[RonPaulalways]

Quote:
Producing and maintaining a large brain is metabolically expensive, and must confer a significant advantage (i.e. intelligence) for it to be evolutionarily selected for.

Something you might want to consider is whether brain growth was the result of improved diet and other environmental factors.

Irrelevant. Large brains are metabolically expensive, and almost wholly hereditary (e.g. you're not going to get a big brained monkey no matter how much Omega 3 you feed it), so unless they confer some significant advantage (like intelligence), those with smaller brains would have been selected over those with larger ones.

When better groupings exist, like clines, there is no reason to use race. Race is only valid because it suits political constructs, and I contend attempts to redefine race to include clinal variation is political in nature too. Consider for example Dave’s confessed interest in ‘race realism’ as a result of his anti-immigration stance. If one were to accept clines over races, you would realise that the process of acclimatisation would naturally reduce any difference between groups (thus aiding integration), rather than lock them into poorly defined racial categories. If your natural assumption is that certain groups of foreign origin are the ‘other’, then it would be a fearsome prospect indeed that they will eventually become like you.

A cline isn't really a population grouping, it's a quality that a population of organisms may exhibit. I don't see how acknowledging that there are clines within a population diminishes the significant of intelligence difference between different groups.

And what exactly do you mean by "acclimatisation"? Do you mean inter-breeding?

[Cheesecake_Marmalade]

Don't really care about most of this, but I do want to nitpick one thing

The significance of this conditioning is reinforced by another study, in which students were rated based on both their intelligence and their self-discipline. The statistics were based on the success of these students in entering higher-tier high schools through admissions exams. It was found that self-discipline was twice as important as intelligence in success. This would seem to undermine the supposed correlation between IQ and success, as Lynn tried to prove in his “Wealth of Nations”.

Isn't it a bit fallacious to compare the importance of average IQ of a country (in this case a race) to the importance of IQ in an individual person? Certainly it seems plausible that self-discipline is a more important factor to individual success than IQ, but what Lynn was positing was that the overall IQ of a country can dramatically effect its performance.

[Smilin' Dave]

@RPA

Irrelevant. Large brains are metabolically expensive

Your metabolism feeds on food, so how is nutrition irrelevant? Okay, brains get big, so how do you explain
1. The expansion (or more correctly, the greater density of neurons etc.) of the human brain in certain areas? Plenty of animals have bigger brains than us but are nowhere near as intelligent.
2. How do you explain the studies of energy usage in intelligent brains? In particular since you harp on the point of metabolic expense, the study showed that energy usage was not only concentrated in 'unusual' areas, but was often lower in output (so efficient rather than expensive).

A cline isn't really a population grouping, it's a quality that a population of organisms may exhibit.

First, clinal variation covers a number of qualities rather than just one. Second, what you just described is exactly the same justification used to explain the use of race as a grouping (a population that happens to share common characteristics). Clinal variation however is demonstrated to supersede racial groupings (with clinal characteristics crossing accepted ‘racial’ boundaries) and actually shows why those variations are so. Much the same goes for clades.

I don't see how acknowledging that there are clines within a population diminishes the significant of intelligence difference between different groups.

Like Oddity you misunderstand my argument somewhat. The discussion of clines relates to the flaw of a racial analysis, not to the discussion of intelligence. The two are only linked in this argument because Dave explicitly links them.

So again:
1. Dave’s neurological theories are not well supported by recent studies, which (among other things) show how the brain develops over time rather than just emerge in one set way at birth.
2. Race, which Dave insists on linking with heredity, isn’t a good scientific method, invalidating any racial approach to intelligence.

And what exactly do you mean by "acclimatisation"? Do you mean inter-breeding?

Actually acclimatisation would be the change in population over time because of their change in cline, in other words as the result of environmental factors. Interbreeding would be more of an integration mechanism, although naturally mixing gene pools would affect that part of the equation that is hereditary.

