A new survey of intelligence researchers: 90% think international IQ differences are partly due to genetics

[untermensche]

The point I want to get across is that there is no scientific basis for claiming there are genetically determined racial differences in intelligence. Such an idea is rooted in racist ideology and there is a lot of evidence against the claim.

Are you sure about that? I mean, look at the cascade of variability in the races that developed since the last common human population group; skin color, eye color, hair type, bone structure, teeth, susceptibility to disease, EDAR, ASPM, microcephalin, etc. To say that, yes, all of those changes are evidence of evolution and natural selection but not intelligence, not that. As if intelligence - which must be hereditary and subject to natural selection otherwise all life on this planet would be equally intelligent - is special, and nature erects a cordon around intelligence, or at least human intelligence, making it impervious to selective pressures. That once anatomical humans appeared ~200,000 years ago, human cognition was cemented and could go no further (or backwards). What an extraordinary exception to natural selection that would be, necessitating some explanation. Yet, that intelligence difference is there and measurable. To suggest otherwise is redolent of intelligent design.

IQ

Many things don't change much at all over time.

The mammalian visual system hasn't changed much in millions of years.

It doesn't seem as if the language ability has any racial difference.

Evolution is not constant change.

Evolution is: Some things change, others don't change much, and sometimes change is rapid and large.

How evolution relates to "intelligence" is completely unknown.

 

[Trausti]

Are you sure about that? I mean, look at the cascade of variability in the races that developed since the last common human population group; skin color, eye color, hair type, bone structure, teeth, susceptibility to disease, EDAR, ASPM, microcephalin, etc. To say that, yes, all of those changes are evidence of evolution and natural selection but not intelligence, not that. As if intelligence - which must be hereditary and subject to natural selection otherwise all life on this planet would be equally intelligent - is special, and nature erects a cordon around intelligence, or at least human intelligence, making it impervious to selective pressures. That once anatomical humans appeared ~200,000 years ago, human cognition was cemented and could go no further (or backwards). What an extraordinary exception to natural selection that would be, necessitating some explanation. Yet, that intelligence difference is there and measurable. To suggest otherwise is redolent of intelligent design.

IQ

Many things don't change much at all over time.

The mammalian visual system hasn't changed much in millions of years.

It doesn't seem as if the language ability has any racial difference.

Evolution is not constant change.

Evolution is: Some things change, others don't change much, and sometimes change is rapid and large.

How evolution relates to "intelligence" is completely unknown.

Do imagine there'd be intelligence differences between behavioral modern humans of today and anatomical humans of ~200,000 years ago? Or intelligence differences between the anatomical humans of ~200,000 years ago and their earlier primate ancestors, like homo erectus? How do you think those differences arose? Maybe, just maybe, natural selection acts on intelligence.

 

[untermensche]

Do imagine there'd be intelligence differences between behavioral modern humans of today and anatomical humans of ~200,000 years ago? Or intelligence differences between the anatomical humans of ~200,000 years ago and their earlier primate ancestors, like homo erectus? How do you think those differences arose? Maybe, just maybe, natural selection acts on intelligence.

Human language probably arose less than 200,000 years ago.

When human language arises many things change.

But there isn't any evidence that the language capacity has changed. Any child can acquire any language if exposed to it.

Human "intelligence" has probably not changed much in that time either.

What has changed is human knowledge which thanks to language can be passed on and built upon.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

This is a very good article to read on the subject:

• BRACE C.L., 1999, An anthropological perspective on “race” and intelligence: the non-clinal nature of human cognitive capabilities, Journal of Anthropological Research, 55, 245-264

Link: https://mega.nz/#!nRVH3RaZ!ZN_jzo2REdop-_iz1PWACTJ6lp8HHlxhIY-m-tntc_I

Cliff Notes:

1. There are adaptive traits all human populations have in common (ex. salinity, iron content and blood pressure and other biochemical and physiological features).

