James Flynn on 2007 Blacks vs 1957 Whites

Repost from the old site.

Note: this post is both lengthy (64 pages) and highly complex. I have tried to make it as understandable as possible, as this blog is geared towards the general reader, but some stuff is just inherently complex. If you think you can’t handle it, you might just want to bail out now; life is difficult enough as it is without me donating a frustrating reading and thinking experience to you.

If you want to sally forth, anyway, go ahead. Meantime, here is a good introduction by James Flynn that is fairly brief and easy reading. In particular, he deals with Jason Malloy’s notion that the Flynn Effect is worthless and not a rise in intelligence since it lacks a g-factor load. If you enjoy that, come back here and spear some of the red meat:

In recent days a particularly forceful assault has been leveled against my post, The Skyrocketing Black IQ, by Jason Malloy on the Gene Expression (GNXP) blog. Please see both of the linked articles above to get a background on the highly complex issues involved in this debate.

I first saw Malloy in the comments on the Dienekes blog.

Malloy hides his de facto racist message with various pretensions and obfuscations, perhaps unconsciously.

An artist from Madison, Wisconsin, he fashions himself an autodidact scientist and mathematician, and in my opinion, he and his ilk are among the most dangerous de facto racists on the Internet, mostly because they seem so reasonable and non-racist about their message. We need to take on him and his ilk with everything we’ve got.

The Malloy line is that environment does absolutely nothing and genes are everything. His political views? He says he is a liberal Democrat. I don’t understand this at all, but I’ve seen stranger things. To me, the politics he says he has and the politics he promotes in his writings are contradictory, but whatever.

He is neither a scientist nor a mathematician, has no degrees in either field, and has no peer-reviewed publications, yet used to go around to science blogs lecturing actual scientists on how to do science.

Real researchers have a skeptical attitude. Molloy does not.

After making comments on my post on Dienekes’ superb blog, Malloy then reiterated his rejoinders in a new post on the ultra-racist, super-arrogant, disturbing, childish and downright embarrassing GNXP blog.

Malloy insists he is not a racist; he is just dispassionate scientist without a science degree who is looking for the cold, hard truth. After some emails with him, I do not think he is consciously racist, but he is pushing a de facto racist message whether he intends or not.

A lot of these guys fashion themselves as “scientific martyrs” – a modern day Galileo. If only people would realize the unpleasant truth: Blacks are stupid, permanently so, and apparently nothing short of gene therapy will change this sorry state. I’m sure just about every Black person around is dying to believe such wonderful things about themselves.

There is no scientific consensus for such a painful conclusion, so there is no reason for any non-racist or Black-friendly person to take that line. The words of Malloy and the many like him amount to psychological warfare against Blacks. At the end of the day, it is more than that: it is a declaration of de facto racial warfare on every Black person on Earth hiding behind the lab coat of science.

Malloy has some charming things to say about US Blacks in that widely-linked piece. He ridicules their mental skills by calling them “story-telling ability IQ”. Their ancestors in Africa have a high “mosquito-dodging IQ“.

He disagrees with my suggestion that the Whites of the Greatest Generation have lower IQ scores than Blacks, remarking that 1945 Whites could not possibly be “even less intelligent” than our considerably dense Black citizens.

Malloy also claims that modern science proves Blacks are much more inferior as workers than Whites, that this is a serious drag on any employer of Blacks, and that the reason for this is their incurable genetic stupidity. The implication is that Blacks simply should not be employed in any sane workplace.

A White friend of Blacks can make sometimes-painful impressionistic observations about Black culture, without being nasty and racist-sounding about it. See here for an example. Malloy and those like him forgo that route and just slam away at Blacks, then are stunned when people note the racism, intended or not, that shines through loud and clear.

GNXP is a Social Darwinist blog where conceited, know-it-all, rude, immature young upper class “intellectual elitist” manchildren make asses out of themselves, and in so doing, idiotically try to poison their future careers. The racism and general elitism, especially the leaderships of South Indian high caste elitists Newamul Khan (Razib) and Paul Wickre (Godless) of GNXP has been cataloged on the Net in many places.

What’s ticklish is that if US Blacks are idiots, what does that make Razib’s Desis, who are apparently even dumber than the Blacks he scorns? Don’t ask. Like so many insecure narcissists, Razib attacks those above him (in this case Blacks and Hispanics) while projecting his inferiority complex on them. It’s Psychology 101, and it would be funny if it was not so pathetic.

GNXP is a hangout where petulant, conceited, condescending, basically immature cranks can pitch their atavistic and nihilistic misanthropy couched as “science” while they cheer themselves on.

Malloy’s debating and authorial style is sledgehammer-like. I have yet to see him concede a point, and he typically refers to opponents as ignorant. Not a good way to win friends and influence people, and it won’t fly in any peer-reviewed journal.

Malloy’s counterattack has been widely linked around the blogosphere, usually in a laudatory way, and was even discussed in a widely-read NY Times article. Unfortunately, instead of being the tour de force it appears to be, this carefully-penned attack is a de facto racist screed.

The author takes as face value that US Whites have higher IQ’s than US Blacks, that this difference is largely genetic and therefore unalterable by any environmental means (except presumably gene therapy) for at least the next century, and that the Flynn Effect (see below) is not an intelligence gain at all and has no bearing on the Black-White (B-W) IQ gap.

Furthermore and most importantly, Malloy seems to take utter delight in all of the above positions.

Except for the italicized first one, none of these positions are supported by scientific consensus, to put it mildly. Even the first position is widely disputed, at least in the popular press most folks read. Even the US Federation of American Scientists disagrees, though I think they are wrong on that. Bottom line: this debate is very much an unsettled issue, for better or worse.

Anyone who has gleefully taken such an extreme position and argues forcefully against all contrary evidence should have their motives questioned. The truth is that anyone staking out such an intellectual space is arguing from a de facto racist point of view, and unfortunately, Malloy’s widely hailed post is a tour de force of de facto scientific racism.

The real danger in this stuff (there are many more like Malloy out there) is the fact that it is very well researched and written and sounds quite convincing and reasonable. A maniac in a sheet or giving a Seig Heil can be scornfully dismissed. The de facto racism of a mild-mannered, reasonable-sounding liberal is much more frightening in its allure and potential to intoxicate.

The reason this is a racist position is that there is as yet no scientific consensus whatsoever about the B-W IQ gap. All we know is that it exists. All else is pretty much up for grabs right now (for exhaustive overviews of the state of the enormously complex debate, see here and here).

Many libertarians and extreme rightwingers are now taking a hardline, “Blacks are stupid” line on the B-W gap. That few Western Blacks or Mulattos, Hispanics, Amerindians, Polynesians, Black Africans, Southeast Asians or Arabs, not to mention Leftists, Liberals, Centrists or even mainstream conservatives take this position is telling.

This hard line is both unwarranted and unproductive.

On the other hand, it is important to not go to the other extreme. Pointing out the verifiable fact that IQ scores are low in Africa or there is a Black-White gap in the US is not racism at all, yet Western society seems to treat it as if it is. The treatment of James Watson’s basically reasonable remarks (other than the remarks about Black employees) is a sad testament.

And those of us opposing scientific racism need to come up with better arguments than, “No such thing as race,” “No such thing as intelligence”, “No such thing as IQ”, “IQ does not measure intelligence”, and on and on.

For instance, IQ is positively correlated with glucose metabolism, frontal grey matter and cerebral blood flow in the brain. A brain that works more, faster or better is likely to use more glucose and blood and to have more tissue than one that does not. This would hardly be the case if IQ had nothing to do with intelligence.

