Human Stupidity: Irrationality, Self Deception

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“Blacks evolved in a tropical climate which contrasted with the cooler one of Europe…”

Where does that leave other tropical races, e.g. Indians (from India), Native Americans, Pacific Islanders?

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I see you have left out the smartest people, the Jews, yet, one can argue that their IQs, which average 115 based on the same studies the above stated racial IQs averages come from, are not a race and that natural selection must be the cause, as the other semetic peoples, such as Arabs, tend to average around 85 or lower IQ scale, based on the same studies.

I assume you left out the Jews because you are either anti-Semitic or you do not consider the Jews a race of people, only a culture like Muslims. However, there are a group of Jews that tended to be taller and smarter than all the rest, the Ashkenazi Jews. See the following for more information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_intelligence
Well anyway, although out of every race there may be an individual every now and then who is particularly intelligent, as well as a great number of persons who or absolute idiots, the distribution of average intelligence does seem to lie the way you put it, except with the Ashkenazi Jews at the top.

The truth strikes a discordant note amongst propagandists and social engineers, so falsehoods are substituted for the facts in order to manipulate the masses.

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What is your opinion of this?

In the United States today, most claims regarding differences between ethnic ‘populations’ in relationship to IQ test performance are based on statistically derived data that relate to scholastic aptitude tests (e.g. Flynn, 2006). With this in mind, and acknowledging the superior educational attainment of African blacks in the United States (and elsewhere) it can thus be argued, because of their “substantially” superior educational attainment levels, that they must also surmount far more (in number) and more difficult scholastic aptitude tests, which in turn would require higher level IQs (see Gottfredson, 1998; Ostrowsky, 1999). As whites on average do not, or are unable to attain the same levels of academic achievement within these (their own!) academic institutional frameworks they must also, by the racialist thinking employed by some, possess significantly lower cogitative indices on the group level (e.g. Jensen, 1998; Gottfredson, 1986, 1998). In fact, attainment differences of these ‘grand’ magnitudes would suggest that American whites, in particular, are at a significant intellectual handicap when matched against immigrants of black African, East Indian, and East Asian descent. Incidentally, most American whites themselves are the children or grandchildren of “self-selected,” voluntary immigrants from Europe (Ogbu and Simons, 1998), and thus these trends can not be said to result from immigrant selectivity.

African born blacks residing in western countries, as a group may possess IQs that are between 5 points and a full standard deviation (15 IQ points) above that of whites living in these countries (see, Gottfredson, 1998; Ostrowsky, 1999; Richardson, 2002; Cross, 1994; Williams, 2005) – This is especially true for those living in the United States and in the UK. One may also expect to find, according to much of the corroborative literature that relates IQ with education, approximately twice the number of African born immigrants with IQs in the 115 range, than among the general white American population (Gottfredson, 1998; Ostrowsky, 1999; Williams, 2005), and “more” than twice the number of African immigrants in the 125 IQ range (Gottfredson, 1998; The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 1999-2000).

The differences in overall educational attainment observed between African born blacks in the United States and native born white Americans are quite spectacular! Indeed, if one chooses to adopt the racial hereditarian thinking of Jensen (1980), Herrnstein and Murray (1994) or Gottfredson (1998), these disparities become suggestive of underlying intelligence differences between the two populations; with these differences in “strong favor” of African born blacks! Though higher cognitive indices are said by some to be predictive of more educational achievements and more education predictive of higher intellectual outcomes (e.g., Brody, 1997; Ceci & Williams, 1997), so that there are reciprocal relationships. Most who study African immigrants attribute their inclination toward academic attainment to be the result of positive cultural factors (Arthur, 2000; Selassie, 1998).

African born blacks residing in Western countries tend also to be concentrated in higher level professional occupations, which are considered (by some) to be more intellectually demanding; requiring greater cognitive ability (Jensen, 1980; Gottfredson, 1986; Herrnstein and Murray, 1994), than the average occupations of either American or British born whites (Nisbett, 2002; Dixon, 2006; Li and Heath, 2006; Dustmann and Theodoropoulos, 2006).

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Holtz,

What I think is that it’s very hard for scientists to be objective on research that has serious social and political implications. Racialists have their theories and criticisms of the research from Egalitarian scientists and vice versa. Regarding your specific claims. A criticism of Nisbett’s book doesn’t make my statement that Nisbett offered a point by point refutation to Rushton and Jensen incorrect.

I have read Rushton and Jensen’s rebuttal to the book as has Nisbett. He said that they really didn’t offer anything new and I agree all they did was rehash old data. Nisbett also addressed the claim that Whites outperform Blacks at the same Socioecononic level or even below it by pointing out that Whites earn twice as much as Blacks at the same SES level meaning that while they may have the same salary they can afford better education for their kids.

