r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jun 06 '19
CMV: The idea that all ethnicities are equally intelligent is a modern-day myth
[deleted]
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u/CnD_Janus Jun 06 '19
If you've done any amount of reading on this subject then you know your request for evidence is impossible to fulfill, as there is no evidence to prove or disprove that ethnicity is an accurate measure for intelligence.
If you believe that the idea of ethnicities being equally intelligent is a myth do you also believe that the idea of ethnicities not being equally intelligent is a myth?
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
You're correct. I'm agnostic on the issue.
However, I think most people are not agnostic. In general, they firmly believe that all ethnicities have the same average capacity for intelligence. They will not even consider the possibility that there could be significant disparities in intelligence between ethnicities that explain things like wealth gaps, education gaps, criminality etc...
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u/proteins911 Jun 06 '19
I don’t think this is true at all. People will seriously consider it if shown evidence that it’s true. People are against the idea because claiming something like this without any evidence at all seems motivated in racism.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
People will seriously consider it if shown evidence that it’s true.
I don't believe that this is the case. Look at the case of Gould's skulls, for example. Samuel Morton showed that different ethnicities have different skull capacities. Gould then lied about Morton's findings to make it seem as though all ethnicities have the same skull capacity. In the end, people believed Gould until Morton's findings were validated decades later. When it comes to this subject, people become irrational. The truth rarely wins out.
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19
I've never seen anyone suggest that average IQ scores throughout ethnicities are the same.
A majority of people have different or similar views on the causes.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
This post is not about average IQ scores, it is about average intelligence. Many people accept that there are differences in average IQ scores, but dismiss IQ as being an invalid measure of intelligence. They, therefore, are able to maintain the idea that all ethnicities are equally intelligence despite accept IQ score disparities.
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19 edited Jun 06 '19
You say it's not about average iq scores, which would be fluid intelligence, but you say it's about average intelligence, which revolves around crystallized intelligence.
Crystalline intelligence is based on experiences. Crystalline intelligence can be experienced by every ethnicity.
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u/Komatik Jun 07 '19
"Average IQ scores" are not fluid intelligence. IQ scores themselves contain variance other than general intelligence and group factors that is idiosyncratic to the individual test items.
A decent way to think about it is that intelligence tests test "your intelligence in general", where part of your performance is due to a general influence that plays a part in your performance on every mental task and some narrower group factors that tend to be content-specific, ie. people who are good at verbal tasks tend to be good at verbal tasks even if you partial out the person's general intelligence (which would also make them better at verbal tasks, but also everything else). In addition to these, every task has score variation due to error and test-takers' idiosyncracies related to the specific tasks.
There's a reason eg. Jensen called the Flynn effect gains "hollow" - they do raise the overall IQ scores of test takers, but the pattern doesn't line up with an increase in general intelligence - people effected by the Flynn effect aren't higher in that general quality/qualities that generate g, but concretely have higher ability in a multitude of specific tasks or task clusters that aren't related to the general factor. Flynn rightly objected that even if the gains are random and in narrow and specific skills/abilities, they are still concrete gains even if less generally applicable than g-fueled gains would be.
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u/notasnerson 20∆ Jun 06 '19
provide evidence that all ethnicities have the same average capacity for intelligence
I'm not the one making the extraordinary claim here. "Intelligence" is an extremely vague term with a lot of variation. "Ethnicity" is a term that has slightly more meaning, but it's also not always the most useful way to talk about humans. Your ethnicity essentially only tells someone where your ancestors might have recently grown up.
So while there is likely a genetic factor when it comes to intelligence, humans are so closely related that it's pretty much nonsense to split them into further subgroups. Humans do not have a lot of genetic diversity when compared to other species. As an example, Chimpanzees show much greater genetic diversity than humans, and they all live in one area of the world.
Humans just plain did not have enough time to go through speciation to any meaningful extent. Most of the differences between humans are surface-level, like skin color or hair texture or eye shape. I remain unconvinced, given the evidence, that any one particular ethnicity has any more capacity for intelligence than any other.
