Richard Nisbett: Intelligence mostly varies due to the environment, not genes

The dominant hereditarian view of intelligence holds that intelligence is mostly fixed by the genes. Richard Nisbett has dismantled the evidence on which the hereditarian theory is based. In his new book, Intelligence and How to Get It, Nesbitt argues that the twin studies on which the hereditarian view is based are deeply flawed. The main problem is that the adoptive homes in which those separated twins often find themselves are uniformly enriched learning environments. Nisbett's book was reviewed by Jim Holt of the NYT Book Review:

Nisbett bridles at the hereditarian claim that I.Q. is 75 to 85 percent heritable; the real figure, he thinks, is less than 50 percent. Estimates come from comparing the I.Q.’s of blood relatives — identical twins, fraternal twins, siblings — growing up in different adoptive families. But there is a snare here. As Nisbett observes, “adoptive families, like Tolstoy’s happy families, are all alike.” Not only are they more affluent than average, they also tend to give children lots of cognitive stimulation. Thus data from them yield erroneously high estimates of I.Q. heritability. (Think: if we all grew up in exactly the same environment, I.Q. differences would appear to be 100 percent genetic.) This underscores an important point: there is no fixed value for heritability. The notion makes sense only relative to a population. Heritability of I.Q. is higher for upper-class families than for lower-class families, because lower-class families provide a wider range of cognitive environments, from terrible to pretty good.

What does Nisbett's book have to say about race and intelligence? That the differences among the "races" are not genetic. Evidence in point: The "racial" IQ gap has been shrinking. "Over the last 30 years, the measured I.Q. difference between black and white 12-year-olds has dropped from 15 points to 9.5 points."

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At It Again

Oh please, is there no respite from this sort of thing? Over on Pharyngula is this little bit on the Vatican's newest attempt to recruit an ideal priesthood, this time free of gays. Now, the Catholic Church has done screening for centuries. They actually work hard to dissuade people from attempting to be priests because they know how difficult the various vows are to keep. I don't doubt for a minute that some of this screening is responsible, in kind of an unfortunate "unintended consequences" way, with the number of child sexual abuse cases that seem rampant more in the Catholic Church than in any other. You screen for people who have "normal" sexual proclivities and eliminate the ones who probably won't be able to maintain celibacy, you end up with (probably) a higher percentage of those who exhibit a lower than average normal sex drive (however you decide to define that), but may have a higher, shall we say, alternative proclivity... Anyway, that's just my opinion. But apparently the Vatican has decided there's something to looking at alternative sexualities as a deal breaker, but for goodness sake the question still needs to be asked, just what is it they find so offensive and, we assume, dangerous about gays? By and large, the Catholic Church, for all its faults, possesses one of the more sophisticated philosophical approaches to life in all its manifestations among the various sects. As a philosophy teacher of mine said once, "they seem to have a handle on what life is all about." Despite the very public embarrassments that emerge from the high profile conservative and reactionary elements within it, the Catholic Church probably has the healthiest worldview of the lot. (I was a Lutheran in my childhood and believe me, in the matter of guilt the Catholics have nothing on Lutherans.) But they have been electing popes who seem bent on turning the clock back to a more intolerant and altogether less sophisticated age, as if the burden of dealing with humanity in its manifold variation is just too much for them. They pine for the days when priests could lay down the law and the parish would snap to. They do not want to deal with humanity in the abstract because it means abandoning certain absolutes---or the concrete---in lieu of a more gestalt understanding. It would be hard work. And they have an image problem. I mean, if you're going to let people be people, then what's the point of joining an elite group when there are no restrictions of the concept of what encompasses human? But really...this is just embarrassing.

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Congressman John Shimkus: The Bible says don’t worry about global warming

Illinois Representative John Shimkus knows all he needs to know about climate change. It's all in the infallible Bible. Here he is demolishing all of that silly science with a few phrases out of Genesis. Based on his expressions, he's a hero in his own eyes. He's got that look that he knows he will go to heaven. Don't worry. There's only going to be one worldwide flood and we've already had it. Case closed. Proceedings from the March 25, 2009 hearing of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment: If you want to learn a lot more about the nonsense Shimkus spouts, visit Progress Illinois.