@C_M

Isn't it a bit fallacious to compare the importance of average IQ of a country (in this case a race) to the importance of IQ in an individual person? Certainly it seems plausible that self-discipline is a more important factor to individual success than IQ, but what Lynn was positing was that the overall IQ of a country can dramatically effect its performance.

Overall IQ is simply the average of individual performance, not a structure/organism itself. In fact, if we assume that population-level IQ is actually different to the individuals it is supposed to represent, we would have to consider social-economic structures in that population (is there something holding part of the population back? Or pushing another part forward?). Lynn drew a direct parallel between IQ and national success, my suggestion is that other, perhaps more significant factors have to be considered as well.

[Cheesecake_Marmalade]

Overall IQ is simply the average of individual performance, not a structure/organism itself. In fact, if we assume that population-level IQ is actually different to the individuals it is supposed to represent, we would have to consider social-economic structures in that population (is there something holding part of the population back? Or pushing another part forward?). Lynn drew a direct parallel between IQ and national success, my suggestion is that other, perhaps more significant factors have to be considered as well.

And I agree with you, I was just suggesting that maybe your comparison is invalid. Lynn's work was lacking precisely because the entire thing reeks of reversing the causation, because "they're not smart" is just such an insufficient answer in to a complex sociological question in so many ways that it's really past the point of humor.

[RonPaulalways]

Quote:
Irrelevant. Large brains are metabolically expensive

Your metabolism feeds on food, so how is nutrition irrelevant?

I explained why it's irrelevant in the second half of the sentence, if you bothered to read the whole sentence and understand my argument. Brain size is almost wholly hereditary. I gave as an example, a monkey, which regardless of how nutritious a diet it gets, will never develop a large (human-sized) brain. The same applies to any of the great apes besides humans. Within the human population too there is variability in brain size, which is again, hereditary. Nutrition plays a small role, but brain size, and particularly brain to body mass ratio, is determined almost wholly by genes.

Okay, brains get big, so how do you explain
1. The expansion (or more correctly, the greater density of neurons etc.) of the human brain in certain areas?

Evolution.

Plenty of animals have bigger brains than us but are nowhere near as intelligent.

No animal comes close to humans as far as brain to body size ratio.

2. How do you explain the studies of energy usage in intelligent brains? In particular since you harp on the point of metabolic expense, the study showed that energy usage was not only concentrated in 'unusual' areas, but was often lower in output (so efficient rather than expensive).

That's irrelevant. It can easily be explained by the fact that evolution favors energetically efficient brain function. It doesn't address or refute the fact that large brains are metabolically expensive, and would only be evolved for if they gave some significant advantage (intelligence).

Clinal variation however is demonstrated to supersede racial groupings (with clinal characteristics crossing accepted ‘racial’ boundaries) and actually shows why those variations are so. Much the same goes for clades.

It doesn't supercede it, it transcends it, which simply shows that the dividing line between one race and another is somewhat arbitrary, as I wrote in the last past.

2. Race, which Dave insists on linking with heredity, isn’t a good scientific method, invalidating any racial approach to intelligence.

Its uses may be limited scientifically due to the heterogeneity within races, and the level of similarity between people of different races, but that doesn't change the fact that races exhibit different average genotypes, phenotypes and levels of intelligence.

Quote:
And what exactly do you mean by "acclimatisation"? Do you mean inter-breeding?

Actually acclimatisation would be the change in population over time because of their change in cline, in other words as the result of environmental factors. Interbreeding would be more of an integration mechanism, although naturally mixing gene pools would affect that part of the equation that is hereditary.

I don't understand your post, as a change in a population IS a change in cline. And how does the existence of clines suggest that environmental factors will reduce the differences between groups?

[Smilin' Dave]

Brain size is almost wholly hereditary.

If you read the first part of the argument in the OP, you would see that brain volume alone doesn’t correlate well with intelligence, so what’s your point?

Evolution.

Care to expand upon that? Evolutionary success can be predicated on things other than biological advantage, as I pointed out to you in the first place.

