What is the evidence that races are equal in intelligence?

Great Debates
1

I realize that this is a topic that gets peoples’ emotions running high, but I’m curious. I imagine that this thread will get moved pretty fast.

Anyway, my question is: What is the evidence that races are equal (in general) in intelligence?

Most of the information I have seen deals with evidence of inequality, and the possible refutation of such evidence.

What about positive evidence? For example, a study of adopted kids that show they have on average the same cognitive abilities, regardless of their race, would be evidence.

My question is – what such studies, etc., are there out there?

Now, I’m not asking who should have the burden of proof in the race and intelligence debate - that is a question for GD.

Also, I realize that some people believe that “race” does not exist, or that “intelligence” is a meaningless unmeasurable concept. I agree that for those people, my question is meaningless. So there’s no need to discuss these points in this thread.

Autumn

2

Well, it is a kinda moot question unless you want to define what you mean by “intelligence”.

3

Not to mention what you mean by ‘race’. Please define your terms and come back with a question that is objectively answerable.

4

Thomas Sowell has some evidence for “equality” in one of his books, I think it was Race and Culture. It’s been some years since I read it, but as I recall he found some data on children of black servicemen who married German mothers and settled down in Germany after World War II. The children’s intelligence (by what test I don’t recall) was equal to that of other German children.

He also had some data that shows that fluctuation of intelligence within an ethnic group pretty well prohibits you from predicting whether intelligence will be higher, lower, or the same as everybody else’s. The data I remember was on American Jews, not on a “race” as the term is used today. Some measurements around the turn of the century of Jewish test subjects showed them scoring lower on intelligence tests than other Americans. About forty years later, similar tests on Jewish test subjects showed them scoring substantially higher than other Americans. There had been negligible change in the Jewish gene pool (due to Judaism’s commandment not to marry outside the faith and lack of aggressive proselytizing, to say nothing of prejudice against them), but vast change in their social circumstances, i.e. in aggregate Jews had made huge economic progress. In a sense, you could say this is evidence of ehtnic groups’ equality in intelligence, in that their intelligence relative to others’ is all equally unpredictable over time.

5

Am I? I’m gonna…

Wait! No, I’m not…

Well, yes maybe.

OK, race versus intelligence. Nobody can adequately define either descriptor, but, you know, it’s like pornography, I know it when I see it.

That’s a poor measure for some kind of quantitative assessment to take. In reality, nobody can define a black man versus a white man. As that consciousness took hold the idea of ethnicity came to the fore. It works about as well.

So your left with a reality where someone who’s “black” can actually do quite well in the world but we remain with the class-warfare afficiandos hope that what can be sold as “black” continues to be the “downtrodden.” And woe be to them as more and more “blacks” continue to make it in the world.

6

Well, you really have to define what you mean by “evidence” too. (That should cover all the terms in the OP)

7

Not quite, SmackFu:

It also depends on what the definition of “is” is.

8

Oh Collyyyyyyyy. Here boy…scitch.

9

The same evidence that indicates that races aren’t unequal in intelligence. The same fluctuations in intelligence are observed in groups with white skin, black skin, yellow skin, purple skin, plaid-with-puce-polka-dots skin, etc.

The basic answer is “the socially-defined concept of ‘race’ does not bear an indicator as to a person’s intelligence”. And I sure as heck wish that certain people would allow that to permeate their skull.

10

Well, there’s also the word “equal”. Do you mean that average intelligence (however it may be defined as something quantifiable) among members of every different race (to the extent that such can be defined) is exactly equal? Within the ability to measure? Generally supposed to be the same? What?

11

Somebody asked me this very same question about oranges once.
Go figger.
Peace,
mangeorge.

12

Permit me to turn the question around and assess the extent that race varies with intelligence.

First, we must define our terms. Intelligence is the ability to do well on certain standardized tests, usually the ones reflecting certain forms of analytic ability. Your score could be stated as how you do on the test relative to someone else your age (that would be called an “IQ”, or intelligence quotient) or it could be put on a scale of 200- 800, as the SATs are. The so-called genius organization MENSA will accept good scores on conventional IQ tests, SATs or a number of other standardized tests, as qualifications for membership. (From reading their ad, I appear to qualify, BTW, and I’m no Einstein).

With proper training, anybody can improve their scores. This shouldn’t be surprising; after all, the IQ test was originally designed to identify kids who were falling behind in school, so that they could receive special tutoring.

Next we define “race”. Race is what you say you are when asked what your race is.

So, do IQ scores (or AFQT scores, to be more specific) vary with education? Yes. Social background? Yup. Parental income? Oh yes. Gender? Of course. Race? Yes. Asians perform better on average than whites, for example. BUT: the range of scores within each grouping greatly exceeds the average differences between groupings. For those with a statistical background, the differences between the averages are a small fraction of the within-group standard deviations. (Interestingly enough, I understand that males have a wider standard deviation than females: more males get high scores and more males get low scores on the standardized tests.)

Oh, and those with more education and labor market experience have higher wages, on average, after controlling for other factors. Test scores also correlate with higher wages, after controlling for other factors. But I seem to recall that the latter is by far not the most important driving force.

The underlying statistics are not especially controversial. It is the interpretation and more important what is emphasized that generates the controversy. One side points to the (wide) within-group standard deviations. The other points to the (relatively small) differences in the averages across groups and notes that these differences are statistically discernable; it appears unlikely that they reflect random variation in the sample. Whether the dependent variable -test scores- is something of great import is another issue.

So, in conclusion, there is very good evidence that test scores vary across individuals and that race in itself is a rather poor predictor of test scores.

