1300 words
Five years away is always five years away. When one makes such a claim, they can always fall back on the “just wait five more years!” canard. Charles Murray is one who makes such claims. In an interview with the editor of Skeptic Magazine, Murray stated to Frank Miele:
I have confidence that in five years from now, and thereafter, this book will be seen as a major accomplishment.
This interview was in 1996 (after the release of the soft cover edition of The Bell Curve), and so “five years” would be 2001. But “predictions” such as this from HBDers (that the next big thing for their ideology, for example) is only X years away happens a lot. I’ve seen many HBDers make claims that only in 5 to 10 years the evidence for their position will come out. Such claims seem strangely religious to me. There is a reason for that. (See Conley and Domingue, 2016 for a molecular genetic refutation of The Bell Curve. While Murray’s prediction failed, 22 years after The Bell Curve’s publication, the claims of Murray and Herrnstein were refuted.)
Numerous people throughout history have made predictions regarding the date of Christ’s return. Some have used calculations to ascertain the date of Christ’s return, from the Bible. We can just take a look at the Wikipedia page for predictions and claims for the second coming of Christ where there are many (obviously failed) predictions of His return.
Take John Wesley’s claim that Revelations 12:14 referred to the day that Christ should come. Or one of Charles Taze Russell’s (the first president of the Watch Tower Society of Jehova’s Witnesses) claim that Jesus would return in 1874 and be ruling invisibly from heaven.
Russell’s beliefs began with Adventist teachings. While Russell, at first, did not take to the claim that Christ’s return could be predicted, that changed when he met Adventist author Nelson Barbour. The Adventists taught that the End Times began in 1799, Christ returned invisibly in 1874 with a physical return in 1878. (When this did not come to pass, many followers left Barbour and Russell states that Barbour did not get the event wrong, he just got the fate wrong.) So all Christians that died before 1874 would be resurrected, and Armageddon would begin in 1914. Since WWI began in 1914, Russell took that as evidence that his prediction was coming to pass. So Russell sold his clothing stores, worth millions of dollars today, and began writing and preaching about Christ’s imminent refuted. This doesn’t need to be said, but the predictions obviously failed.
So the date of 1914 for Armageddon (when Christ is supposed to return), was come to by Russell from studying the Bible and the great pyramids:
A key component to the calculation was derived from the book of Daniel, Chapter 4. The book refers to “seven times“. He interpreted each “time” as equal to 360 days, giving a total of 2,520 days. He further interpreted this as representing exactly 2,520 years, measured from the starting date of 607 BCE. This resulted in the year 1914-OCT being the target date for the Millennium.
Here is the prediction in Russell’s words “…we consider it an established truth that the final end of the kingdoms of this world, and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God, will be accomplished by the end of A.D. 1914” (1889). When 1914 came and went (sans the beginning of WWI which he took to be a sign of the, End Times), Russell changed his view.
Now, we can liken the Russell situation to Murray. Murray claimed that in 5 years after his book’s publication, that the “book would be seen as a major accomplishment.” Murray also made a similar claim back in 2016. Someone wrote to evolutionary biologist Joseph Graves about a talk Murray gave; he was offered an opportunity to debate Graves about his claims. Graves stated (my emphasis):
After his talk I offered him an opportunity to debate me on his claims at/in any venue of his choosing. He refused again, stating he would agree after another five years. The five years are in the hope of the appearance of better genomic studies to buttress his claims. In my talk I pointed out the utter weakness of the current genomic studies of intelligence and any attempt to associate racial differences in measured intelligence to genomic variants.
(Do note that this was back in April of 2016, about one year before I changed my hereditarian views to that of DST. I emailed Murray about this, he responded to me, and gave me permission to post his reply which you can read at the above link.)
Emil Kirkegaard stated on Twitter:
Do you wanna bet that future genomics studies will vindicate us? Ashkenazim intelligence is higher for mostly genetic reasons. Probably someone will publish mixed-ethnic GWAS for EA/IQ within a few years
Notice, though “within a few years” is vague; though I would take that to be, as Kirkegaard states next, three years. Kirkegaard was much more specific for PGS (polygenic scores) and Ashkenazi Jews, stating that “causal variant polygenic scores will show alignment with phenotypic gaps for IQ eg in 3 years time.” I’ll remember this; January 6th, 2022. (Though it was just an “example given”, this is a good example of a prediction from an HBDer.) Nevermind the problems with PGS/GWA studies (Richardson, 2017; Janssens and Joyner, 2019; Richardson and Jones, 2019).
