Race is Real?

[Howard Carter]

Ancestry or genomic similarity, which are effectively the same thing. That's a predictive (the sine qua non of science) system, and we use the same system in phylogenetics. But politically motivated pseudoscientists want to make an exception for humans.

I would argue that it's the racialists that have the burden of proof here. They are the ones positing the existence of innate intellectual or behavioral differences between human beings from different parts of the world. What you call "politically motivated pseudoscience" is simply the null hypothesis.

 

[Bells]

Because the Black difference is large and consistent. Like really "there is some environmental effect, all effects are environmental". That's retard tier.

Actually, the real retard tier is the suggestion that intelligence is affected be the levels of melanin one has in one's skin.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

No I'm just not wasting my time. If you can't state your position succinctly you can just be dismissed.

I presented genetic data showing that genes related to intelligence do not show a racial association. I don't think you know how to respond to the research so you are just ignoring it.

Because the Black difference is large and consistent. Like really "there is some environmental effect, all effects are environmental". That's retard tier.

How large do differences have to be to be significant and why do they HAVE to be explained by genetic differences? You haven't explained that. You just say it's the truth because you say so. You even admit that if the statistical research conforms to racist stereotypes they must have a genetic basis all while ignoring genetic evidence that disproves your claim.

Whether or not I hate Black people is irrelevant to a parsimonious explanation of differences. Straight into the ad hominem pseudoscience. Typical.

Your post is tainted by bias which indicates that you simply have a racist agenda and aren't interested in truth.

PSEUDOSCIENCE displays a remarkable and characteristic indifference to fact. Writers tend simply to make up bogus “facts”— what Norman Mailer calls “factoids”— where needed, instead of going to the trouble of consulting reliable reference works, much less investigating directly. Yet these fictitious facts are often central to the pseudoscientist’s argument and conclusions! This can also be seen in the fact that pseudoscientists never revise. The first edition of any pseudoscience book is almost always the last, even though the book may go through innumerable new printings, over decades or centuries. Even a book with obvious mistakes, errors, and misprints on every page is just reprinted as it is, over and over. Compare to college science textbooks, which usually see a new edition every few years because of the rapid accumulation of new facts, ideas, discoveries, experiments and insights in science. - Rory Coker

 

[Zwitterion]

I would argue that it's the racialists that have the burden of proof here. They are the ones positing the existence of innate intellectual or behavioral differences between human beings from different parts of the world. What you call "politically motivated pseudoscience" is simply the null hypothesis.

The null hypothesis applies to the relationship between two variables, and assumes no relationship. It's not in dispute that there is a relationship between race and ability, this is a consistent finding. What's in dispute is the cause of this pattern. Racialists posit the single variable of genetics parsimoniously explains most of the differences within and between races. It's egalitarians that conjure up ad hoc variables to explain any deviation from their expected equality. This is the non-assumption violation here.

Actually, the real retard tier is the suggestion that intelligence is affected be the levels of melanin one has in one's skin.

Race isn't defined by skin color.

I presented genetic data showing that genes related to intelligence do not show a racial association. I don't think you know how to respond to the research so you are just ignoring it.

Bizarre. The data you presented shows every single one of those genes is distributed in favor of whites.

How large do differences have to be to be significant and why do they HAVE to be explained by genetic differences? You haven't explained that. You just say it's the truth because you say so. You even admit that if the statistical research conforms to racist stereotypes they must have a genetic basis all while ignoring genetic evidence that disproves your claim.

The differences have to be consistent more importantly. If a black nation developed to the level of Japan I would happily pack my bags and shut up. Pointing at wealth differences between North and South Korea when they're divided between capitalist and socialist superpowers is clearly missing the point. Where is the technical failure and social dysfunction in North Korea? If the North Koreans were largely illiterate we could talk.

Your post is tainted by bias which indicates that you simply have a racist agenda and aren't interested in truth.

PSEUDOSCIENCE displays a remarkable and characteristic indifference to fact. Writers tend simply to make up bogus “facts”— what Norman Mailer calls “factoids”— where needed, instead of going to the trouble of consulting reliable reference works, much less investigating directly. Yet these fictitious facts are often central to the pseudoscientist’s argument and conclusions! This can also be seen in the fact that pseudoscientists never revise. The first edition of any pseudoscience book is almost always the last, even though the book may go through innumerable new printings, over decades or centuries. Even a book with obvious mistakes, errors, and misprints on every page is just reprinted as it is, over and over. Compare to college science textbooks, which usually see a new edition every few years because of the rapid accumulation of new facts, ideas, discoveries, experiments and insights in science. - Rory Coker

Ironic.

