5 ms·

Biological explanations, while non-PC, do a rather good job of explaining the available evidence.

by thras 17y ago

radu_floricica 17y ago
I've seen precious little research on biological explanations. I'm betting all my money on culture. I'm in eastern Europe, and I feel parts of black culture familiar. And to be honest, I don't like it. We have here too a subculture in which people display gold chains and like songs about money and enemies, and pretty much to everybody's surprise it's socially determined, not ethnically.
- thras 17y ago
  You've seen precious little research? I assume you've actually looked? Read things like The Bell Curve, etc.?
  - radu_floricica 17y ago
    I'm not saying there is _no_ genetic component - I would be surprised if it wasn't. Just that compared to culture it's not important. I didn't read The Bell Curve, but as far as I know (and refreshed with a bit of googling) it states that IQ is partly hereditary - I don't think anybody doubts this - and makes it easy to go further and say some groups of people are smarter. This is most likely true, but still not so important. I just finished reading What Intelligence Tests Miss, by Keith Stanovich. Summary: critical reasoning skills are much much better predictor of academic and social success then IQ, and (that's the shocker) largely _not_ correlated with IQ. And this is just one of the factors which influence success. Even if a group is a few IQ points above or below average, the final effect is very unlikely to affect anything. edit: Oh, and yes, critical reasoning skills, even if they're not as well studied as IQ is (which is a shame, but it's being corrected) have a much much smaller genetic component and are easier to change during lifetime.
    - thras 17y ago
      These books come out every so often. 5 years ago "emotional intelligence" sold copy. IQ has a heritability coefficient of between .5 and .8. The rest seems to be non-shared environment. IQ is a very good predictor of academic success and future income (.7 to .8 correlation). There's a hell of a lot of research out there that has shown this again and again. I'd like to see Stanovich's definition of "critical reasoning" and the studies that show it to be both uncorrelated with IQ and a good predictor of academic success and future income. There just isn't that much left to predict -- two uncorrelated variables can't both have a correlation coefficient of .8. I'm going to bet that whatever he has defined as "critical reasoning" actually has a high correlation with IQ when measured.
      - radu_floricica 17y ago
        This is where I originally found him (from HN actually): http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stanovich1 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stanovich1 But you won't find much more in this, unfortunately. For the link (or lack thereof) between IQ and critical reasoning search for Stanovich, it's mostly his own research. For link between (parts of) critical reasoning and academic success look up Mischel's marshmallow experiment. Personally I never saw 0.8 correlations with IQ mentioned anywhere, so I'd be grateful for a pointer.
        thras 17y ago
        Impulse control is strongly linked with IQ. Also, which 0.8 correlation were you asking about?
        radu_floricica 17y ago
        Can you point me in a direction for source? Academic success and income, sorry.
        thras 17y ago
        Here's .8 for academic success: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W4M-4JDN6DP-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1019133181&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=d0b35c11d3cfc5adc9e36136d4b0f9f8 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi... I'm sorry about the number for income -- everyone has it at a correlation of .3 to .6. I believe that I was thinking of Lynn's numbers for national incomes, which is correlated at .7 or so to average IQ.
  - jbm 17y ago
    I can't say with certainty now, but when I was a genetics student in a fairly decent University, I remember we laughed at "The Bell Curve". It wasn't considered classic scientific reading. There are a million places to start if you want to find a critique, but you can start with Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man".
    - thras 17y ago
      There are a million critiques, many of which I've read. Some are better than others. By far the most ill-informed is The Mismeasure of Man. It's the worst of the bunch, written by an idiot. If you want a intelligent critique, I can point you to some. Now, Murray had problems in The Bell Curve -- he didn't properly understand regression to the mean, for example. But did you students actually read it before laughing? He was pretty solid on most of the genetic topics he covered (a small part of the book). Here's a good start to correcting your opinion about Gould: http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2009/01/a_week_with_gre.html http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2009/01/a_week_with_gre.h...
