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Tell them that it is completely impossible to set up rigorous controls in a study of ethnicity and intelligence anyway. The bigger question is why do some peop

by 3131s 9y ago

Tell them that it is completely impossible to set up rigorous controls in a study of ethnicity and intelligence anyway. The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. I typically ask these people if some connection between race and intelligence actually existed, is it your intention to change how society is organized or governed somehow? If it is, then there are historical examples of that going badly, and if not, then why is the answer important?

lopmotr 9y ago
It matters for the pursuit of truth in the same way people like to accept scientific claims over religious ones. Sure, you can believe something and carry on with life but for many, that's not satisfying. Practically, you have people trying to reduce race differences in academic and economic success by reducing racism. If it's not caused by racism, those efforts would be ineffective. Another reason is predicting future economies of countries. Will Nigeria's rapid growth turn it into another South Korea or Japan? Can America really compete with China in high tech markets in the long term?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
ScottBurson 9y ago
> The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. This is well said. I don't hear any impassioned calls for making everybody's lead exposure test results public so employers can avoid hiring stupid people.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Normal_gaussian 9y ago
There is often a discussion about ethnicity (and gender) in relation to athletic events; when you have the position put to you, by observation or another, that despite the general adversity faced by certain ethnicities they dominate the medal tables - you are forced to seriously consider the position that not all ethnicities are equal. This will quickly spawn the question of the relationship between ethnicity and intelligence as it is perceived as an orthogonal measure of superiority. Of course, as you say, it is incredibly hard to control ethnicity and intelligence - due to them largely being perceptions as opposed to metrics. However I am saying the discussion of intelligence in relation to ethnicity comes to most through perfectly normal observations of concrete metrics.
- eecc 9y ago
  Well, the brain is so much more complex than a bunch of muscles; whatever impact genes have on it’s higher functions the phase space is so huge that hardly enough humans have ever lived to explore a significant amount of it.
stillkicking 9y ago
Why care? That seems pretty obvious: because ethnicity is already used to justify policies of affirmative action, used as a measure of prosperity and equality. The common reasoning is that until the conditional probabilities by demographic are flat, there must be systemic oppression which must be rectified by applying concerted pressure in the other direction. This is an a priori assumption that there are no relevant confounding factors that could acceptably create this outcome, and this assumption ought to be unwarranted for anyone who is interested in the truth. It is only appropriate that you examine whether the policies stand a chance of actually reaching the yardstick they are aiming for, or whether that's treating symptoms that really aren't symptoms at all. Furthermore, there are some indicators that this is indeed going badly. For instance, by lowering the admissions criteria for an ethnicity, it creates a (correct!) stereotype that those students are on average less skilled, both among others and also among themselves. In an attempt to address an ill-defined form of supposedly systemic oppression, this policy creates a very concrete and actually systemic mechanism to cause the very thing it claims to oppose, and which has knock-on effects. You see the exact same thing in STEM: anything but a 50/50 representation of gender is an indicator of discrimination. The 'cure' is to roll out the red carpet with biased programs, so that you actually get lower qualified and less interested people working side by side with others who receive no special provisions and worked hard to get there. It's associated with a moral panic that very noticeably makes the relations between the genders worse. The question of 'why are you so interested in race?' reads to me as a form of denial and projection. The policies already treat groups as monolithic entities. White students, or men in tech, are treated as if they are somehow collectively conspiring to benefit each other at the expense of other groups, even though the individuals compete against each other. Anyone who disagrees, even a member of the 'oppressed group', is dismissed out of hand as having internalized their oppression or denying their privilege. This is ironically exactly the kind of bourgeois talking-down we're all supposed to be fixing, and betrays a moral and value judgement that is the exact opposite of "don't treat people differently by race and gender" and "different ability doesn't means you're less of a person". "Why is the answer important?" is the wrong question. It's "why are you turning a mundane question about group averages into a moral judgement on individuals, and blaming others for it?" This is a real problem that is happening today, and it's dismissed out of hand in favor of LARPing against the ghosts of christmas past, because facing the present makes the activists uncomfortable whose policies we've already been following for decades.
arkh 9y ago
If IQ is closely related to genetics and IQ is important for your society (two bold assumptions) you could argue for some eugenics and advantage high IQ people for reproduction. But as you say it could go really bad really fast. Especially if some of those high IQ genes are linked to some illness. For your question about why some people are focused on ethnicity? As usual: people's appearance are easier to discriminate upon so it makes it easy to make different people an out-group. But it's not just some supremacists doing it: the hardcore NA "diversity is good" groups focus on skin color. I'd argue they seem to be worse because it feels like for them all blacks are the same (African American) while the recent history of Africa should tell them how wrong it is.
- zaarn 9y ago
