IQ, <i>G</i>, and Genetics

" but this addendum is more than a little surprising:"

Why? I'm just surprised (happily, I guess) that he admitted he was so utterly clueless and lazy about such an important - and potentially quite harmful - issue. Intellectual negligence.

Posted by Dan S. | November 29, 2007 1:17 PM

Seconded, Ross. Saletan's article piqued my interest in this debate, and I did some reading on the internets, and the Rushton and racism controversy was front and center. I believe I read about it in the NYRB article on the Bell Curve. Also, one of the reviewers for the journal Mankind Quartlery, which published much of the primary source material cited in the Bell Curve, was a former associate of Dr. Mengele. Not kidding--there are some seedy people doing this type of work.

Posted by Rickm | November 29, 2007 1:20 PM

Also worth checking out the discussion at gnxp -- Manzi's participating in that as is Jason Malloy.

Posted by henry evans | November 29, 2007 1:34 PM

Unbelievable. J. Philippe Rushton is not an obscure figure in race/IQ/intelligence circles. Even I know who he is, and have known who he is for years, and believe me, I don't spend much time focusing on this issue. Saletan's lack of knowledge of who Rushton is (particularly when he was citing Rushton's work) really calls into question Saletan's general knowledge, diligence and judgment with regard to this topic.

Posted by Mark in Houston | November 29, 2007 2:34 PM

Not comforting at all, Ross D.
The Manzi posts you link at most make the point that even though IQ is hereditable to a large degree we can't be sure that racial IQ differences are the product of heredity. Well, and so what? Its liberal nonsense that is comfortable with the idea of genetic castes as long as those castes aren't defined by something icky like race.

Posted by Adam Greenwood | November 29, 2007 2:44 PM

Saletan was so quick to criticize liberals who doubt this whole line of research, assigning their skepticism to some evil motive. But a quick look at the people pushing this garbage should make ANYONE skeptical. The fact that Saletan was so married to his conclusion blinded him. Will this affect his status or cause readers to doubt him in the future, especially when he is criticizing liberal attitudes? Sadly, no, I'm afraid.

Posted by tgb1000 | November 29, 2007 2:47 PM

Adam-

Is it really 'nonsense' for one to be uncomfortable with genetically determined racial differences IQ? Even Saletan prefaces his first article with something saying how one should be careful when discussing things of this nature, and how he's investigating a touchy subject.

Posted by Rickm | November 29, 2007 3:00 PM

Two points that should be obvious:

1) There's not exactly a whole lot of funding choices to choose from if you are doing research on race and IQ. Commenters on Slate pointed out that the Pioneer Fund is pretty much the only game in town.

2) Ad hominem criticisms of Rushton do nothing to invalidate the conclusions of his research; these must be challenged on their merits, and liberal creationists are unable to do so.

Posted by Fred | November 29, 2007 3:34 PM

From John Derbyshire's NRO column:

"And this whole story about researchers being lap-dogs of their funders doesn’t bear close scrutiny anyway. A couple of years ago, for example, I reported in National Review about the discoveries of human-geneticist Bruce Lahn. Lahn had turned up some variants of genes known to be involved somehow — we didn’t (and still don’t) know exactly how — in infant brain development. These variants showed strikingly different frequencies when tallied by race. Could these variants help explain race-I.Q. differences?

Not hard to find out. Assemble two groups, equalized by age, sex, income, race, and anything else you can think of, one group with variant P, the other without it, this being the only detectable difference between the groups. Give ‘em I.Q. tests. See if there is any statistically-significant group difference.

That follow-up experiment was done. The result was negative. No, these gene variants seem not to be an explanatory factor for race-I.Q. differences.

The lead researcher on that follow-up experiment that got the negative result is J. Philippe Rushton of the University of Ontario. Prof. Rushton has been a major recipient of Pioneer Fund grants, and currently heads the fund. I guess he momentarily forgot he’s supposed to be a lap-dog."

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 29, 2007 3:46 PM

Speaking of ad hominem attacks, did you know that Stephen Rose, who was the most prominent voice in Britain for crushing James Watson, back in the early 1980s ratted out an East German IQ researcher named Volkmar Weiss to the Communist dictatorship, turning Weiss into an unperson, because it was embarrassing to Rose, co-author of the manifesto "Not In our Genes," that IQ research was being published in a "socialist" country.

