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It's not an "obviously false" belief, it's one backed by good data and science. Intelligence and other personality traits are of course heritable, but controll

It's not an "obviously false" belief, it's one backed by good data and science. Intelligence and other personality traits are of course heritable, but controlled by thousands of genes that are unlikely to shift significantly over the course of around 50,000 years. Intelligence and personality are also a result of culture, and we've seen a 30 point increase in IQ scores in a single century, and a similarly spectacular drop in violent crime rates. If you honestly believe racial genetics are a significant factor, you are either willfully ignorant or unable to engage in complex thought processes yourself.

fighterpilot 6y ago
> thousands of genes that are unlikely to shift significantly over the course of around 50,000 years. Large evolutionary changes can happen rather rapidly with the right sustained pressures, certainly within a 50,000 year window. Check out this plot of brain size over time[1] If we can have such a dramatic increase in brain volume over a 500k year window, then we can absolutely have nontrivial changes to intelligence in a 50k year window. > Intelligence ... are also a result of culture IQ differences between races may be a result of prenatal nutrition, but I struggle to believe that they're a result of culture. The reason I doubt this is transracial adoption studies where the child is adopted out at birth to well-off white parents and tested at a very young age. So I can plausibly see how bad prenatal nutrition could have reduced this kids' IQ but attributing it to culture stretches credulity a bit, in my opinion. (I could be wrong about that though, as the kids weren't that young, so it's plausible that there's some cultural influence from early school friends, but I still think that it strains credulity). [1] http://aquatic-human-ancestor.org/anatomy/images/brain-size-sm.jpg http://aquatic-human-ancestor.org/anatomy/images/brain-size-...
concordDance 6y ago
> Intelligence and other personality traits are of course heritable, but controlled by thousands of genes that are unlikely to shift significantly over the course of around 50,000 years. This sounds pretty convincing, but it seems to prove too much. Doesn't this also refute the idea of individual gentic differences in intelligence? Which we know exist due to the incredibly high heritability of intelligence? Couldn't whatever allows these differences to exist not vary in strength depending on the emvironmental pressures sustained over thousands of years?

fighterpilot 6y ago

> thousands of genes that are unlikely to shift significantly over the course of around 50,000 years. Large evolutionary changes can happen rather rapidly with the right sustained pressures, certainly within a 50,000 year window. Check out this plot of brain size over time[1] If we can have such a dramatic increase in brain volume over a 500k year window, then we can absolutely have nontrivial changes to intelligence in a 50k year window. > Intelligence ... are also a result of culture IQ differences between races may be a result of prenatal nutrition, but I struggle to believe that they're a result of culture. The reason I doubt this is transracial adoption studies where the child is adopted out at birth to well-off white parents and tested at a very young age. So I can plausibly see how bad prenatal nutrition could have reduced this kids' IQ but attributing it to culture stretches credulity a bit, in my opinion. (I could be wrong about that though, as the kids weren't that young, so it's plausible that there's some cultural influence from early school friends, but I still think that it strains credulity). [1] http://aquatic-human-ancestor.org/anatomy/images/brain-size-sm.jpg http://aquatic-human-ancestor.org/anatomy/images/brain-size-...

concordDance 6y ago

> Intelligence and other personality traits are of course heritable, but controlled by thousands of genes that are unlikely to shift significantly over the course of around 50,000 years. This sounds pretty convincing, but it seems to prove too much. Doesn't this also refute the idea of individual gentic differences in intelligence? Which we know exist due to the incredibly high heritability of intelligence? Couldn't whatever allows these differences to exist not vary in strength depending on the emvironmental pressures sustained over thousands of years?