Free speech is censorship!

[a completely inoffensive name]

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

Everything, Strike is God.

[Rhyfelwyr]

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

So far all my points have been met with is three statements that were presented as facts but were in fact nothing more than conjecture, followed by a chorus of "hallelujah".

[The Stranger]

i dont think he was being serious

[Strike For The South]

I can find citations if you wish....

"Race" and intellegence is such a murky subject. As evidenced by this thread we can't even agree what exactly race is and all of us have been taught in the same Western European style. We are a small, common sample group and we can't even define our question!

As a matter of utilizing race/intellegence to make public policy decisons....it wouldn't even crack my top ten. If there was ever any evidence that intellegence is somewhat hereditary (which some scientists think there may be) it still ranks much lower in making up what we conceive to be intellegence.

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.

That's like your opinion man

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.

Damn, that's allot of Jensen citations. I know the man is considerd the godfather of "non-racist" hereidtary intellegence but damn. I would also point out in Jensens watershed reasearch he does concede one of the problems was how black children are conditioned by society. Immigrants from Africa socre much higher, now granted many of the immigrants are professionals but if there is such a statistically significgant gap we should see something. There are so many more layers to this before we even breach race, and even if we concede a 20 point IQ differential we have to ask if IQ is even a valid way to measure itellegence.

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.

But as east Asians they should be scoring around the same, shouldn't they? They are marginalized as a group and there culture shows it

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.

The American school system is more segragated than it has ever been and the lions share of black children go to underfunded, overcrowded, piss poor public schools. Couple that with generations of people who have no history of education with a society that has a set defnition of how you should act (esp. if you are a male) and we have so much more to think about before we get to race. I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts the above factors matter exponentially more than some flimsy, western construct of race.

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.

No human has a natural aversion to learning, if we did we'd by dead. Now certain cultures in Western society may have an aversion to our style of education (which I don't think for a second is biologicaly ingrained but I digress) but that brings us back to the question of what is intellgence and how do we measure it.

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.

The adoption study?

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.

And you haven't set your parameters or defined your variables. Are we looking at intellegence differences between White Americans and black Americans based on IQ tests? Or have we defined these massively broad topics?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

So far all my points have been met with is three statements that were presented as facts but were in fact nothing more than conjecture, followed by a chorus of "hallelujah".

People generally don't care about how good their arguments are in a case like this because they are mainly winning a little moral victory for themselves over the enemy. Some people prefer to do little else because they find it reassuring. But I would just let them...I don't think racial IQ is worth researching, not even to debunk the silly things said about it.

[Strike For The South]

People generally don't care about how good their arguments are in a case like this because they are mainly winning a little moral victory for themselves over the enemy. Some people prefer to do little else because they find it reassuring. But I would just let them...I don't think racial IQ is worth researching, not even to debunk the silly things said about it.

That hurts my feelings

[Sasaki Kojiro]

That hurts my feelings

lol, rather than name anyone specifically I chose to insult everyone I guess. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

[Rhyfelwyr]

People generally don't care about how good their arguments are in a case like this because they are mainly winning a little moral victory for themselves over the enemy. Some people prefer to do little else because they find it reassuring. But I would just let them...I don't think racial IQ is worth researching, not even to debunk the silly things said about it.

Yeah I've found the attitudes of some of the 'freethinkers' in this thread to be a bit uninspiring.

But Strike gave a good reply above, I'll get round to replying later.

[Fragony]

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

I don't, but it is of value. Back to chicken egg, are these area's poor because of low IQ or are IQ's low because these area's are poor. Either way there is a correlation.

[The Stranger]

there is a different option. there is a cause not yet specified by you that causes both the poverty as well as the low IQ. there is still correlation between the low IQ and poverty but neither caused the other.

[Fragony]

there is a different option. there is a cause not yet specified by you that causes both the poverty as well as the low IQ. there is still correlation between the low IQ and poverty but neither caused the other.

If you mean it's genetic, I don't go into that. Not that I have anything against racial theorists but I'm not playing

[The Stranger]

that is one scenario. i didnt mean that specifically. im just saying that there could be another option besides what you just said. enviroment could be another (the wide continent vs narrow long continent theory)

[Rhyfelwyr]

First off, sorry for taking so long after I said I would reply.

"Race" and intellegence is such a murky subject. As evidenced by this thread we can't even agree what exactly race is and all of us have been taught in the same Western European style. We are a small, common sample group and we can't even define our question!

I think we have all agreed that race is something quite fluid, and not, well... all black and white. While this means we might each define the term 'race' differently, we can still debate the points tha have been brought up without talking past each other. What one person calls a racial difference, another person might view as just the standard process of traits being passed on hereditarily through generations. We can agree on the facts, while still having semantic differences.

As a matter of utilizing race/intellegence to make public policy decisons....it wouldn't even crack my top ten. If there was ever any evidence that intellegence is somewhat hereditary (which some scientists think there may be) it still ranks much lower in making up what we conceive to be intellegence.

This I would agree with and in in particular the prospect of any race/intelligence relationship being used in policy making seems horrific to me.

That's like your opinion man

Well, it is a fact that correlation does not always equal causation. When somebody wishes to present a causational relationship as a fact, the burden of proof lies with them to say why the relationship must be causational, and not merely complementary.

