Race and Intelligence

[JacobEvans]

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/04/26/9530.aspx

I wonder if they tested for multiple intelligences.

What's your opinion?

I agree with the last paragraph of the article about view people by the individual.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

It is racism in action. Rushton in particular is a known quantity, as the head of the Pioneer Fund, an organization founded for the promotion of white supremacist viewpoints. From Wikipedia:

The 1937 incorporation documents of the Pioneer Fund list two purposes. The first, modeled on the Nazi Lebensborn breeding program,[12] was aimed at encouraging the propagation of those "descended predominantly from white persons who settled in the original thirteen states prior to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States and/or from related stocks, or to classes of children, the majority of whom are deemed to be so descended". Its second purpose was to support academic research and the "dissemination of information, into the 'problem of heredity and eugenics'" and "the problems of race betterment".[11] The Pioneer Fund argues the "race betterment" has always referred to the "human race" referred to earlier in the sentence, and critics argue it referred to racial groups. The document was amended in 1985 and the phrase changed to "human race betterment."

To this day they still provide funding to white "nationalist" groups, anti-immigration groups, and other groups with ties to white supremacists, Nazis, and neo-Nazis. Their scientific "research" is designed to add a veneer of legitimacy to their fundamentally racist views.

 

[Aught3]

Yeah, I thought that bell-curve then had been disproved.

 

[JacobEvans]

Joe, you may have a point, though I wonder if the experiments weren't actually altered to fit a white supremacy aim.

My reasoning for this is three fold. First, it seems unlikely that a Neo-Nazi leaning group would place another race (East Asians) above Whites.Second, the evolutionary explanation for the differences seems plausible. And the 2nd to last paragraph of the article appears to show that the researchers want the info to be used to better understand human populations and the like and has the non-racist stance of recommending people look at the individual not the group.

I'm glad you found that info though because it adds another dimension to this.

 

[JacobEvans]

Upon further reading, I cast further doubt on the experiment's non bias.

I still think it's an interesting topic.

 

[Salv]

James Watson was also forced to resign from his possition after making comments about race and intelligence.

I watched a documentary a short while back about a couple of studies done in this sort of area. Basically a childs intelligence drops if its early schooling is rubbish. IIRC a lot of the brains neurons are cut off at a certain point as a child grows, if they're not using their brain extensively. No need to waste all that energy on sections of the brain that are not in use...etc. In the documentary the researchers selected a group of children from the age of about 2 years old and schooled them till they were around the age of 4 or so. Just this little bit of schooling before school set them up for the rest of their lives. Because a lot of the neurons weren't cut off at the early stage of development. I can't recall all the details though, I think the program is called, My Brilliant Brain. I couldn't find the video I wanted on youtube, I'll check out google video. They'll do a much better job of explaining.


Edit:
my brilliant brain 3 of 3 About a third of the way in is the research I was actually talking about.

 

[Sparky]

There is no discernible difference in IQ between races genetically. There can appear to be differences due to economical and social factors affecting more individuals of one race than another yet I am still to hear of an unbiased study that takes these factors into account and finds that one race is intellectually superior to another. I would be very surprised to find that this study is unbiased and has taken into account all external factors.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Joe, you may have a point, though I wonder if the experiments weren't actually altered to fit a white supremacy aim.

My reasoning for this is three fold. First, it seems unlikely that a Neo-Nazi leaning group would place another race (East Asians) above Whites.Second, the evolutionary explanation for the differences seems plausible. And the 2nd to last paragraph of the article appears to show that the researchers want the info to be used to better understand human populations and the like and has the non-racist stance of recommending people look at the individual not the group.

I'm glad you found that info though because it adds another dimension to this.

You're wrong about the whole bit with the Asians, because it fits the racist stereotypes pretty well, doesn't it? I've been watching these folks for awhile now, and once you scratch the surface they are racist from start to finish.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Upon further reading, I cast further doubt on the experiment's non bias.

I still think it's an interesting topic.

It is an interesting topic polluted by racists. Maybe you should start a separate thread, without the distinctive Rushton stink.

