I don’t know too much about HBD, but I would guess that the most important trait for them is intelligence. And maybe aggressivity, impulse control, ability to cooperate with non-relatives, and this kind of necessary-for-civilization things. (You can ignore other traits, such as eye color or lactose tolerance, they don’t make a big difference in modern society. So you’ll buy a different box of milk, big deal.)
Mathematically speaking, if you could measure something to million decimal places, it is very unlikely that the averages for different populations would be exactly the same. But in real life, a difference of 1 IQ point does not make a huge difference. So the question is whether the differences are large enough to matter in real life.
Humanity split from our common origin about 10000 years ago. It seems like enough time to make significant changes; for example, mere 1 IQ point per century could accumulate to a difference of dozens of IQ points below distant populations. On the other hand, humans were already shaped by evolution millenia before they split, so maybe most possibilities of cheaply gaining yet another IQ point were already exhausted before we split. I don’t feel certain enough to make a hypothesis either way.
So we should solve this question empirically, and then we get into problems—the old research was unreliable, and the new one is not done for political reasons. So I still feel like the answer could go either way.
This question is solved empirically. If you look at the data it’s really obvious. There is NO serious research which claims that all populations have essentially the same IQ.
Humanity split from our common origin about 10000 years ago.
Am I reading the linked example correctly, that Asian-Americans’ IQ keeps growing during the last decade, and everyone else’s IQ in USA keeps dropping?
I mean, if you assume that the differences is SAT scores between races reflect their differences in IQ, it seems reasonable to assume that the differences in SAT scores between now and ten years ago reflect the differences in IQ between now and ten years ago. (Either that, or SAT also reflects something else beyond IQ.)
First, look at the magnitudes. The difference between Asians and blacks is about 380 points in 2015. Compared to that number the declines (-6 to −28) are very minor.
Second, while I don’t have data at hand, I strongly suspect that the Asian population of SAT takers changed during the last decade. In particular, the upper class of China got wealthy enough and “international” enough to start sending their kids to US universities (which usually involves taking the SAT) and that’s besides increased immigration from China in general.
Third, SAT is a proxy for IQ and it’s not a stable test. It’s being tweaked and adjusted constantly. Among other things, SAT is normalized so that the score of 500 corresponds to about the 50th percentile of test-takers. If you have a influx of smarter-than-average kids, they will not only push their subgroup scores up, they will also push everyone else’s scores down.
The SAT scores from different years are somewhat comparable (because they are normalized), but not fully comparable because the tests from these different years are literally different. That’s not a problem for comparing the performance of subgroups in any given year, though.
I don’t know too much about HBD, but I would guess that the most important trait for them is intelligence. And maybe aggressivity, impulse control, ability to cooperate with non-relatives, and this kind of necessary-for-civilization things. (You can ignore other traits, such as eye color or lactose tolerance, they don’t make a big difference in modern society. So you’ll buy a different box of milk, big deal.)
Mathematically speaking, if you could measure something to million decimal places, it is very unlikely that the averages for different populations would be exactly the same. But in real life, a difference of 1 IQ point does not make a huge difference. So the question is whether the differences are large enough to matter in real life.
Humanity split from our common origin about 10000 years ago. It seems like enough time to make significant changes; for example, mere 1 IQ point per century could accumulate to a difference of dozens of IQ points below distant populations. On the other hand, humans were already shaped by evolution millenia before they split, so maybe most possibilities of cheaply gaining yet another IQ point were already exhausted before we split. I don’t feel certain enough to make a hypothesis either way.
So we should solve this question empirically, and then we get into problems—the old research was unreliable, and the new one is not done for political reasons. So I still feel like the answer could go either way.
This question is solved empirically. If you look at the data it’s really obvious. There is NO serious research which claims that all populations have essentially the same IQ.
You’re off by an order of magnitude or so.
Oops, indeed.
“citation needed”
Here is a quick-n-easy example, or if you want details they are here.
Here are a couple of books
And here is a long, detailed post with a lot of numbers, graphs, and references.
Am I reading the linked example correctly, that Asian-Americans’ IQ keeps growing during the last decade, and everyone else’s IQ in USA keeps dropping?
I mean, if you assume that the differences is SAT scores between races reflect their differences in IQ, it seems reasonable to assume that the differences in SAT scores between now and ten years ago reflect the differences in IQ between now and ten years ago. (Either that, or SAT also reflects something else beyond IQ.)
Several things here.
First, look at the magnitudes. The difference between Asians and blacks is about 380 points in 2015. Compared to that number the declines (-6 to −28) are very minor.
Second, while I don’t have data at hand, I strongly suspect that the Asian population of SAT takers changed during the last decade. In particular, the upper class of China got wealthy enough and “international” enough to start sending their kids to US universities (which usually involves taking the SAT) and that’s besides increased immigration from China in general.
Third, SAT is a proxy for IQ and it’s not a stable test. It’s being tweaked and adjusted constantly. Among other things, SAT is normalized so that the score of 500 corresponds to about the 50th percentile of test-takers. If you have a influx of smarter-than-average kids, they will not only push their subgroup scores up, they will also push everyone else’s scores down.
The SAT scores from different years are somewhat comparable (because they are normalized), but not fully comparable because the tests from these different years are literally different. That’s not a problem for comparing the performance of subgroups in any given year, though.