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There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out

by mhartl 15y ago

There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out that it’s the baker who rides a bicycle and the mechanic who lives in the house with a red door. There were some strange questions where she was given a sketch of a three dimensional figure such as a cube with some missing pieces, and she had to guess which shaped piece would fill the missing space, or guess which of several other pieces was the same thing rotated or reflected. This is essentially an IQ test, and what they discovered is that Gwen was highly intelligent. They then did the smart thing and judged her based on her demonstrated aptitude rather than on the prevailing prejudices of the day. Indeed, there was an obvious financial incentive to do so, which serves to remind us that unfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor. Nowadays, it is effectively illegal in the U.S. to give IQ tests to job applicants, and in the state of California it is illegal to give a black child an IQ test even when administered by a school psychologist as part of a professional assessment. To their proponents, such laws are mere "progress", but stories like Gwen's show how misguided these rules can be. When there is a clear incentive to discover the truth, objective assessments undermine prejudice rather than promoting it. It's a lesson we would do well to remember.

starwed 15y ago
I had a good friend who studied school psychology, and she let me see some of the IQ tests in use. I think you'd be surprised just how biased some of them are, and how reliant on cultural knowledge.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- pleasebehonest 15y ago
  I would be surprised. Do you have an example?
  - raganwald 15y ago
    There’s a long history of discussion about what exactly intelligence is, how whatever it is is measured, and why some social groups have statistically higher scores than others. Here’s an easy place to start looking into it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence
    - tokenadult 15y ago
      The Wikipedia article raganwald kindly linked to has an archived set of talk pages that go on almost endlessly, as the article has long been the subject of edit-warring. That article and related pages have been the subject of an Arbitration Committee case (opened at about the time I became a wikipedian, by coincidence) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence#Case_amendments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/... with ongoing administrative sanctions. In other words, I'm not sure if the article is currently in good enough shape to recommend. The Wikipedia user bibliography "Intelligence Citations" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/IntelligenceCitations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellige... points to sources that are generally reliable, as does the bibliography "Anthropology, Human Biology, and Race Citations." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/AnthropologyHumanBiologyRaceCitations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Anthropol...
- mhartl 15y ago
  I doubt I'd be surprised: my mother is a retired school psychologist, and her trainees used me as a guinea pig for lots of different IQ tests over the years. I've pretty much seen it all. With respect to the content of IQ tests, I tend to avoid the term "biased", as cultural knowledge is relevant in many real-life contexts, but the best IQ tests focus on exactly the kinds of questions described in the OP: math, logic, shapes, etc.
html5iscancer 15y ago
The fact that an IQ test worked favourably for someone from a disadvantaged background doesn't demonstrate anything about their appropriateness as an assessor of intelligence. IQ is just a metric. I'm glad employers aren't using it to replace human judgment.
raganwald 15y ago
For what it’s worth, the test was probably IBM’s Programmer Aptitude Test, I can find references to it going back to 1950 or so. http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/IBM-ProgApti-120-6762-2.html http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/IBM-ProgApti-120-6762-2.html
- unreal37 15y ago
  I took IBM's Programmer Aptitude test in 1991, and it was a memorable test even 20 years later. Not exactly an IQ test, but yes, lots of problem solving questions.
- mtpettyp 15y ago
  I took a similar aptitude test applying to IBM when I graduated in 2000. It was actually a lot of fun. Great story raganwald, it made my day.
- tesseractive 15y ago
  This story made me smile an awful lot. Thanks for posting it. It would be even better if women and people from traditionally disadvantaged ethnic groups didn't have to jump through all the extra hoops, but it's nice to see that even the extra hoops didn't stop someone smart and determined enough.
  - epitron 15y ago
    Determination is a quite powerful force. As Calvin Coolidge once said: Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
rmc 15y ago
This is essentially an IQ test, and what they discovered was that Gwen was highly intelligent. They then did the smart thing and judged her based on her demonstrated aptitude rather than on the prevailing prejudices of the day Actually, if you read the whole thing, they didn't believe her "demonstrated aptitude" because of their "prevailing prejedices". She had to fight to get them to see her demonstrated aptitude. Many people would be tired of fighting and would have given up then (or earlier in the process). If the applicant was in the privileged position, they would not have had to fight. it is illegal in the U.S. to give IQ tests to job applicants That's because in the past, the IQ tests were not fair, objective and colour-blind, but were set up in such a way as to bias against poorer people (which will be mostly black in the USA). This is easy to do with IQ tests, just ask lots of questions that require good schooling and education (e.g. word questions). Companies used to use IQ tests, and hence claim not be racist, and then be racist. The ban on IQ tests in job interviews stems from this US Supreme Court case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Company and has hence probably improved equality.
