Thread: Why Race-Realism is Pseudoscience

I came to this board while searching the internet for forums where posters support Scientific Racism. I use the term Scientific Racism because that is the labeling commonly used in academia to describe the research of scholars who claim to have evidence that there are innate racial differences in mental ability. Such scholars and advocates of the position are commonly called racialists.

The term race-realism is far too presumptuous. That term implies that racialist claims are in fact the truth and I believe that is a claim that should be settled by drawing conclusions from facts rather than assuming a claim is fact.

Racism is an accurate description of this research going by the traditional definition of the word e.g. hatred or intolerance based on race or discrimination based on racialism (racism is a term originally used to describe the racial theories of Nazi Germany). Racialists claim that racialist research is conducted in order to seek the truth but what is the goal? In my experience every racialist who has advocated belief in such views has stated that their conclusions validate policy recommendations such as racial separation which is undeniably a racist policy.

During my personal research into this issue I have discovered a common position that nearly all critics of Scientific Racism share. Their position is that this research is NOT science. It is pseudoscience or fake science. Now who is to say what is real science? We can identify real scientific research by determining that the methodology of the researcher follows the scientific method. Science is knowledge of facts gained by systematic observation of experimentation. The Scientific Method is a valid direction to take when conducting a scientific investigation. Pseudoscience is any research that is claimed to be science but does not follow the scientific method.


Here is the difference....


Science

1. Gather facts.
2. Come up with a hypothesis to make sense of them.
3. Test the hypothesis.



Pseudoscience

1. Come up with the desired conclusion.
2. Gather facts that support the conclusion.
3. Find excuses for the facts that do not fit.


Race-Realism is heavily based on the research of Psychologists who conduct tests designed to measure a person's mental ability. This field of research is known as Psychometrics and the standard form of mental testing applied by scholars in this field are called IQ tests (IQ = Intelligence Quotient). There are a handful of Psychometricians who study the IQ averages on groups such as races, genders and social classes and have come to the conclusion that differences in IQ score between these groups has a hereditary component.

Advocates of this position are commonly called hereditarians. Racial hereditarians believe that the cause of racial differences in IQ score are partially due to genetic differences between races. Additionally many racial hereditarians claim that differences in IQ score between races correlate with academic success and standard of living, life style choices and behavior.
Because the races allegedly differ in a number of Socioeconomic conditions differences in intelligence and personality that impacts behavior are alleged by racial hereditarians to be the cause of these Socioeconomic conditions.

So if members of a race generally performs less well in school or are more poor or commit more crime on average than other races then the reason for this is because that race is less intelligent or have lower morals because of genetic differences. These conclusions have serious implications for society at large. Racial hereditarians often caution that they are only talking about averages not absolutes. Their generalizations do not apply to all individuals of a race just the tendencies of a collective and that environment is a partial cause for the statistics they cite. Nonetheless they are claiming that certain races are innately dumber, more violent and even less sexually restrained than other races.

These conclusions have implications not only for the research of Psychologists but many other fields including genetics, biology, anthropology and sociology. It is from many of these other fields in addition to Psychologists that racial hereditarians received a lot of their academic criticism. I have read the research of many scholars both proponents of racialism and critics a like. The research I find most interesting is the work of J Philippe Rushton and Joseph L Graves.

Rushton is a Psychologist who has attempted to prove the hereditarian position on racial differences in IQ to be valid based on evolutionary science.
Graves is an evolutionary biologist who has done a lot of research on racial theories as well as critiqued the hereditarian position on Race and IQ as well as Rushton's evolutionary arguments on race specifically. On the subject of evolution and genetics Graves is qualified to speak with authority on the subject while Rushton is a researcher in a different field making claims about evolution that he believes support his conclusions on Race and IQ.

Within his critique of Rushton's own research Graves has identified a syllogism common to all hereditarian researchers:

1. General intelligence can be quantified by a single metric known as g.
2. Standardized tests can be utilized to measure g.
3. g is mostly genetically determined.
4. Races differ consistently in their performance on intelligence tests.
5. This difference must in part be due to the genetic differences between races.
6. Races of human being can be unambiguously defined by biological means.

