Whites are Smarter than Blacks

[Louis VI the Fat]

We need more controversy in the Backroom! :smash:

So:
Whites do better in schools than blacks. Asians do better than whites. Ashkenazi Jews outperform both.

This is owing to genetic variations in cognitive abilities, which are not equally distributed among all groups of people.

True?
False?
Gah?

[HoreTore]

Heh, I'm the fifth to vote, and the first one to reply...

Anyway, I voted a solid GAH! The reason? This is completely useless information, it cannot be applied to anything at all in reality, whatever the answer.

[Crazed Rabbit]

As 'races' go, no, the statement is false. Certain groups of people might be different, though, however it has nothing to do with race.

CR

[HoreTore]

As 'races' go, no, the statement is false. Certain groups of people might be different, though, however it has nothing to do with race.

CR

In other words, you mean that genetics doesn't affect anything, but social influence does?

[Dîn-Heru]

No. These stereotypes exist and therefore it manifests itself regardless of actual abilities in people.

Men have long been thougt of as better in mathematics than women. On tests were people are informed of this women do more poorly than men, than in the control group. On tests where it is emphasized that asians are better, they did better than the control group.

The same can be seen in sports, the "white men can't jump" phenonomen, when this is emphasized white men do worse at sports than blacks. Similarly blacks do worse at sports typically associated rich white people like sailing and such.

Basically if a certain stereotype exists in an environment then people are prone to live up to it either consciously or subconsciously..

[Hepcat]

Well over here it isn't quite as easy to generalise like that since most people have both Maori and Pakeha heritage, but supposedly accoording to the government, Maori don't pass as well as Pakeha. But that is changing however, and I know it is not by much because I have a Maori friend studying law at uni in Wellington and another in the same year as me who thrashed the rest of the classes score last year in the Mathematics exams. Generally there is a large group of both Maori and Pakeha who have no wish to be at school so I'd say it isn't genetics at all.

I also have an Chinese friend who is scarily intelligent, as in he beats the teachers at the tests and corrects them during class. But his parents have extremely high expectations of him and weren't very happy when he got a B- in his piano exam. So it's a lot of factors, much more to do with a student's home life and motivation than their actual intelligence level.

[Crazed Rabbit]

In other words, you mean that genetics doesn't affect anything, but social influence does?

I'm saying race and any genetics outside of skin color don't correlate.

CR

[Hosakawa Tito]

Louis the younger. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veUxQSU0g2A&mode=related&search=)

[CountArach]

Until credible evidence is found that suggests that Whites are indeed Smater than Blacks, I will have to vote False.

[Warmaster Horus]

Impossible. As long as certain people exist (that is, the great majority of high school students, at least), that statement is false.

[Ianofsmeg16]

I say True...

Octosquid's are much smarter than all other intelligent races..

All hail the Octosquid!

[Kuni]

I'm asian. ~:D

[Banquo's Ghost]

Octosquid's are much smarter than all other intelligent races..


That's because they have to calculate in octal rather than decimal. And the photo in the other thread shows that they are well red.

[Samurai Waki]

Aside from Pigment in the skin, Genetic Variances (however subtle they may be), and social influences. Every Human Being is thus.

[Gregoshi]

That's because they have to calculate in octal rather than decimal.
Oh yeah? Then why do they have tentacles? :inquisitive:

[Kekvit Irae]

Flippity floppity floop, fo' shizzle my nizzle, brothas. Where's mah chikenz and melons?:book:

[Crazed Rabbit]

:inquisitive:

Well, that's different.

CR

[Kekvit Irae]

No different than this topic. :tongueg:

[Louis VI the Fat]

Bah, I've failed. No heated debate, controversy and fist-fights yet. :shame:

[Soulforged]

I don't know about blacks and whites, but I believe the french have more brain than the texans...:laugh4:

[PanzerJaeger]

There are genius' and dummies in all races but the average intelligence and ability to progress of some races are higher than others.

[KafirChobee]

I don't know about blacks and whites, but I believe the french have more brain than the texans...:laugh4:
Well, that's because the French have such big heads. :painting:

Actually, it is really unfair to say anything bad about Texans - it is no fault of their own that they are perceptually challanged. :tumbleweed:

[AntiochusIII]

There are genius' and dummies in all races but the average intelligence and ability to progress of some races are higher than others.I agree. Humanity's ability to progress is much higher than that of the planktons and whatnot.

The problem is of course finding geniuses among planktons.

[KukriKhan]

Clever Louis. Just parse the sentence


This is owing to genetic variations in cognitive abilities, which are not equally distributed among all groups of people.


Or for you old-timers, diagram it.

He's made a statement that will support any of the 3 options he's put forward, with slight twists of word position within the diagram.

Bravo! He's missed a career opportunity as a writer of congressional legislation. :laugh4:

[Strike For The South]

I think diffrent races do have varying degrees of intellegence. This doesnt mean one race is "stupid" but I think you are really turning a bilnd eye to things when you think everyone is on a level mental and physical playing feild

[Csargo]

Well, that's because the French have such big heads. :painting:

Actually, it is really unfair to say anything bad about Texans - it is no fault of their own that they are perceptually challanged. :tumbleweed:


I don't know about blacks and whites, but I believe the french have more brain than the texans...

:inquisitive:

[Mithrandir]

"Minorities" may have less chances of a good education. This does not mean they lack the mental abilities to comeplete one...

[Tribesman]

Poeple who think whites are better are of equal intelligence to those that think blacks are better .

[Hosakawa Tito]

Bah, I've failed. No heated debate, controversy and fist-fights yet. :shame:
Patience Louis, have faith in your fellow orgahs and the tinderbox we call the Backroom.

Where's mah chikenz
Makes mines babaque puh-leze.

I think diffrent races do have varying degrees of intellegence. This doesnt mean one race is "stupid" but I think you are really turning a bilnd eye to things when you think everyone is on a level mental and physical playing feild
Replace the word races with individuals and many would agree. The uneven playing field is due to cultural/societal practices not genetic differences.

[Strike For The South]

Poeple who think whites are better are of equal intelligence to those that think blacks are better .

Its not about being better its about being different. If there were no such thing as diffrences there would be less Jewish scientists and more jewish sports stars and vice versa

[DemonArchangel]

There are genius' and dummies in all races but the average intelligence and ability to progress of some races are higher than others.

Of course. Get back to sucking pork rinds and driving a decaying muscle car you honky.

There. Controversy.

[HoreTore]

Its not about being better its about being different. If there were no such thing as diffrences there would be less Jewish scientists and more jewish sports stars and vice versa

Why does it have to be genetic? Why couldn't it be social?

[Strike For The South]

Why does it have to be genetic? Why couldn't it be social?

Becuase everone dreams of being a sports star when they grow up. So why is it that the majority are black? Do black people have some sort of sports playing culture of which I am unawre?

[Gawain of Orkeny]

All races are equally stupid. Besides the only race I know of is the Human one.

[Ironside]

Becuase everone dreams of being a sports star when they grow up. So why is it that the majority are black? Do black people have some sort of sports playing culture of which I am unawre?

From what I've gathered from American popular culture, then yes. If everyone plays the same sport and it's considered as a good way out of the poor neighbourhood, you'll have tilted numbers of the elite performers (think of what sports that are dominated by blacks).

Or are the Brazilians genetically superior on soccer? :laugh4:

Although sprint is an interesting sport in this aspect, because I'm not sure how the numbers of practititioners are compared to the upper elite.

As for the subject at hand, and genetical dispersion between large populations are so small that the cultural backround has a considerble more influence. So taliking about it in the way of race is folly, hampering, damaging and doesn't really have any benefits.

[Kuni]

:fainting:

in other news, the concept of dividing the human species into races have long since been rejected by mainstream scientists.

[Tribesman]

If there were no such thing as diffrences there would be less Jewish scientists and more jewish sports stars and vice versa

Now strike you made me laugh , there was this film once that got them oscar thingies ,a great monologue by an actor playing a Jewish scientist was contained thererin .
So gentlemen can we come to an agreement......Can he be Jewish and a scientist at the same time ?(it applies to all faiths):laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

[John86]

Its a cultural thing. In America, blacks cultural holds them back.

[Strike For The South]

Why was France's wrold cup team all black? Why are east asians disproporanant in advanced maths? Why? More whites are in poverty than blacks why arent as many poor whites playing pro sports? Why are ALL the top sprinters black? Why are all the top powerlifters from nordic or baltic countries? We arent all the same. We are all different

[Tribesman]

We arent all the same. We are all different

We are all individuals , just like everyone else:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

[Strike For The South]

We are all individuals , just like everyone else:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

well yea but tis stupid to say race doesnt matter. Why are some dieases more prevlant in jews than whites or blacks than asians? Just becuase were different does not mean one is better. Prove me wrong.

[Tribesman]

Prove me wrong.
:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

[Strike For The South]

or you could do that

[Louis VI the Fat]

Why was France's wrold cup team all black? Why are east asians disproporanant in advanced maths? Why? More whites are in poverty than blacks why arent as many poor whites playing pro sports? Why are ALL the top sprinters black? Why are all the top powerlifters from nordic or baltic countries? We arent all the same. We are all differentThe most striking example of this is long-distance running. Of the world's top twenty marathon runners, twelve belong to the same small tribe from Kenya.


Genes for long-distance running?

The Kalenjin tribe lives in a province in the northwest of Kenya. Astonishingly, 12 of the world's top-20 distance runners are Kalenjin. Their seemingly effortless victories in some marathons have sparked off a passionate debate about genetic advantage in long-distance running. Linky (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/marathon/#genes).

[Papewaio]

I think the issue is that with most things the variance within a group is far larger then the variance between groups.

[Fragony]

Who cares. More interesting, quite unlike the popular(especially among blacks) believes white males have larger penises.

[Duke John]

I think the issue is that with most things the variance within a group is far larger then the variance between groups.
Good point, but assuming that we're only interested in an average then I wouldn't be suprised if there some difference, however small. But worthless because of said variance.

Perhaps africans have in their skull less brain and more cooling fluid to avoid getting overheated with all that sun in the desert. And since the true religion, Christianity, started with mediterrenean people I would suspect that they would be the smartest. After all, only the foolish would deviate from the path to salvation.

Edit: :wink:

[Ironside]

The most striking example of this is long-distance running. Of the world's top twenty marathon runners, twelve belong to the same small tribe from Kenya.

Linky (http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/hottopics/marathon/#genes).

Trying to salvage the conflict you hoped for in the thread Louis? Yes, it's possible to have genetical differences in all traits, but there isn't any place were intelligence has been in focus and small groups has the potential of larger anomalies than large groups (that will average out).


Why was France's wrold cup team all black?
Why aren't the Brazilian one all black?


Why are east asians disproporanant in advanced maths? Why? More whites are in poverty than blacks why arent as many poor whites playing pro sports? Why are ALL the top sprinters black? Why are all the top powerlifters from nordic or baltic countries? We arent all the same. We are all different

As for the poor whites, I'm only speculating but there could be a stronger thought among the poor whites that you can go through with education and thus haven't gotten as much focus on sports. White men can't jump in the US but they can in Europe, something that doesn't make sence genetically.

