The two aren't mutually exclusive. For example, Charles Murray argues that:
A) The black-white IQ gap has stopped closing and the remainder is probably genetic.
B) Low-IQ individuals of all races are ill-served by a culture which doesn't sufficiently emphasize hard work, personal responsibility, marriage, keeping ones nose clean, etc.
Regarding point 3, one problem is that we can say we're going to spend now and save later, but it's very likely that we'll spend now and spend more later. You take spending cuts wherever you can get them, because it's really hard to get them under any circumstances.
Also, don't these ultra-low rates only apply to short-term debt? If we take on a bunch of debt now, doesn't that expose us (well, expose us more) to an increase in interest rates when it comes time to roll it over?
Right. Racism is racial collectivism. A black guy killed my father, and all blacks are interchangeable parts of a collective, so let's go kill black people.
I call it socioeconomic creationism, but yeah, pretty much.
Also, many leftists are socioeconomic creationists in a descriptive sense as well. That is, when they see that some people are rich and some people are poor, they see this as the product of conscious design, rather than the natural outcome of people with unequal abilities engaging in voluntary exchange. When they see that men or women are over- or underrepresented in some field, this must be due to sexism and not to things like differing preferences and higher male variance, and to suggest even the possibility that it may be otherwise is heresy.
If you want me to spell it out, sure. The least-safe red states are the ones with a high black population. A disproportionately large share of the crime, and a disproportionately small share of the Republican vote, come from this demographic.
Look, I don't like talking about this stuff. It has the potential to be taken the wrong way. For example, those who are prone to the fallacy of composition might get the idea that decent, law-abiding black people (i.e., most of them) are in some way responsible for the fact that a lot of people who look kind of like them are criminals. Which obviously isn't fair. But neither is Liberty60's insinuation.
Of course there's racism. The thing is, the word has an actual meaning. It's not just a magic word you can use to delegitimize the opposition, which is how the left usually uses it. I was, frankly, shocked to find that Derbyshire's column actually was racist, because I'm so used to the left using bullshit accusations of racism as a rhetorical tactic.
It would be astounding if there were not alleles controlling cognitive function that were more common in some non-African populations.
To which I should add, it doesn't mean that the net effect of all such alleles would be to increase genetic capacity for intelligence. But there's no way to rule that out a priori.
No, I don't doubt that she's right about the greater diversity, for the obvious reason you state---that non-African populations have undergone an evolutionarily recent population bottleneck. But then again, so have black Americans, most of whom are the descendants of slaves taken from the central portion of the west coast of Africa. But that's beside the point. My objection is to the inference she draws from this.
That is, this simply doesn't rule out the possibility that there are specific alleles or combinations of alleles that increase intelligence, and that these are more common in non-African populations. Possible ways this could have happened include:
1. Self-selection in the migration out of Africa.
2. Adaptation to conditions not found in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, such as harsher winters.
3. Adaptation to advancad civilization, in which intelligence leads to wealth, which confers reproductive advantage.
There don't need to be specific alleles that are common all over Africa---there just need to be alleles that are rare in Africa and common in some other populations. And of course such alleles exist: The ones that code for things like straight hair, non-black hair, lactase persistence, to give some obvious examples. It would be astounding if there were not alleles controlling cognitive function that were more common in some non-African populations.
I didn't try to draw any genetics-based conclusions. I very explicitly was not drawing any conclusions. My entire point was that there was no basis on which to draw conclusions.
I don't think the stuff about genetic diversity means what you think it means. I assume you're referring to Lewontin's research? I'm heading out now, but I'll try to explain tomorrow.
The problem with the historical disadvantage argument is that Jews and the Chinese have historically been disadvantaged, too, but they test as well as or better than gentile whites. You would expect them to test somewhere in between.
As long as the gap continues closing, that's evidence that some of the remaining gap (and all of the portion that's been closed so far) is due to environmental factors. Apparently Murray has some recent (2006--7) papers claiming that the gap has stopped closing, but they're gated and I'm cheap, so I can't evaluate that claim.
