Here is the leaked email by Stephanie Grace if anyone is interested.
… I just hate leaving things where I feel I misstated my position.
I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances. The fact is, some things are genetic. African Americans tend to have darker skin. Irish people are more likely to have red hair. (Now on to the more controversial:)
Women tend to perform less well in math due at least in part to prenatal levels of testosterone, which also account for variations in mathematics performance within genders. This suggests to me that some part of intelligence is genetic, just like identical twins raised apart tend to have very similar IQs and just like I think my babies will be geniuses and beautiful individuals whether I raise them or give them to an orphanage in Nigeria. I don’t think it is that controversial of an opinion to say I think it is at least possible that African Americans are less intelligent on a genetic level, and I didn’t mean to shy away from that opinion at dinner.
I also don’t think that there are no cultural differences or that cultural differences are not likely the most important sources of disparate test scores (statistically, the measurable ones like income do account for some raw differences). I would just like some scientific data to disprove the genetic position, and it is often hard given difficult to quantify cultural aspects. One example (courtesy of Randall Kennedy) is that some people, based on crime statistics, might think African Americans are genetically more likely to be violent, since income and other statistics cannot close the racial gap. In the slavery era, however, the stereotype was of a docile, childlike, African American, and they were, in fact, responsible for very little violence (which was why the handful of rebellions seriously shook white people up). Obviously group wide rates of violence could not fluctuate so dramatically in ten generations if the cause was genetic, and so although there are no quantifiable data currently available to “explain” away the racial discrepancy in violent crimes, it must be some nongenetic cultural shift. Of course, there are pro-genetic counterarguments, but if we assume we can control for all variables in the given time periods, the form of the argument is compelling.
In conclusion, I think it is bad science to disagree with a conclusion in your heart, and then try (unsuccessfully, so far at least) to find data that will confirm what you want to be true. Everyone wants someone to take 100 white infants and 100 African American ones and raise them in Disney utopia and prove once and for all that we are all equal on every dimension, or at least the really important ones like intelligence. I am merely not 100% convinced that this is the case.
Please don’t pull a Larry Summers on me,
A few minor fallacies but overall quite respectable and even stimulating conversation nothing any reasonable person would consider should warrant ostracism. Note the reference to “disscused over Dinner”. She was betrayed by someone she socialised with.
And yes I am violating my own advice by boldening that one sentence. ;) I just wanted to drive home how close she may be to a well meaning if perhaps a bit untactfull poster on Less Wrong. Again, we need to be carefull. What society considers taboo changes over time as well, so one must get a feel for where on the scale of forbidden a subject is at any time and where the winds of change are blowing before deciding whether to discuss it online. Something inoccus could cost you your job a decade or so in the future.
One of the people criticizing the letter accused the letter writer of privileging the hypothesis—that it’s only because of historical contingency (i.e. racism) that someone would decide to carve reality between “African-Americans” and “whites” instead of, say, “people with brown eyes” and “people with blue eyes”. (She didn’t use that exact phrase, but it’s what she meant.)
Isn’t nearly everything a social construct though? We can divide people based into two groups, those with university degrees and those without. People with them may tend to live longer or die earlier, they may earn more money or earn less, ect. We may also divide people into groups based on self identification, do blondes really have more fun than brunettes or do hipsters really feel superior to nonhipsters or do religious people have lower IQs than self-identified atheists ect
Concepts like species, subspecies and family are also constructs that are just about as arbitrary as race.
I dosen’t really matter in the end. Regardless of how we carve up reality, we can then proceed to ask questions and get answers. Suppose we decided to in 1900 take a global test to see whether blue eyed or brown eyed people have higher IQs. Lo and behold we see brown eyed people have higher IQs. But in 2050 the reverse is true. What happened? The population with brown eyes was heterogeneous and its demographics changed! However if we took skin cancer rates we would still see people with blue eyes have higher rates of skin cancer in both periods.
