Opinions wanted from the tough crowd here (warning; click only if interested in IQ)

[bpesta22]

I got into a fairly heated debate on the science blogs thingy about (go figure) IQ.

I am either blinded by my narrow world view, or this was one of the most irrational debates I've ever been in (irrational coming from the other side).

I know that many here are not big fans of IQ, but some do seem interested in the topic (both pro and con). So, I will post a link here. Is this a cry for validation? Perhaps. But, I am mostly interested in the logic / reason presented (or not presented) by each side.

My personal is opinion is "holy crap how can these people claim to be scientists". I trust that if I'm way off, people here will tell me (and I do value opinions here, as I still think this is the most intellectually ass kicking forum on the net).

So, if you have 20 minutes or so to kill reading, and are interested in providing an assessment of the valid arguments versus fallacies made by both sides, I'd be very interested in your thoughts. Hell, it's 20 minutes; what else do you have to do at work!

TIA

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/12/the_argument_that_different_ra.php

p.s. there's a chance the blog owner will start deleting my comments. As of now, there are 182 comments (#182 is mine, made about 30 minutes ago).

p.p.s Those that do click probably have followed some of the IQ threads here, and so can further call me on any inconsistencies they may see in me posting there versus here.

[athon]

This is always a tough field to debate.

I had a similar one recently with a friend after I re-read 'Mismeasure of Man'. I love Gould, but this is one book that felt more like a rant than anything substantial. I really wanted it to have something useful for me - while it had a lot of material on the history of racism (which was good, don't get me wrong), it amounted to little more than a creationist-like poisoning of the well.

I tried to point this out, and the discussion went along the same lines as what you've linked to. It was a lot of circular reasoning, where evidence was dismissed because 'X' was racist. Mind you, the only evidence of their racism was often the nature of their studies implied differences in intelligence.

It's undeniable that in the past, intelligence was linked intrinsically with notions of superiority. This makes it a thorny ground for research. I've always been impressed with your persistence at it, which in my view is important even if it is immensely challenging.

The biggest issue in debates like this I find is the conflict over how people perceive 'races'. In the past, distinctions were made along rather arbitrary lines. Once the broad categorisation model of five or six distinct racial groups was found to be biologically useless, people felt obliged to misread that as 'there is no genetic difference' across geological populations. Which is bollocks. True, there is more genetic variation within a race than between it, but that's not to say that there isn't a spectrum of genetic variation across the globe.

The other difficulty people have is reasoning that mental faculties can be either quantified or related to such genetic variations. Rather than looking at the successes of such measures, people seek out the failures and use them to reinforce their reluctance to study such a thing.

Ever since I started reading more on the topic, I've found that that same reluctance I had (and yes, I fully admit the bias I felt once made me feel uncomfortable with the idea of genetic differences resulting in differences in intelligence between geographically diverse populations) has slowly abated.

Take heart, Pesta. :) You couldn't expect this field of study to be a palatable one for most people.

Athon

[lionking]

Wow, you were really in the firing line there bpesta. All I can say is that I don't believe you are a racist for raising the issue.

[novaphile]

IQ and race (if that concept could be backed up at all) is as complex as the blog posting explains.

Noise factors like diet and upbringing (nature v. nurture arguments) are huge.

Here for example: British Journal of Psychiatry (http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/181/1/22) is an article which explains how lack of adequate nutrition appears to significantly change the behaviour of young adults.

The kind of behaviours listed could significantly impair a person's ability to learn. I would expect that to reduce IQ scores over time, especially with tests that rely on comprehending the instructions...

[novaphile]

I recall a study (very old) which concluded that school dinners in England had not improved IQ test outcomes for students...

Many years (perhaps decades) later, a graduate student from (Finland???) reviewed the data and found a small subset of students whose IQ scores leapt by 20% (I read this all long time ago so all figures here are effectively made up) leading to the conclusion that improved access to nutrition can improve IQ test outcomes - if the test subject had inadequate nutrition originally.

[novaphile]

...an no, the plural of anecdote is not data.

A friend of mine was given an IQ test when he first came to Australia. The testers concluded that he was significantly mentally impaired and would be best served by being placed in a "special" school for children.

Fortunately his parents were very stubborn, and he went to a normal school with everyone else.

I say fortunately because he blazed through High School as a high achiever, completed a Computer Science degree at university, and continues to have a demanding career.

The IQ test was given in English. I imagine the result would have been very different if it was given in one of the languages he was proficient in.

:)

[athon]

IQ and race (if that concept could be backed up at all) is as complex as the blog posting explains.

Noise factors like diet and upbringing (nature v. nurture arguments) are huge.

Here for example: British Journal of Psychiatry (http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/181/1/22) is an article which explains how lack of adequate nutrition appears to significantly change the behaviour of young adults.

The kind of behaviours listed could significantly impair a person's ability to learn. I would expect that to reduce IQ scores over time, especially with tests that rely on comprehending the instructions...

With all due respect, this is a little like a patient explaining to a surgeon that if they don't use anaesthetic, it'll hurt. ;) I worked in pathology many years ago - if you want statistical noise...boy! Try reading papers that study the impact of various pharmaceuticals.

Psychologists fully understand that it is a convoluted issue, which is why they do crazy things like compare people from a range of backgrounds and across different cultures. Then they use some pretty impressive statistics to get numbers that explain the probability of their results being due to something biological. It's easy to dismiss it all as 'too hard', but that's the whole point of science - to sort meaning from the noise.

Now, I have to admit, on reading up on this issue lately (part of my studies on sociology and the culture of science), what I'm limited to is critically evaluating the parameters of the studies I have access to. I'm not trained to evaluate quantitative assessments, and as such can't really evaluate whether the statistical assays used are robust.

However, you can get a feel for a particular field by looking at the nature of the criticism between the experts. The short of it is that the evidence on the topic is pretty robust. Criticisms often come from outsiders crying 'racism', but inside the field the peer review tends to be somewhat supportive of the notion that there are biological influences on intelligence, and the biology is inheritable and variant across geologically diverse populations.

Simply stating it's complicated and washing one's hands of it is poor science in any field.

[macdoc]

Leave out the artificial social construct of race and put in sub-populations which can be looked at genetically and culturally and indeed there is science underpinning for differences. Value of those differences is subjective.
Genetic propensity to diabetes in certain subpopulations can affect IQ - the list is endless, sickle cell anemia, Appalachian coal dust, deprivation of a rich learning environment for girls in certain cultures, lack of vitamins at critical growth stages in nutritionally challenged regions or sub-populations...