The more important point is this though. Say that there's a fact that there's one group of people who's upper elite are smarter than the rest (proven genetically).
Now what to do with this information? Only focus on this group for higher education? You'll loose out the brilliant minds from the rest. Are the group "spikier" than the others, like left-handedness (more intelligent people and more mentally disabled than the average population)? Is it then good to shift the average, when the average are in fact the same?
Are the best of the best always needed in intelligence, or are good (+"common" sence) most often enough (clearly unlike sports)?

Simply put, as long as the induvidual differences are much larger that the group, focusing on the groups differences are irrelevant, while focusing on the induviduals are highly relevant.

[macsen rufus]

Perhaps africans have in their skull less brain and more cooling fluid to avoid getting overheated with all that sun in the desert. And since the true religion, Christianity, started with mediterrenean people I would suspect that they would be the smartest. After all, only the foolish would deviate from the path to salvation.

Either I missed a smiley, or someone has a private wormhole back to the 19th century....

... but if you really want to go there, well check out the theory that the "true religion" is that of Yahweh's chosen people - the Israelites - who were a black people before being ousted from their place by the Ashkenazim (Khazar descent) and Sephardim (Edomite descent). http://www.hebrewisraelites.org It's all backed up by scripture....


EDIT:

Edit: :wink: :2thumbsup:

[doc_bean]

I think the issue is that with most things the variance within a group is far larger then the variance between groups.

My thoughts exactly, it's hard to debate since we don't specify what we are talking about: modus, average, median, quantiles ? Or what threshold to use as 'significant'. Or how this 'intelligence' thing is supposed to be measured.

Genes matter when it comes to intelligence, but no race has a monopoly on the 'smart genes'.

[Dave1984]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6223968.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6150042.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6176070.stm

Which all helps prove nothing, except don't be a boy in a British school.

[Devastatin Dave]

False...
First, who's "white" and who's "black"? There is too much mixing to use the descriptions. You also have to consider the economic background and home life background of the students. If you look at the US, by percentage, many more black children come from broken homes and poverty as compared to "white" households. But at the same time, you can go to the Appalacians and meet some whites up there that are still trying to figure out how many angels can sit on a needle point or how old the tortise is that is carrying the earth on his back. Anyway, its not a race issue because there are just too many factors that figure into how well someone does in school. Now I'll tell you this, the bruthas have us crackers on the pecker size. I was in basic training and them homies be packin'!!! Shu nuff....:yes:

[Spino]

True.

And the same studies that show whites as being smarter than blacks also show Asians, or rather east Asians, as being smarter than whites. I really don't see the big deal here. It's not as if there's some grand conspiracy peddling this stuff. The usual diatribe coming from the rabidly pro-environmental determinism crowd decries such research as being fascist in nature, funded by neo-nazi groups, etc. I really need to know why such groups would fund research that ultimately smashes their racial supremacy views into dust? Are we the unknowing victims of an international Oriental conspiracy? Should the Occident rise up in revolution and defeat our epicanthic overlords?

It's amazing how uncomfortable the subject of intelligence makes people. Only rabid fans of environmental determinism would fail to acknowledge that blacks are, racially speaking, the 'fastest' or most 'naturally athletic' race on the planet. The evidence is hard to overlook, countless examples in professional sports seem to support that argument. If it is not genetically related then what... they train harder than everyone else?!? Even if that was the case the law of averages would still show a healthy sampling of non-black athletes making the top cut but it doesn't. Also take note of the dearth of east Asian athletes failing to make a dent in the top tiers of the same sports that blacks excel in... I'm supposed to believe that places like Japan, China and South Korea are incapable of producing disciplined, well trained athletes that can excel in speed oriented sports?!? Anyway there was a time when the notion that blacks were faster or more athletically gifted than everyone else was extremely unpopular. However thanks to the highly meritocratic nature of sports, especially over the last 30-40 years, the evidence stares back at us with countless broken records and the sheer dominance by athletes of sub-Saharan African ancestry. We've reached the point where most people are perfectly comfortable with the notion that blacks are expected to dominate in certain sports. In that same time frame a similar level of meritocracy has existed in the academic and professional arenas of the west (especially the US) and for some reason people are still quick to dismiss the academic and socio-economic performance of Jews and East Asians as being related to genetic based intelligence. Upbringing and work ethic always seem to be the buzz words and yet nobody has actually shown how these factors can turn mediocrity into genius, let alone give someone a 10-15 point advantage in IQ. No race or ethnic group may hold a 'monopoly' on genes responsible for intelligence but there does seem to be evidence that some ethnic groups or races have these genes in greater abundance than others.

STFS made an interesting point about the relative intelligence of Jews and how their academic performance must be genetically related. Oddly enough a year or so ago a highly controversial and fascinating article was published in New York magazine titled "The Jewish Brain" (Larry David's prominent balding cranium was featured on the cover) dealt with this exact subject.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/1478/

As with blacks and athletics it's a bit much to insist that every Ashkenazi Jewish scholar, scientist or mathematician of note was a success due to boundless ambition, an unequalled work ethic or an ideal family atmosphere. Jews account for a mere 0.25 percent of the world population and 3 percent of the US population and yet they account for 27 percent of all American Nobel Prize winners, 25 percent of all ACM Turing Award winners for computer science and 50 percent of the world's chess champions. It really is a bit much to think that environment is the main factor at work here.

The idea of genetic equality amongst individuals, ethnic groups or races is truly ridiculous. Arguing over the definition of race or ethnicity and attempting to intellectualize those terms to some unwieldy abstraction smacks of subconscious fuelled fear. Why aren't we seeing these same sort of arguments taking place in professional sports? How do we define fast? How does one accurately measure testosterone levels? What are the criteria for determining short or long muscle strands? Etc., etc. The crux of the problem is that intelligence is a sore spot with most people and is a topic few people discuss as openly as physicality. The idea that everyone has the same genetic potential as everyone else flies in the face of the laws of nature (if it were the case then we'd be a species of monozygote siblings or clones) so why shouldn't it apply to groups that have a higher percentage of shared genes than others? The idea that intelligence can be considered a distinct and seperate category from any other physical trait is in itself a feat of fear fuelled egotism.

Oh to have a time machine to play with! I firmly believe that a day will come where every aspect of the human animal is going to laid bare, dissected and categorized to the extreme. I wonder what kind of chuckles future generations are going to have when they look back at our ego fueled delusions about our own species.

[Husar]

Education isn't as much about intelligence thant it is about learning, you are supposed to sit around and read and learn and read and learn and read and...:Zzzz:
Well, I'm not good at that, maybe because my parents didn't make me work as a kid, maybe not. My guess is that it's a cultural thing, Asians work a lot and have that somehow in their culture, so they are better at school, whites are somewhere in the middle and people from hot very countries where work is a lot harder are maybe less used to working hard(and their kids kind of learn that from their parents after they moved to another country I guess).

That's just my theory, I blame culture and circumstances and it's just an explanation for how people do in school(which might explain certain studies), intelligence is probably very similar on average.

[BigTex]

I can remember my first dog a rot/german sheperd mix. Dumb as a brick, scared of it's own shadow and could barely figure out catch. Stronger and faster then most dogs I've seen. I know own a Labrador retriever, smartest little thing I've seen. She doesnt play fetch she'll play catch, can nearly unlock a door deadbolted if she could grip the doorknob better.

Humans just like dogs are not the same. If you've ever looked at the average hieght of black people to asians there's a fair bit of seperation there. Genetics arent equal, not everyone is equally intelligent not everyone can clean jerk 300lb's, not everyone can run a mile in under 4 minutes. Sure there's a bit of training and parenting involved but genetics plays a part, nature and nurture play into effect.


Education isn't as much about intelligence thant it is about learning, you are supposed to sit around and read and learn and read and learn and read and...

But IQ numbers arent effected by education. The smartest person I've met, didn't even make it through high school. Could rebuild a car's engine by the age of 14. He was working in an auto shop at 16. Anything mechanical or electrical you gave him he could take apart and rebuild/fix.

[KafirChobee]

Only a few things make one humanbeing excell over another - practice, practice, practice and/or study, study, study. Since the genes of mankind are +99.9% identical - it leaves that 0.10% that determines the cosmetic make-up of whom we are.

Cultural differences seperate us more than race. imo

In Florida, we have a small town that produces an unproptionately high degree of excellent atheletes (mostly football, but a number basketballers as well). There was a buncha racial hooplah about it a number of years ago - "they excell, because of their former slave masters' breeding programs" and such. When one visits this town on any given non-school day the cause becomes more evident - these kids work like hell to be the best they can be in sports and have some excellent coaches (that are ignored for their tallents, by colleges, because of race). I've seen these kids running up and down the emergency dikes outside their town - without supervision, to get an edge. They are hungry to suceed - and the hungriest do.

Self motivation wins ever time, and it has little to do with race.

[Strike For The South]

Only a few things make one humanbeing excell over another - practice, practice, practice and/or study, study, study. Since the genes of mankind are +99.9% identical - it leaves that 0.10% that determines the cosmetic make-up of whom we are.

Cultural differences seperate us more than race. imo

In Florida, we have a small town that produces an unproptionately high degree of excellent atheletes (mostly football, but a number basketballers as well). There was a buncha racial hooplah about it a number of years ago - "they excell, because of their former slave masters' breeding programs" and such. When one visits this town on any given non-school day the cause becomes more evident - these kids work like hell to be the best they can be in sports and have some excellent coaches (that are ignored for their tallents, by colleges, because of race). I've seen these kids running up and down the emergency dikes outside their town - without supervision, to get an edge. They are hungry to suceed - and the hungriest do.

Self motivation wins ever time, and it has little to do with race.

and you dont think other kids work just as hard or even harder?

[HoreTore]

Why are some dieases more prevlant in jews than whites or blacks than asians?

Uhm....that's due to social/cultural/continent differences. Where one disease is common, the people there get resistant to it(eventually). Release said disease on another part of the world, and you'll have the black plague all over again.

[Reverend Joe]

please... tell me you got the :daisy: golf shoes!

[Spino]

Uhm....that's due to social/cultural/continent differences. Where one disease is common, the people there get resistant to it(eventually). Release said disease on another part of the world, and you'll have the black plague all over again.

I think SFTS was referring to hereditary diseases, not the infectious kind. The article I linked to covered this as well. Because of cultural isolation and inbreeding Jews are much more likely to suffer from Gaucher, Niemann-Pick, mucolipidosis type IV, and Tay-Sachs diseases than any other ethnic group. The research covered by this article theorizes that the same inbreeding which allowed such diseases to become widespread in the Ashkenazi population also allowed the spread of those genes responsible for intelligence.


I can remember my first dog a rot/german sheperd mix. Dumb as a brick, scared of it's own shadow and could barely figure out catch. Stronger and faster then most dogs I've seen. I know own a Labrador retriever, smartest little thing I've seen. She doesnt play fetch she'll play catch, can nearly unlock a door deadbolted if she could grip the doorknob better.

Humans just like dogs are not the same. If you've ever looked at the average hieght of black people to asians there's a fair bit of seperation there. Genetics arent equal, not everyone is equally intelligent not everyone can clean jerk 300lb's, not everyone can run a mile in under 4 minutes. Sure there's a bit of training and parenting involved but genetics plays a part, nature and nurture play into effect.

This is a sensible argument but the naysayers will cite the fact that the average breed of canine has less in common with other breeds than the average ethnic group or race has with one another. It doesn't negate the argument but spins it in such a way as to discredit the analogy. I have yet to see concrete numbers on the canine breeds that are the fewest generations apart versus the ones that are the farthest from one another.


