Intelligence and race

[lucaspa]

Believe me, this isn't lost on me. I realize that most traits aren't, say, mere single-gene sex-linked traits, like baldness. Even simple skin color requires a whole host of autosomal factors. Yet on a large scale I think generalizations are appropriate. It just has to be a *sufficiently* large scale.

 

When dealing with populations, the larger the scale, the less generalizations are appropriate. That is because, the more people you get, the greater the standard deviation and the wider the bell-shaped curve! Remember, most evolution occurs in small, isolated populations. You almost never see transformation of large populations. That is because gene flow exerts a homogenizing effect and damps differences between sub-populations.

 

Washington and Jefferson were quite intelligent--and neither were farmers. Washington made his earliest living in land surveying. Jefferson was a college student before he became a politician.

 

They both were farmers -- by their own description! Both introduced new methods of farming.

http://www.mountvernon.org/learn/explore_mv/index.cfm/ss/31/

"George Washington played many different roles in the founding of our nation:Commander in Chief of the Revolutionary Army, first President , and leader of the Constitutional Convention to name but a few. And it is in these roles that we think of him today. However, if you were to ask him to describe his most important occupation, he would say quite simply that he was a farmer."

 

"Washington was a leader in the development of American agriculture. Washington's passion was his land. He enjoyed the challenge of cultivating crops and learning what techniques and tools worked best for growing things. The same calm determination he showed under fire was evident in his constant experimentation and efforts to improve the productivity of his four working farms."

 

Hmm. An inventor as a farmer, no less!

 

http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/2005_summer_fall/agronomist.htm

"In his own eyes, Thomas Jefferson considered himself first and always a man of the land. He felt that “those who labour in the earth are the chosen people of God….” ... Therefore, he was in the forefront in experimenting with fertilizers to bring his land back to productivity.

 

Not content to assume that animal manure would revitalize the soil, he undertook tests to determine the exact number of cattle required to fertilize a given area of land. He measured its effectiveness by comparing yields of grain on manured fields with yields from an equal area that was unfertilized."

 

Hey! Jefferson also did inventing as a farmer!

 

Nice try to use their initial occupations to try to avoid that both Washington and Jefferson were farmers, but the Internet has too much real information for that trick to stand unrefuted.

 

I define intelligence as things computer can't do, since intelligent computer do not yet exist.

 

This does not follow. For one thing, it is circular reasoning. For another, you are describing technology now. What happens when a computer intelligent even by your standards is made?

3. J Weng, J McClelland, A Pentland, O Sporns, I Stockman, M Sur, E Thelan, Autonomous mental development by robots and animals. Science 291: 599-600, Jan 26 2001.

 

That is intelligence and not skill since the computer is good at skills but lacks intelligence.

 

Where is the line between skill and intelligence? Does it take intelligence to play chess or checkers, or is that a skill, too?

 

Being able to dance like a prima ballerina takes intelligence. It is not analytical intelligence, but I would challenge the best robot to do better.

 

Dancing is a physical skill! Are you saying Einstein wasn't intelligent since he couldn't dance? And what happens when technology makes robots better?

 

How about a work of art that can anticipate the future or stir the soul. Computers can generate art but not this type, which takes intelligence.

 

Sorry, but you are wrong there. Several years ago an article in Analog described where a computer composed music in the style of Bach and Mozart. Human musical experts (and audiences in general) were asked to tell the genuine compositions from the computer ones. They couldn't, missing more than 50% of the time. This means that they thought the computer compositions were really done by Mozart or Bach. Stanley Schmidt -- the editor who did the article -- wondered just what you are touching on: that the computer wrote musical compositions that evoked the same stirring of the soul that Bach or Mozart did and concluded that the computer, in this case, was intelligent. I've got the issue around the house somewhere and will try to find it and the exact reference for you.

 

How about inventing? Do you consider that only intelligence can invent?

[someguy]

How do you know in China all the intelligent people worked for the government? You are confusing social status with intelligence. And you are ignoring that Mao, in the Cultural Revolution, sent a lot of intelligente people to the farms!

 

 

 

You contradicted this when you said:

 

 

First you say intelligence and knowledge are not the same, but then you equate the 2. You have no reason to say our hunter-gatherer ancestors were not as smart as we are UNLESS you say they don't know as much as we do. Otherwise, they are just as smart. After all, who invented language? Our hunter-gatherer ancestors!

 

 

 

Washington was very smart. It needed a smart person to 1) figure out a strategy to defeat the British and 2) find improvisations to keep his army fed and supplied. Again, you are confusing intelligence with occupation. Getting into a particular occupation does not equal intelligence. After all, you say "teachers were really valued". That means that people would try to get their relatives into teaching -- no matter how intelligent they were.

 

 

 

However, animals have invented. I remember looking at documentaries showing how macaques invented new ways to separate sand and grain. One genious female macaque took the mixture the the shore and dropped it into the water. Sand sank, the kernels of grain floated! The other macaques were intelligent enough to copy the invention. So now you have overlap of intelligence based on your between humans and animals and you have lost your "smooth progression". After all, there are lots of things macaques cannot comprehend -- such as language -- but they invent.

 

It's not that you used an "ambiguous" word, but rather that "intelligence" itself is ambiguous. Back to the OP. Which of your 3 sections is tested by standardized tests, including IQ? Or are all 3 tested?

 

Interestingly, you say teachers in China were the most intelligent. But they didn't invent, did they? How would that compare to a farmer that invented a new way to plow his/her field? By your 3 sections, the farmer would be more intelligent than the teacher.

 

because everybody regardless of social status went to school worked hard at school and according to their performances went further into school and learned more and according to those performances you would get a job in the government. social status or money had nothing to do with it.

 

-paralith- i don't believe that anyone is of a particular intelligence according to their job in OUR society. i was talking about ancient china that was designed to assign people according to intelligence and in that society the farmers were less intelligence than the people in government. it was like plato's philosopher kings and natural slaves.

 

-lucaspa, the society was designed precisely so that you couldn't help your family get a position. if you became a governor you had to govern in a separate province than where your family lived. they established many anti-corruption devices in their system, and what you're talking about is corruption, which readily occurs in our society.

 

we could debate all day about how smart washington was it depends on what you think smart is.

 

yes animals have invented, we are animals also. some animals are quite smart. if you separate us from animals then you have ruined the smooth progression. if you allow for your example then the transition can be smooth. the main difference with humans is language, which allows us to share thoughts and learn from each other and through generations. we have alot more technology and knowledge than monkeys but we have been adding over generations and using people like newton and einstein to help us. put einstein in the forest with a bunch of monkeys and none of them will learn very much (in terms of where we are now) you might be hard pressed to notice many differences between eistein and his monkeys and just regular monkeys. how much would any of us know in the wild without books or language? not much. language is very powerful, and makes us seem more different than other animals than we are.

