EgalitarianJay

There are some genetic differences between human populations. I don't agree that humans differ in all the traits you mentioned but there are some obvious, observable differences. I will acknowledge that. You should consider however that in all species there are more commonalities than differences. So the question is whether or not intelligence is a something that all human populations have in common or are there differences in this trait? To answer this question we need to look at the nature of intelligence and how human intelligence evolved. What we know about intelligence is that it is a complex, polygenic, multi-factorial trait meaning that intelligence is determined by the expression of many genes and intelligence is affected by both genetic and environmental variables. So how did human intelligence evolve? Why are we so much smarter than animals? This question can be answered by looking at our evolutionary history. Humans evolved from an ancestor with the Great Apes who are themselves highly intelligent compared to other animals. Millions of years of evolution brought about the changes that led to the intelligence of primates and several million years separate humans from Apes. One of the anatomical indicators of intelligence is the degree of an animal's encephalization, the size of the brain relative to body mass. We know from the fossil record that human brains are 3 times larger than Apes allowing for much greater brain power. We also know that modern humans descend primarily from a single evolutionary lineage (with some slight interbreeding with archaic humans) that originated in Africa. So however our intelligence evolved it did so within a single region. One theory is that the environmental uncertainty in Africa lead to greater social interaction for early hominids that impelled the development of greater cognitive skills. The archeological record indicates that we became anatomically and behaviorally modern in Africa. So humans were already intelligent before they left Africa. Did they get smarter? Your theory that cold weather created an evolutionary pressure for even greater intelligence is problematic considering that Africans have the intelligence to survive those conditions. One interesting fact to consider is that Neanderthal were living in Europe and Asia longer than modern humans and were thus more cold adapted. When modern humans came to Eurasia they brought with them a more sophisticated culture. The extinction of Neanderthal indicates that modern humans were able to out compete them for food and may have killed many of them off. There was also some interbreeding between the groups however Neanderthal were completely wiped out after the interaction with modern humans. This undercuts the idea that adapting to cold regions leads to greater intelligence. If that were the case then Neanderthal should be ruling the world today. Based on the available evidence it seems that human intelligence is not unevenly distributed across geographic populations. The trait has equal survival value in all regions of the world which makes it different from traits that have adaptive significance like skin color.

I need to review your rules because I seem to be violating a lot of rules for things allowed on other sites. Forgive me. I did have permission from the scholars to post their emails.

I don't know who came up with it first but you a right that Richard Lynn also employs the same model. I believe that Lee Ellis also applied r/K selection theory to human Life History Variation and Rushton took his idea. Rushton boasts mapping the r/K scale on to human evolution via the Out of Africa model of human origins. Rushton wrote an entire book on these theories and as late as 2010 (in reply to Nisbett) he was still arguing in favor of his r/K Life History Theory.

What Rushton proposed with his cold winter theory was that as humans migrated out of Africa they encountered the new environment of cold winter. According to Rushton this environment created a selective pressure for higher intelligence as humans were forced to adapt to harsh winter conditions by gathering and storing food, acquiring shelter, making clothes, and raising children successfully during prolonged winters. He argued that survival in the tropical climate of Africa was less cognitively demanding than in Europe and Asia therefore Negroids had more primitive brains than Caucasoids and Mongoloids who developed larger and smarter brains. Mongoloids, according to Rushton, evolved in Siberia where it was even colder than Europe so they faced even harsher conditions and grew smarter as a consequence. There are several logical problems with Rushton's argument. For one thing he ignores the fact that humans spent most of their evolutionary history in Africa where archeological evidence indicates that the evolution of the human brain took place (human brains are 3 times bigger than Ape brains). So before even leaving Africa humans were already smart. They didn't need to sit around waiting for evolution to increase brain size when they already had the cognitive ability to do all of the things that Rushton says humans in Eurasia needed to do to survive. Secondly, Rushton's hypothesis doesn't explain the lower average IQ scores of Native Americans. Native Americans are the closest derivative population of Northeast Asians so whatever selective pressure would have made Northeast Asians smarter would have also affected Native American populations. Joseph Graves dealt with Rushton's r/K selection generalizations and other scholars have pointed out that Rushton ignored the archeological record showing that human survival strategies were the same during the Pleistocene Epoch. Rushton's cold winter theory amounts to little more than a just-so story of human evolution that doesn't have any scientific support. I have asked this question my self as several scholars have stated that there simply wasn't enough time for human populations to diverge racially or in characteristics such as intelligence. Here are two email exchanges I had with Chris Stringer and Joseph Graves on the topic:... edited out by moderator - we would love distinguished academics to post here on the site but we cannot put their private correspondence up here without their knowledge.