2. Human intelligence has adaptive value.

3. Modern humans evolved from Homo Erectus based on mandibular evidence.

4. Based on Archeological evidence human populations during the Pleistocene Epoch shared hunting strategies.

5. Modern humans evolved articular speech which distinguishes them from the Apes and all human populations share the evolutionary trademarks of this development (ex. Broca's area).

6. Human brain size attained modern levels and ceased to expand during the Middle Stone Age.

7. All human children learn language during the same age span and each group is capable of learning other languages.

8. Differences in human life ways around the world arose so recently from the perspective of evolutionary history that there has been no time for any differential adaptive response to have occurred.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Published in the last few days, a new survey of intelligence researchers by Rindermann, Becker and Coyle. They are the same authors who conducted a similar survey in 2013, but this one is about *international* racial intelligence differences, as opposed to the US black-white intelligence difference alone, and it is far more detailed. Out of all races/nations asked about, the intelligence placement of Western Jews is found to be MOST likely to be attributed to genetics, and the intelligence placements of Finland and Latin America were found to be LEAST likely to be attributed to genetics.

As before, the vast majority of intelligence researchers attribute intermediate significance to genetic differences overall. "The frequency of zero-percentage-ratings was larger for genes than for culture or education (about 1%), but experts who believed that genes had no influence were a minority: Around 90% of experts believed that genes had at least some influence on cross-national differences in cognitive ability."

It is generally at odds with what you may expect the "scientific establishment" to be, based on who gets the pop science/political loudspeakers, but it turns out that there is not just one "scientific establishment." There are many scientific establishments, and there is no issue where they are more at odds with themselves than the issues of human races and/or intelligence.

I should emphasize: just because the majority of intelligence researchers think this way does NOT mean you should agree with them. But it turns out they really do have good reasons for believing as they do, and it is a reason to open your mind about the issue, not to just dismiss a mainstream science based on ideological morals. Adherence to bad science for moral reasons is more likely to defeat your morals than to enhance them.

Such would be meaningful if IQ meant more fit. It doesn't. So who gives a shit if one group sees racial or better in the numbers. the numbers are different and the differences have meaning. Its just that the meaning has nothing to do with intelligence being important to fitness. Take the increased birth rates of Syrians during conflict. No training beyond bomb throwing yet here they are producing more reproducers.

Maybe we ought to think about human society more broadly than evolutionary fitness, but, if you are concerned about evolutionary fitness and absolutely nothing else in the world, even then intelligence scores have central relevance. The theory of JP Rushton formalized it. The more intelligent races are the more K-selected (higher fitness per offspring) and the less intelligent races are r-selected (lower fitness per offspring but many more offspring). It is anyone's guess which evolutionary strategy will win in the end.

 

[ronburgundy]

Such would be meaningful if IQ meant more fit. It doesn't. So who gives a shit if one group sees racial or better in the numbers. the numbers are different and the differences have meaning. Its just that the meaning has nothing to do with intelligence being important to fitness. Take the increased birth rates of Syrians during conflict. No training beyond bomb throwing yet here they are producing more reproducers.

Maybe we ought to think about human society more broadly than evolutionary fitness, but, if you are concerned about evolutionary fitness and absolutely nothing else in the world, even then intelligence scores have central relevance. The theory of JP Rushton formalized it. The more intelligent races are the more K-selected (higher fitness per offspring) and the less intelligent races are r-selected (lower fitness per offspring but many more offspring). It is anyone's guess which evolutionary strategy will win in the end.

Individuals rarely make maximum use of their intellectual abilities, which means that other variables (like motives, emotional temperament, etc.) often play as or bigger role in cognitive performance than does intellectual ability. In addition, an individuals personal cognitive performance plays minimal role in their survival and reproductive outcomes in a modern society where people are so co-dependent and where random factors heavily impact wealth and wealth can be used to take advantage of the abilities of others. All of that leaves a very small space within which selection pressures can operate on genetic contributions to intellectual ability. In contrast, which people are having more kids is a far more powerful and direct impact upon population genetics.

