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| J. Philippe Rushton and Peer-Review | |
 by Daniel Koffler, November 21, 2007
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The last thing I wanted to see happen with my piece on race, genes, and IQ has happened, namely that the comment thread was hijacked by an acolyte of J. Philippe Rushton. Someone who isn't familiar with the relevant literature, or (understandably) doesn't have the time to wade through a few reams of journal articles, could easily walk away with the understanding that there is some impressive body of research supporting Rushton's claims of black racial inferiority.
In fact, one of the most interesting consequences of researching the piece was my discovery that a huge proportion of the popular and academic literature of the last couple of decades supporting the hypothesis of race-linked genetic discrepancies in intelligence is either Rushton's own work or based on his work. This casts the entire discourse in a new light since --- as I hope I am going to show --- Rushton and his cadre are the 9-11 truthers of social science.
This will shortly get prolix and technical, so the rest is below the fold.
Rushton is a psychology professor at the University of Western Ontario whose entire corpus, more or less, is an effort to demonstrate a strict, biologically hard-wired hierarchy of races. His method, which he calls "aggregation," is to select hundreds of thousands of pieces of raw data of wildly variant quality, garnered from multiple, incongruous studies done in inconcruous spatial and temporal settings, and then take their simple arithmetic mean. I can't hope to improve on Douglas Wahlstein's summary, so here it is:
However, averaging does nothing to reduce bias in sampling and measurement, and such flaws are abundant in the cited literature [from Rushton]. For example, among the 38 reports on brain weight, all but two gave figures for only one group, with most cases being people living in the nation of their ancestors, such as an article on Japanese living in Japan and another on Kenyans living in Kenya. The obvious differences in environment make all of these data of dubious worth for testing hypotheses about genetic causes of group differences. The methods of obtaining the brains were also far from contemporary standards for neuroscience. A report of five black Civil War soldiers from 1865 is given the same weight as a 1934 study of over 300 dead Kenyans. One of the two studies with more than one racial group involved the unclaimed bodies of the indigent and executed criminals in the Baltimore area. Those data varied greatly in the time from death to removal of the brain and method of preserving the brains. Numerous factors can affect measures of brain size, and valid inferences about group differences can be drawn only if it is certain that members of different groups were treated the same way. In my opinion, most of the data raked into one big pile by Rushton are worthless for scientific analysis and should be excluded. Unfortunately, Rushton has not done the hard work of separating the potentially valuable data from the trash. He misleads unwary readers by claiming that averaging many studies can overcome poor research methods.
Or to put it more simply, Rushton's inferences are based on obviously and transparently fraudulent methods of data gathering and processing. So much so that his own publisher, Irving Louis Horowitz, was forced to disown him, albeit in highly circumspect language. That's not even the worst of it. Zack Cernovsky's (yes, peer-reviewed) review of Rushton's Race, Evolution, and Behavior (sorry, no link) noted that "some of Rushton's references to scientific literature with respects to racial differences in sexual characteristics turned out to be references to a nonscientific semipornographic book and to an article in the Penthouse Forum."
(The only respnse Rushton has managed to muster is a laughable claim that it means nothing for critics to expose the fraudulence of research until they themselves produce contradictory studies. Sadly for Rushton, many of them have done so.)
If Rushton is bad at statistics, he is worse at biology. Proceeding, per his form, from pre-theoretical assumptions of a strict three-tiered race hierarchy explicable along the r and K dimensions (briefly, r quantifies fertility and tendency to reproduce, K quantifies efficient resource husbandry), Rushton wields this framework as a "Procrustean bed," in psychologist David P. Barash's phrasing, torturing all available data to fit the model and ignoring whatever data remain recalcitrant. More from Barash:
In brief, he argues that `Negroids' are relatively r-selected, `Mongoloids' K-selected, and `Caucasoids' in between. All racial distinctions are then seen to derive from this grand pattern, from differences in genital anatomy, to reproductive regimes, to IQ, etc. He even points to the higher frequency of low birth weight babies among black Americans, data that are undeniably consistent with an r-selection regime, but which might also be attributed to poor nutrition and insufficient prenatal care, and which, not coincidentally, have other implications for behaviour, IQ not the least.
