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One of the tweets: > Hsu’s beliefs in innate biological differences between human populations, especially regarding intelligence --an unscientific position whi

One of the tweets: > Hsu’s beliefs in innate biological differences between human populations, especially regarding intelligence --an unscientific position which makes him unsuited to direct a research institution’s funding or its graduate studies I can see why this belief is controversial and in an ideal world I wish everyone was born exactly the same. However I don't think applying strong scientific research and methods to try and answer this hypothesis is necessarily wrong. Unless it has already been proven otherwise in which case I am unaware of the research.

natalyarostova 6y ago
You can’t do scientific research on that! It’s unscientific!
542458 6y ago
It has been studied pretty extensively. For example, see this survey https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-30052-009 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-30052-009 In pretty much every study within group differences are far and away more massive that between group differences. Unlike other things like height, eye colour, or facial hair growth, intelligence is highly variable even between identical twins. The genetic link seems weak at best. It’s also more or less impossible to study with great accuracy - you’re trying to study how race affects intelligence, but how do you correct for non-biological factors? Race is deeply intertwined with economics, education, nutrition, healthcare, and every other aspect of society and culture. Any study you do, regardless of results, will have a mountain or potentially over corrected or under corrected factors. Finally, what are we even studying? Defining intelligence is a nightmare, and a quick glance at history shows how the definition of intelligence has changed over time and between cultures. Trying to look at how race’s biological factors affect intelligence irrespective of sociological factors is in many ways a fool’s errand - the very definition of intelligence is wrapped right up in those sociological factors!
- centimeter 6y ago
  > In pretty much every study within group differences are far and away more massive that between group differences. You are perpetuating what’s known as Lewontin’s fallacy. This claim is extremely narrowly true: clustering on a 1-dimensional fixation index is insufficient to reliably mechanically classify race. If you don’t know what that means, stop trying to use this claim in your arguments. Here’s what it doesn’t mean: it doesn’t mean that there aren’t significant population-level phenotypic differences between ethnic groups. These differences can include intelligence (and 30 years of twin studies suggests they probably do).
  - godelzilla 6y ago
    You are perpetuating the pseudo-science known as "race science".
    - centimeter 6y ago
      I posted multiple clear, specific, and falsifiable claims. Feel free to address them. Or you can keep posting snarky quips completely devoid of concrete information - up to you. You can label (factual) statements with whatever emotionally connoted phrase you want; it has no bearing on whether they’re correct.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > Here’s what it doesn’t mean: it doesn’t mean that there aren’t significant population-level phenotypic differences between ethnic group But it does mean that we don't have any evidence for this claim. > (and 30 years of twin studies suggests they probably do). This would be a great place for a citation. I'm wondering how a twin study is going to show the effects of genetics on intelligence. As GP suggests, twin studies show differences in intelligence between even identical twins raised in the same household, so Amy conclusions from whatever study you're referencing would need to show statistically significant variation controlling for the noise.
    - centimeter 6y ago
      > This would be a great place for a citation. If you actually care, just google it. There are dozens of great large-n metastudies. Chances are you don’t care (mostly based on the fact that you clearly haven’t googled it already), so I have to be jealous of my time - sorry. > would need to show statistically significant variation controlling for the noise. Obviously g-factor researchers have thought of this. Current best estimates place 60-80% of human intelligence variance as being genetically heritable.
- esyir 6y ago
  That's a terrible argument that's often used to deflect from its crux. Of course within group differences are larger than racial differences. You're comparing a single (admittedly aggregated) factor to the sum total of human variation. That it has a lowered effect isn't surprising. Furthermore, the paper you cite doesn't even deny that different groups test consistently differently. Furthermore, it also explicitly states studies of test bias have consistently shown negatives. I also strongly oppose the conflation of population level metrics with individual level metrics.
- Brian_K_White 6y ago
  It's better to just let the advertisers and political manipulators gather the same data and do essentially the same research, but in secret and for their own aims, and benefit from the resulting understaning, than for the research, and it's possibly unpleasant resulting knowledge, be in public and used to defend against those who would otherwise get to capitalize on it, at the expense of the very people you presumably would like to protect from abuse? Ignorance is never the correct answer no matter how unpleasant some bit of knowledge is. Whether the answers come back in your favor or not, having the answer is better than not having the answer, or worse, only some people having the answer and not everyone else. This guy might indeed harbor odious intentions, but some of these arguments are not holding water on their own.
- doubleunplussed 6y ago
  I notice that people much more often twist themselves into knots to make comments like yours when it's black people being talked about, but the idea of Ashkenazi Jews being up to a standard deviation smarter [1] is much less controversial. It's still controversial, but it's nowhere near the nuclear topic that black-v-white intelligence is. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence
- monkeypizza 6y ago
  Your claim is false. It is not highly variable even between identical twins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ "The mean correlation of IQ scores between monozygotic twins was 0.86, between siblings 0.47, between half-siblings 0.31, and between cousins 0.15."
nothal 6y ago
I don't think it would be an ideal if everyone were born exactly the same. Seems like a lot of beauty in the world around us comes from our different faces, thoughts, beliefs, culture, etc, all born of how we're all different.
- dx87 6y ago
  I think they mean "born the same" as in, born with the same potential and capabilities, not literal clones of each other.

natalyarostova 6y ago

You can’t do scientific research on that! It’s unscientific!

