Sunday, December 14, 2008

A Couple of Challenges to Rushton's Theories

We have thrown out this challenge before, but it's time to throw it out one more time.

IQ's of NE Asians in the US were behind those of US Whites until the 1970's or so, when they gradually surpassed them. How does a hereditarian theory of IQ make sense of this?

Pre-1970's:

IQ

US NE Asian 96.5
US White 100

1970's-present:

IQ

US NE Asian 108*
US White 103*

* After renorming. Pre-renorming, the scores would be 105 and 100 for NE Asians and Whites respectively. The actual gain was 7.5 points for NE Asians in the US.

Their genes didn't change one bit. One happened? Keep in mind that all hereditarians say that IQ differentials between races are 70% due to genes. If this is so, the initial set of figures from pre-1970's NE Asians vs. Whites should have been should have been "intractable" as Rushton suggests, since 70% of that difference was due to heredity.

NE Asians should only have been able to move up a point or so against US Whites. Instead, they not only bridged the gap, but surpassed it. The new data, according to Rushton, is once again 70% genetic, and Whites should never be able to gain more than 1-2 points of that gap, and NE Asians should not be able to lose more than 1-2 points of that gap.

Note that each new gap automagically becomes 70% genetic, since Rushton says that all racial gaps in IQ are 70% genetic.

The facts of the NE Asian IQ change in the US over 60 years are impossible to explain according to Rushton's theory. Conclusion: Rushton's theory must be wrong.

Rushton notes that Whites have larger brains than Africans and that this proves that the difference in IQ between Blacks and Whites is hereditary and intractable. Further, he implies that the head size variance lines up with the IQ variance. But that does not make sense.

If brain size always lines up with IQ, explain this:

Note that Ugandans (IQ = 67) have larger brains than S. Europeans (IQ = 97). Vietnamese have some of the smallest brains on Earth, but their IQ's are 99.5.

The head size = IQ theory needs a lot of work.

No comments:

Post a Comment