IQ testing environmental variances

Arguing that IQ tests are often wrongly described as measuring "innate" rather than developed ability, conclude that this "labeling bias" causes people to inappropriately attribute the Black-White gap to "innate" differences.
They assert that non-cultural environmental factors cause gaps measured by the tests, rather than any possible innate difference based on genetics, and to use these tests as a measure of innate difference is misleading and improper.
Regarding the IQ gaps in the U.S., there are numerous possible explanations beside genetics. One author lists more than a hundred. It has been suggested that African-American culture disfavors academic achievement and fosters an environment that is damaging to IQ. Likewise, it is argued that the persistence of negative racial stereotypes reinforces this effect. John Ogbu has developed a hypothesis that the condition of being a "caste-like minority" affects motivation and achievement, depressing IQ. Similarly, it is suggested that reduced performance from "stereotype threat" could be a contributing factor.
Estimates of the significance of genetics vs. environment are dependent on the strength of environmental factors. For example, schizophrenia, regarded as being highly heritable, has seen increased rates in second and third generation immigrants to Western European countries which do not seem to be the result of increased genetic susceptibility, but another, as yet unidentified, environmental factor(s) that seems to have become more influential.
Many anthropologists have argued that intelligence is a cultural category; some cultures emphasize speed and competition more than others, for example. Speculations about innate differences in intelligence between ethnic groups have occurred throughout history. Aristotle in the 4th century B.C. and Cicero in the 1st. century B.C. disparaged the intelligence of the northern Europeans of the time, as did the Moors in Iberia in the 11th century.
In the developing world there are many factors can greatly decrease IQ scores. Examples include nutrition deficiencies in iodine and iron; certain diseases like malaria; unregulated toxic industrial substances like lead and mercury; and poor health care for pregnant women and infants. Also in the developed world there are many biological factors that can affect IQ. Increased rates of low birth weight babies and lower rates of breastfeeding in Blacks as compared to Whites are some factors of many that have been proposed to affect the IQ gap.
The secular, international increase in test scores, commonly called the Flynn effect, is seen by Flynn and others as reason to expect the eventual convergence of average black and white IQ scores. Flynn argues that the average IQ scores in several countries have increased about 3 points per decade during the 20th century, which he and others attribute predominantly to environmental causes. This means, given the same test, the mean black American performance today could be higher than the mean white American performance in 1920, though the gains causing this appear to have occurred predominantly in the lower half of the IQ distribution. If changes in environment can cause changes in IQ over time, they argue, then contemporary differences between groups could also be due to an unknown environmental factor. On the supposition that the effect started earlier for whites, because their social and economical conditions began to improve earlier than did those of blacks, they anticipate that the IQ gap among races might change in the future or is even now changing. An added complication to this hypothesis is the question of whether the secular IQ gains can be predominantly a real change in cognitive ability. Flynn's face-value answer to this question is "No", and other researchers have found reason to concur. Responding to such concerns, have proposed a solution which rests on genotype-environment correlation, hypothesizing that small initial differences in environment cause feedback effects which magnify into large IQ differences. Such differences would need to develop before age 3, when the black-white IQ gap can be first detected.
Many studies that attempt to test for heritability find results that do not support the partly-genetic hypothesis (20-80% genetic). They include studies on IQ and skin color, self-reported European ancestry, children in post WWII Germany born to black and white American soldiers, blood groups, and mixed-race children born to either a black or a white mother. Many intervention and adoption studies also find results that do not support the genetic hypothesis. Non-hereditarians have argued that these are direct tests of the genetic hypothesis and of more value than indirect variables, such as skull size and reaction time. Hereditarians argue that these studies are flawed due to their age, lack of replication, problems with their sample population, or that they do in fact support the partly-genetic hypothesis.
, with data from "the first large, nationally representative sample" of its kind, report finding only a very small racial difference when measuring mental function for children aged eight to twelve months, and that even these differences disappear when including a "limited set of controls". They argue that their report poses "a substantial challenge to the simplest, most direct, and most often articulated genetic stories regarding racial differences in mental function."

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu