That really is a great and constructive effort. 🙂

Like I didn’t have enough to read before…

Typo at Harpending’s “bigotry” link. You want this instead: http://westhunt.wordpress.com/2012/03/01/325/

Are my eyes deceiving me, or have you really forgotten Neven Sesardic? His book ‘making sense of heritability’ is unparalleled.

https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/making-sense-of-heritability-neven-sesardic.pdf

I haven’t read the book mentioned by ben, but I highly recommend Sesardic’s 2010 article Race: A Social Destruction of a Biological Concept and his recent follow-up Confusions About Race: A New Installment. These constitute a highly lucid refutation of social constructionist views on race, and you would be remiss if you did not include them here.

Sesardic’s articles are available here:

http://www.ln.edu.hk/philoso/staff/sesardic/publications.html

This is such an impressive source of information, I’m sure I’ll be coming back to it for years. I’m something of an independent scholar in the application of HBD to politics and partisan polarization, wrote a book about it called “Red Genes Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality” which you can find at my dormant website, http://www.redgenesbluegenes.com I posted my own irritated reaction there to an assault on IQ that caused me discomfiture when I was waylaid by a gaggle of well-meaning liberals (at a cookout in Park Slope, Brooklyn, home of that ilk), all of whom insisted that IQ was also a social construct and not valid. I did a brief amount of web research before posting, but it would have been so helpful to have had access to this page. Keep up the good work!

I would recommend Wicherts’s set of papers arguing that African IQ is 80, and Rindermann’s nice paper arguing that it is 75.

Lynn responded to Rindermann’s African IQ paper?

Why are you convinced by Lynn’s responses?

Jason Malloy doesn’t supply an African IQ estimate, though.

excellent & amazing work!
btw Ben’s “lesacredprintemps…” link works if you take the “s” off of “https” making it:
http://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/making-sense-of-heritability-neven-sesardic.pdf

Bless you, JayMan. I’m just seeing this for the first time, what a herculean effort. Outstanding. I will be keeping this at the very top of my (6000-strong) bookmark list. Chapeau bas.

In “Race and IQ: A Theory-Based Review of the Research in Richard Nisbett’s Intelligence and How to Get It”, Rushton & Jensen wrote the following :

Tests of university students confirm this pattern of results. One of us (JPR) traveled to South Africa to collect new IQ data from highly-select Black students at the prestigious University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Seven independent studies were published yielding a median IQ of 84 (range 77 to 103) [40, 41, 107]. Assuming that African university students score 1 SD (15 IQ points) above the mean of their population, as university students typically do, a median IQ of 84 is consistent with a general population mean of 70. Other studies of university students have found a comparable IQ average of about 84 [108]. Studies conducted on the most select of all African university students, such as those in engineering schools, or on the basis of math and science competitions, find their average IQ is approximately 100 [41, 108]. Assuming such students score two SDs above their group average, as they do at the best universities in the US, this value too indicates an IQ of 70 for the general population.

The only concern I have with regard to african IQs is that measurement invariance (or rather, the absence of measurement bias) is not well established. Rushton in “Construct Validity of Raven’s Advanced Progressive Matrices for African and Non-African Engineering Students in South Africa” showed that there is indeed invariance in factor loading, meaning that g is similar across groups, but should have used MCGFA to test measurement equivalence in measurement intercepts as well, or used instead IRT models to assess item bias.
http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/IJSA2004.pdf

I am not aware of strong factorial invariance in african IQs, but if it turns out that they show measurement bias, then it is likely that african IQs have been underestimated to an unknown amount. So, if we agree that african IQ is somewhat about 70 or 73, we have to say that they should be taken at the lower-bound estimates. By way of comparison, Jensen, in Bias in Mental Testing (pp 98-99) says that blacks in south regions of the US have an average of 80 points.
http://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/wp-content/uploads/Bias-in-Mental-Testing-Arthur-R.-Jensen.pdf

P.S. Your article is a good summary of the ‘HBD fundamentals’ by the way.

I’ve discovered a highly convenient “error” in Richard Lynn’s Mexico data. In 2005 Lynn conducted a study of Mexican IQ and these were the results:

“Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices test was administered to a representative sample of 920 white, Mestizo and Native Mexican Indian children aged 7–10 years in Mexico. The mean IQs in relation to a British mean of 100 obtained from the 1979 British standardization sample and adjusted for the estimated subsequent increase were: 98·0 for whites, 94·3 for Mestizos and 83·3 for Native Mexican Indians.”

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=266611

I read the full paper and didn’t find any problems with it. However, looking at those scores, and being aware that most of Mexico’s population is Mestizo, I couldn’t help but think the reported mean IQ for Mexico that I often see (87 or 88) was a little too low.

The demographics for Mexico, correctly given in the paper linked above, are 10% White, 60% Mestizo, and 30% pure Indian. With these percentages — 98(.1) + 94(.6) + 83 (.3) — the scores above average out to 91.

