Skip to comments.Why canít we talk about IQ?
Posted on 08/09/2013 3:06:33 PM PDT by reaganaut1
IQ is a metric of such dubiousness that almost no serious educational researcher uses it anymore, the Guardians Ana Marie Cox wrote back in May. It was a breathtakingly ignorant statement. Psychologist Jelte Wicherts noted in response that a search for IQ test in Googles academic database yielded more than 10,000 hits just for the year 2013.
But Coxs assertion is all too common. There is a large discrepancy between what educated laypeople believe about cognitive science and what experts actually know. Journalists are steeped in the lay wisdom, so they are repeatedly surprised when someone forthrightly discusses the real science of mental ability.
If that science happens to deal with group differences in average IQ, the journalists surprise turns into shock and disdain. Experts who speak publicly about IQ differences end up portrayed as weird contrarians at best, and peddlers of racist pseudoscience at worst.
Im speaking from experience. My Harvard Ph.D. dissertation contains some scientifically unremarkable statements about ethnic differences in average IQ, including the IQ difference between Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites. For four years, the dissertation did what almost every other dissertation does collected dust in the university library. But when it was unearthed in the midst of the immigration debate, I experienced the vilification firsthand.
For people who have studied mental ability, whats truly frustrating is the déjà vu they feel each time a media firestorm like this one erupts. Attempts by experts in the field to defend the embattled messenger inevitably fall on deaf ears. When the firestorm is over, the medias mindset always resets to a state of comfortable ignorance, ready to be shocked all over again when the next messenger comes along.
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
I might not give the answer that you want me to.
One reason a college degree has become a necessary qualification for so many jobs is that the lawyers and the P.C. crowd have all but outlawed employers giving intelligence tests. If someone actually gets a college degree you can assume they have the intelligence to do most jobs.
Didn’t the author of this piece used to be Wonkette? Or maybe still is for all I know. And she wants us to take HER seriously about the usefulness of IQ’s? Really?
It offends the stupid.
My mistake- NOT the writer of this piece- he refrees to hr in it.
My IQ takes long weekends off in August.
Cox was at Wonkette. Richwine, the author of this essay, “resigned” from Heritage.
I read or maybe saw on TV that the most accurate predictor of future success is IQ. Achievement tests were not as good but still a good way to measure it.
...same reason you don’t get to see the Wonderlic results
We live in a culture where the left and the media fight for equality.
That includes the “right” to be a completely ignorant moron.
Why can’t we talk specifically about g-factor, the part of intellect that IQ testing is supposed to measure? And what’s wrong with linking it to race? It’s all statistics, but statistics can be very explanatory in the large, while being irrelevant in individual cases.
Why does your graph stop at 20 and omit an entire region to the left? Referring to the Jeantel region...
that pic is hilarious. what is it from?
I read another article that stated a very good predictor of future success is the number of bookcases in a childs home.
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I don't know anything about Ana Marie Cox, but the above statement is sophistry at the least. I've been working in this field for 16 years, and we have never stopped using IQ as a means of measuring aptitude and estimating success, and there are no plans to do so in the future.
No, it shines the light on all the MBA managers who should really be flipping burgers...........
Monty Python - Upper-class Twit of the Year
Monty Python Flying Circus
That theory has been thoroughly disproven, but the left chooses to ignore the truth. Accepting that most intelligence is inherited would mean they would have to blame individuals for their failures instead of society.
Obviously, a Harvard Ph.D. is somehow distinguished (or just different) from just an ordinary Ph.D., as the astute and erudite author deliberately uses extra keystrokes to describe his degree in those terms.
The lowest IQ score which appears in the scoring tables for the Wechsler IQ test manuals is around 40-45, depending on the index (Verbal, Perceptual, Working Memory, Processing Speed, Full Scale IQ.
Everyone’s opinion is equally valued in today’s society: even the opinions of the ignorant, the stupid, or the MSNBC viewers.
Not if your own IQ is above 100 and you have any real world (non-academia) experience.
They can shuffle papers and attend meetings, but if you assume they can be trusted with physical objects larger than a desktop computer or perhaps an automobile, you are walking on thin ice.
IQ, "education" and competence are not necessarily related. I have portions of all three, in varying quantities. Whatever scores I have achieved on SAT, military GCT or other "intelligence" tests have made me neither wise nor "rich".
What little competence I may have demonstrated has come via a mix of training, study and experience. As Moishe Rosen once said:
"Experience is the best teacher.
But, if you can accept it second hand
the "tuition" is less!"
Well, let me play devil's advocate here and answer that question with another question: what good would talking about it do?
Suppose a study were published that said that Norwegians as a group have a much higher IQ than, say, New Zealanders. That study could be used as an excuse for a lot of mischief. But would good would come out of it?
