you can will your leg to move, but that doesn't mean you instruct your skin, sub-tissues, cellular systems, intracellular environments, chemical processes etc. — fdrake

I'm not sure if this is what you were getting at, so either to expand, or to contrast your approach..

Something like The Will is not only unable to effect matter lower down in the heirachy, it is simply incoherent to talk about it doing so. The Will is a component of a model in human activity. Yes, it describes a sensation we have that some action is of our doing (as opposed to external, or instinctual), but it's so much more than that (responsibility, moral culpability, identity... ) which is absolutely fine at the level of human activity because all that stuff is useful at that scale.

Take the basic concept down to the scale of neurons interacting (which can be done, carefully) and all that baggage comes with it, but makes no sense whatsoever at that scale.

'rather than discussing it in a framework familiar to me', you mean. If it can't be reduced to the kinds of terms that physicalists can comprehend, then you say I'm talking about a 'subjective feeling'. But to try and explain why it's not a subjective feeling, requires you think outside the square that you wish me to step into. — Wayfarer

No. I mean framework which we share, prior to the conclusions you or I draw. That's the only way discussion can proceed. You say "to try and explain why it's not a subjective feeling, requires you think outside the square that you wish me to step into", but this still begs the question. It wouldn't constitute an explanation, if I already took the step I'm asking you to justify.

The argument against mysticism (here at least) is that it rejects any form of falsification, yet doesn't specify what falsification is to be replaced with as a means of collective maintenance of concepts. And I don't mean falsification in the PhilSci Popperian sense, I mean it in the community-of-language-users sense. It's the very means by which we meaningfully communicate with each other, our joint holding of concepts, our discovery of those community resources by trial and error. The key word there being 'error'.

Without the possibility of error we have Wittgenstein's 'sensation S' - meaningless garbage.

So if you can't explain why I'm using 'subjective' wrongly using words which already have a shared community concept attached to them, if I must first buy in to your alternate language, then all I'm doing is translation, and translation is a two way process. You could as easily do the same.

We could talk about this elsewhere sometime if either of us can be bothered. — fdrake

Yeah, good. If only I wasn't kept so busy being forced to write obloquial retorts to all the mystics, fakirs, and hyper-rationalist wisenheimer that seem to fill these threads I might actually spend time discussing something interesting!

I've read some stuff in clinical psychology that heavily criticises the naive application of the (diagnosis->treatment) paradigm in bodily health to mental health; since it promotes treatment methodology that just doesn't work. The individual level variability of mental health aetiology is so great, and the diagnoses interact so much (depression with anxiety as a comorbidity or anxiety with depression as a comorbidity anyone?), and the medication targets neurochemistry rather than psychological state (by necessity), "you're depressed? take prozac", "you're in chronic pain? try this exercise program!"; it's applying a billiard ball style reductive explanation (like germ theory) to interventions in crazy complicated complex systems, and as is predictable it doesn't work so well. And it's not necessary, since the patient is literally right there with self reports. — fdrake

At the risk of veering wildly off topic, I think there's a lot of threads to this which are not necessarily to do with reductionism. The one which is - the over-emphasis on neurochemical correlates with metal health - I agree with you about, although I can't speak with authority (I'm social psychology, not clinical), but I think the extent to which it is the result of reductionist thinking is smothered by those 'other threads' to this. Chemical interventions are the only ones which are marketable and so where the research money gets invested. Chemical interventions are easier to control-trial and so make better papers. Reliance on self-reports and what we call 'person-centred therapy', despite their really high success rate, challenge the traditional doctor-patient epistemic dynamic which many practitioners find uncomfortable. There's more, but so very unrelated to the topic...

Basically is reductionism is a problem (and it might be a small one, I don't want to deny it entirely), I think is is going to be impossible to tell beneath all the layers of social structure which favour apparent reductionism regardless of the philosophical commitments of the practitioners themselves.

It's just a rabbit hole devoid of any how questions (or generalisations from procedural descriptions), it's sitting there like it's waiting for something. — fdrake

Absolutely. I agree but I think it's far more of a problem invented by philosophers because it 'could be' the case than an actual problem in science that is the case. If one were to examine neural states and say "state X is PTSD", then say "The patient's brain is in state X1, and so despite his reports he cannot be suffering from PTSD", we'd be making a huge mistake, but I don't see anyone really doing that, it's a bit of a bogeyman. Maybe you've read papers I've not, it's quite possible, but in my field (psychology), I haven't really come across any concerning attempts to claim explanatory power from discoveries in neuroscience (which I kind of take to be the science psychology is loosely tied to). The overwhelming majority of neuroscience is medical, focussed on curing diseases, very little explanatory conclusions really come out of it, but that may just be my personal filtering system making that seem the case.

