Human evolution, Females vs. Males

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LKL, you haven’t refuted anything Koi has said. Your post just looks like an ad hominem attack. What are you getting at?
I think I can guess. You think that blacks commit more crime because of the legacy of slavery, and you think that Africa is poor because of colonialism. Am I right?
If so, ask yourself this: Malaysia and Singapore were European (British) colonies for decades. Why are they now so much more prosperous than any sub-Saharan African country? Similarly with Vietnam, which in addition to being a former colony, recently had to endure a bloody civil war.



But LKL, your second paragraph doesn’t support the assertion you’ve made in your first paragraph at all. All it does is suggest that environmental factors affect IQ. This doesn’t mean that IQ is not also affected by genetic factors.

Besides, isn't there a selection bias here? Kids with lower IQ's are the ones who are more likely to leave school early. Did these kids have their IQ's measured before they left school?
And are we expected to infer that a kid with an IQ of 100 at the age of 11 could leave school at that age and end up with an IQ of 30 by the time he's 18?



Now even the most eager race-deniers don’t usually go this far. You are saying that men and women have the same genes? Does this include the Y chromosome?
As for black and white people having the same genes, that is a standard liberal myth. I’ve dealt with it above.

By the way, you use emotive words like “stupid” that would probably make some people disinclined to disagree with you. I haven’t used words like “stupid” in any of my posts. I think liberal race-deniers paint themselves into a corner with the value they place on intelligence. One can believe in equality under the law without believing in absolute equality in every way.

Last edited by codarac on 04 Nov 2007, 8:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

squid have a better evolved eyeball than men or women

And maybe some people rely too much on what is essentially an educated guess.

Example: Crime figures.

We can compare the crime rates of two nations.. say Sweden and Nigeria (to polarize the result some.) Lets assume Nigeria has a higher crime rate. It has a higher proportion of black natives. Thus we could suppose that blacks are more criminally minded, because on average, there are more crimes committed per annum in Nigeria, than Sweden.

However, consider the many other factors. Are Swedish laws more or less harsh than Nigerian ones? How efficient are the police? What actually constitutes a crime? Are these figures based on arrest rates or prosecution rates? (Anyone can get arrested, and be perfectly innocent.) How effective is the penal system, or the justice system? What sort of crimes are we talking about? What are the relative population figures? What about relative levels of poverty? Stability of government? Whats the availability of the tools of crime?

It occurs to me that crime rates are fallacious most of the time, simply because a succesful villain of any colour will remain uncaught and anonymous. The average can then only be made up of unsuccesful criminals. Oddly, the higher the arrest and prosecution rate, the more likely that a state has either a very effective police force, or a very harsh legal system. Extremist governments have higher rates, because they are harsher regimes.

Average IQ is just as fallacious. Short of testing the IQ of every black or asian or whatever, the figure is only ever going to be an educated guess.

Yes, there are plenty of differences between each and every race, in the same way that there are plenty of differences between each and every individual. What people here have a problem with is blanket assumption. Statements like "Women are more crap than men" or "Blacks are more criminal than whites" just stir up resentment and cause needless argument.

(I also debate that surviving in a hot climate is any harder or easier than surviving in a cold one. Its simply different.)

codarac-
the entire human genome was sequenced a few years ago. Know what they found? That there was more variation from person to person than from one racial average to another.

ps if you have any evidence that the Y chromosome has anything to do with being 'more evolved' or 'more intelligent,' I'd be interested to see it.

"Koi" has admitted that he hates women. Therefore, the purpose of his argument is undeniably to put women down by making out that they are stupid. What else could possibly be gained from beginning such an argument? Also, he is male and Aspergic. Therefore, he can be expected to have little insight into the workings of human minds, particularly female.

The truth about IQ tests is that they are probably more geared towards male academic intelligence; female minds work differently, although no less efficiently. As for racial differences; it is an unfortunate fact of life that some races are more disadvantaged than others; less well educated, therefore (possibly) less adept at passing IQ tests (although I haven't checked, so I wouldn't know.)

Oh, all of that aside (just hypothesis, really), I agree with Macbeth.

You know what? I deserve your sarcasm. He aggravated me, and I snapped back angrily and put science aside. It was immature, and it got nowhere, I admit it.

Of course, blatant sexism and racism tends to do that to me though. He offered no proof, but just padded his unbacked opinions with some touchy-feely statements "maybe I'm wrong/maybe I'm right/blah blah blah" as if that's acceptable in lieu of evidence. Considering he never bothered to back it up, it's just bigotry in my book.

I think the argument goes that it being different is the relevant part. Humans are believed to have originated in Africa, so as they moved north they would have been subject to conditions that they'd not previously been exposed to. It would have been "harder" because humans were initially adapted to more equitable climes. So, this would have selected for characteristics not previously seen widely in populations from further south, such as a shorter more stout build, lighter skin, and different cognitive attributes. That seems perfectly reasonable to me. In fact, considering the various obvious physiological differences between races it would seem highly unlikely that something as necessary to survival as the brain didn't vary in a similar way.