  It does not have to be genetics to show correlation. Sadly research in this area is sparse but we can establish that there will be some correlation; 1) Lack of proper nutrition is linked to lower IQ. This can be fairly easily explained in that the lack of resources will lead to less development in the brain, one of the most resource intensive organs in the body. 2) Certain ethnicity types are disproportionately poor (in the US). Lack of income generally also means that nutritional situation is less ideal. From 1 and 2 you can easily conclude there is very likely some correlation. Does that mean we should immediately deploy eugenics? Most likely not. As you mention, high IQ "genes" could be linked to something bad. IIRC they are linked to mental conditions like depression. (Which might lead to an interesting question: if we fix poverty, will people become more miserable on average because the average IQ goes up? It seems likely total misery will go down though) I also agree with your later statements, a lot of people tend to put all people with black skin into a single pot but there are some many fascinating different cultures and a fascinating history once you go beyond colonialism. I think a lot of people tend to forget that diversity isn't only skin color. Diversity goes deeper than skin and body.
- primitur 9y ago
  >argue for some eugenics and advantage high IQ people for reproduction See .. I find this line of thinking heinous. Why do you not instantly trip up when you type this?
jonathanstrange 9y ago
It's an empirical matter, but my hunch is that most of the people who focus on correlations between intelligence and ethnic groups or phenotypical perceived "race" are racists. Many people aren't aware that you can be a racist without knowing it. (In a broader sense we're all racists, as practically everybody overgeneralizes based on stereotypes.) It's important to stress that the differences between members of the perceived groups ("ethnicities", "country of origin", "mother tongue", "a certain look") are much larger within that group than any measurable differences between averages of those groups. That is not to say that some research in these areas cannot make sense for e.g. policy making. For example, people who have suffered severe malnutrition in their childhood can have lower IQ on average, and the same is the case for many other environmental and social factors, of course. The reason why people like to focus on intelligence is that unlike other human characteristics like strength, intelligence is almost universally used as a kind of honorific. If you tell someone that he or she is intelligent, this will make them proud. If you tell someone he or she is not very intelligent, this will be taken as a grave insult. Additionally, everybody overestimates his own intelligence. All of this is kind of ironic, because intelligence is highly overrated. Intelligence doesn't count much, it's what you make of it. Moreover, whether you like it or not, society does not have a need for more highly intelligent people. There are not enough jobs for them. Last but not least, people who think of themselves as being very intelligent usually haven't tried to solve hard enough problems.
- 4bpp 9y ago
  There is a lot I am tempted to call out in this post, but just for a particularly glaring example, > It's important to stress that the differences between members of the perceived groups ("ethnicities", "country of origin", "mother tongue", "a certain look") are much larger within that group than any measurable differences between averages of those groups. Surely the differences in income, the binary variable of being-in-STEM, recruiter favourability shown towards CVs etc. between members of the perceived groups ("skin colour", "gender", "mother tongue", ...) are much larger within that group than any measurable differences between averages of those groups too. Does that mean you are arguing that the gender pay gap, representation in STEM fields and unfair hiring practices are all irrelevant? (For what it's worth, there's only a few examples where differences between groups actually dwarf differences within groups, all of which seem very famous, e.g. grip strength vs. gender.)
4bpp 9y ago
At this point, I get the impression that for most (by numbers) of those who believe in a race-$trait correlation, the important thing is not to persuade those who are indifferent but to prove those who strongly assert that there is no such correlation wrong. More often than not, for each desirable trait there is cold hard real-world data that suggests strong correlations between race and particular desirable outcomes that appear related to the trait in question. (Say, in the case of IQ, lifetime income, job prestige etc.) If you believe that this difference in outcomes can be traced to a genetic difference in causative traits, to a first approximation the data does not suggest doing anything (with future technology, maybe, it would suggest a large-scale programme of gene therapy). If you believe that there are no such genetic differences, on the other hand, the data implies that there is a great and particularly morally repugnant defect to society, and justifies extraordinary, often outright punitive (e.g. racial quotas) corrective measures. Currently, as far as policymaking in western societies is concerned, the faction that follows the "no genetic differences => (data => extreme measures are warranted)" reasoning is clearly in charge, if you consider e.g. the recent altercations about racial quotas in school discipline (article for: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/us/politics/school-discipline-disparities-white-black-students.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/us/politics/school-discip... / against: https://www.city-journal.org/html/no-thug-left-behind-14951.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/no-thug-left-behind-14951....). If you read the "against" article, that should make it pretty clear why those who believe in the existence of group differences consider the answer important, if "it's important to not do an unwarranted extreme thing" is not already implied by the term "extreme". In the light of this, it does not seem fair to imply that the only significant societal changes a belief in genetic group differences would imply are ones that are so terrible that anyone would be embarrassed to admit advocating them to you or even themselves.

