My contribution to that race-and-intelligence debate that has the world of blogs all agog
... and I posted it here rather than CT because it involves not being nicey-nicey and calling people "racists".
There are two claims which are being twisted together here:
1. That there is a genetic component to intelligence.
Status: Not proven, a lot of the measuring techniques being used to try to prove it are irredeemably fucked up, but not entirely ridiculous either. Denial of this proposition is not actually a strawman "Darwinism-below-the-neck", but it does involve you in asserting that if and when we get a useable (almost certainly multi-factor) metric for something that is reasonably described by the English word "intelligence", the individual-to-individual variability in this will be large enough relative to the inherited variability to mean that there is no practical significance to inherited brain characteristics.
2. This genetic component for intelligence is tied together with the specific genes that make black people black.
Status: On the same sort of level as the proposition that MMR vaccine causes autism. Believed by basically nobody who knows what they're talking about, on the basis of massive amounts of evidence. A theory that is constantly being resurrected on the basis of new crank analysis, but which has been knocked smack down on its arse every time.
Furthermore, anyone believing in 2 is, by that token, a racist. If you believe that black people are genetically inferior, then you need to be arguing that it's OK to be a racist, not that racists are terrible but you aren't one. According to the "Savage Love" advice column, there are a surprisingly large number of men who regularly have oral and anal sex with other men but nevertheless insist that they are straight and even hate gays. Anyone who claims to be "anti-racist", but takes seriously the proposition that black people are genetically less intelligent (or more prone to criminal behaviour, etc) than white people is in a similar state of denial. William Saletan's series of articles aimed at "seriously discussing the research on intelligence and race" appear to me to be exactly in this vein; he may think he's looking for fucking Narnia but he's actually just in the closet.
So ... (and I seem to remember it was a version of this view that got me banned from the Abiola Lapite site, so be aware that it can be taken in a rather offensive way, which I swear is not the way I intend it) ... is there a genetic condition which black people are susceptible to which predisposes them to poor educational outcomes, a high rate of incarceration, shorter male life expectancy, alcohol and drug addiction and so forth?
Yep. It's the same genetic condition which causes them to get more speeding tickets. It's called "being black". Black skin is a genetically determined condition, and in the world as it exists (which is the only world we have), it's a dangerous, often life-threatening one. Look at the actuarial tables if you don't believe me - if you have the choice of being born blind or being born black, choose blind.
Of course, it's obvious that being black isn't intrinsically a physical handicap like being blind is. But equally, being blind isn't much of a physical handicap if other people act so as to accomodate the fact that you are blind. The way other people behave is part of the way the world is, and the way that other people behave in this world (which is, I reiterate, the only world we have), is so as to systematically handicap black people. Most of my readers will recall (if for no other reason than that it's beloved of net.libertarians), the Kurt Vonnegut short story "Harrison Bergeron", in which run-amok egalitarians used to intentionally handicap the physically or mentally gifted in order to bring them down to normality. Imagine that story, but instead of putting a headache-machine on the intelligent, or hanging weights off the strong, or blacking out the teeth of the beautiful, they just randomly applied these treatments to black people.
Or rather, don't bother imaginging, because that's what the world is actually like. In a world in which black people have spent the last couple of hundred years being systematically handicapped by white people, the entire discussion of what the genetic component of their problems might be is just ridiculous.
This is the day when Americans celebrate the people who landed on Plymouth Rock, so it's as good a time as any to dig out that Malcolm X quote about that short fifth of the US population who aren't descended from immigrants and didn't come to those shores in order to escape exploitation.
"We didn't land on Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Rock landed on us"
Actually I doubt that even a third of today's US population has anything to do with the folks who landed on Plymouth Rock.
ReplyDeleteMetaphorically, come on. Everyone in the USA except the Africans and the Native Americans came there of their own free will, in the expectation of a better life.
ReplyDeleteProbably not what you were aiming for, but I found this post to be quite moving. Thankyou.
ReplyDelete"...he may think he's looking for fucking Narnia but he's actually just in the closet."
ReplyDeleteBrilliant bit of prose, there. Absolutely brilliant. Keep it up :)
i don't see why you don't cross-post most of your stuff. it's much better than most of the inane shit on crooked timber.
ReplyDeleteBravo.
ReplyDeletethe actual reason is that there is seemingly only one of my computers in the world that doesn't crash when I try to post something on CT and I am not currently in the same time zone as it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure about this.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that there are perfectly reasonable scientific questions here - but you're quite right to be suspicious of the motivations of those who bang on about them ad nauseam. From a social standpoint I agree that "the entire discussion of what the genetic component of their problems might be is just ridiculous", but that doesn't make the questions go away, or indeed answer them.
As for 1 - studies of identical twins raised together and apart routinely show high correlation of their IQ scores, so most people seem to think that the jury's pretty much in.
