| Not Me |
05-19-2004 06:07 PM |
Intelligenter than you!
Quote:
Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Exactly. Most of what gore won was the inner cities, where IQ is on average low, either because of cultural bias in the test, or because you guys have fucked up on social policy. the blue/red imbalance is bad at a state level- look at it on county level and you'll see just how isolated you really are.
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Or because IQ tests aren't a good measure of intelligence. Or because, well, because there are racial disparities in intelligence levels.
Intelligence is something that is profoundly affected by prenatal/perinatal and early childhood conditions, as well as nutrional status in the early years of life. Babies born to mothers who don't get good prenatal care on average score lower on IQ tests. I doubt this is a cultural bias, but rather a very real organic phenomena - these people's brains aren't as good as they could have been if their mother had gotten better prenatal care. I think it is fair to say that blacks don't get the same quality and quantity of prenatal care as whites on average in this society.
Same is true of the perinatal/infancy period, in particular, if the baby is breast fed. Fewer blacks breast feed than whites.
Same is true of the nutritional status in the early years of life. On average, malnutrition in the US is more prevalent in black children than in white children in the US.
So there are legitimate medical explanations for why it could be that it isn't cultural bias that causes the racial disparity in IQ test scores. It could be that on average, blacks aren't as intelligent as whites in the US because of environmental factors that affect their developing brains in utero and early in life. But no one is allowed to discuss that without being called a racist in this society.
The head start programs and other interventions can only help a person reach their biologically determined maximum intelligence. If their brain developed under sub-optimal environmental conditions in utero or throughout the early years of life, their maximum achievable intelligence will be reduced from what it would have been had their environmental conditions been optimal. Once that occurs, it cannot be fixed by education or otherwise. |
