This whole argument is one big circular mess. The case to be made from population genetics is that the use of the categories we’ve historically called “races” is imprecise.

This is not a political statement in the least. It’s a scientific one. Clinging to an old descriptive term that has outlived its usefulness is all that we see Brett doing here. It is like saying just because we have the Periodic Table doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t classify all elements into the categories of Earth, Air, Fire, & Water.

The Periodic Table makes those categories literally non-sense. The “sense” that held them together and made them useful is obviated by science.

This is what population genetics has done to the old categories of race as well. It has rendered them wholly and completely non-sensical for scientific purposes. Cling to them if you must to maintain your grip on the social world, but know that you are behind the curve of knowledge and human history when you do.

http://www.aaanet.org/stmts/racepp.htm

“Today many scientists study human genotypic and phenotypic variation using concepts such as “population” and “clinal gradation”. Large parts of the academic community take the position that, while racial categories may be marked by sets of common phenotypic or genotypic traits, the popular idea of “race” is a social construct without base in scientific fact.[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]“

Part of intelligence is the ability to copy, the old saying of monkey see monkey do.

So all a group needs is one odd ball like Edison that developed the light bulb, and the entire tribe now has light and considered smart. Do they know what makes the light work—NOPE—but even the most stupid can use the switch, and put a light over it so they can find it at night.

No wonder you hate to be disputed on the value of IQ test., there are way too many variables. From Darwin to this day, intelligence is very hard to define without putting in very narrow guide lines. Sort of a self defeating test as you never know what you left out due to the nature/nurture factor. A person that literally freezes under stress would be considered very smart when a lion is near by, and would also freeze taking your test. I doubt any IQ test takes this real life situation into account. Of course you can always change and manipulate the test to fit the person—GEE look how smart they are.

To say IQ is valid because it makes people angry is NOT a validation that IQ test are all comprehensive.

Even looking into history and saying what race has the most intelligence, you have to give guide lines. Given common guide lines, some are way better than others–no doubt about it.

You rated England as being 100, but yet they are destroying there own county. At the present rate in 100 years England will be in name only, because of their immigration policy to Muslims. The English people know this, and they are told, but yet they do nothing but kiss their culture good by in exchange for 7th Century mentality. This is the masses of the English that are free citizens that are giving away their heritage. This is NOT a smart thing to do. I do not care what your paper IQ test says.

The examples are many that go against your standard IQ evaluations, it just does NOT pan out in the real world when put to the real test.

Education has everything to do with an IQ rating, to say it does not to me is silly. By the way, most all IQ test are made public, so study for it and get a high score, then be so stupid to walk in front of a bus and end up hamburger.

How do you test a 3 year old? In all respect, I take it you have never been a parent. A normal child’s brain is sucking information and data so fast at that age every week, to every day, makes a big difference. That is the fun of being a good parent and a good teacher. That old nature and nurture thing will not go away. And you are going to tell a 3 year old he/she is stupid? I will pass on your IQ test, and encourage being the very best you can be, and the very best is yet to come. I would say that is a smart thingy to do, and tell the docs to be smarter than a fifth grader. I say this in good humor and a kind heart with a smile.

Feel free to email me if you like, yuo4 yuo4 at yahoo. com, just drop the spaces.

Don

“He selected and bred successive generations of tame foxes, taking care to avoid inbreeding. Similarly, he also bred a line of aggressive foxes. After eight generations the tame foxes began to display distinct behavioral and physical changes from both their farm bred aggressive counterparts and wild silver foxes. Over 35 generations of tame foxes, numbering over 45000, were bred in a period of 40 years, and the researchers kept human contact to a minimum and did not train the foxes in any way.

