<p>The very fact that black people have lower IQ averages shows that IQs are not pure measures of intelligence.</p>
<p>Because if they were, why would one racial group have a higher IQ?
Since it’s genetic, that would imply the people who migrated to Europe and Asia rather than Africa at some point in human history were inherently smarter?</p>
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<p>No, it doesn’t. It’s like saying New York has a higher average IQ than LA so the test is wrong. One racial group having a substantially higher IQ means that that group is smarter (i.e. better at certain “important” tasks) overall. Sorry, that’s just the truth. </p>
<p>However, it is important to note that IQ is part environment and part genetic. To what extent it is not known. One of the problems a lot of people don’t want to think about is what if several babies of the same race were taken and grew up in the exact same environment, but had wildly different IQs?</p>
<p>pshtt. if IQs were everything, we wouldnt need the SATs/ACTs. i mean seriously why can’t college admissions be based on IQs, i think i’d do fairly well.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. It means that one racial group is better at the things IQ tests measure. What exactly that is is a much more complex debate. It could be, for example, that perception of intelligence is culturally skewed and that someone who scores highly on an IQ test wouldn’t be considered intelligent in other cultures.</p>
<p>It’s impossible to really say. It’s hard to really study this because of the possibility of a non-PC result or other impracticalities of human testing.</p>
<p>IQ is way overrated. infact, its possible to “study” before hand for the test. But for me, it has a correlation to some extend. My IQ dropped 20 points over the 6 years (from genius to border-line genius), and so has my school proformance. btw im asian, and the only reason I think we do better in IQ tests is because Asian parents start childhood education early (apprantly, I learned 2-digit multiplication when I was 4). And NO, I heavily doubt IQ tests are THAT important.</p>
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<p>Vocabulary, visual-spacial, logic, mathematical etc. I mean… we may not agree that IQ tests are that great or measure a lot, but consider the SAT. The SAT is considered less reliable than an IQ test… but we know there is a huge gap in intelligence–however you define it–between someone with a 1000/2400 compared to someone with a 2000/1000 whether or not we’re really sure what they SAT really tests.</p>
<p>I’m sorry but the idea that IQ can somehow determine a person’s capacity to learn or accomplish a task is ridiculous. At my school we a a “gifted” program for students with above average intelligence. To get in you have to take this really weird reasoning test. It was weird so I’m not going into total detail lol. I’ve been a part of this program since 5th grade and it’s funny how some of us ended up being really smart while the rest were just average in grades, SATs, etc. I don’t really get IQ because it seems to be able to predict some levels of intelligence but when it misses the mark, it’s wayyyy off.</p>
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<p>I’m definitely not saying an individual’s IQ means a whole lot or is necessarily accurate, but when large groups are so far away from each other… </p>
<p>I would wager that those who passed the firefighter’s test would have scored higher on an IQ test than those who didn’t get the promotions. :p</p>
<p>hmmmm thanks for the answers!! I also think it is good to question what an IQ test really measures. It might not be as accurate in measuring what it claims to but who knows.</p>
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<p>I think you’re missing the point. The question is not literally what it tests - that is obvious. The question is whether that is the be all and end all of intelligence. Putting aside things like emotional and social quotients, can you say that those areas are all there is to reasoning ability? In this culture perhaps (and I do agree that SAT is a decent substitute for IQ), but I don’t think it’s fair to extrapolate IQ results and say that people from other cultures are generally less intelligent.</p>
<p>ThisCouldBeHeavn makes an extremely valid point. IQ measures only three of the seven recognized cognitive centers, those being visual-spatial intelligence, verbal intelligence (linguistics), and logical mathematical intelligence. IQ does not and cannot measure musical ability, Intrapersonal and Interpersonal intelligence (awareness of one’s self and of others), Naturalistic intelligence (awareness of one’s nature or surroundings), or Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence (awareness of bodily movement and psychology). </p>
<p>The Theory of Multiple Intelligences on the other hand recognizes all of these cognitive centers. Now if a person has sub-par ability in all these centers, then I would say that there are some limitations to said person’s ability to succeed past a certain point. </p>
<p>FYI I did a science project on IQ a while back. That’s why I know all this junk LOL.</p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought (9780300123852): Keith E. Stanovich: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-Psychology/dp/030012385X]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Tests-Miss-Psychology/dp/030012385X) </p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> What Is Intelligence?: Beyond the Flynn Effect (9780521741477): James R. Flynn: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Beyond-Flynn-Effect/dp/0521741475/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/What-Intelligence-Beyond-Flynn-Effect/dp/0521741475/) </p>
<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count (9780393065053): Richard E. Nisbett: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-How-Get-Schools-Cultures/dp/0393065057/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-How-Get-Schools-Cultures/dp/0393065057/)</p>
<p>I haven’t posted on here in a while, but i find this subject interesting, so here goes (I’m kinda of rambling):</p>
