[Steevee]

(Original post by iammichealjackson)
Clearly you misunderstand what "hereditary" means, as I clearly meant that there is no evidence that the difference between groups can be explained by environmental means. If you don't understand the difference between that statement and saying that IQ isn't hereditary then you should just go.

http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v9...s/nrg2322.html

Copy and Pasted for you...

Heritability is informative about the nature of between-group differences
This misconception comes in two forms, and in both cases height and IQ in human populations are good examples. The
first misconception is that when the heritability is high, groups that differ greatly in the mean of the trait in question must
do so because of genetic differences. The second misconception is that the observation of a shift in the mean of a
character over time (when we can discount changes in gene frequencies) for a trait with high heritability is a paradox. For
IQ, a large increase in the mean has been observed in numerous populations, and this phenomenon is called the Flynn
effect, after its discoverer
83


. The problem with this suggested paradox is that heritability should not be used to make
predictions about mean changes in the population over time or about differences between groups, because in each
individual calculation the heritability is defined for a particular population and says nothing about environments in other
populations. White males born in the United States were the tallest in the world in the mid-19th century and about 9 cm
taller than Dutch males
78
. At the end of the 20th century, although the height of males in the United States had
increased, many European countries had overtaken them and Dutch males are now approximately 5 cm taller than white
US males
78
, a trend that is likely to be environmental rather than genetic in origin.


What annoys me that you know the evidence is not conclusive that there is a genetic role. But we do know that people from different countries/races live in different environments- and we know that culture affects cognition. Therefore there is no need to assert that there is a genetic basis, (indeed there could be!!!), but until we do know it seems just as likely that caucasians are LESS intelligent than other races- WE SIMPLY DON'T KNOW.

Are you really going to try and make it that basic? In that case virtually nothing is 'genetic' because all traits can be affected by the environment given time. I suppose you'll deny that East Asian peoples are generally shorter than Europeans? ON the basis that, if they lived our lifestlye for a couple of thousand years they'd catch up? I understand where you are coming from, but trying to make an argument from such a basis is pointless.



Once again, I'll state it for you. Multiple studies show clear genetic links to physical traits, be that height, bone density, brain density etc. We have also seen clear links between genetics and intelligence measures. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that genetics, and racial genetcis therefore, play a part in intelligence. There is not conclusive proof either way, but based on current evidence, this is a fair assumption. As oppose to yours which is, 'Despite clear evidence linking intelligence along with a multitude of other traits to genetics, I will deny this 100% and instead claim that it is all environmental until an unreasonabley perfect and complex study has been completed to show that it is certainly genetic, despite the fact no such study has been completed to verify my viewpoint.

I have not claimed it's wholly genetic, I think it's a good mix of environment and genetics. However you made your first claim that it was in no way genetics, which does rather put you in the unreasonable position.

[iammichealjackson]

(Original post by Steevee)
Are you really going to try and make it that basic? In that case virtually nothing is 'genetic' because all traits can be affected by the environment given time. I suppose you'll deny that East Asian peoples are generally shorter than Europeans? ON the basis that, if they lived our lifestlye for a couple of thousand years they'd catch up? I understand where you are coming from, but trying to make an argument from such a basis is pointless.



Once again, I'll state it for you. Multiple studies show clear genetic links to physical traits, be that height, bone density, brain density etc. We have also seen clear links between genetics and intelligence measures. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that genetics, and racial genetcis therefore, play a part in intelligence. There is not conclusive proof either way, but based on current evidence, this is a fair assumption. As oppose to yours which is, 'Despite clear evidence linking intelligence along with a multitude of other traits to genetics, I will deny this 100% and instead claim that it is all environmental until an unreasonabley perfect and complex study has been completed to show that it is certainly genetic, despite the fact no such study has been completed to verify my viewpoint.

I have not claimed it's wholly genetic, I think it's a good mix of environment and genetics. However you made your first claim that it was in no way genetics, which does rather put you in the unreasonable position.

"Heritability is informative about the nature of between-group differences"
This misconception comes in two forms, and in both cases height and IQ in human populations are good examples. (Visscher 2008, Nature, 9, 255-266)

I highlighted again!!! This is ****ing nature, do you know what the nature journal is? I don't see the cambridge lecturer cite any well-known journal from the last 20 years...My point (and Visschen's point) is that heritability estimates based on twin studies do not show that IQ varies between groups and that this is caused by X-percentage of environment and B-percentage of genes- these estimates are affected by a wide number of factors! If heritability is found to be 0.8 heritable- this does not mean that 80% of the differences between groups are caused by genetic differences, or necessarily any at all (although it is likely that at least some may be affected!)

