The law of large numbers reduces the impact of luck on an one test to an insignificant number. One's breakfast affects the multiple scores considerably more. Luck can be very significant for any one question, however.

Please educate me on this. My experience with Indians in grad school makes the 'average 80 IQ' story ring false, unlike my experience with other lower IQ groups (I understand these are averages and distributions overlap...). Are most Indian expats of a different ethnicity or subgrouping that dominates the mean?

the difference between the mean IQ and the proportion of the population with and IQ>K, and it's effect on national GDP, is addressed in one of Le Griffe's riffs: http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com//sft.htm

E

hmmm. So extra motivation and hard academic work causes educational backwardness. Right.

Razib: Don't open your mind so much that your brain falls out. You are being way to charitable to Diamond. He takes the extreme view that *all* ethnic variation is the result of environment's effect on one's culture, and that we are currently all equally potential scientists or savages.

It's one thing to note there's nature and nurture, and that within-group variation exceeds between group variation. It is quite another to say it's all nurture, and their is no instrinsic between group differences. This is the seeming 'straw man' (to me) argument Pinker attacks in 'The Blank Slate'.

My vote for African reading: The Africans, by David Lamb. It's funny that as he wrote it in 1987 or so, his 'glass half full' attempt highlighted Robert Mugabe as the one 'good' despot.

we do need to address the constraints of environment, geography, etc.

But this time can't we recognize that it isn't all or none? We seem to always be working our way out of past problems from exaggeration. For example, in 1900 most thinking people exaggerated the effects of human diversity, and stereotypes and peceived limits on individuals based on their grouping was the norm. Now you have most thinking people arguing that all groups are functionally identical.

I'm not a fan of exaggerating a truth for the sake of rhetorical expediency by flattering popular predispositions. Scientific debate should proceed differently than political debate--perhaps I'm naive, after all, I wouldn't throw my career away trying to operate on this principle.

Jason: Coulter and Savage use overgeneralizations out of ignorance and zealousness. Limbaugh's statement about McNabb was specific and a reasonable, nonmalicious assertion. To excuse the public reaction by simply lumping Limbaugh with Coulture and Savage, implying he made similarly incorrect generalizations out of malice, makes no sense.

The hypothesis: a black quarterback has been given the benefit of the doubt by a well-meaning press corp, because they would like to encourage greater minority representation in leadership positions.

The data: his qb rating puts him at 27 this year, down from 8 last year. His replacement last year (the well-regarded AJ Feeley) went 5-1 in his absence. He is the *highest* paid player in the league, and it is rare to see people slamming him until this year.

The reaction: moral outrage.

It's clearly hypocritical. Supporting Communism, for example, is considered 'the essence of what it means to be patriotic American' by the loud left, but arguing about race in any way not supportive of the standard dogma is considered blasphemy.

The issue is a ubiquitous one for affirmative action. If you favor certain historically underrepresented groups, either through quotas or a preference for 'diversity' (which usually just means african americans in the US), the implication is that you are giving these groups the benefit of the doubt you don't give to others. Mentioning this in any specific case, however, is considered racist.

The presumption is the axiom of equality, that current underrepresentation is merely the result of discrimination, and so any preference merely rectifies a bias as opposed to introducing one.

This was a fabulous show about something I never heard about: how they found one of his lost pampliset's. If it wasn't 'lost' in the 10th century, history might have been different, because he outlines some issues that would have made the discovery of calculus easier. Could you imagine what would have happened if calculus was developed 100 years before Newton?

Razib, you really went off here. Some rejoiners:

1) ideas are instruments that function as guides of action, their validity being determined by the success of the action.

This reminds me of William James's pragmatism, that truth (and thus for Aristotle, the good), is the present value of an idea, it's net effect over time.

2 a reverence for the shared emphasis on the process over the ends.

Process is often a ruse, a desperate ploy in a bigger battle. It's fruitless to argue with someone who's using an arguement solely because it's their best tactic: they would never admit it.