 

[James R]

You're going to pretend you can't see the pattern? Ok, as you wish.

So you can't actually point to a pattern after all. Ok, as you wish.

If you can't state your position succinctly you can just be dismissed.

Kind of ironic, wouldn't you say?

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Bizarre. The data you presented shows every single one of those genes is distributed in favor of whites.

No, it doesn't. The table doesn't even say anything about Whites. What the data shows is that genes related to intelligence do not fit a pattern in their population subdivision that conforms to racial differentiation in intelligence.

However the vast majority of the SNP's frequencies in these genes were sampled from around 50 populations varying from regions identified as Africa (sub-Saharan Africa), Europe, Asia (Middle East and Eurasia), East Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Generally, there were more populations sampled in Europe and East Asia, compared to Africa. This discrepancy in sampling makes all world-wide calculations of genetic variability suspect, simply because the data we have at present is not representative of the entire spectrum of human populations. The mean FST for all SNP's from these seven genes is 0.150, with a S. D. of 0.075. Only 12.5% exceeded Wright's threshold of 0.250, see Figure 1. This is to be expected in this sample, since nine of the eleven genes examined had mean FST values for all SNP's within them below Wright's threshold. Despite the limitations of sampling across world populations, the analysis presented above does not support the notion that there should be "racially"; differentiated genetic variation for genetic variants associated for intelligence.

Source: Race, Genomics, and IQ: Slight Return for Intelligence Quotient: Testing, Role of Genetics and the Environment and Social Outcomes, Ed. Joseph Kush, Nova Scientific Publishers, pp. 69 –86 (2013)

The differences have to be consistent more importantly. If a black nation developed to the level of Japan I would happily pack my bags and shut up. Pointing at wealth differences between North and South Korea when they're divided between capitalist and socialist superpowers is clearly missing the point. Where is the technical failure and social dysfunction in North Korea? If the North Koreans were largely illiterate we could talk.

Illiteracy is caused by poor education quality. That has nothing to do with genetic differences. Just as you can find environmental explanations for the difference in wealth between North and South Korea we can look at variables such as history, colonialism, exploitation and governmental structure to explain why there are no African nations on par with Japan. Your theory would also have a hard time explaining wealth distribution between Eastern and Western Europe or between Western Europe and Latin American countries where most of the elites and a sizable amount of the population has European ancestry. The idea that first world nations have the wealth they do because of European or Asian ancestry is a baseless assumption.

Your talk of technical failure and social dysfunction reminds me of a proponent of Scientific Racism who made similar arguments all based on a fallacy.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/the-pseudoscience-of-j-philippe-rushton.373375/

Rushton's memory of my critique is quite limited. First, it began with an evaluation of the efficacy of r- and K- theory in general. Professional life-history evolutionists (of which I am, and he is not) no longer regard r- and K- theory as a useful research paradigm. This dismantling occurred due to a series of experiments that tested the predictions of r- and K-theory and showed that they did not hold up in a wide variety of species. Second, I demonstrated that Rushton misapplied r- and K- theory; indeed by MacArthur and Wilson (the originators of r- and K-theory) Africans would be K-selected and Europeans and East Asians (r-selected); just the opposite of what Rushton claimed. Third, I demonstrated that much of the data he cited to make his case was flawed either in collection or source; particularly data like "social organization" and "crime". Thus at three levels his r- and K-theory approach to human life history variation fails. So I challenge the notion his 3-way spectrum is real; secondly even if it were real, he has not presented an evolutionary theory that could explain it; and third that environmental differences could easily explain much of what he reports.

In the end, the data that the psychometricians rely on to demonstrate racial difference in intelligence are simply the racial differences we already observe. William Shockley, for example, proposed that skin color was the metric by which we could measure intelligence. This despite no established physiological link between the loci that determine skin pigmentation and those that determine any aspect of mental functioning. Nor have the psychometricians been able to advance any credible evolutionary genetic mechanism to explain the origin of the consistent racial differences. We know that genetic differences among populations are created by the combined action of natural selection and genetic drift. The selection clines involved in producing human genetic variation differ independently from one another. There is no reason to suppose that these differences should have produced intellectual inferiority only in sub-Saharan Africans. Genetic drift cannot be invoked either, since drift events are random, and thus allelic variation related to intelligence that results from drift should also be scattered throughout human populations, as the case of the B allele illustrates.

Thus to explain the consistency of inferior IQs in sub-Saharan Africans, one would have to suppose some form of natural selection that was operating only on these populations. J. Philippe Rushton attempts to accomplish this by utilizing an r- and K-selection scenario to explain the life history features of the three major races. Briefly, he argues that the human races fall on the r- and K-continuum. The theory of r- and K-selection was devised in the late 1970s to address why some species had short lives and reproduced slowly. Examples of organisms on different ends of the scale would be weeds which grow rapidly, but invest little in their bodily structures (r-selected) and trees, which grow slowly and invest large amounts in their structures (K-selected). According to Rushton's view of the human races, Negroids are considered "weeds," with high investments in reproduction, and thus less to invest in bodily structures such as brain mass, thereby having lower intelligence. Alternatively, Caucasoids and Asians are more "treelike," with high investments in brain mass and thus greater intellect, and lower inputs to reproduction. I have examined his scenario and have argued that he fails.15 This failure results from both an improper use of life history theory and a flawed analysis of the available data.

The psychometric argument gets weaker when we examine the genetic variability within the human species, particularly the greater within-group than between-group variation. On solely genetic grounds one would expect these racial groups to be indistinguishable for a complex behavioral trait like intelligence. Indeed, even if intelligence were highly heritable, the establishment of differences in intellectual capacity among family groups within a supposed race would not mean that there would be differences among races. The argument for consistent genetic differentiation for IQ among races suffers from all of the points that I have raised. Each alone is a fatal error, and when taken together they invalidate the racist program of Shockley and his co-conspirators.

Source: The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at The Millennium chapter 10 The Race and IQ Fallacy p. 168-170

Ironic.

Ironically you claim that racial differences in IQ have a genetic basis while ignoring and misinterpreting genetic evidence that shows that you are wrong. You acknowledge that wealth distributions can be explained environmentally except when it comes to Africans vs. Europeans and Asians because the variables in your view are severely different enough to claim that genetic differences cause them. The argument of scholars such as Graves is simple. Natural selection favors intelligence in all environments. If there is no genetic reason to see genetically determined racial differentiation in intelligence and the available genetic evidence does not support this assumption then the pure environmental model or the null hypothesis has been validated. In this situation further attempts to validate the genetic hypothesis becomes a pseudoscientific exercise.

 

[Zwitterion]

So you can't actually point to a pattern after all. Ok, as you wish.

Sure, I did. You're just choosing to pretend you can't see it. Or maybe you really imagine Haiti has similar living conditions to Japan, I don't know. If you think that you're really too detached from reality to bother talking to.

 

[Zwitterion]

The mean FST for all SNP's from these seven genes is 0.150, with a S. D. of 0.075. Only 12.5% exceeded Wright's threshold of 0.250, see Figure 1. This is to be expected in this sample, since nine of the eleven genes examined had mean FST values for all SNP's within them below Wright's threshold.

Wright's threshold of 0.25 refers to the level of overall Fst which can be called "very great differentiation" between taxonomic divisions. It has nothing to do with GWAS. Thousands of genes with effects of 0.001% all count. None of them are dismissed because of "Wright's threshold". LOL who is the idiot who wrote this paper? Where was it published? Can you reference a single genetics paper that uses this threshold?

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Wright's threshold of 0.25 refers to the level of overall Fst which can be called "very great differentiation" between taxonomic divisions. It has nothing to do with GWAS. Thousands of genes with effects of 0.001% all count. None of them are dismissed because of "Wright's threshold". LOL who is the idiot who wrote this paper? Where was it published? Can you reference a single genetics paper that uses this threshold?

The author and the publisher are included in the quote. What Graves was showing is that the FST of the SNPs does not conform to racial differentiation in intelligence due to low overall genetic differentiation for the genes. Like the B allele in his book the genes related to intelligence are scattered throughout human populations with no pattern within the genome. The genetic data simply doesn't fit racial schemes for genetic differentiation in intelligence.

