Malleability of intelligence: "How to Raise Our IQ"

[Arcturus]

I would like your thoughts on this.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/16/opinion/16kristof.html


How to Raise Our IQ

By Nicolas D. Kristof

Poor people have I.Q.’s significantly lower than those of rich people, and the awkward conventional wisdom has been that this is in large part a function of genetics.

After all, a series of studies seemed to indicate that I.Q. is largely inherited. Identical twins raised apart, for example, have I.Q.’s that are remarkably similar. They are even closer on average than those of fraternal twins who grow up together.

If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong. Richard Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, has just demolished this view in a superb new book, “Intelligence and How to Get It,” which also offers terrific advice for addressing poverty and inequality in America.

Professor Nisbett provides suggestions for transforming your own urchins into geniuses — praise effort more than achievement, teach delayed gratification, limit reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity — but focuses on how to raise America’s collective I.Q. That’s important, because while I.Q. doesn’t measure pure intellect — we’re not certain exactly what it does measure — differences do matter, and a higher I.Q. correlates to greater success in life.

Intelligence does seem to be highly inherited in middle-class households, and that’s the reason for the findings of the twins studies: very few impoverished kids were included in those studies. But Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia has conducted further research demonstrating that in poor and chaotic households, I.Q. is minimally the result of genetics — because everybody is held back.

“Bad environments suppress children’s I.Q.’s,” Professor Turkheimer said.

One gauge of that is that when poor children are adopted into upper-middle-class households, their I.Q.’s rise by 12 to 18 points, depending on the study. For example, a French study showed that children from poor households adopted into upper-middle-class homes averaged an I.Q. of 107 by one test and 111 by another. Their siblings who were not adopted averaged 95 on both tests.

Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on today’s I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements, Professor Nisbett says.

Good schooling correlates particularly closely to higher I.Q.’s. One indication of the importance of school is that children’s I.Q.’s drop or stagnate over the summer months when they are on vacation (particularly for kids whose parents don’t inflict books or summer programs on them).

Professor Nisbett strongly advocates intensive early childhood education because of its proven ability to raise I.Q. and improve long-term outcomes. The Milwaukee Project, for example, took African-American children considered at risk for mental retardation and assigned them randomly either to a control group that received no help or to a group that enjoyed intensive day care and education from 6 months of age until they left to enter first grade.

By age 5, the children in the program averaged an I.Q. of 110, compared with 83 for children in the control group. Even years later in adolescence, those children were still 10 points ahead in I.Q.

Professor Nisbett suggests putting less money into Head Start, which has a mixed record, and more into these intensive childhood programs. He also notes that schools in the Knowledge Is Power Program (better known as KIPP) have tested exceptionally well and favors experiments to see if they can be scaled up.

Another proven intervention is to tell junior-high-school students that I.Q. is expandable, and that their intelligence is something they can help shape. Students exposed to that idea work harder and get better grades. That’s particularly true of girls and math, apparently because some girls assume that they are genetically disadvantaged at numbers; deprived of an excuse for failure, they excel.

“Some of the things that work are very cheap,” Professor Nisbett noted. “Convincing junior-high kids that intelligence is under their control — you could argue that that should be in the junior-high curriculum right now.”

The implication of this new research on intelligence is that the economic-stimulus package should also be an intellectual-stimulus program. By my calculation, if we were to push early childhood education and bolster schools in poor neighborhoods, we just might be able to raise the United States collective I.Q. by as much as one billion points.

That should be a no-brainer.

[Count Sudoku]

I didn't read the article thoroughly but programs like Head Start only raise IQ scores temporarily. By adulthood the effects of these programs are negligible.

[Angler]

"Raising IQ" is an ill-defined notion, since intelligence tests are statistical measures and therefore imperfectly correlated with each other. I once read a study in which it was found that one in four people who take two professionally-administered IQ tests will have scores that differ on the two tests by more than 10 points, which is a lot. Although good IQ tests are designed to be correlated with a general intelligence factor, g, there remains a good deal of test-specific variance in scores. For example, some people do better on relatively easy but highly-speeded tests; others do better on generously-timed tests that are more difficult. (The latter kind of test has better validity because it removes the "personal tempo factor," as Arthur Jensen has described it. But in any case, being able to do easy problems quickly is not highly correlated with the ability to solve very difficult problems without time constraint.)

It should also be noted that some IQ tests focus more on so-called "crystallized intelligence" rather than "fluid intelligence." These are believed to be the two primary components of g. Crystallized intelligence can be described as "learned intelligence": vocabulary, math skills, reading comprehension, etc. Fluid intelligence is problem-solving ability that doesn't depend on previously-learned knowledge or skills. Fluid intelligence usually starts to decline in early adulthood, but crystallized intelligence can increase into old age if an individual keeps himself occupied with intellectual activities. The neural bases for these two kinds of intelligence have been studied using medical imaging in addition to psychometric approaches.

