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James Watson's Nobel Prize Goes On Auction This Week
HughPickens.com writes: Nicholas St. Fleur reports at The Atlantic that James Watson, the famed molecular biologist and co-discoverer of DNA, is putting his Nobel Prize up for auction on Thursday. He's the first Nobel laureate in history to do so. In 2007, Watson, best known for his work deciphering the DNA double helix alongside Francis Crick in 1953, made an incendiary remark regarding the intelligence of black people that lost him the admiration of the scientific community. It made him, in his own words, an "unperson." That year, The Sunday Times quoted Watson as saying that he felt "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours—whereas all the testing says not really." Watson has a history of making racist and sexist declarations, according to Time. At a science conference in 2012, Watson said of women in science, "I think having all these women around makes it more fun for the men but they're probably less effective." To many scientists his gravest offense was not crediting Rosalind Franklin with helping him deduce the structure of DNA.
Watson is selling his prized medallion because he has no income outside of academia, even though for years he had served on many corporate boards. The gold medal is expected to bring in between $2.5 million and $3.5 million when it goes to auction. Watson says that he will use the money to purchase art and make donations to institutions that have supported him, such as the University of Chicago. He adds that the auction will also offer him the chance to "re-enter public life." "I've had a unique life that's allowed me to do things. I was set back. It was stupid on my part," says Watson. "All you can do is nothing, except hope that people actually know what you are."
Watson is selling his prized medallion because he has no income outside of academia, even though for years he had served on many corporate boards. The gold medal is expected to bring in between $2.5 million and $3.5 million when it goes to auction. Watson says that he will use the money to purchase art and make donations to institutions that have supported him, such as the University of Chicago. He adds that the auction will also offer him the chance to "re-enter public life." "I've had a unique life that's allowed me to do things. I was set back. It was stupid on my part," says Watson. "All you can do is nothing, except hope that people actually know what you are."
Do you ever notice how enamored with American football the Chicago population is? How much money they dump into the Chicago Bears? Oh, how I wish that I would be wrong but often science is meant to be inflammatory. The testing simply shows that the people of Chicago are slovenly drunks who cannot help but repose in sloth upon their reclining chairs in their own pitiful squalor. How can we help the people of Chicago when all of our policies revolve around thinking of them as good decent hardworking people?
About a third of the Chicago population is German. Genetically, therefore they have instilled in them a 'Crazy Fourth Reich Fever' that millennia of conditioning by the BLACK Forest of Germany and they simply only want to fight and invade other peaceful peoples that are doing nothing but contributing to the advancement of the human race. Alas, my mind is tortured that nature could be so cruel as to instill a fine specimen like the German with such brutal and total warring instinct. But we simply cannot be able to even begin to help Chicago out of shit-hole status unless we come to terms with their genetically corrupted DNA structure. I know this may seem shocking to you lay people but I have suffered as Galileo has suffered. Science requires I tell you the truth that I seem to have no scientific basis for yet I know deep down in the pit of my Swedish-American stomach to be true.
Another third of the Chicago population is Irish. Genetically the Irish have evolved in an inherently beautiful land that has caused them to drink heavily whenever outside of this land. This is to deal with the squalid landscapes of Chicago. Blame them not, they are only following the unavoidable bonds of nature that tie into their DNA and make them wholesale worthless drunks. There is no hope for them and, verily, we cannot hope to even get them into rehab until we understand that there simply is no rehabilitation for them. Their origin country has a short pitiful record that I can't seem to find records on regarding any suppressors or instigators prior to being a poor island nation hell bent on alcoholism. Oh, if only my scientific inklings were wrong! How I wish I wasn't the one that has to break the news to you. Woe is all that I can feel for having to inform you that genetically the Irish are inferior.
The final third of the Chicago population is Polish. The Poles of Chicago are a daft and rotund people but it is not their fault. The DNA has been shaped by thousands of years of unhealthy food. The cold winters of Poland and Chicago force them indoors where they cannot possibly be industrious but have to sit at microscopes and furrow their brows in a vain attempt to understand these things that I have discovered. Even my high minded Libertarian business attitude can't provide enough jobs for these idle drones. Genetically they suffer from 'Polack Slack' and our policy towards helping them past working on the dock and losing weight will forever fail until we come to accept this. It pains me so to break this news to you but down in my genetically superior innards this idea has been borne and I know it to be true. I know it.
The tests indicate that our great nation would probably be more effective if Chicago and its descendents didn't exist at all. Genetically they will forever be poor and stupid, attached to the glass teat clamoring for more concussions while wallowing about in their fetid sties. Drunk and unable to form simple sentences, our once prosperous country will be held back from truly succeeding.
Ball's in your court, James.
My work here is dung.
What kind of person buys medals? The point of a Nobel Prize (or a military decoration, or whatever) is not the shiny thing, it's the reminder of an achievement.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Watson was "brash but charming" for his entire career, until he became and old man and his inability to observe social mores wasn't so charming anymore, in fact in became a little creepy (I remember a TV interview in which the female interviewer was clearly highly uncomfortable even talking to him, as if he'd hit on her off camera). His book "The Double Helix", the account of his discovery of the structure of DNA along with Francis Crick, in sometimes-competition sometimes-collaboration with Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin, and outright competition with Linus Pauling, made him and Crick famous. Watson and Crick both came across in the book as being brash as hell, bulls in the China shop of old school English academia. But hey... they discovered the structure and won the Nobel Prize!
So when Torvalds goes off calling highly proficient engineers morons on public mailing lists, he's defended as doing what's necessary to run a large project. But as he gets older he might find that at some point that behavior isn't going to be tolerated, and all of these earlier incidents are going to be recalled.
African blacks often test a great deal lower on the standardized IQ tests developed for western militaries. Whether this meaningfully reflects anything about their chances of improving their countries is an open question. Even over here, though, IQ results vary for the same person over time, based on things like brain development (often stunted by childhood malnutrition in many parts of Africa) or education received (largely absent in the poorest places). So while IQ results are lower, they're more likely to rise with development rather than indicate a potential/aptitude for it.
Look at Africa. Over 50 nations. Over a billion people, the majority of them black. Lots of land. Lots of natural resources. A liveable climate. The recipient of billions upon billions of dollars in foreign aid over the course of decades. Yet despite all of this, we've seen almost no development. The only development that is present is the remnants of European efforts a century ago, or more recently, Chinese efforts. The standard of living is absolutely atrocious. And there's nothing to suggest it will get better any time soon.
Then look at every other populated continent. Europe, North America and Australia offer a very high level of development, with very high standards of living. Asia is rapidly catching up. South America is getting there. Even Antarctica has a higher standard of living than Africa, and that's with almost no usable resources, and one of the most hostile environments around.
Why is it that Africa is so continually backward, despite massive amounts of help, while everyone else is so much further ahead, even when they have nowhere near the natural resources or other benefits that Africa offers? It can't be blamed on "colonization" or "guns, germs and steel". If that were the case, then North America, Australia, South America and Asia would be as bad off as Africa is today. Yet obviously that isn't the case; they're all significantly better off.
I'm not going to pretend to have all of the answers, but when I look at the facts, something sure is off when it comes to Africa, especially when it's compared to the rest of the world.
Intelligence tests aren't really accurate, so using them in this context is pointless.
There has been enough work on this to show decisively that one's racial heritage or gender has at most a tiny effect (if any) on intelligence, and one's upbringing has a far greater effect.
Watson might have been technically correct, but he blurred the lines between correlation and causation, which is a really disappointing thing on its own.
Nobody is interested in facts in any sort of discussion on race...either we're all the same or your heart is full of hate. End of conversation.
Scoring high on intelligence tests only proves you know how to answer intelligence tests. Everybody knows IQ scores are no indication of intelligence.
Also, IQ tests often favors those who have received a good education: for instance, if you ask a math question to someone who doesn't know math, they're bound to score low. Does that mean that person is stupid? No, it just means they don't have the means to answer the test.
And of course, conveniently, which section of the population chronically receives the worst levels education? People of color of course. It's a self-perpetuating myth...
