Are IQ maps Racist?

Dyr

Here's a map of IQ by nations, you'll find similar maps with minor variations but the gist remains the same. European and Asian people score high for IQ and other people don't do so well. The Japanese appear to be super intelligent

Apparently there is a school of thought that such maps are racist. I'm not sure why. Perhaps any disciples of this school of thought can chime in with their reasoning?

You might notice on this map that us Irish appear to be the thickos of Northern Europe. Perhaps that's racist too. 😫

Threadbans

Nosler

ELM327

If it's statistically accurate it cannot be racist.

MegamanBoo

I think there's a lot of questioning of just how much IQ measures some inherent characteristics or if it just measures skills acquired.

That is to say it actually measures a type of thinking and knowledge promoted within certain cultures and educational systems versus actual intelligence.

Also how would you take a standard IQ test if illiterate? If that map is accurate and not fake, I think it most likely variation is more due to literacy and education levels than anything else.

If you're aware of these factors and share or create these maps, yes, that would make you a racist.

TomTomTim

There's no point in this thread as you know, as it's a great taboo to even acknowledge that there may be different levels of intelligence among different groups.

A lot of that has to do with length in education and the value each nation places on education. Popularly used IQ tests need a certain level of literacy, education and familiarity, no matter what any educationalist or psychologist will say. Ireland has a lot of very educated people, but we have a cohort of very uneducated people too, whose intellectual potential has never been fully developed owing to the social class or community they come from. We have quite a sizeable “underclass” for such a developed an educated nation. India has some of the innately cleverest people in the world, but poverty and the caste system has seen to it that many would not be able to read an IQ test let alone undertake one.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120383973#Comment_120383973

I would agree with you that the map probably reflects the quality of education systems and the access to education in various countries more accurately than any inherent characteristics.

I don't agree with your description of anyone sharing the map as being racist though. Anyone who shares the map for racist reasons is racist, but you and I agree already on one way in which it can be shared in a non-racist manner.

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120383978#Comment_120383978

Or, y'know, it could be that traditional IQ tests generally only measure a specific type of intelligence - usually that taught through traditional academia - and therefore maps of this type tend to skew towards first world societies???

Just a thought, like.

RobbieTheRobber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120383978#Comment_120383978

🤣🤣🤣

Does the map show a clear difference between groups?

Shouldn't Sweden be a different colour seeing as it is totally over run with immigrants and those immigrants come from areas with a different colour or something?

Overheal

Slow week?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_race_and_intelligence_controversy

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120383978#Comment_120383978

Is it difference of intelligence inherited or resources and opportunities? I would say the last 2.

TomTomTim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384001#Comment_120384001

You really think academic performance is all there is? There's a large correlation between the higher IQ countries and functional civilisations too, the same vice versa. Like I said, the OP is wasting his time, because certain people aren't even open to the possibility of there being some truth there, as their worldview won't even allow them to get near such thoughts. They'd rather blame everything else under the sun.

RobbieTheRobber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384001#Comment_120384001

No, no, no, cant we just talk about Eugenics instead as if it is a rational and normal thing to believe!

Intelligence is fluid, it may have an upper potential limit, but it can be maximised by stimulation, exposure to problems to be solved & education. The classical measurement of IQ is verbal reasoning, numerical reasoning and visual (spatial relations) reasoning. The human brain can excel in many other areas too.

TomTomTim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384030#Comment_120384030

Our near future will prove all these questions, as we've many of the people in the lower IQ camps in the West now, with resources and opportunities. That won't matter either though, as it was still be a taboo even if it moves from a theory to a fact.

banie01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384001#Comment_120384001

Not just that caveat but also that even amongst "academic" IQ tests that there is acknowledged cultural and experiential bias in standardised testing.

I am minded of this cartoon everytime I think of IQ testing across broad cultural, normative and educational ranges.

One eyed Jack

Designs test, scores higher than everyone else in said test.

I’m shocked 😒

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384036#Comment_120384036

Aside from literacy levels affecting results, I think a lot of what is measured is trained and developed in education.

