White Europeans "less intelligent," blogger claims
by tdaxp ~ October 17th, 2007
Via Sean Meade and Kottke, the headline “Black people ‘less intelligent’ scientist claims” attempts to summarize this:
[Discoverer of DNA James Watson] says that he is “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really”, and I know that this “hot potato” is going to be difficult to address.
Readers of this blog will be familiar with this line of criticism. I have brought it up on June 18th, August 24th, September 6th, September 9th, and September 27th.
Now, Jim Watson may not be a “profoundly evil man,” but he is a bomb thrower more interested in outraging his enemies than in converting them to friends. (He shares this traits with Richard Dawkins, a man he agrees with any many issues.)
Therefore, I won’t address his anecdotal “evidence” or personal behavior, but Watson is getting at the fact that there are multiple standard deviations between general intelligence in certain populations. For instance, each group in the following list has a mean general intelligence about one standard deviation higher than the group next on the list
- Ashkenazi Jews
- White Europeans
- African Americans
- Black Africans
It appears, though there is not conclusive proof, that environment, culture, epigenetics (maternal cytoplasm), and genetics (Watson’s DNA) all play a role in the difference. (Of course, there are confounding factors which may or may not be relevent — Black Africans possess the greatest in-group genetic diversity on the planet, while Ashkenazi Jews are genetically one of the most uniform populations.) But the cause is less important than the fact, which is that these large differences in general intelligence exist now.
Two questions, for those of us living in the developed world, are
- Should the free exercise of a citizen’s rights depend on their ancestral group’s mean general intelligence
- Should the free exercise of a citizen’s rights depend on his general intelligence
- Should nation building efforts in other countries depend on the mean general intelligence in that country.
The first two questions are normative, whiel the third is technical. The answers, of course, are
- No
- Sometimes
- Yes
gnxp has a good take on this pseudo-controversy, and also (somewhat relatedly) about inbreeding among Samaritans.
October 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
fl,
“I still hold that the concept of “general intelligence” is socially constructed according to those “intelligences” that have been historically valued by Western Enlightenment culture.”
Indeed, that's nearly what James Watson is saying, too.
Better verbal and logical reasoning ability, as measured in general intelligence tests, are the single best predictor of a range of outcomes in the developed world. There is nothing transcendentally ideal about a higher “general intelligence” — it just seems to be an adaptive solution to the question of how to live well.
There appears to be a negative correlation nowadays between general intelligence and reproductive success, but such is a very recent phenomonon [1]. If one assumes that the roots of Western culture are old, one might imagine that Europeans have been existing in a social reality that makes general intelligence a good bet for passing on their genes.
But we know that this hasn't always been true. There's a very long term (on the scale of thousands of years) decline in human brain size, which implies a very long term decline in general intelligence. Further, different societies exist in very different environments (different pathogens, different economic-reward systems, different climates, etc.) where different trains may be more useful,
If so much in our world varies, why should we expect that evolution would have fixed mean of means of general intelligence (all other things being equal) within, say, one standard deviation?
sonofsamphm1c
Could you rephrase?
Curtis,
If you're asking what general intelligence tells us, it predicts such factors as income (on an individual level) and civil society (on a between-nations level), among many others.
That said, in social science all statistics are important only for explaining variation in a population. An important tool, but a limited one.
Razib,
Thank you for the correction. You are right, of course.
Jeffrey,
“As Dawkins and his film crew were packing up to leave, there was a brief altercation in the car parking lot. According to Dawkins, Haggard ordered Dawkins's crew off his land with the words, “You called my children animals,” and threatened legal action and confiscation of their recording equipment. Later, Dawkins speculated that Haggard was upset because Dawkins had talked about evolution in the interview.” [1]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Haggard
October 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Clam, not claim. Sorry.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:00 am
I still hold that the concept of “general intelligence” is socially constructed according to those “intelligences” that have been historically valued by Western Enlightenment culture.
Though I do like that your post suggests I'm one standard deviation more intelligent than you are.
October 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
The problem lies in trying to build a universal statistically. What do the statistics actually tell us, what meaning can be gleaned, and why wouldn't a statistical “establishment” of a universal (or that least the attempt of such) actually be more relevant for describing the cross-domain milieu, i.e. the general social environment, than for describing actual people as beings?
