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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: 2) by inertnet on Thursday November 02 2017, @11:47PM (4 children)
I don't remember where I heard this theory, but I did remember it because it sounded interesting: The strategy for Europeans and Asians has for many generations been to have fewer children but raise them well (teach them important survival skills). While the strategy in Africa was to have more children, but put less effort in teaching them. Maybe because in Europe survival meant having to store or at least find food for the next winter, so more complex planning skills were required.
I heard that theory in a youtube video discussion but sadly I couldn't find it anymore, I wanted to post a link here but I'm not even sure in what language it was.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Friday November 03 2017, @12:23AM
As to the meat of your comment, this is a common meme and as often happens it's not *entirely* false. It's certainly not entirely correct Either. It originates in a comparison of certain parts of the enormous regions mentioned. It's a valid comparison for specific parts. Both Africa and Eurasia are much, much too big and 'diverse' (I hate that's become a buzzword but it's exactly the right word here) for any comparison that broad to be anything but nonsense, however.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RedBear on Friday November 03 2017, @02:53AM (2 children)
It's much simpler and less racist than that. The populations of entire continents do not actively decide on such "strategies". What happens is when the women in a culture have access to self-agency (living on their own, making their own decisions, having jobs), higher education levels and access to contraception options, and the infant mortality rate isn't 90% due to easily treatable diseases, the population growth nearly stops or even goes negative. I don't know exactly what planet you've been living on but people in Europe and Asia and the West have all been having lots of babies until fairly recently.
In other words, if you're one of those people constantly freaking out about uncontrollable overpopulation, your solution is not genocide but supporting womens' rights around the world and donating to a charity like Water.org that helps the developing world acquire access to clean water and sanitation. When girls have time to go to school and can stay in school past the onset of puberty, and most children aren't dying of simple intestinal diseases before the age of 5, overpopulation becomes a non-issue. And when you only have one or two children they tend to be treated much better.
I made a much longer post elsewhere on the page about the fact that IQ tests don't measure intelligence and how the premises being put forward in the summary are entirely bogus and racist. I won't repeat it all here. Suffice it to say that the average IQ scores of the continents are very different but the "intelligence" potential of the average individual on each continent is nearly identical within the bounds where we can measure actual intelligence. People of 100% African descent who grow up from birth in countries with modern school systems have the same IQ test results as everyone else in those cultures. If this was an actual problem with the intelligence potential of a genetic African it would be extremely obvious and all genetic Africans anywhere outside of Africa would be widely considered mentally disabled by default. Are they? Or do they work and go to school as equals right alongside those of 100% Asian and 100% European descent, achieving the same results? The continental IQ differences are a cultural and economic issue, not a genetic one, and the summary makes extremely racist conclusions. I'm disturbed that it was posted at all.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 03 2017, @03:29AM (1 child)
There's good answers to these issues in Guns, Germs, and Steel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel [wikipedia.org]
In a word, location. Location, location, location. Europeans came out on top by virtue of their ancestors starting in a better location thousands of years before. Asians also benefited from that. A further feature that turned out to be an advantage was Europe's difficult terrain that made empire building much harder than in Asia, keeping Europe fragmented into smaller states constantly competing with each other.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday November 03 2017, @10:17AM
What a bunch of plausible half-truths concealing deeply flawed assumptions.
"Europeans came out on top"
This is a huge and glaring one, and I particularly like to pick on it because both left and right seem to be about equally suckers for it.
This is the end of history meme. Like, ok, we did the race, now for the results!
Yeah, no. Whatever 'race' we're dealing with here it isn't over. This is the outlook of a historical illiterate.
Civilizations have risen and fallen and they continue to do so. Europeans are 'on top' in a few senses, at the moment, and were 'on top' in many more senses two or three hundred years ago, but there is certainly no 'came out' in perfect aspect, there is no final score. We have not come to the end of history, it's a defective concept not a real thing.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?