 

[Artsysiridean]

Short, lazy version: No. This is not how the human brain works.

Long yet still lazy version: Hasn't it been proved that it's much less about race and much more about demographic or anything surrounding someone growing up as a whole? Things aren't driven by rules set in stone, especially when our understanding of these rules has grown exponentially in the past few decades.

 

[Squawk]

Can someone please tell me how they define race? What exactly constitutes a "race"? AFAIK there is no accepted scientific definition of race, and indeed pretty much any paper of this type can only have the goal of promoting a racist agenda.

I would argue that humans have not been "intelligent" for long enough for evolutionary mechanisms to have achieved much, but further than that I can't really think of any selection pressures that would favour intelligence in one population of hunter gatherers over another. The ability to think through methods of hunting/gathering might add a selective pressure in favour of intelligence (clearly the evolution of human intelligence has roots somewhere in this), but that would apply to humans in all regions of the world.

Would the intelligence required to build a shelter to keep out the cold in the north outweigh the intelligence required to steer clear of lions in africa? Who knows?

For the past 10k years or so I would argue that the intelligence of white people, and I use that term with caution, should actually have dropped given that the advancement of society (greece, rome etc) meant that the idiots were more likely to survive. I must confess ignorance of history and say that I do not know how wide spread modern culture, as we may think of it, spead to Africa in those early years. Certainly Asia was well advanced.

Any perceived intelligence differences based on skin colour should really be explained in terms of culture and society, nurture rather than nature. I do not see how race can even be used to define a population, much less how it can have any impact on intelligence.

 

[JacobEvans]

I'm pretty much certain that the study was bullshit. It was just a surprise to see it, but now that I know that it was extremely biased, I feel foolish even posting it's link and asking people's thoughts :lol:

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I'm pretty much certain that the study was bullshit. It was just a surprise to see it, but now that I know that it was extremely biased, I feel foolish even posting it's link and asking people's thoughts :lol:

Hah!

That's cool though, because it was a learning experience for you, and hopefully a few other people who read the thread.

Now everyone knows, hopefully, that J. Philippe Rushton is the Kent Hovind of white supremacists.

 

[JacobEvans]

True.

I had doubted the study already, I just thought it would be interesting to discuss, and I think this is probably the best place to talk about this stuff.

I don't really like the idea of separating people by "race" as it's kind of an arbitrary divider. I do think research on patterns among major genetic lineages would be interesting to observe the way humans adapt to their surroundings in genetic isolation from other humans. Kind of like how skin color was an adaption to different climates, I wonder what we else differ on.

 

[Squawk]

I do think research on patterns among major genetic lineages would be interesting to observe the way humans adapt to their surroundings in genetic isolation from other humans. Kind of like how skin color was an adaption to different climates, I wonder what we else differ on.

I agree completely, but this type of research is fraught with danger, not least because you are likely to be accused of racism.

The issue is that if you do find differences then you will be accused of finding one population to be superior/inferior to another, completely missing the workings of evolution which notes that the fittest survive, not the strongest/fastest or fittest in the athletic sense of the word.

There are of course obvious examples to study. Go and study the Inuit, then go and study aboriginees.

Personally I would love to see studies to identify differences in muscle and bone structure planet wide to better understand why some people have certain characteristics. When we look to elite sport we see that people from certain areas dominate: long distance runners who dominate at world level tend to be from a select few countries for example.

It seems that the majority of sprinters are black. I find this particularly intriguing, what is it about life in parts of the world where black skin was favoured by evolution that led over the past X thousand years, to the evolution of speed.

Unfortunatley I can't see how to pose a question like that without being labelled a racist when I contend that it is anything but. But then I find that those accusing others of racism tend to be racist to some extent themselves and just haven't realised it.

 

[JacobEvans]

That's why we'd called it, human genetic diversity.

