Mention of Race?

nesf

The Atheist wrote:

I don't think it's a big assumption that a test designed to measure your "Intelligence Quotient" is a reasonable measure of your intellignce.

You're assuming there's an intelligence quotient to measure. That's what is hotly debated about IQ tests. And then you run into which IQ test is the correct one. You could do several IQ tests of different types and get different results. Do you average these or can you pick the highest?

That is what I meant by saying that a single IQ score for an individual is not meaningful. There are trends between the different tests but you cannot point at any single one and say that is an absolute measure of this person. It's not a physical quality that is (relatively) constant.

A reasonable measure of intelligence is one thing to say, but do we know what the margin of error is? Can we say that a score is accurate? Can it have much meaning if we cannot know how accurate it is?

When I say meaning I'm talking about the inference that a high or low IQ score translates directly to mean intelligence rather than just a reflection of how good or bad a person is at doing IQ tests. It's the difference between saying that a high IQ suggests a person is highly intelligent and saying that a high IQ means a person is highly intelligent.

The Atheist wrote:

Are you sure you meant to say this?

Surely IQ tests are more relevant on an individual level than when averaged, and taken as part of a group. IQ tests are only relevant in determining what areas of expertise (e.g. numbers, spacial awareness etc.) an individual performs strongly in.

IQ test result statistics in general are useless, particularly when they purport to show that one race is less intelligent than another. You don't have to be smart to know that that kind of information benefits no-one.

What I was talking about was the social and economic correlates of IQ scores. If one looks at bands of IQ scores you do find certain social and economic correlates to hold. Crime rates do not correlate strongly with IQ. Other factors such as numbers of children and level of education aquired do however.

The racial arguments are different to these. The evidence for them that I've seen comes from measurements taken purely from the US. If anything I find it amusing that people take a white supremacy argument, asians are the top runners from the research done.

Again the issue is one of misuse rather than something being wrong. The data suggests that there is a difference in the average IQ score between races, it does not however translate into saying that white people are smarter than black people. It just shows that your average white person's IQ score will tend to be higher than your average black person's IQ score. You can easily put this further into context by looking at the difference in education, wealth etc between your average white and black person. You cannot draw inferences from the statistics without looking at what is influencing the statistics in the first place.

It is just statistics being misused by people who do not understand them. It doesn't mean the statistics are incorrect, it just means the person isn't interpreting them correctly.

Macmorris

nesf wrote:

If anything I find it amusing that people take a white supremacy argument, asians are the top runners from the research done.

Good point. A lot of the liberal critics of IQ tests have claimed that they are designed to demonstrate the superiority of White people. If that was the case, the designers of the tests haven't done a very good job.

Snowball

SparkyLarks wrote:

People always try to classify people.

I also agree with that.
I am not sure, but believe, that most people use it as a easy way to describe what someone looks like. Not sure if it's intended to be derogative.
Personally I can't say that I don't do use terms like that but I don't think I have ever used any terms like that in a derogative way. Not since I was a kid anyways

Dades

nesf wrote:

It's the difference between saying that a high IQ suggests a person is highly intelligent and saying that a high IQ means a person is highly intelligent.

I agree - "suggests" is probably the more accurate approach.

nesf wrote:

It is just statistics being misused by people who do not understand them. It doesn't mean the statistics are incorrect, it just means the person isn't interpreting them correctly.

I don't see point in producing statistics that are only going to be misread to say one thing to certain people. What is the point of measuring IQ on a racial level if you are only going to go and then claim the test results are flawed due the social and economic status of half the participants? Does your IQ then become a measure of your standing in society?

Again I believe the only positive inferance from an IQ test is on an individual basis to ascertain any strengths that person has.

nesf wrote:

If anything I find it amusing that people take a white supremacy argument, asians are the top runners from the research done.

Heh I made this point in a post that was deleted in the recent DB mishaps. Odd how quiet people were on Asian "supremacy".

Hagar

Anecdotal Theory: Willie Size * IQ = K

(Blacks with Big Willies * Low IQ) = (Whites * Medium Willies) = (Asians * Tiny Willies) = K

We're all the same at the end of it all.
I haven't worked out a theory for the ladies yet, but I'm working on it.;)

Dades

Hagar wrote:

Anecdotal Theory: Willie Size * IQ = K

Brilliant!

Except, if K is constant - as a white* mensa member - does that not mean you have a small willie?

