Saturday, September 27, 2003

 

Personality and Individual Differences, 29 (6), 2000, Pages 1095-1122



Relationships between factors of intelligence and brain volume

John C. Wickett [a], Philip A. Vernon [a] and Donald H. Lee [b]

a Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5C2, Canada
b Diagnostic Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, London Health Sciences Centre, London, Ontario, N6A 5A5, Canada



Abstract

The recent explosion of studies aimed at determining the biological basis of intelligence has revealed that cognitive ability has a strong biological substrate. This study expands on this literature by examining the relation between cognitive ability and MRI-measured brain volume and head size in a sample of adult male siblings recruited from the London, Ontario community in Canada. It was found that brain volume correlated with IQ at 0.35 (P <0.01), thus replicating the results of past studies. Corrections for restriction of range and attenuation in both this and past studies suggest that the population value of the brain volume-IQ correlation is closer to 0.50. Head size variables, with one exception, also showed the expected positive correlations with IQ. The results of a vector analysis on factor scores indicated that the more highly g-loaded a test was the more highly it correlated with brain volume (r=0.59, P <0.01). The sum of the data suggested that although brain volume (and to a lesser extent, head size) is predictive of g, fluid ability, and memory, it does not predict crystallized ability. Unexpectedly, the higher the spatial imaging loading of a test, the less its correlation with brain volume (vector correlation = -0.84, P<0.001).

Author Keywords: Intelligence; Brain volume; MRI; Head size; Cognitive factors

Corresponding author. Assessment Strategies, 50 Driveway, Ottawa, Ontario, K2P 1E2, Canada. Tel.: +1-613-237-0241; fax: +1-613-237-3520; email: jwickett@asinc.ca

I have posted the abstract above here because it seems to be impossible to link to at its original source. If you are patient enough, however, you can find it via: http://www.sciencedirect.com/

posted by JR 8:21 PM

Friday, September 26, 2003

 

SOCIAL DARWINISM, LEFT AND RIGHT

Email from a reader

"Social Darwinism" has a bad press and is regularly linked with colonialism, the gross violations of personal freedom and even racial superiority advocated by eugenicists like Bertrand Russell, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Adolf Hitler.

Despite the 'social Darwinist' credentials of these more well known figures, Herbert Spencer, hardly a household name today, is the person most often pejoratively linked to the 'social darwinist' label. The irony here is that Herbert Spencer was explicitly opposed to most of the policies and programmes that comprise the usual litany of 'social darwinist' abuses.

The abuse and the ruse reveals a political axe to grind, and maybe a little ideological duplicity.

At first sight, the charge that competitive or even laisser faire capitalism is a form of social darwinism is actually somewhat bizarre. Right or wrong, to most advocates of capitalism, the main benefits of market competition are firstly its compatibility with individual liberty and decentralised decision making and, secondly, it's track record as a means of supplying cheaper and more abundant goods and services for all. Whether the beneficiaries of capitalism, ordinary people, are reproductively fit or not is irrelevant to the market. So in a sense competitive capitalism is profoundly anti-Darwinian.

In fact it was the very unDarwinian nature of liberal capitalism that turned many of the early social darwinists against capitalism and in favour of various kinds of socialism and state control. The social Darwinist charge against Spencer is something of a historical half truth too. Herbert Spencer, who coined the term 'survival of the fittest', was a social Darwinist. He should really be thought of as a "soft" social darwinist as distinct from "hard" social darwinists of the left and right who sought to use the state to advance their social darwinist agendas.

You can draw an analogy here with the optimistic "utopianism" of classical Marxism, which saw the communist phase of history as emerging inevitably from the forces of history. There was very little anyone of either class could do about it. So Engels could enjoy his capitalist lifestyle without guilt.

It was the Leninists who felt that the forces of history needed to be egged on by a revolutionary vanguard, something Marx's own theory would dispute. Spencer's evolutionary optimism and Marx's dialectical material optimism are sometimes both portrayed as rival examples of "the nineteenth century idea of progress". Progress with a capital P.

