Re: IQ AND RACE. The taboo subject.
Stephen Lajoie (lajoie@eskimo.com)
Sat, 11 Feb 1995 20:03:41 GMT
In article <10FEB95.17130037@nauvax.ucc.nau.edu>,
<allison@nauvax.ucc.nau.edu> wrote:
>In a previous article, lajoie@eskimo.com (Stephen Lajoie) wrote:
>>In my first response to this thread, long ago, I stated that there was
>>serious reasons why one could not say that IQ was related to race.
>>
>>Later on, I stated that many professors are muzzled by political
>>pressure to not state the obvious; that race and IQ are correlated. I
>>knew very well that many professors will tell you they are not related in
>>public, and but admit that there is a correlation in private when they
>>felt it was safe. They fear for their jobs.
>>
>>The response to my claim was that this evidence was anecedotal. That there
>>was no proof. I remembered that there had been cases of extreme political
>>pressure put on profs who admitted the truth in public, but I couldn't
>>remember when.
>>
>>Well, the is a case in the news now. Francis Lawrence, president of
>>Rutgers university, said that SAT scores were unfair because black
>>students lacked the genetic and hereditary background needed to score
>>high on them.
>>
>>He's taken it back, he said he mispoke, he apoligized, but the clamor
>>for his firing still goes on. He is under a great deal of political
>>pressure to quit or be fired.
>>
>>This is strong evidence to support my claim that the truth is indeed
>>forbidden. Those who work in the field will not admit it because they
>>will not get government funding, and will be fired from their positions.
>
>This is absurd. Race and IQ are indeed correlated, and no one has any trouble
>admitting that.
New here, aren't you?
>But that alone does not mean that the statement (that black
>students lack the *genetic* and *hereditary* background to score highly on IQ
>or SAT tests) is true. In fact it is almost certainly false. IQ and SAT
>tests purport to measure some vague capacity to learn, but in fact what they
>mostly measure is the learning of certain kinds of information. To argue that
>this has anything to do with *intelligence* (i.e., capacity to learn) rather
>than accumulated *knowledge*, you must make the assumption that everyone
>taking the test has had equal access to the knowledge you need to pass the
>test (because if everyone had equal access to the knowledge then presumably
>those with a greater capacity to learn would learn more of it and do better on
>the test).
If you have IQ but no access to education, you score poorly on the SAT. If
you have access to education but no IQ, you score poorly on the SAT. If
you have IQ and access to education, you score well on the SAT.
>In the United States, at least, race, which is primarily a social category
>that has some basis in biological difference (but not the absolute biological
>meaning that some people attribute to it), is correlated not only with IQ
>scores, but with poverty, quality of education, and dialectical differences.
>The fact that black students in general come from poorer families, go to poorer
>schools, and often learn a dialect of English other than the one used in giving
>the tests means that, on the average, black students have much less access to
>the kinds of information needed to do well on IQ tests.
The old IQ test are not like the new IQ test. Most of these bias have
been eliminated. The differences in mean score between the "social
categories" remains.
>Despite the claims to
>the contrary, black Africans face the same problems (not to mention that the IQ
>scores attributed to Africans in The Bell Curve are invented based on scores
>from a totally different test that can't be converted to IQ scores). I wonder
>what the relative scores of black and white South Africans would be if they
>gave IQ tests in Zulu? Or what would happen in America if the test was in
>Black rather than "Standard" English (with "standard" in quotes because it is
>only standard for a portion of the population).
Humm. And if we give the test in English to Laotians, they should score a
lower mean . Dang. They score a higher mean. Gee, I guess there's a big
exception to your theory, especially since there is a lot less differences
in culture between a black American and a white American than either to a
Laotian.
>>
>>Clearly, most claims that race and IQ are not correlated are tainted by
>>this political pressure, and are invalid.
>
>More accurately, I think the claims are that neither IQ nor race have as much
>objective meaning as you think they do.
My point in this post was to show that the data is politically
suppressed. The Lawerence case clearly illustrates what happens to people
in academia who even misspeak on the subject of intelligence and race.
Even the state legislature is calling for his resignation. Clearly,
academic freedom to speak freely and objectively on this subject DOES NOT
EXIST. Those who pretend otherwise are either liars or have been living in
total isolation.
> Given this fact, the correlations that
>can be observed between IQ and race are extremely unlikely to mean that blacks
>are genetically inferior to whites. The differences in intelligence between
>humans and, say, chimpanzees, certainly have a genetic basis, and genetics may
>very well account for small differences in IQ among humans.
Yes, 60% is the number given in the book the Bell curve. Not a small
difference, as you suppose.
>There are so many
>other factors that influence IQ, though, that genetic variability is swamped by
>differences in family and educational environments and language learning
>contexts.
The data doesn't show it's swamped. Environmental factors account for 40%.
>The racial differences in intelligence are much more likely to be a
>result of these factors.
Actually, with large populations, the environmental differences tend to
even out some. Some studies done by HEW have factored out environment,
and the differences still remained.
>The very best we can say is that whatever genetic
>component there is to IQ is poorly understood, but there is little (or no)
>reason to expect it reside in racial differences.
There is every reason to believe that there are racial differences.
>Arguing this position is not an attempt to be *politically* correct, rather it
>is an attempt to be correct, period.
No data, wild assertions, opinions, and a generally feeling good feeling.
Humm. What if the world wasn't fair and the differences existed. What is
the binding force of the universe that makes the world fair? Why is it so
horrible to even entertain the theory that there are racial differences
in IQ score.
> Given the current political climate in
>the United States, I think you are very much mistaken about which position in
>this debate is most influenced by political pressure. And I think that any
>university president who would say anything as stupid and unsupported by fact
>as the president of Rutgers did is clearly incompetent to be president of a
>university. University presidents are primarily politicians and
>administrators, and have a certain responsibility to not embarrass their
>institutions or offend their donors (or students). On the other hand,
>professors say stupid things all the time (including saying things similar to
>what Lawrence said) and get away with it, so your argument that professors are
>muzzled by political pressure (and specifically liberal political pressure) is
>not supported by the recent events.
I see, we are just making a special case out of THIS professor. You want
to silence him. Shut him up. He ISN'T even even advaning the idea of
racial differences in IQ! You just want to make an example out of him...
WHY? Why are you making an example out of him if NOT to show other profs
that they will be fired even for making a slip of the tongue that would
appear to indicate that the prof doesn't support the official, government
view.
I guess you don't believe in free speech.
>
>>
>>--
>>--
>>Steve La Joie
>>lajoie@eskimo.com
>
>Jim Allison
>Northern Arizona University
--
--
Steve La Joie
lajoie@eskimo.com
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