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Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
PZ Myers is a biologist and associate professor at the University of Minnesota, Morris.
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Van Inwagen "is a self-servingly selective modal skeptic who makes demands of the atheologian that he does not of the theist. Theism makes many modal claims, for example that it is possible for an immaterial being to create worldly things ex nihilo by the mere act of willing them, that it is possible that certain purported defenses are true, but one does not find van Inwagen extending his modal 'modesty' to them."
Richard M. Gale, "Some Difficulties in Theistic Treatments of Evil" The Evidential Argument from Evil (ed. Daniel Howard-Snyder, Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 212-13.
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Category: Genetics • Humor
Posted on: December 28, 2007 8:27 AM, by PZ Myers
Next time I'm told by some "scientific" racist that he has evidence backing up his contention that certain races are inferior, I'm just going to tell him that there is one more experiment he has to do.
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Comments
Amen!!!
Posted by: Ebo Tebo | December 28, 2007 8:36 AM
Don't forget to put your test subjects in polluted inner-city environments where they and their kids can get lead poisoning, among other things. Long-term lead exposure has been shown to zap IQ points.
Posted by: Phoenix Woman | December 28, 2007 8:43 AM
Get James Watson to try this test lol.
Posted by: Steven | December 28, 2007 9:02 AM
Don't be ridiculous. Centuries of slavery, poverty, oppression, and lack of education are an easy hole to climb out of. It's not that they're unintelligent - it's just that they're not really trying.
Just kidding, I was imitating my stepmom.
Posted by: Stephen | December 28, 2007 9:07 AM
Succinct and entertaining, PZ. Sometimes you hit the nail right on the on its pin-sized head.
Posted by: Aaron Baker | December 28, 2007 9:10 AM
I have no truck with racists, nor with those people who are blindly 'anti racist'.
To adopt the axiom that no race is inferior to others is a fine and civilised political or philosophical worldview, but to assume that there are no differences between people sharing different genetic clusters is just poor science. We know that there are geographically identifiable demes that are better fitted to their local environment (such as the inhabitants of the high altitude Tibetan plateau) than demes elsewhere.
The question is how to ensure that individuals are appreciated for their own qualities, and not for the average qualities of any particular genetic background.
Posted by: DiscoveredJoys | December 28, 2007 9:30 AM
'Hundreds of years' of slavery? Most African-American schoolchildren and twenty somethings have not lived under slavery or Jim Crow. [And African-Americans descended from more recent African immigrants also show low IQs.] So what's the non-genetic transmission mechanism? I can think of several:
1. People with lower IQ, education, and SES will be more likely to be unhealthy or abuse alcohol or drugs during pregnancy.
2. Ditto for poor nutrition, lack of breast-feeding, etc.
3. Poor intellectual-social stimulation from parents
My question then would be why do the children of African-American upper middle class families of college-educated professionals still show the gap vis a vis the median family in those circumstances, and a much larger gap relative to Jewish or Chinese families?
Also, I was struck by this recent article in Scientific American, which begins and ends by condemning the 'simplistic' argument of Larry Summers, but then goes on to make exactly the points Summers made in his talk!
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=sex-math-and-scientific-achievement
Posted by: Puzzled | December 28, 2007 10:04 AM
*looks askance at Puzzled*
I tend to agree with DiscoveredJoys here, and over at Sandwalk you can find Larry Moran saying the same thing whenever possible. But there may be good reasons to suspect that, whatever differences among human gene pools/"demes" persist, and whichever such differences are correlated with geographic variation in skin color and phenotypic details of head-hair and facial features, genes that influence "intelligence" should be less likely to vary among groups than other genes with observable phenotypic effect.
If enough of us try the Summon Greg Laden incantation, he will show up and explain.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 28, 2007 10:29 AM
It seems obvious to me that genetic differences could exist in the area of intelligence, I'm just not sure how to measure them. It seems easier for things like skin color and shoe size, but intelligence doesn't seem to offer a single scale I can discern.
Proving that individual examples don't follow statistical norms is as easy as comparing Neil DeGrasse Tyson with Paris Hilton.
Posted by: Ray S. | December 28, 2007 10:50 AM
I would just like to point out that there's nothing intrinsically unscientific about racist theories.
