大象传媒

A country with a mean IQ of 70 (Kenya's is estimated from a number of studies to be to be ~71) has 84% of its population with an IQ of 85 and below, 97.6% with an IQ of 100 and below, 2.2% with an IQ of between 100 and 115 leaving a tiny 0.2% of the population with IQs over 115 (i.e. it literally run out of the brains required to build and suatain a viable modern democracy by itself). This is the case throughout sub-Saharan Africa. There is a good negative correlation between fertility and IQ/SES.

With a large enough population, they will have a small number of able people (India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria also have very high birth rates, the latter three have tripled in population since WWII whilst England has risen by about 10 million, partly through immigration), but because those able people's jobs serving such a vast number of low ability people will be so difficult, that more able band will form a class, and many will emigrate for a better life (or stash their assets abaod for safety/investment). The West now tries to attract them to compensate for its own very low TFRs (see Frattini's EU September speech).

We know from decades of research what sort of abilities are the pre-requisites for different occupations. Put people lacking the basic ability requirements into jobs which they are intellectually ill-equipped for. One can lower standards (as the UK has been doing surreptitiously in recent times), but that won't mean that the jobs are done properly, or that one is really producing more smart people. It just means one produces more deluded people, and as a consequence, in time one can expect big trouble.

That's what's been happening in Africa and other places since the 'colonialists' pulled out. Focusing on a few smart people from Africa is irrelevant, it's a matter of gene frequencies, not skin colour (which is just a marker/correlate). These colonies were originally run by some of the best brains of the colonists' countries (career administrators and government engineers) with considerable backing in terms of skills.

Second, there is no good evidence for any sustained, positive impact on IQ by environment i.e. enrichment/education (see Jensen 1969, so this goes way back). That statement is evidence driven, but how many reading it will really appreciate the radical implications? It basically means that there are vast armies of 'educators' labouring under a quasi-Marxist delusion, spinning all sorts of irrational tales that they can turn sows' ears into silk purses. They can't and they don't. Most who do this just don't appreciate that learning is just effective behaviour management, i.e. education is just a process of selecting genetically driven operant rates and shaping these. If the genes aren't there, one can't se;ect and shape the behaviours as they don't appear at high enough rates. The entire field (Behaviour Analysis, the EAB), like behavioural genetics, and IQ has been marginalised for decades obscuring the politically inconvenient empirical evidence here (look closely at which group has done this, most, no doubt unwittingly, as 'useful idiots').

If one wishes to change the prospects for a population (i.e politically manage in the interests of future generations), one has to genetically change the gene pool. A slow process. To do that one has to change the differential fertility rate. Mao appreciated that decades ago. This is what China has been doing and is still doing. One child for peasants (low IQ) more for urban dwellers (perhaps).

Given that what China (see the 1995 law) is doing is PROSCRIBED by the EU Reform (Lisbon) Treaty's FCHR as eugenics, one should perhaps look to Africa for the worst case scenario, and then look very closely at what's currently happening closer to home in Europe and the USA as a consequence of immigration/differential fertility/female emancipation. One sees a left shift of IQ here too (try visiting an inner city school and look at the performance and behaviour of kids, or just ask any experienced inner city teacher).

Looked at closely, the Lisbon Treaty and its FCHR Human Rights legislation may well just make a bad situation in the EU even worse. Forget Africa/Pakistan for a wile Newsnight, look at London, or some of the other UK inner cities, or some of those over in the USA. Look at the ethnicity and mean IQ (especially in California). The USA is going the same way for the same reason.

How many readers here will look into any of this and follow up the links and references suggested? Most will think that they already KNOW what's the case and will judge what is said here relative to THAT. But most will also be wrong. How many will ask how they know what they know, and how reliable what they know is, or how they go about gauging any of that?

Evidence driven practice is must more demanding that many appreciate. They are up against an insidious form of self-censorship.

