What evidence exists that Blacks and Whites have equal intelligence?

The problem is that this discussion is not about personal political philosophies even if some posters on this thread are trying to inject it into the conversation. I'm not sure what you mean they are "finally being given the chance to evolve." Has something stifled their evolution for thousands of years? You clearly don't know what IQ measures and is by these kinds of comments.

Perhaps you may wish to read up some on the topic from a scholarly source and get back to us?

 

Nisbett said the author's arguments were pathetic when I showed him specific claims and dismissed it as trash.

As for your arguments you haven't provided a single shred of evidence for a genetic basis to IQ score variation between groups. All you do is reject my statements with the most ridiculous arguments. It's come to the point where I see the futility in debating you. Your defense of segregation was the last straw. You actually had the audacity to say that you have more faith in Black people than I do which is such a twisted and demented interpretation of my views that it should not be dignified with a response. I don't need to email anyone to debate you. All I need to do is ask you simple questions and watch you hang yourself with illogical arguments.

Question #1: What is your scientific basis for claiming there are genetically determined racial differences in intelligence?

Question #2: Why do Southeast Asians have lower IQs than Northeast Asians?

Let's go question by question here to test your intellectual honesty and the strength of your position.

If you have any questions for me related to this subject go ahead and ask.

 

>>>MOD EDIT Flamebait Removed<<< The obvious motivation for this line of argument is support for your racist ideological agenda. Why do you need to claim that Blacks or any other group are dumb in the first place? Why do you persist in making the argument? Stop trying to twist things to claim I am "Blaming Whitey" for Black failure. The standard of living of African-Americans has in fact been negatively effected by White racism throughout American history from slavery to Jim Crow to Segregation. That's not blaming anyone for any and all performance and behavioral problems within a community that's just a fact of history. There are other variables at play that have nothing to do with genetics.

Why do you insist on a genetic explanation when there is no evidence for one?

Genetic explanations for complex social behaviors and conditions is nothing more than a throw back to old racist theories of hierarchies in mental traits. >>>MOD EDIT Flamebait Removed<<<

>>>MOD EDIT Flamebait Removed<<<

>>>MOD EDIT Flamebait Removed<<<

I asked you a legitimate question and you dodged it. You want me to state my case scientifically? Here you go:

The hereditarian racialist position is based on fallacious reasoning because:

1. Within Group Heritability provides no implications for Between Group Heritability.

2. Environmental inequality between races means the hereditarian hypothesis is not testable (you can't control for racism).

3. Population Genetic studies indicate that human populations do not partition into biological races and the genetic variance between geographic populations cannot account for genetic differences in intelligence.

 

The simplest evidence against this obnoxious eugenics/Sanger claim is that blacks that come from Africa and the Caribbean tend to do better in American society in regards to education and income which is true of pretty much all immigrant groups at least from Asia, the Middle East and Africa. This leads to societal issues and not physical or economic variables. Black people in this country perform so badly because their social structure is in tatters in large part due to the democrats and the "War On Poverty".

 

You mean you don't understand what evidence is.

Heaps of evidence from adoption studies, adult IQ regression, toddler IQ, regression toward the mean, g-loaded cognitive tests and brain volume differences has been presented.

That is known as evidence to everyone with half a brain.

 

Well, so far, my conservative views are fully in line with modern biology, genetics, psychology and classical economics.

Why do so many liberals believe Whites and Blacks have equal cognitive ability without a shred of evidence?

Doesn't seem too intelligent to me.

 

I see what you're saying. I probably should not have used the word "evolve." From what I understand, although African Americans have been evolving for thousands of years, society has suppressed their potential.

 

Yes, I know that. I already quoted his dismissive brush-off cop out in which he made a personal swipe at Lee without defending his books and methods. He is STILL not defending his methods while he keeps using these methods regardless of how many people call him on it.

This is of course OK with you, however. Why? You dig what he says.

No - it's come to the point where you are unable to substantiate your environmentalist viewpoint with hard facts. I give you textbook quotations and quotations directly from peer-reviewed sources, and you give me these glib, vague, generalized brush offs and assertions of your points which I have already addressed. First Nisbett had his pants yanked down around his ankles, and now apparently you're hoping from an email from Graves to defend his claims as well.

