Apolyton Archive  |  Preserved copy of the Apolyton Civilization Site and its forums as they stood in September 2005. Read-only; nothing here can be posted to or replied to.  |  Forum index |  About this archive |  The 1998–2001 UBB forums
Today on Apolyton WARDELL INTERVIEW PROMO A.C.S. HISTORY CHAPTER 4 GET CIV4 /w FREE PLUS! A.C.S. PHOTO GALLERY GET A.O.M. V1.1
Apolyton Civilization Forums
main| civ2| civ3| civ4| smac| ctp2| ron| moo3| galciv| galciv2| alt| about|
ApolytonPLUS | register | search | faq | new posts | pm (-/-) | upload | members
hall of fame new! | civgroups | civgroups news | interviews | the column | radio | chat | directory | news | store | PLUS
Apolyton Civilization Forums : Powered by vBulletin version 2.0.3 Apolyton Civilization Forums > Miscellaneous > Off-Topic > IQ differences and racism
Show a Printable Version | Email This Page to Someone! | Receive updates to this thread | Report this to Apolyton news!
20.Sep: FOURTH CHAPTER IN `HISTORY OF...` PUBLISHED
13.Sep: NEWS ON THE FLY
06.Sep: APOLYTON DONATES TO HURRICANE RELIEF

bottom of page
   - CIVILIZATION 3 $9.99 - CIVILIZATION 2 from $6.95 - CIVILIZATION 2 from $4.25 - ALPHA CENTAURI + ALIEN CROSSFIRE (laptop collection) from $19.99 - ALPHA CENTAURI PC $9.99 -->
Author
Thread   
Pages (5): [ 1   2   3   4     >> ]
< Last Thread     Next Thread > Post New Thread     Post A Reply
aneeshm is offline aneeshm
Chieftain
Indore , Madhya Pradesh
Jul 2001
time: 10:51
  Old Post 24-03-2005 20:50
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#1 Report this post to a moderator
IQ differences and racism Got spare money?

First , the links to the relevant articles .

What good is IQ ? ( relating to racism )

Racism and group differences

Now , the body of the articles :

quote:


A reader asks:

quote:

To clarify, while I believe natural selection explains a lot I have caveats about IQ as a tool for testing intelligence. If you can’t measure the coast of France with a single number how can you do it with human intelligence?


To clarify, while I believe natural selection explains a lot I have caveats about IQ as a tool for testing intelligence. If you can’t measure the coast of France with a single number how can you do it with human intelligence?

Easily. Human intelligence is a great deal less complex than the coast of France. :-)

It’s fashionable nowadays to believe that intelligence is some complicated multifactor thing that can’t be captured in one number. However, one of the best-established facts in psychometry (the science of measuring mind) is that it is quite difficult to write a test of mental ability that is not at least 50% correlated with all other such tests. Or, to put it another way, no matter how you design ten tests for mental ability, at least about half the variance in the scores for any one of them statistically appears to be due to a “general intelligence” that shows up on the other nine tests as well.

Psychometricians call this general intelligence measure “g". It turns out to predict important real-world success measures quite well — not just performance in school but income and job success as well. The fundamental weakness in multiple-factor theories of intelligence is that measures of intelligence other than g appear to predict very little about real-world outcomes. So you can call a lot of other things “intelligence” if you want to make people feel warm and fuzzy, but doing so simply isn’t very useful in the real world.

Some multifactor theorists, for example, like to describe accurate proprioception (an acute sense of body position and balance) as a kind of intelligence. Let’s say we call this “p". The trouble with this is that there are very few situations in which a combination of high p and low g is actually useful — people need to be able to balance checkbooks more often than they need to walk high wires. Furthermore, g is easier to substitute for p than the other way around; a person with high g but low p can think up a way to not have to walk a high wire far better than a person with low g but high p can think up a way not to have to balance a checkbook. So g is in a strict functional sense more powerful than p. Similar arguments apply to most of the other kinds of specialized non-g ‘intelligence’ that have been proposed.

