The World IQ statistics says that the USA lies in the 20th place for the average IQ after the most of other "advanced" European and Asian countries. Does that mean that nonetheless our politicians are trying to attract smart people from poorer countries, our country is still getting more and more stupid! I'm pretty sure that that is the consequence of the awful educational system we're having. First, a person needs to be really interested in getting knowledge to really get some. And we all know that it's really difficult to raise the interest of a teenager to something besides booze and sex. And second, even if you have that interest you have to pay for everything! (Books, scholar programs, extra skills, high edu etc.) Which is hardly affordable for a large amount of people. Seems that someone who invented that system didn't want us to leave our castes. Cause a person has to be really genius to get a grant for higher education after a public school

At 8/27/14 11:36 AM, Light wrote: It has more to do with the fact that America has the highest poverty rate in the developed world. Poverty has been proven to have detrimental effects on IQ.

Believe it or not, America's performance on various metrics of education, such as reading, math, and science tests, is actually pretty damn good if you exclude those test-takers who come from impoverished backgrounds. It goes to show just how important it is to keep poverty and income inequality under control. Improving the education system has far more limited effects.

Yeah, that's true!
Besides, we have about 8% unemployed which is more then 25 million people (an average European country). Their kids and families will never receive appropriate treatment and for sure they have very small chances for any sort of higher education!

Education is having issues because the federal government is insisting to regulate courses on a nation wide level, which is just not going to work, different states have different needs.

At 8/27/14 06:14 PM, Tybia99 wrote: different states have different needs.

No they don't. Doing computer engineering in Alabama is EXACTLY the same as doing it in Oregon. Same for every job.

You may have valid reasons for not wantd the Feds involved in education, but your stated reason is a shake and bake crock of shit.

At 8/27/14 06:14 PM, Tybia99 wrote: Education is having issues because the federal government is insisting to regulate courses on a nation wide level, which is just not going to work, different states have different needs.

What do you mean by needs?
If you're talking about different amount of citizens in different states, that's true. But if you think that different satets need different quality of education, you're wrong then!

At 8/28/14 12:21 AM, Camarohusky wrote:

At 8/27/14 06:14 PM, Tybia99 wrote: different states have different needs.

No they don't. Doing computer engineering in Alabama is EXACTLY the same as doing it in Oregon. Same for every job.

You may have valid reasons for not wantd the Feds involved in education, but your stated reason is a shake and bake crock of shit.

Uh no, actually there are plenty of reasons. States know how to take care of their own people, states need different education goals depending on their criminal level/poverty level/population, etc.

Different schools need to experiment with different way's the government taking over and institutionalizing everything makes it more sterile and less progressive, fail rates have taken an increase as well as more proof.

A "one size fits all" system isn't going to work.

At 8/28/14 06:05 PM, Tybia99 wrote: Uh no, actually there are plenty of reasons. States know how to take care of their own people, states need different education goals depending on their criminal level/poverty level/population, etc.

No they don't. Schools only need three goals: get as many students as possible to graduate, ensure those who do graduate that plan to go to college are as prepared as possible, and to ensure that those who graduate that do not plan to attend college have a basic set of skill needed to succeed in everyday life. Sure there are some differences in how to get there, but that's not on a state by state basis. It's on a school by school basis. So don't go spouting your nonsense about states aving their own needs. They don't.

Different schools need to experiment with different way's the government taking over and institutionalizing everything makes it more sterile and less progressive, fail rates have taken an increase as well as more proof.

Funny thing is the success of the pay to play one size programs is SOLELY because the states collectively failed to handle education on their own. They routinely took so much money from schools that school districts and state departments of education had to turn to the Fed for money and a standardized program is what they got.

In short, you've actually shown that your goal is more harmful by trying to defend it. Bravo.

A "one size fits all" system isn't going to work.

