Geneticists Decry Book On Race and Evolution 541
sciencehabit writes "A best-seller by former New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade about recent human evolution and its potential effects on human cultures has drawn critical reviews since its spring publication. Now, nearly 140 senior human population geneticists around the world, many of whose work was cited in the book, have signed a letter to The New York Times Book Review stating that Wade has misinterpreted their work. The letter criticizes "Wade's misappropriation of research from our field to support arguments about differences among human societies."
Welcome to the Streisand effect. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Welcome to the Streisand effect. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's already a NYT best seller. This isn't some un-read pamphlet. At this point the errors in it need to be addressed. Ignoring it won't make it go away.
I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Geneticists admit that physical appearance varies thanks to mutations and variations in the expression of the genome, so why is intellectual variability so verboten? Because it's politically incorrect?
In other words, if white people exclusively possess blond hair and blue eyes, and Asians possess epicanthal folds and very dark hair, why is it so hard to believe that IQ, a physical aspect of the mental organ we call the brain, might vary as well?
Seems very bizarre to me. And irrational.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not just intellect.
Remember when it was somehow racist to point out that the reason blacks are better at athletics was because they had a genetic makeup that produced stronger and longer muscles capable of higher power output?
That was racist because to say it was to imply they had an unfair advantage.
I think being a geneticist is a pretty impossible job. No matter what your data suggests or how you present it, you're going to be labeled a racist. You'll either be accusing a minority race that is good at something as having an unfair genetic advantage, or you'll be implying that a minority race that is not good at something is so because of genetics - and therefore their skin color.
This is how the PC establishment thinks. If there is a conceivable way to twist and distort what is said so that it can be labeled racist, they will do it.
Re: (Score:2)
That was racist because to say it was to imply they had an unfair advantage.
It wouldn't be racist to just state that fact, but it would indeed be racist to use it to imply an unfair advantage. It wasn't proven that every black person has better muscles than every person of any other race.
(I'm assuming you're not just using some fringe comment or a strawman argument to fuel a persecution complex).
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is a conceivable way to twist and distort what is said so that it can be labeled racist, they will do it.
You don't have to be PC police-y to find this stuff highly suspect. Societies and cultures have different emergent properties based on a wide variety of really complicated influences, external and internal. I mean was a Germanic tribesman shaking a bronze tipped spear any different, genetically, to a modern day Berlin banker? Not really. Therefore there must be a great deal more to it than genetics.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It was racist to say because it isn't true and it was created specifically to maintain a separation of blacks from whites.
I don't think you know what 'race' means.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, tell that to all the Kenyans of West Africa. *sigh*
Re: (Score:2)
It's because any time you start talking about genetics and race, it starts becoming politically inconvenient. You're going to have someone who inevitably decides that the findings are "racist", even if the finding is something as simple as "There are minor genetic differences between groups of people that are significant enough to support the idea of different races."
The second you mention something like that, people are going to cry out Jim Crow or Hitler, even though no one is saying that the differences
Re: (Score:3)
even though no one is saying that the differences make anyone "superior" or "inferior" to anyone else, merely "different".
Except, you know, the author of the book being discussed, who specifically did rank races by their superiority. (Whites are genetically predisposed to civilisation, blacks to tribal living, Chinese to business, etc.)
Instead of what you said, I think it's the opposite: Whenever people object to the abuse of their research to support a racist/ideological agenda, people like you scream "That's political correctness!" without even attempting to understand what the objections are.
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Informative)
You really should publish the work you've done identifying IQ as a physical aspect of the brain, and identifying the genetic definitions of "white" and and "Asian". I'm sure the relationships are clear to you but the rest of us are stuck in a world where race is more social than genetic and IQ is merely one particular measure of a combination of dynamic mental processes.
Or maybe you just didn't take up the required reading before claiming that actual scientists are ignoring their work in pursuit of some globally-unified set of politics.
Re: (Score:3)
I think it’s because what constitutes “intellect” is so ill understood. It is uncontroversial that there is a genetic component — but what that component might be is at this point impossible to determine (since we don’t even know what the result — “intelligence” — means).
Now if we were just talking about suceptability to some disease (and as we learn more, a lot of diseases turn out to be clusters of different diseases with similar symptoms) that wouldn
Re: (Score:2)
That's not it at all.
He makes claims like: Genetics show the are 3 to 5 races; which is factual wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:5, Insightful)
The "extended" part is the differentiating factor. You can consider that bacteria outside your ear a distant cousin. This doesn't add to the discussion.
