The Bell Curve: backer version

you're wrong. by calling it 'The Bell Curve', it will bring in viewers who would'nt click on a video about debunking 'the bell curve'.

Marcelli

I applaud you for making this in-depth breakdown of "The Bell Curve," Shaun. This is the first video that I've had Patreon review access to. Most of my comments would be the same as those of other people who have posted already, so I will just say that I agree the title could be changed to something like, "Debunking The Bell Curve." Additionally, I agree with the person who said that the video might be broken up into clearer sections. I suggest, instead of uploading this as a single 2 hour 27 minute video, you might consider cutting it into a playlist of videos, divided by topic. I jotted down time codes for when you changed subjects/sections and came up with this list: 0:00:00 - Introduction/History of Intelligence Testing and Eugenics 0:17:34 - Overview of the Book 0:30:00 - Analysis of Heritability and its Problems as an Indicator of Intelligence 0:51:40 - IQ Tests and their Discontents 1:28:43 - IQ and Socioeconomic Status 1:50:50 - The Politics of the Bell Curve 2:05:38 - The Eugenics Movement, Nazis and The Bell Curve 2:17:12 - Conclusion Listening to the style of your video, I think it can be split up nicely into a shorter video for each topic. The content/recording would be the same, just presented in chunks. As someone else said, this will make it easier for new viewers to digest without being scared away, plus people will be able to just watch the entire playlist through if they want. It's a suggestion. Stay strong - the video's coming along great! I'll support you if you need to take a break.

Monstromax

i feel like maybe the video shouldn't just be called "The Bell Curve". maybe something like "Debunking the Bell Curve"

RubbishBinMan

As a special education teacher who wrote quite a bit about eugenics both as an undergrad history major and as a master's student in special education (including the Bell Curve itself, and using many of the same sources, particularly Gould!), the role of "stealth eugenics" arguments in promoting ableism, classism, and racism in our society is a topic near to my heart. I have to say, you certainly did your research – I don't think that many people outside of a few narrow fields could have covered such a huge topic with so much crucial context nearly so clearly, thoroughly, and accurately. Huge appreciation!

Well done on this substantial piece of work, it is a great video. I’ve read a lot about Murray after falling out with someone (who had taken Sam Harris’ defence at face value) over him. So I have a few thoughts: I think it is worth mentioning that Murray coined the term ‘Flynn effect’ in the Bell Curve. When people criticise it by citing the Flynn effect, the books defenders love to point out he coined it. I think the structure is good and logical for your main audience of people who want to understand the problems with Murray, but I think for people coming at it who might think there is truth to Murrays claims, that maybe the stuff around the validity of IQ testing isn’t the most persuasive start (it is after watching it all but I think early on people will find it hard to let go of IQ as being valid, it seems wooly even though it is not). As you say later in the video, it isn’t actually controversial or taboo to report on differences in IQ of groups, so it makes the stuff about Murray’s biased cherry picked sources, and the early conceptual problems with IQ, a little moot. I do think it is an important area to cover, as it shows their lack of credibility and understanding. One thing I found interesting is that it is a field that does seem to still have trouble letting go of these ideas, the journal ‘Intelligence’ had RIchard Lynn on its board. I think stuff around their flawed exploration of environmental factors, and the highly dubious sources and connections to the pioneer fund are the areas people would respond to more quickly. So maybe if this was touched on earlier in the video it will sew doubt in skeptical viewers minds about the credibility of Murray. I know the video is very long but I think a really important part is the lack of validity of ‘race’ groups themselves, I guess you hint at that using the term ‘designated race groups’. Since publication the human genome project has shown that race does not exist at the genetic level, there is no gene specific to one race, and people can be more genetically similar to people from a different race to their own. Of course that was not known at the time of the Bell Curve, but there are still people who believe his ideas are true (including Murray himself) when they really should have accepted defeat. Also I think even at the time it would be obvious that the groups he talks about are not clear concrete groups, ‘latino’ for instance is far more cultural than a distinct racial group, and I read somewhere that there is more genetic diversity amongst ‘black’ africans than the rest of world combined, it is just not a valid single grouping, they have just been lumped together in one socially constructed group. Also might be worth mentioning they have yet to identify the genes that determine intelligence. I think I read a guardian article that made the point that Humans have relatively little genetic variation compared to other species, we must have descended from a small group that survived when most died out, ‘mitochondrial eve’ was not very long ago on an evolutionary time scale, so there hasn’t really been sufficient time for evolutionary paths to diverge I think it is worth pointing towards the bad things Murray has actually said to give a better picture of the things he believes and his probably motivations. His outright bias in his book ‘human accomplishment’, his writing an article called ‘the advantages of social apartheid’ saying there will never be a female Einstein, or how he was arrested as a teenager for burning a cross on a hillside (claiming to be unaware of the connotations). Although I guess you might want to keep it strictly about the arguments of the bell curve. I can’t remember where but I read an article that makes a good point about an argument made in TBC, Murray defends his work by saying that it shouldn’t even matter, because we should treat everyone as individuals and not presume based on group membership generalisations, so what is the problem? it’s that it allows people to absolve themselves of responsibility to address the underlying problems that affect groups. One thing I find really bizarre about Murray’s political policy recommendations, is that it is like they were made in a world where only America exists, where he can scaremonger about the dangers of welfare, when actually you can just look at other countries with more generous systems and see that the problems have not only not materialised, but that all sorts of outcomes are better. sorry this is a bit of a messy rambling post

