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Geneticists Decry Book On Race and Evolution
sciencehabit writes "A best-seller by former New York Times science writer Nicholas Wade about recent human evolution and its potential effects on human cultures has drawn critical reviews since its spring publication. Now, nearly 140 senior human population geneticists around the world, many of whose work was cited in the book, have signed a letter to The New York Times Book Review stating that Wade has misinterpreted their work. The letter criticizes "Wade's misappropriation of research from our field to support arguments about differences among human societies."
look again https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBiVd8SxCkc
all things being equitable.. any notion of real justice is based entirely on mercy, the centerpeace of momkind's heartfelt connection with creation
being spiritually & creatively merciful with each other takes out the (media/fear) drama of the hateful fear & loathing punishment features. are we not each our very own reward? punish as we would wish to be punished? WMD on credit 'weather' is not punishment enough? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wmd+weather+media news http://www.globalresearch.ca/weather-warfare-beware-the-us-military-s-experiments-with-climatic-warfare/7561
Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled. You can still login to post. However, if bad posting continues from your IP or Subnet that privilege could be revoked as well. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner or login and improve your posting. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down (&/or demonize them....) based on speculation of ill intent... peace out /. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m39DWVFK-Bw
"Look how non-racist I am for lashing out on this. Can you see, everyone?"
Oh, come on. Political Correctness has no place in discussions that are scientific in nature.
Northern Europeans clearly evolved to have fair skin and hair, and they evolved from ancestors who did not have fair skin and hair.
How the *BLEEP* is this racist?
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
Sounds like the Political Correctness police are trying to suppress science they find to contain inconvenient truth. The great thing about science is it's still correct even if you don't want to believe it.
our centerpeace connection with the spirit of creation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zpYFAzhAZY
I hadn't even heard about this book before now. Sales will probably triple each time they fuss about it.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Geneticists admit that physical appearance varies thanks to mutations and variations in the expression of the genome, so why is intellectual variability so verboten? Because it's politically incorrect?
In other words, if white people exclusively possess blond hair and blue eyes, and Asians possess epicanthal folds and very dark hair, why is it so hard to believe that IQ, a physical aspect of the mental organ we call the brain, might vary as well?
Seems very bizarre to me. And irrational.
http://twitchy.com/2014/08/11/loot-and-rob-them-not-your-own-twitter-users-advise-black-people-to-loot-white-neighborhoods/
"‘Loot and rob them, not your own'; Twitter users advise black people to loot white neighborhoods"
"ya I can't get down with niggas ripping up their own neighborhoods"
"And gotdammit do it in the white neighborhoods or a heavily populated area or something, but you look stupid tearing up your own damn hood."
"i can't stand the fact that black folks have riots in our own neighborhood. you wanna make a statement? go riot in the white neighborhoods!"
"Them niggas in STL better burn the White Neighborhoods if they want to get the point across.— "
---
Who said racism is dead?
Ideally it wouldn't matter. If one racial group had a greater number of more intelligent people than another then - so what? After all we have the same situation with things like height, strength, and so on. You might find that Chinese are under-represented in basketball, but a Chinese basketball player who could make the grade would be given exactly the same encouragement and opportunity as anyone else. Same should go for IQ.
Genetics affects your mental attributes, but isn't the whole story. Environment affects your mental attributes, but isn't the whole story. Culture and self-determination facets of the environment affect your mental attributes, but aren't the whole story. People of different cultures have statistical differences in mental attributes. There's a bunch of people who get upset by these facts, and a different bunch of people who like to exaggerate them. And anyone who was named as being involved in any of this is going to end up at the center of a political shitstorm, so it's no surprise they want out.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
While I don't agree with this guy's conclusions myself, this type of hyper-PC bullshit storm is why being in academia is so obnoxious. Science should be determined by the evidence available and the best interpretation of it at the time, not by people's feelings or politics.
