This is exactly what I was asking for. Thanks shortie.
Also, the observations of roryaxis were helpful.
Does anyone else have evidence along these lines?
Autumn
Your assuming what your trying to prove and we all see it. Be gone, racist troll.
If there is any sort of deviation in IQ scores on average, I would be more inclined to account it to population densities in areas of poor education. So the question would be; on average, do more blacks live in areas that are known to have poor education. If so, this accounts for it, rather than race. (disclaimer: I am not trying to equate low education with poor areas)
To be absolutely fair, one would have to take separate IQ tests between Asians, Whites, and Blacks in each separate classifation of educational standards. How this could be accomplished I have no Idea… It wouldn’t be fair to take scores of separate Classes. (I.e Lower class, Middle class, Upper class) So the question I have is: Is there a major difference in IQ scores in schools of poor areas, and schools of a more finacially stable area?
But, as they say, IQ scores, nor SAT scores really denote Intelligence safely or accurately, so to say that IQ variances = one race is superior to another is fallicious, and IMO Racist.
Those are the words I was alluding to, perhaps I didn’t make it sufficiently clear.
I’ve read and reread the OP and cannot find a single word which supports this. Perhaps you know more about the poster than I do (I mean that literally), I haven’t searched AWC’s previous posts.
In my previous post I wrote this
By which I meant that I had no idea if it was possible to define race or intelligence sufficiently well to answer the question. I’ll try and improve the clarity of my posts as evidently you failed to grasp my point, which was pretty much the same as yours. My bad.
You could ask people of various races if they are happy. Happiness would be a nice indicator.
Bur Handy, wouldn’t that be more appropriate in a thread entitle “What is the evidence that races are equal in happiness?” rather than this one?
See “The Mismeasure of Man” by Stephen Jay Gould. Does a very thorough job of describing how every attempt to find INequality has failed or been flawed. If the phenomenon existed, you’d think someone would have stumbled across it by now.
– Beruang
DrFidelius, MrDeath and myself have asked for a definition of race.
So far the answers and examples include:
Danimal:
‘an ethnic group’ (is that having a common nationality / having a common cultural tradition / origin by birth?)
flowbark:
‘Race is what you say you are when asked what your race is.’ (how do you tell if they’re lying? what about adopted kids?)
roryaxis:
‘culturo-linguistic group’ (speaking the same language?)
Courier2:
‘the Cubans in Cuba’ (different to the Cubans in Miami?)
Inferno:
‘people with different ethnic backgrounds’ (see Danimal above)
Shortie:
‘blacks, whites and asians’
‘children of American soldiers stationed in Germany whose fathers were White, and those whose fathers were Black’ (so presumably it doesn’t matter who their mother was?)
So, Autumn Wind Chick, which of the above is correct?
Or do you have a better one?
I assume you’re going entirely on skin colour, but please feel free to explain if you’re not.
My dictionary defines racism as:
- a prejudice based on a belief in the superiority of a particular race
- antagonism towards, or discrimination against, other races
- the theory that human abilities are determined by race
So if you are going on entirely on skin colour, wouldn’t that make you a racist?
I thought we’d established that there’s no correlation between race and skin colour? Now I’m baffled.
Race is based on skin color, which is one reason why it doesn’t work as a scientific definition.
Andy,
there is no scientific definition of race. (By contrast, we do have scientific theories on things like blue-eyed people and colour blindness.)
You’ll notice that Autumn Wind Chick has desperately avoided giving any definition.
Yeah, like scientists, or anyone who likes to know what they’re talking about.
Unfortunately the SDMB is about fighting ignorance, not spreading it.
There is a similar problem with measuring intelligence, but let’s take one hurdle at a time.
OK, race does not exist, because there is no way to define it.
However racists don’t need scientific definitions. They think that skin colour makes you a different person, and discriminate against certain colours.
[hijack]
Is it just me, or are people attacking AWC for something that wasn’t said or implied in the OP? I don’t seem to read anything about “what’s the proof that whites are better than blacks” in it. Perhaps she’s assuming the opposite and everyone is slamming her for something because its “expected” that anyone who brings up race must be a white bigot?
But then again, AWC hasn’t defended against any of the “racist” accusations.
It just seems to me that there is a valid question here:
"what studies are available and did any actually demonstrate anything either way to prove or disprove the idea that “races/ethnic groups/culturally different people (depending on what the study looked at) vary in intelligence?”
Although most people are saying no, there is no difference, and no evidence of any sort, I think perhaps there is more flaming going on here than there is any attempt to supply links or studies to let AWC (or anyone else) read up on the subject themselves.
I am not familiar with any other threads started or commented on by the OP, but this is a fight against ingorance, not an assumption that anyone who asks a controvertial question is automatically a troll and a bigot and should therefore be ignored or flamed.
