Analysis: IQ defenders feel vindicated

United Press International ^ | 6/24/2002 | Steve Sailer

[RightWhale]

You didn't mention which end of the curve some of the citizens of the town of your youth were on. I have known some on the triple-digit end who were not particularly able to function in society and some on the double-digit end who were fine although they just never learned to read.

I don't agree with the court decision at all.

[JoeSchem]

I don't find this double-standard surprising at all.

Human beings can accept -- and indeed, embrace -- the fact that there are people dumber than they are, and if an objective test can prove it, then it's all for the better.

It's accepting that someone might be smarter -- that's what humans have trouble doing. And if an IQ test or any other test in life (eg, business or career success) indicates that someone might really and truly be smarter than we are, we are quick to repudiate that test as invalid.

[RightWhale]

Is there a test for wisdom? The Wisdom Quality -- WQ. Can it be learned or is it simply there?

[Map Kernow]

Sometimes IQ and intelligence are confused. IQ is the score on a test. Intelligence is something else.

I see. There is such a thing as "intelligence" after all. It's just that IQ tests "don't measure it." They just let vicious, feral murderers escape execution for their crimes. So IQ tests do have a use after all. Just not the one for which they were designed. Gee, that's wonderful.

[jpl]

The Wisdom Quality -- WQ. Can it be learned or is it simply there?

That's a pretty good question. I'm not sure that I'm wise enough to figure out the answer. :)

[Ohioan]

Of course, the Left hate I.Q. tests because they consistently demonstrate the lie in the Socialist hypothesis that links human failure to exploitation by the achievers, rather than a lack in the failure. Since I.Q. tests do correlate with qualities necessary for success in mentally driven occupations, they demonstrate the absolute unfairness in the Left's redistribution of wealth and reallocation of resource schemes.

The Supreme Court's idea that there is something unjust in executing those of borderline intelligence is certainly an over-reaction to a non-problem. If someone really does not have the capacity to comprehend the enormity of certain acts, they will not have the level of scienter required for a Capital murder conviction. No State, today, executes merely for proof of killing. There have to be aggravating circumstances. Thus the 70 I.Q. killer, must not only be convicted of intending to kill another. He must also be convicted of intending the aggravating circumstances--and by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. A vegitable cannot be convicted of aggravated murder in an American State.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[FairWitness]

You didn't mention which end of the curve some of the citizens of the town of your youth were on.

The town I grew up near had about 650 people at the time, but I'm drawing from a wider community in the school district/county plus my relatives which include 20 sets of aunts/uncles, 96 first-cousins and proportional numbers of second, third, and x-times removed cousins. I don't know anybodies "official" IQ (including my own - never had it measured formally. However, I would say I knew at least 3 who were certainly above 120 and probably above 130. Then there was one unfortunate branch of the family where four siblings were probably at or close to 70. This was a farming community where (almost all) the brighter more ambitious kids moved out as soon as possible, while the less bright stayed on, married and raised more like themselves. There were even a couple of unfortunate folks who, as best I could understand it, had not received proper nutrition as children and were in pretty bad shape. As I said before, life was simple enough that most of them could manage. I imagine it has gotten harder even there.

[flamefront]

Gee no mention of the bestseller The Bell Curve although I think people get the same implications. Herrnstein and Murray would probably have something to say.

Herrnstein and Murray argue that IQ is real; that it matters (ever so much more as society becomes more equitable and technological); that it is somewhere between 40% and 80% heritable; and that it relates to not only school performance, but to jobs, income, crime, and illegitimacy; and that it cannot be ignored in any meaningful look at America's future. But the most explosive of The Bell Curve's arguments is that some of the difference in mean IQ scores between the white European population of the United States and the African-American population (one full standard deviation of 15 points) is probably attributable to genetic factors. No one in the field disputes this difference. The argument is over why the difference exists and, of course, whether and how it can be reduced.

I'd say a Darwin prize is in order for this anti-evolutionary decision.

Allowed to cohabit?

