Controversy in Conversation

[Seldon2639]

In a Political Science class recently (college-level, which is important to the story) we were discussing data regarding test scores in middle schools. There was a decidedly inverse correlation between the number of students on reduced/free lunches, and the performance of the school. With only a few outliers, it was a strong r value (the "r" value is the amount which one variable is explained by another). We came up with the usual explanations "they don't get as much funding", "the parents can't be as involved", "they don't have access to technology", ect. I sat there thinking for a while, and finally brought up the possibility that there could be a genetic component. Which would make sense. If we assume that "g" (which is the standardly accepted value of "cognitive ability") is related to success, it would make sense that the most successful (and hence highly cognitively able) would transmit this to their children. I, of course, was immediately lambasted. So, here's my question to the assemblage: was my comment out of line? I wasn't advocating that this is correct, or any kind of eugenics. Should scientific discourse and inquiry take a back seat to our sensitivities?

 

[MrHappy255]

I don't disagree with you but we live in a society where being politically correct is more important than actual improvement in said society. Hence the reason why grades have continued to drop yearly as we make allowances for the lowest common denominator and continue to lambast those who are exceptional.
Sad really.

 

[stompy]

Yeh, I'm kinda sick of this. My Maths teacher (who's pretty cool) tells us that they're not allowed to fail us, of call us lazy. If a fight breaks out in the school, the teacher's fucked both ways. They can:
If they try and break up the fight, then they'll have to touch a student. Said student then tells parents, who sue teacher for sexual abuse; or
They don't break up the fight, and parents sue for not stopping the fight.
This also happens when there's a teenage pregnancy, and several other things. Society's come to a point where the middle-man is damned if they do, damned if they don't.

 

[Joeshie]

I don't disagree with you but we live in a society where being politically correct is more important than actual improvement in said society. Hence the reason why grades have continued to drop yearly as we make allowances for the lowest common denominator and continue to lambast those who are exceptional.
Sad really.

I fail to see how slightly improving knowledge is a better benefactor to society than say, keeping with the idea that people shouldn't be hindered by race or gender.

 

[stompy]

I fail to see how slightly improving knowledge is a better benefactor to society than say, keeping with the idea that people shouldn't be hindered by race or gender.

I don't mean that political correctness, and equality are bad, just that it's opened the floodgates of every little whiner out there. If I were to be refused a job, or a position at a university, because of my Indian origin, then that's negative, and needs to be removed. But, if I were complain 'bout something inane, like say, when a guy said that Indian food sucks, then I'd deserve to be slapped. It's just being whiny, and doesn't really affect me in the slightest.

 

[Seldon2639]

I don't disagree with you but we live in a society where being politically correct is more important than actual improvement in said society. Hence the reason why grades have continued to drop yearly as we make allowances for the lowest common denominator and continue to lambast those who are exceptional.
Sad really.

I fail to see how slightly improving knowledge is a better benefactor to society than say, keeping with the idea that people shouldn't be hindered by race or gender.

Think of it a different way. If this mindset is right (there are inherent differences between races), we can think of ways to either improve on the situation, or create a society which embraces the different talents between people and between groups. If the mindset is wrong, we have irrefutable proof of it. Besides, science can't be restrained to "what we want to be true". I personally don't want AIDS to be caused by HIV, but science doesn't give a hoot what I *want* to be true, only what actually ends up being true. Maybe through this research we find the DNA which influences intellect, and can create a way to put the right stuff in everyone. I don't know, but is it reasonable to restrain research, and even discourse, in the interest of protecting our gentle sensibilities?

 

[Joeshie]

Think of it a different way. If this mindset is right (there are inherent differences between races), we can think of ways to either improve on the situation, or create a society which embraces the different talents between people and between groups. If the mindset is wrong, we have irrefutable proof of it. Besides, science can't be restrained to "what we want to be true". I personally don't want AIDS to be caused by HIV, but science doesn't give a hoot what I *want* to be true, only what actually ends up being true. Maybe through this research we find the DNA which influences intellect, and can create a way to put the right stuff in everyone. I don't know, but is it reasonable to restrain research, and even discourse, in the interest of protecting our gentle sensibilities?

