05-11-2008, 04:06 AM
above url
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Sanjoy Das
September 22, 2007 09:11 AM
Nickn:
(i) Kindly stop posting misleading comments. Iran has an IQ of 84, almost exactly the same as India's. The reason they perform better than India in Math olympiads (or in the Olympic games) is much better explained by poverty, malnutrition approaching sub Saharan levels, institutionalized racism in the form of the caste system, and a lack of infrastructure.
(ii) I have not read Lynn's book, nor do I plan to. But, I see that the original data for Lynn's "analysis" was obtained from Sinha et al. (1968). The data, I believe, was from a survey of Madhya Pradesh. I briefly checked again. Most of the later data from the 1970s and 1980s was mainly from even more backward places - UP, Bihar, and my own homestate of Orissa, not Delhi, Mumbai, or Bangalore.
Lynn also attempts to "elevate" the Indian IQ to "caucasoid" levels, further revealing his own racist motivations:
http://www.geocities.com/race_articles/l..._diff.html
However, you completely missed the crux of my argument. I don't care what the Indian IQ turns out to be. As I said before, IQ is no measure of intelligence, as people of the stature of Stephen J. Gould would tell you. Here is why:
(iii) As I said before, there is a much stronger evolutionary pressure towards better intelligence in backward societies. At one extreme are the hunter-gatherer societies. As Jared Diamond observed, the Papuans are a highly intelligent people. In affluent societies, less intelligent people have almost the same probability of survival. It is just Darwinism 101. The San Bushmen must be an extremely intelligent and resourceful people to survive in the harsh Kalahari conditions. There is nothing "laughable" about this statement, except in the eyes of a bigot.
(iv) Mathematical ability is no measure of intelligence. In a study, it was found that the Welsh do better than the English at mathematics, simply because their language handles the place coded numerals better. The Chinese language is also excellent at treating place coding. That alone will go a long way in explaining the better Chinese mathematics skills. The processing time to parse numbers inside the cortex is eliminated in Chinese speakers.
(v) The Piraha, an Amazonian tribe, can't even count up to two! Does it mean that they are really dumb? Contrast the Piraha with the coot (a bird) which, recent studies reveal, has the ability to count its eggs. Does it mean that the coots (birds) are dumber than the Piraha (humans)?
(vi) As I said before, the brain is a vastly complex entity. In computational theory, you have something called Chomsky's hierarchy. The least powerful computing machines in this hierarchy are Finite State Machines (FSM), at the other end is the Deterministic Turing Machine (DTM). The brain is probably infinitely more powerful than even the DTM, as Penrose would argue.
Now, arithmetic operations and other rudimentary tasks in typical IQ tests, involve computations that can be accomplished by the simple FSM! In other words, attempting to measure intelligence through IQ tests is - as I said before âis like trying to measure the velocity of light with a speedometer!
At best, IQ can be used as some indication of scholastic achievement within an ethnic group. Beyond that, IQ is meaningless.
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Sanjoy Das
September 22, 2007 09:11 AM
Nickn:
(i) Kindly stop posting misleading comments. Iran has an IQ of 84, almost exactly the same as India's. The reason they perform better than India in Math olympiads (or in the Olympic games) is much better explained by poverty, malnutrition approaching sub Saharan levels, institutionalized racism in the form of the caste system, and a lack of infrastructure.
(ii) I have not read Lynn's book, nor do I plan to. But, I see that the original data for Lynn's "analysis" was obtained from Sinha et al. (1968). The data, I believe, was from a survey of Madhya Pradesh. I briefly checked again. Most of the later data from the 1970s and 1980s was mainly from even more backward places - UP, Bihar, and my own homestate of Orissa, not Delhi, Mumbai, or Bangalore.
Lynn also attempts to "elevate" the Indian IQ to "caucasoid" levels, further revealing his own racist motivations:
http://www.geocities.com/race_articles/l..._diff.html
However, you completely missed the crux of my argument. I don't care what the Indian IQ turns out to be. As I said before, IQ is no measure of intelligence, as people of the stature of Stephen J. Gould would tell you. Here is why:
(iii) As I said before, there is a much stronger evolutionary pressure towards better intelligence in backward societies. At one extreme are the hunter-gatherer societies. As Jared Diamond observed, the Papuans are a highly intelligent people. In affluent societies, less intelligent people have almost the same probability of survival. It is just Darwinism 101. The San Bushmen must be an extremely intelligent and resourceful people to survive in the harsh Kalahari conditions. There is nothing "laughable" about this statement, except in the eyes of a bigot.
(iv) Mathematical ability is no measure of intelligence. In a study, it was found that the Welsh do better than the English at mathematics, simply because their language handles the place coded numerals better. The Chinese language is also excellent at treating place coding. That alone will go a long way in explaining the better Chinese mathematics skills. The processing time to parse numbers inside the cortex is eliminated in Chinese speakers.
(v) The Piraha, an Amazonian tribe, can't even count up to two! Does it mean that they are really dumb? Contrast the Piraha with the coot (a bird) which, recent studies reveal, has the ability to count its eggs. Does it mean that the coots (birds) are dumber than the Piraha (humans)?
(vi) As I said before, the brain is a vastly complex entity. In computational theory, you have something called Chomsky's hierarchy. The least powerful computing machines in this hierarchy are Finite State Machines (FSM), at the other end is the Deterministic Turing Machine (DTM). The brain is probably infinitely more powerful than even the DTM, as Penrose would argue.
Now, arithmetic operations and other rudimentary tasks in typical IQ tests, involve computations that can be accomplished by the simple FSM! In other words, attempting to measure intelligence through IQ tests is - as I said before âis like trying to measure the velocity of light with a speedometer!
At best, IQ can be used as some indication of scholastic achievement within an ethnic group. Beyond that, IQ is meaningless.