What Barash is getting at is a typical pattern for Rushton, namely, taking a set of data of dubious provenance to begin with, which, even if assumed to credible, is open to a wide variety of interpretations, and then simply pronouncing the data to exclude all non-genetic explanations.
This is perhaps the most salient point of all to keep in mind in the face of the insistence by hereditarians --- many of whom, remember, have no research other than Rushton's on which to ground their claims --- that the relevant data exclude non-genetic explanations of the black-white IQ gap (never mind studies like this one that demonstrate no black-white IQ gap once prior skills are controlled for). The claim that non-genetic explanations of data are to be excluded is not something the data themselves proclaim, but rather, of course, an interpretation, and a highly suspect one at that. Rushton, for his part, routinely pronounces non-genetic explanations of racial disparities to be excluded even when an objective survey of the case clearly points to non-genetic explanations. Wahlstein points to a particularly flagrant example:
Such ardent partisanship also leads Rushton to proceed with genetic arguments on the basis of data that are obviously confounded with the environment. He claims that Africans have very low average IQ scores, even lower than American blacks. His evidence includes IQ test scores of black children in the Republic of South Africa prior to 1990 who were attending "typical primary schools'' there, schools widely known to be substantially inferior to those of the ruling white minority. These numbers tell nothing about the role of genes, yet that is the way they are interpreted in this book.
Is that clear? Rushton infers that disparities in academic performance between blacks and whites in apartheid-era South Africa cannot be explained except genetically.
As it happens, we actually do have non-genetic bases for explaining the correlations Rushton upholds as so impressive --- and his conclusions go far, far beyond the narrow issues of IQ test performance that folks like Saletan are interested in --- and indeed, simply glancing at these alternatives demonstrates how fundamentally shoddy Rushton's procedures and inferences are. In a comment to a study he co-authored in Current Anthropology in 2001, Jonathan Marks puts the matter in a convenient nutshell:
The bane of such quackery is the rigorous use of scientific controls, and the better the controls, the weaker Rushton's arguments about race, biology, and intelligence are empirically. Two recent studies demonstrate this nicely. David and Collins (1997) studied the relationship between birth weight and race, in which black Americans are at higher risk for having low birth-weight babies even when the data are controlled for socioeconomic variables. Here is a feature both evidently racial and biological. Yet when they introduced a significant control, namely, African immigrants to the United States, the racial pattern vanished; the African-born immigrants clustered with American whites rather than with American blacks. The low-birth-weight phenomenon appears to be not an endowment of the black gene pool but a consequence of the experience of growing up black in America. The obvious implication is that this experience is sufficiently different from the experience of growing up white in America as to render gross comparisons of diverse adult phenotypes entirely unrepresentative of underlying genetic patterns. This is not surprising to an anthropological audience...
Now, of course, there is no reason to think that such a correlation [between brain size and IQ] would be impossible. If factors such as diet and the circumstances of life affect both brain size and IQ, then they could be correlated without being causally related. Thus, Rushton's brandishing of correlations would have little scientific merit. And indeed, another recent study examines the relationship between brain volume and IQ (Schoenemann et al. 2000) but partitions the variation in a significant way. With three relevant variables (IQ, brain size, and conditions of life), these researchers control for the conditions of life by contrasting the relationship between IQ and brain size within families (where the conditions of life vary little) and between families (where the conditions of life vary more substantially). They find a correlation between IQ and brain size only across families, where both the conditions of life and the volume of the brain vary. Within families where brain volume differs but the conditions of life differ much less, there is no correlation between brain volume and IQ. To the extent, then, that there may be an empirical relationship between brain size and IQ, it is far more likely to represent a spurious statistical consequence of common life circumstances than it is to represent a deterministic nexus linking size of brain and size of thought.