But IQ numbers arent effected by education. The smartest person I've met, didn't even make it through high school. Could rebuild a car's engine by the age of 14. He was working in an auto shop at 16. Anything mechanical or electrical you gave him he could take apart and rebuild/fix.

I had a childhood friend who was naturally gifted and way above average in terms of intelligence. His family was of Greek & Jewish ancestry. Brilliant? Not sure but both he and his brother (and to a lesser extent his sister) were way above average and were attending select NY public schools meant for students at the upper end of the Bell Curve (Stuyvesant and Hunter). Their family atmosphere was ridiculously lax compared to mine, I certainly saw no evidence to support any kind of discipline regarding study habits or relevant practices. In fact I could say theirs was a very casual and dysfunctional family.

[Ironside]

Upbringing and work ethic always seem to be the buzz words and yet nobody has actually shown how these factors can turn mediocrity into genius, let alone give someone a 10-15 point advantage in IQ.

So humanity has became about 20 points smarter in IQ since they started the IQ tests thanks to thier improved genetical makeup? Upbringing and study methods have a major influence on IQ.


STFS made an interesting point about the relative intelligence of Jews and how their academic performance must be genetically related. Oddly enough a year or so ago a highly controversial and fascinating article was published in New York magazine titled "The Jewish Brain" (Larry David's prominent balding cranium was featured on the cover) dealt with this exact subject.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/culture/features/1478/

As with blacks and athletics it's a bit much to insist that every Ashkenazi Jewish scholar, scientist or mathematician of note was a success due to boundless ambition, an unequalled work ethic or an ideal family atmosphere. Jews account for a mere 0.25 percent of the world population and 3 percent of the US population and yet they account for 27 percent of all American Nobel Prize winners, 25 percent of all ACM Turing Award winners for computer science and 50 percent of the world's chess champions. It really is a bit much to think that environment is the main factor at work here.

I'll give you that the American Jews can very well be more intelligent than the average American, although I suspect that the most influencal thing happened a bit more than 70 years ago. If you export the social elite and exclude the rest, you're going to have disprotional numbers for some generations afterwards, both to genetical factors and environmental).

Point is that blacks, whites, southeast asians are very large groups and unless you can find signs that they have had genetical tendencies to breed more intelligent people then you don't really have a genetical argument.


Arguing over the definition of race or ethnicity and attempting to intellectualize those terms to some unwieldy abstraction smacks of subconscious fuelled fear. Why aren't we seeing these same sort of arguments taking place in professional sports? How do we define fast? How does one accurately measure testosterone levels? What are the criteria for determining short or long muscle strands? Etc., etc. The crux of the problem is that intelligence is a sore spot with most people and is a topic few people discuss as openly as physicality.

I like the separation of wisdom and intelligence by the D&D game system so I'll push on that. To make an example I red about a while ago:

It was student who was considered very good by the teacher that had gotten an assignment on writing about some subject (don't remember) and he wrote an exellent article about it. It was only one flaw, it was an exact copy of a newpaper article, so he failed the assignmet due to cheating. This angered the student very much as he hadn't cheated in his opinion, he had memorized the article word by word... Is he intelligent or not? I would say no and yet I know that his skill would show great intelligence in plenty of subjects.


The idea that everyone has the same genetic potential as everyone else flies in the face of the laws of nature (if it were the case then we'd be a species of monozygote siblings or clones) so why shouldn't it apply to groups that have a higher percentage of shared genes than others? The idea that intelligence can be considered a distinct and seperate category from any other physical trait is in itself a feat of fear fuelled egotism.

You're mixing induviduals and major population groups again, the induviduals varies, but you'll need more concrete evidence of why they should be a genetical difference when it's known that the environmental factors have considerble influence.


Oh to have a time machine to play with! I firmly believe that a day will come where every aspect of the human animal is going to laid bare, dissected and categorized to the extreme. I wonder what kind of chuckles future generations are going to have when they look back at our ego fueled delusions about our own species.

You mean the age when your fate was chosen before you was born? Lets hope that there isn't a lack of sevage workers at the time of you conception --> birth, not that you care, you'll do an exellent job on it and like your work as well. Charming days


My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?
Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Essays on Mind and Matter"

[AntiochusIII]

The Big Question is, where are we going with this?

Oh right there's genetic variation between groups. Everyone agrees, group-hug et cetera. However, "races" is just a particularly expressive term denoting to differences in melanin, caused by, you guessed it, genetics.

In other words, it is entirely an artificial creation that marks a genetic difference not that much more important than any other gene differences, except maybe if you go on the evolutionary psychology trip and argues a case where humans like to segregate based on something visible, i.e. because skin tone is a very visible phenotype it is slightly more important than genotypes that don't get a chance to be expressed. That would probably explain key genetic differences between groups but even then I'm not particularly sure of the validity of the argument.

The appearance of a stonewalling aversion from us liberals to the point that Louis raised (controversially ~;) ) is mostly due to what conclusion people suspect this will lead to. We all know what that means: "Oh right, whites are smarter/stupider/stronger/weaker/hotter than blacks, let's segregate and make our educations different." Also, Papewaio points out that the recognition of this "fact" is essentially irrelevant from an everyday viewpoint especially since variation between individuals are much greater than variations between the artificial groups -- if one focuses on that skin tone one's completely missing the point.

[CrossLOPER]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfmrJwRLL0s

"Please do not show me that at this point in time."

[IrishArmenian]

It is not a matter of race, but of environment. Many blacks in America and Europe grow up in poorer areas where schools are wretched and there are very few ways to upgrade one's living conditions. However, many whites live in areas with significantly better schools and environments in which the 1 in 1.000.000 chance fo becoming a professional athlete or turning to crime are not the two ways to improve one's situation.

Wow, it feels good to be back in the backroom.

[Spino]

[QUOTE=IrishArmenian]It is not a matter of race, but of environment. Many blacks in America and Europe grow up in poorer areas where schools are wretched and there are very few ways to upgrade one's living conditions. However, many whites live in areas with significantly better schools and environments in which the 1 in 1.000.000 chance fo becoming a professional athlete or turning to crime are not the two ways to improve one's situation./QUOTE]

This does nothing to explain how Hispanics of say, Mexican ancestry (a group that suffers many of the same ills you mentioned) move into those same poor neighborhoods with lousy environments and schools and yet still manage to do better than blacks. Nor does it explain how east and southeast asian immigrants, many of whom arrive in America unable to speak English, also move into rough or not-so-spectacular neighborhoods and in the span of one generation manage to wind up doing better than everyone else while ranking last in crime, illegitimacy, drug & alcohol abuse, etc.

Sunset Park is the neighborhood next to mine. It was until about 10-15 years ago, predominantly Afro-Hispanic (Puerto Rican & Dominican) and always more 'criminally exciting' than my own. Around 1993 or so I noticed more and more Chinese faces getting on the train at the Sunset Park stops (59th St, 53rd & 45th Streets). The overwhelming majority of those immigrants were clearly in the low income tax bracket, you could tell just by looking at their discount shop clothing. About 5 years later it became painfully easy to identify which sections of Sunset Park were Chinese and which were Puerto Rican and Dominican. The Chinese areas sport less graffiti, less trash on the streets, better kept properties and virtually none of their kids loiter about after dark. The most glaring difference is the number of new and successful businesses one finds in the Chinese section. Pretty damn good for people who came to the States with next to nothing and a had to overcome a huge language barrier.

[Kuni]

well, Spino, differences in culture can explain all of that. in fact, cultural anthropologists were the group of scientists that disagreed most to the statement "There are biological races in the species Homo sapiens." in a survey conducted in 1985 (more than 20 years ago, people.)

east asian excellence in maths can probably explained in the way business and enterpreneurship is emphasized in their culture as the path to success. They are comfortable with numbers because early in life they are taught that it is integral to business.

[Spino]

well, Spino, culture can explain that.

This reminds me of the chicken or egg argument. Culture is a by-product of humanity, not the other way around. One could argue that cultures which inculcate a sense of responsibility and encourage and strong work and study ethic in people are themselves the by-product of intelligence affecting genes which help create a more effective survival strategy. This is not to say that intelligent ethnic groups will always create effective, adaptable cultures but it is to say that they're more likely to create cultures that are conducive to survival than ethnic groups of comparatively lower intelligence.

[Kuni]

I don't think culture can be dictated by such small differences in genes among peoples.

it's interesting that you tie culture to survival, in that somehow culture can dictate survival. I disagree.

[Adrian II]

If skin colour, bone structure, muscle tissue or susceptibility to certain physical and mental afflictions aren´t spread evenly across the races, why would intelligence, of all the human faculties, be spread equally?

Differences in (average) intelligence between races and culturally homogenous groups have been demonstrated ad nauseam, it is no use denying them. However, we are mostly unwilling to acknowledge such facts because we fear the consequences of our acknowledgment, particularly its abuse in the political arena.

Most people don't understand the law of averages. The fact that one group scores lower on intelligence than others does not preclude a particular member of that group being the most intelligent person in the world.

Anyway, I wouldn't want to live in a world that judges people by their intelligence only, and not by moral faculties (such as honesty or courage) and aesthetic faculties (creativity) as well. Better still, I wouldn' t want to live in a world that judges people solely by the group they come from, on any ground whatsoever.

[Tribesman]

Better still, I wouldn' t want to live in a world that judges people solely by the group they come from, on any ground whatsoever.
Have you considered moving to another world ?

[Adrian II]

Have you considered moving to another world ?Frequently, until I learned that whole groups of people are considering the same move. Kinda killed the fun.

Seriously, there are enough people around with non-tribal attitudes to make my life bearable. My universe isn't all black like yours...

*desperately trying to stir up controversy*

[Fragony]

Seriously, there are enough people around with non-tribal attitudes to make my life bearable. My universe isn't all black like yours...

*desperately trying to stir up controversy*

There goes, these white stars make that black sky so much, much prettier.

[Adrian II]

There goes, these white stars make that black sky so much, much prettier.Are you waxing poetical on me, my friend on yonder Watergate? :beam:

[Fragony]

Are you waxing poetical on me, my friend on yonder Watergate? :beam:

If so I would have chosen Wilfred's Owen's 'Futility'. But go ahead rub me right there ~:flirt:

[Ser Clegane]

Anyway, I wouldn't want to live in a world that judges people by their intelligence only, and not by moral faculties (such as honesty or courage) and aesthetic faculties (creativity) as well. Better still, I wouldn' t want to live in a world that judges people solely by the group they come from, on any ground whatsoever.

Hear, hear

[Rodion Romanovich]

Hm... a test form chosen by whites, shows that whites are smarter than blacks, and some whites think that is conclusive proof that they're smarter than blacks... I wonder who is most stupid? :stupido:

[Kuni]

If skin colour, bone structure, muscle tissue or susceptibility to certain physical and mental afflictions aren´t spread evenly across the races, why would intelligence, of all the human faculties, be spread equally?The problem here is that race is just a cultural construct - pointing out and explaining the differences among races, because it is merely a cultural construct (not biological etc), is meaningless. moot.

To illustrate: Suppose we divide all english nursery rhymes into three groups, based on how much the letter e appears in them. Even if we do establish that one group is better in artistic merit, and another in moral/social merit, it is meaningless, as the division is arbitrary.