Posted by: antihumanist | December 28, 2007 11:08 AM
It seems conceivable to me that there could be a genuine, biological correlation with IQ test results. It begs the question, though, what's being measured?
Posted by: jeffk | December 28, 2007 11:20 AM
Claiming that aptitude tests are inherently biased is nothing more than question begging. Where is the evidence for such a claim other than that the results don't match a desired world view?
This reminds me of the arguments theists make regarding the consequences of non-belief.
Posted by: Ten of Swords | December 28, 2007 11:34 AM
Do older silblings score higher on IQ tests than younger siblings?
Posted by: Steven Carr | December 28, 2007 11:53 AM
Hmmm... didn't we do that experiment already, in Ireland, for about 700 years? Starvation, no education, attempt to destroy the culture and language, execute or expel the troublemakers, and so on?
Posted by: bill r | December 28, 2007 12:05 PM
bill r,
According to "IQ and the Wealth of Nations" Ireland has a mean IQ of 93.
Posted by: Puzzled | December 28, 2007 12:18 PM
Are any other white people besides myself experiencing the same lack of outrage at the fact East Asians seem to score better then us on IQ tests?
The thought that it may have some genetic component doesn't seem to perturb me very much.
Posted by: antihumanist | December 28, 2007 12:30 PM
Since someone referenced a Sciam article here is one from a few weeks ago.
The Choke Factor: How Stereotypes Affect Performance
http://science-community.sciam.com/thread.jspa?threadID=300005419
Daoud
Posted by: Daoud | December 28, 2007 12:32 PM
antihumanist #16:
Malcolm Gladwell addresses the East Asian IQ thing; he references the work of Flynn. (Scroll down; it's towards the bottom.) It appears that we East Asians do not have higher IQs as a whole when socioeconomic factors are taken into account.
Posted by: j | December 28, 2007 12:38 PM
My figurative god. Some of the comments at Salon are just ridiculous. Example:
Posted by: j | December 28, 2007 12:58 PM
So are we saying that environment can't affect genome? Here is a report proposing just that:
Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence
Posted by: Mark | December 28, 2007 12:58 PM
Jeffk,
"It seems conceivable to me that there could be a genuine, biological correlation with IQ test results"
'Conceivable' seems to be a bit of an understatement. We know from twin studies that genes matter enormously in determining IQ scores of people in all races. The controversial question (for historical and political reasons) is about racial differences.
Posted by: Puzzled | December 28, 2007 1:04 PM
I would just like to point out that there's nothing intrinsically unscientific about racist theories.
They are when there's no science involved.
Posted by: Graculus | December 28, 2007 1:29 PM
Given the Flynn effect, I'm not entirely sure what it would mean for one race to be genetically inferior on IQ tests--is the average American now genetically superior to one two generations ago? Because the average American now would score something like 30 points higher on an IQ test than an average American two generations ago.
I found Watson's remarks quite puzzling, since he is a noted geneticist, and most genetically distinct subpopulations of humans all have black skin. Two arbitrary Africans are more genetically different (on average) than two arbitrary people anywhere else in the world. So if IQ is a genetically controlled quantity, then we would expect the smartest people and the dumbest people to be Africans.
Posted by: Lucas | December 28, 2007 1:46 PM
I don't think we need to worry about this. According to my uncle (who is a devout, well studied chistian) all the inferior races like blacks will be healed when god comes again. They'll get white skin and be just as smart as white folk...as long as they gave their heart to jebus in time and acted like normal folk. Why are we wasting time on these sort of questions?
Posted by: Dahan | December 28, 2007 1:50 PM
Scientific racism, like creationism, has had chance after chance after chance to provide sound, properly supported arguments to back up its claims and produced nothing that draws more than sighs and eyerolls from people who know anything about biology and are not already convinced of its claims. In expecting to be taken seriously now, after more than two centuries of confirmation bias and question-begging, it is, like creationism, the equivalent of a football team that's never won a game demanding a place at the superbowl.
Posted by: Azkyroth | December 28, 2007 1:56 PM
Not this again. Didn't Orac just cover this?
