"Race Science" and IQ

This recent article from The Guardian bemoans the idea that IQ varies with race, and calls it “bogus” and “debunked.”

I am no biologist, but I was under the impression this was actually generally accepted as fact by biologists; just not often talked about, because it is a political minefield.

So let’s see if we can grasp and accept the argument of the article.

To begin with, we have to read it halfway trough before we get to any actual factual statements on the issue. The first half of the article is all ad hominem, branding anyone who believes in a link between race and IQ as racist and “alt-right.” This does not inspire confidence in the political neutrality or scientific objectivity of the piece. But at last, we come to this:

“The first claim is that when white Europeans’ Cro-Magnon ancestors arrived on the continent 45,000 years ago, they faced more trying conditions than in Africa. Greater environmental challenges led to the evolution of higher intelligence. Faced with the icy climate of the north, Richard Lynn wrote in 2006, ‘less intelligent individuals and tribes would have died out, leaving as survivors the more intelligent.’”

The piece then argues that this is not a plausible explanation for the difference in IQ; on the grounds that agriculture, writing, and cities first appeared in Mesopotamia, which is not a cold country. And on the grounds that some prehistoric paint, fish hooks, and arrows have been found in Africa.

There are several non sequitors here. First, this or that particular theory as to why there is a racial difference in IQ does not really bear on the issue of whether there is a racial difference in IQ. Second, while Mesopotamia is not cold in winter, it is dry, and suffers periodic drought. This is an environmental challenge at least equivalent to that of a cold winter. Third, it is meaningless that there were fishhooks and arrows in prehistoric Africa. There is necessarily going to be some level of technology wherever humans are found. Or wicker birds, for that matter. What developed in Africa must be measured against what developed in other areas of comparable population over a comparable span of time.

“A second plank of the race science [sic] case goes like this: human bodies continued to evolve, at least until recently – with different groups developing different skin colours, predispositions to certain diseases, and things such as lactose tolerance. So why wouldn’t human brains continue evolving, too?”

The argument of the piece is that this is not good evidence, because the genetics underlying brain structure is far more complex than that underlying physical traits. So there may not have been enough time for the structure of the brain to diverge similarly.

This is certainly not disproof. It does nothing to show that there are NOT mental differences, only that we need not assume there are, based on this evidence.

And even at that, it does not seem to be right. Surely everyone can think, offhand, of at least one single mutation, not uncommon, that dramatically affects mental functioning: Down’s syndrome. And there are others. If then, just one mutation can affect mental functioning, it seems to follow that such differences would not have needed any greater length of time than skin colour, and so forth, to evolve.

The piece’s next argument is the familiar one that IQ tests do not reliably measure anything. This has some merit. Nothing in the social sciences is reliable. But, having said that, IQ seems to be about the most substantial thing we have in that field, in that it correlates so well with so many other factors. It makes no sense to go after IQ on these grounds, and not everything else in the social sciences.

Next the piece cites a Swiss study in which students were able to improve their IQ through swotting to the test. This would be interesting only if the improvements were great enough to account for the observed racial differences. But the present piece gives no figures. As a matter of course, those who develop IQ tests always do their level best to make the tests resistant to this.

The article does give two figures for a Minneapolis-based study of identical twins separated at birth, and the spread does indeed look very significant: 20 to 29 points. Since identical twins are identical genetically, any such variation must be accounted for by some other factor. But what the article does not note is that its own conclusion is the opposite of the conclusion of the study it is citing. The study found IQ to be 70% inherited (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2218526). The present article seems to be cherry-picking from the data to find individual cases that go furthest against the statistical norm. That does no more than to confirm the bare possibility that IQ differences of this magnitude are not genetic. And if you check Wikipedia on twin studies and IQ, it suggests the weight of evidence from twin studies remains that intelligence is mostly hereditary. Wikipedia, because of its open editing system, can presumably be taken as a neutral source fairly reflecting the consensus in a field. If anyone inserted anything controversial, someone else who was a specialist would be bound to be upset enough to soon edit it out.

The article’s net objection seems more substantial: the Flynn effect. Flynn found that in a variety of advanced countries, IQs have been rising steadily over the past 100 years, maybe thirty points on average over that century. Three points a decade. Cumulatively, that is certainly enough to account for any interracial difference in IQ, and it cannot be genetic. Nobody has a clear explanation for why it is happening, but the data seem clear.

Still, this is not a clincher. It is another negative argument: it shows that race and genetics are not a necessary, but still a sufficient, explanation for racial IQ differences.

Next, the piece tackles the common claim that Ashkenazi Jews have a higher average IQ than the general population. “Tests conducted in the first two decades of the 20th century routinely showed Ashkenazi Jewish Americans scoring below average.” Aha—so this difference cannot be genetic. It must be--????

On this one, the Guardian piece seems to be plain wrong. Apparently this is a common misrepresentation of what one early 20th century study was about. It was of people of all races pre-screened as having below average intelligence, and it only remarked, with surprise, that there were Askhenazi Jews among this number, Despite the common perception, even then, that they were unusually intelligent. The piece goes on to quote psychologist Carl Brigham saying Jews are no brighter than the rest of us back in 1923. Without noting that Brigham himself recanted his position and his paper by 1930. He said it “collapsed entirely” due to methodological errors.

So there we are. It seems it is not proven that IQ differs among races genetically. This is, on the other hand, both a perfectly reasonable, and, more than that, the most likely hypothesis.

Surely the reader has noticed how disproportionately often South American women win the big international beauty pageants. Why would that be? There are a lot more women in China and India.

Latin cultures put an unusually high premium on beauty. Doubt it, anyone who has not visited a Romance country. As a result, unusually beautiful women will have better marriage prospects there than elsewhere, will tend to marry more prosperous and more faithful husbands and so have more children. And so, over time, the culture naturally selects for feminine beauty. Why would this not be so?

Chinese culture distrusts beauty. So Chinese women are less likely to be beautiful.

If a culture values X, it will breed for X. It might be athleticism (Africa), musical ability (Ireland, Africa), ability with language (Ireland), martial valour (Greece), calm disposition (England), kindness (Philippines), or something else.

Deal with it: racial differences.

And so, as well, with intelligence and scholarship. If you want a good wife in China or among Eastern European Jews, you demonstrate your scholarship. Women will swoon, as will their parents. These cultures have for a couple of millennia been breeding for intelligence.

My students back in Korea, given the choice between becoming a professor or the president of a large corporation, thought it was a no-brainer. Be (or marry) a professor.

There seems nothing surprising about this.

People panic, because they feel it violates the sacred principle of human equality.

He do not understand the sacred principle of human equality.

No sane person ever, until recently, surely thought that everyone was equal in their abilities. How could that possibly be, any more than that all people must have red hair?

Human equality is equality in moral worth. We are all of equal moral value, and so have the right to be treated equally by one another and by government.