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 Guardian’s 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 Google’s academic database yielded more than 10,000 hits — just for the year 2013.
But Cox’s 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.
I’m 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, what’s 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 media’s 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 ...
Who was the NFL player a few years ago who admitted he could not read or write? I can’t recall his name but I do remember he graduated fro Oklahoma State.
Re: “We have never stopped using IQ as a means of measuring aptitude and estimating success.”
British public schools and the civil service used IQ tests for decades, and perhaps still do.
Using that database, British psychologists created a huge body of literature on the correlation between high IQ and high income.
They also found a high correlation between high IQ and long life.
That is doubly interesting.
Because, virtually all British civil servants receive exactly the same health care from the NHS.
No. Where did you ever get that idea?
OK. Saw your correction. I tend to respond in post order.
When cultures are separated from one another for long periods of time, they cannot understand one another. It’s like two Venn circles with only a small portion in common: that’s all we can see of the other culture. We end up with the most shallow stereotypes, because that’s all our culture allows us to see.
There is another kind of intelligence that is difficult to see by technically ingenious, abstract-thinking, European people. I know this is a cliche, but I have come to believe that it is true. The parts of African cultures that we can see are a kind of tip of the iceberg. We have no frame of reference for understanding the whole.
I think we will get there, however. Just by observing with an open mind.
The reason why the “messenger” keeps appearing with the same message from time to time is because nature, real science and common sense tells us otherwise. The Soviet Union for many years practiced this same nonsense, pretending as if they were all one huge happy society where there were no differences. In nature we see differences between dogs, horses, cats, cows etc. and we can even breed for the maximization or minimization of certain attributes. We know that certain breeds are more susceptible to certain diseases and have tendencies for certain behavior patterns. Likewise, even as we deny reality we still accept it at least partially when we go to the doctor and are asked what race, sex, and ethnic background we are, because after all, we know it makes a difference when it comes to the probability of having certain diseases: sickle cell, diabetes, heart disease, certain cancers, Tae-sachs...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-race-exist (This is the sort of gibberish that is popular in America)
>>According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, IQ is almost totally a product of inheritance.<<
And that was, indeed, the thinking up until a couple of decades ago. But that thinking has changed, and IQ is now viewed as malleable and heavily influenced by the environment a child encounters when growing up.
A favorite quote.
“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people 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”
Calvin Coolidge quotes (American 30th President of the United States, 1872-1933)
Wait. Is this about George Zimmerman?
Huh. Wouldn't have thought they'd notice.
Identical twins in very different socio-economic settings might have different levels of achievement. As a test of the theory, the lower achieving ones in a less stimulative environment were offered a chance to "catch up". Invariably, they caught up with their better achieving twin in a matter of months.
Along with the heritability of IQ, there was also interesting studies with the twins on abnormal psychology. Manic/depressive (bipolar) and schizophrenia also seem to be heritable traits. Criminal behavior also runs in families.
IQ is genetic, epigenetic and nutritional on the bares bones biological level. That sets the maximum potential. Whether that potential is fully realized is impacted by opportunities growing up. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but you should always strive to make the best of the available potential. I'll temper that with a caution that you shouldn't brow beat a person with low potential in hopes of raising it. It takes some patience and skill to discern whether you can tease more capability out of a given individual. Teaching a college embedded microprocessor class for 3 1/2 years was also a learning experience for me. It is something I would do again when I tire of applying those skills for a better salary than teaching offers.
You would be disappointed as your example omits the genetic contribution to the baseline IQ which you already accepted as part of the equation. Further, you would have to study a large enough sampling of families to avoid cherry picking the data.
Black children in poor neighborhoods are likely in that situation due to low IQ/low achievement parentage. Poor nutrition isn't going to help their situation. Neither is a school environment where classrooms are gang battlezones that no decent teacher will approach. As observed by many teachers, success starts in the home. Bonehead parents aren't going to help a child succeed. Intelligent parents may well help a child succeed in spite of low quality classroom instruction.
Taking the observation a step further, the forced integration by busing and other means was the liberal ideal of "equal" education. It was a tremendous failure. Learning is not an osmotic process. Mixing students of greatly disparate ability results in either 1) holding the classroom back to the lowest common denominator 2) leaving the low performers twisting in the wind to be perennial failures in life. We have had to hear the annual wailing about the "achievement gap" between blacks and whites for the last 50 years. It is the same story every year. The same remedy of "more funding" is demanded. The problem never gets solved because it ignores the reality of the IQ differences between the measured groups.
My solution? Stop trying to fix an unfixable reality. Administer IQ tests and sort the kids by ability. You'll get some of those black kids on the high end of the IQ range into a place where they can be maximally successful. A classroom full of students with similar ability is much easier to handle in the K-12 world. I structured my college courses in a self-paced fashion. The high end students assisted me with the lower performers. In turn, I rewarded the high performers with more challenging instruction in techniques that went well beyond the course requirements.
Oh Well....
Equal in God’s eyes
Not beyond that obviously
Black IQ low worldwide
In some African nations startlingly so
Nations with no democrats or white bogeymen to blame
Yep
30 ACT(me in 1975) in my day is 3-4 points more today
I’m not picking on you but you still think like a dem
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.