The full book is properly sourced of course, the abridged work is a brief summary. I can understand how you think some people just make things up, but that accusation has never come up in any of the criticisms I've read on his work. I think it would be fair to assume he did source his work properly unless you read a criticism on that elsewhere. Feel free to Google criticisms on Rushton's work, it'll save you sometime.apophenia wrote:I have taken a summary glance at the material you have provided and found it to be useless. None of the material in Rushton's abridged book contains proper scientific references so it is impossible to assess the validity of his claims (e.g. early on he notes that black babies in America come to term sooner than other racial groups. However, it does not say if this is after controlling for things like socio-economic background and health of the mother, and since it isn't properly referenced to the actual research it is based on, it must be thrown out. The same applies to the rest of the "book".) I also note that Rushton is a rather controversial figure. This in itself doesn't invalidate his science, but it does mean that his results need to be examined carefully. Particularly seeing that your claim was that, "All the scientific and statistical evidence points to the contrary, even when socioeconomic factors are considered," I find an unsourced paper from a scientist outside the mainstream to be inadequate support for your earlier claim. I'm rendered even more skeptical when that one scientist has been reported to cite non-scientific books and Penthouse magazine as scholarly sources.Tyrannical wrote:I think Rushton's abridged book should answer most of your immediate questionsapophenia wrote:
Intelligence will do for now, as I think you are right in that it plays a large part in determining individual success and happiness. What is the estimated range of variation resulting from that non-heritable 20-30%, and what is the range of difference between races in a single culture or comparable cultures once as many non-heritable confounding factors are controlled for?
(and please provide the sources for the data — I'm not going to hold you to a boast you made about researching your points, but I am curious as to how well read you are on this specific topic [genetic heritability and race, not this last specific question] and what your typical sources are for information [and here I'm as interested in secondary sources as primary, as most non-professionals rely to a great extent on secondary sources])
Jean Philippe Rushton is a Canadian psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton
I'm not ruling out Rushton as an acceptable source, even if he is a crank, he still needs to be evaluated on his merits. However a paper without references to the literature from someone whose views are far from mainstream is insufficient backing for your earlier claim.
Do you have anything else?
I don't think Rushton cited Penthouse, though some of his research has been compared to the "letters" page in the magazine by critics. As a behavioral psychologist he has studied sexual drive amongst different racial groups.
As far as equalizing things like socioeconomic conditions, the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study is probably the best that can be ethically allowed. I'll give the Wikipedia link since I'm sure it has the proper objections to it. The brief is that well to do middle class Whites adopted Asian, black ,and mulatto babies. The children were IQ tested at both 7 and 17, along with other academic information. While it showed that at age 7 IQ was increased, by early adulthood it had fallen back to near racial norms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_ ... tion_Study
I do appreciate your open mind on the subject, and I do have enough evidence to support my rather racist views. Come to the dark side and embrace the logical conclusion of natural selection