October 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
For instance, each group in the following list has a mean general intelligence about one standard deviation higher than the group next on the list
re: askhenazi jews, the range of results are on the order of 0.5 standard deviation units to 1 deviation unit above the white gentile mean. the results are contingent upon the sort of intelligence test. jews tend to do very well (1 standard deviation above) on verbally oriented tests, but far less well on those more geared toward visuo-spatial aspects.
October 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
How does he share that trait with Richard Dawkins? Last time I checked, Dawkins has some evangelical friends, most notably Ted Haggard, and considering that Ted Haggard represents one of the more rational demographs of the evangelical community I think Dawkins is perfectly capable to reach across to those that don't condemn him as the anti-christ, even though he doesn't waste time with those who do, and neither would I.
I think, though, that both you and I can agree that the man makes for a damn good episode of South Park.
I SHALL CRUSH YOU LIKE A CLAIM ON MY BELLY!
October 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
sonofsamphm1c, now that you've clarified your first comment as an ad hominem attack, what value does it add to the conversation?
October 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
[Editor's note: sonofsamphm1c's comments on this thread are off-topic personal attacks, and have been deleted.]
October 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
They were not off topic. They were not personal attacks.
I called Charles Murray dumb for burning a cross when he was in high school, for using an implausible excuse for his his youthful action, and for not divulging the cross burning incident in his books about IQ and race. He might even agree with me.
You are way off base.
October 18th, 2007 at 12:00 am
“… They were not personal attacks.
I called Charles Murray dumb…”
?
October 19th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Well, what if Charles Murray (whoever he is) IS dumb? I mean this thread IS about intelligence, it seems that Charles Murray's intelligence would be relevant.
I agree with fl.
Also I'm interested in where the data for these claims come from. For instance, if you test a sub-set of Africans who come from rural villages by giving them scantron tests, and then declare them less intelligent because they did poorly (because they had never seen scantron before, whereas Western students are educated to do well on scantron tests but learn little else), I think that data is totally useless.
Somebody should test to see if there are differences in intelligence between rural Americans, suburban Americans and urban Americans, or the difference in intelligence between various states. Because while I think the results of those tests would have little correspondence to reality, I bet they would still fit my preconceived notions and be useful if I wanted to denigrate rural Southerners, for example.
October 19th, 2007 at 12:00 am
if you use this as a justification for imperialism, not only are you saying that, for example, Africans are less intelligent in general than white europeans or whatever (which i do not believe, i agree with fl and adrian about the testing), but also that there arent even a _handful_ of smart ones there that can run the country themselves…
frankly that strikes me as absurd.
October 19th, 2007 at 12:00 am
“if you use this as a justification for imperialism”
See, this is something I don't understand about this whole thing. Who said it was a justification of anything? Why would it be used as a justification for anything? Data and facts don't do anything of themselves. It's what you try to extrapolate from them that creates the problem. Don't put the cart before the horse.
Me thinks some people are revealing their own inate biases(the smart should rule!) too. There's a German saying I learned as a kid that speaks to that, roughly translated, “The dumbest farmer grows the thickest potatoes.” Brains has its place, but I'd rather have a dumb president who doesn't f chit up than a Rhodes scholar who tinkers with everything and screws it all up.
Give intelligence the due it deserves and no more. Really, how important is raw intelligence to good governance? Sounds more like an issue of whether one is pragmatic or not than one of 'is he smart or not.'
I really do hate it when people start projecting all kinds of things. Leave it as it is, and don't insert your own pet theories into it. Let science be the the neutral thing it should be and not your tool for pushing political beliefs.
October 24th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Adrian,
I can provide you for a source of the data tables [1], but clearly the methods by which the data is extracted matters a great deal, as well.
As to the South, I recall reading that lower southern IQ might be explained by higher pathogenic loads (a warmer and wetter environment hosts more parasites and diseases, etc.). I can't find the link, though.
Pat,
First, you seem to attack a fact (IQ varies) by its implications (the fact may be used by imperialists).
Second, you make a claim (“if you use this as a justification for imperialism” … “you [are] saying that” … “that there arent even a _handful_ of smart ones there that can run the country themselves…”) without providing any logical or factual support.
Ry,
I agree.
That said, intelligence does matter on a macro-level [2].
[1] http://www.isteve.com/IQ_Table.htm
[2] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/06/18/global-guerrillaism-or-idiocy.html