Discussed: The Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science–and Reality
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You see the game the guy on the “left” is playing? Psychologists….
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No. What game are you talking about?
Making the statement that what some psychologists said 30 year ago (and since) about heritability was always true despite “the left” questioning it for that entire time.
The view of behavioral trait heritability of which he speaks has always been questionable and remains so, but the game in that field is to keep pretending it is true, saying it over and over again, until people get tired of it and move on to other things.
Thanks for the quick explanation.
No, that wasn’t obvious to me. I think it’s well established, and has been for some years, that some behavioral traits are heritiable, or more accurately, have genetic correlates. Consider autism for example, a behavioral disorder with recently discovered genetic correlates.
The left does seem very reluctant to accept any scientific evidence for that type of argument with respect to racial groupings whereas it seems to me that virtually all human behaviors will have correlates in our genetic code and silly to presume that there are no genetic correlates to behaviors that also correspond to racial groupings.
I’m not sure that I see his remarks as being any more indicative of gamesmanship than Mooney’s remarks about acceptance of the science correlating personality with politics, which is not as clear cut as he is presenting.
Beth, sorry about your comment getting snagged in moderation. Our comment managing system is very broken and seems random. But it is all getting fixed soon!
Regarding heritability, it is less well established than one might think. There are many disorders that arise from specific genetic issues (which often have a range of behavioral and physical effects) but many of the things that behavioral geneticists claim to be “genetic” based on heritability data can’t really be demonstrated as such. In many cases the patterns of heritability are similar to things like language (as in which language you speak) … in this regard children do indeed resemble their offspring, but not because thy have language gene alleles for ‘French” or “German” or whatever .
The arguments in favor of the existence of races and and the reality of behavioral correlates that link the typically cited racial traits to abilities, intelligence, etc. etc. are often much like the argument you are making here …. since it is “silly” to believe otherwise, it must be true.
Other than disorder-related genetic variations, there really are not known genes that have variants that affect the behavioral traits that so many people assume have genetic correlates. Most of that is, in the end, a tenacious fabrication that remains in our culture becuase “it must be so” in so many people’s minds.
The argument that he is gaming the audience is irrelevant to any independent assessment regarding whether or not Chris is gaming the audience. My intention was not to contrast the two.
“You see the game the guy on the “left” is playing? Psychologists….”
I caught the remarks you refer to but they went by so fast that all I can say I took away is that, “Whoops, he’s saying some things there that may not be right…”
I thought it was a good discussion overall. I especially like what John McWhorter had to say at about 20:00.
I’m not sure what ‘many things’ behavioral geneticists are claiming are genetic that you are referring to here. I’m merely stating my opinion. It would be helpful if you could clarify the specifics you are referring to as it is not my field.
Behavioral disorders with genetic links serve to make the point that some behaviors have genetic correlates. The idea that environment shapes the actual outcomes of many human behaviors (i.e. ‘French’ versus ‘German’) is uncontroversial and irrelevant to my point about behaviors having genetic correlates. No one disputes that adult height has a strong genetic component, but clearly environment also has a strong influence in that lack of sufficient nurishment during certain growth periods of a persons life can dramatically alter the adult height achieved.
So, my opinion remains that given that there exist genetic (i.e. heritable) correlates to various human behaviors, I see no reason to presume that some of those genetic correlates will not also correlate with racial groupings in the same way that certain physical charactoristics correlate with racial groupings. I have yet to hear any reasonable scientifically-grounded explananation for why the opposite assumption should be made instead.
I’m sorry, but if you weren’t intending it as a point of contrast between the two, why did you bring up regarding one and not the other? At any rate, that was how I took your remark. Thank you for clarifying that the bias you displayed in that regard was not intentional.
Behavioral disorders with genetic links serve to make the point that some behaviors have genetic correlates.
