Any accredited Scientists that believe in Genetic Differences in IQ?

[Chris J.]

Hello,

 

There is a lot of discussion with difference groups of people having higher/lower IQ based on genetics.

 

Are there accredited scientists who share this view or is it relegated to the fringe?

 

I can find the scientists who support this view as well as those that are against it but I don't know the best way to find out what is considered the fringe view versus the mainstream or at least well supported view.

 

Thanks.

 

Regards,

Chris K.

[Basi]

This reminded me of this article which I was forced to read years ago: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1129689

 

To give one of his conclusions, it's an incredibly hard question to answer because it's borderline unethical to setup a scenario where you could strictly and only test this. Shining some light on that statement, it's hard to separate socio and economical influences on a person's IQ with genetics. If a family struggling to survive, living paycheck to paycheck, were to have IQ tests, the numbers say they should have below average IQ. The converse is also true that families that are well off and immune to society's economic pressures traditionally have higher IQs. An experiment you could do is pluck children out of poor households and send them to live in richer environments (a large amount of children to account for variations in small sample sizes) and swap them with children from rich households. take their IQs a decade down the line (assuming they were switched a very early age) and then in another decade and that would yield significant insight on the question.

 

 

that's the schematic most scientists who ponder that question, believe is ideal. i think unless that is done nobody can answer the question with complete certainty.

[Marat]

Philip Ruston, Professor at the University of Western Ontario, along with Professor Watson of the famous Watson and Crick team, as well as Professor Herrnstein, all believe in the theory that IQ can be shown to differ by race. IQ is certainly at least partially inheritable, as can be demonstrated in the relation between the IQ of children and their parents. This is actually fairly generally admitted, but critics now try to attack its significance by arguing that IQ only measures a narrow skill set which should not be described as 'intelligence.' I have always suspected that if true genuises like da Vinci and Goethe had been given IQ tests, these exams couldn't really have measured what was special about their creativity and inventiveness, since they in fact only measure a certain type of cleverness. It is also argued that individual variation in IQ within each race is great, so no individual should be tagged with either the negative or positive IQ measures of his race without being given a chance to demonstrate his own personal abilities.

 

It is often said that race has to do only with skin color, but this is not true, since countless significant biological features, such as stress hormone responses, disease susceptibility, HLA groups, blood types, immunity, blood pressure, etc., vary with race. So the notion that the biological basis of intelligence could also be associated with race can hardly be said to be false a priori.

 

The problem is that we have a conflicting imperative from political and moral theory which posits that all people are equal, and since we rate people very much by their intelligence or IQ, we cannot morally permit it to be true that IQ can vary by race, or that one race may be smarter than the other, regardless of what any sort of empirical data or objective tests may show. If the data or tests ever dare to refute our moral commitment, we feed the pressure of this conflict between value and fact onto the tests -- calling them non-objective; or the methodology -- calling it flawed; or the scientists -- calling them racist. In this we are like the Roman Catholic Church telling Galileo his empirical results couldn't be true because they conflicted with the dominant value system of the time.

 

The proper response to all of this seems to me to be to recognize the separation of value from fact and affirm the importance of each in its proper realm. We strongly ethically insist that all people are legally and morally equal, and this requires us always to treat everyone with equal concern and respect. But we can also admit that it is childish to expect empirical data necessarily to correspond to our moral posits, so we should just accept whatever science demonstrates, while refusing to let it shake us from our ethical determination to treat people equally. It never was a fact -- even before the IQ controversy got going -- that all people are equal in every talent and by every measure -- but it was always (at least since 1789) a value that everyone be treated as an equal.

[CharonY]

Re OP:

 

No one really knows at this point. Few disregard the possibility of a genetic influence (after all certain genetic defects inhibit proper brain development), but how strong the genetic link is cannot be properly quantified at this point. It is a very complicated trait, requiring a lot of interaction with the environment to develop. Not to mention the limitations what IQ test actually measure, as e.g. someone can be illiterate but solve certain problems faster and better that do not require literacy. So, as already mentioned, there is likely a genetic basis, but how much it shapes the overall potential is still unknown.