[Adrian II]

Hm... a type of test made by whites, shows that whites are smarter than blacks, and some whites think that is conclusive proof that they're smarter than blacks... I wonder who is most stupid? :stupido:You should really read up on the topic. Tests 'made by whites' consistently show that Asians are smartest. How could that be if the tests were self-serving? Intelligence tests have been corrected, refined and balanced for all sorts of factors that you couldn't even dream of (unless you are an accomplished statistician). The days of Whitey devising tests that illustrate his own superiority are long gone. There are Chinese IQ tests, African IQ tests...

Read The Bell Curve by Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray, a comprehensive 1994 overview of the issue (and vilified the world over by critics and reviewers who never took the trouble to read it).

The book discusses some of the consequences of the uneven spread of intelligence, defined as the capacity to perform logic-symbolic operetions. In a post-industrial economy that relies heavily on such operations, intelligence becomes a new and eventually dominant source of social stratification. The authors maintain that this explains many transitions that took place in post-war American society. They also state that intelligence correlates highly with meaningful social success (after duly factoring out all obvious bias).

[Adrian II]

The problem here is that race is just a cultural construct - pointing out and explaining the differences among races, because it is merely a cultural construct (not biological etc), is meaningless. moot.By definition social constructs are never meaningless, they convey and attribute meaning. Berger and Luckmann's 1966 classic The Social Construction of Reality even states that all facts are social constructs so reality as a whole is socially constructed. Discuss. But do not dismiss easily.

[IrishArmenian]

[quote=IrishArmenian]It is not a matter of race, but of environment. Many blacks in America and Europe grow up in poorer areas where schools are wretched and there are very few ways to upgrade one's living conditions. However, many whites live in areas with significantly better schools and environments in which the 1 in 1.000.000 chance fo becoming a professional athlete or turning to crime are not the two ways to improve one's situation./QUOTE]

This does nothing to explain how Hispanics of say, Mexican ancestry (a group that suffers many of the same ills you mentioned) move into those same poor neighborhoods with lousy environments and schools and yet still manage to do better than blacks. Nor does it explain how east and southeast asian immigrants, many of whom arrive in America unable to speak English, also move into rough or not-so-spectacular neighborhoods and in the span of one generation manage to wind up doing better than everyone else while ranking last in crime, illegitimacy, drug & alcohol abuse, etc.

Sunset Park is the neighborhood next to mine. It was until about 10-15 years ago, predominantly Afro-Hispanic (Puerto Rican & Dominican) and always more 'criminally exciting' than my own. Around 1993 or so I noticed more and more Chinese faces getting on the train at the Sunset Park stops (59th St, 53rd & 45th Streets). The overwhelming majority of those immigrants were clearly in the low income tax bracket, you could tell just by looking at their discount shop clothing. About 5 years later it became painfully easy to identify which sections of Sunset Park were Chinese and which were Puerto Rican and Dominican. The Chinese areas sport less graffiti, less trash on the streets, better kept properties and virtually none of their kids loiter about after dark. The most glaring difference is the number of new and successful businesses one finds in the Chinese section. Pretty damn good for people who came to the States with next to nothing and a had to overcome a huge language barrier.

At that point it is a culture issue. It seems many in the African American culture do not stress education as much as others, which is a crime! Education is the way to not just a way of life, but also a greater understanding which is one of the greatest assets one can have.
Education is not intelligence, but to get an education is an intelligent choice and a move in the right direction.

[Papewaio]

There goes, these white stars make that black sky so much, much prettier.

Stars are blackbodies ~:)

[econ21]

Differences in (average) intelligence between races and culturally homogenous groups have been demonstrated ad nauseam...

At first I read you as saying there were differences in intelligence between races even when they were of the same culture. That would have been interesting given Kuni's response to Spino.

But then I re-read it and it seems you are just saying IQ differs between races and between cultures, which is less interesting. The point at issue here is not whether IQ differs between groups, it is whether it differs because of genetic factors (like skin pigment differs) or because it differs because of environmental factors. I don't think anyone is denying that, for example, blacks in the US tend to score lower on IQ tests than Chinese in the US. As you say, there have been many tests that show such results. But then I don't think anyone is arguing that Black US "culture" and Chinese US "culture" are the same either.

One thought experiment is how you would expect a white baby to grow up if swapped at birth with one of another race - a sort of "Trading Places" scenario. Personally, my money is on the environment - not the genes - playing the dominant role between racial groups (even if the reverse is the true between individuals).

I conducted IQ tests in different primary schools in Kenya and the variation between (African) schools was enormous. The (rich) private school urban kids were hotshots, the (dirt poor) pastoralist Masai were lagging horribly. But I am pretty sure that was largely due to differences in family background and schooling, not genes. (I don't buy the argument that IQ is unrelated to schooling - it seems manifestly absurd, when the act of sitting down for 45 minutes and concentrating on a mental test is exactly what schooling trains you to do). Ditto racial differences in IQ.

Ashkenazi Jews and the people of the Chinese disapora may have smarter genes than whites. But it is not proven. And in the absence of hard scientific evidence of this, I think it is more plausible to ascribe it their cultural backgrounds where there are credible stories you can tell. who are not in Israel or China - which suggests race is not the driver.]


If skin colour, bone structure, muscle tissue or susceptibility to certain physical and mental afflictions aren´t spread evenly across the races, why would intelligence, of all the human faculties, be spread equally?

Yes, indeed, if red heads and blondes can differ in hair colour, why would they have equal intelligence? :wall:

The point is that racial groups are massive, heteorgenous entities defined by rather superficial and vague differences. There is little reason to expect those arbitrary differences to be associated with significant genetically determined differences in average IQ. It does not follow that just because one population group is at greater risk of sickle cell aenemia, it will have a different average IQ. Most of the genetic differences between races identified so far are pretty esoteric and minor - for example, a recent study separate whites, black and East Asian by two markers, one of which was genetic intolerance to milk (found in many Chinese) - the other was equally trivial (which is why I've forgotten it).

If we take a more general and major human characteristic - body size - that may be more comparable to IQ. I know that the scientific consensus on body size is that you do not need to standardise between ethnic groups. Given the same food intake, white babies, Japanese babies, black babies etc will tend to follow similar growth paths.

[Kuni]

This article (http://www.txtwriter.com/Onscience/Articles/intelligence.html) shows that "the lower a child’s socioeconomic status, the less impact genes had on I.Q." - and this is from a study that used twins.

snippets:
The heritability of I.Q. was different in different environments! The influence of genes on I.Q. was far less in conditions of poverty, where environmental limitations seem to block the expression of genetic potential.
these data argue that the controversial differences reported in mean I.Q scores between racial groups may well reflect no more than poverty

edit: tags

[doc_bean]

If skin colour, bone structure, muscle tissue or susceptibility to certain physical and mental afflictions aren´t spread evenly across the races, why would intelligence, of all the human faculties, be spread equally?


Intelligence is far more complex than most things related to 'physical' traits. We have drugs that make you stronger, faster, have more endurance, build more muscle etc. We don't have any (seriously proven scientific) way to make people smarter. Intelligence is only measurable by how we define the measure, there are tons of different kinds of reasoning. Asking who is the most intelligent is like asking who is the best athlete when comparing sports. Ultimately, it's subjective since different criteria are weighed against eachother.

And let's not forget that mankind often balances on the edge of what (human like) intelligence can be. Many superintelligent people have other (mental) problems. I've spent way too long studying engineering to deny that there seems to be a correlation between intelligence and bad social skills (though there are of course, plenty of socially 'normal' people in those studies too, statistics still apply).

But maybe I'm biased since the smartest person I've ever met was from subsaharan Africa. He sure could rant about the problems with the African mentality.

[Rodion Romanovich]

You should really read up on the topic. Tests 'made by whites' consistently show that Asians are smartest. How could that be if the tests were self-serving? Intelligence tests have been corrected, refined and balanced for all sorts of factors that you couldn't even dream of (unless you are an accomplished statistician). The days of Whitey devising tests that illustrate his own superiority are long gone. There are Chinese IQ tests, African IQ tests...

Whites invented the IQ measure itself, which is very much uncorrelated to practical work performance in terms of intelligence. The IQ measure tests:
1. analysing only very simple models, but never nature-like complex models with >5 factors. A person who excel at seeing patterns in systems with 1 or 2 factors are often very incompetent when it comes to seeing patterns in multi-factor models.
2. ability to find patterns, many of which have a very unnatural form that would probably never occur in a practical setting. Being more concerned with pattern-finding, than with ability to find accurate models of reality, the IQ test can give high scores to people who are very unskilled in real applications of intelligence. In fact, natural models usually follow exponential or linear curves (and a few others), whereas IQ test patterns can involve a square divided into 9 parts with several snapshots, showing a flower rotating counterclockwise and a bug rotating clockwise between subsequent snapshots of it, in a "what comes next" type of problem. Another type of pattern is when you show a set of figures in a row in a "what comes next" problem, but the pattern isn't numerical, but a matter of seeing a pattern in the characters used to make up the numbers: a pattern that is very uncommon in real applications, and is the last thing a skilled mathematician would look for, in being presented to the test.
3. the test score becomes lower if you don't know certain words or other knowledge used in the tests. This was an issue in older tests. Now, this has been "solved" by removing most of these questions, and replacing them almost entirely with numbers and figures.
4. many of the test questions ignore the fact that there are multiple valid choices, due to lacking knowledge of the test constructor. One test I had the doubtful pleasure of doing, showed the following question:
"Which item does not belong? a. orange, b. lemon, c. tomato, d. banana"
If you answered d, banana, you scored, because the banana wasn't round.
If you answered c, tomato, because the others are fruits and tomatoes vegetables, you didn't score.
If you answered c, tomato, because a tomato has a warm color while the others have cold colors, you didn't score.
If you answered b, lemon, because the lemon tastes sour while the others have high enough pH value to be considered non-sour when eaten, you didn't score.
If you answered a, orange, because the others have primitive colors whereas an orange is orange which is a mix of red and yellow, you didn't score
etc. etc.
5. if you make a few IQ tests, you will learn which types of patterns are always included in IQ tests, such as rotations and translations in visual "what comes next" problems, etc. etc. On average, people were demonstrated to be able to increase their IQ by at least 15 points by practising IQ tests!

That Asians happened to score better was an unlucky side effect for the whites who created them, discovered after the tests were made. The tests were formed with the subconscious desire to show that all less industrialized persons or countries had inferior scores. Therefore, a simple meaningless and unrealistic pattern finding present in elementary schools of industrialized countries was chosen to be the basis for the test.



The book discusses some of the consequences of the uneven spread of intelligence, defined as the capacity to perform logic-symbolic operetions.

A quite odd definition of intelligence in my humble opinion.



In a post-industrial economy that relies heavily on such operations,
The operations performed in a post-industrial economy are very different from those tested in an IQ test.

Oh and just so you don't think I'm critical to IQ tests because I didn't score well: I scored 155 when I was 9 years old, and full marks in a Mensa test 2 years ago. However, I consider these test results lesser indications of intellectual abilities, than my ability to see that the IQ test is completely unrepresentative of intelligence demonstrated in a practical setting.

And as for using grades as a sign of intelligence, that would also "show" that rich people are smarter than whites. However, it is well known that many rich people attend snob schools where you practically buy higher grades.

