What’s Wrong with the World

How do you conclude that 'lower average intelligence' is NOT inferior? Do you somehow think that there are suddenly going to be thousands of opportunities opening up in business for stupid people? Also, this woman is going to be writing decisions for a judge. It is a thoroughly terribly idea for the judiciary to employ people who believe large groups of the populous are genetically inferior to other groups. I realize that W4 writers aren't big on empathy, but for once try to imagine that you were not born part of the dominant group. Would you want a judge who thinks you are genetically stupid deciding your case?

Wow, I'm in the 98th percentile on intelligence, so most people are "inferior" to me? If that's how you want to put it, knock yourself out, but you're nutty. It's pretty established that blacks are 15 points on average below whites in America. I hope you don't feel faint or feel like throwing up.

There are plenty of jobs for people with below average intelligence [...]

[Suburban Yahoo, please behave yourself - SB].

Karen: do you think that Jesus of Nazareth would have believed that people of less than average IQ were, simply, "inferior?"

Do you think that anybody posting here at WWWW would believe that?

Does it bother you, at all, to learn that the Dean of Harvard Law School apparently *does* think in such terms?

Gee, Karen, I'm Ashkenazi, the smartest group of people in the history of the world. Smarter than the Chinese who are smarter than your basic non-Ashkenazi white European.

I hope you aren't feeling to bad about yourself, now.

By now we should all know that to be intelligent in a way the World recognises as intelligent is to be inferior (in a way that the World - who could have guessed! - does not recognise as inferior).

I'll dust off some old Mencius Moldbug:

HNU: human neurological uniformity

An HNU credulist believes that modern human subpopulations are neurologically uniform. In other words, genetic differences between races (if the term is even acknowledged) are of no behavioral significance. Especially committed credulists may believe that genetic differences between individuals are of no behavioral significance, or even that human behavior has not been shaped at all by evolutionary history - both forms of the "Blank Slate" hypothesis...

...As the authors of this new book put it: given the genetic history of the human species, global equality in any quantitative trait - physical or behavioral - is about as likely as dropping a handful of quarters and having them all land on edge. Of course, as reasonable thinkers, we are prepared to consider improbable propositions. If presented with extraordinary evidence.

What, sir, is your evidence for HNU? Oh, you don't have any. I see. Once again, we find our new friend - the mainstream crank.

You'll note the familiar chutzpah of quackery. Lacking any positive factual argument for their hypothesis, how do the spinmeisters of HNU credulism - from Stephen Jay Gould down - operate? The answer is a one-paragraph textbook in charlatanship. This maneuver takes a gallbladder the size of a basketball, but it works perfectly.

First: shift the burden of proof to the converse of your unsupported hypothesis, defining it as the null hypothesis - true until proven false. Second: raise the standards for proving it false to an absurd and unsatisfiable level. (See this for a typical attempt to clear the ever-rising bar.) Third: declare victory.

Thus: the moon is made of green cheese. You say the moon is made of moon rock and moondust, but you have no real evidence for this claim. Astronauts landed on the moon and brought home moon rock and moondust, but this is just a superficial layer of asteroid debris around the cheese. If they go again and actually drill this time, they'll hit cheese. If they don't, they didn't drill deep enough. Regardless, the moon-rock theory remains highly speculative and unproven - it is probably "junk science" funded by lunar mining interests.

And it's just another day in your worm-eaten medulla. Hey, don't worry - we've all been there.

Hey Karen,
How do you think I feel? I was born part of the dominant group, and I’m still a loser.

I agree with you that what happened to this women was wrong, and there may be some reason to believe that there is intellectual differences between Races, but I don't believe this has been proven as of yet as you seem to.

This is a pastiche of bits from the book IQ: A Smart History of a Failed Idea. By Stephen Murdoch

Arthur Jensen, a famous University of California psychologist, has said that someone with an IQ of 75 can enjoy baseball, but not properly understand the game’s rules, the details of how the league works, or even how many players are on a team. But Flynn’s findings make it difficult to extrapolate from what an IQ score tells you about people’s mental abilities.

“Take a woman with an IQ of 110 who taught for 30 years in the Netherlands,” Flynn wrote. “In 1952 she was brighter than 75% of her senior students; by 1967, they were her equals; by 1982, 75% of them were brighter than she was. Has that really been the career experience of Dutch teachers?”

The results of two other studies involving Ravens (This is a IQ test) have allowed researchers to compare how well people born in 1877 performed to adults’ scores today. In
1942, British adults ranging from ages twenty-five to sixty-five took Ravens, and a study of the same age group, on the same test, was conducted in 1992. The more recent generations scored significantly higher than the preceding generations, with the result that twenty-five-year-olds in 1992 appear to be surprisingly smarter than their Victorian counterparts. Flynn calculated that by today’s standards, at least 70 percent of late nineteenth-century Britons would have an IQ of less than 75. If IQ tests measure intelligence in absolute terms, how did anybody get anything done in the nineteenth century? “How reasonable is it to assume that 70% of late-nineteenth century Britons could not, even if it were their chief interest, understand the rules of cricket?” Flynn asked. “The military data, which are of impeccable quality, pose the same question. Can we assume that in 1952, almost 40% of Dutch men lacked the capacity to understand soccer, their most favored national sport?”


No one knows for sure why IQ scores are going up. Is it universal education, the advent of video games, test-taking savvy, improved diets, or some combination of factors? The debates rage in academia. One thing is clear, though: it’s not a quick and radical change to the gene pool.“Massive IQ gains cannot be due to genetic factors,” Flynn wrote. “Reproductive differentials between social classes would have to be impossibly large to
raise the mean IQ even 1 point in a single generation.”


Large intergenerational IQ gains are a pretty serious blow to psychologists who believe that their tests measure intelligence, innate or not. Rising IQ scores provide strong evidence that despite many psychologists’ claims, IQ tests measure knowledge and “abstract problem-solving abilities.” As Flynn remarked, “psychologists should stop saying that IQ tests measure intelligence. They should say that IQ tests measure abstract problem-solving
ability (APSA), a term that accurately conveys our ignorance. We know people solve problems on IQ tests; we suspect those problems are so detached, or so abstracted from reality, that the ability to solve them can diverge over time from the real-world problem-solving ability called intelligence; thus far we know little else.”


Once it becomes clear that IQ tests don’t measure intelligence, but knowledge and a hard-to-define abstract problem-solving ability, the issue of resolving the exact percentage of heredity versus environment doesn’t shed light on black-white differences in intelligence.
In America, the biggest Rorschach blot moment comes when people discuss this average fifteen-point differential between African Americans and whites—the mean
black score being lower, of course.


For some the fifteen points indicate that on average blacks are genetically not as smart as whites; for others the point spread means that the tests are biased in favor of whites, or that it reflects differences in each group’s environment.


To say the least, the different positions lead to heated debates, in large part because nobody comes to these discussions without personal biases, assumptions, or ideological predispositions. And yet at the same time, the discourse is limited to the language of science, lending it the veneer of objectivity. Given that there is internal debate even within psychology regarding what IQ tests measure, as well as admissions all around that no direct tests of biological mental ability exist, in order to take a stand one way or another on the reasons behind the point spread one must make intellectual leaps
and inferences. Even Hans Eysenck, one of the most famous hereditarians of the twentieth century, conceded that science has no test of pure genetic ability: “There is no direct biological test of possible biological differentiation,” he wrote, “all the evidence must be circumstantial.”


