Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
For whatever it is worth, I just realized that I neglected to mention that our adopted son was white, but there is no question in my mind that we would have seen similar improvement, if we had adopted a black child IF the child had had the same potential as our son.
"potential" is not really innate, it is a taught trait more than anything else. "potential" is based around how likely you think you can do something, if you think you can do it, you attempt it. it isnt something people are born with as a finite resource, you gain potential as you learn and become more willing to do something.
role models make it easier, because they saw someone else do it and then think they can too.
Asians have bad "potential" at sports because parents tell them athletics are secondary. black people have poor potential at police interaction because they start out thinking they will get shot. whites have poor potential at being sane because half of them are plain drugged up on anti-depressants
On the black, I can understand this to an extent, but will note as a black person, that I highly doubt "you" in particular are blamed for anything. IMO that is more your personal tendency to be defensive and I'm not trying to make you defensive about this or blame you for anything. I can understand when someone's "group" is attacked that it may feel like a personal attack, but when it comes to IQ in particular and the fact that it has actually been shown via numerous studies and research (I did post one) to not be a 100% predictor of life's outcomes, this is not about you as a white person (if you are white).
I live a lot in historical research world and therefore am aware of what discrimination is due to mostly studying my own ancestors and communities they lived in and how overt racism impacted those people. This historical study coupled with numerous scientific studies that do show that stress, terrorism, depression, environmental toxins and a vast amount of other environmental factors CAN and does impact cognitive ability (along with motivation, determination/drive, and competitiveness), just shows to me that though IQ scores in regards to averages/means do have some validity in predicting outcomes in life - they also include the socio-political history of the populations being tested in their outcomes. This has nothing to do with you on an individual level. Not sure of even your family's history in this country. Most white people today in America are descendants of recent immigrants from the late 1800s forward so those ancestors were not here to put in place these overt racist institutions and social treatment of black Americans and others. These social conditions are indeed a factor for decreased cognitive ability, and as a black person who is not very politically party/ideologically invested - I am aware of the fact that social conditions of the past are especially at play in the psyches of black people in America today.
Equal opportunity for black Americans is very new in this nation - I've mentioned before that really things were not great for us to any wide degree until after 1980. I was born in 1979 so I consider myself to be of the first generation of black Americans to be truly "free" in this nation.
On the blue - environment is a huge factor in cognitive abilities. Toxins in particular are highly involved in cognition. I'm sure you know about the lead poisoning in Flint, MI. When I first heard about it, I worried about how that community will have an exorbitant amount of children who will grow up with decreased cognitive abilities, children who will have a much more highly likely chance of being criminals as a result - lead poisoning and its effects on the brains/bodies of children is VERY real and it has been heavily documented. Black children in America are much more highly impacted by lead poisoning than any other demographic in this nation - which is one of the reasons why using those old IQ studies to set baselines/averages for children by ethnicity is not something that I see as any measure to my own cognitive abilities or my demographic as a whole - we have been heavily negatively impacted by environmental toxins and socio-political environmental stresses. Due to environmental toxicity being much more prevalent in the 1960s-1990s, I wonder how many of those children were lead poisoned who are the baseline IQ for African Americans. FWIW I mentioned I was sent to Head Start for IQ testing (and other tests) because my pedi thought I was "retarded" one of the reasons he thought this was because I was found to have high levels of lead when I was a baby (about 18 months old) due to eating flaked lead based paint chips as an infant. My mother, luckily knew what lead poisoning was and we moved from that house and I wasn't severely impacted by this as my levels were extremely high (I have my medical records BTW) - but many children are and most black children in my experience are still usually only tested for IQ via Head Start and other programs based upon them being suspected of being impacted by environmental toxins like lead or their mothers having been abusing drugs/alcohol while pregnant.
Nutrition is a huge factor in a child's brain development as well and does impact cognitive ability. The stress that a child is under in utero while their mother is pregnant also is a factor as there are chemical reactions in the mother's body in response to stressful situations (brought on my poverty especially but this is also the case for drug abuse and alcohol abuse especially). Corporal punishment is also a factor in the child's life - black parents are very "heavy handed" to this day in regards to corporal punishment. That stresses a child out and impacts their cognition and makes them more likely to become criminals as a result (to this day black people will argue to counter this research and will say they were "beat/whipped" and turned out fine - even though most of them are not "fine" and get upset when I point this out to people I know IRL who make these claims, luckily this is on the decline in the black community especially amongst the middle class and we are the majority of black America). So environment does play a role.
