Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 04-10-2003, 11:47 PM

Rushton had a very simplistic idea of "race" - 3 races based on skin color and traditional racial markers. The articles that try to resurrect the concept of race talk about 5 geographic groupings and still say things like:

Quote:

But genetics cannot prove that race doesn't exist, Duster explains. No amount of logic will erase the concept or destroy the disparities that arise from it, because people use race to sort their social groupings and to define their social and economic interactions. Moreover, they do so in ways that have significant biological consequences.

(from Scientific American

which tells me that race exists because people think that it does and act on their thoughts - not because there is any real basis to their thoughts.

or

Quote:

In the largest study of human genetic variation, the international research team separated people by the major migrations of ancient humankind, from Africa into Eurasia, East Asia, Oceania and the Americas, in a way that overturns conventional notions of race.

With growing assurance, scientists are overturning deep-seated prejudices over what makes human beings different -- skin color, facial features, physique -- even as they risk creating new prejudices founded in the molecular biology of human genetic variation.

Researchers investigating human variation effectively heighten the importance of genetic differences, even as they discount misconceptions about racial distinctions and emphasize the unity of all humans.

from The LA Times

Rushton also tried to correlate his racial classification with social factors, such as sexual mores.

Legitmate scientists have to take this sort of rubbish seriously and refute it, because that's their business. But anyone who wants to discuss it has to show why it's worth spending time on ideologically driven pseudoscience.

Quetzal · 04-10-2003, 11:49 PM

God Fearing Atheist:

Jesse has already provided a number of links debunking Rushton from a scientific standpoint. I would like to add a couple of additional references:

Doug Wahlsten's review of Rushton's book "Race, Evolution and Behavior"

Garland Allen's article in The Scientist, Genetic Indexing Of Race Groups Is Irresponsible And Unscientific - admittedly this is an "opinion" piece, rather than a scientific paper, but does provide some interesting insights and analyses

and last but not least (IMO), an article from the Center for Evolutionary Psychology discussing Rushton's science Kin selection, genic selection, and information-dependent strategies.

I have to say IMO that from a scientific standpoint the biggest problem with Rushton's book is based on his flawed definition of "race". Using what he claims are "average traits" from an exceptionally limited sample, he claims to be able to discern diagnostic features that allow definitive classification in a biological sense. However, the fact that there is extreme variation among �black� sub-Saharan African populations renders his �average traits� utterly useless from a scientific standpoint. Contrast the vast phenotypical variance between a Khoisan from the Namib, an Efe pygmy from the Ituri Forest, a Nuer from southern Sudan, Tuareg nomads from the Grand Erg, a Batutsi from Burundi, or a Zulu from Natal. You have every conceivable size, shade, facial structure, and brain/body ratio you can imagine. There�s more phenotypical variation between so-called �black� populations than there is between some hypothetical �white� European average and Inuit. And ALL variation is quite readily explainable by natural selection operating on isolated populations over the generations. Anything more than a general observation of Allen�s and Bergman's Rules and a note that certain genetic differences are based on adaptation (i.e. sickle cell trait) is pure bunk. Nothing in Rushton's book can even remotely be considered diagnostic of any �race� in a biological sense � and especially provides no basis for a determination of �primitive� or �advanced�, which was his apparent intent.

Hope this answers your question.

echidna · 04-11-2003, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Toto
Isn't this the guy who claims Negros have larger penises and this means something?

"Pseudoscientific Racism" seems to be the consensus. Science of Racism

See also the Pioneer Fund

Yep, that�s the guy.

http://www.fair.org/extra/9501/bell.html

Quote:

"More Brain Or More Penis"

Rushton (who's gotten more than $770,000 from Pioneer) has transformed the Victorian science of cranial measurement into a sexual fetish--measuring not only head and brain size, but also the size of breasts, buttocks and genitals. "It's a trade-off: More brain or more penis. You can't have everything," he told Rolling Stone's Adam Miller (10/20/94), explaining his philosophy of evolution.

Rushton was reprimanded by his school, the University of Western Ontario, for accosting people in a local shopping mall and asking them how big their penises were and how far they could ejaculate. "A zoologist doesn't need permission to study squirrels in his backyard," he groused (Rolling Stone, 10/20/94).

