Free speech is censorship!

[HoreTore]

No but it's still true that people from islamic countries have lower IQ's.

Well. Our IQ has risen over the past 50 years. Our level of education, and especially the Spread of education has risen dramatically. Thus, if you want to make any IQ-based conclusion, it would seem that the conclusion is that IQ depends on The level of education.

Now, let's turn to the Islamic world. Who would've thought that a social-democratic first world nation would score higher than semi-fascist authoritarian states who see education as a threat to their powerbase? Wooah! Shocking news! Of course we should score higher. Until democracy hits the mid-east, we will continue to be on top, as we will simply be better educated. And that's not because of smarts, it's because of being given the chance to actually get that education. Or until the fascist right people like Fjordman promote, in which case we will plummet down the scale due to sheer incompetence on the part of the fascists. Ever seen their plans for the education sector? Bah, you'd think none of them have ever heard of Vygotsky!

And that, of course, leaves out the horrendous difficulty of collecting IQ scores from entire nations, something which those who promote the IQ-nonsense love to say we already have, but which we in reality aren't even close to doing. Of course, facts doesn't get in the way of a racist wanting to feel superior.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I've heard that Africa is the most genetically diverse continent. So your argument that it's possible for blacks to have a lower average IQ because of relative genetic isolation is false, imo.

Africa's genetic diversity does nothing to prove my claim false. Africa's genetic diversity stems from the fact that modern day Africans can trace their lineage back to a number of different isolated population that all originated in Africa - they are not diverse in the sense that they have mixed with the human populations outside of Africa that modern day non-Africans are all descended from.

According to the out of Africa theory the rest of the human population (in my understanding) left before they could mix with many of these ancient African population groups, and are instead descended from the most ancient human population groups that sprang up in Africa and hence their lack of genetic diversity. But the limited genetic variation of these humans that left Africa means there would be an obvious potential for the traits of their ancestors to be magnified in their descendents - whether that is increased/decreased intelligence, increased/descreased strength etc.

But then talking about white and black here is too simplistic and can be misleading. Skin colour is superficial. Of itself it doesn't necessarily have to carry other attributes whether they be physical or mental. From my understanding of evolution the original humans would have almost certainly have been white, and the darkening of their skin would have been a response to losing their body hair (and only then if Africa had a similar climate then as it does now, whis is IIRC another point of contention).

As a white person, there might have been a point in my ancestry where my ancestors would have had black skin. But then that doesn't mean that they had the other features associated with black people today. All of humanity outside of Africa today is descended from a very small ancestor group that sprang out of Africa, while all Africans and their diaspora are descended from a whole host of ancestor groups that the rest of humanity has no connection to whatsoever. These groups would have made a huge contribution to the genetic traits of modern Africans.

So if anything I would think all this reinforces the possibility of IQ differences.

Also, not that it matters, but Native Americans can grow facial hair. Just throwing that out there.

Well it is at least a lot less prevalent than it is with those of European descent.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Of course, facts doesn't get in the way of a racist wanting to feel superior.

First off, can you stop referring to people with racist beliefs as "a racist". It's dehumanising. Racism is an aspect of a person's beliefs, not a descriptor for their entire being. You wouldn't say to somebody, "hey, so you're a gay", would you? Or "oh, you're a black".

And in any case, you don't know how racist people think or why they believe what they do.

And I get the feeling that facts won't make you change your beliefs either.

[InsaneApache]

It would be better to have "get a bunch of whites to enslave other whites and sell them to black traders". Or would that muddy the waters of one lot utterly guilty and one lot utterly innocent?

Right on the money rory_20_uk, right on the money.

[Strike For The South]

Science, no one here is doing it right

[Fragony]

Plenty of white slaves but you don't learn that on school http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/whtslav.htm
At times I still get emotional

[The Stranger]

you are not on the money, you are betting on the wrong horse. the american slavery was fundamentally different than any other slavery ive ever heard of existing on this world. you can value it as you want but you cannot deny that it was different.

as for frag, you can say that slavery is not principally rascist and i would agree, but to say that the american slavery is not rascist is just wrong.

in that system they have taken away all humanity and all hope from one group of people for a few hundred years.