Source: The Misuse of Life History Theory: J. P. Rushton and the Pseudoscience of Racial Hierarchy In Race and Intelligence: Separating Science from Myth, edited by J. Fish. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 57-94.


Here are the problems Graves finds with the research of hereditarians in general:

1. They make claims that are not supported by the data given
2. They make errors in calculation that invariably support their hypothesis
3. There's no mention of data that contradicts their hypothesis
4. There's no mention of theories and data that conflict with core assumptions
5. They make bold policy recommendations that are consistent with those advocated by racists.

Source: The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium p. 8

In other words hereditarian research violates the Scientific Method in numerous ways most notably through confirmation bias, omission and error.


In his work Graves lists numerous examples of the unscientific methodology employed by racialists.

Here is a summary of some of the problems:

Originally Posted by Joseph Graves

A CRITICAL TEST OF THE GENETIC BASIS OF g: AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

Despite the psychometricians' inflated claims about the genetic basis of intelligence, almost none of them have any real or practical knowledge of experimental quantitative genetics. Parroting evolutionary and ecological concepts, many of them apply these paradigms uncritically as they search for simplistic explanations for extremely complicated aspects of human society (Graves & Place, 1995). The proper utilization of core evolutionary and quantitative techniques would shatter the psychometricians' program. For example, efforts to test g experimentally would be rife with difficulties-of course, that could explain why the psychometricians avoid such a critical test. Additionally, there are several other alternative hypotheses concerning generalized intellectual ability the psychometricians have yet to test.


Source: The Pseudoscience of Psychometry and The Bell Curve The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 64, No. 3, Myths and Realities: African Americans and the Measurement of Human Abilities (Summer, 1995), pp. 277-294

Rushton himself is one of the scholars most known for using evolutionary and ecological concepts to explain how he believes genetic differences between races that impact intelligence and behavior came about. Rushton presented all of this evolutionary research in his book Race, Evolution and Behavior. The book received criticism from several scholars including Graves. Graves himself debated Rushton at a panel discussion where they and other scholars presented their positions on the race and IQ controversy.


You can watch the video of that presentation here:



It is noteworthy that Rushton never responded to Graves critique in print. His research is the most often cited by other psychometricians and other proponents of racial hereditarianism yet he cannot defend his research against an expert in the field. This supports Graves position that hereditarians in addition to all the errors within their work are not willing or able to put their theories to a meaningful test.

Racialist research is pseudoscience and has been debunked.

If you out right denied scientific inquiry such as this from it's infancy which is currently in because you reject some it's methods and some valid criticisms have been levied against it than in Darwin's time when he proposed evolution it would have been done away with. Rushton has responded in written form you just didn't take the time to investigate it.

1. General intelligence can be quantified by a single metric known as g.

This line of criticism results in a straw man because most researchers state that they are aware that g isn't all encompassing. It's almost impossible to reduce everything to one metric because there are way too many variables when dealing with human beings to account for but if they didn't find the most sound way of reducing variables not only here, but in most soft sciences. Then they wouldn't be able to operate.

2. Standardized tests can be utilized to measure g.

This seems to be a relativist argument where they reject standardized testing for a claimed underlying reason that can't be proved.

3. g is mostly genetically determined.

A valid point. But there's a lot of evidence and debate for intelligence being heritable

4. Races differ consistently in their performance on intelligence tests.

They're using different sample selections so this should be obvious

5. This difference must in part be due to the genetic differences between races.

Race/ethnicity is a large part of genetic variation so it's seen as possibly leading to the difference.

6. Races of human being can be unambiguously defined by biological means.

Races as they're defined in modern terms tend to belong to the same or related genetic groups.

The question of race and intelligence is a valid one. I don't understand why people are so afraid of it. Especially when they unquestioningly accept a lot sociology which has the same pseudo-science qualities you described as hereditarianism research having.

