The Biological Case Against Race

American Outlook, publication of the Hudson Institute ^ | Spring 2002 | Joseph L. Graves Jr.

[NMC EXP]

What a pantload of PC at it's worst. In his next book he will prove that there is no difference between men and women and that our personal observations on that subject are completely in error as well.

Regards

J.R.

[ThePythonicCow]

the view that race plays an explanatory/causal role.

I wouldn't say that person A is faster than person B because A is black. But I would say that the fastest humans in the sprints are of West African descent.

Let's take a different example. On average, men are bigger than women, right? If you disagree with this assertion, then skip the rest of this reply -- we are too far off the same wavelength to have a useful discussion on this.

Ok - still there? Good. Now is Tom Daschle bigger than Oprah Winfrey because he is a man? Well, no, he's smaller. Ok - is Colin Powell bigger than Condi Rice because he is a man? Well, he's bigger. But being a man doesn't make him necessarily bigger. Is the world's largest person (probably some Guiness book of records person) a man? I don't know, but likely, because at the fringes especially, the minor statistical difference in size results in a large difference in chances that the extreme individual will be of the group that tends slightly toward that extreme. But for any given person, except a few, there are larger and smaller individuals of both genders..

Another example of the fringes of a population most clearly showing the minor difference in an overlapping attribute - what's the chances that there will ever be a woman basketball player of the size and strength of Shaq? Damn slim, I'd say.

I'm not saying, given two individuals, that being black or male or this or that causes one of them to be more or less of this or that than the other.

I'm saying that given any two populations that have some distinction that is present at birth, there will be other distinctions, most visible at the extremes.

[Godel]

Those same twin studies "prove" a genetic link to homosexuality. I question the twin studies that indicate such things, because the famous ones are based on severely flawed models.

So because you don't like the results of one genetic study you will throw out the results of them all? Were you an OJ Simpson juror by chance?

MANY different studies have studied identical twins (monozygotic) raised apart and found a 0.70 correlation for intelligence. This is enormous.

The Stanford-Binet test does presuppose some cultural knowledge. Once you correct for socioeconomic factors, that 15-point gap vanishes to within the MOE.

Look up the Minnesota transracial adoption study. They found that the average IQ of black babies adopted by white couples was around 85, the average IQ of half black babies adopted by white couples was 95, and the average IQ of white babies adopted by white couples was 105.

[SauronOfMordor]

The Stanford-Binet test does presuppose some cultural knowledge. Once you correct for socioeconomic factors, that 15-point gap vanishes to within the MOE.

In "The Bell Curve", the authors note that the average SAT for Blacks from upper-middle-class families are lower than the SAT for low-income whites

Also, given that IQ has a lot to do with the income level you wind up with, correcting for parental socioeconomic level also corrects for parental IQ.

[ThePythonicCow]

Well said, Godel. Very well said. Thanks.

[cornelis]

In his next book he will prove that there is no difference between men and women

He's not proving there are no differences. It would be ludicrous to insist that. We are quick to conjecture. Remember Oedipus? Tiresias did it!

[Poohbah]

So because you don't like the results of one genetic study you will throw out the results of them all? Were you an OJ Simpson juror by chance?

No, I'm questioning the whole basis of many of these twin studies, because some of the more famous ones that get cited were "pre-loaded" to get certain results.

MANY different studies have studied identical twins (monozygotic) raised apart and found a 0.70 correlation for intelligence. This is enormous.

Great, if true.

Question: did they correct for the nurture end of things?

I've bumped into too many identical twins with very different overall temperments (intelligence, WHAT they're good at, personality, et cetera) to buy in that intelligence is that strongly determined by genetics. I have one rather smart sister, and two fair-to-middlin' brothers--and in mathematics, I'm the best of breed in my family. My sister and brothers are very coordinated; I'm something of a klutz. We're all over whatever charts you want to look at.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"is Colin Powell bigger than Condi Rice because he is a man? Well, he's bigger. But being a man doesn't make him necessarily bigger." Sometimes people here "X because Y" to mean there's a necessary connection between X and Y. But that's not how we ordinarily talk or think about causation. For example, smoking causes cancer, but it doesn't follow that if you smoke then necessarily you'll get cancer. Let's pick a neutral idiom to avoid this sort of complication. Let's use the phrase "It's no accident". Now, if you point to a man and a woman and the man is taller than the woman, I'd say it's no accident that he's taller. If you point to a Scottsman and an Irishman and the Scottsman was taller I wouldn't make the same claim. The fallacy at the heart of the folk theory of race isn't that group A has statistical properties not shared by group B. It's the "it's no accident claim". Once you give it up, race becomes useless as an analytical tool becuase it's not doing any explanatory work.

