New nurses during an oathtaking ceremony in Pasay city, Philippines in 2010. (EPA/DENNIS M. SABANGAN)
The Asian brain drain (1965- ) is the flow of highly educated people from Asia to the US: doctors from India, nurses from the Philippines, engineers from China, and so on. It is the “truth” behind the Model Minority stereotype, which racializes a false correlation.
People have been coming to the US from Asia for hundreds of years for all kinds of reasons. But most Asians came as part of three main waves:
- 1849 to 1934: mostly field workers, especially from China, Japan and the Philippines.
- 1965 to present: the brain drain, especially from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, India, the Philippines and South Korea.
- 1970s to 1980s: refugees, especially from Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
Of the three, the brain drain is the one that middle-class White Americans most frequently come across.
Each of these waves is a creature of US law: who the US was willing to let in when and why, based on the country’s needs and its level of racism. Asia, unlike Mexico, is separated from the US by an ocean. That makes it much easier to control who gets in.
The brain drain itself was created by the 1965 Immigration Act. It overturned the racist immigration act of 1924 and favoured those with skills the US needed, like in medicine and engineering. Almost by definition, such people will be better at school, science and mathematics than most Americans. It has nothing to do with being “Asian” and everything to do with who the US lets in and why.
The Model Minority stereotype was created in 1966 in the pages of the New York Times. It was based on the first wave, which truly did pull itself up by its bootstraps. Yet the stereotype did not catch on till the 1980s when the children of the brain drain started applying to top universities in large numbers and getting in.
The brain drain did not pull itself up by its bootstraps: it bought a plane ticket. Anyone who comes to the US as a doctor, nurse, engineer or even a foreign university student is already better educated than most White Americans. And their children are bound to do better too. Whites with the same sort of background in terms of education or parents’s education do just as well if not better.
The US also drains brains from:
- Latin America,
- the Caribbean,
- Africa, and
- Britain.
Most Americans do not notice that, partly because of racial stereotypes, partly because the numbers are lower. They overlook the fact that Nigerian Americans, for example, are just as much of a “model minority” as Asian Americans.
Other places that receive brain drains: Canada, Australia, Singapore, Western Europe and the Persian Gulf states.
Brain drains generally flow from poorer or less stable regions to richer and more stable ones. The Caribbean is the worst hit: countries like Jamaica and Haiti lose over 80% of their people with university educations. But Asia, because of its size, produces a far larger brain drain.
– Abagond, 2016.
See also:
- Welcome to Asian American History Month 2016
- Asian Americans
- Model Minority stereotype
- Bootstrap Myth
- Amy Chua
- The Asian quota
- The Asian Supremacy argument
544
Abagond 
Abagond, on Fri 5 Feb 2016 at 16:30:40
jefe wrote: “@Grojo,
Chinese have been in North America since the 16th century, even before both Africans and the English and arrived in significant numbers in the mid-1800s. They also played a huge integral role in building the USA, both its infrastructure and its culture.”
Assuming he wasn’t lying, why didn’t you include the date the Chinese first landed in North America as part of this post? If true, wouldn’t that have made these pioneers the brainiest of all the Asian brain waves?
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Grojo,
Abagond said
which includes the ones who came to the USA before the mid-1800s.
We mentioned about the arrival of Asians to the North America in the 1580s here:
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/manila-galleons/)
and here
(https://abagond.wordpress.com/2015/10/08/filipino-americans/)
Filipino seamen and Chinese merchants had been travelling to and settling in North America all along from the 1580s to 1840s. But the first MAJOR wave started to arrive in the mid 1800s.
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jefe,
Thank you for the information you provided. however, I must take exception to one of your claims.
Asians might have gotten to North America as crews or passengers of Spanish ships before the English, but they did not precede Africans, if your 1580s date is accurate.
Juan Garrido or “handsome John” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Garrido) beat them to the punch by at least seven decades when he landed on Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) in 1502 as part of a Spanish expedition.
He had a hand in the conquest of Tenochtitlan in 1519 and was the first person to cultivate wheat! So much for the bs that idiots like Biff write about Whites being the sole creators of the world they inhabit!
