Edit: I want to make it clear that I am talking about âgeneticâ differences not âenvironmentalâ differences in this comment. Thanks to titotal for pointing out I wasnât clear enough. The survey of experts finds that far more experts believe both genetic factors and environmental factors play a role than just environmental factors. I spend the rest of my comment arguing that even if genetic factors play a role, genetic factors are so heavily influenced by environmental factors that we shouldnât view them as evidence of innate differences in intelligence between races.
I find the repeated use of the term âdiscreditedâ to refer to studies on race and IQ on the forum deeply troubling. Yes, some studies will have flaws, but that means you have conversations about the significance of these flaws and respect that reasonable people can disagree about how best to measure complicated issues. It doesnât mean you dismiss everyone who agrees with the standard perspectives of experts in an academic field as racist. My favorite thing about this community is the epistemic humility. We are supposed to be the people who judge studies on their merits, no matter how uncomfortable they make us feel. The more we stray from this value, the less we are able to discover effective solutions to the catastrophic problems facing the world.
Scott Alexander (a psychiatrist and leading thinker in the rationalist community) tried his best to find surveys of experts in the field that would make the term âdiscreditedâ fair, and despite how uncomfortable it made him, he could not. In the best study he found, about four times as many experts agreed with the belief that the OP believes is discredited than disagreed. There is abundant data that lead poisoning impairs cognition, and that a third of children are victims of lead poisoning. Roughly a third of GiveWellâs estimate of the value of preventing malaria comes from long term income gains, implying that malaria often impairs the cognitive development of its victims in both direct and indirect ways. Economic changes have produced the Flynn Effect of IQs typically increasing as countries get richer. Peopleâs protection from the economic and medical harms that these studies observe vary widely depending on what country they are born into. Countries happen to have different racial makeups from each other. Family differences in IQ perpetuate themselves because people tend to marry other people with similar IQs. If there are genetic differences in average IQ between races, there is no reason to think they wouldnât go away if unequal access to resources did. I donât view this data as evidence of innate intelligence differences between races, but as a call to arms to work till every child has equal opportunities to live up to their full potential no matter how poor their parents are.
In his apology statement, Bostrom refused to state an opinion about whether environmental factors influence cognitive development, whether some races have less access to protection from harmful environmental factors on average, and whether people are more likely to marry people that are more economically similar to themselves. If we think that is grounds for disqualification from a job, how can we use studies to find solutions to these problems?
I donât know enough about the rest of the problems the author described to have an opinion. Iâm just objecting to this specific part.
I donât really like discussing race and IQ stuff (and if you donât like it either, I think itâs completely fine to stay away). Unfortunately, I have to step in and point out that this comment is inaccurate/âmisleading when it comes to the science and the descriptions of peoples beliefs.
Lead poisoning, the flynn effect, and malaria are all environmental factors, not genetic ones. nobody who has read up on the issue denies that average IQ test scores are different for different races, the argument is about how much of the difference is attributable to environmental factors. (Iâm pretty sure that Bostrom did claim an opinion about whether âenvironmental factors influence cognitive developmentâ, because the answer is an uncontroversial yes.
If the differences were near-entirely genetic in nature, then eliminating unequal access to resources, lead poisoning, different cultures, etc, wouldnât have any effect on IQ differences, because it wouldnât affect genes. Holding this position requires thinking that there arenât any significant differences in environment between the races that could affect IQ significantly. I think this view is fairly extreme and unlikely, and I think it would be fair to call this position âdiscreditedâ. The IQ gap between black people and white people in america is only in the range of 9-15 points, and environmental factors can affect IQ test scores on that magnitude: one study found that adopting a poor kid could jump their IQ test scores by 12-18 points.
Bostrom didnât take this position, he just said it is unknown how much the gap is genetic vs environmental, which is true. Social science is very difficult, the only way to truly know the answer is to end all environmental differences and to see what happens, which is impossible given that this includes things like cultural differences, or to find a measurable thing in biology that corresponds to IQ test scores (which Iâve seen biologists express skepticism about).