Dump in race and the bigots emerge like cockroaches....There is a reason Nature publications frown on its use in science papers.
Sub-population is not loaded...."race" has baggage....big time.

[fls]

Caveats:
My personal bias is that I would like to deny between group variations. ;)
I am a dabbler in this area.

Comments:
I really wanted to understand the blogger's point about heritability, but he simply did not provide enough information to show me how the distinction can be made between heritability and genetics/related biological factors. His example, language is highly heritable, seemed odd. Why would you construct a measure which shows that language is heritable when it clearly is not? I can't tell whether he has taken liberties (i.e. he is BSing about whether applying the metric for 'heritability' to language comes back 'positive'), or whether he is telling me something useful (it is a useful example, if true). Regardless, the point you raise about twin studies and the differences between MZ and DZ twins seems to be the critical issue which breaks the symmetry on this issue. That this was left unaddressed gave me the most difficulty accepting the blogger's position.

It was cute how your wife came to your defense.

The bulk of the posts were simply attacks. Ignoring those and focussing on the few that involved people who seemed to know what they were talking about, the points most relevant to the issue did not seem to get addressed. I think you supported your points well. I don't know how valid they are - that is, I don't know how well they would stand against someone with the relevant expertise.

I think that the point the blogger brings up is interesting, mostly because I recently read an article in Skeptic (vol. 15, No. 2, 2009) about the "connection between intelligence, science and the decline of belief". The author, James Allan Cheyne (a psychologist), Discusses the rise of "abstract categorical and hypothetical (ACH) thinking" and how that accounts for the Flynn effect as well as how cultural differences can account for differences in tests designed to be culture-free. I am interested in whether you are familiar with this idea and what you think of it. If you haven't seen the article, or don't have access to it, I can tell you what references were used.

ETA: That took considerably longer than 20 minutes, but maybe I will blame my lack of coffee when I started. :)

Linda

[bpesta22]

This is always a tough field to debate.

I had a similar one recently with a friend after I re-read 'Mismeasure of Man'. I love Gould, but this is one book that felt more like a rant than anything substantial. I really wanted it to have something useful for me - while it had a lot of material on the history of racism (which was good, don't get me wrong), it amounted to little more than a creationist-like poisoning of the well.

I tried to point this out, and the discussion went along the same lines as what you've linked to. It was a lot of circular reasoning, where evidence was dismissed because 'X' was racist. Mind you, the only evidence of their racism was often the nature of their studies implied differences in intelligence.

It's undeniable that in the past, intelligence was linked intrinsically with notions of superiority. This makes it a thorny ground for research. I've always been impressed with your persistence at it, which in my view is important even if it is immensely challenging.

The biggest issue in debates like this I find is the conflict over how people perceive 'races'. In the past, distinctions were made along rather arbitrary lines. Once the broad categorisation model of five or six distinct racial groups was found to be biologically useless, people felt obliged to misread that as 'there is no genetic difference' across geological populations. Which is bollocks. True, there is more genetic variation within a race than between it, but that's not to say that there isn't a spectrum of genetic variation across the globe.

The other difficulty people have is reasoning that mental faculties can be either quantified or related to such genetic variations. Rather than looking at the successes of such measures, people seek out the failures and use them to reinforce their reluctance to study such a thing.

Ever since I started reading more on the topic, I've found that that same reluctance I had (and yes, I fully admit the bias I felt once made me feel uncomfortable with the idea of genetic differences resulting in differences in intelligence between geographically diverse populations) has slowly abated.

Take heart, Pesta. :) You couldn't expect this field of study to be a palatable one for most people.

Athon

Thanks Athon-- you've always seemed very fair/open minded when arguing with me here.

Sincerely

B

[bpesta22]

Thanks lion and mac-- again I appreciated the feedback

FLS, thanks also, and sorry it took longer than 20 minutes. I owe you a good read of the article you linked to, and I have never heard of the area, so I shall read it while others are at xmas mass!

B

[bpesta22]

Ack, having trouble finding the article. Is it pay only?

[bpesta22]

Wow, someone started posting on "my side" who really knows his stuff.

The blog owner got defensive and started name calling.

Deleted posts, closed the thread and claimed he can't allow politically incorrect racist comments to stand on his blog.

He even deleted 3rd party short posts of people criticizing him for how he handled comments to various points that were made.

Why is this amazing? The web site seems fairly elite. It's SCIENCE BLOGS. PJ Meyers blog is there.

I intend to file a formal complaint.

[bpesta22]

Holy crap; he's now claiming he closed the thread because obviously I am using fake names and IP addresses to use sock puppets "How else would I know threads were deleted". Uhm, because I saved the whole web page?

Help! In the name of intellectual honesty!

[macdoc]

The minute a title like this pops up

The argument that different races have genetically determined differences in intelligence

It's out of the science regime and into social constructs with the accompanying baggage - many threads of a similar nature have been closed and eliminated on JREF>

Race is a social construct with damaging baggage..

http://www.enotalone.com/article/5043.html

Want the science of diversity without the bigotry jumping in??...stick to subpopulations. :thumbsup:

[bpesta22]

The minute a title like this pops up



It's out of the science regime and into social constructs with the accompanying baggage - many threads of a similar nature have been closed and eliminated on JREF>

Race is a social construct with damaging baggage..

http://www.enotalone.com/article/5043.html

Want the science of diversity without the bigotry jumping in??...stick to subpopulations. :thumbsup:

I think ultimately JREF has the right to move / delete censor threads. We've debated that ad naseum here. On a case by case basis, though, we could argue how deleting this or that thread might reflect on the skeptical community. That's only a semi valid argument here, as I suspect JREF doesn't claim to speak for or represent the whole "skeptical community." So, what the JREF does here affects the JREF's reputation primarily, and perhaps the community's reputation only indirectly.

In my case, the place is called scienceblogs. They hand pick supposedly elite scientists to gave a taste of their expertise (and the scientific process) to anyone clicking on the blogs. They are linked / endorsed / affiliated with the NY Times and National Geographic (ffs!). I think bloggers there have a level of authority/legitimacy and therefore responsibility that JREF moderators here do not (it might be a little different if randi regularly posted here, but he doesn't).

They represent science in the public eye. That's undeniable.

I'm not claiming that my arguments are correct; I'm claiming intellectual dishonesty and extreme lack of academic integrity. First, I think I have been defamed (legally, I think the blogger made knowingly false statements with the intent to harm. To the extent I am a scientist, the harm is real-- my reputation among the greater scientific community).

