4 ms·

Wikipedia cites numerous studies on heritability, showing that IQ starts off largely environmental (0.2 heritability at birth) but ends up eventually moving to

by regal 13y ago

Wikipedia cites numerous studies on heritability, showing that IQ starts off largely environmental (0.2 heritability at birth) but ends up eventually moving to what its been genetically predetermined to be (0.8 heritability in adulthood).[1] IQ seems to accurately measure abstract reasoning abilities, pattern recognition abilities, and memory retention. That's what most people think of when they say intelligence (though there are always efforts to "redefine" intelligence to make it a more politically correct / egalitarian term - at which point, you're not really talking about "intelligence" but rather "semantics" and how you want to define a word in the English lexicon). The IQ "debate" reminds me very much of the race debate, that race "doesn't exist" and is purely a social construct with no genetic basis. I keep waiting for someone to take a black or Asian baby and place it with white parents for it to grow up and have white skin and a pointy nose and blond hair. So far I haven't seen it. We have no trouble understanding that the differences between, say, a sheep and a cow are due to genetics; why is it so hard for us to wrap our minds around the fact that most of the differences between one another come down to genes, too? Methinks it comes down to the old philosophical debate of free will vs. predetermination, and the innate fear many people have of the idea that you can do anything or be anything if you only work at it hard enough. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Heritability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Heritabi...

einhverfr 13y ago
> Methinks it comes down to the old philosophical debate of free will vs. predetermination, and the innate fear many people have of the idea that you can do anything or be anything if you only work at it hard enough. For the record, I don't think it works that way either. I am largely a fan of the idea that F. M. Cornford reconstructed from Greek myth ("From Religion to Philosophy"), that we have free will within a granted partition of fate, or lot of life, which is limited in various ways and repaid when we die. From this view, fate is a domain we must strive to achieve, and thus not inevitable. > The IQ "debate" reminds me very much of the race debate, that race "doesn't exist" and is purely a social construct with no genetic basis. I keep waiting for someone to take a black or Asian baby and place it with white parents for it to grow up and have white skin and a pointy nose and blond hair. So far I haven't seen it. Race is problematic in a number of levels. Yes it is a social construct with no real genetic basis, at least as we have constructed it. This doesn't mean however that you can't identify genetic commonalities among different groups. We could, for example, just as easily say that the racial test is drinking milk as an adult, and therefore Mongolians and Scandinavians are of the Milk-Drinking Race, while Italians and Chinese are of the Cheese-Only race. And before you say "but skin is more visible" it is worth noting that eating together and food taboos are historically much closer to ethnicity than skin color is. The problem though I think isn't a question of mere egalitarianism. There are people who are for all intents and purposes, greater visionaries, better at recognizing patterns that will change the world, and so forth than others. IQ tests, IMO will never be able to capture that for very fundamental epistemological reasons. This isn't to say that IQ isn't useful but as long as you are weighing different skills against eachother, assuming the only pattern that works (regarding pattern recognition) is the one the testers think is right, and so forth, what you have is a number which is fundamentally culturally constructed and fails to capture real genius.
- omonra 13y ago
  "Race is problematic in a number of levels. Yes it is a social construct with no real genetic basis, at least as we have constructed it." Sorry, what? Are you talking about how things are on Earth or some other planet? Perhaps a cursory look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics might help.
  - einhverfr 13y ago
    So if race is fully based on genetics would it be equally correct to say "Barack Obama is white" as it is to say "Barack Obama is black?" Why or why not? And which matches our social constructs?
    - ars 13y ago
      > So if race is fully based on genetics would it be equally correct to say "Barack Obama is white" as it is to say "Barack Obama is black?" Yes, of course. He's a mixed race. I don't know why people call him the first black president - he's exactly half and half, with equal claim to either race. Unless you subscribe to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule
      - einhverfr 13y ago
        > Yes, of course. He's a mixed race. I don't know why people call him the first black president - he's exactly half and half, with equal claim to either race. You have just shown that social construction of race is not the same as your biological base. If most of the population agrees "he is black and not white" and biology says otherwise, then the social construct is unmoored from biology. I don't think one has to go as far as a one drop rule, though that was a construction that has existed in some parts of the country at some times (as have other tests, like the brown paper bag test). Things are more nuanced today and it would be more accurate to say he is black because: 1. He claims to be black, and 2. Society recognizes his claim as legitimate. Since these are organic social constructs, they don't need hard, strict, articulable rules any more than English grammar does (I suppose someone, probably me (note the case shift contrary to formal grammars), will have to point the reader to actual articles by linguists on this topic).

