Along with Levin, people wanting to read up on this issue, including Gardner's "multiple intelligences", should start with [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Bell-Curve-Intelligence-Structure-Paperbacks/dp/0684824299/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9655811-7155832?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183147669&sr=1-1]The Bell Curve[/ame]. This book deals with lots of the usual objections on IQ: oh, it's poverty; oh, it's all some freaky ability of no value in the real world; it's bad education; etc.
And, contrary to what you might think, the book is not mainly about race and IQ. It's about IQ in general.
When it came out, it was a bombshell. Huge efforts were made to discredit it. I have read a fair amount of the anti-Bell Curve material and can say: there are definitely some serious weaknesses in the book, mainly around the way they use their data. However, my own conclusion was: we have to keep looking. (I can supply a reading list of pro- and con- works and websites to anyone who wants to really pursue this.)
The main problem is this: it is possible that low Black scores on various tests of the intellect are due to external factors. We are dealing with some subtle influences here -- if you want an example, Google on "Stereotype effect".
We don't have that problem with respect to say, the influence of genes on low height. Races -- kinship groups -- which have on average low height, are not living in environments which could plausibly be thought to cause low height. A Kenyan born and raised in Japan will still, on average, be tall, and a Japanese born and raised in Kenya will still, on average, be short.
Now eventually we will find the gene for height (a complex of them, almost certainly). We will know just which sequence of DNA base pairs code for the amino acids that are then assembled into the proteins which make us up.
We will be able to see which gene-variant (allele) gives us tallness, and which variants, shortness. (It will be more complex than this, of course.)
This will be interesting, but not astounding, since we already know that our height is controlled by genes. (Not entirely controlled -- diet can influence things too.)
If IQ is like height, then we will also find the genes which control that. There is already some progress in this field. We will find the alleles of those genes which lead to high IQ, and the alleles tending to give us low IQ.
Then we will find out how they are distributed around the world. DNA testing is going to be routine, and cheap. Probably even compulsory at birth.
Then the argument will be settled.
TS Elliot said that mankind cannot bear too much reality. But reality is a stubborn thing.
But that won't be the end. Some time after these discoveries are made, we will know how to cut-and-splice those DNA sequences which we want to change. Designer babies will come on the scene. The "race" stuff will be over.
If you want to get an idea of what our descendants will probably look like, go to Brazil. Go to the beach in Rio.
Babes galore, naturally bronzed, and beautiful. No doubt the boys were too, but I didn't "choose" to stare too long at them.
I practically had to walk back to my hotel room doubled up -- I suppose a real white racist would not have had that reaction, the more fool they.