<p>Affirmative action is, in my opinion, neither intended to help colleges rectify past discrimination nor to promote diversity. Yes, these are its goals nominally, but they are both easily dispensed with upon closer examination. Ultimately, then, its function is to inflate and deflate acceptance rates for racial groups which tend to underperform and overperform (in terms of collegiate admissions), respectively. As long as the data presented above remain constant, I don't think that affirmative action is going anywhere.</p>
<p>By the way, please don't turn this thread into yet another affirmative action debate; keep it confined to my first question.</p>
<p>The reason for lower IQs of certain races is an interesting one. People who think all races are equal in everything will say that the tests are culturally unfair. Then we give the kids IQ tests will all mentions of white culture taken out of them, and Hispanic and black children still bomb the tests, so you figure it out.</p>
<p>I think it's because different ethnicities have more intelligence in different areas, in addition to the test being designed to test white children. But no i do not think that asian children are more intelligent than white children nor black or hispanic children less intelligent.</p>
<p>The will to learn and succeed is a big factor I'd say, you've got groups of students in high school that ditch class and do not care about college, then you have the students who strive and study.</p>
<p>Culture does have a lot to do with it as well, learning and education is emphasized in Asian cultures, but downplayed or not looked upon as "cool" in the black and Hispanic communities.</p>
<p>What about economic factors? Would that count? Like say someone sees the poor living conditions they are in and it makes them want to change that through education.</p>
<p>it depends on how this study was tested. Did they test five children from rural parts of China, or did they just go to the top universities? Did they test Black kids from inner city schools or did they go to a private school?
Statistics can't always be taken at face value. </p>
<p>Also, I find it hard to believe that Black people have a lower IQ than other ethnicities. Wasn't it the Egyptians that built pyramids? And even with that aren't there more pyramids in Sudan than Egypt? Didn't Black slaves figure out codes to trick there white masters in order to run away or even to keep their identity? </p>
<p>It's not even valid to say that IQ is genetically linked to one's race because race itself does not exist genetically. Rather use the term ethnicity. Then with that we would have examine the environment of different ethnicities. But then we would be getting into a nature vs. nurture debate.</p>
<p>I hate studies like this. It is too generalizing and doesn't make sense when you think about it. Black is a color. White is a color. Hispanic is an (i think)ethnicity. Asian is a whatever, can' even remember the term for this grouping, too tired. If you think about it, you can't group IQ like this. </p>
<p>I feel general culture or maybe nationality is the best way to group people when you are talking about IQ. It makes a lot more sense. Where do you group the millions of mixed children. Depending on how dark or light they are will depend if their put in the white or black category. If they look asian-ish they're put into the asian category.</p>
<p>If you were doing a IQ test of America you could separate it like this. Black-American, Nigerian-American, Rwandan-American,etc.,Japanese-Amercan, Chinese-American,etc.,Mexican-American, Cuban-American,etc..etc. </p>
<p>Even though this way is incomplete and people are going to find holes in it I am too lazy to go into detail on how I think it should be done. You can use your intelligence and get the general direction of where I was going and how I would deal with the problems of the system.</p>
<p>Socio-economic factors also play a big part. "Black" kids that are rich are just as "smart" as their white and asian counterparts. </p>
<p>All I know is the first post is a DEFINITE wrong way of doing it.</p>
<p>Unless we are to believe that certain races/ethnic groups are intellectually superior to other races/ethnic groups ,which is completely absurd, we have to take into account factors such as; environment, economic status etc.</p>
<p>The truth of the matter is that, in the US, Blacks/African Americans and
Hispanics are at the bottom of the totem pole academically. This is because of, for one, social issues i.e. the importance of education is not emphasised much within the typical family, also, it is common that children who are inclined towards anything remotely intellectual are perceived as "trying to act white" and particularly if they are males "acting like a girl".</p>
<p>Economic status can also be considered. The majority of African Americans and Hispanics are either working class or living below poverty level. Studies show that economic status affects academic perfomance, and academic performance often correlates with perfomance on IQ tests. Enough said.</p>
<p>Asian kids constantly outperform their white, black and hispanic couterparts because the importance of education and a great work ethic is strongly emphasised within the family, not because they are naturally more intelligent.</p>