- superxor 15y ago
  +1 great info, thanks
- moldbug 15y ago
  That's because in the past, the IQ tests were not fair, objective and colour-blind, but were set up in such a way as to bias against poorer people (which will be mostly black in the USA). Is this a conspiracy theory? It sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory to me. Just sayin'. Conspiracies do happen. However, when you're trying to persuade me of a conspiracy theory, the burden of proof is high. I expect links - lots of them - and good ones. Try to avoid linking to frauds: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/06/did_stephen_jay_gould_fudge_hi.html http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/06/did_stephen_jay_gould_f... FYI, the most accurate IQ tests available at this time were Raven's matrices: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravens_Progressive_Matrices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravens_Progressive_Matrices I think these have lost some reliability because of a training effect from the general popularity of cognitive brainteasers (probably the cause of the Flynn effect). However, it would be interesting to hear someone explain how they were designed by racists to be racist. (Wikipedia tells me they were originally the Coloured Progressive Matrices, which does sound mighty suspicious...)
d2vid 15y ago
>unfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor. Only with perfect information. In the absence of straightforward tests to evaluate job applicant quality, discrimination can unfortunately be a stable and rational strategy (albeit morally wrong and illegal). Because of information asymmetries, the employer can use race as a signal to infer lower quality. By rejecting minority candidates, the average quality of their applicant pool increases. See page 494 of this paper for which George Akerlof won the Nobel Prize: http://web.usal.es/~emmam/Docencia/Modelizacion/papers/The%20market%20for%20lemons.pdf http://web.usal.es/~emmam/Docencia/Modelizacion/papers/The%2... Agreed that banning IQ tests may be misguided, as you point out the solution is to add more information to the market.
nerfhammer 15y ago
You could figure out an IQ score using multiple regression on questions you are allowed to ask quite accurately. IQ correlates highly with SAT score and GPA, so you could probably get 85% of the way there with just those two variables.
moldbug 15y ago
Note also that the methods of 60 years ago (a) discovered Gwen's ability, (b) promoted her to a commensurate position, (c) gave a productive citizen a genuine sense of achievement and accomplishment. All in a period which was universally racist and sexist by today's progressive standards. Now? Gwen's intelligence would probably also be detected, if by less straightforward and reliable methods. Because her African X chromosomes confer not one but two Diversity Points (tm), every institution she came in contact with would have a strong bureaucratic incentive to promote her not only to her actual abilities - but beyond them. As a result, she'd be very likely to end up placed in a position where rather than leading enterprise IT projects, she was competing with (say) top-notch particle physicists. Lacking (like almost all of us) the mental horsepower to perform at this level, she would constantly feel like a fraud, and her colleagues would constantly suspect her of being a fraud. A suspicion which would be correct, though you couldn't really say it was her fault. Lesson: be careful about hating on the past. Often the past looks pretty retarded by the standards of the present. Often the converse is the case as well.
- barrkel 15y ago
  So, in essence, black people today are "likely" incompetent at their jobs because of affirmative action? That seems to be what you're writing. And it doesn't look good.
  - moldbug 15y ago
    Why doesn't it "look good?" Oh, noes - am I a witch? Could you, as an engineer, design a better system to make sure that all Eskimos are "likely" incompetent at their jobs, than promoting Eskimos over Tamils just because they are Eskimos and not Tamils? Another cross-cultural comparison might be useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumiputera_(Malaysia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumiputera_(Malaysia)
    - rmc 15y ago
      Why doesn't it "look good?" Oh, noes - am I a witch? Witch, no. Racist, maybe.
Anechoic 15y ago
in the state of California it is illegal to give a black child an IQ test even when administered by a school psychologist as part of a professional assessment The issue is that IQ tests were found to be culturally biased against black students and therefore responsibly for placing those students on special-ed tracks that were not appropriate. See: http://www.rcselpa.org/docs/policies/Section%20III%20Evaluations/III.h%20Guidelines%20for%20Assessing%20African-American%20Students.pdf http://www.rcselpa.org/docs/policies/Section%20III%20Evaluat... This abstract indicates that black students seeking placement into gifted classes are exempted from the ban: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/93/1/31.abstract http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/93/1/31.abstra...
- moldbug 15y ago
