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One must make a significant differentiation here on his comments.Originally Posted by kerrynorth
He may be a Nobel-prize winning biologist who make a massive contribution to science, but his comments are those of a bigoted, old, out-of-touch man. He has made similarly ridiculous statements about women (dumb too apparently!), the Chinese (all look the same!) and so on. He is old, approaching senility, and unfortunately he is eccentric in a very misguided manner.
My point is to regard his comments as the bleatings of a failing brain, rather than those of an excellent scientist.
He's just mouthing off, like a spoilt teenager. Because he has done so much and won so many awards and prizes, few are brave enough to challenge when he makes perposterous comments.
Finally, as you know, his personal genome was sequenced recently: it turns out that they found the a$$shole gene
The most important point about interracial differences is everybody shares a common humanity.
Within any one identifiable racial group, there will be differences roughly corresponding to the statistical bell curve,with most people's IQs clustered in the middle and small numbers of people at the extremes of high and low IQs, in the statistical "outliers". No reasonable person would argue that people of low or moderate intelligence were less deserving than those with higher IQs.
It is important to note that the differences in IQs between the members of any one racial group are vastly greater the differences between different races,which tend to range between IQs of 85 and 100. Developing countries fall at the low end of the range due to both limitations of education systems and lack of nutrition for children.
IQs don't measure emotional intelligence, the human qualities like empathy and human understanding that are extremely important to success in life. These qualities are difficult to measure.In one experiment measuring this, photographs of the faces of people in emotionally charged situations,such as two people in a heated argument, were shown to men and women.Presented with choices of different interpretations of what the facial expressions meant, men showed better judgement in making correct choices than women. This surprised me, as I thought women were more astute observers of social behaviour than men,but maybe men's political and power instincts trump that.
Nature always compensates for disadvantages in life, so the people with low and moderate IQs who have difficulty learning may develop good emotional IQs in qualities like patience, tolerance and determination.
Even if it were true that some countries have low average IQs which severely limits the number of high IQ people (120 and higher) who could work as professionals and develop the economy,those countries can invite in foreign professionals to fill the gaps.
Saudi Arabia is a good example of this. When oil was first discovered in the 1930s,most Saudis were illiterate desert nomads who were living much the same life as their ancestors in biblical times. The Saudi leaders were forced to rely on foreign oil companies for the necessary expertise. Today,
Saudi has its own elite,many of whom were educated in the top Western universities,and it still depends heavily on foreigners from Muslim countries and oilmen from everywhere for the running of the economy.
Generally good point. Just to make one point though, empathy is found in the great apes, not just humans. It's thought to be a factor in thought-out violence, which is common among chimps at least. It seems to work both ways, you can sympathise with a person's condition or you can do violence to that person, knowing the effect of your attack.
Are you saying that it's also possible that these people with low and moderate IQs may not "develop good emotional IQs in qualities like patience, tolerance and determination"?
Which is the poorest continent in the world. I don't believe in racial superiority, but neither do I believe in censoring science out of a fear of causing offence.
That's a very stupid point. Twenty years ago we were one of the poorest countries in Europe. Now we're one of the richest. Did our average IQ level exponentially increase over that period? Or were other factors possibly at play?
I don't think you're getting the point here. You're accepting the position of a self-publicising controversialist whose argument (as many people have pointed out above) has no scientific basis just because he's saying something at odds with a perceived PC agenda. A stupid opinion doesn't gain any weight just because it's offensive. This man's proposal that gay foetuses should be aborted (were it possible to identify them) is a case in point.
Maybe there is no difference in intelligence, but it certainly looks like the application of that intelligence varied wildly. How come virtually nothing was invented in Africa? China, yes. Western Europe, well, where do you start? Persia, certainly. Greece. Turkey. Arab countries/Middle East, yes. Sub-Saharan Africa, errr...
To be blunt, "Nature" doesn't do jack sh!t.
You are simply a combination of your particular genes stuck in your unique environment and circumstances (admittedly with a little developmental variability and stochastic effects). One part doesn't compensate for another part: if you are innately poor at something, it does not mean you will be naturally better or worse at any other unrelated topic or action. The concept of "Nature" attempting to balance individuals' faults or talents is deeply flawed, baseless and simply illogical.
Are you presuming because you can't name one that there isn't one?
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