13

I can’t be the only person thinking that races most definitely aren’t equal - the human race is demonstrably more intelligent than the race to which bigots belong. :wink:

14

Um, if you evaluate the extent to which 2 groups are different, you are implicitly evaluating whether they are similar. If you get an 800 on your SATs and I get a 500, debating whether those numbers are statistically different is the same as debating whether they are statistically equal. If they are not statistically different, that implies they are statistically equal.

15

Thomas Edison: White
Albert Einstein: Jew
Gandhi:Indian
Sun Tzu: Asian
Ely McCoy:African
Sorry, no Native Americans specifically come to mind, but considering that the Mayan calendar is the most advanced ever put together, I think that’s pretty damn good, also, there’s Sequoia(sp?), who came up with the Cherokee alphabet. When’s the last time you came up with an alphabet.

In my opinion(without arguing over definitions, which is aparantly what everyone else responding decided to do despite the fact that you specifically asked that NOT be done)every culturo-linguistic group, call them what you will, has produced inventions, ideas, achievements that no other group has.
The Egyptians have their pyramids, Rome has it roads, India its Taj Mahal, the Aztecs have their Tenochtitlan, the Mayans their math, the Chinese their compass and printing, the Japanese their robots, the Americans their moon landing.
As for the so called 'primative’peoples of the world, let’s see any one of us here typing on our keyboards forge and maintain a culture in the desert of Austrailia or in the mountains of New Guinea.
Maybe Asian kids do better in school, if you want to believe the stereotype, maybe Blacks don’t do well on the SAT, maybe white people have higher IQ scores than Arabs, but you can’t argue with the achievements made and those which continue to be made by all people in all countries of all cultural and religious groups.
There’s your proof.

16

Applauds roryaxis. :slight_smile:

17

Makes you think doesn’t it? I’ve decided that some races have got to be about as stupid as can be from the way they act, kill each other off, ruin their own home areas, have traditions that hamper their mixing in with other races or have attitudes that shut other races out, feeling themselves to be superior to all, yet acting like morons.

But, that has nothing to do with intelligence.

Every one of these races have displayed ingenuity, abilities to learn and improvise, to adapt, to survive, to grow and to create. Like the Cubans in Cuba. No more new cars? So they build from scratch parts that they need, something you can hardly get done in any other nation. Same in areas of Africa. They’ll strip an abandoned, wrecked military tank down to nothing, reworking the parts in primitive furnaces to make car parts, farming equipment, cooking pots, fishing gear, tools and other stuff with.

South American natives developed ways to make fire, get medications from herbs, make clothing, weapons, hunt, and a working society.

All human races appear to be of equal intelligence, but it is the environment that makes the difference in general knowledge. A guy making $500,000 a year, designing space craft and workable hardware would be thought an idiot to South American Natives because he could not make things out of wood, vines, sinew, and grass and that Native would be considered a moron if he tried to design a space ship.

In all races there are levels of intelligence. I’m quite sure that deep in the African jungle, there are some natives squatting half naked around a fire shaving down sticks into arrows who could qualify for Mensa if a fair test could be given them. No doubt among the uneducated masses in India, someone who washes in the hideously polluted Ganges has the equal intelligence ability to qualify him to be one of the greatest thinkers among the worlds best in history, but he lacks the tools and education to use it.

I took a SAT test years ago to get into college and did so, but on the test were things I had no knowledge of, like a page of parts from a Model T engine! Do you know what an automatic oiler looks like? An early spark plug? This was in 1972! A difference in education.

So, intelligence levels can only be estimated by observing how people react with their environment and society, expressing creativity, ability to learn, to survive and to flourish. That big, dumb looking, over-all wearing, straw chewing, manure shoveling redneck might not be able to work a computer, do more than simple math, hardly even write but he can tell you when the weather is going to change by standing outside for a minute, field strip a tractor and put it back together again, tell what the soil needs by fingering it, birth livestock, mix feed, and repair equipment with a few simple tools and a torch.

So, intelligence among humans seems to be a constant, but social influences determine the quality and extent of the amount and type of knowledge.

18

See my heading - how do you measure those qualities?
Your post should have read:

I realize that I cannot define “race” , or measure “intelligence”.

It would be a measure of your “intelligence” if you would define “race” for us.
(Gee, I just have to look at someone and I know what race he is…)

You can use flowbark’s definitions, but it’s not clear what they’re measuring.

‘Intelligence is the ability to do well on certain standardized tests, usually the ones reflecting certain forms of analytic ability.’
‘Race is what you say you are when asked what your race is.’

I reached an IQ of 187. This may have something to do with
a) being mathematically inclined
b) being well educated
c) taking the test lots of times

My passport says I’m British. Is that a race?
I have blue eyes and a big nose. What other information do you need?

19

Just wanna put my head in here and say that it was my understanding that Collounsbury had taken a job transfer, and wasn’t sure if he’d be able to continue posting or not.

And hey, AWC, I just wanna say that although it’s always nice to see a Chick with a Shtik, I find myself wondering whether you can talk about anything else…

Carry on.

20

Although I agree that some of the wording of the OP is ill-defined (please Collounsbury et al., can we not have that race argument again, just link the threads if you feel the need), I completely understood the basis of the question, and I do hope that people are trying to be constructive in their replies, rather than thinking that the OP’er must be a bigot for asking this question.

Of course, I have no idea whether the question is answerable, or if any answer could be construed to have real widespread validity.

I hope this doesn’t piss anybody off, but racism (can I use that word? I’m wondering, if race has no meaning, can racism? Perhaps we need another word.) is an important issue, and if we are to fight ignorance, we should do so without the seemingly usual kneejerk reaction of assuming everyone who asks a question about race is racist.

I’ll get back to my usual pointless posting now, although it’s possible I’ve not deviated from it yet.