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 Topic: High IQ turns academics into atheists

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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #60 - September 05, 2009, 11:25 PM
    Quote from: open_thinking on September 05, 2009, 11:07 PM
    Race does exist, you cannot deny this.

    Yes, it can be misused by racist people. But we are having a discussion on pure scientific facts. Anyone can use anything for wrong purposes, this does not mean that we cannot discuss things like that.

    Mother nature is not fair. This is how nature intended us to be.



    You can deny it open-thinking,and I deny it.We humans are so closely bound togheter,with same ancestors,and there has not been enough time to change into different races.

    The difference beetween us,are only skindeep.

    http://www.trinicenter.com/sciencenews/raceandgenetics.htm
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #61 - September 06, 2009, 12:55 AM
    Quote from: RIBS on September 05, 2009, 09:25 PM
    Why there are no more new successful religions? Is it because our IQ is getting better? Were our ancestors dumper than us?

    Interesting. You hear of a cult every now and then, like David Koresh for example, but only few hundreds follow them and usually not successful in a Jesus or Mohamed scale... Why is that? Thinking hard

    Thats because as soon as some leader claims to be walk on water or produce some other miracle, SkyNews and the worlds media will pounce on them to reproduce such acts which they never can
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #62 - September 06, 2009, 01:05 AM
    Quote from: open_thinking on September 05, 2009, 10:23 PM
    on the list above, why qatar, oman UAE area in the middle. They have extremely high quality of life, access to education and food etc?

    Why china, who still have relatively low per capita GDP is high on the list?

    China was recently a communist state, so do you expect it to have a high GDP relatively soon after this period?
    On a secondary note, who said GDP had anything to do with intelligence? 
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #63 - September 06, 2009, 01:06 AM
    Os - are you saying intelligence levels (however you measure them) should be the same with all races  Huh?
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #64 - September 06, 2009, 01:31 AM
    Quote from: IsLame on September 06, 2009, 01:05 AM
    China was recently a communist state, so do you expect it to have a high GDP relatively soon after this period?


    China used to pretend to be a so-called 'communist state' (state capitalist) but in practise it hasn't been anything that might pass for 'communist' for a long time.

    China derives most of its current economic growth from its industrial base, super-exploited labour which makes cheap stuff for us(!) so GDP per (nominal) capita is misleading. Adjusted to GDP PPP it is the third largest economy. It is also still carrying out the process of primitive accumulation (dispossessing peasants, herding them into factories which is what we did a while ago).

    Quote
    On a secondary note, who said GDP had anything to do with intelligence?  


    Someone did, but I think this is a meant in negation to wealthier countries managing to record higher IQ levels* for informational and human development reasons.

    *not that there's any real extensive data to go on
    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #65 - September 06, 2009, 06:48 AM
    Guys

    I just want to put in my own isolated example. Academically and at school I was considered an average student who had to work hard to achieve the grades for university. My sisters are academically brighter than me and didn't really have to work very hard at all to get the grades they needed. I say this because from my own personal circumstances, atheism doesn't seem to equate to high IQ or intelligence. I just think it has more to do with a combination of the arguments presented as well as fear of the unknown. I'd never been fully convinced since my early teens and never could say that I had 100% iman. Whereas my younger sisters are both believers. One of them is single and has been a practising muslim for a good few years and takes part in activities on a regular basis. My other sister is married and was a lazy muslim to begin with, but since her marriage has taken her faith seriously.

    The only thing that seems to be different is that at school I was interested in subjects like history, drama and english. Philosophy wasn't available as a subject then. I would have taken it if it was available. I was also a bit of a day dreamer as well and spent a great deal of time just thinking of random scenarios and situations.

    Dunno if it helps but that's my tupence worth!
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #66 - September 06, 2009, 10:56 AM
    Hmm, I'll have to get back to studying modern evolution of man.

    Re: Inuits. Either: they migrated more recently than evolved or they haven't reached a development threshold yet. Check out Iceland, totally watered off Island where I think they did evolve over many years. But it has only been recently that the cold has become manageable leading to modern development.

