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

I don't understand why you are claiming nearsightedness is "biologically defined" and IQ is not. Is height biologically defined? Is weight? Schizophrenia? Propensity to anger? You appear to be making an arbitrary distinction with no predictive value. In other words you appear to be saying nothing.

And I'm really interested in the noise factors of adoption, and how we control for adoption. Because I have no idea what any of this means. So I am looking forward to your explanantion.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

B. F. Skinner.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

You are fighting a fantasy. You are trying to claim that there are significant biological differences (between groups that you can't yet properly identify) and that these differences lead, somehow, to differences in intelligence (that you have been unable to qualify or quantify), and that these differences somehow trump all the various environmental differences that have been demonstrated to cause differences in carrying out intellectual tasks.

You have a lot of work cut out for you.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Currently we are identifying groups by nation or self identified race, intelligence is quantified by IQ, and the "no genetic differences" side have failed to demonstrate that any of the environmental variables they name explain the consistent difference. A consistent difference across cultures strongly implicates genes as the causative factor. Can you explain why trans-racially adopted children correlate with their parental IQ? Perhaps give us some data on "neurotoxins". I'm guessing White adoptive parents put "neurotoxins" in the food of their adopted Black children. The default position is not yours.

 

Even though you fight against any attempt to address this.

Say you? You claimed that there were many intellectual tasks that are well-predicted by IQ, yet you have yet to produce a single example.

You have got to be dreaming. There is scads of evidence that environment makes a huge difference. You can try this at home for yourself: take a math test after not eating for two days, or eat well and do the same math test with ancient Greek or Roman numerals.

Heck, here is a great example of how just thinking about the existence of a stereotype can influence intellectual tasks: http://pss.sagepub.com/content/10/1/80.short

Why? Why not shared cultural or environmental factors?

In the abstract, I cannot. I do know that some studies reporting on such correlations also found strong correlations with the adoptive parents. I suppose we would have to look at specific studies, given that there are a number of possible confounding factors.

Of course, if we were just looking for a way to abandon our responsibilities to others, then we should just stop as soon as we find a result that vaguely looks like we should ignore education and not try to make some sort of meaningful equality in our society.

You certainly say a lot of things that racists might say.

I'm not sure what you mean by "default". The "default" position in most societies seems to be racism. If you want to adopt that, fine. I, however, will oppose such default positions.

 

You seem to have this either/or mentality of total abandonment versus "equality". Needless to say this is detached from anybody's actual views.

 

Troll.

 

Yes, also if you decapitate someone they get zero in an IQ test. It's the environment! *facepalm*

 

No, it is actually a lot of people's view, e.g., you, who seem to want to abandon social responsibility in favor of abandoning people because they don't measure up to some imagined standard.

That is a nice attempt to ignore everything of substance marshaled against your position, but it still fails.

Look, so far all you have offered us is the standard racist position on intelligence. You even cited openly racist sources. You have given us no reason to ignore all of the evidence that social factors influence intellectual tasks, you haven't even provided good sources to support your own claims.\

Add to that: you won't even deny that you're a racist.

I guess you should get props for your honesty.

 

You have no understanding of behavior genetics and your "argument" is repeating the mindless word "racist". Please stop posting your garbage in my thread.

 

I agree: if you ignore everything except the word "racist", then all I've ever said is just "racist".

You repeat racist garbage. Maybe you think that you are some kind of scion of science that nobody has ever encountered before, but the probably correct conclusion that one should draw is that you are just another racist sent here from another racist website.

You can tell me all you want that I have no understanding of genetics. Given your mistakes about biology and intelligence in general, I'm not going to believe you.

Fortunately for me, and anyone with any sense that comes across your racist diatribe, I found a nice blog post today that pretty much sums up how irrelevant your positions is. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/04/05/superbrains-will-not-come-out-of-a-test-tube/

 

You are not in a position to judge such things.

