The Question of Which Race it the Most Intelligent?

Define "smart"

German Shepherds learn commands quickly compared to most other breeds but won't survive a month without a human to take care of them. On the other hand, other breeds can literally survive for years in the wild but are not fast to learn commands.

Which dog is smarter?

 

Fixed?

I personally don't think it's true at all.

 

Of course intelligence has a genetic component.

 

I don't beleive it does in a generalized sense.

i.e. It plays a roll if one is born with various brain abnormalities
but
Given a healthy brain. I think ever brain has similar capacities.

Rocket River

 

I dunno - if nature was more important than nurture, that would suggest huge discrepencies in intelligent simply based on genes. Even if genes give you the innate ability, I think nurture - whether you go to school or not, for example - is going to go much farther in determining your ultimate intelligence.

 

Twin studies show that if you put one twin in a rocket ship, send him into space, and bring him back (all the while traveling pretty fast), he arrives actually younger than the twin that stayed on Earth. Of course, the traveling twin has also become dumber.

The dumber result is not understood. (1) Bad food in space? (2) Radiation in space? (3) Watching NASA promotional videos for long periods of time?

 

Was one of the twins tanned ?

 

The Arabs

 

Science demands the study of orange tan in space.

 

OK, B-Bob, own up. Tell me that you've read Heinlein's classic Time for the Stars, 1956. It covers exactly this kind of paradox, but without the "traveling twin" becoming dumber. I have no idea how anyone could determine a result like that, and don't believe it. I'll go with Robert A. Heinlein.

 

I don't know the race of the OP, but spelling doesn't seem to be his strength.

 

Of course nurture plays a significant role, just start with breast feeding for example.

 

I've glanced through this thread and I question these studies. First off it looks like the studies cited at the begining of this thread appear to only look at races in North America. When looking at Asians in North America of course they are going to be among the smartest and hardest working because its largely a self-selected group of the most ambitious Asians who came here after the civil rights revolution. If you look at Asia as a whole though the majority of Asians are not that successful. This idea of Asians being smarter is really only a new phenomenon due to the surge generation that immigrated starting in the '60's. Prior to then the stereotype of Asians in the West, particularly Chinese was a decadent and degenerate people.

While I think there may be a genetic component to intelligence there is absolutely no doubt that nurture strongly determines the final intelligence of any person. I would question what conditions the twin studies were conducted as if you had two twins who though seperated grew up in an environment where they had access to the same resources that they would end up being about the same. Consider though if one twin was raised where they got to ate high quality protein rich food while another lived at near famine conditions I strongly doubt as adults they would end up at about the same intelligence.

Finally IQ tests do have a fair amount of subjectivity to them and given the range of how human intelligence is expressed I doubt that applying standardized IQ tests can accurately determine intelligence. For example if you took a Papau New Guinean tribesman and made him take a modern IQ test I doubt they would do very well on it. On the other hand though if you took an Ivy League graduate and suddenly put them in the middle of the New Guinean jungle its doubtful they could survive very long. Both tribesman and Ivy Leaguer might be very intelligent but that intelligence is expressed in very different ways.

 

Seemed like a rushed typo. I wouldn't put that in the same category as not being able to spell.

I guess being understanding isn't your strength.

 

Again, I guess it depends on your definition of intelligence. I'm thinking more about what gets measured by IQ, which is generally supposed to stay the same regardless of age and how much information you know.

But I disagree that nature being the most important factor in intelligence would suggest huge discrepancies. There are tens of thousands of genes, and the interconnectedness between them is complex. I don't think it is something as simple as eye-color; there's not a "smart" gene you can find. But the idea that nurture affects intelligence (or at least my definition of it) doesn't make sense to me, especially since it remains consistent over time regardless of schooling.

I think "nurture" affects how well you use your intelligence and a bunch of other things that can change your perceived intelligence later in life. But to me that's a different thing.

 

I'm referencing this thread not to challenge the OP but to back up your point about Asians

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=148718&highlight=nigerian

 

Rookie, of course it's a rushed typo, but if the irony of starting a thread about intelligence and misspelling the thread title is lost on you, you have the right to remain silent.

 

Asian Power?

 

Is this true globally or just in United States? Maybe it was selective breeding during American slavery days? Honestly, I'm not sure how valid that is. I'm just throwing out an alternative theory.

 

So which race has taken over the GARM?

Find that out, and you can answer this question about intelligence, or lack thereof.

DD