I can see a prediction being made, it not coming to pass, and, just like Russel, one stating “No!! X, Y, and Z happened so that invalidated the prediction! The new one is X time away!” Being vague about timetables about as-of-yet-to-occur events it dishonest; stick to the claim, and if it does not occur….stop holding the view, just as Russel did. However, people like Murray won’t change their views; they’re too entrenched in this. Most may know that I over two years ago I changed my views on hereditarianism (which “is the doctrine or school of thought that heredity plays a significant role in determining human nature and character traits, such as intelligence and personality“) due to two books: DNA Is Not Destiny: The Remarkable, Completely Misunderstood Relationship between You and Your Genes and Genes, Brains, and Human Potential: The Science and Ideology of Intelligence. But I may just be a special case here.
Genes, Brains, and Human Potential then led me to the work of Jablonka and Lamb, Denis Noble, David Moore, Robert Lickliter, and others—the developmental systems theorists. DST is completely at-ends with the main “field” of “HBD”: behavioral genetics. See Griffiths and Tabery (2013) for why teasing apart genes and environment—nature and nurture—is problematic.
In any case, five years away is always five years away, especially with HBDers. That magic evidence is always “right around the corner”, despite the fact that none ever comes. I know that some HBDers will probably clamor that I’m wrong and that Murray or another “HBDer” has made a successful prediction and not immediately change the date of said prediction. But, just like Charles Taze Russell, when the prediction does not come to pass, just make something up about how and why the prediction didn’t come to pass and everything should be fine.
I think Charles Murray should change his name to Charles Taze Russel, since he pushed back the date of the prediction so many times. Though, to Russel’s credit, he did eventually recant on his views. I would find it hard to believe that Murray would; he’s too deep in this game and his career writing books and being an AEI pundit is on the line.
So I strongly doubt that Murray would ever come outright and say “I was wrong.” Too much money is on the line for him. (Note that Murray has a new book releasing in January titled Human Diversity: Gender, Race, Class, and Genes and you know that I will give a scathing review of it, since I already know Murray’s MO.) It’s ironic to me: Most HBDers are pretty religious in their convictions and can and will explain away data that doesn’t line up with their beliefs, just like a theist.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
just like a theist?
God is not a being among other beings rr. his evidence is not of the natural science kind. don’t confuse knowing with being, a particular form of ἐπιστήμη with ὄν.
the ultimate problem for HBDers is their model of independent effects can’t possibly fit reality, but not one of them even understands that it is a model.
a better description of murray is “dumb”.
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If Murray is a fool, you are flat mentally retarded.
In the end, the hereditary ones will defend our point of view by force, ending all the scum of the university campuses.
The West will be saved by brotherhoods of fascist warriors
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HBDers also don’t understand that there are good arguments for coercive family planning and immigration restriction other than eugenics. but liberals don’t understand this either. they used to. they don’t any more as a result of the jewish money take over of the democrat party.
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What’s your explanation for current GWAS studies showing almost perfect correlations with measured IQs of ethnic groups? For instance:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Correlation-between-EDU-PGS-gnomAD-and-population-IQ_fig5_332076417
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rr is a connected guy. he will ask you.
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rr can explain it as fake news.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Davide_Pifferhttps://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Davide_Piffer
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It seems 5 years away isn’t always 5 years away.
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but note that rr can’t do that because he’s already defended piffer.
so rr holds contradictory views. just yesterday he claimed he was smart because his family had infiltrated law enforcement.
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Some Guy, it falls prey to the same problems that all cross-population GWA studies do, along with what was outlined in my article DNA—Blueprint and Fortune Teller?
dealwithit,
That article is over 3 years old see the critiques on GWAS/PGS studies.
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My question is, how is the correlation so high if the method doesn’t work? Random chance? That’s very unlikely.
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The correlation doesn’t matter as PGSs are unreliable when used between ethnic/racial groups.
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But from that criticism you’d expect the correlations to not be that high. So why are they? I guess random chance. LOL
If I recall correctly wasn’t the criticism on PGS that most genomic data comes from Europeans?
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That is a major problem, along with population stratification. The correlation doesn’t matter. Between-ethny GWASs/PGSs are unreliable.
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The correlation itself is strong evidence that inter-ethnic GWAS are reliable on a group level. What are the odds of that happening by random chance?
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The correlation doesn’t matter as PGSs are unreliable when used between ethnic/racial groups.
that PGSs can’t distinguish smart from dumb among individual china people doesn’t mean they can’t distinguish smart from dumb at the level of populations.
i don’t have access to the paper, so i can’t say exactly what the claim is or if piffer is just being a dumb guido. despite the name, piffer is an italian.