    It's a beautiful landscape to look at but a hard one in which to live, especially in the 1,000 years Iceland was inhabited prior to the invention of electricity and the combustion engine. 'You have to be not only tough but inventive to survive here,' said Svafa. 'If you don't use your imagination, you're finished; if you stand still, you die.'
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #67 - September 06, 2009, 11:04 AM
    I'd recommend anybody who hasn't read "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond should read it.  The explanations he gives for the differing developments of people of different races is far better researched and far more convincing than the likes of Richard Lynne and the eugenics crowd.  Diamond really does take a head on look at the subject with no dodgy research and no PC sugar coating.
    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #68 - September 06, 2009, 11:19 AM
    Sounds like a good read, thanks Smiley
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #69 - September 06, 2009, 11:56 AM
    Quote from: Cheetah on September 06, 2009, 11:04 AM
    I'd recommend anybody who hasn't read "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond should read it. 

    Sounds like exactly what I am looking for - have you read it -  did you enjoy it?
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #70 - September 06, 2009, 12:17 PM
    I have read it and I can't recommend the book strongly enough.  Its a fascinating read and until I see Lynne et al refute the arguments Diamond puts forward for the head start Eurasia had over everybody else,  I'll continue to treat their arguments with skepticism.  Frankly Diamond's thesis makes Lynne look childish.

    Btw, I don't think Panoptic's response is good enough, although I'm sure his heart is in the right place.  Its not good enough to try and refute science by saying that it could lead to something bad.  The science behind splitting the atom lead to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but that does nothing to change that the science was perfectly sound.  If you want a rigorously researched and argued reason why this stuff about race differences in IQ is far from sound read Jared Diamond.   Afro
    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #71 - September 06, 2009, 01:36 PM
    Quote
    Btw, I don't think Panoptic's response is good enough, although I'm sure his heart is in the right place.  Its not good enough to try and refute science by saying that it could lead to something bad. If you want a rigorously researched and argued reason why this stuff about race differences in IQ is far from sound read Jared Diamond.


    Of course it's not.

    Alas, there is no science to refute - not in this thread. OTOH unlike what you so crassly imply my response to 'race IQ differences' has not been 'it might lead to something bad'. I pointed out earlier (so did osmanthus): there is no evidence or reason to believe 'race IQ differences'. It is rejected scientifically. And Richard Lynne the only source the racialists could cite is a fraudulent pseudo-scientist, like everyone else funded by the same eugenicist organisation.

    However, because the existence of race sine qua non is the assumption of many people, particularly some posters in this thread, they seem to believe that race must determine intelligence unless proven otherwise. That is illogical, and that is not a scientific approach. It does not exist unless proven to. They call it burden of evidence.

    My criticism of the idea of race is not only that it's destructive - it is scientifically useless and irrelevant. Nonetheless: The etymological concept is an ideological invention, one that originally tried to classify humans into different species. Its culturally embedded meaning can't be separated from classical racist ideology, however much it is softened up. There are differences between people when you group them together in any of the millions ways you can. But there aren't races. If you call that race then people can't tell the difference, because this bonkers idea has screwed their minds over.
    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #72 - September 06, 2009, 01:53 PM
    I agree and understand your moral concerns. But differences are there and they are obvious.

    Understanding this is not bad but exploiting it may be.

    This is a debate related to evolution. In some area humans had simple survival, while in other regions they had to work hard, physically and mentally, to survive. This evolved us in slightly different ways.

    The other day I saw an NHS advert on a tube station. If you are arain or black, and over 40, you have x times more chances of having type 2 diabetes (or 1, i dont remember).

    Shall we sue NHS for this advert???

    We are slightly different, physically and mentally.
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #73 - September 06, 2009, 02:36 PM
    Quote from: open_thinking on September 06, 2009, 01:53 PM
    I agree and understand your moral concerns. But differences are there and they are obvious.

