[Mezla PigDog]

I doubt an "intelligence" gene will ever be discovered (although if there is, I bet this girl at Harvard will have the defective form). Current research shows that all complex physiology is down to a combination of a large number of genes that behave differently under different environmental conditions. Take into account all of the different allele combinations that are possible then take into account the impact of pre- and post-natal influences on the developing brain. Add in the impact of social and economic conditions on a growing child and it's just never gonna happen! Therefore to suggest that an entire race can be proven to be less intelligent is simple prejudice. The then think it is acceptable to put it all down in an email?!?! MORON!

[caladanbrood]

Wasn't there a scientist a few years ago who claimed something similar? I can't remember any details, I'm afraid, my memory gene is inferior

[MTS]

So is your single-posting gene

This post has been edited by MTS: 30 April 2010 - 12:18 PM

[stone monkey]

She's a law student, so it's probably fair to say her knowledge of the science on the issue is bound to be limited (as is mine, but somewhat less limited I'd hazard) - as tends to be the way with people in the humanities. So let's take a step back and go through some of the problems with her argument.

She conflates test scores with intelligence - huge (gigantic!) error. A test measures how good you are at completing that particular test, and nothing else. It has been shown repeatedly that some groups in society do better on different tests than on others, even when these tests are supposed to be measuring the same thing.

She bandies around the word intelligence like it means a particular definable thing - it isn't and anyone who says it is hasn't been paying attention. Defining general intelligence in a satisfactory way has yet to be done.

She regards genetics as the sole deterministic cause of what is partially a social phenomenon.

I could go on - there's the issue of race being an artificial construct, there's the issue of people from (or recently descended from) Africa having more genetic diversity than the rest of the human race put together, there's the fact that every single human being is genetically unique, and there's the social aspect, which she deliberately chooses to ignore (presumably because she doesn't like where the discussion will lead)

She might not be a racist (but I do suspect she is), but she is profoundly ignorant on the very sensitive subject she chose to expound upon. Her argument in the end strikes me more as one of entitlement. Which is only to be expected from someone who probably has never been on the bad side of any social situation in her life...

[Mezla PigDog]

caladanbrood, on 30 April 2010 - 12:14 PM, said:

Wasn't there a scientist a few years ago who claimed something similar? I can't remember any details, I'm afraid, my memory gene is inferior

Yeah, James Watson of Watson and Crick fame. The dick. He totally backtracked and apologised when it made international news. I think his credibility is still suffering since it happened as I haven't noticed him doing anything interesting or writing any books for a while.

[Cougar]

Also on this and picking up SM's second paragraph, it's worth looking at the criticism of sociologist (and all round dick) Charles Murray's book The Bell Curve (don't read it, it's shit)in which he makes some statements about the relationship of race and intelligence. It was tremendously controversial because he used the IQ tests as an indicator a test which has been pretty comprehensively demolished by his critics.

[Use Of Weapons]

It was James Watson (co-discoverer of the structure of DNA) who was in the news last year for talking about how it could not be ruled out that some races might be, on average, genetically inferior in some capacities to other races.

Note all of the qualifiers.

Note also that those qualifiers didn't prevent a huge storm of controversy caused by media reporting of his stance, misleading readers, misreporting what he actually said, distorting and taking it out of context, and in many cases just not understanding it.

Essentially, even if it were true, it would make no difference to how we treat any individual, as where any individual falls on the spectrum of ability cannot be determined by an evaluation of their racial profile in that ability. It's the identification fallacy.

[stone monkey]

Oh I remember The Bell Curve all right. For those who haven't read it, the basic thesis of the book was that as African American students consistently perform badly in standardised tests, it's a waste of money to attempt to educate them better. As you can imagine, the US right wing had a field day.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Yay Cause. I was going to make a similar argument.

Some people are more intelligent than others. Intelligence is the primary metric I use to determine someone's inherent worth. Not the only one, mind you. But it's damned important. Intelligence, like most human features, has a genetic component, and that's something inheritable. Parents of moderate intelligence usually have children of moderate intelligence. Dead-from-the-neck-up parents will have often have similarly worthless children. That's no fault of theirs, though. Highly intelligent parents often have highly intelligent children. It's just a matter of statistics from there.

[Jusentantaka]

stone monkey, on 30 April 2010 - 12:57 PM, said:

Oh I remember The Bell Curve all right. For those who haven't read it, the basic thesis of the book was that as African American students consistently perform badly in standardised tests, it's a waste of money to attempt to educate them better. As you can imagine, the US right wing had a field day.

