Some comments about "race" and "intelligence"

I wrote, "I would question your apparent assumption that a change in philosophy and cultural values is insufficient to reduce or eliminate this kind of criminal behavior -- that physiology is destiny. If I thought it were, I would abandon philosophy as having any power to change the world." Brad replied,

I would again question your apparent assumption of a false dichotomy, that philosophy is either omnipotent or impotent. It can help or hinder people in making the most out of what they are endowed with. It can't wipe the slate clean so that all phenotypes on the planet are interchangeable with one another and equally equipped to produce the characteristics of advanced civilizations.

Correct me if I am wrong, but you do seem to be saying that philosophy is impotent to change the ideas of certain races of people (e.g., Africans) -- that in this respect, biology is destiny.

You talk of "phenotypes" as if they were synonymous with racial classifications. However, there is a much greater genetic diversity within a given race than there is between races.

Moreover, advanced civilization is not inherent in any particular race or ethnic group. Mankind has existed on earth for a million years, yet the oldest civilizations did not appear until 5,000 years ago. The ancestors of the British, French and Spanish living today were uncivilized savages as recently as the time of Julius Caesar, slightly more than 2,000 years ago. In light of mankind's total presence on earth, these groups were uncivilized savages for 99.8% of mankind's history (998,000/1000,000). The ancestors of present day Germans and Scandinavians emerged from savagery even later than that.

These facts illustrate just how little significance there is to the members of any race or ethnic group's achieving civilization sooner than any other. As a result, there is no reason to believe that civilization is the property of any race or ethnicity. It is strictly an intellectual matter -- a matter of the presence or absence of certain fundamental ideas, and therefore of education. (See in this connection George Reisman's essay, "Education and the Racist Road to Barbarism."

You also talk about "the West's altruistic immigration policies." Would you restrict freedom of immigration to certain races or religions?

(Edited by William Dwyer on 6/07, 11:04am)

Post 161

Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 11:41am

Excellent point, Bill!

Post 162

Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 3:17pm

Correct me if I am wrong, but you do seem to be saying that philosophy is impotent to change the ideas of certain races of people

You're wrong.

However, there is a much greater genetic diversity within a given race than there is between races.

Lewontin's fallacy.

"...a large enough sample of genes will tell us whether a species has begun to differentiate into identifiable subpopulations. It will also tell us, roughly, when these subpopulations began to differentiate from each other.
But it won�t tell us how important between-population differences are in relation to within-population differences. It�s an apples and oranges comparison. The two groups of genes are qualitatively different.
First, when genes vary between populations, it�s usually because these populations inhabit different environments with different sets of selection pressures. Genes that differ across this environmental boundary are necessarily genes that make a difference, i.e., that have selective value.
In contrast, when genes vary within a population, despite similar selection pressures, it�s usually because they have little or no selective value..."
http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2008/06/lewontins-fallacy.html

Mankind has existed on earth for a million years, yet the oldest civilizations did not appear until 5,000 years ago.

If you want to call our hominid ancestors from a million years ago "men," fine. The fact that our brains evolved and grew bigger since a million years ago is relevant to explaining why civilization developed when it did. The branch of mankind that migrated north from Africa ~45,000 years ago and intermixed with Neanderthals is the branch that grew the largest brains and developed the most advanced civilizations.

there is no reason to believe that civilization is the property of any race or ethnicity. It is strictly an intellectual matter -- a matter of the presence or absence of certain fundamental ideas

You're a pure idealist. You seek to advance idealism as an absolute, categorical alternative to materialism. You operate under the assumption of a false dichotomy from which I am apparently unable to shake you. A realist, or contextualist, approach takes into account both ideas in the abstract - and the biologically given brainpower that is necessary to produce, grasp, and abide by sets of ideas - in explaining consistently observed patterns of variability in human behavior.

Would you restrict freedom of immigration to certain races or religions?

I would encourage all First World nations to disincentivize immigration from low-IQ and culturally hostile populations and end participation in the UN Refugee Resettlement program. This would save First World nations money immediately and help save the character of the First World for future generations.

I support ending the unnecessary foreign wars engaged in and halting the counter-productive foreign aid dispensed altruistically by the West and focusing any "nation building" and "humanitarian" efforts on saving the West and arresting its demographic decline.

Post 163

Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 5:42pm

I wrote to Brad, "Correct me if I am wrong, but you do seem to be saying that philosophy is impotent to change the ideas of certain races of people." He replied, "You're wrong."

