Race, IQ, and Genetics, Yet Again
I got kind of excited about this: "There's Still No Good Reason To Believe That Black-White IQ Differences Are Due To Genes." I know...I know. It's in Vox. What was I thinking? Well, I was thinking, basically, that even Vox can't be wrong about everything...right? I mean, they are doctrinaire, anti-scientific lefties on race pretty much down the line, so far as I can tell...but...maybe just this once...just maybe...
But also: that paper isn't merely an obvious tissue of fallacies like so much of the anti-hereditarian stuff that makes it into the popular press. Not so far as I could tell immediately, anyway. It actually looks like it could be worth taking seriously...but that means: more than the one read I've given it.
OTOH, this argues that Nisbett et al. are wrong in more-or-less the usual ways--and it links us to this, which looks good...but will have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest.
And: Harden admits, basically--mirabile dictu!--that races are real! In Vox! Amazing! But then goes on to engage in what seems to be some of the obfuscation common to the anti-hereditarians. Yes, there are populations other than races that would serve as better scientific categories. So what? That does nothing to make questions about race and IQ uninteresting.
At any rate, my excitement drained away quickly when I read this by Turkheimer: "Origin of Race Differences In Intelligence Is Not A Scientific Question." Well, there's the dog. The rest is--likely--mostly tail. Bottom line according to Turkheimer: it's not possible to settle the question scientifically. And it's the hereditarians' fault, you see. Because there are interpretations and interpretations. He doesn't quite say that they're racists--but he comes about as close to it as is possible without doing it, e.g. calling them "race scientists" and asserting that they're no better than the "race scientists" of the early 20th century. He also gestures at their "potentially destructive conclusions." So his position seems to turn on dropping the skepticism bomb and launching a barrage of ad hominems. Which is what the "anti-hereditarian" case so often comes down to. (Libeling Murray is a cottage industry in academia.)
I'm not an expert on any of this stuff. I'm not a psychologists, not a statistician, not a geneticist...not an anything that's relevant to doing actual research on these questions. And I'll be dancing in the streets if it turns out that there are no genetic, racial IQ differences. But my informed layperson's current bet is what it's been for about five years now: that Murray and Harris are basically right: racial IQ differences are partly genetic.
But also: that paper isn't merely an obvious tissue of fallacies like so much of the anti-hereditarian stuff that makes it into the popular press. Not so far as I could tell immediately, anyway. It actually looks like it could be worth taking seriously...but that means: more than the one read I've given it.
OTOH, this argues that Nisbett et al. are wrong in more-or-less the usual ways--and it links us to this, which looks good...but will have to wait until tomorrow at the earliest.
And: Harden admits, basically--mirabile dictu!--that races are real! In Vox! Amazing! But then goes on to engage in what seems to be some of the obfuscation common to the anti-hereditarians. Yes, there are populations other than races that would serve as better scientific categories. So what? That does nothing to make questions about race and IQ uninteresting.
At any rate, my excitement drained away quickly when I read this by Turkheimer: "Origin of Race Differences In Intelligence Is Not A Scientific Question." Well, there's the dog. The rest is--likely--mostly tail. Bottom line according to Turkheimer: it's not possible to settle the question scientifically. And it's the hereditarians' fault, you see. Because there are interpretations and interpretations. He doesn't quite say that they're racists--but he comes about as close to it as is possible without doing it, e.g. calling them "race scientists" and asserting that they're no better than the "race scientists" of the early 20th century. He also gestures at their "potentially destructive conclusions." So his position seems to turn on dropping the skepticism bomb and launching a barrage of ad hominems. Which is what the "anti-hereditarian" case so often comes down to. (Libeling Murray is a cottage industry in academia.)
I'm not an expert on any of this stuff. I'm not a psychologists, not a statistician, not a geneticist...not an anything that's relevant to doing actual research on these questions. And I'll be dancing in the streets if it turns out that there are no genetic, racial IQ differences. But my informed layperson's current bet is what it's been for about five years now: that Murray and Harris are basically right: racial IQ differences are partly genetic.
posted by Winston Smith at
10:22 PM
2 Comments:
“I should be clear that I am not making a “both sides do it” argument. It is the hereditarians who are trying to reach a strong and potentially destructive conclusion, and the burden is absolutely on them to demonstrate that they have a well-grounded empirical and quantitative theory to work with. So, if you are out there and think that group differences t are at least partially genetic, please explain exactly what you mean, in empirical terms. Do you mean that some portion of the IQ gap will never go away, no matter what we do environmentally? Do you mean we will discover genes with hard-wired biological consequences for IQ, and their frequencies will differ across groups? Are polygenic risk scores going to do it somehow? But don’t let me mischaracterize your position: explain it yourself.”
“I know it’s true, I just can’t design a study to prove it!”
Um...yes...I did read that part. I'm not sure what you mean to convey by copy and pasting it...
It's not even very good. For example, the first question is badly-put, and just niggling. What people generally mean is something more like: barring some action we can't really foresee well right now--e.g. brain implants or some such thing--altering the distribution in meaningful ways would require genetic changes. Which, incidentally, can be effected by environmental changes if you're willing to wait long enough...
This kind of hollow, BS challenge cuts equally against both sides, contrary to Turkhemer's claims. He's FOS when he claims that the burden of proof is on the other side. His side--the miraculous *it's all environment!* side has to answer exactly the same questions he puts to the other side. E.g.: exactly what do they mean to deny?
These guys are driven by the project of anti-racism, not by science. I sympathize; it's an important project. But when it's carried out this way, it's just Lysenkoism.
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