paritosh
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I am sorry that I don't share most of your observations. Your opinion on IQ remains as such, as a personal opinion thus far, nothing more than that.
Regarding to IQ field, you can google or wiki up Prof. Richard Lynn, one of the leading researchers of our time on IQ, and his well-known work "IQ and the Wealth of Nations". Yes, this research naturally has its own limitations as all others. Nonetheless, it is by far one of the most peer quoted and respected paper in the IQ field.
If IQ tests have nothing to do ( "irrelevant" in your words )with one's IQ level, as you and Patriot doubt, then so called "EQ/EI" shall bear no relevance whatsoever with IQ either, due to their much much more dubious and non-objective judgement criteria deployed, e.g. to what extent one can measure that a drawing of one EQ.EI test participant is more imaginative than another and deserves how much higher score? On the contrary however, in known knowledge, there is no great natural scientist having low IQ test scores ( an Einstein < 100 IQ? ).
Therefore, make no mistake, at least we can safely conclude that despite of imperfections of IQ test, it is by far the most advanced scientific tool we humans can come up with, to objectively judge one's intellectual capability in general. In other words, it is at least positively correlated with one's true intellectual potential.
As for "EQ/EI", I personally deem them as some idiotic concepts mainly invented/used by those politically correct liberals and some social science experts wannabes (not out of well known and respectful natural science scientists) to underscore the importance of IQ, in order to suit their political statement that "we are all the same".
The point you raised per se is well taken.
However, I am simply not aware of any large scale, representative IQ testings undertaken across large strata of mainland Chinese population - or South Asian population for that matter. If you know of concrete evidence to the contrary, I'd appreciate you pointing out the source for the benefit of my knowledge.
I think we can agree that the average IQ of NA Orientals is no more representative of all Chinese in the PRC than the IQs of Seyyeds represent those of Muslims, or the Brahmans' represent the "Indics".
One can't even entirely credibly argue that Japanese average IQ is representative of East Asian IQs any more than the Finnish average represents those of the European Caucasians.
Looming far larger and more pertinent is the point of view, implicitly raised by paritosh, that questioned the relevance of IQ testing in approximating intelligence.
Blacks are "inherently" more muscular - okay, many can buy that. But are they necessarily more athletic? Only if one accepts that muscle-strength dependent activities are the best representation of "athleticism".
If you do not implicitly accept that activities such as sharp-shooting, those that involve swimming, riding, or otherwise high degrees of hand-eye coordination or bodily flexibility are "second-tier", then you'd be on solid ground to challenge the view that Blacks are more "athletic".
The point implied by paritosh is that racial/ethnic difference in intelligence is less objectively captured by IQ testing than, say, difference in muscular strength is captured by myometry.
what you have posted is the linkage between intelligence and skill...while they are majorly interrelated...there are intricate differences between a skilled man and an intelligent man
Hitler who was arguably the world's biggest racist to have ever lived, believed that skill has got nothing to do with one's race...he said that before Jesse Owens slammed his Aryan supremacy theory by winning medals in the Berlin Olympics...
now the Chinese have been known to be master of the game "ping-pong" or table-tennis as it is more famously known...it is a game of great skill and almost precognition...and requires fluid neural-motor coordination...but is it a good indicator of one's intelligence?
one more important thing...I think and most would agree...that IQ tests were designed to check one man's intelligence and the result is depicted in the form of marks scored and the individual standing of the person taking the test is determined from the (world) average for his age .
now since we all know that no one has conducted a survey involving a great enough number of test subjects from all the man's races to come to the conclusion of one races superiority over the other...we need a better indicator that the IQ tests taken by individuals as we know them.One might consider the number of inventions by the different races as an indicator of their mental prowess...but even that is far from being gold...
take the example of the mongloids...the chinese have invented more than any other race...but are the mongloids the most intelligent?
the American natives or the "Red Indians" are known to be early mongloid settlers...and what technological marvels do they have against their names?none.save for the knowledge of communication through smoke clouds but that hardly makes the cut now does it?
I strongly think that inventions happen through the usage of intelligence when it is strongly required..."necessity is the mother of invention"
loosely...your atmosphere determines more about how intelligent you are gonna be.Scale the China/native American model down...and you might agree...but we all know that the real problem lies in the scaling up and down of these indicators of intelligence...
forget about the weight of the brain...or the neural to mass ratio...
take the example of an ant hive...the ant colonies are the most efficient social models on the planet...eclipsing that of humans.
The ant hive is analogous to the brain...while a singular ant is analogous to a single neuron...a single ant is dumb...while their networking makes the hive very intelligent...that is how IMO we should judge human intelligence..by how efficiently a person's brain is wired...and that is determined by your environment.
I have heard many times that intelligence is genetic...but have you heard of Plato's son or that of Socrates? or that of Archimedes?
or that of Gary Kasparov's?
Intelligence has never followed bloodlines...neither has bravado.
Do you know how we progress learning in the field of linguistics?
we learn the alphabet and then we learn the vocabulary and then the grammar...while after a threshold of learning in this order...we cease to follow this order once we understand where the magic lies...then next step after that is conversation complexity...simpler sentences make way for double meaning ones and then we learn sarcasm and other tricks with the words...and the last level is poetry.
I believe that we all have equal intelligence ( I know that 99% would stop reading now...but that's my own stupid opinion)
where we use our mind the most is a different issue...
Take the case of autistics...most would be labeled dumb and unintelligent on their faces...but it is a know fact that autistics compensate for their retarded motor mechanism with an enhanced learning ability potential...many autistic kids have mastered Mozart and Beethoven...heck infact even Wolfgang Mozart was an autistic!
I couldn't agree moreA 10-point difference on IQ score may represent a difference in "attitude" toward testing-taking and a willingness to concentrate on a (sit-down) task far more than a divergence in genuine "smartness" - however "wishy-washy" the latter concept may be.
the biggest reason psychologists argue the authenticity of these IQ tests is because of the ignorance of 'attitude' as a variable.