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/12/skepticism_and_the_scientific_consensus.php
Posted by: divalent | December 28, 2007 1:59 PM
All you have to do is look around and study history and its clear that white people are genetically predisposed to feel superior to everyone else and oppress them. Right?
Posted by: craig | December 28, 2007 2:21 PM
Claiming that aptitude tests are inherently biased is nothing more than question begging. Where is the evidence for such a claim other than that the results don't match a desired world view?
Well, there's the fact that many questions are based in cultural knowledge, so anyone not of that particular culture is at a disadvantage. There's the fact that IQ tests rely on particular types of questions, which favor people who are used to those kinds of questions. There's the fact that anyone can be coached to do better on said IQ tests. There's the fact that subsequent testing usually increases scores, indicating that familiarity with the test is a factor. There's the fact that entire industries exist solely to help people improve their scores on those kinds of tests, and their methods work. There's the fact that a lot of types of intelligence aren't shown on those tests at all.
What other kinds of evidence do you want?
Posted by: Carlie | December 28, 2007 2:36 PM
What happened to the newer posts?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | December 28, 2007 2:41 PM
"Well, there's the fact that many questions are based in cultural knowledge, so anyone not of that particular culture is at a disadvantage." - This is an old canard. Test-makers and psychometricians have manipulated the content of aptitude measures up and down the road.
"There's the fact that IQ tests rely on particular types of questions, which favor people who are used to those kinds of questions." What about matrix-type tests that present novel question scenarios?
"There's the fact that anyone can be coached to do better on said IQ tests." Are they? And can someone be coach in a reaction-time test?
And what do you mean by "a lot of types of intelligence"? This sounds like Gardnerian co-opting.
Posted by: Ten of Swords | December 28, 2007 2:45 PM
You know, there's always 2 ways to look at experiments, instead of breeding White you could instead breed Africans (not that I'm advocating it). It seems that the British have been breed for the merchant class before the Enlightenment, so that post-Enlightenment Britain was filled with "merchants". Maybe that's the cause of the discrepancy.
Posted by: Jan C | December 28, 2007 2:55 PM
Actually, assuming the opposite would be poor science. According to the null hypothesis, there's no reason to believe that there are intrinsic genetic discrepancies in intelligence between the races (for however you choose to define "intelligence" and "the races") until proven otherwise. And we haven't proven otherwise.
....
Go read The Mismeasure of Man. We'll be here when you're done.
Also, I'd like to second what Azkyroth said at #25. People who bitch and moan about those evil liberals adopting an orthodoxy of all the races being exactly alike have no notion of history and seem to think that these issues arise in a vacuum (and apparently do so every other year). It was actually the standard theory to believe that blacks were inherently less intelligent than whites for scores of years. And guess what? After we began to learn new things, we found that the evidence didn't support that theory and so we rejected it. That's sound science. Stubbornly clinging to outdated, rejected theories and insisting that we answer your "gotcha" questions as though they're something new... well, that's what creationists do.
Well, yes and no. Here, I'll let Professor C.H. Dalton explain:
Whites hate all other races, but it is only because, in truth, they hate themselves; it is the white man's racial self-loathing that feeds his inveterate racism. We always hate most about other people what we most despise in ourselves. So the white man ("The Man") may enslave entire peoples and colonize their homelands, but he does so with his face hidden under a white hood, and at night he cries himself to sleep.
P.S., buy the book.
Posted by: Skemono | December 28, 2007 3:00 PM
The biggest problems with the racist hypothesis that "black people" are a homogenous group that is on average significantly less intelligent than "white people" are A) the lack of a plausible mechanism - seriously, for you racists, what characteristics of "black people's" environment would you point to as evolutionary pressures (or lack thereof) that would produce lower intelligence? (By contrast, the environmental hypothesis for average "black" IQ scores has a well developed set of plausible mechanisms, all with significant degrees of evidential support, as I understand it). This becomes even more significant when we consider that the question in A is "wrong" - "black people" are not a homogenous group, and there is no one environment that can be pointed out as "theirs."