The real problem with these discussions is that full on KKK style racist people exist, have a loud voice on the internet, and are extremely keen to use the uncertainty above as a bludgeon against minorities. Itâs a classic motte and bailey: you go from âthe causes of the racial IQ test score gap are unknownâ to âitâs mostly geneticâ, to âblack people are dumber than white people and you should discriminate against themâ. I think one of the key mistakes Bostrom made was not being 100%, explicitly, forcefully anti-racist in his apology, because they absolutely have used it and the subsequent controversy as a recruiting ground for their ideas.
I realize I wasnât clear enough that I was talking about genetic stuff the whole time in my comment. Sorry about that! I will edit my comment for clarity.
The first study I referenced was specifically referring to whether IQ differences between races have a genetic element. It found that far more experts in the field believe it has both a genetic element and a environmental element than just an environmental element.
I believe that environmental factors influence genetics enough that you donât need to interpret genetic differences as innate racial differences. I explained my reasons for that the end of my middle paragraph , but spent so much time talking about the environmental factors that I believe contribute to genetic factors that your impression may have been reasonable.
The very racist people youâve described will certainly try take these studies the wrong way, but they are very rare in the upper class western places EAs typically inhabit. Iâve found that a bigger risk in our communities is relatively left wing people trying to pursue professional retaliation against centrist people for believing things that make them uncomfortable, no matter how common the belief is among experts in the field or how much we oppose the extremists they associate us with.
Bostrom did not say it was unknown how much the gap is genetic vs environmental. He said he didnât know. This apparently made some people mad, but I think what made people more mad was that they read things into the apology that Bostrom didnât say, then got mad about it. (Thatâs why most people criticizing the apology avoid quoting the apology.)
The scientific consensus is that there is no evidence for a genetic component behind IQ differences between racial groups.[9 citations]
Iâve also glanced at a couple of scientific papers that seem to imply otherwise (this one and this one). These papers basically say that most experts think the role of genetics is greater than zero. I donât care to investigate with a ten-foot pole why Wikipedia is in tension with these papers, and I donât blame Bostrom for feeling the same way.
I think this issue is a lot like the lab-leak hypothesis of Covid: it doesnât really matter whether Covid escaped from a lab, because gain-of-function research is dangerous either way, so our policy will be the same either way (oppose GoF research). In the same way, it doesnât seem very useful to study racial IQ differences; our policy decision should be the same regardless (reduce poverty in Africaâpoverty is bad; prosperity and education both increase IQ). And I have no doubt Bostrom would agree.
Thatâs a fair point. The meta-analysis study is here. It find difference in d of 1.17 between IQ scores of adopted and non-adopted children. d means standard deviations, corresponding to 15 IQ points, giving a total of 18 IQ point change in the traditional sense. It was linked in the original article, the one i linked is a follow-up which I thought was pretty good.
I think we should link to a discussion of this elsewhere, and not revisit it here, because it seems like a really big topic that could easily take over the entire comment thread and in my view doesnât change the conclusion of the post much (since I think the case for Nick stepping down was already good enough before the apology).
I think itâs pretty outrageous to suggest that the OP is allowed to make this argument in the post, by calling it âdiscreditedâ and a âdisqualifying viewsâ, but commenters are not allowed to object. If you want to criticize someone for bringing an irrelevant issue into it, you should direct your ire at the OP.
Commenters are fine to object, but to the extent they rely on the question of whether the science is actually discredited or not, I think they should link to an existing discussion of it rather than duplicating it here. The duplication just damages all of:
the discussion of the issue here, to the extent it misses things that previous discussions have covered,
the discussions that weâd otherwise have linked to, to the extent that people spend effort improving this one rather than that one,
any other discussion here, which becomes more difficult to navigate for being mixed in with it.
Iâm not trying to prevent discussion, Iâm just trying to move and consolidate it.
(But in practice it hasnât been as dominating here as Iâd feared, so Iâm not going to bang too hard on this drum.)
I would also prefer a world that adds to the previous discussion instead of reinventing the wheel here, but in practice I donât think people would pay as much attention if we merely linked to that thread. To me the case for how much the fallout from the apology matters rests on how justified the fallout is, so I believe the merits of the case against the apology deserve the space they are getting in this thread. Thanks for clarifying more what you meant.
