When do experts stop being experts?

[h4rm0ny]

Even if it is true that some "races" have slightly different average intelligences, the vast majority of people are not smart enough to know what to do with that information. Most people couldn't even tell you what Standard Deviation means. Of those that thing they can a substantial proportion will just say something vague like "It's how much something varies" without being able to calculate it. If you told them that people of race X have on average an IQ 3 lower than the human population, they wouldn't be able to tell you what that means for the chance that any given person of race X they meet is smarter or less smart than the total population. But many of them would happily start drawing conclusions about people based on it. They'd also go straight into confirmation bias mode because that is how the human brain works. Any person of race X that did something stupid would reinforce their prejudice. Any person of race X that did something smart would be "not like most X". And it is prejudice because whatever the statistical foundations, you'd be pre-judging someone based on their arbitrary group. And this is before we even get started on people's inability to actually distinguish the groups they think they're talking about. You can't see people's genes, you can just see a small visible part like the tip of an iceberg.

Most people of any race are not smart enough to understand basic statistics. And that's a problem every time they're confronted by something like this. I'm not even convinced there's solid evidence for this, but because of the above, it has no practical effect either way.

Generalizing and stereotyping are done for purposes of efficiency. That's why the human brain does it - so you can make quick decisions. For hypothetical differences in IQ to make it more efficient to judge people by race than by individual assessment, those differences would have to be ENORMOUS. Like undeniably obvious and unquestionable and massive. Anything less than that, pre-judging people is not efficient, but rather introduces inefficiency. When variability in the total population is greater than variability between the total population and the sub-group, any pre-judging is a decrease in efficiency.

As I said, even if this were to be true, people aren't smart enough to know what to do with it.

 

[Lord-Jaffa]

None of which has anything at all to do with intelligence, in the slightest.

What you're describing is situations. Poor people with bad education and a peoples who were oppressed for decades, hundreds of years really, who wanted to take back their land. What happened was stupid, but you had oppression and white people taking land and then having the rewards of the oppression by keeping the land. People who didn't farm not knowing how to farm well isn't indicative of intelligence, it's indicative of poor people who weren't trained. it doesn't mean they can't be trained, it doesn't mean they are too stupid to learn, it's that the people who lived there spent a lifetime farming and those who took the land (back) hadn't spent a lifetime farming.

A potential measure of intelligence would be comparing a black farmer who owned land for the same amount of time as the white farmers and if they were all incapable of farming. I mean, if you went and took over a farm today... would you instantly be as successful as the people you took the farm from, no, of course, does that mean you're stupid, no, because it's got nothing at all to do with a measure of intelligence.


AS for asians doing well academically, again no not really, culturally they are pushed harder in general and their society/culture place a higher emphasis in academic study. Again people studying harder is not a measure of intelligence, but knowledge, culture, personal decisions. intelligence would be if one set of kids couldn't learn to the same level given all the same teaching, education to that point, etc.

There are few studies anywhere that can measure racial differences in intelligence, because schools in south africa and schools in England aren't generally comparable. There are too many differentiating factors in different cultural groups, in how much education their parents had, in how early they are expected to start working to help support the family, in how high an emphasis their society places in education, in the quality of education available, etc, etc.

I'm suggesting it's more of a cultural/social issue rather than outright intelligence. I also wouldn't strip the farm of copper rendering it useless.

 

[danlightbulb]

None of which has anything at all to do with intelligence, in the slightest.

What you're describing is situations. Poor people with bad education and a peoples who were oppressed for decades, hundreds of years really, who wanted to take back their land. What happened was stupid, but you had oppression and white people taking land and then having the rewards of the oppression by keeping the land. People who didn't farm not knowing how to farm well isn't indicative of intelligence, it's indicative of poor people who weren't trained. it doesn't mean they can't be trained, it doesn't mean they are too stupid to learn, it's that the people who lived there spent a lifetime farming and those who took the land (back) hadn't spent a lifetime farming.

Its possible though, that the above was all caused/influenced by lower average intelligence in the past. A lower average intelligence meant that education has historically been poor, that it wasnt valued in their culture, that they (in the distant past) were more susceptible to oppression. Id suggest its impossible to prove or disprove abstract links like this.