But I'll grant you this: whites and blacks *are* different: the former produce less melanin than the latter. That's as much as you can say with 100% certainty about the two.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
That Africans have, on average, lower IQs, is a scientific fact, and the ostracization of Watson is just political correctness. Scientists should be free to speak their minds, and he was actually making a valid point. Differences in nutrition and environment make a difference, but do not come close to explaining the full gap. East Asians have, on average, higher IQs than Caucasians, and Ashkenazi Jews have the highest of any ethnic group. Higher IQs are correlated with a long history of urbanization and economic specialization, where higher IQs provide a selective advantage.
Citations:
Heritability of IQ
Race and Intelligence
i don't know about women & their intelligence
On average, women tend to have higher IQs, but lower variance. So they tend to be under represented at both the high and low end "tails" of the bell curve.
Your comment is extremely racist.
You're goddamn straight it is. The point is that any population -- no matter how high and lofty it is can be the target of stupid shit attributed to their genetic structure with "just so" fallacies. He makes inflammatory statements, doesn't even offer correlation as evidence for them and completely ignores socioeconomic conditions of even the past two hundred years.
... oh, I don't know, the slave trade ... and then just "painfully" wish you were wrong. Notice how I apologized for having to be the one to first acknowledge something I'm not proving.
How hard is it to turn James Watson's high minded lofty DNA superiority complex against his home city? Not hard at all, it turns out. Simply cherry pick from painfully recent history the horrible stereotypes and wars that their ancestors have and totally ignore any outside forces like
What blows my mind is that Africa was for tens of thousands of years in the same state that the rest of the world was in -- hell it's the birthplace of homo sapiens. And the time scale we need to talk about for DNA to change is at the very least tens of thousands of years. 25 million years of human evolution and James Watson measures 'genetic skin-color-intelligence correlation' from his apparently very short knowledge of history. Let's be generous and say he actually considered the past two thousand years which would be odd that he chose not to acknowledge that Europe's age of colonialism had something to do with Africa's current state.
Just like my post listed zero gene expressions, I'm not aware of any he's presented backing his statements. Furthermore, how would one divorce the nature versus nurture in such a test? The long history of racial discrimination the world over would need to be carefully controlled out of the experiment and the fact of the matter is that you can't. I'm not a Nobel prize winning geneticist and even I recognize this.
My work here is dung.
And remember, no written language, no metal working, no boat capable of reaching Europe, etc. etc. etc... lot's of "Why?", but no one wants to be honest in attempting to find true answers.
E. O. Wilson called Watson that when Watson took over the Biology department at Harvard. Wilson called him the most unpleasant man he ever met.
But Wilson admits that Watson did motivate him to move beyond the stamp-collecting stage into more disruptive work in evolution.
Intelligence tests aren't really accurate, so using them in this context is pointless.
Sounds like someone failed the IQ test.
There has been enough work on this to show decisively that one's racial heritage or gender has at most a tiny effect (if any) on intelligence, and one's upbringing has a far greater effect.
Nonsense. The scientific results show the exact opposite. People of African ethnicity score 15 to 18 points lower on IQ tests. Both Caucasians and blacks have improved over time (the Flynn effect) but the gap has remained. Twin studies have shown that home environment explains no more than a quarter of the variance, and most studies have found that it makes a negligible difference. It can make a transitory difference during early childhood, but the gap fades away toward adulthood.
Of course, genetics is not destiny, and there are bright people in every ethnic group. In the early 20th century, measured IQ gaps between protestant and Catholics in Northern Ireland was as large as that between whites and blacks in America today. Yet that gap has now completely disappeared. There are a lot of unanswered questions, but political correctness and fear of being ostracized inhibit research in the area. That is a real shame, since progress on increasing intelligence could have a dramatic positive effect on the world.
North America, Australia and South America are, lets face it essentially Northern European, Spanish and Portugese populations; they're certainly not the native population who were really wiped out. Asia didn't get totally colonised, but I think you really only have distance and the Japanese to thank for that; the Chinese in the 19th century were crumbling against Western inroads. The Japanese learned how to play the game and by 1905 became a (small) world Power, and I think that saved Asia (albeit not necessarily from the Japanese themselves).
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"Facts" are usually just assertions based on someone's interpretation of raw data, the collection of which may have been influenced by subjective biases.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
So how do you measure intelligence if not through IQ tests?
Realistically you don't. It is a hard enough job simply defining "intelligence" so without the parameters to define intelligence how can we objectively measure it? At best we can say that IQ is correlated with intelligence.
As some already mentioned, that isn't quite true...but even if it was: anyone publishing results showing racial or gender differences at this point will get crucified on the spot.
This is the new "the earth is not flat". Except we're not sure about which way the truth swings yet.
This.
Generally the reason for this is Africans never went through the same pressures that those that left Africa suffered.
People that went North and out towards Europe and Asia had to suffer cruel ice ages, they almost became extinct, they were literally endangered.
This led to HUGE changes in our DNA, partly due to these pressures, and partly due to smaller breeding partners, but regardless, it happened.
Africa, generally, never had to suffer this problem.
Africa only just in the past few thousand years has had really bad problems with desertification basically screaming its way through the continent, having destroyed massive chunks of land due to overfarming in hot areas.
If we were to just take everywhere else out of the equation and Africa was left for a few more thousand years, things will change massively there as well. Massive numbers of people will die. Of course, this is the real world, and such death "in the modern age" is a bad thing, so it would be stopped and in turn will lead to evolution forking its way in so many areas that won't be as useful.
Another point a lot of people make is the whole "blacks are violent" crap. This isn't true at all, that is one sub-group of Negroids, mainly those that were taken from Africa during the slave days and it ended up becoming an unintended selective breeding issue where brutish, physically tough blacks were passing on their genes to future generations.
Testosterone being the way it is totally screws the brain over in regards to intelligence. Those that have more of it are usually nowhere near as intelligent as their peers. This has been a well known fact.
Those with large bulbous muscles generally do not have the same average intelligence as their peers, whereas those that have a more uniform frame have evolved a good compromise between testosterone and intelligence.
Evolution is about balance. There is a max energy quota that the genome doesn't go over, that has been hard-coded over millions of years based on the history of our surroundings. One thing changes and it snowballs all the way through the genome. It is a very delicate balancing act.
So, to say all blacks are equal is pretty insulting itself, since the Negroid race itself is the 2nd largest diverse group there is next to Mongoloid.
But overall, Africa never suffered the pressures the rest of the human race went through, which led to them developing more socially, within the respective tribal structures humans evolved in over the past million odd years. (just in the same way that Dolphins did, or Squids, or Whales, they were in the restrictive ocean environment and so could only really evolve internally, which led to huge social and emotional skills, tribalism and such)
And that is not a bad thing at all.
A common mistake is a lot of people think Intelligence is an end-goal, a holy grail, the best. It isn't. Not even slightly.
Intelligence is only a good thing with respect to US, but that won't stop a crocodile ripping your arm off. That won't stop a bear ripping your face to shreds.
Intelligence is just one facet of evolution. Strength is another, social skills, and so on.
Africans more than most are generally more sociable.
But naw, can't say any of this, racism!
Even the term Negroid and Mongoloid are falling out of use because stupid political correctness nonsense.
Fuck the science community. Fuck all of them.
I don't buy that explanation.
The U.S. and the U.S.S.R. fought proxy wars, both cold and hot, in Asia.
South Korea went from devastation to a highly developed nation within only a few decades.
Even Vietnam and its neighbors recovered comparatively quickly from the conflicts there.
They all offer living standards much beyond what almost all African nations offer.
what 'math' questions make into any IQ tests? Actually I think IQ tests are subjective rather than objective on the more complex questions specifically because they are not math but in many casee intuition on complex pattern matching.
The inability to do well on those is more interesting, more indicative of lower intelligence than specialized knowledge.
You can't handle the truth.
The article says "He said he is selling his prized medallion because he has no income outside of academia, even though for years he had served on many corporate boards. It also says that he will use the money to re-enter public life.
