If IQ were skin color, how visible would the racial gap be?

I often describe the differences between groups in terms of standard deviations or Cohen's d, but maybe we can get a clearer picture of what these mean with a black-and-white example; namely, skin tone.

Skin color is a very noticeable racial difference and tends to dominate discussions of race even though it is just one characteristic. People focus on it because it is obvious, and I suspect race deniers like it because they can treat it as something superficial, something only shallow people would focus on. People like Dinesh D'Souza who I often agree with will say idiotic things like race is nothing but a "coat of paint." Never mind that skin is our largest organ and carries out many important functions, and that skin color appears to have important functions as well. And anyone who claims that aesthetics aren't important doesn't know human nature.

Anyway, General Social Survey interviewers were asked to rate the skin tone of respondents with a number ranging from 1 (lightest) to 10 (darkest). The lightest ethnic group is Americans of Danish descent with a mean of 1.33. (I'm weird because I'm all NW European and 1/8th Danish but look like an Arab). We'll use Danes as the comparison group. What I show below is the gap between the Danish mean and the mean for the focal group in terms of standard deviations:

Degree to which group is darker than Danish Americans (in sd units)

Blacks  2.2
West Indians  2.2
Asian Indians  1.3
Mexicans  0.8
Filipinos  0.8
American Indians  0.8
Puerto Ricans  0.7
Chinese   0.6
Japanese   0.6

Total Sample  0.6

Spanish   0.5
Arabs   0.5
Jews  0.3
Portuguese  0.2
Italians  0.2
Greeks  0.2

A gap of 2.2 standard deviations between Danes and blacks is so huge, it's the reason why people decided long ago to define groups as the opposite of each other: black and white. If a study reports a 2 sd gap, be impressed.

Another way of describing the gap goes like this: not a single black in the sample is lighter-skinned than any Dane, and 97% of Danes are lighter than 94.5% of blacks.

If you want a visual that matches the size of the black/white IQ gap (1 sd), think of the color gap between Danes and a typical Mexican and typical Asian Indian blended together--a very large difference. Another way of saying this is that the black/white IQ gap is only half the size of the color gap.

Even a difference that is only 10% of the black/Dane gap is still visually easy to detect: the Italian and Greek means are 0.2 standard deviations darker than Danes--0.2 considered a very small difference--but southern Europeans are known for being darker than northern Europeans. The higher Spanish mean is probably due to darker Hispanics claiming Spain as their homeland.

Another weak attempt to defend "Diversity is Our Strength"

Recently, I argued that Scott Adams' defense of the view that "diversity is our strength" is as weak as could be.  Now I see that neo-conservative Max Boot has tried the same thing. Both are responses to Tucker Carlson's diversity skepticism.

Since Boot's argument is written, in contrast to Adams' videorecording, it's more carefully done, but it's ends up just as dumb and dishonest.

Of course, Boot's first move is to claim that Tucker merely parrots neo-Nazi talking points. Boot is a classy thinker.

The way these people make "diversity is our strength" seem credible is to cherry-pick their examples and to equivocate: they use various meanings of diversity when it suits them. They use it to mean diversity of opinion when they give of examples of stifling uniformity. Boot relies on this meaning when he cites North Korea as an example.

Of course, Boot is cherry-picking here. These guys never focus on the typical situation. Yes, competition of different opinions can help a country arrive at better decisions, but normal countries have more than enough diversity to generate different perspectives. A typical country does not need to import millions of aliens to achieve sufficient diversity. Plus, more to the point, what you need for good decisions is smart people. A very diverse group of dummies is not going to cut it.

Boot conveniently ignores the general tendency: across countries, ethnic heterogeneity correlates with dysfunctional conflict. As a Jew, Boot should be aware of the fact that ethnic heterogeneity predicts genocide.  I don't need to cherry-pick to make my point: Everyone knows it's a general truth.

Next, Boot cites the examples of South Korea and Japan. They are aging and need young immigrants to help pay the bills. Here, "diversity" means cheap labor. He conveniently ignores the cost side of the ledger and the long-term consequences of importing huge, alien populations. Poor immigrants are very costly to welfare states, and, again, the consequences over the long haul are likely to be dysfunctional conflict and a society that ends up worse off.

Boot's next move is to sing the praises of America's genius immigrants. He goes all the way back to Levi Strauss to make his point. Again, equivocation. Diversity here means "geniuses."  He's cherry-picking. According to a study by Jason Richwine, the average IQ of US immigrants is somewhere between 91 and 94.  A person with IQ in the low 90s is suited to do a low-skill job--not to be the next Alexander Graham Bell.