Weiss explains this in a 1983 essay entitled "The Suppression of Human Behavioral Genetics by the Radical Left"—unpublished, for obvious reasons, until 1991. He wrote:

"In 1980, the manuscript of the monograph Psychogenetik (Weiss 1982a) was complete. Now some fierce dogmatists were discovering that a cuckoo’s egg had been laid in the nest of socialism. One example: S. Rose asked his East German colleague, the professor of neurochemistry D. Biesold at the Karl-Marx-University of Leipzig (personal communication by Biesold), whether there was no means of stopping further publications by Weiss, because such publications printed in a socialist country were particularly disadvantageous to the propaganda of the Radical Left in the Western world. …”

Rose’s wish appears to have been the East German Communists’ command:

"[A]t the end of the year 1982 [Walter] Friedrich [director of the Central Institute of Youth Research in Leipzig] sought and obtained the backing of high-ranking officials of the Communist Party and all further research in psychogenetics in East Germany came to an end."

Weiss goes on to describe the aftermath he endured, which would be familiar to anyone who saw the tremendous 2006 film about life in East Germany under the thumb of the secret police, "The Lives of Others:"

“… the cited author was under the threat of arrest and had already lost all possibility of doing further empirical work of defending his field of research. After 1984, Weiss was forced to work in a quite different field … What follows is the usual story of life and resistance under totalitarian conditions. In order to be published abroad, any new theoretical contributions had to be smuggled out of the GDR."

http://www.vdare.com/sailer/071028_watson.htm

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 29, 2007 4:37 PM

So, why have we all heard about the peccadilloes of the marginalized J. Phillipe Rushton, but almost nobody has heard about how Steven Rose, who is a very prominent public figure in Britain, constantly writing for the Guardian and the like, teamed up with the East German communist regime to crush scientific dissent?

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 29, 2007 4:41 PM

Ross: "Also, I'm a big admirer of Will Saletan, and therefore inclined to take his side against critics who charge him with not doing his homework, but this addendum is more than a little surprising:..."

Saletan was taken in by a guy with at least a 20 year history of junk science - forget for now his backers and associates, his science has been sh*t since the Intel 386 was the hot new thing, running DOS 6.0. IIRC, the paper cited by Saletan was co-authored by a junk scientist who's been touting his crap since the 1960's, at least.

They were publishing under their own names and had easily accessible and d*mning histories on the net.

Anybody who was taken in by them (a) did indeed not do their homework or (b) was being deliberately dishonest.

Take your pick.

Posted by Barry | November 29, 2007 5:27 PM

"2) Ad hominem criticisms of Rushton do nothing to invalidate the conclusions of his research; these must be challenged on their merits, and liberal creationists are unable to do so. "

Posted by Fred

I would say 'lie', but Fred signed his post so I don't have to.

Posted by Barry | November 29, 2007 5:28 PM

Fred, I'm not sure whether this review of one of Rushton's books by Douglas Wahlsten has been linked before, but it certainly challenges Rushton's arguments on their lack of merit. There are other examples.

Posted by Matt Weiner | November 29, 2007 6:47 PM

The co-author of the paper with Rushton cited by William Saletan is Arthur Jensen, the dean of psychometric research, who has been the biggest name in the field since his famous 70 page pager in the December 1969 Harvard Education Review. The last time I checked, around 1998, Jensen had about 435 papers published in peer-reviewed scientific papers.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 29, 2007 7:31 PM

John Derbyshire wrote in NRO earlier this week:

"Look: The controversy here is not between research group A, resourced by fund X with bias M, saying this is so; while research group B, resourced by fund Y with bias N, insists no, that is not so — THIS is so!

