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There is then the problem of which is similar to that of welfare in our own country. This problem being that you will have many of the wonderful human beings you speak of giving aid to that will never try to better things on their own but rather will become reliant on the aid.
Believe it or not, but this is a well recognized problem in the development community. The type of aid is even more important than how much is spent on it. Things like food aid are fine in the short-term, especially when used as a part of disaster relief or in response to famine. However, development economists recognize that just giving food and other goods to poor countries creates dependency and only creates problems. This is why aid needs to be aimed at increasing state capacity; aid has to focus on developing policies and institutions and on providing better technologies to poor people. The term 'aid' can be misleading as it suggests handouts--this is actually not all that aid is. Aid can be all types of assistance, from investing in human capital (ie. building schools and hospitals and training individuals to work in them) to providing agricultural extension (ie. providing better technologies and methods to farmers as a means of increasing crop yields).
How do you explain the many developing countries which have either transformed themselves into fully developed countries (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Brunei, many East European Countries), which have transitioned from unbelievable poverty into upper-middle income countries . . .
How do I explain it? Simple:
Country Average IQ
Japan 105
South Korea 106
Taiwan 104
Singapore 103
Congo 65
Nigeria 67
Zimbabwe 66
Ethiopia 63
Let me guess. It's a difference in diet **giggle** You're too funny.
Let me guess. It's a difference in diet **giggle** You're too funny.
- Reel
1. IQ tests aren't exactly accurate, it's not entirely clear what they are measuring and there have been numerous studies that show that these tests are biased against people from certain walks of life due to the types of questions that are asked.
2. It's no surprise that people who are born into dire poverty, who suffer chronic malnourishment and who have never attended a day of school and therefore can't even read don't do well on a test. Surprise, surprise. If you are suffering from chronic hunger and weigh 25 lbs less than the lowest safe weight for your height I bet you aren't going to do too well on a test. If you have never learned to read because you have never attended school or had anyone to teach you I doubt you are going to do well on a test. If you're biggest concern is where you are going to find your next meal or place to sleep I doubt you are concerned with a damn test. Performance on IQ tests is, in many cases, a function of education; countries that have no real education system are going to have lower average IQ tests. If you can't see that then, well, I'm guessing your own score isn't too hot, either.
3. You can mock the importance of nutrition all you want as it only goes to show how much you are willing to distort things to support your racist agenda. 900 million people are chronically malnourished; the entire medical literature on nutrition shows that during the first two years of childhood it is absolutely critical that children receive adequate nutrition. A lack of proper nutrition leads to poor brain and physical development; if you aren't receiving enough vitamins and nutrients while your brain and body are growing fastest it should come as no surprise that your mental and physical capacity are going to suffer. You can laugh all you want, but a lot of people who are much better educated on medical issues than you will tell ya that nutrition is extremely important for children's development. Even moderate malnutrition has been shown to lower average IQ scores by more than 15% (that's percent, not points!). Countries that you listed will have more than 50% of their children suffering from much worse than 'moderate' malnutrition. Malnutrition also leads to greater susceptibility to numerous diseases which lead to death and mental problems. As much as I hate referring people to wikipedia, that site actually has a pretty good page dealing with malnutrtion that has links to a lot of major organizations that deal with malnutrition.
1. IQ tests aren't exactly accurate, it's not entirely clear what they are measuring and there have been numerous studies that show that these tests are biased against people from certain walks of life due to the types of questions that are asked.
2. It's no surprise that people who are born into dire poverty, who suffer chronic malnourishment and who have never attended a day of school and therefore can't even read don't do well on a test. Surprise, surprise. If you are suffering from chronic hunger and weigh 25 lbs less than the lowest safe weight for your height I bet you aren't going to do too well on a test. If you have never learned to read because you have never attended school or had anyone to teach you I doubt you are going to do well on a test. If you're biggest concern is where you are going to find your next meal or place to sleep I doubt you are concerned with a damn test. Performance on IQ tests is, in many cases, a function of education; countries that have no real education system are going to have lower average IQ tests. If you can't see that then, well, I'm guessing your own score isn't too hot, either.
