Northern populations are more intelligent because living conditions are harsher ?

Economics Economics Questions
81

First of all, it’s “you’re” not “your” and I’m not being disingenuous. You’re being a dick.

Secondly, if you want to compare mountaintop farms with cities such as Venice or Constantinople, be my guest.

One cannot become good at taking IQ tests unless one takes many IQ tests over the course of one’s lifetime. Obviously, the vast majority of people who take IQ tests and are included in studies are only one-timers or people who take two to three tests over the course of a lifetime. That’s not enough to become “trained” on IQ tests.

Secondly, IQ tests are designed to measure one’s abstract reasoning ability as well as one’s ability to acquire new knowledge.

Thirdly, if IQ tests could be trained, then there wouldn’t be significant crossover from one IQ test to the next. However, this is exactly what studies have shown.

Lastly, if IQ tests could be trained, there wouldn’t be any significant heritability. However, studies have shown that IQ is heritable at a rate of 0.4 to 0.8. From what I’ve read, most studies (or perhaps the most believable ones) show a heritability between 0.4 and 0.6. Obviously, this leaves a significant role for biological and environmental factors in shaping one’s intelligence, but it shows that genes are just as important, if not more so.

If you want more information on IQ and heritability but are unwilling to cough up money for books, I suggest you start here. Some key excerpts:

IQ is strongly related, probably more so
than any other single measurable human
trait, to many important educational, occupational,
economic, and social outcomes. Its
relation to the welfare and performance of
individuals is very strong in some arenas in
life (education, military training), moderate
but robust in others (social competence), and
modest but consistent in others (law-abidingness).
Whatever IQ tests measure, it is of
great practical and social importance.

A high IQ is an advantage in life because
virtually all activities require some reasoning
and decision-making. Conversely,
a low IQ is often a disadvantage, especially in
disorganized environments. Of course, a high
IQ no more guarantees success than a low IQ
guarantees failure in life. There are many exceptions,
but the odds for success in our society
greatly favor individuals with higher IQs.

[…]

Individuals differ in intelligence due to
differences in both their environments and
genetic heritage. Heritability estimates range
from 0.4 to 0.8 (on a scale from 0 to 1), most
thereby indicating that genetics plays a bigger
role than does environment in creating
IQ differences among individuals. (Heritability
is the squared correlation of phenotype
with genotype.)

[…]

The following professors-all experts in intelligence and allied fields-have signed this statement:
Richard D. Arvey, University of
Minnesota
Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., University of
Minnesota
Nadeen L. Kaufman, California School
of Professional Psychology at San
Diego
John B. Carroll, Un. of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill
Raymond B. Cattell, University of
Hawaii
David B. Cohen, University of Texas at
Austin
Rene V. Dawis, University of Minnesota
Douglas K. Detterman, Case Western
Reserve Un.
Marvin Dunnette, University of
Minnesota
Hans Eysenck, University of London
Jack Feldman, Georgia Institute of
Technology
Edwin A. Fleishman, George Mason
University
Grover C. Gilmore, Case Western
Reserve University
Robert A. Gordon, Johns Hopkins
University
Linda S. Gottfiedson, University of
Delaware
Robert L. Greene, Case Western
Reserve University
Richard J. Haier, University of
California at Irvine
Garrett Hardin, University of California
at Santa Barbara
Robert Hogan, University of Tulsa
Joseph M. Horn, University of Texas at
Austin
Lloyd G. Humphreys, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
John E. Hunter, Michigan State
University
Seymour W. Itzkoff, Smith College
Douglas N. Jackson, Un. of Western
Ontario
James J. Jenkins, University of South
Florida
Arthur R. Jensen, University of
California at Berkeley
Alan S. Kaufman, University of
Alabama
Timothy Z. Keith, Alfred University
Nadine Lambert, University of
California at Berkeley
John C. Loehlin, University of Texas at
Austin
David Lubinski, Iowa State University
David T. Lykken, University of
Minnesota
Richard Lynn, University of Ulster at
Coleraine
Paul E. Meehl, University of Minnesota
R. Travis Osborne, University of
Georgia
Robert Perlo& University of Pittsburgh
Robert Plomin, Institute of Psychiatry,
London
Cecil R. Reynolds, Texas A & M
University
David C. Rowe, University of Arizona
J. Philippe Rushton, Un. of Western
Ontario
Vincent Sarich, University of California
at Berkeley
Sandra Starr, University of Virginia
Frank L. Schmidt, University of Iowa
Lyle F. Schoenfeldt, Texas A & M
University
James C. Sharf, George Washington
University
Herman Spitz, former director of
research E.R. Johnstone Training and
Research Center, Bordentown, N.J.
Julian C. Stanley, Johns Hopkins
University
Del Thiessen, University of Texas at
Austin
Lee A. Thompson, Case Western
Reserve University
Robert M. Thorndike, Western
Washington Un.
Philip Anthony Vernon, Un. of Western
Ontario
Lee Willerman, University of Texas at
Austin

82

That isn’t the issue. Of course some level of inteligence and techology were needed. But your argument is that the sort of inteligence was needed that was beyond Africans. I very much doubt that. I doubt that you would be more likely to survive on a deserted temperate island than an African dude. A random African is as capable of figuring out to store food as you are.

