In my world, that’s dinner-table conversation. If it’s wrong, you argue with it. If it upsets you, you are more praiseworthy the more you control your anger. If your anti-racism is so fragile that it’ll crumble if you don’t shut students up—if you think that is the best use of your efforts to help people, or to help the cause of equality—then something has gone a little screwy in your mind.
The idea that students—students! -- are at risk if they write about ideas in emails is damn frightening to me. I spent my childhood in a university town. This means that political correctness—that is, not being rude on the basis of race or ethnicity—is as deep in my bones as “please” and “thank you.” I generally think it’s a good thing to treat everyone with respect. But the other thing I got from my “university values” is that freedom to look for the truth is sacrosanct. And if it’s tempting to shut someone up, take a few deep cleansing breaths and remember your Voltaire.
My own beef with those studies is that you cannot (to my knowledge) isolate the genetics of race from the experience of race. Every single black subject whose IQ is tested has also lived his whole life as black. And we have a history and culture that makes race matter. You can control for income and education level, because there are a variety of incomes and education levels among all races. You can control for home environment with adoption and twin studies, I guess. But you can’t control for what it’s like to live as a black person in a society where race matters, because all black people do. So I can’t see how such a study can really ever isolate genetics alone. (But correct me if I’m missing something.)
Since mixed racial background should make a difference in genes but makes only a small difference in the way our culture treats a person, if the IQ gap is the result of genetics we should see find that the those with mixed race backgrounds have higher IQs than those of mostly or exclusively African descent. This has been approximated with skin tone studies in the past and my recollection is that one study showed a slight correlation between lighter skin tone and IQ and the other study showed no correlation. There just hasn’t been much research done and I doubt there will ever be much research (which is fine by me).
I’m still not confident because we’re not, as Nancy mentioned, completely binary about race even in the US.
What you’d really need to do is a comparative study between the US and somewhere like Brazil or Cuba, which had a different history regarding mixed race. (The US worked by the one-drop-of-blood rule; Spanish and Portuguese colonies had an elaborate caste system where more white blood meant more legal rights.) If it’s mainly a cultural distinction, we ought to see a major difference between the two countries—the light/dark gap should be larger in the former Spanish colony than it is in the US. If culture doesn’t matter much, and the gap is purely genetic, it should be the same all around the world.
The other thing I would add, which is easy to lose track of, is that this is not research that should be done exclusively by whites, and especially not exclusively by whites who have an axe to grind about race. Bias can go in that direction as well, and a subject like this demands extraordinary care in controlling for it. Coming out with a bad, politically motivated IQ study could be extremely harmful.
The other thing I would add, which is easy to lose track of, is that this is not research that should be done exclusively by whites, and especially not exclusively by whites who have an axe to grind about race.
Frankly, I’m not sure why the research should be done at all.
Minnesota Trans-Racial Adoption Study suggests that a lot of the difference is cultural and/or that white parents are better able to protect their children from the effects of prejudice.
I also have no idea what the practical difference of 4 IQ points might be.
I don’t know where you’d find people who were interested enough in racial differences in intelligence to do major studies on it, but who didn’t have preconceived ideas.
Afaik, skin tone, hair texture, and facial features make a large difference in how African Americans treat each other.
White people, in my experience, are apt to think of race in binary terms, but this might imply that skin tone affects how African Americans actually get treated.
I’m a bit upset.
In my world, that’s dinner-table conversation. If it’s wrong, you argue with it. If it upsets you, you are more praiseworthy the more you control your anger. If your anti-racism is so fragile that it’ll crumble if you don’t shut students up—if you think that is the best use of your efforts to help people, or to help the cause of equality—then something has gone a little screwy in your mind.
The idea that students—students! -- are at risk if they write about ideas in emails is damn frightening to me. I spent my childhood in a university town. This means that political correctness—that is, not being rude on the basis of race or ethnicity—is as deep in my bones as “please” and “thank you.” I generally think it’s a good thing to treat everyone with respect. But the other thing I got from my “university values” is that freedom to look for the truth is sacrosanct. And if it’s tempting to shut someone up, take a few deep cleansing breaths and remember your Voltaire.
My own beef with those studies is that you cannot (to my knowledge) isolate the genetics of race from the experience of race. Every single black subject whose IQ is tested has also lived his whole life as black. And we have a history and culture that makes race matter. You can control for income and education level, because there are a variety of incomes and education levels among all races. You can control for home environment with adoption and twin studies, I guess. But you can’t control for what it’s like to live as a black person in a society where race matters, because all black people do. So I can’t see how such a study can really ever isolate genetics alone. (But correct me if I’m missing something.)
Since mixed racial background should make a difference in genes but makes only a small difference in the way our culture treats a person, if the IQ gap is the result of genetics we should see find that the those with mixed race backgrounds have higher IQs than those of mostly or exclusively African descent. This has been approximated with skin tone studies in the past and my recollection is that one study showed a slight correlation between lighter skin tone and IQ and the other study showed no correlation. There just hasn’t been much research done and I doubt there will ever be much research (which is fine by me).
I’m still not confident because we’re not, as Nancy mentioned, completely binary about race even in the US.
What you’d really need to do is a comparative study between the US and somewhere like Brazil or Cuba, which had a different history regarding mixed race. (The US worked by the one-drop-of-blood rule; Spanish and Portuguese colonies had an elaborate caste system where more white blood meant more legal rights.) If it’s mainly a cultural distinction, we ought to see a major difference between the two countries—the light/dark gap should be larger in the former Spanish colony than it is in the US. If culture doesn’t matter much, and the gap is purely genetic, it should be the same all around the world.
The other thing I would add, which is easy to lose track of, is that this is not research that should be done exclusively by whites, and especially not exclusively by whites who have an axe to grind about race. Bias can go in that direction as well, and a subject like this demands extraordinary care in controlling for it. Coming out with a bad, politically motivated IQ study could be extremely harmful.
Frankly, I’m not sure why the research should be done at all.
Minnesota Trans-Racial Adoption Study suggests that a lot of the difference is cultural and/or that white parents are better able to protect their children from the effects of prejudice.
I also have no idea what the practical difference of 4 IQ points might be.
I don’t know where you’d find people who were interested enough in racial differences in intelligence to do major studies on it, but who didn’t have preconceived ideas.
Afaik, skin tone, hair texture, and facial features make a large difference in how African Americans treat each other.
White people, in my experience, are apt to think of race in binary terms, but this might imply that skin tone affects how African Americans actually get treated.