Denne artikkelen publiseres på HonestThinking 17.02.2008, og kommer i tillegg til mitt Aftenposten-innlegg Raserealisme, som er en respons på innlegget Tendensiøs forvrengning, av Eriksen og Undlien, 1. februar. Se også kommentarartikkelen Tendensiøse forvrengere av en (for leserne) anonym, men helt åpenbart kunnskapsrik, HT-leser.
Av dr scient Ole Jørgen Anfindsen, redaktør, HonestThinking
Professorene Dag Undlien og Thomas Hylland Eriksen (U&E) kommer 1. februar med tildels krass kritikk mot meg. La oss se på denne kritikken, punkt for punkt.
U&E skriver i sitt innlegg i Aftenposten:
Anfindsen skriver at det ikke er dekning for å si at rasebegrepet er en sosial konstruksjon. Vi minner om at det bl.a. finnes japanere som tror at kinesere og koreanere utgjør en annen rase enn dem selv, og europeere som mener at arabere tilhører en annen rase enn dem. Genetisk forskning om folkevandringer dokumenterer utstrakt blanding. Et hovedpoeng i nydarwinistisk forskning er at folk er forbløffende like overalt.
Når noen hevder at rase er en sosial konstruksjon, så er den mest nærliggende tolkningen av dette at rase utelukkende eller i all hovedsak er en sosial konstruksjon. Det er imidlertid ikke dekning for å hevde noe slikt. At bergrepet om hovedraser (kontinentgrupper) noen ganger brukes på en slik måte at det tillegges visse sosiale konstruksjoner av brukeren, forandrer fint lite på dette. Med andre ord: at rasebegrepet i praksis ofte inneholder visse elementer av sosial konstruksjon, er ikke nok til at U&E eller andre triumferende kan hevde at rasebegrepet er en sosial konstruksjon; det er mer enn bare det, hvilket nettopp var mitt poeng.
Forøvrig skulle man tro det var saken uvedkommende hvilke subjektive oppfatninger om hverandre japanere, kinesere, koreanere, arabere eller europeere måtte finne på å ha. Det er i og for seg greit at U&E her implisitt referer til de velkjente hovedrasene/kontinentgruppene (svarte, hvite, asiater, indianere og stillehavsøyboere/aboriginere), men den bakenforliggende virkeligheten blir ikke forandret av at folk vi vanligvis tenker på som etniske grupper, muligens foretrekker å se på seg selv som egne raser innenfor hovedrasene. Virkeligheten er uansett såpass kompleks at det er kontraproduktivt å motsette seg rekursiv begrepsbruk her.
Jeg lurer ellers på om det har gått U&D hus forbi at man i hvert fall på engelsk bruker uttrykkene race og racial group nettopp på rekursivt vis, jfr f.eks. uttrykkene the human race, the caucasian race, the white race, the irish race, hvilket er gjenspeilet i Steve Sailers definisjon:
A racial group is an extended family that is inbred to some degree.
Her er et relevant sitat fra The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature av Steven Pinker. Min kilde for sitatet er denne artikkelen av Sailer, som gir en mengde lenker til videre lesning. Pinker skriver følgende (uthvelser og hyperlenke tilføyd av meg):
Nowadays it is popular to say that races do not exist but are purely social constructions. Though that is certainly true of bureaucratic pigeonholes such as "colored," "Hispanic," "Asian/Pacific Islander," and the one-drop rule for being "black," it is an overstatement when it comes to human differences in general. The biological anthropologist Vincent Sarich points out that a race is just a very large and partly inbred family. Some racial distinctions thus may have a degree of biological reality, even though they are not exact boundaries between fixed categories. Humans, having recently evolved from a single founder population, are all related, but Europeans, having mostly bred with other Europeans for millennia, are on average more closely related to other Europeans than they are to Africans or Asians, and vice versa. Because oceans, deserts, and mountain ranges have prevented people from choosing mates at random in the past, the large inbred families we call races are still discernible, each with a somewhat different distribution of gene frequencies. In theory, some of the varying genes could affect personality or intelligence (though any such differences would at most apply to averages, with vast overlap between the group members). This is not to say that such genetic differences are expected or that we have evidence for them, only that they are biologically possible.
U&E skriver videre:
Når det gjelder Anfindsens påstand om at vi ikke har dekning for å si at Watson har møtt "nokså unison fordømmelse" fra forskerhold for sine uttalelser om at afrikanere fra naturens side er mindre intelligente enn europeere, stiller vi oss undrende. Eksempelvis har verdens to ledende vitenskapelige tidsskrifter, Nature og Science, begge hatt leder- og eller kommentarartikler som er sterkt kritiske og fordømmende, og Watson mistet sin stilling ved det prestisjetunge Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory som en følge av uttalelsene. I en verden med utallige bloggerfora på Internett tviler vi ikke på at Anfindsen har funnet personer som forsvarer Watsons uttalelse, men de kan knapt sies å være sentrale i forskningsverdenen.
Vel, la oss se litt nærmere på hva U&E har å fare med på dette området, og la oss begynne med et sitat der The Guardian har intervjuet en ikke helt usentral skikkelse i forskningsverdenen (dette sitatet har ligget ute på HT siden 26.12.2007, så dersom U&E ikke har sett dette før de kritiserte meg offentlig, viser bare at de ikke har gjort hjemmelekesen sin):
'What is ethically wrong is the hounding, by what can only be described as an illiberal and intolerant "thought police", of one of the most distinguished scientists of our time, out of the Science Museum, and maybe out of the laboratory that he has devoted much of his life to, building up a world-class reputation,' said Richard Dawkins, [...].
Jeg føler meg ganske overbevist om at Dawkins her setter ord på noe svært mange forskere føler på, nemlig at den behandlingen Watson ble utsatt for, er uverdig for ethvert forskersamfunn med selvrespekt, der det selvfølgelig alltid må være rom for å stille kjetterske spørsmål. Dessuten kommer Dawkins inn på en annen problemstilling her, og det er at Watson (på det tidspunktet Dawkins uttalte seg til The Guardian) risikerte å miste sin stilling ved det prestisjetunge Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) som en følge av uttalelsene (noe han da også gjorde, kort tid senere).
U&E bruker dette siste som et argument for sin sak, hvilket overrasker meg. ’Alle’ i bransjen vet hvorfor CSHL ga Watson sparken; det handlet ikke om faglige vurderinger, men om penger. Min gjetning er at laboratoriets ledelse fikk panikk fordi man kunne risikere at sentrale sponsorer ville trekke støtten. Dels er dette et alvorlig tankekors for den amerikanske finaniseringsmodellen for forskning; den har for lite rom for politisk ukorrekte forskere. Dels ser vi altså at Watsons arbeidsgiver sviktet og feiget ut da den ble satt på prøve.
Men det er et annet poeng her som er helt sentralt når man skal forstå hvorfor argumentet fra U&E på dette punktet er nærmest verdiløst, og det er at siden det så å si fra første stund ble klart at Watson la an til å få sparken (samt at det var ramaskrik i pressen med en heksejakt den vitenskapelige verden ikke har opplevd på lenge, og at de fleste institusjoner i UK som hadde avtaler med Watson, kansellerte disse), så er det innlysende at forskere som helt eller delvis er enige med Watson, tenker seg om to ganger før de sier det høyt. Dette er elementær vitenskapsteori, og dessuten elementær psykologi. At forholdsvis få tok sjansen på å si offentlig at behandlingen av Watson var en skam, betyr ikke at de fleste forskere støttet det som skjedde.
Det er ellers verdt å merke seg at Watson, selv om han ikke nevnes ved navn, i det minste har fått indirekte støtte fra Mark Pagel (som heller ikke er noen hvem som helst). Edge.org er et usedvanlig godt, populærvitenskapelig nettsted der de fremste blant de kloke hoder deler sine ideer med offentligheten. Hvert år stiller nettstedet ett nytt spørsmål og folk som Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker, Susan Blackmore, Daniel Dennet, David Buss og mange flere bidrar med sine svar. Spørsmålet for 2008 var "Hva har du endret mening om det siste året?"
Mark Pagel er evolusjonsbiolog ved Reading University og hans svar er "We Differ More Than We Thought". Det er edruelig og saklig lesning (mine uthevelser):
The last thirty to forty years of social science has brought an overbearing censorship to the way we are allowed to think and talk about the diversity of people on Earth. People of Siberian descent, New Guinean Highlanders, those from the Indian sub-continent, Caucasians, Australian aborigines, Polynesians, Africans — we are, officially, all the same: there are no races.
Flawed as the old ideas about race are, modern genomic studies reveal a surprising, compelling and different picture of human genetic diversity. We are on average about 99.5% similar to each other genetically. This is a new figure, down from the previous estimate of 99.9%. To put what may seem like miniscule differences in perspective, we are somewhere around 98.5% similar, maybe more, to chimpanzees, our nearest evolutionary relatives.
The new figure for us, then, is significant. It derives from among other things, many small genetic differences that have emerged from studies that compare human populations. Some confer the ability among adults to digest milk, others to withstand equatorial sun, others yet confer differences in body shape or size, resistance to particular diseases, tolerance to hot or cold, how many offspring a female might eventually produce, and even the production of endorphins — those internal opiate-like compounds. We also differ by surprising amounts in the numbers of copies of some genes we have.
Modern humans spread out of Africa only within the last 60-70,000 years, little more than the blink of an eye when stacked against the 6 million or so years that separate us from our Great Ape ancestors. The genetic differences amongst us reveal a species with a propensity to form small and relatively isolated groups on which natural selection has often acted strongly to promote genetic adaptations to particular environments.
We differ genetically more than we thought, but we should have expected this: how else but through isolation can we explain a single species that speaks at least 7,000 mutually unintelligible languages around the World?
What this all means is that, like it or not, there may be many genetic differences among human populations — including differences that may even correspond to old categories of 'race' — that are real differences in the sense of making one group better than another at responding to some particular environmental problem. This in no way says one group is in general 'superior' to another, or that one group should be preferred over another. But it warns us that we must be prepared to discuss genetic differences among human populations.
For ordens skyld kan jeg tilføye at jeg ikke kjente til Pagels uttalelse da jeg skrev det innlegget i Aftenposten som U&E kritiserer; jeg skrev at deres påstand om unison fordømmelse av Watson fra forskerhold var en ”sannhet med modifikasjoner”. Dette var dels basert på uttalsen fra Dawkins (se ovenfor), og dels på min generelle overbevisning om at mange forskere i sitt stille sinn støttet ham rent faglig (selv om de, i likhet med meg, misliker stilen hans).
Men særlig er det slik at min uttalelse om at unison fordømmelse av Watson fra forskerhold var en ”sannhet med modifikasjoner”, var basert på følgende artikler av Steve Sailer og Jason Malloy (disse artiklene inneholder svært mange referanser til videre lesning, både i den akademiske faglitteraturen og av mer populærvitenskapelig kaliber):
Steve Sailer er en etablert og anerkjent (om enn kontroversiell) forskningsjournalist, men jeg må gi U&E rett i den forstand at Jason Malloy har mindre formelle kvalifikasjoner enn hva jeg trodde (”My professional background is in writing, art, and design. So I certainly can't make my arguments from academic authority”, som han skriver til meg). New York Times sin referanse til Malloys artikkel (se overskriften New York Times om rase), avisens omtale av ”the widely read science blog Gene Expression”, og ikke minst det generelle intrykket av dette nettstedet, fikk meg til anta at alle skribentene der hadde relevant, akademisk bakgrunn, men der tok jeg altså feil. Som U&E bemerker:
I en verden med utallige bloggerfora på Internett tviler vi ikke på at Anfindsen har funnet personer som forsvarer Watsons uttalelse, men de kan knapt sies å være sentrale i forskningsverdenen
Vel, U&E kan jo lese ovenevnte artikler fra Sailer og Malloy, og fortelle meg hvor de mener disse to tar feil. Meg bekjent er det ingen som har kunnet tilbakevise det de skriver (mer om det nedenfor). Og U&E gjør altså et stort nummer ut av ”verdens to ledende vitenskapelige tidsskrifter, Nature og Science, [har] begge hatt leder- og eller kommentarartikler som er sterkt kritiske og fordømmende” til Watson. Jeg har anmodet de to om å fortelle meg hvilke argumenter fremført mot Watson i nevnte fagtidsskrifter, de selv legger mest vekt på. Det har jeg ikke fått noe svar på, og det begynner å ane meg hvorfor.