Something like crime statistics are useful because something can be done about crime. But an IQ is what it is. On a more personal basis, if I were hiring a person, I would be very interested in that person's education, work history, and overall self-motivation.
Unless I were hiring theoretical physicists, the candidate's IQ score would be way down the list of things I looked at.
Buy this book The Bell Curve
We can’t use IQ tests, because SCOTUS said they are racist.
Apparently the protected classes have lower IQ scores.
My liberal “EX-Girlfriend” once said “Opinions, can’t be wrong”.
I would ask if she felt Hitler’s opinion of Jews was wrong ?
This is when she would call me an a**hole.
Many people who really went to Harvard take pains to avoid saying they went to Harvard. I recognize that the opposite is also true, but the former statement is such a commonly observed phenomenon that Harvard alumni joke about it.
At any rate, the distinguishing factor between a “Harvard Ph.D.” and a regular, old, boring Ph.D. is the extra helping of smug that comes with the diploma.
Better not assume any such thing, some of them just put in the time!
The Belll Curve is a great book and its last two chapters on social policy should be required reading.
Murray’s new book, “Coming Apart” is exceptional as well.
Rutabagas begin below 19.
YOu are right. I enjoyed it. He said he expanded those two chapters in the new book.
A BA/BS degree became a "legal" wicket when IQ tests were banned by POTUS, and at first they were a good measure, but not anymore. Lotss and lots of dumb people get degrees, but they can't reason. An IQ test actually measure your ability to think, not just your ability to remember.
Better question: WHY talk about IQ?
A lot of that difference is a result of a culture that punishes anyone who tries to get ahead and rewards a victim mentality.
I wonder, if only middle class blacks were considered, what the IQ distribution would be? I bet it would be indistinguishable from whites.
Culture and early childhood development cannot be excluded as contributors to IQ.
I agree, but from an employer’s perspective, it’s about all you can go on until the applicant has been around long enough to get lots of experience.
There are Recruiters that are hired by “Employers” because they filter applicants through any number of skills tests including cognitive ability.
An honest evaluation of such things would facilitate the efficient use of educational resources. Not from the standpoint of "those people are as dumb as rocks, so don't spend any resources on them", but "if we're going to spend a certain amount of money on a person's education, what should we do to maximize the benefit that person receives".
To be sure, carelessness or dishonesty in the evaluation of people's intelligence, or in the use of such evaluations, is likely create self-fulfilling prophesies of low expectations. On the other hand, if attempts to teach a person advanced subjects are going to be futile, it's possible the person would receive more benefit if the resources were put toward teaching something they could usefully learn.
The tests simply confirm common experience based upon casual observation.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, IQ is almost totally a product of inheritance.
I guess someone could be so abused that they were physically damaged to the point that all their development would suffer but given anything like normal upbringing, it is nature not nurture.
On the other hand you could take a person who was born with a very low IQ and no matter how many resources were spent on them they would always have a low IQ.
I know a guy who went to Harvard law school.
He took just about every opportunity to remind anyone in earshot of the fact, and as often as possible.
“We did this at Hahvud ...” blah. He got a reputation as an insufferable snob, a major twit and general pita.
It didn’t seem too smart to me.
‘cause IQ is ol’ skool
Lots of truth there. I read somewhere that a good predictor of a person's ability at high-level manufacturing work is his/her score on a basic algebra test.
I certainly wouldn't use it as the only evaluation, but an algebra-based evaluation makes some sense to me. And it is something that you can improve upon with enough perseverance.
Truthfully, there are all sorts of kinds of intelligence. To gauge it, they should use lots of different tests, for example:
Benjamin Franklin’s memory test, in which you are given a length of time to memorize a whole bunch of different items. Then they are concealed from you and you need to name as many as you can.
Approximation test. People are not particularly good at guessing exact numbers of a lot of objects, exact distances, etc.. However, most are quite good with estimates of *about* how many objects they see, how far a distance is, and things like that.
Musical notation. Some people grasp abstract musical notation very easily. Others cannot, because their brains are not wired to appreciate abstracts. The same with foreign languages.
Hand-eye coordination which can be diagnosed with a video game. Likewise, attention span without distraction.
There are many tests that would give a far more comprehensive diagnosis.
Perseverance counts for a lot. Someone who doesn't have much aptitude for such things but is willing to put in a lot of effort toward mastering them may accomplish far more would be predicted by an aptitude assessment, and efforts to assist them in their mastery of the subjects may be worthwhile. On the other hand, if someone lacks the aptitude to learn easily and the perseverance to push on anyway, there's no use trying to teach the subject unless or until their they get ability and desire to persevere.