Race, gender, sexual orientation, intelligence, what else?

[dyctiostelium]

Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".

His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."

In 1997, he told a British newspaper that a woman should have the right to abort her unborn child if tests could determine it would be homosexual. He later insisted he was talking about a "hypothetical" choice which could never be applied. He has also suggested a link between skin colour and sex drive, positing the theory that black people have higher libidos, and argued in favour of genetic screening and engineering on the basis that " stupidity" could one day be cured. He has claimed that beauty could be genetically manufactured, saying: "People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would great."

Nobel laureate James Watson, codiscoverer of DNA, of course. Full article here.

I wonder what opinion do his views get from this audience.

[Unidian]

He's probably right about race and intelligence. It's an incredibly unfashionable thing to say, but the data in that regard seems fairly clear, or at least very suggestive. There is a difference, although it isn't an enormous one and regardless of it's magnitude, it certainly does absolutely nothing to legitimize the irrational bigotry so many would use it to do.

He's comically wrong about everything else. I have no idea what his problem with homosexuality is, but I can't imagine it has any rational basis. And intelligence or the lack thereof is a woefully insufficient reason to "abort" anyone, or even to discriminate against them in any way (excepting job applications for positions which require a certain level of intellectual competence). Is this guy trying to win this year's "Mein Fuhrer" award, or what? These are truly monstrous views, and no data compel or suggest them in any rational or reasonable sense. Sheesh.

As for making all women "pretty" (by mainstream standards), not only is it simply silly and unworthy of seious consideration, but I think it would be a disaster. Men and women are already ensared enough by the lure of physical attraction. Scientific genius or otherwise, this guy is not only an enormous bigot, he's also a fool.

[Unidian]

Oops, I misread. He doesn't want to abort dumb babies, he wants to abort gay ones. But that's just as idiotic and evil, of course.

[Katy]

The way we measure intelligence is biased towards American culture, and American definitions of intelligence. Beyond that you have to take education and culture into consideration.

And how on earth are you supposed to know which babys are gay?

[Philosophaster]

The way we measure intelligence is biased towards American culture, and American definitions of intelligence.

I don't know if that's necessarily true.

The bulk of at least some intelligence tests consist of pattern recognition / filling in sequences, abilities that are very useful in any culture.

[Philosophaster]

Anyway, this topic was posted on another board, and I'll post the same thing here that I did there:

We know two facts, both of which are pretty much undeniable due to all the data that has been collected:

(1) Blacks tend to score significantly lower than whites, Jews, and Asians on IQ tests. To put it bluntly: If IQ tests are a good measurement of what people casually call "intelligence," then blacks are significantly less intelligent than those other groups on average.

(2) IQ score is pretty highly predictable based on scores of biological parents.

Now, even these two facts together do not necessarily license the conclusion that lower average black IQ is due to genetics. Why is that? Consider an example, from Ned Block:

Suppose you buy a bag of ordinary seed corn from a hardware store. Grow one handful of it in a carefully controlled environment in which the seeds get uniform illumination and uniform nutrient solution. The corn plants will vary in height, and because the environment is uniform, the heritability of height will be 100 percent. Now take another handful of corn from the same bag, and grow it in a similarly uniform environment but with a uniformly poor nutrient solution. Again, the plants will vary in height, but all will be stunted. Once more the heritability of height is 100 percent. Despite the 100 percent heritabilities of height within each group, the difference in height between the groups is entirely environmentally caused. So we can have total heritability within groups, substantial variation between groups, but no genetic difference between the groups.

The application to race is obvious: heritability is high within Whites. But as Lewontin's example shows, high heritability within groups licenses no conclusion about how to explain differences between groups. -- none, in particular, about genetic explanations of the differences. Nor does it dictate the direction of any genetic difference between groups.

The environments that blacks grow up in today are probably worse for the development of intelligence than the environments endured by any other racial group. The degree to which we might attribute those poor environments to the choices of blacks themselves is arguable, but the facts remain that (a) the environments are quite different and (b) high heritability of a characteristic plus a low level of that characteristic among a group does not necessarily mean that the low level can be attributed to genetics.

Having said all of this, it is still possible that lower black IQ scores are due to genetic factors. To deny the possibility based on the fact that it makes people uncomfortable is stupid. But due to the consideration above, it seems premature to make a strong conclusion about "inherently lower intelligence" one way or the other.

[Unidian]

Yes, it's far from clear whether genetics, environment, or some combination of both is the culprit. But I don't think we need to establish that to acknowledge that the guy's point regarding intelligence is valid. He didn't specifically blame genetics in the quoted excerpts, although I didn't read the full article, and he likely does blame genetics. Regardless, if intelligence is lower, it is lower. I'm all for finding out why, but we don't need to do that to ackowledge the data.

That said, I want to reiterate that Watson is a real piece of crap.

[Trevor Salyzyn]

If you predict your baby is going to be an asshole, can you abort it?

[Unidian]

Obviously not. Vickie is still alive.