Men la oss se på de aktuelle artiklene. Vi begynner med Watson Condemned for Comments on Intelligence av Yudhijit Bhattacharjee (Science, 26.10.2007, Vol 318). Her kan vi blant annet lese følgende:
[...] His current responsibilities include fundraising for the 117-yearold nonprofit and helping transform it into a university. But the lab’s board of trustees, of which he is a member, moved swiftly to distance the institution from him after he was quoted in the 14 October Sunday Times as saying that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really.”
Watson’s comments in “no way reflect the mission, goals, or principles of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory’s Board, administration, or faculty,” explained CSHL President Bruce Stillman on 17 October. “Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory does not engage in any research that could even form the basis of the statements attributed to Dr. Watson.” [...]
Watson has a history of making sweeping remarks, including his suggestion in 2000 that libido is linked to exposure to sunlight. But this time he seems to have gone too far. “You get to the end of the rope at some point,” says one trustee who spoke to Science on the condition of anonymity. “The feeling was that something very inappropriate had occurred and some action needed to be taken.”
Watson has apologized for the remarks, which also prompted London’s Science Museum to cancel a scheduled talk. “I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said,” he told The Associated Press. “To all those who have drawn the inference from my words that Africa, as a continent, is somehow genetically inferior, I can only apologize unreservedly.” But in a 19 October commentary published in The Independent, Watson seemed also to put up a defense. “The overwhelming desire of society today is to assume that equal powers of reason are a universal heritage of humanity,” he wrote. “It may well be. But simply wanting this to be the case is not enough. This is not science.”
Neither were his own comments, says Harvard University psychologist Howard Gardner. “He has taken an extremely complex set of issues—what is intelligence, what is race, how valid are IQ tests—and reduced them to a provocative sound bite,” says Gardner. As someone “of almost unique prestige in the scientific community,” Gardner notes, Watson “has a special responsibility to watch his tongue.”
Merk, slik det her påpekes, at Watson ikke uforbeholdent har trukket tilbake sine utsagn, men at han også har forsvart seg (følg ovenstående lenke til The Independent og les selv). La oss gå videre til en lederartikkel i Nature (25.10.2007, Vol 449) med tittel Watson’s folly, og undertittel Debate about sensitive scientific issues needs to be forthright but not crass. Her kan vi blant annet lese følgende (mine uthevelser):
[Watson’s] latest outburst marks the point at which his views have finally been deemed beyond the pale. And rightly so — for one of the world’s most high-profile scientists to state such views demonstrates a sheer unacceptable offensiveness. Watson has apologized and retracted the outburst, claiming to have been “mortified” at the outcome of the interview although he did not deny its contents. He acknowledged that there is no evidence for what he claimed about racial differences in intelligence. But the damage has been done, lending succour and comfort to racists around the globe.
[...] Several high-profile establishments cancelled [Watson’s speaking engagements]. This is regrettable: science is about nothing if not openness and critical debate. Scientists with controversial arguments need to be able to withstand the heat, defending or retracting statements as the evidence indicates is required. Watson, however unpleasant his utterances, has always been willing to act in this spirit.
The cancellations run the risk of playing into the hands of those who wish to suppress scientific inquiry. Many human geneticists are engaged in the sensitive task of unravelling differences between the world’s population groups, all the while acknowledging that ‘race’ is an emotive and unscientific word. Others are investigating the equally sensitive genetics of ‘desirable’ traits, such as cognitive ability.
Asking such questions has always been controversial, given the potential for abuse of the outcomes demonstrated by the history of eugenics. Scientists explore the world as it is, rather than as they would like it to be. There will be important debates in the future as we gain a fuller understanding of the influence of genetics on human attributes and behaviour. Crass comments by Nobel laureates undermine our very ability to debate such issues, and thus damage science itself.
Her står det, etter min mening, en god del fornuftig; jeg er i hvert fall enig i mye av det Nature sin lederskribent gir uttrykk for. Men når det gjelder det rent faglige, er dette tynne saker. Her er synsing og udokumenterte påstander, men ingen referanser til forskningsresultater eller faglitteratur.
Parallelt med at jeg forsøkte å finne ut hva som har stått i Nature og Science, tok jeg direkte kontakt med både Jason Malloy og Steve Sailer. Jeg var interessert i å høre hvilken faglig kritikk mot Watson, eller deres egne artikler om Watson, de to kunne henvise til. Her er svaret fra Jason Malloy (epost av 02.02.2008, gjengitt med hans tillatelse; mine uthevelser):
Thanks for writing. I did get positive feedback from many scientists in response to the James Watson post. Mainly, I feel, this was for standing up at the right time. I think my arguments in the post stand on their own merit. If there is "broad agreement among researchers that Watson was wrong" [min henvisning til argumentet fra U&E, red] it would be nice to know what facts, specifically, contradict him.
As I showed in the post, the scientists who asserted this publicly had nothing but false bravado. The psychometric data agrees with Watson (See 'Intelligence does not exist' section), the population genetic data agrees with Watson (See 'Race does not exist' section), and the behavior genetic data agree with Watson (See 'Mind is a blank slate' section).
No, I have not met serious criticism.
Jason Malloy kan altså rapportere om sterk støtte fra fagfolk, og han kjenner ikke til seriøs kritikk. Svaret jeg mottok fra Steve Sailer gjengis i et senere avsnitt.