Congrats to anyone who made honest, non-biased, efforts to answer the question.
[/hijack]
And one more thing, might I point out that it wasn’t the OP who first mentioned SKIN COLOUR, but rather someone else? Perhaps no definition of race was provided so that ANY definition given in a STUDY could be used in the subsequent discussion of that study.
Or maybe I’m just bitchy today, but I’m just not seeing what everyones so upset about, and that annoys me.
Mnemosyne: Just as a point of clarification, I think the hostility towards AWC’s presumed position stems from past encounters. Although she has been more circumspect in this thread, she has made earlier, near drive-by posts, that were dismissive of people that argued that race doesn’t exist. I think more than a few were a bit annoyed. So I would say that this is a reputation thing 
. Bad reps will dog you.
From of what little I’ve been able to glean of her position on this and related issues in those past threads, I disagree with her almost completely. But others here are far better at arguing this one ( a few have practically made a career of it 
), so I leave it to them most of the time.
Of course maybe AWC is changing her mind - I’ve seen a cryptic remark or two that might lead one to believe that. But frankly I’ve yet too see her be particularly forthright about the specifics of her beliefs. Though maybe I missed a thread. That does happen, occasionally 
.
- Tamerlane
Your suspicions should have been aroused by this:
So no permitted discussion of what ‘race’ or ‘intelligence’ are, then.
Despite this, the first two replies asked politely for definitions. After all, we are dedicated to fighting ignorance.
Nothing scientific was offered (though I did like flowbark’s ‘Race is what you say you are when asked what your race is’ !).
But soon it came down to studies of Whites , Blacks and Asians (these are terms used frequently by racists). Still no scientific definitions of how you tell which category anyone falls into.
And how did the studies decide what a ‘race/ethnic group/culturally different person’ was?
You see we can easily do a scientific study on blue-eyed people, US voters or poor people. Just say - anyone earning less than $10,000 a year is poor.
But there is no scientific definition of a White person. So how do we study them?
You must be kidding!
How would you react to this thread?
'What is the chemical formula of phlogiston? I know some people don’t think it exists. I agree that for those people, my question is meaningless. So there’s no need to discuss that point in this thread ’
I understood the “no point in discussing this” statement by the OP to be about not reviving the countless threads titled “is there such a thing as race among humans”. I guess I just would have prefered that people ignore how the question was worded and perhaps merely answer the answerable questions which studies are out there?What did they use to define their parameters? Did any provide any evidence either way?
Clearly, in order to conduct any study, or even ask a question about it, such terms as White, Black, Asian must be used to define the populations in question. It’s not necessarily bigotry. There ARE differences among people, be it merely skin colour, or frequency of specific genes (is there any evidence that Black people are more likely to carry the sickle cell gene? yes. Does me using the term Black make me a bigot? I don’t think so).
There does appear to be a genetic component to intelligence. Heritability of intelligence is not high, the environment is a much more significant factor, but this does not mean that there is no genetic component. Genetic differences among populations (in this case white, black or asians, to use very LOOSE definitions) do demonstrate significant differences in the expression of other genes. Perhaps the same is true for intelligence. Does heritability of the genes vary between populations? Is the variance significant?
Despite people’s continued insistence that this is a racist subject, the fact is that there might be something to learn here if anyone figures out a way to look at it objectively.
I guess I’m just playing at Devil’s Advocate a little here, but I’d like to think that maybe the OP IS reevaluating her position and would like to hear sincere responses to her questions rather than being flamed.
You’re going to hate me for this, but… Aren’t molecular formulas and models just MODELS? We don’t know everything yet. I’m sure there are people who feel current models aren’t accurate/right/whatever and would have issue with the responses you would likely get, and think they were meaningless.
Though perhaps you’re comparing the wrong things: think more about hydrogen. “Are there any significant differences in {one proton/one electron} atoms?”. Well, there’s hydrogen, deuterium and tritium. Yes, they are different, in mass and in certain properties (not that I know any details offhand). Though they do have a lot in common.
Ok, that settles it, I’m just being argumentative at this point. Carry on.
There is no evidence to support the idea that races are equal in intelligence.
All evidence indicates Asian average intelligence is the greatest, followed by White people, followed by African Americans, followed by Africans.
There is no evidence to support the idea that races are equal in intelligence.
All evidence indicates Asian average intelligence is the highest, followed by White people, followed by Blacks in Africa.
In no way does this fact have anything to do with the worth of a human being. In eyes of God,all of us are of equal value and have something to contribute.
berdollos, I hope that your last two posts were not simply anecdotal evidence, and that you have some serious evidence to back those ‘facts’ up. It’ll be interesting to see the definitions used, in the study you presumably gleaned this information from, for race and intelligence. We’d all like to be privvy to your exclusive information.