"That’s not the structure of the controversy. The structure of the controversy is: research group A, resourced by fund X with bias M, saying this is so, while a mighty host of journo-school grads, law-school grads, and liberal-arts department heads — yes, and even a few careerist, tenure- or office-seeking biologists and money-seeking, PC-compliant pop-science authors — shriek YOU MUSTN’T TALK ABOUT THAT! YOU ARE BAD PEOPLE! That’s the structure of the controversy.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NzEyZjFmOWQ4YzlmZDRhMTdlMWYyNWJlNjEwM2Q5NDI=

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 29, 2007 7:34 PM

Oh boy, another round with Steve Sailor and his ilk congratulating each other for being so brave and for Speaking Truth to Power for saying that black people aren't as smart as white folks.

Before you gibber about "ad hominem" attacks as if this were an Oxford debating society, understand that most reasonable critics of these race/IQ studies have a point when they notice that the interested financial parties are predisposed to prove that IQ is a function of race, not culture or society. Sailor and his crowd seem awfully excited about proving how intellectually superior their particular race is.

To what purpose, only the darker sides of our imagination can really answer that.

DU

Posted by The Mechanical Eye | November 29, 2007 8:14 PM

The sheer ignorance of the anti-realists is amazing to behold:

"Sailor and his crowd seem awfully excited about proving how intellectually superior their particular race is."

Look, the Pioneer Fund researchers, such as Richard Lynn, have done far more than anybody else to document that Northeast Asians have higher average IQs than do whites.

That Northeast Asians have higher mean IQs than whites is perhaps the central aspect of Rushton's big theory that Asians and blacks tend to be arrayed at different ends of the spectrum on a host of measures, with whites typically in the mediocre middle.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 29, 2007 8:41 PM

Sailer,

If you expect me to be particularly sorry that a racist scholar (in Germany of all places, a country where racial thinking had its logical conclusion in the Holocaust) lost his job (and he wasn't exactly tortured or even jailed, he simply lost his job), then you'll be disappointed.

Mr. Rose did his duty by informing the government of the true nature of Mr. Weiss' thought. If he thought that it was inappropriate that a government whose whole raison d'etre was based on equality and anti-Nazism continued to fund an avowedly racist scholar, then he did exactly the right thing. You'll find no sympathy from me for Mr. Weiss.

Posted by Hector | November 29, 2007 9:03 PM

Thanks, Hector, I think you've said a lot about the kind of mindset common among the people who denounced James Watson -- that they're only frustrated that there isn't, yet, a Stasi to deal with people they disagree with.

Posted by Steve Sailer | November 29, 2007 10:37 PM

"...they're only frustrated that there isn't, yet, a Stasi to deal with people they disagree with."

Gosh, so many enemies you Children of the Enlightenment must fight in your struggles for race science.

I have no desire to see any of our Bell Curve-loving friends imprisoned or tortured, or even harassed. Simply exposing their intent is enough for myself, and I believe, most others.

Like the neo-conservatives, you see mortal enemies everywhere. I'm sure Daniel Pipes fancies himself a Churchill when he gets up in the morning. I suppose this makes you Galileo, Mr. Sailer.

DU

Posted by The Mechanical Eye | November 30, 2007 12:41 AM

For Saletan not to know about J. Philippe Rushton, a figure at the centre of the controversy since long before _The Bell Curve_, is like a WWII-historian's never having heard of David Irving. (The analogy is startlingly complete -- both Rushton and Irving have written really interesting and abhorrent stuff, and both have, I am told, taken the unusual step of going to the courtroom to defend their scholarship.)

Saletan apparently knows about as much about this subject as most of the rest of us did a decade ago.

Posted by GW | November 30, 2007 7:01 AM

All domestic dogs, from Chihuahua to Great Dane, are species canis familiaris; breed genetic differences result from enforced separation by breeders/trainers for the last 800 years. Domestic dogs are all one species. Similarly, all humans are species homo sapiens with race differences resulting from separation over thousands of years by geographic barriers. Dog breeds and human races are directly analogous as sub-groups within the respective species.

Much can be learned from studying dogs; medical science does a great deal of this to avoid experimentation on humans. The brain is no exception, as dog and human brain structure and information flow processes are very similar to that in humans. Numerous dog brain studies to analyze human brain diseases/conditions are in the medical literature.

