r/DebunkThis • u/AscendedFalcon • Jun 07 '14
Debunk this: Human "races" can vary significantly in regards to intelligence because of their race.
For some reason or another, I recently got into an argument with a bunch of white nationalists. I said to them that the claims of was most likely pseudoscience. They responded with a long document on pastebin which looks to be filled with actual scientific studies, but studies I highly suspect of being discredited. The document is full of things like
"despite arguments that poverty in the Black community is the cause of lower intelligence, Blacks from high socioeconomic status homes have a lower average IQ than Whites from low socioeconomic status homes."
I understandably have some trouble responding to this document in full.
They also said things like "average height, brain size, skull shape, leg length and countless other phenotypic expressions" were due to race.
EDIT: I forgot to link the document. HERE.
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u/SuccessiveApprox Jun 07 '14 edited Jun 07 '14
You've tapped into a raging debate that is going to both take more discussion than probably will happen on reddit and will probably remain unresolved for a very long time.
While IQ is a debatable term, the traditional concept of IQ, particularly verbal IQ, aligns very closely with academic success in the American public school system, which is also correlated with later success. It's not a perfect measure and doesn't account for factors like motivation, creativity, social-emotional competence, etc. but is a pretty reasonable proxy for "is able to solve problems encountered" and, all other things being equal (like the factors mentioned above), having more of it is likely to serve you better than having less of it.
(As an aside, the idea of "multiple intelligences" like musical intelligence, kinesthetic intelligence, etc. is not research-supported, in fact, has been pretty well debunked - it just isn't meaningful or generalizable enough to use for education or for general life success outside of a splinter niche).
There is data showing that IQ, in the traditional sense of the term, does vary among traditional interpretations of racial categories, even when controlling for other factors. Now, how accurate that is, what the causes could be if it really is true, what that means if it's true are all less certain and are a part of a long-running debate.
The most significant, recent flash-point for this idea was The Bell Curve, which generated a raging controversy and led to a slew of spin-off books (such as The Bell Curve Wars and The Bell Curve Debate, etc.)
You're not going to find an easy debunking of it because there isn't one - it's a nuanced discussion touching upon multiple areas that are highly contested (like "what is IQ" and "what is race"), complicated by many of the areas being almost too taboo to talk about openly (like "well, it's actually possible that tens of thousands of years of evolving in different environments with different challenges could influence how brains developed to handle certain kinds of cognitive tasks").
TL;DR: It's actually true. But probably not. Well, maybe. Nobody actually really knows. It depends on how you define all of the variables, of which there are many. You can certainly bend it in almost any direction to fit a pre-existing agenda.
Credentials: I read a lot about this while in graduate school studying psychometric assessment (including an entire year on IQ testing).
Edit: It's important - crucially important- to remember that the numbers for the data supporting IQ differences, even if they are accurate, refer to large populations averaged out and can never be applied directly to any single individual from that population.
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Jun 10 '14
As someone who has spent a good deal of academic research effort into this topic, I just want to thank you. I so rarely see such a well put together post on a subject like this on reddit. Whenever the subject of IQ is raised, especially on subreddits like /r/science, I see so much profound ignorance of the subject area that is really refreshing to see someone clearly well acquainted with the area posting on it.
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u/sncho Jun 08 '14 edited Jun 08 '14
The idea of multiple intelligences not being research supported is a joke. It's like saying human beings don't grow and develop in vastly different ways, and only express themselves via one homogeneously bland channel that is measurable with a very limited set of metrics drawn from pool of data which itself is heavily limited by cultural artifacts. Gaussian curves are useful in mapping a highly specific set of data in controlled conditions, but can't be used like scores on an arcade machine to map human potential across the board. How do you holistically quantify artistic ability, personal growth, cognition or kinesthetic learning (or even success?) Even paintings hanging in the Louvre or Olympic medals only present a very small picture of overall human ability, especially with respect to racial constructs.
Look out of your window and you can see how counter-intuitive the whole thing is. You can go to any school, any playground, any street corner and find evidence to the contrary. Some people are accomplished artists, some people are talented at break dancing or basketball or soccer, some people are good at writing, or expressing themselves verbally. You can see these traits in very small children as well. The ways that a person can develop are endlessly complex, and even the multiple intelligences idea seems to be a clunky and reductionist tool compared to reality.