The amount of crystallized intelligence a person CAN acquire is genetically-determined (and is probably not truly testable in individuals), but environment and motivation still play a key role in how much of it you're going to get. So in this respect, the brain is much like a muscle: the maximum strength it can achieve is determined by genetics, but you still need to exercise it if you want it to reach that maximum strength. This was discussed in The Bell Curve in the context of declining SAT scores in the US -- the absolute number of very high scores has been declining, even in spite of the Flynn Effect. This cannot simply be blamed on more people taking the test, so the authors suggest that it may be due to the "dumbing down" of American education.

There has recently been some evidence that even fluid intelligence can be increased by training on "working memory" tasks, but I think that research is in its early stages.

[Helios Panoptes]

Fluid intelligence usually starts to decline in early adulthood

Performance starts to decline then. An alternative explanation is that sensory ability begins to deteriorate, so performance on tests of fluid intelligence does too. We would not say that someone's math skills worsened if the discrepancy were purely due to an inability to see the problems clearly. Similarly, it's not correct to say that we become less intelligent if the sole reason for worse performance is degraded visual processing. Recall that fluid-loaded tasks are highly sight-dependent compared to crystallized. For instance, compare answering a question about who wrote Faust (this is a question that I remember from the verbal section of the WAIS-III) with looking at a picture of a geometical shape, then trying to build it out of blocks (this task was found in the processing section of the WAIS-III).

Both (perception and reasoning ability) may be factors, but without taking perception into account, we risk reaching exaggerated conclusions about age-related intellectual decline.

[catfish]

"Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on today’s I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements, Professor Nisbett says."

Does anyone think its true that people in 1917 were on average of a 73 IQ? I don't believe that.

I'm not worried about IQ, I don't think its good to worry about how smart ones self is and I dont think its good for a person to try to improve their own intelligence.

[Helios Panoptes]

"Another indication of malleability is that I.Q. has risen sharply over time. Indeed, the average I.Q. of a person in 1917 would amount to only 73 on today’s I.Q. test. Half the population of 1917 would be considered mentally retarded by today’s measurements, Professor Nisbett says."

Does anyone think its true that people in 1917 were on average of a 73 IQ? I don't believe that.

The Flynn effect is 3 points per decade, 9 decades have passed since 1917, so subtract the 27 points from 100.

I would be HIGHLY interested in a comparison of our top 10% with the top 10% from 1917.

I'm not worried about IQ, I don't think its good to worry about how smart ones self is and I dont think its good for a person to try to improve their own intelligence.

Why do you say that?

[VONBLUVENS]

There does seem to be variances between tests, and a ten point increase or decrease is waaay too much.

People can improve/apply themselves (many are too lazy), but my understanding doesn't allow me to think that the IQ can be increased...that is unless we create some brain machine like that was on the movie Forbidden Planet.

[calvin]

This is just another Frankfurt School attack on the obvious truth that intelligence is mostly determined by genes. It can, naturally, be suppressed or maximised according to favourable or unfavourable environmental factors, but essentially intelligence is inherited. The Frankfurt School attacks IQ heritability, not because it cares that dumb people tend to end up poor and smart people end up financially secure, but because if they admit that this is the case they would also have to acknowledge the obvious racial disparity in intelligence and then the whole civil rights, multicult racket would come tumbling down, like it's doing anyway.

[Angler]

This is just another Frankfurt School attack on the obvious truth that intelligence is mostly determined by genes. It can, naturally, be suppressed or maximised according to favourable or unfavourable environmental factors, but essentially intelligence is inherited. The Frankfurt School attacks IQ heritability, not because it cares that dumb people tend to end up poor and smart people end up financially secure, but because if they admit that this is the case they would also have to acknowledge the obvious racial disparity in intelligence and then the whole civil rights, multicult racket would come tumbling down, like it's doing anyway.You're making too strong a statement. Studies of identical twins raised separately show that there is a substantial environmental component to intelligence -- at least if we define intelligence as actual performance on intelligence tests:

A common misinterpretation of heritability is that if genetic factors contribute to individual differences in intelligence, then education is pointless. This is incorrect because heritability is about 50%, i.e., nowhere near the point at which a given trait is completely determined by genes (100%). Many environmental factors can affect intelligence, and can do so favorably or adversely. Nongenetic influences on IQ include education, training, family environments, and – at a more basic level – nutrition and environmental hazards.
Source (PDF): http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/PDF/GT_DM_5b.pdf

However, IQ tests are still solid evidence for racial group differences in intelligence for the reason that environmental influences tend to be "smoothed out" in studies involving large numbers of people -- especially if potentially confounding factors such as socioeconomic status are controlled for in studies. For the same reason, when dealing with large numbers of people, even garden-variety achievement tests intended to measure classroom learning can be used as a surrogate for intelligence tests. It has also been shown that the less a particular test depends on learned knowledge, the greater the white-black gap.

[calvin]

"intelligence is MOSTLY determined by genes"

I'm making too strong a statement? C'mon Angler! FFS!

[Petr]

"intelligence is MOSTLY determined by genes"

I'm making too strong a statement? C'mon Angler! FFS!
Well, if the genes account "only" 50 % of the intelligence, like Angler's source says, then to say "mostly" or "essentially" is indeed a bit too strong statement.


Petr

[Angler]

"intelligence is MOSTLY determined by genes"

I'm making too strong a statement? C'mon Angler! FFS!Well, you said, "essentially intelligence is inherited." That sounded like you were minimizing the importance of environmental factors, although you did acknowledge the existence of those factors. But maybe I read you wrong.

I think some confusion can arise on this point because the definition of "intelligence" is somewhat cloudy. Does it refer to the mental abilities one has now, or does it refer to one's potential to acquire mental abilities? The latter is actually determined entirely by genetics and environmental influences on the biological functioning of the brain (conditions in the womb, nutrition, etc.). The mental abilities one has now, however, are what nearly all mental tests measure, and these can certainly be influenced by training ("crystallized intelligence"). For example, I can tell you right now that my years of training and experience in the physical sciences and mathematics has made me a MUCH better quantitative problem solver than I would have been if I had stopped taking math after calculus -- even when dealing with problems requiring only fairly basic math knowledge.

[Angler]

Here's an interesting article that seems relevant here. It's not about intelligence per se, but it does show the malleability of a certain brain function that one might expect to be stable. Sorry, I don't have a link handy -- I simply saved this article on my computer a long time ago because I thought it was interesting:

Video Games Boost Visual Skills, Study Finds
By John Roach for National Geographic News
May 28, 2003

Spending hours in front of the computer trying to single-handedly win World War II in the shoot-'em-up action video game Medal of Honor may serve more purpose than killing time.

According to a pair of researchers at the University of Rochester in New York, such action video games train the brain to better process certain visual information.

Action video gamers tend to be more attune to their surroundings while performing tasks like driving down a residential street, where they may be more likely to pick out a child running after a ball than a non-video gamer.

The research also suggests that action game playing might be a useful tool to rehabilitate visually impaired patients or to train soldiers for combat.

"It is certainly good training for people in situations where they need to detect things in their visual environment at any time in any location, like ground troops going through uncharted territory," said Daphne Bavelier, an associate professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester.

Bavelier and her graduate student Shawn Green stumbled upon this field of research while testing the visual-attention skills of deaf people as part of their on-going studies into how experiences shape the organization of the visual system.

"Shawn realized that his own visual attentional skills were abnormally good," said Bavelier. "As Shawn is an avid video game player, and definitely the only video game player of the two of us, we decided to test the hypothesis that this video game experience was the origin of the observed differences."

According to the experiments, which are reported in the May 29 issue of Nature, people who play action video games can process visual information more quickly and can track 30 percent more objects than non video game players.

"[Bavelier and Green] showed that playing action games can increase attention ability to a certain extent and that looks promising," said Alan Pope, an engineering psychologist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

Pope and his colleague Olafur Palsson, a clinical psychologist at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, have designed custom-made video games that help children with attention deficit disorder by teaching them how to control their brainwave patterns.

Collectively, said Pope, his and Palsson's research and that of Bavelier and Green shows that video games are good for something and thus should not always get a "bad rap."

Bavelier says that while her and Green's research suggests playing off-the-shelf action video games has some positive benefits, she cautions against foregoing the more traditional brain exercises of reading, writing, and arithmetic to play shoot-'em-ups on the computer.

"Balance is the essence of everything and if you spend your whole life playing [video games] you will have amazing visual skills for sure, but that will only help you if you do things in life that require visual skills," she said.

Testing Gamers

Bavelier and Green tested a group of Medal of Honor, Grand Theft Auto3, and Half-Life aficionados from the University of Rochester campus to determine if action video games enhance visual attention.

The tests, described as boring, dull, and unlike gaming itself, required that the subjects perform the same highly specialized task over and over on displays using geometrical shapes or letters.

The tests were given to gamers and non-gamers. All of the subjects were male since no qualified female game players could be located on the university campus, said Bavelier.

The first test flashed a small object on a screen for 1/160 of a second and the participant would indicate where it flashed. Inattention to the screen would cause the brain to miss the appearance of the object. Gamers tended to notice the object far more often than non gamers.

The second test presented 1 to 12 small objects on a screen at once and the subject had to type how many objects they had seen. Gamers saw the correct number of objects more often than non-gamers.

The final test flashed black letters on a screen in fast succession. One letter was white, and it may or may not have been followed by a black "X." Gamers again picked out which letter was white and whether or not an "X" followed it better than non-gamers.

"These results indicate an enhanced allocation of spatial attention over the visual field, [B]even at untrained locations[/B], in [video game players]," the researchers write in Nature.

Video Game Homework

Next, to find out if visually attentive people naturally gravitate towards action video games or if game playing itself increases certain visual attention skills, Bavelier and Green trained a selection of male and female non-game players on one of two video games.

One group was asked to play the action video game Medal of Honor for at least one hour per day for two weeks. In the game, the player is a U.S. soldier fighting against German Nazis in World War II.

"It boils down to killing as many enemy soldiers as you can and going on different missions and fulfilling missions by taking over some buildings," said Bavelier. "In the process there are a lot of one-to-one fights. You have to determine the enemy, aim at it, and shoot."

Once the test subjects got the hang of the game, Bavelier said that they enjoyed playing it quite a bit. Some trainees even reported that it was the part of the day they most looked forward to.

As a control, the other group was asked to play the puzzle-oriented game Tetris in which players have to rotate and organize blocks into lines.

To the researchers' surprise, after just two weeks the group trained on Medal of Honor showed a marked increase in their test performances, whereas the Tetris players did not.

"Action video games require effective monitoring of a large portion of the visual field in order to effectively detect multiple fast moving peripheral targets," said Bavelier. "Tetris on the other hand requires rather focused attention on the current piece as well as other higher-level processes such as mental rotation."

The researchers point out that the individuals trained on Medal of Honor did not perform nearly as well on the tests as the action video game aficionados, who reported playing at least four times per week for six months.

The amount of time needed to achieve the test scores of the aficionados is not known, but Bavelier and Green speculate that it requires significant dedication.

Anecdotal evidence from the trained gamers also suggests that the beneficial effects of gaming diminish after a month of non-gaming. Some of the trainees, however, have kept their skills honed by regularly playing action video games since they were hooked by the study.

A similar study was published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology in 1994 by Patricia Greenfield, a professor of psychology and director of the University of California at Los Angeles Children's Digital Media Center, and colleagues Patricia DeWinstanley, Heidi Kilpatrick, and Daniel Kaye.

Their study demonstrates that expert video game players had better strategies for attending to two visual targets appearing simultaneously at two locations on a screen than novice players. As well, practice playing a game helped the non players improve their visual attention skills relative to a control group that did not play the game.

Greenfield said she is surprised that Bavelier and Green did not cite the research by her and her colleagues. "We were using less visually sophisticated video games. I wonder whether the strength of the effect has gotten larger," she said.

Research Applications

Bavelier and Green suggest their research may have practical applications for helping people with visual impairments to see more normally.

In stroke patients, for example, a kind of blindness occurs in part of the visual field as a result of the brain's inattentiveness to that area. The researchers suggest that action video games may be an effective way of bringing the brain's attentiveness back.

Bavelier said that if she and Green can determine what it is about the action video games sensory overload, sense of danger, sense of reward that allows the learning they induce to be so rapid, they would like to design a video game for patients.

Greenfield agrees that video games could be an effective learning tool, but that parents and designers should pay attention to the content of the games. As an example, she says that both a violent and a non-violent game could have all the benefits outlined by Bavelier and Green.

"In the former, the player would be gaining visual skills, but also could be stimulated to be more hostile or aggressive. In the latter, the game might have its cognitive effects without any negative social impact," said Greenfield.

[Mike Jahn]

Humans being dumber in 1917 than they are today? I don't believe that at all.

IQ increases with every subsequent generation? Says who?

[Angler]

Humans being dumber in 1917 than they are today? I don't believe that at all.

IQ increases with every subsequent generation? Says who?That actually has been found to be the case, but primarily on tests that emphasize fluid intelligence (mentioned earlier in this thread), such as the Raven's Progressive Matrices. Tests emphasizing crystallized intelligence (vocabulary, reading comprehension, math skills, etc.) have either remained stable or have been declining:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

No one really knows the exact reason why raw scores on the fluid tests have been increasing. It's highly doubtful that people are that much more intelligent today, though. The fluid tests seem to be tapping into some very specific mental ability that, for whatever reason, happens to be highly correlated with general intelligence only in one's specific age group.

Interestingly, it's the fluid tests that also show the greatest black-white differences.

[calvin]

In reality you have to take into account the fact that there is a generational gap between invention and realization. It's totally obvious that today's dumbasses are living of off the creative inheritance of previous generations.

[Arcturus]

...heritability is about 50%, i.e., nowhere near the point at which a given trait is completely determined by genes (100%).

That sounds like a lowest, low-ball estimate. Depending on the study, it is typically stated as around .75, but can range from under .5 to over .9. No less a source than wikipedia says that:

Throughout the developed world, specific estimates in the academic research into the heritability of IQ have varied from relatively high, such as over 0.9 in a 1994 report, to relatively low, such as below 0.5 in a 1997 report. A 1996 statement by the American Psychological Association gave about .45 for children and about .75 during and after adolescence. A 2004 meta-analysis of reports in Current Directions in Psychological Science gave an overall estimate of around three quarters. The New York Times Magazine has also listed about three quarters as a figure held by the majority of studies.

The figure is more fluid for children and adolescents, and appears to stabilize into adulthood.

[calvin]

"heritability is about 50%,"

Pulled out of your ass.

[Angler]

That sounds like a lowest, low-ball estimate. Depending on the study, it is typically stated as around .75, but can range from under .5 to over .9.It's more complicated than that:

Heritability estimates are often misinterpreted. Heritability refers to the proportion of variation between individuals in a population that is influenced by genetic factors. Heritability describes the population, not individuals within that population. For example, it is incorrect to say that since the heritability of a personality trait is about .6, that means that 60% of your personality is inherited from your parents and 40% comes from the environment.

[Angler]

"heritability is about 50%,"

Pulled out of your ass.No, that's what the article I posted stated. It was written by professors at Yale and UCLA who are presumably experts in the field. If they were pulling numbers out of their asses, I don't think it would help their professional reputations very much.

[Frank]

I didn't read the article thoroughly but programs like Head Start only raise IQ scores temporarily. By adulthood the effects of these programs are negligible.

I think Mr. Kristoff needs to remove his hands from his pants and get into the real world. Even Arthur Jensen once stated that he could raise a childs IQ by merely entering the room and playing with him. In addition just because socially engineered children maintain higher IQ's to a later age does not mean they will maintain those IQ's for life; even Flynn's study showed that black children regressed close to the mean of 83 by age 24. In addition; one cannot draw conclusions based on child studies since child IQ's are elastic.

For these studies to have any actual validity the tests should be conducted in childhood and adulthood (Age 30 for example); if the IQ's are at the same level then one can make a solid argument.

Well, if the genes account "only" 50 % of the intelligence, like Angler's source says, then to say "mostly" or "essentially" is indeed a bit too strong statement.

Study claims IQ differences at least 50% genetic

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/7669

[Angler]

Study claims IQ differences at least 50% geneticTo be honest, an estimate of 50% does seem a bit low to me. I'm not an expert in the field, but my intuition tells me it's probably closer to 70-80%.

But let's say IQ is 80% determined by genes. 20% still leaves a lot of room for improvement or decline, depending on whether one chooses to engage in intellectually-demanding pursuits or just sit on his ass watching asinine TV shows for hours on end.

[Arcturus]

It's more complicated than that:

More complicated than what? The figure cited by that article is the lowest of a range of estimates, most of which center around .75.

Such estimates are no doubt a complicated measure of degree of heritability, but the issue is that the article is numerically understating a generally accepted value.

[Crowley]

I have a hunch that intelligence is increased in children that learn multiple languages, especially dissimilar languages like say Chinese or Hebrew.

[westie]

I have a hunch that intelligence is increased in children that learn multiple languages, especially dissimilar languages like say Chinese or Hebrew.
Theres physical evidence to suggest that the brain grows a specialised area in multi language speakers. I will try and find the study.

[Angler]

More complicated than what? The figure cited by that article is the lowest of a range of estimates, most of which center around .75.

Such estimates are no doubt a complicated measure of degree of heritability, but the issue is that the article is numerically understating a generally accepted value.First of all, I forgot to provide a link for the quote I already posted:

Heritability estimates are often misinterpreted. Heritability refers to the proportion of variation between individuals in a population that is influenced by genetic factors. Heritability describes the population, not individuals within that population. For example, it is incorrect to say that since the heritability of a personality trait is about .6, that means that 60% of your personality is inherited from your parents and 40% comes from the environment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability#Estimating_heritability

You were questioning the "50% genetic" figure on the basis of heritability estimates ranging from 0.5 to 0.9. The quote I provided explained (using a different example) that a heritability of 0.5 does not mean that 50% of an individual's intelligence is determined genetically. A heritability of 0.75 does not mean that 75% of an individual's intelligence is determined genetically. A heritability of 0.9 does not mean that 90% of an individual's intelligence is determined genetically. Do you see now? There's a difference between (1) the degree to which a trait is determined by genetics versus environment within one individual, and (2) the degree to which differences among individuals with respect to that trait are due to genetic factors. If I understand correctly, heritability only tells us the latter. But I'll admit to not having studied much statistics.

I think part of the confusion here might be due to the way the authors of the study I posted phrased their sentence:

A common misinterpretation of heritability is that if genetic factors contribute to individual differences in intelligence, then education is pointless. This is incorrect because heritability is about 50%, i.e., nowhere near the point at which a given trait is completely determined by genes (100%).
This sounds like they're talking about individuals rather than about populations. But it's kind of hard to tell.

[Brechun]

Angler, you're right- a heritability measurement is only an average of the difference of an examined trait within a population. When you say IQ is 75% genetic, that doesn't mean everyone within the measurement shows the same exact difference- it's just an average. For all the layman knows, the measurements within the average could vary widely. You'd have to get really, really deep into the psychometric literature to see all of the individual differences.

Most twin studies, however, point to an average heritability of 50% within the typical first world population.

[Tris]

Why do you say that?

There are three types of lies; 1) little lies, 2) Whoppers, 3) Statistics
Beyond formal education, I have decades of experience in application of statistical methods of analysis. It’s not too difficult to spot a duplicitous con-job who is using statistics as a stocking-horse for a personal agenda. Statistics (i.e. IQ) are only valid measures in adequately constrained situations.

To Heil, et. al.: I will stipulate to the “accuracy” of your “statistics”. The crime rate among “blacks” is disproportionately higher than among “whites”. The crime rate is also higher among tattooed white-trash white supremacists. WHAT IS YOUR POINT?


You don’t see the forest because the trees are in the way. At a macro level, injustice and discrimination echoes down through generations. Rags to riches stories are as common as hen’s teeth. The cycle of poverty is a very real causal mechanism. Blacks have been economically disadvantage from the day they arrived in USA as slaves.

“We hold as self-evident truth that all men are created equal”. This means we must act on a presumption creational equality; else we suffer the loss of domestic tranquility. You can argue against such a presumption to futility. No one can begin to prove or disprove the merits of equal creation. It is simply a presumption that is absolutely necessary for peace and domestic tranquility.

We can infer from socioeconomic and criminal statistics that a presumption of creational equality is not being made in any universal sense. Blacks are horribly disproportionate in the lowest socioeconomic classes.

[Frank]

To Heil, et. al.: I will stipulate to the “accuracy” of your “statistics”. The crime rate among “blacks” is disproportionately higher than among “whites”. The crime rate is also higher among tattooed white-trash white supremacists. WHAT IS YOUR POINT?

Lets see your statistics proving that claim please...

You don’t see the forest because the trees are in the way. At a macro level, injustice and discrimination echoes down through generations. Rags to riches stories are as common as hen’s teeth. The cycle of poverty is a very real causal mechanism. Blacks have been economically disadvantage from the day they arrived in USA as slaves.

This argument may excuse higher theft or fraud rates but I fail to see how poverty excuses higher murder rates. In addition the scientists I have quoted take into account that environment plays a role in intelligence development! However, unlike the average pseudo-intellectual, brain-dead, Obama-worshiping American liberal slithering across the landscape of that festering boil on the world map called America, they do not blindly attribute higher White IQ scores to the fact that blacks are being held down by Whitey. These scientists I quote care about truth, not telling brain-dead American liberals that the lower black IQ scores are 100% caused by evil White racists in hopes of scoring points with the "academic" liberal elite of America.

“We hold as self-evident truth that all men are created equal”.

Which is a load of crap since a man born with an IQ of 70 due to genetic mental flaws is no where close to equal to the brilliant life-saving doctor with an IQ of 170. This is a big problem with modern America; utter and total crap is accepted as gospel truth without much question.

They may be born equal under the law but they are not born equal in ability and intelligence

This means we must act on a presumption creational equality

And what American degree-mill imparted this garbage into your brain? You honestly do not expect any rational person to believe that all people are created with equal ability in either physical or mental disciplines?

else we suffer the loss of domestic tranquility. You can argue against such a presumption to futility. No one can begin to prove or disprove the merits of equal creation.

I would normally dismiss this as a joke but coming from the American Kool-Aid drinking establishment; it may be quite serious folks.

It is simply a presumption that is absolutely necessary for peace and domestic tranquility.

How come I sense a rendition of "America the Beautiful" coming up? :rolleyes:

We can infer from socioeconomic and criminal statistics that a presumption of creational equality is not being made in any universal sense. Blacks are horribly disproportionate in the lowest socioeconomic classes.

And how exactly does this load of supercilious yet nonsensical double talk negate a single point made in this debate regarding intelligence?

[Tris]

Lets see your statistics proving that claim please...

It would be childishly academic to state the disproportionately high representation of convicted felons within white-supremacy gangs such as AB. Personally, I would not be at all surprised if 100% of Aryans are convicted felons.

Also, by definition, white-supremacy groups hold that certain groups are inferior and thereby not deserving basic rights. Violation of another person’s basic rights is the definition of felonious conduct. Therefore, white-supremacy belief set places a member one act away from being a criminal. The only white-supremacists that are not criminals are those too chicken-shit to practice what they preach.

fuck your statistics.

However, since certain people introduced “race” as an indicator in intelligence, if we invoke our Constitutional presumption that ALL men are created equal, then we are left with no alternative other than the conclusion that, statistically speaking, blacks are subjected to an environment more conducive to low IQ. You are making a premise that undermines your own position.

I realize that your objective is to be self-avowed master of anyone you can exploit. Or even worse, have all the non-whites deported thereby making YOU low man on the socio-economic scale and a prime target of the exploitive paradigms you preach. You are one small minded prejudicial piece of work eh ?

