...Constantine-Simms University of Essex (UK) & Marciea Monique McMillian University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (USA) ABSTRACT The publication of Hernstein & Murray’s (1994) “The Bell Curve” appears to be the latest expression of pseudo scientific theories with respect to race and intelligence. This paper gives an historical and ideological insight behind the development and application of intelligence tests by citing examples of their impact on legislation, social policy and intervention programmes in relation to Blacks. More importantly, a discussion of cultural bias in test design focuses on the response of Black psychologists who developed Black intelligence tests that portray whites as intellectually inferior in the same manner that Blacks are portrayed as intellectually inferior on tests devised by white psychologist. Furthermore, The hereditary perspective of intelligence is challenged by empirical evidence that centres on children with white ancestry to assess whether white genes influence intelligence while citing several sources that support the environmental explanation of the race gap in test scores. Consequently, this discussion questions the reliability and validity of intelligence tests that are used to reinforce the Black intellectual inferiority myth. The conclusive argument suggests in no uncertain terms that the Bell Curve is nothing more than the repackaging of racist pseudo-scientific conclusions by right wing academics, intent on rekindling a political...
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...There is always a scope of conflicts due to culture variations. The article “Impact of cultural intelligence level on conflict resolution ability” talks about the importance of cultural intelligence level and how this helps to resolve the conflicts. “Therefore, this model presents that a higher level of cultural intelligence positively affects and predicts whether an individual will select an appropriate conflict resolution strategy fitting for the cultural backgrounds of those involved in the conflict” (Ramirez, 2010, p. 2). The author starts off with briefly discussing why it is so important for the business leaders to use different conflict resolution strategies using the cultural intelligence level of the persons involved in the conflict. The author first described the gaps in the current studies of “impact of culture intelligence level in resolving the conflicts” and then explained how the current model would fulfill those gaps. This model helps leaders to prepare different strategies and to use the correct strategy based on the cultural intelligence level of the persons involved in the conflicts. The model considers culture intelligence level as independent variable and conflict resolution ability as dependent variable and the how these two variables are related to cultural intelligence characteristics and versatility. According to the article, high cultural intelligence people fall under “high confusion acceptance people.”These people expect some...
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...he is referring to technology i.e. tools, accessories, and other complicated inventions. So Diamond rephrases the question as such: “Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents?” (Pg. 16) Yali’s question gets Diamond motivated to research and write this book on the history of everyone for the past 13,000 years. He attempts to peel back the layers of the past like an onion and explore the roots of power in the modern world. The question motivating the book is that: “Why did history unfold differently on different continents?” (Pg. 9) Diamond has traveled the world for the past 30 years looking for answers to eventually come up with this well thought out theory to this question; it is not because of intelligence due to racial differences but rather environmental differences. As stated before this book emphasizes on the search for ultimate explanations, and on pushing the causes of history as far back as possible. Modern history has been shaped by conquest, conquest of the world by Europeans. The secret of their success: guns, germs, and steel. Since then people of European origin have dominated the globe. Most of this book deals with people other than Europeans; it focuses on the interactions between Europeans and non-Europeans, and also differences in interactions between non-European people....
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...Craniology In God, Women, and the New Physics, Wertheim reports that craniology is a scientific discipline. So what is it? Craniology is the measurement of the skull. Craniology has two functions: (1) measure the size, shape, and the proportion of the skull comparing to body size; (2) interpretation of the data from measuring the skull. In the middle of the eighteenth century, "masculine mien" thought that women should not freely mix with men in science. They claimed that men must stay away from women in order to attain serious intellectual engagement. According to Pythagoras's Trousers, Wertheim wrote, “The science and femininity were being constructed as opposites whereas science was associated with reason, objectivity, and facts, women were associated with feeling, subjectivity, and literary allusion” (147-148). Men and women are created to serve different purposes. Since women are associated with feeling, subjectivity, and literary allusion, they were not meant for science. The anatomists discovered the way to measure the various sizes, shapes, and the proportion of the skull comparing to body size which is called craniology. The anatomists wanted to find the scientific evidence to support their claim that women are intellectually inferior to men. According to Pythagoras's Trousers, she wrote, "After careful measurement, anatomists "discovered" that women's skulls were smaller in proportion to their bodies than men's (Wertheim 148)." This concluded that intellect...
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...Grit vs. Intelligence During the short video the Psych talked about having the Perseverance to overcome anything and sticking with your guns to achieve true success in life. Don't we all know people who are extremely smart, maybe they even test in the genius range on IQ tests, but they end up being far less successful than expected. You might also know someone who has average intelligence but is passionate about what they do and they stay the course until they see success, even if it takes years to achieve. Dr.Duckworth's research showed that students who measured high on the Grit Scale got better grades and also had more job success after graduation than those who scored lower. Grit is defined by Dr. Duckworth as the combination of passion and perseverance. Passion is defined in the dictionary as "a powerful emotion" that when applied towards a career or endeavor, can keep a person motivated and moving forward. Perseverance is defined as "steady persistence in a course of action." That means the willingness to work hard in the face of adversity and to keep going despite setbacks. Although there are very intelligent people on the face of this earth, a good 65% of them have almost zero drive and end up getting bored with their positions and want to move on to something else. Like the good doctor was saying, saying that most of the IVY league, Yale students who are majoring in law, end up not wanting to be lawyers and since they have enough credits to be a doctor the students...
