This Ought To Get Some Replies

[purnell]

It has nothing to do with "race", whatever that is, and everything to do with poverty and substandard basic education. I know the anarchist types here don't feel like they have any responsibility in this regard, but the fact is we can't just lock them all up. It is in wealthy people's own interest to try to break the cycle of poverty.

That was kinda my starting point purnell, though I'll admit to having found out a few things I didn't previously know as this thread has progressed, particularly with regards to physiological differences in brain structures.

Nevertheless, I still find the original post idiotic. Not because of the subject matter or the assertion, I wouldn't restrict anything from intelligent debate, and this is a pretty interesting subject. But offensive because of the insulting and racially denegrating way his view was expressed.

On the issue of IQ, there seem to be a number of contradictory facts floating about, but there's enough evidence that some kind of claim about a racial factor in IQ can be reasonable. That said, there are a lot of other factors outside of race involved in this, a lot of mixed views in research from what I can tell, and every evidence that the recorded gap is closing (for whatever reason). On top of which, low intelligence was only one of a number of charges Phil made. The others were poor coping skills, aggression and anti-social behaviour. All of which are anecdotal and/or based on fuzzy statistics where race is only one of a score of variables. Mainly it's offensive because the OP presents himself as just plain not liking blacks.