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Murray was as far as can be determined acting in good faith. The general argument of the Bell Curve, that people from different parts of the world have wildly

by zosima 5y ago

Murray was as far as can be determined acting in good faith. The general argument of the Bell Curve, that people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes, is (or ought to be) completely non-controversial, consistent with almost all scientific evidence and obvious.

littlestymaar 5y ago
> The general argument of the Bell Curve, that people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes, is (or ought to be) completely non-controversial, consistent with almost all scientific evidence and obvious. “That people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes” is, as you say, obvious. But just because there's a lot of variation in many traits among humans mean there's variation in all of them, in fact we all have the same organs with the same functions, the same number of chromosomes, the same metabolic pathway to produce energy from food, etc. There are as many things that don't have variations in humans as thing that do. Don't get me wrong, I do think there is a genetic impact on cognitive ability, but this argument is really poor one. > Murray was as far as can be determined acting in good faith. When almost all your citations in your discussion about the link between “races” and intelligence, are taken from at best biased studies (from South Africa, Rhodesia or Southern US under segregation) when it's not openly racist (Richard Lynn, which has 20+ citations in the book!). If you want quick look at the quality of the sources used in this book, I highly recommend you to watch just the five minutes starting at 1'52'28[1], about the “single best study of Negroid intelligence”. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo&t=5328s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo&t=5328s
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  There are, in fact, much more things that are common between humans than things that vary between populations.
  - spiralx 5y ago
    To the point where anthropologists have compiled lists of "human universals" that are seen in human groups everywhere. http://joelvelasco.net/teaching/2890/brownlisthumanuniversals.pdf http://joelvelasco.net/teaching/2890/brownlisthumanuniversal... Also genetically aren't all the different distinct populations found around sub-Saharan Africa anyway, with everyone else in the world all sharing a single genetic group that has very little genetic variance within it?
- pasabagi 5y ago
  > “That people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes” is, as you say, obvious. Is this obvious? I can't imagine what kinds of attributes you're talking about. I think if they were significant ones (courageousness, curiosity, etc) they would probably have really profound political effects you don't see in reality.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    What profound political effects do you think would probably be caused by these attributes being different?
    - pasabagi 5y ago
      Consider something like the role of courage in military tactics. If you had some populations who were simply less courageous than others, you'd have a different baseline for stuff like, does a phalanx work? Is a phalanx even necessary? Even a minute difference in something like this would change the mechanics of the formation. So stuff like Alexander's globe-spanning conquests would suddenly become impossible as he hit a different population regime where his tactics don't work anymore, or the Mongols would hit some barrier where they would start losing all their battles because people weren't reacting the way they should, etc. In reality, of course, empires like the Roman one absolutely depended on the fact that the same social systems and techniques worked just as well in modern day scotland as they worked in modern day Iraq - a legionnaire was a legionnaire, whether they came from egypt or wales, and they could and were moved around and interchanged.
      - throwawaylinux 5y ago
        There has been an extremely long and celebrated history of different nations and peoples employing different military tactics and being known for different sets of skills in battle. But aside from that, it seems like everything you wrote is pure conjecture and even if some of it was true, that absolutely does not prove a point about there being no genetic component to intellectual diversity.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> The general argument of the Bell Curve, that people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes, is (or ought to be) completely non-controversial It is. None of the controversy over the book is about that orbital-level view.
- sitkack 5y ago
  If the sources are bad, how can you make any such statement about conclusions in the work? To state as fact what is and is not controversial regarding the Bell Curve, smells a bit like your Gas Light is possible not combusting properly.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > If the sources are bad, how can you make any such statement about conclusions in the work? I’m not making any statement about the conclusions in the work. I’m making a statement about the controversy around the work, from observing that controversy, including reading extensive material from people objecting at the time it first became controversial. The controversy was never over the broad idea that different populations have different distributions of different attributes.
xyzzyz 5y ago
> The general argument of the Bell Curve, that people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes It is by no means "the general argument" of the Bell Curve, and saying that pretty transparently shows that you have not read it. You are, of course, excused by the fact that the book has been the target of relentless smear campaign by media and many academics, which resulted in painting completely wrong image of what the book actually is about. Bell Curve is almost entirely concerning the American society, and only in passing mentions issues and results from different parts of the world. The point of the book is largely that people within the same part of the world have widely varying outcomes, which, to a large degree, are explained by their IQ. Moreover, which will probably be shocking to people who only know Bell Curve through second hand accounts of people very loudly denouncing it, for the most part it explicitly restricts itself to results and data from the population of white Americans only, to show that these correlations are not a result of some sort of insidious ethnic or racial discrimination, as they also exist within white population. Only in last part of the book ethnic and racial disparities are mentioned, mostly to show that these are pretty much what you would expect if you assumed that correlations of intelligence and outcomes within population of white Americans are the same if you extend your analysis to population at large.
- littlestymaar 5y ago
  > The point of the book is largely that people within the same part of the world have widely varying outcomes, which, to a large degree, are explained by their IQ. Except the data they use is not IQ (they are using AFQT Score because that's the available data) and they are artificially constructing an equivalent IQ. The original data doesn't even fit a bell curve (because there's no reason a given test should). For some reason, unjustified in the book, they assume that the AFQT score depends only from genetic factors and not from any kind of social determinism. The fact that the book liberally jumps from AFQT score to IQ to “genetic factor” is an enormous issue which completely destroys the credibility of their work. Also, in their book it is “to a large degree, explained by their IQ”, because they controlled for almost no social or environmental factors: only the “parental socioeconomic status” (also a made-up metric) is taken into account.

