Race and IQ gap

That is actually the question that this all leads to.

For myself, I don't accept that the differences in IQ between different races are at their base, genetic, and therefore unfixable. However, I like to think that I have an open mind and if the data eventually goes there, I suppose I'll be open to accepting it. But right now, I just don't think the science is quite there.

However,it's totally uncontroversial that there are differences in intelligence or IQ among individuals. It's fairly obvious that we don't all have the same gifts and intelligence levels. So if we can accept that, then any policy prescriptions we come up with would be the same regardless if there is a genetic racial component to differences in intelligence or not.

Right now the way schools educate kids is to live in a la la land that all kids are equally educable and can all be molded into mini Rhodes Scholars with the right educational techniques. That's not true, and has never been true. And it one time, we all knew it. That's why high schools had shop for the slower kids and AP classes for the brighter ones. We still have AP, but we've mostly gotten rid of shop. We need to re-introduce trade skills at the high school level and tracking based on tests so we don't take kids who are not going to college and stop slamming their head over and over into fields they're never going to have the aptitude for. They're unhappy and we're unhappy.

Let everyone work up to their own level and let them do what they're best at. As far as I can tell, that's all the policy prescription we need.

 

The study (Dickens et al. 2006) was originally published in Psychological Science (October 2006 17: 913-920) but the link I provided was the only free article available online and academic journals usually require an online subscription and they are not open to the general public. The fact remains that black IQ rose from 85 in 1972 to 90.5 in 2002, which puts the average African American IQ just below the national average in France and Romania (94).

http://intl-pss.sagepub.com/content/17/10/913.full

 

The analysis was disputed by Lynn and others showing Flynn and Dickens excluded numerous studies and effectively extrapolated their claim of a 4-7 IQ point increase based off a perceived trend line projection:

http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/2006 PSnew.pdf

 

Murray (2005) notes that standardizations of the Kaufman-ABC in 1983 and
2004 show black IQs of 93 and 92.1. The K-ABC subtests were selected to minimize the black/white gap (Jensen, 1984) and diminish g in favour of short-term memory (Naglieri and Jensen, 1987). Jensen argues that the 1983 sample contained too great a range of ability, thus yielding an inflated SD and a diminished black/white gap (measured in SD units).

Standardization samples of the Woodcock-Johnson (WJ) are excellent but the race data does not come from them. A research sample is taken from the full sample and a sub-sample of that (those who took all subtests used to compute IQ) used to calculate g scores. This sub-sub-sample comprised 90% of the 1987 research sample and just over 50% of the 1999 sample. Racial comparisons are based on blacks and whites in the subsub-sample with blacks more likely to be absent in both years. Wicherts (2005) gave us data for ages 1 to 65: black IQ was steady at 88 between 1987 and 1999; for those under 25, it stood at 90 in 1987 and 88.70 in 1999.

Our analysis of standardization samples showed black IQ (age 12) rising from 85
in 1972 to 90.5 in 2002. For young blacks, the K-ABC gives 93 in 1983, Raven's 93 in 1985, the WJ 90 in 1987, and the Wonderlic 87 in 1992. Averaging these puts black IQ at 91 circa 1987. The three tests with results both near and after that date show no gains thereafter. The imperfect data support the contention that black school children attained. an IQ of 90.5 by 2002, but has them reaching that value 15 years earlier than our results from standardisation samples. Lynn (1996, p. 272) uses results by age to infer trends. Age patterns do not chart trends over time but rather, reflect an altering black/white gap as cohorts age. His 85.83 (our convention) for blacks aged 6 to 17 (1986) is close to our 84 for the WISC-III (1989).

http://www.brookings.edu/views/papers/dickens/20060619_iq.pdf

 

I agree. Here's the thing, if intelligence is a product of the environment, then we need to make sure that our kids are getting the proper environment to be at their best. If however, intelligence is proven to be largely based on genetics then we should make sure that those with less intelligence are given the tools to be productive members of society. What we should NOT do is any type of segregation, discrimination or "cleansing" of those with less intelligence. On the flipside, I also wouldn't want to see a Harrison Bergeron type of world either.

 

There may be varibles that science does not consider. I personally get bored taking tests and I hate taking IQ tests. And basic attitude may help a person score higher or lower on a test. Or...Asians and Jews may be more used to taking tests.

But even if the results are true Jews and Asians smarter... Blacks and Latinos...not so much. You still have no way of knowing how smart a person is when you see them on the street or meet them for the first time. That black person you are looking down at may be smarter than you are. A lot of people get hustled because they think they are soooo smart.

We humans need a little more humanity towards each other.

