Replying to Trolls in PWI

Mmmm, education and science, all we ever needed to construct obvious moral beliefs and vanquish racist attitudes. Well, until we started using science to identify the ‘lesser’ of the world. Going to get real interesting if we identify all of the ‘intelligence alleles’ and such. And then, investigate how they show up, in what combinations, throughout the world. Castes, even racial stratification, explained by biology. What isn’t these days though, amiright?

Your own words in reference to assuming truth was directed towards the fact that we do not know if it was IQ due to culture or if it was the culture that people with such an IQ built. I negated both statements and provided reasonable prove as to why.

Futhermore, it would be scientifically neglectant for me to sit here and even agree to or consider that genetics have the majority to do with the situation going on in Africa. Regardless of the fact that people of all races have proven high competency given enough means, there are waaaaay too many outside contributing factors on the continent of Africa to claim genetics solely the responsible factor for the state of goings on.

I will agree that the formula present in Africa is a vicious cycle as you have said that will involve more than one approach created synergistically to arrive at a working solution.

[quote]Sloth wrote:
Mmmm, education and science, all we ever needed to construct obvious moral beliefs and vanquish racist attitudes. Well, until we started using science to identify the ‘lesser’ of the world. Going to get real interesting if we identify all of the ‘intelligence alleles’ and such. And then, investigate how they show up, in what combinations, throughout the world. Castes, even racial stratification, explained by biology. What isn’t these days though, amiright? [/quote]

From an ethical perspective, could we really force people to have more intelligent offspring if we could guarantee the outcome?

What this would amount to is to go into countries and treat embryos by force if necessary, because we claim that those people are just too stupid for their own good.

This could get ugly.

Also, it would amount to a genocide as defined by the UN, because it is unlikely that a culture could survive as it is with a sudden doubling of the average IQ.

[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
Your own words in reference to assuming truth was directed towards the fact that we do not know if it was IQ due to culture or if it was the culture that people with such an IQ built. I negated both statements and provided reasonable prove as to why.

Futhermore, it would be scientifically neglectant for me to sit here and even agree to or consider that genetics have the majority to do with the situation going on in Africa. Regardless of the fact that people of all races have proven high competency given enough means, there are waaaaay too many outside contributing factors on the continent of Africa to claim genetics solely the responsible factor for the state of goings on.

I will agree that the formula present in Africa is a vicious cycle as you have said that will involve more than one approach created synergistically to arrive at a working solution. [/quote]

You provided no proof whatsoever.

You provided speculations regarding the average IQ of long gone civilizations, which, given the fact that those civilizations where as poor and disease ridden as modern day Africa would indicate a rather strong genetic component if they had the same IQ as we do now.

And yes, people of all races can be quite clever, that however say nothing about the average IQ within a certain area or race, it just shows that intelligence as measured by an IQ test is somewhere on a bell curve and there always are outliers.

Also, the question remains, what if it is genetic?

Unfortunately, reality does not give a damn about what we would like to be true.

[quote]Rohnyn wrote:

[quote]Swolegasm wrote:

[quote]orion wrote:

[quote]Swolegasm wrote:

[quote]Rohnyn wrote:

[quote]The Londoner wrote:

So essentially, what you’re saying is that African people are inherently stupid?

Are you even minutely aware of how racist your comment is?[/quote]
If I had said that Eastern Europe and Latin American had business cultures that were plagued by corruption would you have said that was racist?

You drew your own conclusion from the evidence given, I did not tell you that.
I wasn’t aware ‘facts’ were racist. I thought racism was predicated on advocating the superiority of your group over others.

What I did say was that Africa is inherently fukked up and has been seemingly perpetually…what is the point of investing blood, money and oil into the place? What will be taken in return?[/quote]

You pretty much said how superior you were. By you definition that is racist.

Uhh what will be taken in return? The good of mankind? improving there quality of life, which could be argued was caused by colinisation of Africa and the slave trade in particular by america.

Plus stone age? did you ever hear of timbuktu?
[/quote]

You know whats funny?

If someone points out that at least East Asians have a higher IQ than Europeans that is not racist.

If it is pointed out that Africans, at least those below the Sahara have a significantly lower IQ that is racist.

What is also interesting is that the gap is always explained away in part that this tests are somehow favoring middle class Europeans, without going into why rice farmers in rural China seem to have no problems with that.

