>Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 14:59:21 -0700 >From: jmlib (jmlib) >To: libprofs-announce, libprofs >Subject: fwd: Academic Free Speech Incident at The University of New Orleans [From the libernet digest:] ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From: freematt@coil.com (Matthew Gaylor) >Date: Mon, 2 Sep 1996 21:46:01 -0400 >From: "Edward M. Miller, University of New Orleans" >Subject: Latest free speech incident IQ theory angers UNO students By ELIZABETH MULLEENER >From The Times-Picayune, Saturday August 31, 1996. p. B1-B2. The time-worn controversy over race and intelligence has found a new voice and a new home - this time on the campus of the University of New Orleans. For most of his 51 years, Edward Miller has lived a quiet life. A single man with a condominium on the lakefront, he works as a professor of economics and finance at the UNO. He teaches classes, he attends conferences, he goes rock-climbing on vacation, he writes dozens of articles in scholarly journals. Then he wrote a letter to Gambit, a weekly New Orleans newspaper, and all that changed. It was a controversy waiting to happen. The subject of the letter and the subject of Miller's intense interest in recent years - is the notion that there is a connection between race and IQ and brain size and head circumference. it is a notion with a long and checkered history that lies intersected over the years with overtly racist ideologies. Since his letter was published, in the July 28 issue of Gambit. Miller has been the target of some fiery responses an opinion column in the Driftwood. UNO's newspaper; a letter in Gambit from UNO's dean for multicultural affairs; and a personal letter from UNO's provost. He isn't sleeping well, Miller said. On a recent school day, a couple of campus policemen stood out-side his classroom door. On Friday, James Perry, president of UNO's Progressive Black Student Union, met with UNO Chancellor Gregory O'Brien to discuss the controversy. "We want the administration to make a public statement on the subject," Perry said before the meeting. "We want them to come out and speak against Miller. For them to let it pass is to say that what he believes is OK." After the meeting. Which both parties pronounced "very positive," O'Brien issued a statement denouncing stereotypes and prejudice and commending diversity, dignity and the exchange of ideas. He was careful to accord Miller a full measure of academic freedom. "Dr. Miller, as a citizen of the United States, is entitled to express his opinions freely O'Brien said "This is guaranteed by the Constitution and by centuries of academic tradition." Because Miller is a tenured professor - actually a research professor, an honored position at UNO - there was never a question of his being fired. At the heart of the controversy is Miller's contention that there is a positive correlation between brain size and IQ, and that black people have smaller brains than white people. "There is no debate that IQ test scores are lower for blacks than for whites," he said. Although there is a dispute over whether the tests are culturally biased, Miller seems to accept them as an objective measure of intelligence. To establish a link between brain size and IQ scores, he cites studies, including one from the University of Texas, that used resonance imaging to compare brain size of the brightest students with brain size of those slightly below average. "It showed conclusively there's a difference in brain size between the groups," he said. Miller then draws on autopsy data to advance his belief that "black brains are slightly smaller on average than white brains." His conclusion is unequivocal. "There is a link between brain size and intelligence," he said. "The larger the brain, the more intelligent the person, on average." In the fields of anthropology and genetics, the concepts Miller refers to have been widely discredited. Scientists in those fields have largely rejected physical characteristics as meaningful measures of intelligence; studies have shown that Albert Einstein, for example, had a smaller-than-average brain. Studies of genetic variation have demonstrated that such racial classifications as "white" or "black" are much too abstract to be of use in describing genetic differences between so-called "racial" groups. Much of the criticism Miller has incited has been aimed at his lack of credentials as a psychologist or anthropologist. He holds two bachelor's degrees and a Ph.D. in economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But he asserts there is a connection between the two fields. Intelligence has a lot to do with who gets ahead in America," he said. "The single most useful variable to determine whether or not a child will succeed or not is IQ. For Perry, one concern is whether Miller can be an effective teacher of black students."The problem is, when African-American students have to go his classes, they know when walk in that their professor feels they are inferior to other students in the class," Perry said. "Is there a chance for them to do as well as other students?"' Miller said he has had many black students1 including graduate students. O'Brien said he has never had a complaint of discrimination against him. "To get into UNO, YOU have to smart," Miller said "And we know the African-American students at UNO are smart." **************************************************************************** Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt@coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor,1933 E. Dublin-Granville Rd.,#176, Columbus, OH 43229 **************************************************************************** ========================================================================== >From: kurt@wickman.pp.se >Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 00:56:43 +0200 A very moving and touching story from New Orleans. Of course, the professor has all the right in the world to speak his mind and report his research result about blacks having smaller brains and being less intelligent than whites. Only one question: I have always heard that there is a very weak correlation between scores in IQ tests and "performance" in life. Mybe there is a simple explanation for that. If the guy is a Ph D in economics he should know that preference maps differ from individual to individual - what is "success" in life for one person, is not for another. If someone values highly one set of things in life, he might develop just enough "intelligence" to reach the "life goal" they imply. This entire discussion of one collective having this or that characteristic has a nasty smell of collectivist thinking over it. Forgive me, if there are over-emotional elements in my reaction Kurt Wickman ========================================================================== >Date: Fri, 6 Sep 1996 23:59:40 -0700 (PDT) >From: Fred Foldvary On Sat, 7 Sep 1996 kurt@wickman.pp.se wrote: > about blacks having smaller brains and being less intelligent than whites. Has anyone investigated the possibility that the lower IQ scores of African-Americans may be due to poor infant nutrition? If a large proportion of Black babies are fed a poor diet, their mental development could be stunted. Then even culture-neutral tests would show lower scores for African-Americans, but it would not be due to brain size or genetics, but to the bad diets of infants and pregnant mothers. Has this hypothesis been tested? Was diet accounted for in the brain-size tests? Fred Foldvary ========================================================================== >Date: 07 Sep 96 17:05:39 EDT >From: Steven Yates <102154.3102@CompuServe.COM> Upon reading this latest PC incident, my first response is, "There they go again." It should not be necessary to point out to this audience that whether or not there is a correlation between race and intelligence and whether this correlation has something to do with brain size are empirical issues that cannot reliably be decided by political fiat--as today's academics are wont to do. Personally, I'm not convinced that what correlations have been discovered really have some biological basis, and I share Kurt Wickham's worry that such claims play into the hands of collectivists. This, though is beside the point. The point is, if the PCers are going to continue to declare certain topics off limits, we're never going be able to find out what the truth is. I would speculate that the reason the very idea of a correlation between race and intelligence is off limits is that if such a correlation is established and explained, the left's egalitarian fantasies are effectively exploded once and for all. Here's a potent query, which I recently raised to my friend Rich Zeller of Bowling Green State's sociology department where he has spent the last six years fighting to get a graduate/advanced undergraduate seminar on the Sociology of Political Correctness approved: why does PC remain so deeply entrenched despite the detailed exposes of the Dinesh D'Souzas and others? His answer: the lack of any organized opposition *from the inside* from within the university community itself. Groups like the NAS are good at assembling information and presenting it, but are for all practical purposes outsiders with no influence on how curricula are actually designed, admissions and hiring processes are conducted, etc. Non-PC scholars including both the few conservative academics like Zeller and, I trust, all libertarians, are not particularly well organized or coordinated. He has a point, which is related to one I raised last year: if libertarians do not arrive at a better understanding of how power operates within institutional arrangements, leftists are going to continue calling the shots (and obtain most of the jobs). Best, --SY ____________________ Steven Yates, Ph.D. Adjunct Research Fellow, Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty mailing address: 3900 Bentley Dr., #1028 / Columbia SC 29210 phone (803) 731-5483 / email 102154.3102@CompuServe.com 07-Sep-96 Saturday 17:01 EDT "[A] good politician . . . is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar." --H L Mencken ========================================================================== >From: "Ronald Hamowy" >To: Steven Yates <102154.3102@CompuServe.COM> >Date: Sat, 7 Sep 1996 17:19:15 +0000 >CC: jmlib > I would speculate that the reason the very idea of a correlation > between race and intelligence is off limits is that if such a > correlation is established and explained, the left's egalitarian > fantasies are effectively exploded once and for all. There is, I think, another reason why so many "intellectuals" find any correlation between race and intelligence abhorrent. It is predicated on the theory that if one is more intelligent, by virtue of that intelligence one may direct the lives of the less intelligent, ideally because it will benefit everyone. Greater intelligence confers greater rights. This is certainly a presupposition of all welfare legislation and, coupled with the most important hidden assumption underlying the twentieth-century faith in democracy, that intelligence lies in the will of the greatest number of people, allows for unlimited state intrusion in the lives of individuals. Once we uncover