Race and IQ

[bud]

I agree, IQ is a tough thing to measure to begin with, but i feel that environment and upbringing play a crucial roll in intelligence.

 

[Porphyrogenita]

Without question, many environmental factors are crucial. What we inherit is more of a range of possibility. Where we end up on that range is brought out by environment. When it comes to IQ, stimulation during early development is critical (among other things). A baby born with a capacity for 140 may not reach it if the baby's family doesn't provide it with sufficient stimulation, for eg. Stimulation during the first three years of life is more important than most people realize. http://www.jsmf.org/about/j/neural_connections.htm

 

[Cambrius (The Red)]

I guess I'm joining this one a little late... I'm sure one would find some variation by just comparing averages. If the question is about averages, then there isn't much to discuss. The problem is that some people take that to mean that IQ is really tied to "race." For one, IQ is determined largely by environmental factors, like nutrition and stimulation during development, etc. (Even the presence of a father has been shown to correspond to higher IQ. Would we argue that people raised with a father are necessarily more intelligent? And what does that mean for the "race" argument?)

When we see different averages among "races," we have to be mindful of the fact that race often (sadly) corresponds to different access to resources, socialization, and other significant factors (like parenting practices). For those who would argue that, for eg, "Europeans" are more intelligent than "Africans"... let's hope you've taken the time to consider those environmental differences before making further implications.

Remember, race is NOT a biological category. 80% of the genetic variation found among "racial groups" is also found within those "racial groups." So unless we are talking about something like Sickle Cell Anemia, it doesn't make much sense to say one "race" beats another. Plus, IQ is a very complex issue. (There are problems with the very concept of IQ and the way we test for intelligence.) No serious modern anthropologist or geneticist, etc would make an argument ending in "therefore, some races are more intelligent than others." It is much more nuanced than that. Have you heard of The Bell Curve (1994) and the many responses to it?

Good post.

 

[Wilhelm]

Remember, race is NOT a biological category. 80% of the genetic variation found among "racial groups" is also found within those "racial groups." So unless we are talking about something like Sickle Cell Anemia, it doesn't make much sense to say one "race" beats another. Plus, IQ is a very complex issue. (There are problems with the very concept of IQ and the way we test for intelligence.) No serious modern anthropologist or geneticist, etc would make an argument ending in "therefore, some races are more intelligent than others." It is much more nuanced than that. Have you heard of The Bell Curve (1994) and the many responses to it?

How is race not a biological category ? If race is not biological then what it is ?

 

[Porphyrogenita]

Cambria Red, thanks =)

Wilhelm, race is actually a social construct. There is a whole host of academic articles on the topic. I encourage you to consult them. What I said earlier about the 80% is just one example of the evidence that tells us that our current racial categories are not discrete biological categories.

Human genetic variation is much more gradual. Think of it as a web where some points are more distant than others from each other but all are still connected as one structure. Some populations are more likely than others to exhibit certain features, like blue eyes, but even that isn't totally limited to specific locations. One can argue there are discrete human racial groups only if one chooses extremes from different places on this web and labels them as perfect examples to compare. This argument falls apart when we look at the population and genetic distribution as a whole. It just isn't that simple. There are no clear natural boundaries that warrant further separation within our species. We've tried to label and classify each other throughout our history. We've used this to explain the superficial differences we saw in each other and often, sadly, to cast the groups we imagined as better or worse. Fortunately, we now have scientific knowledge and tools our ancestors didn't have, so we have the chance and responsibility to know better.

 

[Wilhelm]

Cambria Red, thanks =)

Wilhelm, race is actually a social construct. There is a whole host of academic articles on the topic. I encourage you to consult them. What I said earlier about the 80% is just one example of the evidence that tells us that our current racial categories are not discrete biological categories.

Human genetic variation is much more gradual. Think of it as a web where some points are more distant than others from each other but all are still connected as one structure. Some populations are more likely than others to exhibit certain features, like blue eyes, but even that isn't totally limited to specific locations. One can argue there are discrete human racial groups only if one chooses extremes from different places on this web and labels them as perfect examples to compare. This argument falls apart when we look at the population and genetic distribution as a whole. It just isn't that simple. There are no clear natural boundaries that warrant further separation within our species. We've tried to label and classify each other throughout our history. We've used this to explain the superficial differences we saw in each other and often, sadly, to cast the groups we imagined as better or worse. Fortunately, we now have scientific knowledge and tools our ancestors didn't have, so we have the chance and responsibility to know better.

Well yes but the fact that an African person and a European have different physical appearance is entirely biological, not a social construct.

