Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Is intelligence inherited? Does the race really go to the swift?

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Recently, James Barham wrote about the growing class divide in the United States, in “The Parable of Belmont and Fishtown,” as portrayed by Charles Murray in his essay “The New American Divide” and a forthcoming book. (The working class are not bitterly clinging to religion and guns; they are undergoing a collapse of religious and family values.)

One troubling aspect of Charles Murray’s thesis is that he believes that intelligence is, generally, inherited. He worries about what will happen when, in upper middle class enclaves, the most talented people marry each other.

Oh please! Not this again! The infamous Bell Curve (racism, classism, etc.) revisited.

Murray is raising some critical issues about the drift of America toward a class-based society and class warfare as an inevitable outcome. So let’s expel the ghost of the Bell Curve right now, and then we can get on with what matters.

The Tale of Two Racehorses may provide a clue for how to proceed:

Comments
The bible says we are made in the image of God. Its impossible therefore for beings made in the image of God and this the thinking ability of God , unlike animals, to be different from each other in our intellectual capabilities. A bible believing Christian can not believe our intelligence is part of the natural world. Except in memory issues. In the after life we will think without need of our brain. Then we are from Adam/eve and its impossible they were less intelligent then us innately and so no need or time for evolution to make a difference in people. Evolutionism is once again leading the ideas about inferior/superior intellect in mankind. Just like you know when. Don't blame Christianity or creationists if this takes off again. Its not just undesirable but unreasonable , unobservable, and unlikely that humanity walking by us has different brain abilities! Its not reality today and not in the past when great segregational results were obvious. Finally intelligence difference could only be known bu differences in results. Always men were more intelligent, to use that word, then women. Yet it was always understood to be because of motivations based on segregated roles in society. Always I understood that the English or British people were the most intelligent in human history yet never would one say its from genetics as this would included the many Germanic or Celtic peoples of Northern Europe. i understood a little and a great deal more now that it was the protestant reformation that made many sizeable minorities in the protestant countries more motivated to gain in knowledge etc and do better. Then a rising tide raises all ships. This was most evident amongst the English and Scottish puritan evangelical types. This carried to America. Thus the reason for greater intelligence is free will motivation. Religion was the motivation or what they used to call the protestant work ethic. Not a work ethic but in fact a motivation. This is why the present English dominance is here on the planet. yes a result of superior intelligence etc but not from impossible ideas of innate genetics. I find these folks who strive to re introduce genetic smart ideas never start from looking at results of history but only after the mingling of peoples. I mean they never say English people were number one in history in smarts but instead as long as they don't say the WASP is number one they can bring the subject up! As long as white men(WASP) are not the smartest then its okay to talk about genetic smarts relative to race/sex. They only look at conclusions after conclusions are rejected. In short if all men were innately equal it would be that mingling with the best would raise everyone after immigration. Their results are a grand cheat . Results are king. The results are in and the world speaks English Protestant. Then all kinds of peoples are as smart as English Protestants after assimulation ine way or another. The sum of it all is all babies are equal in brains and simply free will acting upon knowledge within reach equals smarts. OBVIOUSLY!!Robert Byers
January 28, 2012
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