I can truly see how katharsis' adopted child improved in cognitive abilities while under her families care. They were not stressed, more than likely not impacted as much (or any longer) by environmental toxins (if the parents did drugs, those are also environmental toxins that impact a child) they received adequate meals/nutrition, and were loved like a child should be loved and more than likely not impacted by corporal punishment in a severe fashion (or not at all). All of these things impact cognitive ability.
Motivation and determination/drive also impact the outcomes people have in life. All of these are factors in IQ scores that most lay persons overlook. It is not about intellect - it is about the person's personality and their cognition and both of these are indeed impacted by social and environmental conditions.
So much written, so little said.
In 500 years, 1,000 years, the same debate ,the same fscts, will continue.
Your biggest failing in this debate is to take a micro approach to a macro issue. Doesn't work, at all.
I believe this in writing ONLY. I have many teacher friends and the one thing they all say is regardless of race and SES, handwriting, spelling and grammar, across groups is horrible.
One has a white male students in grades 3-5 with both parents as fellow teachers and this boy cannot write or spell at all. Mom AND Dad are teachers and phonetically it's a hot mess.
Everything is swiping on a tablet and spell check rather than looking at letters and typing or writing and spelling on your own. Writing and spelling is going down the drain.
Kids are learning how to read sight words yet they can't spell them when they hear them or write them organically in their own writing.
I've seen "Win do we go to lunsh?" what is happening here on sight word When and the "ch" sound?!?!?!
I believe this in writing ONLY. I have many teacher friends and the one thing they all say is regardless of race and SES, handwriting, spelling and grammar, across groups is horrible.
One has a white male students in grades 3-5 with both parents as fellow teachers and this boy cannot write or spell at all. Mom AND Dad are teachers and phonetically it's a hot mess.
Everything is swiping on a tablet and spell check rather than looking at letters and typing or writing and spelling on your own. Writing and spelling is going down the drain.
Kids are learning how to read sight words yet they can't spell them when they hear them or write them organically in their own writing.
I've seen "Win do we go to lunsh?" what is happening here on sight word When and the "ch" sound?!?!?!
The willful and purposed dumbing down of the American chattel.
You are told that you are inferior for hundreds of years and are literally generationally prevented from achieving your goals; those who oppress you create data that shows that you don't achieve goals (this has been done since the 1800s BTW before IQ test) but ignore that they are oppressing you and preventing you from achieving those goals; you agree you are not achieving goals - but state it is because of the oppression; the oppressor says they don't oppress you like you say you are oppressed (this has also been done since the 1800s lol - even while black people weren't considered citizens, a vast majority were slaves, and free black children could not go to public schools in northern states). It is a silliness sort of thing.
Blacks had been told that they were inferior at skilled athletics and that has been shattered. Plenty of blacks across the world and the US perform at high intellectual levels. All races have geniuses.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spider99
Not a chance.
There are huge cultural differences in how academics are viewed. You're not going to change that in 1 generation.
This is why even when East Asian kids and say Hispanic or Native American kids grow up in similar economic conditions, the East Asian kids still beat the brakes off them in regards to academics.
Add to this that in you believe in evolution, it would be impossible to assume intelligence doesn't have a genetic root. There is simply no way that two groups of people with vastly different diets and living conditions evolved the same, including brain function. That's not to say that there are huge gaps in certain areas of intelligence between different groups, but to say they don't exist is to simply deny reality. Look at Rome 2,000 years ago, and look at Papua New Guinea today. To say that genetics don't play into that is simply dishonest as much as we don't want to believe it.
Yes.
Only a science denier thinks IQ doesn't have a connection to genetics.
High IQ brains have structural differences compared to normal brains. These differences are genetic.
Of course there are other influences on IQ like culture (not all are equal), nutrition, whether or not you were exposed to violence as a kid, etc... It is estimated that about 80% of an adult's IQ is genetic.
Why can’t people accept that there are racial and class differences in intelligence and test scores? It is a myth that all people are created equal. This fact has been demonstrated over and over for many decades.
"potential" is not really innate, it is a taught trait more than anything else. "potential" is based around how likely you think you can do something, if you think you can do it, you attempt it. it isnt something people are born with as a finite resource, you gain potential as you learn and become more willing to do something.
role models make it easier, because they saw someone else do it and then think they can too.
