– Premise: IQ, for the American population, follows a normal distribution, with a mean value of 100, and an SD of ~15.

– Premise: A person’s IQ score is largely a function of intractable factors – e.g., genetics – over which that person has no control.

– Premise: Our society is currently structured such that IQ is a significant – and increasingly-important – determinant of socioeconomic success. I.e., the higher your IQ, the more likely you are to be wealthy, upper crust, etc. Our society has basically morphed into an IQ-based meritocracy.

In this sort of IQ Meritocracy, low-IQ individuals will almost inevitably end up filling the ranks of the working poor, the unemployed, those without health insurance, etc. Note that these people wouldn’t be welfare queens or the “undeserving poor”; even if they work hard, are disciplined, go to school, etc., they still end up at the bottom, _through no fault of their own_, simply because, in our society & economy, rewards are doled out as a function of IQ.

Query: As a matter of justice, is society not obliged to assist – perhaps via income-support programs – such low-IQ individuals, whose position in the bottom run of the socioeconomic ladder is almost entirely the result of factors beyond their control?

My point is that even if one accepts that

1) IQ does measure intelligence;
2) Some people are smarter than others;
3) IQ/intelligence is largely a function of genetic factors; and
4) IQ is a meaningful factor in socioeconomic outcomes

…”right-wing” public-policy recommendations do not intractably follow from such acceptance.

Confession: The above argument was cribbed from one of the later chapters in “The Bell Curve”.

But RCM to address your point directly, look at Shaker Heights in Ohio, and New Haven in CT, and Berkeley in CA (for geographical diversity….these areas have also been studied extensively). You may need a university computer to access some….that’s where I’m killing time and it’s hard for me to tell:

http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/brookings_papers_on_education_policy/v2001/2001.1rich.pdf

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/brookings_papers_on_education_policy/toc/pep2001.1.html

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0094-3061(200407)33%3A4%3C414%3ABASIAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E

A good summary of Shaker Heights is in No Excuses by Abigail Thernstrom. Here’s a news article that summarizes studies from the late 90s
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/2003-05-21/news/rich-black-flunking/

And again, no one denies environment or culture. The whole point, however, is that the differences are so large and so persistent that we must be open to genetic cognitive difference, and within our lifetimes its very feasible to know with greater certainity.

Jonathan, please cite all studies that show wealthy blacks are inherently dumber than wealthy whites.

Watson thinks we’ll know for sure within two decades. He’s said (especially in his promotional tours for his memoir) that scientists are moving very agressively to get some solid answers on the genetic question. The Jewish point is an interesting one. Eastern European (based) Jews have the highest group average IQ, but that appears to be a recent development. Charles Murray speculates this is due in part to being restricted to certain trades starting about 1,000 years ago.

In terms of the Flynn Effect, Malloy highlights this passage from Flynn himself (about half the way down of his GXNP piece):
“When you analyze IQ gains over time, you often find that they do not constitute enhancement of these latent traits — they do not seem to be general intelligence gains, or quantitative factor gains, or verbal factor gains”

Flynn sees little bearing of the movements he has detected on the gaps, which are unfortunately quite persistent. We’ll hopefully know a lot more as they begin to finish the mapping.

What needs to be understood is that this is an important scientific topic, one with a lot of social science components. Yet social scientists, especially in the universities, are by and large worthless, intoxicated with social construction and “critical theory” nonsense. We need many more researchers who take anthropology seriously, and go out into the field, like the physical anthopologist Carleton Coon. If you ever find a book of his, it is worth picking up. He took difference seriously and did an incredible amount of homework.

Sowell sets out some evidence against the “genetics is behind the IQ disparty” argument in the series of articles I linked to earlier, and the cumlatively case seems pretty devastating. It’s not clear, for example, how the theory can account for the Flynn effect (IQ’s of societies tend to rise over time). Nor is it compatible with the fact that the relative disparities in IQ between different groups vary significantly both between cultures (significant IQ differences between ethnic subgroups in Japan are not present among American immigrants from those subgroups) and time (Jews went from consistently having a low average IQ to an above average one). Nor does it explain how the difference between different subgroups of Whites (say, those in Apalachia vs. those in New England) is as great as the difference between Whites and Blacks. There was also a study done of the IQs of the illegitimate children of U.S. Airmen during WWII (german mothers, American fathers) that found no IQ gap between Whites and Blacks. Given all this, it’s hard to see how the genetics thesis can be sustained.

In terms of statistical group difference, the black-white gap in the U.S. is roughly 15 points, or nearly two standard deviations (85-100). This has been true since the (varied) tests were first administered, about a century ago. Among African nations, the best data comes from the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations (whose authors spent years collecting and analyzing test results). There, the average is about 70. These are significant gaps, but there are ways to close it.

There is debate about the usefulness of such tests (again, they measure cognitive and analytical abstract critical thinking) as a measure of intelligence, although they are commonly accepted. Therefore, it is not possible to state that anyone is “inferior in intelligence,” only that there is evidence of statistical group difference over these measures.

IMO, this is important and should be discussed openly, especially among policy makers. There are much better ways to help those who face trouble with abstract critical thinking than we currently employ.

That’s what you seem to be saying, and I’m just…stunned.

Why not increased vocational training? Why should liberal arts-type critical thinking and analytical skills be valued more highly (in terms of prestige) than working with your hands in some way….which leads us to the competition and mass immigration question….

The very concept of “Intelligence” is hardly a settled scientific matter. What do we mean by it?

I think it is safe to say that if you dropped nearly ANY european into the jungle in the Congo, and forced him to fend for himself, the locals would be baffled by the sight of a healthy adult nearly starving to death in an environment where good, nutritious food is seldom more than a foot or two from either of his hands; or blundering helplessly into the jaws of some predator that even the local small children can easily scare away.