[judofyr]

Your first link (Wikipedia) directly contradicts your examples:

> Although IQ differences between individuals have been shown to have a large hereditary component, it does not follow that disparities in IQ between groups have a genetic basis[18][19][20][21]. The scientific consensus is that genetics does not explain average differences in IQ test performance between racial groups.[22][23][24][25][26][27].

[lumb63]

I suspect that this is an instance where “the scientific consensus” is wrong because to suggest contrary to that is wrongthink and enough to have one ostracized not only from science, but also society as a whole. I would love to be wrong, so if someone could explain this to me, I’d be very receptive to an explanation of why this logic is wrong:

First, let’s substitute emotionally charged terms for more neutral terms; e.g. imagine rather than discussing intelligence and race, we are discussing something else highly heritable and some other method of grouping genetically similar individuals, e.g. height and family. The analogous claim would therefore be that “although height differences have a large hereditary component, it does not follow that disparities in height between families have a genetic basis.” This seems very clearly false to me. It is in the realm of “I cannot fathom how an intelligent person could disagree with this” territory for me. If variable A has a causative correlation with variable B and two groups score similarly with respect to variable A, then they are probably similar with respect to variable B. Of course there are other variables, such as nutrition, sleep, and what have you, but that does not eliminate a correlation. In fact, for something which is “highly heritable” it seems to me that genetics would necessarily be the predominant factor.

It’s a really unfortunate conclusion, so again, I’d love to be wrong, but I cannot wrap my head around how it can be.

[judofyr]

> Suggest contrary to that is wrongthink and enough to have one ostracized not only from science, but also society as a whole.

There's many scientists who have published the "contrary". They were not ostracized from science or from society as a whole. These saw next to none negative impact to their position while they were alive. Other scientists have published rebuttals and later some of the originals articles have been retracted.

J. Philippe Rushton: 250 published articles, 6 books, the most famous university professor in Canada. Retractions of this work came 8 years after his death.

Arthur Jensen: Wrote a controversial paper in 1969. Ended up publishing 400 articles. Remained a professor for his full life.

Hans Eysenck: The most cited living psychologist in peer-reviewed scientific journal literature. It took more than 20 years before any of his papers were retracted.

There's a lot of published articles about the "contrary view" that you can read. You can also read the rebuttals by the current scientific consensus (cited above).

> The analogous claim would therefore be that “although height differences have a large hereditary component, it does not follow that disparities in height between families have a genetic basis.” This seems very clearly false to me.

But this is not an analogous claim since you're talking about disparities between families. The analogous claim would be: "although height differences have a large hereditary component, it does not follow that disparities in height between groups have a genetic basis".

A very simple example for height[1]: The Japanese grew 10 cm taller from mid-20th century to early 2000s. Originally people thought that the shortness of the Japanese was related to their genetics, but this rapid growth (which also correlates with their improved economy) suggests that the group difference between Japanese and other groups was not related to the genetic component of height variance.

[1]: Secular Changes in Relative Height of Children in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan: Is “Genetics” the Key Determinant? https://biomedgrid.com/pdf/AJBSR.MS.ID.000857.pdf

[Jensson]

> A very simple example for height[1]: The Japanese grew 10 cm taller from mid-20th century to early 2000s. Originally people thought that the shortness of the Japanese was related to their genetics, but this rapid growth (which also correlates with their improved economy) suggests that the group difference between Japanese and other groups was not related to the genetic component of height variance.

Every group grew taller as they got richer, but Japanese people are still short even today when they are rich. So existence of other factors doesn't rule out the genetic factor.

[jacquesm]

You're wrong. Some of the smartest kids I know are from immigrant children. It is their background - and society's response to that background - that hinders them, not their genetics. More so if they aren't lily white. Note how anything you say about this subject will be used to generalize to much larger groups (of which you can find some prime examples in this very thread) than the ones that IQ tests themselves target: individuals. And you can't say much about how an individual scores on their IQ test without accounting for their environment because that's a massive factor.

All of your arguments more or less equate to 'I don't understand the subject matter, but I'd like to see my biases confirmed'. And, predictably, you see your biases confirmed. But some of the smartest individuals that ever lived came from backgrounds and populations that - assuming the genetic component is as strong as you make it out to be - would have precluded them from being that smart.

