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Comment by colinhb | Hacker News Reader

> I'm guessing it's either:

> (a) all human beings are born with identical talents and inclinations.

> (b) human beings may be born with different talents and inclinations, but these talents and inclinations are distributed identically across all living populations.

Or: (c) The inter-group variation in the talents and inclinations of human beings is completely dominated by the intra-group variation.

In other words, "living populations" (= ethnic groups) don't matter. You'll have (e.g.) smart and dumb people in every group, and everything else is noise.

I'm not sure how a reasonable person could choose hypothesis (b) over (c), given the long history of hypothesis (b) proponents trying (and failing) to make the math work out for them.

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I think if you read (b) again, you'll see that it's exactly the same hypothesis as your (c).

As a disinterested (in both senses of the word) outside observer, I'd point out that while his (c) is pretty much the same as (b), sans the editorializing it's in no way incompatible with any of the previously mentioned Yarvin/Moldbug quotes.

Take, for example, the statement "America is richer than Mexico." By which is meant, "on average, Americans are richer than Mexicans." Someone else could say: "But there are plenty of homeless people in America, and Carlos Slim is the richest man in the world! There are vastly greater internal differences in wealth within America and Mexico than the difference between the two countries' averages."

Perfectly true. But, it doesn't then logically follow that America and Mexico must not differ in terms of average wealth, or that the difference in average wealth between the two countries is irrelevant or less relevant than their internal inequality.

This is exactly right. Unfortunately, the fallacy—often called Lewontin's Fallacy [1], after the Harvard biologist who most famously committed it—seems nigh ineradicable. Perhaps there should be some sort of Godwin's Law for it: "As an online discussion of human biological differences grows longer, the probability of someone committing Lewontin's Fallacy approaches 1."

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Genetic_Diversity:_Lewon...

But you've got to be careful not to make the mistake of incorrectly accusing someone of committing Lewontin's fallacy. Saying that race isn't real is clearly wrong, in the sense that people reliably fit into racial categories.

On the other hand, the other claim (race has no discernible effect on behaviour) isn't fallacious (at least if Lewontin's results are accurate). If there is much greater variance within populations than between them, then it is foolish to make decisions about people based on their race, as it gives very little information about them.

If there is much greater variance within populations than between them, then it is foolish to make decisions about people based on their race, as it gives very little information about them.

All you say is true, but it won't necessarily save you from the Thought Police. For example, the variation in strength within male and female populations is bigger than the variation between them. It may therefore be foolish to make decisions based on gender rather than on strength when hiring, say, dockworkers. But when people complain about how few female dockworkers there are, what will you tell them? Mutatis mutandis.

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