  "Were found." Passive voice. Following the link, we discover that the "finder" is Judge Robert Peckham in 1979: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/us/robert-f-peckham-72-influential-federal-judge.html http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/us/robert-f-peckham-72-inf... No offense, but who the fsck is Bob Peckham? And why should anyone in 2012 care what he thought in 1979? BTW, he was in a position to "find" because LBJ made him a judge in 1966. Hear LBJ's enlightened racial perspectives here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1rIDmDWSms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1rIDmDWSms I also like how IQ tests are racist against dumb black kids, but not smart black kids. That's some awful specialized racism you got goin' on there.
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    If you think something has changed since 1979 then the burden of proof is on you to show what that is, you don't get to just assert that everything is magically different now.
    - _delirium 15y ago
      I think his argument was that a judicial determination in 1979 isn't really good evidence that it was true in 1979 either, because the courts aren't the most reliable judges of scientific facts. [I haven't read enough of the voluminous literature on the IQ-test controversy to have an opinion myself, so I don't necessarily endorse that viewpoint.]
jbooth 15y ago
"unfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor." Did you ever see that study in France where they submitted the same exact resumes with Christian names and Arab names? I'll let you guess as to the results.
- rmc 15y ago
  Similar things are noticable when male names and female names are swapped. It's evidence that there is still a lot of racism now. What do you think the 1950s were like?!
- tomjen3 15y ago
  Assuming this isn't a trick... There are two likely scenarios: 1) The employers are racist biggots based on things that don't correlate with job performance. In this case betting against them is a winning strategy. 2) The employers are racist based on observed data from previous hires. Based on that they assume that a person with an Arab name is less able to perform. This may not be fair for the individual, but may be right on average. In this case betting against them is a losing strategy. Given that the muslim world had all the knowledge the western world used to restore science after the dark ages yet have partially returned to them today, there may be some (tangential) evidence for 2. And that is really scary.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    (I suspect you already know this, but I find it is an interesting topic so I'll post it for others) It should probably be noted when talking about the history of science during the so called dark ages that the Islamic Empire covered a very vast area. The society was homogeneous only in religion, not in 'race'. My (limited) understanding is that their scientific collapse was the result of a series of (religious in nature) bans on various scientific activities (translation, dissection, etc) This seems to have had fair reaching effects on the viability of their Empire and has likely been the cause of the Muslim worlds comparatively limited scientific activity since then. Therefore I would expect that the decline of Islamic science is not a symptom of a perceived performance deficiency among people with Arab names, but rather the cause. Considering the apparently solely cultural nature of the issue, any observed phenomenon could be subject to extremely rapid change and is likely to have a very significant number of outliers.
lambda 15y ago
> Nowadays, it is illegal in the U.S. to give IQ tests to job applicants Citation needed. It is legal (at least based on the guidelines provided by the US Department of Labor: http://www.onetcenter.org/dl_files/empTestAsse.pdf http://www.onetcenter.org/dl_files/empTestAsse.pdf) to give people all kinds of tests as long as (a) they do not select against certain protected traditionally disadvantaged classes more than it does for the average applicant or (b) if it does, there is a demonstrable link between the test and ability to perform job functions (so, for instance, a test of strength in a job that involves lots of lifting may select against women, but if strength is highly correlated with job performance, that is OK). IQ tests are actually a fairly poor test for many jobs, and they can test many things besides just intelligence (for instance, knowledge of the English language or cultural trivia). For a blue-collar job, an IQ test may disadvantage people from a different cultural background or who don't speak English as a native language, without actually being particularly relevant to job performance. One of the cases that has come up many times is in fire departments, in which written tests are given and used to screen out applicants who score below a certain level, when much of the knowledge tested is not actually all that important to the job. These days, for a programming job, you would give a more specific test of programming ability. At the time, given that there probably weren't a lot of people with training or experience programming who could be hired, an IQ test was probably a reasonably good generic stand in for the aptitude to learn and think critically.
- nhebb 15y ago
  >> Nowadays, it is illegal in the U.S. to give IQ tests to job applicants >Citation needed. Griggs v. Duke Power Co.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co. "Good intent or absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as 'built-in headwinds' for minority groups" - Warren Burger, Chief Justice.
  - lambda 15y ago