It's nonsense that only hereditarians support the concept of g or IQ. In fact there is a near consensus in psychology that it is a valid metric, with good predictive validity and biological correlates.

pas_23_1_143_fig3a.jpg

Originally Posted by Flynn

Gould’s book evades all of Jensen’s best arguments for a genetic component in the black-white IQ gap, by positing that they are dependent on the concept of g as a general intelligence factor. Therefore, Gould believes that if he can discredit g, no more need be said. This is manifestly false. Jensen’s arguments would bite no matter whether blacks suffered from a score deficit on one or 10 or 100 factors. I attribute no intent or motive to Gould, it is just that you cannot rebut arguments if you do not acknowledge and address them. (Flynn 1999a, 373)

Originally Posted by Nisbett

Some laypeople I know — and some scientists as well — believe that it is a priori impossible for a genetic difference in intelligence to exist between the races. But such a conviction is entirely unfounded. There are a hundred ways that a genetic difference in intelligence could have arisen — either in favor of whites or in favor of blacks. The question is an empirical one, not answerable by a priori convictions about the essential equality of groups.

"It's pseudoscience" is a pretty lame rebuttal.

Originally Posted by Rhodesia

Rushton has responded in written form you just didn't take the time to investigate it.

No. Rushton never responded to Joseph Graves officially in print. He mentioned his name in an article promoting his book where he paraphrased his argument but if you bothered to look as I did you would know that he never wrote any articles rebutting Graves argument. In fact I had a debate with a poster on another message board who after failing to refute Graves himself decided to email Rushton for comment. Rushton responded and I forwarded the email to Graves who replied to that email.

First of all here is a short summary Joseph Graves sent me of his main arguments:

Originally Posted by Joseph L. Graves

1. Rushton's arguments rely on r- and K- life history theory. These designations are general descriptions of investment in reproduction and somatic tissue on opposite ends of a spectrum (r- = more reproduction/less soma and K- = less reproduction/more soma.) The problem with this notion is that it has been shown to be incorrect in a series of experiments with a wide variety of organisms. No one took this theory seriously after about 1990.

2. Even if r- and K- theory were correct, I showed that Rushton applied it backwards. By the theory, Africans should be K- selected (K selection occurs in stable environments, such as the tropics) while r-selection was to be favored in fluctuating environments, such as the temperate zones. So by Rushton's reasoning, Africans should be more genetically capable of intelligence, and Europeans/Asians less.

3. Throughout his work, Rushton selectively uses examples to support his ideas. I have caught him manipulating data in unclear ways, for the purposes of making his points.

4. Rushton requires the existence of biological races, which humans do not have. The existence of geographically based genetic variation is not the same as proving races exist, or that in life history features all Africans are different from all Europeans.

Here are the emails:

Originally Posted by J. Philippe Rushton

Several years ago Joseph Graves did write a book chapter critique of my life-history explanation of race differences. I no longer recall it in detail except that he had ducked the main part, that is, the data.

As you know, most race research focuses on Black-White differences in the US in IQ, education, crime, and marital stability. My research went a lot further to cover some 60 variables such as speed of maturation, brain size (three separate indicators), rate of producing twins at birth, longevity, testosterone, sexual behavior, etc. Moreover, I looked at African descended people in the Caribbean, Canada, the UK, and sub-Saharan Africa. and found the same Black-White differences where ever they were studied. Most crucial, I looked at East Asians on all the same 60 characteristics and found they had higher IQ scores, larger brains, less sexual activity, less crime, fewer twins per 1,000 births etc.

In other words, a highly consistent three-way pattern of racial differences exists in brain size, intelligence, sexuality, personality, speed of maturation, life span, crime, and family stability in which East Asian descended people fall at one end of the spectrum, African descended people fall at the other, and European descended people fall intermediate, typically close to East Asians. East Asians are slower to mature, less fertile, less sexually active, with larger brains and higher IQ scores. They also engage in greater social organization and less crime than Africans who are at the opposite ends in each of these areas. My 1995 book, Race, Evolution, and Behavior summarized these theories and the evidence supporting them.

So, the fundamental question is, how do we explain the consistent three-way pattern? No environmental theory alone can do so. Only evolutionary theory in which genetics are crucial can account for the pattern If Dr. Graves can come up with a better theory or show the data is different than I described, he should do so. But he has not done so.

I hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Phil Rushton

Originally Posted by Joseph L Graves

Rushton's memory of my critique is quite limited. First, it began with an evaluation of the efficacy of r- and K- theory in general. Professional life-history evolutionists (of which I am, and he is not) no longer regard r- and K- theory as a useful research paradigm. This dismantling occurred due to a series of experiments that tested the predictions of r- and K-theory and showed that they did not hold up in a wide variety of species. Second, I demonstrated that Rushton misapplied r- and K- theory; indeed by MacArthur and Wilson (the originators of r- and K-theory) Africans would be K-selected and Europeans and East Asians (r-selected); just the opposite of what Rushton claimed. Third, I demonstrated that much of the data he cited to make his case was flawed either in collection or source; particularly data like "social organization" and "crime". Thus at three levels his r- and K-theory approach to human life history variation fails. So I challenge the notion his 3-way spectrum is real; secondly even if it were real, he has not presented an evolutionary theory that could explain it; and third that environmental differences could easily explain much of what he reports.

Rushton had no direct response to Graves arguments. He simply restated the thesis of his book and tried to put the burden of proof on Graves to come up with a better theory to explain his data. But as you can see Graves notes that he dismissed the credibility of his data and the theory supporting it thus refuting Rushton's argument.

The question of race and intelligence is a valid one. I don't understand why people are so afraid of it. Especially when they unquestioningly accept a lot sociology which has the same pseudo-science qualities you described as hereditarianism research having.

Aside from such research being blatant racist propaganda many people obviously view it as socially harmful because of its implications of intellectual superiority and inferiority among races which has major social implications.

Originally Posted by Mikemikev

's nonsense that only hereditarians support the concept of g or IQ. In fact there is a near consensus in psychology that it is a valid metric, with good predictive validity and biological correlates.

I never said that only racial hereditarians support the concept of g or IQ. Indeed many Psychometricians who reject their theory do as well.

Here is what Flynn had to say to me via email:

Originally Posted by James Flynnn

g is a valid construct although it is not everything - see my What is inteliigence? (2009). And it does not show blacks are inferior - see my Where have all the liberals gone? (2008). And Gould's book failed to meet Jensen's best arguments but I did! - Jim Flynn

Nisbett said this to me about Rushton via email:

Originally Posted by Richard Nisbett

I frankly don't take Rushton seriously. Jensen would be a different matter, but I have been told he is in his cups and Rushton just signs his name to everything he writes.

Incidentally both scholars co-authored a recent article on intelligence that responds to many of Rushton's recent articles:


Intelligence: new findings and theoretical developments.


Richard E. Nisbett, Joshua Aronson, Clancy Blair, William Dickens, James Flynn, Diane F. Halpern, and Eric Turkheimer


Abstract:


Intelligence: new findings and theoretical develo... [Am Psychol. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI




Full Text

Psychology Today - Intelligence: New Findings And Theoretical Developments A conversation with Diane F. Halpern

Originally Posted by Joseph L. Graves

1. Rushton's arguments rely on r- and K- life history theory. These designations are general descriptions of investment in reproduction and somatic tissue on opposite ends of a spectrum (r- = more reproduction/less soma and K- = less reproduction/more soma.) The problem with this notion is that it has been shown to be incorrect in a series of experiments with a wide variety of organisms. No one took this theory seriously after about 1990.

Incorrect. Rushton's arguments rely on the life history data. The evolutionary theory is secondary. Graves fails to understand the scientific method.

Originally Posted by Joseph L. Graves

2. Even if r- and K- theory were correct, I showed that Rushton applied it backwards. By the theory, Africans should be K- selected (K selection occurs in stable environments, such as the tropics) while r-selection was to be favored in fluctuating environments, such as the temperate zones. So by Rushton's reasoning, Africans should be more genetically capable of intelligence, and Europeans/Asians less.

Debatable. Is Africa really a stable environment?

Originally Posted by Joseph L. Graves

3. Throughout his work, Rushton selectively uses examples to support his ideas. I have caught him manipulating data in unclear ways, for the purposes of making his points.

Unsubstantiated.

Originally Posted by Joseph L. Graves

4. Rushton requires the existence of biological races, which humans do not have. The existence of geographically based genetic variation is not the same as proving races exist, or that in life history features all Africans are different from all Europeans.