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...everything we do, people look for reasons for the end of mankind. In 1985, Isaac Asimov's written text Robots & Empire asked the question: will robots be the solution to our problems or will they be the root cause for the end of humanity? (Asimov, 1985) In response to Asimov, this argument will undoubtedly attack the statement, by saying that: Despite the large advancements in science and technology due to robotics, many texts theorise that this sector of technology poses a massive threat to the human race. To further defend this point two key texts will be addressed, they include: I, Robot, a fictional movie that exemplifies the fact that Robots can take over humanity and an article from renowned author George Dvorsky who ponders over the possibility of Robots becoming sentient and fighting for their rights, resulting in the end of human beings. Using both the fictional and non-fictional text it will be proven beyond doubt that future robotics pose a massive threat to the human race. Ever since Fritz Lang’s, Metropolis movie, robots have been a reappearing figure in the film industry and are often represented as a threat to the future world. A prime example of this is the text I, Robot. When hitting the screens in 2004, I, Robot, brought about some opposing debates about robotics, ultimately arguing whether future robotics will be beneficial or harmful. The beginning of the film consists of the creator of robots, Dr. Lanning committing suicide. However Detective...
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...of intelligence described by Howard Gardner. The following nine are how he broke them down and descriptions of each. 1. Linguistic Intelligence. Linguistic intelligence means that a person is very good at expressing themselves in words. Language is easy for them and they can convey what they are feeling, seeing or thinking into words easily. 2. Logical/Mathematical Intelligence. This type of intelligence uses the brain to think of and solve equations or to come up with a hypothesis and come to the logical conclusion through reasonable deduction. 3. Musical Rhythmic Intelligence. This type of intelligence can identify music by patterns or can even help people play by ear without any real instruction in music. 4. Bodily/Kinesthetic Intelligence. This type of intelligence can make you into a gifted dancer who performs intricate moves or it can make you a great sports star. Either way you use your body in ways that for most isn’t easy. 5. Spatial Intelligence. Using spatial intelligence means seeing the big picture in your mind and also seeing the steps to get to your end goal before you even start. An example of this would be an artist painting a picture or a chess player seeing all his moves from the moment his opponent moves his first piece. He plans out the path he is going to take and then does it. 6. Naturalist Intelligence. This type of intelligence means that you are sensitive to your natural surroundings and can relate to it. 7. Intrapersonal Intelligence. This...
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...of Our Human Race The article “The Destiny of Our Human Race” show that people are not the same. We are all born in natural way but in different aspects in life. God made us unique in some way that we have our own talent, we have skills that we can only see it in our self. Talents that we can enchance, talents that can lead to our success in life. God made us unique because of some reason. We are wonderful creatures of god at some point that we should not compare our self to others. “The Destiny of Our Human Race” pointed our the stages; monads in monads we are all born with intelligence and therefore monads was create by it’s spiritual intelligences and a material hope. The whole purpose of evolution acquires human mind. The next says that from the moment of our birth our minds are empty and we filled it up while growing up because we are logical beings. As the title says “The Destiny of Our Human Race” it means that man has it own knowledge. Men are considered monads because we acquire eternal pilgrim which develop our knowledge. We existed as spirits and make us monads. This is the reason why we integrate our self with a man’s body in order to use our knowledge and intelligence. Our mind is like an empty states because back then we are born without anything knows about this world. We are learning it step by step process. We study to learn. We all use or intelligence for us to learn something. In journey of life we people acquire intelligence. Intelligence teach us to become...
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...Introduction Questions of our future have often been raised about our ability to share this world with what is known as “Artificial Intelligence.” Will they really make our lives easier or will they put the human race completely out of work? Will they ever become smart enough to learn and think for themselves or is it possible that they’ll become “too smart” and one day and take over the world as we know it? Many pieces of literature have been written, and many movies have been released, prophesying the demise of the human race and our damned fate into slavery to the very machines that we’ve created. Though there is a very thin line between the world of science fiction and the presence of science in “our world”, there are a lot of fears that are conceived due to speculations of the unknown and not enough hope in all of the things that we do know! The idea that humans are imperfect and have made mistakes consistently since the beginning of time, of course, isn’t comforting when considering that should we succumb to this ill fate it will be because of our own doing. However, the proven ability of our race being capable of recognizing, analyzing, correcting and improving upon our mistakes is exactly what has gotten us this far. From wars to medicine, from politics to parenting, sometimes we fail but eventually… we always succeed; so I wouldn’t be so quick to count us out of the game just yet. AI: The Beginning The word computer, in a nutshell, “refers to an object...