Lower income White families are also bussed to better schools so that doesn’t support the hereditarian theory. Nisbett also notes citing a study by Brooks-Gunn et al. that when you control for family and neighborhood quality the Black-White IQ gap is virtually eradicated. You talk about Gould’s book but I notice you had nothing to say about the work of Leonard Lieberman or Joseph L. Graves. Calling Gould a Marxist to discredit him is an ad hominem attack and isn’t even true to begin with.

I’m working on getting a video debate between Graves and Rushton from the 90s onto Youtube. If I get a hold of the video and upload it I will post the link here. That way we can see with our own eyes how the actual scientists carry themselves in debate and how they defend their research. I can see how racialist research can be persuasive to some but it’s rather silly to equate arguments against it with stupidity as if the evidence in favor of racial differences in intelligence is overwhelming.

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@Admin:

I see racialists use the Black-White disparity in 100 meter dash argument all the time to note the absurdity of claiming that there are no racial differences. First of all fixating on this example displays a lack of understanding the actual scientific arguments against the theory of biological races. No reputable modern scientist that I know of has ever denied genetic variation across continental populations that result in the expression of different heritable traits. This is a fact that is observable.

The claim that race is only skin deep really isn’t common either. There’s no controversy over whether or not genetic variation between continental groups can determine differences in athletic performance. The controversy is over alleged racial differences in mental ability and no just because one difference is factual it doesn’t mean the other is. The scientists who adhere to the “no biological race” position argue that while some genetic variation between continental populations certainly exists it doesn’t mean that that variation is racial. What they are arguing over is the definition of race and how human biological variation is structured.

The classic anthropological definition of race is the one equated with zoological taxonomy which is that races are human populations that are composed of anatomically uniform individuals that are differentiated in the expression of heritable traits from other populations and because of common ancestry more biologically similar to one another than to any member of another race. The standard skepticism of this line of thinking is towards the idea that any given heritable trait that defines a race is unique to that race and that these traits are consistently correlated.

This form of racial thinking is what lead 19th century anthropologists to propose the idea of racial essences believing that because races had a fundamental biological commonality and were physically different from other races they must therefore have several biological differences including in mental ability. Thinking of human variation in this way lead to the obsession with measuring skulls and administering mental tests to prove differences between races.

The arguments against this definition of race are that for one actual human genetic variation doesn’t reflect the idea that continental populations have enough genetic distinctiveness to be classified as races or sub-species. What as demonstrated by Richard Lewontin and other scholars that >85% of genetic variation lies within continental groups while around 10-15% lie between them. This means that the boundaries between these populations are are fuzzy or do not exist as an individual from one group can be more genetically similar to another. It has also been found by analyzing Y-Chromosome and mtDNA research that genetic lineages are discordant meaning that there is no uniform line of descent for populations with the same anatomical trait complex. Some populations have genetic lineages in common with populations that are not anatomically similar to them and don’t share such lineages with populations that are similar to them.

Also continental groups do not have the same level of genetic distinctiveness from one another as the genetic diversity of non-African populations are sub-sets of diversity in African populations. I recommend reading Keita et al. 2004, “Conceptualizing Human Variation” for more detail. Also read Graves 2009, ” Biological V. Social Definitions of Race: Implications for Modern Biomedical Research”. If you take the time to read you will have a better understanding of these scientific arguments.

So my answer to you is that it is most likely that there is anatomical variation between some African populations and other populations that leads people of West African descent to excel at the 100 meter dash disproportionately. That doesn’t mean that fast running ability is consistently correlated with dark skin nor does it lend credibility to the taxonomic definition of race any more than variation in skin color, hair texture or craniofacial morphology does.

The reason why there are fewer Black Nobel Prize winners in math and science are less obvious. For one thing these examples are hardly equivalent. The fastest sprinters are determined by competition while Nobel prize winners are decided by a committee. The idea that Blacks can’t think at least not on a great enough level to win a Nobel prize is not credible since there are plenty of successful Black mathematicians and scientists. It’s like saying that Blacks can’t act because there haven’t been a lot of Black Oscar winners for best actor/actress. Black people are a minority in 1st world countries where successful scholars usually come from and have historically been disenfranchised in the West so based on these facts we shouldn’t expect there to be many outstanding Black scholars. Blacks simply haven’t been afforded the same opportunities and the effects of Segregation are still felt in Black communities.

I believe these socio-economic disparities have a cultural cause and can be improved with an improvement in environment.