Any experienced domestic animal breeder will acknowledge the profound influence of genetics on intelligence and behavior. Traits such as trainability, aggression, prey drive, docility, bite inhibition are highly heritable and difficult to modify. Extensive evaluations of dog intelligence have developed breed rankings according to ease of training (number of repetitions needed to learn a command) and reliability (percent of time) of correct response to learned commands. Instinctive ability to to take correct action in complex situations is also recognized to vary with breed (there is a valid reason police K-9 units use German Shepherds instead of Pit Bulls). Among dog breeds, there is a huge Achievement_Gap. This is all easily Googled…

You can talk openly about dogs without being politically incorrect. You won’t get into trouble, lose your career or research grants, as you might if you reveal unpleasant truths about humans: e.g., James Watson, Jimmy the Greek, Al Campanis, Don Imus…

Humans are not exempt from the fundamental rules of biology. Rushton’s publications (and James Watson’s recent comments) are heavily-supported with mountains of peer-reviewed research by well-credentialed scholars; numerous key citations are available in two recent books: Hart "Understanding Human History" and Lynn "Race Differences in Intelligence."

Posted by Big Don | November 30, 2007 10:22 AM

This has been a bad couple of weeks for the liberal creationists, but now they have a convenient outlet to beat up on Saletan. They're shocked, literally shocked, that he didn't know all about Rushton. They did, of course, even if they're falling over themselves telling us they've no particular interest in this subject....

Posted by Jitterbug | November 30, 2007 11:06 AM

Genes and race? and there's actually some difference?

Wow, next thing these nitwits will discover is that women have XX and men have XY chromosomes and that there are physical differences between men and women!

To all those who want to find a link between race and IQ:

1) what does IQ measure (aside from being good at IQ tests)?
2) If IQ is actually innate, why has it been steadily rising over the last several years?
3) If IQ is actually innate, why is it that people can "raise" their IQ tests through study?
4) Explain why environment, social conditions, self-repression are not enough to explain any "gap" that is measured. What are your error bars? Explain all your calculations.
5) And explain why 99% of the people so insistent on showing that there are gaps in intelligence between the races happen to be white males. Methinks that the bunch of them have are not acting in good faith.

Posted by grumpy realist | November 30, 2007 11:24 AM

To get a flavor of what New Century stands for, check out its publications on crime ("Everyone knows that blacks are dangerous")

Crime Rates

• Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder,
and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
• When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely
than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
• Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and
Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.
• The single best indicator of violent crime levels in an area is the percentage of
the population that is black and Hispanic.

Interracial Crime

• Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving
blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
• Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Fortyfive
percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are
Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are
black.
• Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against
a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.
• Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes
against whites than vice versa.

Gangs

• Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white.
• Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs.
Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.

Incarceration

• Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139
to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39
million.
• Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are
three times more likely.

The Color of Crime

So Mr. Saletan, how are they wrong?

Posted by Rix | November 30, 2007 11:31 AM

2) If IQ is actually innate, why has it been steadily rising over the last several years?

You're starting from the misconception that hereditarians believe intelligence is solely a product of genetics. Evidently, they don't. So you're question might as well try and debunk the genetic component of a physical measurement like height by pointing out that the average height of many populations rose during the 20th century because of improvements in dietary nutrition.

Posted by Rees Monfries | November 30, 2007 11:45 AM

So you're [sic] question...

Mea culpa. I realise that no-one here would dream of pointing out such an error in the vain hope of point-scoring, but my aim, as always, is perfection.

Posted by Rees | November 30, 2007 11:50 AM

Much can be learned from studying dogs; medical science does a great deal of this to avoid experimentation on humans.

I thought that was mice.

Posted by Jill Sinclair | November 30, 2007 12:04 PM

I thought I'd check out the context of the 'Everyone knows that blacks are dangerous' quote, and one can see why the pretenders preferred the shortened version:

Everyone knows that young people are more dangerous than old people and that men are more dangerous than women. We adjust our behavior accordingly and do not apologize for doing so. Why must we then pretend that blacks are no more dangerous than whites or Asians? And, of course, it is no more than pretense. Everyone knows that blacks are dangerous, and everyone–black or white–takes greater precautions in black neighborhoods or even avoids such neighborhoods entirely.