 

RiiiIIIIIight. I know what my qualifications are, but they are irrelevant for this thread.

You are now taking the crank approach of merely attacking on irrelevant points rather than try to answer the significant questions put to you. I'm happy: I like to see racism associated with crank behavior.

 

1) There is no "no genetic differences" side here. It does not exist on this forum.
2) If you don't know how things like childhood and prenatal neurotoxin exposure, societal income inequality, various dietary and nutritional factors (from breastfeeding to omega 3/6 ratios) , stress and stereotype threat, literacy, et al,

affect IQ scores, even ,

you are years of research and education away from saying anything useful about human cognitive ability in general.

No, it doesn't.

A consistent difference between different genetically defined groups raises the question, as any correlation would. Coupled with a genetically governed mechanism postulated, plausible, and visibly correlated with the clustering factors, it would strongly implicate (but not prove) genes as among the causative factors.

Right now you don't even have the correlation.

 

I was in the middle of discussing a point (subtest correlations) and waiting for a reply when you locked the thread. So repeating ad nauseam that I was not addressing the OP is simply a lie. As is your gratuitous name-calling (ignorant, don't understand, confused etc.).

You are suffering from confirmation bias and your handful of cherry picked POV sources (Sternberg mainly) are not a consensus in the field.

Well your position is supported by Pol Pot, does that in itself invalidate it? I did not define race by skin color.

And I've asked in this thread how the environmental variables you continuously list but fail to quantify can explain the consistent finding for trans-racially and trans-nationally adopted children? I have received no answer. Further, how do these many variables all combine to produce the same racial pattern worldwide? Naming environmental variables isn't a behavior genetics argument. Where are your sources showing the magnitude of the effect of each variable and the combinations in different places? I would have happily addressed non-Western ideas of intelligence and the cross-cultural validity of IQ, addressing your field minority POV Sternberg references, if you had not immediately locked the IQ thread after raising the point. Clearly you cannot discuss so must simply silence those who question your diktats.

I was in the middle of addressing it when you locked it because I can contradict your POV.

The survey is incidental to the discussion. I am trying to engage scientifically here. I have asked how your "argument": naming some environmental variables, explains the consistent trans-national, trans-racial pattern, to provide data quantifying the effect of your variables, showing how they distribute and combine from place to place. You say I have "no bearing in science" while engaging in pseudoscience. You say I fail to address points while failing to address points. Prove me wrong and address my question. The fact is that you are emotionally invested in "no genetic cognitive differences" and characterise anyone who questions that as some kind of immoral person. I am simply trying to get at the truth using science. You are engaging in ad hominem, genetic fallacy, cherry picking, argument from authority etc. etc. then calling me a pseudoscientist. Please feel free instead to simply address my question.

Yes, because the mod is a POV pushing pseudoscientific hypocritical liar.

 

Why do the cranks always post such transparent falsehoods? Phill, you many times tried to stop people discussing race in your other thread even though you were the one who introduced it. So, yes, you were trying to avoid discussion of the original post.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

 

Nobody's position here is supported by Pol Pot.

Yes, you did. You used a sociological definition of race - "self identification" - that is based on skin color. (You also drew cluster boundaries on a genetic clustering map with no visible criteria other than presumed skin color - if anyone had any doubts about where you were getting your notion of "race" from, which nobody does).

There is no reason other people with plausible ideas of known mechanism and obvious data support would have to disprove your implausible notions of unknown mechanism and no data support. It is up to you to provide at least some argument and evidence for your less plausible notions, to counteract the apparent and visibly supported notions of others.

Clearly several of the listed environmental influences on IQ score vary by sociological race in some known circumstances, for example (in the US: breastfeeding, neurotoxin exposure, omega 3/6 dietary ratio, and stereotype threat, just for example) whereas you have offered not a single genetic mechanism that varies likewise - let alone one independent of the environmental influences listed, a matter you have completely overlooked.

 

Holy crap, religion is caused by genes!