Resolved: Caucasians are not more intelligent than African Americans.

In order to win this debate, I much show that Caucasian-Americans are, on average, more intelligent than African-Americans. The standard measure of intelligence is IQ. Caucasian-Americans (whites) score an average of 100. African-Americans (blacks) score an average of 85, 15 points lower than the white average [1]. The existence of this gap is not in dispute. The cause, however, is. My opponent is claiming that this IQ gap is entirely the result of environmental differences between whites and blacks, with genetics playing no role. I will show that this is clearly not the case, and that, while environmental differences do play a role, whites do have an innately higher intelligence than blacks, on average. IQ and Environment My opponent claims that IQ is mostly a result of environment. This is clearly not true. IQ is almost entirely heritable. A 1996 statement from the American Psychological Association gave a heritability estimate of .75 during and after adolescence, and a 2004 meta-analysis in Current Directions in Psychological Science found that IQ is .85 heritable by age 18 [2]. My opponent's main argument for strong environmental effects is that heritability is much lower at younger ages. He is correct that heritability grows with age, but it is astounding that she finds this as evidence against heritability. It is well known that genes express themselves more as organisms grow. Early on in development in the womb, human fetuses look virtually the exact same as fish, chicken, cows, and numerous other animals [3]. However, as time goes on, genes express themselves more and these species begin to look different. Likewise, humans become more different throughout their lives, as genes express themselves more. The fact that IQ heritability grows with age is evidence for heritability, as it is a central prediction of hereditarians that IQ would become more heritable with age. The fact that it does is evidence for genetic differences. IQ and Malnutrition My opponent argues that malnutrition can lower IQ. In this respect, she is correct. Malnutrition can lead to a lower IQ. However, malnourishment's effect on IQ is not the topic of this debate, the black-white IQ gap is the topic of this debate. In order for this malnourishment point to be relevant, my opponent must do more than show that malnourishment can lower IQ. She must show that malnourishment is a major cause of the black-white IQ gap in America. Another important point is that only malnourishment has been shown to lower IQ. In other words, once an adequate level of nutrition is reached, there is no reason to believe that better nutrition after this point raises intelligence. So, all my opponent has shown is that malnourishment lowers IQ, and malnourishment is very uncommon in America. A common indicator of malnourishment at early ages is growth being stunted. However, only 2.6% of children that are considered poor have stunted growth [4]. Note, that this figure is only among poor children, meaning that growth being stunted is even less common among all children. The fact is that all my opponent has shown is that severe malnourishment can lower IQ. I have shown that malnourishment is not enough of a problem in America to account for the black-white IQ gap and is, therefore, not an adequate explanation for this gap. IQ and Drugs My opponent claims that drug use lowers IQ, and that this helps explain the black-white IQ gap. Once again, she is correct that drug use, especially extreme drug use, can lower IQ, but she is wrong in thinking that this explains the black-white IQ gap. The main reason for this is that black teens actually do fewer drugs than white teens and teens from other races, that also have higher average IQs [5]. Just like the malnourishment point, my opponent needs to do more than show that drug use can lower IQ for this to be serious point. IQ and Biracial Individuals My opponent claims that biracial individuals (specifically those who have one black parent and one white parent) have higher IQs than individual with two white parents. This is an interesting claim, but it is simply untrue. The famous Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study looked at individuals, some with two black biological parents, some with two white biological parents, and some with one black biological parent and one white biological parent, who had been adopted into upper middle class white families. So, the environments were somewhat similiar for all of these groups. At age 17, the IQs of each of these groups had their IQ measured. The adopted children with two black biological parents scored an average IQ of 89, the adopted children with two biological white parents scored an average of 106 IQ, and the adopted children with one biological white parent and one biological black parent scored an average of 99 IQ. So, to summarize, pure white children scored an average of 106, pure black children scored an average of 89, and half white and half black children scored an average of 99 [6]. So, biracial children (as in half black and half white) actually have lower average IQs than whites and higher average IQs than blacks. This is exactly what would be the case if whites had a gentically higher IQ than blacks. I look forward to my opponent's response. Sources: [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://www.google.com... [4] http://www.heritage.org... [5] http://reason.com... [6] http://en.wikipedia.org...