Empiricism amounts to the elevation of the senses to the sole criteria for valid knowledge (along with predictive power and replicability — Wayfarer

It's not about the uniqueness of the criteria, it's about the criteria itself. You say elevation to the 'sole' criteria, but what you really mean is development of any criteria at all. If you want to make an argument that correspondence with the sensate world, along with predictive power and replicability, should not be the sole criteria for valid knowledge, then what other criteria do you suggest?

I have a description in mind which I think explains 'the way things are' . Against what do I now measure it to provide the justification required to class it as knowledge?

Rational thought/logic? - Well we'd first have to demonstrate the soundness of those measures, then we'd have to explain why two people, both invoking such metrics could be completely at odds with each other and remain so despite thousands of years of open discussion.

Intuition? - Suffers from exactly the same problem, my intuition says one thing, yours another, now what?

The canon of previous thought on the matter? - Apart from issues of self-referentiality, how would such a canon ever be expanded if all it could say were things already approved by it?

Shared experience? - This goes back to what @fdrake has already said about the fact that the sciences are perfectly adept at managing shared experience.

It's not that scientists fear religion. It's that mystics fear science. They fear it removing the haze of self-referential, shape-shifting woo that they've made a lifestyle out of claiming to be expert in. At the end of the day, I'm interested in the philosophical positions, but psychologically, it just comes down to a perceived shortcut to the social kudos being an expert draws. Science is hard investigative work and it's possible to be wrong. Mysticism just takes a bit of reading and you can't be wrong.

I'm trying to understand what's behind it all, where that belief originates, because I'm sure it originates in something real, but something very difficult to realise and understand. — Wayfarer

Exactly. You've prejudiced your own investigation. You've dismissed the possibility that it's not "something real, but something very difficult to realise and understand", and what's worse you extend that prejudice to others on the same path of investigation. Others who might, for now at least, be erring more towards the idea that what's behind a belief in God might just be a biological artifact, a cultural imposition, or any other physicalist explanation. Rather than engage with these people within the joint framework we share (the one prior to your subjective 'feeling' that it originates in something real, but something very difficult to realise and understand.), you presume that framework and insist the fault is ours for not tackling the investigation from the same starting point as you.

Another feature this highlights is that explanations need not tell the 'whole story', whereas reductive explanations, when right, must. — fdrake

I see what you're saying here, but I think you miss an important role of what is commonly considered under the umbrella of 'reductionism', and that is to act itself as a context, or constraint. To say, for example, "mental activity reduces to neural activity" is not necessarily to say that "by studying neural activity we can derive a complete account of mental activity". It more acts as a re-enforcement of parsimony, to say "don't, in our description of mental activity, develop models which are inconsistent with neural activity because that's the only thing we have any reason to believe mental activity reduces to". Reductionism, at its best, acts as a very long leash to loosely tie models of more complex systems to those beneath them which work well and on which we have good reason to think they supervene.

So the chance throwing of the die might produce 1,2,3,4,5,6, but it was not specified and therefore not ordered. — Metaphysician Undercover

Not at all, I could previously specify that the 'order' I'm looking for is 1,2,3,4,5,6, then it is a 'specified sequence'. I then throw the die six times, it lands 1,2,3,4,5,6 exactly as I specified. It has not now become the case that the order arose by design, it arose by chance.

Whether or not one might say that a chance occurrence appeared to be ordered, or vise versa would depend on context, and what exactly would be meant by this. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes, but this is exactly the context here. The OP is about the argument from design. The fact that the universe 'appears' to be designed, ordered etc. So if you say, "everything that appears ordered/designed is ordered/designed by definition" then you've either just begged the question, or defined away the distinction the whole investigation was trying to examine. The question is a simple one - does something appearing to us to be ordered/designed mean that some intentional force must have ordered/designed it? It's about what we can inductively assume from the evidence of order. If you want to say that the term "order" automatically implies a designer simply by the use of the term, then (apart from completely disagreeing with you) we'll just need another word to describe things which look like things which are ordered but might not be.

How could you say that the outcome of a design is not designed? Perhaps we could appeal to accidents or mistakes — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes - by appealing to accidents and mistakes. What's wrong with that? Are you going to define away 'accident' now?

it is impossible by way of contradiction for a designed state to come by chance. — Metaphysician Undercover

We're not talking about a designed state. We're talking about a state which 'appears' designed. One which has a type of order we recognise from other states we know to be designed.