Incorrect. Rushton only requires there to be geographically associated variation. Any race based sampling method will then expose this difference, which it infact does. If the variation within races for any phenotypic trait (not the overall genetic variation) is too high, we will expect to see standard deviations higher than the average difference. We don't. The fact that race does in fact represent a natural taxonomy is irrelevant. Graves again makes potential criticisms which looking at the data dispels.

Originally Posted by EJay

Aside from such research being blatant racist propaganda many people obviously view it as socially harmful because of its implications of intellectual superiority and inferiority among races which has major social implications.

Calling this work "racist" is an extremely cheap shot which basically assumes one side of the question. And, assuming the heriditarian view to correct, what are the social implications of allowing swarms of highly ethnocentric low IQ negroes to fill up Western cities? Who gets harmed in that case?

Originally Posted by Mikemikev

Incorrect. Rushton's arguments rely on the life history data. The evolutionary theory is secondary. Graves fails to understand the scientific method.

False. In order for Rushton to establish that his Life History Theory is valid it must be based on sound scientific reasoning. Graves proved that it isn't and in fact r/K selection theory was falsified by several critical experiments. Therefore no data that Rushton collected could possibly show that his hypothesis is valid.

Debatable. Is Africa really a stable environment?

Certainly the tropics provide a more stable climate than temperate zones.

Unsubstantiated.

Graves' statement is substantiated by his critiques of Rushton's research in the articles he published about his work.

What a tangled web he weaves: Race, reproductive strategies and Rushton's life history theory Anthropological Theory Vol 2(2): 131–154


Graves, J.L. (2002) ‘The Misuse of Life History Theory: J.P. Rushton and the Pseudoscience of Racial Hierarchy’, in J. Fish (ed.) Race and Intelligence: Separating Myth from Science. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Incorrect. Rushton only requires there to be geographically associated variation. Any race based sampling method will then expose this difference, which it infact does. If the variation within races for any phenotypic trait (not the overall genetic variation) is too high, we will expect to see standard deviations higher than the average difference. We don't. The fact that race does in fact represent a natural taxonomy is irrelevant. Graves again makes potential criticisms which looking at the data dispels.

False

In order to prove that there are differences in Life History Variation between human races one would have to....

1. Prove that Human Genetic Variation partitions into Biological Races

2. Prove that those biological races vary in Life History features


Rushton has done neither.

What he has done is collected data of varying quality and reliability which he associates with Life History Variation but which have been proven to be unreliable for testing his hypothesis as Graves explained in the video I embedded in the OP as well as the links provided in this post.


Rushton fails to provide valid evidence for criteria #1:

Originally Posted by Leonard Lieberman

1. Rushton uses “race” despite decades of findings that invalidate it.


Rushton’s definition of “race” emphasizes that races are natural hereditary biological units and assumes that it is possible to aggregate populations
and calculate a mean score to represent this conglomerate: “A variety, a subspecies . . . characterized by a more or less distinctive combination of physical traits transmitted in descent. A genetically distinct inbreeding division within a species . . . distinguished on the basis of skeletal morphology, hair and facial features, and molecular genetic information” (1997a:305, emphasis added). There is an inherent contradiction in his definition between “more or less distinctive” and “genetically distinct.” Elsewhere it is apparent that he prefers to emphasize “distinct,” but the presence of greater variation is explained to his satisfaction by aggregation. It is a 19th-century biological explanation that Rushton seeks to revive, citing Francis Galton as a founder (pp. 9–13) and characterizing Franz Boas and Margaret Mead as “powerful ideologues” who “fought against the idea of biological universals” (p. 13).

