[Luke]

Educational research has time and time again highlighted the limitations to the idea of IQ. As other posters have highlighted, IQ tests (intentionally or not) tend to focus on aspects which are culturally linked. To draw a poor illustration, imagine we have a White Caucasion University graduate from Cambridge with a PHd in Astrophysics. A westernised IQ test would focus on his grasp of English, Maths (written and mental arythmatic), etc etc and would place the graduate far ahead of a Masai tribesman with little or no comprehension of number or written language. However, if his tribe of nomadic sub saharan peoples constructed an IQ test focussing on what is important to THEM, (perhaps depositing the two candidates in the middle of the desert for a month) the White man would probably be dead within 24 – 48 hours. Who would be the smarter of the two using the data from that test? The other problem with analysing the data which you have is that a huge proportion of non whites do not have access to the same quality of education as westerners. When minority ethnic groups DO find themselves in a western country with free education afforded them there are often other hurdles to overcome which can inhibit academic achievement (eg role models, Mother tongue not being English, poverty, emotional / behavioural difficulties relating to social and / or economic isolation / trauma experienced in their country of origin, institutional racism etc.). As chaos theory instructs us, seemingly simple systems often have complex underlying structures.

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Name : Luke, Gender : M, Age : 26, City : London, State : WY, Country : United Kingdom, Occupation : Science Teacher, Social class : Upper class, 

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