Shortly after the recent (sadly, already supplanted), racist-fueled shooting in Buffalo, it was noted that the shooter cited genetic research as part of his justification for his actions. Some of this research was obvious “race science,” done by dubious “scientists” with a clear racist agenda. These studies are not worthy of any respect and are easily dismissed by the larger scientific community. However, mixed in there was a study that makes genetic claims about “educational attainment.” I have railed against this particular study for the past few years, as well as this type of genetic research, more generally, for decades. While I didn’t anticipate that it would be connected to a mass shooting, I have always felt it is harmful and flawed, and haven’t been shy in saying so, as anyone following me on Twitter knows.
Educational attainment is a simple measure of how far people go in school (high school, college, graduate school, etc.) which they then try to correlate to different genetic variants. In truth, it’s an obfuscated way to look for genes for “intelligence,” which is more controversial due to books like “The Bell Curve” by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein, which makes claims about race and intelligence. Sadly, when this study was published, it received acceptance from most mainstream genetic scientists and, in my opinion, effectively gives a bit of cover for more overtly racist “scientists” and authors. There is a kind of trickle-down effect as these studies are viewed from the lens of more and more racist individuals.
While the shooter’s interpretation of the study was misguided, it is not surprising to me that someone with a very racist predilection might draw such conclusions from it. As soon as you make a case that something like educational attainment or IQ has genetic underpinnings, you are opening the door for this kind of interpretation. I see it endlessly from racist Twitter accounts, as do the authors of studies like this, who generally turn a blind eye to this kind of nefarious support of their research.
Misguided ideas of racial purity and superiority are, of course, not new, but the added justification via genetic studies is new, at least on its face. The easy solution for scientists involved in this kind of research is to disavow the shooter’s actions and to paint his understanding of the research in question as misinterpreted and distorted.
This “lone wolf” explanation seems to be far more prevalent among these genetic scientists than any kind of self-reflection, especially when you consider that they often hype their studies, which then feed articles and books. One recent book, in fact, (“The Genetic Lottery,” by researcher Kathryn Paige Harden) extensively cites this study. If you are citing the same study in your book that a racist mass shooter cites, perhaps it’s time to ask some hard questions.
The underlying premise of studies of this nature is what is called “genetic determinism,” the idea that we are largely a product of our genes. The extent to which individual scientists subscribe to this idea might vary, but the basic assumption is that there is a significant genetic component to “educational attainment” and other human traits. To be clear, I am not talking about the genetics of basic physical characteristics, like hair, eye and skin color, etc. I am referring specifically to what is referred to as “behavioral genetics,” which is an attempt to find genetic underpinnings of personality traits, mental disorders and, most notably, human intelligence. The distinction is, in my view, philosophical; the color of the skin vs. the content of the character to paraphrase one wise man. There is a world of difference between studying genes for blue eyes or height versus claiming genes for, say, bravery or criminality.
As I mentioned, I was concerned when this study first came out a few years ago, not only for its premise, but also because I do not think it is good science. The latter issue I have been discussing for decades and it would not be possible to address adequately in this piece but, in short, there has been an endless parade of genetic studies of human intelligence, behavior and personality. They tend to make a splash when first published, with some hype and exaggerated claims, only to fade when none of their findings stand up to replication. This has been going on for decades.
I document this more extensively at my blog. Admittedly, a blog is not the most professional source of information but, unfortunately, there is little room in the journals that publish these studies for opposing views. The field of behavioral genetics is filled with believers who do not take kindly to skeptics. Their discussions have all the intellectual rigor of a group of astrologers chatting at a new age bookstore. Few, moreover, have any clinical experience with patients who have the diagnoses they study, so they have little more to say about mental illness than that they believe the disorders are “partially genetic.”
So let me turn to the question of the value of these studies. For starters, since we can now see clearly that the studies can have a harmful influence on society, in what way have studies like this contributed to society? You wouldn’t know it through all optimistic hype for the studies, but the truth of the matter is very little, if anything, after decades of this research. There is always just the suggestion that some actual advancement is right around the corner, like an endless shell game. So the next question is why they continue to be published. In my view, the two main reasons are financial and ideological. For example, the study in question lists over 100 authors. There are many careers based on this field of study. Millions of dollars are pumped into them. It has become a bit of an industry that is perhaps “too big to fail.”