How odd. He still has an office at Cold Spring Harbor and he comes in to work fairly often. He still attends functions, fundraisers, and lectures there. He also has a very nice house on the lab's grounds that overlooks the Long Island sound. I can't imagine the laboratory is ungrateful with his retirement package. So he's still in public life and he's living a very nice life. I don't understand the article.
soylentnews.org
That Africans have, on average, lower IQs, is a scientific fact
Which only tells you that IQ tests do not measure intelligence. Some people have even reported average scores for sub-Saharan countries that would qualify as mentally retarded in the Western world. This clearly does not make sense as the same group of people tends to do just fine when being raised in a first world country.
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No it's isn't political correctness. The point is that IQ tests are skewed by schooling and so aren't a good underlying indicator of intelligence per se. e.g. IQ has been rising since the 30s. It can't be because we're getting smarter, so something is wrong. Watson is assuming that IQ==intelligence and therefore Africans are stupid. That's a problem. You also appear to be assuming (correct me if I'm wrong) that we have selected (i.e. evolutionarily) for higher IQs in west and other urbansised areas. I don't think there is any evidence of this.
soylentnews.org
"Fuck the science community. Fuck all of them."
Weren't you purporting to quote scientific evidence just now?
News for merdes. Shit that matters.
Ask me about my sig.
Dr, James Watson is an arrogant (reasonably intelligent) prick who managed to be at the right place at the right time. Both of the other co discoverers of the helix (Francis Crick and Rosealind Franklin) both went on to storied careers in research, in Franklin's case despite dying of cancer at age 37). Watson went on to be a gadfly and generic asshole.
I've met both Watson and Crick. Francis Crick, aside from his drive and intelligence was incredibly polite, well mannered and fun to be with. Watson was an arrogant ass.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Your "facts" aren't really facts.
First, all those other continents you mention have also received billions of dollars in aid, and *do* have natural resources that rival Africa's. So acting like we've only helped Africa and not South America or Asia is ... dumb.
Second, our "massive" amounts of help really aren't that massive on a per capita basis.
Third, Asia isn't "significantly" better off if you exclude Japan and Russia - China is 89th in GDP per capita, below Algeria, Botswana, and Libya; India is 126th, behind Egypt, Namibia, The Republic of Congo and Nigeria; Afghanistan is way down there at 162, tied with Sierra Leone.
And, fourth, along the sames lines, while yes, there are failed states in Africa, there are successes, too, so if you can't see anything to suggest it will get better off soon, you simply aren't looking.
Anyway, check your biases and look at the stats.
Fourth
That's as much as you can say with 100% certainty about the two.
Really? That's it? That's all you can say? Nothing at all about sickle-cell anemia, heart disease risks, athletic ability. None of that? Huh. Learn something new every day.
Well, thanks professor. I'm just assuming you're a Ph.D. geneticist as you're clearly so knowledgeable on the subject.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
To buy the medal and give it to Rosalind's heirs
Higher IQs are correlated with a long history of urbanization and economic specialization, where higher IQs provide a selective advantage.
There's no arguing this. But, from what I've read about James Watson, he never said anything close to this. Instead, I can even find on his wikipedia page this quote from one of his books:
He writes that "there is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so"
So it's related to a long history of urbanization and economic specialization? And also Watson's unequal powers of reason? What is he implying if not to say that genetically some people are born without the equal "powers of reason"? He didn't quite say that due to "a long history of urbanization and economic specialization" instead he said due to geographic separation followed by their evolution. Watson's position as a genetic researcher commenting on something that is almost certainly attributed to socioeconomic status is strange, wouldn't you think? Was he commenting on this as an economist or perhaps historian?
I also like how you link to wikipedia pages but not their internal discrepancies on your open and close case that IQ is inherited. Including this quote from your first link:
Eric Turkheimer and colleagues (2003) found that for children of low socioeconomic status heritability of IQ falls almost to zero.
From this source.
You present a perfectly acceptable and fairly logical argument about the advancement of some cultures outpacing others. One need only read "Guns, Germs & Steel" where this sort of thing is discussed in a very sound and well researched way. Do we raise our pitchforks and chase after Jared Diamond with fervor? Not at all. Then again, his arguments didn't rest entirely upon some imaginary gene expression he just hadn't found yet.
Your "political correctness" claim is largely rubbish. While it may appear a knee-jerk reaction, this is the case of people objecting to a statement with no underlying scientific basis while Watson makes claims that we should be able to isolate the "Intelligence Gene." Have we had success in isolating such a gene from the Ashkanazi? Furthermore Watson implies (though never directly says) that lack of similar genes is what keeps Africa repressed -- while making zero reference to the reverberating effects of hundreds of years of European colonizations and their leeching of wealth & resources.
My work here is dung.
Citations: Heritability of IQ Race and Intelligence
The "Race and Intelligence" article has the following cautions at the top:
This article's factual accuracy is disputed.
The neutrality of this article is disputed.
This article may be unbalanced towards certain viewpoints.
Not exactly a convincing support for your argument
That Africans have, on average, lower IQs, is a scientific fact, and the ostracization of Watson is just political correctness
is complete bullshit and why Watson was rightfully ostracized for making the claims that lower IQs were inherent to the race without conclusive data.
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
There are "facts" and there are "beliefs". The difference is important. If you take the position that all "facts" are just "beliefs" or matters of opinion, then science and engineering and technology don't work very well.
So how do you measure intelligence if not through IQ tests?
The politically correct answer is to give everyone the same score.
This study shouldn't differentiate between races. This is a study on poverty and development. "measured IQ gaps between protestant and Catholics in Northern Ireland was as large as that between whites and blacks in America today" , I bet you can correlate that with the improved living standards in Northern Ireland. Why not say " this underdeveloped area doesn't measure up on the test my developed area created".
I lived in what is now the "Democratic Republic of the Congo" for three years, so I have at least personal anecdotal knowledge.
1) Relatively recent colonial history means that there was no native bureaucracy able to run the countries when the colonial powers left.
2) Dictators took over, and most dictators don't really want to make the country better, instead they just want power and money.
3) History of tribal politics means that when someone takes power they give rewards to their tribe at the cost of the other tribes.
4) Lack of national-level control means that it's difficult to exploit the natural resources.
5) Lack of government responsibility means that when countries do exploit the national resources very little of the money ends up in the hands of the workers (or the country).
6) Lack of government funding for educational facilities means that there is a continuing shortage of qualified local skilled labour. (It was quite common for teachers to charge students a fee to write finals, since the teachers got very little salary.)
IQ=/=Intelligence. IQ is a test score, nothing else. Generally, the people most like the test authors score best.
Do you really believe that there was actually a difference in intelligence between Roman Catholics and protestants in Northern Ireland, or do you think there was systematic issue in the tests? How do you account for this marked change in innate intelligence? Genetics? Laughable! What kind of selective breeding research was being performed, because even with a draconian program, you're not going to get a 15 to 18 point change in actual intelligence. Could it be something else? Educational standards or opportunities? Cultural expectations? Diet?
Do you really believe that there is an actual difference in intelligence between people of predominantly sub-Saharan ancestry living in America and people of predominantly European ancestry living in America? Could it be something else that would show up in some tests results?
Rather than trying to make progress on intelligence by pursuing some racist agenda, why not approach the problem from a practical perspective. Poverty and opportunity have a very powerful tie to scores on tests, why not work on those? Or, might that disturb some people's feeling of why they deserve the wealth they have, and their agenda of keeping it?
Why is it that Africa is so continually backward, despite massive amounts of help, while everyone else is so much further ahead, even when they have nowhere near the natural resources or other benefits that Africa offers? It can't be blamed on "colonization" or "guns, germs and steel". If that were the case, then North America, Australia, South America and Asia would be as bad off as Africa is today. Yet obviously that isn't the case; they're all significantly better off.
Australia and North and South America were colonized, the successful subsets of their populations are European immigrants and the natives are doing horribly.
Japan, China, and South Korea were never colonized nor significantly ruled by foreign powers and they're doing great. It's hard not to cherry pick but there does seem to be a correlation between development and Asia countries who remained independent.
Africa is really the only place that experienced significant colonial rule without colonization, the destruction of their old political institutions and national boundaries without any new power structures put in place, it's not surprising that they're lagging behind.
I'm not going to pretend to have all of the answers, but when I look at the facts, something sure is off when it comes to Africa, especially when it's compared to the rest of the world.
