Month: October 2013

Flynn contra Rushton on principal component analysis : A failed replication

While Rushton (1999) demonstrates, using PCA, that g and black-white differences were related, with Flynn Effect (FE) gains over time showing no relationship with the aforementioned variables, Flynn (2000) has challenged Rushton in arguing that Wechsler’s subtest loadings on the Raven test, an universally recognized measure of fluid g, showed positive correlations with both black-white differences and FE gains. Up to now, Flynn’s estimates of g fluid (Gf) has not been scrutinized. I will show presently that the Flynn’s g-fluid (call it, fluid reasoning) and Rushton’s g-crystallized (call it, consolidated knowledge) anomaly was solely due to a single statistical artifact, namely, g_Fluid vector unreliability. By adding additional samples, I created a new, updated Wechsler’s subtest Gf loadings. The present analysis comes to the conclusion that g_Fluid was not in fact correlated with FE gains. Furthermore, this Gf variable has been correlated with other variables as well, such as, heritability (h2), shared environment (c2), nonshared environment (e2), adoption IQ gains, inbreeding depression (ID), and mental retardation (MR). I will also discuss these findings in light of Kan’s (2011) thesis against the hereditarian hypothesis.

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An Analysis of the NLSY79 and NLSY97 Full Sibling Correlations by Race

In his classic work, Educability and Group Differences, Arthur Jensen presented a number of lines of evidence in defense of his thesis that the Negro-White difference in psychometric intelligence had a congenital component. On the basis of full sibling correlations and relations, Jensen offered the following arguments:

(a1) The full sibling correlations for Blacks and Whites are comparable; (a2) unshared environmental hypotheses, such as nutritional ones, would predict otherwise (pg. 338-339).

(b1) The full sibling correlations for Blacks and Whites are comparable; (b2) a shared environmental hypothesis of group differences would predict otherwise, assuming that the within population heritablities were the same (pg. 108-109).

(c1) The average absolute difference between full siblings is no greater for Blacks than for Whites; (c2) unshared environmental hypotheses, such as nutritional ones, would predict otherwise (pg. 338-339).

(d1) When matching Blacks and Whites on IQ, one sees differential sibling regression, a differential regression which does not decrease with increasing IQ; (d2) an environmental hypothesis of group differences would not predict this (pg. 118-119). Continue reading

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