There’s still no good reason to believe black-white IQ differences due to genes | Hacker News Reader

There’s still no good reason to believe black-white IQ differences due to genes

vox.com

13 pointstokenadult17 comments

They concede that IQ (a) exists, (b) predicts many life outcomes, (c) differs between groups, and (d) is partly heritable. If an alien at this point were presented with these premises, does anyone suppose its natural conclusion would be, "this must be completely due to environmental factors, and not in the least genetic ones?"

Surely claiming a difference of outcome is entirely due to environmental factors is as extreme as claiming it's entirely due entirely to genetics. Yet imagine the uproar if someone had claimed the latter. Contrast that with the support Vox has gotten for their article.

It is dangerous to require a conclusion to be true rather than being open to whatever is.

We should all concede that structural racism (a) exists, (b) predicts many life outcomes, (c) differs between groups, and (d) is very heritable.

If an alien at this point were presented with these premises, does anyone suppose its natural conclusion would be, "the observed black-white IQ differences must be at the very least partially due to genetic factors, it is not possible that the environment can account for all of it."

---

The point is not that a genetic factor is not possible, but that the environmental factors (in our past and current racist world) totally overwhelm any possible genetic factors, even to such a degree that the genetic difference could even go the other way (i.e. blacks could be genetically more intelligent than whites).

I'd personally add this point: Those emphasizing the importance of open-mindedness about the possibility of genetic factors while failing to acknowledge the severity of environmental factors are thus contributing to those very environmental factors. They are self-fulfilling prophets.

---

I'm pretty sure if you got in a time machine and went back to the 18th or 19th century, and told people there what blacks, women, and gay people do in the early 21st century, they'd have more trouble believing that than your time machine.

Since it's certainly possible that blacks have genetically higher IQs than whites but are environmentally made to underperform, isn't that all the more egregious? Wouldn't that be an important, uplifting thing to know? Why not find out?

When people are anxious about genetic explanations, it's usually because they're afraid of one group underperforming. "Look, we know blacks score lower on IQ tests, but we've got to be careful here—they have bad environments." But actually we have the tools necessary to model outcomes like this. If it's true that blacks are underscoring despite a genetic advantage, eventually this truth will emerge.

So when people are worried a priori that an investigation into genetic explanations will disfavor blacks, either they fundamentally don't believe these things can be rigorously studied, or they're worried that even under fair standards blacks will underperform. The former implies unknowability of truth, the latter genuine racism.

I listened to the Sam Harris podcast a while ago and found I held some objections that I couldn't formulate until some time passed. The problem with Sam's view is not even as complicated as these authors make out. Consider a similar scenario based on a redfined IQ:

In this world, IQ is measured by proficiency in programming languages. Would it be surprising to find that the high IQ people are not predominately women, or black? Or that this new IQ score is highly predictive of positive financial outcomes, better health, good familiy lives and high life satisfaction scores? Should this result be interpreted as a discovery of the genetic inheritance of intelligence?

We commonly understand "IQ" to be synonymous with intelligence, yet its a test that defines a very narrow range of human capabilities. So these broad studies of various people's performace on a test will confound numerous other variables with the score. In my example scenario this would be the recently surging economic value of pushing electrons around in an orderly way.

I'll try to relisten to Sam Harris's treatment of it, maybe i missed some circumspection at a later part but I'll state the following:

The heritage of human intelligence stretches back through the eons, before there were civilizations or even races as we know them. Human intelligence is primal, in the sense of the primates we descended from and in fact are still.

The canonical reply here is that while it's true IQ tests a narrow range of abilities, (a) it's highly predictive of various facets of success in life, and (b) "specialists" are relatively rare, in that intelligence tends to be fairly well correlated across disciplines.

(a) you are missing the point, this is as much to say that home purchasers were more likely to be wealthy in 2006. It isnt a valuation that is independent of time or context, and couldn't be a measure of human 'intelligence', whatever that means. And (b) just leads to a tautology, which again is my overall point: IQ measures things that are valuable in a specific context and time period, designed by members of the same group.

This is a subject no-one dare broach without getting labelled 'racist' or a 'white supremacist' etc. People need to be free to pursue science free of political and social ideology.

Are all people equal? No. Should all people be treated equally? Of course. That's the distinction a lot of these people don't make, the article is all 'yap, yap yap' and very light on facts.

this is the really important part. that as part of a civil society we are all expected to behave to the same basic standard and can expect the same basic treatment (rights).

whether we are disabled (as a genotype or a phenotype), what we believe in, who we choose to associate with, how we spend our time, etc

without this you don't have much. given this its all academic, which is just fine

We should also make a distinction between science as it pertains to things like physics and chemistry, and the "science" of things like IQ tests which, though they may technically follow a scientific method, are heavily skewed by social factors and are far less likely to represent any kind of universal truth.

and the "science" of things like IQ tests

Why the quotes? Are you just generally down on the social sciences?

To put it nicely, it's easy to see that the social sciences are a lot harder to get right and verify than the natural sciences. Oh, and it doesn't help that it's much easier to be biased about topics in social science.

Perhaps you would find the original article https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/18/15655638/charles-... has the weighty facts that this response-to-criticism lacks.

I strongly disagree with the rationalist fallacy that science must progress unfettered by social or political 'ideology'. The very notion that science is ideologically blanched, that it exists in some asocial vacuum, is naive at best, disingenuous at worst, and misguided always.

To paraphrase John Wheeler on spacetime: Society tells science how to move; science tells society how to curve.

If you go this route, then you have no leg to stand on to criticize Trump if/when he defunds NASA climate science and mandates teaching Creationism in public schools. After all, he is just guiding science by his idealogy. Are you also against the "March for science?"

I honestly think that Trump is the application of postmodern concepts to politics on an unrelated precedented level and many people on the left who supported these ideas find them horrifying when they are used to bolster positions that are not theirs.

So the only possible positions are the extremes? By acknowledging that science and society have an unavoidable structural relationship you give yourself a framework for developing tools to improve that relationship. There are plenty of problems with anti-science politics and the antidote is not to insist that they should just leave science alone just because.

You want science better represented in society and politics? Get more scientists involved in society and politics. http://www.314action.org/home

Can you explain how you want science to be influenced by "social or political ideology"? Do you just mean developing weapons during wartime and medicine during epidemics, or something beyond that?

Those examples you give are good large-scale ones. But the impact of society on science is universal and pervasive, down to the observational biases of the individual humans handling instruments. It is a major project within science to eliminate subjective biases in research, right? That wouldn't be necessary if it wasn't universal and pervasive.

As far as how I 'want' it to be influenced, I think civil society should be entitled to discuss the implications and validity of research that is done (in this case, racial or ethnic factors in 'standardised', culturally based tests of 'intelligence'), as well as set large scale priorities as to where effort should best be focused, like in your examples.

I don't believe that distinction is possible. Advocates of "race realism" often make the following argument:

> Race X has lower intelligence and higher aggression > Therefore, we must take measures against X to prevent them from committing crimes or making bad decision.

Consider the case of the mentally disabled. They have custodians that can make decisions for them, such as what they must do, where they must live, and what they must avoid.

The line that race realists typically cross, is that they extrapolate supposed IQ differences and start treating people of other races as if they are mentally disabled (i.e. not giving them rights).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com