When it comes to taking IQ tests, he believes, African Americans are like foreigners in that they grow up speaking a language other than standard English. “Blacks and whites differ in IQ by 15 points total, there is no debate about that,” Fagan said, perhaps the only statement on intelligence and race everyone in the room would agree upon.


Fagan’s own studies corroborate this finding. In the early 2000s, he gave three groups of students (whites; blacks; and foreign, nonnative English-speaking whites) an IQ test of vocabulary called the Peabody Revised. Sure enough, native English-speaking whites scored the best—sixteen points higher than the African Americans and eighteen points higher than the non-native speakers, keeping roughly to the historical trend.


He Wanted to know whether the linguistic playing field could be leveled among his three groups. Fagan first sought to determine whether the black students “spoke another language” (other than standard English) by giving all three groups a test of “black” English. On this test, African Americans answered 85 to 90 percent of the questions correctly while whites, both native and non-native English speakers, could only answer 40 percent of the questions correctly. From this, Fagan inferred that whites speak standard English while African Americans have to speak both standard English and black English, hampering their
traditional IQ scores, just like non-native white English speakers’ scores are affected.


Fagan then leveled the playing field by providing his subjects with a list of obscure and old words to study—words he presumed they didn’t know already, such as “venter,” which means belly—and then gave them a vocabulary test. On average, whites, blacks, and non-native English speakers performed the same. Of course, there was still a range of scores, but it couldn’t be explained by race or native language. What explained why some people scored better than others, then? Fagan believed that at least part of the answer must be individuals’ ability to process information.



To test this information-processing hypothesis, Fagan asked subjects in another experiment to rate a series of pictures of faces they had never seen before for attractiveness. He wasn’t actually interested in which faces they thought were attractive, he just wanted to see, without letting on, how well the subjects could remember the faces later in the day, and whether there were blackwhite differences in this ability. After rating the faces, the subjects took the Peabody IQ test, and then Fagan tested how well they could pick the pictures they had seen previously out of a lineup of new faces. On average blacks,
whites, and non-native speakers could recognize faces equally well.


Just as important, a subject’s ability to remember a novel face also predicted IQ score on the Peabody, supporting Fagan’s hypothesis that information processing is more important than race or native language. “Aside from the social importance of the finding,” Fagan said, his studies also indicate that IQ has “multiple determinants.. . . One is information processing ability and the second is the information provided by the culture for processing.”Fagan was very careful how he couched his results. “Let me say something very quickly,” Fagan was sure to add at the end of his presentation. “I’m not saying
there are multiple intelligences. That’s not what I’m saying.” Multiple intelligences would not have gone over well with the ISIR crowd. What he was saying was that “you can take all sorts of standard tests, give new information and . . . erase the black-white differences.”


Other researchers have found that once test creators move away from the traditional verbal-nonverbal IQ test model, blackwhite differences look substantially different. They have discovered that blacks and whites of similar background (“e.g., age, sex, parent education, community setting, and region”) score much closer together on some nonverbal tests. On Jack Naglieri’s Cognitive Assessment System, for example, blacks were shown to have an average score of 95.3 while whites had a 98.8. On Naglieri’s Nonverbal Performance Test, however, blacks outscored whites on average, 99.3 to 95.1. Psychologist Robert Sternberg, at Yale, has similarly found that he can reduce differences among ethnic groups on the SAT and GMAT (the business school entrance exam) by devising questions that augment those exams’ narrow content.


Jensen said In the past he has told an interviewer that “insufficient familiarity with standard English and the use of ‘Black English’ was a popular claim in the 1960s and ’70s.” In contrast to the evidence presented in Naglieri’s CAS and Nonverbal Performance Test, Jensen said, “Black-White IQ differences are as large or larger on a variety of non-verbal tests that make no use of alphanumeric symbols as on verbal tests.”


He further argues that cultural explanations (differences in diet, education, home environment, and many others) for the lower average African American scores are not sufficient to explain the consistent differences between blacks and whites. But why should there be a burden to prove that the differences are environmental rather than biological? Given that tools acute enough to answer these questions do not exist, surely the wisest position is to operate as if groups of people are innately equal. Individuals, not groups, can then succeed or fail in any given endeavor as they may.


Cloak themselves in science as they may, when psychologists make claims such as “Compensatory education has been tried and apparently it has failed,” they are entering the realm of policy. Ever since Francis Galton in the Victorian era, intelligence researchers have been addicted to making sweeping pronouncements about policy and the structure of society—who’s at the top, who’s at the bottom, and why—a subject well beyond their ken. The issue hasexisted since Galton first drew up bell curve charts putatively showing that Africans’ average innate abilities were lower than Europeans’. Today in America, Galton’s intellectual heirs argue that civil rights era legislation should be dismantled because IQ is largely hereditary. As one author put it in the early
1990s, “Failure has plagued the many programs based on ‘reverse discrimination’ set in place since the 1950s, and scientific research now reveals the reason why this is the case: differences in intelligence are around 70% dependent upon heredity, with other human qualities being rated variably between 50% up to as much as 90 to 95% dependent on heredity. This being the case, the failure of remedial programs based solely on environmental adjustment is easily understandable.”


By about 1980, however, the average black IQ score in America was the same as or higher than the white average in the 1930s, due to the inevitable rise of scores in every population. Are blacks today biologically smarter than whites in the 1930s, but not as innately smart as whites today? Human evolution doesn’t happen that quickly.


Take, for example, a quote from near the beginning of the controversial 1994 book The Bell Curve. “The evidence for a general factor in intelligence was pervasive but circumstantial, based on statistical analysis rather than direct observation. Its reality therefore was, and remains, arguable.” Once that admission was disposed of quickly in two sentences up front in the book, however, the authors went on to discuss, for 845 pages, policy based entirely on the assumption that g exists, that it is measurable, and that it is innately and unevenly distributed among different socioeconomic classes and ethnicities.
Until there is proof beyond statistical relationships of g’s existence and measurability, society should not treat IQ tests as if they can meaningfully rank people along a continuum of innate intelligence. For the same reason, all inferences based on IQ test results about race differences are dangerously unfounded.

How do you conclude that 'lower average intelligence' is NOT inferior?

Karen, I'm a pretty intelligent guy, in all likelihood more than you. Assuming that's correct, do you consider yourself inferior to me?

It is a thoroughly terribly idea for the judiciary to employ people who believe large groups of the populous are genetically inferior to other groups.... Would you want a judge who thinks you are genetically stupid deciding your case?

Why not? I think it's pretty certain that nearly 100% of judges think that people with Down's Syndrome are genetically less intelligence that others. Is it a problem that they realize that obvious fact? Are you trying to say that this means they will be biased against them, or that they should be biased against them?

Trouble is, Phantom Blogger, if there existed a repeatable test, say for midichlorians, that somehow (we may neither care nor understand how) predicted with high correlation (very high correlation) success at university, in business, in creative problem-solving, in practically every complex mental activity in life, then it doesn't do much to deny the existence of midichlorians: The test is a good one, within the bounds of what it predicts, whether or no midichlorians exist.

Would you want a judge who thinks you are genetically stupid deciding your case?

Indeed. I'd prefer a judge who is substantially smarter than me, and more specifically one who earned their esteemed position by intelligence (which some call "g"), discipline (which correlates with "g"), and hard work (which also correlates with "g"). That vis-a-vis a judge who got the job over more qualified applicants just because they happened to belong to a preferred group.