You're doing a very poor job at defending your environmentalist position - but then again we already know how thin it is anyway.

There are no deflective questions to be posed here. You are going to respond to the points I have made - that I have made with direct sources throughout.

Defend your environmentalist position. No answering questions with questions. No responding with ad hominem abusive speculations about how I am supposedly a "racist" disciple of some group of people you dislike.

Defend your views. Defend your sources.

 

Strange that doesn't explain why adopted Black children have far lower IQ than adopted White and East Asian children.

I'm also curious why Black children have lower IQ than White children - each trending toward their respective race's mean IQ - from two sets of parents with equivalent IQ and background; known as regression toward the mean.

http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=348538

Also read how 3 year old Black and White children have different IQ scores:

http://www.politicalforum.com/showthread.php?t=350062

 

Rushton's research is racist pseudoscience. You don't have valid evidence you have a pile of garbage which has been refuted by several scholars from all the disciplines you claim support you. Your research is based primarily on the work of ONE scholar who conducted shoddy research outside of his discipline.

[video=youtube;GA0XLxG2o2E]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GA0XLxG2o2E[/video]

Sources that Refute Rushton:

- Brace, C.L. (1996) Racialism and Racist Agendas: Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective. J. Philippe Rushton American Anthropologist Volume 98, Issue 1, pages 176--177

- Brace, C.L. (1999) An Anthropological Perspective on "Race" and Intelligence: The Non-Clinal Nature of Human Cognitive Capabilities Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 55, No. 2, 3 JAR Distinguished Lectures (Summer, 1999), pp. 245-264

- Dickens, W and Flynn, J (2006) Black Americans Reduce the Racial
IQ Gap Evidence From Standardization Samples Psychological
Science Volume 17-Number 10

- Fairchild, H.H. Scientific Racism: The Cloak of Objectivity Journal of Social Issues, Vol, 47, No.3, 199J, pp, 101-115

- Graves, J.L. and A. Johnson (1995) The Pseudoscience of Psychometry and the Bell Curve, Myth and Realities: African Americans and the Measurement of Human Difference' The Journal of Negro Education 64(3): 277--94.

- Graves, J.L. (2002) 'The Misuse of Life History Theory: J.P. Rushton and the Pseudoscience of Racial Hierarchy', in J. Fish (ed.) Race and Intelligence: Separating Myth from Science. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

- Graves, J. L. (2002) What a tangled web he weaves: race, reproductive strategies and Rushton's life history theory. Anthropological Theory, 2: 131-54.

- Lewontin, R (1996) Review: Of Genes and Genitals
Reviewed work(s): Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective.
by J. Phillipe Rushton Transition No. 69 (1996), pp. 178-193
Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of the W.E.B. Du
Bois Institute

- Lieberman, L (2001) How "Caucasoids" Got Such Big Crania and Why They Shrank From Morton to Rushton Current Anthropology Volume 42, Number 1

- MacEachern, S (2006) Africanist Archaeology and Ancient IQ: Racial Science and Cultural Evolution in the Twenty-First Century World Archaeology, Vol. 38, No. 1, Race, Racism and Archaeology, pp. 72-92

- MacEachern, S (2011) The concept of race in contemporary
anthropology. In Race and ethnicity: the United States and the
world, 2nd edition, edited by Raymond Scupin, pp. 34-57. Prentice Hall,
New York.

- Nisbett, R.E. (2005) Heredity, Environment and Race Differences
in IQ A Commentary on Rushton and Jensen Psychology, Public
Policy, and Law Vol. 11, No. 2, 302--310

- Nisbett, R. E., Aronson, J., Blair, C., Dickens, W., Flynn, J., Halpern, D.
F., & Turkheimer, E. (2012) Intelligence: New Findings and Theoretical Developments. American Psychologist Vol 67(2), 130-159

- Sternberg, R.J., Grigorenko, E.L., Kidd, K.K. (2005) Intelligence,
Race, and Genetics, American Psychologist Vol. 60, No. 1, 46--59

- Wicherts, J.M. Borsboom, D., Dolan, C.V. (2010) Evolution, brain size, and the national IQ of peoples around 3000 years B.C Personality and Individual Differences 48 104--106

Nonsense. This review of Rushton's book exemplifies what most biologists and anthropologists have to say about his research. He doesn't fair well among geneticists, psychologists, sociologists or archeologists either.

