Re: IQ AND RACE. The taboo subject.

Warren Sarle (saswss@hotellng.unx.sas.com)
Thu, 23 Feb 1995 01:43:14 GMT

In article <3if5ea$2qv@highway.LeidenUniv.nl>, ruiter@ruls41.LeidenUniv.nl (Jan-Peter de Ruiter) writes:
|> Stephen Lajoie (lajoie@eskimo.com) wrote:
|>
|> : See page 134 of _The Bell Curve_. At 2 Standard Deviations below average,
|> : there is a 26% probability of being in poverty. At 2 Standard Deviations
|> : above average, there is only a 2% probability of being in poverty.
|>
|> : Accept the obvious. Less intelligent people make less money than smart
|> : people.

On average, yes. While Stephen Lajoie does make some good points, he
needs to use more hedges such as "on average", "tend to", "in most
cases", etc. Most low-paying jobs do not require high intelligence,
teaching school being an obvious exception. Many high-paying jobs
do require high intelligence, among other things such as hard work.

|> Obvious? I think it is dead obvious that poor people score lower on
|> IQ tests than rich people. You need big money to go to school and
|> learn to score high on IQ tests!

That reasoning cannot apply to IQ tests given to pre-school-age
children. However, there are various other reasons for poor children
to tend to have lower IQs, such as prenatal care, nutrition, etc.

|> (Ever thought longer than 2 seconds about the difference between causality
|> and correlation?)
|>
|> JP

But, JP, thinking about it for 3 seconds isn't quite long enough, either.

-- 

Warren S. Sarle SAS Institute Inc. The opinions expressed here
saswss@unx.sas.com SAS Campus Drive are mine and not necessarily
(919) 677-8000 Cary, NC 27513, USA those of SAS Institute.