It's like saying that a hectogon appears to be a circle. If you know it's a hectogon (designed state), and are calling it such, then you know it's not a circle (created by chance), so it doesn't make sense to say that it appears to be a circle (created by chance), when you know it's not. — Metaphysician Undercover

Again, we're not talking about states we know to be designed. We're talking about states which bear a resemblance to those we know to be designed and what we can rationally glean from that. I'm saying that if we call a state 'designed' on the grounds that it was intentionally made that way, then it is reasonable to conclude that states which appear to be designed (ie ones which look superficially similar but whose history we do not know) may not actually be so, if we can point to states which look designed/ordered, but which we know to have happened by chance, or without intent. We have examples of such states.

That's like saying 'Rape is a type of fucking - not something separate.' — 180 Proof

Absolutely, well said. As if the taxonomy of the thing was the most important issue!

You actually don't show a lot of interest in that subject, or knowledge of it. — Wayfarer

Does anyone who disagrees with you?

Just as an possible way of approaching this problem, can you name, and outline the argument of, an author who you think is interested in the subject, does have some knowledge and understanding of it, yet still disagrees with your position?

Wow - so much in one sentence and the claim is that this is true absolutely which I can see intuitively — NilsArnold

Oh god, this is going to be another one of those threads where the OP cannot understand the simple self-evident fact that what seems intuitively obvious to one person does not necessarily seem intuitively obvious to others.

Your intuition is just a set of thinking shortcuts your particular mix of genetic and environmental influences have made. It doesn't give you magic insight into reality.

I should add, for clarity, the quote I replied "Exactly" to was...

that environment plays a huge role in determining IQ. It's a mixture of nature and nurture. — Artemis

You said...

No, not exactly. — Hallucinogen

...and proceeded to cite a study which demonstrated exactly what @Artemis said - that IQ (in the context we're discussing) is determined in huge part by environment.

At 12 years. In adulthood it is about 80% — Hallucinogen

Yes, but IQ at 11 years is the only measure we have been given (in your previously cited study) to show a correlation with future measures of life achievement, so it is the heritability of that specific trait which is in question here.

No, not exactly. https://www.nature.com/articles/mp2014105 — Hallucinogen

Are you reading these studies? This latest put heritability of intelligence by 12 yrs at 0.46, less than half. Ie intelligence at 12 is caused more by external factors than it is by genetics. It also specifies "Intelligence is associated with education and social class" as one of its key findings.

To support your position it is not sufficient to demonstrate simply that intelligence is inherited and is a significant factor in measures of future life achievements. You need to demonstrate that intelligence is the major factor and that it is more caused by genetics than environment. None of the studies you've cited so far demonstrate this. Every single one simply confirms what is now well known (the latest study you cite even refers to it as a 'law of genetics'), that any measure of human ability will be determined in part by genes and in part by the environment acting on those genes. The environment part is what people concerned with racial and class disparities in opportunity are trying to address. If you want to claim that those efforts are pointless, you'll have to demonstrate that they have no effect.

the present-day subject of physics has nothing to say about the intentionality resulting in the existence of such objects. Thus it gives a causally incomplete account of the world. — Matias

This is not unique to human consciousness, but common to all complex systems. Physics cannot account for how it is now raining either. Weather systems are too complex to describe in terms of atoms and physical forces to a degree accurate enough to explain exact phenomena. Likewise with the motion of a double pendulum, clearly fully determined by physical forces, but too complex to actually describe thus. Its a fault of reductionism, but it says nothing special about human intentionality.

it is contradictory to say that objects could be ordered by chance — Metaphysician Undercover

How. What law of physics/nature prevents things from appearing ordered by chance. By definition, a chance event can result in any consequence it is not artificially restricted to chaotic looking one's. A random throw of the dice, with no intent, can still land 1,2,3,4,5,6.

The subject here is designed/not designed. In order for there to even be a category 'not designed' it has to be the case that some force can produce a state of affairs which are 'not designed'. Are you suggesting it is somehow impossible for this state of affairs to nonetheless appear to be designed by chance?

I'm trying to understand how the Atheists account for existential questions. — 3017amen

I can't possibly speak for all atheists because your questions have nothing whatsoever to do with atheism, but by existential questions, I assume you mean...

I'd recommend you look at the untenable Atheist thread OP. There are ton's of questions over there... — 3017amen

So...