Garrido was one of many blacks who sailed with the Spanish at that time.
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There was a May 24th (2016) article in the L.A. Times on a Mexican immigrant finding “success” in a Vietnam restaurant in Orange, County (here in California). The article is titled ‘In Little Saigon, some Latinos are learning Vietnamese to get ahead’. I read and highlighted some paragraphs in the article. The article was written by a Vietnamese female contract reporter named Anh Do (first generation of Vietnamese refugees in Orange County). Basically, the article dealt with the two common stereotypes: 1.) ‘Low-wage’ Mexican immigrants and ‘bootstrap’ Vietnamese-Americans. The ‘model minority’ and ‘bootstrap’ myths made up half of the article. The article reminded me of when Whites gave Blacks jobs for pennies during the first half of the twentieth century. In a modern-day sense, O.C.s Vietnamese-American residents/businessmen (who are overwhelmingly Republicans) have taken on the mindset of White American people/businessmen and the Mexican immigrant have taken on the coon-mindset. Read the article and you’ll exactly know what I’m talking about.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-viet-latino-20160516-snap-story.html
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Jefe,
You were wrong to claim: “@Grojo,
Chinese have been in North America since the 16th century, even before both Africans and the English and arrived in significant numbers in the mid-1800s…”
Africans arrived on Spanish ships, like the Chinese did, but 70+ years earlier. One of the first was Juan Garrido a/k/a “handsome John”, who landed on Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic in 1502. He moved on to Mexico, where he took part in the siege of Tenochtitlan. He is reputed to have been the first person to cultivate wheat in the Americas.
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@ Gro jo
The post says:
None of that contradicts anything you said.
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From Abagond’s post :
“which racializes a false correlation”
I’ve fallen for that.
“Of the three, the brain drain is the one that middle-class White Americans most frequently come across”.
Who I do business with.
I’d also add that some come here as entrepreneurs but they are coming from middle to upper class communities from their respective countries.
Their are also plenty of students who come here for college in engineering, sciences ect with the intent on returning to their home countries for employment.
As I understand it Americans aren’t getting science degrees so many who come here do so to fill jobs Americans aren’t qualified for.
I don’t know if long term the U.S. will hold the edge in scientific discovery. It maybe their will be a brain drain in the future from the U.S. of those countries that surpass America in science.
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Better educated than most ‘Ameiricans’ when they arrive? Are you kidding me? The lack of American Social and Historical knowledge alone make some of these people the most judgement and dangerous people for other people of color in the United States, particularly ‘Black’ Americans and or other people of color.
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OK, maybe instead of North America, I should have said the land which later would become the United States.
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Reblogged this on re-presentation and commented:
Abagond explains what is behind the model minority stereotype and how U.S. immigration law has changed from being racist to be classist, favoring the highly educated.
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[…] Asian brain drain […]
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Does this imply that there is some validity to the bootstrap myth?
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@Michael Cooper
Thanks for posting that link. I see what you mean. Some parts were hard to read.
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Guyana, the land of my birth, suffered greatly from the brain drain during the 1960s and 1970s. Today, the young Caribbean nation, with a population of less than 1 million, celebrates its 50th anniversary of independence from Britain. For a number of reasons, including the brain drain, little economic progress has been made since its independence.
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Jefe wrote: “OK, maybe instead of North America, I should have said the land which later would become the United States. ”
Sorry to inform you that you’d still be wrong. Estevanico made it to New Mexico and Florida by 1539. Our friend, “handsome John” a/k/a Juan Garrido also explored Florida in 1513. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estevanico
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@grojo,
Thank you for your information.
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@Abagond
Why can’t I post on your site but you let everyone else ?
I mean, if all you want is Asian and white posters (As that seems to be the case because there used to be a guy called Bliff on here. He used to say black people were stupid and dumb but you let him have FREE REIGN and many posters have been deep white supremacist on here, but you seem to have zero problem with them) then fair enough.
But then I come on here most of my posts never show ? And even when it does show, it does only after you allow it to ?