Once you know about g, you can rank mental-capability tests by how well their score correlates with g. IQ is valuable because a well-composed IQ test measures g quite effectively. For purposes of non-technical discussion, g and IQ can be considered the same, and pychometricians now accept that an IQ test which does not closely track g is defective.

A lot of ink has been spent by people who aren’t psychometricians on insisting that g is a meaningless statistical artifact. The most famous polemic on this topic was Stephen Jay Gould’s 1981 book The Mismeasure of Man, a book which was muddled, wrong, and in some respects rather dishonest. Gould was a believing Marxist; his detestation of g was part of what he perceived as a vitally important left-versus right kulturkampf. It is very unfortunate that he was such a persuasive writer.

Unfortunately for Gould, g is no statistical phantom. Recently g and IQ have been shown to correlate with measurable physiological variables such as the level of trace zinc in your hair and performance on various sorts of reaction-time tests. There are hints in the recent literature that g may be largely a measure of the default level of a particular neurotransmitter associated with states of mental alertness and speed of thought; it appears that calling people of subnormal intelligence “slow” may not be just a metaphor!

IQ is one of several large science-related issues on which political bias in the dominant media culture has lead it to present as fact a distorted or even reversed version of the actual science. In 1994, after Murray and Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve got a thoroughly undeserved trashing, fifty leading psychometricians and psychologists co-signed a summary of mainstream science on intelligence. It makes eye-opening reading.

The reasons many popular and journalistic accounts continue to insist that IQ testing is at best meaningless and at worst a sinister plot are twofold. First, this belief flatters half of the population. “My IQ may be below average, but that doesn’t matter because IQ is meaningless and I have high emotional intelligence!” is, understandably, a favorite evasion maneuver among dimwits. But that isn’t the worst of it. The real dynamite is not in individual differences but rather that the distribution of IQ (and hence of g) varies considerably across groups in ways that are politically explosive.

Men vs. women is the least of it. With other variables controlled, men and women in a population have the same mean IQ, but the dispersion differs. The female bell curve is slightly narrower, so women have fewer idiots and fewer geniuses among them. Where this gets touchy is that it may do a better job than cultural sexism of explaining why most of the highest achievers in most fields are male rather than female. Equal opportunity does not guarantee equal results, and lot of feminist theory goes out the window.

But male/female differences are insignificant compared to the real hot potato: differences in the mean IQ of racial and ethnic groups. These differences are real and they are large enough to have severe impact in the real world. In previous blog entries I’ve mentioned the one-standard-deviation advantage of Ashkenazic Jews over gentile whites; that’s roughly fifteen points of IQ. Pacific-rim Asians (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans etc.) are also brighter on average by a comparable margin. So, oddly enough, are ethnic Scots — though not their close kin the Irish. Go figure…

And the part that, if you are a decent human being and not a racist bigot, you have been dreading: American blacks average a standard deviation lower in IQ than American whites at about 85. And it gets worse: the average IQ of African blacks is lower still, not far above what is considered the threshold of mental retardation in the U.S. And yes, it’s genetic; g seems to be about 85% heritable, and recent studies of effects like regression towards the mean suggest strongly that most of the heritability is DNA rather than nurturance effects.

For anyone who believe that racial equality is an important goal, this is absolutely horrible news. Which is why a lot of well-intentioned people refuse to look at these facts, and will attempt to shout down anyone who speaks them in public. There have been several occasions on which leading psychometricians have had their books canceled or withdrawn by publishers who found the actual scientific evidence about IQ so appalling that they refused to print it.

Unfortunately, denial of the facts doesn’t make them go away. Far from being meaningless, IQ may be the single most important statistic about human beings, in the precise sense that differences in g probably drive individual and social outcomes more than any other single measurable attribute of human beings.

Mean IQ differences do not justify making assumptions about any individual. There are African black geniuses and Ashkenazic Jewish morons; humanity and ethics demand that we meet each individual human being as an individual, without prejudice. At the same time, group differences have a significance too great to ignore. In the U.S., blacks are 12% of the population but commit 50% of violent crimes; can anyone honestly think this is unconnected to the fact that they average 15 points of IQ lower than the general population? That stupid people are more violent is a fact independent of skin color.

