Nobel Prize scientist - Black people are dumb

[surftheiop]

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/science...ace/index.html

This raises two questions in my mind,
1) Is this true?

2) Should I believe it is true because this guy obviously knows more about genetics than %99.99999 of the population?
(Similar to some of the arguements thrown around about Global Warming (this isnt a hit on global warming just making a comparision))

[TomCowley]

This isn't really something that being a geneticist qualifies you to answer. That being said, there's no particular reason to expect Africans and Europeans to test/perform the same. It's also one hell of a bitch to measure fairly because of the implicit cultural biases in testing (and who's doing the testing? Euros). If there's evidence that stands up to close scrutiny, sure, believe it, but don't believe it just because Watson said so. And expect a lot of fair and rational reporting on the subject.

[MelchyBeau]

I'd imagine part of it is due to malnutrition. If as a child you don't have enough proteins etc., this can stunt brain development. Africa has a far higher number of people who grow up essentially starving than Europe. I wouldn't base it on genetics, but on how one grows up. If one's mind is constantly stimulated (good education) and one's stomach fed, then the person has the ability to meet up to their potential. If either of these things is not true, then brain growth can be stunted

[Henry17]

There is a professor / researcher at the University of Western Ontario who also made these claims. I remember when his studies were published people freaked out and wanted him removed from the university.

[ChrisV]

[ QUOTE ]
I'd imagine part of it is due to malnutrition. If as a child you don't have enough proteins etc., this can stunt brain development. Africa has a far higher number of people who grow up essentially starving than Europe. I wouldn't base it on genetics, but on how one grows up. If one's mind is constantly stimulated (good education) and one's stomach fed, then the person has the ability to meet up to their potential. If either of these things is not true, then brain growth can be stunted

[/ QUOTE ]

These factors are always controlled for. Pretty much the sole thing that can't be completely controlled for is that being a part of, for instance, "black culture" is a disincentive to mental development. But this argument seems dubious in light of the fact that the biggest differences are found in tests which are the most abstract (more technically, the most g-loaded tests - g being the General Mental Factor) and not tests which involve things like knowledge or memory, which one would expect to be more affected by cultural environment.

[hitch1978]

I read about this today, thought it would make it here.

An interesting thing is that Asian-Americans outperformed both white and black counterparts in IQ tests.

Personally I don't see why there is any reason to believe that one group of a spicies seperated for any serious length of time (evolutionary speaking) with different diets, needs and survival mechanisms to develope cognitive ability's at the same rates or in the same areas.

Truth be told, this just shows that there is a difference in the way we measure intelligence between sample groups, but there is nothing to say that if we had a different method of testing intelligence (Maybe leaving 1000 people each genetic ancestory on 1000 identical islands for 2 months with no tools/food and measure weight loss) then the results would be different, and who knows in what way they would be different.

But it is not a surprise me to learn that different types of people perform differently to any specific test. Be that an IQ test, or a 100m sprint.

[ABM]

[ QUOTE ]
I read about this today, thought it would make it here.

An interesting thing is that Asian-Americans outperformed both white and black counterparts in IQ tests.

Personally I don't see why there is any reason to believe that one group of spicies...

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't care how hot their food is, using this term to refer to Asians is racist

[img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[ChrisV]

I have previously posted in this forum that I believe that there is an genetically-based IQ difference between races. To my mind, it would be more remarkable if there were not. There are clearly genetic advantages in other areas - for instance, blacks make better runners and whites better swimmers (just watch the next Olympics if you doubt this). However I think this:

[ QUOTE ]
He said he hoped that everyone was equal, but countered that "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true"

[/ QUOTE ]

is retarded. You would have to work with a ton of people to be sure of this, and even then, utility at work is not a good measure of IQ (it mostly measures laziness, etc).

If you want to read a concise and fairly light argument for IQ differences between races, try The Inequality Taboo, by Charles Murray, one of the authors of the notorious "The Bell Curve". (The annotated and referenced version is here).

An expert's opinion on whether something is true should definitely influence your own beliefs. However, racial IQ difference is in the domain of psychology (or "psychometrics", if you like) and statistics, not genetics.

[GoRedBirds]

[ QUOTE ]
I have previously posted in this forum that I believe that there is an genetically-based IQ difference between races. To my mind, it would be more remarkable if there were not. There are clearly genetic advantages in other areas - for instance, blacks make better runners and whites better swimmers (just watch the next Olympics if you doubt this).

[/ QUOTE ]
I saw this story and expected to run into it on here and find some good discussion (which there has been). For some reason though, I fixated on this. While I think it would be difficult to argue that there is not a genetic difference between races in ability to run fast, I think the disparity in regards to swimming can be attributed to a number of other factors. Same goes for ice hockey, golf (a couple decades ago, at least), and certain other activities in which a particular group displays disproportionate success. Can't the disparity be explained by several correlations working together that have nothing to do with genetic ability?

[jogsxyz]

[ QUOTE ]

Same goes for ice hockey, golf (a couple decades ago, at least), and certain other activities in which a particular group displays disproportionate success.

[/ QUOTE ]

Tiger Woods is only 1/4 black. The world considers him black. The blacks consider him black. Tiger does not consider himself black. He's a person of multi-ethnic
background.