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here’s the full article: https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8611/1/1/5/htm
piffer also mentions that filipinos score lowest on PGS of all ethnic groups.
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Where does he mention Filipinos? There is no Filipino sample in that link.
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He doesn’t, that person is just retarded. I’d suggest ignoring him like the rest of us do.
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I don’t know how knew you are to this blog but I’m going to let you in on a little secret. RR is notorious for throwing the baby out with the bath water. The criticism he’s highlighted here is not conceptual and subsequently you cannot just hand wave conflicting experimental results. As the Cruz of his critique and the people he is parroting is that that Thea statistical limitations will provide less accurate results.
These near perfect correlations would literally have to be by chance alone and that’s just improbable to the fullest extent.
Humans are highly homogenous it seriously does not matter if most genomic data is from europeans, but the European samples in this study have an n equal to the Africans. And the sample sizes that are smaller are representative of their proportionate population sizes.
I challenge RR to give me a coherent reason on how population startification could affect these specific results. Spoiler alert: he can’t!
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New
Cruz
These****
Also east Asians may be the exception to this, as there is a relatively smaller n and they are the most populous race
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The PGS derived from European GWA studies then used on other populations doesn’t work. You can’t use PGS from one population and use it on another and expect accurate results. See Richardson and Jones for PGS/GWAS critique. Again, the correlation doesn’t matter as between-population GWA studies can’t be accepted at face value. Five years is still five years away and will remain five years away.
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You can’t just say it shouldn’t work and then not give an alternative explanation for why the results match phenotype. Theoretical criticisms has to give way to empirical evidence. I’m sure there’s plenty of theoretical arguments for why centrally planned economies should work better than capitalism, but no matter how good one thinks those arguments are, one still has to look at empirical evidence for the final word. That’s the scientific method.
If skin color genes had not been found, would you think skin color differences between races are not genetic? What about hair? What about eye color? What about head shapes? What about head sizes? What about brain sizes? What about reaction times? Why is IQ any different?
I’d also like to mention that since no environmental explanation has been found to account for IQ differences, genetics is the most likely explanation by default.
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IQ score differences are due to test construction and who learns what information on the test. One not need invoke “genetics” as a cause of IQ score differences.
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All IQ tests measure the g-factor, that’s why all mental abilities correlate, whether they have to do with knowing any specific information or not. Whether it’s memorizing numbers or solving matrixes or reaction time or pitch differentiation or whatever, it all correlates. And the g-factor has been proven heritable. If the reason you don’t believe in GWAS studies is because you don’t believe in the g-factor, why didn’t you say so right away? Because everyone would know you’re a crank?
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The reasons I “don’t believe in” GWA studies is that they’re confounded by population structure and the “g” factor is a product of test construction (see Richardson, 2002). So “g” is a product of the test constructors, not something “natural.”
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“The PGS derived from European GWA studies then used on other populations doesn’t work. You can’t use PGS from one population and use it on another and expect accurate results.”
Yes you can.
You must of missed the part where I said:
“the European samples in this study have an n equal to the Africans”
That’s in reference to genomic data being used. I’d suggest actually reading the study. The smaller ns in other groups are justified because they are representative of their relative population sizes (except the east asians). Humans are relatively homogeneous for a species. How do you address that criticism?
Your criticism is not conceptual. You can’t hand wave this.
Now explain why population stratification matters to this particular study.
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Any test battery diverse enough will yield the same g-factor.
“To show that different batteries reflect the same g, one must administer several test batteries to the same individuals, extract g factors from each battery, and show that the factors are highly correlated. This can be done within a confirmatory factor analysis framework.[22] Wendy Johnson and colleagues have published two such studies.[50][51] The first found that the correlations between g factors extracted from three different batteries were .99, .99, and 1.00, supporting the hypothesis that g factors from different batteries are the same and that the identification of g is not dependent on the specific abilities assessed. The second study found that g factors derived from four of five test batteries correlated at between .95–1.00, while the correlations ranged from .79 to .96 for the fifth battery, the Cattell Culture Fair Intelligence Test (the CFIT). They attributed the somewhat lower correlations with the CFIT battery to its lack of content diversity for it contains only matrix-type items, and interpreted the findings as supporting the contention that g factors derived from different test batteries are the same provided that the batteries are diverse enough. ” – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics)#%22Indifference_of_the_indicator%22
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His criticism makes absolutely no sense whatsoever anyway. All tests are constructed. If there was no positive manifold then something would be inherently wrong, and not in the way he is trying to convey. We want convergent validity.
RR is not educated enough on psychometry to actually understand this. “muh test construction” is not a valid critique. End of story.
