Jews, Genes, and Intelligence: A Lecture by Steven Pinker

[Fade the Butcher]

Great lecture. I have watched about half of it so far. Pinker's comments about how a high rate of endogamy (i.e., marrying within the in-group) is necessary condition for rapid selection of any given trait is especially revealing. If the Jewish advantage in general intelligence is largely genetic in origin and the result of natural selection during the Middle Ages, then is it truly unreasonable to believe that the black-white gap in general intelligence is also largely genetic (given that the genetic difference between Sub-Saharan Africans and Eurasians is far greater than that between Jews and Europeans); that it is entirely feasible to boost the the average intelligence of European populations through selective breeding, in a word, eugenics?

Lecture: http://media.cjh.org/video/YIVO_PINKER_PART1.wmv

Questions and Answers: http://media.cjh.org/video/YIVO_PINKER_PART2.wmv

[Fade the Butcher]

This is hilarious. I kid you not: forty-five minutes into his lecture Pinker displays a slide that asks "is it good for the Jews?" :rofl:

[Fade the Butcher]

I'm watching Pinker discuss adoption studies and the heritability of intelligence in the questions and answers video. It is beyond obvious that he is familar with Arthur Jensen's work. He is repeating all of Jensen's claims.

[Professor John Frink]

I've been looking for that video. Thanks.

In "The Blank Slate", Pinker asserts that humans ceased evolving about 100k years ago, i.e. prior to the division into contemporary geograpic populations.

I haven't watched the video yet, but it appears that he has, for all practical purposes, retracted his statement.

[Fade the Butcher]

Wasn't that Gould's idea?

[Professor John Frink]

Wasn't that Gould's idea?
That too.

Here's the quote:

"ARE humans still evolving? In the vernacular sense of improving morally and intellectually - by cultural changes - I think so," says Steven Pinker. "In the biological sense of changes in the gene pool, it's impossible to say." If pressed to come off the fence, however, the Harvard-based evolutionary biologist knows where he stands. "People, including me, would rather believe that significant human biological evolution stopped between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, before the races diverged, which would ensure that racial and ethnic groups are biologically equivalent," he says."

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/being-human/mg18925421.300.html

[Janus]

People, including me, would rather believe that significant human biological evolution stopped between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, before the races diverged, which would ensure that racial and ethnic groups are biologically equivalent... I will be adding this quote to my collection. ;)

[Janus]

The lecture was excellant, BTW. :)

[yllica]

Currently working weblinks:

http://www.cjh.org/videos/YIVO_PINKER_PART1.wmv
http://www.cjh.org/videos/YIVO_PINKER_PART2.wmv

other interesting looking vids too,

http://www.cjh.org/programs/programarchives.php

[Brechun]

I read a good deal of his "Blank Slate" book. About halfway through I wasn't that impressed, mainly a huge series of his political views and treatises, plus his writing style was dull.

And then what destroyed every bit of respect for him was his numerous citations and references to Thomas Bouchard's work. I'm sure everyone's farmiliar with him- his twin studies showing personality to be almost entirely genetic and intelligence being mostly genetic.

...Except NONE of his methodologies have EVER been studied, peer-reviewed, or subjected to critique by other scientists and psychologists. It's been years since his work came about and none of them have ever been validated. Nearly all other subsequent twin studies have found intelligence to be about 50% hereditary, yet still so many worship his work.