What happened to Africa?

Originally posted by PinkFloyd
If someone came up with only three templates for human beings and their ability to learn, grow , and reason (blank slate, noble savage, and ghost in machine), I can only applaud him for managing to publish such drivel and have other people laud him as some kind of genius. There are sooooo many other things that go into what makes up intelligence, to hammer it down to three broad categories is ludicrous.

Human nature pfft not human intelligence. But try not to get hung
up on all the details.

I've moved on to looking at the social underpinnings of IQ testing.
I'm now contrasting Pinkers groups with respect to how society views
failings in education.

Pinkers 3 groups can readily be applied to 3 schools of thought when
dealing with social anomalies.
1) It's societies fault. People are intrinsicly good but society corrupts
them to profit the elite. (The noble savage).
2) It's the fault of economics. Parents have less money and education
to pass on to their children, who in-turn are unable to break the
poverty cycle. (The blank slate)
3) There are forces that are more than the sum of their parts that
are operating (The ghost in the machine)

Both 1 and 2 are commonly accepted to be the causes of social
discrepencies in IQ testing as I'm sure twitehead would agree.
But what about 3?

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
Both 1 and 2 are commonly accepted to be the causes of social
discrepencies in IQ testing as I'm sure twitehead would agree.
But what about 3?

I have absolutely no doubt that there is a strong genetic component to IQs. I don't think that falls under 'the Ghost in the machine'.
What is wrong however is to take the IQs of a group and attribute it to genetics without taking other factors into consideration. I grew up in Zambia and had a well above average IQ in my class. Progression to higher education is based entirely on passing several key exams at grades 7,9 and 12.
Of my primary school class only two of us progressed all the way to university.
However the other children almost all had:
1. poorer nutrition.
2. parents with lower education levels.
3. less educational home environments.

I have no doubt in my mind that at this point in time the average IQ in Zambia is well below the average IQ in the UK, but that is largely due to the effects of extreme poverty and also simply the lack of education. If you take an adult who has only been to school up to grade 7 you cant expect him to have an IQ equivalent to one who has been to school up to grade 12 if everything else was equal.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I have no doubt in my mind that at this point in time the average IQ in Zambia is well below the average IQ in the UK

I wouldn't be too sure about that ...

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I wouldn't be too sure about that ...

Sources please?

UK 100 - Zambia 77
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=38&threadid=2254025

Originally posted by twhitehead
I have absolutely no doubt that there is a strong genetic component to IQs. I don't think that falls under 'the Ghost in the machine'.
What is wrong however is to take the IQs of a group and attribute it to genetics without taking other factors into consideration. I grew up in Zambia and had a well above average IQ in my class. Progression to higher educ ...[text shortened]... e an IQ equivalent to one who has been to school up to grade 12 if everything else was equal.

OK I didn't want to go down the IQ testing route as I recognise there are too
many factors to make this a reliable test of inate intelligence in a group.
The intelligence distribution does seem to have striking correlation to living
conditions in Africa. I would be just as keen to argue that living on the breadline
improves your accruity as I would that having larger families promotes lower IQ's.

Regarding the ghost in the machine, I should make it clear that I am not referring
so much to Descartes mind-body dualism as I am of a literal translation.
The ghost in the machine to me means a kind of invisible blue-print for how the
machine will be put together and operate. The mechanism being DNA and the
mechanic, all of the factors described above.
What I'm getting at here is that maybe by looking at each of these factors individually,
we are not really painting the truest picture of what is going on.

More poignantly, anti-racist smears are doing nothing to help us give honest opinions.
Opinions can be cleared up quite quickly but doubt tends to linger.

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
Sources please?

UK 100 - Zambia 77
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=38&threadid=2254025

LOL, what's that?

How'd you measure the IQ of an illiterate person?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I wouldn't be too sure about that ...

I would. Personal experience has taught me that nutrition is essential for a good IQ. I have no doubt that average child nutrition in Zambia is significantly worse than that in the UK.
Poor nutrition affects many things including height, general health etc. The average height of people in Zambia would probably also go up significantly if nutrition improved.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
LOL, what's that?

How'd you measure the IQ of an illiterate person?

I didn't see any references on that page, so it might as well be made up by someone.
As far as I know, nobody has done any large scale IQ testing in Zambia. I guess the best one could do would be to look at pass rates in schools but that would be very biased.
One factor to remember is that our education system especially at the higher levels is in the English language, so children who's parents speak English have a distinct advantage.

But back to your question of illiterate people. Its all a question of what is meant by IQ. I would expect literate people to have a much larger range of knowledge and experience in certain types of thought and as a result be better at many mental tasks and thus be judged to have a higher IQ almost by default.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
LOL, what's that?

How'd you measure the IQ of an illiterate person?

Computer games?

Set them up with Quakewars. Last man standing has highest IQ.

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
Computer games?

Set them up with Quakewars. Last man standing has highest IQ.

Nice idea, but that really only tests a specific set of abilities some of which are largely experience based i.e. the longer you play Quakewars the better you get. Some people would consider dedication to playing Quake wars as sign of lower intelligence - I am not saying I agree but it does demonstrate the complexity of the issue.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Nice idea, but that really only tests a specific set of abilities some of which are largely experience based i.e. the longer you play Quakewars the better you get. Some people would consider dedication to playing Quake wars as sign of lower intelligence - I am not saying I agree but it does demonstrate the complexity of the issue.

It's obvious really. What they need is a game that challenges their judgment,
learning skills and abstract thought.

I'm thinking...um....strip poker? No wait! Chess!

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
It's obvious really. What they need is a game that challenges their judgment,
learning skills and abstract thought.

I'm thinking...um....strip poker? No wait! Chess!

But intelligence is not simply an ability in one area, it is the whole compound of both ability to learn and experience and ability to invent.
Given two people who have never played chess before one will probably learn faster than the other and one will probably end up better than the other, but there will be more complex differences such as one will probably find one method of learning the most effective and the other will find a different method better.
But is their final ability or the time to get there equal to IQ? No.