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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRichwine: the average Nigerian is mentally retarded*
Yep, according to the Harvard PhD thesis of Republican wunderkind Jason Richwine, author of the Heritage Foundation report that claims immigration is destroying our precious bodily fluids, the average IQ of Nigerians is 69 (see page 139). In fact, it looks like in Richwine's world, the average citizen of almost all Sub-Saharan African countries has an IQ below 70, which qualifies as what used to be known as mental retardation, now known as an intellectual disability.
Mrs. Goldstein was reading about Mr. Richwine's thesis in the Globe this morning, and decided to check it out.
Wow.
Looks like most Central Americans are at borderline intellectual functioning, which is an IQ of 70-84.
Average Israeli? 95, still below the average. Seriously?
I call bullshit. Utter bullshit. Unmitigated bullshit. Republican-caliber bullshit.
Just thought you might like to know what we're dealing with here. Pretty disturbing stuff. Shame on Richwine, and shame on Harvard for housing faculty who'll sign off on this kind of garbage.
*I used "mentally retarded" for shock effect, wouldn't normally use it. But note that the term *is* still used in the DSM-IV
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DCKit
(18,541 posts)Response to MannyGoldstein (Original post)
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brush
(53,764 posts)God! I wouldn't ever admit I agree with that eugenics-pushing creep. You are posting on a progressive site and saying that you actually believe that a whole ethnic group has generally low IQs? You're not serious are you, buddy? And you're fooling no one with the Wikipedia link. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, including hucksters like Richwine.
He most likely doesn't believe that crap either but being the opportunist he is, he knows it gets him fellowships and other things — most likely money under the table to keep it up.
Sorta like how many repug pundits have figured out how the game works ("Let's see, if I'm willing to mouth repug talking points, or say Africans and Mexicans have lower intelligence and bash Obama every chance I get, I get book deals and/or fellowships and/or pundit status on Fox and/or newspaper columns and on and on, maybe even a seat in the House or Senate, or a run for the presidency. Who knows? I'll do it, even though I know it's a load of crap"
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Downwinder
(12,869 posts)Last edited Mon May 20, 2013, 12:05 AM - Edit history (1)
of valedictorians and salutatorians for 2012.
http://www.upscalehouston.com/2012/community/school-news/hisd-celebrates-class-of-2012-valedictorians-and-salutatorians.html
brush
(53,764 posts)Downwinder
(12,869 posts)Should be a much better measure of intelligence than an IQ test.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)FarCenter
(19,429 posts)IQ test results have a standard deviation of about 15 points, so the distributions overlap considerably, i.e. there are high and low scorers in every country.
The difference in averages may be due to a variety of factors including cultural, nutrition, child rearing practices, genetic differences, etc.
IQ tests don't test anything related to the intrinsic worth of the individual, but if you are choosing military officers, managers of enterprises, or university faculty members, you will probably choose from the high scoring population. That is pretty much what they were developed to assist.
Since we don't know what part of natural differences are due to cultural, environmental or genetic factors, we don't know how much of the difference between nations will persist when people from various nations emigrate into the US. Environment is easily changed. Culture is not so easy to change, particularly with respect to child rearing practices handed down from mother to daughter.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)tests.
which is why the countries with the strongest testing 'cultures' do best at them.
duh.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Not to disparage either group, but I have to ask:
FarCenter
(19,429 posts)See wiki link above.
brush
(53,764 posts)You have to take what you find there with many grains of salt.
Initech
(100,063 posts)
HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)Looks like a house-cleaning might be in order.
Ganja Ninja
(15,953 posts)How does someone get a PHD using what sounds like old Nazi party research?
Beowulf
(761 posts)That explains much.
msanthrope
(37,549 posts)
MisterP
(23,730 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)SheilaT
(23,156 posts)Hilariously stupid at least.
Speaking as someone who loves IQ-type tests because I always do very well on them, I'm also extremely aware that there are whole huge areas in which I'm not very functional. Like, say, fixing things. Or hunting for my food. With or without guns, although since I've never actually tried to hunt, with or without guns, maybe I'd surprise myself and actually be . . . naah. I'm not all that good at being in the great outdoors.
Anyway, I supposedly have a reasonably high IQ, somewhere above the average range, but that's because I'm really good at doing well on those tests. They serve a certain purpose, but we should never lose sight of the fact that they measure only a narrow range of abilities.
Response to SheilaT (Reply #16)
defacto7 This message was self-deleted by its author.
Junkdrawer
(27,993 posts)Oh, I have many problems with the current government of Israel.
But, I've been around the block a few times.....
Israelis?????
southmost
(759 posts)someone's ability to take a test is determined by genetics?