Rushton's creepy obsessions intersect with the ugliest sides of politics: A 1986 article by Rushton suggested that the Nazi war machine owed its prowess to racial purity, and worried that demographic shifts were endangering our "Northern European" civilization. Rushton co-authored a paper that argued that blacks have a genetic propensity to contract AIDS because of their "reproductive strategy" of promiscuous sex (cited in Newsday, 11/9/94). The other author was Bouchard, the author of those amazing twin studies celebrated in mainstream news outlets.

FWIW I don�t think that the race issue is entirely dead, but Rushton isn�t one of the credible people working in the field.

The two problems faced by behaviouralists seeking to link genes with behaviour, is firstly proving a statistical link between race and a particular behavioural trait. In itself this is difficult enough, but then secondly one must then prove that the correlation is indeed causal.

Otherwise the link becomes purely accidental & false deductions drawn that race is causal to the behaviour, will lead one to wildly inaccurate conclusions.

ps418 · 04-11-2003, 06:36 AM

Quote:

Toto:
Rushton had a very simplistic idea of "race" - 3 races based on skin color and traditional racial markers. The articles that try to resurrect the concept of race talk about 5 geographic groupings and still say things like:

<quote snipped>

(from Scientific American

which tells me that race exists because people think that it does and act on their thoughts - not because there is any real basis to
their thoughts.

The SciAm article you just cited discusses the use of DNA markers in forensic science, particularly the fact that you can use DNA markers to accurately determine the self-described 'race' of the DNA donor. This would not be possible if race existed simply by virtue of arbitrary social categorization. The same is true with craniometry. Forensic anthropologists can determine with high acuracy the self-described race of a deceased person ased on skeletal characteristics (e.g. Gill, 1998), although of course no such system could ever be perfect because they are based on statistical distributions of traits and the distributions often overlap. Race of course is a social categorization, but it also reflects an underlying biological reality.

A much better point to attack Rushton is on his fundamental assumption that various between-race differences are largely or completely genetic. They may or may not be true in any given case, but the supporing evidence that many of the group differences cited by Rushton are genetic is mostly lacking. To take the most controversial example, are between group differences in cognitive ability completely genetic, completely environmental, or a mixture? Rushton, IIRC, assumes that they are completely genetic in origin. But according to the American Psychological Association task force report Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns:

Quote:

It is sometimes suggested that the Black/ White differential in psychometric intelligence is partly due to genetic differences (Jensen, 1972). There is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis. Once piece of evidence comes from a study of the children of American soldiers stationed in Germany after the Second World War (Eyferth, 1961): there was no mean difference between the test scores of those children whose fathers were White and those whose fathers were Black. (For a discussion of possible confounds in this study, see Flynn, 1980.) Moreover, several studies have used blood-group methods to estimate the degree of African ancestry of American Blacks; there were no significant correlations between those estimates and IQ scores (Loehlin et al, 1973; Scarr et al, 1977).

It is clear (Section III) that genes make a substantial contribution to individual differences in intelligence test scores, at least in the white population. The fact is, however, that the high heritability of a trait within a given group has no necessary implications for the source of a difference between groups (Loehlin et al, 1975).

Patrick

Gill, George W. 1998. Craniofacial Criteria in the Skeletal Attribution of Race. In: Forensic Osteology: Advances in the Identification of Human Remains, ed. by Reichs, K.J., pp. 293-317

Wyz_sub10 · 04-11-2003, 08:58 AM

I just wanted to add that the definition of race is key here.

I've been actively involved with track and field research for years and I cannot tell you have many times people have (erroneously) stated with certainty that "blacks are faster."

Many people cannot grasp the difference between "race", as popularly defined (i.e. black, white, hispanic, "Asian") and population groups.

While it is clear in track, for instance, that the top performances in the men's 100m are from black athletes, it is less obvious, but equally clear, that these "black athletes" are specifically of West African descent.

In fact, Eastern European whites, and Japanese athletes have performed far better than East African, South African or Australasian "blacks."

It's not about skin colour in the least. Dark skin colour just happens to be something else possesed by the population group (i.e. West African) that is best "built" for acceleration and top speed over a shot distance.

I think it it this popular concept of race (black/white) that Toto is speaking of.

"Black" is no more a category for study than "blonde".

Nostalgic Pushhead · 04-11-2003, 09:27 AM

And isn't the idea of completely seperate, sharply dilineated races contrary to evolution?

