[quote=Bostonian]
Psychologist Richard Nisbett has been generous enough to provide the public with the details of all seven studies: (2)
After World War II, many American GI's (both white and black) fathered children by German women; these children were then raised in German society. The children fathered by black GI's had an average IQ of 96.5, and the children fathered by white GI's had an average IQ of 97 -- a statistically insignificant difference. (3)
In another study of children raised in residential institutions, black, white and racially mixed children who were raised in the same enriched environment were given IQ tests. At four years of age, the white children had an average IQ of 103, the blacks had an average IQ of 108, and the racially mixed children had an average IQ of 106. (4)
Another study measured the IQ's of children from black-white unions. Assuming that mothers are more important than fathers in the education and socialization of their children, the study sought to see if a child's IQ is higher when the white partner is the mother. This turned out to be true -- the IQ of a racially mixed child averages 9 points higher when it is the mother who is white. (5)
A genetic study took advantage of the fact that African-Americans genes are about 20-30 percent European, and that Africans and Europeans differ just enough in their genetic blood groups to determine the degree of "Europeanness" in an individual. If intelligence were indeed genetic and favored in Europeans, we might expect blacks with greater Europeanness to be more intelligent. However, a study of 288 young blacks found almost no relationship between Europeanness and intelligence: the correlation was a trivial and nonsignificant .05. (6)
Another genetic study examined the correlation between IQ and European blood groups (as opposed to the estimated Europeanness of individuals based on blood groups). In one sample of blacks, the correlation was a trivial .01, in the other a nonsignificant -.38, with higher IQ being associated with the more African blood groups. (7)
Another study tested the hypothesis that if IQ were both hereditary and favored in Europeans, then blacks with high IQs should have several times the level of Europeanness than the black population in general. But a study of high-IQ black children in Chicago found that this wasn't the case; in fact, these black children were slightly less likely to have European ancestors. (8)
Just to respond to a couple of these studies. The blacks who fathered the children in Germany had to take and pass an IQ test before fathering them! They were required to pass the Armed Services Aptitute Test, which is nothing more than an IQ test. So of course their children would be just as smart or almost as smart as the white children.
Any study which tests IQ, particularly in comparing between races, at the age of 4 is going to produce some pretty unreliable results. Black children tend to develop more quickly than European children (and Asians slower still). So of course blacks will have a much higher IQ in relation to whites at the age of 4 than they will at a later age.
If you have studies showing that black children raised in white homes have IQs equal to those of the white population, I congratulate you on finding them; but there are many more which show just the opposite.
I do believe that through the equalization of opportunity and the adoption of better parenting methods the IQ gap can shrink, but it can't be eliminated.