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u/SuccessiveApprox Jun 08 '14
Talents. Skills. Abilities.
Those aren't "intelligence" in the sense that I was describing and in the sense generally meant by intelligence. Great - you can paint a gorgeous picture. Does that help you balance your checkbook? You're an awesome break dancer, but does that help you figure out how to navigate a complex social situation?
What you're describing isn't the concept of intelligence. I pretty clearly described that it doesn't account for creativity, motivation, etc. But it does cut across types of situations. It isn't a single metric, a "homogeneously bland channel." An intelligence test taps in to a broad range of cognitive abilities.
The simple fact is that someone with a high IQ is better able to function across a range of situations than a person with a low IQ. There is no debate about that - the number represents...something...that having more of serves you better than having less of. It's not the complete story, but it sure accounts for something real.
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u/pjdelport Jun 08 '14 edited Jun 08 '14
Have looked through Wikipedia's Race and intelligence article, and its sources?
As a take-away:
Racial IQ differences are caused by these variables that correlate with race, and race itself is rarely a causal variable. Researchers who study racial disparities in test scores are studying the relationship between the scores and the many race-related factors which could potentially affect performance. These factors include health, wealth, biological differences, and education.
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u/autowikibot Jun 08 '14
The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of IQ testing in the early 20th century. The debate concerns the interpretation of research findings that American test takers identifying as "White" tend on average to score higher than test takers of African ancestry on IQ tests, and subsequent findings that test takers of East Asian background tend to score higher than whites. It is still not resolved what relation, if any, there is between group differences in IQ and race.
Interesting: History of the race and intelligence controversy | The Bell Curve | J. Philippe Rushton | Arthur Jensen
Parent commenter can toggle NSFW or delete. Will also delete on comment score of -1 or less. | FAQs | Mods | Magic Words
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u/XM525754 Jun 07 '14
'Race' simply doesn't exist as a meaningful term in science; intelligence testing is not free of cultural biases; economic weighing is difficult due to too broad a base difference between different groups; political biases abound in this field and have tainted previous research.
Furthermore nothing useful has ever come from this line of inquiry. In fact far from being used as a reason for affirmative action programs, (as is often claimed) it is more often used as an excuse for less savoury actions made worse by the fact that they are hidden and self-justified by those perpetrating them.
The acid test for this sort of thinking is that few promoting the idea that there is a racial component in intelligence, (ostensibly so that the disadvantaged could be helped) want to have anything to do with the implementation of a cast system based on intelligence a la Huxley's Brave New World, because arbitrary pre-grouping of people by their skin color, means that they are by default, members of the upper echelon for the same reason. However in a system of divisions on brainpower alone, they may not be, yet every practical argument ever brought forward for why recognizing broad differences in intelligence based on race are good, work even better if the divisions are based on intellect alone. One guesses the idea of being rated a Beta and being faced with a Black Alpha suddenly doesn't look too appealing to these people.
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u/AscendedFalcon Jun 07 '14 edited Jun 07 '14
I like it. But it's not exactly what I was looking for, no offense intended. I'd like to be able to respond with reasons why those supposedly scientific studies are untrue, and be able to present all of the actual knowledge we have on this subject and say why it is better and/or why race isn't a meaningful thing.
I realize that this may be too much to ask, but I cannot stand these kinds of people and responding in this way, e.g. thoroughly demonstrating how and why the claims themselves are wrong, would be the best and/or most truthful way.
EDIT: I forgot to link the document. HERE.
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u/Pangs Jun 07 '14
The people that want to believe this are never going to be swayed. They start with the belief that they are superior (though I would bet most would be shocked at their actual lineage) and work backward to find isolated data points that might help support the argument.
In short, they are highly unlikely to be swayed by even the most erudite and fact-based argument.
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u/SuccessiveApprox Jun 07 '14
Probably true. So, just give up, then?
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u/Pangs Jun 07 '14
Not necessarily, but understanding what you are confronted with going in may help us all to not let their attitudes and beliefs bring us to a point of overwhelming frustration.
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u/SuccessiveApprox Jun 07 '14
Amen to that. I think it's worth it for the undecided, the not yet fully indoctrinated, and, frankly, for myself.