But when I wrote, "there is no reason to believe that civilization is the property of any race or ethnicity. It is strictly an intellectual matter -- a matter of the presence or absence of certain fundamental ideas," he replied:

You operate under the assumption of a false dichotomy from which I am apparently unable to shake you. A realist, or contextualist, approach takes into account both ideas in the abstract - and the biologically given brainpower that is necessary to produce, grasp, and abide by sets of ideas - in explaining consistently observed patterns of variability in human behavior.

So which is it, Brad? Assuming their possession of reason, either philosophy is able to change people's ideas (and their behavior) regardless of their race or it isn't. Either biologically given brainpower can prevent this process of change from happening or it cannot. You can't have it both ways. Obviously, people can differ in brainpower, but so long as they possess the capacity for reason, the ability to grasp and apply general principles, they are capable of adopting a rational philosophy.

I wrote, "The ancestors of the British, French and Spanish living today were uncivilized savages as recently as the time of Julius Caesar, slightly more than 2,000 years ago. In light of mankind's total presence on earth, these groups were uncivilized savages for 99.8% of mankind's history. The ancestors of present day Germans and Scandinavians emerged from savagery even later than that." Brad replied,

If you want to call our hominid ancestors from a million years ago "men," fine. The fact that our brains evolved and grew bigger since a million years ago is relevant to explaining why civilization developed when it did. The branch of mankind that migrated north from Africa ~45,000 years ago and intermixed with Neanderthals is the branch that grew the largest brains and developed the most advanced civilizations.

I'll accept your point about the distinction between prehistoric man and modern man. Even so, how do you explain the savagery of the British, French and Spanish ancestors who lived just over 2,000 years ago? They would certainly qualify as modern man. The same goes for the Germans and Scandinavians. Moreover, how do you explain the savagery of the Nazis and Communists in our own time? There is only one way to explain it, and it is not by blood, but by bad ideas, which are corrected by better ones.

(Edited by William Dwyer on 6/07, 5:54pm)

Post 164

Thursday, June 7, 2012 - 8:46pm

Brad,

The fact that our brains evolved and grew bigger since a million years ago is relevant to explaining why civilization developed when it did. The branch of mankind that migrated north from Africa ~45,000 years ago and intermixed with Neanderthals is the branch that grew the largest brains and developed the most advanced civilizations.

That, logically, is a non-sequitur. Here is your reasoning, distilled down to essentials:

Big brains explain civilization.
Bigger brains -- bigger brains than that -- explain more (i.e., more "advanced") civilization.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Therefore, when it comes to brains, bigger is better.

The first premise is true, but irrelevant. The second premise is relevant, but untrue. There are 2 ways to define big brains: absolute size and relative to body weight. If you take the first way -- absolute size -- then elephants would be more civil than humans (because they have bigger brains than humans). But alas, that is not the case -- so absolute size is "out" as a means of comparing brains (with respect to explaining "civilization").

However, if you take the second way -- brain size relative to body weight -- you are, again, contradicting reality. In reality, the animal with the largest brain (in relation to its body) is the tree shrew -- a tree shrew's brain is a full 10% of its body weight. So, if you take this second way to measure brain size (and, indirectly, civility), you end up postulating that tree shrews are more civilized than humans, which is absurd. In case you didn't know, this is called a reductio ad absurdum, and it is when you show how someone else's reasoning is wrong by showing how it leads to absurd results.

One of the things that is missing from your reasoning is the stated possibility of a threshold effect. If there is a threshold effect on the relation between brain size and civility, then once brains get to a certain size, bigger is not necessarily any better (with regard to civility). Another thing that is missing from your reasoning is the fact that the chimpanzee brain "type" (and not just its "size") is almost, or about 95%, "human" -- but chimpanzees are not even "almost" civilized. Instead, they are wild animals (they are thoroughly uncivilized).

Morphologically, there is little difference between the brain of a chimpanzee and that of a human but, ethically, there is an entire world of difference. It turns out that the metabolic rate of the brain is a factor that you missed. Morphologically, chimp brains are "95% human", but the metabolism of the chimp brain is not even close to the metabolism of a human brain. Instead, chimp brains run at a metabolic rate that is less than a third of a human brain (even though their brains are morphologically similar).

It turns out that there is a discrete threshold effect that makes humans into special beings, rather than being just animals found way far up on some continuous, sliding scale of intelligence and civility. Your reasoning entirely misses that fact of the matter.

Ed

Post 165

Thursday, June 21, 2012 - 10:20pm

The black/white IQ gap refers to a 1 standard deviation mean IQ difference. But what's more important in explaining differences in achievement in the most cognitively demanding tasks is the distribution tails. If you just look at "extremely smart" people with mean IQs of 145, there is an enormous 4 standard deviation gap in representation, meaning there are 42 times as many whites with such IQs as blacks.