Spencer deplored big government (before 1900!), socialism and colonialism. Spencer was actually a radical anti-statist liberal well before he was a social darwinist. US economist Murray Rothbard has argued that as Spencer adopted "the virus of social darwinism", Spencer actually began to water down his previously militant advocacy of liberalism, using evolution to optimistically put off the now 'inevitable' day of victory of "industrial society" (as he called laisser faire) over the "military society" (as he labelled statism). Rothbard says:

"The ...great philosophical influence on the decline of Liberalism was evolutionism, or Social Darwinism, which put the finishing touches to Liberalism as a radical force in society. For the Social Darwinist erroneously saw history and society through the peaceful, rose-colored glasses of infinitely slow, infinitely gradual social evolution. Ignoring the prime fact that no ruling caste in history has ever voluntarily surrendered its power, and that therefore Liberalism had to break through by means of a series of revolutions, the Social Darwinists looked forward peacefully and cheerfully to thousands of years of infinitely gradual evolution to the next supposedly inevitable stage of individualism."

"An interesting illustration of a thinker who embodies within himself the decline of Liberalism in the nineteenth century is Herbert Spencer. Spencer began as a magnificently radical liberal, indeed virtually a pure libertarian. But, as the virus of sociology and Social Darwinism took over in his soul, Spencer abandoned libertarianism as a dynamic historical movement, although at first without abandoning it in pure theory. In short, while looking forward to an eventual ideal of pure liberty, Spencer began to see its victory as inevitable, but only after millennia of gradual evolution, and thus, in actual fact, Spencer abandoned Liberalism as a fighting, radical creed; and confined his Liberalism in practice to a weary, rear-guard action against the growing collectivism of the late nineteenth-century.

Interestingly enough, Spencer's tired shift "rightward" in strategy soon became a shift rightward in theory as well; so that Spencer abandoned pure liberty even in theory e.g., in repudiating his famous chapter in Social Statics, "The Right to Ignore the State."

Spencer's theory of social evolution from military to industrial society and beyond is outlined here. What is interesting to note is that his belief in progressive "complexification" of the social system, has some parallels to modern "non-Darwinian" thinkers who see the reductionism of today's dominant neo-Darwinian paradigm in biology reductionism as too constraining. These thinkers often seek answers in chaos theory, complexity theory, cellular automata and other mathematically inspired analyses.

Most of Spencer's "hard" social Darwinist colleagues had by 1890 already considered Spencer's anti-statist and anti-imperialist ideas out of date. Other social darwinists, like Karl Pearson, the pioneer of modern statistics, were firmly socialist. But others were neo-Malthusian and socialist and emphasised instead the struggle between groups. (Darwin, himself, had suggested that selection operates both between individuals of the same species and also between allied species.)

Pearson reckoned that by abolishing internal competition (by population control incorporating eugenics, and by state ownership of capital) we could create a leaner, more united community, better equipped for the eternal rivalry of races and states. In National Life from the Standpoint of Science (1901), Pearson stressed the risk of war due to the current energetic pursuit of markets and raw materials. The enlightened statesman considered ‘group cries' from the perspective of ‘the efficiency of the herd at large'. Socialism gives the proletariat a stake in the nation: it therefore enables the latter to succeed in its ‘continual struggle with other nations'.

A key figure in the development of biometry (statistical biology), Pearson also thought that Kidd's critique of socialism was ‘built on a quagmire', namely, Weismann's unproven and ‘purely descriptive' theories of the continuity of the germ-plasm and panmixia. And he cited T.H. Huxley's view that natural selection had ceased to operate “within, but not between, the advanced societies.."

In many ways the group selectionist thinking then common in biology reinforced this 'scientific' belief (really scientism) that selection worked between, not within, groups.

So the "hard" social Darwinists, including socialists and the Nazis, could parade their views as modern, scientific and up to date. Not old fashioned like those classical liberal fuddy duddies. It was only really once the NeoDarwinian synthesis in biology, the merger of Darwinian natural selection and Mendel's genetics, arose in the late 1940s that models emphasising individualistic competition between organisms was back in vogue as a dominant paradigm among working biologists.

Many leftists have argued that social darwinism provided a justification for imperialism. But:

"Here, again, the reality is less tidy. For although Spencer regarded the elimination of ‘backward' sections of the human race as providential, he disapproved of the ‘theft' of the lands of weaker peoples and of the accompanying arms races and jingoism.

