# 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:** 5
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/81 "2012-07-02T08:07:17Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > What is a single number for athletic ability? What fool would even try to boil down the myriad characteristics necessary to analyze those traits into a single number? Yet, for intelligence-. Google scholar gives 197 hits for “general athletic ability.” ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/82 "2012-07-02T08:56:44Z")
> [@astro](#): > > I don’t know. I do know, however, that testing “intelligence” is usually done from a hugely culturally bound perspective. From the way the questions are framed to the assumptions underlying how people will view them. When I applied to Mensa on a vanity lark 25 years ago I tried taking a suggested free IQ test. It was British and appeared to be from the 1950s or 1960s. Some of the questions were (to me) barely comprehensible. It took minutes just to ferret out what they were asking. I wound up using my GRE scores which were more than sufficient to meet their standard. I did not renew membership the next year. … You can [statistically test for psychometric bias](http://www.unc.edu/~rcm/psy236/measinv.pdf) and alleviate this concern on the population level. I don’t think such tests have been conducted in the case of national IQ differences. Instead, latent differences are inferred from IQ score differences, their inter-correlations with international achievement score differences, and their predictive validities (e.g., Lynn, 2012). That inference, of course, is only as strong as the weakness of alternative explanations for the various inter-correlations and associations. ---
**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 2, 2012, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/83 "2012-07-02T09:13:01Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > Ya, ok. Here were the result from the Straightdope UnfairCampaign survey I can’t comment on the PSA’s message as I am unable to view videos here and they don’t seem to deliver their message in any other way. However, from looking through the thread, I’m not going to read all 8 pages, but I’m not seeing anyone suggesting AA as a policy. > [@](#): > > As for the second point, in many respects, people with lower IQs are treated worse. They are not allowed into the best schools or hired for many of the top jobs – and justifiable so because they are less competent, on average. Good; so we should just treat people as individuals and everyone will be treated appropriately. > [@](#): > > But when it comes to race an exception is made. Not as often as you’d think from reading all these dope threads. Again, I am against AA and luckily I live in a country where this is very rare: the UK. If it’s common in the US then I would feel quite aggrieved, but I would see no reason to go down the “blacks are teh dumb” road, other than hate. > [@](#): > > But I really don’t care about that. If society wants to discriminate for Black people I think that’s great. My issue is with the cultural marxist clap trap. So…you’re in favour of AA, but what really grinds your gears are people also in favour of it _but for the wrong reasons_. If that’s all it is then I’m surprised you care so much. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/84 "2012-07-02T09:19:27Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > The persistent ethnic differences the study refers to are largely those between white Britons on the one hand, and Asian Britons on the other. It’s not a “black” issue at all. (Of course, absolutely none of the subjects are black Americans, so it wouldn’t have any bearing on the US situation at all.) > > You continue to cite sources that work against you. It’s the damnedest thing. Do you read your sources, or just link to anything that seems promising? Asian there refers to South Asians, not North East. For some reason Blacks in the UK preform badly on law and medical admissions tests. Here were the [2012 results from the UKCAT](https://occidentalascent.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/72950_annual_report_2010_11.pdf), which is billed as a test of “aptitude not education.” No different from the the past 5 years. You can find a similar magnitude of a gap on the LNAT, a UK law test which is also billed as an aptitude test. But medical and law applicants are obviously not representative of the national population. It’s possible that more less intelligent Blacks have higher aspirations, apply, and bring the Black mean down. Dunno. ---
**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 2, 2012, 10:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/85 "2012-07-02T10:03:51Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > Asian there refers to South Asians, not North East. So…what race are they? Actually, this provides food for thought for the “Wealth of Nations” crowd. People of south asian descent do very poorly in the UK. But countries like India now have a fast-booming economy and is doing well in such technical fields as IT and telecoms. Are they stupid or smart? ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/86 "2012-07-02T11:12:57Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > It’s possible that more less intelligent Blacks have higher aspirations, apply, and bring the Black mean down. Dunno. It’s also possible that the two of the tough educational routes you mention expose those applicants who haven’t enjoyed as much investment in the development of their critical thinking and (exam) organisational skills. It’s amazing what throwing $100,000 at a kids education can do, which is why those middle class parents who can, do exactly that. Esp. when those middle class parents aspire a legal or healthcare career for their children. ---
**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, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/87 "2012-07-02T12:46:42Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > 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. I cannot find the quote, but Jesse Jackson has pointed out that since the end of the Civil War the number of blacks that have been lynched by whites is much less than the number of blacks murdered by other blacks ever year. Jesse Jackson has said this: “There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery. Then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved… After all we have been through. Just to think we can’t walk down our own streets, how humiliating.” Remarks at a meeting of Operation PUSH in Chicago (27 November 1993). Quoted in “Crime: New Frontier - Jesse Jackson Calls It Top Civil-Rights Issue” by Mary A. Johnson, 29 November 1993, Chicago Sun-Times (ellipsis in original). Partially quoted in US News & World Report (10 March 1996) Because American blacks are better off than blacks in Africa, Haiti, or any Caribbean country with a black majority population I do not believe American whites should be blamed for black problems. I certainly do not believe that we should be blamed nearly two generations after the civil rights legislation was signed. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/88 "2012-07-02T13:27:20Z")
> [@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. This is amazingly wrongheaded. Even if there is the psychological factors you’re discussing are inherited along with skin tone (or whatever), this provides _zero_ justification for any of the policies you mentioned. Statistical averages should not in that way determine how individuals are treated. ---
**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 2, 2012, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/89 "2012-07-02T13:50:40Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Because American blacks are better off than blacks in Africa, Haiti, or any Caribbean country with a black majority population I do not believe American whites should be blamed for black problems. Of course they are materially better off in the US; it’s one of the wealthiest countries in the world PPP, and the wealthiest in nominal GDP. Until recently, the “better off here” observation would have been true about basically anyone of non-european ancestry, including East Asians. ---
**Author:** ![PrettyVacant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/49beb7/32.png) [@PrettyVacant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PrettyVacant)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/90 "2012-07-02T14:41:37Z")
> [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > Because American blacks are better off than blacks in Africa, Haiti, or any Caribbean country with a black majority population I do not believe American whites should be blamed for black problems. I certainly do not believe that we should be blamed nearly two generations after the civil rights legislation was signed. They’re better off? At any given time, in the USA blacks have a 1/10 change of being under some kind of correctional supervision (obv. inc. prison) and almost 50% of black males of being disenfranchised because of a conviction. But then non-Hispanic blacks do make up 40% of the prison population. Hey, at least they get healthcare. Maybe even some kind of work. Possibly a little education. ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/91 "2012-07-02T16:04:09Z")
Just once, in one of these threads I would like to learn what policies are being suggested that are based on average IQ. Even if we can prove that one group has lower average IQ, whatever the hell that is, what policy should we enact regarding that group? Is the point to punish those with low IQ, is it to eliminate them somehow or is it to bring more help to those who need it because they aren’t smart? We don’t even need to talk about race to find a group with low IQs. It should be trivially easy to prove that those who score poorly on IQ tests have lower IQs, on average, than the rest of the population. I’d like to know what fans of IQ tests propose we do about them? ---
**Author:** ![I\_Know\_Nothing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f04885/32.png) [@I\_Know\_Nothing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Know_Nothing)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/92 "2012-07-02T17:35:12Z")
> [@Belowjob2.0](#): > > So, is this [intellectual rape](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15224900&postcount=100) Maybe that’s why my Broca’s area hurts. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/93 "2012-07-02T17:46:08Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > The difference has certain psychometric properties that call into question most cultural explanations. That’s a semi-complex topic, though. As for the whole subhuman treatment explanation, if you mean a legacy of abuse, compare the descendants of Blacks slaves to the descendants of Russian serfs. Thomas Jefferson gave the most poignant reply to this line of argument almost _225 years ago_: > > The difference 225 years ago could not have been explained by a cultural legacy of abuse, since the majority of Blacks were imported after 1750. And there is no evidence in other populations that historic deprivations depress contemporaneous IQ except though contemporaneous influences. So the cause needs to be contemporaneous, which means that we should be able to identify it. > > . Slavery began in the US began in the early 1600s and ramped up rapidly from there . By Jefferson’s time it had been going on for over 100 years. To rely on his casual musings of how relatively unimaginative he thought black Africans slaves - yanked out of pre-literate village centric lifestyles - were, as some sort of useful metric to buttress for your biologically differentiated intelligence argument is a bizarre rhetorical position. Your argument is effectively that at the point of Jefferson’s observation that they had only\* been enslaved and treated like animals for 100 years \* and that was not nearly enough time to suffer a level of cultural, familial and social degradation intense enough for their white, highly educated masters to perceive them as intellectually lacking. Beyond that, to say that the majority of US blacks came in after 1750, so now we’re really _only_ talking about 225 years of near animal level servitude and destroyed family structures, and that’s not nearly enough to culturally impact intelligence scores so it must be something else. Eleven generations of effectively no stable family structures, being bought and sold like animals, and being denied access to almost any level of intellectual self improvement is simply not enough time for the cultural deprivation argument to stand? Really? Wow. Just wow. ---
**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, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/94 "2012-07-02T19:29:27Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Slavery began in the US began in the early 1600s and ramped up rapidly from there . By Jefferson’s time it had been going on for over 100 years. To rely on his casual musings of how relatively unimaginative he thought black Africans slaves - yanked out of pre-literate village centric lifestyles - were, as some sort of useful metric to buttress for your biologically differentiated intelligence argument is a bizarre rhetorical position. > > Your argument is effectively that at the point of Jefferson’s observation that they had only\* been enslaved and treated like animals for 100 years \* and that was not nearly enough time to suffer a level of cultural, familial and social degradation intense enough for their white, highly educated masters to perceive them as intellectually lacking. > > Beyond that, to say that the majority of US blacks came in after 1750, so now we’re really _only_ talking about 225 years of near animal level servitude and destroyed family structures, and that’s not nearly enough to culturally impact intelligence scores so it must be something else. > > Eleven generations of effectively no stable family structures, being bought and sold like animals, and being denied access to almost any level of intellectual self improvement is simply not enough time for the cultural deprivation argument to stand? > > Really? Wow. Just wow. To add to what you’re saying, it’s quite stupid to quote from Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia since even his most ardent defenders agree that Jefferson’s conclusions in there were self-serving and pseudo-scientific rather than based on logic. In that book Jefferson also claims that black people smelled differently than whites(and no he said nothing about this being because they worked in the fields all day and often weren’t allowed to bathe). I think even the “race realists” on this thread aren’t going to argue that. ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/95 "2012-07-02T20:17:53Z")
These two positions juxtaposed illustrate, to my mind, why the thread topic is an issue of worth: > [@New\_Deal\_Democrat](#): > > …Because American blacks are better off than blacks in Africa, Haiti, or any Caribbean country with a black majority population I do not believe American whites should be blamed for black problems. I certainly do not believe that we should be blamed nearly two generations after the civil rights legislation was signed. > [@astro](#): > > Racism suffuses US culture on every level. We’re not much more than a century past when we were treating blacks as live stock, 50 years past when we would not [allow them to attend the same schools we did](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws) and just over 40 years past when it was i[illegal for blacks and whites to marry.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia)And now just two generations past this astounding degree of human oppression on every level possible, we’re scratching our heads and wondering why they aren’t as good at abstract intellectual exercises as we are. Why more black families don’t value a life of the mind to the same degree some white households do. Determining whether society is suffuse with racism and whether Whites are to blame wholly for the Black-White outcome differences, differences which are mediated by IQ, is of non- trivial sociomoral importance. Not of too much importance. But the issue doesn’t seem, to me, to be unworthy of a thread on this forum. Now, which of the above perspectives is more correct clearly depends on the relation between race, between race environmentality (the inverse of heritability), and IQ differences. And the point of this thread is to determine whether known environmental factors can account for the gap so as to enlighten _my_ understanding of the relation. Nothing more. I’m open to the idea that the differences are fully the result of