But that's not incompatible with there being genetically-determined physiological and cognitive differences between races. If you can't understand why that is, then go and read a few books on the subject.

As for the rest of this thread, it just reminds me how easily the majority of people can be brainwashed with politically-correct codswallop no matter how much it goes against the evidence .

It's this simple, all humans are the same, we came from the same species. If there is any slight genetic differences, they are so slight they are non-factors. There are intelligent white people, black people, asian people, and hispanic people, and there are dumb people who are black, white, brown, yellow, or w/e. Race is nothing more than the genetic adaptation of one's ancestry to their environments and climates. If we were to rely on the statistical evolutionary theory of race, whites would not be at the top, asians would be (or maybe jews). But I don't think that theory holds any water really.
The evolution of a species is equally invested in the male and female prototypes, for in order to evolve they need one another. Statistically there may be more logical males than females, but to be fair I have met some very intelligent females and some pretty stupid males too. Things are not that cut and dry.
I agree with the other dude, the only thing worse than a loud mouth spouting unfounded theories, is a loud mouth spouting blatantly offensive unfounded theories. Being the strong centralist that I am, people on here who know me will tell you gladly how intolerant I am of people hiding behind political correctness to advance their arguments or their position, but this does not mean I am racist or sexist either, my best friend is a black guy and to me it's a non-factor.

As for rather autism spectrum is evolution at work, that is a possibility but if that possibility is true it has nothing to do with gender or race. Emily Dickinson was a famous female aspie, George Washington Carver was a famous black aspie. Aspie might statistically be mostly white males, but it is not exclusive to white males either. Two of my aspie friends from this forum were ethnicities other than white, one of them middle eastern and one of them black. And I have also made quite a few female aspie friends.

girls are cool but boys are better

I have a degree in biology, including coursework in statistics. I don't think that I need to read more books on the subject.

You are correct that the 'racial' averages may still be set at different levels, but making judgements about
any individual based on his or her race is idiotic, because that individual still has the room for variation that might make him or her smarter than someone of a supposedly 'smart' race. In addition, the fact remains that economic, social, and historical differences cannot be controlled for in any study on the subject of intelligence or any other racial factor, because they are too imbedded to remove from anyone. Rich blacks and poor whites still grow up in the historical context of slavery and the current context of racism.

Well, most of us are aware of what you've stated in the last half of that paragraph. However, if you have a large difference in mean IQ between two groups of people then when those people are forced to interact, the one with the lower IQ will be disadvantaged. Remember, too, that the distribution is not linear as you move away from the mean; the majority of the population are within 15 points either side. That should be considered with regard to the following:

Some studies have shown certain sub-Saharan African groups have mean IQs of 85, whereas for certain other ethnic groups such as Ashknezi jews it may be 115. I think certain Asians do well, too, with similar averages. So, in the context of the first half of your above paragraph you are correct that it wouldn't be too prudent to make a quick judgment about one person, but when considering a group as a whole, it would be criminally negligent not to. Bleeding-heart liberals love to invoke slavery and racism to account for all the world's woes, but they are helping nobody if the real cause of certain ethnic groups living in relative poverty is that they are cognitively disadvantaged. This liberal line perpetuates the big deceit of western politics: that working hard can bring prosperity to anyone. It can't; you need innate, genetically-determined factors to be in your favour (not just IQ), as well, as many with AS will attest.

As for your comments on controlling for slavery etc, I really don't see how slavery is relevant. And the fact that factors are difficult to control for does not invalidate research if that is acknowledged, and the results interpreted in that context.

Oh, and the male/female IQ thing. I can recall reading that a sample of the male population will have more instances of IQs at the extremes (either low or high) compared to females. Also, that females perform better with verbal IQ.

Well said.

The IQ score is irrelevant because you would have to remove the effect of society and culture to get a more objective reading. You could be black and have a higher IQ if you were raised in a different culture, or if you are a woman in a patriarchal society that does not encourage women to be educated, the mean IQ would obviously be expected to be lower.

paper on heritability vs environment

Effect of schooling on appalachian kids

that took a 30-second google search (in case you're interested in learning anything) The effects of environment far outweigh the effects of genetics for all but the people on the extremes; white kids in Appalachia who don't go to grade school have IQs in the 80s, and black kids in sub-saharan Africa who don't go to grade school have IQs in the 80s. There's a lot more to showing a genetic difference in intelligence than saying, 'well, this group over here has a different adult IQ than that group over there,' no matter how comforting that might be to you as a suposedly superior race.

That's the standard PC retort, and it's not very convincing. Just because other factors muddy the waters, so to speak, it doesn't necessarily invalidate the results. If that were the case a lot of scientific research just wouldn't happen. If you actually think about the problem, rather than regurgitate what you've been indoctrinated with at school, I'm sure you could think of ways in which the influence of the factors you mention could be mitigated to some extent. And i'm sure those carrying out the research did just that!