Racialism and Racist Agendas

C. LORING BRACE University of Michigan Race, Evolution, and Behavior: A Life History Perspective. J. Philippe Rushton. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1995. 334 pp.



Virtually every kind of anthropologist may be put in the position of being asked to comment on what is contained in this book, so, whatever our individual specialty, we should all be prepared to discuss what it represents. Race, Evolution, and Behavior is an amalgamation of bad biology and inexcusable anthropology. It is not science but advocacy, and advocacy for the promotion of "racialism." Tzvetan Todorov explains "racialism," in contrast to "racism," as belief in the existence of typological essences called "races" whose characteristics can be rated in hierarchical fashion (On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993, p. 31). "Racism," then, is the use of racialist assumptions to promote social or political ends, a course that Todorov regards as leading to "particularly catastrophic results." Perpetuating catastrophe is not the stated aim of Rushton's book, but current promoters of racist agendas will almost certainly regard it as a welcome weapon to apply for their noxious purposes.


The author, J. Philippe Rushton, professor of psychology at the University of Western Ontario, received his doctorate in social psychology at the London School of Economics, focusing on social learning theory. He takes evident pride in claiming to represent the continuity of the "London School" tradition founded by Sir Francis Galton, identified as a "spiritual fascist" by the late Sir Peter Medawar (Times Literary Supplement, January 24, 1975 p. 83).


I mention this here because Rushton has tried to portray those who have criticized his assumptions as being "either unable or unwilling to separate their political agendas from the scholarly pursuit of truth" (p. 256). Whether or not he identifies with Galton in his guise as "spiritual fascist" or as "dilettantish racist" and founder of the "science" of eugenics (Stocking, Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology, New York: Free Press, 1968, p. 167), he has acknowledged the continued support of the Pioneer Fund, an organization noted for its promotion of Nazi racist propaganda in the 1930s and credited by Stefan Kuhl with continuing to provide backing for what amounts to a virtual who's who of scientific racism (The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism, New York: Oxford, 1994, p. 9). While he accuses his opponents of having political instead of scientific motives, clearly it is Rushton's position that is based on the politically secured status quo rather than on science it is his own stance, and not that of his critics, that can be characterized as a manifestation of "political correctness" (American Psychologist 50:725-726, 1995).


Rushton starts with an a priori faith in the existence of "the races," of which there are basically three: "Caucasoid," "Mongoloid," and "Negroid." His justification for this is the undocumented assertion that this is how "a team of extraterrestrial scientists" would perceive things if they should arrive on earth "to study human beings" (p. 1). No criteria are ever set up to decide how these groups are established or what traits should be used in determining membership. This means that his acceptance of "race" is ultimately arbitrary and subjective. When "the races" are compared in terms of appearance and performance in the quantities of uncritically collected data assembled in his book, "racial" identity is determined by "self-assess- ment." Rushton's basic units, then, are rooted in folk belief and not in biology. The possibility that the vast majority of the human biological traits that have been shaped by evolution are clinally and independently distributed in association with the relevant selective forces is never once considered, and the word cline is simply missing.

One running concern is how these folk categories compare on such matters as intelligence and reproductive behavior. Sex rears its head again and again in the discussion, with much of the information on comparative sexual performance based on "self-assessment." Rushton is obviously much taken with the "salience of... buttocks and breasts" (pp. 167, 231) as measures of sexuality, although there is a dearth of objectively collected data. More telling is his evident fascination with the "Negroid" penis as an index of "potency" and libido. In his earlier publications on these matters, his information came from "self-assess-ment," but he has bolstered the "conclusions" at which he had previously arrived by reference to the alleged "data" gathered by a 19th-century figure identified only as a "French Army Surgeon."

These were presented in a two-volume exercise in ethnocentric prurience (Untrodden Fields of Anthropology, Paris: Librairie de Medecine, Folklore et Anthropologie, 1898 [reprinted by Krieger, Huntington, NY, 1972]) in which the author discourses at length on the size, angle, and hardness of the erections of males from all over the world. Not a single measurement is recorded, and there is no mention of how the redoubt-able chirugien acquired all that "information." Oddly enough, although Rushton cites this source for his conviction that relative sexual potency is demonstrated by comparative penile size, this was not the opinion of the good surgeon himself. It was his view that "the testicles...are the true index of manly vigour," and that these were of relatively lesser size in "the African Negro" (1898, 2:429).