That is a very common misconception. Here’s a better way to think of it: Imagine a behavior or behavioral trait, something that can be measured with a metric. You measure a bunch of people and you get a distribution, and this has variation in it.
The question is, what part of this variation, if any, is accounted for by underlying variation in genetics.
That is a very different question than if genes are related to something. For instance, consider this analogy. We are measuring how fast cars go depending on the shape of the front of he car. SO we make ten cars with different shapes, and run each on a track 10 times. Within shape there is variation (due to wind, or whatever) and between shape there is variation, and we are now faced with the statistical problem of differentiating between variation caused by stuff not related to the shapes we designed vs. variation that is related to it.
But then there is this one car where the gas tank has a leak so it runs out of fuel half way down the track and stops. It turns out that having a fuel tank that does not leak is related to how fast you go.
But not in any way that helps us understand the causes of what we are really studying.
No one disputes that adult height has a strong genetic component, but clearly environment also has a strong influence in that lack of sufficient nurishment during certain growth periods of a persons life can dramatically alter the adult height achieved.
For most populations over time without genetic input, there can be great variations in height that are accounted for entirely by non genetic factors. PUtting it another way, variation in height (measured by sex) is not explained by variation in underlying genes very well at all. Most variation over the last century has been variation over generational time wiht demographic transitions, or at any given moment (like, for instance, right now) variation across population that represents those population being in different parts of said transition.
So no, this “obvious” example which is often the starting point for arguments that we understand genetic variation is an utter falsehood.
So, my opinion remains that given that there exist genetic (i.e. heritable) correlates to various human behaviors, I see no reason to presume that some of those genetic correlates will not also correlate with racial groupings in the same way that certain physical charactoristics correlate with racial groupings.
Well, so far your reasoning is based on misconceptions and falsehoods …. but that’s OK, as you say, this is not your field. But now we have another problem as well. You have brought in “racial groupings” as though they were real and credible, but they are not.
I have yet to hear any reasonable scientifically-grounded explananation for why the opposite assumption should be made instead.
Well, you’ve given us a model so far that is groundless. The assumptions you are working with are incorrect. Your current model is scientifically unsorted. It is, however, what a lot of people think is true. It is uncritically received knowledge.
I’m sorry, but if you weren’t intending it as a point of contrast between the two, why did you bring up regarding one and not the other?
…. because ….. there was no particular reason for me to be contrasting the two? They weren’t even contrasting each other, mostly.
Hope this helps! 🙂
It’s at the root of science and critical thinking, and it is known as the Null Hypothesis. Which is opposite only in the sense that the opposite of something (your unfounded hypothesis) is nothing. If you want to enlarge the scope, then yes, there are competing and better established hypotheses, theories, and facts contra some specific claims that a gene or suite of genes has a dominating control of, say, behavior x, where learning is already an established well-known component.
Thank you for responding to my comment. I appreciate your taking the time to identify what you feel are misconceptions on my part. I am clarifying my opinion and what I base it on as I feel you have misunderstood my starting assumptions.
Er, no, that isn’t how I would phrase the question. The question I would ask is: Is there any statistically significant difference between the two groups, either in mean or in variability? One aspect of finding an answer to the question I am asking is determining whether any part of the variability between individuals is accounted for by the underlying variation in genetics.
My understanding is that finding genetic correlates indicates thatif a difference between groups exists, then it might be caused, in part, by genetic factors.
I’m not sure where you were going with the leaky gas tank analogy. If you still feel it is relevant, given my clarification on what the question is being asked, please specify what parts are analogous and the point you wanted to make with it.
I’m not sure where you get this idea that I’m claiming we understand genetic variation to height. The only claim I’m making is that we understand that there exists a genetic component to adult height, not that we understand the details of how that happens.
How much variation exists between individuals within a particular grouping affects our ability to discern whether or not a statistically significant difference exists between the different populations we are comparing. Surely you do not argue that we cannot know that men are taller than women on average despite the fact that the variation between individuals within each genders far exceeds the variation between the mean height of the two genders. Further, there is an obvious genetic correlate between the two groups. Hence, I feel quite comfortable making the claim that a genetic component to adult height exists.