 

I said: our ancestors were just as not smart as we are. and knowledge and intelligence are not the same. those do not contradict.

 

no intelligence cannot be referred to by current tests in my opinion. they do not test intelligence just capacity to complete tasks that intelligence is helpful for. solving a rubiks cube the first time you see it is a sign of intelligence, but you could train a monkey to solve it rapidly. knowledge is good at faking intelligence. iq tests try to isolate tasks that only intelligence could do but i don't feel they totally succeeded.

 

 

Interestingly, you say teachers in China were the most intelligent. But they didn't invent, did they? How would that compare to a farmer that invented a new way to plow his/her field? By your 3 sections, the farmer would be more intelligent than the teacher.

 

 

i never said the teachers were most intelligent, i said that they were up there with government, and i wasn't sure exactly where in the entire government. the number of humans that truly truly invent are really small, so small we learn most of their names in school. in one generation people like this could never fill an entire government. inventions can happen by accident also, and don't forget there are all shades of intelligence, in a smooth progression. i just named the type of intelligence "inventor" maybe i should have used a different word. my point is that in china farmers would not really have invented and certainly would not have been "inventor" type intelligent people. if they did then the system to allocate people by their abilities would have failed. there is inventing and then there is really really inventing as in, there is applying what others have learned and written in books to a new task and inherently knowing many of those things, or writing the books rather than reading them.

 

such governments wouldn't invent much they would be busy governing, such a society probably wouldn't grow technologically very quickly.

[lucaspa]

because everybody regardless of social status went to school worked hard at school and according to their performances went further into school and learned more and according to those performances you would get a job in the government. social status or money had nothing to do with it....i was talking about ancient china that was designed to assign people according to intelligence and in that society the farmers were less intelligence than the people in government.

 

You need to give us a source for the data for these claims on how "ancient China" worked. I am finding data to the contrary.

 

" In addition, although the civil service examination was reinstituted by T'ang T'ai-tsung, almost all bureaucratic positions went to aristocrats during the entirety of the T'ang dynasty and only a small handful went to individuals recruited on the basis of the examination." http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHEMPIRE/TANG.HTM

 

That isn't what you described. Are you going to claim it was entirely coincidence that the aristrocrats were the "most intelligent"?

 

-lucaspa, the society was designed precisely so that you couldn't help your family get a position. if you became a governor you had to govern in a separate province than where your family lived. they established many anti-corruption devices in their system,

 

What society? Pre-Communist? Communist? There is ample data that communist China assigned worth based on party membership and family, not intelligence. So, if you are dealing with pre-Communist China, when exactly are you talking about? Which dynasty? What part of that dynasty?

 

IOW, I'm asking you to post your sources. You are building your argument on premises you are presenting as "fact". I'm challenging those facts and you need to show that they are, indeed, accurate.

 

we could debate all day about how smart washington was it depends on what you think smart is.

 

I'm using your criteria. By your criteria, Washington was intelligent. By HIS labeling, he was a farmer. Those two facts contradict your argument of farmers being "less intelligent".

 

the main difference with humans is language, which allows us to share thoughts and learn from each other and through generations. we have alot more technology and knowledge than monkeys but we have been adding over generations and using people like newton and einstein to help us.

 

You forgot the ability to make tools to make tools. Now, since "we have been adding over generations" to technology, it is obvious that technology itself can't be a criteria for how intelligent people are. Without realizing it, you contradicted your claim that our "cavemen" ancestors were not as intelligent as we are. Yes, they were, but had not had the time to add so much technology.

 

language is very powerful, and makes us seem more different than other animals than we are.

 

In which case you are undermining any meaningful distinction of "intelligence". That's the point: testing your criteria of what is "intelligence". I did that by showing that animals that we consider are "less intelligent" than humans meet your criteria. If they meet the criteria, then it is your criteria that are flawed. You need to come up with new criteria to measure the level of "intelligence".

 

I said: our ancestors were just as not smart as we are. and knowledge and intelligence are not the same. those do not contradict.

 

Yes, they do. The only way you can reasonably conclude our H. sapiens ancestors were not as smart as we are is to look at their technology and say it is less than ours. But since knowledge and intelligence are not the same, you have no way to back your claim. So, on what basis do you say that our ancestors were not as smart as we are? No IQ tests. Brain size is identical. If you plop Einstein down in Europe 20,000 years ago, would he be able to survive? No. So how "smart" would Einstein be?

 

no intelligence cannot be referred to by current tests in my opinion. they do not test intelligence just capacity to complete tasks that intelligence is helpful for.

 

In which case, The Bell Curve and its conclusions are fatally flawed and worthless. If the tests they rely on to measure intelligence don't, then any conclusions involving differences in intelligence between different human groups are garbage. You have said The Bell Curve is GIGO: garbage in, garbage out.

 

Which happens to be what I said in my first post in this thread.

 

i never said the teachers were most intelligent, i said that they were up there with government, and i wasn't sure exactly where in the entire government. the number of humans that truly truly invent are really small, so small we learn most of their names in school.

 

No, you don't. Go to the EPO website and look at all the inventors.

 

my point is that in china farmers would not really have invented and certainly would not have been "inventor" type intelligent people. if they did then the system to allocate people by their abilities would have failed.

 

As it did fail. However, I'm not sure such a system ever existed in China. You need to post your source for this "fact".

 

there is inventing and then there is really really inventing as in, there is applying what others have learned and written in books to a new task and inherently knowing many of those things, or writing the books rather than reading them.

 

I'm confused. Which of those is "really inventing"? If you apply what others have learned and written in books to a new task, don't you then get to write a new book including the invention?

 

such governments wouldn't invent much they would be busy governing, such a society probably wouldn't grow technologically very quickly.

 

And did China "grow technologically very quickly"? NO! It was say behind the Europeans when they showed up in the 1700 -1800s. So, by the data you presented, the Chinese system really did NOT assign jobs according to intelligence! So there were probably a huge number of intelligent farmers who didn't get a chance, under the social system, to use their intelligence.

[someguy]

You need to give us a source for the data for these claims on how "ancient China" worked. I am finding data to the contrary.

 

" In addition, although the civil service examination was reinstituted by T'ang T'ai-tsung, almost all bureaucratic positions went to aristocrats during the entirety of the T'ang dynasty and only a small handful went to individuals recruited on the basis of the examination." http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CHEMPIRE/TANG.HTM

 

That isn't what you described. Are you going to claim it was entirely coincidence that the aristrocrats were the "most intelligent"?

 

 

 

What society? Pre-Communist? Communist? There is ample data that communist China assigned worth based on party membership and family, not intelligence. So, if you are dealing with pre-Communist China, when exactly are you talking about? Which dynasty? What part of that dynasty?

 

IOW, I'm asking you to post your sources. You are building your argument on premises you are presenting as "fact". I'm challenging those facts and you need to show that they are, indeed, accurate.

