Intelligence, race and related issues.

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It’s not incorrect that as you age you become your parents.

But that's not the discussion.

Controlled experiments are impossible with human lives because it isn't ethical. But humans are organisms like other organisms, animals with needs like other animals with needs. I can guarantee you that I will see differences in cloned plants if I raise those genetically identical plants under different conditions. Humans are more complex but the analogy is sound.

 

[ZiprHead]

It’s not incorrect that as you age you become your parents.

But that's not the discussion.

Controlled experiments are impossible with human lives because it isn't ethical. But humans are organisms like other organisms, animals with needs like other animals with needs. I can guarantee you that I will see differences in cloned plants if I raise those genetically identical plants under different conditions. Humans are more complex but the analogy is sound.

There's a lot of toddlers that have been ripped from their Latin American families and adopted out to US citizens. Maybe we can see how they turn out?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

One of the best ways to help young children has been the Head Start program. Nurture is important, more so than genetic intelligence. Educators over decades have agreed, Head Start has payed dividends far above it;s monetary cost. Therefore we have to fight the GOP and conservatives tooth and nail to get funding for Head Start. I remember way back with G.H.W. Bush, under funding became a political issue. Bush declared finally that Head Start would be fully funded. He lied. That never happened.

And now,
https://chronicleofsocialchange.org...dget-for-family-and-youth-services-2020/34274

...
Head Start haircut: A lot of youth spending lines took hits during the budget battles and sequestration that preceded Trump. But one that was protected, and even saw increases supported by Republican appropriators, was Head Start, the national program that provides early childhood care to many low-income families. Recent research out of the Michigan State School of Social Work suggests that Head Start participation may help prevent removals to foster care among families known to the child welfare system.
Trump would reverse the upward trend in Head Start funding, cutting it by $359 million.
...

My brother married a school teacher, and I met some of her teacher colleagues at parties, all happy to talk about the horrors of teaching at inner city schools in Houston, which many did. Culturally, many young children end up in elementary school utterly unprepared for school. Those without Head Start are at risk of becoming discouraged, falling behind and giving up and later on, dropping out of school.
HISD, one of the largest public school districts had an unofficial policy of pushing failing students out of school.

Black and Hispanic students have been getting the short end of the stick for many years, decades even. The GOP has never cared. Head Start and other similar programs meant to prepare young children for success in school have been systematically attacked by Republican politicians for years and it is still policy.

Intelligence of races is not the problem.

 

[ruby sparks]

That’s getting a bit closer to my purpose in starting the thread, and why I chose the politics forum and not the science forum.

To say that there is likely a genetic component to disparities in intelligence is a million miles away from saying (and some say it, even some members of this forum if memory serves) that that is just something that nothing, or very little, can be done to change, or, that it in some way justifies the existence of inequalities.

In other words, I think the fact (assuming it is a fact) is politically misused.

But that does not mean we should deny that it is a factor. The response to a misuse of the facts is not to deny the facts themselves, only the misuse of them.

Does that make sense?

 

[barbos]

We are different races. Not different species. And if there are significant differences in intelligence between races,

How about differences within the same "race"? You seem to be implying that there should not be "significant" differences there for sure. I mean it's not even different races.

 

[barbos]

"Circumstances"="natural selection" affect genetics.

But not nearly enough to cause the differences we observe.

How do you know that? Studies seem to suggest that differences are mostly genetic

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

That’s getting a bit closer to my purpose in starting the thread, and why I chose the politics forum and not the science forum.

To say that there is likely a genetic component to disparities in intelligence is a million miles away from saying (and some say it, even some members of this forum if memory serves) that that is just something that nothing, or very little, can be done to change, or, that it in some way justifies the existence of inequalities.

In other words, I think the fact (assuming it is a fact) is politically misused.

But that does not mean we should deny that it is a factor. The response to a misuse of the facts is not to deny the facts themselves, only the misuse of them.

Does that make sense?

My brother worked for HISD when No Child Left Behind was born here. It is an ugly tale. Really, a few conversations with teachers who have taught at inner city schools, is an eye opener.