Note the clause in bold. It is a token of a very basic form of illogic that pervades Rushton's work. And this gets us to the bottom line. As I hope the foregoing examples demonstrate, Rushton's entire corpus is shot-through with limpid and demonstrable abuses of biological theory, research procedures, and statistical analysis, all such abuses marshalled in order to create the illusion that there is a scientific case that blacks are inferior in all measurable respects to whites. Rushton's studies do not meet even the minimal standards of academic responsibility or defensibility, and the recourse hereditarians make to his research should be interpreted as a concession of the vacuousness of their case.
Naturally, therefore, the secondary moral of this story is that peer-review, while a necessary institution, is not perfect, and the fact that a particular study passes peer-review is not a guarantee of its credibility. (Recall the Sokal hoax.) If the best Rushton's defenders can say is that his work has been peer-reviewed, and cannot address the myriad flaws in his research, that is thin gruel indeed. Carleton Coon's journal articles continued to pass peer-review decade after decade, as he would casuistically revise and contort his imploding theories of racial hierarchy to match as closely as possible an increasingly overwhelming and undeniable preponderance of data invalidating his life's work. So it is with Rushton.
Basta.
[Full disclosure: When I was a boy, my father edited and published some of Jonathan Marks' work. I have never met Marks, have no relationship with him at all, and happened to find his material on my own.]
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Daniel Koffler graduated from Yale in 2006 with a BA in More... |
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François Blumen...
Sokal hoax and peer review...
Daniel Koffler
As a matter of fact
David Kelsey
It's fun attacking a straw man...
But it would be more helpful if Mr. Koffler addressed the real question -- is there any evidence of a black-white IQ or intelligence disparity?
Daniel Koffler
Oddly enough...
Joey Kurtzman
Next question, then...
David Kelsey
so then are you saying...
That while it is true there is a difference between black and white IQs...everywhere....in every country, and in every society, and in every time period tested...that never the less...we have no reason to believe there are racial differences in these racial differences.
Daniel Koffler
To be sure...
There are no two people who have equal cognitive abilities, and I don't doubt at all that some genetic factors play a role in determining cognitive abilities. The question, as Joey notes, is whether there is a discernible racial pattern in their distribution. That was what I could find no evidence of. (And Joey's term "common-ancestry populations" is a much better one; had I not been well over 3000 words I would have liked to say something about the unscientific nature of the concept of race). Looking forward to that post.
DK --- read the piece again. IQ has been measured over a very small fraction of human history, during which IQ scores within and between groups changed dramatically. Furthermore, the point of the section on g and statistical manipulation is to raise a challenge --- which has been around a while and which hereditarians have yet to answer --- to the scientific validity of IQ. Your framing, nevertheless, is incorrect. Numerous studies, some of which I cited, show the IQ gap vanishing once externalities are controlled for --- not simply that proper statistical controls invalidate hereditarian conclusions, but positively confirm opposite conclusions (also, see the citation from Thomas Sowell in the comment thread to the other piece).
Daniel Koffler
Also, not a strawman
David Kelsey
but the other side is speculative as well
Let's say that you are correct, and that all explanations of IQ disparity are flawed. Never the less, there are differences in these tests, and you haven't explained why. The problem is that others do, and social liberals have an almost unified explanation for such disparities, in every society: racism. And they have a common prescription for this problem: affirmative action and a continuous fight of white racism.
The problem to me is that this, as you noted in your previous piece, is a leap of faith as well, what you yourself called "liberal creationism," and you deserve credit for pointing out that criticism.
My real point, and curiousity in this issue, is to say that we DON'T know why there are disparities, and therefore have no business setting policy on such a pretense of understanding of these issues.
Do you agree that blaming racism for all disparities is done by the social left, and that such assumptions are as unscientific and unconvincing as those who blame blacks for being genetically inferior?