Min konklusjon så langt er at Dag Undlien og Thomas Hylland Eriksen ikke har noe annet å komme med en det Malloy hevder vi har sett i offentlig debatt i den engelskspråklige verden, nemlig false bravado. Dersom de to mener jeg har oversett viktige artikler i Nature, Science eller andre prestisjetunge tidsskrifter, oppfordrer jeg dem nok en gang til å komme med referanser. Når to professorer slår om seg med store ord om hva seriøse forskere mener om dette eller hint, da må referanser og faglige argumenter være minimum av hva man kan forvente. Foreløpig har vi sett fint lite til noen av delene, hvilket ytterligere styrker min mistanke at de to ikke har gjort hjemmeleksene sine.
Dag Undlien og Thomas Hylland Eriksen (U&E) fortsetter slik:
Enda mer forundret er vi over påstanden om at Watsons kritikere ikke har dokumentert sine påstander. Det de sier, er at Watson ikke har dekning for sine påstander om at svarte er mindre intelligente enn hvite fra naturens side. Den vitenskapelige bevisbyrde hviler naturligvis på den som fremsetter nye påstander, og Watson innrømmer selv at han ikke har noen vitenskapelige holdepunkter for sin påstand.
Det mange av Watsons kritikere tilsynelatende ikke skjønner, er at det i utgangspunktet ikke finnes noen grunn til å anta at adskilte grupper over tid vil utvikle de samme fysiske eller mentale egenskaper. Det er tvert imot astronomiske odds mot noe slikt. Forøvrig er denne kritikken fra U&E grundig tilbakevist i de ovennevnte artiklene av Sailer og Malloy.
La oss likevel se litt på hva andre forskere enn Watson har hevdet om disse tingene. Her er utdrag fra et brev Watsons nobelprismakker Francis Crick skrev (mine uthevelser):
I have been very distressed to see the letter to the President of the National Academy by you and six other Academy members regarding a Proposal by Dr. [William] Shockley [Nobel laureate in physics]. Like you I have not published anything on the population problem, but f have become fairly familiar with the literature of the subject. I have also talked to Dr, Jensen when he visited the Salk Institute recently.
Unlike you and your colleagues I have formed the opinion that there is much substance to [Berkeley psychologist Arthur] Jensen’s arguments. In brief I think it likely that more than half the difference between the average I.Q. of American whites and Negroes is due to genetic reasons, and will not be eliminated by any foreseeable change in the environment. Moreover I think the social consequences of this are likely to be rather serious unless steps are taken to recognize the situation.
While any present conclusions are tentative, it seems likely that the matter could be largely resolved if further research were carried out. I should thus like to know two things. Would you and your colleagues please state in detail why they think the arguments put forward by Jensen are either incorrect or misleading. Secondly, would they please indicate what research they think should be done to establish to what extent "intelligence" is inherited. This is surely the important point, and is equally valid for a country without a racially mixed population.
The most distressing feature of your letter is that it neither gives nor refers to any scientific arguments, but makes unsupported statements of opinion, This, I need hardly remind you, is politics, not science. The voice of established authority, unsupported by evidence or argument, should have no place in science, and I am surprised to find that you, of all people, should put your name to a letter of this character written to the Academy on a matter of scientific research. I am cure you will realize that if the Academy were to take active steps to suppress reputable scientific research for political reasons it would not be possible for me to remain a Foreign Associate.
Av de forskerne som har stått i første rekke som kritikere av Jensen og andre som har hevdet at ikke bare miljø, men også biologi, spiller en (større eller mindre) rolle når det gjelder ulike folkegruppers IQ, er kanskje følgende de mest kjente: Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose og Leon Kamin. Alle disse fire har det til felles at de knapt forsøkte å skjule at deres forskning var drevet av en politisk agenda. Som Crick bemerket om Lewontin (min uthevelse):
Lewontin, in particular, is known to be strongly politically biased and himself admits to being scientifically unscrupulous on these issues. That is, he takes them as political ones and therefore feels justified in the use of biased arguments.
Jeg kjenner for lite til Rose og Kamin til å kunne uttale meg om dem, men merker meg at følgende står å lese om Rose på Wikipedia: ”Rose, who is openly Marxist, has been criticized for allowing politically correct beliefs to interfere with hard science. His book, Not in Our Genes, was heavily criticized by Richard Dawkins, for attempting politically correct science.”
Også om Gould må det utvilsomt kunne sies at han følte seg berettiget til å bruke biased arguments i sin kamp mot sine meningsmotstandere (hvilket var lett å merke da han holdt gjesteforelesning på UiO for en del år siden). Jeg anbefaler at man leser Arthur Jensens anmeldelse av The Mismeasure of Man, som i sin tid ble publisert av Contemporary Education Review, Summer 1982, Volume 1, Number 2.
Jeg siterer i denne forbindelse fra et leserbrev jeg mottok 01.02.2008 (lenker tilføyd av meg):
De som mener det er arvelige forskjeller i intelligens mellom rasene, hører hjemme i intelligensforskningens hovedstrømning. Flertallet av spesialister på dette feltet mente så tidlig som i 1988 at forskjellene i IQ mellom amerikanske hvite og svarte delvis var arvelige (Snyderman and Rothman 1988). Arthur Jensen som har samme syn, er ingen outsider - det ledende fagtidsskriftet, Intelligence, viet et helt nummer [i 1998] til Jensen, og ga det titelen "A King Among Men: Arthur Jensen." Den store biologen William Hamilton tok denne intelligensforskjellen så alvorlig at han behandlet den i en artikkel hvor han fremsatte en teori om hvordan den kunne ha oppstått.
At folk ikke vet at flertallet av amerikanske forskere, og amerikanerne er verdensledende, mener intelligensforskjellene mellom svarte og hvite delvis er arvelige, skyldes en enkelt ting, nemlig at de som fremfører noe slikt offentlig blir trakassert, tildels grovt trakassert, og flertallet av norske forskere mangler totalt det tyskerne kalte Zivilcourage.