Also, the IQ of people in urban areas is higher than that in rural areas, what is that, urbanist?

edited[/quote]

I never argued with the IQ tests just that the tone of that guy, gave me the impression that we were talking about a sub race.[/quote]
I think you have just been mentally conditioned to refuse the cold hard facts of regional/racial reality and reacted that way until you got showed the numbers.
Far enough.[/quote]

Intersting how you changed your post.

How is the IQ issue not because of the vast amounts of people being a product of their own environment? Because of inherent and evolved culture issues? Societal idiosincrecies and obvious infrastructue lack? Your propensity to stick to your guns of “its genetics, they are genetically inferior” is clouding your arguement.

You are saying that there is no clear reason for a region statisically testing Low in IQ but ignoring the many outside factors which I have stated that has put the region in such disarray. If you brought this arguement to credible scientists you would get laughed at. Your arguement is based on speculative wonderings and no scientific proof.

Show me. Show me proof that Africans are genetically inferior to the rest of the world. So far you have provided opinion and generalization. Show me clinical research and documentation that backs up your assertions. Dude, I will break out articles and research if I have to, but it’s pretty common knowledge that the state of education in africa is economical and sociological rather than having anything to do with DNA. If I may be so bold, no offense, but your sounding kind of racist.

“The current demographic statistics constitute a
constraint. In 1990, the total population of the
continent rose to 642 million, and it is estimated at
739 million by 1995. Africa has the highest rate of
population growth in the world. Between 1985
and 1990 the rate was 2.95 percent. It is estimated
at 3.08 percent between 1995 and the year 2000.
By the year 2025, Africa is likely to have doubled
its 1992 population figure, and will house 19 percent
of the world’s total population.
This rapid population growth has implications for
school enrolment, for the number of school age
children likely to be out of school and for the number
of potential adult illiteracy. At the global level
available resources are likely to be insufficient for
the needs of the population, and there is a risk of
the majority falling into the cycle of poverty.”

This is an older study but nonetheles, not much has changed.

[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
How is the IQ issue not because of the vast amounts of people being a product of their own environment? Because of inherent and evolved culture issues? Societal idiosincrecies and obvious infrastructue lack? Your propensity to stick to your guns of “its genetics, they are genetically inferior” is clouding your arguement.

You are saying that there is no clear reason for a region statisically testing Low in IQ but ignoring the many outside factors which I have stated that has put the region in such disarray. If you brought this arguement to credible scientists you would get laughed at. Your arguement is based on speculative wonderings and no scientific proof.

Show me. Show me proof that Africans are genetically inferior to the rest of the world. So far you have provided opinion and generalization. Show me clinical research and documentation that backs up your assertions. Dude, I will break out articles and research if I have to, but it’s pretty common knowledge that the state of education in africa is economical and sociological rather than having anything to do with DNA. If I may be so bold, no offense, but your sounding kind of racist. [/quote]

I do not need to show you.

I stated the facts as far as we know and I am asking, what if it is genetic?

The truth is, we do not know, or else we could be creating geniuses by the truckload.

That is, if it was a product of environment alone.

Also, being laughed at by scientists is neither here nor there, truth is not decided by laughter.

Whatever. You clearly did not read the study, in all honesty it is fairly long, and I have not read all of it myself but many similar research quips like it in my class. Your arguement is baseless on the genetics front. What is it that we KNOW? That Africa’s current state is because of Edcational, tryannical and infrastructure lack? Yes. That is what we know. I have now discovered that this conversation is no longer based on imperical data and what it means with general research in the books, but rather circumstantial, speculative bias. On that note, im out. Have a positive day. :slight_smile:

In all honesty, BTW, you can ask “What if it is genetic?” all you want, and others can too. Unfortunetly you will arrive at the same answer. IT’s not. That would mean that many of the successful Africans from around the world who have achieved compentency and general success would have been held back by subpar genetics and there are too many AFricans/Blacks who do test high IQ wise and are competent. These people were decendents of African natives and have succeeded. Your DNA has nothing to do with region, racially, and these people are too far in number to be considered potential outliers on a statistical scale. This just further proves that we are products of our environment to a degree.

And for the record, I never said we had DNA/genetics all figured out, but when it comes to this it is pretty obvious. You can take any race from any region, and barring any mental issues you can educate them to above a 70 mentally handicaped IQ level.

