Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!markh
From: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Intelligence (was: IQ), Categorization (was: Racism)
Message-ID: <3506@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>
Date: 24 Jul 89 21:46:46 GMT
References: <5453@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <2061@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> <5480@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Sender: news@csd4.milw.wisc.edu
Reply-To: markh@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Mark William Hopkins)
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Lines: 43

In article <2037@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> mbb@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (martin.b.brilliant) writes:
* IQ runs in my family.

From article <5453@pt.cs.cmu.edu>, by jps@cat.cmu.edu (James Salsman):
* Please do not interpolate that idea:  if you do, then
* you will be running the risk of
*
* racism ...  1. The notion that one's own ethnic stock is superior.

In article <2061@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> mbb responds:
* I don't know what to make of that.  I think it was sent in anger,
* because it doesn't make sense.  And it looks like an attempt at a
* public insult.  I hope it is not.

In article <5480@pt.cs.cmu.edu> jps responds:
* Goodness, I was certainly not trying to be offensive in any way,
* but the logical extention of one's family is one's race,

The logical extension of one's family is the whole human race.  Nothing less
exists.  I'm living proof of that.  That's the genetic aspect ...

The logical extension of one's family is one's culture.  And in this day and
age the world needs a lot less cultural fragmentation and a lot more
concurrence.  That's the cultural aspect ...

Racism lies in positing artificial genetic boundaries where none exist.  Of
that you've clearly confessed your guilt.  The context makes it clear
you are both speaking in genetic terms.

And as for intelligence: the intelligence I have over and beyond what is
considered normal is SOLELY the result of my conscious efforts and I resent
anyone who tries to trivialize the considerable extent of my accomplishment
by saying I had nothing consciously to do with it, even the predisposition
toward it.  And by intelligence, I mean (1) problem-solving ability that is
independent of any particular field of knowledge, and (2) the related ability
to accquire new expertises in any field of knowledge.

"Superior" intelligence is solely the product of individual effort, using
techniques which everyone else (who has fluency in at least one human language)
can follow.  You learn to integrate your emotional and intellectual minds,
and you learn to learn things in the context of their use, rather than in
the abstract totally shorn away from their defining context as things are too
often presented.