 

 

 

I'm using your criteria. By your criteria, Washington was intelligent. By HIS labeling, he was a farmer. Those two facts contradict your argument of farmers being "less intelligent".

 

 

 

You forgot the ability to make tools to make tools. Now, since "we have been adding over generations" to technology, it is obvious that technology itself can't be a criteria for how intelligent people are. Without realizing it, you contradicted your claim that our "cavemen" ancestors were not as intelligent as we are. Yes, they were, but had not had the time to add so much technology.

 

 

 

In which case you are undermining any meaningful distinction of "intelligence". That's the point: testing your criteria of what is "intelligence". I did that by showing that animals that we consider are "less intelligent" than humans meet your criteria. If they meet the criteria, then it is your criteria that are flawed. You need to come up with new criteria to measure the level of "intelligence".

 

 

 

Yes, they do. The only way you can reasonably conclude our H. sapiens ancestors were not as smart as we are is to look at their technology and say it is less than ours. But since knowledge and intelligence are not the same, you have no way to back your claim. So, on what basis do you say that our ancestors were not as smart as we are? No IQ tests. Brain size is identical. If you plop Einstein down in Europe 20,000 years ago, would he be able to survive? No. So how "smart" would Einstein be?

 

 

 

In which case, The Bell Curve and its conclusions are fatally flawed and worthless. If the tests they rely on to measure intelligence don't, then any conclusions involving differences in intelligence between different human groups are garbage. You have said The Bell Curve is GIGO: garbage in, garbage out.

 

Which happens to be what I said in my first post in this thread.

 

 

 

No, you don't. Go to the EPO website and look at all the inventors.

 

 

 

As it did fail. However, I'm not sure such a system ever existed in China. You need to post your source for this "fact".

 

 

 

I'm confused. Which of those is "really inventing"? If you apply what others have learned and written in books to a new task, don't you then get to write a new book including the invention?

 

 

 

And did China "grow technologically very quickly"? NO! It was say behind the Europeans when they showed up in the 1700 -1800s. So, by the data you presented, the Chinese system really did NOT assign jobs according to intelligence! So there were probably a huge number of intelligent farmers who didn't get a chance, under the social system, to use their intelligence.

 

 

mostly what i was talking about is the beginning of the qing dynasty, the end of the qing dynasty was the clash with western civilization. i'm not really very familiar with all other dynasties. you can look that up in any book about the qing dynasty.

 

no it's not a coincidence that the aristocrats were the most intelligent it was designed that way. it wasn't until the end of the qing dynasty when things started falling apart that you could buy a diploma. you needed to earn. your wealth did not and could not affect this. the better you did on the tests the better position you get in the government except for the emperor himself. the emperor had a bunch of concubines to make children with and then he chose one of his children to be successor.

 

washington and jefferson never lived in China in the qing dynasty, therefore i made no contradiction.

 

i never said said our ancestors were more or less intelligent than us. i said they were just as unintelligent as we are. remember?

 

it didn't have much to do with the time. we invented so much compared to them since we have learned from every generation before us (minus the middle ages i guess) thanks to language. were it not for language we would still be pretty much like monkeys today.

 

you spoke of one macaw being intelligent. not the whole specie. you said so yourself. anyways i never said humans were more or less intelligent than ALL animals. i don't remember exactly talking about it but if i did i said most animals. some animals are pretty smart.

 

I never gave any criteria for intelligence. i just speparated intelligence into a rating of three categories. and i said nothing of whether or not animals other than humans could fit into either of these categories. only that most animals fell under the first one. MOST.

 

i still don't know where you got the idea that i think our ancestors were less smart than we are.

 

 

when i was talking of teachers i meant in Qing dynasty China.

 

yes the system failed. it was not perfect. and the fact that europe was on their greed of going over the world and exploiting all other cultures for their resources so that they could sell it back home and make a buck didn't help. particularly because it made them introduce opium to the chinese so that they would get addicted and do business with the british.

 

 

your last sentence is wrong. now YOU seem to be defining a society's intelligence by technology. they were much more refined than us. they were advanced in different ways but did not care for technology and possessions the same way the europeens did. there are alot better ways of using intelligence than to invent silly trinkets. you implied by your sentence that lack of technology was a mis-allocation of intelligence whereas i would say it is evidence of the opposite. many societies like the mayans and stuff slowly killed themselves and deserted their cities because they grew too quickly and developed technology and cities too quickly, or not quickly enough depending on how you look at it, not in the right order at any rate. not at all dissimilar to what we seem to be doing on a global scale.

 

technology is much better for winning wars. yes. does winning a war make you right? no, it doesn't make you right, or your system of government good, or your people intelligent. it makes you good at winning wars, nothing more.

china was much more advanced in certain areas than the europeens. but i made that point that they would progress more slowly from a technological standpoint. i don't find that a bad thing. particularly that right now the planet's ecosystem is all messed up because of our great technology.

 

you are the one that doesn't know how the chinese government worked and you are telling me that i'm wrong and at the same time asking for sources because you never heard that before. so how are you in a position to tell me i am wrong about how the jobs were allocated in that place at that period? they had exams they needed to pass provincial ones and national ones and their jobs were based on those scores they were given. if there were very intelligent farmers then they somehow failed at their exams even with the pride and prestige that goes with good scores. all students worked incredibly hard to pass their exams the fate of their lives depended on it. have you ever been to asia? can't you observe the great work ethic of the asians in your own country? where do you think that came from? the exams, their culture in general how they were.

 

you know i appreciate your comments and whatnot but you seem to be a little pissed off. why are you so attached to your own style of government before even you know of others? is it because you live there? because you were born there? because everyone else around you thinks that way? you don't think you (your people i mean) are smarter than your ancestors. do you think you are smarter than the germans? you are not susceptible to being mistaught? what of the middle ages where kings and nobles were so rare and the rest were peasants that fought for them for nothing. is your people smarter than they were? how did this happen to them? or do you think it is a good idea to risk your life, and that of your friends and family for the wealth of a single greedy man and those close to him that work for him. you are right. you are not smarter than your ancestors, and if you look at them and their history, forget their technological achievements, look at the rest. doesn't that scare you that we are not smarter than they were? doesn't that make us look susceptible to exploitation and or "slavery" depending on how you define it? you seem certain that you are not smarter than they were and yet also certain you are under no illusions as they were. to me, that seems like a contradiction. How did Bush get elected?

 

when you dispute what i say you do me a service and i appreciate it. but you don't need to get all defensive and aggressive about it. this is not a fight.

 

I stated once before i think that the system was not perfect and was a work in progress, but if you wanna put holes in it you should look as to why it failed. part of the answer is one of its flaws and part of it describes the western philosophy and that part will not help your case.

[Steph]

I want to state that China grew technologically faster than any other place in the world. the things that made the difference in the 1700s when the western caught up and passed asia, was the discovery of the new world and the will to conquer lands. this simply gave Europe a huge boost in wealth enabling them to conquer more lands, etc.

