'Untouchable' science
Nicola Jones
Tuesday, 03 February 2009 19:01 UTC
Should scientists study race and IQ?
A pair of opposing commentaries published in Nature (vol 457; 12 Feb 2009) tackle the sensitive proposition that gender- or race-linked differences in intelligence ought to be studied.
Steven Rose argues that studies investigating possible links between race, gender and intelligence do no good to science or society. Stephen Ceci and Wendy M. Williams argue that such research is both morally defensible and important for the pursuit of truth.
The commentaries can be read on Nature’s website (password required).
Neither party saw the other’s argument before publication. They have the opportunity to respond to each other and to continue the debate online here, where we also invite contributions from our readers.
Updated 11 February 2009 23:55 UTC
-
Replies
This topic has been locked by the forum moderators.
Jump to resultsResults
-
Phil Rushton here:
Arthur Jensen and I published an editorial about the James Watson Affair in October 2008 in Medical Hypotheses that concisely summarized (11 printed pages) our previous work, which concluded that race differences were at least 50% heritable. we based our conclusion on 10 categories of research evidence. It was this evidence that Watson had at his disposal when making his claims about low African IQ test scores. The 10 categories of evidence were: the worldwide distribution of test scores; the g factor of mental ability; heritability; brain size and cognitive ability; trans-racial adoption; racial admixture; regression; related life-history traits; human origins research; and hypothesized environmental variables.
Please send me a private email if you’d like a pdf of this evidence (all published in peer reviewed journals such as the Proceedings of the Royal Society). This might allow for a more empirically focused debate.
Sincerely,
rushton@uwo.ca -
Anonymous
Dr. Rushton, regarding what you termed “environmental variables:” Is the level or sophistication of a given culture not itself an indication of the intelligence of its creators – meaning there is a genetic basis to cultural complexity? It just seems to me that culture and intelligence are inextricably linked. And is the culture factor (an environmental variable?) what the transracial adoption studies propose to quantify and account for in the determination of native intelligence?
-
Minimal criteria for giving moral advice
James R. Flynn
Stephen Rose offers a piece of moral advice. To tell humankind that they should not do something is serious, and entails certain criteria: it should be clear what is enjoined; all consequences should be acknowledged; sanctions should be spelled out, for example, whether the only sanction is an appeal to conscience or whether other penalties are to apply. Finally, the advisor should examine his or her conscience as to whether there are reasons unstated because no one would accept them if made public.
What is prohibited
Rose leaves me in doubt as to whether Arthur Jensen should have written his 1969 article, arguing that both genes and environment cause the black/white IQ gap, rather than environment alone (ref 1). In Rose’s original paper, he asserts that the trait in question (intelligence) leaves aside other desirable traits and argues that the groups in question can be divided into subgroups that are more biologically coherent. He concludes that the hypothesis is not subject to scientific treatment; and therefore, no useful social policy will emerge. In his response to Ceci and Williams, he says something very different, namely, that by about 1975, it had been definitively shown that genes had no place in explaining group differences. So from that date, Jensen and everybody else had no excuse to persist.
To assert both that a hypothesis is not scientifically testable and that it has been conclusively falsified is incoherent. The only way to reconcile them is to assume that Rose does not really mean Jensen had been refuted by 1975, but is saying that by that date, it should have been clear to everyone that the question was indeed unanswerable.
I will therefore focus on Rose’s general prohibition: that no one should write, fund, or publish research that is not scientifically respectable. No one will disagree. However, Jensen’s conscience is clear because he obviously still thinks that his racial hypothesis is respectable. Why might he think that? Perhaps it is because countless egalitarian social scientists from 1930 on, commenting on the broad black and white groups in America have said that they are genetically equal for intelligence. Lots of people are still doing it. Rose is obligated, with equal vehemence, to advise them to stop. Also lots of people, even after 1975, from Sandra Scarr to myself, argued that we had evidence that falsified Jensen’s contention. We were all wrong too and none of our research on this topic should have appeared.What are the consequences?