So why should we bother carving up reality on this racial metric and ask questions about it? For the same reason we bother to carve up reality on the family or gender metric. We base policy on it. If society was colour blind, there would be no need for this. But I hope everyone here can see that society isn’t colour blind.
For example Affirmative action’s ethical status (which is currently framed as a nesecary adjustment against biases and not reparations for past wrongs) depends on what the data has to about say about group differences.
If the data shows we people with blue eyes in our country have lower mean IQs when controlling for socioeconomic status and such, we shouldn’t be accusing racism for their higher college drop out rates if the rates are what is to be expected when controlling for IQs. To keep this policy would mean to discriminate against competent brown eyed people. But if there are no difference well then the policy is justified unless it turns out there is another reason that has nothing to do with discrimination behind it.
I hope that you however agree that (regardless of what the truth of this particular matter is) someone should not be vilified for asking questions or proposing hypothesises regarding social constructs we have in place, regularly operate with and even make quantifiable claims about.
I just want to clear up that I’m refering to species and subspecies in the biological sense in that sentence and family in the ordinary every day sense not to the category between order and genus.
For example Affirmative action’s ethical status (which is currently framed as a nesecary adjustment against biases and not reparations for past wrongs) depends on what the data has to about say about group differences.
Only if you accept that particular framing, I would have thought? If one chooses to justify affirmative action as reparations for past wrongs, ‘what the data has to about say about group differences’ won’t change your opinion of affirmative action.
Of course one can do this. But then you get into the sticky issue of why should we group reparations based on race? Aren’t the Chatolic Irish entitled to reparations for their mistreatment as immigrant labour and discrimination against them based on their religion if the same is true of the Chinese? Aren’t Native Americans a bit more entitled to reparations than say Indian immigrants? Also why are African Americans descended from slaves not differenciated to those who have migrated to the US a generation ago (after the civil rights era)?
And how long should such reparations be payed? Indefinetly?
I hope that from the above you can see why there would need to be a new debate on affirmative action if one reframes it.
I don’t believe affirmative action is justified by ‘past wrongs’ - I used that as an example only because you mentioned it. (Personally, I believe it makes more sense to justify affirmative action as a device to offset present disadvantages.) I meant only to make the point that the statement ‘Affirmative action’s ethical status...depends on what the data has to about say about group differences’ is too broad, because there are justifications for affirmative action that do not hinge on the nature of IQ differences between blacks and whites.
I wrote affirmative action as it is currently framed. I consider that an important distinction. I never denied other frames where possible, I’m just saying the current support for affirmative action amongst groups that are harmed by it is loosly based on the notion that it is offseting unwaranted privilige (bias by employers in other words) of the majority.
I think we both agree that ‘what the data has to about say about group differences’ does not necessarily affect ‘Affirmative action’s ethical status’ in general—only if one justifies it on grounds that make assumptions about the nature of IQ differences between groups. That just wasn’t clear to me as of four days ago due to your phrasing.
Black people routinely outperform whites at elite running events, Asians already rule at math and science, so the hypothesis that there are genetic differences in performance between blacks and whites is already something one should consider likely.
IAWYC, but “Asians rule at math and science” seems to have a huge cultural basis, and it’s at least no more obvious that it has a genetic component than that racial IQ gaps do.
To someone who knows that Asian math achievement has a fully or almost fully cultural basis, the Asian math link doesn’t do work privileging the hypothesis that there might be a black/white genetic IQ difference.
However, to someone who simply sees math classes full of people with yellow skin, and doesn’t know why, it does do work privileging the hypothesis that there might be a black/white genetic IQ difference, rather that e.g. anti-black discrimination causing lower grades for blacks etc.
Of course, if you saw Asian-filled math classes, there must have already been something that made you assign some probability to the hypothesis that genes, not memes were responsible.
and it’s at least no more obvious that it has a genetic component than that racial IQ gaps do.
I don’t think it has to be more obvious or clear-cut, it moves you evidentially by simply being another instance of the same thing.
If the only racial-feature correlation in the world was that black people tested low on IQ, then the idea that genes rather than, say, discrimination were responsible would be something of a stretch.