* Assumption made for the purposes of humour

Hagar

I was hoping nobody would spot that...

rubadub

I must technically have the intelligence of a mouse so...

and flute of a shire horse with a high-testosterone problem

Wibbs

The last 4 posts alone were worth the mouse click . Obviuosly, I say this speaking as a well hung gentleman both in between the ears and elsewhere. The exception proves the rule etc....

As for IQs among races. Yes there have been studies both inside and beyond the US that suggests the intelligence goes down as you go down the populations from asian to sub saharan african, with europeans piggy in the middle. One example that was pointed to was that of the cambodian immigrants(boat people) into the US. When they were studied years later it was found that they had ascended through the social/economic ranks much faster and were more successful than africans who arrived around the same time and were way ahead of afro americans. Same with the chinese community. Many said it was due to higher racism encountered by blacks but the results were interesting. Again white europeans were in the middle. It seems there are differences that one can make across broadly defined "races". On the individual scale however, one can't make such presumptions.

As for the OP, obviously people pick the most obvious visual clues when describing people. Sex, height, weight and race are the most obvious. If you described to the police that you were robbed by a non specific humanoid, you're not going to get too far.

nesf

The Atheist wrote:

I don't see point in producing statistics that are only going to be misread to say one thing to certain people. What is the point of measuring IQ on a racial level if you are only going to go and then claim the test results are flawed due the social and economic status of half the participants? Does your IQ then become a measure of your standing in society?

I do agree that there is a problem with releasing any kind of race statistics that show differences between the races. On one hand people misread them as rascist, which is not true. On the other people misread them as being a scientific basis upon which to justify their own rascism, which is worse imho. The stats show differences in IQ scores between races. That is all. A reasonable and intelligent person would not take these stats in isolation but would try to put them into context. Not everyone is intelligent or reasonable so there are going to be issues.

The Atheist wrote:

Heh I made this point in a post that was deleted in the recent DB mishaps. Odd how quiet people were on Asian "supremacy".

I agree.

Hagar wrote:

Anecdotal Theory: Willie Size * IQ = K

Damn.

*starts shoving crayons up his nose*

bonkey

nesf wrote:

The stats show differences in IQ scores between races.

What they don't do is explain why the differences are there. It is a useful exercise, but the effective result is to beg the question as to why these differences exist. Hence, the issue of whether it is genetic (and hence potentially inherently racial) in nature, or social in some way is not answered but asked, and thus concluding genetic or inherent racial differences would be putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. It is interesting to note that in the latest education figures being reported from the US at the moment, blacks are showing a far greater improvement than whites since the last figures were reported (2 years ago, IIRC), particularly in areas such as mathematics. Does this mean that blacks are getting smarter? It would be interesting to discover whether or not there is a matching increase in IQ, if only to give the tired old discussion some new fat to chew on....no matter what the result. jc

nesf

bonkey wrote:

What they don't do is explain why the differences are there. It is a useful exercise, but the effective result is to beg the question as to why these differences exist. Hence, the issue of whether it is genetic (and hence potentially inherently racial) in nature, or social in some way is not answered but asked, and thus concluding genetic or inherent racial differences would be putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. It is interesting to note that in the latest education figures being reported from the US at the moment, blacks are showing a far greater improvement than whites since the last figures were reported (2 years ago, IIRC), particularly in areas such as mathematics. Does this mean that blacks are getting smarter? It would be interesting to discover whether or not there is a matching increase in IQ, if only to give the tired old discussion some new fat to chew on....no matter what the result. jc

I agree completely. As I said, the stats do not show one race being smarter than another but are representive of racial inequalities in the society in which they are gathered. IQ tests don't take into account anything about a person other than their ability to take the test.

There is however bias in the stats as you have pointed out. It would be as enlightening to look at different social groups and look at average IQ scores. Comparing races directly is fine so long as you keep in mind that it is not a level playing field and that each race will not, on average, have the same social and economic factors applying to it. The stats as they are, are fine. They just need to be put into context imho.

If anything, increases in average marks for certain areas of a country, be they racial or geographical areas, do not show that these people are getting more intelligent. I would take it that they are a byproduct of improving social and economic factors for either the race or area involved.

It would be interesting to discuss the factors that can influence IQ scores; it definitely is something that is open to debate. But that's probably for another thread.

Macmorris

What they don't do is explain why the differences are there. It is a useful exercise, but the effective result is to beg the question as to why these differences exist.

The politically-correct response is that the differences are due almost exclusively to environmental and cultural factors, with genes playing only a small, negligible role. The more sensible response is to admit that while environmental factors are a major cause of the difference, genes are also a very significant contributory factor. As far as I know, the experts have put the heritability (i.e. the genetic element) of intelligence at somewhere between 40 to 80 percent. That still leaves the possiblity that environmental factors may be the main cause of difference in intelligence but it's more probably the case that genes are the primary cause.