 

[Zwitterion]

The author and the publisher are included in the quote. What Graves was showing is that the FST of the SNPs does not conform to racial differentiation in intelligence due to low overall genetic differentiation for the genes. Like the B allele in his book the genes related to intelligence are scattered throughout human populations with no pattern within the genome. The genetic data simply doesn't fit racial schemes for genetic differentiation in intelligence.

What journal was it published in? Was it peer reviewed by geneticists? Graves doesn't show "the FST of the SNPs does not conform to racial differentiation in intelligence", he just dismissed anything under an arbitrary value. It's a very high value too, polygenic traits are influenced by thousands of genes with tiny effects, let alone the "0.25" this fraud pulls out of his ass.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

What journal was it published in? Was it peer reviewed by geneticists? Graves doesn't show "the FST of the SNPs does not conform to racial differentiation in intelligence", he just dismissed anything under an arbitrary value. It's a very high value too, polygenic traits are influenced by thousands of genes with tiny effects, let alone the "0.25" this fraud pulls out of his ass.

The article was published in a book on Race, IQ and Genetics.

https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-Quotient-Genetics-Environment-Neuroscience/dp/1626187282


This is an edited collection that examines advances in the study of IQ tests and the variables that influence test performance. The book contains contributions from a number of prominent scholars who are internationally recognised for their expertise in the area of human intelligence. Additionally, the compilation presents a unique combination of theoretical knowledge and practical advice and will be an excellent resource for graduate students, university professors and experienced clinicians. A particular emphasis is given to the role of IQ tests, as part of a diagnostic battery, in the identification of cognitive and psychological disorders. Individual chapters cover a broad range of topics related to IQ including, the underlying structure of contemporary IQ tests, race and genomics, the relationship between IQ and achievement, measures of mental chronometry, evolutionary adaptedness, IQ and dopamine receptor genes, Ashkenazi Jews, assessment practices for gifted children and pre-school students, and errors in measurement when assessing intellectual disabilities. Topics are covered in a comprehensive and up-to-date manner, yet accessible to both novice and expert professionals. A working knowledge of psychometric theory is helpful but not necessary. The book avoids any attempt to make a claim regarding exact estimates of the genetic or environmental influences on measures of IQ, fully recognising the complex interplay between these factors. However, the value of IQ tests in predicting scholastic achievement, diagnosing cognitive diseases, and assessing individual differences is acknowledged and affirmed, when recommendations offered by the authors are implemented within thoughtful and data-supported practices.



The threshold Graves used is standard for analyzing population subdivision within species. He applied it to genes associated with intelligence to show how these genes were distributed in human populations and whether they fit a racial pattern. He has also addressed the claim that Wright's threshold is arbitrary:



Dear EgalitarianJay,

Sewall Wright’s determine of subspecies value at FST = 0.250 was not arbitrary. It was based on the idea that at this value there was a significant probability of fixation of different alleles in subpopulations. So for example, if subpopulation 1 had the A1 allele at frequency 1.00; subpopulation 2 would have the A2 allele at frequency 1.00. The problem here is with the biological/population genetic meaning of subspecies versus the naturalist meaning of subspecies. For the population geneticist, the subspecies concept refers to a certain amount of genetic divergence, related to the process of allopatric speciation (speciation by cessation of gene flow). For the naturalist, they name subspecies first, before any measurements of genetic variation are taken. This explains how you could have a list of subspecies as given at the link. Thus “naturalists” could name human subspecies or biological races first, then examine the amount of genetic divergence between them.

The simple facts are that humans have very little genetic divergence between our worldwide populations FST ~ 0.110. We have had sufficient gene flow throughout our brief evolutionary history. We cannot name human races based on physical features either (principle of discordance.) Chimps have more genetic divergence between their populations, than exists within the entire human species.

Sincerely,


Dr. Joseph L. Graves Jr.