It has long been a problem with these schools with children utterly unprepared to go to school. Everything has to stop in the class room to deal with these children. Time is not budgeted for this by the powers that be. About 30 years ago in Texas, there was a bill "Values Clarification" to set aside time and resources to make sure all children are taught to be social in an elementary school setting. Many poor children come to school with absolutely no idea of how to behave in a setting with teachers or other children.

The far right here in Texas went berserk. Conservative conspiracy theories flew thick and fast and eventually, the bills were defeated. I remember being utterly gobsmacked by the truly insane BS that was used to kill this bill. The same forces went on a crusade against teaching evolution in Texas schools. We are still fighting all of this. After all, if you could make children into good citizens apart from conservative fundamentalist Christianity, who would need Christianity?

 

[Trausti]

One of the best ways to help young children has been the Head Start program. Nurture is important, more so than genetic intelligence. Educators over decades have agreed, Head Start has payed dividends far above it;s monetary cost. Therefore we have to fight the GOP and conservatives tooth and nail to get funding for Head Start. I remember way back with G.H.W. Bush, under funding became a political issue. Bush declared finally that Head Start would be fully funded. He lied. That never happened.

And now,
https://chronicleofsocialchange.org...dget-for-family-and-youth-services-2020/34274

...
Head Start haircut: A lot of youth spending lines took hits during the budget battles and sequestration that preceded Trump. But one that was protected, and even saw increases supported by Republican appropriators, was Head Start, the national program that provides early childhood care to many low-income families. Recent research out of the Michigan State School of Social Work suggests that Head Start participation may help prevent removals to foster care among families known to the child welfare system.
Trump would reverse the upward trend in Head Start funding, cutting it by $359 million.
...

My brother married a school teacher, and I met some of her teacher colleagues at parties, all happy to talk about the horrors of teaching at inner city schools in Houston, which many did. Culturally, many young children end up in elementary school utterly unprepared for school. Those without Head Start are at risk of becoming discouraged, falling behind and giving up and later on, dropping out of school.
HISD, one of the largest public school districts had an unofficial policy of pushing failing students out of school.

Black and Hispanic students have been getting the short end of the stick for many years, decades even. The GOP has never cared. Head Start and other similar programs meant to prepare young children for success in school have been systematically attacked by Republican politicians for years and it is still policy.

Intelligence of races is not the problem.

Well . . .

Effects of the Tennessee Prekindergarten Program on children’s achievement and behavior through third grade

This report presents results of a randomized trial of a state prekindergarten program. Low-income children (N = 2990) applying to oversubscribed programs were randomly assigned to receive offers of admission or remain on a waiting list. Data from pre-k through 3rd grade were obtained from state education records; additional data were collected for a subset of children with parental consent (N = 1076). At the end of pre-k, pre-k participants in the consented subsample performed better than control children on a battery of achievement tests, with non-native English speakers and children scoring lowest at baseline showing the greatest gains. During the kindergarten year and thereafter, the control children caught up with the pre-k participants on those tests and generally surpassed them. Similar results appeared on the 3rd grade state achievement tests for the full randomized sample – pre-k participants did not perform as well as the control children. Teacher ratings of classroom behavior did not favor either group overall, though some negative treatment effects were seen in 1st and 2nd grade. There were differential positive pre-k effects for male and Black children on a few ratings and on attendance. Pre-k participants had lower retention rates in kindergarten that did not persist, and higher rates of school rule violations in later grades. Many pre-k participants received special education designations that remained through later years, creating higher rates than for control children. Issues raised by these findings and implications for pre-k policy are discussed.

Spending money on Head Start doesn't make a difference. But it feels good. And that's what really matters.

 

[Trausti]

It’s not incorrect that as you age you become your parents.

But that's not the discussion.

Controlled experiments are impossible with human lives because it isn't ethical. But humans are organisms like other organisms, animals with needs like other animals with needs. I can guarantee you that I will see differences in cloned plants if I raise those genetically identical plants under different conditions. Humans are more complex but the analogy is sound.

Well, sure. If you apply selective pressure to any life you can change it. Humans have been selectively breeding animals and crops for a very long time. But you can't escape heredity. Heredity is central to all of this. Otherwise, evolution is wrong.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It’s not incorrect that as you age you become your parents.