Dear Dan Kelly

NHS screening

Clearly the burning issue is 芒聙聵How is it to be implemented? '聙聯how is the screening programme and the needs for treatments it exposes to be funded and resourced?'
The interesting answers to those questions will not come from politicians nor from the usual talking heads, but from the chief executive of the NHS, David Nicholson.
A live interview would be ideal, but a photograph and a profile is the bare minimum 芒聙聯 this is the man who is responsible for implementing Gordon Brown'聙聶s bold new idea!

Regards.

Dear Mr Kelly

I agree that we need to take more responsiblity for our health.

Could I suggest we need to fund Swimming Pools from a national fund, (currently they have to be funded locally) and provide a 50 metre pool in each town and city, giving us the means to maintain and improve our health safely.

There was a very interesting article recently in the Guardian that put the case for merging health and sport into one ministry to provide a bigger budget for sport but also in recognition of their complimentary nature

best wishes
Bob

the blog invites people to post then rejects them with server error screens. Which seems in the style of african democracy?

world service blog works. but then they dumped the bbc software....

If the Newsnight science team really does want to look into something worth invetigating in the interest of science and public interest, take a close look into the disconnect between how this government continues to waste money on Lysenkoist projects like SEAL and AIMING HIGH when even the DFES research to date shows that neither work.

The same was true for years with regard to Cognitive Skills programmes in prisons and probation, which were finally admitted to be nonsense in a Home Affairs Select Committee a couple of years back.

Just look up the published primary school research on SEAL and pay attention to the metholdology (largely postal questionnaire 'evaluation') and the KS test outcome.

Why is tax-payers' money poured into schools on this nonsense when years of research said a) it would never work and should not done, and b) the DfES research since has shown
that it does not work?

What does one think the message sent to genuine researchers is, and what does it tell one about the integrity of those bidding to do such 'research'?

There is of course a higher court of appeal after New Hampshire returns its verdict on all democrats! Just by chance I came across tonight the Statement to New Hampshire Attorney
General by economist Paul Sweezy in
1957 after he refused to answer the charge of contempt of court after he declined to name names during the Red Scare of the 1950's. He won an appeal to the US Supreme Court - overturning the conviction for contempt imposed by McCarthyites
in New Hampshire ...............

The statehas clearly come a long way since then if they are now deciding that a keen advocate of 'socialist' health care like Hillary Clinton is now a bit too conservative for New Hampshire and are voting for Obama?

Perhaps its a good idea, but ofcourse a Scottish PM can't give the same to the Welsh and Scots

Perhaps its a good idea, but ofcourse a Scottish PM can't give the same to the Welsh and Scots

BEN BRADSHAW: "He's either been misinformed, or he's received the wrong information." Nice one, Bradshaw. Classic.

To the Health Secretary of the Labour party.

Simply, why have the Labour Party only just come up with this policy and announcing it now? The Liberal Democrat Party has had the prevention policy for over 10 years. Is this just another case of the Labour party cherry picking other party policies? Or spin on an old policy that was released three years ago?
Yours Henry Oliver

To the Health Secretary of the Labour party.

Simply, why have the Labour Party only just come up with this policy and announcing it now? The Liberal Democrat Party has had the prevention policy for over 10 years. Is this just another case of the Labour party cherry picking other party policies? Or spin on an old policy that was released three years ago?
Yours Henry Oliver

To the Health Secretary of the Labour party.

Simply, why have the Labour Party only just come up with this policy and announcing it now? The Liberal Democrat Party has had the prevention policy for over 10 years. Is this just another case of the Labour party cherry picking other party policies? Or spin on an old policy that was released three years ago?
Yours Henry Oliver

Sadly the politicians descended into 'who said what and when about what'. The Health Minister did however say that the Prime Minister did not say that screening would be available when you want.

the pm's website says

"And we will extend the availability of diagnostic procedures in the GP surgery --- making blood tests, ECGs and in some cases ultrasounds available and on offer not only when you are acutely unwell or if you can pay, but when you want and need them, where you need them, at the local surgery."