 

[Zwitterion]

[A copy paste of some irrelevant waffle]

There is absolutely nothing amongst that babble that explains why genes differentiated by <0.25 Fst should be dismissed. For example let's say we find 1000 genes responsible for height differences between the Dutch and Japanese. Each of them has an effect of around 1% of the difference. And they're distributed around 0.10 Fst. You're saying we should just ignore all of them because of some arbitrary number and pretend the Dutch and Japanese are the same height? This is lunacy. It's hilarious. Please send this paper to some actual geneticists and get back to me with your copy pastes.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

There is absolutely nothing amongst that babble that explains why genes differentiated by <0.25 Fst should be dismissed. For example let's say we find 1000 genes responsible for height differences between the Dutch and Japanese. Each of them has an effect of around 1% of the difference. And they're distributed around 0.10 Fst. You're saying we should just ignore all of them because of some arbitrary number and pretend the Dutch and Japanese are the same height? This is lunacy. It's hilarious. Please send this paper to some actual geneticists and get back to me with your copy pastes.

Graves didn't say that any of the genes have been "dismissed" but rather that the available data on genes related to intelligence does not fit a racial pattern. Graves gave his credentials for analyzing genomics research.

"My research is in the area of evolutionary genetics, now more accurately called evolutionary genomics. My PhD was granted in the area of Evolutionary, Environmental, and Systematic Biology. Professional scientists are always undergoing development during their careers, for example I added Next Generation Sequencing data analysis and various bioinformatics protocols to my tool set in the last 5 years." - Joseph Graves

 

[Zwitterion]

Graves didn't say that any of the genes have been "dismissed" but rather that the available data on genes related to intelligence does not fit a racial pattern. Graves gave his credentials for analyzing genomics research.

Those eleven genes are absolutely compatible with a racial pattern, being a tiny fraction of the genes involved. I'm sure you could even find eleven genes favoring Africans. Graves is a race-hustling pseudoscientist and is ignored by actual geneticists.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Those eleven genes are absolutely compatible with a racial pattern, being a tiny fraction of the genes involved. I'm sure you could even find eleven genes favoring Africans. Graves is a race-hustling pseudoscientist and is ignored by actual geneticists.

They're not consistent with a racial pattern. Of course there are more than 11 genes associated with intelligence however those genes were used as an example to show that there is no racial pattern. I don't see how Graves can be called a race-hustler considering he says there are no biological races. What he is is an opponent of Scientific Racism, one of the best there is. Graves started his career as a biologist but as he explained to me via email he is also a geneticist. He has worked alongside geneticists and his work has been published in books a long with geneticists.

 

[Zwitterion]

They're not consistent with a racial pattern.

Repeating a lie doesn't make it true.

 

[EgalitarianJay]

Repeating a lie doesn't make it true.

You haven't proven that it's a lie. You misinterpreted the data and tried to discredit Graves when in reality he is a reputable scholar and his genomic research debunks Scientific Racism.

 

[Zwitterion]

You haven't proven that it's a lie. You misinterpreted the data and tried to discredit Graves when in reality he is a reputable scholar and his genomic research debunks Scientific Racism.

So reference 1 person other than Joseph Graves using 0.25 Fst to dismiss a GWAS hit.

Here's a paper from some actual geneticists where differentiation in single genes down to ~0 is considered significant.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/con...as-driven-population-differentiation-in-15091

What a joke. Maybe get "Joseph Graves" to email them about the error of their ways?

 

[EgalitarianJay]

So reference 1 person other than Joseph Graves using 0.25 Fst to dismiss a GWAS hit.

Here's a paper from some actual geneticists where differentiation in single genes down to ~0 is considered significant.

https://www.nature.com/scitable/con...as-driven-population-differentiation-in-15091

What a joke. Maybe get "Joseph Graves" to email them about the error of their ways?

This study has nothing to do with race and IQ genes. You keep saying that Graves dismissed Genome-wide Association studies. What he did is showed that the research within those studies does not show that IQ genes fit a racial pattern in their genetic differentiation. You haven't addressed the actual research. You are just trying and failing miserably to discredit Graves.

 

[Zwitterion]

This study has nothing to do with race and IQ genes. You keep saying that Graves dismissed Genome-wide Association studies. What he did is showed that the research within those studies does not show that IQ genes fit a racial pattern in their genetic differentiation. You haven't addressed the actual research. You are just trying and failing miserably to discredit Graves.

Oh so now "Wright's threshold" only applies to IQ genes? You're funny at least.