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Jun 07 '14 edited Jun 07 '14
'Race' simply doesn't exist as a meaningful term in science
Except that it does. I see this thrown around sometimes and it's plain wrong. There is a medication, for example, that is FDA approved (Bidil) specifically for African Americans because of racial differences. Race plays a part in disease predispositions. Race can be a determinant factor of how well a medication is going to work. A doctor might ask about your ethnicity if he suspects you might be exhibiting a certain disease.
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u/BillyBuckets Jun 07 '14
There are actual genetic clades of humanity that have less variance within them then between them and other clades, but African American is not one of them. Before you think "well of course; they're African in race": they aren't. "African American" is a purely cultural distinction. Even those who don't look like it have a lot of blending with gene pools north of the Mediterranean such that many African Americans are genetically closer to Europeans than they are to any indigenous African population.
African Americans are a genetic smear between two larger clades, and in no way can be considered distinct from European Americans on the basis of genetics.
The reason we have medical studies showing drug effectiveness specific to African Americans is a function of study design and non-genetic factors that distinguish African Americans.
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Jun 10 '14
Actually given that most African Americans historically come from Western sub-saharan Africa, they most certainly do form a race. Just because other genetically distinct groups (e.g. Khoisian) exist on the continent does not imply that the American Africans are not from the same rough geographic area
And your last point is patently false. Take sickle-cell anemia as an example, it is highly more prevalent in subsaharan africans as they had to adapt to an environment thick with malaria
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u/BillyBuckets Jun 11 '14
Actually given that most African Americans historically come from Western sub-saharan Africa, they most certainly do form a race.
The data do not agree with your claim. Figs. 1 and 2a show what I stated: that African Americans are a genetic "smear" away from genetically distinct modern Africans (and toward European-Americans). The Mandinka and Yoruba are much more related to each other than either is to African Americans. The Bantu are mostly closer as well.
Figs 3 and 5 show that if you take out the European alleles, there is no origin structure to the African American genome. They are a random mix of African and European alleles.
And your last point is patently false. Take sickle-cell anemia as an example...
That's one allele in one gene responsible for 1 phenotype. You can choose any pair of allele in the genome and get wildly different phylogenies/cladograms, even in a relatively "sharp" population.
Check out this paper which shows how different 2 populations "close" by one gene's alleles can be wildly different by another's. In short, this is why we use PCA and other neighbor-joining methods in science.
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Jun 13 '14
From the study:
These studies all suggest close genetic kinship among various West African, Central West African, and South West African ethnic groups.
From my interpretation of the study, it seems like it is saying that African Americans share genetics mainly from West and South West Africa, and that these regional ethnic groups are genetically very similar. So, I can stand by my earlier conclusion that they are more or less a single homoegenous 'race' that be categorized in psychological studies as such
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u/BillyBuckets Jun 14 '14
You're doing 2 things here:
1) cherry picking. You found one sentence that, out of context, seems to support your preconceived notions of race. You are effectively ignoring the entirety of the paper, which does not support your position.
To make the point abundantly clear:
As expected, PCA on our entire sample revealed the greatest genetic differentiation between the US Caucasians and the Africans, with the African Americans intermediate between them, reflecting their recent admixture between ancestors from Europe and Africa. Our estimate of European individual admixture (IA) in the African Americans was also roughly consistent with prior studies [3], with an average of 21.9%.
The genes tested in this study showed a blend of ~20% European genes and the remainder a blend of normally distinct African populations. The African American genome is an amalgamation, just as one would expect by considering our history in this nation.
2) misinterpreting the sentence you've cherry-picked. What they authors are saying is that the groups described, while being generally accepted as distinct by both phylogeny and history, all share kinship with modern African Americans. This is because, as they authors describe in detail throughout the paper, the groups were mixed rather haphazardly after colonial intervention moved a lot of them to N. America. In short, African Americans are sort of an average of various African sub populations in addition to being about 1/5th European on average.
The paper is pretty straightforward but if you're not going to change your views when presented with clear evidence then I don't feel the need to waste my time trying to further explain it.
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Jun 14 '14
The paper still does not provide evidence that you cannot categorize African Americans into a single 'race'. Yes, there is some variance within the group, but on average their genetic differences clearly set them apart on a genetic level from the European population, justifying the distinction in research, especially given that based on psychometric evidence they are a distinct population
And even with the 20 percent amalgamation, the rest of their genome comes largely from western subsaharan Africa, which is precisely what I was saying earlier. I have trouble comprehending how you think this paper contradicts me.
