[Paleopsych] Featuring Dave: The Bell Curve â Latest Addition to the Meta-Analysis

Thu May 12 00:41:27 UTC 2005

The Bell Curve â Latest Addition to the Meta-Analysis
http://www.featuringdave.com/logicalmeme/2005/04/bell-curve-latest-addition-to-meta.html
Tuesday, April 26, 2005

    [4]Marginal Revolution reports on some politically incorrect research
    findings in this month's Journal of Law and Economics. Nobel Prize
    winner James Heckman and colleagues have an essay, âLabor Market
    Discrimination and Racial Differences in Premarket Factorsâ.
    It has previously been established that most of the black-white wage
    differential can be explained by IQ scores, but the role of
    socio-economic factors/status (SES) in determining why oneâs IQ is X
    is what is endlessly debated. Liberals want to believe that income
    disparities between groups is entirely the function of the
    environment, ie., SES.
    The only problem is that virtually every major study that has looked
    at the roles of IQ, while statistically accounting for SES, determine
    that there is significant variable that can only be inferred as a
    genetic component.
    As a science, genetics is every day discovering new correlations
    between health condition/ailment/characteristic X and some genetic
    factor. Still taboo, however, is the very possibility that cognitive
    ability might have a substantial correlation with genetic factors.
    Heckman et alâs study controls for schooling and, as Marginal
    Revolution notes, â[t]he results are not encouraging. After throwing
    all kinds of factors into the analysis they are able to increase the
    unexplained wage gap somewhat but no matter how far back they go they
    still find big ability differences, even in children as young as 1-2
    years of age.â Here is Heckman et al writing about another interesting
    finding from the study:

      Minority deficits in cognitive and noncognitive skills emerge early
      and then widen. Unequal schooling, neighborhoods, and peers may
      account for this differential growth in skills, but the main story
      in the data is not about growth rates but rather about the size of
      early deficits. Hispanic children start with cognitive and
      noncognitive deficits similar to those of black children. They also
      grow up in similarly disadvantaged environments and are likely to
      attend schools of similar quality. Hispanics complete much less
      schooling than blacks. Nevertheless, the ability growth by years of
      schooling is much higher for Hispanics than for blacks. By the time
      they reach adulthood, Hispanics have significantly higher test
      scores than do blacks. Conditional on test scores, there is no
      evidence of an important Hispanic-white wage gap. Our analysis of
      the Hispanic data illuminates the traditional study of black-white
      differences and casts doubt on many conventional explanations of
      these differences since they do not apply to Hispanics, who also
      suffer from many of the same disadvantages. The failure of the
      Hispanic-white gap to widen with schooling or age casts doubt on
      the claim that poor schools and bad neighborhoods are the reasons
      for the slow growth rate of black test scores.