Negatives greatly outweigh the positives. People won't try to fix it or look it as a way to benefit society, they will just use it as an excuse to justify racism or sexism. You would be attempting to blanket entire groups of people and thus people will suffer, just as they have in the past when people have tried this. Likewise, trying to "prove" any of these things as true is extremely tricky and nigh impossible due to social distortions of the data.

I don't think you are trying to be racist or sexist, but I would just call you naive. Any idea that trying to find differences would lead to a better society is pretty ridiculous. I'm usually one to greatly support science even when facing social pressures, but I feel that in this specific case, the societal concerns greatly outweigh the scientific concerns.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

In a Political Science class recently (college-level, which is important to the story) we were discussing data regarding test scores in middle schools. There was a decidedly inverse correlation between the number of students on reduced/free lunches, and the performance of the school. With only a few outliers, it was a strong r value (the "r" value is the amount which one variable is explained by another). We came up with the usual explanations "they don't get as much funding", "the parents can't be as involved", "they don't have access to technology", ect. I sat there thinking for a while, and finally brought up the possibility that there could be a genetic component. Which would make sense. If we assume that "g" (which is the standardly accepted value of "cognitive ability") is related to success, it would make sense that the most successful (and hence highly cognitively able) would transmit this to their children. I, of course, was immediately lambasted. So, here's my question to the assemblage: was my comment out of line? I wasn't advocating that this is correct, or any kind of eugenics. Should scientific discourse and inquiry take a back seat to our sensitivities?

If you are genuinely interested in the issue of poverty (they don't give free lunches to rich people) and its relationship to school performance, you might check out Savage Inequalities. School doesn't happen in a social vacuum, and the misery of being poor can and does have a direct impact on school performance. If I miss out on sleep because the gang members next door got in a fight with other gang members (this is before the era of the drive-by, so it was just a fight, not a gun-fight), the chances are I will not perform as well in school. If I have to go to school hungry or undernourished because my mom ran out of money and food stamps before the end of the month, I won't do as well in school that day. If my school is unheated, has broken windows, and so many kids in a class there aren't enough chairs, let alone enough books, I'm not going to do so well in class. I wish these were hypothetical scenarios, by the way, but the first two are my experiences as a free-lunch receiving welfare child, and the second two are the experience of my friend who teaches junior high school science.

I will also note that, thanks to the vagaries of school district boundaries, I did a head-whipping transition into one of the wealthiest high schools in my area, and I will tell you that when it comes to actual smarts, the rich and successful are as inclined to be shitwits as anyone else.

The problem with suggesting a genetic component to success is that it is self-congratulatory on the part of the wealthy and demeaning to the poor, and the science behind such claims is generally held to be shit on a par with cold fusion. So, in my opinion anyway, you put forward a theory that was both personally offensive to some members of your class (certainly I would be offended if you seriously suggested such an idea, given my family history) and scientifically unsupported. And then of course there is the fact that the genetics argument has a history of being used to support racism, sexism, and classism in very real ways over the last couple hundred years.

I would only accept the postulation that success was a reflection of intellectual/psychological fitness if there was no transmission of wealth from one generation to the next and everyone started out from the exact same point with regard to social priviledge and grew up in the exact same conditions.

Certainly, it would not be out of line in a PoliSci class to discuss how the concepts of Social Darwinism have functioned politically and socially, but to put a genetic explanation for poverty-related school failure forward as a creditable idea makes about as much sense to me as putting forward strict Creationism in a Geology class.