Link

Posted by Ilke | November 30, 2007 4:24 PM

"Josh Marshall reminds us of Saletan's basic premise, which is that that the genetic mental inferiority of Africans is as well established as the theory of evolution is, and that well-meaning liberals who try to deny the genetic mental inferiority of Africans are pitting their faith against scientific fact, just like the well-meaning believers who don't want to accept evolution...Josh Marshall calls this "an equation of almost unparalleled absurdity". I agree, not out of political correctness, but out of scientific conviction. And if the point is going to continue to be debated, I want as many people as possible to understand the concepts involved, precisely because I believe that the scientific evidence supports my views, and refutes Saletan's."

-Mark Liberman, at Language Log

Posted by rickm | November 30, 2007 4:30 PM

Although 30% or so of blacks describe as conservative there are varied reasons they don't vote Republicans. Oops wrong thread. (Couldn't resist)

Anyway Rix you're citing American Renaissance as a reputable source? Really? And yes the source does matter. If a schizophrenic gives you a pamphlet he wrote in crayon about his theories on the IMF are you really going to spend time debating its economic theory? If so why? A person or group who starts with an admitted bias is not the best source for science. There's too great a risk that they'll commit confirmation bias. Ideally it's best to have someone who has no strong feelings one way or other about this issue. Admittedly that's very difficult, but no one said life or science is easy.

Posted by Thomas R | December 1, 2007 6:41 AM

Re: Dog breeds and human races are directly analogous as sub-groups within the respective species.

No they are not. Dog breeds are essentially inbred families. Nothing remotely liek this exists in human populations where even the rare isolated human populations (like the Austrailians from the end of the last Ice Age to the Europepan arrival) were either large enough to prevent inbreeding or else had suffuicient cmntact with outsiders so that alien genes were introduced among them (the situation with both the Europeans and West African populations). And no one ever bred human beings the way dogs and other doemstic animals are bred.

Re: Any experienced domestic animal breeder will acknowledge the profound influence of genetics on intelligence and behavior.

rue. But human behavior is more malleable by experience. This is why humans are more intelligent than animals: rather than being shackled to instictual behavior patterns we learn most of behaviors and hence we change according to changing cicrusmtances we encounter. If that were not true we'd still be living in the trees with our closest Primate kin.

Re: Humans are not exempt from the fundamental rules of biology.

No one suggestst hat weare. But humans are radically different from other animals in the malleability of their behavior.

Re: Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder,
and eight times more likely to commit robbery.

This may be true nowadays but it was not alawys true. Murder rates were vastly higher in white populations in the past (I'm talking centuries back, not just years). You would have not have wanted to walk the streets of Renaissance Florence, or of Augustus' Rome, at night without an armed guard. Nothing that changes so rapidly can be a genetically determined factor.

Posted by JonF | December 1, 2007 8:05 AM

Anyway Rix you're citing American Renaissance as a reputable source? Really?

Sure, why not? But if you have alternative sources which dispute their findings, feel free to quote them. If there were major discrepancies in AR's data, I would have thought that friendly folks such as those at the SPLC or the ADL would have jumped all over them.

A person or group who starts with an admitted bias is not the best source for science.

But it's a bit of a chicken and an egg argument. Isn't the bias itself, at least, in part, the result of the science?

Posted by Rix | December 1, 2007 9:11 AM

Thank you, Rix, for taking an American Renaissance study seriously despite our alleged "admitted bias." When the 1999 version of Color of Crime was published, the Washington Times got a copy and asked a number of established criminologists for their opinions. They noted that the data could not be challenged, and that the subject of racial differences in crime rates makes people so uncomfortable that almost no professional criminologists write about it. The 2005 version is even more rigorous and conservatively argued.

At the same time, I know very well that anything I write is going to be scrutinized in the most hostile way, and that any factual error will be paraded to the public with great fanfare. That alone would make me very careful.

And, believe it or not, some of us alleged "racists" actually care a great deal about the truth. For example, it is a nagging annoyance to me that it is not possible to calculate correct crime rates for "Asians," because that category includes Samoans, Tongans, Guamanians and Filipinos, who have relatively high rates. The "Asian" rate is already much lower than the white rate, but a proper Chinese/Korean/Japanese rate would be vanishingly small. I would like to publish accurate figures for that group but must content myself with pointing out that grab-bag census bureau categories make it impossible to do so.