> The likelihood that one genetically distinct population would have the same intelligence as another is basically zero
You're getting into choppy waters because "intelligence" isn't properly defined. You may find that one population's deficiency is offset by its strength in another category. Then you'd be tasked with "weighing" the importance of both in order to come up with a very subjective winner in the intelligence race. Real science doesn't work this way. This is one of the many reasons it's inappropriate to say some human population is less or more "intelligent" than another.
>> You would need a huge amount of proof and a theoretical model of why it would be the same for there to be a scientific reason to believe that it might be
The burden of proof is on the person making a claim. I'm not saying all populations have exactly identical intelligence. I'm saying that there is no reason to say there is no reason to say there is a significant difference in intelligence across worldwide populations. The lack of evidence to support such claims (and not adherence to political correctness) is the reason researchers repel such statements.
> As left alone there would be huge amount of drift and change in even just 1,000 years
No. Allele frequencies change slowly over time. Haplotype structure changes more rapidly, but even after 10,000 years you'll see general agreement of haplotype block structure within the same population.
> traveled to the himalayas and started farming goats and mountain climbing, or another group that broke off, developed writing, and for the last 5,000 years has been living in huge dense colonies and working in factories. There is almost nothing at all similar between these three environments
I don't understand what your point is here. Different populations lived in different environments, that is true. Positive selection has had time to select for desirable traits in each environment, but what makes you think intelligence wasn't selected for in all of these environments? What you are saying may some day be proven to be true, but so far there is no reason to believe that there is any difference in intelligence across different worldwide populations. There is no data. There is no proof. Your deeply flawed thought experiment does not a proof make.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
First, you can take sample populations that 'exclusively possess" a particular feature, and they turn out not to. That is, it may be common for Danes to be blonde, but you can look at a large group of people from Denmark and see many people who don't have blonde hair, or otherwise don't fit whatever model of how that group should look someone is offering. You can try to filter your sample, for example, looking only at people who have records of descent from natives to that area going back five or ten genera
Ideally it wouldn't matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ideally it wouldn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Stating the obvious (Score:2)
Genetics affects your mental attributes, but isn't the whole story. Environment affects your mental attributes, but isn't the whole story. Culture and self-determination facets of the environment affect your mental attributes, but aren't the whole story. People of different cultures have statistical differences in mental attributes. There's a bunch of people who get upset by these facts, and a different bunch of people who like to exaggerate them. And anyone who was named as being involved in any of this is
This is why I'm leaving academia. (Score:4, Insightful)
While I don't agree with this guy's conclusions myself, this type of hyper-PC bullshit storm is why being in academia is so obnoxious. Science should be determined by the evidence available and the best interpretation of it at the time, not by people's feelings or politics.
Secondly, someone citing your work doesn't mean you agree with their conclusions (or especially their politics). The correct response, if you care enough, is to follow up by pointing out where their interpretation falls short. The incorrect response is to write some whiny letter crying about how seemingly racist conclusions were drawn from your publications and it deeply offends you.
I mean, come on: "We are in full agreement that there is no support from the field of population genetics for Wade’s conjectures." What a pathetic retort. But I bet they feel better now, and that's all that really matters.
Re:This is why I'm leaving academia. (Score:5, Insightful)
Who the fuck are you to say which response is correct?
A scientist, who realizes that science is based on reason and not emotion.
This response is covered in Science (though submitted to the NYTimes as a book review) and signed by scientists who are making an "argument" from authority and by consensus. The letter starts, "As scientists..." and then makes an unsupported argument that their work was misused. It concludes by assuming that their "full agreement", by itself and without any actual arguments, carries any weight at all.
By what criteria is that a correct response in any way besides as a feel-good statement? What exactly does being offended do to advance science and human knowledge?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
signed by scientists who are making an "argument" from authority and by consensus.
A SCIENTIFIC consensus, which is not your average consensus. As a scientist, you should know the difference. A scientific consensus is not an argument from authority no morethan peer review is.
The letter starts, "As scientists..." and then makes an unsupported argument that their work was misused.
Their argument is supported, at least in their view, by the research. Why do they need to spell out everything?
By what criteria is that a correct response
By what criteria is that an incorrect response? They are responding to a BOOK, which by definition does not need to go through rigorous peer review. They don't have to waste their time writing a paper just to
Re:This is why I'm leaving academia. (Score:4, Insightful)
A SCIENTIFIC consensus, which is not your average consensus.
Well, we don't know if there is consensus among the entire community of geneticists with regard to this particular issue. The equivalent of a petition with 139 signatures doesn't make scientific consensus. This is a consensus of 139 scientists, not scientific consensus.
Their argument is supported, at least in their view, by the research. Why do they need to spell out everything?