"Black people" as a group encompasses multiple populations historically located on three different continents. Even if we restrict ourselves to African "black people", as has been pointed out the range of genetic diversity within Africa dwarfs the average difference between any arbitrary African and a person from elsewhere. Similarly, the range of environments and societies found within Africa is enormous, from the Sahara to the jungles to the grasslands. What hypothetical selective pressures, in such a situation, would produce a lower innate intelligence in all these genetically distinct populations, in all these different habitats, relative to those of Europeans and East Asians? What challenges would these other groups have had to meet that would explain this?
The least implausible mechanism for an inherently lower intelligence in American descendents of Africans would be artificial selection during the slavery era. Even this, however, is highly problematic, for various reasons including the likely difficulty of carrying out such intelligence assessments on an uneducated population in such horrible living conditions, as well as other factors. However, it fails as an explanation of the social and behavioral characteristics of black Americans today.
Logically, we would expect that if slaves had been selectively bred for behavioral qualities they would first and foremost be a disposition to hard work and lack of aggressiveness. Yet today a highly disproportionate number of black Americans live in poverty, the unemployment rate for black Americans is much higher than for white Americans, etc. Similarly, the violent crime rate for young black men in particular is, as I understand it, substantially higher than for white Americans as a whole. If we consider this state of affairs as a product of socioeconomic and cultural factors - all the problems of poverty coupled to discrimination and oppression historically crushing and, though driven underground by changing social attitudes, continuing to this day, and the resistance and resentment it inspires - it is explicable, yet if we use "selective breeding" to explain the supposed lower intelligence of black people we must assume that slaveowners selectively bred dumb, lazy, aggressive slaves. This makes no sense whatsoever.
Racism is like intelligent design: scientists have NOT rejected it out of hand; indeed, racist hypotheses have been accepted with an uncommon hospitality for most of the history of science. They invariably fail to explain the facts better than hypotheses focusing on social and economic factors, and frequently fail to explain the facts at all. They are useless, failed models that can safely, and should, be discarded, and the only reason for their persistence is their appeal to certain people for irrational and purely personal reasons, whether in the form of a formal ideology or simply as personal sentiment. And because these ideologues are unwilling to abandon their prejudices, they pretend that science is simply rejecting their good argument due to ideological biases, in a classic and pathetic example of projection and desperation.
Posted by: Azkyroth | December 28, 2007 3:06 PM
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, in a discussion I found on Richard Dawkins site, claims that "white guilt" is a one sided moral responsibility that has excluded other groups from sharing in these consequences. [paraphrased by me]. She is using this analogy to explain why "inshallah" among moslem populations has prevented their advancement.
IMHO, its largely a "nurture" problem not a "nature" one.
SG
Posted by: Science Goddess | December 28, 2007 3:10 PM
Antihumanist @ # 16, You ask, "Are any other white people besides myself experiencing the same lack of outrage at the fact East Asians seem to score better then us on IQ tests? The thought that it may have some genetic component doesn't seem to perturb me very much."
I'm with you on that. It seems obvious that, as IQ is significantly heritable (according to twin studies), there will develop significant average IQ differences between groups. Evolution due to group-level selection, along with genetic drift, due to the founder effect, will ensure that such differences inevitably occur wherever the groups exist in differing physical & cultural environments.
Posted by: Richard Harris | December 28, 2007 3:28 PM
Sure, clearly what happens to people matters. But, is it *scientifically* necessary that every group have the exact same potential for intelligence? I want the answer to be yes, but does it *have* to be?
Posted by: Cynic | December 28, 2007 3:30 PM
Two words: stereotype threat.
Posted by: J | December 28, 2007 3:41 PM
puzzled wrote:
Had you used IQ tests from earlier in the 20th century, the Jewish and Chinese IQ scores would have been right near the bottom. This was a matter of no mere academic import. It was used to restrict immigration quotas for Jews and other "undesirables," and helped ensure that thousands could not come to the U.S. to escape Nazism's growing popularity and power.
Cool so as soon as we can get test results for identical twins where one twin's light-skinned and the other's dark-skinned, we'll be able to control for the effects of bigotry. Oh, wait....
Posted by: Jud | December 28, 2007 3:44 PM
But, is it *scientifically* necessary that every group have the exact same potential for intelligence?
What on Earth is "potential for intelligence" supposed to be?
