Maggie's Farm

I think what is missing from this conversation is that the life style and culture of Jews and Asians is such that they dote on their children and push them relentlessly to succeed. You could take a black or Hispanic person put them in the same situation and their IQ scores would go up 40 points. IQ does NOT test intelligence! It tests what you have learned based on an assumption of what you were taught.

This is also why home schooled children typically test better. The children are taught by caring parents/teachers and there are no excuses for failure to perform.

Are there genetic differences between races? Yes, I honestly believe there are just as Kenyans often win all the long distance races. Years ago the Polish and other Eastern Europeans dominated football and prize fighting because of their genes. Now blacks of African descent dominate for exactly the same reasons; genetic differences.

Here would be my standard to argue that a race or culture is "smarter" than another: Who invented the steam engine, the internal combustion engine, space travel, computers, wrote classic books, composed classical music, etc. Strangely... it is NOT the cultures that today we often claim are genetically geniuses. Go figure.

You will note that 100M is not a distance race. However The genetics of Africans is very diverse. Different tribes even living in the same area are very different. Typically in a 100M race in the U.S. it will be a black man about 5'9" or so, muscular and definitely not Kenyan who dominates that race.

What I said was "You could take a black or Hispanic person put them in the same situation and their IQ scores would go up 40 points."
I did not say adopted by a Jewish or Asian family. And as I alluded to it is because "culture". Adopted blacks in white families discover quite young that they are black and usually start acting black. No, what I meant was that if blacks had the same culture as Asian and their mothers were Asian tiger mothers and the culture they were raised in they saw everyone else like them working hard to get ahead that THEN their IQ would be 40 points higher than it would be raised in America by black parents.

The problem is two fold: 1. The expectation to do well supported by the culture. 2. The continuous effort by parents and teachers to teach the child and the enforcement by the parents on the child to do their best.

I know from your past postings that you have some knowledge in this area. But you are, at least to some extent, incorrect on what IQ is. IQ is what the test says it is, nothing more and nothing less. Of course we all know high IQ people who are ditz and/or unsuccessful in life. They may be smart and they may have done well in the test but for whatever reason they don't have that candlepower you refer to. By the same token we all know sharp, I mean street smart sharp, people who have succeeded, often against all odds who do not test well. The test is flawed, pure and simple.

Now what I said was: "IQ does NOT test intelligence! It tests what you have learned based on an assumption of what you were taught."
This is 100% true. The IQ test does NOT take into account that you are a piss poor lazy student and ONLY test you on the subjects you paid attention to. It tests you one what the school teaches or is supposed to teach and by that I mean teach to the best students. THAT is what is on the IQ test along with a certain number of ballbuster questions intended to keep "just good" students from acing the test. The IQ test does not measure some kind of native or actual intelligence. It comes close but it can also be beat. That is for a few thousand dollars you can hire a tutor who will raise your IQ score by 20 points. Now think about that... It can not possibly be true that the IQ test tests your real and actual candle power AND that I can take your regular high school schlub and increase their IQ. No, the IQ test is flawed, not fatally, but beatable and cannot and does not predict success.

No! Intelligence s largely inborn, and strongly heritable. I totally agree with that. In a perfect world the IQ test would accurately measure IQ or intelligence but that is simply not the case. The IQ test measures what each individual has learned assuming that each individual is taught the same things. IF each individual were actually taught the same things THEN the IQ test would be a pretty accurate measure of intelligence.

There is also another factor that throws off the results of most testing. Almost anyone can be taught to beat a multiple choice test. It is by far the worst possible test. But it is the easiest test to use and score so that is why it exists.

There are companies and individuals who will tutor your student and increase their IQ score by 20 points. What they do is first evaluate what your child has learned and then provide training in the area where they are deficient. Perhaps your child didn't study English Lit because like many of us at age 14 English Lit sucks. They don't "teach" English Lit to your student they "teach" those things that are likely to be on a test. The process is easy and even low IQ students can raise their score by 20 points (in fact low IQ students will likely improve the most). Another thing they teach is how to take a test. One of the strategies of test writing is to provide two "right" answers and conversely two answers that are wrong. SO they teach you to eliminate two answers right off the bat and then try to identify the "trick" answer. The test writers do this because of laziness. It is easy to write a multiple choice test using this method. There are a few other tricks as well.