Ashley Montagu (1941) challenged the 19th-century view of “race” partly on the basis of the Mendelian principle that traits are not transmitted as complexes of characters, and confirming data were developed in the decades that followed. Frank B. Livingstone (1958, 1962), using Julian Huxley’s (1938) cline concept, presented data on the gradual change in frequency of sickle-cell genes over a wide geographic area of Africa, the Mediterranean, and South Asia. Clines provided a concrete alternative to thinking in terms of races. Identifiable traits were not confined to one “race” and were not uniform in frequency within a geographic area. C. Loring Brace (1964) made a persuasive case for studying human clinal variation one trait at a time.2
The new views were intensely debated in anthropology beginning in the 1960s, and by 1985 anthropology’s core concept of “race” had been rejected by 41%of physical anthropologists and 55% of cultural anthropologists (Lieberman 1968; Lieberman, Stevenson, and Reynolds 1989:69). A similar survey in 1999 found that the concept of race was rejected by 69% of physical anthropologists and 80% of cultural anthropologists (Lieberman and Kirk n.d.). During the period 1975–79, twice as many university textbooks of introductory physical anthropology rejected the concept as accepted it (Littlefield, Lieberman, and Reynolds 1982:642), and during the period 1990–99 no text explicitly supported the concept (4 of 20 presented the topic as a debate, and 2 rejected typologies of race). Rushton does not discuss the weaknesses of the race concept.

Source: How "Caucasoids" got such big crania and why the shrank From Morton to Rushton Current Anthropology Volume 42, Number 1, February 2001

Rushton fails to provide valid evidence for criteria #2:

Originally Posted by Joseph L. Graves

Rushton’s technique of misrepresentation of legitimate research is similar to the tactics utilized by creationists when they assault evolution. Typically the creationist will present a large number of distortions of scientific fact, such that if the evolutionary biologist were to address them all, the audience would simply get lost in the details. Thus, it is necessary to first dismantle the core assumptions of Rushton’s work, i.e. r- and K-selection theory. Having accomplished that, it becomes easier to understand how he has misrepresented biological data to fit his bankrupt hypothesis. In addition, much of his social science data has been collected by dubious means. Thus, Rushton argues genetic causality for racial differences utilizing a discredited theory and questionable data.


Concluding Remarks

J.P. Rushton’s view of human evolution suffers from the use of antiquated and simplistic theoretical models concerning life history evolution. In addition, his methods of data analysis, results, and data sources call into question the legitimacy of his research. In the unabridged version of his book, he claims ‘to have reviewed the international literature on race differences, gathered novel data and found a distinct pattern’ (Rushton, 1995: xiii). This is fallacious on many accounts. Although the scope of the literature is international, to an extent, the data are not novel and the pattern he ‘found’ is hardly distinct from common racist stereotypes. He has only spun a tangled web of disingenuous construction speculations, in which:

1. He failed to grasp the history and formulation of density dependent selection theory.

2. He failed to review the critical experiments that falsified the central predictions of r- and K-selection theory.

3. He incorrectly applied r- and K-theory to explain human life history evolution.

4. He has presented data that are woefully inadequate to test any specific hypothesis concerning the evolution of human life histories.

Source: What a tangled web he weaves: Race, reproductive strategies and Rushton's life history theory Anthropological Theory Vol 2(2): 131–154

No, it's really very simple. If there is geographically associated variation, any way you sample that variation will produce a consistent difference. We can sample Europeans and Africans, and identify differences. Spurious arguments to the effect that "race does not exist" ("race does not exist because there is more variation within than between", "race does not exist because races are not homogenous on any trait", "race does not exist because 1 + 1 =2") will never change the self evident fact that geographic variation exists, and it is possible to sample it. And additionally, if race is not a natural taxonomy, we should expect the deviation to be very high in some race categories, since they cross cut two natural divisions. We don't.

Originally Posted by Mikemikev

No, it's really very simple. If there is geographically associated variation, any way you sample that variation will produce a consistent difference. We can sample Europeans and Africans, and identify differences. Spurious arguments to the effect that "race does not exist" ("race does not exist because there is more variation within than between", "race does not exist because races are not homogenous on any trait", "race does not exist because 1 + 1 =2") will never change the self evident fact that geographic variation exists, and it is possible to sample it. And additionally, if race is not a natural taxonomy, we should expect the deviation to be very high in some race categories, since they cross cut two natural divisions. We don't.

All that you are saying here is that some genetic variation between populations means that there is some identifiable genetic difference between them.

No one disputes that.

That's not the same thing as establishing that human genetic variation partitions into biological races (phylogenetic sub-species).

The variation within a population in any given trait is irrelevant to whether variation in that trait across populations is the product of racial biology.

