Intelligence describes some quality that individuals have.
Individuals have different aamounts of or ability in that quality.
Larger groups of can be created by grouping these same varying individuals and this group can be said to have a group average in terms of intelligence.
Some conclusions that follow from these assumptions:
Any group of people, divided by almost any arbitrary measurement into a large enough sample will differ in the average amount of intelligence each particular subgroup has.
Arbitrarily dividing the worlds population into “races” based on their skin pigmentation will create subgroups that also have a differing average intelligence.
Therefore, different racial groups have a different average intelligence. This logic doesn’t depend on what exactly you define as intelligence, as long as something is defined as intelligence. This logic doesn’t imply that any particular racial group must have more intelligence than any other particular racial group. It just implies that by definition, individuals are different from each other and thus groups of individuals will also tend to differ in their different characteristics.
Now for the fun part.
Does it matter that different races have varying “average” intelligences? Only if you are racist and judge people by what arbitrary “race” you’ve mentally classified them as. To me, if you insist on classifying people based on their physical appearance, it would make more sense to classify people by height, or eye color, or their weight. Those attributes tend to make more of a difference, genetically.
However, perhaps you find race an easy way to filter individuals into categories. In that case, based on the extensive evidence, in some geographic regions, people with darker skin have a lower average intelligence as judged by the best tests and definitions of intelligence available. What’s interesting is that in some other geographic regions, people with darker skin have a higher average intelligence.
So used as a bayes filter, skin color isn’t going to typically give you the ability to improve your judgement of intelligence unless you have other demographic information that has a much better correlation.
In actual fact, if you want to judge a person’s intelligence based on some quick rules of thumb, there are much better demographic methods available to you than skin color. National origins, wealth levels, education obtained (for older individuals), etc...
On the other hand, if you really care that much about it, just ask them to take whichever intelligence test you prefer for you.
But to say that races differ in intelligence? That statement should be as non-controversial as a statement of fact as it is useless as a guide to actions and policy.
Assumptions:
Intelligence describes some quality that individuals have.
Individuals have different aamounts of or ability in that quality.
Larger groups of can be created by grouping these same varying individuals and this group can be said to have a group average in terms of intelligence.
Some conclusions that follow from these assumptions:
Any group of people, divided by almost any arbitrary measurement into a large enough sample will differ in the average amount of intelligence each particular subgroup has.
Arbitrarily dividing the worlds population into “races” based on their skin pigmentation will create subgroups that also have a differing average intelligence.
Therefore, different racial groups have a different average intelligence. This logic doesn’t depend on what exactly you define as intelligence, as long as something is defined as intelligence. This logic doesn’t imply that any particular racial group must have more intelligence than any other particular racial group. It just implies that by definition, individuals are different from each other and thus groups of individuals will also tend to differ in their different characteristics.
Now for the fun part.
Does it matter that different races have varying “average” intelligences? Only if you are racist and judge people by what arbitrary “race” you’ve mentally classified them as. To me, if you insist on classifying people based on their physical appearance, it would make more sense to classify people by height, or eye color, or their weight. Those attributes tend to make more of a difference, genetically.
However, perhaps you find race an easy way to filter individuals into categories. In that case, based on the extensive evidence, in some geographic regions, people with darker skin have a lower average intelligence as judged by the best tests and definitions of intelligence available. What’s interesting is that in some other geographic regions, people with darker skin have a higher average intelligence.
So used as a bayes filter, skin color isn’t going to typically give you the ability to improve your judgement of intelligence unless you have other demographic information that has a much better correlation.
In actual fact, if you want to judge a person’s intelligence based on some quick rules of thumb, there are much better demographic methods available to you than skin color. National origins, wealth levels, education obtained (for older individuals), etc...
On the other hand, if you really care that much about it, just ask them to take whichever intelligence test you prefer for you.
But to say that races differ in intelligence? That statement should be as non-controversial as a statement of fact as it is useless as a guide to actions and policy.