A better debate would be on what measure would actually work best to reduce the environmental pressures on African-Americans.

“On a previous comment you suggested that using experts in a field was a cop out appealing to a higher authority, ignoring that authority equals decades of experience and peer review. However, in this post you yourself relied upon people that you tout as experts in the field.”

I was unaware I did this. Could you point out where I made my mistake, so I could fix it?

“Maybe in the future (regarding a previous thread) you should refrain from using Wikipedia as a source.

A fair criticism. Wikipedia is a good second source, but obviously is not a proper primary source. Regarding the specific claims I made in the other thread [1], both Lewontin's fallacy [2] and the haplogroup claims [3] are available online.

Michael,

“True, but some of the studies Saletan cited did show improvements based on improvements to the environment. As studies of the environment's effects reveal what works, that data can be turned into plans to give more children that environment.”

Very good. A famous example of this is early Chinese-American IQ in the US seemed to be below average, where now the situation is reversed. Other immigrant groups have made similar gains.

It strikes me that in order to believe that the same thing is going on because of the “legacy of racism,” one has to believe that the living conditions of a black child in a high SES family are roughly equivelent to growing up in third-world conditions. Maybe — I believe that Flynn does think that African-Americna culture is that bad — but it seems a stretch.

“Think about it this way. What better way to challenge the hard-core environmental idealogues than to deal with the subject on their own terms? If they want to argue that race-based affirmative action works, fine, let them present their evidence. You'll present your evidence that it doesn't work and that other changes work better. As that debate is settled, and more hard data comes in regarding genetic issues, the genetics debate will become easier to have.”

Indeed.

Unfortunately, like the anti-scientists on the right, the public face of the debate is controlled by naive politicos. Take Head Start, for instance. The evidence is overwhelming that it does not work. Gains are made for a few years and then rapidly lost. The heridtarian answer is that peer socialization, etc., is so important, unless a very large fraction of the population goes through head start it can't work for anyone. A more biological explanation is that head start produces an artificial increase in g at a time when g is most open to temporary manipulations. Yet the program is still adored by Democratic activists in the same way that abstinence-only education is adored by Republican activists.

“Non-rhetorical question: how do you know that APA task forces are politically created?”

The American Psychological Association (I'm not a member, but that's out of cheapness — I probably should join) is a roughly democratic professional/academic association. The APA hosts a huge yearly annual convention, plus smaller local and specialized meetings throughout the world. The APA divides itself into specialities, such as cognitive psychological, educational psychology, etc., with their own journals and other activities. It's pretty well run

An excellent overview of the APA's governing structure is available from the APA itself. [4] Essentially, the membership elects a Council of Representatives. The Concil selects a Board of Directors. “Task forces” are then created by the Board of Representatives.

[1] http://www.tdaxp.com/archive/2007/12/02/a-pagan-intuition.html
[2] http://www.goodrumj.com/Edwards.pdf
[3] http://www.le.ac.uk/genetics/maj4/JoblingTS.03.NRG.Review.pdf
[4] http://www.apa.org/about/structure.html

On a previous comment you suggested that using experts in a field was a cop out appealing to a higher authority, ignoring that authority equals decades of experience and peer review. However, in this post you yourself relied upon people that you tout as experts in the field.

This quasi-racism in the face of scientific facts is appauling. Before you say that this is an unfair ad hominem attack – duh.

…Maybe in the future (regarding a previous thread) you should refrain from using Wikipedia as a source.

True, but some of the studies Saletan cited did show improvements based on improvements to the environment. As studies of the environment's effects reveal what works, that data can be turned into plans to give more children that environment.

Think about it this way. What better way to challenge the hard-core environmental idealogues than to deal with the subject on their own terms? If they want to argue that race-based affirmative action works, fine, let them present their evidence. You'll present your evidence that it doesn't work and that other changes work better. As that debate is settled, and more hard data comes in regarding genetic issues, the genetics debate will become easier to have.

Non-rhetorical question: how do you know that APA task forces are politically created?

“What I wonder is why people care whether it's hereditary or not? If the environmentalists are correct, certain actions by society should eliminate the gap between races over the course of a few generations.”

Knowledge of DNA's component for group difference lets us guess what will happen if the government attempts to equalize environments between the races. If heredity plays no role in group differences, then equal environments should generate equal outcomes. If genes do matter here, however, outcomes may become more unequal as environments equalize.

“If the hereditarians are correct, those same actions by society might STILL be good ideas– by reducing the number of factors pushing black people into poverty, fewer will be poor.”

They might, or they might not.

If IQ is a function of SES (which some campus marxist-types believe), then affirmative action is a relatively straight-forward way of equalizing general intelligence between the races: there may be some injustice in the short run, but a generation later you will hae a black technocratic class that is self-sustaining.

If, however, black children of high SES parents do less well on intelligence tests than white children of low SES parents, affirmative action is not serving the goal of creating a black technocratic class.

“I won't comment on Franz Boas' personal beliefs. Logically, of course, an argument to authority is a logical fallacy.”

I think I was unclear. I apologize.

I recognize that citing Boas words as authoritative is a logical fallacy. I stand by that.

Did I make a similar fallacy in my comment? That is, did I cite an “authority” rather than evidence for some claim?

In the first, a genetic clustering analysis correctly predicts self-described race, with an error rate of something between 1 and 10 in 1,00. [1]

In the second, the degree to which races are under different selection pressure is described. [2]

Do you want more? 10 articles? 20? Does the weight of this evidence not matter, because you are looking for something different? (For instance, do you disagree with the principles behind clustering analysis, or… ? )

[1] http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1196372
[2] http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0040072

I never said that there weren't variations between groups – so what are you trying to prove to me?

I have said that races are predominately a culture creation, but I also said that there were distinct variations. Your evidence doesn't counter my thoughts, rather it agrees with them.