What kind of racist are you?

Racial differences in intelligence is a subject in which you just can't win. As everyone knows, to be ethical, intelligent human being, you must believe that every human population is just as intelligent on average, and there are no hereditary differences between them. Problem is, these two unquestionable truths are mutually exclusive.

The effects of extreme poverty on people are multifaceted and harsh. As our standard of living has risen here in West, average height of people has risen, as have the IQ scores (phenomenon known as Flynn Effect). The validity of IQ as measure of intelligence can always be debated, as can the relative importance of different factors. Clearly, however, there are several important environmental ones. A child in some poor nation starts his life in a womb of malnourished mother with at least couple parasitic infections. As he grows up, he will suffer from the same woes, his diet being unsatisfactory in both quantity and quality. He'll fall ill often, and has to share his nutrition with some uninvited little guests in his body. His body will never have quite enough nutrients it needs to build itself up, and brain will suffer along with the other parts. Drained of energy to some extent, the child won't be as active and curious as he could otherwise be, and thus his brain will not receive some of the stimulation it needs to develop. His environment makes this even worse. Overworked, exhausted and relatively dull mother of seven has little time or energy for individual attention or discussions not related to practical matters at hand. The child will most likely live in some rural village where every day is like other, where nothing much ever happens apart from the same deadening routine. He won't get many years of school. His culture will be more or less superstitious and conservative, unfamiliar with abstract, logical thought and unfriendly to intellectual curiosity.

Compare this to modern West. The diet of child born here is adequate even at its worst. Epidemic diseases are mostly under control, parasitic infections (with few mild exceptions such as Toxoplasma gondii) have been crushed and healthcare system has the whole arsenal of modern medicine to treat those who fall ill. By global standards, almost all parents are highly educated, some extremely so, and they have relatively few offspring. Children are usually educated for over ten years, and their environment is rich in information. Even the TV zombies receive lots of diverse stimulation compared to their kin in Third World, and for those with even a touch of inquisitiveness, sky's the limit. The culture, for the most part, respects intelligence and knowledge, tolerates divergent ideas and encourages the solution of conflicts through non-violent means. We could be doing much better still, but even now, our children live in environment far more conductive to development of intelligence than most others on this world.

The worst environment is without doubt sub-Saharan Africa, where every factor mentioned exists in extreme form. Therefore, if we assume that there are no hereditary differences in intelligence between populations, Europeans are on average more intelligent than Africans (immigrants and refugees living in Europe included). To believe in this is to be a filthy racist. On the other hand, if we assume that every group is just as intelligent, Africans would have to start from a higher level. There would be a racial hierarchy of cognitive capacities, and since we in West value intelligence so highly, some races would simply be better than others in our eyes. That's at least as racist, even if it would make us the subhumans.

So which one is it for you? A warm-hearted humanist would go with the latter option, I think, for it'd mean that the poorer, more ignorant and oppressed some people is, the better it really is. While not discounting the possibility of slight hereditary variations in some sub-components of intelligence, I personally choose the former. However, I don't think that intelligence is the only, or even primary determinant of human worth, even if I do value it highly. I also do not think that the proper response to recognizing these environmental differences is arrogance and contempt. In my opinion we should respect our achievements, continue building on them, and do what we can to help others follow our footsteps. We shouldn't assume that Third World immigrants would, as a group, perform just as well as natives in modern information economy, even if all other things were equal. All this is undisputably racism according to its many newer definitions. Take it as you will.