For someone like me I need concrete scientific proof that there are racial differences in mental ability. What is physically different about Black people that would lead to them having lower intelligence and a tendency towards criminality? Are their brains too small? Is there testosterone level too high? Did they take a wrong turn in Africa and simply evolve into inferior beings while Whites and Asians as evidence by their pristine heritage and amazing cultural achievement simply evolved into superior beings with higher intelligence and greater self control? I’m well aware that racialist scholars have gone in that direction but I don’t buy their results especially when there are refutations out there which I don’t believe the author of this page has even looked at.

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I have read the research of Rushton and Lynn. Rushton’s application of r/K selection theory to human populations was refuted by Joseph L Graves one of the world’s leading evolutionary biologists who exposed his lack of understanding the concept itself. I’m in contact with Graves and working on getting getting a debate between himself and Rushton onto Youtube so people can see for themselves how Rushton’s evolutionary theories hold up to an actual expert in the field. In the meantime I recommend reading Graves critique of Rushton’s evolutionary theories. Read “What a tangled web he weaves:
Race, reproductive strategies and Rushton’s life history theory”. You can download it here:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=4IHFPUHM

Like I said before Leonard Lieberman refuted Rushton’s claims of racial hierarchies in brain size and cranial capacity. Graves has as well. I’m currently reading his book “The Emperor’s New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium” and all of these claims are addressed and debunked.

Rushton’s claims of biological correlates with IQ, presuming a causal genetic link are actually some of his weaker arguments. He makes several errors in methodology and his conclusions have been shown to be demonstrably false. As a psychologist evolutionary theory and anthropometric research are outside of his field of expertise so it’s not surprising that he made so many errors but racialists still promote this research uncritically without looking at the science behind the claims.

I can appreciate that people want to promote fringe theories that they believe are being suppressed by mainstream academia and media but this isn’t science it’s pseudoscience. The fact that scientists can be fired for advancing controversial theories lends no credibility to the theories themselves. Only established facts do. Rushton is the President of an organization (The Pioneer Fund) whose stated purpose with his financing of research (including research used by the Nazis and Segregationists) was to, “prove that Negroes were inferior”.

These are hardly the objective scientists fighting politically correct dogma that you make them out to be. They are racist ideologues committed to advancing propaganda in order to influence social policy on race.

Regarding your appeal to the Model Minority Myth of East Asians, most East Asian college graduates are not descended from impoverished Asian communities but rather recent immigrants to America who already had a decent amount of wealth and education upon immigrating to the United States. The same is true for African immigrants to the USA. There are still problems in Asian communities with advancement opportunities in the corporate world as well a unemployment in the current economic downturn so this idea of Asians being immune to the effects of White privilege is not credible.

I’m all for letting research find the truth so I do hope that comments which challenge these racialist theories are allowed on the site.

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@Admin:

Let me be a bit more specific about the refutations to Rushton’s evolutionary arguments and claims of racial hierarchies in brain size/cranial capacity. Now you mentioned Rushton’s application of r/K selection theory to the life histories of human populations. This is the most comprehensive attempt in modern history by the race-realist crowd to find a scientific explanation for racial differences in mental traits. Rushton’s theory is that races are adapted to different climates and as a consequence evolved different reproductive strategies to deal with the trials of life in their respective climates.

According to Rushton, humans evolved from a common ancestor with the Great Apes in Africa (adhering to the Out of Africa model of human migration). Sub-Saharan African populations (“Negroids”) are said by Rushton to have adopted an r-strategy to deal with tropical climates. According to Rushton r-strategists like Africans have faster rates of maturation, higher rates of fertility and a greater prevalence of sex hormones leading to differences in birth rates, sexual behavior, social organization and altruism. K-Strategists are believed by Rushton to have evolved larger brains to deal with the complexities of surviving harsh winters in Northern climates leading to slower rates of maturation, lower fertility rates, lower prevalence of sex hormones a greater tendency towards caring for young and planning ahead by building shelter and storing food. Adopting this K-strategy lead Europeans and Asians to select for higher average intelligence.

Here’s the problem. While C Loring Brace notes the absurdity of the proposition by pointing out that none of Rushton’s claims are based on realized reproduction figures (in fact there are 3 times as many Chinese in the world as Sub-Saharan Africans) Joseph L Graves points out the fallacy of Rushton’s whole theory by pointing out that he got the whole thing backwards. According to r/K selection theory organisms in tropical climates, which make for a more predictable environment, would be the K-strategists meaning we should expect all of these attributes attributed to Europeans and Asians to be present in Africans.

