OT: Racialist evolutionary psychology
Manuel Doria
Due to my personal political convictions, I hope that the research
conducted by J. Philippe Rushton is wrong on the affairs of his partly
genetic approach to race differences in intelligence based on E. O.
Wilson's r/K selection model.
Whatever the nebulous IQ concept means, twin studies suggest that it is
highly heritable. There exists some other correlations, between cranium
size and IQ, for instance. So, I expect to find fluctuations of
"intelligence" which are genetic in origin in different populations.
However, I don't expect those to be very significant; according to the
evidence I've seen, extra-genetic factors are much more important.
For those not familiar with the thesis, here is a summary:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton
Below are some of the most revelant critiques I've encountered to
address Rushton's work on the book Race, Evolution and Behavior. I'd
like to know if there are any others more relevant and if the ones
presented are sound:
1) "r" selected populations are expected to evolve in environments that
have more stable climates; gorillas and humans evolved for instance in
equatorial and tropical lands. The "white" and "oriental" racial
categories of Rushton, whom he claims to be the most "r" selected human
populations, evolved in Eurasia, mostly a temperate land.
2) Hispanics, who are the descendants of both native americans (asian
in origin) and white europeans score at average less IQ points than
both the "white" and "oriental" categories of Rushton, which goes
against the claim that race differences in intelligence are between 50%
and 80% genetic in origin.
3) Sexual maturity and nursing and are highly influenced by
environmental effects, namely nutrition
4) There are also the standard criticisms on the race concept even at
the level of "very extended family" or large ethnic group; there are
higher internal fluctuations among these great groups than between
them.
5) r/K reproductive strategies in humans are able to "jump" between
generations, being sensitive to social and cultural factors; abusive
fathers bearing many offspring (a "K" sexual approach) might render for
instance individuals with more social disabilities and more cautious
with relationships (a more "r" sexual approach).
6) Again, what is the reliability of the IQ tests and what counts as an
unbiased measurement? Sub-saharan africans and australian natives are
considered to be mentally retarded according to their average IQ
scores, which is plain wrong. This says much more about the
preconceptions and ranges of the IQ test than what it actually does
measure. How would a hunter-gatherer or desert nomad who has never seen
abstract logical puzzles before react when an outsider psychologist
asks him to make these sorts of tests?
Thanks in advance.
- M.D.
Vend
Manuel Doria wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Due to my personal political convictions, I hope that the research
> conducted by J. Philippe Rushton is wrong on the affairs of his partly
> genetic approach to race differences in intelligence based on E. O.
> Wilson's r/K selection model.
>
> Whatever the nebulous IQ concept means, twin studies suggest that it is
> highly heritable.
Twin studies fail to isolate genetic effects from the effects of one of
the environment in which the most crucial stages of human development
happen: the mother's womb.
It has been shown that mother's nutrition, health and lifestile affect
various aspects of the fetus development, usually causing life-lasting
effects.
There is no reason to assume that brain development is an exception.
> There exists some other correlations, between cranium
> size and IQ, for instance. So, I expect to find fluctuations of
> "intelligence" which are genetic in origin in different populations.
> However, I don't expect those to be very significant; according to the
> evidence I've seen, extra-genetic factors are much more important.
>
> For those not familiar with the thesis, here is a summary:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton
Assuming that Wikipedia is right, I would say that the 'aggregation'
method of this guy is flawed.
He may have pre-selected the studies he analyzed to produce the result
he wanted.
Even ignoring the flaws of his 'aggregation' method, the only thing he
can show is a correlation between certain charateristics and arbitrarly
defined population groups.
He doesn't present any evidence supporting the claim that these
correlations are mainly due to genetic inherited traits and not
enviromental conditions.
> Below are some of the most revelant critiques I've encountered to
> address Rushton's work on the book Race, Evolution and Behavior. I'd
> like to know if there are any others more relevant and if the ones
> presented are sound:
>
> 1) "r" selected populations are expected to evolve in environments that
> have more stable climates; gorillas and humans evolved for instance in
> equatorial and tropical lands. The "white" and "oriental" racial
> categories of Rushton, whom he claims to be the most "r" selected human
> populations, evolved in Eurasia, mostly a temperate land.
