Racist partially right?

[Tsukasa Buddha]

As an anecdote, I took a real (i.e. you sit down with a neuro-psychologist for hours on end) test and was surprised that so many of the cultural questions were Anglocentric. I was asked for the authors of Alice in Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes. I'd say asking about Lady Gaga and and Sarah Palin would be better measures of social awareness, but there you have it .

Also, parts of my tests were disregarded because they were too low. Apparently, I was lying (He said I was getting tired or lazy, but I really don't think so)?

 

[Juniversal]

Exactly. As Gould pointed out in the book I mentioned, the original intent of the "IQ" test was merely a screening device to point out kids that might be having problems.
It was never intended to measure "intelligence"; as if such a multi-faceted and nebulous thing could be quantified by a simple number.

This is another important fact that needs to be restated. The original tests goal was to identify individual struggling students. Interestingly enough it was a eugenist that first translated the test into English and seemingly him and his cohorts are the reason the test results was applied to entire population groups as opposed to individuals. IQ might indeed be a solid predictor for success but I imagine it's a greater reflection of the scholastic environment one was reared in, as opposed to actual measurable intelligence or intellectual capacity.

 

[FireGarden]

Pretty bad for my trust in Lynns numbers.

Lynn's numbers being a big part of the thread, that seems to end quite a bit of the discussion.

If you want to widen it out, there's this from Flynn:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

What do we know? First, we know that the black-white IQ gap disappeared in Germany. But the numbers are scant, there are unknowns that could have biased the results, and one study should not convince anyone. Second, that the g pattern disappeared in Germany. This shows that the German environment at least addressed the root causes of the IQ gap insofar as it is environmental, something America does not seem to have done to date. The contrast focuses attention on the peculiar black subculture that exists in America. Third, what causes the g pattern is a special inability to deal with cognitive problems the more complex they become. Therefore, we could do well to look at anything in the American black subculture that signals a less cognitively complex environment. Fourth, about a third of the traditional black-white IQ gap has disappeared. This is encouraging, be we do not know whether it is due to hearing aids [a previous analogy of Flynn] or addressing root causes. Fifth, there is reason to believe that the black loss of ground on whites with age is environmental. I believe this is plausible because of the steady trend to lose 0.6 IQ points per year after infancy. But more to the point, at each age, there seem to be environmental factors that would engender a less complex cognitive environment. Sixth, if that is so, and if hints that black and white are equal in terms of their genotype for IQ at conception are not deceptive, then the entire black-white IQ gap is environmental. The number of "ifs" tells the reader why I believe all conclusions are tentative. And why I said at the start that anyone who claims to know that black and white are genetically equal for IQ is too bold.

I think Flynn is, at least in part, basing his first comment on this study by Eyferth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyferth_study

mothers of the children studied were white German women, while their fathers were white and African-American members of the US occupation forces. In contrast to results obtained in many American studies, the average IQs of the children studied were roughly similar across racial groups, making the study an oft-cited piece of evidence in the debate about race and intelligence.

After that, it's a matter of which experts you want to trust.


ETA:
Here's a summary of a debate between Flynn and Murray:
http://reason.com/archives/2006/12/01/closing-the-black-white-iq-gap

You can find audio at youtube. (It might be on the above page, but wouldn't run on my computer if it was).

 

[mike3]

Have the Australian aborigines "IQ tested" by demonstrating their ability to find food, water and shelter in the bush. Then you might find their IQ is averaging 120 while Europeans in the same boat would be down at 50.

So then it seems there is no way to easily measure intrinsic intellectual capacity, then, eh? In other words, how would the capacity, biologically vary from, say, a European to Australian aborigines in learning those things, or learning "X" in general?

 

[mike3]

If one just assumes, that IQ measures "industrialized society skills and abilities" then the numbers could be true, would have a relevant political effect, but would not mean, that bushmen are mentally retarded.

That's right. So the test is pretty worthless insofar as advancing any sort of "racism" is concerned, since that is about some kind of genetic superiority.

 

[Carn]

There's certainly differences between difference "races" of people, that's undeniable. And those differences undeniably mean that some races manage better in certain circumstances than others. for example my fair skin is ill suited to the heat of Africa compared to the darker skin of an African.