Because clearly it isn't, if their research is used in this book to support the opposing argument. If the book author has misinterpreted their results, but they don't bother to actually address his mistakes, then their letter amounts to no more than a big, "nuh-uh!"
Public debate needs to be held to a higher standard than it currently is. Would you expect to win a debate by having your entire team sign a letter saying no more than, "The other team is wrong"?
By what criteria is that an incorrect response? They are responding to a BOOK, which by definition does not need to go through rigorous peer review. They don't have to waste their time writing a paper just to appease the likes of you because there are already papers out there.
Why do you care if I think their letter is stupid? Why are you so upset that I'm arguing against their approach on a backwater site like this?
What does YOUR being offended by this advance science and human knowledge?
I'm practicing what I preach by specifically pointing out how their argument fails to be as convincing as it could be. That you're so emotionally invested in this that you only see me as getting offended doesn't change my argument.
I don't know what planet you're living on, but to point out that people are misusing your own research to make claims that the research itself doesn't support DOES advance science. Science is just as much about getting it right as it is about pointing out where others have it wrong.
I've bolded the important part above. Pointing out where, or how, others have it wrong is exactly what I'm advocating. Pointing out that others have it wrong, without any supporting evidence as in the letter we are discussing, does nothing to advance science.
Re: (Score:3)
"Public debate needs to be held to a higher standard than it currently is. Would you expect to win a debate by having your entire team sign a letter saying no more than, "The other team is wrong"?"
You're assuming there is 'another team'. In this case, there is 'another team' in the same sense that the 'intelligent design' people want you to 'teach the controversy'. There is no 'other team'. There is a bunch of scientists and a bunch of lunatics who claim to be scientists. Forever having society confused abo
Re:This is why I'm leaving academia. (Score:4, Insightful)
I know that this is a troll, and I usually don't respond to stuff like this, but this is a good example of the thinking that permeates much of academia. The idea crudely presented in the post above is that if I'm not deeply offended by the book and 100% behind some goofy letter to the editor or petition or other feel-good measure, then I must be a racist Republican, incapable of thinking and fueled by propaganda. It's the exact same mindset that Bush's, "You're either with us, or against us," comes from. Logic and reason are meaningless, I'm either on the team or I'm a dehumanized enemy.
It's why I unconsciously started my initial comment by stating my personal disagreement with the book (which is genuine), even though that fact is tangential to my entire argument. If I weigh in on some news here at the University without first explicitly stating that I'm not a [racist|sexist|whateverist], the focus of any dissenting comment shifts from what I actually say to assumptions about my politics because I'm not parroting the right talking points.
why? (Score:4, Insightful)
what is globally accepted in animal breeding, that certain behavioral tendencies accompany accompany genetics right along with certain physical characteristics, is the worst taboo to apply to people.
which is ridiculous. populations living in specific social environments will SELECT FOR and AGAINST various physical and behavioral traits... and those traits which are successful in a specific society will then go on to build the society that those traits are best adapted to. like a feedback loop.
is there something totally crazy here?
Re:why? (Score:5, Interesting)
and those traits which are successful in a specific society will then go on to build the society that those traits are best adapted to. like a feedback loop.
The evidence for this is actually pretty inconclusive, which is where some of the disagreement stems. It's easy to hypothesize this, but hard to prove it. In particular, many evolutionary biologists are skeptical that historical-timescale social changes and changes in genetic makeup are closely tied.
Re: (Score:2)
You have pointed out the only really good explanation I've read on this. So thank you for that.
Timescale. Great point. I hope someone mods you up.
Re:why? (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually have studied it; some of my colleagues work directly in this area. It's a fairly big interest here in Scandinavia, because some populations can be identified with relative genetic stability over significant periods of time, which makes some kinds of studies easier. Iceland has particularly good records and genetic isolation, but much can also be done in other parts of Scandinavia. And it is quite difficult to correlate societal changes with genetic changes even with these detailed records. For example the major shifts in Scandinavian society from warlordish violent societies to peaceful egalitarian societies don't appear to be related to genetic shifts.
What are the complainer's conclusions? (Score:2)
Each of the people whose research the book used came up with their own interpretation of the data they collected. In each case, their conclusions are based upon what data they collected, and not what others collected.
An interesting comparison would be for those same people to review the SUM of the data Wade used (since they have access to it), and publish THEIR conclusions. Don't just say, "My research does not support that!", because you might not have been looking at N factors that other researchers looke
Dr. X, On Which List Will You Appear? (Score:2, Insightful)
*RING* *RING*
Callee: Hello?
