Here’s a message that I got in response to the earlier posts on the Harvard e-mail controversy. I do not know the author personally, but I thought it was worth passing along; I certainly saw no cues suggesting that it was insincere or otherwise not credible:
I wish I were a tenured professor, and was able to say reasonable and true things freely, like the idea that things that haven’t been proven yet remain unproven.Instead, I’m an incoming student at Harvard Law next year. And even though I’m neither interested in nor well-informed about the IQ-race correlation debate, I am scared to even mention my opinion on the subject to my friends or roommates, or ask them about it. I have no idea what I would say if someone asked me if I could categorically rule out the possibility that there was a correlation between race and IQ… but the funny thing is, I have no idea what anyone would say. The reasonable thing to say has been tabooed.
And I wish that I could write an op-ed or something about it, except I realize that if this is the reaction to stating these kinds of ideas in a forwarded private e-mail, imagine what people would say about a published argument…
And I wish I could send this email to Dean Minow instead of you, except that I know now that she doesn’t seem to condemn or criticize the forwarding of private emails, and I don’t know where it would end up, and I realize that it is privately rational for me to just shut up and pretend I agree with everyone else, and I wonder how many people are doing that….
(I assumed from context, and confirmed in a follow-up e-mail, that by “IQ-race correlation” the author means a correlation between race and genetic components of intelligence, not just race and IQ measured after some amount of socialization.)
Mark Field says:
What you say is pretty simple: “A lot of ignorant people like to hide their racism behind the objectivity of science. While science never entirely rules out possibilities, there’s no good evidence to support those who want to connect race with IQ.”
May 1, 2010, 5:59 pmAngus says:
I don’t think it bodes well for this 1L if he can’t see that the reasonable thing has not been tabooed.
Not taboo: “I don’t know if it is environment or genetics or some mix of the two that determines intelligence”
What the controversial email said: “I believe it is genetic inferiority until someone can prove to me that it is not.”
May 1, 2010, 6:02 pmChris Travers says:
If I ever visit Harvard, should I make sure I am not carrying a copy of Rigsthula with me?
(Rigsthula is an Old Norse poem about the origins of social classes, where the classes are defined by complexion, Thralls being “swarthy,” farmers being “ruddy” (red-necks obviously), and the aristocracy being “fair” in complexion. It has been the basis for many people to project very obnoxious racial views onto the Old Norse literature. And while it’s clear that black was associated with slaves and white associated with the leaders, I don’t believe these were understood historically in racial terms.)
May 1, 2010, 6:03 pmAnonsters says:
O, how my heart bleeds for these trembling, terrified HLS students.
May 1, 2010, 6:07 pmepluribus says:
Why would you want to categorically rule this out? Why would you even consider whether you “could”? Do you think it would be necessary to categorically rule out a connection between innate IQ characteristics and race before you could treat your fellow classmates like fellow human beings instead of members of a “race”? If someone were to ask me that question, my first response would be to question the purpose of the questioner.
May 1, 2010, 6:13 pmDG says:
Say that race is a negative social construct designed by oppressors and then internalized by the oppressed.
That’s a thought provoking way of not answering the question.
May 1, 2010, 6:16 pmChris Travers says:
I like that response.
May 1, 2010, 6:20 pmStranger says:
Since I am not ready to rule out anything; even the preposterous idea that a pismire may indeed carry off a saw log; I would not absolutely rule out some general correlation between skin color and intelligence.
But I will say that in 78 years on this earth, I have never observed any intellectual superiority, or inferiority, between “races of humans.” Nor have I ever heard anyone make a convincing argument for any such difference. Of course, there are both intelligent and unintelligent people in every population group. Experience says the proportions are as equal as probability allows.
Stranger
May 1, 2010, 6:25 pmCasual Bigotry | madmanmusing.com says:
[...] who would exploit our differences to their own ends. EDIT: After posting the above I jumped over to The Volokh Conspiracy and find an interesting discussion of a related [...]
May 1, 2010, 6:29 pmDerrick says:
They start Concern Trolling so young these days. How cute.
May 1, 2010, 6:30 pmAaron says:
That’s not how many people read it, because that’s not what it says on the face. It says she can’t rule it out. For people discussing in good faith, that’s nowhere near the same as “I’m convinced it is”. She says lots of things that are sketchy and can easily be misread, but she never straight up says that “I believe Black people are less intelligent due to genetics, and will unless I get more evidence they are not.”
May 1, 2010, 6:30 pmlgm says:
Mark Field above is correct as far as he goes. All this “I’m just asking the question” is a cheap way to plant racist ideas without taking heat for it. The original Harvard emailer obviously had studied recent racist and sexist literature, particularly the “Bell Curve”, and seemed to think it had a reasonable chance of being true.
One thing that gets lost in these discussions is that the supposed differences uncovered in racist tracts like the Bell Curve are very small. The authors claim that they are “statistically significant”, which literally means: “unlikely to be zero given the data”. The rub is that this makes the edge of significance depend on the amount of data. Given that we have millions of test scores from millions of kids, these thresholds are very low. But being statistically significant doesn’t make them actually significant, and they certainly don’t explain the under-representation of various groups in various professions.
May 1, 2010, 6:32 pmansi says:
I guess you have to go to Harvard to be clueless about things like this. Her entire email was basically “I don’t want anyone to have mistakenly gotten the impression that I think black people are equal to white people. I’m a good skeptic, although I don’t consider the possibility that white people are less intelligent than black people. I just want everyone to know that I won’t regard African Americans as equal until they prove it to me.”
Her mistake was getting on a high horse about a profoundly uninformed opinion on a sensitive topic, and then writing it down. (A lawyer should know better.) I agree that people are probably overreacting to this, but it is also kind of nice that this is the biggest race relations problem we have these days.
Also rather than complaining about it on the Internet like everyone else is doing, your smart move would be to reach out to the BLSA (or whoever) and think about opening a dialogue on the topic, either sharing of private emails or the content or both. If you admit you aren’t well-informed, I’m sure most people would be more than happy to open things up for discussion. You’re going to have to stop being a pussy about thought police, though. You’re learning to be a lawyer. Open your mouth and make sure that you can back up whatever comes out of it. If you can’t do that, maybe you should rethink things.
May 1, 2010, 6:34 pmMike Schilling says:
If neither interested nor well-informed, why would this person even have an opinion on the subject? It would be like asking me if I could categorically rule out the existence of spruce-willow hybrids. (In my view, non-fruiting trees are for shade and for small children to climb. All else is pointless detail.)
May 1, 2010, 6:42 pmSteve Sailer says:
Because the statistical connections between race and behavior are central to analyzing a huge body of law known as disparate impact. You may recall an obscure case known as Ricci.
I am struck over and over again by how little discussion there is of the legal ramifications of this topic on a law blog.
May 1, 2010, 6:49 pmbode says:
I appreciate the reasonable arguments put forth on this site regarding this situation. Profs. Volokh and Kerr make fine arguments that this should have been a private matter and, more importantly, that the arguments and debate are reasonable. That discussing (and even researching) such things is taboo is unfortunate.
That said, I feel exactly zero sympathy for student here. That it is taboo should not be a secret to anyone attending HLS, so the only thing we’re left with is that the student didn’t realize email leaves a trail. I think I learned that lesson in middle school. Heck, she had the stones to mention Larry Summers — and his statements aren’t really any different than this woman’s (they’re answerable questions, just uncomfortable ones). And he’s no longer president of Harvard. Was that fair?
So geeze, I’m supposed to feel bad because this dumb woman didn’t know how the world works? Seriously? I don’t have to like it (I don’t; I agree with the posts). But I personally have to abide by the rules, however foolish. This woman chose to disregard those rules and, OH NOES, as they say on the Internet. Not playing by the rules has a real cost, and she learned a pretty awesome lesson she won’t soon forget.
To the “tenured professors can think this way” part of the email to Prof. Volokh, do they really? I’d love to know if Prof. Volokh or Prof. Kerr have sent out personal, politically volatile emails that they’d never in a million years want published. I doubt it. And although they’d have a job if they staked out some insanely volatile positions say goodbye to publishing in prestigious journals. Maybe you’ve heard of Dr. James Watson, Nobel Laureate? Oh yeah, he is a scientist and tried to advance this argument almost verbatim. Guess who is no longer head of Cold Spring Harbor Labs and now a science community outcast? Oh yeah, the guy who co-discovered DNA and changed the world.
Finally, lest anyone think this is really a unique path to injustice, I direct you to check out the Wonkette article on the matter. They included the cow pr0n from Judge Kozinski’s run-in with the email police. OH NOES!
May 1, 2010, 6:53 pmAngus says:
‘
Except that her whole email is filled with things like her passing on her own genetic intelligence, and her dismissive “Disney Utopia” comment. It is very clear that she’s adopted the genetic explanation. She never asks for any proof for it, only proof for the environmental side.
To me, there is no way that a “good faith” reading, as you put it, can make this email out to be some neutral, undecided search for the truth. (Or, even more ridiculously as I’ve seen some claim, that she in fact supports the environmental explanation and rejects the genetic one)
May 1, 2010, 6:59 pmSteve Sailer says:
Maybe you’ve heard of Galileo, discoverer of the rings of Saturn? Oh yeah, he is a scientist and tried to advance this argument about heliocentrism. Guess who is no longer a professor at the U. of Padua and is now a science community outcast? Oh yeah, the guy who discovered modern physics.
May 1, 2010, 7:00 pmDS says:
Your attempt to pass off an inaccurate paraphrase of the email as a direct quote is an indication that this argument stands on shaky footing.
May 1, 2010, 7:02 pmHLS Student says:
Give me a break. No one is silencing anyone. Open academic debate also means the right to criticize what we feel is offensive or racist.
May 1, 2010, 7:03 pmSteve Sailer says:
The anti-intellectual thuggishness of numerous comments on this thread is quite remarkable.
Have you no shame?
May 1, 2010, 7:05 pmShelbyC says:
So you’re saying black people may be genetically inferior? Bigot.
May 1, 2010, 7:08 pmJack Marshall says:
Angus’s reading of the e-mail is pure confirmation bias, and his paraphrase of it is dishonest. The message written by the student expresses open-mindedness only. The efforts of Angus and the Angus-minded to turn this into evidence of racism shows a deficit of both fairness and logic.
On other fronts, condemning the 3L student for trusting her supposed friends not to subject her to web infamy is cynicism gone toxic. Yuck.
May 1, 2010, 7:12 pmA Non-E Mouse says:
I think just the fact that Prof. Volokh has plainly defended this student both on her substantive statements and on her ability to speak her thoughts shows that he has privileges that un-tenured professors and law students don’t have. This girl cannot defend herself without being accused of being a racist. Prof. Volokh is able to defend her and not be immediately derided as a racist.
May 1, 2010, 7:12 pmSteve Sailer says:
Professor Volokh writes:
I realize Professor Volokh means well here, but from a legal point of view in thinking about disparate impact law, the distinction between the IQ gap being partly genetic and being wholly non-genetic is a bit of a red herring.
What is significant is that there exist a vast number of real world average performance gaps between races that are sizable enough to trigger the EEOC’s Four Fifths rule for suspicion of disparate impact discrimination. And, we know three things about most these racial gaps. They:
- Currently exist in countless situations involving employment, education, and so forth
- Have, in many cases, existed for decades and even generations
- And, most crucially, are unlikely to vanish in the next several decades because they have been remarkably stable despite vast efforts to eliminate them over the last 45 years
The final point is the most crucial for thinking about race, IQ, and the law, much more important than the theoretical discussion over genetics. (We’ll find out soon enough how much, if any, of the real world performance gaps are genetic. James D. Watson figures 10 to 15 years for genome research to advance enough for scientists to tell.)
The crucial point is that real world differences aren’t going to vanish quickly, even if they are 100% non-genetic. So, we have to think intelligently about what to do about them if we want to analyze much of the current law. Quotas? Equal protection of the laws? Ban tests that cause disparate impact?
But, in the current climate of anti-intellectual thuggishness (see above), anybody who points out the existence of these gaps is immediately under suspicion of First Degree Crimethink, so it’s best to never, ever mention the facts.
At all times, you should speak/write in public and private as if you are oblivious to the obvious. If you show the slightest awareness of reality, you might be reported to the Ministry of Love for re-education.
May 1, 2010, 7:19 pmDS says:
Terrible. You’re conflating the amount of difference required to be statistically significant with the amount of difference actually measured. Is the intellectual dishonesty intentional or is your grasp of statistics this tenuous? Most studies place the black-white IQ gap between .8 and 1.2 standard deviations. Regardless of whatever reason you’d like to use to explain the gap, you’re flat out wrong if you’re trying to claim that a disparity that large has no actual significance.
May 1, 2010, 7:20 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
So, what about “Lord of the Rings,” which I imagine Harvard’s students and faculty alike are fond of? The thing’s shot through with racism (Elves are cool and reserved, Dwarves industrious and touchy, and my God, the poor Orcs!), and the fact that except for Humans none of the races exist is neither here nor there: the book teaches a racist approach to diverse people.
Tolkien is strongly racist, and yet Harvard tolerates his works on campus. Shouldn’t this travesty be brought to Dean Minow’s attention?
May 1, 2010, 7:22 pmwm13 says:
My advice for all 1Ls, and 3Ls too, is the advice my mother gave me. Do not write anything, ever, that you would not be happy to see published on the front page of the New York Times over your name. I’m 52 now, and, although I haven’t followed this advice perfectly, it has always been with me. Just this past week, I had composed an email to my sister poking mild fun at another family member, but my mother’s ghost spoke to me, and I deleted it without sending. Don’t trust your sister, don’t trust your friends, don’t trust the government, don’t trust other people, period. I can’t imagine being stupid enough to send an email expressing an unguarded political opinion at a place like HLS.