[FONT=&quot]Although the genetic differences among human groups are relatively small, these differences in certain genes such as duffy, ABCC11, SLC24A5, called ancestry-informative markers (AIMs) nevertheless can be used to reliably situate many individuals within broad, geographically based groupings or self-identified race. For example, computer analyses of hundreds of polymorphic loci sampled in globally distributed populations have revealed the existence of genetic clustering that roughly is associated with groups that historically have occupied large continental and subcontinental regions.
Some commentators have argued that these patterns of variation provide a biological justification for the use of traditional racial categories. They argue that the continental clusterings correspond roughly with the division of human beings into sub-Saharan Africans; Europeans, Western Asians, Central Asians, Southern Asians and Northern Africans; Eastern Asians, Southeast Asians, Polynesians and Native Americans; and other inhabitants of Oceania (Melanesians, Micronesians & Australian Aborigines)
[/FONT]

 

[LeBrok]

You shouldn't be surprised in the least... :innocent:

Cambria may friend; I’m surprised by your inadequate effort finding right material and proving you 50/50 case. As I stated before, the subject is so complicated that developing a formula to calculate precisely is far away in future, or maybe never. As much as scientists try, at the end they are left with their best guess. First of all, if you just took a moment to read the material that you posted for us, you would have noticed that they are rich in disclaimers:

“Although the heritability of cognitive ability in childhood is well
established (McGue, Bouchard, Iacono, & Lykken, 1993; Plomin, 1999),
the magnitude, mechanisms, and implications of the heritability of IQ
remain unresolved. Historically, the most controversial question surrounding
the heritability of intelligence is whether genetic effects on IQ
place serious constraints on the effectiveness of efforts to raise IQ, either
by improving impoverished socioeconomic conditions or by exposing
children to remedial educational programs such as Headstart (Herrnstein
& Murray, 1994; Jensen, 1981). Adding to the controversy is an
apparent contradiction between studies using different methodologies
to study the development of cognitive abilities: Studies of correlations
among twins or adoptees and their biological and adoptive parents typically
yield large genetic effects and relatively smaller effects of family
environment, whereas studies that compare the mean IQs of children
rescued from poverty with the IQs of their parents or impoverished siblings
often find large differences that are attributed to the environment
(Turkheimer, 1991).”

“These findings suggest that a model in which variability in intelligence
among children is partitioned into independent components
attributable to genes and environments is too simple for the dynamic
interaction of genes and real-world environments during development.
The relative importance of environmental differences in causing differences
in observed intelligence appears to vary with the SES of the
homes in which children were raised. SES is a complex variable, however,
and the substantive interpretation to be placed on our results depends
on an interpretation of what SES actually measures.”

Farthermore, you posted this study conclusions:
“Results demonstrate that the proportions of IQ
variance attributable to genes and environment vary nonlinearly with
SES. The models suggest that in impoverished families, 60% of the variance
in IQ is accounted for by the shared environment, and the contribution
of genes is close to zero; in affluent families, the result is almost
exactly the reverse.

Lol, what the hell does that mean? Genes don’t work at all in poor people? Well if 60% is environment and 0% for DNA, then what happened to remaining 40%?
Just kidding, they didn’t mean that at all. All paper is basically comparing socioeconomic status to variations in IQ, or their version of IQ. I don’t agree with their methodology, and their conclusions are hard to understand without reading the full research, that I don’t have an access to. Besides they only have SES of mothers, and only check kids’ development till age 7, witch always is going to confirm bigger environmental influence on IQ than in adults.
And here is a study article that confirms my last sentence:

http://www.icherney.com/Teaching/Courses/Intelligence/Summaries/Andrea_McGrath.doc

Interesting snippets from it:
“. According to Plomin (1999), the heritability of general intelligence is between 40-80%, but usually lies around 50%. Plomin (1999) also asserts that heritability of intelligence increases with age. It is stated that heritability of intelligence is estimated at 20% in infancy, 40% in childhood, and 60% or greater in later life (McGue, as cited in Plomin, 1999)”

Look How important the genes are:
“Intelligence has been found to be more highly correlated between monozygotic twins than between dizygotic twins in a number of studies. For example, in studies of more than 10,000 monozygotic and dizygotic twins, the average monozygotic correlation for intelligence was .86, a high correlation, while the correlation between dizygotic twins was a weaker but still significant .60”


Estimated figures all over the place:
"In addition to general intelligence and its being regarded as mildly to highly heritable, it seems that other measures of intelligence, such as IQ, are also found to be substantially heritable. Herrnstein and Murray (as cited in Devlin, Daniels, & Roeder, 1997) estimate IQ heritability between 60%-80%, whereas Devlin et al. (1997) believe that heritability is lower, from 30%-50%."