Secondly, someone citing your work doesn't mean you agree with their conclusions (or especially their politics). The correct response, if you care enough, is to follow up by pointing out where their interpretation falls short. The incorrect response is to write some whiny letter crying about how seemingly racist conclusions were drawn from your publications and it deeply offends you.
I mean, come on: "We are in full agreement that there is no support from the field of population genetics for Wade’s conjectures." What a pathetic retort. But I bet they feel better now, and that's all that really matters.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Great, Slashdot is already agreeing with a man who wrote a book who is ignoring the Nurture in Nature v.s. Nurture. Camouflaging racist statements behind "science" is still racism.
Looking at this thread --- http://science.slashdot.org/st... --- I can't help but think that people who are so adamantly political correct might have been because their DNA are defective
I know, I know, I know that this is just a wild conjecture --- I have tried very hard to prove myself wrong, but so far I have yet to find the concrete proof yet
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Scratch that, I mean pieces.
http://images.catholic.org/media/2014/07/28/14065692051961_700.jpg
Some areas of science are off limits in academia at this point. This is one of them. If the conclusion were that IQ is basically not heritable but that differences in racial groups are all caused by racism or such, all well and good. But any other conclusion risks torches and pitchforks and, worse, lack of grants. Mind you, widely publicizing a conclusion that race X has a lower average IQ than race Y can lead to damaging stereotyping, but fact is many people already have such stereotypes to some degree anyway...
Global warming/climate change has gone the same way. Anything that chips at the edge of the "consensus" has become largely beyond the pale, and risks ostracism. Not how science should be, research should go where it goes... And no, I'm not a "denier", just like people to be able to carry our research that challenges the orthodox view, particularly in politicized areas.
what is globally accepted in animal breeding, that certain behavioral tendencies accompany accompany genetics right along with certain physical characteristics, is the worst taboo to apply to people.
which is ridiculous. populations living in specific social environments will SELECT FOR and AGAINST various physical and behavioral traits... and those traits which are successful in a specific society will then go on to build the society that those traits are best adapted to. like a feedback loop.
is there something totally crazy here?
THL phish sticks
There's no problem with this book but the statistical approach as a whole. 'Probably' is the key word here.
Each of the people whose research the book used came up with their own interpretation of the data they collected. In each case, their conclusions are based upon what data they collected, and not what others collected.
An interesting comparison would be for those same people to review the SUM of the data Wade used (since they have access to it), and publish THEIR conclusions. Don't just say, "My research does not support that!", because you might not have been looking at N factors that other researchers looked at.
Tribes which valued the size of genitals developed larger genitals.
Let the flame wars begin.
So having not read the book (and I can conjecture many others here have not). Those who have is it any good does it make any points? Or is it trash? If so why?
"The gene that causes white skin is highly dominant"
Try telling that to Obama
Mebbe his mother's DNA is defective ?
*RING* *RING*
Callee: Hello?
Caller: Hello, Dr. X, this is Dr. Y from [insert watchdog group name]. How are you today?
Callee: Uh, ok.
Caller: We're doing a survey. Your paper "[insert name of paper]" is cited in a NYT Best Seller that justifies taking babies of some races and putting them into blenders for smoothies. Do you oppose taking babies of some races and putting them into blenders for smoothies or not?
Callee: (Thinking to himself: "This guy is obviously nuts but then half of academia is nuts and they can cut off mine as well as all my future government grants for looking at them crosseyeed.") Why, NO! I absolutely oppose the use of my work to in any way shape or form to justify taking babies of some races and putting them into blenders for smoothies! Where is the bastard that so abused my inherently anti-racist work so I can consider suing him!?!?"
Caller: Thank you Dr. X. That will be all.
Seastead this.
I don't think "physical" means what you think it means.
Guys, he can "misinterpret" your works as much has he likes, that's the whole point of "original research" and "original opinion". He takes your works and forms is own conclusions. It's him, not you. As long as he cites you.
Hell, you don't have to agree with him. Obviously.
