Is It Racist If Science Shows One Race Has More Intelligence Than Another?

The topic of this thread was brought about because I just remembered some news I read a long time ago where science experiments showed results that one race was more intelligent than another, because of.. whatever, I'm not into biology. I can't remember what it said. They were studying brain and what makes it tick. I don't know whether the science was accurate or not, I don't even remember the races in question, I just remember what I wondered about at the time.There are a lot of things people say about people with different races, but one thing people are particularly sensitive about is intelligence. Nobody likes to be called "stupider". (Yes, that was a play on words). But what if one race did have more 'brain-power', would we as an international community accept the scientific facts? I know that the definition of intelligence is much debated, and there's no real consensus on what intelligence is, but let's assume it's simplified and more understood in the future. What would happen? A huge resurgence of racism and hatred? Would everyone just insult the scientists and call them racist quacks? Would we just ignore the results to be polite, the way we avoid saying something about a person with a disfigured face even though it's hard not to notice? The fact as I see it is, there's a good chance that not every race is made equal. Obviously, we're different in a lot of ways. Why not intelligence?I don't know what I'd think if some scientists said my race was the dumbest of them all. I guess I'd accept it? Tell myself it's just a generalization and it isn't representative of EVERYONE? Riot? I don't know, I guess I'd just joke about it and not take it too seriously and hope nobody else treats me poorly because of it!

i don't think science will ever prove if one race is superior to another.what i do believe is that people are born with gifts inside them and to be more powerfull than others who hold different gifts.i hate the fact that we have to compare eachother....even in this thread because we are all different and have something different to offer

I myself define racism as being against someone purely because of their ethnic background or other not-so-meaningful things. If it could be scientifically proven that a race has a bigger chance of producing intelligent people.To me, I don't personally think that intelligence itself variates much between individuals or races. Because the DNA is mostly the same. I guess it would be education and the growing environment that would have a chance of changing the IQ.Intelligence is the same, what matters is where that intelligence is directed.More or less brain activity doesn't mean the individual is stupid. Brains deal with so much more than intelligence.

It's the controversy surrounding the study of intelligence and race that interested me more-so than the study itself. It sparked my interest when I was discussing the news article with someone and they immediately became offended and dismissed the research as a load of crap, purely because of the sensitive subject matter.So really, my thread wasn't about whether a race is more born with more of an intelligence handicap than others, but how the world would handle the whole situation if it were found to be true, if some highly esteemed scientist said it was true. It doesn't have to be a race related topic, it could be hair colour, or eye colour. I chose race because that's what that's where all the controversy is.I think it's _possible_ that someone with for example, brown hair is born with more potential to be intelligent than blonde hair. Anything is possible. What if it was somehow proven, would people accept it, or be offended and dismiss it as crap?How come I can't edit my posts anymore?! I wanted to add something.It doesn't have to be about intelligence either, it could be anything. I heard a couple days ago on the news that the Human Attractiveness depends on the positioning of the eyes for example. What if science could prove something like the most attractive person has a distance between the eyes of exactly ___mm. Would the world believe it, or dismiss the science?

How come I can't edit my posts anymore?! I wanted to add something.
It doesn't have to be about intelligence either, it could be anything. I heard a couple days ago on the news that the Human Attractiveness depends on the positioning of the eyes for example. What if science could prove something like the most attractive person has a distance between the eyes of exactly ___mm. Would the world believe it, or dismiss the science?

Different people are attracted to different kinds of facial structures. I may accept that the majority of their research group may be attracted to a certain distance between the eyes, but beauty itself is in my opinion based on the feeling the images create. There may be some general standards, but you can't with absolute certainty say that everyone has the same feelings.

That's why some people like anal sex but others don't. That's why many like when the female has a wide waist compared to other parts of the body but some like smaller waist. While there is a logical explanation for preferring bigger waist, there is no other explanation for variation other than the simplest thing I can come up right now. VARIATION.

When you see a beautiful woman/man, you don't consciously calculate if she/he is beautiful or not. You judge it by your own opinion, your own definition of attractiveness which is generated by your genetic code.