 

The chinese model worked for nearly (or more... always forget the dates) 2000 years before a slight (and not that long if you think about it) setback in the 1700s.

[someguy]

it depends for what you're talking about. in the middle ages science took a break in europe. if you look at rome and compare it to even china of the qing dynasty rome has superior weapons and cities from a technological standpoint. the middle ages weren't really good for anything at all in my opinion. but ya the renaissance, Isaac newton, industrialism and capitalist conquest gave them the edge.

[lucaspa]

mostly what i was talking about is the beginning of the qing dynasty, the end of the qing dynasty was the clash with western civilization. ....

no it's not a coincidence that the aristocrats were the most intelligent it was designed that way. it wasn't until the end of the qing dynasty when things started falling apart that you could buy a diploma. you needed to earn. your wealth did not and could not affect this. the better you did on the tests the better position you get in the government except for the emperor himself. the emperor had a bunch of concubines to make children with and then he chose one of his children to be successor.

 

You need to cite this. Saying "any book will tell you this" isn't sufficient.

 

The Qing Dynasty went from 1644-1911 A.D. Actually, it was China ruled by foreigners -- the Manchus. "In terms of government, the Qing Dynasty adopted the form of government used by the Ming, with only minor adjustments. For example the positions were all dual positions, one Manchu and one Chinese were in the same position, with the Manchu having more power." http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/later_imperial_china/qing.html

This has nothing to do with scores on the test. The Manchu was ALWAYS going to have a higher position. Also, if you go back to the Ming dynasty, you find:

"While retaining the Confucian view that being a merchant is an inferior occupation, Hongwu discarded the belief that military too was inferior and developed a militant class that ranked higher than any civil servant." http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/china/later_imperial_china/ming.html

 

Intelligence has nothing to do with anything; it's all philosophy. What's more:

"Hongwu wanted to control all aspects of government so that no other group could gain enough power to overthrow him. With this goal in mind, he eliminated the prime minister's office and secretariat, leaving himself incredible amounts of work. As a result of this, the emperors were forced to rely on eunuchs for more administration purposes. This led to the eunuchs, for the first time, being educated. Families that weren't as wealthy or influential as they would have liked, often gained power when one of the males voluntarily became a eunuch."

 

Nothing here based on intelligence, but only on wanting to gain influence and willing to have your balls cut off.

 

Someguy: yes i don't consider farmers to be intelligent in the way i am speaking.

 

Lucaspa: I'm using your criteria. By your criteria, Washington was intelligent. By HIS labeling, he was a farmer. Those two facts contradict your argument of farmers being "less intelligent".

 

washington and jefferson never lived in China in the qing dynasty, therefore i made no contradiction.

 

Your comments on farmers being less intelligent were not limited to China in the Qing dynasty. You made the universal statement that farmers were not intelligent.

 

i never said said our ancestors were more or less intelligent than us. i said they were just as unintelligent as we are. remember?

 

You said: "our hunter gatherer ancestors were just as not smart as we are." Post # 18 in this thread.

 

Sorry, but you should be more careful to assert what you said when we have written record of what you said. Your own words refute you.

 

it didn't have much to do with the time. we invented so much compared to them since we have learned from every generation before us (minus the middle ages i guess) thanks to language. were it not for language we would still be pretty much like monkeys today.

 

Of course it has to do with time! You admit it yourself: "we have learned from every generation before us". 50,000 years ago, there weren't very many generations "before" them of humans! Technology follows an asymptotic curve which starts out with a small slope for a long time and then the slope gets very steep. It takes quite a bit of time to accumulate the basic knowledge necessary -- along with the technology to have spare resources so that people can be devoted to nothing but gaining knowledge. That has nothing to do with intelligence.

 

you spoke of one macaw being intelligent. not the whole specie. you said so yourself.

 

Not all of us are Einstein or Hawking, either, are we? That a macaque (not a "macaw") had that level of intelligence shows that the species has intelligence.

 

I never gave any criteria for intelligence. i just speparated intelligence into a rating of three categories.

 

That's the same thing.

 

I would define 3 sections of intelligence, but with varying degrees between them. so, it would be a smooth progression between each section with some nice gray areas but still 3 separate sections. the first would be incapable of comprehension like most animals and insects and stuff. next would be comprehension, and next would be invention. when i said intelligent i meant invention.

 

So, to be intelligent a being needs at least to 1) comprehend and 2) invent.

 

The problem is that animals that we don't consider "intelligent" also invent -- like the macaque.

 

when i was talking of teachers i meant in Qing dynasty China.

 

Cite your source, please. I don't find any generality about the qualifications to be a teacher in the Qing Dynasty. I do find something in Wikipedia about the examination system in general:

 

"Theoretically, any male adult in China, regardless of his wealth or social status, could become a high-ranking government official by passing the imperial examination, although under some dynasties members of the merchant class were excluded. In reality, since the process of studying for the examination tended to be time-consuming and costly (if tutors were hired), most of the candidates came from the numerically small but relatively wealthy land-owning gentry. However, there are vast numbers of examples in Chinese history in which individuals moved from a low social status to political prominence through success in imperial examination. Under some dynasties the imperial examinations were abolished and official posts were simply sold, which increased corruption and reduced morale.

 

In late imperial China the examination system and associated methods of recruitment to the central bureaucracy were major mechanisms by which the central government captured and held the loyalty of local-level elites. Their loyalty, in turn, ensured the integration of the Chinese state, and countered tendencies toward regional autonomy and the breakup of the centralized system. The examination system distributed its prizes according to provincial and prefectural quotas, which meant that imperial officials were recruited from the whole country, in numbers roughly proportional to each province's population. Elite individuals all over China, even in the disadvantaged peripheral regions, had a chance at succeeding in the examinations and achieving the rewards of holding office." http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=27789

 

So, it's not all about "intelligence". It's about knowledge and economic advantage, in that a rich family can hire tutors to enhance the knowledge base of an average family member so that he can pass the exam.

 

If you have contrary data, please post it with the relevant citation. Thank you.

 

your last sentence is wrong. now YOU seem to be defining a society's intelligence by technology.

 

No, I was testing your assertions that 1) intelligence is related to technology and 2) that Qing Dynasty assigned jobs based on intelligence. Now, IF those are true, then the deduction is that Chinese technology should have been equal to or in advance of the European. But it wasn't:

Lucaspa: "And did China "grow technologically very quickly"? NO! It was say behind the Europeans when they showed up in the 1700 -1800s. So, by the data you presented, the Chinese system really did NOT assign jobs according to intelligence!"

 

You are making ad hoc hypotheses to avoid falsification.: "they were much more refined than us. they were advanced in different ways but did not care for technology and possessions the same way the europeens did. there are alot better ways of using intelligence than to invent silly trinkets."

