[lbo-talk] The Discussion of Black IQs Considered as a DownhillAuto Race

[Miles Jackson]

Doug Henwood wrote:
> On Nov 20, 2007, at 1:19 PM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
>   
>> I really do not understand why you are so attached to the concept  
>> of IQ?
>>     
>
> I'm not. What distresses me is the way this is playing out. IQ is  
> assumed to be a proxy for some general intelligence, g (which it  
> isn't); IQ/g are presumed to be heritable (which they aren't); and  
> the heritability is supposed to be meaningful across populations  
> (meaning blacks are inevitably dumber, on average, than whites, which  
> is crap). Every part of that chain of illogic is nonsense, but whites  
> are going to seize on this latest round. Conservatives will say, fuck  
> the blacks and the Africans, they're hopeless (doesn't The Bell Curve  
> conclude with a suggestion that black Americans be rounded up on  
> something like Indian reservations and make baskets or something?);  
> liberals will say, we must help the poor dears. But either way it's  
> enough to induce projectile vomiting.
>
> Doug
> ___________________________________
>   
I share Doug's disgust for this shit; however, one link of his "chain of 
illogic" is in fact well supported by research: the heritability of IQ 
performance.  Based on twin and adoption studies, the heritability ratio 
for IQ performance is .40 to .60, meaning about half of the variation in 
IQ scores can be attributed to genetic variation.   I hasten to add that 
these data do not support genetic explanations for observed group level 
differences in IQ, nor do they support the claim that IQ measures 
general intelligence.  However, some of the variation in IQ performance 
is due to genetics.

I agree with Woj that the best response to this is--so what.  Given that 
there are many types of intelligence and many problem solving abilities 
that are not measured by IQ tests, it is ludicrous to conflate a group's 
mean score on an IQ test with the overall "intelligence" of the group.

Miles