I don't have the answers either, but a genetic IQ difference doesn't really fit the evidence.
Africa was doing better than Asia in the 50s prior to decolonization, so did their genes change in the last 60 years?
What about Vietnam, the Philippines, and Mongolia? Are their genes so different that they missed out on the Chinese/Japanese smarts?
I'm not saying a genetic IQ difference is impossible, but all the evidence of a genetic difference is better explained by other factors.
I stole this Sig
There must be a way of telling smart people from dumb people... .
Stephan
It could, if natural selection were biased toward intelligence.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
So here is a guy who is pawning his medals after a lifetime in academia having about as successful a career as is possible in science; and at the same time some douche with a 2 year old MBA is trying to figure out "Ferrari, or Lamborghini?"
One career will change the lives of pretty much everybody, and the other will involve being rewarded for raping pension plans.
One career will bring a lifetime of intellectual satisfaction and the other will bulk up an inner psychopath.
Yes our civilization is fairly broken.
The answers to those questions revolve around societal issues, and have a lot to do with cultural inertia, which is not an easy thing to explain in ways that are quantifiable, which is where scientific study tends to look for answers. In actuality, if you took an infant born in one of those underdeveloped countries and raised him or her in a more developed nation, it is highly unlikely you would not notice any difference.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
You are correct, but you will be modded as flamebait/troll because is a taboo subject and the humans are too much more likely to think in a social/politics way than logically.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
The thing is that these are limits of the tests and we actually do not know whether black African people are less smart, equally smart or smarter than the global average. The best assumption we have is equal intelligence on average (disregarding illnesses that decrease intelligence and that could be more prevalent in areas with poor medical infrastructure). It is a reasonable assumption, but it is just an assumption.
The two main problems with intelligence tests are that they have a bias for education (people with higher education get better scores without being more intelligent) and a target culture (people in the test target culture get higher scores). There are no test that can eliminate the education bias or the cultural dependency.
On the other hand, cultural factors can be a serious problem and many African cultures are vastly different with regards to things that make western culture tick, such as punctuality, correctness, etc. and some people cannot deal with that. These are not factors connected to intelligence though.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
No such differences have ever been identified, except for genetic diseases that decrease intelligence. Otherwise it is as if you body does not have much impact on your intelligence, if any at all. Of course, there is no way to accurately test intelligence for most African people as the cultural and educational differences are to large and they have a huge impact on testing. But there are no indicators either way and if African people are on average smarter or less smart than the rest of the world, the difference will be small.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Brazil, my country, also also had several problems with dictators, overthrown governments and empires trying to make my country in their backyard. But despite that we are in a much better situation than Africa. Why? Notice, we also have corruption in generous quantities.
The question of the AC is valid, period. As always the devil lives in the details, and usually the texts on the subject forget that this question of intelligence (and perhaps racial differences) is only part of the problem alone does not answer the greater question.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
IQ tests have a strong bias from educational and cultural factors. I would not at all be surprised if African blacks (or even underclass US blacks) test lower. That does not mean they are less intelligent though, it just demonstrates that they are culturally and educationally different. If you test underclass white people, you probably get a similar effect. It is important to remember that IQ tests do not measure intelligence, but the IQ and the two can be significantly different.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It means that your "facts" ought to be peer reviewed, and even then sometimes they don't represent the truth after all, and need to be revised later.
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
So who moderated his speech? No one. He was allowed to speak his mind, and then other people were allowed to decide whether they wanted to continue associating with him in light of what he revealed of himself.
Now, if you want to argue that being shunned for your opinions is censorship, fine, but do understand that there are implications for other people's freedom of association.
And yet no one silenced Watson. They simply stopped listening to him.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I've seen it myself. Now from personal experience I know many African Americans that are brilliant people. The tests Watson refers to are culturally biased and so yes will show certain groups as inferior to others. But it's well known at this point that this is true - the test are culturally biased. So give a test given to white U.S. kids to kids in the various countries of Africa and sure - the kids in the latter will likely test lower.
Has nothing to do with brain capacity and everything to do with culture.
Someone please hand me the world's tiniest violin.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
you should check out the documentary Idiocracy.
This clearly does not make sense as the same group of people tends to do just fine when being raised in a first world country.
Not true. There is a 15 to 18 point gap in IQ test scores in America between blacks and whites. That is about one standard deviation. Similar gaps exist in other mixed race countries.
It could, if natural selection were biased toward intelligence.
Yes, because natural selection works on the sort of timescale between the invention of IQ tests and the present day (i.e. about 100 years).
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It can't be because we're getting smarter
Why not? Just a single known factor, the reduction of environmental lead, has likely increased average IQs by 3 to 5 points. Other factors, such as folic acid enrichment of basic foods, has likely made a significant difference as well.
You also appear to be assuming (correct me if I'm wrong)
You are wrong.
that we have selected (i.e. evolutionarily) for higher IQs in west and other urbansised areas.
I didn't say that. I said that higher IQ scores are correlated with a history of urbanization. Selective pressure is an obvious explanation for that, but there could be other reasons. For instance, smarter people could just gravitate to cities (but that wouldn't really explain why the average IQ of the whole population increases).
So how do you measure intelligence if not through IQ tests?
Realistically you don't. It is a hard enough job simply defining "intelligence" so without the parameters to define intelligence how can we objectively measure it? At best we can say that IQ is correlated with intelligence.
Speaking as an expert in this area, what you're saying is technically true. The catch is that you can estimate what that correlation is, and it tends to be very high. Not perfect by any means, and not infallible, or invariant across all situations, but very high. So what you can say is, when you use an IQ test in a population it was developed for, if it is administered under standard conditions, higher scores generally mean higher intelligence.
Before people on Slashdot get all cocky about measurement, think about measurement problems in their own fields, and then claim that anything is a perfect measure. Does anyone want to talk about how to measure compiler quality and performance? How do you define that? How do you operationalize it? Would you claim that benchmarks are useless? That compilers don't differ in quality or performance?
Correlation does not equal causation.
There are similar gaps in IQ if you consider poverty or hunger rather than race. As a matter of fact, dietary deficiency in infants can result in permanent IQ deficit for life.
One reason why programs like SNAP (Food Stamps) are so important to help the poor.
IQ doesn't "rise" for an entire population. If all the scores are rising, it means the test is out of date and needs to be restandardized.
By definition, IQ is measured as a standard distribution curve with an IQ of 100 being the average. If everyone on the planet suddenly got twice as smart, we'd still have the same IQ because again, IQ measures you in relation to the rest of the population.
If you develop a new IQ test, then you have to standardize the scoring on it so that average == 100 or you're not actually testing for IQ.
From Wiki: When current IQ tests are developed, the median raw score of the norming sample is defined as IQ 100 and scores each standard deviation (SD) up or down are defined as 15 IQ points greater or less
About a year after I came to the US, at the age of 14, I underwent an IQ test and was asked how many pounds are in a ton.
(This was a bit of a problem for me as having grown up in a metric country I could have easily told you how many kilograms were in a ton, of course, but pounds? I ended up torn between the long ton definition (2240 lbs) and the short ton definition (2000 lbs)
Sorry, how do you come to the conclusion that IQ tests do not measure intelligence?
Simple: IQ test scores are hard data. Any reasonable interpretation of those data raises inconvenient political issues. So therefore, they are invalid. Problem solved. So despite the fact that IQ is strongly correlated with school performance, job performance, lifetime income, criminality, etc., and despite the fact that we can actually address it in measurable ways with abatement of environmental pollutants (lead, mercury, PCBs, etc.) and better nutrition (folic acid enrichment, DHA supplements, etc.), it is much better if everyone sticks their fingers in their ears, denies the issue exists, and demonizes anyone who attempts to quantify it.
Brazil, my country, also also had several problems with dictators, overthrown governments and empires trying to make my country in their backyard. But despite that we are in a much better situation than Africa. Why? Notice, we also have corruption in generous quantities.
The question of the AC is valid, period. As always the devil lives in the details, and usually the texts on the subject forget that this question of intelligence (and perhaps racial differences) is only part of the problem alone does not answer the greater question.
