Gene Expression

No since they can't find a way of assessing intelligence that is free from cultural or gender biases so that racist and/or bigoted cranks won't use the data to push their agenda. The "IQ" fails for being subject to such biases, not to mention being an impermanent measure of someone's intellectual capacity.

Posted by: MarkH | February 16, 2009 10:37 PM

No you can demonstrate that one's IQ changes with time, with educational attainment, with training taking tests etc. This has been known since Binet invented the test and he opposed the American interpretation of the IQ as some kind of fixed quantity. The test was made to identify those who needed help, not to affix a stamp on people that says "stupid". Americans have been abusing it for decades.

If you compare races without very carefully controlling for these facts that there are huge socioeconomic differences (and I think ultimately we can never really account for all the cultural inputs) all you're doing is studying poverty and culture. Every goddamn time.

Posted by: MarkH | February 16, 2009 10:46 PM

"No since they can't find a way of assessing intelligence that is free from cultural or gender biases so that racist and/or bigoted cranks won't use the data to push their agenda."

I dunno. There are groups which have been hideously discriminated against historically who nonetheless manage to blow your average WASP out of the water in terms of average IQ. And if raw bias was the issue it should be possible to use iterative methods to separate out test questions that had an unusually large race/class/gender/whatever gap in the answers. So far as I know, no one has yet managed to do this and create a test that doesn't show certain group differences despite considerable effort.

Posted by: Matt Springer | February 17, 2009 12:59 AM

mark, i'm well aware of the reality that heritability of IQ varies with SES.

Posted by: razib | February 17, 2009 2:05 AM

only a white male with privilege would have the gall to go by a handle like "lol" and presume that their assertions might be taken seriously.

Posted by: razib | February 17, 2009 4:46 AM

Speaking of whites, one characteristic of the latest wave of HBD is the presence of nonwhite, specifically Asian, theorists and supporters: Bruce Lahn, Satoshi Kanazawa, Stephen Hsu...

That's another demographic distinction from earlier waves, in addition to the presence of biologists & biological anthropologists and political liberals. In other words, it has emerged from the psychometry (Jensen, Brand) and white nationalist (Rushton, MacDonald, Salter) ghettos.

Posted by: Colugo | February 17, 2009 11:22 AM

I'm going to pull a Clinton and say that it depends on the meaning of 'should'. I don't think that is ethically or morally wrong for scientists to investigate anything. However, since both IQ and race are fairly subjective, it will be difficult to design a meaningful study, and it it's very likely that any study would only confirm the beliefs that the researchers already hold. Even a fair study would be unlikely to change anyone's mind. So scientists probably shouldn't study it because they could spend their time and money on something more productive.

Posted by: catgirl | February 17, 2009 1:23 PM

catgirl et al,

So in essence you're saying scientists shouldn't study anything that might offend some group or other. By that logic, evolution, particle physics which both offend fundamentalists shouldn't be studied, and what will be next - there's always a lobby who doesn't like you to study some topic. If scientists were to listen to them, we'd still be living in caves - wake up!

Second, what could be more productive that defeating racism by exposing the true underpinnings of differential outcomes!

Posted by: pconroy | February 17, 2009 3:23 PM

Second, what could be more productive that defeating racism by exposing the true underpinnings of differential outcomes!

Black people are stupider not b/c of their skin color but b/c of their genes! This will end racism.

Posted by: Ando Hoba | February 17, 2009 4:01 PM

"IQ scores are extremely stable between childhood and adulthood (r = ~.8 to >.9 in various studies)."

lol,

What about the systematic increase in the B-W IQ gap from childhood to adulthood?

Posted by: Unreliable Source | February 17, 2009 9:54 PM

So was Watson correct when he said nothing will ever work in Africa because they have lower IQs? Or do you believe as I do that the application of tests across cultures is inherently flawed? This was mentioned in the "for" essay as well. To me, that's prima facie evidence that the test is highly subject to cultural biases and socioeconomic factors, and genetics plays a small effect. After all, their descendants in this country, while scoring lower than whites or asians, do a lot better. How about the Flynn effect? It's being dismissed pretty glibly here. But do you really think it's a genetic factor or are social factors different?

And again I'd point out the terrible history of these endeavors, as described in the "against" essay, and in Mismeasure. There is just no value in these studies, and the results historically are always biased. It strikes me as hubris to assume we are past these biases, and that somehow the research won't be used again to put down one race or another.

Finally, Razib, it's one thing to acknowledge the problem, it's another to address it. It keeps on being stated as fact that cultural factors have somehow been eliminated, but I see again and again studies on subpopulations showing ways in which the larger population studies are failing to account for these differences (again as mentioned in the against article).

Posted by: MarkH | February 18, 2009 1:56 AM

Cultures in which there's never much need for explicit, high-concept cognition generally don't produce people who are practiced at that kind of thinking.

That doesn't mean that, when we find different performance levels between different cultures, we should be quick to attribute it to culture, no more than different levels between genetically distinguishable groups means we should attributed to genes.

When people from such a culture are putt in another, better-performing one, how well do their children do at abstract thought? Their grandchildren? etc. etc. That's one way we can begin to distinguish cultural and biological contributions to performance.

Posted by: Caledonian | February 18, 2009 12:30 PM