by kabu » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 15:34:50
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '
')Good article. Time to squirm again...
Carlhole, as someone who's studied enough to
know that there is no evidence pointing to a
causative relationship between skin colour and IQ, I see nothing in that article that makes me want to squirm. Well... except for references to "God's will" and "our Creator," at the end!
Parts of it are poorly researched and thought out, but other parts are modest, and well presented. A couple passages were just downright entertaining: "Remember, these are averages, and all groups overlap. You can't deduce an individual's intelligence from her ethnicity. The only thing you can reasonably infer is that anyone who presumes to rate your IQ based on the color of your skin is probably dumber than you are," and "whitey does not come out on top. If you came here looking for material for your Aryan supremacy Web site, sorry. Stratifying the world by racial IQ will leave your volk in the dust. You might want to think about marrying a nice Jewish girl from Hong Kong. Or maybe reconsider that whole stratification idea."
The one blog that the writer believes is backing him up on a few of his generalizations actually comes quite short of it. Unfortunately journalists can't think much more critically than their readers, so that's to be expected.
Some of the rhetorical questions asked by the writer were just ignorant. You can tell the writer is completely unaware of the power of expectations. I took a few psych courses, so I'm not. Actually I remembering going over one study- a great one- double-blind one- that was considered "unethical" by many- that proves there's a HUGE connection between IQ gains and teachers' expectations (it involved the researchers falsifying the "IQ scores" of an "IQ test" and then delivering them to all the teachers- great stuff). Stereotypes are the biggest problem in all of this, BY FAR. That dumb fuck of a scientist couldn't present himself critically and responsibly. That's why he was ridiculed by the scientific establishment, and bullied into retirement, in disgrace.
Anyway, "general intelligence" is highly overrated, and we've got a lot more to worry about in the face of peakoil!