But when you see a whole collection of racial-feature correlations, the idea that genes are responsible to some extent becomes more plausible. It is a reasonable AI/machine learning heuristic to jump from co-variation to some kind of causal link: if you see skin color (which is well known to indicate DNA-type) covary with ability at sport, ability at math, ability at IQ tests, criminality, etc, you place some weight on the hypothesis that DNA directly causally influences these things. Of course, you don’t put all of your weight on that.
Can you explain how you know Asian math acheivement is fully due to cultural bias?
Haven’t crossracial adpotion studies shown that adopted East Asian children do better than their white peers on IQ tests? I also remember hearing claims that generally Asians do beter on the visualspatial component of IQ tests than whites.
I think it would be fascinating if people with blue eyes were more or less intelligent, when controlling for the variables, than people with brown eyes.
That said, I would expect a larger genetic variation when choosing between long-separated and isolated populations rather than eye colors.
I’m using eye color as an example here since CronoDAS mentioned it. Replace it with a particular gene, future time orientation, nose type or whatever. If society makes quantifiable claims about a particular category into which we slice up reality (ie Atheists are more likley to rape and murder!) an individual should have the right to either test or demand proof for this quantifiable claim.
Race is a pretty good proxy form which populations your ancestors came from. Its not perfect since for example the Black race has the most genetic diversity and geneflow has increased after the rise of civilization and especially globalisation. Knowing however, whether for example most of your ancestors lived outside of Africa for the last 60,000 thousand years or that your group of ancestors diverged from the other guys group of ancestors 40,000 thousand years ago is also relevant info.
I stole this graph from Razib’s site (gene expression) for a quick reference of what current biology has to say about ancestral populations.
Most escape me right now but I do recall something that bothered me… She implicity uses stereotypes of African American behvariour and how they change over time as an indicator of the actuall change in violent behaviour.
I’m sure it correlates somewhat, but considering how much stronger changes in wider society where and how much people’s interests regarding what it was best to have other people belive about Black behaviour changed over time I don’t think you can base an argument on this either way.
Here’s a bit more on the “privileging the hypothesis” bit, taken from here:
UPDATE: A lot of commenters have said that not addressing the substance of Stephanie’s email — the contention that it’s possible that black people are genetically inferior to white people — is a mistake, and weakens my point. So, why am I not addressing the idea that maybe black people are intellectually inferior, even if just to quickly debunk Stephanie’s argument? Because if I did that, the comments to this post would turn into a referendum on the genetics of intelligence, and there are always going to be a few very vocal people who have a lot invested in the falsity that black people are genetically inferior, and those people are not going to be convinced by any amount of evidence. It’s also impossible to prove, beyond any scientific doubt at all, that there is no genetic differentiation between racial and ethnic groups. That is, basically, how science works — it’s the reason that people who have some political or religious or personal investment in the idea that evolution is a crock will fall back on the “well evolution is only a theory!” line. Yes, it is “only” a theory, but it’s a theory that has a whole mountain of evidence behind it; and it’s called a theory because scientists are awfully hedgy, for good reason, about calling anything The Absolute Proven Truth. I’ll quote commenter MJ, who makes this point well:
One hears this kind of statement often from advocates of quasi-racist positions. “Oh, of course I could be convinced of perfect equality, if only someone could show me a study the proves that no differences exist!” It’s an extremely disingenuous argument and reflects a fundamental (deliberate?) misunderstanding about statistics.
No study can ever “prove” that no difference between two groups exists—a study can only fail to detect a difference of a certain size with a certain confidence level. Any experiment with enough statistical power will be able to find differences between any two groups, even two flasks of genetically identical bacteria, if you try hard enough.
My point is that asking for a study that demonstrates equality may sound reasonable, but is in fact just a rhetorical technique that can never be satisfied and serves as a shield for racist ideas.