Brevskriveren nevner William Hamilton, som gjerne omtales som "one of the greatest evolutionary theorists of the 20th century", og det var altså han som gjorde det mulig for Richard Dawkins og E. O. Wilson å sikre seg fremtredende plasser i det det 20. århundres vitenskapshistorie. Interessant nok har Hamilton, i sin bok Narrow Roads of Gene Land. Vol. II: The Evolution of Sex, drøftet spørsmål knyttet til rase, kjønn, intelligens og sannhet (side 332, min uthevelse):
... [M]ight it be fair also to say that the champions of 'no difference' in race or sex, or intelligence ... are the guardians of a greater 'untruth' that allows people to live together in mutual harmony, implying that these critics really deserve to be praised as our protectors even when they are factually wrong? ... it is roughly how the self-appointed guardians choose to present themselves - leaving aside, usually, the step of frankly admitting that they are promoting factual untruths when they know that they are.
For ordens skyld: jeg har ikke lest denne boken, og sitatet er kopiert fra Malloys artikkel på Gene Expression.
En annen brevskriver henvendte seg 15.02.2008 til meg med følgende lille tips:
Her er en omfattende artikkel fra 2005 på seksti sider, med mange referanser, skrevet av to amerikanske forskere i genetiske forskjeller relatert til rase. Ifølge Hylland Eriksen skrives ikke slike artikler av forskere i dag.
Artikkelen det siktes til har tittelen Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability, er skrevet av Arthur Jensen og J. Philippe Rushton, og er publisert i Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 2005, Vol. 11, No. 2, 235–294 (som utgis av American Psychological Association). Jeg siterer fra abstract og fra det avsluttende avsnittet:
The culture-only (0% genetic–100% environmental) and the hereditarian (50% genetic–50% environmental) models of the causes of mean Black–White differences in cognitive ability are compared and contrasted across 10 categories of evidence: the worldwide distribution of test scores, g factor of mental ability, heritability, brain size and cognitive ability, transracial adoption, racial admixture, regression, related life-history traits, human origins research, and hypothesized environmental variables. The new evidence reviewed here points to some genetic component in Black–White differences in mean IQ. The implication for public policy is that the discrimination model (i.e., Black–White differences in socially valued outcomes will be equal barring discrimination) must be tempered by a distributional model (i.e., Black–White outcomes reflect underlying group characteristics).
[...]
Conflicting Worldviews
A prevailing worldview throughout history has been that economic, cultural, and other environmental forces are the preeminent causes of group and individual behavior. Modern social science has typically taken this perspective and promoted the idea that all babies are born more or less equally endowed in intelligence and learning ability. It followed therefore that inequalities were the result of social, economic, and political forces. This worldview generated many strategies for intervention in the home, the workplace, the mass media, the criminal justice system, and even the entire social–economic system. Some have been effective and are almost universally accepted, whereas others have failed and produced only shattered expectations, resentment, and interethnic hostility. The major policy implication of the research reviewed here is that adopting an evolutionary–genetic outlook does not undermine our dedication to democratic ideals. As E. O. Wilson (1978) aptly noted: “We are not compelled to believe in biological uniformity in order to affirm freedom and dignity” (p. 52). He went on to quote the sociologist Bressler (1968): “An ideology that tacitly appeals to biological equality as a condition for human emancipation corrupts the idea of freedom. Moreover, it encourages decent men to tremble at the prospect of ‘inconvenient’ findings that may emerge in future scientific research” (E. O.Wilson, 1978, p. 52). Denial of any genetic component in human variation, including between groups, is not only poor science, it is likely to be injurious both to unique individuals and to the complex structure of societies.
For ordens skyld: jeg har ennå ikke hatt mulighet til å lese denne svært omfattende artikkelen av Jensen og Rushton, men tar den med nettopp for å dokumentere at denne typen artikler faktisk publiseres i ledende, internasjonale fagtidsskrifter.
Jeg er selvsagt klar over at Jensen og Rushton er kontroversielle, for ikke å si forhatte. Jeg synes derfor det er interessant å merke seg hva en av deres mest kjente meningsmotstandere, James Flynn, uttaler i et intervju med Gene Expression:
GNXP: Over the decades, you've carried on an extensive correspondence with Arthur Jensen, the controversial and enormously influential intelligence researcher at UC Berkeley. You summarized some of your early thoughts about Jensen's work in your 1980 book Race, IQ, and Jensen, a book that, in my opinion, sets the standard for how do discuss this controversial topic. What have you learned about Jensen over the years, and what have your interactions with him taught you about the nature of scientific research?
Flynn: I never suspected Arthur Jensen of racial bias. Over the years, I have found him scrupulous in terms of professional ethics. He has never denied me access to his unpublished data. His work stands as an example of what John Stuart Mill meant when he said that being challenged in a way that is "upsetting" is to be welcomed not discouraged. Before Jensen, the notion that all races were genetically equal for cognitive ability had become a dead "Sunday truth" for which we could give no good reasons. Today we are infinitely more informed about group differences. Equally important, the debates Jensen began are revolutionizing the theory of intelligence and our understanding of how genes and environment interact.
Og mens visse intellektuelle her i Norge helst ser at denne typen problemstillinger blir feid under teppet, er professor Flynn av en helt annen oppfatning. Her er to aktuelle sitater fra New York Times (mine uthevelser):
Linda S. Gottfredson, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, insists that Mr. Saletan has nothing to apologize for. Ms. Gottfredson, who along with Mr. Flynn had been participating in a separate monthlong online debate about intelligence sponsored by the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote that Mr. Saletan “may be the first journalist to so directly acknowledge the scientific evidence” supporting a genetic explanation for racial differences in I.Q. “and to be allowed to publish his views.” [...]
Mr. [James R. Flynn - the man after which the Flynn effect is named - see also his home page], who said he had been attacked by both conservatives (for playing down the significance of genes) and by liberals (for arguing that black culture is at the root of the I.Q. gap), told the group, “I want to say how deeply I believe in this sort of discussion.” He later explained that his own desire to disprove the genetic arguments is what spurred his research.
