Tests often don’t really proove anything in terms of how smart one is.
…ditto, but I Do happen to know what my IQ is 
…it’s nice to feel normal/average sometimes: by being around others like one’s-self…
I was a high achiever at school, but my first cousin of the same age: was as dumb as fuck - go figure that one out??? 
I could start a thread that berates Caucasians, but that’d just bore me: with it’s eay jibes at others… but each to their own 
People often equate I.Q. with wisdom when it is not.
I.Q. simply measures analytical ability. It does not factor in E.Q. and how fear and need affect this analysis.
Sometimes knowledge is mistaken for intelligence, as in the case of sophists and academics, but most often courage is discounted as an important part of clarity.
You can be dumber than average if you lack the courage to accept the conclusions of your analysis and find clever ways to escape them.
…we are the sum of our parts / achievements: so they have some bearing on our outlook.
This came up in a sports studies lesson that I had when I was back at college, and I belive they were on the right track. The argument was based mainly on physcial prowess ie running speeds, but did bring the intellegance argument into it aswell. The logic was this:
Studies show that on average black people run faster and are less intelegant. However after closer examination of the facts there is a closer correlation between other genetics rather than just flesh pigmentaion.
Ie people of half cast races who had families that hailed from different areas seemed to have the same limitations and disadvantages from cirtain areas. To further their point they used examples of studying different family lines within the black communitys, and subsequently found that some families were on of higher intellegance on average than the average white man. Also they brought up the point that if skin pigmentation affects intelegence then the highly intellegant memebrs of the balck community would be considered super human if they were white.
So the conclusion was this, intellegance is impacted by where we come from. And where we come from has a large impact on our skin pigmintation also. There is no evidence to support the idea that a different colour skin in itself makes someone less intelegant
It is also worth pointing out that there has been a long-known correlation between nutrition and intelligence (and height, which is why you sometimes here that tall people are smarter). Given the starvation conditions that are occurring over much of Africa, no wonder they are intellectually stunted. If you’ve ever fasted for a few days, you know what that does to your thought-processes! Also, in America (where a lot of the “Bell Curve”-type studies have taken place) most blacks are in urban areas where things like fresh fruit are more difficult to come by, and this is compounded by economic factors (the average black household makes less than the average white household, and junk food is cheaper than real food due to corn subsidies), as well as cultural factors (for example, black mothers are more likely to bottle feed their children than white mothers not to mention that academic intelligence isn’t valued in many parts of the inner-city).
All of these factors impact intelligence much more than melanin content.
So what to do if these statistics are real? Vitamin subsidies and all that is a step in the right direction (since peeling back corn subsidies ain’t happenin’).
And if blacks were shown to be intellectual inferior from a genetic standpoint (which I doubt), I don’t really think it would matter than much since within the black population there would still be the normal bell-curve distribution of intelligence, just with the mean shifted to the left. That doesn’t really affect individuals since their position on that curve is unknown, so treating all blacks as intellectually inferior doesn’t accomplish much.
I mean, really, how smart does one have to be to work most office jobs? I’m not saying intelligence doesn’t help, but most jobs are variations on fairly menial tasks. If you can be a car mechanic, you can be an M.D. – they are pretty much the same job the only difference is that medical school itself is artificially difficult (really just brute-force memorization which you don’t need to be a genius to do) and expensive.
Too much value is placed on intelligence, when it rarely comes into use.
There are dumb fucks: from all racial backgrounds, and ditto: for bright sparks (I should know: I’m one of them ;o)
I put my own race down: if the need arises, and I can only suggest that you all do likewise: as some calls aint yours to make: save for your own…
What other races do: is none of MY business / why should it be - why make other people’s business yours??? If they harm society/tax resources, etc. then that is a different case: which can be addressed through policies and laws…
In the UK: all school children are given a half-pint of milk during their morning break: to address any nutritional issues / keep them focused in class - I hated the milk, and used to pour mine down the drains
Intelligence is what IQ tests measure. Except that it’s not. There are many kinds of intelligence - many talents, abilites, attitudes, values, educational opportunities - there is a very long list of factors that make a person “smart” or not. Pattern recognition is very useful. It’s not all there is to brainpower. The ramifications of “proving” that black people aren’t “smart” can be anything that we make them. Which means that they can be nothing. IQ tests are very limited, by design, in what they measure.
With all the problems in this world some Genius had to waste time and money on this study? No wonder the world is screwy. Humans have no priorities. What a waste, the money and time could have been better spent on resolving problems not creating new ones.
…perhaps it’s a case of belittling other races to boost the other’s self esteem 
What it is is politics, and a nexus for another host of taxpayer-financed research grants aimed at giving teachers and social workers more jobs.
…not at the expense of other people, people! 
…only for those who have to tow the common line, and tread the common path
It is surely how the research grant-writing game works. Get out there and make some headlines - scare some people!
I wonder how much geenhouse gas has been created scaring the shit out of people about global warming.
Beaurocracy exists… and?
First of course, Mr. Watson is a chemist and expert in DNA, what does this have to do with the topic?
Nothing. I strongly doubt if he has more qualifications to comment on this matter than I do.
Here are the words that kicked off the controversy:
“The 79-year-old geneticist said he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa†because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.”
Hmm? So, since much of our civilization is derived from Eygpt, and Ancient Eygpt was a Black Kingdom, did they have a problem with government?
For the sake of argument, let us concede that there are differences in intelligence between that artificial construct known as “races.” For that matter, aren’t there those who hold that woman are less intelligent than men?
But let us concede both points for the sake of argument. Let us say that Blacks and Woman average four or five IQ points below European Whites. What does that mean when one realises that the differences between individuals in ONE race are far, far greater than the alledged differences between races as groups?
When a racist looks to hire someone for the position of garbage collector, if a Black Einstein walked in for the job, he would be turned down.
None of us are “equals.” There are people far more intelligent than I, and people far dumber than I. What a just society requires is equal opportunity for everyone to find their own level.
If there ARE differences between people or sexes, that is totally irrelevant to the point.
And of course, as I’ve pointed out, Mr. Watson, who apparentely knows nothing of history, has put his foot deeply down his throat and is being justifiably castigated for his stupid remarks.
Dave
Even if blacks were proven to be intellectually inferior, the margin would be so infinitessimally low as to be insignificant. There are many geniuses of African descent, and would be more were environmental conditions equal.
Really?
Which ones?
Why are there no sub-Saharan great civilizations?
Where are the ground breaking great black philosophers or female philosophers?
Does challenge and adversity create progress or does comfort equality create it?
Does environment, in the final analysis, actually affect organisms mentally or is nature only influential as a cosmetic factor?
And for those that like to reap over and over again how the differences, even if true, are too small to count I mention the Butterfly Effect.
Infinitesimal divergence is what makes the difference between life and death in natural selection.
Finally, how does censorship work in our modern, sophisticated world?
Why, for example, does the free-press tow the line and is it really all that free?
What about institutional collusion?
Do you live in a democracy?
For those interested, the poster i quoted below has some stuff to say on the matter, heres link to the forums thread titled:
“Are Whites Devils or Just Smarter”.
http://p076.ezboard.com/fpoliticalpalacefrm1.showMessageRange?topicID=12650.topic&start=21&stop=30
You provide this as evidence of a civilization?
Where’s the philosophy, the art, the sciences?
Egyptians were not Negroes, by the way, no more than dark skinned Indians are.
Skin coloration is but an aspect of racial characteristics.
Guns Germs and Steel explains the environmental conditions that were taken advantage of but does not explain the developmental course necessary to take advantage of them or how taking advantage of them may have affected these isolated groups.
Human groups are pressured out of their primordial environments in Africa.
Their weakness is forced to adapt to inhospitable environments or less ideal ones, for them.
Genetic isolation begins as groups are occupying pockets of environments they can survive in, leaving large gaps of unoccupied territories.
Some, if not most, perish. But then they figure out a way to take advantage of certain elements in their environment.
Those that do survive and flourish.
Isn’t this an intelligence leap?
That certain animals existed within an area and that they could be domesticated is the luck of the draw, but that they were didn’t happen automatically nor did these animals willingly volunteer their services nor did these plants willingly volunteer their crops.
There had to be an ingenuity leap, caused by the pressures to survive.
Diamond begins his narration when these environmental factors were harvested but does not explain the time in between these migrations occurred and the time agriculture began.
Humans migrated out of Africa long before any first civilization began or agriculture emerged.
It is during this time that genetic isolation must have diversified the human species into the subgroupings we know today.
Granted the differences are slight but over time they had a profound effect, didn’t they?
We may even say that the differences between the homo sapient and other primates isn’t that great either. But it is large enough to cause a profound difference.
and the differences between the Homo Sapient and the Neanderthal must have been even less.
I would suspect that all species diversity happened along these lines.
Sub-groupings are pushed out of ideal environments. These weaker, defeated ones are forced into less hospitable environments.
Most die off but one or two manage to survive due to a mutation, a unique characteristic which offers an advantage.
Adversity forces growth.
Which makes the excuses offered concerning adversity as a limiting factor all the more absurd and childish.
The do or die method is one nature uses continuously.
The challenges result in evolutionary changes. Comfort results in evolutionary stagnation. See the crocodile. It didn’t have to change and so it didn’t.
If anything racism and sexism should have produced growth.
But I digress.
This characteristic, which offered an advantage, is then propagated. The weak are now adapting to take advantage of the circumstances in their new environment. Those that cannot die off. those that can adapt and flourish.
They change further, as genetic isolation and in-breeding splinters the group from its ancestor, who having never left its ideal environment, didn’t have to change much.
Given enough time a new species emerges which is completely different than the original. Less time and a breed or a sub-category emerges which can still breed with the original group because the splintering wasn’t given enough time to cause a complete separation.