Survey of Expert Opinion on Intelligence: Causes of International Differences in Cognitive Ability

[Phill]

As John Komlos and several other researchers have concluded from their years of data and analysis, you mean? I see nothing out of square.

The link is to an irrelevant and badly written paper on familial and individual heritability. It may be excellent in its field, but we were talking about population level genetics.

Why are you breaking up my comment into a different order? I'm not asking your opinion of the grammar, and I wouldn't accept yours anyway, but the method. It was based on this. Hopefully it is not too "badly written" for you. The method uses similarity which scales beyond the family to any level. That's why it works. It seems you just don't understand it. I wouldn't apply this method to race IQ differences though. Can you think why? Can you reference John Komlos' most notable paper on the subject?

That depends. One consistently sees the same patterns between ancestry and outcome for religion and spoken language, for example. Genetics is not the default hypothesis.

One clearly does not see the same pattern between ancestry and religion or language. Whereas racial makeup reliably predicts IQ. You appear to be resorting to transparent falsehood.

Sure they can. But you have to do it - nobody's going to do that for you. And if you haven't done it, you are going to get worthless data and draw invalid conclusions.

Personally, I think you would probably get a couple of your presupposed categories, such as "Native Americans" (which will include a good share of Asia), and possibly "Caucasoids" almost (but not quite) aligned with modern US standard "white" (not Brazilian standard "white", and not original US standard "white", - modern US only) and also a bunch of equivalently distinct clusters from the Australasian and African and the IndoEuropean theaters that you can't make fit. But that's also mere speculation. Go for it.

Meanwhile, don't pretend it's been done. There are no genetically defined human races. And the fact that the "black" race seems to be some kind of catchall for every human population with melanistic skin is strong evidence that whenever you get around to this difficult task that particular race is going to vanish from your categories like a puff of smoke in breeze.

Yes, in fact people have been plotted according to their genomic similarity. Are you seriously unaware of this? This 3D plot is pretty nice. See the clusters? Note that Native Americans of course do not fall in the Asian clusters. The Chuckchi are pretty close to the Eskimos however, vis a vis the main East Asian cluster. Everything fits exactly where you see it. Did you think I expected 3 perfect circles? Have you heard of operationalisation? Can we label a spectrum? Are you seeing a perfect spectrum?

You are arguing against a strawman skin color definition. This is not the definition I just gave you, which was based on genetic similarity. What is the point of discussion if I tell you I don't define race by skin color, then you tell me I define race by skin color?

For starters, a few of the things famous for affecting cognitive ability - such as neurotoxin exposure. When you have at least dealt with them, we can move on to the careful screening for hidden variables. Right now you haven't even addressed the basics.
Until you do that, it hasn't been done - and speculations as to what you would discover remain speculations.

I haven't done that here, do you think I haven't done it elsewhere? So you would like to discuss neurotoxins depressing national and racial IQs? I think the burden is on you to demonstrate that one. Which neurotoxin would you like to start with? Lead is a popular choice.

 

[sculptor]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...try_-_estimates_by_Lynn_and_Vanhanen_2006.png

 

[iceaura]

The method uses similarity which scales beyond the family to any level.

The scaling you require has not, however, been done. Of course you can do it, in theory. But nobody has.

One clearly does not see the same pattern between ancestry and religion or language. Whereas racial makeup reliably predicts IQ.

Actually, the pattern is much stronger for religion and language than for IQ. Furthermore, religion and language also predict IQ, in many circumstances.

Yes, in fact people have been plotted according to their genomic similarity. Are you seriously unaware of this? This 3D plot is pretty nice. See the clusters? Note that Native Americans of course do not fall in the Asian clusters. The Chuckchi are pretty close to the Eskimos however, vis a vis the main East Asian cluster. Everything fits exactly where you see it

This plotting does not yield genetic races. It yields genetic clusters of interest - the genetic factors of interest chosen in advance, btw, for reasons one would have to justify based on the use one planned for the clusters. ( In this case, it looks like somebody was trying to work out migration patterns for the spread of humans from their evolutionary origin, and having some success despite running into complications from interbreeding.)

Assigning any of those clusters to a "race", meanwhile, is done sociologically. That is the opposite of what you needed for your racial bs. (Notice that even with this graph designed to produce clusters of a certain type for some reasons possibly sociological, the standard US sociological racial categories are impossible to recreate using properties of the graph itself - for example, there is no visible basis either in distance or connectivity for putting the Finns in one racial category and the Ethiopians and Mbuti Pigmies and Melanesians and Andaman Islanders together in one other, and the French are about the same distance from the Ethiopians as the Mandenka, and the Japanese cluster with the Malaysians rather than with the Mongols and Tuvans)

A different set of genetic criteria - say, for genetic malaria or yellow fever resistance - would yield a different graph, with different clusters. They also would partly but not reliably correspond with the US sociological races. So?