No animal comes close to humans as far as brain to body size ratio.

From the first link in the OP re. Relative brain size:

Among large mammals, humans have the relatively largest brain (2% of body mass), whereas shrews, the smallest mammals, who exhibit supposedly much less cognitive and behavioral flexibility, have brains of up to 10% of their body mass [16] (Figure 3). The relationship between relative brain size and intelligence is therefore inconclusive.

Is a shrew smarter than you?

And on absolute brain size:

Also, the 1.35 kg brain of Homo sapiens, supposedly the smartest creature on earth, is significantly exceeded by the brains of elephants and some cetaceans. Thus, a larger brain alone does not necessarily assure greater intelligence.

Now, if you had really done your reading, we could have avoided this.

That's irrelevant. It can easily be explained by the fact that evolution favors energetically efficient brain function.

It’s relevant because it undermines your rambling about big brains. It’s relevant because there is no apparent hereditary component to it, and in fact there is a theory to suggest that it is a product of nurtured/environmental factors. The energy usage studies, again, also spoils Dave’s focus on the pre-frontal cortex, because those same tests show that intelligent students were not using them that much, for whatever reason.

It doesn't address or refute the fact that large brains are metabolically expensive, and would only be evolved for if they gave some significant advantage (intelligence).

While your extolling the intelligence of evolution, how does evolution explain redundant organs in the human body? Maybe bigger brains provide more padding

It doesn't supercede it, it transcends it, which simply shows that the dividing line between one race and another is somewhat arbitrary, as I wrote in the last past.

You do know the meaning of supersede and transcend right? Both imply superiority and replacement of the previous situation.

When those arbitrary lines are set for political purposes, and I see no evidence for race being determined scientifically, then they are meaningless.

Its uses may be limited scientifically due to the heterogeneity within races

When the legitimation of the whole concept is that it is scientific, that’s quite significant.

that doesn't change the fact that races exhibit different average genotypes, phenotypes and levels of intelligence.

How do you response to Zyx’s quote about the significant extent of variation within races then?

I don't understand your post, as a change in a population IS a change in cline.

Tell you what, I’ll buy you a dictionary. But in the meantime:
Cline: A gradual change in a character or feature across the distributional range of a species or population, usually correlated with an environmental or geographic transition.
A change in population isn’t necessarily a change in cline at all, nor are all changes clinal in nature. Cline isn’t just another word for race, it’s a population grouping defined by geography and its environment.

And how does the existence of clines suggest that environmental factors will reduce the differences between groups?

If your status/situation is apparently best defined the environment in which you live, logic would suggest that your status/situation will change if you (and more so your children) change environment.

[NoRapture]

So, after all this earnest and labored scientific discussion do you think there may be a danger of refuting any eugenics? If all the white supremacists leave there'll only be three of us left.

[Cheesecake_Marmalade]

If all the white supremacists leave there'll only be three of us left.

Does this ad hom really contribute anything to the discussion?

[Smilin' Dave]

Does this ad hom really contribute anything to the discussion?

No, which is why I would encourage everyone to ignore NoRapture in this thread.

Thanks.

[NoRapture]

Dave's positions, like those of any other race bigot, do not require rebuttal. Repeatedly wading through the pseudo-science and pedantry of race bigots serves no purpose but to give them credence by purveying the lies over and over, ad nauseum. Race bigots will not be swayed by reason, logic, or science. If this is to be the tac toward enlightenment, perhaps we should revisit the eugenic logic that was used against Jews too? Gypsies? Birth defective babies? It's all worth careful reexamination in the interest of science, don't you think? Nothing like casting the shadow of doubt back over evils that have been refuted in blood and science for a hundred years. While we're at it maybe we should look at flat-earth and earth-centered universe theories once more. All in the interests of free-speech and science, of course.

[Dr House]

Dave is not a bigot.

[NoRapture]

Dave is not a bigot.

