Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!visdc!jiii
From: jiii@visdc.UUCP (John E Van Deusen III)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Inheritance of IQ
Message-ID: <611@visdc.UUCP>
Date: 2 Aug 89 23:39:54 GMT
References: <5453@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <2061@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> <5480@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <458@edai.ed.ac.uk> <602@visdc.UUCP> <3072@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU> <603@visdc.UUCP> <482@edai.ed.ac.uk>
Reply-To: jiii@visdc.UUCP (John E Van Deusen III)
Organization: VI Software Development, Boise, Idaho
Lines: 45

In article <482@edai.ed.ac.uk> cam@edai (Chris Malcolm) writes:
>In article <603@visdc.UUCP> jiii@visdc.UUCP I wrote:
>> ... all humans have essentially the same genetic compliment.  No one
>> race of humans has "evolved" beyond the others, if evolution is
>> defined to be the assimilation of a positive random genetic mutation.
>> What exists is only variation in the expression of a common pool of
>> genetic information.
>
> Quite so. The same is true of dogs. But if it came to racing a poodle
> against a greyhound I'd bet on the greyhound. On the other hand, if I
> wanted a smart dog I'd get a poodle.

The fact remains that no matter how you breed a dog you still have a
dog.  There is no way that you can get one that can understand Newtonian
mechanics.  It simply isn't there.  A fundamental genetic change would
have to be assimilated by the canine population in order to make that
sort of breakthrough.  In all likelihood, no such positive genetic
mutation exists within one of the races of human beings either.  There
is no characteristic that you can obtain by selective breeding that
can't happen by chance.  The "smartest" dog is most likely to be some
old yaller mongrel.

>> The levels of genetic intelligence within a population fit a standard
>> probability distribution; that is, 95% of the population is within
>> two standard deviations of the mean.  
>
> This is tautologous. It was PRESUMED by those constructing IQ tests
> that the results OUGHT to fit a normal distribution; so they fixed the
> test so that they did.  There is no other reason why the distribution
> should be normal: many simple physical measurements have skewed normal
> distributions, bipolar distributions, etc..

Whether a characteristic such as the "level of genetic intelligence" can
be measured is irrelevant; we have a pretty good idea that it exists.
If it could be measured reliably, being a slowly varying characteristic
of 5 billion people, it would probably fit a normal distribution.  Do
you really have any evidence that they "fixed" the test?

--
"If Asians are smarter than whites and whites are smarter than blacks,
then we must be just right." -- The Boys in the Hall.
--
John E Van Deusen III, PO Box 9283, Boise, ID  83707, (208) 343-1865

uunet!visdc!jiii