Boot does manage to cite one study that found that public companies with more ethnic and gender diversity have higher profitability. I'll give him credit here -- he's debating in a serious way, for once -- but one study can find anything, and it might be the case that strong, profitable companies can afford the luxury of promoting more diverse leadership. The causal mechanism here seems unlikely: What is it about more minorities and women that would translate into more profit? The only answers that have any credibility are that these people understand minority/female customer desires better, or if "minorities" include large numbers of high IQ individuals (e.g., East Asians, South Asians).

Finally, he argues that diversity strengthens our national security. If the NYPD is made up of Arabic, Pashto, Farsi, and Urdu speakers, we will be safer. In other words, the grave security problems caused by diversity can be addressed a little better with diversity.  Lame.

UPDATE: Boot, like Adams, finishes with the point that diversity in the US is inevitable. This is practically an admission that diversity is a weakness -- a weakness we must live with. Like others, part of this "inevitability" is the tens of millions of legal and illegal immigrants who haven't come yet. To the PC-minded, even our future policy choices are inevitabilities. We're somehow paralyzed. There is no way we can change course with respect to mass immigration. So much dishonesty by these people. 

Scott Adams fails to show that diversity is a strength

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert and Trump analyzer, has attempted to answer Tucker Carlson's question, "How is diversity a strength?"

He opens by stating that US diversity is a given -- it's not going anywhere -- so we need to find ways to turn diversity into a positive. That's a weak opening if you're trying to demonstrate that diversity is inherently a strength.

Next, Adams claims that it depends: diversity can be beneficial or harmful. Again, this is a lame argument if your point is to prove that diversity is a strength.

Adams argues that minorities know minority issues better than billionaires, and so are in a better position to know how a business should operate among minorities. In other words, diversity is needed to deal with the knowledge gap caused by diversity.

Next, Adams goes back to his original point that we don't have a choice about being a diverse society; it's a given. We have to deal with it. I'm becoming repetitive, but this, as before, is lame if you're attempting to prove diversity is a strength.

Adams compares the US to an organism that benefits from more sensors:  We all see things from a different angle, so multiple inputs creates a more accurate picture. Few people, even educated people like Adams, realize there is tremendous diversity of this sort in even the smallest ethnic group. Heck, there is tremendous diversity in a single family. To illustrate, the variation in personality is almost as wide in a family as in a population. Is it your experience that families are overly agreeable? That members see all issues in the same way? I suspect your family is like mine: 6 people, 7 opinions. 

Adam then argues that the US needs to standardize our language so diverse people can understand each other. In other words, we need to reduce diversity so we can tap into the advantages diversity offers.

Last, Adams cites the example of his start-up company WhenHub. He explains that the genius who has made the business a success is an Asian Indian immigrant. In other words, his company is a success because this partner is high IQ, like Adams. High IQ people working together is an example of homogeneity, not diversity. If Adams had hired a retard to complement his intelligence, that is diversity with respect to IQ.

Lame.

Falling level of trust

General Social survey respondents have been asked the following question each survey year since 1972: "Generally speaking, would you say that most people can be trusted or that you can't be too careful in life?"

The graph shows that trust among Americans has been slipping for four decades (sample size = 34,790). The red section shows the percent who say that people can be trusted: this has dropped from around 50 percent in the early 70s to less than 40 percent currently. The trend has paralleled the post-1965 ethnic diversification of the country.

Falling trust is not a good sign since a flourishing society depends on a certain amount of confidence that contracts can be made and will be honored.

I'm putting together a cross-national data set and plan to identify the social correlates of ethnic diversity. I predict the results will not be pretty.

Expected ethnic change divides whites and non-whites

General Social Survey respondents were asked to estimate the percent change in population of various ethnic groups over the next 25 years (e.g., Hispanics, Asians). Then they were asked: "When you think about these changes in the racial and ethnic make-up of the country in the next 25 years, do you think they will be a very good thing for the country (1), a good thing (2), neither good nor bad (3), a bad thing (4), or a very bad thing (5)?"  The numbers are the scores assigned to each answer. Here are the means by the ethnic group the respondent belongs to:

Mean "ethnic change will be bad" score (N = 1,318)

Scottish 3.14
Swedish 3.11
Italian 3.06
German 3.05
Irish 3.04
French 3.04
English/Welsh 3.02

All Americans 2.94

Polish 2.90
Russian 2.83
Jewish 2.81
Amerindian 2.75
Black 2.71
Chinese/Japanese 2.67
Filipinos 2.62
Mexican 2.57
Puerto Rican 2.45
Asian Indian 2.20

I'm not surprised. Whites have higher means, while non-whites tend to think change will be good for the country. The difference between Americans of Scottish descent and Asian Indians is 1.15 standard deviations--a very large difference.

Here are some correlates for whites :

Correlation with "ethnic change is bad" score

Age .13
Education -.19
Church attendance -.01
Conservatism .14 


So older, less educated, and more conservative whites are more likely to think that ethnic change will be bad for the country.