Honestly I think that one of the main factors is what you imply from your statements. If talking about statistical truths, there’s a tendency, even among rationalists, to implicitly speak as though correlation implies causation. Or rather, there is rarely an explicit statement to the contrary and since humans are naturally biased, we parse the sentence as implying direct causation.
For example: yes, crime rates are higher among certain genetic subgroups of people. That statement is true. If you stop there, it implies that you believe that to be an innate property of their genes, rather than due to other intermediate factors: mainly demographics and social factors such as how those people are treated and what cultural norms/scripts they’re given.
And I believe there’s a taboo regarding genetic supremacism. I believe that given phenomena like stereotype threat and self-fulfilling prophecies, that’s a valuable taboo to have. See another comment of mine on the subject.
As long as you talk about the statistics as being manifest through external factors, though (which they largely are) I think most people are mostly fine about this.
For example: yes, crime rates are higher among certain genetic subgroups of people. That statement is true. If you stop there, it implies that you believe that to be an innate property of their genes,
I believe that genes that have a strong influence on the prevalence of violent criminality exist, and are likely distributed differently in different populations. Given that intelligence, self-control, personality, and so on all feed into propensity for violent crime, and all of those are known to be at least partly heritable, it seems odd to believe otherwise.
rather than due to other intermediate factors
Emphasis mine. I don’t know of a single hereditarian who disavows the influence of other intermediate factors. The debate is always over how much they explain- is heredity 40% of IQ, or 80%, or somewhere in the middle? But there are many people who want heredity to explain 0% of IQ, or criminality, or so on, which seems like an odd hypothesis to privilege.
Given that intelligence, self-control, personality, and so on...
So I agree with you on the points of intelligence, etc. I would guess that most people do… although I guess I’m not certain of that. At the very least I would suspect that there is known causal evidence about these sorts of things.
By contrast, here’s an article that explores how certain racial groups appear to be more violent, until you control for class and demographic, when they suddenly aren’t. And yet a lot of conversation ignores the second half, which is actually the key to finding a solution.
As a man, I will note that one of the strongest correlates with violence is being a man. Given what we know about things like testosterone, there’s probably a substantial degree to which this is genetically/biologically caused. I just find most people emphasize the genetic aspects more than they can reasonably be confident about. For example, regarding heredity of IQ:
“By age 3, a poor child would have heard 30 million fewer words in his home environment than a child from a professional family. And the disparity mattered: the greater the number of words children heard from their parents or caregivers before they were 3, the higher their IQ and the better they did in school.
30 million fewer appears to be about 12 million vs 42 million.
“And they argued that the disparities in word usage correlated so closely with academic success that kids born to families on welfare do worse than professional-class children entirely because their parents talk to them less.”
— The Power of Talking to Your Baby
Note also:
“They found that parents talk much more to girls than to boys”
So even within families, this can be an issue.
You said:
there are many people who want heredity to explain 0% of IQ
I’ve recognized a tendency in myself to attempt to go to 0%. Consciously I realize it can’t possibly be that low, but I can’t be confident it’s more than 2%. Or rather, I think that genetics possibly plays a large role now, but that if we raised people better than we could essentially eliminate these issues without focusing on genes.
If, 300 years ago, you were to describe a society in which large portions of the population can do algebra, or several centuries earlier, you were to describe a society in which basically everyone can read, the people you spoke to would probably assume this was a society of high-intelligence people. Rather, it’s just today’s genetically-basically-identical people, who are learning more effectively, and more, period than people used to.
Sure, genes play a role. But I’m not sure what the value is in focusing on genes.
Well, to partially refute that: Bayesianly-speaking, if you meet someone who has X trait, you might want to update to whatever odds of them having Y correlated trait, sure. That would be generally valuable to have better predictive models. But the brain has trouble separating “I know that X and Y are likely to go together” and “I think that X is a root cause of Y”. Especially the brains of people who don’t train this stuff, meaning even if you can keep these thoughts separate in your head, they can be dangerous memes to spread, because self-fulfilling prophecies, etc.
“Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of IQ in young children”.
To make a long story short, this analysis of a large cohort of children assigned a ‘socioeconomic status indicator’ to each family they were following from 0 to 100 based on a large number of factors. They found that the heritability of IQ was a VERY strong positive function of socioenomic status. At the bottom, they think less than 5% of IQ variation is moderated by genetics. At the top of the scale, over 80%.