 

[Saskwach]

I agree with you. My ex-wife was raised by a family that never made her do chores, never showed her examples of how outstanding she could be, and now she wallows in her own laziness, fucking a 30 year old man simply because he won't make her work, and is willing to support her, whereas I *Gasp* expected her to do her fair share of the work! So when I was at school, which paid the bills, I expected her to clean the house a bit. Never happened. I went to school, and she quit her job because she felt overworked and under appreciated. At McDonalds. Yeah, there is a gene for Achievement, and Intelligence. She just never had them. As for Political Correctness... people often get the impression that I am an asshole. Why? Mostly because I tell it like it is. I don't suck up to people I don't like, and I don't belittle people that others don't if I do. Don't like it? Fuck off.
That is what I think about Political Correctness.

You've argued against yourself here. First you use her upbringing as an explanation for her laziness, then you conclude her sloth must be the result of her genes.
Personally I think while genes or something similar play a part it is a small part of little consequence next to upbringing, circumstances and habit.

 

[stompy]

I think Saskwach's got a point. The right up-bringing can make all the difference... As you can see, I'm Nurture vs. Nature.

PS: Darth, nice to see you again.

 

[mshcherbatskaya]

And the thing is, re: Darth's ex - we aren't talking about individual failings here, we are talking about entire classifications of people being written of as inherently unfit. That's a big difference.

 

[Seldon2639]

In a Political Science class recently (college-level, which is important to the story) we were discussing data regarding test scores in middle schools. There was a decidedly inverse correlation between the number of students on reduced/free lunches, and the performance of the school. With only a few outliers, it was a strong r value (the "r" value is the amount which one variable is explained by another). We came up with the usual explanations "they don't get as much funding", "the parents can't be as involved", "they don't have access to technology", ect. I sat there thinking for a while, and finally brought up the possibility that there could be a genetic component. Which would make sense. If we assume that "g" (which is the standardly accepted value of "cognitive ability") is related to success, it would make sense that the most successful (and hence highly cognitively able) would transmit this to their children. I, of course, was immediately lambasted. So, here's my question to the assemblage: was my comment out of line? I wasn't advocating that this is correct, or any kind of eugenics. Should scientific discourse and inquiry take a back seat to our sensitivities?

If you are genuinely interested in the issue of poverty (they don't give free lunches to rich people) and its relationship to school performance, you might check out Savage Inequalities. School doesn't happen in a social vacuum, and the misery of being poor can and does have a direct impact on school performance. If I miss out on sleep because the gang members next door got in a fight with other gang members (this is before the era of the drive-by, so it was just a fight, not a gun-fight), the chances are I will not perform as well in school. If I have to go to school hungry or undernourished because my mom ran out of money and food stamps before the end of the month, I won't do as well in school that day. If my school is unheated, has broken windows, and so many kids in a class there aren't enough chairs, let alone enough books, I'm not going to do so well in class. I wish these were hypothetical scenarios, by the way, but the first two are my experiences as a free-lunch receiving welfare child, and the second two are the experience of my friend who teaches junior high school science.

I will also note that, thanks to the vagaries of school district boundaries, I did a head-whipping transition into one of the wealthiest high schools in my area, and I will tell you that when it comes to actual smarts, the rich and successful are as inclined to be shitwits as anyone else.

The problem with suggesting a genetic component to success is that it is self-congratulatory on the part of the wealthy and demeaning to the poor, and the science behind such claims is generally held to be shit on a par with cold fusion. So, in my opinion anyway, you put forward a theory that was both personally offensive to some members of your class (certainly I would be offended if you seriously suggested such an idea, given my family history) and scientifically unsupported. And then of course there is the fact that the genetics argument has a history of being used to support racism, sexism, and classism in very real ways over the last couple hundred years.

I would only accept the postulation that success was a reflection of intellectual/psychological fitness if there was no transmission of wealth from one generation to the next and everyone started out from the exact same point with regard to social priviledge and grew up in the exact same conditions.