Steven Pinker illustrates this point here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=_HnIsXhRDKw#t=738s

There has been only 1 black Nobel prize winner outside of Peace or Literature, ever (William Arthur Lewis, 1979, Economics).

The testing data for the U.S. indicates that it lags behind Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and many European and Asian countries. That's because the U.S. has a larger black population than any of the nations that outpace it academically, which brings down the overall average. If the U.S. were composed of a single race with a normal distribution around the national mean, then the U.S. would produce fewer geniuses than the nations with higher means. But because the U.S. is not a racial melting pot, because it contains individuals with distinct European, Jewish, and East Asian ancestry, the right tail of the U.S. IQ distribution extends further out than it would under an idealized Wolferian society in which all racial distinctions are mixed out of existence.

Post 166

Friday, June 22, 2012 - 7:02pm

Brad,

You're amazing. I have to take you back to post 34 in this thread. It read:

Ever notice the similar behavior of man-made global warming enthusiasts and IQ heritability enthusiasts? They each tell you that

1) there is this idea
2) that it cannot be precisely estimated but that that shouldn't be a problem
3) and what is more important for us is to implement the political policy changes that the idea requires (without getting bogged down into the question of whether the idea is a fully rational response to a full immersion into all of the relevant data)

Basically, there are some folks who are political policy "do-gooders." They think that they have "answers" and they work to mentally evade contrary evidence. They think that if they can just force everyone to accept their "answers" then we can "make the world a better place" -- but it may involve some pain and bloodshed (which is considered to be just a "necessary evil"). You keep assuming that most of the variation in IQ scores is due to genetic causes, rather than environmental ones.

I can tell that you keep assuming that because your insinuated "policy changes" hinge on that. You are like the Global Warming Alarmist who says we have to save the polar bears. Nevermind that there are actually more polar bears now than there was before -- we have to save the polar bears (we have to implement their "policy changes" to save the polar bears).

Here's a list of evidence from this thread alone, all pointing to the conclusion that environmental factors outweigh genetic factors when it comes to the measured outcome of IQ scores:

***************************************
a) The Flynn Effect -- i.e., IQ scores keep rising by 3 points every decade (a rate too fast to be genetic in origin).

b) 20-30% of the variation in measured IQ scores is explained by differences in socio-economic status (multiplying the number-of-subjects affected by the size-of-effect of this variable)

c) At least 10% of the variation in measured IQ scores is explained by differences in lead exposure (multiplying the number-of-subjects affected by the size-of-effect of this variable)

d) At least 10% of the variation in measured IQ scores is explained by differences in manganese exposure (multiplying the number-of-subjects affected by the size-of-effect of this variable)

e) At least 10% of the variation in measured IQ scores is explained by differences in duration of maternal breast-feeding / long-chain omega-3 fatty acid status (multiplying the number-of-subjects affected by the size-of-effect of this variable)

f) At least 5% of the variation in measured IQ scores is explained by differences in blood sugar control (multiplying the number-of-subjects affected by the size-of-effect of this variable)

g) When you restrict study subjects to just the impoverished ones -- to "lock" socio-economic status (an environmental factor) as a confounding factor -- then most (>50%) of the variation in outcome with respect to IQ scores is explained by (other) environmental factors. In other words, when you lock a vital environmental factor into a low position, then most differences in IQ scores are environmental. Only with that environmental factor left in as a confounding variable (rather than an invariant factor), does it "appear" that measured IQ scores are predominantly genetic. And that one environmental factor likely has such a deal-breaker effect because it covaries with other environmental factors that drive measured IQ scores up or down.

Special Note:
And another way to say this is that it is only when everyone is filthy rich that the remainder of differences in IQ scores (the remaining 10-20% or so of the initially measured differences) might be considered to be predominantly genetic -- but, by then, we are a nation of geniuses, because mean IQ scores have risen by more than a full standard deviation above what they are now (so what I have come to call your "political policy" point ... becomes moot).
***************************************

It probably won't help for you to view this list again, because evidence doesn't seem to "affect" your thinking/reasoning. You seem impervious to contrary evidence. I post this because I think it's still valuable to remind 3rd-party readers of the immense depth and breadth of contrary evidence which you have almost-robotically evaded (just like an eyes-glazed-over Global Warming Alarmist).

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/22, 7:07pm)

Post 167

Friday, June 22, 2012 - 8:14pm

You can believe Ed or you can believe cognitive scientists on the issue of the heritability of IQ.

Estimates in the academic research of the heritability of IQ have varied from below 0.5 to a high of 0.9. A 1996 statement by the American Psychological Association gave about .45 for children and about .75 during and after adolescence. A 2004 meta-analysis of reports in Current Directions in Psychological Science gave an overall estimate of around .85 for 18-year-olds and older. The New York Times Magazine has listed about three quarters as a figure held by the majority of studies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

Last year's groundbreaking genome-wide association study established an absolute floor, below which an argument for heritability is no longer tenable. It found that:

heritability of fluid intelligence (the kind that involves pure problem-solving ability, independently of acquired knowledge) is at least 51 percent. Note the at least. The study�s authors explicitly state that these estimates are lower bounds.

Shelves of books and articles denying or minimizing the heritability of IQ have suddenly become obsolete.

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2011/08/the-debate-about-heritability-of-general-intelligence-radically-narrows/

You can review my previous posts to Ed to discover why I don't find it fruitful at this juncture to engage him directly in the pretense of a discussion in which both parties seek to arrive at the most reasonable explanation for a set of observations. Inference to the best explanation based on known evidence is what a rational mind pursues, not unreasonable skepticism, deconstructionism, denials of well-vetted scientific findings, special pleadings, and ever-changing ad-hoc rationalizations for why one won't heed Occam's Razor -- which in this case means accepting that race has something significant to do with observed race differences.

Post 168

Friday, June 22, 2012 - 10:52pm

You can believe Ed or you can believe cognitive scientists on the issue of the heritability of IQ.

I'll take Ed. Really, are there ANY of the soft science disciplines that don't have people supporting totally wacky positions? Name just one. And the so-called cognitive scientists are clearly no exception. And there are other problems with this argument from authority. Which group when there exists a divide within the discipline? But the big problem is in the fallacy of thinking that some annointed group are the sole source of this or that truth. So, with all respect to Ed (and none for Trun), I'm actually using my own mind and not taking anyone's claims on faith.

Post 169

Saturday, June 23, 2012 - 10:11am

Brad,

Steve brings up good points. If you analyze the issue of IQ heritability, then you see a bunch of folks who don't take lots of care to adjust their theorizing to some key facts. How do we normally assign heritability to IQ results? It all boils down to the differences between 2 kinds of twins. We look at (A) monozygotic, or identical twins (who share all of their genetic material), and we look at (B) dizygotic, or non-identical, twins (who share about half of their genetic material), we then correlate IQ scores based on the respective twin-pairs, and then we correlate the 2 different kinds of twin-pairs to each other. What should we find when we do that? Let's take some hypothetical scenarios that are key to understanding the issue:

If measured IQ scores just so happened to be 100% genetic ...

... then we'd find that IQ scores from identical twins would be 100% identical to each other (and IQ scores from non-identical twins would be closer to being only about 50% identical to each other). The correlations between pairs of non-identical twins would be roughly half as strong as the correlations between pairs of identical twins.*

*But we don't find that, so we know that IQ is not 100% genetic. Let's continue this illustrative hypothetical.

If measured IQ scores just so happened to be 99% genetic ...

... then we'd find that IQ scores from identical twins would be almost identical to each other (and IQ scores from non-identical twins would be closer to being only about 50% identical to each other). The correlations between pairs of non-identical twins would be roughly half as strong as the correlations between pairs of identical twins.*

*But we don't find that, so we know that IQ is not even as much as 99% genetic. Let's continue.

If measured IQ scores just so happened to be 85% genetic ...

... then we'd find that IQ scores from pairs of identical twins would not be identical, but that they would still correlate with each other much better than would the IQ scores from pairs of non-identical twins. The correlations between pairs of non-identical twins would be roughly two-thirds as strong as the correlations between pairs of identical twins. This would show up in data as "decreased spread" for identical twins -- i.e., a smaller standard deviation from the mean IQ scores among identical twins, when compared to the standard deviation found among non-identical twins.*

*But we don't necessarily find that, so we have good reason to believe that IQ is not even as much as 85% genetic. Let's play a game. In this game it is assumed that measured IQ scores really are 85% genetic. Under that assumption, what are the odds that you will find the following results

[edit: look below to post 172 for a continuation of this point]

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/24, 8:21am)

Post 170

Saturday, June 23, 2012 - 11:29am

[Deleted post]

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/24, 8:17am)

Post 171

Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 7:59am

Double-post (see post 172 below)

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/24, 8:09am)

Post 172

Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 8:06am

Okay, I found what I needed. Let's start with a quote from a study published in 2010 in the journal, Molecular Psychiatry:

In 34 twin studies with a total of 4672 pairs of MZ twins, the average MZ correlation is 0.86,8 indicating that identical twins are nearly as similar as the same person tested twice (test�retest correlation for g is about 0.903). In contrast, the average DZ correlation is 0.60 in 41 studies, with a total of 5546 pairs of DZ twins. Heritability, the genetic effect-size indicator, can be estimated by doubling the difference between the MZ and DZ correlations because MZ twins are twice as similar genetically as DZ twins.11 This heritability estimate of 52% is similar to that in the results from family and adoption studies. Moreover, meta-analyses of all of the studies yield heritability estimates of about 50%, indicating that about half of the total variance in g can be accounted for by genetic differences between individuals.12�14

So the average correlation between the measured IQ scores of identical (MZ) twins is 0.86 and the average correlation between the measured IQ scores of non-identical (DZ) twins is 0.60 and -- because identical twins are twice as similar genetically -- the heritability of IQ cannot be higher than about 52%. This is important. It can be lower than 52%, but it cannot be higher. Why? Well, that's because of the number of factors that add up in order to create someone's IQ score.

