+OK 5672 octets Received: from smtp01.nwnexus.com (smtp01.nwnexus.com [198.137.231.16]) by mail3.halcyon.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id JAA25946 for ; Sat, 12 Jun 1999 09:00:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mu.egroups.com (mu.egroups.com [207.138.41.151]) by smtp01.nwnexus.com (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id JAA25060 for ; Sat, 12 Jun 1999 09:00:19 -0700 Received: from [10.1.1.16] by mu.egroups.com with NNFMP; 12 Jun 1999 17:00:16 -0000 Mailing-List: contact h-bd-owner@egroups.com X-Mailing-List: h-bd@egroups.com X-URL: http://www.egroups.com/list/h-bd/ Delivered-To: listsaver-egroups-h-bd@egroups.com Received: (qmail 31241 invoked by uid 7770); 12 Jun 1999 10:33:55 -0000 Received: from sand.global.net.uk (194.126.82.9) by vault.egroups.com with SMTP; 12 Jun 1999 10:33:55 -0000 Received: from p5as03a07.client.global.net.uk ([195.147.227.91] helo=z4i6f1) by sand.global.net.uk with smtp (Exim 2.05 #1) id 10sl6X-0002Sd-00; Sat, 12 Jun 1999 11:33:38 +0100 Message-Id: <3.0.6.32.19990612113027.0079e740@mail.globalnet.co.uk> X-Sender: skoyles@mail.globalnet.co.uk (Unverified) X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.6 (32) Date: Sat, 12 Jun 1999 11:30:27 +0100 To: Alondra Oubre From: "Dr. John R. Skoyles" Cc: hbe-l@a3.com, geistvr@cedar.alberni.net, h-bd@egroups.com In-Reply-To: <199906091209.JAA39630@is.dal.ca> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: [h-bd] re: Twins, Behavior, and Steels Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: There is a paradox about racial differences: the small ways races differ stand out and get hyped, while even larger ones within races get ignored. It is what the psychologists call the, `distinctiveness effect in social categorization' . Powerful cognitive biases thus exist which could cause us to exaggerate -- and even create -- the 'gap' between races. The lesson has already been learnt with our genes: the genetic differences between separate human groups are quite small --much smaller than those between different individuals within them . For instance, the average white American and Chinese genetic make-up differs far less than the genetic make-up of random people in the New York or Beijing street. Look in their chromosomes and you will see that 86% of genetic variation exists with people in both the New York and Beijing street. Only 6% difference exists between New York and Beijing -- or more generally one `race' and any other. (The remaining 8% is between different populations of the same `race'). But it does not seem like this, of course. That however has to do with our minds and its sensitivity to difference. We notice the small physical differences between, say, white Americans and Chinese -- simply because they are not shared: skin colour, shape of face, eyes and hairiness stand out. Moreover, because they are not shared, that causes us to make them the basis of the mental pattern by which we recognise Chineseness from white americanness and so gives them a highlight in our minds. But outside our minds they are rather small differences compared to the large number of other differences which separate individual white Americans and individual Chinese which we ignore. These are present in both populations and so do not aid us spot Chinese from white Americans and get overlooked. Thus many differences we notice are artificially magnified due to how we categorise and observe the world: they have more to do with our minds than what exists outside them. Still find this difference-but-no-difference counter-intuitive? Then consider another illustration, this time using coloured dots. Visualise bright yellow and blue dots making up from a distance a green patch. The yellow and blue dots strongly contrast. But move away from them and they blend into green. Now visualise a second green patch made up of yellow and blue dots which has slightly more blue dots. This second one will blend to look turquoise-green. That makes it noticeably a different colour from the first patch. But although noticeable, this colour difference is much smaller than the one between the green and blue dots. When contrasted, strong differences if shared neutralise, but small ones which are not come to the fore. The variation between people is like yellow and blue dots. When mixed in a group they blend and are not seen. But if one kind of difference slightly predominates in one group compared to another, then they seem markedly different -- even though that difference might itself be quite small. Thus the people making up a race might be quite different yet this will get ignored when racially compared. But if one race has more people of one trait this will stand out -- and be a source of prejudice. >> Some studies indicate that the heritability of IQ in African Americans is >> less than that in white Americans. This implies that in black Americans, >> environmental factors may explain IQ variance more than they do in whites. >> Theoretically, an analogous situation may be true for the (presumed) >> heritability of behavioral traits in black Americans. Dr. John R. Skoyles 6 Denning Rd, Hampstead, NW3 1SU London, UK Check out my Golden House-Sparrow award winning homepage http://www.bigfoot.com/~skoyles ------------------------------------------------------------------------ eGroups.com home: http://www.egroups.com/group/h-bd http://www.egroups.com - Simplifying group communications .