3 ms·

As I explained - look at the percent of variance that’s heritable. Now look at the measured difference in population intelligence. Now tell me - what’s the prob

As I explained - look at the percent of variance that’s heritable. Now look at the measured difference in population intelligence. Now tell me - what’s the probability of that being environmental, based on the fraction of intelligence variability that can’t be attributed to genetics? A fermi estimate is fine - you’ll end up close to zero anyway. You shouldn’t need a document to spell this out for you in excruciating detail. Edit: to humor the question: https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf https://www1.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jense... The conclusions in this paper should have been expected give the explanation I already gave.

joshuamorton 6y ago
Rushton is perhaps not the person you want to cite if you want to disassociate yourself from scientific racism. And that paper, which I'm familiar with, doesn't address many of the modern criticisms of such theories that are based on the idea of "g" being socially constructed/influenced in the first place. (nor does it actually do much, if anything, to support the original claim you made: not all of their conclusions are phenotypic in nature, at a minimum, sections 3, 7, 8, 9, and 11 can be explained culturally despite what the paper says). I'd suggest "Reconciling IQ Gains and Heritability", or "Race, IQ, and the search for statistical signals associated with so-called “X”-factors", which notes as a semi-conclusion that we know of environmental factors that have clear and demonstrable causal effect on IQ. We know of no specific genes that have this effect. So concluding that a bunch of individual genes have small effects is actually less supported than the similar claim that a bunch of individual societal/environmental factors have impact. Both of these are more recent than the paper you cite, and could be seen as academic responses to perceived flaws.
- centimeter 6y ago
  > So concluding that a bunch of individual genes have small effects is actually less supported than the similar claim that a bunch of individual societal/environmental factors have impact. What an absurd claim! This is specifically the hypothesis that the last several decades of twin studies is designed to test. You are either ignorant of this body of research or you are being disingenuous. We can distinguish between these two cases because adopted twins and siblings have highly correlated genetic factors and weakly correlated environmental factors. I notice that you keep avoiding the absurd improbability of environmental factors mediating bulk racial differences given the magnitude of population-level differences and the relatively small fraction of variance attributable to environment - but you seem desperate not to acknowledge the latter.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > We can distinguish between these two cases because adopted twins and siblings have highly correlated genetic factors and weakly correlated environmental factors. We can't, and the papers I cite give a highly coherent explanation for this, a phenomena called cultural filtering. Like I said, I suggest you go and actually read recent papers instead of relying on a survey paper from fifteen years ago that relies on actual research older than many of the professors publishing this stuff today. It's not worth having this conversation is you're unrolling to engage with modern research, and it'll just devolve into an ideological flamewar, which dang prefers us not to have. So again please read some modern research. Or don't, but don't claim this stuff is settled when your are a decade out of date.
    - centimeter 6y ago
      I looked at the things you "cited" (i.e. name dropped without linking). "Race, IQ, and the search for statistical signals associated with so-called “X”-factors": A) no non-paywalled sources, so I'm suspicious if you even read it B) written by a philosophy professor, not a scientist, with no scientific background C) the argument of this paper, as far as I can tell from the abstract, is "the pure-environmental hypothesis is nonfalsifiable", i.e. completely useless I would critique it more if I could actually read it. "Reconciling IQ Gains and Heritability" - this isn't actually a paper, it's just a section in some article. Where did you even find this? It barely shows up on the internet - your comment is the third result. In any case, it A) doesn't seem to support your claim, and B) doesn't strike me as especially compelling research - they're just summarizing some thoughts about the Flynn effect. This further increases my confidence that you are arguing in bad faith. > the papers I cite give a highly coherent explanation for this, a phenomena called cultural filtering. I can't find this term anywhere in these papers (or elsewhere).
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        > no non-paywalled sources, so I'm suspicious if you even read it I have access to many paywalled articles. > "Reconciling IQ Gains and Heritability" - this isn't actually a paper, it's just a section in some article. Ah you're right, I meant to cite that section of the larger article, but the wider article is rather well cited. > phenomena called cultural filtering tl;dr: The idea is that culture magnifies any underlying genetics. The example given is two siblings/twins separated at birth, both are taller than average. As a result, they both end up playing basketball and being better than average as children, and as a result attend basketball camps. They both get good training and end up as college basketball players. The question is to what extent culture serves to magnify any underlying differences. And whether different culture(s) can magnify these differences in different ways.