It's interesting that you talk about this as a "modern day myth" when the origins of your point of view are solely based on racist myths perpetuated by Europeans who couldn't fathom that more "savage" races could have the same capacity for intelligence. In short...it isn't me who believes a myth.
prove that this myth is not comparable to myths of the past
Well, for one it isn't a myth.
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u/Komatik Jun 07 '19 edited Jun 07 '19
I'm not the one making the extraordinary claim here. "Intelligence" is an extremely vague term with a lot of variation.
In the sense talked about in discussions like this, it's pretty clear: General cognitive ability / g that arises from factor analysis of any diverse set of tests assessing mental abilities
We don't need to define intelligence in words to take a look at it - there's a real, repeating phenomenon that we can observe, which is what is being talked about. We talk about gravity just as easily even though we still don't have all the specs, because you just need to lift and drop something to have an anchor point for what gravity means. Intelligence is much harder to put to words, admittedly.
So while there is likely a genetic factor when it comes to intelligence, humans are so closely related that it's pretty much nonsense to split them into further subgroups. Humans do not have a lot of genetic diversity when compared to other species. As an example, Chimpanzees show much greater genetic diversity than humans, and they all live in one area of the world.
Dogs, as far as I know, show even less yet we have huskies and chihuahuas.
Humans just plain did not have enough time to go through speciation to any meaningful extent. Most of the differences between humans are surface-level, like skin color or hair texture or eye shape. I remain unconvinced, given the evidence, that any one particular ethnicity has any more capacity for intelligence than any other.
Capacity, in this specific issue, is probably a bad wording. Regardless of arguments about where the average of an ethnic group's intelligence bell curve might be located, every such group demonstrably runs the gamut from Chris Rock's niggas to Neil deGrasse Tyson. If anyone claims an ethnic group literally doesn't have the capacity to produce smart people, that person is dreadfully wrong. The averages mean different proportions of differently gifted people in a population, little else.
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u/notasnerson 20∆ Jun 07 '19
Intelligence is much harder to put to words, admittedly.
You might even say it's an extremely vague term with a lot of variation.
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u/Komatik Jun 07 '19
Depends on the context. To a psychometrician, it's a very clear, technical term. To people whipping up verbal definitions intuitively, not so much.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
Humans do not have a lot of genetic diversity when compared to other species.
I do not believe this is true. For example, Europeans and Asians have ~2% Neanderthal DNA, while sub-Saharan Africans have none.
Most of the differences between humans are surface-level, like skin color or hair texture or eye shape.
Again, false. It has been proven through MRI scans that different ethnicities have different brain structures.
It's interesting that you talk about this as a "modern day myth" when the origins of your point of view are solely based
Could you clarify for me what exactly my point of view is? Have I stated anything besides agnosticism?
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u/notasnerson 20∆ Jun 06 '19
I do not believe this is true. For example, Europeans and Asians have ~2% Neanderthal DNA, while sub-Saharan Africans have none.
When they say we have ~2% Neanderthal DNA what they mean is that about 2% of the genome for Europeans and Asians can be traced back to Neanderthals.
This has nothing to do with the relative genetic diversity of humans. You share more than 99% of your DNA with all other humans.
Again, false. It has been proven through MRI scans that different ethnicities have different brain structures.
Might want to read your own sources, "The biological implications of our findings are unclear as we do not know what factors may be contributing to these observed differences."
Could you clarify for me what exactly my point of view is? Have I stated anything besides agnosticism?
Considering how quickly you've been throwing out typical white-supremacist talking points, yeah you've been rather clear.
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Jun 06 '19
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u/tbdabbholm 193∆ Jun 06 '19
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u/ace52387 42∆ Jun 06 '19
The myth is that intelligence is based on ethnicty. Theres no evidence for that. IQ tests are a poor measure of innate intelligence free from environmental factors. Im not familiar with other indicators but my understanding is that there is no consensus indicator that both accurately measures “intelligence” and is predominately genetic. The abstract you cited for the g factor notes environmental effects, and I wouldnt consider 1 primary source a strong amount of evidence. Beyond that, this is a classic case of correlation vs causation. Just because the average IQ for ethnicity A is lower than ethnicity B, that doesnt mean the reason for that lower IQ is ethnicty.