Gottfredsons kommentar om at Saletan ikke hadde noen grunn til å be om unnskyldning, har sin bakgrunn i at Saletan, som er vitenskapelig redaktør i nettpublikasjonen Slate, kort tid i forveien hadde publisert en artikkelserie som tildels bygde på vitenskapelige arbeider fra nettopp Rushton, noe en god del lesere tydeligvis mente var kritikkverdig i seg selv (folk som Rushton og Jensen bør nemlig ties ihjel, i følge enkelte). Her er udrag fra min kommentarartikkel Slate on race, genes, and intelligence, HT 09.12.2007:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights …
09.12.2007. Thus begins William Saletan his article Liberal Creationism, as part of the Created Equal series, at Slate:
Last month, James Watson, the legendary biologist, was condemned and forced into retirement after claiming that African intelligence wasn't "the same as ours." "Racist, vicious and unsupported by science," said the Federation of American Scientists. "Utterly unsupported by scientific evidence," declared the U.S. government's supervisor of genetic research. The New York Times told readers that when Watson implied "that black Africans are less intelligent than whites, he hadn't a scientific leg to stand on."
I wish these assurances were true. They aren't. Tests do show an IQ deficit, not just for Africans relative to Europeans, but for Europeans relative to Asians. Economic and cultural theories have failed to explain most of the pattern, and there's strong preliminary evidence that part of it is genetic. It's time to prepare for the possibility that equality of intelligence, in the sense of racial averages on tests, will turn out not to be true.
If this suggestion makes you angry—if you find the idea of genetic racial advantages outrageous, socially corrosive, and unthinkable—you're not the first to feel that way.
In the days after publishing the above article, Saletan followed up with two additional articles:
· Environmental Impact: Yesterday we looked at evidence for a genetic theory of racial differences in IQ. Today let's look at some of the arguments against it. Again, I'm drawing heavily on a recent exchange of papers published by the American Psychological Association.
· All God's Children (emphasis added): Why write about this topic? Why hurt people's feelings? Why gratify bigots? Because truth matters. Because the truth isn't as bad as our ignorant, half-formed fears and suspicions about it. And because you can't solve a problem till you understand it.
Saletan may have been a little too quick to conclude in favor of genetic causes of the difference (we can be 99,999...% sure that some genetic causes are indeed present, but we cannot yet, as far as I can tell, be confident about the relative importance of genetics). Still, by an large, he has written some very interesting and important articles. But, of course, his articles have caused outrage. So much outrage that, after a week or so, Saletan published his regrets, including the following paragraph:
But the thing that has upset me most concerns a co-author of one of the articles I cited. In researching this subject, I focused on published data and relied on peer review and rebuttals to expose any relevant issue. As a result, I missed something I could have picked up from a simple glance at Wikipedia.
HonestThinking comments: Saletan is embarrassed that his articles to some degree rely on the work of J. Philippe Rushton. I am only somewhat familiar with Rushton and his work; I have read part of one of his books, and notice that his name is brought up every now and then. Rushton is obviously well-known for his work on racial differences in IQ, and related issues, and according to Wikipedia he is the current head of the Pioneer Fund.
So what? This brings us to a very interesting point: should Saletan be embarrassed because he has referenced the work of a man who is associated with an organization many consider to be racist? This is an area where we need to be careful. Earlier this year I participated in a discussion on document.no (the largest independent blog in Norway) where arguments advanced by professor Lars Gule were dismissed simply because (a) he is a leftist, and (b) he was arrested in Beirut in 1977 for possession of explosives.
In my opinion we need to use exactly the same kind of reasoning in both cases. If Gule or Rushton can bring interesting facts to bear on an issue, or if they have conducted quality research that can shed light on an issue, we should listen to them, period. We may need to compensate for personal bias, and we should (as always) consult additional sources, but we should not dismiss their results simply because of who they are! If we do that, we have become the victims of political correctness - the enemy of truth and honesty.
Facts are facts, no matter who the messenger is. Good research is good research, no matter who conducted it. I notice that a recent article in New York Times (!) contained the following paragraph (emphasis added):
Linda S. Gottfredson, a sociologist at the University of Delaware, insists that Mr. Saletan has nothing to apologize for. Ms. Gottfredson, who along with Mr. Flynn had been participating in a separate monthlong online debate about intelligence sponsored by the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote that Mr. Saletan “may be the first journalist to so directly acknowledge the scientific evidence” supporting a genetic explanation for racial differences in I.Q. “and to be allowed to publish his views.”
One can always point to minor flaws and details that should have been different. Still, Saletan (and Slate) should be applauded for bringing all of us at least a little bit closer to ending the hypocrisy, wishful thinking, and political correctness that holds American society in general, and American academia in particular, in a deadly embrace.
Every time somebody speaks the truth, or even a partial truth, and is shouted down with politically correct screams, these forces of darkness cannot help but to blow part of their cover. Thus, the currently prevailing intellectual terror regime is brought one step closer to its demise.
Og om noen er interessert i en populærvitenskapelig og høyst aktuell artikkel av Rushton, kan jeg varmt anbefale Wanted: More Race Realism, Less Moralistic Fallacy, fra vdare.com, 07.12.2005.
Og om noen skulle tro at Jensen og Rushton er to ensomme svaler med outrerte meninger som knapt deles av noen andre, bør man lese Racial Differences in Intelligence: What Mainstream Scientists Say. Denne artikkelen ble første gang publisert i The Wall Street Journal, 13.12.1994, og var signert av 52 internasjonalt kjente forskere innen relevante fagområder. Mer om denne artikkelen i neste avsnitt.
Tilføyelse 19.10.2008: I løpet av året er det kommet to akademiske artikler om Watson-skandalen. Disse artiklene kan kjøpes fra ScienceDirect, men utdrag av dem er gjort tilgjengelig her på HonestThinking: James Watson tells the inconvenient truth: Faces the consequences, by Jason Malloy, published by Medical Hypotheses, Volume 70, Issue 6, 2008, Pages 1081-1091, og James Watson’s most inconvenient truth: Race realism and the moralistic fallacy, by J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur R. Jensen, published by Medical Hypotheses, Volume 71, Issue 5, November 2008, Pages 629-640.