The main message of Rushton's book is that African ancestry ensures a deficiency of "intelligence, law abidingness, sexual restraint, and social organizational skills" (p. 236), and that these are all genetically fixed. There is no hint at the nature and complexity of the interactions between genetic and environmental factors that influence their course of development. Correlations of 0.16 and 0.18 between head size and IQ are claimed to be "significant" (p. 40) and therefore an indication of cause and effect. The fact that correlation does not necessarily indicate cause is never mentioned, and none of the potentially relevant developmental conditions are ever considered. The focus is entirely on genetic input with no consideration for an environmental contribution. Like so many racialists, Rushton stresses high "heritability" without ever pointing out that the statistic actually is an index of the proportion of genetic and environmental input, and that it is never a fixed quantity. A high figure indicates a highly favorable environment for the development of the trait in question.


The book clearly qualifies as "bad biology," but consider some of what is passed off as anthropology. In addition to a roster of undocumented assertions and elementary errors in fact too extensive to enumerate here, we are told that, in Africa, "biological parents do not expect to be the major providers for their children" (p. 156) and that "it is almost certain that only evolutionary (and thereby genetic) theories can explain it" (p. 264). Here Rushton has taken the r/K generalizations applied by evolutionary ecologists for between-species comparisons and applied them to pass judgment on human "races." The slightly shorter African gestation length and slightly higher rate of twinning qualifies "Negroids" as committed to the r-strategy of producing offspring in quantity without much care given to their future survival. Northern "races," in contrast, favor the K-strategy of giving more care to fewer children. None of this is based on any data derived from realized-reproduction figures, and one would never guess from it that there are more than three times as many Chinese as Africans in the world.


The background for Rushton's approach is in his assumption that the African savanna home of human origins provided an easily acquired but unpredictable subsistence (p. 231). This supposed lack of predictability meant that there were fewer rewards for thinking ahead, and, besides, African savanna-dwellers "were largely scavengers" (p. 228 ). Presumably such conditions led to the mindless rabbit-strategy of child production that he believes is typical of those who have continued to live in Africa. For the real hunters in the north, by contrast, life was harsher but highly predictable-conditions that favored the development of intelligence and attention to child care. Not a single study dealing with the problems of human survival either in the arctic or the tropics is cited, and these claims are nothing more than manifestations of sheer unwarranted prejudice.

Elsewhere Rushton has been quoted as saying, "I really do believe I have made a major breakthrough in understanding human evolution" (The Globe and Mail, February 4, 1989, p. A6). In fact, he has done nothing of the sort. At best, it is a recycling of an old and oft-repeated version of the kind of creation myth exemplified by the Garden of Eden story in the Judeo-Christian Bible. From the perspective of an anthropologist, the kindest thing that can be said about this is that it can be regarded as a classic manifestation of what Wiktor Stoczkowski calls "anthropologie naive," (Anthropologie savante: de 'origine de l'homme, de l'imagination et des idees regues, Paris: CNRS Editions, 1994). A less forgiving reader will recognize this as an attempt to provide a "scientific" justification for the repetition of virtually all major themes of "racial" denigration that have accumulated in the writings of the Western world since the beginning of the Renaissance. Quite evidently, it is a manifestation of blatant bigotry.

 

Why do so many conservatives and white nationalists think they have IQ's above room temperature? Because there is no evidence to support that.

 

I disagree. In the early 20th century, the black family unit was far healthier and scores were still in the same general range as today as far as I have seen. It is since later on that the Flynn Effect was supposedly closing the gap. The Flynn Effect showed all groups making IQ score gains in the 20th century, not just black folks, thus you can't say that blacks being freed of some external oppressive force is the reason for any gains they made. Across the board nutrition is a far likelier cause.

I have no question that the political left has caused great damage to the black community. They have had the black community in their ugly sights to mold and use as a weapon against the establishment for nearly 100 years. As such, blacks were probably the first and largest dumping ground of political myth and general bull(*)(*)(*)(*). "Free love" is something that really seemed to have caught on in the black community, especially, and it's left a trail of destruction in its wake. I fail to understand why the black community has allowed itself to be so influenced by outsiders. That's always a suicidal thing to do.

