Inductivist: Fertililty

Showing posts with label Fertililty. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Is there such a thing as a "superior race"?

In the last post, I analyzed answers to a General Social Survey question about whether one approves of someone who believes in the genetic inferiority of blacks being able to give a public speech about it.

That got me wondering, "Do I believe there are inferior and superior races?"

Some people might think of the question in terms of human accomplishment and might consult Charles Murray's book. I would call this an example of the social construction of superiority. One group might value cultural achievement, some other group might value something else (e.g., the most pious group is the best).

With this kind of evaluative question, I typically take one of two approaches: either as a Christian or as an evolutionist. Since my religious values are not very interesting, I'll set those aside.

As an evolutionist, I'd say the simple, current answer in the context of the United States is that the superior races are: 1) Mexican Americans, 2) American Indians, and 3) blacks.

Why? Because nature's definition of "superior" refers to how well one is adapted to his environment, and that is measured in terms of reproductive success -- who is having the most children. And we know from GSS data that three groups average the most kids (women ages 40-55, years 2010-2016, sample size = 1,156):

Mean number of offspring

Mexican 2.87
American Indian 2.57
Black 2.47

White 2.02

Whites are a much less successful group with an average around two. And among whites, the biggest losers are people of Polish descent who have a mean of 1.56 children (looking at groups with at least 20 respondents).

Now, you can get more sophisticated about it and argue that evolution is about survival, and in the long-term, groups who are the most scientific are in the best position to survive, and that would be whites with northeast Asians also showing a lot of ability. I would argue that the current fertility situation is much more certain than the future, and (non-Asian) minorities are thriving.

UPDATE: I should also say that I do possess a strain of modernism in me which is utilitarian: if our criterion of superiority is contributing the most to the welfare of the greatest number of people, whites win.

UPDATE II: The fertility gap between Mex-Ams and whites is fairly big: six-tenths of a standard deviation.

Sunday, March 04, 2012

Fertility among wealthy white liberal and conservative women

The issue of fertility among wealthy conservative and liberal white women was raised at Steve Sailer's blog. I calculated the mean number of children for the two groups (ages 40-59, households making at least 100k in 1986 dollars):

Mean number of offspring

Wealthy liberal women (n = 35) 1.60
Wealthy conservative women (n = 43) 2.49

The difference is statistically significant. Wealthy white conservative women average 55 percent more kids than their liberal counterparts.

Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Do people with certain personalities have more kids?

Using GSS data, I calculated the mean number of children of males and females who were at least 45 years old at the time of the survey. I used five questions that attempt to measure personality traits, and the table displays mean number of kids by possession of the traits.

The only categories that are significantly different are imaginative and unimaginative men. The guys without imaginations have fewer kids. Notice how few men will admit that they lack this trait. Those who do are probably particularly self-aware, or they might be especially unimaginative.

The other comparison that is almost statistically significant is finding fault among women. Females who admit to finding fault in others have fewer kids. As with imagination, few people are willing to admit that they do this.

Keep in mind that the heritabilities of personality traits are roughly 0.5. There is little evidence here of differential fertility across personality types. (Let's also remember that individual items are poor measures of traits).

Inductivist