Race by IQ is the issue that actually woke me up to both Sketpcism and PC over reach.
About a decade ago, maybe two decades ago now (?) I clearly remember when the "Bell Curve" came out. I was an undergraduate psychology student. We had a prof who presented this book to us and told us it was bunk, and that there are no racial differences in intelligence. He didn't discuss in what way the studies the book was based on were flawed, etc. I was the only student in the class with the gall to ask him what the actual errors were, and how the research went wrong. He refused to go through it either in class or privately. I remain convinced to this day that he never read it. When I read through it I noticed a lot of what the prof had said the book was saying, the book wasn't actually saying, and I also found flaws in the research the book pointed to and managed to debunk it for myself. I don't remember the particular data or analysis but I came out convinced that there are no differences in IQ between races found.
I could have just accepted that from the get go, and gone with the sheep. But this opened by eyes to free thinking. Just because somebody tells you something you want to hear, doesn't mean its true. We should know why it is so, why those who say things we dislike are wrong, etc. I became more of an active voice about my atheism at this time and started reading up on logic and logical fallacies. This sparked a free thinking side of me that I am not sure would have been sparked otherwise. Other side bad, so other wise wrong and other side has no points I need address, is bad and dangerous thinking.
I agree with all of that. My view of the theory of innate differences in actual intelligence is based upon decades of professional familiarity with the relevant literature, plus just personal intellectual interest in evaluating the claim b/c it is so politically and socially impactful with voices of unreason across the spectrum.
I agree that many of the attacks on "The Bell Curve", including much of what Gould had to say, were invalid, such as claims that IQ tests do not measure anything meaningful. They do, they measure how people perform on a test that requires several types of information processing that are relevant to learning and problem solving in many areas. But they don't measure innate differences in basic information processing. One must eliminate countless other known influences not only on cognitive development, but upon any single instance of cognitive performance where there is no reason to think people are even attempting to fully apply the abilities they have developed. I have yet to encounter a single study showing racial group differences were all such other known influences have been controlled for (not surprising, b/c it would be virtually impossible to do so).
I accept the scientific consensus on the issue, conveyed by the APA task force paper authored by leaders of the feild in cognitive performance.
[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence:_Knowns_and_Unknowns
[/URL] and largely echoed in
the statement issued by 52 other researchers in the field. Both were published in response to the misinformation being launched across the political spectrum in reaction to The Bell Curve. They made clear that while IQ tests do measure something useful, they are impacted by many factors outside of innate ability, and the evidence about genes and IQ differences between individuals has no implications for the source of group level differences.
And while that was 25 years ago, there has been virtually no new evidence that speaks to the particular question of the source of group differences, which is not surprising since the lack of evidence either way is due to virtually impossible to overcome practical limitations in being able to control other factors.
My view of those who espouse claims of innate differences in intelligence between racial groups as being motivated by dogmatic racism is also based upon the evidence and logical evaluation for the plausible reasons why a person would espouse a claim that has no rational scientific basis and persist when their pseudo-evidence has been clearly invalidated.
Note, that as I have already said, claiming racial group differences on IQ tests does not require racist motives because that claim has no logical implications for innate differences in intelligence. But precisely for the same reason, those who use IQ test differences to conclude innate differences are clearly motivated by unscientific racist dogma.
Ironically, many on the left also wrongly equate race differences on IQ test with claims of innate differences. But since they are ideologically motivated to reject such differences, even if real, their conflation leads them to reject even the empirical fact of race differences in IQ tests or to engage in unscientific dismissal of IQ tests as completely meaningless and not even capturing anything about one's intellectual performance. Those types of anti-science arguments were what partially lead the researchers of the linked papers to feel the need to set the record straight about IQ tests and what the do and do not tell us.
