Comments on: Fear, Loathing and Sleep: Skeptically Speaking

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:11:18 +0000

OK, just for the heck of it, let’s try this: It is a falsehood that rich people have more babies than other people.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:07:45 +0000

OK, just for the heck of it, let’s try this: It is a falsehood that rich people have more babies than other people.

By: Stephanie Z

Stephanie Z — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:36:33 +0000

hibob, I’ve spent plenty of time on the other end of those numbers. I’m not sneezing at anything. I’m still not rich. I just live in a country with stunning economic disparity, such that demographic cuts like this one don’t address this argument.

And in fact, a great deal of the point, at least to me, is breaking this apart to the point where it’s clear what people, like Bill up there, really want to talk about.

By: Marion Delgado

Marion Delgado — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 08:40:04 +0000

Shorter Barry Glassner:

The best counter to “their” sweeping generalizations is my sweeping generalizations.

By: hibob

hibob — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 07:08:30 +0000

$100,000? W00t, I’m rich!

You’re in the top 17% of households (if you’re in the US).
Sure beats being in the middle.

On a more serious note, hibob, read comment #4.

Done. Still hoping for numbers.
Meanwhile:
“In a mixed setting or setting with recent immigrants form high fertility zones, there is a spurious association, and where all else is equal…”
Presumably the argument Greg is addressing is the one held by those who actually do go around complaining that “poor people have more babies than other people”, the ones who “point out, and get all mad about, the poor people having the babies”. The complaint that gets used as an excuse for all sorts of right wing political drek. Hopefully, Greg will be giving us something to take a bit of the wind out of their sails.
But that argument isn’t referring to a setting where all else is equal, or any other perfectly defined demographic subsection for that matter. That argument is referring to a place where very little is equal: The United States. Or maybe a different country. Wherever it is, it’s where they live, and it’s probably a place with recent immigrants and plenty more than one socioeconomic setting. If you change the argument to one about perfectly matched demographic slices instead of about the whole population of the place, then you’re you’re addressing your strawman instead of their argument. They’ll call you on it. Though they will thank you for bringing up recent immigrants, since that’s what they want to complain about next…

By: Stephanie Z

Stephanie Z — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:11:30 +0000

$100,000? W00t, I’m rich!

On a more serious note, hibob, read comment #4.

By: hibob

hibob — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:25:17 +0000

Did you know that it is a fallacy that poor people have more babies than other people?

Cite?

http://www.commissions.leg.state.mn.us/oesw/newsletters_/dec01.pdf

U.S. fertility rates were higher for women with annual family
incomes below $30,000 and lower for women with annual family
incomes of $30,000 and over.

â?¢ In 2000, the fertility rate was highest (86.8 births per 1,000
women age 15 to 44 years) for women with annual family
incomes below $10,000.

â?¢ The fertility rate was second highest (78.9 per 1,000 women
age 15 to 44 years) for women with annual family incomes of
$25,000 to $29,999 in 2000.

â?¢ The fertility rate was lowest (60.1 births per 1,000 women age
15 to 44 years) in 2000 for women with annual family incomes
of $75,000 and over.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p20-558.pdf
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, June 2006:

family income . . . .Children ever born per 1,000 women
Under $20,000 . . . . . . 2,038
$20,000 to $29,999 . . . 1,988
$35,000 to $49,999 . . . 2,052
$50,000 to $74,999 . . . 1,734
$75,000 to $99,999 . . . 1,752
$100,000 and over . . . . 1,832

By: Bill James

Bill James — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:14:45 +0000

I’m not the one asserting that artificially raising ones socio-economic status will raise their IQ in turn. Nor have I asserted there is no difference in intelligence between individuals, within groups or comparatively between groups. Indeed, I have not catagorized intelligence by group at all. Nothing beyond noting the negative correlation between intelligence and fertility rates along with the positive correlation between intelligence and socio-economic success. We might then infer a predominant, if not fundamental correlation between high fertility rates and low socio-economic success with lower intelligence. Sure. Only in an irrational, credibility stretching alternate universe would we be asked to believe that higher intelligence leads to lower socio-economic success and higher fertility rates, or even the middle ground of belief that intelligence has little to no bearing upon the entire matter.

By: edivimo

edivimo — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:39:05 +0000

I had read your previous defenses of that thesis, in SB and in your previos blog. I made my little google research too, and it appears that another lines of evidence support your asertion: religious affilation predicts higher fertility (catholics are higher), high socioeconomical people had more sexual encounters, etc.
You’re going to publish the link to the podcast?

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 22:05:27 +0000

Bill, there is not a shred of evidence to support your assertion. Everything we know about the human brain tells us that the primary determinant of how that brain functions, and how well, is post natal environment (and some pre-natal effects). There is no way in run of the mill “normal” humans that allelic variation can account for ANY difference in intelligence, and there is no evidence of any such thing.

Yes, there are group differences but the group differences that are persistent correspond to persistent differences in race-based and/or socioeconomic factors, plain and simple.

There is a racist agenda here, Bill, it is yours, it is wrong, and it is obnoxious.