A little over 10 years ago, Brazil wasn't doing much better than most of Africa. But Brazil has control over it's own oil reserves and put in place an extremely unique (and controversial) economic policy called Plano Real
In fact, if you proposed such a thing to me today, I'd still tell you it was a horrible idea. I'm not entirely convinced it wasn't seer luck that it worked. lol
I'd make the case that much of that if not all can be explained by cultural differences. Besides, IQ tests don't measure everything. Many with high IQ's flounder while those with marginal ones manage to excel. There are many different types of smart.
Perhaps it's because the fuck/non-fuck ratio in his posts is lower than yours.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
With a few substitutions, your puzzlement could be applied to native Americans.
Why are they just about extinct?
It isn't because they had a low IQ.
It's because they were stone-age people overtaken by much more advanced peoples.
Africa and its indigenous people have all they need to survive and prosper, just as did the native Americans.
Africa, like native Americans, simply don't want to, and don't need to, advance like a bat out of hell and get iPhones.
Left alone, both would have been much better off.
Meanwhile, Africa is being exploited precisely as were native Americans.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
That Africans have, on average, lower IQs, is a scientific fact
Which only tells you that IQ tests do not measure intelligence.
Ah, this is so cool, it certainly deserves the high "Insightful" moderation. So, when a test comes up with results, that go against your existing dogma, you reject the test — not the dogma? "Hide the decline" much?
I do not know whether or not Africans — or any other race — have a higher (or lower) IQ (or intelligence, if that's what you prefer). But if you are going to argue, that nobody is smarter, then you better have your evidence lined-up — something better than a dogmatic belief.
Penalizing scientists for thoughtcrimes does not advance humanity's progress...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
> Japan, China, and South Korea were never colonized nor significantly ruled by foreign powers and they're doing great. It's hard not to cherry pick but there does seem to be a correlation between development and Asia countries who remained independent.
I'm sorry, but what? The Korean peninsula was the site of a major American/Soviet proxy war in the 50s, and the US still has troops stationed there to this day.
True but the Koreans never really lost self rule. Remember I'm talking about colonization and the resulting breakdown of the society and political tradition, not war.
China was practically owned by the British Empire after the Second Opium War, and it was only Japanese expansionism (which was brutal itself) that saved them from being swallowed by the West.
The resulting treaties had very favourable terms for the British (and the British got Hong Kong, which is an interesting counterexample to my general argument) but otherwise Chinese self-rule remained intact.
Japan was firebombed and nuked by the US, and it constitutionally has no military now - the US military is its military, for all intents and purposes.
And again Japan never really lost self-rule or got colonized.
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were also subject to a proxy wars, but the other side won. Mongolia was alternately part of the Soviet Union and China at various times.
And very little colonialism (though more than other parts of East Asia).
Singapore and Hong Kong are pretty much just the remnants of British imperialism. Indonesia is a product of Dutch colonialism. The Phillipines were a Spanish colony and then an American colony (formally!). Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand, and Brunei were all British colonies.
Except for Singapore and Hong Kong the places you're describing are the least developed places in Asia (except those fully colonized like Australia and New Zealand).
What is now India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan were all under British rule at certain times. Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan were all under Soviet rule. Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan have all been under Turkish or Soviet rule at various points.
tl;dr: I just listed off practically every country in Asia (besides the Middle East). They have all been colonized.
And India isn't doing as well as China, and as for countries that were part of the USSR there's a general rule where the more independence they retained the more developed they are now.
I stole this Sig
It tells me that IQ scores are related to other things besides genetics. Of course children who are educated, raised in a stimulating environment, and have years of practice at critical thinking are going to do better at these tests.
You don't seem to have any answers at all.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
This suggests, some sort of absolute IQ measurement should be developed — so that differences between generations in a population, or contemporary populations of different locales can be meaningfully measured. One obvious application would be to track the efficiency of public education, but there can, of course, be others...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If you have ideas, whether they are right or not, there are some people are going to disagree with you.
If others have ideas, whether they are wrong or not, there are some people who are going to agree with them.
I do not believe that there will ever be an impartial and scientific study conducted to definitively prove anything and one sure as hell sure that none could be conducted in my life time. Humanity has believed many things about race in its history, humanity believes many things about it today and humanity will continue to believe various things about it in years to come. Perhaps in your country, or your community or just in your circle of friends, there is a consensus that you are right, but in the wider world, this is still very much an open topic. This applies whether or not arguments to the contrary offend you.
One of the best ways to promote one's ideas as being rational is through civil discourse and tolerance. Your profanities and ad hominem demonstrate neither.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
So Africa has a low IQ because America has not invaded it yet ...
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
And this, is how Illiberals react, when a thoughtcriminal challenges their — unsubstantiated — beliefs... This perfect example of Illiberal approach to arguing makes a good conversational piece and is now available printed on archive-quality paper.
Wild-caught. Order it with an attractive (organic) wood frame for only $9.99 more and receive free shipping within continental US. Call now, operators are standing by.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Well, this is really off-topic but is interesting to explain to you why this particular plan worked. The plan worked because he killed the inertial inflation, a very serious, cancerous problem on Brazil some time ago. Brazilian traders also were (and still are) extremely corrupt and greedy, raising prices every fucking day if they had nothing to stop them... The plan also killed this fundamental point by allowing the Brazilians like me to buy cheap overseas, forcing local merchants to sell at lower prices or having to file for bankruptcy. This killed one of the biggest motivators for the hyperinflation.
But it is a pity that the next government threw most of it away when leave Real depreciate. Because when the government did it, he has made foreign goods expensive again and it left the door open for our merchants (who still corrupt and very, very greedy) start all over again.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Correlation does not equal causation.
Indeed, it does not. But the GPP wasn't denying the causation. He was denying the correlation.
There are similar gaps in IQ if you consider poverty or hunger rather than race.
Indeed there is. But if researchers correct for these factors, and compare whites and blacks in similar socioeconomic circumstances, and look at black children adopted and raised by white families, there is still a variance correlated with race. Blacks are more exposed to environmental pollutants, are more likely to have deficiencies in micro-nutrients, and are less likely to breastfeed, than whites in similar socioeconomic conditions. Why do black kids have higher levels of lead in their blood compared to white kids living in the same neighborhood? Why are poor black kids deficient in folic acid, iodine, and other critical micro-nutrients, when poor white kids are not? Why are black women so reluctant to breastfeed their babies? Nobody really knows, and we won't find answers by denying there is a problem, and demonizing those asking the questions.
This.
The best predictor of cultural and geographical IQ is probably to determine the answer to one question:
"Who has the most advanced weapons?"
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
rather just some sort of justification for your irrational bigotry and hatred.
Resorting to name calling is essentially admitting that he's got a point you can't refute but don't like. I certainly didn't detect hatred. You mad bro?
Hence why they'd pay so much. Not because it is worth that much, you could have a gold medal made much cheaper, but because it has historical significance and they wish to have that.
There is also the part where it has been exploited by just about all the above mentioned more developed areas. Much of the billions of Aid given, while good intentions have had some negative affects, like dumped subsidized US grain effectively making local commercial farming non-profitable (The US farmer still gets paid though).
There are probably some cultural reasons as well, perhaps to do with tribal factions but I'm not really educated on it enough to really comment more than it probably exists as a contributing factor.
Yes but North Africa was populated from the Middle East and Europe. They didn't cross the Sahara to get there.
Sidenote: Do not waste your time reading the Portuguese version of the article on the Real plan, is a pile of ideological garbage. The English version describes better the fundamental reasons for the plan's success.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Aehm, both? And no, the latter does not follow from the former.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
It tells me that IQ scores are related to other things besides genetics. Of course children who are educated, raised in a stimulating environment, and have years of practice at critical thinking are going to do better at these tests.
Sure, but that runs against the racists' "blacks are genetically stupid" claim.
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The bitch is just 5 seconds of thought logically would show why this would make sense from a biological point of view. Brains take a LOT of energy to run and the harder the brain works the more energy its gonna use so there would be zero point in developing a more powerful one if it simply wasn't needed from a biological standpoint.