As I mentioned earlier, I donât have an opinion on whether Bostrom should step down or not, only that the apology is not a good reason to step down. If you are right that the reasons outside the apology are good enough, I would support that. However, at this point I would also need a statement from an EA organization that he would not be stepping down because of the apology.
Ben I donât want to discuss this any more than you do. Iâd prefer to never have to discuss it like they apparently get to do on LessWrong. However, people who think this research is discredited keep bringing it up, which repeatedly damages the epistemics of the community.
Edit: I feel that my writing was very poor quality here, and apologize for that. Thanks to others for pointing out how different writing needs to be on the forum from other writing. This phrasing I used later in the discussion is a better worded version of what I was trying to say in the next paragraph: The case for how much the fallout from the apology should influence our decisions rests on the case for how justified the fallout is. If it is not justified, many of us feel that we should find another solution instead of compromising our integrity by giving into political pressure. If the fallout is not justified, many of us believe that most of the content of this post is not very important.
Original Paragraph: The author chose to devote a large majority of his post to this topic. As others have pointed out, he overstated his case for how Bostromâs apology negatively influences his ability cooperate with EA. I believe this could be an example of how the weakening of empistemics because people are starting to work so hard to ignore research that makes them uncomfortable could spread to other topics. The inaccuracy of the authorâs statement also makes the preserving epistemic integrity case for standing up for Bostrom (possibly via Habrykaâs suggestion for example) much stronger. Therefore this is highly relevant to the post.
Rereading it, I feel like almost none of the discussion of the apology in the OP is contingent on whether the research is discredited or not. If you persuade the OP or other people on the forum that the research is not discredited, it will not solve the problems Nick faces as director.
I believe the value EA contributes relative to other social justice movements is our ability to judge research on its merits no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel. Iâve never seen anything like it in the others Iâve been a part of. This is how we discovered that donating abroad is better at preventing death than donating locally, that AI and biosecurity were bigger risks before our views became mainstream, and a host of other topics. I believe losing this value would be worse than losing a relationship with Oxford University or losing funding from one donor. As the response on the forum and the author of the CEA statementâs correction of their statement shows, the case for it damaging our ability to find new collaborators and funders is weak. The essential role epistemic integrity plays in our movement is the biggest reason that to me and many others the merits of the case for/âagainst the apology email raised in this post are more important that some logistical problems it created.
I feel like you and Ben are talking past each other; you claim that, like Ben, you donât want to discuss this. Yet you donât respond to Billâs comment about how the problems Nick faces are not contingent on whether the research is discredited. Your point about the value EA contributes is also irrelevant, unless youâre making a claim here that Bostrom is providing this value and that this value is stronger than the value of his counterfactual replacement.
Yes I agree we are talking past each other, and tried to clarify that in a comment that seems to have gotten overlooked because it wasnât upvoted. I am not arguing with people like Ben who believe he should go regardless of the apology and the logistical challenges it may have caused. Bostrom may deserve to go for all I know. As I mentioned in my original comment, I have no opinion about it overall. I am only arguing that the apology and fallout from it are not a good reason to think he should go. I am not trying to distract from the non-apology discourse. I intended my original comment to be a small addition to much more important points others are making.
Many people (such as the author) feel the apology and fallout are a good reason or even the best reason for him to go , so my point is worth making. The author himself said he believed the views expressed in the apology such as the one I am addressing are âdisqualifying views for someone in his position as Director.â (regardless of the fallout) .
Even if someone were just as suited as Bostrom, the act of dismissing him based on the fallout from the apology would be a violation of our epistemic standards. Therefore he is better than a hypothetical identical counterfactual on this issue.
If Bostrom stepped down for unrelated reasons, I am arguing that people should expect a statement from officials in the community that it wasnât because of pressure due to the apology.
Iâm not sure who Bill is, but my entire intention with the comment you are responding to was to address the argument you mention him making. I believe the case that the fallout should influence our decisions rests on the case that the fallout is justified. If it is not, we should find another solution instead of compromising our integrity.
It is concerning to see âdiscreditedâ used so easily when it is far from clear that it is an accurate label. This is not my specialty so Iâm not qualified to have an opinion, but it seems more like rejecting some hypotheses a priori, without consideration. Iâd like to see further discussion which qualifies such claims.
