Public Service Announcement: Pseudo-Science Racism IV

Part IV of IV

I found the series of articles below, on a site where the common opinions expressed I do not agree with, written by a person I do not care for personally, but on some things we do agree (once in a blue moon). I have never been one to ignore knowledge due to its source. I will include these as part of a series of post I have thrown together under this topic: Part I, II, III.

Historical Evolution of IQ and Eugenics:

I - Is the Establishment Reviving Eugenics?

II - Is the Establishment Reviving Eugenics?

III - Is the Establishment Reviving Eugenics?

IV - Is the Establishment Reviving Eugenics?

V - Is the Establishment Reviving Eugenics?

Detailed Breakdown of Contemporary Racialism in Regard to IQ:

Brain Evolution, Population Genetics and Armchair Kookery - I

Genes, IQ and “Race Realism”

The IQ Genes That Weren’t

Unravelling Quantitative Traits is Hard

racismreview.com » Blog Archive » DNA and Scientific Racism

One discoverer of double-helix turns out to be fool » Why Dont You B..

For Dr. Watson and Other Racists, Racism’s Beauty Lies In Its Simplic..

Eunomia · Yes, But Is Kevin Drum?

Elementary, My Dear Watson « Black on Campus

None of the Above: What IQ Doesn’t Tell Us About Race (The New Yorker)
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Update:

From Dr. Brad Delong, William Saletan and the Editors of Slate Demonstrate that They Are Not Members of the Genetic Elite

From Slate, Dissecting the IQ Debate

Random:

BRAINS:

Most of those who push the racial differences in brain size augment insist that blacks have smaller brains than other groups. Ironically, the majority of empirical studies on the matter and (indeed) the default position would suggest that blacks may actually have larger brains than do others groups. Brain sizes vary considerably within any species, but this variation is not usually related to intelligence. Instead, it correlates loosely with body size (height in Homo sapiens): large people tend to have larger brains (Gould, 1981). As a result, women on average will have smaller brains than men (Peters, 1991), but this does not indicate that the level of male intelligence is higher than female intelligence; Neanderthals had larger brains than anatomically modern humans (Tattersall,1995; Gould, 1981) but most would agree that they were less intelligent than Homo Sapiens.

Tobias (1970) compared 7 racial and national groups in a study on brain size, in which he reported that the brain size of American blacks was larger than any white group, (which included American, English and French whites) except those from the Swedish sub sample (who had the largest brains of any of the groups measured), and American blacks were estimated to have some 200 million more neurons than American whites (See Tobias 1970; Weizmann et al. 1990).

S.O.Y. KEITA (2006) in his principal components analysis on male crania from the northeast quadrant of Africa and selected European and other African series found no discernable size differences in the skulls he measured. Stating: “The plots are immediately striking in that sharp patterns of segregation of individuals by group origin do not emerge in the two dimensional plots. It is striking how much ‘‘size’’ varies by individual within the European and African regions, assuming that PC 1 captures primarily this quality; Bergman’s rule is not demonstrated in these data in any easily recognizable way, since individuals from all regions exhibit variation.”

Gould (1981) discovered upon remeasuring Morton’s phony skull data that the skulls of blacks in his sample were on average larger than those of whites. Morton included in his sample of black skulls more females than he included in the white sample. After correcting for this error it was shown that the black sample had larger skulls (and presumably, larger brains) than did whites.

Genetic studies of human Brainsize have discovered two genes that when mutated can result in a small brain, or “microcephaly.” Globally the genes for this condition are young and high frequency haplotypes are “rare” in Africa. That is, Africans are less likely to carry the genes that, when mutated, can result in smaller brains than other groups (Currat et al, 2005; Mekel-Bobrov et al, 2006).

Cernovsky (1990) reported that American blacks were superior in brain weight to American whites.

Note: The arguments about racial differences in brain size are usually accompanied by claims of racial differences in penis size (i.e. they are supposedly inversely correlated)! There is not a single professional involved in Neuroscience who makes any reference to this supposed relationship. The development and size of one’s penis is controlled for by testosterone levels during puberty; and it is testosterone (and body size) that determine penis size. Keeping this in mind, employing elementary logic one may convincingly argued that because men tend to have dramatically higher levels of testosterone than do women, and on average have larger brains (due mostly to body size); that testosterone not only increases body and penis size, but also brain size! [Note: It has been suggested by prostate cancer researchers that American blacks may have higher levels of testosterone than American whites.]

INTELLIGENCE:

INTELLIGENCE:

IQ is a culturally, socially, and ideologically rooted concept; an index intended to predict success (i.e., to predict outcomes that are valued as success by some people) in a given society. Alfred Binet originally devised the IQ test to screen children for educational difficulties, and made clear its conceptual foundations (See Richardson, 2002). The items found on these tests are largely measures of achievement at various levels of competency (Sternberg, 1998, 1999, 2003a). That being said: It has been noted by some IQists (a term coined by Capron et al, 1999) that the average IQ of an undergraduate (graduate) is expected to be no less than 115 (Ostrowsky, 1999; Gottfredson, 1998), while an IQ of 125 is expected for those with more advanced professional degrees (Gottfredson, 1998). Herrnstein and Murray (1994) claimed that a dysgenic trend exists in western societies that foresee the establishment of a “cognitive elite.” While other IQists believe that a general index of cognitive ability is the best single predictor of virtually all criteria considered necessary for success in life in the Western part of the developed world (Jensen, 1998; Schmidt, Ones & Hunter, 1992).