Yet other evolutionists, notably Kidd, supported the new imperialism. Kidd's arguments, here, were partly economic but mainly anthropological. He alleged the superior ‘social efficiency' of the Eurasian peoples, inhabitants of a hard and testing environment where the struggle for existence had been of unprecedented severity. He professed to see, throughout history, a gradual ‘shifting of the centre of power' into the ‘stern regions' of the North, culminating in the expansion of these Eurasian peoples in the temperate regions of Asia, America and Australasia.

Kidd also asserted the superiority of the ‘Teutonic' branch of the European family, which, in a crude precursor of Weber's Protestant ethic, he traced to the beneficent and continuing influence of the Reformation."

Spencer and Kidd were both social Darwinists, and both were anti-socialists. However Spencer, probably the most prominent social Darwinist of all, was an arch anti-imperialist and seems to have advocated indigenous land rights before anyone on the left. Marx for example welcomed the prospect of 'superior' capitalist or socialist societies bulldozing backward cultures into oblivion.

Kidd, who we can classify as a "hard social darwinist of the right", was also a protege of Sir Alfred Milner, a pro-imperialist. That a protege of Milner, whether or not he was a social darwinist, would be pro-Empire is hardly surprising. Milner himself was a member of pro-Empire lobby groups and committees, like "The Co-efficients", where he joined with Fabian pioneers like Sidney and Beatrice Webb (also eugenicists).

Their views were closer than you might think. "... in the mid-1890s, the Liberal Party in England split into the radicals on the left and the liberal-imperialists on the right, Beatrice Webb, co-leader of the Fabians, denounced the radicals as "laissez-faire and anti-imperialists," while hailing the latter as "collectivists and imperialists."

An official Fabian manifesto, Fabianism and the Empire (1900), drawn up by George Bernard Shaw (who was later, with perfect consistency, to praise the domestic policies of Stalin and Mussolini and Sir Oswald Mosley), lauded imperialism and attacked the radicals, who "still cling to the fixed-frontier ideals of individualist republicanism (and) noninterference." In contrast, "a Great Power . . . must govern (a world empire) in the interests of civilization as a whole."

After this, the Fabians collaborated closely with Tories and liberal-imperialists. " It was the old classical liberals, including "soft social Darwinists" like Spencer, who advocated both the rights of individuals and the rights of small countries (like the Boer Republics). To the Webbs, Russells, Wells and even "modern Tories" like Milner and Kidd, this position was obsolete.

This is why George Orwell's 1984 with it's "Ingsoc" (English socialist) dictatorship was a world of three rival global super-states. What is truly surprising is the intellectual gymnastics the left use to blame Herbert Spencer for "hard" social darwinist follies he opposed, and their forerunners advocated. The real reason was that Spencer opposed the authoritarian methods and state worship they still love.

posted by JR 10:19 PM

 

Personality and Individual Differences, Volume 32, Issue 2 , 19 January 2002, Pages 273-316


Racial and ethnic differences in psychopathic personality

Richard Lynn,

University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland, BT52 1SA, UK

Abstract

This paper proposes that there are racial and ethnic differences in psychopathic personality conceptualised as a continuously distributed trait, such that high values of the trait are present in blacks and Native Americans, intermediate values in Hispanics, lower values in whites and the lowest values in East Asians. Part one of the paper sets out the evidence for this thesis. Part two applies the thesis to the unresolved problem in The Bell Curve that racial and ethnic differences in a number of social phenomena such as crime, welfare dependency, rates of marriage, etc. cannot be fully explained by differences in intelligence and proposes that some of the residual disparities are attributable to differences in psychopathic personality. Part three of the paper integrates the theory with Rushton's r-K theory of race differences.