Wasn't this the book that was basically a compilation of 'thoughts' by a whole bunch of 'separatists aren't supremacists' assholes? (i.e. politically correct neo nazis)

[D'rek]

She says right in the first line

Quote

I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic.

She's not discussing a matter of "black people are all less intelligent", she's talking about a matter of "black people are genetically predisposed to be less intelligent". That's a huge difference.

For example, I would not say that "Kenyans are great marathon runners", I would say "Kenyans are genetically predisposed to be great marathon runners". That's an easier, more stereotypical, racism that most people wouldn't see as racist at all because marathons are, indeed, frequently won by Kenyans. But saying such a thing is really just as racist to non-kenyans as this lady's statements are to blacks. I'm suggesting that all non-Kenyans are inferior because they aren't genetically predisposed towards being great marathon runners. I'm sure you can all realize that judging people's worth solely on their intelligence is as silly as judging them solely on their ability to run at marathons. And I don't think she's saying that if it turns out blacks are genetically predisposed to be less intelligent that this somehow makes them less worthy as people. She's not saying that at all.

Getting back to the semantics of the wording, saying that a whole group is genetically predisposed to something doesn't mean they apply to that on the whole. If Kenyans are indeed genetically predisposed towards being great marathon runners, that doesn't make every Kenyan a great marathon runner. It doesn't even mean the majority of them are great marathon runners. It means that the average Kenyan is slightly closer to being a great marathon runner than the average non-Kenyan, by genetics. Since the average person is neither a marathon runner nor a famous scientist, this may have very little impact on the average person. Most people don't run marathons and would never have to worry about whether they are or aren't genetically predisposed towards being a great marathon runner, and likewise most people do not need to be geniuses and need not worry if they are genetically predisposed to be slightly less intelligent than others or not.

And lastly, genetics is not the defining aspect of your life. If an entire group of people is genetically predisposed to being less intelligent, then for all we know that may instill stronger qualities of learning and knowledge retention in their infancy (because they are fighting harder against their genetics) and thus have better learning and study skills by the time their toddlers, making them overall smarter throughout their lives. Genetic predisposition can be a very minor thing when weighed against overhwelming factors like environment and society.

[Epiph]

Yeah, but non-Kenyans are not negatively effected, as a whole, by the perception that they will not be as able to run a marathon as a Kenyan. Non-Kenyans may be acting as representatives for the rest of the non-Kenyan world when they win or lose a marathon against a Kenyan, but non-Kenyans are not an oppressed minority.

[Horangi]

Epiph, on 30 April 2010 - 05:10 PM, said:

Yeah, but non-Kenyans are not negatively effected, as a whole, by the perception that they will not be as able to run a marathon as a Kenyan. Non-Kenyans may be acting as representatives for the rest of the non-Kenyan world when they win or lose a marathon against a Kenyan, but non-Kenyans are not an oppressed minority.

I understand what your saying- but should biologists be forced to be social scientists at the same time? I'm personally of the opinion that the pure sciences should be amoral in nature. If a scientist wants to truly investigate the topic of intelligence variance between genetic groups and are truly willing to accept an answer in either direction (IE no correlation, or correlation) regardless of the way the results play out, then should he/she be criticized for investigating the question to begin with? His methods should be open to peer-review of course, but it seems that many of the responders take exception with even the idea of calling into question the concept of human intellectual equality.

I agree with others that the concept of race is problematic as it chooses one particular genetic trait (and a pretty unimportant one) above others as means of taxonomy and that the lady in question apparently has no concept of politics.

[McLovin]

Jusentantaka, on 30 April 2010 - 04:17 PM, said:

stone monkey, on 30 April 2010 - 12:57 PM, said:

Oh I remember The Bell Curve all right. For those who haven't read it, the basic thesis of the book was that as African American students consistently perform badly in standardised tests, it's a waste of money to attempt to educate them better. As you can imagine, the US right wing had a field day.

Wasn't this the book that was basically a compilation of 'thoughts' by a whole bunch of 'separatists aren't supremacists' assholes? (i.e. politically correct neo nazis)

OK, this puts me in the uncomfortable position of advocating for the authors.

Herrnstein was a behavioral psychologist, of the midcentury rats-pushing-levers breed. Murray was an economist, I think, working for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative free-market think-tank in DC.