 

Re Marat:

If one grouped all people according to their IQ, would races emerge (i.e. does IQ measurements have predictive powers for subpopulations?). Skin color is a lousy indicator except for very broad distinction, btw, as the greatest genetic variation is found within a broader population in which one skin colour is prevalent.

 

 

 

[npbreakthrough]

Hello,

 

There is a lot of discussion with difference groups of people having higher/lower IQ based on genetics.

 

Are there accredited scientists who share this view or is it relegated to the fringe?

 

I can find the scientists who support this view as well as those that are against it but I don't know the best way to find out what is considered the fringe view versus the mainstream or at least well supported view.

 

Thanks.

 

Regards,

Chris K.

 

 

great question,

 

first of, most of the replies have it right here, much more factors going into IQ than just race,

and the fact that people are WAY to sensitive about race,

and the threat of being labeled racist is always used to instantly discredit

others in debate

 

but funny to me,

getting a scientist to be honest about how racist his darling evolution can sound

is harder than keeping your old racist grandfather from accidentally blurting offenses when you bring

your African American girlfriend to the family reunion.

 

and just as embarrassing when it spills out.......haha

[Stefan-CoA]

great question,

 

first of, most of the replies have it right here, much more factors going into IQ than just race,

and the fact that people are WAY to sensitive about race,

and the threat of being labeled racist is always used to instantly discredit

others in debate

 

but funny to me,

getting a scientist to be honest about how racist his darling evolution can sound

is harder than keeping your old racist grandfather from accidentally blurting offenses when you bring

your African American girlfriend to the family reunion.

 

and just as embarrassing when it spills out.......haha

 

Really? This is how you contribute? Really?

 

Race and genetics are two related yet different concepts.

 

There are different types of intelligence, IQ is not the absolute measure thereof. But, it is influenced by genes, pretty much everything is. But since IQ has got a distinctive *brain* flavour to it, nurture plays a huge role, possibly even greater than nature. So, whilst your genes may give you a basic foundation or layout, it's up to you and your environment to choose how you build the house.

 

 

 

[npbreakthrough]

Really? This is how you contribute? Really?

 

Race and genetics are two related yet different concepts.

 

There are different types of intelligence, IQ is not the absolute measure thereof. But, it is influenced by genes, pretty much everything is. But since IQ has got a distinctive *brain* flavour to it, nurture plays a huge role, possibly even greater than nature. So, whilst your genes may give you a basic foundation or layout, it's up to you and your environment to choose how you build the house.

 

not quite sure i understand your grievance, my first paragraph simply re-affirmed some of the more articulated points made, (which also lines up with your point as well)

 

and my second , was just a funny observation.......

[Genecks]

Sure, some cognitive disabilities are genetically related: Fragile X.

 

There is much more to IQ than double-helix genetics, though.

MicroRNA, proteins, epigenetics, mRNAs, and so forth play a role in cognition.

Most tend to be determined by epigenetic control of double-helix genetics, though.

 

People may have the same genes, but there might be different epigenetic controls on them, thus accounting for the IQ differences.

[Ophiolite]

Really? This is how you contribute? Really?

Yes, really. What was your problem with npbreakthrough's post?

 

Back to the main topic: would someone like to define race for me please. And when they do so I would be obliged if they could explain how useful the concept actually is, given that there can be more genetic differences between two people of the same race than between two of different races. That might then allow disucssion to proceed on the basis of facts rather than Victorian fantasy.

[J.C.MacSwell]

Hello,

 

There is a lot of discussion with difference groups of people having higher/lower IQ based on genetics.

 

Are there accredited scientists who share this view or is it relegated to the fringe?

 

I can find the scientists who support this view as well as those that are against it but I don't know the best way to find out what is considered the fringe view versus the mainstream or at least well supported view.

 

Thanks.

 

Regards,

Chris K.

 

I don't believe all people are equal in all respects. I think most of this would have to do with genetics, early environment and nutrition.

 

As for Races, however you group them, that may be true as well, but how could you reasonably test it on that scale?

 

You would have to factor out the early environment, nutrition and other significant factors. If you managed to do this in an unbiased manner I think any variances would be small enough that secondary factors would overwhelm them.