Undlien og Hylland Eriksen avslutter sitt innlegg slik (min uthevelse):
Som vi skriver i vår kronikk, tror også vi at det vil bli funnet flere genetiske forskjeller som til dels følger etniske skillelinjer. Imidlertid kan ikke slike forskjeller brukes til å trekke generaliserende slutninger. Til det har fenomenene som studeres for komplekse årsaksforhold. Dessuten er f.eks. intelligensbegrepet en sosial konstruksjon, og egenskaper som er viktige for suksess i et gitt miljø, kan være mindre viktige når miljøet endres. Generaliserte uttalelser av den typen Watson er sitert på, er det derfor vår ærlige mening at det ikke finnes vitenskapelig dekning for. Det er også vår ærlige mening at å bruke studier om genetisk variasjon til å komme med generelle påstander om rasers eller etniske gruppers egenskaper, er et blindspor.
Anfindsens leserinnlegg er kort sagt et kroneksempel på den typen tendensiøs forvrengning av forskningsresultater som vi advarte mot i kronikken.
Når det gjelder dette siste, så er jeg usikker på nøyaktig hvilken ”tendensiøs forvrengning av forskningsresultater” jeg har gjort meg skyldig i. Den herværende artikkelen er ment som dokumentasjon på at de påstandene jeg hittil har fremmet i Aftenposten-debatten med U&E, ikke er grepet ut av løse luften. De to oppfordres til å begrunne denne anklagen nærmere, dersom de mener at jeg ennå ikke har besvart den.
Jeg er ellers en smule forbauset over å lese at ikke bare kjønn og rase, men nå også intelligens, skal være en sosial konstruksjon. Skal dette bety at heller ikke intelligens finnes? Neppe. For eksempel kan vi være ganske sikre på at de to professorene er opptatt av å sikre seg hovedfags- og doktorgradsstudenter som er så intelligente som mulig; det er nemlig studenter med høy IQ som har størst sannsynlighet for å levere gode oppgaver, avhandlinger, rapporter og publiserte artikler, og som i sin tur kan gi sine professorer mer prestisje. Og verken Undlien eller Hylland Eriksen hadde vært der de er i dag om det ikke var for det utvilsomme faktum at de begge to er mer enn gjennomsnittlig intelligente.
Så hva i all verden kan de to mene når de påstår at intelligens er en sosial konstruksjon? Jeg vet ikke helt, men begrepet sosial konstruksjon betyr tilsynelatende noe annet her enn når det brukes i konteksten av raser/kontinentgrupper/etniske grupper. Det de forsøker å si, er muligens dels at ulike kulturer legger vekt på ulike ferdigheter, dels at det finnes mange typer intelligens (innen f.eks. språk, matematikk, dataspill, sport/idrett/lagspill, musikk, skuespill, osv). Javisst, men i så fall understreker de bare det som er innlysende for enhver med et minimum av biologisk forståelse, nemlig at det er all mulig grunn til å forvente at folkegrupper som har levd adskilt i mange genereasjoner, under ulike forhold, vil ha utviklet seg ulikt når det gjelder intelligens.
Det jeg oppfatter som U&E sitt anliggende blir da også tatt opp i den ovennevnte artikkelen Racial Differences in Intelligence: What Mainstream Scientists Say. Her er noen utdrag:
Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings — “catching on,” “making sense” of things, or “figuring out” what to do.
Intelligence, so defined, can be measured, and intelligence tests measure it well. They are among the most accurate (in technical terms, reliable and valid) of all psychological tests and assessments. They do not measure creativity, character, personality, or other important differences among individuals, nor are they intended to.
While there are different types of intelligence tests, they all measure the same intelligence. Some use words or numbers and require specific cultural knowledge (like vocabulary). Others do not, and instead use shapes or designs and require knowledge of only simple, universal concepts (many/few, open/closed, up/down).
The spread of people along the IQ continuum, from low to high, can be represented well by the BELL CURVE (in statistical jargon, the “normal CURVE”). Most people cluster around the average (IQ 100). Few are either very bright or very dull: About 3% of Americans score above IQ 130 (often considered the threshold for “giftedness”), with about the same percentage below IQ 70 (IQ 70-75 often being considered the threshold for mental retardation).
Intelligence tests are not culturally biased against American blacks or other native-born, English-speaking peoples in the U.S. Rather, IQ scores predict equally accurately for all such Americans, regardless of race and social class. Individuals who do not understand English well can be given either a nonverbal test or one in their native language.
The brain processes underlying intelligence are still little understood. Current research looks, for example, at speed of neural transmission, glucose (energy) uptake, and electrical activity of the brain. [...]
The research findings neither dictate nor preclude any particular social policy, because they can never determine our goals. They can, however, help us estimate the likely success and side-effects of pursuing those goals via different means.
Som nevnt ovenfor, henvendte jeg meg ikke bare til Jason Malloy, men også til Steve Sailer for å få hans kommentar til utsagnet fra U&E om at Watson var blitt møtt med nærmest unison fordømmelse fra fagfolk, og at Watson var tilsvarende uten dekning for sine påstander. Om dette skrev Sailer blant annet følgende i en epost til meg 01.02.2008:
Essentially, everybody who knows much about the topic knows that
· IQ matters.
· Blacks currently lag in IQ.
· There is a lot of evidence that part of the racial gap is genetic, but we don’t know for sure.
· But we will know, one way or another, with virtual certainty within not that many years. Indeed, that’s the point of the last three pages of Watson’s latest book.
By the way, you might be interested in these private letters from Francis Crick expressing the same views.
For videre lesning kan jeg anbefale noen artikler fra følgende kilder: forskning.no, The Independent (1), The Independent (2), New York Times, Slate, The American Scene, Gene Expression, og The Times. Min egen artikkel om Genenes gåte inneholder også informasjon og ytterligere referanser som kan komme til nytte.
Dessuten kan man finne diverse HT-kommentarer her, her og her. Det er bare å søke (vha Ctrl+F i nettleseren) på ord som Watson, Crick, Flynn, Saletan, Rushton, Sailer, Malloy, vdare, race/rase, osv, så finner man de aktuelle kommentarene, samt lenker videre til en rekke eksterne artikler.