 

Just some comments

Whilst it is undoubtedbly true that black people on average have less intelligence that white people or North East Asian people it doesn't say anything about any individual white, chinese or african person. Every individual needs to be judged purely on their own merits but it does explain why ,when taken as a group black people fare so badly in the intellectual arena

There are plenty of jobs that can be done by people in the 80-90 area where black people tend to inhabit . check here http://www.iqcomparisonsite.com/Occupations.aspx

What is stupid is to expect black people to be represented in the higher professions in proprtion to their numbers. They should be represented in proportion to their IQ distribution

 

Here's the problem with that. The smartest people are not necessarily the richest people, and the richest people are not necessarily the smartest otherwise, Stephen Hawking should be richer than Bill Gates. IQ does not directly correlate to success.

 

That would assume that it is the goal of everyone to be as rich as possible which it plainly isn't and that wealth creation is directly dependent on intelligtence- which it isn't.

Wealth creation needs equal amounts of intelligence and Determination. Many very High IQ people get one tracked on certain issues and just making money would bore them. They also oftenh make rotten salesmen.

Amongst the professions you do need a modicum of intelligence. You aren't going to be a doctor unless you have an IQ of 115+

 

There are reaction time tasks, positively correlated w/ IQ, which take less than a second to complete, in which East Asians are faster than Whites faster than Blacks.

http://psychology.uwo.ca/faculty/rushtonpdfs/pppl1.pdf

 

? It does as aggregates. A group of 1 million people w/ an IQ of 110 are wealthier than a group of people w/ IQ of 105.

 

Asians have higher on average IQ then whites----but this hasn't put asian countries as the most powerful, influential or the most successful.

 

Pick a year at random of the last 4000 years, chances are that an asian country will be the most advanced, most powerful, most successful.
What we have now is a little aberration where the white race, by an accident of history, came to dominate for a little while.
It's already obvious that it's not going to last.

 

Obviously, the base line needs to be relatively equal before you can make an argument based off real world results.

 

No....that rewriting history. In ancient history it was the Egyptions, the Romans, the Persians who rulled and prospered. Asian countries were kept from influence because of conflict, tyranny that kept its people down. Caucasians definately were savages at the time. I'm willing to bet the typical caucasian savage had a pretty low IQ compared to the Olive skinned Arab and Persians, Egyptions and Greeks and Ethiopians of the time.

With a positive culture, experience and a sound belief system, Caucasions swept the world with its culture, intellect and innovation---where the Chinese was more "exotic" then influential. IQ didn't do much for the Asians in the pages of history---if their IQ really was higher.

I would say that now days with N. Korea and China being in the state they are ( a people who still live agrarian and rather primitive state)--its hard to say that IQ makes a difference. And it would be interesting to take a chinese individual from a provence that still lives like it did 100 years ago---and test his or her IQ. I bet its not the same as an individual living in a metropolitian area with a lifestyle not unlike New York.

To say that centuries of white influence was an aberration is just wishing it was.

 

Well, that's one white man's opinion.

It just ignores history, and focuses on Western History.

 

Western History isn't Asian ethnic history--yet supposedly Asians are smarter. Perhaps a people and a nation is more then an IQ test. Perhaps an IQ test isn't the measure we should focus on.

 

If you study western history, you focus on the western world, you miss the huge Asian and African empires, and the sophisticated technology.
Baghdad had street lights when London was a village of mud huts.

 

And in 500 years Africa and blacks could be the technological and influential hub of the world...and whites might be in muddy shacks and Asian might be unchanged.

 

In 500 years there will be a more integrated, advanced world than what we have now, the dominant race will be "mixed", because hybrids show a vigor not found in purebreds.

 

No they don't.

 

So what is your point exactly.

 

In reality the only sustainable solution for humanity in regard to race is genetic engineering, where the best genes for intelligence and health are selected.

Humans are part of the animal kingdom (apologies to religious nuts who think a magic fairy created us from sprinkles) so in the same way you wouldn't want your prize horse to breed with a donkey, the same logic applies to humans. Who the prizes horses are and who the donkeys are I'll leave to others to point fingers.

The idea that everyone will interbreed between racial groups is unlikely, we can see in the United States the extent to which black and white ethnic groups have resisted interbreeding 147 years since the abolition of slavery, it's hardly been a melting pot.

 

I was wondering when eugenics would raise its ugly head. First of all, black, whites and asians are not different species or even subspecies. There are more differences between Greyhounds and Pitbulls than between the races. Secondly, populations that have a greater variety in their gene pool do better than "purebred" populations. Finally, who are we to try to control human evolution? We don't know what the future is going to hold plus the idea of deciding which people can and cannot breed sounds... well, evil. I think the last guy who was into that started a war and ended up killing himself.

 

The genetic ancestry of the typical African American is 22% European and around 10% of African Americans are of more than 50% European ancestry and African Americans are significantly more Europeanised than ordinary thought. Mixed-race individuals are traditionally classified as either white or black depending on their skin tones and it's known that Thomas Jefferson had mixed-race children with his housemaid and they could integrate into white society by passing for whites.

10 Black Celebs Who Successfully Pass For White:
http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/08/13/10-black-actors-who-are-successfully-passing-for-white/