When you add factors, then you can only take away from the relative influence of genetics. I'll say it again. When you add more environmental factors into the gene-environment equation which results in someone's IQ score, then the proportion of variance in outcome that is explained by genetics can only go down. And because there are a large number of factors -- instead of, say, just two factors (e.g., genetics and socio-economic status) -- you have to account for all of those factors. This might be called, for lack of a better term:

The Principle of Sticking to Reality (aka: The Principle of Thinking Straight)

:-)

So, how do we "stick to reality" here? Well, we are going to need a list. We are going to need a list of those things that influence the outcome of measured IQ scores. Before we get to this list (which I'll add as a subsequent post), let's return to the reasoning above, where we started out with several hypotheticals regarding assumed heritabilities of IQ. Let's assume that IQ is 85% genetic. Now, let's look at the findings in those 20,000 twins (10,000 pairs of twins) that were studied. If IQ really was 85% genetic, then what are the odds that we'd ("accidentally" or "spuriously") arrive at that point estimate of 52%, after studying 20,000 of them? The odds of that "accidentally" happening are really pretty low. Let's try the dice analogy:

************************
Process
Each data point is a paired dice roll, roll A and roll B, where the difference between each two rolls contributes to the phenomenon of data spread (measured deviation)

identical twins
--10,000 rounds of 100 rolls where the first 85 of them were literally shared (perform this task 10,000 times, or one time for each identical twin) -- basically, you just do 10,000 rounds of 15 paired dice rolls, keeping track of the total differences between roll A and roll B; because the "differences" in the first 85 rolls are stipulated as being nonexistent

[total number of rolls added together to create a spread of data = 10,000 x 15 = 150,000]

non-identical twins
--5000 rounds of 100 rolls where the first 85 of them were literally shared (perform this task 5000 times, or 0.5 times for each non-identical twin) -- basically, you just do 5000 rounds of 15 paired dice rolls, keeping track of the total differences between roll A and roll B

--5000 rounds of 100 rolls where none of the rolls are shared (perform this task 5000 times, or 0.5 times for each non-identical twin) -- here, for 5000 rounds, you perform the full 100 rolls, adding up all of the differences between roll A and B

[total number of rolls added together to create a spread of data = (5000 x 15) + (5000 x 100) = 75,000 + 500,000 = 575,000]
*************************

What are the odds that, after 10,000 rounds of 100 rolls, the spread of outcomes in the identical twins is only 20-25% smaller than that of the non-identical twins (even though the number of dice rolls contributing to such variance was 75% smaller)? Another way to say this is: What are the odds that, after 10,000 rounds of 100 rolls, the correlation (the inverse of the spread) of identical twins is 0.86 and the correlation of non-identical twins is 0.60 -- when there was almost 4 times as much "noise" (unrelated data) to correlate in the non-identical twins?

The odds are slim-to-none.

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/24, 9:17am)

Post 173

Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 9:03am

Factors contributing to someone's performance on an IQ test in a lab

Here is a rough outline of the factors that add together to create the outcome of someone's IQ score:

Genes
-additive genetic factors
[these are the specific genetic idiosyncracies, or polymorphisms, that you inherit from your specific parents; specifically leading to inherited traits]

-non-additive genetic factors
[i.e., dominance and epistasis; these are when you inherit a gene, but its expression gets suppressed by a totally different gene; so, even though you inherit the gene, you don't actually inherit the trait associated with that gene]

Environment
-shared environmental factors
[these are environmental factors that influence IQ scores but, because they are shared, they influence IQ scores equally among different people; an example is the cultural factor of a parent who communicates high-expectations -- think of the "Tiger Mom" -- expecting high performance from each of his or her kids (leading them to be motivated to try harder on a test, such as an IQ test)]

-non-shared environmental factors
[these are environmental factors that influence IQ scores and, because they are not shared, they influence IQ scores unequally among different people; an example is a brother who likes to go outside and chew on chips of lead-based paint (leading directly to a low IQ) and a sister who stays inside and plays with her doll house]

Now, the trick is to find the relative, proportional contribution of each of these 4 broad categories of factors in contributing to someone's IQ scores. A simple split between genes and environment is impossible. This is because some of the environmental factors are shared. Another way to say this is that some environmental factors are "inherited" and -- because these shared environmental factors get transmitted just like genes do, it is difficult to parse out the relative effects of one from the other. Also, the idea that some of the genes that your parents each, individually, have and each, individually, freely express will not -- after "transmission" or inheritance -- will not actually "work" in your body (because of dominance and epistasis) throws a wrench into the engine of the process of estimating the heritability of IQ.

