Re: What Are the Race Deniers Denying?
Toby Cockcroft (hegeman@wchat.on.ca)
Tue, 12 Nov 1996 00:54:24 -0400
In article <5629u0$2ng@clarknet.clark.net>, frank@clark.net () wrote:
>Ron Kephart (rkephart@osprey.unf.edu) wrote:
>: Of course, there is also a problem with the whole concept of "IQ" and
>: the notion that it represents anything more than performance on a test
>: which happens to be called an "IQ Test."
>
>I'm not sure the readers here understand what an IQ test is. An IQ test
>has a bunch of questions, such as "Apple is to fruit as hamburger is to ?"
>There are questions of greater and greater difficulty, and the point of
>the test is to find out where the cut off point of the testee is. He can
>answer questions up to a certain level of difficulty and not beyond.
Sorry your wrong again Frank.
IQ tests aren't as value free as you would like us, and others, to
beleive. I would like to refer you to the work done by the eminent
linguist Labov (1969 "The Logic of Non-standard English" IN 1972
_Language and Social Context_ edited by Pier Paolo Giglioli) in which he
refutes the notion that IQ tests have anything to do with intelligence.
Rather, IQ test serve to test cultural knowledge and Anglo forms of
speech. The questions are phrased in ways that are typically Anglo middle
class language and reflect cultural knowns that are European in origin.
IQ questions have to this point assumed to be value neutral but recent
studies (forgive me if I don't have them on hand right now) have shown
this to not be the case. IQ test were originally introduced in societies
(Europe: namely France and England) with a much higher degree of shared
culture, these same tests were then transposed on to the American
population and have prooved to be disasterous, not only have they served
to maintain states of disadvantage for poorer populations but they have
served as ammunition for bigots and racists.
I must stop here and just speak my mind for a moment. I quite
dissappointed with you Frank for someone who claims to be an intellectual
you have shown a profound ignorance of both biology/genetics and of
culture. You carry yourself as some sort of authority attempting to
enlighten the members of alt.anthropology yet these omissions on your part
lead me to beleive that you have little or no education at all and that
your arguments are based not in science or knowledge but in 'just so'
notions of how the world works. Your understanding of science is poor as
is you knowledge of culture (ideational material) I reccomend that you
begin reading some serious academics and listen a little harder to the
words that the people of alt.anthropology are saying. You have been
refuted on many an occasion and yet you have learned nothing but like a
parrot or a scratched record keep repeating the same line over and over
again. I don't beleive in the hopeless case but you don't seem to be
improving and that has me worried.
Toby
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Toby R. G. Cockcroft MA (in progress)
Dept. Of Anthropology
Univerity of Western Ontario
London, Ontario
Canada
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