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Post by nobody you know on Feb 2, 2004 8:41:07 GMT -5
if i remember correctly the bell curve was a total embarrassment to racists and racial "science".
I dont know how anyone can take that pile of trash seriously, i mean do these people, actually know anyone black?
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Post by nunobento on Feb 9, 2004 9:45:57 GMT -5
I've just set up a website which deal with many genetic issues, including the IQ differences between races and the reasons why different tests can produce different results. The website address is myweb.tiscali.co.uk/geneticframeworkI would be very interested to read people's comments on this topic, based on the information on my website. I would be particularly interested to hear from people who may be researching the genetic aspects of intelligence. Regards Nuno Bento
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Post by Agrippa on Feb 9, 2004 15:26:01 GMT -5
From all what I know I would describe it as follows:
Intelligence is both determined by genes and environment and YOU CANT say the influence must be 50 percent of that and 50 of that or anything like that.
Maybe you can do so FOR ONE SPECIFIC environment, but where do you have such?
In all other cases its something individual and I want to explain why. Genetic determination works usually as follows: It determines the potential, the possibilities for under certain circumstances. F.e. one person can have the genetic potential to grow as tall as 195 cm but because he had a disease in childhood and wasnt treated well and the nutrition wasnt optimal too, and he had to work hard and used muscles and bones very much he grow just to 184.
So what was responsible?
If he would have had just the potential to be 175, he could have lived under the best conditions for a growth BUT he wouldnt never reached 184.
On the other hand one with a potential of 195 could be just 175 tall under very bad conditions and a person with the potential to grow as tall as 185 can be 184. In this case the "reality", the Phaenotype would contradict the genetic potential, the Genotype.
So the Genes just determine the potential, the possible maximum. You can make out of an Genotypical Genius under very bad conditions an idiot, but you cant make out of an Genotypical idiot even under the best conditions a Genius.
I think that should be already clear for everybody but sometimes I read things even from scientists which seem to still not recognize this basic truth.
So the Phenotype must not be 1:1 with the Genotypical potential but on average we can assume that at least intelligent persons MUST HAVE the potential whereas thow which have lower standards still need to prove that at least there children could reach such levels.
My opinion towards the race question on that issue is that pure blacks (Negrids) have still an higher potential but they will never reach without changing their Genpool the levels of healthy Europids or (East Asian) Mongolids.
But of course that doesnt mean that there are not intelligent INDIVIDUALS in all races, just the numbers differ.
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Post by CaraCicatriz on Feb 9, 2004 21:39:52 GMT -5
I think culture has more to do than anything, if you look at whites in school or asians, they aren't necessarily smarter than blacks at all just more studious. I remember I was helping this one white girl who had a 4.0 find France ont he map because she didn't know where it was The American educational system doesn't favor intelligence but rather talent at doing busywork. If you look at african born blacks and latinos from cuba or south america who came legally, they usually are very succsessfull in this country. I really don't think actually ethnicity has anything to do with it, I'll leave that thinking to supremacists.
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Post by galvez on Feb 9, 2004 22:13:39 GMT -5
I think culture has more to do than anything, if you look at whites in school or asians, they aren't necessarily smarter than blacks at all just more studious. I remember I was helping this one white girl who had a 4.0 find France ont he map because she didn't know where it was The American educational system doesn't favor intelligence but rather talent at doing busywork. If you look at african born blacks and latinos from cuba or south america who came legally, they usually are very succsessfull in this country. I really don't think actually ethnicity has anything to do with it, I'll leave that thinking to supremacists. The idea that a person's intelligence can be measured based on how well he does at school is one of the biggest lies in the social sciences. Doing good at school is dependent not on how smart you are but how much time you are willing to put into your studies. The best professors will say this in class. In fact, some of the best professors tend to be bumbling idiots at other aspects of life -- but excel at their field simply because they were motivated to excel through hard work. Doing good at school is like tying your shoelaces: it's simply a decision that you make. Much of schoolwork -- even in the so-called "sciences" -- involves memorization. Certain subjects require more time than others. There is a natural distribution among human beings, but academic performance is one of the worst ways to determine it. [There are exceptions, of course.]
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Post by AWAR on Feb 9, 2004 22:23:29 GMT -5
The idea that a person's intelligence can be measured based on how well he does at school is one of the biggest lies in the social sciences. Doing good at school is dependent not on how smart you are but how much time you are willing to put into your studies. The best professors will say this in class. In fact, some of the best professors tend to be bumbling idiots at other aspects of life -- but excel at their field simply because they were motivated to excel through hard work. Doing good at school is like tying your shoelaces: it's simply a decision that you make. Much of schoolwork -- even in the so-called "sciences" -- involves memorization. Certain subjects require more time than others. There is a natural distribution among human beings, but academic performance is one of the worst ways to determine it. [There are exceptions, of course.] Aye! I completely agree. There were quite a few great men through history who didn't do good at school, but later on proved their genius. A natural born rebel will surely do bad at some conformist institution, no matter how high his IQ is.
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Post by CaraCicatriz on Feb 9, 2004 22:29:54 GMT -5
Yes I agree entirely. Just because more whites and asians do well at school doesn't mean that Blacks and Latinos are dumb, it is just more circumstance really as african american intelligence can be seen in different ways eve in the underprivileged societies, look at Don King or Puff Daddy. Not saying those men are traditional classically educated geniuses but their success shows their cunning which is a biproduct of intelligence.
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Post by nunobento on Feb 10, 2004 9:44:25 GMT -5
This discussion has tended to focus on individual circumstances and examples, from which it is not possible to draw general conclusions about average intelligence.
The genetic evidence that is available does show that the Africans are the most genetically developed evolution of the human race. That development is plain to see in their athletic performance, which on average, is superior to that of Europeans.
