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 ...
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.
Yep,
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.
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