It works better than letting states dictate their own standards for what is essentialy a one size fits all job market.

gotta take into account that they are trying to teach kids that come from broken families and broken homes with no dad or no internet and lots of gang culture and distractions and drug addictions and other criminal culture influences as well as the depersonalization and standardization one-size-fits-all of education these days. schools are still teaching in a pre-internet era mentality mode of operation.

At 8/28/14 07:07 PM, Camarohusky wrote:

No they don't. Schools only need three goals: get as many students as possible to graduate, ensure those who do graduate that plan to go to college are as prepared as possible, and to ensure that those who graduate that do not plan to attend college have a basic set of skill needed to succeed in everyday life. Sure there are some differences in how to get there, but that's not on a state by state basis. It's on a school by school basis. So don't go spouting your nonsense about states aving their own needs. They don't.

Different schools need to experiment with different way's the government taking over and institutionalizing everything makes it more sterile and less progressive, fail rates have taken an increase as well as more proof.

Funny thing is the success of the pay to play one size programs is SOLELY because the states collectively failed to handle education on their own. They routinely took so much money from schools that school districts and state departments of education had to turn to the Fed for money and a standardized program is what they got.

In short, you've actually shown that your goal is more harmful by trying to defend it. Bravo.

A "one size fits all" system isn't going to work.

It works better than letting states dictate their own standards for what is essentialy a one size fits all job market.

I would say a lot of "teachers" don't want to teach and instead they want to be prison guards prison wardens or zoo keepers and a small portion might even be attributable to a small portion of corruption and stagnation of the quality. there is also the inflated price and cost the student goes into for secondary education and the expectation to go into secondary education because the education industry might have premeditatedly set it up so that you would have very little learned in primary education and would have to go deeply in debt in the thousands to get anything of real value by going into secondary education?

At 8/28/14 07:49 PM, Rampager wrote: I would say a lot of "teachers" don't want to teach and instead they want to be prison guards prison wardens or zoo keepers and a small portion might even be attributable to a small portion of corruption and stagnation of the quality.

How exactly do you know that? Most kids and teens aren't well disciplined on their own so that's part of the reason why some teachers are hard on their students. Most people who want to be a teacher put up with a lot of things that in most other careers don't have to worry about, such as low pay or maintaining standards. I have limited knowledge on what goes on with education, so I may just be guessing here, but I do know that there are a lot of holes with your argument.

there is also the inflated price and cost the student goes into for secondary education and the expectation to go into secondary education.

Here's where you start to stumble. First, I will agree that college tuition is expensive, but that largely because everything that they do is very expensive to begin with, not to mention things like health care, {they are responsible for their students after all} faculty salaries, and general upgrades to facilities {along with upkeep as well} don't come cheap as well, they got to foot the bill to somebody, and students are the biggest ones who do so.

Second, it isn't about what you learn or not learn in primary education, it's how much you learn from that, and the problem is that a lot of kids don't remember a lot of things when they get to college unless they have everything figured out right off the bat, which isn't that common. There are a lot of theories that come into play, such as lowering of standards of schools, usefulness of education, the rest of the world catching up in terms of producing workers for jobs in America, or just general apathy towards school, there is no one problem to the solution because there are rather open-ended to begin with.

At 8/29/14 10:06 PM, Korriken wrote: What students need doesn't vary by state, nor by school. It varies by student.

Very much agreed. Saying state have different needs is a load. The trees may be different, but when you get enough trees together, they make a forest, regardless of what kind of trees are involved. Saying states have thier own needs is nothing but an excuse to allow extreme differences in standards of education where states like Washington have low end students leaving high school with the same knowledge as the upper middle chunk of Mississippi.

I don't want a plan where all students must be the same. I want a plan that holds all sates to a minimum standard, cause clearly, far too many states are content with sitting below this line.

As far as school's goal in graduating as many students as possible, hell yes that's a goal, and a damn good one too. Whether or not the school actually prep them for the non-college educated workplace/lifestyle is a different matter. I mean when those people who woul dbe droupouts decide to get on track, which would be better? Having to go back and get the GED, which can actually be time consuming and difficult, or already have a diploma and can immediately start looking for jobs a tier up? Simple.

