1050 words
I started this blog in June of 2015. I recall thinking of names for the blog, trying “politcallyincorrect.com” at first, but the domain was taken. I then decided on the name “notpoliticallycorrect.me”. Back then, of course, I was a hereditarian pushing the likes of Rushton, Kanazawa, Jensen, and others. I, to be honest, could never ever see myself disbelieving the “fact” that certain races were more or less intelligent than others, it was preposterous, I used to believe. IQ tests served as a completely scientific instrument which showed, however crudely, that certain races were more intelligent than others. I held these beliefs for around two years after the creation of this blog.
Back then, I used to go to Barnes n Noble and of course, go and browse the biology section, choose a book and drink coffee all day while reading. (I was drinking black coffee, of course.) I recall back in April of 2017 seeing this book DNA Is Not Destiny: The Remarkable, Completely Misunderstood Relationship between You and Your Genes on the shelf in the biology section. The baby blue cover of the book caught my eye—but I scoffed at the title. DNA most definitely was destiny, I thought. Without DNA we could not be who we were. I ended up buying the book and reading it. It took me about a week to finish it and by the end of the book, Heine had me questioning my beliefs.
In the book, Heine discusses IQ, heritability, genes, DNA testing to catch diseases, the MAOA gene, and so on. All in all, the book is against genetic essentialism which is rife in public—and even academic—thought.
After I read DNA Is Not Destiny, the next few weeks I went to Barnes n Noble I would keep seeing Ken Richardson’s Genes, Brains, and Human Potential: The Science and Ideology of Intelligence. I recall scoffing even more at the title than I did Heine’s book. Nevertheless, I did not buy the book but I kept seeing it every time I went. When I finally bought the book, my worldview was then transformed. Before, I thought of IQ tests as being able to—however crude—measure intelligence differences between individuals and groups. The number that spits out was one’s “intelligence quotient”, and there was no way to raise it—but of course there were many ways to decrease it.
But Richardson’s book showed me that there were many biases implicit in the study of “intelligence”, both conscious and unconscious. The book showed me the many false assumptions that IQ-ists make when constructing tests. Perhaps most importantly, it showed me that IQ test scores were due to one’s social class—and that social class encompasses many other variables that affect test performance, and so stating that IQ tests are instruments to identify one’s social class due to the construction of the test seemed apt—especially due to the content on the test along with the fact that the tests were created by members of a narrow upper-class. This, to me, ensured that the test designers would get the result they wanted.
Not only did this book change my views on IQ, but I did a complete 180 on evolution, too (which Fodor and Pitattelli-Palmarini then solidified). Richardson in chapters 4 and 5 shows that genes don’t work the way most popularly think they do and that they are only used by and for the physiological system to carry out different processes. I don’t know which part of this book—the part on IQ or evolution—most radically changed my beliefs. But after reading Richardson, I did discover Susan Oyama, Denis Noble, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb, David Moore, David Shenk, Paul Griffiths, Karola Stotz, Jerry Fodor. and others who opposed the Neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis.
Richardson’s most recent book then lead me to his other work—and that of other critics of IQ and the current neo-Darwinian Modern Synthesis—and from then on, I was what most would term an “IQ-denier”—since I disbelieve the claim that IQ tests test intelligence, and an “evolution denier”—since I deny the claim that natural selection is a mechanism. In any case, the radical changes in both of my what I would term major views I held were slow-burning, occurring over the course of a few months.
This can be evidenced by just reading the archives of this blog. For example, check the archives from May 2017 and read my article Height and IQ Genes. One can then read the article from April 2017 titled Reading Wrongthought Books in Public to see that over a two-month period that my views slowly began to shift to “IQ-denalism” and that of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES). Of course, in June of 2017, after defending Rushton’s r/K selection theory for years, I recanted on those views, too, due to Anderson’s (1991) rebuttal of Rushton’s theory. That three-month period from April-June was extremely pivotal in shaping the current views I have today.
After reading those two books, my views about IQ shifted from that of one who believed that nothing could ever shake his belief in them to one of the most outspoken critics of IQ in the “HBD” community. But the views on evolution that I now hold may be more radical than my current views on IQ. This is because Darwin himself—and the theory he formulated—is the object of attack, not a test.
The views I used to hold were staunch; I really believed that I would never recant my views, because I was privy to “The Truth ™” and everyone else was just a useful idiot who did not believe in the reality of intelligence differences which IQ tests showed. Though, my curiosity got the best of me and I ended up buying two books that radically shifted my thoughts on IQ and along with that evolution itself.
So why did I change my views on IQ and evolution? I changed my views due to conceptual and methodological problems on both points that Richardson and Heine pointed out to me. These view changes I underwent more than two years ago were pretty shocking to me. As I realized that my views were beginning to shift, I couldn’t believe it, since I recall saying to myself “I’ll never change my views.” the inadequacy of the replies to the critics was yet another reason for the shift.
It’s funny how things work out.
NotPoliticallyCorrect 
Eagerly awaiting the first results from the Congolese space program.
