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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27725 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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The standard HBD argument is that different races have different IQs, and that is the primary factor leads to all sorts of different outcomes.

This is coarse, and based on racism. The nuanced argument is that IQ is > 50% determined by genetics, and that distributions between groups differ. Notably, these groups need not correspond exactly, or at all to races. Not all Jewish groups have a 15 IQ advantage, it's the Ashkenazi. Big rich cities in big countries select for IQ, Indians in the US are a self selected subgroup, etc.

And east Asian women by contrast, a race widely considered more on the high end of genetics by HBDers, tend to be more neotonous, with smaller secondary characteristics and young looking faces

The ethnic group with the highest average IQ is, as far as I know, the Ashkenazi Jews. If the theory that intelligence was mainly driven by social competition holds, I'd guess smarts and neotony would be selected for by similar pressures.

This is coarse, and based on racism. The nuanced argument is that IQ is > 50% determined by genetics, and that distributions between groups differ.

Maybe we have different methods of thinking about things but when I hear the statement

different races have different IQs

I immediately think that it's the distribution for the two things which is different, not that all people from the first group are smarter/dumber than all people from the second group. It's the same sort of statement as "men and women have different heights" and nobody sensible would ever take that to mean all men are taller than all women, they'd correctly see it as a claim about distributions. So why why should they interpret the IQ statement in this way?

The first guess that comes to mind is that height is plainly visible, and IQ is not.

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