Is discussing iq differences between nations taboo?

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*deleted* yeah I was being childish there

I thought you guys of all people should know that IQ is a poor way to measure intelligence. Mostly because it fluctuates, are you really expecting a person to have the same results s/he did at various periods of her/his life?

That and, IQ only shows "intellectual" or "academic" smarts, denying the importance of other's important "smarts" (adapted to each one's own seperate environnement) would be plain stupid.

Concise. Relevant. (Mature).

Genetic variation, classification and 'race'

Selected quotes (my italics):-

"At face value, such results could be interpreted as supporting the use of race in evaluating medical treatment options. But race and ancestry are not equivalent. Many polymorphisms are required to estimate an individual's ancestry, whereas the number of genes involved in mediating a specific drug response may be relatively small50. If disease-associated alleles are common (and thus of clinical significance), they are likely to be relatively ancient and therefore shared among multiple populations51, 52. Consequently, an individual's population affiliation would often be a faulty indicator of the presence or absence of an allele related to diagnosis or drug response."

"Data from many sources have shown that humans are genetically homogeneous and that genetic variation tends to be shared widely among populations. Genetic variation is geographically structured, as expected from the partial isolation of human populations during much of their history. Because traditional concepts of race are in turn correlated with geography, it is inaccurate to state that race is "biologically meaningless." On the other hand, because they have been only partially isolated, human populations are seldom demarcated by precise genetic boundaries. Substantial overlap can therefore occur between populations, invalidating the concept that populations (or races) are discrete types."

"A particular area of concern is in the genetics of human behavior. As genes that may influence behavior are identified, allele frequencies are often compared in populations67, 68. These comparisons can produce useful evolutionary insights but can also lead to simplistic interpretations that may reinforce unfounded stereotypes69. In assessing the role of genes in population differences in behavior (real or imagined), several simple facts must be brought to the fore. Human behavior is complicated, and it is strongly influenced by nongenetic factors70. Thousands of pleiotropic genes are thought to influence behavior, and their products interact in complex and unpredictable ways. Considering this extraordinary complexity, the idea that variation in the frequency of a single allele could explain substantial population differences in behavior would be amusing if it were not so dangerous.

Race remains an inflammatory issue, both socially and scientifically. Fortunately, modern human genetics can deliver the salutary message that human populations share most of their genetic variation and that there is no scientific support for the concept that human populations are discrete, nonoverlapping entities. Furthermore, by offering the means to assess disease-related variation at the individual level, new genetic technologies may eventually render race largely irrelevant in the clinical setting. Thus, genetics can and should be an important tool in helping to both illuminate and defuse the race issue."

Yeah, if I don't read much on genetic variation or scientific manuals that is because it's not necessarily my field, but if you want to patronise me you sure as hell better have an outstanding pitch up you sleeve.

i wonder whether the development of higher intellectual capacity came from adversity?
obviously cro-magnons were supremely gifted compared to any other species.

the perception of obstacles in an abstract form allowed them to devise indirect solutions to their quests.

i think all races of present humans are "twigs" that sprung from the cro-magnon "branch" of an "hominidae" kind of "bough" , and they all possess a very large brain in relation to the weight of their spinal cords (and peripheral nerves that permeate their body).

some of the prototypical people migrated and resettled in different lands with different environmental characteristics.
the struggle to survive the hardships of life for the settlers of cold and sparse lands ensured that intelligent solutions were found if they were to survive.
the smartest people had the best fed families.

the people in the tropics may have had less to contend with than the people in say present day scandinavia.

they can just pick the naturally occurring fruits and reap their diets out of the plentiful jungle they are in.

there are more predators (animals that prey) in the tropical and sub tropical regions, so i guess that the prehistoric peoples that lived in a tropical region had the problem of staying safe from them and the abundance of insects and diseases and other things.
they never seemed to solve it even to this day.

people who lived in the cold had to think about how to get food out of a bleak landscape and there must have been a need for intellectual initiative.
so that was probably the desirable trait in the colder regions. intelligent design for production of food and r comforts.
in the tropical regions, the desirable trait was probably to be able to defend and protect ones freely gotten bounty from raiders (either animal or human).

