Actually, half an order of magnitude is 3.2ish times greater, since “orders of magnitude” are logarithmic.
Depends on how you treat this, but OK.
So I would be saying the genetic component has the effect of about 5 IQ points on average, and the culture+racism has the effect of about 10 IQ points.
Well, even if culture+racism is 3.2 times more important that translates to about 3.6 points for genetic and 11.4 for c+r. However I don’t think precise numbers affect the argument here.
I think that somewhere between 3 genetic/12 cultural and 5 genetic/10 cultural sounds highly plausible; I’d be willing to peg those as the endposts for my 90% confidence interval, and I’d be willing to update quite a bit given particularly challenging evidence to the contrary (but it’d have to be particularly challenging evidence).
So, did you actually look at any evidence? There is a lot of it.
Given your preferred hypothesis, what would you expect the IQ of African populations be? They share some genes with the Aftican-Americans, but don’t share the culture and there shouldn’t be much suppressive racism outside of South Africa during the last 50 years or so.
They share some genes with the Aftican-Americans, but don’t share the culture and there shouldn’t be much suppressive racism outside of South Africa during the last 50 years or so.
I’m not sure this is the right way to be looking at the issue. It’s implausible that racism directly affects IQ; your stem cells don’t go out and check other people’s opinions of your ethnic background before they develop into a central nervous system. The idea is more that it’s associated with environmental factors that are reflected as a lower actual or apparent IQ: worse nutrition or other types of neglect in childhood, for example, or less motivation. It’s plausible that these more or less closely mirror what you’d see in nations without the same racial politics but which are unstable in other ways—and much of sub-Saharan Africa does have that reputation. (The continent’s own ethnic politics might also play a role—American-style racism isn’t the only type out there. How do Japanese-born ethnic Koreans do in comparison to Korean-born Koreans?)
One possible way of testing this would be to look at rapidly developing African countries in comparison with flatlined ones (Google Public Data is good for picking out which are which) and see if that’s reflected in IQ, if the data exists at that granularity. Other ways of breaking it down might also be useful: rural vs. urban, say, or by socioeconomic status.
I’m not sure this is the right way to be looking at the issue.
Well, yes, if we un-anchor from the way the discussion went in this thread, the basic issue is nature or nurture—are IQ differences caused by genes or by some/any/all “environmental” factors which can range from cultural oddities to micronutrient deficiencies.
My impression—and I’m too lazy to go, collect, and array the evidence properly—is that while it’s clear that environmental factors can suppress IQ in populations, after you correct and adjust for everything that comes to mind, the IQ gaps persist.
If by IQ you mean one’s performance on IQ tests, rather than the g-factor they seek to measure, there isa not-so-implausible mechanism by which racism can affect the former.
your stem cells don’t go out and check other people’s opinions of your ethnic background before they develop into a central nervous system
IAWYC but children retain lots of neuroplasticity even after their central nervous system has developed, and even adults do a little bit.
I meant g in that sentence, yes. The bit about motivation later was alluding to stereotype threat and similar effects.
Point taken re: neuroplasticity. It doesn’t seem likely that that’s an overwhelmingly large contributor to adult intelligence, but correlation between adult and childhood IQ scores isn’t so high that it couldn’t be playing a role. I’d be interested to see how that correlation changes between populations, now.
Given your preferred hypothesis, what would you expect the IQ of African populations be? They share some genes with the Aftican-Americans, but don’t share the culture and there shouldn’t be much suppressive racism outside of South Africa during the last 50 years or so.
That depends, do they share cultural overlap with Protestant Europe/America, or with post-Confuscian Asia? And if so, how much?
What are the IQs of other aboriginal cultures like, that diverged from, say, Asian or Polynesian stock, but also lack cultural influence from Protestant Europe/America or post-Confuscian Asia?
Yes, I’ve looked at evidence, but under which lens should I have looked at that evidence?
The question was “what would you expect..?” I am sure that it depends, but what is the outcome?
do they share cultural overlap with Protestant Europe/America
The culture of African-Americans clearly has more “cultural overlap” than the culture of Africans—would you agree? Given this, would you claim that African-Americans (after adjusting for the percentage of white, etc. genes that most of them have) have considerably higher (10-12 points) measured IQ than Africans?
under which lens should I have looked at that evidence?
I find “matching reality” to be a reasonably good lens :-)
Given this, would you claim that African-Americans (after adjusting for the percentage of white, etc. genes that most of them have) have considerably higher (10-12 points) measured IQ than Africans?