Note that this process can be reversed, as well. There could have been some genes in the bodies of your mother and your father which were getting individually suppressed, but after the genetic recombination that resulted in you being formed (where you got a copy of half of each of their DNA), the suppressive factors were "lost in translation" -- making you express traits that were not found in either your mother or in your father (even though you have their genes).

Ed

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/24, 9:10am)

Post 174

Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 1:04pm

From this site: http://www.globalanimal.org/2010/12/08/animal-iqs-which-is-the-smartest-animal/26219/

about animal intelligence;

"Elephants VS Chimpanzees: Elephants win the battle of wits. Bigger than most, and smarter than most, too: Elephants back up their brawn with surprising prowess in numerical abilities, among other skills. Faced with experiments testing their ability to differentiate numerical amounts, like recognizing the difference between one and two items compared with the difference between five and six, elephants performed better than primates�and even human children. �Their abilities don�t seem to be limited in quite the same way as monkeys, apes, and children would be,� said the experiment�s lead researcher. Still not impressed? Elephants have been shown to tell the difference between various human languages, too."

and this;

"Dolphins VS Chimps: Dolphins are more intelligent by far. Chimps long held the highest position at the top of animal intelligence, but there have been a few studies knocking that notion down. Chimps are generally perceived to be as smart as 3-year-old humans, but their descent from the top began with a 2007 study that ranked orangutans as smartest of the animals. Dolphins are beginning to get their due from researchers. A 2010 study placed dolphins as the second-most intelligent animal, second only to humans. Dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror and inspect various parts of their bodies, and they can solve difficult problems while living in the wild and round up schools of fish with almost military-like precision. They�re so intelligent, in fact, that one researcher, Thomas White, an ethics professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, says they deserve the same moral standing as humans. �The scientific research� suggests that dolphins are �non-human persons� who qualify for moral standing as individuals,� he said."

I looked for an IQ graphing of dolphins vs humans, I found this [from here: http://www.jref.com/forum/japanese-news-hot-topics-4/whales-dolphins-more-intelligent-than-humans-23299/ ]:

"IQ Comparisons
If we look at the comparative intelligences of species strictly on cortical structural development alone, we can assign an average associative score relative to human intelligence. Let's assign the average human brain a score of 100. This is the number we consider average on human Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests. Based on associative skills as defined by the physiological structure of the comparative brains, we will find that a dog scores about fifteen, and a chimpanzee around thirty-five. These are scores that are comfortably within our understanding of intelligence. Based upon comparisons of cortical structure alone, a sperm whale would score 2,000."

Evidently its not easy to score intelligence. But if animal intelligence were scored against humans on a series of bell curves, all humans would be clustered very close together, practically indistinguishable from each other, other animals would be far removed. Human intelligence measurements tell us nothing about how we should treat fellow humans. Brad, I have to admit I don't know what you're trying to get at. Politically, everyone on this site would agree that discriminatory practices of the government in favor of any group are immoral, in this respect you are singing to the choir. As far as outcome differences in groups, culture differences explain them much better than intelligence, several of Thomas Sowell's books and articles detail this very well.

Post 175

Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 2:22pm

I like the approach Mike took in his last paragraph.

But, I have a difference of opinion, not with his summary, but with a sentence pulled from his quote of that study. The researcher states, "Based on associative skills as defined by the physiological structure of the comparative brains, we will find that a dog scores about fifteen, and a chimpanzee around thirty-five. These are scores that are comfortably within our understanding of intelligence. Based upon comparisons of cortical structure alone, a sperm whale would score 2,000."

To me, this is the of conflating of IQ with intelligence. IQ is NOT a valid measure of intelligence. There are many ways to attempt to measure intelligence ranges of humans, and of other animals. But none of them can include the IQ scores to span the species not until you show me a dog taking a timed test with pencil in his paws. This leap to physiological structure totally leaves the context of IQ scores. Intelligence is a functional capacity in the context of the norms of the life of a specific species - it is not scores on IQ tests, it is not physiological structure differences, and it is not the weight of the brain matter.