by regal 13y ago

einhverfr 13y ago

> Methinks it comes down to the old philosophical debate of free will vs. predetermination, and the innate fear many people have of the idea that you can do anything or be anything if you only work at it hard enough. For the record, I don't think it works that way either. I am largely a fan of the idea that F. M. Cornford reconstructed from Greek myth ("From Religion to Philosophy"), that we have free will within a granted partition of fate, or lot of life, which is limited in various ways and repaid when we die. From this view, fate is a domain we must strive to achieve, and thus not inevitable. > The IQ "debate" reminds me very much of the race debate, that race "doesn't exist" and is purely a social construct with no genetic basis. I keep waiting for someone to take a black or Asian baby and place it with white parents for it to grow up and have white skin and a pointy nose and blond hair. So far I haven't seen it. Race is problematic in a number of levels. Yes it is a social construct with no real genetic basis, at least as we have constructed it. This doesn't mean however that you can't identify genetic commonalities among different groups. We could, for example, just as easily say that the racial test is drinking milk as an adult, and therefore Mongolians and Scandinavians are of the Milk-Drinking Race, while Italians and Chinese are of the Cheese-Only race. And before you say "but skin is more visible" it is worth noting that eating together and food taboos are historically much closer to ethnicity than skin color is. The problem though I think isn't a question of mere egalitarianism. There are people who are for all intents and purposes, greater visionaries, better at recognizing patterns that will change the world, and so forth than others. IQ tests, IMO will never be able to capture that for very fundamental epistemological reasons. This isn't to say that IQ isn't useful but as long as you are weighing different skills against eachother, assuming the only pattern that works (regarding pattern recognition) is the one the testers think is right, and so forth, what you have is a number which is fundamentally culturally constructed and fails to capture real genius.

omonra 13y ago
"Race is problematic in a number of levels. Yes it is a social construct with no real genetic basis, at least as we have constructed it." Sorry, what? Are you talking about how things are on Earth or some other planet? Perhaps a cursory look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_genetics might help.
- einhverfr 13y ago
  So if race is fully based on genetics would it be equally correct to say "Barack Obama is white" as it is to say "Barack Obama is black?" Why or why not? And which matches our social constructs?
  - ars 13y ago
    > So if race is fully based on genetics would it be equally correct to say "Barack Obama is white" as it is to say "Barack Obama is black?" Yes, of course. He's a mixed race. I don't know why people call him the first black president - he's exactly half and half, with equal claim to either race. Unless you subscribe to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_drop_rule
    - einhverfr 13y ago
      > Yes, of course. He's a mixed race. I don't know why people call him the first black president - he's exactly half and half, with equal claim to either race. You have just shown that social construction of race is not the same as your biological base. If most of the population agrees "he is black and not white" and biology says otherwise, then the social construct is unmoored from biology. I don't think one has to go as far as a one drop rule, though that was a construction that has existed in some parts of the country at some times (as have other tests, like the brown paper bag test). Things are more nuanced today and it would be more accurate to say he is black because: 1. He claims to be black, and 2. Society recognizes his claim as legitimate. Since these are organic social constructs, they don't need hard, strict, articulable rules any more than English grammar does (I suppose someone, probably me (note the case shift contrary to formal grammars), will have to point the reader to actual articles by linguists on this topic).