Why, yes. Yes I have. Do you dispute that forensic scientists are able to provide meaningful information about unidentifiable corpses, telling investigators with reasonable probability bounds whether the deceased was of Caucasian, Asian or African descent based on physical characteristics? Or do such determinations not count as real and credible “racial groupings”? If they don’t count, why not?
I don’t feel that I am making groundless assumptions. I’ve clarified the assumptions I working from for you. Do you still feel that they are groundless?
I don’t know what you mean by scientifically unsorted. Can you clarify that for me?
It seems to me that you think this based on your assumptions about my assumptions. Now that I have clarified the assumptions I’m making, do you still feel this is true?
My understanding is that finding genetic correlates indicates that if a difference between groups exists, then it might be caused, in part, by genetic factors.
That can be the case. But then, do you leave it at that and assume there is a genetic variation underlying the phenotypic variation? If you are part of that particular school of psychology, one generally does. The more cases like that … where the undemnostrated assumption is made … the more likely researchers are to presume the assumption later. The citations build up in number but never in quality.
I’m not sure where you get this idea that I’m claiming we understand genetic variation to height. The only claim I’m making is that we understand that there exists a genetic component to adult height, not that we understand the details of how that happens.
There is not a genetic component to variation in height in human groups that matters that has ever been identified.
Why, yes. Yes I have. Do you dispute that forensic scientists are able to provide meaningful information about unidentifiable corpses, telling investigators with reasonable probability bounds whether the deceased was of Caucasian, Asian or African descent based on physical characteristics?
Why, yes, I do! I’m a physical anthropologist, Harvard trained and everything. We can’t do that. That’s TV.
If you start with three or four or five distinct artifical groups and everybody is in those groups, then you can do it with a better than random but still pretty lousy success rate. But the existence of these artificial groups is historically contingent. There have been times and places where this kinda works, times and places where it does not work. But it is always artificial groups… humans are clinal in their variation and most of these traits are uncorrelated into racial groups. One of my favorite oral exams for my students was to give them a skull and ask “cause of death and ethnic identity please” … the cause of death was obvious. The sharp object was still embedded in the cranium. Regarding the “racial” markers you noted, the skull had an Eskimo basicranium in the back, causasoid in the front, the back of the head was African and the face Native American.
That is because the puruvian group represented by this particular skull was not in the original forensic sample everyone uses. And if you put all groups into that sample, do you know what you get? A need for a different approach to human variation that does not fetishize races.
First of all, thank you for your response. Conversing with you is a pleasure.
Iâ??m not sure what you mean by this. Do I leave A at B and assume there is â?¦.? Could you clarify what â??itâ?? and â??thatâ?? refer to in your sentence above?
In general, I assume that if there is clearly a genetic component to a physical attribute (â??you have your motherâ??s eyesâ?), I assume a genetic variation underlies the phenotypic variation. Does that answer your question?
You donâ??t think that men and women have an identifiable difference in mean height? Am I mistaken about believing this difference exists and has been demonstrated? Iâ??m fairly sure Iâ??ve seen convincing empirical evidence for it. If you doubt it, I can try to find it again.
If, on the other hand, you meant that there is no mean height difference between different â??racesâ??, then I have no idea if you are correct or not. Height was merely an attribute I was using as an example of a trait with a known genetic component. If you are still disputing that it does, I’ll look for empirical evidence of the mean difference in height between males and females.
The credentials are quite impressive, but your denial of the ability to form real credible racial groupings is undermined by your very next sentence.