Oh, and this guy Watson, too. ;)

[Shahrazad]

Years ago at TPG we had a discussion on the existence of race. It was a real good and long one, and the race believers were unable to come up with the slightest evidence that race exists as anything more than a human construct.

For someone to establish that people of the black race are less intelligent, they would first have to establish that human races exist.

If someone has a good argument in favor of race, please present it. I have never heard one.

Start by showing me that you can unambiguously determine someone's race based on their DNA.

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[Philosophaster]

Years ago at TPG we had a discussion on the existence of race. It was a real good and long one, and the race believers were unable to come up with the slightest evidence that race exists as anything more than a human construct.

...Start by showing me that you can unambiguously determine someone's race based on their DNA.

All biological categories are "human constructs" in a sense, but if you want evidence that popular "race" categories correlate well with human DNA markers, the largest study ever done on the subject showed that geneticists could identify the race of individuals by using just DNA markers with almost no errors (99.9 percent accuracy). Self-attributed race corresponds extremely well with genetic ancestry:

A recent study conducted at the Stanford Medical School challenges the widely held belief that race is only a social construct and provides evidence that race has genetic implications.

The study, recently published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, was led by Neil Risch — a former Stanford genetics professor who now teaches at UC San Francisco — who examined 326 different DNA regions, using 3,636 subjects.

Risch’s project is by far the largest study of this kind, including evidence collected from patients that hail from 15 locations within the U.S. and Taiwan.

“This broad distribution is important because it means that the results are representative of racial groups throughout the United States rather than a small region that might not reflect the population nationwide,” according to a press release issued by the Stanford Medical Center.

Researchers on Risch’s team examined the genetic signposts of white, African-American, East Asian and Hispanic subjects using a computer program that groups relevant results into clusters.

Only four clearly distinguishable clusters appeared. In all but five cases, individuals within each cluster were of the same race, Risch said.

“Socially defined categories of race-ethnicity correspond extremely closely to genetically defined categories,” he added.

This high correspondence between self-identified race and genetic makeup was an unexpected result for many in the genetics field.

“I asked other scientists, including geneticists, how often they thought the two categories would be discordant,” Risch said. “The most common answer was about 20 percent of the time, with some people saying 50 percent or higher.”

The study found a correspondence of 99.9 percent with a discordance of 0.1 percent. He said that most people would not predict the correspondence to be as high due to previous reports that have been written on the subject.

Despite this unexpected result, the study does not provide evidence for genes that cause differences in traits within racial or ethnic groups.

“This study focused on genetic markers,” Risch said. “These results say nothing about other traits except that it is possible that genetic factors may contribute to differences in traits among racial and ethnic groups.”

http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2005/ ... naMaterial

Popular racial categories correspond quite well with genetic groupings. Determination of race by DNA is quite possible, with very high accuracy.

[daybrown]

First off, who getsta define intelligence? Diamond reports following a New Guinea highlander into the forest and listening to the man draw on an encyclopedic database to expound on the characteristics of all the flora and fauna encountered. But back in the village, he cant handle simple algebra. His brain is much more ROM and no math co-processor.

Since the corporate culture has books and computers to handle databases, they think he is stupid.

Environment is due for some clarification also. Some gene pools have much worse developmental reactions to dietary deficit and contamination. From what we now know of nutrition, if what I wanted was stupid kids, I'd raise them on soulfood. If I wanted smart kids, I'd replace corn in the diet with oats. And if I wanted to reduce the risk of ADD, ADHD, autism, and ICD, it better be organic oats. And if I really wanted to dumb them down, I'd feed them sugar cereals, junkfood, and soda. Some gene pools are more susceptible to this than others.

The last in a sequence of sons grows up to be a fag because of a reaction the mother's body has had to the presence of testosterone from previous pregnancies. The FRONTLINE PBS episode on "The Yaqui Valley" showed a frightenly high rate of autism, which they discovered was due to the chemicals sprayed on veggies grown for American stupid markets. The parents quite naturally brought some home to feed their own kids. their Indian kin still up in the mountains still had normal boys- raised on the traditional diet.

Turns out that plants sprayed with organo-phosphates to kill bugs develop more phytoestrogen in their tissues. The FDA was not concerned, it knew that phyto-estrogen didnt cause cancer because millions of women use it 25 days a month. That's what is in the birth control pill. Nobody stopped to think what the metabolism of little boys would do when exposed, over time, to phyto-estrogen. Now we know that it may cause autism. the video showed, without comment, the Indian girls in the village, with obvious tits. At age 8. And if what you wanted was a national epidemic of faggots, what else would you try but raising boys on the birth control pill?

Needless to say, none of this data went anywhere. The profits of corporations would be harmed. We can not have any interference with capitalism can we?