Last time I looked the former did have considerably higher measured IQ than the latter (around 85 vs around 70), so what’s your point?
Did you adjust for the percentage of white genes? Most African-Americans are about 25-50% non-black by ancestry, as far as I remember. That would influence the mean IQ.
When comparing populations of third-world and first-world countries you also have to be very careful to account for things like malnutrition, etc.
Did you adjust for the percentage of white genes? Most African-Americans are about 25-50% non-black by ancestry, as far as I remember. That would influence the mean IQ.
No, actually I remembered mentioning something about Ethiopians having lots of Caucasian DNA, used Wei Dai’s tool to search my comments for it, and… I was kind of surprised it was talking to the same person that time too.
Depends on how you treat this, but OK.
Well, even if culture+racism is 3.2 times more important that translates to about 3.6 points for genetic and 11.4 for c+r. However I don’t think precise numbers affect the argument here.
So, did you actually look at any evidence? There is a lot of it.
Given your preferred hypothesis, what would you expect the IQ of African populations be? They share some genes with the Aftican-Americans, but don’t share the culture and there shouldn’t be much suppressive racism outside of South Africa during the last 50 years or so.
I’m not sure this is the right way to be looking at the issue. It’s implausible that racism directly affects IQ; your stem cells don’t go out and check other people’s opinions of your ethnic background before they develop into a central nervous system. The idea is more that it’s associated with environmental factors that are reflected as a lower actual or apparent IQ: worse nutrition or other types of neglect in childhood, for example, or less motivation. It’s plausible that these more or less closely mirror what you’d see in nations without the same racial politics but which are unstable in other ways—and much of sub-Saharan Africa does have that reputation. (The continent’s own ethnic politics might also play a role—American-style racism isn’t the only type out there. How do Japanese-born ethnic Koreans do in comparison to Korean-born Koreans?)
One possible way of testing this would be to look at rapidly developing African countries in comparison with flatlined ones (Google Public Data is good for picking out which are which) and see if that’s reflected in IQ, if the data exists at that granularity. Other ways of breaking it down might also be useful: rural vs. urban, say, or by socioeconomic status.
Well, yes, if we un-anchor from the way the discussion went in this thread, the basic issue is nature or nurture—are IQ differences caused by genes or by some/any/all “environmental” factors which can range from cultural oddities to micronutrient deficiencies.
My impression—and I’m too lazy to go, collect, and array the evidence properly—is that while it’s clear that environmental factors can suppress IQ in populations, after you correct and adjust for everything that comes to mind, the IQ gaps persist.
If by IQ you mean one’s performance on IQ tests, rather than the g-factor they seek to measure, there is a not-so-implausible mechanism by which racism can affect the former.
IAWYC but children retain lots of neuroplasticity even after their central nervous system has developed, and even adults do a little bit.
I meant g in that sentence, yes. The bit about motivation later was alluding to stereotype threat and similar effects.
Point taken re: neuroplasticity. It doesn’t seem likely that that’s an overwhelmingly large contributor to adult intelligence, but correlation between adult and childhood IQ scores isn’t so high that it couldn’t be playing a role. I’d be interested to see how that correlation changes between populations, now.
That depends, do they share cultural overlap with Protestant Europe/America, or with post-Confuscian Asia? And if so, how much?
What are the IQs of other aboriginal cultures like, that diverged from, say, Asian or Polynesian stock, but also lack cultural influence from Protestant Europe/America or post-Confuscian Asia?
Yes, I’ve looked at evidence, but under which lens should I have looked at that evidence?
The question was “what would you expect..?” I am sure that it depends, but what is the outcome?
The culture of African-Americans clearly has more “cultural overlap” than the culture of Africans—would you agree? Given this, would you claim that African-Americans (after adjusting for the percentage of white, etc. genes that most of them have) have considerably higher (10-12 points) measured IQ than Africans?
I find “matching reality” to be a reasonably good lens :-)
Last time I looked the former did have considerably higher measured IQ than the latter (around 85 vs around 70), so what’s your point?
Did you adjust for the percentage of white genes? Most African-Americans are about 25-50% non-black by ancestry, as far as I remember. That would influence the mean IQ.
When comparing populations of third-world and first-world countries you also have to be very careful to account for things like malnutrition, etc.
Looks like we already had this same conversation before. ;-)
Ah. You have a better memory than I do :-)
No, actually I remembered mentioning something about Ethiopians having lots of Caucasian DNA, used Wei Dai’s tool to search my comments for it, and… I was kind of surprised it was talking to the same person that time too.