The doc seems to be AI generated. At first, it just seems to go into a tangent on race, despite the question of racial groups being biological having no relevance to the validity of IQ whatsoever.
Then, it tries to poison the well, questioning the motives of hereditarian research, calling it a ‘victim narrative’, even though hereditarianism is a scientific and not a political theory. The author then accuses hereditarians of being science denialists yet cites no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate it. Aside from the (weird) tangent on the political beliefs of hereditarians, it then bizarrely says that there isn’t a causal relationship between Asians having higher IQs and also having better performance on standardised tests, despite the fact that such tests are heavily g-loaded in nature. The author handwaves this away by citing a book…. that doesn’t argue what they says it does? This is probably the biggest sign that this was either cooked up by ChatGPT or a complete idiot. After further assertions of “muh SES” and “muh stereotype threat” being responsible for disparities dispite citing no evidence that these factors have a causal relationship with low IQ, it then moves on to GWAs. It asserts that they weaken hereditarian claims, despite the fact that as of right now, they are very limited in scope and can’t currently account for all the genetic variation that affects IQ (although the amount they can explain has been steadily increasing for years, reaching 19% according to a metanalysis linked below). It accuses IQ tests of being culturally biased despite the existence of culture-fair tests, and then asserts that they are also biased without citing evidence to prove it.
Now for the really stupid stuff. The author builds a strawman of hereditarians believing that genetics is always the sole determinant of IQ, despite the fact that no one disputes extreme environments (such as the case of East and West Germany, as cited) reducing IQ. The question is whether these environments are present in first world Western nations or not, and it is safe to say the answer is a resounding “no”.
Then, IQ tests are called ‘narrow’ measures of intelligence, but the author fails to acknowledge the fact that they are pretty much the most robust way of measuring intelligence, and it doesn’t suggest an alternative with equal or better explanatory power.
Again, the author cites ‘stereotype threat’ as hampering performance on IQ tests, but doesn’t provide any empirical evidence to demonstrate this. The ‘word gap’ is brought up, which seems pretty pointless considering that we have tests that are entirely nonverbal and show the exact same gaps between groups as we see with other tests.
The author then talks about a few adoption studies, but misleadingly ignores the fact that children regress towards the racial mean in adulthood.
There are a few things I missed out and I might return to this later, but what I can say is that this is a pretty bad doc. All of the style and flair of an academic discussion with none of the substance to back it up.
Steppe ancestry within Estonians predicts height. If to this day proportion of ancestry from an ancient population can predict height within an ethnic group, I think it’s fair to say that ancestry can predict height differences to some extent between modern groups. Other papers have suggested the height difference between Northern and Southern Europeans can be explained entirely by ancestry differences
China was until recent decades suffering from communism-related poverty?
"Despite failings and setbacks, it is an inescapable historical conclusion that the Maoist era was the time of China's modern industrial revolution. Mao oversaw the fastest economic takeoff in world history, the fastest population growth, the fastest longevity gains, the fastest industrialization.
"Starting with rubble and an industrial base smaller than Belgium's, Mao transformed China into one of the largest industrial producers in the world. National income grew five-fold, from 60 Bn to 300 Bn yuan, with industry accounting for most of the growth. On a per capita basis, the index of national income at constant prices increased from 100 in 1949 to 160 in 1952, to 217 in 1957 and 440 in 1978. National income increased 63% on a per capita basis from 1957 to 1975, while the population doubled.
"Mao defeated the USA in battle, made China a nuclear power, developed rockets and satellites, increased life expectancy from 35 to 67 and completed land reform and basic industrialization. In fact, China's economic takeoff under Mao is unequalled in world history.
From 1880-1914 Germany's GDP grew 33% per decade.
Japan from 1874-1929 was 43%.
The Soviet Union from 1928-58 hit 54%.
Mao's decadal rate was 64%".
–Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait 1st Edition
I am interested to see how calories consumed changed through this period. In particular I recall the pervasive reported anecdotes of famine in the early '60s and reports of rapid increases in calorie intake, in both children and adults from the '80s and '90s.
Agreed. It’s never simple when it comes to China and a nuanced approach is required. For example, I believe that under Mao poppy farming and opium production was eliminated. (I believe this crop was predominantly in western China.) Women fared better with renewed efforts to stop the practice of foot binding and concubinage, etc.
Unrelated, I may be overlooking a note from the authors about this, but northern Chinese are quite a bit taller than southern Chinese.
The problem with analyzing height data is that most of it is nonsense. When was the last time your height was actually measured with a stadiometer? You probably can't remember. And everyone lies about their height. The shorter they are, the more they add to their height when asked. Unless you've actually measured your subjects' height, you're analyzing lies.
I think he's referring to worldwide data. A lot of those concern doctor-measured height too (much data is from military drafts), but in any case, if one knows the inflation, one can just subtract that.
If there’s bias in the doctor estimates too, then the entirety likely isn’t systematic (i.e. in one direction/only an inflation), thus just error. If it is systematic it has to be mostly by self reports in which case the datasets used (UKB namely is very common in other studies) get around this, and they seem to match the allegedly “biased” estimates. Although you must already know all this, just pointing this out because it’s clear this person did not bother to read much given that they commented less than 5 minutes after the post’s publication.
Hey could you respond to this it's some Google doc trying to debunk IQ https://t.co/vpK0FPm4yu
Not worth replying to.
The doc seems to be AI generated. At first, it just seems to go into a tangent on race, despite the question of racial groups being biological having no relevance to the validity of IQ whatsoever.
