The Biological Case Against Race

American Outlook, publication of the Hudson Institute ^ | Spring 2002 | Joseph L. Graves Jr.

[Poohbah]

Giving one better evidence for the truth somehow defeats a persons free will? In that case, come. Let me enslave you.

Well, I suppose that, if there was an elephant in your bedroom, you could deny that there was an elephant in there--but you'd have to give an alternate explanation of WHY the place is so damn crowded.

The decision to believe or not believe in God is the most interior one of our lives. God's not going to nudge the scales either way in the physical world, only in the realm of of the soul. And even that is going to be whisper-quiet

[ThePythonicCow]

Another link from Graves does not convince me; the posting at the top of this thread is also by him, and as I elaborated in my first response on this thread, his position is deeply confused.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"it is true that West Africans dominate the 100 meter" Yes. And many people are tempted to make the inviting inference, and say "they dominate because they are black". That's an explanation which appeals to race. If it were true, it would be a vindication of a folk theory of race, ie the view that race plays an explanatory/causal role. What the article argues is that the folk theory of race is mistaken. I'll let you say whether you agree or disagree with that claim so as to avoid misatributing a view to you.

[ThePythonicCow]

but there obviously must be DNA elements that select for each of the specific distinguishing traits of a race

Perhaps it is like this, perhaps more subtle.

[VadeRetro]

We already knew that all humanity fit within one species. No group has lost the ability to make viable, fertile children with any other group. "Race," as we apply it to humans, corresponds to "variety" as we apply it to orioles or wild columbines.

If I understand correcty however, by the measure the author of this article is using, a human and a mouse aren't all that different, either. It isn't just the raw genes; it's the interpretation. It may be too early to say as the author does that we actually have almost no differences.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

"here obviously must be DNA elements that select for each of the specific distinguishing traits of a race -- the red hair of the Irishman, the eyefolds of the Chinese, the nappy hair of the African -- and by mapping the PATTERN of these variations, one will have established the genetic basis of race." That's Step 1. Step 2 would be to show that the genetic basis for the eyefolds of the Chinese is causally responsible for any of the features a folk theory of face attributes to people of Chinese descent. If not, then all claims of the form "X is good at math because he's Chinese" or "X has a big penis because he's black" are false. That is to say, the folk theory of race is tripe.

[winin2000]

The Stanford-Binet test does presuppose some cultural knowledge. Once you correct for socioeconomic factors, that 15-point gap vanishes to within the MOE.

Oh, horsesh*t. What is your source for that?

The racial grievance industry has spent the past fifty years trying to validate this "cultural bias" crap about academic testing, even to the point of being allowed to write the damn things themselves. And the differences not only never disappear, they don't even narrow!

[gore3000]

Darwin outlined the basic reasoning that still stands today concerning the races of mankind. Darwin pointed out that if we used the techniques that naturalists used to identify race in nonhuman species, we would conclude that there really were no races in anatomically modern humans.

This guy is so full of it, it is unbelievable. It was Darwin and his friends that developed the brachio-cephalic index which "proved" that blacks were a lower species than whites and closer to chimps. It was Darwin who said that Europeans had beaten off the Turks because whites are a superior race. Darwin was an inveterate racist and anyone who reads the Descent of Man can see that for himself. This guy is just whoring around spouting every pc mantra out there. There are differences between the races, genetic differences. Blacks are black and Caucasians are white and so are their children.

[Lancey Howard]

Wow.
Bump for great freeping.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

I don't know why the left insist there are no differences. You'd think their position would be something like the following: "A disproportionate number of black children grow up poor, with inadequate prenatal care, etc etc. This limits their opportunities in life, even to the point of limiting the development of their IQ". I don't understand why they want to argue that discrimination is pervasive and unjust and then argue it has no effect.

[Godebert]

The author, Joseph L. Graves, Jr.

Yup.....I can't tell what "race" he is. I reckon he's right then.

[Squawk 8888]

I think the 15-point gap is pretty consistent over all the common IQ tests.

Maybe, but there is really no known way to measure raw intelligence, so culture comes into play in a huge way with these tests. The gansta culture that American blacks are bombarded with is very much anti-intellectual and discourages acedemic achievement, so a lot of low scores are probably due to lack of motivation and preparation rather than low intelligence.

[Poohbah]

The racial grievance industry has spent the past fifty years trying to validate this "cultural bias" crap about academic testing, even to the point of being allowed to write the damn things themselves. And the differences not only never disappear, they don't even narrow!

