Jan 1, 2023·edited Jan 1, 2023Liked by Bentham's Bulldog
We’ve almost been trained to assume that when someone makes statements like, “black people genetically have lower IQs on average” or “black people have more Neanderthal DNA than white people” that it’s synonymous with “black people are inferior to white people.” And generally speaking, that is the case. People make these innocuous scientific claims to justify all kinds of bigotry.
It can be hard to remember that the conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow from the previous statements.
I mostly agree with what you're saying, but I don't think normally people would say it's theoretically racist to say black people have lower IQs. Rather, it just is the case that most people who say that have a racist agenda - particularly when they claim those differences are based in genetics. Leftists who say there is an IQ gap generally attribute that to cultural, economic, and historical conditions. And they don't equate IQ with intelligence. This is rarely met with accusations of racism.
I think you have to consider the impacts of your statement. Saying you don't like Trans people reinforces the violent and often deadly prejudice Trans people face in our society. In the example above, it is straightforward to say "I like people who oppose Trump more than those who support him." It says something true about the actual person, rather than trafficking in stereotypes. (I wouldn't want to be stereotyped based on traits over which I have no control.)
Yes, it would of course depend on the context. Many of these statements, despite not by themselves necessarily demonstrating prejudice, would be, in most ordinary settings, solid evidence of racism.
I think it's funny how, in a post about how unreliable our intuitions are, you try to use an intuition pump in which smart black people are abducted by aliens...
You don't have to go to such far out scenarios. You could just say, "What if scientists had accidentally studied a non-representative sample of black people?"
Abstracting the concept of racism seems to end up in a cul-de-sac. Don't most people intuit that racism also involves fuzzy notions, such as inherent material or moral inferiority/superiority?
Also, the thing that makes me question the utility of the IQ data is that most people do not intuitively grasp the significance of a bell curve. This does seem to make it somewhat 'racist' to keep arguing that there is evidence of mean or average racial IQ differences because so many white people (like me) don't understand that the same analysis shows that there are countless black people who are vastly more intelligent than they are.
Yes, it's annoying that the morality of racism clouds the epistemic landscape.
Why should anyone on the left grant that it's "unobjectionable" to say one likes Republicans more than Democrats? I certainly wouldn't wanna be friends with someone who says that, because you have to be a tremendously shitty person to prefer the average Trump or de Santis supporter over the average Warren or Biden supporter.
I also think you are kind of creating a strawman in the race and IQ debate. While there are certainly some crazy twitter lefties who think it's racist to say that black people, on average, have a lower IQ, this is a very small minority* - the dominant progressive narrative is that A) black people have been systematically oppressed and that B) the fact that A happened has lead to black people having a lower IQ, on average. Admitting B) is not commonly seen as racist by those progressives. What is seen as racist, however, is if you claim C) that B cannot be explained by A, but is probably rooted in genetic factors. There is currently very little scientific evidence that C is in fact true and there is loads of evidence that A is the better explanation. What is racist, according to the progressive narrative, is to say negative things about black people *that is not backed by the science* - I don't think anything you wrote challenged that progressive narrative, because C is simply not backed by the available science at all.
* If you listen to people like Vaush debate racists, you will see that they immediately grant that black people have a lower IQ on average. Just like they grant that black people, for historical reasons, commit more crimes
sounds like you get your idea of 'dominant progressive narrative' from people like vaush.
Progressives reject the IQ gap for lots of reasons. For one, IQ isn't a good measure of intelligence. IQ variation also varies more intra-group than inter-group. Which is what you would expect, as race isn't a scientific category. There is as much genetic variation intra-race as there is inter-race. And 'black' groups in some areas score better than 'whites.' To say 'blacks have lower IQ than whites' can be easily rejected merely on the fact that it doesn't mean anything - a person can have 20% 'black' ancestry and be considered black, just like someone who has 20% 'white' ancestry can be considered black. This isn't what 'crazy twitter lefties' think, this is the scientific consensus.
Vaush thinks the periodic table is arbitrary and thinks h2o and water are different things. It's not a good idea to learn science from people like him. Or history, philosophy, politics, etc.
You have no idea of the real world if you think the majority of left-leaning people doubt that it's true that black people have a lower average IQ than whites. Also, that statement can still be true even if you reject IQ as a good measurement of intelligence, just like it can be true that it has 80 degrees of Fahrenheit even though Celsius is clearly the vastly superior measurement of temperature.
"Vaush thinks the periodic table is arbitrary and thinks h2o and water are different things. It's not a good idea to learn science from people like him. Or history, philosophy, politics, etc."
This is just a worthless distraction from the point at hand. Vaush wasn't given as an example because he is good, but because he is representative of the online left due to his popularity.
I didn't say that makes the statement untrue. I said that's why leftists reject IQ-gap arguments, as people use them to represent intelligence. It's pretty obvious I wasn't saying something like 'IQ tests are poor measure of intelligence therefore IQ tests don't exist.'
'You have no idea of the real world' is not evidence, do you have some polling data you would like to cite? Science is pretty 'real' to me, and what I said is the scientific consensus, and has been for decades, which you could find very easily with a quick search.