African-born blacks comprise 13 percent of the U.S. foreign-born black population and are considerably more educated than other black immigrants (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000). The vast majority come from minority white countries in East and West Africa (e.g. Kenya and Nigeria), and less than 2 percent originate from North or South Africa (World Factbook, 2004; Yearbook of immigration Statistics, 2003). In an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Journal of Blacks in higher education African immigrants to the United States were found more likely to be college educated than any other immigrant group (also see U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000). African immigrants to the U.S. were found to be more highly educated than any native-born ethnic group including white Americans (see also, Logan & Deane, 2003; Williams, 2005; The Economist, 1996). Between 42.3 and 48.9 percent of all African immigrants hold a college diploma (Dixon D, 2006; U.S. Census, 2000). This is slightly more than the percentage of Asian immigrants to the U.S., nearly “double” the rate of native-born white Americans, and nearly four times the rate of native-born African Americans (Williams, 2005; The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 1999-2000). Black immigrants from Africa also have rates of college graduation that are “more” than twice that of the U.S.-born population, in general (Williams, 2005).

In the UK, 1988, the Commission for Racial Equality conducted an investigation on the admissions practices of St. George’s, and other medical colleges, who set aside a certain number of places for minority students. This informal quota system reflected the percentage of minorities in the general population. However, minority students with Chinese, Indian, or black African heritage had higher academic qualifications for university admission than did whites (Blacks in Britain from the West Indies had lower academic credentials than did whites). In fact, blacks with African origins over the age of 30 had the highest educational qualifications of any ethnic group in the British Isles. Thus, the evidence pointed to the fact that minority quotas for University admissions were actually working against students from these ethnic groups who were on average more qualified for higher education than their white peers (Cross, 1994; Also see, Dustmann, Theodoropoulos, 2006).

Dustmann and Theodoropoulos (2006) provide a first thorough investigation of educational attainment and economic behavior of ethnic minority immigrants and their children in Britain. They studied how British born minorities perform in terms of education, employment and wages, when compared to their parent generation as well as to comparable groups of white natives, using 27 years of LFS data. In terms of educational attainment their results suggest a strong educational background of Britain’s ethnic minority immigrant population. In addition, they show that second generation ethnic minorities do better than their parents, and substantially better than their white peers. For both generations Black Africans topped the list in both years of schooling/educational qualifications and wages/employment.

Again, when comparing immigrants in the United States one finds that the racialist models adopted by many Psychologists do not always predict outcomes in the way one might expect. For example, it has been shown that black immigrants born from Zimbabwe (96.7 percent), Botswana (95.5 percent) have high school graduation rates that far exceed all white immigrant and native groups. Further, the average Nigerian immigrant (58.6 percent) is eight times more likely to have obtained a bachelors degree than the average Portuguese born (7.3 percent) (Dixon D, 2006; Dixon D, 2005).

The African born in the United States are concentrated in management or professional and sales or office-related occupations. Of the employed population age 16 and older in the civilian labor force, the African born are much more likely than the foreign born in general to work in management and professional occupations as well as sales and office occupations (i.e. clerical occupations). Additionally, the African born were less likely to work in service, production, transportation, material moving, construction, and maintenance occupations than the foreign born in general (Dixon D, 2006). In the UK a study by Dr Yaojun Li, from Birmingham University, and Professor Anthony Heath, from Oxford University, found that Africans are more likely to be in professional and managerial jobs than white British men, with a large proportion, about 40%, holding these positions (Li and Heath, 2006).

The above information strongly suggests that African born blacks may have IQs a full standard deviation (15 points) above that of American born whites and slightly less than a full standard deviation “above” that of whites in the UK (see, Gottfredson, 1998; Ostrowsky, 1999; Richardson, 2002 for details). In the United States African born blacks and their offspring, exceed American born whites in most socio-economic indicators in ways that closely resemble the gaps seen between native born white and black Americans (Le, 2007; Le, 2007). If these gaps can not be said to have originated because of institutionalized racism or historical discrimination against whites, then why do whites fare so poorly? The differences in academic attainment between African born blacks and native born whites are particularly striking and could, based on “IQist” like thinking (eg Jensen), be indicative of genuine underlying intelligence differences between the two populations; one in favor of African born blacks.

Higher cognitive indices are said to be predictive of more educational achievements and more education is predictive of higher intellectual outcomes (e.g., Brody, 1997; Ceci & Williams, 1997). Furthermore, upon considering the immigrant status of most African blacks in the West, it should be noted that this group must also operate within a cultural framework that is not its own, and one that is typically hostile toward blacks - Further bolstering the argument of underlying intelligence differences IN FAVOR of African born blacks.