Look, I want the gap to be environmental, because that means it can be fixed without genetic engineering. I suspect it's at least partly environmental, and I'm not at all sure that it's not 100% environmental. But there's simply no basis for ruling out genetic factors a priori, especially given the failure thus far to find any intervention that eliminates the gap in adult IQ.
By the way, it's not clear why the black mean is below the white mean. It's likely that environment plays some role, but adoption studies have not been able to rule out a genetic contribution completely, as far as I know. There's no compelling reason to assume that cognitive traits didn't diverge along with physical traits following the diaspora out of Africa, but we really just don't know yet.
That's actually true. Or at worst outdated. The American Psychological Association acknowledged this in "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" (PDF), their response to the controversy over The Bell Curve:
The relatively low mean of the distribution of African American intelligence test scores has been discussed for many years. Although studies using different tests and samples yield a range of results, the Black mean is typically about one standard deviation (about 15 points) below that of Whites (Jensen, 1980; Loehlin et al., 1975; Reynolds et al., 1987). The difference is largest on those tests (verbal or nonverbal) that best represent the general intelligence factor g (Jensen, 1985).
If the black mean is one standard deviation below the white mean, that means that one-sixth of blacks are above the white average and five-sixths of whites are above the black average, exactly what Derbyshire said.
Now, they went on to say that there was some evidence, not then conclusive, that the gap was closing, perhaps to around 2/3 of a standard deviation. I'm not sure what the latest research shows, so it's possible that Derbyshire's statement is no longer correct. But certainly some less extreme version of it is. We definitely would have heard if the gap had closed completely.
To answer Stillwater's question below, racism is a sort of statistical fallacy---taking information (or misinformation) about group averages and inappropriately applying it to specific individuals. For example, you interview a guy for a job, and you reject him because he's black, and therefore must be stupid, even though he performed well on the interview. The law of averages only applies in the aggregate.
There's an important qualitative difference between "this stuff happens sometimes" and "This stuff is so common that I found all of it on one trip!" It's not just a matter of degree.
I firmly believe that everyone should (which isn’t to say “should be required to”) work in retail, food service or customer service at some point in their lives. It makes you a better person to be on the receiving end of peoples’ entitlement and rudeness, and less likely to go and do likewise.
I got a lot of that, but it was all from the owner's wife.
It's not clear how you could read that and conclude that Caplan fawns over the Gilded Age, per se, with all that the Gilded Age entails.
And even if you find a libertarian who thinks that the Gilded Age was just plain awesome, it's almost certainly due to historical ignorance rather than to being a LINO. Look, it's like when leftists call themselves "progressives." Putting aside how sickeningly self-congratulatory that term is, do you really take it as an unqualified endorsement of the historical Progressive movement?
You're kind of making my point for me. Libertarians fawn over certain aspects of the Gilded Age---aspects which are entirely severable from the aspects that we all agree are bad. Leftists often pretend that they are not severable---that if we want to bring back the economic freedom of the Gilded Age, we must also want to bring back governmental discrimination against blacks, women, homosexuals, etc.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Beyond Derbyshire”
The two aren't mutually exclusive. For example, Charles Murray argues that:
A) The black-white IQ gap has stopped closing and the remainder is probably genetic.
B) Low-IQ individuals of all races are ill-served by a culture which doesn't sufficiently emphasize hard work, personal responsibility, marriage, keeping ones nose clean, etc.
On “My Two Cents (Worth only half a cent 10 years from now…)”
Regarding point 3, one problem is that we can say we're going to spend now and save later, but it's very likely that we'll spend now and spend more later. You take spending cuts wherever you can get them, because it's really hard to get them under any circumstances.
Also, don't these ultra-low rates only apply to short-term debt? If we take on a bunch of debt now, doesn't that expose us (well, expose us more) to an increase in interest rates when it comes time to roll it over?
On “Beyond Derbyshire”
Right. Racism is racial collectivism. A black guy killed my father, and all blacks are interchangeable parts of a collective, so let's go kill black people.
Individualism. It's my anti-racism.
On “Role Reversals”
I said "many" for a reason. If that doesn't describe you, then I'm not talking about you.