I think that he claims that oriental are mostly K-selected, blacks and
native americans are r-selected, and europeans are intermediate.
The problem with this is that climate is mostly correlated with
latitude, while according to him, environment selectivity seems
correlated to longitude.
I don't understand how he backs this claim.
Similar environments can be found in the Americas, Europe and Asia, so
why should different continents select for different types of humans?
> 2) Hispanics, who are the descendants of both native americans (asian
> in origin) and white europeans score at average less IQ points than
> both the "white" and "oriental" categories of Rushton, which goes
> against the claim that race differences in intelligence are between 50%
> and 80% genetic in origin.
'Hispanics' is a term for an ethincal group in north america. It refers
to people having in common little more than Spanish as their mother
language.
> 3) Sexual maturity and nursing and are highly influenced by
> environmental effects, namely nutrition
>
> 4) There are also the standard criticisms on the race concept even at
> the level of "very extended family" or large ethnic group; there are
> higher internal fluctuations among these great groups than between
> them.
>
> 5) r/K reproductive strategies in humans are able to "jump" between
> generations, being sensitive to social and cultural factors; abusive
> fathers bearing many offspring (a "K" sexual approach) might render for
> instance individuals with more social disabilities and more cautious
> with relationships (a more "r" sexual approach).
It seems that in the Wikipedia the usage of r and K is inverted.
> 6) Again, what is the reliability of the IQ tests and what counts as an
> unbiased measurement? Sub-saharan africans and australian natives are
> considered to be mentally retarded according to their average IQ
> scores, which is plain wrong. This says much more about the
> preconceptions and ranges of the IQ test than what it actually does
> measure. How would a hunter-gatherer or desert nomad who has never seen
> abstract logical puzzles before react when an outsider psychologist
> asks him to make these sorts of tests?
IQ tests measure your ability to conform to the way of thinking of the
authors of the test.
Those tests have often question to which there isn't a demostrabily
correct answer.
> Thanks in advance.
You're welcome
Kermit
Vend wrote:
> Manuel Doria wrote:
<snip>
> IQ tests measure your ability to conform to the way of thinking of the
> authors of the test.
> Those tests have often question to which there isn't a demostrabily
> correct answer.
>
When I was in the US Army in 1974, they were starting to deal with this
issue. They gave us a "Black" IQ test, based on knowledge of American
black culture.
The black American soldiers averaged slightly over 100 IQ. I was the
only white in a company of 200 men to pass, with an IQ of 70 :)
I thought it was fun. I don't know if anybody learned anything. The
lesson doesn't seem to have sunk into certain researchers' minds. The
fact that the scores were so clearly ethnically correlated should have
shown that it was *possible, at least, to have seriously culturally
biased IQ tests
> > Thanks in advance.
>
> You're welcome
Kermit
"Life is like a box of chocolates"
Manuel Doria
"K-selected" switch for "r-selected" and vice versa.
> Twin studies fail to isolate genetic effects from the effects of one of
> the environment in which the most crucial stages of human development
> happen: the mother's womb.
I've read in Matt Ridley's _Nature via Nurture_ that a control measure
used in those studies is to compare the results achieved with identical
twins with those from dizygotic twins, would it still not be enough to
isolate at least the majority of the pre-birth environmental influence?
> It has been shown that mother's nutrition, health and lifestile affect
> various aspects of the fetus development, usually causing life-lasting
> effects.
> There is no reason to assume that brain development is an exception.
I definately agree - and nutrition, health and lifestyle are deeply
bound with your economic status.
> He doesn't present any evidence supporting the claim that these
> correlations are mainly due to genetic inherited traits and not
> enviromental conditions.
The data used from what I've understood is collected from entire
populations, heterogenous in social status; an interesting test that
could be proposed is to obtain data solely from, for instance, poor
caucasians and african americans with high social conditions. Otherwise
there is no way of knowing the importance played by genetics on the
traits he selected for his model.
