kaiokan12 comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong

97 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 March 2010 11:23PM

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Comment author: Alicorn 15 March 2010 06:33:11PM 10 points [-]

What makes you think this is obvious? While racial IQ differences certainly aren't ruled out a priori (Ashkenazi Jews are the quintessential example), Occamian reasoning about the black/white divide doesn't indicate that genetics is part of the best and most parsimonious explanation. There are adequate other factors at work - you can pick up a lot of data from studies on things like stereotype threat, for instance. And the fact that biracial children do better on IQ when the mother is the white parent than when the mother is black seems strong evidence to me that genetics are not the whole story, if they play any part at all.

Comment author: [deleted] 18 March 2010 07:07:21AM *  9 points [-]

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Comment author: Alicorn 18 March 2010 05:51:56PM 10 points [-]

This would predict that the difference would be seen in biracial boys, but not in biracial girls. I've never heard anything to that effect - have you?

Comment author: [deleted] 18 March 2010 11:47:33PM *  3 points [-]

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Comment author: [deleted] 18 March 2010 11:51:08PM *  1 point [-]

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Comment author: Alicorn 19 March 2010 12:08:43AM 2 points [-]

You can edit comments - there's a button to the right of the "parent" link at the bottom of each. That way you can make prompt additions like this without having to double-post.

Comment author: [deleted] 24 March 2010 02:50:24PM *  0 points [-]

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Comment author: [deleted] 26 September 2011 05:45:33AM 2 points [-]

Blacks have higher testosterone, a hormone that increases muscularity by decreases IQ(in large amounts) There is more testosterone in the uterine environment of a black women, and that may depress > IQ.

Citation please.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 26 September 2011 02:16:03AM 0 points [-]

I'm confused by this prediction. Can you expand out your logic? Assuming these were X-linked wouldn't the races of the parents be what matters?

Comment author: Alicorn 26 September 2011 03:42:49AM *  10 points [-]

biracial children do better on IQ when the mother is the white parent than when the mother is black

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Actually, there is some evidence that many intelligence genes are carried on the X chromosome.

So, there's four cases, which I will give names: boy with a black mom and white dad ("Joe"), boy with white mom and black dad ("Rob"), girl with black mom and white dad ("Sal"), and girl with white mom and black dad ("Eve").

Joe has a black X chromosome and a white Y chromosome.

Rob has a white X chromosome and a black Y chromosome.

Sal and Eve both have one black and one white X chromosome.

If X chromosomes have lots of intelligence-related genes, and if white parents contribute smarter chromosomes than black parents do, then there's no difference between Sals and Eves (they've both got one of each), but Robs should be smarter than Joes on average, because Rob has his g-loaded genes from a white parent and Joe doesn't.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 26 September 2011 03:55:53AM 1 point [-]

Ah. Ok. That makes sense. Thanks..