Analytics wrote:I get your point. All I'm saying is then when DrW prefaced his remark with, "My position was that it would not hurt to take the data into consideration ..." I understood that to mean his remark was referring to what the data tell us, not to a "freshman mistake" in logic that in this particular incidence happens to give us the correct answer anyway.
He also said, "On the drive back to town, he asked me if I agreed with claim that there was a meaningful racial component to intelligence when comparing populations of orientals vs occidentals vs those of African descent. Before responding, I asked him if he had read the book. He said that he had and considered it to be " social pornography of the worst kind".
and,
"I asked if he believed that data presented by the authors to support their various claims of social stratification resulting from differences in natural intelligence as measured by IQ. He said that he did not necessarily disagree with the data presented but that the detected variations in IQ among the three general racial groups (if real) were too small to make the kinds of differences the authors attributed to them.
The topic was discussed between us on and off for several days. He found the very thesis of the book offensive."
He then follows that directly with the line, "My position was that it would not hurt to take the data into consideration when setting expectations and social policy. Fact is that IQ is determined by both nature (genetics) and nurture (social environment), just like other physical attributes and abilities. "
The context here is DrW saying he had a friend who was offended by the thesis of the Bell Curve that there is a hereditary difference in intelligence in IQ between racial categories and that IQ differences between groups well explains social outcomes. He portrays that friend as someone who dismisses the thesis out of hand to contrast against him being brave enough to follow the data where it leads even if that is towards some uncomfortable truths. Then he coldly points out the fact is IQ is determined by both nature and nurture.
That's why I wrote the reply I did. I have no problem taking him at his word that he didn't mean to be read the way I did, but that is the natural reading of his comments.
It's only recently with the explosion of the alt-right that his came back to the forefront of social commentary and it left me caught off guard. I thought we were passed this, but that was naïve.
Incidentally, well after this thread got started, the Guardian published a long-form piece on the unwelcome revival of "race science."
I just started reading this thread, and find it interesting, and a lot to think about... thanks.
What if you made the same arguments with dogs and their respective breeds? Some breeds are just naturally “smarter” and have “higher dog IQ’s.”
Certain breeds are chosen for certain jobs, because of their intelligence, and you can find studies that rate breed intelligence. Each dog would have to be trained to achieve their potential, but certain breeds have the gene pool to build on, where others do not.
Don't take life so seriously in that " sooner or later we are just old men in funny clothes" "Tom 'T-Bone' Wolk"
EAllusion wrote:Take IQ out of it if you need to. Imagine we have population A and B. A is 2 inches taller than B on average. We know that height is both a consequence of hereditary and environmental factors like nutrition. Does this mean that the 2 inch gap is at least partially the result of A's genetic predisposition for being taller? No, not necessarily. In fact, it's possible that B is genetically predisposed to be taller, but because of environmental factors like nutrition their height average is lower. You can't infer what explains the variance from the trite observation that all biological traits result from an interaction between hereditary and environmental factors.
You literally just made an inference that the environmental factor of poor nutrition results in shorter people.
You can't make this stuff up...
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
EAllusion wrote:Take IQ out of it if you need to. Imagine we have population A and B. A is 2 inches taller than B on average. We know that height is both a consequence of hereditary and environmental factors like nutrition. Does this mean that the 2 inch gap is at least partially the result of A's genetic predisposition for being taller? No, not necessarily. In fact, it's possible that B is genetically predisposed to be taller, but because of environmental factors like nutrition their height average is lower. You can't infer what explains the variance from the trite observation that all biological traits result from an interaction between hereditary and environmental factors.
You literally just made an inference that the environmental factor of poor nutrition results in shorter people.
You can't make this stuff up...
- Doc
Huh? Poor nutrition is a factor reduced height. I didn't infer that. I asserted it as a known fact. I was illustrating a point about what you can infer about between-group variance when you know a trait itself, like all traits, is a product of hereditary and environmental interactions. What I pointed out was that you can infer that a difference in height between groups must be the result of some level of hereditary or environment from merely knowing that fact.
Markk wrote:I just started reading this thread, and find it interesting, and a lot to think about... thanks.
What if you made the same arguments with dogs and their respective breeds? Some breeds are just naturally “smarter” and have “higher dog IQ’s.”
Certain breeds are chosen for certain jobs, because of their intelligence, and you can find studies that rate breed intelligence. Each dog would have to be trained to achieve their potential, but certain breeds have the gene pool to build on, where others do not.
Yeah, that reasoning was used for a very long time and was ultimately was very influential on the ideology of Nazis. Though in fairness, I believe horse breeding was the preferred comparison rather than dog breeding. Since then, making analogies to animal breeding to justify racial castes on the basis of genetic intellectual superiority and inferiority hasn't quite been something you want to be caught saying anywhere.
(It's like you just independently had a eureka moment and discovered 19th and early 20th century eugenics. Congrats.)
I'd told this story on this board before, but I had a professor in college, a neuroscientist who was my adviser actually, who promised to fail anyone who wrote as a conclusion in any test answer or essay that some trait was the product of "nature and nurture." She gave you warning, but she was quite serious about the threat. She did this because this is true of literally everything anyone in psych could possibly be interested in addressing. Nothing at the cellular level even works without there being an ultimately inherited substrate interacting with the surrounding environment. It's trivial. What actual nature vs. nurture debates are in psychology are the extent to which observed variances can be explained by either and why.
You literally just made an inference that the environmental factor of poor nutrition results in shorter people.
You can't make this stuff up...
- Doc
Huh? Poor nutrition is a factor reduced height. I didn't infer that. I asserted it as a known fact. I was illustrating a point about what you can infer about between-group variance when you know a trait itself, like all traits, is a product of hereditary and environmental interactions. What I pointed out was that you can infer that a difference in height between groups must be the result of some level of hereditary or environment from merely knowing that fact.
It's literally an inference.
Lol.
What's wrong with you...?
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.