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 ...
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.
Not if they were on a full ride scholarship to play football or basketball.
Then it's a whole different story. Lots of times in those cases someone else did vitually all their work for them and they come out saying things like "I aksed him what his birfday is"
Tests like ACT, SAT and GRE have been dumbed down so much that they can't be used for member qualification in most HIQ groups
The ever present and always excused ‘achievement gap’.
IQ be racist...
That is true to a point. It would be more accurate to say that maximum possible IQ is a product of inheritance. The actual IQ is a product of several factors, including nutrition and early intellectual stimulation. Children who are not fed animal protein, for example, have lower IQ.
I would expect that middle class black children, being raised with a similar nutritional and intellectual background, would have a similar IQ as middle class white children. Black children in poor neighborhoods do not receive appropriate nutrition, nor do they receive much intellectual stimulation in the black poverty community.
Actually I think she was the brains of that operation.
The London Olympics.
It’s not politically correct to point out that the usurper in chief got by through affirmative action passes and is a mental midget, and of him and his VP, he looks like the “genius”.
I would expect that middle class black children, being raised with a similar nutritional and intellectual background, would have a similar IQ as middle class white children
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They don’t. Unfortunately.
Who among us has not been in a classroom where blacks were among the poorest performers. There are many blacks with above average intelligence, but for the most part they are well below average.
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