blacks probably = lower intelligece, at least as measured by IQ & brain size, than whites and asians

Thanks for the debate dairygirl. == Definitions == When you say that whites are more intelligent than blacks, you are actually making the statement that "holding all else constant, a white person should be more intelligent than a black person." Similarly, if you say that the treatment group had better survival rates than the experimental group, you are saying that the drug you gave the treatment group causes better survival rates, holding all else constant. In a medical experiment, we hold all other factors constant by selecting people randomly. With random assignment and a large enough test group, the experimental and control groups should not differ. However, in sociological studies, we are often forced to use a theoretical control group. For example, some people believe that charter schools are better than public schools. However, charter schools tend to accept a disproportionate number of disadvantaged students, so we cannot compare all public school students to all charter school students. Instead, Caroline Hoxby creates a theoretical control group. Charter schools hold a random lottery to determine who attends. Hoxby compares the students who won the lottery to those that lost (and thus attended a regular public school). The students who won the lottery performed significantly better. However, because the two groups had the same socioeconomic status, this study finally answered the question of whether charter schools were better. In the same way, if we want to know if whites are truly more intelligent, we must control for income. There's an obvious reason: black people in many countries are NOT as poor as the black community in other countries. For example, blacks in the UK are wealthier, on average, than blacks in the US. They have thus achieved more IQ gains than blacks in the US. [1] In addition, recent black immigrants (from Africa) to the US have IQ's 15 points higher, on average, than the average white IQ in the US. [2] So saying "blacks have lower intelligence" is a useless statement when it doesn't hold true in all countries or for different groups of black people. If you are on the Harvard campus, most of their black students are international students. Saying "blacks are less intelligent than whites" on the Harvard campus would not be an accurate statement. Lastly, saying that blacks ARE lower intelligence is saying that lower intelligence is inherent to black people; it is an immutable trait. This is different from saying "blacks HAVE lower IQs, on average." My opponent thus sets up the burden of showing that blackness inherently imputes lower intelligence. Regardless, my opponent should have the burden to prove that race CAUSES lower IQ, not merely that it correlates with lower IQ. However, there's a few problems with this: 1) Income affects IQ Higher income individuals have better nutrition and have better educational opportunities. It is not surprising that income significantly affects IQ. Blacks in the US and Africa have much lower average income than whites or Asians in the US. This explains the IQ gap. A new study has proven that IQ is significantly linked to income. According to USA Today, "A new study finds that certain brain functions of some low-income 9- and 10-year-olds pale in comparison with those of wealthy children and that the difference is almost equivalent to the damage from a stroke." [3] A study by Jelte M Wicharts et al concluded that "race differences in brain size, even if these were entirely of genetic origin, leave unexplained 91–95% of the black-white IQ gap . . . National IQs cannot be viewed solely in evolutionary terms but should be considered in light of global differences in socio-economic development." [4] A list of national IQ by country clearly reveals that national IQ correlates to national income and levels of income inequality. [5] With rising income levels, black IQ scores are rising. According to Science Daily, the average IQ of blacks in Africa is rising due to rising living standards. [6] As incomes rise, Black IQ's in the US have gained 5.5 points against whites among both children and adults. [1] A study by Keita (2007) found that blacks that experienced the most desegregation saw the greatest increase in IQ scores. [1] Thus, race does not cause low IQ. 2) IQ does not measure intelligence "Research has shown that IQ test scores tend to correlate negatively with scores of practical intelligence (Sternberg, 2001, 2004). Practical intelligence can be described as a person's ability to apply learned skills and knowledge to everyday tasks. . . Empirical research has shown Practical intelligence to be a better predictor of numerous real life outcomes." [2] This evidence shows that the higher the IQ, the lower someone's practical intelligence. This would mean blacks are more intelligent. 3) Cultural bias The way an IQ test works is that it is "normed," which means that when IQ tests are initially standardized using a sample of test-takers, by convention the average of the test results is set to 100 and their standard deviation is set to 15 or 16 IQ points. However, IQ tests in the US were normed to white middle class test takers. There are major cultural differences, however. For example, the SAT used to have cultural bias because its analogies section contained sailing terminology. 5 studies have found the IQ tests punish people unfamiliar with white middle class cultural tools and values (Richardson, 2000, 2002; Helms 1992, 1997; Barnes, 1972). [2] Blacks are also punished for using Ebonics on the test. "Studies using sentence repetition tasks have found that at both third and fifth grades white subjects repeated Standard English sentences significantly more accurately than black subjects, while black subjects repeated nonstandard English sentences significantly more accurately than did white subjects (Marwit et al, 1977)." [2] If you remove differences in language usage, much of the IQ gap disappears. In addition, if we norm the test to black test subjects, blacks perform better and whites perform poorer, according to two studies: "Williams (1972) administered an intelligence test which happened to be normed on the African American population to group of white Americans to illustrate the effects of cultural bias, and norm referencing. In this study it was found that black Americans demonstrated a "clear superiority" of white Americans." [2] "Lyman (1970) designed a cross cultural test called the "American Cross Culture Ethnic Nomenclature Test", or "ACCENT." The instrument contained 20 black biased and 20 white biased items. In one experiment this test was administered to 110 undergraduates (91 whites and 19 blacks) where it was found that the black participants out performed the white participants." [2] Norming also includes racist undertones. On IQ tests and the SAT, if the "smart people" disproportionately get a question correct and the "dumb people" disproportionately get the question wrong, it is deemed a "good question" because it helps predict who is "smart" and "dumb." However, if test takers believe that blacks should score lower than whites, then any question that blacks disproportionately get correct and whites disproportionately get incorrect will be removed from the test as "not accurately predictive." This is how norming in standardized testing works, but it leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy for the black-white IQ gap. [1] http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com... [2] http://www.africaresource.com... [3] http://www.usatoday.com... [4] http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl... [5] http://sq.4mg.com... [6] http://www.biology-online.org...