I've been posting about 22 years on message boards. I've never seen this kind of censorship and lack of integrity.

Just me and one other person were arguing on my side. The second person was very professional and backed all assertions by long lists of citations. When it was apparent the blog owner was way over his head, he closed the thread, deleted posts, called us racist "scientists" and then accused me of being a sock puppet-- while further warning other science blog members to watch out for hijacks from me.

I suspected he was so deep in that this would be his only way I out. I saved the blog page a few days ago and again today as he was in the process of deleting threads where 3rd parties were starting to call him out for his lack of integrity. That's when he shut things done.

There's an emotional and a rational aspect to what happened to me. Sure, I am mad as hell over this, and perhaps that motivates my posts here. But, there also is a fundamental principle at steak here-- academic freedom and let reason rule.

To me, what he did-- as a visible representative of the scientific community via his title and place on science blogs-- is as academically dishonest as plagiarism and should not stand.

Am I over reacting?

[bpesta22]

I'm sorry to bump this again; I suspect this appears rather emotional. I would like to point out to any new readers at the JREF that my first post in this thread here was made yesterday-- before thread deletion on the science blogs took place.

I just want you to note that I called it here well before it happened there. I hope that further speaks to the veracity of my claims.

[macdoc]

To me, what he did-- as a visible representative of the scientific community via his title and place on science blogs-- is as academically dishonest as plagiarism and should not stand.

Am I over reacting?

Without making any judgement calls on your behavior - just in general....I'm not surprised at the outcome.

I actually meant to say Dawkin's site not JREF locked or eliminated threads and not a few got banned out of it. I don't have personal knowledge of threads of that nature here, I do at Dawkins.

To some degree the vitriole and melt down simple verifies the "baggage" aspect of using race and science in the same sentence.

Do you really think the same outcome or heat would be there if subpopulations had been used and defined?

[bpesta22]

Without making any judgement calls on your behavior - just in general....I'm not surprised at the outcome.

I actually meant to say Dawkin's site not JREF locked or eliminated threads and not a few got banned out of it. I don't have personal knowledge of threads of that nature here, I do at Dawkins.

To some degree the vitriole and melt down simple verifies the "baggage" aspect of using race and science in the same sentence.

Do you really think the same outcome or heat would be there if subpopulations had been used and defined?

Sorry I didn't reply to this earlier. I did notice that Dawkins' forum won't allow posts on race and IQ anymore. I think that's a shame, but I do see where arguments on this topic could lead to less than academic discussions.

I think calling it sub-groups versus race would have the same effect (though I wonder if I'd be accused of being a sub-groupist instead of racist).

[macdoc]

You have to define a subpopulation to discuss it in science....ie certain indigenous North American's have a very high incidence of diabetes as do Ashkenazi Jews....
Finding out the genetic link between the two is science.....and developing perhaps testing and treatment based on that.

The rest is baggage best left to history along with phrenology.

....32nd cousins all......:garfield:

[Skeptic Ginger]

...

Noise factors like diet and upbringing (nature v. nurture arguments) are huge....The first time I ventured out of the country (not counting drunken escapades south of the border as a teenager) I was surprised by the ignorance I found. I stayed with families in the Dominican Republic and grown adult men asked me how was it I could travel and they could not. I was taken aback by the question.

But weeks later I thought I had the answer (and have not heard convincing evidence my conclusion was wrong). It comes down to education and protein in the diet of growing children from fetus to adulthood. Perhaps a bit of lead and other pollutants also contributes to the difference in the IQ of different populations, but from what I understand about genetics, that is not the difference.

[Skeptic Ginger]

...an no, the plural of anecdote is not data.It is if it is systematically collected and especially if it is then compared to controls.

...
The IQ test was given in English. I imagine the result would have been very different if it was given in one of the languages he was proficient in.

:)This very obvious problem as well as having culturally relevant questions on IQ tests is a well recognized confounding factor. Researchers are not ignorant even if some local school officials using IQ tests are.

[bpesta22]

Believe it or not, I am incredibly sick of debating about IQ. Just to those here who've called me out for being obsessed with it, my intent starting this thread was not to start another round.

I did re-read all 130 comments or so over there, and without being able to see the deleted comments, my argument seems weaker than it is. I wont drag the JREF into it by posting the deleted comments here though.

Thanks to all!

[Soapy Sam]

It's the internet.
Being accused of racism when trying to show data is upsetting and being accused of sock-puppetry when someone supports your pov is infuriating. But it's part of the territory, mon ami.

Dwelling on anger at people you can't influence is just a stress on your own immune system. Chill out for a while, is my advice. You can't win 'em all.

I've never thought you are a racist and I saw nothing in that exchange to suggest it. The blogger started with an agenda and no evidence was going to change his mind.

ps - As to the issue itself. I wonder what it means in evolutionary terms? We all came from Africa pretty recently in evolutionary terms and it's well known most of the variation in the human gene pool is still in Africa. If one factor has significantly changed in those people who came out of Africa and went north and east - what were the environmental causes of that change? Given the potential for that improvement has to be African-what is suppressing it and how do we fix that? Disease? Nutrition?
And of course, most critically for non-African humans, if there is a genuine advantage to some people and disadvantage to others, how do we redesign our education to best correct that variation?

pps- Notice how everyone accepts these days that teenage girls outperform teenage boys at academic subjects?

Could it be that once all the environmental constraints are smoothed out, girls are just smarter? My god! Genetic determinism! We're all doomed!

[Cimerian]

I did not read the whole thread, but just in the historic sense the IQ topic seems to me like white scientists claiming that white people are smarter because on average they score higher in tests designed by white scientists. I am distrustful on such studies and specially of the conclusions just because science is a human activity, and those who do the science can never abstract not even partially from their human condition, in this case the fact that they belong to a specific group. Second, the conclusions or meaning you can draw from the results you get from comparing IQ between human groups are limited, since the biological mechanisms of problem solving activity, for example, are poorly understood.

[SezMe]

I had a similar one recently with a friend after I re-read 'Mismeasure of Man'. I love Gould, but this is one book that felt more like a rant than anything substantial. I really wanted it to have something useful for me - while it had a lot of material on the history of racism (which was good, don't get me wrong), it amounted to little more than a creationist-like poisoning of the well.
Very interesting. I, too, am an enthusiastic Gouldophile who thought Mismeasure of Man was fascinating reading. Because the whole field is way out of my depth, I suspect I read it without much critical thinking. Based on your comment, I think I'll give it a second go with a more critical eye. Thanks, athon.

