John Derbyshire on IQ
John published a set of three articles on NRO Online that I consider to be well worth reading and discussing, since it connects several topics that I’ve been talking about in here for some time–real differences between groups of humans, the impact that those differences have on cultures and the directions that improvement in human beings should take. With any luck, they should lead to a spirited discussion in here.
Folks, please, please, please, read all the articles and hit one or two of his links before you explode in outrage. He talks about the reasons for your gut reaction within the articles, as a matter of fact.
The world will be a better place, soon. In order for it to be so, we have to be willing to look at hard facts about it.
Tom
Comment by tet on 28 November 2007 at 1:37 pm:
As an aside that refers to some of my other transhuman posts and a question of the week from the last month, I give you…
clinical trials of the first anagathic.
Have a nice eternity.
Tom
Comment by Brian on 28 November 2007 at 2:11 pm:
This is something I would absolutely love to argue with you about, Tom, but it’s the last two weeks before exams, so I’m gonna resist the urge. Maybe this should be brought up again sometime after, say, December 17th at 3:30pm, when I’m done with everything?
Comment by tet on 28 November 2007 at 2:14 pm:
It’s a date, Brian. I was impressed enough that I didn’t want to lose the links.
After all, after the 14th I have nothing but time.
Tom
Comment by kofi the 'in science you have to walk the walk' so sayeth the flying spaghetti monster on 28 November 2007 at 2:38 pm:
I like the comparison he draws to the intelligent design crowd.
Comment by kofi the 'in science you have to walk the walk' so sayeth the flying spaghetti monster on 28 November 2007 at 2:38 pm:
I like the comparison he draws to the intelligent design crowd.
Comment by kofi the 'in science you have to walk the walk' so sayeth the flying spaghetti monster on 28 November 2007 at 2:38 pm:
I like the comparison he draws to the intelligent design crowd.
Comment by kofi the it all makes sense now on 28 November 2007 at 2:41 pm:
Oh and according to the various wikipedia entries he links to, the average American IQ is 98.
Comment by Hanno on 28 November 2007 at 5:38 pm:
I, like Brian, don’t have a ton of time for a long dissertation, but I read the articles and some of the more pertinent links and had a few observations.
1) IQ may be partially inheritable or innate, but the fact that average scores have trended upward two to three points each decade since testing began suggests that IQ is measuring learned skills at least in part.
2) The genetic explanation is flimsy because if it were a significant factor in explaining the racial gap central and south americans (as well as native americans) would have comparable IQ scores to Koreans and Northern Chinese because they come from generally the same ancestral population. Inuit and Alaskan Eskimos would be expected to have similar IQ scores to Siberians because they’re later migrants.
3)Any comparison of IQ scores will be incomplete until we get at least a significant number of people in most countries to take the test. This isn’t a limitation I fault the “realist” bunch for, but just a general problem with cross-population comparisons. Also, on a side note, the fact that they infer a country’s average IQ when none is available based on the IQs of countries around it as well as similar Socio-economic countries strikes me as suspicious because the socio-economic factor shouldn’t much come into play if it’s genetic.
Comment by Allan Niemerg on 28 November 2007 at 11:01 pm:
I read the articles. I’ve followed this debate a little as it has made it’s way around the blogosphere.
Once one gets past the controversy of whether one can question racial intelligence differences in polite company, one has to ask, what is so fascinating about this?
Assuming that there exists a difference, even a large one, between the average IQ levels of races, it doesn’t mean very much.
First of all, an average is just that, an average. Averages say so little that they are effectively useless as a way of thinking about individual people. Second, averages don’t predict the extremities; it is perfectly consistent with a race that has a lower average IQ to have more high-IQ people than a race that has a higher average(it depends on the variance). Additionally, averages say almost nothing about the nature/nuture debate. I’ve read some arguments that the IQ evidence suggests a DNA basis for the difference. So far, it’s all been pretty bogus; I doubt it is even possible to control for the many sociological variables to even get close to a good answer. Maybe DNA testing will give us an answer, but I doubt it will be terribly earth-shattering.
Bottom-line: This uninteresting debate isn’t about science, but about what people think (or want) it to mean.
Next topic please.
Comment by kofi the disclaiming it as unimportant is irresponsible as irrationally crying foul on 28 November 2007 at 11:16 pm:
I think Allan dismisses this too quickly. There are obvious policy implications. The article pointed out school testing that is influenced by average scores. Whether its a male/female difference in certain subjects, or a white/black/yellow/brown difference in certain subjects, we let these measurements of the ‘average’ impact our policies. Prison populations, arrest and traffic stop ratios - subject to policy determinations. Professional promotion and school admission - subject to policy determinations. These are just a few (very broad and important) areas that are entirely impacted by the assumption that ‘on average’ everyone should be represented equally.
It’s an issue that should be studied because accurate, scientific resolution would greatly influence a wide variety of social policies.