Also it might only take a small reduction/increase in average intelligence compared to another group for the effects of this to compound over hundreds if not thousands of years. Intelligence is only really measurable on a comparative basis, not on an absolute basis, so its the level relative to others that could indicate success or otherwise.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Its possible though, that the above was all caused/influenced by lower average intelligence in the past. A lower average intelligence meant that education has historically been poor, that it wasnt valued in their culture, that they (in the distant past) were more susceptible to oppression. Id suggest its impossible to prove or disprove abstract links like this.

I think if you're still talking about South Africa we can identify a host of factors other than inherent intelligence going on here. You have the Dutch-descended farmers who have been there since the 1600's, farming and passing on that knowledge and practices since their grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-parent's days. Vs. a group that invaded and never adopted such on a wide scale because there was already an existing farming class in the lands they occupied. I mean, just to pick out one thing from your post, your contrasting of two groups suggests you think the Black population in South Africa is the same as the Black population that was there when dutch settlers arrived and began trading with them and are seeking reasons for the difference in lifestyle. In fact, the Black population that was there when the Dutch arrived were Khoisan peoples and whilst there were obvious conflicts, there was also a lot of trade and peaceful interaction with the settlers. The modern Black population in South Africa are largely Bantu people who invaded from the North and massacred the Khoisan peoples.

 

[Chris Wilson]

There have been many eminent, intelligent and well educated men whose research agree with this premise, most if not all have been shunned for their views, especially in modern politically correct times. For example the man jointly credited for the invention of the semiconductor, William Shockley, arguably one of the most important and life changing inventions of modern times, was ostracised by some for his similar research and similar conclusions. There's loads of stuff on this via Google, and on YouTube, but Wikipedia has this information:

"Late in his life, Shockley became intensely interested in questions of race, human intelligence, and eugenics. He thought this work was important to the genetic future of the human species and he came to describe it as the most important work of his career, even though expressing his views damaged his reputation. Shockley argued that a higher rate of reproduction among the less intelligent was having a dysgenic effect, and that a drop in average intelligence would ultimately lead to a decline in civilization. With regard to racial differences he used standard phraseology; for example, in a debate with Afrocentrist Frances Welsing and on Firing Line with William F. Buckley Jr.:

My research leads me inescapably to the opinion that the major cause of the American Negro's intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and racially genetic in origin and, thus, not remediable to a major degree by practical improvements in the environment.[33]

Shockley's published writings and lectures to scientific organizations on this topic were partly based on the writings of psychologist Cyril Burt and were funded by the Pioneer Fund. Shockley also proposed that individuals with IQs below 100 be paid to undergo voluntary sterilization.[34]

Anthropologist Roger Pearson, whose writings are based on an evolutionary and racialist[35] approach, has defended Shockley in a self-published book co-authored with Shockley.[36] University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee professor Edgar G. Epps[37] argued that "William Shockley's position lends itself to racist interpretations".[38]

 

[Irish_Tom]

Even if it is true that some "races" have slightly different average intelligences, the vast majority of people are not smart enough to know what to do with that information… snip!

Excellent post.

Its possible though, that the above was all caused/influenced by lower average intelligence in the past. A lower average intelligence meant that education has historically been poor, that it wasnt valued in their culture, that they (in the distant past) were more susceptible to oppression. Id suggest its impossible to prove or disprove abstract links like this.

Also it might only take a small reduction/increase in average intelligence compared to another group for the effects of this to compound over hundreds if not thousands of years. Intelligence is only really measurable on a comparative basis, not on an absolute basis, so its the level relative to others that could indicate success or otherwise.

This kind view is one example of what h4rm0ny is referring to.

There’s an assumption that because white Europeans conquered non-white peoples in Africa, The Americas, Australia etc. that white Europeans are in some way genetically intellectually superior to other ‘races’.

However, research suggests that environmental factors, such as the geography of the various continents and the flora and fauna of those land masses, played a much bigger role in explaining the different rates of development of different peoples rather than any variations in ‘intelligence’.

Jared Diamond wrote an exceptional book on the subject entitled ‘Guns, Germs and Steel: the fates of human societies’. It’s worth reading.

 

[danlightbulb]

I dont know the recent (few hundred years) history however if you go back really far, isnt it logical that those populations who migrated out of Africa tens of thousands of years ago would have been subject to an evolutionary selection for intelligence? The intelligent migrants would be able to adapt and prosper, and thus pass on their genes, more than the lower intelligence migrants.