On “Paul Ryan Strikes Again: The Reihan Salam Edition”
Actually, property taxes specifically could be regressive. But sales taxes are definitely progressive in the long run.
On “Role Reversals”
I call it socioeconomic creationism, but yeah, pretty much.
Also, many leftists are socioeconomic creationists in a descriptive sense as well. That is, when they see that some people are rich and some people are poor, they see this as the product of conscious design, rather than the natural outcome of people with unequal abilities engaging in voluntary exchange. When they see that men or women are over- or underrepresented in some field, this must be due to sexism and not to things like differing preferences and higher male variance, and to suggest even the possibility that it may be otherwise is heresy.
On “Paul Ryan Strikes Again: The Reihan Salam Edition”
State tax systems are already regressive, in contrast to the federal ones
This is an artifact of consumption smoothing.
On “Can We At Least All Agree that John Derbyshire is Racist?”
If you want me to spell it out, sure. The least-safe red states are the ones with a high black population. A disproportionately large share of the crime, and a disproportionately small share of the Republican vote, come from this demographic.
Look, I don't like talking about this stuff. It has the potential to be taken the wrong way. For example, those who are prone to the fallacy of composition might get the idea that decent, law-abiding black people (i.e., most of them) are in some way responsible for the fact that a lot of people who look kind of like them are criminals. Which obviously isn't fair. But neither is Liberty60's insinuation.
"
Of course there's racism. The thing is, the word has an actual meaning. It's not just a magic word you can use to delegitimize the opposition, which is how the left usually uses it. I was, frankly, shocked to find that Derbyshire's column actually was racist, because I'm so used to the left using bullshit accusations of racism as a rhetorical tactic.
"
So, too, do the least safe states.
That said, there's not a heck of a lot of overlap between the people who make those states less safe and the ones who make them red.
"
It would be astounding if there were not alleles controlling cognitive function that were more common in some non-African populations.
To which I should add, it doesn't mean that the net effect of all such alleles would be to increase genetic capacity for intelligence. But there's no way to rule that out a priori.
"
No, I don't doubt that she's right about the greater diversity, for the obvious reason you state---that non-African populations have undergone an evolutionarily recent population bottleneck. But then again, so have black Americans, most of whom are the descendants of slaves taken from the central portion of the west coast of Africa. But that's beside the point. My objection is to the inference she draws from this.
That is, this simply doesn't rule out the possibility that there are specific alleles or combinations of alleles that increase intelligence, and that these are more common in non-African populations. Possible ways this could have happened include:
1. Self-selection in the migration out of Africa.
2. Adaptation to conditions not found in most of Sub-Saharan Africa, such as harsher winters.
3. Adaptation to advancad civilization, in which intelligence leads to wealth, which confers reproductive advantage.
There don't need to be specific alleles that are common all over Africa---there just need to be alleles that are rare in Africa and common in some other populations. And of course such alleles exist: The ones that code for things like straight hair, non-black hair, lactase persistence, to give some obvious examples. It would be astounding if there were not alleles controlling cognitive function that were more common in some non-African populations.
"
I didn't try to draw any genetics-based conclusions. I very explicitly was not drawing any conclusions. My entire point was that there was no basis on which to draw conclusions.
I don't think the stuff about genetic diversity means what you think it means. I assume you're referring to Lewontin's research? I'm heading out now, but I'll try to explain tomorrow.
The problem with the historical disadvantage argument is that Jews and the Chinese have historically been disadvantaged, too, but they test as well as or better than gentile whites. You would expect them to test somewhere in between.
As long as the gap continues closing, that's evidence that some of the remaining gap (and all of the portion that's been closed so far) is due to environmental factors. Apparently Murray has some recent (2006--7) papers claiming that the gap has stopped closing, but they're gated and I'm cheap, so I can't evaluate that claim.
Look, I want the gap to be environmental, because that means it can be fixed without genetic engineering. I suspect it's at least partly environmental, and I'm not at all sure that it's not 100% environmental. But there's simply no basis for ruling out genetic factors a priori, especially given the failure thus far to find any intervention that eliminates the gap in adult IQ.