Caller: Hello, Dr. X, this is Dr. Y from [insert watchdog group name]. How are you today?
Callee: Uh, ok.
Caller: We're doing a survey. Your paper "[insert name of paper]" is cited in a NYT Best Seller that justifies taking babies of some races and putting them into blenders for smoothies. Do you oppose taking babies of some races and putting them into blenders for smoothies or not?
Callee: (Thinking to himself: "This guy is obviously nuts but then half of academia is nuts a
That's how citations work: (Score:3, Insightful)
Guys, he can "misinterpret" your works as much has he likes, that's the whole point of "original research" and "original opinion". He takes your works and forms is own conclusions. It's him, not you. As long as he cites you.
Hell, you don't have to agree with him. Obviously.
Re:That's how citations work: (Score:5, Insightful)
Guys, he can "misinterpret" your works as much has he likes, that's the whole point of "original research" and "original opinion". He takes your works and forms is own conclusions. It's him, not you. As long as he cites you.
Hell, you don't have to agree with him. Obviously.
He's a reporter, he wasn't claiming to be doing "original research", he was claiming to communicate the existing research.
And just like he's allowed to write about, and misinterpret, their research, they're also allowed to call him out for misrepresenting their work.
What they complain vs what they publish (Score:5, Informative)
Biological Basis to Race (Score:3)
"Unfortunately many social scientists have long denied that there is a biological basis to race."
This is not my field, but clearly, people from different parts of the world look very obviously different. I've never understood how that could not be biologically, or genetically, based. It just seems logical that there might be other differences. This is true of every other animal, when populations become separated. It is unfortunate that people immediately start ranking traits as superior or inferior.
I haven't read the book, but the author's statement that, "opposition to racism should be based on principle, not on the anti-evolutionary myth that there is no biological basis to race," seems eminently sensible. It's always disappointing when politics influence research, but it happens far more often than many people think.
IQ != Intelligence (Score:3)
I see so many posts here using IQ and intelligence as if they were interchangeable synonyms. They are not.
IQ tests have no basis in science. IQ tests have never been benchmarked against anything except earlier IQ tests.
IQ tests cannot be proven to exclude cultural bias.
IQ tests cannot be said to measure intelligence in any precise way, unless you define intelligence as the ability to do IQ tests.
If you demonstrate that different races perform differently in IQ tests, you haven't proven anything about race and intelligence. You have only proven something about race an IQ tests.
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Informative)
Read the TFA. People aren't getting upset about skin color: Quote: "In the book, Wade suggests that such genetic differences may help explain why some people live in tribal societies and some in advanced civilizations, why African-Americans are allegedly more violent than whites, and why the Chinese may be good at business."
Re: (Score:3)
Hahaha holy hell if he said something about Jews and money he would have got a BINGO!
Would any of the people crying "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE WILD!" like to defend any such arguments?
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
How is that controversial? All you need to do is look at average testosterone levels to begin to see why different races have different percentages in the ranges of cultural expression, and health, etc.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0039128X92900325 [sciencedirect.com]
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
So your argument is "It offends me, so it's wrong"?
That's how things work here on Slashdot. Facts be damned, it's all about gut feelings.
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Have you actually kept statistics to back that assertion, or is it just a gut feeling ?-)
Re: (Score:3)
ABSTRACT
In this paper we we compare the number of legs on humans (homo sapiens) and cats (felis catus). We rely heavily on previous work done on employment classifications and average height done in 1998[1] and 2005[2]. None of the previous work in either employment or height recorded leg quantity, so it was not possible to draw any conclusions. In this study, we generated a matrix associating leg quantity, employment, and average height, and we used an ad hoc method devised by the authors to describe ca
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed, it's not as though cultures of European stock have been uniformly ahead of the curve. There's just so much that can randomly happen, for example a strong case could be made that if the social changes wrought by the black death hadn't taken place, Europe might still be languishing at a near medieval level of technology. Or say the Minoans, they had indoor plumbing, air and light control, aqueducts and sophisticated codes of law what, four thousand years ago, then their island exploded.
Is he seriously taking a snapshot of modern US culture and trying to explain it mostly by genetics?
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
As you say, the European lead in politics and technology could have happened "randomly". There are other strategies to explain it, like Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs and Steel". And then there's this evolutionary story. Any one of these could be true, or a combination, or some other story that we just haven't worked out yet. Along the way, science proposes - and then eventually (hopefully) rejects - false theories. Some of the ideas about population genetics that are in circulation now will be consigned to the dustbin. It's the same story in chemistry, neurology, etc. Science is full of false theories that teach us something valuable when we find enough evidence to reject them.