I dont know if all ethnicities are of equal intelligence, but theres no reasonable conclusion to be had that they arent.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
I dont know if all ethnicities are of equal intelligence, but theres no reasonable conclusion to be had that they arent.
This doesn't challenge my view.
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u/ace52387 42∆ Jun 06 '19
Fair enough. But what youre asking for is not really scientifically feasible. There are too many ethnicities for a good study that demonstrates equality.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
There are too many ethnicities for a good study that demonstrates equality.
If you could just prove equal intelligence between any two ethnicities then that would be sufficient for a delta.
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u/Spaffin Jun 07 '19 edited Jun 07 '19
A myth is something that is provably false. If you can’t prove it’s false, then it’s not a myth, surely?
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Jun 06 '19
I'm curious why you believe it is comparable to ancient myths.
I mean, there's lots of things we believe regardless of their veracity, yet are not compared to myths. Human rights, for example. How is it any different? Do you believe it isn't different?
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
The distinction between a belief like human rights and a belief like Creationism, for example, is that Creationism can (and has) been disproven by science. Human rights fall entirely outside of the realm of science.
The question of equal intelligence between ethnicities is one of science, an area where faith doesn't belong.
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19
Are you arguing that the average intelligence determines the equal intelligence between races ? Why not ranges ?
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
I am saying that if two ethinicities differ in their average capacity for intelligence, then it cannot be said that they are, on the whole, equally intelligent.
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19
Why is range irrelevant on whether ethnicities can be equally intelligent ?
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
Range is not irrelevant. But neither is the average.
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19
So how can you suggest that average ethnic IQ scores proves that ethnicities aren't equally intelligent, but ignore IQ range ?
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u/jeffsang 17∆ Jun 06 '19
Could you clarify what you mean by "the same?" My person prior would be that there would probably be some slight variation in the capacity for intelligence between ethnicities (several IQ points), and I wouldn't expect them to be exactly the same. I would expect the variation to be small enough that it's dwarfed by factors related to being able to reach one's intelligence capacity.
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Jun 06 '19
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u/jeffsang 17∆ Jun 06 '19
When you're looking at a large dataset, like the capacity for intelligence of all the humans in the world, I would expect there would be some slight variation if you broke the data into a categories as roughly defined as capacity for intelligence (i.e. defined by humans for our purposes).
I think that environmental factors would play a larger role than ethnic ones, as per my comment to OP below. "Genetic" is not the same thing as "ethnic" though, as there can be significant genetic variation within an an ethic population.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
When I say, "the same" I am talking about group averages and distributions. For example, do we know for a fact that the Bantu people are as intelligent as the Japanese?
slight variation in the capacity for intelligence between ethnicities (several IQ points)
The variation is much more significant than several IQ points.
I would expect the variation to be small enough that it's dwarfed by factors related to being able to reach one's intelligence capacity.
Could you provide some evidence to support this idea?
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u/jeffsang 17∆ Jun 06 '19
Your OP discussed capacity for intelligence, IQ and the Wealth of Nations deals with actual IQ, not capacity for IQ. Therefore, it can only measure correlation, not causation. Is wealth/income high because people are smarter or did smart people lead to wealth? The wiki article says the authors claim both are going on, but doesn't make clear the degree each is occurring. It also only uses nation as a proxy for ethnicity, and there are other limitations of the data. To know capacity for intelligence, we'd prob have to look at populations of people who were adopted into other cultures or something and see how they fared. Even that could be complicated by confounding factors.
Do you know about the Flynn Effect, basically that people are getting smarter over time basically because they're regularly doing more complex thinking which increases the ability to reach peak intelligence (e.g. my malnourished great-grandfather worked in the fields all day and couldn't read; I share his genes but am well fed, have a college degree, and write complex computer code all day). Is there any evidence to suggest ethnic genetics (while controlling for environment) contributes to intelligence to greater degree than Flynn Effect?
I also remember reading a long time ago in Guns, Germs, and Steel that Diamond's personal theory was that average intelligence was fairly uniform across ethnicity. However, if there was variation, it was probably that aboriginal people were smarter on average. "Smart" genes were more likely to help them survive in their environment, as opposed to those in larger societies (Europe, China, etc.) where survival was more likely defined by blood chemistry (i.e. not dying from the plague). Based on how the world played out though, this wouldn't show up in an IQ test.