May 1, 2010, 7:27 pmSteve Sailer says:
Putting thoughts down in writing and sending them to others for a response has been essential to intellectual life for several thousand years. Apparently, it would be most prudent to enter into a new Dark Age in which intellectual discourse is carried on by the means of grunts, winks, and hand-waving.
Shouldn’t Harvard Law School be coming in for criticism rather than the poor student whose private email was, rumor has it, leaked in a backstabbing plot by a romantic rival?
May 1, 2010, 7:34 pmSteve Sailer says:
By the way, reading the many Orwellian comments about how the law student had it coming to her for thinking bad thoughts, my appreciation for Professor Volokh’s courage in standing up for ordinary norms of decency and intelligence is growing markedly.
May 1, 2010, 7:39 pmAngus says:
Pot. Kettle. Black. You have a remarkable case of intellectual blindness, and your resort to laughable attacks on me is a sign of petty mindedness and of the bankruptcy of your own positions. You dazzle me with your irrelevance.
I don’t know — have you none?
May 1, 2010, 7:41 pmSteve Sailer says:
Ooh, good one!
May 1, 2010, 7:43 pmAngus says:
The author of the email deserves criticism. The Dean and HLS deserve criticism. The person who made the email public deserves criticism. The fact that you only defend the most racist of the group speaks volumes.
May 1, 2010, 7:43 pmAngus says:
Had what coming to her? Criticism? Egads! A prestigious law clerk position? Horrors!
When are you going back to your normal home at Stormfro–I mean, VDARE?
May 1, 2010, 7:46 pmArthur Kirkland says:
If the incoming law student suddenly feels cramped at Harvard, or thinks less of the school, other schools that might be more hospitable — Regent, Notre Dame, Liberty, Baylor, Pepperdine, for starters — might be persuaded to make a seat available.
May 1, 2010, 7:46 pmSteve says:
Of course no one who supports this student’s right of free inquiry would ever support the shunning of someone who, for example, questions the official account of 9/11 or believes there should be an investigation into whether the Twin Towers collapsed from something other than burning jet fuel. Everyone who supports this student’s right to free expression without being called a racist would be horrified if they heard someone who doubted the events of 9/11 derided as a “Truther.” And certainly they all spoke out in horror and outrage when that great freethinker, Van Jones, was hounded from his federal job for having revealed himself as one of those people who isn’t convinced 9/11 happened exactly as the government described.
Or maybe that taboo is completely different. No, wait, of course it is. Carry on.
May 1, 2010, 7:47 pmAaron says:
It’s clear that she thinks that in general, there is a significant genetic component to intelligence. That’s unremarkable. It also says nearly nothing about the origins of the differences in performance between the black and white sub-populations of the United States. To connect the two requires
showing some presumption of differing distributions of genes contributing to intelligence between these populations. Without it, it’s not “blacks are genetically inferior”, but those who are less intelligent have less intelligent kids, those who are more intelligent have more intelligent xids. The Disney Utopia comment is dismissive not of the chance of equality, but of the chances of getting good scientific data demonstrating that.
She doesn’t ask for proof of the environmental side. She explicitly says that the environmental explanation is true:
Taking out double negatives: “I also think there are cultural differences and that cultural differences are likely the most important sources of disparate test scores”
She merely doesn’t commit to it being the whole truth. Given that, and that she’s asking for proof, it’s clear that she’s asking for evidence (not proof!) on the question of how much genetics is an influence, while despairing of finding anything conclusive.
May 1, 2010, 7:48 pmOpenVolokh says:
This 1L is overreacting. The response to the HLS student was entirely appropriate.
And yeah, if you want to discuss the topic of the correlation between IQ and race, you had better be more careful so that you are not misunderstood. That is how it is when you discuss race in our country which has a very real history of enslaving black people and then later terrorizing them with Jim Crow and murder through lynching.
The topic of genetic correlations between different traits is not off limits by any stretch of the imagination. But if you are going to gravitate towards rhetoric that would especially please white supremacists, you probably should think twice.
If this 1L doesn’t make the same mistakes as the 3L, then this is good thing. If that 1L goes over the top and refuses to discuss controversial topics in general, then that 1L is simply acting foolishly.
There will always be limits to what one should advocate. What if I believed the Holocaust was a good thing. Or what if I wanted to defend it as some sort of cute intellectual exercise. That would be incredibly bad judgment. If people who would otherwise express such views don’t, I fail to see how our intellectual discourse is harmed. We really can live without having a debate about whether or not the mass murder of Jews was justified. I am not saying that the offensiveness of HLS 3L student reaches that level, but she failed to exercise judgment in her choice of words. Those sorts of mistakes have consequences, just as failures of judgment in all sorts of endeavors have consequences.
Free speech does not mean that there is not a social price to pay for exercising extremely poor judgment in exercising that freedom. With rights come responsibilities.
Culturally, the United States has a very high tolerance for controversial speech. I think that is how it should be — our culture is better off to the extent we have a decent tolerate speech that is offensive. But even here, there are limits to the social acceptability of some speech, and that is how it should be.
What Eugene Volokh is complaining about is the culture at HLS. And that is fine. But there is a certain culture established here at the Volokh Conspiracy regarding what is acceptable speech. There are limits here at the Volokh Conspiracy too. So, what Eugene Volokh is advocating for is that the limits regarding racially charged speech in the HLS community be different. I do not agree with his judgment.
What do you think happens here at the Volokh Conspiracy when you delete comments or ban commenters? Things that would otherwise be said are not said. Sounds like the exact same affect that this 1L is concerned about and that Eugene Volokh is concerned about. Even Above the Law, which is much more liberal in allowing offensive comments than VC, moderates SOME comments. I do not see how Eugene Volokh can complain about common-sense socially-enforced limits in the HLS community when there are limits here at the Volokh Conspiracy.
May 1, 2010, 7:51 pmKunta Kinte, the poster formerly known as Curious says:
For those of you who do not understand the purpose of some questions, I refer you to the following South Park clip, “I’m Asking Questions”: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/255329
In fact, that entire episode might be educational for some of you.
May 1, 2010, 7:57 pmPerseus says:
I don’t find the subject to be intrinsically very interesting as an intellectual matter, and unlike egalitarians and inegalitarians, I don’t really care whether or not the races have average IQs that are equal. That said, I agree that studying it is justified because of the current race-obsessed political and legal situation.
Those of us Straussians would call it esoteric writing, which is necessary to varying degrees at all times because every regime has its own particular idols.
May 1, 2010, 7:58 pmSteve Sailer says:
I want to further elucidate a subtle but crucial point. I suspect there are a lot of well-intentioned moderates out there who would argue:
1. Well, yes, it is perfectly valid to publicly discuss the existing real world racial gap in average performance. After all, that’s why we have quotas, we need to know about them to discuss Ricci and other disparate impact cases intelligently, and so forth.
2. But, anybody publicly or privately expressing open-mindedness about the possibility of these racial gaps having a genetic component can expect no mercy, and rightfully so.
Now, that may seem like a stable position, but it’s not. If you follow #2, then you will be psychologically driven to try to shut down not just discussion of genetics, but shut down discussion of the real world gaps themselves.
Why?
Because merely stating the facts about the real world gaps will tend to put Doubts into the minds of those who are no longer as ignorant as the person quoted above. And when Doubts = Crimethink, then Ignorance Is Good.
May 1, 2010, 8:00 pmMike McDougal says:
Is that what it said?
May 1, 2010, 8:05 pmSteve Sailer says:
For example, here is my summary of a 2001 meta-analysis of cognitive gaps in average ability among races/ethnicities in America.
If I begin by stating that nothing that follows guarantees that genes play any role whatsoever in causing these pervasive intelligence gaps, will that eliminate feelings of fear, loathing, desire to silence?
Of course not.
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
The facts themselves raise doubts about what could cause such large gaps. They make people feeling those doubts themselves, who fear that they might now someday slip up in a private email and be persecuted like this poor law student, want to lash out at the people who raise those doubts.
May 1, 2010, 8:07 pmSara says:
What the defenders of this e-mail forget is the author apologized, she either did that because she knows she was wrong (and attempts to cast her e-mail in positive terms are baseless speculation); or she is a coward, an opportunist, and a liar. I think if you respect her at all, you must take her apology as sincere. She has admitted that she wrongfully offended others, however unintentionally, EV’s or anyone else’s irrelevant opinions notwithstanding.
As for this Harvard 1L. Buck up. Your a grown-up now. Here is some good advice.
May 1, 2010, 8:14 pmAngus says:
Actually, grammatically taking out the double negatives I come up with:
“I also think that there are cultural differences or that cultural differences are not likely the most important sources of disparate test scores.”
Egads, she’s definitely in need of remedial English classes — of that I am indeed certain. However, she does attribute violence criminality in blacks (Why of all things use that as an additional example? Is she that tone deaf?) to culture, though her repetition of the slave “Sambo” stereotype is laughable as an explanation for why there were so few slave rebellions. However, she then shifts back into talking about genetic inheritance of intelligence, and her only expressed skepticism is toward the environmental/cultural view.
In sum, maybe she’s just a horrible writer and sloppy thinker. I’m willing to consider the possibility that she is not a racist, and I cannot rule out that she is not a racist absolutely 100%, but I’ll need to see some scientific evidence to convince me.
May 1, 2010, 8:16 pmPerseus says:
Indeed, and that’s why Tocqueville lamented: “I do not know any country where, in general, less independence of mind and genuine freedom of discussion reign than in America.”
Prof. Volokh’s restrictions are designed to avoid personal insults and the like so that the merits of the widest range of ideas may be discussed. The HLS case is one in which the very discussion of certain ideas is deemed taboo.
May 1, 2010, 8:18 pmAngus says:
Steve, no one really questions that minorities tend to score lower on IQ tests or the LSAT. The entire root of the debate is whether the root causes of such inferiority in test scores are genetic or environmental. You are having an entirely different debate than the rest of us. (Plus the still entirely different question of whether IQ tests and LSATs really measure “intelligence.”)
May 1, 2010, 8:23 pmSara says:
That seems to be an overstatement, at least form this episode, alone. This was not a discussion; it was an e-mail, without permission, forwarded to a student list. The e-mail created a stir. The Harvard BLSA was then falsely accused of spreading the e-mail. Brouhaha ensued.
I don’t know if the Bell Curve or other such books have been discussed at Harvard, but I would not be surprised if they had. Have speakers been banned, etc?
May 1, 2010, 8:35 pmleo marvin says:
If by “good faith” you mean “objective” I agree. If I accept the e-mail as a complete, accurate statement of Grace’s beliefs, it makes her look racially biased. But I don’t accept that for three reasons:
1. We don’t know how the conversation that preceded it set the terms of discussion.
2. We’re not just judging an e-mail, we’re effectively judging someone’s character. One e-mail is an awfully thin record on which to judge a whole person.
3. Racism is a serious charge. Convicting someone, even in the court of public opinion, should be harder than just expressing a good faith, objective opinion. Importing the principle we use for criminal justice, I think it’s better to let 10 racists off than taint one innocent person.
So, I construe all the ambiguities in Grace’s favor. I won’t parse it line by line, but I think if you try it you’ll see how the case can be made that she isn’t expressing the bias she seems to be on first blush. I admit this requires suspending disbelief, but I think it’s the fairest approach.
May 1, 2010, 8:37 pmMark Field says:
Nah, just conservatives.
Oops.
May 1, 2010, 8:41 pmAaron says:
That’s because you’re not distributing the negatives. In both logic and common English usage, “I don’t think a or b” means “I think ‘not A’ and ‘not B’”. And then you have the gall to insult her grasp of the English language?
I do agree that citing the stereotypes among whites for evidence of drifts in behavior of blacks is extremely sloppy.
And I do think she’s racist — in a “subclinical” level. Like just about everyone is, filled with subconscious judgments and stereotypes that color all our thinking. And this does leak through to her writing in subtext, because she didn’t work hard enough to hide it, because in the context of that e-mail she didn’t think it was necessary. It was an e-mail between friends who knew who she was, where she was coming from, and what was meant.
It does not rise to the level of conscious “virulent” racism. She doesn’t state that differences in performance on IQ tests between blacks and whites are due to genetics. She doesn’t advocate preferential treatment based on race. Her conscious beliefs should not be considered objectionable.
I find the idea of indicting someone based on their subconcious attitudes as revealed through extremely careful parsing of sub-text to be dangerous and wrong.
May 1, 2010, 8:46 pmSteve Sailer says:
“He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
May 1, 2010, 8:52 pmOpenVolokh says:
Exactly.
May 1, 2010, 8:58 pmSteve Sailer says:
The Thought Police Volunteer Auxiliary are sure out today.
May 1, 2010, 9:01 pmPerseus says:
In the modern era, John Stuart Mill began the “conservatives are stupid” meme, and since then, conservatives have been alleged to have lower IQs, authoritarian personalities, and other marks of inferiority, but such claims are hardly taboo in today’s academy.
May 1, 2010, 9:01 pmAngus says:
Well, yes, because “I don’t think a or b” is bad writing. Combined with double-negatives, it leaves a reader having to guess at the author’s meaning.
May 1, 2010, 9:12 pmPreferred would be “I don’t think a nor b” or “I think neither a nor b”
OpenVolokh says:
Why do you think that is?
May 1, 2010, 9:18 pmDavid M. Nieporent says:
First, the limits here are viewpoint-neutral; they’re based on tone, not the idea expressed. Second, zapping comments does not have a adverse personal impact on the commenter.