It doesn’t rott when it’s freezing. Deer digg up grass from bellow the snow, humans do the same for cabbages. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to preserve food in this way.

83

I doubt that you would be more likely to survive on a deserted temperate island than an African dude.

Untill we hammer out this detail any other discussion will be fruitless. Because if it is not recognized that cold climates require different behavior than warm climates the of course the theory makes no sense.

I agree we both would die. Because why? Colder climate are more harsh. That is the point Our physical adaptations do not allow us to survive there. The first time the temprature drops below 50 -40 degrees you will die without shelter or proper clothing. The temprature never drops that low on the equator. There are things that will kill you in the tropics, but none are as absolute as temprature. And those can be avoided without technology. Can we agree that temprature is an absolute killer and that the only thing that can overcome that killer is technology?

84

People who live on the continent of Africa are obviously intellectually capable of making clothing suitable for colder climates.

85

There is a much better explanation why Africans were not able to move north. It has nothing to do with intelligence or technology, nothing to do with them being to incapable of building a shelter, store food, skin animals or sew clothing. It has to do with them lacking a physical adaptation. Their skin is made to protect from the sun which makes them 8 times slower to produce vitamin D. This leaves them vitamin D defficient and sickly in northern lattitudes where you must walk around clothed exposing less skin to the sun and where the sun is too low on the horizon for you to produce any vitamin D for 6 months of the year.

This isn’t a big deal today because of our rich diet, but in prehistoric times when your life would hung on the balance at all times a problem like this was the difference between life and death.

86

People who live on the continent of Africa are obviously intellectually capable of making clothing suitable for colder climates.

70 thousand years ago they were. I am not talking about intellectual capacity today.

Maybe that is where the confusion is. I am trying to make two points in all of my above posts.

1st I am trying to establish that Yes, cold climates are more harsh than warm climates. If that cannot be agreed on then the theory doesnt make sense.

2nd I am trying to show how if colder climates are indeed more harsh then the adaptaions that we made to survive there were not physical. They were mental.

The island scenario is only to demonstrate that our physical adaptaions are insufficent to survive outside of the tropics. While our physical adaptations are sufficient when living in the tropics. Will anyone disagree with this point?

87

There is a much better explanation why Africans were not able to move north. It has nothing to do with intelligence or technology, nothing to do with them being to incapable of building a shelter, store food, skin animals or sew clothing. It has to do with them lacking a physical adaptation. Their skin is made to protect from the sun which makes them 8 times slower to produce vitamin D. This leaves them vitamin D defficient and sickly in northern lattitudes where you must walk around clothed exposing less skin to the sun and where the sun is too low on the horizon for you to produce any vitamin D for 6 months of the year.

This isn’t a big deal today because of our rich diet, but in prehistoric times when your life would hung on the balance at all times a problem like this was the difference between life and death.

You have cause and effect backwards here. You say they couldnt move north because of dark skin. But they did move north. So they would have had to develop pale skin first. It dosent work that way. They moved out of africa first then developed the pale skin to better suit the environment they were in.

So if it wasent technology and wasent skin color, why?

Also, I think that we may be differing on a few assumptions that wont allow us to find common ground.

First I am making the assumption that all humans 50, 75, 100 thousand years ago were not as intellegent as we are today. And technology that we find childishly simple today was complex and beyond the understanding of a significant portion of the population then.

Next, I am assuming that what we view as simple technology today was rocket science 100 thousand years ago. Yes clothing is a simple idea today but at one time it was revolutionary. Same with shelter, hunting and gathering techniques, etc.

If we have these different starting points then of course we wont come to the same conclustion or even understand what the others point is.

88

On the contrary IQ is correlated with race and race is correlated with geographic location.

89

Living your entire life up to the point of taking the test is training on IQ tests. It is simply absurd to believe that everything that a person has for his entire life has no impact on the result of any test that he takes. A good intelligence test would show a lower score for people who seriously propose such a crazy notion.

What something is designed to do and what it does are two different things. But you are wrong about what it is designed to do. It is designed to extricate “intrinsic” ability from acquired ability. Which is a ludicrous idea as I said above. If a test was designed to do what you say, it would be a valid idea, but there’s no proof that the IQ test measures anything other than how good people are at IQ tests (or you might say how good they are at the type of activity on the test).

Again, you don’t have to do a test to train for it. You just have to do the type of activity that is in it.

90

Thank you for correcting me. Now answer my question.

91

There is nothing absurd or ludicrous about testing for intellegence. The methodology may or may not be flawed, but the idea is sound. We do exactly what IQ test try to do everyday. We observe how people solve problems, then draw conclusions from the results. IQ tests attempt to do this a more orderly uniform fashion.

You are awfully hostile to the notion testing for intellegence. Why?

