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While it's uplifting story and I can easily believe that higher lead exposure for Black kids over white kids led to lower IQ results in tests in that specific c

While it's uplifting story and I can easily believe that higher lead exposure for Black kids over white kids led to lower IQ results in tests in that specific case, there are no school districts in US with no gap between white and Black students. So far there has not been identified single parameter that explains White/Black gap and not for the lack of trying.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Isn't there an IQ gap between poor people and wealthy? Isn't a large chunck of that attributable to healthcare, nutricion, schooling, stress, pollution, etc, etc.? Aren't those same factors going to show up in racial differences?
- ruined 5y ago
  yes, yes, yes. stress in particular has a measurable impact on cognition, behavior, and motor development. even prenatal maternal stress. https://www.nber.org/papers/w18422 https://www.nber.org/papers/w18422 parental leave, cash and food support, and other assistance during pregnancy and childhood, are probably one of the easiest policy wins towards improving outcomes for a huge segment of the population. better schools with smaller class sizes and individualized support for each student would be the next step.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    Having it repeatedly drilled into you your entire life from birth that you'll never succeed without the pity and generosity of a few benevolent saviors among a sea of hateful racists who are this this all-powerful/privileged alien race that surrounds you (assuming you manage to dodge all the police bullets flying at you) because the system has been created to keep you down, and therefore any success you do have you owe to those people, would be extremely stressful and demoralizing. You could be on to something here. I've seen many other factors like education and wealth being adjusted for but not this. I wonder if anyone has attempted to quantify the damage this causes.
streptomycin 5y ago
Yeah, the changes in IQ described in studies on lead exposure are much smaller than gaps between races.
wincy 5y ago
I mean in an interview Steven Pinker himself said there’s some things that we may not want to know, because if the parameter is wholly outside of human control it’d just contribute to racism and serve no useful purpose. Also even if a study found parameters like that, it would never be published as the scientists career would absolutely be ruined.
- StingyJelly 5y ago
  Steven Pinker is right in this regard and so was Plato: … The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons … they are stories not to be repeated in our State …
  - swamp40 5y ago
    I had always thought Plato's argument was a reductio ad absurdum. Looking at it now, it seems he WAS actually arguing FOR censoring stories of the bad behavior of the gods AND FOR censoring Homer's Odyssey. Sigh.
    - StingyJelly 5y ago
      He was, because those stories and ideas, if widely known, would threaten the state built on the narrative of virtuous gods and deviations from that narrative would lead to worse outcomes for everyone. Our state is built on the narratives of democracy and equality thus while those factors have ability to undermine the narrative (as we've seen in not so distant history) we have to censor them and do the research behind closed doors, otherwise we risk more damage than any possible benefit.
- hunter2_ 5y ago
  That's a hell of a minefield, but I'll bite: might a few more generations in our increasingly globalized world (airplane travel, etc.) cause a "melting pot" where pedigree devolves into a homogenous blend that puts everyone on the same playing field? Hard to predict, and it's kind of scary (enjoying the cuisines and other cultural differences is quite special) but the equity would be fascinating.
austincheney 5y ago
Where can I read more about this? I suspect the deviation would most largely result from the parameters of a given test itself. Redefining the test content, subject matter, test environments, conditions, and/or other factors may grow or shrink that gap. If that is so there is cause for research to determine why certain test factors are preferential and if removing such preferential factors does/does not result in higher quality student performance.
twofornone 5y ago
>So far there has not been identified single parameter that explains White/Black gap and not for the lack of trying. Actually there has been, we're just not allowed to apply the components of the explanation to this context, so we continue on a fruitless search in every other direction, spending money, contorting society, and increasingly tearing down achievers in a misguided attempt to bring up the underperformers. We know of hundreds of genes which are strongly correlated with IQ and directly influence behavior, and we know how those genes are distributed among various demographics. The science itself is not controversial or uncertain. But the logical conclusions are social and career suicide.
- l33t2328 5y ago
  Your claims seem to be both racist and unfounded.
  - twofornone 5y ago
    Whether you think a fact is "racist" has no bearing on whether it is true. Do you deny that there are measurable, meaningful genetic differences between groups of people? How can you justify the belief that adaptation to drastically different environments over thousands of generations after leaving Africa magically stopped above the shoulders? What about geographically isolated interbreeding with other homonids? Those genes are also unevenly distributed; why would these genes not influence cognition? One striking example is the so called warrior gene, which completely alters the metabolism of monoamines, like dopamine and serotonin, which have direct influences over reward seeking, mood, and behavior. This mutation is nearly absent in many populations. There are plenty of other such unevenly distributed variations. Note that this does not imply that all people from group X are Y. But it does neatly explain, at least in part, multimodal statistical distributions like those we see consistently reflected IQ and crime frequency.
    - l33t2328 5y ago
      What you’re saying is simply not a fact. It’s a hilariously wrong assertion that could generously be regarded as an opinion, albeit a racist one.
throwawayciv651 5y ago
Along with replies by ’ClumsyPilot and ’ruined, remember that Brown v. Board of Education was passed only in 1954 and 1954 is just yesterday. Also see this HN comment from a day ago on how much a black person had to fear even in 1980: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30061511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30061511 An excelelnt book regarding these is 'Simple Justice by Richard Kluger https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Justice-Education-Americas-Struggle/dp/1400030617 https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Justice-Education-Americas-Str... Another book focusing on computing is 'Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing by Jane Margolis https://www.amazon.com/Stuck-Shallow-End-Education-Computing/dp/0262514044 https://www.amazon.com/Stuck-Shallow-End-Education-Computing... There is a wealth of info regarding these things, see redlining for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