 

[ApostateAbe]

Maybe we ought to think about human society more broadly than evolutionary fitness, but, if you are concerned about evolutionary fitness and absolutely nothing else in the world, even then intelligence scores have central relevance. The theory of JP Rushton formalized it. The more intelligent races are the more K-selected (higher fitness per offspring) and the less intelligent races are r-selected (lower fitness per offspring but many more offspring). It is anyone's guess which evolutionary strategy will win in the end.

Individuals rarely make maximum use of their intellectual abilities, which means that other variables (like motives, emotional temperament, etc.) often play as or bigger role in cognitive performance than does intellectual ability. In addition, an individuals personal cognitive performance plays minimal role in their survival and reproductive outcomes in a modern society where people are so co-dependent and where random factors heavily impact wealth and wealth can be used to take advantage of the abilities of others. All of that leaves a very small space within which selection pressures can operate on genetic contributions to intellectual ability. In contrast, which people are having more kids is a far more powerful and direct impact upon population genetics.

You seem to have in mind the modern world. Above average intelligence may not amount to a greater number of children. But, in the ice age of Europe and China from 100,000 up until 12,000 years ago, greater intelligence most certainly would be expected to help the odds of survival and greater reproduction. At the very least, one needed to store food in the summer to save for the winter and to build a warm home. Being smarter meant being more capable of these things and attracting a desirable mate.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Maybe we ought to think about human society more broadly than evolutionary fitness, but, if you are concerned about evolutionary fitness and absolutely nothing else in the world, even then intelligence scores have central relevance. The theory of JP Rushton formalized it. The more intelligent races are the more K-selected (higher fitness per offspring) and the less intelligent races are r-selected (lower fitness per offspring but many more offspring). It is anyone's guess which evolutionary strategy will win in the end.

We know however that Rushton's evolutionary theory was refuted so his claims about evolutionary fitness are wrong.

For those who are unfamiliar with r/K selection I recommend reading the above link and these quotes:

1. Rushton's arguments rely on r- and K- life history theory. These designations are general descriptions of investment in reproduction and somatic tissue on opposite ends of a spectrum (r- = more reproduction/less soma and K- = less reproduction/more soma.) The problem with this notion is that it has been shown to be incorrect in a series of experiments with a wide variety of organisms. No one took this theory seriously after about 1990.

2. Even if r- and K- theory were correct, I showed that Rushton applied it backwards. By the theory, Africans should be K- selected (K selection occurs in stable environments, such as the tropics) while r-selection was to be favored in fluctuating environments, such as the temperate zones. So by Rushton's reasoning, Africans should be more genetically capable of intelligence, and Europeans/Asians less.

3. Throughout his work, Rushton selectively uses examples to support his ideas. I have caught him manipulating data in unclear ways, for the purposes of making his points.

4. Rushton requires the existence of biological races, which humans do not have. The existence of geographically based genetic variation is not the same as proving races exist, or that in life history features all Africans are different from all Europeans.

Several years ago Joseph Graves did write a book chapter critique of my life-history explanation of race differences. I no longer recall it in detail except that he had ducked the main part, that is, the data.

As you know, most race research focuses on Black-White differences in the US in IQ, education, crime, and marital stability. My research went a lot further to cover some 60 variables such as speed of maturation, brain size (three separate indicators), rate of producing twins at birth, longevity, testosterone, sexual behavior, etc. Moreover, I looked at African descended people in the Caribbean, Canada, the UK, and sub-Saharan Africa. and found the same Black-White differences where ever they were studied. Most crucial, I looked at East Asians on all the same 60 characteristics and found they had higher IQ scores, larger brains, less sexual activity, less crime, fewer twins per 1,000 births etc.

In other words, a highly consistent three-way pattern of racial differences exists in brain size, intelligence, sexuality, personality, speed of maturation, life span, crime, and family stability in which East Asian descended people fall at one end of the spectrum, African descended people fall at the other, and European descended people fall intermediate, typically close to East Asians. East Asians are slower to mature, less fertile, less sexually active, with larger brains and higher IQ scores. They also engage in greater social organization and less crime than Africans who are at the opposite ends in each of these areas. My 1995 book, Race, Evolution, and Behavior summarized these theories and the evidence supporting them.