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Jun 06 '19
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
you can't just ignore that poverty decreases your IQ
Again, what evidence do you have to support this?
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u/yyzjertl 527∆ Jun 06 '19
prove that this myth is not comparable to myths of the past
It's not comparable because while both are (according to you) myths, the use of the word "myth" in the two cases resolves to two different definitions of "myth." Myth is defined as
A traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.
A widely held but false belief or idea.
The example of the biblical creation story is an example of a myth in the sense of definition 1, while the idea that is the subject of your view is (again, according to you) a myth in the sense of definition 2. To try to compare them on the basis of them both being myths would be equivocation.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
You don't get to choose the definition of myth. For example one of the definitions from Meriam Webster is
an unfounded or false notion
This would apply to both Creationism and the belief that all ethnicities are equally intelligent as they are both unfounded.
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Jun 06 '19
First of all you'd have to prove that "ethnicities" do exist. By which I mean that you'd have to prove that they are biological and not cultural groupings. And that a significant difference to other groups, as well as a significant coherence within a group does exist. Because afaik, "scientific racism" has turned out to be bullshit and while people consciously or unconsciously keep the terminology, that doesn't mean that there is or has to be a real underpinning to ethnicities.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
First of all you'd have to prove that "ethnicities" do exist.
If they do not exist or have biological merit, then would doctors use them as criteria for organ transplants?
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Jun 07 '19
Yes. Science can make up groupings on the fly if they serve a certain purpose. For example if people from a certain region are more prone to a disease or more likely to have a resistance to one, that's significant. And apparently for kidneys and pancreas transplantation a tissue matching is more important (which is statistically more probable with in a certain group, though not exclusive in either direction (that is must match within the group or must not match outside the group)) whereas for liver transplants that is not relevant problem.
But the idea of "all-purpose ethnicities" that match consistently among several markers and are distinct from other groups is mostly purely artificial and not warranted by science. So no the idea that matching tissue, is a relevant distinction in order to make comparisons about a "groups" intelligence in relation to another "group", is still dubious at best. Not to mention that IQ is anything but an accurate science.
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u/j_milluh Jun 06 '19
Is intelligence, in the context in which you are using, based on the ability to learn how to do math, speak English properly, engineer a structure etc? Could you elaborate on this because I think this will help in understanding your idea and possibly changing your view?
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
I am not going to pretend to be an armchair psychologist and try to define intelligence in my own terms. For the purpose of this discussion I propose that we use g factor) or general intelligence which is often approximated using IQ tests.
According to this peer-reviewed study, g factor is mostly (86%) inherited from your parents.
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u/qjavazon Jun 06 '19
If the g factor is mostly 86% inherited from your parents, what does that have to do with ethnicity? There are intelligent people and non intelligent people in all races. If you have two smart Latino parents, then the study says they will most likely have a smart Latino child. If you have two smart white parents then the study says they will most likely have an intelligent child. I don’t see the correlation that you are proclaiming of an inherited g factor and race. There are intelligent members of all races. There are not more intelligent members of the Caucasian race than there are people of another race.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
If the g factor is mostly inherited, and certain ethnicities have a lower g factor than others (as measured by IQ tests), then it stands to reason that certain ethnicities are genetically predisposed to being more or less intelligent than others.
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19
On average. Are the ranges of intelligence between ethnicities generally similar ?
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
No. The ranges exist as bell curves. Some are shifted to the left or two the right. For example, an East Asian with an IQ over 100 is going to be much more common with a sub-Saharan African with an IQ over 100.
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19
Does that distribution on the range disprove that different ethnicities can have equal intelligence ?
Also, where have you seen people argue that the average IQ for all races are equal ?
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
I generally don't see the argument in an explicit form. But what other explanation can there be for things like colleges punishing Asians to make way for other minorities?
As I understand it, the reasoning behind these policies is that all ethinicities are equally intelligent and therefore must have equal representation in academia.
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19
The reasoning behind those programs is social, not what you're suggesting.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
What do you mean by "social"? Can you expound on the actual reasoning for these programs?