That will help set you straight
The same scientists publish things such as proof that testosterone levels vary by race ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... ) then create a politically correct shitstorm when someone dares note that this has behavioral implications. How ridiculous can this get?
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
"Unfortunately many social scientists have long denied that there is a biological basis to race."
This is not my field, but clearly, people from different parts of the world look very obviously different. I've never understood how that could not be biologically, or genetically, based. It just seems logical that there might be other differences. This is true of every other animal, when populations become separated. It is unfortunate that people immediately start ranking traits as superior or inferior.
I haven't read the book, but the author's statement that, "opposition to racism should be based on principle, not on the anti-evolutionary myth that there is no biological basis to race," seems eminently sensible. It's always disappointing when politics influence research, but it happens far more often than many people think.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
I saw Nicholas Wade with the devil!
This article basically validates what I stated in this gem (posting AC to spend some earned mod points). No, it's not fact based or even science. In particular here and here.
We have seen numerous eugenics claims in the last couple years masked as "science" and people like you miss or ignore the ruse.
When the scientific studies don't make claims that substantiate these false claims of genetic superiority, you simply label that as "political correctness". This is a denial of the fact that the scientists who actually performed the studies claim there is no genetic superiority conclusion to be found.
Bias is not science, science is science, and you should really learn to differentiate between the two. Numerous social experiments have revealed that there is no such thing as a genetic disposition to learning (positive or negative). Learning is related to social and economic standing, education of influential people in the environment, ethics and morality of influential people, etc...
The reason people keep falling for the eugenics gag is because it plays into natural and learned biases. You believe you are better than those [insert bias] people because someone "told you so", and psychologically you need something to feel superior about.
Remember that the since only thing you have in common with the guys who "told you so" is your ethnicity, you should really stop to consider that the reason they want you fighting about race is so that they can maintain social and economic superiority.
Of course there have been and will be attacks on this book done out of sheer 'political correctness' by those whose prejudices it rankles---but there have been similarly headless defences of it by those whose biases it pleasantly tickles. Some of these population geneticists might some be writing in fear of having their funding cut, but the better-known and -trusted the scientist, the lower the chance of it. some of them might in fact be depending on biassed [sic] summaries of the book, as Wade claims, but he uses this and the charge of political motivation as a way of dodging the actual issues raised. (In addition, a researcher might only read the sections of the book in which their [sic] work were cited and then weigh in fairly on the particular issues so involved.)
I'm on to your game. Ignore the actual complaint and insert your own bullshit complaint to make the argument go away. You are not very good at masking your biases, and worse at rhetoric.
There are certain things in science that, in a world in which politics arrogantly claims to the right to invade every facet of culture, you just can't say. Just try being skeptical about anthropogenic climate change.
The reason these geneticists are decrying this study is not because of the results, but what people have done with them. Last century, we had a pretty big blowup because of "scientific" correlations between genetics ethnicity and behavior. And it's not like these correlations are well understood.
And look at how many of these studies regarding ethnicity and behavior later turned out to be bogus as hell, but not before providing racists with cover.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Well, maybe a good look at dog-breeding would help the behavior link to genetics.
Or maybe bees?
Is this a case of only the High Priests may interpret the data? And, does Political Correctness have nothing whatsoever to do with the rebuttal?
...geographic determinism. The cultural and technological growth of different societies has more to do with the accidents of geography than genetics.
The fact of the matter is that genetic differences *within* so-called "races" are greater than differences *between* so-called "races". Humans don't "breed true", as it were - much like how you can't get more Fuji apples from planting a Fuji apple seed (in fact, all modern marketed varieties of apples are actually cloned through grafting).
Race is an illusion, and for those paying attention, *genotype* is significantly different than *phenotype*. Our phenotypic "races" are poor proxies for actual genetic differences.