As for the racial differences, I would attribute that to natural selection. Homo Sapiens are subject to the same laws of biology as every other species of animal. Although we spent most of our evolution in the same part of the world, we've spent much of our recent history isolated in completely different continents with different climates and different terrain. It would be a denial of evolution on a level with creationism (there's no difference between political-correctness and religious-correctness) to pretend that humans haven't developed traits that have helped them adapt better to those environments and that those adaptions don't include things deeper than just skin colour.

There's a theory that the reason why East-Asians and Europeans have such high intelligence in comparison with the rest of the world is because the environments they evolved in were much more intellectually demanding than the original warm tropical environment of Africa where blacks remained after the migration of humans across the world around 100,000 years ago. When Homo Sapiens migrated to the colder Ice Age environments of Asia and Europe forty or fifty thousand years ago, they faced a much tougher environment in which they would have had to survive. Because it was so cold, they would have had to spend much of their time trying to keep warm and find shelter for themselves and their familes. They would also have to learn to make more sophisticated weapons and traps to catch the large mammals then roaming the continent.

Those kinds of conditions would have meant that people with good problem-solving abilities and high intelligence would have had a survival advantage over the less intelligent. Because intelligent people would have been more likely to have lived long enough to have children and thereby pass on their genes, it's not hard to see how genes for high intelligence would have spread through the gene-pools of the Asians and the Europeans more rapidly than they would in warmer places like Africa where high intelligence was less important for survival.

Zombrex

Macmorris wrote:

It's not hard to see how genes for high intelligence would have spread through the gene-pools of the Asians and the Europeans more rapidly than they would in warmer places like Africa where high intelligence was less important for survival.

That would be great if IQ test actually measured intelligence spread in a relatively static fashion. They don't

IQ levels for different population groups can fluctuate wildly over very small periods of time. For example IQ level of Japan has risen dramatically over the last 50 years, in other groups they have drop dramatically. This effect known as the Flynn effect, and if attributed to health and enviornmental changes such as nutrition. The Japanise people didn't suddenly evolve into more intelligent people. :rolleyes:

There is absolutely no way to know what the IQ levels for the world were 150 years ago, let alone 100,000 years. And even if we did it wouldn't mean anything, they could all be different another 150 years back. This is all assuming IQ tests actually measure "intelligence," which looks doubtful.

No offence Macmorris, but your argument is assumption based on nonsense.

simu

Macmorris wrote:

There's a theory that the reason why East-Asians and Europeans have such high intelligence in comparison with the rest of the world is because the environments they evolved in were much more intellectually demanding than the original warm tropical environment of Africa where blacks remained after the migration of humans across the world around 100,000 years ago. When Homo Sapiens migrated to the colder Ice Age environments of Asia and Europe forty or fifty thousand years ago, they faced a much tougher environment in which they would have had to survive. Because it was so cold, they would have had to spend much of their time trying to keep warm and find shelter for themselves and their familes. They would also have to learn to make more sophisticated weapons and traps to catch the large mammals then roaming the continent.

Those kinds of conditions would have meant that people with good problem-solving abilities and high intelligence would have had a survival advantage over the less intelligent. Because intelligent people would have been more likely to have lived long enough to have children and thereby pass on their genes, it's not hard to see how genes for high intelligence would have spread through the gene-pools of the Asians and the Europeans more rapidly than they would in warmer places like Africa where high intelligence was less important for survival.

That's just waffle really. You could argue that the people in harsh climates had no time to sit and ponder things and develop a complex oral culture and all. Or compose a million other stories to fit whatever argument you feel like backing!

Dades

Macmorris wrote:

it's not hard to see how genes for high intelligence would have spread through the gene-pools of the Asians and the Europeans more rapidly than they would in warmer places like Africa where high intelligence was less important for survival.

Should the same not hold true then for animals?

I don't see the animals living in the artic wastes or deserts being particularly intelligent. In fact the smartest animals of all, primates, live in warmer climates such as Africa or zones of similar climate around the world.

I don't know who's right - just that there's a dozen arguments for either side.