But to make comparisons about who is "better" you have to know what context you're measuring and have a common ground for measurement. With skin performance in sunlight, that's fairly straight forward.

But that context for measuring is given, though less straight forward than sunlight effects.
Its success in a industrialized society (on an individual level) or success in developing a industrialized society (on the level of society). When afroamericans under perform in economic success and over perform in criminal activity, everybody assumes, that the reason solely has to lie in the social situation and upbringing of afroamericans. And then of course correctly concludes that something has to be done about it and the rest of the population are to some extent racistic ********, who cause the afroamericans to under perform.

But if the part genetics play in determining the success or failure in society cannot be measured, the assumption could be wrong and most importantly racism plays a smaller role in afroamericans under performing. And i prefer only to label people as racists, if they truly are.

When some countries are under performing, its the same everybody assumes, that it has to do with the political history, colonialism or mistakes in (often = not enough) development aid. Based on this assumption all under developed countries implicitly or explicitly gives the more developed world the sole responsibility for their plight. And i prefer, that before someone claims, that i am responsible for millions of dead (i am part of that evil devloped world, who exploits the rest of the world) , that he has proof and does not base his argument on unproven assumptions.


A vast part of activity towards minorities and underdeveloped regions/countries is based on the assumption, that if you snatch a bushman baby right after birth and put it into an US upper class family with an education aimed for Harvard, that the probability for success would be roughly equal to the case where you snatched a baby from anyone or anywhere else.

Racists would obviously deny this, anybody else seems to assume, that it is racist to suggest, that the assumption is wrong.

The IQ data i started the thread with, is obviously not reliable enough to shed any light upon the assumption.

And ideas for ethical methods to test the assumption, that genetic differences between races or groups have no or only a minor influence upon the social differences visible?

 

[GlennB]

So then it seems there is no way to easily measure intrinsic intellectual capacity, then, eh? In other words, how would the capacity, biologically vary from, say, a European to Australian aborigines in learning those things, or learning "X" in general?

There is no easy way, certainly. A way would be to compare only those who have been raised in very similar environments, but even then there will be complications for the aboriginal who is adopted as a baby and raised in a white middle-class home.

"What is the next note in this sequence? .... " might be part of a reasonable way to test the 'musical IQ' of orchestral musicians, but if Einstein can't answer the question it doesn't mean he's dumber than the average cellist.

 

[Drachasor]

Stephen Jay Gould explored this pretty thoroughly in The Mismeasure Of Man.
Standardized tests applicable to all humans regardless of their culture and upbringing are pretty hard to come by.

And within a culture such difference disappear if you take into account socio-economic status (e.g. poor people who have crappy schools and live in bad neighborhoods do worse than people with money who don't have to deal with a bunch of violence....surprise!)

This is another important fact that needs to be restated. The original tests goal was to identify individual struggling students. Interestingly enough it was a eugenist that first translated the test into English and seemingly him and his cohorts are the reason the test results was applied to entire population groups as opposed to individuals. IQ might indeed be a solid predictor for success but I imagine it's a greater reflection of the scholastic environment one was reared in, as opposed to actual measurable intelligence or intellectual capacity.

And to add to this, it is worth mentioning there are things one can do and study to improve one's score.

 

[Drachasor]

If you want a hotter topic with some good data, I'd say looking at IQ variations with family size and spacing is far more interesting.

Though, it did get me into an argument with a girl back in High School. She thought I was saying she and her siblings were stupid because they were part of a larger family, and hence didn't want to believe the research (even after I contacted the professor I believe my psych book cited and he kindly mailed me some of his papers). It's a very easy mistake for people to look at general trends and then misapply them to a particular scenario.

 

[Carn]

If you want a hotter topic with some good data, I'd say looking at IQ variations with family size and spacing is far more interesting.

It would be a huge surprise if family size and IQ are not in some way correlated.
On the one hand attractiveness for a partner also can depend upon communication skills or economic or social status, which all could be correlated to IQ. And if one is not attractive enough, one will not find partner as easy, which might influence the number of children.
On the other hand, the willingness and ability to limit family size can depend on a range of factors, like mental discipline, religiousness, ambition in life, drug use, education time and forgetfulness. All this could and some definitely are correlated with IQ.