    Yes, and in that ruling, as in my comment, the crucial part is that the IQ test is not necessary for the business. "The touchstone is business necessity. If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited." IQ tests in general are not banned. IQ tests are not allowed when they disproportionately impact certain protected groups, and are not shown to be necessary for screening applicants. Sure, that means that IQ tests will have a lot of problems these days, because they are not very specific for particular business needs. But if today, you were to invent an entirely new field of work, and needed to hire people who had an aptitude for grasping something new and solving abstract problems without being able to depend in prior training or experience, then an IQ test might very well be relevant. The key is whether there is a business necessity for this test or other requirement. It sounds like general intelligence test was necessary in hiring people in a completely new, and intellectually demanding field, where there were no other educational, training, or experience qualifications you could rely on. It is not necessary when hiring firefighters or workers at a power plant. From the article you link to: "It was found that White people who had been working at the firm for some time, but met neither of the requirements, performed their jobs as well as those that did meet the requirements."
brazzy 15y ago
The interesting thing is that it was probably not designed as a general IQ test, but as a test specifically developed at great expense to test for aptitude at computer programming at a time where absolutely nobody could be expected to have prior interest (let alone experience) in that occupation. This kind of thing was the normal way of hiring programmers for a while before computer science departments became common at universities. I learned this from "The Psychology of Computer Programming", originally published 1971. A fascinating read, both as a glimpse at a professional environment completely unimaginable to people accustomed to have their own dev machine, and more so for realizing that a lot of what the author wrote about the problems occurring in that environment are still relevant today.
albertsun 15y ago
I was (somewhat) recently given the Wonderlic test as part of the standard interview procedure for a fairly large US company that does a lot of recruiting on college campuses.
- yevy 15y ago
  Good luck in the NFL draft.
vannevar 15y ago
[U]nfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor. Ah, if only this were true. This assumes the market is ultimately a meritocracy, and I don't think the evidence supports that assumption. And even if it were, inefficiencies in a market can persist for a very long time. While conscious, ideological racism is less common today, unconscious racism is a virtually universal feature of human behavior, affecting all corners of the job market. Adam Smith's invisible hand isn't going to fix job discrimination.
protomyth 15y ago
The test sounds quite a lot like the ASVAB http://www.military.com/ASVAB http://www.military.com/ASVAB with some of the old sections that have since been taken out.
lolilives 15y ago
At risk of sounding like a sore loser, IQ tests, whether or not they are bias, are not a good indicator of success (in fact, I'd question it's ability to measure "intelligence" or "potential"). Scoring well on an IQ test does not mean you will be successful at your job. It does not measure your willingness to learn. It does not measure your ability to retain information. It does not measure your reception to criticism. It does not measure your ability to play nice with others. It does not measure your interest in the job. It does not measure your ability to work hard. Among others. As such, I think giving someone an IQ test at a job interview is a fairly bad idea. What we should have picked up from Gwen's job interview is that she is willing to learn and work hard given a fair chance.
- VigUi7vv8G2 15y ago
  There are lots of people with high IQs who have ADD type issues.
- patricklynch 15y ago
  At risk of sounding like a sore loser, IQ tests, whether or not they are bias, are not a good indicator of success I wondered if this was actually true, so I did some digging. I'm not saying you're wrong, but here's a fairly recent (in academic time) overview of the research: Murphy, K. R. (2002). Can Conflicting Perspectives on the Role of g in Personnel Selection Be Resolved?. Human Performance, 15(1/2), 173-186 In case you don't want to buy the article, and can't access it via a library: There's a lot of evidence that "measures of general cognitive ability represent perhaps the best predictors of performance". But the problem is that "racial differences in cognitive ability test scores are known to be considerably larger than racial differences in measures of job performance." Murphy concludes that "reliance on cognitive ability measures in selection is likely to lead to more efficiency (i.e., higher average performance) and less equity (e.g., disparities in selection rates across racial and ethnic groups)." -- As such, I think giving someone an IQ test at a job interview is a fairly bad idea. The research I've found suggests otherwise, provided those IQ tests aren't the sole means of making decisions.
VigUi7vv8G2 15y ago
There is nothing illegal about giving IQ tests to job applicants. If companies are afraid to do that, it's because they are run by idiots.
lhnn 15y ago
Too bad more places don't use skills based tests like the LSAT. If THAT'S not acceptable... I'm sorry if requiring intelligence is racist.
chrismealy 15y ago
You're an asshole.
kaeluka 15y ago
since an IQ test is measuring AND defining IQ at the same time, it's hard for it to be biased. IQ is what IQ tests measure. It's all made up. How is the situation in the U.S. regarding assessment centers? That kind of stuff is allowed?
ylem 15y ago
I think that your assertion that "unfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor" has a tacit assumption that Gwen faced a competitive market for labor. For example, suppose other businesses will not work with you if you hire someone who is not "acceptable"? Suppose there are legal penalties (supported by members of the powerful group)? Suppose there is a union? My point is that that there are non-market forces which can strongly effect job selection.

