From: ecsd@tfs.com (Eric C. S. Dynamic)
Subject: Race vs. Intelligence
Organization: The Great Beast 666
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 09:19:50 GMT

"Rodney Adams" <RADAMS@BNR.CA> writes:
>Yes, I do believe that certain races are, on average, less intelligent than
>others, but as you say, I cannot yet KNOW the truth.  Based upon my
>personal observations, the scope of which have admittedly focussed upon
>a sector of the population of higher-than-average intelligence, I would
>conclude that Blacks and Hispanics have either a lower average intelligence
>than Whites and Asians or that the former, as has been attributed to women,
>have a more narrow distribution of intelligences than the latter.  Given

Observations such as these - how much social-science is involved in them?
If we can't know for sure in advance, we will have to do testing - over the
objections of people who call even the hypothesis racist. If it's true, it's
true, so let's just find out.
Meanwhile - I prefer to err on the side of seeing no prima facie reason to
assume that external differences - shape of nose, lips, eyes, skin color, etc.
modify things such as brain chemistry, neural organization, etc.
We know that blacks are (at average) better at short-distance races and white
at longer-distance races; so physiologically, they've adapted to their
physical surroundings in some way that was needed, for whatever reason. But
I can't imagine why nature would require a (relative) sacrifice of intelligence
- that for some external physical reason, whites were 'required' to adapt by
becoming smarter. The physical world offers pretty much the same challenges
everywhere - gotta hunt and farm, gotta trade, gotta gather in groups, gotta
have wars.
When second-classing is as endemic as it was here, then it's very hard to
separate cause and effect to know what is an effect. If you tell blacks for
350 years that they're worthless, stupid and lazy, it's not surprising to find
that many of them practice it just like that - nothing more expected, nothing
more allowed, across several generations - not surprising if it gets 'built
into the culture'. Nobody gave Malcolm X a scholarship to NYU for being a
bright kid, nor did they give a shit if he *was* a bright kid - his blackness
was all the whites needed to know, in *their* great wisdom. You think, perhaps,
that not being fascinated with electrons, or the structure of language, makes
Native Americans (indians) stupid? Maybe their culture says, we have Other
Things To Do, and we don't care about electrons, because (the science of)
electrons doesn't make life more livable *in the way that we do life*.
So I have to offer to you, that if you widen your conception of what
*knowledge* is, you suddenly find that lots of nonwhite people very
immediately know a lot of things that white people just don't seem to,
around things like what IS the quality of life, what is life for, what are
humans about, what is human spiritual nature? So, if white culture is so
ignorant, are whites intellectually inferior? Say, whites have smart brains,
and blacks have smart hearts?

I won't buy it. Prove it first, then I'll look at it. For me to believe
otherwise without proof, gains me absolutely NOTHING that I can see,
except perhaps as a white, to walk around feeling better. I don't need to feel
better in that way. And I don't *want* to hold a theory which puts me across
a divide from any other human being - not without a damn good reason.
I already have enough petty prejudices which alienate me from people, and I
don't like alienating, or being alienated.

I don't object to the conjecture, but I don't believe it. The same rude things
can be said of White Spiritual Values, so I know *I* don't want to be on the
short end of the stick By Presumption, that I am spiritually vacant for the
mere fact of being white.

Wasn't there some Black guy here? He would know, perhaps, many other names,
too bad that so many Black American heros have had their productive lives
sucked into writing things to liberate blacks, versus doing e.g. invention
and research. You don't know the list of productive, creative blacks, neither
do I - just a few names - so shame on us. Same with women. So? What we don't
know, doesn't exist? Was Malcolm X intelligent? Martin Luther King? I think
so. Bishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Reverend Allan Boesak, find me such
well-thought, rational, articulate, well-spoken individuals in this country
except in the circles of the intellectual elite.

If you don't give a person an education and tools to work with, of COURSE
they can't produce anything.

>that current evidence suggests the former conclusion, I choose to believe
>that Blacks and Hispanics are indeed less intelligent, on average, than
>Whites and Asians.  I am not blind to the effects of cultural environments,
>and I do see that they can and do exaggerate the intellectual differences
>among the races, but I do not believe that today's culture is enough to
>completely account for the differences.

The problem is, Rodney, you have no way to gather information from a controlled
experiment. Have you ever met a black child raised in a white or mixed family?
I have met numbers of black kids who, because they *weren't* stupid at all -
blew my mind, and made me discard any notion that there are *any* inherent
differences.

I won't claim it refutes your notions, but just go out and read the attained
of those in the other classes - women, blacks, hispanics - go look for their
best and their brightest, and tell me that those attainments as a whole, mark
the group as less intelligent - that the best 'hispanic' writing is "worse"
than the best 'white' writing. The ends of the scale match in all cases, I say,
and any underlying discrepancies rest in culture and opportunity.