that any identifiable group's intelligence is not as high as is that of the majority of the population we may determine their lives ad lib. It just doesn't seem to occur to most people that superior intelligence does not confer a right to determine how another will live his life, even if it means that he will fuck it up. > Here's a potent query, which I recently raised to my friend Rich > Zeller of Bowling Green State's sociology department where he has > spent the last six years fighting to get a graduate/advanced > undergraduate seminar on the Sociology of Political Correctness > approved: why does PC remain so deeply entrenched despite the > detailed exposes of the Dinesh D'Souzas and others? > His answer: the lack of any organized opposition *from the inside* > from within the university community itself. We have to concede that most academics are quite mediocre. It is probably in their interests to embrace PC notions since doing so often cloaks their own incompetence and their pedestrian performance as scholars. Were they labelled for what they are, they could then (and do) plead that they are being singled out by academic neanderthals who object to their humanistic values. It is, in sum, a massive conspiracy of the incompetent to protect each other from having to meet the traditional criteria of good scholarship. The cry for diversity and tolerance is in reality a demand that traditional standards be abolished. Of course once they have become successful in occupying the positions of authority in the university, this demand for diversity proves a total sham since the last thing my PC colleagues are prepared to tolerate is real diversity. Diversity really means "diversity within the form," as it were. > Steven Yates, Ph.D. > Adjunct Research Fellow, Acton Institute for the Study of Religion > and Liberty Ronald Hamowy Department of History University of Alberta Edmonton, Alberta Canada T6G 2H4 rhamowy@gpu.srv.ualberta.ca ========================================================================== >Date: 08 Sep 96 14:21:44 EDT >From: Steven Yates <102154.3102@CompuServe.COM> >To: , > There is, I think, another reason why so many "intellectuals" find > any correlation between race and intelligence abhorrent. It is predicated on > the theory that if one is more intelligent, by virtue of that intelligence one > may direct the lives of the less intelligent, ideally because it will > benefit everyone. Greater intelligence confers greater rights. I agree that some draw this implication, however invalid. This points up the need not to derive an individual's *rights* from cognitive ability. I myself once toyed with this idea, but abandoned it as soon as its dangers became evident. > We have to concede that most academics are quite mediocre. . . . Again agreement. I taught in four philosophy departments before my big mouth got me axed, possibly for good. All were full of, and basically run by, people I now realize were insipid mediocrities who wouldn't dare attack PC publicly even if they found it objectionable because they didn't want the hassle that might upset their safe coast into retirement. ========================================================================== >From: kurt@wickman.pp.se >Date: Tue, 10 Sep 1996 12:05:53 +0200 Dear members of this group, I still don't get the essence of the discussion concerning race and intelligence. To start with: is it true that blacks are less intelligent than whites? And, which also has been maintained by some IQ psychologists: that Asians are more intelligent than whites? These comparisons of a property (intelligence) that no one can define between totally heterogenous groups (Asians, blacks, whites) of people is to me more of medieval astrology than modern science. What I learn and teach is that a concept you can't define, you can't really know anything about. Second: suppose that it was true, that blacks are less intelligent than whites. So what? Does that shatter the egalitarian views of people? Only a full-bred meritocrat - like maybe the government of Singapore - could even think that more rights should be given to more intelligent people. Living in a European political environment, where sentiments against immigrants are growing hostile and partly going over into racism, I feel more sensitive about this political question than I have ever before. And my disbelief in most things collective makes me want to react. All the best Kurt Wickman PS! Not that it is very important, but my family name is actually Wick-man not ham DS! ========================================================================== >Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:10:59 -0700 >From: Barry or Michele Fagin I responded to Kurt privately, and he would prefer that this discussion be conducted on libprofs. I am forwarding my original response as well as his reply. -Michele >Kurt, > >This is a very divisive issue and will probably gt debated back and >forth, but the essence of the argument is like this. > >There is this thing out there that we will call "intelligence." We can't >really say what it is or what it isn't but it seems to have to do with the >ability to process complex ideas. Whatever it is, it is the thing that is >measured by a certain kind of test. > >At this point you are saying: > >>These comparisons of a property >>(intelligence) that no one can define between totally heterogenous groups >>(Asians, blacks, whites) of people is to me more of medieval astrology than >>modern science. What I learn and teach is that a concept you can't >>define, you >>can't really know anything about. > >But . . . what *The Bell Curve* showed, using 20 