Posted on 11/03/2022 12:11:00 PM PDT by karpov
Stop the press! Cambridge hired someone who said something that was debunked — debunked by experts, no less. How could this have happened? Well, here’s the story from the perspective of the one who was supposedly “debunked”.
I am a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Cambridge. (I feel like Jason Stanley when I say that.) My research areas are the philosophy of biology and ethics. Three years ago, when I was a PhD student at Oxford, I published a paper in a highly respected philosophy and psychology journal calling for free inquiry into all possible causes of race differences in intelligence, including genes. This led a small group of philosophers led by Mark Alfano (who is also known for wishing death upon his political enemies) to have a meltdown, which is its own funny story, but not directly relevant to the events that are currently unfolding.
My job at Cambridge — my first job after getting my PhD — started on 1 September. On 25 October I received an email from an editor at the Cambridge student newspaper, Varsity. She said the newspaper was going to run an article on me that Friday, and they were offering me the right to reply. After some negotiation, she said she’d let me write a 100-word response to three claims: my research is (1) “pseudo-scientific”, (2) “constitutes “race science” or “scientific racism’”, and (3) “does not take into account external environmental factors such as poverty, education etc”. Although 100 words is not enough to begin responding to even one of these points, I was willing to accept the word limit.
(Excerpt) Read more at thecritic.co.uk ...
To the left, “debunked” means “someone we like said it wasn’t so.”
Acknowledging that genes surely play variable roles in various aspects of intelligence does not lead (as critics assume) automatically to a crassly racist viewpoint. It strikes me as likely that some ethnic groups may do a little better than others in one aspect of intelligence, and worse in others.
And even if one group scores lower, since when should we value a person simply based on some measure of their intelligence? I've been blessed to know some people with Down's syndrome that I subjectively value more than many an academic I've known. In any event, the old evolutionary racist notion that blacks and other non-whites were little advanced from monkeys is no longer accepted by any sane person; no one blinks at the thought that a person from Tasmania or Patagonia or Congo could be a perfectly competent rocket scientist or surgeon if circumstances permit. The differences across the human race are minor.
Review
“The differences across the human race are minor.”
“Minor” or not, those differences are enough to freak out a lot of people.
Just one data point on SAT scores in the United States.
Scores above 1400:
24% of Asians
7% of Whites
2% of Hispanics
1% of Blacks
You can argue all day about heredity vs environment, but even if heredity was responsible for a small portion of the difference the left’s brains would explode.
“Debunked” = Liars pretending to have objectively evaluated the subject telling the sheep what they want to hear.
How true is that?
You read an article from Reuters or the AP that you realize on its face is absurd propaganda. Later on, you read another article from either of those sources (and/or many more) and begin to think you’re being accurately informed.
Whistling past the graveyard.
Much success is determined by culture. Jewish culture values education and literacy, so it’s no wonder there are so many Jewish people in high places. The same applies to Asians’ success.
How much of that success is determined by IQ? That is a question we are not allowed to ask.
Scores above 1400:
42% of Household’s Median Income >$250,000/yr
73% of Household’s Median Income >$100,000/yr
You can argue all day about heredity vs environment, but even if heredity was responsible for a small portion of the difference the left’s brains would explode.
They’ll find the born stupid gene shortly after they find the gay gene. As if the always wrong leftist social science class would actually get one right.
Bell curve! Bell curve! Bell curve! The largely white leftist elitist always wrong social scientist has a test telling them how smart that they happen to be-bell curve!
It is a chicken and egg question for sure.
If groups start out with a genetic advantage then they are more likely to create a culture that takes advantage of that.
It is kinda like choosing elective college courses—most folks will pick areas where they are strong rather than where they would struggle.
My experience (just based on my own life, nothing more) is that this stuff is heavily genetic.
Why do I say that?
I was a ridiculously smart little kid when age 4 and 5 before culture had much of a chance to “kick in”.
I had a big mouth and a nasty habit of angering adults with my Don Rickles approach to life—including asking adults questions of philosophy that no four year old should even know to ask...and the adults had no clue how to answer... :-)
OK. As soon as they stop gain-of-function research into virii.
No matter what the genetic inheritance pertaining to intellectual ability, it’s a measure of potential only. It’s a matter of free will for that intellect to be exercised.
Is IQ in the Genes? Twins Give Us Two Answers
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304898704577478482432277706
These days the heritability of intelligence is not in doubt: Bright adults are more likely to have bright kids. The debate was not always this calm. In the 1970s, suggesting that IQ could be inherited at all was a heresy in academia, punishable by the equivalent of burning at the stake.