Wibbs

There just may be something in the theory. I seem to remember experiments into delayed gratification(rather than IQ) conducted some years back. Again the results divided into broadly racial lines, with Europeans being the ones more likely to defer present gratification for greater reward in the future. This may tie in with the whole harsh environment hypothesis. If you're living in a more sharply seasonal climate with limited food sources, it would make sense to store food and plan ahead more in order to survive. In an environment where food is plentiful year round such forward planning may not be as big an evolutionary advantage. You even see this with animals in such climates. They store food for the winter. In those animals their spacial skills(for remembering where their food stores are) are higher than in relatives in more southerly climes. I partially agree with The Atheist regarding animals in warm climates having similar intelligence levels. That said humans themselves evolved intelligence in the face of rapid climactic change between 5-3 million yrs ago. Africa changed quite a bit in theat time, from thick jungle to a more open savannah type of environment. The apes that stayed in the jungle remained much as we see them today.

As for simu's argument re oral traditions. A developed oral tradition is more advantageous to harsh climate dwellers as many of these stories contain wisdom about food sources/weather changes etc. The Australian aboriginies, arctic Inuit and the Kalahari bushmen have vast oral traditions for just such a reason(among others). Without such traditions, survival skills needed for such environments may not be passed on nearly as efficiently. In any case, hunter gatherers have quite a bit of time on their hands to sit and ponder. One could argue that it was the invetion of farming that reduced such free time. Farming was an advantage mainly because it helped the formation of an elite because of an excess of foodstuffs. From that city states and "civilisation" followed,

Experiments on Australian aboriginal children found that they had far higher spacial and visual memory skills than the european children they went to school with. That would be a harsh environment where such skills were required for survival. The joke is they're considered lesser humans by many of the far right brigade.:rolleyes:

nobodythere

Maybe there are evolutionary factors involved. I once saw a thread over on totse about something similar where the OP argued that African-Americans shouldn't be allowed to vote because they were inferior. One of his arguments was that there were no great african civilisations in recordable history while white people had the Romans etc etc.

This had me by the balls for ages. I thought he had a point, until I realised that when we judge intelligence we judge it in a very Western context. Let's face it, if you took most people from Irish cities and put them in a rural place all on their own, not very many of us would survive. I wouldn't anyway. I'm guessing most people on the African continent would be able to. They have an education that we have never had.

These past few years I've realised just how crazy the Western world is. It's INSANE that we've come to live our lives in this fast-food TV generation, full of so many lazy fat people. Devoid of love and real goals we drift through our lives looking for something to satisfy us between our Dilbert work lives and isolated home lives. We keep our kids in school 8 hours a day so that one day they can become like us and take the safe route through life. I've had some eye-openers and I've seen that life can be much better. It depresses me to see all of this advertising and everything shoved down our throats.

I'd go as far to say that our inability to escape this greed and materialism indicates a lack of intelligence within us. This is a lifestyle that we inherit. I know that's generalising but that's my perception of the Western world, always being stamped on by the guy above you.

In summary what I'm saying is that because of the subjective nature of what intelligence is, it's impossible for you to judge the intelligence of other races, because you will always be affected by the way you have grown up. If you have any reason within you you would judge the individual, and not the ethnic minority.

Back to the original post, we are the facilitators of our own evolution. We determine how intelligent we are by how we choose to live life. For example, let's say crime rates were higher among Romanians. This is not in "the nature" of a Romanian, it is the influence of his environment. If he grows up around theft, he is more likely to think less of stealing. Intelligent people are those who can escape the influence of their environment and make decisions for themselves. These are individuals, not races.

From the 1927 Grand Council of American Indians

"The white people, who are trying to make us over into their image, they want us to be what they call "assimilated," bringing the Indians into the mainstream and destroying our own way of life and our own cultural patterns. They believe we should be contented like those whose concept of happiness is materialistic and greedy, which is very different from our way.

We want freedom from the white man rather than to be intergrated. We don't want any part of the establishment, we want to be free to raise our children in our religion, in our ways, to be able to hunt and fish and live in peace. We don't want power, we don't want to be congressmen, or bankers....we want to be ourselves. We want to have our heritage, because we are the owners of this land and because we belong here.

The white man says, there is freedom and justice for all. We have had "freedom and justice," and that is why we have been almost exterminated. We shall not forget this."

bonkey

grasshopa wrote:

One of his arguments was that there were no great african civilisations in recordable history while white people had the Romans etc etc.

This had me by the balls for ages.

Why? Egypt is in Africa

Presumably, though, he meant something like sub-saharan African (which had the Mali, the Ghanese kingdom, and others, but you could argue none were "great"). Of course, if you look at the climate and landscape, its not entirely surprising that you didn't have great kingdoms, whereas you did in more temperate, agriculturally-suited areas. Of course, that correlation couldn't have anything to do with anything. Nope. Has to be genetics. Obviously

The entire "no great civilisation" is making the presumption that intelligence / evolutionary status is not just the prime factor in the establishment of civilisation but the only significant factor really.