    - billswift 17y ago
      "Mismeasure of Man" was propaganda written by a Communist paleontologist who knew next to nothing of psychometrics. EDIT: Yes I'm a bit bitter about it, I read it and believed it for years, before learning better. I don't like wasting my time and I HATE being lied to (and even more being taken in).
  - yardie 17y ago
    You're whole scientific reasoning is based on....The Bell Curve?! I'd have a laugh too. And some of whatever you're drinking.
    - thras 17y ago
      Earl Grey.
miloshh 17y ago
Not really - blacks from Africa and the Carribean do very well academically. It is only the American blacks that do poorly. They have the same biology and often a better starting line than the immigrants. Why is that?
- thras 17y ago
  It's a selection effect. Only a select population comes to America for college. Tellingly, the average population there doesn't do very well at all at home. And over here, they only do well comparatively. Compare them to say, Eastern Europeans, and it's a different story. Not many Nobel prizes per capita, I'm afraid.
  - mynameishere 17y ago
    That you are looking at people who "emigrated" to Shaker Heights also suggests a selection effect. There's really no easy answer in this case. The problem isn't "why are blacks and whites different" but "why do blacks and whites who have similar outcomes still produce children who have different outcomes?" Three possibilities: 1. The premise is flawed; just being in Shaker Heights doesn't suggest significant uniformity. 2. Regression to the mean. 3. Culture, etc. But that begs the question of difference once again, but re: culture rather than achievements. Unless it's all hollywood's fault.
- yardie 17y ago
  I believe social factors play the biggest role and not biology. An example would be me. I am the last person in my family from the Caribbean islands. Academically, I am successful, my brother and sister (both US citizens) are wandering in and out of college. Because I was always treated different from them, socially and academically, I grew up with a different mindset. It was drilled into my head that I should feel lucky to be in the US. My siblings don't have that problem, they are part of the US. I notice that these social changes can happen to any group and is not specific to black/asian/hispanic. One of my high school friends, 2nd-generation India-American, is going to be in jail for a long time. He has fully absorbed the gangster culture even though according to most race-based sociological studies he shouldn't be in jail.
jbm 17y ago
Please, by all means, elucidate your "non-PC" ideas, with relevant, broad-based (not cherry-picked) evidence.
- thras 17y ago
  Human beings are still evolving. Much or most of what's been changing in recent evolutionary history have to do with brain development. When you examine things like the HapMap, you find that the gene distribution of these changes is different in different places. Yes, I mean different in that non-PC way. Are a couple of recent papers from Science good enough? http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5741/1717 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5741/1717 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5741/1720 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5741/1720
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
Chukwu 17y ago
Stupid and illogical ideas usually do a great job of explaining complex and subtle phenomena - its too bad that they're stupid and illogical. At least have the courage of your convictions and be brave enough in the truth of your pronouncements to say what you really mean: "White people are smarter than Black people on average, by their very nature". Perhaps you don't say it because, as is often the case, utterance of foolishness is its own reminder.
- johnnybgoode 17y ago
  Please do us the favor of explaining why you believe his idea is stupid and illogical. If you have just taken that on faith, that's not very helpful.
  - Chukwu 17y ago
    Simply - race is a bastardization of many historic cultural sentiments; it has almost no use in relation to human-being; http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1455.html http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1455.html
  - Chukwu 17y ago
    In hindsight, your question is far more stupid than his "idea". It's called the principle of insufficient reason; we aren't to suppose an a priori difference amongst type without proof - so the burden of proof is on the supposer. That you would ask me to explain why his idea is illogical, without first establishing that his claim is based in logic is justification enough for labeling your question stupid.
    - johnnybgoode 17y ago
      Haven't you simply assumed uniformity? By the way, you called it an "idea" first, not me. And it's a little disappointing for someone who's new here to be resorting to the use of insulting labels so quickly.

