Keith, just one more last word, if that's OK. I
found the following in a book I quoted previously, Bjorklund and Pellegrini,
"The Origins of Human Nature", published by the American Psychological
Association in 2002:
results of the transracial adoption study of Scarr and
Weinberg (1976; Weinberg, Scarr, & Waldman, 1992). Black children born
primarily of parents from lower-income homes were adopted by White, primarily
upper-middle-class parents. The average IQ of the adopted children who were
placed in middle-income homes as infants was found to be 110, 20 points higher
than the average IQ of comparable children being reared in the local Black
community and similar to the estimated IQs of their adopted parents. This
effect is consistent with the position that genes associated with IQ are
expressed differently in different environments, yielding substantially
different phenotypes. (p.81)
The authors then go on to argue that both genetic
and environmental factors are important in determining IQ. To me this
suggests that taking the peasants out of the potato patch or the slaves out of
the cotton field and sending them to school has a large effect for human
betterment.
Ever so much depends on what people do with their
IQs, or perhaps more accurately, how important IQ is to determining what an
individual mind is capable of. I recall reading that an American woman
with a phenomenal IQ, over 200, has a job answering mail for a fashion magazing,
that an American man who recorded another very high IQ has become a
middle-aged bouncer, and that yet another became a biker. On the other
hand, a brilliant physicist, Richard Feyman I believe (?), did no better than a
little over 120 when he was growing up. This suggests that there is far
more to the mind than intelligence, whatever that is.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 28, 2003 6:43
AM
Subject: Re: Thoughts on IQ scores (was
Re: [Futurework] Talmud vs. Science (or Censorship thereof)
Ed,
Ah! I must have the last word
(unless you think otherwise):
At 06:28 28/11/2003 -0500, you
wrote:
Great
stuff and a good debate, Keith, but I don't think we can come together on
this. As good Talmudic scholars or whatever, we should now go our
separate ways. As I'm sure you've gathered, my own view is that
manifest intelligence depends very much on what people have to do, how many
of them there are, and what they have to work with. I keep thinking of
the poor Tasmanians Jared Diamond describes in "Guns, Germs and Steel", cut
off completely from any cultural diffusion, down to some 4,000 people at the
time of European contact and having lost pretty well all of the skills they
had when they were cut off from the Australian mainland some 10,000 years
ago. I doubt very much that they would have done well on the Stanford
Binet. They were easily wiped out by Europeans, mostly convicts from
Britain. You're quite right. The aboriginal Tasmanians
wouldn't have done well on a Stanford Binet IQ test. *But* they probably would
have done quite well -- perhaps very well -- on a perception-reaction time
test. This is known to be highly correlated with IQ scores on standard IQ
tests -- that is, in those cultures where the people are able to read,
understand basic numbers, etc. I venture to think that the Tasmanians
might have done quite well on a culture-free test (using pictures only). In my
book, this means that their rear cortices would be quite well stocked and
networked as regards perception-based skills based on the environment around
them. *But*, because of the primitive level of skills/culture handed down to
them there would be little or no cultural 'set', nothing to carry forward,
into their post-puberty world as their frontal lobes developed and in which
they would establish outward signs of rank order (embellishing themselves in
various ways as almost all societies do), make new discoveries, etc,
etc.
Keith
Ed
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Keith Hudson
- To: Ed Weick
- Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
- Sent: Friday, November 28, 2003 2:49 AM
- Subject: Re: Thoughts on IQ scores (was Re: [Futurework] Talmud
vs. Science (or Censorship thereof)
- Ed,
- This is becoming as complicated as two Talmudic scholars arguing
against each other -- except that, in older days, the exchanges would be
months apart. With this new device, we have the chance of solving the
world's problems in double-quick time. I'll extract pretty drastically,
whatever the colours, in what follows:
- At 16:51 27/11/2003 -0500, you wrote:
- Keith, what I'm referring to is the
migration of Jews eastward from Western Europe because of persecutions
and expulsions (see: http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636/christians&jews.htm
). These migrations would have begun in, probably, the 12th
Century and would have continued to about the 15th Century. Jews
from Europe would have moved as far east as eastern Poland and the
Ukraine. The Khazars ceased to exist as a distinct people in about
the 11th or 12th Centuries, and one has to wonder what happened to
them. They may have been aware of the movement of Jews into
eastern Europe, and might have tried, perhaps succeeded, in making
contact and merging with them. I have a friend of Jewish ancestry
whose father came from Saratov in the Ukraine. While he doesn't
think he has Khazar connections, he doesn't dismiss the
possiblity. That's where I'll have to leave the matter for the
moment.
- What I was saying (without expert knowledge of all this) is that large
scale migration didn't occur until the 14th century when the King of
Poland, impressed by their mercantile abilities, invited them to Poland in
order to raise the economic tone of the place. Of course, the Khazar
nation might also have been the result of a mass migration from the Middle
East also. Or it could have been a collection point from pockets of Jews
all over the Medierranean area.
- But let me just diverge for a point. There seems to be great
similarities between Jews and Chinese. Firstly in their respect for
scholarship (set within a highly definied Confucian culture) and secondly
in their highly family-based society (itself set in a highly
self-conscious culture). The result, I suggest, is that both cultures
encouraged the migration of individual (or single-family) Chinese and Jews
when their homeland fell on hard times. They had this enterprise because
they were bright -- and they had the psychological strength of knowing
that they were still connected to a highly defined culturfe even though
they may be far distant. Small groups of Jews seem to have migrated all
over Eurasia from about 500BC and onwards. Chinese migration seems to have
occurred a lot later -- from about 1450 when China started descending into
hard times due to the edicts against direct trade from China. In both
cases in modern times, poc`kets of Chinese and Jews seem to be found in
every city and sizeable town in the world -- wherever there's a
possibility of a business. I think this is quite remarkable in the case of
both of these groups.
