However, being willing to concede that they MAY have a point, the genetic-intellingencers need to address the following meta level problems with their theories.
Alan Turing's Objection: (1) If minds are merely machines, then there is nothing that a mind can do that a machine cannot. (2) Machines cannot prove the truth of Godel formulae. (3) Minds can prove the truth of Godel formulae. (4) Therefore, minds cannot be (merely) machines
Kurt Godel's incompleteness theorem (simplified): In any consistent system which is strong enough to produce simple arithmetic there are formulae which cannot be proved in the system.
The adampopulist Hypothesis: (1) If genetics accounts for intelligence, then minds are machines (2) If the Turing Objection is true, Minds are not machines (3) Therefore genetics cannot account for intelligence.
Analysis:
Statement 1 is the crucial point, because there is the possibility that even if genetics determines intelligence, it may not necessarily follow that minds are machines. However, I think it is the responsibility of those proposing a genetic theory of intelligence to make that case.
Statement 2 is also a matter of dispute, and I have read a few good articles questioning the validity of the Turing Objection (one is online at the following url: http://www.interchg.ubc.ca/kgcolema/godel.html ).
However, rethinking my hypothesis assuming the Turing hypothesis is false leads me to the following argument.
The adampopulist corollary: (1) If the Turing objection is not true, then minds are machines (2) If minds are machines, then the Godel Formulae applies and they are incapable of operating outside the system (3) If genetics determine intelligence, then intelligence is outside the system (4) Therefore, minds are incapable of proving whether genetics determine intelligence.
Analysis
Statement 3 is the weak one here because it assumes the machine (the mind) is created by an external force (genetics). It may be possible to argue that genetics is not a force external to the system. But again, I think it is the responsibility of those proposing a genetic theory of intelligence to make that case.
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> [A Daniel Seligman sampler...]
<SNIP>
> While showing no interest in pursuing this line of
> inquiry, the
> authors of Report Card have included some evidence
> suggesting that
> mathematical achievement is in fact powerfully
> related to
> intelligence. The report notes at various points
> that Asian-Americans
> do better at math than whites, that whites do better
> than Hispanics,
> that Hispanics do better than blacks. The report
> naturally does not
> say so, but this is precisely the sequence you would
> expect from the
> respective groups' IQ averages.
<SNIP>
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