^ Consider this story, the operating assumption is that environmental factors are the primary reasons why blacks do poorly on exams (in this case, a firefighter’s exam.)
Isn’t it ridiculous that in examining why blacks do poorly on IQ test (and other exams which are mostly IQ test by proxy) no one even CONSIDERS the possibility that it’s genetics?
Black genetics do not produce as many high iq individuals as whites. This seems to me a very plausible explanation of why the high achievers and most interesting individuals in the world are white.
It’s not something that can proven beyond a reasonable doubt, but it’s pretty convincing.
Of course people consider it. In fact, logic suggests it should be the first candidate for an explanation – Occam’s Razor says that we ought to start with that assumption.
But it fails on closer examination. And so we no longer consider it, because it doesn’t fit all the facts.
And I’m not sure how you’d even quantify “the most interesting individuals in the world.”
(jesuschrist, again?)
Look, first of all this notion has been “considered” at great length plenty of times before, on this board and elsewhere.
Second, if you’re going to start a thread asserting that you have a “very plausible” and “pretty convincing” theory which is at odds with the one the New York Times has in mind, bring something to the table. Lay out some goddamn explanation for why this might occur to you–other than a desire to think poorly of black folks–and people can address the merits of that.
You’re right. No one has ever considered the possibility that IQ and race could be related. This changes everything.
I dunno what “interesting” has to do with anything but the groups with the highest IQs are East Asians and Ashkenazi Jews. So if you want to go down this road whites ain’t all that special.
For starters, there’s no such thing as “black genetics”.
By one very significant and practical empirical standard, everyone who originates outside of Africa is one race, and there are hundreds of races within Africa. That is to say, everyone from Navajo to Australian Aborigines to Swedes to South Asian Tamils is one race, while there are many different races in Africa. This is the result of the limited genetic diversity and small size of the out of Africa migration.
One empirical, practical standard is finding a match for organ donation. A match between any of the out of Africa groups I mentioned, or any purely non African origin group, is much likelier than a good match between any two black Africans. There is simply more genetic diversity among African populations by an order of magnitude.
So you can’t make global arguments - “blacks” here in the US versus “blacks” somewhere else. For the purposes of genetics each group of African origin is distinct unto itself. Not that there’s no overlap between say Jamaicans and black Americans. But there are inevitably going to be significant differences too, differences that make finding a good match for organ donation quite difficult for any African origin population.
I don’t suppose I’d be very surprised if upper middle-class suburbs produced more “high iq” individuals than trailer parks. if so, I wonder if trailer-park genetics are to blame for this.
QFT. There is far more genetic diversity within african populations than the rest of humanity.
A related fallacy is that “black people are superior at athletics”. As this article points out, in fact it’s very small populations that tend to dominate particular fields. For example, Kenya is known for it’s distance runners, but it fact most of them come from Nandi, a small part of the rift valley.
