posted on September 19, 2020 06:52 AM by
u/haankso
55
u/NotAFinnishLawyer57 pointsat 1600514244.000000
What I’m looking for are some kind of quick-and-dirty test(s) that
don’t require any domain knowledge, that I can use to judge which side
of an academic debate is more likely to be correct.
And the helpful r/TheMotte commenters provided a flawless solution to that difficult question.
Ignore everyone who doesn't agree with the most right wing stance in the "debate" because clearly everyone else is a (((SJW/Postmodernist))) conspiring to stamp out the scientifically valid but cruelly repressed science of eugenics and racial science.
If you start with the axiom that late 19th and early 20th century racial science is completely correct in a surprise twist you end up learning that all the modern racists are also correct!
They're looking for an equivalent trick to the written one that they've honed that gives their writing, despite their lack of domain knowledge, a questionably pseudo-intellectual tone.
Almost like rationalism is about being able to just sidestep rationality with one weird trick. Replacing one set of cached thoughts with another, so to speak.
The entire issue really just boils down to this one “example”:
For example, you might have strong priors that racism remains an
extremely powerful force in society.
EDIT: I would like to leave some space here so you can take some time
to let that sentence sink in:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
If yes, then there is no new evidence since 1994 (or 1916) that
requires a leap to race genetics in order to be explained. As Laplace
probably didn’t say to Napoleon, we have no need of that hypothesis. If
no, well, then the distribution of cognitive ability is really the least
of your concerns with the state of modern social science. And in the 26
years since this stupid argument was revived and during which it failed
to progress whatsoever, the “no” side has become even less compelling in
the last 4.
But it’s worth mentioning that, unlike arguments such as OP’s, the
field of genetics has made huge progress since 1994. That’s the missing
reason why nobody credible is still arguing about the topic anymore:
genetic population differences aren’t something hypothetical for social
scientists to speculate about (not to mention there’s less reason than
ever to use social categories of race, which are obviously going to be
entangled with that “example” problem, rather than genetic ancestry). If
you have a favorite gene, there’s an abundance of data you can check to
see how it’s distributed among populations. The problem is that
cognitive ability doesn’t correlate with one gene or ten genes or 500,
at least not if you’re trying to explain it to any degree resembling the
heritability estimates from twin studies, or even to any degree that has
realistic implications for anyone. Then it’s basically moot to ask how
any one of those huge numbers of genes with a barely detectable effect
varies from one population to another. The mechanism that would underlie
the 1994 hypothesis, which on its own was a reasonable kind of mechanism
to assume in 1994 before we could actually look for it (and a lot of
people did assume that kind of mechanism for a lot of different things),
is simply not there. So the idea is “fringe” because it’s basically at
the point of “not even wrong”; the assumptions you’d need to have a
plausible, meaningful, falsifiable scientific discussion of it are not
valid. Meanwhile there’s a gigantic obvious glaring sociological
null-hypothesis explanation for the same evidence that doesn’t require
grasping at mathematical straws. That’s why it’s not a controversy.
This reminds me of how both Ezra Klein and Nathan Robinson argue that
they believe the main problem with The Bell Curve is not whether a
genetic gap may or may not exist, but that it supposedly allows
conservatives to downplay the effects of centuries of
slavery/segregation/racism on blacks.
I don’t know how you could read such an understated position into Robinson’s
essay, which OP themselves linked. Most of the piece shows how
Charles Murray is personally prejudiced against Black people and has
wackadoodle beliefs that follow from his personal prejudice. To equate
personal bigotry with modern conservative politics in general is… well,
OP said it, not me. (And not Robinson either; his only analysis of
Murray’s political philosophy connects him to Confucius, Locke, and
Aristotle, not Limbaugh.) So if OP’s original point is that maybe we
should disregard an entire source of information because we think it
misrepresents one specific thing we’ve read…
what I don't understand: height is highly heritable, and is something that genetically differs between populations. it also seems to be highly polygenetic, with dozens or hundreds of genes involved. how do you square this with your argument?