Edit: I want to make it clear that I am talking about âgeneticâ differences not âenvironmentalâ differences in this comment. Thanks to titotal for pointing out I wasnât clear enough. The survey of experts finds that far more experts believe both genetic factors and environmental factors play a role than just environmental factors. I spend the rest of my comment arguing that even if genetic factors play a role, genetic factors are so heavily influenced by environmental factors that we shouldnât view them as evidence of innate differences in intelligence between races.
I find the repeated use of the term âdiscreditedâ to refer to studies on race and IQ on the forum deeply troubling. Yes, some studies will have flaws, but that means you have conversations about the significance of these flaws and respect that reasonable people can disagree about how best to measure complicated issues. It doesnât mean you dismiss everyone who agrees with the standard perspectives of experts in an academic field as racist. My favorite thing about this community is the epistemic humility. We are supposed to be the people who judge studies on their merits, no matter how uncomfortable they make us feel. The more we stray from this value, the less we are able to discover effective solutions to the catastrophic problems facing the world.
Scott Alexander (a psychiatrist and leading thinker in the rationalist community) tried his best to find surveys of experts in the field that would make the term âdiscreditedâ fair, and despite how uncomfortable it made him, he could not. In the best study he found, about four times as many experts agreed with the belief that the OP believes is discredited than disagreed. There is abundant data that lead poisoning impairs cognition, and that a third of children are victims of lead poisoning. Roughly a third of GiveWellâs estimate of the value of preventing malaria comes from long term income gains, implying that malaria often impairs the cognitive development of its victims in both direct and indirect ways. Economic changes have produced the Flynn Effect of IQs typically increasing as countries get richer. Peopleâs protection from the economic and medical harms that these studies observe vary widely depending on what country they are born into. Countries happen to have different racial makeups from each other. Family differences in IQ perpetuate themselves because people tend to marry other people with similar IQs. If there are genetic differences in average IQ between races, there is no reason to think they wouldnât go away if unequal access to resources did. I donât view this data as evidence of innate intelligence differences between races, but as a call to arms to work till every child has equal opportunities to live up to their full potential no matter how poor their parents are.
In his apology statement, Bostrom refused to state an opinion about whether environmental factors influence cognitive development, whether some races have less access to protection from harmful environmental factors on average, and whether people are more likely to marry people that are more economically similar to themselves. If we think that is grounds for disqualification from a job, how can we use studies to find solutions to these problems?
I donât know enough about the rest of the problems the author described to have an opinion. Iâm just objecting to this specific part.
I donât really like discussing race and IQ stuff (and if you donât like it either, I think itâs completely fine to stay away). Unfortunately, I have to step in and point out that this comment is inaccurate/âmisleading when it comes to the science and the descriptions of peoples beliefs.
Lead poisoning, the flynn effect, and malaria are all environmental factors, not genetic ones. nobody who has read up on the issue denies that average IQ test scores are different for different races, the argument is about how much of the difference is attributable to environmental factors. (Iâm pretty sure that Bostrom did claim an opinion about whether âenvironmental factors influence cognitive developmentâ, because the answer is an uncontroversial yes.
If the differences were near-entirely genetic in nature, then eliminating unequal access to resources, lead poisoning, different cultures, etc, wouldnât have any effect on IQ differences, because it wouldnât affect genes. Holding this position requires thinking that there arenât any significant differences in environment between the races that could affect IQ significantly. I think this view is fairly extreme and unlikely, and I think it would be fair to call this position âdiscreditedâ. The IQ gap between black people and white people in america is only in the range of 9-15 points, and environmental factors can affect IQ test scores on that magnitude: one study found that adopting a poor kid could jump their IQ test scores by 12-18 points.
Bostrom didnât take this position, he just said it is unknown how much the gap is genetic vs environmental, which is true. Social science is very difficult, the only way to truly know the answer is to end all environmental differences and to see what happens, which is impossible given that this includes things like cultural differences, or to find a measurable thing in biology that corresponds to IQ test scores (which Iâve seen biologists express skepticism about).