Asians have bad "potential" at sports because parents tell them athletics are secondary. black people have poor potential at police interaction because they start out thinking they will get shot. whites have poor potential at being sane because half of them are plain drugged up on anti-depressants
I don't have the genetics in my bone structure or muscles to become an elite Olympic 100 meter sprinter. I've always been stocky, thick bones, shortish legs with a short stride, flat footed, wide framed, and muscular. I am 5'10'' not fat and yet still weigh 230 pounds. Yes, I do strength exercises, but I've weighed 200 pounds since my Freshman year of college when I was extremely fit and before I truly did strength exercises.
I could have trained for sprinting my whole life with 100% of every ounce of my body and I wouldn't have made it. Sure, I would be faster than I am today had I done all of that sprinter training, but I would never have been elite at it - not at the college level.
Humans are not born physically equal. We deserve political equality, but we are born with different strengths, different weaknesses, different structures in our brain that is genetic, different health ailments, different heights, different color of hair, etc...
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigCityDreamer
Sorry liberals, but you’re just wrong about this.
The Democrats call themselves the party of science, yet spend a lot of time denying science in multiple cases including the genetic component of intelligence.
Why can’t people accept that there are racial and class differences in intelligence and test scores? It is a myth that all people are created equal. This fact has been demonstrated over and over for many decades.
Sorry liberals, but you’re just wrong about this.
See, here's the rub: if you believe we are all uniquely created in God's image, how intelligent, beautiful, strong someone is has no bearing on that person's inherent worth as a human being. Thus, we are all equal.
For many folks on the Left, they're either atheists, agnostics or only nominally religious people, who rely on naturalistic, materialist explanations. If you don't really believe that we are created in God's image, then things like intelligence, beauty, education levels, et cetera, do factor in to whether someone is "equal." Ask someone who fits into this belief system, who also argues that all are equal, to explain how they know that. Invariably they will reach a roadblock, at which point he/she will have to resort to saying "it just is" or that he/she "just feels it to be true." It's a problem...a big problem...for them.
By the way, Christians adopt twice as many kids as the general population. I would argue this is tied precisely to what I described above. Living in rural areas all my life, where religiosity is more common, I have seen many, many Christian families that have adopted nonwhite children, often from other countries and kids with special needs. That's because they believe no one is better than anyone else when it comes to their inherent worth as human beings. I think you will not find that nearly as common among the types who adhere to the belief system above. Ironic. It's not difficult to find conservative Christians who adopt such children. Meanwhile, white liberals who say all the right things often live the whitest existences you can imagine. They make sure to send their kids to the whitest, highest-achieving schools, they live in lily-white neighborhoods among other people of high means, they work in overwhelmingly white offices. The few who do go to church, attend churches that are the whitest churches you will encounter (meanwhile, you will find all sorts of racial/ethnic diversity at those dastardly fundamentalist/evangelical churches).
See, here's the rub: if you believe we are all uniquely created in God's image, how intelligent, beautiful, strong someone is has no bearing on that person's inherent worth as a human being. Thus, we are all equal.
We all deserve to born with political equality.
Lebron James is taller and more athletic than me - in that regard we aren't equal, but I deserve political equality and the value of my life is equal to his.
Albert Einstein was smarter than me - in that regard we aren't equal, but I deserve political equality and the value of my life is equal to his.
Tom Brady is better at throwing a football than me - in that regard we aren't equal, but I deserve political equality and the value of my life is equal to his.
Warren Buffett is a better investor than me - in that regard we aren't equal, but I deserve political equality and the value of my life is equal to his.
Etc...
We must distinguish the inequality of one's differences versus the equality of one's political rights. Even if some differences are genetic, it shouldn't change political equality.
Lebron James is taller and more athletic than me - in that regard we aren't equal, but I deserve political equality and the value of my life is equal to his.
Albert Einstein was smarter than me - in that regard we aren't equal, but I deserve political equality and the value of my life is equal to his.
Tom Brady is better at throwing a football than me - in that regard we aren't equal, but I deserve political equality and the value of my life is equal to his.
Warren Buffett is a better investor than me - in that regard we aren't equal, but I deserve political equality and the value of my life is equal to his.
Etc...
We must distinguish the inequality of one's differences versus the equality of one's political rights. Even if some differences are genetic, it shouldn't change political equality.
Why? Why should we all have political equality? What's your moral basis for claiming that we all "deserve this?" Why is your life as valuable as his?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
