Thread: The old common argument...

Hello everybody. I am new here. I am not in science field, i have no scientific knowledge at all. So my questions are for getting more knowledge and not to be ironice or to pretend to be a smart person.

Well, my question is the classical black race intelligent question. I do not care about what white people say, i do not care about what black people say. I care only about what scientists say.

Of course, i know that black people do not have the same opportunities to success. Whites are more possible to access higher knowledge. Furthermore, success does not always goes with high IQ.
The only thing i want to know is about the cold scientific liable results.



P.S. Notice that i am white and possibly with lower IQ than a many and many black people and other white people.

This topic has recently been discussed, so i'm not sure if anyone has the stomach for another round.

http://www.thescienceforum.com/viewt...=asc&start=240

But if others are willing i'd discuss it again.

The data shows that when raised in similar/identical environments (i.e a certain city) under similar/identical conditions (i.e financial condition of family) there is no significant difference between whites and blacks. I'm sorry I don't have an article to back this up, it's something that stuck with me after I learned it in 1st year sociology.

However, there are a set of confounding variables. Some people are simply more able to learn. Some people have ADD. Some people learn in different ways.

Testing intelligence is not easy, since there can be many types of intelligence. One could be a musical genius, but cannot wrap their head around biochemistry. It's safe to say Chopin was not much of a mathematician or scientist, but would you deny that he was a genius? At the same time, I doubt Hawking can write a symphony, yet we all know of his vast intellect.

Testing intelligence is not easy.

I'm not positive about this, but I think there is only one genetic trait that difers in whites and blacks-skin color.

Hi Beard Baron, thanks for your reply. I think you involved talent here.

So, for example, if we test 1 black and 1 white who raised in the same environment , with similar levels of knowledge, is it impossible to have a simple result like "yes, white individuals are smarter" or "no, it's not true"?



P.S. I know that there are scientists who claim that blacks have lower IQ, like Dr.Watson. Are there any scientists who believe the opposite? I am not familiar with the topic.

Originally Posted by 15uliane

I'm not positive about this, but I think there is only one genetic trait that difers in whites and blacks-skin color.

There are actually a few more; sickle cell anemia (which protects against malaria) in more common in "blacks" as well as defferences in heart disease. But you can just as easily pick out a few dozen more specific traits that are more common in some populations that have nothing to do with skin color. Hairy people are more prone to this, Blondes are more prone to that, etc.

Originally Posted by mercu

Hi Beard Baron, thanks for your reply. I think you involved talent here.

So, for example, if we test 1 black and 1 white who raised in the same environment , with similar levels of knowledge, is it impossible to have a simple result like "yes, white individuals are smarter" or "no, it's not true"?

Well I am by no means a psychologist, nor a sociologist, but that's right. In your scenerio of 1 black and 1 white, it is impossible to have a simple result like "Yes, white individuals are smarter" or otherwise. We'd need a much bigger sample size than that to get any sort of reliable certainty, and with a large sample size of humans, you also get several other complicating factors.

Humans make terrible test subjects. That's why I stick to microbs. Maybe someone with some more experience in a related field can help out a little here?

People with different skin colors are not different races. Even though it's been institutionalized into our law and governmental tracking metrics, it has little to no basis or use in science. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, you will often have more in common genetically between a person with whiter skin and darker skin than you will have in common genetically with two people of nearly identical skin tones/color.

People may as well be asking if there are different intelligence levels between tall people and short people, or folks with brown eyes versus green eyes, or brown hair versus red. There is nothing causative there. For each individual, intelligence is a unique combination of genetics and experience, as well as resource availability and nutrition. It's not about skin or hair or eye color. Any trends you see tend to find in these instances tend to be much more accurately described as differences in socioeconomic status and opportunity.

I do not care about what white people say, i do not care about what black people say. I care only about what scientists say.

The majority of scientists are either white people or black people

Originally Posted by Beard Baron

The data shows that when raised in similar/identical environments (i.e a certain city) under similar/identical conditions (i.e financial condition of family) there is no significant difference between whites and blacks. I'm sorry I don't have an article to back this up, it's something that stuck with me after I learned it in 1st year sociology.

Do you think maybe the financial condition of the family could be related to their intelligence? So, this isn't really an independent variable, is it.

Originally Posted by Harold14370

Do you think maybe the financial condition of the family could be related to their intelligence? So, this isn't really an independent variable, is it.

I'm assuming based on past posts you are arguing that because intelligence is causative of wealth and black people have less of either, to take just those few wealthy/intelligent black people, such as would be required to match a study as Beard Baron described, is introducing sample bias?

For this point to be valid you need to demonstrate that intelligence is causative of wealth, and not vice versa.

how comes that nobel prize laureates in physics/chemistry are practically all white?

Originally Posted by String

how comes that nobel prize laureates in physics/chemistry are practically all white?

Nobel Prizes are rarely given for research more recent than the 80s, and black people have only been allowed to attend institutes of higher learning since the 60s, acquiring funding and posts at institutes of higher learning was even more difficult. With a few exceptions in the UK, it was pretty much impossible for black people to achieve higher learning no matter what their intelligence was.

Besides, if we want to take IQ as an indicator of potential to get a Nobel Laureate, white people score lower than East Asians, but there are still few East Asian Nobel Laureates. There is also a disproportionate number of Scandinavian Laureates, since the Nobel committee is entirely based in Sweden and Norway.

In general, Nobel Laureates come from rich countries with large populations.

ah ok, was just wondering. At any rate, the way as I see it, this 'race question' is a matter of only secondary importance, for scientific merit is all that counts..

Originally Posted by Prometheus

Originally Posted by Harold14370

Do you think maybe the financial condition of the family could be related to their intelligence? So, this isn't really an independent variable, is it.

I'm assuming based on past posts you are arguing that because intelligence is causative of wealth and black people have less of either, to take just those few wealthy/intelligent black people, such as would be required to match a study as Beard Baron described, is introducing sample bias?

For this point to be valid you need to demonstrate that intelligence is causative of wealth, and not vice versa.

Wouldn't it be up to the person doing the study to show that it is free of sample bias. Perhaps that was done, but I would be very surprised if it had. It would mean that intelligence does not help a poor person make money.