[sol invictus]

I found this comment quite interesting:

Raven’s progressive matrices measure something which correlates with IQ measured with other tests in some populations, not in all. When different tests (Raven's and Weschler) give answers that are as much as 70 percentile points different on the same individual, those different tests cannot be measuring the same thing no matter how well those tests correlate in other populations.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17680932
Exactly what they are measuring is not known. The absence of correlation proves they are not the same. Correlation in some populations may simply be artifact.

The abstract of the linked article says

Autistics are presumed to be characterized by cognitive impairment, and their cognitive strengths (e.g., in Block Design performance) are frequently interpreted as low-level by-products of high-level deficits, not as direct manifestations of intelligence. Recent attempts to identify the neuroanatomical and neurofunctional signature of autism have been positioned on this universal, but untested, assumption. We therefore assessed a broad sample of 38 autistic children on the preeminent test of fluid intelligence, Raven's Progressive Matrices. Their scores were, on average, 30 percentile points, and in some cases more than 70 percentile points, higher than their scores on the Wechsler scales of intelligence. Typically developing control children showed no such discrepancy, and a similar contrast was observed when a sample of autistic adults was compared with a sample of nonautistic adults. We conclude that intelligence has been underestimated in autistics.

That looks to me like it completely demolishes the "g" hypothesis we discussed at length here a while back (which is the idea that IQ scores are a good measure of some kind of singular underlying "intelligence", and it's that underlying intelligence that accounts for the correlations between IQ scores and various real-world performance measures).

Bryan, your comment:

Your cite is a study on autistic children. I'd stipulate that traditional IQ tests are not good for people with developmental disabilities (they're made to assess so called "normal" people). You can't criticize a test for failing to diagnose something it was never intended to measure.

looks like you've missed the point in this context - which is not to "criticize the test for failing to diagnose" something, but to show that these two IQ tests cannot be measuring the same quantity.

As for disregarding tests on disabled children, that isn't acceptable. Results like that aren't just useful, they're absolutely essential. It doesn't make any difference what the tests were "designed" to measure, that's not relevant. What we want to know, regardless of how or why they were designed, is whether they are actually measuring the same thing; or whether there is a single unitary underlying ability that determines scores on them.

There are a number of examples in neurology where it was subjects with specific brain injuries that allowed scientists to nail down which parts of the brain do what. Those abnormal brains weren't just useful for that, they were critical. And yet your objection could apply there - "I'm going to disallow data that conflicts with my hypothesis from anyone with a brain injury, because I'm interested in the functioning of normal brains".

The fact is, this result (if confirmed) proves that these two IQ tests are not measuring the same quantity, which in turn proves that there is no singular quantity that determines the correlations observed in non-disabled subjects.

So much for "g".

(By the way, I got tired of reading the comments about half-way through, so if there are more on that topic let me know.)

[bpesta22]

Sol


I'm no expert on autism but I would stipulate that motivation can explain 100% of iq scores in cases where any person says: I'm not taking that crappy test. With autistic kids, I imagine there has to be some type of effort on the person taking the test before one reads much into the scores. But, that's true of any test.

Suppose we test autistic kids on how well they can catch a basket ball bounce passed to them. First testing, the kid is interested and tries to catch. He's gets 2 out of every 3. Next testing, the kid is focused on something else and totally ignores the tester. Every single ball is ignored.

Is the basketball test biased / unfair?

I also think there might be some qualitative differences between kids with and without autism, and suggest that the Raven's is not a sensitive measure for people outside the fat part of the bell curve.

[Professor Yaffle]

I started a thread a little while ago about the Channel 4 programme "Race and Intelligence - Science's Last Taboo", but didn't get much specific discussion on the programme because the Channel 4 player can only be used if you are in the UK. Have now found somewhere hosting it (split into 7 parts) that anyone can access, and thought you might want to take a look:

http://www.strimoo.com/video/17697301/Race-and-Intelligence-1-7-Dailymotion.html

[bpesta22]

I started a thread a little while ago about the Channel 4 programme "Race and Intelligence - Science's Last Taboo", but didn't get much specific discussion on the programme because the Channel 4 player can only be used in you are in the UK. Have now found somewhere hosting it (split into 7 parts) that anyone can access, and thought you might want to take a look:

http://www.strimoo.com/video/17697301/Race-and-Intelligence-1-7-Dailymotion.html

Thanks Yaff, I will check it out, though, hopefully not immediately for my own sanity.

[Professor Yaffle]

Sol


I'm no expert on autism but I would stipulate that motivation can explain 100% of iq scores in cases where any person says: I'm not taking that crappy test. With autistic kids, I imagine there has to be some type of effort on the person taking the test before one reads much into the scores. But, that's true of any test.

Suppose we test autistic kids on how well they can catch a basket ball bounce passed to them. First testing, the kid is interested and tries to catch. He's gets 2 out of every 3. Next testing, the kid is focused on something else and totally ignores the tester. Every single ball is ignored.

Is the basketball test biased / unfair?

I also think there might be some qualitative differences between kids with and without autism, and suggest that the Raven's is not a sensitive measure for people outside the fat part of the bell curve.

Depends on what you are supposed to be measuring with the basketball test. For example, my son was recently assessed for dyspraxia, and throwing and catching were part of the gross motor skills tests. He scored very poorly on them, but because my son was very distracted and fidgetty, the OT didn't conclude that he necessarily had poor gross motor skills (as the tests were designed to measure), but that he may have attention problems which impaired his ability to complete the tasks.

[bpesta22]

Depends on what you are supposed to be measuring with the basketball test. For example, my son was recently assessed for dyspraxia, and throwing and catching were part of the gross motor skills tests. He scored very poorly on them, but because my son was very distracted and fidgetty, the OT didn't conclude that he necessarily had poor gross motor skills (as the tests were designed to measure), but that he may have attention problems which impaired his ability to complete the tasks.

I think I'm making the same point. The OT didn't put much weight on the motor skill score because it seemed like no reliable and valid measure of the construct could be made given the fidgeting. Does that mean the construct of gross motor skills is invalid? That test was probably never intended for use on a kid who couldn't sit still (I bet if you tested your kid at a time when he was more calm, the score would be a much more accurate assessment of his motor skills).

Similarly, the Raven's IQ test was never intended for use on a population where failure to reply with requests seems to be a hallmark of the disorder.