Besides, even if you could prove that a race is less intelligent than others, it wouldn't matter. Because the race with less intelligence would have strength in other things. It all depends on the environment and the needs of a society. Being less/more intelligent doesn't make you any more or less valuable.

i went to africa once. was there for three weeks. was awake when everyone else in my group was asleep. what i noticed in their ritual is that they would jump up and down CONSTANTLY. so i believe it's in their blood AND belief to jump and have the strenth to do so. white men can't jump. not compared to someone from kenya. who is superior? maybe we all are compared to what we all have to offer. so maybe we have to combine our strengths....but that will never work when we believe someone is more superior to our own selves.....thus....this whole thread will dictate the end....never realizing that superiority will be based on the person.....not the race

Science isn't capable of racism, any more than facts or figures are. It's only in the context that the figures are used.Black people are generally considered to be stronger than white people, and the old joke about tallywhacker length of different races is completely true. These factors are related to the environment, and how certain races have become adapted.Northern Europeans had the most fertile lands, but had to adapt to survive the cold climate- which required decisiveness and intelligence to create shelter and clothing. Africans did not have to shelter themselves from the environment, but relied mainly on hunter gathering, which relied on strength and instincts.Neither race is superior to each other, but Europeans (I include America) now control the wealth and have shaped the world based on Western ideals. In this way, Africans are less suited to the current environment- having had most of their original way of life destroyed during colonization and attempts to westernize their countries. They're now expected to rely on commerce and business for their source of income, having had none of its progression in their history, and subsequently in their genes.With this said, all races are equally capable of adapting and will soon all share the same assets and have lost their original traits, all becoming European in their way of life.When people talk about racial superiority, they're only talking about it in terms of their standards. So scientists proving intelligence to be higher in some races than in others is not racist at all, until they define our idea of intelligence as an item of superiority.I only compared Europeans and Africans because they're usually the two races involved in heated debates about the subject.

@ baniboys post 6

Actually beauty is a little more than just subjective evaluation by an individual. The proportions set out in the Golden Ratio has long been considered the ideal way to construct paintings and designs as it closely resembles the mathematical proportions generally demonstrated by nature.

Check out "Luca Pacioli's, De Divina Proportione" -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

For instance DaVinci created his painting works based on this proportion and although Van Gogh never actually set out for the Golden Proportion, in his illustrations it was shown that when he first started his pencil sketches they were far "off" Golden Proportion, but after two years of development as an artist his sketches had become "very" close to those proportions.

Some researches did a study on Elizabeth Hurley and what they found were the proportions of her face closely resembled that of the rules set out in the Golden Proportion. This includes the proportion of body parts to each other not just facial aspects. Likewise the Fibonacci sequence is another example which illustrates the concept of perfectness contained in nature and art/design.

After saying all that though, there is still some debate about Golden proportions which questions "how much" importance we should place on it being an "ultimate" truth to follow. But it is a concept that has been generally accepted since the renaissance period.

Although your right some people find different proportions attractive such as the variations on the figure of the opposite sex. To some degree the utilization of an active right part of the brain determines how we perceive things to be beautiful. For instance an artist will see beauty in more things natural than another who has formed rigid visual memories of what things "should" look like, which will influence how they actually perceive something.

Regarding the question of variation of IQ intelligence amongst races i imagine it to be true, but a negligible difference. Id be interested to see how the scientist formed their findings as their research would have have to reduce socio/environmental factors out of their results.

For instance cultural influences such as a racial society who predominately listens to too much "rap" music may be find there IQ drop a couple of points.

But i agree with everyone so far that intelligence can be gauged in many ways that its too hard to tell. For instance to many, intelligence means the mental resources to survive and flourish, others may believe it is a persons ability to properly utilize their "whole" capacity. Their are too many variables on this subject to form an objective conclusion that represents intelligence as a whole.

Edited December 25, 2009 by inverse_bloom (see edit history)

I'm not into biology

This is more for the anthropology then biology. To infer that measure of intelligence depend on biological traits, then Einstein's parents must have been intelligent as Einstein himself. But it's not the case.

Science isn't capable of racism, any more than facts or figures are

This analogy is false because science is not about facts and figures. Science is knowledge of the physical and biological world and with the processes of discovering and validating. Pure false can be validated because it fails all the time. So a misinformation can be validated since it's being misinformed. And misinformation can become a "fact" because it's classified as "misinformation."