I'm really trying to understand your point. I'm not into defending hbd, and believe ot to be mostly junk science and a fig leaf for classic scientific racism.
How much does height genetically differ between populations? It's hard to tell, because environment (specifically here diet and lifestyle) also differs between populations and is usually highly heritable. When it isn't, you see big effects: In the 20th century the average height of South Koreans increased by 10 to 20 cm while North Koreans remained short. Immigrants from short populations in the developing world to countries in the developed world often find their children's generation is significantly taller. Even when you do grasp at those mathematical straws, the apparently purely genetic height differences you calculate between populations tend to be less than 5 cm (less than a standard deviation, the statistical equivalent of less than 10 IQ points), and they may still [evaporate when analyzed more carefully](https://elifesciences.org/articles/39725).
[This nice simple review](https://academic.oup.com/emph/article/2019/1/26/5262222) puts it very plainly:
> With ongoing discoveries in human genomics, it is becoming possible to address topics concerning the genetic and phenotypic differences among populations that have been the subject of much speculation. Recent advances are sure to lead to proliferation of widely disseminated hypotheses about polygenic scores, population differences and natural selection. Unfortunately, history suggests that multiple forms of misrepresentation of findings in human genetics can lend the authority of science to claims that the underlying research does not validate and might actively contradict.
I suspect that for the "IQ" there would be even less effect than for height.
The model for height is that there are genetic variants that result in more growth, making you taller.
The naive model for intelligence is to assume the same. But genes do not act on high level concepts! A genetic variant may increase or decrease expression of a certain neurotransmitter receptor on a large number of neurons (and possibly impact something else entirely unrelated like say lung development or kidneys). Said increase would be beneficial if there's not enough of those receptors, and detrimental if there is too many (which depends on how much that neurotransmitter gets released and many other things) ; and this variant would help some people and hinder some other people, and evolutionary selection is going to shift everything until that gene has, on average, zero effect.
So this gene, while impacting the building blocks for intelligence, will not be an "intelligence gene" in the same sense in which some growth promoting gene is a "height gene".
There would be very few, if any, "intelligence genes", because for the best functioning brain the parameters for the brain have to be at their optimal values, somewhere within the variation range.
Intelligence is not like height, it's like "height that is optimal for living", and there is no gene for "height that is optimal for living", there's genes making you taller and genes making you shorter.
Few things that sound like they may be generally useful (like an all around bigger head) come with substantial costs (e.g. higher risk of brain damage at birth), and the impact on intelligence is in any case very minimal (and possibly even non existent in presence of better memorization tools than that available 100 000 years ago).
There would be some weakly correlated genes, of course, but only accounting for a small fraction of the variation (and likely due to some confounders), which is precisely what those GWASes found.
As others have said height is a lot less variable between populations than you think it is (especially between broadly defined populations like "white" or "black" or "asian").
Intelligence is also entirely unlike height. Your neurons aren't passing around "smartness" to one another, so that the more smartness they pass, the better. Your neurons release neurotransmitters, and some amount is optimal, and more is worse, and less is also worse.
The optimal amount in turn is dependent on the number of receptors; some relation of those defines the optimum. And so on. The end result being consistent with what association studies find, i.e. extremely weak effects adding up to very little of the variation.
For every such physical variable in the brain, intelligence is more like "perfectness of height" than height itself.
If we declare that some height is optimal, none of individual genetic variants that make you taller or shorter would be "better height genes" (some could be invariably "worse height"), because being a few mm taller is only better if you're too short.
Raw head size may seem like more is better, but more equals higher risk of injury, at birth and otherwise, more communication delays and so on and so forth, and the observed effect from size is small (weak correlations likely arising from nutrition and health).
> height is highly heritable, and is something that genetically differs between populations.
This doesn't make any sense. Heritability is something that is a feature of a population. It deals with _differences_, not absolute values. Populations may have different average height, but it tells you nothing about the heritability.
> what I don't understand: height is highly heritable, and is something that genetically differs between populations. it also seems to be highly polygenetic, with dozens or hundreds of genes involved.
which part the OP do you think can't be squared with this statement?