Now I double-checked Lynn’s book IQ and Global Inequality, published in 2006, and I noticed that Lynn cites the 2005 Mexican study above, but reports the overall Mexican average as 88. The reason is found on page 312:

http://de.scribd.com/doc/129505348/Richard-Lynn-Tatu-Vanhanen-IQ-and-Global-Inequality

For some strange reason, in this book he reports Mexico’s demographics as 10% White, 30% Mestizo, 60% Indian. Thus 98(.1) + 94(.3) + 83 (.6) = average of 88.

But not only is this demographic information obviously wrong, it contradicts the percentages reported in his own damn paper!

Now, it’s possible that this was an honest error on Lynn’s part. As I mentioned, I read through the entire 2005 Mexican study, and nowhere in it did he bother calculating the overall Mexican IQ, neither as either 88 nor 91. Only the scores for each particular ethnic group are enumerated. But the “error” that appears in IQ and Global Inequality is an awfully convenient for two reasons:

1) The only other IQ study in Mexico yielded an average of 87, but it was from the 1960s and there were some methodological problems with it. Listing the “updated” Mexican average as 88 gives an illusion of consistency and immobility.

2) In the color-coded global IQ maps that HBDers love to throw around, yourself included, countries with a score above 90 or 91 are usually colored differently from those which score below 90. Mexico is fairly easy to spot on a map, so if it were colored with other 90+ IQ nations, people would notice. Lynn’s “error” makes it easier to group Mexico with other Central American countries.

Furthermore, even the average of 91 is a bit skewed thanks to depressed scores of the indigenous Indians. Indians in Mexico face discrimination from both Whites AND Mestizos, and are relegated to the most squalid and unsanitary areas where they suffer from poor nutrition and other adverse environmental factors which could impact their scores. If we limited Mexico to its White and Mestizo populations, it would have an IQ safely in the 95-96 range.

I’ve noticed that the members of the anti-Hispanic HBD contingent, such as Steve Sailer, don’t give much attention to the fact that Lynn’s 2005 Mexican study showed a mere 4 point (!) gap between Whites and Mestizos. An average IQ of 94 hardly justifies disparaging the intelligence of Mexican Mestizos, and if the Black-White gap in America were ever narrowed to a mere 4-5 points, there would probably be a push to commemorate the moment as a national holiday.

In addition, these were native Mexicans, not immigrants. Off the top of my head, I’ve don’t think I’ve seen an average as high as 94 for any native populations (as opposed to super-selected elite immigrants) other than Europeans, Ashkenazi Jews, and East Asians.

If an average of about 94 for Mexican Mestizos sounds implauble to you, keep in mind that

1) Mestizos tend to perform better on culturally neutral tests than on culturally biased tests. For Blacks, the opposite is the case. This indicates that Mestizos could have untapped potential that doesn’t show up in their standardized tests scores. It’s much more difficult to argue this for Blacks. This was noticed at an early date by Arthur Jensen:

“Surprisingly, blacks tend to perform relatively better on the more culture-loaded or verbal kinds of tests than on the culture-fair type. For example, on the widely used Wechsler Intelligence Scale, comprised of 11 different subtests, blacks do better on the culture-loaded subtests of vocabulary, general information, and verbal comprehension than on the nonverbal performance tests such as the block designs. Just the opposite is true for such minorities as Orientals, Mexican-Americans, Indians, and Puerto Ricans. […] Our tests of Mexican-Americans produced similar results. They do rather poorly on the culture-loaded types of tests based on verbal skills and knowledge, but they do better on the culture-fair tests. The same holds true for American Indians. All these minorities perform on the two types of tests much as one might expect from the culture-bias hypothesis. Only blacks, among the minorities we have tested, score in just the opposite manner.”

2) But then why is Mexico the way it is? Because there’s lots of disinformation about Mexico. Overall, Mexico as a country is in much better shape than, for example, India, and it is leagues ahead of a real Third-World hellhole like Haiti. This is especially true if you avoid the areas ravaged by the Cartel Wars (which have nothing to do with IQ), and the areas with more indigenous Indians. The White and Mestizo-majority areas are in good condition. With regard to PISA tests, Mexico scores on par with White-majority Uruguay and European nations like Romania and Bulgaria, and even outperforms White-majority Argentina. Mexico is more comparable to a country like Vietnam — it hovers between “First World” and “Third World”, but remains in a stage of positive growth and learns more towards the First World.

3) Likewise, HBDers have been incredibly lazy and sloppy when it comes to Latin America in general. For example, Chile is a prosperous nation and perhaps the most successful in Latin America, so HBDers assume it’s a “White” country. Wrong. Recent DNA tests reveal that the majority of Chileans have upwards of 35-40% Amerindian admixture. “Light-skinned Mestizo” is a more apt description of the average Chilean than “White.” Once again, we see these light-skinned Mestizos outperform their much Whiter neighbors in Argentina on numerous metrics: GDP per capita, standard of living, corruption levels, etc.