3. You can mock the importance of nutrition all you want as it only goes to show how much you are willing to distort things to support your racist agenda. 900 million people are chronically malnourished; the entire medical literature on nutrition shows that during the first two years of childhood it is absolutely critical that children receive adequate nutrition. A lack of proper nutrition leads to poor brain and physical development; if you aren't receiving enough vitamins and nutrients while your brain and body are growing fastest it should come as no surprise that your mental and physical capacity are going to suffer. You can laugh all you want, but a lot of people who are much better educated on medical issues than you will tell ya that nutrition is extremely important for children's development. Even moderate malnutrition has been shown to lower average IQ scores by more than 15% (that's percent, not points!). Countries that you listed will have more than 50% of their children suffering from much worse than 'moderate' malnutrition. Malnutrition also leads to greater susceptibility to numerous diseases which lead to death and mental problems. As much as I hate referring people to wikipedia, that site actually has a pretty good page dealing with malnutrtion that has links to a lot of major organizations that deal with malnutrition.
1. Attacking IQ tests is just about the only thing you could have done. I expected it. IQ has nothing to do with education or how much one knows. IQ is the ability to learn. The IQ of folks who have little or no accumulated knowledge can be accurately measured.
Of course, even if there were no IQ tests and nobody had ever measured anyone's IQ and nobody had ever conducted any research and study of IQ, there would still be people who are more intelligent than others and the resulting life outcomes would be the same.
2/3. In section 2 and 3 you seem to admit that the average IQ of these folks is much lower than the average IQ in developed nations but go on to explain why it is that you think their IQ is lower. You also include a couple of personal attacks which is, again, pretty typical and expected.
Which is it? Are their IQs the same as anyone else's or is their IQ significantly lower because the don't eat right? Do you think if these folks ate right they would have an average IQ equal to that of Japan or South Korea?
I'll go ahead and swing with you to a degree. I agree that if they were better cared for these folks would have IQs that are a fair amount higher than they are. Rather than an IQ of 60 - 65 it might be more like 70 - 75. Environment is definitely a contrubuting factor but it's not as big a factor as heredity. These folks will never have an average IQ anywhere near the 105 of the northeat Asians.
Call me racist and other names if you want to but I've done a lot of reading and study on this issue over the last 3 or 4 years. I'm not the one saying these things. I'm just the messenger.
1. Attacking IQ tests is just about the only thing you could have done. I expected it. IQ has nothing to do with education or how much one knows. IQ is the ability to learn. The IQ of folks who have little or no accumulated knowledge can be accurately measured.
Of course, even if there were no IQ tests and nobody had ever measured anyone's IQ and nobody had ever conducted any research and study of IQ, there would still be people who are more intelligent than others and the resulting life outcomes would be the same.
2/3. In section 2 and 3 you seem to admit that the average IQ of these folks is much lower than the average IQ in developed nations but go on to explain why it is that you think their IQ is lower. You also include a couple of personal attacks which is, again, pretty typical and expected.
Which is it? Are their IQs the same as anyone else's or is their IQ significantly lower because the don't eat right? Do you think if these folks ate right they would have an average IQ equal to that of Japan or South Korea?
I'll go ahead and swing with you to a degree. I agree that if they were better cared for these folks would have IQs that are a fair amount higher than they are. Rather than an IQ of 60 - 65 it might be more like 70 - 75. Environment is definitely a contrubuting factor but it's not as big a factor as heredity. These folks will never have an average IQ anywhere near the 105 of the northeat Asians.
Call me racist and other names if you want to but I've done a lot of reading and study on this issue over the last 3 or 4 years. I'm not the one saying these things. I'm just the messenger.
