This is off topic, but I am interested in exploring models of intelligence more ... I figure a simple model is something like the following: 150 genes, each with two alleles. The homozygous state provides 1 IQ point, the heterozygous state provides 0 IQ points. We thus have a binomial distribution which approximates a normal distribution. However, if you posit that for some populations, 50 are fixed in the homozygous state, then you get an average IQ of 100, while for others, if some are fixed in the lower producing state ... you get an average IQ that is lower, and selection can operate according to the environment. However, it is very simplistic, so I am looking for pointers on more realistic stuff.

The extent to which language is culturally defined seems overstated, in the sense that yes, the phonology and the specific syllables differ by language groups, but there is a strong underlying similarity, in my mind, between all human languages. Eg, they all have grammar and use either SVO, SOV, VSO, etc, and in some cases different languages will use two grammatical styles. So, it seems that only superficial (for some definition of superficial) details differ, and babies can learn pretty much any language. This, in my mind, argues that we are more than just primed to learn language and that we are tuned to the small number of alternatives, and that there is extensive hardware support. Similarly, I would think that the 'moral' problems we face are similar from culture to culture. Betrayal of friends and relatives is the same in any culture. It would seem to me that the differences will be along the lines of differences between groups that have spent a longer time under selection for very large and complex societies (eg, China over the last 4,000 years) and those that have spent much of those same 4,000 years in small-scale cultures, as well as between males and females, where the problems have, until very recently, been very different, it seems to me. However, I would expect that the base 'moral' hardware is the same among all human groups with some groups elaborating on this base under different selection pressures. It seems that perhaps I should read the book because, notwithstanding my comments, much of what you have said Churchland says sounds eminently sensible.

Metamagenic, what is interesting about that paper is the ground that creationists are prepared to surrender. The Universe is a given now, and they are reduced to asserting that since the machine and the code could not both come into existence by chance, God must have done it. However, no matter at what point you insert God, the question that remains to answer is "Who/what created God?" (Ie, it is more parsimonious not to invoke God.)

It would appear that he uncritically repeats the assertion that the Chinese invented gunpowder. (One of his illustrations refers to that.) My problems with this claim is that gunpowder is a very specific product that requires both the correct ingredients and a specific process in its manufacture. My view is that the only acceptable definition of gunpowder is that mixture of saltpeter, charcoal and sulphur in the required proportions and mixed using the techniques required for use in cannon. Some suggest that the Chinese invented it based on some references to mixtures of the basic constituents (albeit adulterated with flammable liquids, which suggest that all they had discovered was incendiaries) and others point to Roger Bacon's claimed hiding of the ratios of the three fundamental components in a treatise in Latin, but that also seems inadequate to me because the actual process is not detailed, and the process of manufacture is extremely important. A related example is the difference between iron and steel. It is pretty clear that the Chinese knew how to produce both iron and steel more than two thousand years ago based on the historical information available (eg, cast iron implements vs steel weaponry and references to what seems to be something approaching the puddling method of reducing the carbon content in pig iron to produce steel, see for example: http://www.staff.hum.ku.dk/dbwagner/KoreanFe/KoreanFe.html). While the book sounds interesting, the details are incredibly important in my view and historians (including Joseph Needham who was originally a biochemist) seem to have little actual experience with the technical things they write about. While I do not want to suggest that someone who does not have Clauswitz's experiences cannot have anything relevant to say about war, I wonder if it is not like comparing historians of science to, say, physicists.

jeecee said: 
 
John Emerson -- Penn State just launched an investigation into Michael Mann: 
 
In recent days a lengthy file of emails has been made public. Some of the questions raised through those emails may have been addressed already by the NAS investigation but others may not have been considered. The University is looking into this matter further, following a well defined policy used in such cases. No public discussion of the matter will occur while the University is reviewing the concerns that have been raised. 
 
Some have said that the investigation will require a lot of white paint.

jef said: 
 
If you spank your child you better be careful. You're giving your child vivid memories of you that he/she may have long after you're gone. 
 
As Cochran intimated, can't you do better than that old bogeyman? 
 
I had an abusive-when-drunk stepfather who was otherwise an adequate but strict father, and a biological father who pissed off before I was born. I know the difference between abuse and responsible parenting. 
 
My children are also half Chinese, and many a Chinese parent will tell you that, ummm, special measures are necessary ... 
 
Piano was one example. Getting them to sit at the piano stool and practice was always tough, and I had to learn to read music so that I could be sure their fingers were hitting the correct keys in the early days. The amount of pestering and shouting required in the those days to get the practice done was large and tiring, but both kids came to enjoy piano, and I eventually had the enormous pleasure of hearing one of them play Rachmaninov's Prelude in C# minor relatively well. 
 
However, there are some folks around who would regard the methods we used to ensure that our children succeeded as abusive. I could almost regard such views as a conspiracy to ensure that promising youngsters do not achieve to their potential.

I'm with gcochran. 
 
My kids are now 20 and 17. One is doing her PhD and the other is in Engineering school. 
 
Getting them to their current ages has involved lots of vigilance and some punishment.  
 
