Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!geb
From: geb@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU (Gordon E. Banks)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Inheritance of IQ
Message-ID: <3072@cadre.dsl.PITTSBURGH.EDU>
Date: 18 Jul 89 12:43:18 GMT
References: <5453@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <2061@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> <5480@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <458@edai.ed.ac.uk> <602@visdc.UUCP>
Reply-To: geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu (Gordon E. Banks)
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
Lines: 14

In article <602@visdc.UUCP> jiii@visdc.UUCP (John E Van Deusen III) writes:
>
>While it is fairly clear that natural selection could tend to favor
>darker skin in equatorial latitudes, intelligence would seem to be
>an advantageous survival characteristic under almost any set of
>circumstances.  

If intelligence did not have survival advantages, why did it evolve
in the first place?  If populations are separated from each other,
is it not conceivable that evolutionary pressures in one environment
might not differ from those in another, thus producing a differential
effect?  It's a very touchy question, because if it were true that
orientals were more intelligent than the other races, it might lead
to racist theories and discrimination.