And that is actually a valuable hint about how to get beyond racism. A black man with an IQ of 85 and a white man with an IQ of 85 are about equally likely to have the character traits of poor impulse control and violent behavior associated with criminality — and both are far more likely to have them than a white or black man with an IQ of 110. If we could stop being afraid of IQ and face up to it, that would give us an objective standard that would banish racism per se. IQ matters so much more than skin color that if we started paying serious attention to the former, we might be able to stop paying attention to the latter.



Now for the second article

quote:


At the end of my essay What good is IQ?, I suggested that taking IQ seriously might (among other things) be an important step towards banishing racism. The behavioral differences between two people who are far apart on the IQ scale are far more significant than any we can associate with racial origin. Stupidity isn’t a handicap only when solving logic problems; people with low IQs tend to have poor impulse control because they’re not good at thinking about the long-term consequences of their actions.

Somebody left a comment that, if what I was reporting about group differences in average IQ is correct, the resulting behavior would be indistinguishable from racism. In particular, American blacks (with an average IQ of 85) would find themselves getting the shitty end of the stick again, this time with allegedly scientific justification.

This is an ethically troubling point. It’s the main reason most people who know the relevant statistical facts about IQ distribution are either in elaborate denial or refusing to talk about what they know. But is this concern really merited, or is it a form of tendermindedness that does more harm than good?

Let’s start with a strict and careful definition: A racist is a person who makes unjustified assumptions about the behavior or character of individuals based on beliefs about group racial differences.

I think racism, in this sense, is an unequivocally bad thing. I think most decent human beings would agree with me. But if we’re going to define racism as a bad thing, then it has to be a behavior based on unjustified assumptions, because otherwise there could be times when the fear of an accusation of racism could prevent people from seeking or speaking the truth.

There are looser definitions abroad. Some people think it is racist merely to believe there are significant differences between racial groups. But that is an abuse of the term, because it means that believing the objective truth, without any intent to use it to prejudge individuals, can make you a racist.

It is, for example, a fact that black athletes tend to perform better in hot weather, white ones in cool weather, and oriental asians in cold weather. There is nothing mysterious about this; it has to do with surface-area-to-volume ratios in the population’s typical build. Tall, long-limbed people shed heat more rapidly than stocky and short-limbed people. That’s an advantage in Africa, less of one in the Caucasian homelands of Europe and Central Asia, and a disadvantage in the north Asian homeland of oriental asians.

And that’s right, white men can’t jump; limb length matters there, too. But whites can swim better than blacks, on average, because their bones are less dense. I don’t have hard facts on how asians fit that picture, but if you are making the same guess I am (at the other extreme from blacks, that is better swimmers and worse jumpers than white people) I would bet money we’re both correct. That would be consistent with the pattern of many other observed racial differences.

Sportswriter and ethicist Jon Entine has investigated the statistics of racial differences in sports extensively. Blacks, especially blacks of West African ancestry, dominate track-and-field athletics thanks apparently to their more efficient lung structure and abundance of fast-twitch muscle fiber. Whites, with proportionally shorter legs and more powerful upper bodies, still rule in wrestling and weightlifting. The bell curves overlap, but the means — and the best performances at the high end of the curve — differ.

Even within these groups, there are racially-correlated subdivisions. Within the runners, your top sprinters are likelier to be black than your top long-distance runners. Blacks have more of an advantage in burst exertion than they do in endurance. I don’t have hard recent data on this as I do for the other factual claims I’m making here, but it is my impression that whites cling to a thin lead in sports that are long-haul endurance trials — marathons, bicycle racing, triathlons, and the like.

It is not ‘racism’ to notice these things. Or, to put it more precisely, if we define ‘racism’ to include noticing these things, we broaden the word until we cannot justifiably condemn ‘racism’ any more, because too much ‘racism’ is simply recognition of empirically verifiable truths. It’s all there in the numbers.