set a slave free in the viking era in norway and he will be indistinguishable from his neighbour, he will be protected by law and he can take care of his family. a slave in rome can come from anywhere, he couldve been even roman but he can also rise within the household of his master or when set free no person would frown upon his offspring. a christian in the ottoman empire could become part of the yeni ceri and wield power and respect. on the barbary coast, if nothing else atleast a freedman could return home but if not he would again be protected by law and he would most likely live a normal life and same for his family. set a slave free in america and he would still be less than a dog, he would have less rights than a dog, no law would protect him because he was unhuman. his family would be tainted the same way if he could even survive to sustain one.

and even now after slavery has been abolished they fell victim to the same rascist thought and ideas that were the cause of their ancesters slavery for atleast a century and even to this day it still happens to some. no dane is still looked down upon because his ancestor was a thrall, no christian descendent on the barbary coast is discriminated against because of the same reasons that his ancestors were enslaved, no slav has been denied rights because his grandfather was part of the slavecaste.

again, you can brand it how you want, and i brand it evil to the core of its system, but you cannot deny that they are fundamentally different in this regard.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Science, no one here is doing it right

I'm not a scientist I'm just saying what I know off the top of my head, people can feel free to correct me.

[InsaneApache]

you are not on the money, you are betting on the wrong horse.

I'd look up the Ashanti Kingdom if I were you.

[The Stranger]

what for? i do not say that you are wrong about what you say, im just saying that it is irrelevant. i do not dispute that africans sold africans to europeans. i do not dispute that europeans were enslaved by corsairs from the coast, or even by their own nobles. i am not talking about a question of guilt. i do not say that whites traders are guilty and the african sellers are not or that this is even remotely interesting. it is not, it is in the past and i have had nothing to do with it nor have you regardless of who our ancesters have been.

yet i have looked it up and if i can rely on wikipedia as a good source their slavery is the opposite of what i just pointed out in my post and more the rule for what was common in slavery in the world while the american slavery was definitly an exception if not an unicum. (however the neutrality of the argument/entry has been disputed on wikipedia so i shall not value it too much.)

if we regard slavery as bad/evil because it is fundamentally inhumane, there is no doubt, atleast for me that the american slavery was the worst in this regard because it took away all hope for any humane situation. not all slaves were regarded as less than humans, but many slaves were in all the different systems, however in all the systems that i know off there was always a way for the slave to become a freedman and for his family to integrate into society. they would then become citizens and be protected by law. this did not exist in america even a freed negro slave would have no legal right (perhaps in theory but definitly not in practice) and the same for his descendants. they were still less than human. to say that this was common in all slave systems is wrong, and i think it was unique to that specific american slavery, although i might be wrong on that, i have never known of another system that was similar.

[Tellos Athenaios]

@Fragony: yes I do see reasons for not attaching value to IQ scores. First of all, IQ tests are designed to be administered under very specific circumstances, secondly they are only a measure of how well do you do on test taking. Secondly, IQ tests as a prediction of anything work only on large data sets (carefully controlled for a lot of variables), and not for an individual; and even then the predictions are not always very strong.

So when it comes to these little studies that “follow” a few subjects over the years, the alarm bells should be going off. No way that this is anywhere near a large data set, no way that this is anywhere near controlled enough. So as research it is not entirely useless: it provides data points for testing whatever the fashionable hypothesis du jour is/ arguments in the debate, but it doesn't actually tell you anything meaningful about IQ in general.

[Strike For The South]

Plenty of white slaves but you don't learn that on school http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/whtslav.htm
At times I still get emotional

I lol'd

[Fragony]

'as for frag, you can say that slavery is not principally rascist and i would agree, but to say that the american slavery is not rascist is just wrong. '

Did I miss something

[The Stranger]

no, it was related to the article you posted. i didnt mean that you said that personally. sorry if i did not make that clear.

[Strike For The South]

Chattel slavery esp. as it was practiced in the new world was fundamentally different than much of the slavery that was practiced in the old. Not that either was particularly comfortable mind you but there are distinict differences. Not that I really feel any guilt over it, There are certain positions I empathize with the black community on because of it and how it has shaped that group socially and culturaly but I'm not going to get on my knees and bob for the apple either

Now as per Race and Intelligence

Let's first off assume we have concrete definitions for both of those things as they are two of the most fluid words in the kings English. Many of you here are talking past each other becuase you haven't set your parameters, many of you are simply here to confrim your anecdotal biasis. Some indispuitable, demonstrable facts

-IQ Test scores have been rising each year since the IQ started being Aminstered
-It is documented that in a multi racial society the race which is seen as "lesser" will eventually come to emulate that. This theory holds true even for Koreans in Japan who by the arc of this thread should show no difference.
-Education, nutrirtion and a cultural value on education have been shown to be much more statistically valueuble than race.