I didn't read the linked study, but before I'd get into whether this is bad for g-theory I would want to make sure the testers noted the kids' behavior at both testing times as a possible explanation for a 70% point difference in scores.

[bpesta22]

To be clear, the abstract says the autistic kids' scores were 30-70% higher when using the raven's to assess IQ versus the WAIS. I wish I would have caught this in the original thread.

A key test of g is whether the rank orderings of kids' are the same. If Joe is first or second (out of 38 in this study) on the WAIS (with an estimated IQ of 78) then Joe should be first or second (roughly) on the Raven's (even if his IQ is now estimated at 108). The caveat though would still be how the kids' "took" the test. ("here, arrange these blocks to form a picture". The kid picks them up and stares at them for 2 minutes. "Ok, this kid is mentally retarded". I hope that didn't happen...).

[athon]

Very interesting. I, too, am an enthusiastic Gouldophile who thought Mismeasure of Man was fascinating reading. Because the whole field is way out of my depth, I suspect I read it without much critical thinking. Based on your comment, I think I'll give it a second go with a more critical eye. Thanks, athon.

No problem. Get back to me with your opinion, in which case. I'm not saying there's no useful stuff in it or that he was without good evidence, but the ultimate conclusions just seemed tainted by more emotional appeal than anything.

I'd like more opinions, though. I actually want to like that book. :)

Athon

[bpesta22]

I guess I am dramatic:

http://quichemoraine.com/2009/12/readings-in-iq-and-intelligence/#comment-11702

This above is about 40 posts long. Read it only if you found the other one entertaining (it's starts by calling me sexist because I abbreviated a female user's screen name but not a male one's).

This is my last post there, which I am fond of, so I post it here:

***

You still don’t understand. All we skeptics have is the scientific method. It’s the only reason our world view is superior to anyone else’s. Science works / no thing else does. QED.
We are at war. The majority of people (many in power) reject science as the ultimate arbiter of reality. The level of scientific illiteracy in America is as dangerous as global warming. This is serious stuff; from killing people to prove whose god is stronger, to denying gays the “right” to marry, to watching kids die as parents pray for their recovery. This is not the time to weaken our “brand.”

If scienceblogs does not represent the best of Science then they are whores and are morally obligated to change their name.

We need to do everything we can to protect our label. We should protect it as fiercely as we fight against teaching creationism in the classroom. We shouldn’t use the term anywhere unless it is serious business. Asserting false authority under the guise of being a science blogger is like the pope claiming contraception is evil (because he’s the pope, and he said so). Don’t do it. Especially don’t do it and then smugly claim you have the moral high ground. Follow the process or don’t associate it with science. Anything else is an extreme disservice to humanity and offensive to anyone worthy of the name, scientist.

I believe this so strongly I have word science tattooed on my bicep (inside a Darwin fish).




I did check threads I started here a month ago, where I abbreviate pretty much everyone's screen name, independent of gender.

[lionking]

I started a thread a little while ago about the Channel 4 programme "Race and Intelligence - Science's Last Taboo", but didn't get much specific discussion on the programme because the Channel 4 player can only be used if you are in the UK. Have now found somewhere hosting it (split into 7 parts) that anyone can access, and thought you might want to take a look:

http://www.strimoo.com/video/17697301/Race-and-Intelligence-1-7-Dailymotion.html
I just watched the whole programme, thanks Prof.

The only issue I have is that the conclusion "it's all down to the environment" ignores the seperated twins studies. Am I missing something?

[Soapy Sam]

No problem. Get back to me with your opinion, in which case. I'm not saying there's no useful stuff in it or that he was without good evidence, but the ultimate conclusions just seemed tainted by more emotional appeal than anything.

I'd like more opinions, though. I actually want to like that book. :)

Athon


Athon- I was a big fan of SJG's earlier essays- I have most of the anthologised ones at home. I gradually found myself enjoying them less and less in later years though.
When he stuck to unusual facts of biology- fantastic. But more and more there seemed to be a political subtext, which I found uninteresting at first and latterly disturbing.
I did not finish "Mismeasure"- and that's rare for me. The whole book seemed to be an agenda. A hard agenda to disagree with, I admit- but I don't buy science books for their political content.

I had similar problems with "Wonderful Life" - there seemed more pseudo mystical speculation in it than I felt was justified by what I had read of the fossils in the scientific literature.
And when Conway Morris came down upon Gould like the wolf upon the fold, I was not terribly surprised by the content of his response - though I was taken aback, as were many others, by its viciousness. (As indeed was Dawkins)

It's interesting to read some of Dawkins' later critiques of Gouldian pop sci writing. Dawkins is clearly an admirer of Gould's style and sophistication , but there is bafflement at the elementary flaws in Gould's thinking.

It's stuff for another thread I guess, but I am often surprised by the awe in which SJG is held in America. Yes he was a good biologist and excellent writer, but he had some damn wierd notions. Give me Asimov any day.

[RPG Advocate]

That thread went a lot better than it could have. Those who think g has validity are at a disadvantage, since Rushton and Jenson's data are unusable to argue in favor of IQ.

Re: autism: one of the hallmarks of autism is uneven abilities. It's not really surprising that autistics' scores vary considerably between a test that's reliant on a composite of subscores (WAIS) versus a pure score based on doing one task (RPM). Whether or not this undermines the construct validity of g requires further research.

The major problem, though, is that people don't want to accept the idea of heritability of intelligence because it would mean that there's unfair stratification that would be extremely difficult to correct by any known intervention. The vitriol is what you get when confronted with that reality.

[dann]

'Mismeasure of Man'. I love Gould, but this is one book that felt more like a rant than anything substantial. I really wanted it to have something useful for me - while it had a lot of material on the history of racism (which was good, don't get me wrong), it amounted to little more than a creationist-like poisoning of the well.

Very interesting. I, too, am an enthusiastic Gouldophile who thought Mismeasure of Man was fascinating reading. Because the whole field is way out of my depth, I suspect I read it without much critical thinking. Based on your comment, I think I'll give it a second go with a more critical eye. Thanks, athon.

Is that all it takes to persuade you that The Mismeasure of Man is "little more than a creationist-like poisoning of the well", SezMe?
So far I haven´t seen a single argument from athon to make it at least probable that it might be so. Why not ask him to be a little more specific before you consider discarding the arguments presented by Gould?

[daenku32]

A related article:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/african_americans_go_from

And about as helpful.

[bpesta22]

A related article:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/african_americans_go_from

And about as helpful.

