Racist partially right?

[Carn]

http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence#Group_mean_IQ_from_various_sources

Yes, i know, its the nazi wiki.
But:
"Richard Lynn,
"Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis" 2006
Table 16.2 (indigenous populations) Estimated
average IQ
East Asians 105
Europeans 100
Arctic Peoples 91
Southeast Asians 87
Native Americans (north & south) 86
Pacific Islanders 85
Southern Asian & Northern Africans 84
Africans (subsaharan) 67
Native Australians (aboriginals) 62
Bushmen (southern Africa) 54 "
Here another possible nazi site http://meinews.niuz.biz/iq-t567517.html?
with further IQ values for various groups.

Now independent of the political motivation for presenting such results, these values are - if one has a definition of IQ - either accurate or inaccurate.

And if they are accurate, the differences in IQ between various groups are caused in part or completely by environmental factors or in part or completely by genetic factors.

Now i do not know any way to disprove or prove the effect of genetic factors on intelligence and i do not know any other IQ-test, which show, that the various groups all have IQ around 100 and the difference is negligible.

Which means, that its possible, that aborigines for example have due to genetic reasons a lower average IQ than other inhabitants of australia. Of course that would be irrelvant for an individual, but if IQ is even only a rough measure of intelligence, this would mean, that aborigines in australian society will - even if recruting and oppurtunities are perfectly unbiased - be seldom in any higher education job, thereby will seldom earn lot of money and thereby will often be among the poor.

Now from what i was taught, racism is completely wrong, not only to judge people according to membership of a certain race, but even to assume, that there are any relevant differences between different races. But this last point is not an opinion, but is either true or untrue and the above numbers, which could be scientifically checked, would disprove the statement, because if average aborigines IQ is 36 points lower, aborigines will be on average more poor and more criminal (poverty and criminal activity is corelated).

So the difference between the races would not be irrelevant, but it would have an huge impact upon society.

Also affirmative action programs could end up to be complete nonsense, because they would promote people unfit for the job. The same is true for other governement programs like economic aid from rich to poor nations, no matter how much money is pumped into Ethiopia, if their average IQ is 63 and the large difference is at least partially caused by genetics, there will not be a second sillicon valley in ethopia.

So how can or is/was this claim of large IQ differences be/was tested?

Can it be tested anyway, whether genetics play a role in the difference?

And is the current "official" position, that the differences are irrelevant, wise, considering that reality could offer a nasty suprise for anti-racists?

After all, even if some groups are on average more stupid than others, this would not change the fact, that they are humans with equal rights.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

What makes you think a racist website will provide you with the best information on the matter?

There's a good line from West Wing about IQ:

TOBY
It's like when they did that thing with the SAT scores and I got dumber
twenty years
after I went to college.

 

[Bikewer]

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.

 

[Carn]

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.

That just means, we cannot say whether the claim "There is no relevant average intelligence difference between different races." or the claim "There is a relevant average intelligence difference between different races." is more likely to be true.

But i am interested if its possible to show one one of those claims to be false.

 

[FireGarden]

According to wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_Differences_in_Intelligence_(book)

Richard Lynn even has an IQ for Homo Erectus: 50

And wiki's general page asks a question I've never seen answered well (Lynn's answer seems rather silly -- you wouldn't need a test to notice someone has an IQ of 54, and that's the average he gives for Kalahari Bushmen):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

(emphasis added)

In Mackintosh 2006, p. 94, Mackintosh questioned Lynn's inference that Kalahari bushmen, with an allegedly average measured IQ of 54, have a mental age equivalent to an average European 8-year-old; and that an 8-year-old European child would have no difficulty learning the skills required for surviving in the same desert environment. Mackintosh writes, "Can anyone seriously accept Lynn's conclusion that the majority of San Bushmen, whose average IQ is 54, are mentally retarded? Lynn sees no problem: an adult with an IQ of 54 has the mental age of an 8-year-old European, and 8-year-old European children would have no difficulty learning the skills needed to survive in the Kalahari desert"

[quoting Hunt and Wittmann]

The majority of the data points were based upon convenience rather than representative samples. Some points were not even based on residents of the country.

[...] Upon reading the original reference, we found that the “data point” that Lynn and Vanhanen used for the lowest IQ estimate, Equatorial Guinea, was actually the mean IQ of a group of Spanish children in a home for the developmentally disabled in Spain.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Would anyone care to explain what intelligence is? And then explain how to quantify it.

 

[FireGarden]

Would anyone care to explain what intelligence is? And then explain how to quantify it.

I can give the obvious answer...

Intelligence is measured by IQ tests, with the intention of predicting future achievements. The correlation between IQ/achievement varies, not just with the test but with the area of study (eg: predicting achievements in maths/science/music/literature) and with how far from the mean the score is.

 

[Beerina]

I remember the U-Mich admissions office saying that your test scores were not the best predictors of your success in college, but rather the test scores combined with your grades, the latter being indicative of how hard you worked.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I can give the obvious answer...