- (EW) thinking about numbers and other
abstract concepts, others may have to think about getting out to the
potato field or cotton patch as fast as they can if they want to live
another year. The former would probably do very well on standardized
IQ tests while the latter would likely fail.
- Keith: Yes, I sympathise with your point but will the future of
manking depends upon our skills in growing potatoes or at other things?
If it's other things, then IQ scores are probably the best method yet of
selecting people who perform them well.
- I'm afraid I find this a little too close
to social Darwinism for comfort.
- For myself, I abjure these sorts of labels. "Social Darwinism" as
originally conceived is rightly to be dead and buried. Bringing that label
back into modern circumstances -- particularly in the context of a much
more detailed knowledge of genetics is not helpful.
- My own family may be illustrative
of what I'm trying to say. As Central European peasants they were
potato growers generation upon generation all the way down. In
Canada, in its first generation, the family produced doctors, lawyers,
entrepreneurs, teachers and, alas, even economists. We have many
friends from the Caribbean here in Ottawa, all bright and competent
people. Just a few generations ago their ancestors were plantation
slaves.
- I didn't remotely suggest that those who have been potato growers
through force of circumstances did not retain sufficient ability to
flourish in times of more opportunity. However, I would be very doubtful
whether your ancestors were nothing but potato growers generation after
generation. Two or three centuries of this and there would almost
certainly have been selective effects towards physical strength and away
from mental ability.
- (EW) I must say too, that Lynn and
Vanhanan are, in my opinion, highly suspect researchers. In
praising the book, here's what one source says about them:
- IQ and the Wealth of Nations is a
brilliantly-conceived, superbly-written, path-breaking book that does
for the global study of economic prosperity what The Bell
Curve did for the USA. Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen examine IQ
scores and economic indicators in 185 countries. They document
that national differences in wealth are explained most importantly by
the intelligence levels of the populations. They calculate that mean
national IQ correlates powerfully—more than 0.7—with per capita Gross
Domestic Product (GDP). National IQs predict both long-term and short
term economic growth rates. Second in importance is whether the
countries have market or socialist economies. Only third is the
widely-credited factor of natural resources, like oil.
High praise indeed, except that putting anything in the same box as
The Bell Curve immediately raises suspicions.
Once
again, there's a lot of labelling and prejudice going on here (not yours but
mainly the temper of the last 50 years in sociological/philosophical circles.
I wouldn't damn Lynn and Vanhanen on the basis of similarity to Murray's Bell
Curve.
Adding to these, the
praise is extended by one Phillipe Rushton, a Canadian who achieved some
noteriety a few years ago by publishing material similar to that of Lynn and
Vanhalen. One of his findings, if I recall correctly, was an inverse
relationship between IQ and the racially determined length of the
penis. His main finding, however, is that IQ has a very
high correlation with brain size when comparing, say, Africans, Chinese and
Caucasians. Nobody has been able to refute this. It is palpable even though
it's uncomfortable. The degree of antipathy towards people Rushton and Murray
is reminiscent of the hunting of witches in the medieval days. Fortunately,
they have broad backs (selected from other professionals who haven't had the
courage to face the onslaught!) and also they are quietly supported by the
professionals in evolutionary science.
Other
reviewers are not as kind to Lynn and Vanhalen. Thomas Volken
published the following abstract in the European Sociological Review:
- “Recently Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen
have presented evidence that differences in national IQ account for the
substantial variation in national per capita income and growth. This
article challenges these findings and claims that, on the one hand, they
simply reflect inappropriate use and interpretations of statistical
instruments. On the other hand, it is argued that the models presented by
Lynn/Vanhanen are under-complex and inadequately specified. More precisely
the authors confuse IQ with human capital. The paper concludes that once
control variables are introduced and the models are adequately specified,
neither an impact of IQ on income nor on growth can be
substantiated.”
I simply
don't accept the Lynn and Vanhalen thesis. Applying a single
standardized test to a large, economically and culturally diverse, variety
of peoples does not make much sense to me. I have
reservations about the Lynn and Vanhalen thesis, too. Firstly, I think that
most of the figures for most of the smaller countries are based on much too
low numbers tested and there's too much interpolation (of those countries for
which there are no tests). But for the larger groups in which there's been a
great deal of testing (e.g. Caucasians, American-Jews, Chinese, etc) I think
the IQ scores can be relied upon as meaning something (that is, a strong
correlation with ability in life generally). Secondly (as in my long screed of
the other day), I think there's a much greater cultural contribution to IQ
development in the individual (in the post-puberty to 25 year age) and,
correspondingly, a much large contribution of culture in the development of
economies.
I therefore agree with your first sentence below.
Ever so many factors enter into human productivity and development,
especially, as the foregoing points out, the development of human
capital. At the most basic level, however, if people are treated like
dogs and forced to live like dogs, they will behave like dogs. If they
are treated like human beings, they will behave fully
human. I agree in spirit with your latter two
sentences, but let's not confuse these emotional sympathies with what I feel
are very real differences in abilities (physically and mentally) between large
population blocs which have lived in entirely different environments for
thousands of years.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Bath, England,
<www.evolutionary-economics.org>
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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