taller than their counterparts—an environmental effect comparable to that actually observed in both Britain and America, where adolescents are several inches taller than their counterparts were a half-century ago. What would the heritability of height now be for our well-nourished twins? Still 100 percent, because the variation in height within the group would remain entirely predictable from the heights of their malnourished identical siblings. So even perfect heritability within groups would not eliminate the possibility of a strong environmental impact on the group differences.

Might the racial gap be similarly environmental? Consider:

Genetics research reveals that under the skin, the races are remarkably alike (Cavalli-Sforza et al., 1994; Lewontin, 1982). Individual differences within a race are much greater than differences between races. The average genetic difference between two Icelandic villagers or between two Kenyans greatly exceeds the group difference between Icelanders and Kenyans. Moreover, looks can deceive. Light-skinned Europeans and dark-skinned Africans are genetically closer than are dark-skinned Africans and dark-skinned Aboriginal Australians.

Race is not a neatly defined biological category. Some scholars argue that there is a reality to race, noting that there are genetic markers for race (the continent of one’s ancestry) and that medical risks
(such as skin cancer or high blood pressure) vary by race. Behavioral traits may also vary by race. “No runner of Asian or European descent—a majority of the world’s population—has broken 10 seconds
in the 100-meter dash, but dozens of runners of West African descent have done so,” observes psychologist David Rowe (2005).

Many social scientists, though, see race primarily as a social construction without well-defined physical boundaries (Helms et al., 2005; Smedley & Smedley, 2005; Sternberg et al., 2005). People with varying ancestry may categorize themselves in the same race. Moreover, with increasingly mixed ancestries, more and more people defy neat racial categorization. (What race is Tiger Woods?) Asian students outperform North American students on math achievement and aptitude tests. But this difference appears to be a recent phenomenon and may reflect conscientiousness more than competence. Asian students also attend school 30 percent more days per year and spend much more time in and out of school studying math (Geary et al., 1996; Larson & Verma, 1999; Stevenson, 1992). The intelligence test performance of today’s better-fed, better-educated, and more test prepared population exceeds that of the 1930s population—by the same margin that the intelligence test score of the average White today exceeds that of the average Black. No one attributes the generational group difference to genetics. White and Black infants have scored equally well on an infant intelligence measure
(preference for looking at novel stimuli—a crude predictor of future intelligence scores [Fagan, 1992]).

When Blacks and Whites have or receive the same pertinent knowledge, they exhibit similar information-processing skill. “The data support the view that cultural differences in the provision of information may account for racial differences in IQ,” report researchers Joseph Fagan and Cynthia Holland (2007). In different eras, different ethnic groups have experienced golden ages—periods of remarkable achievement. Twenty-five-hundred years ago, it was the Greeks and the Egyptians, then the Romans; in the eighth and ninth centuries, genius seemed to reside in the Arab world; 500 years ago it was the Aztec Indians and the peoples of Northern Europe. Today, people marvel at Asians’ technological genius. Cultures rise and fall over centuries; genes do not. That fact makes it difficult to attribute a natural superiority to any race.

Moreover, consider the striking results of a national study that looked back over the mental test performances of White and Black young adults after graduation from college. From eighth grade through the early high school years, the average aptitude score of the White students increased, while those of the Black students decreased—creating a gap that reached its widest point at about the time that high school students take college admissions tests. But during college, the Black students’ scores increased “more than four times as much” as those of their White counterparts, thus greatly decreasing the aptitude gap. “It is not surprising,” concluded researcher Joel Myerson and his colleagues (1998), “that as Black and White students complete more grades in high school environments that differ in quality, the gap in cognitive test scores widens. At the college level, however, where Black and White students are exposed to educational environments of comparable quality . . . many Blacks are able to make remarkable gains, closing the gap in test scores.”

