The APA report asks:

"Are the environmental and cultural situations of American Blacks and Whites also substantially and consistently different—different enough to make this a good analogy? If so, the within-group heritability of IQ scores is irrelevant to the issue."

Is it?

The debate seems to revolve around two issues: Is intelligence an inherited trait, and can the environmental variations that affected different peoples impact the traits passed on to their descendants? However we answer the 2nd question, proof of "within-group heritability of IQ scores" would answer the 1st.

Furthering the reports analogy, the 2nd question would seem to be: If the differences between the 2 groups of wheat were maintained over a period of years, following which both crops were fed equally would the quality of the crops revert to being equal? If so, unless you wish to argue that wholly random evolutionary variances have drastically impacted various humans' intelligences over a brief period of time, you've proven the hereditary argument false. If the crops do not revert to being equal, then, contingent upon IQ being an inherited trait (the 1st question above, and the one dismissed by the APA report), and some groups having less of it, it seems that Saletan's argument has been proven correct (whether blacks and whites can be viewed as entirely distinct subgroups or not).

I'd like to know what information we have about the question I laid out, it would seem to answer the whole IQ heritability issue. I don't claim to be an expert in this, if my argument is missing something please point out.

The answer to the question whether the quality of the crops would revert to equal is yes. There is a "natural experiment" in the UK population which demonstrates this. Prior to the Second World War the disparities in quality of diet and of other living conditions between the working class population and the rest of society were very great. There was a striking disparity between average height of working class people and the rest of the population, but wtih considerable variation within the groups - there were some short people in the well-fed population and some tall people amongst the poor, but a marked difference between the mean heights of the two groups. In the post-war Welfare State the living conditions of the well-off population remained good but there were very large improvements in diet and living conditions for working class people. The consequence was that the disparity in height largely disappeared. In the pre-war population there were very few people over 6ft tall in the working class population - in a modern state school the size distribution is virtually identical to that in fee-paying schools. The genetics of the working class population had not changed in any way - the change occurred because they could only reach their full potential height if well nourished throughout childhood.

It is probable that genetics makes a contribution to the variabiity of intelligence within a population. There is compelling evidence that one cannot compare two populations unless they have access to equally good living conditions and schooling.

The political message is very simple - if you are a member of a privileged group and you wish to preserve that privileged status you must vigorously oppose any measures to improve living conditions and/or educational opportunities for the underprivileged or they will catch you up.

The political message is very simple - if you are a member of a privileged group and you wish to preserve that privileged status you must vigorously oppose any measures to improve living conditions and/or educational opportunities for the underprivileged or they will catch you up.

So that's the concern in the US, that if black living & educational conditions are improved, they will catch up to whites? If white living and educational conditions were improved, could they catch up to jews and asians?

Is it environment or genetics that cause the most athletic positions in sports to be filled by blacks. The tailback or running back possition in American football is a position that requires speed and power. Think of hall of fame running backs Walter Payton, Earl Campbell, Jim Brown, to find a white hall of fame running back you would have to go back to the days when the NFL was segregated (i.e., culture dictated conditions). If you look at running backs in the SEC, arguably the most competitive football conference in America 11 out of 12 teams have a starting black running back. Is this because there aren't a lot of southern white boys interested in playing that position? Not likely. By the time aspiring running backs make it to the college level, there isn't a lot of politics going on, players are selected to help maintain the coaches multimillon dollar salary, it's performance based.

To pile on, look at the next olympic 100m race, look at the next marathon winner. Are those elite running positions held by west african blacks because they want it more or because of environmental conditions. Nope. Those guys have genes that make them fast and powerful.

So is it unreasonable to assume that a race of people could possess another type of genetic superiority (on average) over other races, e.g., processing information. Of course not. The problem is that it is just not as easy to measure as a 100m race. But we can look at the fields that demand high levels of intelligence, bankers, lawyers, physicists, etc. and see that Jews, Indians, Asians are disproportinately represented based on population. It could be politics but I suspect that, like the football coach, those positions are given to "players" that managers believe will give them the highest return.

First, acquired traits are not inherited. So the answer to your second question is "no".

Second, history is replete with "crops" reverting to equality, as the well known black conservative sociologist Sowell has documented. In the US, immigrant groups (Jews, Italians, etc) scored poorly on IQ tests initially, but as they became integrated the gaps closed to zero (or, in the case of Jews, to above average!)

The question is, why hasn't this been the experience of African Americans? Some say that it is because they are genetically inferior, otherwise their scores would have closed too. But you cannot make this case very well, because one of the most striking things about American society is how poorly African Americans have been integrated. Until quite recently, formal discrimination consigned the bulk of them to their own neighborhoods, schools, universities, and so forth. Even now, there is considerable informal discrimination. I think this situation is improving, and therefore predict that the IQ gap will continue to close (as it has been in the past couple of decades, and surely not for genetic reasons). But, judging by the experience of other groups, this may take a couple of generations.

So you're saying culture has no influence on whether you decide to pursue a career in sports???

My brother was a brilliant high school athlete and so were several of his friends but the culture they were raised in valued education and desk jobs over success at sports. Thus, they all dropped out of sports at the college level (some after playing college sports with success) because the time commitment was interfering with their studies. If success in sports was prized more highly or seen as a gamble worth taking to potentially be able to raise a significant portion of their family out of poverty my brother and his friends would have reconsidered. Success at the professional level is a lottery ticket given to a lucky few and many drop out of the running because they see other easier/more likely avenues to success in life.