joshuamorton 6y ago

Rushton is perhaps not the person you want to cite if you want to disassociate yourself from scientific racism. And that paper, which I'm familiar with, doesn't address many of the modern criticisms of such theories that are based on the idea of "g" being socially constructed/influenced in the first place. (nor does it actually do much, if anything, to support the original claim you made: not all of their conclusions are phenotypic in nature, at a minimum, sections 3, 7, 8, 9, and 11 can be explained culturally despite what the paper says). I'd suggest "Reconciling IQ Gains and Heritability", or "Race, IQ, and the search for statistical signals associated with so-called “X”-factors", which notes as a semi-conclusion that we know of environmental factors that have clear and demonstrable causal effect on IQ. We know of no specific genes that have this effect. So concluding that a bunch of individual genes have small effects is actually less supported than the similar claim that a bunch of individual societal/environmental factors have impact. Both of these are more recent than the paper you cite, and could be seen as academic responses to perceived flaws.

centimeter 6y ago
> So concluding that a bunch of individual genes have small effects is actually less supported than the similar claim that a bunch of individual societal/environmental factors have impact. What an absurd claim! This is specifically the hypothesis that the last several decades of twin studies is designed to test. You are either ignorant of this body of research or you are being disingenuous. We can distinguish between these two cases because adopted twins and siblings have highly correlated genetic factors and weakly correlated environmental factors. I notice that you keep avoiding the absurd improbability of environmental factors mediating bulk racial differences given the magnitude of population-level differences and the relatively small fraction of variance attributable to environment - but you seem desperate not to acknowledge the latter.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > We can distinguish between these two cases because adopted twins and siblings have highly correlated genetic factors and weakly correlated environmental factors. We can't, and the papers I cite give a highly coherent explanation for this, a phenomena called cultural filtering. Like I said, I suggest you go and actually read recent papers instead of relying on a survey paper from fifteen years ago that relies on actual research older than many of the professors publishing this stuff today. It's not worth having this conversation is you're unrolling to engage with modern research, and it'll just devolve into an ideological flamewar, which dang prefers us not to have. So again please read some modern research. Or don't, but don't claim this stuff is settled when your are a decade out of date.
  - centimeter 6y ago
    I looked at the things you "cited" (i.e. name dropped without linking). "Race, IQ, and the search for statistical signals associated with so-called “X”-factors": A) no non-paywalled sources, so I'm suspicious if you even read it B) written by a philosophy professor, not a scientist, with no scientific background C) the argument of this paper, as far as I can tell from the abstract, is "the pure-environmental hypothesis is nonfalsifiable", i.e. completely useless I would critique it more if I could actually read it. "Reconciling IQ Gains and Heritability" - this isn't actually a paper, it's just a section in some article. Where did you even find this? It barely shows up on the internet - your comment is the third result. In any case, it A) doesn't seem to support your claim, and B) doesn't strike me as especially compelling research - they're just summarizing some thoughts about the Flynn effect. This further increases my confidence that you are arguing in bad faith. > the papers I cite give a highly coherent explanation for this, a phenomena called cultural filtering. I can't find this term anywhere in these papers (or elsewhere).
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      > no non-paywalled sources, so I'm suspicious if you even read it I have access to many paywalled articles. > "Reconciling IQ Gains and Heritability" - this isn't actually a paper, it's just a section in some article. Ah you're right, I meant to cite that section of the larger article, but the wider article is rather well cited. > phenomena called cultural filtering tl;dr: The idea is that culture magnifies any underlying genetics. The example given is two siblings/twins separated at birth, both are taller than average. As a result, they both end up playing basketball and being better than average as children, and as a result attend basketball camps. They both get good training and end up as college basketball players. The question is to what extent culture serves to magnify any underlying differences. And whether different culture(s) can magnify these differences in different ways.