The main point of the book was not about racial differences in intelligence, though that's where it famously goes off the rails. Their main point was that there appeared to be a widening and hardening divide in US society such that intelligence (as measured by a particular IQ test) was becoming increasingly correlated with income. If you step back from their causal attributions, this divide can also be seen to be hardening around race as well.

From that perspective, the book is quite prophetic. Currently the US economy has basically contracted into two meta-sectors: knowledge, and service. The knowledge sector requires a college degree, while the service sector can take pretty much any warm body. The loss of the US manufacturing base means there's no in-between, limiting mobility from the "service caste" to the "knowledge caste". High school diplomas have become basically worthless thanks to decades of ridiculous education policies from both sides of the aisle, so our populace is dividing into the college-educated and the dropout. Now mix in immigration/population growth trends, and you can see that America 2050 is going to look remarkably like South Africa 1980 - a privileged, educated White minority and a large, less-educated African/Latino underclass.

[Epiph]

Further commentary about race and Harvard from an HLS alum who is both black and a lady.

[stone monkey]

I'm slightly tipsy at the moment, so the following may make little sense... And I should really know better by now (for my own sanity, rather than any other reason) than to post in a thread of this kind. But anyway...

The point of The Bell Curve was primarily to make right-wingers feel somewhat justified in their neglect in funding African-American (I hate that phraseology, but what can you do?) students by giving them a pseudo-scientific out - i.e. persuading them that attempting to educate them was a thankless task due to genetic reasons, whilst conveniently (and deliberately) ignoring the social aspects of why they might be performing poorly on those tests.

The issue with perception is a profoundly germane one (witness the placebo effect in medicine, for instance). Certain ethnic minorities, in western societies and in general during the 20th Century as media globalisation has occurred, have had to deal with lowered expectations of their intellectual abilities and worth. I've certainly encountered it a number of times personally. And this kind of thing does tend to become a self-fulfilling prophesy, as has been shown in a number of experiments.

[HoosierDaddy]

stone monkey, on 30 April 2010 - 12:21 PM, said:

She's a law student, so it's probably fair to say her knowledge of the science on the issue is bound to be limited (as is mine, but somewhat less limited I'd hazard) - as tends to be the way with people in the humanities. So let's take a step back and go through some of the problems with her argument.
....

Just wanted to clarify this position. Law students in the US receive a Bachelors Degree from an accredited institution before going to law school. There are many, although not the majority by far, law students who have degrees in hard sciences.

So, it's possible she does have a background in science.

[D'rek]

Epiph, on 30 April 2010 - 05:10 PM, said:

Yeah, but non-Kenyans are not negatively effected, as a whole, by the perception that they will not be as able to run a marathon as a Kenyan. Non-Kenyans may be acting as representatives for the rest of the non-Kenyan world when they win or lose a marathon against a Kenyan, but non-Kenyans are not an oppressed minority.

Our society may indeed dictate that a non-Kenyan is not negatively effected by being unable to run a marathon, but genetics hardly cares what our society thinks of the different predispositions it creates, does it? Both cases are a particular characteristic being genetically predisposed favourably for one group and not everyone else, so how are they different aside from one being considered too racist to be believed in by our society?

[Sixty]

I think that people are getting too offended by this.

Given that we don't know what the discussion was even about at this dinner, I gather that her argument goes as follows:

1.) Intelligence (or at least our socially accepted definition of intelligence) has a genetic factor.
2.) Widely used methods to gauge intelligence demonstrate a trend in which certain groups perform worse on intelligence than others.
3.) One example of such a group is the African-American population, which on average scores lower than the general population.
4.) Adjustment for socioeconomic factors does not account for the full disparity between the African-American and general populations' average scores.
5.) Ergo, it is reasonable to suggest that genetics may be one of the causes of this disparity.
6.) Whether genetics or another cause (e.g. the tests' construct validity) is responsible, scientific research should be performed to reach a more valid conclusion.

Makes sense to me. I can see that she isn't being entirely "politically correct" about it, but then again, all we're reading is an e-mail she sent out to clear up part of a conversation...not the entire conversation that preceded it.

Building an anti-racist bandwagon promotes the same mob mentality as the bigotry it opposes.

Then again, I'm just as biased as anyone else, so who knows.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Rampant witch-hunting campaigns against racism are just like racial witch hunts. You've got to give up being offended.