Controversial 'race researcher' who wrote a 2019 report about 'gaps' in IQ between white and blacks is hired by Cambridge University's philosophy faculty - and says the university knew about it before hiring him

 I helped proof-read and comment on a draft of Nathan Cofnas's book "Reptiles With a Conscience" so I know exactly what Nathan says and why.  After reading Nathan's rigorous and relentlessly factual book, I can only wonder at the empty abuse aimed at him below.  Note that all the adverse comments about him are simply abuse and condemnation.  There is no attempt to address his facts or arguments.  His claims MUST NOT be true, apparently

But his claims are not in fact extreme or eccentric. <a href="http://differentialclub.wdfiles.com/local--files/definitions-structure-and-measurement/Intelligence-Knowns-and-unknowns.pdf">An official report of the American Psychological Association</a> concluded much the same thing.  It concluded that  there was a gap of one standard deviation (about 15 IQ points) between average black and white IQs in the USA.  And the American Psychological Association is the official body of American psychologists. Nathan actually has some authority on his side as well as the facts.

And his conclusions have never been more relevant amid the current furore over Critical Race Theory.  He points out -- as I have pointed out -- that this evil racist theory stems directly from the denial of black/white inborn differences.  If there is nothing in blacks to explain their great failures in education, income and much else, some other explanation has to be found.  

It has been found in Critical Race Theory.  The theory is that discrimination against blacks by whites has caused blacks to fail.  Black woe is the fault of white racism.  The fact that whites have enegetically been doing the opposite for many years under the rubric of "affirmative action" is blithely  ignored.  Whites have long discriminated IN FAVOUR  of blacks, in fact.  Critical Race theory is counterfactual nonsense but, if there is nothing in blacks to explain their failures, it is all that is left.  

Turning a blind eye to black/white differences is well intentioned but ignoring reality is always disastrous and ignoring black/white differences has become a major example of such a disaster.  In denying one sort of racial difference, it has invented another


The University of Cambridge has hired a controversial 'race researcher' to its Faculty of Philosophy who previously came under fire for publishing a 'racist' paper - despite knowing about its contents before hiring him.

Nathan Cofnas, an American who was appointed on a three year programme as an 'early career fellow' on September 1 of this year, has previously been the subject of fierce debate over his argument that there are intrinsic differences between races when it comes to intelligence.

Speaking to MailOnline, he confirms he still stands by what he wrote and said the University of Cambridge knew about the paper before he took up his position there.

Cofnas told MailOnline he would advise critics to 'read it'. He added: 'The paper represents my views then and now.'

In a 2019 paper published in Philosophical Psychology he criticised the idea that all 'human groups have, on average, the same potential', and argued that the 'hypothesis' of differences in IQ between men and women and different racial groups is 'ignored'.

Cofnas also referenced adopting black children into white families and argued that some 'race groups' are 'falsely blamed' for structural racism.

His paper was widely debunked by various scientists, and in June 2020 the editor of the journal resigned over the controversy.

There has been backlash amongst students who have called the decision 'crazy' and 'disappointing', according to Cambridge's student newspaper Varsity.

A response paper published by a leading group of researchers called Cofnas' work 'unintelligible and wrong-headed': 'Most researchers in the area of human genetics and human biological diversity no longer allocate significant resources and time to the race/IQ discussion... an equally fundamental reason why researchers do not engage with the thesis is that empirical evidence shows that the whole idea itself is unintelligible and wrong-headed.'

They added that Cofnas' work had 'racist ideological undertones' and 'pandered' to racist ideas.

In the 2019 paper he refers to the theory of hereditarianism throughout, which relies on the fact that genetics are more important that environmental factors in determining people's actions and decisions.

Students have begun to criticize his appointment, with one philosophy student telling Varsity: 'It's crazy that someone who's published such obviously questionable work has been given not only a platform but a Fellow position. 'It's obviously disappointing but not surprising.'

Cofnas refers to old studies that claim white populations have a higher intelligence than black populations.

In the article, Cofnas repeatedly references what he sees as 'race differences in intelligence', and claims that 'the adult black-white IQ gap has remained stubbornly constant... since around 1970.'

He referred to studies into 'early intervention' techniques to battle his so-called 'race difference', including adoption.

He wrote: 'Adoption by white families [of black children] - one of the most extreme interventions possible - has virtually no effect on the IQ of black adoptees.'

Cofnas appears to question the extent that racism exists within society and argue that white populations are unfairly 'blamed' for 'differences' between races.

He wrote: 'As long as people believe that race differences have a purely environmental cause, differences will, in practice, most likely be attributed to racism or institutional racism.

'Denying the possible genetic cause of race differences will not stop people from being focused on race.'

He added that 'if people believe that members of certain races are victimized or benefited by racism' this could cause harm to society.

He called for research to give a 'biological account' of how 'genes lead to race differences', adding: 'As of now, there is nothing that would indicate that it is particularly unlikely that race differences will turn out to have a substantial genetic component.

'If this possibility cannot be ruled out scientifically, we must face the ethical question of whether we ought to pursue the truth, whatever it may be.'

He claimed research such as his is censored and that 'if not all groups have identical distributions of potential, then it is unjust to assume that some people must be blamed for average differences in performance among groups.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11366515/Researcher-wrote-2019-report-gaps-IQ-whites-blacks-hired-Cambridge.html

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How malleable is IQ?

I reproduce below an enthusiastic summary of a famous study which reported considerable malleability in children's IQ score. Following that report I will offer some remarks about it.

In 1969, UCLA psychologist Dr. Robert Rosenthal did an IQ experiment.

He met with two grade-school teachers. He gave them a list of names from their new student body (20% of the class). He said that each person on that list had taken a special test and would emerge as highly intelligent within the next 12 months.

In reality, those students were chosen totally at random. As a group, they were of average intelligence.

The incredible finding is that, when they tested those children near the end of the year, each demonstrated significant increases in their IQ scores.

https://medium.com/mind-cafe/a-lie-transformed-childrens-iqs-why-you-need-radical-self-belief-23f3454d5515

The twin studies always point to a large genetic component in IQ -- as high as 80%. That means that IQ is not very malleable. You are stuck with what you are born with.

This is a highly objectionable conclusion to Leftists in particular, who tend to regard people as a blank slate upon whom can be imposed traits desired in some Leftist idea of a good thing. The "new Soviet man" in early Bolshevik thinking is perhaps the best example of that. So various treatments of children have been proposed with the aim of redirecting their growth.

The most decisive test of our ability to change what children become is undoubtedly the long-running American "Head Start" program. It was designed to take children from disadvantaged backgrounds and enrich their early education in various ways. The experiment did give some early hopes of success but the long term conclusion was that the interventions had no lasting effect. "Enriching" the environment did nothing

But what about that 20% which is NOT genetically given? Could that potential be worked on in some useful way? Did the Head Start experiment simply push on the wrong levers?

All the studies so far have not found much that could profitably be changed. Early nutrition is an obvious candidate for change but even in ideal circumstances only about 5% of the variance could be accounted for that way

An interesting possibilty is that people can be made more intelligent by being treated as more intelligent. That unlikely possibilty is in fact the conclusion of the famous Rosenthal study of experimenter expectations above. There are many problems with the study which I will allude to briefly hereunder but what interested me in the study was how large were the differences found. That is not usually mentioned. They were in fact slight.

The results showed that the favoured students' IQ scores (experimental group) had risen significantly higher than the average students (control group), even though these alleged favoured students were chosen at random. They gained an average of two IQ points in verbal ability, seven points in reasoning and four points in overall IQ.

So the effects observed were slight. The two points in verbal ability were especially notable as the verbal ability score is usually the best predictor in an IQ test. So the Rosenthal treatment showed no substantial success in making IQ more malleable.

Wikipedia gives a useful summary of other problems with the Rosenthal study. I reproduce it below:

"The educational psychologist Robert L. Thorndike described the poor quality of the Pygmalion study. The problem with the study was that the instrument used to assess the children's IQ scores was seriously flawed.[6] The average reasoning IQ score for the children in one regular class was in the mentally disabled range, a highly unlikely outcome in a regular class in a garden variety school. In the end, Thorndike concluded that the Pygmalion findings were worthless. It is more likely that the rise in IQ scores from the mentally disabled range was the result of regression toward the mean, not teacher expectations. Moreover, a meta-analysis conducted by Raudenbush[7] showed that when teachers had gotten to know their students for two weeks, the effect of a prior expectancy induction was reduced to virtually zero".

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Are Conservatives Dumber Than Liberals?

This article goes back a few years but is still very relevant

It depends on how you define "conservative." The research shows classical liberals/libertarians are smartest of all.