Please note that I didn't say "race." I said "socioeconomic factors." Believe it or not, the son of wealthy black parents who engage in typically wealthy behavior will produce a score on a par with the white kid across the street, and that will be somewhat higher than the mean. If either kid is any sort of intellectual prodigy, it will be identified early on by parents seeking to create a status-symbol kid, and that talent will be nurtured and developed at no small expense to the parents.

Meanwhile, po' folks have po' ways. They also produce offspring that score below the mean as a whole.

The issue is that as a percentage of their respective racial groupings, blacks are far more likely to be po' than whites. THAT, in turn, has its genesis in cultural matters tied only very indirectly to race.

[Godel]

You've hit the nail on the head. If we assume that all races are exactly identical that just gives fool to people who want to blame all the problems of every minority group on whites. Why is it then that hispanics and blacks score extremely poorly in school and are much more likely to become involved in crime than say Asians.

If you accept evolution, then you know that different human populations have evolved in wildly different environments under different selective pressures for tens of thousands of years. During this time average height, weight, bone structure, skin color, disease resistance, and virtually every other gene frequency have changed among those different human populations. In fact, the odds of any single human characterisitc being invariant after tens of thousands of years of evolution for every single different human populations is so astronomically slim as to not even be worth considering.

Look, Asians are shorter than Blacks but we don't spend billions of dollars on childhood nutrition programs trying to make Asians as tall as Blacks. Like it or not there are genetic differences between the races that cannot be changed. Now the individual variation is huge and normally these racial differences are not a big deal. But when you insist on categorizing people by race and compiling statistics, then these average differences are going to emerge very clearly. Lower intellectual performance by blacks does not imply racist white teachers any more than lower height by asians implies racism. It's time we truly accepted diversity. People are not the same, and we would be alot better off if we opened our eyes, accepted reality and dealt with it, rather than just believing what makes us feel good.

I bring this up not because I like to feel my race is superior to any other, it really doesn't matter, I'm an individual. But what does infuriate me is that me and all members of my race are constantly demonized by the media and targetted for discrimination because we perform too well compared to other groups. The implication is that the only reason I perform better is due to racism and preferences and that I don't really deserve what I get. I find this attitude highly racist and prejudicial. It's time to stop blaming whites for minority underperformance.

[ConsistentLibertarian]

Cute kids. Congratulations. But identifying the genes responsible for their hair color isn't enough to vindicate a folk theory of race unless it can vindicate the causal/explanatory role that race plays in that folk theory. Ie, finding the genes responsible for dark skin pigmentation isn't by itself going to justify the claim that "X is fast because he's black." Finding the genes responsible for foot speed won't help either. What you need is to find some causal connection, not a mere correlation, between the two. Good luck.

[Poohbah]

The gansta culture that American blacks are bombarded with is very much anti-intellectual and discourages acedemic achievement, so a lot of low scores are probably due to lack of motivation and preparation rather than low intelligence.

Bingo.

This is the sort of thing I'm talking about, winin2000...

[Pharmboy]

Are there any IQ tests that do not require some sort of basic cultural awareness on the test-taker's part?Look, from this post and others it is clear that you will not see the obvious. Stephen Jay Gould (RIP) spent a good deal of time trying to prove (mostly to himself, I think) that genes are insignificant contributors to the differences in human intelligence. Here are some facts:
--the gap between blacks and whites in aggregate is consistent through different ages (from toddlers through adulthood) and through different testing methodologies
--if it were significantly culturally based, then Native Americans and Hispanics should do worse than blacks. They don't. Further, Asians who arrive off the boat who can hardly speak English often do better than whites on these tests
--blacks raised in middle middle and upper middle class households score at about the same level as their inner city counterparts
--for anyone who has even a rudimentary understanding of biological principles to believe that the crowning achievement of human evolution, ie, intelligence, is not to a great degree inherited needs to go back to school.

All this being said, we must understand that this does not make it possible to predict intellectual functioning for the individual of any race or ethnic group; these data are only for the aggregate. Oh--and the twin studies are on the money; they are not flawed just because people who disagree with their findings say they are. And finally, there is not a shred of evidence to support the point that genes do not play the major role here. Gould's ridiculous book, The Mismeasure of Man needed to go back to the 19th century and attack the strawmen of that era (eg, phrenology) in order to make his "case."

[ConsistentLibertarian]

Godel! Wow. I know someone you used to babysit.