Race and intelligence

I think Rageh Omar conducted a very good investigative documentary. He stipulated in his opinion you cannot 'brush' such subjects under the carpet, and the only way to dispel or disprove the thesis is by rigorous interrogation of the subject. Did he achieve that?

Race and Intelligence: Science's Last Taboo - 4oD - Channel 4

I appreciate its 64mins long-but i feel its worth the watch.

Paul

I suppose --- and the effective excommunication of researchers who publish politically unpopular findings is troubling and an inappropriate encroachment of politics into science. But even if there were a definitive connection between race and intelligence (and I'm very dubious that one exists), it likely would not be significant enough to warrant racial discrimination as an aspect of public policy and certainly not sufficient for poor treatment of individual members of races with lower average IQ levels.

Wow, I doubt you would ever see something like that aired, or even discussed in earnest in the States.:shock:

As for the subject matter, it depends on the dimensions of intelligence one is discussing, and going by standard IQ testing is fairly narrow imo. We are not one size fits all.

lizzie said:

Wow, I doubt you would ever see something like that aired, or even discussed in earnest in the States.:shock:

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Welcome to channel 4:mrgreen:

Agnapostate said:

I suppose --- and the effective excommunication of researchers who publish politically unpopular findings is troubling and an inappropriate encroachment of politics into science. But even if there were a definitive connection between race and intelligence (and I'm very dubious that one exists), it likely would not be significant enough to warrant racial discrimination as an aspect of public policy and certainly not sufficient for poor treatment of individual members of races with lower average IQ levels.

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This all sounds right, though I would argue that we would benefit from a more open dialogue about this issue. As you note, research in this area is currently stifled. If additional research were conducted and did show certain gaps, it could be very useful in several ways.

First, more concrete information about the differences in intelligence levels among various ethnic populations can offer us some insight into how and where those changes occurred, allowing us to make decisions going forward about how best to improve all aspects of human society. I'm reminded of the anecdote in the Bell Curve Wars about the tribe that everyone assumed was genetically predisposed to have a small stature. After the tribe changed its agricultural habits, giving it access to proper nutrition, the average height of tribe members was back within the normal range within 3 generations.

Second, an understanding about where those gaps exist and how large or small they are provides us with a more accurate data set to use in calibrating affirmative action programs. This obviously suffers from the same group v. individual problem as the current system, but it would at least improve the program at the margins.

Third, it offers us an accurate baseline to use in evaluating the changes we will see over the coming years.

Must admit I was a bit tired that night with other things on my mind.

The two major things I remember were that it was not race which was providing the difference so much as middle class aspirations

and secondly that if it were indeed race we ought to expect black people with the more white blood in them to be more intelligent than purely black people and the opposite seems to be the case.

Thirdly I remember when we had grammer schools and children got in as a result of their IQ test that the more middle schools used to spend months giving the kids mock IQ tests to improve their scores.

I myself got myself an IQ test book when I was younger and pretty quickly after practice managed to get my IQ up to 135 suggesting that IQ tests are what they have been said to be for a long time more a grade on learned procedures.

I liked how it did not necessarily come from a eugenic perspective, which has hopefully been put to bed. He highlighted 'work ethic' and south Asian as an example, out performing Americans IIRC at Berkley university. He touched on social status pertaining to where you have been dropped from the apple tree.

Paul

Both Race and Intelligence are impossible to measure accurately. IQ tests are certainly not a measure of intelligence, and race is only really measurable by self-identification or superficial physical characteristics.

rathi said:

Both Race and Intelligence are impossible to measure accurately. IQ tests are certainly not a measure of intelligence, and race is only really measurable by self-identification or superficial physical characteristics.

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Why are race and intelligence, and the link between, impossible to measure?

I agree IQ tests have opposing camps.

Paul

Why are race and intelligence, and the link between, impossible to measure?

I agree IQ tests have opposing camps.

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IQ tests are not a valid measure for intelligence. Sir Isaac Newton and Archimedes would score poorly, despite being extremely intelligent.

Race is simply a crude measure, mostly of one's skin color. Lets take Obama as an example. He is "black" by conventional widsom. However, if you look at his parentage, he has both a black and white parent. Other than his physical appearance, why is he black rather than white?

rathi said:

IQ tests are not a valid measure for intelligence. Sir Isaac Newton and Archimedes would score poorly, despite being extremely intelligent.