Certainly, it would not be out of line in a PoliSci class to discuss how the concepts of Social Darwinism have functioned politically and socially, but to put a genetic explanation for poverty-related school failure forward as a creditable idea makes about as much sense to me as putting forward strict Creationism in a Geology class.

Most of the studies I've seen (having delved into the subject more having been chastised in class) indicate a pretty strong heritability of "g"

From a study done by Yale Medical School:

"g clearly runs in families. The correlations for first-degree relatives living together average 0.43 for more than 8,000 parent?offspring pairs and 0.47 for more than 25,000 pairs of siblings. However, g might run in families for reasons of nurture or of nature. In studies involving more than 10,000 pairs of twins, the average g correlations are 0.85 for identical twins and 0.60 for same-sex fraternal twins. These twin data suggest a genetic effect size (heritability) that explains about half of the total variance in g scores."

Obviously other factors play a role. All research admits that heritability is *not* the sole determinant. There's also a great article by James Watson (Nobel Prize-winning scientist, and one of the discoverers of DNA itself): http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/james-watson-to-question-genetic-intelligence-is-not-racism-397250.html

The nature vs nurture debate is probably going to continue long after everyone here is dead an buried, so I'm not going to place a lot of stock in having the god's honest truth about it. But, if we're going to explore explanations for different phenomena, the scientific method requires that we explore *all* explanations, not just the ones we like. If the hypothesis is wrong, that's fantastic (and I would sincerely like it to be wrong). If the hypothesis is right, we need to deal with it.

I'll look into the book you recommended. On the same subject, you might try reading The Bell Curve and Losing Ground, if for no other reason than to have a good understanding of the opposing side of the argument.

Not for nothing, though, and I really do hope that no one is taking this personally, but use of terms like "the science behind such claims is generally held to be shit on a par with cold fusion" and "to put a genetic explanation for poverty-related school failure forward as a creditable idea makes about as much sense to me as putting forward strict Creationism in a Geology class" is kind of begging the question. If what I brought up is only unreasonable with the given assumption that it is unreasonable (by the way, I went to an inner-city high school, and my father was on welfare for much of his young life, so I'm not an elitist), your argument loses ground if my point is reasonable. There are plenty of studies which confirm (as referenced above) a strong genetic component to cognitive ability. But, I'm not saying anything other than "we should discuss it in terms of possible reasons for disparate results". I'm not advocating any kind of eugenics, nor self-congratulatory good feelings on the part of the wealthy (speaking as someone who isn't).

Besides, if you could find substantive evidence for a young earth, any geologist worth his salt is going to review it with an open mind. Science is decidedly anti-dogmatic. Evidence is everything, feelings, beliefs, count for little if anything

 

[Seldon2639]

I think Saskwach's got a point. The right up-bringing can make all the difference... As you can see, I'm Nurture vs. Nature.

PS: Darth, nice to see you again.

It does seem to come back to the conflict of nature vs nurture (I'm obviously closer to the first), but does believing in the importance of one (in terms of our personal conviction) mean we should reject all possible influence and importance of the other? I believe more in nature, sure, but if it turns out that test scores are more strongly correlated to nutrition (given a regression, controlling for all other variables), I'm willing to back down and say it's nurture. We should be able to have the conversation, present evidence for both sides, nature and nurture, and avoid both epithets, and anger. If we're gonna have the conversation, though, it needs to come down to facts, statistics, and figures, not anecdotes and feelings. Anecdotally, I'd love to give credit (and blame) to my upbringing, to my experiences, but that's hardly scientific

 

[Erana]

Should scientific discourse and inquiry take a back seat to our sensitivities?

In theory, I strongly say, No.
In practice, I would censor myself so as to not offend someone who may be of importance.

On the topic of your discussion, I would have to say that Genetics does have a role to play. I mean, scientifically, if the fox farm experiments [http://www.floridalupine.org/publications/PDF/trut-fox-study.pdf] could have such a drastic effect in only fourty years, genetics sure does have to do with intelligence.
However, I think in this situation it is mostly a matter of environment.