542458 6y ago

It has been studied pretty extensively. For example, see this survey https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-30052-009 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1997-30052-009 In pretty much every study within group differences are far and away more massive that between group differences. Unlike other things like height, eye colour, or facial hair growth, intelligence is highly variable even between identical twins. The genetic link seems weak at best. It’s also more or less impossible to study with great accuracy - you’re trying to study how race affects intelligence, but how do you correct for non-biological factors? Race is deeply intertwined with economics, education, nutrition, healthcare, and every other aspect of society and culture. Any study you do, regardless of results, will have a mountain or potentially over corrected or under corrected factors. Finally, what are we even studying? Defining intelligence is a nightmare, and a quick glance at history shows how the definition of intelligence has changed over time and between cultures. Trying to look at how race’s biological factors affect intelligence irrespective of sociological factors is in many ways a fool’s errand - the very definition of intelligence is wrapped right up in those sociological factors!

centimeter 6y ago
> In pretty much every study within group differences are far and away more massive that between group differences. You are perpetuating what’s known as Lewontin’s fallacy. This claim is extremely narrowly true: clustering on a 1-dimensional fixation index is insufficient to reliably mechanically classify race. If you don’t know what that means, stop trying to use this claim in your arguments. Here’s what it doesn’t mean: it doesn’t mean that there aren’t significant population-level phenotypic differences between ethnic groups. These differences can include intelligence (and 30 years of twin studies suggests they probably do).
- godelzilla 6y ago
  You are perpetuating the pseudo-science known as "race science".
  - centimeter 6y ago
    I posted multiple clear, specific, and falsifiable claims. Feel free to address them. Or you can keep posting snarky quips completely devoid of concrete information - up to you. You can label (factual) statements with whatever emotionally connoted phrase you want; it has no bearing on whether they’re correct.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > Here’s what it doesn’t mean: it doesn’t mean that there aren’t significant population-level phenotypic differences between ethnic group But it does mean that we don't have any evidence for this claim. > (and 30 years of twin studies suggests they probably do). This would be a great place for a citation. I'm wondering how a twin study is going to show the effects of genetics on intelligence. As GP suggests, twin studies show differences in intelligence between even identical twins raised in the same household, so Amy conclusions from whatever study you're referencing would need to show statistically significant variation controlling for the noise.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    > This would be a great place for a citation. If you actually care, just google it. There are dozens of great large-n metastudies. Chances are you don’t care (mostly based on the fact that you clearly haven’t googled it already), so I have to be jealous of my time - sorry. > would need to show statistically significant variation controlling for the noise. Obviously g-factor researchers have thought of this. Current best estimates place 60-80% of human intelligence variance as being genetically heritable.
esyir 6y ago
That's a terrible argument that's often used to deflect from its crux. Of course within group differences are larger than racial differences. You're comparing a single (admittedly aggregated) factor to the sum total of human variation. That it has a lowered effect isn't surprising. Furthermore, the paper you cite doesn't even deny that different groups test consistently differently. Furthermore, it also explicitly states studies of test bias have consistently shown negatives. I also strongly oppose the conflation of population level metrics with individual level metrics.
Brian_K_White 6y ago
It's better to just let the advertisers and political manipulators gather the same data and do essentially the same research, but in secret and for their own aims, and benefit from the resulting understaning, than for the research, and it's possibly unpleasant resulting knowledge, be in public and used to defend against those who would otherwise get to capitalize on it, at the expense of the very people you presumably would like to protect from abuse? Ignorance is never the correct answer no matter how unpleasant some bit of knowledge is. Whether the answers come back in your favor or not, having the answer is better than not having the answer, or worse, only some people having the answer and not everyone else. This guy might indeed harbor odious intentions, but some of these arguments are not holding water on their own.
doubleunplussed 6y ago
I notice that people much more often twist themselves into knots to make comments like yours when it's black people being talked about, but the idea of Ashkenazi Jews being up to a standard deviation smarter [1] is much less controversial. It's still controversial, but it's nowhere near the nuclear topic that black-v-white intelligence is. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jewish_intelligence
monkeypizza 6y ago
Your claim is false. It is not highly variable even between identical twins. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ "The mean correlation of IQ scores between monozygotic twins was 0.86, between siblings 0.47, between half-siblings 0.31, and between cousins 0.15."

nothal 6y ago

I don't think it would be an ideal if everyone were born exactly the same. Seems like a lot of beauty in the world around us comes from our different faces, thoughts, beliefs, culture, etc, all born of how we're all different.

dx87 6y ago
I think they mean "born the same" as in, born with the same potential and capabilities, not literal clones of each other.