Knowing about these racial-average differences in athletic performance would not justify anyone in keeping a tall, long-limbed white individual off the track team, or a stocky black person with excellent upper-body strength off the wrestling team. But they do make nonsense of the notion that every team should have a racial composition mirroring the general population. If you care about performance, your track team is going to be mostly black and your wrestling team mostly white.

In fact, trying to achieve ‘equal‘ distribution is a recipe for making disgruntled underperforming white runners and basketball players, and digruntled underperforming black wrestlers and swimmers. It’s no service to either group, you get neither efficiency nor happiness out of that attempt.

Most people can follow the argument this far, but are frightened of what happens when we apply the same kind of dispassionate analysis to racial differences in various mental abilities. But the exact same logic applies. Observing that blacks have an average IQ a standard deviation below the average for whites is not in itself racist. Jumping from that observation of group differences to denying an individual black person a job because you think it means all black people are stupid would be racist.

Let’s pick neurosurgery as an example. Here is a profession where IQ matters in an obvious and powerful way. If you’re screening people for a job as a neurosurgeon, it would nevertheless be wrong to use the standard-deviation difference in average IQ as a reason to exclude an individual black candidate, or black candidates as a class. This would not be justified by the facts; it would be stupid and immoral. Excluding the black neurosurgeon-candidate who is sufficiently bright would be a disservice to a society that needs all the brains and talent it can get in jobs like that, regardless of skin color.

On the other hand, anyone who expects the racial composition of the entire population of neurosurgeons to be ‘balanced’ in terms of the population at large is living in a delusion. The most efficient and fair outcome would be for that population to be balanced in terms of the distribution of IQ — at each level of IQ the racial mix mirrors the frequency of that IQ level within different groups. Since that minimum IQ for competency in neurosurgery is closer to the population means for whites and asians than the mean for blacks, we can expect the fair-outcome population of neurosurgeons to be predominantly white and asian.

If you try to social-engineer a different outcome, you’ll simply create a cohort of black neurosurgeons who aren’t really bright enough for their jobs. This, too, would be a disservice to society (not to mention the individual patients they might harm, and the competent black neurosurgeons that would be discredited by association). It’s an error far more serious than trying to social-engineer too many black wrestlers or swimmers into existence. And yet, in pursuit of a so-called equality, we make this sort of error over and over again, injuring all involved and creating resentments for racists to feed on.



Both the articles are from Eric Raymond's blog . Opinions ?

Support / oppose the views presented ?

Last edited by aneeshm on 24-03-2005 at 22:17

Kidicious is offline Kidicious
Settler
Diety of Kidiverse
Mar 2003
time: 21:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 20:53 Visit Kidicious's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#2 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

You expect anyone to read this racist crap?

chegitz guevara is offline chegitz guevara
King
Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:14 Visit chegitz guevara's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#3 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Well, it would certainly explain why Indians are such inferior people.

Honestly, you don't wanna go anywhere with this crap. It leads to all sorts of stupid conclusions.


Cue Caligasta in 1 ... 2 ... 3 ...

MikeH is offline MikeH
Emperor
Ming on rakastajani
May 1999
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:17 Visit MikeH's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#4 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Civilization III: Complete

IQ tests test how good you are at doing IQ tests, cultural differences in results just show how skewed they are towards the culture in which they were developed.

JohnT is offline JohnT

Emperor
Capitalist
Mar 1999
time: 00:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:25
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#5 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

To even bring up the issue is racist, apparently.

I'm still not too sure how that biological mechanism works. You know, the one that allows for measurable (and obvious) racial variances in regards to some factors (color, hair, resistance to (or likelihood to contract) various diseases, milk tolerance) but also forbids any measurable racial differences in regards to intelligence.

My take is this: since intelligence is partly/largely/totally determined by genetics (as is skin color, hair, resistance to diseases, etc), then it is likely that there are measurable differences between the various races. However, the difference will be so small (and, with all the interbreeding going on in the modern world, constantly shrinking) that it will matter little except for pride.

