New MQ paper

Kirkegaard, E. O. W. & Fuerst, J. (2016). Inequality in the United States: Ethnicity, Racial Admixture and Environmental Causes. Mankind Quarterly 56(4).

Previously, we looked at the association between overall state-level biogeographic ancestry (BGA) and overall state-level outcomes. It was found that European BGA relative to African and Amerindian BGA was associated with better outcomes. In this paper, the analysis is extended by looking at the state-level ancestry-outcome associations individually for black and Hispanic self-identified race-ethnicity (SIRE) groups. General socioeconomic factor (S) scores were calculated for US states by SIRE groups based on three indicators. The S factor loadings were generally stable across subgroup analyses and the factor scores were stable across factor analytic extraction methods (for the latter, almost all r’s ≈ 1). For Whites, Blacks and Hispanics, there were strong correlations between cognitive ability scores and S factor scores across states (r = .55 to .78; N = 28-50). This pattern also held when all data were analyzed together (r = .86, N = 115). Furthermore, the size of the Hispanic-White and Black-White S and cognitive ability gaps strongly correlated across states (r = .62 to .69; N = 36-37). Lastly, parasite prevalence did not plausibly explain SIRE gaps in cognitive ability because gaps were smaller in more parasite-rich states (combined analysis r = -.17, N = 91). We found that climatic and geospatial variables did not correlate strongly with cognitive ability and S scores when scores were decomposed by SIRE group, but did so at the total state level, even after statistically controlling for SIRE composition.

4 Comments

  1. Steve Mccann

    hey Chuck, have you heard of this book and what do you think?

    https://africacheck.org/2015/03/12/analysis-black-brain-white-brain-the-new-wave-of-racist-science/

    Also, are the ‘facts that need to be explained’ online anywhere? That was one of the best resources on race and IQ I’ve ever seen.

    • Chuck

      Judging by the absence of nuance in the linked article, I doubt that the book is informative. I could be wrong. For example, Justin Smith had a nonsense article on the race concept over at the nytimes, but his book turned out to be insightful and well written. But feel free to ask my opinion on specific issues.
      The Facts can be found here, by the way.

  2. Steve Mccann

    p.s. I just pointed out to him that:
    a) meta analysis shows Flynn effect and group differences have different causes, and
    b) there is evidence for recent differential selection between groups of a quantitative trait- height in Europe.

    I think that should be enough to bring his argument into question.

  3. TMI

    Complementary information in this dissertation.

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