William Saletan is closing out his series on Race, Intelligence and Genes. It is a disappointment.

from: William Saletan
All God's Children
Posted Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2007, at 7:54 AM ET

Why write about this topic? Why hurt people's feelings? Why gratify bigots?

Because truth matters. Because the truth isn't as bad as our ignorant, half-formed fears and suspicions about it. And because you can't solve a problem till you understand it.

Two days ago, I said we could fight the evidence of racial differences in IQ, or we could accept it. Yesterday I outlined the difficulty of fighting it. What happens if we accept it? Can we still believe in equality?

Mr. Saletan feels he's done a good thing here. There's a number of comment threads at Slate that question that assumption, as do I.

HAVE HAD IT WITH SLATE'S RACE-BAITING
Thank you for making life harder
So how does all of this make me feel?

And there's one comment thread that made me hold back a bit.

"Genetic advantages, in other words, are culturally created"
by Mangar
11/18/2007, 7:46 PM

Kudos! I'm worn out from the XX Factor ev psych fraying, but I just want to make the point that Saletan is navigating the gene/environment logic with increasing sophistication.

There is no "good" gene by virtue of the gene itself...everything has to do wtih that gene's fit with its environment. If cultural factors change that environment, then the degree to which that gene can cause its own replication is at least partly determined by cultural factors.

So there's at least one sane person in the conversation.

I ran across a post this week that sound bitter but has bearing. It's titled Racial Equality is Not a Realistic Goal.

When I say “treated fairly,” I don't mean that I'd be called a nigger (I feel the word has to be said for effect, phrases like “the N-word” and “racial slurs” just don't do it justice) or asked to leave, sometimes the unfair treatment is more subtle. It can be a stare, a look of shock, or even patronization. In those situations, I rarely say anything because I know that I'm intruding in their world.

I accept it because I know life isn't fair; this harsh reality has been pounded into my skull since the first time I felt the pangs of mistreatment. Even to say the scales are tipped in favor of white people is an understatement because in reality, they still own the scale, we're just requesting permission to be weighed. Yet too many times the word equality is thrown around frivolously when race is involved; I hear things like “the search for equality,” “will opportunities in America ever be equal?”, and “the fight for equality. “

Equality is a term that should only apply to problems in math books because it doesn't exist in the real world and never will, especially in the context of race. We can't even begin to reduce the weight of race on every issue in society until white people actually understand what it means to be white.

This has bearing because standardized tests judge conformance with some standard. That's a general rule with universal application. The standard here is white men. And the standard will change as it becomes necessary.

Why must IQ tests be routinely restandardized?

Because populations experience IQ gains over time, IQ tests must be constantly restandardized so that subjects are not scored against inaccurate norms. Using obsolete IQ norms can cause problems especially when comparing scores between different groups and populations. Flynn documents an example where scores from a group of Chinese Americans were being compared to an earlier generation of white Americans. This simple mistake caused the researchers to believe that they were working with "an elite IQ group" when in actuality they were working with a group of high achievers with comparable IQs to their peers (Flynn, 1991). In another case documented by Flynn, IQ scores were compared against obsolete norms to incorrectly show large increases in IQ between children adopted into "good" homes and their biological mothers (Flynn, 1984).

A widely held hypothesis is that people lose fluid intelligence as they age. This phenomena is caused by comparing the IQ tests of elderly people with today's young people. However, when compared to the IQ scores of youth in their own era (a half a century before) the IQ losses with age are minimal (Raven, 1992, pp. G22-G26). In a final example, Flynn explains that the WISC, an intelligence test used widely in the United States, was not restandardized for 25 years between 1947 and 1972. This comparison of IQ scores to obsolete norms caused the number of children who were officially classified as mentally retarded to drop from 8.8 million in 1947 to 2.6 million in 1972 (Flynn, 1985).

A note of caution: The Flynn Effect illustrates the difficulty of comparing test results over time, but it says little about the validity of the tests within a given time period (Flynn talks about the validity "within generations").

What this means is I.Q. tests are testing something different now than when they were originally implemented. The confusion is because we are calling it the same thing. This is why I could care less about "the I.Q. gap."

Mr. Saletan trying to end up on the side of the angels. I think he fails, objectively speaking.

10. Genes can be changed. Hereditarians point to phenylketunuria (PKU) as an example of a genetic but treatable cognitive defect. Change the baby's diet, and you protect its brain. They also tout breastfeeding as an environmental intervention. White women are three times more likely than black women to breastfeed their babies, they observe, so if more black women did it, IQs might go up. But now it turns out that breastfeeding, too, is a genetically regulated factor. As my colleague Emily Bazelon explains, a new study shows that while most babies gain an average of seven IQ points from breastfeeding, some babies gain nothing from it and end up at a four-point disadvantage because they lack a crucial gene.

The study's authors claim it "shows that genes may work via the environment to shape the IQ, helping to close the nature versus nurture debate." That's true if you have the gene. But if you don't, nurture can't help you. And guess what? According to the International Hapmap Project, 2.2 percent of the project's Chinese-Japanese population samples, 5 percent of its European-American samples, and 10 percent of its Nigerian samples lack the gene. The Africans are twice as likely as the Americans, and four times as likely as the Asians, to start life with a four-point IQ deficit out of sheer genetic misfortune.

Don't tell me those Nigerian babies aren't cognitively disadvantaged. Don't tell me it isn't genetic. Don't tell me it's God's will. And in the age of genetic modification, don't tell me we can't do anything about it.

First problem: I am not willing to let white folks manipulate Black people's genome. Period. They have not collectively had trustworthy judgement (see Hitler).

Second point: the order in which these mutations occur suggests it is an epigenetic compensation for the intelligence boost given by curvaceous mothers.

The researchers suggest that the fat around fuller hips and thighs holds higher levels of omega3 fatty acids which are essential for the growth of the brain during pregnancy. Fat around the waist may have higher levels of omega6 fatty acids, which are less suited to brain growth.

Asian and white women have no ass, except maybe those with an admixture of African in them. If the research Mr. Saletan refers to (which I note by he phrasing he doesn't own) is correct, it's possible white Americans got their boost from that admixture.

And as for the head size thing...I swear to God I thought is was a joke...it's been established for almost a century, and done specifically to refute the scientific racism of the late 19th and early 20th century, that bodily form (including cranial size) was determined by the length of time parents were exposed to American society.

Franz Boas’s classic study, Changes in bodily form of descendants of immigrants, is a landmark in the history of anthropology. More than any single study, it undermined racial typology in physical anthropology and helped turn the tide against early-20th century scientific racism. In 1928, Boas responded to critics of the immigrant study by publishing the raw data set as Materials for the Study of Inheritance in Man. Here we present a reanalysis of that long-neglected data set. Using methods that were unavailable to Boas, we test his main conclusion that cranial form changed in response to environmental influences within a single generation of European immigrants to the U.S. In general, we conclude that Boas got it right. However, we demonstrate that modern analytical methods provide stronger support for Boas’s conclusion than did the tools at his disposal. We suggest future areas of research for this historically important data set.

Mr. Saletan's efforts here strike me like Bill O'Reilly's complement to Black culture after visiting Sylvia's with Rev. Sharpton..."You were right all along, but things are changing." Problem is, they never were right.