Anonymous
Koffler, I'm sorry to say
Koffler,
I'm sorry to say this but there actually are a huge number of articles on the genes/brains/race/IQ nexus which are not authored by Rushton or Jensen. Here are a few examples.
Jung et al. 2007:
<blockquote>
The Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT) of intelligence: converging neuroimaging evidence.
Jung RE, Haier RJ.
Departments of Neurology and Psychology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87106, USA. rjung@themindinstitute.org
"Is
there a biology of intelligence which is characteristic of the normal
human nervous system?" Here we review 37 modern neuroimaging studies in
an attempt to address this question posed by Halstead (1947) as he and
other icons of the last century endeavored to understand how brain and
behavior are linked through the expression of intelligence and reason.
Reviewing studies from functional (i.e., functional magnetic resonance
imaging, positron emission tomography) and structural (i.e., magnetic
resonance spectroscopy, diffusion tensor imaging, voxel-based
morphometry) neuroimaging paradigms, we report a striking consensus
suggesting that variations in a distributed network predict individual
differences found on intelligence and reasoning tasks. We describe this
network as the Parieto-Frontal Integration Theory (P-FIT). The P-FIT
model includes, by Brodmann areas (BAs): the dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex (BAs 6, 9, 10, 45, 46, 47), the inferior (BAs 39, 40) and
superior (BA 7) parietal lobule, the anterior cingulate (BA 32), and
regions within the temporal (BAs 21, 37) and occipital (BAs 18, 19)
lobes. White matter regions (i.e., arcuate fasciculus) are also
implicated. The P-FIT is examined in light of findings from human
lesion studies, including missile wounds, frontal lobotomy/leukotomy,
temporal lobectomy, and lesions resulting in damage to the language
network (e.g., aphasia), as well as findings from imaging research
identifying brain regions under significant genetic control.<b> Overall,
we conclude that modern neuroimaging techniques are beginning to
articulate a biology of intelligence. We propose that the P-FIT
provides a parsimonious account for many of the empirical observations,
to date, which relate individual differences in intelligence test
scores to variations in brain structure and function.</b> Moreover, the
model provides a framework for testing new hypotheses in future
experimental designs.
</blockquote>
Haier et al., 2004
http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1187
<blockquote>
Human intelligence determined by volume and location of gray matter tissue in brain
Single ‘intelligence center’ in brain unlikely, UCI study also finds
Irvine, Calif. , July 19, 2004
General human
intelligence appears to be based on the volume of gray matter tissue in
certain regions of the brain, UC Irvine College of Medicine researchers
have found in the most comprehensive structural brain-scan study of
intelligence to date.
</blockquote>
Nature Neuroscience 2004, Thompson and Gray <a href="http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/PDF/nrn0604-GrayThompson.pdf">original pdf</a>, <a href="http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/002366.html">blog summary</a>:
<blockquote>
These are the points reviewed by the article, divided by subheading:
Neurobiological determinants of intelligence as measured by IQ:
and colleagues suggested that the frontal lobes are involved more in Gf
and goal-directed behaviour than in Gc (Fig. 2). In addition, Gf is
compromised more by damage to the frontal lobes than to posterior
lobe...
frontal grey matter, which were determined primarily by genetic
factors... the volume of frontal grey matter had additional predictive
validity for g even after the predictive effect of total brain volume
was factored out
different intelligence tasks when compared to control tasks...The
surface features of the tasks differed (spatial, verbal, circles) but
all were moderately strong predictors of g (g LOADING; range of r,
0.55–0.67), whereas control tasks were weaker predictors of g (range of
r, 0.37–0.41). Neural activity in several areas, measured by a positron
emission tomography (PET) scan, was greater during high-g than low-g
tasks.
higher intelligence (reviewed in Refs 15,20). Early neuroimaging
studies using PET found that intelligence correlated negatively with
cerebral glucose metabolism during mental activity54 (for a review, see
Ref. 55), leading to the formulation of a 'neural efficiency'
hypothesis...