But that, apparently, counts for a lot. So much that people don't even want to explore the issue, for possible fear of being found lacking.

MikeH is offline MikeH
Emperor
Ming on rakastajani
May 1999
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:28 Visit MikeH's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#6 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

"since intelligence is partly/largely/totally determined by genetics (as is skin color, hair, resistance to diseases, etc),"

Is it?


I know people of my same racial group who are both incredibly intelligent and incredibly stupid.

I know people in other racial groups who are similarly incredibly intelligent and incredibly stupid.

From pure observation it seems that individual differences within a race are so huge that any 'trend' within a race is meaningless enough to be worthless. And therefore persisting with justifying this kind of crap is just trying to excuse racism.

Whaleboy is offline Whaleboy
Prince
Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:28 Visit Whaleboy's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#7 Report this post to a moderator
Full PM-box? Change here!

quote:
Originally posted by Kidicious
You expect anyone to read this racist crap?

reds4ever is offline reds4ever
Prince
of the Spion Kop
Mar 2001
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:29
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#8 Report this post to a moderator
Suffering from ads?

The athletics part is a bit sketchy but you'd have to be blind not to to see its broadly right, a big stat is that sub 10 seconds 100 meters have been run over 200 times, never once by a white man.

The author doesn't make any distinctions inbetween Eastern Africans who dominate distance running and Western Africans (and decendants) who rule the sprints.

Once you've admitted differing physical capabilites, it's not a big jump before you can at least *allow* for mental differences. A lot of people won't admit the former (which is obviously true) because it leads to the latter and that, in their own minds. would make them a racist.

lord of the mark is offline lord of the mark
Emperor
FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:30
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#9 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

"I’ve mentioned the one-standard-deviation advantage of Ashkenazic Jews over gentile whites; that’s roughly fifteen points of IQ."

but THATs obviously due to our superior culture
Leads me to believe that all the other differences are as well.

Whaleboy is offline Whaleboy
Prince
Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:31 Visit Whaleboy's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#10 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

The very FIRST thing you learn about IQ testing in the most basic psychology course is that it is inherently subjective and has always been plagued by cultural bias... there is no means of measuring "intelligence" that isn't (and a definition of intelligence is needed of course). And phrenology has been debunked for a century.

When anyone talks about inheritable differences in IQ along racial lines (remembering of course that there is far more genetic diversity within Africa itself than between a West African and European), I get extremely suspicious, unless the author is trying to say that the nuances of culture and education are genetically encoded too?

Aivo½so is offline Aivo½so
Prince
Finland
Sep 1999
time: 07:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:31
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#11 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Call to Power 2

If anything, having a high IQ means basically that you might or might not be well-suited for Western middle-class life. The intelligence tests I've seen have always been blatantly culture-bound / ethnocentric, and I don't really even think there's a way of getting around that.

Whaleboy is offline Whaleboy
Prince
Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:34 Visit Whaleboy's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#12 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote:

Once you've admitted differing physical capabilies, it's not a big jump before you can at least *allow* for mental differences. A lot of people won't admit the former (which is obviously true) because it leads to the latter and that, in their own minds. would make them a racist.


That's very true, it's like saying that black people and white people have the same colour skin. There could even be superficial cranial differences, but the brain is more complex than a simple size = intelligence correlation. Again one needs to define intelligence.

quote:

Leads me to believe that all the other differences are as well.


Well I'm never going to accept that whites are better than blacks, but it's blatently obvious that we Jews are better than everyone

lord of the mark is offline lord of the mark
Emperor
FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:36
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#13 Report this post to a moderator
Tired of ads?

remember - its logically possible for IQ to have a genetic component, AND for there to be measurable differences between groups, without the differences between groups being connected to the genetic component.

Example - skin color has a genetic component. Observed skin color among ashkenazic Jews in Israel is almost certainly darker on average than among ashkenazic jews in the US - due to differences in lifestyle, attitudes toward the sun, clothing, etc. NOT because Israeli Ashkenazic Jews inherited different genes for skin color than US Jews did. And DESPITE it being a fact that genes play a huge role in skin color.