(what's more disturbing is reading the posts/replies that defend this idea)
AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)I can't run long distances very fast. I have trained and trained. I just run out of breath.
Some people can smoke a pack a day and still outrun me.
So test taking ability can't have a genetic component?
Anymouse
(120 posts)They used to say the same things about Eastern and Southern Europeans (which is why for so long immigration policy prohibited us - I am 3rd generation Polish) from entering the USA.
I suppose that if Richwine's assertions are true (not only they, but their kids and grandkids will be below average), that means I must have snuck over the border fence of the Triple Nine Society and should be deported.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)One of the effects of that malnutrition is cognitive development.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2519065/
The value judgment should be about a worldwide community that tolerates this tragedy.
Half-Century Man
(5,279 posts)The sperm that made him was the winner of his mom's Fallopian tube derby, That was some diluted pitiful load.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)A little anecdote. My nephew's wife is from Togo. They live in the states now and still she cooks with a large wooden bowl and a pounding device sort of like a mortar and pestle only much larger. She will prepare meals for hours with what some might think are ways from the stone age. She goes through a long ritualistic routine of washing and dressing properly before cooking. If you ask her about using something more modern like a Kitchen Aid or an electric grinder she says, "yes of course I can use them... but why?" My way works better. I think she is right. Her first languages are Togolese and French, but she also speaks fluent German, English, Spanish, and a smattering of other languages she likes to pick up here and there. She also can write fluently in the first 5 that I mentioned. She likes to play Scrabble in English on the Internet with people from the US and Britain and among a couple hundred thousand participants in the US and Britain, she ranks #2... In English! Not her first 2 languages.
Did she study these languages? Not much... she just picks them up because she likes languages. In Togo she told me, they have a rigorous education standard. You have to pass a test to graduate that is very strict. If you cannot pass the test, you stay in school until you do pass it or you do not get a diploma. If you have to stay in school for years so you can pass it, you do just that. One of the passing requirements is fluency in Togolese and French plus a general knowledge of German. Minimum math skills are at least advanced Algebra.
Now if someone tells me that Africans are less intelligent than us white folks, I would challenge them to dare play Scrabble with my niece!
ReRe
(10,597 posts)Who on earth would want to go to Harvard these days? And Yale for that matter? If either of them gave me a full scholarship for the rest of my life, I would throw it on the ground and stomp on it, then I would strike a match to it. Both are far over-rated.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)My education there was far greater than what I received in the classroom. The libraries were worth the entire ride. But politically and "realistically" I do understand.
CTyankee
(63,903 posts)While the Bowl has been renovated, some other landmarks are gone or changed. The Yankee Doodle is no more. The Yale Co-op is now Barnes & Noble at Yale. Cutler's closed its doors this past year and the York Square Cinema is gone.
Which was your residential college?
defacto7
(13,485 posts)I was married at the time and lived in married housing up on Prospect St.??? I think. It was a Family apartment block for the U. and was across from a huge old dilapidated mansion. The Yale co-op is a B&N... How long is that going to last? I don't remember Cutler's or York Square Cinema... My hang out was a pizza parlor across from Woolsey Hall, very old. My favorite places though... the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library where I would check down to the secure area original Bach and Beethoven scores, Leonardo drawings and once the original logs and maps of Lewis and Clark. That was worth everything. The other place was the main library tower where I had permission to go to the rare recordings stacks. My Yale experience in a nut shell. Learned a lot about secret societies. 'nuf said.
CTyankee
(63,903 posts)Actually, the downtown area around Yale is looking better! I like the B&N at Yale. It's nice. New Haven has some wonderful restaurants and the Green is really pretty. I live in Westville, not far from the Bowl, but I do get downtown for the museums. The Yale Center for British ARt has a fabulous exhibit on "Edwardian Opulence" on now and the YUAG's 3 building museum has been quite wonderfully remodeled for a vast sum of money donated by an alum.
Things are humming along nicely there...if only they could win the Harvard game this year...sigh...
defacto7
(13,485 posts)by alumni of that institution.
CTyankee
(63,903 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)It's about the money. Much of the time it's the money that gets you there not the money you get out of it. Of course there are a lot of exceptions to that rule. If you're in the physics department well, OK the experience and utilities are vast but not not much financial future. If you are in politics or law you're likely to have connections and the money was there already. Undergrad is a mishmash but a lot of influence is helpful to say the least. I'm not an advocate for Ivy league schools necessarily, too many variables. But again, the archives, libraries and underground hoards of undocumented historic materials are beyond belief.
CTyankee
(63,903 posts)much more with it. My son is a Columbia grad and has done very well. So I have seen good and bad come out of the Ivies. I think the addition of women into their ranks have done wonders. That and their affirmative action efforts on race...