<p>African American kids,in general, are constantly outperformed because, within most families, the importance of education is barely emphasised at all not because they are naturally less intelligent.</p>
<p>Different environmental factors caused the different ethnicity(s) to form different types of societies. Notice that the lower IQ ethnic groups come from predominantly hunter-gatherer societies (until of course, they were colonized by the agriculture based societies). Natural selection tells us that the most important characteristics that are necessary for the survival of an individual will be passed on. Intelligence is far more important (relatively) in an agricultural based society than a hunter/gatherer society.</p>
<p>Economic status does affect how one does academically. One's intelligence is tied very closely to one's economic status. It isn't that poor economic status makes people do worse academically, its that, on average, the lower one's economic status the lower one's intelligence. </p>
<p>Culture does affect the average IQ of an ethnicity, but it would have to be a long and continuous history of the same culture to affect the average IQ of the ethnicity. I remember there was an article I read on here earlier that basically stated (in the USA at least) that the higher one's IQ the greater the chance one was a virgin and lacked any sort of contact with the opposite sex. So, in terms of social interactions intelligence perhaps could be considered a hindrance. However, in many Asian cultures an arranged marriage system (used to, maybe still does depending where) exists and intelligence is considered somewhat of a hot commodity. And it has been that way for hundreds of years. What I'm insinuating here is that because the intelligence of the parents is passed on to their children usually the ethnic groups that have the greatest proportion of their intelligent members producing offspring will have their average IQ increase relatively to other ethnic groups that don't have such a system. Because this occurs over many generations, it perhaps could explain some things. However, the rebellious attitudes of today's youth is a relatively new development, but this should have little effect upon IQ tests. </p>
<p>Lastly, I fail to see why people are discussing how various ethnic groups do academically, it is off topic. Just accept that on average the more intelligent do better academically, and instead discuss whether the data is either flawed or accurate.</p>
<p>this graph is likely restricted to people living in america - thus it is useless as a predictor of racial differences unless you mean only in america</p>
<p>the assumption that all the races tried on average equally hard on the test is also there</p>
<p>plus imo lumping together all whites and all asians etc etc is kinda odd</p>
<p>We can't make any definitive conclusions now. We might be able to soon - the human genome has been sequenced so we'll finally be able to isolate QTI and correlate them with correlates of intelligence (hah, that sounds weird)</p>
<p>==
Anyhow, I do believe in some form of multiple intelligences (BUT NOT THE ONES THAT HOWARD GARDNER SAYS). The human brain did not evolve to have "musical intelligence" or "mathematical intelligence." Rather, it somehow evolved to have other functions that somehow are now applicable to music or mathematics. In any case - I'm sure that differences in brain structure do exist between races - but that African Americans have advantages that Whites or Asians don't have - advantages that traditional IQ tests don't measure (and these differences help most African Americans to live in the world - low IQs notwithstanding).</p>
<p>Are IQ tests culturally biased? There are ways to remove them and the African Americans still flunk them. The more important question is - are there properties that IQ tests aren't measuring?</p>
<p>There is a recent book on this topic by Lynn. Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. I haven't read the book, but I did read a book review by Mackintosh of the University of Cambridge in the January 2007 issue of Intelligence journal. Mackintosh says that Lynn concludes that the average IQs are 105 for China, 100 for Europe, 67 for sub-Saharan Africa, 54 for San bushmen, and 62 for Australia (Indigenous Populations) because of genotypes for intelligence. Mackintosh did find some problems with Lynn's scholarship. Although he emphasized genetics, Lynn allows for some environmental influence. He claimed that, for example, sub Saharan Africans have a genotypic IQ of 80 but a phenotypic IQ of 67 because of poor nutrition and inadequate education. He concluded that the15 point gap between American blacks and whites is not environmental but is, intstead, entirely genetic. Lynn also makes some arguments about brain size and its effect on smarts. Mackintosh criticizes this but still concedes that 12% of the difference in IQ between groups could be due to cranial capacity.</p>
<p>Another thing: what are the IQ tests used for Bushmen and indigeneous populations? While IQ tests in America are not culturally biased between blacks and whites (source: Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns) - they may be biased between blacks in America and blacks in Africa</p>
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