To be honest I’ve seen this trend on plenty of black blogs, were EVEN ON THOSE blogs, black people have to watch what we see.
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@ TheHipHopRecords
You can say whatever bad things you want about Asians, but you are not going to call them slopes or any other kind of slur on this blog. Otherwise, I would have to allow every drive-by racist to drop the N-bomb.
https://abagond.wordpress.com/comment-policy/
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@Abagond
OK. The ‘Slope’ reference was below the belt. I admit that.
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There is a reason why those from Nigeria are looked at that way. Most of them are Ibo, The Jews of West Africa.
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Hey RaceRealist, how’s Dotar Sojat and Tars Tarkas doing. Talk to them recently?
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Who?
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RaceR…, how many genes control intelligence, what brain circuits do they create and how are they inherited? Are these genes the same in different populations or does each population inherit different genes that end up building analogous brain circuits?
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@gro jo
Unknown. However, a couple of months ago a paper came out stating that GWA analyses were performed on verbal-numerical reasoning, memory and reaction time (a huge correlate for IQ itself, see Rushton and Jensen, 2005). Davies et al (2016, paper available at the journal Nature) discovered that there were significant genome-wide SNP based associations in 20 genomic regions, with significant gene-based regions on 46 loci!! That’s huge. Genes for IQ have also been found differing in frequency between races, which I will delve in to below.
Genes influence intelligence by determining how well axons are encased in myelin, which is the fatty insulation that coats our axons, allowing for fast signaling to the brain. Thicker myelin also means faster nerve impulses. (Thompson et al, 2009, article available at UCLA website, Google “Thompson 2009 myelin”).
…..Like any other trait? Genetically. Intelligence is inherited through the mother (Erikson et al, 2013). The mother’s IQ is the best predictor for the child’s IQ.
No.
The average frequency of 9 alleles were positively correlated with IQ and proxy phenotypes at the individual level. The correlation is strong and significant with population/country IQ (.92). Factor analysis showed a correlation of .86 (Piffer, 2015).
Why would differing allele frequencies lead to the same cognitive processes in the brain in genetically isolated populations? I’ve shown that brain circuits vary by IQ genes, and populations do differ in this aspect, like all other differing genotypic/phenotypic traits.
East Asians have bigger brains, as shown by MRI studies (Rushton, 1999). Rushton and Rushton (2001) showed that the three races differ in IQ, brain size, and 37 different musculoskeletal traits. We know that West Africans and West African-descended people have genes for fast twitch muscle fibers (Type II) (Nielson and Christenson, 2001). Europeans and East Asians have slow twitch muscle fibers (Type I) for strength and endurance. (East Africans have this as well, which allows for ability to run for distance, which fast twitch fibers do not allow for. The same is true for slow twitch fibers and sprinting events.) Bengt Saltin showed that European distance runners have up to 90 percent slow twitch fibers (see Entine, 2000)! So are genetic IQ differentials really that hard to believe? With all of these differing variables in regards to intelligence that all point to a strong genetic cause for individual differences in IQ gene frequency, this corroborates Lynn and Meisenberg’s (2010) finding of a correlation of .907 with measured and estimated IQ. Corrected for attenuation, it was 1.0! The available GWAS backs this claim as well with IQ being positively correlated at .86 with country/population IQ.
Do you think that differing populations isolated for tens of thousands of years in differing climates who differ in sexual selection as well as mutation frequency for IQ will be cognitively the same? The races/ethnicities differ on so many different variables with differing genes being responsible for it. Would IQ genes really be out of the question? Evolution didn’t stop from the neck up. Different populations faced different selection pressures, so different human traits then evolved for better adaption in that environment. Different traits clearly developed in genetically isolated populations that had no gene flow with each other for tens of thousands of years.
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The Intelligence genes have also been traced to our European Neanderthal ancestry, it’s very interesting subject.
Looking at it from a bell curve perspective this is not good for East Asia, South Asian, or South East Asia. Being East Asians have a very high average IQ, yet the genius or creative IQ is lacking to such a degree that European Genius out number the East Asians even though Europeans have a smaller population size compared to the East Asian.