historic and contemporaneous acts of oppression by Whites. But I am also open to the possibility that this is not the case. Ideally agnosticism would be embraced until more information is available but since claims one way or the other have been leveled in the court of public opinion, it seems of importance to investigate them. Now if we – that means you NDD – could try to not stick to the thread topic… ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/96 "2012-07-02T21:27:09Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > These two positions juxtaposed illustrate, to my mind, why the thread topic is an issue of worth: > > Determining whether society is suffuse with racism and whether Whites are to blame wholly for the Black-White outcome differences, differences which are mediated by IQ, is of non- trivial sociomoral importance. Not of too much importance. But the issue doesn’t seem, to me, to be unworthy of a thread on this forum. Now, which of the above perspectives is more correct clearly depends on the relation between race, between race environmentality (the inverse of heritability), and IQ differences. And the point of this thread is to determine whether known environmental factors can account for the gap so as to enlighten _my_ understanding of the relation. Nothing more. I’m open to the idea that the differences are fully the result of historic and contemporaneous acts of oppression by Whites. But I am also open to the possibility that this is not the case. Ideally agnosticism would be embraced until more information is available but since claims one way or the other have been leveled in the court of public opinion, it seems of importance to investigate them. > > Now if we – that means you NDD – could try to not stick to the thread topic… You’re constructing a number of weak strawmen that no one is positing as part of the arguments here. Why you feel the need to do for anything other than your own amusement is a mystery. > [@](#): > > Whether Whites are to blame wholly for the Black-White outcome differences? Lots of things go into environmental factors including potential dysfunctional and self harming behaviors by black culture. No one here is claiming it’s 100% bad white men. You seem to be positively itching to embrace this manufactured notion so you can knock it down. > [@](#): > > Determining whether society is suffuse with racism While certain types of institutional racism and racism in commerce have been outlawed it is a hard fact that a significant number of white people have strongly racist attitudes with respect to black people, and this includes a number of upper income cohorts. Not all this racism is expressed in the same way, and many white people may be racist in their private opinions without going out of their way to oppress or interfere with black people living their lives as free citizens. A lot of white people tolerate blacks, but privately disparage their intelligence, worth ethic, moral underpinnings, etc. etc. They are basically considered as borderline sub-humans. I’m not wondering about this issue, as a conservative looking white man I see and hear it all the time in private conversations. This is pure reality. Are you contending this is not the case in the US? Do you think the fact that there are extensive legal protections against overt racism obviates the impact of the aforesaid racist attitudes? ---
**Author:** ![Chuck11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/96bed5/32.png) [@Chuck11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chuck11)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/97 "2012-07-02T22:45:41Z")
> [@astro](#): > > Slavery began in the US began in the early 1600s and ramped up rapidly from there . By Jefferson’s time it had been going on for over 100 years. To rely on his casual musings of how relatively unimaginative he thought black Africans slaves - yanked out of pre-literate village centric lifestyles - were, as some sort of useful metric to buttress for your biologically differentiated intelligence argument is a bizarre rhetorical position. > > Your argument is effectively that at the point of Jefferson’s observation that they had only\* been enslaved and treated like animals for 100 years \* and that was not nearly enough time to suffer a level of cultural, familial and social degradation intense enough for their white, highly educated masters to perceive them as intellectually lacking. > > Beyond that, to say that the majority of US blacks came in after 1750, so now we’re really _only_ talking about 225 years of near animal level servitude and destroyed family structures, and that’s not nearly enough to culturally impact intelligence scores so it must be something else. > > Eleven generations of effectively no stable family structures, being bought and sold like animals, and being denied access to almost any level of intellectual self improvement is simply not enough time for the cultural deprivation argument to stand? > > Really? Wow. Just wow. > [@astro](#): > > To rely on his casual musings of how relatively unimaginative he thought black Africans slaves - yanked out of pre-literate village centric lifestyles - were, as some sort of useful metric to buttress for your biologically differentiated intelligence argument is a bizarre rhetorical position. The preponderance of evidence indicates that the intelligence gap, from an inter-generational perspective, can be traced back to Africa. If you can show otherwise, you can falsify a genetic hypothesis. Since we are talking about general intelligence, you can use any highly corrected index. Piagetian