Race Netural IQ test?

[Phier]

Thinking about some posts I made about race and intelligence in another thread, I did a little search to see if anyone has come up with a 'race neutral' IQ test.

I couldn't find any, my google powers failed. What I did find were complaints about IQ tests, complaints about their validity, that sort of thing, but no one came up with an IQ test where all races scored 'equally' as a group.

So does such a test exist out there? Its not my field, so I'm unaware of current research in it.

[removeduser_052420]

Asians will always score the highest .

[Playfishpaste]

All IQ tests are race neutral, the differences between them in cognitive abilities or pattern solving is negligible to the point of not mattering.

[Phier]

All IQ tests are race neutral, the differences between them in cognitive abilities or pattern solving is negligible to the point of not mattering.

If the tests are neutral then your statement is incorrect.

[Playfishpaste]

IQ tests do not test cognitive science, they test your particular IQ

We do not need iq tests to demonstrate that there is no difference in cognitive ability in different races. We need EKGs. Which we have, and have used, extensively, due to large amounts of racism in the 20th century.

[Phier]

IQ tests do not test cognitive science, they test your particular IQ

We do not need iq tests to demonstrate that there is no difference in cognitive ability in different races. We need EKGs. Which we have, and have used, extensively, due to large amounts of racism in the 20th century.

EKG's? Care to explain?

[Phier]

I can't find any articles that relate, and every article I could find on EEG's and IQ turned up conflicting results. I'm also not sure how a cat scan would show anything useful.

Do you recall where you read this?

[Baron von Sky Hat]

I'm also not sure how a cat scan would show anything useful

I presumed that he meant MRIs. A search on that and IQ tests led to a number of results relating brain size to IQ and similar.
There does seem to be an awful lot of conflict regarding this area, lots of loaded questions seem to be asked seemingly due to racial and cultural bias' in some cases.
I found a very interesting discussion here: http://danny.oz.au/communities/anthr...bates/race-iq/ . Not innately about IQ tests, although it does bring up a few points regarding the flaws of IQ tests. Mainly it relates to the question that this sort of topic raises `is there a difference in intelligence between racial groups?'
I've not seen any genuinely convincing information that there is, many arguments along the lines of claiming that there is seem to exhibit flaws such as pointed out in that discussion: mixes between correlation and causality, and frequently inadequate definitions such as the terms `white', `black', etc, which, from a genetic standpoint are useless.

I've always had a healthy distrust of IQ tests. My personal opinion is that everything I've seen about them would appear to indicate that they test nothing more than how good you are at IQ tests. There may be a relation between actual intelligence and ability to do IQ tests, but to base subsequent analysis purely off of IQ seems unjustified to me.
I've not seen anything either regarding a genuinely race- or socially- neutral IQ test. Many seem to attempt to tend along those lines, however I feel the innate flaws of using IQ tests (or an equivalent) alone, without ever being able to actually confirm what form the relation between test and actual intelligence takes, seems to contain a flaw from the start.
Those are just my personal opinions on it, I don't have much in terms of references to papers to back any of it up, but I think that it's fairly reasonable as an argument.

edit:
Forgot to mention, kudos to what Ummon said, a well put, succinct description of IQ tests, I totally agree

[Playfishpaste]

I presumed that he meant MRIs. A search on that and IQ tests led to a number of results relating brain size to IQ and similar.

MRIS are useful as well as CAT scans. I forgot to explain that in a previous post, they allow for detailed imagery of different regions of the brain and it's size and density.

I've always had a healthy distrust of IQ tests. My personal opinion is that everything I've seen about them would appear to indicate that they test nothing more than how good you are at IQ tests. There may be a relation between actual intelligence and ability to do IQ tests, but to base subsequent analysis purely off of IQ seems unjustified to me.
I've not seen anything either regarding a genuinely race- or socially- neutral IQ test. Many seem to attempt to tend along those lines, however I feel the innate flaws of using IQ tests (or an equivalent) alone, without ever being able to actually confirm what form the relation between test and actual intelligence takes, seems to contain a flaw from the start.
Those are just my personal opinions on it, I don't have much in terms of references to papers to back any of it up, but I think that it's fairly reasonable as an argument.

