Tuesday, January 23, 2018

The Pioneer Fund has bad news for Razib Khan

The Bell Curve relied on research from The Pioneer Fund, something you'll never hear about from the evo-psycho bros who defend the racist conclusions of the Bell Curve.

Here is a profile of the Pioneer Fund at the SPLC web site. The headline:
Started in 1937 by textile magnate Wickliffe Draper, the Pioneer Fund's original mandate was to pursue "race betterment" by promoting the genetic stock of those "deemed to be descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution."
One thing I keep wondering about the evo-psycho bros is how they explain the fact that although we are all ultimately Out of Africa, they still think some ethnic groups are more intelligent than others.

Turns out the Pioneer Fund has the answer!


What about Jensen, Rushton, and Lynn? Don’t they espouse hereditarian views on the race-IQ issue? 
 A:      Their most recent books and articles present the technical evidence on which they reach their conclusion that there is some genetic component in the Black-White difference in average IQ. For example, they point to the fact that the race differences in average IQ show up worldwide, are highest on the general factor of intelligence, which is also the most heritable factor, and remain even in cases of trans-racial adoptions. 
Further, they note that these race differences in average IQ are paralleled by a matrix of sixty other traits, including brain size, rate of growth, rate of dizygotic (two-egg) twinning, hormone level, temperament, sexual behavior, fertility, lifespan, crime, and family stability. On each of these 60 traits, East Asians consistently fall at one end of the continuum, Blacks fall at the other end, and Whites fall in between—often close to East Asians. The consistency of this race-behavior matrix of traits around the world makes it unlikely that only social factors are involved. 
The now widely accepted “Out of Africa” theory provides one gene-based explanation for the race-IQ-behavior matrix. Originating in Africa about 150,000 years ago, with an exodus beginning about 100,000 years ago, the farther north the various ancestral populations migrated, the more they encountered the cognitively demanding problems of gathering and storing food, gaining shelter, making clothes, and raising children successfully during prolonged winters. These ecological pressures selected for individuals with larger brain size, slower rates of maturation, lower levels of sex hormone, and the other racial differences.
Apparently Africa is not a sufficiently cognitively demanding environment compared to The North. It appears that the Pioneer Fund gang think the farther north you go, the smarter you become. 

This is very bad news for evo-psycho bro Razib Khan - in fact I actually joked about the concept a couple of months ago:
So the real issue for Razib Khan must be: at what point did groups of people moving out of Africa become intellectually superior to those who stayed behind in Africa? What was it that prompted the increase in intelligence?
I assume it can't be as simple as moving geographically northward, since Razib Khan's ethnic ancestry is from Bengal, which is fairly far south.
But actually it is as simple as that, according to the Pioneer Fund: my ethnic group is smarter than Khan's simply due to being from farther north.