 

You haven't provided any evidence or examples for your "much more refined than "us" (altho I certainly was not a European of the time) or "advanced in different ways". For one thing, the Chinese didn't invent the novel until the Qing Dynasty, whereas the Europeans had it long before.

 

you implied by your sentence that lack of technology was a mis-allocation of intelligence whereas i would say it is evidence of the opposite.

 

Why? The Mayan example doesn't cut it, because the reality is they didn't have the appropriate technology in the form of crop rotations and fertilization to maintain the fields. IOW, it's not that the Mayans developed technology, but that they did NOT develop agricultural technology. Oh, but you don't need intelligence to farm, do you? Hoist on your own petard!

 

ALL populations will procreate so that they outstrip their resources. What technology does is expand resources faster than population. Biology ensures population increase. Intelligence causes resource increase.

 

yes. does winning a war make you right? no,

 

We aren't talking morals/ethics here, but intelligence. The ability to win a war and gain resources for your people does indicate intelligence. The inability to see the danger in opium would reflect on the relative intelligence of the Chinese (by your criteria), wouldn't it? After all, if the Mayans were not intelligent for failing to see the disconnect between population growth and agricultural resources, wouldn't the Chinese be equally deficient for failing to recognize the connection between opium addiction and social collapse? Sauce for the goose.

 

Of course, I avoid that slanderous indictment of the Chinese by simply not tying "intelligence" to either technology or foresight.

 

why are you so attached to your own style of government before even you know of others?

 

This has nothing to do with any style of government! This is about testing individual statements you are making. Are those statements true? Is there data out there that refutes them?

 

Remember, my thesis is that there is no statistical difference in intelligence between ANY human population. The bell-curves of individual IQ scores (or any other measurement of intelligence) is statistically identical between populations. Any "difference" is due to methodological errors of the analysis and/or cultural bias of the tests.

 

YOUR thesis is that there is difference in intelligence between populations, whether that population is occupation (farmers vs teachers) or government -- Chinese. All I'm doing is testing your thesis and I find it wrong.

 

The evidence that I am doing a good job at showing your thesis (not YOU, but your THESIS) wrong is that you have tried to turn this aside to the irrelvancy of government and then making it personal on what I think: " is it because you live there? because you were born there? because everyone else around you thinks that way? you don't think you (your people i mean) are smarter than your ancestors. do you think you are smarter than the germans? you are not susceptible to being mistaught? "

 

I stated once before i think that the system was not perfect and was a work in progress, but if you wanna put holes in it you should look as to why it failed. part of the answer is one of its flaws and part of it describes the western philosophy and that part will not help your case.

 

If the system had "flaws", then it didn't do what you say it did, did it? Since I am not advocating any superiority of Western philosophy, I have no "case" to help.

 

Western Europe (unconsciously) adopted a different method to encourage people to use their intelligence: they would be monetarily (materially) rewarded under capitalism. Have you ever looked at Burke's TV series Connections? He traces the series of inventions (your final criteria of intelligence) that led to many of our advanced technologies. The incentive for much of that was material gain. People were rewarded for intelligent thinking and the "examination" was the marketplace. That as much as anything accounts for the rapid advancement of European technology, combined with a difference in philosophy with the Chinese. The Chinese insisted, based on their philosophy, on looking at things as a whole. Therefore their inventions, while impressive, were accidents. Gunpowder is a prime example. It took the Europeans to make 1) practical cannon, 2) individual firearms and 3) better explosives because they could take the system apart and see how it worked. Not "more intelligent", but a different philosophy.

 

Since the merchant class was looked down upon by Chinese philosophy, there was no way to get advancement by coming up with new inventions and ways to do anything: no one would listen to merchants. But Europe was all about merchants and anyone with a better way of doing things -- inventions -- was going to do better both monetarily and socially.

 

Again, no difference in "intelligence" between Europeans and Chinese, but a huge difference in motivation.

[someguy]

yes, eventually diplomas were sold near the end of the qing dynasty when cixi was empress. this was because of one of the flaws of that system i was referring to. i never said that intelligence means there is technology, i never said a being had to invent to prove they were intelligent. I was saying there are 3 levels of intelligence, the completely unintelligent, the able to comprehend and understand language. and the last is the type that creates language, the philosopher, the type with the capacity to invent, that does not mean that they will develop technology, especially if their philosophy dictates they should do otherwise.

 

yes the manchus invaded and owned china and unlike you they were wise enough to notice the efficiency and value of the chinese government and chose to adopt it.

 

i never made the universal statement that farmers were less intelligent you must have misinterpreted me.

 

 

i never said said our ancestors were more or less intelligent than us. i said they were just as unintelligent as we are. remember?

 

You said: "our hunter gatherer ancestors were just as not smart as we are." Post # 18 in this thread.

 

Sorry, but you should be more careful to assert what you said when we have written record of what you said. Your own words refute you.

 

last time i checked "our hunter gatherer ancestors were just as not smart as we are." and "i said they were just as unintelligent as we are." these both mean the same thing with different words.

 

well it shows that one of the specie has intelligence, like you said we are not all einstein, but there is a line that must be drawn where an animal has no intelligence whatsoever and some intelligence. that line could be drawn right through a specie. just because one of the specie has intelligence it does not follow that all others do.

 

 

it's not the same thing. criteria for intelligence is criteria for intelligence. separating the gradient of intelligence from zero to whatever, is just separating the gradient of intelligence. criteria for intelligence would be saying that in order for an animal to be intelligent it must wonder and adapt congitively to a situation. it must be able to outsmart another animal, and it must be able to disobey its emotions. those are criteria. an iq test is not criteria of intelligence it is a grading system of intelligence.

 

biology does not ensure population increase if it did animals would never go extinct. sure you could say that lack of technology is what killed the mayans, or you could say too much technology did, you could also say that we are going to ruin our planet because we have too much technology, or you could say it is because we do not have enough. well.. i don't feel like going all into it but to me it is clear that it is too much technology that will ruin the earth, and depending on technology to dig us out is just digging our own graves. at least the mayans had the insight to leave their cities.

 

how do you propose to test intelligence?

 

anyways i don't think this all started with me rejecting your hypothesis outright, i think, and i do mean think, that i said something like i don't know whether populations are smarter than each other but i know that china had a governmental system that was geared towards intelligence rather than greed and thast may have had the effect of evolving into a more intelligent specie.

 

no more technology does not mean more intelligence better guns does not mean more intelligence. the chinese did not know what opium was until they started to get addicted to it and the government tried to get the british to stop selling it to china, they even wrote letters to the king and whatnot, but the british, who only wanted profit, did not care about the suffering of the chinese people and continued to grow opium in india purely for sale in china so that china would do business with them. the opium wars ensued and that's how the uk got to own hong kong.