>Does this make me racist?  Hardly.  I see enough evil in people of all
>races to know better than to take pride for merely belonging to a certain
>race.  But I also see much good in some, and so I judge each person on their
>individual merits, discounting such things as the color or shape of their
>skin.  Race, like intelligence, is something we have from birth and is
>nothing that we, as individuals, have done anything to earn.

Well; then you can have as many female friends, and as many friends of color,
who are every bit as smart as you, if you look for them. Is my challenge.

>The following is strictly conjecture, but it does reflect the nature
>of my beliefs in this matter.  However, such speculation is far from
>my chosen fields, and I would appreciate the input of any anthropologists
>or others if my assumptions are incorrect.
>
>Before long-distance travel became feasible, the various races would
>have developed in isolation, each having distinct environmental factors
>that would different influences upon the races' evolutions.  The human
>species is adaptable, so it would seem absurd to believe that all races
>were influenced identically and had, on average, identical mental
>abilities and characteristics.  Given the random nature of the evolution
>of genetic differences, we naturally see a distribution of intelligences
>within a race, but each race would tend to adapt to their unique
>environments.

As I said above, not clear why then, from what you say, that whites had any
challenges - in 'genetic time', that had them develop superior intelligence.
Need for hardiness against the elements? Then eskimos should be brilliant.
Aren't they, though. Could you survive above the Arctic Circle? But, sorry,
not many trees to produce writing paper, and not many mines to ultimately
produce electron microscopes. So?

>For the sake of simplification, let me deal exclusively with the
>White European and Black African races and how their separate evolutions
>can explain some of the differences we see between Whites and Blacks
>in America.  Of the two continents, Africa by far has the harsher
>environment, where fighting for survival against the deserts and jungles,
>the draughts and floods, would consume the majority of the individuals'
>daily activities.  Today, we would consider many of the African peoples
>to be primitives because their culture is so different from our own,
>so focussed on bare survival.  In such a clime, would the development of
>mathematical or verbal intelligences have contributed much to the
>betterment of the African societies?  I doubt it, but that does not
>imply that Africans underwent mental stagnation.  Rather, I believe
>evolution would have encouraged their development of superior bodily-
>kinesthetic intelligence, which would assist in hunting and other skills
>that were useful in their survival.  Their increased coordination and
>bodily control would also find an outlet in their recreational activities,
>including the superb rythmic skills evidenced through "music" and dancing.
>Chanting and singing would have been added as natural accompaniments,
>so I believe their musical intelligences might have benefited as well.
>All this can be contrasted to the evolution of the European peoples, where
>a more friendly environment allowed time for "intellectual" pursuits.

Hmm. Sorry Rodney - to use one of my stock phrases - you're dead meat here.
I have excellent kinesthetic abilities; I can dance and beat drums just fine,
thank you; I think my culture had contributed to my evident lack of facility
in these areas, by never endorsing that I would explore them.

Let's go and give everyone in the Congo, a 486/66 EISA PC running Windows NT,
courses on Object Oriented programming, and see if we don't lose a corner
of the software market in say, 10-15 years.

>Are Whites, on average, more intelligent than Blacks?  When I say that I
>believe this to be the case, I am using the word "intelligence" in the
>more traditional sense which focusses primarily on verbal and mathematical
>abilities.  Does this imply overall superiority of one race over another?
>Absolutely not!  Each intelligence is only a fraction of what constitutes
>a human being, and, being a result of evolution or genetics, a person's
>intelligence is nothing that is earned, nothing in which personal pride
>should be taken.  What is more important is how one uses the gifts that
>one possesses.

So, the smarter black crack dealers should stuff it in the bank and go to
U.C. Berkeley - and after they don't need to stay alert to where the cops
are, and how they're going to eat and pay the rent, maybe they could do
something really acute in science and the arts, that are not such luxuries
for them now. I just bet - take a black person who gives a shit and doesn't
suffer effects of childhood malnutrition or loss of a parent figure, and
see what they do. They're out there - lawyers, doctors, businesspeople.
Ron Dellums, our guy in congress. These people aren't lightweights, okay?

>Is it wrong for Mensa and other groups to use admission criteria for which
>certain races are at a disadvantage?  Mensa does not deny entry on the
>basis of race; it brings together individuals who share common
>characteristics, i.e., exceptional verbal and/or mathematical intelligence,
>regardless of race.  If Blacks are, as has been shown in some studies,
>a standard deviation less "intelligent" than Whites, I believe there
>should be at least the percentage of Blacks qualified for Mensa as there
>is of Whites qualified for ISPE.  Now consider this: are there any exclusive
>groups which favor the bodily-kinesthetic intelligence in which Blacks have
>an advantage?  Take a look at the composition of a typical professional
>basketball team or a professional rap band.  Not only are these groups
>primarily Black, but they also pay a lot more for enjoying and utilizing
>these natural abilities than are Whites for, say, getting together to
>discuss philosophy or physics.

Okay; ragtime and jazz - intelligence, or not? Creation of new forms of art?
Intelligence, or not? But there are too many whites who also do what "blacks
are better at", including rappers, I just don't think it means ANYTHING but
culture.