But speaking of "hoards" I was gratified that Yale gave back the artifacts from Macchu Picchu stolen by Yale researcher Hiram Bingham that the Peruvian government was demanding of them for several YEARS! And after Yale REFUSED to budge...sheesh. My guess is that Yale had gotten into such bad odor with their colleagues in the Ivy League that they HAD to give up...or look like rogues and out and out jerks...
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)It's true that many public universities also have outstanding students faculty. But what set Yale apart, for me, was that it teaches critical thinking in a way that my previous school, the University of New Haven, did not.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)See here: http://wicherts.socsci.uva.nl/wicherts2010IQAFR.pdf
(Also note that iodine deficiency is apparently endemic in Nigeria and has some substantial effect on intellectual development.)
diane in sf
(3,913 posts)Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)
As far as I can recall iodised salt is still quite common.
Heywood J
(2,515 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)not regional.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)a single test, or series of tests.
One example - spelling ability is supposedly correlated to IQ, but one of the brightest people I've ever known - clearly a genius at math and science - spells at about the third grade level.
Other people who can solve differential equations in their heads cannot understand nuances of tone and inflection when speaking with others. They're socially incommunicado. Still others are gifted at communications, but can't add two plum two.
All "normal" people have more than enough raw brain capacity to function at the genius level with sufficient training and the right environment. Our backgrounds and experiences literally determine how the different areas of our brains route to and from each other.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)You've got that right.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)"normal" people probably don't have the mental capacity to function at genius level. It's not simply a matter of training and environment. Some things are untrainable, and there are significant differences in neurology between individuals (number of neurons, size of brain regions, ratio of connective "white matter" to grey matter) that have significant effects on overall mental capacity and brain function.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)someone how to hold a paintbrush or play guitar chords, but if they don't have the predisposition (or gift), they're not going to create art or music.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)You can't make a person of "average intelligence" a genius, because they very probably lack the neurology for it; that's just how it is. Case in point...I learnt to read, on my own, without being taught, at age 2. By the time I was in first grade I was reading on a college level. The average age for reading in the general population is around 4-6 or so. "Genius" and "giftedness" (in the intellectual sense) are the same thing; they refer to an innate ability that can be refined through teaching, but you can't teach someone of average intelligence and neurology to have the same intuitive grasp of, say, math or language.
Historic NY
(37,449 posts)who is IQ challenged. 
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)of the Federal Government Contracts Review panel who are interested in the importation of goods into their country with funds which are presently confined in Nigeria that my assistance is needed in order to enable them to commence this business by transferring said funds into my account. Seems pretty air-tight to me!
bhikkhu
(10,715 posts)read http://www.ecdgroup.com/download/sa1yctii.pdf
Within the science there's plenty of argument, but still a general agreement that when you give IQ tests to people of different cultures, regardless of how careful you might have been to try to accommodate different languages and customs, you don't wind up with anything useful. Which is to say, anyone in the field knows if a Frenchman takes an IQ test and scores 100, and a Hawaiian takes an IQ test and scores 100, the two aren't equivalent. Nothing useful can be inferred from the results.
IQ tests are only relative scores among ones peers within a cultural group. Even within a cultural group, there is a significant and predictable shift over time, which would lead us to say, for instance, that our great grandparents were generally idiots. And if there had been tests in the colonial days, that our founding fathers were complete morons.
Richwine seems to misunderstand the tests themselves. I imagine his peer-review for the thesis would have been an interesting thing to see, if he has gone that far with it.
cali
(114,904 posts)that it was accepted. It's unbelievable. Richwine, among other contemptible assertions and suggestions, posits that the caste system in India developed out of I.Q. differences.\
And according to asswipe fuckwad, the average intelligence of a citizen of Gabon is below the MR cutoff of 60 at 59.
I hate this repulsive swine, but I don't even have words for the faculty that approved his work.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)Vanhanen argues that whites and Asians should be given leadership positions in African countries, for instance.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)Or one designed by a Kalahari San tribesman on how to live in the desert. He'd be lucky to score a 5.
RebelOne
(30,947 posts)still fall for their scams anymore are mentally retarded.
Sheldon Cooper
(3,724 posts)It just, well, reeks.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)
Maybe we could just use "richwine" as a synonym for it, istead the more cumbersome "cognitive disability" or "intellectual disability".
Blue Owl
(50,349 posts)
TheDebbieDee
(11,119 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)
d_r
(6,907 posts)but it has taken on such a bad connotation with its mis-use as a slur that it sounds ugly. The term "intellectual disability" is the one that was adopted by the U.S. Dept. of Education and so it is most widely used. But the original term is still technically accurate and it is the one that you are defining with the IQ level of -2 sd, or about 70.