Obvious interpretation: low socioeconomic status masks genetic predisposition.
By contrast, here’s an article that explores how certain racial groups appear to be more violent, until you control for class and demographic, when they suddenly aren’t.
That is to say, violence and class have common causes. Intelligence, self-control, personality, etc., all immediately come to mind as relevant, but let’s call this cluster of common causes of violence “harmness”. Even though the presence of harmness may screen off the ability of race to contribute to predictions of violence and class, one still observes more harmness in the population of blacks than the population of whites.
For example, regarding heredity of IQ:
I’m sorry, but this test in no way differentiates between the hypotheses of biological heredity of IQ and verbal transference of IQ. As is, this just shows that there’s an attribute which is positively correlated with being talked to by your parents and academic success, and negatively correlated with welfare. To quote the newspaper article:
“One thing is to say we can change adult language behavior,” Suskind said. “Another thing is to show that it is sustainable, and that it impacts child outcomes.”
Even among links which are strongly supported- like breastfeeding raising IQ- there are selection effects that are hard to estimate, because almost all of our evidence is observational. (Breastfeeding is still a good idea for most parents, even if we’re not quite sure how good it is.) If cleverer parents are more likely to breastfeed because of the purported IQ-boosting link, then in order to start separating out the effects of breastfeeding and the effects of heritability we would need to measure the IQs of the parents of both groups, moving from a simple observational study to a massive project (that would still have possible unmeasured selection effects, like the amount they care about health and cleanliness).
do worse than professional-class children entirely because their parents talk to them less.
Emphasis mine. The probability of this conclusion being made by correct reasoning from the evidence supplied is epsilon, and if you didn’t realize that when reading that quote, I beseech you to give that lapse of rationality solemn contemplation.
I can’t be confident it’s more than 2%.
The probability of an unbiased survey of the literature returning this conclusion is epsilon. I suggest updating.
meaning even if you can keep these thoughts separate in your head, they can be dangerous memes to spread, because self-fulfilling prophecies, etc.
I think it is worth considering the mirror of this concern. “Anyone who says X must mean Y” is its own self-fulfilling prophecy, which can only be counteracted by saying X and not meaning Y.
...by some stereotypes. There’s also the “men are stupid” stereotype. So I’m not sure about your premises.
However, I don’t think your argument is valid, either. Its structure is something like:
A: females get more words during critical period
B: females more intelligent than males
...
If A, but lots of people think !B, how could A => B be true?
Just because lots of people think that !B is the case doesn’t make it the case.
And if we’re talking about success in school (which the article emphasizes) then note that more women go to (and succeed at) post-secondary education than men. Fewer in STEM fields, but that appears to be largely due to stereotypes anyway, not aptitude.
I would also guess that the male-female discrepancy is much smaller than the poor-rich discrepancy.
Or rather, I think that genetics possibly plays a large role now, but that if we raised people better than we could essentially eliminate these issues without focusing on genes.
What model of hereditary intelligence predicts significant hereditary differences in the current environment and negligible differences in an environment where people are raised better?
Variation in genetic robustness/fragility. A known example of this is Iron deficiency in women. If iron in the food is plentiful, no one will notice iron deficiencies, and if it’s non existent then everyone will suffer. But if there’s an almost sufficient amount of Iron, women will be far more likely to be deficient than men. Women are less robust to lack of environmental iron than men. You can imagine brain development such that everyone has the ability to develop a great brain in a great environment but certain genetics will deal better or worse with certain deficiencies.
I was not saying that everyone would have the same level of intelligence, but merely that the baseline might be high enough that violence becomes less of an issue. That was the original subject.
I was not saying that everyone would have the same level of intelligence, but merely that the baseline might be high enough that violence [sic] becomes less of an issue.
I would argue that the higher the variance the more of an issue variance becomes.
What do you mean “sic”? “violence” was what I meant. The original comment was:
Given that intelligence, self-control, personality, and so on all feed into propensity for violent crime
Now, it may not be the case that if you raise everyone’s intelligence that violence decreases, but it’s plausible that this is the case (given the original argument).
I didn’t use the word variance and didn’t mean to. I respectfully ask for the downvote rescinded.
This: For very good reasons, most things we say explicitly carry a large boatload of implications, whether or not we actually mean them. This effect is exacerbated when people who say the same thing with the express purpose of conveying the implications—it becomes a widely-recognized signal.