Therefore it is logical that populations descended from out of Africa migrants would be more intelligent than populations who never moved.

In reality its obvious you cant separate genetic and environmental intelligence. Its all connected going back thousands of years of evolution.

 

[Raz]

..when it doesnt fit the politically correct narrative.

It's nothing to do with being politically correct. There are plenty of people who would happily subjugate or oppress others because of being ''superior'.

Bring the whole PC business into everything is just silly and seems to be the go to phrase for people to disagree with something without having a proper argument.

 

[D.P.]

When their opinion is not supported by science

 

[h4rm0ny]

I dont know the recent (few hundred years) history however if you go back really far, isnt it logical that those populations who migrated out of Africa tens of thousands of years ago would have been subject to an evolutionary selection for intelligence? The intelligent migrants would be able to adapt and prosper, and thus pass on their genes, more than the lower intelligence migrants.

Therefore it is logical that populations descended from out of Africa migrants would be more intelligent than populations who never moved.

You would need to explain why there is no evolutionary selection for intelligence in the population that remained behind, also. Seems odd that there should be an environment that doesn't select for intelligence, wouldn't you say? Stronger evolutionary pressure isn't a sufficient explanation because one would expect an edge that gave one an advantage over rivals would be pretty effective in a large population with more abundant resources. The questions are does this match observable fact (i.e. can we actually say there are marked intellectual differences between "races") and if so what are the likeliest hypotheses. For the former, I think it's still an open question and if there are, they're not large. For the latter, which you raise, I think there's a host of other factors that can apply.

To illustrate the scope of those other factors, the Germans took on the entirety of Europe and (whilst ultimately over-reaching) kicked the asses of Russia at the same time. Was that because the Germans are genetically smarter than other Europeans? Or because they were prepared for large-scale war and had a culture / leadership suited to conquest at the time. The British, for a time, conquered any part of China they cared to. Is that because the British are smarter than Chinese people? I don't think so - indeed the same sorts of studies people like to quote showing European intelligence often show a slight bias in the other direction! More likely it was because we had a big navy with big cannons. After all, seven centuries earlier, Mongols had been terrifying Europeans with gunpowder weapons that had spread to them from the Chinese. In the time between did Europeans become genetically more intelligent and Chinese people less? Or to pick one that will really ruffle some feathers, when the Muslim hordes spread across Europe and Arab slave traders would abduct English people from their villages, was that because Arabs are genetically smarter? I've belaboured the point too much, but history is replete with examples of turnabout and conquest that doesn't come down to factors of intelligence. So why when it comes to a couple of particular areas does it suddenly become a go-to explanation? It doesn't even have to be technological factors that make the difference. Cultural and economic ones are as vital. Indians are an aryan people. They're Europeans that lived somewhere hot. And actually they were pretty capable technology wise when the British subjugated vast swathes of their land. But we had an economic system that propelled powerful trade-military alliances and could finance our efforts. And we had greater social mobility that allowed us to engage our society wholesale whereas the Indian caste system and the sheer size of the country made it a powder-keg of rivalries and tensions that could be exploited politically. Now economic systems and a history of warfare are pressures that lead one society to triumph over another, but they're not genetic pressures.

Now is intelligence a strong predictor for individual success? Yes. Is it heritable? Yes. Is it possible that there are differences in intelligence between different populations? Yes. But are our various military conquests good evidence for that? Not in my opinion. And the fact that they are so quickly proposed to be is another facet of what I was talking about earlier.

As an aside, not all African populations stayed there uninterrupted. There was substantial back migration from the near East into Africa. Specifically, migration from North East Africa into the near East settled, and then returned and conquered / settled parts of North East Africa again. So the NE African peoples, a lot of their ancestry is actually some of those people who left, adapted and prospered that you talk about.

 

[d_brennen]

OK, aimed at OP and posters in here who seem to think there are solid genetic links between genetics and intelligence; If so, so what? What are you going to do with such evidence? Does it even matter? It's a slippery slope when one group asserts genetic superiority over another, we have lots of recent history to prove this is not a Good Thing™ for society at large. The fact is the delta between the IQ of the smartest and lowest performing members of any population will be huge.