Intelligence, too, is impossible to separate from environment and socialization, again making it impossible for anyone to say with absolute certainty that there is absolutely no biological or genetic difference at all ever between racial and ethnic groups. Intelligence is also incredibly difficult to accurately measure. But for all intents and purposes, the evidence is pretty clear that there aren’t discernible genetic differences when it comes to intelligence. But it’s always possible to make the argument that “We haven’t proven that there are no differences.” That argument tells you a lot more about the person making it than it does about any scientific fact.
I take people who argue that maybe there are race-based genetic differences that determine intelligence about as seriously as I take people who argue that maybe God did create the earth in 7 days with all humans and animals in the exact same form as we find them today. And you know, opening up a free-for-all discussion about race-based genetic difference will be about as fruitful as opening up a discussion about Creationism vs. Evolution. Discussing why Creationists are wrong and trying to convince anyone to switch “sides” in that debate (if you can even call it that) is pointless; if you really feel the need to repeat, “But evolution is just a theory and it doesn’t explain everything, so Creationism can’t be totally ruled out”, then you have some personal or religious or political or cultural investment in that idea, which won’t be toppled by evidence or rationality. Similarly, if you feel the need to repeat, “But it can’t be totally ruled out that there may be genetic differences between the races which make black people intellectually inferior,” you have some personal or political or cultural investment in that idea, which probably won’t be toppled by evidence or rationality. There is no “winning” in this debate.
And the greater danger of even opening up the debate is that, unlike creationism vs. evolution, the question of “are some people genetically inferior to others?” has been used in the service of injustice great and small. Even if we put aside the point that the genetics question has been used to justify slavery, mass sterilization, genocide, incarceration and violence — not a small point to put aside, certainly — the fact remains that the continued asking such an absurd, disproven question does harm. I can understand, for people who are not in the group that has been deemed potentially genetically inferior, that just raising the issue may not feel harmful. But for the people who are in that group? Who know the history? Who are routinely treated to questions like this under the guise of “I’m only asking the question!” but who know quite well that “only asking the question” is, itself, a way of suggesting that the answer to the question just might be yes? Who, by having to respond to the question over and over are basically being told, “You may just not be as intelligent as white people, genetically; you, as you were born, are just less”? It is harmful. It is part of a generations-long continuum of harm. It is a kind of psychological warfare that white people have waged on people of color and other less “fit” populations for centuries, which has augmented, supported and justified physical warfare, slavery, colonialism and genocide.
So no, I am not going to open up a discussion as to why Stephanie Grace’s suggestion that black people may be genetically intellectually inferior to white people is wrong. The asking of the question, and taking the question seriously, suggests that the answer just might be yes, no matter how many times the evidence points in the opposite direction. That does real harm to members of our community; it has done real harm historically to huge numbers of people, and will continue to do real harm in the future. There are many, many places on the internet where you all can talk about this to your heart’s content. I feel no obligation to provide a forum for such a pointless, hateful and harmful debate.
My “wrong-headed thinking” radar is picking up more bleeps from this than from the incriminating email:
“There are people with vested interests” is basically unverifiable, she’s basically assuming anybody who disagrees is a fundamentally racist mutant
“People won’t change their mind anyway, the discussion will be pointless” can be said of any controversial subject
The comparison to creationists can also be used to tar any opponent, there should be some version of Godwin’s law for that
The argument that “one can always find a difference if one looks hard enough”
“No study can ever “prove” that no difference between two groups exists” seems to be besides the point—the question isn’t whether any difference exists, but whether this specific difference exists, something that can be proved or disproved by experiment. (Well, more exactly, the topic would be what the cause of the difference is)
As the prior threadmakes clear, distinguishing between genetic and environmental causes of intelligence is immensely complicated—especially given the confusion over what intelligence is.
However, it is well known that people don’t like being told that they’re statistically less likely to be intelligent. There are actually a fair number of studies showing that promoting stereotypes can actually reduce test scores. This is called “Stereotype Threat”. While there is a recent meta-study which claims that the effect is an artifact of publication bias, that study had not been published when Grace wrote her email.