Funny fact even though European have numerically more geniuses, we also have numerically more Spastics, extremes at both ends of the bell curve. Probably relates to the extreme ends of politics too.
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RaceR…,
Thanks for taking the time to provide a serious answer!
” does each population inherit different genes that end up building analogous brain circuits?
Why would differing allele frequencies lead to the same cognitive processes in the brain in genetically isolated populations? I’ve shown that brain circuits vary by IQ genes, and populations do differ in this aspect, like all other differing genotypic/phenotypic traits.”
For the same reason that bats and birds are able to fly maybe?
” how are they inherited?
…..Like any other trait? Genetically. Intelligence is inherited through the mother (Erikson et al, 2013). The mother’s IQ is the best predictor for the child’s IQ.”
Ok, that would explain the literary genius of Alexandre Dumas, his father, children and their children while there’s no evidence for such ability in his white, French ancestors, who only managed to be minor French nobles!
” what brain circuits do they create
Genes influence intelligence by determining how well axons are encased in myelin, which is the fatty insulation that coats our axons, allowing for fast signaling to the brain. Thicker myelin also means faster nerve impulses. (Thompson et al, 2009, article available at UCLA website, Google “Thompson 2009 myelin”).”
Ok, how thick, on average, is myelin for the different races?
“East Asians have bigger brains, as shown by MRI studies (Rushton, 1999). Rushton and Rushton (2001) showed that the three races differ in IQ, brain size, and 37 different musculoskeletal traits.”
That would be relative to body size, would it not? What improvements did Rushton make on similar brain size measurements made by Paul Broca in the 19th century?
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@gro jo
Bats are more efficient fliers than birds due to a unique air lift mechanism. Sure they both fly, but they do different things with their wings to generate flight (see Live Science “Why Bats Are More Efficient Flyers Than Birds”). Sure all populations have the same genes for intelligence as seen in Piffer 2015, but they differ in frequency which leads to differences in phenotypic intelligence since obviously the genotype is different.
They’re clearly outliers.
I’m not able to find any at the moment. Though in those with thick myelin, since signals are transmitted on different axons, the faster and more precise the signals, the better one has the ability to complete cognitive tasks. An optimization occurs during repetitive use making the process more efficient, but it wouldn’t have occurred through just practice anyway. Also see Voineskos (2013) for heritability of white matter/myelin.
Body size was controlled for See Rushton and Rushton (2001, pg. 143).
Rushton and Ankney (1995, 1996, 1997, 2007, 2009) had 5 reviews on brain size and its relationship with g. Reaction time measures are also another way to see cognitive efficiency. Faster reflexes means higher g, The races differ on reaction times as well as a whole battery of cognitive abilities test that are correlated with the general intelligence factor. So, the races differ in gene frequency which effects brain processing and in turn those with lower g have lower cognitive functioning than those with higher g
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yay, phrenology and statistics
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@ v8driver
I have several bumps on different parts of my head. Do they indicate various facets of my personality? Are they connected to my intelligence or lack thereof? Or are they sebaceous cysts? Only a phernologist can know for sure!
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RaceR…,
My point in comparing bats to birds was to show that different species can end up developing a trait without being genetically related. I seem to recall that was called convergent evolution.
Differences in human populations aren’t of that nature, here, we are talking about differences in the same species, are we not? If we agree on that point, the issue seems to be if the variation between races is greater that the variation within the races. Your claim that the Dumas’s are outliers and that they inherited their superior genes from their black ancestors, seems to indicate to me that the difference in intelligence within races is greater than between races. No doubt I’ve erred somewhere in this line of thought and you’ll be good enough to set me straight on this matter.
The Dumas case isn’t the only one where inheritance of “black” genes seem to have improved the progeny of the family. Two other literary giants of Western literature benefited from such infusion of “black” genetic material, namely, Pushkin, the man who practically invented Russian literature and Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, considered by many as the most important writer Brazil produced!
