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Comment by x3ro | Hacker News Reader

This is a fairly terrible take for a number of reasons, but let's assume good faith and indulge this.

* What makes you think that, at any point, lower caste people had an on-average lower IQ? The same has been said for plenty of minorities that have been historically discriminated against, such as people of color and women, because opressors are in control of the narrative and see themselves as superior

* What does "segregated" (in your original comment) or "selective reproduction" even mean for you? There are more lower caste indians than total Amercians. Are americans lower IQ because of "segregated reproduction"?

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It is possible that higher casts selected for intelligence over the years. Since in India arranged marriage is the norm, parents can select for intelligence if that is a trait they care about. If there is a genetic portion of intelligence that can be selected for.

Note the above uses words like "possible" and "if". I find it unlikely this is what was done. More likely - like every other society - they selected for politically powerful.

Note too that it is highly likely that in the past rape of lower casts was accepted in some form, which would bring any selected IQ genes to the lower casts.

> Note too that it is highly likely that in the past rape of lower casts was accepted in some form, which would bring any selected IQ genes to the lower casts.

There is preliminary evidence from genetic sequencing that Indian castes have been highly endogamous for at least 3000 years.

India is a vast place with an enormous population, and there's resistance to continuing this research, for fairly obvious reasons. But continue it will, you can't un-sequence a genome after all. So we may yet see a robust answer to this sort of question.

Surely once caste is established intelligence can't be selected for any more strongly than under any other conditions - the rules of the game are fixed at that point.

Your final point about selection via coercion holds more water, but one has to believe that the subjects would be explicitly chosen for their intelligence, rather than for any other features, which seems difficult to support.

I appreciate that you presume good faith. I really believe the best way to address flawed racial arguments is by refuting in the open rather than downvoting to oblivion.

I assure you I am in good faith, I understand the topic is sensitive, but I don't know what in my comment would suggest I am in bad faith. I think it is likely that there are differences in IQ between the castes, just as there are other physical differences, and that the higher caste would have on average higher IQ since IQ is a decent predictor of social economic success in most contexts. Perhaps people familiar with the Indian education system can chime in about standardized test scores broken down by caste - my recollection from years ago is that there are differences.

By segregated reproduction I just mean that most likely mate selection is done within cast, so any difference in IQ between castes is likely to be slow changing as there is little gene exchange between groups. Something similar happens in US society where there is growing stratification along IQ lines.

If your primary evidence is results-based, why do you assume it's genetics instead of situational? My assumption would be that higher caste students have more opportunities for proper nutrition, education, etc.

Looking at babies adopted into another caste, or people marrying across castes, would help shed some light. But it doesn't seem reasonable that 5k years of caste systems would have such an impact on IQ.

50-100 years ago there were huge differences between men and women's test scores, and many speculated that it was due to genetic differences. Fast forward to today where women get equivalent education (at least here in the UK), and those differences have disappeared with women actually doing slightly better than men on average. There's a very high chance that it's not genetic.

Your comment reminds me of the ‘Jewish Problems’ math exam.

https://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556

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