 

[sammyfreak]

In a Political Science class recently (college-level, which is important to the story) we were discussing data regarding test scores in middle schools. There was a decidedly inverse correlation between the number of students on reduced/free lunches, and the performance of the school. With only a few outliers, it was a strong r value (the "r" value is the amount which one variable is explained by another). We came up with the usual explanations "they don't get as much funding", "the parents can't be as involved", "they don't have access to technology", ect. I sat there thinking for a while, and finally brought up the possibility that there could be a genetic component. Which would make sense. If we assume that "g" (which is the standardly accepted value of "cognitive ability") is related to success, it would make sense that the most successful (and hence highly cognitively able) would transmit this to their children. I, of course, was immediately lambasted. So, here's my question to the assemblage: was my comment out of line? I wasn't advocating that this is correct, or any kind of eugenics. Should scientific discourse and inquiry take a back seat to our sensitivities?

While what you said could be perceived as rascism i dont think it was out of line, if just at a theoretical level. That is as long as you have some kind of reason for your purposal.

Im not a big fan a scientific race studies, but the fact remains that some of the genetic variations matter from person to person. But maybe this is an area of science best left untapped for now.

 

[Seldon2639]

It does seem to come back to the conflict of nature vs nurture (I'm obviously closer to the first), but does believing in the importance of one (in terms of our personal conviction)

Did you ever think it might be both? And I'm not talking about some kind of split, like nature is 70 percent, nurture is 30 percent responsible. I'm talking about how people are in many cases the product of the interaction between the two.

From what I'm to understand the same genetic makeup for being a daredevil/risktaker is present in both violent criminals and fireman. The difference is that the former have poor upbringings that turn them anti-social and the latter have better ones that keep them pro-social. Did you ever think that maybe g is not genetic, but the product of a certain genetic makeup and a certain upbringing?

Did you ever think of nature vs. nurture in terms of the analogy of a bush and a tree? One will certainly grow taller than the other given optimal conditions. However, reduce water or sunlight below a certain level and neither will grow at all.

Also, did you ever think that successful parents pay for the school lunches of their children, no matter how low their cognitive ability--i.e. whether they got the gene or not--may be?

That's almost exactly my point. If we're coming up with explanations for why some students succeed, while others don't, or why some groups are more academically successful, we need to take all possible factors into account, study them, and determine (insofar as we can) which variable is of the greatest impact. Wealthy parents will buy their kids meals (the number of reduced/free lunches are used as a measure of poverty in a given school), but does that account for the whole difference? What about that wealthy parents can read to their kids, can help them with homework? What about differences in peer group, and expectations? And what is the relative importance of these, and other, factors? Unless there's some communication from on high, which explains all of this, we should open the field to studying all the possibilities, shouldn't we?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I wasn't advocating that this is correct, or any kind of eugenics. Should scientific discourse and inquiry take a back seat to our sensitivities?

For expressing it? No.

I'd take a look at Epigenics, one of the newer sciences that say that internal chemicals can switch genetic information on; so that a child born to a poorer family is stronger but less willing to learn; whilst THE SAME CHILD born to richer parents will be smarter.

And so, reluctantly, I'd have to side with Seldon and against Saskwatch, genetics can store the sloth and the upbringing brings on the laziness. Look at what effect Tartrazine can have on a stable child. (Reverse effect of course) The school meals may actually be the cause, but the effect is genetic.

Now, you could discuss the Potato Famine in front of the Irish, but it'd be REALLY wise not to. There's a lot of people out there with immovable views that have no regrets about backing their argument with violence.