That actually wasn’t as bad as I expected. The person who responded
to them however…
Ilforte seems deeply saddened by the
SJW/Progressive/Communist/Leftist plot to censor the entirely valid
field of eugenics and the brilliant scientist involved like Emil
Kirkegaard (yes the pedo nazi).
I'm currently seeing AncestralDetox as the top response, coming strong right out of the gates with
> Your problem is that you still think "full blown racism" is a bad thing for some reason,
Anyone who cerebrally strokes their chin while citing Rushton is a fucking clown.
I remember once telling my wife (who has a Biology degree) about Rushton's "argument" that black people are r selected while whites and Asians are K selected and she was nearly as offended by the absolute lack of understanding that Biology Does Not Work That Way as she was by the racism.
I can't disagree, Rushton is a truly disgusting man.
I guess my time looking at r/TheMotte has made it so that if one of them manages to make a whole post on the topic of IQ and race without calling for the sterilization of all Black Americans with an IQ under 95 I'm somewhat surprised.
I, what?
Casual race science in the Motte? Must be a day that ends in a “y”.
The entire issue really just boils down to this one “example”:
EDIT: I would like to leave some space here so you can take some time to let that sentence sink in:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
If yes, then there is no new evidence since 1994 (or 1916) that requires a leap to race genetics in order to be explained. As Laplace probably didn’t say to Napoleon, we have no need of that hypothesis. If no, well, then the distribution of cognitive ability is really the least of your concerns with the state of modern social science. And in the 26 years since this stupid argument was revived and during which it failed to progress whatsoever, the “no” side has become even less compelling in the last 4.
But it’s worth mentioning that, unlike arguments such as OP’s, the field of genetics has made huge progress since 1994. That’s the missing reason why nobody credible is still arguing about the topic anymore: genetic population differences aren’t something hypothetical for social scientists to speculate about (not to mention there’s less reason than ever to use social categories of race, which are obviously going to be entangled with that “example” problem, rather than genetic ancestry). If you have a favorite gene, there’s an abundance of data you can check to see how it’s distributed among populations. The problem is that cognitive ability doesn’t correlate with one gene or ten genes or 500, at least not if you’re trying to explain it to any degree resembling the heritability estimates from twin studies, or even to any degree that has realistic implications for anyone. Then it’s basically moot to ask how any one of those huge numbers of genes with a barely detectable effect varies from one population to another. The mechanism that would underlie the 1994 hypothesis, which on its own was a reasonable kind of mechanism to assume in 1994 before we could actually look for it (and a lot of people did assume that kind of mechanism for a lot of different things), is simply not there. So the idea is “fringe” because it’s basically at the point of “not even wrong”; the assumptions you’d need to have a plausible, meaningful, falsifiable scientific discussion of it are not valid. Meanwhile there’s a gigantic obvious glaring sociological null-hypothesis explanation for the same evidence that doesn’t require grasping at mathematical straws. That’s why it’s not a controversy.
I don’t know how you could read such an understated position into Robinson’s essay, which OP themselves linked. Most of the piece shows how Charles Murray is personally prejudiced against Black people and has wackadoodle beliefs that follow from his personal prejudice. To equate personal bigotry with modern conservative politics in general is… well, OP said it, not me. (And not Robinson either; his only analysis of Murray’s political philosophy connects him to Confucius, Locke, and Aristotle, not Limbaugh.) So if OP’s original point is that maybe we should disregard an entire source of information because we think it misrepresents one specific thing we’ve read…
That actually wasn’t as bad as I expected. The person who responded to them however…
Ilforte seems deeply saddened by the SJW/Progressive/Communist/Leftist plot to censor the entirely valid field of eugenics and the brilliant scientist involved like Emil Kirkegaard (yes the pedo nazi).
new flair I guess
Tht second comment, “libertarian agnosticism”? “Thank God for the Pioneer fund”? Wowie.
that really wasn’t so bad overall compared to most of the other stuff that gets linked here