Biological explanations, while non-PC, do a rather good job of explaining the available evidence.

by thras 17y ago

Biological explanations, while non-PC, do a rather good job of explaining the available evidence.

I've seen precious little research on biological explanations. I'm betting all my money on culture. I'm in eastern Europe, and I feel parts of black culture familiar. And to be honest, I don't like it. We have here too a subculture in which people display gold chains and like songs about money and enemies, and pretty much to everybody's surprise it's socially determined, not ethnically.

thras 17y ago
You've seen precious little research? I assume you've actually looked? Read things like The Bell Curve, etc.?
- radu_floricica 17y ago
  I'm not saying there is _no_ genetic component - I would be surprised if it wasn't. Just that compared to culture it's not important. I didn't read The Bell Curve, but as far as I know (and refreshed with a bit of googling) it states that IQ is partly hereditary - I don't think anybody doubts this - and makes it easy to go further and say some groups of people are smarter. This is most likely true, but still not so important. I just finished reading What Intelligence Tests Miss, by Keith Stanovich. Summary: critical reasoning skills are much much better predictor of academic and social success then IQ, and (that's the shocker) largely _not_ correlated with IQ. And this is just one of the factors which influence success. Even if a group is a few IQ points above or below average, the final effect is very unlikely to affect anything. edit: Oh, and yes, critical reasoning skills, even if they're not as well studied as IQ is (which is a shame, but it's being corrected) have a much much smaller genetic component and are easier to change during lifetime.
  - thras 17y ago
    These books come out every so often. 5 years ago "emotional intelligence" sold copy. IQ has a heritability coefficient of between .5 and .8. The rest seems to be non-shared environment. IQ is a very good predictor of academic success and future income (.7 to .8 correlation). There's a hell of a lot of research out there that has shown this again and again. I'd like to see Stanovich's definition of "critical reasoning" and the studies that show it to be both uncorrelated with IQ and a good predictor of academic success and future income. There just isn't that much left to predict -- two uncorrelated variables can't both have a correlation coefficient of .8. I'm going to bet that whatever he has defined as "critical reasoning" actually has a high correlation with IQ when measured.
    - radu_floricica 17y ago
      This is where I originally found him (from HN actually): http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stanovich1 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stanovich1 But you won't find much more in this, unfortunately. For the link (or lack thereof) between IQ and critical reasoning search for Stanovich, it's mostly his own research. For link between (parts of) critical reasoning and academic success look up Mischel's marshmallow experiment. Personally I never saw 0.8 correlations with IQ mentioned anywhere, so I'd be grateful for a pointer.
      - thras 17y ago
        Impulse control is strongly linked with IQ. Also, which 0.8 correlation were you asking about?
        radu_floricica 17y ago
        Can you point me in a direction for source? Academic success and income, sorry.
        thras 17y ago
        Here's .8 for academic success: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W4M-4JDN6DP-1&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1019133181&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=d0b35c11d3cfc5adc9e36136d4b0f9f8 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi... I'm sorry about the number for income -- everyone has it at a correlation of .3 to .6. I believe that I was thinking of Lynn's numbers for national incomes, which is correlated at .7 or so to average IQ.
- jbm 17y ago
  I can't say with certainty now, but when I was a genetics student in a fairly decent University, I remember we laughed at "The Bell Curve". It wasn't considered classic scientific reading. There are a million places to start if you want to find a critique, but you can start with Gould's "The Mismeasure of Man".
  - thras 17y ago
    There are a million critiques, many of which I've read. Some are better than others. By far the most ill-informed is The Mismeasure of Man. It's the worst of the bunch, written by an idiot. If you want a intelligent critique, I can point you to some. Now, Murray had problems in The Bell Curve -- he didn't properly understand regression to the mean, for example. But did you students actually read it before laughing? He was pretty solid on most of the genetic topics he covered (a small part of the book). Here's a good start to correcting your opinion about Gould: http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2009/01/a_week_with_gre.html http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2009/01/a_week_with_gre.h...
  - billswift 17y ago
    "Mismeasure of Man" was propaganda written by a Communist paleontologist who knew next to nothing of psychometrics. EDIT: Yes I'm a bit bitter about it, I read it and believed it for years, before learning better. I don't like wasting my time and I HATE being lied to (and even more being taken in).
- yardie 17y ago
  You're whole scientific reasoning is based on....The Bell Curve?! I'd have a laugh too. And some of whatever you're drinking.
  - thras 17y ago
    Earl Grey.