My post cited a phenomenon of rising IQ’s in the West for 80 years called the Flynn Effect (FE – named after James Flynn, the man who discovered it)¹ and claimed that Blacks today have the same IQ score as Whites in 1957. 2007 Blacks also have IQ scores four points higher than Whites in 1945. If 1957 Whites were not stupid and did not have low IQ’s, neither are Blacks today stupid, nor do they have low IQ’s.

Here are Malloy’s complex charges:

He first asserts that there is something called g, or general intelligence factor (conceived by Charles Spearman)², and that this is pure, or real, intelligence. Everything not g is not real intelligence. Instead, it’s just garbage, test-taking practice, “bias”, cultural bias, statistical noise, nothing at all, this or that, or whatever.

Then he asserts that FE rises are not on g, twisting and misrepresenting (Apparently deliberately!) several statements by Flynn. Malloy says they are not on g because the rises are not something called factor-invariant. On the other hand, Malloy notes the fact that the B-W gap is factor invariant.

In fact, Malloy is conflating two different ways of measuring g-factor here, one elaborated by Arthur Jensen, and another way of measuring g, called factor invariance, used by a team out of the Netherlands in 2004 (N2004)³.

The Spearman-Jensen g -factor (SJGF) does indeed correlate with the FE as shown by Flynn in a counterargument to Jensen who said his g-factor did not correlate with FE (the highest FE rises have been on the most SJGF-loaded tests of them all – see Raven’s Progressive Matrices⁴).

However, there is no correlation between the FE and the N2004 factor-invariance method of measuring the g-factor (but see here ³ for quotes from the study that imply that the authors felt there was some correlation).

Also, note that the same authors issued a paper three years prior in which they called into question Jensen’s prize argument, that the B-W gap was due to g and that it was genetic and irremediable – i.e., Blacks are doomed to be stupid forever.⁵

It’s confusing, and overviews of several studies indicate that whether or not the FE is correlated with g is still very much up in the air, in part due to varying ways in measuring g. A cautious conclusion is that the FE shows a fluid-g gain but not a crystallized g gain.

Fluid intelligence is a rough measure of how fast and efficiently one’s brain works, and tends to decrease with age. Crystallized intelligence is more what you know, rather than how fast or well your brain works. It is also the sum total of life experience that we call “wisdom”. As one might expect, crystallized intelligence tends to increase with age, and even aged people can score very high.

The FE is not about knowing more stuff (young people today often seem strikingly ignorant to me, at the same time that I am shocked by how well their brains seem to work), nor is it about wisdom (see my post here that shows that Black pathology in the US increased wildly in the past 50 years while Black IQ’s went through the roof due to the FE⁶).

Malloy concludes that FE gains are not real intelligence gains since they are not g gains (but see above), and hence are worthless. He also states that 2007 Blacks do not have the same IQ scores as 1957 Whites, nor do their scores surpass 1945 Whites. Flynn disagrees.

There is indeed a paradox between the FE and the B-W gap. The B-W gap shows the stereotypical g-factor pattern – that is, the g-factor will measure the degree to which superior test-takers will tend to have a score lifted across all subtests, or across the board.

We could say that they seem smarter in an “across the board” way. It is true that the Blacks of today are not smarter “across the board” than the Whites of 50 years ago, but neither is the converse true, as Malloy implies.

Flynn and others offer some intriguing theories on the differences between g and the FE, and Flynn suggests that the g construct is not terribly important. Flynn suggests that the FE shows gains in intelligence within groups over time, like a movie. If you stop the movie at any time and take a snapshot, you see g. Start the movie again, and you see the FE.

Therefore, it seems wrong for Malloy to bash the FE on the basis that it is not on g, since the FE and g seem to be two entirely different things.

Put another way, we are comparing apples and oranges. It is true that apples do not correlate well with some hypothesized “orange factor”, but they need not and should not, and anyway, the fact that they do not does not imply that an apple is not fruit. It’s just that there is no reason to be comparing them.⁷.

Furthermore, Malloy and Jensen have problems when trying to say that the more a test taps g, the more genetic it is. B-W differences are highest on the subtests that are greatest in g, and the more a test taps g, the more genetic it is. How then to explain the massive FE, which is mostly on the most heavily g-loaded tests of all?

Malloy is also incorrect to imply that non-g FE gains are “hollow”, worthless, or not “real intelligence”. For instance, Malloy repeatedly states that IQ differences between ethnic groups (he often compares Blacks and Whites) are g-based, hence real, genetic and irremediable.

However, comparisons of Whites with some 3rd World groups show that the difference is on non-g. Hence, it follows that these 3rd World groups have the same intelligence as Whites.⁸.

A hallmark of the B-W gap genetic theorists rests on the scores of US Blacks, who strangely score 85, while African and Caribbean Blacks score 67 and 71 respectively. The hereditarian notion is that White admixture is what raises the US Black score, since African Blacks are pure Black and Caribbean Blacks are mostly Black. There are serious problems with this approach.⁹

Malloy is fond of several other claims.

Foremost, they believe that the B-W gap is wholly genetic, and hence cannot be remedied by any environmental factors or interventions. Blacks are hopelessly stupid forever, and the implication is that all money spent trying to give them a brain is down the drain.

They are doomed to wail, “If I Only Had a Brain“, in the wilderness forever, like the Strawman in the Wizard of Oz. The implication is that, as a hopeless race, Blacks must be cast off onto the proverbial ice floe as in the Eskimo custom, set free to fail and die as evolution deems fit.

In particular, Malloy attacks adoption studies, saying that adopting Blacks into White homes failed to raise their IQ’s. However, the evidence from adoption studies is far more complex than that, and many have shown gains for Blacks in these situations.¹⁰

Furthermore, even the model that holds that IQ scores within families are heavily genetic and owe almost nothing to shared home environment has been challenged, with radically different loadings for poor and high-income households on these factors.¹¹

An anomalous study in Germany (Eyferth 1961) based on the children of Black and White soldiers and White German women found no differences at all in IQ among the White and Mulatto children.

Note that many pushing a hardline “Blacks are forever stupid” line today are extreme rightwingers or libertarians. They are almost all Whites, and, in particular and creepily, Northern European Whites. There are a few high-caste South Indians and a Chinese here and there.

Jensen’s first article in 1969 stated that Blacks were dumb, that it was genetic and permanent and that Head Start should therefore be abandoned.

There is a reason for this political stance and there is a reason that almost everyone saying this far to the Right politically. There is an agenda being pushed here. If we can prove scientifically that Blacks are a hopelessly moronic race, and that their stupidity is embedded in their genome with no way of fixing the matter, we can cut off Blacks of any and all social programs designed to help them, educate them or make them smarter.

More savagely, the implication is that they are a useless evolutionary dead end that needs to be “phased out” in the frightening words of Richard Lynn. All money spent to help this dead-end hopeless race of idiots, either in the US or in Africa, is down the rathole. We should not give them medical care, income, rent, welfare, food stamps, disability, WIC or any other assistance or help in any way.

Africa, a continent reeling in disease and poverty, needs to be thrown out of the nest like a baby bird and told it is on their own, cutting off all food, medical and developmental aid. The result will be massive death and suffering in Africa. In the US, similar policies will be less severe but still frightening and tragic.

It is important to see the cruel and deadly racist motives behind scientific racism, even when promoted by consciously non-racist people. Even if their arguments are correct, the prescriptions most of them are pushing, if adopted, will mean chaos and widespread death and suffering for countless Blacks. It amounts to a declaration of war on Black people everywhere.