What part of an IQ test has to do with society or literature or anything like that? It tests your cognitive skill, monkeys can take it. It's got nothing to do with how cultured or mature or different you are from everyone else socially. It's about how well you notice patterns and how quickly you can do operations. "Visual learners" do not apply here.

[2-D Ron]

MRIS are useful as well as CAT scans. I forgot to explain that in a previous post, they allow for detailed imagery of different regions of the brain and it's size and density.




What part of an IQ test has to do with society or literature or anything like that? It tests your cognitive skill, monkeys can take it. It's got nothing to do with how cultured or mature or different you are from everyone else socially. It's about how well you notice patterns and how quickly you can do operations. "Visual learners" do not apply here.

Chimps also have been found by Doctors to have Near-Photographic memories.

I'd have to agree that seeing the brain operate in general and compared with numerous other scans from other test subjects would point out a good average on Brain Activity.. I'm sure Neural Surgeons and Neurologists in general know what constitutes a healthy brain through the exchange of neurons through the brain and whether their going to parts of the brain where they should be.. That they can determine with little case for error if each persons brain has a better chance of absorbing information than the other just by seeing High and Low Activity amongst many Cases they've compared.

That Physically they're capable of having a High I.Q, but that's down to probably hundreds if not thousands of Paths that person takes in his life that could either increase or stunt their development.

[Baron von Sky Hat]

MRIS are useful as well as CAT scans. I forgot to explain that in a previous post, they allow for detailed imagery of different regions of the brain and it's size and density.

Okey dokey, sorry, I had thought that you meant imaging of brain activity rather than physical form and structure such as is done with CT.

What part of an IQ test has to do with society or literature or anything like that? It tests your cognitive skill, monkeys can take it. It's got nothing to do with how cultured or mature or different you are from everyone else socially. It's about how well you notice patterns and how quickly you can do operations. "Visual learners" do not apply here.

As I said, it is only my opinion. At very least though, I would say that its an innately biased view of what constitutes intelligence to begin with. Considering `intelligence' is essentially an abstract concept, I'm not sure how it can be anything else? I know that you weren't specifically arguing that it was, but this relates to part of what I think about IQ tests being slightly flawed instruments.

I would say that intelligence is much wider ranging in its forms than could be represented by any single number such as the IQ value.

But those two points, while related to the subject, don't focus on the neutrality of such a test. Although it could be that one culture or social groups definition of intelligence may be different to another.

More importantly with regards to specifically how neutral an IQ test can be, I see it as very plausible that any cultural/social attitudes towards tests themselves or preparation for tests could have a large effect on how well a group performs on one. If someone is innately stressful about exams or tests, they may very well not concentrate as well. If one social group or culture has a more prepared or less prepared attitudes towards tests, the same may apply.

I'm not saying that IQ tests are innately wrong or useless or anything like that. They definitely will measure some things to some degree of accuracy, and they certainly have uses. It's just that from my perspective, it seems an awful lot of weight is placed directly on the results of them and their accuracy than seems to be deserved.

That may just be my perception of it, but given the amount of debate on the subject as a whole, and the number of people who think that some IQ results indicate that different races/cultural groups/etc have different general IQs, then either the tests are not neutral, or it's implying that genetic shift in intelligence has been comparatively huge, given the amount of time any group can be considered to be `isolated'.
Obviously to an extent some of that may just be bad science, there are plenty of people with their own agendas who want to show that different races have different intelligences, for example. The same thing has been done with evolution to claim that some races are `inferior' in some way.
However given the prevalence of debate, it seems that it's more than just manipulation of statistics or result selection or other bad science, but that IQ tests themselves have cultural and social flaws.

Written slightly rushed in a lunch break, forgive any mistakes, my apologies if any are present.

[Playfishpaste]

I can't find any articles that relate, and every article I could find on EEG's and IQ turned up conflicting results. I'm also not sure how a cat scan would show anything useful.

