Just based on the discussion I’ve seen so far, I don’t think people are taking this issue seriously enough. Reputational costs from stuff like this are real and they are large.
I’m a relatively new here. I was still willing to tell people about EA after the FTX debacle, despite it being pretty damaging to my credibility. But this incident has changed that. All it would take is one unfortunate google search for someone to wonder whether I’m secretly racist. Of course, I’ll keep donating to givewell and give directly, but telling other people about the movement is completely off the table for the time being. I even made this new anonymous account so that my name won’t come up on this website.
I also think people are dramatically underestimating just how (1) morally terrible, and (2) scientificly unfounded Bostrom’s statement and apology both were. Geneticists know race is a social construct at this point, with no basis in actual genes. Psychologists know IQ is a somewhat mysterious measure (no, scoring lower on an IQ test does not necessary mean a person is “more stupid”). It is affected by things like income shifts across generations and social position. For Bostrom to even have that opinion as an educated 23-year-old was bad, but to not unequivocably condemn it today—despite the harm it can clearly cause—seems even worse.
Population geneticists tend to use the term “populations” from what I understand rather than race. Race is an imprecise term. However, people of the white race, black race, and Asian race tend to have different allele frequencies. That is why 23andMe is able to determine a persons ancestry. People of a shared ancestry tend to be more related to one another.
I’m not sure if IQ is particularly mysterious. There was a rise in average IQ score across several decades in the 20th century. IQ tends to be the determiner of social position rather than the other way around.
Regardless of the cause, Bostroms statement about the relative scores of whites and blacks was accurate. I do not think it is “bad” in the moral sense. His view was not out of line with mainstream intelligence researchers at the time. It is still not inaccurate to recognize there exists a disparity. Progress minded people still speak about college entrance exam disparities which are rather highly correlated with IQ.
I do not like the above fact. I would rather it not true. But I do not think I am bad for believing it because I think it is true and believing the truth is morally good. If I have been duped by the intelligence research community, then I have made an error in reasoning, but I still do not think I am immoral for doing so.
|people of the white race, black race, and Asian race
I’m assuming this was completely unintended, but terms like “the X race” have very negative connotations in American English. Especially if X is “white”. Better terms are “X people” or “people categorized as X”.
“Blacks” also has somewhat negative connotations. “Black people” is better.
(I apologize on behalf of America for our extremely complicated rules about phrasing)
The mainstream-ness of the linked statement is heavily disputed. A person in 1996 could have reasonably been unaware of this ofc. (You may have intended to link to the 1996 APA report Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns instead?)
Accuracy about genetics and race is unusually important in charged conversations like this, and your 1st paragraph seems to miss an important point: categories like “black”, “white” and “Asian” are poor choices of genetic clusters. This is part of why population geneticists will call race a social construct: if you set out to find “racial” clusters of alleles (which is generally asserted to be low-value), you will find far better fits than society’s standard racial groupings.
You’re correct that “race” in the social sense has nonzero genetic meaning. However this doesn’t mean that members of the same “race” are particularly related. For example, my understanding is that a Korean, a Scotsman, an indigenous Australian, and a Meru would all likely share more alleles than any would with a Tuu. Yet the last two or three would be categorized as “black”. You could make a computer program that correctly predicts someone’s “race”, but it would be doing something equivalent to saying “this person is probably Meru, and Meru are labelled ‘black’”.
I meant to link to Gottfredson’s statement. Do you think that black people and other racial groups scored equally on IQ tests in 1996? I don’t. My point is that there was a good number of people who had this belief and if Bostrom formulated a true belief, it seems odd that he should face criticism for this. If you think it is false, we can discuss more.
I don’t know whether exactly it is a “poor choice” but the reason people talk about genetics and race is because they believe that the social categories have different gene variant frequencies resulting in phenotypic differences on socially relevant traits.
The Tuu are an unusual case. I fully grant that many would see a Tuu and not recognize that they are genetically much more distant. But most Americans have probably never even met a Bushman (I think this is the more respectful term than San).I do not think that these categories are perfectly defined and unambiguous, and yet I think they can have genetic differences.
This may not apply to you in particular, but I feel there is often isolated demands for semantic precision. People don’t object as often to arguments about race in this way in other contexts. For example, “black people are abused by the police more” doesn’t get the response of “what do you mean by black? Is a mixed race person black? What if they look mostly white? What is a police? Does that include security guards? What if a police officer abused a black person but it turned out it was actually a rather dark skinned Sri Lankan? Do Bushmen count as black?” I understand what progressives are talking about when they say Black people even if there is not a platonic ideal definition. And although you can find some counter examples, I think it is generally true that black people tend to be more related to eachother than white people.
|I meant to link to Gottfredson’s statement. Do you think that black people and other racial groups scored equally on IQ tests in 1996? I don’t.
