Great point. I’ve been troubled by that particular comment of his–”anyone who has to…” but you’ve pretty much nailed the issue (with that proverbial hammer).

Problem with all this IQ/race dialog is that the proponents of race and IQ can baffle any conversation with streams of data, statistics, and arguments that do little more than obfuscate.

I’m still grappling with Linda S. Gottfredson latest at Cato Unbound.

General Specific (San Diego, CA)

Thanks, GS.

I read a number of scientists asking that James Watson be remembered for his work, not his foray into racism. I never quite understood why these were supposed to be mutually exclusive. James Watson is one of the greatest scientists of the last century. He is also a racist, albeit not of the lynching kind. Neither statement has any bearing on the other. Do I think it’s sad that such a great mind has fallen prey to such an insidious belief system? Sure I do, but his views need to be confronted, not swept under the rug of his scientific achievements.

All domestic dogs, from Chihuahua to Great Dane, are species canis familiaris; breed genetic differences result from enforced separation by breeders/trainers for the last 800 years. Domestic dogs are all one species. Similarly, all humans are species homo sapiens with race differences resulting from separation over thousands of years by geographic barriers. Dog breeds and human races are directly analogous as sub-groups within the respective species.

Much can be learned from studying dogs; medical science does a great deal of this to avoid experimentation on humans. The brain is no exception, as dog and human brain structure and information flow processes are very similar to that in humans. Numerous dog brain studies to analyze human brain diseases/conditions are in the medical literature.

Any experienced domestic animal breeder will acknowledge the profound influence of genetics on intelligence and behavior. Traits such as trainability, aggression, prey drive, docility, bite inhibition are highly heritable and difficult to modify. Extensive evaluations of dog intelligence have developed breed rankings according to ease of training (number of repetitions needed to learn a command) and reliability (percent of time) of correct response to learned commands. Instinctive ability to to take correct action in complex situations is also recognized to vary with breed (there is a valid reason police K-9 units use German Shepherds instead of Pit Bulls). Among dog breeds, there is a huge Achievement_Gap. This is all easily Googled…

You can talk openly about dogs without being politically incorrect. You won’t get into trouble, lose your career or research grants, as you might if you reveal unpleasant truths about humans: e.g., James Watson, Jimmy the Greek, Al Campanis, Don Imus…

Humans are not exempt from the fundamental rules of biology.

Big Don, as someone who has used in casual conversation the divergence of dog breeds as an example of how fast evolution can work, I am fully aware of this. I am also aware that behavioural traits are as much a part of this story as physical traits. I also use this example against the “blank slate” philosophy. But all that this example demonstrates is that behavioural traits can be heritable. But we already know this, not just by analogy with dogs, but by direct evidence in humans of the heritability of depression and schizophrenia, and from the many studies which show that IQ is has a heritable component.

But what has not been shown is that these heritable differences are distributed differently in different ethnic groups. The “rules of biology” as you put it dictate only that there will be genetic differences between isolated groups of people, and the longer they are genetically isolated the more these differences will accumulate. It does not follow that those genetic differences will translate into differences in intelligence unless (i) some mutation that alters intelligence arises by chance in one of those isolated groups and not others or (ii) there is a differential selection pressure that rewards intelligence in one ethnic group and not another.

In the case of dog breeds, there is a major differential selection pressure because breeders were looking for different traits in different dogs and created enormous selection pressures that would, I imagine, almost never be replicated in nature. For your argument to work, you would have to explain why intelligence is strongly selected for in Europe and Asia but not in Africa. Since Jews have the highest IQs on average, you have to explain why intelligence was selected for among Jews but not so much in Europeans. And even if you can explain why intelligence was differentially selected, you have to explain how such strong differential selection was implemented. To the everlasting chagrin of the failed eugenics movement, there are no human breeders telling people whom to mate with (despite popular belief there was virtually zero selective breeding of slaves in America and even then the slave era in America lasted only from 1619 to 1865, not 8000 years, and humans have a much longer reproductive cycle than dogs). And then you need to explain why a thorough scan of the human genome has failed to reveal the presence of strong IQ-determining genes let alone significant ethnic variations among them.

The best analogy for human evolution is not domestic dogs but wolves. When the first people reached the Americas 12-14,000 years ago, wolves were already there. Wolves crossed the Bering Strait in the Pleistocene era around 300,000 years ago. In other words, the New World wolves were genetically isolated from Old World wolves for three to four times longer than humans have been geologically separated. Despite this much longer period of genetic isolation, wolves from Europe and America are almost identical in size, colour, and behaviour. The biggest change in behaviour is that Eurasian wolves form smaller packs than American wolves. But this is a recent change and it is not genetic. It is due to reduced habitat forcing a change in predatory habits.

James Watson was wrong. So was Jimmy the Greek. So was Al Campanis. But at least they were genuine mistakes. Don Imus??? I cannot believe that anyone would defend Don Imus for telling “unpleasant truths.” Don Imus was more in the business of unpleasant tirades than truths: calling people “niggers” to their faces, calling a black anchorwoman a “cleaning lady,” calling a talented black journalist a “quota hire,” and that doesn’t include his insults towards Jews, women, gays, Muslims, basically anyone who isn’t a straight white Protestant man. You seem to be acquainted with Google. Perhaps you could use it to explore the arguments against what these people have claimed.

My point was not the speed of evolution, but rather multiple groups emerging from isolation within a single species, said groups having unique characteristics, significant dfferences in cognitive performance exist among the those groups. Dogs vividly reveal that.

As for Europeans emerging with higher intelligence than Africans, it’s a no-brainer. In the colder climates, food must be planned for and stored during growing season in order to survive the winter. By contrast, plentiful food was available year-round for hunter-gatherers in sub-Saharan Africa. It’s all in Hart, “Understanding Human History.”

Did you know that even today, in Zimbabwe, the blacks given the productive farms Mugabe stole from the white famers that stayed on after Rhodesia folded, those black “farmers” ate all their seed corn! Part of the reason they are starving there now instead of exporting food as before under white rule.