You really need to study up more on IQ … especially from more level-headed sources than the conspiracy theorist Francisco Gil-White. IQ is a very important topic that sheds light on all the subjects you are interested in. You should be reading experts like Jensen and Flynn, not crackpots like Gil-White.

Steve

No there isn’t, and no they don’t.

They’re all studying neuroscience. Did you get the memo?

I really enjoy that word, efflorescence, but I don’t know if it’s a good way to visualize some of the history’s most successful ideas, for example Islam, Freudianism and Marxism (all of which have pretty winning but dubious track records at the start of the 20th century and are by no means squeezed today).

I’m only dropping these particular Ideas because, like neuroscience, they’re good at answering questions and they address man’s misery. Neuroscience will do that. And prove that we’re smarter than other people. And help us build robots that use guns responsibly.

Will Wilkinson has an interesting post discussing a rather odd remark made by Charles Murray in a recent interview: “I……

I invite anyone who is tempted to join the hate Burt bandwagon to first read Fletcher’s book, along with a similar independent work by Robert Joynson.

Fletcher addresses the Arguments From Statistical Improbability in his book. And since Burt’s findings are consistent with the findings of other independent researchers with more robust data sets, the character assassination campaign that evidently continues to this day is moot anyway.

For more details, consult Ronald Fletcher’s _Science, Ideology, and the Media_ (New Brunswick, N. J.: Transaction Publishers, 1991), a book that concludes the case against Burt is “not proven”.

Straight-up: Gil-White’s comprehension of modern psychometrics is just barely above the level of an ignoramus, he’s sometimes downright dishonest (e.g. in his treatement of Jensen), and his observations on the history of intelligence testing and behavioral genetics are noteworthy but do not speak to the current state of the science. Yes, Cyril Burt disgraced himself by making some shit up. But this is neither here nor there with regard to the genetics of intelligence except as a historical note. Gregor Mendel massaged his data pretty seriously, but this doesn’t falsify Mendelian genetics.

Heritability of IQ according to Cyril Burt ~70%

Heritability of IQ according to the Minnesota Twins study ~70%

For a fraud, Burt’s findings were remarkably accurate.

Because thats how we learn the intellectual history only to find out later that all of these ideas had close antecedents in various texts written by authors we’ve never heard of in places we thought nothing was going. (Take as an example the Wealth of Nations in your Scottish Enlightenment case - I seem to be constantly reading that was Smith wrote was said earlier and better.)

I ain’t saying that these clusters are all imagination. There after all only a finite number of historical instances where societies have enough resources, access to prior materials, dumb historical luck in having their work preserved/appreciated. But maybe beyond those obvious factors most of the complications owes to stuff that happened after not during these historical moments