Conservatives exhibit less cognitive ability than liberals do. Or that's what it says in the social science literature, anyway. A 2010 study using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, for example, found that the IQs of young adults who described themselves as "very liberal" averaged 106.42, whereas the mean of those who identified as "very conservative" was 94.82. Similarly, when a 2009 study correlated cognitive capacity with political beliefs among 1,254 community college students and 1,600 foreign students seeking entry to U.S. universities, it found that conservatism is "related to low performance on cognitive ability tests." In 2012, a paper reported that people endorse more conservative views when drunk or under cognitive pressure; it concluded that "political conservatism may be a process consequence of low-effort thought."

So have social scientists really proved that conservatives are dumber than liberals? It depends crucially on how you define "conservative."

For an inkling of what some social scientists think conservatives believe, parse a 2008 study by the University of Nevada at Reno sociologist Markus Kemmelmeier. To probe the political and social beliefs of nearly 7,000 undergraduates at an elite university, Kemmelmeier devised a set of six questions asking whether abortion, same-sex marriage, and gay sex should be legal, whether handguns and racist/sexist speech on campus should be banned, and whether higher taxes should be imposed on the wealthy. The first three were supposed to measure the students' views of "conservative gender roles," and the second set was supposed to gauge their "anti-regulation" beliefs. Kemmelmeier clearly thought that "liberals" would tend to be OK with legal abortion, same-sex marriage, and gay sex, and would opt to ban handguns and offensive speech and to tax the rich. Conservatives would supposedly hold the opposite views.

Savvy readers may recognize a problem with using these questions to sort people into just two ideological categories. And sure enough, Kemmelmeier got some results that puzzled him. He found that students who held more traditional views on gender and sex roles averaged lower on their verbal SAT and Achievement Test scores. "Surprisingly," he continued, this was not true of students with anti-regulation attitudes. With them, "all else being equal, more conservative respondents scored higher than more liberal respondents." Kemmelmeier ruefully notes that "this result was not anticipated" and "diametrically contradicts" the hypothesis that conservatism is linked to lower cognitive ability. Kemmelmeier is so evidently lost in the intellectual fog of contemporary progressivism that he does not realize that his questionnaire is impeccably designed to identify classical liberals, a.k.a. libertarians, who endorse liberty in both the social and economic realms.

So how smart are libertarians compared to liberals and conservatives? In a May 2014 study in the journal Intelligence, the Oxford sociologist Noah Carl attempts to answer to that question. Because research has "consistently shown that intelligence is positively correlated with socially liberal beliefs and negatively correlated with religious beliefs," Carl suggests that in the American political context, social scientists would expect Republicans to be less intelligent than Democrats. Instead, Republicans have slightly higher verbal intelligence scores (2–5 IQ points) than Democrats. How could that be?

Carl begins by pointing out that there is data suggesting that a segment of the American population holding classical liberal beliefs tends to vote Republican. Classical liberals, Carl notes, believe that an individual should be free to make his own lifestyle choices and to enjoy the profits derived from voluntary transactions with others. He proposes that intelligence actually correlates with classically liberal beliefs.

To test this hypothesis, Carl uses data on political attitudes and intelligence derived from the General Social Survey, which has been administered to representative samples of American adults every couple of years since 1972. Using GSS data, respondents are classified on a continuum ranging from strong Republican through independent to strong Democrat. Carl then creates a measure of socially liberal beliefs based on respondents' attitudes toward homosexuality, marijuana consumption, abortion, and free speech for communists, racists, and advocates for military dictatorship. He similarly probes liberal economic views, with an assessment of attitudes toward government provision of jobs, industry subsidies, income redistribution, price controls, labor unions, and military spending. Verbal Intelligence is evaluated using the GSS WORDSUM test results.

Comparing strong Republicans with strong Democrats, Carl finds that Republicans have a 5.48 IQ point advantage over Democrats. Broadening party affiliation to include moderate to merely leaning respondents still results in a Republican advantage of 3.47 IQ points and 2.47 IQ points respectively. Carl reconciles his findings with the social science literature that reports that liberals are more intelligent than conservatives by proposing that Americans with classically liberal beliefs are even smarter. Carl further reports that those who endorse both social conservatism and economic statism also have lower verbal IQ scores.

"Overall, my findings suggest that higher intelligence among classically liberal Republicans compensates for lower intelligence among socially conservative Republicans," concludes Carl. If the dumb, I mean socially conservative, Republicans keep disrespecting us classical liberals, we'll take our IQ points and go home.

As gratifying as Carl's research findings are, it is still a deep puzzle to me why it apparently takes high intelligence to understand that the government should stay out of both the bedroom and the boardroom.

https://reason.com/2014/06/13/are-conservatives-dumber-than-liberals/

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What If Black People Are Just Stupid?

The black writer below has a glancing familiarity with the research on his topic but fails to give sufficient weight to the fact that academic talk about IQ is concerned with AVERAGES

In everyday situations, averages hardly matter. What matters are the individual characteristics of the person we are interacting with. What group they belong to will not usually matter. But there are some situations where averages DO reasonably concern people.

A major example of that is Leftist concern about black educational attainment. For perhaps a couple of decades, Leftist psychologists and educators used all their ingenuity in an effort to overcome the "gap" between black and white educational attainment. And the gap was and is large. About a third of blacks do not even finish High School. They "drop out"

But no matter what the Leftist academics tried, nothing could budge that gap. Black education failure strongly validated what average black IQ tests showed: That most blacks are not very good at intellectual tasks.

And that was a concrning finding. The Leftist academics were understandably concerned. They were well aware of how important education is in our society. Educational failure predicts economic failure and a whole lot of other problems. It was reasonable to be concerned about that. But they found no solution to it. The low level of black educational attainment remained as average black IQ predicted it would be

So the characteristic Leftist dogma that all men are equal was greatly challenged. They were confronted with strong long-term evidence that IQ tests did in fact predict what they purported to predict. The differences were real and had real-life implications. IQ tests were highly valid in a psychomentric sense.

But that COULD not be accepted by Leftists. There HAD to be something other than IQ behind black life failures. And so we got a new dogma: Entrenched but covert white racism was behind black failure -- so called "Critical Race Theory"

But whatever the reason, the concern was with averages. Blacks were on average failures in much of life and that had to be explained. So for some people in some situations, averages do matter. So average IQ can matter too. The author below dismisses the importance of average IQ but the saga of efforts to close the black/white "gap" in education shows that it can indeed matter to some people

It is interesting that the concern about averages is mainly a Leftist concern. Conservatives just accept them without doing much about them. The members of the Ku Klux Klan were after all overwhelmingly members of the Democratic party. They ATTACKED Republicans

In 1971, Michael Cole, and a team of his fellow psychologists, travelled to West Africa to settle a question about race and intelligence.

They gave members of the Kpelle tribe various items (food, tools, cooking utensils, clothing) and asked them to sort them into categories. They then compared the results to a group of American students.

The Kpelle failed miserably.

Or rather, instead of grouping the items by type, as the students had, the Kpelle divided the objects into functional pairs. Here’s how Joseph Glick, one of Cole’s colleagues, described the experiment:

When the subject had finished sorting, what was present were ten categories composed of two items each — related to each other in a functional, not categorical, manner. Thus, a knife might have been placed with an orange, a potato with a hoe, and so on. When asked, the subject would rationalize the choice with such comments as, “The knife goes with the orange because it cuts it.” When questioned further, the subject would often volunteer that a wise man would do things in this way.

When an exasperated experimenter asked finally, “how would a fool do it,” he was given back sorts of the type that were initially expected — four neat piles with foods in one, tools in another, and so on.

As Cole noted in his report, the Kpelle weren’t less intelligent than the students because they thought oranges should be paired with knives instead of potatoes, they’d just grown up in a different environment with a different set of cognitive and cultural biases.

Or, to put it another way, the Kpelle weren’t wrong, but they weren’t white either.

Racial intelligence is one of those topics that’s a trainwreck no matter how you approach it.

Virtue-signalling politicians like Kate Brown lower test standards to “help students of colour,” race essentialists like Nicholas Wade publish pseudoscience about racial disparities, sociopaths like Payton Gendron use memes about IQ to justify racist mass shootings, the topic is so radioactive that most people just avoid it.

So let’s get one source of confusion out of the way from the start:

There are obviously going to be IQ differences if you group people by skin colour.

I say, “obviously,” because there will be differences if you group human beings by literally any measure.

If you group people by hair colour, you’ll discover that one shade is statistically more intelligent than the others. If you group people by height, you’ll find that one height has the highest percentage of mathematical savants. Somewhere, if some maverick ever decides to search for it, is the most eloquent penis size.

But when we try to draw meaningful conclusions with this quirk of statistical analysis, we run into a few problems. The first of which is what a black person even is.

According to a 2015 analysis of genetic data, around one in 10 self-identified African Americans have less than 50% African ancestry. And around one in 50 have less than 2%. We’ve become so comfortable with the idea that people whose skin is a roughly similar colour are the same “race” that we forget that a good suntan can throw the whole thing up in the air.