Intelligence is measured by IQ tests,

That doesn't explain what intelligence is, just states that this particular test is supposed to measure it. "Intelligence is that which is measured by this test, and this test is a thing that measure intelligence", essentially. Recursive, and nonexplanatory.

As for "achievements", what "achievements" are indicative of intelligence? And how can they be predicted? And again, what is intelligence? The collection of these unspecified achievements?

The point I'm making here is that there is no simple thing "intelligence", and therefore the idea of measuring it by one test and getting one score and using it compare is ridiculously simplistic. IQ tests measure one thing: the ability to score on IQ tests.

And remember the underlying problem of all tests meant to measure things like this: they are made by people, and the people who make these kind of tests always assume they themselves should score highly on it.

Intelligence is far too nebulous a concept to be easily quantified.

 

[Piscivore]

That doesn't explain what intelligence is, just states that this particular test is supposed to measure it. "Intelligence is that which is measured by this test, and this test is a thing that measure intelligence", essentially. Recursive, and nonexplanatory.

As for "achievements", what "achievements" are indicative of intelligence? And how can they be predicted? And again, what is intelligence? The collection of these unspecified achievements?

The point I'm making here is that there is no simple thing "intelligence", and therefore the idea of measuring it by one test and getting one score and using it compare is ridiculously simplistic. IQ tests measure one thing: the ability to score on IQ tests.

And remember the underlying problem of all tests meant to measure things like this: they are made by people, and the people who make these kind of tests always assume they themselves should score highly on it.

Intelligence is far too nebulous a concept to be easily quantified.

This.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

I haven't seen as much criticism of tests or measures of animal intelligence as I have of measures of human intelligence, but maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

 

[FireGarden]

As for "achievements", what "achievements" are indicative of intelligence? And how can they be predicted? And again, what is intelligence? The collection of these unspecified achievements?

It could be rather banal things, such as the size of a person's vocabulary. Not just words, but ideas and processes. It can be measured in a rather dull way, such as income or the grades you get in academic tests.

The point I'm making here is that there is no simple thing "intelligence", and therefore the idea of measuring it by one test and getting one score and using it compare is ridiculously simplistic. IQ tests measure one thing: the ability to score on IQ tests.

Unfortunately, IQ is the best definition of intelligence I know. I accept your disatisfaction with that. But, er, there it is.

Intelligence is far too nebulous a concept to be easily quantified.

Alternatively, I take intelligence down a peg or two and accept it as a so-so kind of predictor of various outcomes. I'm not saying that a human being can be summed up in a single number. The actual claims being made are like the rather mundane one I gave earlier: IQ will help predict who will do better. This can be important if training is expensive. And IQ seems to have a better rep than graphology, which is the kind of alternative available to employers.

And remember the underlying problem of all tests meant to measure things like this: they are made by people, and the people who make these kind of tests always assume they themselves should score highly on it.

I don't know if he's still here, but there was at least one poster at the JREF who actually works in this field. I think his name was bpesta22. A thread in the science forum would probably be appropriate.

 

[Carn]

The point I'm making here is that there is no simple thing "intelligence", and therefore the idea of measuring it by one test and getting one score and using it compare is ridiculously simplistic. IQ tests measure one thing: the ability to score on IQ tests.

Therefore i said in opening post "if IQ is defined" and "if IQ is even only a rough measure of intelligence".

But you cannot avoid the hole problem by arguing, that IQ and more so intelligence are far not defined well enough.

And remember the underlying problem of all tests meant to measure things like this: they are made by people, and the people who make these kind of tests always assume they themselves should score highly on it.

Intelligence is far too nebulous a concept to be easily quantified.

Because what IQ test certainly measure is, what the test designers think intelligence is about. What the test designers think intelligence is about, is defined by their societies standard. Most IQ test designers come from industrialized countries, where academics are thought to be the intelligence elite. So it wold not be suprising, if they give an rough estimate on the ability to be succesful in the field of academics.

As far as i know, the average IQ of those who make a PHD degree is 130, with natural sciences higher average, e.g. physics about 140.

If a group of people truly has an average IQ of 60-70, there are very few among them, who could succeed in achieving a PHD.

From that one cannot conclude that affirmative action in general and economic aid are a waste, but one can conclude, that if there is truly a country with such average IQ values, in such a country no high tech economy is possible, because they simply do not have enough scientist for that - so if those above IQ values are correct, no silicon valley in Ethopia and Australia should not start affirmative action programs if among phd students aboriginals are underrepresented.

 

[Dinwar]

Unfortunately, IQ is the best definition of intelligence I know. I accept your disatisfaction with that. But, er, there it is.

If there is a great deal of debate about whether or not your best measurement for a thing actually measures the thing (and little if any of the debate consisting of support for the measuring system), I think the best approach is to say "We can't measure it just now", rather than using a demonstrably flawed system. No data means you need to collect data. Bad data means you need to overturn an existing paradigm, which is never easy.