I do not believe you did this on purpose, but you switched contexts during your argument. First, you stated that race does not exist at the "biological" level; and then you went on to say, presumably as an explanation, that there is "no genetic trait" behind race. Those two statements are not the same thing. I recall that when the human genome project was completed, scientists stated that one of the things they determined is that genes, by themselves, cannot account for all of the variability among human beings; and, thus, the field of epigenetics took off.
What goes on at what you call the "genetic" level is not the last word on biology. If at the genetic level race is not distinct, that does not mean there is no biological cause behind race.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
The problem is, people are suggesting there are differences across races but then cannot really show compelling, conclusive scientific evidence to support their claim.
For instance, scientific research (something that is not widely reported in public venues for obvious reasons of political sensitivity) clearly shows a huge IQ gap between blacks and whites, consisting of 10-20 points and persisting across the Americas, Europe, and Africa.
Some have argued that this gap is genetic (and we certainly cannot rule it out); however, there is no conclusive evidence to support their claim that the IQ gap is genetic.
Similar IQ gaps (such as between whites and Native Americans) have disappeared over time in the past, so anyone should be very skeptical of a claim that blacks have a lower IQ because it is a genetic population trait and not an environmental trait.
Like with the IQ gap, many people (most of them not actual research scientists like this author) are making these nature over nurture arguments on a wide variety of topics without sufficient research to back them up but rather to fit into their own world-view about cultures and population groups being genetically inferior or superior, an antediluvian throwback to the pseudoscience of anthropology at the turn of the 19th century.
That is a misuse of science and the actual researchers are right to call-out the author on his misinterpretation of their work.
I highly recommend this quick read the 90's: http://www.amazon.com/Biology-...
It's written by a geneticist Richard Lewontin and very effectively shows the many flaws in biological determinism.
Without regard to the merits of either side of the argument -- would the scientists have much choice in deciding whether or not to sign this letter? I would imagine not signing the letter could lead to you being ostracized, labeled as a racist, possibly losing grants and so on. The path of least resistance for any individual geneticist would be to sign the letter.
Again, I'm not arguing that they're wrong. Just that there could be a lot of pressure for them to be 'right'.
Sauer
I just "love" it when this happens on this site: An article is posted that depends on a highly specialized field that's far outside the expertise of 99.9% of slashdotters, and a ridiculous war of metaphors erupts between various factions among the wannabe experts.
I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a geneticist, so I'm not about to try to play one online. But you don't have to be a geneticist to see how much ignorant nonsense is sloshing about in discussions like this one on this site, CNN, Wired, etc, etc., etc. It reminds me of all the morons online who claim that you can disprove the existence of the greenhouse effect by (mis-)applying the Second Law of Thermodynamics and "common sense reasoning".
Hell, geneticists won't even accept that a FLOOD of hormones throughout our development from blastocyst onward that spur dimorphism, change the development of significant parts of the human anatomy, the voice, musculature, hell even the very skeletal structure itself has *any* impact on mental abilities, strengths, weaknesses etc in any way.
If they won't admit something so fundamental because it's taboo, how could they possibly admit that ethnicities have different strengths and weaknesses?
-Styopa
Yes it is because that "false theory" is being published as a book AND because it claims to cite those scientists.
Thus it is implying that those scientists support that "false theory".
And since the "false theory" is racist, it is implying that those scientists who are implied as supporting that "false theory" are also racist.
So a public condemnation of the "false theory" and the author and the work is entirely reasonable.
"... It takes only 1 failed prediction to kill a theory." If this were true, then Evolution wouldn't be science, and it is!
A Theory is a model that gets validated by experiment. Sometimes, the model is not quite right but still worth pursuing. Evolution requires change, and the mechanism of change was debated. Darwin, Lemark, and other failed to guess what it was. Eventually, Watson and Crick showed the DNA molecule stored genes. Later scientists demonstrated mutations in genes led to new traits.