Yes, I think so too. I'm currently reading a book that details the history and development of the idea of race and racism from the Spanish Inquisition to modern times. Amazon.com - The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea

That's the real issue here. How different are humans genetically and what is the scientific basis for claiming differences in brain function between human populations? Racists assume that because human genetic variation exists some of it can account for differences in IQ. But to assume that races would really have to be different. There's no selection based mechanism that operated only on one population and since intelligence is a polygenic trait there's no reason to believe that the trait is unevenly distributed across populations.

Noted. I see that mass quotes and posting copyrighted material is frowned upon here. I think my last post fits the preferred posting style, does it not? In any case I see that pretty much everyone who responded is on the same page. I was looking to see if there are any unique arguments people knowledgeable about evolution could present but the responses so far are in line with the mainstream anthropological position.

The difference as C Loring Brace explained it is that racism is discrimination based on racial prejudices and racialism is the belief in racial differences in mental characteristics. I believe that most people who believe in racialist theories are motivated by a racist ideological agenda. Depending on the definition it might be a distinction without a difference but I've seen several scholars use the terminology in this way. Well I didn't intentionally ignore any one. I was just posting material I felt was relevant to the thread. I agree with you. I find racialist research to be highly offensive and a definite insult to the intelligence especially of groups who have been discriminated against to the point of affecting their standard of living and other variables including IQ which racialists say is rooted in genetic differences. I also believe these racialist researchers are extremely biased but I do admit that it is challenging to refute their arguments. One of the arguments often repeated in this thread is that race is a social construct not a biological one. This is the official position of the American Anthropological Association. I have spoken to several scholars about this, most notably Joseph Graves who has explained why human biological variation is not structured in to races. I understand how race has been socially constructed. For instance in America rules of descent were enforced by law and became social customs on racial classification. A member of the White race was defined as a person of pure European descent and a member of the Black race was defined as anyone with detectable Sub-Saharan African ancestry (One-Drop Rule). The argument against biological races existing was a bit more confusing to me because variation in physical traits obviously exist and there are clearly some differences between populations most of which are skin deep but does that mean that there are no other differences? I had to investigate this question. Here is another email I recieved from Joseph Graves about biological differences vs. racial differences:

No, I've read everything that others have written in this thread. If you read what I wrote I clearly introduced arguments from the other side along with research I have found that counters it and I want people to discuss it.

