Gruss Gott wrote: >> Dana wrote: >> about every else here whose family doesn't -- are they stupid? Are you >> really saying there is no such thing as cultural bias in an IQ test? >> > > What I'm saying makes much more sense: > > (1.) "intelligence" is 100% determined by genetics.
This is false. People's IQ scores are not constant throughout their life. Exposure to environmental factors such as education, diet and lead will change how intelligence appears over time. > (2.) We can create taxonomies to describe genetic traits: black > people, curly haired people, Packer's fans. Sure we can. Doesn't mean they are useful. A taxonomy is only as useful as the task you apply it to. Packers fans vs Saints fans does not do anything useful when describing the structure of the Royal Court in England during the time of Victoria. > (3.) It's 100% likely that a certain code of genes gives you certain > mental abilities. We could group them all up and call them > "intelligence" or we could split them up and call them "emotional > intelligence", "language intelligence", etc. > > Therefore, depending on the taxonomies we create, we could create a > probability structure based on a population survey that would give a > probably of an individual having trait X given that they have trait Y. > > Or we could just all admit that an Augustinian priest has done this > 100 years ago with pea plants and be done with it. I think you are confusing genotype and phenotype. A common enough mistake. Mendel was fortunate in his work that the phenotype happens to correspond very simply to the genotype with the trait he was studying. Of course, at the time they didn't even know anything about "genes", so they worked with what they had. Many characteristics, "race" and "intelligence" among them, are not easily defined genetic quantities subject to mendelian genetics. Furthermore, as far as I am aware, there is no genetic evidence linking any of the genes that make up "race" with the genes that make up "intelligence". So you have two poorly defined quantities (at the genetic level) that have no known linkage and you want to try and make a categorical, causal, statement that race can statistically be linked to intelligence and that it is genetic? That is not only unscientific, its really stupid. This is the sort of shit that caused Social Darwinism to become so prevalent. A pseudo-science excuse to clad your prejudices in socially acceptable clothing. Well its not science. > Why is it so damn hard for people to admit that their intelligence is > genetically determined and that it may be tied to other genetic traits > like number of moles or length of fingers. > > For some reason if you imply that it might be skin color, as Dr. > Watson did, people freak out. Seems just a likely as anything else to > me. You really don't seem to have a conception of causation and correlation. You want things to be clearly defined and easily linked. Well, they are not. And on behalf of the world of biology, I apologize that the real story is much more complicated than your beliefs would like. Intelligence has a genetic component, I'd even go so far as to say a basis. And race, in terms of things like commonly interbreeding communities and things like hair type, skin color and bone structure, has genetic components. However, there is no known correlation between the genes for things that might effect intelligence and the things that might effect skin color. I understand that a lot of your argument rests on the assumption that an interbreeding group will establish a basal level of intelligence and that they might be quantifiably different than another interbreeding group. However, intelligence is something that would seem to have reasonably strong selection associated with it. And I cannot think of a good argument that would indicate that intelligence would be more strongly selected for in Africa than in Europe. Most of the evolutionary arguments would indicate the opposite in fact, that selection within the group would be greater than between groups because that is where competition for resources and mates would take place. So why would you assume that there would be a statistical significance between two groups of traits that don't seem to be linked at the genetic level and that have good reason to have greater variance inside a group than between groups? Its really pretty absurd. As a side note, if you do much reading on Dr. Watson you'll find that he's really an insufferable ass. Doesn't mean he's a bad scientist of course. I'm friends with a woman that had Dr. Watson as a grad student in their lab. She confirms that he really is a mouthy prick. Always has been. He's a good scientist, but he has a well known habit for saying really stupid things. This is only the most recent in a long line of fuck ups. Judah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Download the latest ColdFusion 8 utilities including Report Builder, plug-ins for Eclipse and Dreamweaver updates. http;//www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=labs%5adobecf8%5Fbeta Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:245385 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
