The race gap in IQ testing is caused, in part, by inherent genetic differences between races.

I apologise for asking CON to go first but at the time I had 2 other debates going on at the same time and, while that was entirely my fault, I did not have the energy to do an 8000 essay which will basically repeat the points I made in my previous debate http://www.debate.org...; and, as CON said, he was capable of infering my points from the aformentioned debate and our own informal discussions on this matter. I also hope that this will remain civil as it is indeed a very emotive subject that many will feel strongly about; but, knowing my very worthy opponent, I have every confidence that this debate will not descend into ad hominem attacks and the such. ------------- Arguments ------------- 1) According to the title, all that I have to do is show that genes have a 0.1% impact on the intelligence of the individual - in essence, show that intelligence is heritable - and I will have successfully argued my case. 2) http://www.udel.edu... This is an article, first published in the wall street journal, is on the view of mainstream scientists on the question of race and intelligence - it also has 52 signatures by eminent professors from leading Universities all over America to show that the views expressed are that of the scientific community at large. I quote from the bottom of page 2: "Individuals differ in intelligence due to differences in both their environments and genetic heritage. Heritability estimates range from 0.4 to 0.8 (on a scale from 0 to l), most thereby indicating that genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ differences among individuals." So it is the mainstream view that genetic differences account for from 40% to 80% of an individuals IQ score or intelligence. This clearly demonstrates that genetics accounts for more than 0.1% and so more than substantiates my assertion that genes account for, at least least part, of the difference in IQ scores between races. ------------ Rebuttals ------------ 1) In the first section CON goes on at some length about how this theory of different races have innately different IQs or intellectual capacities was used by Europeans to attempt to justify such barbaric acts such as slavery - I feel this is of no relevance to the debate as we are discussing the validity of the theory and not the, rather dubious, morals of some who have subscribed to this theory. This is a logical fallacy know as Guilt by association (http://www.nizkor.org...). CON also then goes on to attack the validity of data collected by some scientists who do research in this field without backing up his claims with any evidence. Also, unless he is able to show that the unscientific methods described were systemic among the researchers in this field then he will really have not done anything to weaken my position. 2) In this section there is nothing to rebut as I fully accept CON's carefully thought out premises. 3) Here, CON gives an account of how being of a "lower" caste can have a negative affect on the performance of said person. And while this may play a large part in IQ test results, the fact remains that CON's statement that IQ is not heritable and can be wholly attributed to "non-genetic factors" flies in the face of all evidence. In the table shown here: http://www.nature.com... we see that Mono-zygotic twins (basically exactly the same genes) reared apart show a 0.74 correlation in IQ scores ( 1 is an absolute correlation; 0 is no correlation), if genes did not play a role then siblings (sharing only some genes) reared apart should also show a 0.7 correlation give or take 0.1 - however, the IQ test results show that the correlation is only 0.24 which is staggeringly low compared to the correlation shown by MZ twins reared apart. This massive discrepancy tells us that genes must have played a role in IQ determination. 4) In this section he goes on to talk about how IQ scores are not very well understood by giving the example of how IQ scores rise with each progressive generation. Now CON has himself admitted that IQ scores are quite a good indicator of general intellectual ability so unless he is wishing to contradict his own premise, I'm not quite sure what he's trying to do here. A possible cause of the Flynn effect is better nutrition causing better brain development, but another possibility is that we, like all other animals, are simply evolving to be better adapted to our environment. He also talks of how the " race gap has actually shrunk over time", now this is only true Africans and other disadvantaged groups in western countries and a reason for this could be that the better education system and better nutrition are drastically improving their environments and so cause a one-off jump in IQ that is slightly higher than the natural increase in IQ experienced by all races. I say it is only true for Africans and other very disadvantaged groups (e.g. Hispanics) because I have yet to see any studies on the white IQ rising faster than the East-Asian IQ - but if CON has then I would be extremely grateful if he could point me to the right paper. 5) In the fifth section CON raises two distinct points. i) That "no gene that has been established to have a direct link to intelligence". This is thought to be due to the fact that many genes all contribute to this overall thing we call intelligence - just because we cannot identify each and every gene that contributes to intelligence does not mean we should ignore the mountain of evidence pointing towards the fact that intelligence is very much heritable. I would also like to draw CON's attention to the key word in his quote: " No gene has YET been conclusively linked to intelligence". ii) That race is "merely a folk taxonomy", so why is it that when given a skeleton a coroner is able to tell the race of the deceased using things such as bone density, skull size or hip width? In the 2004 Stanford Study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...) 3,636 individuals of varying ethnicity from 15 different locations in Taiwan and America were asked to state their self-identified race. Microsatellite markers taken from these individuals produced four major clusters after genetic cluster analysis: __________A____B___C____D Caucasian_1348_ 0___0____1 African____3____0___1305_0 Hispanic___1____0___0____411 Chinese___0____407_0____0 Japanese__0____160_0____0 Other_____1____2___0____9 As you can see only 5 individuals identified wrongly (0.14%) and to quote from the article: the results showed near-perfect correspondence with the four self-reported race/ethnicity categories. This study shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that genetically distinct groups exist and that these groups tie in with our perceived notions of race. In summary, I have shown that intelligence is indeed heritable and linked to our genes through the comparison of the IQ correlation mono-zygotic twins reared apart (0.74) and siblings reared apart (0.24) - the more genes two individuals share, the more their IQ scores correlate. I have also shown that race is not a social construct; but rather, something that is written into our very bodies. I wait with eagerness for CON's reply.