> I think that he claims that oriental are mostly K-selected, blacks and
> native americans are r-selected, and europeans are intermediate.
That is the original claim, the mistake on the terminology was entirely
mine. My bad.
> The problem with this is that climate is mostly correlated with
> latitude, while according to him, environment selectivity seems
> correlated to longitude.
> I don't understand how he backs this claim.
> Similar environments can be found in the Americas, Europe and Asia, so
> why should different continents select for different types of humans?
His model is also very criticized because it doesn't accurately explain
why native americans seem to be an exception from his proposed r/K
continuum. It seems that the last book of Richard Lynn, which follows a
similar partly genetic explanation for race differences on
intelligence, attempts to explain the case of native americans.
> IQ tests measure your ability to conform to the way of thinking of the
> authors of the test.
> Those tests have often question to which there isn't a demostrabily
> correct answer.
And with practise at solving the particular types of puzzles which are
common in IQ tests, higher scores can be reached without meaning that
your neurophysiology suffered a drastic modification or something
similar.
Thanks for your response.
michael...@worldnet.att.net
Manuel Doria wrote:
[snip]
> > IQ tests measure your ability to conform to the way of thinking of the
> > authors of the test.
> > Those tests have often question to which there isn't a demostrabily
> > correct answer.
>
> And with practise at solving the particular types of puzzles which are
> common in IQ tests, higher scores can be reached without meaning that
> your neurophysiology suffered a drastic modification or something
> similar.
>
If American Indians in, say, 1650, had developed an IQ test based on
their culture, the colonists would have come out as retarded.
-- Mike Palmer
Vend
Manuel Doria wrote:
> First of all, sorry for my blatant confusion: where I've written
> "K-selected" switch for "r-selected" and vice versa.
>
> > Twin studies fail to isolate genetic effects from the effects of one of
> > the environment in which the most crucial stages of human development
> > happen: the mother's womb.
>
> I've read in Matt Ridley's _Nature via Nurture_ that a control measure
> used in those studies is to compare the results achieved with identical
> twins with those from dizygotic twins, would it still not be enough to
> isolate at least the majority of the pre-birth environmental influence?
I think it should work
> The data used from what I've understood is collected from entire
> populations, heterogenous in social status; an interesting test that
> could be proposed is to obtain data solely from, for instance, poor
> caucasians and african americans with high social conditions. Otherwise
> there is no way of knowing the importance played by genetics on the
> traits he selected for his model.
There is a study on children school results in the US, the Early
Childhood Longitudinal Study, http://nces.ed.gov/ecls/.
I read in a book (Freakonomics), that ECLS showed that when correcting
for factors like parents' income and parents' education, the children
school scores are not racially correlated.
Occidental
> > Whatever the nebulous IQ concept means, twin studies suggest that it is
> > highly heritable.
Vend wrote:
> Twin studies fail to isolate genetic effects from the effects of one of
> the environment in which the most crucial stages of human development
> happen: the mother's womb.
>
> It has been shown that mother's nutrition, health and lifestile affect
> various aspects of the fetus development, usually causing life-lasting
> effects.
> There is no reason to assume that brain development is an exception.
But if this were true we would expect that successive children born to
the same mother by the same father would have IQ correlations of the
same order as MZ twins. We don't.
Richard Harter
wrote:
Why on Earth would we expect that?
lucaspa
Manuel Doria wrote:
> Due to my personal political convictions, I hope that the research
> conducted by J. Philippe Rushton is wrong on the affairs of his partly
> genetic approach to race differences in intelligence based on E. O.
> Wilson's r/K selection model.
>
> Whatever the nebulous IQ concept means, twin studies suggest that it is
> highly heritable. There exists some other correlations, between cranium
> size and IQ, for instance. So, I expect to find fluctuations of
> "intelligence" which are genetic in origin in different populations.
.
>
> For those not familiar with the thesis, here is a summary:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton
>
There is good evidence that intelligence (however one tries to measure
it) does have a heritable component.
But that isn't what is important in Rushton's work or your concern.