But something very different is happening here. There is a lot of scorn and finger-wagging for simply proposing that an evolutionary story might have produced geographically inhomogeneous distributions of human character traits. This is not how real scientists react to the proposal of a false theory. You don't submit an angry mass NYT condemnation of the physicist that proposes the variability of the speed of light, or the doctor who proposes a novel and improbable metabolic pathway of leukemia cells. The book is available. If scientists think some of its claims are shown to be false by evidence we already have, they should say which those claims are, and reference the invalidating evidence.
Yes you do. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes it is because that "false theory" is being published as a book AND because it claims to cite those scientists.
Thus it is implying that those scientists support that "false theory".
And since the "false theory" is racist, it is implying that those scientists who are implied as supporting that "false theory" are also racist.
So a public condemnation of the "false theory" and the author and the work is entirely reasonable.
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone knows that evolution is limited to effects from the neck down.
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone knows that evolution is limited to effects from the neck down.
You're being a prat and trying to see conspiracies about ignoring genetics where none exists. In the real world, the state of knowledge of genetics and cultures is far far too poor to attribute nebulous concepts to genetics.
There is no gene which makes you "good at business". This is not the XMen world where you have a mutant gene which gives you some superpower. The real world is far more complex and far messier.
The geneticsts know this. Now you do.
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is no gene which makes you "good at business".
And how do you know that? Studies of identical twins separated at birth and raised apart have found remarkable things: I remember an account of one case where as adults, both men had (among other similarities) chosen identical belt buckles, smoked the same brand of cigarettes, and held the packs in rolled up sleeves of their T-shirts in the same way. Of course, nobody says that proves there's a "belt-buckle choice gene," but it seems to indicate that genes can influence behavior in complex ways we do not understand. The idea that some genetic patterns might make you (on average) better at business is not outlandish at all.
The Plural of Anecdote is Not Anecdata (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm willing to bet that the light skin adaption was acquired from Neanderthals, not evolved by Homo Sapian. We know that the first humans remains found in Europe were dark skinned. All the human groups that encountered Neaderthals and the Denisovans have light skin (Europeans, Russians, Northern Asian). The gene that causes white skin is highly dominant, even with only 5% neanderthal DNA we still carry it.
Re: (Score:3)
How about you provide some cites instead of a bland assertion? I can find absolutely no references to Neanderthal skin color and haven't heard of such. I would be truly interested.
Perhaps you could also come up with an explanation for North American skin color, Asian skin color and others.
Re: (Score:2)
The gene that causes white skin is highly dominant, even with only 5% neanderthal DNA we still carry it.
Would you reference that? As far as I know, this assertion is false because there several genes involved and dominancy is partial at best [thenakedscientists.com].
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Political Correctness has no place in discussions that are scientific in nature.
Skewing other people's research to fit your agenda is not scientific.
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Political Correctness has no place in discussions that are scientific in nature.
Skewing other people's research to fit your agenda is not scientific.
Neither is skewing your own research to fit your agenda. PC has no place in science.
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not seeing any evidence that the researches here are skewing anything.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
And all of this would go away if we mentioned that "ability" doesn't mean "rights". The ability to do something does not (or at least, should not) imbue more or less "rights". The problem, with typical PC thinking, is that modern liberalism equates equal outcome with equal rights. Outcomes are both ability (talent, skill) and effort (practice, dedication), but rights are self evident, and do not rely upon either.
I don't have a problem with people having different abilities/skills based on inherited traits.
Re: Are You Kidding? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an extremely sensitive topic, for obvious historical reasons. Despite the mountains of hard scientific evidence to the contrary, the political dogma, at least where I live, is that we are all born as blank slates and any measurable difference between individuals is due to environment. We would all be as good as Tiger Woods at golf if we lived his life. This includes differences between the sexes, and isn't hyperbole or an exaggeration.
It's a nice thought, and if it were true governments could mold the behavior of its citizens to be exactly what they wanted.
It's easy to accept physical differences, like skin tone, height, and facial features are genetically determined, but to suggest that there might also be differences across individuals and races in the brain, and therefore behavior, is so politically incorrect most scientists will not touch it with a ten foot pole. I'm not suggesting that any particular race is "better" than any other, but I don't see how you can claim that there are no genetic differences between races that effect behavior if you accept the current model of evolution. I mean, why wouldn't there be? How do you justify that claim?
Re: (Score:2)
So which differences in skin tone, height, and facial features uniquely define the races? If you start with the assumption that race is a physical, heritable trait this work might make sense. But if you want to be take seriously you first have to establish that claim, and thus far no one has done so (nor is anyone honestly trying, as definitions of race are not stable across cultures or time, which almost certainly means they aren't physical in the first place).