If you interview and survey 100 Tall people who are Asian, who play basketball and can dunk, can you conclude that Asians are basketball players who are dunkers? According to science this is true. But we all know that there's a flaw--the survey pool or data only included 100 tall Asians. So, science can be faulty if not counter checked. And that's why science is only "knowledge of the physical and biological world and with the processes of discovering and validating." And "knowledge" can have holes and loop holes.

See this for an example. Fill in the blank and see if you think it's a racist statement.

Majority of professional basketball players are Black. And they are tall, or taller than other ethnics. They dominate the basketball leagues.
Majority of fastest runners are/were Blacks. They hold majority of World and Olympic records. They dominate the Track and Field sports.
Therefore, ___________ are better in Sports that deals with height, speed and distance.

The data pool suggest the statement is True, while your logic probably is trying to scratch your head.

You can do this test with just about anything...

___________ are better in Math.
___________ are better in eating contest.
___________ are smarter.
___________ are taller than others.

Science can be racist. Because Science is not about pleasing your thoughts, not rocking the boat or being buddies with everyone. Science can have unexpected or politically incorrect results that can be validated through repeated process. The key is to understand the conditions which processes were tested and know what other contributing factors were/were not included.

This is more for the anthropology then biology. To infer that measure of intelligence depend on biological traits, then Einstein's parents must have been intelligent as Einstein himself. But it's not the case.


This analogy is false because science is not about facts and figures. Science is knowledge of the physical and biological world and with the processes of discovering and validating. Pure false can be validated because it fails all the time. So a misinformation can be validated since it's being misinformed. And misinformation can become a "fact" because it's classified as "misinformation."

If you interview and survey 100 Tall people who are Asian, who play basketball and can dunk, can you conclude that Asians are basketball players who are dunkers? According to science this is true. But we all know that there's a flaw--the survey pool or data only included 100 tall Asians. So, science can be faulty if not counter checked. And that's why science is only "knowledge of the physical and biological world and with the processes of discovering and validating." And "knowledge" can have holes and loop holes.

See this for an example. Fill in the blank and see if you think it's a racist statement.

Majority of professional basketball players are Black. And they are tall, or taller than other ethnics. They dominate the basketball leagues.
Majority of fastest runners are/were Blacks. They hold majority of World and Olympic records. They dominate the Track and Field sports.
Therefore, ___________ are better in Sports that deals with height, speed and distance.

The data pool suggest the statement is True, while your logic probably is trying to scratch your head.

You can do this test with just about anything...

___________ are better in Math.
___________ are better in eating contest.
___________ are smarter.
___________ are taller than others.

Science can be racist. Because Science is not about pleasing your thoughts, not rocking the boat or being buddies with everyone. Science can have unexpected or politically incorrect results that can be validated through repeated process. The key is to understand the conditions which processes were tested and know what other contributing factors were/were not included.

But that's my point. Science can't be racist because true science is impartial. It only focuses on knowledge of the environment and genuine research, without taking in political or social factors.
You're right, facts and figures should not relate to true science, but they're often construed wrongly- or for the wrong reasons, but the basic facts and the science should have no political agenda.
Researching race x's abilities in track events by looking at the race of track event winners would tell us nothing. The facts would suggest that race x were superior at track events (and this often becomes widespread belief), but it would not accurately gauge an entire race.
Were surveys conducted on every member of race x on the planet, then we'd still only have results based on people in the current environment, not taking account of anomalies. Yet this survey would be considered subjective as it took into account all possible sources of results.
Because of this, science can of course be faulty- but this is misinformation, not racism. Racism is not subjective.

Then again, I don't actually know what I'm talking about, so don't destroy my argument too harshly..

Although you can define your intelligence by two methods, either by brainmass or by the level of activity in your mind, there is another method which takes in both amounts, by creating a ratio of brain matter to activity in each section of brain and then finding the ratios in left and right brains depending on the type of intelligence, either skill or memorizations. Its hard to actually test that. You can't generalize a race based on a few test subjects, there are deviations, and still racism is a horrible deed. Its wrong and immoral to say that you are better than a group of people over a couple of test results. Its the average intelligence which you are saying defines the actual racist, which I challenge.