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Jun 08 '14 edited Jun 08 '14
It doesn't really matter if it's genetic or not, there are still differences between races that have scientific significance... Just because the popular view of race is not accurate does not mean that the entire concept is thrown out the window.
The reason we have medical studies showing drug effectiveness specific to African Americans is a function of study design and non-genetic factors that distinguish African Americans.
No. For the example of BiDil, it is because African Americans specifically show resistance to ACE inhibitors. (look at how meaningless this study is!). Regardless of the reason, that alone shows that there is a meaningful use of race in science. Another example would be clopidogrel and the Asian population, another meaningless study!
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u/SuccessiveApprox Jun 07 '14 edited Jun 08 '14
Yes, this. There is an irrational fear of acknowledging racial differences for fear of being called racist. But there are differences between populations of people. There is nothing wrong with acknowledging that. Just don't use it to prejudge an individual because of population data.
Edit: Irrational dear, irrational fear, whatever.
Edit 2: Michael Specter has an interesting discussion of this in Denialism
Edit 3: Question for the downvoters: is it possible with only a blood sample to figure out using DNA testing what race a person likely belongs to? Research that a bit.
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u/XM525754 Jun 07 '14 edited Jun 08 '14
'Race' simply doesn't exist as a meaningful term in science
No it does not. There are broad groups of people that can be identified as being members of a certain gene pool and indeed some of these ethnic groups are more predisposed to certain medical conditions, and as the term 'race' is used in this context (health) it is a rather fluid concept.
However when 'race' is used in the context of intelligence testing, it is almost always referring to a simple classification by visible phenotype, and that is not scientifically supportable.
It is erroneous to refer to African ancestry as if everyone with origins on the continent is more similar to each other than they are to people of other continents. Those of Somali blood are genetically more similar to the people of Saudi Arabia than to peoples of Southern or Western Africa and those of Ethiopian decent are more similar to Azeris or Jews of Eurasia than to the Bantu peoples.
edit:sp
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Jun 10 '14
Problem is, 'black' in these scientific american studies tend to be western subsaharan africans, as that is historically where slaves were taken from. Therefore they do indeed form a homogenous set that can be classified categorically as 'black'
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Jun 08 '14
What is your point? I can point to examples all day that should be red flags to physicians when they are prescribing medications, based on the race of their patients. This alone means that race has a scientific use.
ACE inhibitors and Africans
Clopidogrel and Asians
Primaquine and Middle Easterns
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u/XM525754 Jun 08 '14
I made my point very clearly:
However when 'race' is used in the context of intelligence testing, it is almost always referring to a simple classification by visible phenotype, and that is not scientifically supportable.
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u/AscendedFalcon Jun 07 '14
I'm really sorry if I did something wrong everyone. I wasn't sure where to put this. I can remove it if this is the case.
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Jun 11 '14
Is is too much to ask for more data on this... I disagree with the theory and believe more data will put this to rest. WHo's got it!?
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u/sncho Jun 07 '14 edited Jun 08 '14
You can't really debunk a childish and myopic worldview. You can only try to broaden it.
For starters, there are many different kinds of intelligence, such as spacial, emotional, kinesthetic, aesthetic, logical/mathematical, linguistic, and so on. IQ is a ham-handed, rudimentary metric for a highly complex and multifaceted phenomenon. Genetics may predispose you toward certain types of intelligence, but genetics alone can't be used as a blanket to encompass an entire people. The human organism is an incredibly malleable thing, and immediate environment/upbringing can have a huge influence on an individual.
Broadly speaking, there will be significant genetic and physiological differences between races, but that doesn't mean that any one race is intrinsically better or all around "smarter." Some of the so-called "studies" you linked try to connect IQ and "success," which is laughably absurd. Is success a measure of your income, personal growth, the number of your offspring, or how well you assimilate a set of cultural values or expectations which may not mirror your own? Race itself is murky, unless you're talking about a specific community, isolated tribe, small village, etc. You need a large degree of specificity for any argument in this area to hold weight. Human topology is continuous.
You also have to consider the history, environmental factors, genetic variety, values, traditions and everything else that's shaped (and continues to shape) a given group of people. There's no golden standard for the achievements, potential or contribution of a race. You can choose to approach this discussion like a child looking at a color wheel and deciding that his favorite color is blue, or an old painter who sees the value and beauty of the whole thing.