"
Mike made an erroneous claim. I corrected it, with references. It's kind of what I do.
And you responded with content-free snark. Which is kind of what you do.
"
By the way, it's not clear why the black mean is below the white mean. It's likely that environment plays some role, but adoption studies have not been able to rule out a genetic contribution completely, as far as I know. There's no compelling reason to assume that cognitive traits didn't diverge along with physical traits following the diaspora out of Africa, but we really just don't know yet.
"
That's actually true. Or at worst outdated. The American Psychological Association acknowledged this in "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns" (PDF), their response to the controversy over The Bell Curve:
The relatively low mean of the distribution of African American intelligence test scores has been discussed for many years. Although studies using different tests and samples yield a range of results, the Black mean is typically about one standard deviation (about 15 points) below that of Whites (Jensen, 1980; Loehlin et al., 1975; Reynolds et al., 1987). The difference is largest on those tests (verbal or nonverbal) that best represent the general intelligence factor g (Jensen, 1985).
If the black mean is one standard deviation below the white mean, that means that one-sixth of blacks are above the white average and five-sixths of whites are above the black average, exactly what Derbyshire said.
Now, they went on to say that there was some evidence, not then conclusive, that the gap was closing, perhaps to around 2/3 of a standard deviation. I'm not sure what the latest research shows, so it's possible that Derbyshire's statement is no longer correct. But certainly some less extreme version of it is. We definitely would have heard if the gap had closed completely.
To answer Stillwater's question below, racism is a sort of statistical fallacy---taking information (or misinformation) about group averages and inappropriately applying it to specific individuals. For example, you interview a guy for a job, and you reject him because he's black, and therefore must be stupid, even though he performed well on the interview. The law of averages only applies in the aggregate.
On “The destructiveness of “hard work””
Subsistence farming. Because that'll teach them dirty furriners to take our union jobs.
"
What you have to understand about Kimmi is that she's not actually a real person. She's a digital allegory of rational ignorance.
On “On “Truth” and Its Consequences – Why We Need A New Business Model for 21st Century Journalism”
I was actually going to say something about that, but decided not to for reasons I can't recall.
On “My own experience of being gay in medicine”
It seems odd to me that “gay” in the abstract can still be an object of derision, but “gay” in a concrete instance can be so well-tolerated.
Because people don't think about the literal meanings of idioms, I'd guess.
On “On “Truth” and Its Consequences – Why We Need A New Business Model for 21st Century Journalism”
There's an important qualitative difference between "this stuff happens sometimes" and "This stuff is so common that I found all of it on one trip!" It's not just a matter of degree.
"
If you're okay with jelly as long as it's the right kind of jelly, you're still a bigot.
On “The destructiveness of “hard work””
I firmly believe that everyone should (which isn’t to say “should be required to”) work in retail, food service or customer service at some point in their lives. It makes you a better person to be on the receiving end of peoples’ entitlement and rudeness, and less likely to go and do likewise.
I got a lot of that, but it was all from the owner's wife.
On “Coverture and Liberty”
Did you even read the linked piece? Or at least the first two sentences?
I largely agree with David Boaz's recent attack on libertarian nostaglia. While many Americans were freer in the Gilded Age than they are today, plenty were not.
It's not clear how you could read that and conclude that Caplan fawns over the Gilded Age, per se, with all that the Gilded Age entails.
And even if you find a libertarian who thinks that the Gilded Age was just plain awesome, it's almost certainly due to historical ignorance rather than to being a LINO. Look, it's like when leftists call themselves "progressives." Putting aside how sickeningly self-congratulatory that term is, do you really take it as an unqualified endorsement of the historical Progressive movement?
"
You're kind of making my point for me. Libertarians fawn over certain aspects of the Gilded Age---aspects which are entirely severable from the aspects that we all agree are bad. Leftists often pretend that they are not severable---that if we want to bring back the economic freedom of the Gilded Age, we must also want to bring back governmental discrimination against blacks, women, homosexuals, etc.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.