It’s still usually possible to approach the taboo in question, but it has to be done very, very, very carefully, like approaching a police officer who thinks you may be a violent criminal.
If you stop there, it implies that you believe that to be an innate property of their genes, rather than due to other intermediate factors
The point made by the OP is that is a true implication. If crime rates are higher in certain genetic subgroups, that is valid (if perhaps weak) evidence for a purely genetic correlation with crime, all else being equal. So it’s reasonable to conclude someone believing the first fact, also believes the second one to a degree. And this would not be a problem if the issue were not taboo.
The word “implies” in the phrase “correlation implies causation” typically uses the technical meaning of imply in logic which is quite different from it’s common usage as a synonym for “hint” or “suggest”.
Honestly I think that one of the main factors is what you imply from your statements. If talking about statistical truths, there’s a tendency, even among rationalists, to implicitly speak as though correlation implies causation. Or rather, there is rarely an explicit statement to the contrary and since humans are naturally biased, we parse the sentence as implying direct causation.
For example: yes, crime rates are higher among certain genetic subgroups of people. That statement is true. If you stop there, it implies that you believe that to be an innate property of their genes, rather than due to other intermediate factors: mainly demographics and social factors such as how those people are treated and what cultural norms/scripts they’re given.
And I believe there’s a taboo regarding genetic supremacism. I believe that given phenomena like stereotype threat and self-fulfilling prophecies, that’s a valuable taboo to have. See another comment of mine on the subject.
As long as you talk about the statistics as being manifest through external factors, though (which they largely are) I think most people are mostly fine about this.
I believe that genes that have a strong influence on the prevalence of violent criminality exist, and are likely distributed differently in different populations. Given that intelligence, self-control, personality, and so on all feed into propensity for violent crime, and all of those are known to be at least partly heritable, it seems odd to believe otherwise.
Emphasis mine. I don’t know of a single hereditarian who disavows the influence of other intermediate factors. The debate is always over how much they explain- is heredity 40% of IQ, or 80%, or somewhere in the middle? But there are many people who want heredity to explain 0% of IQ, or criminality, or so on, which seems like an odd hypothesis to privilege.
So I agree with you on the points of intelligence, etc. I would guess that most people do… although I guess I’m not certain of that. At the very least I would suspect that there is known causal evidence about these sorts of things.
By contrast, here’s an article that explores how certain racial groups appear to be more violent, until you control for class and demographic, when they suddenly aren’t. And yet a lot of conversation ignores the second half, which is actually the key to finding a solution.
As a man, I will note that one of the strongest correlates with violence is being a man. Given what we know about things like testosterone, there’s probably a substantial degree to which this is genetically/biologically caused. I just find most people emphasize the genetic aspects more than they can reasonably be confident about. For example, regarding heredity of IQ:
30 million fewer appears to be about 12 million vs 42 million.
Note also:
So even within families, this can be an issue.
You said:
I’ve recognized a tendency in myself to attempt to go to 0%. Consciously I realize it can’t possibly be that low, but I can’t be confident it’s more than 2%. Or rather, I think that genetics possibly plays a large role now, but that if we raised people better than we could essentially eliminate these issues without focusing on genes.
If, 300 years ago, you were to describe a society in which large portions of the population can do algebra, or several centuries earlier, you were to describe a society in which basically everyone can read, the people you spoke to would probably assume this was a society of high-intelligence people. Rather, it’s just today’s genetically-basically-identical people, who are learning more effectively, and more, period than people used to.
Sure, genes play a role. But I’m not sure what the value is in focusing on genes.
Well, to partially refute that: Bayesianly-speaking, if you meet someone who has X trait, you might want to update to whatever odds of them having Y correlated trait, sure. That would be generally valuable to have better predictive models. But the brain has trouble separating “I know that X and Y are likely to go together” and “I think that X is a root cause of Y”. Especially the brains of people who don’t train this stuff, meaning even if you can keep these thoughts separate in your head, they can be dangerous memes to spread, because self-fulfilling prophecies, etc.
http://pss.sagepub.com/content/14/6/623.short
http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/67168735/heritability%20of%20iq.pdf
“Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of IQ in young children”.
To make a long story short, this analysis of a large cohort of children assigned a ‘socioeconomic status indicator’ to each family they were following from 0 to 100 based on a large number of factors. They found that the heritability of IQ was a VERY strong positive function of socioenomic status. At the bottom, they think less than 5% of IQ variation is moderated by genetics. At the top of the scale, over 80%.