Moreover, although scientists don’t like to believe that they are operating under a specific ideology, believing that they have a lock on the unbiased truth, there is a near worship of genetic explanations for just about any aspect of the human condition. Modern science can seem advanced and irrefutable, but we have to consider that that has always seemed the case, and if you look at it retrospectively, we might be less impressed. For example, the discredited “science” of phrenology, which involves using skull measurements to determine intelligence and other attributes or failings of individuals and groups, might seem absurd to us in this day and age, but was taken to be serious science for perhaps 100 years. Much of this kind of “science” specifically involved looking at differences between the skulls (and, by implication, the brains) of different racial groups.
Many of those doing such studies were likely overtly racist, even for their time, but many probably just considered themselves well-meaning scientists who were perhaps not consciously aware of the underlying biases and assumptions driving their research. It served as reinforcement of racial and gender stereotypes and was, by extension, used as a justification for slavery and exclusionary policies towards races, social classes and women. This was then used to make claims about criminal behavior, educational aptitude and susceptibility for mental illness. Since you can always find some physical differences in individuals from different ancestries or between men and women, you are doing little more than compiling statistics of these differences and assuming that has something to do with differences in the brains of different groups of people. It probably needn’t be mentioned that those doing the research tend to find that it favors their own race, sex and ancestry.
Although phrenology became discredited by the mid-1800s, it was eventually supplanted by eugenics. The eugenics movement came on the heels of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, with his ideas about evolution being applied to human character and intelligence, and had more of a focus on breeding and sterilization to “improve” humans. One of the biggest early proponents of eugenics was Francis Galton, a cousin of Darwin. While scientists prefer to absolve Darwin from this movement, he reportedly did express some support for his cousin’s ideas. Since the specifics of genes were not yet known, it was more the idea of inheritance of traits, with various absurd ideas about coping with cold weather and other factors leading to the superior genetics of, well, wealthy European men.
Most are aware of the sordid history of the eugenics movement, which, masquerading as high science, was used as justification in the United States and other countries for institutionalization and sterilization policies, as well as exclusionary immigration laws. This then inspired Hitler’s eugenic rationalizations for his extermination programs, which, in the end, tainted and squashed the eugenics movement. It’s also worth noting the less obvious consequences of eugenic ideas in shaping social policy and justifying discriminatory laws. If you believe that genes are the cause of inequalities, you are far less likely to enact any social policies to address these inequalities.
In my view, behavioral genetics is closer to eugenics than its proponents like to admit. It was spurred on by the elucidation of the structure of DNA, with the possibility of directly identifying which genes might do what. The initial studies in the 1970s and ‘80s were rather crude, although that didn’t prevent the hype train that has been going strong for the past half century, suggesting that we have identified genes for intelligence, and a host of mental disorders, character traits and basically anything you can identify on a questionnaire. For example, just this week, a New York Times Op-ed from a scientist in the field makes the absurd case that political affiliation has a genetic basis.
These genetic fantasies spill over into the popular media, books and movies, which further reinforces these ideas in the mind of public. Over the past several years, with modern scientific techniques, these studies have become almost superfluous, with absurd genetic correlations for everything from church attendance to your favorite flavor of ice cream. What we see is that you can drudge up genetic correlations for almost anything. The problem is that they have demonstrated very little in terms of genetics and behavior and, arguably, have shown the limitations of these assumptions and the meaninglessness of these correlations. The search for genetic correlations, in my view, is little different in spirit than the skull measurements of phrenologists from days past. They tell us nothing about the cause, and although sites like Ancestry.com have shown that these correlations can help trace a person’s ethnic and geographic ancestry, they identify scant physical characteristics and nothing related to human character or behavior. In fact, most of the correlations serve as little more than markers.
So I believe we are living in a time like phrenology, but in a high tech form, with the same racist, classist and sexist assumptions, conscious or unconsciously driving research that, no matter how ridiculous, is taken seriously, no matter how many times one hollers, “The Emperor has no clothes!” When, for example, highly educated scientists, mostly coming from privileged backgrounds, are studying the genetics of educational attainment, there is obvious room for bias. I have little doubt that history will not be kind to this kind of genetic determinism. Unfortunately, as we saw with the shooting in Buffalo, harm is already being done. These studies are being used to reinforce racist ideas and also shape our views in ways that are less obvious in terms of things like social policies, our understanding of the nature of mental illness and even the human condition. It’s time to question whether they should continue to be performed.
It appears that, rather than have this discussion, many scientists fall back on the argument that it is academic censorship to stop them. The problem with this argument is that there are limited resources for scientific study and, at the moment, many millions are being pumped into useless studies that appear to be doing more harm than good. What is the basis for allocating extensive resources for this genetic fishing expedition?
