I heart girl6!!!

Greetings, and hiya g6!

I'd like your take on whether the scientific study of race differences on IQ test scores is something that should be researched or marginalized / ignored.

In other words, is even asking the question racist, and should scientists reject this work outright?

Thanks

B

Sorry, I thought I was posting that in the "ask a question" section, but I see it appeared only as a comment...

Here's my question: Are the only two choices to carry out race-based research on IQ vs. "ignore" this phenomenon? Or is there a third option, such as to recognize the overwhelming evidence that races are not really very good biological categories to begin with, and perhaps even to question the motivations of people who insist on using race as a category in carrying out scientific studies. Because it is so 19th century, after all.

Personally I'm white & female, & have been notified that as such I can't do math.

Kahn: Someone has put two and two together on your behalf. Unfortunately they came up with three!

@Greg

Then why do you keep using the term "race"?

Yolande, is that a serious question? In order to talk about why something is nonsense, you have to be able to talk about the nonsense concept. So, in this case, the biological concept of "races" within the human species is bunk, so of course you have to use the word "race."

@Rob B

So-called scientists using the word "race" are perpetuating the myth that it exists. Why perpetuate a myth? Aren't scientists supposed to use the correct terminology to inform the public? In my view, if you want to get rid of racism, scientists (and indeed everyone) should stop using the word "race" and start using the correct term/s to inform the public instead of perpetuating an archaic concept that doesn't exist.

I just listened to the alcohol episode, and in it Desiree asks twice about race - now there is this episode. What is Skeptically Speaking's preoccupation with race?

Interesting question.

The physiological differences between how different races respond to medication, alcohol and such is squarely a practical, science-based question.

But the cultural issues around race are fascinating. We received a number of emails after the episode on gender, asking us to do a show on people of different ethnicities and skepticism. And as soon as we announced the race episode, I started receiving emails about how the queer community relates to skepticism. So expect some preoccupation with that a few months from now. :)

***So-called scientists using the word "race" are perpetuating the myth that it exists.***

That's because it does exist. Forensic Anthropologists can identify a persons race from their skeleton or skull.

If you read some population genetics you'll see that self identified ethnicity almost perfectly corresponds with genetic clusters.

"Numerous recent studies using a variety of genetic markers have shown that, for example, individuals sampled worldwide fall into clusters that roughly correspond to continental lines, as well as to the commonly used self-identifying racial groups: Africans, European/West Asians, East Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Native Americans (Bowcock et al. 1994; Calafell et al. 1998; Rosenberg et al. 2002).

Subjects identified themselves as belonging to one of four major racial/ethnic groups (white, African American, East Asian, and Hispanic) and were recruited from 15 different geographic locales within the United States and Taiwan. Genetic cluster analysis of the microsatellite markers produced four major clusters, which showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories."

Am J Hum Genet. 2005 February; 76(2): 268–275.

Amy: Actually, people trained to do the skull ID gig in forensic anthropology (such as myself) don't really identify people's races by looking at the skull these days. Well, some people try but it is very limiting. In the US, back when most people were western european, west african, chinese/korean/japanese, and local native (depending on where you go) it was not so hard. The traits that vary in skulls vary more or less randomly and largely continuously across populations (a few traits are discontinuous, but still confusing). As soon as you look at a fair sample of skulls across Africa, for instance, or across the Americas, the boundaries between groups goes away and the ability to use the traits that formerly worked vanishes.

That is because the race concept is, really really truly, very limited in its us. Pretty much, it works like this: If you come to the table believing for whatever reason that races are real, then you'll see evidence that they are real and you'll ignore the critiques of that evidence, and you'll ignore the evidence that human populations are organized genetically and phenotypically in a way not well described with a race model.

The rest of the stuff you said is mostly following that idea: If you need races to exist you can make them exist. You'd be wrong, though.