Jared Taylor, American Renaissance

Posted by Jared Taylor | December 2, 2007 11:46 PM

Rix just a normal look at the Bureau of Crime Statistics would indicate they are misleading at best.

Even the more supportable, by the bureau, statement that "blacks" are per-capita more criminal is highly misleading as this only refers to one nation. The crime rates in sub-Saharan Africa vary with some being below ours.

Meanwhile in most every Slavic nation I know of murder and violent crime rates are high. The only exception I find is the Czech Republic and maybe Slovakia. However you or this magazine I think would be unlikely to see Slavic peoples as somehow "naturally" more criminal. Just as the poor IQ performance of Bhutan, Nepal, and Qatar are of less interest.

Posted by Thomas R | December 3, 2007 2:58 AM

I wish there were more researchers investigating this topic.

On the one hand, as Sailer quotes Derbyshire, "The structure of the controversy is: research group A... saying this is so, while a mighty host... shriek YOU MUSTN’T TALK ABOUT THAT! YOU ARE BAD PEOPLE!"

On the other hand, as tgb1000 says, "a quick look at the people pushing this garbage should make ANYONE skeptical."

Both are correct. The supporters of Rushton et al put together what seems like a persuasive case. However, a quick look at their backgrounds and histories leaves me unable to take their word for it, and I don't think any rational person could either.

It's been pointed out that the hereditarians have authored peer-reviewed articles (albeit largely in avenues like Mankind Quarterly) whereas their detractors mostly shout them down, rather than writing peer-reviewed articles of their own. While this means that you cannot accurately say that the hereditarians "haven't done any research" or that the "science is heavily against them" it isn't a persuasive argument for personally believing in the actual truth of their claims. The truth of their claims isn't determined by the number of articles one side writes about a topic, or the weakness of their detractors, but by what actually is, and whether their claims match what actually is. Since I'm not qualified to research the topic myself, and there isn't much work from the opposing side for me to compare against, all I have is the hereditarians word to trust - and I wouldn't trust these guys further than I can throw them.

And while I think that there very possibly is something to the hereditarians' case, I can't help but think that they are overstating it beyond it's rational warrant, and that their results are at least somewhat skewed in their favor (as you'd expect when nearly everyone seriously researching a particular topic shares the same outlook). But by how much? Well, with precious little quantifiable response from the other side, it's impossible for me to do anything but speculate.

Which, again, is why I wish there were more researchers looking into this, and in particular more reputable ones. Unfortunately, I don't see this happening any time soon. It's an intrinsically unpleasant topic, one that precious few people would really want to devote their lives to, besides devoted racialists looking for scientific support.

Posted by Deuce | December 3, 2007 12:01 PM

Since I'm not qualified to research the topic myself, and there isn't much work from the opposing side for me to compare against, all I have is the hereditarians word to trust - and I wouldn't trust these guys further than I can throw them.

Do you agree with AR's claim that young people tend to be more violent/criminal than older people? Or that men are more criminally/violence inclined that women?

If you got on a double-decker bus and the choice was between staying on the lower deck populated mainly with elderly white women and going upstairs where you could hear the, let's say, boisterous noise of what sounded like young, black males, what would you do?

Posted by Rix | December 3, 2007 1:17 PM

I admit, it *is* odd that the Pioneer Fund, which appears on its face to be funded and managed primarily by caucasians, is funding so much research that on its face appears to demonstrate that East Asians have higher average intelligence than Caucasians.

Assuming we reject the hypothesis that the science is supported by the data, is there any evidence for the most logical alternate hypothesis - that the Pioneer Fund is quietly funded and/or managed by pro-Asian racists?

Posted by J Mann | December 3, 2007 2:10 PM

Rix just a normal look at the Bureau of Crime Statistics would indicate they are misleading at best.

How so?

The crime rates in sub-Saharan Africa vary with some being below ours.

