Social evolution?

[abskebabs]

I remember this topic being brought up somewhere else, and some of the conclusions and results of research I saw I did find disturbing; I guess to be brutally honest with myself and everyone on this forum it did upset egalitarian prejudices I hold dear.

 

I'm guessing people will be aware of books like the Bell Curve by Charles Murray and the Global Bell Curve by Richard Lynn; I was given 2 further links to books on this subject, where I brought it up as follows:

 

http://www.wspublishers.com/uhh.pdf

 

and http://www.charlesdarwinresearch.org/reb.html

 

I wanted to get your assessment on how sound this kind of work is, and whether we really do have to concede that there are major detectable racially determined differences in intelligence, and these are primarily herditarily based. I guess in science we must face up to the facts, regardless of whether the conclusions we reach are to our taste or not, but his has been a hard pill to swallow for me so far; as these sources have been pretty convincing so far.

 

Statistics are sighted, with IQs ranging highest for "Orientals", next being Whites, followed by Blacks(Negroes). Indeed according to this work, the lowest measured IQs were found for Blacks in Africa(allegedly in the 70s), and in Northern America they were higher and this was concluded to be due to greater intermixing genetically and sexually over generations with the white population.

 

I just had a conversation with my housemate about this, and he seemed puzzled the authors only identified cold climes as being the possible selective pressures to promote greater intelligence. I guess I find this depressing slightly as I myself would not consider myself to be in this "higher bracket", and the knowledge seems to have a horrible socially deterministic connoation to me.

 

I would be very grateful for your replies.

[CDarwin]

This is Stephen Jay Gould's response to the argument in the Bell Curve, which is basically a condensed version of his book The Mismeasure of Man, which I finished reading a little while ago.

 

Basically, the authors of the Bell Curve make the mistake of assuming 'g' to be a real, inherited, and importantly, immutable entity simply on the basis of a statistical technique that does not prove any of those things.

 

Gould says it better than I did from memory:

Intelligence, in their formulation, must be depictable as a single number, capable of ranking people in linear order, genetically based, and effectively immutable.

 

The statistical existence of 'g,' the entity presumed to represent general intelligence, could be entirely due to entirely genetic or entirely environmental factors for all that the statistical methods that identify it can tell us.

 

And also, as Herrnstein and Murray acknowledge, their own bell curves couldn't be applied to any individual anyway, as the overlap between the groups is so great and it would be useless to presume that any given African American is less intelligent than any given white American based on the position of the means alone (I think they only dealt with Americans, as I recall).

 

Someone has brought this up before and Lucaspa posted a much more thorough refutation.

 

EDIT: I realize I didn't post the link I meant to, sorry: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~chance/course/topics/curveball.html

Edited June 10, 2009 by CDarwin

[GDG]

See, e.g., Wikipedia for a summary of the criticism of this work.

[e-head]

Well, here are a few thoughts, for what it's worth...

 

I'm not at all convinced IQ actually measures anything that could be said to represent general intelligence. I find it doubtful that a single number can somehow represent and measure everything there is to know about intelligence. I suspect there is a definitional and/or category error going on. A gross over simplification.

 

Further, I'm not at all convinced performance on IQ tests isn't effected by special preparation. I received a masters in chemistry (computational/physical), and I spend one year in grad. school for mathematics, and I'm absolutely convinced this rigorous mathematical background specially prepared me to do well on the IQ test. At least the one I took. I used to spend hours sitting around thinking about problems of a similar nature. Or at least problems that are solved by similar mental processes. It's hard for me to be convinced me this didn't prepare me somewhat, and gave me an edge over say, a cellist in an orchestra.

 

Recent studies in brain plasticity seem to suggest that there is actually a great deal of latitude in ones realized intelligence. Sure, ones maximal hypothetical intelligence may be largely determined by genetics, but most of us never achieve this due to environmental and other factors. The average black child in America is supposedly exposed to a much smaller vocabulary while growing up, due largely to their parents having less education, and there is a lot of evidence to suggest this difference in exposure could partly result in a difference in brain organization and development.

 

In short, ones intelligence seems to be much more fluid than we ever imagined, and my guess is growing up in a poor, somewhat unpredictable and dangerous environment, where there isn't much emphasis placed on education, and there are possible nutritional deficits, could definitely have an impact on ones performance on an IQ test.

 

Consider social factors as well... it's quite possible white people and asians are simply taking the test more seriously, and hence putting more effort into it. In these social groups, performing well on tests is socially encouraged and ones self worth is tied up in it. Black people may simply be more likely to consider the test a nuisance and to not take it seriously or give a rats ass how they do on it. They may be coming from a position of suspicion and animosity even, which could certainly affect their performance. Much of black culture seems like a giant middle finger to white America after all, and this IQ test is just another piece of B.S. from the man, if you get my drift.

 

So, I think it's safe to say there are plenty of other possible explanations, and I'm not convinced at all the research has conclusively ruled them all out.

 

And, of course, could be there is a real measurable difference that represents something significant and meaningful, but the difference is due to developmental and environmental issues and not heritable traits.

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Consecutive posts merged

To flesh out one of the ideas I mention above, I seem to remember a study that suggested much of the difference in mathematical competency between Asian children and European children could be accounted for by the fact that the Asian children were more inclined to stick with a difficult problem, whereas the white children were more likely to simply give up. The difference was partly attributed to differences in confidence levels, as well as in a desire to please. In short, tell someone they are good at math and they are likely to do better at math. Tell them they are not good and math, and well, you get the idea.

 

So, it's possible socio-cultural differences in test taking strategy, as well as in attitude towards tests in general, could be manifesting themselves.

 

Anyway, the various races went through a period of divergence lasting 60,000 years or more, so it's surely possible that differences have started to emerge. I'm just not yet convinced.

Edited June 17, 2009 by e-head

[ecoli]

I think the Bell Curve is a great book b/c AFAIK, the authors never claim that IQ is mostly heritable. There are obviously some GxE interactions going on, and the environment is a huge part. Since a larger proportion of blacks are living under the poverty line, they have lower IQs. There's really nothing controversial about that statement (so lets figure out how to really fix the problem).