*Has The Mismeasure of Man three feet away from her but hasn't bothered to read it yet*

Actually, I had to read it for a class, and have only read the chapters on craniometry so far...

Quote:

A number of Gould's other claims, like no correlation between cranial capacity and IQ or no difference in cranial capacity between races, seem to be false according to our current best evidence,

Any more info on this? Not denying it, but news to me and I don't quite buy it.

ps418 · 04-11-2003, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Piscez
Any more info on this? Not denying it, but news to me and I don't quite buy it.

On the first question, the brain volume/cognitive ability correlation, the following is from this thread:

Quote:

There are is also a substantial body of research supporting Thompson et al's (2001) finding that brain volume is significantly (~0.2-0.4) correlated with psychometric IQ, which Ehrlich and Feldman mention but do not substantively criticize. This is consistent with the finding that, across primate species, body-size-corrected neocortical volume correlates positively with measures of behavioral complexity (Reader and Laland, 2002).

Posthuma et al (2002) found a somewhat smaller correlation of 0.25. Pennington et al (2000) report a correlation of 0.3-0.4 with Wechsler Full-scale IQ. MacLullich et al (2002) found a correlation of 0.39 of intracranial capacity with scores on Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices. Andreasen et al (1993), Raz et al (1993), Wicket et al (1994, 2000), Reiss et al (1996), Tisserand et al (2001), and Allin et al (2001) also report significant correlations of about 0.2-0.4 between measures of brain volume and cognitive ability, while Storfer (1999) and Vernon et al (2000) review research in this area.

In the words of Wickett et al., there "is no longer any doubt that a larger brain predicts greater intelligence," and that "[w]hat is required now is a more fine-grained analysis of why it is that a larger brain predicts greater intelligence" (2001, p. 1096). It has also been demonstrated by Wickett et al (2001) that the more "g-loaded" a cognitive test is, the more strongly it correlates with brain volume. Significantly also, bivariate genetic analyses suggest that the association of brain volume and psychometric g is mediated by common genetic factors (Posthuma et al., 2002; Thompson et al., 2002). In other words, IQ variance and brain volume variance are apparently pleiotropic effects of the same genes. This is consistent with a a simple model in which gene influencing brain volume, which in turn influences cognitive ability, or a model in which both variables being influenced by a third factor such that the correlation of brain volume and IQ is noncausal. Finally, PET imaging of subjects performing 'g'-loaded spatial and verbal tests shows that such tasks differentially recruit lateral frontal cortical areas (Duncan et al., 2000), the very brain region whose volume is under the strongest genetic control.

Regarding between-group differences in brain volume, they may exist, but are quite small if they do exist (~100cm3), and some researchers would still conclude that this is "not proven." See Rushton's 1996 review of MOM, and Rushton 2002 (PDF file), and Rushton and Ankey (1995).

Patrick

Nostalgic Pushhead · 04-11-2003, 10:21 AM

Okay, I read half of the first one... interesting. Don't know anything about Ralston other than what I've read on this thread...

Quote:

The brain size studies do present a paradox. Women have proportionately smaller brains than do men but, apparently, the same intelligence scores. This was recognized in stronger form over 100 years ago. Gould cites G. Herv�, a colleague of Broca's, who wrote in 1881; "Men of the black races have a brain scarcely heavier than that of a white woman." Gould's (1996, p. 135) response was a political one, namely "I do not regard as empty rhetoric a claim that the battles of one group are for all of us". David Ankney (1992, 1995) had a more scientific response. He suggested that the difference in brain size relates to those intellectual abilities at which men excel; that spatial and mathematical ability may require more "brain" power than do verbal abilities. Other theories are that men average slightly higher in general intelligence than do women (Lynn, 1994b); or that these particular differences in brain size have nothing to do with cognitive ability but reflect greater male muscle mass and physical co-ordination on tasks like throwing and catching.

But anyway, no matter how much brain size correlates to intelligence, it doesn't make it a racial thing.

