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Race Differences and Intelligence
Rushton & Jensen published a review, (2005) Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 11:2, 235-294. One critic raised the interesting point that if these things be true, what are the gains from talking about them? After all, marriages and other partnerships rest on kindness and calling the other partner "stupid" hardly builds loyalties.
Nonetheless, Phil Rushton, persecuted by the press and his academic colleagues for several years after he published "Race, Evolution, and Behavior," announced both a new book, Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis (Paperback), about $17, by Richard Lynn, on that same topic. Rushton's comments on Lynn's book are at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/cus...283155&s=books and at: http://www.vdare.com/rushton/060322_iq.htm. The question is not only a matter of "having the science that you like" but also in finding resolutions to many world tensions. For example (from Rushton's review): "These findings in Lynn's latest book have profound geopolitical significance. They imply it may simply not be possible to transmit Western-style democratic and economic systems to the populations of Latin America and Moslem North Africa and the Middle East, let alone sub-Saharan Africa. They mean that the world's long-term problems will stem from its populations' capabilities-much deeper and more intractable than any "Clash of Civilizations"-style competition between different political concepts." I'm not sure about "intractable": intermixture eventually solves lots of problems, but I'm not sure what else might occur during the time required. And Lynn confirms other sources that in any IQ measurements: the northern Orient shelters the brightest. It's gonna be a bumpy ride... JB Last edited by James Brody; March 24th, 2006 at 12:27 PM.. |
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Now, this is interesting.
From the reviews that you pointed to and the enclosed quote
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Democracy seems to have first germinated in Greece, a southern mid-eastern mediterranean region at a time when northern Europe was populated by warlike barbarian tribes - and far south of those northern climes supposedly more conducive to IQ bloom. Democratic thinking (though not democracy) was then resurrected in (relatively dumber than the northern Orient) France and England. It finally blossomed forth in a functional government in America. One hunderd years later we were importing Chinese laborers for the grunge-work of building our railroads. We mistreated them badly and denied them any of the blessings of democratic citizenship. Most died here and were buried in their own special graveyards. At that same enlightened time we were importing thousands of slaves from Africa. Now, our democracy has thrived for little more than two hunderd years. But, even with our bright example of success, the higher IQ Chinese have only recently decided to implement some free market reforms (so the leadership can tap into the global cash flow, not for egalitarian reasons I am sure) while still retaining tight state control over people's lives. It seems according to the model presented (high IQ = capacity for enlightened democracy, low IQ = only capable of totalitarian corruption) the Chinese would have figured out Democracy and free markets a few thousand years ago and would have taught our ancestors all about it (if they thought they were smart enough to understand such advanced principles) - and the Ashkenazim would have been running Europe long before Hitler came to power. I'm not questioning the science showing IQ differences by race - just the ideological conclusions that seem to come from it. And I'm pointing out that world history seems to say that cultural influences were far stronger than IQ in determining government organization and economic systems. Am I missing something important here? Margaret Last edited by Margaret McGhee; March 24th, 2006 at 08:28 PM.. |
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Re: Race Differences and Intelligence
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E.g., can we infer that those capable of designing and building igloos really are smarter than others, or should we infer instead that the igloo builders lacked the sense to move to a warmer climate, say Greece, and discover, say, the Pythagorean theorem and Democracy? A puzzle for me is that while there may be an inverse relationship between religiosity and general intelligence, you white atheists nevertheless generally don’t seem to put that intelligence you’ve been blessed with to much positive use. |
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Re: Now, this is interesting.
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I'm not arguing for their government, I'm just pointing out that maybe this moment in time is not necessarily the end of the test and maybe a free market economy is not necessarily the ultimate goal of intelligence. |
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Re: Race Differences and Intelligence
In replying to my own post, above, I am reminding any advocates of biological (genetic) determinism that my closing paragraph was,
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And I'm still waiting for any genetic determinists here to point out what it is that I may be "missing" - just as I am still waiting for a cogent response to my free will challenge. I would also remind any careless or hopeful readers that my discussion of the balance between genetic and environmental influences on behavior (or IQ) - and the effect that may have on the human condition - is in no way a suggestion on my part that some influence of spirit or soul may be at work. I stopped considering such questions as relevant sometime around 1957. Since this post is meant to prevent further misunderstanding, please realize that I make these challenges in the spirit of a friendly competitive discussion. When I challenge the correctness of your assertions I'm not saying you are a bad person. I respect everyone's on-topic opinion here, even those I disagree with, except those that are obviously ad hominem attacks - which I try to ignore. Margaret |
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Re: Race Differences and Intelligence
Tom, you said,
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Margaret |
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Re: Race Differences and Intelligence
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Face it Margaret, your ideology simply doesn’t permit you to accept or acknowledge the science or evidence that proves the reality of general intelligence differences. |
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Re: Race Differences and Intelligence
It is interesting to me that people are taking 'IQ' tests to measure intelligence. I mean there is a sense in which 'intelligence tests' are measures of intelligence (by definition) but operationalism tends to severely alter what interested us in the first place in order to be able to study it.
like how consciousness has been operationalised as reportability, wakefulness, etc etc because while one cannot measure whether it is like anything at all for the person one can measure whether they can report on something or whether their brain activity is correlated with wakefulness as opposed to being asleep etc. it is typically acknowledged that IQ tests mean something very restrictive indeed re 'intelligence'. it is also typically acknowledged (and really i am surprised nobody has mentioned this before now) that there are major problems with ALL current intelligence tests re cultural bias. cultural bias. interesting. but no of course black people are less smart than white people so why bother spending money on educating black people. are people aware that the bell curve findings were used to support eugenics in the US before Hitler... the US and the UK were implementing eugenics programs... but after Hitler they distanced themselves from that. it is of course a jump from how one scores on a test to whether their ability to do those kind of tasks will generalise back to the real world or not. then there is the point about how abstract rationality is diffeent from practical rationality which requires emotions / appropriate desires as well... then there is the point that the differences between black people and white people can be explained by appealing to the differences in socio economic status between black people and white people. and also the access to quality education between black people and white people. one can study for intelligence tests to do better. practice mental rotation tasks etc. the more one does those kinds of tasks the better one gets. the more formal schooling one has and the more one is encouraged in those kind of tasks the better one gets. they went to some tribe and tried to test their intelligence by asking them some abstract rationality question along the lines of 'suppose 3 women live in the tribe next door and then.....' the people shrugged and walked away. the anthropoligists thougth they were stupid 'cause they couldn't answer the question. the members of the tribe thought the anthropoligists were stupid 'cause there weren't 3 women in the next tribe and who cna be bothered to listen to people spouting nonsense when there is fishing to be done... who are the stupid ones? anyways... just my 2c. |
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Re: Race Differences and Intelligence
Last edited by alexandra_k; March 26th, 2006 at 01:16 AM.. |
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Re: Race Differences and Intelligence
Hi Alexandra, Good to have you back. Thanks for posting those links and comments. I was hoping to get the genetic determinists to commit to some more silly social generalizations like the quotes from Rushton that started this thread - before bringing out the data. But you beat me to it.
Margaret |
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