The real problem with these discussions is that full on KKK style racist people exist, have a loud voice on the internet, and are extremely keen to use the uncertainty above as a bludgeon against minorities. Itâs a classic motte and bailey: you go from âthe causes of the racial IQ test score gap are unknownâ to âitâs mostly geneticâ, to âblack people are dumber than white people and you should discriminate against themâ. I think one of the key mistakes Bostrom made was not being 100%, explicitly, forcefully anti-racist in his apology, because they absolutely have used it and the subsequent controversy as a recruiting ground for their ideas.
I realize I wasnât clear enough that I was talking about genetic stuff the whole time in my comment. Sorry about that! I will edit my comment for clarity.
The first study I referenced was specifically referring to whether IQ differences between races have a genetic element. It found that far more experts in the field believe it has both a genetic element and a environmental element than just an environmental element.
I believe that environmental factors influence genetics enough that you donât need to interpret genetic differences as innate racial differences. I explained my reasons for that the end of my middle paragraph , but spent so much time talking about the environmental factors that I believe contribute to genetic factors that your impression may have been reasonable.
The very racist people youâve described will certainly try take these studies the wrong way, but they are very rare in the upper class western places EAs typically inhabit. Iâve found that a bigger risk in our communities is relatively left wing people trying to pursue professional retaliation against centrist people for believing things that make them uncomfortable, no matter how common the belief is among experts in the field or how much we oppose the extremists they associate us with.
Bostrom did not say it was unknown how much the gap is genetic vs environmental. He said he didnât know. This apparently made some people mad, but I think what made people more mad was that they read things into the apology that Bostrom didnât say, then got mad about it. (Thatâs why most people criticizing the apology avoid quoting the apology.)
There is a Wikipedia page that says
Iâve also glanced at a couple of scientific papers that seem to imply otherwise (this one and this one). These papers basically say that most experts think the role of genetics is greater than zero. I donât care to investigate with a ten-foot pole why Wikipedia is in tension with these papers, and I donât blame Bostrom for feeling the same way.
I think this issue is a lot like the lab-leak hypothesis of Covid: it doesnât really matter whether Covid escaped from a lab, because gain-of-function research is dangerous either way, so our policy will be the same either way (oppose GoF research). In the same way, it doesnât seem very useful to study racial IQ differences; our policy decision should be the same regardless (reduce poverty in Africaâpoverty is bad; prosperity and education both increase IQ). And I have no doubt Bostrom would agree.
I expected this to link to the study, but it doesnât?
Thatâs a fair point. The meta-analysis study is here. It find difference in d of 1.17 between IQ scores of adopted and non-adopted children. d means standard deviations, corresponding to 15 IQ points, giving a total of 18 IQ point change in the traditional sense. It was linked in the original article, the one i linked is a follow-up which I thought was pretty good.
I think we should link to a discussion of this elsewhere, and not revisit it here, because it seems like a really big topic that could easily take over the entire comment thread and in my view doesnât change the conclusion of the post much (since I think the case for Nick stepping down was already good enough before the apology).
I think itâs pretty outrageous to suggest that the OP is allowed to make this argument in the post, by calling it âdiscreditedâ and a âdisqualifying viewsâ, but commenters are not allowed to object. If you want to criticize someone for bringing an irrelevant issue into it, you should direct your ire at the OP.
Commenters are fine to object, but to the extent they rely on the question of whether the science is actually discredited or not, I think they should link to an existing discussion of it rather than duplicating it here. The duplication just damages all of:
the discussion of the issue here, to the extent it misses things that previous discussions have covered,
the discussions that weâd otherwise have linked to, to the extent that people spend effort improving this one rather than that one,
any other discussion here, which becomes more difficult to navigate for being mixed in with it.
Iâm not trying to prevent discussion, Iâm just trying to move and consolidate it.
(But in practice it hasnât been as dominating here as Iâd feared, so Iâm not going to bang too hard on this drum.)
I would also prefer a world that adds to the previous discussion instead of reinventing the wheel here, but in practice I donât think people would pay as much attention if we merely linked to that thread. To me the case for how much the fallout from the apology matters rests on how justified the fallout is, so I believe the merits of the case against the apology deserve the space they are getting in this thread. Thanks for clarifying more what you meant.
As I mentioned earlier, I donât have an opinion on whether Bostrom should step down or not, only that the apology is not a good reason to step down. If you are right that the reasons outside the apology are good enough, I would support that. However, at this point I would also need a statement from an EA organization that he would not be stepping down because of the apology.