Jeg avslutter dette avsnittet med å sitere fra innledning til artikkelen Let’s not cower from the hard truth about race and IQ (The Times, 16.08.2007):
The debate over racial differences in IQ represents perhaps the greatest scientific controversy of the past half-century. The facts are not in serious dispute: blacks score, on average, significantly lower than whites in IQ tests in the United States, Britain and beyond.
Some argue that the only plausible response is to accept that blacks are naturally less intelligent than whites, a view that causes outrage among equal rights campaigners. But is there an alternative explanation for these puzzling statistics and what would it mean if there were not?
All too often the liberal establishment has stifled debate on the issue by pretending that it does not exist. It is asserted, for example, that the concept of intelligence is culturally relative. Even if this is (relatively) true, it does not alter the fact that the kind of intelligence revealed by IQ tests is crucial to one’s prospects in the modern world. It hardly helps the cause of racial equality to argue that, although blacks do worse at IQ tests, they have the kind of intelligence that is useful in preindustrial societies.
The reluctance of liberals to engage in real debate has left the impression that there is an inconvenient truth about IQ differences that is being suppressed by political correctness.
Kritikken Dag Undlien og Thomas Hylland Eriksen har rettet mot meg, er dårlig fundert.
Noen utdrag fra Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease, Genome Biol. 2002; 3(7) (mine uthevelser):
With this as background, it is not surprising that numerous human population genetic studies have come to the identical conclusion - that genetic differentiation is greatest when defined on a continental basis. The results are the same irrespective of the type of genetic markers employed, be they classical systems [5], restriction fragment length polymorphisms (RFLPs) [6], microsatellites [7,8,9,10,11], or single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) [12]. For example, studying 14 indigenous populations from 5 continents with 30 microsatellite loci, Bowcock et al. [7] observed that the 14 populations clustered into the five continental groups, as depicted in Figure 1. [...]
Effectively, these population genetic studies have recapitulated the classical definition of races based on continental ancestry - namely African, Caucasian (Europe and Middle East), Asian, Pacific Islander (for example, Australian, New Guinean and Melanesian), and Native American. [...]
For example, east African groups, such as Ethiopians and Somalis, have great genetic resemblance to Caucasians and are clearly intermediate between sub-Saharan Africans and Caucasians [5]. The existence of such intermediate groups should not, however, overshadow the fact that the greatest genetic structure that exists in the human population occurs at the racial level. [...]
Most recently, Wilson et al. [2] studied 354 individuals from 8 populations deriving from Africa (Bantus, Afro-Caribbeans and Ethiopians), Europe/Mideast (Norwegians, Ashkenazi Jews and Armenians), Asia (Chinese) and Pacific Islands (Papua New Guineans). Their study was based on cluster analysis using 39 microsatellite loci. Consistent with previous studies, they obtained evidence of four clusters representing the major continental (racial) divisions described above as African, Caucasian, Asian, and Pacific Islander. The one population in their analysis that was seemingly not clearly classified on continental grounds was the Ethiopians, who clustered more into the Caucasian group. But it is known that African populations with close contact with Middle East populations, including Ethiopians and North Africans, have had significant admixture from Middle Eastern (Caucasian) groups, and are thus more closely related to Caucasians [14]. Furthermore, the analysis by Wilson et al. [2] did not detect subgroups within the four major racial clusters [dvs de fire klustrene som var med i denne bestemte undersøkelsen, red] (for example, it did not separate the Norwegians, Ashkenazi Jews and Armenians among the Caucasian cluster), despite known genetic differences among them. The reason is clearly that these differences are not as great as those between races and are insufficient, with the amount of data provided, to distinguish these subgroups. [...]
Are racial differences merely cosmetic?
Two arguments against racial categorization as defined above are firstly that race has no biological basis [1,3], and secondly that there are racial differences but they are merely cosmetic, reflecting superficial characteristics such as skin color and facial features that involve a very small number of genetic loci that were selected historically; these superficial differences do not reflect any additional genetic distinctiveness [2]. A response to the first of these points depends on the definition of 'biological'. If biological is defined as genetic then, as detailed above, a decade or more of population genetics research has documented genetic, and therefore biological, differentiation among the races. This conclusion was most recently reinforced by the analysis of Wilson et al. [2]. If biological is defined by susceptibility to, and natural history of, a chronic disease, then again numerous studies over past decades have documented biological differences among the races. In this context, it is difficult to imagine that such differences are not meaningful. Indeed, it is difficult to conceive of a definition of 'biological' that does not lead to racial differentiation, except perhaps one as extreme as speciation.
A forceful presentation of the second point - that racial differences are merely cosmetic - was given recently in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine [1]: "Such research mistakenly assumes an inherent biological difference between black-skinned and white-skinned people. It falls into error by attributing a complex physiological or clinical phenomenon to arbitrary aspects of external appearance. It is implausible that the few genes that account for such outward characteristics could be meaningfully linked to multigenic diseases such as diabetes mellitus or to the intricacies of the therapeutic effect of a drug." The logical flaw in this argument is the assumption that the blacks and whites in the referenced study differ only in skin pigment. Racial categorizations have never been based on skin pigment, but on indigenous continent of origin. For example, none of the population genetic studies cited above, including the study of Wilson et al. [2], used skin pigment of the study subjects, or genetic loci related to skin pigment, as predictive variables. Yet the various racial groups were easily distinguishable on the basis of even a modest number of random genetic markers; furthermore, categorization is extremely resistant to variation according to the type of markers used (for example, RFLPs, microsatellites or SNPs).
Genetic differentiation among the races has also led to some variation in pigmentation across races, but considerable variation within races remains, and there is substantial overlap for this feature. For example, it would be difficult to distinguish most Caucasians and Asians on the basis of skin pigment alone, yet they are easily distinguished by genetic markers. The author of the above statement [1] is in error to assume that the only genetic differences between races, which may differ on average in pigmentation, are for the genes that determine pigmentation.