Your reduction of the variations between human populations to “races” doesn’t strike me as beyond criticism. How do you account for the variation in intelligence between, say, the southern Chinese and the Thais who are closely related? Or between Tibetans and the Chinese? I’m sure that these variations exist among Europeans as well, or am I wrong?
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“the issue seems to be if the variation between races is greater that the variation within the races. ”
should be read as: “the issue seems to be if the variation between races is greater than the variation within the races. “
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In the pic above, one of those nurses in the Philippines looks like my cousin. 🙂
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I have several bumps on different parts of my head. Do they indicate various facets of my personality?
Perhaps, but it could also mean you are clumsy, as you are constantly falling and getting bumps on different parts of your head. If you have two bumps on the crown of your head, you are a creative person. If you have bumps on the right side of your head, you love gossip and shopping. If you have bumps on the left side of your head you love logic and sports. If you have bumps on all over your head go see a doctor. That is my understanding of phrenology.
Are they connected to my intelligence or lack thereof?
Probably.
Or are they sebaceous cysts?
If yellow substances are oozing from them, go see a doctor or you can pop them yourself.
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiqiMP-n43NAhUJ54MKHSrvD98QjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fthegraphicsfairy.com%2Fvintage-clip-art-phrenology-head-in-color%2F&psig=AFQjCNHju5TdHV8bEMpjYw3d1UGwRakPEg&ust=1465091139340408
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@ Herneith
ROFTFL!!!!!!
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@Herneith: LOL!
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@ Herneith
“Perhaps, but it could also mean you are clumsy, as you are constantly falling and getting bumps on different parts of your head.”
That’s scarily close to the truth.
You must be a mind reader as well as a phrenologist…
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For fifty dollars I will predict your future using a combination of phrenology and tarot cards.
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@ Herneith
I’ll throw in an extra $15 if you also levitate the table.
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Done!
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“RaceRealist
They overlook the fact that Nigerian Americans, for example, are just as much of a “model minority” as Asian Americans.
There is a reason why those from Nigeria are looked at that way. Most of them are Ibo, The Jews of West Africa.”
Most (or the greater part at least) Nigerians in Britain are Yoruba, not Igbo (though in the US, more are Igbo).
Also, the Yoruba also perform significantly above the the general average, at times above the Igbo. The Ghanains and Zimbabweans of the Shona ethnicity also perform above average (but not as high/to a lesser extent as the Yoruba and Igbo).
http://www.unz.com/article/closing-the-black-white-iq-gap-debate-part-3/
Also, the speculation in your link that the somewhat above average performance of Ghanaians is due to the igbo(or some Igbo presence is absurd and bizarre. There is no significant Igbo population in Ghana, let alone among Ghanaian Immigrants to the UK—who are mostly of native Southern Ghanians groups like the Ashanti/Fante or Ewe. The data sources from Britain that report their test scores/achievement often even specify their specific Ghanian (usually Ashanti/Fanti and other Akan, sometimes Ewe) ethnicities/languages. The Igbo diaspora in West Africa—as it exists—has been mainly in certain small parts of the Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea/Gabon area, and is a very small fraction of the populations even there (seemingly under 2-3 percent, maybe less).
As I commented:
“It is very odd that Frost would attribute the “little bit of achievement” in Ghana/Ghanaians to the Igbo (Which I had missed in that article before, but he does). Though there is ( what could be called) an Igbo diaspora in parts of West Africa, Igbo comprise a far too insignificant part of any national population (next to nothing in Ghana as far as I can tell) outside Nigeria to have an effect. Nor are they any part of the Ghanaian immigrant population.”
Regarding the alleles:
“The average frequency of 9 alleles were positively correlated with IQ and proxy phenotypes at the individual level. The correlation is strong and significant with population/country IQ (.92). Factor analysis showed a correlation of .86 (Piffer, 2015).”
Piffer’s most recent data is somewhat modified by (Piffer’s) reanalyses which calculate somewhat higher scores for Africans in both height and iq (among other things):
“I computed two polygenic scores (mean population frequencies): ancestral and derived. Then I created a composite score by averaging them. This gives equal weight to ancestral and derived alleles (Piffer, 2015b).The end result is that populations with higher baseline frequencies of derived alleles (such as Africans) obtain a higher score after this correction, because more weight is given to ancestral alleles.”