Interesting; those are some ignorant comments, even for 60 years ago. What gets me is even if there's a huge group difference on anything and even if it's real, given how many humans of each "race" there are, there will still be exceptional people of each race.

One of the hardest things to get across when discussing this crap is that existence of a mean group difference is in no way invalidated by finding exceptions to the rule. Or, finding single people-who are at the extreme end of a distribution, alone, says nothing about whether a group difference might exist.

Plus, I think comparing tiger woods to phil michalson is so irrelevant to people on average (given how much better these two are then people on average) that it tells you very litte.

[sol invictus]

I'm no expert on autism but I would stipulate that motivation can explain 100% of iq scores in cases where any person says: I'm not taking that crappy test. With autistic kids, I imagine there has to be some type of effort on the person taking the test before one reads much into the scores. But, that's true of any test.

Suppose we test autistic kids on how well they can catch a basket ball bounce passed to them. First testing, the kid is interested and tries to catch. He's gets 2 out of every 3. Next testing, the kid is focused on something else and totally ignores the tester. Every single ball is ignored.

Is the basketball test biased / unfair?

I also think there might be some qualitative differences between kids with and without autism, and suggest that the Raven's is not a sensitive measure for people outside the fat part of the bell curve.

I don't see how any of that addresses the point. The claim I'm interested in evaluating is: there exists a singular quantity called g that explains the correlation in ability on a large variety of tasks, and IQ test scores are a good measure of g.

This falsifies that hypothesis.

[bpesta22]

I don't see how any of that addresses the point. The claim I'm interested in evaluating is: there exists a singular quantity called g that explains the correlation in ability on a large variety of tasks, and IQ test scores are a good measure of g.

This falsifies that hypothesis.

It does for autistics; or it does when you show me that there is no qualitative difference between how an autistic processes information relative to the non-autistic public.

And, also, I think it only falsifies the idea that score on one IQ test is equivalent to score on another (no one claims that).

Showing that the rank ordering of people differs across test would falsify g (except in those cases where a person scores low by not responding to the test items).

[sol invictus]

It does for autistics; or it does when you show me that there is no qualitative difference between how an autistic processes information relative to the non-autistic public.

That's not necessary, for exactly the same reason a brain damaged in a specific area could falsify a hypothesis about the function of that area.

And, also, I think it only falsifies the idea that score on one IQ test is equivalent to score on another (no one claims that).

Well, based on the little I've read about them, both tests are claimed to be a measure of "g". In fact the Raven's test was designed specifically to measure it. Moreover the only interesting thing about this "g" hypothesis is if it's a single factor that determines ability on a mental tasks. If it doesn't even determine ability on IQ tests designed specifically to measure it, it's crap.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

The major problem, though, is that people don't want to accept the idea of heritability of intelligence because it would mean that there's unfair stratification that would be extremely difficult to correct by any known intervention. The vitriol is what you get when confronted with that reality.
And why are they concerned with this possible disparity? Apparently because they believe that the only way we are going to eradicate bigotry is by declaring that everyone is actually identical.

Seems to me it would be easier simply to suggest that we not be bigots even if people are different from one another. Silly me.

~~ Paul

[bpesta22]

That's not necessary, for exactly the same reason a brain damaged in a specific area could falsify a hypothesis about the function of that area.



Well, based on the little I've read about them, both tests are claimed to be a measure of "g". In fact the Raven's test was designed specifically to measure it. Moreover the only interesting thing about this "g" hypothesis is if it's a single factor that determines ability on a mental tasks. If it doesn't even determine ability on IQ tests designed specifically to measure it, it's crap.

Argh, I'm not a big neuropsych fan. But, I remember reading that something like brain damage is inconclusive because it could be the damaged area links two or more areas key to the function, versus controls the function anyway. I see very limited value to case studies where a person has a brain injury and based on what he can't do now, we infer that the damaged area is responsible for the function.

The abstract to the article -- If I read it right (did not read the article) says that the Raven's is a better measure for autistic kids because the WAIS vastly underepresents their score.

If two IQ scores differ by lots, you're almost forced to accept the higher one as more valid-- you can't guess the answers to IQ tests. It also makes me suspect non-compliance is they issue for low scores (on the WAIS, or WISC, one has to do many tasks like arranging blocks or putting comic book pictures together to form a story, or coding symbols onto paper quickly).

I think the WAIS is probably a better measure of g in a "non-clinical" population because it's a battery of congitive tasks, whereas the Raven's is one type of task.

But, I just disagree that this study-- were I to actually read it!-- presents a problem for g based on discussion here so far. I understand you disagree with me too.

[dann]

A related article:
http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/african_americans_go_from

And about as helpful.

When they´re right, they´re right!
"At the time, certain controversial figures also claimed that blacks tended to display a certain talent for music, although most of them admitted that said music was only palatable when interpreted by white American or British artists." (The Onion)
Pat Boone´s contribution to rock´n´roll corresponds to IQ theory´s contribution to science! :)

[Dogdoctor]

I don't think the original blogger made much of a case for his opinion. For every trait that we have there are genes that allow that trait to be expressed. Many cases of lower intelligence are due to specific genetic problems and I would be surprised if cases of higher intelligence were not also due to specific genes. The difference between races is a whole different argument. What data could make one think that there were genes for intelligence that were present in one race and not another? Nothing as far as I know. Perhaps the percentages of genes present may be different between the races but it seems likely to me that most genes are shared by all the races.

[bpesta22]

I don't think the original blogger made much of a case for his opinion. For every trait that we have there are genes that allow that trait to be expressed. Many cases of lower intelligence are due to specific genetic problems and I would be surprised if cases of higher intelligence were not also due to specific genes. The difference between races is a whole different argument. What data could make one think that there were genes for intelligence that were present in one race and not another? Nothing as far as I know. Perhaps the percentages of genes present may be different between the races but it seems likely to me that most genes are shared by all the races.


There's 5 or 6 different blogs now where they're trying to debunk me. One posted my name and PDF version of my race article as a call out to experts to debunk. I'm fine with that, but I think professional courtesy would be to ask me first. The newest post is an exercise in critical thinking / scientific reasoning, apparently to be featured at some science conference as a panel session. I am the case study in pseudo science for the article (can any law types comment on whether what's said there could potentially be defamation?)

Note that no where in any of these 5 or 6 blogs do I claim that genes are the cause. I said I was agnostic on the issue til more data came in. They accused me of junk science as a real scientist would come to a provisional conclusion now.

Their debunks are sophomoric-- even if the conclusions in my article are wrong. I'm jaw droppingly amazed by their display, especially since one of them is a harvard educated ph.d.-- now university professor at the same place as Meyers.

