Add Leadbelly to the list
I think Leadbelly is just legitimately intellectually curious but has not done enough research to understand what heritability would mean in this context compared to environmental factors.
I swear this is my last post on the subject
Well, first of all, it's not a subject I am particularly fond of. It is hard not to feel uncomfortable talking about this stuff. However, as it was talked about I thought I would weigh in on it, which I have a tendency to do.
in terms of my understanding of heritability, I'm not sure I fully understand it, I'm not a researcher in behavioural genetics. I do know something about heritability though. I know for instance there is a distinction between heritable and inheritable. Inheritability is talking about specific genes that are passed on from parents to siblings. Heritability is talking about what proportion of the variance of a trait can be attributed to genes. In terms of intelligence, there is no intelligence gene. It is more likely a complex expression of multiple genes that is not fully understood. In other words, we're not talking about specific genes rather the likelihood that intelligence can be attributed to genes.
The point of bringing up heritability in the first place was because of what Sam Harris stated in a later podcast. He stated that a lot of the people who criticised him for interviewing Charles Murray would stop at the notion that intelligence is highly heritable. In other words, this goes back to the blank slate, social constructionist view that everything is to do with the environment. It is true, however, that environmental factors do have an influence on certain traits, and it could account for differences in the average mean.
My main reason for weighing in on this was really to do with the way the left is handling it. by attributing everything to racism or sexism, and discounting any other factors, they are pretty much leaving themselves open for kind of argument to be made.
The amount in which genes contribute to intelligence can be overstated and the arguments unsophisticated. This is what racists will do with this tye of science. I will mention though that I do listen to and read a lot from various people from fields like psychology and so on. As I said, it can be overstated for sure, it needs to be put in context and talked about with nuance, but just as it can be overstated, the opposite is true also, it can be understated as well.