What both of you are interested in are: 1. Statistical significant
differences between groups and 2. implications for social policy.
In the table at Wikipedia, the most important information is missing:
THE STANDARD DEVIATIONS. In ANY test -- height, weight, upper arm
length, intelligence, brain volume, etc -- every population is going to
exhibit a bell-shaped curve of values. That is, when you plot the
number of individuals with a particular value on the y-axis and the
values on the x-axis (such as cranial volume), you get a bell-shaped
curve where you have a few individuals at the extreme left and right of
the curve and the most individuals (highest point of the curve) at the
mean.
When comparing groups, BOTH the mean and the width of the curve are
important. And it is the standard deviation that gives us the width.
2/3 of the total number of individuals lie within 1 standard deviation,
95% within 2, and 99% within 3 standard deviations.
Let me give a simple example. We have a curve whose mean is 100 and
whose standard deviation is 10. 2/3 of the people will have values
between 90 and 110. 95% will lie between 80 and 120, and 99% between
70 and 130.
Now we have a second curve with a mean of 106 and still have a standard
deviation of 10. 2/3 of the people are between 96 and 116, 95% between
86 and 126, and 99% within 76 and 136.
Do you see the overlap between the two curves? Less than 1% of the
people in the second group have values totally above those in the first
group.
My example is drawn from the IQ values and arbitrary SD's plugged in.
But what happens if the standard deviation of the second group is only
7? 99% of the people have IQs between 85 and 127. IOW, the first
group has more people with IQ's greater than 127 than the second, even
tho the second has a higher mean!
If the standard deviations are larger, it becomes even more difficult
to have meaningful differences between the groups.
Statistics try to determine the odds that two curves represent 2
different populations or are really from the same overall population
and the curves result from sampling error. We don't have the
statistical analysis. But, even if we did, it's only odds. A p value of
0.05 (usually considered statistically significant) means that 1 time
in 20 we would draw samples from a single population that would give us
the 2 curves. It could be our unlucky day.
In terms of social policy, the overlap of the curves makes
discrimination untenable. Yes, on average, Orientals had a higher IQ,
BUT that doesn't mean the individual applying for a job has the IQ of
106 or is the one with 86. Because of the overlap, you can't make
judgements from the group to the individual.
Also, you have to consider whether the differences are BIOLOGICALLY
IMPORTANT. For instance, does the difference in cortical neurons
between 13,665 and 13,767 really important? That's 112 neurons out of
over 13,000 or less than1%. Considering that we only use about 10% of
our brain, is that important?
I notice that much of the Table consists of value judgements. For
instance, how does one judge "cultural achievements"? What objective
criteria were used?
I can see several flaws with Rushton's work but, even IF (a big "if")
it were completely valid, any attempt to judge individuals within the
groups would be fatally flawed.
lucaspa
Manuel Doria wrote:
> Due to my personal political convictions, I hope that the research
> conducted by J. Philippe Rushton is wrong on the affairs of his partly
> genetic approach to race differences in intelligence based on E. O.
> Wilson's r/K selection model.
>
> Whatever the nebulous IQ concept means, twin studies suggest that it is
> highly heritable. There exists some other correlations, between cranium
> size and IQ, for instance. So, I expect to find fluctuations of
> "intelligence" which are genetic in origin in different populations.
.
>
> For those not familiar with the thesis, here is a summary:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton
>
Occidental
Because in most cases the "mother's nutrition, health and lifestyle" -
by hypothesis the sole cause of the strong IQ correlation between MZ
twins - will in most cases not have changed substantially.
Additionally, we would expect that the DZ correlation would be as
strong as the MZ, and it is not.
Richard Harter
wrote:
That's a rather dubious proposition. People's economic and
nutritional circumstances change over time. Pregnancy and nursing
have major effects on women's in the short run and over time. The
environment in the womb changes over time as a consequence of previous
child bearing.
I will grant that that the hypothesis that "the sole cause of the
strong IQ correlation between MZ twins is mother's nutrition, health
and lifestyle" is silly, but that was not asserted in the text that
you quoted.