Race is simply a crude measure, mostly of one's skin color. Lets take Obama as an example. He is "black" by conventional widsom. However, if you look at his parentage, he has both a black and white parent. Other than his physical appearance, why is he black rather than white?

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hence i said IQ tests have opposing camps. Some still advocate there importance, others less so.

Obama looks more like a black man due to the genes of his father, your point?

Did you watch the clip?

Paul

Obama looks more like a black man due to the genes of his father, your point?

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My point is that you might as well measure the correlation between eye color and intelligence. There is no evidence to suggest that they are connected, hordes of uncontrolled variables tainting such an experiment, and the best you could hope for would be a correlation.

rathi said:

My point is that you might as well measure the correlation between eye color and intelligence. There is no evidence to suggest that they are connected, hordes of uncontrolled variables tainting such an experiment, and the best you could hope for would be a correlation.

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Did you watch the clip?

Paul

Does the President look like a "black" man? In this country, certainly-- but we live in a country where anyone with the smallest fraction of African blood was labeled "black" and thus our measure of "black" includes people with even smaller portions of African blood in their veins.

Race is a sociological construct. There is no sound basis in biological components for any theories rooted in or relying upon racial categorization.

You might have better luck with demographic analysis of different populations in different geographical areas, but then you're basically destroying any possibility of supporting the argument that your results are biological in origin. I suspect that there is, in fact, some biological component to "racial" differences in intelligence-- but that these are regional and based on relatively recent historical evolutionary pressures.

This is leaving aside the issue of how problematic IQ tests are, especially when applied across cultural boundaries. I've seen "studies" which show the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans to be below 70; this is patently ridiculous, as human societal function is impossible at this level. (By comparison, sign language trained chimps regularly score in the sixties and seventies.) People treat these studies as legitimate or illegitimate largely on the basis of their political positions on race.

Dundee in Scotland is one of the best in the world as far as what u are talking
about.so there u go,all white as the snow.

mikeey

rathi said:

Both Race and Intelligence are impossible to measure accurately. IQ tests are certainly not a measure of intelligence, and race is only really measurable by self-identification or superficial physical characteristics.

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They certainly are not a measure of innate intelligence or potential, I completely agree. The program also pointed out that they fail to measure creative intelligence, social intelligence and musical intelligence.

alexa said:

They certainly are not a measure of innate intelligence or potential, I completely agree. The program also pointed out that they fail to measure creative intelligence, social intelligence and musical intelligence.

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Actually although I think it is correct to say that these tests did not represent a person's potential, the reason Rageh Omar did this study was because they do represent current achievement in the US - not least because top universities are using SAT's alone for admission, resulting in one having 40% of students Asian although they represent a much smaller section of the community.

I think it must have been very hard for Rageh Omar, a black man himself, because he was meeting some seriously dubious psychologists who firmly believe that black men only have average IQ of 85 or 87 which they believe is genetic because black people apparently have smaller brains. Women also have smaller brains and this argument was used against them once to suggest they were less intelligent, only later to be proved completely wrong. Rageh Omar did point out that women also have smaller brains and the person he said this to accepted that but declared that nonetheless woman's smaller brains did not amount to them being less intelligent :roll:

I am sorry I missed part of this and my mind was pre-occupied when I was watching the rest because it certainly did come over that the intention was to have it accepted that Asians were the most intelligent, then Caucasian slightly behind but only slightly, then black well behind and that this was genetic - very dangerous stuff being brought up again and used to not look at the real problems.

The real problem did seem to be that black people were less likely to come from a background which had middle class values. Where black children did come from such a background they were brought up to believe that academic achievement was the order of the day and did as well as anyone else. The need seemed to be to find ways of getting more black children into this kind of environment which I imagine would mean getting them out of poverty and into middle class values re education...also making sure they were well aware they could achieve as well as anyone else.

I think what he showed is a bit of a dangerous move in the US in particular. I think he also disproved the reality of it but it is still very concerning.

Oh and I seem to remember native american's came out worst!! - that'll be right (not) :doh :roll:

If there is a genetic predisposition for intelligence, it's clearly only a couple of IQ points, while cultural and especially individual attributes can have a far, far greater impact. And even if there was a strong genetic predisposition, it would still be unethical to take it into account, because all individuals are unique. When it comes to useful intelligence, the "software" matters far more than the "hardware" of the brain - even if an individual has to swim against a powerful current, he can still achieve great things through individual effort!

