tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post114732795951573531..comments2024-03-15T03:16:46.386-04:00Comments on Objectivist v. Constructivist v. Theist: Race v. Racialization II: IQThe Constructivisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comBlogger77125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-77532988333267071022007-12-14T04:02:00.000-05:002007-12-14T04:02:00.000-05:00And now here's Gladwell on Flynn.And now here's <A HREF="http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/12/17/071217crbo_books_gladwell?printable=true" REL="nofollow">Gladwell on Flynn</A>.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-55799381486463875692007-12-11T10:51:00.000-05:002007-12-11T10:51:00.000-05:00And here's Nisbett joining in.And here's <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/opinion/09nisbett.html" REL="nofollow">Nisbett</A> joining in.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-50318005333790166382007-11-21T16:18:00.000-05:002007-11-21T16:18:00.000-05:00Now Saletan gets the smackdown. More on race and ...Now Saletan gets the <A HREF="http://www.jewcy.com/cabal/will_saletans_scandalous_source" REL="nofollow">smackdown</A>. More on <A HREF="http://www.cato-unbound.org/2007/11/21/eric-turkheimer/race-and-iq/" REL="nofollow">race and IQ</A> from one of your libertarian fellow travellers.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-82482493293704520012007-11-12T12:47:00.000-05:002007-11-12T12:47:00.000-05:00O, the subject of our debate has made the New York...O, the subject of our debate has made the <A HREF="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/us/11dna.html?hp=&pagewanted=print" REL="nofollow">New York Times</A>, but the reporter overlooked us. [Sob.]The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-81993688228055921282007-10-19T04:37:00.000-04:002007-10-19T04:37:00.000-04:00Another takedown of Watson and the race-IQ link, t...Another takedown of Watson and the <A HREF="http://gregladen.com/wordpress/?p=1535" REL="nofollow">race-IQ</A> link, this time courtesy of Pharyngula.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-63957463651826383822007-10-19T04:09:00.000-04:002007-10-19T04:09:00.000-04:00A little birthday present from a statistician who ...A little birthday present from a statistician who <A HREF="http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/523.html" REL="nofollow">takes down g</A>, courtesy of Crooked Timber. Can't wait to see what the Gene Expression Posse has to say about this....The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-78553440366658561042007-09-13T04:33:00.000-04:002007-09-13T04:33:00.000-04:00Speaking of which, Wells is coming to our campus i...Speaking of which, Wells is coming to our campus in November, O!The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-37232834455746080372007-07-11T05:25:00.000-04:002007-07-11T05:25:00.000-04:00Wired on the Genographic Project-tracking human mi...<I>Wired</I> on the <A HREF="http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/06/genographic_project" REL="nofollow">Genographic Project</A>-tracking human migrations, as genetic data should be used.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-44236333358125423462007-06-27T02:47:00.000-04:002007-06-27T02:47:00.000-04:00On brain plasticity.On <A HREF="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/06/brains_are_plastic_not_hardwir.php" REL="nofollow">brain plasticity</A>.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-19149056343877696102007-05-10T02:52:00.000-04:002007-05-10T02:52:00.000-04:00Heh. Indeed.Heh. <A HREF="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2007/05/there_are_no_marching_morons.php" REL="nofollow">Indeed</A>.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-77152875602723529452007-04-03T14:20:00.000-04:002007-04-03T14:20:00.000-04:00FYI, the American Anthropological Society has a ne...FYI, the American Anthropological Society has a new website on <A HREF="http://www.understandingrace.org/home.html" REL="nofollow">race</A>.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1154203426745642692006-07-29T16:03:00.000-04:002006-07-29T16:03:00.000-04:00Mark Kleiman raises interesting points about twin ...Mark Kleiman raises interesting points about <A HREF="http://www.samefacts.com/archives/_/2006/07/the_trouble_with_twin_studies.php" REL="nofollow">twin studies</A> (in response to a post by Kevin Drum), which leads me to ask how it is posssible to separate "environmental" and "genetic" influences, given the mutual interaction between the two from the moment of conception?The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1152521296594698192006-07-10T04:48:00.000-04:002006-07-10T04:48:00.000-04:00Finally finished Wade and Olsen and the historical...Finally finished Wade and Olsen and the historical chapters of Reardon (genealogies of post-WWII population genetics and physical anthropology) and took the time to reread our exchanges here. A few observations:<BR/><BR/>0) A lot of our discussions here have implicitly been over what counts as expertise within and across academic field. Reardon is very smart on how this plays out within academia and when academic debates spill over into more public arenas. Can't recommend her book highly enough.