 

you misunderstand what i mean by invent, that's why i said truly invent. there are many inventors who are able to invent only because of the discoveries of other men. only because newton discovered physics, things like that. putting ideas into practice is easy. truly inventing is rare. many inventions are just simple logical next steps of technology, some are built by entire companies and not by one single individual. i wish i had never used the word invent. it has completely misled you.

 

you are making a case right now aren't you?

 

i never said the system was flawless i just said it was better than ours.

 

exactly, western society was designed to have trinkets inventions, wealth for the wealthy poverty for the poor, and exploitation of the weak. if you can find a way to make me more money i'll give you some. then without thinking logically about whether or not things should be produced they are just produced since producing them brings wealth. all unethical things that bring wealth are done since wealth is the goal of western civilization. don't you find it such a primitive goal? owning trinkets? mere possesions? toys? these it seems to me are the desires of children. to want want want and once you receive slight enjoyment and then boredom with that and want want wanting again. greed is a thirst that is never quenched because possession is not water, it is only a mirage.

 

the eastern philosophy was work work, learn learn. build a government that will look out for the interests of it's people without wasting man power on stupid things like lavish palaces with huge fountains. the ability to protect it's populations from invaders and from natural disasters.

 

i'm not saying all the chinese are smarter than we are, but i'm saying it could be a possibility. and i'm saying that their system of government was much better than ours because it was geared towards putting the smartest people in the highest positions of government, it was a system that aimed to produce plato's philosopher kings.

 

you can believe me or not i don't care, you are so far into disagreeing with me that even if you did start agreeing with me you would never show me anyways. so whatever, believe what you want, i have said what i have to say. I feel that anything further would just be pointless bickering.

[Questiontwo]

Thanks for an interesting read =)

[dichotomy]

This is supposed to be the reason why people of recent African origin are disproportionately represented in top class sportspeople, such as olympic runners. Since the genetic normal distribution curve is wider in those of recent African descent, there will be more at the top end of exceptional sportspeople. Of course, if this is true, there will also be more at the other end of the curve.

 

What about the other factors that decide athletic talent -

Afro-american ancestors where hand picked by those looney slave traders for their good health and physical strength. Male and female slaves where coupled like thoroughbreds, dramatically increasing the chances of producing very healthy offspring. Surely this distorts the figures.

 

Also, lifestyle is a huge factor. Physical activity, length of activity, type of activity, diet, rest, etc. These are huge factors.

 

Intellegence would work the same way - genetics and environment (as has been pointed out).

 

cheers.

[SkepticLance]

To dichotomy

 

You are correct in suggesting that single factor causation can be erroneous.

 

I doubt that selection for good health as slaves would be a major factor, though, since many of the exceptional African athletes came from Africa, and never had slave ancestors. eg. the Kenyan and Ethiopian runners.

 

The surprising thing about African athletes is that there are so many exceptional ones, despite an incredible lack of wealth, good diet, and athletic amenities and coaching to develop them.

 

Exceptional athletes, like exceptional thinkers, cannot be simply made through environmental manipulation, though diet, exercise etc are important. They must start with an exceptional genome.

[dichotomy]

They must start with an exceptional genome.

 

That is shaped via environmental pressures and opportunities.

 

Cheers.

[lucaspa]

i never said a being had to invent to prove they were intelligent. I was saying there are 3 levels of intelligence, the completely unintelligent, the able to comprehend and understand language. and the last is the type that creates language, the philosopher, the type with the capacity to invent, that does not mean that they will develop technology, especially if their philosophy dictates they should do otherwise.

 

What do you do with the macaque that invented a way to separate sand from wheat? Was that macaque a philosopher? Did she comprehend and understand language? It would appear that she skipped a level of intelligence. That is data against your idea of "levels of intelligence".

 

unlike you they were wise enough to notice the efficiency and value of the chinese government and chose to adopt it.

 

Who is "you"? Me? Americans? Western Europe? The data indicates that the Chinese model was not that effective, since 1) it was conqueored by the Manchus to begin with and 2) disintegrated later in the 20th century.

 

i never made the universal statement that farmers were less intelligent you must have misinterpreted me.

 

I quoted you making that universal statement! Sorry, you can't deny it because it is there in this thread for anyone to look at it.

 

You said " yes i don't consider farmers to be intelligent in the way i am speaking. "

 

That's a universal statement. And in case you think you meant Chinese, go back to my last post and note that you thought Washington and Jefferson were intelligent because they were NOT farmers.

 

You also said "but you don't need to be smart to be a farmer. "

 

last time i checked "our hunter gatherer ancestors were just as not smart as we are." and "i said they were just as unintelligent as we are." these both mean the same thing with different words.

 

I stand corrected.

 

well it shows that one of the specie has intelligence, like you said we are not all einstein, but there is a line that must be drawn where an animal has no intelligence whatsoever and some intelligence. that line could be drawn right through a specie. just because one of the specie has intelligence it does not follow that all others do.

 

1. We don't have to draw a line between "no intelligence whatsoever and some intelligence". Some concepts in biology are such that absolute lines are impossible.

 

2. The last sentence in the quote also applies to humans, but we don't draw a line through a species. Instead, we take the whole species and make the judgement based on the capabilities of the best in the species. Above you noted that "philosophers" had level 3 intelligence. However, you wouldn't draw a line of "intelligence" in the human species.

 

 

But you already made a criteria. In order to be intelligent by your system a being must be "able to comprehend and understand language". After all, if it can't do that it can't be at your second level!

 

Now you seem to be introducing other levels of intelligence: wonder and adapt cognitively to a situation. How do you detect "wonder"? You also say " it must be able to outsmart another animal,". Is that higher or lower than adapting cognitively or the ability to use language?

 

an iq test is not criteria of intelligence it is a grading system of intelligence.

 

And a very poor one.

 

biology does not ensure population increase if it did animals would never go extinct.

 

Yes, it does. Read Origin of Species, particularly Chapter 3 "Struggle for Existence". EVERY species has the ability to produce more offspring than the environment can support. This is because reproduction increases geometrically.

 

Extinction occurs when 1) population increase outstrips resources and 2) the environment changes such that the species can no longer earn a living.

 

but to me it is clear that it is too much technology that will ruin the earth, and depending on technology to dig us out is just digging our own graves. at least the mayans had the insight to leave their cities.

 

1. For the Mayans, it wasn't "insight", but necessity. They were starving in the cities because the farms couldn't produce enough food for the entire population.

2. What will "ruin the earth" is too many people. And that will happen no matter what species you have. Too many buffalo would eat all the plants. Fortunately, humans have technological means to limit reproduction; other species do not.

 

how do you propose to test intelligence?

 

I don't know of any good tests for intelligence.

 

anyways i don't think this all started with me rejecting your hypothesis outright,

 

It started out with me testing your hypotheses, altho you didn't recognize them as hypotheses. I took statements of yours (hypotheses) and tested them. The data refuted the statements.

 

i think, and i do mean think, that i said something like i don't know whether populations are smarter than each other but i know that china had a governmental system that was geared towards intelligence rather than greed and thast may have had the effect of evolving into a more intelligent specie.

 

You don't have to "think" about what you said. You can go back in the thread and look at what you actually said. And yes, that was one of your hypotheses. It doesn't work because 1) China's governmental system didn't work like you said it did, 2) passing examinations isn't all there is to intelligence, and 3) it won't lead to more intelligent species unless a) the people passing the exams had more children than other people and b) there is no interbreeding between the ones who passed and the ones who didn't. Neither of those conditions apply. Someguy, just how much do you know about evolution? That's not an insult, but an honest question.

 

the chinese did not know what opium was until they started to get addicted to it

 

But why did the numbers of addicted continue to grow? By your theory, the Chinese should have been more intelligent and, after they had seen the effects of the first few addicts, should have never tried opium. Yet the numbers of addicts grew and grew.

 

Also, if the Chinese government was so effective, why did they have to plead with the king of England to get England to stop. Surely an effective government would have had other means of keeping opium out of the country. Do you see what you are doing? In an attempt to excuse the Chinese, you refute your own thesis about the intelligence of the Chinese and the effectiveness of their government. Without realizing it, you are slandering the Chinese.

 

you misunderstand what i mean by invent, that's why i said truly invent. there are many inventors who are able to invent only because of the discoveries of other men. only because newton discovered physics, things like that. putting ideas into practice is easy. truly inventing is rare.

 

1. EVERYONE invents only because of the discoveries of other men. After all, if nothing else, every invention involves language, and that was invented by our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

2. Nearly all hypotheses in science are products of the imagination. They are not digests of observations. There is always an inventive leap between observation and hypothesis.

3. Well, you've told us what you did NOT mean by "invent" . Now please tell us what you did mean.

 

i never said the system was flawless i just said it was better than ours.

 

No, you said the system functioned a particular way. Now we find out it did not function that way at all. Leave the value judgements aside and step back and be objective.

 

exactly, western society was designed to have trinkets inventions, wealth for the wealthy poverty for the poor, and exploitation of the weak.

 

No, that's not how Western society was designed. You missed the point.

1. In order to have "trinkets inventions", you have to make strides in fundamental knowledge. Before Edison can make a light bulb, there has to be fundamental knowledge into electricity.

2. The society was open enough that the poor could become the wealthy IF they used their intelligence.

3. Commerce is NOT "exploitation". It's a 2-way street. Both the vendor and the consumer get benefits.

4. Much of the incentive was competition with fellow capitalists: able to find a better and/or cheaper mousetrap. Getting better quality products for less price is not exploitation. What you have missed is that even the poorest of people in the West have a lifestyle that only kings could have afforded thru most of history.

 

don't you find it such a primitive goal? owning trinkets? mere possesions? toys?

 

Are toilets "trinkets"? How about antibiotics? How about airplanes that convey you to visit relatives that live far away from you, or ships that bring you fresh fruit from all over the world? For 50 years between 1800 and 1850 there was no fresh milk in New York City because the city was so large that wagons took too long to bring milk from the farms. When the "trinket" of trains were invented (for the purpose of making money), then milk could be transported to the city. Is having fresh milk for children so they don't get rickets a "toy" or "mere possession"?

 

The cotton gin was invented to make money, but the idea of machines to do manual labor adapted to other areas opened up the huge productivity we have now. Productivity such that only a few of us actually produce goods. Most of us are now free for other activities because of this excess wealth in society: everyone gets an education because they don't have to hand work on a farm anymore, lots of leisure time, and many people pursuing intellectual careers such as art, literature, music, and science. Is the ability to have more and more people pursue these intellectual and emotionally fulfilling pursuits "mere possession"? Why would you think that is so?

 

Have you ever looked at the demographics of Qing Dynasty China? How many people got a college-level education? How many were musicians? Artists? How many worked the farms from morning to night? What was the standard of medicine? How many doctors? You can continue the list.

 

it seems to me are the desires of children.

 

It seems to me that the inability to really think thru the problem and look at all aspects is an attribute of childhood.

 

build a government that will look out for the interests of it's people without wasting man power on stupid things like lavish palaces with huge fountains.

 

Excuse me? How big is the Forbidden City? How many servants did it take to maintain the place?

 

the ability to protect it's populations from invaders and from natural disasters.

 

Well, you already told us how ineffective they were at the former. Anyone looking at the death tolls from flooding of the rivers, typhoons, and earthquakes tells us how ineffective they were at the latter.

 

i'm not saying all the chinese are smarter than we are, but i'm saying it could be a possibility.

 

By your criteria, no they can't. After all, many Chinese are farmers, which you say are less intelligent. Many Westerners are not farmers, meaning that they are smarter than those Chinese.

 

i'm saying that their system of government was much better than ours because it was geared towards putting the smartest people in the highest positions of government, it was a system that aimed to produce plato's philosopher kings.

 

Not by all the information we have, including that told to us. Remember, the kings were still hereditary. And as for "better", well, it fell apart to be replaced by Communism. It didn't do so well, did it? After all, the smartest people ended up in opposition. After all, one criteria of intelligence you noted was the ability to outsmart another animal. Well, first the Westerners and then Mao and his comrades outsmarted the Qing Dynasty. Pretty clever of the British, wasn't it, to introduce opium to weaken China?

 

you can believe me or not i don't care, you are so far into disagreeing with me that even if you did start agreeing with me you would never show me anyways.

 

Please stop projecting your flaws onto me. Sure I would. The problem is that you have wed yourself to a set of ideas and won't listen to any evidence that is contrary to your set beliefs. Look at the evidence! Then change your ideas when the evidence contradicts them.

 

The problem now is that your ideas simply aren't defensible. That's too bad, but it is the way it is.

 

An interesting genetic observation is that people today of recent African descent have more diverse genomes than those of other 'races' such as white European or Chinese Asian.

 

This is supposed to be the reason why people of recent African origin are disproportionately represented in top class sportspeople, such as olympic runners.

 

Can you give me a source for both the genetic observation and the "reason"? I thought the reason was that 1) their physiology was lighter build and 2) their culture involved more long distance running.

 

 

Not "disproportionate". That would imply a skew to the curve or a shift of the curve.

 

Exceptional athletes, like exceptional thinkers, cannot be simply made through environmental manipulation, though diet, exercise etc are important. They must start with an exceptional genome.

 

Yes, exceptional athletes can be made thru environmental manipulation. That's the whole point of training programs.

[SkepticLance]

lucaspa said ;

 

I thought the reason was that 1) their physiology was lighter build and 2) their culture involved more long distance running.

 

I am not an expert on this subject and just repeated a comment I saw in a newspaper. I am sure that the excellence of African athletes has many causes. However, it will not be just lighter build, since there are also heaps of Africans in sports requiring heavier build.

 

Talking about Africans as 'their culture' is a bit misleading also. Africa is a continent, and contains numerous cultures, some of which are very different to others.