>Additionally, we would expect that the DZ correlation would be as
>strong as the MZ, and it is not.
I'm not sure what DZ and MZ mean here, but I'm guessing that DZ is
fraternal twins and MZ are identical twins. If so, you might expect
such a thing, but it would be a rather
Occidental
Not much during the reproductive years.
> Pregnancy and nursing
> have major effects on women's in the short run and over time. The
> environment in the womb changes over time as a consequence of previous
> child bearing.
..in which case, it is the cumulative effect of child-bearing that is
the culprit, not "nutrition, health and lifestyle".
> I will grant that that the hypothesis that "the sole cause of the
> strong IQ correlation between MZ twins is mother's nutrition, health
> and lifestyle" is silly, but that was not asserted in the text that
> you quoted.
>
> >Additionally, we would expect that the DZ correlation would be as
> >strong as the MZ, and it is not.
>
> I'm not sure what DZ and MZ mean here, but I'm guessing that DZ is
> fraternal twins and MZ are identical twins. If so, you might expect
> such a thing, but it would be a rather
..a rather what? (MZ, DZ = monozygotic. dizygotic)
despondent neuropeptide
> their culture, the colonists would have come out as retarded.
But they did not develop any IQ tests. What does that say about their IQ?
Dave
"Occidental" <Occid...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1158175662....@b28g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
You sure about that? It would seem to me that the reproductive years
correspond with most peoples starts in their chosen fields and therefore the
time that has the most upward movement. There is also in many cases a
change in the mother's career situation between sucessive children as some
(who can afford it) chose not to return to work after the first (or second),
this will have economic and nutritional impact as well as the obvious
lifestyle change. Frankly, I would expect between 18 and 35 to be a period
of substantial lifestyle, economic and nutritional change.
Stile4aly
That they were secure enough in their intelligence not to have to rank
themselves by an arbitrary number?
despondent neuropeptide
"Stile4aly" <stil...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1158178469....@i42g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Ha. Good answer... was not expecting such a good quality come back!
Gary Bohn
news:w9ZNg.549724$IK3.535368@pd7tw1no:
Nothing.
What it does say about them is that they used other criteria than
intelligence to evaluate others.
Perhaps we should take a page from their book?
--
Gary Bohn
Science rationally modifies a theory to fit evidence, creationism
emotionally modifies evidence to fit a specific interpretation of the
bible.
despondent neuropeptide
yup.
Vend
Occidental wrote:
> Because in most cases the "mother's nutrition, health and lifestyle" -
> by hypothesis the sole cause of the strong IQ correlation between MZ
> twins - will in most cases not have changed substantially.
> Additionally, we would expect that the DZ correlation would be as
> strong as the MZ, and it is not.
I think that nobody put forward that hypothesis.
Anyway, the mother's womb environment is likely to change between
different pregnancies.
I agree that a difference in correlation between DZ and MZ twins is a
strong indicator that the trait is inheritable.
Danniel Soares
I've read in a site about the subject that analyses showing that
children of the same parents tend to have a decreased IQ corresponding
with the quantity of older siblings they have. The pattern was more
visible when taking in consideration many families than within each
family in particular. I think that it hardly could have a genetic
cause.
Danniel Soares
Richard Harter
wrote:
>
>Richard Harter wrote:
>> On 13 Sep 2006 11:36:59 -0700, "Occidental" <Occid...@comcast.net>
>> wrote:
.... a rather foolish thing to say on your part.
William Morse
news:1158118714.9...@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com:
> First of all, sorry for my blatant confusion: where I've written
> "K-selected" switch for "r-selected" and vice versa.
>
>> Twin studies fail to isolate genetic effects from the effects of one of
>> the environment in which the most crucial stages of human development
>> happen: the mother's womb.
>
> I've read in Matt Ridley's _Nature via Nurture_ that a control measure
> used in those studies is to compare the results achieved with identical
> twins with those from dizygotic twins, would it still not be enough to
> isolate at least the majority of the pre-birth environmental influence?