    Though the authors apparently donât admit as much, the entity of âgâ
    (genetic predisposition towards cognitive ability, general
    intelligence, or IQ) is begging to be recognized here. Such is but the
    latest indirect confirmation of a wide, accumulating body of evidence
    pointing towards what [5]The Bell Curve, in its meta-analysis found:
    On average, approximately 50% of variability in intelligence is due to
    genetic inheritance, and there is a consistent and statistically
    significant difference worldwide between blacks, whites, and asians.
    (Say what? The horror! Racist! Nazi pig!)
    Anthropologically, the varying ethnicities in the world can be
    categorized, by general genotype, into 3 characteristic groups:
    mongoloids, caucasoids, and negroids. Hundreds and hundreds of studies
    from all around the world, in a myriad of different places and
    contexts, indicate the consistent empirical fact that, ceteris
    paribus, mongoloids rank first in IQ ability, followed by caucasoids,
    with negroids being a distant third.
    This does not mean that all persons of group X are âsmarterâ than Y,
    or that all persons in group Y are âless intelligentâ than X. These
    are statistical averages extrapolated across populations.
    Evolutionary hypotheses vary, but a consensus seems to be emerging
    that geography is the determining factor for cognitive abilitity, in
    addition to other differences in races. Basically, populations below
    vs. above the equator have had to deal with different
    environmental/geographical conditions which has shaped the
    populationsâ evolution. In the extreme dry conditions of East Africa,
    for example, evolution selected for persons who could traverse great
    distances on foot. (This, by the way, provides the most plausible
    explanation for why Kenyans dominate marathon races; the body
    morphology of a Kenyan is noticeably different than a Somalian,
    Chinese, Swede, etc. Different limb-to-trunk ratios and the like).
    Likewise, in the harsh winters of Europe (a geographical area with
    four distinct seasons), evolution selected for better spatial
    reasoning skills & the propensity for longer-term planning (think
    preparations for the winter season, the difficulty of finding food in
    the winter, etc), as well as for higher levels of altruistic,
    contractual social relations (e.g., I help you build your winter home
    and you promise to help me build mine).
    Such evidence of differing cognitive skills among racial groups is, of
    course, absolutely appalling to the liberalâs sensibilities. It goes
    against their romanticized, Rousseauian notion of the mind as a âblank
    slateâ. Many want to believe, and insist on believing, that all minds
    are identical and that, with the right environmental circumstances,
    anyone can excel in math, or become an Einstein or a Mozart. The irony
    here, of course, is that these same people usually donât question the
    idea that child prodigies â a Kasparov or a Mozart â are âborn that
    wayâ.
    Nonetheless, when it comes to official science on the matter, liberals
    refuse to even entertain the hypothesis that cognitive ability (i.e.,
    brain structure and functionality) might have genetic component, let
    alone actually acknowledge the evidence. Hence, their reaction is to
    not even bother to look at the body of evidence, dismissing en toto
    the entire intellectual pursuit. Politically correct, ad hominem
    attacks ensue, lobbed at the scientists who dare to look at this
    phenomenon in the first place. The science is then stultified and
    clouded by taboo. (Witness the tentativeness and recalcitrance among
    the small number of scientists involved with pharmaceutical
    discoveries that affect only certain races, e.g., the recent news
    story of [6]NitroMed, the first drug targeting heart conditions unique
    to blacks). As was the case with Copernicus, who had to shelf his
    findings for 30 years for fear of assured persecution by the Catholic
    church, so is the case with the field of population genetics.
    Unfortunately, truth has an annoying way of rearing its ugly head
    indefinitely. The evidence cannot simply be âwished awayâ and so will
    inevitably be a reality that social theory will sooner or later have
    to recognize. Weâre still decades away from an honest dialogue about
    race and group disparities in this country, so rife our society is
    with conditioned liberal white guilt for the plights of different
    ethnic groups. In the meantime, the meta-analysis of the Bell Curve
    has yet to be disproven. [7]Gene Expression is an excellent site that
    reports on current research and findings. [8]Steve Sailor, President
    of the Human Biodiversity Institute, writes about these matters
    frequently on his excellent site. Sailor [9]writes:

      Much of the Race Does Not Exist cant stems from the following logic
      (if you can call it logic): âIf there really are different racial
      groups, then one must be The Master Race, which means -- oh my God
      â that Hitler Was Right! Therefore, we must promote whatever ideas
      most confuse the public about race. Otherwise, they will learn the
      horrible truth and they'll all vote Nazi.â
      Look, this is one big non-sequiter: Of course, there are different
      racial groups. And of course their members tend to inherit certain
      different genes, on average, than the members of other racial
      groups. And that means racial groups will differ, on average, in
      various innate capabilities. But that also means that no group can
      be supreme at all jobs. To be excellent at one skill frequently
      implies being worse at something else. So, there can't be a Master
      Race. Sports fans can cite countless examples. Men of West African
      descent monopolize the Olympic 100m dash, but their explosive
      musculature, which is so helpful in sprinting, weighs them down in
      distance running, where they are also-rans. Similarly, there are
      far more Samoans in the National Football League than Chinese,
      simply because Samoans tend to be much, much bigger. But precisely
      because Samoans are so huge, they'll never do as well as the
      Chinese in gymnastics.
      Race is a fundamental aspect of the human condition. Burying our
      heads in the sand and refusing to think about this fundamental
      aspect only makes the inevitable problems caused by race harder to
      overcome.

References

    1. http://www.featuringdave.com/logicalmeme/atom.xml
    2. http://logicalmeme.com/
    3. 
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/04/politically_inc.html
    4. 
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/04/politically_inc.html
    5. 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0029146739/qid=1114562677/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-4217589-2775837?v=glance&s=books&n=507846
    6. 
http://www.featuringdave.com/logicalmeme/2005/02/fda-faces-racial-medicine-debate.html
    7. http://www.gnxp.com/
    8. http://www.isteve.com/
    9. http://www.vdare.com/sailer/may_24.htm
   10. 
http://www.featuringdave.com/logicalmeme/2005/04/bell-curve-latest-addition-to-meta.html
   11. http://www.haloscan.com/comments/sodafizz13/111456326660041073/
   12. http://www.haloscan.com/tb/sodafizz13/111456326660041073/