It would have nothing to do with race other than the genetics of melanin production :lol:

 

[ladiesman391]

It's hard to say without all the information of the tests if it's racially bias or not, but IQ tests don't really mean much realisticly.
The one point from the article i can comment on accurately is point 4:

Brain Size Differences. Studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) find a correlation of brain size with IQ of about 0.40. Larger brains contain more neurons and synapses and process information faster. Race differences in brain size are present at birth. By adulthood, East Asians average 1 cubic inch more cranial capacity than Whites who average 5 cubic inches more than Blacks.

The correlation of 0.4 between brain size and IQ is relatively weak, basically the closer to 1.0 the correlation is (with 1.0 being the max and 0.0 being the min) the stronger the correlation is. The 0.4 shows that 40% of the IQ scores can be determined from brain size whilst the other 60% of the score relies on other variables. A correlation of 0.8 or higher is generally regarded as a strong relationship.

PEACE.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Personally I would love to see studies to identify differences in muscle and bone structure planet wide to better understand why some people have certain characteristics. When we look to elite sport we see that people from certain areas dominate: long distance runners who dominate at world level tend to be from a select few countries for example.

It seems that the majority of sprinters are black. I find this particularly intriguing, what is it about life in parts of the world where black skin was favoured by evolution that led over the past X thousand years, to the evolution of speed.

There's nothing "to" it, to any significant degree. The difference you're talking about is often a tiny, meaningless difference that barely extends beyond the margin of error, and only exists at the very extreme end of the performance spectrum. Like you said, "elite sport," which is different from the average performance.

There are also cultural differences that help explain much of it. What you wind up with is an incredibly small variation at the extreme end of the bell curve, but because we reward that variation it gets blown out of proportion... again, due to cultural biases. There are certain sports that are more entertaining for the average viewer, and therefore those athletes get more attention. Also, some sports have been seen to be "taken over" by black people, and there's cultural bias that hinders the performance of white athletes.

Anecdotal evidence: I ran track in high school on an almost all-white team, and all the sprinters were really racist white guys. They were SO racist that they always lost to the black sprinters from other schools. Always. Not because those black runners were faster, but because the guys on my team ASSUMED they were faster and ran slower as a result.

Unfortunatley I can't see how to pose a question like that without being labelled a racist when I contend that it is anything but. But then I find that those accusing others of racism tend to be racist to some extent themselves and just haven't realised it.

Spoken like a true racist? Let's not get too convoluted here.... :lol:

 

[ImprobableJoe]

It's hard to say without all the information of the tests if it's racially bias or not, but IQ tests don't really mean much realisticly.
The one point from the article i can comment on accurately is point 4:

The correlation of 0.4 between brain size and IQ is relatively weak, basically the closer to 1.0 the correlation is (with 1.0 being the max and 0.0 being the min) the stronger the correlation is. The 0.4 shows that 40% of the IQ scores can be determined from brain size whilst the other 60% of the score relies on other variables. A score of 0.8 or higher is generally regarded as a strong relationship.

PEACE.

They also claim that women are naturally dumber than men. :lol:

Of course, the brain size nonsense has been rejected numerous times for various reasons. I seem to recall that the brain size average was skewed somewhat unfairly by using an inordinate amount of Pygmies in the study. Smaller brains, and primitive hunter-gatherer societies... how well do you expect them to do on an I.Q. test? That'a also based on older studies, and Rushton and his racist cohort have ignored the narrowing of the I.Q. gap and school achievement between whites and blacks over the past 30 years, once you correct for economic factors that Rushton and his klan claim don't matter.

 

[ladiesman391]

Wow Impossible Joe you seem to have some great compulsion to comment over every bodies posting on this issue, so you really believe Rushton intentionally performs bias tests to make the "white" race appear superior? I don't know anything about the guy so I couldn't comment on him, but I do know about correlation and that is what I commented on, with certainty. To determine if this test was intentionally bias you would have to look through the whole process of the test from start to finish including every bit of data and how it was obtained and those who actually conducted the test etc etc. I think it's a big call to say the test has been modified to fit in with a groups particular racial viewpoint without knowing the full details of the test. The article has only included the findings but not how they went about retrieving those findings... disproving their statements or conducting a test in a similar manner that conflicts with their findings would make things even more interesting.