All those groups you named with high IQs? Lived in what has been historically seriously rough climates where getting enough to survive would take serious planning and strategy to survive, much less get enough to reproduce and thrive. Compare this to Africa where the climate over time has been some of the mildest, food plants of all types from fruits to roots has been abundant, tons of wild game....just not a real point in having a high IQ to plan ahead when you could just step out your hut into a paradise of abundance.
But sadly political correctness has made science into Lysenkoism where only science that backs up the party beliefs are allowed. According to PC we are all nothing but Barbie and Ken dolls and the only difference is some dye added to the plastic where anybody with 2 eyes can see that isn't so. We have different builds, different skull shapes,, different diseases target different races, this isn't "racist" its simple measurable observation but sadly because some idiots at the turn of the 20th century tried to make everything racial with eugenics now we can't even point out reality without getting attacked.
Who knows, maybe in another century we'll be allowed to get out of the PC dark ages and have real science that is allowed to question everything without regard for how it affects the party but until then all one can do is practice Lysenkoism and only look at things which back up the dogma.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Oh god I hate weighing in on the wrong side of this argument but I can't let this one lie. (For the record, I'm assuming based on what you are responding to that you're being sarcastic, if you're not... well, so it goes). Yes, natural selection can work in about 100 years. Natural selection can work in about 100s if the environment changed the right way. Do note, natural selection is only a single part of evolution, and for lasting, long term changes to occur requires, among other things, mutations. Those kinds of changes take dozens of generations. Simply changing the rate of expression of a gene in the gene pool is as simple as removing the genes you don't like, which can happen very, very rapidly.
The amount of development that has occurred in Africa over the last 50 years is staggering. Ignoring it to make a point is dishonest and smacks of prejudice at the very least.
There is a 15 to 18 point gap [wikipedia.org] in IQ test scores in America between blacks and whites.
There's an obvious difference between such a gap and being mentally retarded.
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What's the term that's often thrown around here? Correlation != causation.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
It does when you wipe out 100 million in just 6 years. Your brutish "I'm a tough baddazz" types found out Mr Bullet don't care while the smart ones knew to duck. If you look at history the western powers were sending their poor off to the killing fields about once a generation...yeah that kind of pressure on the gene pool would do it.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Japan, China, and South Korea were never colonized nor significantly ruled by foreign powers and they're doing great.
What about Vietnam, the Philippines, and Mongolia? Are their genes so different that they missed out on the Chinese/Japanese smarts?
Mongolia was never a colony. It was still lead by the Borjid Dynasty, who were treated by the Manchu Asin Gioro as a particularly honored Vassal. Many empresses dowagers of this period were Borjit princesses, including Xiaozhuang Empress who acted as regent for the young Kangxi. They also ruled over China for a century and made a giant mess of it, which is the key reason Chinese have historically often considered them to be somewhat mentally inferior (though they probably aren't, just their territory doesn't lend itself to intensive farming or city building).
Philippines and Vietnam are better compared to other South East Asian nations, rather than North East Asian nations. Thailand was never a colony, but it's not doing so great. Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei however all were and tower over all Asian nations but Japan in standard of living. Hong Kong was a colony too and if treated as a country is possibly on average the most prosperous on earth.
In fact, if you look Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, all former colonies, you will find that the Chinese ethnic group does extremely well economically whether they go. Particularly when you see how well the Chinese do compared to the native Malays in economic pursuits, you will see that cultural values make a lot of difference
So hence the north-south theory, the same as Europe. Northern societies tend to be more industrious since they have to endure the scarcity of food and heat every winter. Japan, China and Korea are all freezing f---ing cold in December-March and the trees are bare and fruitless, a human society if they want to survive here must spend its time preparing clothing, and stores of grain for the winter so they lend themselves to tens of thousands of years of economic focus. Vietnamese, Thais, Malays, etc. are not stupid, they're just not economically minded. You cannot starve or freeze in these countries, coconuts litter the ground and fish teem in the rivers and the sun shines warm every day, a bit of shelter from the monsoon and you can live indefinitely.
Colonialism is a red herring. Everything is more interesting if you actually learn about Asian history rather than trying to mold it to prove a point.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
Funny how often people fall back on IQ tests despite their having been thoroughly discredited ages ago... The US was a world leader in the "science" of Eugenics in the early 1900s, and the first World Eugenics conference was held in the US.
If it weren't disputed, it wouldn't be an argument?
(*Note: don't support that side of things. Just an observation)
Colonialism is a red herring. Everything is more interesting if you actually learn about Asian history rather than trying to mold it to prove a point.
As countries go China's political history was remarkably stable. How many modern nations actually existed in a recognizable form in 1644, much less 1000AD.
Anyway, my point wasn't that colonialism explains everything, but as a factor it does seem to explain a lot of the issues in a way that makes sense.
A country without stable political institutions is destabilized by power struggles at the local and national level. In a country where everybody understands who's in charge and they all agree they're part of the same country people can worry less about conflict and more about living. If African nations had strong central governments with loyal militaries there wouldn't be warlords driving around extorting villages. If they had a strong tradition of public servents then police wouldn't be corrupt. A stable society creates the opportunity to invest in the future, the whole point of colonialism was to disrupt the old order to impose a European one, it's not a surprise that native populations under colonialism don't fare well.
There will be exceptions to this as there are exceptions to any influencial force, but it seems to explain a lot.
I stole this Sig
He undoubtedly had one brilliant idea. Even with the blank check a Nobel winner gets for future research, he didn't really do anything else. One hit wonders exist.
Heck, his racism and sexism would probably continue to be overlooked if he continued making fundamental discoveries, or if his cancer research had borne fruit.
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There has been enough work on this to show decisively that one's racial heritage or gender has at most a tiny effect (if any) on intelligence, and one's upbringing has a far greater effect.
Nonsense. The scientific results show the exact opposite. People of African ethnicity score 15 to 18 points lower on IQ tests. Both Caucasians and blacks have improved over time (the Flynn effect) but the gap has remained.
Did you bother to read your cited article into the next section, where various hypotheses that explain part of the racial differences may come from differences in health, nutrition, socioeconomic environment, and test bias? Or continue further down your link, and read about how attempts to find actual genes related to intelligence have failed so far?
Twin studies have shown that home environment explains no more than a quarter of the variance, and most studies have found that it makes a negligible difference.
It's simply false to claim that "most studies have found it makes a negligible difference," as you might also find in various adoption studies, which have split (again, from one of your own links) in terms of their evidence about whether environmental factors can explain racial differences. Simply being raised by a white family, according to some studies, can raise IQ enough to account for almost the entire gap you identified. Other studies claim some differences remain.
But, more specifically, your particular citation of "twin studies" doesn't actually say what your post claims -- your citation says that home environment explains 25-35% of overall intelligence variance in the population at large. In other words, if you dropped a random kid (of whatever race) into a random household, on average the effect of the home environment might account for 25-35% of the reason why some kid has an IQ of 140 and another has an IQ of 80. That's a very different question from asking how much of the 15-point (or whatever) racial gap might be explained by household differences, since a 15-point difference in means between races is much smaller than the variance between the highest and lowest IQ people in general. It's certainly possible statistically for home environment to explain 25-35% of the IQ variance at large, but 100% of the gap between races -- I'm not saying it does, but you're quoting one statistic and applying it to another situation that doesn't make much sense.
(To use an analogy, this would be like doing a study to see whether reviewing one's notes helps in test performance, and noting that reviewing notes seems to explain 25-35% of the reason why some people score a A and others score D. But then I also note there appears to be a half-letter-grade gap in the mean scores of men vs. women on the test. I cannot just assume that reviewing notes accounts for only 25% of the gender differences without actually knowing something about how gender and studying correlates, particularly if I knew that one group skewed in a particular direction, like most tested black people skew toward certain types of home environments. To do so is a major statistical fallacy.)