Robindra

Please keep the original ending to the video.

Levi Reeves

But besides skipping that, damn, this was a fantastic video! I'm really impressed by the work you did, and how you backed up everything so well, including (but not only) the shocking Nazi connections, which often people would dismiss as exaggerating, but you pretty much bring that one home.

As AlessM noted above, at 1:27:00 you remark that Murray defends himself by citing "new" studies on African IQ. I felt I had to stop your video and research the references when I realized you were skipping past it. Maybe you cut that for time, but what I found is depressingly hilarious: The first by Kenneth Owen, is another 1992 South Africa study, and thus actually suffers exactly the same problem you'd already gone over (and was never intended to show what Murray claims anyway). The second is Fred Zinde, 1994 in Zimbabwe, another racially segregated and economically challenged society at the time (though "whites-only" rule ended in 1980, white people remained almost exclusively upper class landowners until relatively recently); and Zinde 1994 actually compares black Zimbabweans with white London students (the education quality of both groups was not comparable: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/145052399.pdf), not white Zimbabweans, although the latter would then have been highly advantaged in Zimbabwe anyway. But more importantly: Zindi was arguing for cultural bias in the instrument, the opposite of how Murray is citing him: https://opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/20.500.12413/9092/Zindi,%20Prof.%20Fred%20%20ZJER%20%20vol.%2025,%20no.2.pdf;sequence=1 In fact Zinde has famously been an advocate for developing culturally relevant IQ instruments in Africa. He no doubt would be horrified to see Murray abusing his science to make exactly the opposite argument. Plus per the above link: "Zindi found the WISC-R results consistent with previous literature which had "singled out Information, Vocabulary and Comprehension on the WISC-R Verbal scale as the most difficult sub-tests for Blacks" (1994, p. 551) in comparison to white samples" and "He argues that 'Zimbabwean pupils as a whole, especially those from rural areas, are not as familiar with psychometric testing as their English counterparts' and that it is 'a known fact that pupils in Western societies are accustomed to taking tests, not only in schools, but even at home where parents in a bid to improve their children's IQs get involved in testing' (p. 55I). Also that some test items 'have concepts which are only too familiar to children living in Western societies but not necessarily to those in Africa' (p. 55I)." See also: https://www.oapen.org/download?type=document&docid=1004362#page=52 To wit: "the outcome reveals substantive lowering in association with disadvantaged education across all race groups of as much as 20 to 30 IQ points, replicating the earlier South African WAIS-III study of Shuttleworth-Edwards et al. (2004), and earlier research in relation to the WISC-R and WISC-III of Zindi (1994) and Brown (1998), respectively. In accordance with the observations of Nell (1999) and Manly (2005) noted above, the research confirms in robust fashion that ethnicity in itself is not a meaningful norming category. Significant heterogeneity within ethnic groups, particularly in terms of quality of education, should therefore be accounted for in test interpretation with multicultural and multilingual populations." You could add to the point you make later that if education increases IQ by "20 to 30" points (and it seems all sorts of evidence confirms this, even in the US), the policy recommendation should be for equalizing funding to disadvantaged groups, and ensuring equal access to quality education. After all, doesn't Murray's own argument entail that if we could raise half the population's IQ by "20 to 30" points merely by improving education across the board, that we should do so? What country wouldn't want to do that? This seems to directly contradict his entire political section.

