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In the future, students in the U. S. will not be given grades, but will receive "participation awards". Jobs that require literacy, scientific skills and professional expertise, will be filled by those recruited from other parts of the world.
As is usually the case with this particular subject, the dominant voices are the clueless far right and far left perspectives.
What your son had is parents with superior child rearing techniques and a superior overall culture. The children who underperform are largely the products of inferior parenting and an inferior subculture.
If as the thread title states, there will be no testing score difference between groups in 20 yrs, it will be because this fact has been accepted by the leadership, intelligentsia and educators of certain minority groups and cultural relativist folly has been rejected.
The answer to this issue is indeed politically incorrect, but it is not the "Bell Curve" hypothesis that many here imagine.
I wonder why you think your own hypothesis is politically incorrect. You are simply restating the mainstream conservative position that blacks are lazy, and that if they would only work harder at parenting and valuing academic success, gaps in school performance would disappear. Oddly enough this racially hostile message is considered acceptable by the establishment right, while the truth of fundamental group differences which are nobody's fault is called racist.
I wonder why you think your own hypothesis is politically incorrect. You are simply restating the mainstream conservative position that blacks are lazy, and that if they would only work harder at parenting and valuing academic success, gaps in school performance would disappear. Oddly enough this racially hostile message is considered acceptable by the establishment right, while the truth of fundamental group differences which are nobody's fault is called racist.
The position I stated is not that any group is "lazy". It is that between groups broadly, parenting tactics and cultural attributes are not equally effective at cultivating high performing children. And that these internal cultural differences are the reason for the disparity in scholastic achievement, among other things.
Your silly, racialist hypothesis is just as incorrect and useless to the discussion as is the far left tendency to dismiss these tests as culturally biased or reflecting merely differences in financial resources.
This issue dies when the currently stagnant leadership of underperforming groups are able to undertake the necessary critical self evaluation and attack internal flaws as easily as they attack external threats.
the position i stated is not that any group is "lazy". It is that between groups broadly, parenting tactics and cultural attributes are not equally effective at cultivating high performing children. And that these internal cultural differences are the reason for the disparity in scholastic achievement, among other things.
Your silly, racialist hypothesis is just as incorrect and useless to the discussion as is the far left tendency to dismiss these tests as culturally biased or reflecting merely differences in financial resources.
This issue dies when the currently stagnant leadership of underperforming groups are able to undertake the necessary critical self evaluation and attack internal flaws as easily as they attack external threats.
That's a real good attempt at making "if blacks would only stop being lazy..." sound high minded.
True civil rights advocates that believe in equality of opportunity would be ashamed of a comment like that.
"I admire the good samaritan, but I don't want to be one. I don't want to spend my life picking up people by the side of the road after they have been beaten up and robbed. I want to change the Jericho road, so that everybody has an opportunity for a job, education, security, health."
As I inferred in an earlier post, an honest, open and non-hostile discussion without sugar coating or demonizing in either direction is critical. I am tired of being blamed for the failings of other groups, for whatever reason they are failing. People need to tilt at some other windmill if they are afraid to openly assess the facts.
Environment's role is small, short lived and more of a masking or unmasking, rather than actually changing things.
You can break the bank trying to provide uplifting environments and have only the smallest and shortest-lived results to show for it.
They measured the real-world performance of Head Start participants at various times post-participation and the bump they received from the program disappeared after only a few years. It had no legs and made no lasting difference.
There is no solution than acceptance of reality and let people rise to the level they can without punishment or shame, and especially blame.
Anyway, I think this is my last world on this, as it is an issue rife with pitfalls. Nice discussing the issue with you.
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.
As is usually the case with this particular subject, the dominant voices are the clueless far right and far left perspectives.
What your son had is parents with superior child rearing techniques and a superior overall culture. The children who underperform are largely the products of inferior parenting and an inferior subculture.
If as the thread title states, there will be no testing score difference between groups in 20 yrs, it will be because this fact has been accepted by the leadership, intelligentsia and educators of certain minority groups and cultural relativist folly has been rejected.
The answer to this issue is indeed politically incorrect, but it is not the "Bell Curve" hypothesis that many here imagine.