She even said, elsewhere in the e-mail, that it was possible that there is no such difference. So it was more or less a lawyerly "On the one hand...on the other hand" thing. And _this_ rates all this fuss?

Poor girl. She obviously needed some wisdom from Linus van Pelt:

"There are three things you don't discuss with people: politics, religion, and the Great Pumpkin."

Steve Nicoloso, I'm glad you agree with me that legacy-student white males make poor judges. All those years of unearned privilege clearly interfere with their analytical skills.

Karen:

Steve Nicoloso, I'm glad you agree with me that legacy-student white males make poor judges. All those years of unearned privilege clearly interfere with their analytical skills.

It has always been humorous to me that the multiculturalists and liberals extol the diversity of advantages, yet vilify any specific acknowledgement of such an advantage to the whites.

If it is true, as they say, that these advantages give us strength only when we embrace diversity, then it must be true that each of these advantages has a quantifiable value. Yet, they certainly could not be equal value. The value of musical composition is not the same as the value of musical performance, for example. They both have value, of course, but declaring them of equal value would be arbitrary nonsense. (I don't feel like speculating on specific examples because the emotional and self-contradictory idiocy raging against them would drown out the real discussion--besides, it's the liberals who stipulated the differences.)

Given that these advantages have unequal value, it is also true that any given culture would have a unique and, therefore, unequal mix of these values, and the net result (though it might take a godlike perspective to see it) is quantifiably unequal cultures. The worship of diversity makes inequality necessarily true, yet they become incensed at any acknowledgement of that result.

The multiculturalists have used this insanity to hijack the conversation away from the more important concerns of human dignity and compassion for one's fellow man of any race, and refocused it upon an incoherent schoolyard exchange regarding who's better than who, and who's not. (All the while claiming they are the compassionate ones.) There is no end to the madness and brutality we can expect from that kind of tyrant, and it is becoming less and less humorous.

Phantom Blogger, if there existed a repeatable test, say for midichlorians, that somehow (we may neither care nor understand how) predicted with high correlation (very high correlation) success at university, in business, in creative problem-solving, in practically every complex mental activity in life, then it doesn't do much to deny the existence of midichlorians: The test is a good one, within the bounds of what it predicts, whether or no midichlorians exist.

It doesn't predict though, because people can see before hand that Blacks and Latinos are less successful than other racial groups, and these tests come up with an explanation why, which is that there genetically less intelligent. But the correlation could already be seen before the test was taken, we can all see Blacks and Latinos are in less academic position, economically lower down the ladder and much less successful in business, so the test has come up with a new take on why this is, but it may be based on a false premises, that then become enshrined in peoples minds. And thats were the problems arise.

Ps I apologise for the spacing in my first post, it was ok before I posted it but it seems to have went funny now.

It doesn't predict though, because people can see before hand that Blacks and Latinos are less successful than other racial groups, and these tests come up with an explanation why, which is that there genetically less intelligent.

However, it does predict, with a high degree of correlation, within races. This doesn't absolutely *prove* that the already observable gap between races is also caused by it, but it does suggest it.

However, it does predict, with a high degree of correlation, within races.

If you read my first piece, you would see that these can sometimes be explained through other means.

This doesn't absolutely *prove* that the already observable gap between races is also caused by it, but it does suggest it.

Yeah, if there isn't an other better explanation for the phenomena. I am just worryed that we may be treating these tests with to much relevance, without understanding them properly (in what they actually tell us, about intelligence, thought and knowledge).

Comment over at VFR from a reader, concerning the young liberals on blogs calling for Stephanie Grace's blood:

Here is the ideal citizen manufactured by the Liberal State: an ignorant, vicious, foul-mouthed slut pierced like a savage, tattooed like a criminal, draped in filthy rags, stuffed with state-approved slogans and screaming like a stuck harpy.

Yikes. This is the next generation of elites.

I was reading Kalb's Tyranny of Liberalism last night, and while it's dismal reading in how it chronicles so thoroughly the utter emptiness of liberalism, it's also cheering when he reminds us that such an ideology cannot stand.

Lydia, that kind of elite is the end of the line. We can see already they are intellectually inferior, and worthy only of mocking.

I agree with most of the others here that being less intelligent than someone does not make you inferior to him. Similarly, being genetically less intelligent than someone also does not make you genetically inferior to him.

That said, I do think, in Karen's defense, that it's extremely hard to avoid thinking in terms of inferiority and superiority when it comes to intelligence, for a two reasons.

(1) being less intelligent than someone does make you intellectually inferior to him. So there is some sense of inferiority/superiority here. And there should be.

(2) intelligence is an extremely useful trait, and it's getting more and more useful as civilization becomes more and more technologically advanced. So, while you can't say that someone is wholly inferior to someone else because he's less intelligent, more and more of a person's social worth (i.e., utility) is getting determined by his intelligence.

Having said all that...

(3) the things that really matter about a person are his moral character and whatever traits collectively give him his moral value, not his intelligence or strength or whatever. (Allow me to make a distinction here: there is moral worth, so that Francis of Assisi is objectively a morally better person--i.e., better at being moral--than I am; and there is moral value, so that Francis of Assisi is of no more moral value than me, because we're both rational agents (or potentially so, or members of a species normal members of which are rational), or because we're both created in the image of God.) Thus, I do think that it's a horrible, morally revealing mistake to think that your social utility is the only thing that matters about you.

(4) what people say in private is not necessarily what their true views are. This would be like saying that what people say while drunk is what their true views are. I don't see any reason to believe this; there are lots of different social pressures in private from what there are in public, and people are likely to be influenced by those pressures to greater or lesser degrees.

(5) it strikes me as tyrannical that if people want to be part of the decision-making elite in this country they have to hide some innocuous thoughts of theirs--thoughts that might not even express their considered views!--from their closest friends, out of the fear that it could one day come back to destroy them. (Are her thoughts innocuous? Certainly if her only crime was merely considering the possibility that there could be genetic differences in intelligence that fall along racial lines. Even if thoughts were, "actually, I think it's likely that people of different races have differential IQs"--that's not nearly enough information to know how she's going to judge a case. As surprising as it is to hear, people are capable of holding to negative generalizations about groups while nonetheless being able make positive judgments about individual members of those groups. Hence the much derided expression, "but all my best friends are black!"; the point of the expression, of course, is that your having positive attitudes toward individual members of a group is compatible with having objectionable attitudes to that group as a whole.)

(6) given what I said in (4) and (5), do I part ways with Anscombe, who famously wrote, "if someone really thinks, in advance, that it is open to question whether such an action as procuring the judicial execution of the innocent should be quite excluded from consideration‑-I do not want to argue with him; he shows a corrupt mind." That is, contemporary anti-racists no doubt ally themselves, probably unconsciously, with the sentiment Anscombe expresses; they think that to even entertain the possibility that there are races as natural kind that may differ in their average allotment of intelligence is evidence of a corrupt mind, and that the proper response to such corruption is indignation, ridicule, shunning, etc. I agree that the entertaining of some beliefs can be evidence of a corrupt mind; but I disagree that you shouldn't argue with such people.

(7) Finally, while I don't rule out genetic explanations for IQ differences, I think we should be very cautious of them. First of all, they're incredibly easy, because they basically attribute deficiencies exclusively to an individual on account of his genes. Second, they're also methodologically individualistic explanations; there's nothing wrong with those per se, but they encourage, if too often used, a looking away from culture and other social factors which are important elements in the conservative's explanatory arsenal.