so the colder climate people are using wits to continue to exist while the warmer climate people are using attitude and brawn to continue to exist.

if this process of "environmental demand" is repeated throughout the lives all the children in every generation over 100,000 years of evolution, then there will certainly be a difference in the 2 prehistoric heritages pertaining to the outcome of an "iq" test designed by the colder climate people.


australian aborigines may seem rather dull to many european onlookers. i have seen many videos lampooning aborigines with foootage of them talking incoherently and without much rational thought.

but it is purely an environmental thing. people may think they are so superior to an aborigine until their car breaks down on a remote dirt road in the middle of the outback.

they may stumble around in a total loss of knowledge of what to do.
if they were found by a group of wandering aborigines, their lives would be saved.

who wins in that environment?

yes i think it is taboo in australia to talk about anything connected to race.

well i can not fix any typos or "word holes" now because it will say "edited" at the bottom and i hate that.

Last edited by b9 on 24 Sep 2009, 11:05 am, edited 1 time in total.

Note that part of your extract says: "Genetic variation is geographically structured, as expected from the partial isolation of human populations during much of their history. Because traditional concepts of race are in turn correlated with geography, it is inaccurate to state that race is "biologically meaningless." "

As for the rest, I've not argued that there are precise genetic boundaries, and I agree that populations are not discrete non-overlapping entities. But the same can be said for much of biological classification. Have you heard of ring species? If not look it up on Google. I'm not saying humanity is like that, but it illustrates how even with different species you're not always looking at discrete entities.

Furthermore, you'll be aware I've provided links to two papers in previous posts. In addition, I'll quote you from one of Richard Dawkin's (a person well qualified to comment) books. The Ancestor's Tale page 417 "...Only a small admixture of of extra variation distinguishes races from each other. That is all correct. What is not correct is the inference that race is a meaningless concept. The point has been clearly made by the distinguished Cambridge geneticist A W F Edwards in a recent paper called "Human genetic diversity: Lewontin's fallacy"". I've linked to that paper above. Here it is again:

http://www.goodrumj.com/Edwards.pdf

It's both distortion and hypocrisy, Orwell. I don't care what the economic text books say, to any reasonable person that's what it is.


I'm falsely equating nothing. IQ tests measure facets of intelligence, plain and simple. A dullard won't get a 132 score on a properly administered test. However, it's fair to say that you need to be motivated to wade through one. A low score might mean you're having a bad day, or just can't be bothered.

Hi, I like what you have to say but just had to raise this point. Even though it may be warmer in the tropics it would still be very difficult to feed yourself and family in those tropical and subtropical regions. Hunting and gathering is hard hard work sometimes for very little or even no reward this is why indiginous people in these areas eat a lot of starch (I'm not sure if it's been mentioned but I believe there have been studies that show what high starch diets do for IQ.). Also disease wasn't generally a problem until the white man arrived was it?

I'd be more inclined to look at it as the people migrating to the north would need to work towards abandoning hunting and gathering altogether as it's too inefficient in colder climates and would have to figure out how to get food out of their new lands, smarter people would of course be better at that. The smarter they were the easier they would make this food production for themselves and the more tie they would have to improve their smarts.

Meanwhile the tropical peoples would continue with their hunter gatherer lifestyle not because it was easy but because they weren't forced to improvise the way the northern people would have been. The fact the lifestyle is so difficult combined with the poor quality of the diet is a factor too. There are people living this life to this day though now they continue it for the tradition and aversion to modern life not because they need to.

I don't think anything I've said is racist but I can see how one group might end up with a higher IQ than the other. It's worth remembering that one group invented the IQ test not the other.