 

[Geoffrey42]

From a study done by Yale Medical School:

"g clearly runs in families. The correlations for first-degree relatives living together average 0.43 for more than 8,000 parent?offspring pairs and 0.47 for more than 25,000 pairs of siblings. However, g might run in families for reasons of nurture or of nature. In studies involving more than 10,000 pairs of twins, the average g correlations are 0.85 for identical twins and 0.60 for same-sex fraternal twins. These twin data suggest a genetic effect size (heritability) that explains about half of the total variance in g scores."

One question I would have here is: what were they using to measure g? History is rife with examples of a test that works well for the dominant populace, but which inaccurately measures the same characteristic in the subordinate populace (I cannot find a reference for the life of me, but maybe someone else can help: 5 stages of emotional maturity, used to show that Boys reach stage 5 and girls are perpetually stuck at stage 3?). If your goal is to demonstrate a difference between two distinct populations, using the same test is often self-fulfilling.

If what I brought up is only unreasonable with the given assumption that it is unreasonable (by the way, I went to an inner-city high school, and my father was on welfare for much of his young life, so I'm not an elitist), your argument loses ground if my point is reasonable.

*sarcasm*So, based on your above hypothesis, your father was an idiot?*/sarcasm*

I don't mean that, but it is one of the unpleasant paths this avenue tends to go down. Road to hell... best intentions... yadayada...

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

For an example based on race but not on racism...

Europeans can drink more than Asians on average, but that can't be genetically hardcoded in can it?
Well, yes it can.
During the Medieval times, Asians were far more prone to drinking dirty water and thus getting Diarhoea(sp?), whilst the Europeans used Fermentation. Now as alcohol is a toxin, the body needs a way to convert the ethanol to methanol, combine it with water (Which is where hangovers come from) and then get it out of the body.
So Europeans have developed a resistance to Alcohol, and any child born of multi-racial stock will have a code that can be activated in times of high alcohol poisoning. (Like your Hen/Stag Night)

Now, if pregnant mothers take alcohol during the time the fetus is gestating, possibly even during conception(?) then the genetic code of the baby will be activated so that child will have a stronger resistance to alcohol, but also a weakness to taking it.

And as the time goes on, the tolerance will drop if not rebuilt, and raise if repeatedly fed it.

This was 'proven' with an documentary about holidays. Four sets of a dozen holiday makers were watched to see how they would react; would the Germans steal all the deckchairs and other sterotypes like that; but the alcohol issue raised the most eyebrows.

Japanese Tourists : Around 200 single bottles of beer. (Unused to grain based alcohol)
American Tourists : Around 400. (Unused to drinking young)
German Tourists : Around 600 (Beer is a major part of their culture)
British Tourists : Over 1,000 bottles (Alcohol is seen as a coming of age ritual, no matter what the age)

 

[cleverlymadeup]

I'd take a look at Epigenics, one of the newer sciences that say that internal chemicals can switch genetic information on; so that a child born to a poorer family is stronger but less willing to learn; whilst THE SAME CHILD born to richer parents will be smarter.

actually epigenetics is not that at all, it says something very different. the epigenome is part of all humans. as put if the genome is the blueprint for how the body is laid out, the epigenome is the instructions on how to assemble it.

they did a lot of this study with identical twins, specifically where one was fine and the other one had autism. they wanted to know why one twin was different, they found the epigenome.

now with the epigenome it has a lot of mitigating factors in what outcome will happen. funnily enough the expression "it skips a generation" actualy holds true for this. now to use the potato famine as an example, if your grandfather and grandmother lived thru it, you would be more likely to have certain genetic defects depending on the age of your grandparents at the time they experienced the famine.

there are two disorders Angelman syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelman_syndrome and Prader-Willi syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prader-Willi_syndrome , both affect the same chromosome but it depends on which parent gives you the genetic marker

there is actually a really good nova show on this, it's call the ghost in our genes

now for the topic at hand

well some ppl ARE born less intelligent than others, regardless of race or creed, and sadly this is used as a racial thing, it's not more societal/cultural than anything. it's the law of averages, you have some smart ppl, some stupid ppl and a whole bunch of average ppl.

