there are racial and ethnic differences in IQ

[KKbluff]

As outlined in the book "The Bell Curve" there are racial and ethnic differences in IQ that cannot be sufficiently explained by environmental factors such as nutrition, social policy, or racism.

I havent read this monster of a book (yet), but does anyone care on elaborating a little more on this?

[bunny]

I dont think it's very clear what IQ measures (I dont think it's intelligence) but whatever it is is clearly affected by culture so I guess that would explain a difference. Not sure that it means very much though.

[Jshuttlesworth]

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I dont think it's very clear what IQ measures (I dont think it's intelligence)

[/ QUOTE ]

Care to elaborate?

[bunny]

I have never seen a very good definition of intelligence but I have seen people I consider intelligent with very poor scores. I also happen to be good at IQ tests and get a high score - but I dont consider myself very intelligent.

Another telling point (I believe) is you can read a book on "How to improve your IQ" and boost your scores fairly substantially with minimal effort - I doubt many would say you have suddenly become more intelligent though.

[Jshuttlesworth]

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I have never seen a very good definition of intelligence

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
I have seen people I consider intelligent

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If you don't know what the word "intelligent" means, how do you know when you see someone who is intelligent?

[bunny]

I think I know what it means, but I havent seen a good definition of it - nor can I provide one.

[purnell]

[ QUOTE ]
I have never seen a very good definition of intelligence but I have seen people I consider intelligent with very poor scores. I also happen to be good at IQ tests and get a high score - but I dont consider myself very intelligent.

Another telling point (I believe) is you can read a book on "How to improve your IQ" and boost your scores fairly substantially with minimal effort - I doubt many would say you have suddenly become more intelligent though.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like this definition of intelligence: "Intelligence is the ability to make and use tools to achieve one's desires" (interpreting "tools" to include reason, imagination, intuition, etc). IQ tests measure the ability to solve a few specific types of problems, and their results do not correlate well to the common notion of "success". What IQ tests measure best is the ability to score well on an IQ test, which is not a terribly useful skill in real life.

[Jshuttlesworth]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I have never seen a very good definition of intelligence but I have seen people I consider intelligent with very poor scores. I also happen to be good at IQ tests and get a high score - but I dont consider myself very intelligent.

Another telling point (I believe) is you can read a book on "How to improve your IQ" and boost your scores fairly substantially with minimal effort - I doubt many would say you have suddenly become more intelligent though.

[/ QUOTE ]

I like this definition of intelligence: "Intelligence is the ability to make and use tools to achieve one's desires" (interpreting "tools" to include reason, imagination, intuition, etc). IQ tests measure the ability to solve a few specific types of problems, and their results do not correlate well to the common notion of "success". What IQ tests measure best is the ability to score well on an IQ test, which is not a terribly useful skill in real life.

[/ QUOTE ]

As I'm sure you know, when you just change the meaning of a word to something that that word has never meant, then tests designed to measure the presence of that word based on established meanings will not do a good job of evaluating the qualities you have decided to attribute to that word.

[bunny]

[ QUOTE ]
I like this definition of intelligence: "Intelligence is the ability to make and use tools to achieve one's desires" (interpreting "tools" to include reason, imagination, intuition, etc).

[/ QUOTE ]
This feels a little inadequate (as you have assumed desires and include reason, imagination, intuition, etc within the definition). It seems to me that you may be assuming all the factors of intelligence without making them explicit which makes the definition unobjectionable but not particularly helpful in discriminating between two cases. If I asked you whether an ant is intelligent you'd need to know beforehand whether it had desires which would mean knowing if it was intelligent (perhaps - I'm just musing here)...I wonder if you've just moved the problem a little.

[Go Blue]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ#IQ_correlations

"Neither test bias nor simple differences in socioeconomic status explain the IQ differences."