[Adrian II]

Whites invented the IQ measure itself, which is very much uncorrelated to practical work performance in terms of intelligence.This is untrue. There is a high enough correlation between economic performance and IQ score to suggest that IQ is the main determining factor of economic success in today's society. The tired excuse that IQ merely measures economic success has long been factored out by statisticians. Factor analysis on countless sets of aggregate data bears this out. The authors of The Bell Curve demonstrate this with the utmost scrutiny and precision. They also demonstrate that, roughly speaking, IQ was not a major factor in economic success in the U.S. before WWII and has gradually become the major factor in the post-war era due to the changing nature of work in (post)modern society.

Of course IQ is not the only factor that determines economic success, and modern psychologists will readily agree that its practical application in a work setting requires various other capacities. This is why, for instance, the concept of Emotional Intelligence was developed. An IQ test merely establishes whether a candidate has the goods, not whether he or she will deliver.

Interestingly, the results of highly different genres of tests converge, even those that test highly complex abstract operations on the one hand and those that test simple oculomotor coordination (such as reacting to a light flash or following a moving dot on a screen with a pointer) on the other hand. The same applies to tests that were made compliant with different cultures and their daily learning environments. IQ testing has also opened major venues of neurological research, for instance into the causes and effects of the difference of brain size and composition between males and females, the functional split between hemispheres etcetera.

There really is much more to the issue (and history) of IQ testing than a couple of assumptions about unconscious racism, sexism and other PC excuses.

[doc_bean]

4. many of the test questions ignore the fact that there are multiple valid choices, due to lacking knowledge of the test constructor.

I can usually do this with the mathematical series if they include a too limited set of numbers, the range of options when confronted with a series of three (or even four) numbers to 'model' the series is just immense.

In the end none of it really matters, from a genetic point of view, the amount of your genes (or the same genes in different people) spread to future (long term) generations is what matters.

It's probably not a coincidence that intelligent, successful people often have few kids. They concentrate on making a small, stable 'dynasty'. Whereas poor, or unsuccessful people often have lots of kids so that, statistically speaking, the chances of their genes making it to future generations is higher. The chance of creating a 'lucky' offspring who can also fund his/her own dynasty also increases.

Personally I think intelligence variations in populations is probably due to 'genetic shift', much more than long term racial correlation. The industrial revolution started here, which created a much higher 'niche' for high intelligence people in society (engineers, scientists, economists,...) so those who could fill the gaps became more successful and had relatively more offspring than they would have had in a previous era, so the average intelligence level rose over time. In Asia there has been a strong will to move society forward towards western standards, this created/creates a huge demand for intelligent people and so they became highly successful.
Now look at black Africa, tribal warfare has been going on for millennia, the area is hugely unstable, which is an environment where physical strength is preferred to intelligence (they never really developed much tactical or strategical warfare afaik, probably due to the terrain, climate and the lack of useful animals for warfare). This hasn't really changed in the last century or so. Colonization was mostly the white man doing all the thinking and the black man doing all the work. Slavery was similar, being a smart slave is probably not always a good thing. There has until about 40 years ago been only a tiny niche for intelligent black people. We're now only in the second or third generation where intelligence is actually becoming a highly valued asset for them. There's already an obvious brain drain going on from Africa to the US and Europe, where these intelligent people believe they can be more successful, and probably will be. A lot of highly talented musicians and composers (classical and modern) are already black. In academic circles it will take somewhat longer probably, since you don't often get a professorship before you're 30 or 40, and academics tend to have kids very late. In society at large it's also a somewhat slow process due to the 'white aristocracy' and racial bias by employers.

So a difference in average intelligence is explainable, not because of genetic superiority, but merely because of a genetic shift due to the changing circumstances. We'll see in about a century how big the differences still are. A difference in the average level of intelligence means little to nothing (if you're going to be so crude as to use a gaussian approximation at least have the decency to include the variance).

[Rodion Romanovich]

@Adrian: And what is your response to the problems with IQ tests I described above? Surely a measure that is so easy to cheat can't be a very good measure of intellectual capabilities? If you measure intelligence within a western society, the blacks usually have a disadvantage because they're poorer on average than the whites, and therefore have less chances of proper education (have you ever visited a ghetto school and a rich man's school and compared the differences in their education?). If you measure it Europe+America vs Africa, Africa (blacks) have less industrialization and therefore again an unfair disadvantage in possibilities for education.

[Adrian II]

@Adrian: And what is your response to the problems with IQ tests I described above? Surely a measure that is so easy to cheat can't be a very good measure of intellectual capabilities?The word 'cheat' betrays your mind-set.

You probably know that different sorts of IQ tests have a different 'g-load', i.e. a different balance between pure intelligence and capacities that can be taught through training such as specific skills. The more knowledge and memory are assumed, the more susceptible the test will become to the effects of training. IQ tests geared toward the prediction of scholastic achievement for instance will have a lower g-load because they are intended to predict future achievement on a concrete set of skills in a concrete setting. Such scholastic aptitude tests predict whether people are susceptible to training. Hardly surprising if it turns out that they are...
If you measure intelligence within a western society, the blacks usually have a disadvantage because they're poorer on average than the whites, and therefore have less chances of proper education (have you ever visited a ghetto school and a rich man's school and compared the differences in their education?). If you measure it Europe+America vs Africa, Africa (blacks) have less industrialization and therefore again an unfair disadvantage in possibilities for education.Once again, IQ tests measure IQ, not 'advantages' and 'disadvantages'. All sorts of outcomes can not be explained by poverty, industrialization or any other deus ex machina.

A simple example would be the diverging average score of blacks and whites on 'forward digit span' and 'backward digit span' exercises.

In the digits forward exercise the subject is asked to repeat a random sequence of one-digit numbers given by the examiner, starting with two digits and ending when the subject has completely lost track. The digits backward exercise works the same way, only the digits must be repeated in the invrse order.

It appears that whites are on average a little better than blacks on digits forward, but a lot better on digits backward. And this in the same black and white subjects, in the same test session, with the same examiner, etcetera. This difference can not be explained by cultural background, industrialization, parenting, poverty or any other social factor. There is no conceivable reason why black culture or history would hold blacks back from using their 'full digits backward potential', is there?

Of course you can argue that all measured differences in IQ are irrelevant, meaningless, etcetera. To a scientist they are not, or at least they shouldn't be.

[Rodion Romanovich]

You probably know that different sorts of IQ tests have a different 'g-load', i.e. a different balance between pure intelligence and capacities that can be taught through training such as specific skills. The more knowledge and memory are assumed, the more susceptible the test will become to the effects of training. IQ tests geared toward the prediction of scholastic achievement for instance will have a lower g-load because they are intended to predict future achievement on a concrete set of skills in a concrete setting. Such scholastic aptitude tests predict whether people are susceptible to training. Hardly surprising if it turns out that they are... Once again, IQ tests measure IQ, not 'advantages' and 'disadvantages'. All sorts of outcomes can not be explained by poverty, industrialization or any other deus ex machina.

Would you care to give an example of an IQ test you consider fair, so we can analyze it together?



And this in the same black and white subjects, in the same test session, with the same examiner, etcetera. This difference can not be explained by cultural background, industrialization, parenting, poverty or any other social factor.

Why not? If the black and white persons are sampled in an unbiased manner from a country population, the black subjects will on average have a background of more poverty and less education chances. An unbiased sample from a population biased on a variable causally connected or correlated to what is to be measured in the statistical test, will give a biased end result.


Of course you can argue that all measured differences in IQ are irrelevant, meaningless, etcetera. To a scientist they are not, or at least they shouldn't be.
To try to measure intelligence in an exact manner, resulting in a single numerical figure, is just as ridiculous as it would be to try to measure morality on a scale from 1 to 10 with two decimals.

[doc_bean]

digits backward

Isn't that ridiculously easy to train for ? Like basic math operations, everyone should be able to do them easily given sufficient practice, I'd think.

[Adrian II]

If the black and white persons are sampled in an unbiased manner from a country population, the black subjects will on average have a background of more poverty and less education chances.Controlling for such variables is standard these days. And the ability to do 'digits backward' does not vary with education in either black, white or Asian samples. That is precisely the point.

The real bias is in one's unwillingness to acknowledge such facts. Echo-ing Spino, I fail to see what the big deal is or why the subject always had to be discussed in conspiratorial terms.
To try to measure intelligence in an exact manner, resulting in a single numerical figure, is just as ridiculous as it would be to try to measure morality on a scale from 1 to 10 with two decimals.Intelligence and morality are totally different categories and their equation in this sense is indeed useless. As to their relative importance, I refer to my remarks about not wanting to live in an IQ-based meritocracy in post #69.

Interestingly though, we do take man's moral measure every day in the courtrooms of this world. And criminologists, victimologists and epidemiologists infer the most interesting and detailed knowledge from the aggregate data, decimals and all.

[Spino]

Isn't that ridiculously easy to train for ? Like basic math operations, everyone should be able to do them easily given sufficient practice, I'd think.

Yes but it you give one group the training and mental tricks required to perform such an action more efficiently you also need to give it to the other groups in order to test them properly. In the end you'll probably wind up with the same performance gap. As with world class athletes they all pretty much use the same training techniques and follow the same strict diets and regimens. Given relative parity in these areas the end result always seems to be the same. Once in awhile an athlete of non sub-Saharan African ancestry manages to crack the top tier in speed & strength sports but it is so rare that it truly is the exception. Why should we refrain from testing intellectual endeavors in the same way we do athletic ones? If ethnicity or race is an artificial construct why is it that sub-Saharan Africans or those partially of that ancestry, as a group, seem to possess the best physical characteristics for speed & strength sports? We've already identified them as a distinct group by nature of their appearance, skin tones & hair, wouldn't the preponderance of short muscle fibers, testosterone levels, temperment, predisposition to certain diseases and afflictions, etc., further establish them as a distinct ethnic group?

Basically I don't buy into the 'ethnicity/race as an artificial construct' argument, mainly because it smacks of intellectualized denial. Using that same logic you could also say there's no such thing as German Shepards, Beagles, Poodles, Rottweilers, etc. True, all those breeds I mentioned belong to the same species, share the same number of chromosomes and can readily interbreed with one another. But despite the fact that they're all canines each breed differs from one another not only in terms of their appearance but also by intelligence, behavioral traits, temperment, predisposition to certain ailment & diseases, etc. If you really wanted to stretch it we could say there are no fundamental differences between carbon based life on this planet because we're all made of the same organic stuff and share the same DNA. Why bother having biologists classify anything at all?

As I stated earlier, fear and human ego in our age has transformed intelligence and the human brain (in general, but especially as applied ethnicity, race or heck, phenotypes) into some unmentionable topic or the last bastion of indecipherable mystery and divine territory. It reminds me of the late Pope Jon Paul II and his appeal to Stephen Hawking to not investigate the Big Bang any further because that was 'the realm of god' or some such thing. Did the Pope feel compelled to appeal to Hawking because he felt he accurately represented will and desires of the creator or was he subconsciously fearful that modern science would finally and completely push creationism into the realm of absurdity, further undermining the grasp of Christianity on the modern world?