Bluntly: wealth and access to opportunity have as much to do with how well you score on an IQ test versus what your genetic make-up is. Yes, it is a factor. No, it is not such a massive factor that it dwarfs out the other two once you start looking at larger groups. Income disparity and nutrition alone already negate it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_health_on_intelligen...

And that's just looking at that particular individual, good luck to you if your mom and dad were highly intelligent but you ended up as the child of drugs or alcohol consumers. Nothing you personally can do about that is going to make up for that difference vs growing up as the child of affluent and moderately intelligent people.

IQ tests are a very imprecise yardstick, and drawing far reaching conclusions about the results without appreciating the complexity behind squashing a multi-dimensional question into a single scalar, especially when you are starting out from a very biased position is not going to lead to a happy ending. Before you know it you'll be measuring skull volume.

[bearl]

Specifically, as well stated by [23] there is no such thing as “race.” The premise of racial group differences is not possible; we can’t have racial differences if race is not real. Sadly, a lot of people very much believe in race, especially the ones that shouldn’t!

[robwwilliams]

Geneticist use the word “ancestry” to refer to summarize the historical geographic origins of genetic variants that we are inherit. Ancestry can be reliably estimated by genome analysis.

Race, like the gender, is now considered a social construct.

The meanings of words are defined by a community of users who find them useful in communicating. Race and ancestry are both useful words.

[holbrad]

People who say there's no such thing as race are complete charlatans playing semantic word games.

[famouswaffles]

There’s more genetic variation within any so-called racial group than between groups, so race obviously has no genetic justification. That's not semantics. Yes it's real, but for social, not genetic reasons.

[holbrad]

>has no genetic justification

That is comically retarded. Like do you have any understanding of the words you are using ?

If there's no genetic justification, how would it be possible to trivially determine someone's race just from their DNA ?

[jonnybgood]

> If there's no genetic justification, how would it be possible to trivially determine someone's race just from their DNA ?

Genetic ancestry is determined by correlation with geographic origins and population. In other words, where a set of genetic markers are highly concentrated. It says nothing about race.

[flir]

It isn't.

[flir]

So define one. A race.

[Der_Einzige]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_test

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatic_maxim

[famouswaffles]

There’s more genetic variation within any so-called racial group than between groups, so race obviously has no genetic justification. It's real in the way other social constructs are real.

[flir]

aka "a category that appears self-evident to me".

This was my thinking, also. Good cluster of links.

[machomaster]

A group of people that have lived long enough in relative isolation that they became unique, distinguished and separate from other races.

[famouswaffles]

The problem is that Human 'races' are not in fact unique, distinguished and separate from other 'races'. Genetically, two sub Sahara African men could be more genetically distinct than one of those men and a random white man even they should be both 'black'.

[machomaster]

The problem you describe only concerns people who don't know anything about the subject, but still have no shame to have strong opinions about it.

Nobody in race sciences (anthropology, etc) claim that there are only unique races that are separate from each other and don't mix. This is a clear strawman.

The fact that there is mixing between races does not mean that races don't exist. You can make an emulsion out of water and oil, but water and oil still are their own things.

And the science has all kinds of specific categorization for human groups that go way beyond the rough separation into 3-4 main races. All the mixing, separation, migration, isolation, etc have been taken into account.

It's a pity this kind of topic/science is basically a taboo in the Western World and for real info and honest discussion have to go to other systems/countries/languages.

[flir]

"long enough"? "relative isolation"? "unique" how: genetically? culturally? phenotypically?

[machomaster]

You are asking questions that are already were answered if you cared to RTFM/LMGTFY.

Shortly:

- Unique how? Optimally genetically, but this has practical problems that the field of paleogenetics is trying to work on. Until then must use: classical morphological features, odontology, dermatoglyphics, biochemical characteristics.

- How long enough? Depends on the type of group. There are different levels of human group classification, both above the traditionally understood "races" and a lot below that.

[delichon]

I've been told that there's no such thing as a circle because there's no such thing as a perfect circle. The claim that race does not exist seems to be in that category.

[throwaway284927]

You seem to be arguing that talking about races within humans may be useful even if the reality only approximates the definition of race (similarly to the idea of a "circle", which even though it does not apply in all it's precision to any real object it may still be a useful concept as an approximation nonetheless). However, I don't think that comparison is particularly insightful, and it may even be a bit misleading in my opinion because of the important differences in how those two things are defined (circle and race).