Damn, that's allot of Jensen citations. I know the man is considerd the godfather of "non-racist" hereidtary intellegence but damn. I would also point out in Jensens watershed reasearch he does concede one of the problems was how black children are conditioned by society. Immigrants from Africa socre much higher, now granted many of the immigrants are professionals but if there is such a statistically significgant gap we should see something. There are so many more layers to this before we even breach race, and even if we concede a 20 point IQ differential we have to ask if IQ is even a valid way to measure itellegen

I'll admit that I don't have the knowledge to get into the nitty-gritty of all of this, I simply wished to point out the possibility of a racial factor still being on the cards. I'm just going to fling my hands in the air and concede that this is all still an ongoing debate in academic circles.

But as east Asians they should be scoring around the same, shouldn't they? They are marginalized as a group and there culture shows it

Certainly, education/culture seems the most likely factor in this case. Although I would like to point out that I always said that education would most likely be an important factor, of which race would simply be another. Crucially, do you know how big the IQ gap is in this Korean example, and how it compares to the cases where the divide is racial?

The American school system is more segragated than it has ever been and the lions share of black children go to underfunded, overcrowded, piss poor public schools. Couple that with generations of people who have no history of education with a society that has a set defnition of how you should act (esp. if you are a male) and we have so much more to think about before we get to race. I'm willing to bet dollars to doughnuts the above factors matter exponentially more than some flimsy, western construct of race.

These are all valid points. But just as with the points I raised, we are only hypothesising until we look at some solid studies that isolate these variables and their impact on IQ.

And while defining your terms and parameters is important, I think maybe we can be a bit too strict sometimes. Obviously, when these things can be set in stone, they should be. But the fact that some concepts may be a bit too abstract to place into such a rigid framework doesn't mean we should abandon studying them entirely. Indeed, finding an agreeable definition for a term can be the very purpose of a debate, and IMO that is at least part of what is going on here.

I mean, I could ask what on earth a "western" construct is supposed to mean, and why it is automatically assumed that I'm advocating it. But I know what you are getting at, so I roll with it.

No human has a natural aversion to learning, if we did we'd by dead. Now certain cultures in Western society may have an aversion to our style of education (which I don't think for a second is biologicaly ingrained but I digress) but that brings us back to the question of what is intellgence and how do we measure it.

I should have been clearer, I meant western style education, rather than any sort of learning per se. I will grant that IQ may be far from the only kind of intelligence there is, but if there were to be racial differences in different kinds of intelligence, then that would be no less worth considering that intelligence in general.

The adoption study?

That's the one I was referring to, yes.

And you haven't set your parameters or defined your variables. Are we looking at intellegence differences between White Americans and black Americans based on IQ tests? Or have we defined these massively broad topics?

We're looking at what we're looking at. IQ may well not be the be all and end all of intelligence, but if IQ differences exist I'm going to ask why. Likewise skin colour isn't the be all and end all of race, but if differences in skin colour coincide with differences in intelligence, I'm going to ask why. As I said earlier, this debate may be less about rigidly categorising 'races' and then studying the facts in that framework; and more about improving our understanding of what race means by studying the facts beforehand.

[Fragony]

'As I said earlier, this debate may be less about rigidly categorising 'races' and then studying the facts in that framework; and more about improving our understanding of what race means by studying the facts beforehand.'

What good would it do, there is no way for it to be of any use, we can't base any policy on the results. Won't upset me either when someone looks into it though, to be offended is hypocrite.

[Rhyfelwyr]

What good would it do, there is no way for it to be of any use, we can't base any policy on the results. Won't upset me either when someone looks into it though, to be offended is hypocrite.

It would remove much of the justification for affirmative action.

[Fragony]

It would remove much of the justification for affirmative action.

Let idiots be idiots, better to just ignore affirmative action crazies, asking them to take the lead also helps

[classical_hero]

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

That is the problem when you have an OP that is not focused on one subject and wanders into other topics. Confusion reigns. The title says something about Free Speech, but that does not seem to reflect the OP. We are talking aboutt QI, when I don't see too much intelligence in this thread to begin with.

[Fragony]

Does't mean it isn't there , as you said you don't see it

[Strike For The South]

If we're not going to utilize whatever sort of demonstrable results we get from these studies for policy what is the point of talking about this?

Unless someone argues to the contrary, I feel like race and intellegence has about as much merit as does a comparison of long and short muscle fibers between the same people

I have grown weary of this topic, you may all go home now

[Rhyfelwyr]

If we're not going to utilize whatever sort of demonstrable results we get from these studies for policy what is the point of talking about this?

Because it furthers our understanding of the world around us?

I would think that the majority of topics that we study aren't directly related to political policy-making.

And like I said it is related to policies like affirmative action. I'm not one of these people that is enraged by the racism of it, I can completely understand that it had a time and a place, and that sometimes you have to bulldoze your way through to equality when a group of people have been held down by serious oppression. But that time is not today.

[Fragony]

If we're not going to utilize whatever sort of demonstrable results we get from these studies for policy what is the point of talking about this?

Agreed, and I don't see any good comming from it. I am curious by nature but knowledge can also be dangerous, I won't cross the line where human beings can be outclassed by others in any way. Sometimes it's better not to know, all the sick in history were pretty smart