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From the campus group calling for his firing [1]: >However, these categories overlap & are all rooted in Hsu’s beliefs in innate biological differences between

From the campus group calling for his firing [1]: >However, these categories overlap & are all rooted in 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 Humans are, biologically, extremely diverse. Visible attributes, disease risk, geometry of the physical body, etc. Some groups are more prone to certain genetic disease risk factors, for example. Doesn't it follow that the brains of different groups of humans might group into certain traits, including intelligence? I'm asking in all sincerity. I'd love to hear if there's some evidence that my thinking is wrong. [1] https://twitter.com/GradEmpUnion/status/1270829006439485441 https://twitter.com/GradEmpUnion/status/1270829006439485441

Tarq0n 6y ago
It's complicated. One thing we do know is that the variance in intelligence is larger than any group differences. People therefore often assume that anyone that insists on emphasizing the average difference is using it as a dog-whistle for some kind of bias. Whether the principle of charity should be applied or not is up to you.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
staplers 6y ago
There is no singular "intelligence" and measuring it is certainly not linear. Splitting hairs between a population of people (specifically blacks) who only 200 years ago were killed for being able to read certainly doesn't make for a compelling or worthy investment in research.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  > There is no singular "intelligence" and measuring it is certainly not linear. Wanna bet? I think most intelligence researchers would disagree with you, and IQ is predictive of life outcomes. There are areas where you can find fault with Hsu's work, but I don't think "IQ approximates g, and g is real" is one of them. For that matter... If a population was killed according to a trait, wouldn't that make it more likely for there to be genetic causes of group differences in that trait?
  - throwaway4666 6y ago
    "Intelligence research" is, like most of psychology, an elaborate grift designed to give a handful of people cushy tenured jobs. Actual geneticists, that is, people who study how genes actually work, wouldn't touch the standards of rigor of "intelligence research" with a ten foot pole. Note how people supporting Hsu tend to be psychologists while people dismissing his research tend to be geneticists. It's also worth nothing that Hsu is also out-of-field himself (he used to be a physicist) and only got recently into genomics. That he got stuff wrong that's basically understoood by the whole genetics community isn't that surprising.
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      > "Intelligence research" is, like most of psychology, an elaborate grift designed to give a handful of people cushy tenured jobs. Actual geneticists, that is, people who study how genes actually work, wouldn't touch the standards of rigor of "intelligence research" with a ten foot pole. Wow, that's... Misguided. Most intelligence research doesn't have to do with genetics at all, to start with. Second, twin studies have shown that intelligence is highly heritable, with about half of variance explained by genetics (and half "non-shared environment", also known as random chance) - we might not know what genes are responsible, but you don't need to know the genes to compare identical and fraternal twins. Finally... IQ is real is one of a very small number of psychology studies that reproduces consistently, so the normal "psychology is bunk" objections don't apply.
      - throwaway4666 6y ago
        >Second, twin studies have shown that intelligence is highly heritable, with about half of variance explained by genetics (and half "non-shared environment", also known as random chance) - we might not know what genes are responsible, but you don't need to know the genes to compare identical and fraternal twins. Heritability does not imply the existence of a genetic mechanism. Twin studies have a number of flaws that further demonstrate my points about standards of methodology that geneticists wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Even not taking into account stuff like equal environment assumption, identical twins simply do not have the same DNA. Yes, even identical twins, look it up. There are also a number of things that are heritable without involving a genetic mechanism at all, such as the various microbiomes or epigenetics. And of course there are things like transmission of de novo mutations over up to two generations (e.g. affecting germinal cells of one's fetus). Regarding the 'IQ is the best finding we have on psychologist' point. Being the best in a field that's a largely grift doesn't make one any less of a grift. IQ (and g) still has flaws that no one in the hard science would consider it. For instance, it is gaussian for no reason and despite most social outcomes performances being fat-tailed, meaning the theoretical covariance between IQ and any kind of relevant task is undefined (and its in-sample variance finite but meaningless). There's also zero neurological or genetic data confirming the existence of g, making it a purely imaginary construct that only exists in the minds of psychologists. That this is the best they can come up with just speaks even worse of the field as a whole.
esyir 6y ago
There really isn't. The current argument is weasly though, approaching it as follows: Race is a social construct and not a genetic one. Humans exist on a genetic spectrum. Therefore you can't box humans into distinct groups there. Therefore racial differences are moot. This is based off the grad student unions linked sources. It's also weasly as all fuck. Race may be a social construct, but it does correlate strongly with a number of genetic factors. As such, race serves as an aggregate variable for a large quantity of genetic variation. And it can be shown that between populations of different race, there's an observable difference at a genetic level.
ramraj07 6y ago
There is a simple solution to this: no one other than card-carrying scientists working exclusively on the evolution of intelligence should blurt out their opinions on this topic. This question should be clubbed with other questions which are always easy traps for any scientist into believing their opinion is valuable just because they "know how to do science". Better just stick to what field of science you are good and shut up about socially charged questions of no relevance to you. In this guy's, case, it is arguable if he's in the field. He seems to have already made up his mind on it, he's just out to find proof of his hypothesis. This is in principle fine, but he should acknowledge that by choosing to study this field, he excludes himself from any position where he's in charge of teaching or training people - he seems to sincerely believe that some of them are dumber by their nature, that seeems like a massive conflict of interest to me.
throwaway286 6y ago
It doesn't matter if your thinking is right or wrong. Look what happened to Galileo. If you go against the current on a touchy topic you're done for.
skosuri 6y ago
If you are actually sincere, take the time to read this: http://ewanbirney.com/2019/10/race-genetics-and-pseudoscience-an-explainer.html http://ewanbirney.com/2019/10/race-genetics-and-pseudoscienc...
- ciarannolan 6y ago
  I am "actually sincere" and I did take the time to read that. TLDR: A very long, rambling blog post that essentially says "yeah there's probably genetic differences related to IQ among groups of humans but...", then proceeds to dismiss anyone who disagrees with them as part of "a vocal fringe of race pseudoscience".
  - skosuri 6y ago
    Lol; what I thought. Do you just make up things you put in quotes? That’s not what those characters are meant for. The “long, rambling blog post” outlines a number of pieces of evidence that say it’s highly unlikely there are meaningful differences, and because of population stratification, stuff like GWAS (that Hsu uses) can’t give us a lot of info. Look, if you have questions or doubts about these criticisms, you can ask and people will take those questions seriously. Ewan Birney is a world class geneticist that leads Europe’s leading institute on the subject. He’s writing a blog post for lay people to help them understand the complexities. What you wrote in response just shows how blinded you are in just discounting other arguments. Look, I don’t know who you are; you can look me up (https://www.octant.bio/biosri https://www.octant.bio/biosri).. but maybe when most experts in a field are saying one thing, and one person on the fringe is saying another... you at least owe it to yourself to understand the dominant viewpoint. It’s easy to find my email, or Ewan’s or many other researchers that take a lot of time answering questions. Quantitative genetics is complicated and in that blog post he’s trying to break down the major ways people get this stuff wrong; including Hsu. But in general, most on this site thus far have a viewpoint that is set in stone, hold their nose, and think an entire community is really stupid and politically correct. Anyways, if you are not a layperson I apologize and as a researcher, you can always just publish your findings, and the community and I can learn from them.

Tarq0n 6y ago

It's complicated. One thing we do know is that the variance in intelligence is larger than any group differences. People therefore often assume that anyone that insists on emphasizing the average difference is using it as a dog-whistle for some kind of bias. Whether the principle of charity should be applied or not is up to you.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

staplers 6y ago

There is no singular "intelligence" and measuring it is certainly not linear. Splitting hairs between a population of people (specifically blacks) who only 200 years ago were killed for being able to read certainly doesn't make for a compelling or worthy investment in research.

DuskStar 6y ago
> There is no singular "intelligence" and measuring it is certainly not linear. Wanna bet? I think most intelligence researchers would disagree with you, and IQ is predictive of life outcomes. There are areas where you can find fault with Hsu's work, but I don't think "IQ approximates g, and g is real" is one of them. For that matter... If a population was killed according to a trait, wouldn't that make it more likely for there to be genetic causes of group differences in that trait?
- throwaway4666 6y ago
  "Intelligence research" is, like most of psychology, an elaborate grift designed to give a handful of people cushy tenured jobs. Actual geneticists, that is, people who study how genes actually work, wouldn't touch the standards of rigor of "intelligence research" with a ten foot pole. Note how people supporting Hsu tend to be psychologists while people dismissing his research tend to be geneticists. It's also worth nothing that Hsu is also out-of-field himself (he used to be a physicist) and only got recently into genomics. That he got stuff wrong that's basically understoood by the whole genetics community isn't that surprising.
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    > "Intelligence research" is, like most of psychology, an elaborate grift designed to give a handful of people cushy tenured jobs. Actual geneticists, that is, people who study how genes actually work, wouldn't touch the standards of rigor of "intelligence research" with a ten foot pole. Wow, that's... Misguided. Most intelligence research doesn't have to do with genetics at all, to start with. Second, twin studies have shown that intelligence is highly heritable, with about half of variance explained by genetics (and half "non-shared environment", also known as random chance) - we might not know what genes are responsible, but you don't need to know the genes to compare identical and fraternal twins. Finally... IQ is real is one of a very small number of psychology studies that reproduces consistently, so the normal "psychology is bunk" objections don't apply.
    - throwaway4666 6y ago
      >Second, twin studies have shown that intelligence is highly heritable, with about half of variance explained by genetics (and half "non-shared environment", also known as random chance) - we might not know what genes are responsible, but you don't need to know the genes to compare identical and fraternal twins. Heritability does not imply the existence of a genetic mechanism. Twin studies have a number of flaws that further demonstrate my points about standards of methodology that geneticists wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. Even not taking into account stuff like equal environment assumption, identical twins simply do not have the same DNA. Yes, even identical twins, look it up. There are also a number of things that are heritable without involving a genetic mechanism at all, such as the various microbiomes or epigenetics. And of course there are things like transmission of de novo mutations over up to two generations (e.g. affecting germinal cells of one's fetus). Regarding the 'IQ is the best finding we have on psychologist' point. Being the best in a field that's a largely grift doesn't make one any less of a grift. IQ (and g) still has flaws that no one in the hard science would consider it. For instance, it is gaussian for no reason and despite most social outcomes performances being fat-tailed, meaning the theoretical covariance between IQ and any kind of relevant task is undefined (and its in-sample variance finite but meaningless). There's also zero neurological or genetic data confirming the existence of g, making it a purely imaginary construct that only exists in the minds of psychologists. That this is the best they can come up with just speaks even worse of the field as a whole.