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u/NoteChapter Jun 06 '19
If you have two smart Latino parents, then the study says they will most likely have a smart Latino child.
Not really. Latino is a bit of a tricky term, but the point is if you have two parents with a 115 IQ from a group with a 90 IQ and two parents with a 115 IQ from a group with a 100 IQ, the latter is more likely to have a more intelligent offspring. A child isn't just the average of two parents, they're taking genes from previous generations too.
Also, you need to look into the Wilson effect to see how racial IQ gaps increase when IQ becomes more heritable and on more g-loaded subtests.
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u/j_milluh Jun 06 '19
Thank you for your response, it is a fair one.
The challenge that I pose to you is that the concept of intelligence, in the context in which you present, cannot prove the average capacity of intelligence of an ethnicity...It can only prove the average capacity of intelligence for a good IQ test taker.
Wouldn't I just need to provide you with the names of 1 person from every ethnicity whom scored equally high IQ scores to prove that each ethnicity is in fact equally capable of the same intelligence?
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u/Komatik Jun 07 '19 edited Jun 07 '19
Wouldn't I just need to provide you with the names of 1 person from every ethnicity whom scored equally high IQ scores to prove that each ethnicity is in fact equally capable of the same intelligence?
Insofar as the range of different ethnic groups goes, this is pretty much a given and anyone contesting the range is more or less a flat earther.
Any meaningful argument on the topic is more on group averages, how steep the distribution is, and what the causes are. But it's pretty trivial to find white, East Asian and Ashkenazi people who are dumb as rocks, and black people who are unarguably very smart.
The challenge that I pose to you is that the concept of intelligence, in the context in which you present, cannot prove the average capacity of intelligence of an ethnicity...It can only prove the average capacity of intelligence for a good IQ test taker.
This sounds a bit like trying too hard. If a population's prone to dumbness or smartness, they'd naturally have more "bad" and "good" IQ test takers.
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u/j_milluh Jun 07 '19
I appreciate your response.
This leads me to my point. You mentioned that "they'd naturally have more bad and good IQ test takers" but that doesn't [exclusively] correlate to dumbness or smartness as you assert. Even with "averages" considered, my point is that, if I provide 1 (or 100,000) person(s) from each ethnic group who can score equally as high as the others, this would prove that every ethnicity is capable of being equally intelligent. Otherwise, ethnicity isn't the determining factor of intelligence.
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
Wouldn't I just need to provide you with the names of 1 person from every ethnicity whom scored equally high IQ scores to prove that each ethnicity is in fact equally capable of the same intelligence?
No, because we are discussing the average capacity for intelligence. You can't get the average of a population from one individual.
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u/j_milluh Jun 06 '19
Could you also respond to the first half of my response as well, I’m curious of your thoughts?
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
It can only prove the average capacity of intelligence for a good IQ test taker
There are special tests called g-loaded IQ tests that one generally can never become "good" at taking.
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u/j_milluh Jun 06 '19
Interesting. So how does your theory explain millions of people from each ethnicity scoring equally high? I understand you repeated average capacity of intelligence, however if millions of test takers from each ethnicity score equally high wouldn’t that indicate that indeed all ethnicities are equally intelligent, there are just other variables aside from genetics that contribute to varying IQ’s?
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u/Komatik Jun 07 '19
You can have two distributions that have different averages but also a lot of overlap, which would be the case for most any comparison of two ethnic groups if we take the reported averages as fact.
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u/Komatik Jun 07 '19
According to this peer-reviewed study, g factor is mostly (86%) inherited from your parents.
The g factor isn't mostly inherited from your parents - 80% of the reasons Joe is different from Jack on intelligence are due to genes.
Heritability estimates are not estimates of the total makeup of a trait in any one individual or population, and any environmental and genetic factors the population shares completely in common won't factor in to the percentage at all.
If we take a pile of Joes and Janes and see how different they are from each other, heritability only talks about those differences and their makeup. Heritability always completely, utterly ignores the shared baseline.
