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from the maybe-they-only-surveyed-the-nimnobs dept.
Why can we talk about PISA results, comparing the performance of students in school, but we are not allowed to talk about differences in IQ? Bring this subject up, and you are immediately accused of racism. And yet. And yet, if there are substantial differences in intellectual capability, might this not explain some of the world's problems?
An update of a massive "study of studies" is underway; this article summarizes the work to date, and provides links to the work in progress. A quick summary of the answers to the questions no one dares ask:
- Eastern Asia (Japan, China): IQ around 105
- Europe/North America: IQ around 98
- Middle East: IQ around 85
- Africa: IQ around 70
In the first instance, it doesn't even matter why there are differences. They may be genetic, or disease related, or nutrition related, or something else. If these differences are real (and the evidence is pretty strong that they are), then we need to deal with them. Imagine if the low IQs in Africa turn out to be fixable - what would the impact be, if we could raise the IQ of an entire continent by 30 points?!
Sticking our collective heads in the sand, because the topic is not PC, is not going to solve any problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:05PM
Dog breeds also vary in intelligence. There are variations of course but some breeds tend to be dumber than others.
In many cases an obedient trainable dog is more important and useful than a clever intelligent dog. And lots of people think an obedient trainable dog is very smart because it can be more easily trained. But some non blindly obedient dogs can be smarter than the obedient ones. They have a mind of their own.
The differences in human breeds are likely to be less distinct. But I'd be surprised (suspicious even) if there are no differences.