by mhartl 15y ago

starwed 15y ago

I had a good friend who studied school psychology, and she let me see some of the IQ tests in use. I think you'd be surprised just how biased some of them are, and how reliant on cultural knowledge.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
pleasebehonest 15y ago
I would be surprised. Do you have an example?
- raganwald 15y ago
  There’s a long history of discussion about what exactly intelligence is, how whatever it is is measured, and why some social groups have statistically higher scores than others. Here’s an easy place to start looking into it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence
  - tokenadult 15y ago
    The Wikipedia article raganwald kindly linked to has an archived set of talk pages that go on almost endlessly, as the article has long been the subject of edit-warring. That article and related pages have been the subject of an Arbitration Committee case (opened at about the time I became a wikipedian, by coincidence) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Case/Race_and_intelligence#Case_amendments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/... with ongoing administrative sanctions. In other words, I'm not sure if the article is currently in good enough shape to recommend. The Wikipedia user bibliography "Intelligence Citations" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/IntelligenceCitations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Intellige... points to sources that are generally reliable, as does the bibliography "Anthropology, Human Biology, and Race Citations." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/AnthropologyHumanBiologyRaceCitations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WeijiBaikeBianji/Anthropol...
mhartl 15y ago
I doubt I'd be surprised: my mother is a retired school psychologist, and her trainees used me as a guinea pig for lots of different IQ tests over the years. I've pretty much seen it all. With respect to the content of IQ tests, I tend to avoid the term "biased", as cultural knowledge is relevant in many real-life contexts, but the best IQ tests focus on exactly the kinds of questions described in the OP: math, logic, shapes, etc.

html5iscancer 15y ago

The fact that an IQ test worked favourably for someone from a disadvantaged background doesn't demonstrate anything about their appropriateness as an assessor of intelligence. IQ is just a metric. I'm glad employers aren't using it to replace human judgment.

raganwald 15y ago

For what it’s worth, the test was probably IBM’s Programmer Aptitude Test, I can find references to it going back to 1950 or so. http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/IBM-ProgApti-120-6762-2.html http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/IBM-ProgApti-120-6762-2.html

unreal37 15y ago
I took IBM's Programmer Aptitude test in 1991, and it was a memorable test even 20 years later. Not exactly an IQ test, but yes, lots of problem solving questions.
mtpettyp 15y ago
I took a similar aptitude test applying to IBM when I graduated in 2000. It was actually a lot of fun. Great story raganwald, it made my day.
tesseractive 15y ago
This story made me smile an awful lot. Thanks for posting it. It would be even better if women and people from traditionally disadvantaged ethnic groups didn't have to jump through all the extra hoops, but it's nice to see that even the extra hoops didn't stop someone smart and determined enough.
- epitron 15y ago
  Determination is a quite powerful force. As Calvin Coolidge once said: Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

rmc 15y ago

This is essentially an IQ test, and what they discovered was that Gwen was highly intelligent. They then did the smart thing and judged her based on her demonstrated aptitude rather than on the prevailing prejudices of the day Actually, if you read the whole thing, they didn't believe her "demonstrated aptitude" because of their "prevailing prejedices". She had to fight to get them to see her demonstrated aptitude. Many people would be tired of fighting and would have given up then (or earlier in the process). If the applicant was in the privileged position, they would not have had to fight. it is illegal in the U.S. to give IQ tests to job applicants That's because in the past, the IQ tests were not fair, objective and colour-blind, but were set up in such a way as to bias against poorer people (which will be mostly black in the USA). This is easy to do with IQ tests, just ask lots of questions that require good schooling and education (e.g. word questions). Companies used to use IQ tests, and hence claim not be racist, and then be racist. The ban on IQ tests in job interviews stems from this US Supreme Court case http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Company and has hence probably improved equality.