It doesn't predict though, because people can see before hand that Blacks and Latinos are less successful than other racial groups, and these tests come up with an explanation why, which is that there genetically less intelligent. But the correlation could already be seen before the test was taken, we can all see Blacks and Latinos are in less academic position, economically lower down the ladder and much less successful in business, so the test has come up with a new take on why this is, but it may be based on a false premises, that then become enshrined in peoples minds.

Huh? What doesn't predict what? IQ tests, whatever they are, are not designed to predict the performance of populations, but individuals. Statistical analysis of test data may (or may not) explain observed sociological differences between groups, but that's not what they are designed for. On the contrary, they are designed to predict the likelihood of success in a wide variety intellectual endeavors: which they do... which they do, in fact, for people of all identifiable groups (possibly even NFL quarterbacks).

And just so we're clear here... by "predict" I mean "make a probabilistic guess" (as in there are high correlations between "g" and college GPA, or 10-rep max bench-press and success as an NFL lineman; and little or no correlation between highland vs. lowland Scotch preference and left-handedness). I do not mean by it: foretelling the future.

Karen ... so you're the one who's colorblind, eh?

"Our species separated into two parts 50, 60, or 70 thousand years ago, depending on which paleoanthropologist you ask. One part remained in Africa, the ancestral homeland. The other crossed into Southwest Asia, then split, and re-split, and re-split, until there were human populations living in near-total reproductive isolation from each other in all parts of the world. This went on for hundreds of generations, causing the divergences we see today. Different physical types, as well as differences in behavior, intelligence, and personality, are exactly what one would expect to observe when scrutinizing these divergent populations." ~ John Derbyshire

http://www.alternativeright.com/main/the-magazine/elsewhere/mind-the-gaps/

As a side note, regarding a couple of the comments above, it should be noted that while NE Asians have a slightly higher average IQ than Europeans or those of the European Diaspora, Europeans and those of the European Diaspora have more individuals, percentage wise, with genius IQs -- at least according to the literature I've read. This might explain why the Scientific Revolution took place in Western Europe and not in China or Japan.

Regardless, it would be almost surreal to think that the Scientific Revolution could have taken place among the indigenous populations in Sub-Sahara Africa or the New World. These people were still on the stone age when discovered by Europeans. This may be politically incorrect to state, but it remains the truth.

Bobcat:

That is, contemporary anti-racists no doubt ally themselves, probably unconsciously, with the sentiment Anscombe expresses; they think that to even entertain the possibility that there are races as natural kind that may differ in their average allotment of intelligence is evidence of a corrupt mind, and that the proper response to such corruption is indignation, ridicule, shunning, etc.

Well, sure, that's what they think, but we don't have to agree with them _or_ conclude that there are _no_ views that demonstrate a corrupt mind and warrant shunning. I just think that it's obvious that what this girl said in the e-mail isn't such a view. If someone refused to give Peter Singer a clerkship because he shows a corrupt mind--I might not complain at all.

Steve,

And those who prefer a Speyside Scotch are ambidextrous, correct?

Kamilla

That said, I think ethnocentrism should trump the findings of IQ studies and sociobiology. If I were black, I'd be proud of my people simply because they would be _my people_. One's co-ethnics do not have to excel in every capacity to demand one's loyalty. One should love them simply because they are his own.

if there existed a repeatable test, say for midichlorians, that somehow (we may neither care nor understand how) predicted with high correlation (very high correlation) success at university, in business, in creative problem-solving, in practically every complex mental activity in life, then it doesn't do much to deny the existence of midichlorians: The test is a good one, within the bounds of what it predicts,

Sorry, I thought that you were saying it could predict the intelligence of entire Racial groups, or at least major correlations within those groups based on IQ tests.

On the contrary, they are designed to predict the likelihood of success in a wide variety intellectual endeavors: which they do...

There designed to measure intelligence, through measuring how well people process information. Its idea is, that if you are better at processing information, you find it easier to solve problems and understand (mainly scientific) information. The problem I have with it is that, I don't see how we can know that this test is measuring all the acute details of intelligence and how do you know that we are measuring it accurately, will there not always be holes in our analysis and how will we notice them when they appear.

I think the problem is here, when you say: "(we may neither care nor understand how)". I do care, and I do want to understand how these tests works. I am not saying these tests are complete bunk. I just don't think we should put so much trust in them before we understand them properly. Just because they can show accurate correlations in predicting success, and then start making racial statements based on these correlations.

Perhaps one could use correct knowledge of the Italian language as a guide. Thus the fictitious quotation should read "Eppur si muove".

A little learning is a dangerous thing...

Gabriel Austin: when quoting the numerous languages that I haven't studied, I defer to the nearest authority in sight: i.e., in this case, Wikipedia. For Galileo's legendary quote, they redirect from "Eppur si muove" to "E pur si muove."

Perhaps you should take it up with them.

Scott W. at 8:41 a.m.: Moldbug at his best.

Phantom Blogger at 9:01 a.m.: the black/white IQ gap is quite possibly the single best documented result of the last century or so of "social science." The only remaining question is: what causes the gap?

As for Stephen Murdoch, he's a freelance journalist, of no great accomplishment, rehearsing all the usual boilerplate. He wouldn't last thirty seconds in debate with Steve Sailer.

Phantom Blogger at 10:58 a.m., 12:11 p.m & 3:34 p.m.: please sober up before commenting again.

I mean, seriously.

Bobcat at 1:25 p.m.: as always, you provide much food for thought.

Needless to say, I didn't have to think twice before agreeing with this bit: "it strikes me as tyrannical that if people want to be part of the decision-making elite in this country they have to hide some innocuous thoughts of theirs--thoughts that might not even express their considered views!--from their closest friends, out of the fear that it could one day come back to destroy them."

Sorry, I was in a rush, I now realise that they are a mess, I never read through them. (You can remove them if you wish. They contain nothing of interest.)

the black/white IQ gap is quite possibly the single best documented result of the last century or so of "social science." The only remaining question is: what causes the gap?

I never denied that it wasn't well documented, I am just not sure that it is genetic. I still don't get the stuff on the intergenerational IQ gains though, if you could point me to something explianing this I would be thankful.

The only remaining question is: what causes the gap?

http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2001/0401IQ.aspx
My own view is that the debate hinges on whether you think the average 10-20 point IQ gains achieved in better environments and better education mostly disappear in adolescence and adulthood because the genotype "takes over" or because individuals become acclimated to social roles and expectations. There is also the remote possibility that epigenetic factors could play a part in limiting environmental improvements, which would take a generation or two to fully negate, depending on which parent it comes from.

Also, the famously liberal Thomas Sowell had a few words to add to the debate -

http://econ161.berkeley.edu/movable_type/2003_archives/000792.html

Step2, I'm glad to see you dipping a toe into the data, here.

I hope you're not under the impression that nobody has ever argued with Flynn.

I know very little about the genetics of race and IQ. That said, people who claim that there is no relation between race and IQ usually point to this essay by Cosma Shalizi: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/523.html

Steve, have you read it? If so, what do you think? (I know far too little about this stuff to assess them myself!)