    Understanding this is not bad but exploiting it may be.

    This is a debate related to evolution. In some area humans had simple survival, while in other regions they had to work hard, physically and mentally, to survive. This evolved us in slightly different ways.

    The other day I saw an NHS advert on a tube station. If you are arain or black, and over 40, you have x times more chances of having type 2 diabetes (or 1, i dont remember).

    Shall we sue NHS for this advert???

    We are slightly different, physically and mentally.


    Good argument.  Panaptic,  I would also like to add that when we refer to race in this context, it is shorthand for which ancestors comprise of the majority of our DNA - would you be more comfortable with ancestrial biological heritage? 
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #74 - September 06, 2009, 02:39 PM
    Quote from: Cheetah on September 06, 2009, 12:17 PM
    I have read it and I can't recommend the book strongly enough.  Its a fascinating read and until I see Lynne et al refute the arguments Diamond puts forward for the head start Eurasia had over everybody else,  I'll continue to treat their arguments with skepticism.  Frankly Diamond's thesis makes Lynne look childish.

    Btw, I don't think Panoptic's response is good enough, although I'm sure his heart is in the right place.  Its not good enough to try and refute science by saying that it could lead to something bad.  The science behind splitting the atom lead to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but that does nothing to change that the science was perfectly sound.  If you want a rigorously researched and argued reason why this stuff about race differences in IQ is far from sound read Jared Diamond.   Afro

    Thanks Cheetah, I'll try & get it.  I note from your posts that you do not go as far as to completely refute this notion of a link between ancestral biological heritage & intelligence, is there a reason behind that?
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #75 - September 06, 2009, 02:40 PM
    Quote from: panoptic
    OTOH unlike what you so crassly imply my response to 'race IQ differences' has not been 'it might lead to something bad'. I pointed out earlier (so did osmanthus): there is no evidence or reason to believe 'race IQ differences'. It is rejected scientifically. And Richard Lynne the only source the racialists could cite is a fraudulent pseudo-scientist, like everyone else funded by the same eugenicist organisation.



    Agreed, but you deny the existence of race altogether.

    Quote
    However, because the existence of race sine qua non is the assumption of many people, particularly some posters in this thread, they seem to believe that race must determine intelligence unless proven otherwise. That is illogical, and that is not a scientific approach. It does not exist unless proven to. They call it burden of evidence.

    My criticism of the idea of race is not only that it's destructive - it is scientifically useless and irrelevant. Nonetheless: The etymological concept is an ideological invention, one that originally tried to classify humans into different species. Its culturally embedded meaning can't be separated from classical racist ideology, however much it is softened up. There are differences between people when you group them together in any of the millions ways you can. But there aren't races. If you call that race then people can't tell the difference, because this bonkers idea has screwed their minds over.


    This is what I meant by refuting science on the wrong grounds.   Humans can be objectively partitioned into three genetically distinct groups, or races, regardless of the dodgy motives of the pioneers of such an approach...


    http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1000500

    However, this makes the case for Lynne even worse than it would be without a biological concept of race, because the IQ differences between populations don't follow any path of genetic differences.  They follow the path of cultural and environmental differences, thus making nonsense out of his whole argument.
    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #76 - September 06, 2009, 02:47 PM
    Quote from: open_thinking on September 06, 2009, 01:53 PM
    I agree and understand your moral concerns. But differences are there and they are obvious.

    Understanding this is not bad but exploiting it may be.

    This is a debate related to evolution. In some area humans had simple survival, while in other regions they had to work hard, physically and mentally, to survive. This evolved us in slightly different ways.

    The other day I saw an NHS advert on a tube station. If you are arain or black, and over 40, you have x times more chances of having type 2 diabetes (or 1, i dont remember).

    Shall we sue NHS for this advert???

    We are slightly different, physically and mentally.



