Emil Kirkegaard Profile picture
Jan 6, 2024 10 tweets 6 min read Read on X
I published a new study and it's a juicy one.

The establishment's theory of race differences in socially valued metrics is that this is due to "systemic racism", a kind of Marxist conspiracy theory where the dominant group (Whites) keeps other peoples down.


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There are clear testable predictions from this theory. In places where racist, White people have more power, outcomes for non-Whites, especially Blacks and Hispanics should be worse. Recall that the US demographics by county look like this.

Of course, Republicans are racist in this theory.Image
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Thus, the theory predicts that in these areas of the USA, Blacks and Hispanics should be particularly worse off compared to Whites. But the exact opposite is actually true. The race gaps are smaller, not larger, in Whiter and more Republican areas.


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The above figures are for test score gaps, but the same holds true if we look at social status gaps. Here's some maps of race gaps in social status.
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So we need another way to explain the variation in social status gaps. Well, it's easy. Test scores -- academic achievement that mainly reflecting intelligence -- explain why race gaps are smaller and larger in various locations. Meritocracy works.
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It gets even worse for the theory. It turns out the effect of White population share and Republican vote share are interactive. The areas with the smallest race gaps are the ones with the largest White populations and the largest Republican vote shares combined!
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There we have it. The Marxist conspiracy theory that is the go-to explanation of race relations fails when we look at county-level variation across the United States. The predictions it makes are exactly opposite of reality. If anything, it seems Republican Whites are good for minorities.
If you want more details, read my new blog post:

New study out: Systemic Racism Does Not Explain Variation in Race Gaps on Cognitive Tests

emilkirkegaard.com/p/new-study-ou…
Or read the study yourself. It's only 20 pages:

researchgate.net/publication/37…
You can also download the data and R code yourself if you are more curious. There are many more figures and maps in the OSF repository.

osf.io/m8gs5/

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More from @KirkegaardEmil

Jan 20
The racism of teachers Image
In Germany, non-German students (anyone with "migration background") get lower grades and test scores. Image
Due to their politics, teachers are expected to have some bias towards girls, minorities, low-SES etc. students. So do they? The authors find that, yes, they do. Image
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Read 6 tweets
Jan 11
The decline of intelligence, as measured by genetic scores. Image
The decline of intelligence estimated by fertility and intelligence correlations by country. Image
The decline of human average intelligence to come, as seen by the fertility rates and national IQs. Image
Read 5 tweets
Jan 10
New Dutch results on immigration. Sobering as usual. There are 3.7 million foreigners in the Netherlands. Image
One can calculate a given person's contribution to the state budget by adding up all their contributions (revenue) and subtracting all of their costs. Doing so gives a net contribution metric. Dutch people are c. net 0, and the others groups net negatives. Image
There's a lot of variation though. Numbers for the first generation can be very positive or negative. It's easier to get very positive values because many people arrive after having finished their education, so begin working immediately. Many of them leave before pension too. Image
Read 9 tweets
Jan 8
Many of you have seen this figure. A pessimist's favorite. A massive innovation decline starting from 1880 or so. Image
It fits suspiciously well with the onset of dysgenic fertility in NW Europe, or at least the UK. Image
However, does this really work this way? It's based on a 2004 book called The History of Science and Technology that recorded significant events from 3000 BC to 2003 or so. But what if the author missed newer stuff that wasn't recognized as important yet? Image
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Read 9 tweets
Oct 24, 2024
Does democracy or self-governance do something to your personality or values? Maybe yes says this clever study of Switzerland.

In ... 1218 the last ruler of Zähringen dies, leaving no heir, so the lands revert to imperial rule and gain some kind of self-governance. Image
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It appears, these areas are still to this day higher in cooperative attitudes and voting turnout. It can't be explained in terms of crude sociological factors, and due to the geographical diversity, one can also employ fixed effects, none of which remove the pattern. Image
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Most importantly, p-values are good. Image
Read 4 tweets
Sep 8, 2024
Even extreme luck from natural resources does not outweigh psychology in explaining variation in wealth. Take Nauru, the fattest country in the world, 95% are overweight and 70%+ are obese.

In the 1970s, they mined bird poo (guano) and sold it so that their country was the wealthiest in the world GDP per capita (population about 10k Polynesians). The plan was to put the money into a national trust fund, like Norway does. The interests from this massive wealth would enable them to basically finance a welfare state perpetually. However, it was not to be due to "mismanagement and corruption". Today they are about as poor as they were to begin with. Rags to riches to rags.Image
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Read 7 tweets

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