But okay, let’s get all “one drop rule” about this, and say that a black person is anyone whose skin is “milk chocolate or darker,” and who has some African ancestry in the past few generations. Very scientific.

The next problem is figuring out whether IQ differences are genetic.

For example, in support of the idea that “racial” differences are genetic, it’s often pointed out that Kenyans and Ethiopians dominate long-distance running. And they do. But does this mean “black people” are better distance runners than “white people?”

Well, if we take a closer look at these dominant athletes, we notice that they come, almost exclusively, from just three tribes (specifically the Kalenjin, Nandi and Oromo). All of which benefit from low oxygen/high altitude conditions, in a country that has numerous programs designed to identify and nurture long-distance running talent.

So instead of, “black people are genetically better at long-distance running.” We get, “black people who grew up in certain high-altitude regions of Ethiopia and Kenya, and who were encouraged to nurture their long-distance running talents from an early age, are better than everybody, including other black people, at long-distance running.

I admit this is a bit more of a mouthful.

But none of this addresses the biggest problem with IQ differences; the concept of IQ itself.

I mean, just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that IQ is a perfect predictor of culturally-neutral, genetically-predetermined intelligence. And let’s even assume that people with African ancestry have, on average, lower IQs than anybody else.

What do we do about this?

Should black people be shipped off to separate schools if our average grades are a few points lower? Should we be denied access to opportunities or jobs if a slightly smaller percentage of black people turn out to be geniuses? Is a high IQ more valuable than creativity? Or people skills? Or persistence?

Well, it turns out that Dr Lewis Terman, a psychologist at Stanford University and one of the pioneers of IQ research, had similar questions.

In 1921, in one of the longest-running studies on intelligence ever conducted, Terman began tracking the progress of 1521 children who scored highest on his intelligence test, confident that they would all be “at the top of their fields,” as adults.

But almost none of them were. Instead, “willpower, perseverance and desire to excel,” were far better predictors of success. As Terman concluded, “intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated.”

Honestly? I’m surprised his IQ wasn’t high enough to figure that out in advance.

The controversy over racial IQ differences was born out of a desire to justify slavery and colonialism. But it persists because our obsession with this vague, unscientific concept known as “race” persists. It persists because the delusion that our skin holds some identity-defining significance persists. It persists because the belief that we’re divided by these arbitrary differences persists.

But why are we so focused on skin colour and not eye colour or ear shape or hand size? Why do we define ourselves and each other by the actions of people who died centuries ago? Why are we still talking about genetic racial differences when, thanks to the fact that we’ve decoded the entire human genome, we know there’s more variation within the “races” than between them?

Because instead of wasting time ranking ourselves by our skin or our hair or our other…attributes, maybe we should be fixing the impoverished schools that leave young children functionally illiterate. Maybe we should stop teaching kids that rational thinking and hard work is “whiteness.” Or better yet, maybe we should stop teaching kids to think about the colour of their skin at all.

Maybe we should follow the Kpelle’s example and sort ourselves into more meaningful categories.

https://steveqj.medium.com/what-if-black-people-are-just-stupid-8162b47199a6

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Are Video Games Harmful or Will They Make Your Kids Very Intelligent?

There was a big debate about this in 2009. See here. Computer games were generally found to be beneficial

The debate about whether or not screen time is harmful has been around for years. Some people believe that screen time, especially for children, is bad because it stunts their development and impairs their ability to think creatively.

Others claim that screen time can actually have positive effects. A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports provides some evidence for the latter claim.

Researchers at Karolinska University in Sweden studied how screen time relates to intelligence. The study produced some interesting results about the effects of various screen activities on intelligence.

The study looked at thousands of US children

In the study, conducted over a two-year period, the IQ scores of a group of children aged 8–10 years were followed.

The study examined the cognitive abilities of more than 9,000 boys and girls. In the beginning, the children completed a series of tests to measure their intelligence. The tests included measures of memory, attention and problem-solving skills.

Parents were also asked how much time their child spends watching TV and videos, playing video games and using social media.

The researchers studied 5,000 of the children again after 2 years. They asked the children to repeat the psychological tests to examine how their performance changed from one testing session to another.

The researchers also controlled for individual differences in the first test, such as genetic differences that might affect intelligence and differences that might be related to parents’ education level and income. This gave them a more accurate picture of how different factors influence intelligence.

Playing video games is better than watching TV

The results showed that those who played more games than the average increased their intelligence by about 2.5 IQ points between the two measurements.

No significant positive or negative effect of TV -watching or social media was found. These results suggest that not all activities are equal in terms of screen time.

Playing video games appears to have a positive effect on intelligence, while time spent on social media doesn’t appear to have a significant effect.

This study provides valuable insight into how different screen activities affect children’s intellectual development.

Conclusion

Contrary to popular belief, spending time staring at screens doesn’t seem to have a negative impact on children’s cognitive abilities, as this recent study shows.

In fact, the study found that playing video games can boost intelligence.

The researchers haven’t yet examined how screen time affects other factors, such as physical activity or school performance.

We didn’t examine the effects of screen behaviour on physical activity, sleep, wellbeing or school performance, so we can’t say anything about that,” says Torkel Klingberg, professor of cognitive neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet.

However, these findings are consistent with several experimental studies on video game playing, which suggest that this activity can improve hand-eye coordination, problem-solving skills, and more.

https://medium.com/our-world-tomorrow/are-video-games-harmful-or-will-they-make-your-kids-very-intelligent-21f4ad6b9cb8

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‘I make men take an IQ test – if they don’t pass, I ditch them’

Candice Kloss

As a Mensa member who once married a very pleasant fellow Mensa member, I think I am in a good position to comment on this report. And the first thing that surprises me is that she needs test results to gauge IQ.

My Mensa wife


I have had relationships with many women over the years and I know very soon after having met one whether she is bright enough. I ask her if she has a favourite piece of music by J.S. Bach. If she is completely flummoxed by that question, I know she is very unlikely to be satisfactory to me.

Mind you, if she says she prefers the music of Palestrina that answer is even better.

Having a bright partner can have some problems, however. Zoe, my present girlfriend, is clearly very bright. And it means that I cannot ever put one over her for long. I never lie to women but I do not always give all the information I could. That does not wash with Zoe. She draws correct conclusions about me amazingly quickly

An interesting footmote: High IQ people tend to be better looking as well as bright. Candice Kloss is an example of that. Zoe is too.

New Yorker Candice Kloss – who hit the headlines last year after revealing men find her intelligence “intimidating” – has shared the extreme lengths she is willing to go to in order to find “Mr Right”, The Sun reports.

She gives prospective partners a written IQ test to take on their first date.

The model, who has 109,000 followers on Instagram, doesn’t want to “waste her time” with “idiots”.

“I want to make sure that it’s worth it to go on a second date with them,” Candice, who has been a member of Mensa since she was 17, told Jam Press.

“There are a lot of men that are attractive but if they aren’t intelligent it takes away from good looks. “How can you enjoy time with someone if you can’t connect over conversation?”

Those who pass will still have to stay on their A-game, as the model expects them to stay up-to-date on current affairs and be able to entertain her with their knowledge of maths, finance and science.

“Some people don’t care to keep up with current events, which can be a turn-off,” she said. “It’s attractive if someone picks up on things quickly, as well as emotional intelligence and a quick wit.

“Behavioural economics is my favourite topic, but it’s a lot of fun to hear anyone talk about something they’re experienced [with] and enthusiastic about.

“Growing up, I was a huge science and math nerd and still love maths.”

The college dropout is nearly considered a “genius” by Mensa standards.

According to the IQ scale, a score of 120-140 is classed as “very superior intelligence” – whereas anything over 140 is considered a “genius”.

Candice falls just short of the latter, at 136, and is in the top 2 per cent of the population for intelligence.

So, what IQ number do men need to date her?

“They need to be above average on the scale,” she said. “You don’t have to be a math whiz but you should be able to hold a conversation and be exceptionally smart in at least one subject.

“I’m attracted to intelligent (book-smart but also street-smart) men who have a good sense of humour, and are adventurous, straightforward and fun.”

Candice is often “underestimated” by men who assume she’s stupid because of her looks and modelling career.

But, she says it doesn’t bother her – in fact, she uses it to her advantage. “It’s better to be underestimated at first – I love to prove men wrong,” she previously told Jam Press.

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/i-make-men-take-an-iq-test-if-they-dont-pass-i-ditch-them/news-story/262f729931e8958439319c6ca5479cec

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Is your social class holding you back in your career?

It can do but it is not destiny. Let me give an example and then explain it:

Britain is probably the most class-ridden society in the Western world. Yet when I spent a year there in 1977 as a mere Australian of humble background, I had great social entree. For instance:

* I acquired a girlfiend of aristocratic lineage. She traced her ancestry back a thousand years.

* And I was told I could be nominated to one of London's prestigious gentleman's clubs.