superxor 15y ago
+1 great info, thanks
moldbug 15y ago
That's because in the past, the IQ tests were not fair, objective and colour-blind, but were set up in such a way as to bias against poorer people (which will be mostly black in the USA). Is this a conspiracy theory? It sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory to me. Just sayin'. Conspiracies do happen. However, when you're trying to persuade me of a conspiracy theory, the burden of proof is high. I expect links - lots of them - and good ones. Try to avoid linking to frauds: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/06/did_stephen_jay_gould_fudge_hi.html http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/06/did_stephen_jay_gould_f... FYI, the most accurate IQ tests available at this time were Raven's matrices: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravens_Progressive_Matrices http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravens_Progressive_Matrices I think these have lost some reliability because of a training effect from the general popularity of cognitive brainteasers (probably the cause of the Flynn effect). However, it would be interesting to hear someone explain how they were designed by racists to be racist. (Wikipedia tells me they were originally the Coloured Progressive Matrices, which does sound mighty suspicious...)

d2vid 15y ago

>unfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor. Only with perfect information. In the absence of straightforward tests to evaluate job applicant quality, discrimination can unfortunately be a stable and rational strategy (albeit morally wrong and illegal). Because of information asymmetries, the employer can use race as a signal to infer lower quality. By rejecting minority candidates, the average quality of their applicant pool increases. See page 494 of this paper for which George Akerlof won the Nobel Prize: http://web.usal.es/~emmam/Docencia/Modelizacion/papers/The%20market%20for%20lemons.pdf http://web.usal.es/~emmam/Docencia/Modelizacion/papers/The%2... Agreed that banning IQ tests may be misguided, as you point out the solution is to add more information to the market.

nerfhammer 15y ago

You could figure out an IQ score using multiple regression on questions you are allowed to ask quite accurately. IQ correlates highly with SAT score and GPA, so you could probably get 85% of the way there with just those two variables.

moldbug 15y ago

Note also that the methods of 60 years ago (a) discovered Gwen's ability, (b) promoted her to a commensurate position, (c) gave a productive citizen a genuine sense of achievement and accomplishment. All in a period which was universally racist and sexist by today's progressive standards. Now? Gwen's intelligence would probably also be detected, if by less straightforward and reliable methods. Because her African X chromosomes confer not one but two Diversity Points (tm), every institution she came in contact with would have a strong bureaucratic incentive to promote her not only to her actual abilities - but beyond them. As a result, she'd be very likely to end up placed in a position where rather than leading enterprise IT projects, she was competing with (say) top-notch particle physicists. Lacking (like almost all of us) the mental horsepower to perform at this level, she would constantly feel like a fraud, and her colleagues would constantly suspect her of being a fraud. A suspicion which would be correct, though you couldn't really say it was her fault. Lesson: be careful about hating on the past. Often the past looks pretty retarded by the standards of the present. Often the converse is the case as well.

barrkel 15y ago
So, in essence, black people today are "likely" incompetent at their jobs because of affirmative action? That seems to be what you're writing. And it doesn't look good.
- moldbug 15y ago
  Why doesn't it "look good?" Oh, noes - am I a witch? Could you, as an engineer, design a better system to make sure that all Eskimos are "likely" incompetent at their jobs, than promoting Eskimos over Tamils just because they are Eskimos and not Tamils? Another cross-cultural comparison might be useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumiputera_(Malaysia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bumiputera_(Malaysia)
  - rmc 15y ago
    Why doesn't it "look good?" Oh, noes - am I a witch? Witch, no. Racist, maybe.

Anechoic 15y ago

in the state of California it is illegal to give a black child an IQ test even when administered by a school psychologist as part of a professional assessment The issue is that IQ tests were found to be culturally biased against black students and therefore responsibly for placing those students on special-ed tracks that were not appropriate. See: http://www.rcselpa.org/docs/policies/Section%20III%20Evaluations/III.h%20Guidelines%20for%20Assessing%20African-American%20Students.pdf http://www.rcselpa.org/docs/policies/Section%20III%20Evaluat... This abstract indicates that black students seeking placement into gifted classes are exempted from the ban: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/93/1/31.abstract http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/93/1/31.abstra...