As for 2 - well, you're just mangling it. I don't think many people suggest that intelligence is tied to the genes for skin-pigmentation - and if they do then a study of albinos should quickly settle the matter. The question is whether, after correcting for environmental factors (all but impossible as you say), the average IQ of different racial groups turns out to be the same.
I've no idea what the answer to that is - but it's a reasonable question on its own terms, and I don't think it's right to put it on the autism/MMR level of crankish wrongness. Nor do I think that admitting the possibility that the answer may be "no" is - necessarily - racist, or entails believing that "that black people are genetically inferior". As you say intelligence has many factors. It might turn out that on average white people are quicker at doing long multiplication, black people have more linguistic skill, and Asians are better able to visualise stuff in 3 dimensions. So which would be "genetically inferior"?
Basically I agree with Chomsky that even if it does turn out to be true that race and intelligence (by some definition) are correlated, it needn't have many implications for policy:
"A correlation between race and IQ (were this shown to exist) entails no social consequences except in a racist society in which each individual is assigned to a racial category and dealt with not as an individual in his own right, but as a representative of this category. Herrnstein mentions a possible correlation between height and IQ. Of what social importance is that? None of course, since our society does not suffer under discrimination by height. We do not insist on assigning each adult to the category “below six feet in height” or “above six feet in height” when we ask what sort of education he should receive or where he should live or what work he should do. Rather, he is what he is, quite independent of the mean IQ of people of his height category. In a nonracist society, the category of race would be of no great significance. The mean IQ of individuals of a certain racial background is irrelevant to the situation of a particular individual who is what he is."
Larry - the correlation in twin studies is about 50%, and this of course doesn't map on to "Inheritance" in any uncomplicated way. After all, twins have very strong correlations in their height, but the difference between the height of me and a Cambodian peasant is almost certainly more to do with food than inheritance.
ReplyDeleteI don't really understand that point. Surely the fact that identical twins have (very) strong correlations in their height does suggest that height in adulthood has a (very) significant genetic component?
ReplyDeleteThe undernourished peasant goes to show that this is not the whole story of course, but I don't think anyone's suggesting that it is.
It shows that there's a component, but not that this component is necessarily large enough relative to the overall variability to make a practical difference (particularly when one considers that most people aren't twins). There's too much confounding to have any real idea of what's going on (particularly since it's not at all clear what's being measured by IQ tests, and since there is a sneaking suspicion that what's being picked up in twin studies is susceptibility to genetic and other disease as much as anything else)
ReplyDeleteNo - there's just too much evidence to fit under those particular carpets. The most conservative results I can find - not just from twins studies, but also comparing the IQs of adopted children to their adoptive and biological siblings, etc. - point to a heritable IQ-component of at least 25%, and many are much higher. This is clearly significant.
ReplyDeleteWell, you say potato, I say potato - the way I read this literature is that even on blunt instruments like IQ tests, very few studies manage to push the heritability all that far above 50% (and quite a bit of this variance is explained by identifiable impairments). And as the measurement of "intelligence" gets more sophisticated and has more factors in it, this percentage is only going to fall.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I think you really are underestimating the size of the carpet here; check out Cosma Shalizi's post on the subject.
I don't think many people suggest that intelligence is tied to the genes for skin-pigmentation
ReplyDeleteI believe that the Mankind Quarterly crew makes generalizations about the intelligence of Africans (James Watson certainly did). Africans are more genetically diverse than other groups commonly referred to as "races," but they do have similar skin pigmentation. So it's fair to describe this point of view as linking intelligence to the genes for skin pigmentation.
And far too many people rely on the Mankind Quarterly people in this debate. Saletan, for instance, extensively relies on papers by Curveball Rushton.
Incidentally Chomsky is not obviously right when he says that our society does not suffer under discrimination by height.
ReplyDeleteSo it's fair to describe this point of view as linking intelligence to the genes for skin pigmentation.
ReplyDeleteIt depends entirely what point of view you mean. But if it's that anyone even half-intelligent who's making any effort at all to say something sensible, then no, it really isn't fair. Because almost no-one is suggesting that the "link" (should it exist at all) is any way causal rather than pure coincidence.
I'm sorry to bang on and on but I really do thing this is the wrong approach, for two reasons:
Firstly, if you misrepresent and caricature the research, then when the race-nuts start playing their violins, and posing as persecuted truth-seekers after forbidden knowledge and so on, then you unnecessarily present them with a smidgeon of justification.
Secondly, I'm not prepared to hold my anti-racist principles hostage to any data which could conceivably emerge. There really is no need to, as I think the Chomsky quote well explains (though I do take Matt's point). But what position would d2 be in if it turned out that different races do, after correcting for environmental factors, on average have different intelligences? He'd either have to back-track from this post, deny the evidence (however compelling), or admit to being a racist. And it's just not necessary to paint yourself into such a nasty corner.
