The stats seems to make sense from the on-the-street talk about communities of East Asians settling in the country and outperforming the locals who would be South East Asians by distinction. The ongoing talk is that those of East Asian descent would be more hardworking and actually capable but given less benefits by the government as a form of control. Makes a good debate.

*I have no idea why I just shared that*

it seem not logic to me.

people born with high IQ doesn't specifically come from only one race/region. people always label chinese is good in maths, indians are good in hospitality etc but that isn't the real case, there are chinese that fail at maths.

bloodline well inheritance but a smart father and mother can still have a chance to born a retard one

nowadays there are miracle stories on very young kid that know how to play piano from just hearing the notes, writing stories out of nowhere, excel in fast mind calculation etc.

and I fully believed it is not environment affected as myself is an example rebellious kid that does the opposite that my parent expect me as. you can't really raise up and nurture your son as a doctor if he can't / not interested in it, no matter how hard you push him.

as noted this thread is better just end up as an article instead of discussion because it will be never ending revealing the human IQ

Argument 1:
Every experiment has it's own assumption, every test has it's weakness.

Say this is for example an iq test on English literature. Having people from all over the world taking this exam, and the Englishman having a better understanding and the language being their mother tongue and living in the cultural context. I would say the Englishman would score well.

Same goes to this comparison of IQ (btw wiki is not a good source). One group may answer according to their cultural perspective/ logic and the others may have applied theirs. If the East Asian, westerners and etc was to take an iq test by the bushmen. I would bet the bushmen would give them a low score as they don't see things in their logic.

Conclusion 1:Hence i would say that everyman is smart in their own arena.

But wait i have another thought, This is what the researchers call Spurious effect

Argument 2:
What i am arguing is Race and IQ is a spurious effect. The other factor to connect the dote is attitude

Example: Social scientist has found out that hot weather increases car theft activities. This is true in terms of statistics the scientists collected but how does it makes sense. Going on with this study they found out that. Hot weather leads to car owners leaving their car window open and this leads to car theft.

Conclusion:
I believe the connection between Race and IQ is attitude.
Assumption:
From the above hypothesis, there are assumptions that is some race are lazier/less prone to improving their knowledge/ignorant ...etc, whilst others are hardworking/more open to challenges and improvement and etc.



Overall what i am trying to say is that every IQ test is biased and not culturally sensitive but i do agree that there is relations between Race and IQ and that is attitude.

This post has been edited by cIvIc_noob: Nov 27 2009, 11:44 PM

thats more of nurture and not nature.

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Added on November 28, 2009, 8:54 am

in genetics there is no 100% especially if you are dealing with species/sub species. an intelligent race can produce dumb individuals, dumb race can produce individuals. what is said to be observed is the mean intelligence as well as the range.

and then also theres the nature vs nurture. good natural gifts need good nurture in order for best performance. but bad natural gift will not perform well even if given nurture

This post has been edited by lin00b: Nov 28 2009, 08:54 AM

The thing that I've personally noticed is that intelligence appears to be very much rooted in the environment in which the child is brought up. The post by itchibawa kasigaru above (2nd spoiler) about his Australian Aborigine friend show exactly this.

Case 1 - Malaysian-Indians vs. UK & US Indians
I don't mean to be racist, and I hope I don't offend anybody, but a good case study would be the Indian community in Malaysia vs. the Indian communities of the United Kingdom and United States.

A majority (not all) of Malaysian-Indians today are descendants of Indians from lower socio-economic classes in India and were brought to Malaysia by the British as labourers during the years of British occupation in Malaysia. These people were given limited education beyond tapping rubber and managing estates and for the most part were allowed to dwell in their own laid-back estate lifestyle.

On the other hand, a majority of Indians living in the UK and US today are highly educated migrants who migrated to those nations armed with degrees, masters and PhDs. So when this group sets up a community in the UK and US, obviously their lifestyles differ drastically from that of the first generation Malaysian-Indians brought to Malaysia by the British.

Whereas the majority of the early generations of Malaysian-Indians brought by the British would place little importance on education and would instead focus more on paying off their debt to the British for bringing them here and surviving in a new world, the latter group (i.e. the educated migrants to UK & US) would bring up their children with a lot of emphasis on education and mental development.

So then if we do an IQ test in between the two groups, it'll hardly be surprising if the Indians in the UK and US perform much better than the Indians (again - not all!) here in Malaysia.

Case 2 - African Africans vs. British Africans
The same can be said about African-natives living in Africa (i.e. Africans) vs. Africans living in the UK (i.e. British). In the UK, the Blacks have integrated very well into the society and are pretty much indistinguishable from the Whites in terms of socio-economics. There are plenty of very wealthy Black and White Brits and there are also a fair number of poor Black and White Brits.

When we compare the African-native communities in Africa with the British black communities in the UK, it's again very obvious that the Blacks in the UK will outperform the African-natives of Africa. Again the difference between these communities is environment and emphasis on education and mental development as well as the drive to be higher up in the socio-economic ladder.

And so...
So even if genes did affect IQ in a way through some behavioural traits, the effect it has in modern days is very limited. Also we must acknowledge that the kinds of things that IQ tests test for is of little importance for the Bushmen in Africa. The only thing that an IQ test done on a Bushmen proves is that by Western standards, an African Bushmen will not fare well in a Western world order.