- Reel
I'm going to go ahead and set aside the fact that there are plenty of educators out there who have serious doubts about the efficacy of IQ tests, especially in regards to the notion that they actually measure what they purport to. Instead, we're going to have a little fun with some logic here. Let's take a look at the countries you've listed; you'll notice that there is a huge correlation between the average IQ of the country and the level of poverty and malnutrition. The question of causality naturally arises, you argue that these countries are poor because of low IQ, however it seems much more likely that the IQ tests are much lower because these countries have high levels of malnutrition and absolute poverty. It's not an accident that the higher the malnutrition rate, the lower the average IQ. In order to actually test these relationships we'd need better time-series data and we'd have to apply statistical regressions on them to test the hypotheses. I'm willing to bet that had IQ tests been taken over time in Japan and South Korea they would have been much lower in 1940 than they are now. Rising standards of living resulting from economic growth mean that children receive better nourishment and therefore are able to better develop mentally and physically, leading to higher average IQ scores.
Additionally, we never even discussed the fact that the types of pollution plaguing urban areas of sub-saharan African countries are terrible and highly toxic; there are whole areas in Nigeria, for example, where highly toxic chemicals from the west are dumped. It's been shown that these chemicals cause brain damage. And, regardless of your assertions to the contrary, education will facilitate higher IQ scores; children who receive an education are going to be more familiar with testing procedures and better aware of what is expected of them from a test, they are more likely to be attentive and to have been trained to think critically and logically which will improve IQ scores. Education can train children to 'learn better.'
Finally, your average IQ scores are highly suspect given the locations in which they were applied. In order for them to be legitimately comparable they will have had to have been done randomly across each country and will have had to have been done in sufficient enough numbers to lead to low enough standard errors in order to be valid. Now, many of the countries you listed are war torn with many isolated communities meaning that a real random sample would be next to impossible, even if money was available to do such a study. I can pretty much guarantee that the average IQ test listed for Congo (which Congo, by the way) simply isn't valid; there is no way that IQ tests were done using a nationwide random sample. The same thing applies to most of the other countries listed. There is just no way that these measures are valid; real random samples would be impossible in these countries. Even if a random sample could somehow be drawn, access to many communities would be prohibitive due to their isolation and the lack of infrastructure, not to mention language barriers. Chances are, wherever these average IQ scores came from, they are not the result of proper social science research. If they are even real scores, it's almost certain that the samples are from small groups of children in urban areas meaning the the scores are simply not representative.
Are they suffering malnutrition in these countries as well?
South Africa 72
Kenya 72
Barbados 78
Jamaica 72
I think not which probably explains IQs in the 70s rather than the 60s. I guess that goes to prove both of our points. With proper nutrution their IQs go up significantly but nowhere near 100.
I'm going to go ahead and set aside the fact that there are plenty of educators out there who have serious doubts about the efficacy of IQ tests, especially in regards to the notion that they actually measure what they purport to. Instead, we're going to have a little fun with some logic here. Let's take a look at the countries you've listed; you'll notice that there is a huge correlation between the average IQ of the country and the level of poverty and malnutrition. The question of causality naturally arises, you argue that these countries are poor because of low IQ, however it seems much more likely that the IQ tests are much lower because these countries have high levels of malnutrition and absolute poverty. It's not an accident that the higher the malnutrition rate, the lower the average IQ. In order to actually test these relationships we'd need better time-series data and we'd have to apply statistical regressions on them to test the hypotheses. I'm willing to bet that had IQ tests been taken over time in Japan and South Korea they would have been much lower in 1940 than they are now. Rising standards of living resulting from economic growth mean that children receive better nourishment and therefore are able to better develop mentally and physically, leading to higher average IQ scores.
Additionally, we never even discussed the fact that the types of pollution plaguing urban areas of sub-saharan African countries are terrible and highly toxic; there are whole areas in Nigeria, for example, where highly toxic chemicals from the west are dumped. It's been shown that these chemicals cause brain damage. And, regardless of your assertions to the contrary, education will facilitate higher IQ scores; children who receive an education are going to be more familiar with testing procedures and better aware of what is expected of them from a test, they are more likely to be attentive and to have been trained to think critically and logically which will improve IQ scores. Education can train children to 'learn better.'