- Does mathematical abstract ability confer any survival advantage?

No, but I suspect the logical thinking habits on which it is based do. I'm a Ramseyan pragmatist when it comes to things like rationality and logic.

- Does music theory have any biological significance at all?

I think it could. Possibly I could see a way in which predicting meaning from voice tone could be advantageous and as the human voice box is about vibrations it's no surprise the system we use for describing vibrations also describes music. But in the large part I think of it like maths, a massive construction built on very small biological foundations.

- Do all events must have a cause?

No. Causation is way of thinking about the world, not necessarily a feature of it.

- True, false or something else?

Doesn't make any sense. Just because you can say something, doesn't make it meaningful.

- Is love a phenomenon or is it all logical?

I reject the dichotomy. A phenomena is a feature of the world, logical describes a method of thinking. Its like asking whether something is green or triangular.

- Do any of those suggest life might be a little mysterious?

Yes.

So now what?

I tried. — Banno

There's no helping some people!

The frame work is Existentialism. It started in the Book of Ecclesiastes — 3017amen

It makes no difference what its name is or where it started it's unworkable.

Sure, the 'whys' of existence are very perplexing. — 3017amen

It's not that they're perplexing. I'm asking you about where you stop what is clearly an infinite process. You can continue to ask "why?" to every explanation given, for ever. What's the point?

Really, it's just extremely childish of you to answer all of my points with "but why?" we used to do that as kids to annoy the teacher. It's rather boring.

If you're not going to engage with any of the issues here in a grown up manner there's not much point in continuing this discussion.

So, one last time - in what context do you want my answer to your question "why?"? Proximate cause, evolutionary origin, biological function, personal life strategy, physical law... "Why?" on its own doesn't make any sense.

you haven't explained the reason why, you yourself as a human being, care about those things — 3017amen

I can't possibly answer that question within the framework you've set up. If I answer "because of X", you'll say "but why is X?", then I answer "because of Y", and you'll say "but why is Y?".

At what point in the infinite ability to ask "but why?" are you going to be satisfied with the explanation?

you're presuming those things are important for some reason, but you haven't explained the reason why — 3017amen

I'm not "presuming those things are important for some reason", they are important to me, as far as I can tell. I don't need to provide a reason for it to be an accurate report of my state of mind.

If I say I'm in pain, I don't have to provide a reason why I think that, I just am in pain. If I say I like the colour green, I don't have to provide a reason why, it just is a feeling I have.

I might undertake a general investigation into why people like the colour green, or why people feel pain, but if I do so it will have two important features...

1. It will not in any way have any bearing on the fact that I like green or am in pain. I can't alter that fact by any empirical investigation.

2. It will have parameters as to what would constitute an explanation. Why - in terms of evolutionary selection, why - in terms of cultural influence, why - in terms of neurobiology. "Why?" just in general terms without any context is a nonsensical question, what could possibly constitute an answer other than the entire history of all reality?

why do you care to take a position on the subject matter? — 3017amen

I've just explained that...

I don't really care what other people believe unless it justifies actions which I think are immoral (which religious beliefs sometimes does).

I care very much about my beliefs though. It's important to me that they are useful, consistent and not overwhelmed by empirical evidence to the contrary (where such is relevant).

To this latter aim, I'll robustly defend my beliefs as best I can, and try to show inconsistencies and contrary evidence in competing beliefs, just to make sure they are not something I might be advised to adopt myself. — Isaac

That is why I care to take a position about the subject. If there's something there you don't understand, then ask about that thing, but please don't just act as if I haven't answered, it's insulting.

Why is that useful, for what purpose? — 3017amen

It's useful for me to achieve the things I want to achieve. As to why it's useful, my guess is that the brain, being a machine of sorts, only works within certain parameters. Just like I wouldn't try flying in a car,. It doesn't mean flying is impossible, or that travel on the ground is somehow fundamental to the universe. It's just what cars do best. I wouldn't try thinking inconsistently with a brain, it's just not designed to do that.

Adoption studies have shown over and over again that environment plays a huge role in determining IQ. It's a mixture of nature and nurture. — Artemis

Exactly.

One of the many studies, no doubt, which form part of the "virtually all measures of social mobility previously developed by other researchers, which Clark claims are flawed" From Wikipedia on Gregory Clark, whom @Hallucinogen claims as a source who "outright refutes" the concept of social status affecting life chances.