My disagreement was with the characterization of Gottfredson’s statement as mainstream when this is disputed by mainstream sources.
It is true that there was a difference in IQ scores, so I suggested a less disputed source saying so.
|People don’t object as often to arguments about race in this way in other contexts. For example, “black people are abused by the police more” doesn’t get the response of “what do you mean by black?...”
Perhaps I was overly harsh in my initial reply. However, I do endorse being very rigorous when talking about the overlap of race and genetics. Whereas in the example of police, we generally assume that any influence of race on a given interaction involves the social labels.
|I do not think that these categories are perfectly defined and unambiguous, and yet I think they can have genetic differences.
The issue I find relevant isn’t vagueness, it’s that the standard ways to subdivide humans into 3-10 races don’t cleave reality at the joints.
If I understand correctly, ignoring recent intermixing, humans can be divided into the highly genetically diverse “Khoisan”, and the much more populous and less diverse non-Khoisan. Descendants of the out-of-Africa migration group (ie people who aren’t of sub-Saharan ancestry) are effectively one branch of non-Khoisan.
|And although you can find some counter examples, I think it is generally true that black people tend to be more related to each other than white people.
Ignoring recent intermixing, I think this is actually false, and may remain false if we ignore the Khoisan peoples. On average, a randomly selected black person may be more closely related to a randomly selected white (or Asian) person than to another randomly selected black person. (Whereas white or Asian people would be more closely related to their own group). This can happen if multiple clusters are grouped together under one label.
Whereas a couple weakened versions of your claim are true:
“Socially defined labels contain nonzero information about genetics, such that you can predict someone’s racial label with very good accuracy by looking at their genome, much more so than if people had been randomly assigned to racial groups.”
And, “You can decompose racial groups into a reasonably small number of subgroups, such that a randomly chosen member of a subgroup is on average closer to another random member than to a random member of another group” is probably true as well.
I disagree with the first and last sentences of the last paragraph- while Bostrom’s statements were compatible with a belief in genetically-influenced IQ differences, he did not clearly say so.
That said, it isn’t to his credit that he hedged about it in the apology.
Yes, when it comes to judging people for what they said it’s useful to focus on what they actually said.
Generally, if you have to focus on things that a person didn’t say to fuel your own outrage that should be taken as a sign that what they actually said isn’t as problematic as your first instinctual response suggests.
Psychologists know IQ is a somewhat mysterious measure (no, scoring lower on an IQ test does not necessary mean a person is “more stupid”). It is affected by things like income shifts across generations and social position. For Bostrom to even have that opinion as an educated 23-year-old was bad, but to not unequivocably condemn it today—despite the harm it can clearly cause—seems even worse.
I disagree, because I think the evidence from psychology is that IQ is a real measure of intelligence, and while a lot of old tests had high cultural biases, the modern ones are way better.
That stated, I still strong upvoted your comment because PR and looking good matters, and you are correct on the genetic science point of there being evidence against real life subspecies/races.
Please believe me when I say it is not clear to me which opinion you believe Bostrom had in the 90s, or in what important sense his recent apology was not “unequivocal” (was something important missing? what something present that shouldn’t have been?), or whether you believe he still holds a related bad opinion today.
it is not clear to me which opinion you believe Bostrom had in the 90s
I don’t know and am not really interested in whatever Bostrom’s actual opinion in the 90s was because I’m a consequentialist, not a virtue ethicist. Susan II’s post above highlights the reasons Bostrom should have expected his statement to be interpreted as a racist one, and why it was in fact reasonable for people (who both agree with and disagree with it) to interpret it that way.
was something important missing? what something present that shouldn’t have been?
I think that drawing attention to racial gaps in IQ test results without highlighting appropriate social context is in-and-of itself racist. We live in a world where ideas about differences in intelligence between races have caused a lot of suffering—more suffering than most other ideas out there.
I think the ideal apology would have at least walked through the history of claims of racial differences in intelligence and the harms they motivated, acknowledged their continued ability to cause harm, provided appropriate social context for the difference in IQ scores and apologized of the lack of it in the statement from the 90s, and highlighted the implausibility of a genetic basis for the difference.
If we disagree about the implausibility of a genetic basis for the difference in IQ scores, I’m not really interested in debating it. My view is that:
I find the research suggesting no genetic basis for racial IQ differences credible
I do not find the survey that people cite to the opposite effect compelling (it acknowledges that it highly unrepresentative—as an internet survey with a high nonresponse rate would be)
I think that drawing attention to racial gaps in IQ test results without highlighting appropriate social context is in-and-of itself racist.
Why is it that this doesn’t count as highlighting appropriate social context?