Which sounds like overblowing a small increase in availability to me - but others may differ.

as an aside it would be pretty cool if factual contents of speeches could be made available to the presenter when conducting a debate (even if through his ear piece).

prevention is better than cure. yet screening is the tip of the iceberg. we must encourage healthy living, this means a whole across the board change in attitudes at all levels of government and society.

it also means embracing alternative and complementary therapy.

and listening to anecdotal evidence, just as much as they rely on giant pharmaceutical with all their vested interests.

when will the government wake up to this. spending 拢200 on massage for muscle pain maybe cheaper in the long run than, anti-inflammatory and pain killing drugs, associated secondary issues such as depression, lack of sleep and lost hours at work.

just a thought, but maybe thats too much "joined up thinking" for government and politicians?

As a nurse with Helth Visitor's training I agree prevention is better than cure, but Gordon Brown does not seem to realise the importance of enabling people to look after their health by encouraging healthy lifestyles. How about increasing childrens' & their families access to sports grounds/facilities (Plymouth could use a decent athletics facitility), cycle paths and education to help them cook and eat a healthy diet. I find it very frustrating listening to these politicians, but at least Labour's health minister gave us something to laugh about, e.g. he said someone had 'either been misinformed or given the wrong information', how about that for a bit of tautology!!

As a nurse with Helth Visitor's training I agree prevention is better than cure, but Gordon Brown does not seem to realise the importance of enabling people to look after their health by encouraging healthy lifestyles. How about increasing childrens' & their families access to sports grounds/facilities (Plymouth could use a decent athletics facitility), cycle paths and education to help them cook and eat a healthy diet. I find it very frustrating listening to these politicians, but at least Labour's health minister gave us something to laugh about, e.g. he said someone had 'either been misinformed or given the wrong information', how about that for a bit of tautology!!

Why did Newsnight go to a Clinton supporter to talk about the Clinton Obama fight rather than an unaligned analyst?

NHS Screening
I am 67 years old. My brother was 70 when he had an AAA aneurism that burst, he fell down, he died.I had never heard of AAA until June of this year. THis is the third biggest killer of men over 65!

In September my local GP surgery made their surgery available to a commercial organisation and for 拢95.00 I had a scan for AAA, a Pee test for diabetes and Kidney problems and blood pressure test. The first two were clear and the blood pressure was high - a later test showed up as normal.

Your 'DOCTOR' was very dismissive of the 'worried' well using screening.

This 'worried well' is only sorry to say that my big brother might still be with us had he had the opportunity of a scan!

'THEY' don't want us to find out about these things they just want us to die because we are old!

Have just watched Ben Bradshaw slime his way through the Newsnight interview and he boldly denied that Gordon Brown offered screening to people on request in his speech.
"Read the transcript" he whined as Laurence Buckman challenged him. Well I did read it and the following is lifted word for word from it...

"And we will extend the availability of diagnostic procedures in the GP surgery - making blood tests, ECGs and in some cases ultrasounds available and on offer not only when you are acutely unwell or if you can pay, but when you want and need them, where you need them, at the local surgery."

I think Ben Bradshaw had better read the transcript, his arrogance on Newsnight was breathtaking. Until the government stop thinking the general public will fall for their constant spin, their popularity will continue to fall.
As for Ben Bradshaw, I wouldn't buy a used car from him, let alone a plan for the NHS.

I have been paying attention to the race between the two. Obama. VS Clinton. neither in my thinking are qualified to be Prsidenrt of the USA. Obama was raised as a Muslim, he has the middle name of Muhammad, and transfered his beliefs to a church that has a strict belief that they should be totaly concerned and devoted to Africa without question. Clinton was party to the act of an articulated trailer being backed up to the White house and loading it with things belonging to the people of the USA as her husband's term as President ended. Does one think that both have changed in their thinking that she can do that again if she is made President, and would Obama shed his upbringing to concentrate on the USA as the one country he is in charge of and place Africa behind the U.S., one hardly thinks so,
It would in my thinking be a sad day for the USA if either were elected, my vote says no.