On IQ, some folks take two facts, observed differences in IQ and the fact of a genetic component in IQ, and leap to an unjustified conclusion.

reds4ever is offline reds4ever
Prince
of the Spion Kop
Mar 2001
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:38
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#14 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

quote:
Originally posted by Whaleboy


Again one needs to define intelligence.
)


Indeed, which is why I chose my words carefully and kept away from 'intelligence' and 'IQ'

lord of the mark is offline lord of the mark
Emperor
FUKCOV - Former United Kingdom Colony of Virginia
Dec 2000
time: 00:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:42
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#15 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Civilization 2

also, when we say culture - it would be more correct to say nurture. Nurture beginning from CONCEPTION. We KNOW that prenatal conditions effect IQ, IIUC. We know infant nutrition does, and that lead ingestion does, etc. So why are so quick to make the distinction of 'culture' vs genes?


The guys who wrote the bell curve basically took a copout on that - they said its been so hard to effect all the above factors, theres really no difference between them and genetics from a policy POV. Even if policy couldnt effect them (and i dont agree with that at all) it would still be a HUGE difference in how view the issue, I think.

Kidicious is offline Kidicious
Settler
Diety of Kidiverse
Mar 2003
time: 21:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:44 Visit Kidicious's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#16 Report this post to a moderator
Full PM-box? Change here!

Even if your race was shown to be more intelligent you personally would still be a dumb ass.

That's just aimed at racists in general.

JimmyCracksCorn is offline JimmyCracksCorn
Settler
Macedonia - Sovereign country north of Greece.
Dec 2002
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:51
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#17 Report this post to a moderator
Increase Your PM Length

IQ tests are stupid. I've taken some that have told me I'm a genious. Then I've taken others which ask for meaningless trivia.

One I took in the 7th grade asked me the square root of all these numbers, some algebra I didn't know how to do... and how many kilometres it was from China to California. The results came back and I was officially retarded I think alot of IQ tests work on this premise... they assume that if you don't know something, then you must not be capable of ever knowing it. And then its no surprise that people come around with the kind of BS in the OP.

quote:
My take is this: since intelligence is partly/largely/totally determined by genetics (as is skin color, hair, resistance to diseases, etc), then it is likely that there are measurable differences between the various races. However, the difference will be so small (and, with all the interbreeding going on in the modern world, constantly shrinking) that it will matter little except for pride.


Thats a logical assumption but its just not the case. When it comes to genetics there's a saying "it only takes one sh@g", which means if someone visits a genetically different group and has sex with one person, then those genes are now spread into the new group quite profusely. And you're also assuming that "interbreeding" has just started... its been going on for hundreds of thousands of years. The idea of an "isolated" community is largely a myth. Every group has at least some contact with at least one other group... and always has. There really is no reason to believe that capacity for intelligence is any different for any group or any individuals.

reds4ever is offline reds4ever
Prince
of the Spion Kop
Mar 2001
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 21:53
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#18 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Alpha Centauri

quote:
Originally posted by JimmyCracksCorn
IQ tests are stupid. I've taken some that have told me I'm a genious.


Oh, the irony.......

I hope you didn't pay for those tests.....

MikeH is offline MikeH
Emperor
Ming on rakastajani
May 1999
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:05 Visit MikeH's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#19 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations

1. We can't define intelligence.

2. If we can't define it we can't measure it.

THEREFORE: Talking about genetic intelligence differences is meaningless.

FURTHERMORE: This allso means that, purely logically, talking about racial genetic differences in intelligence is pure racism.

You can close this thread now Ming, I've provided the definitive post.