Yes. There is little question that intelligence is heritable. And, contrary
to some other follows, intelligence is perceived as an important trait by
most cultures. Humans, in fact, practice assortative mating with
intelligence one of the critical parameters. However, the fact that a trait
is highly heritable does not mean it is not subject to environmental
influence. Height is highly heritable, but is still strongly affected by
nutrition. Moore's "The Dependent Gene" has a good discussion of this
topic.
>> It has been shown that mother's nutrition, health and lifestile affect
>> various aspects of the fetus development, usually causing life-lasting
>> effects.
>> There is no reason to assume that brain development is an exception.
Rushton is quite aware of this, and uses data on twins reared apart and on
adopted children to bolster his point that environmental influences are
still not enough to overcome the genetic effects. Unfortunately for his
case, there is no data on twins reared apart, one of whom is white and one
of whom is black.
There is, however, data on children of mixed marriages between black
American soldiers and white Germans raised in Germany. This data does not
show any racially based IQ differences. As I understand it, Rushton tries
to dismiss this data because it includes a large number of blacks of North
African descent, but I haven't looked into the subject in any great detail.
> The data used from what I've understood is collected from entire
> populations, heterogenous in social status; an interesting test that
> could be proposed is to obtain data solely from, for instance, poor
> caucasians and african americans with high social conditions. Otherwise
> there is no way of knowing the importance played by genetics on the
> traits he selected for his model.
One of the interesting results of IQ tests that tends to be ignored by
proponents of the racial difference hypothesis is the results from some of
the first large-scale IQ testing, that of US army recruits in the First
World War. Whites scored higher than blacks - but when aggregated based on
geography, northern blacks scored higher than southern whites. This
suggests either a cultural or socioeconomic bias in the test results.
> His model is also very criticized because it doesn't accurately explain
> why native americans seem to be an exception from his proposed r/K
> continuum. It seems that the last book of Richard Lynn, which follows a
> similar partly genetic explanation for race differences on
> intelligence, attempts to explain the case of native americans.
And struggles to do so, as I recall. Although it is interesting to note
that both asians and native americans scored higher on mathematical
ability. In fact it is not unlikely that there are genetic differences in a
number of the many types of intelligence that make up overall human
"intelligence". As noted below, accurately measuring those differences is
another matter entirely.
>> IQ tests measure your ability to conform to the way of thinking of the
>> authors of the test.
>> Those tests have often question to which there isn't a demostrabily
>> correct answer.
>
> And with practise at solving the particular types of puzzles which are
> common in IQ tests, higher scores can be reached without meaning that
> your neurophysiology suffered a drastic modification or something
> similar.
Yes, and another conundrum that Rushton tries (unsuccesfully in my opinion)
to explain away is the fact that raw IQ scores (those uncorrected to the
100 average value) have risen for all races over the last century. Does
this mean that we are genetically getting smarter? Probably not, since
genetic changes shouldn't work that fast (there may be momentum effects,
but that is another story). Again the likely answer is cultural bias in the
tests.
Another follower noted IQ tests based on knowledge of black culture. I
would also love to see an IQ test designed by hunter-gatherers. My guess is
that you and I might struggle to identify the spoor of different species,
even though it is just pattern recognition.
Yours,
Bill Morse
wvantwiller
news:w9ZNg.549724$IK3.535368@pd7tw1no:
>> If American Indians in, say, 1650, had developed an IQ test based on
First, what other civilizations had 'IQ Tests' at that time, and what did
those tests ACTUALLY measure?
What does it say about the subsequent cultures that developed those tests
as a sometimes poorly designed, but none-the-less, cop-out to the laborious
task of actually assessing an individuals ability to succeed in some
endeavor?
From what I recall, the original tests were meant to determine the need for
REMEDIATION of people below average performance NOT to measure some
intangible (by definition) like 'intelligence'.
Ever since that time there seems to have been some egotistical obsession
with perverting very narrowly focused 'intelligence' tests into an ABSOLUTE
demonstration of some ego's superiority over others, as if actual
performance wouldn't be the BEST indicator.
Seems like the Amerindians, by using PERFORMANCE as a marker, were actually
closer to the mark.
.