Scientific racism also claims that evidence shows that educating Blacks is useless, and most are ineducable. Many point to an set in stone “achievement gap” to show that Blacks are permanent dolts and need to be cut off. However, there is impressive evidence that the achievement gap is closing and that spending money on Black education does improve Black scores,

From Malloy’s piece:

An additional popular argument is that the Flynn Effect, the observed rise in IQ scores over time, is evidence that African-Americans or African countries will eventually reach parity with white norms. This typically includes the premise that white intelligence in the recent past was even lower than modern black intelligence. A typical example:

US Blacks, with an average IQ today of 85, have the same IQ as US Whites with an IQ of 100 in 1957. If 1957 US Whites were not stupid, then neither are US Blacks today. It’s time to shut up about the “low Black IQ”, since by any reasonable standard, it is not really low at all.

These arguments are wrong for the simple fact that the Flynn Effect is not a gain in real g factor intelligence, while the differences between nations and ethnic groups are differences in g factor intelligence. These findings led a 2004 team to state:

It appears therefore that the nature of the Flynn effect is qualitatively different from the nature of B-W [Black-White] differences in the United States… [so] implications of the Flynn effect for B-W differences appear small…

James Flynn, namesake of the secular increase, reiterates (DOC) these points:

Factor analysis is a way of measuring this tendency of some people to do better or worse than average across the board; and it yields something called g (a sort of super-correlation coefficient), which psychologists call the general intelligence factor…When you analyze IQ gains over time, you often find that they do not constitute enhancement of these latent traits — they do not seem to be general intelligence gains, or quantitative factor gains, or verbal factor gains (Wicherts et al, in press).

In the language of factor analysis, this means that IQ gains over time tend to display ‘measurement artifacts or cultural bias’. For a second time, we are driven to the conclusion that massive IQ gains are not intelligence gains or, indeed, any kind of significant cognitive gains (pp 27-28).

Flynn believes the secular increase represents important changes in specific narrow aspects of developed cognitive style, but not a rise in g intelligence. It is therefore incorrect that 1945 US whites were less intelligent than 2007 US blacks. The Flynn Effect has little apparent bearing on racial intelligence gaps.

A brief perusal of the Flynn links that Malloy provided above showed clearly that Malloy grotesquely took Flynn’s words out of context, possibly deliberately.

For one, Malloy implies that Flynn concedes that FE gains are not gains in any kind of real intelligence. For years Flynn did think that the gains were a practice effect or test artifact, but in recent years, he has changed his tune, and now really does believe that we are smarter in some ways. Even racist blogger Steve Sailer agrees.

Further, even scientific racists Steve Sailer, Richard Lynn and his co-author Tartu Vanhanen believe strongly in the FE, Lynn so much so that Sailer calls it the Lynn-Flynn Effect.

Malloy has been staking out this extreme scientific racist stance for years now – see here from 2003. Ole Eichhorn, a colleague of his at GNXP, does not share his views and believes strongly in the FE. Malloy at times parrots scientific racist hardliners Jensen and Charles Murray. Murray is a libertarian and Jensen is apparently an extreme rightwinger.

In a recent paper with fellow scientific racist Rushton, Jensen laid out his position: that an acceptance that Blacks are genetically less intelligent than Whites should logically lead to an end to anti-discrimination lawsuits. The burden of proof in such cases would fall on the plaintiff in proving that the employer was motivated by bias and not by Blacks’ scientifically proven genetic intelligence deficits.

This is the brave new world that the scientific racists have in store for us: where Blacks are forever resigned to much lower socioeconomic, health and educational status, with no way for them to equalize things even a bit. It’s this, and not “search for truth”, “science” or Galileo-martyr complexes, that motivates scientific racism, and it is for this reason that we must fight it with all we have.

I sent Flynn an email linking both my post and Malloy’s counterattack. He emailed me back¹³. Flynn made three rather confusing points, quoting from a book of his now on sale at Amazon:

• The FE gains are on g but at the same time they are not on g.
• The FE gains are real intelligence gains in spite of the fact that they are not factor-invariant.
• Flynn agreed with me that Blacks today have the same IQ’s of Whites of 1957, but he made a confusing statement that seemed to imply that Blacks may continue to gain on Whites, and possibly even move to close the gap.

Here is the statement for you to play around with: Blacks do match the whites of 50 years ago but that does not settle the debate. It can be argued that they are the beneficiaries of the effects of modernity over that time and this could be either more or less than the environmental disadvantage they suffer at any given time.

According to this mail, Flynn disagrees with Malloy’s assertions above and also disagrees with all views that Malloy has attributed to Flynn above. However, in a recent email, Malloy agreed that he and Flynn disagree about the meaning of the FE.

There are a lot of confusing terms in here – g factor, factor invariance, etc. See the footnotes and click some of the links to try to understand it better, but this is stuff is not easy going.

Notes

1. The FE in the US shows a 18 point gain over the 70 years from 1947-2002. In my opinion, Blacks have scored higher, reaching 23.5 points.

There are many possible causes of the FE in modern life. According to Flynn in his new book, they may be: Increased demands from more professional, technical, and managerial jobs; increased leisure time; changing cognitive demands of personal interactions; or changing attitudes toward intellectual activity. Nutrition, better schooling, video games, television, computers, cell phones and the increased complexity of modern life are all thought to play a role.

2. The g-factor is best thought of as a correlation coefficient that shows the extent to which superior test takers, if they score better on one test, tend to score better on other tests across the board. It indicates a brain that works “better all across the board” than others with lower g.

A group higher in g than another group will tend to score better than the lower group in an across the board kind of way. Like IQ, g also correlates with quite a few correlates of intelligence such as increased grey matter in the brain.

Jensen’s original extension of Spearman’s g involved the concept that that g-factor is what he called “Level 2 conceptual learning” – the ability to solve problems = conceptual learning = synthesizing ability. Non-g factor was conceived by Jensen as a “Level 1″ type of learning, and is roughly the retention of input and rote memorization of simple facts and skills = associative learning = memorizing ability.

Most IQ subtests would appear to measure Level 2 conceptual learning quite well. Actually, by Jensen’s own reasoning, he felt that the B-W gap was only 60% in g.

3. Raven’s, the most g-loaded test ever made, shows the largest FE of any test. The test was in fact specifically designed to measure g-factor intelligence only. The test has more predictive validity than any other test used in occupational groups and especially predicts mobility in jobs. It measures ability to “make sense out of the buzzing confusion of life”.

Scientific racist Philippe Rushton shows that Raven’s has no cultural bias whatsoever.

4. This extremely complex paper notes: gains cannot be explained solely by increases at the level of the latent variables (common factors), which IQ tests purport to measure.

In other words, according to this study, some of the:

…inter-generational difference in IQ is attributable to bias or other artifacts, and not real gains in general intelligence or higher-order ability factors…A cautionary conclusion would be that part of the gains (excluding the sub-tests Similarities and Comprehension) could be explained by genuine increases in intelligence.

Whereas implications of the FE for B–W differences appear small, the implications for intelligence testing, in general, are large.

As we can see, even Malloy, Jensen and Rushton’s favorite study indicates that part of FE gains could be on their version of g.

5. Dolan and Hamaker 2001 reanalyzed the data from several earlier studies and concluded that Spearman’s hypothesis is not an “empirically established fact” (i.e., that Black-White IQ differences may be due to differences in common factors other than g) due to insufficient power in the data to choose between alternative models.