I had to do a type of IQ test as part of a group for a job interview once. It happened that one part of the test was extremely similar to some work I had been doing on a college project intensely for a few weeks previously. I scored very highly on that one aspect compared to the other candidates but I wouldn't even consider myself typically very good at it, only I was 'in the zone' for that type of task.

MarkR

Kind of pointless really. If the IQ tests are accurate, they're still only done by a tiny percentage of people. Are you born with a high IQ, or is education a factor? If you move to one of the "smart" countries, will you become smarter? :-D

MegamanBoo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120383994#Comment_120383994

I'm not sure. I've it's shared with the right explanation and context given I think that's ok.

Knowing full well that it would be interpreted in a racist manner, I'm not so sure.

SheepsClothing

IQ maps aren't racist, but 100% of people who share and put stock in them are.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384072#Comment_120384072

I don't even know if my other siblings ever had a test and I know the reason I was tested was because of exhibiting 'the knack'

So yes willing to bet so few people take these tests normally that considering national data to be accurate is well, unintelligent.

Boggles

Do people wake up and ask themselves how am I going to be racist on the internet today?

AlanG

The best explaination for this I have heard is that IQ is a measure of how someone perceives relationships in the world. They are devised by the type of people who do well in them. A western city dweller, when asked to discuss a rabbit and fox may talk about how both have 4 legs, both are mammals etc. This is correct and will score well in an IQ test. It matches roughly how scientists classify animals.

A hunter may talk about how the rabbit is food for the fox and how foxes keep the rabbit population down. This is correct and will score poorly in an IQ test designed by someone whos life is not defined by the need to hunt or understand nature. The person is not less intelligent, they just see the world differently.

So it is probably that the test is class / income skewed.

sprucemoose

maps are generally inanimate objects so probably not racist

StupidLikeAFox

It gets racist when you start to say, only hire people from Europe because of the IQ map, instead of judging people on their own merits

TagoMago

The map itself is not racist, but it certainly can be used by racist individuals in order to reinforce notions they have around disparity between racial groups.

The information displayed in the map might be correct but there are factors others than race at play. If you were to take a random child from Chad or DRC whose family has endured multiple generations of extreme poverty, famine, lack of basic amenities, very little education, it's hardly surprising their IQ would be lower than of a child from South Korea or Sweden.

Ironically enough, a lot of the people of that give maps like this much credence live in the green countries but are closer to the red classifications themselves.

TomTomTim

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384145#Comment_120384145

That's a terrible comparison though seeing as IQ test questions are not one bit comparative to your example.

The thread is proving what the OP intended though; "racism this, racism that" and every attempt imaginable to explain away the outcomes. People are simply incapable of even considering that it may be true, never mind that it is. They give weight to everything that could explain it away, and none to the possibility of it being true. Of course it could be false/explained by something else, but it could also be true, yet ideological blinkers put people straight on the defensive.

If we all lived in the exact same conditions, and had the same opportunities, and the outcome were the same, none of you would budge, you'd still deny and deny because it's an ideological necessity. Even if we look at something like male strength vs female, which is a fact, there's at least several posters on this thread right now who've attempted to deny said fact in the past, because it's in conflict with a new set of beliefs they've just picked up.

SouthWesterly

Since there is only 1 race on the planet, the human race, are we comparing the iq of humans and another species and is that racist 🤔

RobbieTheRobber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384319#Comment_120384319

By which is the disparity explainable to you tom is it culture or genetics that's has some countries doing bad and others doing good in IQ tests?

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120384319#Comment_120384319

Big wall of text to say nothing at all.

Because nobody still is certain one way or another what factors ultimately determine IQ.

The thread is nothing more than a continuation of a century+ of racial arguing.

Mic 1972

There are many forms of intelligence, not all of them are captured by the IQ test.

Musical intelligence or drawing skills for example are all not part of the test. But we all know that some people are very skilled at them, while the rest of us not so much