Richard Lynn, evolution, IQ, and race

[OripahsTrebor]

http://www.geocities.com/race_articles/lynn_race_evol.html

Anyone want to sunder Richard Lynn's hypothesis...

I do not want any ad homs or genetic fallacies (e.g. the paper was published in Mankind Quarterly).

This hypothesis was presented in his book Race Differences in Intelligence too.

[JamesBannon]

I see a bunch of dubious connections with no supporting data and boy those Pearson correlation coefficients sure are definitive (sarcasm).

[premjan]

Hominids first evolved in tropical and subtropical latitudes, most probably reaching sapiens status in the highlands of East Africa. From this ancestral population some groups migrated north into Eurasia and evolved there into the Caucasoids and Mongoloids. Colonizing temperate and cold environments, they encountered the cognitively demanding problems of survival in cold winters. These problems consisted principally of securing a food supply by hunting large animals and of keeping warm in winter by making fires, clothing and shelters. Survival in these difficult conditions acted as a selection pressure favoring enhanced intelligence and explains why the Caucasoids and the Mongoloids are the races which have evolved the highest intelligence.
People in East Africa don't hunt large animals? What is the evidence for stitched clothing in Eurasia? I bet they were wearing animal skins for a long time, which don't require a lot of intelligence to make. And Africans also wear some clothing - they don't go naked. It is what I would prefer to call a "just-so" story.

[anthrosciguy]

[url]
I do not want any ad homs or genetic fallacies (e.g. the paper was published in Mankind Quarterly).


You have to put some consideration on the source of the claims. In the case of Mankind Quarterly, it's one of the worst possible academic sources, typically racist nonsense. Just as it isn't a fallacy to be far more suspicious of a paper in a tiny obscure journal in the wrong field, say a paper on human evolution in Nutrition and Health (or the Discovery Intitute's publications) rather than JHE, Science, Nature, or the like, it isn't a fallacy to be incredibly suspicious, indeed preemptively dismissive, of anything in a racist publication like Mankind Quarterly.

[Matt the Medic]

I see a bunch of dubious connections with no supporting data and boy those Pearson correlation coefficients sure are definitive (sarcasm).

Not a single correlation coefficient is above .35.

A strong correlation requires at least .5, and most of those are in the .1-.2 range, which translates to weak correlation.

Definitive, indeed (sarcasm as well).

Matt

[OripahsTrebor]

Not a single correlation coefficient is above .35.

A strong correlation requires at least .5, and most of those are in the .1-.2 range, which translates to weak correlation.

Definitive, indeed (sarcasm as well).

Matt

in which brain volume was measured by magnetic resonance scanning in 40 university students and a correlation of 0.35 obtained between brain volume and intelligence.

Hmm... I wonder what the p value is, but I do think a sample of 40 students (there are more studies confirming this correlation) would render a correlation of .35 statistically significant (but I do not know). But brain size was only able to explain about 12 % of the variance.

[JamesBannon]

Not a single correlation coefficient is above .35.

A strong correlation requires at least .5, and most of those are in the .1-.2 range, which translates to weak correlation.

Definitive, indeed (sarcasm as well).

Matt
Actually I had to look it up in my statistics textbooks to make sure I wasn't being foolish. It's been a long time since I did any stats :blush:. Besides this all I saw was a "potted" history of "human development" that was certainly questionable given the paucity of the data.

[OripahsTrebor]

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content?content=10.1080/00438240500509918

Abstract
Over the last two decades, a number of psychometric researchers have claimed that very substantial differences in intelligence exist among modern human racial groups, as these groups are traditionally defined. According to these researchers, African populations suffer severe cognitive deficits when compared to other modern humans. Philippe Rushton, particularly, places these claimed mental deficits in an evolutionary context, advancing environmental explanations for such deficits and asserting that such cognitive differences existed prehistorically as well. Such substantial cognitive differences should be evident in human behavioural patterns, and thus in the archaeological record. Archaeological data can thus be used to test these claims about human evolutionary development and modern human cognitive difference. Examination of the archaeological record does not support the claims made by these researchers. This suggests that regional differences in IQ test score results should not be ascribed to variations in human evolutionary development.


Does anyone have access to the article? I'll be grateful if I could read it.

[premjan]

Most nerds have a cognitive deficit compared to the average human, relating probably to their ability to parse emotional reactions and infer motives in other people. But nerds in particular are able to compensate with other (e.g. analytical) cognitive activity. So cognitive deficit is not fatal to life performance unless seen in a strict Darwinian "ought" sense. I would be interested to see whether people with cognitive deficits of all kinds (e.g. Forrest Gump) can't correct for their deficit in the sense of e.g. earning potential, with better training or focusing on areas of strength etc.