If I am understanding you correctly, this statement indicates that one can do better than random chance by using certain physical markers as predictive of racial groups. Thatâ??s another way of expressing the idea that real and credible groupings do exist, which is the point you are disputing. That the success rate is lousy is irrelevant. If you can use such correlates to achieve a better than random chance success rate, then the groupings can be considered real and credible. Not terribly useful perhaps, but that’s another question.
Yes. So? Is this supposed to negate the idea that racial groupings might have genetic correlates? It seems to me to be additional evidence supporting the idea.
Again, yes, So? How does this negate my point that there are genetic correlates with various physical attributes? Some physical attributes ARE correlated with racial groups, most notably skin tone and eyes. Is it really â??groundlessâ?? to presume some genetic correlate with those attributes?
If â??Eskimoâ? â??Africanâ? and â??Native Americanâ? are not real and credible groupings in your field, why are using them as descriptive of various parts of a particular skull?
Your claim that such groupings do not meaningfully exist is unconvincing when you use such groupings descriptively in your attempt to disprove they exist.
What do you mean by fetishize races? What approach do you foresee your profession using that would be free of that â??fetishâ??
In general, I assume that if there is clearly a genetic component to a physical attribute (â??you have your motherâ??s eyesâ?), I assume a genetic variation underlies the phenotypic variation. Does that answer your question?
What I’m referring to is this: A heritability estimate based on familial data indicates the possibility of a genetic cause of observed variation in some behavioral study. Such an estimate by itself does not prove a genetic underpinning, but the underpinning is assumed, and a paper is published that says “posssible genetic cause of this behavior bla bla bla…” That paper then gets added to the list of examples of genetic causes, even though it should not be, and this list grows longer and longer with similar papers … suggested but not proven cases … and the lenght of the list of studies becomes the “proof” of a general class of genetic causes of a general class of behaviors.
You donâ??t think that men and women have an identifiable difference in mean height? Am I mistaken about believing this difference exists and has been demonstrated? Iâ??m fairly sure Iâ??ve seen convincing empirical evidence for it. If you doubt it, I can try to find it again.
I said by sex. You are mistaken, otherwise, yes. There are genes that relate in a large way to height between populations, and there probably are some genetic factors (there is reason to believe that) but the variation in height in a given population across space or over generational time (and in many cases, “across space” is equivalant to “across time” because of demographic transitions happening) is generally not accounted for by underlying genetic variation.
YOu will easily find examples proving me wrong in basic textbooks. But if you look at the examples you’ll see that the presume a “continuous” genetic variation and they’ll be a little story about genes, but no reference to the genes causing the histogram (or whatever) about variation in stature in that data set.
If I am understanding you correctly, this statement indicates that one can do better than random chance by using certain physical markers as predictive of racial groups. Thatâ??s another way of expressing the idea that real and credible groupings do exist, which is the point you are disputing. That the success rate is lousy is irrelevant. If you can use such correlates to achieve a better than random chance success rate, then the groupings can be considered real and credible. Not terribly useful perhaps, but that’s another question.
Right, you are not understanding me.
Let me explain it again. Humans have traits, some of which vary because of underlying genetic variation. Much of that genetic variation is random across populations and thus correlates with geography at best, with some inter-trait correlation, but really, very little. It is very difficult or impossible most of the time to draw lines between groups of people with natural population spread. The line between white and black americans is non-existent, if you draw it where it should be, between ancestral europeans and ancestral africans going back, say, a few centuries. The line only exists because people got on boats and went to a new land where they then formed a contrast. Those were not real races until the arbitrary movement of people created an artifical “race” like entity.
back in certain parts of the US many decades ago it was common to find Europeans who were mainly German with some Irish and English, Africans who were mainly West and western Central Africans; Asians who were mainly Chinese and maybe Native Americans. Those are not races: Those are arbigrary patches on this larger continuum, samples by people with boats, if you will, and brought together in, say Massachusetts near some physical anthropologist who collects their skulls.
Given that sample one can find a tidy means of separation of people looking at their skulls. The ability to do so has been overestimated, but it could be done to some extent.