The paper said:

This leaves the validity of Spearman’s hypothesis, considered a central justification for the genetic explanation, an unresolved question…

However, they did confirm that the Black-White IQ gap is not due to measurement artifacts, and is instead due to some measured factor that varies both within and between groups. These same people stated that the g factor did not explain the B-W gap as it was not explanatorily accurate.

The paper reanalyzed the data from several previous studies (Jensen and Reynolds 1982; Naglieri and Jensen 1987) that used the statistical method invented by Jensen (the method of correlated vectors – g factor) with a more recent and improved method (multigroup confirmatory factor analysis).

Quote:

On the basis of the present, as well as other results (Dolan 2000), we are convinced that the Spearman correlation cannot be used to demonstrate the importance of g in b-w differences with any confidence…

It is possible that the analysis of all available data sets (perhaps using an appropriate meta-analytic procedure) will demonstrate that a model incorporating the weak version of Spearman’s hypothesis provides the best description of the data. However, until this work is undertaken, we cannot accept Spearman’s hypothesis as an “empirically established fact [139]

6. There is quite a bit of existing evidence suggests that FE gains across subtests may indeed be positively correlated with g loading. See Colom 2001 for good correlations between FE and g, and Juan-Espinosa 2000 for much stronger correlations between g loadings and FE gains.

Jensen’s The g Factor, pp. 320–21, reviews a number of studies of the relation between FE subtest gains and g loadings, all of which show weak positive correlations. However, Rushton 1999 finds that a measure of g developed on the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) has loadings that are negatively correlated with FE subtest gains in several countries.

Yet this was challenged in Flynn’s new book, Extending Intelligence: Enhancement and New Constructs, where he makes the argument that FE gains are greatest on tests of fluid g rather than crystallized g. Flynn finds a positive (though statistically insignificant) correlation between a measure of fluid g he develops and FE gains in the data used by Rushton.

Two tests in Estonia did not find a correlation between g loadings and FE gains on those tests, but these are achievement tests with a strong crystallized bias. See Must 2001 and Must 2003.

7. For an introduction to Flynn’s new book in which he explores the various paradoxes of the FE, see Amazon’s page on the book. For a much more complex take on how FE gains can be on g but not on g, see this paper.

From the paper:

Numerous studies indicate that measures of intelligence reliably produce a latent general factor, referred to as g, which is associated with real world competence and is highly heritable (see Jensen 1998).

However, analysis of measurement invariance between normative cohorts in gains on five standardized measures of intelligence indicated that IQ gains cannot be attributed to change in a general latent factor but primarily reflect systematic variation in specific aspects of cognition leading to bias between cohorts on a number of subtests of intelligence measures (Wicherts et al., in press).

Something in the experience of successive generations is bringing about changes in aspects of cognitive functioning that are associated with g within but not between cohorts.

See also Flynn’s superb but hard to follow lecture (based on his new book) at the Psychometrics Centre in Britain where he made fascinating points and intriguing allegories while offering fascinating examples. From the lecture:

(1) The factor analysis paradox: Factor analysis shows a first principal component called g or general intelligence that seems to bind performance on the various WISC subtests together. However, IQ gains over time show score gains on the WISC subtests occurring independently of one another.

How can intelligence be both one and many?…

(1) The WISC subtests measure a variety of cognitive skills that are functionally independent and responsive to changes in social priorities over time. The inter-correlations that engender g are binding only when comparing individuals within a static social context…someone who tended to be superior on any one would tend to be above average on all.

Let us assume that the 100 meters, the hurdles, and the high jump all had large and similar g loadings as they almost certainly would. A sprinter needs upper body strength as well as speed, a hurdler needs speed and spring, a high jumper needs spring and timing.

I have no doubt that a good athlete would best the average athlete handily on all three at a given place and time. However, over time, social priorities change. People become obsessed with the 100 meters as the most spectacular spectator event (the world’s fastest human). Young people find success in this event a secondary sex characteristic of great allure.

Over 30 years, performance escalates by a full SD in the 100 meters, by half an SD in the hurdles, and not at all in the high jump. Although average performance has risen “eccentrically” on various events, the following is still true: superior performers still do better than average on all 10 events and are about the same degree above average on various events as they were 30 years before.

Arithmetic, Information, Vocabulary, and Similarities all load heavily on g(IQ) and on a shared verbal factor. Despite this, Americans gained 24 points on Similarities between 1947 and 2002 (1.6 SD’s), 4 points on Vocabulary, and only 2 points on Arithmetic and Information…

To sum up. Factor analysis and g(IQ) describes a static situation where individual differences are compared and social change is frozen. The degree to which superior people are above average on the various subtests sets their respective g loadings.

IQ gains over time describe a dynamic situation in which social priorities shift in a multitude of ways. No better math teaching, more leisure but with the extra leisure devoted to visual rather then verbal pursuits, the spread of the scientific ethos, and a host of other things all occurring together.

The average on Similarities rises but the average on Arithmetic and Vocabulary does not. How odd it would be if social trends mimicked factor loadings in determining what real world cognitive skills progress and which mark time! If they did so, IQ gains would appear factor invariant, but that would be purely accidental (Wicherts et al 2004).

Although radically different trends alter average performances on various WISC subtests between Time 1 and Time 2, note that this leaves a certain stability untouched. Superior performers are much the same degree above average on each and every subtest at both Time 2 and Time 1. Therefore, much the same g will emerge.

Our first paradox is resolved. At any particular time, factor analysis will extract g(IQ) — and intelligence appears unitary. Over time, real-world cognitive skills assert their functional autonomy and swim freely of g — and intelligence appears multiple. If you want to see g, stop the film and extract a snap shot; you will not see it while the film is running. Society does not do factor analysis.

It is a juggernaut that flattens factor loadings and imposes its own priorities. Similarities requires you to solve problems on the spot without a previously learned method. The Performance subtests… require … arranging pictures to tell a story.

General information, math and vocabulary show only small gains on most tests, though the Dutch scored high gains. There have also been IQ identical rises in NAEP tests. Children are learning to read at an earlier age, but they are no better at reading adult literature than before. Basic math skills have shown impressive gains, but mathematical reasoning has been flat.

That means people are no better at geometry and algebra than they were in the past. Ability to solve problems without a previously learned method will be good for managerial, professional, and technical jobs to fill — jobs that often require decisions without the guidance of set rules. We are better at solving novel problems verbally, visually and abstractly.

Previous generations were more rule-governed and less likely to “think outside the box”. Previously, people engaged in pre-scientific, more concrete operational thinking. Now, they are post-scientific and more abstract.

What do dogs and rabbits have in common? They are not retarded, they use syllogistic logic, but they will appear retarded on Similarities. There is more lateral thinking now, and the human mind has been liberated – the liberation of reason from the concrete. There has been the spread of the language and categories of science and on the spot problem solving has been enhanced.

So, Flynn shows that IQ gains are real and that they are the result of environmental progress. The artifact, test taking or bias options cannot be supported by evidence. Test sophistication shows a particular pattern that is not present in the Flynn Effect. Flynn also resolutely shoots down cultural bias.

A series of studies were undertaken by a Russian researcher in first decade of the 20th Century amongst Siberian peasants. He was studying their cognitive styles. Looking at their test answers today, we can see how they were not retarded at all, but would have scored retarded on some of our modern IQ tests.

From the lecture:

Q: All bears are white where there is always snow; in Novaya Zemlya there is always snow; what color are the bears there?

A: I have seen only black bears and I do not talk of what I have not seen.

Q: But what do my words imply?

A: If a person has not been there he can not say anything on the basis of words. If a man was 60 or 80 and had seen a white bear there and told me about it, he could be believed.