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...the debate as to whether there really are more than one species of human. The civil war was largely triggered by southern plantation owners who didn’t want to give up their slaves. These slaves were of African descent, and many southerners regarded them as having less rights than white folk. During the civil war, there was a lot of debate about the science behind race...
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...the Wealth of Nations. Westport, CT: Praeger. Citation: Berhanu, Girma. (2007). Black intellectual genocide: An essay review of IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Education Review, 10(6). Retrieved [date] from http://edrev.asu.edu/essays/v10n6index.html. Abstract I review the book IQ and the Wealth of Nations, written by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen. I critique the authors’ major assertion that a significant part of the gap between rich and poor countries is due to differences in national intelligence. The authors claim that they have evidence that differences in national IQ account for substantial variation in per capita income and growth of a nation. This essay review debunks their assumptions that intellectual and income differences between nations stem from genetic differences. This critique provides an extended review of the research literature that argues against these assumptions and presents a different picture from that presented by Lynn and Vanhanen about the concept of intelligence, what IQ measures and does not measure. The essay exposes the racist, sexist, and antihuman nature of the research tradition in which the authors anchored their studies and the deep methodological flaws and theoretical assumptions that appear in their book. The low standards of scholarship evident in the book render it largely irrelevant for modern science. This essay specifically deals with the IQ value of Ethiopian immigrants that came from Israel, used by the authors as representing the...
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...its set in the late 90’s and the dilemma the characters go through is trying to stop the creation of the supercomputer “Skynet” that spawns a robotic race of human eradicating beings that will eventually try to wipe out the human race if they don’t succeed in their mission. As we have all grown older now I see so many of the similarities of this movie and the potential for this fiction to shift towards a harsh reality that our society is very possibly going to witness one day. In the following pages, my research has shown me many mistakes, though ground breaking and very interesting, but in my opinion has already pushed us to a tipping point. After all of my research I must say, we the people, in order to create a more than perfect human, have just uncovered the next reason our race faces possible extinction from this planet one day. The history of artificial intelligence The term artificial intelligence or A.I. has been around since the fifties and was conceived by a group of scientists at the Dartmouth College in Hanover New Hampshire. They originally projected they would be able to build a computer that could simulate every feature of human intelligence within thirty years. This obviously has proven very difficult and to have done it in thirty years was impossible. Though we can explain many things about the human race, to explain how the brain comes to every...
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...Multiple Intelligences Theory: alvin almonte "It's not how smart you are that matters, what really counts is how you are smart." ~ Howard Gardner Have you ever sat in a class where you thought to yourself how much more you would get out of it if the teacher would incorporate something visual along with his/her lecture? Is the instructor aware that you may learn more effectively by looking at visuals rather than simply listening to him/her lecture for an hour? Or maybe it would help if you could physically create something in order to understand the subject that was being discussed? What is your primary intelligence? Let's find out: (click here). How can the knowledge of your personal learning style help you to become more knowledgeable? Can you utilize this knowledge both in and out of the classroom? Whatever your personal learning style is, chances are that it is part of Howard Gardner's Multiple Intelligences Theory. Howard Gardner, Ph.D is the founding father of the Multiple Intelligences Theory. Formerly a Senior Co-Director of Harvard University's Project Zero, Howard Gardner's proposed his theory of multiple intelligences in his 1983 book, Frames of Mind. Project Zero, established at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education in 1967, continues to "help create communities of reflective, self-directed learners, to encourage the pursuit of deep understanding within and across disciplines, and to promote critical and creative thinking" (9). Gardner's...
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...Michael Hurtado 9/15/11 Critique on Anthropology and Race, Ch. 5 Discarding Race, Dealing with Racism Race and racism has been a very controversial and confusing subject for many decades. Although is seems to have made progress over the last couple of decades, it really has not but subsumed to a more dormant topic in education. After reading the fifth chapter of Anthropology and Race by Eugenia Shanklin, I have realized the complexity of the word race and the many descriptions, meanings, and methods used to define this word. As long as there are different races, racism will continue to be a part of society. I somewhat understand as to why this topic is rarely discussed and not properly taught in education systems. Also how the different approaches anthropologists have tried to explain race and racism as either a cultural or scientific method. In today’s society, race is not discussed in the classrooms of education. As time goes on the importance of explaining, in detail, what race really is, does not seem necessary because the nation’s values state that everyone is equal, which discards the idea of race. Race is the classification of people into group in the world, due to cultural, physical, geographical, and biological aspects; or so we like to believe it. As described in Anthropology and Race, Anthropologists believe that when discussing the topic of race, people automatically divide themselves into groups and then believe and defend these groups. Why is this...
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...I do not think the culture-fair test is fair. Since a lot of the intelligence tests were designed by white males. It is as if they were creating the tests for themselves so they would look superior to everyone else in other cultures. Everyone thinks differently from one another because we each have a different mind set. Each individual learns a different way and not at the same pace. So why make us take these intelligence tests when they are far from fair to each individual? I do not see the point in stereotyping individuals in their scores. Since stereotype threat is a major issue individuals of different races deal with. For instance, black students took a verbal aptitude test and their scores were lower than others because it was suppose...
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