I am not saying that there couldn't be a genetic differences between groups which explain differences in IQ, but that it is far more likely that the noticable, significant differences which exist are environmental.

WHY IS THIS?

Lots of evidence points to their being environmental differences between races, caused not by genes creating their own environments.

No solid evidence shows that genes cause differences in IQ between "races"- by this i mean specific genetic loci predicting IQ differences and differences in these genes being shown accross large populations.

--We are all genetically very similar (200,000 mya of divergent evolution)
--Humans have an astounding ability to change and affect their environments.

The burden of proof is now on geneticists to find evidence, not on anyone else.





(this thread is so depressing, fml...)

[iammichealjackson]

(Original post by Steevee)
Are you really going to try and make it that basic? In that case virtually nothing is 'genetic' because all traits can be affected by the environment given time. I suppose you'll deny that East Asian peoples are generally shorter than Europeans? ON the basis that, if they lived our lifestlye for a couple of thousand years they'd catch up? I understand where you are coming from, but trying to make an argument from such a basis is pointless.



Once again, I'll state it for you. Multiple studies show clear genetic links to physical traits, be that height, bone density, brain density etc. We have also seen clear links between genetics and intelligence measures. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that genetics, and racial genetcis therefore, play a part in intelligence. There is not conclusive proof either way, but based on current evidence, this is a fair assumption. As oppose to yours which is, 'Despite clear evidence linking intelligence along with a multitude of other traits to genetics, I will deny this 100% and instead claim that it is all environmental until an unreasonabley perfect and complex study has been completed to show that it is certainly genetic, despite the fact no such study has been completed to verify my viewpoint.

I have not claimed it's wholly genetic, I think it's a good mix of environment and genetics. However you made your first claim that it was in no way genetics, which does rather put you in the unreasonable position.

P.s. you do realise that it makes no sense to say that "genetics" influences intelligence- genetics is a scientific discipline! (I feel like my supervisor saying that!). By saying that genetics influences intelligence it suggests that studying genes affects intelligence...

Get the terminology right next time you think you know something...

[Nathanielle]

(Original post by DynamicSyngery)
The website is just collating a lot of published studies. Maybe he is ignoring ones that say something else - I'm not in behavioural genetics so I don't know - but he doesn't seem to have acted in the way the article is implying.

edit: the passage about David Irving is a little more than that, I think misrepresenting Irving's crazy views, but Sewell does not himself claim the Holocaust didn't happen:

"David Irving, a brilliant historian who only uses primary sources, was imprisoned in Austria for daring to write about the war from Hitler’s perspective, rather than follow the politically correct line which is that history is written by the victors and is not subject to review. I have read Hitler’s War (Irving 1977), which is an excellent book, and the result of painstaking research. He does not deny the holocaust, he simply questions whether this was the original plan and whether the orders were given directly by Hitler."

Were can you found the Website? This sounds to me like the old "Der Führer hat sicher nichts gewusst, der hätte so etwas nie zugelassen." (The Führer can't have known it, he wouldn't let somehting like this happen.) Of course a lot of people said this, but not now, not from people who haven't anything to hide or explain... (In addition it is very funny to say the Austrians/Germans weren't capable to decide by themselves, what is right and wrong... history written by victors......)

Ah, I found it:
"Political correctness (PC) is the third great evil arising from Western civilization in the last century. PC and fascism are both derivatives of Marxism and both have their roots in the 1920s. However, unlike fascism and Marxism, PC is not restricted to a small number of countries, it pervades every country in the developed world right down to the level of the family. In this sense, the spread and acceptance of PC fascism (PC is a form of fascism) means that we are currently experiencing the darkest days of fascism so far experienced in the world. There has never been anything more anti-scientific or unjust in the history of Western culture."



This is so "attempting to let Nazism sound scientific/Nazis are the real victims => get Nazism back in the middle of society", any intelligent person with a decent reason to avoid anything like Nationalsozialismus would never write in this style. Unless he has a pretty good excuse, he clearly shows to have been inveigled, at least, but probably more. And over this article Hitler... facepalm