Even if someone is a proponent of this research, why not consider studies that are less controversial and dangerous? Why focus on lightning rod subjects like the genetics of intelligence or “educational attainment”? Prove the value of these studies with less controversial ideas, rather than create unwarranted, fertile ground for racists and others to use this dubious research. And, from a self-serving point of view, give skeptics of this kind of research equal time.
Do we think that the Buffalo shooter wouldn’t have targeted blacks if the studies hadn’t been written? Or that he wouldn’t have targeted anyone? And if not, then can be blame racism on the studies? I don’t even think we can blame racism on the idea that some people are intellectually inferior. It seems to me that the largest amount of racial hate targets the group that has the strongest claim to genetically-based high intelligence.Report
As I’ve pointed out before, the idea that group differences in socioeconomic outcomes are purely due to privilege and oppression has deeply disturbing antisemitic (and anti-Asian American) implications. Ashken*zi Jews put us white gentiles to shame, socioeconomically. Not being a heredity denialist, I say good for them, and am tremendously grateful for their wildly disproportionate contributions to advancing our understanding of the world and material standard of living. But if you subscribe to the privilege/oppression model of ethnic differences in socioeconomic outcomes, Jewish success might start to look a lot more sinister.
If acknowledging the heritability of IQ inspires anti-black racism (it really shouldn’t), then denying the heritability of IQ inspires antisemitism. Conveniently omitted from the original post is the fact that the Buffalo shooter simultaneously accepted a genetic explanation for the black–white achievement gap while denying a genetic explanation for the Ashken*zi–gentile white achievement gap, and explicitly rationalized his antisemitism with this denial in his manifesto.
The takeaway here is that racists gonna racist. When the science superficially aligns with their ideology, they’ll throw some charts from studies into their manifestos and do what they were going to do anyway. When the science contradicts their ideology, they’ll deny the science and do what they were going to do anyway.
Genetics denialism makes strange bedfellows.Report
As someone with some Jewish heritage (mostly from Eastern Europe though some Sephardi too) I’m skeptical of genetic claims here. *Culture* absolutely – a culture that values study and learning will likely have more kids grow up to be scholars and go into professions requiring a lot of education (especially if that is presented as the way to get ahead and gain respect), which possibly explains a lot of ‘model minorities’ – but genetics? Maybe if being smart and scholarly was valued as much in women as in men there might be some tendency toward selection, but that generally hasn’t been the case anywhere until very recent history.
That said, you’re right about racists gonna racist. There is zero logic involved, just whatever bizarre twisted rationalization they tossed together to tell themselves the darkness in them is some kind of truth that those stupid ‘woke’ people just refuse to see.Report
I think the Buffalo shooter went looking for an ideology that would let him kill, die, and be famous.Report
If he didn’t find one, he would have likely done the same actions somewhere else without an ideology. My suspicion, however, is that if the headlines were “Buffalo Man Seeks Glory, Finds None”, then the impulse for this kind of display would be diminished.Report
[Some ass**** killed some people. Because of the law we can’t mention his name or talk about what he said.]Report
Not because of a law, but because of human decency. He had nothing interesting to say, so there’s no value to be found in talking about him beyond saying he was a loser.Report
That’s naïve. People killing people is interesting. Expecting everyone to not pay attention to him runs into collective action issues.
We need to prevent him from inspiring others. We’ve already shown that we need a law or the media can’t help themselves.Report
People killing people in Chicago isn’t interesting. People killing people is only interesting if you know them or if you’re trying to sell a narrative. We decided last week that we should talk about the murders fully aware that we were, to some extent, making such murders more appealing and thus more likely. I hope our policy debate had enough value that it made up for that.
Let’s be honest. The ability to access guns hasn’t changed much. Mental health has taken a hit under covid, but we don’t know how much. The only things we can be sure are increasing are the number of words people like us spend on mass murderers and the number of desperate, pathetic people who crave that kind of attention enough to commit mass murders. We are complicit.Report
What’s happened is the media has decided that all mass shootings are the same.
So two thugs or groups of thugs shooting it out is presented as a “mass shooting” when the rest of us probably don’t, and shouldn’t, care.
Most (all?) of these are not spree killers trying to create a high body count in the act of killing themselves.
If we had the time to do a deep dive on them we’d find out that they have criminal histories and have their guns illegally.Report
Like last two big time mass shooters got their guns legally.
