Working classes are less intelligent, says evolution expert

[Inventor]

Working classes are less intelligent, says evolution expert (http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Working-classes-are-less-.4108730.jp)

WORKING-CLASS students have lower IQs than those from wealthier backgrounds and should not be expected to win places at top universities, an academic has claimed.
Bruce Charlton, an evolutionary psychiatrist at Newcastle University, has written a paper asserting the reason why fewer students from poor families are admitted to Oxford or Cambridge is not because of social prejudice, but lack of ability.

He suggests that low numbers of working-class students at elite universities is the "natural outcome" of "substantial" IQ differences between classes.

He told The Scotsman yesterday, in an interview conducted by e-mail at his insistence: "Poor people have lower average IQ than wealthier people... and this means that a much smaller percentage of working-class people than professional-class people will be able to reach the normal entrance requirements of the most selective universities."

Dr Charlton said the average child from the highest social class is up to 30 times more likely to qualify for admission to a highly selective university than the average child from the lowest social class.

His claims could trigger an outcry similar to that faced by the Nobel prize-winning geneticist James Watson, who was forced to apologise after claiming that African and Caribbean workers were "demonstrably less able" than white ones.

However, Dr Charlton argues it is precisely the fear of creating controversy that prevents other academics taking the same line.

He said: "That is why such obvious scientific truths have not so far been stated clearly, or have actually been denied.

"(This theory is] accepted among those who know and understand the research."

He goes on to question the government's drive to get more students from poor backgrounds into top universities.

"The UK government has spent a great deal of time and effort in asserting that universities, especially Oxford and Cambridge, are unfairly excluding people from low social-class backgrounds and privileging those from higher social classes. Yet in all this debate, a simple and vital fact has been missed: higher social classes have a significantly higher average IQ than lower social classes."

Ministers insist the debate should be focused on helping young people realise their potential. Bill Rammell, Westminster's higher education minister, said: "These arguments have a definite tone of 'people should know their place'.

"There are young people with talent, ability and the potential to benefit from higher education who do not currently do so. That should concern us all."

Sally Hunt, general-secretary of the University and College Union, warned: "It should come as little surprise that people who enjoy a more privileged upbringing have a better start in life."

ANALYSIS

IQ, OR intelligence quotient, measures the ability to perform abstract reasoning and speed of learning.

But a debate rages over whether IQ tests are completely accurate and if their results are a reliable indicator of somebody's true level of intelligence.

Although tests may assess analytical and verbal aptitude well, they are not an accurate test of creativity, practical knowledge and other skills involved in problem-solving.

Many see IQ tests as an assessment of an individual's problem-solving ability, rather than general intelligence.

Others argue that they just show how good the individual is at IQ tests, especially during childhood.

[ZOG]

"High proles" or "low proles"?

Some of the former are pretty smart guys actually, working in an office generally pays less then skilled labor.

[Breckinridge Elkins]

"High proles" or "low proles"?

Some of the former are pretty smart guys actually, working in an office generally pays less then skilled labor.

That's technically true, Weikel, but not necessarily correct.
There are many factors involved

In other words, I wouldn't say that in front of somone like Steve Sailer who actually has the data in front of them.

All I know is that I'm a skilled laborer and working for peanuts, but once again, there are other factors involved.

[Angocachi]

Steve Sailer is a Jew with a lopsided head... whatever data he has.

[Breckinridge Elkins]

Steve Sailer is a Jew with a lopsided head... whatever data he has.

You sound like a drunken neo-con.

[UberSwank]

Working classes are less intelligent, says evolution expert (http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/latestnews/Working-classes-are-less-.4108730.jp)


So the evolution expert who doesn't do real work is smart enough to get paid to state the obvious... That intelligent people are more likely to be wealthy and that dumb people aren't. Since dumb people aren't likely to be wealthy, they are almost certain to swell the ranks of the working class. Yes, smart people are more likely to be wealthy because its easy to suck money from people stupid enough to pay this guy.

[Iconoclast]

Generally true. In the U.S., though, you do not necessarily need a high I.Q. to achieve admittance into a top-tier university. A high I.Q. person is one who can nail the SAT with little effort and preparation, not one who practices excessively and spends thousands of dollars on training courses (more likely if you're wealthy).I'd say doing well on the SAT, ACT, GRE, etc., always requires some kind of preparation, since no one is born knowing the meaning of words like "obstreperous" or knowing how to quickly solve "mixture" problems in algebra. But there are different kinds of preparation.

When it comes to coaching and cramming for admissions tests, I tend to be somewhat skeptical of their effectiveness. In fact, I believe studies (cited in The Bell Curve, IIRC) have shown that cramming for the SAT yields minimal gains, with rapidly diminishing returns as study time increases. Then again, someone who has extremely poor test-taking skills may benefit substantially from certain kinds of coaching.

