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This is what happens when debate on a sensitive topic gets shut down. The most compelling argument against hereditarianism is made by someone who supports it, proving JS Mill's point when he said "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that."

On a side note, I did initially think this was an article about environmental policy.

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Most of these objections to hereditarianism have been debunked already

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"Most of these objections to hereditarianism have been debunked already"

As far as I can tell all have been.

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I don't really have time to delve into all the papers Lipton brought up, but I took a quick look at the Drew Thomas paper dealing with MTAS and it's... just a masterpiece of mental gymnastics.

Adjusting for attrition in white adoptees doesn't actually make the B/W gap in adulthood go away, it only (theoretically) reduces it by about 3 points. Thomas then goes on to say this demolishes specific evidence within *this* study for the increasing heritability of IQ post-adolescence, and combines this with the relatively small B/W gap in infancy being dismissable as statistical artifact to then go and dismiss the entire 13-point B/W gap that remains in adulthood *even after adjusting for attrition*. That any of his own inferences could be the result of statistical artifacts within a small sample set is not mentioned, of course.

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Sure, but that’s beside the point of the article.

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Right, for these people anti-hereditarianism is a religious rather than a scientific claim.

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First, The Guardian is a shit rag. So, who cares what they write? It's like giving a damn what the NYT writes here in the U.S.

Blacks had a deficient intelligence long before whites 'corrupted' them. They have accomplished nothing that shows decent cognitive ability.

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All the studies cited in the piece have been refuted. One was cited by a scholarly text as recently as 2011, but it was so bad that the editor requested that it be omitted. Benin, and Asante were more developed than other places in Africa, however they were still laggards relative to the West. The human capital advantage of Europeans is not recent

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Thanks

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That’s really it, isn’t it. Blacks have a long and storied history of lagging behind most all races wrt aspects recognized as accomplishment. Every explanation is simply attempting to ignore observable reality paid in homage to the leftist god of equality.

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I actually don't think looking at the historical record is a particularly strong source of evidence for IQ diffs, given that sub-saharan africa and northern europe adopted agriculture and iron-working at roughly the same time.

(I should also mention the obvious: that blacks in both africa and overseas outperform in terms of musical ability and various domains of athletics. I also think there were some studies indicating blacks had higher creative intelligence than you would expect after adjusting for IQ, though I can't dig up a citation offhand. Maybe that doesn't easily translate to calculus, penicillin and gatling guns, but it's not nothing either.)

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We could go on, but to what end. All the lack of IQ characteristics mentioned has followed the African race wherever they have settled outside of Africa, especially the West where there are none of those homeland detriments. Musical ability is not of great concern, not what I immediately think of when discussing IQ. That there are great physical characteristics is not really an aspect of intelligence (IMO) either.

An interesting point however, which I have no answer, aside from long distance running, are *African* Blacks that great of physical specimens? Here in the USA, we see much athletic prowess, but within Africa? Are they physically superior, or is what we see here in the USA and other slave holding countries a product of selective breeding for such physicality? Just a thought.

Anyway, the discussion misses the mark. The problem is that we have a racial grouping woefully unable to compete in a 1st world technological society—not that they are “bad” or inferior in some moral way. The question to me is can two such divergent species of humans cohabitate/intermingle from an equitable point of view. From all indications, we see we cannot. Africans best belong in Africa where they have evolved for the environmental conditions therein.

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I agree that musical ability, in itself, isn't really something you can build a modern economy around (although an ability to shape culture could arguably have impacts on civilisational development, including the gene pool, over very long time periods.)

I bring it up because it actually militates to some extent against Spearman's hypothesis and even the g-factor-dominated model of intelligence if blacks can have a relatively strong talent in this domain which doesn't generalise to other cognitive domains. I saw one of the Weinsteins bring this up on a Joe Rogan podcast, IIRC.

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This may be so, I am out of my depth here wrt certain non-g correlated abilities. But then again, is that what the discussion usually centers upon? In other words, let’s say Blacks are musical “genius’s”. That there are none know to match such talent in the entire world. That we all agree upon this observable fact. How does this make Blacks fit into a typical Western or rather White society? I maintain this was the essence of the comments made. Blacks are simply a poor fit and such is correlated to low IQ and certain behavioral characteristics they genetically inherit.