Hi Shaun, This is an amazing video which will be very useful. But I worry that people (particularly undergrads who might find it via one of their courses) will be put off by the length. Could you do a short version as well and could you provide a list of section headings with times in the notes to help people navigate it?

Heather Mendick

🤯😳😂 i figured it out 💕

odin

hey dude, great work! thumbs up! grinning face! i don't know how to emoji on desktop computer! others have already pitched in with suggestions for a more discrete structure -- which i think is a good idea -- and to insist that we, your generous and only occasionally overbearing patrons, would happily sponsor whatever time off you'd like to take -- which i think is a great idea. please go away. please also come back, but first, shoo. i'm making a shooing-motion with my hands. shoo shoo. as for more specific feedback, the only thing i found missing (in your 2:27:23 beautiful behemoth, you beautiful lunatic, because i am difficult to please) is a sentence or two on H&M (unfortunate) taking for given that every person whomst exists does so only to serve [the system]*, and that the only way to serve [the system] is by pumping every available skillpoint into the "G-factor", which, as attitudes go, is wrong, and frankly weird, and also wrong. i will also probably recommend that you find a better way of wording it than i have here. (honestly, did that make sense? i tried to be brief; let me know if i should have been understandable instead) i should and will add that i haven't read this book, and i suspect this devaluing of the individual isn't a central theme so much as an unquestioned assumption, but the view that a human being is valueless unless they, within a narrow definition thereof, 'contribute' to society is prevalent enough among those flirting with eugenics (and in general tbh) that it always bears repeating: society exists to serve the people. thinking it's the other way around is, as the philosophers might say, some fucked up shit. there is also something here somewhere about writing so insistently about individualism when it's inherent in your premise that [the system] always takes precedence, i think? though obviously, it that way lies a wholly new angle and probably something generalisable far beyond this book and it would definitely require a lot more work and you really don't need to listen to me when i get sleepy and pretentious. i certainly don't. i did also as well love your breakdown of the tests sampled from Africa; i'm still appalled hours later, which i'm pretty sure means you did a fantastic job. tldr: i love you, please leave *for [the system] please insert your institution of choice, be it the economy, the state, the crown, the human race, capitalism, the future, your mum, the Law, the Party, the City Council, my mum, the pta-board, "human progress", the youtube comments section, the ominously named Family, et cetera and so forth.

odin

(Also I know you’re planning on fixing the audio so this is probably something you’re already on top of, but just in case you weren’t already considering it, I think a little more compression might be helpful!)

Aless

Hi Shaun. Fucking excellent video! One potential piece of feedback is that, at roughly the 1:27:00 mark when you mention that Murray brought up other sources that said he was right anyway - you’re absolutely right to say that the way he fucked up in the first place, his inability to recognise the fuckup and the significance of it completely damage and undermine the credibility he had in the first place. However, I’m wondering if it might be a good idea to also go into the articles he references in the updated thing too? It probably isn’t particularly necessary (seeing as the Richard Lynn studies really speak for themselves), but it might be worth making sure that Murray doesn’t have even the slightest way to wiggle his way out of it. In other words “I was right anyway” in the context is a bullshit argument that he has no place making, but it might be effective to show that he, in fact, isn’t right (or at least probably isn’t) right anyway at all. That said, I don’t think it’s a major thing or anything, and you already tore apart everything else so thoroughly that it might not even be necessary, so make of it what you will!

Aless

That was great! I'll have to watch it again to give more detailed feedback. Oh, and I second the statement that you deserve a paid holiday!

In the UK we have SAT tests and they're always pronounced like that, not spelled out.

Minor point, but you kept mispronouncing "SAT". It should be pronounced by spelling it out (S-A-T), not as the past tense of "sit". And please don't suspend your patreon. You deserve your paid vacation.

Quasitling

....wow that was a fast two and a half hours ...which is probably a case for clearer delineation between sections? that it arguably flows too well and needs some hard lines to the structure? it'll let the thesis shine through a bit better? oh god i sound like an english teacher, anyway glad I joined im excited to see the updates especially with a stellaris expansion coming out that demands good second screen listening

Lars Arney

What's your PayPal URL? Not getting paid for a month after this behemoth is unfair to you, and I won't stand for it! Tell your boss he's a real—oh wait—nice guy.