Do the usual suspects claim to be above average intelligence? Should we have everyone tested and neuter the worst performing? If it turns out East Asians are the undisputed IQ heavyweights, do we only allow that ethnic group to procreate? On the whole, society does not need many truly gifted folk, only a small percentage of any group will be. Most jobs are repetition of a small skill set that can be taught to practically anyone. Social cohesion is not an intelligence factor either. Gifted orators aren't always the smartest people in the room. We can look at politics and business to see this is true.

As an aside I often imagine people who get all worked up over genetically inherited intelligence are painfully average people, stuck in middling positions, angry at the world because they don't have every opportunity gifted to them on a plate. I wonder if they'd allow their wife to be inseminated with sperm from an East Asian for the genetic good of humanity

 

[Orionaut]

To go back to the original title question.

When the expert disagrees with the political classes.

Consider what happened to David Bellamy who was considered something of an Expert right up until he criticized the idea of AGW, (He has since "Recanted", but it still hasn't restored him to his previous position)

As with the "Bell Curve" issue.

It is difficult to research or analyse any issue truly objectively if you can lose your job for coming to the "Wrong" conclusion.

Which is a shame really

Since with the "Bell Curve" issue, there is clearly a problem with the appalling socio-economic performance of people of recent African Ancestry in western societies

(Seriously, I dont mean to be nasty but, Can anybody think of any "Black" majority urban neighborhood anywhere in the developed world, that isn't a poverty and crime ridden ********? Anywhere?)

And if certain avenues of investigation as to why this might be the case are abandoned because they are politically inconvenient, then we run a very serious risk indeed of missing out on opportunities to mitigate and improve the situation.

 

[h4rm0ny]

OK, aimed at OP and posters in here who seem to think there are solid genetic links between genetics and intelligence; If so, so what? What are you going to do with such evidence? Does it even matter? It's a slippery slope when one group asserts genetic superiority over another, we have lots of recent history to prove this is not a Good Thing™ for society at large. The fact is the delta between the IQ of the smartest and lowest performing members of any population will be huge.

Do the usual suspects claim to be above average intelligence? Should we have everyone tested and neuter the worst performing? If it turns out East Asians are the undisputed IQ heavyweights, do we only allow that ethnic group to procreate? On the whole, society does not need many truly gifted folk, only a small percentage of any group will be. Most jobs are repetition of a small skill set that can be taught to practically anyone. Social cohesion is not an intelligence factor either. Gifted orators aren't always the smartest people in the room. We can look at politics and business to see this is true.

As an aside I often imagine people who get all worked up over genetically inherited intelligence are painfully average people, stuck in middling positions, angry at the world because they don't have every opportunity gifted to them on a plate. I wonder if they'd allow their wife to be inseminated with sperm from an East Asian for the genetic good of humanity

I feel sorry for the East Asians. Spend your childhood growing up in a strict, results obsessed education system. Parents have super high-expectations. You work your arse off to be successful and then some sod tells you it's because you have lucky genes.

Nobody ever wins in these scenarios.

 

[ltron]

These groupings are arbitrary, it is foolish to make decisions based on this. Suppose if we measured the average IQ of other arbitrary groups such as people with different hair colours or eye colours or fat vs thin or short vs tall, people who live above sea level vs those who do not, people who've been on more than 100 holidays vs those who have not, people who like animals vs those who do not etc. There will be differences whatever we choose, is this valuable though? I would say not because you are taking one random group of people and comparing it to another based on arbitrary characteristics. There will always be differences due to the random nature of it, but are these differences a result of these arbitrary characteristics and can we make judgements about others with whatever arbitrary characteristic we have chosen and do so in perpetuity? I struggle to see how we can and I don't think doing so would be beneficial in any way.

This is without getting into the merits of the IQ test or the lack thereof. Imagine pitting someone from a remote tribe who had never done proper maths in their lives against a person educated in the West. There are questions in an IQ test which would give an advantage to someone who had thought in that way before.

The final point is, is intelligence really the most important thing and does it define your worth? Humans have prospered due to their ability to work in a team and achieve something greater together than they could as individuals. It is also not a good indicator of character or of value to society necessarily. There are very nasty and selfish people with bigoted views who can't work with others or contribute to society in a positive way who are very intelligent.

