Race and intelligence

Well, postulating a controversial thesis to make money and get recognition is an agenda, really. I'm looking forward to addressing the questions regarding the differences between mins and wimmins that ye110man brought up, but it will have to wait for now.

Some of the best baseball players are Hispanic.

I've had the same experience a number of times. For example I believe I was somewhat racist against Africans till I moved to their continent, and I believe I was somewhat anti-Muslim till I moved in with a Muslim family.

That said, and while I believe stereotypes & generalizations are usually harmful, some of them exist because, statistically, they're fairly truthful. E.g., I can prove that Japan has a big problem with workaholism. (The Japanese government has even run campaigns in the past to try to get their citizens to stop working so much!--if you can imagine that) Caveat: I'm not arguing that the tendency for workaholism is genetic.


Agreed, again. But there are a number of cases of documented differences (eg: ailments that affect a particular race, etc).


I strongly believe that all races are equal, but it is not my opinion that we're all exactly the same with different skin color.

Monger, Your assessment about ailments affecting a paricular race is correct; blacks suffer from sickle cell anemia and high blood pressure. But a majority of Asians also suffer from high blood pressure. Many from Viet Nam and Cambodia suffer from t.b. Healthcare workers awareness of these factors are important.

Many Hispanics, like many Japanese and Americans, are big fans of the sport so they place a high priority on excelling at it.

But I do think the argument of blacks excelling at sports for genetic reasons has some validity. I'm not gonna make a case for it though because I've never personally read any research on the subject.

Some of the worlds greatest Sumo Wrestlers are Hawaiian

Monger, Did you know sumo is becoming a popular sport in the US?

I don't argue that races are identical but for skin color. Hell, people within a race are not identical.

Really, CI? That's surprising. Sumo can be pretty fun actually, I used to play it on the beach all the time...the loincloths were substituted with swimming trunks. Sand isn't bad at padding impact so we'd go from sumo to American football & back again.

by the way, I agree with everything you've said in this thread so far, edgar.

i would say that that has more to do with corporate culture which may trickle down to the educational system.

i am asian but received my entire education in the US and whether coincidence or not, i can say that i am very good at math. and it wasn't memorization. i'm not particularly good at that. but throughout high school and college, i never needed to go to math class. i could just read the book and go in and take the test. i would figure out how to solve problems on the spot. perhaps because of my lack of memorization skills, i would make lots of careless mistakes but understanding the concept was never the problem. same goes from computer programming. i can figure out a problem but i'll forgot the syntax.

but that brings me to the quesiton about gender. i once did a computer science project with a group of 3 guys and 2 girls. the stereotypes held true. the guys dominated the girls during the meetings. i think that is mostly cultural. guys tend to be more confident and so are better able to lead. but also while programming, the girls could only do things that they have done before. confronted with a new problem, they were stuck. you could see this even on exams. exams where memorization is required, women tend to do better but when there is logical problem solving men tend to perform better.

Hi cav: Blacks may make better slaves than whites, or it may be prejudice on the part of the slave owners. I hope no one will retest your hypothesis. While the testing and evalulation is tinged with errors, human relations departments of corporations have made often sucessful choices for at least a century. The employment office is looking at bottom line which does include factors besides intellegence. Do we really need to separate intellegence from other factors? We may want to invest in attitude improvement, reduce prejudice, and improve motivation. Perspective spouces and employers are wise to choose persons who already have the desired characteristics rather than think future adjustments will prove practical. Neil

Actually, west African negroes, to use what was once an ethnographic term, ended up being the best slaves for a very physiological reason which had nothing to do with either physical size nor intelligence. When the Spanish came to the new world, a great many of the conquistadores were veterans of Cordoba's campaigns against the French in northern Italy. There, they had contracted malaria, which originated in the Italian penninsula. When the pc crowd start ranting about how the poor Arawak Indians were exterminated by the Spaniard, they show their ignorance. Most of the Arawak succumbed to malaria. The Spaniards who arrived in the new world had already survived the disease--their fellow soldiers, mostly from Estramadura in Spain, who had succumbed to malaria had died in Italy and never made it to the New World.

Other Africans other than west African negroes were brought over as slaves, and they largely succumbed to malaria. At various times, Amerindians and Chinese were used as slaves in the sugar fields of the West Indies, but they succumbed to malaria as well. But the west African negro has a genetic disposition to sycle-cell anemia. The quaternary stage of the malarial life cycle involves the colonization of red blood cells by the organism, which had previously colonized the liver. In those with sycle-cell anemia, this fourth stage in the malarial life cycle is short-circuited, and although the victim suffers just as those whose lives are threatened, lacking energy and motivation (accounts for the stereotype of "laziness" hung around the neck of African slaves), they are not going to die from it. For this reason, the west African negroes survived as did no other group, and became the "slave of choice." Also, as a result, the concentration of the genetic disorder which results in sycle-cell anemia is higher, much higher, among African-Americans than it is in either west Africa, or the Korean penninsula, the other two regions of the world in which that disorder is prevalent.

None of which is what i came here to say. What i came to say is that whether or not there is any racial predisposition to intelligence, i could not say. However, i believe it fair to say that history teaches us that no group, whether described by race or any other criterion, has a corner on stupidity--a universal skill.

neil, while you do seem earnest, I did not pose a hypothesis, I made a flippant remark because I think this entire thread is ridiculous. No hard feelings. Setanta, well researched, as always, and well-said

ye, I am also Asian, but I've never been good in schoo, because I never learned to take tests very well. It's not that I don't understand the material I study, because I am able to teach the subjects that I have studied. Here's one example; I got a "C" in macroeconomics, and the students I taught got a better grade than me. Here's another example; I didn't ace all my accounting classes in college, but when I worked for Florsheim Shoe Company, I taught new and prospective managers the bookkeeping system Florsheim used. I had them closing the books in three work days - something that was never done in the history of the company. I also tutored college students accounting principles, and got paid for it from the school, during my college years.

In certain sports the difference between blacks and non-blacks is more evident. Baseball is not one of them.

Oh, I don't think the educational culture is separate from the rest. It's all part of the culture and what I was trying to illustrate is the circumstantial factors when it comes to trends in intelligence as well as the misleading nature of standardized tests.

Re: Race and intelligence


I'm not sure about your initial assumption here. How do you know that it's genetics, and not environment that causes the perceived difference?

Genetically, all humans are extremely similar. Human behaviors and skills, per population (not individuals), are far more likely to be effected by experiences and cultures (environment), than by genetics.

Best Regards,

homosapiens, as compared to other races, tend to have the highest intelligence

To quote Tonto:

"What you mean we, white man?"

Your opening statement is both specious and racist.