He says the intellectual capacity of black people is inferior to that of whites. Genetically. If you think that isn't bigotry, what does it make you? These kinds of statements don't deserve to be given any credence at all. Certainly not scientific. Quite the opposite, I believe they should be penalized. Holocaust denial is penalized. We live in a time when cultures are being crammed together physically and psychologically every day. When it is taking every ounce of reasoning skill, cooperation, and education for societies and groups to live together peacefully out of necessity. And we allow people to casually make these kinds of degrading statements insulting whole hemispheres of global society? We should be shamefully hiding these throwbacks someplace where no-one in any culture of modest decency will ever know they exist in the vicinity.

Dave is a bigot. Rattling off his Google/Wiki-inspired horse-shit on genetics or anything else is ludicrous. I haven't had to read very far in various threads to notice that Smilin' Dave, Andre, and others have seen that his writing is nonsense, pedantic bullshit. I think it is poisonous. What separates the dialog on forums like this from corporatist media is the fact that human beings are running things, not some kind of corporate, profit-driven desperation for demographics. People better start penalizing this racist mentality fairly quickly or there will soon be no need whatsoever for forums like this.

[Dr House]

He says the intellectual capacity of black people is inferior to that of whites. Genetically.

He says that the capacity of blacks is lower than that of whites on average, not universally, which is supported by statistical data.

There are black people much smarter than the average white, and white people much dumber than the average black. Claiming otherwise is bigoted, and it is plainly false, but Dave does no such thing. On a personal basis, he judges every person he meets on their own individual merits.

He also says that Northeast Asians are intellectually superior to whites. Does that mean he's bigoted against whites?

If you think that isn't bigotry, what does it make you?

Smarter than you apparently.

These kinds of statements don't deserve to be given any credence at all. Certainly not scientific. Quite the opposite, I believe they should be penalized.

I remember a time when the belief that the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun was considered poisonous garbage and severely penalized...

[RonPaulalways]

Quote:
Brain size is almost wholly hereditary.

If you read the first part of the argument in the OP, you would see that brain volume alone doesn’t correlate well with intelligence, so what’s your point?

Brain to body mass does correlate with intelligence.

Quote:
Evolution.

Care to expand upon that? Evolutionary success can be predicated on things other than biological advantage, as I pointed out to you in the first place.

no it can't. Biological advantage is the only thing that evolution selects for by definition.

Quote:
No animal comes close to humans as far as brain to body size ratio.

From the first link in the OP re. Relative brain size:
Quote:
Among large mammals, humans have the relatively largest brain (2% of body mass), whereas shrews, the smallest mammals, who exhibit supposedly much less cognitive and behavioral flexibility, have brains of up to 10% of their body mass [16] (Figure 3). The relationship between relative brain size and intelligence is therefore inconclusive.

Is a shrew smarter than you?

To be precise, the actual brain to body mass ratio (as opposed to the EQ brain to body mass ratio) necessary to achieve a certain level of intelligence increases as an animal's body size decreases.

The formula to calculate the brain to body weight ratio (EQ) takes this into account:

Encephalization Quotient=weight(brain)/expected weight(brain) where the expected weight(brain) = 0.12 weight(body)^2/3

Which basically means that a smaller animal will need a larger brain relative to body mass in order to achieve the same encephalization quotient as a larger animal.

The encephalization quotient is strongly correlated with intelligence.

And on absolute brain size:
Quote:
Also, the 1.35 kg brain of Homo sapiens, supposedly the smartest creature on earth, is significantly exceeded by the brains of elephants and some cetaceans. Thus, a larger brain alone does not necessarily assure greater intelligence.

Now, if you had really done your reading, we could have avoided this.

If you bothered to read up on EQ, we wouldn't be debating this. This has all been addressed.

Quote:
That's irrelevant. It can easily be explained by the fact that evolution favors energetically efficient brain function.

It’s relevant because it undermines your rambling about big brains.

No it doesn't. You imply that having an energy efficient brain and a large brain are mutually exclusive. Evolution would favor large energy efficient brains over large energy inefficient brains.