Go, Barrie.

Ben Bradshaw - hang your head in shame.

Other people beat me to the "Read the transcript" line.

I did think Mr Bradshaw looked very nervous before the interview - with good reason - the pounding he got.

DROWNING IN SPIN/PR/PRESENTATION?

Obama is playing to the 'hard of thinking', and as the USA appears to be breeding them at an ever faster rate it will surely get what it democratically deserves unless there's a radical change, and that isn't at all likely given the candidates we've seen fielded to date. The electorate there doesn't know what's best for it any more than it does here or over in Kenya:

Clinton's crocodile tears won't wash with the more astute, but they were secreted for others anyway. She won't care much about the astute as they're an ever dwindling minority). She's right to challenge Obama's rhetoric (not that her theatrics are any better), but what else have they got? The USA's prognosis isn't promising according to their own national ETS data, and by mid century the White majority will be a historical curiosity according to US Census Bureau projections. It isn't colour per se which matters here, it's just the shift in mean cognitive ability which correlates with it (excluding the East Asians for convenience).

We hear child like rhetoric from these politicians because they pitch what they have to say at the centre ground where 2/3 of the population lies, and that centre is clearly becoming dumber. China (and her allies) just have to sit back and watch as the USA and its European allies go about slowly destroy themselves demographically through self-indulgent, child-like hedonism. It really is that simple.

Those who don't discriminate very well aren't very bright, so logically, all the anti-discrimination, Human Rights/Civil Liberties movements must be deemed subversive (as Hoover once thought). How good one is at discrimination (learning) is essentially what IQ, the KS core subjects Maths, English and Science (IQ proxies for spatial and verbal IQ), and the USA SAT tests. So, why is the INABILITY to detect important group differences being championed by Obama and other 'democrats' when that can only reinforce clearly disastrous demographic trends which we've been seeing for decades to the extent that it does not discourage the current trends in differential fertility and high immigration?

Is it not time we stopped listening to all of the Chicago school economists who've been promulgating this child like impulsivity, i.e. debt and hedonism for decades? We've seen where this leads. We're now 80% Service Sector in the UK and we, like the USA have given our manufacturing base to China - how clever has that been?

Governments are supposedly elected to manage their electorate's long term interests, and that clearly hasn't been happening if one looks at the data. But then who looks at the data these days (other than a dwindling minority)?:

Prevention Better Than Cure: Just preparation for future Western-Style Ethnic Cleansing. Beware anyone who's got suspect genes or proclivity to behaviour that tends to question anything about the strictly official line that humanity is force fed.
Big Brother is here.

On a tangential note, while one is advised to wash one's hands with th alcohol gel when visiting hospital wards, no attention is directed toward the feet. On a recent visit to an acute ward, I had to answer a call of nature and then return to the bedside. It must be the case that not only was I tramping in whatever had been picked up on the way to the hospital, but also what I had trodden on in the WC. I don't know whether this advances the risk of delivering an infection such as MRSA, but if it does, then why not use the plastic disposable shoe-covers often used by builders and other tradesmen when entering a newly carpeted dwelling?

We are very fortunate and lucky to have a very good health care service in this country.

But having seen an news article broadcasted in December 2007/January 2008, there maybe a very advanced breakthrough in medical technology in about 10 years time. I, either seen this on sky news, bbc news or ITN. It was a great invention still being tested, that some of the tablets we take when unwell will be turned into microscopic cameras to see the insides of our internal organs and, then this would lower the NHS waiting lists. Doctors will be able to diagnose and treat uncommon and common medical conditions better. If this technology happens then, everyone will benefit from this, but we do have to wait for another 10 years before mediciines become this advanced.

I don't think poly clinics will be a good idea for GP surgeries, because they won't have your medical records and, so these doctors won't be able to make a clear diagnosis to treat their patients properly. But on the other hand, it is good that it will help GP's not work such long hours.