God Fearing Atheist · 04-11-2003, 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jesse
I'm don't know much about the details of Rushton's work beyond the general idea that some races have evolved to have smaller families and higher average intelligence due to climate differences. But the idea that there could be a genetic component to statistical differences in mental traits between races is still open to debate--the evidence is probably not strong enough to justify any definite conclusions on this subject. Acknowledging the possibility of some genetic basis for statistical differences between races need not make one a racist; after all, everyone accepts nowadays that one can acknowledge genetically-based mental differences between the sexes without being a misogynist (although I think the average IQ of men and women is very similar, despite all their other differences, which might suggest that average IQ is fairly robust and that IQ differences among the races are likely to be cultural).

On Toto's claim that "'Race' is not a scientific subject", ps418 posted a number of links refuting this claim on p.2 of the eugenics thread:

I would also add this recent story:

Study: Humanity can be sorted into five geographical groups

Also, Mismeasure of Man is hardly the last word on these issues--for example, Gould also claims to refute the idea of general intelligence g, but there is plenty of disagreement among scientists on this subject (see this review and critique of his book that appeared in the journal Intelligence). A number of Gould's other claims, like no correlation between cranial capacity and IQ or no difference in cranial capacity between races, seem to be false according to our current best evidence, even if the conclusions Rushton draws from this are also unwarranted--see Does Brain size matter? A Reply to Rushton and Ankney for a summary (Rushton also wrote his own response to Gould's book which can be found here).

Rushton's theories on the reasons for the statistical patterns he points to may not be very sound (see this page for some real evolutionary psychologists commenting on his theories), and it's also quite possible that his presentation of the evidence for these patterns may be one-sided or biased, justifying the accusation of bad science, but such accusations must be based on specific critiques of Rushton's work rather than general claims that race does not exist or that science has already ruled out all possibility of genetically-based mental differences between races.

Some examples of specific critiques of Rushton:

Could r Selection Account for the African Personality and Life Cycle?

Psychometrics and Misinterpretation: A Look at Rushton's Work on Intelligence and Race

On the similarities of American blacks and whites: A reply to J.P. Rushton

What is it to be high-K? (more of a mixed review than a critique)

The Science of Racism and its Consequences (this article deals mostly with creationist claims about race but there is a section on Rushton at the end, and the author references a more detailed author that he wrote titled 'Genes, genitals and genius: the evolutionary ecology of race'.)

I am indebted to both Jesse and Morpho for providing the sort of stuff i had asked for.

Many thanks.

-GFA

Jesse · 04-11-2003, 06:12 PM

Piscez:
But anyway, no matter how much brain size correlates to intelligence, it doesn't make it a racial thing.

Well, aside from Rushton's, I have seen other studies which purport to show links between ethnicity and skull shape, but now that I think about it I realize that doesn't necessarily support a link between cranial capcity and ethnicity. Here's an example:

A New Look at Old Data May Discredit a Theory on Race

Quote:

wo physical anthropologists have reanalyzed data gathered by Franz Boas, a founder of American anthropology, and report that he erred in saying environment influenced human head shape. Boas's data, the two scientists say, show almost no such effect.

The reanalysis bears on whether craniometrics, the measurement of skull shape, can validly identify ethnic origin. As such, it may prompt a re-evaluation of the definition of human races and of ancient skulls like that of Kennewick Man.

...

Forensic anthropologists believe that by taking some 90 measurements of a skull they can correctly assign its owner's continent of origin � broadly speaking, its race, though many anthropologists prefer not to use that term � with 80 percent accuracy.

Opponents of the technique, who cite Boas's data, say the technique is useless, in part because environmental influences, like nutrition or the chewiness of food, would overwhelm genetic effects.

Boas measured the heads of 13,000 European-born immigrants and their American-born children in 1909 and 1910 and reported striking effects on cranial form, depending on the length of exposure to the American environment.

But in re-examining his published data, Dr. Corey S. Sparks of Pennsylvania State University and Dr. Richard L. Jantz of the University of Tennessee find that the effects of the new environment were "insignificant" and that the differences between parents and children and between European- and American-born children were "negligible in comparison to the differentiation between ethnic groups," they are reporting today in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Another article on the same story:

What Cranial Shape Tells Us

Also, in addition to the articles Patrick posted, this article seems to have a good summary of evidence for a connection between brain size and IQ:

Does Brain size matter? A Reply to Rushton and Ankney

Quote:

Rushton and Ankney (1995) suggest that I was in error when rejecting the claim (Lynn, 1993) that a relation between brain size and intelligence is firmly established. Since my note went to press (Peters, 1993), several papers have appeared which indicate a sizeable relation between brain size, as determined by mri scan, and IQ (Andreasen, Flaum, Swayze, O'Leary, Alliger, Cohen, Ehrhardtm, & Yuhet, 1993; Egan, Chiswick, Santosh, Naidu, Rimmington, & Bestet, 1994; Raz, Torres, Spencer, Millman, Baertschi, & Sarpel, 1993; Wickett, Vernon, & Lee, 1994). Each of the above studies has some problems posed by method and interpretations or by the findings themselves. For example, Egan et al. found the highest correlation not between brain matter and IQ, but betwee n cerebrospinal fluid volume and IQ (r = .8), an inexplicable result for those who argue that it is brain matter which is correlated with IQ. Nevertheless, as a group, these studies justify the conclusion that there is a positive and sizable correlation b etween brain size and IQ. This lends credibility to earlier claims by Willerman, Schultz, Rutledge, & Bigler, 1991; 1992) and supports Rushton & Ankney's critIQue. The new mri data are important because studies that relate IQ to brain size as estimated th rough cranial parameters remain contradictory. For example, Reed and Jensen (1993) report an equivalent cranial capacity of 1550 cm3 for a high IQ group (124-136) and 1549 cm3 for a low IQ group (87-111), whereas studies listed by Wickett et al. (1994) re port positive correlations between cranial capacity and IQ.

The author goes on to discuss Rushton's evidence for racial differences in brain size, saying they're inadequate. Rushton replies in this article which Patrick already posted.

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04-10-2003, 11:49 PM	#12
Quetzal Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Ecuador Posts: 738	God Fearing Atheist: Jesse has already provided a number of links debunking Rushton from a scientific standpoint. I would like to add a couple of additional references: Doug Wahlsten's review of Rushton's book "Race, Evolution and Behavior" Garland Allen's article in The Scientist, Genetic Indexing Of Race Groups Is Irresponsible And Unscientific - admittedly this is an "opinion" piece, rather than a scientific paper, but does provide some interesting insights and analyses and last but not least (IMO), an article from the Center for Evolutionary Psychology discussing Rushton's science Kin selection, genic selection, and information-dependent strategies. I have to say IMO that from a scientific standpoint the biggest problem with Rushton's book is based on his flawed definition of "race". Using what he claims are "average traits" from an exceptionally limited sample, he claims to be able to discern diagnostic features that allow definitive classification in a biological sense. However, the fact that there is extreme variation among �black� sub-Saharan African populations renders his �average traits� utterly useless from a scientific standpoint. Contrast the vast phenotypical variance between a Khoisan from the Namib, an Efe pygmy from the Ituri Forest, a Nuer from southern Sudan, Tuareg nomads from the Grand Erg, a Batutsi from Burundi, or a Zulu from Natal. You have every conceivable size, shade, facial structure, and brain/body ratio you can imagine. There�s more phenotypical variation between so-called �black� populations than there is between some hypothetical �white� European average and Inuit. And ALL variation is quite readily explainable by natural selection operating on isolated populations over the generations. Anything more than a general observation of Allen�s and Bergman's Rules and a note that certain genetic differences are based on adaptation (i.e. sickle cell trait) is pure bunk. Nothing in Rushton's book can even remotely be considered diagnostic of any �race� in a biological sense � and especially provides no basis for a determination of �primitive� or �advanced�, which was his apparent intent. Hope this answers your question.

04-11-2003, 08:58 AM	#15
Wyz_sub10 Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: In the land of two boys and no sleep. Posts: 9,890	I just wanted to add that the definition of race is key here. I've been actively involved with track and field research for years and I cannot tell you have many times people have (erroneously) stated with certainty that "blacks are faster." Many people cannot grasp the difference between "race", as popularly defined (i.e. black, white, hispanic, "Asian") and population groups. While it is clear in track, for instance, that the top performances in the men's 100m are from black athletes, it is less obvious, but equally clear, that these "black athletes" are specifically of West African descent. In fact, Eastern European whites, and Japanese athletes have performed far better than East African, South African or Australasian "blacks." It's not about skin colour in the least. Dark skin colour just happens to be something else possesed by the population group (i.e. West African) that is best "built" for acceleration and top speed over a shot distance. I think it it this popular concept of race (black/white) that Toto is speaking of. "Black" is no more a category for study than "blonde".

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