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Native Africans actually outperform American Blacks in athleticism. Mulattos with White fathers tend to perform worse in athletics (and mental health) than pure Blacks and Mulattos with White mothers.

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References for these assertions? In the last Olympics, the total medal count was 37 for all of Africa? Kenya topped the list with 10 and gets back to my “running” reference. For a continent of what, 2B+ people. Of course, this is a crude comparison. Any specific studies that could be cited would be of interest.

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“ …A third possibility, for which there is considerable evidence, is that blacks on plantations (i.e. West Africans) were deliberately bred to make them physically stronger and bigger and thus better adapted to physical labor.”

My general thinking wrt Africans compared to African-Americans is taken from the writings of Dutton and Lynn, “Race and Sport: Evolution and Racial Differences in Sporting Ability”. Perhaps I make too much of their work.

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Showing that environmental factors affect cognitive abilities does nothing to undermine the rightful position that a large proportion of the difference in intelligence can be attributed to genetic components. "Hereditarians" have never claimed that IQ is 100% genetically determined, yet these exponents of environmentalism just love beating a straw man.

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Salt iodisation has increased IQ in the US by up to 15 points. Higher protein intake has boosted IQ in East Asia by up to 7.7 points per decade. A deficiency in either is guaranteed to produce a nation of idiots. As things are, pregnant women are frequently deficient in iodine, needlessly impairing their children’s intelligence. The effect is only exacerbated by an insufficient breastfeeding period. If nutrition is improved, the whole world can be smarter, taller, and better-looking, regardless of genetics or education.

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I don't know what the refutations of these studies have been, but to my eyes there is not a lot of allowance for prenatal environment in at least a few

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I agree regarding prenatal care and the level of natal care but i do wonder about the level of care 5000 years ago.

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Prenatal environment, i.e. womb, not prenatal care. Hormones create some activation vs depression choices in the genes.

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Do you have some review about this and how to control it?

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Not really. My research consists of "I heard Razib interview someone about this a couple of years ago." I don't think that's considered the proper form for citation in a journal.

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Those "journals" publish woke bullshit so , who cares. Thanks

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Regarding the white vs. black mom distinction, is there a reason for that? One biological factor I can conceive of is that mitochondria descend from the mother, but I'm not entirely sure why that would have a systematic effect on intelligence. Could it have to do with the characteristics of the men who are attracted to black vs. white women?

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Here and now there appears to be no disputation at all that black Americans have IQs one standard deviation below whites and that East Asians have significantly higher IQs than whites. Here and now therefore the numbers of black Americans should be low relative to others in cognitively demanding universities and occupations. Demanding equal outcomes here and now is therefore dishonest race grifting.

Nor seemingly is there any mainstream resistance to, ignoring race, that IQ is highly heritable. Is this an example of black exceptionalism?

Whether or not here and now is explained by heredity, whether or not blacks are particularly affected, in a society of accelerating cognitive demands, steps need to be taken to adapt the facilities of daily life for individuals of lower IQ, just as is done for the physically disabled. Blackness is a socially maladaptive distraction.

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The quest for the elusive environmental X-factor that will produce a 15-point B/W gap while having no discernible impact in heritability studies is eternal, it seems. And yes, the phenotypic IQ gaps, regardless of cause, in themselves have enormous consequences that are currently being totally ignored in public policy.

I'm actually sympathetic to the goal of trying to adjust our economies and education pipeline to give low-IQ individuals a more comfortable life, instead of endlessly chasing the credential-inflating delusion that anyone can be educated to do anything. The problem is that lower social status, regardless of absolute wealth, is itself perceived as an insult and evidence of oppression, particularly after a century's worth of political conditioning, so... I don't know if tamping down the wokeness is viable at this point. I'd love to be wrong, of course.

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Yeah, I know that Cofnas is wanting to simply get the truth out there to whoever is receptive and then let politics do what it will do, in hopes that it will reduce the intensity (or end) wokeness since it will no longer be justified. This also makes me think of the matter of embryo selection like was argued in a previous Aporia piece. If we could increase the intelligence of the next generation of blacks and latinos that way, that would go a long way even if other races were to employ such means.

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