3) still have in place inviolable rights which are sacrosanct no matter the general cost vs. benefit calculation methodologies.

Rawls doesn't have legs. Talk about a ruse, the argument is a tract for the times rather than compelling, a good example of Hugo's dictum that there is nothing so powerful as an idea who's time has come (radical egalitarianism circa 1970). There is no understanding of incentive after the veil of uncertainty has been lifted, of enforceability.

I think you would find much to agree with in the classical liberal, yet pragmatist,theories of Richard Posner (see Law, Pragmatism, and Democracy), and Richard Epstein (Skepticism and Freedom). You're a young guy, go to law school, become a professor.

Also, you might like Hayek. He mentions often that economic liberties are much more important than political ones. That is, if you can choose for whom you work, and how much you pay and receive for goods and services, isn't that more important than who you vote for? Seems like we have a 'democracy' fetish because it seems so friggin' egalitarian, no stench of capitalism, or property rights, or other institutions that correlate more clearly with inequality.

Razib: I didn't mean to be patronizing. You are an excellent and original thinker. But the rant was clearly a foray into a big issue, and big issues have lots of footnotes. Keep up the enthusiasm, we appreciate it.

I think popular will via referendum is essential on this point, but one must remember that prior to nationhood Germany was a constellation of a hundred principalities, similarly for France and Italy. Europe is a much more efficient for having gotten rid of many currencies, which tended to help the trade barriers that prevented an optimal adoption of comparative advantage. Just think if every state in the US had different currencies, or that state trade deficits/surpluses were monitored?

There are advantages to joining the Euro, and I think it is somewhat inevitable.

For people of priviledge like Dean (whose ancestors^3 were investment bankers--remember Dean Witter?), who managed wealthy homogeneous populations, *and* assume that everyone else is just like them (only different environments when young), they tend to see problems mainly a function of selfish societal priorities, not inconsistent or inappropriate solutions.

It is fun to watch candidates and the press dance around this issue, since whenever it's raised someone is quick to cry 'racism'. It seems to always get back to the "axiom of equality", which is so pernicious not because it's wrong, but because it's a moral imperative. You can't criticize it without becoming a pariah (eg, Steve Sailer).

name changing seems so desparate, and doesn't change much. (I think 'gay' beats 'homosexual' only because it reduces syllables and 'homo' is ambiguous--homo sapian?).

The bottom line is that most people don't trust atheists to behave morally, and so wouldn't entrust them to major public office. It isn't obvious why atheists behave morally, and until it is, 'brights' will be viewed with suspicion just as atheists are.

In any survey I think it would be necessary to distinguish between beliefs in a vengeful anthropomorphic god versus the whimsical watchmaker that Einstein often alluded to. If both are taken for religiosity, that's misleading.

Another counterexample to the conventional wisdom that blondes are more popular than brunettes.

Razib, perhaps your dark complexion is nudging you to capture the greater heterozygous advantage in Kristanna.

Be rational, Keira is objectively more attractive ;) Genes impel, they do not compel.

In the game theory branch of economics, there is much discussion of "cheap talk", ie, costless signals. These affect equilibria in various ways. Usually, these cheap signals can generate equilibria where the signals are honest if other people believe them to be so. This may seem odd, but there are many game theoretic equilibia that depend on the participant's 'prior' beliefs, so that in effect, if they believe it to be true, it will be.

Check out "cheap talk" and "game theory" in search engines, it's a lifetime labor of love for some people, and the games can be very elegant, and very rich.

The NY Times is always anxious to tsk-tsk the public for being latent racists, so they jump on the thinest fact when possible. This is just very sloppy reporting. AIDS cocktails in the US require a couple dozen tablets in various specific combination throughout the day. In Africa they simplified the dosage so that you just have to take 2 tablets each day. This fact is buried in their article. It is inevitable that the Africans would show better compliance in this circumstance.

Maybe you could comment on how this relates to Stephen Wolfram's theories. He is quick to show how simple algorithms can generate complex and interesting patterns. Do you know if Dawkins and Wolfram are really making the same point?