# Can the Black-White racial IQ gap in the US be environmentally explained? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 1, 2012, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877 "2012-07-01T04:56:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/41 "2012-07-01T21:10:25Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Just before the thread gets closed, an additional point; > > **MODERATING** > > Never, ever change the content of another poster’s post inside the quote function, for any reason. (which you did, but I am not referring to the quote above; I mean the point in your post where you used the quote tag function to write the same thing.) That is a warning offense. I will leave it to **tomndebb** to decide if you should get a formal warning for it, but do NOT do it again, in any forum. > > RickJay > Moderator Putting (sic) in a quote is considered a violation of the board policy prohibiting changing someone’s quote? The point of putting (sic) is to show that you didn’t alter or change the person’s quote. To me, that’s like giving someone a warning for bolding a particular part of a person’s post. Anyway, I won’t do it again, because I had no idea it was a violation of board policy. That said, does this also mean we can’t bold a person’s comments either? That’s also a form of altering someone’s quote. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/42 "2012-07-01T21:12:47Z")
Racists say racist stuff. Yawn. Seriously folks, perhaps there wouldn’t be 237 of these threads if they were properly ignored. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/43 "2012-07-01T21:15:27Z")
[Quote=New Deal Democrat] We should continue to move in the directions we are moving in. We should put an end to forced school busing, affirmative action, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. We should institute free abortion on demand. That is the only welfare program I have any enthusiasm for. We should continue to expand the prison population. We should put more criminals in prison longer and treat them more harshly. [/quote] Is forced school busing still an issue in the U.S.? How retro. I’m not sure what the current status of Affirmative Action is in the U.S. Are you including bonus points given to college applicants who are visible minorities? Ending AFDC sounds like trouble - are most recipients members of what we’re assuming (for the sake of argument) to be genetically disadvantaged groups? It kinda sounds like “Genetics has proven that 50% of you will become criminals, therefore we’re writing off the entire group. Those 50% of you who _didn’t_ have criminal destinies will also end up mired in poverty, but we’ve decided that environmental factors are irrelevant.” Expanding the prisons? Yeah, I guess you’d have to, given the above. Seems like a clumsy inefficient solution to me, but possibly I’m more engineering-minded than science-minded. And I’ve no problem with free abortion on demand for any woman, though the “free” part is probably better discussed in a thread about government health insurance. I’m also not sure the U.S. _is_ moving in the described direction, but whatever, sake of argument, etc. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/44 "2012-07-01T21:58:39Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Putting (sic) in a quote is considered a violation of the board policy prohibiting changing someone’s quote? The purpose of employing [sic] in a quote is to indicate to readers that the apparent error of spelling or grammar is in the original, not in the transcription. Since the quote function ensures that the quoted material is _verbatim_, placing that editorial comment inside the quote tags serves no purpose other than to mock the author. > [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > That said, does this also mean we can’t bold a person’s comments either? That’s also a form of altering someone’s quote. Bolding and italics serve only to highlight a segment of text to which one wishes to call attention. It is generally considered polite to indicate that one has bolded or italicized text that one has quoted so that it is not confused with the original text. [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/45 "2012-07-01T22:25:04Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > We should continue to move in the directions we are moving in. We should put an end to forced school busing, affirmative action, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. We should institute free abortion on demand. That is the only welfare program I have any enthusiasm for. We should continue to expand the prison population. We should put more criminals in prison longer and treat them more harshly. Is there anywhere that court-ordered busing continues? AFDC was discontinued in 1996. If you think we should treat prisoners more harshly, I strongly suspect that your knowledge of prisons is as lacking as your knowledge of busing and AFDC. > [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > There are few things stronger than an ideal whose time has come. That we need to treat a significant portion of our population as second class citizens based on nothing more than the color of their skin may be an “idea,” but it is not an “ideal” except among White Separatists and others who promote hated for irrational reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/46 "2012-07-01T22:30:45Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > The purpose of employing [sic] in a quote is to indicate to readers that the apparent error of spelling or grammar is in the original, not in the transcription. Since the quote function ensures that the quoted material is _verbatim_, placing that editorial comment inside the quote tags serves no purpose other than to mock the author. > > Bolding and italics serve only to highlight a segment of text to which one wishes to call attention. It is generally considered polite to indicate that one has bolded or italicized text that one has quoted so that it is not confused with the original text. > > [/Moderating] Ok, fair enough. Thanks for the clarification. I wasn’t aware I’d violated the board rules. Sorry about that. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/47 "2012-07-01T22:54:39Z")
I can’t believe there’s another of these threads. We’ve already got the 3,000 post car-crash in the Pit, and many more threads besides. Again I have to ask the people who start these threads: _Why is this so important to you?_ The usual justification is that it is to counter policies like affirmative action. But I have yet to see anyone on the dope argue for such a policy, so why all the threads here? Even if, hypothetically, there were races, and there were a difference in average IQ, why would that allow you to treat blacks worse than whites? Clearly there are lots of clever black people and stupid whites; so I don’t see why it is important or useful to divide people based on skin colour. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/48 "2012-07-01T23:01:52Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Out of sheer bloody-minded sake-of-argument curiosity, let’s assume the answer is “yes”. > > What should we _do_ with this knowledge? To the extent that differences are genetically conditioned, they should be accepted as not being due to discrimination. And the differences should be treated no different from those between arbitrary subpopulations. This should inform debate about “institutional racism,” “white privilege,” disparate impact, affirmative action, anti-discrimination policies, and so on. For context here is a link to the unfaircampaign which claims that social outcome differences are due to White on Black racism. [Here](https://lesacreduprintemps19.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/disparate-impact-realism-1.pdf) is a discussion of disparate impact in context to the IQ difference. Here is a discussion about [racial Gerrymandering to fill quotas](http://www.people.vcu.edu/~mamcdani/Publications/McDaniel%20(2009)%20Gerrymandering.pdf). Here is a typical discussion of differences in context to education: > [@](#): > > “In discussing racial and ethnic gaps, we focus on three groups: Hispanics, non-Hispanic whites (whites), and non-Hispanic African Americans (blacks). We note that these groups are socially constructed and heterogeneous categories that proxy for diverse ethnic and cultural groups… **In the United States, the Hispanic and black categories serve as markers for minority status and its accompanying experiences of discrimination and disadvantage…** > > **…Other changes would also improve black and Hispanic children’s school readiness, but would not reduce racial and ethnic gaps much, because they would also improve white children’s achievement. If raising black and Hispanic children’s school readiness regardless of their relative levels of achievement is a goal, then these changes should be considered.** (Magnuson and Waldfogel (2005) Early Childhood Care and Education: Effects on Ethnic and Racial Gaps in School Readiness) WTF. The context of this is that the intelligence differences are the proximate cause of social outcome differences and the social outcome differences are blamed on “racism.” And numerous policies have been enacted and are being enacted to combat the effects of this supposed racism. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/49 "2012-07-01T23:27:07Z")
The OP seems only interested in the USA but this scholarly work from the UK suggests family income, parental education and breast feeding were the strongest indicators of childhood intelligence - the single heading of ‘family income’ covers a wide range of possible influences: [http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/eserv.php?pid=UQ:8357&dsID=musp\_2006\_lawlor.pdf](http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/eserv.php?pid=UQ:8357&dsID=musp_2006_lawlor.pdf) ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/50 "2012-07-01T23:36:49Z")
[quote=“New\_Deal\_Democrat, post:39, topic:626877”] We should continue to move in the directions we are moving in. We should put an end to forced school busing, affirmative action, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. We should institute free abortion on demand. QUOTE] I don’t see an inherent problem with racial discrimination as long as it benefits society as a whole. As such, I’m not a crusader against “Positive discrimination.” For one, it probably keeps Blacks from rioting. The problem that I have is with the current B.S. rationalization for it. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/51 "2012-07-01T23:40:54Z")
