Hi, I think you should understand socioeconomic status and how that can directly influence the scores you see there. Strictly showing averages doesn’t really mean shit as there is likely sub-sets of these group that could be considered outliers (I can guarantee that).
Also in saying this, most governments have some kind of epidemiology department of which that obtain data which can explain these results in clearer sense. More of less, you’ll find that studies like this usually conclude that socioeconomic status is the main culprit here, which comes in many forms, but for some insight:
- Income
- Accessibility to education, healthcare, transport, etc
- Occupation
- Neighbourhood
Pretty much a quick summary (and why governments usually bang on about keeping the economy going so much), your economy does influence quality of life. However even with a strong economy, factors like corruption which actions that would further a wealth gap negatively impact quality of life.
Tell you right now, they can pass :P
In saying that, I am indicating that there is more to how someone passes a PhD program.
Back to the point though, lets say in theory this is true (it’s not but whatevs), and someone had a low IQ on a particular snapshot, there are multiple factors here such as: When it was made, how someone conducted themselves in that test (how much preparation was involved), their reading ability (let alone comprehension), educational background, discipline, knowledge, health and etc. Best this does, is provide a qualitative feedback.
However, why stop at ethnicity as an indicator for intelligence? We could retrieve similar data where people from rural areas typically have a lower IQ than those in city areas? Does this mean that city people, being ethnically similar to rural people are just superior? Of course not!
Same comparison can be made on wealth lines. A justification that aristocrats have used in the past which we can see is bullshit :)
So,
A snapshot doesn’t really show that someone is ‘incapable’ of obtaining a PhD but that the situation at the time may indicate that they may not be able to obtain it within a particular time frame.
It is very much dependent on the field of academia they are in, but hey… I see researchers publish shit all the time so… y’know.
The PhD situation is likely to have its own challenges involved, not all PhD programs are made equal and not all problems are made equal.
To conclude:
There are far too many factors involved to use IQ as a serious quantitative measurement. To suggests that all IQ tests are conducted in a fair environment and conclude that it is a direct measure of racial intellectual performance is a joke. (I’d agree that the researchers probably have given it their best but realistically it isn’t enough. It amounts to getting a report card from school saying that you are either not studying enough or you’re doing well, what you do with that information is your choice).