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The problems with EA PGS (and PGS as a whole), obviously, carry over to this analysis. This is highlighted by Richardson Janssens and Joyner, and others.
“Muh test construction” is a valid argument re the “g” factor, as noted by Richardson, Schonemann and others. Jensen’s and Spearman’s “g” have been refuted.
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Well, when multi-racial GWAS have been performed and everybody starts using it to predict all kinds of stuff, will you still be talking about it’s theoretical flaws?
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how can rr be so autistic that he doesn’t know that melo = peepee?
asnwer: rr is NOT italian.
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Your comment proves that you have a low social IQ.
Pumpkin is more intelligent than you. How does that feel?
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meLo ,
“You must of missed the part where I said:
“the European samples in this study have an n equal to the Africans””
Wouldnt having the other gruops be non-black bias the study considering that non-africans have less genetic diversity?
“Now explain why population stratification matters to this particular study.” “Spoiler alert: he can’t!”
Becuase east asians are more related to other groups such as colombians or south asians while at the same time having less genetic diversity.
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“Wouldnt having the other gruops be non-black bias the study considering that non-africans have less genetic diversity?”
I don’t think so because non-African genes are mostly just a subset of African ones
“Becuase east asians are more related to other groups such as colombians or south asians while at the same time having less genetic diversity.”
Be more specific how would that cause the study to be inaccurate?
The PGS correlations to IQ are almost perfect. This implies no bias whatsoever.
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Piffer was one of the few OpenPsych pseudoscientists I didn’t an article on; I did most the others.
Entire talk page was Mikemikev trolling:
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Talk:Davide_Piffer#Request_to_delete_talk_page
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You must of missed the part where I said…
“of” is not a verb. should be “‘ve”. this grammatical error shows you have a low social IQ peepee.
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The PGS correlations to IQ are almost perfect.
melo also believes his horoscope perfectly predicts his future.
show us how piffer came by his figures.
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The PGS correlations to IQ are almost perfect./
melo also believes his horoscope perfectly predicts his future.
show us how piffer came by his figures.
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“dealwithit” sounds like an absolute imbecile with no understanding of what he’s reading.
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Please define what DST means. I just discovered this blog.
Dan Kurt
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Developmental Systems Theory
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DST (developmental systems theory) is an epigenetic approach to development and evolution. Evolution how it is popularly stated states that evolution occurs through changes in gene frequencies, but developmental systems theorists state that it’s not only about changes in gene frequencies but in whole developmental systems. It’s pretty much an organismal—holist—look at evolution and not a reductionist one (like Dawkins’). See:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9780470015902.a0003452.pub2
Click to access Developmentalsystemstheory.pdf
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.455.2625&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Click to access C1_41.pdf
So developmental systems theorists claim that (1) genes and environments are not separable since they dynamically interact; (2) organisms are more than genes (since more than genes get inherited); and (3) that the blank slate-human nature dichotomy is false as there is no privileged level of causation in developmental systems.
I’d recommend reading Susan Oyama’s The Ontogeny of Information (the founding text of the field) along with Denis Noble, Ken Richardson, Jablonka and Lamb, David Moore, Sterely and Griffiths, Paul Griffiths and Karola Stotz.
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DST is a just-so story which makes no predictions.
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False. DST is a cornerstone of the EES (Extended Evolutionary Synthesis) which makes novel predictions.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2015.1019
See also:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5566817/
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this reminds me of rr:
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rr needs to edit wikipedia long and hard in the butt.
DST, unlike conventional scientific theories, is not directly used to help make predictions for testing experimental results; instead, it is seen as a collection of philosophical, psychological, and scientific models of development and evolution
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Right, I agree with that. My claim was that DST is a cornerstone of the EES (extended evolutionary synthesis) which does indeed make (novel) predictions.
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Now I’m waiting for Nigeria to beat SpaceX to Mars in five years.
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nigeria will beat the philippines, i can tell you that.
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IQ is mostly related with vocabulary size. It’s significantly intratable increase people’s vocabulary size when they reach their limits. How explain this, RR*
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The fallacy I’ve well documented from people like Murray is they sneakily shift from a strong (Jensen/Rushton etc) hereditarianism hypothesis to trivialised weak hereditarianism, when the latter is defensible and not a controversial position:
“Many researchers who are primarily interested in environmental differences associated with racial and ethnic differences in intelligence would not be at all perturbed by an ironclad demonstration that, say, 3% of the [black-white] gap is due to genetic differences.” (Hunt, 2010 Cambridge University Press. pp. 434-435)
The above is probably what science will demonstrate in years to come and then these liars like Murray will falsely claim they have been vindicated.
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