Furthermore, if there is a genetic predisposition, it would actually hurt Northern European "whites" about as much as it hurts sub-Saharan African "blacks", because the genetic benefit comes from intelligence playing a role in natural selection. The cultures of the Middle East were the first to develop a civilization, with Indus Valley and China being second, Greeks being third. European tribes endured harsh climate and had a warrior culture, which means the strongest, but not necessarily the smartest individuals had the most kids.

I just wanted to add one further bit about Rageh Omar's program showing that it tended to be due to culture how well kids did on these tests.

Asian people are supposedly the people with the highest IQ. Now some people could argue that Caucasian American's have the best deal so they should have the highest results if it were anything to do with anything but genetics.

Not so, anyone with any knowledge of the attitude of people towards education in Japan or China will know that they put far more emphasis on it than anywhere else. Kids are prepared to work all the hours in the day if need be whereas most of us believe in play as well as work.

and so it was seen in the University's in the US where 40% of the students were Asian. In free time they could be found in some room studying together while everyone else was off having fun.

rathi said:

IQ tests are not a valid measure for intelligence. Sir Isaac Newton and Archimedes would score poorly, despite being extremely intelligent.

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I beg to differ, IQ tests indeed measure intelligence, and that's everything that they measure.

Archimedes and Newton would score "poorly"(I think their score would be above average), because they weren't extremely intelligent.
Newton and Archimedes had something other than intelligence, they had creativity and a "way of thought" that was unique among the populations of their time.

That's how they were able to see things that the average person wouldn't see, that's how they were able to discover and invent.
This doesn't require intelligence, it requires a creative mind.

This is leaving aside the issue of how problematic IQ tests are, especially when applied across cultural boundaries. I've seen "studies" which show the average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans to be below 70; this is patently ridiculous, as human societal function is impossible at this level. (By comparison, sign language trained chimps regularly score in the sixties and seventies.) People treat these studies as legitimate or illegitimate largely on the basis of their political positions on race.

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I saw an interesting study lately involving standardized tests (not IQ tests, although it might have implications for IQ testing as well).
When questions on a standardized test were altered ("What does AFDC stand for?" "What are food stamps?" "What buses would one take to get downtown from Washington Avenue and South 2nd?") children below the poverty line aced it and children above the poverty line failed it miserably.
In fact, in response to the "food stamp" question, many affluent and middle-class suburban fourth graders guessed that food stamps were the stickers put on produce in the grocery store.

Obviously, standardized tests are not that blatantly biased in favor of the affluent and middle-class, but they are somewhat biased; they make reference to things a poor child might never have encountered or heard of, but that a middle-class child would be intimately familiar with.
When the tables were turned, poor children outmatched their more affluent peers handily.

From personal experience, I recall standardized tests being somewhat biased in favor of males; I remember many math questions, for instance, that involved sports and sports scores.
Such things are often far more interesting and familiar (and therefore understandable) to male children than to females, who might not even understand the rules or scoring of a particular game.

Of course there are girls interested in sports, and boys who aren't; there are poor children who are unfamiliar with public assistance and public transportation, and possibly even affluent children who are familiar with them. But as far as generalities go, standardized testing is subtly biased in favor of middle-class/ affluent (ie, white) male suburbanites, and subtly biased against females and the urban poor.

I would not be surprised if IQ tests were, too.

OK here is your chance to find out your different intelligence ratings. It will not tire you as you are just asked your opinion on yourself on different things.

Birmingham Grid for Learning - Multiple Intelligences (Secondary)

1069 said:

I saw an interesting study lately involving standardized tests (not IQ tests, although it might have implications for IQ testing as well).
When questions on a standardized test were altered ("What does AFDC stand for?" "What are food stamps?" "What buses would one take to get downtown from Washington Avenue and South 2nd?") children below the poverty line aced it and children above the poverty line failed it miserably.
In fact, in response to the "food stamp" question, many affluent and middle-class suburban fourth graders guessed that food stamps were the stickers put on produce in the grocery store.

Obviously, standardized tests are not that blatantly biased in favor of the affluent and middle-class, but they are somewhat biased; they make reference to things a poor child might never have encountered or heard of, but that a middle-class child would be intimately familiar with.
When the tables were turned, poor children outmatched their more affluent peers handily.