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rr is eagerly awaiting too.
I was drinking black coffee, of course.
rr changed his views after he fell in love with a black man.
sad.
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I’ve been debating hereditarians since 2010; you don’t need to deny the validity of IQ to debate them, nor deny genetic factors underlie around 50% percent of the difference in general intelligence among individuals (0.5 within-group heritability).
The real controversy is only about whether genetic factors underlie (mean) IQ differences between populations.
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The way I worded that is slightly inaccurate since most intelligence researchers seem to rule out 0% between-group heritability as well as 100% between-group heritability. Those are both very improbable extremes. The ‘hereditarian hypothesis’ as popularised by Jensen, Rushton, Lynn etc, estimates between-group heritability at 50-80%. This is what the RationalWiki article I wrote criticises: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Hereditarianism
Intelligence researchers arguing for a more moderate form of the hereditarianism hypothesis, I’ve never bothered to much criticise.
It’s funny then how I’ve been misrepresented and attacked all over the internet by the ideologue hereditarians at OpenPsych – they never actually bothered to read my articles and still run around the internet lying about my position. VDARE for example bizarrely calls me an “SJW” and “blank-slatist” despite I’ve spent nearly a decade arguing against blank-slatism.
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You’re bad at arguing BGH and WGH, especially since you cite Lewontin in the RationalWiki.
It has been argued before that you can’t extrapolate within group heritability (WGH) for heritability between groups (BGH). Meaning that twin studies on the heritability of IQ, if done on whites only, just shows what the heritability of IQ is for whites rather than for blacks or Asians. Thus, you can’t extrapolate within group heritability to between group heritability, Indeed, this is a position that has been argued against the hereditarian position on race and intelligence. For example, “the existence of significant heritability for IQ within the populations that have been studied does not imply that average IQ differences between races are in whole or in any part due to genetic differences . . . Various writers – the most prominent being Arthur Jensen . . . – have taken the heritability of IQ to show that these differences must have a genetic base. No such conclusions follow” (Papineau 1982).
This criticism was first said by Lewontin to Jensen, with an example using two identical seeds and different soils. The example goes that if you take two seeds from the same homogeneous sample and then planted them in two different soils (one rich in nutrients and the other poor), you will get a result of phenotypic differences within each of the two groups of plants that will be 100% heritable, but the differences between the two plants will be entirely environmental due to the different environments (essentially saying the heritability of x between the two plants, or in this case race, is 0).
There are three ways to argue within group heritability to between group heritability, as proposed by Sesardic (2005): (H1) High WGH means high BTW; (H2) High WGH, by itself and nothing more, entails high BGH; (H3) High WGH, together with other clusters of data, establishes a non-zero BGH.
Lewontin and others have attacked H1 and H2, while the hereditarian position primarily rests on H3. While resting their arguments on H1 and H2, critics have accused hereditarians, primarily Jensen, of an “elementary error” (Lewontin 1975). Gould (1977) also attributes H1 to Jensen. The fact that Lewontin and others (e.g. Block 1995; Rose et al. 1984) think that the seed example disproves a connection between BWG and WGH shows that their attack is on H1 and not H3.
Lewontin (1973) states that “The error of confusing the heritability within a population with the causes of differences between populations was clearly made by Arthur Jensen in his famous article in the Harvard Educational Review, when he tried to infer from heritability studies within the American white population the causes of differences between races. This elementary blunder would not be tolerated in a freshman class in statistics or genetics. We may well wonder how it came to be made by a professor!”
The fault in the argument proposed on top for BGH not being the same as WGH is that Jensen never intended to even defend H1 or H2. If he did, then it would make no sense as to why he tried to rule of environmental factors like SES, birth order, etc. Jensen has also claimed that Lewontin attacked a straw man: The main thrust of Lewontin’s argument, as he sees it, actually attacks only a straw man set up by himself: the notion that heritability of a trait within a population does not prove that genetic factors are involved in the mean difference between two different populations on the same trait. I agree. But nowhere in my Harvard Educational Review discussion of race differences do I propose this line of reasoning, nor have I done so in any other writings (Jensen 1976b).
Jensen has also stated: “So all we are left with are various lines of evidence, no one of which is definitive alone, but which, viewed all together, make it a not unreasonable hypothesis that genetic factors are strongly implicated in the average Negro–white intelligence difference” (Jensen 1969).
This statement by Jensen doesn’t fit the criticisms made by others against him, especially when they rest on H1 and H2. Jensen clearly states that high BGH doesn’t automatically mean high WGH, rather that the inability of environmental factors to explain the totality of the black-white IQ gap could mean that genes play a larger role than the environment.
Your shitty attacks on herititability has been responded to for years
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you’re both ‘tarded.
The Secret is the hereditists think their only opposition is a bunch of blue haired lesbians and lying jews…what they term “environmentalists”.
there ain’t no stinking environmentalists fucktards.
hereditism and environmentalism are two sides of the same coin of retardation.
capiche?
if you don’t capiche, then you’re ‘tarded.
