[lbo-talk] Slate magazine's cheap trick

Sandy Harris sandyinchina at gmail.com
Wed Nov 21 21:40:18 PST 2007


On Nov 22, 2007 10:04 AM, Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:


> If you arbitrarily define intelligence as latency of brain responses to
> flashes of light,

Not defining "intelligence", just one way to measure it. There's nothing arbitrary about it. There was evidence that it correlated well with IQ tests.


> then sure, you can say that there are no racial differences in intelligence.

On one measure -- IQ tests -- clear racial differences do show up, but those results are suspect for many reasons, primarily cultural bias in the tests and the different socio-econmic status of the races in America.

If response times provide another measure, without the cultural bias, and show a different result, that is fairly important. I know the claim has been both made and disputed. I do not know if that debate has been resolved. Can anyone here tell me?

For that matter, are there other ways to measure intelligence that wold be useful in this conversation?


> We're back to Woj's "so what" question.
> What difference does response latency make in problem solving in
> everyday social situations?

Yes, and it is a very good question, but it should be asked of every purported measure of intelligence.

-- Sandy Harris, Nanjing, China



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