But that's not the discussion.

Controlled experiments are impossible with human lives because it isn't ethical. But humans are organisms like other organisms, animals with needs like other animals with needs. I can guarantee you that I will see differences in cloned plants if I raise those genetically identical plants under different conditions. Humans are more complex but the analogy is sound.

Well, sure. If you apply selective pressure to any life you can change it. Humans have been selectively breeding animals and crops for a very long time. But you can't escape heredity. Heredity is central to all of this. Otherwise, evolution is wrong.

Heredity is certainly the potential, but it is the environment that shapes heredity. A set of genes with great potential will not thrive if the environment does not allow it, whereas another set of "inferior" genes will thrive under better conditions and be selected to survive.

Have you read Diamond's work on the subject? It's astonishing the environmental advantages some societies had over others in terms of edible, nourishing plants, animals that could be harnessed for power, natural resources, etc. Those advantages in turn drove inequality and natural selection. I highly recommend the books to anyone interested in how "race" came to be.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

That’s getting a bit closer to my purpose in starting the thread, and why I chose the politics forum and not the science forum.

To say that there is likely a genetic component to disparities in intelligence is a million miles away from saying (and some say it, even some members of this forum if memory serves) that that is just something that nothing, or very little, can be done to change, or, that it in some way justifies the existence of inequalities.

In other words, I think the fact (assuming it is a fact) is politically misused.

But that does not mean we should deny that it is a factor. The response to a misuse of the facts is not to deny the facts themselves, only the misuse of them.

Does that make sense?

But you aren't discussing genetics, the OP immediately raises race.

 

[Politesse]

Which doesn't mean there are substantial differences between populations. Especially as the "differences" go away after a few generations in a more advanced culture.

But how do those heritable differences “go away”?

Heritable =/= non-environmental; it is exclusively a description of correlation, and can only be applied at all if environment is consistent enough to act as a control. If in a given society having the perceptively "wrong" skin color led to poverty for that population due to overt social discrimination, then poverty would be a higly heritable trait, but not inherent to simply having the genes for a certain range of skin colors. If that society were to adopt a new cultural perspective that genuinely ignored skin color as a class determinant, that trait would slowly disappear over time and heritability would plunge toward zero, as the class implications were transparently correlated to a certain polygenic trait, but not primarily caused by them.

 

[ronburgundy]

It is certainly PLAUSIBLE that there could be intellectual differences between races, but I've yet to see any evidence that any such differences exist that can be attributed to race or evolution.

It's IMPLAUSIBLE that there are no intellectual differences between genetically distinct groups of people which are separated by tens of thousands of years of evolution.

The word "intellectual" is where your claim gets problematic. The more defensible claim would be "It is implausible that there are no gene-related differences is any aspect of cognitive processing between genetically distinct groups of people which are separated by tens of thousands of years of evolution."

Let's accept this premise as true. What does that imply for the "intellect" or "intelligence". Well, the science is increasingly showing that "intelligence" is not an actual causal property of the brain, but rather a observed output of the system that is caused by numerous (possibly thousands) of brain properties. IOW, intelligence is analogous to a car being "sporty" or a person being "a fast runner". There is no such thing as an actual property of "sportiness" or "running fast" located somewhere in the object. Rather those terms refer to a measure of some dimension of output of a complex system of countless factors, each with various genes, each that impacts many things, and thus each with its unique but possibly partly overlapping set of selection factors that influence those genes within a subgroup. One change to one feature can be in the opposite direction of a change in another feature, so the summative impact on something like "intelligence" determined by numerous features would be zero.

So, while even if it's true that no genetic differences related to cognitive processes is implausible, it isn't true that semi-independent differences to numerous aspects of those process would have to add up to difference in the output behavior we measure as "intelligence".

In fact, random variation in genes predicts that the changes to one feature that impacts intelligent behavior will not be systematically in the same direction as changes in all other features influence by difference genes. Thus, the most probably a priori hypothesis is no net difference in the aggregate impact of numerous genetic changes to features that give rise to "intelligent" behavior.