developmental stages and syllogistic reasoning have been found to be excellent indexes. If you can show, through anecdotal reports, that Blacks during the 1700, 1800, or early 1900s reached the equivalent piagetian stages, per chronological age, as Whites or that Blacks had a keener sense of reasoning, you can undermine a genetic hypothesis. In general, contra your claims, there is no evidence that the gap was originally induced by the conditions of Blacks in the US. The Self-fulfilling stereotype theory (i.e., Blacks were falsely said to be less intelligent to justify oppression which happened to selectively induce an intelligence difference) is preposterous. It is plausible though that Blacks, on average, were never provided adequate opportunity to develop their genetic potential conditioned on the average environment of Whites. But most formulations of this hypothesis predict that the contemporaneous heritability of Black IQ will be much less than the heritability of White IQ, since accordingly Blacks are not realizing their genetic potential. But it isn’t. Relative to other Blacks, Blacks actualize there genetic potential about as much as Whites relative to other Whites. > [@](#): > > Your argument is effectively that at the point of Jefferson’s observation that they had only\* been enslaved and treated like animals for 100 years \* and that was not nearly enough time to suffer a level of cultural, familial and social degradation intense enough for their white, highly educated masters to perceive them as intellectually lacking. Beyond that, to say that the majority of US blacks came in after 1750, so now we’re really _only_ talking about 225 years of near animal level servitude and destroyed family structures, and that’s not nearly enough to culturally impact intelligence scores so it must be something else This sounds like a covert ad miscordium: poor poor Blacks, don’t dare question the environmental hypothesis! For one, I don’t know what “near animal level servitude” you are talking about, which lasted 225 years. The type of slavery that Black genealogical lines were subjected to for approximately 100 years was typical. For another, and more importantly, exaggerating the historic condition of Blacks will not advance your argument, as the environmental effects need to act contemporaneously. You are simply, then, making a case that the environmental differences which might condition the IQ difference, are a product of historic environmental conditions inter-generationally transmitted. But this is granted. And it is pointed out that the known environmental differences can not explain the differential. For example, you can control for known family factors. They can statistically explain, at most, one third of the gap at older ages. But this this explanation is problematic for a number of reason discussed. So why you are left with is positing mysterious X-factors, which you can’t name, but which you think must exist because of the Black experience. I guess you misunderstand what I mean by “explained.” > [@](#): > > Eleven generations of effectively no stable family structures, being bought and sold like animals, and being denied access to almost any level of intellectual self improvement is simply not enough time for the cultural deprivation argument to stand?Really? Wow. Just wow. The claim above is false on a number of levels (e.g., contra your claim, Black human capital in the sense of trade skill acquisition _increased_ under slavery relative to their state in Africa); more importantly, it’s irrelevant as noted above. A cultural deprivation argument does not stand because known differences in cultural influences fail to explain the difference. Not difficult. ---
**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, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/98 "2012-07-02T23:00:33Z")
> [@Chuck11](#): > > Google scholar gives 197 hits for “general athletic ability.” And when we have eliminated the various articles that discuss the topic, in general terms without arriving at a conclusion, those that describe the topic as one that needs multiple answers in various realms, and those that dismiss the possibility of arriving at any single answer as a sily and fruitless exercise, just how many of those 197 hits in some limited number of articles remain that attempt to assign a single number to the “general athletic ability?” (I would suggest 42 as the appropriate Athletic Quotient.) ---
**Author:** ![Belowjob2.0](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Belowjob2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belowjob2.0)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/99 "2012-07-02T23:13:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Black human capital in the sense of trade skill acquisition increased under slavery relative to their state in Africa) No. Many Africans brought trade skills with them - rice growing and the management of dikes, carpentry, blacksmithing and iron work, cattle husbandry. On the other hand, many more Africans were prevented from using and maintaining skills they had brought with them because they forced to do brute physical labor only, and were prevented from passing their skills on to their children. Your gross error here isn’t surprising. You’re deeply, fundamentally ignorant about Africa, and every claim you attempt make in relation to it fails. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-the-black-white-racial-iq-gap-in-the-us-be-environmentally-explained/626877/100 "2012-07-02T23:31:00Z")
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