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@ Unorthodox Theory
“There are three ways to argue within group heritability to between group heritability, as proposed by Sesardic (2005): (H1) High WGH means high BTW; (H2) High WGH, by itself and nothing more, entails high BGH; (H3) High WGH, together with other clusters of data, establishes a non-zero BGH.”
This straw man fallacy is covered on the RationalWiki article I wrote:
“Jensen also never tried to quantify an estimate for between-group heritability from this argument and only ever claimed high within-group heritability is evidence for non-zero between-group heritability, supporting hereditarianism. This is arguably a straw man since almost all scientists are not against the possibility group differences in IQ are negligibly (1-5%) caused by genes, which is above zero, but most these scientists are against hereditarianism… both Jensen and Rushton throughout their careers would focus on trying to falsify zero between-group heritability, that they described as the “only environmental”[44] or “only culture” view.[45] Charles Murray often uses the same straw man and defines hereditarianism as only above-zero between-group heritability to argue “if you say it is likely that there is any genetic component to the black-white difference in test scores, the roof crashes in on you.”
Jensen, Rushton, Sesardic, Murray etc should have be trying to establish high BGH not merely non-zero BGH. Instead they shift to the much weaker position that few, if any scientists, actually take issue with-
“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.” – Earl Hunt, Human Intelligence. (2010). Cambridge University Press. pp. 434-435.
I don’t take issue with Sesardic’s arguments and data that strongly suggests non-zero BGH. But non-zero BGH is not 0.50-0.80 BGH as argued by Jensen (1973), Jensen & Rushton (2005), Lynn (2006) etc.
Why do these hereditarians shift to the much weaker hypothesis they were never originally defending? Well, because they’re dishonest arseholes and it’s obviously easier to defend a much weaker and trivialised form of hereditarianism that anti-hereditarians don’t even have a problem with.
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How else but racial differences can you explain that Subsaharans didn’t invent shit?
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“How else but racial differences can you explain that Subsaharans didn’t invent shit?”
So how do you explain the northern inhabitants of Europe were low IQ, to put it bluntly, primitive/savages in ancient times (read how Romans described ancient Britons etc). Conveniently hereditarians like Richard Lynn always avoid answering this.
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The straw man I detailed above is still being used –
“Hereditarians believe that genes play a non-zero factor in differences. If you believe genetics account for anywhere between 1-100% you are a hereditarian.”
How absurd and dishonest.
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“How else but racial differences can you explain that Subsaharans didn’t invent shit?.”
See the article and comment section here.
Some pointers,
Ceramics independently when Europeans did not (Gravettian culture Fired clay isn’t the same)
Specific-ore furnaces that certain modern Blast varieties can’t use for.
High degree of language translation (compared to Native Americans) to put in the form of drum beats to use over long distances to compensate for lack of writing.
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Some very good points made in that thread and you seem to know your stuff phil. Northern Europe & Sub-Saharan Africa though was considerably more backwards in ancient times than the circum-Mediterranean civilisations, this is undeniable. The problem with hereditarians is they don’t ever talk about how primitive the ancient Germanics or Celts were to Greeks and Romans and they treat “Caucasoids/Europeans” as some sort of monolithic block.
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Thanks
Also worth noting it is one of the few Medieval areas to make native glass beads outside of Asia or Venice.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/ileife-and-igbo-olokun-in-the-history-of-glass-in-west-africa/271A101DC136996C91364464ED61A258/core-reader
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I think a case could be made Ghana & Mali empire was far more impressive than anything in northern Europe in medieval times. Northern Europe was still lagging behind still then; things only seem to have excelled in past 500 years, industrial revolution, British empire etc.
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I lack expertise in Medieval Northern European culture, but I do give high regard to their Renaissance art.
Ghana and Mali technologically was somewhat behind the rest of the Islamic world (this being due to the largely Pagan foundation of much of the cultures), but caught up by the Songhai, which technically was more prominently a mixed is Islamic and animism under the intial rule of Sonni Ali.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonni_Ali
However, this was mainly due to the nature of the society mainly being a continuation of older Trans-saharan culture connected through Islam maintained for economic purposes.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248548075_Coping_with_uncertainty_Neolithic_life_in_the_Dhar_Tichitt-Walata_Mauritania_ca_4000-2300_BP
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Heine had me questioning my beliefs…about judaism.
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I recall back in April of 2017 seeing this…I would keep seeing…Boys in the Sand (1971).
and it made me sad.
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yet you still have pictures of flushton, densen, furry, mongofredson, and derrr(!)win(-ning!) on your blog.
this shows me you are totally sincere and NOT a mossad agent.
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why does rr keep asking peepee questions like, “what do you think of this peepee?”
peepee is dumb, black, and a lesbian. how can rr not see that?
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rr lost all credibility he may have had when he insisted morton had faked his measurements.
FACT!
europeans have the biggest brains.
rr is NOT italian. he’s a jew or some other italian wannabe.
just wanting to be italian doesn;t make you italian rr.
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