My teacher says that black people are inherently less intelligent that while people, is this true?

Answer 1

Race and intelligence is a controversial area of intelligence research studying the nature, origins, and practical consequences of racial and ethnic group differences in intelligence test scores and other measures of cognitive ability.[2]

This research is grounded in several controversial assumptions:

the social categories of race and ethnicity are concordant with genetic categories, such as biogeographic ancestry.
intelligence is measurable (see psychometrics) and is dominated by a unitary general cognitive ability.
Much of the evidence currently cited is based on IQ testing in the United States. While the distributions of IQ scores among different racial-ethnic groups overlap and often have a comparable range, groups differ in where their members cluster along the IQ scale.[3] Similar clustering occurs with related variables, such as school achievement, reaction time, and brain size, and the gap shows up before age 3 on most standardized tests after matching for variables such as maternal education.[4] Most variation in IQ in the U.S. occurs within individual families, not between races. However, even small differences in average IQ at the group level might theoretically have large effects on social outcomes. For example, a randomly selected group of Americans with an average IQ of 103 had a poverty rate 25% lower than a group with an average IQ of 100. Similar substantial correlations in high school drop-out rates, crime rates, and other outcomes have been measured.[5]

Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain why average IQ varies among racial-ethnic groups even though the ranges of individual IQ scores are virtually identical. Certain environmental factors, such as nutrition, are thought to modulate IQ in children[6], and other influences have been hypothesized, including education level, richness of the early home environment, and other social, cultural, or economic factors. The primary focus of the scientific debate is whether group IQ differences also reflect a genetic component. Hereditarianism hypothesizes that a genetic contribution to intelligence could include genes linked to neuron structure or function, brain size or metabolism, or other physiological differences which could vary with biogeographic ancestry.

Answer 2

I am a white woman living in Africa. There are a lot of black people far more intelligent than I am.

If a group of White Americans were given a test made up by West Africans, I'm sure they'd be deemed "Less intelligent".

Here would be a sample question... What do you do with Wonjo? Eat it, sit on it or live in it?
(It's a drink made from purple/red petals.)

The colour of the skin is not important. What matters is the ability to operate within the current environment.

Can YOU speak 5 or 6 languages, which is usual for most people here, for instance?

To judge people on the basis of their skin colour is WRONG.

This group of people is "Inherently less intelligent" than that group"... This is not an intelligent statement. Quite the opposite.

Answer 3

As has already been mentioned there is a scientific basis for what was said by your teacher. However what hasn't been mentioned so far is that the tests in which this is true have largely been written by white people and tested on a predominantly white population - in other words there is an inherent bias. SATS, IQ tests and so on are not as objective as some people like to think, they're almost bound to measure intelligence less favourably for minority cultures.

I did some work on this for an unpublished paper and found that tests written in American also show Europeans to be less intelligent. This research was backed up by published material relating to occupational testing. I seem to recall that back in the seventies there was a flurry of articles in the popular press about Americans having being 'proved' to be the most intelligent race which fizzled out when this very point about bias was made by academics.

There are 'culture-fair' tests, but they are not being widely used. They show there is no difference in intelligence based on skin colour. What we seem to have is institutionalised racism in the testing framework rather than a teacher who is being deliberately racist. He/she is reporting observed differences, but failing to explain how they arise - probably because the publishers of the tests don't want people (even teachers) to know how biased they are - they'd lose money if they did!

Answer 4

I don't think 'inherently' was the right word, there have been studies done on intellegence as one of the answerers alludes (atheist someone). Studies have suggested between races there are disparities in IQ scores, but these figures while they are scientifically apt there is still much debate over the question to why this is so. Typically white people have better access to education are financially better off etcetera then their other counterparts such as black poeple, so this rather then genetic make-up is more likely (at least i think) to be the cause.

That is, enviromental influences rather then gene pool are the reason for the difference between races in regards to IQ. and other races are NOT 'inherently' less intellegent.

Answer 5

Not really. It depends on the black person in question.
While tests like the ACT and SAT, are culturally bias in the English parts, intelligence is not.
I know black kids that live in some of the WORST situations and are the smartest kids you will ever meet.
It all falls back to parents and individuals that are around the child.
I went to the lowest ranked middle school in my state and yet I was the smartest kid (yes I could have went to a better one, but it was on the other side of town). While other kids there are now in jail, dead or in the NBA (1 only).
If the kid wants to be smart and has support from others or just determined, then that theory is invalid.

Answer 6

I am black and have an IQ of 130. What's your teachers IQ?
Just a tip...the more you take the tests, the more familiar you are with the style of questions, the better you get at it. So make better use of your time than worrying about what your teacher says and practise some of those tests.
Whether those tests actually do measure your intelligence or not doesn't seem to matter - too many people believe them. Like it or not you'd better prepare for them. Alternative? Do everyone a favour and create a revolution - prove they don't measure intelligence at all!!

Answer 7

this view is perpetuated by Hernstein and Murray's book 'Bell curve' and they were trying to suggest that the reason for the social class differentiation between 'race's' was natural and based on different levels of IQ, but they fail to realise that people are not born with equal opportunites that not all children have the same level of education. plus, is intelligence just IQ? when people talk of intelligence thay tend to discuss just IQ but there are other ways of being intelligent. A teacher is in an influential position and should not be spouting such controversial and racial views!!

Answer 8

"Inherently" is a poor and improper word choice here.

Go read a book called "The Bell Curve". written by Harvard professors is was controversial because it looked at test scores, SAT, ACT, IQ tests, and developed correlations based on those scores of thousand and thousands of samples.

It came to some pretty startling conclusions about race differences in intelligence. One being that poverty is a factor in intelligence. But blacks and hispanics consistently scored lower than other races in IQ tests that were screened for cultural bias. Meaning questions can't have a cultural bias like they used to. For instance, questions using Tennis or Yachting as an example would only be understood by certain classes of subjects....

So take what you want from that. But inherent means things can't be changed or turned around.....

Answer 9

All humans are born with a similar level of intelligence, atleast in comparison to races. It is how you judge intelligence that creates a scale where certain races may be viewed as "unintelligent". My only question though, is if civilizations emerged throughout the world at the same time, how come African civilizations were so far behind when Europe came to conquer?

Answer 10

I'm surprised with an ignorant viewpoint like that, that your teacher knows the word 'inherently'.

It's not true. Due to social circumstances (and discrimination in terms of allocation of resources) in some countries, 'black' people may not achieve as much academically as 'white' people, but it is nothing to do with innate intelligence.