[RightWhale]

There is such a thing as "intelligence"

If Congress goes along with the reorganization, most of it, excepting the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA will be under one roof.

[RightWhale]

Lake Woebegone? Where all the children are above average. It's true, though, the young ones like to move near the city, go to college, and get jobs. Probably to a degree the ones who stay home have children who are less inspired to do college level work. Within the meaty part of the curve it's mainly cultural, I think, although there is a correlation if the test results are far off the median. But it also wouldn't be permanent because if an industry opens up in town, suddenly the next generation will be interested in school so they can get a job.

[Map Kernow]

Gee no mention of the bestseller The Bell Curve although I think people get the same implications. Herrnstein and Murray would probably have something to say.

Good catch (although Ann Coulter in the article I linked above does discuss "The Bell Curve" in the context of the SC decision)--you'd think that the Adkins decision vindicated the thesis of Charles Murray and the late Richard Herrnstein somewhat. I suppose this decision is a variation on the old saying that "The Devil can quote Scripture for his own purposes."

[Map Kernow]

If Congress goes along with the reorganization, most of it, excepting the FBI, the CIA, and the NSA will be under one roof.

Yes, yes...we know---either this topic of "intelligence-whatever-in-the-world-that-really-is-since-'they'-can't-define-it" is the subject of invective or of attempts at humor for many people. But never, ever a subject for scholarly inquiry or reasoned discourse.

You've made your point. They'll love it in the Catskills.

[RonF]

"The State and its citizens never have to worry about a murderer commiting another murder after the death penalty has been carried out."

Presuming the person put to death is actually the murderer. In Illinois, we're finding that the error rate on Death Row is around 50%, and I'm talking people proven innocent by DNA evidence, not people being released on procedural tricks. So innocent people are put in jeopardy of life and limb, while the true murderers are free.

"States are not playing God when imposing it anymore than shooting a rabid dog in the street is playing God."

God established a difference between human life and animal life; someone's identity as human is not something that we humans created, and God has not granted us the power to revoke it, even if that person is a murderer. God tells us that animals were placed on this Earth for us to use; but his rule for human life is "Thou shalt not kill". The state is not playing God when it kills an animal, as God granted us that right. But the state does when it kills a human.

"Enemies must be eliminated not fed and clothed for decades, then released for more attacks."

The presumption that a murderer is going to be released is much less likely these days. Such things have occurred in the past, but new sentencing laws and the general climate in this country is resulting in far fewer killers from every walking free again. Secondly, killers who are kept in jail for decades don't kill again, from the statistics I've seen (revidicists tend to be young when they get out of jail). Third, we're not real good in correctly identifying our enemies.

"It is criminal to require society (the taxpayers) to pay over $25,000 per yr to keep these PoS alive for further mayhem and terrorism."

Well, it's not actually a crime, is it? So you might really say that it's unjust, but only God can grant justice; the state can only give us law. We try our best to make law the best approximation of justice we can, but it'll never be perfect. And if we kill in the name of the state, when we have an alternative, I don't think God will be impressed when we tell him we did it to save money. Secure jails and current sentencing guidelines keep murders from repeating their crimes.

[Map Kernow]

Of course, the Left hate I.Q. tests

I agree with you to a point, but the thrust of the above article is the irony of the Left's sudden promotion of IQ tests in the context of the Adkins v. Virginia Supreme Court decision last week in order to save brutal murderers from execution, after literally decades of excoriating both the tests and those who dare defend the tests as a measurement of intelligence. Your argument that the Left opposes IQ tests out of principle, however warped a principle that may be, still gives the Left too much credit for intellectual integrity, IMHO.

[RightWhale]

never, ever a subject for scholarly inquiry or reasoned discourse.

Especially not on this thread.

[Ohioan]

Your argument that the Left opposes IQ tests out of principle, however warped a principle that may be, still gives the Left too much credit for intellectual integrity, IMHO.