What if you believe that Black people are genetically SUPERIOR to other 'races'? As in what if I believe that there's no "mental" difference between 'blacks' and whites or any two 'races' as we classify them for that matter. That
ReplyDeletenothing about 'black' people genetically that makes them mentally deficient or otherwise unable to succeed in the world relative to other peoples. That any perceived discrepancy can be more than accounted for by controlling for environmental and educational factors and understanding that the methods used to quantify intelligence and classify it racially are at best, a bullshit pseudo science.
But taking that as granted, what if I believe that 'black' people on average, are quicker, can run faster, and leap higher distances than other 'races'. That such perceived differences in these physical abilities between blacks and others can't be fully accounted for by environmental or educational factors alone. I can't forsee how such a belief would have any affect on the national political debate, social policy, or change anything for worse or better regarding how blacks are or should be treated in America or any other race for that matter.
Am I innocent of racism, or someone who is a racist and who needs to come up with a convincing explanation for why my beliefs are ok and acceptable in a decent society?
Isn't there a very large problem with the concept of race anyway, in actually saying who is race X and who race Y?
ReplyDeleteBut if it's that [of] anyone even half-intelligent who's making any effort at all to say something sensible
ReplyDeleteI was talking about people associated with Mankind Quarterly, especially J. Phillippe Rushton, so it's OK. These are people who specifically believe that it's OK to treat "Negroids" as a genetic unit, even though Africans are more genetically diverse than the inhabit of any other continent. This is stupid, and it doesn't matter if they aren't saying that there's a causal link between skin pigmentation and intelligence.
Larry,
ReplyDeleteAbout six months ago I was working on a literature review in this very area for some work I'm doing on learning disabilities (oddly, it tends to be the same people doing much of the research), and ended up reading a lot of the research in this area because I found it fascinating. I don't have time to summarise the results of that review here, but essentially there is no scientific debate here. There are various reasons for this and I don't have time to go through them properly here.
However:
1) You can't use IQ for these kinds of arguments - it isn't a good proxy for intelligence, and anyone who doesn't mention this is either ignorant, or has an agenda. There are other proxies, but there are problems with all of them, and quite frankly we just don't know enough about the brain to make these kinds of judgements.
2) If IQ was a good proxy, then it would suggest that intelligence is largely a factor of environment due to things like the Flynn affect and the various (well documented) affects of things like physical environment, culture, education, parental attainment, socioeconomic status, etc, etc.
3) Pollution and nutrition have a massive affect on certain measures of intelligence (including possibly IQ). Given that these tend to correlate with socioeconomic status (i.e. if you're poor, black and urban you're more likely to come into contact with lead as a child). Similarly, it makes comparisons with Africa meaningless.
4) Massive problems with the data, making it pretty much impossible to do meaningful cross-population comparisons with most of the data.
5) Education and experience (and the type of education) have a big affect on IQ.
Similarly, things like twin studies are very problematic, as in almost all the examples of identical twins being reared seperately, they were reared in very similar socio-economic backgrounds. So while these tell us something about the affects of parenting, they tell us nothing about the affect of various other environment factors that we know to be important (there's also the problem that both grew in the same womb - prenatal nutrition is also important). The few studies (I say few, I think there was only one, but i could be mistaken) where this was less of a factor have too small a sample to be conclusive, but suggest that genetic heritability is far less important than previously thought.
Oh, and controlling for race in the way you're suggesting would be pretty difficult (I'm guessing impossible, but I'm no geneticist). Race is not really a hard, or terribly meaningful, scientific category. that kind of research really is junk science.
People keep forgetting that the raw material for these studies (IQ tests) are just multiple choice tests usually given at the end of elementary school. If these tests involved some real metric--like chemicals in the blood---or unbiased instrument---like an fMRI---I'd be more impressed.
ReplyDeleteWe have all taken many multiple choice tests and some of us can game them better than others. What does that prove?
Well, if there was a robustly measurable inherited component to one's ability to game them, then that would be interesting to say the least, but as I say, I think that the evidence for such a component is currently eminently small enough to sweep under a rug.
ReplyDeleteYou can't use IQ for these kinds of arguments - it isn't a good proxy for intelligence
ReplyDeleteA child psychiatrist friend of mine - who was dyslexic, lousy at tests, and one of the most intelligent people I've ever known - used to say that standard IQ tests are actually very solid in terms of both validity and reliability. But their accuracy is prospective: what childhood IQ scores track is socio-economic positions in adult life.
How did you tolerate debating that arrogant prat Abiola Lapite for as long as you did? You're positively chalcenteric.
ReplyDelete