But if you add in people from other parts of the world, the tidy means of separating groups becomes harder and harder until we come to the point that it becomes impossible.
This is a reality that physical anthropologists have come to understand decades ago. I’m not telling you something new here. But even so, the received knowledge in other fields or among the general populous is a very race-based model.
Some physical attributes ARE correlated with racial groups, most notably skin tone and eyes.
Not really, no.
If â??Eskimoâ? â??Africanâ? and â??Native Americanâ? are not real and credible groupings in your field, why are using them as descriptive of various parts of a particular skull?
Now you are just being thick, Beth. I’m not using these terms to prove that they don’t exist. You told me that physical anthropologists could tell these races apart. I gave you an example of how it does not work.
With my answers to your most recent questions, you have all the information you need to understand how this works at the level you are approaching it, if that is your desire.
The next level for you will be to take a couple of classes in the subject!
Thank you very much for your response. I am finding this a fascinating conversation, albeit a confusing one. I appreciate your attempts to clarify your meaning for me. My apologies for the length of this post, but I wanted to quote large portions of previous posts in order to clarify what I am referring to.
I’m sorry, but I’m not clear on whether my response was an adequate answer to your question in comment # 10: “But then, do you leave it at that and assume there is a genetic variation underlying the phenotypic variation?”
If my response didn’t adequately answer your question, then I would respectfully request that you re phrase the question.
This seems self-contradictory. I’m mistaken about men and women having an identifiable difference in mean height even though you expect that I can easily find examples proving you wrong in basic textbooks?
Here is empirical evidence for what I’m referring to. This is from table 8 of Mean Body Weight, Height, and Body Mass Index, United States 1960â??2002 published by the CDC found which can be found at http://www.uscg.mil/hq/cg5/cg5212/docs/nchs-ad347.pdf
For adult men (20 years and older) in the U.S., the average height from the 1999 – 2002 time period is 69.2 with a standard error of 0.1. For adult women (20 years and older) it is 63.8 with a standard error 0f 0.1. This difference of 6.6 inches fall well outside the expected variation in mean height and allows me to conclude that there exists a statistically significant difference between men and women with respect to height.
That a mean difference exists is consistent over time despite changes in the mean height for both genders (the mean heights for men and women from 1960 to 1962 are given as 68.3 and 63.1 respectively with standard errors of 0.1).
The relationship between gender and height is robust over time and, to the best of my knowledge, over different cultures, geographic locations, etc. This leads me to believe that there is a genetic component to adult height because gender is well established as a genetically determined trait. I am not understanding why you consider this incorrect.
Also, I don’t disagree that “the variation in height in a given population across space or over generational time (and in many cases, “across space” is equivalant to “across time” because of demographic transitions happening) is generally not accounted for by underlying genetic variation“.
That statement does not contradict my claim that there is a genetic correlate of adult human height any more than the fact that some women are taller than some men negates the idea that a real and credible difference exists between the mean heights of men and women.
Thank you for taking the time and trouble to clarify my misunderstanding of what you are saying.
Okay. I don’t have any issue with this statement.
I don’t have an issue with the first part of this statement. I would appreciate it if you could indicate more precisely what you mean by very little inter-trait correlation. Do you mean that very few traits are strongly correlated within a population? Or that the correlations that do exist between traits within a population are generally rather weak? These are rather different interpretations of what you said. I would like to know which interpretation you meant.
Okay. I don’t disagree with this either. However, the fact that the boundaries are fuzzy does not negate that the groupings are real and credible. The boundaries for gender are far fuzzier these days that previously realized with the recognition of transexual individuals. Nevertheless, male and female still form real and credible groupings despite the fact that not all individuals are clearly one or the other.
This is the part where you are losing me. I haven’t said anything about an estimate of the ability to make such distinctions, merely that I think it can be done to some extent. Here, as previously, you seem to be simultaneously both denying and admitting that it can be done. This is very confusing.