If our school system's goal is to give our children the best chance to suceed as adults, the diploma, which is required for most jobs above ground level, is a definite goal. I do agree, that this should be bolstered by a system that preps non-collegebound students for more of the skilled trades than academics. However, properly doing (adopting the German and Japanese style of education) so would offend the conscience of too many Americans as it's not free enough.

At 8/30/14 04:26 PM, LazyDrunk wrote: ...aren't there more tech jobs in Washington state than Mississippi?

Since when were students required to stay in the state they were educated in?

I don't think you're giving the state-by-state basis of education the sufficient criteria to deem it "a crock of shit."

Like what? Al you have talked about is an amorphous "states have different needs". What are these different needs, and how does it make a spit of difference when applying for a job?

Isn't this exactly what No Child Left Behind sought to accomplish?

Yes, but in a terribly shitty way.

Devaluing a diploma does not help anyone.

Can't devalue a high school diploma. It's not worth that much.

I'd like to think we'd be open enough to try such a system like the Germans 3-tiered educational juggernaut.

It's a great system, but entirely antithetical to the American dream and our idea of freedom. We are too in love with the idea that anyone can do anything. The German and Japanese systems are both expressly built upon the notion that people have certain levels of possible achievement. A child who goes to the lowest tier of schools is not going to be able to become a doctor under that system.

At 8/30/14 07:52 PM, LazyDrunk wrote: We have no American dream or freedom with the current situation our country is facing with insurmountable national debt, war both at home (drugs, poverty, aliens) and abroad,

OK, out of pure curiosity, what does national debt or war on drugs/poverty/etc. have to do with education exactly, much less the American Dream or freedom? It feels like they are virtually unrelated to each other other than some minute details that only a law expert would find out.

and an apathetic attitude towards personal responsibility and accountability.

Sadly, I do agree with this. It seems like we are so quick to blame others for our own screw-ups and faults, and to no surprise why we live in a country where lawsuits are so commonplace, it has lost a lot of its proverbial punch and has been reduced to a scare tactic. I don't know if they are exactly correlated to each other, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is.

Back on topic, I don't think our education system is as bad as most people make it out to be, but it doesn't mean that there should be some reform within the system itself. The problem that I noticed is that there are a lot of people who want to go to the extreme by essentially demolishing it and remake it like the Western European or Japanese standards, without so much as understanding the cost or complexity that it would inevitably face by doing so.

As I said before, I am no expert on the politics of the educational system, so don't shoot the messenger here, but I think we can all agree that America's educational system needs to change, the disagreement is how much reform we truly need, and how most of them are only addressing the cosmetic parts of it and not the actual mechanics.

At 8/31/14 09:08 AM, LazyDrunk wrote: maintaining essential freedoms (bear arms, secure borders)

Secure borders isn't a freedom; it's security. And the "Right to bear arms" isn't an essential freedom since you can have a free country with a ban on guns (see every other democratic republic out there). I love though how you listed those as essential freedoms, and not the right to freedom of expression, to petition the government, press, privacy, against unlawful search and seizure or religion. Because apparently those suck and the having a gun is more of a testament to freedom than burning the American flag is. That would explain why the Patriot Act wasn't such a big deal to Conservatives BUT OBAMA LIMITING THE AMOUNT OF BULLETS IN AN AR-15 OH NO OUR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS ARE BEING ANNIHILATED!!!

and espousing uniquely American ideals (representative government, equal opportunity).

And neither of those are uniquely American ideals, only inherited from Roman and French philosophers! "representative government" I think is a little redundant since all governments are representative to some extent. I think you mean "representative democracy" which is a really old idea that comes from tribal structures (the word Demos, the Greek root for Democracy, means "tribes") that is found all over the world throughout time from the Greeks Democracy to the Mongolian Kurultai to the Shan in Myanmar/China, governments where people voted on the decisions existed all over the world and it came from the way tribes were organized. So for you to claim an idea that predates the earliest known writing is "uniquely American" is liek claiming that fire is "uniquely American"/

At 8/31/14 05:53 PM, LazyDrunk wrote: Tell that to Ukraine ya wad.

Yah, not having secure borders threatens your security, your freedoms are often threatened by the response by the government.

I disagree. A monopoly of force is not freedom.

Except countries with bans on guns at times don't even arm their policemen with guns. Freedom isn't threatened there. They don't need to form militias to protect their rights (not that the American militias are formed to protect any right other than the 2nd amendment) Not that "freedom" is an attainable concept anyway but thats another story.

I did that intentionally Mr. warforger.

Exactly; because whereas the freedom of press, privacy, speech, from unlawful search and seizure, right to a speedy and fair trial and ultimately right from cruel and unusual punishment have all been attacked by the Right Wing, they stand steadfast in protecting the right to buy weapons because that's the only one where anyone makes any money from defending it. The NRA/Gun Companies profit from keeping the 2nd amendment in its purest form whereas internet companies profit from the right to privacy being eradicated and the government benefits when they can arrest and try people unfairly and used "enhanced interrogation" in the process. It's all about killing people and making money, because that's what Jesus would do.

Which does absolutely nothing to dissuade or disprove my points. Thanks for playing.

It more or less was an attack on the American propaganda machine. Did you know that in the reason that Bin Laden listed for hating America, none of them had anything to do with rights, freedoms or "our way of life"?

At 9/2/14 06:38 PM, LazyDrunk wrote: lalalala

Yes, deny the facts until reality bends to your will!

Good. So we understand eachother.

So you think rights are only worth defending if they make people money great.

Bullshit. I'll provide couterproof if you decide to not retract this banal assertion.

Ok go ahead.

At 8/27/14 11:24 AM, ChloeFlora wrote: The World IQ statistics says that the USA lies in the 20th place for the average IQ after the most of other "advanced" European and Asian countries.

That's not particularly meaningful without controlling for race. Blacks and hispanics drag the US average down considerably.

Does that mean that nonetheless our politicians are trying to attract smart people from poorer countries, our country is still getting more and more stupid! I'm pretty sure that that is the consequence of the awful educational system we're having.

The number of low-IQ mexican immigrants entering the US gulfs the number of high-skilled mexicans entering the US, so its dumb to expect the average IQ to increase as a result of it.

First, a person needs to be really interested in getting knowledge to really get some. And we all know that it's really difficult to raise the interest of a teenager to something besides booze and sex.

Are only american teenagers itnerested in booze an sex? Do you have evidence that an interest in booze and sex can explain poor educational achievement generally?

And second, even if you have that interest you have to pay for everything! (Books, scholar programs, extra skills, high edu etc.) Which is hardly affordable for a large amount of people. Seems that someone who invented that system didn't want us to leave our castes. Cause a person has to be really genius to get a grant for higher education after a public school

America ranks fifth in the world for percentage of population with tertiary education, higher than the much lauded scandanavian social democracies. So I don't see what your point is here.

At 9/1/14 05:30 PM, Warforger wrote: Exactly; because whereas the freedom of press, privacy, speech, from unlawful search and seizure, right to a speedy and fair trial and ultimately right from cruel and unusual punishment have all been attacked by the Right Wing

>Thinking that the left cares about any of that

At 9/3/14 08:33 AM, LazyDrunk wrote: It's been workin on you so far..

Yes, responding to something saying "lalala" instead of responding it is the best way to refute something.

Sure that's sounds exactly like what I said.

It sounds exactly like what I said, which is what you agreed too.

The signatories as a group were identified as the "World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders". This fatwā complains of American military presence in the Arabian Peninsula, and American support for Israel. It purports to provide religious authorization for indiscriminate killing of Americans and Jews everywhere. It appeared in February 1998 and the embassy bombings followed in August.

I would like calling to kill civilians qualifies as an attack on our freedoms and way of life.