executive control of attention during working memory...greater
event-related neural activity in many regions, including the frontal,
parietal and temporal lobes, dorsal anterior cingulate and lateral
cerebellum. Crucially, these patterns were most distinct during
high-interference trials, even after controlling for behavioural
performance and for activity on low-interference trials within the same
regions
activity in a single left parietal/temporal region, and not in the
frontal lobes.
areas are involved in inspection time tasks, specifically Brodmann area
(BA) 40 and the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (BA47) but not the
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
Behavioral Genetics of IQ:
reared apart, Bouchard et al.83 found remarkably high between-twin
correlations for verbal scores on the WAIS (0.64) and for the first
principal component of special mental abilities (0.78)
studies, even more so than specific cognitive abilities (h2 = 0.62,
Ref. 87 compare with Ref. 88; h2 = 0.48, Ref. 89; h2 = 0.6–0.8, Refs
90,91)...
IQ dissipates once children leave home — between adult adoptive
relatives, there is a correlation of IQ of -0.01
Molecular Genetics of IQ:
chromosome 6, which codes for an insulin-like growth factor-2 receptor
(IGF2R), that was linked with high intelligence...
the IGF2R gene, and others in the cathepsin D (CTSD) gene, in the gene
for an acetylcholine receptor (CHRM2)106, and in a HOMEOBOX GENE (MSX1)
that is important in brain development107, 108.
CHRM2 accounted for a range of only 3–4 IQ points, whereas different
forms of CTSD accounted for about 3% of the variation between
people...None of these associations has yet been replicated by other
research groups
mutation, indicating that a shortened version of the gene might lead to
the development of fewer cerebral neurons and a smaller head.
activation of working memory circuits. COMT polymorphisms seem to be
highly specific to some prefrontal cortex-dependent tasks in children.
polymorphisms are associated with differences in performance and brain
activity during tasks that involve executive attention
...they say "We are not seeking to stimulate research on potential race
differences in intelligence. Nor can we advocate censorship."...and
then go on to outline a detailed program for conducting a bulletproof
version of such a study...
</blockquote>
There are is a huge swath of published research in this area broadly supporting the concepts that:
1) IQ as measured by pen and paper tests is nontrivially correlated with ratio scale measurements like brain volume and reaction times
2) The correlation improves even further when the regression is upon the volumes of regions involved in cognition
3) Certain genetic variants (e.g. CHRM2) have been reproducibly associated with cognitive differences
4) Populations groups have different patterns of genome content (see e.g. Rosenberg et al. Science 2005)
5) Population groups have different patterns of achievement on IQ tests (too many cites on this to count, but look for example at nationally normed <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V9F-4JKJSVH-3&_user=145269&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000012078&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=145269&md5=00bebb75c5c3fb1ad967ac6efcb782cb">g proxies</a> like the SAT)
You are making a mistake if you think that focusing on Rushton and Jensen will make the case. There are a lot of scientists in this area; take a look for example at the most downloaded articles recently published in the journal Intelligence:
<blockquote>
Intelligence
April - June 2007
Show condensed
-->
Intelligence and educational achievement
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 1, 1 January 2007, Pages 13-21
Deary, I.J.; Strand, S.; Smith, P.; Fernandes, C.
-->
Beyond g: Putting multiple intelligences theory to the test
Intelligence, Volume 34, Issue 5, 1 September 2006, Pages 487-502
Visser, B.A.; Ashton, M.C.; Vernon, P.A.
-->
Working memory, short-term memory, and naming speed as predictors of children's mathematical performance
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 2, 1 March 2007, Pages 151-168
Swanson, L.; Kim, K.
-->
Sex differences in mental abilities: g masks the dimensions on which they lie
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 1, 1 January 2007, Pages 23-39
Johnson, W.; Bouchard, T.J.
-->
Sex
differences in mental rotation and spatial visualization ability: Can
they be accounted for by differences in working memory capacity?
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 3, 1 May 2007, Pages 211-223
Kaufman, S.B.
