After all, Asians on average score somewhat higher than whites in a traditional IQ test. And whites in turn score a bit higher than blacks. Do note, this very likely reflects average educational level and other factors and not race. It is very unlikely that intelligence as it is measured is hereditary only. There are numerous other factors which could explain the differences found.
Factors like culturally determined attitude towards work, socioeconomic status, health and educational differences are divided unequally between races. In fact it would be illogical if no differences would be found between races. Scottish scientists have found taller people to score higher than shorter people, on average. According to 'popular belief' some nations are not as smart as others.
There are many differences in IQ scores between countries. The primary cause is the educational level. The 'higher educated' a country is, the 'smarter' the country is. Although a lower IQ score does not in itself prevent social success, successful people do more often have a higher IQ. Read more on the hereditary aspect of intelligence or take an IQ test.
But sometime in the past century, we stopped conceptualizing the differences between the English and the Italians in terms of race. Currently, everything we know about the specific genetic variants associated with intelligence has been discovered in people of European ancestry, but because of these genetic differences between populations, applying genetic discoveries gleaned from one population to understand another turns out to be very difficult.
As we noted in our original post, Murray uses a rhetorical move to make a genetic account of the IQ gap seem more reasonable: All Harris and Murray are saying is that the difference is probably partly genetic and partly environmental, whereas their opponents insist that it is not genetic at all. Murray says:. And that's the assertion that is being made [by critics]. If you are going to be upset at The Bell Curve , you are obligated to defend the proposition that the black-white difference in IQ scores is percent environmental, and that's a very tough measure.
Scientifically, there is no method that can apportion group differences in this way, no empirical analysis that might assign IQ differences between racial groups to one or another source, much less come up with a meaningful balance between the two. There is not a single example of a group difference in any complex human behavioral trait that has been shown to be environmental or genetic, in any proportion, on the basis of scientific evidence.
Ethically, in the absence of a valid scientific methodology, speculations about innate differences between the complex behavior of groups remain just that, inseparable from the legacy of unsupported views about race and behavior that are as old as human history.
The scientific futility and dubious ethical status of the enterprise are two sides of the same coin. To convince the reader that there is no scientifically valid or ethically defensible foundation for the project of assigning group differences in complex behavior to genetic and environmental causes, I have to move the discussion in an even more uncomfortable direction.
Consider the assertion that Jews are more materialistic than non-Jews. I am Jewish, I have used a version of this example before , and I am not accusing anyone involved in this discussion of anti-Semitism. My point is to interrogate the scientific difference between assertions about blacks and assertions about Jews.
In case anyone is interested, a biological theory of Jewish behavior, by the white nationalist psychologist Kevin MacDonald, actually exists. On the other hand, if you no longer believe this old anti-Semitic trope, is it because some scientific study has been conducted showing that it is false? Materialism is an important trait in individuals, and plausibly could be an important difference between groups.
Certainly the history of the Jewish people attests to the fact that it has been considered important in groups! But the horrific recent history of false hypotheses about innate Jewish behavior helps us see how scientifically empty and morally bankrupt such ideas really are. It is, I acknowledge, a deeply complex question, both philosophically and scientifically. In fact, I will close by noting that not even the three of us are completely in agreement about it: I Turkheimer am convinced that the question is irredeemably unscientific; Nisbett accepts it as a legitimate scientific question, and thinks evidence points fairly strongly in the direction of the black-white gap being entirely environmental in origin; while Harden questions the quality of the existing evidence, but thinks more determinative data may be found in future genetic knowledge.
In a free country and a free academy, scientists can speculate about whatever they want, but their speculations should not be mistaken for a scientific consensus or a legitimate basis for social policy.
Twitter: ent3c. Kathryn Paige Harden kph3k is associate professor in the department of psychology at the University of Texas Austin. Richard E. Nisbett is the Theodore M. Newcomb d istinguished university professor at the University of Michigan. If you have an idea for a piece, pitch us at thebigidea vox. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. They both offer broad caveats, like this one, from Harris: The fact that a trait is genetically transmitted in individuals does not mean that all the differences between groups or really even any of the differences between groups in that trait are also genetic in origin.
He says, for example: This is just straight biology. Murray again: There is this notion that if traits are genetically determined, that's bad, and if traits are environmentally determined, that's good, because we can do something about them if they are environmental.
Richard Nisbett: who is cherry-picking? I respond to several of those points here: Do most experts think genes make a substantial contribution to the black-white difference in intelligence? Russell Sage Foundation Russell Sage Foundation It should be noted that the data for year-olds is comparable to the data overall. Paige Harden: race and ancestry are not synonymous Our piece did not contain much information about the relationship between genetic ancestry and race, but the brief paragraph that was included motivated objections, most prominently from the author Razib Khan on his blog, Gene Expression.
In fact, he says emphasis added : Now that the genome has been sequenced and so much has been learned since it has been sequenced, the whole discussion of ethnicity-slash-race is being conducted at a much higher level of sophistication. Delivered Fridays. Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox for a welcome email. Email required. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy. For more newsletters, check out our newsletters page.
The Latest. Why movies tilt the camera like this By Marie Cascione. Soul food and the stories it tells about America By Jamil Smith. The Taliban, explained By Sam Ellis. Although it is often discussed as if it is. It does measure, albeit imperfectly, how well one has mastered certain intellectual skills such as literacy and the ability to analyze and use basic math.
People who do this less well than others may have intellectual deficits or they may be suffering from poor educational exposure, trauma, poisoning or even from poverty. So IQ is a useful metric for perceiving such limitations, but NOT for discerning that one has a genetic or permanent intellectual decrease: unfortunately it is routinely interpreted in this manner to claim the innately lower intelligence of dark-skinned people.
The number of gifted African American children in the district soared 80 percent, and that of gifted Hispanic children immediately skyrocketed percent. However not all Asians are accorded high scores, and the higher scores are use to reinforce the model minority myth— and to demonize Asians. The average gap between African American and white IQs is narrowing, which some ascribe to greater access to higher education but more study is needed to understand it.
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