Grace (a) has no new data, and (b) has no new arguments. When she makes the claim that the search for evidence that the race-iq correlation is not genetic has been “unsuccessful”, she hurts people. But she does not, in return, contribute anything at all to the discourse.
She cannot even claim the virtue of curiosity—note that her open-mindedness extends to the idea that African Americans might be as smart as whites, but not to the idea that they might be smarter.
Someone whose grasp of evidence is that weak, should not be working in the law.
Should someone who callously performs any act which she knows or should know will cause harm to people without any offsetting benefit, should probably be publicly shamed.
When she makes the claim that the search for evidence that the race-iq correlation is not genetic has been “unsuccessful”, she hurts people. But she does not, in return, contribute anything at all to the discourse.
Should someone who callously performs any act which she knows or should know will cause harm to people without any offsetting benefit, should probably be publicly shamed.
She was talking to friends at dinner. No harm there. The harm comes when months later one of the dinner companions forwards the e-mail to those who will likely be hurt.
I belive that “choose what to believe based on evidence” is not too high a standard.
The law connection is that Grace is a law student, going to clerk for a judge. Since the comment was not about her correctness but about her treatment, it’s reasonable to question whether the treatment was justified.
Grace (a) has no new data, and (b) has no new arguments. When she makes the claim that the search for evidence that the race-iq correlation is not genetic has been “unsuccessful”, she hurts people. But she does not, in return, contribute anything at all to the discourse.
Isn’t acknowledging what few others will acknowledge contributing to the discourse? A substantial portion of intellectuals refuse to even acknowledge the possibility that there is a correlation between race and intelligence (controlling for culture, etc). And they don’t get publicly shamed for shoddy science. Yet Grace should get publicly shamed for pointing out that the evidence suggests such a correlation? It’s not as if she claimed a high degree of certainty. Besides, the best way to overcome any disadvantages one race might have in intelligence is to understand why there are differences in the first place. Refusing to believe in a substantial portion of the hypothesis space for no good reason is a potentially huge detriment to this aim.
Grace certainly made a social error, and for that perhaps she can be criticized, but it shouldn’t be a social error to acknowledge different possibilities and the evidence for those possibilities in an intellectual* conversation.
* I.e., truth seeking. The evidence/possibilities shouldn’t be used in a condescending way, of course.
Besides, the best way to overcome any disadvantages one race might have in intelligence is to understand why there are differences in the first place.
It gets a lot more complicated when those differences are significantly directly affected by publicly discussing them, as seems to be the case. This statement may very well be true, but it’s also an applause light, and makes it sound like you think reality is obligated to be set up so that truthseeking wins.
It gets a lot more complicated when those differences are significantly affected by publicly discussing them, as seems to be the case.
Fair enough, though I’ll point out that the discussion was over dinner/email, not in an extremely public forum where many people will be exposed (though there is still the possibility that friends tell friends who tell friends, etc.).
...and makes it sound like you think reality is obligated to be set up so that truthseeking wins.
Yes, I see that now. How about this: it’s unclear that the best strategy for combating any racial disadvantages is not talking about them, rather than determining the cause and attempting to do something proactive about it.
Here is the leaked email by Stephanie Grace if anyone is interested.
A few minor fallacies but overall quite respectable and even stimulating conversation nothing any reasonable person would consider should warrant ostracism. Note the reference to “disscused over Dinner”. She was betrayed by someone she socialised with.
And yes I am violating my own advice by boldening that one sentence. ;) I just wanted to drive home how close she may be to a well meaning if perhaps a bit untactfull poster on Less Wrong. Again, we need to be carefull. What society considers taboo changes over time as well, so one must get a feel for where on the scale of forbidden a subject is at any time and where the winds of change are blowing before deciding whether to discuss it online. Something inoccus could cost you your job a decade or so in the future.
Edit: For anyone wondering what a “Larry Summers” is.
Paul Graham’s “What You Can’t Say”
One of the people criticizing the letter accused the letter writer of privileging the hypothesis—that it’s only because of historical contingency (i.e. racism) that someone would decide to carve reality between “African-Americans” and “whites” instead of, say, “people with brown eyes” and “people with blue eyes”. (She didn’t use that exact phrase, but it’s what she meant.)