And this doesn't even begin to get into the question of whether IQ is actually a good measure of general intelligence for all cultures, or whether specific IQ tests may be culture-laden in ways that don't adequately assess useful intelligence for different societies or different groups. MANY psychologists, other scientists, and even the psychometrics people who are involved with IQ test design have leveled a number of cri
I think the major mistake you are making, which is a mistake of so many people who to try to make cultural/ethnics arguments, is a failure to understand how fast the modern era is moving and how quickly changes have occurred. If you look at the situations in these countries, they aren't really all that dissimilar (accounting for cultural differences) to situations in European nations not all that long ago. I would say they are factually a couple hundred years behind in some places, but compared to the whole of human history, that is a very small percentage behind. Basically the proven increase in IQ over the last hundred years in "modern" nations proves that we lack the ability to really know what can and can not be accounted for by culture.
"Scoring high on intelligence tests only proves you know how to answer intelligence tests."
Intelligence tests aren't such a bad tool as you make them out to be, provided you use them correctly. Using them correctly involves taking into account differences in culture, upbringing, socioeconomic status, etc.
When you do that you find that IQ, along with adult income, highest education attained and pretty much every other indicator of success, is dominated by the socioeconomic status of the family in which you were raised.
Uhh, what?
In 1980, Namibia had a higher GDP per capita than Brazil. How'd you all increase your IQs so much in a single generation?
Your country has been saved my embracing open-market capitalist reforms in the late 1990s and an oil boom, and has nothing to do with how smart you are or the color of your collective skin.
To many scientists his gravest offense was not crediting Rosalind Franklin with helping him deduce the structure of DNA.
That seems to be a silly accusation. In his 1968 book "The Double Helix", the following is said on page 4:
Chiefly it was a matter of five people: Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin, Linus Pauling, Francis Crick, and me.
Heck, he writes about Rosie a bit. She was supposedly a hot chick, if she only knew how to dress. Yeah, that's a stereotypical male view of women, but hey, at least we learn that much about her.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
"I bet you can correlate that with the improved living standards in Northern Ireland."
So you are betting that the difference in living standards for Catholics and Protestants in Ireland 100 years ago was the same as or larger than the difference between people in Sub-Saharan Africa and those in Europe/USA right now. I'd call that a pretty risky gamble. Interesting that you have formed a strong opinion, that was upvoted, based on this assumption that has no support other than your intuition.
Almost half of Brazil population is black or brown, smartass...
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
The one hit of his caliber — the (co)invention of DNA — ought to be enough even if the "hitter" is a jerk...
A person having — and even expressing — inflammatory opinions should not be raising the requirement. To continue with my Mel Gibson analogy, he'll remain great in "Braveheart" and I'd love to have him autograph the DVD for me, even he not only "hates Jews", but turns out to be torturing kittens for fun...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
It's funny, but the very source you point to notes that the best explanation of those gaps are factors like poverty and environment. Surprise, people that are hungry, suffering from disease and have no access to modern education tend to do worse on standardized tests of intelligence. There's plenty of research in the area, but it all revolves around environmental factors. From a genetic standpoint, the variances in "races" is so small that it's impact on something as complex as a intelligence as Spearman's g is just noise. Also, there is a much better explanation of the gap in performance between races. Stereotype threat. It can be reproduced in any population, and study show that it can account for all the gap in performance in standardized tests. It's simple to do. Create a reminder that a group is expected to do worse on a test, and they will do worse because their are trying to compensate. The book Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To is a great summary of the work in this area.
For what? To have every idiotic thing he said taken as important ever since then.
Look, he definitely did an important thing. Since then, he's said and done stupid things for half-a-century. Why do I still have to care about him as a person.
And I still will continue to believe in DNA, and even use it all the time in my personal life. But, to answer your Mel Gibson analogy less allegorically: Braveheart was fine, if overlong. I didn't see his later work. There was nothing that screamed "you have to watch me" that overcame my desire to not give him any more money. Because, when it comes down to it, there are a lot of non-asshole actors I can support that are at least as talented as him. And I disapprove of anti-semites.
To re-analoge the point, there are enough brilliant scientists in the world, that I don't feel the need to suck Watson's dick. Especially as he seemed to think he was so brilliant he could speak with autority outside his field of expertise.
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But if researchers correct for these factors, and compare whites and blacks in similar socioeconomic circumstances, and look at black children adopted and raised by white families, there is still a variance correlated with race.
Some studies claim that. Other adoption studies have shown that black kids basically do the same as white kids when both are raised by white families. You can argue about which studies are better, but there's not a clear answer, unlike your (pardon the pun) "black-and-white" argument.
Blacks are more exposed to environmental pollutants, are more likely to have deficiencies in micro-nutrients, and are less likely to breastfeed, than whites in similar socioeconomic conditions.
Okay, let's talk about these in turn.
Why do black kids have higher levels of lead in their blood compared to white kids living in the same neighborhood?
Because even if they live in the same neighborhoods, blacks disproportionately end up in worse housing conditions. From that link, which compares randomly sampled groups of Whites and Blacks living in an urban environment in the same city: "Racial disparity in urban children's blood lead levels appears to be due to differences in housing conditions and environmental exposures. While [various factors] contribute to blood lead for both Black and White children, Black children, who in this study were largely impoverished and lived in pooly maintained rental housing, are also exposed to higher levels of lead-contaminated house dust and to painted surfaces and floor that are in poorer condition. Thus, housing condition and exposure to lead-contaminated house dust appear to be major contributors to the racial disparity in children's blood levels.
Next?
Why are poor black kids deficient in folic acid,
Well, we know that black moms are more likely to be deficient in folic acid. Part of it is dietary; from the link: "certain groups, including women of childbearing age and non-Hispanic black women, are at risk of insufficient folate intakes. Even when intake of folic acid from dietary supplements is included, 19% of female adolescents aged 14 to 18 years and 17% of women aged 19 to 30 years do not meet the EAR. Similarly, 23% of non-Hispanic black women have inadequate total intakes, compared with 13% of non-Hispanic white women."
So, diet is a big reason, and if black moms are deficient and feed a similar diet to their kids, well, you might guess that the kids could end up deficient. Other studies have noted that black women are less likely to have access to supplements or pre-natal vitamins that might provide adequate folic acid content.
iodine, and other critical micro-nutrients, when poor white kids are not?
Probably because blacks tend to consume a lot less dairy, which is often known to correlate with iodine deficiencies. From this study, "The NHANES and NCS UI [iodine level] data suggest that non-Hispanic black women have lower UI concentration than other women. Additionally, non-Hispanic black women had lower dairy consumption.... Non-Hispanic black women reporting rates of dairy consumption is consistent with recent data on U.S. population reports of lactose intolerance... among females, 50% were non-Hispanic black, 30% non-Hispanic white, and 20% Hispanic. Self-diagnosed lactose intolerance and consequent avoidance of dairy products may be on the contributing factors in the racial/ethnic differences we have shown in UI concentration."
Tha
FTA: "All you can do is nothing, except hope that people actually know what you are."
We do. A bigot.
^^seriously needs to be modded up, even with only 1 still left to go.
Bukowski said it. I believe it. That settles it.
And yet no one silenced Watson.
Except all those venues that cancelled his sold-out lectures, his forced retirement, and the fact he's being forced into giving up his Nobel (according to the first link in the summary)...
People deciding not to pay to listen to you is far from the same thing as people silencing you.
Free speech means that you cannot be prevented from speaking your mind (within some limits, which Watson did not cross), but it in no way obligates people to listen to you, much less to pay you for the privilege of listening to you.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
What are good references for this?
... the fact he's being forced into giving up his Nobel (according to the first link in the summary)...
Forced? Forced??? The link says no such thing. He is selling this Nobel Prize because he wants to use the money to take up art collecting, and making philanthropic donations. This is the choice of a very comfortable man who wants to take up the hobbies of the rich.
Note that the link says that he "he has no income outside of academia" - given his multiple high level positions in academia over the years, those pensions could stack up into mid-six figures, making him wealthy by any normal standard.
Sorry, the poor, poor Mr. Watson shtick won't wash.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
As countries go China's political history was remarkably stable. How many modern nations actually existed in a recognizable form in 1644, much less 1000AD.
United Kingdom (Commonwealth of England and Scotland), Spain, Portugal, Japan, Thailand, Ethiopia (Solomonic Dynasty), Russia (Russian Empire), Iran (Kingdom of Persia), France (Ancien Reigime), Austria (Archduchy).