Only if some additional factor is exerting pressure for all these different inputs to be diverging between groups in the same way would a difference in intelligence emerge. While possible, the burden is on those who claim such a systematic non-random effect on genetic variation, and neither you nor anyone has ever come close to meeting that burden.

 

[ronburgundy]

A thread to discuss the political implications of what is known or scientifically understood or appears to be the case regarding this topic. I opted for the politics thread, partly because as I understand it there is no consensus on much of the science and partly because it is the political aspects and implications that I am especially interested in. Obviously, biological science and genetics may also come into play. I myself am not an expert in those areas.

I have chosen to focus on race in particular, though the general subject, and the nature/nurture aspects, could be looked at or affect other areas too (gender might be an alternative focus) and into socioeconomics generally.

Here, to start the ball rolling is what I thought was an interesting article from The New York Times in 2006.....

After the Bell Curve
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/...00&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

......which begins as follows:

"When it comes to explaining the roots of intelligence, the fight between partisans of the gene and partisans of the environment is ancient and fierce. Each side challenges the other’s intellectual bona fides and political agendas. What is at stake is not just the definition of good science but also the meaning of the just society. The nurture crowd is predisposed to revive the War on Poverty, while the hereditarians typically embrace a Social Darwinist perspective."


To put my head on the chopping block, I'm going to adopt the starting position that intelligence is most likely partly a result of nature and partly of nurture, and that there is (in any one lifetime and in any current society) and was (historically/ancestrally/globally) a complicated interplay of both.

This is somewhat related to my reply to barbos above.

It is critical to keep in mind that the evidence of genetic influence is solely for explaining within group or individual level variability in intellectual performance. That has no direct implication for the source of differences between groups.

At the group level, most things that vary within groups or at the individual level are canceled out, b/c most variance is random and thus cancels when aggregated.

Take two random people and they will likely differ in height, skin tone, and countless other physical traits. Take a thousand people and randomly divide them into groups and the groups will not differ in height, skin tone and any of those countless physical traits.

So a priori, the odds that two groups differ on a genetic feature that varies among individuals is very low. The same goes for the a priori odds of a difference in an environmental feature which varies among individuals. However, racial groups are not random and we have direct evidence that many likely relevant environmental features that impact intellectual development do vary systematically between racial groups (and sex groups). But we have little if any evidence that those racial groups differ in the countless genes (all of which vary randomly) in a systematic way across each relevant gene in the manner required to produce a difference in an observed trait like intelligent behavior.

The evidence that gene-based racial intelligence proponents point to is the existence of a group level difference in observed intelligence behavior, but for the above reasons that provides no evidential support for that claim. Until the actual genes themselves responsible for intelligent behavior are observed to differ on average between racial groups, there will be no good evidence that racial differences in intelligence are genetically based. And this requires not just finding a differences in one relevant gene, but a systematic difference in the same direction among most genes that impact intelligent behavior. Since we aren't close to knowing all or even many of the specific genes involved, we aren't close to having any evidence of gene-based intelligence differences between the races.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Since we aren't close to knowing all or even many of the specific genes involved, we aren't close to having any evidence of gene-based intelligence differences between the races.

If one even accepts that there are different races of humans.

 

[ronburgundy]

Since we aren't close to knowing all or even many of the specific genes involved, we aren't close to having any evidence of gene-based intelligence differences between the races.

If one even accepts that there are different races of humans.

Sure, let's not get derailed by semantics. Just replace the word "race" with something referring to geographically distinct subgroups that had little to no sexual reproduction with each other for 50,000+ years, or empirically derived genetic subgroups, even when that means some subgroups within Africa are clustered closer to non-African groups than to other African subgroups. Even though genetic subgroups do not reliably map onto colloquial racial categories, there is a non-zero level of covariance between the two ways of categorizing people, meaning that if you know a persons genetic code, you could accurately predict beyond chance levels what "racial group" they would be categorized as.
This is why our colloquial racial categories, for all their problems, still do good job at predicting relative rates of various genetic conditions, such as sickle cell, lactose intolerance, and alcohol sensitivity (dehydroif genase).

Bottom line is that there a genetic subgroups who differ in the prevalence of various nucleotide positions of their genomes, and there is sufficient correlation between which subgroup a person is in and their socially defined "racial category" that if there were genetically based differences in intellectual behavior between genetic subgroups it would manifest as average differences between "races".