It’s relevant because there is no apparent hereditary component to it, and in fact there is a theory to suggest that it is a product of nurtured/environmental factors.

This is completely unsubstantiated nonsense.

Quote:
It doesn't address or refute the fact that large brains are metabolically expensive, and would only be evolved for if they gave some significant advantage (intelligence).

While your extolling the intelligence of evolution, how does evolution explain redundant organs in the human body? Maybe bigger brains provide more padding

Redundant organs have become smaller over generations, just as brains have gotten larger, due to evolution.

Quote:
It doesn't supercede it, it transcends it, which simply shows that the dividing line between one race and another is somewhat arbitrary, as I wrote in the last past.

You do know the meaning of supersede and transcend right? Both imply superiority and replacement of the previous situation.

No they don't. Check the dictionary. Supercede means superiority to. Transcend means unbound by, or unrelated to.

When those arbitrary lines are set for political purposes, and I see no evidence for race being determined scientifically, then they are meaningless.

When something is set arbitrarily, which all dividing lines between categories are to some extant, then it's not a scientific determination, but that doesn't mean those categories created by those somewhat arbitrarily placed dividing lines are not useful in the scientific lexicon. Categories are necessary to communicate, regardless of the fact that they are never perfect predictors of the attributes of the objects in that category.

Quote:
Its uses may be limited scientifically due to the heterogeneity within races

When the legitimation of the whole concept is that it is scientific, that’s quite significant.

Races having different average genotypes and phenotypes is a scientific fact.

Quote:
that doesn't change the fact that races exhibit different average genotypes, phenotypes and levels of intelligence.

How do you response to Zyx’s quote about the significant extent of variation within races then?

It doesn't change what I said. Regardless of variation within races, and similarities between races, the fact is different races have different average phenotypes (including levels of intelligence) and genotypes.

Quote:
I don't understand your post, as a change in a population IS a change in cline.

Tell you what, I’ll buy you a dictionary. But in the meantime:
Cline: A gradual change in a character or feature across the distributional range of a species or population, usually correlated with an environmental or geographic transition.
A change in population isn’t necessarily a change in cline at all, nor are all changes clinal in nature.

Yes it is. A change in the genotype of a population necessarily means a change in cline.

Cline isn’t just another word for race, it’s a population grouping defined by geography and its environment.

A cline is a continuum of variability for a particular genetic trait, not a population grouping. When the genes in a population change, the cline will change.

Quote:
And how does the existence of clines suggest that environmental factors will reduce the differences between groups?

If your status/situation is apparently best defined the environment in which you live, logic would suggest that your status/situation will change if you (and more so your children) change environment.

No, the correlation is not due to a causative relationship between environment and genes in the case of clines. It's the greater level of interbreeding between people in close geographical proximity that results in geography being correlated to genetic makeup.

So if you transplant a group of people from one part of the world to another, their genetic makeup won't start changing to resemble that of the natives simply on account of them living in the same environment, but rather because they will start interbreeding.

[NoRapture]

He says that the capacity of blacks is lower than that of whites on average, not universally, which is supported by statistical data.

He says whites are supreme in intelligence. Genetically. Scientifically. Then he inserts paragraphs of bullshit which supposedly support this. Science does not support this claim.

Statistically whites get higher IQ scores than blacks? And what do you surmise from this?

[Zyx]

RonPaulalways, your understanding of evolution is off by two simple facts.

[1] The environmental supportability of a gene precedes the gene's appearance. So, a population will first need a diet of supporting a larger brain before that larger brain appears in the population and can survive as a biological advantage.

[2] Non-clinal genes appear more frequently than clinal genes. Non-clinal genes are not selected for, so as genes appear through mutations, the only genes that a cline would have near universally is that clinal genes. Meanwhile, non-clinal genes would sparsely populate the population as it is not clinally selected for. So, as it was already established, something like 'intelligence' would not be a clinal gene. Therefore, at best, if 'intelligence' were 'variant,' it's appearance would be non-clinal, and as non-clinal genes are more diverse in a cline, clines can not be used as groups for intelligence.