<p>-Why do people always talk about multiple intelligences? It’s obvious when people are talking about intelligence, they mean the book smarts- in other words, verbal, mathematical, and visuo-spatial. </p>
<p>-But I think biggest support for IQ comes from ‘g’- that is, the well-known statistical correlation between IQ and skills in many different facets of life- ranging from standardized testing, to grades, to income, to likelihood of committing crimes. Also, IQ correlates with cranial capacity and sexual maturation rate. Pretty interesting stuff. And the differences in IQs between the races are pretty well-known; contrary to what an earlier poster said, the IQ breakdown by race is 106 for East Asians, 100 for Whites, and 85 for blacks, and 70 for Sub-Saharan Africans. Certain sub-groups, like Ashkenazi (European) Jews, average IQs as high 115, which is a pretty good explanation for the fact that Jews get 40% of Nobel Prizes. </p>
<p>-Now what exactly is the cause for the differences between races? It’s likely largely genetic. Twin studies have shown that identical twins (share 100% of genes) that have separate adoptive parents tend to have the same IQ, while fraternal twins and plain siblings under the same conditions tend to have much more loosely correlated IQs. So I think its genetic, but what do I know? I’m not a psychometrician.</p>
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<p>iq should probably be abolished.</p>
<p>in my experience no one ever has enough of it and then they just feel awful about themselves. either that or they’re arrogant dbags</p>
<p>Are we discussing the idea of IQ or the stupid, generic, inaccurate numbers spewed out by IQ tests?</p>
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<p>Another, and probably more likely, explanation could be that Jews tend to be born into greater wealth? There are dumb Jews, there are smart Jews, there are dumb Blacks, there are smart Blacks, etc. etc. These numbers you stated were probably derived from random selections of people self-reporting their race. </p>
<p>And it’s my opinion that until we have some sort of machine that can scan your brain and spit out a number (that number being your IQ), then IQs have very little relevance to me.</p>
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<p>Am I the only who thinks that an IQ test might have results like that in sub Saharan Africa for reasons other than a lack of intelligence? 40% of adult sub-Saharan Africans are illiterate (or preliterate), so that doesn’t allow for a huge portion of the population to be tested. Levels of African immigrant success are in direct and hugely noticeable contrast to the IQ scores given here, which suggests, especially considering the environment that is sub-Saharan Africa, that it’s not at all that the average African is “borderline deficient,” but rather that they live in an area that is on average much, much less developed than any of the other races. </p>
<p>I’ve seen these numbers a lot, all over the internet, but I’ve never seen much about the circumstances of the study. I just don’t get how these results can be considered to be conclusive since no (apparent) accounting for the HUGE differences in environment. Actually, in what I remember in looking at this study, and from what I just looked up to check, those groups, Africans and Australian Indigenous people, that tested as having very low IQs, numbers that were typically considered to mean “mentally ■■■■■■■■,” were obviously not mentally ■■■■■■■■ and functioned normally, bringing to light, of course, the lack of validity of the tests. It’s an issue that is often called cultural bias, but I think that word is too charged, especially because it’s pretty much impossible to make a test that is applicable to everyone in the world, so whether the test makers tried or not, some group is going to be disadvantaged.</p>
<p>It should perhaps be noted that Southern Italian immigrants in the US scored below 80 on IQ tests in the early 20th century, but improved their average scores in later decades. Obviously, Italians weren’t genetically stupid if their scores improved as their environment did. Africans and indigenous Australians aren’t genetically-predisposed to lack intelligence either. When you look at a break down of IQ scores by race, for a large part, it’s a break down of areas of origin by development.</p>
<p>millancad I agree with that. But then how vaild( or invalid) is an IQ test if it is easily influenced by unaccounted for outside factors like enviornment?</p>
<p>I’m too lazy to post a wall of text, but I agree IQ has much more to do with environment than anything else. You’re getting at the answer most psychologists these days are getting at: that IQ test is a socially, economically biased test that really doesn’t measure anything concrete. </p>
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<p>Sure… And according to the US Census Bureau of 2006, average income of all over the age 25+ in the United States.</p>
<p>Asians: $42,109 Whites: $40,422 African American: $32,021 Sub-saharan: substantially lower</p>
<p>I’m sure that educational and developmental opportunities are what creates the variety of intelligence factors recorded as “IQ”. And in relation to your original question, I’m sure that a person of average to above average intelligence CAN be a surgeon or math professor, etc. (sorry 
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<p>i’m probably a high iq person, but i’m not going to join the elitism here. this is an arbitrary and pointless discussion. life is about what you do. if someone spends 2 years studying and gets the same SAT score i got, good for that person. and sometimes the most successful scientist is the one who grinds away for 12 hrs a day/7 days a week and finally gets a break.</p>
<p>and as for the racial stuff, the human genome has been mapped out, and the findings proved that “race” is a fallacy. it doesn’t go beyond a few shared physical traits among peoples from the same region. africans and african americans have low iqs because their cultures in general don’t promote education/literacy/academics.</p>