I suspected that you might post on this topic, Steve (btw, Steve Sailer has been making the rounds at Volokh, among other places). Miss Grace's error was not intellectual, but political. Yes, it was a private e-mail, but on a topic like this and given her own awareness of how sensitive the issue is, particularly at a place like Harvard, it would have been more prudent to do more to establish good faith by at least recognizing America's sordid racial past (in which science was used to prove the inferiority of blacks). Or, as we Straussians would say, she should learn the art of esoteric writing because every regime has idols that you dare not question openly, even in a free democratic society, which, as Tocqueville noted, might not subject you to an auto-da-fe, but it will ostracize you.

Steve,
I hope you know the...colorful history of who finances most of the research of Flynn’s critics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_Fund

Bobcat - no, I haven't. Should I? Could you point me in the direction of some particularly insightful point?

Perseus: well, you're a subtle sort of guy. I'm not.

Step2: There's a debate between Charles Murray & James Flynn available, for free, on the internet.

Have you seen it? Flynn treats Murray with great respect - and vice versa.

I think there is a very, very simple explanation for why liberals are so abjectly terrified of this subject:

most of them violently reject the Christian view of the worth of man. To a typical white liberal, racial minorities have a right to a dignified existence because they're equal to whites (in that they possess no fundamental, core characteristic differences). If they attribute equality is proven invalid, then the basis for their beliefs is shattered.

***By about 1980, however, the average black IQ score in America was the same as or higher than the white average in the 1930s, due to the inevitable rise of scores in every population.***

The Phantom Blogger,

Note that researchers like Jelte Wicherts (2004) have found that the Flynn effect gains seem qualitatively different to the ‘g’ loaded differences that make up the gaps between groups. The Flynn effect seems to reflect gains on domain specific items, but not necessarily overall ability. A test’s g loading is the best predictor, not just of school grades and workplace performance, but also of all the other indicators and correlates of intelligence—including biological variables, reaction times, and heritability estimates.

Also, while scores have risen, group differences have remained. A meta-analytic review in Personnel Psychology in 2001 by Philip Roth and colleagues a 1.1 standard deviation group difference across college and university application tests, for tests for job applicants in corporate settings, and in the military. This was based on 6,246,729 testees.

Roth PL, Bevier CA, Bobko P, Switzer III FS, Tyler P. Ethnic group differences in cognitive ability in employment and educational settings: a meta-analysis. Pers Psychol 2001; 54: 297-330.

For a good overview of the debate I'd recommend reading the June 2005 issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol. 11, No. 2.

www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/ -

***I hope you know the...colorful history of who finances most of the research of Flynn’s critics.***

Step2,

Have you read Steven Pinker's book 'The Blank Slate'? For decades there was a dominant view that the environment determined a persons characteristics and genes had very little role. It was even difficult to get funding for twin studies because this could challenge the blank slate dogma. For instance, the Minnessota study of twins reared apart had to get funding from Pioneer because other agencies were ideologically opposed.

Subsequently, the findings of the study have been backed up by many other twin studies. That is how science progresses, through testing and examining empirical data. Not ideology.

"Data from more than 8000 parent-offspring pairs, 25,000 sibling pairs, 10,000 twin pairs and adoption studies provide evidence that genetic factors play a substantial role in the variation of general intelligence, with heritability estimates ranging from 40 to 80%"

--Burdick et al, Cognitive variation in DTNBP1 influence general cognitive ability. Human Molecular Genetics, 2006, Vol 15, No. 10.

Subtlety is an occupational requirement for me, as there is arguably less intellectual freedom inside the academy than outside it.

"Gee, Karen, I'm Ashkenazi, the smartest group of people in the history of the world."-mark Butterworth

Don't be too smug, Mark. There are many groups of people smarter on average than the Ashkenazi. The Suburban Yahoo identified one such group: all the people in the 98th percentile of intelligence.

As you said, "I hope you aren't feeling to (sic) bad about yourself, now."

There's no evidence "E pur si muove!" was ever said by Galileo but Harvard did once offer him a professorship.

Her comments were pretty mild; nothing to get excited about.

I'm skeptical of the causation between IQ and the 'wealth of nations'. It's too pat; this one number tells us how rich, advanced, safe, etc a society will be. People on the right try to make IQ do too much.

Whether less intelligence makes a person inferior isn't really a helpful question. No one, to my knowledge, denies that there are differences between individuals' intellects, so if less intelligent is inferior then everyone believes that lots of people are inferior. It's differences across groups that cause all the trouble, seemingly because of emotional baggage from slavery, Jim Crow, and that other prominent racial movement in Europe a few decades ago.

In any case, if a person believes that evolution has produced physical characteristics that differ among human subgroups, then they can't just stop there and say cognitive characteristics are entirely unaffected. A belief in materialistic evolution requires openness to the question, which is all our Harvard student displayed.

Mike T:

most of them violently reject the Christian view of the worth of man. To a typical white liberal, racial minorities have a right to a dignified existence because they're equal to whites (in that they possess no fundamental, core characteristic differences). If they attribute equality is proven invalid, then the basis for their beliefs is shattered.

That's why leftists panic when this subject comes up. That's why the Dean of Harvard Law School heard "inferior" when Ms. Grace said "less intelligent". Leftists *must* maintain the fantasy that everyone is of exactly equal intelligence, because otherwise their own premises would force them into the view that groups (and individuals) with less intelligence are sub-human, or at least less human that those with higher intelligence.

And the Left is well aware of what the Left does to humans who aren't intelligent enough to qualify as fully human by the Left's standards. By that I mean, of course, the unborn and the congenitally disabled. To the Left, they are of little to no value, fit to be killed or weeded out with no remorse. The Left worries that conservatives will do the same thing to racial minorities if it becomes generally accepted that some have lower average intelligence than others, because the Left engages in projection and imagines that others employ the same wicked thinking as themselves.

"Have you read Steven Pinker's book 'The Blank Slate'? For decades there was a dominant view that the environment determined a persons characteristics and genes had very little role."

The idea had existed since the Greeks, but the general acceptance of it started with with John Locke, who in 1690 wrote An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which postulated that the mind was a "blank slate" an "empty" mind, or "tabula rasa" he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception. He believed sensations and reflections are the two sources of all our ideas and knowledge, this contradicts Christian philosophy, especially the idea of the fall and original sin with presupposes an innate state of sin, existing within humans from conception, Locke believed that the mind of an infant is like a blank paper and that all of our ideas are imprinted on the mind by experience. He treated the mind as having a number of inherent powers, such as remembering and imagining, but held that our ideas of these powers are not innate. Locke also denied that there are any innate principles in the mind because (among other reasons) such principles would require innate ideas. Leibniz replied that the mind is more like a block of marble with veins which limit what can be sculpted from the block, rather than like a blank paper. On this view, innate ideas are natural tendencies of the mind and we need not be explicitly conscious of them or of the necessary truths that are based on them; we require experience and thought to determine which of our ideas are innate. Thus Leibniz accepted Locke's claim that much of our learning is from experience, but denied that this shows that the ideas and propositions we learn are not innate. Ultimately Leibniz agreed with Plato that all of our ideas are innate and that all learning is actually the exfoliation of ideas that were always present in our minds.