And here you seem to completely break from reality. How do you reconcile the claim that there are no physical attributes correlated with racial groups with the statement “the skull had an Eskimo basicranium in the back, causasoid in the front, the back of the head was African and the face Native American.”
It seems to me that you are attempting to claim that real and credible groupings by race don’t exist because not all individuals fit into those categories but fall into multiple categories. But that fact does not contradict the idea that real and credible racial groupings exist.
You made the statement as part of an example disputing the claim that real and credible racial groupings exist. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to term me ‘thick’ for thinking you were attempting to use racial groupings to establish that racial groupings don’t exist.
No, I never said that. What I said in comment #9 was forensic scientists are able to provide meaningful information about unidentifiable corpses, telling investigators with reasonable probability bounds whether the deceased was of Caucasian, Asian or African descent based on physical characteristics? Note that I referred to forensic scientists, not physical anthropologists. Nor did I claim that such scientists could tell the race of an individual. I said they could give probabilistic estimates of the race of an unidentified individual. Now, I may, in fact, be mistaken about what forensic scientists can actually do in that regard but your response did not establish that.
I don’t plan on taking any courses in the area any time soon, though no doubt it would be fascinating if I could work them into my schedule. Thank you for your attempts to educate me regarding the nuance of your field, but I am still not understanding why you claim that racial groupings are not real and credible when they are clearly used descriptively within your field as per the example you gave in comment #10.
Men and women have different average statures and body masses, yes.
Ugh… The “heritable” thing is people with different definitions talking past each other. Please stop it.
For people who know what they are talking about, “heritable” means there is some non-zero genetic component to variation in a trait. However, for far too many people “heritable” means that a trait is mostly due to a genetic component. Pretty much everything is heritable, the question is always how heritable. It is actually rather difficult to determine even when you can do precisely controlled breeding experiments, which we can’t do on people.
As for the general false equivalence… Yeah, Moody is right on this. There is no equivalence because the important thing being discussed isn’t just “believing things which aren’t true”. The key issue is that conservatism, especially the authoritarian sort, is intrinsically more prone and has built up structures to preserve and promote false beliefs. Liberalism is actually opposite of conservatism on this front… almost definitionally so.
Beth: Some physical attributes ARE correlated with racial groups, most notably skin tone and eyes.
Greg: Not really, no.
…
Greg… You are being silly. I think, I know what you are trying to say…
If we want to define racial groups in such a way that there are very strong correlations with many important traits other than the ones we use to actually define the groups, it cannot be done. The common definitions of “race” people actually have very little predictive value towards anything other than superficial traits. They are not very meaningful categories except for the fact that we have all sorts of social constructs built up around them which endow “race” with meaning.
And, yes, there are exceptions such as sickle-cell… but a better categorization scheme actually based on cladistics instead of rather highly variable superficial traits correlated with ancestry (if even that) would be far more informative for that.
And, of course, the fact that we have routine “interracial” breeding (and have had in all but a few odd-ball communities since before homo sapiens existed as a species) means that even ancestry isn’t all that predictive.
Beth is a special kind of troll. Probably a psych student sent around to mess with the blogs.
Uggghh.. I hate trolls like Beth.
Racist masking as someone genuinely interested in genetics without will or resources to actually study and learn something on their own…
I don’t see what point Beth is making. Her examples of racial physical characteristics have nothing to do with behavior.
Behavior due to race would be interesting. Hard to test though. Which behavior? In the US we have large groups of different “races” whose behavior, I would suggest, is more American than you think. When Asian Americans go to Asia, they find out how American their behavior is.
If Beth is somehow suggesting there is more genetic overlap between people if the same “race” than outside of that race, there is some overlap for blood transfusions. But my understanding is when it comes to the human genome or major histocompatibility complex there is no correlation.
And besides this has nothing to do with behavior.