miloshh 17y ago

Not really - blacks from Africa and the Carribean do very well academically. It is only the American blacks that do poorly. They have the same biology and often a better starting line than the immigrants. Why is that?

thras 17y ago
It's a selection effect. Only a select population comes to America for college. Tellingly, the average population there doesn't do very well at all at home. And over here, they only do well comparatively. Compare them to say, Eastern Europeans, and it's a different story. Not many Nobel prizes per capita, I'm afraid.
- mynameishere 17y ago
  That you are looking at people who "emigrated" to Shaker Heights also suggests a selection effect. There's really no easy answer in this case. The problem isn't "why are blacks and whites different" but "why do blacks and whites who have similar outcomes still produce children who have different outcomes?" Three possibilities: 1. The premise is flawed; just being in Shaker Heights doesn't suggest significant uniformity. 2. Regression to the mean. 3. Culture, etc. But that begs the question of difference once again, but re: culture rather than achievements. Unless it's all hollywood's fault.
yardie 17y ago
I believe social factors play the biggest role and not biology. An example would be me. I am the last person in my family from the Caribbean islands. Academically, I am successful, my brother and sister (both US citizens) are wandering in and out of college. Because I was always treated different from them, socially and academically, I grew up with a different mindset. It was drilled into my head that I should feel lucky to be in the US. My siblings don't have that problem, they are part of the US. I notice that these social changes can happen to any group and is not specific to black/asian/hispanic. One of my high school friends, 2nd-generation India-American, is going to be in jail for a long time. He has fully absorbed the gangster culture even though according to most race-based sociological studies he shouldn't be in jail.

jbm 17y ago

Please, by all means, elucidate your "non-PC" ideas, with relevant, broad-based (not cherry-picked) evidence.

thras 17y ago
Human beings are still evolving. Much or most of what's been changing in recent evolutionary history have to do with brain development. When you examine things like the HapMap, you find that the gene distribution of these changes is different in different places. Yes, I mean different in that non-PC way. Are a couple of recent papers from Science good enough? http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5741/1717 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5741/1717 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5741/1720 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/309/5741/1720
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

Chukwu 17y ago

Stupid and illogical ideas usually do a great job of explaining complex and subtle phenomena - its too bad that they're stupid and illogical. At least have the courage of your convictions and be brave enough in the truth of your pronouncements to say what you really mean: "White people are smarter than Black people on average, by their very nature". Perhaps you don't say it because, as is often the case, utterance of foolishness is its own reminder.

johnnybgoode 17y ago
Please do us the favor of explaining why you believe his idea is stupid and illogical. If you have just taken that on faith, that's not very helpful.
- Chukwu 17y ago
  Simply - race is a bastardization of many historic cultural sentiments; it has almost no use in relation to human-being; http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1455.html http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1455.html
- Chukwu 17y ago
  In hindsight, your question is far more stupid than his "idea". It's called the principle of insufficient reason; we aren't to suppose an a priori difference amongst type without proof - so the burden of proof is on the supposer. That you would ask me to explain why his idea is illogical, without first establishing that his claim is based in logic is justification enough for labeling your question stupid.
  - johnnybgoode 17y ago
    Haven't you simply assumed uniformity? By the way, you called it an "idea" first, not me. And it's a little disappointing for someone who's new here to be resorting to the use of insulting labels so quickly.