moldbug 15y ago
"Were found." Passive voice. Following the link, we discover that the "finder" is Judge Robert Peckham in 1979: http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/us/robert-f-peckham-72-influential-federal-judge.html http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/us/robert-f-peckham-72-inf... No offense, but who the fsck is Bob Peckham? And why should anyone in 2012 care what he thought in 1979? BTW, he was in a position to "find" because LBJ made him a judge in 1966. Hear LBJ's enlightened racial perspectives here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1rIDmDWSms http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1rIDmDWSms I also like how IQ tests are racist against dumb black kids, but not smart black kids. That's some awful specialized racism you got goin' on there.
- Alex3917 15y ago
  If you think something has changed since 1979 then the burden of proof is on you to show what that is, you don't get to just assert that everything is magically different now.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    I think his argument was that a judicial determination in 1979 isn't really good evidence that it was true in 1979 either, because the courts aren't the most reliable judges of scientific facts. [I haven't read enough of the voluminous literature on the IQ-test controversy to have an opinion myself, so I don't necessarily endorse that viewpoint.]

jbooth 15y ago

"unfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor." Did you ever see that study in France where they submitted the same exact resumes with Christian names and Arab names? I'll let you guess as to the results.

rmc 15y ago
Similar things are noticable when male names and female names are swapped. It's evidence that there is still a lot of racism now. What do you think the 1950s were like?!
tomjen3 15y ago
Assuming this isn't a trick... There are two likely scenarios: 1) The employers are racist biggots based on things that don't correlate with job performance. In this case betting against them is a winning strategy. 2) The employers are racist based on observed data from previous hires. Based on that they assume that a person with an Arab name is less able to perform. This may not be fair for the individual, but may be right on average. In this case betting against them is a losing strategy. Given that the muslim world had all the knowledge the western world used to restore science after the dark ages yet have partially returned to them today, there may be some (tangential) evidence for 2. And that is really scary.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  (I suspect you already know this, but I find it is an interesting topic so I'll post it for others) It should probably be noted when talking about the history of science during the so called dark ages that the Islamic Empire covered a very vast area. The society was homogeneous only in religion, not in 'race'. My (limited) understanding is that their scientific collapse was the result of a series of (religious in nature) bans on various scientific activities (translation, dissection, etc) This seems to have had fair reaching effects on the viability of their Empire and has likely been the cause of the Muslim worlds comparatively limited scientific activity since then. Therefore I would expect that the decline of Islamic science is not a symptom of a perceived performance deficiency among people with Arab names, but rather the cause. Considering the apparently solely cultural nature of the issue, any observed phenomenon could be subject to extremely rapid change and is likely to have a very significant number of outliers.

lambda 15y ago

> Nowadays, it is illegal in the U.S. to give IQ tests to job applicants Citation needed. It is legal (at least based on the guidelines provided by the US Department of Labor: http://www.onetcenter.org/dl_files/empTestAsse.pdf http://www.onetcenter.org/dl_files/empTestAsse.pdf) to give people all kinds of tests as long as (a) they do not select against certain protected traditionally disadvantaged classes more than it does for the average applicant or (b) if it does, there is a demonstrable link between the test and ability to perform job functions (so, for instance, a test of strength in a job that involves lots of lifting may select against women, but if strength is highly correlated with job performance, that is OK). IQ tests are actually a fairly poor test for many jobs, and they can test many things besides just intelligence (for instance, knowledge of the English language or cultural trivia). For a blue-collar job, an IQ test may disadvantage people from a different cultural background or who don't speak English as a native language, without actually being particularly relevant to job performance. One of the cases that has come up many times is in fire departments, in which written tests are given and used to screen out applicants who score below a certain level, when much of the knowledge tested is not actually all that important to the job. These days, for a programming job, you would give a more specific test of programming ability. At the time, given that there probably weren't a lot of people with training or experience programming who could be hired, an IQ test was probably a reasonably good generic stand in for the aptitude to learn and think critically.

nhebb 15y ago
>> Nowadays, it is illegal in the U.S. to give IQ tests to job applicants >Citation needed. Griggs v. Duke Power Co.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co. "Good intent or absence of discriminatory intent does not redeem employment procedures or testing mechanisms that operate as 'built-in headwinds' for minority groups" - Warren Burger, Chief Justice.
- lambda 15y ago
  Yes, and in that ruling, as in my comment, the crucial part is that the IQ test is not necessary for the business. "The touchstone is business necessity. If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited." IQ tests in general are not banned. IQ tests are not allowed when they disproportionately impact certain protected groups, and are not shown to be necessary for screening applicants. Sure, that means that IQ tests will have a lot of problems these days, because they are not very specific for particular business needs. But if today, you were to invent an entirely new field of work, and needed to hire people who had an aptitude for grasping something new and solving abstract problems without being able to depend in prior training or experience, then an IQ test might very well be relevant. The key is whether there is a business necessity for this test or other requirement. It sounds like general intelligence test was necessary in hiring people in a completely new, and intellectually demanding field, where there were no other educational, training, or experience qualifications you could rely on. It is not necessary when hiring firefighters or workers at a power plant. From the article you link to: "It was found that White people who had been working at the firm for some time, but met neither of the requirements, performed their jobs as well as those that did meet the requirements."