I haven't done that here, do you think I haven't done it elsewhere?

I don't think you've done anything that makes sense anywhere.

So you would like to discuss neurotoxins depressing national and racial IQs? I think the burden is on you to demonstrate that one.

All I need is two facts: 1) neurotoxin exposure in childhood depresses IQ 2) None of your attempted correlations of US sociological race with IQ control for the variance by sociological race (or nation, btw) in childhood neurotoxin exposure.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...try_-_estimates_by_Lynn_and_Vanhanen_2006.png

If you compare your map there with Phill's little animated snp analysis of whatever it is they are analyzing, you will notice significant failures of correlation. Consider the Japanese/Malaysian genetic cluster, for example. Or the Asia Minor/Europe genetic spread.

You will also notice that large areas of Africa feature entire populations with average IQs below 65. Here is the description of that state, which is (or was) formally classified as "Retarded" http://paulcooijmans.com/intelligence/iq_ranges.html

Educable, can learn to care for oneself, employable in routinized jobs but require supervision. Might live alone but do best in supervised settings. Immature but with adequate social adjustment, usually no obvious physical anomalies.

Do you find that a credible description of the normal population of any functioning human society? This part of the world is where, for example, iron was first smelted from ore. And where talking drums were invented, as well as this:

(there are field recordings of even more complex sets from the early days of recording in Africa).

 

[sculptor]

fyi
The general figure for the heritability of IQ, according to an authoritative American Psychological Association report, is 0.45 for children, and rises to around 0.75 for late adolescents and adults.[62][63] It may seem reasonable to expect genetic influences on traits like IQ to become less important as one gains experiences with age. However, the opposite occurs. Heritability measures in infancy are as low as 0.2, around 0.4 in middle childhood, and as high as 0.8 in adulthood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Heritability

........................
Is this still considered valid?
The Cattell-Horn theory of fluid and crystallized intelligence proposes that general intelligence is actually a conglomeration of perhaps 100 abilities working together in various ways in different people to bring out different intelligences.

 

[iceaura]

The general figure for the heritability of IQ, according to an authoritative American Psychological Association report

Why does this irrelevant stuff about heritability keep coming up here?

 

[sculptor]

OK, so
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 137,000 members...
Irrelevant?
Well, maybe to the uneducated?

 

[exchemist]

Why does this irrelevant stuff about heritability keep coming up here?

Because, rather importantly, it suggests nurture dominates over nature. Sculptor's information shows a low degree of apparent inheritance in babies and a far higher degree in adolescence. I found that quite surprising and rather interesting.

It is clearly reasonable, a priori, to expect various types of mental aptitude to be inheritable, just as physical traits are inherited. Musical ability, mathematical ability, maybe linguistic ability, and so on. But this suggests the effect is not that strong.

Why, then, do you think this finding is irrelevant?

 

[Phill]

Because, rather importantly, it suggests nurture dominates over nature. Sculptor's information shows a low degree of apparent inheritance in babies and a far higher degree in adolescence.

Which suggests nature dominates over nurture.

 

[Bells]

OK, so
The American Psychological Association (APA) is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 137,000 members...
Irrelevant?
Well, maybe to the uneducated?

The APA also found that social factors (ie the environment children grow up in) have a greater effect on IQ.

In fact, they found that low income or lower socio-economic circumstances had a much greater impact than what is inherited from the biological parents.

They also found that stereotype threat posed a bigger risk as it literally ensured that minorities would under perform on IQ tests.

The main crux is that environment plays a huge role, much bigger than heritability when it comes to intelligence.

 

[exchemist]

Which suggests nature dominates over nurture.

No, the opposite.

The longer a child lives the more it accumulates environmental influences, right? So if you have an apparently increasing degree of inheritance with age, what it means is that to a large degree the appearance of inheritance is not really genetic, but a product of the cumulative domestic and cultural environment. In fact it suggests, more specifically, that parental upbringing is able to create something that looks quite like genetic inheritance.

 

[Phill]

No, the opposite.

The longer a child lives the more it accumulates environmental influences, right? So if you have an apparently increasing degree of inheritance with age, what it means is that to a large degree the appearance of inheritance is not really genetic, but a product of the cumulative domestic and cultural environment.

