Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
There's such a powerful urge to believe that differences result from genetics rather than culture. Going back to Tyler Cowen's review of Charles Murray's latest, the evidence for that is really thin.
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I’ve read the arguments that cooperation and competition were evolutionary advantages. I’ve yet to read the compelling argument that they aren’t far more exclusive than they are complimentary. There’s a deep, innate impulse to find alliances and enemies. I can’t help thinking this lizard brain predisposition underpins the genetic “science” Stephens raises.
And this is without considering the dubious value of IQ. Most of success today is, as Cohen notes in another book, comprised of conscientiousness, organizational skills, and luck. The last is impossible to measure. The first two are more discipline than high mental function. If anything, they may indicate for slightly lower intelligence, as they demonstrate capacity to endure the mundane at a level a higher intelligence would find insufferable.
To assert IQ is a supremely valuable measure or to even backhandedly suggest an historically oppressed group has an above average IQ, which must invite the suggestion the high IQ is in part the basis for the oppression, are arguments too dumb to engage.