Only question would be what correlation is or if a lot of effects cancel each other so, that it is hard to measure.

(And for atheism it would be crucial to know, whether religiousness is an important factor and whether it partly depends on genes, because then evolution will finish atheism and that way maybe believe in evolution in a few generations - that would be truly weird.)

 

[Jeff Corey]

For instance. What number comes next in this sequence?

[qimg]http://lokishammer.dragon-rider.org/X/Test1.jpg[/qimg]

Pick from these....

[qimg]http://lokishammer.dragon-rider.org/X/test2.jpg[/qimg]

Can't do it? You can't be very intelligent then, the answer is easy.

8?

 

[PhantomWolf]

8?

I'll give you half marks, can you tell me which symbol is 8?

 

[Jeff Corey]

I'll give you half marks, can you tell me which symbol is 8?

"X"?

 

[PhantomWolf]

"X"?

Close, but no, that's "9".

 

[Jeff Corey]

That doesn't make sense. * is eight? Dumbass aliens.

 

[PhantomWolf]

That doesn't make sense. * is eight? Dumbass aliens.

lol. Actually it does, as 9 "X" is a combination of 3 "^" and 6 "v". "*" is a mix of 9 "x" and 1 "|" or A since the numeric system is base 16. 8 is the last symbol, which is a mix of 4 "+" and 2 "//". The 1st and 3rd symbols are meaningless.

 

[Drachasor]

Only question would be what correlation is or if a lot of effects cancel each other so, that it is hard to measure.

Twins, for example, tend to be less intelligent than non-twins. Firstborns tend to be less intelligent than the second born, assuming a gap of a few years, but too small a gap and they tend to be less intelligent and too large a gap and there's no difference.

It's actually pretty interesting. The research suggests that there's an ideal gap for cognitive development for children (3 or so years, IIRC), and that some older children can help make a more cognitively rich environment. Too many kids too close together in birth and they won't help each other in this manner though, and it's thought it also means parents have to split their attention too much, hence the quality of the environment suffers. Too many kids in general can also cause problems (but you might well be getting into socio-economic issues there and limited finances...I don't remember if they took that into account or not).

So it isn't just a strict correlation with family size, but much more complicated and interesting than that.

 

[PhantomWolf]

lol. Actually it does, as 9 "X" is a combination of 3 "^" and 6 "v". "*" is a mix of 9 "x" and 1 "|" or A since the numeric system is base 16. 8 is the last symbol, which is a mix of 4 "+" and 2 "//". The 1st and 3rd symbols are meaningless.

For those bored enough to be interested, the numbers are below, the equivalent of 0-F. I have an alphabet somewhere too, but I suspect it's hidden in a drawer somewhere.

 

[FireGarden]

Next you make a splendid remark about missing leaders/elite. A population with an average IQ of 83 cannot generate an elite that will lead said country into the bliss of industrial society. That is admittedly a racist opinion which has the benefit of being a true opinion.

Defend the numbers and methodology, or stop using them.

 

[Oystein]

"Intelligence" is a multi-dimensional quality, that, roughly descibes how well brains or persons can solve problems. Its real life impact ("achievement") is dependent on the kinds of problems a person is likely to encounter in their life. It depends on cultural (and natural) context.
To put a single number to it means to weigh kinds of problems and their respective best problem solving strategies. Those weights are essentially arbitrary.

I am pretty sure, if Bushmen had first thought up IQ tests, they would have found they are the most intelligent people in the world, with native Australians and some indios following close behind, and Europeans being complete morons.


It's pretty much the same with beauty: A multi-dimensional quality that, roughly, describes how much the look of things or people appeal to beholders. We can surely find and more or less objectively measure various traits that can make a person more or less beautiful, but luckily, so far no one had the silly idea of weighing those measurements and assigning a "Beauty Quotient" (BQ) to folks, and then go around the world and declare that Englishmen are the ugliest of them all.