So, the fundamental question is, how do we explain the consistent three-way pattern? No environmental theory alone can do so. Only evolutionary theory in which genetics are crucial can account for the pattern If Dr. Graves can come up with a better theory or show the data is different than I described, he should do so. But he has not done so.

Rushton's memory of my critique is quite limited. First, it began with an evaluation of the efficacy of r- and K- theory in general. Professional life-history evolutionists (of which I am, and he is not) no longer regard r- and K- theory as a useful research paradigm. This dismantling occurred due to a series of experiments that tested the predictions of r- and K-theory and showed that they did not hold up in a wide variety of species. Second, I demonstrated that Rushton misapplied r- and K- theory; indeed by MacArthur and Wilson (the originators of r- and K-theory) Africans would be K-selected and Europeans and East Asians (r-selected); just the opposite of what Rushton claimed. Third, I demonstrated that much of the data he cited to make his case was flawed either in collection or source; particularly data like "social organization" and "crime". Thus at three levels his r- and K-theory approach to human life history variation fails. So I challenge the notion his 3-way spectrum is real; secondly even if it were real, he has not presented an evolutionary theory that could explain it; and third that environmental differences could easily explain much of what he reports.

From: (Egalitarianjay02)
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 14:01
To: David Reznick
Subject: The application of r/K selection to humans

Hello Dr. Reznick,

I recently read your 2002 article titled "r - AND K -SELECTION REVISITED: THE ROLE OF POPULATION REGULATION IN LIFE-HISTORY EVOLUTION". I am currently involved in debating racists on the internet who are supporters of J. Philippe Rushton. Rushton argued that humans evolved differences along the r/K continuum which led to genetic tradeoffs resulting in racial differences in reproductive strategies as well as traits such as intelligence and behavior. Scholars such as Joseph L. Graves say that r/K selection theory was discarded and that Rushton's arguments are wrong. Some racists have used your paper, which is cited on Wikipedia, to claim that r/K selection was only modified and not completely discarded. I would like to hear your thoughts on Rushton's work if you are familiar with it and what your beliefs are about the application of r/K selection to human races.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

(EgalitarianJay02)



From: David Reznick (david.reznick@ucr.edu)
Sent: Wed 9/23/2015 6:12 PM
To: (EgalitarianJay02)

Dear (EgalitarianJay02),

Well, I had said in that paper that r and K selection was dead, but my graduate student co-authors made me delete that part. r and K selection carries some implicit assumptions that are hard to defend so my deleting that part was more out of politeness than because I thought the theory remained viable. However, it is still generally accepted that organism life histories array themselves along a "slow-fast" continuum, meaning that there is correlated variation in the age at maturity, rate of reproduction and lifespan. One end of the continuum is fast maturation, high reproductive rate and short life span, the other end is the opposite array of traits. This really oversimplifies things but it does account for much of the variation among species.
With regard to humans, there is no evidence I am aware of for genetic variation among populations in these traits. Also, there is precious little evidence for genetic variation among races for anything, even though there is abundant evidence for genetic variation among populations. What I have said may seem contradictory, but the problem is that people have a very poor understanding of the level at which we see meaningful genetic variation. For humans, it is among populations, not races.

The human populations of Africa (which are considered one race) actually harbor more genetic variation than all of the rest of humanity so it hardly makes sense to characterize them in a unitary fashion. This is because humans originated in Africa and all humans outside of Africa represent descendants of those who migrated out of Africa around 50,000 years ago. Very often new populations were established with few individuals and harbored little genetic variation. Another source of confusion is the difference between environmental and genetic effects. One example is the age at marriage, first birth and family size. All of these factors are strongly influenced by the level of education of the mother and can change within a generation if the level of education is enhanced. I suspect your antagonists have little appreciation of the differences between environmental and genetic effects and the fact that we have very little knowledge of genetic differences among human populations. It is easy to separate them for guppies, with their short generation times and the ease with which we can breed them in the lab. Humans are a different story.

