Races and IQ

[K0NFL1QT]

The Skrell are widely considered to be the smartest of all the known races. But what order do the rest of them fall in? Is it an area that's been studied, with published findings that can be plausibly pointed to by any scientifically minded character? Exceptionally dumb/smart examples aside, what is considered to be the average IQ, or equivalent, for the races?

[Guest Menown]

Hharar - "Trend towards being the most intellectual of all Tajaran groups, and as such their physical prowess is significantly reduced. On average, they are on par with most humans as far as intelligence and physical strength go. However, in most cases their IQ is slightly lower than your usual human"

Zhan-Khazan - "They are by no means less intelligent than the Hharar, but most Zhan-Khazan do not pursue the same type of work."

Njarir'Akhran - "As the most learned of all Tajaran ethnic groups, they boast high intelligence and have a propensity towards the arts and sciences. Many have fled Adhomai only to be offered cushy jobs elsewhere working for the Alliance, other factions, or transstellar corporations."

 

Considering there are other statements saying the Njarir are smarter than others, and Hharar being smarter than others, it fucking depends. I don't know. It'd probably depend on learning, access to education, ect. The only consistency is the Zhan-Khazans being statistically lower than other breeds of catbeasts, which is considered more of a stereotype than anything else, apparently.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Intelligence isn't genetic. The Skrell have an entire culture that revolves around idolization of knowledge and they have pushed very hard to invest in every member of their society.

IQ and IQ testing is problematic. By itself it minimizes the importance of creativity, practical intelligence, character, virtue, and morality, and IQ outright implies that intelligence is an immutable property of the brain.

But I'm going to avoid my longstanding criticisms of IQ testing and stuff. If you pulled 100 members from each species and tried to have them share similarities, then gave them all equal investment and education, they'd be statistically average. The difference is possible fields in which they are strongest. Culture is a huge factor in these things - we see it here on Earth. Chinese students tend to preform extremely well in hard sciences and the like because they have institutions and a society set up to encourage study groups and learning math really good, not because the Chinese are inherently smarter.

The only exception are gingers, who universally know how to steal the soul of a child.

[K0NFL1QT]

Intelligence isn't genetic. The Skrell have an entire culture that revolves around idolization of knowledge and they have pushed very hard to invest in every member of their society.

As far as I am aware, it is at least partially genetic. Not totally, but significantly. A lot of intelligence is also determined by culture and environment, considered as deleterious effects that can be mitigated to give the illusion of a civilization conducive to high intelligence, when really they've just minimized practices that stunt intelligence growth. Outright dismissing any genetic influence in intelligence is just plain counter to scientific evidence at this point, Jacky-Oh.

 

IQ and IQ testing is problematic. By itself it minimizes the importance of creativity, practical intelligence, character, virtue, and morality, and IQ outright implies that intelligence is an immutable property of the brain.

I wasn't asking you to quantify the races by all the ideals listed, only raw intelligence. Presume tests have been conducted and refined over the years to minimize cultural bias. Intelligence isn't always being right, or virtuous, it's just a marker for general reasoning.

 

But I'm going to avoid my longstanding criticisms of IQ testing and stuff. If you pulled 100 members from each species and tried to have them share similarities, then gave them all equal investment and education, they'd be statistically average. The difference is possible fields in which they are strongest. Culture is a huge factor in these things - we see it here on Earth. Chinese students tend to preform extremely well in hard sciences and the like because they have institutions and a society set up to encourage study groups and learning math really good, not because the Chinese are inherently smarter.

I can argue it in the reverse; they set up their society and institutions to reflect and focus their inherent strengths. Or, rather, inherent strengths being amplified by certain institutions caused them to be considered successful over institutions set up to utilise traits that haven't been selected for over the history of the Chinese genetic background. Again, not to say that raw intelligence is

, or that the most intelligent make the best artists, musicians, or hole diggers, nor the most honest and virtuous people. Separate out all these extra characteristics that you're throwing out; I want estimates of pure reasoning and intelligence, in easily comparable number form.

A skrell, human, tajaran and unathi all perform equally? Despite the influence of their separate cultures over generations? For example; Unathi. Their women are, generally, forbidden to even learn to read and write. Half the species being functionally retarded has no effect on the general intelligence of the race over many generations? The Tajaran Zhan-Khazan are noted as being 'low intelligence', while the Hharar and Njarir are quoted as being equally intelligent as humans, or greater, with punishments for cross-racial sex. Similar to real life Jews, I imagine, who, over the history of humanity, have selectively bred one of, if not the most intelligent subsets of human. I believe historical inbreeding was a problem noted in the Taj lore aswell, which is known to reduce IQ.