[quote]Rohnyn wrote:

[quote]The Londoner wrote:

So essentially, what you’re saying is that African people are inherently stupid?

Are you even minutely aware of how racist your comment is?[/quote]
If I had said that Eastern Europe and Latin American had business cultures that were plagued by corruption would you have said that was racist?

You drew your own conclusion from the evidence given, I did not tell you that.
I wasn’t aware ‘facts’ were racist. I thought racism was predicated on advocating the superiority of your group over others.

Care to share what exactly was false or incorrect in my assertion? You have evidence that demonstrates otherwise?

You can attenmpt to discredit the validity of IQ as an accurate measure of intellect, but you cannot discredit the outcomes of the tests by region and race. These have been repeated many times to similar results.

I actually was being very racially sensitive in my community as despite the fact that the scores fall into the 70 IQ range of most subsaharan African nations, I gave them an 85 level to be functioning above the retard gradient.[/quote]

OK, if you must.

Firstly, in relation to your earlier assertion on African IQ, which was published in studies by Richard Lynn, has been rubbished by other ressearchers, as found in this article (Controversial study of African IQ levels is 'deeply flawed' | ScienceDaily), amongst others I’m sure. It doesn’t take much reading to see that Richard Lynn is widely considered a racist in the psychological community.

Interesting, also, that he considers St. Lucia, for example, to be near bottom in terms of IQ, but that tiny island of around 150,000 spawned two Nobel Prize winners, a feat which earned them the highest population:prizewinner ratio of any country on Earth for a long time. I believe they lost it last year, unfortunately. Hmm.

So your IQ assertions aren’t founded, as they are based on a flawed study by an inherently racist psychologist.

I’m naturally touchy about any person writing off Africa in the way that you mentioned, especially as I’m a black man, and pretty well educated, likely more so than you. I understand more than anybody else that Africa has some huge social issues. But come on dude. You’re saying you’d have a better time teaching dolphins to brush their teeth. That kind of tone suggests you’re trying to advocate the superiority of your own race above another…which, as a matter of fact, is racist, by your own definition.

You’re more than welcome to sharing your opinion on Africa, I’d just suggest that you stop basing your evidence for its problems on half baked studies which have already been rubbished by other psychologists, and that you drop your demeaning, clearly racist tone.

[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
In all honesty, BTW, you can ask “What if it is genetic?” all you want, and others can too. Unfortunetly you will arrive at the same answer. IT’s not. That would mean that many of the successful Africans from around the world who have achieved compentency and general success would have been held back by subpar genetics and there are too many AFricans/Blacks who do test high IQ wise and are competent. These people were decendents of African natives and have succeeded. Your DNA has nothing to do with region, racially, and these people are too far in number to be considered potential outliers on a statistical scale. This just further proves that we are products of our environment to a degree.

And for the record, I never said we had DNA/genetics all figured out, but when it comes to this it is pretty obvious. You can take any race from any region, and barring any mental issues you can educate them to above a 70 mentally handicaped IQ level. [/quote]

Excuse me, that is not an argument.

So, some people did well.

Awesome?

So?

That says nothing about average intelligence in sub Saharan Africa, that only shows that intelligence is distributed along a bell curve there too.

That is along the lines of Chinese are not smaller than Americans because one Chinese plays in the NBA.

Also, what study?

Education in Africa? That is a good documentation that education sucks in Africa, but that say little about raw intelligence.

THe document protrays the status of education in Africa which is directly related to the subject that we are talking about and proved my point that this is a product of their environment issue. You cannot say one race of people is intelligently deficient without giving them the same means to achieve success that the rest of the world has.

Your counterpoint of the one Chinese playing in the NBA is not a good analogy to our coversation. Because, well, there are MILLIONS of BLACKS AROUND THE WORLD who are educated and successful! LMAO @ some people. Some people equals millions in your book. Interesting.