 

lucaspa also said :

 

Yes, exceptional athletes can be made thru environmental manipulation. That's the whole point of training programs.

 

That's part of it. However, to get to olympic standard is beyond the vast bulk of humanity. You need both the genetic advantage and the training.

[dichotomy]

lucaspa said ;

 

I thought the reason was that 1) their physiology was lighter build and 2) their culture involved more long distance running.

 

I am not an expert on this subject and just repeated a comment I saw in a newspaper. I am sure that the excellence of African athletes has many causes. However, it will not be just lighter build, since there are also heaps of Africans in sports requiring heavier build.

 

Talking about Africans as 'their culture' is a bit misleading also. Africa is a continent, and contains numerous cultures, some of which are very different to others.

 

lucaspa also said :

 

Yes, exceptional athletes can be made thru environmental manipulation. That's the whole point of training programs.

 

That's part of it. However, to get to olympic standard is beyond the vast bulk of humanity. You need both the genetic advantage and the training.

 

Athletic advantage is attributed to fast and slow twitch muscle fibres. I believe in certain olympic events like swimming, fast twitch fibers are a disadvantage, due to the fact that they don't 'float' in water as well as slow twitch. I could be wrong here.

 

http://run-down.com/guests/je_black_athletes_p2.php

 

"For years it was axiomatic that muscles have two types of fibers - white, or fast-twitch, which were thought to be adapted for power movements, such as leaping or sprinting; and red, or slow-twitch, which were adapted for endurance. Now we know the model is more complicated. There are in fact two different types of fast-twitch fibers, one more metabolically efficient. Whites on average have a higher percentage of slow-twitch fibers than West African blacks who generally have more of both types of fast-twitch fibers."

 

cheers

[lucaspa]

lucaspa said ;

 

I thought the reason was that 1) their physiology was lighter build and 2) their culture involved more long distance running.

 

I am not an expert on this subject and just repeated a comment I saw in a newspaper. I am sure that the excellence of African athletes has many causes. However, it will not be just lighter build, since there are also heaps of Africans in sports requiring heavier build.

 

Talking about Africans as 'their culture' is a bit misleading also. Africa is a continent, and contains numerous cultures, some of which are very different to others.

 

We were talking specifically about long-distance runners. The area of Africa where the best long distance runners come from is eastern Africa and the people there tend to be taller and leaner than elsewhere in Africa. And the culture in Ethiopia and Kenya does tend to favor long distance running. I thought the context was clear (after all, you set up the context) and didn't think I needed to be specific. I hope this clarifies my remarks.

 

lucaspa also said :

 

Yes, exceptional athletes can be made thru environmental manipulation. That's the whole point of training programs.

 

That's part of it. However, to get to olympic standard is beyond the vast bulk of humanity. You need both the genetic advantage and the training.

 

We don't know that olympic standard is beyond the vast bulk of humanity simply because the vast bulk of humanity never tries to get to olympic standards. They simply don't spend the time and money necessary to do the rigorous training necessary. Of those that do, most perform at olympic levels, but the competition is such that the number of entrants are limited, therefore it depends on who does a little better on any given day during qualifying trials in each nation. After all, in smaller nations, people get in that could not have made the cut in larger nations.

 

I would note that several military units train vast numbers of men (and women) to olympic standards.

[SkepticLance]

lucaspa said :

 

We don't know that olympic standard is beyond the vast bulk of humanity simply because the vast bulk of humanity never tries to get to olympic standards.

 

This is what I would consider an extraordinarily naive statement. I am sure you do not really mean it. A few minutes thought will tell you that most people simply have not the capability. For every 100 athletes in top condition, people who excel at sport, training vigorously, maybe one makes it to olympic standard.

 

I remember when I was a teenager. The Education Department had set up these certificates for excellence in sport. All you had to do was pass certain physical tests, and win the certificate, which carried a lot of status. I was a lousy sprinter. I worked like hell to pass, and could not. Some other guys did no training at all and passed easily. To suggest we all have olympic potential is nonsense.

[Revenged]

The area of Africa where the best long distance runners come from is eastern Africa and the people there tend to be taller and leaner than elsewhere in Africa. And the culture in Ethiopia and Kenya does tend to favor long distance running. I thought the context was clear (after all, you set up the context) and didn't think I needed to be specific. I hope this clarifies my remarks.

 

I agree that there are definitely some environmental explanations due to why East Africa produces good runners... I know someone mentioned different muscle types... Another explanation why East Africa produces sprinters is that many of the East African sprinters were brought up in high altitude villages... If you are at high altitude for long periods the number of red blood cells in the body increases to counteract fact that there is less oxygen in the air at altitude... More red blood cells means more oxygen to muscle and so it is increases stamina... So you can run for longer...

[AL]

lucaspa said :

 

We don't know that olympic standard is beyond the vast bulk of humanity simply because the vast bulk of humanity never tries to get to olympic standards.

 

This is what I would consider an extraordinarily naive statement. I am sure you do not really mean it. A few minutes thought will tell you that most people simply have not the capability. For every 100 athletes in top condition, people who excel at sport, training vigorously, maybe one makes it to olympic standard.

 

That doesn't really refute what he said though. If 100 athletes train, and only one makes it to a given standard, you cannot rule out that the other 99 simply didn't train as hard as the one, or else other factors got in the way (maybe athletes have different diets/nutrition, or maybe one athlete got sick during a crucial qualifying round, etc.), which you necessarily must do if you want to say the one got ahead by his/her genes.

[SkepticLance]

To Al

 

The point behind what I said is that genetics is vitally important in determining athletic ability. I accept that training, diet etc are also important. But you cannot discount genetics. Are you denying this?

[dichotomy]

Genetics plus environment are both crucial in determining what athletic ability most suits a person. Athletics covers everything from huge weight lifters to long distance runners, from high jumpers to sumo wrestlers. Of course, one needs the right genes for the job to begin with if one wants to excel in a particular athletic area. So, genes are the foundation I suppose. But genes are totally useless without the right environmental factors such as training, diet, altitude, culture.

 

cheers

[AL]

To Al

 

The point behind what I said is that genetics is vitally important in determining athletic ability. I accept that training, diet etc are also important. But you cannot discount genetics. Are you denying this?

I don't deny that genetics very plausibly plays a role, but we do not have any studies that allow us to claim we know if genetics is what separates the best of the best athletes from those below them. The "gold standard" would be to take two genetically distinct people, raise them from childhood to adulthood in the exact same environment, feed them the exact same diet, and give them the exact same training regimen. For obvious practical (and ethical) reasons, this cannot be done. So as of now, there is simply no way to defend the statement "to get to olympic standard is beyond the vast bulk of humanity" for genetic reasons.

 

However, it might be feasible to do such an experiment on athleticism in animals. If you are a kinesiologist, this might be a research area of interest for you.