This indicates that the Siberian peasant uses syllogistic or concrete logic that was useful for him at the time. As you can see, the questioner tries to get the peasant to think scientifically, but the man stubbornly refuses to, possibly because he is not able to. Not because he is stupid, but because he has never learned how to think this way.

If you tried to explain to the peasant the more abstract and rational way of looking at the problem, he might have argued with you, but more likely he would give you a look that says, “Why do you think that is important?” There was little use in his world for abstract thinking.

Again, in the lecture, Flynn shows that if you asked a boy in 1920 what dogs and rabbits have in common, he would probably have given you an “odd” answer like, “You use a dog to hunt a rabbit.” Nowadays, if someone gave an answer like that, people would crinkle their eyes, look puzzled and say that that answer was “Idiotic!”.

This means it shows contempt for scientific norms, not that it is incorrect – one may indeed use a dog to hunt a rabbit – but modern science does not deem that relationship the most important one between the two animals.

Even a youngster in the ghetto with poor grades nowadays may be able to give the answer we deem “correct”: “Both dogs and rabbits are mammals”. The boy in 1920 is not slow or retarded, he is just using concrete and pre-scientific thinking. The boy in the ghetto, despite his gangsta language and clothing, may at least be able to think like a scientist.

Flynn also shows how Rosenau and Fagan (1997) compare the 1918 debate on women’s suffrage with recent debates on women’s rights and make an excellent case that the latter shows less contempt for logic and relevance. This shows that we are becoming less illogical and irrelevant in our thinking over time.

That our ancestors were illogical or irrelevant in some aspects of their thinking does not mean they were retarded or slow. Illogicality and irrelevance were useful to them in some ways as argumentation styles and in making sense of the world in pleasing and comforting ways; they were culturally sanctioned and incurred little to no penalties.

The Darrow Trial in the 1920′s is another example. They were not retarded or stupid, just unscientific.

8. For instance, B-W IQ differences in South Africa are not factor invariant, so according to Malloy, these differences are not real at all. Malloy’s position would have to be that there are no differences between White and Black IQ’s in South Africa, despite a White score of 100 and a Black score of 67. Is this a position that he is willing to take?

Furthermore, in his book, The g Factor , Jensen himself says that White – South Indian IQ differences are not based on g. Therefore, according to both Jensen and Malloy, Whites and South Asians score the same on IQ tests, despite a White score of 100 and a South Indian score of 81. Is Malloy willing to concede this?

9. Clearly, US B-W differences compared to US White – African differences cannot be explained by the European admixture in the blood of US Blacks. US Blacks are 17.5% White on average. Adding 17.5% White (IQ 100) to the African IQ of 67 gives us 67 + 6 = 73. Instead of the expected 73, we get 85. Clearly, something other than genes is raising US Black IQ.

In addition, numerous studies have been done to try to determine whether or not White admixture in Blacks is correlated with IQ. These studies have found nothing – there is little or no correlation between the degree of White blood in a Black and their IQ score.

Since the US B-W gap is said to be based on g and purely biological, yet there is no difference in Black IQ based on White ancestry level, this takes apart Jensen’s notion that both the B-W difference and g are biological.

10. For instance, Tizard 1974 showed that the Black orphans raised in an orphanage were smarter than the White orphans. Moore 1974 and Willerman 1986 found that Blacks adoptees raised by White mothers had higher IQ’s than adoptees raised by Black mothers.

Scarr and Weinberg (1976, 1983) in a study of Blacks adopted into upper-income White homes in Minnesota, showed that Black children benefited by adoption into high-income white families. Black children had IQ’s of 94 (5 pt gain) and mixed-race (mulatto) adoptees had IQ’s of 99.

The effect wore off by late adolescence and adulthood, but this just shows that home environment only benefits Black children, and the effect wears off by late adolescence to adulthood. But late adolescent to adult Blacks may need a new sort of stimulating environment to maintain their gains from childhood.

Most adoption studies, as noted by the Minnesota trans-racial study above, show gains only in childhood, with gains wearing off by adulthood. However, one study did find lasting gains into adulthood. This effect lasted into adulthood.

11. For instance, from Turkheimer 2003: The models suggest that in impoverished families, 60% of the variance in IQ is accounted for by the shared environment, and the contribution of genes is close to zero; in affluent families, the result is almost exactly the reverse.

12. Huang and Hauser 2000 show that, controlling for social background, Blacks made significant gains in closing the Black-White achievement gap from 1974-1998. Since then, they have begun to lose ground as rightwing policies to cut back on education funds for Blacks have taken hold, harming Blacks. Boozer and Cacciola 2001 show that reducing class size caused an impressive increase in achievement test gains.

13. It is normally a violation of netiquette to print private emails without someone’s permission, but the folks at GNXP demanded that I post Flynn’s letter in its entirely. I do not reprint the whole letter, but I do reprint the parts that are important.

I bold the parts of his letter that are at least a bit confusing to me. A characteristic of the narcissistic young men on GNXP is that they never admit that there is anything they don’t understand, and they never concede a point. Being a grownup and all, I do both.

You raise three questions and my current book (What is intelligence?) illuminates all three. You can get it from amazon.com for $14.96 or probably from a Border’s bookstore:

(1) IQ gains are significant despite not being factor invariant – see chapter 2;

(2) Black gains on white are gains in g even though they are not g gains – sounds odd but true – see pp 60-63;

(3) Blacks do match the whites of 50 years ago but that does not settle the debate. It can be argued that they are the beneficiaries of the effects of modernity over that time and this could be either more or less than the environmental disadvantage they suffer at any given time.

References

Blair, C., Gamson, D. Thorne, S., Baker, D. “Rising mean IQ: Cognitive demand of mathematics education for young children, population exposure to formal schooling, and the neurobiology of the prefrontal cortex”, Intelligence 33 (2005) 93–106.

Boozer, Michael A. and Cacciola, Stephen E. “Inside the ‘Black Box’ of Project STAR: Estimation of Peer Effects Using Experimental Data,” Discussion Paper 832 (Economic Growth Center, Yale University, 2001).

Colom, R., Juan-Espinosa, M., and García, L.F. “The Secular Increase in Test Scores Is a ‘Jensen effect,’” Personality and Individual Differences 30 (2001): 553–58.

Klaus Eyferth “Leistungen verschiedener Gruppen von Besatzungskindern in Hamburg-Wechsler Intelligenztest fur Kinder (HAWIK),” Archiv fur die gesamte Psychologie 113 (1961): 222–41.

Flynn, James R. “The History of the American Mind in the 20th Century: A Scenario to Explain IQ Gains over Time and a Case for the Irrelevance of g,” in Extending Intelligence: Enhancement and New Constructs, edited by P. C. Kyllonon, R. D. Roberts, and L. Stankov (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, forthcoming).

Huang, Min-Hsiung and Hauser, Robert M. (2000) Convergent Trends in Black-White Test-Score Differentials in the U.S.: A Correction of Richard Lynn

Jensen, Arthur The g Factor: The Science of Mental Abilities, pp. 320–21. (Westport, CN: Praeger, 1998)

Juan-Espinosa, Manuel and others “Individual Differences in Large-Spaces Orientation: g and Beyond?” Personality and Individual Differences 29 (2000): 85–98.

Moore, Elsie G. J. “Family Socialization and the IQ Test Performance of Traditionally and Transracially Adopted Black Children,” Developmental Psychology 22 (1986): 317–26.

Must, O., Must, A.. and Raudik, V. “The Flynn Effect for Gains in Literacy Found in Estonia Is Not a Jensen Effect,” Personality and Individual Differences 33 (2001).