Isn’t nearly everything a social construct though? We can divide people based into two groups, those with university degrees and those without. People with them may tend to live longer or die earlier, they may earn more money or earn less, ect. We may also divide people into groups based on self identification, do blondes really have more fun than brunettes or do hipsters really feel superior to nonhipsters or do religious people have lower IQs than self-identified atheists ect Concepts like species, subspecies and family are also constructs that are just about as arbitrary as race.
I dosen’t really matter in the end. Regardless of how we carve up reality, we can then proceed to ask questions and get answers. Suppose we decided to in 1900 take a global test to see whether blue eyed or brown eyed people have higher IQs. Lo and behold we see brown eyed people have higher IQs. But in 2050 the reverse is true. What happened? The population with brown eyes was heterogeneous and its demographics changed! However if we took skin cancer rates we would still see people with blue eyes have higher rates of skin cancer in both periods.
So why should we bother carving up reality on this racial metric and ask questions about it? For the same reason we bother to carve up reality on the family or gender metric. We base policy on it. If society was colour blind, there would be no need for this. But I hope everyone here can see that society isn’t colour blind.
For example Affirmative action’s ethical status (which is currently framed as a nesecary adjustment against biases and not reparations for past wrongs) depends on what the data has to about say about group differences.
If the data shows we people with blue eyes in our country have lower mean IQs when controlling for socioeconomic status and such, we shouldn’t be accusing racism for their higher college drop out rates if the rates are what is to be expected when controlling for IQs. To keep this policy would mean to discriminate against competent brown eyed people. But if there are no difference well then the policy is justified unless it turns out there is another reason that has nothing to do with discrimination behind it.
I hope that you however agree that (regardless of what the truth of this particular matter is) someone should not be vilified for asking questions or proposing hypothesises regarding social constructs we have in place, regularly operate with and even make quantifiable claims about.
This is a matter of much dispute and a lot of confusion. See here.
I wondered how humans are grouped, so I got some genes from the world, and did an eigenvalue analysis, and this is what i found:
http://kim.oyhus.no/EigenGenes.html
As you can see, humans are indeed clustered in subspecies.
This doesn’t demonstrate subspecies.
Thanks for the link, I’m reading it now.
I just want to clear up that I’m refering to species and subspecies in the biological sense in that sentence and family in the ordinary every day sense not to the category between order and genus.
Only if you accept that particular framing, I would have thought? If one chooses to justify affirmative action as reparations for past wrongs, ‘what the data has to about say about group differences’ won’t change your opinion of affirmative action.
(ETA—Also.)
Of course one can do this. But then you get into the sticky issue of why should we group reparations based on race? Aren’t the Chatolic Irish entitled to reparations for their mistreatment as immigrant labour and discrimination against them based on their religion if the same is true of the Chinese? Aren’t Native Americans a bit more entitled to reparations than say Indian immigrants? Also why are African Americans descended from slaves not differenciated to those who have migrated to the US a generation ago (after the civil rights era)?
And how long should such reparations be payed? Indefinetly?
I hope that from the above you can see why there would need to be a new debate on affirmative action if one reframes it.
I don’t believe affirmative action is justified by ‘past wrongs’ - I used that as an example only because you mentioned it. (Personally, I believe it makes more sense to justify affirmative action as a device to offset present disadvantages.) I meant only to make the point that the statement ‘Affirmative action’s ethical status...depends on what the data has to about say about group differences’ is too broad, because there are justifications for affirmative action that do not hinge on the nature of IQ differences between blacks and whites.
I wrote affirmative action as it is currently framed. I consider that an important distinction. I never denied other frames where possible, I’m just saying the current support for affirmative action amongst groups that are harmed by it is loosly based on the notion that it is offseting unwaranted privilige (bias by employers in other words) of the majority.