I'll grant the naysayers here that the human brain is truly complex and 'intelligence' hard to accurately test, especially as applied to ethnic or racial lines. However we're still dealing with an organ, the brain, which is comprised of the same organic material the rest of the body is made of. We're also dealing with our species which is governed by the same laws of nature that apply to all life on this planet. Modern day IQ testing may be in its infancy but the methodology that has gone into the creation of these tests is not meant to support any given ideology but is done in the spirit of curiousity and scientific research. Some people may not like where humanity may or may not take this research but should that negate the effort? Should we really attempt to railroad this kind of research because we don't like the uncertainty factor that accompanies it? Does it really matter what we think anyway? Throughout its history the human animal has consistently demonstrated a penchance for the invention and utilization of new tools which it deems to be conducive to its survival, regardless of their controversial nature. Should future generations in the near or far flung future deem eugenics programs, genetic based caste systems, or any relevant invention to be necessary to the running of their societies then that's their perogative. As the Bible and many other religious tomes and mythological tales tell us, knowledge comes with steep cost. Think how foolish it would be if you were able to build a time machine and go back in time to stop the invention of gunpowder, the splitting of the atom or the discovery of DNA? In the end our ideologies and beliefs, however popular or fervent, will probably have zero effect on what happens in the future. Those things change but basic human instinct does not. If future generations use this field of science and its technological by-products to dramatically change society then there's nothing we really can do about it. Welcome to natural selection.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Controlling for such variables is standard these days.

I doubt they can ever be controlled fully, because of the complexity of measuring on human beings or human populations. What could we expect to be causally tied to IQ? Probably two things:
1. genetical ability to learn to improve your capabilities at solving IQ test like problems, and do such tests
2. to what degree your environment has stimulated your abilities to learn to solve, and solve, such problems

You can never control for variable no. 2, but only for various variables that it is your hypothesis will be causally related to, or correlated to, no. 2. Since you can't know to what degree they're causally tied to or correlated to no. 2, you can never control the study for bias in variable no. 2. You don't have any material to measure these correlations, since you don't know what is genetical and what isn't beforehand: that is the very thing you're trying to find out in the study! Thus you can never prove that you have avoided bias.

Surprisingly many studies fail to realize this fact, and many come with obvious known biases, others come with latent biases that are never found because the real biasing factors in the study are unknown.

Proving whether something is genetical or environmental is an almost impossible statistical problem. Unless you have non-statistical arguments for why a certain trait is genetical, or can demonstrate that humans have a non-beneficial trait that chimps don't have or can present similar arguments, you have very little support that it isn't culturally carried no matter how carefully you have worked according to the rules of statistics. Blacks and whites still have different culture and environment both in multicultural and integrated societies. You can never rule out the possibility that it is cultures, and not genes, that cause a particular observed difference. No statistical anti-biasing techniques at all can guarantee the result will be free of bias.



And the ability to do 'digits backward' does not vary with education in either black, white or Asian samples. That is precisely the point.

For above mentioned reasons I doubt any statistical study has the ability to demonstrate that this would be genetical. If, for some reason, it was found that there would be a genetical difference and this could be proven beyond all doubts (a highly doubtful assumption, of course), then I would accept that it is true - I'm not someone who denies politically incorrect truths because they're politically incorrect (as lying is seldom a good long-term way of solving any discrimination problems that may arise, there are better ways of ensuring discrimination is avoided, for example by pointing out the many aspects in which blacks are more skilled than whites according to similarly doubtful statistical methodology).



Interestingly though, we do take man's moral measure every day in the courtrooms of this world. And criminologists, victimologists and epidemiologists infer the most interesting and detailed knowledge from the aggregate data, decimals and all.

I'm surprised that you fail to see the absurdity in measuring intelligence and morality on a single-dimensioned scale. There are so many vices and virtues within each concept, that a single measure is perverse. Even within the narrow field of IQ, which is a quite unrepresentative way of measuring intelligent capabilities, you can find different scales: ability to handle the visual puzzles, ability to handle the numerical puzzles, ability to handle the "which doesn't belong" problems, etc. A high-scoring IQ test subject may be worse than a low-scoring IQ test subject at numerical puzzles, but better in the other aspects, for example. A low-scoring IQ test subject may be able to solve all the problems, but he is slower than a faster-working but incredibly careless unskilled problem solver, and thus scores lower, etc. The IQ tests also completely ignore the motivations behind a choice. This is especially troublesome in cases such as the one I mentioned above, with the question where all answers should really have been correct, but only one resulted in scoring.

In both intelligent capabilities, and in morality, it's easy to point out what is a virtue and what is a vice. But comparing vices with other vices, and virtues with other virtues, is ridiculous unless you have a logical motivation for the measure. Such a measure is highly application-specific, and driven by tastes, not by any pure objectivity. In law, moral weighing is done after the severity of the crime to survival and peace of innocent civilians: an application-specific measure, but also affected by tastes and guesswork on behalf of those who form the system. Law doesn't weigh in every vice and virtue, but only those that are known and suspected to be related to a particular crime.

I can only imagine how a "morality test" made in the same way IQ tests are made would look...

[Adrian II]

I'm surprised that you fail to see the absurdity in measuring intelligence and morality on a single-dimensioned scale.I am surprised you don't read what I posted, for instance:


Intelligence and morality are totally different categories and their equation in this sense is indeed useless. As to their relative importance, I refer to my remarks about not wanting to live in an IQ-based meritocracy in post #69.
@Spino, good post about evolution. :bow:

[doc_bean]

Basically I don't buy into the 'ethnicity/race as an artificial construct' argument,

At the very least it's hard to clearly define what makes a race different, and when we can actually talk about different races. I'm not denying that Africans are different from Europeans in more than skin colour. Hell, I'm not even doubting the intelligence tests (well, offering scrutiny, yes), I'm saying we should be careful with interpretation.



mainly because it smacks of intellectualized denial.

Depends on what you mean by denial. Like I said before, all that has real been discussed here is averages (of a sample, interpolated according to a certain model), which don't tell everything, and possibly all that much. Survival of a species is, on a genetic level, much more dependent on the variance, or range of difference in genetic make up that translates in difference in traits, than averages. It isn't proven that a black person can not achieve the same level of intelligence as any white person, in fact most people would think such a thing would be ridiculous, since there always are exceptions. But it's these exceptions that matter as much as the average. Take sickle cell aemenia (sp?), it's a mutation which isn't standard in humans, and probably started in just one or very few people (who developed the condition independently then) but because it gives a clear advantage it has rapidly spread throughout the African population. It didn't matter that the average African didn't have the mutation, it matter that a few had it, 'evolution' takes care of the rest.
So talking about races and averages is, frankly, ridiculous. prove to me that the entire bell curve is shifted compared to another race and then I might start paying attention. Averages of a Bell curve is what people use who don't understand statistics (unfortunately, too many scientists fall into this category).

The reason there is 'denial' is often because a serious interpretation of data is often discarded by 'the people'. When you talk about average intelligence difference you get people thinking all black people are dumber than all white people, or nearly that. Which is just stupid. But then some employer will be less likely to hire a black person because he thinks he won't be smart enough. It's silly that there has to be denial, but the fact is that the average joe isn't too aware of the principles of statistics and their interpretation of studies like this is often just plain wrong.

[Rodion Romanovich]

I am surprised you don't read what I posted, for instance:


Intelligence and morality are totally different categories and their equation in this sense is indeed useless. As to their relative importance, I refer to my remarks about not wanting to live in an IQ-based meritocracy in post #69.

Your quote from your own post is not a response to the text you quoted from my post. I pointed out the absurdity of measuring intelligence on a single scale, and the absurdity of measuring morality on a single scale. Your response only addresses the issue of comparing intelligence and morality, a question which I didn't ask.

Do you or do you not agree that it is absurd to measure intelligence as a single number? And do you or do you not agree that it is impossible to determine with statistics alone whether a certain ability is genetical or environmentally caused (which implies any comparison of measures of intelligence between races is a pretty pointless search for controversy rather than search for any scientifically useful material)?

[Adrian II]

Your response only addresses the issue of comparing intelligence and morality, a question which I didn't ask.Okay, let me rinse and repeat my statements to make myself clear.

I said: measuring morality in the same way as IQ would be useless. Morality and IQ are different faculties. Morality involves capacities like judgment, empathy and courage, the measure of which is to a large extent subjective.

You can compare this to the difference between running and dancing. We can measure someone's capacity to run pretty precisely. But we can not measure whether a person is a good dancer, because 'good dancing' involves aesthetic judgment.

I also said: we do, however, try to measure all things criminal. Crime is one aspect of morality. Crime does not equal morality, I know that. But I find it interesting that we attempt to quantify and measure what sorts of (im)moral behaviour people are capable of.


And fo course you are right that statistics alone can not tell us to what extent a faculty is innate or environmentally determined. What it does tell us, however, is that many of the environmental determinants you mentioned (poverty, industrialization) don't explain IQ outcomes.

[Rodion Romanovich]

And by this, you mean you consider that you think it's sensible to measure intelligence with IQ?

[Papewaio]

Do you or do you not agree that it is absurd to measure intelligence as a single number?

More kinds of measurements are a good thing, it doesn't however invalidate the test itself. Compare it with measurements that are used for health. Body fat %, cholesterol (good and bad cholesterol count), BMI, lung capacity etc One thing by itself will only give part of a picture, several will give a clearer one.

But any single one will give a gross statement about the relative health between two individuals. On average a person with a BMI of 23 is going to be more healthy that someone with a BMI of 29 all other things about the individuals being equal. More data will give a more precise picture.

IQ would have to be only part of the equation of someones brain power, things like Musical ability (which can have a synergy with IQ as apparently playing musical instruments will increase ones IQ), different forms of maths (not all maths is equally easy for all mathematicians), artistic ability, empathy etc all are functions of mental ability. So IQ alone is not the sum of ones mental capacity, it is a very narrow part of the human minds spectrum. However it does show very good correlations to the abilities of the person with respect to what it is measuring... high IQ people tend to have similar traits/abilities.

[Rodion Romanovich]

Yes, but I'm opposed to using IQ as a general measure of symbolic and numerical processing capabilities, or as a test of innovativeness, or survival capability in the military, or ability to make money for a company, and any other ways IQ tests are abused. If you want a good test of work capabilities, make an as application specific test as possible! Using IQ to test what you really want to test, is a slippery slope fallacy: "A is weakly correlated to B, B is weakly correlated to C, therefore A => C". To reason in such a way is a huge fallacy and a good source of discrimination. If you show a quite strong correlation between IQ and race, then a quite strong correlation between IQ and capability of performing a particular work, and then end up not employing people of a race that has lower average IQ, you are by definition racistic, since you ignore the individuals that don't follow the pattern of the averages. To discriminate people based on IQ is quite as abusive: IQ is weakly correlated to work capability, so you discriminate a lot of individuals for no other reason than the fact that on average, people who happens to have a similar personality aspect, tend to be slightly worse performing than those who haven't got it.

The IQ test is made even more useless because of the reasons I mentioned in the previous post. For instance you can practise IQ tests themselves, and improve you score by between 15 and 80 points, so you can go from debile to genius on their scale in less than a few hours of practise :dizzy: Yes, IQ test along with several other tests weakly correlated to intellectual abilities can together out of pure probability reasons, give a quite decent picture. But IQ is IMO so unrepresentative of any intelligence people want to test, that it should probably not even be included in such a pool of 10 tests.