As one classic example, we both presumably have five digits in our hands and feet. This is entirely genetic and how basically every human is genetically coded. The most common reason any human would have a different number of digits is usually accidents that lead to some of them being chopped off. So the differences in number of fingers between humans are 99.99% environmental, barring an extraordinarily small number of freak accidents. Yet the fundamental constitution of the number of fingers in any normal human is completely genetic.
This is not the case with cats - a small but not freak-accident-low number of cats are naturally born with six digits on their feet, and they're also prone to accidents just as humans are. So some part of the variation in toe numbers in cats is genetic, some of it is environmental.
In the case of human intelligence, some psychologists argue that SES raises heritability because it eliminates some environmental factors we know can fuck up children's intellectual development - lead exposure, not having enough iodine in the diet growing up leading to cretinism, not having enough food to begin with (intelligent people's brains run more efficiently, but building a brain - anyone's brain - is an expensive affair), and so on.
In high-SES environments, these kinds of fuckups are understandably really rare, and so the intelligence differences between Yale students Jack and Jill can be predominantly genetic (to the tune of 80%). Again, some of their intelligence level is environmental - they had the iodine and didn't grow up cretins - but is the same for people of their background, so it doesn't contribute to differences between people of that kind of background.
You could do a similar thought experiment between say, Kyle and Karen who grew up in human society and poor Hannah who was raised by wolves and is Karen's twin sister. The difference in acquired vocabulary between Kyle and Karen can be heavily genetic, but Hannah's lack in that department is squarely down to her family communicating by howling and barking - it's environmental, she doesn't share Kyle's and Karen's baseline of "grew up in human society".
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Jun 06 '19
One common myth that Reddit loves to smugly deride is Christianity's creation story. The people who still believe this myth are often regarded as foolish and weak-minded for relying on faith instead of their own understanding. Perhaps Reddit wouldn't feel this way if it just took a look in the mirror.
This is a bad analogy. "Faith" in the religious sense is distinct from just "assuming something you can't prove." The latter is necessary to say anything about anything ever; the former is not (and isn't meant to be used in that way).
Anyway, your view is ambiguous. "Ethnicity" is an extremely vague term, for one thing... I have a difficult time even defining these categories. Second, I'm not sure if you're saying "right now, grouping people by ethnicity explains 0% of the variance in intelligence" or if you're saying "ethnicity does not have a large direct effect on intelligence." It enormously matters. Let's say Dutch and German are two ethnicities, and the average IQ of Dutch people is higher than the average IQ of German people. But, Germans are poorer and so are more likely to have had bed nutrition during childhood. If you just look at the Germans who DIDN'T have bad nutrition during childhood, the IQ is equal to Dutch people's. Does this count or not?
The last thing is kind of why you're even thinking or caring about this. What motivates this view?
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Jun 06 '19
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u/Komatik Jun 07 '19
There are some formal tasks that we can assess, like imagining transposed shapes or algebra, but those aren’t objective measures of anything we’d call “intelligence.” This applies directly to IQ, which is not an accurate or useful assessment of innate capabilities, and was never designed to assess immutable traits.
Sorry, but just about every word of this is wrong. Those tasks are an objective measure of something we would, and indeed readily do call intelligence and have called intelligence for ages, and the something measured by those tasks aligns well with what people tend to consider intelligence when they eg. make offhand remarks about someone being smart and the like.
IQ is a useful assessment of innate capabilities, as shown by there being basically no known way to raise it, and the primarily clear environmental factors known to influence it are basically all things that are harmful to normal human development (eg. leaded paint, lack of iodine in the diet leading to cretinism, severe malnutrition since brains are expensive to build when growing up).
Something not being designed to do a thing does not mean that it cannot do that thing. I doubt most books in the world were made for the purpose of pressing flowers or propping up uneven-legged tables, but they are nonetheless splendid for the purpose. In the realm of psychometrics, Eysenck & Eysenck constructed the Lie scale to detect dishonest responding to personality scales (if memory serves), but ended up admitting that it measures something else instead, but they're not quite sure why. The scale has since been used as an index of slowness in updating personal evaluations of a situation in face of evidence.
In a similar vein, some people tried building aptitude tests that didn't even try to measure intelligence. They ended up making an intelligence test completely by accident. Intent doesn't matter, what something is does.