Must, Must, and Raudik, V. “The Secular Rise in IQs: In Estonia the Flynn Effect Is Not a Jensen Effect,” Intelligence 31 (2003): 461–71.

“Myth: Social intervention cannot raise IQ;”, in “Intelligence Quotient”, chapter in The Encyclopedia of Adoption.

Rushton, J. Philippe “Secular Gains in IQ Not Related to the g Factor and Inbreeding Depression—unlike Black-White Differences: A Reply to Flynn,” Personality and Individual Differences 26 (1999): 381–89.

Scarr, S. and Weinberg, R. A. “IQ Test Performance of Black Children Adopted by White Families,” American Psychologist 31 (1976): 726–39.

Scarr, S. and Weinberg, R. A. “The Minnesota Adoption Studies: Genetic Differences and Malleability,” Child Development 54 (1983): 260–67 .

Tizard, Barbara “IQ and Race,” Nature 247, no. 5439 (February 1, 1974).

Turkheimer, E., Haley, A., Waldron, M., D’Onofrio, B. and Gottesman, I. I. “Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of IQ in young children”, Psychological Science 14 (6) (2003), 623–628.

Wicherts, J. M., Dolan, C. V., Hessen, D. J., Oosterveld, P., Baal, G. C. M., van Boomsma, D. I., & Span, M. M. “Are intelligence tests measurement invariant over time? Investigating the nature of the Flynn effect.” Intelligence 32 (2004), 509–537 .

Willerman, Lee and others, “Intellectual Development of Children from Interracial Matings: Performance in Infancy and at 4 Years,” Behavioral Genetics 4 (1974): 84–88.

Is Education Causing Flynn Effect Secular IQ Rises?

Realist writes:

I don’t think intelligence can be influenced by education. Education provides knowledge, but intelligence is what use when you lack knowledge.

It’s likely that education can artificially inflate scores on culturally biased IQ tests that depend on vocabulary and knowledge, but the most culture fair tests make every effort to minimize these variables.

Intelligence, like height, is extremely genetic within a given time and place however both of these traits can be profoundly boosted by nutrition. For example height in America has increased by several inches over the 20th century and IQ has increased by 20 points over the last 100 years, thanks to advances in nutrition. Nutrition increases the size and complexity of the brain, causing IQ levels to skyrocket.

People in the developed world are probably near their peak IQ, but people in the third world are still suffering from sub-optimum nutrition. That’s why Blacks in Africa average IQ 67, but pure Blacks born in America average around 80.

Indians average about 80 in India but would probably score 90 with first world nutrition. Actually Indians in America average ridiculously high levels (IQ 110) because only the richest and best educated Indians tend to come to America, and once here, they get a 10 IQ point nutrition boost.

So only biological variables can influence intelligence (genes, nutrition) but within a given country at a given time, it’s almost only genetic. But between generations and between countries, nutrition is HUGE.

Nothing Realist says is true.

No one knows what the IQ’s of “pure Blacks” are in the US, and there are hardly any native US Blacks who are pure anyway. One study found a group of very pure Blacks in Mississippi and Alabama. They were loggers in the pine forests there and worked in lumber mills. They had about 5% White in them on average. These are essentially the purest native Blacks in the US. The African American IQ is 87, not 85.

The South Asian IQ is ~82. South Asians in the US and UK, not a particularly selected group especially ion the UK, have IQ’s that have traditionally been 90-96. New scores of ~110 trumpeted by lying Hindutvadi dogs are suspect. Selective immigration could not have raised the scores more than 3-4 points anyway, and it was hardly selective in the UK, where scores are now ~96. The available data suggest a Flynn rise of ~8-14 points in 2nd generation South Asians merely by moving to the West. The rise is due in part to nutrition but also to schooling and growing up in a high tech modern society.

The Flynn rise is due to much more than nutrition. We know this because scores have only risen on certain IQ subtests. On others they have been completely flat. Much of the rise seems to be on tests that would be influenced by modern mathematics instruction and living in a modern, high-tech society. In addition, modern society emphasizes abstract thinking, so children growing up in the West learn to think abstractly. This makes them smarter, and the rise is shown on IQ tests.

Realist’s contention that education related rises do not show up on culture fair tests is wrong. In fact, the greatest rises have been on Raven’s Progressive Matrices, the most culture-fair and g-loaded test of them all. The increases on Raven’s have been due to modern education methods and living in a high-tech modern society. We know this due to multivariate analysis.

IQ is indeed highly influenced by education. Many of the Flynn rises we have been seeing on IQ tests in the past century seem to be due to education. As a population gets more and more educated, they start getting high Flynn rises in their IQ scores. Studies in Dominica and Kenya have born this out well. Also new ways of teaching mathematics have caused Flynn rises all over the world, possibly due to a direct effect on the developing brain.

Do Cell Phones Fry Your Brain?

Repost from the old site.

Rense, that delightful and disturbing combination of the wonderful, the useful, the deranged and the evil, reports on a disturbing lab experiment.

Way off in the Radiological and Nuclear Safety Authority (RNSA) in Finland (Isn’t “nuclear safety” an oxymoron?) scientists are actually engaged in productive activity, instead of living out bad sci-fi movies like Weissman and his creepy ilk.

Scientists at RNSA have been studying cell phones and human health for two years and the findings are quite disturbing. Appears that cell phone use of as little as one hour at a time causes radiation-induced disruption of the blood-brain barrier in the human brain. This disruption could lead to drain bamage, I mean brain damage, over time. Sorry for typo, but my cell phone just rang.

This finding replicates a previous finding in lab rats. By lab rats I mean actual rodents, not the CE crazies like Weissman in my Humanzeees post.

A recent study in Norway and Sweden found that frequent cell phone users suffer from headaches and tiredness and are frequently assaulted by moviegoers when their phones ring in movie theaters. Actually, the movie theater part is not true; I just made that up.

China is debating whether to force cell phone manufacturers to reduce the radiation levels of these annoying devices. Duh, good idea! The British government issued its usual corporate whitewash, saying, “Further study was needed”. Needed to find out what? That radiation is bad for you? Doh!

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Authority (there’s that “nuclear safety” joke again) also decided that there was no need to issue health warnings about radiation waves shooting into your brain. Who pays these guys?

Genetics and Evolution of IQ and Head Size in Antiquity and Modernity

Objectivity, a very strong HBD type, writes,

All of the race realist ranting about dysgenics grows very tiresome. Humans are intelligent creatures. It’s only logical that the evolution that drove us to this point is ongoing

But the selection that drove us to this point was probably NATURAL selection where only the smartest few could SURVIVE long enough to have children. Since the advent of agriculture, there’s been enough food for everyone, so evolution has been more about SEXUAL selection and that slightly favors low IQ classes and races because these tend to be the most promiscuous (see Rushton).

That’s why there’s probably been virtually no GENETIC increase in brain size or IQ in the last 10,000 years aside from perhaps a decrease in inbreeding. Actually the malnutrition caused by abandoning our hunter/gather diet probably shrunk brain size and IQ for thousands of years, and only with the advent of 20th century nutrition are we reverting back to our big brained selves. This explains the secular rise in brain size and IQ performance, though probably only half of the Flynn Effect is a real rise in intelligence; the rest is just that our increasingly educated society is good at faking high intelligence on IQ tests.

And I don’t think the black-white IQ gap is narrowing. You’re only looking at a small sample of tests. Rushton & Jensen examined the totality of data and found no shrinkage in the gap, and in fact they speculate that the true black American IQ might be only 78 if samples included blacks living in parts of the inner-city so scary it’s too dangerous for psychologists to even test them.

