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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

The Minnesota study was done in the phlogiston era of behavioral genetics, long before any operational understanding of epigenetics, let alone the molecular genetics tools used today to attempt to confirm the phenotype/genotype correlations twin studies generate (see: "the missing heritability problem"). All this is on top of the small sample size and lack of controls.

The authors of the study itself say that it "provide[s] little or no conclusive evidence for genetic influences underlying racial differences in intelligence and achievement."

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I'll respond by quoting the authors themselves:

> "The test performance of the Black/Black adoptees [in the study] was not different from that of ordinary Black children reared by their own families in the same area of the country. My colleagues and I reported the data accurately and as fully as possible, and then tried to make the results palatable to environmentally committed colleagues. In retrospect, this was a mistake. The results of the transracial adoption study can be used to support either a genetic difference hypothesis or an environmental difference one (because the children have visible African ancestry). We should have been agnostic on the conclusions."

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It gets back to the main issue here. You can't expect an open and good faith discussion on this topic when any one can suffer major career and other consequences for not adopting the politically correct view. And indeed extremely compelling evidence to the contrary of such is immediately met with a mixture of logically flawed arguments (e.g. - various groups have suffered tremendous discrimination with no apparent impact on IQ or later achievement, Jews being the obvious example) and ad hominem.

The study results are obviously not what the author's expected to find, which left them in a very difficult place. I think that is also why this was the last effort to try to experimentally prove that genetics don't matter. This is also likely why they continue to insist that the almost exactly ~20% of the mixed race individuals were misclassified by accident. Had they shown an environmentally favorable argument, I suspect it would have been revealed as a rather cleverly concocted control group. As is, it's extremely difficult to explain this (the mixed race individuals believed they were black and appeared as such, yet tested in accordance with their genetics) with a typical environmental argument.

I know very little about this but just an observer your reply did little to refute any of the points made. You should loosen up a bit and keep an open mind about those points raised because it feels like you’re dismissing them.

This is one of those many issues that can be approached at a macro level. Don't think about this as an argument on the internet, but about the implications. Imagine there was compelling evidence for a environmental factor that might even possibly be controlled for. Do you realize how huge a deal this would be?

Every single parent wants the best for their kids and would do anything for this. We, socially, already spend an obscene amount of money on education and other factors meaning government support to try to turn this viability into a reality would be through the roof - including in endless support on promising research along these lines. And keep in mind this isn't only for black families - there's a significant IQ deficit between whites and East Asians as well, for instance.

But where are these exciting studies on the verge of revolutionizing society? They do not exist. It's kind of like cold fusion. The latest science and research on this topic doesn't really matter. People want to find it and have been searching for decades with promising leads that go nowhere. But if one day they do, you'll know, because it will be something that would have dramatic implications for all of humanity.

This is just handwaving. Behavioral genetics, psychometrics, and molecular genomics are thriving fields of study (often in tension with each other, so you even get fun Twitter arguments between the leading lights). It's not our fault you made the risible claim that the MTAS "once and forever put to rest any question of race and intelligence".

You brought this up 7 months ago, and when I responded that this is in fact an active field of study with new science being produced constantly, you had no response. I presumed you just conceded the point. If you missed my point last time, well, I've made it for you again: your claim that this research is suppressed is trivially falsifiable.

You have in the past stated that race and intelligence can be considered a matter of faith to you and there is no evidence that could ever sway you. So are you sincerely debating here or is this just proselytizing?

I'm having trouble even parsing what your comment is claiming that I believe, but either way, this thread is dealing in falsifiable statements, not psychoanalysis. Is this research being suppressed, so that new new science can be done it, thus justifying the claim that a study last updated over 20 years ago is dispositive of racial/genetic/intelligence causality? No, it is not.

From this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9674992

Here you said:

> If it helps, you can think of my opposition to the notion that blacks are somehow intellectually inferior to whites as religious, and you might just as productively spend your time trying to convert me to Zoroastrianism.

Someone even mentioned that this was falsifiable:

> His admission really is incredibly revealing, and refreshingly, even depressingly honest. He's literally saying no amount of reason or evidence could change his mind on a matter that is obviously (in principle) falsifiable. I think it's safe to say that, so far as full contact with reality is concerned, he is a lost cause.

Anyways, I am just interested if you have changed your mind, and you are now treating this as falsifiable or if it is impossible to convince you with any evidence. I think this is useful information for anyone debating you in good faith.

You just went back 10 years in my comment history to find a comment that has nothing to do with the thread we're on, on a thread that has nothing to do with the thread we're on, on the basis that me not believing that Black people are racially inferior to white people dictates what I think about behavioral genetics.

In addition to being rude, it isn't even logically coherent. What I do or do not thing about racial supremacy has nothing to do with the very answerable question about whether behavior and molecular genetics research regarding intelligence is being published.

You are arguing to discredit a study that contradicts your previously stated religious belief. I would be very surprised if anyone found me bringing it up off-topic. I think anyone debating you is entitled to know you think it is impossible that a study could find genetic intelligence differences between races and you wont even consider any evidence. If you have changed that belief, it’s easy to state that now.

Btw, I just remembered that comment from reading that thread recently. I obviously didnt pour through 10 years of one HN’s most prolific posters.

First, the logic you're trying to apply about my "religion" doesn't cohere for the reason I stated. It doesn't follow logically from my belief that certain races aren't superior to others that I believe any X or Y claim about behavioral genetics. Second, and again, as already stated, the arguments I'm making are positive and falsifiable. You can't just bank-shot them through what you believe my psychology to be.

Either work on behavioral genetics (including behavioral genetics through the lens of racial groups) is being produced by serious scientific groups or it isn't. It is, as you can trivially verify. Ergo, the claim I made in the post I responded to is falsified. What you think about me doesn't enter into it.

So too it goes with the things I said about the MTAS: it does in fact have a small sample, it does in fact have issues with controls (look where they got the adoptees from), it does predate a large amount of scientific work on inherited environment, gene/environment interaction, and epigenetics.

Even a hereditarian wouldn't make the claim the parent commenter made, that MTAS is the last word on this question.

In fact, given the falsity of claim the parent commenter made on this kind of work being suppressed, it would be weird if it was the last word on the question: scientists have spent 20 years drilling into this, and the result has, among other things, been the "Missing Heritability Problem". You don't even have to know anything specific about MTAS to get the problem with the claim on this thread.

You’ve refuted nothing I’ve said. You continue to attempt to discredit a study related to race and intelligence. This is a topic you have claimed a religious position on and said no one should even attempt to convince you in the opposite direction.

I'm happy with what the thread says about our respective arguments at this point.

As long as you're going back that far in his posting history, why don't you defend some of Eric Raymond's racist quotes that he posted? I bet you really love ESR.

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