 

[wunkley]

The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.

 

[azazl187]

I feel sorry for the East Asians. Spend your childhood growing up in a strict, results obsessed education system. Parents have super high-expectations. You work your arse off to be successful and then some sod tells you it's because you have lucky genes.

Nobody ever wins in these scenarios.

Why not? There are plenty of winners and to have these winners there has to be losers. You cant have one with out the other basically. What about all the people with lucky genes?

 

[Slam62]

Just seems like the poor old bloke has lost his marbles, leave him alone.

 

[h4rm0ny]

Why not? There are plenty of winners and to have these winners there has to be losers. You cant have one with out the other basically. What about all the people with lucky genes?

There are no winners in racism. My point is that "lucky genes" theory now devalues actual hard work you put in. It's another form of "privilege" accusation, where no matter your actual background, people see what they expect to see. Whether they ignore your success because they don't believe you're capable of it, or they ignore your hard work because they don't believe it's the source of it. There are no winners in racism because by definition, it diminishes the individual.

 

[Caracus2k]

OK, aimed at OP and posters in here who seem to think there are solid genetic links between genetics and intelligence; If so, so what? What are you going to do with such evidence? Does it even matter?

I have already posted a link to support the assertion that intelligence has a strong inherited component. So that should answers your first question.

As to what it would do with such information or want done with it by others?

Not a lot really other then to point out that it's quite common for some people to point to a difference in outcomes and then immediately suggest that such a dissaprity is conclusive evidence that the cause is either totally or mostly down to some form of societally constructed oppression....


For example..

The 'gender wage gap' is used as 'evidence', by some, of supposed systemic patrichal oppression of women being the primary factor at play in the workplace.

And differing rates of incarceration and stops by police for different ethnicities are used as 'evidence' of a special form of systemic, socially constructed, racisim against 'persons of colour' being the predominant cause for such disspartites.

My point would be if you want to seriously assert such things as being true wouldn't you want to have done the scientific study to establish whether the hypothesis is correct or not?

After all anyone with half a clue about seeking objective truth should know that correlation does not equal causation...

But what is striking is the almost total lack of rigorous academic study undertaken to find out to what extent systemic oppression, cultural differences, differences in biology or any other factors have on the differing outcomes we see for different groups in society.

Its almost as if certain people are afraid to undertake such studies as it might provide some rather politically inconvenient answers?

One of the few studies of this type I have ever seen was a rather interesting study completed to try and work out whether an American Highway patrol department were dissproprtionally targeting ethnic minorities with regards to the vehicles they stopped.

The method used was a number of high speed cameras on a road combined with machinery to check the speeds of passing vehicles. With the whole exercise being undertaken covertly.

So the study produced photographs of a large number of drivers combined with details of which of thoose drivers were exceeding the speed limit and by how much.

Crucially the photos (showing the drivers faces) where then showed to a panel of people who were asked to discern the drivers ethnicity but they were not told the associated vehicles speed.

Interestingly the study suggested that contrary to the suggestion of racial prejudice that black drivers were being stopped at a lower rate then the rate expected when accounting for the propertiom assessed to be excluded eding the speed limit!

Of course this study says nothing about the reasons of combination of reasons why (social, biological other etc)
it may be that blacks were on average more likely to be exceeding the speed limit. But its an example of a scientific study that was undertaken that might reliably be expected to answer one example of a question about observed disparities in outcomes.

There were attempts to surpress the study and people were keen to distance themselves from it and criticise it but to my knowledge no one suggested any refinements or changes to the methodology for the study to be re run and then went on to actually re do the experiment.

 

[The_Abyss]

"Late in his life, Shockley became intensely interested in questions of race, human intelligence, and eugenics. He thought this work was important to the genetic future of the human species

I guess this is part of the problem. Exploring the subject is one thing, and that's fine, but the motivation for doing so - in bold - is bound to attract huge criticism. How much emotive could it be?!

Q:What are you doing?
A:Exploring differences in intelligence across different races
Q:Why are you doing that?
A:Because the high breeding rates of the less intelligent pose a risk to the future of the human race

As for the OP:

This just highlights that so called expert opinion is in truth not worth listening to.

So we write off the opinions of all experts because of one mentally frail old expert?

Over the top nonsense.