Why Experts Hate Racial Differences In Intelligence

Steve Sailer highlights an interesting new paper on "cognitive ability" and genetic ancestry (which, in an effort to forestall criticism, perhaps, Sailer calls a "scientific paper"). It's "Linear and partially linear models of behavioural trait variation using admixture regression" Bryan Pesta and Gregory Connor.

We'll ignore here the models the authors use, except to warn that all signals diminish---uncertainty increases---when using real-life predictive methods, and not old-school parameter-based methods. Here's a whole post on the over-certainty of polygenic scores.

Basically (read Sailer or the paper for all the caveats, which are not our main interest), nearly 11,000 9-10 year olds were sampled, DNA was taken, and all were given scored tests, while also asking them their Self-Identified Race and Ethnicity, or SIRE. Now that's a great pun, but it could get them cancelled if critics figure it out. Connor's SIRE, Sailer informs us, is black, so they might get away with it.

The list of SIREs is long, so they compressed it into other, black, Hispanic, and white, and used the DNA to calculate a measure of genetic mix of European ancestry. Here's the main result.

I remind us the "g-factor" is a linear combination of normalized (also a linear transformation) test scores. Change the test type, or test questions, change the "g-factor". Here's a whole post on the over-certainty and usefulness of IQ scores. Higher "g" means better test scores; lower worse.

Because of the normalization and obscure math, we can think of the units as standard deviations if we want to use normal distributions to quantify our uncertainty in score (a.k.a. g-factor) knowing only a person's SIRE or percent European ancestry. We don't need any models, I remind us, if we're talking about these kids, because we are 100% certain what they scored. We only need models if we want to talk about other kids not in this sample, but who we assume are like these causally.

Whew. Okay, now that that's out of the way, draw a line at 2. Grab all the kids over this score and put them in a room. Only a few will be black. Do the same for -2, or even -4. Most will be black. Conclusion: blacks didn't score as well as others. If we repeated the experiment with a new batch of kids, the results would be much the same, but almost certainly not as extreme.

Poring through the data, Sailer tells us "Africans of 100% black ancestry in the U.S. tend to be somewhat smarter than less purely black people of African-descent." This is a true observation, and while it does not tell us with certainty of the cause of differences in scores, it hints at it. Full African blacks do better, perhaps, because they have not yet been taught to be American blacks.

In any case, it's clear from this, and from many, many other similar measurements, blacks don't score as well on these tests on average; and at the extreme best scores there are always few blacks, while at the extreme worst scores there are always many blacks.

Before we get to the acrimony and angst, which are the main point of this post, here's another current headline "Indigenous people in the Philippines have the highest level of DNA from our ancient ancestors the Denisovans" (CNN agrees). Key line: "Researchers in Sweden have found that the Philippine Negrito ethnic group known as the Ayta Magbukon have the highest level of Denisovan ancestry today."

We'll take all this as a given, and from that, plus all human history, we conclude that peoples are different.

This would be without controversy except for the theory, held and promulgated by many Experts, that all peoples are the same biologically but different culturally. This theory (called Equality) goes against all observational evidence, as we have just seen, and have always seen and admitted until recently.

So why do these Experts insist on biological sameness? Which is the equivalent question to, why are the consistent differences in test scores blamed on whites (who can only be defined culturally not biologically)?

Because the test questions measure the sort of tasks Experts value above all other things. That's it, and nothing more. Experts say intelligence is the highest good, and these test scores are indicators of intelligence. See the IQ post above for Experts' limited understanding of intelligence: what they mean by it is incomplete and far less than it is. But here we use their understanding of its definition.

They have before them, then, a clear choice if they accept (their definition of) intelligence as the highest, and indeed only, good. Admit race, and work to promote just those races that test scores say are intelligent, with all that that implies. Or, because of those implications, deny race and insist on Equality, with all that that implies.

If you are a godless Expert in thrall to intelligence, and you admit race, you either bloodlessly implement the implications (or see to it they are implemented), or you shudder and say to yourself it's better to say race is a fiction. Of course, there are always a handful of true believers; those who, amazingly, do hold with Equality. Despite their small numbers, it is these less intelligent folks who hold sway in our Expertocracy and produce the party line. This paradox, however, has an easy explanation.

Since all Experts aren't stupid, they know that differences in intelligence have causes. It they can't admit race, they have to say, they are forced to say, "racism" (or money, or whatever). Equality is thus a theorem and is not axiomatic. It is deduced from the premise that (their definition of) intelligence is the highest (by far, or only) good, and the premise that the implications of intelligence being the highest good are unkind.

The only other choice is to admit intelligence is not the highest, or really only, good. Yet if Experts admit that, then they have to admit their own value is not as high as they esteem it. This is, as you might well imagine, unthinkable in an Expertocracy.

This, at any rate, explains the other paradox of how Experts can say biological whites are innately evil while simultaneously saying race doesn't exist.

Something, eventually, will have to give.

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