May 1, 2010, 9:20 pmPerseus says:
Speakers may not be banned, but it is clear from the administrative response that you had better be extremely careful in what you say, or you will face a “social price.”
May 1, 2010, 9:27 pmSteve Sailer says:
Let’s be frank about what this is all about: It’s about whether you internalized the elite class dogmas well enough to be allowed into the elite. The stupider the dogma, the better for demonstrating class loyalty.
That’s why there is so little actual content in the comments about, you know, the law, and instead so much parsing of whether the victim has violated the reigning unwritten rules, much as the in clique of junior high school girls dissects the clothes of a girl on the edge of their clique.
May 1, 2010, 9:31 pmMark Field says:
My comment was a joke, of course. I remember my political theory prof telling the class he’d decided to spend more time on Rousseau rather than spend it on a “stupid British conservative” (Burke, of course — my prof was a Burkean). I didn’t know that Mill was the originator of that meme.
May 1, 2010, 9:34 pmMike Schilling says:
This is an amazing blog. I ask why someone who knows nothing about a subject would have an opinion on it, and within minutes I get an answer: because he’s Steve Sailer.
May 1, 2010, 9:38 pmOpenVolokh says:
(1) But still, some speech is being suppressed. Things are not said that would otherwise be said. And tone can communicate content. If the tone of what you say is sanitized, you are not sending the same message.
(2) I personally would prefer that this email had been dealt with privately. I do not know this person, but, in light of her apology the sincerity of which I have no reason to doubt, I will give them her the benefit of the doubt and assume that she made an isolated mistake.
(3) That said, the primary concern expressed here are not the consequences flowing from the speech. Rather, the concern is that certain things will not be said, at least not in the same manner. This is true. When the community has standards that are socially enforced, we are not likely to debate, for example, whether or not the Holocaust was morally justified. That such speech does not occur is either a feature rather than a bug, or it is the price we pay for civilization, depending on your perspective.
(4) My point is not that the limits at VC are identical to the limits in the HLS community. My point is that there are limits. Also, your argument that the limits here at VC are viewpoint neutral does not seem likely to be true in practice. Different bloggers have different styles concerning enforcement, they are inconsistent in their enforcement, and it is based on the judgment of individual bloggers. I think that certain bloggers attempt to be viewpoint neutral in moderating comments, but I do no think they always succeed. In any case, having limits are going to prevent certain things from being said.
(5) Limits at other sites that are more liberal than VC, like Above the Law, are definitely not viewpoint neutral. Hardly any comments are deleted there, but they will delete comments that are racist or sexist. Viewpoint neutrality is not the be all and end all of all standards of conduct in speech, although it might be something to lean towards to some degree.
May 1, 2010, 9:42 pmSara says:
Yes, Well. Those with social intelligence (genetic based or not) learn this as they first learn to speak and generally by college age. For those that don’t, there is this good advice:
May 1, 2010, 9:43 pmhttp://volokh.com/2010/05/01/approaching-arguments-that-have-a-racist-past/
Anonsters says:
Silly Sara, this is a blog. You won’t find social intelligence here!
May 1, 2010, 9:46 pmOpenVolokh says:
Don’t worry about him. I have a tendency to skip over or at most skim his over-the-top comments. There are crazy people who express all sorts of opinions on the Internet. That is a fact.
May 1, 2010, 9:48 pmChris Travers says:
Do we know what the apology said? The fact that there was an apology doesn’t mean a lot in my book. There’s a big difference between, “I realize some people took what I said to be greatly offensive and I apologize for the hurt feelings” and “I’m sorry I said that in an email.”
May 1, 2010, 9:53 pmex parte animal says:
CRIMSON DNA’s original statement:
Whitewashed re-phrase favored on this site by certain of its authors and a majority of commenters:
A large part of the outrage in this imbroglio comes from what CRIMSON DNA actually said rather than from some neutral and dispassionate intellectual interest in the possibility that race and IQ are somehow correlated.
To be sure, many people categorically reject the suggestion of any such correlation.
But please be just as sure that many who do not were still offended by her suggestion that there is such a correlation and that African Americans (as opposed to, say, Asians, Latinos or African Non-Americans) are “genetically predisposed to be less intelligent.”
May 1, 2010, 9:56 pmOpenVolokh says:
You have no idea what you are talking about. Harvard Law School is a place that celebrates vigorous debate and the clash of competing ideas. You either didn’t attend HLS, or you are one of those people who overreact to the reasonable social limits that do exist. In general, you do not have to be extremely careful in what you say. But, if you are going to make speculative arguments about possible correlations in genes between those influencing intelligence and those influencing melanoma content in skin, you are wise to show a little more care.
May 1, 2010, 9:57 pmOpenVolokh says:
ex parte animal,
You are absolutely correct. Her statements were not the product of a neutral inquiry. At all.
May 1, 2010, 10:00 pmChris Travers says:
BTW, I am inclined to accept a genetic explanation for a few of reasons:
1) Despite substantial increases opportunities for blacks, the gap has remained stable, and
2) Similar gaps are observed elsewhere in the world.
3) Asians have scored higher on IQ tests for quite a while than have whites.
I don’t think it can simply be a matter of culture. I am not saying culture may not be a contributing factor (I think it can be). I just don’t think on can limit it to culture. If it was just culture, I would expect the gap to have narrowed somewhat.
However, this being said there are a couple of EXTREMELY important notes on the above:
1) I don’t think IQ tests NECESSARILY prove that Asians are cognitively superior to whites, and that whites are cognitively superior to blacks. At most you can conclude that the specific areas tested by IQ tests show this pattern, but I am not even sure one can say this with the current knowledge. I think it’s dangerous to generalize from a test to a concept. I am of an opinion that human intelligence is impossible to quantify for this purpose and that IQ tests should be seen simply as a test demonstrating a congitive ability to do well in our current education system.
2) Even if a group shows a statistical difference you can’t apply this to the individual because, well, the differences within a group is much higher than the differences between groups. Indeed, nobody would argue that most white men and women are not nearly as intelligent as George Washington Carver, Booker T Washington, or W. E. B. Dubois. So such a conclusion is of no practical importance.
I am personally of the opinion that this gap is at least in large part genetic, but also entirely meaningless and useless outside the narrow area of education policy.
May 1, 2010, 10:14 pmwm13 says:
May 1, 2010, 10:21 pmOpenVolokh says:
How is education policy a “narrow area?” Last time I checked, there was more than a passing correlation between the prestige of the school you attended and the prestige of the jobs that are more easily within your reach.
I think your analysis is extremely sloppy. You have no basis for downplaying culture and other environmental factors in explaining gaps that exist.
May 1, 2010, 10:27 pmSara says:
Chris Travers:
May 1, 2010, 10:30 pmDo we know what the apology said?The fact that there was an apology doesn’t mean a lot in my book.There’s a big difference between, “I realize some people took what I said to be greatly offensive and I apologize for the hurt feelings” and “I’m sorry I said that in an email.”
OpenVolokh says:
Sara,
I think you are parsing the email excessively. I realize one could say that the email is written in the passive voice and try to make hay out of that, but it is understandable for a person to try to distance themselves subconsciously from harm. Also, many people write in the passive voice when it does not serve their best interests in terms of good writing.
I take the email to be a sincere apology when it says things like “deeply sorry,” “heartbroken,” “devastated” and “I would give anything to take it back.”
May 1, 2010, 10:38 pmSara says:
Why do you focus on race in discussing this hypothesis? If it’s important, why isn’t the focus on why Johnny is dumber than Carlos, instead? If there are intelligence genes, tell us about Ida and Jada, not this race and that. And when we discover that, then what do we do when my daughter genetically tests much “better” than your son?
May 1, 2010, 10:48 pmSara says:
What? Go back and read who was parsing it, it was not me, it was Chris Travers.
May 1, 2010, 10:51 pmOpenVolokh says:
Sara,
Oh. Sorry about that! I read back and confirmed that you were correct. The words you are quoting him as saying were words I thought you were saying.
May 1, 2010, 10:53 pmAnonsters says:
Seconded.
May 1, 2010, 10:57 pmPerseus says:
I would refer back to the concerns that Prof. Volokh expressed about Dean Minow’s response.
May 1, 2010, 11:09 pmJack Marshall says:
The student’s apology was sincere in that she said she did not intend to offend anyone, which is clearly true. She did not recant, nor should she have. She is the only individual to apologize in this mess, when she was the least culpable, and indeed the victim. To use an apology produced in this manner, from a student who thought she was talking with friends suddenly being condemned as a Klan enthusiast, as proof of wrong-doing is wright out of the Salem play-book.
Every single person who sent the e-mail on its merry way should apologize also, for intentionally exacerbating a stranger’s misfortune. The ethical duty here was to try to mitigate the harm, not make it worse.
May 1, 2010, 11:20 pmJack Marshall says:
“maybe she’s just a horrible writer and sloppy thinker”???
Gee, maybe she was writing a late night e-mail message to some supposed friends.(She left out footnotes, too. Horrors.)
May 1, 2010, 11:23 pmJack Marshall says:
Aaron: Bingo. Bravo. Correctamundo!
May 1, 2010, 11:27 pmOpenVolokh says:
I think Eugene Volokh’s concerns are totally off base. I read Martha Minow’s email, and it was completely professional.
I also think Eugene Volokh’s lack of concern that the person he has endorsed for California AG has asserted that homosexuals are akin to “barbarians” is another example of his poor judgment and lack of sensitivity.
As someone who has actually attended HLS, I can assure you that it is place where ideas, including conservative ideas, are debated openly and vigorously. If you haven’t attended HLS, your opinion to the contrary means very little.
May 1, 2010, 11:31 pmOpenVolokh says:
Jack Marshall. If you think she didn’t recant, you can’t read. Let me quote:
“I emphatically do not believe that African Americans are genetically inferior in any way. I understand why my words expressing even a doubt in that regard were and are offensive.”
May 1, 2010, 11:33 pmAngus says:
I emphatically do not believe that African Americans are genetically inferior in any way. I understand why my words expressing even a doubt in that regard were and are offensive.
Jack, did you actually read the apology? Including the gigantic recanting I’ve quoted?
May 1, 2010, 11:35 pmAngus says:
Whoops — OV and I were writing at the same time!
May 1, 2010, 11:35 pmSara says:
Jack Marshall, Apparently you don’t know the definition of apology. She admitted both error and regret: “I understand why my words . . . were and are offensive.” She says, they were offensive when she wrote them. Your attempt to gainsay her is rude and unethical.
May 1, 2010, 11:35 pmJack Marshall says:
Angus and OV: She did not recant. Her e-mail did not say she believed that blacks were intellectually inferior, though this is how it has even been quoted on the web. She said she did not rule out the possibility. [ "I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that African Americans are, on average, genetically predisposed to be less intelligent. I could also obviously be convinced that by controlling for the right variables, we would see that they are, in fact, as intelligent as white people under the same circumstances."] If anything, I read the “obviously” to mean that she recognizes that the latter is the more likely result.
There are many things I don’t believe but am open to the possibility of being convinced otherwise. You guys want to see her as a racist. I get it. It is unfair and wrong. I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that you are capable of justly giving a student the benefit of the doubt regarding her comments in an e-mail. But I sure as hell am skeptical.
May 1, 2010, 11:45 pmJack Marshall says:
Sarah: Please. She had a gun to her head. Sure, she could have refused to toe the line, and end up by being a national pariah because of the Race Police, which included her own Dean. Reading anything into it other than sincere regret that she blundered into this mess is absurd and deliberately ignores the obvious.
May 1, 2010, 11:51 pmAnonsters says:
This is such a strange line to take. Why on earth do you want to carry water for the view that, despite all evidence to the contrary, she didn’t apologize sincerely?
May 1, 2010, 11:54 pmSara says:
So you, Jack Marshall, you pile on by saying she’s a coward, insincere in her apology, and a liar. She says, she was wrong. Who are you?
May 1, 2010, 11:55 pmJohn Skookum says:
The existence of a rather considerable gap in IQ between blacks and whites is not in question. Only the explanations of the gap, i.e. nurture vs. nature, or differences over what metric is really being measured, are really controversial. Low school spending, poor nutrition, lead-based paint in the ghetto, lingering psychic trauma from slavery and racism in general are among the many non-hereditary explanations that have been offered. However, the gap is remarkably persistent, no matter how many environmental variables are adjusted or controlled for, or how the concept of general intelligence is re-defined over the decades.
Meta-analyses of many large data sets have found about a 1.1 standard deviation difference in the median IQ of blacks and whites. That may not seem like much but it amounts to about 17 IQ points and indicates that for whatever reason, a given median-IQ black person will be less intelligent than 90% or so of white people. Given that there are roughly six white people for every black person in this country, that means that for every median-intelligence black person, there will exist about sixty white people with a higher IQ.
The effect is even more pronounced at higher IQ levels than the median. The difference between two sigmas and three sigmas is a lot more than the difference between the median and one sigma. When you get into the distal tail of the Gaussian distribution, for every black person who has an IQ of 130 and is thus very likely to succeed in careers like law and medicine, there may be five hundred or more white people who have higher IQ.
By this measure, affirmative action is a roaring success for the African-American community. There is not a single medical school in the country whose black student population is less than representative of even median IQ levels, let alone their representation among the ranks of the gifted.
Please keep in mind that I am being descriptive and not normative here. If you differ with my assertions, take it up with Professors Gauss and Binet.
May 1, 2010, 11:58 pmOpenVolokh says:
Jack Marshall,
Once again, you need to practice reading comprehension.