Source: Psychology 9th Edition by David Myers Chapter 10. Intelligence p. 434
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Myers makes many interesting arguments:

1) That the Black-White IQ gap is decreasing
2) That genetic research supports environment as a cause of racial differences in IQ
3) That race is socially constructed
4) That the rise and fall of civilizations (one day they're in a golden age the next era they are not) does not support a genetic racial hierarchy in intelligence
5) That Asian academic achievement appears to be caused by culture rather than genetics
6) That under the same environmental conditions Black and White test scores are comparable

Myers even cites the well known research of Richard Lewontin using quantitative genetic principles to show that differences in a heritable trait can be entirely caused by environment even when the genotypes being compared are identical.

This book also mentions Nisbett's research several times further showing that Nisbett has credibility in the field of Psychology.

David Myers said:

Different cultures model, reinforce, and evoke different tendencies toward violence. For example, crime rates are higher (and average happiness is lower) in countries marked by a great disparity between rich and poor (Triandis, 1994). Richard Nisbett and Dov Cohen (1996) have shown how violence can vary by culture within a country. They analyzed violence among White Americans in southern towns settled by Scots-Irish herders whose tradition emphasized “manly honor,” the use of arms to protect one’s flock, and a history of coercive slavery. Their cultural descendants, Nisbett and Cohen found, have triple the homicide rates and are more supportive of physically punishing children, of warfare initiatives, and of uncontrolled gun ownership than are their White counterparts in New England towns settled by the more traditionally peaceful Puritan, Quaker, and Dutch farmer-artisans.

Source: Psychology 9th Edition by David Myers
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I'm curious to see what Empress has to say about all of this. I won't be replying much if at all until I make the Nisbett thread but I will check in to see if she responds to this thread or if any else has something to say.

Empress · May 4, 2016

Get this: You have the time go to through the Myers text but not Nisbett's book - for 2 years running?? I detect dishonesty.

Well isn't that special?

Truth is that you aren't going to refrain much from posting here or elsewhere and will eagerly go on and on in this thread and elsewhere to further your agenda while avoiding defending it because you are on unstable ground.

What you're doing with this book is conflating theories presented as possible explanations in a textbook as "proof" of something. Textbooks present varying theories on subjects that are under ongoing study.

I own the PDF of that book and the paperback version. The college I attended at the time was using it.

You asked for a citation quoting Rushton on race and IQ in a textbook, and you provided one here. Note it also cites other "racists" on the topic.

Your flaws are numerous:

1) It says that a number of social scientists "believe" that race is artificially constructed, not that it IS and is proven as such. That is a subject that is not covered under the field of psychology and your trying to forward that argument here is as misplaced as it is dishonest. It is summarizing some different points of view on the subject as it did by mentioning Rushton, Jensen, etc. Even if a psychologist in a book made such a claim, it's not a valid one, as it's outside of his field of expertise and is merely a statement of his opinion.

2) You seem to have missed this passage: "Yet the test score gap stubbornly persists, and other studies suggest the gap stopped narrowing among those born after 1970 (Murray, 2006, 2007)." So you have one study which seems to show what you like, and several others that show the opposite. This is why the discussion on the academic achievement gap is still ongoing.

3) I've already answered regarding Lewontin and what psychology studies have shown per severe environmental stresses on IQ. You again grossly overstate the environmental impact on adult IQ. Lewontin is a Marxist biologist, not a psychologist.

4) The book stated the heavy genetic impact on IQ and you ignored it.

5) I've never argued for a "racial hierarchy." I've stated repeatedly I have no interest in racial supremacism.

6) Moral of the story: Misquoting and stretching a psychology textbook and evading defending Nisbett's shoddy methods and conclusions does not prove equality, let alone your weird theory that white people made black people have low average IQs.

Egalitarianjay02 · May 4, 2016

You are attacking strawmen. You have not properly addressed Lewontin's argument and I did not misquote the book. You keep whining about Nisbett. When the day comes that I make the thread I predict that you will have nothing significant to say. As far as this book goes clearly it cites a lot more evidence for the environmental position that you deceptively ignored.

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A look at Exploring Psychology 9th Edition by David Myers

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