I invite everyone to search the social science literature of the last 34 years and ask whether or not they really wish that everything, pro or con, on this subject were missing, I thought that the first replies published to rebut Jensen were pathetic, and still do. Others must judge whether Race, IQ, and Jensen (ref 2), the theory of intelligence that puts g in perspective, the Dickens-Flynn model of the interaction of genes and environment, the analysis of the achievements of Chinese Americans, and so forth are dispensable. Others have made contributions more distinguished than what I have offered. As Mill points out, when you assert that a topic is not to be debated, you are foreclosing not some narrow statement of opinion on that topic, but the whole spiraling universe of discourse that it may inspire throughout the rest of human intellectual history. Mill thought that only someone so self-deluded as to think his judgment was infallible could wish to circumscribe an unpredictable future in this way.
What are the sanctions?
Rose proposes no legal sanctions. Therefore, since some think race differences are subject to scientific treatment, articles like Jensen’s will in fact appear. Is the only permissible reply to say that the issue is not scientifically respectable? If Eyferth had taken that advice, he would not have investigated whether black and white children fathered in Germany had different IQs (ref 3). I am not saying Eyferth is decisive, but I am glad he did his study. Rose should be very certain he is correct. If not, and if he converts the rest of us, only Jensen and those of his persuasion will publish; and they will win the minds of students because the rest of us have all have adopted a policy of unilateral disarmament.What about policy? Elsie Moore (ref 4) was misguided enough to study a group of black infants some of whom were adopted by white couples, and some by black couples. Both groups were all middle-class and both sets of mothers averaged 16 years of education. At the age of 7.5 years, the black children raised by whites had a 13-point IQ advantage. Black mothers solving cognitive tasks with their child were far more negative and impatient than white mothers. Is it not worth at least knowing that, so we can investigate further and see whether certain child-rearing practices are counterproductive?
Hidden reasons
Imagine that IQ tests showed that black American children had, on average, a 15-point IQ advantage over white children. How many of us would denounce that finding as meaningless, or would we be waving it like a banner, as evidence that only racists would attempt to dismiss? The scientifically respectable has a way of shifting depending on how one thinks the debate is going. Many who forbid debate in this area (not Rose – I do not know him) secretly believe they might not like the results. But to say that would reveal for all to see an ideologue hiding behind the coat of a scientist.1. Jensen, A, R. (1969). How much can we boost IQ and academic achievement? Harvard Educational Review, 33, 1-123.
2. Flynn, J. R. (1980). Race, IQ, and Jensen. Routledge.
3. Flynn, J. R. (2008). Where have all the liberals gone? Race, class, and ideals in America. Cambridge University Press.
4. Moore, E. G. J. (1986). Family socialization and the IQ test performance of traditionally and transracially adopted black children. Developmental Psychology, 22, 317-326. -
I would like someone to comment on the fact that the g factor or the IQ might be an irrelevant artifact. I found Cosma Shalizi’s arguments (http://cscs.umich.edu/%7Ecrshalizi/weblog/523.html) on the topic quite compelling, at least with respect to the statistical interpretation.
Two aspects of Shalizi are not clear for me. One thing of Shalizi’s argument I am not sure about, is that he argues that when you control for knowledge, the IQ gap disappears. But this might mean that those who have the same knowledge, have a similar IQ, or are more likely to have the same IQ (I mean, that having the same IQ could give you a high chance of gathering the same knowledge in the relevant matters), rendering the absence of difference less relevant. I am not certain about how you should discount that.
The other aspect I find not clearly discussed is that IQ is somehow predictive of your outcome. Then it might be some obscure projection of the real things, but it has some summarization value that can shed some light on the topic. Shalizi argues that in 100 years IQ gave us nothing worth the money. I would like to see more discussion in these matters.
Nevertheless, I find the technical aspects of Shalizi convincing and I never came across a reasonable refutation of his views. If this is so, I will continue to argue for freedom of speech, but I would recommend people not to follow IQ as a line of research; not out of taboo but because the field might already be sterile. -
Anonymous
I have read all the fascinating comments and good arguments for and against this topic. However, what has not been elaborated is the reason (apart from apparent medical reasons) for the research on race, gender or IQ. What benefits would it offer? And to whom?