Isn't there an IQ gap between poor people and wealthy? Isn't a large chunck of that attributable to healthcare, nutricion, schooling, stress, pollution, etc, etc.? Aren't those same factors going to show up in racial differences?

ruined 5y ago
yes, yes, yes. stress in particular has a measurable impact on cognition, behavior, and motor development. even prenatal maternal stress. https://www.nber.org/papers/w18422 https://www.nber.org/papers/w18422 parental leave, cash and food support, and other assistance during pregnancy and childhood, are probably one of the easiest policy wins towards improving outcomes for a huge segment of the population. better schools with smaller class sizes and individualized support for each student would be the next step.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Having it repeatedly drilled into you your entire life from birth that you'll never succeed without the pity and generosity of a few benevolent saviors among a sea of hateful racists who are this this all-powerful/privileged alien race that surrounds you (assuming you manage to dodge all the police bullets flying at you) because the system has been created to keep you down, and therefore any success you do have you owe to those people, would be extremely stressful and demoralizing. You could be on to something here. I've seen many other factors like education and wealth being adjusted for but not this. I wonder if anyone has attempted to quantify the damage this causes.

streptomycin 5y ago

Yeah, the changes in IQ described in studies on lead exposure are much smaller than gaps between races.

wincy 5y ago

I mean in an interview Steven Pinker himself said there’s some things that we may not want to know, because if the parameter is wholly outside of human control it’d just contribute to racism and serve no useful purpose. Also even if a study found parameters like that, it would never be published as the scientists career would absolutely be ruined.

StingyJelly 5y ago
Steven Pinker is right in this regard and so was Plato: … The doings of Cronus, and the sufferings which in turn his son inflicted upon him, even if they were true, ought certainly not to be lightly told to young and thoughtless persons … they are stories not to be repeated in our State …
- swamp40 5y ago
  I had always thought Plato's argument was a reductio ad absurdum. Looking at it now, it seems he WAS actually arguing FOR censoring stories of the bad behavior of the gods AND FOR censoring Homer's Odyssey. Sigh.
  - StingyJelly 5y ago
    He was, because those stories and ideas, if widely known, would threaten the state built on the narrative of virtuous gods and deviations from that narrative would lead to worse outcomes for everyone. Our state is built on the narratives of democracy and equality thus while those factors have ability to undermine the narrative (as we've seen in not so distant history) we have to censor them and do the research behind closed doors, otherwise we risk more damage than any possible benefit.
hunter2_ 5y ago
That's a hell of a minefield, but I'll bite: might a few more generations in our increasingly globalized world (airplane travel, etc.) cause a "melting pot" where pedigree devolves into a homogenous blend that puts everyone on the same playing field? Hard to predict, and it's kind of scary (enjoying the cuisines and other cultural differences is quite special) but the equity would be fascinating.

austincheney 5y ago

Where can I read more about this? I suspect the deviation would most largely result from the parameters of a given test itself. Redefining the test content, subject matter, test environments, conditions, and/or other factors may grow or shrink that gap. If that is so there is cause for research to determine why certain test factors are preferential and if removing such preferential factors does/does not result in higher quality student performance.

twofornone 5y ago

>So far there has not been identified single parameter that explains White/Black gap and not for the lack of trying. Actually there has been, we're just not allowed to apply the components of the explanation to this context, so we continue on a fruitless search in every other direction, spending money, contorting society, and increasingly tearing down achievers in a misguided attempt to bring up the underperformers. We know of hundreds of genes which are strongly correlated with IQ and directly influence behavior, and we know how those genes are distributed among various demographics. The science itself is not controversial or uncertain. But the logical conclusions are social and career suicide.

l33t2328 5y ago
Your claims seem to be both racist and unfounded.
- twofornone 5y ago
  Whether you think a fact is "racist" has no bearing on whether it is true. Do you deny that there are measurable, meaningful genetic differences between groups of people? How can you justify the belief that adaptation to drastically different environments over thousands of generations after leaving Africa magically stopped above the shoulders? What about geographically isolated interbreeding with other homonids? Those genes are also unevenly distributed; why would these genes not influence cognition? One striking example is the so called warrior gene, which completely alters the metabolism of monoamines, like dopamine and serotonin, which have direct influences over reward seeking, mood, and behavior. This mutation is nearly absent in many populations. There are plenty of other such unevenly distributed variations. Note that this does not imply that all people from group X are Y. But it does neatly explain, at least in part, multimodal statistical distributions like those we see consistently reflected IQ and crime frequency.
  - l33t2328 5y ago
    What you’re saying is simply not a fact. It’s a hilariously wrong assertion that could generously be regarded as an opinion, albeit a racist one.

throwawayciv651 5y ago

Along with replies by ’ClumsyPilot and ’ruined, remember that Brown v. Board of Education was passed only in 1954 and 1954 is just yesterday. Also see this HN comment from a day ago on how much a black person had to fear even in 1980: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30061511 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30061511 An excelelnt book regarding these is 'Simple Justice by Richard Kluger https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Justice-Education-Americas-Struggle/dp/1400030617 https://www.amazon.com/Simple-Justice-Education-Americas-Str... Another book focusing on computing is 'Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing by Jane Margolis https://www.amazon.com/Stuck-Shallow-End-Education-Computing/dp/0262514044 https://www.amazon.com/Stuck-Shallow-End-Education-Computing... There is a wealth of info regarding these things, see redlining for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining