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Old 10-18-2007, 09:03 AM   #51 (permalink)
sapiens
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ustwo
So would using the males of my paternal family line which have been scientists of some kind for the last 5 generations. Which is my point, its just a limited sub group and that lots of groups of whites would differ from other whites.
The difference is that there have not been reliable differences found within "whites" other than the differences between jews and other "whites" as a group.

Quote:
I suppose I'm using IQ to represent intelligence and thats where the hang up is.
That is part of my concern. IQ is not the same as intelligence. Comparisons of general IQ scores (as a measure of Intelligence) across cultures are misleading. So, to suggest that a particular racial group has a higher or lower intelligence isn't accurate. Researchers have examined differences between self-identified racial groups in the US. Those differences are well established. Of course, the research itself is not very well received.

I generally have issues with talking about topics like this without any reference to actual studies. I don't have access to references right now, and even if I did, I'm not sure how the discussed would work. Off the top of my head, here are a few sources:

The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray is a good source of information about IQ. Of course, it is a very controversial book. A teacher and colleague of mine used to say that Herrnstein had the good fortune to die before the book was published. The book does address issues of race in one chapter, but the approach is descriptive, not prescriptive. It's also an interesting argument about whether or not IQ is affecting the social and economic structure of the US.

Jerry Waller did a study examining the effects of IQ on SES within family . I don't recall the particular reference. He computed average family IQ, looked at the IQ of children and their occupational outcomes. He found that if you are above the family average, you go up in social class. If you are below the family average, you go down in social class.

Sandra Scarr (1996) completed a transracial adoption study and looked at IQs.

Eyferth (Year?) found that that in the American army in Germany, there were illegitimate black/white and German mother children, but no IQ differences between those children. When one parent was white/1 black, if the mother was black, child IQ would be lower, if mother was white, higher child IQ.

There is some evidence from giant prenatal studies point out that ethnicity of mothers is important. Lee Willerman looked at the effect of the race of the mother on IQ in interracial (black-white) families.

Gerald Lesser studied the contribution of ethnicity to intellectual development. I don't recall the specific reference. He focused on more specific mental abilities than IQ (verbal, spatial, number, etc.) He also considered SES. He found that effect of SES on intellectual development varied dramatically by ethnicity. For example, there was a huge social class effect for African Americans, but barely any effect for Chinese. Jews, regardless of their social class or their geographic location, had the highest verbal and lowest spatial abilities. Chinese the world over had high spatial abilities and low verbal abilities.

This is a very limited representation of the research available.

A mainstream position on Intelligence can be found in this reprinted editorial submitted to the WSJ by many of the leading researchers in the field. The article is also hidden
here   click to show 


I enjoy research on IQ and intelligence. I find it interesting and I do appreciate the OP. However, I'm not that interested in race/ethnicity differences.

Last edited by sapiens; 10-18-2007 at 09:05 AM..
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