This argument is simply wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. There are so many things wrong with this that I don’t know where to start.

No evidence for genetic increases in brain size or IQ for the last 10,000 years. Fine, but there is also no evidence that there has not been any genetic increases in IQ over 10,000 years. Certainly certain groups such as Ashkenazi Jews, via widespread inbreeding, have evolved extremely high IQ’s. NE Asians have also evolved some very high IQ’s, possibly through preferential breeding with the brightest. There is no evidence that the NE Asian IQ of 105 is not the result of an increase in the past 10,000 years, and in fact, that is exactly what is suggestive. I would suspect that Confucian culture whereby females sought to breed with the smartest males is part of the answer. The same mechanism occurred with the Jews, whereby men not smart enough to study the Torah and Talmud simply left Judaism and converted to Christianity. The females then competed for the most intelligent young males. Females continue to preferentially select for the brightest males in Chinese society today.

Furthermore the article in which this comment appeared involves a comparison of White and Black skulls from colonial times to the present. The study found that skulls of both races grew dramatically larger and more progressive over a 200-300 year period. The study author said some of the result was due to environment (especially in the Blacks) but that most of the changes were genetic. Therefore, there were large increases in Black and White skulls over 200-300 years in the US favoring larger skulls and more progressive features. At the same time, we have seen dramatic increases in US Black IQ versus Caribbean and African Black IQ (Caribbean and African Black IQ = ~70 while US Black IQ = 87). Only a couple of those points can be attributed to White genes, leaving the rest unaccounted for. The changes in US Black skulls occurred since 1900 and involved a trend towards larger and more progressive skulls.

What happened was this. Since colonial times, Whites and Blacks have been selecting for more progressive features and less archaic features. As more progressive features tend to have higher IQ’s than more archaic features, these changes led to increased IQ. There was also selection for larger heads, possibly on the part of females choosing more intelligent males. The selection only occurred since 1900 in Blacks. After Liberation, Blacks were now free to make money. In Black communities, considerable money could be made. More progressive or “Whiter” features were valued and more archaic or “Blacker” features were devalued by both males and females. Black females preferred females with more progressive features for beauty purposes. Black males with more progressive features may have been less discriminated against and more able to pass. Further, more intelligent Black men made more money in the Black community and hence were preferred by females for breeding purposes due to status and income. Before 1900, most Blacks were very poor and very Black looking and there was not a lot to select for in terms of income or progressive features.

In fact, the selection has been so dramatic that Blacks and Whites today resemble each other more than they do their own ancestors! That is, modern Whites look more like modern Blacks than they look like Thomas Jefferson or George Washington. Modern Blacks look more like modern Whites than they look like Sally Hemmings or other slave ancestors from Colonial America.

There is no evidence whatsoever that the agricultural revolution led to a decrease in brain size and IQ. In fact, as civilization expanded dramatically during this era, the opposite seems true.

There is also no evidence whatsoever that the Agricultural Revolution led to increased malnutrition as opposed to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. In fact, most hunter-gatherers have experienced extreme famines with horrible natural selection events possibly involving the deaths of 90-95% of the population. Thus they have thrifty constitutions and are subject to diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, etc. Agricultural populations have no such thrifty constitutions. Hence, it appears that hunter-gatherers have experienced more famine events than agriculturalists which means that hunter gatherers are more subject to malnutrition than farmers. In our modern era, agriculturalists have the highest IQ’s of all and hunter-gatherer IQ’s tend to be lower than that of agriculturalists. This holds true even within races, as African hunter-gatherers are thought to have lower IQ’s than African agriculturalists.

It is not true that only half of the Flynn Effect is an increase in real intelligence. There is just about zero effect of test taking on the Flynn Effect. All of the FE is real. It’s just a matter of what you think it all means. In some ways, we really are smarter than our grandparents, but in other ways, we are not. Increased eduction also makes humans smarter, contrary to your POV.

The B-W IQ gap is definitely narrowing in children. That much is beyond dispute. I say that the adult B-W gap is narrowing by ~2 points for adults also, but that’s a lot more controversial. Even Charles Murray agrees that there has been a 7.5 point narrowing of the B-W IQ gap among adults since 1920.

There is no evidence that the Black IQ is 78, not 87, in the US. Tests are routinely conducted at inner city schools, no matter how dangerous they are. This has been going on for decades now, and at any rate, Black ghettos were much less dangerous 50 years ago, IQ’s were not 78 then.

Books Trim the Brain

Here.

Early home environment, especially the level of cognitive stimulation such as the number of books and educational toys in the home, at age 4, predicted the efficiency of cognitive pruning in the lateral inferior temporal gyrus and another part of the cerebral cortex in the left temporal region at late adolescence (age 16-18). The lateral inferior temporal gyrus is involved in word recognition. A better pruned region will be thinner yet more efficient.

The level of cognitive stimulation at age 8 also had an effect at age 16-18, but less of one.

The mother’s level of intelligence and the degree and quality of her care had no effect on the development of these regions, so we can rule out selection bias and a genetic effect whereby smarter mothers provide a more stimulating environment for their children coincidentally hence a genetic effect masks as an environmental one.

Previous research showed that childhood abuse, neglect and poverty actually stunts the brain.

Early home environment in terms of a cognitively stimulating environment has positive effects on brain development all the way up to near adulthood.

Take that, HBD’ers!

Friendlier People Have Bigger Brains

Here.

There is a lot of evidence starting to converge around this finding. The friendliest people and those who are best at making and keeping friends have larger brains in certain regions, especially the orbital prefrontal cortex. This is actually a highly advanced part of the brain, and a large sized orbital prefrontal cortex is associated with higher intelligence. This goes against common knowledge that brighter people are lousy at making and keeping friends, and that dumber people tend to be friendlier.

It’s thought that this region is involved in “mind-reading” where we think we can figure out what the other person is thinking and thereby adjust our actions and responses to go along with that.

This was one of the last areas of the brain to develop in humans and it looks like its development was at least partly tied in with intense socialization. So it appears that socialization and cooperation also helped to make our brains bigger and better and helped us to evolve as a species. There is also a fair amount of evidence lining up behind this hypothesis.

Of course, conservatives and Ayn Randian objectivists who promote the atomization of man and the radical individualism and war of all against all that obviously goes along with that will hate these findings. The logical implication though is that conservatives with their hostility to all cooperation amongst men are attempting to bring us back to a much more primitive place in our evolution.

Large Declines and Gains in IQ in Adolescence

Here.

A very interesting new study. The study followed 30 adolescents from age 12 to age 16 and recorded declines and increases in IQ of up to 20 points either way in a number of them. These gains and declines were mirrored by increases or decreases in actual brain tissue and structure. Increases in verbal IQ, for instance, were actually mirrored by increases in brain structure in the verbal area of the brain.

I would like to see more work done on this. What were the variables that mediated increases in IQ, and what was associated with declines in IQ? I would particularly be interested in seeing research on Black youths, since they have problems in IQ, and it’s more of a national imperative to increase Black IQ than it is to increase White IQ.

Previous studies have shown that education in the teen years can actually cause increases in IQ.

White youths in general have flat IQ’s from childhood on. On the other hand, in the US, the Black IQ peaks at 95 at age 5 and then declines down to 87 at age 24. There is a noticeable decline in US Black IQ during the teen years.

“The Noise in Their Heads,” by Alpha Unit

It’s one of the most common disabilities among returning war veterans. Construction and factory workers often end up with it.

