According to economist article, Jews are genetically superior

This is of course true; however, would you deny that 'Education' isn't just a process designed to confer knowledge; a good education also promotes a certain way of lateral thinking that may be conducive to higher scores in an I.Q. test?

The first article points out a correlation between intelligence and success, and parental socio-economic status and success. That isn't equivalent to a correlation between intelligence and socio-economic status. There hasn't been sufficient time spent co-evolving for something as complicated and important as intelligence to develop further in one class than another, and probably not between races either..

This is correct, a child exposed to an intellectually stimulating background's brain might permanently structure itself in a way which makes the child more able to process data, giving the child a higher IQ, this means that IQ is highly valid but but also highly changable.

I'm not sure on which point we disagree...

yes, higher IQ but not intelligence.. Did you watch "what makes a genius" on the BBC a few years ago, even on there it stated people are born intelligent, people like to think they can become smarter but they can't... not even a mention of IQ tests, because they are so inadequate/BS.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h81bQEoyzHg

IQ is meant to measure intellectual ability, not acquired knowledge. Hence "Intelligence" Quotient, not "Education" Quotient.

This is correct, a child exposed to an intellectually stimulating background's brain might permanently structure itself in a way which makes the child more able to process data, giving the child a higher IQ, this means that IQ is highly valid but but also highly changable.

You have no idea what youre talking about, IQ is accepted by pretty much all researchers as being a good proxy for intellligence. See the following, which was a consensus statement put out and signed by several big names in the field: http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1997mainstream.pdf

Please dont cite newspaper articles or TV shows as evidence, journalists generally have very little idea about science.

yes, but they have been discredited. I know people who have the same IQ Einstein supposedly had, the may be the same in terms of IQ but certainly not intelligence.

yes, but they have been discredited. I know people who have the same IQ as Einstein supposedly had, they may be the same in terms of IQ but certainly not intelligence.

In this thread:

Anecdotal Evidence - Check
Pseudoscience - Check
Mindless Bigotry - Check
Confusion over the nature of intelligence - Check
The same old IQ debate that we see at least five times per day - Check

Just to complete the set, I'm going to invoke Godwin's law.

Wasn't there a fella in Germany who had some interesting ideas about Jews and their genetic capability?

have you checked the date of that article, its 15 years old!

They could well be on the same level in terms of intelligence. Einstein obviously had a lot of acquired knowledge because to be at the top of physics you need to have learnt physics theory, which is not intelligence. Of course he needed the extremely high levels of intelligence as well, that are evident when we look at his IQ, but in addition he needed levels of knowledge from education that would seem even more astronomical than his slightly high IQ. In other words, Einstein's achievements are due to his intelligence AND knowledge, which is why people with the same IQ haven't founded a theory of physics-they don't have the knowledge. (And, the physics scene is much more saturated these days, which is also relevant.)

Nothing has changed since then, pretty much all statements in that article are even more strongly supported today than they were 15 years ago.

The guardian article gives no evidence whatsoever, it just claims that IQ tests are discredited (they arent) and that psychologists no longer use them (which is a lie).

Here is a general hint: whenever you hear someone claim that X has been 'discredited' without either giving an explanation or citing something convincing, they are usually either being dishonest or dont know what theyre talking about.

As an aside, the tests which were used in that TV show will be very weakly correlated with IQ, since they assess knowledge. The state-of-the-art for IQ testing is either Raven's Progressive Matrices (which are pattern inference tests requiring no specific knowledge), and reaction time tests. Both have been shown to have a very low degree of cultural bias, are very strongly correlated with IQ, and performance on these has a high degrees of genetic heritability.

Is there any valid, reliable empirical evidence that would support that hypothesis? My suggestion was rather more nebulous (as 'lateral thinking' inevitably has to be to an extent), but if it could be supported that would be wonderful.

Calling I.Q. 'highly valid' is surely contradicted by the suggestion that it's both subject to socioeconomic factors and changeable? Of course, that's predicated on the assumption that I.Q. is designed to test a fixed 'intelligence level' that shouldn't change over time...