* I got to have a chat to Margaret Thatcher at a small private garden party in Kent

So how did I do it? How did a mere Australian have the social acceptance that many an Englishman would have given his right arm for?

The first part to note is that I did not seek such acceptance. That would have been self-defeating. I just acted as myself. So what is there in me that opened so many doors in the "best" circles of England?

Charles Murray answered that a couple of decades ago in his notorious book and Toby Young has expanded it. Obnoxious though it may sound, there is a strong correlation in most societies between social status and IQ. The habits, attitudes and practices that characterize high status people are the habits, attitudes and practices of high IQ people. High IQ people set upper class standards. And they are often rather subtle and very hard to fake. You have got it or you do not. I did.

So, No. Your social status will not hold you back. But your IQ might. As long as you are reasonably socially competent. most doors will open to very bright people

The importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace has been well established. But one factor of identity has largely been left out: socio-economic class.

Research has shown that moving up the socio-economic ladder is becoming more difficult, and class bias has been known to affect lifetime earnings. Studies on first-generation college students also suggest disparities may follow them into their post-college careers.

Few studies have investigated the workplace experience of those from different socio-economic backgrounds. To fill this knowledge gap, we conducted a study of first-generation professionals, or FGPs. Also known as class migrants, FGPs are those who move from working-class roots to white-collar careers. We included FGPs and non-FGPs in the study to produce comparative data. Here’s what we learned about FGPs and what company leaders can do to support them.

FGPs were likelier than others to report that structured programs were helpful to their careers. For example, we asked each survey respondent how they obtained their first professional job and found 23.7 per cent of FGPs acquired their jobs through a work-study program at college, compared with just 7.6 per cent of non-FGPs.

Likewise, FGPs were almost twice as likely as non-FGPs to report they found employee resource groups helpful during their first job (23 per cent and 12 per cent, respectively). In contrast, non-FGPs indicated they were likelier to lean on family and friends for support and advice.

FGPs were also significantly likelier to report that professional development and leadership training was useful for their careers, contributed to promotions and improved their skills. “Code switching” means adapting one’s communication, appearance and mannerisms to fit in. It’s widely documented that people of colour feel pressured to act differently at work to be accepted. We found people from working-class backgrounds often feel similarly. Many FGPs also reported being shocked and disappointed that their hard work and results were notably less important to their careers than knowing how to communicate in a certain way and build networks. As one respondent explained: “At first I thought, oh … just as long as I’m a great worker, right? You know, I do what I need to do, I’ll get promoted fast. That’s not the case. What it really is, is your contacts. Building that network.”

In our survey, considerable differences arose between FGPs and non-FGPs when participants were asked directly about how they felt in the workplace. They were asked to rank several statements on a five-point scale. FGPs rated almost every statement lower than non-FGPs, including: “My personality type is valued,” “I have access to decision-makers,” “I feel comfortable talking about my family and personal life”. This tells us overall feelings of inclusion and belonging are likely lower for FGPs.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-deal-magazine/is-your-social-class-holding-you-back-in-your-career/news-story/789c18c2dba56a48b1bcfb9d8511f633

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Growing up poor affects your BRAIN: Children in low-income households show slower activity in key neural regions linked to thinking and learning, study reveals

This study of cognitive development in neonates is interesting but its generalizability is low. We know that IQ measured in young children shows negligible correlation with IQ in adulthood, for instance. And the lesson from HeadStart is that early improvements fade over time

Children who grow up in poorer households show slower activity in key brain regions linked to both thinking and learning, a study has warned.

Experts from Columbia University found that the brain development of infants in low-income families varied with the amount of financial support they were given.

Scans at age one showed faster brain activity in kids whose families were given $333 (£250) of support monthly compared to those given only $20 (£15) per month.

It is unclear if the differences in brain activity will persist as the children age, or how they might influence cognitive and behavioural growth.

However, in older children, activity in the regions in question has previously been linked to the development of learning skills.

The researchers are now investigating how the payments benefited the children, with possibilities including facilitating better nutrition, or relieving parental stress.

Either way, they said, the results suggest that interventions designed to reduce poverty could benefit infant brain development and improve later outcomes.

The investigation was undertaken by neuroscientist Kimberly Noble of New York's Columbia University and her colleagues.

'The brain changes speak to the remarkable malleability of the brain, especially early in childhood,' said Professor Noble.

'We have known for many years that growing up in poverty puts children at risk for lower school achievement, reduced earnings, and poorer health.

'However, until now, we haven't been able to say whether poverty itself causes differences in child development, or whether growing up in poverty is simply associated with other factors that cause those differences.'

In the study, the researchers measured brain activity levels among a subset of 435 one-year-old children who were participating in the so-called 'Baby's First Years' trial.

This randomised controlled trial into the benefits of poverty reduction has seen 1,000 low-income mothers recruited from postpartum wards in four US metropolitan areas — New Orleans, New York City, Omaha, and Minneapolis–Saint Paul.

The mothers, who were primarily Black or Latina and not college educated, were then given a cash gift of either $333 (£250) or $20 (£15) per month to spend it whatever way they chose.

While these results come from one year into the interventions, the trial is still ongoing, and the mothers will continue to receive the monthly cash gifts until their children are four years and four months old.

Each child's brain activity was measured using an electroencephalography, or 'EEG', machine via an electrode-bearing cap that was placed on the child's head.

The researchers found that children whose mothers were given $333 per month had around 20 per cent more high-frequency brain activity than those whose parents were only given $20 of support monthly.

High-frequency brain activity in the frontal region has previously been linked to both the development of learning and thinking skills.

Professor Noble explained that children’s brains naturally adapt to their experiences. 'All healthy brains are shaped by their environments and experiences, and we are not saying that one group has "better" brains,' she said.

'But — because of the randomized design — we know that the $333 per month must have changed children's experiences or environments, and that their brains adapted to those changed circumstances.'

'Families are all different, and the potential promise of money as a way of directly supporting families is that it allows parents to make choices about what their children most need,' said paper author Katherine Magnuson. 'Thus, there may not be just one way in which money positively affects families; —money may matter in a lot of small ways.

'We hear from the mothers in our study how challenging it is to raise children without enough money. 'A few hundred dollars a month has the potential to do a lot of good for these families, and we are grateful that we will continue to learn from them about how the money has helped them meet their goals.'

'Global evidence is thin on how children are affected by cash transfers, especially with respect to very young children,' said fellow paper author and applied economist Lisa Gennetian of North Carolina's Duke University.

'This is mostly because it is so hard and expensive to objectively capture children's development. This study's findings on infant brain activity are unprecedented.'

The outcomes seen, she added, 'really speak to how anti-poverty policies — including the types of expanded child tax credits being debated in the US — can and should be viewed as investments in children.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-10436909/Extra-cash-low-income-mothers-influence-baby-brains.html

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IQ and autism

There is an interesting video about IQ by Edward Dutton below. Ignore his manic introduction. I have noted his work before. His interest in IQ has, regrettably, made him something of an outcast in academe. Last I heard he was teaching at a university in sub-arctic Finland, which is a long way from his origins in Northern England.

In the video below he presents the Baron-Cohen theory of an association between autism and a very high IQ. He does not define the high IQ group precisely but he includes Mensa members in his coverage so he is apparently discussing people in the top 2% of IQ and perhaps some a bit lower than that. Since I am a former Mensa member and organizer, I am inclined to see him as talking inter alia about me.

And I do fit his major claim about high IQ: That high IQ is associated with autism. I am clearly a high-functioning autistic. I have outlined the evidence for that elsewhere. And many of the things that he says of high IQ people are indeed recognizable in me and by me. So I think there is considerable truth in his generalizations.

There are however some problems with his presentation. The largest problem is that there are a wide range of autistic behaviours, Some people are severely disabled by it and some, like myself, suffer only mild limitations. And not all autistics are highly intelligent, though they do often have some unusual "gift" in some way. My gift is to do even the hardest adademic tasks at lightning speed. I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation in 6 weeks, among other things.

Another problem is of the chicken and egg variety. Does autism cause high IQ or does high IQ cause autism? Dutton seems to think that what makes you highly intelligent also makes you autistic. Maybe -- but there are surely SOME high IQ people who are not autistic. That is obviously a testable proposition but I am not aware of anyone who has tested it

There is some obvious truth in it however. A high IQ person does see the world very differently from Joe Average and that must create social difficulties. And social difficulties are the hallmark of autism. My own social skills are certainly not the best but I have had a rather nice time with the ladies over the years so they cannot be too bad. Many good memories.

So I think Dutton is right in seeing autism as the characteristic ailment of high IQ people but I strongly doubt that all highly intelligent people are autistic. Dutton does tend to overgeneralize.

There is however a research literature in support of his ideas

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2016.00300/full

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2002-13609-006

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The Decline of Intelligence in the West

The article below by Canadian essayist David Solway is a dazzling display of cultural awareness but lacks sober consideration of any of the issues he addresses. So let me fill in some of the gaps.