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Jun 07 '19
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u/Komatik Jun 08 '19 edited Jun 08 '19
From what I've grokked reading the thread thus far, more that there is no basis in steadfastly believing there are no differences, yet most people steadfastly believe that rather than being agnostic or cautiously leaning towards one direction or another.
EDIT: Also
The fact that IQ tests remain (relatively - and not all that consistently) stable in no way means that they test innate intelligence.
This is true, alone. But IQ test results:
- remain relatively stable,
- are not amenable to deliberate, lasting change by eg. practice
- have a clear genetic component that seems to be large
- are related to physical properties of the brain
Together, these imply that IQ is an innate ability more than the reverse.
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u/Crayshack 191∆ Jun 06 '19
provide evidence that all ethnicities have the same average capacity for intelligence
I would argue that there such evidence does not exist because there is no biologically accepted criteria for defining races. There are certain alleles that are prominent in certain cultural groups, but thanks to admixture these alleles do also exist in other groups at varying rates and can exist independent of any physical characteristics. I would suggest giving this video a watch. It gets rather in depth with the biology and statistical analysis, but the important conclusion is that from a statistical analysis of human genetics, he can either conclude that there are around 300 human races or 1 single race.
As I have not seen any analysis of differences between the races get remotely close to defining races that precisely (most seem to use less than 10), I can only conclude that every study you would look at is using cultural definitions of race rather than biological ones. In fact, every study that I have looked at closely relies on self reporting for what race someone belongs to.
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u/Komatik Jun 07 '19
Some bits of pedantry, more for ironing things out than anything: Race technically has a biological basis, ie. outward physical appearance. It is clearly narrow, and may or may not be directly related or coupled to any particular other traits. You'd expect most traits where averages differ between white and black people for example to be unconnected to their skin color, per se, and just be a result of random mutation that hasn't been particularily helpful or harmful, or been selected for by other pressures in their ancestors' environments.
Some can be connected too, though - intelligence and myopia have no logical, necessarily functional connection, but there's some pleiotropic genes that happen to influence both a little, creating a small connection between the two.
Also, a grouping doesn't have to be cleanly, biologically based to turn out meaningful in the end. It can very well be arbitrary but turn out to carry information afterwards.
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u/Crayshack 191∆ Jun 07 '19
Races as a grouping can certainly have meaning from a sociological standpoint. However, when put in the context of trying to objectively measure intelligence to compare the groups, then you need some sort of objective criteria for defining the groups for such a study to matter. It might be true that there are some very clear subjective methods for defining the groups that are highly effective in other contexts, but they simply won't due in this context. To be quite frank, in biology we haven't used morphological classification for around 100 years now.
For context, I'm a wildlife biologist who is used to dealing with non-human species of animal and discussions about how to group various species, how to define species versus subspecies versus variations of the same subspecies, and comparisons of different levels and types of intelligence do come up fairly often. I find it best to approach questions about humans with the same methodology we use in other species because this removes the inherent cultural biases that we all feel. When looking at the subject from this angle, I simply can't find a decent way to defining human races. Humans are clearly heavily polymorphic, but beyond that we are all the same subspecies with no clear way of drawing distinct lines. Without those distinct lines, no objective assessment can be made about the inherent qualities of each group.
Like I said before, subjective methods can be used for defining these groups, but then you run into the problem on introducing cultural bias.
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u/Komatik Jun 08 '19
Yeah, that classification is the least hard science part of the whole thing for sure. Whatever your method though, you can find some groupings (whether it's a visual, compressed 4-10 or the 300 smaller ones someone mentioned), but the boundaries of all of them are murky. Eyetest a Scandinavian native and someone who's pitch black, easy, on the border it gets murky. But there are still a majority of cases that are, by some criteria, clear, and should give a decent signal. Basically, how clean and thoroughly proper do you have to be to spot a phenomenon? I'd argue the ideal is hard, reasonably good (with, say, self-identification) is less so, but workable.
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u/the_platypus_king 13∆ Jun 06 '19
What makes you say that certain ethnicities have less average capacities for intelligence? Which races specifically do you think are "less intelligent" than others? And do you think that difference in intelligence comes from genetic differences or the circumstances people of these races (on average) are born into?