It is worthy of note that there are no African sounding names on this forum, so who speaks for the other side? Are their arguments not as important?
-
With an intelligent-looking black schoolboy at the head, Nature is opening this discussion at this very moment where the first halfblack president of the US is sworn in. Now, time seems to be ripe for a preventive blow against all those who do not believe that all men are created equal deep under their skin.
And Ceci as the chosen defender of freedom of research? He did never glance into the abyss! Why Nature did not ask Richard Lynn, author of the monograph “Race Differences in Intelligence “ (2006), to join in the debate? In the book “The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide” (2008) by Richard Lynn, the publisher wrote in his foreword: “We are distinguished by the fact that we are not a publisher of choice but one of last resort. We celebrate that status as itgrows directly from our resolve not to tolerate the strictures of political correctness. Our authors come to us after having been worn to a nub by rejection slips from established houses that only a few years ago would have been figthing for their manuscripts. But now a velvet tyranny seeks to oppress the mind.”
For years Nature rejects papers on IQ, even without refereeing, see for example, The Golden Mean as Coding Principe of the Brain .
I fear that the only aim of this discussion is to declare – now with the authority of Nature behind – IQ-research as a “bad science” which shall never be funded, supported and published anymore. We are already only a very small step from this.
At this very year 2009, does anyone know someone all over the world who was funded to study race and the genetics of IQ? Someone, who, confirmed by empirical facts, does not believe that behind IQ differences are hundreds of genes and factors, each with very small effects, which makes any effect practically meaningless?That the concept of general intelligence in the sense of Charles Spearman is mixed up with personality traits and even emotional ones, to make it illogical for the layman, this is not deliberate destruction enough. At the present state of genetic art, any research into the genetics of IQ must be suppressed, because there is imminent danger that – as a byproduct of reseach into alzheimer, dyslexia, schizophrenia and so on – such research could be successful before being banned completely.
At present, compare Genes underlying national IQ means , a rationale for the search of genes underlying IQ could include the following knowledge and steps: 1. homozygosity mapping among the relatives of highly gifted, who have an IQ above 123; 2. nonsynomously coding SNPs and other genetic polymorphisms that are found to be homozygous among relatives should be checked whether their distribution of allele frequencies in the data bases does fit a certain racial distribution within socially representative samples: about 0.20 of the rare allele among Eurasian populations and approximating 0.01 in sub-Saharan Africa; 3 .if either 1 or 2. are given, the possible association between genotypes and IQ could be checked by comparing with the genotypes of Craig Venter, James Watson and the highly intelligent volunteers of the Personal Genome Project, whose genomes can be accessed freely, without any funding needed.
For example, the protein neuroregulin 1, coded by the gene NRG1 and thought to be involved in alzheimer and schizophrenia, has only one common polymorphism, coding nonsynonymously, namely rs3924999 with alleles C/T. This SNP exhibits striking racial differences. In the HapMap samples the frequency of the T allele among Europeans is 0.36, among Asians about 0.79, among Sub-Saharan Blacks 0.02, among African American 0.11. The Asian samples were drawn from the inhabitants aof Tokyo, Beijing and Los Angeles. The Chinese HapMap-HCB sample comprises even a Beijing university resident academic population where the hypothetical homozygous low IQ-typ CC of the ancestral allele could be expected only among subjects of the technical staff. With other words: The Asian samples are not socially representative in any way. Under the assumption of a correlation between this SNP and IQ and hence social status, the T allele should be overrepresented in the Asian samples to a high degree. In most cases heterozygotes of this allele should have an IQ above 105, homozygotes above 124. Indeed, Craig Venter is homozygous as predicted. But in this case all this can only be pure coincidence. But it shows, in which way genetics could be succesful, by not avoiding to exploite known racial distributions of gene frequencies.