From 30 to 80, lol, no precise mathematical formulas invented yet, ha? Your 50% is same valid as my 80% at the moment. You can even say 30 for what I care, but don’t argue that it is proven by research that it is 50-50.

Now about your other posted research. Devlin et al. (Nature 1997) The less than 50% is achieved by subtracting maternal/womb environment effect, which is estimated by this reasercher to be 20%. This is not about playing Beethoven to kids when pregnant. It’s mostly about nutrients, or not killing with alcohol. Well, without food we die, it’s so essential, why don’t we give it 80% for environment?

Below is a very interesting correlations IQ wise, from this study:

“Table 2 Posterior means for IQ correlations by study type
Model
Relationship Raised Type 0 I II III IV
............................................................................................................................................................................
Monozygotic twins Together 1 0.85 0.85 0.85 0.85 0.85
Monozygotic twins Apart 2 0.74 0.68 0.50 0.68 0.74
Dizygotic twins Together 3 0.59 0.46 0.59 0.59 0.60
Siblings Together 4 0.46 0.46 0.44 0.44 0.44
Siblings Apart 5 0.24 0.28 0.23 0.27 0.28
Midparent/child Together 6 0.50 0.51 0.52 0.51 0.50
Single-parent/child Together 7 0.41 0.43 0.40 0.39 0.40
Single-parent/child Apart 8 0.24 0.25 0.23 0.22 0.21
Adopting parent/child Together 9 0.20 0.18 0.17 0.17 0.18
............................................................................................................................................................................
Column 0 contains the weighted average of the observed correlations, and columns I–IV
contain the predicted values of these correlations from models I–IV. The predicted correlations
are obtained through a Bayesian simulation procedure that evaluates integrals
numerically14.”

The first two lines about monozygotic twins are very telling. Also the last one about correlation of IQ between adopting parent and adopted kids is too, maybe even more, different genes-different IQ.






Bouchard and McGue (2003) – this was other of your studies “proving” your point. I couldn’t open their paper online, instead here is a quick summary of their work from wiki.

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

“In 1982, Bouchard and McGue reviewed such correlations reported in 111 original studies in the United States.[12] The mean correlation of IQ scores between monozygotic twins was 0.86, between siblings, 0.47, between half-siblings, 0.31, and between cousins, 0.15. From such data the heritability of IQ was estimated at anywhere between 0.40 and 0.80 in the United States. The reason for this wide margin appeared to be that the heritability of IQ rises through childhood and adolescence, peaking at 0.68 and 0.78 in adults, leaving the overwhelming majority of IQ differences between individuals to be explained genetically.[13]
The finding of rising heritability with age is counter-intuitive; it is reasonable to expect that genetic influences on traits like IQ should become less important as one gains experiences with age. However, that the opposite occurs is well documented. According to work by Robert Plomin, heritability estimates calculated on infant samples are as low as 20%, rising to around 40% in middle childhood, and ultimately as high as 80% in adult samples in the United States.[14] This suggests that the underlying genes actually express themselves by affecting a person's predisposition to build, learn, and develop mental abilities throughout the lifespan.”

Your other posted studies:
“A portion of the American Psychological Associations' 1995 task force on "Intelligence and Unknowns" reads as follows:

"A common error is to assume that because something is heritable it is necessarily unchangeable...heritable traits can depend on learning, and they may be subject to other environmental effects as well. The value of heritability can change if the distribution of environments (or of genes) in the population is substantially altered. For example, an impoverished or suppressive environment could fail to support the development of a trait, and hence restrict individual variation. Differences in variation of heritability are found between developed and developing nations..."”

Where is the 50/50 research?
I’ve never argued that environment doesn’t effect the IQ, it really does. Your argument was that research stands firmly and unequivocally on 50/50. Where is it?


You wrote:
“Fundamentally, nowhere in the most recent research literature are the percentages 80% in favor of genetics as a determinant of IQ.”
It’s because you never read these papers, you just printed the conclusions, often not fully understanding what they meant. Read these papers and you'll see 80% mentiond many times. Besides my 80/20 was my guess and I never hid this, it’s just my observations. You are hiding behind easy 50/50, and falsely claiming support of most scientists.