It is probably difficult to determine whether it requires more intellect to avoid being eaten by a lion or a polar bear. Perhaps an IQ test given to both lions and polar bears might be significant. Desert people have to contend with lack of water and sandstorms. Is it more difficult to deal with them than blizzards and continuous cold? Hunter gatherers are spread throughout the north polar areas. Are they dumber because seals and fish are basically stupid and easier to kill than caribou and musk oxen and buffalo? The northern woods are full of berries and mushrooms - all edible. Does eating them make one stupid rather than growing crops? Does a smart farmer outwit a stupid hunter?

All relevant questions.

Yes. It's well known fish is brain food

Something tells me predators have never been a significant problem for modern humans.

I must apologise if I seem to have implied any of the above is fact, only an example of what I think is probable and I certainly never meant to imply I was including the entire migration of man in my example just the ones I thought B9 was refering to (Aboriginal Australians and Scandinavians) Next time I'll be less brief

I think that this is the crux of it. Humans have had a hard go of it everywhere in the world. We aren't fast or strong. We can barely smell or see or hear. We can't fly and can hardly swim. The only thing keeping us alive is how we use our brains. That goes for all humans regardless of the enviroment. There has never been a natural enviroment that is so easy to live in that one could survive in it without thinking.

However, you've poiunted out something crucial. To use your example, the European thinks he is smarter than the Aborigene until his car breaks down in the middle of the desert. Survival depends on being found by the people who understand how to survive in that enviroment- the Aborigenes. Understanding what is needed to survive in an enviroment is thinking. But those questions don't appear on an IQ test and to everybody who takes IQ tests seriously, they don't count as rational thought. That's the problem with IQ tests. They are designed to see how well one is able to navigate an abstract academic enviroment and then define that skill as the only one that is intelligent. Western industrial society has been getting increasingly abstract and academic. And so IQ scores of people in these societies have been going up and routinely the test has to be re-normed: the Flynn Effect. Are people getting smarter as a species? No. But many cultures are becoming increasingly absract and academic which forces a certain style of thinking- a style of thinking rewarded by an IQ test as being the only one that is intelligent even if that's not accurate.

Ok , there is an IQ difference between nations.
This is partly genetic but the contribution genetics pay for IQ aren't meaningful.
The problem is the backwards culture that dominates most humans in the world along with deficient child-mother development. (the development of the mother in childhood and in utero has a big role in the development of her children) so yes , if you spin up the globe and land in some random packet of land the people in it are likely to be backwards , much like the people in the 19th century or earlier ie lacking knowledge of technology and limited in social interactions by being over expressive and slow. there are exceptions to the rule , more northern and eastern cultures are generally smarter for a reason despite uneven development.

The main point of this is blocking immigration.
hence you will see the notion of conservatives putting this up repetitively
and liberals dismissing everything even IQ and intelligence itself altogether as nonsense.


my stance is that first this should be recognized and let the world bomb itself a few times before anything serious is done about it.
but we should not fall into the vicious cycle of affirmative action to failing minorities. [[blanking a line here since I like my account]]

Last edited by cc469 on 24 Sep 2009, 1:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes I can read what i post thank you, I made a point of including that part. You'll also note "On the other hand, because they have been only partially isolated, human populations are seldom demarcated by precise genetic boundaries. Substantial overlap can therefore occur between populations, invalidating the concept that populations (or races) are discrete types."

I haven't commented on Ashkenazi Jews because I felt it would be a tautology of skafathers post: "And how much has to do with the genetic history of the environments of the people? How much has to do with events in the collective history that may have altered who would survive? One reason why African Americans in the states have such high sodium levels and therefore high blood pressure and heart problems is because when the slaves were transported over, they weren't nourished very well and the ones who had a propensity to store more sodium in their systems and expel less like the rest of us do were the ones most apt to survive the long, abusive trip. How many more genetic factors like that are there in history that determine various biological functions? Considering how much time there's been between "then" and "now", I'd assume quite a few. There's not much that effects intelligence like that in the long term seeing as intelligence isn't hereditary."

I haven't said that the concept of 'race' is utterly meaningless, I'm saying it's at the least utterly pointless. At it's worst I'm saying that applying it as a structuring principal to society is dangerous to the tune of 6 million Jews, several thousand Roma, between 10 and 30 million africans in the 17th and 18th century the list goes on and on.