I also think that it is deeply unfair that unequal access to education, nutrients, and basic healthcare leads to inequality in social outcomes, including sometimes disparities in skills and cognitive capacity. This is a huge moral travesty that we should not paper over or downplay. [apology paragraph 2]
I guess you could say that the social context is only mentioned rather than highlighted, and that there is more context he could have added.
Just based on the discussion I’ve seen so far, I don’t think people are taking this issue seriously enough. Reputational costs from stuff like this are real and they are large.
I’m a relatively new here. I was still willing to tell people about EA after the FTX debacle, despite it being pretty damaging to my credibility. But this incident has changed that. All it would take is one unfortunate google search for someone to wonder whether I’m secretly racist. Of course, I’ll keep donating to givewell and give directly, but telling other people about the movement is completely off the table for the time being. I even made this new anonymous account so that my name won’t come up on this website.
I also think people are dramatically underestimating just how (1) morally terrible, and (2) scientificly unfounded Bostrom’s statement and apology both were. Geneticists know race is a social construct at this point, with no basis in actual genes. Psychologists know IQ is a somewhat mysterious measure (no, scoring lower on an IQ test does not necessary mean a person is “more stupid”). It is affected by things like income shifts across generations and social position. For Bostrom to even have that opinion as an educated 23-year-old was bad, but to not unequivocably condemn it today—despite the harm it can clearly cause—seems even worse.
Population geneticists tend to use the term “populations” from what I understand rather than race. Race is an imprecise term. However, people of the white race, black race, and Asian race tend to have different allele frequencies. That is why 23andMe is able to determine a persons ancestry. People of a shared ancestry tend to be more related to one another.
I’m not sure if IQ is particularly mysterious. There was a rise in average IQ score across several decades in the 20th century. IQ tends to be the determiner of social position rather than the other way around.
Regardless of the cause, Bostroms statement about the relative scores of whites and blacks was accurate. I do not think it is “bad” in the moral sense. His view was not out of line with mainstream intelligence researchers at the time. It is still not inaccurate to recognize there exists a disparity. Progress minded people still speak about college entrance exam disparities which are rather highly correlated with IQ.
I do not like the above fact. I would rather it not true. But I do not think I am bad for believing it because I think it is true and believing the truth is morally good. If I have been duped by the intelligence research community, then I have made an error in reasoning, but I still do not think I am immoral for doing so.
Separate from my other comment:
|people of the white race, black race, and Asian race
I’m assuming this was completely unintended, but terms like “the X race” have very negative connotations in American English. Especially if X is “white”. Better terms are “X people” or “people categorized as X”.
“Blacks” also has somewhat negative connotations. “Black people” is better.
(I apologize on behalf of America for our extremely complicated rules about phrasing)
I hard-disagreed for two reasons:
The mainstream-ness of the linked statement is heavily disputed. A person in 1996 could have reasonably been unaware of this ofc. (You may have intended to link to the 1996 APA report Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns instead?)
Accuracy about genetics and race is unusually important in charged conversations like this, and your 1st paragraph seems to miss an important point: categories like “black”, “white” and “Asian” are poor choices of genetic clusters. This is part of why population geneticists will call race a social construct: if you set out to find “racial” clusters of alleles (which is generally asserted to be low-value), you will find far better fits than society’s standard racial groupings.
You’re correct that “race” in the social sense has nonzero genetic meaning. However this doesn’t mean that members of the same “race” are particularly related. For example, my understanding is that a Korean, a Scotsman, an indigenous Australian, and a Meru would all likely share more alleles than any would with a Tuu. Yet the last two or three would be categorized as “black”. You could make a computer program that correctly predicts someone’s “race”, but it would be doing something equivalent to saying “this person is probably Meru, and Meru are labelled ‘black’”.
I meant to link to Gottfredson’s statement. Do you think that black people and other racial groups scored equally on IQ tests in 1996? I don’t. My point is that there was a good number of people who had this belief and if Bostrom formulated a true belief, it seems odd that he should face criticism for this. If you think it is false, we can discuss more.
I don’t know whether exactly it is a “poor choice” but the reason people talk about genetics and race is because they believe that the social categories have different gene variant frequencies resulting in phenotypic differences on socially relevant traits.
The Tuu are an unusual case. I fully grant that many would see a Tuu and not recognize that they are genetically much more distant. But most Americans have probably never even met a Bushman (I think this is the more respectful term than San).I do not think that these categories are perfectly defined and unambiguous, and yet I think they can have genetic differences.