Author Keywords: Psychopathic personality; Conduct disorder; Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; Crime; Marriage; Sexual behaviour; Race differences; r-K theory

Present address: The Whitfield Institute, Whitfield Court, Glewstone, Ross-on-Wye, Herts, HR9 6AS, UK. Tel.: +44-1989-770908; email: rlynn@uk.packardbell.org

I have posted the abstract above here because it seems to be impossible to link to at its original source. If you are patient enough, however, you can find it via: http://www.sciencedirect.com/

posted by JR 3:13 PM

Thursday, September 25, 2003

 

Personality and Individual Differences Volume 34, Issue 7 , May 2003, Pages 1099-1112






Blood type and personality

Mary Rogers and A. Ian Glendon,

School of Applied Psychology, Griffith University, Gold Coast Campus, PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre, Gold Coast, Queensland 9726, Australia

Abstract

This study investigated possible relationships between blood types and personality within a normal population. Evidence from published studies claiming associations between blood type and personality is scanty, conflicting, and characterised by unequal cell sizes. This study predicted that compared to those with other blood types, blood Type B individuals would be higher on neuroticism, blood Type O individuals would be higher on extraversion and optimism, blood Type A individuals would be higher on agreeableness and blood Type AB individuals would be higher on conscientiousness. A main effect for gender on neuroticism and an interaction effect for gender and blood Type B on neuroticism were also predicted. Participants comprised a quota sample of blood donors--180 males and 180 females. Thirty males and 30 females from each of the four blood types were included in the final analysis. A version of the big-five factor personality inventory developed by Goldberg, and the Life Orientation Test Revised were administered. MANOVA results showed that the combined dependent variables were not significantly affected by blood type, nor by gender, nor were there any interaction effects. No relationship between blood type and personality is supported by this study. Methodology of previous studies is reviewed and implications of the findings considered.

Author Keywords: Agreeableness; Blood type; Conscientiousness; Extraversion; Intellect; Neuroticism; Optimism; Openness

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61-7-5594-8964; fax: +61-7-5552-8291

I have posted the abstract above here because it seems to be impossible to link to at its original source. If you are patient enough, however, you can find it via: http://www.sciencedirect.com/

posted by JR 11:51 AM

Sunday, September 21, 2003

 

UNION THUGS SAVAGELY ATTACK COLLEGE KIDS

PROP 54 PRESS RELEASE: Sat, 20 Sep 2003 10:55


SACRAMENTO, CALIF.-- Ward Connerly, chairman of the Yes on Proposition 54 campaign, angrily denounced the savage attack, Several men from an unidentified union and carrying "No on Prop 54" signs unleashed on six college students.

The students, all members of the California College Republicans and in their early 20s, were peacefully protesting at a voter-registration rally held in south Los Angeles and featuring Governor Gray Davis and former Vice President Al Gore. The students stood respectfully outside and carried "Yes on Prop 54" signs.

They were approached by a gang of men, all wearing union shirts and carrying "No on Prop 54" signs, who began verbally harassing them and physically intimidating them by holding their signs over those of the students, standing threateningly close and following them when the students tried to retreat to a safe distance. They also shouted down the students with racial slurs and called one of the female students a "white-washed Mexican."

Then about 15 of the "No on 54" thugs surrounded two girls, hit them in the face and pulled their hair. Another student who tried to rescue the girls got punched in the back. Finally, all of the students managed to escape to their car and drive away, all the while being followed and yelled at by their bullying attackers. Representatives of the media, including the Los Angeles Times, NBC, CBS, ABC and CNN were present, but it's unclear how much of the attack they witnessed.

"I cannot express enough my disgust and contempt for brutes who express
their political beliefs by beating up on anyone, especially young females," said Mr. Connerly. "My sympathies go out to the students who had to endure this outrage. They are extremely courageous people who stand up and declare their beliefs, even at risk of bodily harm. I'm proud they stand among the supporters of Prop 54."

Prop 54 will bar the state and all local California governments from classifying individuals by race in the areas of public education, employment, contracting and most other government operations. Reasonable exemptions exist for medical research subjects and patients, racial classifications required by federal law or for federal funds and certain activities of law enforcement. The state legislature, by a two-thirds vote and with the governor's approval, can vote to exempt any other
reasonable area. Also, the Department of Fair Housing and Employment will
receive a 10-year sun-setting exemption.

PROPOSITION 54
THE RACIAL PRIVACY INITIATIVE
P.O. Box 189113
Sacramento, CA 95818
(916) 444-2278
(916) 444-2279 fax
www.racialprivacy.org

posted by JR 11:44 AM