by 3131s 9y ago

lopmotr 9y ago

It matters for the pursuit of truth in the same way people like to accept scientific claims over religious ones. Sure, you can believe something and carry on with life but for many, that's not satisfying. Practically, you have people trying to reduce race differences in academic and economic success by reducing racism. If it's not caused by racism, those efforts would be ineffective. Another reason is predicting future economies of countries. Will Nigeria's rapid growth turn it into another South Korea or Japan? Can America really compete with China in high tech markets in the long term?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

ScottBurson 9y ago

> The bigger question is why do some people care so much and why are they so focused on ethnicity among many other data points that could be predictive of intelligence. This is well said. I don't hear any impassioned calls for making everybody's lead exposure test results public so employers can avoid hiring stupid people.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Normal_gaussian 9y ago

There is often a discussion about ethnicity (and gender) in relation to athletic events; when you have the position put to you, by observation or another, that despite the general adversity faced by certain ethnicities they dominate the medal tables - you are forced to seriously consider the position that not all ethnicities are equal. This will quickly spawn the question of the relationship between ethnicity and intelligence as it is perceived as an orthogonal measure of superiority. Of course, as you say, it is incredibly hard to control ethnicity and intelligence - due to them largely being perceptions as opposed to metrics. However I am saying the discussion of intelligence in relation to ethnicity comes to most through perfectly normal observations of concrete metrics.

eecc 9y ago
Well, the brain is so much more complex than a bunch of muscles; whatever impact genes have on it’s higher functions the phase space is so huge that hardly enough humans have ever lived to explore a significant amount of it.

stillkicking 9y ago

Why care? That seems pretty obvious: because ethnicity is already used to justify policies of affirmative action, used as a measure of prosperity and equality. The common reasoning is that until the conditional probabilities by demographic are flat, there must be systemic oppression which must be rectified by applying concerted pressure in the other direction. This is an a priori assumption that there are no relevant confounding factors that could acceptably create this outcome, and this assumption ought to be unwarranted for anyone who is interested in the truth. It is only appropriate that you examine whether the policies stand a chance of actually reaching the yardstick they are aiming for, or whether that's treating symptoms that really aren't symptoms at all. Furthermore, there are some indicators that this is indeed going badly. For instance, by lowering the admissions criteria for an ethnicity, it creates a (correct!) stereotype that those students are on average less skilled, both among others and also among themselves. In an attempt to address an ill-defined form of supposedly systemic oppression, this policy creates a very concrete and actually systemic mechanism to cause the very thing it claims to oppose, and which has knock-on effects. You see the exact same thing in STEM: anything but a 50/50 representation of gender is an indicator of discrimination. The 'cure' is to roll out the red carpet with biased programs, so that you actually get lower qualified and less interested people working side by side with others who receive no special provisions and worked hard to get there. It's associated with a moral panic that very noticeably makes the relations between the genders worse. The question of 'why are you so interested in race?' reads to me as a form of denial and projection. The policies already treat groups as monolithic entities. White students, or men in tech, are treated as if they are somehow collectively conspiring to benefit each other at the expense of other groups, even though the individuals compete against each other. Anyone who disagrees, even a member of the 'oppressed group', is dismissed out of hand as having internalized their oppression or denying their privilege. This is ironically exactly the kind of bourgeois talking-down we're all supposed to be fixing, and betrays a moral and value judgement that is the exact opposite of "don't treat people differently by race and gender" and "different ability doesn't means you're less of a person". "Why is the answer important?" is the wrong question. It's "why are you turning a mundane question about group averages into a moral judgement on individuals, and blaming others for it?" This is a real problem that is happening today, and it's dismissed out of hand in favor of LARPing against the ghosts of christmas past, because facing the present makes the activists uncomfortable whose policies we've already been following for decades.

arkh 9y ago

If IQ is closely related to genetics and IQ is important for your society (two bold assumptions) you could argue for some eugenics and advantage high IQ people for reproduction. But as you say it could go really bad really fast. Especially if some of those high IQ genes are linked to some illness. For your question about why some people are focused on ethnicity? As usual: people's appearance are easier to discriminate upon so it makes it easy to make different people an out-group. But it's not just some supremacists doing it: the hardcore NA "diversity is good" groups focus on skin color. I'd argue they seem to be worse because it feels like for them all blacks are the same (African American) while the recent history of Africa should tell them how wrong it is.