plus years of >longitudinal data, this thing, whatever it is, correlates more closely >with good things like wealth, lack of single motherhood, lack of crime and >some other stuff than any other factor, including education and >socio-economic status. Some of this has to do with the kind of world we >live in. It takes a great deal of complex reasoning to do even the most >mundane things these days, often because of government regulation and >sometimes because the "smart" and complex way makes a better product at a >cheaper price. > >So for good or bad, it seems that "intelligence" is a useful thing to have >in the modern world. Certainly, if you were trying to do social >engineering, you would proabably do well to think about what would create >a more intelligent population. > >If you take that thought and combine it with information about >intelligence differentials among the "races" then you can have a very very >dangerous social policy indeed. > >This is partly what *The Bell Curve* is warning against. All the smart >people rounding up all the dumb people and putting them in camps for their >own good, or remarkably stupid immigration policies based on race. The >book is very very careful to point out that statistical differences don't >tell you anything at al about a particular individual who wants a job or >to immigrate to your country. If asians, overall, score higher on >intelligence tests, this doesn't mean that any particular asian is smarter >than any particular white. > >>I still don't get the essence of the discussion concerning race and >>intelligence. To start with: is it true that blacks are less intelligent than >>whites? And, which also has been maintained by some IQ psychologists: that >>Asians are more intelligent than whites? > >It is true that, as a group, blacks score lowest on these tests and asians >score highest. There is a long chapter refuting the bias which many think >is imbedded into the test. Suppose there is a bias, though, it still >doesn't refute the high correlations shown in real world data. > > >>Second: suppose that it was true, that blacks are less intelligent than whites. >>So what? Does that shatter the egalitarian views of people? Only a full-bred >>meritocrat - like maybe the government of Singapore - could even think that >>more rights should be given to more intelligent people. > >Yes, exactly. Part of the reason that *The Bell Curve* was written was to >make sure that rights don't get based on this. Already, though, because >the government has made even simple tasks complex by arcane liscensing >requirements (haircutting for example) and reporting requirements (hiring >an employee) that the edge for the more intelligent (those able to handle >complex tasks) has been artificially increased. This is a bad thing. > >>Living in a European political environment, where sentiments against >>immigrants >>are growing hostile and partly going over into racism, I feel more sensitive >>about this political question than I have ever before. And my disbelief >>in most >>things collective makes me want to react. > >I agree that this is very very scary. US history has shown that this kind >of information can be used for terrible ends with disastrous results. >Nevertheless, I'm not sure much is accomplished by ignoring the reality of >the data. Isn't it possible to use this information for some constructive >ends? When *The Bell Curve* first came out, I actually read it and was >shocked at the reviews that were written. It was clear that only one of >the eight reviews I read (including the New York Times) was written by a >reviewer who had read the book. Everyone was so busy saying the blacks >are just as intelligent that they completely missed the reason that the >book was written. > >If you find this topic of interest, I urge you to actually read *The Bell >Curve*. There's really no substitute for the actual relentless data. > >-Michele Fagin > Member of Families Against Internet Censorship: www.rmii.com/~fagin/faic, email faic@rmii.com ========================================================================== >Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:12:16 -0700 >From: Barry or Michele Fagin >Subject: The Bell Curve rehashed This was directed to me personally, and Kurt asked me to forward it, as he meant it to go to libprofs. I have also forwarded my original reply. -Michele >Barry, >Thanks for your long and well-reasoned letter. I am now convinced that I >should >read the book. Let me also make clear that I think that any case should be >discussed on its own merits - no matter how much you, for some reason, dislike >the conclusions, everything mus be open for discussion. > >Though, there are some arguments in this case that I think go very deep, and I >doubt that the book addresses. They concern the questions of method. It is >probably possible to define an "elephant" by pointing to one, but is it >possible to define "intelligence" by pointing to what psychologists come up >with in an IQ measurement session? I don't think so - the difference being that >"intelligence" is an abstract concept, where the need for a precise definition >must be set high. If the IQ session thing were a very precise instrument, the >IQ measure would be a good predictor about performance - but from what I have >learnt, it isn't. The math grade in high school is a better predictor about >future intellectual success than the IQ test taken at the same time, is what my >psychology friends have told me. This may be right or wrong - but it shows that >even among practiotioners there is a deep sense of insecurity about the >entire business. > >I am not opposed