Intelligence is not Black or White.

An expert in genetics said recently that Africans are not as intelligent as whites. He's since recanted his position saying he was misunderstood. I hope that this is the case because if not he obviously forgot where we got mathematics, chess, and the number zero.

I can assume that the "expert" is a very intelligent man, and it's not very intelligent to call a whole race of people unintelligent. It causes me to think how the expert would have turned out if he had been born black, in a mud hut, in a remote part of Zimbabwe. No doubt his superior intelligence would have enabled him to make better hunting spears, but would he have reached the privileged position that he now enjoys?

By what standard can we judge the intelligence of a whole race of people? Is it fair to assume that wisdom is a big part of intelligence? According to all the religions, wisdom and virtue are one and the same. Can we assume that an African living in a mud hut is less virtuous than a Rhodes Scholar from Manhattan? Is it wise to criticize a culture that has evolved along different lines than us because they don't drop everything and do things our way?

Surely intelligence is relative. People are all the same, but every one of us is different.

By our way of thinking the Jews show more intelligence than any race on Earth, but would you like to be living in Israel right now? The Germans are very intelligent too, but they lost two world wars and almost got bombed back into the stone age. The same IQ tests that show sub Saharan Africans to be less intelligent than white men also shows that Asians are brighter than we are. Judging by the way China is taking us all for a ride, and by the way the Japanese make cars, I'm inclined to think there may be some truth in it. But intelligence is a tricky thing to measure. Who among us does not feel more intelligent after a few pints of our favorite brew? But are we really more intelligent, or are we simply more deluded?

Does confidence inspire intelligence? If so, where does confidence come from? Does confidence come from starting a hundred yard dash at the ten yard line?

Let's face it, might is right, and the most intelligent people on Earth are obviously the Anglo - Saxon - Celtic mix that evolved on the British Isles. Amongst other things we conquered the North American Continent. In between fighting amongst ourselves we managed to eradicate the native population and import African slaves to do the dirty work. The anglo -saxon - celtic mix has changed the world. As a result the concept of intelligence, according to us, means to be like us.

Maybe the Africans don't want to be like us. Maybe they have evolved a different kind of intelligence. Maybe the Sub Saharan Africans had no desire to invent the wheel. The effect of not having wheeled things and forcing animals to pull them around is certainly showing in the world of sport. Jesse Jackson says that when given an even playing field the blacks can show their worth. Who can doubt that the African Americans have superior athletic skills? On the other hand who can doubt that in general American blacks show inferior skills on the white mans IQ tests? Maybe it's because they have no interest in the white mans version of intelligence. But does this indicate a lower intelligence? I don't think so.

In his book, "How the Mind Works" Steven Pinter writes “…Intelligence, then, is the ability to attain goals in the face of obstacles by means of decisions based on rational (truth-obeying) rules. The computer scientists Allen Newell and Herman Simon fleshed this idea out further by noting that intelligence consists of specifying a goal, assessing the current situation to see how it differs from the goal, and applying a set of operations that reduce the difference."

Perhaps reassuringly, by this definition all human beings, not just the white skinned ones, are intelligent. We have ‘desires’ and we pursue them using ‘beliefs‘, which when all goes well, are at least approximately or probabilistically true.

Steven Pinter was writing about artificial intelligence. He described how difficult it is for scientists to create artificial intelligence in robots. He was also building a case for evolutionary psychology where it’s thought that the mind works like the body. He writes If the body has multiple organs that are all dedicated to one particular task then it is not inconceivable to think that the mind could work in the same way. Just like the body, the mind has evolved through the ages by adapting to challenges in the environment; and like the body, the mind has responded by creating different ’parts’ to deal with specific tasks.

He says that throughout the ages we have always been striving to reach the ‘goal’ of survival by making decisions based on what we believed to be true. And yet, almost all of our beliefs were wrong. We’ve survived by believing the Sun revolved around a flat earth. We’ve also survived Gods named Apollo and Zeus, and we’ve survived many myths. In fact, we’ve got here, to this day and age, by believing many false truths. Winston Churchill believed himself to be “Not a common man“, yet he is on record as saying that in fifty years we will no longer grow the chicken, we will only grow the edible thighs and breast. Yer right, but to be fair he was probably drunk when he said it.

Some researchers define intelligence as what is measured in intelligence tests, but others argue that this definition is inadequate and that intelligence is whatever abilities are valued by ones culture. Conceptions of intelligence vary from culture to culture. North Americans associate verbal and mathematical skills with intelligence, but some seafaring cultures in the islands of the South Pacific view spatial memory and navigational skills as markers for intelligence.

If our minds and bodies have evolved different parts to deal with different tasks, then surely the planet Earth, in the name of survival, has evolved different kinds of people. Just as the kidney must get along with the heart, so to must we learn to get along with other kinds of people. It is not very intelligent to disregard anyone.

If Al Gore is correct about CO2 and global warming, and I have my doubts about his intelligence, the Earth could soon become un-inhabitable for the human race. If his warnings come true then at least the Sub Saharan Africans will have the last laugh.

"Don't blame us!" One of them will say. "It was you lazy white folk that wanted to be pulled around on wheels, not us."

The last words, spoken by a stark naked and very sweaty Eskimo might be: "Those white blowhards were as dumb as a box of rocks."