Why the decline in average IQ?  There does seem to be such a decline but it is no mystery.  For around 50 years, effective contraception has enabled women to enjoy sex and male company generally without childbirth resulting.  So many women have opted out of childbearing.  And, sadly, highly intelligent women  are more likely to do that.  And that means that they do not pass on their genes for intelligence.  So present-day mothers have a lower average IQ.  And that can only mean a population with a lower average IQ.

So what are the implications of a population with a lower IQ?  We do of course already have some such populations:  Africans and Arabs, for instance.  And both those have created societies where it is not inviting to live. But such societies have many differences from ours so the dysfunction could be due to other factors than IQ.

A much more hopeful observation is that all societies are only superficially democratic. It is the <a href="http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/sft.htm">smart fraction</a> that rules the roost. So Israel is run by the Ashkenazim, Brazil and Mexico are run by whites and the 7% of Britons who get a private school education run almost everything in that country. And such elites trend to be self-perpetuating. Private school boys tend to marry the sisters of their classmates and black/white marriages are rather rare. And Sephardi/Ashkenazi marriages are the exception rather than the rule.

So what will happen is that as long as the smart fraction intermarry, their societies will tend to be run much as before.  A large dumb majority will not matter much

But one needs to be cautious in attributing everything to IQ.  There are other influences which have produced the dumb behaviour that Solway documents.  An obvious one is the decline in American education. American education is now decisively in the hands of the Left and producing well-informed citizens does not seem to be one of their priorities.  They want to produce "woke" people above all.  And being woke is rather inimical to real knowledge.  

And woke attitudes are now society-wide, with few on the Left being immune to them.  Most conservatives have no time for wokery but they too sometimes make obeisances to it for the sake of peace.  So the deterioration in the national discourse can largely be traced to the ideological needs of the Left</i>


Recent studies have reported a worrisome decline in IQ scores in Western nations over the last decades, a reversal of the once-hopeful Flynn Effect (named after the late philosopher and psychologist James R. Flynn) which posited a growth in cognitive abilities for much of the 20th Century. Now the Flynn Effect seems to have reversed, leading to predictions of a general dumbing down of selective populations. Other studies report that IQ erosion is not confined to this century but that IQ has dropped by an average of 14.1 percent over the last century. As Evan Horowitz writes for NBC News, "A range of studies using a variety of well-established IQ tests and metrics have found declining scores across Scandinavia, Britain, Germany, France and Australia."

Horowitz argues that the plummet in cognitive abilities "could not only mean 15 more seasons of the Kardashians, but also. fewer scientific breakthroughs, stagnant economies and a general dimming of our collective future." Flynn himself, who did the original research on the eponymous effect, has stated that "The IQ gains of the 20th century have faltered." Flynn's more optimistic Are We Getting Smarter: Rising IQ in the Twenty-First Century was published in 2012; his subsequent findings led in an opposite direction.*

The brainchild of French psychologist Alfred Binet, the IQ construct is a controversial issue with many different interpretations and applications. Charles Spearman proposed the variable notion of a g factor, or general intelligence measure, responsible for overall performance on various mental ability tests such as memory retention, spatial processing, and quantitative reasoning. The g factor has been compared to general athletic ability which allows a person to excel in different fields and activities. There has been vigorous debate over the strict equivalency between IQ scores and intelligence, but there is broad agreement on a general waning of intelligence or, from a clinical perspective, an ebbing of IQ scores. Of course, smart people can sometimes do poorly on IQ tests and obtuse people can sometimes rank high on aspectual tiers of these tests. But the consensus appears to be that the correlation approximately holds while allowing for scalene anomalies. In effect, the g factor is eroding.

One recalls MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, the architect of Obamacare, who referred to "the stupidity of the American voter" as helping him to pass the controversial law. One wonders if Gruber ever heard of Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget's test results purporting to show that "the rot starts at the top." This would implicate Gruber and his cohort in the experience of what Piaget calls horizontal d‚calage, which stymies the application of cognitive functions and logical operations to extended tasks. In other words, Gruber et al. are also stupid, gradually destroying the very society that enabled them to flourish. But the rot can also start at the bottom, as a combination of generalized mental vacancy and low-to-no-information voters furthers cultural and social degeneration. As Morris Berman remarks in The Twilight of American Culture, "A society cannot function if nearly everyone in it is stupid."

Why should we be surprised that an American president should pronounce "corpsman" as "corpseman"? Or that a Canadian prime minister says "peoplekind" in lieu of "mankind"? Or that a Washington, D.C., mayor and his staff should have objected to a perfectly good word like "niggardly"? Or that a Methodist pastor and Congressman should follow the exclamation "Amen" with "a-woman," when an ordained minister should surely know that "Amen" is an acronym for the Hebrew ??? ?????? ??????? (El melech neeman: "Lord and faithful King")-or, as some scholars think, a calque for the Aramaic "so be it"? One can multiply these gaffes, misnomers, and malapropisms indefinitely among those who should know better-and that is merely scratching the surface. The dumbing down phenomenon is virtually encyclopedic in heft and extent.

One sees the same intelligence deficit in the names chosen for some of our major social media networks. "YouTube" is cringe-worthy-just say it dispassionately to yourself. "Facebook" is a ridiculous moniker, as well as a dubious platform: as Niall Ferguson quips in The Great Degeneration, Facebook is "a vast tool enabling like-minded people to exchange like-minded opinions about, well, what they like." Then there's "Twitter." A conversation between human beings is compared to birds twittering on a digital branch-the implicit message is that communicants are bird-brained. (Contrast to such infelicity a beleaguered platform like "Parler" with its French connotation of real speech and an analogy to a living room where people gather to converse amicably and share ideas.) The Apple logo-an apple with a bite taken out of it-is the fruit of pure bathos and corporate stupidity, inadvertently reminding us of the primal sin in the Garden of Eden and warning us about the perilous quest for knowledge that tantalizes on another digital tree. "Think different" is thus contra-indicated, an original sin. Apple, seriously?

Top or bottom doesn't seem to matter. In his spy thriller Early Warning, Michael Walsh comments about government officials who, presumably "the best minds of the Republic," are merely a "collection of hacks, time-servers, and affirmative-action appointees" whose advancement depends heavily on nepotism. "It was really pathetic, when you thought about it: that more than two centuries of American history had come to this." Believe it. An American congressman fears the island of Guam will capsize. So-called "ambush journalist" Jesse Watters in Watters World interviews young university students; the level of ignorance, functional illiteracy, and smug self-esteem he uncovers is enough to turn the specter of our cultural practices, general knowledge, and university system into a cosmic joke.

And so it goes. A London community activist, asked about removing a Churchill statue during the summer of BLM love, admits she hasn't "personally met" Winston Churchill. A swarm of Twitter users condemns Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Tom Brady as "racist" for defeating half-black Kansas City Chiefs' QB Patrick Mahomes on Super Bowl LV during Black History Month-the fact that the great majority of Brady's teammates are black and are clearly Brady enthusiasts seems to have escaped their attention. Major economic and energy policies seem planned not by cerebral giants but by weed-addled pubescents. Bill Gates, for example, wants to pepper the sky with aerosols to reflect sunlight out of the atmosphere and initiate global cooling-the risks are incommensurable and likely irreversible. Gates has what we might call "sector-intelligence" and might do well on segments of the Stanford-Binet IQ test, but I wouldn't bet on his g score. The travesty of intelligence, prudence, and wisdom is beyond calculation, and it is only getting worse as IQ continues to slip down the great chain of thinking. This is the world that the classic film Idiocracy extravagantly punctures.

Why this should be is anybody's guess. No one really knows. Various theories have been proposed to account for accelerating neural descent, ranging from the Dewey-inspired "progressive education" agenda working its leveling passage from the turn of the 20th century to the decrepit public schools and failed universities of the present day; to the softening effect of prolonged affluence and ease on a culture; to the debilitating influence of "smart" technology that performs our cognitive functions for us; to the assumption that women of higher intelligence are having fewer children, implying that women of lower intelligence are driving population growth; to the effects of increased media exposure and the consequent lessening of reading; to the emergence of the vices of envy and resentment owing to radical egalitarianism and the rancor of the under-performing against the skilled, hard-working, and successful, a dynamic cogently analyzed by Dinesh D'Souza in Stealing America; or to the merely inescapable fact of decay: as Robert Frost wrote, "Nothing gold can stay." One thinks, too, of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins' remark in his Journal: "From much, much more; from little, not much; and from nothing, nothing." Whatever the cause or causes may be, intellectual deterioration seems to be the case.