Increasing heritability, defined as the effect of genes, is really the effect of the environment? Not making sense dude.

 

[exchemist]

Increasing heritability, defined as the effect of genes, is really the effect of the environment? Not making sense dude.

Do you understand the meaning of "apparent"?

Buddy.

 

[Phill]

The main crux is that environment plays a huge role, much bigger than heritability when it comes to intelligence.

Heritability is defined as the ratio of genetic to environmental causes of variance. So your should have said "much bigger than genes", in your incorrect statement that you made up based on there being some environmental effects.

 

[Beer w/Straw]

Were chromosomes in homo sapiens melded to 26 from 28 through quantum tunneling?

:EDIT: er 26 pairs of chromosomes...

 

[sculptor]

Are you all aware: That the brain is changing very rapidly during adolescence? Many synapses are pared and reabsorbed as the brain of a child becomes the brain of an adult----------This is especially true of the teen years on into the early 20s, especially so after the onset of puberty---which is why teenagers seem confused------they are confused.

It may be impossible to delineate genetic, epigenetic, and environmental causes for just how or what synapses are destroyed, and where new ones are formed.

The APA did not address this issue in the cited article.
So
Depending on your personal prejudice, you can see the quoted: "It may seem reasonable to expect genetic influences on traits like IQ to become less important as one gains experiences with age. However, the opposite occurs. Heritability measures in infancy are as low as 0.2, around 0.4 in middle childhood, and as high as 0.8 in adulthood." as you would prefer.

"Eye of the beholder" and all that.

 

[exchemist]

Are you all aware: That the brain is changing very rapidly during adolescence? Many synapses are pared and reabsorbed as the brain of a child becomes the brain of an adult----------This is especially true of the teen years on into the early 20s, especially so after the onset of puberty---which is why teenagers seem confused------they are confused.

It may be impossible to delineate genetic, epigenetic, and environmental causes for just how or what synapses are destroyed, and where new ones are formed.

The APA did not address this issue in the cited article.
So
Depending on your personal prejudice, you can see the quoted: "It may seem reasonable to expect genetic influences on traits like IQ to become less important as one gains experiences with age. However, the opposite occurs. Heritability measures in infancy are as low as 0.2, around 0.4 in middle childhood, and as high as 0.8 in adulthood." as you would prefer.

"Eye of the beholder" and all that.

Ah I see your point. But in that case it becomes very important to establish what these "heritability measures" are, to see whether they truly are able to determine what is definitely due to genetics.

If the "heritability measures" are just statistical correlations between the traits of the offspring with the traits of their parents, (which I have to confess is how I read it) then my interpretation of it stands. If, on the other hand, they are somehow more subtle and designed to eliminate anything other than genetic components to the traits (how?), then you would indeed have to read it the other way round - that there is a "submerged" inheritance of some sort that emerges after puberty.

Can you supply any detail on these "heritability measures"?

 

[sculptor]

Ah I see your point. But in that case it becomes very important to establish what these "heritability measures" are, to see whether they truly are able to determine what is definitely due to genetics.

If the "heritability measures" are just statistical correlations between the traits of the offspring with the traits of their parents, (which I have to confess is how I read it) then my interpretation of it stands. If, on the other hand, they are somehow more subtle and designed to eliminate anything other than genetic components to the traits (how?), then you would indeed have to read it the other way round - that there is a "submerged" inheritance of some sort that emerges after puberty.

Can you supply any detail on these "heritability measures"?

Not right now=I'm off to work on the dreaded taxes.

However, even with high correlation heritability, once the egg is fertilized--and genetic material combined--that part is done.

And then we turn to the years of nurture. It ain't ever gonna be one or the other. Even as an adult, learning a science, still, trade, etc.... you are still inducing changes in the brain which will destroy unused synapses and grow new cells as long as the environment is healthy, and the person is well fed.

Much like planting a tree. If you plant it and wander off, never coming back to nurture/weed/ etc. it you'd be lucky to have a 50% survivability.
If, on the other hand, you care for it/them during the first few years, yu can kick that up to over 95%, and you will soon have a forest full of birdsong, and oxygen.

Just as in sex, planting the seed/seedling is the easy part.

 

[iceaura]

Because, rather importantly, it suggests nurture dominates over nature. Sculptor's information shows a low degree of apparent inheritance in babies and a far higher degree in adolescence. I found that quite surprising and rather interesting.

It is clearly reasonable, a priori, to expect various types of mental aptitude to be inheritable, just as physical traits are inherited. Musical ability, mathematical ability, maybe linguistic ability, and so on. But this suggests the effect is not that strong.