As it is r/K selection theory isn’t considered by most modern evolutionary biologists to be applicable to mammals because they cannot predict which life history trade offs are favored by selection. Rushton’s theory of evolutionary racial differences relies on the r- and k- continuum even though according to modern biologists such as Alan Templeton it cannot be thought of as a continuum since it is impossible to specify a single phenotype that is optimal under one or the other. Therefore Graves concludes that Rushton relies on a theory that is invalid and is incorrectly applied by him in the first place. He also states that Rushton’s data sources used to support his theory are biased but I don’t have time to go into that.

What matters is that Rushton’s application of r/k selection theory is invalid and not applicable to humans at all. His saving grace would appear to be claims of racial hierarchies in brain size/cranial capacity because after all if he can prove such racial differences exist he really doesn’t need a fancy evolutionary theory to explain how these differences came about right? Well here too he runs into problems which have been outlined in Leonard Lieberman’s article, “How Caucasoids got such big crania and why they shrank: From Morton to Rushton.”

Lieberman starts off by deconstructing the race concept that Rushton adheres to posing the same arguments I’ve made in a previous post to make it clear that human biological variation is not structured in the way that Rushton believes it to be (basically an amalgamation of heritable traits that are consistently correlated and reflect a distinct evolutionary lineage). As there are no phylogenetic sub-species (“races”) to speak of Rushton’s data is not based on biological categories but rather folk taxonomies constructed from traditional racial concepts.

Lieberman notes that there are no acceptable measures of the head size of all the diverse human populations to begin with and takes issue with Rushton’s use of aggregation which he claims to be invalid. According to Lieberman Rushton’s research lacks content validity. He claims correlations of brain size with intelligence to be as high as .50 to .60 when in reality applying his principle of aggregation to the 47 studies listed you would reach a correlation of about .24 which is statistically weak. He also does not acknowledge that empirical similarity has been established for the populations Rushton aggregates.

Lieberman goes on to note that Rushton’s model of cranioracial variation contradicts evolutionary anthropology citing Beals, Smith, and
Dodd (1984) who conclude that human crania vary by latitude and that a case for racial hierarchy cannot be made. Finally he notes that Rushton’s brain measurements do not utilize control variables utilized by Tobias. In 1970 Tobias conducted a study on the brain sizes of different racial groups listing a set of control variables that became acceptable for measuring brain weight at autopsy which included: sex, body size, age at death, early-life nutrition, early-life environment, source of sample, occupational group, cause of death, lapse of time after death, temperature after death, anatomical level of severance, presence or absence of cerebral spinal fluid, presence or absence of meninges, and presence or absence of blood vessels (Tobias’s conclusion was that there was no structural difference between the brains of Blacks and Whites that could be used to establish a racial distinction between them).

In the same article Rushton did counter that he cited a study by Ho et al. (1980) which concluded that there were racial differences in brain size with an Asian>White>Black hierarchy established and that the study used all of the control variables mentioned by Tobias. Rushton left out the researchers statements in a future study that because there was no discernible racial difference in brain size between infants the differences they did discover in adults were likely caused by environment.

I asked Graves about this myself and he noted that variations in cranial size/body ratio while they can determine differences in intelligence between species are not sufficient for determining which animals are more intelligent within a species. He went on to note that some of the greatest scientific minds in the world, people who donated their brains to science were discovered to have smaller than average brains while exhibiting complex neural structures which Graves notes in tests of rats can change dramatically by subjecting one group to environmental stimuli. It simply cannot be determined from the study of brains that one group of people is more intelligent than another whether you look at cranial measurements or MRI scans.

The notion that bigger brains = more intelligent minds has not been established when you account for the fact that there are significant brain size differences between genders which can be attributed to the shorter stature of women as there are no major differences in average IQ score between genders. According to Schoenemann et al. 2000 brain size does not predict cognitive ability within families as nongenetic events play a significant role in brain volume and cognitive ability associations.

So basically Rushton does not have a solid argument from an evolutionary perspective nor one based on anthropometric data for racial hierarchies in intelligence. What we are left with are IQ studies that test a genetic hypothesis which as I mentioned was addressed by psychologists such as Richard Nisbett and James Flynn who have provided substantial IQ research supporting the claim that Black American IQ is converging on White American IQ as their Socioeconomic status and educational standards improve, intervention programs such as Head Start can boost Black IQ and the most relevant studies that test for a genetic component to the Black-White IQ gap support the Nil Hypothesis.

I suppose this debate is never going to end until the Black-White IQ gap in America disappears altogether proving that it was never immutable all along and destroying claims of a difference in intelligence between so-called races. Even then racists will still be racist. But so much for reputable scientific research being PC dogma, eh?