I am somewhat surprised at the amount of Blank Slatism on this thread. Intelligence heritability is certainly a thing. The challenge is that no one really knows the particulars. Where things go off the rails is when someone tries to tie the science of heritability to the unscientific concept of "race". But regardless, there's clearly a …
I am somewhat surprised at the amount of Blank Slatism on this thread. Intelligence heritability is certainly a thing. The challenge is that no one really knows the particulars. Where things go off the rails is when someone tries to tie the science of heritability to the unscientific concept of "race". But regardless, there's clearly a degree of heritability.
I'll drop this (HT Blocked and Reported). Worth a read.
I think the issue is the idea that "intelligence" is this solid trait that can be meaningfully measured like height or eyesight. If you have two people, one with a higher IQ than the other, what does it mean to say that one is more intelligent than the other?
Was Mozart more intelligent than Picasso? Was Stephen Hawking more intelligent than Terence Tao? The answer, at least as far as I can see, is, "it depends." But we can very confidently say who was taller or stronger or any number of other characteristics. Intelligence is a different class of trait than the others we ascribe to genetics.
Sure, "intelligence" as a concept is somewhat abstract. And IQ as a predictor of "success" relies on that definition as well. But IQ itself is a measurement. And as such, it can reasonably used in correlation studies.
Few people claim strict genetic determinism. And few geneticists are willing to use the unscientific concept of race as a grouping mechanism for genetically influenced traits. But I don't think it's reasonable to deny that inheritability of skills is a thing, even if it's difficult to specifically quantify the boundaries and degree.
And that's the point of continued research on these line in genetics and brain science. The continued curiosity of the degree of inheritability and how concretely one can define an inheritable trait/skill.
Not exactly. Otherwise it would be the same measurement each time. Also, you wouldn't see phenomenon like the Flynn Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect). IQ is really a test of ability to think in a certain way. A measure of problem solving ability, yes, but grounded in a certain view of the world.
It logically follows that this is a good predictor of career and financial success because the ability to think in ways that are advantageous in your culture will obviously improve your odds of success.
But this isn't the same as saying that intelligent people will succeed or that less intellgient people won't. Lewis Terman discoverd that in his Genetic Studies of Genius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Studies_of_Genius#Follow-ups). And it's certainly not to say that somebody with a high IQ thinks in a way that is "better" than somebody with a lower IQ.
I'm not trying to claim that there's no heritability to IQ. Genetic or environmental. My issue is with carelessly conflating IQ and intelligence. Especially without thinking about what you mean by intelligence.
"One of the other educational dogmas of our times is the notion that standardized tests do not predict future performances for minority children, either in academic institutions or in life. Innumerable scholarly studies have devastated this claim intellectually,13 though it still survives and flourishes politically." -"Black Rednecks and White Liberals", from the section on Black Education writing about the M Street/Dunbar School before public schools were converted to neighborhood schools and 85 years of achievement vanished.
"Black Rednecks and White Liberals" by Thomas Sowell debunks that quite well. That does not mean that the book would be well received by people championing much of current "thought" on the subject.
Just re-opened my copy. In no way does Sowell deny inheritability. He simply shows that it's not an explainer for group differences in the set of unscientific groups known as 'race'. Which is not an argument I ever made, nor was in the article I linked to.
He was quite specific about inheriting the zeitgeist of the culture you are born into which is quite different from genetics. Slaves in America were brought into the redneck culture while the slaves in the Caribbean were not which he opines made a difference in attitude and achievement. Same "race", different cultural behaviors. Hardly a case for racial traits.
If group traits were not at issue, we wouldn't be having this discussion since so much of the chatter about race treats people within ethnicities as a monolith. My observation is that there are group average traits, but I think them more cultural than racial. That could be partly wishful thinking since culture changes faster than human evolution. Much of what Sowell discusses are things that I have observed, and I don't think it a matter of confirmation bias. I generally see things as having some blend with a ratio and would not be so bold as to completely deny nurture.
One of my daughters became interested in DNA and ancestry and had my wife and I do the DNA thing for her. It is interesting how unevenly that divides out over time (my wife and I are of visibly different ethnicities) and also the things that appear to skip a generation and are not lost. The three of us have an above average amount of Neanderthal DNA which traces back to an incredibly long time ago, yet they make predictions about tendencies for us. I haven't done a tally to see if they are more accurate than a horoscope but that they claim that they are an influencer while being so diluted is interesting.
The overlap in distributions of subgroups of humanity are large enough that it would be unwise to make an assumption about individuals because of membership in a subgroup. Even Charles Murray said that in "The Bell Curve". Is there a bias and skew in averages of the measured averages? Yes, but I think caution is to be advised in assumptions drawn from that.
There are ethnic and worldview differences in the people participating in the discussion of Steves commentaries which don't necessarily predict what people have to say about them. I see that as evidence that ethnicity is not a set of shackles on our thoughts though they can be influencers. Understanding that is a big deal.
I'm certainly not trying to cast shade on either you or your opinions with anything I write. It's just discussion.