If genetic development gives them that physical superiority, it would be foolish to think that evolution developed only their physical genes and held back the intellectual ones. They all developed together and there is emerging evidence to show that Africans have a higher IQ, on average, than Europeans.
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Post by Melnorme on Feb 10, 2004 10:00:56 GMT -5
They all developed together and there is emerging evidence to show that Africans have a higher IQ, on average, than Europeans. Post this evidence please, post-haste. I wonder if it has anything to do with melanin.
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Post by nunobento on Feb 10, 2004 16:20:05 GMT -5
Here are two extracts from genetics information I have posted on my website: myweb.tiscali.co.uk/geneticframework----------------------------------------------------------------------- That evidence also proved to be fairly elusive, until I picked up a copy of Spencer Wells's recent book entitled "The Journey of Man - A Genetic Odyssey". In it, Wells mentions that the African genome has the greatest level of variability of all the races on the planet(4). In scientific language, there is a "higher degree of polymorphism" (from the Greek meaning many forms) in the African genome. No one has yet translated what this greater variability means in everyday life. To most scientists, it just means that the Africans are the oldest population group on the planet, as their genes have been evolving for the longest period of time ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Just as different levels of disease can define the traits found in different population groups, so too can we find different genetic traits among different population groups. For example, if Africans have the most developed genes on the planet, then we would expect them to be the most intelligent race. Looking around at the world today, that would not appear to be the case, as African children in general do not do well at school and, as adults, Africans do not enjoy the same level of career success that many Europeans do. However, a study by Tizard of the IQ of black, white and mixed-parentage children in English residential nurseries found that black and mixed-parentage children did better than white children (1). There has also been an IQ study of the black and white children of US soldiers and German mothers, who were left behind to be raised in Germany after their fathers left at the end of the war (2). The black children again scored higher than white children. Professor Robert Winston also highlighted this higher IQ among ethnic children in his BBC series on genetics, where a memory test had been conducted on children of European and of Australian Aboriginal descent. The test involved remembering the location of about twelve different items on a board with twelve squares and them reassembling them in their correct positions. The Aboriginal children were the ones who performed better in the test. It turned out that it was not better memories that enabled them to perform this feat, but they used better thought processes to remember the location of the pieces. While the European children tried to remember the location of each individual piece, the Aboriginal children took a more holistic approach and tended to remember the patterns of the layouts, which they then found easier to reconstruct. This is all pretty new territory, so the available evidence is limited and cannot yet be described as conclusive. Nevertheless, the emerging evidence does begin to show a trend that is likely to be verified by further research.
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Post by nunobento on Feb 14, 2004 17:45:17 GMT -5
Don't let this thread die - this is quite an important issue.
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Post by xxx on Feb 15, 2004 5:50:13 GMT -5
Some amount of IQ is given by genetics, but subsequent development in IQ levels is influenced by environment and diet. I wonder if genetics also have an influence on subsequent IQ development. Time ago I posted something about this on sf... since such discussions are not to the standards of that board, I'll quote it in plain here:
To the information about idonie defficiency in some inland areas in Portugal (in contrast with the iodine sufficiency in Portugal's coastal areas, which happens to be higher than that in most of Western and Mediterranean Europe), I'd like to add one comment:
There is a small area in Spain, close to Portugal, where many years ago it was found that there were high levels of cretinism. This area is called Las Hurdes. At first suspicions were that the reason for this was inbreeding, since this had been an historically isolated area, but it was later found that the reason behind was the local diet and a high level of iodine defficiency.
Note1: there are other problems related to excess iodine supply which I don't remember right now... anyone?
Note2: I wonder if a certain group suffered from large periods of iodine defficiency in ancient times, while they stayed in the Indus Valley area ;D
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Post by Artemidoros on Feb 15, 2004 19:27:45 GMT -5
The genetic evidence that is available does show that the Africans are the most genetically developed evolution of the human race. That development is plain to see in their athletic performance, which on average, is superior to that of Europeans. You speak of African athletic achievement as if the Africans constitute a single unit. How good are west Africans in the Marathon? Are the Ethiopians known as excellent sprinters? Why are many sports still monopolized by Europeans? For example can the Africans challenge the European javelin throwers? Or the weight lifters from around the Black Sea and the Chinese? Even if I accepted African physical superiority, why should I accept their intellectual one. In an environment that does not call for imagination and creativity or where they are lacking anyway, the advantage lies with the physically superior. Therefore physical ability in a population is strengthened. If imagination and creativity are essential for survival or greatly enhance the chances of survival (see populations that developed civilizations), it is reasonable to assume people with high IQ are positively selected. I am not a supporter of the theory of African inferiority but supremacist claims get my back up regardless where they are coming from.
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Post by xxx on Feb 16, 2004 7:25:08 GMT -5
Yes, which is why all animals which are physically superior to humans have a higher IQ than humans. The problem, of course, is that this cannot be proved since so far all animals have rejected to take IQ tests as these tests are biased according to human's standards. Now, what's next? I am not a supporter of the theory of African inferiority but supremacist claims get my back up regardless where they are coming from. Negroes inferior? No way. Their spears are living proof of a highly developed aerodynamic technology. Or what about their navigation skills? As a proof there is the number of them who cross the Straight of Gibraltar on boats on a daily basis. You couldn't do that without an advanced knowledge of nautical calculus.
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Post by xxx on Feb 16, 2004 7:50:15 GMT -5
Oh.. and I forgot to say that human evolution, in terms of evolution as an intelligence species, has much to do with human's being physically inferior to other animals. So, in the fight for survival, they had to develop their ability to think to counteract. This granted, you may now be able to see how "physical superiority" is more likely to be linked to "intelectual inferiority" than the opposite. Not that things are always that simple, and many other factors have a role in this all.
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