That is hardly my point. The Left is in a war against reality. That is not a matter of principle, it is a matter of compulsion. In pursuit of that compulsion, they have frequently adopted the strategy of the big lie. (See The Lies of Socialism.) One of those major lies is that of the potential equality of people. There is not one shred of evidence of a degree of human plasticity such as would ever make all people potentially equal; and yet much current policy in the Western world, today, is dictated by such absurdity.

As I have demonstrated in The Rape Of Tolerance, some of the most acute victims of this lie are among the very minority populations that the Left feign to be protecting; that the effect of not studying actual aptitudes (and I.Q. tests are only one way of doing that), is to deny useful and fulfilling lives to those who do not perform well on I.Q. tests. Suppressing the tests is precisely analogous to killing the messenger, of old. It denies the knowledge that could be used to seek something better.

On the subject of the compulsions of the Left, I have other articles, to which you can link from either of the above. But please, do not ever accuse me of suggesting the bastards have either analytic intelligence or honor. I have been fighting them since I was a sophomore in High School, and I can attest from a lifetime of experience, that they have neither.

William Flax

[Map Kernow]

never, ever a subject for scholarly inquiry or reasoned discourse.

Especially not on this thread.

Especially not with you here. Make a substantive comment on the subject of the article or go read up on it---otherwise, I don't see the point in you hanging around and posting platitudes and flat jokes, and then complaining about the thread.

[Map Kernow]

But please, do not ever accuse me of suggesting the bastards have either analytic intelligence or honor. I have been fighting them since I was a sophomore in High School, and I can attest from a lifetime of experience, that they have neither.

I didn't mean to "accuse" you of anything, and I'm not trying to cast you as a defender of liberals. I was simply stating that I don't believe liberals oppose IQ testing out of egalitarian principle and that the Adkins decision proves that.

[Map Kernow]

On the subject of Murray and Herrnstein's "The Bell Curve," here's a part of what Daniel Seligman wrote in National Review almost eight years ago:

It is clear enough what The Bell Curve's liberal critics want. They want its ideas suppressed. They want the data to go away. They want the authors depicted as kooks and extremists. The case made by the book is just too threatening to their own egalitarian ideologies, which typically depend on arguments for human malleability. Their arguments were crumbling even before this book came along, but until now it was often possible to ignore the evidence. Now they are reduced to misrepresenting it, and to lashing out at the messengers.

[justshutupandtakeit]

1) You miss the point that presumed murderers are not being executed and have been freed when better evidence or science has pointed to an incorrect conviction. The idea that there are any significant number of unjustly executed innocents is just blarney. By the time any of these PoS are offed every conceivable excuse, technicality, lie has been tried and not even the appellate courts can avoid the conclusion that said PoS is guilty beyond any doubt.

2) God did not say thou shalt not kill but rather thou shalt not murder. There is a big difference and imposing the penalty for taking a citizen's life is not murder but justice which God favors. Our state requires massive proof that the condemned is a threat to ALL of society (including those who must guard him) and is no more redeemable than a rabid dog. They choose to act like animals; they can die like animals. Society is under no obligation to waste its resources keeping them available for instant mayhem and violence. God can forgive them but there is no obligation that society should.

3) Oh, we are excellent at identifying our enemies but the judicial system lets them go time after time. Almost all crime comes from a very small percentage of the population whose members are well known to police and courts since they are there time after time and given break after break. These vermin commit hundreds and in some instances thousands of crimes though only a small percentage of them are ever charged against them. Released murderers and would-be (will-be) murderers walk the streets now and more are freed daily. You are delusional if you believe parole boards are not letting these creeps go every day. Just last night O'Reilly described a group of maniacs who committed a horrendous crime against people in NY and were sentenced to thousands of yrs. are now coming up for parole. Any bets as to whether they are going to become sunday school teachers or continue to prey on society like a pack of ravenous wolves?

From all I have ever learned of God I can only conclude that he is a God of Justice and Justice does not mean society should treat those who have declared personal warfare against its citizens with kid gloves or throw its resources (which are limited no matter what liberals believe) down the toilet keeping alive a pack of murderous scum hoping for the chance to cut your or my throat for a nickle.