What, then, is to be done? We need to go to literature to contemplate possibilities for restoration. The problem, says Barry Lopez in Arctic Dreams, is that "The good minds still do not find each other often enough." In his reflections on culture In Bluebeard's Castle, George Steiner imagined a future of small, eremitic clusters of intellectual light dotting an arid landscape, recycling Max Weber's notion of frail enclaves of enlightenment as the last resort of a civilization sinking into darkness. Walter M. Miller Jr.'s classic A Canticle for Leibowitz portrayed an obscure abbey in the Utah desert where historical knowledge is kept alive and preserved from the "Simpletons," even if it's only a sacred shopping list or a mysterious blueprint for circuit design. "Let us change the icons," wrote Will Durant in The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time, "and light the candles."

Berman calls this the "monastic option," but he does not regard it as an assembly of cenobites residing in a physical plant somewhere in the outback. Instead, it consists of a disparate collection of individuals, "cultural nomads," who may not know one another but are dedicated to a life of private decency, "the disinterested pursuit of truth, the cultivation of art [and] the commitment to critical thinking." The "new monks" derive from and support "traditions of craftsmanship, care, and integrity, preservation of canons of scholarship, critical thinking, individual achievements and independent thought." Their purpose is "to transmit a memory trace of what a culture can be about."

It's a daunting task. The number of people incapable of lucid argument and civil debate, whether Internet trolls, social media vulgarians, angry progressivists, media ignoramuses and intellectually challenged political leaders, is legion. It is therefore by no means astonishing that the greatest civilization the world has ever known, the Judeo-Christian West, is subsiding into a state of cognitive expiry, prone to fantasies and delusions, unable to confront and parse the reality of the world, oblivious to the symbiosis of man, history and nature, distracted by pseudo-scientific baubles, bereft of spiritual substance, and foreign to the very idea of truth.

In Social and Cultural Dynamics, Pitirim Sorokin, one of the great thinkers of our time, distinguished between "ideational" cultures, which are knowledge-and-spiritually focused, and "sensate" cultures, which are primarily informational and materialistic, the latter eventually devolving into a condition in which coercion, fraud, debasement of the creative impulse, family breakdown, and the encroachment of "untruth" into the human conscience (read: political correctness, fake news, electoral debauchery) are paramount. The latter is our present cultural home, lacking reflective capacity and experiencing a downtrend in clarity of thought and general percipience, shaving off IQ points as clarity and percipience drop. The concept of intelligence is complex and multifactorial, but if by "intelligence" we mean something like the ability to see the world as it is, to understand context, and to act in ways proven to be beneficial over time, then, according to Sorokin, intelligence is likely to decline in the latter stages of a "sensate" age.

The decline of intelligence-moral rectitude and creative exuberance are collateral casualties-is now in full throttle. The exceptions to the debacle-monks, nomads, people of integrity, people capable of common sense, the classically educated-represent the only viable hope for a new "ideational" age to arise out of the rubble of a "sensate" disaster. It may take another century to bring about what Sorokin called "the turn," the slow ascent up the IQ ladder, which is cold comfort indeed. But I suspect it's the only real comfort we have

Closing Australia’s education divide will take a generation, landmark study finds

More pretence that all students have equal potential.  The "divide" is the poor achievements of Aboriginal and working class children.  In the USA the "gap" is between black and white pupils. And huge efforts and many bright-eyed ideas have been used to close that gap -- to no effect. So it would be optimistic indeed to think that things might be different in Australia

They are not. All sorts of efforts have been made to improve Aboriginal education but just getting Aboriginal children to attend school is a major difficulty.  School is just not attractive to them and the parents don't care

And the basic thing underlying the gap is the same in the USA and Australia: the difference in Average IQ.  IQ is highly correlated with educational success and both Aborigines and American blacks score abysmally on it.  There is simply no way out of that situation


One of the most comprehensive studies of Australia's education system has found postcodes and family backgrounds impact the opportunities available to students from pre-school to adulthood, with one in three disadvantaged students falling through the cracks.

Sergio Macklin, the deputy lead of education policy at Victoria University's Michell Institute, released the report Educational Opportunity in Australia, which calls for immediate extra resources to help disadvantaged, Indigenous and remote students.

"Educational success is strongly linked to the wealth of a young person's family and where they grow up," Mr Macklin said.

"I think Australia's really letting down students from low-income families, Aboriginal students and those in remote areas."

The report critiques progress on last December's Alice Springs Education Council meeting where, in the wake of Australia's poor performance against its international counterparts, education ministers pledged to deliver a system that produced excellence and equity.

Last year's poor results on equality of education have now been exacerbated by remote learning, with some students without internet or stability at home falling weeks behind their peers.

"The children and young people that were being worst served by the education system are probably the ones that are being most affected by it," Mr Macklin said.

"So you'll see employment stress in families dramatically increased student vulnerability."

The report followed the progress of more than 300,000 students from school entry through primary school, into high school and onto early adulthood.

Mr Macklin believes the problem will take a generation to fix.

The report found disadvantaged students were more than twice as likely as their peers to not be in study or work by the age of 24.

The national average of students missing out on either work or study is 15 per cent, but this rises to 32 per cent of students from the lowest SES backgrounds, 38 per cent from very remote areas and 45 per cent among Indigenous young people.

"I think what this report highlights is that we're losing young people's opportunities in adulthood — and that's a real problem for young people," Mr Macklin said.

"But it's also a real problem for Australia. It puts a handbrake on our recovery efforts from the COVID recession."

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/closing-australia-e2-80-99s-education-divide-will-take-a-generation-landmark-study-finds/ar-BB1arPbh

Are all white people racist? Why Critical Race Theory has us rattled

The article below is a reasonable summary of the claims and counter-claims of the currently influential "Critical race theory".

It is however a theory in search of something to explain.  It arose as an attempt to explain the immovably "disadvantaged" state of American blacks.  It sought to find an explanation of that state in the way white society operates.  Society was at fault as the cause of black poverty etc.

But if society is inherently racist and oppressive to minorities, how come most minorities in America do very well?  The highest-paid ethnic group in America is in fact Indians, with Japanese, Jews, Koreans and Chinese not far behind.  If the mechanisms of American society are so oppressive, how do we expain the stellar record of those minorities?  White society may not have given them a bed of roses but its "oppressive" mechanisms would appear to be in fact very weak, far too weak to explain the badly depressed state of black achievement.

So why are blacks such a standout? Is there anything in white society which affects only them?  The reality tends in fact to be the opposite of that.  There is a great deal of prejudice in their favour, usually under the rubric of "affirmative action".  Yet still they fail as a group both economically and in other important way such as the crime-rate and disruptive male-female relationships.

So it is clear that the cause of the uniquely bad state of American blacks has to be found in something unique to blacks.  And from a scientific point of view what that is could hardly be clearer.  But "clear" does not mean socially acceptible.  Around 100 years of scientific research showing that blacks on average have markedly low IQs just cannot be accepted.  And East Asians of course have markedly high levels of average IQ.  Average IQ is the critical variable.  The very low level of black IQ explains perfectly the very low level of black achievement

So "critical race theory" is a tortured attempt to explain black disadvantage in a way that defies clearly  established scientific facts.  As such it deserves no respect.  The "racist" nature of American society is a desperate delusion -- as the great success of most racial minorities in America shows


There's a good chance you've never heard of Critical Race Theory. But if its opponents are to be believed, this niche academic discipline poses the biggest threat to Western civilisation since the Dark Ages.

Donald Trump has called it "toxic propaganda" that threatens to destroy America. British Conservative MP Kemi Badenoch, a black woman of Nigerian parentage, last month told Parliament it leads to a "segregated society" and makes everything "about the colour of your skin"; teaching it in British schools without offering an alternative view, she added, was "illegal". In Australia, the Murdoch media has railed against it for "reducing people to a racial essence", and judging them on the basis of "group identity" rather than "individual character, behaviour and merit".

Its advocates say it lays bare the hidden machinery of "systemic" racism, but its critics say it is itself racist, pitting white against black, peddling damaging notions of "white privilege" and "white supremacy" and making a virtue of victimhood.

But what exactly is Critical Race Theory — CRT for short — and is it really as dangerous as all that?

CRT has its origins in US law schools in the mid-1970s, as researchers began to ask why the legal advances won by the Civil Rights movement had produced so little improvement in the lives of minorities. The answer, they came to believe, lay in the way these new laws that supposedly guaranteed equal opportunity were being applied — and effectively resisted or undermined — by the courts. This was, they argued, "systemic racism" in action.

"Think how our system applauds affording everyone equality of opportunity," wrote Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic in their 2001 book Critical Race Theory: An Introduction, "but resists programs that assure equality of results."

The term Critical Race Theory was coined in 1989, and the discipline has ebbed and flowed in the years since. In Britain and the United States it has found its way into the education system and workplaces in explicit terms, prompting Badenoch's speech in parliament and Trump's September edict that no government funding would go to federal diversity training programs that drew upon it "because it's racist".

