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I believe this is a euphemism, and that if we ever did scratch the surface and do the studies I'm sure that we would find that race is much more than skin deep. There is no reason to think that the same genetic drift that caused differences in facial structure and skin color could not also account for differences in the structure of the brain.
I would speculate that if anyone were crazy enough to actually measure it, they would find a statistically significant difference in the mental functioning of different racial groups, with Jews and Asians being smarter than everyone else, and blacks and native americans being on the shallow end, whites somewhere in the middle.
I'm also of the opinion, though, that it would do society no good at all to even begin to look in to these things, and so we shouldn't encourage that kind of research.
Ugh. I know I'm going to regret bringing this up, but it is worth mentioning that white slave owners in the US did make a habit of selectively "breeding" African-American slaves to bring out certain genetic traits, just as they would any other domesticated animal.
Of the traits they selected for in doing so, intelligence generally was not an especially high priority on the list.
I certainly hope this hasn't been a long term factor, and whether African-Americans were even consistently subjected to this treatment for anywhere near long enough a period of time to make any substantial difference with regards to population wide intelligence levels is ultimately a question I couldn't even begin to answer in the first place. However, it does raise some interesting implications nevertheless.
Just sayin'. :shrug:
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