One could of course be extremely uncharitable, as you are being, and think her use of the passive voice in the apology when referring to harm are a way of weaseling out of responsibility. I do not believe that is the case, given the strong adjectives expressing regret that she used and her focus on harm her own words caused. Many people use the passive voice in situations where there is no motive to do so.
I am inclined to agree with Sara that your uncharitable interpretation of her apology is both rude and ethically suspect.
I would hate to be a person who owed you an apology, given the absurd lengths you would likely go to in uncharitably parsing it and asking for clarifications. I personally think it is usually more ethical to interpret apologies charitably.
May 1, 2010, 11:58 pmbobc says:
I just haven’t figured out why she couldn’t emphatically rule out the superiority of blacks over whites.
May 2, 2010, 12:00 amPhilC says:
Jack Marshall: You, instead, deliberately ignore her own words and cast aspersions on her character. You should not read anything into her apology. Doing so, shows you are rude and unethical.
May 2, 2010, 12:16 amPeter Twieg says:
I’m amazed by the number of comments that basically boil down to “well, she might not have said anything that is racist per se, but this is the sort of argument that a racist would make and thus it’s justifiable to assume she is one and ostracize her accordingly.”
Or perhaps her crime is making an argument that provides aid and comfort to racists?
May 2, 2010, 12:17 amKlip says:
I absolutely can not rule out that she was threatened with unfair and unjustified administrative actions against her in order to induce her to say whatever the administration told her to say to escape their threatened retribution.
In fact, having witnessed first-hand similar strong-arm tactics from educational elitists, I think it is highly likely.
May 2, 2010, 12:19 amPerseus says:
Repeatedly raising Prof. Volokh’s endorsement of Eastman bespeaks more of your pet political concerns than it has any bearing on the question of whether Dean Minow’s response was appropriate and whether it will have a “chilling effect” on open discourse on the subject. And unless you are currently a student at HLS, you are in no position to provide any anecdotal evidence on such effects.
May 2, 2010, 12:20 amAnonsters says:
Hardly. We’re merely seeing converging lines of evidence that EV’s judgment and sensitivity aren’t what some of us might have once thought.
May 2, 2010, 12:28 amGaltonian says:
It is interesting that Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow and the third year law student Yelena Shagall (the woman who “outed” Stephanie Grace’s email) are both members of a special ethnoracial group that is a small proportion of the whole USA population (constitutes only about 3%) but yet is a huge proportion of the students and staff of elite American universities like Harvard (about 30%). Of course the reason Jews are present at about 20 to 40 percent proportion in elite universities and professions is because Jews tend to be much smarter on average than non-Jewish whites, that is they tend to have higher levels of IQ-type intelligence. In this way Jews are sort of the mirror image of another ethnoracial group (African Americans) who tend to have lower levels of IQ-type intelligence. Why is it that Jews tend to be so smart? Many people suspect that the Jewish advantage in intelligence might be genetically determined.
A few years ago Henry Harpending (Chair of Anthropology at U of Utah and member of the National Academy of Sciences) published a paper which claimed that certain gene alleles may have been selected for in the European Jewish population in association with selection for higher intelligence. Harpending’s hypothesis was an extension of an idea discussed by UCLA professor Jared Diamond (author of Guns Germs and Steel) in an essay entitled “Jewish Lysosomes” published in a 1994 issue of Nature. The Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker has expressed in talks and in essays his view there Harpending’s hypothesis for a genetic basis for higher Jewish intelligence is quite plausible although not yet proven.
In any event, I think it is ironic that many Jewish liberals often clamor for ethnoracial diversity policies such as Affirmative Action (i.e. the notion that it is imperative that ethnoracial groups be represented in elite schools and professions in proportions that mirror their respective demographic proportions in the general population), because if Affirmative Action was ever actually successfuly instituted in a full impartial manner, then about 90% of Jews would have to relinquish their plans for entering elite colleges and elite professions (as would be neccessary in order to shrink their current 30% share down to their Affirmative Action policy-determined “fair share” of 3%). Clearly this would be a calamity for American Jews (and similarly calamitous for other higher-IQ ethnoracial groups such as high caste Indians and East Asians), thus it is totally ridiculous and inconsistent for liberals (especially Jewish liberals) to claim that they support Affirmative Action. The best course of action is to let the chips fall as they may and just deal with the reality of ethnoracial differences in intelligence by treating people as individuals and striving for equality of opportunity (but not for the pipedream of equality of achieved outcome). The whole notion of making ethnoracial equality of achieved outcome a goal is simply unrealistic within the context of a meritocratic society which respects individual rights.
Occams Razor says that the simplest explanation is the most likely one, thus the most likely explanation for why Jews tend to be smarter than average and similarly for why Blacks tend to be less smart than average, is that these disparities in mental ability are mostly due to genetic differences associated with the natural history of evolutionary selection for gene alleles related to intelligence. Almost everybody realizes that Blacks tend to be less smart and less successful than average (and consequently far poorer than average) and that Jews tend to be smarter and more successful than average (and consequently far richer than average), so lets just face up to the facts and stop all the politically correct nonsense, OKAY?
Hopefully the specific gene alleles which cause differences in IQ-type intelligence will soon be discovered so that we can finally resolve this controversy regarding the cause for ethnoracial differences in IQ-type intelligence. I am quite convinced that when the molecular genetic verdict finally arrives, the hereditarian side (Arthur Jensen, Richard Lynn, Linda Gottfredson, Phillipe Rushton, Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, Henry Harpending, Satoshi Kanazawa, Steve Sailer, John Derbyshire et al) will be vindicated.
May 2, 2010, 12:36 amAnonsters says:
That’s not what Occam’s Razor says.
May 2, 2010, 12:40 amOpenVolokh says:
Perseus,
Give me a break. I know the institution and follow it carefully. The vast majority of the faculty that were there when I attended are the same. I have a real basis for my opinion in both personal experience and my continuing observation of the institution, and you don’t have one for yours. Harvard Law School is a fabulous place to go as a student if you want to have open and vigorous debate about ideas, controversial or otherwise. However, the HLS community has sensible and reasonable limits, as it should.
May 2, 2010, 12:40 amleo marvin says:
How many would that be, more or less, because I don’t recall any? I may have missed a comment here or there, but how many does it take to amaze you?
I wouldn’t call that a crime, but I disapprove of it, don’t you?
May 2, 2010, 12:52 amGaltonian says:
@Anonsters,
I meant to say “Occam’s Razor says that the simplest explanation is the one that is most likely to be correct.”
Wikipedia: “Occam’s razor is the meta-theoretical principle that “entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity” (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem) and the conclusion thereof, that the simplest solution is usually the correct one.”
Thus, given the fact that intelligence is a highly heritable human trait and that ethnoracial groups differ genetically; the simplest explanation for why Blacks tend to be substantially less intelligent is that they really ARE innately less intelligent and similarly the simplest explanation for why Jews tend to be substantially more intelligent is that they really ARE innately more intelligent. All other explanations are substantially more complex and much less likely to be correct.
May 2, 2010, 12:54 amDG says:
Don’t be pedantic. “entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem”. There. Happy?
That being said, I don’t think the genetic explanation is the most simple one. The simplest explanation, although also a hot issue, is culture. There is little secret that Jews value education AND professional achievement, as do many other groups that excel. And, sadly, large segments of the African-American population do not. Its tough (and unfair) to generalize, but we all know what it means to say someone is an “oreo” or “acting white”. If you want to hear it without the sugar-coating, talk to an African or Caribbean immigrant to this country. Of course, for the more “progressive”, those view might blow your mental circuit breakers. The word “lazy” gets thrown around a lot. And no, I don’t think that’s genetic either.
May 2, 2010, 1:02 amChris Travers says:
The basic problem is that IQ tests are very, very good at measuring how well a given individual is likely to do in school. However, if we assume that this is all the tests are measuring, we cannot assume that IQ gaps between racial groups necessarily mean that some groups have less to offer an intellectual debate than others. Consequently while it does open the door to the idea that affirmative action based on race is a good thing per se rather than just an attempt to stir the pot and help folks harmed by the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow to overcome this, it also may suggest that quite frankly we don’t KNOW what these cognitive differences are well enough to use them in any way post-education.
The basic problem is this: If you give 10 people a problem that is outside their expertise and tell them to do their best to solve it, the people will tackle the problem in different ways. For example, when I was doing tech support for Microsoft, I had a guy call in with a hardware problem (he knew it was a hardware problem but didn’t know who to call) that he had diagnosed by analogizing between the computer and human anatomy. He had, in fact, diagnosed the problem correctly but through a fairly wacky way.
I suspect (though cannot prove) that most people will eventually learn to do this fairly successfully in ways that work for themselves. This is something well beyond what an IQ test can test, and it gets to the heart of the question of what is “intelligence” better than any IQ test.
If we are measuring “intelligence” as “aptitude for our education system” then a gap of this sort (whatever causes it) strongly suggests that our schools are not serving African Americans well. It doesn’t, however, in any way imply that African Americans are less successful at solving complex problems as others are. Indeed, my experience regarding working with people and observing problem-solving skills is that there doesn’t seem to be a significant difference (certainly if there is, it’s not anywhere in the same neighborhood as the IQ test gap would suggest).
My reasons for disregarding culture were laid out, namely that despite substantial changes in culture over the last several decades, the gap has remained very stable, and also that similar gaps have been found in most places where this sort of research has been done. Given those two elements, I don’t think it can be merely cultural even if there is a cultural component. However, quite frankly, I find the idea that blacks are stupid because they hold onto black culture (i.e. are stupid by choice) far more offensive than the idea that we just haven’t learned enough about cognitive differences to be able to serve all Americans regardless of race by our education system, so perhaps there’s some confirmation bias on my part…..
Honestly, though, the median African American IQ test score is at about the 10th percentile of the average “white” American IQ test score. My experience observing problem solving skills by folks at various income levels suggests that the IQ gap is meaningless when it comes to real-life problem solving. Consequently, I don’t think the IQ gap relates to an intelligence gap (or at least not one of the magnitude we see in the tests, but I would postulate a lack of an actual intelligence gap), at least not if we define intelligence as relating to real life instead of just school.
So I hope this explains why I think this is a narrow issue of education policy and why one shouldn’t read much into the IQ gap beyond what we need to do about it as regards education. Certainly if I am right about the IQ gap being separable from an ability to solve real-world problems, then we shouldn’t foreclose opportunities to a group simply because they are predisposed to think about problems differently.
May 2, 2010, 1:12 amOpenVolokh says:
I do not have the inclination, at this point, to read your whole post. But you say that IQ tests are predictive of how well an individual will do in school. But, maybe how well people do in school impacts their IQ tests. How well do people who do not take the IQ test seriously score?
When I was in the first grade, our teacher divided us into 4 groups. Each group had a different color, the assignments were either harder or easier based on the group we were in. There were 4 different bins, each of a different color. The bin you turned in your assignments was based in what group you were in. I was in the lowest intelligence group.
I happened to get a lot of help from my mother with my homework, however. Later, when I took an IQ test, I was well over 140 in mathematics and right below that in verbal.
Go figure. You are very foolish to think that performance on IQ tests are unrelated to our preparations, the support we get from others, and our upbringing.
May 2, 2010, 1:33 amChris Travers says:
As an aside (mostly geared towards the question of what the IQ test measures), early in the days of the USSR, Alexander Luria (inventor of the first lie detector device, but more importantly a pioneer in intelligence testing) began an interesting set of studies on the effect of teaching rural farmers how to read so they could manage the Communist farms under Lenin. His findings in this area, though culturally tied (i.e. measuring a culturo-linguistic difference) shed some light on the difficulty behind measuring intelligence in a standardized test.
Luria identified a number of cognitive differences between folks who lived in oral-traditional cultures and had never learned to read vs those who had learned to read. These lead to different answers to test questions like:
Of the following items, which doesn’t belong:
log, saw, ax, hammer
Literate folks would identify the log because they interpreted the question as one of categorization, while illiterate folks would answer something like “well, if I had to, I’d toss out the ax because the saw does a better job of cutting the log.” In other words they saw the question as one of utility instead of categorization. Obviously in a standardized test, the correct answer is “log” but the other answer isn’t necessarily wrong because the question is fundamentally ambiguous. Next-in-pattern type questions (beyond the most elementary ones) are also often ambiguous.
So standardized intelligence tests with identified correct answers generally test how well a person thinks like the test author. I am not generally inclined to read much more into them except that they tend to be a pretty good predictor of academic performance at least on the student side.
Similarly, unless one is really prepared to argue that the average-intelligence black man in the US is less able to solve complex real-life problems than 90% of white men, we really need to see this as an artifact of the test, and we should be aware of how limited standardized intelligence tests are……
May 2, 2010, 1:34 amChris Travers says:
I am not saying it’s unrelated to these things, but when you have a stable gap over a period of time which doesn’t seem to relate to a similar gap in real problem solving skills, you have to figure that this says something (unflattering) about our education system, do you not?
Also what were the colors for the groups?
May 2, 2010, 1:36 amPerseus says:
That reflects poor or lazy judgment on your part if it’s taken you this long to figure out that Prof. Volokh might offend your sensitivities.
May 2, 2010, 1:41 amArthur Kirkland says:
Speaking of off-limits speech, anybody remember “freedom fries” (do I remember incorrectly, or did some federal legislators call for French fries to be banned from the Capitol cafeterias) or “homicide bombers” (a formulation preferred among a subclass of those with little respect for words)?
May 2, 2010, 1:41 amOpenVolokh says:
I do not remember. 4 basic colors, like green and yellow. I don’t remember the other two colors.