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Since we aren't close to knowing all or even many of the specific genes involved, we aren't close to having any evidence of gene-based intelligence differences between the races.

If one even accepts that there are different races of humans.

Well, there are dozens of marathons.

 

[ruby sparks]

But you aren't discussing genetics, the OP immediately raises race.

Bloody hell you are observant.

[entering 'awaiting elaboration mode']

 

[ruby sparks]

A thread to discuss the political implications of what is known or scientifically understood or appears to be the case regarding this topic. I opted for the politics thread, partly because as I understand it there is no consensus on much of the science and partly because it is the political aspects and implications that I am especially interested in. Obviously, biological science and genetics may also come into play. I myself am not an expert in those areas.

I have chosen to focus on race in particular, though the general subject, and the nature/nurture aspects, could be looked at or affect other areas too (gender might be an alternative focus) and into socioeconomics generally.

Here, to start the ball rolling is what I thought was an interesting article from The New York Times in 2006.....

After the Bell Curve
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/23/...00&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

......which begins as follows:

"When it comes to explaining the roots of intelligence, the fight between partisans of the gene and partisans of the environment is ancient and fierce. Each side challenges the other’s intellectual bona fides and political agendas. What is at stake is not just the definition of good science but also the meaning of the just society. The nurture crowd is predisposed to revive the War on Poverty, while the hereditarians typically embrace a Social Darwinist perspective."


To put my head on the chopping block, I'm going to adopt the starting position that intelligence is most likely partly a result of nature and partly of nurture, and that there is (in any one lifetime and in any current society) and was (historically/ancestrally/globally) a complicated interplay of both.

This is somewhat related to my reply to barbos above.

It is critical to keep in mind that the evidence of genetic influence is solely for explaining within group or individual level variability in intellectual performance. That has no direct implication for the source of differences between groups.

At the group level, most things that vary within groups or at the individual level are canceled out, b/c most variance is random and thus cancels when aggregated.

Take two random people and they will likely differ in height, skin tone, and countless other physical traits. Take a thousand people and randomly divide them into groups and the groups will not differ in height, skin tone and any of those countless physical traits.

So a priori, the odds that two groups differ on a genetic feature that varies among individuals is very low. The same goes for the a priori odds of a difference in an environmental feature which varies among individuals. However, racial groups are not random and we have direct evidence that many likely relevant environmental features that impact intellectual development do vary systematically between racial groups (and sex groups). But we have little if any evidence that those racial groups differ in the countless genes (all of which vary randomly) in a systematic way across each relevant gene in the manner required to produce a difference in an observed trait like intelligent behavior.

The evidence that gene-based racial intelligence proponents point to is the existence of a group level difference in observed intelligence behavior, but for the above reasons that provides no evidential support for that claim. Until the actual genes themselves responsible for intelligent behavior are observed to differ on average between racial groups, there will be no good evidence that racial differences in intelligence are genetically based. And this requires not just finding a differences in one relevant gene, but a systematic difference in the same direction among most genes that impact intelligent behavior. Since we aren't close to knowing all or even many of the specific genes involved, we aren't close to having any evidence of gene-based intelligence differences between the races.

Thanks.

You know more than me about genetics, obviously.

But from a layman's perspective...

Setting race aside, the idea that intelligence is heritable (directly via genes I mean) seems more than plausible (and quite well supported).

So, if that's true (and I did use the word if) then, if, also, the (for want of a better word) breeding is segregated, at least quite a bit, then, wouldn't one expect to see.... certain patterns emerge, among groups?

ETA: I hadn't read your reply to Moogly before posting, and although I don't fully understand it, it seems as if you may have touched on what I just said?

 

[Half-Life]

Africa's average IQ lags WAY BEHIND the rest of the world. Zimbabwe has been begging the white farmers to come back and farm for them because they can't even do that. The best country in Africa is South Africa, which has been run by whites. I said it before and I'll say it again. If we moved all Americans to Africa and all Africans to America, America would become Africa and Africa would become America.

Nothing but facts. Can't refute it.