Race and IQ

Sugar

What are your thoughts? Do certain races naturally have higher or lower IQs than other races do? Can this be changed metabolically?

Aryan

@Sugar Yes

shivaflow

@Sugar Certain races have different inputs from their environment ranging from food, stressors, light, geography, etc. which will cause them to adapt in certain ways. These adaptations would eventually crystalize into natural advantages/disadvantages. So yes some races naturally have higher IQs just like how some races will naturally be taller.

Sugar

@Aryan I believe Peat saw this claim as bogus. Maybe he did not do enough research into it. It could've perhaps been his leftist leaning or his idea that you can increase intelligence metabolically.

fd

@shivaflow I think I agree with you. Also, there's not much on ncbi/pubmed
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8872358/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15641921/

But haidut said once:

Jun 14, 2018, haidut

I mentioned in a few other threads about the decline in intelligence and the reversal of the so-called "Flynn Effect" over the last 3-4 decades.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

A few users commented that the drop in IQ (and SAT) scores is due to simply more people taking the tests and thus lowering the average score. The fact that the health of young people has been rapidly declining over the same period suggests that the trend is legitimate and not due to the so-called "regression to the mean".
This new big study makes the same claim and states explicitly that the effect is not explainable to genetics. Since the current view in hereditary biology is that IQ is mostly genetic, this result casts doubt on that view/theory as well. Interestingly, the study claims that increase in intelligence seen in the middle of the 20th century (Flynn Effect) was also due to environmental factor and not genetics. That further bolsters the idea that intelligence if fluid and environmental and not genetically driven.
Either way, the results of the study remind me of what Peat said in one interview - i.e. something like "maybe the develop world will soon become too stupid to pose any danger to the rest of the planet" and "questions of health and intelligence are necessarily questions about environmental quality and not genetics".

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/06/05/1718793115
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/13/health/falling-iq-scores-study-intl/index.html

"...IQ scores have been steadily falling for the past few decades, and environmental factors are to blame, a new study says. The research suggests that genes aren't what's driving the decline in IQ scores, according to the study, published Monday."(link above)

"..."The causes in IQ increases over time and now the decline is due to environmental factors," said Rogeburg, who believes the change is not due to genetics. "It's not that dumb people are having more kids than smart people, to put it crudely. It's something to do with the environment, because we're seeing the same differences within families," he said. These environmental factors could include changes in the education system and media environment, nutrition, reading less and being online more, Rogeberg said."

"...Researchers have long preferred to use genes to explain variations in intelligence over environmental factors. However, the new study turns this thinking on its head. Intelligence is heritable, and for a long time, researchers assumed that people with high IQ scores would have kids who also scored above average. Moreover, it was thought that people with lower scores would have more kids than people with high IQ scores, which would contribute to a decline in IQ scores over time and a "dumbing down" of the general population, according to Rogeberg. Anyone who has seen the film "Idiocracy" might already be familiar with these ideas. In the scientific community, the idea of unintelligent parents having more kids and dumbing-down the population is known as the dysgenic fertility theory, according to Ritchie."

"...The study not only showed IQ variance between children the same parents, but because the authors had the IQ scores of various parents, it demonstrated that parents with higher IQs tended to have more kids, ruling out the dysgenic fertility theory as a driver of falling IQ scores and highlighting the role of environmental factors instead."

Jun 21, 2018, haidut

Reaction times are considered reliable predictor of intelligence. Intelligence, like reaction times, can vary quite a bit on a day to day basis and even seemingly simple events like poor sleep the night before or slight hypoglycemia can affect IQ quite a bit. Most of intelligence is fluid, there is no good evidence for static intelligence. I am not a believer in innate (genetic) intelligence, but epigenetic changes in metabolic robustness (or weakness) can be passed on to subsequent generations and that's what mainstream science interprets as the genetic component of IQ.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_chronometry#Cognitive_development

Timetravel

@Sugar No lol

shivaflow

@fd Yes and at the end of the day environmental factors drive genetics. Our genes are dynamic and constantly changing in response to whatever inputs are environment give us. And from this point of view, its the ultimate whitepill because it means everything is malleable.

