Charles Murray is a racist for citing research on the link between genetics and IQ. But when the New York Times suggests a genetic basis for creativity, that is definitely not racism! In “What Biracial People Know” we learn that “multiracial people are more open-minded and creative.”
By “race” it turns out that the New York Times mostly means “skin color.” But genetics nerds don’t divide up the world by skin tone. To the extent that they recognize “race” they look at DNA. And it turns out that “Europeans Less Genetically Diverse Than Africans”. The Telegraph summary of this research:
People of African descent are more genetically diverse than Middle Easterners, who are more diverse than Asians and Europeans.
So basically Africa should be where most of the important creative stuff happens, followed by Saudi Arabia and neighbors, with Europe, white Americans, China, and Japan in last place among significant-sized populations. Africans should also be the most “open-minded” so we would expect to see the fewest wars among ethnic or tribal groups on that continent.
The author, Moises Velasquez-Manoff, of that article in the New York Times “What Biracial People Know”, had a book reviewed in the New York Times in 2012. “A Messy, Exuberant Case Against Being Too Clean” By ABIGAIL ZUGER, M.D. reviewed his book “AN EPIDEMIC OF ABSENCE: A New Way of Understanding Allergies and Autoimmune Diseases.”
It seemed like a rather negative review.
“Is fecotherapy the wave of the future?” Mr. Velasquez-Manoff asks.
He also apparently detailed cases of people who infected themselves with a variety intestinal worms.
I haven’t examined his book, but I thought the review indicated that he took these therapies seriously.
According to his bio: http://www.moisesvm.com/bio/
“He holds a master of arts, with a concentration in science writing, from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.”
Someone at the New York Times apparently appreciates Mr. Velasquez-Manoff writing – he’s contributed several articles in the past couple of years: https://www.nytimes.com/column/moises-velasquez-manoff.
As mentioned in the adjoining thread, genetic diversity by itself tells you very little if anything about a specific trait. It is highly likely that a frequency of specific alleles influencing a trait is what matters. E.g. since wolves have higher genetic variation than domesticated dogs, one would naturally expect to see the tallest/smallest/fastest creatures amongst wolves rather than dogs, but clearly that is not the case. In each of the three categories, dogs beat wolves despite lower F_st.
Honest geneticists have always known that genetic diversity by itself is a red herring. Just like uneducated peasants who bred horses and dogs have known for millennia.
But when the New York Times suggests a genetic basis for creativity, that is definitely not racism!
A quick scan of the essay indicates that it’s about culture, not genetics. It’s also an op-ed and therefore doesn’t represent the position of the New York Times.
Well the bigger problem is it’s turned out that *genes* tell you very little about traits. You can’t usefully describe a person beyond race given their genome data. There’s some superficial traits and specific rare disease stuff, like eye and hair color or cystic fibrosis, but past that the sequenced genome has turned out to be surprisingly useless. We can’t pretend at this point that looking harder and longer will reveal the height and cancer and intelligence and alzheimer genes, or any genome specific drugs. It was a good idea, but it didn’t work. Pharma companies are shutting down their genomics efforts as almost 20 years of very expensive effort has produced not a single efficacious drug or therapy, or disease predictive test.
The model of “DNA is the source-code/blueprint” has to some degree failed. The genome changes constantly, and there is too much information also carried along in the moving protein machinery of the gametes.
“So basically Africa should be where most of the important creative stuff happens, followed by Saudi Arabia and neighbors, with Europe, white Americans, China, and Japan in last place among significant-sized populations.”
I do not understand how you make this conclusion from the level of genetic diversity in various population groups – unless you are sarcastically referring to the “diversity always good” meme.
Wait! You are discussing the NYT in a scientific content? Not even funny.
Does it matter if the context is liberal or not? They are pretty much The Pravda, just with a better command of English: they often mix up opinions with fact reporting.
Do keep in mind this comes from their Op-Ed section.
LibertarianSavant: “Do keep in mind this comes from their Op-Ed section.”
So there is no endorsement or selection of the ideas in this section? If we could get a little data together showing that white males were more creative and open-minded than other subgroups the NYT would have been just as happy to publish our Op-Ed discussing the implications?
I’ve always found the WSJ more grounded in reality.