Then you're full of shit. Freedom =/= Security. It doesn't matter how many people they kill, freedoms wouldn't be affected. The only way they could attack the freedoms of the US is by manipulating the US government into convincing the populace that it needs to restrict freedoms in the name of security and by there losing all of the rights guaranteed in the US Constitution oh wait........

First off I said the reasons why they were attacking was not because of "freedoms" or "our way of life" but because of the very thing your quote says; US intervention in the Middle East. The reason they're calling to kill civilians is to reciprocate what the US does in the Middle East to the US, which is exactly what your quote and what all of Bin Laden's quotes say. Nowhere do they say "The lifestyle of America offends Islam and Allah with all of their freedoms and perverse culture, therefore we must kill them!" which is what right wing pundits try to imply they think, but really what they're saying is "The US intervention in the Middle East and its support of Israel is intolerable, therefore we must kill Americans and Jews!". Whether or not you agree with that is one thing, but to claim that Jihadists are motivated to attack America based on "freedoms" is pure propaganda with no ground in reality.

At 9/3/14 09:27 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

That's not particularly meaningful without controlling for race. Blacks and hispanics drag the US average down considerably.

The number of low-IQ mexican immigrants entering the US gulfs the number of high-skilled mexicans entering the US, so its dumb to expect the average IQ to increase as a result of it.

Are only american teenagers itnerested in booze an sex? Do you have evidence that an interest in booze and sex can explain poor educational achievement generally?

That's one of the most racist pieces I've read recently. And the most funny thing is that it's written by a guy with a black man on a profile pic.
I guess you forgot about those whites who live under the poverty rates, those rednecks who have the only love to their mama and their gun, those ignorant freaks who don't live in ghettos, but still think that the USA can have some geographical interest in the Middle East (perhaps they haven't seen a World map yet)
And if to talk about the teens and booze: of course not only teens are interested in booze, but it's hard to educate a person who is not interested in education. That was my point

At 9/3/14 01:45 PM, ChloeFlora wrote: That's one of the most racist pieces I've read recently. And the most funny thing is that it's written by a guy with a black man on a profile pic.

So facts are racist now?

One has to deny facts in order to be non-racist?

I guess you forgot about those whites who live under the poverty rates, those rednecks who have the only love to their mama and their gun, those ignorant freaks who don't live in ghettos, but still think that the USA can have some geographical interest in the Middle East (perhaps they haven't seen a World map yet)

What on earth are you talking about

durr...redneck stereotypes hur hur hurr

For what it's worth, poor white kids go better than rich black kids on the SAT so, there's that. I'm sure you have a nice little narrative prepared to explain that away though, of course.

And if to talk about the teens and booze: of course not only teens are interested in booze, but it's hard to educate a person who is not interested in education.

Is english not your first language or do you simply have the worst reading comprehension in the world?

Maybe America really does have an education problem.

At 9/5/14 12:41 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

So facts are racist now?

Sorry pal, that were not facts! That was your personal attitude!
And yes it was racist. Or at least you're so overfilled with prejudice that can't even find logic in our discussion.
(hope, I didn't hurt you)

At 9/5/14 11:56 AM, ChloeFlora wrote: Sorry pal, that were not facts! That was your personal attitude!

Are you denying that the avergae IQs of african-american and hispanics (for whatever reason) are lower than that of whites and north-east asians?

And yes it was racist. Or at least you're so overfilled with prejudice that can't even find logic in our discussion.

I said "Are only american teenagers interested in booze an sex? Do you have evidence that an interest in booze and sex can explain poor educational achievement generally?"

To which you replied:

"And if to talk about the teens and booze: of course not only teens are interested in booze, but it's hard to educate a person who is not interested in education."

Which didn't answer my question at all.

At 9/10/14 05:29 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

Sorry pal, that were not facts! That was your personal attitude!

Are you denying that the avergae IQs of african-american and hispanics (for whatever reason) are lower than that of whites and north-east asians?

And yes it was racist. Or at least you're so overfilled with prejudice that can't even find logic in our discussion.