Comment by Hanno on 28 November 2007 at 11:46 pm:
“It’s an issue that should be studied because accurate, scientific resolution would greatly influence a wide variety of social policies.”
Yes, they’d likely provide legitimization for differential treatment and discrimination and that’s why so many people are wary of even discussing it.
Comment by kofi the liberals... no shame. on 29 November 2007 at 8:18 am:
Yes, they’d likely provide legitimization for differential treatment and discrimination and that’s why so many people are wary of even discussing it.
Differential treatment how? By subjecting everyone to the same standards and not assuming different results are caused by some inherent oppression by ‘the white man?’ Discrimination in what way? By being able to admit, hire, and promote the best qualified individuals without having to worry about being accused of racism?
You essentially admit that you do not care about the legitimacy of the science — just another case of pick and choose, eh?
Comment by Hanno on 29 November 2007 at 8:52 am:
Quite the contrary Kofi. How to put this delicately…a certain segment of white people have been trying to prove the white man’s superiority over everyone else since colonization began at least because it provided legitimization for what were quite brutal and nasty things. The fear isn’t that good science will prove this right, it’s that people will latch onto inconclusive and/or incomplete data and use that to justify denying immigrants from a certain country or to justify existing unfair treatment. The fear is that people will be further stereotyped as members of one of the “lesser” groups and accordingly given less generous treatment than those of other races.
Of course, all of this requires that the studies answer the three observations I made initially. What you are essentially asking is for us to base public policy on a very contentious and suspect theory because it will remain a theory until the data are much better than they are now. We may base policy on theories all the time, but to base policy on a theory that has uncomfortable echoes of the white man’s burden instantly makes it look in the eyes of many like those promoting it are just racists (whether it’s true or not).
Honestly man, most people aren’t lawyers, doctors, or engineers and don’t care much for nuance. They hear “on average blacks have lower IQs than whites” and they hear “blacks are stupider than whites.” It’ll reinforce existing stereotypes and employers could legitimately discriminate in interviews etc by saying that “statistically this candidate is less likely to have a high IQ on account of his race. It’s not that I don’t like him, it’s just business.” Sure that’s extreme and probably poorly worded, but you get the idea. It’s tricky because of what people would do with it and how they’d interpret it, not for the data itself.
Comment by tet on 29 November 2007 at 10:17 am:
Actually, since the evidence seems to show that white folks test lower than East Asians, this is a really tricky subject for the boys down at Stormfront.
Answering Hanno’s three questions:
1) Absolutely possible, Hanno. I think that the nature/nurture argument is a strong one. However, there is no reson to necessarily assume that the reason that IQ scores are rising is due to the test measuring learned skills.
Several possiblities immediately come to mind: improved nutrition could allow brains to function better (this could explain lower scores in third-world countries and inner-cities, as a matter of fact;) some of the sample populations could have received coaching in how to take the tests (this certainly is present in SAT and ACT scores–the children of the wealthy take Kaplan courses to increase their liklihood of getting into a good university;) and the tests could change over time, artificially increasing or decreasing the scores with no real change in intelligence at all.
2) The thirty thousand years that the Native Americans have been in the Western Hemisphere are certainly sufficient in my mind to have made significant alterations in their genome vis-a-vis East Asians. You also cannot apply such examinations to the present populations of Mexico, Central American and South American states because the variations in the mixtures are too great. Mexico has 10% Spanish, 30% NA and 60% with varying degrees of each (plus a German mercenary or two, like the Ronstadt family.)
I’d be very interested in seeing whether or not there was significant resemblance between the Inuits and Siberian populations, though. One also has to be aware that the smaller the gene pool, the faster the rate of change from an intitial baseline since there’s a whole lotta cousin-marryin’ goin’ on.
3)I agree with you completely. I cannot believe that there’s a huge number of psychometricians trotting around Liberia or Sierra Leone giving folks out in the bush IQ Tests in their native languages. Without good data, any kind of generalizations about third-world populations is utter nonsense.
Now, I find in your last post some fairly elitist statements that I resent as a former high-IQ factory worker. Whether or not someone is comfortable with a person of another race has less to do with their degree of professional education than it does with humankind’s tendency to be hard-wired to like those who resemble ourselves–see Bowling Alone and any of a dozen or more studies of human sociology. Loyalty to one’s tribe used to be a prime survival trait. Nowadays, it’s less so.
Believe me, if a person in charge of personnel is really set on not hiring someone of a different color, race or religion, they won’t, whether the science is investigated or not.
Part of what I wanted to explore by posting the articles was mentioned by Allan–the Left, in particular, is very quick to point out the Catholic Church’s actions toward Galileo while, because of the kind of fears your describe, Hanno, similarly persecuting individuals like Lawrence Summers or Watson for delving into heretical scientific territory deemed “too dangerous” for the masses.
Kinda ironic, ain’t it?
Tom