Super-duper selection

According to a number of commenters, Black African immigrants, who’s offspring score only about 0.5 SD below the native US and UK White means, are super-duper selected. And this “super-duper” selection accounts, in part, for the relatively small gaps. It must because from a hereditarian perspective environmental factors, especially factors that vary between families, are feeble; therefore, as hereditarians argue, they are implausible explanations both for large differences and for the lack thereof. (See here for a detailed discussion of this.) To quote Jensen (1973) on this: “The proportion of variance indicated by [environmentality], if small, does in fact mean that the source of environmental variance are skimpy under the conditions that prevailed in the population in which h^2 was estimated. It means the already existing variations in environmental conditions are not a potent source of phenotypic variance, so that making the best variations available to everyone will do little to reduce individual differences.”

Now, no super-duper selection proponent has been willing to specify a percentile. So let’s ask again — what percentile of the African cognitive distribution do we think Black African immigrants to the US and UK represent? So, for example, what percentile of the cognitive distribution do we think Somalian refugees to the UK represent? (If you’re interested in immigrant educational status by nationality, you can refer to Docquier and Marfouk (2005).)

No Place for “super-duper” selection in a rational race realist debate:

Richwine (2011). No Place for a “Diversity Lottery” in a Rational Immigration Policy. The Heritage Foundation, July 28, 2011. http://origin.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/07/diversity-lottery-visa-program-no-place-in-a-rational-immigration-policyccord