But in Australia it remains a minor field, cropping up in the odd humanities, law or politics department, though only occasionally labelled explicitly as CRT. For the most part, it's only in the occasional flare-ups on social media that we see its influence in this country.

The language deployed around the Mukbang controversy at the Sydney Film Festival in June was typical. In drawing upon a Korean internet phenomenon and featuring a briefly seen anime-style drawing of a white girl strangling a black boy, the short film (directed by a young white woman) was guilty of cultural appropriation and racism, critics insisted. In awarding it a prize, and allowing the offending anime image to be removed after the fact, the festival was even more guilty, of both whitewashing and of upholding a "white supremacist" system (never mind that the festival’s director, Nashen Moodley, is a South African-born person of colour).

Condemnation flared again in August when the candidates for the Rob Guest Endowment, a $50,000 scholarship offered to an up-and-coming star of musical theatre, were announced — all of them white. There was outrage, a botched apology, and finally the mass withdrawal of “the 30 former semi-finalists" in solidarity with "artists identifying as First Nations and People of Colour".

This masthead found itself in the crosshairs in May when it appointed five emerging book critics — again, all of them white. Amid outrage at yet more evidence of "white supremacy" in action, two resigned, labelling the selection process "a missed opportunity to support non-white voices in arts criticisms in Australia". In August two new reviewers from diverse backgrounds were appointed.

The accusations are typically fierce, and the apologies that follow often reek of the re-education camp.

It's easy to be dismissive, to chime in with the tired observation that each one of these outbursts is just another case of "political correctness gone mad". But focusing on the doctrinaire nature of the language only obscures and distracts from the critique that informs it — and it's a critique that perhaps ought to be taken seriously if we are to avoid the ructions currently splitting American society.

Broadly speaking, Critical Race Theory argues that the laws and institutions of Western societies only appear to be neutral; in truth, they discriminate against black, indigenous and other people of colour in myriad ways, often invisible to the naked eye. The job of the antiracist is to expose the workings of this systemic racism, no matter how incremental, and call them out.

The key insight of CRT may be that it locates racism not just in the acts of individuals — the white supremacists of bedsheets and cross burnings, say — but in a system that upholds, deliberately or not, inequality of outcome on the basis of race. It might manifest as racial profiling in policing, say, or failing to get into university because of the way eligibility is assessed (favouring tutored wealthy white kids over under-resourced kids in Indigenous communities, for example), or in the lack of diversity in particular kinds of workplaces.

Tim Soutphommasane, professor of sociology and political theory at the University of Sydney and Australia's former Race Discrimination Commissioner, says CRT is not the only model for dissecting racism, and nor is it "beyond reproach". But for many people concerned with combating racism, "there has long been the view that a liberal approach that focuses on individual attitudes and behaviours only gets you so far ... you can't understand racism without understanding how it involves power."

Plenty of white people who think of themselves as non-racists might find it hard to accept the idea that our institutions — education, employment, policing, the law, even health and welfare services — might be shot through with racism, and that they benefit from it. And for working-class whites struggling to pay the bills, the idea of "white privilege” is even harder to swallow (one reason why the issue has been so divisive in the US, and prompted many traditionally Democrat voters to swing to Trump).

"Many people still think you shouldn't be tagged as racist unless you subscribe to racial supremacist doctrine," Soutphommasane says. "Many don't understand that racism is as much about systemic impact as it is about individual intention."

One of the key criticisms of CRT, particularly from those on the Right, is the way it identifies "whiteness" as an object of study — and a problem. But advocates insist there's an important distinction to be made between "whiteness" as a system of power, and "white people", who may or may not be "allies" in dismantling that structure in order to end racism.

"Any decent critical race work doesn't focus on the individual, it focuses on the system, the structure," says race critical scholar Alana Lentin, an associate professor at the University of Western Sydney. "As soon as we can see that, we also see that no one benefits from a divided society."

One of the most widely cited "proofs" of CRT's inherent racism is history professor Ibram Kendi’s assertion that to declare oneself "not racist" while doing nothing to actively combat racism is the same as actively being racist.

"Being antiracist is not harmful," Claire Lehmann, founder of the liberal politics and philosophy website Quillette, has said. "What is harmful is this notion … that everything is either racist or antiracist. That's a really damaging idea because it doesn't allow for neutrality."

Kendi's version of CRT — as articulated in his book How to be an Antiracist — would argue that neutrality is anything but. It would, for instance, cast the recent assertion by Wallabies coach Dave Rennie that players taking the knee before a match would be a "political move" in a very different light. Given the rise of the gesture around the world as a display of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement and the campaign against racially motivated police violence against people of colour, not taking the knee would be seen as the real political statement.

It's not only conservatives who have issues with CRT, though. Writing on the broader subject of cancel culture in the most recent issue of The Monthly, Waleed Aly observed that the insistence on calling out "microaggressions" (the tiny daily instances of discrimination, none prosecutable in their own right but collectively degrading) was counterproductive.

"In this world view, no act or comment is too small to be considered part of a system of oppression," Aly writes. "[But] when nearly everything can be found problematic, when labels like 'white supremacist' can be hurled at most social behaviour and people, they flatten out the very idea of oppression."

For James Lindsay, host of the New Discourses podcast and a staunch critic of CRT, its real intent is nothing less than to overthrow liberal society. It aims, he says, to "awaken ... that awareness of oppression ... agitating people to see how bad their lives are even when they liked them, so that they would want to effect a revolution".

Or, as Australian writer, actor and Twitter activist Michelle Law put it in June, it seeks not to reform the system so much as to "burn it all down".

White supremacist groups such as Proud Boys are clearly racist. But is failing to speak out against such groups and their beliefs similarly racist?
White supremacist groups such as Proud Boys are clearly racist. But is failing to speak out against such groups and their beliefs similarly racist? CREDIT:AP

Not everyone who identifies with CRT holds that view, though. Just as liberalism is a broad church encompassing everything from anti-government libertarians to pro-welfare interventionists, so CRT hosts a range of views.

"I haven't read anything in CRT literature that argues that white people are the only people who can perpetuate racism," says Amy Maguire, associate professor in law at the University of Newcastle. "Whiteness theory situates whiteness in Western societies as the neutral or non-raced position, and situates non-white people as racialised/other. My read is that it would be possible for a non-white person to engage in racism against racialised communities in this type of framing."

CRT isn't a prescriptive set of rules, says Dr Tess Ryan, president of the Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association and an Indigenous woman of Birapai descent from Taree in NSW. "There are a lot of learnings from the US and Europe and the UK that need to be nuanced and adapted to the Australian situation. I think it's about taking what you need at a particular time and in a particular context. It's a toolkit situation — or a dilly bag, if you will."

It would at any rate take a very great effort of will to pretend inequity and racism do not exist in Western societies (or in non-Western societies for that matter). And if we agree on that point we have a choice: to accept it as the natural order of things, or to try to change it.

CRT demands change. In some versions it seeks to force people into extreme positions - of black victim and white supremacist, or of self-flagellating white ally - that do little to encourage faith that we might find a middle path to a better, post-racist society.

But, says Dr Ryan, it doesn’t need to be that way. "You don't have to walk down the street slapping yourself with a whip," she says. "It's about recognising and acknowledging, and that's not hard to do."

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/books/are-all-white-people-racist-why-critical-race-theory-has-us-rattled-20201105-p56bwv.html

Children raised in greener neighbourhoods have higher IQs and lower levels of difficult behaviour, study finds

Only a small groan about this study Income is of course the big potential confounder.  Rich people tend to be the ones living in leafy areas and they tend to be smarter.

And the researchers knew that and tried to control for it. And they didn't do a bad job. But both the index of income and the index of greenery encountered were geographical rather than personal so the correlations were ecological and such correlations are often high.  The results are not given in correlational form but appear to be undramatic so are lower than expected in the circumstances.  Testing the theory using individual measures could well have confirmed the nul hypothesis.

That the finding is not a strong one is also suggested by the fact that it was found in urban areas only, not in suburban or rural areas


Growing up in an area with more green space is beneficial to a child's intelligence, according to a new study that found those in greener urban areas had a higher IQ.

A team from Hasselt University, Belgium, analysed IQs of over 600 children and then used satellite images to examine the green coverage of their neighbourhoods.

The children in the study were all aged between 10 and 15, according to the team, who say a 3 per cent increase in greenery led to an IQ increase of about 2.6 points.

Researchers also found that children in the study had lower levels of behavioural problems if they lived in an area that more green coverage.  

IQ point increases as a result of living in a green environment had the biggest impact on those at the lower end of the spectrum as small changes made a big difference.

This is the first time IQ has been considered as a potential benefit of being exposed to green spaces in childhood - other studies have looked at wider cognitive benefits.

The researchers aren't sure exactly why IQ increases with exposure to a green environment, but suspect it could be to do with lower levels of stress.