Okay, take a deep breath, you haven't explained why you care about those beliefs — 3017amen

You asked me why I cared about the atheim/theism propositions. As has been painstakingly explained to you an infuriating number of times atheism is nothing more than the lack of belief in god(s). It has no bearing whatsoever on the rest of one's beliefs which might take any position at all.

As to your completely unrelated question...

why would you care about inconsistencies — 3017amen

It's a habit of thinking which I've learned and find useful. I don't believe there are no other equally useful habits, but this is the one I've become used to so it is the one I continue to use.

care about your Atheism v. Theism concerns? — 3017amen

I don't really care what other people believe unless it justifies actions which I think are immoral (which religious beliefs sometimes does).

I care very much about my beliefs though. It's important to me that they are useful, consistent and not overwhelmed by empirical evidence to the contrary (where such is relevant).

To this latter aim, I'll robustly defend my beliefs as best I can, and try to show inconsistencies and contrary evidence in competing beliefs, just to make sure they are not something I might be advised to adopt myself.

What has any of this got to do with the question of whether theism causes an increase or a decrease in enquiry?

Okay, let's be brutally honest with each other: why do you even care? — 3017amen

Care about what, you're not making any sense.

you have made absolutely no progress toward answering the question. The distinction between design and no design is made according to whether or not there was a "person" involved, but an individual is free to use whatever definition of "person" that one might dream up. How is that useful? — Metaphysician Undercover

It's useful because it is elucidating the falseness of the problem in the first place (although that may well not have been Terrapin's intent).

Why do we have a word 'designed' as a categorising term to distinguish from other apparently ordered matter? What does it mean to say something is 'designed'? It means put together with intent. But intent is a property of persons not objects. So we cannot see in an object the intent of the person.

A sentence incidentally written by a random process iterated a million times is indistinguishable in every way from a sentence written that way with intent apart from by its history. Same for any object. It is only by its history which we can distinguish objects ordered by intent from objects ordered by chance.

You said atheists aren't concerned about asking questions, and I said: Interesting...seems contradictory...what is causing your sense of wonder about these things — 3017amen

Where did I say atheists aren't concerned with asking questions?

You've just re-posted. I was asking what it was about my statement which seemed contradictory to you.

Interesting...seems contradictory. — 3017amen

How so?

I am referring Gregory Clark's research. — Hallucinogen

Do you have a link (or have you already provided one?)

My argument is that social influences are less than genetic factors — Hallucinogen

Yes, I gather that, but you said...

The information I've linked to outright refutes this — Hallucinogen

It does not. It demonstrates a correlation between IQ and future wealth. It shows a alack of correlation between class and future wealth. It does not "outright refute" the suggestion that class-related factors, or any other inherited advantages are not also correlated with future wealth.

Wouldn't sex at birth be a genetic influence? — Hallucinogen

Yes. You said...

I view outcome as a function of ability, with very little difference in opportunity between people. — Hallucinogen

Sex at birth is not an 'ability'.

I have difficulty seeing how attaining wealth could change one's genes. Or that necomjng wealthy would raise one's IQ, especially given pre-existing evidence that variation in IQ is ~75% due to genetic variation. — Hallucinogen

That's not the point. The point is that to claim that the correlation between IQ at 10 and increased wealth is indicative of variation in genetic ability being responsible for variation in life outcomes, you'd have to show a mechanism, which is exactly what is missing from the correlations with other factors you dismiss. Where is your evidence, for example, that IQ at ten is not causally correlated with social opportunity more strongly that genetic ability?

Ahh. Back to this again. Another common theme here "you don't understand".

Basically half the threads here could be summarised as "I feel like X is the case therefore it is the case, if you don't agree with me it's because you don't understand the argument"

The information I've linked to outright refutes this. — Hallucinogen

Where? I've already asked you for the information you're referring to proving that social factors don't have a causal relationship with wealth. All you've provided is evidence that IQ does have a correlation, not that other factors don't. In fact the very report you cited said, quite specifically, that sex at birth was also correlated.

I shouldn't have to point out to philosophers that that doesn't mean it causes it. What causes it is the genetic advantage of the parents wealthy enough to send their kids to an exclusive school. — Hallucinogen

The report you cite only demonstrates a correlation. You can't claim correlation is causation when it suits your argument and that it isn't when it doesn't.

This kind of approach suffuces philosophical discussion here "it seems obvious to me, therefore it's a fact of reality"

It seems obvious to you that brain processes are devoid of some 'real' property called 'meaning' - therefore it must be a fact that they are.