For Rose this must be an abhorrent nightmare. Instead of such research, today and finally, scientific truth has to become what the vote of a majority of ignorants determines and allows to be truth. Of course, no formal ban will be needed. What is needed only, that anybody who plans such research and publishes it, can be absolutely sure not only to lose his job but also be thrown in the purgatory of public opinion as James Watson. Only such a threat can rescue the eternal victory of egalitarism. And if despite such a taboo, something on high IQ genes should ever be published, in this case high giftedness must be declared to be a state of mental illness.
Therefore, my greetings and best wishes to all so-called IQ-fascists, IQ-racists, IQ-classists, IQ-sexists and so on, who are still trying to study IQ and its ethnic differences. Once, about 1920, the inventors of IQ tests, many of them socialists, were on the vanguard of social progress towards a meritocratic society. Now, in the dawn of industrial civilization, we are the rearguard of rationality. In 1936 IQ tests were forbidden in the Soviet Union (and later in all communist countries). Between 1933 and 1945 in Germany IQ tests were declared – of course, without formal banning – to be “Jewish tests”. Otto Selz, who did publish on IQ tests still in 1935, died at Auschwitz in 1943. Since about 1960 in the Free World sociologists and educational psychologists are sure by self-censorship that IQ genes can never be a cause of interindividual differences in the normal range. In such a way in these fields thoughtcrime has become impossible, and time has come to extend this to differential psychology.
We must learn to love Big Brother, not to hate him anymore. He and Rose, they will make us free from our unhealthy drives. We must learn: Two and two is five, and black is white and white is black, and the earth is flat. We should surrender und become happy. Rose intends only our best. He loves us all.
-
From Gene Expression:
“Steven Rose: Wrong on the science of race, gender, and intelligence posted by ben g @ 2/17/2009 08:13:00 AM
In the latest issue of Nature, competing editorials were written on the proposition that scientists should study race and IQ. Steven Ceci and Wendy Williams argued ‘Yes’, and Steven Rose argued ‘No’. In this article I will detail the scientific errors which underly Rose’s argument. The scientific reasons offered by him are largely a veneer meant to justify his “radical science” political views, but I will refrain from commenting on his politics until my next post on this.
Rose argues: the categories of intelligence, race and gender are not definable within the framework required for natural scientific research, failing my first criterion of being well-founded. They also fail the second criterion of being answerable: we lack the theoretical or technical tools to study them.Let’s begin with his critiques of IQ:
to try to capture the many forms of socially expressed intelligent behaviour in a single coefficient — and to rank an entire population in a linear mode, like soldiers on parade lined up by height — excludes most richly intelligent human activities. Social intelligence, emotional intelligence, the intelligent hands of the craftsman or the intelligent intuition of the scientist all elude the ‘g’ straightjacketModern psychometrics isn’t claiming that all of a person’s intelligence is measured by IQ or g. IQ is used because of its strong and reliable correlations with educational and economic performance, independent of class and race.
Group comparisons of IQ are even more problematic. Attempts have been made to make ‘culture-fair’ or ‘culture-free’ tests, as if such a thing were possible, to allow comparisons of ‘g’ between people from very different societies. Rose doesn’t understand what is meant by “culture fair.” It doesn’t mean that the test prevents someone’s culture from having an effect on their IQ score. Rather, it means that culture does not effect the test’s predictive validity. And that is indeed the case. Worldwide the correlations between IQ and economic/educational success are high.
Rose goes on to critique the concept of biological race:
As for ‘race’, the problem is whether it is a biologically, as opposed to socially, meaningful category. Among geneticists interested in differences in gene frequencies between populations, there is increasing consensus that the word obscures more than it reveals, and should be replaced by the concept of biogeographic ancestry, which makes possible the study of subpopulations for relevant genetic and phenotypic characteristics… Broad divisions between ‘white’ or ‘Caucasian’ and ‘black’ or ‘Asian’, the groups generally discussed in the context of the IQ debate, especially in the United States, hide genetically important subpopulation differences within these groups.To begin with, it is biologically meaningful to talk of the ‘white race’ or the ‘asian race.’ These categories encapsulate a great deal of genetic variation, and are not arbitrary; as Steve Sailer has pointed out, Cavalli-Sforza’s principal components map corresponds to social categories of race.
