14 Comments

Turkheimer apparently has a relatively short time preference, preferring in-group status now over long-term contribution to empirical truth. Whatever turns you on, as we used to say.

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This was a really good and lucid article.

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a splendid read as always Emil

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"there cannot be a cause of variance that makes one group better at, say, vocabulary, without also making the other group better".

Not sure if I understand this. The sun makes white people more sunburned without making black people sunburned.

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Instructive post. I have heard what seems a slightly different version of the default hypothesis, that is: ``All the factors that affect a phenotype in individuals also affect that phenotype in groups''. This weaker form allows factors affecting the phenotype in groups. Statistical discrimination theories are examples of this additional channel. Maybe you think the version I cited and yours are the same; or you disagree with the one I reported?

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We care about racial differences because races and the coalition partners have been able to leverage it for state power.

Back when “the workers”, who I would guess on the whole had lower iqs than the bosses, could organize effectively they also demanded their pound of egalitarian flesh.

The only way to stop the agitprop is to stop the political effectiveness. Mostly that means the aggressed putting aside their differences and drawing a line in the sand.

Easier said then done I know.

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Did i understand that right? You found skin color is independent factor. For example %70 sub-saharan black are smarter than darker %70 sub-saharan blacks. But you found no correlation within siblings. So, This result is consistent with shared-environment model?

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《Indeed, it would be a miracle if they just happened to be exactly identical in their averages. There is no cosmic egalitarian God. 》

Isn't it a miracle that groups lived in very different environments for thousonds of year have the same neuro-biological operating mechanism or same sensibility level against environmental factors?

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People are generally insteresting social outcomes(income, social status etc.) rather than cognitive ability. This is still important thing if racial phenotype would be independent factor on SES.

* Attractiveness associated with labor market earnings

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6261420/

"We use unique longitudinal data to document an economically and statistically significant positive correlation between the facial attractiveness of male high school graduates and their subsequent labor market earnings. There are only weak links between facial attractiveness and direct measures of cognitive skills and no link between facial attractiveness and mortality. Even after including a lengthy set of characteristics, including IQ, high school activities, proxy measures for confidence and personality, family background, and additional respondent characteristics in an empirical model of earnings, the attractiveness premium is present in the respondents’ mid-30s and early 50s. Our findings are consistent with attractiveness being an enduring, positive labor market characteristic."

What is your opinion about this?

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