The data on IQ and location came from the East Flanders Prospective Twin Survey (EFPTS), a registry of multiple births in the province of East Flanders, Belgium.

The average IQ of those involved was 105 but the team found 4 per cent of the children with a score below 80 had grown up in areas with low greenery levels.

It wasn't just intelligence that was impacted by living in an area that was more green - the team found it also helped improve the behaviour of some of the children.

They found that behavioural problems reduced for every 3 per cent rise in greenery.

The team said that a well planned city could offer unique opportunities to create an 'optimal environment' for children to develop to their full potential.  

'Whereas in 1950, only 30 per cent of the world’s population lived in urban areas; nowadays, this is already more than half of the global population, and it is expected to increase to 68 per cent by 2050,' the team explained.

'There is more and more evidence that green surroundings are associated with our cognitive function,' study author Tim Nawrot told The Guardian.

'I think city builders should prioritise investment in green spaces because it is really of value to create an optimal environment for children to develop their full potential.'

According to the study authors the benefits of greenery recorded in urban areas weren't replicated in more rural communities - likely because those areas had enough green space for everyone to benefit so the effects weren't as localised.

The authors believe that a combination of lower noise levels and lower stress levels found in green space areas contribute to the improvements in IQ and behaviour.

Part of this is also due to the fact there are more opportunities for physical and social activities in areas with more greenery - which can improve IQ scores on their own.  

'Our results indicate that residential green space may be beneficial for intellectual and behavioural development of children living in an urban environment.

'We showed a shift in the IQ distribution of urban children in association with residential green space exposure,' the authors wrote.  

The findings have been published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

SOURCE 

Is coaching for exams beneficial?

The Australian writer below is broadly right. There is no substitute for inborn IQ.  The results one gets from IQ can however be influenced to some extent by the child's environment. Families who send their kids to coaching probably already provide a good opportinity for intellectual development, however

The revamping of the selective high school entry examination will inevitably be viewed as an attempt to make the test less coachable. But why do we have such a problem with coaching?

When it comes to academic performance, Australian culture places a premium on natural ability. Yet in other endeavours, such as sport, we have no problem with systematic training. Few look at a star football player and remark bitterly: “Well, his mother was taking him to training since he was four.” Likewise, the ballerina who practises diligently 12 hours a week is a source of admiration for her dedication.

Even children feel the stigma, with many gifted students underplaying their amount of study in the belief that you are not really smart if you have to put in effort. Academic success that appears to come easily is more highly valued than that which is the result of hard work.

There is a perception among many that undeserving children who have been coached from an early age are stealing places at selective high schools from naturally bright students. Often coupled with racist undertones, this argument in part stems from a certain streak in mainstream Anglo-Australian culture which hates a “try hard”.

Coaching, many feel, confers an unfair advantage. This is certainly true from an economic perspective. Students whose parents can afford years of tutoring may gain an edge over an equally bright child whose parents lack the means for extracurricular support. Yet this applies to most fields of endeavour. Our footy star and ballerina also need parents who are able to pay for coaching.

So there’s a certain hypocrisy at play when parents are criticised for providing academic coaching but admired for supporting their child’s dream with other forms of coaching.

But before you rush out and enrol your child in the closest coaching college to get that “academic advantage”, consider the following. What can coaching focused exclusively on test preparation really do for your child?

Research tells us it can reduce test anxiety. If you have never sat a test before, then you are probably going to be nervous, especially if your parents and peers have whipped you into a frenzied belief that this is the most important exam of your life.

Most Year 4 students sitting the Opportunity Class exams have only had one experience of a formal assessment, NAPLAN, so the experience of going to a large hall at a different school can itself be overwhelming.

If you have sat tests before, then you know what to do and what to expect. You know how to manage your time and not spend too long on one question. You know that tests start with easy questions and that the harder questions are at the end. You know that you should read the whole question before answering. You know that with one minute to go, you should fill in “C” for any multiple choice you have not answered.

These are techniques that coaching colleges are adept at drilling and as the government's selective high school review confirmed in 2018, they could make the few marks’ difference between getting a place or not. However, they are also techniques you can learn by practising with a $15 book from your local newsagent.

I am yet to see any research that shows that coaching of any description can turn a child of average ability into a gifted child. Nor is there any evidence that children who have been coached wouldn’t have got into selective high schools on their own merits – and saved their parents a great deal of money in the process.

<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/australia-s-problem-with-try-hards-at-heart-of-selective-schools-coaching-criticism-20200802-p55hr9.html">SOURCE</a>  

Masks Increase Co2 Levels - making you Dumber

I don't know the political breakdown, but top health and political authorities in various states are mandating that masks be worn, even when the number of COVID-19 Hospitalizations and Deaths are declining. Here in Democrat-controlled Illinois, wearing a facemask is required, through all 4 phases of reopening the state.

Presidential Candidate Joe Biden said yesterday that we will probably have to wear masks for at least another year, as a "new normal", in order to protect ourselves and others.

All the emphasis and mandates regarding wearing a face-mask, comes from the same "people" who shut down the country over a virus that kills only 1.4% of the people who contract it.

Sure enough, there has been quite a bit of research on the subject, due to so many complaints of mental and physiological problems from workers in careers where masks are worn a lot. (Medical, Painting, Construction, etc..)

Findings Summary from a Study on N-95 face masks:

The results show that above 60% of inspired air is respired air in case I (wearing a mask), compared to less than 1.2% in case II (not wearing a mask).

In conclusion, the N95 respirator trapped respired air within the respirator which increased the VOF of respired air during inspiration. This might be one of the major contributors to elevated carbon dioxide level while wearing N95 respirator.

Full Study <a href="https://www.oatext.com/Evaluation-of-rebreathed-air-in-human-nasal-cavity-with-N95-respirator-a-CFD-study.php#gsc.tab&gsc.tab=0">here</a>

MOST IMPORTANTLY...This study explains what happens to us after repeated stints of Carbon Dioxide(CO2)/less Oxygen(O2) Inhalation:

Participants were tested on their cognitive abilities each day at about 3 pm. They were given real life situations (an example of a situation: if you were to be the mayor of the town what changes would you bring to your town) and the answers were later analyzed using software. The nine parameters that the participants were tested were:

* The ability to make decisions at any given time
* The capability to make decisions that achieved the desired goal
* The capacity to pay attention to surroundings
* The capability of completing given tasks
* The capacity to respond to an emergency
* The ability to gather information
* The ability to use the gathered information for the given goals
* The capacity to make decisions using a variety of options along with multiple dimensions
* The capacity of complex thinking

The results of the study were amazing.

Participants experiencing the elevated CO2 levels were found to have significant difficulty with their decision making abilities and thinking capabilities.

So what is the reason behind the impairments of the cognitive ability?

Increased level of CO2 in the blood decreases the cerebral metabolism of oxygen. In simple words, the brain becomes oxygen deprived and has an impact on our thinking abilities.

Carbon dioxide dissolves in our blood and reacts with the water in our blood to create carbonic acid. This, in turn, dissolves into ions of hydrogen and bicarbonate. If there is an increase in the concentration of hydrogen ions in our blood the blood acidity level increases and creates electrolyte imbalance, causing decline in intellectual performance.

With increased CO2 levels, a decrease in the IQ by even 5 points will bring a lot more people into the ‘mentally handicapped’ range, unless corrective action is taken immediately.

Google does not let you see the above articles unless you filter out (not show) any search results after 12/31/2019. All the articles/studies this year describe how great face masks are for us! No ill effects whatsoever.

Word to the wise...If there are rules/laws mandating face masks where you live, only wear it when necessary. Save those brain cells. Keep your independent critical-thinking abilities in tip-top shape! (We will need them if our leaders push things too far.)

<a href="http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread1267183/pg1">SOURCE</a>

Some truths may not be uttered

An adviser in British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's office has resigned after online comments resurfaced where he linked intellect to race and seemed to advocate a eugenics policy.

Andrew Sabisky once suggested that black Americans had a lower average IQ than white Americans. <i>[All the research says they do]</i>

He also said in a 2014 web post that one way to stop unplanned pregnancies "creating a permanent underclass" was to force people to use contraception.

Mr Sabisky said he was in the middle of a "giant character assassination" and was stepping down because he did not want to be a distraction.

"The media hysteria about my old stuff online is mad but I wanted to help HMG, not be a distraction," he said on Twitter using the initials for Her Majesty's Government.

"Accordingly I've decided to resign as a contractor."

He said he hoped the government hired more people with "good geopolitical forecasting track records and that media learn to stop selective quoting".

"I signed up to do real work, not be in the middle of a giant character assassination: if I can't do the work properly there's no point," he said, adding that he had "a lot of other things to do" with his life.

Downing Street had repeatedly refused to say whether Mr Johnson supported the views expressed by Mr Sabisky.

<a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/boris-johnson-advisor-resigns-over-comments-linking-race-and-intelligence">SOURCE</a>