Another scholar who I forwarded Rushton's email to made the point that many of the variables Rushton thinks are due to evolutionary differences between races have an environmental cause.

Originally Posted by Scott MacEachern

As for that email, the bulk is just filler, a restatement of the abstract for Rushton's book. His thesis here is simply that this conjunction of data (his 'highly consistent three-way pattern of racial differences') is significant and can only be explained genetically.

The problems with this claim are so great that it's sometimes hard to know
where to begin, but in general, here are some of the main problems:

(1) Aggregation of data is only useful if some degree of control and comparability are exerted over the data being aggregated - otherwise, you
end up with the GIGO Rule (Garbage In, Garbage Out). Many of Rushton's data sources are exceptionally poor, to the point of being caricatures of scientific research: thus, one of his primary sources on 'sexual behaviour' is a book of 19th-century travel porn, of no serious scientific value, and many of the studies that he cites on IQ and brain size are based on datasets that even people who agree with him accept as unreliable. In the most direct sense, many of his data are the garbage in the GIGO Rule.

You may or may not have read David Barash's review of Rushton's
methodology: "...the pious hope that by combining numerous little turds of
variously tainted data, one can obtain a valuable result; but in fact, the
outcome is merely a larger than average pile of $hit." Barash, David 1995.
Review of Race, Evolution, and Behavior. _Animal Behaviour_ 49:1131-1133

(2) Aggregating data on (say) brain size or twinning rates into his three 'racial' groupings conceals the very significant variations in aggregated characteristics _within_ those racial groups. Essentially, he reduces very, very, very diverse characteristics down to single numbers, then generalizes those single numbers to every population within his putative races. However, averages among diverse populations tell you almost nothing about the distributions of those diverse characteristics, nor about the evolutionary pressures that might have brought them into being.

(3) Many of the characteristics that he thinks are evolutionarily determined have actually changed dramatically over historical time-periods
in different parts of the world (and are extremely variable _within_ his 'racial' populations - see #2 above): besides obvious things like longevity, fertility and infant mortality rates, these include characteristics like twinning rates, speed of sexual maturation/first menarche and so on. He treats them as immutable evolutionary differences, whereas in fact they seem entirely sensitive to historical contingency over short time-scales.

Best

Scott

So you agree that geographic variation exists. You agree that it's possible to sample it. Why does it matter whether you uses a racial model to sample it or some other division? In fact the racial model is the most natural sampling method (or taxonomy), since it minimizes variation within each group. If you were to use a different taxonomy or sampling method, such as including Sub-Saharan Africans and North Africans versus Europeans, the within group standard deviation would increase for the "African" group, since North Africans tend to be more similar to Europeans than SS Africans. This would indicate it is not a natural taxonomy.

Now you say there is geographic variation. You agree we can sample it. But you say a race taxonomy is an invalid way to do this. (I have not agreed with any arguments you present which supposedly demonstrate this).

My question to you is: how should we sample and describe human geographic variation? We know "race is wrong" (according to you). How should we do it?

Originally Posted by Mikemikev

So you agree that geographic variation exists. You agree that it's possible to sample it. Why does it matter whether you uses a racial model to sample it or some other division? In fact the racial model is the most natural sampling method (or taxonomy), since it minimizes variation within each group. If you were to use a different taxonomy or sampling method, such as including Sub-Saharan Africans and North Africans versus Europeans, the within group standard deviation would increase for the "African" group, since North Africans tend to be more similar to Europeans than SS Africans. This would indicate it is not a natural taxonomy.

Now you say there is geographic variation. You agree we can sample it. But you say a race taxonomy is an invalid way to do this. (I have not agreed with any arguments you present which supposedly demonstrate this).

My question to you is: how should we sample and describe human geographic variation? We know "race is wrong" (according to you). How should we do it?

I think Lieberman had the correct suggestion....

"Clines provided a concrete alternative to thinking in terms of races. Identifiable traits were not confined to one “race” and were not uniform in frequency within a geographic area. C. Loring Brace (1964) made a persuasive case for studying human clinal variation one trait at a time."


Keita et al. (2004) made some additional useful points...