Posted by: Chet | December 28, 2007 3:45 PM
I suppose it means, what their IQs would turn out to be if raised in equivalent environments. Sure IQ is slippery, but some creatures are clearly intrinsically more intelligent than others. The question is, does that hold up when the purported difference is small/sublte? I don't know, I'm just asking - instead of being frightened, some good answers would be better, tx.
Posted by: Cynic | December 28, 2007 3:50 PM
They left out an important counfounding factor. Many black female slaves were raped by their white slave owners and many children were so conceived. If we assume a few percent per generation, then in 20 generations, virtually every descendent of those slaves will have as an ancestor a white slave owner who procreated via rape with his slaves, presumably because a free woman wouldn't have him.
That could be how the African American genome was infiltrated with undesirable genes (if such genes are in fact present).
Posted by: daedalus2u | December 28, 2007 4:02 PM
As researchers are always concerned about time and money expenditure of such an ambitious project, I'd recommend the target population adopt the Black Like Me research method. The design should be preferably longitudinal and starting at conception.
I'd participate myself but would be a confounding variable given my already non-melanin-challenged status.
Posted by: Tony Jeremiah | December 28, 2007 4:07 PM
Thanks, Puzzled
Well, that explains a bit. And here I thought it was just a case of too much to drink....
Posted by: bill r | December 28, 2007 4:52 PM
I'm telling you people: IQ tests measure the degree to which someone is incompetent. Scores over about 80 or 90 are lumped together in a category for those "able to function." Below those scores, people may start having problems functioning (be it for social, intellectual, or other reasons). However, it isn't until 70 that there are possible quality of life issues. IQ tests are most powerful near the boundary of incompetency and not powerful in the more extreme areas (for example, a person with a high IQ may be too lazy to participate more than minimally - an IQ test does not accurately predict a lazy man's ability to contribute.)
Because IQ test results can vary greatly based on culture, variance of intra-racial IQ test result scores may be a more powerful indicator of relative inter-racial correlation of intelligence. Meaning can be added to the variance if we compare the per capita population that is too incompetent to function in society (thus establishing a base line around an IQ of 65-70 rather than 100-110).
Posted by: Mike Fox | December 28, 2007 5:05 PM
The real issue comes from familial and societal emphasis in subcultures, nothing more extravagent. *On average*, a black person in the US will tend to live in a family/neighborhood with less emphasis on education, and this shows up in both these mean IQ scores and in crime rates. It also happens to show up in groups that are "new immigrants", which is why Irish were notorious for their criminals, and why (comparativley recently) the so-called Latino gangs have been touted as another problem. Most groups "grow" out of this collective phase in a 1-3 generations.
However, the idea that IQ tests are racist and that it matters who designs them is a load of crap. Whether you're black, purple, simian, porcine, aquatic, or terrestrial, 2+2=4 and Sally's mom who is twice as old as Sally was three years ago has the same age.
The responsibility we do have is to tell people what a potential problem source is. It is up to them to fix it, and if I'm in a rut, I expect no more and no less, thank you.
(Finally, before I get flamed for racism here, I would like to note that I really don't care what your skin pigmentation or geographical birth location is. I am an equal-opportunity provider, in a sense -- I'll tell you the exact same thing. I also am not white, myself, but I find affirmative action and such abhorrent, and will only mark "decline to state" on anything requesting race. I expect everyone, myself included, to succeed or fail based solely on your own merits -- and if you fail, try again harder this time.)
Posted by: tigerhawkvok | December 28, 2007 5:39 PM
'Proving that individual examples don't follow statistical norms is as easy as comparing Neil DeGrasse Tyson with Paris Hilton.'
If she hangs around her eponym long enough, maybe she'll run into one of M.l'Admiral de Grasse's numerous descendants, settle down and have a statistically unremarkable family.
Posted by: Russell | December 28, 2007 6:04 PM
This doesn't follow. Ethnic groups are far from homogenous, and "black people" are farther from homogenous than most.
Three points.
1) Can you define any of the highlighted terms for me? I'm quite positive you're using "group-level selection" incorrectly, and the other two look suspicious.
2) What differences in physical environments are there between the total range of those inhabited by "black people" and those inhabited by "Asians" and "Europeans" that you consider plausible candidates for causes of differences in intelligence?