More than any other evidence, it was the study of twins that brought about this change. “Born Together—Reared Apart,” a new book by Nancy L. Segal about the Minnesota study of Twins Reared Apart (Mistra), narrates the history of the shift. In 1979, Thomas Bouchard of the University of Minnesota came across a newspaper report about a set of Ohio twins, separated at birth, who had been reunited and proved to possess uncannily similar habits. Dr. Bouchard began to collect case histories of twins raised apart and to invite them to Minneapolis for study.
By 1990, he, Dr. Segal and other colleagues were ready to publish their results in Science magazine. By then they had measured the IQ of 48 pairs of monozygotic, or identical, twins, raised apart (MZA) and 40 pairs of such twins raised together (MZT). The MZA twins were 69% similar in IQ, compared with 88% for MZT twins, both far greater resemblances than for any other pairs of individuals, even siblings. Other variables than genetics, such as material possessions in the home, had little influence, nor was the degree of social contact between the twins in each pair associated with their similarity in IQ.
The paper attracted plenty of the usual criticism, and for years there was a quiet whispering campaign to discredit the Mistra study on the grounds that it relied on anecdotes, underestimated contact between twins, ignored a tendency for reunited twins to exaggerate their similarities or assumed too little similarity among the families into which the twins were adopted.
Yet, as Dr. Segal records, the Mistra scientists were meticulous in addressing these issues and more. Too politically incorrect to be funded by most government agencies, the study relied on grants from sources like the Pioneer Fund, once at the forefront of the eugenics movement. What counted, Dr. Bouchard argued, were the results of the research, not the source of the twins’ travel expenses.
Today, a third of a century after the study began and with other studies of reunited twins having reached the same conclusion, the numbers are striking. Monozygotic twins raised apart are more similar in IQ (74%) than dizygotic (fraternal) twins raised together (60%) and much more than parent-children pairs (42%); half-siblings (31%); adoptive siblings (29%-34%); virtual twins, or similarly aged but unrelated children raised together (28%); adoptive parent-child pairs (19%) and cousins (15%). Nothing but genes can explain this hierarchy.
But as Drs. Bouchard and Segal have been at pains to point out from the start, this high heritability of intelligence mainly applies to nonpoor families. Raise a child hungry or diseased and environment does indeed affect IQ. Eric Turkheimer and others at the University of Virginia have shown that in the most disadvantaged families, heritability of IQ falls and the influence attributed to the shared family environment rises to 60%.
In other words, hygienic, well-fed life enables people to maximize their genetic potential so that the only variation left is innate. Intelligence becomes significantly more heritable when environmental hurdles to a child’s development have been dismantled.
I think environment plays a huge role, as well as family. Mostly, I think the subject is a huge Gordian knot waiting for an Alexander weilding a sword.
“It’s a chicken and egg question for sure.”
Free range or cage?
I believe that both play a part.
Genetics is the foundation. Environment is the house.
An otherwise brilliant child can have their cognitive development impaired by improper nutrition, neglect, lack of resources, medical issues, crappy schools, etc. They may ultimately escape these horrific circumstances but their chances of reaching maximum potential are nonetheless hobbled.
Conversely, a brilliant child who is raised in a healthy, nurturing environment with resources, good food, attentive parents, good schools, etc. can excel.
My father was a member of Mensa. All of my children have high IQs. All 3 have some form of Asbergers, like me. Thankfully, my husband and I were in a position to put them into great schools, supplement their learning, encourage their growth, and prepare them for the future.
My oldest went to regional and state competitions for academic excellence.
My youngest child does not score well on standardized tests, but can build servers, write code, draft white papers, and hacked the science lab portal in the 4th grade. They had to test him using a different methodology because his mind processes information in an atypical fashion. His average is 100.4 across his report card, but he will probably bomb on the SATs.
BINGO. In our family, we have two VERY intelligent men, who are/were simply LAZY, and expected things to fall into their laps. They expected everyone to recognize their superiority and give them free passes.
One of them felt that he had no real reason to obey rules, since he was so much smarter than those who established them. His life is basically in ruins now, with only one compassionate family member who even speaks to him.
The other, who once said, “Being smart is a career in itself” has finally settled down in his early 40’s and begun to understand that society will not just give you what you think you deserve. You have to conform at least a little, and use your intelligence to navigate the environment, like it or not. He has finally begun to prosper and thrive.
I have always used these two as examples to my sons, telling them that, aside from rejecting God, the worst thing you can do with your life as a whole is squander your intelligence by not living up to your POTENTIAL.
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