brazzy 15y ago

The interesting thing is that it was probably not designed as a general IQ test, but as a test specifically developed at great expense to test for aptitude at computer programming at a time where absolutely nobody could be expected to have prior interest (let alone experience) in that occupation. This kind of thing was the normal way of hiring programmers for a while before computer science departments became common at universities. I learned this from "The Psychology of Computer Programming", originally published 1971. A fascinating read, both as a glimpse at a professional environment completely unimaginable to people accustomed to have their own dev machine, and more so for realizing that a lot of what the author wrote about the problems occurring in that environment are still relevant today.

albertsun 15y ago

I was (somewhat) recently given the Wonderlic test as part of the standard interview procedure for a fairly large US company that does a lot of recruiting on college campuses.

yevy 15y ago
Good luck in the NFL draft.

vannevar 15y ago

[U]nfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor. Ah, if only this were true. This assumes the market is ultimately a meritocracy, and I don't think the evidence supports that assumption. And even if it were, inefficiencies in a market can persist for a very long time. While conscious, ideological racism is less common today, unconscious racism is a virtually universal feature of human behavior, affecting all corners of the job market. Adam Smith's invisible hand isn't going to fix job discrimination.

protomyth 15y ago

The test sounds quite a lot like the ASVAB http://www.military.com/ASVAB http://www.military.com/ASVAB with some of the old sections that have since been taken out.

lolilives 15y ago

At risk of sounding like a sore loser, IQ tests, whether or not they are bias, are not a good indicator of success (in fact, I'd question it's ability to measure "intelligence" or "potential"). Scoring well on an IQ test does not mean you will be successful at your job. It does not measure your willingness to learn. It does not measure your ability to retain information. It does not measure your reception to criticism. It does not measure your ability to play nice with others. It does not measure your interest in the job. It does not measure your ability to work hard. Among others. As such, I think giving someone an IQ test at a job interview is a fairly bad idea. What we should have picked up from Gwen's job interview is that she is willing to learn and work hard given a fair chance.

VigUi7vv8G2 15y ago
There are lots of people with high IQs who have ADD type issues.
patricklynch 15y ago
At risk of sounding like a sore loser, IQ tests, whether or not they are bias, are not a good indicator of success I wondered if this was actually true, so I did some digging. I'm not saying you're wrong, but here's a fairly recent (in academic time) overview of the research: Murphy, K. R. (2002). Can Conflicting Perspectives on the Role of g in Personnel Selection Be Resolved?. Human Performance, 15(1/2), 173-186 In case you don't want to buy the article, and can't access it via a library: There's a lot of evidence that "measures of general cognitive ability represent perhaps the best predictors of performance". But the problem is that "racial differences in cognitive ability test scores are known to be considerably larger than racial differences in measures of job performance." Murphy concludes that "reliance on cognitive ability measures in selection is likely to lead to more efficiency (i.e., higher average performance) and less equity (e.g., disparities in selection rates across racial and ethnic groups)." -- As such, I think giving someone an IQ test at a job interview is a fairly bad idea. The research I've found suggests otherwise, provided those IQ tests aren't the sole means of making decisions.

VigUi7vv8G2 15y ago

There is nothing illegal about giving IQ tests to job applicants. If companies are afraid to do that, it's because they are run by idiots.

lhnn 15y ago

Too bad more places don't use skills based tests like the LSAT. If THAT'S not acceptable... I'm sorry if requiring intelligence is racist.

chrismealy 15y ago

You're an asshole.

kaeluka 15y ago

since an IQ test is measuring AND defining IQ at the same time, it's hard for it to be biased. IQ is what IQ tests measure. It's all made up. How is the situation in the U.S. regarding assessment centers? That kind of stuff is allowed?

ylem 15y ago

I think that your assertion that "unfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor" has a tacit assumption that Gwen faced a competitive market for labor. For example, suppose other businesses will not work with you if you hire someone who is not "acceptable"? Suppose there are legal penalties (supported by members of the powerful group)? Suppose there is a union? My point is that that there are non-market forces which can strongly effect job selection.