The four races of man. Beginning at the right, the men in the picture are arranged as Caucasian, Negro, Mongolian, and American Indian. (Original caption reflects the concepts of eugenics popular in the early 20th century, all since repudiated by modern genetics.) I thought it would be helpful to add some material to this thread. Basically I want readers to review the research below and give their opinions on how best to address it. This is the type of research I have been discussing with racists: Heredity, environment, and race differences in IQ: A commentary on Rushton and Jensen (2005). Nisbett, Richard E.Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol 11(2), Jun 2005, 302-310. ! Moderator Note LINK REMOVED BY MOD AS THAT ARTICLE IS PAY-WALLED AS FAR AS I CAN TELL. We cannot allow random links (even from a University server) to copyrighted material. If you can show that link is to a public domain copy without copyright infractions we will be glad to re-instate Race Differences In Average IQ Are Mostly Genetic, Not Cultural A 60-page review of the scientific evidence, some based on state-of-the-art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of brain size, has concluded that race differences in average IQ are largely genetic. ! Moderator Note Article Snipped by Moderator as potentially copyrighted material - the link to Rense.com is above. The research provided by Rushton and Jensen appears to be damning at first glance. Their paper took me a long time to read but as you can see the summary is easy to grasp. Let me share some of the research I have gathered as a rebuttal to their assertions. First of all other scholars have claimed that Rushton and Jensen were very biased and misrepresent the work of other researchers to make their case. One of those scholars, Richard Nisbett, wrote an article detailing the errors and omissions of Rushton and Jensen. J. P. Rushton and A. R. Jensen (2005) ignore or misinterpret most of the evidence of greatest relevance to the question of heritability of the Black–White IQ gap. A dispassionate reading of the evidence on the association of IQ with degree of European ancestry for members of Black populations, convergence of Black and White IQ in recent years, alterability of Black IQ by intervention programs, and adoption studies lend no support to a hereditarian interpretation of the Black–White IQ gap. On the contrary, the evidence most relevant to the question indicates that the genetic contribution to the Black–White IQ gap is nil. Heredity, environment, and race differences in IQ: A commentary on Rushton and Jensen (2005). Nisbett, Richard E.Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol 11(2), Jun 2005, 302-310 ! Moderator Note LINK REMOVED BY MOD AS THAT ARTICLE IS PAY-WALLED AS FAR AS I CAN TELL. We cannot allow random links to copyrighted material. If you can show that link is to a public domain copy without copyright infractions we will be glad to re-instate I should mention that Rushton and Jensen did respond to Nisbett's arguments. The evidence that Rushton and Jensen presented which I found to be really curious was the claim that there were racial differences in brain size. I wondered how, even if they were wrong, they could come to the conclusion that races differ in brain size and since the size of the brain is a biological characteristic how could culture or environment possibly be the reason for the difference in brain size. This assertion of Rushton and Jensen's on the surface seemed to make sense. Bigger brains make smarter people. If races differed in brain size surely the bigger brained races were smarter than the smaller brained ones. I did some digging and came across an article by an anthropologist named Leonard Lieberman who critiqued the brain size claim in detail. In the 19th century measurements of cranial capacity by Morton and others supported a “Caucasoid>Mongoloid>Negroid” hierarchy of intelligence. This continued through most of the 20th century but was challenged by a nonhierarchical view originating with Boas. Beginning in the 1980s Rushton correlated cranial and IQ measurements and presented a hierarchy with “Mongoloids” at the top. Each of these periods relates to its social context: the 19th-century hierarchy paralleled the height of European world domination; the nonhierarchy of the 20th century reflected worldwars, worldwide depression, and the breakup of empires; the “Mongoloid>Caucasoid>Negroid” hierarchy followed the economic success of several Asian nations. Leonard Lieberman Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 1 (February 2001), pp. 69-95 ! Moderator Note LINK REMOVED BY MOD AS THAT ARTICLE IS PAY-WALLED AS FAR AS I CAN TELL. We cannot allow random links (even from a University server) to copyrighted material. If you can show that link is to a public domain copy without copyright infractions we will be glad to re-instate During my research I came across the work of an evolutionary biologist named Joseph Graves who had critiqued Rushton's evolutionary theory and shown it to be invalid. He also had some comments to make about Rushton's claim of racial hierachies in brain size which he shared with me in the following email: These are Graves arguments against Rushton's evolutionary theory as well as an email exchange between Graves and Rushton which I orchestrated: These are Graves articles where he critiques Rushton in detail: Joseph L. Graves, jr What a tangled web he weaves: Race, reproductive strategies and Rushton's life history theory Anthropological Theory June 2002 2: 131-15 Joseph L. Graves, jr "Misuse of Life History Theory..." Chapter Three in Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth Jefferson M. Fish Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002 ! Moderator Note LINKS REMOVED BY MOD AS THAT ARTICLE IS PAY-WALLED AS FAR AS I CAN TELL. We cannot allow random links (especially from an anonymous fileserver) to copyrighted material. If you can show that link is to a public domain copy without copyright infractions we will be glad to re-instate Here too is a video where they debated each other: I recommend looking at all of this research to develop an informed opinion on the subject. I appreciate the contributions so far and look forward to seeing more discussion on the topic.

I've grown accustomed to distinguishing racialism from racism when talking specifically about the scientific attempt to prove that races differ in mental traits. Racialism = The belief that races differ in mental characteristics Racism = Hatred or intolerance based on race I adopted that distinction from the following article: Racialism and Racist Agendas C. LORING BRACE University of Michigan Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective. J. Philippe Rushton. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995. 334 pp. Virtually every kind of anthropologist may be put in the position of being asked to comment on what is contained in this book, so, whatever our individual specialty, we should all be prepared to discuss what it represents. Race, Evolution, and Behavior is an amalgamation of bad biology and inexcusable anthropology. It is not science but advocacy, and advocacy for the promotion of "racialism." Tzvetan Todorov explains "racialism," in contrast to "racism," as belief in the existence of typological essences called "races" whose characteristics can be rated in hierarchical fashion (On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993, p. 31). "Racism," then, is the use of racialist assumptions to promote social or political ends, a course that Todorov regards as leading to "particularly catastrophic results." Perpetuating catastrophe is not the stated aim of Rushton's book, but current promoters of racist agendas will almost certainly regard it as a welcome weapon to apply for their noxious purposes. ! Moderator Note Article snipped off here by Moderator - to best of my understanding this is still copyrighted and is behind a paywall here http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1996.98.1.02a00250/abstract

Yes. I think taking the position that there are no biological races and that there are different types of intelligence is a legitimate answer.

I would define mental traits as any characteristic that is rooted in mental function.

Hello. I'm new to the forum. I want to talk about a controversial subject. There is an area of research known as Scientific Racism or racialism which proposes that human races differ in innate mental ability including intelligence and personality differences. I have debated this subject for years on other message boards mostly against racists who believe in the inferiority of certain races. I want to get an idea from this board of how the majority of posters here feel about this subject and what they think the truth is about the topic. Please answer the poll and give your thoughts on the topic.