Long-term preparation is another matter. Although academic tests like the SAT are obviously correlated with innate intelligence -- this is true of any academic achievement or aptitude test to some degree -- that's due to the simple fact that people with more innate intelligence tend to more rapidly acquire math skills, vocabulary knowledge, etc. Psychologists call these broad-based, acquired skills "crystallized intelligence" (Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystallized_intelligence)). Still, even for people of high innate ability, an incredible vocabulary and split-second fluency with numbers and geometry usually can't be acquired overnight. It's something that happens over years.

This leads to a point about where it really might pay to be rich: access to better schools, both public and private. (Although my parents weren't rich, they did scrape up enough dough to put me in a pretty good private high school, and I noticed the difference from my public middle school right away.) I think more rigorous schooling makes a substantial difference in performance on all kinds of tests over the long run. It develops more "crystallized intelligence." I seriously doubt I would have done as well on the SAT as I did if I had gone to my local public high school -- even if I'd taken a prep course and studied for 1000 hours.

Moreover, many poor kids who have the prospect available to them will take the generous scholarship offered by a lower ranked school rather than the enormous debt load that accompanies Ivy League admission. This is, of course, different with the wealthy who can rely upon their parents to partially or wholly fund their college education.That's definitely true. There are many people in lower-tier schools who are every bit as smart as those in the most selective schools. I do believe you'll find a much greater concentration of extremely smart people in the Ivies, MIT, etc., than in public universities, but by no means is everyone at Harvard smarter than everyone at the University of North Dakota.

[Iconoclast]

One other thing:

IQ, OR intelligence quotient, measures the ability to perform abstract reasoning and speed of learning.

But a debate rages over whether IQ tests are completely accurate and if their results are a reliable indicator of somebody's true level of intelligence.

Although tests may assess analytical and verbal aptitude well, they are not an accurate test of creativity, practical knowledge and other skills involved in problem-solving.

Many see IQ tests as an assessment of an individual's problem-solving ability, rather than general intelligence.

Others argue that they just show how good the individual is at IQ tests, especially during childhood.

IQ tests most certainly do measure mental abilities, both innate and acquired. But different tests tend to emphasize different abilities. Thus, IQ tests are not perfectly correlated. It really makes no sense to say "my IQ is 150" unless you either state which test you took to get that score.

There's a guy named Ron Hoeflin who's a big figure in the ultra-high-IQ community (or mutual admiration society, depending on how you look at it). Here's what he has to say on the matter:

Though Ron dropped out of his first three colleges, he now has two bachelor's degrees, two master's degrees, and a Ph.D. in philosophy. He modestly claims an IQ of only 164, though he says that arriving at a final number is tricky. "I've gotten scores ranging from 125 to 175, depending upon what cognitive abilities they're tapping into," he says. "The fact is, nobody really knows exactly what you're supposed to be measuring when you're measuring IQ."

Ron is a self-taught expert in HiQ testing. He is credited with creating two of the world's most difficult IQ tests, the Mega and the Titan. Ron is fascinated with human potential, human limits. He is interested in world records of every kind: running times, weight-lifting records, home-run tallies, the number of digits of pi a person can memorize. Since 1979, he has founded four HiQ societies, mostly because he was interested in the psychometric possibilities of forming such groups, given the numerical rarities involved. He makes his living putting out monthly journals for two of the clubs and also by scoring his tests for twenty-five dollars each. That he lives in one of the most expensive cities in the world with annual earnings of about $7,000 is perhaps the truest testament to his genius.
http://web.archive.org/web/20010421133040/http://www.uga.edu/bahai/News/110x99.html

"Only 164" -- LOL. That's incredibly high.

[The Green Man]

I think this hinges on what you define as "working class". It has become politically correct to label low-class individuals, especially those who do not work, as "working class", giving them a dignity they do not deserve. The actual working class is not cognitively deficient in my experience, in particular the "high proles": mechanics, electricians etc. The difference between a skilled trade and a university degree is mostly one of motivation or circumstance, the difference between a skilled trade and a lumpenprole is mostly one of genetics. This is the attraction of facism: is attempts to minimize difference in status between those who work, and maximize difference in status between those who do and those who don't. By contrast, Marxism lumps those who work in what are lower status jobs under capitalism together with those who either don't work or form the criminal underclass, hoping to unite them as a mass for the purpose of using them as a hammer against the bourgeousie.

[DudleySmith]

Given that almost 70% of real wealth is inherited, and so-called 'Ivy League' colleges usually reserve some 20% or more of their slots for 'legacies', I don't know what to make of entrance exam scores or 'IQ' tests. Using George W. Bush, as one example, and from reading past histories, not only of the U.S. but England too, the economic and governing 'elite' usually weren't particularly interested in intellectual achievement as much as what they considered 'leadership' or 'ruling' skills and abilities.

It's harder to get into some public universities than Harvard or Yale; George W. couldn't even get through grade school in Texas, a supposedly 'academically weak' state, but magically gets through the Phillips-Andover 'experience', yet after that 'elite' education couldn't get into the University of Texas at Austin; miraculously he attends Yale and Harvard ...

