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Race and IQ are not scientifically precise tools. Both are fundamentally subjective. Why do we say that Barack Obama is a black man and not a white man? If we a

Race and IQ are not scientifically precise tools. Both are fundamentally subjective. Why do we say that Barack Obama is a black man and not a white man? If we are to have a logically precise definition of race, both statements are true or neither is. In a genetic context, most African-Americans are just as much white as black. But in a study comparing disease rates among ethnic groups, African-Americans and Caucasians are treated as disjoint sets. IQ is just plain subjective. You would likely get similar results by sitting the designers of the IQ test one on one in a room with someone, and then having them rate the people they talked to by how much they were interested in the conversation. I don't think that Turkheimer is saying that you can't look at race and IQ in a scientific context. What he's saying is that the concepts of race and IQ are more grounded in opinion than fact, and when we see them in scientific studies we should be wary if they are not mentioned in the same breath as other subjective classifications like religion or political affiliation.

Jach 15y ago
Do you think that a person with measured IQ of 70 is going to have just as foo (e.g. "easy a life", "much success", etc.) as a person with measured IQ of 130? Your overall position sounds to me like you want crisp, 1-bit, binary, black-or-white definitions or measures for everything, which is a pretty absurd demand. The real-world is n-bit. If you're looking for mathematically rigorous tools, fuzzy logic and probability theory help a lot in this area. The race problem isn't that hard qualitatively, either: part of the reason we say Obama is a black man is because he says he is himself, another reason is because his skin is more on the darker side of the human skin scale, without prior tanning, than others. You can come up with other reasons I'm sure. You can also go down to the genetic context if you wish, but I'm sure you know the public has been beaten over the head enough times for the past however many decades that race in a genetic context isn't quite as visible as in a visual or cultural context. (Depending on your samples, anyway.)
- lukeschlather 15y ago
  I don't want 1-bit binaries. In fact, I want acknowledgement of the n-dimensional n-bit nature of the phenomena we call human beings. IQ and race both are trying to fit classifications that properly involve kilobytes if not megabytes of data into convenient oversimplifications that comfortably sit in a single byte.
barry-cotter 15y ago
Race and IQ are not scientifically precise tools. Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/
- huxley 15y ago
  So are you saying that if we did the same analysis across Africa, you'd find the same markers throughout the populations in "near-perfect correspondence" for people self-identifying racially as African? Or is this specific to the populations you studied in the United States?
  - barry-cotter 15y ago
    Dude, I didn't do the study. Re: Sub Saharan Africans you can get a decent idea if someone has such ancestry from one allele. As one example, the Duffy Null allele (FY0) has a frequency of almost 100% of Sub-Saharan Africans, but occurs very infrequently in populations outside of this region. A person having this gene is thus more likely to have Sub-Saharan African ancestors.* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestry-informative_marker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestry-informative_marker Obviously the more such alleles you test for the better you'll be able to distinguish the populations. This page gives links to ~300 AIMs which allow you to distinguish ancestry pretty well within Europe. http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Ancestry_Informative_Marker http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Ancestry_Informative_Marker Given that that's possible distinguishing continental ancestry seems to be a problem of application not theory.
- tokenadult 15y ago
losvedir 15y ago
But in a study comparing disease rates among ethnic groups, African-Americans and Caucasians are treated as disjoint sets. Are you saying this isn't the case? I'm very curious, as I've heard before that certain diseases have a higher chance of occurring among different races (e.g. blacks are considered more at risk for gout, I think). Is that incorrect? If I took thousands of people who self-identified as white, and thousands who self-identified as black and I looked at the occurrence of gout in those populations: what would I see? My understanding is I'd see more gout in the black population. If so, wouldn't that somehow counter your statement that "in a genetic context, most African-Americans are just as much white as black"? Or perhaps, while most African-Americans are like that, some are in fact genetically more "black" in some sense, and they are the ones at a higher risk of gout? I don't really understand.
- klenwell 15y ago
  The question is: what do you gain by categorizing them as self-identified black or white as opposed to not categorizing them at all or categorizing them, say, by the presence of some gene cluster or genetic marker associated with gout? There is something to be gained, from a social or political angle. A public health advocate in government might say, "Hey, if we see this is a more common problem among a particular social community, maybe we can use the pre-existing channels of information distribution within that community to help them out." But if your study were not approaching it from this public health angle, then what's the point of correlating gout with this other quasi-scientific socio-political factor? There may be other more suitable categorizations where this particular African-American/Caucasian distinction breaks down.
  - yummyfajitas 15y ago
    The question is: what do you gain by categorizing them as self-identified black or white as opposed to not categorizing them at all or categorizing them, say, by the presence of some gene cluster or genetic marker associated with gout? You gain many things. If the True outcome is more common in group A than group B, you get a prior (in the Bayesian sense) which can be measured at low cost. If you are attempting to identify the aforementioned genetic marker, you get to rule out genetic markers which are equally prevalent in both groups A and B. This narrows the search space considerably. Throwing information (even imperfect information) away is stupid.
temphn 15y ago
If you intern at 23andMe, it's a "hello world" level problem to correlate genetics and ancestry/race. Or just submit a blinded set of saliva samples and see whether their ancestry painting algorithm correctly identifies the pre-1492 ancestral locations of your four grandparents. This is about real raw data.