Look, I sort of skimmed what you have said. Needless to say, I do not find your insistence on genetic explanations convincing.
May 2, 2010, 1:41 amOpenVolokh says:
Actually, Eugene Volokh has painted himself to be a reasonable person. You would not think he would support an anti-gay bigot for California AG.
May 2, 2010, 1:42 amOpenVolokh says:
Galtonian,
If you think Occam’s Razor constitutes evidence for any proposition, you are seriously confused. Its serious defenders at most claim it to be a “rule of thumb” which might be a slight basis to prefer one explanation over another in cases where two explanations are otherwise equally likely.
I happen to reject Occam’s Razor. If two explanations seem equally likely, my position is that there is no reason to prefer one over the other. If a decision absolutely has to be made between them, I would resolve the controversy with a coin toss rather than this particular rule of thumb.
Regardless, The slight weight put on the scale by Occam’s Razor should be discarded as soon as actual evidence leads one to think the more complex explanation is more likely than the simpler explanation.
Furthermore, your assertion that genetics is the “simplest” explanation for gaps in IQ is likewise ridiculous. There is nothing more complex to the idea that “nutrition” would cause such gaps. There is nothing more complex about the idea that “culture” would cause such gaps. There is nothing more complex about the idea that “upbringing” would cause such gaps.
So, what are you doing? You have arbitrarily labeling what is in fact a complex possible explanation for differences in IQ (that you think tracing genes to specific traits is simple, you obviously are ignorant of biology and bioinformatics!) and then putting an enormous weight in favor of that explanation based on a misapplication of Occam’s Razor, which is itself nothing more than a rule of thumb that is itself controversial.
You are the very definition of ridiculous.
May 2, 2010, 1:57 amPerseus says:
Once again, that reflects poor or lazy judgment if you thought that he wouldn’t support someone who holds a position that you happen to find so unreasonable as to be disqualifying. Your judgment of Prof. Volokh as someone who “paints” himself as a “reasonable” person is likewise poor since that would suggest artifice on his part (I suppose you argue that it was inferior artifice, but I have more confidence in his abilities than that).
May 2, 2010, 2:22 amChris Travers says:
I disagree with your premise though that IQ tests actually measure intelligence…. Are you really saying that with complex, real-world problems, that the median black man will do worse than 90% of whites? Given that this is not what I have witnessed at least from the blacks I have worked with (both in menial jobs and white collar ones), I haven’t seen a substantial difference (sure, I have worked with my share of stupid people of all races too but also very intelligent problem solvers as well).
In other words, if blacks are less intelligent in the ways the IQ tests look at, either they make up for it in effort or more likely there untested areas where they do better than white folk. My bet is on the latter.
As for Jews, do you think that valuing an education exerts an evolutionary pressure within the group?
May 2, 2010, 2:34 amGaltonian says:
The nutrition of Blacks is good enough to produce the all of the fastest sprinters in the world (ever hear of Usain Bolt, and everyone else in the world who has ever run the 100 meter sprint in under 10 seconds? they are ALL blacks).
The culture of Blacks is good enough to produce one of the premier new artforms of the 20th century (Jazz music).
The upbringing of Blacks (assuming you mean their parenting practices) is entirely commensurate with what you would expect from parents with IQs that mostly lie in the span of IQ 70 to IQ 100 (plus and minus one standard deviation). When Blacks were raised in upper-middle class white homes they still ended up becoming 18 year olds with average IQ of 83.7, see the Scarr-Weinberg Minnesota Transracial Adoption study(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence).
Come on now, everyone with any common sense knows that the ethnoracial IQ differences are mostly due to genetic differences, to say otherwise is to be very politically correct but also very PHONY!!!
May 2, 2010, 2:35 amGaltonian says:
I am going to bed now, but in case any of you Humanities/Social sciences/Law scholar types are planning to trot out the old “Race is just a social construct, it has no bearing on biology and genetics” PLEASE do not insult my intelligence with such nonsense. The different ethnoracial groups are highly associated with genetic differences. Here is post that i wrote a couple of days ago on that.
It is hilarious how you Law School people actually believe all the Boasian PC bullshit about how races supposedly only differ in terms of cultural factors and that “there are no important genetic differences…” …yeah right…
We in the medical and human genetics research field just laugh when we hear all this politically correct crazy bullshit, because we study racial and ethnic differences in genetic traits ALL THE TIME but you PC-freaks just don’t know it because we use some special code words to fool you. You see, rather than saying “racial groups” instead we say “continental or large subcontinental human population groups” and instead of saying “ethnic groups” we say “human population sub-groups”. We are always careful to remember to say “population” instead of “race” because then the PC-police give us a free pass to do our research on racial group genetic differences–oops I mean human population group differences.
For example we often use a site called HapMap that catalogs ethnoracial group genetic differences-
http://hapmap.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/index.html.en
This site shows the ethnoracial group gene allele differences that are mapped throughout the human genome in regards to eleven ethnoracial groups, and more will be added soon. Now we have gene differences cataloged for the following eleven ethnoracial groups:
Population descriptors:ASW: African ancestry in Southwest USA, CEU: Utah residents with Northern and Western European ancestry from the CEPH collection, CHB: Han Chinese in Beijing, China, CHD: Chinese in Metropolitan Denver, Colorado, GIH: Gujarati Indians in Houston, Texas, JPT: Japanese in Tokyo, Japan, LWK: Luhya in Webuye, Kenya, MEX: Mexican ancestry in Los Angeles, California, MKK: Maasai in Kinyawa, Kenya, TSI: Toscans in Italy, YRI: Yoruban in Ibadan, Nigeria.
Translation of everyday “race talk” into “HapMap talk”:
Black = ASW, LWK, MKK, YRI
Hispanic = MEX
White = CEU, TSI
Asian Indian = GIH
East Asian = CHB, CHD, JPT
In the past few years there has been a whole bunch of exciting new research on discovering genes that have undergone evolutionary selection during the history of modern humans as the racial groups developed (…now don’t you kinda of suspect that this includes the genes that modulate intelligence???…) and what they are finding is that much of this selection for new gene alleles has occurred in Europeans and East Asians but not in Africans. Here are links to some of these new research discoveries on genetic differences between racial groups:
Identification and analysis of genomic regions with large between-population differentiation in humans
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/119387724/PDFSTART
Natural selection has driven population differentiation in modern humans
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18246066
How culture shaped the human genome: bringing genetics and the human sciences together
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20084086
The role of geography in human adaptation
http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1000500
Genotype, haplotype and copy-number variation in worldwide human populations
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18288195
The genetics of human adaptation: hard sweeps, soft sweeps, and polygenic adaptation
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20178769
Signals of recent positive selection in a worldwide sample of human populations
http://genome.cshlp.org/content/19/5/826.full.pdf+html
This last paper cited above (“Signals of recent positive selection in a worldwide sample of human populations” by Professor Jonathan Pritchard’s group at U of Chicago) is all about how there has been positive selection for genes including a pathway called NRG-ERBB4 that controls brain development and brain synapse function and that has even been linked to cognitive function. One point made in the paper is that selection for the new versions of these important brain influencing genes only occurred in Whites and Asians (not in Blacks). Finding this sort of scientific discovery does not bode well for the Boasian theory that all ethnoracial groups have the same genetic endowment for intelligence.
Genome Res. 2009 May;19(5):826-37. Epub 2009 Mar 23.
Signals of recent positive selection in a worldwide sample of human populations.
Pickrell JK, Coop G, Novembre J, Kudaravalli S, Li JZ, Absher D, Srinivasan BS,
Barsh GS, Myers RM, Feldman MW, Pritchard JK.
Department of Human Genetics, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
pickrell@uchicago.edu
Genome-wide scans for recent positive selection in humans have yielded insight
May 2, 2010, 2:41 aminto the mechanisms underlying the extensive phenotypic diversity in our species,
but have focused on a limited number of populations. Here, we present an analysis
of recent selection in a global sample of 53 populations, using genotype data
from the Human Genome Diversity-CEPH Panel. We refine the geographic
distributions of known selective sweeps, and find extensive overlap between these
distributions for populations in the same continental region but limited overlap
between populations outside these groupings. We present several examples of
previously unrecognized candidate targets of selection, including signals at a
number of genes in the NRG-ERBB4 developmental pathway in non-African
populations. Analysis of recently identified genes involved in complex diseases
suggests that there has been selection on loci involved in susceptibility to type
II diabetes. Finally, we search for local adaptation between geographically close
populations, and highlight several examples.
Dean of U. of Padua says:
In hindsight, Galileo was right. Nice to see Harvard following in our tradition of stifling free inquiry.
May 2, 2010, 2:41 amLargo says:
Sara, this comment ends with an earnest question (which you might consider a request).
Well, social intelligence is not a binary attribute. I think I am probably slower than many in my ability to sense what is or is not appropriate in a social context. I sense that your “good advice” above is essentially pointing out an example of what not to say. The fact that it was a parody (if you think it was not, I admit I might be wrong) suggests that it is something that even people with somewhat low social intelligence (like myself) would see as something not to say.
Frankly, this gives those of us at the lower end of social intelligence no advice at all regarding our judgment of what not to say in less obvious matters.
There are borderline cases. You believe what was said about race lies way beyond the border. You may be right. But for those of us who are less intelligent in determining that border, pointing out a parody that lies way way beyond the border does not help us.
For those of us who know they are less adept at recognizing the border, I wonder how far back from the border we should step. Might it be good advise for some of us to refrain from speaking? Not just those who are likely to say outrageous things (which might include me), but those who are uncertain of whether they lack the social intelligence to know that they will not cay outrageous things (which would include me)?
But in the end, if I were to say anything stupid that could be attributed to low social intelligence as much as to disposition of character, would you be more inclined to call me stupid than to call me evil? Stupid is a characterization I can live with. I readily admit that I am stupid about many things.
May 2, 2010, 3:20 amJohn Skookum says:
I know a few African and Caribbean immigrants, and as a rule they hate the ghetto-thug manifestations of African-American culture. HATE them. The Africans in particular have scathing things to say.
But they’re quite happy to take advantage of the racial preferences that ensure that their hard-working, polite, studious sons and daughters are showered with Ivy League admissions and generous scholarships.
May 2, 2010, 3:41 amJeff Walden says:
Maybe this was an affectation. It’s a convincing one, if so.
If it wasn’t: What am I to draw from the friendships amongst the Fellowship, or between Gimli and Legolas, or between Hobbits and Elves, or between mortals and immortals? Or what of The Tale of Beren and Lúthien? And what of the possibility that a writer might provide certain questionable assumptions — mistaken or not — in a story to make the degree to which these assumptions are overcome by the characters more pronounced, thus giving the characters greater depth and increasing their moral stature?
May 2, 2010, 3:43 amLargo says:
Angus, a request for you as well.
I speak as one who is, in some respects, a horrible writer and speaker. And not just because my comments run too long! Whether it reflects sloppy thinking, I will let you judge. Consider the following two statements: (1) “I don’t believe that God exists”, and (2) “I don’t want to go out for dinner”
I know that people making such statements tend to mean: (1a) “I am an athiest” and (2a) “I want to stay home.” Because of this, people who hear or read these statements tend to read them in the same way.
An equivalent, but more awkward, way of saying these things is: (1b) “I believe that God does not exist” and (2a) “I want to not go out to dinner.” I acknowledge that this awkwardness justifies this form of locution (to the extent that natural language ever needs “justification”), even though the locution could untypically, though as it were “logically”, be taken otherwise.
It is possible to “logically” receive the initial statements to mean (1c) “I lack the believe that God exists” and (2c) “I experience no particular desire to go out for dinner”. Of course, this is more awkward even than 1b/2b, though saying something quite different.
Now a problem arises, in that there are some of us (the minority, to be sure) who often wish to say things like 1c/2c. It is very convenient for us to use such locutions as (1) and (2) as a way of expressing 1c/2c. In typical conversation, the extra nuance of 1c/2c is irrelevant. But for some of us with a particular analytical bent, such nuance in conversation might be typical, is particular when talking amongst ourselves.
I suspect there may be an inverse correlation between the degree of one’s “analytical bent” and the degree of one’s “social intelligence” raised by Sara earlier. If so, those who say (1) and (2) to mean 1c/2c will be the least likely to note that others will take them to be meaning 1b/2b. This can cause us some embarrassment.
But regardless of how this may or may not have actual relevance to the statements made by the 3L student, I will ask you to always keep in mind the things I have said here, and to be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt when it applies.
May 2, 2010, 4:23 amyankee says:
The current race-obsessed political and legal situation? That would be as opposed to the rest of American history?
From slavery, to the Black Codes of the North, to the Civil War, to Reconstruction, to Jim Crow, to the civil rights movement, to massive resistance, to desegregation busing, to “welfare queens,” to affirmative action, to Barack Obama, race has always been at the forefront of American law and politics.
I agree that race is a major factor in American law and politics today, for a variety of reasons, but it’s historically inaccurate to treat this as some modern aberration. If anything, race is less important now than it’s ever been before.
May 2, 2010, 4:38 amLargo says:
On “Deafness to Racism”
It just occurred to me. Some of us [generic us] who express doubts about the racist motive behind such writing as the one being discussed might be very skilled in determining a racial motive. Suppose that one has no problem sensing the racial animus in a piece of writing. But suppose also that that same one senses animus in genuinely benign writing. (Please not I am not claiming that anyone here does, or than the writing discussed was benign).
Suppose, also, that this same one recognizes this problem in their own self: that their own cognitive apparatus for judging racist animus gives no false negatives, but that it gives too many false positives. It would be odd to say that such a one in insensitive to racism. At the same time, this one may well in many or all cases decline to form, or express, any judgment about racial animus, for one simple reason. This person lacks confidence it their own personal ability to avoid false positives.