You’re disappointing Cambria, you argue something you don’t read, you never post your own conclusions and ideas for discussion.
I’ll help you with your 50/50 by this example:
Let’s say a normal child is born, but isolated from the world, just fed food and nutrients to live. Child like this would never develop many brain functions together with IQ, and most likely would die quickly without contacts with other people, social stimuli. This case makes environment everything, that’s 100% win for nurture argument.
Now take few kids, throw them in same environment, reach in schooling, food, love, etc, a in very well off good family. By adulthood you would still see the extremes of IQ, and giving enough kids in this experiment you would see IQ variations from moron to genius. Well, that’s pretty much 100% for nature in this example.
With simple creative logic and mathematics, I would say, good point Cambria, I grant you your 50/50. Overall for extreme environments to extreme genetics it is.

My concern is, that we in developed countries don’t live in such extreme environments. Even the kids from poor families can be fat, and 90% enjoys similar public education, internet, mas-media, you name it. Still we see substantial differences between races IQ wise. And this is my base for 80% genetic, 20% environment statement.

 

[Cambrius (The Red)]

Glad you have so much time on your hands.

It averages out to ~ 50 / 50 if you look at ALL the relevant research. No one in the scientific mainstream of consequence supports the 80 / 20 ratio. There is little in the body of research that buttresses the overwhelming weight you give to genes.

Now, we are still waiting for you to apologize to the Iberians on the forum.

And, please, none of the infantile responses you are infamous for...

 

[LeBrok]

You're not paying attention, nor read carefully what I post. I said again and again 80/20 is my guess and I don't need a research to prove it. It's a guess, got it finally, it's my guess. If you ask me once again I'll be sure that you have ADHD.
Surprisingly even for me, if you read the research, 80/20 is a high end estimate, but it's there, (scroll up to my previous post) the numbers are there, read carefully next time, and don't make fool of yourself. People on this forum can read too, you know.

Now you want to average all the research to get to around 50/50, sure you can. I don't have a smallest problem with this. If you said in first place that you had averaged all the research that you could find, and you came to 50/50, I wouldn't argue with this, and we wouldn't have this discussion.
Just don't claim that there is the formula that scientists use to come up to that 50/50, every time they measure nurture verses nature, and that they are in agreement with each other. The research is all over the place from 30% to 80% for hereditary of IQ. Therefore they are far away from any agreement. Make your averaging, but don't push the 50/50 into mainstream agreement, it's not there.
Did you read the disclaimers they posted about their science and formulas they were using? Did you read their explanations how hard is to get to true figures? Did you read how complicated different environments and genetics make the subject?
They admit themselves that there are many methods that lead to different conclusions. That's a difficult, new science, with extreme complexity, and they will stay in disagreement for years to come.

Now, do you feel like discussing one of the papers?
How about Swedish adopted twin orphans IQ study? Could be interesting.
How about your independent, creative thought on this subject? After all I think you mentioned somewhere that you are some sort of university material.

 

[Cambrius (The Red)]

You're not paying attention, nor read carefully what I post. I said again and again 80/20 is my guess and I don't need a research to prove it. It's a guess, got it finally, it's my guess. If you ask me once again I'll be sure that you have ADHD.
Surprisingly even for me, if you read the research, 80/20 is a high end estimate, but it's there, (scroll up to my previous post) the numbers are there, read carefully next time, and don't make fool of yourself. People on this forum can read too, you know.

Now you want to average all the research to get to around 50/50, sure you can. I don't have a smallest problem with this. If you said in first place that you had averaged all the research that you could find, and you came to 50/50, I wouldn't argue with this, and we wouldn't have this discussion.
Just don't claim that there is the formula that scientists use to come up to that 50/50, every time they measure nurture verses nature, and that they are in agreement with each other. The research is all over the place from 30% to 80% for hereditary of IQ. Therefore they are far away from any agreement. Make your averaging, but don't push the 50/50 into mainstream agreement, it's not there.
Did you read the disclaimers they posted about their science and formulas they were using? Did you read their explanations how hard is to get to true figures? Did you read how complicated different environments and genetics make the subject?
They admit themselves that there are many methods that lead to different conclusions. That's a difficult, new science, with extreme complexity, and they will stay in disagreement for years to come.

Now, do you feel like discussing one of the papers?
How about Swedish adopted twin orphans IQ study? Could be interesting.
How about your independent, creative thought on this subject? After all I think you mentioned somewhere that you are some sort of university material.

Conclusions in science are not based on guessing.

We are waiting for your apology.

 

[LeBrok]

Oh really???!!! So for you IQ-heredity science is conclusive, although researchers say otherwise and numbers are form 30 to 80%???!!! Did we mention complexity of this problem?