I’ve perused your blog and it appears you’ve occasionally engaged in the same anti-Mexican baiting as ideologues like Steve Sailer and others who downplay facts which contradict their worldview. Nevertheless, I’ll take your word that you’re a liberal and that you are willing to examine the evidence wherever it may lead. If you’re wondering what I’m expecting, I think the more honest HBD bloggers like you should at least reconsider obnoxious terms like “NAM” and treat different groups differently. Mestizos are not Blacks and do not deserve to be lumped in with them.

(For the record, my own opinion is that there are some IQ gaps between different populations, and that the Black-White gap is the most substantial and has the most cogent body of evidence supporting it, while the gaps among non-African populations are more ambiguous and could contain lots of surprises and untapped potential. I don’t dismiss HBD, but I think it has a tendency to reductionism and that many of its proponents are not as impartial as they claim to be.)

I notice that there is no Wikipedia entry for “Human Biodiversity”. Is there a story there? Has anyone tried to create it?

I don’t think Richard is deliberately fucking with his data, as you imply. He does make errors, but they strike me as rather unsystematic.

Thanks, Jayman. 🙂

An average IQ of 94 for mestizos in Mexico and of 91 for people of Mexican descent in the U.S. is not a contradiction. As you point out, Mexico isn’t that bad. So for people in the middle and upper end of IQ, staying in Mexico is pretty attractive. For people at the bottom, though, Mexico isn’t so great. So the U.S. doesn’t get Mexico’s “best and brightest”. Lately, we’ve been getting the “wretched refuse”, and the numbers have been larger more recently. Anecdotally, recent Mexican immigration seems more Indian than mestizo to me, so the average IQ of the Mexican-derived population of the US would naturally be lower than the average IQ of mestizos in Mexico.

I don’t recommend it. I dislike the term HBD for a number of reasons, listed below, and would prefer to see it abandoned altogether.

1) HBD is not a scientific or scholarly term. It’s something Sailer made up.

2) HBD seems to be just another name for sociobiology. We might define HBD as sociobiology with an emphasis on group differences. At any rate, it’s not a distinct field, nor is it an ideology.

3) Even the term sociobiology seems to haven fallen into disuse, and I’m not sure this stuff really needs a label. If your blog consists of social/political commentary with an awareness of and interest in biological influences on human behavior, why not just describe it as such?

4) To a blue pill outsider, the HBD-sphere is liable to seem cult-like. It would probably be best to avoid encouraging this impression via the use of jargon and shibboleths.

5) We would all like to see HBD ideas gain wide acceptance and be integrated throughout intellectual and scholarly discourse, as they should be. Putting a special label on our ideas and perspectives will foster intellectual ghettoization.

Furthermore, trying to put anything controversial on Wikipedia is a waste of time unless you are highly knowledgeable and willing to devote a substantial amount of time to fighting other editors.

Oh, I certainly am not competent to create a Wikipedia entry for this. I hardly know anything.

I am no big fan of Wikipedia, but I usually use it as a default starting point. I was just very surprised not to find an entry there, because there’s usually one for just about everything. And I expected to find a juicy Talk page and history, which are sometimes entertaining for controversial subjects.

Anonymous, sociobiology seems to be a narrower subject than HBD, isn’t it, focusing on social behavior?

Anyway, thanks for your answer. I will avoid using the term. Being politically liberal myself, I certainly see things about the community that I don’t want to associate myself with. And the subject in itself is enough of a red flag.

I wish I could reblog this,but I don’t see how/

I find on Wikipedia that most controversial topics get repeatedly over-written and re-edited, over and over again by any opponents of the topic. A good example of this is the men’s rights group, A Voice for Men page. They spent many months editing and making changes, accommodating their opponents views, only to have others erase it. Eventually the official editors produced there own blue-pill version, and then locked it. Its not worth your time frankly. In short, its a waste of time.

You should consider this paper. It demonstrates that a significant percentage of variance in IQ can be attributed to test administration errors:
http://edpsychassociates.com/Papers/IQassessorBias(2014).pdf

It seems like the video with Pinker and Elizabeth Spelke has been removed.

: Thank you very much for sharing all of these links! 🙂

However, I have a question–do you have any useful links about the brains of transgender people, about the causes of transgenderism, and about the effects of transitioning and not transitioning on transgender people?

Basically, I am curious about this considering that, in one of your previous blog posts, you compared transgenderism to transracialism. Indeed, I’d like to know whether that is a valid comparison or whether being transgender is more similar to, say, being intersex. In addition to this, I am curious as to whether or not there is actually *any* better alternative to transitioning for transgender people.

Also, somewhat off-topic, but out of curiosity–how would you classify Katie Baratz? :

https://www.haverford.edu/college-communications/news/growing-intersex-going-oprah

Would you classify her as male due to her XY chromosomes and undescended testes? Or would you look at the bigger picture and classify her as intersex?

The Foreign Policy Kay Hymowitz link has gone, here’s a wayback copy

https://web.archive.org/web/20130629000150/http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/06/24/think_again_working_women?page=full