But at the same time, if you let the Bushmen set the questions for an IQ test of their own, all of us would fail miserably because to Bushmen, slight variations in the sand can be a sign of animal tracks a few days old, and to us it'll just seem like... well sand! So when that question pops up in the IQ test, obviously we're all going to fail, and the Bushmen will classify us as being "intellectually inadequate".





This post has been edited by DeniseLau: Nov 28 2009, 11:59 AM

What happen to the previous thread on IQ definition? My main questions to the statistics based on wiki are: How was IQ measured? What mental ability test(s) was it based on? The sample size? How did the researchers determine the subject variable: race? More specifically, what were the quotas for the participants to be eligible for this study (i.e. living in that country for n number of years?)?

Edited: Just saw it was a meta-analysis study, which should have a relatively large sample size. but meta-analysis study has its weaknesses. i.e. file-drawer effect.

Edited 2: try reading on Flynn effect, the IQ gap may not be that huge anymore

This post has been edited by creap: Nov 28 2009, 04:51 PM

whether we like it or not, there's such a thing as inherited memory through our genes... and it is all part of eveolution.. just like muscle memory, the ability to do certain things are passed on through our offsprings... so certain races has passed on better genes than others for certain reason...

I think what has been said makes sense, but here's what I think.

1. There's a difference between IQ, and knowledge we are brought up with. If one is intelligent, they will be able to learn and form new ideas from the environment. So, we cannot compare, natives and a civilized man's survivability on an island as a proper measurement. Instead we should look at universal areas which is practical for the learning and thinking process, eg. maths, reflexes, etc. because these applies either you're counting your bus fare or the number of fish caught.

2. IQ test- Though present IQ tests are the best method we have for measuring, I do not believe that IQ tests can ever be sufficient in determining ones real intelligence.

For 1, there are certain aspects of intelligence which cannot be measured like creativitiy (or have not). 2ndly, For any given area, there can actually be sub categories which we overlook. For example 1 person maybe better at multiplication, another would be good at division. And both belong to Maths. There are probably, infinite numbers of sub categories.

3rdly, Intelligence is relative to the environment, so in some cases we might need more maths, in others we may need perhaps better fine motor skills.

3. Upbringing- yes I believe upbringing plays a major role with what we can see today, with race-job preferences. But not an indicator of intelligence.

4. Race does effect our intelligence - of course not to say that one is smarter then the next, just that one maybe more inclined to excel at one area then the next. This is because, our race is basically an indicator of our parentage. And we know that intelligence can be inherited up to a certain extent. It is so, with physical traits such as dark skin peoples abilities to be able to stand under the sun for longer periods of time thus most probably the same for intelligence.

5. As to the savvants we see, which appears in all races, I believe those are anomalies. Same as why some people are borned crippled, or retarded. It is not related to race.

This post has been edited by TheDoer: Dec 17 2009, 08:59 AM

I will side with those of the view that intelligence is largely attributed to the environmental factors to which a person is exposed to. That being said a person's race has a lot to do with a person's culture, hence the slightly measurable differences in IQ test when studied based on race. Thus the results we see are not surprising as the East Asian cultures have always emphasized the importance of education for generations starting from a young age.

That being said, I might be wrong and perhaps geneticist will one day scientifically prove intelligence as being a product of our gene DNA sequences. Assuming that this happens, blatant racism would erupt with discrimination and even the possible return of eugenics.



This post has been edited by Chill4x: Dec 17 2009, 02:14 AM

It's simple. The race with the most love for wisdom is the one.

hum... Refer to my points 1 and 4
and as annariana mentioned:


Whether we like it or not, I believe race does make a difference. But note that the difference, does not mean one race is more superior than the next. So people shouldn't be using it to talk about eugenics.

Eugenics is a myth. It's like a doctor and a mechanic arguing whose smarter, but they have to accept that they can't live without one another.

It is not an ironclad guarantee but yes, in general, there will be some difference

Take an African, for example. His body has some advantages over mine, as in the muscle structure and the ability of that guy in using the muscle.

There is no need to wonder how the blacks can dance so gracefully. It comes natural to them. Like the Moonwalk from MJ, no matter how a white guy or a Japanese guy try, it just ain't the same.

But the African guy don't have ALL advantage over me. There are some advantages on my side. Maybe the ability to withstand cold (Africans are not made to tahan sejuk), for example.

So IQ wise, there ought to be a difference too.

But there is a caveat. Individual's IQ level differs. Even taking the highest IQ group in the world, the Armenians, there are some really stupid Armenians as well.

As a group, yes, there would be a difference.

If we start to mix up races, like for instance, the blacks in United States are not pure black, then it may be harder to measure the difference.

Take Barrack Obama.

If one is to measure his IQ, which group should his IQ be counted as?

The black --- from his African dad ?

The white --- from his White American mom ?

Such studies are only indicative of trends within the community and is not a direct nor accurate measurement of their intellectual capability (mainly because we have no idea what the sample size was and who they actually sampled). We must also take into account how advanced the nation is and what sort of intellectual material they are exposed to.

Obviously some obscure African tribe would appear to have far less intelligence as opposed to say, a country like Malaysia- they have to survive the desert for a living (heh, for a living, lol, pun unintended) while Malaysians like me drink teh tarik, read the newspaper and do sudoku in the morning. Of course we'll be far more superior when we take the IQ test lah. Haiyo.

And I haven't even touched upon how flawed IQ tests can be, ne...

This post has been edited by teh tarik satu: Jan 15 2010, 11:51 AM