AdrianII mentioned in a previous post that:
"You can compare this to the difference between running and dancing. We can measure someone's capacity to run pretty precisely. But we can not measure whether a person is a good dancer, because 'good dancing' involves aesthetic judgment."
A runner's skill is defined unambiguously and exactly as how fast he runs a specific distance. Since we have no exact definition of intelligence, measuring intelligence would be more like judging dancing skills, than testing running skills. Even if we are to accept "ability of symbol processing" as a definition of intelligence, we run into problems with inexactness and subjectivity. What is symbol processing capability? Is it the ability to know what comes next in a very unnatural series of numbers? Or is it the ability to learn how to perform integral calculus? Is it the ability to just learn a pattern, or also the ability to understand it deeply and abstractly, so you can draw complex conclusions?

In my experience, almost all real life problems I come across involve learning patterns and drawing conclusions in very complex systems, whereas the IQ tests only tests the ability to quickly recognize patterns in very small and uncomplicated systems. There are more problems with IQ tests. Many of the "what comes next" problems are easiest solved by in turn testing all systems you know most frequently occur in IQ tests. If you have never seen an IQ test before, and are very intelligent, you are probably likely to be able to think of many more possible patterns to test for than if you're slightly less clever, and it's not certain that you test them in the right order to minimize time consumption, if you don't know from before which patterns IQ test creators are most fond of. Higher intelligence and creativity can thus slow you down: since the tests are timed, you will score lower. The timing of IQ tests has also resulted in another quite funny observation: once you pass the age of 15 years, your IQ starts decreasing, because you get slower. When you're just about passing the age of 15, your slowness can't be explained by aging :laugh4:, but rather by the above-mentioned phenomenon: you have more options to test, because you are more creative, experienced and intelligent. Attempts to correct this effect by multiplying the score by an age-dependent factor fails, because different people increase their amount of known patterns to test to the turning point at different ages. For some people, it may occur at an age of 30, for others, it may occur at 12.

[Don Corleone]

Hey, I'm white and proud, I'm all about the white race being better.

Just doing my part to try to fulfill Louis' original expectations for this thread.

I know I'm coming into this rather late and I apologize for taking my time digesting the 4 pages of commentary already laid out on this topic, but I would like to discuss a sub-argument with Adrian & Spino that went unchallenged when they posed it, that of race being an artificial category (and their conclusion that it's bunk, race is a valid differentiator).

I might possibly buy into this where you have homogenous genetic groupings like parts of Papua New Guinea or Iceland.

But how can you possibly account for the vast gradiation within supposed racial groups? What does it mean to be black in anything but a cultural sense? Or white for that matter? For the longest time, Irish weren't considered white... not because of any arguments based on genetics or origins, but because of their religious preferences.

Race has less than zero meaning to me. I understand that not all who invoke it have nefarious aims, but it has been so misused and abused it has lost any pretext of valid sociological study.

I also would like to touch on Adrian's 'we can dial that out in the grading of standardized tests' assertion. How? How do you account for living in a high crime neighborhood, having to wake up every morning at 5AM so your mom can take you to daycare? For not having your parents read to you?

Let me put it another way... using your terms... Norway is very white. If you took an IQ test on the residents of the worst slums of Bergen (are there any) and you compared the results to a class of schoolchildren from inner city Philadelphia, do you really expect that the results would favor the Bergen welfare kids? Do you have data to support this assertion?

I'm not trying to be confrontational Okay, maybe a little I'm just always surprised that intelligent people continue to revisit this argument.

[Adrian II]

But how can you possibly account for the vast gradiation within supposed racial groups?Genetics has given a new lease of life to the concept, albeit under the label of genetic lineage. Sets of genetic markers can be attributed with great accuracy to people hailing from the five main continents. These markers also correlate highly with subjects' racial self-identification.

As for your other question: intelligent people bother with interesting subjects and differences between people are a major part of what makes this world interesting. Differences between men and women, between young and old, between people from various cultures. The resulting knowledge can be abused, of course, but it can also show us the way forward to a (somewhat) better world. Our knowledge of genetic variety and genepools may even enable us to rescue mankind some day, who knows.

One subject which I think should be explored further is the question in which (manifold) ways culture is genetically determined. Underneath the surface of day-to-day events (history as we have come to call it) there lies a different time-scale called Big History, a theme explored by historians who argue that the proper time-scale for the study of history is the whole of time, nothing less. People like William McNeill (U.S.), David Christian (Australia) and Dutchmen Fred Spier and Johan Goudsblom (the latter did a beautiful book on the uses of fire in human culture).

I am a convert to Big History, which is a viable alternative to sociobiology and social evolutionism which I think are too narrow in scope. Why? Because we humans are animals, sure, but we are also conscious animals. We are a species that becomes aware of evolution as a process and is capable of influencing the process, even overcoming it in the sense that our genetic make-up is not our destiny.

EDIT
Dang, I am trying to be confrontational but I just can't get it right. Backroomers are a much nicer and smarter breed than they are rumoured to be, and I can't bring myself to do a Chuck Norris and give someone a roundhouse kick in the kisser.

Sorry Louis. :shame:

[Don Corleone]

So, basically what you're saying is that I should be seeking to mate exclusively with Asians, as this will increase the likely intelligence of my progeny. I think that's ridiculous (not the mating with cute Asians, the rationale for it). Personally, I believe more heavily in the nurture over nature component of intelligence. That being said, I realize my last line came off as a crack and for that, I apologize. I didn't mean it in that sense. I meant to say that I find the need to find linkages between intelligence or other positive value traits and IMHO rather arbitrary categorizations like race seems fruitless.

One interesting study that would change my nature versus nurture views. Rather than random samples of 'white' and 'black' and 'yellow', has anybody gone through and spent some time carefully controlling and varying the data for any one category? Example, how do the Irish compare to people from Brittany? They're mostly genetically indentical, though they have different cultural upbringings.

Anyway, let's just suppose somebody comes up with a better set of experiments and actually proves that asians are smarter than whites who are smarter than blacks. What do we do with that information? Discourage blacks from higher education and more carefully screen whites, while forcing asians to attend?

[Adrian II]

So, basically what you're saying is that I should be seeking to mate exclusively with Asians, as this will increase the likely intelligence of my progeny.Excuse me?

How can you read a breeding program in my posts? Dems fightin words, buddy. Wanna step outside and see who's right, huh?

God, if this is controversy I suck at it...

[JR-]

we are all different.

the idea that we are all different except where political correctness demands we are the same is lunacy.

how great that difference is as a percentage i have no idea, although i fairly sure it is small when we are talking about ethnic groups.

the greater variance in intelligence is exhibited further down the tree, by individuals rather than groups.

i had read that there had been research that indicated the following -

Intelligence:
good > asian - cauc - black < poor

Physical:
good > black - cauc - asian < poor

but this rather depends on how one defines intelligence and physical ability. given that the research was probably western in origin, it would be framed in terms of what westerners consider to be ideals of intelligence and physical ability.

that however does not change my belief that ethnic groups will mildly vary in their aptitude towards various disciplines regardless of what the PC cretins might believe.

at the end of the day, group ability makes very little difference to the total ability of the individual given that individual variation is at least an order of magnitude greater in effect than any study has ever proven group ability to effect with regards intelligence in particular.

[scooter_the_shooter]

I voted yes, statistically whites do better than blacks on IQ tests and other similar test. Seems like more of a social issue than anything else.

One argument about this that I don't agree with but is interesting to me is, comparing human races to dog breeds. IE some dog breeds are smarter, some are stronger, some are bigger etc. Maybe humans are the same?

[John86]

False...
. If you look at the US, by percentage, many more black children come from broken homes and poverty as compared to "white" households.

The majority of poor in the US are white.

Ive resigned to the fact that culture determines the status of the masses... although I have my doubts from viewing the daily actions of the blacks around me.

Race has exposed to me the fact of how easily culture morphs the masses. The same oddness that the blacks suffer could logically happen to any race if the circumstances are correct. I look down on blacks for this, yet the idea of what culture can do gives me doubts. Ive meet about one or two blacks in my life I respect, when I meet them, I forgot entirely of their skin color. The rest... guilty until proven innocent.

If "intelligence" is defined as school scores, then yes, white (beyond rednecks and the sort) culture is a superior complex for producing better grades.

[Strike For The South]

The majority of poor in the US are white.

Ive resigned to the fact that culture determines the status of the masses... although I have my doubts from viewing the daily actions of the blacks around me.

Sometimes its just mind blowing.

[John86]

Sometimes its just mind blowing.

I watched two blacks beat up a mentally disabled kid once. As you know, blacks have a tendency to say "nigga". Well, the mentally disabled kid obviously didn't know any better, and said the word "nigga." The blacks decided this was offensive, even though their own actions started it. Of course, a situation like this is possible in any race, culture in america simply puts it on the side of the blacks. In my opinion, the word "Nigger" (this will probably get deleted), is a major source of separation. A simple word, no more, has an unjust amount of power. By using the word on this forum, I've probably violated some rules, although it was not used in a harmful manner, hence it should be used as a word, nothing more.

[Strike For The South]

I watched two blacks beat up a mentally disabled kid once. As you know, blacks have a tendency to say "nigga". Well, the mentally disabled kid obviously didn't know any better, and said the word "nigga." The blacks decided this was offensive, even though their own actions started it. Of course, a situation like this is possible in any race, culture in america simply puts it on the side of the blacks. In my opinion, the word "Nigger" (this will probably get deleted), is a major source of separation. A simple word, no more, has an unjust amount of power. By using the word on this forum, I've probably violated some rules, although it was not used in a harmful manner, hence it should be used as a word, nothing more.

That should surprise me but it doesnt. Its all a culture of victimazation. Im so with Chris Rock on this issue. You see them and you just want to grab them and yell at them to get a job and stop comlplaing about there lot in life and how every white person is out to get them but in reality they should know we dont give a rats bottom its only when they cuase they seperation that people take notice

[Kekvit Irae]

It's a strange world we live in.

Blacks can say the N word without repercussions, while whites who say it will be called racists.
Blacks can say they have black pride, but when we say we have white pride, we're racists.
Black History is now a required course in some colleges. Funny, I thought it was supposed to be a part of WORLD history or US history.
They can get college funding by the American Negro College Fund, but where's my American European-Descendants College Fund?
They talk about how slavery is bad and how Europeans and Americans are bad for having ancestors who practice it, yet a vast majority of past cultures in Africa, particularly the Egyptians, practiced slavery long before the development of civilization in Europe.
All men are created equal, yet it just seems that the government gives money to some to make them more equal than others.

I'm not racist, but it seems to me like the world views me as being a racist.
¯\(°¸ó)/¯

[Fragony]

Well the n-word started as an insult, and the blacks 'adopted' it. It is still an insult, underdog thingie. Not really annoyed by blacks complaining about racism and slavery, politically correct white fundamentalists who are too willing to listen to that crap on the other hand.....

[Banquo's Ghost]

Just a word of guidance.

Discussing words that may have racist meanings is allowed as long as the discussion stays neutral and objective. As has been noted, words may have different offense values depending on context and we don't want to stifle discussion.

Nonetheless, this is not an invitation to bandy such words about to test the limits of acceptability, nor to introduce or repeat as many such words as you can think of to provoke reaction.