 

You seem to have your arguments in a set strategy of approach. I addressed weeks ago with you why invoking Suzuki is a fraud. Same reason it is dishonest to invoke Graves. It's not his field and in the case of Suzuki, at least he admits as much. I fail to see how repeatedly posting a video of this guy engaging in an unscientific scream-fest like a woman with a hormonal disorder validates any of your points.

>>>MOD EDIT Flamebait Removed<<< I'm wondering why you're going about sitting on this moral pedestal pointing fingers at others?

"Your research is based primarily on the work of ONE scholar conducted shoddy research outside of his discipline"? Your argument is based primarily on the work of one scholar who conducted shoddy research IN his discipline. And look at this - you just cited Nisbett as a source as to how Rushton is a fraud. You're as dishonest as Nisbett is.

At least Rushton responded to his critics and defended his work, unlike some people - including YOU.

You are knowingly using a poor, discredited source as a means of attacking someone's work. This is deceptive and thus your only possible means of getting a win in your discussion with this person is trying to capitalize on his ignorance of the quality of Nisbett's work.

Lulz.

 

Funny, I thought Lieberman and Tobias were the ones refuted, and Rushton corroborated, by modern science for rejecting differences in Black and White brain volume.

Still lying?

 

So how exactly is it that you rationalize IQ equality between population groups in spite of decades of evidence to the contrary, while you assert that there is proven, bona fide IQ inequality between political philosophies based on a single web link?

 

There's a difference between proving a negative and supporting a position flying in the face of a consensus of studies.

Get back to me when you can show a brain volume difference between White nationalists and White non-nationalists, for starters.

 

Jay is trying to invoke a discredited favorite source of his again: Nisbett. Nisbett has been repeatedly outed by his colleagues and his position is so shoddy that he isn't capable of penning a response to their criticisms.

Read through this: http://laplab.ucsd.edu/articles2/Lee2010.pdf

Nisbett's work is a study in academic incompetence if not outright fraud.

 

Please folks, address the topic and do so respectfully.

Shangrila
PF Moderator

 

I will, respectfully, ask Empress to answer my on-topic questions:

Question #1: What is your scientific basis for claiming there are genetically determined racial differences in intelligence?

Question #2: Why do Southeast Asians have lower IQs than Northeast Asians?

 

1) Brain volume differences

2) Brain volume differences

 

1) Refuted

2) Do you even have a source for this claim? If Northeast Asians and Southeast Asians are the same race what caused there to be variation in brain volume within their race?

 

Lieberman refutes nothing and just churns out some obfuscating semantically confused garbage about "hierarchies", misrepresenting Darwin in the process. The man is a classic Jew. Races differ in brain volume, especially races below the major race level. There is of course variation with major races. Is that true or false? Don't copy paste, just answer the question. I don't even consider raw brain volume to demonstrate very much. Clearly a lot of the variation is thermoregulatory and in non cognitive matter. However we see the South Chinese have larger brains and higher IQs than South Asian Indians on the same latitude. So some of the variation which is correlated to race and not latitude is probably in cognitive matter. And some of the correlation to latitude also co-correlates with race, since race itself is correlated to latitude.

You seem to be confused about the race concept. Mongoloid is a race and it split into smaller races, such as South East Asian. There is variation within races. Did anybody claim otherwise or are you attacking a strawman? Please reference anybody claiming otherwise.

 

You seem to claim that as many races exist as you want to exist without citing any sort of objective criteria for racial classification.

How many Mongoloid sub-races are there and how do you distinguish them?

I'm calling BS on all of these arguments. You guys are just inventing reasons to claim your precious racial pattern is consistent when it's not.

 

There are approximately 2 billion East Asian sub races.

 

Actually you DO need to which is why you've been doing it with me for about the past month. That failing, you are now dropping the argument for environmental differences in IQ because you cannot defend it lacking not only the personal expertise but also the scientific consensus in favor of trying to put me on the defensive by making claims I said things I never said and trying to ask me a slurry-bomb of off-topic questions on a topic of your personal choosing.

So you're throwing in the towel then?

If you're going to drop the environmental hypothesis like this, you can at least apologize for blaming white people without cause.