After all, the reason why no real object is an actual circle is because the definition of circle is so to say an "ideal" definition that no real object can fit in all it's precision. It's natural to assume that no real object will have all of it's "points" perfectly distributed according to a circle's equation (without even getting philosophical as to how these mathematical definitions relate to the real world, or if they do at all). If one rejects any "approximate", non exact application of the concept, then it will be mostly useless when it comes to describing or understanding the real world (because you won't be able to use it for anything).

On the other hand, the concept of "race" is quite the opposite to ideal: it's not "ideal" as the circle is, in fact it's more of a pragmatic/working definition. It's more like the definition of "chair": many things may or may not be considered a chair, but usually people don't feel that there's "no such thing as a chair" in the real world. On the contrary, it's more common to feel that anything "could" be a chair because it has a malleable definition based on the context, instead of nothing being "precisely" a chair because there are some rigid constraints to the definition that no real object can actually fit.

When the idea of races within the human species is pushed against, it's not because "race" is an ideal concept that no real thing may implement in all it's precision (as would be the case with the circle). I won't present these actual reasons (which could get quite political) here, but I will say that I definitely wouldn't consider those two claims to be in the same category:

- Saying that X real object is not a circle, or that no real object can be (exactly) a circle has to do with the fact that the concept of circle is ideal and by definition nothing "real" will fit it perfectly.

- Saying that (in the human species) there are no races is, however, not based on a quality of the definition of the concept of "race" (specifically, it's not ideal), but on some quantitative judgements about what kind of thing qualifies as a race an what doesn't (pretty much like the concept of "chair", "food", etc. which are not ideal and there's some room for discussion based on context when it comes to whether some specific object fits the category or not).

[Jensson]

Ok, so saying race doesn't exist is like saying chairs doesn't exist, since you can't really say what is a chair, what is a shelf and what is a table, correct? Technically you could say that a chair is a table or a shelf, but people still like to call them chairs, you know the difference when you see it.

Races is like that, scientists can't define it but its still a useful concept like a chair. Scientists can't exactly define what a chair is either, but its still a very useful concept and we can discuss chairs and everyone understand what we mean.

[famouswaffles]

Two sub Sahara African men could be more genetically distinct than one of those men and a random white man even they should be both 'black'.

The thing about race is that it has no biological justification. It's still 'real' of course but in the same way money has 'real' value. It's a powerful social construct.

[ryandv]

> The thing about race is that it has no biological justification.

> It's a powerful social construct.

This is 100% correct, and yet progressive academics have yet to figure out how to slot this fact into their ideology without creating incorrigible inconsistencies.

For instance - if race is a social construct just like gender, why is transracialism frowned upon, while transgenderism is lauded? Quoting Richard Dawkins, famous debunker of Creationist and religious bullshit [0]:

    Why is a white woman vilified and damned if she identifies as black,
    but lauded if she identifies as a man? That's topsy-turvy, because
    race really is a continuum, whereas sex is one of the few genuine binaries
    of biology.

The most coherent (but unsatisfying) answer I have found in the literature is that society has "intersubjectively" agreed to accept transgenderism and not transracialism, where "intersubjectively" ultimately translates to some level of "because we said so and this is society's new fanfiction head canon:" [1]

    What matters, then, is that intersubjectively we have all agreed that
    ancestry is relevant to the determination of one’s race.

It's worth noting that intersubjectivity is basically a religious concept, as defined in the Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. [2]

There is no science or biology on the far LGBTQ+ progressive left. Only pseudoscience and apologetics befitting of a Creationist.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cubkdBuvJAQ

[1] https://philpapers.org/archive/TUVIDO.pdf

[2] https://sci-hub.se/10.1007/978-1-4614-6086-2_9182

[togetheragainor]

Is this the consensus because it’s true, or because anybody who suggests otherwise is pilloried and driven out of academia?

[jdiff]

I think you'd do well to read this person's thoughts: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44933637

[togetheragainor]

That person didn't address the current climate in academia at all. Their examples of "contrarians" are all long-dead professors whose papers were published many decades ago in a different academic climate. That doesn't refute that academia in America has suffered ideological capture since, and questioning the "scientific consensus" on certain politically-charged topics is career suicide.

Also their Japan example seems poor. Japan remains a short a country relative to their prosperity. They're several centimeters shorter than a country with a similar GDP per capita, like Czech Republic. They're about the same average height as Somalians, despite having significantly better food security and a GDP per capita that's over 50 times higher.