Research Observations
The silver foxes began to show tame, doglike behaviours like whining to get attention, licking, tail-wagging and barking.
They began to display floppy ears, shorter legs, shorter and curled tails and spotted fur.
They began to show narrower skulls and shorter snouts than that of wild foxes.
Females began to come into heat twice a year instead of just once as in the case of wild foxes.
Tame fox puppies opened their eyes sooner and developed a fear response later than wild fox puppies.
The researchers also noted decreased adrenal hormone production and increased serotonin levels in the tame foxes. The former was linked with an animal’s fear and aggression factors and the latter affected it on the psychological level. The balance between the two caused an animal to behave in a particular way and changing that balance brought about genetic changes that influenced both the animal’s behavioral pattern and its developmental process. Not always a good thing, according to Dr. Trut; docility might make the foxes excellent house pets, but wouldn’t win them any favors in the wild.”

http://www.brighthub.com/science/genetics/articles/46555.aspx

This is the Lewontin fallacy which Steve Hsu explains here:

Technical comment: this depends on the number of loci or markers used. As the number gets large the distance between clusters becomes much larger than the individual cluster radius. For continental clusters, if hundreds or thousands of markers are used the intercluster distance dominates the intracluster size. Further technical comment: you may have read the misleading statistic, spread by the intellectually dishonest Lewontin, that 85% percent of all human genetic variation occurs within groups and only 15% between groups. The statistic is true, but what is often falsely claimed is that this breakup of variances (larger within group than between group) prevents any meaningful genetic classification of populations. This false conclusion neglects the correlations in the genetic data that are revealed in a cluster analysis. See here for a simple example which shows that there can be dramatic group differences in phenotypes even if every version of every gene is found in two groups — as long as the frequency or probability distributions are distinct. Sadly, understanding this point requires just enough mathematical ability that it has eluded all but a small number of experts.) Update: see here for an explanation in pictures of Lewontin’s fallacy.

On the other hand, for most phenotypes (examples: height or IQ, which are both fairly heritable, except in cases of extreme environmental deprivation), there is significant overlap between different population distributions. That is, Swedes might be taller than Vietnamese on average, but the range of heights within each group is larger than the difference in the averages. Nevertheless, at the tails of the distribution one would find very large discrepancies: for example the percentage of the Swedish population that is over 2 meters tall (6″7) might be 5 or 10 times as large as the percentage of the Vietnamese population. If two groups differed by, say, 10 points in average IQ (2/3 of a standard deviation), the respective distributions would overlap quite a bit (more in-group than between-group variation), but the fraction of people with IQ above some threshold (e.g., >140) would be radically different. It has been claimed that 20% of all Americans with IQ > 140 are Jewish, even though Jews comprise only 3% of the total population.

….

There is no strong evidence yet for specific gene variants (alleles) that lead to group differences (differences between clusters) in behavior or intelligence, but progress on the genomic side of this question will be rapid in coming years, as the price to sequence a genome is dropping at an exponential rate.

What seems to be true (from preliminary studies) is that the gene variants that were under strong selection (reached fixation) over the last 10k years are different in different clusters. That is, the way that modern people in each cluster differ, due to natural selection, from their own ancestors 10k years ago is not the same in each cluster — we have been, at least at the genetic level, experiencing divergent evolution.

In fact, recent research suggests that 7% or more of all our genes are mutant versions that replaced earlier variants through natural selection over the last tens of thousands of years. There was little gene flow between continental clusters (“races”) during that period, so there is circumstantial evidence for group differences beyond the already established ones (superficial appearance, disease resistance).

http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2008/01/no-scientific-basis-for-race.html

http://unews.utah.edu/p/?r=120607-1

Research Observations

The silver foxes began to show tame, doglike behaviours like whining to get attention, licking, tail-wagging and barking.
They began to display floppy ears, shorter legs, shorter and curled tails and spotted fur.

They began to show narrower skulls and shorter snouts than that of wild foxes.

Females began to come into heat twice a year instead of just once as in the case of wild foxes.

Tame fox puppies opened their eyes sooner and developed a fear response later than wild fox puppies.