You cannot always put the hot stuff on the rear burner. Sometimes you have to tell them to stay out of the kitchen, stay away from the road, don't touch the sharp knives, and sometimes you need to reinforce the message in ways that young kids who cannot reason understand.

In the interests of the current racial fantasy I doubt that anyone would be allowed to study this subject seriously.

Donna B says: 
 
Cougar goddesses? You mean the ancient precursor to 50 year old women looking for a man half their age? 
 
According to the female anthropologist on Bones, all women are cougars. 
 
(I should stop getting my science from crappy TV programs.)

How do rates of actually having had sex aged 14-16 vary across the demographic criteria used here? 
 
This is a very good question. 
 
People say one thing, typically what they are expected to say by society and their social millieu but usually do what their genes have programmed them to do :-)

It would seem to me that both males and females must be prepared to take risks in pursuit of their goals and life strategies. 
 
It also seems clear that males must take physical risks, by en large, while it seems more likely that females will take social risks (and mate choice risks).

Dude, 
 
I remember the waves of fear that were generated when Telex systems became available. Man, there were newspaper articles about how Telexing was going to destroy young people. 
 
Of course, the granddaddy of them all was when telegrams were introduced.

geecee (a perhaps ersatz copy of GC) quotes Joel Spolsky (note the spelling) who says: 
 
It's harder to read code than to write it. 
 
The problem is not that it's hard to read code. It's actually easy to read code. What is hard is understanding why the code is the way it is and how all the layers of bug fixes have caused the code to be the way it is. It is hard to understand the complete set of problems it is trying to solve. 
 
In addition, just like DNA or long established social systems, there is just not enough information available to understand why all the changes were made. Even with bugzilla and subversion/perforce checkin comments, people still do not explain every detail of a checkin. 
 
However, at the end of the day, these analogies fall down because the problems that software systems are trying to solve are usually several orders of magnitude less complicated than those being solved by DNA or social systems, at least in my opinion.

kurt9 says: 
 
If you come from a monotonic language, learning a tonal language like Mandarin (5 tones) is really difficult. Languages like Cantonese and Thai are even harder because they have more tones and accents. 
 
Sure, because everyone knows that non-tonal languages are monotonous and completely lacking in tone and that tone is what is so hard about those tonal languages. 
 
The fact that they have grammatical structures that are so completely different from English, like (speaking only of Cantonese and Mandarin) Verb-Object forms or resultative complements or aspect instead of tense has nothing to do with the difficulty. Probably the fact that they have sounds that are different from languages like English also has nothing to do the the difficulty, and the orthography is a snap.

diana asks: 
 
Richard: was I unclear? Yes, the Ethiopian kids played with the Israeli kids and soon were chatting (NOT chattering, ha, it was very hot!) in fluent Hebrew. 
 
In retrospect, you were not unclear. I came upon the later assertion that one racial group was superior to other racial groups and it seemed to be based on your rather unsurprising anecdote.  
 
I asked the wrong question. I should have asked whether or not the subsequent poster was using your anecdote as support for his bare assertion. 
 
It would seem, in any event, that some populations could be selected for retaining the ability to learn multiple languages into adulthood, although any such observations might be confounded by children on the borders of each language group tending to learn multiple languages and the genetically more able learning multiple languages.

The kids played with Israeli kids and soon were chattering in fluent Hebrew. 
 
And you are surprised by this?

geecee says: 
 
Moreover -- I assume you're familiar with Huffman codes? Frequently communicated concepts are assigned the shortest codewords. Hence Geneva Smitherman's "Black Talk" -- an Ebonics dictionary -- allocates most of its space to words like "bitchslap" and "drive-by" rather than "CPU" or "integral".  
 
The vocabularies of some segments of the genepool I hail from is similarly impoverished. 
 
In addition, a PDP-8 or even a PDP-11 is a poor analogy. A better analogy is that some people, even in the same genepool have 90nm technology, while others have 45nm technology, and some have twice as much memory as others and 128-bit memory busses with 8 write buffers, while others have 256-bit wide memory busses with 16 write buffers.

geecee makes a number of disparaging remarks about McWhorter and says: 
 
Yet Brainfuck ain't no Lisp, and Ebonics[1] ain't no Queen's English.  
 
I rather think he misses the point but then so does McWhorter.  
 
Ebonics might not be the Queen's English, and neither is Chinese, but I know that Chinese in the hands (or perhaps mouth) of a Chinese person of IQ 130 and above can express just as many interesting and complex ideas as similarly endowed people can in the Queen's English. I have no doubt that Ebonics could do so as well (of course such a community might have to create a lot of vocabulary). 
 
The issue really is how many people in various groups can employ all the sophistication that these languages are capable of. McWhorter uses the claim to obscure the fact that Marvell processors are nowhere near as powerful as Intel's Nehalem line.

There have been schools where API scores looked very good, except that after monitors were sent to each and every class in that school, the scores mysteriously went down.

If you have an IQ of 100, to what extent can you not handle Algebra and Geometry given drilling and pushing? 
 
Does that mean you can handle differential equations and so forth?