Hitler

@Sugar The average IQ of of a Sub-Saharan African is 71, which, for Whites and Asians, is below the threshold of mental retardation. Even at their phenotypical limit, when they are fully nourished, they hardly break through the 80 IQ barrier. Australian Aborigines have an average IQ of 62, and Bushmen have the average IQ of 55.

No amount of positive environmental or metabolic support can raise the IQ of, say, a Bushman, anywhere the average IQ of the average White or Asian.

Sugar

@fd I agree there's some nuance and that you can become more intelligent in a good metabolic state with the right tools, but I cannot see Africans (60 IQ) jumping 45 IQ points and achieving the same IQ average as Asians (105 IQ) just by fixing their metabolism.

Fructose

@Sugar Yes, and this is largely due to environmental factors

Sugar

@Hitler Yep it's pure cope to believe that Africans could jump 50-70 IQ points and get on the same intelligence level as mildly intelligent whites and asians. The end result is always feeling sorry for people in such a state living amongst the more sophisticated.

FTMarinetti

@Sugar Maybe in a couple of generations? Foreign aid to Africa in the form of progesterone? It's an incredible waste of resources having the african population of over a billion incapable of basic civil living. Peating in Africa is the new frontier...

Adolf_Hitler

If you want to know more about the links between race and IQ you should read my book

FTMarinetti

@NiggerBasher The two projects could go in parallel ways. Of course, a strong European presence in Africa is necessary for such a process to take place. Had only Peat and Ian Smith met..

Hitler

@Adolf_Hitler https://der-fuehrer.org/meinkampf/english/eindex.htm

Dulkadir

@Sugar frequent race bait threads will be the consequence of the new forum containing a bunch of twitter users..
IQ is probably a bad measure of individual intelligence as Ray mentioned, although it may generally work on a population level. But it's not inconceivable how certain environments would prioritize and select for the limited energy & nutrients during pregnancy to be redirected towards certain features such as a robust immune system over brain size or intelligence. Probably certain inherent factors determine the extent to which something gets prioritized over something else so It's doubtful something as simple as increasing energy production in the immediate would have a drastic effect, but could see that working over one or multiple generations. Implying modern day endocrine disruptors, EMF, toxins and vaccines won't cull mankind in the coming decades I think a big part of the developing world w/ better nutrition and ~~indoctrination~~ educational facilities becoming more prevalent and accessible will have higher IQs closer to the mean, although whether that will come with an increase of actual intelligence (instead of the serotonergic number test concept of intelligence we have now) hard to say imo

gugenmungus

@FTMarinetti the solution is for the African population to not be so high....

buckminster

"Racist geneticists to the contrary, there is no
evidence that either intelligence or brain size is genetically
inherited, since acquired changes are heritable, and since
only one protein peculiar to the brain is known, at present.
Other brain-specific proteins will probably be discovered,
but despite a large effort in that direction, there is no hint of
a molecular-genetic basis for "inherited intelligence."
Glucose, hormones, stimulation and other factors
significantly modify brain size and function."
'Mind and Tissue' Ray peat

IQ tests are not widely used in the Soviet Union, since
the IQ is believed merely to reflect the level of social
opportunity (which can be determined in other ways), but
some very interesting studies have been done to determine
the effect of socio-economic status on intelligence. Children
in some asian-USSR towns were given IQ tests in 1929, and
averaged about 35 points below normal. Recently children
in these "retarded" areas were tested, and were found to be
approximately equal in general mental ability to children in
Moscow. In numerical and verbal ability they were slightly
behind the moscovites, but in visual memory and
interpretation of mirror images, they were superior. These
differences are attributed to the continuing differences in
their life situations.
'Mind and Tissue' Ray Peat

FTMarinetti

@gugenmungus Scarcity mindset

Hitler

@buckminster can't get everything right!