I do not know Rushton.

The bottom line is that there are elements of r and K selection that remain intact, but the theory as originally coined has little validity, which is what I argued in that paper. There is no evidence I am aware of for a genetic basis of differences among human populations for the traits that comprise r vs K selected populations. I am sure we could find some subtle genetic variation for some traits among human populations, but not among races because races are aggregates of diverse populations. I am not sure that this answers your questions. I will be happy to try again if you have more.
You should try to track down essays by Jared Diamond about genetic variation among human populations in physiological traits. He has written some for popular science magazines, like Natural History. They do a great job of describing the kind of genetic variation we see among human populations, plus they often show how this variation cuts across racial boundaries. For example variation in skin color and sodium metabolism varies among population in a way that cuts across races (meaning that there are Caucasion and Oriental populations almost as dark skinned as Africans in association with adaptation to persistently sunny environments).

Sincerely, David

From: (EgalitarianJay02)
Sent: Wednesday, September 23, 2015 16:42
To: David Reznick
Subject: RE: The application of r/K selection to humans

Thank you Dr. Reznick,

If you are at all interested in what Rushton had to say about r/K selection theory you can read his book at the link below. Here too is a link to an article by Joseph Graves who critiques him.

Rushton's book: https://mega.nz/#!eVsDTDpT!j48GUCFJs...wAO8aYlcIIXvRQ

Graves' critique: http://mathsci.free.fr/graves.pdf

Rushton also seems to have cited you in his references:

Reznick, D. A., Bryga, H., & Endler, J. A. (1990). Experimentally induced life-history
evolution in a natural population. Nature, 346, 357-59.

Here's an excerpt for context:

In an eleven-year study of differences in the guppy (Poecilia reticulata),
genetic changes in life histories were shown over 30 to 60 generations (Reznik,
Bryga, & Endler, 1990). Earlier maturing fish allocated a greater proportion
of the body mass to reproduction (embryo weight/total body weight) and produced
more and smaller offspring per brood, while late maturing fish produced
a smaller number of larger offspring. Using experimental procedures
and the transplanting of populations to a common environment, the differences
were shown to be heritable. Other evidence for within-species variation
in life histories was found with snow geese by Lessells, Cooke, and Rockwell
(1989) and with ground squirrels by Zammuto and Millar (1985), among others.

I have been in communication with Dr. Graves by email for awhile now. I emailed him as well about your paper. He says you are a colleague of his and you didn't say anything in that paper that he wouldn't say. Thanks again for your insight on race and genetics. Indeed my racist opponents are not experts in evolutionary biology, they are just parroting Rushton. It's refreshing to talk to actual experts about this. If you could I would appreciate it if you could read Graves article and tell me what you think. Also here is a video that you may want to take a look at on my Youtube channel featuring Graves and Rushton in debate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUjo31DChcE

Thanks for taking the time to reply.


Sincerely,

(EgalitarianJay02)



From: David Reznick (david.reznick@ucr.edu)
Sent: Thu 9/24/2015 10:25 PM
To: (EgalitarianJay02)

Dear (EgalitarianJay02),

Joe Graves' article is an accurate representation of the science side. Rushton's "theory" is really just a verbal argument that, as far as I can see, has no substantive support. The citation of my work is actually not correct. My results were a formal comparison of the experimental and control populations and the two populations differed in the fashion outlined here. The other articles cited in this paragraph did nothing to substantiate that the differences they saw among populations had a genetic basis. They just compared the phenotypes of wild-caught individuals. This is a pretty soft and uncritical representation of the scientific literature.

Sincerely, David

I'm going to put an article in your Dropbox where Reznick critiques Rushton's arguments for there being progress in evolution. The article is a Rushton paper that Reznick sent me with quotes containing his criticisms.

You seem to have in mind the modern world. Above average intelligence may not amount to a greater number of children. But, in the ice age of Europe and China from 100,000 up until 12,000 years ago, greater intelligence most certainly would be expected to help the odds of survival and greater reproduction. At the very least, one needed to store food in the summer to save for the winter and to build a warm home. Being smarter meant being more capable of these things and attracting a desirable mate.