Furthermore, discussing higher level categories does nothing to obscure lower level categories. If I know someone is a Christian, this doesn’t mean I cease to be interested in their denomination. And in fact, psychometricians do study more specific categories than the big 3 races; see for example Jason Malloy’s summary of Lynn’s worldwide psychometric work.
As for terminology, it is actually irrelevant whether we refer to population groups by their “race” or their “biogeographic ancestry.” The former has more social and historical baggage, and the latter is more long-winded, but they both point to the same empirical fact— group-based genetic differences.
Lastly, the IQ differences between blacks, whites, and asians interest researchers so much simply because the differences in educational/economic outcomes between these groups interest researchers (and the public) more than other group-based differences.
Rose moves on to gender:
the crucial question is whether it is possible to identify a biological — presumably genetic or neurodevelopmental — cause to any difference in the way men and women think and act. The problem is that from the moment of birth, boys and girls are treated differently, which shapes both their growing bodies and brains and how they are expected to behave… Thus, although there are minor average structural and biochemical variations between Western men’s and women’s brains (such as the volume of some nuclei and the distribution of hormone receptors), speculations on their implications for how men and women may think or behave lack any empirical basis.There are plenty of research methods that can be used to sidestep the problems that Rose raises here. To name a few, we can look at: kids raised as the opposite gender because of botched genital operations, how hormones correlate with various behaviors, the differences between girl or boy babies in their first months of life, human universals, etc.
Rose closes up the “scientific” portion of his article by citing many of the difficulties which prevent the resolution of the race and IQ debate:
The standard approach of population biologists to estimating the potential genetic contribution to a trait is to make a heritability estimate. Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of this measure within a population, it is essentially just that: a within-population measure, only valid for a given environment. The nature of the equations means that if the environment changes, the heritability estimate changes too…Even if reliable correlations were found between some intelligence test score and a measure of brain physiology or activity held by a specific group, such a correlation says nothing about the direction of causation.This is an argument for more research, not less. This is an argument for genome-wide association studies, which will allow us to pinpoint the genes that effect intelligence and how they interact with the enviornment. This is an argument for more research on the neuroscience behind IQ and intelligence. This is an argument for further funding of projects to map out the genetic differences between human populations world-wide. This is not an argument for cutting off an important (albeit, politically inconvenient) avenue of science."
http://www.gnxp.com/
-
Jon Marks (posted 12 Feb 2009, 20:24) says: “…human adaptation over the last tens of thousands of years has been increasingly cultural-historical, rather than biological-genetic…”
Mr Marks should read “The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution.”
There is a five part interview with one of the authors, Greg Cochran, here:
“You and Henry assert that populations that adopted agriculture were much influenced by the development, and in non-insignificant, deep-in-the-biochemistry sorts of ways. What would your favorite examples of those adaptations be?
GC: Metabolic/diet changes like lactose tolerance, many changes in genes involved with defense against infectious disease, many changes in genes that affect hearing and smell, changes in neurotransmitters and related genes that most likely influence personality, changes in genes involved with the regulation of nerve connections and brain growth."
http://scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2009/01/5-part_interview_with_greg_coc.php
http://www.2blowhards.com/archives/2009/01/a_week_with_gre_3.html#005819 -
Kathryn Holt (14 February 2009 | 12:06) has used a black box (forgive me, I didn’t invent the language, I just use it) to determine a priori that research into the genetic basis for variability in intelligence is ‘illogical’. Apparently she would be happier if we would agree on using less charged terms like ‘cluster’, as Cavalli-Sforza does. Clusters (which may have many human-readable labels, such as black, African, Negroid) can be based entirely on genetics. The number of clusters is up to the observer, who can determine based on the data whether they have descriptive power for the trait(s) being studied. Kathryn obviously feels research would be better served if we agreed to stick to one cluster. Perhaps we should then ask her to write up her thesis with the condition that she cannot distinguish between strains of S. typhi. Or if she does, she must put scare quotes around them and defend their existence.
-
Maybe it is the rise of the Brain Police and new think.
So lets scratch the idea of comparing race and IQ.
Results
-