    No, no and thrice no.  No early humans had simple survival, they all had to work hard physically and mentally to survive.  You're over looking the major resources that Eurasians had at their disposal in the early stages of human history that were not available to sub-Saharan Africans and only partly available to Native Americans and Australian Aboriginals.  In order for people in those regions to keep pace with us they would have needed more intelligence than us such was the impossibility of technological transfer in those places.

    You're also using a NHS ad about high risk groups for diabetes as if it were evidence of racial IQ differences.   wacko  That doesn't make any kind of sense at all. 
    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #77 - September 06, 2009, 02:52 PM
    Quote from: IsLame on September 06, 2009, 02:39 PM
    Thanks Cheetah, I'll try & get it.  I note from your posts that you do not go as far as to completely refute this notion of a link between ancestral biological heritage & intelligence, is there a reason behind that?


    Ancestral biological inheritance is not correlated with IQ differences, but the environmental and geographical disadvantages of people in some regions has taken on a momentum of its own, leading to factors like poverty, poor nutrition, lack of education, which conspire to push down average IQs.   Even that should be treated with caution, because of course a lower average IQ does not mean that every member of the group with the lower average is less intelligent than every member of the higher average group.
    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #78 - September 06, 2009, 03:02 PM
    So you believe the differences are environmental, and dont believe that selective pressures could have resulted in different groups having varying intelligence levels?  Do you accept intelligence is inherited (I prefer to ignore the word IQ as it may take account of environmental factors, which I am not considering here)

    If the above is true, how do you explain adopted children having differences which relate to their ancestral DNA?
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #79 - September 06, 2009, 03:11 PM
    Quote
    So you believe the differences are environmental, and dont believe that selective pressures could have resulted in different groups having varying intelligence levels?


    Its not a question of belief, IsLame.  The human genome has been mapped and studied, and group differences in IQ don't correlate with genetic partitions that could be called races.

    Quote
    Do you accept intelligence is inherited (I prefer to ignore the word IQ as it may take account of environmental factors, which I am not considering here)



    Certainly intelligence, or IQ or whatever word we use is partly inherited.  But there's as much available to inherit on a group level whatever your race.   You've as much chance of being a terminal thicko if you're white as black, and God only knows how many potential Einstein's are dying of preventable diseases in sub-Saharan Africa as we speak.

    Quote
    If the above is true, how do you explain adopted children having differences which relate to their ancestral DNA?


    Because IQ is partly inherited, also some of those studies need to be treated with caution.  In many cases they claim to control for environmental factors but when you look close up they actually involve adopted children whose environment was very close in every way to what it would have been if they hadn't been adopted. 

    I think it would be ethically impossible to do a properly controlled study on this.  You'd have to persuade a rich white person from the developed world to hand their baby over to be raised in an orphanage in the Congo or something. 


    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #80 - September 06, 2009, 03:17 PM
    Quote from: open_thinking on September 06, 2009, 01:53 PM
    But differences are there and they are obvious.


    Are they?

    Quote
    This is a debate related to evolution. In some area humans had simple survival, while in other regions they had to work hard, physically and mentally, to survive. This evolved us in slightly different ways.


    Human survival has never been a simple task in any part of the world.

    Humans are highly adaptable. There are many different environments people have lived in, each one presenting some different challenges to survival. That is one reason for physical differences. There is skin pigmentation, resistance to certain diseases and susceptibility to others, prevalence of types of hair etc.. Negligible or superficial stuff. In all important ways people are the same everywhere, and they do the same things.

    There is, again, no demonstrated difference in intelligence (or behavioural traits, for that matter), the heritability of which is itself not clearly understood/is far from established.

    Quote
    The other day I saw an NHS advert on a tube station. If you are arain or black, and over 40, you have x times more chances of having type 2 diabetes (or 1, i dont remember).

    Shall we sue NHS for this advert???


    No. Although the causes of diabetes aren't well understood and they correlate with loads of different things.

    Quote
    We are slightly different, physically and mentally.


