Race and IQ

[E. Allen Smith]

From:	IN%"ichudov at algebra.com" 14-DEC-1996 02:25:51.19

>From: TCMay:
>> (For the curious, I am persuaded that there are minimal differences in
>> "intelligence" between the several or many races, but that cultural and
>> sociological factors strongly affect upbringing, learning, interest in
>> doing well in school, ability on standardized tests, success in business
>> matters, and so on.)

	It would appear that many of these factors that you mention are
correlated together, based on that performance on IQ (and even
more background-dependent standardized tests such as the SAT) is
highly correlated with academic and business success.

>A good point. I personally think that whatever we find -- whether there
>are genetic differences or not -- is not terribly important since one
>can make the most money by judging individual people by their merit.

	Agreed on both counts. The differences (whatever origin they
have) detected by standardized tests between group averages are vastly
outweighed by individual differences.

>It is an interesting academic question, but for a businessman (absent
>anti-discrimination laws) it is not very relevant.

	Quite. Unfortunately, the anti-discrimination laws make it hard
to make use of all available data. I am not contending that
businessmen should only use IQ tests... but that in almost all cases
they are important as one data point that is not very expensive to
gather. (For cases in which the free market is not operative (e.g.,
governments and monopolies), they have the additional advantage of
not seeing the color of the person's skin or other information on
which, for instance, an interviewer may be biased. The free market
can take care of keeping businesses making rational decisions;
non-market organizations are another matter.)
	-Allen