Caucasians are inherently more intelligent than African Americans

Burden of ProofMy opponent continues to misunderstand the nature of this debate. The question he asks is whether or not the fact that Americans are on average fatter than Europeans makes Americans "inherently" fatter than Europeans. He says that the answer is no. This is missing the point. What my opponent is disputing is that Americans are fatter than Europeans. After all, there are plenty of individuals within America that are thinner than plenty of individuals within Europe. There are also many subgroups in America that are thinner than Europe as a whole. However, on average, Americans are fatter than Europeans. My opponent then seems to agree that we can say that Americans are fatter than Europeans. Now, on the question of "inherent". My opponent and I agreed that "inherent" meant genetically influenced. So, if we could establish that the reason that Americans were fatter than Europeans was partially genetic, we could then say that Americans were inherently fatter than Europeans. This same thinking applies to race. Just like we could say Americans are fatter than Europeans, because Americans are fatter than Europeans on average, we could say that Caucasian Americans are more intelligent than African Americans, because Caucasian Americans are more intelligent that African Americans on average. Just like Europeans and Americans, there are a lot of black individuals that are smarter than white individuals. However, as a whole on average, whites are smarter than blacks. Since my opponent and I agreed that inherent means genetically influenced, all I need to do to show that these differences in intelligence are "inherent" is to show that whites have a higher average intelligence than blacks and that there is a genetic influence here. African AmericansMy opponent again disputes that African immigrants are smarter than the average African. First, I feel compelled to point out that this is a completely irrelevant point. We are talking about the entire African American population here, not a sub group that only comprises 2% of the African American population as I showed in the first round. Also, the fact that African immigrants achieve so highly yet native African that do no immigrate do so poorly on IQ tests shows that only the smartest Africans come here. After all, it makes sense that only the smartest Africans would come to a place to earn a higher income and get a better education. Still, I must emphasize that this entire point is irrelevant because we are talking about the entire African American group in America, not one small sub group. My opponent then claims that bad environment explain the white-black IQ gap, and genes have nothing to do with it. He cites two studies to support this. The first study looks at young kids. As I have explained before, IQ becomes much more heritable with age. Genes get much stronger as organisms age. Chickens, humans, and fish all look fairly similiar at early stages of development but grow different with age as genes are expressed more strongly [1]. A massive study on IQ heritability found that IQ went from being 41% heritable at age 9 to 66% heritable at age 17 [2]. When looking at IQ differences, it is only appropriate to look at people after adolescence, when genes are more fully expressed. My opponent then mentions how the Head Start program has been successful at raising IQs. However, he is ignoring the vast majority of the research on early childhood education. In fact, IQ gains caused by childhood intervention are shown to almost entirely fade out by adulthood [3]. This is because genes are expressed more strongly by this point. Twin and Adoption StudiesMy opponent then cites a study that claims to show that poverty substantially lowers IQ. The issue with this study is that it looks at 7 year olds. As I pointed out earlier, it is only appropriate to look at people old enough to have their genes fully expressed. The other study he shows shows that kids that were severely abused could have their IQ raised from near retardation to still below average when taken from an abused environment and put in a regular one. All this shows is that severe abuse lowers IQ in young children. I never disputed this. However, that kind of severe abuse is rare in America. And, it is certainly not an explanation for the white-black IQ gap unless my opponent holds that nearly all black children are severely abused and all white children are not abused at all. That is somewhat absurd. I would also like to point out that the one study that looks at children from different races all the way to late adolescence, the Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study, found that environment did NOT make the white black IQ gap go away. I explained the results to this in the first round. My opponent dropped this point entirely. The Flynn EffectMy opponent once again fails to respond to my point about the Flynn Effect. The fact of the matter is that IQ is 15 to 25% non genetic, as I showed in the first round. The dramatic rise in living standards and the improving of test taking ability can easily account for the Flynn Effect, just because of that 15 to 25%. However, if this Flynn Effect was at all relevant to the white-black IQ gap, we would see it narrowing. We do not see it narrowing. In fact, as I showed in the second round, it has slightly widened. The reason for this is that the Flynn effect is caused by non genetic factors and the white-black IQ gap is largely genetic. My opponent also cites a study showing that wealthier people do better on IQ tests. This is quite odd because this supports my argument. People with higher intelligence have more socioeconomic achievement. So, people who achieve more would be more intelligent. I don't know why my opponent cited this. My opponent also cited a study about Welsh children. There are a couple issues here. First, it is not relevant for the white-black IQ gap. Second, the kids are too young to see genes fully express themselves. Third, all this shows is that better nutrition can slightly raise IQ. This study is also irrelevant to the white-black IQ gap. Brain SizeMy opponent did attempt to respond to my point on brain size and intelligence. However, he did not really adress the points. My point was that, in America, east Asians have the largest brains and highest IQs, whites have medium sized brains and medium IQs, and blacks have small brains and lower IQs. As I showed earlier, starvation is not a big issue in the USA, so that is not what is causing these differences. The brain size to IQ correlation is 0.4. That is far from perfect, but it does exist. The reason is that larger brains have more neurons and synapses and process information faster. As I said, this is not a perfect correlation. However, the relationship does exist. And, it is just how it would be predicted if there were genetic differences between races. ConclusionMy opponent has dropped my points about heritability, the Minnesota Transracial Adoption study, and G-Loaded IQ tests having larger gaps. These are all key parts of my argument that my opponent completely dropped. The points my opponent did make were largely irrelevant and filled with irrelevant studies. Despite, I adressed them anyways. The only possible way someone could vote, given all of this, is PRO. [1] . http://www.sciencedaily.com...[2] . http://www.nature.com...[3] . http://www.sciencedirect.com...