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>The scientific truth is that we have no data either way that can even begin to address whether one group is innately better than any other. The reason being th

>The scientific truth is that we have no data either way that can even begin to address whether one group is innately better than any other. The reason being that we have no way to separate out the impact of racism and history from innate ability. I'm sorry but this is blatantly false. "Innately better" is a vague and inflammatory term, but if you define the measure, we can use straightforward statistical techniques to find correlations. Simple example: East Africans outperform others in long-distance running. In sprinting, west Africans outperform. We can separate confounders out because we have large data sets. You don't have to just try to compare populations as a mass. We can, for example, look at performance only of black people raised in white families. Or rich black people. Or white people raised in black families. Etc. Taking the example of IQ, which is the most important statistical measure in these discussions, we can also look at poor populations with high IQ, like Jews (at certain historical times) or various groups of people from East Asia. Vietnamese boat people are a great comparison. It has to be explained how they were so successful despite facing the very similar or arguably worse challenges (e.g. holocaust) as other population groups. Or look at subgroups of black people, like Nigerian immigrants to America, who have generally better social outcomes than average whites. All this has been studied to death for decades and many conclusions are well-supported by statistics (at least as well-supported as lots of noncontroversial findings).

tacitusarc 4y ago
All the studies I’ve seen of these attributes fail to control for external factors in a way I find convincing.
tptacek 4y ago
The logic of this comment is that there is somewhere a celestial point tally system that accumulates the genetic trauma of past generations, catapulting Jewish people to the top of the leaderboard for their racial experience of the Holocaust, and giving the lie to argument that generations of ongoing discrimination --- redlining ended within some of our lifetimes! --- and low SES conditions for disfavored minorities has any impact on their scholastic performance. It is, to put it mildly, not at all well established how SES and assessed intelligence interact.
btilly 4y ago
Separating out confounders is easier said than done. When you look at the performance of black people raised in white families they are still exposed to media, teachers, and peers who have expectations of them based on appearance. Even with that population, racism remains a confounder. Likewise while you can look at historical Jews as a poor population with high IQ, you have the confounder that even then Jews placed a strong cultural value on education and intelligence. And therefore, even while they were poor, Jews were likely to work to improve themselves on both. Therefore this leaves open the question of how much of the difference is due to this cultural factor versus innate genetics. In the case of Vietnamese boat people, we have families that literally risked their lives for a chance at a better future. This attitude taken to a new country suggests that we should expect them to make the most of any opportunity that they can find. How much of their subsequent success is due to this attitude? On Nigerian immigrants, I'd need to see a source to believe your "generally better social outcomes" comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Americans puts the 2018 median household income for members of the Nigerian diaspora into the USA at $68,658. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-266.htmlputs https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-26... the median household income for white non-Hispanic households at $70,642. At least on the easiest to check social outcome, whites are still doing better. That said, Nigerians who arrive here tend to be motivated and well-educated. I'm not sure how you can distinguish that from genetics. Doubly so since the poster child for racist claims about IQ is the poor performance of US blacks. Blacks whose African ancestry includes a significant share of Nigerian. So yes, we can cite volumes of statistics. And it is easy for find lots of books like The Bell Curve that actually do. But when you dig in you won't find a single statistic whose difference can be clearly attributed to genetics rather than some cultural factor.
- hijghula 4y ago
  Culture largely flows from genetics, so I'm not quite sure what you are getting at.
  - neerajsi 4y ago
    Can you elaborate on your statement? I think it is more likely that culture drives genetics. If you have a group whose culture favors intermarriage, where marriage is encouraged and even arranged between families with intellectual success, and which enables the resulting couples to have many children, that would tend to drive the genetics of the group. Sexual selection is tied to culture.

tacitusarc 4y ago

All the studies I’ve seen of these attributes fail to control for external factors in a way I find convincing.

tptacek 4y ago

The logic of this comment is that there is somewhere a celestial point tally system that accumulates the genetic trauma of past generations, catapulting Jewish people to the top of the leaderboard for their racial experience of the Holocaust, and giving the lie to argument that generations of ongoing discrimination --- redlining ended within some of our lifetimes! --- and low SES conditions for disfavored minorities has any impact on their scholastic performance. It is, to put it mildly, not at all well established how SES and assessed intelligence interact.

btilly 4y ago

Separating out confounders is easier said than done. When you look at the performance of black people raised in white families they are still exposed to media, teachers, and peers who have expectations of them based on appearance. Even with that population, racism remains a confounder. Likewise while you can look at historical Jews as a poor population with high IQ, you have the confounder that even then Jews placed a strong cultural value on education and intelligence. And therefore, even while they were poor, Jews were likely to work to improve themselves on both. Therefore this leaves open the question of how much of the difference is due to this cultural factor versus innate genetics. In the case of Vietnamese boat people, we have families that literally risked their lives for a chance at a better future. This attitude taken to a new country suggests that we should expect them to make the most of any opportunity that they can find. How much of their subsequent success is due to this attitude? On Nigerian immigrants, I'd need to see a source to believe your "generally better social outcomes" comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigerian_Americans puts the 2018 median household income for members of the Nigerian diaspora into the USA at $68,658. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-266.htmlputs https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p60-26... the median household income for white non-Hispanic households at $70,642. At least on the easiest to check social outcome, whites are still doing better. That said, Nigerians who arrive here tend to be motivated and well-educated. I'm not sure how you can distinguish that from genetics. Doubly so since the poster child for racist claims about IQ is the poor performance of US blacks. Blacks whose African ancestry includes a significant share of Nigerian. So yes, we can cite volumes of statistics. And it is easy for find lots of books like The Bell Curve that actually do. But when you dig in you won't find a single statistic whose difference can be clearly attributed to genetics rather than some cultural factor.

hijghula 4y ago
Culture largely flows from genetics, so I'm not quite sure what you are getting at.
- neerajsi 4y ago
  Can you elaborate on your statement? I think it is more likely that culture drives genetics. If you have a group whose culture favors intermarriage, where marriage is encouraged and even arranged between families with intellectual success, and which enables the resulting couples to have many children, that would tend to drive the genetics of the group. Sexual selection is tied to culture.