A critique of Pinker's the Blank Slate (and Evolutionary psychology) by Louis Menand.

http://www.hereinstead.com/sys-tmpl/bmenadonpinker/

On the point about IQ's increasing with each generation. I seen this article by Lawrence Auster talking about Steven Sailer's analysis of the IQ's of George W Bush and John Kerry, in which Sailer postulated that Kerry and Bush had higher IQ's than John F Kennedy.

http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/002700.html

Quote by Auster:

"Steve Sailer has reached the conclusion that President Bush's IQ is slightly higher than Sen. Kerry's, with Bush at about 123 and Kerry at about 120. Given the plodding, leaden quality of Kerry's supposedly superior intellect, I would say that Sailer's finding is plausible, if far from definitive. But would people regard Sailer's finding as credible if they knew that he also thought that Bush's IQ was higher than John F. Kennedy's? Kennedy took an IQ test and got 119. I've said to Mr. Sailer that, considering JFK's exceptional verbal facility and overall brightness, this didn't seem an accurate result to me, that Kennedy would have to be at least in the 120s. Mr. Sailer replied that Kennedy was quick, but not deep. I replied that IQ measures a person's capacity to process information, not his intellectual depth. Mr. Sailer still didn't back away from his view that the 119 IQ score for Kennedy is accurate. Bottom line: Sailer thinks that George W. Bush has a higher IQ than John F. Kennedy. In other words, the least intellectually competent U.S. president, a man who can barely speak in the absence of a written script or memorized lines, has a higher IQ than the most famously bright and witty U.S. president. Ridiculous, I say."

I was wondering if the reason that this problem may have arisen, could be because of the intergenerational problem with IQ tests.

M Pearle, thanks for the link, I'll have a look into it, although I am not sure if it will address all the problems in Flynn's research methodology.

In the same way the CS Lewis warned, in his preface to The Screwtape Letters, of two equal and opposite errors in the consideration of devils; so too there are two equal and opposite errors regarding IQ, or estimates of general factor intelligence: 1) that it doesn't exist; and 2) that such measures are destiny for individuals or genetically related groups. And I'm sure the devil is quite as pleased with one error as the other.

Years ago, I read an article that mentioned a 15-point IQ gap between rural and urban English, between Highland and Lowland Scots, between burakunin and ippan Japanese. Genetics does not seem a likely factor, but marginalization does.

Beside which, groups have no empirical existence, only individuals exist, and intelligence (whatever that means) is an attribute of individuals. An individual's score is not determined by the average of the group to which he is assigned. The average of the group is an outcome of all the various individuals assigned to that group.

The equation of "intelligence" with the ability to solve (mostly scientific) problems is popular in the cult of the cerebral because, by it, they can deem themselves most intelligent. But do white gentiles deem themselves inferior to Ashkenazim simply because Ashkenazim outscore them on IQ tests?

The scientific revolution occurred in Latin Europe for many reasons, none of which had to do with the native intelligence of the inhabitants. Science is not the result of bunches of smart people doing smart things. Or must we assume that prior to the Middle Ages, Near Easterners or Chinese were smarter than Europeans and then suddenly in the course of the Middle Ages the Europeans became suddenly and inexplicable smarter? "Brilliant and creative individuals have adorned every culture. Abelard and al Ghazali were contemporaries. So were John of Salisbury and ibn Rushd; al-Tusi and Aquinas; ibn Taymiyya and William of Ockham. In China, we need only think of Wang Chhung, Shen Kua, or Chu Hsi. Clearly, there is no shortage of powerful intellects in any culture." It matters not only how smart one is, but also what one does with those smarts.

Ye Olde,

Why is it that anti-HBD folks always trot out the same old tired arguments?! First of all, no one is saying in any of these discussions that genetics is the only determinant of IQ. Nurture matters -- which is what any self-respecting Darwin/gene guy would say in the first place! Secondly, groups do exist, even if you want to deny their empirical reality. Go log on to the gnxp.com website and do some reading and come back when you've learned a thing or two. Finally, with respect to the scientific revolution, again I would guess that Steve Burton of this website, Steve Sailer of HBD fame, et. al. would agree with you that it wasn't IQ alone that gave birth to European achievement -- but we'd also argue that it was part of the story. See Greg Clark's recent book "A Farewell to Alms" for more on this subject.

Finally, with respect to the scientific revolution, again I would guess that Steve Burton of this website, Steve Sailer of HBD fame, et. al. would agree with you that it wasn't IQ alone that gave birth to European achievement -- but we'd also argue that it was part of the story.

I wouldn't be so sure (that all HBDers would say that). I've seen Derbyshire in particular outright claim that invoking culture to explain group behavior at all is tantamount to invoking phlogiston. I believe there is merit to IQ, and group IQ differences, but I do see excessive reductionism from the HBDers.

Here's an example of what I'm talking about (I don't want to go to far afield, so I won't go into detail about what's wrong with Derb's definition of "culture", except to point out that he appears to blithely assume that beliefs are either non-existent or epiphenomenal):

As for the culture stuff: arguments from culture are really circular. Culture is just customary collective behavior. If I ask: "Why do people in this place behave in this way?" and you reply, "Because of their culture," you are asserting that they behave in this way because that's how they behave. "Culture" is a sort of phlogiston or luminiferous æther that sounds as if it's explaining something, but actually isn't.

Derbyshire is influenced by Pinker, who is influenced by Judith Rich Harris, who has claimed:

"shared family environments"—that is, parents—have little or no effect on a child's personality. (Strictly speaking, she claimed that parenting does not account for the variation in differences in personality, which is what genetic science measures.) Biological siblings reared together are no more alike, or less different, than biological siblings reared in separate families. Half of personality, Harris argued, is the product of genes, and half is the product of what she called the "unique environment"—that is, the particular experiences of the individual child. Harris suggested that children's peers might be the principal source of this environmental input.

Her book looks outside the family and points at the peer group as an important shaper of the child's psyche. Harris argues that children identify with their classmates and playmates rather than their parents, modify their behavior to fit with the peer group, and this ultimately helps to form the character of the individual.

The latest research of Jensen:

Race differences in average IQ are largely genetic

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/04/26/9530.aspx?page=2

TPB,

I agree with the Derb that "culture" is sort of a nebulous concept, but again, why assume I was talking about culture? Nurture is part of the story, and while I'm not a big fan of Jared Diamond, it is clear that continental environments had some sort of impact on the way in which we genetically developed. So climate, terrain, animals, etc. can impact our genes, which in turn, impacts "culture".

It wasn't me who wrote that, I agree with you to a degree.

"I replied that IQ measures a person's capacity to process information"

Indeed. In the age of computers, we tend to view things in computer metaphors, so such a conclusion is almost unavoidable in our culture.

"Thought-crime"? "Holy Office of the Inquisition"? "mills of the multicuturalist Left grind exceeding fast and they grind exceeding rough"? "E pur si muove"?

Are you vilifying each and every person who disagrees with "human bio-diversity"?

Frankly, I smell the slick promotion of right-wing eugenics. How could I be wrong?

Jeff Singer
Why is it that anti-HBD folks always trot out the same old tired arguments?!

YOS
I don't know what an HBD or anti-HBD is. I would quite happily say that genetics might determine the size of the glass; but as to how full it is, who knows? I've known a lot of clueless high IQ types.

Jeff Singer
Secondly, groups do exist, even if you want to deny their empirical reality.

YOS:
Empirical reality? Are you sure you understand "empirical" as opposed to "abstracted qualities"? An empirical body has extension, weight, location, etc. Groups are created by human beings who perceive some apparently important similarities among actual existing entities. For example, there was for some while talk of two races: the broad-heads and the narrow-heads. You don't hear much of those "groups" these days. Some take this too far and fall into the error of nominalism, of course.