Finally, your average IQ scores are highly suspect given the locations in which they were applied. In order for them to be legitimately comparable they will have had to have been done randomly across each country and will have had to have been done in sufficient enough numbers to lead to low enough standard errors in order to be valid. Now, many of the countries you listed are war torn with many isolated communities meaning that a real random sample would be next to impossible, even if money was available to do such a study. I can pretty much guarantee that the average IQ test listed for Congo (which Congo, by the way) simply isn't valid; there is no way that IQ tests were done using a nationwide random sample. The same thing applies to most of the other countries listed. There is just no way that these measures are valid; real random samples would be impossible in these countries. Even if a random sample could somehow be drawn, access to many communities would be prohibitive due to their isolation and the lack of infrastructure, not to mention language barriers. Chances are, wherever these average IQ scores came from, they are not the result of proper social science research. If they are even real scores, it's almost certain that the samples are from small groups of children in urban areas meaning the the scores are simply not representative.
Differences in intelligence would still exist even if they were never measured. All your ramblings about the efficacy of IQ testing notwithstanding, some people will still be more intelligent than other people and some groups will still be more intelligent than other groups.
I'm not really talking about IQ here even though I quoted IQ figures. I'm talking about intelligence. People who are not very intelligent don't seem to do very well in life while people who are intelligent seem to do ok. I don't care what number you put on it and I don't care how you measure it. Most of us have never had our intelligence measured but we all know there are people more intelligent than we are and there are people who are not as intelligent as we are.
I've posted this in another thread, but I feel like it's a good topic for discussion here. I feel like a lot of the topics discussed here are rather silly; we have a tendency to make big issues out of nothing. In the process, we often ignore the real big issues facing our planet and our species. Today I'd say the greatest moral and political problem we face as humans is global poverty. While everyone is so up in arms over the latest partisan squabbling here in the US, people across the globe are suffering terribly. I really think that its shameful that no one in these forums talks about any of this; we ignore it completely.
So many people here have become so nationalistic that they compartmentalize humanity, thinking that it is some how morally acceptable to brush off the suffering of the world's poor simply because they 'aren't American' - as if an American life is somehow worth more, as if we don't share some of the responsibility for the state of things at the global level.
A few interesting statistics to ponder:
Approximately 1 billion people live on less than 1 US dollar a day.
Approximately 1 billion more people live on less than 2 dollars a day.
Approximately 900 million people, predominantly women and children, suffer from chronic malnutrition--they don't have enough food to eat, let alone a roof over their head. More than 1 billion people are undernourished. At least 3,500 people die from hunger each day.
Approximately 1.5 billion people lack regular access to clean drinking water.
Approximately 5 million people die from water related diseases each year.
More than 33 million people suffer from HIV/AIDS.
The most violent, deadliest war since WWII is currently raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo yet no one pays attention.
More people than you can imagine across the continent of Africa have suffered from mutilation and rape as a result of violent conflicts largely stemming from poverty.
Millions of children die every year from preventable illnesses. Hundreds of thousands of children's lives could be saved by something as simple as a mosquito net.
These are the real moral issues of our time; this is real suffering beyond the imagination of most people living in the US. The developed countries of the world have the capacity to dramatically reduce this suffering. However, the political will is nonexistent. I'm guessing a lot of people here will brush this all aside, too, saying that its not 'our problem' and that those suffering can continue to do so because they are simply too inconvenient for us to make sacrifices for...
Thoughts?
Yeah, a couple of thoughts, in fact. First, your title is misleading for you address not just poverty, but also hunger, and also war. That's three, count'em.
The US already hands out enough money around the world, a lot to countries who could give a tinker's damn about OUR welfare.
I'm not "brushing it aside," but I WILL tell you this: It's not my personal problem.
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