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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   33194 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022

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HBD is not the claim that environment has no effect on IQ. A 50% environment, 50% genetics model to explain IQ variation is a pro HBD position

That's a good point I hadn't thought and I take back the first paragraph I wrote.

No it isn't. HBD as typically sold by its advocates requires genetics to be the dominant factor.

If you read a review article on behavioral genetics, i'd recommend this, iirc one of the things it initially emphasizes is that heritability is entirely a contextual thing. The heritability of a trait just tries to measure the extent that it, in a specific population under the myriad conditions and complex causation within it, a trait is caused by genes, in the sense that individuals with shared genes are, ceteris paribus, all else equal, more likely to share the trait. But this could entirely depend on environment - 'arm count' is much less heritable in an environment where people get their arms cut off at random and .1% of the population has a gene that sometimes causes arm malformation, vs an environment where nobodys arms get cut off and 50% of the population has a gene that reliably causes arms to not develop in utero. Despite the genes involved being the same!

Similarly, the HBD argument is - in the past, environment was dominant, and IQ had a much lower "heritability" if one could measure it - malaria? mauled by tiger? intestinal parasites? bad weather causes crops to fail? All random factors lowering IQ. Sure, a smarter person can avoid those a bit better, but not enough. But now modern society is very good at eliminating all of those - industrial food production, modern medicine, society, hygiene, education, travel, internet - and most of the variation left is genetic. HBD generally claims that within america, genetics is dominant - but not for instance between africa and america, or historical america and america.

In The Bell Curve, which I think can safely be called one of the seminal works in HBD discourse, Charles Murray states that evidence shows intelligence is between 40-80% heritable, and he puts his personal estimation in the middle at 60%. HBD as usually presented does not require that heritability be the dominant factor in determining intelligence, just a major component. If it's 40% heritable, that still has significant explanatory power.

That's the motte the bailey is when the same poster comes back 20 minutes later askings stupid questions like; If HBD is false what were Africa and Latin America were doing while the whites and Asians were duking it out for world supremacy?

You're the one who is engaging in strategic equivocation here, and being a veteran of the old atheism wars myself I see little to be gained by getting drawn into a Gish gallop with you.

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