They share some genes with the Aftican-Americans, but don’t share the culture and there shouldn’t be much suppressive racism outside of South Africa during the last 50 years or so.
I’m not sure this is the right way to be looking at the issue. It’s implausible that racism directly affects IQ; your stem cells don’t go out and check other people’s opinions of your ethnic background before they develop into a central nervous system. The idea is more that it’s associated with environmental factors that are reflected as a lower actual or apparent IQ: worse nutrition or other types of neglect in childhood, for example, or less motivation. It’s plausible that these more or less closely mirror what you’d see in nations without the same racial politics but which are unstable in other ways—and much of sub-Saharan Africa does have that reputation. (The continent’s own ethnic politics might also play a role—American-style racism isn’t the only type out there. How do Japanese-born ethnic Koreans do in comparison to Korean-born Koreans?)
One possible way of testing this would be to look at rapidly developing African countries in comparison with flatlined ones (Google Public Data is good for picking out which are which) and see if that’s reflected in IQ, if the data exists at that granularity. Other ways of breaking it down might also be useful: rural vs. urban, say, or by socioeconomic status.
I’m not sure this is the right way to be looking at the issue.
Well, yes, if we un-anchor from the way the discussion went in this thread, the basic issue is nature or nurture—are IQ differences caused by genes or by some/any/all “environmental” factors which can range from cultural oddities to micronutrient deficiencies.
My impression—and I’m too lazy to go, collect, and array the evidence properly—is that while it’s clear that environmental factors can suppress IQ in populations, after you correct and adjust for everything that comes to mind, the IQ gaps persist.
If by IQ you mean one’s performance on IQ tests, rather than the g-factor they seek to measure, there isa not-so-implausible mechanism by which racism can affect the former.
your stem cells don’t go out and check other people’s opinions of your ethnic background before they develop into a central nervous system
IAWYC but children retain lots of neuroplasticity even after their central nervous system has developed, and even adults do a little bit.
I meant g in that sentence, yes. The bit about motivation later was alluding to stereotype threat and similar effects.
Point taken re: neuroplasticity. It doesn’t seem likely that that’s an overwhelmingly large contributor to adult intelligence, but correlation between adult and childhood IQ scores isn’t so high that it couldn’t be playing a role. I’d be interested to see how that correlation changes between populations, now.
I’m not sure this is the right way to be looking at the issue. It’s implausible that racism directly affects IQ; your stem cells don’t go out and check other people’s opinions of your ethnic background before they develop into a central nervous system. The idea is more that it’s associated with environmental factors that are reflected as a lower actual or apparent IQ: worse nutrition or other types of neglect in childhood, for example, or less motivation. It’s plausible that these more or less closely mirror what you’d see in nations without the same racial politics but which are unstable in other ways—and much of sub-Saharan Africa does have that reputation. (The continent’s own ethnic politics might also play a role—American-style racism isn’t the only type out there. How do Japanese-born ethnic Koreans do in comparison to Korean-born Koreans?)
One possible way of testing this would be to look at rapidly developing African countries in comparison with flatlined ones (Google Public Data is good for picking out which are which) and see if that’s reflected in IQ, if the data exists at that granularity. Other ways of breaking it down might also be useful: rural vs. urban, say, or by socioeconomic status.
Well, yes, if we un-anchor from the way the discussion went in this thread, the basic issue is nature or nurture—are IQ differences caused by genes or by some/any/all “environmental” factors which can range from cultural oddities to micronutrient deficiencies.
My impression—and I’m too lazy to go, collect, and array the evidence properly—is that while it’s clear that environmental factors can suppress IQ in populations, after you correct and adjust for everything that comes to mind, the IQ gaps persist.
If by IQ you mean one’s performance on IQ tests, rather than the g-factor they seek to measure, there is a not-so-implausible mechanism by which racism can affect the former.
IAWYC but children retain lots of neuroplasticity even after their central nervous system has developed, and even adults do a little bit.
I meant g in that sentence, yes. The bit about motivation later was alluding to stereotype threat and similar effects.
Point taken re: neuroplasticity. It doesn’t seem likely that that’s an overwhelmingly large contributor to adult intelligence, but correlation between adult and childhood IQ scores isn’t so high that it couldn’t be playing a role. I’d be interested to see how that correlation changes between populations, now.