WTF, we're all human and the variations in appearance and culture mean about as much as variations among any other species, birds, bees, etc. Adaptations are not limited to a single location on a map, especially those dealing with brain function (for those idiots in the room!). Any geneticist that even implies that humans are not all of the same "race" is not only a lousy geneticist, biologist, scientist but also a lousy human being!
And that is (excuse the capitalization) because VISIBLE PHYSICAL TRAITS ARE NOT SUFFICIENT FOR DEFINING "RACE".
Yet everyone who wants to talk about "race" usually resorts to visible physical characteristics.
Race X has visible physical characteristic A.
Race Y has visible physical characteristic B.
What happens when those races mix? What race is the baby?
See "Genomic Views of Human History", by Mary-Claire King ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M... ) at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu... Basically, from examining in excruciating detail the DNA of groups and subgroups, human beings throughout prehistory were considerable more mobile than previously assumed. Essentially, there is more genetic diversity between individuals from the same village than there is between any given 'racial' groups taken as wholes. Because of human mobility ( refugees, war brides, immigration, guest labor, etc.) the genetic distinctions of 'race' become even more indistinct.
Well, no, but I do remember when it was stupid to assume that skin color correlates 100% with dubious claims of other physiological differences.
I spent the last couple weeks at an athletic competition that was almost entirely dominated by white men (although people of all races and genders participated) and one Japanese guy.
If your claims weren't categorization fallacies, the black guys would have done a lot better than they did.
In REAL LIFE, the differences between individuals INSIDE racial/ethnic groupings are much larger than the differences between the averages of such groups. If that phrasing doesn't work for you, here's an example:
The difference in strength between the weakest woman alive and the strongest woman alive is FAR GREATER than the difference in strength between the average woman and the average man. Get it?
Thus, only racists, educators and social theorists care about the averages and inter-group variances. Of those, only the educators really have any good reason to do anything about it - they can "level" the differences if society wants everyone to have an equal chance at success, by manipulating resource allocation. The racists and social theorists' interests are pretty much masturbatory.
I see so many posts here using IQ and intelligence as if they were interchangeable synonyms. They are not.
IQ tests have no basis in science. IQ tests have never been benchmarked against anything except earlier IQ tests.
IQ tests cannot be proven to exclude cultural bias.
IQ tests cannot be said to measure intelligence in any precise way, unless you define intelligence as the ability to do IQ tests.
If you demonstrate that different races perform differently in IQ tests, you haven't proven anything about race and intelligence. You have only proven something about race an IQ tests.
Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, Never drive a car when you're dead
"Race, Evolution and Behaviour"
psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/race_evolution_behavior.pdf
High testosterone prevents civilization:
http://science.slashdot.org/st...
"Serum testosterone levels in healthy young black and white men"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
Join the dots for yourself.
Who is the enemy of white people?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
What can we do about it?
http://whitegenocideproject.co...
Whites are finally waking up. Let's hope it is not too late.
I would read his book if it was free. Not that a percentage or the whole proceedings of it goes to a charity. Free. But it's not. So here is the deal: do I take at face value the defense of his for profit book or do I take at face value the opinion of several geneticists? Hmm hmm hmm, what to do?
There is no scientific basis for race, that has been proven quite extensively. So that thesis of his is just his own opinion. Race is a huge one, and a great selling point. Folks, get over it. The invalidation of race will never make you less racist, much like the invalidation of religion will not make you less dependent on it.
What else? Black folks violent, I guess nazis were black. Chinese folks better at business, I guess the founders of Apple, Google and Facebook love pink makeup. And don't get me started on those Chinese top five in the Forbes list. All rubbish and folks eat it like popcorn.
Or only on a Monday?
http://www.housemd-guide.com/s...
I remember an account of one case where as adults, both men had (among other similarities) chosen identical belt buckles Show a study of at least several hundred monozygotic twins where similar choices in fashion were dictated by twin genetics and we can talk. Until then, you're just repeating freak stories. Look hard enough and you will find two twins with this sort of thing, but your confirmation bias is preventing you from registering all the twins without the genetic fashion imperative.