On the other hand there are dropouts like Bill Gates and that other guy, Ellison or something, I forget, the Oracle hustler, that is always sneering at college 'education'. In any case, getting a college degree these days isn't very difficult for the most part; I worked at several high tech firms in the 90's and was truly amazed at the general illiteracy of people with engineering degrees from San Jose State. I'm convinced 8th grade dropouts from the 1950's are better educated than most college grads these days, from personal experience. What all this has to do with IQ is still up in the air for me; I don't think the genetic aspect is nearly as important as the environmental and personality aspects. There is a very large group of people who do well in academic environments that completely lose it out in the real world.

[The Exorcist]

Given that almost 70% of real wealth is inherited, and so-called 'Ivy League' colleges usually reserve some 20% or more of their slots for 'legacies', I don't know what to make of entrance exam scores or 'IQ' tests. Using George W. Bush, as one example, and from reading past histories, not only of the U.S. but England too, the economic and governing 'elite' usually weren't particularly interested in intellectual achievement as much as what they considered 'leadership' or 'ruling' skills and abilities.

It's harder to get into some public universities than Harvard or Yale; George W. couldn't even get through grade school in Texas, a supposedly 'academically weak' state, but magically gets through the Phillips-Andover 'experience', yet after that 'elite' education couldn't get into the University of Texas at Austin; miraculously he attends Yale and Harvard ...

On the other hand there are dropouts like Bill Gates and that other guy, Ellison or something, I forget, the Oracle hustler, that is always sneering at college 'education'. In any case, getting a college degree these days isn't very difficult for the most part; I worked at several high tech firms in the 90's and was truly amazed at the general illiteracy of people with engineering degrees from San Jose State. I'm convinced 8th grade dropouts from the 1950's are better educated than most college grads these days, from personal experience. What all this has to do with IQ is still up in the air for me; I don't think the genetic aspect is nearly as important as the environmental and personality aspects. There is a very large group of people who do well in academic environments that completely lose it out in the real world.

Texas K-12 schools are nothing special but the UT law school (which Bush tried to get in) is technically ranked at 19 on USNews. However, I've never been one to care about rankings overall. The way I see it, you either went to an IVY League school or you didn't. At least that seems to be the only difference in the workplace.

[Gravity Bastard]

This old chestnut again....

You see academics always confuse academic performance with exam results. Your wealthy offspring hot-housed in an environment of total learning (ie parents who drive their children on to higher and higher levels of test passing and examination results at all levels) will enter top universities. Hence automatically this fuck nut makes a simple mistake, he assumes his statistics point to a simple answer to his original hypothesis.

It's a well known fact in engineering that graduates of prestige engineering schools will often flounder in the pressure cooker world of design and build. This is simply because they lack creative thought and have instead(what my Prof. called) thought by rote.

Now a fellow who was that broke when he was at University and finished with a 2.2 degree in Electrical Engineering was forced to maintain his car through a variety of different tactics including rebuilding his engine using scrapped parts and pieces he had made himself in his tiny shed. He gets to grips with problem solving and design at the sharp end, he knows what will work and what wont work. He knows people who work in engineering who have experience through many years of manual trade who explain simply the best ways to approach a problem.Those penniless years trying to study and work at the same time means he gathers practical skills which he takes to his employer....who gives him a junior position to two Brookes scholars of engineering. Now he is the key problem solver of the company who finds himself called on to sort out the myriad of problems Senior design staff find themselves in when their Engineering skills don't translate very well from their luscious degree to the gritty world of shit that don't work.

[DudleySmith]

However, I've never been one to care about rankings overall. The way I see it, you either went to an IVY League school or you didn't. At least that seems to be the only difference in the workplace.

I always looked at the 'Ivy League' as just another social club where the wealthy and connected meet the wealthy and connected from other places around the country, so it's the Network that matters, not the educational quality. There are likely Jr. Colleges that offer a higher quality of education, outside of the sciences, but having brains and no high level contacts is pretty much nowhere if you're from a low income family; might as well just save your money and use it to go into business, or spend the 4+ years developing a business, than waste it on college.

[bardamu]

Generally, the characteristic that separates the intelligence of high proles from that of college graduates is the ability to read a book. Culturally many of these superb mechanics are complete ignoramuses, but it all comes out in the wash as most of them have their common sense well intact, which all things considered is probably more important than the ability to consume ideas through books. Now I am off to read about California Indians back in the day, and am damn glad I can.

[The Exorcist]

I always looked at the 'Ivy League' as just another social club where the wealthy and connected meet the wealthy and connected from other places around the country, so it's the Network that matters, not the educational quality. There are likely Jr. Colleges that offer a higher quality of education, outside of the sciences, but having brains and no high level contacts is pretty much nowhere if you're from a low income family; might as well just save your money and use it to go into business, or spend the 4+ years developing a business, than waste it on college.

depends on what you plan on doing with your degree from college.

[The Exorcist]

Ja. The big firms know they can more easily enslave you when your undergraduate and law school debt amounts to $200,000 (or more). Absent a generous scholarship or a rich daddy, they're not economically worth it.

The way the current market is going, being a slave at a law firm is better than not having a job in the first place... at least for the first couple of years.