3) Cultural differences contributing to genetic evolution? HTF do you figure that? You are aware that Lamarckism has been discredited, right?
Posted by: Azkyroth | December 28, 2007 6:11 PM
I was once, fairly briefly, a member of Mensa. (My defence is that I was very immature and insecure at the time.) This organisation contained some of the silliest and most useless human beings I've ever encountered. IQ tests themselves are fun but really a waste of time. They simply measure the ability to do certain kinds of largely meaningless puzzles and somehow this is called "intelligence". Bullshit.
Posted by: sharon | December 28, 2007 6:16 PM
tigerhawkvok #44:
IQ tests don't ask about Sally's mom or arithmetic. They ask questions like "What would you do if you found a wallet in a store at the mall?" and "What would you do if a little kid started picking a fight with you?"
Posted by: j | December 28, 2007 6:40 PM
J: as I recall that was only part of the tests I've taken.
Posted by: Azkyroth | December 28, 2007 6:54 PM
Azkyroth: True. The last IQ test I took was the WISC-IV. At least twenty minutes of the test were devoted to these strange questions about morality. I remember trying to divine the "correct" answer and wondering what any of it had to do with intelligence. These kinds of questions disadvantage test-takers from non-Western backgrounds. Even though other parts of the test are unrelated to morality, I wonder how much of my IQ is due to my successful assimilation into American culture and adoption of Western values.
Posted by: j | December 28, 2007 7:03 PM
To be a devil's advocate here, based on the very iffy assumption that the IQ evidence is not entirely artifactual (is that a word?), one might propose that cultures that have been more technologically complex for a decent number of generations (as Europe and East Asia have been) could select for a certain type of intelligence, possibly more adept at mathematics, with enough force to shift the mean of these tests. It doesn't seem all that likely, but it's plausible.
But using the premise to generate a testable prediction: how do polynesians fare on these tests? They would descend from founder groups with a good fraction who had a significant ability to use technology and apply it in ways that seem to have been mathematically complicated; navigating without instruments and then establishing a society on a brand-new island seem like things that would also favor the sort of intelligence we're talking about.
Posted by: Darby | December 28, 2007 7:08 PM
I remember something about black folks in Jamaica getting good IQ scores, a bit over 100 on average IIRC. Also, that blacks in "British" cultures (like Jamaica, but also UK itself) do much better than American counterparts. Anyone remember that, or have any comments? I think most people leave out some subtle "orienting" effect, like whether one wants to be "athletic" or not - and this may be much affected by how a culture stimulates one's self expression, as to be "fashionably dumb" versus smart. Also, some conservatives picking on schooling/liberals etc. say that blacks did very well pack in the late 18th c etc. - well, aside from questioning the motives of those commenters, I think perusing essays etc. from those cases in the past show a high level of fluency, grammar, etc. Finally, I recall that grad students from Africa were more often in top placement than American blacks at HU where I worked, "despite" having more pure African ancestry. It is a complicated affair, and one's "stance" about intellectuality as it were is the most neglected matter.
Posted by: Neil B. | December 28, 2007 7:20 PM
Can the people who want to bravely entertain the politically incorrect idea of genetically determined cognitive differences between races please just do me a teeny favor? Please define- in purely biological terms now, no fair sneaking in culture- "race". And then tell me exactly how many races we should recognize in H. sapiens. (For a little history-of-science extra credit, please estimate the number of different racial classifications that anthropologists have come up with over the years.)
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | December 28, 2007 7:32 PM
Jud @37: "Had you used IQ tests from earlier in the 20th century, the Jewish and Chinese IQ scores would have been right near the bottom. This was a matter of no mere academic import. It was used to restrict immigration quotas for Jews and other "undesirables," and helped ensure that thousands could not come to the U.S. to escape Nazism's growing popularity and power."
I seem to recall reading (long ago) that around the turn of the 20th Century, Columbia University started using intelligence tests for prospective students. This was purportedly done to keep out Jews, since it was theorized that they wouldn't do as well as Good White Xian folk. Imagine their surprise when the Jews did better on these tests, as a whole, than the Good White Xians. This could, of course, be an urban myth (I don't even recall where I read it, let alone have a source), but if not, it's a great bit of karma and unexpected consequences.
