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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 looorg on Thursday November 02 2017, @08:07PM
IQ is real. There is something that can be measured. There shouldn't be any doubt about that. That said it still somewhat open to debate whatever it is good for or what it is that is actually being measured. Also a high IQ is not some golden ticket to success, there are a lot of high IQ people out there that are still dumb as bricks when it comes to just functioning as a human being, they have average and mundane jobs and they won't amount to much in life except being average. Just having a high IQ won't magically open up new opportunities for you and make your life great. The industrialized world seem to be doing fairly great, it shouldn't really come as a surprise. Still things are kinda shitty here to in various aspects. Just not as shitty as elsewhere.
The people from Mensa really love their Ravens progressive matrices, for those that don't know what they are they are a series of figures align in a matrix where there are changes between the figures and in the end you have to pick the missing figure out of a list based upon the progression of the series of figures -- they usually start simple by changing a shape or moving a color around and then gradually become more complex as they starting doing many different adjustments at the same time. They love these things cause the claim is that they don't require any education, you don't need how to read and write or know anything about mathematics. So they should be universal as all you have to be able to do is follow the progression and fill in the blank. Like this is some kind of innate ability that can't be taught or trained. It's not really a surprise that people that live in the part of the world where they dreamed this stuff up are doing better then people in the world that have no standardized education system what so ever and just got dragged out of a jungle or desert. Interestingly it has also been concluded that people with various degrees of autism are usually scoring great at these tests.
The quick summary numbers above are almost pointless. They seem to be the result of a massive amount of meta-studies spanning anything from a few years to decades back and a wide range of different studies for different goals. Looking at the article and following the links to the data collection and having scan of it I don't think I would want to touch or use that data collection for anything. You can recalculate the numbers all you want but they seem to have forgotten the golden rule of statistics and data analysis -- SHIT IN, SHIT OUT! Some countries have a single data entry of just a few people others are from studies of trying to see if having Malaria is detrimental to your brain functions (I'm not even kidding ...) . Anyone want to take bets on China boosting their numbers? Do you think it's an average randomized selection of the entire population, or poor farmers children or kids that attend some military elite school doing the testing there? It's somewhat hard to know but I think I know where I would put my money.
That said you will probably never get rid of the taint of this being some kind of colonial and imperialistic nightmare where the kindly old researchers from Europe came down to Africa to measure skulls and the content their in and then feeling smug and superior about themselves. The cause can probably be all of the above given in the quote or any combination of one or more of them. Some could be fixed. But they won't be dealt with. There just isn't any benefit for the others to bring Africa out of their low-IQ-status. A benefit for humankind just won't matter or is reason enough.