Stephen Metcalf: Bringing us back to 1997

...in his new article about race, genetics and IQ. He spends the whole time playing statistics games, trying to find studies that control for this or that and conclude the IQ gap is completely environmental. He finds problems with studies that give different results.

Sorry, but that method of analysis is so last decade. Current research is working to locate specific genes that increase and decrease IQ, and then looking to see how those genes differ by population. Half Sigma has been documenting the studies, and while the results aren't in completely in yet, it's now an absolute fact that some of the pertinent genes vary by race. For example, William Saletan, in the article series Metcalf is responding to, pointed out the head-size genes. Metcalf doesn't even bring this up.

Metcalf also ( again) displays his outright ignorance of Arthur Jensen, one of the most important researchers on this issue:

Arthur Jensen has spent the last 40 years arguing against "compensatory education," or the idea that programs like Head Start have any efficacy in alleviating black underachievement.

Actually, no. As Thomas Sowell (who's on Metcalf's side of the debate) wrote:

Unlike others on the heredity side of the argument, Professor Jensen saw no need to dismiss environmental factors or to claim that some races were fit only to be hewers of wood and drawers of water.

One of the ironies of Jensen's landmark article was that it argued that the educational performances of children from disadvantaged groups could be greatly improved, even if there was no corresponding improvement in IQ scores.

There's a difference between criticizing Head Start and claiming that no educational technique can narrow the achievement gap -- everyone agrees that the gap is at least part environmental, including Jensen.

And then this load of hogwash:

Does it feel as though researchers like Jensen and Rushton, the so-called "race realists," have spent their careers examining a range of competing hypotheses for the black-white IQ gap, and carefully scrutinizing the quality of the research at their disposal? Or have they been attempting, at all costs, to prove a single hypothesis—that blacks are congenitally dumber than whites? Shouldn't researchers on any highly charged subject be required to show a minimum of clean hands?

Rushton is debatable, but Jensen most definitely has been researching with an open mind. He discovered the "environmental cumulative effect" when he observed that, in rural Georgia, older black siblings have lower IQs, and this doesn't happen with whites. The more children are subjected to bad environments, the lower their IQs get, and this plays a role in the race gap.

And back to Sowell:

Professor Jensen pointed out back in 1969 that black children's IQ scores rose by 8 to 10 points after he met with them informally in a play room and then tested them again after they were more relaxed around him. He did this because "I felt these children were really brighter than their IQ would indicate." What a shame that others seem to have less confidence in black children than Professor Jensen has had.

Also, again, no one supports a "heredity-only thesis"; the only debate is whether the gap is partially or completely environmental.

Steve Sailer has more here.