The fact that Black Africans also tend to be concentrated in higher level occupations, considered more cognitively challenging, than the average occupation of either American or British born whites, too suggest higher level IQs for African born blacks (see Gottfredson, 1986). Moreover, as most IQ tests in popular use today were designed specifically to predict academic success and/or job status, it could thus be argued that the west’s “Cognitive Elite” — so eagerly discussed in Herrnstein and Murray’s (1994) pseudo-scholarly work “The Bell Curve” — might be better described as black men and women from Africa, if not simply as non-whites from aboard. Something else to note is that for the first time in history, more blacks are coming to the United States from Africa than during the slave trade. Since 1990, according to immigration figures, more Africans have arrived voluntarily than the total who disembarked in chains before the United States outlawed international slave trafficking in 1807. In other words: black African achievements can not simply be dismissed as those of a “small group” of elites entirely unrepresentative of the continent, in general. Moreover, the Academic and occupational achievements of African blacks are documented in the UK (Li and Heath, 2006; Dustmann, Theodoropoulos, 2006) as well as in Canada (Guppy and Davies, 1998; Boyd, 2002).

Crawford-Nutt (1976) found that African black students in westernized schools score higher in progressive matrix scores, a westernized concept, than American white students. His study was meant to examine the cultural-perceptual differences between groups, and demonstrated that one’s performance on western standardized tests may actually correspond more closely with quality and style of schooling than other factors. Super (1976) found that African infants sit and walk earlier than do their white counterparts in the United States and Europe. Black children in particular show more advanced psychomotor development than European children, a finding that has been evidenced in a number of different studies. Some scholars argue that “African babies actually seemed to have been born at a more advanced stage of development, since many of their activities at less than a week corresponded to those performed by European children aged four to eight weeks” (Wilson, 1978). Others believe that the more advanced psychomotor skills demonstrated by black children may be better explained by various environmental factors.

In the United States, when matched for IQ with Whites, American Blacks show superior “Short Term Memory” (Nijenhuis et al., 2004); a finding that can not simply be explained as some byproduct of their educational experience or past learning, as African Americans are typically taught by less qualified teachers than their white counterparts and are concentrated in lower educational tracks, which have less qualified teachers, and provide students with less challenging course work (Hallinan 1994; Diamond et al., 2004). For example, in Chicago, the vast majority of schools placed on academic probation as part of the district accountability efforts were majority African-American and low-income (Bryk 2003; Diamond and Spillane 2004).

Finally: In a study conducted in the Caribbean, one that seemingly bypassed socio-cultural influences, Tizard and colleagues compared black and white orphans who had all been raised in the same highly enriched institutional environment. At five years of age, white children had IQs of 103, black children had IQs of 108, and children of mixed race had IQ of 106 (Tizard et al, 1972; Flynn, 1980).

GENES:

Jorde et al. in a study published in the American journal of Human Genetics (2000) compared worldwide genetic variation among 255 individuals using autosomal, mitochondrial, and Y-chromosome polymorphisms. Their finding was that gene-diversity results showed higher levels of diversity in African populations than in non-African populations. Similar findings have been reached in numerous studies (Vigilant et al. 1991; Nei et al. 1993; Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1991; Deka et al. 1995b; Jorde et al. 1997). For example, Antonio Salas et al. (2002) reported that Africa presents the most complex genetic picture of any continent with time and depth for mitochondrial DNA.

It has also been discovered that Africans have the largest total number of alleles, as well as the largest number of unique alleles, for most systems; a discovery that places Africans as possibly being the most genetically fit people on Earth, as lower genetic variation is said to lower genetic fitness (Lacy 1987). Gst (Genetic diversity) values are 11%–18% for the autosomal systems and are two to three times higher for the mtDNA sequence and Y-chromosome RSPs. Africa has higher GST values than does either Europe or Asia for all systems except the Y-chromosome STRs and Alus. All systems except the Y-chromosome STRs show less variation between populations within continents than between continents. These results are reassuring and offer broad support for an African origin of modern human populations.

A population with many different alleles at a locus may be said to have a lot of genetic variation at that locus. Genetic variation is essential for natural selection to operate since natural selection can only increase or decrease frequency of alleles already in the population. In a very real sense, genetic variation is the raw material for evolution. Without genetic variation, a population cannot evolve in response to changing environmental variables and, as a result, may face an increased risk of extinction.

Europe may actually have less genetic diversity than other continents due to the wide spread war and disease that have ravaged the continent over the last a millennia. In 1347, for example, Black Death was rapidly carried throughout Europe from the Mediterranean Basin, and eventually, areas of European settlement as isolated as Viking settlements in Greenland were ravaged by plague. By the time these plagues had run their course in 1351, between 25 and 50% of the population of Europe was dead (Gottfried, 1983). Lower genetic variation depresses individual fitness, resistance to disease and parasites, and flexibility in coping with environmental challenges. Lower variation also decreases mean fitness of populations, resilience, and long-term adaptability (Lacy, 1987).

CONCLUSION:

Whites (people of European ancestry) are not smarter than blacks (people of sub-Saharan African ancestry), they do not have larger brains, nor are they biologically superior in anyway.

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