Here's me as the case study in pseudo-scientific white pride racism:

http://quichemoraine.com/2009/12/trust-and-critical-thinking-in-science-reporting-a-case-study/

Feel free to comment if you see any misjustice here-- one side or the other.

I've got a call out to some heavy hitters. We'll see. I can't imagine they'd be interested in interwebs debate (though the place claims it's SCIENCEblogs).

To anyone who's actually published something past peer review, can you see the fallacy of confusing a source of error variance for a confound?

[sol invictus]

The forum just swallowed my carefully written response to this. Here's a crude version.

Argh, I'm not a big neuropsych fan. But, I remember reading that something like brain damage is inconclusive because it could be the damaged area links two or more areas key to the function, versus controls the function anyway. I see very limited value to case studies where a person has a brain injury and based on what he can't do now, we infer that the damaged area is responsible for the function.

No. Hypothesis: brain area A is crucial for ability B. Abnormal subject X has area A badly damaged, but is very capable at B. Hypothesis falsified - point being, abnormal subjects are extremely important in this kind of research.

"g" is even easier to falsify. Hypothesis: the correlations in ability on different IQ tests and a range of other cognitive abilities are entirely due to a single factor. Evidence: there exists a large group that in which there is no such correlation. Hypothesis falsified, because if it were correct that would be impossible.

The abstract to the article -- If I read it right (did not read the article) says that the Raven's is a better measure for autistic kids because the WAIS vastly underepresents their score.

Under-represents their score at what?

If two IQ scores differ by lots, you're almost forced to accept the higher one as more valid-- you can't guess the answers to IQ tests.

You're assuming your conclusion again. For someone that doesn't accept that IQ tests measure anything much other than ability on that IQ test, your assertion ("you're almost forced to accept the higher one as more valid") is incomprehensible nonsense.

[blutoski]

The biggest issue in debates like this I find is the conflict over how people perceive 'races'.

I'm thinking that it's rarely even necessary to invoke race at all.

There seems to be just as much rejection of IQ itself, as a comparison between individuals of the same race.

[rocketdodger]

There's 5 or 6 different blogs now where they're trying to debunk me. One posted my name and PDF version of my race article as a call out to experts to debunk. I'm fine with that, but I think professional courtesy would be to ask me first. The newest post is an exercise in critical thinking / scientific reasoning, apparently to be featured at some science conference as a panel session. I am the case study in pseudo science for the article (can any law types comment on whether what's said there could potentially be defamation?)

Note that no where in any of these 5 or 6 blogs do I claim that genes are the cause. I said I was agnostic on the issue til more data came in. They accused me of junk science as a real scientist would come to a provisional conclusion now.

Their debunks are sophomoric-- even if the conclusions in my article are wrong. I'm jaw droppingly amazed by their display, especially since one of them is a harvard educated ph.d.-- now university professor at the same place as Meyers.

Here's me as the case study in pseudo-scientific white pride racism:

http://quichemoraine.com/2009/12/trust-and-critical-thinking-in-science-reporting-a-case-study/

Feel free to comment if you see any misjustice here-- one side or the other.

I've got a call out to some heavy hitters. We'll see. I can't imagine they'd be interested in interwebs debate (though the place claims it's SCIENCEblogs).

To anyone who's actually published something past peer review, can you see the fallacy of confusing a source of error variance for a confound?

My opinion is that the false dichotomy set up by the author there demonstrats her emotional investment to one side or the other as well as her rhetoric.

She states that there is a difference between those who want us to believe that IQ tests are indicative of some race difference and those who find the idea abhorrent.

But what about those of us who find the idea abhorrent yet accept what science and the data tells us?

Not that I know anything about your work bpesta -- I don't. So I don't know what the science and data says. You could be wrong, you could be right, whatever. But I certainly won't hide my head in the sand if nature turns out to be meaner than I would like.

[Raze]

Unless it is reasonable that having a higher IQ in the north where whites evolved was a selective advantage there, but in the south among blacks it was not, then I must write it off as pseudo-scientific rubbish. Correlation ≠ causation (take note: being a little smarter might make life easier, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is always a selective advantage).

Who is having more children? The smart people or the dumb people? Clearly, if the dumb people are having more children, it stands to reason that there is not a selective advantage for having a 105 IQ versus a 100 IQ. As long as you are intelligent enough to survive and reproduce, nature is not going to penalize you.

Thus, unless someone can make a convincing argument that a slightly higher IQ (on average) among human beings is a direct selective advantage in these particular cases of racial evolution (which would require knowledge of environment, etc), I cannot be convinced the the differential in IQ among the races is due to genetic factors, or due primarily or entirely to them.

[rocketdodger]

And why are they concerned with this possible disparity? Apparently because they believe that the only way we are going to eradicate bigotry is by declaring that everyone is actually identical.

Seems to me it would be easier simply to suggest that we not be bigots even if people are different from one another. Silly me.

~~ Paul

I agree Paul.

My wife and I are animal lovers, and we see the same kind of thing with all these laws about what does and does not constitute animal cruelty, based on the intelligence of the species, etc. Wtf? Why not just be nice to all creatures? Why would you say "well, that animal isn't as smart, so I can be a jerk?"

If some people aren't as smart as others, and there was nothing they could do about it, so what? The problem is with people who want to rank a human's worth based on intelligence, not with the people who want to say that some humans are more intelligent than others.

[bpesta22]

I think I've invested about 40 hours in the past week debating this over there (then took a break to finish an article I submitting for rejection on, go figure, iq!). I appreciate the new comments here and will get to them soon.

[Toke]

Unless it is reasonable that having a higher IQ in the north where whites evolved was a selective advantage there, but in the south among blacks it was not, then I must write it off as pseudo-scientific rubbish. Correlation ≠ causation (take note: being a little smarter might make life easier, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is always a selective advantage).

Looking over the railing in african ports we got the theory going that africans had never had to prepare for winter, and that may explain why they seemed so dumb.
The theory failed to explain english/italian/american/french longshoremen, and we abandoned it.

[Delvo]

unless someone can make a convincing argument that a slightly higher IQ (on average) among human beings is a direct selective advantage in these particular cases of racial evolution (which would require knowledge of environment, etc), I cannot be convinced the the differential in IQ among the races is due to genetic factors, or due primarily or entirely to them.You're getting the process backwards. Facts don't need theories to support them; theories need facts to support them. The existence or non-existence of an IQ difference between races is a matter of fact. How & why those facts came to be is a matter of theory. The facts are the way they are regardless of whether or not we have a theory to explain them. (And no matter how good a theory sounds, it's still nothing without facts.)