But the vital thing statistically is this: the group receives its summary statistical characteristics from the measured properties of the individuals classified within it. The individual does not possess properties by dint of membership within the group. Even real scientists sometimes err in this regard, let along psychologists and sociologists.

If IQ is a measure, what is its traceability to NIST standards?

Jeff Singer
Finally, with respect to the scientific revolution, again I would guess that Steve Burton of this website, Steve Sailer of HBD fame, et. al. would agree with you that it wasn't IQ alone that gave birth to European achievement -- but we'd also argue that it was part of the story. See Greg Clark's recent book "A Farewell to Alms" for more on this subject.

YOS
I'd rather read historians of science. I might ask again: at what point in the Middle Ages did the Europeans evolve a greater intelligence than the Arabs and Chinese who had previously exceeded them?

Brian
I smell the slick promotion of right-wing eugenics. How could I be wrong?

YOS
You could be wrong because the eugenics movement was sponsored by impeccably credentialed progressives and leftists. Not only Fisher, Pearson, and other Darwinian scientists, but also G.B.Shaw, H.G.Wells, Margaret Sanger, and many others. Racial hygiene was all very trendy back in the early 1900s. The Nordic countries had some of the most progressive eugenics legislation around. There would be rules for who could marry whom; licenses to have childred; etc.

Ye Olde Statistician,

HBD is an abbreviation for Human Biodiversity.

Brian asks:

"Are you vilifying each and every person who disagrees with 'human bio-diversity'?"

Well, ummm...has "each and ever person who disagrees with 'human bio-diversity'" behaved as dishonorably in this affair as Dean Minow (To say nothing of He Whom We Do Not Name, here)?

"Frankly, I smell the slick promotion of right-wing eugenics."

Yup, Brian. My *real* agenda is:

(1) sterilize &/or euthanize anybody whose ancestry is less than 100% North-Western European. Including myself.

(2) Annex the Sudetenland.

(3) Invade Poland.

What can I say? You smoked me out!

Perseus - well, indeed. As George Will remarked about the Larry Summers affair, five years ago: "He thought he was speaking in a place that encourages uncircumscribed intellectual explorations. He was not. He was on a university campus."

YOS writes: "An empirical body has extension, weight, location, etc. Groups are created by human beings who perceive some apparently important similarities among actual existing entities."

So, for example, the set of all "ducks" has no "empirical" reality, but is "created" (not just observed or discovered, but actually "created") by human beings?

And presumably the same goes for "human beings" themselves. The set of all "human beings," too, has no "empirical" reality, but is "created" (not just observed or discovered, but actually "created") by...ummm...human beings...

Oh, wait...

And down the nominalist rabbit-hole we go.

YOS, again: "It matters not only how smart one is, but also what one does with those smarts."

Uncontroversially true.

"...at what point in the Middle Ages did the Europeans evolve a greater intelligence than the Arabs and Chinese who had previously exceeded them?"

Is there somebody who claims that Europeans evolved greater intelligence than the Arabs and Chinese at some point in the Middle Ages? I surf the HBD outskirts of the web pretty regularly, but have never come across such a claim.

Ye Olde,

I can't really beat Steve's 7:08 PM comment, but in case you want to learn more, I'd start with this post:

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-scientific-basis-for-race.html

You'll learn a lot more from Professor Hsu if you did around his blog. Cold, hard, empirical facts.

I, for one, welcome our new Ashkenazi Chinese overlords. Those groups really know how to raise achievers.

The only reason this went public is because of a fight Stephanie had with one of her friends six months after the email was sent, supposedly over a guy. If this chick was married and making home cooked meals, like nature intended, she wouldn't be stirring up all this controversy to begin with.

Snark aside, if the mere thought of eugenics is abhorrent, it seems a bit inconsistent to blindly accept research funded by a group with strong ties to eugenics.

YOS writes:
"An empirical body has extension, weight, location, etc. Groups are created by human beings who perceive some apparently important similarities among actual existing entities."

Steve responds:
So, for example, the set of all "ducks" has no "empirical" reality, but is "created" (not just observed or discovered, but actually "created") by human beings?

YOS clarifies:
Precisely. This duck exists and that duck exists and the other duck exists, but the abstraction "ducks" is something that is conceived by human intellect. Now, all knowledge begins in the senses, so the class of {ducks} is abstracted from the real properties of real ducks. Platonists and Aristotelians are called "philosophical realists" for precisely this reason. Nominalism and conceptualism are incoherent. That is {ducks} is real, but does not exist itself as a material entity.

More importantly, this critter over here does not have the qualities it has _because_ it is a member of {ducks}. Rather, {ducks} has the qualities it has because the various members of the class possess similar qualities individually.
+ + +
"...at what point in the Middle Ages did the Europeans evolve a greater intelligence than the Arabs and Chinese who had previously exceeded them?"

Steve asks:
Is there somebody who claims that Europeans evolved greater intelligence than the Arabs and Chinese at some point in the Middle Ages?

YOS explains:
Implicitly, in this very thread. It was earlier claimed that the Scientific Revolution occurred in Latin Europe because the Europeans (actually, only the Western Europeans) were smarter than non-Europeans. But the Arab world was more scientifically advanced than Western Christendom at the beginning of the Middle Ages, yet scientifically behind the West at the end of the Middle Ages. If being smarter is the key, then the Arabs were smarter in the 8th and 9th centuries while the Latin Europeans had grown smarter by the 13th and 14th centuries. The same goes for the Chinese and technology. In fact, the smartness of individuals has little to do with such things.

This does not explain why Europeans had to learn about agriculture, copper and bronze-working, or iron-working from the Near East.

So, YOS

(1) when you said "created" you really meant "conceived?"

(2) ah..."implicitly."

Presumably you're referring to first-time (so far as I can recall) commenter MAR's post from a couple days back? Except that he acknowledges that "NE Asians have a slightly higher average IQ than Europeans?"

Nobody serious claims that "being smarter is *the* key." (emphasis added). That would be almost as stupid as claiming that "the smartness of individuals has little to do with such things."

Steve,

Apologies for intruding on your thread here--feel free to delete upon reading it--but I don't have another, ahem, forum to contact you. I've tried responding to your emails from two different email accounts of my own, but each time your email provider has blocked delivery due to 'security concerns'. Now, I know I'm a rather questionable sort of character, but who's your email provider to judge?!

cm

If you want to avoid falling into nominalism, it's best to avoid thinking about what makes a duck a duck in terms of classes and sets.

hobbesist - bizarre. this has never happened before.

Time to contact my "provider."

Michael Sullivan - you got me!

Michael Sullivan says:
If you want to avoid falling into nominalism, it's best to avoid thinking about what makes a duck a duck in terms of classes and sets.

YOS shrugs:
I think of them in terms of abstract universals and concrete particulars. Both really exist, but they exist in two different ways.

Are smews ducks? Are teals ducks? Geese or swans? A tricky question, for it depends on where humans draw the lines. A child may point and cry, "Ducky!" because she has grasped the essential duckiness of it all. But may well do so upon seeing a goose. She has grasped the essence that ducks, geese, and swans are anatids, but lacks the term "anatid." An ornithologist may have a different understanding; a duck hunter (or a game warden) still others. But there is something really there "in virtue of which" we call a duck a "duck."

The problem many of modern-day Social Darwinists have is that they a) do not distinguish accidental from essential forms; and b) do not appreciate the ephemeral nature of the constellation of features to which they have given a constant name. Thus, they wind up assigning qualities to the universal that really belong to the particulars.

I once calculated that the mean age of people sitting on the left side of a classroom was greater than those sitting on the right side. Given that, I could predict (within bounds) the ages of people sitting in different positions. The bounds of course overlapped enormously, but the left side had a greater proportion of people over forty, while the right side had a greater proportion of people under twenty. (This is not an independent fact.) But they did not have these ages because they were sitting on one side or the other of the room. Rather, the sides had different averages depending on who had wound up sitting there. Over time, this would change. (E.g., a different audience.) But in comparing any two large groups that differ on property A we are likely to find differences in property B, even if the properties are independent.

That the physicist Dr. Hsu has learned that one may discover ancestry through DNA is laudable. My mother could tell people's ancestries by looking at their faces. He's a Hammerstone; she's a Unangst. Every river has its source; but a river is not made of distinct units.

How do you conclude that 'lower average intelligence' is NOT inferior?

It is inferior with respect to intelligence, there is no other way to interpret that. Just like "lower average physical ability" is inferior with respect to physical ability. It does not mean inferior with respect to everything, which is the implication the Harvard dean made. It does not appear to be a comment on inferior worth.

Genetics plays a part in all sorts of attributes, and intelligence is not immune. It is certainly not determinitive, but it does have an influence. And again, the comment was directed toward overall population average, not particular individuals, among whom there will be great variation. Is it true? Who really knows - it is difficult to control for non-genetic factors, so I really can't see how a claim can be made one way or the other.

4) what people say in private is not necessarily what their true views are. This would be like saying that what people say while drunk is what their true views are. I don't see any reason to believe this; there are lots of different social pressures in private from what there are in public, and people are likely to be influenced by those pressures to greater or lesser degrees.

The converse is equally true - that is, people don't always say what they really think when sober, due to social constraints/influence, etc. Nor do they necessarily say what they really think in public, due again to pressures/influences, etc. In short, people rarely say what they really think in public or private.

Truth only comes out in blogs.

Would you want a judge who thinks you are genetically stupid deciding your case?

It would not be genetic stupidity that would get you in trouble there, but alleged genetic propensity to criminal behavior. Our law protects people who are too dumb to know right from wrong; our law provides zero protection for those who are just prone to break the law. Throw in a little racial determinism there, and you have a recipe for writing off whole chunks of the population.

Half of personality, Harris argued, is the product of genes, and half is the product of what she called the "unique environment"—that is, the particular experiences of the individual child. Harris suggested that children's peers might be the principal source of this environmental input.

If parents have no influence on their children's peers, it would suggest that personality determines friendship, not vice versa.

Mary, if you look at the link I posted under: "A critique of Pinker's the Blank Slate (and Evolutionary psychology) by Louis Menand.", he offers a critique of Harris and Pinkers views.

Steve,

Just dropping a note to say I've responded to your email, and--at least so far--I've received no permanent failure notices (as I did immediately in the other cases).

Again, sorry to intrude on the conversation--especially when it's about something fun, like nominalism.

cm

CPM - I recall my mentor in philosophy, Wallace Matson, once remarking that an ability to get excited about the problem of universals was the true test of whether or not one had a future in philosophy.

In my case, at least, he was right.

Apparently, only white Europeans have the capacities to build civilization. Is that the subtext of your incessant promotion of "human biodiversity"?

Is that the subtext of your incessant promotion of "human biodiversity"?

Err, why do you think there has to be a "subtext" to simple recognition of scientific data?

Not to mention that no one thinks white Europeans are the only ones capable of building civilizations...well maybe the Nordicists do, but there really aren't that many of them.

But the Arab world was more scientifically advanced than Western Christendom at the beginning of the Middle Ages, yet scientifically behind the West at the end of the Middle Ages.

According to Bertrand Russell:

Arabic philosophy is not important as original thought. Men like Avicenna and Averroes are essentially commentators. Speaking generally, the views of the more scientific philosophers come from Aristotle and the Neoplatonists in logic and metaphysics, from Galen in medicine, from Greek and Indian sources in mathematics and astronomy, and among mystics religious philosophy has also an admixture of old Persian beliefs. Writers in Arabic showed some originality in mathematics and in chemistry; in the latter case, as an incidental result of alchemical researches. Mohammedan civilization in its great days was admirable in the arts and in many technical ways, but it showed no capacity for independent speculation in theoretical matters. Its importance, which must not be underrated, is as a transmitter. Between ancient and modern European civilization, the dark ages intervened. The Mohammedans and the Byzantines, while lacking the intellectual energy required for innovation, preserved the apparatus of civilization, books, and learned leisure. Both stimulated the West when it emerged from barbarism; the Mohammedans chiefly in the thirteenth century, the Byzantines chiefly in the fifteenth. In each case the stimulus produced new thought better than that produced by the transmitters -- in the one case scholasticism, in the other the Renaissance (which however had other causes also).

Whether Russell is being entirely fair to the Arabs is a different question.

Brian: I'm not a subtle writer. I don't do "subtexts."

Obviously, it's false that only "white Europeans have the capacities to build civilization."

Any more softballs you'd like to throw my way?

I'm not a subtle writer. I don't do "subtexts."

I wonder what false inferences we can statistically determine about IQ based on that. Besides, didn't you used to have the tagline, “Something lies beyond the scene…”?

Obviously, it's false that only "white Europeans have the capacities to build civilization."

Indeed, but it rather gets to the heart of the matter to suggest at least of the possibility that only white Europeans have the capacity to build white European civilizations... which would be neither controversial nor problematic if not for the fact that the Anglophone world hadn't been trying to export its own unique blend to the rest of the world for the past 85 years or so.

Step2: (1) I take it you're suggesting that, somewhere or other, I've made false statistical inference about IQ based on something or other?

(2) I have indeed, on another website, used the tagline "Something lies beyond the scene." I'm not sure what you're getting at, by mentioning it, but it's certainly interesting to learn that you're a longtime Forvm guy (that tagline was quite some time ago!)

Steve N.: good point.

By "white European civilization," I take it that you mean, more or less, (sort of) democratic (sort of) capitalism.

I'm interested in your choice of "85 years or so" - i.e., since about 1925.

I wonder if you think that *earlier* Anglophone imperialism (e.g., England in India) was more realistic, and, perhaps, more benign.

Bad math: I meant 95 years. Wilson-n-all that... My how time flies!

Bingo, Anglophone Imperialism was more realistic... still a mistake (IMO)... but more realistic and benign... than what we have today: Anglophone Anti-Imperialism... and the corresponding construction of a "Third World" (aka. hell... and coming soon to a civilization near you!). I'm navigating mostly by body-count.

The Phantom Blogger wrote, on May 4, 2010 at 9:41 PM:

Mary, if you look at the link I posted under: "A critique of Pinker's the Blank Slate (and Evolutionary psychology) by Louis Menand.", he offers a critique of Harris and Pinkers views.

Harris' necessarily brief letter to the editor, responding to Menand's flawed critique, is here:

http://judithrichharris.info/tna/menand

Thanks, I hadn't seen that reply. I wasn't endorsing Menands or Harris's view, I was just directing people to the information, so they could see for themselves.