KT Tunstall got it in 2008 by sitting too close to the speakers at a concert.

Will.i.am of The Black Eyed Peas has it. He says he doesn’t know what silence sounds like any more, and that music is the only thing that eases it.

Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich developed it early in his career, when the loud noise from his shows would follow him offstage. It worsened over time. He’d get up in the middle of the night to turn off the TV, only to realize that the TV wasn’t on.

Other musicians reported to suffer from it include Al Di Meola, Jeff Beck, Danny Elfman, and Andy Partridge.

All of these people and millions more suffer from tinnitus, a constant ringing or buzzing sound in the ear. There is really no way to treat it so far. Different people describe it different ways: ringing, hissing, whooshing, roaring, buzzing, crickets, screeching – even music. It can be intermittent or constant. In one ear, or both ears – or even throughout the entire head. From soft to extremely loud.

Some people suffer from it so badly they can’t work. One retired firefighter told The San Francisco Chronicle that his tinnitus made him suicidal at one point. He says it’s like hearing a “high-voltage electrical buzzing” in his head all the time. Erin Allday, reporting on findings by UC Berkeley scientists, writes:

Doctors have known for several years that the cause of tinnitus is not in the ear alone, but in the brain. In research released last week, the UC Berkeley team found that tinnitus may be similar to the “phantom limb” syndrome that amputees sometimes experience – neurons continue firing in parts of the brain associated with hearing, even though they’re getting no input from the ear.

Shaowen Bao of UC Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute suggests that exposing tinnitus patients to frequencies near the ones they are no longer able to hear might coax neurons to accept input from frequencies similar to ones they lost – remapping the brain, so to speak, and providing relief.

Drugs might also be helpful in preventing the neurons from constantly firing, but it doesn’t appear to be a good idea so far, since the drugs have serious side effects, including blindness.

But these research findings out of UC Berkeley are some of the most promising to date for effective treatment of tinnitus, which can be debilitating for some of the people suffering from it. Michael Merzenich, professor of otolaryngology at UC San Francisco, has been studying brain remapping for years, and says that several patients reported improvement for tinnitus after their brains were retrained – and this was even before Bao and his colleagues reported their findings.

Neuroanatomical Correlates of IQ

The reality is more nuanced than that, as intelligence is indeed linked to grey matter volume, cortical thickness & myelination integrity (Nature Reviews Neuroscience 5:1-13, June 2004).

Leigh Van Allen, in a 1981 book, showed via meta-analysis that head size was modestly correlated with IQ. More recent work with MRI analysis gives us a correlation of .42 with head size and IQ. However, there are problems with this correlation. Eskimos have the largest heads of all, yet their IQ is only 91. Vietnamese have some of the smallest heads of all, yet their IQ is 99.5. Ugandans have huge heads, larger than Southern Europeans. The Ugandan IQ is ~67 and the Southern European IQ is ~95.

It’s hard to make sense of these findings, but the imperfect correlation remains. Within races, surely smarter people simply have bigger heads. One theory is that much of the large Eskimo brain is devoted to visuospatial analysis, something that they are exceedingly good at. This confounds the large head and IQ correlation.

So maybe it’s not so much how big or small your head is, but what might be more important what sort of stuff you have in that small or large head of yours. The small Vietnamese brain may be highly developed in important ways. The large Ugandan brain may have a lot of areas that are not so important. But all of this is exceedingly conjectural and controversial and tends to lead to one conundrum after another.

Race realists love to throw these findings around as if they prove that IQ is completely genetically based. However, environment seems to play a large role in brain development and it seems to give larger brain. Head size has been increasing in the West for a century now, along with improved nutrition and rising IQ’s. Better nutrition is probably giving us bigger heads and making us smarter to boot. But there’s clearly a ceiling on this effect.

One of the the theories suggested to account for the Flynn Effect has been the increased complexity of mathematics education in the West in the past 100 years or so. This math education is thought to cause increased development of frontal parts of the brain. So you see environment can grow your brain too.

One thing that is clear from all of this is that intelligence is biological and not some construct created out of thin air.

High-nutrient Diet Causes 8 point IQ Gain

Repost from the old site.

In a a truly amazing study, Pediatrics notes that premature infants fed a high nutrient diet for only one month after birth showed an increase of 8 IQ points, in males only and only on verbal IQ, at the late age of 16. Further, there were actual significant increases in the volume of a brain structure called the caudate, values which were associated with the verbal score increases.

The regimen was not specified, but was only identified as moderately higher protein and calories and more micronutrients (presumably on the order of a Once a Day type multivitamin of the sort that science insists is absolutely useless).

Blacks have a very high rate of premature infants, and it may be genetic. Although this regimen would not benefit Black females, they already have a higher IQ anyway. Black female IQ (=87) is higher than Black male IQ (=83) at adulthood. I cannot think of any possible genetic reasons for Black females to be smarter than Black males.

But if you go into schools in the ghetto, the honor roll will be almost all Black females, with scarcely a Black male in sight. In 1990, I taught school at Compton High School in Compton, California. I had a Chemistry class filled with almost exclusively Black females. They were calm and well-behaved. This is in part because after Grade 10, even terrible Black ghetto schools improve incredibly.

In most cases, there is still an utter and absolute refusal to learn anything, but at least they are good-natured about it.

You sit there in your teacher’s chair all hour and give them an assignment that the whole class refuses to do, laughing all the time. This is known as a joke. You fight them for a bit, then you give up and just get in on the joke. You sit there and read a book all hour while everyone laughs and jokes and has a good time.

This is best because this way the mostly-Black class is almost completely warm, pleasant, friendly, and well-behaved. By 11th grade, except in the most horrible heart of the ghetto, the bad ones are all long-since dropped out, dead or in jail or juvey. They’re just gone, and that’s all that matters. There are Samoans there too, but they don’t want to learn either. The school Administration is just trying to survive.

The cute Black girls, 18 year old seniors, come up to the teacher, sit down next to his desk, and ask how old he is. Informed, they say they have been looking for a boyfriend right around that age, and they write their phone numbers down and give it to the teacher “accidentally”. Teacher contemplates whether or not to call the number when he is home alone after work. If he does, his credential is pulled, if not, nothing lost.

Anyway, the all-girls Chemistry class at Compton High was a good bunch of girls. They informed that they were all in gangs, but that just means if you are in a Crip neighborhood, everyone there claims Crip so as not to be killed, and also to root for the hometown. As these days I actually claim Norteno for similar reasons, I can relate.

The girls are bright, quiet, polite and hard-working. All of the crappy lies you had about Blacks are getting blown away every minute you teach these Compton High Chemistry class girls.

These days, at age 16, the US Black IQ is 88.4. The US female Black IQ at age 16 must be 90.4, and the Black male IQ must be 86.4. With a rise of 8 points in verbal in those males who were preemies, their full-scale IQ’s would go up by 4 points, since there is no effect on performance IQ. Blacks are better in verbal than on performance IQ anyway.

The Black male IQ of the ex-preemies would be 90.4 at age 16, the same as Black females of that age. With time, the Black female IQ will decline at age 24 to 87. It is unknown if these supplemented Black males will also decline to age 24, but normally Black males would lose 3 IQ points from age 16 to age 24.

Even if this still occurred, Black male IQ in the supplemented males would decline to 87.4 at age 24. Not exactly the greatest thing in the world, but as an IQ fetishist, let us now praise not only great rises, but mild ones too. I suggest that a rise in Black male IQ from 83.5 to 87.4 at age 24, 3.9 IQ points, would hold some real and significant consequences for those males who benefited.