Do you recall where you read this?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1212202008.htm

http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec06/ch082/ch082a.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography

http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2000_02_09_Sleep.html

There's a ridiculous amount of articles that demonstrate how brain activity is imaged and studied to show and conclude different things.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv...m.TOC&depth=10

The reason we know that on average all iqs are the same is the same as the reason the results always appear in a Gaussian curve when testing different people of different races: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

As ummon said, different cultures and genetics play a role, but as has been shown by the ridiculous amounts of testing done, the difference is negligible, maybe +/- 1 point at best.

[Phier]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1212202008.htm

Nothing about IQ.

http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec06/ch082/ch082a.html

Nothing about IQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography

Nothing about IQ

http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2000_02_09_Sleep.html

Nothing about IQ

There's a ridiculous amount of articles that demonstrate how brain activity is imaged and studied to show and conclude different things.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/bv...m.TOC&depth=10

The reason we know that on average all iqs are the same is the same as the reason the results always appear in a Gaussian curve when testing different people of different races: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution

As ummon said, different cultures and genetics play a role, but as has been shown by the ridiculous amounts of testing done, the difference is negligible, maybe +/- 1 point at best.

What does a bell curve have to do with proving all races are of the same average intelligence? Sort of an interesting statement considering the infamy of the name.

[Playfishpaste]

Nothing about IQ.

http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec06/ch082/ch082a.html

Nothing about IQ

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroencephalography

Nothing about IQ

http://health.ucsd.edu/news/2000_02_09_Sleep.html

Nothing about IQ

Of course not, I was explaining how we can measure and use EEG's to demonstrate brain activity as well as energy consumption in different areas.

What does a bell curve have to do with proving all races are of the same average intelligence? Sort of an interesting statement considering the infamy of the name.

The book is not the same as the probabilistic phenomenon. The normal distribution shows that for every 1000 people or so you'll get an exponentially greater number approaching the average IQ. If you go to any IQ test distributor and ask for their statistics you will see that the average is always 97-103 in both places with lots of cultural diversity and many different races, and places with a large concentration of a single race of people. At the same time, as I had said previously, black people use on average the same amount of calories doing a cognitive problem as white people, such as "if julie has 5 cows, and then kills two and has the remaining cows reproduce with three generations having two children each and one of the cows dies, how many cows does she have left?"

The farmer is more likely to conceptualize a cow and picture them dying in his mind. This does not help him solve the problem at all. Nor does the geneticist's knowledge of what "generations" means.

[Phier]

Of course not, I was explaining how we can measure and use EEG's to demonstrate brain activity as well as energy consumption in different areas.



The book is not the same as the probabilistic phenomenon. The normal distribution shows that for every 1000 people or so you'll get an exponentially greater number approaching the average IQ. If you go to any IQ test distributor and ask for their statistics you will see that the average is always 97-103 in both places with lots of cultural diversity and many different races, and places with a large concentration of a single race of people. At the same time, as I had said previously, black people use on average the same amount of calories doing a cognitive problem as white people, such as "if julie has 5 cows, and then kills two and has the remaining cows reproduce with three generations having two children each and one of the cows dies, how many cows does she have left?"

The farmer is more likely to conceptualize a cow and picture them dying in his mind. This does not help him solve the problem at all. Nor does the geneticist's knowledge of what "generations" means.

You will have to forgive me if I don't see any link between EEG's, calories consumed, bell curves and racial intelligence. Perhaps I am not smart enough to see the connection.

[Ummon]

The differences in results pertain the difference between what abilities are deemed relevant and fundamental in a culture and those which are cultivated in our own. This leads to lack of homogeneous results between cultures.

Then there are socioeconomical factors: early exposure to proper and articulated language and stimulation by a wholesome and interesting environement, leads to better language abilities compared to poverty of vocabulary in caregivers, etc.

Then there are genetic factors.

Then there are life accidents, etc.

So what you ask is infact impossible: IQ is a nice tool for evaluating the response to certain social requests, related with intelligence.

[Angrychris]

There is only one race

[Ummon]

Everything Cole, and contextualism in general.