For instance DaVinci created his painting works based on this proportion and although Van Gogh never actually set out for the Golden Proportion, in his illustrations it was shown that when he first started his pencil sketches they were far "off" Golden Proportion, but after two years of development as an artist his sketches had become "very" close to those proportions.
Some researches did a study on Elizabeth Hurley and what they found were the proportions of her face closely resembled that of the rules set out in the Golden Proportion. This includes the proportion of body parts to each other not just facial aspects. Likewise the Fibonacci sequence is another example which illustrates the concept of perfectness contained in nature and art/design.

Thats is completely what I was trying to say. The actual intelligence is not based on the norms of society. You can't measure something that has limitless bounderies and is always changing. You can't measure something that excceeds your comprehension.

I don't think one race is smarter than the other. But without doubt, there is certain characteristics that is more prominent in one than the other. It is this characteristics that makes the race appear smarter than the rest. Beside this, there is the "window of opportunity" that exists for some races while it is definitely missing in the rest.

It isn't racist if it's true. And as a science man, I don't believe that science is racist. Science is a systematized knowledge base on fact and observation. Whatever comes out to be the fact (based on a founded methodology), then is true. So if study shows that some race has more intelligence compared to some, then it's true. What we can question, though, is how the fact was gathered. As for racism...we're in the era where everyone can be connected so maybe many years from now, it won't be a huge issue. Unless there's an alien invasion. A new racism will be born. But that's more District 9. (It can't be helped. Xisto members love the idea of an alien invasion...based on the threads I've read so far.. :angel:)

Some people go away from the topic title.

With all the best intentions, some people on here quote scientific data and results of scientific research, that is fine in itself, but the topic title is "Is it racist if science shows one race has more intelligence than another?".

 

So, without trying to answer the question about the intelligence itself (I am leaving this to scientists, or I am keeping it for a more appropriate topic), I will, however, give my opinion on the topic question:

 

I do not think for one moment it is racist if science has those findings, and also makes those findings public (of course, backed up by the proper scientific data).

 

The problem, however, is, that the left wing, in other words, the political correct squad, always try to muzzle everyone who has different ideas than them, even if those ideas are fully backed up and properly founded.

They are always the first to come out with "freedom of speech", but, in their case, that means, "we are all for freedom of speech as long as you say what we want to hear, if not, you get your head kicked in", who said communism was dead?

 

They also do not hesitate to stop results from proper research to be published, or to alter them until they suit their political correct ideas.

If that does not work, they always resort to their magic word "racism" to try and shut people up.

 

It is an undisputed fact that racism exists, but the way the term is used and especially abused these days is really going too far, as is also the fact that, according to the same "thoughts police", racism only exists in a one way direction.

So, after my thoughts on the matter, my answer to the question is: if it involves proper and thoroughly tested research, showing a difference in ntelligence between different races is not racist, but realist.

No it isn't racist, but many of the people who have 'asked the question' have been. The problem with the question is that it seeks to correlate two concepts which are not well understood, or are, at best, questionable.Intelligence is notoriously difficult to define, let alone measure. Standard IQ tests claim to do so, but they are always (if reputable) 'norm referenced' - that means that the actual scores are arranged in a distribution around a centre value of 100, so that 100 is always 'average' IQ,Some 'absolute' IQ tests of different races HAVE been conducted and tend to indicate that Asians around the China region score highest, 'westerners' somewhere in the middle, and sub-Saharan Africans at the bottom. The problems with this are:a) The tests used almost certainly test for things other than 'intelligence'. Imagine a genius who didn't know how to read or write. It is unlikely they would score very highly on most IQ tests because they would not understand the questions or how to answer them.b ) The concept of 'race' is difficult to define with any degree of precision, and it is arguably a fairly useless way of categorising humans. When does an 'African' become a European? Is the child of Brazilian woman and English man South-american? European? Braziliian? English?The question is largely meaningless because we are all a product of genes from many areas of the world - and ultimately we all share an African ancestor if we go back far enough (only a few tens of thousands of years),So, whilst I think that it is fair enough to ask the question, I would be deeply suspicious of any answer one received and would examine it carefully to see how it defined 'race' and how it tried to avoid bias and secondary effects in measurements of 'intelligence'.

Edited March 16, 2012 by Bikerman (see edit history)