92

I feel that it has a lot more to do with culture than anything else. I don’t find Asian kids to be smarter just because they were like that when they were born- but their parents(like mine) are very hardcore about getting proper school grades and nearly all other activity is trivialized. I know some asian parents that were so hardcore about it that they discouraged physical activity- and when those kids tried to play something like basketball or football they had no idea what they were doing, how to make plays, the signals to watch out for or anything like that. So to me it sounds like they gave up one kind of “intelligence” for another. The culture over here in the inner city is very anti-learning because its accepted that there’s no point in trying to get by in the “system” because you’re a sucker when you can just hustle and make a lot more money. Very easy when children are raised without fathers and many times without mothers. When you’re raised in a different environment, different measures of intelligence are required. A kid who’s was raised in a great neighborhood and told to walk around safely in the projects and the ghetto will definitely fail the “IQ test” of being aware of his surroundings, what body language is useful, and how to diffuse different situations.

So what happens if someone is half-black and half-white? Are they smarter than those who are completely black and dumber than those who are completely white? What is the point of trying to figure out the intelligence for people who look different? I don’t see how it improves any real decision making unless you make all your decisions regarding associating with others based on IQ test results.

93

That is a non sequitur. They can be both.

I know about the various “studies”. Studies don’t show that it is heritable. The assumption is that it is heritable and the studies are interpreted as verification of the assumption. There is no reason to make that assumption (the quantitification). A person can have low IQ and parents with low IQ and not have inherited it and without the parent having inherited it. So, the studies don’t reallly prove anything. The only way to prove that conclusion would be to find a physiological trait that would definitely make the difference and is not present in anyone with high IQ.

94

Don’t change what I said and argue against the strawman.

The idea, extricating intrinsic intelligence from acquired intelligence, is impossible/nonsense and the method is “flawed” because the idea is impossible/nonsense.

They attempt to cover for the ineffectiveness of the school system. The alternative to overemphasizing “intrinsic” intelligence is emphasizing the ineffectiveness of teaching methods in the Prussian lever-puller system. That is what I am hostile toward. It’s a convenient excuse to say, “It’s not our fault that most people come out as dumb as anyone who never went to school- or dumber.”

95

I feel that it has a lot more to do with culture than anything else. I don’t find Asian kids to be smarter just because they were like that when they were born- but their parents(like mine) are very hardcore about getting proper school grades and nearly all other activity is trivialized. I know some asian parents that were so hardcore about it that they discouraged physical activity- and when those kids tried to play something like basketball or football they had no idea what they were doing, how to make plays, the signals to watch out for or anything like that. So to me it sounds like they gave up one kind of “intelligence” for another. The culture over here in the inner city is very anti-learning because its accepted that there’s no point in trying to get by in the “system” because you’re a sucker when you can just hustle and make a lot more money. Very easy when children are raised without fathers and many times without mothers. When you’re raised in a different environment, different measures of intelligence are required. A kid who’s was raised in a great neighborhood and told to walk around safely in the projects and the ghetto will definitely fail the “IQ test” of being aware of his surroundings, what body language is useful, and how to diffuse different situations.

Well culture and ability are inseprable. The abilities of the people affect the culture. Culture cannot create great athletes, it augment the ability present but it cannot create the ability. Culture cannot create great intellects, it can augment the ability present but it cannot create ability.

What is the point of trying to figure out the intelligence for people who look different?

Its an attempt to explain things like why the industrial revolution happened where it did. The original purpose of this thread. So no the discussion is not pointless.

96

I think it’s funny when chimps do better on intelligence tests than “educated” scholars.

97

Don’t change what I said and argue against the strawman.

This is your objection to IQ testing. The premise of testing for intrinsic intellegence is an impossiblility. This to you is obvious, so those who say it is possible are advocating an absurd or ludicruous notion.

It is simply absurd to believe that everything that a person has for his entire life has no impact on the result of any test that he takes. A good intelligence test would show a lower score for people who seriously propose such a crazy notion.

It is designed to extricate “intrinsic” ability from acquired ability. Which is a ludicrous idea as I said above.

I dont think I have changed what you have said. Maybe I have just misunderstood you.

They attempt to cover for the ineffectiveness of the school system. The alternative to overemphasizing “intrinsic” intelligence is emphasizing the ineffectiveness of teaching methods in the Prussian lever-puller system. That is what I am hostile toward. It’s a convenient excuse to say, “It’s not our fault that most people come out as dumb as anyone who never went to school- or dumber.”

So with the correct teaching methods we could eliminate differences in intellegence? Anyone could become stephen hawking or albert einstein? Forgive me if I have misunderstood, I dont want to misrepresent you point of veiw.

Do you beleive that there are differences in intrinsic intellegence or even that intrinsic intellegence even exists?

98

I think it’s funny when chimps do better on intelligence tests than “educated” scholars.

That would be funny. Do you have a source?

99

100 is the averge IQ, by definition.

100

100 is the averge IQ, by definition.

You are both right.