DV is the biggest criminal related indicator out there. Restricting gun ownership among people with dv/family violence hx’s is likely a good idea and has been pointed out by a bunch of people who have studied the issue.Report
This past session, my state expanded its gun ownership restrictions to include serious DV misdemeanors, in order to catch the people who were charged with felonies to start but plea-bargained down.Report
Good. Really should include anyone with a DV restraining order though there are some complications with that.Report
DV misdemeanors are already banned from gun ownership under Federal law since 1996, so I’m not sure what state law is doing unless it’s to create a state specific framework for some reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._HayesReport
Apologies, the Colorado law adds a lengthy list of violent misdemeanors, not just DV.Report
What is “DV”?Report
Domestic violence. Also called IPV; Intimate Partner Violence because new terms have to be invented.Report
The first person who comes up with a test that has people from that side of the tracks score better on than this side of the tracks (and has them scoring that way reliably after a couple of years despite the ability to study for it) is going to make a billion dollars.Report
I would say the recent emphasis on eliminating testing and interpreting away basic performance standards is a concession that they can’t.Report
Maybe more funding will help.Report
You probably felt smart writing that, but this test that doesn’t fluctuate over time doesn’t exist. Not a single one. Not even the IQ obcessed crew says this these days.Report
Well, I can already see that this thread is gonna be a sh*tshow. I wish the ignore function worked in the “Recent Comments” bar as well.Report
The inevitable “I was staring at that womans chest because of evolution” is always worthwhile in any BehavGen/ EvoPsych discussion.Report
I can’t remember if I ever talked about it here, but I went to grad school at one of the Evo Psych Meccas, with one of that field’s strongest personalities, and which produced some of that field’s most well-known and worst current offenders. I can’t tell you how many such conversations I had with undergrads who came by my office hours, or who caught me outside smoking, or grad students and faculty at parties or bars. I’ve never seen anything else quite like it, in intellectual circles. It was a massive fad, led by a sort of cult of personality who had an incredible ability to influence young people’s minds (and some old people’s minds).Report
If you want to flash back to last time, you can do so here.Report
I was going to congratulate you on…ah…”christening” the thread, but on second thought that honor goes to Dr. Pittelli.Report
Despite to argument you lay out, IMHO we should always hesitate to place ideological limits on the science being done, regardless of the good/harm involved, lest we open that door to more extreme ideological limits.
Better to spend the resources falsifying the research in an irrefutable way (as happened to phrenology) than to say, “Bad researchers! BAD! Go stand in the corner and think about what you’ve done!”.Report
There are a lot of factors that go into determining what topics are worthwhile to research, including ethical, societal, and even political ones. The only reasons this sort of research continues come from the last of these, and as the OP argues, the first two types of considerations argue strongly against continued research on genetic causes of racial differences in intelligence.
There is only so much money out there for research in any given discipline, and that money would be much better spent elsewhere.
Let’s also not pretend that scientific debates take place entirely within the ivory tower, either. Particularly when it comes to race and gender, they leak out into the public with little or no heed paid by lay people to which arguments are winning among the actual scientists, as you can see by racists continuing to use long-debunked research and theories in their own rhetoric.Report
So where is the money coming from for this type of research?
I know it’s not something that can be dealt with at the publishing level, because science journals have a lot of the same problems schools do, in that the public has a hard time determining which journals have standards and which just enjoy money.Report
The problem now is less the journals than science journalism, which is terrible and shoots for clicks rather than accuracy, as well as both scientists and non-scientists with strong ideological (in this case, racist) agendas who take their work to a sympathetic public rather than letting its fate be decided within the scientific community.
Also, ideological foundations generally fund genetic research on race differences. See, e.g., Charles Murray.Report
Ah, that makes sense, and they probably don’t have to fund a ton of it.
I do agree with the OP that scientists should not pretend they exist in a perfectly logical vacuum, and that all research is without sociological consequence. I just don’t want extreme ideologues closing off avenues of research just because it threatens their priors. Because once that kind of door gets open, everyone gets to walk through it.Report
While I don’t think there are any purely scientific reasons for anything, because purely scientific reasons can’t exist as long as humans are doing the science, I think the OP gave solid scientific reasons for not doing this sort of research.Report
If we can figure out how genes interact with intelligence then we may be able to test for and/or treat a number of developmental disorders. Maybe even make people smarter.
