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But more to the point... intellectual differences between individuals are not trivial. But intellectual differences between populations of any significant size are absolutely trivial. Such distinctions are as useless as debating the merits of blue eyes vs. green.
Have you every heard of t-test?
In statistics, there are ways to test if two populations have significant differences or not.
North Korea is the "worst" country in East Asia due to their poor policies. However they still have missiles and have the capability to develop nuclear power plants. Their literacy rate is 99% and the rules (though bad) are enforced.
So even though they have who knows how many people in their political prisons (where they are literally rotting away) and even though they have rampant starvation and even though it's a thoroughly evil, disgusting system that inflicts unknown deprivation on the people who had the horrible luck of being born there it's all OK because they are made up of a lot of Asians and, whew, Asians are just so superior to everyone else.
So even though they have who knows how many people in their political prisons (where they are literally rotting away) and even though they have rampant starvation and even though it's a thoroughly evil, disgusting system that inflicts unknown deprivation on the people who had the horrible luck of being born there it's all OK because they are made up of a lot of Asians and, whew, Asians are just so superior to everyone else.
Got it.
What are you talking about?
North Korea had famines during the 1990s because the Soviet Union collapsed and the economy of NK was based on trading with them. After the 1990s national famines have been rare or non-existent.
Not to mention the US and the west put sanctions on them. Even Iran suffered famines now, because of the US!
The example just shows that they can achieve something other poor countries cannot achieve.
IQ is many things. A reliable measurement of any person's intelligence is not one of them.
Nonsense. It is an absolutely pragmatic one; the simple and reasonable determination that the discussion is tendentious navel gazing entirely devoid of value or utility. It can settle no issues, drive no decisions, improve no circumstances and solve no problems. One may as well wrestle with the issues of whether or not Adam and Eve had navels, or how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
I actually need to ratchet that back one level. It does serve at least the purpose of providing a beard for racists who would prefer to hide their atavistic tribalism behind a more respectable veneer. And this is why the discussion persists in the face of its breathtaking uselessness. Racism has historically sought out specifically that sort of support in whatever the reigning intellectual paradigm of the times might be.
In the 19th century, the debate was between the Monogenists and the Polygenists over which group could find the best Biblical basis for enslaving blacks. The Monogenists justified slavery by the "Curse of Hamm." The Polygenists justified slavery by insisting that blacks weren't even human... but instead beasts of the field that arose on day 6 of creation week. Despicable behavior will always try to justify itself within the current zeitgeist. That is all that is happening here.
People are not homogeneous. This is actually more true within specific ethnic groups than between them. In fact (for example) Africans are the most genetically diverse population of humans on the planet... for fairly obvious reasons. If you were to wipe out the entire human race except for a single tribe of Kalahari Bushmen, you would still retain in excess of 90% of all the genetic variability of the entire human race.
But more to the point... intellectual differences between individuals are not trivial. But intellectual differences between populations of any significant size are absolutely trivial. Such distinctions are as useless as debating the merits of blue eyes vs. green.
The reason people are so emotional about this issue is that they secretly fear it is an important factor in intractable and uncomfortable problems. No one argues about differences in height between populations, or calls someone a racist for suggesting it. The correlations between IQ and intellectual achievement are far from perfect and nonlinear, but to claim that populations with average IQs of < 75 are mentally capable of the same achievement as a population with IQs >100 is a tenuous position. All geopolitical evidence suggests otherwise.
Should we institutionalize intelligence in policy? No. Should we spread an unsupportable narrative of intellectual equality? No, but plenty do, because it is the only acceptable way to think right now. I am just taking a contrarian view here, because I feel the first step in improving things is to embrace reality.
Just because they have a PhD. does not make their claims valid. You should know this, you're the person who says global warming is a fraud, yet many papers claiming that warming is happening are written by PhD.s. You can't pick and choose who to believe, that just shows that you agree with him that certain people are genetically inferior to others. That, my friend, is called racism and eugenics. Groups of people are not genetically inferior to other groups. Large groups of people are the products of their environment, that's all. Genetics play a little role when you're talking about whole societies.
Actually, you're wrong.
Asains are smarter than whites are smarter than blacks.
Whether you want call that genetically inferior is up to you.
There are also things that blacks do better than whites. And things that whites are better at than Asians.
What's really inferior is to imply everyone is equal and environment is the only factor in outcome.
In statistics, there are ways to test if two populations have significant differences or not.
Statistical significance and pragmatic significance are completely different things. No t-test is necessary to determine that fact.
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