Race & Intelligence

[Whickerman]

Given the debate that's been started by Nobel winner James Watson's remarks about race playing a role in intelligence:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/artic le2677098.ece

and his speedy retraction:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/ 0,,2193899,00.html

and the fact that it's recognised that culture (as opposed to race) does play a role in IQ testing
http://wilderdom.com/personality/intelligenceC ulturalBias.html

is there an argument that a possible scientific finding can be suppressed due to political correctness?

(Note: My personal opinion is that he's talking poppycock, but that the notion should have been scientifically examined to disregard it, rather than doing so for politically motivated reasons)

[brionon]

I agree I don't think that Blacks are less intelligent nor that the Japanese are more. But why can't we say what we think ? I think that people who contribute to Answer Bank are uncommonly intelligent.

[jake-the-peg]

The flaw comes in equating intelligence with IQ to start with

IQ tests are almost entirely verbal or mathematical - visual spatial questions are pattern recognition which is in reality a form of mathematical test.

The idea that intelligence is related to an IQ test is to narrow down the concept of intelligence to a ridiculous extent.

It also assumes that there is some sort of innate inteligence as seperate to education and that you can't therefore improve an IQ test by practice, or nutrition or education.

There might be an argument if there Watson was a researcher in the area with compelling new evidence but in reality he's a rather dotty old scientist with confused and outdated ideas like Eugenics.

It's not political correctness to refuse to give a platform to people who want to espouse racism

[WaldoMcFroog]

It's also a fairly elementary bit of genetics to know that there can be just as much generic variety within a race as there is between members of different races.

A caucasian from France and a cacuasian from Scandinavia might very well have greater genetic difference between them than between each of them and a Nigerian, but we can get hung up on the visual appearance and ascribe it a far greater importance than it deserves.

[Lil O'lady]

In addition, wasn't there some hoohhaa about the orginator of the IQ test faking his evidence by making up sets of identical twins?
I think it is very important to talk about issues of race, gender and faith differences without shouting or letting some politician hijack the debate.
It is true that the results of all kinds of research get either twisted or suppressed to suit political aims, and that in other cases 'research' is skewed to add credence to political ideas.
Culture has to play a role in IQ testing as the tests contain intrinsic cultural bias - for a starter , the notion of taking a test is culturally specific.