I said "Are only american teenagers interested in booze an sex? Do you have evidence that an interest in booze and sex can explain poor educational achievement generally?"

To which you replied:

"And if to talk about the teens and booze: of course not only teens are interested in booze, but it's hard to educate a person who is not interested in education."

Which didn't answer my question at all.

Okay, calm down!
It's true that in an average African-Americans and Hispanics have lower IQ rates then White population. But I'm sure that it's not because of their skin color, but because of their living conditions.

At 9/10/14 05:29 AM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 9/5/14 11:56 AM, ChloeFlora wrote: Sorry pal, that were not facts! That was your personal attitude!

Are you denying that the avergae IQs of african-american and hispanics (for whatever reason) are lower than that of whites and north-east asians?

So let me put it this way

gene expression studies have already been made concerning this particular topic measuring the very Transcription and expression of genes to get a comprehensive look at how each SNP effects gene expression.

What can the transcriptome tell us?
http://www.genome.gov/13014330
"The sequence of an RNA mirrors the sequence of the DNA from which it was transcribed. Consequently, by analyzing the entire collection of RNAs (transcriptome) in a cell, researchers can determine when and where each gene is turned on or off in the cells and tissues of an organism.

Depending on the technique used, it is often possible to count the number of transcripts to determine the amount of gene activity, also called gene expression, in a certain cell or tissue type."

This is what we did for the prefrontal cortex, (the most recently evolved part of our brains)

http://www.nih.gov/news/health/oct2011/nimh-26.htm
"Having at our fingertips detailed information about when and where specific gene products are expressed in the brain brings new hope for understanding how this process can go awry in schizophrenia, autism and other brain disorders," said NIMH Director Thomas R. Insel, M.D.

Both studies measured messenger RNAs (mrna)or transcripts. These intermediate products carry the message from DNA, the genetic blueprint, to create proteins and differentiated brain tissue. Each gene can make several transcripts, which are expressed in patterns influenced by a subset of the approximately 1.5 million DNA variations unique to each of us. This unique set of transcripts is called our transcriptome " a molecular signature that is unique to every individual. The transcriptome is a measure of the diverse functional potential that exists in the brain."

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7370/abs/nature10524.html
http://biostat.jhsph.edu/~jleek/papers/carlosbrain.pdf

"To explore the relationship between the genome as a whole and the
PFC transcriptome as a whole, we compared genetic distance and
transcriptional distance in all possible pairwise subject comparisons
(Fig. 4). Although individual SNPs clearly have an impact on the
expression of individual genes (Fig. 3 and Supplementary Table 6)
globally, there is no association of genetic distance between individual
humans with the similarity of their prefrontal transcriptional profiles
(Fig. 4, R2 5 0.002)"

Global comparison of genetic and transcriptional differences between subjects.
Each point represents a comparison of two subjects in the collection. Genetic
distance between subjects is depicted on the x axis as the number of differing
alleles over the portion of the genome interrogated. Transcriptional distance is
shown on the y axis as 1 minus the correlation across all gene expression values
from the subjects (as used in Fig. 1c). Each subject comparison is coloured to
indicate the races (AA, African American; Cauc., Caucasian) of the two
individuals involved in the comparison. The thick black curve is an estimate of
the local mean (loess, span 5 0.25) of transcriptional distance as it varies across
genetic distance. The thin black curves depict fits to the residuals around this
mean. Only African American and Caucasian sample comparisons are
visualized here (.96% of the collection)."

