IQ and Immigration Policy a Harvard dissertation.

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NB: Do not assume what I think or believe based on me posting this topic.

IQ and Immigration Policy by Jason Richwine PhD.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/140239668/IQ- ... n-Richwine

He argues that the average IQ's of Hispanic immigrants are lower than the average IQ's of white Americans and that immigration policy ought to be selective and choose high IQ immigrant to the exclusion of low IQ immigrants.


What do you think of his arguments?

I do not want to read a whole doctoral thesis about an issue I have little concern about.

I would suggest, however, that IQs are less relevant to the American economy than specific skills. Better to be an engineer with an IQ of 90 than a waiter with an IQ of 120.

IQ is largely a product of education (self-directed or formal schooling).

I don't accept that race automatically equates to higher or lower IQ unless you can prove a given race consistently breeds according to intellectual prowess...thereby ensuring high-IQ offspring.

IQ increases with education. I tend to think that IQ is significantly environmentally correlated so I don't put much stock in this sort of thing. Certainly the US could use more skilled migrants but targeting the culture or IQ is a pretty silly way to do that. Skills relate to qualifications and Children do not immigrate on their own, so potential based immigration as a carte blanche policy would be silly.

I suspect that it will be somewhat easier to find a waiter with an IQ of 120 than an engineer with an IQ of 90.

The pool of waiters isn't a selected group. One would expect this group to contain people with no other employment opportunities (less likely to perform well in IQ tests) as well as university students seeking an income to finance their studies (more likely to perform well in IQ tests). Engineers, on the other hand, are a highly selected group. They first had to get into college/university, and then they had to complete several years of study involving advanced concepts of physics. As a result, they are likely to possess intellectual (and especially mathematical) ability significantly above the average Joe.

What about culture?

ruveyn

Not sure what you're asking, but I don't accept that a given "culture" automatically equates to lower IQ except in how it values education and enlightenment.

In my opinion, many Islamic cultures produce low-IQ people because education that contradicts their fanaticism is prohibited. This does not mean that individual Muslims have low-IQ potential, but they would likely test as low IQ because they lack formal education.

I generally agree with your reasoning. I do think that there are plenty of engineers with IQs of less than 100. I know in this country there are apprenticeships for school leavers at 16 that lead to engineering jobs, particularly in electronics and software. Engineers are a broad group, but even those in "easier" disciplines can contribute a lot to the economy.

Hmm, I just noticed that the author of the PhD in the OP (Jason Richwine), got fired/resigned recently from The Heritage Foundation.... because of his PhD.

Intelligence research + Immigration policy = Political Sh*tstorm indeed...

A system which dis-values inquiry and "thinking outside the box" is likely to produce effectively less intelligent behavior. I am sure the individuals have perfectly good brains and nervous systems, but habits of thought come wrapped up in the main cultural values and imperatives of a social order. For example, in Catholic Europe during the Dark and Middle Ages, questioning authority was not considered a virtue. In fact it was considered a sin and severely punished. That is why there is a 1500 year "hole" between the decline of Greece and Helenism and the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Christian barbarism destroyed Alexandria as a major cosmopolitan cultural and intellectual center. You can date that about 415 when Christians cut Hypatia the mathematician and philosopher to bleeding gobbets of flesh. It was all in the name of Christ, so that made it o.k.

In the United States in urban black millues intellectually excellence is scoffed at and considered too "white". So many a smart black person is discouraged from using his abstract intelligence by his thuggish peers. So a biologically endowed person my function well below his natural or potential level. On the other hand in other cultures, particularly Jewish, Chinese and Japanese intellectual and scholarly excellence in energetically encouraged and even expected.


ruveyn

Okay, but relating this back to the OP, are you suggesting that where someone comes from means they should be considered less worthy of immigration because of the odds of intellectual repression as compared to someone who does not come from such a culture?

If so, I'd propose that their desire to immigrate AWAY from that culture indicates a desire to not be trapped in such an environment.

That's why I'm fond of saying to immigrants, "If you don't like it here, go back home."

Read the fine print, this study was financed by the far right American Enterprise Institute. The author, Jason Richwine was a Senior Policy Analyst in Empirical Studies at The Heritage Foundation, but has since resigned.