Why, then, do you think this finding is irrelevant?

Because it overlooks the entire matter under discussion, which was differences in cognitive ability between ->nations, "races", and other such sociologically defined populations <-.

Nobody here is arguing that smart people have no tendency, probably some of it genetic heritage of some kind, to have smart children. The genetic heritability of IQ within a family line in a given community is almost certainly not zero, and everyone here agrees with that - it doesn't need repeating over and over and over.

that there is a "submerged" inheritance of some sort that emerges after puberty.

That would be expected of any genetic influence on "cognitive ability". This is common in genetic traits - everything from height to hair color to tooth morphology is a product of development and growth under genetic influence, and the genetic similarities to the adult parents increase as the child reaches adulthood.

 

[PhysBang]

Increasing heritability, defined as the effect of genes, is really the effect of the environment? Not making sense dude.

Genes are not the only way to inherit things. Genes are not responsible for religious choice, nor do they indicate who gets heirlooms.

But, nice try to define heritability as an effect of genes. Why bother with empiricism?

 

[Phill]

The scaling you require has not, however, been done. Of course you can do it, in theory. But nobody has.

They did it in that study. Did you even read it? They specifically partioned out closely related individuals. It seems your constant claim that this or that has "not been done" stems from a total ignorance of the field. I'm here to help! And where is that John Komlos reference for us all being genetically the same height? I'm still laughing about that.

Actually, the pattern is much stronger for religion and language than for IQ.

No this is just false. You are repeating falsehoods ad nauseam. Such people are not worth debating. Race does not predict language better than it predicts IQ. And far less in the crucial case of adoption.

Furthermore, religion and language also predict IQ, in many circumstances.

This is just irrelevant.

This plotting does not yield genetic races. It yields genetic clusters of interest - the genetic factors of interest chosen in advance, btw, for reasons one would have to justify based on the use one planned for the clusters. ( In this case, it looks like somebody was trying to work out migration patterns for the spread of humans from their evolutionary origin, and having some success despite running into complications from interbreeding.)

Assigning any of those clusters to a "race", meanwhile, is done sociologically. That is the opposite of what you needed for your racial bs. (Notice that even with this graph designed to produce clusters of a certain type for some reasons possibly sociological, the standard US sociological racial categories are impossible to recreate using properties of the graph itself - for example, there is no visible basis either in distance or connectivity for putting the Finns in one racial category and the Ethiopians and Mbuti Pigmies and Melanesians and Andaman Islanders together in one other, and the French are about the same distance from the Ethiopians as the Mandenka, and the Japanese cluster with the Malaysians rather than with the Mongols and Tuvans)

A different set of genetic criteria - say, for genetic malaria or yellow fever resistance - would yield a different graph, with different clusters. They also would partly but not reliably correspond with the US sociological races. So?

No, you are not getting it. People are sampled, and clustered by genotype alone. Only then is their self-described/observed race labelled. As you can see the genotypic race matches the label.

I don't think you've done anything that makes sense anywhere.

Ironic.

All I need is two facts: 1) neurotoxin exposure in childhood depresses IQ 2) None of your attempted correlations of US sociological race with IQ control for the variance by sociological race (or nation, btw) in childhood neurotoxin exposure.

You only have one fact, since I have looked at lead exposure. Your "facts" merely establish ignorance either way. And lead can can be eliminated as a factor by various sources. What other neurotoxins did you have in mind? Note you continually fail to answer this, just assert "neurotoxins" to establish ignorance.

If you compare your map there with Phill's little animated snp analysis of whatever it is they are analyzing, you will notice significant failures of correlation. Consider the Japanese/Malaysian genetic cluster, for example. Or the Asia Minor/Europe genetic spread.

Yes indeed, there is certainly huge IQ variation within major race groups. Nobody claimed otherwise. The minor race level is where the low deviation correlations are found. Remember that race is a construct with any number of levels of analysis, down to the individual, when defined by ancestry or genetic similarity.

You will also notice that large areas of Africa feature entire populations with average IQs below 65. Here is the description of that state, which is (or was) formally classified as "Retarded" http://paulcooijmans.com/intelligence/iq_ranges.html

Do you find that a credible description of the normal population of any functioning human society? This part of the world is where, for example, iron was first smelted from ore. And where talking drums were invented, as well as this:

(there are field recordings of even more complex sets from the early days of recording in Africa).

Wow, talking drums. If an IQ 100 population can make this:

I'm sure there must necessarily be "no differences" between them and people whose greatest achievment is talking drums. You nailed it!