We need to be studying this.Report
Sure, but then you should be looking at the genes, not the race / demographics.Report
Race is a poor stand in for genes. It would only be acceptable to equate the two if we couldn’t measure genes exactly, but since we can we shouldn’t be using race as a stand in.Report
That poses an interesting question. There are a lot of areas of research that ignore racial differences and end-up with skewed results because their sample is not representative of racial diversity. Some people here refer to ignoring racial differences as an example of unconscious bias. The study that the author believes is racist found that results had a “much lower predictive power in an African-American sample than in a European-ancestry sample.” It goes on to encourage more study in this area.
And I think that’s where the rub will be. Genetic studies of general intelligence are going on all around the world regardless of American religious objections and its unique racial history. Access to these studies will be available, but if the science is chased into the alley in America, it will be domestically inaccurate to some degree while still informing people on the internet.Report
Isn’t the best study of human behavior and outcomes, called “History”?
As in, there is a massive field study of general intelligence being conducted right now, involving all 7 billion people on the planet.
The study looks at the outcomes of not just IQ, but also compounding variables like natural resources and the effect of interaction between groups .
I’m being tongue in cheek of course, but when actual scientists want to look at the effect of genetics on say, wildflowers, they gather empirical evidence of what’s actually happening with flowers in the wild.
Which species are flourishing, which ones are dying out.Report
If intelligence is strongly impacted by genetics, then geneticists should be able to pinpoint specific genes that are at play. Once those genes are identified AND the mechanism by which they affect intelligence has at least a rational explanation, then you can look at demographics.
If you start with demographics other than raw intellect, you run the risk of finding genes that are commonly expressed in one demographic over another, then hypothesizing about their impact without an actual mechanism defined (i.e. looking for evidence to support your theory rather than using evidence to develop a hypothesis).
Also, when it comes to genes, one thing that happens a lot is that everyone has a given gene, but environmental impacts will turn that gene on or off. So what if we all have genes for high intelligence, but poverty tends to switch them off, or we all have genes for ADD / ADHD, but poverty tends to turn those on?Report
It is standard operating procedure to look at inbred populations, in terms of understanding genes. Given that inbred populations tend to have a lower IQ, I’d start there.
Amygdala hyperactivity has been studied, and definitely has an impact on intelligence (through motivation).Report
Inbred populations are going to be small and isolated. That isnt’ really useful for describing any of the groups we commonly talk about.Report
The difference between phrenology and behavior genetics is that behavior genetics appears to be correct. GWAS is in its infancy, but the results of twin studies, which provide stronger evidence for the magnitude of heritability (and which were thus conveniently hand-waved away in Dr. Pittelli’s 2019 post linked by Jaybird above), if not the mechanics, are quite robust.
One reason it’s important to acknowledge the high heritability of behavioral and cognitive traits is that genetics-blind sociology is completely busted. It’s extremely common for papers to assert environmental causation despite obvious genetic confounders that were totally ignored. Premising our study of society on the axiom that H^2 = 0 is like premising our study of climate on the axiom that atmospheric carbon dioxide has no effect.Report
I am 100% down with the argument that:
If X is True
Then we will institute policies based around X
These policies will be horrible, awful, and no good
Therefore X is False
I’m down. 100%.
We should all totally have this attitude in public.
Yes! It’s phrenology!
Anyone who disagrees is racist!Report
I disagree.
I want to know the truth, even if it’s ugly. That doesn’t mean I need to act on it, or create terrible policies on it. Knowing the truth gives us options, power, and sanity.
So if I have lead pipes I want to know, or if my wife is cheating on me I still want to know.Report
People who are certain that they’re privileged always like to know the Ugly Truth about how your lack of privilege is your own fault (or, at least, not theirs).Report
You’re trying to put someone else’s emotional baggage on me. That’s fine, I’ll continue to not care.
“Privilege” seems to mean “my parents were married and invested a lot in me”. That’s a cultural thing, not a genetic thing.
My expectation is the influence of genes at an individual level is very high but at a race level is very small. That culture creates the bulk of the inequality.Report
Nature vs Nurture. The answer is Yes. It’s both. Are we done here?Report
You can be done whenever you want to be, but you haven’t really said anything meaningful. “Both” can mean anywhere from 1% of one and 99% of the other to the other way around.
Taking IQ as an example, what twin studies tell us is that:
1. In international samples, where the range of environments includes both wealthy countries with universal primary and secondary education and underdeveloped countries with parasites, malnutrition, and limited schooling, the effect of shared environment can be quite profound.