[Guest]

Intelligence is an immituable property of the brain, yes. As if people that are certified geniuses aren't proven to have a different brain, or usually more creative and knowledgeble as well. So, measuring IQ isn't problematic. The value people put on that number is problematic.

However, measuring IQ between species is idiotic, unless you really want to, let's say, call Unathi fucking idiots because their brain accidentally can't process a triangle. But then again, all of our species are just rubber forehead in everything but their bodies.

[SmokedFish]

Thing about IQ and Intelligence, they..don't necessary add up.

You probably heard Einstein's (?) quoth on judging the fish on it's abillity to climb a tree, right?

Well i think most IQ tests do not reflect the capability of each individual properly. Example most questions can be geared towards a certain TYPE of intelligence (problem solving), but that person's strength is the other (creativity).

Now intelligence can be, and is inherited, conditions under which said person is raised also determine their intelligence.

Intelligence and how much effort said person is capable of working are varied things.

Take for instance my high school class : Everyone there, no matter how much i hated them or how stupid they we're, could have been a flipping top student, IF, they would have put EFFORT to it.Course, most of them did not, thus only the brats who's parents could pay for heavy shit tutoring got good grades.

Yeah, I could also go on on how "rich" kids most of the time have better grades, but that's a topic for another time.

Basically anyone can become an expert in a field, however, their brain type/ their intelligence can HELP. Think of it as %exp bonus in that field, RPG wise.

Here's a thing about SCI-FI worlds: They make it seem that a WHOLE planet, a WHOLE race, shares the exact same intelligence type and belief. Which is unlikely if we put too much thought into it. No matter how complex LORE is in any game/universe, it cannot cover every possible aspect.

Like, you're telling me that every Unathi is a warmonger?Impossible, technology existed on their world, which means SOMEONE was not a warmonger, but a scientist. Which is funny because the other day I saw an article on TV Tropes " hates scientists".

In principle, Race and IQ are somewhat relevant. If we are to take realistic scenarios in consideration, Unathi Doctors CAN exist, but ingame...they are likely to be called snowflakes and probably "not part of the lore", because raisins.

I mean, ingame we can expect humans to be anything, but we are supposed to expect Skrell to be smart, Unathi to be Brutal, and Tarajans to be...i haven't got to read their lore yet.

TL:DR,

Lorewise :

Humans can be any intelligence levels, Janitors to captains,

Skrell are supposed to be Very intelligent, Scientists,Medics,Non-security Heads.

Unathi are supposed to be not as intelligent but strong, hence Security, sometimes as Head, rarely an engineer.

I haven't read about Tarajans, Varuca or Diona yet, so I am not sure about them.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

I failed to properly explain what I was trying to put across, and I apologize for that.

What I mean when I said the species are all average, is that...

In our setting, our species' are not inherently smarter than one another in a way that makes IQ testing reliable. A lot of this is institutional. Skrell have implants that make them smarter and, once again, their entire culture is one that is nearly fanatical in learning and gaining knowledge. The Skrell live in a super ridiculously socialist state where individual Skrell are given immense investment for schooling and contentment in life. Their factories and businesses' have heated pools for the employees, for goodness' sakes. The Skrell's entire aesthetic is that they hold self-improvement to a high ideal, and at the same time their faiths and attitudes towards society and their species' place in the universe keep this going. For the average Skrell, this is a deep, spiritual need to advance the Skrell as a species to keep and hold their place in the galaxy. There isn't a huge minority of intellectual 'failures' in Skrell society because of this investment. This isn't including mental defects or other physical maladies that impact intelligence. Add onto this the fact that Skrell live for hundreds of years, and pretty much never stop going to school...

The Unathi have lived with a ruling class of conservatives for thousands of years. This is regular conservatism, "holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation". There isn't personal investment in all the individuals under any of the nations (which can be families or "Clans") on Moghes. The majority of the planet has remained under a feudal system for thousands of years, even in periods where modernization was forced on people - it was done while trying to be kept to tradition. The common Unathi isn't inherently less intelligent than a Skrell, they just don't have as many opportunities as a Skrell does to advance. If the Unathi had a society structured like the Skrell, they'd be just as intelligent. Many Unathi are this intelligent - robotics (with Unathi roboticists) is a field that's exploding in popularity in the Hegemony even if the Unathi are debating on how to deal with synthetic life.

The same for the Tajaran. Interbreeding amongst the nobility is something I'll give you, but that's not a fair comparison. I don't call Europeans less intelligent than Americans because European nobility had a habit of having sex with their brothers and sisters and making their kids future kings. The non-incestual Tajaran aren't inherently less intelligent, they're disenfranchised. So they'd do bad on an IQ test, but that doesn't make them less intelligent.