Also, sometimes a trait that's not directly selector for by itself comes along for the ride if it's connected to something else that is selected for. (An example in the case of IQ test performance, and the other life outcomes that are associated with it, would be personality traits; selection that favors a certain kind of personality trait could affect intelligence as a side effect. And we know that human social environments changed several thousand years ago in some regions but not in others because of agriculture and urbanization...)

[Echoes]

For what it's worth from someone you don't know: The conduct of your "opposition" was honestly unsettling and offensive to me. Venom and groupthink.

That said, I eagerly admit that I don't know a thing about IQ, save the common knowledge. I don't have the foggiest who is right, only whocame off as a bunch of bellicose little children.

[daenku32]

You're getting the process backwards. Facts don't need theories to support them; theories need facts to support them. The existence or non-existence of an IQ difference between races is a matter of fact. How & why those facts came to be is a matter of theory.

There appear to be people who think IQ actually measures overall intelligence. But such a claim is simply appeal to theory. The differences in IQ is just a difference in raw data.

[kevinquinnyo]

I don't know much about this field.

I've always wondered if cultural differences between races create a different amount of acquired knowledge throughout one's lifetime.

For instance, I've heard that black gay men are less accepted by their (presumably black) family than their white counterparts.

I've also heard that being a black atheist is pretty hard too, culturally speaking.

So, are there any studies that have tried to look at the possibility that 'black culture' might somehow create less incentive to acquire knowledge?

My wondering about this is from my understanding that when IQ scores are compared between white and black children of equal income brackets, the scores are closer, but still skewed toward whites.


edit: I should clarify, the reason is because it also appears that an acquisition of knowledge is inseperable from an increase in intelligence and problem solving. Thus, if these two things play off and feed eachother (knowledge acquisition and intellignce) thenit would follow that if someone acquires less knowledge, perhaps they are slightly less intelligent in a general sense.

[bpesta22]

Echoes-- welcome to the forum. Your comment sincerely means much to me.

I'm just too tired to comment on other stuff here. Sorry, I hope to still do so once I can get my mind back.

[Delvo]

So, are there any studies that have tried to look at the possibility that 'black culture' might somehow create less incentive to acquire knowledge?Indeed, I've read multiple articles/essays by different people asserting that black-dominated cultures, starting with children in school, are more anti-intellectual than white-dominated ones. The idea enjoys some degree of popularity because it's the only alternative explanation to biological inheritance that hasn't already been checked and proven false. (Others such as that it's due to lower wealth & income or lower education just don't hold up to analysis, no matter how often you see them get repeated.) Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have been supported either, because it doesn't seem to have been studied at all in terms of numbers you can do statistical calculations with, because nobody yet knows of a decent way to quantify "effort" or "motivation".

The odd thing about that theory, with reference to the emotional arguments over the issue, is that even if it's accurate (which I think it is), it doesn't, as an argument in a debate, logically serve the purposes for which it's usually brought up...

1. It's generally promoted by those who deny that biological inheritance could explain the differences, but a more anti-intellectual culture could very well result from a generally innately less intelligent populace creating and sustaining that culture.

2. Also, those who bring this up tend to be trying to counter alleged racism in their opponents, but don't seem to realize that this idea fits a racist world-view than any other idea in this whole subject/debate, because it essentially makes low intelligence (and its associated outcomes like poverty and crime rates and single-parenthood rates) a choice. In other words, when a racist is told that a particular race essentially "could do better, but just don't bother to try", that racist is likely to consider that to be another indictment of those people, a description of what's wrong with them, not a defense; it would make his/her case against that race seem stronger, not weaker.

[kevinquinnyo]

Indeed, I've read multiple articles/essays by different people asserting that black-dominated cultures, starting with children in school, are more anti-intellectual than white-dominated ones. The idea enjoys some degree of popularity because it's the only alternative explanation to biological inheritance that hasn't already been checked and proven false. (Others such as that it's due to lower wealth & income or lower education just don't hold up to analysis, no matter how often you see them get repeated.) Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to have been supported either, because it doesn't seem to have been studied at all in terms of numbers you can do statistical calculations with, because nobody yet knows of a decent way to quantify "effort" or "motivation".

The odd thing about that theory, with reference to the emotional arguments over the issue, is that even if it's accurate (which I think it is), it doesn't, as an argument in a debate, logically serve the purposes for which it's usually brought up...

1. It's generally promoted by those who deny that biological inheritance could explain the differences, but a more anti-intellectual culture could very well result from a generally innately less intelligent populace creating and sustaining that culture.

2. Also, those who bring this up tend to be trying to counter alleged racism in their opponents, but don't seem to realize that this idea fits a racist world-view than any other idea in this whole subject/debate, because it essentially makes low intelligence (and its associated outcomes like poverty and crime rates and single-parenthood rates) a choice. In other words, when a racist is told that a particular race essentially "could do better, but just don't bother to try", that racist is likely to consider that to be another indictment of those people, a description of what's wrong with them, not a defense; it would make his/her case against that race seem stronger, not weaker.

Yes, but culture is a weird thing. My opinion is that cultural memes are very susceptible to feedback loops, from popular culture, as well as passed on from parent to child.

Would it be that hard to do a study on say, black children adopted by white families?

Of course that doesn't rule out popular culture. Even adopted black children could be likely to become friends with other black children, presumably from black families, and feel more connected to black pop culture.

But were the cultural theory to hold water, adopted black children of white families should show some improvement on IQ tests.

This is one of those things where, I don't know much about it, but based on my observations, if I had to bet, I would say the cultural theory seems extremely plausible.

[bpesta22]

Yes, but culture is a weird thing. My opinion is that cultural memes are very susceptible to feedback loops, from popular culture, as well as passed on from parent to child.

Would it be that hard to do a study on say, black children adopted by white families?

Of course that doesn't rule out popular culture. Even adopted black children could be likely to become friends with other black children, presumably from black families, and feel more connected to black pop culture.

But were the cultural theory to hold water, adopted black children of white families should show some improvement on IQ tests.

This is one of those things where, I don't know much about it, but based on my observations, if I had to bet, I would say the cultural theory seems extremely plausible.

Kevin-- I'll let Delvo provide specifics if he feels like it, but the inter-racial adoption studies have been done and the results, sadly, don't show much if any improvement in the black-white IQ gap.