[dyctiostelium]

Thanks everyone.
It is hopeful to see a group of non-specialists (but ones who happen to be very smart people) can get to the main arguments that need to be considered in this issue, and getting there in less than a dozen posts. It kind of compensates for the way the highly trained specialists can get the concepts all wrong.
And I completely agree: heredability of intelligence does not in any way can be ascribed to genetics, While race, on the other hand, certainly can, as the quoted study of Neil Risch shows. 99.9% accuracy, although it is fair to acknowledge that it only allows to define your continental origin: Africa, East Asian, Eurasia or America.

[Unidian]

I never bought into the idea that race is merely a "social construct" and carefully avoided all such threads whenever they appeared. I was quite certain the idea was wrong, although at the time I wasn't aware of any evidence to back that view up (thus avoiding such discussions). It always struck me as one of those fashionable ideas that was obviously contradicted by reality, and still does. Good to know there is a study which explodes it.

[Imadrongo]

Years ago at TPG we had a discussion on the existence of race. It was a real good and long one, and the race believers were unable to come up with the slightest evidence that race exists as anything more than a human construct.

For someone to establish that people of the black race are less intelligent, they would first have to establish that human races exist.

If someone has a good argument in favor of race, please present it. I have never heard one.

Start by showing me that you can unambiguously determine someone's race based on their DNA.

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Nothing is unambiguous like that. The "races" have interbred way too much.

[Shahrazad]

Thank you Philo, for the link. Finally someone shows me something with weight.

But please help me out here. I am having a very hard time seeing where you draw the line. If a person has a 100% white mother and a 100% black father, what race would he say he is? And what if he has 25% of four races?

There are many countries where races are very mixed, to the point where it's not so easy to pigeon-hole people into four neat little categories.

[dyctiostelium]

Genetic analysis allows you to see admixed populations as well: the son of a pure European Caucasic father and a pure African mother, would be 50% mestizo for Caucasian/African ancestry.
And someone could be 40% Caucasic, 20% Asian, 40% Amerindian, and so on.

[Philosophaster]

But please help me out here. I am having a very hard time seeing where you draw the line.

There is no sharp "line." We're talking about varying proportions. It's kind of like asking when a mixture of oil and water becomes "oil" and when it becomes "water."

If a person has a 100% white mother and a 100% black father, what race would he say he is?

Mixed, or if the person identifies more with one side than the other, he might call himself "black" or "white."

Race is just a way of identifying where the bulk of one's recent ancestors lived. In the case of someone whose dad had mostly African recent ancestors and whose mom had mostly white recent ancestors, the answer would be "Africa and Europe," of course.

[Unidian]

I might take up calling myself Native American. I have a bit of the blood (enough to qualify) and I think I prefer the values of that culture to those of this one.

Not that Native American culture was (or is) anywhere near homogeneous, but you know what I mean. :p

[daybrown]

If the Semites want to say they are the "sons of Abraham" or whoever, I'm not going to argue with fools. Nor with anti-semites who dont seem to know who the Aryans really were either.

I'm awaiting my result from my own DNA test to see where the various haplotypes came from. None of us are 'pure blood'. But all the same, the DNA markers and the epigenetic methyl tags are being identified, and in turn tell us of the risks and gifts that need to be assessed early in development.

Education is necessary, but not sufficient. Some gene pools have lotsa kids who are at much greater risk from dietary deficiency and contamination, and some of the results are delinquincy, drug, alcohol, & sexual abuse, and a failure to take advantage of educational opportunity.

Trying to promote the politically correct idea that all races are alike is not going to solve these problems.

[daybrown]

Another tectonic shift just came in:
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/ ... erthal.htm
Found in Neanderthal DNA from bones in Spain. Isnt that where the last HNS lived? The link dont say what the date is. But short of DNA transfer between Homos Sapiens and Neanderthalis, hard to explain how the marker got there.

Aint been that long since they found a HNS hypoid bone, needed in the neck to regulate the voice box. I read one acoustic analysis which says that the big hunks had 'female' voices. The wall to protect religious sensibilities and political correctness, keeping the Neanderthal DNA separate, just lost another huge chunk.

I wonder how long it will take them to give it up.

[Oceaxer]

Great posts, Philo. I have more to say on this subject later this evening.

[Dan Rowden]

I'm in the 200m hurdles, myself.

[Dan Rowden]

On a serious note, "race" doesn't appear to be a credible scientific category any longer, even if it remains a practical social one to some degree. And I see no reason that measurable, if only trivial intelligence variations ought not occur in communities with different environments and history. To argue that human evolution has followed some weird global synchronicity doesn't seem especially scientific to me. Plus, intelligence measurement results have the same issue that IQ tests have: there can arguably be purely cultural reasons for variation (e.g. Ashkenazi Jews). Of course, this is part of evolution, too.

[vicdan]

Incidentally, if 'race' is to be treated as biological category, there would be at least three different races in Africa, as Africa has three groups which are more genetically divergent from each other than the rest of the world put together -- central africans, pygmies, and bushmen.

But those who advance the concept of race, never cared about whether such categorization reflects real differences and acknowledges real absence of differences. It's social categorization posing as biological taxonomy.