I'm not sure how crime rates are recorded/calculated in sub-Saharan Africa, nor I suspect are you, so I'm tempted to dismiss this out of hand, but for two reasons.

1) I think you're falling into the same error as JonF in thinking that hereditarians allege that crime rates are genetically determined or almost perfectly correlated with race. Nothing quite so crude, I would argue, despite occasional rhetorical appearances to the contrary. Treat race as you would age and gender and it simply becomes another significant factor/influence.

For the purpose of trying to control, as far as possible, for environment/culture, it's best for comparative studies to concentrate on societies with multiracial populations. To which end, if you could identify any such populations worldwide where blacks/Hispanics have lower crime rates (or higher exam pass rates) than their white/Asian counterparts, that would certainly be a point in your favour.

2) It raises another chicken and egg type dilemma. To what extent, are people the product of a culture, or the culture, a product of its people?

Why is it unacceptable to say that failing black cultures are partially explicable in terms of low black intelligence, but, apparently, OK to argue that Jewish success could have a genetic basis?

Posted by Rix | December 3, 2007 2:10 PM

I invite the commenters here to go live in any of the crime-free paradises well-known by ignoramuses to exist in sub-Saharan Africa and report back on the new Eden they have discovered.

It really is a subject in which one half of the discussants is so willfully separated from reality by fear and browbeating that trying to talk sense to them is like trying to explain advanced medicine to a clan of inbred cannibals. Sheer stubborn slavering fear of knowledge; that's why it's called "liberal creationism".

Look forward to any of you suffering a head injury that somehow jars your brain back into working order.

Posted by Udolpho | December 3, 2007 7:38 PM

Deuce writes the following:

I wish there were more researchers investigating this topic.

On the one hand, as Sailer quotes Derbyshire, "The structure of the controversy is: research group A... saying this is so, while a mighty host... shriek YOU MUSTN’T TALK ABOUT THAT! YOU ARE BAD PEOPLE!"

On the other hand, as tgb1000 says, "a quick look at the people pushing this garbage should make ANYONE skeptical."

Both are correct. The supporters of Rushton et al put together what seems like a persuasive case. However, a quick look at their backgrounds and histories leaves me unable to take their word for it, and I don't think any rational person could either.

Spoken from profound ignorance, I'm afraid. Perhaps Deuce will regale us with the moral failings of the following:

Arthur Jensen, Linda Gottfredson, Audrey Shuey, Richard Rowe, Sandra Scarr, Michael Levin, Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, Seymour Itzkoff, Helmuth Nyborg, Tatu Vanhannen, Hans Eysenck, H. Travis Osborne, William Shockley, Daniel Seligman -- and this list is by no means exhaustive.

The problem is not insufficient research, nor research that is somehow "tainted." The problem is exactly as Mr. Derbyshire states it: an entrenched and bigoted orthodoxy that remains willfully blind to the evidence and shouts "Racism!" at anyone who chooses to examine it.

Nor is most of the research conceptually difficult. Arthur Jensen's magisterial "The g Factor" may be tough going for non-specialists, but try "The Bell Curve," or "A Question of Intelligence," by Daniel Seligman.

The basic arguments and their supporting data are easily within the grasp of a college graduate. To flee the field claiming insufficient expertise is either cowardice or laziness.

Jared Tayor, American Renaissance

Posted by Jared Taylor | December 3, 2007 9:25 PM

Back on 22nd November, Ross stated 'More thoughts on this topic after the holiday.' Come on, Ross, surely you've thought of something interesting, yet uncontroversial, by now.

Posted by Vermont | December 4, 2007 11:38 AM

I lived in Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer for three years, I've spoken to lots of people who have worked there in various capacities, and I've looked up the relevant statistics.

Murder and rape rates, at least (theft might be somewhat higher) are very low in the countries that aren't currently experiencing political violence (with the exception of South Africa, the 'whitest' country). In general Muslim African countries tend to have lower than non-Muslim ones. Speaking anecdotally, everyone who I've spoken to who had been to countries like Mali, Niger, etc. (this includes some Peace Corps workers, anthropologists, travelers and various others) told me right away how 'safe' it was.

Posted by Hector | December 4, 2007 5:53 PM

IQ, G, and Genetics

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