David Harkness

I don't have any criticism but I gotta say, you're efforts extremely well-spent. Nobody wants to dive into rubbish like this for some light reading, but you summarize it perfectly. If everybody took your approach to statistics and moral arguments, the world would be such a better place. Have a fun vacation, you deserve it.

Just a few notes: I do agree the flow is great, but I think it does need to be broken up. It's a dense topic and also I'm not sure how many people are willing to sign up for a feature length movie run time (I would, but I don't know about Jon Q Public). The graphics are unreadable in some spots (which it sounds like you're planning on fixing that already). I agree with previous posters, the hereditary part is a bit confusing and maybe needs to be flushed out a little more. Overall I love it! Really though, please don't suspend your Patreon. I don't donate to you for content. I donate to you because you exist and it makes me happy to know you're out there, existing and hopefully not broke. I get paid vacation at my job (not nearly enough, I'm in the U.S. lol), so should you! If you must suspend it, do you have a PayPal that people could donate to while you're away?

Hi Shaun, great video. I have three main points by way of feedback: 1) You very sensibly bring up Hernstein & Murray’s seemingly mitigating quotes at the very start of the video to pre-empt the objection that they make certain token comments that downplay the main theme of the book. In light of this it may be worth mentioning when you discuss the “Lewontin’s fields” thought experiment that this is also mentioned in TBC (Chapter 13). 2) At around 1:45:00 you argue that environment is determinative on the grounds of “evolution”. This is problematic on two grounds: a) the IQ>environment>IQ>environment chain reinforces the implication that IQ is independent of environment (i.e. genetic); and, b) saying that differences in IQ are due to evolution is ultimately exactly what the racialists want, it doesn’t matter to them that genetic differences are, in the extreme long term, themselves the result of environmental differences. What matters to them is that they can create an association between genetics and racial differences in the present, As someone who spends a lot of time debunking the propaganda of scientific racists, I can tell you right now that this is a mistake they will eat right up. They absolutely WILL attempt to defend Rushton and/or Lynn’s theory of divergent evolution if you give them a chance. 3) At around 1:55:00 you address the claim that boosts in IQ due to environmental interventions dissipate as the subjects reach adulthood. Nothing you say here is wrong, but it may be worth pointing out that this is necessarily the case (and isn’t particular to any government programme) due to the Eric Turkheimer’s 2nd law of behavioural genetics, which states the the influence of shared environment (family and schooling etc.) decreases over time (due to the ratio between shared and unshared environment decreasing as a person’s overall environment becomes less well predicted by their family of origin.)

thank you all for the feedback so far <3

Shaun

1:19 ish - the bit about why you can't convert the percentile from the matrix test into an IQ needs a bit more explaining... i can;t quite see why it doesn't work, other than that i trust the guy who developed it to know converting it to iq doesn't work. it seems like converting the skewed test scores to normalized iq scores would just lose some precision on one end or the other of the spectrum, rather than being wholely invalid.

Kirt

heritability - i've not studied quantitative population genetics since about 2005, but as far as i recall, heritability tends to exclude environmental factors. so you'd describe something like earrings or native language as "appears to be heritable" rather than actually being heritable. The gold standard experiment for measuring heritabiity tends to be to compare monozygotic [identical] and dizygotic [fraternal] twins, who share equal amounts of environmental similarity but the monozygotic twins share all there DNA whereas the dizygotic twins share half. though i like your other example, within the human population, number of limbs is genetic but not herritable.

Kirt

conceptually seems pretty good [half way through so far] but a few terminology issues i think. Skewed = even if the authors of The Bell Curve are talking nonsense, the distribution of the military recruitment test scores would be described as skewed. skewed refers to difference from the "normal" distribution not difference from the real underlying distribution, so we'd call something skewed even if we're measuring the thing we think we are measuring, and measuring it accurately. e.g. human heights have a normal distribution and human weights have a skewed distribution.

Kirt

well, holidays are supposed to be paid, isn´t? keep the patreon going!

Tona Cadena

I'd also like to echo the other people saying you should still get money next month. I contribute to support you, not with any kind of expectation of returns. Time off is definitely part of supporting you, I think. :) Also as advice I'd back up the others who suggest turning this into multiple videos, if only to make it more digestible to those without the time to watch it in one go.

I found that really enjoyable to listen to, thought it might be a bit of a hard listen with the length of it but it actually flows really well I think. I'm no expert but I couldn't think of any obvious issues with what I heard.