I am somewhat surprised at the amount of Blank Slatism on this thread. Intelligence heritability is certainly a thing. The challenge is that no one really knows the particulars. Where things go off the rails is when someone tries to tie the science of heritability to the unscientific concept of "race". But regardless, there's clearly a degree of heritability.
I'll drop this (HT Blocked and Reported). Worth a read.
https://whyevolutionistrue.com/2022/08/17/the-ignorant-and-misguided-demonization-of-a-behavior-geneticist/
"Intelligence heritability is certainly a thing."
I think the issue is the idea that "intelligence" is this solid trait that can be meaningfully measured like height or eyesight. If you have two people, one with a higher IQ than the other, what does it mean to say that one is more intelligent than the other?
Was Mozart more intelligent than Picasso? Was Stephen Hawking more intelligent than Terence Tao? The answer, at least as far as I can see, is, "it depends." But we can very confidently say who was taller or stronger or any number of other characteristics. Intelligence is a different class of trait than the others we ascribe to genetics.
Sure, "intelligence" as a concept is somewhat abstract. And IQ as a predictor of "success" relies on that definition as well. But IQ itself is a measurement. And as such, it can reasonably used in correlation studies.
Few people claim strict genetic determinism. And few geneticists are willing to use the unscientific concept of race as a grouping mechanism for genetically influenced traits. But I don't think it's reasonable to deny that inheritability of skills is a thing, even if it's difficult to specifically quantify the boundaries and degree.
And that's the point of continued research on these line in genetics and brain science. The continued curiosity of the degree of inheritability and how concretely one can define an inheritable trait/skill.
"But IQ itself is a measurement"
Not exactly. Otherwise it would be the same measurement each time. Also, you wouldn't see phenomenon like the Flynn Effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect). IQ is really a test of ability to think in a certain way. A measure of problem solving ability, yes, but grounded in a certain view of the world.
It logically follows that this is a good predictor of career and financial success because the ability to think in ways that are advantageous in your culture will obviously improve your odds of success.
But this isn't the same as saying that intelligent people will succeed or that less intellgient people won't. Lewis Terman discoverd that in his Genetic Studies of Genius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_Studies_of_Genius#Follow-ups). And it's certainly not to say that somebody with a high IQ thinks in a way that is "better" than somebody with a lower IQ.
I'm not trying to claim that there's no heritability to IQ. Genetic or environmental. My issue is with carelessly conflating IQ and intelligence. Especially without thinking about what you mean by intelligence.
"One of the other educational dogmas of our times is the notion that standardized tests do not predict future performances for minority children, either in academic institutions or in life. Innumerable scholarly studies have devastated this claim intellectually,13 though it still survives and flourishes politically." -"Black Rednecks and White Liberals", from the section on Black Education writing about the M Street/Dunbar School before public schools were converted to neighborhood schools and 85 years of achievement vanished.
"Black Rednecks and White Liberals" by Thomas Sowell debunks that quite well. That does not mean that the book would be well received by people championing much of current "thought" on the subject.
Just re-opened my copy. In no way does Sowell deny inheritability. He simply shows that it's not an explainer for group differences in the set of unscientific groups known as 'race'. Which is not an argument I ever made, nor was in the article I linked to.
He was quite specific about inheriting the zeitgeist of the culture you are born into which is quite different from genetics. Slaves in America were brought into the redneck culture while the slaves in the Caribbean were not which he opines made a difference in attitude and achievement. Same "race", different cultural behaviors. Hardly a case for racial traits.
Again, I'm making no such argument.
What argument were you making? As an aside, I'm not trying to argue, it is discussion.
I am making the argument that inheritability is a thing and that pure Blank Slatism is bunk. I made no proposition regarding group traits.
If group traits were not at issue, we wouldn't be having this discussion since so much of the chatter about race treats people within ethnicities as a monolith. My observation is that there are group average traits, but I think them more cultural than racial. That could be partly wishful thinking since culture changes faster than human evolution. Much of what Sowell discusses are things that I have observed, and I don't think it a matter of confirmation bias. I generally see things as having some blend with a ratio and would not be so bold as to completely deny nurture.
One of my daughters became interested in DNA and ancestry and had my wife and I do the DNA thing for her. It is interesting how unevenly that divides out over time (my wife and I are of visibly different ethnicities) and also the things that appear to skip a generation and are not lost. The three of us have an above average amount of Neanderthal DNA which traces back to an incredibly long time ago, yet they make predictions about tendencies for us. I haven't done a tally to see if they are more accurate than a horoscope but that they claim that they are an influencer while being so diluted is interesting.
The overlap in distributions of subgroups of humanity are large enough that it would be unwise to make an assumption about individuals because of membership in a subgroup. Even Charles Murray said that in "The Bell Curve". Is there a bias and skew in averages of the measured averages? Yes, but I think caution is to be advised in assumptions drawn from that.
There are ethnic and worldview differences in the people participating in the discussion of Steves commentaries which don't necessarily predict what people have to say about them. I see that as evidence that ethnicity is not a set of shackles on our thoughts though they can be influencers. Understanding that is a big deal.
I'm certainly not trying to cast shade on either you or your opinions with anything I write. It's just discussion.