It would be an epistemological difficulty that would prevent such a one from joining an opinion that a particular piece of writing is racist–not an insensitivity. Such a person should notbe considered unreasonable for maintaining–or, necessarily, even expressing–doubts.
… grist for the mill :-/ …
May 2, 2010, 4:52 amPerseus says:
I was not claiming that it was some sort of modern aberration in American history. I meant that it continues even today (with its own set of theoretical and practical concerns).
May 2, 2010, 5:43 amSara says:
Largo, Your comment didn’t end with a question, but I’ll try to answer: You may be both.
May 2, 2010, 6:26 amAngus says:
Largo,
I’m trying to understand exactly what your point is, but I think you’ve made your examples much, much more subtly different than has the email’s author. To stay with one of your examples, though, let’s say someone writes in an email this sentence:
“God does not exist, and someone would need to scientifically prove to me otherwise.”
Now, in response, there seem to be two different schools that emerge on how to interpret it.
School #1: It’s obvious that the person believes that God is not real.
School #2: She’s just neutrally seeking answers as to whether God exists and is currently undecided on the question.
Do we accept both interpretations as equally valid? If so, then we totally embrace postmodernism and words and ideas have no meaning whatsoever.
May 2, 2010, 6:39 amAngus says:
Let’s take an IQ test question with word relationships.
Find the word that best fits the relationship expressed in the first pair.
yacht:regatta, steed:
where the answer is “polo match”
Obviously, if the black test taker does not recognize regattas or polo matches it is due to genetics!
May 2, 2010, 7:00 amRicardo says:
In regard to the first point, there are indeed gaps between all kinds of groups throughout the world and many probably have little if anything to do with genetics. Flemish versus French speaking people in Belgium or Catholics versus Protestants in Northern Ireland, for instance. If it were possible to measure, do you want to guess on the size of the IQ gap between North and South Korea? The fact that IQ gaps are pervasive tells us nothing about whether they are genetic in origin.
As to the second point, the data are still very inconclusive. James Flynn mentioned a study a while ago on the population of San Francisco’s Chinatown: the adults (mostly working class immigrants from mainland China) had an average IQ of less than 100 while the children had IQs significantly higher than 100 in line with the California-born Asian community. Most of the attempts to measure “Asian” IQ I have seen involve very problematic and potentially biased samples, especially in regard to claims the Chinese in particular have high IQs. I have yet to see a representative sample from mainland China that validates claims of high Chinese IQ.
May 2, 2010, 7:11 amRicardo says:
The crucial bit you left out is that there is actual evidence from our knowledge of human biology and genetics that the link here is real: West Africans (not “Blacks” as no Kenyan has ever ran the 100-meter sprint in under 10 seconds) do indeed possess a gene that leads to the development of fast twitch muscles. Fast twitch muscles, in turn, are a necessary (but insufficient) condition to be a good sprinter.
So we’ve actually identified a particular gene, observed that it occurs in one population at a higher frequency than another, and have science to explain that particular gene’s role in human anatomy and development and we have a good understanding of how this physical characteristic leads people to be good sprinters. As everyone acknowledges, no such evidence exists with respect to IQ. Until we understand human genetics, brain development and cognitive function much better, this whole debate will be characterized by speculation and hand-waving.
May 2, 2010, 7:20 amRicardo says:
This simple explanation is provably fallacious. Your reasoning is based on the following chain of logic:
1. Trait X is highly heritable
2. Distinct populations A and B differ along trait X
3. Therefore, the best explanation for the difference in trait X is genetic
One counterexample is sufficient to demonstrate that this is a fallacy and here is one: look at the height difference between North and South Koreans.
This counterexample doesn’t prove the reasoning you provide will always be false, of course. What it does demonstrate is that we need a better understanding of human genetics, brain development and cognitive function to answer the question one way or another. But your invocation of Occam’s Razor is wrong because we already know the kind of reasoning you are trying to employ can badly misfire. The simple explanation that you want to be validated by Occam’s Razor cannot be based on a logical and statistical fallacy.
May 2, 2010, 7:32 amSara says:
Except, there are so many questionable assumptions in what EV, wrote. After noting the Dean was in a difficult situation and that EV does not want to fault her much, he begins with the patently questionable assumption that only he is reading the e-mail correctly.
He goes on to quibble with the Dean’s calling the incident ‘sad and unfortunate.’ But the incident is sad and unfortunate.
He then fails to acknowledge that the BLSA, because of all this, was being falsely accused, in news reports, of spreading private e-mail and seeking to get the girl fired. Those were accusations that needed to be cleared, which falsely branded that group.
He then reads things into the Dean’s message, based on his own questionable assumptions.
He goes on to discount what this woman says about her own e-mail, disrespecting her, in the process.
Ironically, he ends with an appeal to social convention, accusing the Dean of being soft on the wrong of disclosing a private e-mail (which, while I agree with this convention, it should be noted that e-mails, like letters, become the property of the recipient to do with what they will). Nonetheless, suddenly, EV says, ‘social convention for me and not for thee.’
In short, EV, not having spoken with anyone involved, not having been there, and not knowing the people involved, sets himself in Judgment based on what he, in a later post, describes as feelings and impressions from his personal history. He is not a reliable guide.
May 2, 2010, 7:34 amPersonFromPorlock says:
Yup, it’s a put-on. You raise some good counter points, but as you’ve seen in some of the comments here, counter points don’t carry a lot of weight with some people: it’s the accusation that counts. I’d really love to see some humorously-minded Harvard students ‘attack’ LOTR on the superficial grounds I raised, just to see how far the shrillness got before the bien-pensants came to their senses (if they did).
May 2, 2010, 8:03 amLargo says:
Thanks for your patience, Angus. Let me add more numerals for reference!
(1) “God does not exist, and someone would need to scientifically prove to me otherwise.”
What you said about this statement sounds about right to me. Now I believe that this is an incomplete expression of what is (presumably) a complet thought. What I mean is this. I do not know how to parse such phrases as “you need to do X”, or “you would need to do Y”, without supplying some implicit Z, as in: “you need to do X in order for this to occur“, or: “you would need to do Y before I would do that.” In principle, there are countless permutations possible, but none without at least some Z. In practice, the context severely limit what might be a sensible Z.
Now, let me add a plausible Z to the statement you presented:
(1a) “God does not exist, and someone would need to scientifically prove to me otherwise in order to make be believe that he does.”
Given the explicit claim that God does not exist–a claim not about her beliefs but about reality–there is the immediate implication that nobody would be able to scientifically prove otherwise. There is tone of belligerence here such that, I think, one might reasonably conclude that she was being belligerent. I would not conclude that here yet myself, but after some further reflection I might.
What’s more, every Z I have considered, that makes sense to be here, sounds belligerent to me. In any case, and this by virtue of her
explicitness, she is not “currently undecided on the question.” I am not sure what you mean by valid “interpretation”, but I would not consider your School #2 to be expressing a valid conclusion. Indeed, one ought to conclude the opposite. So I emphatically disagree with School #2. Here we are in agreement.
Now, suppose that instead of (1), she had written
(2) “I don’t believe that God exists, and someone would need to scientifically prove to me otherwise.”
Here, there is more latitude to what would be a plausible Z, not least because of the “1b/2b–1c/2c” ambiguity I raised in my previous comment. Many of these Zs lack a belligerent tone or–perhaps more pertinently–sound belligerent because people in “typical” conversation usually mean “1b/2b” which would indicate belligerence.
Now as for the 3L student and what she actually wrote, I said in some earlier comment that I have not read all it. My interest in the factuality of her racism, and in what might warrant conclusions regarding this factuality, is currently limited to her first few sentences. That is enough for me to chew on at the moment. What motivates my interest at the moment is the conclusion many people seem to draw from her initial sentences alone–sentences that appear to me as being more like (2) than (1).
May 2, 2010, 9:11 amSteve Sailer says:
There sure are a lot of people who want to try out for the Junior Varsity Thought Police.
Scary, scary people …
May 2, 2010, 9:14 amLargo says:
Thank’s for your response. The question I intended was the second last sentence of my, which I will restate here for you:
“…would you be more inclined to call me stupid than to call me evil?”
(My previous comment can be consulted for the ellipses.)
But since my question was expressed as a subjunctive, and the answer you did try to give was not, then please allow me to ask you the following:
(1) Do you believe that I am stupid?
(2) Do you believe that I am evil?
Actually, I feel little riding on the first question, and only a bit more riding on the second. I am interested in how you wish to answer, but what I do care more deeply about relates to my final two questions. It is these final two which I hope you will answer straightly:
(3) In absence of evidence to the contrary, do you presume that people who comment here comment in good faith?
And if your answer to question (3) is yes:
(4) Are you currently assuming (or presuming) that I am commenting in good faith?
In purportedly good faith,
Largo
May 2, 2010, 10:25 amJack Marshall says:
The point that continues to get lost in this discussion…or that is intentionally ignored—is that the 3L student did nothing wrong. Having ill-conceived or badly reasoned thoughts is not an unethical act; communicating them to friends is not an unethical act. Even racist thoughts do not qualify as conduct. What counts is how people treat other people; what they do, not what they think.
I had a remarkable house mate in law school. He did volunteer charity work after attending classes; although relatively poor, he gave money to the United Negro College Fund. He had close friends and admirers of all faiths and races. He was a charming, caring and charismatic guy; he was also, based on our private discussions, a unapologetic racist and an anti-Semite. So we argued, a lot. At his funeral (he died at 23), I was struck by how many mourners belonged to groups that I know be believed were inherently inferior or had other undesirable tendencies. I am pretty convinced that, given his underlying character and intelligence, he would have eventually abandoned the racist attitudes that he carried with him from the neighborhood of his upbringing. If I had taken steps to harm him and alienate his friends by publicizing his privately expressed view, it would have been I, not he, who was behaving unethically.
May 2, 2010, 10:26 amLargo says:
“”"At his funeral (he died at 23), I was struck by how many mourners belonged to groups that I know be believed were inherently inferior or had other undesirable tendencies.”"”
Jack, you make me think of Gran Torino
May 2, 2010, 10:32 amMark Field says:
What about those who would eliminate “hammer” on the ground that the axe and the saw can be used to cut the log?
One of my law school professors was a German immigrant. His English was good, but when he first came over it wasn’t fluent. He told us that he got a poor grade in torts because the key to the question was that a vehicle was parked near the curb and he didn’t know what the word “curb” meant.
I know what the word “curb” means, but I’d be embarrassed to compare my IQ with his.
May 2, 2010, 10:45 amLargo says:
Indeed. When it comes to many such test questions, the brighter you are, the more readily you can see different exceptions. There may at times be a tendency for test scores to vary inversely with intelligence. But at such times, one might say that test intelligence varies inversely with social intelligence–e.g., the ability to recognize what is socially the “correct” answer to the question (and, perhaps, the ability to see what is socially the “correct” thing to say (or not say) in a given conversation.)
May 2, 2010, 10:57 amPhilC says:
She has stated she was wrong; you should let her be the judge of that. She is much better informed than you.
Did you ever tell your friend, he was wrong? Since you argued allot, I presume, yes. You can’t be saying that because you did not disclose his racism, that made him right.
Since the 3L’s wrong was a social wrong (if it was wrong, as the 3L, herself, claims) it is handled by social convention, which appears to be what happened here. EV and you, apparently, dislike this particular social convention but you turn around and rely on a different social convention concerning e-mail handling, to make claims of wrongdoing against another. I agree that the disclosure was wrong. Yet, it has no baring on whether the original e-mailer was wrong or not.
May 2, 2010, 11:30 amSara says:
Largo: Since my Judgment would depend on both what you say and how you say it, I can only respond, it depends. But I, generally, don’t think people are evil or stupid.
May 2, 2010, 11:46 amProsecutorial Indiscretion says:
She has stated she was wrong; you should let her be the judge of that. She is much better informed than you.
Did you ever tell your friend, he was wrong? Since you argued allot, I presume, yes. You can’t be saying that because you did not disclose his racism, that made him right.
Since the 3L’s wrong was a social wrong (if it was wrong, as the 3L, herself, claims) it is handled by social convention, which appears to be what happened here. EV and you, apparently, dislike this particular social convention but you turn around and rely on a different social convention concerning e-mail handling, to make claims of wrongdoing against another. I agree that the disclosure was wrong. Yet, it has no baring on whether the original e-mailer was wrong or not.
Right, because the large mass of people slavering for her career and castigating an old private e-mail in numerous public fora surely had no coercive effect on her public statements.
I agree with you with respect to disclosure. It’s one thing to criticize stupid ideas. God knows I’ve said some dumb things in my time, and people have not hesitated to tell me so. And that’s helpful, and has made me a better thinker. It’s entirely different to turn someone into a pariah as a result of one e-mail. The appropriate response for the recipients of the forward would have been to e-mail the author and tell her why they think she’s wrong. Instead, they opted to make a tremendously public deal about it in a manner than had an effect on the author remarkably disproportionate to her transgression, and in a manner that will hinder intellectual exchanges for years to come.
May 2, 2010, 12:01 pmLargo says:
Well, my last questions were on whether or not you presume me, at the present time, to me commenting here in good faith. Based on what you have thus far oberved me to say, and on how you have thus far observed me to say it. I hope I have said enough to put me, one way or another. past mere presumption by now.
Do you believe me to be commenting in good faith?