Just a suggestion, you could mention the links between the Pioneer Fund and the Federation For American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR is (if you don't know) a major anti-imigrant hate group which made deep inroads into Republican party and Fox news in the pre-Trump era. FAIR laid a lot of the ground work for the mainstreaming of anti-imigrant racism on the right.

Jesse Berg

keep your patreon up - you easily deserve a paid break and if people want to disable their pledges for a month then they have that option (unless that's risky for you if they don't join back after?) wouldn't worry too much about some of the pronunciation stuff mentioned. sat vs S-A-T isn't even something I would have noticed without others pointing it out, I don't think it matters how you pronounce "quotient", and your pronunciation of ontario is fine. personally I can't imagine it's worth re-recording whole segments just for that I'm in agreement with others about breaking the video into parts, for the sake of 1) digestibility and 2) online discussion that wants to link sections - it'll be easier in pieces and may reach a larger audience. but that may be way more work than uploading it as one beast video so I see why you would prefer it as one since that's what you currently have

alexis

Excellent first draft. I think it would be a fun little cutaway gag if when you mention that the Bell Curve was cited in a recent video you did on Steven Crowder, you played the clip from that video of you saying "it's rubbush". Just a suggestion, not a critique. Also I like Evan's idea of more clearly articulating when we've reached each major part of the video. Maybe with a title screen or something. Idk. Anyways I love your work, keep doing what you're doing

Zachery Gregg

hi shaun, i joined your patreon to see this video specifically and it's just as incredible as expected. i never thought someone could make me sit down and watch a video about eugenics that's as long as return of the king, but you've done it. just a fiddly thing about your explanation of why statisticians will favor data sets that fit a bell curve- and i'm not sure if this was what you were meaning to say- but there are some types of regression analysis that are impossible to do correctly if the data doesn't fall into a normal distribution. this means that some researchers will conduct tests and convert raw data through means that will generate a bell- shaped graph, but it doesn't mean they're intentionally misrepresenting their data, it's just a necessary prerequisite to perform certain analyses. again, super nitpicky and i'm not sure if that's what you meant to imply, but this video is excellent and important and don't cancel your patreon please and thank you

also ps: Ontario is pronounced On-TAIR-ee-oh

Nathalie

Small note: Quotient is pronounced Quo-Shee-ent.

what i always wanted—shaun, but longer!! i concur with a bunch of the other minor tweaks suggested above (title cards, acronym pronunciation, etc), & echo the rebuke of deactivating Patreon. you deserve support!!

Nathalie

You could make the background color of each chapter a barely different shade of black.

My main recommendation is to more clearly articulate the internal structure of the video. Running through the major points in advance was a good idea, but it might be more effective if you add something to indicate when you've reached each of the sections you outlined beforehand. This could be just saying, "Part Two: What is The Bell Curve arguing," or editing in a pause and title card, or something to that effect. This signals a transition to the audience and helps them orient themselves within the argument, and is also known as signposting. Title cards also help in navigating the video if you're watching in multiple sittings and need to find your place, or just referencing the video and want to skip to a specific part, but including time codes in the description would serve the same function. The only other thing is it might be worthwhile to go a little bit into what "variance" means in the context of heritability, since it's another term with subtly different common and technical definitions. I think it's an easier concept to grasp though, and that might help people understand what heritability is actually measuring. All that said, I have nothing but respect for the work you've put into this, and the result is very effective and digestible. Based on length alone, you'd be justified in releasing this in parts over a period of three or four months, so taking some well-deserved time off is more than reasonable.

Don't turn off patreon. You're well cheap enough, and off the top of my head I can't think of any better way to waste an Euro than on you. You're welcome to it. Have a nice rest.

horrovac

I think you're talking about Lynn, and I have to agree. Murray's agenda and credibility having been established, it's probably not necessary to go in depth on those new rebuttals, especially since they're realistically just a diversion from the real point. Saying something about them would be good though just to tie off that rhetorical string and lead into the next topic.

I think it's effective as foreshadowing, and I always appreciate Shaun's dry, ironic asides.