Its like assuming your answer is correct as a basis for the evidence you use to supposedly strengthen the credibility of the answer.

I should further point out that its convenient that this guy stopped at the limit of recorded history, because when you go back a bit further - to the archaeological level - there is evidence that sub-saharan Africans were working with steel about 1400 BC. Steel, you might be interested to know, was "invented" in Europe about 3000 years after that.

But we're more intelligent here in Europe, right?

jc

Wibbs

bonkey wrote:

Why? Egypt is in Africa

Well spotted that man (though do not go down the Afrocentric route and say that Egypt was black(at least in the terms that afro Americans like to think).

Presumably, though, he meant something like sub-saharan African (which had the Mali, the Ghanese kingdom, and others, but you could argue none were "great"). Of course, if you look at the climate and landscape, its not entirely surprising that you didn't have great kingdoms, whereas you did in more temperate, agriculturally-suited areas. Of course, that correlation couldn't have anything to do with anything. Nope. Has to be genetics. Obviously

Well the Aztec and Inca civilisations grew up in a very similar climate and landscape to sub saharan Africa and they did alright as did many in Asia in similar tropical jungle areas. So it doesn't seem to be just down to climate and landscape.

I should further point out that its convenient that this guy stopped at the limit of recorded history, because when you go back a bit further - to the archaeological level - there is evidence that sub-saharan Africans were working with steel about 1400 BC. Steel, you might be interested to know, was "invented" in Europe about 3000 years after that.

Linky please. That sounds very impressive. Hadn't heard of that. I know the Japanese were working with steel long before us in Europe. I seem to remember the Chinese were at the steel lark too. The industrial manufacture of steel in Europe was later, but I seem to recall that small scale steel production was going on in Europe before that.

lazydaisy

I took a class on Colonial Latin America and it started with the environmental development of Europe and the Americas. According to environmental historians, the main reason Europe developed much faster than Africa or South America, was because of the horse. The climate was also much more hospitable to developing species. For example, if you look at Latin America, it was much more tropical and hydrated, so it was closer to an amphibian habitat and why it had alligators, snakes, etc. Europe's climate, being much less tropical gave rise to less amphibous, more land dwelling animals, such as the horse. The horse enabled Europe to accelerate transport and movement both of people and of goods and thereby created a trade industry which in turn accelerated their civilization, in terms of farming, labour and housing. This is just one theory. I'm sure there are other kinds of historians who dispute this.

What IQ has to do with crime, race, and intelligence is beyond me. My mother, who is of mixed race but grew up in Ireland does phenomenally well on IQ, as do her siblings but none of them would rely on an IQ score to assess someone's intelligence. Someone mentioned the poor social skills of mensa members, illustrating that there is such a thing as social intelligence, which an IQ test doesn't measure.

Also crime would seem to have a lot to do with opportunity, conviction, and what is considered criminal. If you're talking about theft, certainly more urban areas have more opportunity for theviery, of cars, homes, muggings etc, and more urban areas tend to have more ecclectic populations. Rape, murder, assault, etc... are at a different level of criminality IMHO. Some serial killlers seem to be pretty smart in how they coordinate escaping authorites and luring victims, thus displaying another kind of intelligence but a revolting lack of compassion, which is possibly classifiable as emotional intelligence.

Grasshoppa says:
Intelligent people are those who can escape the influence of their environment and make decisions for themselves. These are individuals, not races.

It takes bravery and courage to escape the influence of environment when that environment wants to drag you down and you have no power. It is not always easy to risk rejection or punishment by your culture either. It's incredibly hard to escape poverty. Sometimes it takes a lot of risk, sometimes it takes money, sometimes it requires assistance, sometimes it takes hard work and sometimes I hate to say, it takes force to move out of an environment. If you;re told you're a dumb sh*t long enough you'll believe it no matter how smart you are and you wont even try.

To refer back to the OP, I wonder what would have happened if the man who botched the circumcision were a white Irish person or other white European.

On an entirely other note it seems the old stereotype is alive and well and being verified....here's a link to something Hagar refered to... apparantly there are statistics to support it. Scroll down to the middle of the page. You might want to share this info with the ladies in your life. Or maybe not.:)

http://www.oprah.com/relationships/relationships_content.jhtml?contentId=con_20040219_traceycox.xml&section=Sex&subsection=Sex