by zosima 5y ago

littlestymaar 5y ago

> The general argument of the Bell Curve, that people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes, is (or ought to be) completely non-controversial, consistent with almost all scientific evidence and obvious. “That people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes” is, as you say, obvious. But just because there's a lot of variation in many traits among humans mean there's variation in all of them, in fact we all have the same organs with the same functions, the same number of chromosomes, the same metabolic pathway to produce energy from food, etc. There are as many things that don't have variations in humans as thing that do. Don't get me wrong, I do think there is a genetic impact on cognitive ability, but this argument is really poor one. > Murray was as far as can be determined acting in good faith. When almost all your citations in your discussion about the link between “races” and intelligence, are taken from at best biased studies (from South Africa, Rhodesia or Southern US under segregation) when it's not openly racist (Richard Lynn, which has 20+ citations in the book!). If you want quick look at the quality of the sources used in this book, I highly recommend you to watch just the five minutes starting at 1'52'28[1], about the “single best study of Negroid intelligence”. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo&t=5328s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBc7qBS1Ujo&t=5328s

sudosysgen 5y ago
There are, in fact, much more things that are common between humans than things that vary between populations.
- spiralx 5y ago
  To the point where anthropologists have compiled lists of "human universals" that are seen in human groups everywhere. http://joelvelasco.net/teaching/2890/brownlisthumanuniversals.pdf http://joelvelasco.net/teaching/2890/brownlisthumanuniversal... Also genetically aren't all the different distinct populations found around sub-Saharan Africa anyway, with everyone else in the world all sharing a single genetic group that has very little genetic variance within it?
pasabagi 5y ago
> “That people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes” is, as you say, obvious. Is this obvious? I can't imagine what kinds of attributes you're talking about. I think if they were significant ones (courageousness, curiosity, etc) they would probably have really profound political effects you don't see in reality.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  What profound political effects do you think would probably be caused by these attributes being different?
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    Consider something like the role of courage in military tactics. If you had some populations who were simply less courageous than others, you'd have a different baseline for stuff like, does a phalanx work? Is a phalanx even necessary? Even a minute difference in something like this would change the mechanics of the formation. So stuff like Alexander's globe-spanning conquests would suddenly become impossible as he hit a different population regime where his tactics don't work anymore, or the Mongols would hit some barrier where they would start losing all their battles because people weren't reacting the way they should, etc. In reality, of course, empires like the Roman one absolutely depended on the fact that the same social systems and techniques worked just as well in modern day scotland as they worked in modern day Iraq - a legionnaire was a legionnaire, whether they came from egypt or wales, and they could and were moved around and interchanged.
    - throwawaylinux 5y ago
      There has been an extremely long and celebrated history of different nations and peoples employing different military tactics and being known for different sets of skills in battle. But aside from that, it seems like everything you wrote is pure conjecture and even if some of it was true, that absolutely does not prove a point about there being no genetic component to intellectual diversity.

dragonwriter 5y ago

sitkack 5y ago
If the sources are bad, how can you make any such statement about conclusions in the work? To state as fact what is and is not controversial regarding the Bell Curve, smells a bit like your Gas Light is possible not combusting properly.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > If the sources are bad, how can you make any such statement about conclusions in the work? I’m not making any statement about the conclusions in the work. I’m making a statement about the controversy around the work, from observing that controversy, including reading extensive material from people objecting at the time it first became controversial. The controversy was never over the broad idea that different populations have different distributions of different attributes.

xyzzyz 5y ago

> The general argument of the Bell Curve, that people from different parts of the world have wildly different distributions on many different attributes It is by no means "the general argument" of the Bell Curve, and saying that pretty transparently shows that you have not read it. You are, of course, excused by the fact that the book has been the target of relentless smear campaign by media and many academics, which resulted in painting completely wrong image of what the book actually is about. Bell Curve is almost entirely concerning the American society, and only in passing mentions issues and results from different parts of the world. The point of the book is largely that people within the same part of the world have widely varying outcomes, which, to a large degree, are explained by their IQ. Moreover, which will probably be shocking to people who only know Bell Curve through second hand accounts of people very loudly denouncing it, for the most part it explicitly restricts itself to results and data from the population of white Americans only, to show that these correlations are not a result of some sort of insidious ethnic or racial discrimination, as they also exist within white population. Only in last part of the book ethnic and racial disparities are mentioned, mostly to show that these are pretty much what you would expect if you assumed that correlations of intelligence and outcomes within population of white Americans are the same if you extend your analysis to population at large.

littlestymaar 5y ago
> The point of the book is largely that people within the same part of the world have widely varying outcomes, which, to a large degree, are explained by their IQ. Except the data they use is not IQ (they are using AFQT Score because that's the available data) and they are artificially constructing an equivalent IQ. The original data doesn't even fit a bell curve (because there's no reason a given test should). For some reason, unjustified in the book, they assume that the AFQT score depends only from genetic factors and not from any kind of social determinism. The fact that the book liberally jumps from AFQT score to IQ to “genetic factor” is an enormous issue which completely destroys the credibility of their work. Also, in their book it is “to a large degree, explained by their IQ”, because they controlled for almost no social or environmental factors: only the “parental socioeconomic status” (also a made-up metric) is taken into account.