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:4, Insightful)
So which differences in skin tone, height, and facial features uniquely define the races
Who says it has to be distinct, unique enough perfect compartmentalization enough to put people entirely, precisely in one box of the next?
But are you REALLY pretending that you can't immediately spot some people as being obviously of Mongolian, or Russian, or Ethiopian extraction? I can spot people of Scandinavian heritage a mile away, and can readily see the differences between people carrying DNA from the Andes vs. DNA from the jungles of Central America. Why are you trying so hard to pretend those differences are plainly obvious? What do you gain, other than street cred with the willfully obtuse politically correct set?
Re: (Score:3)
True, but you can't tell that the person you've spotted as Mongolian isn't carrying Scandinavian genes, or which ones, or how many (leaving aside what a "Scandinavian" gene is"), making the visual determination you have made essentially useless.
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are you trying so hard to pretend those differences are plainly obvious?
Sure, you can see a lot of people who clearly come from some place... but you can also see a lot more people who don't clearly fall into any bucket, especially in the US where everyone is so mixed up. You might see a redhead with curly hair and freckles, and that person may have a bunch of African ancestry despite those traits being so traditionally "Irish". Even if you were right about that person being "Irish" - so what? Irish people didn't always look like that - there has been quite a bit of genetic exchange over the millennia, and it is doubtful that your idea of what an Irish person looks like would be true when Christians were being fed to lions. So now your idea of "race" is frozen at some point in time. Scientifically, it is OK to say that race is meaningless as a classification system while still accepting that traits are heritable.
Re: (Score:3)
Why are you trying so hard to pretend those differences are plainly obvious?
Especially in the US where everyone is so mixed up.
One of the neat things genetics shows is that everyone is mixed up, whether it is visually noticeable to you or not.
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Funny)
Design, but looking at a dachshund, I wouldn't use the term "intelligent".
Re: (Score:3)
The dachshund (my family used to gave one) was bred for digging. Specifically, for rooting out badgers.
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an extremely sensitive topic, for obvious historical reasons. Despite the mountains of hard scientific evidence to the contrary, the political dogma, at least where I live, is that we are all born as blank slates and any measurable difference between individuals is due to environment. We would all be as good as Tiger Woods at golf if we lived his life. This includes differences between the sexes, and isn't hyperbole or an exaggeration.
It's a nice thought, and if it were true governments could mold the behavior of its citizens to be exactly what they wanted.
It's easy to accept physical differences, like skin tone, height, and facial features are genetically determined, but to suggest that there might also be differences across individuals and races in the brain, and therefore behavior, is so politically incorrect most scientists will not touch it with a ten foot pole. I'm not suggesting that any particular race is "better" than any other, but I don't see how you can claim that there are no genetic differences between races that effect behavior if you accept the current model of evolution. I mean, why wouldn't there be? How do you justify that claim?
If you read the scientific consensus in the beginning of the 20th century, they had the exact same view as you are saying. They had journals which listed what characteristics what races and sub-races had, and had intricate rankings of races - with uber-mechen and under-mechen. It is the basis of eugenics and was the root of the philosophy of Nazi justifying killing of the inferior races.
Their failing was that they considered every little difference in societies to be genetic.
Perhaps you could be or could not be Tiger Woods but so far, there hasn't been an obvious genetic test to determine that. However, there is no getting around the fact that Tiger Woods is a successful professional golfer because his dad is a golf instructor and he had training when he was young as well as access to professional network that his dad had established to be successful.
The counterexample to that comes from Gladwell's example of the Canadian hockey team and the birthday phenomenon. There are almost no professional hockey players born at the end of the year. Most of them are born in the beginning of the year. The reason is that coaching is done by age and the kids who are born later in the year have 6-12 month disadvantage over kids born earlier in the year. So, in this case, access to training and coaching was more vital than the genetic component. If genetic was important, then there would be a more even distribution of birthdays.
Re: (Score:3)
Now on the point in question it seems to me that if genetic traits such as skin pigmentation, height and so on are selected for or against in various different Human populations, that the most important organ
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
The base assumption that everyone could be Tiger Woods if only their dads were golf instructors is such a load of twaddle.
And yet it explains the phenomena of Drew Barrymore, Tori Spelling, Miley Cyrus, Emelio Estevez, Charlie Sheen, and a host of other "famous" actors whose names you know only because their parents were famous actors or producers. I would have included Jamie Lee Curtis in that list, but her performance in A Fish Called Wanda was pretty good so maybe she has some innate skill.