Your reasoning is consistent with Rushton's "Cold Winters Theory" of how Europeans and Asians supposedly became smarter than Africans. The major flaw of this argument is that human intelligence already evolved to a point where we didn't need to evolve higher intelligence in order to adapt to new environments.

IV. RACE

18. Jensen argues, in effect, that cognitive 'races' exist because genes related to human cognitive systems will have been subjected to diversifying selection in the same way as some superficial physical or physiological characters. He suggests that northern migrants would have faced particularly difficult conditions. As a result, groups of African descent will have lower frequencies of genes for superior cognitive abilities, compared with those of Caucasian or Mongoloid ancestry.

19. This completely misses the point. Our African hominid ancestors themselves evolved as a social-cooperative species in order to deal with conditions of extreme environmental uncertainty, as the climate dried, forests thinned, and former forest dwellers were 'flung out' onto the open savannah or forest margins. It is crucial to point out that when even as few as two individuals cooperate they create a new, social environment that is vastly more complex than anything experienced in the physical world. It is that complexity on the social plane which rapidly impelled the tripling of brain size and furnished the unique cognitive capacity for dealing with complexity in general - in the physical world as well as the social.

20. The uniquely adaptable, highly selected, socio-cognitive system that resulted was a prerequisite, not a consequence, of human migration patterns. Although inhabiting every possible niche, humans have only a quarter of the genetic variation of highly niche-specific chimpanzees (Kaessmann et al 1999). The system operates on a completely different plane from blind genetic selection - one which can 'model' the world conceptually, and anticipate and change it. If our heads get cold we invent hats, rather than wait for natural selection to reshape our skulls and increase the size of our brains (which is what Jensen suggests in one particularly questionable y line of argument). As Owens & King (1999) point out, what minor genetic differences exist are 'quite literally superficial... the possibility that human history has been characterised by genetically homogeneous groups ("races") distinguished by major biological differences, is not consistent with genetic evidence'.

21. Owens & King also point out that 'Of course prejudice does not require a rational basis, let alone an evolutionary one, but the myth of major genetic differences across "races" is nonetheless worth dismissing with genetic evidence' (453). This culmination of Jensen's thesis, then, is as hollow as the conceptual foundations on which it based. It really is time this negative and fatalistic model of humanity was put behind us once and for all.

Source: Demystifying G - Book Review of Jensen on Intelligence-g-Factor

 

[whichphilosophy]

Published in the last few days, a new survey of intelligence researchers by Rindermann, Becker and Coyle. They are the same authors who conducted a similar survey in 2013, but this one is about *international* racial intelligence differences, as opposed to the US black-white intelligence difference alone, and it is far more detailed. Out of all races/nations asked about, the intelligence placement of Western Jews is found to be MOST likely to be attributed to genetics, and the intelligence placements of Finland and Latin America were found to be LEAST likely to be attributed to genetics.

As before, the vast majority of intelligence researchers attribute intermediate significance to genetic differences overall. "The frequency of zero-percentage-ratings was larger for genes than for culture or education (about 1%), but experts who believed that genes had no influence were a minority: Around 90% of experts believed that genes had at least some influence on cross-national differences in cognitive ability."

It is generally at odds with what you may expect the "scientific establishment" to be, based on who gets the pop science/political loudspeakers, but it turns out that there is not just one "scientific establishment." There are many scientific establishments, and there is no issue where they are more at odds with themselves than the issues of human races and/or intelligence.

I should emphasize: just because the majority of intelligence researchers think this way does NOT mean you should agree with them. But it turns out they really do have good reasons for believing as they do, and it is a reason to open your mind about the issue, not to just dismiss a mainstream science based on ideological morals. Adherence to bad science for moral reasons is more likely to defeat your morals than to enhance them.

Not a single smart gene has ever been identified where this is more likely to be a metaphor for what the differences actually are.

 

[fromderinside]

In summary then, let me say that exhaustively reciting bad research only exhausts one.