It could be rather banal things, such as the size of a person's vocabulary. Not just words, but ideas and processes. It can be measured in a rather dull way, such as income or the grades you get in academic tests.

The problem is dissociating these from other factors, such as income, race, class, etc. Even jobs can influence this--I have a fairly good vocabulary, but my sister has a VASTLY greater one. I have the higher IQ (not by much, but it's higher), whereas she's an English professor. Simple metrics are good, IF you can reliably tie them to the thing you're measuring. I'm not convinced there's a reliable way to do that here.

As for IQ being a predictor, sure it can be. Unfortunately, the data do not support the statement that IQ measures any form of intelligence.

 

[Skeptic]

It's possible IQ difference exist between groups. But the evidence is terribly weak: somehow, it is always one's own group that comes up on the top (or very near the top) of the IQ scale, and the difference is always so small (up to 10 IQ points or so), that one strongly suspects one sees what one wants to see.

I fail to see why, even if everything the racists say about Black IQ is true, it would matter by much. A few IQ points difference in mean IQ exists between, say, short and tall people (due to the correlation between both IQ and height and childhood nutrition), but nobody thinks this means all short people are stupid or all tall people are smart.

And, finally, you're quoting metapedia? Really? You're serious?

 

[FireGarden]

If there is a great deal of debate about whether or not your best measurement for a thing actually measures the thing (and little if any of the debate consisting of support for the measuring system), I think the best approach is to say "We can't measure it just now", rather than using a demonstrably flawed system. No data means you need to collect data. Bad data means you need to overturn an existing paradigm, which is never easy.

There's plenty of data and it is supportive of the idea that an actual thing is being measured. And, actually, I see most of the debate (not here, but in general) as being in support of the usefulness of IQ. Its correlation with other measurements is established. Not a massive correlation, but certainly large enough to be considered useful.

The problem is dissociating these from other factors, such as income, race, class, etc. Even jobs can influence this--I have a fairly good vocabulary, but my sister has a VASTLY greater one. I have the higher IQ (not by much, but it's higher), whereas she's an English professor. Simple metrics are good, IF you can reliably tie them to the thing you're measuring. I'm not convinced there's a reliable way to do that here.

Obviously, vocabulary depends not just on IQ but on the number and variety of books you read and the other ways in which you are exposed to language.

As for IQ being a predictor, sure it can be. Unfortunately, the data do not support the statement that IQ measures any form of intelligence.

I treat IQ as synonymous with intelligence -- general IQ, anyway (there are tests which focus on specific areas). If you're not happy with that, then feel free to come up with a definition of intelligence which goes beyond "how smart someone is".

 

[Professor Yaffle]

I posted a link to a documentary on race and IQ a while back. I'll see if I can find the thread.

ETA: The video I posted is no longer available, but I found parts 4-7 on youtube. Here's part 4:



My view is that IQ is a fairly good measure when you are looking at differences within a fairly homogenous cultural group. I think its quite a poor measure when looking at differences between cultural groups. Some of the things that lead me to that conclusion are that (at least in the UK figures I have looked at in the past) there is a fairly large difference between measured IQs of Indian's (higher) and Pakistanis and Bangladeshis (lower). Also IQ scores of mixed race people (eg black and white parentage) tend to be lower on average than either parental ethnic group.

 

[Bikewer]

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.

 

[Carn]

somehow, it is always one's own group that comes up on the top (or very near the top) of the IQ scale, and the difference is always so small (up to 10 IQ points or so), that one strongly suspects one sees what one wants to see.

Those few times i have seen average IQ values of ethic groups or nations, Japanese and Chinese had a slight lead over various european nations. African nations always scored bad.
European jews always were at top. (Thats an information i di not see on metapeida, i think i know why.)

I fail to see why, even if everything the racists say about Black IQ is true, it would matter by much. A few IQ points difference in mean IQ exists between, say, short and tall people (due to the correlation between both IQ and height and childhood nutrition), but nobody thinks this means all short people are stupid or all tall people are smart.

I agree, that average 90 to 100 does not matter much, even if it is genetic. In all normal IQ ranges you will have members of both groups.

But a 36 point difference could mean, that at the high IQ end (so PHD students) there are practically no members of the lower IQ group. This could cause a bad light upon society even if society is not racist or discriminatory in any way.

And, finally, you're quoting metapedia? Really? You're serious?

When i am looking for data, that is often and widely abused by racist, do you know how long i might have to search to find it? Ill doubt wiki lists those numbers.
I mean, if i look for real or pseudofacts, that is used for racistic propaganda, what better place to look than metapedia?

 

[Skeptic]

A 36 IQ points is vastly greater than is possible. It would mean, if true, that the average Black man is mentally retarded, and that there should be practically no Blacks smart enough to be, say, lawyers or physicians. This is simply not in accordance with the obvious facts.