If there are not precise genetic boundaries how do we decide who belongs to one 'race' and not to the other without utilising ideological and abitrary definitions? And yes I'm aware of ring species, having studied Biology at A level you patronising....yeah I'm not getting banned over you. how the hell does that even begin to support your position? the only time one group of people would stop being Homo sapiens is when they were so genetically distinct that they couldn't breed right?

What you seem to be suggesting is that we build a society based on a poorly defined concept. The reason I have repeatedly and accurately called you a racist is because you are suggesting that we run a test to see which of the poorly defined groups has the highest score in a questionable test, then have all the members of the highest scoring group at the top of society then gradations further on down - based on the average of a group! It's a caste system for crying out loud! What if say, the test you propose returned that the Pashtun of Afghanistan had the highest IQ of all? Would you still want to put them at the top of the pile, allow them to run the show Sharia law et al? Or should they use western laws? But I thought these people were the most intelligent - they use sharia law, clearly, being smarter than the rest of us, they know better correct? What about those of us with indivdual IQ's of 150-160 stuck in the 80-90 group - are you saying that it is fair that they should be stuck in such a position because of an accident of birth?

Again, why is 'Which race has the highest average intelligence' more benefitial as a scientific invetigation than 'what factors determine intellignce and how can it be maximised'. The difference, again, being ideological motivation. It's one thing to examine the concept of 'race' as a sociological category (which Dawkins et al may be doing), it's completely another to say we should build a society on it. I reserve the right to take up arms against any individual or individuals attempting to do so.

Actually it only is meaningless since the variation between million people in place X and another million in place Y does generally overlap for the most of it.

However there is a meaning to discussing that if affirmative action is proposed on the back of the rest of society for group X with random arguments around the cause.
(still AA can be useful in some imaginary situation but it's not the subject)

A post that supports my argument except for the fact that intelligence is considered to be influenced by genetics, although the degree of heritability is debated. You need to get over thinking in black and white. Few things are absolute. Intelligence isn't only dictated by genetics, but that doesn't mean genetics aren't significant.


Clearly that's not true. DNA from a crime scene can indicate the likely "race" of the person it came from. Just because the term "race" is a generic ill-defined term out of context, doesn't mean it's not useful. Within the context of the DNA and crime scene, defining the suspects "race" as northern European, or 25% northern European - 75% sub-Saharan African is very useful.


I used ring species to illustrate that changes are often gradational. I specifically stated that I didn't apply the actual concept of ring species to humans. Few things have precise boundaries, but that doesn't invalidate categorisation within arbitrary parameters. To think of a simple analogy, how about colours? When does green become blue? Does that mean we should throw away the concept of colour?


This is odd. You insult me and mock me, then when I counter this with rational argument you lose your temper. Strangely enough, I'm not trying to wind you up. I actually find you quite amusing, despite your repeated attacks on my character.

which is why I ask if ''what factors determine intellignce and how can it be maximised'' is not a better investigation.



I was talking about 'race' as a politico-ideological concept specifically, utility in medical or policing circumstances seems hugely limited, at least when considering the importance you are applying to it. Also one cannot be convicted on DNA evidence in the UK.



Why are you making my own points for me? There are societies with no concept of colour, some with no concept of time. My point being that it is an abitrary distinction of a certain level of usefulness, so long as we do not raise it to the level of essentialism. I'm yet to learn of any colour declaring itself better than any other and deciding to exterminate the colour purple over a set of abitrary distinctions.



that, to me, is someone taking a patronising attitude toward me. I may have misread the tone o the second but the first seems unmistakeable to me. I'm not losing my temper, I'm just responding in kind.



If that is in fact the case notify a moderator, I sign up to the rules and personal attacks is a no-no. If I've made a personal attack I will happily accept the consequences of my actions.

Have any of you noticed that the major nations of today are NOT organized along racial lines. Nationality and race neither coincide nor overlap.

Nations are composed mainly of mutts. Hardly a pure-bred in sight.

ruveyn