This post is inspired by recent discussion about Nick Bostrom but it is not about Nick Bostrom. It is about EA in general.
It's clear that many EAs believe that there are population-level differences in average intelligence between ethnic groups. Some representative comments from recent discussions:
"IQ distributions differ across races. IQ proxies [are] a general factor of intelligence. Afaik intelligence researchers believe both sentences are correct. I care more about being correct than about being culturally compliant [...]" (1)
"The finding that generally many groups of black people have on average lower IQ than than the median is pretty robust, and he does make it clear even in the initial emailthat [sic] he doesn't think they are morally inferior or that he doesn't hold the actual negative views about them that one might associate with this language." (2)
"[...] the focus on labeling people who lean towards there being a genetic difference in population means as bad is mistaken given that the threat is actually people who try to leverage this claimed difference politically or attempt to inject their belief in this difference into as many conversations as possible." (3)
Some EAs draw a distinction between thinking black people are stupider on average than white people, and thinking they are worth less:
"[...] Bostrom makes clear that differences in intelligence do not alter the moral value or human dignity of each person.
"For him, as for many, the issues of intelligence and moral worth are distinct; he never claims that black people are worth less, you are ascribing your own notion that IQ=moral worth, and then blaming him for not responding to it." (4)
I am not going to relitigate the question of whether population-level differences in IQ exist between races. My own view is the evidence for the existence of such differences is weak and entirely unconvincing. I do not believe such differences exist. I am uninterested in debating this, however: it is in fact irrelevant to my post. My interest is in the fact that, regardless of whether such differences exist in actuality, a subset of EAs clearly believe in them and think they are important.
This has profound implications for the ability of the movement to work in the interests of all humanity. For example, EAs who believe it is important that the human population expand but who think that African people are likely to be stupider than the human average may divert resources away from them. EAs making hiring decisions may prioritise applications from people whom they have not subconsciously assigned to the schema "stupider than me."
These risks are especially salient for a movement like EA, which prides itself on its rationality and adherence to rigorous logical thinking. Belief that members of certain groups are likely to be less capable of this type of thinking is likely have a pernicious effect upon the good work EA is trying to do.
I suggest that:
- EA leaders (executives and board members of EVF, GWWC, FHI, etc.) should publicly share whether they believe that there are population-level differences in intelligence between ethnic groups.
This will allow potential donors to make informed decisions about whether EA work is something they wish to support.
[note to moderators: please do not tag this Nick Bostrom; as noted above the post is not about him or his email, but rather about the wider issues his email highlights]
>Across large racial groups, however, the observed differences are statistically significant but modest (as they are for other anthropometric characters)
The balck white IQ gap is approximately one standard deviation, which is by no means modest. If we could raise a population's mean IQ by one standard deviation, this would be utterly transformative in a way that almost no other intervention could be.
I'm not saying it's not modest because its not a small number - it's not modest because such a gap has profound social implications in a way that black people being slightly taller than asian people doesn't. Controlling for IQ literally eliminates most of the inequality between races in things like income.
And it's not just a difference in the mean. Black people have a lower variance in IQ, meaning there are less black people 3 standard deviations above the black mean than there are asian people 3 standards above the asian mean. So not only are black cognitive elites less intelligent than e.g. Asian cognitive elites on average (because +3σ from a lower mean is a lower number than +3σ from a higher mean), they're also less common. The further away we move above the mean, the greater the intelligence discrepencies between races become.
>and given the social and cultural disparities across racial groups
Cultural explanations have consistently failed to account for IQ gaps, either in the form of test bias or genuine intellectual ability and its development. And understandably so: Are Ashkenazi jews much more intelligent than asian on average because asian culture isn't intellectual enough?
And again for social disparities. A full two thirds (!) of the black white IQ gap exists in children before they even begin school (with the rest increasing in line with the general increase in the heritabilty of traits with age), and adoption studies show a much greater correlation between biological parental IQ than adopted parental IQ, largely eliminating the possibility that home environment explains a majority of IQ gaps.
>and the social plasticity of IQ the share of biological causality
No such plasticity exists.
Twin studies conclusively show that IQ is highly heritable. When test reliability is accounted for, this heritability may be as high in countries like the US as 80%.
Maybe it's different between races, but the burden of proof is on you to show that this general rule for heritability doesn't apply in this specific case. And all main environmental explanations have studied and convincingly argued against.
>is a difficult and controversial research problem.
It's controversial for ideological, not scientific reasons. As for difficulty, perhaps. But breakthroughs in molecular genetic studies of intelligence have not only identified many of the genes associated with cognitive ability, but it turns out the alleles are unequally distributed between races (and in a way that is congruent with observed IQ differences): https://www.mdpi.com/2624-8611/1/1/34/htm
>Bostrom has not scientific legitimacy to give an opinion in such a technical and disputed issue.
This is a textbook, slamdunk case of 'isolated demands for rigor'. Such objections are never, and I truly mean never, raised by people like yourself against people denying the existence of heritable differences in intelligence between races. Most people who object to the existence of such differences are not only not scientists, but don't even have a rudimentary understanding of the literature on the topic. And sorry to say, but this includes yourself. Cultural explanations for IQ differences lack any support in the literature and this has been the case for decades now.
If virtually anyone is allowed to deny these differences exist, I see no reason why Bostrom cannot similarly express (an almost certainly more well informed than average) opinion on the topic too.
>Regarding feelings and human sympathy, the big question is: whose feelings? How can a modest difference in the mean of the IQ distribution offend a black man with an IQ of 130? And if you are a white person with an IQ of 85, how useful is for you the white black IQ gap for which you make a negative contribution? IQ is a personal characteristic, and means are completely irrelevant for every single person.
Groups differences in intelligence explain group differences in social outcomes - that's why this matters.
Racially conscious black people aren't angry just because they personally have less e.g. money than white people. They think black people generally having less money than white people generally is a grave social injustice. And considering these differences are explained by things like group intelligence differences, that's why said differences are relevant and important. And it also explains why we should never expect African countries as a whole to achieve anywhere near the same levels of economic development pre-singularity as western or North-East Asian countries, even if plenty of high IQ Africans can be successful.
If everybody was as politically individualistic as you're implying, there largely wouldn't be any problem. But that's not the case.
>If we believe that IQ is important for some application, we can measure it directly at the individual level instead of looking at skin color. Anti-racist arguments do not depend on the distribution of psychometric variables.
Yes, they do!
All of anti-racist thought today as practiced by anyone with any kind of institutional legitimacy and/or power is dependant on biological racial egalitarianism. They believe that without "racism", whatever they happen to mean by that, the races would have equal outcomes because they're biologically equivalent in intellectual ability.
>They depend on treating each person as an individual, ignoring skin color, and exclusively considering the abilities and limitations relevant to the case considered of the person under scrutiny. Any “anti-racism” in excess of this, is, in fact, racism
This is a wonderfully admirable belief to have, but unfortunately it is an extreme minority position institutionally. Hence why affirmative action exists.