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> If we hadn’t discussed race, “The Bell Curve” would have been dismissed on grounds that “Herrnstein and Murray refuse to confront the reality that IQ tests a
by smutticus 12y ago
> If we hadn’t discussed race, “The Bell Curve” would have been dismissed on grounds that “Herrnstein and Murray refuse to confront the reality that IQ tests are invalid for blacks, which makes their whole analysis meaningless.” We had to establish that in fact IQ tests measure the same thing in blacks as in whites, and doing so required us to discuss the elephant in the corner, the mean difference in test scores between whites and blacks.
This argument rests on the assumption that IQ tests are good at measuring anything. Which, given recent understanding of intelligence and IQ, is very highly questionable. Establishing a single metric for intelligence is close to impossible. We know so little about how the brain works. To think that we can dilute intelligence down to a single number is IMO absurd.
If anything the mean difference between whites and blacks in IQ tests is the proof that IQ tests are essentially meaningless. Either we assume a definition of intelligence where the mean of blacks vs the mean of whites is more or less equal, or we assume IQ actually measures intelligence. We can't have both.
To me, it seems much more plausible that some quantitative metric is biased, than to assume that two groups of people have different levels of intelligence. Given that a) social science has a history of developing biased metrics, b) white people have a history of justifying racism with scientific models, c) racial distinctions are largely arbitrary. Anyone remember phrenology?
- puredemo 12y agohttp://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/86/1/162/ http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/86/1/162/ "Synthesizing evidence from nearly a century of empirical studies, Schmidt and Hunter established that general mental ability—the psychological trait that IQ scores reflect—is the single best predictor of job training success, and that it accounts for differences in job performance even in workers with more than a decade of experience. It’s more predictive than interests, personality, reference checks, and interview performance. Smart people don’t just make better mathematicians, as Brooks observed—they make better managers, clerks, salespeople, service workers, vehicle operators, and soldiers."
- jstalin 12y agoI'm presuming that you haven't read the Bell Curve. WOW... this post was killed. Goes to show the paranoia that still exists (and is probably stronger these days) around debating this book.
- crassus2 12y agoAsians and Jews beat vanilla whites at I.Q. tests, but also any other test that measures cognitive/academic ability - PISA, GRE, MCAT, LSAT, ASVAB - they're all correlated. It is truly miraculous that racist white people managed to come up with so many tests that confirm the black/white cognitive gap while simultaneously screwing them all up and biasing them in favor of east Asians.
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- nazgulnarsil 12y agoPretending that our instruments MUST be biased just because we don't like the measurements excuses us from searching for solutions. In one case, micronutrient fortification of iodine to increase infant IQ was opposed because saying that infants in africa were being born with lower IQs was unacceptable. Absolutely terrible.
- tejon 12y ago> assume a definition of intelligence where the mean of blacks vs the mean of whites is more or less equal, How is this any more reasonable an assumption? Don't get me wrong: I don't want to believe the alternative. But I can't just discount the possibility based on personal bias in absence of evidence, which seems to be what you're advocating. IQ not being an ideal model in no way implies that every conclusion derived from it is false; that's the fallacy fallacy. Do you have anything else to support an assertion of uniform mental capacity across the human species?