Hart and Risley, in a well-known study, propose that black IQ scores are lower than whites because an early childhood gap in the number of words spoken to children. Educators, failing once again to close the Test Gap, are continuing to use this as an excuse.
However, American Indians, who score better than blacks, typically hardly talk at all, as Steve Sailer points out below.
Steve quotes Charles Darwin in support of his assertion, but I can testify from personal experience that Indians don't talk much. This is a true stereotype.
A 1938 newspaper story quoted a nurse who worked at Fort Vermillion, 300 miles north of Edmonton, Alberta, found it difficult to treat Indians because they were too taciturn—even though they'd come to her for treatment, they wouldn't say much about what ailed them. [Nurse For Indians Says They Are Too Taciturn,The Milwaukee Journal - Aug 26, 1938]
See also this Steve Sailer blog from 2006, in which he reports that Paul Theroux travelled thousands of miles on trains used by Patagonian Indians, in the hope of getting enough local color for another best-selling travel book. Sailer reports that the book is
rather grim for the basic reason that, even though Theroux speaks Spanish, from the time he leaves central Mexico to the time he arrives in Argentina via the Andes, he barely can entice anybody on the train into an interesting conversation.
And it may be genetic—the late Phil Rushton wrote:
Over a century ago, Sir Francis Galton initiated research into individual and race differences in intelligence and temperament. He was the first to propose the study of human twins and of selective breeding in animals to disentangle the effects of heredity and environment. And it was Galton—who spent several years exploring in what is now Namibia as a young man—who first contrasted the talkative impulsivity of Africans with the taciturn reserve of American Indians, and the placidity of the Chinese.
Galton further noted that these temperament differences persisted irrespective of climate (from the frozen north through the torrid equator), and religion, language, or political system (whether self-ruled or governed by the Spanish, Portuguese, English or French).
Anticipating later studies of transracial adoptions, Galton observed that the majority of individuals adhered to racial type even after being raised by White settlers.[Solving The African IQ Conundrum : "Winning Personality" Masks Low Scores]
There's a new Lone Ranger movie coming out, and Johnny Depp, with no known Indian ancestry, is going to play Tonto. In 2008, movie critic Greg Brian deplored the whiteness of the movie actor, saying
Nevertheless, most ethnically-aware people cringe when watching a white actor from the past portrayed another ethnicity, especially when the performance exaggerated the nuances of what we mistakenly think makes up the personality of a Native-American or other ethnicity. Typically, those white actors would portray Native-Americans as taciturn, wooden and hardly capable of any kind of personality.
Disney's Lone Ranger Movie: Controversy with Johnny Depp Playing Tonto? While Depp Would Be Compelling, a White Man Playing a Native-American Will Likely Be Perceived as a Turn Back to Old Hollywood Yahoo! Contributor Network Oct 10, 2008
The obvious solution to this "problem" would be to have the role of Tonto played by Eddie Murphy or Jackie Chan, with either Will Smith or Lucy Liu as the Lone Ranger.
Instead, they've chosen to go with traditional:"There come a time, Kemo Sabe, when good man must wear mask."
