Race and intelligence

Put it this way ladies, the 2 countries with the most population: China & India.

So the ratio of them having smart people is going to be a lot higher. So to make it simple, that 2 country will own the world pretty much in 2 - 3 decade.
 
dmpoole said:
All that tells me is that East Asians and Europeans have a good education system and the rest of the world doesn't.
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I have just skimmed through this thread, so apologies if it is repeated:


In the figure caption it states:
"Average IQ scores of racial and ethnic groups living in North American, Europe and East Asia according to Lynn 2006. "

So to say the differences it is down to their location is false, these samples were taken all from the same places that are regarded as having high educational standards.

This represents the IQ levels of the different ethnic groups within the environment where the educational differences are (should be) eliminated.
 
Van_Dammesque said:
I have just skimmed through this thread, so apologies if it is repeated:


In the figure caption it states:
"Average IQ scores of racial and ethnic groups living in North American, Europe and East Asia according to Lynn 2006. "

So to say the differences it is down to their location is false, these samples were taken all from the same places that are regarded as having high educational standards.

This represents the IQ levels of the different ethnic groups within the environment where the educational differences are (should be) eliminated.
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Incorrect. To suggest that educational standards in the Detroit suburbs are comparable to those in Beverley Hills, for example, would be absurd.
 
Visage said:
Incorrect. To suggest that educational standards in the Detroit suburbs are comparable to those in Beverley Hills, for example, would be absurd.
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I think the point you are making is that educational standards can vary within a country, rather than suggesting that Detroit is full of blacks and Beverly Hills full of Aryans.

I wonder whether there was any socio-economic weighting in the study
 
cleanbluesky said:
I wonder whether there was any socio-economic weighting in the study
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If we are to draw inferences as to a link between race and intelligence then such factors would have to be elimintaed.

How one would go about that, though, is somewhat difficult to envisage.
 
Visage said:
Incorrect. To suggest that educational standards in the Detroit suburbs are comparable to those in Beverley Hills, for example, would be absurd.
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Not that absurd.
What makes educational standards different? The teaching abilities of the school or the IQ of the recipients, i.e. pupils?
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if it is the latter.
 
Visage said:
If we are to draw inferences as to a link between race and intelligence then such factors would have to be elimintaed.
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Or minimised.

How one would go about that, though, is somewhat difficult to envisage.
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Choose a sample from a specific group of people, although one whose membership isn't based on academic ability.

For example, a large multi-racial school.
 
cleanbluesky said:
For example, a large multi-racial school.
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You can still argue that there's an inherent bias there - if the school isn't selective then more intelligent (in the sense of 'scoring higher on IQ tests') pupils may have gone to selective schools, if they exist. If they don't exist then more intelligent pupils may have been sent to private schools.
 
Arcade Fire said:
You can still argue that there's an inherent bias there - if the school isn't selective then more intelligent (in the sense of 'scoring higher on IQ tests') pupils may have gone to selective schools, if they exist. If they don't exist then more intelligent pupils may have been sent to private schools.
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Good point. I've seen IQ comparisons on the basis of university before (in an attempt to screen out socio-economic background) but uni also screens intellect as well...
 
starscream said:
The problem again though, is that there are too many other environmental factors to consider, in addition to the fact that as an individual, my (and anyone elses) obvservations are from far too narrow a set of people to extrapolate any valid conclusions.

For example,

Looking at age; my personal observations of people are going to be primarily from my friends (who are roughly the same age group), family and work. Now if I were to make an observation about levels of intelligence between young and old people at work - Firstly, as much as I try to make my perception of intellegence unbiased, I would still be basing my interpretation on my subjective view.

Secondaly, where would the control of such observations be? If I were to examine the intelligence of all the 40-50 year olds I know at work, how would I account for the differences in their environment and upbringing. Even if you look at 1 person aged 50, test their IQ and compare it to when they were 30, there are still environmental factors that could account for any changes.

So to answer your question, yes I notice differences between people, and quite often you can notice paterns emerging from combinations of environmental factors. However, I wouldn't say that I have noticed a single social/economic factor that causes variences in intelligence, and certainly no genetic ones.
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Very fair and eloquently put argument.

I am guilty of thinking in the past that the habit of assuming each to be an individual whose attributes are determined by their arbitrary nature, and free of influence of environmental factors was naivety.

The reason that I think this is becasue I am constantly observing and looking for patterns in behaviour. This means paying attention to many things, dress, accent, eye movements, small facial muscles, smiles, pupil dilation etc. etc.

I assume that there is a reason for everything. I am not afraid to correlate behaviours or capacities to race - although in the past I have thought some things to be racial and have either been proved wrong (usually through anecdote) or been made uncertain once more.
 
starscream said:
The problem again though, is that there are too many other environmental factors to consider, in addition to the fact that as an individual, my (and anyone elses) obvservations are from far too narrow a set of people to extrapolate any valid conclusions.

For example,

Looking at age; my personal observations of people are going to be primarily from my friends (who are roughly the same age group), family and work. Now if I were to make an observation about levels of intelligence between young and old people at work - Firstly, as much as I try to make my perception of intellegence unbiased, I would still be basing my interpretation on my subjective view.

Secondaly, where would the control of such observations be? If I were to examine the intelligence of all the 40-50 year olds I know at work, how would I account for the differences in their environment and upbringing. Even if you look at 1 person aged 50, test their IQ and compare it to when they were 30, there are still environmental factors that could account for any changes.

So to answer your question, yes I notice differences between people, and quite often you can notice paterns emerging from combinations of environmental factors. However, I wouldn't say that I have noticed a single social/economic factor that causes variences in intelligence, and certainly no genetic ones.
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I have highlighted the last past as this is simply false, with countless evidence shopwing that intelligence is strongly linked to genetics. So much so they are already isolating gene regulatory regions that encode for certain aspects of intelligence in mice, the first results are coming through for humans slowly.

as I emntioned earlier, intelligence correlates with genetics around 50%. This is shown time and time again. Sometimes the correlation factor varies, sometimes 40%, soemtimes 60% etc, but nearly always averaging around 50%.

these studies are usually based on twin studies. That way you can screen for genetics and or environment. Identical twins seperated at birht makes for very interesting samples, as do non identical twins kept in the same family, and adopted children. Buy doing this for sufficiently large samples you can can get an accurate picture.

The wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ#Religiosity_and_intelligence is acually pretty good and fairly balanced. And for the doubters of the corrlation between IQ and work performance there are some nice stats.
 
D.P. said:
these studies are usually based on twin studies. That way you can screen for genetics and or environment. Identical twins seperated at birht makes for very interesting samples, as do non identical twins kept in the same family, and adopted children. Buy doing this for sufficiently large samples you can can get an accurate picture.
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I still don't understand how you can discount environmental factors from such studies though. Even with 2 identical twins who live in the family, there are still differences. For example, they both have different groups of friends, one of which puts a stronger basis on academic achievement than the other. Even by the fact that the 2 are identical twins in the same family, they may well naturally deliberately distances themselves from eachother in terms of their hobbies and priorities.

To me, scientifically, the only way you could ever totally eliminate environmental factors would be the have 2 subjects that lead absolutely identical lives, which of course is not possible.

EDIT : Regarding the article about religiousness, I've heard theories about strong religious beliefs being linked to Temporal Lobe Epilepsy before, rather than intelligence. I'll have a read up of that article though :)
 
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