The race gap in IQ testing is caused, in part, by inherent genetic differences between races.

Thanks wolfgang, I'm glad you managed to get your argument in before the deadline this time. 1) Okay, I agree that the reference to honour has nothing to do with the debate but as I said before, the passage as a whole helped set some context to the debate and my opponent doesn't seem to dispute this. As far as misrepresenting the field, I think it is interesting to note the absence in my opponent's arguments of "scientists" that explicitly support the resolution . Many of the pseudo scientists in this field do such a bad job of presenting themselves that no misrepresentation is required to debunk them. 2) Me too. 3) I said: "IQ is indeed partly heritable[...]It is the race gap rather than individual test results that I believe can be wholly attributed to non-genetic factors." Pro said: "This is akin to saying yes, a car's parts may have metal in them BUT the car itself does not." This is simply a ridiculous analogy that completely ignores the distinction between race and genetics as well as the distinction between an individual and a group. No matter how much I try to explain that race and genetics are not equal or synonymous, this semantic barrier seems to remain been my opponent and I. For him and anyone else who can't comprehend the distinction, please refer back to the links in my round 2 that show a selection of definitions for these two terms from respected dictionaries provided by the define tool on google. A more accurate representation of my point about heritable IQ results not explaining the race gap, using my opponent's rather bizarre car and metal symbolism would be: "Each individual car has some metal parts but not every part of every car is entirely made of metal." Still ludicrously inappropriate though. Pro: "If IQ is heritable then a race with higher IQ will obviously pass some of this higher IQ onto their offspring" This makes no sense. A race does not have "an IQ" because it is not an individual. "Offspring" do not necessarily have the same "race" as their parent. IQ and race are both abstract concepts and one abstract concept cannot pass on another. There is no contradiction in the statement that while an individuals IQ result is caused by a combination of genetic and environmental factors, statistical differentiations between groups can appear from environmental factors alone. Since my opponent accepts premise 3 from round 1, the fact that "environment has a massive impact on IQ results", since identical twin studies have shown results as much as 24 IQ points apart ( http://www.springerlink.com... )and since the racial groupings with the lowest results are universally those most vulnerable to the negative environmental factors, I think any rational unbiased mind can see that my argument makes perfect sense. 4) Pro: "Here CON basically casts doubt upon the validity of IQ tests since "the implications of the IQ results" are "fuzzy and unclear." An analysis that my opponent does not attempt to disagree with. Since he apparently accepts the unreliability and many unknown variables of IQ testing, I fail to see how he can attempt to uphold a scientific argument in favour of the resolution. 5) i) I agree that any genetic component of intelligence would probably be caused by multiple genes rather than just one. The point is that, of all the genes that might correlate with intelligence, not a single one has been found that actually does. Therefore no solid conclusions can be made about intelligence on a molecular genetic level. ii) Pro: "The resolution implies that races do exist. The resolution states that there is a "race gap" and for there to be a "race gap" there must be races. So the question of whether races exist or not is moot." This is basically a semantic argument and a straw man. Obviously the labels of race do exist and I have never suggested otherwise. Since the artificial categories exist, a disparity between them can suitably be referred to as a "race gap". The entirely relevant point that my opponent has decided to evade rather than argue against is that these labels have no solid scientific basis. The way my opponent casually ignores and sidesteps the scientific articles that I reference is most obvious here but extends to most of the debate. 6) I'm going to assume that my opponent has actually read the content of my round two, nevertheless he has avoided addressing the material in it that rebuts his arguments here. Having totally ignored my earlier list of definitions for race, Pro now decides to furnish the debate with one that is to his liking. However the biology online site that he uses as his source adds the following supplement below his chosen definition: "Humans have been categorized into many distinct varieties or races[...] At present, such classification is disputed to have no biological validity." My opponent has carefully selected a definition of the outdated Blumenbach concept of races and his own source notes the biological inaccuracy of his definition. The heritable characteristics that help categorise people into the folk taxons of race are the clines I referred to when refuting my opponent's points about the Stanford study back in round two. Pro refers to this again without acknowledging my previous rebuttal. 7) Pro: "If the genetic differences between races do not account, in part, for the gap in IQ testing - i.e. it was all environment - then adopted black children would do about as well as white children with the same environment" How would adoption address an issue like stereotype threat (my opponent has already acknowledged this has an effect). Unless you can make a black child appear white, then this powerful environmental factor can still play a part. There is of course also the statistical likelihood that the black child will have had pregnancy complications, adoption itself has been shown to negatively effect IQ results and many societal and other non-genetic factors still apply. I can't help but chuckle after clicking on my opponent's link to the wiki article about the Minnesota adoption study. It seems that he has looked at the figures and made his own conclusions without bothering to scroll down to the "Interpretations" section, where he would find that the majority of scientists have concluded that the results are "support for the view that racial group differences in IQ are due to environment only." The ambiguous nature of the results is noted, the study "can be used to support either a genetic difference hypothesis or an environmental difference one" but the consensus would seem to support the Con side of this debate. It is also worth noting that plenty of adoption studies have recorded results of adopted black kids with higher results than adopted white kids such as Moore and also Tizard et al, as shown in these tables below the Minnesota study. http://en.wikipedia.org... Conclusion: In this debate, my opponent has ignored quite a few of my points, especially those I have drawn from scientific sources. He also didn't actually post an argument in favour of the resolution (that he chose to be Pro for) until the penultimate round. In contrast, I have made my own case in depth, responded in detail to all of his points and showed how the sources he used have actually refuted his own arguments. I somehow doubt I will change his mind but hopefully I have demonstrated some of the flaws in the racist claims of the inherent intellectual superiority of some ethnic groups over others. Although the forfeit means this debate will probably largely go unnoticed, hopefully people will vote on who they think won the debate, not on any preconceived notions about the resolution. Thanks wolfgang and anyone else who reads this. Con.