It is easier for a human, or a pollster, or a chart maker to identify and compare white and black. Suppose your sort groups are "uses an economic system well" and "uses an economic system poorly?" Hard to picture, poll for, or display. Thus we tend to default to the obvious weaker explanations, and thus weaker categories for group sorting.
Suppose you have White average income is $40,000 and Black average income at $25,000. Very easy to follow your cognitive bias and blame "racism" for the "obvious differences." But add more data:
Rich whites make $50,000 and poor whites make $0. Rich Blacks make $50,000 and poor blacks make $0. If whites are 80-20 and blacks are 50-50, you get the same statistic above. With extra data the problem is more easy to visualize as a "Poor Income Level" problem. Any racism that exists is in the ratio of Poor Blacks to Poor Whites. You have two ways to fight then, change the income of poor people, or figure out how to address the ratios of just the poor people. But then all people making money studying just "Race" are out of work.
The continuance of Race as a category persists until we learn how to view others as belonging to multiple categories. Personality? Culture? Activities? Enthusiasms? Skills? Race does tend to disappear as a category as you get deeper into a skill set. We could study any trade group with mixed races and probably learn a great deal about how people relate to other people when they have something to talk about. Maybe we start with Football Fans at the Super Bowl next week?
It is not much of an elephant. Murray looked back at a huge stack of tests and made the only comparison he could. That is the source of the stated difference in IQ bewtween blacks and whites. Sowell once pointed out that Jewish immigrants in early 1900s scored very low on IQ tests, but a generation later scored very high. All it took then was cultural adaptation. What we need is more data on where the actual differences occur now. As the great Ronald Fryer likes to say, "We could test that!"
Gather as much data as you can and make as many comparisons as you can. Rich vs ooor. Two parents vs one. Blacks vs Whites. Male vs Female. Good schools vs bad. Glenn's pretty smart. Probably got an IQ off the charts. John's likely still on the chart, but up there. If the difference shows up as racial we have one thing to address. If it shows up as rich vs poor it is another.
The elephants stampeding all over the place are us all being too damn chicken to face actual facts and solve real problems.
And here is an old, but interesting article about a minority woman whose child was refused IQ testing because at that time in California it was deemed racially and culturally biased. I don't know if this is still the case in California:
I firmly believe that racial and ethnic differences in IQ have very little to do with racial genetics per se, although individual genetics may play a part. Many of these studies point out that the issues are many times multifactorial, but the bottom line seems to lie in the cultural milieu the child is exposed to.
I think it's also important to understand individual's different learning and or thought processing characteristics to help determine each person's potential.
It's not realistic, nor is it the responsibility for a society to expect to make every child a potential neurosurgeon. The function of education as I see it is to prepare the child for the ability to earn a decent living, whether as a tradesperson, in the service field or as a professional. However, the solutions to childhood education, particularly in minorities will not be quick and easy. Teaching children of any race that they are victims and oppressed by the racial majority, and that the values of professionalism, timeliness, hard work and education are vestiges of a supremacist culture will be extremely counterproductive.
It is easier for a human, or a pollster, or a chart maker to identify and compare white and black. Suppose your sort groups are "uses an economic system well" and "uses an economic system poorly?" Hard to picture, poll for, or display. Thus we tend to default to the obvious weaker explanations, and thus weaker categories for group sorting.
Suppose you have White average income is $40,000 and Black average income at $25,000. Very easy to follow your cognitive bias and blame "racism" for the "obvious differences." But add more data:
Rich whites make $50,000 and poor whites make $0. Rich Blacks make $50,000 and poor blacks make $0. If whites are 80-20 and blacks are 50-50, you get the same statistic above. With extra data the problem is more easy to visualize as a "Poor Income Level" problem. Any racism that exists is in the ratio of Poor Blacks to Poor Whites. You have two ways to fight then, change the income of poor people, or figure out how to address the ratios of just the poor people. But then all people making money studying just "Race" are out of work.
The continuance of Race as a category persists until we learn how to view others as belonging to multiple categories. Personality? Culture? Activities? Enthusiasms? Skills? Race does tend to disappear as a category as you get deeper into a skill set. We could study any trade group with mixed races and probably learn a great deal about how people relate to other people when they have something to talk about. Maybe we start with Football Fans at the Super Bowl next week?
It is not much of an elephant. Murray looked back at a huge stack of tests and made the only comparison he could. That is the source of the stated difference in IQ bewtween blacks and whites. Sowell once pointed out that Jewish immigrants in early 1900s scored very low on IQ tests, but a generation later scored very high. All it took then was cultural adaptation. What we need is more data on where the actual differences occur now. As the great Ronald Fryer likes to say, "We could test that!"
Gather as much data as you can and make as many comparisons as you can. Rich vs ooor. Two parents vs one. Blacks vs Whites. Male vs Female. Good schools vs bad. Glenn's pretty smart. Probably got an IQ off the charts. John's likely still on the chart, but up there. If the difference shows up as racial we have one thing to address. If it shows up as rich vs poor it is another.
The elephants stampeding all over the place are us all being too damn chicken to face actual facts and solve real problems.
I am linking to an article on the effect of violence exposure of kids to learning and IQ, for one instance:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/191640
Here is an abstract on racial differences in IQ, linked to the intellectual home environment:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1978-06591-001
Here is another study on Black children adopted into White homes:
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/18/archives/an-iq-study-of-black-children-in-white-homes.html
Here's an Indian study on the relationship of environment and genetics on intelligence:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5479093/
And here is an old, but interesting article about a minority woman whose child was refused IQ testing because at that time in California it was deemed racially and culturally biased. I don't know if this is still the case in California:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/07/06/iq-tests-restricted-by-race/9c85a956-4ec9-4dfa-8191-70af9c1ff0cb/
I firmly believe that racial and ethnic differences in IQ have very little to do with racial genetics per se, although individual genetics may play a part. Many of these studies point out that the issues are many times multifactorial, but the bottom line seems to lie in the cultural milieu the child is exposed to.
I think it's also important to understand individual's different learning and or thought processing characteristics to help determine each person's potential.
It's not realistic, nor is it the responsibility for a society to expect to make every child a potential neurosurgeon. The function of education as I see it is to prepare the child for the ability to earn a decent living, whether as a tradesperson, in the service field or as a professional. However, the solutions to childhood education, particularly in minorities will not be quick and easy. Teaching children of any race that they are victims and oppressed by the racial majority, and that the values of professionalism, timeliness, hard work and education are vestiges of a supremacist culture will be extremely counterproductive.