Having a popular channel does not make him representative of the left. His audience is a tiny minority of the leftist population. It's not a worthless distraction, what's worthless is using vaush to represent dominant progressive thinking. Most of the progressives I know in 'the real world' have never heard of vaush.
Some leftists say talk about the iq-gap is racist because those conversations are used to imply black people are less intelligent. This directly contradicts what you're saying in your second paragraph of your original post.
"And even fewer people have read any actual science on race and IQ. You are making zero sense."
Huh? I said vaush wasn't representative of progressives. I also said what the scientific consensus was. You must be having another conversation with me in your head because your replies make no sense.
"You are deluded if you think there is a scientific consensus that intelligence isn't a pretty good measurement of intelligence."
Just like above you seem to be conflating multiple claims at once.
I said some leftists reject iq-gap conversations because IQ isn't a good measure of intelligence. Whether not it is a good measure is debated.
What very much is uncontroversial, however, is that races are not genetically defined. That is the overwhelming scientific consensus and has been for decades.
Wow, so you are a lost cause then. I literally wrote MYSELF that there are some leftists who say this. I am absolutely baffled by this conversation and I officially give up on talking to you, because you are either unable or unwilling to grasp even basic points.
As I said above, 'race' isn't a scientific category. So, it's implausible to say the IQ gap is due to genetic differences when the groups you're comparing have no genetic definition. It's not much different from taking a random group of people and naming them 'Freds' and another group of people and naming them 'Johns' and then trying to explain differences between the groups with genetics.
I mean that's just a bad argument - it would be stupid to do that, but IF you did such an experiment, then the statement "The difference between Freds and Johns is partly due to genetics" could of course be proven true.
I can't tell if you think it's a bad argument because 'it would be stupid to do that' or for some other reason, if it's the former that's a bizarre objection. In any case, it's statistically implausible if the groups are large enough, as the groups are arbitrary. You would expect genetic variation to be the same inter and intra-group. Which is exactly what you find with 'black' and 'white' groups. Those terms simply have no genetic referent. A person with 20% 'black' ancestry can be considered black just like someone with 80% 'black' ancestry.
We’ve almost been trained to assume that when someone makes statements like, “black people genetically have lower IQs on average” or “black people have more Neanderthal DNA than white people” that it’s synonymous with “black people are inferior to white people.” And generally speaking, that is the case. People make these innocuous scientific claims to justify all kinds of bigotry.
It can be hard to remember that the conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow from the previous statements.
I mostly agree with what you're saying, but I don't think normally people would say it's theoretically racist to say black people have lower IQs. Rather, it just is the case that most people who say that have a racist agenda - particularly when they claim those differences are based in genetics. Leftists who say there is an IQ gap generally attribute that to cultural, economic, and historical conditions. And they don't equate IQ with intelligence. This is rarely met with accusations of racism.
Also, this doesn't change your argument, but this is a good post about the relevant science for anyone who is interested: http://ewanbirney.com/2019/10/race-genetics-and-pseudoscience-an-explainer.html
I think you have to consider the impacts of your statement. Saying you don't like Trans people reinforces the violent and often deadly prejudice Trans people face in our society. In the example above, it is straightforward to say "I like people who oppose Trump more than those who support him." It says something true about the actual person, rather than trafficking in stereotypes. (I wouldn't want to be stereotyped based on traits over which I have no control.)
Yes, it would of course depend on the context. Many of these statements, despite not by themselves necessarily demonstrating prejudice, would be, in most ordinary settings, solid evidence of racism.
I think it's funny how, in a post about how unreliable our intuitions are, you try to use an intuition pump in which smart black people are abducted by aliens...
You don't have to go to such far out scenarios. You could just say, "What if scientists had accidentally studied a non-representative sample of black people?"
Abstracting the concept of racism seems to end up in a cul-de-sac. Don't most people intuit that racism also involves fuzzy notions, such as inherent material or moral inferiority/superiority?
Also, the thing that makes me question the utility of the IQ data is that most people do not intuitively grasp the significance of a bell curve. This does seem to make it somewhat 'racist' to keep arguing that there is evidence of mean or average racial IQ differences because so many white people (like me) don't understand that the same analysis shows that there are countless black people who are vastly more intelligent than they are.
Yes, it's annoying that the morality of racism clouds the epistemic landscape.
Why should anyone on the left grant that it's "unobjectionable" to say one likes Republicans more than Democrats? I certainly wouldn't wanna be friends with someone who says that, because you have to be a tremendously shitty person to prefer the average Trump or de Santis supporter over the average Warren or Biden supporter.
I also think you are kind of creating a strawman in the race and IQ debate. While there are certainly some crazy twitter lefties who think it's racist to say that black people, on average, have a lower IQ, this is a very small minority* - the dominant progressive narrative is that A) black people have been systematically oppressed and that B) the fact that A happened has lead to black people having a lower IQ, on average. Admitting B) is not commonly seen as racist by those progressives. What is seen as racist, however, is if you claim C) that B cannot be explained by A, but is probably rooted in genetic factors. There is currently very little scientific evidence that C is in fact true and there is loads of evidence that A is the better explanation. What is racist, according to the progressive narrative, is to say negative things about black people *that is not backed by the science* - I don't think anything you wrote challenged that progressive narrative, because C is simply not backed by the available science at all.