first and foremost parents are largely to blame and their lack of education and bad parenting skills, most parents live with their kids as they grow up and don't raise them or teach them the basic skills they need. they do everything for their kids so life is easy, now we have a whole generation that is lazy and can't work or doesn't want to because life was made easy for them and their mom, sometimes dad but mostly mother, did everything for the kid and now they don't have basic life skills needed.

one good solution to this is proper discipline of children, most parents don't do this, they will "punish" a child till they can't put up with their precious little snowflake's screaming and crying. honestly that kid needs his back porch painted firetruck red or some sort of good discipline and taught what is acceptable and not.

i know everyone wants to be "better" than their parents but they don't really pay attention to what's being learned, yeah getting spanked REALLY sux HOWEVER it taught you pretty quickly not to do certain things, sending a kid to his room with video games and tv and such doesn't teach them anything.

secondly it's the education system. it has crappy fundy and even crappier control over the children in the class, mostly because of bad parenting. i'm kinda glad i'm not a teacher cause i'd have tossed out any kid who was mouthing off to me into the hallway pretty darn quick. i would have also told those little buggers i get paid no matter what grade i give them so they'd better smarten up, i had a college prof tell the class this, i got what he was saying, sadly most ppl don't and think it's the teacher's responsibility to make sure the kids pass.

also with teachers, hearing them say how over worked they are constantly is total crap, they have school 10 months out of the year, at least 1 day off per month, 2 weeks in some months, so they're down to at least 3 months a year with holidays included and then they don't even work a full 8 hours a day and get paid half decently. sorry the "course prep" stuff doesn't work as an excuse, cause if you haven't laid out your course by the end of your second year of teaching you should find another line of work. a lot this actually comes from a teacher, i just happen to agree with it

thirdly and this is very touchy, religion is a big factor for intelligence. now i know ppl will say how wrong it is but it's true. we had the dark ages, brought on by the christian church, in that time learning was forbidden and most of the populace was kept stupid. when ppl like Newton and Galileo published their works they were afraid of being burnt at the stake. even today we have the church trying to push intelligent design on us as an "alternative theory" to evolution, thing is it's NOT, scientists don't research it because it's not a real science, court docs are around proving it's creationism with the word "God" replaced with "Intelligent Designer"

fourth and probly most important is personal responsibility. this little bugger causes ppl to not think about their actions, cause "it's not my fault you should have looked out for me" or similar statements. if we have no consequence to our actions what reason do we have to think about how they're affecting others or the possible harm it may have. sadly this is caused by all the other factors i've mentioned

now as for intelligence being genetic

sure some ppl will be predisposed to being stupid, but we can get around that by learning.

asians are always picked for being smart and such, it's because from a young age they are drilled with math and science. it's not genetic it's societal for them, cause i bet you there's a hell of a lot more stupid asians than white ppl

caucasions well tehy kinda run the gambit, some of the most brilliant and also dumbest ppl fall into this category. you have ppl like Netwon, Einstein, Sagan, Hawking, Bohr and so forth and conversely you have ppl who make headlines on fark

latino/african-american is the group of ppl most pointed out as being the "genetically stupid" but this isn't true, this is more of a cultural thing. you have large groups of successful members of latinos and african-americans, such as Georege Washington Carver, Luis Walter Alvarez, Walter Alvarez, Ellen Ochoa, Juan R. Cruz, Lloyd Noel Ferguson, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Percy Julian and Martin Luther King Jr. however we as a society glorify the "thug life" and kids emulate that, they want to be paid mad duckets and have their bitches and hoes instead of improving themselves, now there are some other factors there but for the most part they are kpeeing themselves down as whole, not individually, if you had a group of ppl standing up to the "thug life" group to say "go screw yourself we don't need you here" you'd see things change for the better