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I know that this was a prominent and valid criticism of IQ tests many years ago (I'm thinking of a cup:saucer question in particular), but I believe that they've gone a long way toward eliminating this type of bias from most tests nowadays. Furthermore, if the disparity could be explained away by a cultural bias in the things referred to in questions, we should only see a disparity in verbal questions that make reference to those things, not across the test in its entirety. I don't see how a math question where the student has to calculate an angle from a diagram could be culturally biased.

From personal experience, I recall standardized tests being somewhat biased in favor of males; I remember many math questions, for instance, that involved sports and sports scores.
Such things are often far more interesting and familiar (and therefore understandable) to male children than to females, who might not even understand the rules or scoring of a particular game.

Of course there are girls interested in sports, and boys who aren't; there are poor children who are unfamiliar with public assistance and public transportation, and possibly even affluent children who are familiar with them. But as far as generalities go, standardized testing is subtly biased in favor of middle-class/ affluent (ie, white) male suburbanites, and subtly biased against females and the urban poor.

I would not be surprised if IQ tests were, too.

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As best as I can remember, this type of question has largely been eliminated. On the last standardized test I took, all of the word problems made reference to hypotheticals that were accessible to everyone, regardless of their background knowledge. An example:

A school teacher must schedule seven sessions, which are abbreviated M, N, O, P, S, T, and U, during a day. Seven different consecutive time periods are available for the sessions, and are numbered one through seven in the order that they occur. Only one session can be schedules for each period. The assignment of the sessions to the periods is subject to the following restrictions:
M and O must occupy consecutive periods.
M must be scheduled for an earlier period than U.
O must be scheduled for a later period than S.
If S does not occupy the fourth period, then P must occupy the fourth period.
U and T cannot occupy consecutively numbered periods.

1.Which of the following could be a possible list of the sessions in the order that they are scheduled during the day?
(A) MOPSTNU
(B) NTMSOUP
(C) SMOPTNU
(D) SOMPUTN
(E) STOMPUN

2. If session M is assigned to the third period, then which of the following must be true?
(A) N is assigned to the sixth period.
(B) O is assigned to the first period.
(C) S is assigned to the fourth period.
(D) T is assigned to the fifth period.
(E) U is assigned to the seventh period.

3. Which of the following could be true?
(A) M is assigned to the first period.
(B) O is assigned to the fifth period.
(C) S is assigned to the seventh period.
(D) T is assigned to the sixth period.
(E) U is assigned to the third period.

4. If N is assigned to the third period, then each of the following could be true EXCEPT:
(A) M is assigned to the fifth period.
(B) O is assigned to the sixth period.
(C) P is assigned to the fourth period.
(D) T is assigned to the first period.
(E) U is assigned to the sixth period.

5. If T is assigned to the seventh period, then which of the following must be assigned to the fifth period?
(A) M
(B) N
(C) O
(D) P
(E) U

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I just don't see how that could be biased against anyone.

RightinNYC said:

I know that this was a prominent and valid criticism of IQ tests many years ago (I'm thinking of a cup:saucer question in particular), but I believe that they've gone a long way toward eliminating this type of bias from most tests nowadays. Furthermore, if the disparity could be explained away by a cultural bias in the things referred to in questions, we should only see a disparity in verbal questions that make reference to those things, not across the test in its entirety. I don't see how a math question where the student has to calculate an angle from a diagram could be culturally biased.




As best as I can remember, this type of question has largely been eliminated. On the last standardized test I took, all of the word problems made reference to hypotheticals that were accessible to everyone, regardless of their background knowledge. An example:



I just don't see how that could be biased against anyone.

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There is however no way that you can get away from the reality that these tests are checking learned activity rather than genetic intelligence.

We found our reporter for instance not so good at the puzzle tests as he had always hated puzzles and in the general knowledge tests which are apparently a part of the US tests, being usually a political reporter he had no problem with the political questions but not a clue on the maths one - which I too had no idea what the answer was. The tester pointed out to him that the tests are very definitely designed to test specific learned activity.

Therefore they remain tests of learned ability rather than genetic intelligence and it is very important to recognise that.

gunner said:

I think Rageh Omar conducted a very good investigative documentary. He stipulated in his opinion you cannot 'brush' such subjects under the carpet, and the only way to dispel or disprove the thesis is by rigorous interrogation of the subject. Did he achieve that?

Race and Intelligence: Science's Last Taboo - 4oD - Channel 4

I appreciate its 64mins long-but i feel its worth the watch.

Paul

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Do you have a transcript? Does that transcript have any scientific journal references - if not it is not science merely opinion