Sanghavi ridicules the notion that innate IQ has a strong influence on determining academic achievement. Since Dr. Sanghavi is a faculty member at a medical school, one would hope that as an academic he would have seriously researched this topic before making such blatently ignorant comments. Sanghavi mistakenly thinks that the pop-journalist Malcolm Gladwell is a major expert on IQ and genetics. Sanghavi conveniently omits mention of the fact that the coauthor of the "tome of foolishness" (The Bell Curve) was none other than the late highly respected chairman of the Harvard Psychology Department, Professor Richard Herrnstein. The Bell Curve is one of the most important books written in the social sciences during the past few decades; many leading social scientists such as U of Chicago Economist James Heckman have credited The Bell Curve as a major impetus for stimulating their thinking about research questions. I would be surprised if Dr. Sanghavi even bothered to read The Bell Curve.

Dr. Sanghavi doubts that IQ-type intelligence is a strongly hereditary trait. But if Sanghavi actually studied the relevant scientific literature written by serious scientists in the field (e.g. Drs. Arthur Jensen, Linda Gottfredson, Ian Deary, Thomas Bouchard, Sandra Scarr, John DeFries, Robert Plomin, Stephen Petrill, Nancy Segal, Douglas Detterman, Nicholas Martin, Dorret Boomsma) then Dr. Sanghavi would probably be surprised to discover that the professional psychologists who actually study the topic of cognitive ability are overwhelmingly in agreement that:

1) IQ-type intelligence is one of the most strongly heritable mental traits, about 40% of IQ variance in young children and about 80% of IQ variance in older adolescence and adults is due to genetic differences.

2) The small portion of IQ variation that is not due to genetics is actually not due to the home parenting environment (what the experts call the "shared environment"), instead it seems to be due to peer groups or random factors in the surrounding community (read the Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris).

3) Academic achievement test scores (e.g. NAEP and state tests on Math, and college admission tests such as the math portion of the SAT and the ACT) correlate strongly (about 0.6 to 0.8) with scores on IQ tests and evidence indicates that the same genes that influence general cognitive ability (i.e. IQ-type intelligence) also influence academic ability, especially in mathematics.

Despite what ever fairytales about human intelligence differences that Dr. Sanghavi might hope to be true, the actual facts indicate that innate IQ is by far the most important factor influencing academic achievement. Furthermore Arthur Jensen and most other IQ experts are correct in their view that ethnic differences in IQ and academic ability--just like individual differences--are probably mostly due to genetic differences. Worldwide data shows that the mean IQs of various ethnic groups (Black 85, Hispanic 88, American Indian 88, gentile White 100, high caste Asian Indian 105, East Asian 108, Ashkenazi Jewish 115) are very highly correlated with the academic achievement and socioeconomic performance of the various ethnic groups.

Isn't it also possible that the mean IQs of the ethnic groups reflect the cultural bias of the tests, not the intelligence of the people in those groups?

Darrin, I completely agree with you. IQ tests are cultural. They show how the test taker has internalized the dominant culture rather than any sort of innate "intelligence." It has been argued that IQ test scores reflect the ability of the test taker to put herself/himself in the shoes of the person who wrote the test, thus of necessity reflecty the extant the socio-cultural background of the test writers is shared by the test takers. Also, the IQ argument ignores any other way our "intelligence" is tested (how about surviving a catastrophe, for instance? Or composing amazing music? Or having outstanding ability to emphasize with people and communicate with them? Or being sensitive to poetry, art, etc etc...)

Galtonian, my background is Ashkenazi Jewish, so unless you have the same background, according to your own argument I am biologically smarter than you, and thus I must be right and you must be wrong!

To Kati-

Your arguments about cultural bias have all been disproved many years ago (the definitive work on this subject is the book Bias in Mental Testing c1980 by Arthur Jensen).

I realize that there are several mental traits and aptitudes (musical talent, charisma, personality traits etc.) that are not associated with IQ-type intelligence, but so what? I was specifically making statements about IQ-type intelligence.

Your last comment indicates that you are rather ignorant in regard to statistical concepts. I was refering to IQ distributions among various ethnic groups and the word "mean" is a synonym for ''average". These statistical differences still allow for the fact that some blacks and some gentile whites are smarter than most Jews and that some Jews are dumber than most blacks and most gentile whites. However, these statistical differences [the two standard deviation difference (or 30 IQ points) in distributions between Jews and blacks] also mean that most Jews are smarter than most gentile whites and most Jews are smarter than 95% of blacks.

I would like to see the mode not the mean, and really the distribution.

My college admissions office told me I was at the high end for math, and low end for English on my SA T's. He showed me the distribution, I was in the far tails.

Dyslexic, ya know.