esyir 6y ago

There really isn't. The current argument is weasly though, approaching it as follows: Race is a social construct and not a genetic one. Humans exist on a genetic spectrum. Therefore you can't box humans into distinct groups there. Therefore racial differences are moot. This is based off the grad student unions linked sources. It's also weasly as all fuck. Race may be a social construct, but it does correlate strongly with a number of genetic factors. As such, race serves as an aggregate variable for a large quantity of genetic variation. And it can be shown that between populations of different race, there's an observable difference at a genetic level.

ramraj07 6y ago

There is a simple solution to this: no one other than card-carrying scientists working exclusively on the evolution of intelligence should blurt out their opinions on this topic. This question should be clubbed with other questions which are always easy traps for any scientist into believing their opinion is valuable just because they "know how to do science". Better just stick to what field of science you are good and shut up about socially charged questions of no relevance to you. In this guy's, case, it is arguable if he's in the field. He seems to have already made up his mind on it, he's just out to find proof of his hypothesis. This is in principle fine, but he should acknowledge that by choosing to study this field, he excludes himself from any position where he's in charge of teaching or training people - he seems to sincerely believe that some of them are dumber by their nature, that seeems like a massive conflict of interest to me.

throwaway286 6y ago

It doesn't matter if your thinking is right or wrong. Look what happened to Galileo. If you go against the current on a touchy topic you're done for.

skosuri 6y ago

If you are actually sincere, take the time to read this: http://ewanbirney.com/2019/10/race-genetics-and-pseudoscience-an-explainer.html http://ewanbirney.com/2019/10/race-genetics-and-pseudoscienc...

ciarannolan 6y ago
I am "actually sincere" and I did take the time to read that. TLDR: A very long, rambling blog post that essentially says "yeah there's probably genetic differences related to IQ among groups of humans but...", then proceeds to dismiss anyone who disagrees with them as part of "a vocal fringe of race pseudoscience".
- skosuri 6y ago
  Lol; what I thought. Do you just make up things you put in quotes? That’s not what those characters are meant for. The “long, rambling blog post” outlines a number of pieces of evidence that say it’s highly unlikely there are meaningful differences, and because of population stratification, stuff like GWAS (that Hsu uses) can’t give us a lot of info. Look, if you have questions or doubts about these criticisms, you can ask and people will take those questions seriously. Ewan Birney is a world class geneticist that leads Europe’s leading institute on the subject. He’s writing a blog post for lay people to help them understand the complexities. What you wrote in response just shows how blinded you are in just discounting other arguments. Look, I don’t know who you are; you can look me up (https://www.octant.bio/biosri https://www.octant.bio/biosri).. but maybe when most experts in a field are saying one thing, and one person on the fringe is saying another... you at least owe it to yourself to understand the dominant viewpoint. It’s easy to find my email, or Ewan’s or many other researchers that take a lot of time answering questions. Quantitative genetics is complicated and in that blog post he’s trying to break down the major ways people get this stuff wrong; including Hsu. But in general, most on this site thus far have a viewpoint that is set in stone, hold their nose, and think an entire community is really stupid and politically correct. Anyways, if you are not a layperson I apologize and as a researcher, you can always just publish your findings, and the community and I can learn from them.