Posted by: Captain C | December 28, 2007 7:48 PM
To adopt the axiom that no race is inferior to others is a fine and civilised political or philosophical worldview, but to assume that there are no differences between people sharing different genetic clusters is just poor science.
Nowhere in PZ's post was such an assumption made.
Racists are unable to appreciate the evidence of racism that their own behavior presents.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 7:53 PM
No, PZ, let's not be dishonest about this. Obviously a knockdown argument against "scientific racism" isn't so easily had. (It's kind of slippery of you to call this "racism", by the way.) Enslaving people and monitoring their progression isn't necessarily the only illuminating experiment that could be done. This oversimplification is almost as bad as the creationist canard that we can't observe "macroevolution", therefore it didn't occur.
I'm not trying to defend the views of the Watson crowd, but I don't think it's fair to dismiss them with these clearly politically-motivated, childishly simple arguments. Maybe Jared Diamond is right and aboriginal Australians are, if differences exist, somewhat more intelligent than white Europeans. Maybe even looking at the intellectual differences between races isn't a good idea in the first place. However, we can't know any of this until we actually discuss the matter sensibly. Many scientists are far too eager to simply say what's politically correct (regardless of its justification) and gain the applause of their mainly leftist readership.
Posted by: Jamie | December 28, 2007 7:56 PM
I would just like to point out that there's nothing intrinsically unscientific about racist theories.
The cartoon spells out one of the ways in which they are intrinsically unscientific.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 7:56 PM
No, it doesn't. It's an asinine oversimplification. Let's be honest about this; these theories are quite obviously not "intrinsically unscientific". They're either wrong or right.
Posted by: Jamie | December 28, 2007 8:03 PM
I am at a loss as to this experiment. At face value, it seems to be a Lamarkian type conclusion, or, if it is a Darwinian conclusion, then the generations were selected for "dumb" and "docile". I get the intended message, but I suspect the difference is cultural. Poor Charles D, blamed for everything. Don't let the Coultergeist get wind of this!
Posted by: Papa John | December 28, 2007 8:08 PM
Sure IQ is slippery, but some creatures are clearly intrinsically more intelligent than others.
Blacks and whites aren't creatures, they are (largely socially defined -- what is Obama?) groups, and the statistical characteristics of groups don't attach to individuals.
I could put forth the hypothesis that, as a group, proponents of race-based genetic IQ difference have statistically worse understanding of statistical concepts than non-proponents, and I daresay that I could present arguments for the hypothesis at least as strong as the arguments for race-based genetic IQ differences.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 8:09 PM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | December 28, 2007 8:09 PM
Simply stunned at the number of racists posting comments. My guess is that a lot of creationist trolls have finally found a thread on which they think they can make intelligent contributions. I have no other explanation.
Posted by: DGS | December 28, 2007 8:10 PM
"The cartoon spells out one of the ways in which they are intrinsically unscientific."
No, it doesn't.
If you don't think so then you're stupid. And I say that as someone who scores 4 SD above the norm on IQ tests. They are intrinsically unscientific because they are full of methodological error.
Let's be honest about this; these theories are quite obviously not "intrinsically unscientific". They're either wrong or right.
You clearly know nothing of science or the nature of scientific theory. Is Intelligent Design either wrong or right ... or is it intrinsically unscientific? Is the theory of evolution either wrong or right ... or is it neither, rather being an explanatory framework for a set of observed phenomena?
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 8:22 PM
No, it's not unscientific at all. Ruling out non-supernatural scientific hypotheses on these epistemological grounds is almost always a sign of desperate defence of a creed. (See how the God squad resort to this devious trick when it comes to theories of consciousness, cosmology, and the origin of life.)
Posted by: Jamie | December 28, 2007 8:23 PM
THANK YOU!
Posted by: MAJeff | December 28, 2007 8:24 PM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | December 28, 2007 8:26 PM
Oh, I would say that ID make many (utterly ludicrous) scientific claims. Except the "God planted the evidence to fool us" brand of ID, which I agree is unscientific.