I think we both agree that ‘what the data has to about say about group differences’ does not necessarily affect ‘Affirmative action’s ethical status’ in general—only if one justifies it on grounds that make assumptions about the nature of IQ differences between groups. That just wasn’t clear to me as of four days ago due to your phrasing.
I didn’t say I agreed.
I never said you did. :) Would you however agree with the sentiment of my last paragraph?
This thread of conversation is easily derailed since whether group differences exist isn’t really its topic.
Yeah, I do...
Black people routinely outperform whites at elite running events, Asians already rule at math and science, so the hypothesis that there are genetic differences in performance between blacks and whites is already something one should consider likely.
IAWYC, but “Asians rule at math and science” seems to have a huge cultural basis, and it’s at least no more obvious that it has a genetic component than that racial IQ gaps do.
To someone who knows that Asian math achievement has a fully or almost fully cultural basis, the Asian math link doesn’t do work privileging the hypothesis that there might be a black/white genetic IQ difference.
However, to someone who simply sees math classes full of people with yellow skin, and doesn’t know why, it does do work privileging the hypothesis that there might be a black/white genetic IQ difference, rather that e.g. anti-black discrimination causing lower grades for blacks etc.
Of course, if you saw Asian-filled math classes, there must have already been something that made you assign some probability to the hypothesis that genes, not memes were responsible.
I don’t think it has to be more obvious or clear-cut, it moves you evidentially by simply being another instance of the same thing.
If the only racial-feature correlation in the world was that black people tested low on IQ, then the idea that genes rather than, say, discrimination were responsible would be something of a stretch.
But when you see a whole collection of racial-feature correlations, the idea that genes are responsible to some extent becomes more plausible. It is a reasonable AI/machine learning heuristic to jump from co-variation to some kind of causal link: if you see skin color (which is well known to indicate DNA-type) covary with ability at sport, ability at math, ability at IQ tests, criminality, etc, you place some weight on the hypothesis that DNA directly causally influences these things. Of course, you don’t put all of your weight on that.
@Nick Tarleton:
Can you explain how you know Asian math acheivement is fully due to cultural bias? Haven’t crossracial adpotion studies shown that adopted East Asian children do better than their white peers on IQ tests? I also remember hearing claims that generally Asians do beter on the visualspatial component of IQ tests than whites.
Edit: Originally adressed @Roko
Nick Tarleton said it, not me ;-)
I have not seen evidence either way; my arguments given above are not dependent upon it being true or false.
I misread the first sentence. Thanks for the correction, I’ll put a @Nick Tarleton in there then.
I think it would be fascinating if people with blue eyes were more or less intelligent, when controlling for the variables, than people with brown eyes.
That said, I would expect a larger genetic variation when choosing between long-separated and isolated populations rather than eye colors.
I’m using eye color as an example here since CronoDAS mentioned it. Replace it with a particular gene, future time orientation, nose type or whatever. If society makes quantifiable claims about a particular category into which we slice up reality (ie Atheists are more likley to rape and murder!) an individual should have the right to either test or demand proof for this quantifiable claim.
Race is a pretty good proxy form which populations your ancestors came from. Its not perfect since for example the Black race has the most genetic diversity and geneflow has increased after the rise of civilization and especially globalisation. Knowing however, whether for example most of your ancestors lived outside of Africa for the last 60,000 thousand years or that your group of ancestors diverged from the other guys group of ancestors 40,000 thousand years ago is also relevant info.
I stole this graph from Razib’s site (gene expression) for a quick reference of what current biology has to say about ancestral populations.
http://www.gnxp.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/PIIS096098220902065X.gr2_.lrg_.jpg
Care to point them out?
Most escape me right now but I do recall something that bothered me… She implicity uses stereotypes of African American behvariour and how they change over time as an indicator of the actuall change in violent behaviour.
I’m sure it correlates somewhat, but considering how much stronger changes in wider society where and how much people’s interests regarding what it was best to have other people belive about Black behaviour changed over time I don’t think you can base an argument on this either way.