Jach 15y ago

Do you think that a person with measured IQ of 70 is going to have just as foo (e.g. "easy a life", "much success", etc.) as a person with measured IQ of 130? Your overall position sounds to me like you want crisp, 1-bit, binary, black-or-white definitions or measures for everything, which is a pretty absurd demand. The real-world is n-bit. If you're looking for mathematically rigorous tools, fuzzy logic and probability theory help a lot in this area. The race problem isn't that hard qualitatively, either: part of the reason we say Obama is a black man is because he says he is himself, another reason is because his skin is more on the darker side of the human skin scale, without prior tanning, than others. You can come up with other reasons I'm sure. You can also go down to the genetic context if you wish, but I'm sure you know the public has been beaten over the head enough times for the past however many decades that race in a genetic context isn't quite as visible as in a visual or cultural context. (Depending on your samples, anyway.)

lukeschlather 15y ago
I don't want 1-bit binaries. In fact, I want acknowledgement of the n-dimensional n-bit nature of the phenomena we call human beings. IQ and race both are trying to fit classifications that properly involve kilobytes if not megabytes of data into convenient oversimplifications that comfortably sit in a single byte.

barry-cotter 15y ago

Race and IQ are not scientifically precise tools. Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies We have analyzed genetic data for 326 microsatellite markers that were typed uniformly in a large multiethnic population-based sample of individuals as part of a study of the genetics of hypertension (Family Blood Pressure Program). Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1196372/

huxley 15y ago
So are you saying that if we did the same analysis across Africa, you'd find the same markers throughout the populations in "near-perfect correspondence" for people self-identifying racially as African? Or is this specific to the populations you studied in the United States?
- barry-cotter 15y ago
  Dude, I didn't do the study. Re: Sub Saharan Africans you can get a decent idea if someone has such ancestry from one allele. As one example, the Duffy Null allele (FY0) has a frequency of almost 100% of Sub-Saharan Africans, but occurs very infrequently in populations outside of this region. A person having this gene is thus more likely to have Sub-Saharan African ancestors.* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestry-informative_marker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestry-informative_marker Obviously the more such alleles you test for the better you'll be able to distinguish the populations. This page gives links to ~300 AIMs which allow you to distinguish ancestry pretty well within Europe. http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Ancestry_Informative_Marker http://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Ancestry_Informative_Marker Given that that's possible distinguishing continental ancestry seems to be a problem of application not theory.
tokenadult 15y ago

losvedir 15y ago

But in a study comparing disease rates among ethnic groups, African-Americans and Caucasians are treated as disjoint sets. Are you saying this isn't the case? I'm very curious, as I've heard before that certain diseases have a higher chance of occurring among different races (e.g. blacks are considered more at risk for gout, I think). Is that incorrect? If I took thousands of people who self-identified as white, and thousands who self-identified as black and I looked at the occurrence of gout in those populations: what would I see? My understanding is I'd see more gout in the black population. If so, wouldn't that somehow counter your statement that "in a genetic context, most African-Americans are just as much white as black"? Or perhaps, while most African-Americans are like that, some are in fact genetically more "black" in some sense, and they are the ones at a higher risk of gout? I don't really understand.

klenwell 15y ago
The question is: what do you gain by categorizing them as self-identified black or white as opposed to not categorizing them at all or categorizing them, say, by the presence of some gene cluster or genetic marker associated with gout? There is something to be gained, from a social or political angle. A public health advocate in government might say, "Hey, if we see this is a more common problem among a particular social community, maybe we can use the pre-existing channels of information distribution within that community to help them out." But if your study were not approaching it from this public health angle, then what's the point of correlating gout with this other quasi-scientific socio-political factor? There may be other more suitable categorizations where this particular African-American/Caucasian distinction breaks down.
- yummyfajitas 15y ago
  The question is: what do you gain by categorizing them as self-identified black or white as opposed to not categorizing them at all or categorizing them, say, by the presence of some gene cluster or genetic marker associated with gout? You gain many things. If the True outcome is more common in group A than group B, you get a prior (in the Bayesian sense) which can be measured at low cost. If you are attempting to identify the aforementioned genetic marker, you get to rule out genetic markers which are equally prevalent in both groups A and B. This narrows the search space considerably. Throwing information (even imperfect information) away is stupid.

temphn 15y ago

If you intern at 23andMe, it's a "hello world" level problem to correlate genetics and ancestry/race. Or just submit a blinded set of saliva samples and see whether their ancestry painting algorithm correctly identifies the pre-1492 ancestral locations of your four grandparents. This is about real raw data.