* If you listen to people like Vaush debate racists, you will see that they immediately grant that black people have a lower IQ on average. Just like they grant that black people, for historical reasons, commit more crimes
sounds like you get your idea of 'dominant progressive narrative' from people like vaush.
Progressives reject the IQ gap for lots of reasons. For one, IQ isn't a good measure of intelligence. IQ variation also varies more intra-group than inter-group. Which is what you would expect, as race isn't a scientific category. There is as much genetic variation intra-race as there is inter-race. And 'black' groups in some areas score better than 'whites.' To say 'blacks have lower IQ than whites' can be easily rejected merely on the fact that it doesn't mean anything - a person can have 20% 'black' ancestry and be considered black, just like someone who has 20% 'white' ancestry can be considered black. This isn't what 'crazy twitter lefties' think, this is the scientific consensus.
Vaush thinks the periodic table is arbitrary and thinks h2o and water are different things. It's not a good idea to learn science from people like him. Or history, philosophy, politics, etc.
You have no idea of the real world if you think the majority of left-leaning people doubt that it's true that black people have a lower average IQ than whites. Also, that statement can still be true even if you reject IQ as a good measurement of intelligence, just like it can be true that it has 80 degrees of Fahrenheit even though Celsius is clearly the vastly superior measurement of temperature.
"Vaush thinks the periodic table is arbitrary and thinks h2o and water are different things. It's not a good idea to learn science from people like him. Or history, philosophy, politics, etc."
This is just a worthless distraction from the point at hand. Vaush wasn't given as an example because he is good, but because he is representative of the online left due to his popularity.
I didn't say that makes the statement untrue. I said that's why leftists reject IQ-gap arguments, as people use them to represent intelligence. It's pretty obvious I wasn't saying something like 'IQ tests are poor measure of intelligence therefore IQ tests don't exist.'
'You have no idea of the real world' is not evidence, do you have some polling data you would like to cite? Science is pretty 'real' to me, and what I said is the scientific consensus, and has been for decades, which you could find very easily with a quick search.
Having a popular channel does not make him representative of the left. His audience is a tiny minority of the leftist population. It's not a worthless distraction, what's worthless is using vaush to represent dominant progressive thinking. Most of the progressives I know in 'the real world' have never heard of vaush.
"I said that's why leftists reject IQ-gap arguments"
Which was never the point at issue. The question was whether most progressives accept that black people have a lower IQ on average.
"Most of the progressives I know in 'the real world' have never heard of vaush."
And even fewer people have read any actual science on race and IQ. You are making zero sense.
"Science is pretty 'real' to me, and what I said is the scientific consensus"
This is just wrong. You are deluded if you think there is a scientific consensus that intelligence isn't a pretty good measurement of intelligence.
Let me spell this out for you really simply.
Some leftists say talk about the iq-gap is racist because those conversations are used to imply black people are less intelligent. This directly contradicts what you're saying in your second paragraph of your original post.
"And even fewer people have read any actual science on race and IQ. You are making zero sense."
Huh? I said vaush wasn't representative of progressives. I also said what the scientific consensus was. You must be having another conversation with me in your head because your replies make no sense.
"You are deluded if you think there is a scientific consensus that intelligence isn't a pretty good measurement of intelligence."
Just like above you seem to be conflating multiple claims at once.
I said some leftists reject iq-gap conversations because IQ isn't a good measure of intelligence. Whether not it is a good measure is debated.
What very much is uncontroversial, however, is that races are not genetically defined. That is the overwhelming scientific consensus and has been for decades.
"Some leftists say"... "this directly contradicts"
Wow, so you are a lost cause then. I literally wrote MYSELF that there are some leftists who say this. I am absolutely baffled by this conversation and I officially give up on talking to you, because you are either unable or unwilling to grasp even basic points.
it's certainly unscientific
As I said above, 'race' isn't a scientific category. So, it's implausible to say the IQ gap is due to genetic differences when the groups you're comparing have no genetic definition. It's not much different from taking a random group of people and naming them 'Freds' and another group of people and naming them 'Johns' and then trying to explain differences between the groups with genetics.
I mean that's just a bad argument - it would be stupid to do that, but IF you did such an experiment, then the statement "The difference between Freds and Johns is partly due to genetics" could of course be proven true.
I can't tell if you think it's a bad argument because 'it would be stupid to do that' or for some other reason, if it's the former that's a bizarre objection. In any case, it's statistically implausible if the groups are large enough, as the groups are arbitrary. You would expect genetic variation to be the same inter and intra-group. Which is exactly what you find with 'black' and 'white' groups. Those terms simply have no genetic referent. A person with 20% 'black' ancestry can be considered black just like someone with 80% 'black' ancestry.
Thanks!