Keep the original ending! <3 P.S. The SAT is pronounced by letter: S-A-T, rather than "sat."

sailor jupiter

I'm on my first listen-through so I don't have substantive feedback yet, but at 2:02:02 (and possibly other places, but that's where I noticed it), you pronounced the SAT test as "sat," while it's actually pronounced "Ess Ay Tee". It's pretty much arbitrary which test acronyms we spell out and which we don't, so here is a quick and dirty guide for future reference: SAT - Ess Ay Tee - Scholastic Aptitude Test - taken by high schoolers (16-17 yos) applying to 4-year colleges. Pretty much all colleges accept this and most require it. ACT - Ay See Tee - American College Testing - taken by high schoolers (16-17 yos) applying to 4-year colleges. Some schools accept this in addition to or instead of the SAT. PSAT - Pee Ess Ay Tee - Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test - sometimes taken by high schoolers preparing to take the SAT. Usually not reported to colleges, but used as a criterion for some scholarships, notably the National Merit Scholarships. LSAT - El Sat - Law School Admission Test - taken by 4-year college graduates applying to law school. GMAT - Djee Mat - Graduate Management Admission Test - taken by 4-year college graduates applying to graduate school for business or management. MCAT - Em Kat - Medical College Admission Test - taken by 4-year college graduates applying to medical school. GRE - Djee Arr Ee - Graduate Record Examinations - taken by 4-year college graduates applying to graduate school for pretty much anything else.

Button

golly, even *without* all the racism and bio-essentialism, Charles Murray is such a ghoul

Wes

If you want to take a holiday anyway (well deserved and very healthy considering the material you work with) why not release this video in parts? I don't know how heavy moderation gets for you after a new video drops so that might be much of a holiday at all, but I think it's 100% justifiable, and it'll keep the channel going for non-patrons while you take a break. I also think this is the kind of content people will want to reference in online discussions and for themselves, and chopping it into parts will help to make it more digestible for the people who need to hear this stuff the most. If that's not an option, and since you already give an outline of the chapters of the video in the intro, I think it might help with the structure if you included time codes for those chapters in the intro and had title cards or other markers between them. It's a beast of a video and it needs all the structure it can get. Visual markers will do a lot to help. I would also seriously consider a bibliography in the video itself or the description, because I found myself hastily writing down sources while the video played. I'm not sure your audience needs to have the concept of correlation explained to them in this much detail? It seems to me that a working understanding (rather than an academic one) is enough to get your point across. It's a nice rundown and I'd rather it be there than not be there, but if you're looking to cut down, that's one part I'd consider condensing or cutting entirely. (Also, the saying is not "correlation does not imply causation" as you said, because it very well can do just that. The saying is "correlation does not EQUAL causation". I think Gould kind of overcorrected and fumbled that one in the wording tbh.) I see you worked out the conundrum of whether or not to show the "patients" in Erbkrank. For what it's worth, especially now that I know the context, I believe that it's 100% the right call. Are people really completely unaware the the history of eugenics in the US? Damn. I think a lot of the things said in the outro about the reason for making this video should be in the intro. It's a pretty dense subject and WE all know why this dumb old book is still relevant, but it couldn't hurt to put that out there up front. Great video though. The holiday is well deserved and I agree with everyone here that you should leave the patreon as is and have a beer on us.

Clementine Danger

two and a half hours. wow, shaun, you have made my weekend. also, don't turn off your patreon.

wendigotypes

Echoing others who said it went down smooth despite the length. I agree with Kathy G that the most powerful section was breaking down the rubbish African test scores. Also agree with the many people encouraging you not to deactivate. I'll play the video again soon and hopefully I'll have more constructive feedback.

Nick DeCicco

I was going to come here to say something similar to this. The only thing in the video that pinged my "not quite right" radar was the absolute insistence that "environment comes first" due to evolution. Even if you take that as read, sometimes an environment adaptation can cause unrelated effects (Wikipedia pleiotropy for info on this). If two genetically distinct populations of humans turn out to have genetically caused differences in average intelligence, it's not necessarily true that intelligence was selected for in the group with higher intelligence; it may have been a side effect of some other genetic change.

Marissa Collins

I would suggest adding chapters to the video, if you want people to watch it in parts. I recently watched a 4-hour video on Destiny's lore (with one break) and what really helped was that it was split in smaller chapters. Just, you know, a black screen and a title card, that's it. But it shows the viewer, hey, here you can pause and come back to it later. Heritability really confused me at first. I would move the disclaimer that it is a confusing topic closer to the beginning of that part. I gotta say, that term was either a very stupid linguistic choice by the researchers or a very delibirate one, to mislead people. Great job, over all, Shaun. I would honestly listen to a podcast where you complain for hours about such "scientists".