<BR/><BR/>1) Most of my comments have focused on ways psychometrics constitutes knowledge and how practices that may be uncontroversial within the field may seem quite controversial outside it, so that controversies within the field become even more difficult to assess.<BR/><BR/>2) Beyond claims in the previous column's comments section that the 2005 <I>Psychology, Public Policy and the Law</I> represented a "one-sided massacre" (in favor of the Rushton-Jensen thesis, I presume), I haven't seen any specific refutations of Nisbett's critiques. I found R and J's response to be a bit weak, myself, but not being in the field, I have held off on directly commenting on within-field debates. In particular, I thought Nisbett's comments on studies that took African admixture into account and that looked at black mother vs. white mother admixtures, as well as his assessment of adoption studies, were telling. <BR/><BR/>3) My one attempt to wade into the field by incorporating perspectives advocated in response to my critiques (accepting the notion that heretability matters to some extent and trying to isolate its scope and understand the interaction of environment and heredity through examination of within-group IQ differences among Koreans living in South Korea, Japan, North Korea [and, why not, let's include the U.S., as well]) was either misunderstood or rebuffed. The closest to a positive response was:<BR/><BR/>***<BR/><BR/>[me:] social/political constructions of race contribute a lot more to the probability of certain life outcomes than the biological "infrastructure" does today<BR/><BR/>[TM:] That sounds like a proposition that can be tested, rather than simply assumed. So, let's test it and see where the chips fall. And, as genetic science advances, and social science too, then let's test again and let's do the testing across a wide array of societal structures so that we can isolate universal issues rather than supposed localized issues.<BR/><BR/>....if Koreans succeed in most societies but are not doing well in Japan then the case is stronger that discrimination exists within Japan.<BR/><BR/>***<BR/><BR/>So what's wrong with my proposal to study within-group IQ differences to first take on the less controversial question of heretability within a group? Has my "Koreans in various places" idea been done? What were the results? What do they suggest about the 50-50 vs 80-20 vs some other ratio for sociocultural vs. biological influences and how does it compare to other within-group studies?<BR/><BR/>4) I haven't seen a direct response to Lewontin's critique of applying within-group heretability results to between-group differences (cf. <I>Biology as Ideology</I> 26-37). Olsen summarizes related arguments to Nisbett's and Lewontin's in <I>Mapping Human History</I> 61-65. More recently, Brown et al.'s <I>Whitewashing Race</I> examines claims about the white-black test gap (cf. 104-131) and Lipsitz's <I>The Possessive Investment in Whiteness</I> (rev. ed.) looks at issues of inheritance (cf. 105-117). I'd be happy to summarize any of these arguments and have held off doing so b/c they're not from fields I'm expert in nor are original with me.<BR/><BR/>5) I have more to say about Reardon's take on post-WWII scientific constructions of race and the "Racial Americana" issue of <I>South Atlantic Quarterly</I> from Summer 2005, but it fits better in the first racialization comments section, so look for more there later....The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1151005923336338272006-06-22T15:52:00.000-04:002006-06-22T15:52:00.000-04:00Ned Block has a cogent critique of The Bell Curve ...Ned Block has a cogent critique of <I>The Bell Curve</I> <A HREF="http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/philo/faculty/block/papers/Heritability.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1148798752673856912006-05-28T02:45:00.000-04:002006-05-28T02:45:00.000-04:00Yup, which suggests that obsessive blogging is a n...Yup, which suggests that obsessive blogging is a normal, adaptive response to parenthood.