In case any readers have an interest, I have a paper which covers some of the same ideas as in Winergard's piece, but from a slightly different more statistically focussed perspective. My paper only covers cognitive ability differences between biogeographic ancestries so it is a bit more narrow. https://psyarxiv.com/863cv
It's quite an indictment of the current state of academia that such obvious truths (e.g., that differences in mean IQ among various ancestral groups have a strong genetic component) are so "controversial".
As the Academy has become increasingly feminized, postmodernist ideas have leaked out of the Humanities and parasitized STEM. Scientific truth has now been subjugated to concerns about feelings... I'm not sure how we can turn the ship around.
"Whereas earlier scholars of human diversity sometimes argued that modern humans evolved independently in various regions, most scholars today believe that all modern humans stem from ancestors who evolved in East Africa somewhere between 300,000 and 100,000 years ago. This means that instead of evolving in disparate areas around the globe, humans from this one population migrated to all of them. According to researchers, humans likely began this long exodus from Africa into the Near East and across the planet approximately 150,000 years ago. "
would change this a bit
1) we don't know east african so much anymore
2) the most recent split of modern lineages probably 150K, others argue 200K
3) non-africans left btwn 100K and 60K BP, closer to latter
Due to the incidiary nature of speculation about intra-species variation in humans, especially for cognitive traits, I think it'd behoove a piece like this to be more exacting and careful. Greater deference to mainstream conclusions from genetic/genomic research is a wiser course even if one has some evidence they may be informed by political sensitivities. Greater evidence has to be presented. For instance, a complete catalog of all known and hypothesized local selection events with citations should be presented and ranked by robustness. Also, using a single polymorphism example (i.e. candidate gene era dubious studies) isn't going to be persuasive with field experts. It will look like motivated reasoning or sloppiness to them even with the caveat.
Additionally, the refutation of counterarguments against race as a classification with biological relevance wasn't thorough and is somewhat inconsistent with the best available data from population genetic research (even the account provided in Human Diversity by Charles Murray).
Thanks for writing the provocative piece. Have plenty of thoughts. Just thought I'd share some.
I strongly suspect that there is a non-random distribution of genes between 'groups' that in some way impact upon IQ or personality traits. However I more strongly suspect that its real world significance is dwarfed by inter-individual genetic variation and especially the impact of culture, history, individual life experience, sociology, wealth, politics, climate and ecology etc. on groups of people. The epistemological framework for such thinking is complex systems. I don't think there is remotely enough work being done (with some notable exceptions) to convert these intuitions into serious theory, maybe because it's so difficult and forbidding. And crosses too many disciplinary boundaries
In case any readers have an interest, I have a paper which covers some of the same ideas as in Winergard's piece, but from a slightly different more statistically focussed perspective. My paper only covers cognitive ability differences between biogeographic ancestries so it is a bit more narrow. https://psyarxiv.com/863cv
It's quite an indictment of the current state of academia that such obvious truths (e.g., that differences in mean IQ among various ancestral groups have a strong genetic component) are so "controversial".
As the Academy has become increasingly feminized, postmodernist ideas have leaked out of the Humanities and parasitized STEM. Scientific truth has now been subjugated to concerns about feelings... I'm not sure how we can turn the ship around.
"Whereas earlier scholars of human diversity sometimes argued that modern humans evolved independently in various regions, most scholars today believe that all modern humans stem from ancestors who evolved in East Africa somewhere between 300,000 and 100,000 years ago. This means that instead of evolving in disparate areas around the globe, humans from this one population migrated to all of them. According to researchers, humans likely began this long exodus from Africa into the Near East and across the planet approximately 150,000 years ago. "
would change this a bit
1) we don't know east african so much anymore
2) the most recent split of modern lineages probably 150K, others argue 200K
3) non-africans left btwn 100K and 60K BP, closer to latter
Due to the incidiary nature of speculation about intra-species variation in humans, especially for cognitive traits, I think it'd behoove a piece like this to be more exacting and careful. Greater deference to mainstream conclusions from genetic/genomic research is a wiser course even if one has some evidence they may be informed by political sensitivities. Greater evidence has to be presented. For instance, a complete catalog of all known and hypothesized local selection events with citations should be presented and ranked by robustness. Also, using a single polymorphism example (i.e. candidate gene era dubious studies) isn't going to be persuasive with field experts. It will look like motivated reasoning or sloppiness to them even with the caveat.
Additionally, the refutation of counterarguments against race as a classification with biological relevance wasn't thorough and is somewhat inconsistent with the best available data from population genetic research (even the account provided in Human Diversity by Charles Murray).
Thanks for writing the provocative piece. Have plenty of thoughts. Just thought I'd share some.
Brilliant essay.
I've also written an introduction guide to Human Biodiversity. It's pretty comprehensive and concisely written: https://zerocontradictions.net/FAQs/race-FAQs.
I strongly suspect that there is a non-random distribution of genes between 'groups' that in some way impact upon IQ or personality traits. However I more strongly suspect that its real world significance is dwarfed by inter-individual genetic variation and especially the impact of culture, history, individual life experience, sociology, wealth, politics, climate and ecology etc. on groups of people. The epistemological framework for such thinking is complex systems. I don't think there is remotely enough work being done (with some notable exceptions) to convert these intuitions into serious theory, maybe because it's so difficult and forbidding. And crosses too many disciplinary boundaries
Race seems to have more to do with IQ differences than wealth: http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sftfi1%7Bimage1%7D.gif