By any convenient definition of intelligence, we are descended from creatures that were undoubtedly less intelligent than we are. You just have to go back far enough. Therefore, there must have been some variation in intelligence. Maybe the variation doesn't currently exist, but what I just said does show that in principle the variation can exist.
Posted by: Jamie | December 28, 2007 8:34 PM
Ruling out non-supernatural scientific hypotheses on these epistemological grounds is almost always a sign of desperate defence of a creed.
No, it is such ad hominems that are a sign of desperation -- like "Many scientists are far too eager to simply say what's politically correct (regardless of its justification) and gain the applause of their mainly leftist readership".
There is no "scientific hypothesis" that has been ruled out on "epistemological grounds". The cartoon rules out nothing; it just gives an indication of the burden that that must be born by those who make extraordinary claims. And the claim of race-based genetic IQ differences is quite extraordinary in light of strong cultural differences and the fact that race is not a biological category. So quitcher stupid lying.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 8:35 PM
"Methodological error"? What?
Did I say stupid?
Oh, I would say that ID make many (utterly ludicrous) scientific claims. Except the "God planted the evidence to fool us" brand of ID, which I agree is unscientific.
Regardless of what an ignorant git like you would say, ID is unfalsifiable and thus is not a scientific theory. And "ID" doesn't make scientific claims -- that's a category error. Various proponents of ID make empirical claims, some more ludicrous than others.
By any convenient definition of intelligence, we are descended from creatures that were undoubtedly less intelligent than we are. You just have to go back far enough. Therefore, there must have been some variation in intelligence. Maybe the variation doesn't currently exist, but what I just said does show that in principle the variation can exist.
Did I say stupid? Do you suppose that races are monophyletic groups?
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 8:41 PM
Ad hominems? Coming from someone who just called me stupid and ignorant of science? What shameless double standards.
Saying that a hypothesis is "intrinsically unscientific" seems pretty epistemological to me. You seem to have backtracked on that; now you're on about "burden that must be born".
I disagree that it is an extraordinary claim. I think it would be pretty extraordinary if there are no intelligence differences between numerous groups that were independently evolving for thousands of years. I agree that race is a fuzzy and quite arbitrary concept, though this doesn't affect what I said. Popular conceptions of race would be good enough for our purposes.
Posted by: Jamie | December 28, 2007 8:46 PM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | December 28, 2007 8:52 PM
Here you go calling me ignorant again. Talk about ad hominems. I think ID isn't unfalsifiable unless it retreats into "God/Satan planted the evidence to trick us", or some other cowardly position. That an intelligent being created all life 6,000 years ago is an empirical claim. This is a perfectly reasonable point, and there's nothing ignorant about it.
Posted by: Jamie | December 28, 2007 8:53 PM
Hypotheses about "race" are and will remain unscientific until you can define in scientific terms just what a "race" is and how to correctly classify our species into biological races. Care to have a go?
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | December 28, 2007 8:57 PM
Posted by: Jamie | December 28, 2007 8:57 PM
Learn to recognize scare quotes, like the ones he used around "scientific hypothesis".
Dumbass.
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | December 28, 2007 8:59 PM
Ad hominems? Coming from someone who just called me stupid and ignorant of science? What shameless double standards.
You're too stupid and ignorant to know what an ad hominem is. I haven't argued that you're wrong because you're stupid -- that would be an ad hominem argument, moron. I call you stupid and ignorant because you display stupidity and ignorance.
Saying that a hypothesis is "intrinsically unscientific"
What I said was the theory was intrinsically unscientific -- did you miss the part where I pointed out that you don't understand what a scientific theory is? The cartoon points out that the methodology employed by racists is poor; the point is that the argumentation and evidence they gather in support of their hypothesis is selectively chosen.
I think ID isn't unfalsifiable unless it retreats into "God/Satan planted the evidence to trick us", or some other cowardly position. That an intelligent being created all life 6,000 years ago is an empirical claim.
So you don't know the difference between ID and YEC? What a dumb fuck.
Posted by: truth machine | December 28, 2007 9:01 PM
He was ruling out a hypothesis on epistemological grounds, and then he was denying this. Learn how to read.
Please provide a quote supporting the claim that I ruled out any hypothesis. As for "epistemological grounds", I have to wonder if you know what the word means.
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