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1148443266816964062006-05-24T00:01:00.000-04:002006-05-24T00:01:00.000-04:00C,With you having a new baby, this post is for you...C,<BR/><BR/>With you having a new baby, this <A HREF="http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2005/10/parenting-normal-adaptive-version-of.php" REL="nofollow">post</A> is for you.TangoManhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18228734445464184781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1148438965001673212006-05-23T22:49:00.000-04:002006-05-23T22:49:00.000-04:00O and TM, apologies for being out of the loop on t...O and TM, apologies for being out of the loop on this thread. When I get more than a few minutes, I'll do more than throw links around (here and elsewhere), but seeing as how I barely made another deadline on our column itself, and how much work from the semester continues to haunt me after grades have been turned in, not to mention how difficult it actually is to keep our two-and-a-half-year-old from killing our one-month-old with what I can only term as a kind of at-times-sadistic-kindness-and-enthusiasm, getting up to speed on the ins and outs of the IQ debates has been, shall we say, a hit and miss affair.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1148405921214240192006-05-23T13:38:00.000-04:002006-05-23T13:38:00.000-04:00What sort of evidence is there that Homo Sapiens e...<I>What sort of evidence is there that Homo Sapiens evolved in the past 100,000 years?</I><BR/><BR/>See the <A HREF="http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2005/12/moyzis-paper.php" REL="nofollow">Moyzis Paper</A> which identifies 1,800 genes that are <B>currently</B> undergoing regional selective sweeps. See our <A HREF="http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2005/09/this-is-bruce-lahns-brain-on-aspm-and.php" REL="nofollow">coverage</A> of Bruce Lahn's research which documented the sweep of Microcephalin and ASPM.<BR/><BR/><I>What is your take on the IQ of women and men?</I><BR/><BR/>IQ tests are calibrated, via subtest weighting, so that men and women have the same mean. As for Summers he was absolutely correct in offering his hypothesis. Here is our <A HREF="http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/003491.html" REL="nofollow">extensive coverage</A> which should keep you busy for a while. Frankly, we were caught off guard with that firestorm for we thought the big controversy would arise over differences in racial intelligence and that the gender differential was well understood. Boy, were we wrong on that. Then we saw that there was so little fuss when the Ashkenazi IQ paper was published. Lesson learned: it's OK to say that one small group is more intelligent than the mean (A. Jews) but it is controversial to say that another group is less intelligent than the mean (Blacks) just as it is to argue that the genders have different IQ profiles. The zeitgeist of our times is to affirm the specialness of people, so pointing out exceptionalism is permitted because it's affirming the self-worth of the group. However, the logical result of having a group be above a population mean is that there must be some group below the mean. Don't bother pointing out the logic - people like living in Lake Wobegone.TangoManhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18228734445464184781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1148402004783674452006-05-23T12:33:00.000-04:002006-05-23T12:33:00.000-04:00Question for Constructivist:I read the Gladwell pi...Question for Constructivist:<BR/>I read the Gladwell piece, which as you note was really interesting.<BR/><BR/>He mentions the protection of brand name approach, whereby you try to select students to keep the right image/elite status of schools. <BR/><BR/>(3) Do you agree with this? In particular, would you favor athletic and better looking applicants since statisticially do better than other students when we control for other factors?<BR/><BR/>(4) If you want the best performer after college rather than the best academic performer in college, do you think we should discriminate against women applicants? If not, why not?The Objectivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00416501145750028695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1148401831280994712006-05-23T12:30:00.000-04:002006-05-23T12:30:00.000-04:00Tangoman:I have a few questions. I ask them becaus...Tangoman:<BR/>I have a few questions. I ask them because I always gain from your answers and don't know the data. <BR/><BR/>(1) What sort of evidence is there that Homo Sapiens evolved in the past 100,000 years?