May 2, 2010, 12:02 pmJack Marshall says:
Thoughts and opinions are NOT social wrongs, no matter what they are. Yes, I told my friend he was incorrect, and that bigotry is hurtful, illogical and unjust. But pronouncing mere thoughts and opinions as “social wrongs” is an affront to free thought and speech. Opinions are wrong to the extent they do harm. What harm did my friend’s opinions do, as long as they did not govern his actions, which were always kind,honorable, civil and fair? If I had caused those opinions to do harm to him and others by making them public, I would have been the wrongdoer, not him.
May 2, 2010, 12:57 pmPhilC says:
May 2, 2010, 12:58 pmWow. Angus is stupid. says:
Angus must belong to a race that’s incapable of reading and interpreting text. His race is also unfamiliar with the correct use of quotation marks.
Is Angus a cow, a bull, or a steer? That might explain it. But I’d expect more typos from hoof-typing.
May 2, 2010, 1:05 pmRollory says:
“there’s no good evidence to support those who want to connect race with IQ”
But there is.
The g-factor is strongly heritable. It is strongly correlated with race. There is about one standard deviation’s worth of difference between average black IQ and average white IQ. Liberal educators have been trying to make this difference disappear for decades. It is not a bad goal to have, but when faced with lack of progress on that front using methods and premises they consider acceptable, they have turned to simple denial.
You can’t lie to reality.
May 2, 2010, 1:13 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
Incidentally, anyone who thinks citing the IQ gap panders to White American bigots needs to remember that there’s a similar gap between Whites and Asians (and Ashkenazy Jews). Not a lot of comfort for the Klan, there.
May 2, 2010, 1:34 pm1040 says:
gee. given the kind of dumb email grace wrote, i assume she has a crapload of black genes in her.
May 2, 2010, 2:20 pmleo marvin says:
Nice. Bring in some out of town hit men to do your dirty work, and then knock them off when the job is done. Didn’t Junior Soprano do something like that?
May 2, 2010, 3:25 pmleo marvin says:
It’s been a rough last couple of years for white supremacists. I suspect they’ll take any comfort they can get.
May 2, 2010, 3:32 pmnicehonesty says:
Some people on this thread have clearly mastered doublethink.
May 2, 2010, 3:41 pmCurle says:
Ricardo,
Galtonian states that the genetic explanation is the ‘best’ given the available evidence. You call this a fallacy. It would only be a fallacy if he had stated that the available evidence necessitated the genetic conclusion. Your comments, reproduced below, are accordingly in error.
This simple explanation is provably fallacious. Your reasoning is based on the following chain of logic:
1. Trait X is highly heritable
2. Distinct populations A and B differ along trait X
3. Therefore, the best explanation for the difference in trait X is genetic
One counterexample is sufficient to demonstrate that this is a fallacy and here is one: look at the height difference between North and South Koreans.
This counterexample doesn’t prove the reasoning you provide will always be false, of course. What it does demonstrate is that we need a better understanding of human genetics, brain development and cognitive function to answer the question one way or another. But your invocation of Occam’s Razor is wrong because we already know the kind of reasoning you are trying to employ can badly misfire. The simple explanation that you want to be validated by Occam’s Razor cannot be based on a logical and statistical fallacy.
Quote
May 2, 2010, 4:10 pmleo marvin says:
I agree. Only behavior should be culpable, and behavior is what’s at issue here, not bare thoughts and opinions. The questions are (1) was the email evidence of racial bigotry, and if so, (2) was expressing it in an email to friends an act of bigotry? For the reasons I explained above, I give her the benefit of the doubt on the first question, so the second one is moot. (FWIW, I think her misplaced trust in the “friend” who publicized the message showed very bad judgment.) But those are the controversies, not whether to blame someone for having the wrong thoughts in her head.
May 2, 2010, 4:19 pmsteve burton says:
wow – exciting finish to an interesting thread.
Galtonian wins, by several heads.
May 2, 2010, 7:19 pmOpenVolokh says:
Either that, or you are too stupid to recognize his obvious misuse of Occam’s Razor. All I know for sure is that steve burton has lost the thread.
May 2, 2010, 8:10 pmDesiderius says:
LM,
“FWIW, I think her misplaced trust in the “friend” who publicized the message showed very bad judgment.”
Really? The ultimate loser in this whole thing are the bonds of trust that make open inquiry possible. I think it’s bad judgment to sacrifice those bonds on the altar of ideological clique maintenance.
May 2, 2010, 8:51 pmBiorealist says:
***I have no idea what I would say if someone asked me if I could categorically rule out the possibility that there was a correlation between race and IQ… but the funny thing is, I have no idea what anyone would say. The reasonable thing to say has been tabooed.***
You could point to last years article in Nature by University of Chicago geneticist Bruce Lahn and Lanny Ebenstein commenting that genetic findings are making the assumption of biological sameness across groups untenable. People need a better moral framework rather than denying average differences may exist.
‘Let’s Celebrate Human Genetic Diversity’. Nature 461, 726-728 (8 October 2009)
You could reasonably point to Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker’s Edge Essay notes that “Groups of people may differ genetically in their average talents and temperaments”.
Or University of Virginia Psychology Professor Jonathan Haidt’s essay ‘Faster evolution means more ethnic differences’
http://www.edge.org/q2009/q09_4.html#haidt
Judge Richard Posner has written similar things and is often welcomed to Harvard to speak:
“In Public Intellectuals: A Study of Decline,” Posner defended Charles Murray and Harvard’s Richard Herrstein, authors of “The Bell Curve,” writing that their discussion of race and IQ was, at worst, a “rhetorical mistake.” There ought to be nothing controversial, Posner continued, about the propositions that 1) a black-white IQ gap exists and 2) it has genetic as well as sociological roots.”
Or Geoffrey Miller in the Economist ‘The Looming Crisis in Human Genetics’ (November 2009).
You could follow Professor Steve Hsu’s advice:
“it is important to note that group differences are statistical in nature and do not imply anything about particular individuals. Rather than rely on the scientifically unsupported claim that we are all equal, it would be better to emphasize that we all have inalienable human rights regardless of our abilities or genetic makeup.” (Jan 2007)
May 2, 2010, 8:58 pmDesiderius says:
LM,
“It’s been a rough last couple of years for white supremacists. I suspect they’ll take any comfort they can get.”
It’s been more than a couple of years. They’ve been the outgroup of choice in fashionable circles since 1972, if I place the date correctly, and in the years since the goalposts keep moving for membership, at least in the eyes of those circles, if not in the eyes of the putative members.
May 2, 2010, 9:04 pmBlumenthal says:
***Furthermore, your assertion that genetics is the “simplest” explanation for gaps in IQ is likewise ridiculous. There is nothing more complex to the idea that “nutrition” would cause such gaps. ***
OpenVolokh,
That is undermined by several lines of evidence, including the fact that children from high SES households ($70K plus per annum) are outperformed by european children in low SES households (earning less than $20k per annum).Also, read the papers linked here ‘The Likelihood of Genetic Group Differences in IQ’.
http://liberalbiorealism.wordpress.com
May 2, 2010, 9:20 pmKen Arromdee says:
Because academia is left-wing and biased, and therefore thinks it’s okay to impugn the intelligence of conservatives but not of blacks.
May 2, 2010, 11:40 pmRicardo says:
Not at all. If the conclusion is not necessitated by the chain of reasoning, then we need something aside from the available facts to come to the conclusion that group differences are genetic in origin. What is this additional consideration? Galtonian claims it is “Occam’s Razor.” He is wrong for a very simple reason though. We already know that IQ differences can be the result of genetics, environment or the interaction of genetics and environment. There is no reason to give more weight to a genetic explanation than to an alternative except for personal preference.
Galtonian claims that “Occam’s Razor” demands we ignore all evidence to the contrary and make the default assumption that IQ differences are attributable to genetics. Neither Occam’s Razor nor any piece of empirical evidence supports this idea.
May 3, 2010, 12:03 amRicardo says:
All this shows is that family SES is not a very good predictor of IQ. Indeed, the r-squared between family SES and IQ is about one-third. You’ve proposed a false dilemma between SES and genetics as an explanation for IQ differences.
May 3, 2010, 12:34 amRicardo says:
In regard to claims of Asian IQ, read up on the debate between Lynn and Flynn on this. The IQ estimates that are usually used to support claims of high Asian IQ are either based on flawed tests or very problematic samples (school districts in either the U.S. or Asia that are heavily urban and upper-middle-class).
Asians do extremely well on achievement tests and also show obvious real-world achievements in terms of income and occupation but these are all loosely correlated with IQ. When we actually measure IQ in a comparable manner using unbiased samples, Chinese and Japanese IQs tend to be in the range of 95-105 while the white average is 100 by definition.
May 3, 2010, 12:45 am1040 says:
thankfully michael steele makes things easy for us. and let me not even get started on keyes…
May 3, 2010, 1:36 amBlumenthal says:
***Ricardo wrote:
All this shows is that family SES is not a very good predictor of IQ. Indeed, the r-squared between family SES and IQ is about one-third. You’ve proposed a false dilemma between SES and genetics as an explanation for IQ differences.***
I was responding to Open Volokh’s claim that nutrition explains the gaps. However, if you adjust for SES gaps remain. Have you read the discussion here?
***are either based on flawed tests or very problematic samples (school districts in either the U.S. or Asia that are heavily urban and upper-middle-class).***
Not in Brazil though? The japanese there are descendants of people brought in as indentured labour. Today they Japanese outscore europeans on IQ tests, and are over-represented in university places. Lynn ‘Global Bell Curve’ (2008)
May 3, 2010, 1:38 amJune 2005 issue of Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol. 11, No. 2.
Jonathan says:
Taking the “do/do not believe in God” example, if someone said “I just hate leaving things where I feel I misstated my position. I absolutely do not rule out the possibility that God exists.” would you reach the conclusion that their previous comments implied God existed or not? What if they went on to say “I could also obviously be convinced that by [...] we would see that there is no God.”? And what would we think when they later said, “I don’t think it is that controversial of an opinion to say I think it is at least possible that God exists, and I didn’t mean to shy away from that opinion at dinner.”?
May 3, 2010, 2:27 amCurle says:
Ricardo,
Galtonian has posited an opinion regarding the weight of the available evidence favoring the genetic explanation over others. And, he provided evidence to support his claim. He may be incorrect, but he provided evidence, you did not. You instead posit the theory that there exists insufficient evidence to make such a qualitative distinction between the competing theories.
The absence of perfect confirmation for the genetic explanation does not make assumed egalitarianism a necessarily rational default. Assumed IQ equality across differing races is a dubious proposition given that romantic and sympathetic, not to mention socially convenient, impulses are as likely to be erroneous as are the supposed hostile impulses behind those not willing to start from an equality default. There is no reason to believe that those seeking or professing to view all races in a sympathetic light are any less prone to error than those willing to contemplate IQ inequalities among races. In other words, the rational default in a world without perfect confirmation is not necessarily elite preference (egalitarianism presented as a factual proposition). Elites no doubt fear the masses reaching their own conclusions based on their own observations, but an absence of perfect confirmation argues instead for an end to efforts to institutionalize, as orthodoxy, default egalitarianism as more rational than racial exceptionalism when science does not support such a conclusion. We’ve seen several on this thread proclaim their right to be offended in things they find racist (which would no doubt include any suggestion, as Galtonian is making, that racial exceptionalism is the strongest scientific explanation going). Such offense-taking is simply a way to instill a social punishment for ideas they find heretical to what is essentially a faith based belief system. And, though egalitarian notions have helped lubricate the political operations of this society, we go too far by pretending such notions are scientifically derived; and if not scientifically derived, then the kind of scorn or offense-taking directed at the Harvard 1L is inappropriate and should be condemned.
May 3, 2010, 2:35 amLargo says:
I suspect Angus may disagree strongly with me on some points, but he has been nothing but polite with me. I would be interesting discovering just his and my agreements lie.
You might learn from his example.
May 3, 2010, 2:36 amLargo says:
Too much?
I have been harping on the same theme here lately, not to mention playing a bit of whack-a-mole.
And I have made a rather large number of comments.
And I am not a regular.
Do I need to turn down the volume? If so, I will. (This question is addressed to the regulars here. The views expressed under one-off psudonyms on this matter don’t interest me the least.)
For what it’s worth, I am learning to make them a little shorter! :)
Thanks.
May 3, 2010, 2:43 amLargo says:
On both sides certainly, and out of motives both laudatory and nefarious. What I have bolded is one of the best characterizations I have seen of the difficulty in having discourse on some topics.
May 3, 2010, 2:50 amRicardo says:
Again, if you want to know what Japanese IQ is, why on earth wouldn’t you simply run IQ tests on a representative sample of people in Japan (one of the most ethnically homogeneous in the world, by the way) instead of doing IQ tests in, of all places, Brazil?
As I said, one has to follow the debate rather than simply quote from papers favorable to one’s own position. Flynn’s own review of the evidence concerning Japanese IQ is that it is between 101 and 105. Japanese children born in the U.S. tend to have IQ scores that are the same as white children’s suggesting that cultural and educational factors account for the higher scores in Japan.
As for Brazil, it is a culture that tends not to place a very high value on book learning. My understanding is that if you spend a lot of time by yourself reading in Brazil, people will regard you as a bit strange and asocial (the idea of taking a book to the beach is regarded as particularly ridiculous in Brazil while it is quite normal in Europe and America). Yet spending lots of time by yourself reading is exactly what it takes to succeed in the academic world. If the Japanese community retains any of the cultural characteristics of native Japan, their impressive academic achievements in Brazil are pretty unsurprising.
