The constancy of the black/white IQ gap is a myth

[Sifjar]

These authors used the standardization samples from their four major tests such as WISC, WAIS, AFQT, and Stanford-Binet for reaching their conclusion

From the paper:

The constancy of the black/white IQ gap is a myth. Blacks have gained 5 or 6 IQ points on whites over the last 30 years. Neither changes in the ancestry of those classified as black nor changes in those who identify as black can explain more than a small fraction of this gain. Therefore, environment has been responsible. The last two decades have seen both positive and negative developments: gains in occupational status and school funding have been accompanied by more black preschoolers in single-parent homes and lower income in those homes (Neal, in press). We believe that further black environmental progress would engender further black IQ gains.

Forthcoming: Psychological Science, October 2006

Black Americans Reduce the Racial IQ Gap: Evidence from Standardization Samples

William T. Dickens and James R. Flynn

It is often asserted that blacks have made no IQ gains on whites, despite relative environmental gains, and that this adds credibility to the case that the black/white IQ gap has genetic origins. Until recently, there have been no adequate data to measure black IQ trends. We analyze data from nine standardization samples for four major tests of cognitive ability. These suggest that blacks have gained 5 or 6 IQ points on non-Hispanic whites between 1972 and 2002. Gains have been fairly uniform across the entire range of black cognitive ability.

[Martín Zalacaín]

Maybe what happens is that "whites" are getting dumber because of all that hip-hop music and whigger fashion. That would make sense.

[Sifjar]

Originally Posted by Gonzalvus

Maybe what happens is that "whites" are getting dumber because of all that hip-hop music and whigger fashion. That would make sense.

Well I think because the blacks are using the opportunities which given to them and scoring high.

[Martín Zalacaín]

Originally Posted by Sifjar

Well I think because the blacks are using the opportunities which given to them and scoring high.

Yes, maybe. I don't know. I tend to ignore all this supposedly infallible studies. One month they demonstrate one thing, and the next the opposite.

Furthermore, I'm very distrustful of the studies that "prove" things that are favourable to the New World Order agenda. For instance, that blacks are equal to ourselves, just darker.

[Weltschmerz]

Originally Posted by Sifjar

Well I think because the blacks are using the opportunities which given to them and scoring high.

That's possible. But we (Europeans) don't have an obligation to give them opportunities in our countries.

[Sifjar]

Originally Posted by Seekers

That's possible. But we (Europeans) don't have an obligation to give them opportunities in our countries.

I know, they should work their a.....s and carry their own weight,

[bombadillo]

Originally Posted by Gonzalvus

Furthermore, I'm very distrustful of the studies that "prove" things that are favourable to the New World Order agenda. For instance, that blacks are equal to ourselves, just darker.

And your distrust is well-placed: Flynn has an agenda to show black-white differences are not race-genetic.

My (informed) opinion so far is that such differences are real and significant. But to be fair, it's not a level playing field, and if you improve educational, cultural, family, and nutritional opportunities and impacts, you will see a small but real improvement among those with low IQ scores (black or white). Poor nutrition has a particularly negative impact in the Third World. But to claim these negative influences account for the whole -- or even most -- of the story is absurd (in my opinion).

As far as I know, black-white IQ differences have remained constant over the last fifty years, even though scores for both have improved (this is not say, of course, that we have all become more "intelligent").

[Monolith]

Originally Posted by Gonzalvus

Yes, maybe. I don't know. I tend to ignore all this supposedly infallible studies. One month they demonstrate one thing, and the next the opposite.

I couldn't agree more. I'd say such studies are unreliable, to say the least. Intelligence itself is much more complicated, to be measured through this ridiculous testing...

[Susi]

But how do they define blacks really? There are different groups within them and to deny this is stupid. Maybe this would apply (somewhat) to America, but certainly not anywhere else.

To deny that there are intelligent Africans is also stupid, though.

I distrust IQ tests as an accurate measure.

[Lutiferre]

Originally Posted by Monolith

I couldn't agree more. I'd say such studies are unreliable, to say the least. Intelligence itself is much more complicated, to be measured through this ridiculous testing...

Thats also an important point in measuring intelligence itself - one thing is IQ tests and different IQ tests, another topic is intelligence itself, and how effective they are at measuring it?

They dont measure intelligence itself, they are "supposed" to measure how the general intelligence factor, or g factor, impacts on certain practical usages of it. The question is if we are measuring anything else than how well educated people are. Because there is a correlation between education and IQ-scores.

I myself have taken an intelligence test when I was under 18 (the WISC test), and the questions didnt measure mental capacity or any other "fundamental" areas. They measured things you can learn through education - a fully educated person could score very, very high without having more mental capacity or intelligence than others.

In the end, scoring high in IQ tests comes down to systematic, rationalized thinking.

Another subject could be white admixture. How much black/white admixture has there been, and is there a correlation with their IQ scores and rising interracial admixture?

[Kalevi]

Originally Posted by Susi

But how do they define blacks really?.

In the US, 'black' is a socio-racial group that includes people who have black features but who in reality can be predominantly Europid. One possibility of how these result came about is that the numbers of these kind of self-identifying 'blacks' are increasing by ongoing miscegenation.

Originally Posted by Degenuicide

The question is if we are measuring anything else than how well educated people are. Because there is a correlation between education and IQ-scores.

The causality is high IQ -> high success. IQ is particularly good in predicting how successfull an individual will be in his/her career and how highly he/she will be educated.

[gazumpiro]

I think we should pick an online IQ test and everyone posting in this thread should take it.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by gazumpiro

I think we should pick an online IQ test and everyone posting in this thread should take it.

How can we be sure that you won't use help from your little sister?

[Susi]

It's been years since I take an IQ test and I can never remember my score ^^. I think it was 142? But that's really irrelevent.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Originally Posted by Kalevi

The causality is high IQ -> high success. IQ is particularly good in predicting how successfull an individual will be in his/her career and how highly he/she will be educated.

Schooling and education are not one and the same thing.

Success? Nah, yes, success in the modern technocratic and basically anti-nationalist society.

[Ferran]

Originally Posted by Kalevi

The causality is high IQ -> high success. IQ is particularly good in predicting how successfull an individual will be in his/her career and how highly he/she will be educated.

Well, such belief has already been refuted by recent studies, most notably that of Daniel Goleman (author of best-seller Emotional Intelligence, 1995), who stated that cognitive intelligence (the one measured in IQ tests) provides just a 20% of the factors that ultimately will lead you to personal success, being emotional intelligence the one that gets the 80%. In fact, one of the reasons for the definition of such concept was the high number of individuals with a high IQ who later failed miserabily in their studies.

In general terms, to be emotionally intelligent you must know to identify your emotions in the moment they appear, and once identified, acting in the most correct manner for each situation. Most importantly, you must have a great dose of self-motivation and will to sacrifice yourself (the opposite of it being to fall in depressions and regular self-defeatism), empathy and social competence. So as we can see, emotional intelligence is primordial outside school as well. But the only way to measure it is life itself I guess.

[Arthur Gordon Pym]

Well, maybe these supposedly "improved" results of blacks don't have to mean that they became smarter or that they previously were much dumber than today (since IQ obtained by tests is not a very trustworthy indicator of intelligence), it may simply mean that they adapted to the requirements of the modern US society better, the adaptation to it being basically measured by those tests. This adaptation might be the result of different affirmative action programmes, since Nixon's presidency. Before that they were marginalized in America and did not partake in different societal currents and thus appeared to be "dumber".