Friday, August 15, 2008

The IQ-difference of Black and White American populations is not a debatable issue

"On the average, Black Americans score 15 points lower than White Americans on standardized IQ tests. The difference is equal to about one standard deviation. Nobody disagrees that the two distributions greatly overlap and that there are some Blacks who score as high as the highest Whites. There are also some Whites who score as low as the lowest Blacks. Yet only about 15% to 20% of the Black population score above the average White score, and only about 15% to 20% of the White population score below the average Black score. 

This is not debatable issue. If you were to administer the Stanford-Binet or the Wechsler to large random samples of Black and White Americans, you would most likely get the same results. The dispute has not been over whether these differences exist but over where the responsibility for the difference lies. "



-Kaplan, Saccuzzo: Psychological Testing, Principles, Applications and Issues

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