And a couple others here insist on issuing propaganda cloaked as arguments for the denial of a presumption of creational equality. That shit is straight up anathema to peace and social justice. Keep it up fools, and you will find yourselves the victims of the discriminatory mind-set you sow. karma can be a bitch.

[Dances with Wolves]

We'll take our chances. It is far preferable to be the low white man on the socio-economic scale in an all white nation than to be the low white man in a land filled negros and other turd sewage, as the whites in South Africa are finding out.

BTW, can you cite for us any area occupied by Africans that reflects their intelligence and skill in building and maintaining a civilization? Your "poor niggers be oppressed" bullshit notwithstanding.

There are a lot of societal ills that need to be corrected, that's for sure. However, when people like you are swinging from overpasses and the precious muds you so feel for are off the land or under it, we'll be well on our way to creating a truly just society of Whites, by Whites and for Whites, EXCLUSIVELY.

Too bad you won't be around to participate, eh?

[Helios Panoptes]

There are three types of lies; 1) little lies, 2) Whoppers, 3) Statistics
Beyond formal education, I have decades of experience in application of statistical methods of analysis. It’s not too difficult to spot a duplicitous con-job who is using statistics as a stocking-horse for a personal agenda. Statistics (i.e. IQ) are only valid measures in adequately constrained situations.


What does that have to do with the part of my post that you've quoted? I asked Catfish why it isn't good for a person to try to increase his intelligence and you replied with the above.

[Angler]

Also, by definition, white-supremacy groups hold that certain groups are inferior and thereby not deserving basic rights. Violation of another person’s basic rights is the definition of felonious conduct. Therefore, white-supremacy belief set places a member one act away from being a criminal. The only white-supremacists that are not criminals are those too chicken-shit to practice what they preach.Make sure you understand the difference between white separatism (and other flavors of white racial consciousness) and white supremacism proper. Many people on this board, myself included, are opposed to multiculturalism and would prefer to see whites and other races have the option to live in homogeneous ethnic territories. However, neither I nor most other racially-conscious whites here have ANY desire to see whites enslave or otherwise oppress non-whites.

Also, the belief that some races are more intelligent than others on the whole, or that the races differ with respect to other characteristics, need not have anything to do with supremacism. I happen to think the average Asian IQ is slightly higher than the average white IQ, even though I'm white. Does that make me an "Asian supremacist"? Hardly.

fuck your statistics.That's not a very convincing argument. Facts are stubborn things, and ignoring them isn't going to make them go away.

However, since certain people introduced “race” as an indicator in intelligence...Why do you put "race" in quotes here? If race doesn't exist, then what is the basis for the existence of groups like the NAACP? Why does modern medicine recognize that one's race is a risk factor for certain health conditions? How are forensic anthropologists able to distinguish the unearthed skulls of Caucasians, Negroes, and Asians?

Perhaps "race" isn't the most scientifically rigorous term, but it's a convenient shorthand for differences that DO exist between human groups of different evolutionary origin.

...if we invoke our Constitutional presumption that ALL men are created equal, then we are left with no alternative other than the conclusion that, statistically speaking, blacks are subjected to an environment more conducive to low IQ.

You are making a premise that undermines your own position.This argument is utterly preposterous.

First of all, you're referring to the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution -- but that's not why your argument sucks.

Although I happen to generally support the founding principles of America, the DoI is not a scientific document. It could state that the moon is made of green cheese, but that wouldn't make it so. And besides, the statement "all men are created equal" refers to equality of entitlement to basic human rights, NOT equality of ability. Only a complete fool believes that all individuals are born with equal potential -- whether intellectual/creative, athletic, or otherwise -- and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that the races are equal on average, either. On the contrary, there is good reason to believe that the races tend to differ on average with respect to many characteristics. Nature isn't politically correct.

I realize that your objective is to be self-avowed master of anyone you can exploit. Or even worse, have all the non-whites deported thereby making YOU low man on the socio-economic scale and a prime target of the exploitive paradigms you preach. You are one small minded prejudicial piece of work eh ?What are you talking about? No one here is talking about being the master of anyone. And while some might want non-whites deported from their countries, I would much rather see racially-conscious whites in the US set up an ethnic enclave somewhere in an unpopulated area of this country. The reason is that it's whites who are being exploited by non-whites with the help of white leftists who have been brainwashed by Jews.

This is why blacks, in spite of their constant whining about racism, get very upset at the suggestion of segregating the races. They know how good they have it when they live in societies built and run by whites. If blacks really thought whites were so bad, they'd go back to Africa and live in the highly-successful black-run nations there.

And a couple others here insist on issuing propaganda cloaked as arguments for the denial of a presumption of creational equality.What propaganda? If someone made a statement with which you disagree, then address it directly and explain why it's wrong.

That shit is straight up anathema to peace and social justice.How do you define "social justice"? And if you want peace, then you want racial separation. Multiculturalism only leads to social tensions.

Keep it up fools, and you will find yourselves the victims of the discriminatory mind-set you sow. karma can be a bitch.So far you've only made a fool of yourself. Whining about "discrimination" isn't going to change the facts. It's too bad if you don't like the evidence that blacks tend to be less intelligent than whites, but screaming and stomping your feet isn't going to make it go away.

[Tris]

What does that have to do with the part of my post that you've quoted? I asked Catfish why it isn't good for a person to try to increase his intelligence and you replied with the above.

Hmm.. I must have misread cat fish's reply. I thought he said that IQ was unimportant, and which you implicitly denied with your question, but I guess I was mistaken.

[Frank]

It would be childishly academic to state the disproportionately high representation of convicted felons within white-supremacy gangs such as AB. Personally, I would not be at all surprised if 100% of Aryans are convicted felons.

Now are you are shifting the goal posts; we were not discussing "gangs." However, I will note that you merely pulled an assertion out of your ass and like the average ADL clown you expect society to treat your crap-covered assertion as gospel regardless of the lack of evidence.

Also, by definition, white-supremacy groups hold that certain groups are inferior and thereby not deserving basic rights.

Many Americans believe that "hate speech" should be banned; are these people default violent criminals because they seek to deprive certain Americans of their basic right to free speech?

Violation of another person’s basic rights is the definition of felonious conduct.

Than the U.S. government is nothing but a bunch of felonious criminals. Using your logic every White firefighter who was denied a promotion due to his race is a victim of a felony yet the Fire Chiefs are never arrested and charged; why is that?

Therefore, white-supremacy belief set places a member one act away from being a criminal. The only white-supremacists that are not criminals are those too chicken-shit to practice what they preach.

Now you contradict yourself; either they are criminals or they are not? By the way what makes you an authority on what such people should or should not practice.

fuck your statistics.

I know you have nothing; I knew that when you first made your assertion.

However, since certain people introduced “race” as an indicator in intelligence, if we invoke our Constitutional presumption that ALL men are created equal, then we are left with no alternative other than the conclusion that, statistically speaking, blacks are subjected to an environment more conducive to low IQ. You are making a premise that undermines your own position.

This paragraph is so amazingly stupid that I cannot even begin to fathom what sort of a mind would create said paragraph. This is a classic example of an appeal to authority and a non-sequitur and you engaged in these two fallacies in one paragraph.

Here is a hint for you; there is an alternative! YOUR CONSTITUTION IS NOT WORTH THE PAPER IT IS WRITTEN ON! IT IS NOT A SCIENTIFIC DOCUMENT HENCE HAS NO RELEVANCE TO THIS DEBATE WITH IS ABOUT...YOUR GUESSED IT...SCIENCE!

I realize that your objective is to be self-avowed master of anyone you can exploit.

Reasoning with you is like trying to reason with a rabid pit-bull on crack or worse yet an American patriotard.

Or even worse, have all the non-whites deported thereby making YOU low man on the socio-economic scale and a prime target of the exploitive paradigms you preach. You are one small minded prejudicial piece of work eh ?

You have created and attacked more strawmen than I can count...ALL IN ONE POST!

And a couple others here insist on issuing propaganda cloaked as arguments for the denial of a presumption of creational equality. That shit is straight up anathema to peace and social justice. Keep it up fools, and you will find yourselves the victims of the discriminatory mind-set you sow. karma can be a bitch.

Only an ignorant, stupid, low-IQ, brainless, witless, mindless, inferior, idiotic mental midget would believe that all people are created equal in ability and intelligence. Sadly, you seem to believe in this very thing; I will leave it at that.

[Dances with Wolves]

Testify, Brother Frank!

God Got, Trish got his every loving ass handed to him. NEXT?

[calvin]

Malcolm Gladwell is the main expositor of the environmental genesis of intelligence hypothesis. Sadwell proposes that his own academic status is due to his father who would always ask the young Malcolm interesting questions on car journeys. Gladwell avers that this opened up his though processes and engendered an analytical mental orientation. Maybe your dad asked you all of these questions because he was a man of high intelligence who was interested in your answers Malcolm? Gladwell isn't smart enough to realise that you have to have a certain baseline level of intelligence to grasp the advantages of developing your intelligence. Given the choice between $500,000, becoming 20% more attractive, or gaining 15 IQ points more intelligence, how many people do you think would choose the IQ points?

[brendon]

This article starts off with a fallacy. People with the highest IQ's are infamous for being poor their whole lives. They can't get jobs either because they argue with the boss's "wrongness" too much, can't fit in, or because a common job is too boring for them.

Otherwise, I can agree that doctors and lawyers are better test takers who tend to have higher salaries.

About tests:
I believe calmer conditions cause higher test scores.

Locations with better weather and people who are generally in better conditions should do better on tests.

An obvious example would be for me to poke you with a stick every 5 seconds while you're taking a test, do you think you'll do better or worse on this test as a result?

The type of looming stress that pounds down upon someone in a state of debt and poverty can be described as 100 times worse then that poking stick.