Ben I donât want to discuss this any more than you do. Iâd prefer to never have to discuss it like they apparently get to do on LessWrong. However, people who think this research is discredited keep bringing it up, which repeatedly damages the epistemics of the community.
Edit: I feel that my writing was very poor quality here, and apologize for that. Thanks to others for pointing out how different writing needs to be on the forum from other writing. This phrasing I used later in the discussion is a better worded version of what I was trying to say in the next paragraph: The case for how much the fallout from the apology should influence our decisions rests on the case for how justified the fallout is. If it is not justified, many of us feel that we should find another solution instead of compromising our integrity by giving into political pressure. If the fallout is not justified, many of us believe that most of the content of this post is not very important.
Original Paragraph: The author chose to devote a large majority of his post to this topic. As others have pointed out, he overstated his case for how Bostromâs apology negatively influences his ability cooperate with EA. I believe this could be an example of how the weakening of empistemics because people are starting to work so hard to ignore research that makes them uncomfortable could spread to other topics. The inaccuracy of the authorâs statement also makes the preserving epistemic integrity case for standing up for Bostrom (possibly via Habrykaâs suggestion for example) much stronger. Therefore this is highly relevant to the post.
Rereading it, I feel like almost none of the discussion of the apology in the OP is contingent on whether the research is discredited or not. If you persuade the OP or other people on the forum that the research is not discredited, it will not solve the problems Nick faces as director.
I believe the value EA contributes relative to other social justice movements is our ability to judge research on its merits no matter how uncomfortable it makes us feel. Iâve never seen anything like it in the others Iâve been a part of. This is how we discovered that donating abroad is better at preventing death than donating locally, that AI and biosecurity were bigger risks before our views became mainstream, and a host of other topics. I believe losing this value would be worse than losing a relationship with Oxford University or losing funding from one donor. As the response on the forum and the author of the CEA statementâs correction of their statement shows, the case for it damaging our ability to find new collaborators and funders is weak. The essential role epistemic integrity plays in our movement is the biggest reason that to me and many others the merits of the case for/âagainst the apology email raised in this post are more important that some logistical problems it created.
I feel like you and Ben are talking past each other; you claim that, like Ben, you donât want to discuss this. Yet you donât respond to Billâs comment about how the problems Nick faces are not contingent on whether the research is discredited. Your point about the value EA contributes is also irrelevant, unless youâre making a claim here that Bostrom is providing this value and that this value is stronger than the value of his counterfactual replacement.
Yes I agree we are talking past each other, and tried to clarify that in a comment that seems to have gotten overlooked because it wasnât upvoted. I am not arguing with people like Ben who believe he should go regardless of the apology and the logistical challenges it may have caused. Bostrom may deserve to go for all I know. As I mentioned in my original comment, I have no opinion about it overall. I am only arguing that the apology and fallout from it are not a good reason to think he should go. I am not trying to distract from the non-apology discourse. I intended my original comment to be a small addition to much more important points others are making.
Many people (such as the author) feel the apology and fallout are a good reason or even the best reason for him to go , so my point is worth making. The author himself said he believed the views expressed in the apology such as the one I am addressing are âdisqualifying views for someone in his position as Director.â (regardless of the fallout) .
Even if someone were just as suited as Bostrom, the act of dismissing him based on the fallout from the apology would be a violation of our epistemic standards. Therefore he is better than a hypothetical identical counterfactual on this issue.
If Bostrom stepped down for unrelated reasons, I am arguing that people should expect a statement from officials in the community that it wasnât because of pressure due to the apology.
Iâm not sure who Bill is, but my entire intention with the comment you are responding to was to address the argument you mention him making. I believe the case that the fallout should influence our decisions rests on the case that the fallout is justified. If it is not, we should find another solution instead of compromising our integrity.
Are you referring to Rindermann et al. 2016? The core table is this,
It is concerning to see âdiscreditedâ used so easily when it is far from clear that it is an accurate label. This is not my specialty so Iâm not qualified to have an opinion, but it seems more like rejecting some hypotheses a priori, without consideration. Iâd like to see further discussion which qualifies such claims.