Do you think race affects mental ability / thinking?

I'm sure I've seen a thread about this before, but I just wanted to put it into a poll to see it laid out a bit clearer. I think that if humans physically adapted to their different environments, why is it so wrong to hold the idea that maybe we adapted to our environments psychologically as well? Not necessarily to say that one race is "smarter" than another, but possibly possesses a greater ability in certain areas or approaches things differently. An arctic fox probably processes things somewhat differently from the sort of fox you'd see in England, right? Then again, it has been shown through studies and such how little "human nature" we actually have as a species, and that the majority of our psychology is learned as opposed to biological.

I would say that it is definitely possible for such a thing to have occurred between the races and many scientists and researchers still to this day have been trying to answer this question (some for the wrong reason, in my opinion). that said, we still don't have a complete answer on the subject and i don't think assumptions should be made on the incomplete evidence we do have.

I feel there are slight differences but since mainly our mental development depends on our environment, and how we're treated it doesn't mean a lot(or at least I assume such).

Humans are not comparable to foxes or dogs. The genetic variability of people is not nearly so wide as dogs or cats. There may very well be -slight- differences but I doubt that they could be distinguishable unless the people were raised in exactly the same way. Even if they were I doubt that there would be much of a difference that could be measured since humans make irrational decisions and develop feelings outside their control that guide them into most of their activities. Such arguments of intelligence are completely useless when you talk about individuals and are impossible to distinguish from cultural arguments at larger numbers.

In our exchange with cogarian888, Rev Scare and I explained why we believe the hereditarian position (i.e., that the racial achievement gaps are primarily attributable to genetic variance) is untenable, and provided data supportive of the environmentalist explanation. I encourage you to review the literature for yourself.

Moreover, to assume that human psychology was permanently shaped by environmental pressures via natural selection during the Paleolithic is to entertain the notion of there being an "evolutionary psychology"—which happens to be a highly speculative academic discipline. The alternative hypothesis is that humanity is endowed with cortical plasticity, which would have equipped our ancestors with the means by which to adapt to changes in their environment (and thus aid in survival) with much greater ease than the static cognitive modularity postulated by evolutionary psychologists.

Also, I take issue with your poll options. The only option you provide those supportive of the environmentalist hypothesis with is "No, that's evil crazy person talk," which implies that anyone who disagrees with hereditarianism merely does so for moral reasons.

Celtiberian wrote:Also, I take issue with your poll options. The only option you provide those supportive of the environmentalist hypothesis with is "No, that's evil crazy person talk," which implies that anyone who disagrees with hereditarianism merely does so for moral reasons.

That poll option wasn't meant to indicate my views on such people, it was more a lighthearted joke about certain leftists *ahem* Revleft *cough cough* who won't even discuss the issue because they're paranoid about being called racist. My apologies if it seemed that way.

DSN wrote:That poll option wasn't meant to indicate my views on such people, it was more a lighthearted joke about certain leftists *ahem* Revleft *cough cough* who won't even discuss the issue because they're paranoid about being called racist. My apologies if it seemed that way.

It's quite all right, comrade. I agree that RevLeft's refusal to even discuss these subjects is unbelievably childish and reflective of how little they understand matters beyond the history of Marxian socialist thought.

I reject the phrasing of your last option, which seems to imply that the non-hereditarian position on racial differences in cognition is irrational. This is simply false.

Rev Scare wrote:I reject the phrasing of your last option, which seems to imply that the non-hereditarian position on racial differences in cognition is irrational. This is simply false.

See above.