In today's world where we're not restricted by geographical boundaries and genes are free-flowing around the world,
That's a very privileged and first-worldish view of the planet. Most of the planet still has huge restrictions on the free-flow of genes, and much of it is based on the economics of travel.
Re: (Score:3)
The early eugenics supporters also had clear biases, such as attributing positive values to their own racial features and negative values to racial features of others. Even within social groups such ideas held; murderers were said to have certain physical characteristics such as heavy brows, lower classes had a degraded breeding stock, and so forth.
Real genetic differences versus Racism (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is, people are suggesting there are differences across races but then cannot really show compelling, conclusive scientific evidence to support their claim.
For instance, scientific research (something that is not widely reported in public venues for obvious reasons of political sensitivity) clearly shows a huge IQ gap between blacks and whites, consisting of 10-20 points and persisting across the Americas, Europe, and Africa.
Some have argued that this gap is genetic (and we certainly cannot rule it out); however, there is no conclusive evidence to support their claim that the IQ gap is genetic.
Similar IQ gaps (such as between whites and Native Americans) have disappeared over time in the past, so anyone should be very skeptical of a claim that blacks have a lower IQ because it is a genetic population trait and not an environmental trait.
Like with the IQ gap, many people (most of them not actual research scientists like this author) are making these nature over nurture arguments on a wide variety of topics without sufficient research to back them up but rather to fit into their own world-view about cultures and population groups being genetically inferior or superior, an antediluvian throwback to the pseudoscience of anthropology at the turn of the 19th century.
That is a misuse of science and the actual researchers are right to call-out the author on his misinterpretation of their work.
Re: (Score:3)
Of course, given his lack of any form of deductive reasoning past step 1, I'm going to conclude that he simply isn't as smart as he thinks he is.
Re: (Score:2)
Because the suggestion that race is something that exists at the biological level is a falsehood. Every genetic trait you can think of exists in more than one population group. From your perspective, it might be easy to note that Norther Europeans are more closely related, on average, to Zulu tribesmen than Australian Aborigines are. There is no genetic trait or group of traits you can check for and use to make a determination of race.
Re: (Score:2)
Because the suggestion that race is something that exists at the biological level is a falsehood.
So it is just one hell of a co-incidence then that white parents generally have white children and black parents generally have black children ? I'm learning all the time.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah. White _parent_. Mama's baby, daddy's maybe.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Are You Kidding? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, come on. Political Correctness has no place in discussions that are scientific in nature.
On the other hand, science does, and this book is not science, but opinion, if you want to be polite about it. Racist opinion, to be precise, which have been around in some guise or other since who knows when? This kind of racism-disguised-as-science was common throughout 18th and 19th centuries and generally went along the lines of 'Us White (North-) Europeans Are Better Than The Rest' and was used to justify why we had a moral duty to go out and 'civilize' the inferior races.
Science is not made by taking a hand-picked assortment of data, twist it a few times and going 'Look, I can make the data match my opinon' - for anything to be science, you must have a hypothesis, which suggests a logically coherent explanation of all observed facts, makes testable predictions - and which survives experimental testing. It takes only 1 failed prediction to kill a theory.
Northern Europeans clearly evolved to have fair skin and hair, and they evolved from ancestors who did not have fair skin and hair.
Correct me if I am wrong, but that is hardly the main point of this book, is it? To quote from the article:
In the book, Wade suggests that such genetic differences may help explain why some people live in tribal societies and some in advanced civilizations, why African-Americans are allegedly more violent than whites, and why the Chinese may be good at business.
So, black people are violent (meaning 'primitive'?), Chinese are cunning ('good at business') and The White Man is the epitome of civilisation? And this is not racism - how? This is just a worthless rehash of junk from the days of the colonialism.
Re: (Score:3)
This kind of racism-disguised-as-science was common throughout 18th and 19th centuries
Scientific discussion of racial differences is not the same as racism. It's amazing how afraid some people are of frank discussion about race. They want to shut it down as soon as it begins, typically by denying the question ("there's no such thing as race!!") or personal attacks like you're doing ("you're racist for even suggesting that!!!").
for anything to be science, you must have a hypothesis, which suggests a logically coherent explanation of all observed facts, makes testable predictions
You typically start with data gathering and classification before hypotheses are even formed. But that step of the process is still "science." So no.
So, black people are violent (meaning 'primitive'?), Chinese are cunning ('good at business') and The White Man is the epitome of civilisation? And this is not racism - how? This is just a worthless rehash of junk from the days of the colonialism.
So, you're making
Re: (Score:3)
Scientific discussion of racial differences is not the same as racism. It's amazing how afraid some people are of frank discussion about race. They want to shut it down as soon as it begins, typically by denying the question ("there's no such thing as race!!") or personal attacks like you're doing ("you're racist for even suggesting that!!!").
And writing a book to be published to the masses on your "scientific" theory rather than submitting it for peer review and publishing it via the normal process isn't a scientific discussion. To me, that raises a red flag as big as all of the "cold fusion" and other physics discoveries that call press conferences rather than publishing papers and letting other scientists analyze their results before the press sees it.
Re: (Score:2)
Which has essentially nothing to do with the way most people -- scientist and layman alike -- define and delineate race. Which is the objection the scientists are raising.
Re: (Score:3)
You might want to take some time to actually read the criticisms. Jerry Coyne has a good write-up [wordpress.com] on his blog that delves deeper. You see, the researchers aren't saying the conclusions in the book are wrong they are saying, as the originators of said research, you cannot draw these conclusions from their work.
But please, don't let the nuanced comments of 140 published researchers dissuade you from shrieking "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS" like a poop-flinging howler monkey.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh, come on. Political Correctness has no place in discussions that are scientific in nature.
Northern Europeans clearly evolved to have fair skin and hair, and they evolved from ancestors who did not have fair skin and hair.
How the *BLEEP* is this racist?
In order for a Northern European to evolve fair skin and hair, there has to be something that will kill a human of dark skin and hair. Since people with dark skin can survive in Northern Europe, it is not through evolution.
It is through something called genetic drift. When a small breakway population goes to a new geographic location that is isolated from the previous location, there is limited genetic depth because of the small number of the population. However, because of abundant resources, the small p
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I think you may have confused "evolution" with "natural selection". Genetic drift [wikipedia.org] and natural selection [wikipedia.org] are both mechanisms, among others, of evolution [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Or alternatively - not having reviewed all the claims in question (just like you) - it could be another case of scientific racism [wikipedia.org]
And if we do ever scientifically prove that people of some etnicity are on-average superior or inferior in some way, the ethically correct thing to do with that information would be basically to ignore it in our everyday lives, to leave it as an academic issue.
So bad news for any racists out there, science will never legitimize your hatred.
Re: (Score:3)
Wrong. You should hire based on reaction times alone. If that results in only blue-eyed people being hired, that would obviously create some problems but a hiring practice that overtly discriminates by eye color would not be one of them.
Also, unless all blue-eyed people were proven to have faster reactions than all brown-eyed people, it would likely not result in the fastest-reacting set of employees.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, no. The point is that the people objecting to the book in this case are scientists who say that their research is being misrepresented by this fuckwit.
Re:Politically Correct Science (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who did the actual research are saying that it's NOT correct.
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong. The Author says he thing they haven't read it, when in fact it's pretty damn clear they would have HAD to of read it to make the statements they make.
The Scientist making t make SPECIFIC points the author does not address and simple states
Re: (Score:3)
You might want to re-read the quotations from the article: “Our findings do not even provide a hint of support in favor of Wade’s guesswork.”
That is not the same as saying "I didn't publish those conclusions" -- it's a rebuttal that the conclusions he makes are supported by the evidence he provides, from one of the foremost authorities on that evidence. You can claim that the original authors are lying if you want, but they aren't making the sort of wishy-washy statements you describe.
Re:Politically Correct Science (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they're saying that you can't just take their research and make claims that it doesn't substantiate and then appeal to their authority to support your claims.
To give a computer science analogy (I'm out of stock of car analogies), imagine that you worked on Hadoop and you'd made sorting large data sets go 50% faster. Then someone publishes a book arguing that P=NP and uses your result (which doesn't even do comparison-based sorting) as the basis for their claim. You'd be in pretty much the same position as the researchers in TFA. Would you say that the author is an idiot, or would you keep quiet?
Re: (Score:2)
I can't tell from your post what agenda you think these PC-police have, or what science you think they are suppressing. Could you make an actual refutable claim rather than merely implying that your unexpressed viewpoint is supported by science?
Re: (Score:2)
The great thing about science is it's still correct even if you don't want to believe it.
Well, I wouldn't be too surprised if there is some yet to be discovered law in quantum mechanics that disproves exactly this.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like scientists complaining that they're research has been misused.
Re: (Score:2)
As soon as you come up with a heritable definition for race you can start on your analysis of heritable differences in relation to race. But historically we can't even come up with racial definitions that are stable across cultures and over a few generations, let alone that are heritable on the scale of evolution, which makes the whole discussion nothing more than handwaving.
Re: (Score:2)