If you want an idea of how many SNP you can get in a Microarray study
"DNA resources and analysis. DNAfor genotyping was obtained from the cerebella
of 266 of the total 269 samples in the collection and applied to either Illumina
Infinium II 650K or Illumina Infinium HD Gemini 1M Duo BeadChips according
to manufacturer"s protocols. Only genotypes common to both platforms are
analysed here. Genotypes were called using BeadExpress software. SNPs were
removed if the call rate was ,98% (mean call rate for this study .99%), if not in
Hardy"Weinberg equilibrium (P , 0.001) within Caucasian and within African
American races separately, or not polymorphic (MAF ,0.01). The total number
of SNPs remaining in the analysis was
625,439 (96.2%)"

almost every SNP polymorphic for the human prefrontal cortex

There are other gene expression studies using Microarrays as well that repeat this process using race or ethnicity as a variable and they have similar findings.

http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/mp2013197a.html

"Large-scale association studies with cortical thickness in adolescents
Given that left-right asymmetry of the brain is a well-known phenomenon35,36 that may be triggered by left-right differential gene expression,37,38 we analyzed each hemisphere separately. Highest associations with left cortical thickness were found for SNPs on chromosome 15 (Figure 2a, Table 2 and Supplementary Figure 1), with one SNP, rs7171755 (^6;=W22;0.01973; P=1.12 " 10W22;7), passing the threshold of Bonferroni-corrected significance (the Bonferroni-adjusted significance threshold for association with the selected 54R01;837 SNPs, on the left and right hemispheres, was P=4.56 " 10W22;7). In the right hemisphere, highest associations with cortical thickness were found on chromosome 11 (Supplementary Figure 2); however, none remained significant after Bonferroni correction for multiple testing. rs7171755 was associated with right cortical thickness at P=3.22 " 10W22;4 (^6;=W22;0.0134; Table 2). Neither handedness nor ethnicity influenced this association. It is worth pointing out that our gene selection procedure resulted in significant gene enrichment: estimation of the variance explained by the SNPs using Genome-wide Complex Trait Analysis27 indicated that the 59R01;643 selected SNPs explain 13.3% (s.e.=0.093, P=0.02) of the total variance in left cortical thickness, a fivefold enrichment relative to the 22.2% (s.e.=0.195, P=0.03) variance explained by considering all 506R01;932 genotyped SNPs simultaneously."

https://www.eva.mpg.de/fileadmin/content_files/staff/paabo/pdf/Weickert_Transcriptome_MolPsych_2009.pdf
http://www.nature.com/mp/journal/v14/n6/abs/mp20095a.html

race, pH and postmortem interval (PMI) counted for only
< 2% of variance while gender accounted for ~8%

In light of this information I have to ask you do you have any microarray gene expression data that shows that races diverge significantly in terms of gene expression in the brain?

What we found when doing a "racial comparison"

http://biostat.jhsph.edu/~jleek/papers/carlosbrain.pdf
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7370/abs/nature10524.html

Our brains are all made of the same stuff. Despite individual and ethnic genetic diversity, our prefrontal cortex shows a consistent molecular architecture. For example, overall differences in the genetic code (“genetic distance”) between African -Americans (AA) and caucasians (cauc) showed no effect on their overall difference in expressed transcripts (“transcriptional distance”). The vertical span of color-coded areas is about the same, indicating that our brains all share the same tissue at a molecular level, despite distinct DNA differences on the horizontal axis. Each dot represents a comparison between two individuals. The AA::AA comparisons (blue) generally show more genetic diversity than cauc::cauc comparisons (yellow), because caucasians are descended from a relatively small subset of ancestors who migrated from Africa, while African Americans are descended from a more diverse gene pool among the much larger population that remained in Africa. AA::cauc comparisons (green) differed most across their genomes as a whole, but this had no effect on their transcriptomes as a whole.

At 9/10/14 12:45 PM, ChloeFlora wrote: But I'm sure that it's not because of their skin color, but because of their living conditions.

Well that's irrelevant to my original point, but I could provide you with evidence to the contrary if you like.

At 9/10/14 03:16 PM, naronic wrote: Our brains

This doesn't prove what you seem to think it does.

At 9/10/14 08:18 PM, SadisticMonkey wrote:

At 9/10/14 03:16 PM, naronic wrote: Our brains

This doesn't prove what you seem to think it does.

explain

These findings regarding expression don't necessarily imply that racial IQ differences would have no genetic component.