this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2025
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That statement only has one part. Could you clarify what you mean here? I'm not sure I understand.
I think it's that the statement in question was proclaimed is the "first part". Or maybe the genetic predisposition is. Unclear.
The first part says people with more melanin in their skin are inferior. This is false.
The second part says people with more melanin in their skin score lower on IQ tests. This is true (because IQ tests are terrible, and its creator said so too)
I think it would help to define the causal relationship you're referring to. What exactly about skin color changes the outcome of the test?
It doesn't. The test was designed for white people. It's the same reason that facial recognition has more false positives for people with more melanin in their skin.
The problem is the test, not the skin. That's my point.
How does the test tell the difference? Does it come with a color chart?
It's more about cultural and socioeconomic bias. So you might have questions that have a bias towards middleclass suburban kids vs a poor innercity kid.
You can find examples online, but some can be quite subtle. "Banana is to yellow as Ruby is to ______" Someone who grew up with jewelry would be more likely to know this. This goes against the principle of an IQ test, and older tests were notorious for this.
This is not the real reason. It's because camera tech from more than 10 years ago was worse than today and had trouble with anything less than ideal lighting conditions. Darker textures reflect less light, so the darker someone's skin the less details a camera can see.
However we're still talking about a 0.001 FMR for white men to a 0.002 FMR for black men. That's "2x more false matches" but it's a 0.001 difference.
With modern cameras and recent facial recognition tech, the issue in differences of skin colour is virtually non-existent. Yes, I know of the news stories about false arrests in recent years, but no tech is perfect and you're talking about a few instances out of billions.
No, I'm not defending the use of the tech, just pointing out facts.