You want conclusions in new science?
What about string theory? Is it the real one describing our world? Did they conclude it or just guessing?
What about scientists changing their mind from ice age in 80s to global warming now? Maybe you want to go on a record in front of all, and say that current warming is mostly anthropogenic in nature? So many scientists concluded, dude. Are you brave enough to support them? No? But dude they've concluded!
What about general relativity versus quantum mechanics, which one is right? Both? So, why can't we unite them???
What about researchers flipping their minds on Neanderthal interbreeding, eggs eating and cholesterol, nature versus nurture, etc.
What were these, wrong guesses or wrong conclusions, or maybe just lots of work in progress???!!! I could go on with examples but I hope that by now you grasp the idea.
Your strong assurance, that nurture/nature and IQ research is conclusive, is ....

 

[Aristander]

I haven't figured out what you are supposed to apologize for but you really should. :innocent:

 

[LeBrok]

lol, he's trying to annoy me, that's all.

 

[Wilhelm]

I haven't figured out what you are supposed to apologize for but you really should. :innocent:

He insulted all the iberian members of this forum, here is an example :
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showpost.php?p=359876&postcount=89

 

[Cambrius (The Red)]

lol, he's trying to annoy me, that's all.

Do your insecurities somehow engender delusions of self-importance?

My man, I don't see you as significant enough to annoy.:useless:

The fact is you owe every Iberian on this forum a public apology for any number of things, including slander and egging on brainless racists to attack Spaniards and Portuguese. Do you gain some perverted satisfaction from behaving like a frustrated child? Grow up!

 

[Aristander]

Cambria Red and Wilhem, it is obivous that neither of you fellows think very much of Le_Brok and he apparently doesn't like either of you, but I think that flinging the charge that he is a racist is a little bit much. I guess he could be a cultural bigot but not a racist against a group of people that are the same race as he.
Personally I think arguing and getting abusive on the internet is a very big waste of time and mental capital. A better tactic would be to state your case, politely disagree and then move on.

 

[LeBrok]

I didn't know 3 of you are ALL the Iberians here. Twist, exaggerate and insult are their typical ways. Later they're surprised that someone stands up and fights back. It is interesting that they have no problem with ridiculing and insulting people all the time, like this quick example of cambria from post above, or lynx post with link.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showpost.php?p=359786&postcount=53
Now I should demand apologies for ALL Canadians, lol.

Soooooo, enough talking about science Cambria, right? What's left are the insults.

 

[Cambrius (The Red)]

I didn't know 3 of you are ALL the Iberians here. Twist, exaggerate and insult are their typical ways. Later they're surprised that someone stands up and fights back. It is interesting that they have no problem with ridiculing and insulting people all the time, like this quick example of cambria from post above, or lynx post with link.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/showpost.php?p=359786&postcount=53
Now I should demand apologies for ALL Canadians, lol.

Soooooo, enough talking about science Cambria, right? What's left are the insults.

I'm not insulting anyone. I'm just being straight forward with you, fella. "Twist and exaggerate"? I believe you are the expert at that.

You run around saying we are inquisitioners and propagandists (essentially, manipulators of information - given to strategically mendacious actions) and expect us to toss rose petals and shout out what a wonderful person you are?


BTW, your apology should be directed at about 7 or 8 Iberians here, not 3. In fact, I would recommend you apologize individually. We are waiting...

 

[edao]

A couple of points I'd like to make.

IQ is probably not a terrible accurate measure of more general intelligence ability, but it does indicate differences that go beyond environment.

For example East Asian out perform Europeans, there is a university in America that bases it entry exam based on students scoring the highest IQ (Google it im sure you'lll find it) majority of the student are of East asian extraction.

So here we have an example of the well educated, competitive, stimulated rich kid Europeans being out performed on IQ scores. I'd also point out that the variation in IQ scores puts East asian general above Europeans, so lets not concentrate on Afirca as people get a bit overly emotional about it due to the questionable history involving Europeans in Africa.

The second point would be that there IS undoubtedly a variation in cognitive processing between the races, you canot argue that humans show genetic variation in every part of the body apart from the brain and nervous system. The real question is whether these variations are worth taking note of.

Lastly another area that seems interesting is emotional intelligence and the relationship between our nervous system and brain.

 

[LeBrok]

Absolutely agreed edao, there is so much more to being human that what we call IQ.
Excellent quote from Darwin in signature place. I hope Lynx reads it and stop concluding that being more intelligent or higher IQ means superior human being. After all bacteria is 3 billion years old, and still dumb as a bag of hummers, lol.