These other factors are so much more important it makes talking about race redundanent.

[Fragony]

no, it was related to the article you posted. i didnt mean that you said that personally. sorry if i did not make that clear.

np mia muca

[Fragony]

'So when it comes to these little studies that “follow” a few subjects over the years, the alarm bells should be going off. No way that this is anywhere near a large data set, no way that this is anywhere near controlled enough. So as research it is not entirely useless: it provides data points for testing whatever the fashionable hypothesis du jour is/ arguments in the debate, but it doesn't actually tell you anything meaningful about IQ in general.'

You know perfectly well that statistical probabilty is always taken into the equation. It doesn't say much that is true, modern pshycholigy destuingishes 6 types of intelligence including curving a ball

[Tellos Athenaios]

You know perfectly well that statistical probabilty is always taken into the equation. It doesn't say much that is true, modern pshycholigy destuingishes 6 types of intelligence including curving a ball

Yes, yes it is. So much so we have a whopping accuracy of +/- 3 points on each test, which is only like 2-3% of the total score. On a population of millions that's nothing, riiiiiiiiiight? Let's put it this way, if you tried to sell medicine with studies that are anywhere near that level of accuracy statistical irrelevance you'd first not get past the regulations, and second you'd get sued out of business if you did from disgruntled people who weren't aware of the effects that happen with “only” 2% chance.

That's the whole point: statistics are all good fun when you have a population of millions to talk about, but I don't see that study comprising millions of test subjects, do you? With something as highly variable as IQ all you can say at the end of a small scale study is “well those subjects here have comparatively high IQ, and those there don't”. You can't extrapolate the results in a meaningful way, precisely because you don't know which of those variables is relevant. For all we know it could be the food, or the water.

For a Mathematics analogy: I have a black box function that maps 20 different stochastic variables onto a 21st one (IQ). You don't know what those 20 ones are, so you have to guess. Now try and find me a definition of the function that, given each possible input will produce the correct output.

You being the clever scientist you are, you try and keep 19 of those the same while attempting to take samples of the 20th one and observe the function result. Yet you don't actually know how it works, you don't actually know whether or not you are controlling for the *right* variables and you don't actually know whether or not your sample is representative.

To top it all off, there is on average less genetic difference between an American Africans and a WASP than there is between two WASPs or two African Americans....

[Fragony]

Everything can be reversed using the same data, cause and effect is always chicken&egg. But it's still the same test everywhere, is it important no it isn't

[Strike For The South]

Everything can be reversed using the same data, cause and effect is always chicken&egg. But it's still the same test everywhere, is it important no it isn't

Is your Dutch as cryptic as your English? Is that what gets those little Dutch tulips all hot and bothered?

[Fragony]

Is your Dutch as cryptic as your English? Is that what gets those little Dutch tulips all hot and bothered?

TA gets it, chicken and the egg: what came first.

[Strike For The South]

the muca

[Rhyfelwyr]

Some indispuitable, demonstrable facts

-IQ Test scores have been rising each year since the IQ started being Aminstered
-It is documented that in a multi racial society the race which is seen as "lesser" will eventually come to emulate that. This theory holds true even for Koreans in Japan who by the arc of this thread should show no difference.
-Education, nutrirtion and a cultural value on education have been shown to be much more statistically valueuble than race.

These other factors are so much more important it makes talking about race redundanent.

They may be facts but they all have enough complications within themselves for us to question if they are really more reliable variables than race.

About the first point, I think that can be largely attributed to people getting more 'fly' for tests, and apprently this trend has now more or less levelled off. It also doesn't explain how those of different races that went through the same education system would have significantly different results. There have been studies that address this point in relation to race.

Now the second point about Koreans in Japan. It is a good point but it raises even more questions. If a Korean in Korea normally scores as well as a Japanese person in Japan, then it would seem likely that a Korean in Japan scoring more lowly might be due to culture/education, presuming they went over as immigrants taking the poorer jobs. In that scenario, to see how important education was you would have to compare the results of the low class Koreans in Japan with the lower-class Koreans in Korea.