“We can see that the ranking of corrected polygenic scores for height and IQ gives higher scores to Africans compared to the uncorrected scores…”
https://topseudoscience.wordpress.com
“Derived alleles,corrected polygenic scores and height”
The matches between calculated iq’s and predicted ones(from psychometry) are imperfect(in the most recent re—analyses).
In his preceding entry at “toppseudoscience” , Piffer finds that
“A discrepancy with IQ estimates is that East Asians lag behind Europeans and that South Asians and Hispanics don’t perform better than sub-Saharan Africans, a finding that is difficult to explain at present.”
I’m not sure if the method of the study is recognized by(the “metagene method” using few alleles) as generally considered reliable by geneticists, but I am far from an expert in the area so I am not really qualified to have an opinion on that. Future studies may help answer the question(of its reliability/precision) and larger numbers of alleles, should generally help to enhance reliability/strengh of studies (since intelligence is highly polygenic, influenced by probably thousands of alleles).
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Regarding the alleles:
“The average frequency of 9 alleles were positively correlated with IQ and proxy phenotypes at the individual level. The correlation is strong and significant with population/country IQ (.92). Factor analysis showed a correlation of .86 (Piffer, 2015).”
Piffer’s most recent data is somewhat modified by (Piffer’s) reanalyses which calculate somewhat higher scores for Africans in both height and iq (among other things):
“I computed two polygenic scores (mean population frequencies): ancestral and derived. Then I created a composite score by averaging them. This gives equal weight to ancestral and derived alleles (Piffer, 2015b).The end result is that populations with higher baseline frequencies of derived alleles (such as Africans) obtain a higher score after this correction, because more weight is given to ancestral alleles.”
“We can see that the ranking of corrected polygenic scores for height and IQ gives higher scores to Africans compared to the uncorrected scores…”
https://topseudoscience.wordpress.com
“Derived alleles,corrected polygenic scores and height”
The matches between calculated iq’s and predicted ones(from psychometry) are imperfect(in the most recent re—analyses).
In his preceding entry at “toppseudoscience” , Piffer finds that
“A discrepancy with IQ estimates is that East Asians lag behind Europeans and that South Asians and Hispanics don’t perform better than sub-Saharan Africans, a finding that is difficult to explain at present.”
I’m not sure if the method of the study is recognized by(the “metagene method” using few alleles) as generally considered reliable by geneticists, but I am far from an expert in the area so I am not really qualified to have an opinion on that. Future studies may help answer the question(of its reliability/precision) and larger numbers of alleles, should generally help to enhance reliability/strengh of studies (since intelligence is highly polygenic, influenced by probably thousands of alleles).
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To “a bum”:
“The Intelligence genes have also been traced to our European Neanderthal ancestry, it’s very interesting subject.”
That is not correct. No such origins for the (proposed) intelligence genes have been found/are currently in evidence in the research. There is some evidence that Neanderthals lacked (at least some) of the genes for intelligence in modern humans (but there are many genes).
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Edit: “…which calculate somewhat higher scores for Africans in both height and iq (among other things):”
“other things” meaning eg: perhaps calculating different scores for some groups of South Asians and Hispanics than before (for instance), not calculating higher scores for Africans on additional traits (other than the traits of height and iq already there mentioned).
(my) Original wording was ambiguous.
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Jm8,
What does all this stuff amount to?
Can you answer the following questions?
What’s the connection between all this talk of alleles, etc., and two plus two equal four?
Is it not possible to write a computer program to ace IQ tests?
If such programs exists, would you conclude they are “intelligent”?
If you answer yes, would you agree that the computer program that beat the best human chess player is the smartest thing on earth?
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Lol, two programs scored well on IQ tests!
http://www.kurzweilai.net/computer-programs-that-ace-iq-tests
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-ai-beat-humans-in-an-iq-test-2015-6
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[…] Source: Asian brain drain […]
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