Flubber is offline Flubber
Emperor
With a view of the Rockies
Aug 2000
time: 22:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:07
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#20 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
remember - its logically possible for IQ to have a genetic component,


I would think that it does-- The kid of two parents that are dumb as posts seems to rarely be as bright as the child of two very smart people. Anecdotally, I believe we have seen this many many times (and I believe it usually holds true even if the children in question are educated in the exact same system -- although smarter parents that challenge their child may account for some of the differences)

AS for race and the articles, I am not quite sure what the author is advocating except that it is clear that he would reject affirmative action programs. Much of what he writes seems too broad-brush . Like many, I doubt that IQ tests are diverse enough to be an accurate indicator of "intelligence"

Personally, I am a big believer in merit and don't think we should be striving for any given gender or racial mix for any job. If programs can exist so that there is financial support for anyone that is capable of getting an advanced education, I think that is where our focus should be. The top students in any racial group can perform well enough academically to qualify and as long as there are no artificial barriers preventing the qualified individuals from persuing their career, I think we should just let things be.

Whaleboy is offline Whaleboy
Prince
Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:08 Visit Whaleboy's homepage!
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#21 Report this post to a moderator
Suffering from ads?

quote:

Indeed, which is why I chose my words carefully and kept away from 'intelligence' and 'IQ'


Ah I didn't direct that at you, it was just a general assessment of the argument.

quote:

1. We can't define intelligence.

2. If we can't define it we can't measure it.

THEREFORE: Talking about genetic intelligence differences is meaningless.

FURTHERMORE: This allso means that, purely logically, talking about racial genetic differences in intelligence is pure racism.

You can close this thread now Ming, I've provided the definitive post.


The scary thing is that it actually is the definitive post!

reds4ever is offline reds4ever
Prince
of the Spion Kop
Mar 2001
time: 05:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:09
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#22 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Ming, can you rename this thread 'General mental capability differences and racism (the non-judgemental mix)' to shut MikeH up?

GePap is offline GePap
King
of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:18
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#23 Report this post to a moderator
Got spare money?

Hmm, which group devised IQ tests? Oh, yes I forgot, white males. BUt I am sure they would so just as well on an IQ test designed by black women, cause we all know how intelliegence is the same always. Just look at the trully successful and rich in the world- I bet you they are all mensa members, the whole lot of them, YUP, everyone in Mensa is sticking rich and has lots of babies and are genetic supermen



I am sure genetics plays some part in how high someone can score in an IQ test. The problem is that success in an IQ test has **** to do with being succesful in life.

You want to meet the smartest people in the world? Go meet some stone age tribesmen. Cause over there, unlike here, being dumb = being dead. I am sure that works wonders in thinning the herd to the best people.

aneeshm is offline aneeshm
Chieftain
Indore , Madhya Pradesh
Jul 2001
time: 10:51
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:19
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#24 Report this post to a moderator
Help yourself to an AD-FREE life

quote:
Originally posted by Whaleboy
The very FIRST thing you learn about IQ testing in the most basic psychology course is that it is inherently subjective and has always been plagued by cultural bias... there is no means of measuring "intelligence" that isn't (and a definition of intelligence is needed of course). And phrenology has been debunked for a century.

When anyone talks about inheritable differences in IQ along racial lines (remembering of course that there is far more genetic diversity within Africa itself than between a West African and European), I get extremely suspicious, unless the author is trying to say that the nuances of culture and education are genetically encoded too?


So now you're saying that balcks are not of the same culture as white amreicans ? That they do not share the american cultural heritage ? That they do not , in other works , belong to mainstream culture ?

How racist of you !!!!!11!!!!!!!!!
























Now do you see the absurdity of calling bringing up and trying to discuss differences in race racist ?

Elok is offline Elok
Prince
Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:20
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#25 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, buy Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition

Um, if you read the actual articles the guy has a very muddled point but does not appear to be advocating racism. Basically he's saying that we should judge by IQ, not by skin color, though statistically he would expect more whites and asians in the higher-end jobs. However, due to the variation in races, mean or no mean, judging directly by race is by his standards not a sensible course of action. That's what he says.