<BR/><BR/>(2) What is your take on the IQ of women and men? A related question: do you think that Lawrence Summers was right in that in the extreme IQ range that is characteristic of Harvard scientists we should expect gender differences?The Objectivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00416501145750028695noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1148329906220694582006-05-22T16:31:00.000-04:002006-05-22T16:31:00.000-04:00The last recommendation reports the author making ...The last recommendation reports the author making this statement:<BR/><BR/><I>Olson claims that we have not "evolved" since the emergence of Homo sapiens from Africa 150,000 years ago. "Our basic body plan was set more than 100,000 years ago. Since then, we have been in a period of evolutionary stasis."</I><BR/><BR/>He's been reading too much Gould. His claim is testable, and there are scores of studies which demolish his claim that we are in evolutionary statis.<BR/><BR/>Next up, he writes:<BR/><BR/><I>Olson contends that race and ethnicity are social constructions that people have justified by <B>assuming</B> that biological differences exist. "Many people...cite genetics as the source of group differences...believing that outward variations in skin color, facial features or body shape reflect much more consequential differences of character, temperament, or intelligence."</I><BR/><BR/>Here too we can test his assumption. We're not assuming that biological differences exist, they in fact do exist. Also note how he is trying to emulate Gould's obfuscational tactics. He tries to establish a causal link between skin color, facial features and body shape as being the determinants of more consequential differences. Further, the implicit assumption is that race is solely defined by external features.<BR/><BR/>There's enough rope given in this book review to hang the author's credibility.TangoManhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18228734445464184781noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1148316653277981122006-05-22T12:50:00.000-04:002006-05-22T12:50:00.000-04:00Another book recommendation.Another <A HREF="http://www.genomenewsnetwork.org/articles/09_02/small_world.php" REL="nofollow">book recommendation</A>.The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1148312341593270402006-05-22T11:39:00.000-04:002006-05-22T11:39:00.000-04:00Another book recommendation: Jenny Reardon's Race...Another book recommendation: Jenny Reardon's <A HREF="http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/7891.html" REL="nofollow">Race to the Finish</A> (2004)....The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1147973671147700292006-05-18T13:34:00.000-04:002006-05-18T13:34:00.000-04:00Another book recommendation from Darth Quixote. W...Another book recommendation from <A HREF="http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2006/05/making-sense-of-heritability.php" REL="nofollow">Darth Quixote</A>. Wow, now that grades are turned in, I have time to spell people's names out. We'll see how long that feeling lasts....The Constructivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07242149985581771922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23061971.post-1147956193462618902006-05-18T08:43:00.000-04:002006-05-18T08:43:00.000-04:00Dear Constructivist:As a former math major, I don'...Dear Constructivist:<BR/>As a former math major, I don't see why you oppose a simple formula for admissions. I could understand if lotteries or interviews or other methods outperformed SATs and GPA in predicting GPAs in law schools. Farron and others report that they don't. I believe, although I'll have to check it, that Robert Klitgaard claims the same.<BR/><BR/>I haven't seen any indication that other measures outperform IQ tests in terms of job performance at both high- and low-prestige jobs. Given the g-loading of the LSATs and MCATs, I would therefore be surprised if soft measures like interviews or lotteries outpredict standardized test scores, supplmented by GPA, with regard to performance as lawyers and physicians.<BR/><BR/>Plus having a clear and simple formula would have two other advantages. <BR/><BR/>(1) We could be clear about the degree of preference and performance trade-off we are making for diversity or compensation for past injury. So at least we could make a stab at quantifying and formulizing the trade-offs. <BR/><BR/>(2) We would get the best of each group. A lottery could result in the school (e.g., the Florida schools) losing out on some of the best of each race because they go to very competitive high schools. By analogy, I'm guessing that many years the student at the middle of the class at Peter Stuyvesant or the Bronx High School of Science (apparently the two best public high schools in NYC) is probably better than many of the valedictorians at Fredonia. As currently written, the lotteries would favor the latter.The Objectivisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00416501145750028695noreply@blogger.com