May 3, 2010, 3:08 amRicardo says:
Once again, the only evidence that is relevant to the debate is the evidence regarding which genes lead to the development of cognitive skills that are measured on IQ tests and the relative frequencies of those genes in different populations. Since no evidence exists on this point, as I said before, everything else is speculation and hand-waving.
It’s not a “theory.” It’s a statement of fact regarding the evidence that we have. IQ differences between individuals show up for all kinds of reasons. Identical twins have identical hair color, eye color and facial features but not identical IQs (they are similar, of course, but not identical: genes explain about 50-75% of the variation in IQ scores with the other 25-50% being explained by other factors). I’ll quote the APA report from 1996 as it gets to the heart of the controversy:
May 3, 2010, 3:25 amJustthisguy says:
Everyone here seems to be ignoring the elephant in the living room, that is, the proposition that Jews are not racists, which is laughable on its face. The Jews are the only ethnoracial group among all of humanity which has kept said ethnoracial identity for, oh, three thousand years or so. There is no way to have done that, and to do that, without being racist. Look up the word “Goy”.
May 3, 2010, 3:49 amLargo says:
Assuming that proposition to be true, it is no truer than “The sun rises in the east.” Is that an elephant we are ignoring? Your proposition could be apropos, but it is hardly relevant. Why should anybody bring it up?
And why am I even talking to you?
(Well, I see you are willing to identify yourself to some extent. I suppose that is enough for now.)
May 3, 2010, 4:00 amLargo says:
(Justthiguy – unless you are trying to raise the point that ‘racist’ can cover a lot of territory, perhaps not all bad, and so we best be open to what others might mean beyond beyond our first interpretation. But if that’s what you intend, you are doing a poor job.)
People, take my keyboard from me now. Please!
May 3, 2010, 4:04 amtomcj says:
I think “Steve Sailor” and many others involved in this discussion do non-conservatives a huge favor. If you read some of these arguments here, you understand that many ARE arguing that of course “American Blacks” are deficient in so many ways, and even the “Good hard-working” (non-’lazy’) Caribbeans and African black immigrants despise American Blacks.
But anyone who does not agree with “Steve Sailor” makes a “thuggish” argument that of course is refuted by a quote from 1984 or Animal Farm.
And then there are the brilliant Ironists, who refer to Tolkien and Norse Mythology and (hilariously in a manner of Beck and Limbaugh) wonder why “Harvard doesn’t ban them.”
Under the circumstances where to be conservative means delighting in the quality of the “Steve Sailors”, it is no wonder conservatism is now the home of the shrinking paranoid and reactionary and highly-aggrieved few.
May 3, 2010, 7:44 amLargo says:
Alas, by overstating your case, you do us all huge misservice.
Ok, not huge, but not zero. I know almost zilch about Steve Sailor, other than having seeing him unreasonably denounced. It may be reasonable to denounce him, but not all denouncements are reasonable, if you know what I mean. You make me doubt him to a degree, but not to the degree that you otherwise would.
(BTW, Just before hitting send, I saw your phrase “highly-aggrieved few”. Do you count me among these few? If you just got here, you will not have seen my kerfuffle with a commenter named “Aggrieved”.)
May 3, 2010, 8:06 amPC Kills Science says:
Ricardo writes:
Is this a serious argument? Were we then wrong to conclude that, say, having red hair was primarily genetic in origin before we identified the particular genes involved?
Your arguments in general are all over the map, Ricardo. You really should tighten up your thinking if you want to be taken seriously.
May 3, 2010, 8:54 amPC Kills Science says:
Oh, and BTW Ricardo, I notice that you seem not quite willing to address the issues raised by the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study.
The problem for you in this study is that it confirms exactly what Galtonian has argued: that the dominantly genetic hypothesis for the black/white IQ gap explains simply and directly the results of that study, and the dominantly environmental explanation must scratch around to invent some kind of environmental factor that supports exactly the same prediction as the genetic one.
And that is, again, the real problem with the environmental explanation: not that it can’t be twisted and contorted into something that comes up with the same result, but that it always requires such twisting and contorting, while the genetic explanation just predicts the same result without further ado.
May 3, 2010, 9:22 amPC Kills Science says:
Just to add one further point about the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study. What’s most remarkable about its result is how much it was at odds with the clear preferences of its authors as to outcome. In effect, the authors only came to acknowledge the actual ultimate outcome after being pretty much forced to do so by the argument of an outsider. It is therefore quite difficult indeed to attribute the results to some kind of bias in the authors of the experiment. There’s an account of this in the Wikipedia article I linked to above.
May 3, 2010, 9:40 amRicardo says:
As I already pointed out, twin studies suggest up to 50-75% of the variation in IQ can be explained by genetics. Equivalently, at least 25-50% of the variation in IQ can be explained by factors other than genetics. Nobody disputes this. So why on earth are you pretending that having red hair is comparable to having a certain IQ score when, if you have actually read the relevant literature, you know perfectly well they are not comparable?
What kind of “argument” is this? If you can point out some inconsistency in anything I’ve said or point out where I have misrepresented evidence or engaged in fallacious reasoning, do so.
As to the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, as I pointed out, IQ differences emerge for many different reasons, most of which we don’t understand at the moment. Family environment (which MTAS explicitly studied and tested) is one factor that most researchers seem to agree is simply not very important. One thing I will point out is that if you wanted to test how important genetics were in determining IQ, you would really want to know the IQs of the biological parents involved in the study. As far as I can tell, those data do not exist in this study. The study explicitly rejects the role of family environment in determining IQ but doesn’t add very much new information about the role of genes and it is a clear fallacy to say IQ is determined either by genes or family environment and nothing else.
A much earlier study concentrated on illegitimate children born in Germany to German women who had affairs with American soldiers. Since this sample included both white children and half-black children, researchers were able to measure the IQs of each group and found no statistically significant difference (Eyferth 1961). This evidence has its own problems since it involves sample-selection bias (soldiers have to pass IQ tests) and, again, we don’t know the IQs of the fathers.
May 3, 2010, 10:38 amJack Marshall says:
This entire, endless thread proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the student—and I think it magnifies the unfairness to her by using her name—was mistreated by her school, her Dean and the blogosphere. If there can be this much enlightening discussion on the topic that she said she had an open mind about, then there was never anything wrong with her message, other than the fact that it was cruelly made public. Whether she was right, wrong, inclined to be bigoted or not, it was completely appropriate in an academic environment to raise such an issue, as a devil’s advocate, to be provocative, or just for the hell of it, among colleagues, for debate and discussion.
May 3, 2010, 10:46 amLibertad de expresión y cultura universitaria | Blog jurídico | No se trata de hacer leer says:
[...] partes defendiendo, a mi juicio acertadamente, a la alumna (I, II, III, IV) y da cuenta de un e-mail enviado por un alumno de Harvard donde éste aporta su opinión. A mi juicio, tiene toda la razón, qué quieren que les [...]
May 3, 2010, 12:49 pmMark Field says:
Largo, Steve Sailer has a, well, reputation. Google him.
May 3, 2010, 1:00 pmPC Kills Science says:
Ricardo,
Let’s return to what you said that I was objecting to, OK?
You said,
Now did you not notice that you said that “the only evidence” that is relevant to the debate is the actual identification of relevant genes? The point behind my analogy to genes behind red hair is that the identification of actual genes is hardly the only kind of evidence we can have for there being a genetic basis to a trait. We can certainly make such inferences in advance of such identifications. And if you’re now insisting that what matters is whether the trait appears unfailingly, and if it doesn’t, then it’s pure speculation that there’s a genetic basis, then let me simply change the analogy. Would you say that when we discover that a disease, such as breast cancer, appears along certain family lines, but doesn’t do so unfailingly, we simply have no basis to conclude that it has a genetic basis (granting of course that there are other factors)?
Really, your argument makes no sense here; it flies in the face of how we think about other traits.
As far as why I think your arguments are generally all over the map, I point to your dismissal of SES as a trivial factor in IQ. The problem is, how does one square this with the overall claim that environment is a crucial feature of IQ, and is the dominant factor in the black/white IQ gap? If that gap really has little or nothing to do with SES, then what’s left in the environment so dramatic that it can explain the massive 1 SD gap? Don’t you think that you are obliged to come up with some sort of plausible mechanism in the environment to explain that massive difference, rather than just resort to a claim that such a thing might exist for all we know? Don’t you think it’s particularly incumbent on you to do so, given that the genetic explanation, again, simply explains this data without batting an eye — without, that is, concocting some “Factor X” that nobody can seem to fully understand or to independently justify? Don’t you think it a exceedingly weak reply to argue that since, in principle, such a mechanism might exist, it’s a “fallacy” to assume that it isn’t likely an operative factor in the best explanation? Where else in science do we refuse to make such inferences? Certainly not, again, with respect to the genetic basis of diseases — so why here?
As far as your issues with the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, well, yes, of course it would be better if all the relevant information was available for the biological parents. But how plausible is it that the pools from which the groups of children of various racial backgrounds were, simply by some unknown selection factor, up to a full standard deviation different in average IQ — especially when efforts were taken in the study to see to it that such a selection factor didn’t intrude? (Remember, the authors were clearly hoping to show that environment dominated, as the publication history of the results indicates. The early results, which seemed to confirm an important role for environment were quickly and proudly published. The ultimate results of IQs measured at age 17, which showed the full standard deviation effect, were not published until many years after the study itself was completed.)
As for the study of the children of GIs in Germany, I can only say this: it is the one thing that has ever made me believe (once upon a time) that the predominantly environmental explanation might hold water. But as I examined it and the criticisms of it, it became pretty clear that there simply were too many unknowns and methodological issues to take the study in isolation as sufficient reason to reject the dominantly genetic hypothesis. Most particularly, the selection factor for the white and black fathers of the children just can’t be well understood after the fact. Among other things, the black fathers would presumably have been selected from the larger population of blacks because they all passed the minimum requirements for the military on cognitive tests. In any case, since the children owed at most half of their genes to a black parent, any effect would have been reduced to half if genes were the decisive factor, and harder to detect.
I can only say that I wish that every time studies were conducted that resembled the German study, we would see results like those in that particular study, and that the factors could be better understood. I will admit that the truth of the genetic hypothesis is one that’s pretty hard and depressing to come to grips with — certainly I struggled against accepting it for a number of years. The problem is that it just never turns out to be so. If there’s a single study that essentially replicates this finding (already 50 years old), and has better controls, I don’t know what it might be — but I’m absolutely sure I would know about such a study because it would become the most publicized finding in the history of this debate.
The problem is that all the studies that have better controls show the exact opposite — the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study being one of the more prominent.
May 3, 2010, 1:29 pmAaron says:
Letters become the property of the recipient, yes, but the copyright still adheres to the original author. For e-mail there is no “actual letter” that is sent — everything is copies.
May 3, 2010, 3:10 pmLargo says:
To what end, Mark? This is not an idle question.
I have expressed little interest in what he has said. If memory serves, I have expressed no interest at all. But some here seem to want me to take interest in him. I find that to be interesting, for I wonder why that should be. And I’m sure that researching Steve Sailor will not answer that question for me. Perhaps before you suggest my Google research, maybe you you should tell me this: not that he is bad, or why he is bad, but why I should be interested in whether he is bad?
May 3, 2010, 8:43 pmLargo says:
Mark,
There is a chance that you misread me. What I wrote supra could, at a glance, suggest that I think it is unreasonable to denounce Steve Sailor. You might then, quite reasonably, be motivated to point me a direction of research which would help me correct my error. (Perhaps that is why you suggested I Google him?)
- Largo
May 3, 2010, 9:02 pmMark Field says:
Yes, that is how I interpreted your earlier comment.
May 3, 2010, 9:30 pmLargo says:
Dear Mark,
Puzzle solved!
I distinguish between someone being reasonably denounceable, and a reasonable denouncement of someone.
Did the song amongst naughty schoolboys at the time start with “Hitler – he’s only got one ball”? :-)
The song was mockery, and he perhaps* deserved this mockery, but it was not a reasonable critique. Nobody unaware of who Hitler was would be convinced.
–
Now, you still haven’t told me whether you have children. Normally that’s a private matter, but a willingness to die in a way tantamount to suicide makes it a public concern.
–
May 3, 2010, 11:24 pm*He was fit to be condemned, but I don’t know how fit he was in other respects!
HLS'13 says:
I’m also a rising 1L at Harvard Law, and it’s a bit disheartening that the people who wrote the initial email and this commentary that was sent to you seem to think that the great injustice in the world is that they aren’t freely allowed to voice their opinion that minorities are just dumber.
Perhaps if they were a bit more concerned with the conditions that minorities face today, and have faced for decades and in some cases centuries, they might arrive at an alternate explanation. Unfortunately, that might require them to drop their preconceived notions and realize that as hard as they may have had it in life, some others have had it harder and have overcome not just the whims of fate, but huge structural problems with society that result in, say, a world where a young black man has a 32% chance of incarceration, while the figure for a young white man is 6% (p. 37 of Prof. Paul Butler’s “Let’s Get Free”). Or maybe minorities are simply predisposed to crime too.
May 4, 2010, 1:45 amLargo says:
HLS’13
By “you” do you mean Eugene Volokh, or the commenters on this thread?
If you are going to level charges, we would best be clear on just whom they are being leveled, am I right?
[Are you still there? Or were you a flash in the pan?]
BTW, I wonder how far you are going to rise–to the very top, perhaps.
May 4, 2010, 2:48 ammischief says:
Of course not. It was class-based. The more you stay inside the paler you get to be, and since wealth is beauty, the pale skin is better. As soon as the poor worked in the factories and the rich went to the Riviera, it flipflopped, because it was still class-based.
May 4, 2010, 11:05 am