This does not invalidate the key points that Mike made and I want to underscore them by repeating them here:

"...if animal intelligence were scored against humans on a series of bell curves, all humans would be clustered very close together, practically indistinguishable from each other, other animals would be far removed."
"Human intelligence measurements tell us nothing about how we should treat fellow humans."
"As far as outcome differences in groups, culture differences explain them much better than intelligence..." (and a thousand times better than IQ scores - my addition)

Post 176

Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 4:44pm

Steve, you're hopelessly incoherent.

You endorse Ed when he attributes more to manganese than to culture. This is in stark contrast to his earlier Sowellian thesis that IQ differences were almost entirely cultural in origin. He's now advocating more of a chemical predestination viewpoint than I am. He attributes purported differences in chemical exposure to huge variations in IQ. You approve of him only because he, like you, denies the primacy of human nature and the genetic diversity that makes individuals and groups of individuals distinct in their natures. You, like him, will embrace any ad hoc argument that will confirm your desire to disbelieve in the heritability of IQ (although somewhat to your credit, you did not fall for race concept denial).

Science tells us that IQ is probably about 75% heritable (and absolutely more than 50% heritable). Your assertion that IQ isn't the same thing as intelligence doesn't refute the finding that performance variation on IQ tests (whatever they measure) is largely explainable by inherited factors.

Your demand that science produce a study of "a dog taking a timed test with pencil in his paws" before you'll stop denying the heritability of individual and group intelligence differences in humans is even more absurd than Ed's feigned skepticism.

Your claim that culture is "a thousand times better than IQ scores" at explaining outcome differences in groups is again outside the ballpark of plausibility. Murray finds that IQ is "one of the best single predictors of job productivity." IQ has been shown to correlate much stronger than .001 with incomes and crime, and the same racial orderings in these data sets have been observed consistently across cultures and continents for over 80 years.

(Edited by Brad Trun on 6/24, 4:47pm)

(Edited by Brad Trun on 6/24, 10:27pm)

Post 177

Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 4:56pm

Trun,

I chose not to object to Ed's posts because I took them to be evidence that your IQ formulations were faulty on a purely statistical basis. You offered me a choice between Ed, who is arguing against your position on IQ and race, or your pet cognitive scientists. Yes, I take Ed. In that context, I wasn't required to say anything regarding environmental chemicals and intelligence.

Look at your quote:

heritability of fluid intelligence (the kind that involves pure problem-solving ability, independently of acquired knowledge) is at least 51 percent. Note the at least. The study�s authors explicitly state that these estimates are lower bounds.

Shelves of books and articles denying or minimizing the heritability of IQ have suddenly become obsolete.

Right there it first says "intelligence" and then says "IQ" as if they are the same thing. Until you can demonstrate that you understand my objections to that conflation, we have nothing to say to one another on this subjet.

Post 178

Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 6:39pm

Here are a few hypothetical ways to look at the breakdown of factors that form someone's testable IQ:

***************************************
Genes

-additive genetic factors = 18%

-non-additive genetic factors = 27%

Environment

-shared environmental factors = 41%

-non-shared environmental factors = 14%
***************************************

Under this scenario, 45% of your IQ is "genetic" (of genetic origin), but 86% of your IQ is "inherited" (of parental origin) -- though only 18% of your IQ is "predictively inherited". You get 2 things from your parents:

1) genetic alleles
2) a common (shared) environment

If parents treat siblings much differently from one another, or if siblings take it upon themselves to interact with the environment much differently from one another, then the so-called "inheritance" of environmental factors, the shared part of the environment, drops significantly. If a parent breast-fed one child, but not the other, then that would be a tremendous drop in shared environment as a factor -- but it would not be a drop in "environment" (per se) as a factor, it would not be an "increase" in the genetic component (you cannot ever get an increase in the genetic component). So there are 2 questions here:

1) What part of IQ is genetic?
2) What part of IQ is inherited?

The answers to these 2 questions are not equivalent. Here is a different way to look at the issue:

***************************************
Directly Inherited/Directly transferred

-additive genetic factors = 18%

-shared environmental factors = 41%

Not Directly Inherited/Not directly transferred

-non-additive genetic factors = 27%

-non-shared environmental factors = 14%
***************************************

Under this juxtaposition, you can see how things produce your IQ score. 59% of the factors come straightforwardly from your parents -- from straightforward genetic transfer and from the very specific environment that your parents choose to raise you in -- and 41% of the factors come indirectly from "chance" combinations. In the case of additive genetic factors, you may, by chance, inherit a dominant allele from your mom which masks the expression of the allele from your dad (or vice versa). In the case of non-shared environmental factors, one kid may like to go to work with dad, who works in a mine where there is a lot of manganese and lead, while the other kid likes to stay home and play with toys. Those are chance combinations that are not directed by some straightforward process. Here is a 3rd way to look at it:

***************************************
Stable/predictable

-additive genetic factors = 18%

Unstable/less predictable

-non-additive genetic factors = 27%

-non-shared environmental factors = 14%

-shared environmental factors = 41%
***************************************

On this last view, you can predict 18% of the factors that influence your IQ, but 82% of the factors that influence your IQ resist such prediction -- most of which is potentially modifiable via parsing out all of the components and working on them separately (e.g., for instance, identifying chronic lead poisoning as an unstable factor that lowers IQ scores, and then working to eradicate lead and, therefore, to improve your IQ scores).