Agami

I'd like to join in just to add to the chorus already here - don't turn off your patreon. Great vid. Love all your work.

Suren Perera

Holy shit my dude, what a ride

Don Friðrik Ólafsson

I'll be watching the video shortly, and I hope I have something intelligent to comment, but first of all: Don't deactivate your Patreon, YOU DESERVE THE PAID HOLIDAY.

Dandelion

Hello! I just looked at my inbox and saw a message from you, Shaun, about "temporarily deactivating" your Patreon while you go on holiday. Fuck that noise. Take my $5 and spend it on ice cream, or a new hat, or donate it to a busker you like, or whatever you damn well please. Or set up a new Patreon for "Shaun's Luxurious Holiday Fund" and I'll throw my quids at that instead.

Shaun, I've liked every single comment that said "don't turn off your Patreon". So let me add to the pile: don't turn off your Patreon. You deserve a paid holiday. With that said. I'm off to watch your video. See you on the other side!

Toberu

A minor thing, but the "oe" in Verwoerd is pronounced like the "oo" in food and the emphasis is on the second syllable.

I've heard the word naff comes from Polari, originally it meant straight (Not Available for Fucking) then grew to mean dull or ugly.

Kirt

Great video, and as other people say don't turn off your patreon, paid vacations are a thing. I have a question about your discussion on factor analysis (I am a mathematician, but from a completely different domain). Around 37:45 you talk about factor analysis potentially missing a stronger correlation between certain variables. Now, I am not familiar with factor analysis itself, but my general intuition tells me that whatever tool we have for analyzing multi-variable data should be able to catch those - or failing to do so, quantify its distance from the line that the single factor defines while showing that distance to be small. Perhaps it is overoptimistic of me, but it seems to me that if we have the data and feed it into a mathematical formula that estimates the dimension of the data set, and it says the dimension is one, it is fair to say that there is a single underlying factor. Not that this really matters, as you explain, but it just seems weird to me to suggest that it was pre-determined by the model that there will be a single factor - there's no way our tools in studying distributions in R^n are too primitive to decide that in a non-biased mathematical way The other thing that kinda stuck out to me is that you didn't seem to make any difference between incentivized and forced eugenics. Perhaps the word eugenics itself implies that they must be forced? I am not very familiar with discussions around that.

Bogdan Stankov

This was great and did not at all feel like 2,5 hours! You don't have to turn off your Patreon if you ask me, please take a vacation :) There is an analogy I like regarding this nature vs nurture thing: if a leaf falls off a tree and lands somewhere on the ground, did it land where it landed because of the wind or because of the force of gravity? Naturally, if you would alter only the first variable, the outcome of the leaf's position will be different; and the same is true if you would alter only the second variable. The outcome is never due to a single force - it is always a synergy of forces. Thus, by changing the environment people live in we change their life outcomes, for better or worse, by necessity; if we change the environment in the right way, we get better outcomes.

I understand the thinking behind turning the patreon off for a month, but I personally have zero issue supporting you through a production break. There are patreons I support that take 5+ months to put anything out because they're complex projects. The idea that patreons need to pump out content every month is,imo, not fair.

ChiralSpiral

Keep your patreon on, you are a creator, and will be no matter if it's off or not... The idea of supporting a creator for existing is a good one. Keep it up Shaun!

A nice and beautiful torching, including lots of stuff I didn't know. When talking about TBC's "defense" of using Lynn at around 1h28m, you pivot away to Murray's credibility... but alas the obvious question lingered in my brain, what about Murray's new studies he cited in defense?

One minor but longstanding niggle: you (and many others) keep saying "entitled" when referring to a title of something. The correct word is "titled". A person is entitled, has a title to, a right or a claim to something. It's not a past tense of a performative verb, as in: it is "entitled" because in the past someone has given it ta title like you would encase something by putting it in a case or entangle it by putting it all in a tangle.

horrovac

Please don't turn off the Patreon, Shaun. I don't see why you wouldn't be entitled to a payd vacation. I would feel bad if I couldn't do my part to offer you that. As I said before: we are all lefties here and I think most of us view this as supporting an artist rather than buying content. Having you take some rest when you need it is a critical part of that support. Thanks for the amazing work and enjoy your time off!