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Fundies really do say the darndest things

It's enough to make Jesus depressed. I just learned of a site called Fundies Say the Darndest Things. This is your one-stop shop for finding "an archive of the most hilarious, bizarre, ignorant, bigoted, and terrifying quotes from fundies all over the internet." The bad science is reason enough to visit the site, at least until you are sufficiently depressed at hearing such nonsense. It's pretty amazing stuff. Consider, too, the 100 all-time most ignorant and offensive fundamentalist quotes. Each on of them is taken from a fundie website and includes the link to the original (consider Rapture Ready, for example). Consider watching FSTDT's reenactment of some of the quotes at youtube (warning: some coarse language). All of this will leave you shaking your head wondering how people can be so pompously ignorant.

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How undependable are the experts?

We are in the middle of a huge economic crisis. Should we listen to the experts? Of course we should, because the economy and the financial sector are horrifically complicated. What happens when the experts disagree, however? To which experts should we listen? I took a stab at that question recently, but I remain unconvinced that any of the economics experts can be trusted. Yes, there are people like George Soros who have made a phenomenal amount of money during the crisis, but this makes me wonder whether he (and all of the other recent success stories) are smart or whether they are lucky. Today, Nicholas Kristof (in the NYT) reminds us that many experts (at least political experts) have a terrible track record. His opening sentence: "Ever wonder how financial experts could lead the world over the economic cliff?" He warns us of the “Dr. Fox effect,” named for a "pioneering series of psychology experiments in which an actor was paid to give a meaningless presentation to professional educators." Despite the fact that the lectures consisted of gibberish, they were well received. He mentions a study showing that "clinical psychologists did no better than their secretaries in their diagnoses." He also mentions a study by Philip Tetlock which determined that "The [82,000] predictions of [284] experts were, on average, only a tiny bit better than random guesses — the equivalent of a chimpanzee throwing darts at a board." Those experts who were the most impressive to most people "provided strong, coherent points of view, who saw things in blacks and whites." I'm reminded of Alan Sokal's intentionally nonsensical article that he submitted to the postmodern journal, Social Text. See here for more of the details. BTW, if you want to generate your own postmodern bullshit, use this postmodernist bullshit generator (every time you hit the link, more impressive-sounding bullshit will be assembled automatically into an article). How far astray are we led by "experts"? Consider investment "experts." There are none worse. Entire industries are built on the thoroughly disproved notion that a stock-picker can consistently beat the market. Dan Smolin has made a career of proving that stock-picker experts are thoroughly and demonstrably terrible at what they claim to be. But many of us still run to these financial "experts" to help us pick the "right" stocks. Just think of the hundreds of political military experts who were similarly awful at their recommendations and predictions regarding the invasion of Iraq. They appeared hundreds of time on network TV during the few weeks prior to the invasion, all of them confident in their assessments and advice. Consider, also that fewer than 1% of them took anti-war stances. Consider, also, that many of these "experts" were secretly in positions to financially benefit from an invasion of Iraq. Consider the thousands of religious experts, from coast to coast, who loudly and confidently tell their religious followers that there is a heaven and that they will go there, without the tiniest big of evidence in support. The followers of fundamentalist preachers continue to listen to these guys even when they attack evolutionary biologists, even though these religious leaders have no training in science and no basic understanding of the principles of evolutionary biology. Everyone loves weather forecasters, right? These guys are wrong so incredibly often that no station dares to post their track records for those five-day forecasts they confidently present night after night. The list goes on and on. We insist on listening to the experts, medical experts, beauty experts, psychologists, their track records be damned. That's because they are the best that we've got, no matter how wrong they are how often. The bottom line is that we crave experts because we crave certainty, even where there isn't any. The confirmation bias causes us to rely heavily on experts hawking our own opinions, even when there is no evidence in support, as long as the expert dishes out those opinions with a loud confident voice. And a fancy business suit doesn't hurt either.

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