"If it is true that IQ tests reflect the true biological potential for learning, then we would expect two things to be true:

  1. The average score on a given IQ test for a population will not change significantly over the years (except over a very long time, in which evolution could play a factor)
  2. The average score of individuals will not change much

Both of these expectations turn out to be patently false. The average IQ of young people in the US is actually skyrocketing – about 10 points average increase in 30 years. Basically put, if you give the exact same IQ test to a kid today that was given to kids in the 60’s, on average the modern kid will do 10% better. Black kids today are scoring the same as white kids in the 60’s and test administrators keep having to make the test harder and harder to keep the average at 100. This IQ drift is known as the “Flynn Effect”, and it is happening almost all over the world. Scientists are baffled and are struggling to explain it. One of the big theories is actually that the emergence of neurologically stimulating video games is fueling the spike, or perhaps it is the information deluge that came with the internet. In any case, the Flynn Effect is dramatic proof that the IQ is in a very large part determined by the environment in which the child is raised.

Further evidence is demonstrated by the fluctuations of individuals. On average, when you take a child and put them into an impoverished home, their IQ inexplicably drops. Similarly, when you take a child and put them into a wealthy home, it raises. There are probably a myriad of psychological reasons this occurs, but the point is that it happens and cannot be ignored.

Finally, the IQ test is fairly widely considered by psychologists to have class and cultural biases. I remember when I was administered the IQ test in elementary school. For one section I was asked to pronounce a list of words. Any word I pronounced incorrectly was taken off my score. Obviously wealthy children will be exposed to a more high brow vocabulary on average, as well as the proper ways to pronounce the words.

So if someone tells you that there is scientific proof that black people are dumb, they are full of shit. What is more defensible surprisingly is that video games can make your kids dramatically more intelligent. When I have kids, I’m going to buy them an X-Box." - Deuce, Modern GHANA publication.

[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
THe document protrays the status of education in Africa which is directly related to the subject that we are talking about and proved my point that this is a product of their environment issue. You cannot say one race of people is intelligently deficient without giving them the same means to achieve success that the rest of the world has.

Your counterpoint of the one Chinese playing in the NBA is not a good analogy to our coversation. Because, well, there are MILLIONS of BLACKS AROUND THE WORLD who are educated and successful! LMAO @ some people. Some people equals millions in your book. Interesting. [/quote]

Yes they do, if there are hundreds of millions more that do not.

Let us say that there are 5 million people that do well, from what sample of people whatever.

If that sample contains 500 million people or more, those people are 1% or less.

Case in point there are probably millions of hyyyyooooge Chinese, there also are one billion Chinese.

It does not help your argument, though it is interesting that you go from anecdotal to hyperbole even though you pride yourself in being scientific.

Also, lack of eduction proves no such thing, IQ measurements are quite stable over time, and I would assume that a 6 year old lacks quite a bit of education.

Alas, as he gets older and presumably smarter he does not tend to get relatively more intelligent.

edit: also, you are drawing “blacks” into this. Not only is that RACIST !!!11!!, but also not the point I am making.

Northern Africans who are not exactly blond and blue eyed either seem to be doing quit well on those tests.

So, you would need to line up quite a lot of professors or some such that are descendants of sub Saharan Africans, which is incidentally also something you cannot possibly know.

[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
"If it is true that IQ tests reflect the true biological potential for learning, then we would expect two things to be true:

  1. The average score on a given IQ test for a population will not change significantly over the years (except over a very long time, in which evolution could play a factor)
  2. The average score of individuals will not change much

Both of these expectations turn out to be patently false. The average IQ of young people in the US is actually skyrocketing – about 10 points average increase in 30 years. Basically put, if you give the exact same IQ test to a kid today that was given to kids in the 60’s, on average the modern kid will do 10% better. Black kids today are scoring the same as white kids in the 60’s and test administrators keep having to make the test harder and harder to keep the average at 100. This IQ drift is known as the “Flynn Effect”, and it is happening almost all over the world. Scientists are baffled and are struggling to explain it. One of the big theories is actually that the emergence of neurologically stimulating video games is fueling the spike, or perhaps it is the information deluge that came with the internet. In any case, the Flynn Effect is dramatic proof that the IQ is in a very large part determined by the environment in which the child is raised.

Further evidence is demonstrated by the fluctuations of individuals. On average, when you take a child and put them into an impoverished home, their IQ inexplicably drops. Similarly, when you take a child and put them into a wealthy home, it raises. There are probably a myriad of psychological reasons this occurs, but the point is that it happens and cannot be ignored.