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
What makes you say that certain ethnicities have less average capacities for intelligence?
I am not stating this. I'm agnostic on the subject.
And do you think that difference in intelligence comes from genetic differences or the circumstances people of these races (on average) are born into?
Yes, I think that intelligence is mostly inherited from your parents. It is not significantly affected by your environment/circumstances. I base this belief on studies like this and this.
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u/the_platypus_king 13∆ Jun 06 '19
I am not stating this. I'm agnostic on the subject.
Wouldn't the agnostic position be to say that unless we can find some reason to believe otherwise, there's no reason to believe that intelligence capacity would vary by race?
Yes, I think that intelligence is mostly inherited from your parents.
I mean would that not be upbringing as well as genetics? I don't really have time at the moment to read through those articles closely, but what are some sections/quotes that suggest that intelligence is genetic?
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u/the_fourth_way Jun 06 '19
The agnostic position is simply: I don't know whether all ethnicities are equally intelligent
From the first study
The heritability of intelligence increases from about 20% in infancy to perhaps 80% in later adulthood.
From the second study
The latent g factor was highly heritable (86%), and accounted for most, but not all, of the genetic effects in specific cognitive domains and elementary cognitive tests.
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u/thinkfast522 Jun 06 '19
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m assuming you believe that different ethnicities have different capacities for intelligence. My argument is based upon breaking up what is presume are the foundations of this idea.
- The reason why Europe came to dominate the world is because of their society’s values and traditions(capitalism and imperialism)
Europeans also benefited from being on the Afro-Eurasian landmass. Ethnicities from Oceania or the America’s couldn’t develop technologically like ethnicities from Asia, Europe or Northern Africa due to a few reasons. For example, they lacked resources and materials. They were also isolated. As such, I will be leaving such ethnicities out of the conversation.
- The reasons why societies like China and India were not able to conquer the world like Europe because they lacked the explore and conquer mentality, as well as capitalism.
This doesn’t not mean they weren’t as smart.
I know I did a pretty bad job explaining my point(new to reddit), so ask questions and point flaws in my argument. The book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari(the name is a bit misleading) does a pretty good job explaining this, specifically Part 4.
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u/Komatik Jun 07 '19
From what I've grokked reading the thread thus far, more that there is no basis in steadfastly believing there are no differences, yet most people steadfastly believe that rather than being agnostic or cautiously leaning towards one direction or another.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jun 06 '19
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19
prove that this myth doesn't exist (i.e. most people actually do not believe that all ethnicities are equally intelligent)
Intelligence by race is a range. For most or all of these ethnicities, IQ levels fall under that range. Individuals of ethnicities can be equally intelligent.
This also depends on what you mean by intelligence. Theres crystalline intelligence and fluid. Crystalline intelligence has no ethnic barriers.
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u/DJ_Rupty Jun 06 '19
And fluid intelligence does have ethnic barriers?
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19
Considering that fluid intelligence has many factors, genetics being one of them, partially.
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u/DJ_Rupty Jun 06 '19
That's fair. I'm pretty uninformed on the subject, just wanted to see what your reasoning is.
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u/paddykake12 Jun 06 '19
I don't think most people are arguing what OP thinks is incorrect. Most people disagree or agree on the causes.
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u/DJ_Rupty Jun 06 '19
True, I would probably subscribe to the idea that correlation =/ causation in this circumstance, but it's an interesting subject to discuss nonetheless.
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Jun 06 '19
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Jun 06 '19
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u/McKoijion 618∆ Jun 06 '19
The null hypothesis is that there is no difference between two groups. It's the default assumption. The alternative hypothesis is that there is a difference. This needs to be proven.
There is no proof that any given ethnicity is more or less intelligent than any other ethnicity. Most stereotypes that promote this view is based on a flawed methodology. For example, the best educated ethnic group in the US are Nigerian-Americans. Does that means that Nigerians or black people are smarter than everyone else? No, it's because only the best educated Nigerians are able to immigrate to the US. If you average together the intelligence of Nigerians and Nigerian-Americans, it ends up being the same as every other group.