In regards to the black, I agree. Most people on this forum ignore a more holistic view of this subject in particular. They are very group centered (though they like to speak ill of other groups who do the same as they do....go figure lol)
But on the bold - I think culture in association (especially as associated) with ethnicity is not the root of lower IQ scores. And the study I posted is not the only one that shows that environment (including toxins, and stressful social conditions) along with personality characteristics like motivation, determination/drive, and competitiveness impact those scores. But instead it is primarily a socio-political legacy.
I am black and as a parent, my primarily goals is/was to create a loving, wholistic culture of which to rear my children based primarily in black American cultural traditions. Our traditions is based first and foremost on family (loving unconditionally and taking care of our own no matter the setup of the family), along with placing great imporantance on education, placing great importance of extending the "family" to the community and engaging in what was called "community uplift" (which today is called "activism" and which has been based primarily on volunteerism in black America), faith is also an important aspect of black American culture - having a strong belief in something "greater than yourself" and having this creator as a consolation to life's suffering. I am not religious, but I do have a very strong faith and belief in the guiding force of ancestral spirits (and that may be something that other people find crazy, but I do feel the presence and strength of my ancestors, especially when I research them).
Our ethnic culture/subculture does not include not prioritizing education and/or intellectual pursuits at all. That is a stereotype that has been wide spread since the 1700s. One of the first things black people did in this nation around the Revolutionary War was to create our own churches, schools, and meeting houses in order to educate our children. Education is a centuries old theme in black culture. So the idea that it is something that is not important to us, is kind of laughable to someone who knows about black American culture in particular.
However, what I noted in regards to environmental toxins, nutrition, and especially the role of stress in the life of a child, are indeed impactful to both their cognitive abilities and especially (after environmental toxicity) to their motivation, determination/drive, etc. Those personality traits based on social conditions have been ones that often are literally beat out of black children by both their parents via corporal punishment and via society which places limits on black children and seeks to define them as inferior (which most discussions about IQ do around here and in general on the internet). It is like a circular sort of game for black people in America. 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.
This is why I often speak about and counsel other black people to stay out of these lay internet conversations. Actual researchers actually do focus on the social and environmental conditions and have both before and after the Bell Curve was published in 1994. But many people, like some posters on the thread, they disregard that research in order to continue to be invested in racial hierarchies. That is their issue and not something we should engage in (the debate). However, IMO it is important for us to use the data itself and to improve ourselves based upon the data on our ancestors not in competition with any other people or trying to "prove" something to anyone else. A review of black American history also shows that nothing we do can prove anything to a racist. We are not majority poverty stricken, yet people still see us that way; whites do way more hard drugs today and are dying at a high rate, yet people still claim we are a bunch of drug addicts; our crime rates have drastically reduced since the 1970s yet people still claim we are all criminals; our educational achievement has increased the most of any demographic since the 1970s; yet people still claim we do not value education lol. It is laughable to me so I counsel people to see it as laughable and not try to do anything to impress racist sorts of people. Crazy people are crazy and you trying to prove to them anything about "black people" will do nothing since they are crazy. Pray/hope for the best for them and move on and be grateful for the opportunities we have today.
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. I will repeat what I have said before, and that is that I am firmly convinced that the socioeconomic climate a child is born into and then experiences has much more to do with his or her outcome than his or her skin color. I also believe that people are not truly equal because of innate talents and differences in "maximum" intelligence, physical abilities, and many other things. I do agree with whoever said earlier that I certainly do NOT believe that every child is capable of obtaining a PhD or winning the Nobel Prize, just as I do not believe that every child is capable of becoming a major league football player.
Also, FWIW, although I am sure that I have some subconscious or unconscious racial biases, whenever I hear or read of a unwed single mom who put her kids last (with predictable bad results), I always think of my kids' white birth mom and NOT a black person. I think that what is true -- or at least it is for me -- that people form opinions based on their own personal experiences. One of adages I agree with is that "A person views the world from his or her own window." That is definitely true for me, at least, and I need to constantly keep that in mind when I read news stories or the opinions of other people.
And for those who missed my "tagline", I am a moderate, and therefore, I am willing to have my mind changed about issues, given enough objective data.
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