> [@PrettyVacant](#): > > The OP seems only interested in the USA but this scholarly work from the UK suggests family income, parental education and breast feeding were the strongest indicators of childhood intelligence - the single heading of ‘family income’ covers a wide range of possible influences: > > [http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/eserv.php?pid=UQ:8357&dsID=musp\_2006\_lawlor.pdf](http://espace.library.uq.edu.au/eserv.php?pid=UQ:8357&dsID=musp_2006_lawlor.pdf) To save me the time of reading the entire article, please excerpt the important parts like I do. If they interest me I will read the rest. * * * Results 23 reports comparing the academic performance of medical students and doctors from different ethnic groups were included. Meta-analyses of effects from 22 reports (n=23 742) indicated candidates of “non-white” ethnicity underperformed compared with white candidates… Conclusion Ethnic differences in academic performance are widespread across different medical schools, different types of exam, and in undergraduates and postgraduates. They have persisted for many years and cannot be dismissed as atypical or local problems. We need to recognise this as an issue that probably affects all of UK medical and higher education. > **[Ethnicity and academic performance in UK trained doctors and medical...](https://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.d901)** > > Objective To determine whether the ethnicity of UK trained doctors and medical students is related to their academic performance. > > Design Systematic review and meta-analysis. > > Data sources Online databases PubMed, Scopus, and ERIC; Google and Google... ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/52 "2012-07-01T23:45:08Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > For one, it probably keeps Blacks from rioting. You don’t give any credence to the notion that the group/s rioting would be, say, the disenfranchised, poor, poorly educated, unemployed, etc; you think the categorization ‘black’ most accurately identifies the demographic? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/53 "2012-07-01T23:51:23Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > To the extent that differences are genetically conditioned, they should be accepted as not being due to discrimination. And the differences should be treated no different from those between arbitrary subpopulations. This should inform debate about “institutional racism,” “white privilege,” disparate impact, affirmative action, anti-discrimination policies, and so on. False argument. Only one of those the social situations you named are based on the treatment of groups as groups. They are actions that are taken against or in defense of individuals based on the physical appearance of those individuals. Institutional racism has nothing to do with the intelligence or social mores of black people. Allowing prison terms for a drug popular among blacks to be ten times greater than a related drug of equal potency popular among whites for just over 20 years and investing far more money and police resources to attack the drug popular among black people will not be changed by discovering that black people have some genetic difference from white people. White privilege, in which white people are given a pass by police for driving in the “wrong” neighborhoods while blacks continue to be stopped for “Driving While Black” will not be changed because someone identifies a “black” gene. Refusing to offer housing, jobs, or promotions at work to individual people who are of a different color will not be changed by discovering that some vague notion of IQ corresponds to something that can only be identified as an average in a group to which one has assigned them. One might make a case that a discovery of genuine difference in intelligence could have a bearing on set-asides for college entrance, but even that should be taken on an individual basis that should not be affected by group scores. Since the vast majority of “racial” issues are encountered at the individual level, your claim that differences should “inform” discussion about discriminatory behavior by the majority against the minority reveals itself to be the same nonsense that was bruted about 100 years ago with antimiscegenation laws, “separate but equal,” “point systems” in housing, and other efforts to legalize the imposition of harm on individuals based on their perceived membership in a group. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/54 "2012-07-01T23:53:25Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > > [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > > > We should continue to move in the directions we are moving in. We should put an end to forced school busing, affirmative action, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. We should institute free abortion on demand. > > I don’t see an inherent problem with racial discrimination as long as it benefits society as a whole. As such, I’m not a crusader against “Positive discrimination.” > For one, it probably keeps Blacks from rioting. The problem that I have is with the current B.S. rationalization for it. Nice that you give a pass to over a hundred years of whites rioting. As long as it is just good ol’ white folks rioting and lynching people, we don’t really have a problem, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/55 "2012-07-01T23:59:40Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > ``` > I don't see an inherent problem with racial discrimination as long as it benefits society as a whole. As such, I'm not a crusader against “Positive discrimination.” > > ``` > > For one, it probably keeps Blacks from rioting. The problem that I have is with the current B.S. rationalization for it. In the United States the black ghetto riots happened from 1964 to 1968. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed July 2, 1964. Sixteen days later a black ghetto riot began in Harlem. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was signed August 6, 1965. Five days later the Watts Riot began. The black ghetto riots ended when Richard Nixon was elected president. It really cannot be said that making concessions to blacks reduces the likelihood of black riots. It is also worth pointing out that from 1964 to 1968 there were no riots of any significance in the eleven former Confederate states. In those states potential rioters knew they would be shot on sight. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/56 "2012-07-02T00:57:37Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > In those states potential rioters knew they would be shot on sight. Heck, in those states, they were liable to be shot even if they were not rioting. More importantly, white riots finally settled down only after the government began recognizing that blacks were citizens and the only recent “black” riots have been in the aftermath of actual incidents of police action against blacks, so perhaps if we simply treated all people as citizens, we could stop all the riots, (aside from the sports victory riots, of course). ---
**Author:** ![New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9d8465/32.png) [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Deal_Democrat)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/57 "2012-07-02T01:44:56Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Heck, in those states, they were liable to be shot even if they were not rioting. > > More importantly, white riots finally settled down only after the government began recognizing that blacks were citizens and the only recent “black” riots have been in the aftermath of actual incidents of police action against blacks, so perhaps if we simply treated all people as citizens, we could stop all the riots, (aside from the sports victory riots, of course). Most of the American people react against those who resort to civil violence. Segregationist violence against non violent civil rights demonstrators helped the civil rights movement. The black ghetto riots hardened white attitudes towards blacks and contributed to, if they did not cause, the Republican domination of the United States. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/58 "2012-07-02T01:51:45Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > > [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > > > We should continue to move in the directions we are moving in. We should put an end to forced school busing, affirmative action, and Aid to Families with Dependent Children. We should institute free abortion on demand. > > I don’t see an inherent problem with racial discrimination as long as it benefits society as a whole. As such, I’m not a crusader against “Positive discrimination.” > For one, it probably keeps Blacks from rioting. The problem that I have is with the current B.S. rationalization for it. Please explain what you mean by “positive discrimination”? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/59 "2012-07-02T01:55:39Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Most of the American people react against those who resort to civil violence. Segregationist violence against non violent civil rights demonstrators helped the civil rights movement. The black ghetto riots hardened white attitudes towards blacks and contributed to, if they did not cause, the Republican domination of the United States. So? There is a bit of truth in those claims, although they have nothing to do with anything I posted or with the topic of this thread. You are still deliberately ignoring over a hundred years of white-on-black violence as though it never happened. (_You must be one of them “Reagan Democrats.”_) And your proposals for society demonstrate nothing so much as fear-based hatred of people who don’t look like you, not a serious effort to consider ways to make the country better. ---
**Author:** ![Chen019](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f19dbf/32.png) [@Chen019](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chen019)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/60 "2012-07-02T01:56:48Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Out of sheer bloody-minded sake-of-argument curiosity, let’s assume the answer is “yes”. > > What should we _do_ with this knowledge? If inequality is a wrong, then the causes need to be identified? For example, just a quick google search of “achievement gap” brings up this [story](http://www.mlive.com/education/index.ssf/2012/07/educators_say_michigan_merit_e.html). The headline reads: _Educators say Michigan Merit Exams, ACT tests reveal ‘shameful’ achievement gaps_. The description of the gaps as _“shameful”_ suggests culpability or that blame can be placed somewhere? To do that you need to accurately identify the causal factors. Presumably that is the main reason why that knowledge is pursued. If people just focussed on individual achievement rather than aggregating individuals into groups and looking at group disparities, there would be less justification for such research? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877.md?page=4)