SADLY, racism is alive and well. One source of disquiet comes from Hitler-type utterances of racial superiority and a racial IQ hierarchy. This is bad enough in any multi-racial society. Another source is making fundamental mistakes in research and I refer to the article 'Chinese smartest of all, says study' (Sunday Morning Post, January 1).
The American book, The Bell Curve, was based on samples of ethnic Chinese in the United States, Britain, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. The China sample was small and all the others represented overseas Chinese. Overseas Chinese are migrants, who are typically people with talent, drive and determination, and have the courage and ability to take risks and leave their homeland.
When I was an undergraduate in the late 1960s, Jews were singled out as racially superior. Once again this was a US study and the main measure of Jewish intellectual excellence used was the relatively high number of Nobel Prizes won by people of Jewish extraction. Subsequent sociological studies have shown that it was the social system of these people which ensured that intellectual potential was expressed, and not innate racial IQ superiority.
Amazingly, The Bell Curve misses the whole point about population bell curves. Mainland China has a colossal population and, of course, a huge bell curve. The overseas Chinese largely come from the top end of the normal intelligence distribution found within any bell curve. Herein lies the sad, scientific weakness in Charles Murray's book.
Let's put our intellectual abilities into ensuring full expression in all peoples and not misdirect science with excursions into neo-racist nonsense about IQ hierarchies.
GORDON S. MAXWELL Open Learning Institute THE findings by Hong Kong psychologist Dr Jimmy Chan Wing-cheong is misleading. Dr Chan, I'm sure, is fully aware the Raven's Progressive Matrices assesses intelligence or 'smartness' in certain domains, which comprise spatial and numerical (non-verbal) abilities. In these tests, Chinese score higher than Caucasians.