Could Lower Intelligence Be No Accident?

It runs into similar issues as IQ tests regarding bias. Also, I'd be willing to argue many people don't hit their intellectual peak at 16-17 years of age.

 

True story

 

conversely, the opposite is true , as well.

 

biased how exactly? you either learned the material or you didn't. i agree with you though about people not being at their intellectual peak whentheir that young, even still, i think scores definitely reflect a persons intellectual aptitude.

 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2010/06/21/sat


I've just passingly heard these assertions before, it's not something I've thoroughly researched(although I heard about this before I heard about issues with IQ tests) and haven't read the abstract linked in the article actually but I think the general crux of the arguments are that some of the terminology used and the way questions are phrased on the SAT's is such that white students are more likely to be familiar with it compared to black students.

 

@guerillabedlam:

this sounds about right. im feeling a bit tired after not sleeping very well last night and using what little intellectual energy i had today on a programming assignment so i dont have much to add right now. that quote pretty much reflects what i would have said anyway. People aren't equal, thats just a fact. People vary in intellgence, and other ways, for various and numerous reasons and some people score better on tests. We dont have to necessarily like this, but we shouldnt lie to ourselves and pretend that every human being on this planet is equal in intellect, or that everyone has equal opportunityto the same quality of education. We need to admit this already, so that we can come up with working solutions to our social problems. "Our current problems will never be solved by using the same reasoning used when we created them", to paraphrase Einstein. To effectively solve any problem, you have to first know what the problem really is so you can then craft a solution; by ignoring what the real problem is you end up just running in circles around it. Really, we'd rather have an elegant and efficient solution than some sloppy duct tape and super-glue kludge.

...and i said i wasnt gonna add my two cents.

 

I don't really have an opinion on bias of SAT tests, just pointing out that some view it as such.

I do think intelligence is multi-faceted however, so none of these traditional intelligence tests are going to account for say physical intelligence or emotional intelligence. Conversely, I think if there are tests developed for those, they are likely to neglect other forms of intelligence. So not only are people varied but so is intelligence, some may draw inspiration from Albert Einstein, some may draw inspiration from their favorite superstar athlete(s) who hold camps for kids and donates to charities in the offseason.

While we can acknowledge differences in people, I think all these forms of intelligence should be cultivated equally.

 

The world is filled with many Paradoxes

http://www.drmartens.com/us/store-locator

And while this is a popular meme,




At least Forrest Gump's Mama really did say that in the Movie.

 

The Abecedarian Project took African American kids from very poor families on welfare and "provided educational child care and high-quality preschool from age 0-5 to children from very disadvantaged backgrounds. The child care and preschool were provided on a full-day, year-round basis; had a low teacher-child ratio (ranging from 1:3 for infants to 1:6 for 5-year-olds); and used a systematic curriculum of “educational games” emphasizing language development and cognitive skills. The average annual cost of the intervention was approximately $18,000 per child (in 2013 dollars)."

Compared to the control group, Abecedarian group members –

• Were 42% more likely to have been employed for at least 16 of the 24 months preceding the age-30 follow-up (75.0% of the Abecedarian group vs. 53.0% of the control group).

But that's really the only notable benefit observed at age 30.

The study found no statistically significant effects on high school graduation rates, income, type of employment, marital status, mental or physical health, criminal activity, or substance use. The non-significant effects on high school graduation, income, type of employment, and marital status tended to favor the Abecedarian group. There was no clear pattern of effects – positive or negative – on the other outcomes.

http://evidencebasedprograms.org/1366-2/abecedarian-project

They had similar types of employment and income despite the extraordinary attempts to set them up for success by priming them for success from as early an age as possible. I imagine they performed similarily badly on their standardized tests. The fact is, intelligence is extremely herditary, nearly as much so as height. You become closer and closer to your parents height as you get older and older. Same with intelligence, it just so happens that black people do no grow to great mental heights. They develop faster than whites and asians. They peak earlier than whites and asians.




"Culturally biased" is a cop-out. Get wrecked by the evidence.

 

I'm half a foot taller than my Mom and Dad, so height was probably not the best example if this response was particularly aimed at persuading me.


This is a repost from MeAgain in a different thread regarding IQ and hereditary. The stats of which I found interesting and relevant enough for a repost...

 

I can't help it if you're persuaded by anecdotal, isolated examples. That's not logical though. Embrace statistics.

I wish you kept reading, because MeAgain cherry picked the data, and cited irrelevant data. Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. I posted this in response.

"Various studies have found the heritability of IQ to be between 0.7 and 0.8 in adults and 0.45 in childhood in the United States.[6][9][19] It may seem reasonable to expect that genetic influences on traits like IQ should become less important as one gains experiences with age. However, that the opposite occurs is well documented. Heritability measures in infancy are as low as 0.2, around 0.4 in middle childhood, and as high as 0.8 in adulthood.[10][20]
In 2006, The New York Times Magazine listed about three quarters as a figure held by the majority of studies,[21] while a 2004 meta-analysis of reports in Current Directions in Psychological Science gave an overall estimate of around .85 for 18-year-olds and older.[10]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

 

I do embrace statistics, I just posted some...

I may have been more objective minded to your post of that study, if I wasn't quoted and it didn't have the clearly emotional appeal of exponential increase in font size at the end.

 

I get motivated by competition / debate. It's nothing personal, and I appreciate your posts.

The statistics you posted skirt around adult IQ being inherited at a clip of 0.75-0.85.

 

I find the conspiracy preposterous. It's such a bad idea, to decrease your population's intelligence. The conspirators will end up doomed themselves because they turned the guy who could have saved their lives into a dullard. The next Einstein is out there somewhere. Or he could be. People are problem solvers, and you need diversity in order to create the inner drive that solves real problems.

So I really doubt that the people in power want us all to be dumb as hell. Surely they realize that for millennia it has always been people who have solved problems and advanced the human race. Maybe they didn't figure that out, but at least we'll get the last laugh.

 

MeAgain my takeaway is that intelligence was barely increased if at all. These people may have had more work ethic instilled, but they did not accel and fill high tech jobs. Their income was not improved. Their occupations were the in line with the control group.

This was a concerted effort to give insane amounts of expert attention to underprivileged children. If anyone could be anything they wanted with the proper guidance, if egalitarianism held true, we should have seen computer coders and scientists and mathematicians and physicists coming out of this program. But graduates of the program did not differ from the control group in any monumental way whatsoever. Giving the maximum amount of aid to set these kids up for success resulted in a 4 point IQ increase. The average black IQ is 85 so all that attention helped these kids climb to 89. The egalitarian notion of "we are all blank slates, capable of whatever we put our minds to" is unfortunately, and unrealistic fantasy.

 

whats your opinion of jacque fresco's (from the venus project) idea that if we were in an intellectually and technologically advanced society where we valued education and knowledge over materialism, the overall IQ of (or over-all knowledge) would increase exponentially because there would be less social hurdles holding us back.

(maybe racism is still one of those things.)

 

the reason why i ask is because i think that would be a better setting to actually test "The egalitarian notion of 'we are all blank slates, capable of whatever we put our minds to'".