As to intelligence differences, how can one reconcile the flynn effect with the notion that the Ancient Greeks were as smart as we are today? How can we today be smarter than the people of sixty years ago but not smarter than the people of a thousand?

Another thing, why can the Ainu of Japan be considered much dumber than the other Japanese but when the Ainu study in Western states they are seen as being as intelligent as the Japanese?

I agree with NoRapture, this debate is a useless one, for the side of science and logic favors our side.

People better start penalizing this racist mentality fairly quickly or there will soon be no need whatsoever for forums like this.

I agree, NoRapture. The bigotry of Dave and Dr House ought to be censored. It's completely useless horsehit that has no predictive powers and has always been wrong.

[Dr House]

The bigotry of Dave and Dr House ought to be censored. It's completely useless horsehit that has no predictive powers and has always been wrong.

Funny, I could say the same thing about your idiotic claptrap about Egyptians being black.

[RonPaulalways]

Zyx, you need to make relevant criticisms of the theories, and not rely on anecdotes, if you want me to respond.

[Zyx]

Funny, I could say the same thing about your idiotic claptrap about Egyptians being black.

In no way was it idiotic or claptrap. As far as skin pigmentation is concerned, or genetic ancestry, the Egyptians would have had "Black" skin. It had to do with clines and the Egyptian cline being one that, since the Egyptians were migrated Nubians, had a population of Black skinned Africans. The question was not whether they had "Black" skin, pigmentation tests show that they had, the question was whether they were "Negroid" (broad nosed and so forth) but, as it were, the debate was over an antedated racial categorization and clinally, despite their Negroid ancestry, the Egyptians had Mediterranean features (narrow noses and so forth.) There was nothing claptrap about it.

Nonetheless, that's irrelevant to the subject matter at hand.

Zyx, you need to make relevant criticisms of the theories, and not rely on anecdotes, if you want me to respond.

I have. You said that monkeys will never grow a bigger brain despite their diet, but you ignore that humanity were formerly "monkeys" who had good dietary habits and eventually got a better brain. I wasn't really making a criticism insomuch as telling you where your understanding of evolution is off.*

Essentially, you have to make the connection between 'cline' and 'intelligence' but you can not. Only in intelligence being 'clinal' could whole clines be more intelligent than other clines, for if intelligence is non-clinal then the average intelligence of the clines would be equal.

*It is important to note that because of our diets, our brains can become larger and be superfluous, yet evolutionarily, the mutation wouldn't be rejected as it can still be supported. This can be seen in many genetic diseases that are inherited, despite being negative, they survive because civilization supports those genetically ill and allows them to reproduce.

[Einherjar]

In no way was it idiotic or claptrap. As far as skin pigmentation is concerned, or genetic ancestry, the Egyptians would have had "Black" skin. It had to do with clines and the Egyptian cline being one that, since the Egyptians were migrated Nubians, had a population of Black skinned Africans. The question was not whether they had "Black" skin, pigmentation tests show that they had, the question was whether they were "Negroid" (broad nosed and so forth) but, as it were, the debate was over an antedated racial categorization and clinally, despite their Negroid ancestry, the Egyptians had Mediterranean features (narrow noses and so forth.) There was nothing claptrap about it.

There is no reason to suppose that Egyptians were migrated Nubians. From genetic analyses that are further complamented by linguistic evidence, it seems to be the case that North Africans (including Berbers) migrated from Southwestern Asia. The only question concerns the Ethiopians on whether they were originally Negroids that acquired some Caucasian genes and a Caucasian (Afro-Asiatic) language from Egypt or from across the Red Sea or whether they were an Afro-Asiatic-speaking tribe that migrated southwards and mixed with the local population. I'd personally go for the first possibility even though genes generally accompany language (that is, a language is not generally acquired by one people from another via cultural contact but spreads through demic diffusion).