Posted on 08/09/2013 3:06:33 PM PDT by reaganaut1
“IQ is a metric of such dubiousness that almost no serious educational researcher uses it anymore,” the Guardian’s Ana Marie Cox wrote back in May. It was a breathtakingly ignorant statement. Psychologist Jelte Wicherts noted in response that a search for “IQ test” in Google’s academic database yielded more than 10,000 hits — just for the year 2013.
But Cox’s assertion is all too common. There is a large discrepancy between what educated laypeople believe about cognitive science and what experts actually know. Journalists are steeped in the lay wisdom, so they are repeatedly surprised when someone forthrightly discusses the real science of mental ability.
If that science happens to deal with group differences in average IQ, the journalists’ surprise turns into shock and disdain. Experts who speak publicly about IQ differences end up portrayed as weird contrarians at best, and peddlers of racist pseudoscience at worst.
I’m speaking from experience. My Harvard Ph.D. dissertation contains some scientifically unremarkable statements about ethnic differences in average IQ, including the IQ difference between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites. For four years, the dissertation did what almost every other dissertation does — collected dust in the university library. But when it was unearthed in the midst of the immigration debate, I experienced the vilification firsthand.
For people who have studied mental ability, what’s truly frustrating is the déjà vu they feel each time a media firestorm like this one erupts. Attempts by experts in the field to defend the embattled messenger inevitably fall on deaf ears. When the firestorm is over, the media’s mindset always resets to a state of comfortable ignorance, ready to be shocked all over again when the next messenger comes along.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
The map you posted does not give any reasons for the disparate IQs seen in different countries. It does not give methodology for how it came up with “average” IQ.
What I see on that map is that there is a high correlation between countries where everything about the environment—malnutrition, infectious disease, lack of early childhood enrichment—inhibits proper brain development, and the average IQ (however it was determined). I also see little correlation between the racial composition of various countries and their average IQ. For example, all of the countries across the north of Africa and the Middle East, as well as India, are all majority populated by Caucasians. But they aren’t doing so well, either—therefore, it must be the culture and environment working to suppress the effect of the genetic components of IQ.
I seriously question the placement of China and Mongolia among countries with the highest average IQ score. I suspect that there is some misinformation involved, because the government of China has a strong interest in presenting a good public image.
Indeed!
But; since the 'WHY' has NOT been defined (to everyone's liking) then it is all a useless exercise; being engaged in for, as you've pointed out, "making policy decisions".
True; it dropped like a rock - for BOTH races!
So; did the GENETICS suddenly change for these kids; or did something else?
Did the CULTURE change for these kids - or something else?
Only partially correct; for in fact it IDOLizes successful people: in the BLACK culture!
Just don't go off the reservation to 'get ahead'.
Can you explain the redundancy?
In which case, the government has no business spending $billions, and forcing businesses to incur untold $billions in costs, on enhancement programs and affirmative action, unless we can be sure they will have results.
So far, they haven't. Therefore they should be shut down until we DO have evidence that they will fix things.
Perhaps you should compare the average academic and economic achievements of Indian and east Asian children of immigrants to the (non) achievement of the children of mestizo or African immigrants. In both cases, the children experience poverty and "outsider" status. In the first case, they generally climb out of it in a single generation. In the latter cases, they typically stay there or sink ever lower.
Why is it a matter of dogma for you that all differences are due primarily to culture or environment? Is it really your contention that some people aren't born with innate talent, while others are born innately incapable?
For instance, I have zero musical ability, not due to lack of trying. If I was adopted at birth by a virtuoso musician couple and immersed in music, there's no doubt I'd still be terrible at it.
Similarly, a black child with an IQ in the 80's adopted by a wealthy, educated family and given every opportunity in the world will still have an IQ in the 80's. He might do better socially because he won't be drawn into a life a crime (or is less likely to be), but he won't become talented by osmosis.
True; but our leaders spend gazillions on all KINDS of stuff that, if put before the American public for a VOTE; would NEVER get spent!
Indeed. None of the advocates of amnesty and liberal immigration policy, Democrat or Republican, want the public to realize what it's really all about: importing people with literally room temperature IQ into the US by the millions.
Translation: you're fine on spending $gazillions on ineffective affirmative action and welfare programs.
Meanwhile, academic standards at the schools they're bused to are lowered, and more resources have to be spent on discipline and law enforcement, so those students (the white, middle class kids) who actually were learning something are handicapped and short-changed in the process.
bump
I consider the welfare state to be a “social circumstance.” As for your comment on testosterone levels, I guess if you’re looking for reasons to conclude that there’s no hope for blacks to succeed in America, you’ll find them somewhere.
Doesn’t mean your wrong, but it also doesn’t mean you’re being objective. Look hard enough for excuses to believe something, you will find some.
“What I see on that map is that there is a high correlation between countries where everything about the environment—malnutrition, infectious disease, lack of early childhood enrichment—inhibits proper brain development. . . . “
What I see is someone in denial.
I think exDemMom is not as exDem as she thinks.
It is an article of faith among marxists/leftists that Man is malleable and perfectible, the notion first being promoted by 18th Century precursors of Marx, like Rousseau, Saint-Simon, Hegel, and others. If people are malleable and perfectible, then the only reason why they are not currently perfect is because of an imperfect environment. If the environment is made "perfect", though the action of the State, then a society of perfect people will result.
The alternative viewpoint is that people cannot be made perfect by environment.
People may strive to improve, and thus improve themselves within limits. Environments can be improved to allow individuals to reach their potentials. HOWEVER, we reach a point of diminishing returns, where spending ever more money on improving the environment produces ever less increments of improvement in the people targeted.
Or, turning it around, an environment full of people of low ability, will be an environment with malnutrition, infectious disease, and lack of early childhood enrichment.
Back in 1992, a research study was done regarding interracial adoption, of black/mixed kids adopted by upper-middle-class couples (Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study). This is about the most extreme environmental fix you can have, being adopted into stable upper-middle-class households, father average IQ 120, mom average IQ 118. The kids were tested around age 7 and again around age 17. Take a look at PDF page 7 at the link above. Kids whose bio parents were both black, when tested at close to adulthood, tested with an average IQ of 89.4, versus 105.6 for adopted white kids.
Your mindreading decoder box seems to be out of calibration.
bkmk
The alternative viewpoint is that people cannot be made perfect by environment.
To me, the difference between these viewpoints define the essential difference between the Left and the Right. The Left believes that human beings and society can be engineered to "perfection" if only we had the right social programs. Conservatives recognize that people are unequal and flawed, and that no amount of social engineering can erase these innate flaws or inequalities, whether within or between groups.
I have one minor disagreement with your remarks about Marx's precursors, however. While Hegel's philosophy was an inspiration to Marx, his politics definitely were not. Hegel was a supporter of Imperial Prussia and believed that hierarchies of wealth and social class were not only necessary but desirable.
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