It seems obvious to you that being Sapiens 'means something' therefore it must be a fact and others simply haven't realised it.

It seems obvious to you that we must 'grasp' the law of identity before study, therefore it must be a fact.

It's seems morality is categorical, number is real, consciousness is real... And so they must all be facts.

How do you know that what seems to you to be the case has any bearing at all on what actually is the case?

Brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, the motion of water molecules, electrical current, and any other physical phenomenon you can think of, seem clearly devoid of any inherent meaning.

Subjective opinion. If we accept this is true, we've already accepted that 'meaning' is not physical in any way, which is the crux of the matter.

By themselves they are simply meaningless patterns of electrochemical activity.

Re-affirmation.

Yet our thoughts do have inherent meaning – that’s how they are able to impart it to otherwise meaningless ink marks, sound waves, etc.

Subjective opinion. Again, if we accept this, we've simply eliminated, without argument, the eliminative position already.

In that case, though, it seems that our thoughts cannot be identified with any physical processes in the brain.

Subjective opinion. Obviously eliminative materialists think they can be identified with physical processes in the brain. No further explanation is given of why this author thinks they can't beyond the fact that it doesn't match with the previously stated subjective opinion.

Thoughts and the like possess inherent meaning or intentionality; brain processes, like ink marks, sound waves, and the like, are utterly devoid of any inherent meaning or intentionality; so thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes.

"If you believe A then B follows". But the debate is about A, not about whether B follows from it.

This is the issue that @fdrake has already highlighted above. You have to buy into the main crucial beliefs, only then do the utterly trivial conclusions follow from them. The debate - atheism/theism, idealism/physicalism...is about the very premises you present as axiomatic to your 'arguments'. So you're not arguing in favour of one position, you're presuming one position and arguing that trivial truisms follow once you've accepted it.

As it is, I argue that the kind of materialist theory of mind that Dennett and others argue for, adopts the rhetorical and technical vocabulary of philosophy, to argue that wisdom proper, sapience, is an illusory byproducts of the Darwinian algorithm. — Wayfarer

No you don't though. This is a pet peeve of mine and its happened twice in this thread now (I restrained myself the first time). You don't 'argue that...' you just 'say that...'. It annoys me when people try to engross a personal arbitrary opinion by prefacing it with "I'd argue that...". If you have an actual argument, just present it, there's no need to drum up an audience first.

It's one big cluster you're very devoted to, you've studied a lot, and when challenged on a single part of it you use the rest of it to argue for the challenged part. — fdrake

... it is a domain of discourse, with recognized luminaries, and wide historical scope. I could provide some references... — Wayfarer

... One of the books that got me interested in the subject... — Wayfarer

'... [insert long entirely subjective quote] .' ~ Paul Tyson, Defragmenting Modernity... . — Wayfarer

... one of the points coming out of the 'Blind Spot of Science' article a few months back... — Wayfarer

Absolutely priceless @fdrake, you couldn't have elicited a more satirical response if you'd scripted it deliberately.

So largely, I view outcome as a function of ability, with very little difference in opportunity between people.

Here's a source for my claim that IQ and conscientiousness predict future earnings:
https://www.mdpi.com/2079-3200/5/1/3 — Hallucinogen

I'm confused by what you're saying here. You first make a claim that outcome is a function of ability, with very little difference in opportunity between people, then you cite an unrelated study about correlation between IQ and income. Am I missing something?

female employment primarily consists of make-work jobs created or subsidized by the government itself, such as feminizing little boys in the schools, drugging them with amphetamines such as ritalin for imaginary mental diseases, and getting them to attend gender-fluidity lectures by transvestites. — alcontali

Well, that speaks volumes. Come back to the conversation when you've managed to get laid, some of your misogyny might have worn off.

it reiterates that we can cluster people into meaningful groups, — Hallucinogen

Yes, but based on ancestry which it specifically then goes on to demonstrate does not reveal itself in any identifiable collection of physical characteristics. People's ancestry can be vitally important to identifying their genetic make-up, but it is not reliably identifiable by natural breaks in the scale of physical characteristics.

characterising 377 microsatellites will give an underestimate of how different individuals/groups are from each other. This because it's not just the sequence of small areas that matters, but the areas around them and the distances between them as well — Hallucinogen

Those factors were measured, that's how they determined their ancestry groupings, but the number of loci required to generate a distinct cluster was regularly in the hundreds and most groups shared a large number of loci. So whilst this is important for epidemiology, it has almost no bearing at all on traditional concepts of 'race'.