Three genetic variants linked to IQ, and they vary by race

[ApostateAbe]

The secular rise in IQ lends some weight to the environmental hypothesis, but nevertheless it is true that the DIFFERENCES have remained durable across time and space.

It sounds like you are saying by differences that there are differences not the measurements of the differences. The measurements have changed. They have also changed along with various other things such as better world literacy, better world health, better income. There have also been specific studies finding one or the other very correlated to the iq gap: such as pathogens vs iq gap and literacy change versus gap. There are still many gaps in these things correlated to iq difference. So one cannot discount them, if one is assuming iq is a real thing anyway.

Height is much the same way. I think rational people take it for granted that racial height differences are largely genetic--or are Asians short because of all the rice they eat?--but, if there was a strong ideological interest in denying the genetics of racial height differences, the same argument would apply. There has been a large secular rise in height among all races over the last hundred years, greater than the differences between races.

I read that when American colonials encountered Native Americans, they saw them as a tall race and there were measurements that went along with that. After a century of living in America, it was the colonials' descendants who had become tall.

Regarding rice, don't forget soy. Soy is related to production of estrogen which could be related to other observations of racial difference. In fact, diet is very related to estrogen and testosterone. Diet is also related to cognitive development, even during gestation.

The secular rise in IQ lends some weight to the environmental hypothesis, but nevertheless it is true that the DIFFERENCES have remained durable across time and space.

Not, however, "in ways that give more evidence of genetic causation, than of environmental differences," but in ways that leave the question open.

Height is much the same way. I think rational people take it for granted that racial height differences are largely genetic--or are Asians short because of all the rice they eat?--but, if there was a strong ideological interest in denying the genetics of racial height differences, the same argument would apply. There has been a large secular rise in height among all races over the last hundred years, greater than the differences between races.

And if that weren't almost entirely down to a single easily controlled for factor (childhood nutrition), but multifactorial with umpteen confounders and counterexamples, then the cause of a persistent differential would indeed remain an open scientific question. The idea that we can extrapolate from height to any other persistent differential, however, remains pseudoscience.

When peoples migrate to new environments, every environmental variable is liable to change quickly. Their diet changes, their health changes, their language changes, their customs change, their wealth changes, and so on. But, one sort of thing that does NOT change so much: their genes. Allele frequencies generally change relatively slowly. That is why the universality or near-universality of a human phenotype across cultures and across history is taken to be strong evidence of a genotype in anthropology and evolutionary psychology. You can dismiss the argument as insufficient, but you can not rightly dismiss such evidence as neutral.

Don, the Cheyenne tribe were reportedly taller than colonial whites, perhaps owing to their meat diet. Not so for the remaining tribes of Native Americans, seemingly.

 

[Canard DuJour]

It sounds like you are saying by differences that there are differences not the measurements of the differences. The measurements have changed. They have also changed along with various other things such as better world literacy, better world health, better income. There have also been specific studies finding one or the other very correlated to the iq gap: such as pathogens vs iq gap and literacy change versus gap. There are still many gaps in these things correlated to iq difference. So one cannot discount them, if one is assuming iq is a real thing anyway.

Height is much the same way. I think rational people take it for granted that racial height differences are largely genetic--or are Asians short because of all the rice they eat?--but, if there was a strong ideological interest in denying the genetics of racial height differences, the same argument would apply. There has been a large secular rise in height among all races over the last hundred years, greater than the differences between races.

I read that when American colonials encountered Native Americans, they saw them as a tall race and there were measurements that went along with that. After a century of living in America, it was the colonials' descendants who had become tall.

Regarding rice, don't forget soy. Soy is related to production of estrogen which could be related to other observations of racial difference. In fact, diet is very related to estrogen and testosterone. Diet is also related to cognitive development, even during gestation.

The secular rise in IQ lends some weight to the environmental hypothesis, but nevertheless it is true that the DIFFERENCES have remained durable across time and space.

Not, however, "in ways that give more evidence of genetic causation, than of environmental differences," but in ways that leave the question open.

Height is much the same way. I think rational people take it for granted that racial height differences are largely genetic--or are Asians short because of all the rice they eat?--but, if there was a strong ideological interest in denying the genetics of racial height differences, the same argument would apply. There has been a large secular rise in height among all races over the last hundred years, greater than the differences between races.

And if that weren't almost entirely down to a single easily controlled for factor (childhood nutrition), but multifactorial with umpteen confounders and counterexamples, then the cause of a persistent differential would indeed remain an open scientific question. The idea that we can extrapolate from height to any other persistent differential, however, remains pseudoscience.

When peoples migrate to new environments, every environmental variable is liable to change quickly. Their diet changes, their health changes, their language changes, their customs change, their wealth changes, and so on. But, one sort of thing that does NOT change so much: their genes. Allele frequencies generally change relatively slowly. That is why the universality or near-universality of a human phenotype across cultures and across history is taken to be strong evidence of a genotype in anthropology and evolutionary psychology.

So? Is someone saying otherwise?

You can dismiss the argument as insufficient, but you can not rightly dismiss such evidence as neutral.

Dismiss what argument? The discussion (you've quoted) was about the Flynn effect. This doesn't contradict anything I've said and seems barely relevant.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Don, the Cheyenne tribe were reportedly taller than colonial whites, perhaps owing to their meat diet. Not so for the remaining tribes of Native Americans, seemingly.

Historians often portray Native Americans as merely unfortunate victims of European disease and aggression, with lives in disarray that followed the arrival of Columbus and other explorers or conquerors. The data we analyze on human stature show, in contrast, that some Native Americans such as the equestrian Plains nomads, were remarkably ingenious and adaptive in the face of exceptional demographic stress. Using anthropometric data originally collected by Franz Boas, we show that the Plains nomads were tallest in the world during the mid-nineteenth century. We link this extraordinary achievement to a rich and varied diet, modest disease loads other than epidemics, a remarkable facility at reorganization following demographic disasters, and egalitarian principles of operation. The analysis provides a useful mirror for understanding the health of Euro-Americans.

http://www.nber.org/papers/h0112

Plains Indians are usually divided into two broad classifications which overlap to some degree. The first group became a fully nomadic horse culture during the 18th and 19th centuries, following the vast herds of buffalo, although some tribes occasionally engaged in agriculture. These include the Blackfoot, Arapaho, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Lakota, Lipan, Plains Apache (or Kiowa Apache), Plains Cree, Plains Ojibwe, Sarsi, Nakoda (Stoney), and Tonkawa. The second group of Plains Indians were semi-sedentary, and, in addition to hunting buffalo, they lived in villages, raised crops, and actively traded with other tribes. These include the Arikara, Hidatsa, Iowa, Kaw (or Kansa), Kitsai, Mandan, Missouria, Omaha, Osage, Otoe, Pawnee, Ponca, Quapaw, Wichita, and the Santee Dakota, Yanktonai and Yankton Dakota. Both groups included people indigenous to the region as well as those who were pushed west by population pressure linked to the ever-westward expansion of white culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plains_Indians