If you have to use such words, make it very sparing, and check very carefully whether you need to use the word at all - and how you have used it. In Hiji's post above, almost the same meaning could have been conveyed by referring to the "n-word" which whilst not elegant, is understood by most.

The thread is straying into dangerous territory - please be very sure that what you post is respectful of other posters and both the letter and spirit of the forum rules. Not everyone who is reading your post is likely to share your world view or race.

Thank you kindly.

:bow:

[Ironside]

I voted yes, statistically whites do better than blacks on IQ tests and other similar test. Seems like more of a social issue than anything else.

One argument about this that I don't agree with but is interesting to me is, comparing human races to dog breeds. IE some dog breeds are smarter, some are stronger, some are bigger etc. Maybe humans are the same?

It's certainly not impossible to do that with humanity, the question is exactly what made the dirt poor farmer (your average person) in Asia needing more brain power that the poor peasant in Europe, while needing even more brain power compared the sub-Saharan version.

I'm not avare of any massive breeding project running for at least a few centuries.

[Del Arroyo]

I must admit that I have had a rather different experience with blacks than that described by some earlier posters in this thread. I think that it is incorrect to take an impressive experience with one or two bad individuals and generalize it across a group, just as it is incorrect to excuse the bad behavior based on group membership.

I cannot say that I have known personally a large number of black people. The ones I have known I can say that I did sense a certain... distance. This distance is natural between two people who may not completely understand where each other are coming from. One thing I would like to do someday, now that I have travelled and become fairly comfortable with some foreign cultures, is return to the states and get to know black culture from the ground level.

I will say that the negative aspects of cultural division in the United States do worry me. Those who exacerbate these problems should be attacked on an individual basis, if our goal is cooperation and understanding.

On the original topic:
It seems probable to me that there the phenotypical differences between different bloodlines are not limited to those which are superficially observable. As always, though, individual variation far and away trumps these trends.

[Papewaio]

It's certainly not impossible to do that with humanity, the question is exactly what made the dirt poor farmer (your average person) in Asia needing more brain power that the poor peasant in Europe, while needing even more brain power compared the sub-Saharan version.

I'm not avare of any massive breeding project running for at least a few centuries.

Because if you are not living in their country of origin you are quite probably not comparing averages for starters, you are comparing against a cultural subset.

The people who set out for a better life have had to be either some or all of these:
more tenacious,
hard working,
motivated then their compatriots to make enough money to then send their family overseas.

Now some of this might be genes but a lot of it is attitude of the individual and/or family.

You will find first and second generation immigrants are very hard working in comparison with the third and fourth generation.

[John86]

Well the n-word started as an insult, and the blacks 'adopted' it. It is still an insult, underdog thingie. Not really annoyed by blacks complaining about racism and slavery, politically correct white fundamentalists who are too willing to listen to that crap on the other hand.....

Have you lived in America? If so, for how long and where?

[Fragony]

Have you lived in America? If so, for how long and where?

Nope, visited though. But we have the same word here, just spelled differently, and used in the same way by blacks and whites.

[Moros]

Have you lived in America? If so, for how long and where?
It's about wether whites are smarter than blacks not wether Americans would be smarter than Europeans.:egypt:

Anyway, I think most of it is culture and enviroment, really. For example someone mentioned that there were a lot of Jewish scientists and intellectuals, however that has more to do with jewish education than anything else IMO. Jews learn everything the average western kid learns in school plus a few more hours everyday about Jewish subjects (Tora,...). They spend much more time in school when young, which makes them physically not that great, but they have to learn paying attention longer and learn to learn more and at a younger age.

Everybody says Asians are damn smart... Well, asians spend much more time in front of their cpu's and have a really different school enviroment ( a lot more computerized dunno of this is good or bad). And if we look at the results of Koreans (South) and Japanese we see verry good results. Being the number one and two of the world. However if we got to china, India,... we don't see this.
Does this mean Asian are stupid, no. It must mean it ain't genetics.

Blacks aren't stupid either. However they are moree prune to less education. And education gives higher IQ values and helps developping the brains and education will help you solve problems more easily. Why are they physically stronger? That's simple, they tend to sport more, those who still are in Africa are usually hardened as they have a tough life and over there it's still a bit the survival of the fittest.

[AntiochusIII]

Anyway, I think most of it is culture and enviroment, really. For example someone mentioned that there were a lot of Jewish scientists and intellectuals, however that has more to do with jewish education than anything else IMO. Jews learn everything the average western kid learns in school plus a few more hours everyday about Jewish subjects (Tora,...). They spend much more time in school when young, which makes them physically not that great, but they have to learn paying attention longer and learn to learn more and at a younger age.Most of those "Jewish" achievements are done by those in the Diaspora still, so to speak.

Being forced to rote-learn a bit more than Western kids, I'm sure, isn't the secret key to the apparently miraculous Jewish success stories.

Everybody says Asians are damn smart... Well, asians spend much more time in front of their cpu's and have a really different school enviroment ( a lot more computerized dunno of this is good or bad). And if we look at the results of Koreans (South) and Japanese we see verry good results. Being the number one and two of the world. However if we got to china, India,... we don't see this.
Does this mean Asian are stupid, no. It must mean it ain't genetics.Actually...

Japanese schools are much less computerized than the USA's, and Chinese kids on average rank higher than Japanese kids in math. While I'm quite certain the Asian method of rote-learning -- essentially the same sit back and listen to the lecture style that the West abandoned en mass during the 60's onwards -- has its advantages but as someone who used to do that kind of stuff myself I assure you I think it is mostly pointless. In fact the Asians themselves are quite enamoured by "advanced" Western education systems where critical thinking plays the central role in place of memorization and recall. Critical thinking just happens to not be very critical or very thinking in practice. :sweatdrop:

In education the grass is always greener on the other side really. Human education essentially sucks everywhere and don't let the capitalists lie to you but I still think the richest can still afford the very best education, even if there's no longer something of a monopoly of knowledge like in the Medieval past. Thank God for Gutenberg and all or was it the other way around?

Blacks aren't stupid either. However they are moree prune to less education. And education gives higher IQ values and helps developping the brains and education will help you solve problems more easily. Why are they physically stronger? That's simple, they tend to sport more, those who still are in Africa are usually hardened as they have a tough life and over there it's still a bit the survival of the fittest.Anecdote-wise I don't really see blacks as in anyway inferior in intelligence to other "races" in my opinion. Sure the AP classes are all Asian-dominated but so what? Those kinds of classes tend to be taken by students who are motivated to succeed anyway -- and motivation is very much nurture vs nature.
________________________________________________

Basically I think Papewaio raises a very interesting point where first- and second-generation immigrants generally tend to seek to succeed more than third-generation and onwards. That would explain the perception of "foreigners being smarter than the natives" that is just about universal really when you go deep into it. Why? I think it's because the process of integrating oneself into another society -- heck, from the very beginning to make that decision in the first place -- requires at least some willpower a suburbia-from-birth kind of person doesn't necessarily has to go through. You have to start from (most of the time) literally zero and you're going up the ladder to up there. When you try to go up and up like that by most modern measurements of intelligence your actions and your results would simply pronounce you "smart."

That and I remembered something about bi-lingual+ people getting an [brain processing? lol] advantage over mono-lingual people all things equal, and being a first-generation immigrant almost always equals at least bi-lingual capability or the need to develop one.

Of course, that I'm a first-generation immigrant has nothing to do with it. :clown:

Also, I reiterate my point that using the vague skin colour basis to differ people even in stuff like IQ survey is in my opinion missing the point again. I'm sure the specific scholars (what do you call them specialists about the human genome demographic/history anyway?) will be able to make a much more elaborate and erudite argument than I can; sure there are groups and there are genetic variances between groups and skin color can be a very useful factor in determining at glance a person's group. However, to focus on "race" is to focus on skin color alone instead of the whole genetic picture and that particular arbitration is at best crude and at worst downright, well, racist, in trying to figure out the questions like the different genes we have.

[Moros]

Most of those "Jewish" achievements are done by those in the Diaspora still, so to speak.

Being forced to rote-learn a bit more than Western kids, I'm sure, isn't the secret key to the apparently miraculous Jewish success stories.
Actually...

yes it is and miraculous is a bit much.


Japanese schools are much less computerized than the USA's, and Chinese kids on average rank higher than Japanese kids in math. While I'm quite certain the Asian method of rote-learning -- essentially the same sit back and listen to the lecture style that the West abandoned en mass during the 60's onwards -- has its advantages but as someone who used to do that kind of stuff myself I assure you I think it is mostly pointless. In fact the Asians themselves are quite enamoured by "advanced" Western education systems where critical thinking plays the central role in place of memorization and recall. Critical thinking just happens to not be very critical or very thinking in practice. :sweatdrop:
I've seen different thing tough... Also that test they always do to measure the average capabilities of the average student in a whole lot of countries seem to contradict you. The Japanese had the highest score. Seconded by the Koreans. (I'll see if I can find it somewhere is going to be hard. The last time I searched for it (it was about education and intelligence) it took me damn long to find it again.))


In education the grass is always greener on the other side really. Human education essentially sucks everywhere and don't let the capitalists lie to you but I still think the richest can still afford the very best education, even if there's no longer something of a monopoly of knowledge like in the Medieval past. Thank God for Gutenberg and all or was it the other way around?
Anecdote-wise I don't really see blacks as in anyway inferior in intelligence to other "races" in my opinion. Sure the AP classes are all Asian-dominated but so what? Those kinds of classes tend to be taken by students who are motivated to succeed anyway -- and motivation is very much nurture vs nature.

The richest...? Since when did the Americans have decent education? :clown: ~;)

[Kuni]

DIASPORA IS NOT JUST AN EIGHT LETTER WORD.

it means the most capable peoples LEAVE their land in search of opportunity.

Let's not be surprised that the american jews are so smart, or that the asians are so smart. they are the recent wave of immigrants compared to the irish english blacks mexicans pr what have you. they are there for the post industrial age where IQ or IQ equivalents rule. they are there to make their lives better, they will have better economies, better drives. compare their IQs in their home countries! those of the same nationailities in america fare better, and it is not a coincidence.

[AntiochusIII]

The richest...? Since when did the Americans have decent education? :clown: ~;)Hence "richest." Most American ain't rich, buddy. We [they? I'm not exactly fully American] have to put up with public education most of the time like everybody else. :2thumbsup:

Just those few Philips Academy snobs that get the best stuff. Bastards :/

Kuni: I'm aware of that, hence my specific reference to "Diaspora" Jews. To use a more modern term (the one they use in propaganda for Asian countries to excuse government failure and underdeveloped economy ~;) ) one would call it a "brain drain." People move to the richer countries in search of better opportunity, said rich countries open their arms smiling because everyone except Kim Jong-Il likes skilled workers. Natives got their idea "oh wow these nekkomegane are really smart >.<" from the disproportionate number of slightly more motivated people which are not native.

...and I'm completely generalizing here and waiting for someone to tell me I'm wrong right from the beginning. :clown:

[JR-]

i think it is true to say that more than a few (read: quite a lot) of the irsh, english, scottish, and welsh who went to america where the dregs of their respective society who had failed and where effectively deported on work contracts to pay off debts.

this is not to say i disagree at all with the idea that america has benefited from bright people seeking opportunity unavailable in their native land.

[Lorenzo_H]

What black people may lack in intellect, they certainly more than make up for in athletic ability. Blacks are physically much stronger than whites.