Here’s a bit more on the “privileging the hypothesis” bit, taken from here:
My “wrong-headed thinking” radar is picking up more bleeps from this than from the incriminating email:
“There are people with vested interests” is basically unverifiable, she’s basically assuming anybody who disagrees is a fundamentally racist mutant
“People won’t change their mind anyway, the discussion will be pointless” can be said of any controversial subject
The comparison to creationists can also be used to tar any opponent, there should be some version of Godwin’s law for that
The argument that “one can always find a difference if one looks hard enough”
“No study can ever “prove” that no difference between two groups exists” seems to be besides the point—the question isn’t whether any difference exists, but whether this specific difference exists, something that can be proved or disproved by experiment. (Well, more exactly, the topic would be what the cause of the difference is)
As the prior threadmakes clear, distinguishing between genetic and environmental causes of intelligence is immensely complicated—especially given the confusion over what intelligence is.
However, it is well known that people don’t like being told that they’re statistically less likely to be intelligent. There are actually a fair number of studies showing that promoting stereotypes can actually reduce test scores. This is called “Stereotype Threat”. While there is a recent meta-study which claims that the effect is an artifact of publication bias, that study had not been published when Grace wrote her email.
Grace (a) has no new data, and (b) has no new arguments. When she makes the claim that the search for evidence that the race-iq correlation is not genetic has been “unsuccessful”, she hurts people. But she does not, in return, contribute anything at all to the discourse.
She cannot even claim the virtue of curiosity—note that her open-mindedness extends to the idea that African Americans might be as smart as whites, but not to the idea that they might be smarter.
Someone whose grasp of evidence is that weak, should not be working in the law.
Should someone who callously performs any act which she knows or should know will cause harm to people without any offsetting benefit, should probably be publicly shamed.
She was talking to friends at dinner. No harm there. The harm comes when months later one of the dinner companions forwards the e-mail to those who will likely be hurt.
It is the dinner companion who should be condemned, if this account of the matter is accurate.
There is always harm when a person makes a statement without regard to its truth.
Your standards for a dinner time discussion among law students are awfully high.
Incidentally, the only poster here who has ever claimed to be a practicing attorney (afaik) was Brazil, from the prior thread.
So that’s why I felt like he was cross-examining me in that thread. Mystery solved...
Well perhaps, fundamental attribution error and all that. Maybe he was just having a bad week or got defensive after we ganged up on him.
(Edit: but his global warming blog had the same kind of tone and approach)
Good point.
I belive that “choose what to believe based on evidence” is not too high a standard.
The law connection is that Grace is a law student, going to clerk for a judge. Since the comment was not about her correctness but about her treatment, it’s reasonable to question whether the treatment was justified.
Isn’t acknowledging what few others will acknowledge contributing to the discourse? A substantial portion of intellectuals refuse to even acknowledge the possibility that there is a correlation between race and intelligence (controlling for culture, etc). And they don’t get publicly shamed for shoddy science. Yet Grace should get publicly shamed for pointing out that the evidence suggests such a correlation? It’s not as if she claimed a high degree of certainty. Besides, the best way to overcome any disadvantages one race might have in intelligence is to understand why there are differences in the first place. Refusing to believe in a substantial portion of the hypothesis space for no good reason is a potentially huge detriment to this aim.
Grace certainly made a social error, and for that perhaps she can be criticized, but it shouldn’t be a social error to acknowledge different possibilities and the evidence for those possibilities in an intellectual* conversation.
* I.e., truth seeking. The evidence/possibilities shouldn’t be used in a condescending way, of course.
It gets a lot more complicated when those differences are significantly directly affected by publicly discussing them, as seems to be the case. This statement may very well be true, but it’s also an applause light, and makes it sound like you think reality is obligated to be set up so that truthseeking wins.
Fair enough, though I’ll point out that the discussion was over dinner/email, not in an extremely public forum where many people will be exposed (though there is still the possibility that friends tell friends who tell friends, etc.).
Yes, I see that now. How about this: it’s unclear that the best strategy for combating any racial disadvantages is not talking about them, rather than determining the cause and attempting to do something proactive about it.