I wouldn't be surprised if education accounted for that difference, but it just doesn't compare to the differences in IQ seen between blacks and whites in America. Since having been integrated into America's white-created education system, black peoples' IQ has increased, although remains lagging quite significantly. You then have to wonder why this gap remains - if someone were to point out that these black Americans have roots in countries with extremely low average IQs, that's a valid point. We are still left wondering how far race, culture and education each contribute to these differences.

And as for the final point, it doesn't address the issue of causation. A culture that does not value education could very well be a product of the frustration that a group of people have had as a result of their failure in the education system. Or their culture could simply reflect their own natural aversion to pursuing education.

Of course culture is something that is heavily conflated with race. However when the two are separated as individual variables, I've already provided an example of a study which showed that race proved the factor which caused variations in results.

I know I am taking the unpopular position here but people on the other side just seem to be too complacent, whether by dismissing IQ tests completely or refusing to acknowledge the possibility of any sort of racial differences just because things might not be as simple as some people imagine them to be.

[The Stranger]

i dont know much about korean immigration to japan but i think that, looking at the japanese economy etc, that it is more likely the upper class koreans, the grad students, that will move from korea to japan then the lowerclass, farmer type.

[Ironside]

Now the second point about Koreans in Japan. It is a good point but it raises even more questions. If a Korean in Korea normally scores as well as a Japanese person in Japan, then it would seem likely that a Korean in Japan scoring more lowly might be due to culture/education, presuming they went over as immigrants taking the poorer jobs. In that scenario, to see how important education was you would have to compare the results of the low class Koreans in Japan with the lower-class Koreans in Korea.

The minority position can be summarized as this. Start a test with a dumb blonde joke and you'll drop the IQ of the blondes in the group. It's that sensitive to have a visible effect.

And the blacks and slavery issue is touching on epigenetics. It's fast enough be influencial in a few generations. And slavery isn't exactly having a positive influence on intelligence. Now is that an issue today, it would atleast disappear in a few generations.

[HoreTore]

First off, can you stop referring to people with racist beliefs as "a racist". It's dehumanising. Racism is an aspect of a person's beliefs, not a descriptor for their entire being. You wouldn't say to somebody, "hey, so you're a gay", would you? Or "oh, you're a black".

And in any case, you don't know how racist people think or why they believe what they do.

And I get the feeling that facts won't make you change your beliefs either.

I lol'd.

[InsaneApache]

Chattel slavery esp. as it was practiced in the new world was fundamentally different than much of the slavery that was practiced in the old. Not that either was particularly comfortable mind you but there are distinict differences. Not that I really feel any guilt over it, There are certain positions I empathize with the black community on because of it and how it has shaped that group socially and culturaly but I'm not going to get on my knees and bob for the apple either

Now as per Race and Intelligence

Let's first off assume we have concrete definitions for both of those things as they are two of the most fluid words in the kings English. Many of you here are talking past each other becuase you haven't set your parameters, many of you are simply here to confrim your anecdotal biasis. Some indispuitable, demonstrable facts

-IQ Test scores have been rising each year since the IQ started being Aminstered
-It is documented that in a multi racial society the race which is seen as "lesser" will eventually come to emulate that. This theory holds true even for Koreans in Japan who by the arc of this thread should show no difference.
-Education, nutrirtion and a cultural value on education have been shown to be much more statistically valueuble than race.

These other factors are so much more important it makes talking about race redundanent.

Amen

[Tellos Athenaios]

Everything can be reversed using the same data, cause and effect is always chicken&egg.

Well, partly. But here in the now it is clear that the current model egg precedes the current model chicken. The problem arises when you can't tell the egg from the chicken, or aren't even aware of the existence of either.

Still I submit that if ever you try your hand at recursion you should be careful with that chicken&egg philosophy, you may just lose yourself.

is it important no it isn't

And here I was, thinking you disagreed with that line of reasoning:

You see any reason to dismiss it's importance?

[a completely inoffensive name]

Strike's knowledge of this subject, and other's ignorance of it, creates a nice juxtaposition.

[The Stranger]

what subject? its like 3 topics in one...