Da Blog
I never realized there were so many racists on /.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
If materialistic evolution is your paradigm, you are going to end up with these kind of conclusions. Looks like Wade is just being honest. Scruples about all people being [somethinged] equal inherit from a theistic paradigm. For goodness sake make up your mind.
There are thousands of geneticists around the world. Only 140 disagree that there are racial differences? Well there you are. Proof if you need it.
Will they become the racial deniers?
Personally I come down on the Nurture side as adopted twins have more dissimilarities than twins raised together.
I know I'm wasting my time, especially as a latecomer to the discussion, but I'll say it anyway: with all your (and I include all those making similar statements, not just parent) talk of Caucasian this and Black that, you are overlooking something important. It is meaningless to make references to these groups in a discussion about genetics without first defining exactly what those categories mean genetically. And you simply won't be able to do that, because geneticists currently have no test for "blackness" or "whiteness", in fact there is nothing in the human genome that a geneticist can point to and say, "these genes define blackness, if they are present the individual is black". Nothing like that currently exists for any race, which is why experts in field sometimes say that from a genetic standpoint there is no such thing as race. Without a genetic descriptor for race, the science of genetics can have nothing to say on the subject. Scientists can only look at race indirectly, using various non-genetic stand-ins as methods of racial categorization. This is a big reason why all such studies seem to inevitably end up being open to various interpretations, the scientific tools that could solve these debates once and for all simply do not yet exist.
Since work in Strong AI and have a pretty workable and complete theory I would say I do know a little about human intellect. The stuff about genetics vs nurture is very easy to answer. On the race question (comparable) intelligence is about 98% culture and 2 or less % genetics. One of the biggest factors in intelligence is the (cultural) expectation of being intelligent - when a small child, mostly its negative feedback telling children not to be intelligent. An even bigger factor is the random chaotic element which is inherent in all brain evolution and intellect.. Of course ultimately intellect is 100% genetics but then it is also basically 100% learning, both are needed, and one without the other is simply capacity that cannot be used.
Genetically speaking though black people should be expected to have a very slightly lower 'average' intelligence than white because they have a wider spectrum of genetic variation. The same graph says that the most intelligent people in the world probably should be black not white - but most of these people are still culturally in places that hold them back as children or corrupt them in other ways. Black culture is what makes most black people stupid not the other way around, exactly the same with white people and every other race. Asian children are statistically better at mathematics because they have cultures that are more attuned to it.
There is stuff in Strong AI that is too controversial for publication, but it is not about race - it is more that there are things that most people would be very unwilling to accept. - eg
Most humans are not really intrinsically smarter than other animals, we just have much better memories and most of our superior intelligence really comes directly from remembered learning. We know this because all humans spent at least ~ 50,000 years with no writing, and no real cultural learning or sophisticated language - and basically did nothing intellectually that other apes and other higher animals were not capable of..
Ironically humans totally conquered most of the world when we were no smarter than other monkeys - we hunted in larger groups which made us stronger than other predators, and were more determined and vicious than other predators. Our superior memories and better tool use also made us more ruthless and better killers.. Now that's the real human.
Below the speed of light Special Relativity is one of the most accurate theories in physics - above the speed of light..
You can define the epicanthal fold. You can reason out as to why it is there. But can you define intellect in the same way? Can you reason out as to why it is there? Yes you can... to some extant. And now look to see the necessity for variability in intelligence... in human populations isolated in a geographical region over tens of thousands of years. When I search for the purpose of intelligence, I see that it is required to accomplish certain acts. And I also see that all humans just about do the same things. Everyone requires the same skill set to survive. So there should not be a significant difference in the human intellect between various human populations. Neither has any scientist proven the existence of such a variability.
Some truths are just way too painful to hear for some people.
Theories are not rungs in a greater ladder of truth and enlightenment, but merely different sets of data.