So how would this relate to the finding -- referenced in the scientific study above -- that IQ scores of identical twins correlate at a value of 0.86? Well, that kind of correlation would be broken-down into causation and it would look something like this:

Identical twins share:

--additive genetic factors (which are about 18% of someone's IQ)
--shared environmental factors (which are about 41% of someone's IQ)
--non-additive genetic factors (which are about 27% of someone's IQ)

Total = 86% of the factors comprising IQ = 0.86 correlation between the IQ of identical twins. Note that, even in the case of identical twins, 55% of the IQ is still caused by the environment (as is true, generally, for everyone).

Now, the big suprise here is that identical twins not only share the same passed-on alleles from their parents (additive genetic factors), they also even share the very same, non-additive "quirks" (something which is not additively inherited per se, but can instead be -- in the case of epistasis -- more like an unexpected "emergent property" stemming from the very process of genetic recombination that is involved in human reproduction).

And what about the finding that IQ scores of non-identical twins correlate at a value of 0.60 (you may ask)? Well, that kind of correlation would be broken-down into causation also, and it would look something like this:

Non-identical twins share:

--additive genetic factors (which are about 18% of someone's IQ)
--shared environmental factors (which are about 41% of someone's IQ)

Total = 59% of the factors comprising IQ ~ 0.60 correlation between the IQ of non-identical twins.

Ed

End notes
(1) Genetic dominance is a non-additive factor and is where one inherited (dominant) allele "silences" or masks the expression of the other, corresponding allele. In the case of dominance, the action is confined to a single genetic locus. Epistasis is like "dominance-at-a-distance", and it is where one section of a genome alters expression in another section.

(2) Keep in mind that environmental factors are only actually shared in unique ways. The numbers presented here -- where 41% of someone's IQ score was from shared environmental factors and 14% was from non-shared factors -- are only considered to be statistical averages. In reality, there could be 2 kids in one family who share almost all of the same environmental factors, and there could be 2 kids in one family who only share a minority (less than half) of all the relevant environmental factors which influence IQ scores.

Using the averages of 41% of IQ and 14% of IQ, you could say that, of all of the environmental factors that do indeed affect IQ, about 2/3's of them turn out to be, on average, shared equally among siblings (e.g., getting the same breast-milk), and about 1/3 of them are environmental factors shared unequally (e.g., getting differing exposures to lead because only one of the siblings likes to chew on lead-based paint chips from the house).

(3) The estimate for a total environment influence of 55% (41 + 14) was taken directly from research cited earlier in this thread (see above) wherein socio-economic status was discovered to comprise at least 20% of all influences on your IQ, lead exposure was discovered to comprise at least 10%, manganese exposure was discovered to comprise at least 10%, breast-milk exposure was discovered to comprise at least 10%, and blood sugar control was discovered to comprise at least 5% -- for a total of 55%.

(4) The estimate for the percentage influence on IQ scores of non-additive genetic factors (27%) was taken from the scientific journal article: Reconsidering the Heritability of Intelligence in Adulthood: Taking Assortative Mating and Cultural Transmission into Account -- the authors of which had estimated non-additive genetic factors at precisely 27%. The estimate for additive genetic factors -- the only factor remaining -- was arrived at by summing the estimates of environment and non-additive factors, and then by subtracting that sum from 100 (%).

(5) This was only a "dry-run." There are other sets of permutations possible. Some permutations would include some of the non-additive genetic factors (especially some of the gene dominance!) being shared among non-identical twins. Also, some of the environmental factors listed here may not be completely independent (completely additive with one another), though there is always the counterveiling possibility that some of them are multiplicative or synergistic regarding their combined effects on IQ scores.

(6) Of particular note is that I can explain all of the scientific findings (i.e., all of the correlations, all of the environmental influences, all the available scientific data on the matter) in a manner which integrates and references all of the material. This is a significant advancement in the discussion.

(Edited by Ed Thompson on 6/24, 9:35pm)

Post 179

Sunday, June 24, 2012 - 9:03pm