    Everyone is slightly different physically. A given group of people identified in any millions of ways are slightly different to another group of people identified in another way, and so on. We can't be placed in distinct categories on the basis of such differences. We have 99.99999% more in common than we differ from a biological POV. Take a child from Solomon Islands to New York and they'll become a complete New Yorker, along with the styles of dress, taste in food, tendency to obesity, etc..

    As different as people are mentally, for all kinds of reasons, southern africans aren't thick as bricks and asians are as likely to be geniuses as anyone else.
    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #81 - September 06, 2009, 04:25 PM
    Fine, human survival may not have been easy for people in different regions, but definitely very different methods were employed. Which over the time had some effects on physique and intelligence.

    But who says lower IQ/intelligence is bad? I believe, end of the day, nature restores the balance one way or another.

    I just went out and met an old retired English man. We started a light conversation during which he told me that he spent many years in 50s and 60s serving in Japan as a soldier.

    As I am very impressed with orientals since last night since I found out that they have the highest average IQ in the world, I started to take interest in the discussion.

    Among many other things, he told me that Japanese women loved him and other Western soldiers.

    I asked why? He explained that Japanese men have small penises, while we, the westerners, had bigger ones  Cheesy

    So now here I am thinking that Sub Saharan may have lower IQ but they are definitely better athletes.
    People with average high IQs have small penises.
    Sub Saharans have lower IQ but big penises.
    Those who have small penises may know how to use it effectively, bacause they have higher IQ.

    Nature is smart and possibilities are endless.
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #82 - September 06, 2009, 04:56 PM
    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #83 - September 06, 2009, 05:24 PM
    Quote from: Cheetah on September 06, 2009, 02:40 PM
    Agreed, but you deny the existence of race altogether.

    This is what I meant by refuting science on the wrong grounds.   Humans can be objectively partitioned into three genetically distinct groups, or races


    Partitioned?

    I don't think you've actually engaged with what I said.

    Quote
    http://www.plosgenetics.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pgen.1000500


    Note: they don't use the term race once in that paper.
    "...every imperfection in man is a bond with heaven..." - Karl Marx
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #84 - September 06, 2009, 05:29 PM
    Quote from: open_thinking on September 06, 2009, 04:25 PM
    Sub Saharans have lower IQ but big penises.
    People with average high IQs have small penises.
    Those who have small penises may know how to use it effectively, bacause they have higher IQ.

    Nature is smart ...

     Cheesy You win my nomination for the next jester of the month award
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #85 - September 06, 2009, 05:32 PM
    Quote from: Cheetah on September 06, 2009, 03:11 PM
    Its not a question of belief, IsLame.  The human genome has been mapped and studied, and group differences in IQ don't correlate with genetic partitions that could be called races.

    Not sure what this means.  Are you saying there is evidence to prove that ancestral intelligence heritage from certain closed groups is no different from others?
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  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #86 - September 06, 2009, 05:37 PM
    There are three groupings genetically distinct enough to be described as races, and there is no evidence of any significant average IQ differences between them.  The difference in IQ averages correlates with different environments and cultures, not genetic/racial differences.
    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #87 - September 06, 2009, 05:38 PM
    5

    Well 4 if you don't count Cappoid

    But Australoid is distinct to Europoid and Negroid.
    "I am ready to make my confession. I ask for no forgiveness father, for I have not sinned. I have only done what I needed to do to survive. I did not ask for the life that I was given, but it was given nonetheless-and with it, I did my best"
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #88 - September 06, 2009, 05:54 PM
    I think Capoid and Australoid are no more considered so. They're part of old race theories.

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    "God is addicted to arithmetic" - Sir James Jeans
  • Re: High IQ turns academics into atheists
     Reply #89 - September 06, 2009, 05:59 PM
    Quote from: FinallyFree on September 06, 2009, 05:38 PM
    5

    Well 4 if you don't count Cappoid

    But Australoid is distinct to Europoid and Negroid.


    I don't count Cappoid or Australoid, they're both sub groups within Negroid. 
    "Befriend them not, Oh murtads, and give them neither parrot nor bunny."  - happymurtad's advice on trolls.
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