To continue on what penguino said...there is more to environment than social environment. There is a biological environment, too. For one, there are so many unexplored biological triggers that occur in utero that science has overlooked for a long time. Nutrition would be another one.

 

Nonetheless, there is no doubt in my mind that intelligence, like most other things, is determined by an interplay of environment and genetics.

 

P.S. There studies showing that Jews of Eastern European decent have a significantly higher average intelligence than the rest of the population. How much of that, though, is due to environment? Or how much of that is due to environment affecting capacity for intelligence over many generations? For instance, if a genetic line is consistently put in an intellectually rigorous environment generation after generation, does that increase those people's capacity for "higher level" cognitive function? Let me see if I can find an article.

Asians are smarter than whites

 

 

Who cares really, we all have as much potential as anyone else.

Asians who go the more rigourous academies are smarter than most whites. Compare those asians to say whites in this country who have attended schools like the Phillips academy all their lives and their really is not much difference. Its more work ethic than natural intelligence. BUt you touched on that with potential.

The concept of intelligence is malleable. Being smart in the health professions is different than in finance, which is different than in law. There is a certain kind of ingelligence that will make someone successful in the arts or at being a drug king pin.

 

The concept of "intelligence" is very subjective. How do you measure intelligence, anyway?

 

Don't be fooled by all this "scientific" talk as it pertains to intelligence.

I'm glad this was FINALLY proven. Now I can tell all my black friends that I am actually scientifically smarter than them. Thank you, Dr. Watson!

:lol

Watson's comments are dumb because they represent bad science and a misunderstanding (or ignorance) of the most recent studies analyzing the achievement gap between Blacks and Whites. Right now, I'm in the process of taking a course dedicated specifically to this very problem. It's an economics course that is trying to understand why Blacks, on average, score nearly 1 standard deviation below whites on standardized tests, why the life expectanct of Blacks is 6 years less than Whites, etc. Here's the breakdown of what some of the most recent studies out there have concluded:

 

- Test of the cognitive ability of infants 12-24 months old (amazingly, these tests correlate fairly strongly to performance on intelligence tests administered as far as 10-15 years later) demonstrate no statistical difference between Whites and Blacks. This doesn't completely deny that there could be a genetic difference, but it's fairly strong evidence that whatever causes the achievement gap happens later in life.

 

- Extensive studies done of kindergarten students showed that if you normalize for only a couple of environmental factors (socioeconomic status, the number of children's books in the home, child's age, child's birth weight, and mother's age at first birth) the gap disppears to a statistically insignificant level with Blacks actually scoring better, on average, in reading skills than whites. That's the case in Fall of Kindergarten. Measure those same kids in Spring of 1st grade, and a gap exists once again, even after normalizing. This also seems to run against the idea that there is a genetic basis for the achievement gap.

 

In reference to Festa Touch's comment that "Why would intelligence not vary from race to race if other traits do tend to vary?", the problem with this statement is that it oversimplifies the issue. The amount of genetic vairation WITHIN a race is far greater than the genetic variation AMONG the races. Additionally, intelligence as it is commonly measures is on the rise over time. Intelligence tests are renormalized to 100 every couple of years, but if you look at what a 100 IQ in 1990 would have gotten you in say 1950, you'll notice that it's higher than 100. It's quite similar (though in reverse) to monetary inflation, $1 in 10 years won't be able to buy the same things as $1 today. This is a phenomenon called the Flynn Effect and points to the fact that potential advancements in techonology and environmental factors are leading to increases in what we consider "intelligence," even though it's conventionally assumed to be a measure of innate ability. If you do the proper adjustments, you'll find that the average score for Blacks today is similar to the average score for Whites in around the 1970s. Given the concentration of poverty and low SES among minorites, discrimination, and de facto segregation of most public schools due to residential differences between Whites and Blacks, it's not too hard to imagine that environmental factors for Black today compare more to those of Whites in 1970 than they do to Whites today.

 

BTW, if anyone wants to look at the studies I referenced, let me know.

 

For penguino, here's the article (I think) people were talking about regarding the higher intelligence scores of Jews of Eastern European decent. I took a class with the professor who wrote the article and one week of lectures in that class focused on that subject.

 

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/med...ewrepublic.html

 

(EDIT: Fixed the link Prinmemito)

That link doesn't work. Can you double check and repost it?

I agree with most of what has been said here about environment, nutrition and upbringing being enormous factors in determining how intelligent an individual is. Genetics aren't the only factor, but it is a factor and the particulars of the history of a certain race or people from a region need to be taken into account when explaining why possibly Race A or Group A is smarter than Race B or Group B.

For penguino, here's the article (I think) people were talking about regarding the higher intelligence scores of Jews of Eastern European decent. I took a class with the professor who wrote the article and one week of lectures in that class focused on that subject.

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/articles/med...ewrepublic.html

You took a class with Steven Pinker? That's f***ing awesome. I read parts of "How the Mind Works." I intend to finish it some day.

 

As far as I know, the original study was done by researchers at the University of Utah with the intent of tracking "intelligence" in correlation with certain highly genetic diseases like tay-sachs and gaucher's (sp?).