England and Scotland restored their king a few years later and continued with the same parliament and same royal family (subject to the Act of Settlement), same military and same government until today. Spain, Portugal, Japan and Thailand have the direct heirs of the kings of the day on the throne.
China on the other hand, was more chaotic. Ming was toppled by Li Zicheng's bandits and China was invaded from the north. For the half century it was essentially under foreign occupation until the Manchu slowly became more Chinese and the Chinese started identifying with the Manchu impositions. Qing was disrupted in the early days by Wu Sangui (the very man who let the Qing through Shanhaiguan and fought along side them at the walls of Beijing) and later by the Taiping Kingdom of Heaven, the Yihe Tuan (Boxers), the Japanese invasion of Manchuria and other uprisings. Finally it was toppled in the very much foreign supported Xinhai Revolution and fractured into warlord states, which fought amongst themselves until the Northern Expedition under Chiang Kaisheck and established the Republic of China. Finally, in the rubble and smoke of the Second World War, this republic was driven to the island of Taiwan by the People's Republic of China. This new republic's institutions, its government and its premier were overthrown once again in the 1960s by the CCP's own chairman and students loyal to him. Finally, the government of the People's Republic was restored and rebuilt by the Chairman of the Central Military Commission Deng Xiaoping who, with his successors built China into the modern state that it is today.
China's history is long and complex but China (Zhonghua) as a concept is only a bit over 100 years old, based on European concepts of nationalism that scholars like Sun Zhongshan learned abroad during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Great Qing for most of its history definitely did not see itself as a nation state, more of just the holder of the mandate of heaven that did not discriminate between nations nor recognise states. Ming was even more so.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
You can, and they did in fact (specifically for IQ studies in Africa). Turns out that the causative link is actually with the amount of calories in one's nutrition as a child. Below a certain level, the less you get, the less developed your brain will be when you're an adult, and on statistical scale, this does translate to lower IQ score.
Differences in nutrition and environment make a difference, but do not come close to explaining the full gap.
Except they do, if you look at child nutrition specifically (i.e. while the brain still develops).
It's a fact that blacks scored considerably lower on the average than whites on, say, the mass intelligence tests done on US WWI draftees. This fact was sometimes used to make conclusions that didn't follow, such as the idea that blacks are inherently less intelligent than whites.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No matter what you think of "development", the fact is that most of the world's population wants it.
In what way is the West backward, with its wars, religious mania, and superstition? "Backward" is a relative term, and I don't know of large non-Western societies being much better. We're backward compared to the United Federation of Planets, but not compared to 16th-Century Europe.
North American natives did not necessarily live in small governmental structures, compared to, say, Europeans. They had relatively low population, largely because the Europeans had much better reserves of horrible diseases.
In Lord of the Rings, we cheer the pastoral autocracies and despise any industrialization and any society that isn't ruled by a hereditary monarch (note that the Lakemen of the Hobbit seem to be presented as inferior to their descendant living in the Dale with a King). The monarchs are not presented as being responsible to any other governmental body, aside from having advisors.
Speaking of Mordor, I have vivid memories of driving through Gary, Indiana.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Those twin studies appear to have been primarily based on adoption. Adoption agencies tend not to assign babies to random families but rather families where they will generally get good care. I'd bet that the home environment variance is larger than what's found in those studies.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You're in good company.
Richard Feynman was on a cruise ship, and realized that he could use properties of the wake to measure speed. He told people about it, and then found he was about 10% off and people lost interest.
It turned out that he didn't know the difference between a nautical mile and a statute mile, and was measuring the correct speed; it's just that a ship going 20 knots is going about 10% faster than my car at 20mph. He was quite annoyed with the different miles.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Careful about the different meanings of "intelligence". It's entirely possible that current US blacks are less intelligent than current US whites, by any reasonable standards. Whether they have any inherent differences, whether there would be any noticeable difference if all cultural, economic, and educational effects were made equal, is another question.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Whereas the educational authorities are very aware of the educational achievement gap between races around here, and are working to give blacks a better chance to excel. Nobody's denying anything here.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
How do you want to express it, other than IQ rising? If you administer standard tests from other decades, modern people score higher according to the norms of the time of the test. I understand what you're saying, but there is a real effect here that indicates that, when measured by the same tests, modern people have a higher IQ than people of the 1930s.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Well that had to be a lot of work.
Bravo for putting in the effort to explain how these things have socio-economic explanations. Usually I can't be bothered to put in the time and simply respond with "there have been studies". Which is admittedly lazy.
ShainhiBill was right. There is an IQ gap. But without pointing out the probable cause for the gap, it can come off as a little bit racist.
The part where he has all these leading questions is.... actually it just seems like a non-sequitur. I'm not even sure if he's trying to imply that it's genetic in nature.
Are you claiming that there are no food shortages in Africa, and there never have been? That's what this "paradise of abundance" crap means. In fact, human populations (with modern exceptions) tend to increase to the natural limits, meaning that, if there was a paradise of abundance, it would be sufficiently crowded so that people would have to work and plan for their food. Alternately, there are other limits on population growth, which would require working and planning to deal with.
You can also point out reality, should you ever encounter it. The political aspects mean that your motives will be suspect, so it would be well to have your facts and arguments straight. Saying something based on speculation about your mistaken ideas about Africa will cause people to doubt your motives and your intelligence.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Social Justice Warriors, deciding the truth via progressive stack, Social Justice Warriors, if you don't believe like us we are on the attack!
Do you understand what "historically" means? apparently not because if you did you'd know that with the exception of the last 200 hundreds years (thanks to modern farming and lack of crop rotation causing deserts) that Africa has been ONE OF THE MOST FERTILE PLACES ON THE PLANET! Meanwhile the rest of the world had this little thing called an "ice age" maybe you heard of it? So yes Virginia for most of human history the food in Africa was plentiful while the food in Europe and Asia was most decidedly NOT, this is what happens when you live on the equator surrounded by ocean on a landmass teeming with game and food plants.
I noticed you waited until the thread was off the front page before you spewed your SJW crap, afraid of being modbombed because people are tired of PC bullshit?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
"So how do you measure intelligence if not through IQ tests?"
;-)
Maybe the real question is why do we need to try and measure intelligence in a non-arbitrary fashion? Do I need to be able to say "Jane, regardless of her prior training and experience, is 10 smart, whereas John there is 8 smart." What real purpose do IQ tests have these days beyond allowing those who score really high to tell everyone about it?
Entrance exams for schools and for study programs do a better job anyway of determining who should enter a particular field by measuring one of the truly important factors: drive to learn and succeed. And intelligence also manages to play a role in that.
I suppose it would allow you to take someone who is really young, note that they are "intelligence" in whatever way it is you manage to measure them, and you can then focus your energy to make them successful. But how about this? Instead of seeking out the intelligent and helping them thrive, why don't we just identify what it takes for them to simply rise up on their own? Rather than trying to hunt down the next Einstein and make him/her the next Einstein by force, just let the next Einsten form on their own. If we provide environments that allow each to learn and thrive in their own way, they should do fine without ruining them by shoving an IQ score in their face and saying you could be just like "Scorpion".
This clearly does not make sense as the same group of people tends to do just fine when being raised in a first world country.
Not true. There is a 15 to 18 point gap in IQ test scores in America between blacks and whites. That is about one standard deviation. Similar gaps exist in other mixed race countries.
I don't have time to read the entire thing. But my first thought was this: "I bet the studies didn't control for economic or social issues..."
Sure enough, I found this in the paper:
The question that still remains is whether the cause of group differences in
average IQ is purely social, economic, and cultural or whether genetic factors are
also involved.
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/30years/Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf
The average black person has lower income, less opportunities, trapped in poverty cycles, etc... Of course if you don't control for those factors you'll see testing differences.
Is there a study that strictly controlled for factors like family wealth and educational opportunities?
But if researchers correct for these factors, and compare whites and blacks in similar socioeconomic circumstances, and look at black children adopted and raised by white families
Was that Rushton and Jensen's work in 2005 or are you referring to another researcher? I can't seem to find anyone else claiming a significant IQ difference when all factors are controlled for.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Philippe_Rushton#Unfavorable - Sure seems like a lot of people people are highly critical of his science.