Finally, the IQ test is fairly widely considered by psychologists to have class and cultural biases. I remember when I was administered the IQ test in elementary school. For one section I was asked to pronounce a list of words. Any word I pronounced incorrectly was taken off my score. Obviously wealthy children will be exposed to a more high brow vocabulary on average, as well as the proper ways to pronounce the words.

So if someone tells you that there is scientific proof that black people are dumb, they are full of shit. What is more defensible surprisingly is that video games can make your kids dramatically more intelligent. When I have kids, I’m going to buy them an X-Box." - Deuce, Modern GHANA publication.
[/quote]

And yet, when you do these tests as culturally neutral as you possibly can, the differences do not disappear.

Also, the Flynn effect counts for 3 IQ points a decade, which is nice I guess, but not only does that say nothing about the relative intelligence compared to other countries, because those countries experience the very same effect, it is also highly unlikely that a relatively marginal effect explains a population average that is two whole standard deviations below the norm.

If we waited for the Flynn effect to raise the IQ of the average sub Saharan African we would have to wait a whopping 100 years for it to rise to the world average and that is assuming that it would not continue to raise it there also.

Also, if the Flynn effect is in part or wholly caused by increased urbanization and a subsequent selective pressure to become more intelligent it would actually also point in the direction of a strong genetic component.

Because we know for example that a lot of Asians cannot digest milk beyond childhood.

Europeans and Africans can, it is a neoteny, a childhood trait prolonged into adulthood and how much lactose you produce for how long is of course genetically determined.

Also, Asians, Europeans and Africans are relatively immune to diseases that wiped out whole Indian tribes, because we were exposed to them longer than they were and those people who survived and produced offspring did possess immune system who did not think that measles was such a big deal.

Which incidentally, is also genetic.

Gluten intolerance and celiac disease are more prevalent in populations that were exposed to gluten containing grains later than other people, Aborigines and the Inuit break apart when they are exposed to the standard Western diet.

So, culture has formed us in many ways, right down to the genetic level, but it is totally out of the question that it raised the intelligence of people that were longer exposed to it too?

Like, really?

You are asking a population to test high on a test that is rudemented in western/Euro standards and compare them to the rest of the world. The majority of these people don’t even know what IQ means. That has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with provided education.

You’re not even willing to acknowledge the socioeconomic struggles that Africa faces that the rest of the world doesn’t to a certain degree. Dude, you are free to carry your own opinions, because no matter what I say, or the evidence I provide, you will still be deep rooted in your discriminatory bias. Have a nice day.

[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
Dude, you are free to carry your own opinions, because no matter what I say, or the evidence I provide, you will still be deep rooted in your discriminatory bias. Have a nice day.[/quote]

That is blatant nonsense.

You have provided no evidence, a few anecdotes and a heavy dose of “what ought not be cannot possibly be”.

Also, I would like you to point out my bias, I have none.

I dont care either way, but your way of “arguing” makes me highly suspicious of your “scientific” mind set.

If that is how you plan to carry out studies, just spend the allotted money on hookers and blow and write what you wanted to believe in the first place.

[quote]FrozenNinja wrote:
You are asking a population to test high on a test that is rudemented in western/Euro standards and compare them to the rest of the world. The majority of these people don’t even know what IQ means. That has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with provided education. You’re not even willing to acknowledge the socioeconomic struggles that Africa faces that the rest of the world doesn’t to a certain degree. Dude, you are free to carry your own opinions, because no matter what I say, or the evidence I provide, you will still be deep rooted in your discriminatory bias. Have a nice day.[/quote]

I acknowledge it plenty, I am just saying that your point that “socioeconomic struggles” explain differences in intelligence is an unproven and quite possibly unfalsifiable assumption.

Whether someone “knows” what IQ means is largely irrelevant when he is asked to continue patterns on a chart.

Also, you are backpedaling, because I seem to remember that there were quite a few civilizations that were quite clever according to you and I doubt that the “socioeconomic struggles” of ancient Greece were somehow less challenging than those of modern day Africa.

How you could possibly know anything about the average intellect of long gone cultures remains a mystery to me, but hey, maybe you are the Tiribulus of “science”, you know because you have been touched by the SCIENCE and anyone who has not yet seen the LIGHT will never go to heaven…

No wait, that was the other one, anyone who has not yet seen the light will be “laughed at by scientists”.

Maybe they will point their finger and make farting noises too?