This may not apply to you in particular, but I feel there is often isolated demands for semantic precision. People don’t object as often to arguments about race in this way in other contexts. For example, “black people are abused by the police more” doesn’t get the response of “what do you mean by black? Is a mixed race person black? What if they look mostly white? What is a police? Does that include security guards? What if a police officer abused a black person but it turned out it was actually a rather dark skinned Sri Lankan? Do Bushmen count as black?” I understand what progressives are talking about when they say Black people even if there is not a platonic ideal definition. And although you can find some counter examples, I think it is generally true that black people tend to be more related to eachother than white people.
|I meant to link to Gottfredson’s statement. Do you think that black people and other racial groups scored equally on IQ tests in 1996? I don’t.
My disagreement was with the characterization of Gottfredson’s statement as mainstream when this is disputed by mainstream sources.
It is true that there was a difference in IQ scores, so I suggested a less disputed source saying so.
|People don’t object as often to arguments about race in this way in other contexts. For example, “black people are abused by the police more” doesn’t get the response of “what do you mean by black?...”
Perhaps I was overly harsh in my initial reply. However, I do endorse being very rigorous when talking about the overlap of race and genetics. Whereas in the example of police, we generally assume that any influence of race on a given interaction involves the social labels.
|I do not think that these categories are perfectly defined and unambiguous, and yet I think they can have genetic differences.
The issue I find relevant isn’t vagueness, it’s that the standard ways to subdivide humans into 3-10 races don’t cleave reality at the joints.
If I understand correctly, ignoring recent intermixing, humans can be divided into the highly genetically diverse “Khoisan”, and the much more populous and less diverse non-Khoisan. Descendants of the out-of-Africa migration group (ie people who aren’t of sub-Saharan ancestry) are effectively one branch of non-Khoisan.
|And although you can find some counter examples, I think it is generally true that black people tend to be more related to each other than white people.
Ignoring recent intermixing, I think this is actually false, and may remain false if we ignore the Khoisan peoples. On average, a randomly selected black person may be more closely related to a randomly selected white (or Asian) person than to another randomly selected black person. (Whereas white or Asian people would be more closely related to their own group). This can happen if multiple clusters are grouped together under one label.
Whereas a couple weakened versions of your claim are true:
“Socially defined labels contain nonzero information about genetics, such that you can predict someone’s racial label with very good accuracy by looking at their genome, much more so than if people had been randomly assigned to racial groups.”
And, “You can decompose racial groups into a reasonably small number of subgroups, such that a randomly chosen member of a subgroup is on average closer to another random member than to a random member of another group” is probably true as well.
Agree with this, and think that HBD is getting seriously concerning in it’s prominence.
I disagree with the first and last sentences of the last paragraph- while Bostrom’s statements were compatible with a belief in genetically-influenced IQ differences, he did not clearly say so.
That said, it isn’t to his credit that he hedged about it in the apology.
Yes, when it comes to judging people for what they said it’s useful to focus on what they actually said.
Generally, if you have to focus on things that a person didn’t say to fuel your own outrage that should be taken as a sign that what they actually said isn’t as problematic as your first instinctual response suggests.
I disagree, because I think the evidence from psychology is that IQ is a real measure of intelligence, and while a lot of old tests had high cultural biases, the modern ones are way better.
That stated, I still strong upvoted your comment because PR and looking good matters, and you are correct on the genetic science point of there being evidence against real life subspecies/races.
Please believe me when I say it is not clear to me which opinion you believe Bostrom had in the 90s, or in what important sense his recent apology was not “unequivocal” (was something important missing? what something present that shouldn’t have been?), or whether you believe he still holds a related bad opinion today.
I don’t know and am not really interested in whatever Bostrom’s actual opinion in the 90s was because I’m a consequentialist, not a virtue ethicist. Susan II’s post above highlights the reasons Bostrom should have expected his statement to be interpreted as a racist one, and why it was in fact reasonable for people (who both agree with and disagree with it) to interpret it that way.
I think that drawing attention to racial gaps in IQ test results without highlighting appropriate social context is in-and-of itself racist. We live in a world where ideas about differences in intelligence between races have caused a lot of suffering—more suffering than most other ideas out there.
I think the ideal apology would have at least walked through the history of claims of racial differences in intelligence and the harms they motivated, acknowledged their continued ability to cause harm, provided appropriate social context for the difference in IQ scores and apologized of the lack of it in the statement from the 90s, and highlighted the implausibility of a genetic basis for the difference.
If we disagree about the implausibility of a genetic basis for the difference in IQ scores, I’m not really interested in debating it. My view is that:
I find the research suggesting no genetic basis for racial IQ differences credible
I do not find the survey that people cite to the opposite effect compelling (it acknowledges that it highly unrepresentative—as an internet survey with a high nonresponse rate would be)
I believe the scientists who say that race is a social construct not a biological one
I believe the scientists who point to clear environmental influences on IQ
Why is it that this doesn’t count as highlighting appropriate social context?
I guess you could say that the social context is only mentioned rather than highlighted, and that there is more context he could have added.