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General Science / How can I articulate that skin colour and intelligence are not genetically linked?
« on: 19/10/2009 05:12:36 »
Damiri deserves praise for making an attempt to use reason with a racist individual. I am very much interested to know about the outcome.
I am a geneticist. Skin color is determined by particular versions of a limited number of genes of varying degrees of effect. The differences can be only one letter in the DNA (google SLC24A5, for example).
My answer:
1) There is no reason to presume genetic linkage (proximity) of specific intelligence genes to skin color genes.
2) Intelligence is specific to culture - e.g. by some measures, whites are not nearly as good as aboriginal people.
3) European measures of intelligence are distinctly linked to European schooling and exposure to testing, so those intelligence studies linking skin color to intelligence are not controlled for environment, schooling, and other socioeconomicl factors. This invalidates those studies.
4) The reasons for even asking the question are themselves questionable. Why ask? Are we perhaps looking for ways to make ourselves feel superior to others (an unfortunate human instinct), or making excuses for mistreating or exploiting people of color, which is still pervasive? Do we really want to distribute opportunity unequally by color?
5) Read about colorism. It is a devastating social disease that is the result of racism.
Race is a terminology based on 1) emphasis on differences, 2) emphasis on defining superiority, a priori, 3) scientific assumptions that we now know are false (we know that the "red" people of Linnaeus are of the same derivation as the "yellow' people. It is blatantly amusing to ask whether every single "white", "yellow" or "black" person has all the personality characteristics assigned by Linnaeus to people by color.
I am a geneticist. Skin color is determined by particular versions of a limited number of genes of varying degrees of effect. The differences can be only one letter in the DNA (google SLC24A5, for example).
My answer:
1) There is no reason to presume genetic linkage (proximity) of specific intelligence genes to skin color genes.
2) Intelligence is specific to culture - e.g. by some measures, whites are not nearly as good as aboriginal people.
3) European measures of intelligence are distinctly linked to European schooling and exposure to testing, so those intelligence studies linking skin color to intelligence are not controlled for environment, schooling, and other socioeconomicl factors. This invalidates those studies.
4) The reasons for even asking the question are themselves questionable. Why ask? Are we perhaps looking for ways to make ourselves feel superior to others (an unfortunate human instinct), or making excuses for mistreating or exploiting people of color, which is still pervasive? Do we really want to distribute opportunity unequally by color?
5) Read about colorism. It is a devastating social disease that is the result of racism.
Race is a terminology based on 1) emphasis on differences, 2) emphasis on defining superiority, a priori, 3) scientific assumptions that we now know are false (we know that the "red" people of Linnaeus are of the same derivation as the "yellow' people. It is blatantly amusing to ask whether every single "white", "yellow" or "black" person has all the personality characteristics assigned by Linnaeus to people by color.