The same for humans. The foundation of intelligence isn't something that can be judged with an IQ test, because your ability to get high marks on an IQ test rely on going through the institutions tailored to give you knowledge in how to pass the IQ tests. This is standardized testing in the United States, and it's a failure as a judge of intelligence for reasons that would really expand the scope of this question so I've been trying to skirt around it.

It's not a hard definition of intelligence that keeps some races out of RnD or Command positions. All of our species' in the lore have the same potential as individuals. It is failings (or arguable benefits) of their society that determine their intelligence. You can have a Unathi RD who is just as capable and intelligent as a human. Each species' has their genius'.

So, to answer the OP in a way that makes me have to reword his question:

All species are similar in intelligence and, more important to my argument the potential for intelligence. It's up to the player to provide justification in how their Zhan or Unathi character managed to overcome institutional/cultural/social obstacles to become Research Director.

This is something that I can't provide justifications for using IQ testing, because IQ tests do not take into account anything of what I said above.

[K0NFL1QT]

I completely understand your insistence on potential intelligence leveling out, if all species possessed a skrell-like culture that reveres knowledge, self improvement and contributions to the civilized whole, as well as the vast resource investment and enhancement implants. That's a given, but that's not what I'm asking for. The races are not culturally identical and this will be reflected in the scores. Yes, it is obviously unfair, but it's a foundation to work from.

If Nanotrasen bungied testers onto every homeworld and tested 100,000 people at random, what would the tests reflect? No 'levelling the playing field' to forcefully equalize the scores of those at an advantage with those at a disadvantage. The cultural and technical advantages will be noted as playing a huge factor in the results. Assume genetic variance averages out over the sample size, with about as many specimens testing as exceptionally smart/dumb. General average of a race, as is.

Once we have a general figure, we can start breaking it down into a more thorough analysis to accommodate additional factors, breaking down each race on their merits and measuring them against their nearest culturally similar competitors. We can compare the tajaran breeds against each other, testing the unathi males and females separately (because approximately half a population being unable to read and write will catastrophically tank the results of random testing for the average scores of an average unathi male). Additionally, you can make a test that has no words for the unathi females; just because they don't have the learned behavior of reading, does not mean that they are lacking in intelligence outside of the fact that they are and have been locked out of intellectual engagement by their culture.

When you read my post, keep replaying the words 'average' and 'general' in your head. There are exceptional examples, good and bad, and it will be obviously, massively unfair in the skrellians favor. This isn't about shaping the perceptions of any such individual character of any race as it is understanding the faceless whole and how they measure against each other in the most broad and obvious comparison.

[Guest Marlon Phoenix]

Well now that I know that you understand that the races have the same implied baseline and potential for intelligence, I can safely expand on that to include the reality. In the vast majority of cases people ask these questions to justify stereotypes, or to try to establish stereotypes.

To answer this question we have to imagine that the IQ test is some Galaxy IQ Test that can be accessible to all species'. Asking "What animal is least like the others" then listing a bunch of earth animals would completely fly over the heads of even a lot of non-earth based humans. And trying to do that would be SUPER DIFFICULT, but I'm willing to pretend for the sake of the question.

I will set Sue speak for the Tajaran because since she's returned to activity I've been focusing on the Unathi predominately once again, and Loow can speak for the Skrell but I can probably hazard guesses since I don't think there were any jarring changes to their education, but ill let him take a stab if he wants.

The Unathi would score lower on average on an IQ test, but the results would be skewed based on different factors. Moghean Unathi that would score high would be male members of the upper class, with a smaller portion of the upper class females that managed to get an education through various means. Probably 80 - 95 in IQ for the underclass and 90 - 1?? for the upper-class. Politics in the Hegemony are deceptively complex, and the feudal Lords, Overlords, and Clan Leaders have a swath of duties that require them to be educated/intelligent. The landed nobility are politicians, administrators, judges, and military leaders. This isn't even mentioning all the roles you need for modern civilization! Engineers, doctors, teachers... The middle class is growing for the Unathi, and their scores would be similar to human middle classes, if lower than average because of difficulties of life on Moghes.

Higher education on Moghes was damaged by the Contact War but the upper class in the untouched Izweski territories can still access university to learn these skills, and all Unathi male children are, since first contact with humanity, required to go to functioning primary schools to raise a competitive population. Female children are taught by their mothers, and their scores would be low.

Ourean Unathi would be similar, but everything would be a bit higher, since they have had an established school system and governance by humans/skrell with their individualistic ideals and all that.