Obvious interpretation: low socioeconomic status masks genetic predisposition.
That is to say, violence and class have common causes. Intelligence, self-control, personality, etc., all immediately come to mind as relevant, but let’s call this cluster of common causes of violence “harmness”. Even though the presence of harmness may screen off the ability of race to contribute to predictions of violence and class, one still observes more harmness in the population of blacks than the population of whites.
I’m sorry, but this test in no way differentiates between the hypotheses of biological heredity of IQ and verbal transference of IQ. As is, this just shows that there’s an attribute which is positively correlated with being talked to by your parents and academic success, and negatively correlated with welfare. To quote the newspaper article:
Even among links which are strongly supported- like breastfeeding raising IQ- there are selection effects that are hard to estimate, because almost all of our evidence is observational. (Breastfeeding is still a good idea for most parents, even if we’re not quite sure how good it is.) If cleverer parents are more likely to breastfeed because of the purported IQ-boosting link, then in order to start separating out the effects of breastfeeding and the effects of heritability we would need to measure the IQs of the parents of both groups, moving from a simple observational study to a massive project (that would still have possible unmeasured selection effects, like the amount they care about health and cleanliness).
Emphasis mine. The probability of this conclusion being made by correct reasoning from the evidence supplied is epsilon, and if you didn’t realize that when reading that quote, I beseech you to give that lapse of rationality solemn contemplation.
The probability of an unbiased survey of the literature returning this conclusion is epsilon. I suggest updating.
I think it is worth considering the mirror of this concern. “Anyone who says X must mean Y” is its own self-fulfilling prophecy, which can only be counteracted by saying X and not meaning Y.
If parents talk more to girls but men are the stereotypically intelligent ones, how could talking more to kids be the difference?
...by some stereotypes. There’s also the “men are stupid” stereotype. So I’m not sure about your premises.
However, I don’t think your argument is valid, either. Its structure is something like:
Just because lots of people think that !B is the case doesn’t make it the case.
And if we’re talking about success in school (which the article emphasizes) then note that more women go to (and succeed at) post-secondary education than men. Fewer in STEM fields, but that appears to be largely due to stereotypes anyway, not aptitude.
I would also guess that the male-female discrepancy is much smaller than the poor-rich discrepancy.
What model of hereditary intelligence predicts significant hereditary differences in the current environment and negligible differences in an environment where people are raised better?
(this is talking out of my ass but:)
Variation in genetic robustness/fragility. A known example of this is Iron deficiency in women. If iron in the food is plentiful, no one will notice iron deficiencies, and if it’s non existent then everyone will suffer. But if there’s an almost sufficient amount of Iron, women will be far more likely to be deficient than men. Women are less robust to lack of environmental iron than men. You can imagine brain development such that everyone has the ability to develop a great brain in a great environment but certain genetics will deal better or worse with certain deficiencies.
I was not saying that everyone would have the same level of intelligence, but merely that the baseline might be high enough that violence becomes less of an issue. That was the original subject.
Similar to drethelin’s comment.
I would argue that the higher the variance the more of an issue variance becomes.
Edit: Ignore this, I misread macolmmcc’s comment.
What do you mean “sic”? “violence” was what I meant. The original comment was:
Now, it may not be the case that if you raise everyone’s intelligence that violence decreases, but it’s plausible that this is the case (given the original argument).
I didn’t use the word variance and didn’t mean to. I respectfully ask for the downvote rescinded.
...in certain societies
This: For very good reasons, most things we say explicitly carry a large boatload of implications, whether or not we actually mean them. This effect is exacerbated when people who say the same thing with the express purpose of conveying the implications—it becomes a widely-recognized signal.
It’s still usually possible to approach the taboo in question, but it has to be done very, very, very carefully, like approaching a police officer who thinks you may be a violent criminal.
Yes, yes it does.
The point made by the OP is that is a true implication. If crime rates are higher in certain genetic subgroups, that is valid (if perhaps weak) evidence for a purely genetic correlation with crime, all else being equal. So it’s reasonable to conclude someone believing the first fact, also believes the second one to a degree. And this would not be a problem if the issue were not taboo.
The word “implies” in the phrase “correlation implies causation” typically uses the technical meaning of imply in logic which is quite different from it’s common usage as a synonym for “hint” or “suggest”.
Good point. I wonder if people (other than me) normally understand this sentence that way?
Most people do not know logic, so it’s unlikely to be that widespread.