[Question_Assumptions]

Why the disparity in behavior and outcomes? If we are all the same, then why do blacks - 13% of the population - make up only 2% of corporate executives and commit 50% of the crime?

Because their culture is severely messed up. You may also want to look at the comparative differences when you seperate Caribean blacks from American blacks.

Why has black student achievement lagged that of whites at the same rate for nearly 30 years - ever since the government has measured it - despite $billions of government money?

Because American black culture has picked up anti-intellectualism as part of it? Because those liberal programs that cost billions did nothing to address the underlying cultural problem? You are away that students in Harlem were able to rank second in the city before all those billions of dollars started helping them, right?

[ThePythonicCow]

it would be possible to identify the genetic factors responsible for this similarity.

For something as straight forward as this, yes, there is presumably one or a few identifiable genetic factors that are responsible for this similarity.

[r9etb]

I donno ... Most people have always assumed that #1 is true, but I never believed in #2. I don't see why the two propositions have to go together.

As noted above, there are certainly very distinct differences in racial physiology. For example, there are specific racial settings/norms for breathing capacity tests. And for some reason the Olympic sprints are dominated by people of West African heritage.

As for character and morality, there's no particular reason to believe that there are not racial components, either. Compare, for example, the temperaments of golden retrievers vs. German shepherds. Although humans are more complex, why should we be immune to such things?

At any rate, it's interesting how a professor of evolutionary biology would tell us that subtle population differences between, say, silvereye birds is evidence of evolution; while simultaneously holding that significant physiological differences are somehow not evidence of evolutionary divergence between humans. This is not logical -- but it is politically correct.

[SauronOfMordor]

Therein lies the real basis of Darwin's argument. Real races can't interbreed without obvious mismatches.

You can breed a poodle with a terrier, and get viable offspring that have some mix of characteristics. This does not invalidate the concept of "breed" among dogs (or horses or other species)

Within a dog breed, you have definite characteristics of the average/typical member, which include physical appearance, temperment (anybody here who has ever known a pure golden retriever who was successfully trained as an attack dog, please let me know), and intelligence.

[gore3000]

     "The amount of genetic variation that has accumulated in humans is just nowhere near compatible with the age" of the species, Wood says. "That means you've got to come up with a hypothesis for an event that wiped out the vast majority of that variation."

There's a pretty old hypothesis that explains the lack of genetic variation in humans: "And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." The more we learn the more we see evolutionist assumptions refuted by real science.

[ThePythonicCow]

I would agree that the differences between the 'races' of humans are not as clear, distinct and non-overlapping as the differences between non-mating species.

Consider the differences between fat people and thin people. For many of us, it's not clear which group we are in. My doctor would probably call me 'fat'. I would differ, though I would grant that I am no longer thin.

What is so dang hard about the notion of overlapping groups, such that for the bulk in the middle, it is not clear that they belong to either group?

Y'all keep trying to recast what I'm saying into some claim that race is a black and white issue.

[Poohbah]

Consider the differences between fat people and thin people. For many of us, it's not clear which group we are in. My doctor would probably call me 'fat'. I would differ, though I would grant that I am no longer thin.

Your doctor doesn't understand your unique gravitational profile, that's all =:o)

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"The typical Irishman is more prone to alcoholism than the typical Swede. This does not mean that all Irishmen or drunks or that Swedes are all teetotallers, but is a valid generalization based upon observation of group tendencies." OK, let's start with your example. You've got a way of distinguishing between two groups, and you've observed there's a statistical difference between them. Question: Does the criteria by which you seperated the two groups figure in the explanation of the statistical differences or not? If it does, then those criteria are playing a causal/explanatory role. If not then it's just a random connection. The criteria you used to initially divide the populations have no place in a scientific theory of the statistical data you've observed.