2. In samples from wealthy countries, the effect of shared environment on IQ measured in early childhood can be large, and genetic influence is more significant in children from higher-SES families (this is known as the Scarr-Rowe effect).
3. In samples from wealthy countries with universal K-12, even with samples including twins from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds, IQ as measured in late adolescence or adulthood shows very strong genetic influence with minimal shared environmental influence.
The fade-out of shared environmental contributions to IQ over time is known as the Wilson effect, and the causes are not well understood. Possibly it’s just a matter of higher-SES children getting a head start on learning, with universal K-12 serving as a catch-up mechanism.
All of these can technically be described as “both,” but they’re three very different “boths.”
Educational attainment is still another different “both.” Even in wealthy countries, shared environment makes a significant contribution to educational attainment, although genetics is the largest contributor. Probably this is due to some combination of cultural and financial factors.Report
And if IQ was all that it’s proponents think it is that would mean more. It can predict some things but not others. Or at least not without those confounds.
Both is a good answer since there is no way around both having an impact. Give some with great genes a crappy enviro and you’ll likely get a really poor result. Give someone with poor genes ( whatever that is) a ton of support and they will likely do well. Life success cannot be narrowed simply to genes.Report
Culture does a lot of heavy lifting.Report
It always does. Culture is also far more complicated to study and understand then almost any pol/pundit or random commenter gets.Report
How do you feel about historical research that proves the Holocaust is a myth? Do a detailed analysis of the methods and evidence used, or just say “Fish it”?Report
In clearly stating a preference for denying the heritability of cognitive and behavioral traits regardless of what the evidence says, you’ve thrown away any shred of credibility your assessment of the science might have had. Unless you lay out a solid argument for why the results of twin studies should be disregarded that can be independently verified by readers, there’s no reason anyone should trust you on this.Report
This kind of research is crap, according to actual experts, has always been crap, according to historians of science, and, although past performance is no guarantee of future results, the smart money is that it will always be crap.
That said, if anyone wants do this kind of research — and we can be pretty sure why one wants to — knock yourself out. There is always somebody out there to fund it and we can be pretty sure why they want to. Nobody is “censoring” you. We do, however, reserve the right to point and laugh.
And just to be clear, the unwillingness of the scientific establishment to fund you or take you seriously isn’t censorship either, any more than refusing to fund creationism or take it seriously is. Some working scientists might be willing to take time away from their day jobs to point out in great detail why this stuff is crap, and some have done it, just as some working scientists took time away from their day jobs to point out in great detail why creationism is crap. But nobody gets tenure or funding for that; it’s in the nature of public service. Most working scientists have better things to do, and, understandably, prefer to work at their day jobs. So don’t expect them to play whack-a-mole with random nonsense.Report
The racial genetics stuff always ends up being a Just So story of “How The Leopard Got His Spots”, where it offers a tidy explanation which can never be replicated.
Science, actual science, is considered useful only if it can explain the past and predict the future. Physics can explain where the moon was at any point in the past, and predict where it will be at any point in the future. Very useful!
But this stuff can’t do any of that. It can’t explain past events, or historical outcomes and can’t predict future ones.
Not on an individual level, or a civilization-wide level.
Because what it is trying to explain (if we are willing to cut out all the bullsh!ttery) is “Why are White Europeans doing so well, while non-white people are not?”
But of course, this is only true if you are dealing with the past century or two. Throughout human history, the “pinnacle of human civilization” (itself a bullsh1t idea) was to be found in India, or China, or the Mediterranean, or perhaps Africa. Only around 1300 CE or so could Northern Europe offer a plausible claim.
Racial genetics doesn’t have any way to explain this. Real genetics can explain how the DNA from a tribe in the Indus Valley found its way to North America or why the Aztecs share traits with the Chinese.
And even at the individual level, the heredity of IQ doesn’t seem to hold up very well or explain much in the way of outcomes. IQ itself doesn’t explain very much, and the hereditability doesn’t seem to last beyond a generation before being washed out by other factors.
And even the opening premise which is being explained (“Why are White Europeans doing so well, while non-white people are not?”) is increasingly an absurd premise.
If the 17th thru 19th century were the European Golden Age, and the 20th century was the American Century, it looks entirely possible that the 21st century will be the Chinese Century and a hundred years from now some guys in Shanghai will be confidently explaining why the Chinese DNA is why they are so superior to the mongrel Westerners.
Or maybe not- But in any case, none of this racial genetics stuff will help us predict it.Report