Then, it tries to poison the well, questioning the motives of hereditarian research, calling it a ‘victim narrative’, even though hereditarianism is a scientific and not a political theory. The author then accuses hereditarians of being science denialists yet cites no evidence whatsoever to demonstrate it. Aside from the (weird) tangent on the political beliefs of hereditarians, it then bizarrely says that there isn’t a causal relationship between Asians having higher IQs and also having better performance on standardised tests, despite the fact that such tests are heavily g-loaded in nature. The author handwaves this away by citing a book…. that doesn’t argue what they says it does? This is probably the biggest sign that this was either cooked up by ChatGPT or a complete idiot. After further assertions of “muh SES” and “muh stereotype threat” being responsible for disparities dispite citing no evidence that these factors have a causal relationship with low IQ, it then moves on to GWAs. It asserts that they weaken hereditarian claims, despite the fact that as of right now, they are very limited in scope and can’t currently account for all the genetic variation that affects IQ (although the amount they can explain has been steadily increasing for years, reaching 19% according to a metanalysis linked below). It accuses IQ tests of being culturally biased despite the existence of culture-fair tests, and then asserts that they are also biased without citing evidence to prove it.
Now for the really stupid stuff. The author builds a strawman of hereditarians believing that genetics is always the sole determinant of IQ, despite the fact that no one disputes extreme environments (such as the case of East and West Germany, as cited) reducing IQ. The question is whether these environments are present in first world Western nations or not, and it is safe to say the answer is a resounding “no”.
Then, IQ tests are called ‘narrow’ measures of intelligence, but the author fails to acknowledge the fact that they are pretty much the most robust way of measuring intelligence, and it doesn’t suggest an alternative with equal or better explanatory power.
Again, the author cites ‘stereotype threat’ as hampering performance on IQ tests, but doesn’t provide any empirical evidence to demonstrate this. The ‘word gap’ is brought up, which seems pretty pointless considering that we have tests that are entirely nonverbal and show the exact same gaps between groups as we see with other tests.
The author then talks about a few adoption studies, but misleadingly ignores the fact that children regress towards the racial mean in adulthood.
There are a few things I missed out and I might return to this later, but what I can say is that this is a pretty bad doc. All of the style and flair of an academic discussion with none of the substance to back it up.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41588-018-0152-6
I think you might find this study interesting:
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822%2822%2900108-7
Steppe ancestry within Estonians predicts height. If to this day proportion of ancestry from an ancient population can predict height within an ethnic group, I think it’s fair to say that ancestry can predict height differences to some extent between modern groups. Other papers have suggested the height difference between Northern and Southern Europeans can be explained entirely by ancestry differences
China was until recent decades suffering from communism-related poverty?
"Despite failings and setbacks, it is an inescapable historical conclusion that the Maoist era was the time of China's modern industrial revolution. Mao oversaw the fastest economic takeoff in world history, the fastest population growth, the fastest longevity gains, the fastest industrialization.
"Starting with rubble and an industrial base smaller than Belgium's, Mao transformed China into one of the largest industrial producers in the world. National income grew five-fold, from 60 Bn to 300 Bn yuan, with industry accounting for most of the growth. On a per capita basis, the index of national income at constant prices increased from 100 in 1949 to 160 in 1952, to 217 in 1957 and 440 in 1978. National income increased 63% on a per capita basis from 1957 to 1975, while the population doubled.
"Mao defeated the USA in battle, made China a nuclear power, developed rockets and satellites, increased life expectancy from 35 to 67 and completed land reform and basic industrialization. In fact, China's economic takeoff under Mao is unequalled in world history.
From 1880-1914 Germany's GDP grew 33% per decade.
Japan from 1874-1929 was 43%.
The Soviet Union from 1928-58 hit 54%.
Mao's decadal rate was 64%".
–Mao Zedong: A Political and Intellectual Portrait 1st Edition
by Maurice Meisner
I am interested to see how calories consumed changed through this period. In particular I recall the pervasive reported anecdotes of famine in the early '60s and reports of rapid increases in calorie intake, in both children and adults from the '80s and '90s.
Agreed. It’s never simple when it comes to China and a nuanced approach is required. For example, I believe that under Mao poppy farming and opium production was eliminated. (I believe this crop was predominantly in western China.) Women fared better with renewed efforts to stop the practice of foot binding and concubinage, etc.
Unrelated, I may be overlooking a note from the authors about this, but northern Chinese are quite a bit taller than southern Chinese.
The problem with analyzing height data is that most of it is nonsense. When was the last time your height was actually measured with a stadiometer? You probably can't remember. And everyone lies about their height. The shorter they are, the more they add to their height when asked. Unless you've actually measured your subjects' height, you're analyzing lies.
It looks like you didn’t read the corrections or even understand what they did.
Edit: Note that the two main studies used for height (one is Yengo et al) got height data from the UKB which objectively measures height!
I think he's referring to worldwide data. A lot of those concern doctor-measured height too (much data is from military drafts), but in any case, if one knows the inflation, one can just subtract that.
If there’s bias in the doctor estimates too, then the entirety likely isn’t systematic (i.e. in one direction/only an inflation), thus just error. If it is systematic it has to be mostly by self reports in which case the datasets used (UKB namely is very common in other studies) get around this, and they seem to match the allegedly “biased” estimates. Although you must already know all this, just pointing this out because it’s clear this person did not bother to read much given that they commented less than 5 minutes after the post’s publication.