-->
Predicting academic achievement with cognitive ability
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 1, 1 January 2007, Pages 83-92
Rohde, T.E.; Thompson, L.A.
-->
Sex differences in mental ability: A proposed means to link them to brain structure and function
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 3, 1 May 2007, Pages 197-209
Johnson, W.; Bouchard, T.J.
-->
Racial equality in intelligence: Predictions from a theory of intelligence as processing
Intelligence, 1 July 2007, Pages 319-334
Fagan, J.F.; Holland, C.R.
-->
The prediction, from infancy, of adult IQ and achievement
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 3, 1 May 2007, Pages 225-231
Fagan, J.F.; Holland, C.R.; Wheeler, K.
-->
The evolution of human intelligence and the coefficient of additive genetic variance in human brain size
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 2, 1 March 2007, Pages 97-114
Miller, G.F.; Penke, L.
-->
Do you have to be smart to be rich? The impact of IQ on wealth, income and financial distress
Intelligence
Zagorsky, J.L.
-->
The feasibility of training and development of EI: An exploratory study in Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 2, 1 March 2007, Pages 141-150
Wong, C.S.; Foo, M.D.; Wang, C.W.; Wong, P.M.
-->
National differences in intelligence and educational attainment
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 2, 1 March 2007, Pages 115-121
Lynn, R.; Mikk, J.
-->
Psychometric intelligence and achievement: A cross-lagged panel analysis
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 1, 1 January 2007, Pages 59-68
Watkins, M.W.; Lei, P.W.; Canivez, G.L.
-->
Males
have greater g: Sex differences in general mental ability from 100,000
17- to 18-year-olds on the Scholastic Assessment Test
Intelligence, Volume 34, Issue 5, 1 September 2006, Pages 479-486
Jackson, D.N.; Rushton, J.P.
-->
The
magnitude and components of change in the black-white IQ difference
from 1920 to 1991: A birth cohort analysis of the Woodcock-Johnson
standardizations
Intelligence, 1 July 2007, Pages 305-318
Murray, C.
-->
Intelligence predicts scholastic achievement irrespective of SES factors: Evidence from Brazil
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 3, 1 May 2007, Pages 243-251
Colom, R.; Flores-Mendoza, C.E.
-->
Emotional intelligence meets traditional standards for an intelligence
Intelligence, Volume 27, Issue 4, 1 December 1999, Pages 267-298
Mayer, J.D.; Caruso, D.R.; Salovey, P.
-->
Predicting school achievement from general cognitive ability, self-perceived ability, and intrinsic value
Intelligence, Volume 34, Issue 4, 1 July 2006, Pages 363-374
Spinath, B.; Spinath, F.M.; Harlaar, N.; Plomin, R.
-->
Dissecting practical intelligence theory - Its claims and evidence
Intelligence, Volume 31, Issue 4, 1 July 2003, Pages 343-397
Gottfredson, L.S.
-->
Is there a validity increment for tests of emotional intelligence in explaining the variance of performance criteria?
Intelligence, Volume 34, Issue 5, 1 September 2006, Pages 459-468
Amelang, M.; Steinmayr, R.
-->
Why beautiful people are more intelligent
Intelligence, Volume 32, Issue 3, 1 May 2004, Pages 227-243
Kanazawa, S.; Kovar, J.L.
-->
A g beyond Homo sapiens? Some hints and suggestions
Intelligence, Volume 35, Issue 3, 1 May 2007, Pages 253-265
Lee, J.J.
-->
The Rainbow Project: Enhancing the SAT through assessments of analytical, practical, and creative skills
Intelligence, Volume 34, Issue 4, 1 July 2006, Pages 321-350
The Rainbow Project Collaborators; Sternberg, R.J.
-->
Temperature, skin color, per capita income, and IQ: An international perspective
Intelligence, Volume 34, Issue 2, 1 March 2006, Pages 121-139
Templer, D.I.; Arikawa, H.
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