I just wanted to say, in his defense, the guy is not talking like PA or anything. He's speaking too vaguely to be certain how full of crap he is or isn't though. I don't think he ever cites a single study by name to support his "g" statement. He argues fairly well against Gardner's multiple-intelligence theory, but there's nothing conclusive in that article, certainly not enough to support the radical things he advocates.

aneeshm is offline aneeshm
Chieftain
Indore , Madhya Pradesh
Jul 2001
time: 10:51
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:22
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#26 Report this post to a moderator
Inflate your Upload Space

The author provided his definition of intelligence , which it seems has been ignored here . He said that there is a general common factor which is common to all intelligence tests , and which comes out the same on all of them . It is this which , AFAIK , he is using as a base .

Az is offline Az
King
MACEDONIA - It's the name of the sovereign country to the north of Greece
Apr 2000
time: 07:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:25
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#27 Report this post to a moderator
Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote:
Hmm, which group devised IQ tests? Oh, yes I forgot, white males.


That's the 2nd stupidest argument in this thread after the "race determines intelligence".

aneeshm is offline aneeshm
Chieftain
Indore , Madhya Pradesh
Jul 2001
time: 10:51
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:26
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#28 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton

The link to the study was in the linked article ( as are many other links to other studies , if you care to go to the original website/blog ) , which I have given here .

Elok is offline Elok
Prince
Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:27
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#29 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton, pre-order Civilization IV

EDIT: Sorry, X-Post. I guess I shouldn't have asked, I'm not very good at interpreting science-speak, especially over a paper that huge. I'll leave the analysis to those who have patience for it, but if his claims that differences in socioeconomic origin were accounted for and differences in IQ still tend to corellate with criminal activity, he may have a point. I'll just wait for others to rip it apart looking for holes though, I had a test in Archaeology this morning and my brain's not up to snuff.

Last edited by Elok on 24-03-2005 at 22:35

GePap is offline GePap
King
of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:21
  Old Post 24-03-2005 22:28
Edit/Delete Message Reply w/Quote
#30 Report this post to a moderator
Support Apolyton

quote:
Originally posted by Azazel
quote:
Hmm, which group devised IQ tests? Oh, yes I forgot, white males.


That's the 2nd stupidest argument in this thread after the "race determines intelligence".


Darn, miss first place.

Of course, if a test of intelliegnce was made by say a Aborigene, he would sure as hell not ask about square roots, but how to get roots out of the gorund and cook them so you won;t die.

Who writes the test matters, even if you don't like it.

Any article that says that one can;t trust Gould cause he was a "practicing Marxists", or makes a claim as stupid as "stupid people are always more violent" is not worth much arguement.

 
Pages (5): [ 1   2   3   4     >> ]
< Last Thread     Next Thread > Post New Thread     Post A Reply
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:21.
Apolyton Time is 00:21.
    top of page
Rate This Thread:
Forum Jump:
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
 




Contact Us - Apolyton Civilization Site - Support Us!

Building a better Apolyton through better information. Click here and take our poll!
Non-US visitors, click here!

Powered by: vBulletin Version 2.0.3
Copyright ©2000, 2001, Jelsoft Enterprises Limited.

Page generated in 0.0665 seconds (92.26% PHP - 7.74% MySQL) with 30 queries
Page Loading Time:

Support Apolyton: Amazon USA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR |
Support Apolyton and get FREE PLUS, Buy from Chips&Bits: Galactic Civilizations | Galactic Civilizations: Deluxe Edition | Call to Power 2 | Civilization: The Boardgame | GURPS/ Alpha Centauri | Alpha Centauri | Civilization IV | Civilization III: Complete |


Front Page | Civilization IV | Civilization III | Civilization II | Call to Power II | Alpha Centauri | Master of Orion III
Rise of Nations | Galactic Civilizations | Galactic Civilizations II | Misc
Alt.Civs | Civ I | C:CtP I | About | News | Directory | Apolyton Store | Forums | Chat | Columns | Interviews | Newsletter
Scenario League | CSC | Clash of Civs | Spanish Site | CtP Maps | Cradle of Civ | WesW's Ctp1/2 Site | Civ3 Haven

apolyton.net | apolyton.com | civilization2.net | civilization3.net | civilization4.net | civilizationiv.info | calltopower.net | galciv.net | galciv2.net | moo3.net