zaarn 9y ago
It does not have to be genetics to show correlation. Sadly research in this area is sparse but we can establish that there will be some correlation; 1) Lack of proper nutrition is linked to lower IQ. This can be fairly easily explained in that the lack of resources will lead to less development in the brain, one of the most resource intensive organs in the body. 2) Certain ethnicity types are disproportionately poor (in the US). Lack of income generally also means that nutritional situation is less ideal. From 1 and 2 you can easily conclude there is very likely some correlation. Does that mean we should immediately deploy eugenics? Most likely not. As you mention, high IQ "genes" could be linked to something bad. IIRC they are linked to mental conditions like depression. (Which might lead to an interesting question: if we fix poverty, will people become more miserable on average because the average IQ goes up? It seems likely total misery will go down though) I also agree with your later statements, a lot of people tend to put all people with black skin into a single pot but there are some many fascinating different cultures and a fascinating history once you go beyond colonialism. I think a lot of people tend to forget that diversity isn't only skin color. Diversity goes deeper than skin and body.
primitur 9y ago
>argue for some eugenics and advantage high IQ people for reproduction See .. I find this line of thinking heinous. Why do you not instantly trip up when you type this?

jonathanstrange 9y ago

It's an empirical matter, but my hunch is that most of the people who focus on correlations between intelligence and ethnic groups or phenotypical perceived "race" are racists. Many people aren't aware that you can be a racist without knowing it. (In a broader sense we're all racists, as practically everybody overgeneralizes based on stereotypes.) It's important to stress that the differences between members of the perceived groups ("ethnicities", "country of origin", "mother tongue", "a certain look") are much larger within that group than any measurable differences between averages of those groups. That is not to say that some research in these areas cannot make sense for e.g. policy making. For example, people who have suffered severe malnutrition in their childhood can have lower IQ on average, and the same is the case for many other environmental and social factors, of course. The reason why people like to focus on intelligence is that unlike other human characteristics like strength, intelligence is almost universally used as a kind of honorific. If you tell someone that he or she is intelligent, this will make them proud. If you tell someone he or she is not very intelligent, this will be taken as a grave insult. Additionally, everybody overestimates his own intelligence. All of this is kind of ironic, because intelligence is highly overrated. Intelligence doesn't count much, it's what you make of it. Moreover, whether you like it or not, society does not have a need for more highly intelligent people. There are not enough jobs for them. Last but not least, people who think of themselves as being very intelligent usually haven't tried to solve hard enough problems.

4bpp 9y ago
There is a lot I am tempted to call out in this post, but just for a particularly glaring example, > It's important to stress that the differences between members of the perceived groups ("ethnicities", "country of origin", "mother tongue", "a certain look") are much larger within that group than any measurable differences between averages of those groups. Surely the differences in income, the binary variable of being-in-STEM, recruiter favourability shown towards CVs etc. between members of the perceived groups ("skin colour", "gender", "mother tongue", ...) are much larger within that group than any measurable differences between averages of those groups too. Does that mean you are arguing that the gender pay gap, representation in STEM fields and unfair hiring practices are all irrelevant? (For what it's worth, there's only a few examples where differences between groups actually dwarf differences within groups, all of which seem very famous, e.g. grip strength vs. gender.)

4bpp 9y ago

At this point, I get the impression that for most (by numbers) of those who believe in a race-$trait correlation, the important thing is not to persuade those who are indifferent but to prove those who strongly assert that there is no such correlation wrong. More often than not, for each desirable trait there is cold hard real-world data that suggests strong correlations between race and particular desirable outcomes that appear related to the trait in question. (Say, in the case of IQ, lifetime income, job prestige etc.) If you believe that this difference in outcomes can be traced to a genetic difference in causative traits, to a first approximation the data does not suggest doing anything (with future technology, maybe, it would suggest a large-scale programme of gene therapy). If you believe that there are no such genetic differences, on the other hand, the data implies that there is a great and particularly morally repugnant defect to society, and justifies extraordinary, often outright punitive (e.g. racial quotas) corrective measures. Currently, as far as policymaking in western societies is concerned, the faction that follows the "no genetic differences => (data => extreme measures are warranted)" reasoning is clearly in charge, if you consider e.g. the recent altercations about racial quotas in school discipline (article for: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/us/politics/school-discipline-disparities-white-black-students.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/18/us/politics/school-discip... / against: https://www.city-journal.org/html/no-thug-left-behind-14951.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/no-thug-left-behind-14951....). If you read the "against" article, that should make it pretty clear why those who believe in the existence of group differences consider the answer important, if "it's important to not do an unwarranted extreme thing" is not already implied by the term "extreme". In the light of this, it does not seem fair to imply that the only significant societal changes a belief in genetic group differences would imply are ones that are so terrible that anyone would be embarrassed to admit advocating them to you or even themselves.