Valentijn van der Horst

Great work, Shaun. I'm a new patron, and a big fan. I really liked this. My favorite part was your break down of the African test scores and the problems with them. It felt like typical Shaun, which is to say, brilliant. The only thing that I found a bit jarring, and this might just be because I'm an American (and an OLD American, at that) is that over here we never call the SAT the "Sat". We always call it by its abbreviation ("ess A tee" I guess). Not a big deal, but I thought I'd mention it. I loved the allusion to what a fucking moron the current occupant of our Whitehouse is. Hopefully, we'll be rid of him soon. And finally, as someone else has already pointed out, please don't turn your patreon off. You deserve a holiday after this.

Kathy G

This is some amazing work, Shaun. I am looking forward to seeing the video in full (this will take some time :D) And I agree with the other backers in that you should just take a paid holiday without deactivating your patreon. You definitely deserve it after going through all that nonsense.

Kai

I just finished, probably will watch/listen to it a couple of times more. a) do not disable your Patron. Holidays are crucial for your ability to perform labor! We need you rested and restored. :) b) amazing work, sadly people who should watch it, won't c) I will write more detail feedback once I watch it again

Lex

Don’t disable. I’d support you for a solid year from now even if this was the last video.

Kowalski from Nebraska

I agree with Sean's sentiment 100%. Please don't disable your Patreon. C'mon, man. Lots of us will want to continue supporting you and your work. Let us? HAHA

Yam

the fact that you don’t accept donations over five dollars and ask for people to instead support other leftists/creators - keep the patreon up. 🙏🏼

putmeingraves

Don't disable your Patreon, Shaun. If we wanted to stop giving you money we'd do it ourselves. You deserve a paid vacation mate.

i <3 u shaun

Elliot Berry

Two and a half frigging hours? Absolute insanity, thanks for the outstanding work you put into this <3

Hi Shaun, great video. One main note: environment differences dont necessarily precede all genetic differences between groups thanks to concepts like genetic drift and founder effects, which might be worth looking up. I thought the discussion of heritability was quite good, glad you emphasized that heritability of traits can change. Minor notes: phenotype (at least in the US), is pronounced fee-no-type, and SAT is pronounced by saying the letters rather than saying it as "sat"

Nathan

Holy crap - 2 and a half hours??? Well, this is gonna take a while. Looking forward to it, obv.

Rachel Anne

This is amazing. An epic in every sense of the word. And - it's technically an error, I suppose, but pronouncing the SAT as a word like " sat" rather than an initialism (S.A.T.) is strangely charming.

Anastasia

It would be good to leave the graphs and quotes up on the screen for a longer time. As long as you have not completely moved onto another point it would be good just to leave them up.

Holy absolute fuck I’m so happy this is here, great job Shaun! I’m absolutely happy to continue my Patreon support while you have a big ol holiday. Thanks so much for this!

Aless

You mention the source of the bell curve's asvab longitudinal test thing pretty early, and then later (just before the 1 hour mark) something like "if you think nobody would administer iq tests in a segregated white supremacist state and pass off the results as valid, well stay tuned folks" (quote ends around 1:00:08) I mention because it spoils at least one aspect of that surprise

Also, I agree with the others. Leave this up, I'm happy to keep donating for a vacation

Holy Christ, two and a half hours. No wonder it took you so long my dude.

It’s here, by god it’s here 😍

Daniel S Cicala

Take a paid break. I bet there are like 5 people who will actually care

I was thinking the same thing!

Spoodle

I agree with the above, I'm more than happy to renew my subscription while you're away.

also don’t deactivate donations for the month, I’m still more than happy to help you live and pay rent/food and just enjoy life a bit!

Andrew Cross

Did you have the script handy? I’ve done a fair bit of academic writing (though nothing of this length) and would be happy to help edit, fact check, etc

Andrew Cross

Why would you deactivate your patreon, creators should get paid vacations too. For real, for my part I support you, the person as well as you the artist (or content creator, or internet talky person, whatever title you feel comfortable with). Feel free to take my money while you relax.

Andrew L Butula

I am so very very ready to listen to a discussion of the Bell Curve that is as long as Avengers Infinity War.

Christopher Stoll

Our first full feature length Shaun film.

Thanks Shaun. Now i dont feel so alone without a Halloween Party.

I was gonna watch a horror movie tonight, but a video about a book with a horrifying legacy will do

"Ooh, a new Shaun video. I've got 40 minutes to kill." *Opens video* :-O

Nathan Saritzky

2 hours and a half?! Glad I didn't complain about the content draught <3

The Dude

I'm gonna listen while I play The Outer Worlds :)