to the discussion because I dislike racism - which I do - but >because I know that the entire "intelligence" concept is being re-modelled for the moment, and broadened. This discussion is interesting - adding new social, >spatial, intuitive and a lot of other aspects to it. It is possible (I think) >because the medical studies of the brain functions is only now starting to >advance. The idea of basing extremely far-reaching conclusions as to entire >collectives on the old "one-dimensional" IQ test seems to me to be adventurous. >It is not extremely far-fetched to warn for a possible "racist conclusion >fallacy" as a result. > >When you mention earlier US racism, it is, of course, Europeans that have >perfected it. The history of the blacks in the US is a sad story, but the >history of the Jews in Europe is much. much worse. Nothing comes close to this. >And what is tragic - and might give anyone a sense of deja-vu in this >discussion - is that German Nazi anthropologists did the same measurements of >Jewish heads and came up with the same conclusions - they are small, the policy >of exterminating them is well informed. These results went into text-books in >anthropology and stayed there for a long time after the Nazis had been >defeated. Everyone now realizes that this was politics dressed up as "science". > >On a personal note: If science people start doing these studies again, I am not >very happy that they draw "racial" conclusions from them. I think that every >single race has a bell curve - whatever intelligence is, it is normally >distributed among us all. But this is a personal prejudice, not based on any >studies. >All the best >Kurt Wickman ========================================================================== >Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 13:17:12 -0700 >From: Barry or Michele Fagin Kurt, For the record, you have been corresponding with Michele, not Barry. Though Barry and I agree on almost everything, he didn't have time to read the book. >Thanks for your long and well-reasoned letter. I am now convinced that I should >read the book. Let me also make clear that I think that any case should be >discussed on its own merits - no matter how much you, for some reason, dislike >the conclusions, everything mus be open for discussion. I'm not sure what you mean here. I have no problem with *The Bell Curve* or its theories being disucussed on its merits. I'm not sure which conclusions I led you to believe I disliked. I worry that people will misuse the information in the book, but that *IS* the conclusion of the book: People must talk about these things to be sure that information like this is not misused. I completely agree with that. >Though, there are some arguments in this case that I think go very deep, and I >doubt that the book addresses. They concern the questions of method. It is >probably possible to define an "elephant" by pointing to one, but is it >possible to define "intelligence" by pointing to what psychologists come up >with in an IQ measurement session? I don't think so - the difference being that >"intelligence" is an abstract concept, where the need for a precise definition >must be set high. If the IQ session thing were a very precise instrument, the >IQ measure would be a good predictor about performance - but from what I have >learnt, it isn't. The math grade in high school is a better predictor about >future intellectual success than the IQ test taken at the same time, is >what my psychology friends have told me. But surely the IQ test isn't negatively correlated with success. The authors acknowledge your arguments (that we can't really define intelligence and that there may be other things which predict success besides an IQ tests), but the fact is that IQ tests predict a wide range of things better than many many things that sociologists have been saying are better predictors. >This may be right or wrong - but it shows that >even among practiotioners there is a deep sense of insecurity about the >entire business. Clearly. I think the authors simply say: "We don't know what this thing is. Therefore, we define 'it' as 'The thing which is measured by this test.'" The authors fully realize that there may be many other things that can also lead to a "good" life that we haven't started measuring or looking at yet. But many people have been saying that IQ tests don't measure anything at all. Let me put it this way. Suppose I asked you to choose which factor is the best predictor of: lack of poverty completing high school employment low probability of disability low probability of divorce in the first five years of marriage low probability of having a child out of wedlock low probability of welfare dependency low probability of abusing one's children low probability of commiting a crime Which factor would you choose: the parents' socio-economic status getting a college education IQ The point of the book is that IQ is a *better* predictor. If you had to choose between being born rich or smart, statistically, you should choose smart. >I am not opposed to the discussion because I dislike racism - which I do - but >because I know that the entire "intelligence" concept is being re-modelled for >the moment, and broadened. This discussion is interesting - adding new social, >spatial, intuitive and a lot of other aspects to it. It is possible (I think) >because the medical studies of the brain functions is only now starting to >advance. The idea of basing extremely far-reaching conclusions as to entire >collectives on the old "one-dimensional" IQ test seems to me to be adventurous. >It is not extremely far-fetched to warn for a possible "racist conclusion >fallacy" as a result. Do you accept as a working definition, just for purposes of this discussion that IQ is "the thing measured by this test" while still ackowledging that there may be another factor or factors which may also someday be measured and/or defined which are better predictors? >When you mention earlier US racism, it is, of course, Europeans that have >perfected it. The history of the blacks in the US is a sad story, but the >history of the Jews in Europe is much. much worse. Nothing comes close to >this. I'm not planning to argue with you about this, but remember that US immigration policy, based on IQ testing (in many cases to people who did not speak the language in which the test was administered) prevented mnany of the people killed in Europe from escaping to the United States. >And what is tragic - and might give anyone a sense of deja-vu in this >discussion - is that German Nazi anthropologists did the same measurements of >Jewish heads and came up with the same conclusions - they are small, the policy >of exterminating them is well informed. These results went into text-books in >anthropology and stayed there for a long time after the Nazis had been >defeated. Everyone now realizes that this was politics dressed up as "science". Absolutely. A very very large part of the book (one which all the critics ignored) is this: If no one talks about this openly and science doesn't progress then we risk: 1) an increasingly isolated cognitive elite who will less and less understand or care about anyone else; 2) a merging of the cognitive elite with the affluent (that is, only smart people will be rich and only rich people will be smart which will further exacerbate #1); and 3) A deteriorating quality of life for the non-cognitive elite. This risk is apparent in social policies which make everything from being a farmer to running a store more complicated (and harder if you're not very smart) than it should be. Smart people write these policies and they can understand them, so they think "What's the big deal?" This will prevent not very smart people from having fulfilling happy lives. In our modern complicated world, it is already harder to make a living wage and raise a family if you are not very smart, but policies that complicate things unnecessarily exacerbate this difficulty. The authors argue that if we really want a social policy to help the poor then we need to remove these artificial barriers to success. If you want to be a successful automobile mechanic, you should have to know about fixing cars, not about federal equal opportunity policy, tax law and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The authors also argue that if this issue is not addressed, then this trend will lead to the "Custodial State" in which this new class of rich, smart people will essentially take over the lives of others "for their own good." >On a personal note: If science people start doing these studies again, I am not >very happy that they draw "racial" conclusions from them. I think that every >single race has a bell curve - whatever intelligence is, it is normally >distributed among us all. But this is a personal prejudice, not based on any >studies. Obviously. As I said in my last message, many blacks are smarter than many whites, many whites are smarter than many asians. Every race's IQ falls in a bell curve. Statistical differences among groups tell you nothing about the person walking down the street. The authors of *The Bell Curve* included the discussion about race and IQ because they knew that if they came out with a book that said "Being smart is the best predictor of leading a good and virtuous life" everyone would scream racist, so they thought they could diffuse the issue by discussing it openly and dealing with it. They didn't. As a corrolary to this, my current big battle is fighting government censorship on the net. One of the arguments for censorship boils down to, "Most people are too stupid to protect their kids, so we better just not have anything contoversial available to anyone." -Michele Fagin Member of Families Against Internet Censorship: www.rmii.com/~fagin/faic, email faic@rmii.com ========================================================================== >Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 16:27:10 -0400 >From: jnarveso@watarts.UWaterloo.ca (Jan Narveson) >Subject: The Bell Curve rehashed A couple of further comments about I.Q. and race and so on. First, there is an out-and-out error in the following: The math grade in high school is a better predictor about >future intellectual success than the IQ test taken at the same time, is what my >psychology friends have told me. This may be right or wrong - but it shows that >even among practiotioners there is a deep sense of insecurity about the >entire business. IQ tests measure many aspects of psychological "ability"; math is rather narrow, and math tests will be better predictors than IQ tests of SOME kinds of intellectual success, necessarily. But not general intellectual success. Incidentally, it should be pointed out that, as was noted by Arthur Jensen, way back in the 70's, it is the mathematical-type components of IQ tests which most strongly distinguish blacks from others: the black people did better on the verbally-biased parts of the test than on the more purely symbolic, math-type parts. The correltion with race was rather spectacularly illustrated by the performance of American Indians, who were on every measure more downtrodden, poorer, etc., than blacks, and who did no better than the blacks on the verbal parts, but when it came to the math parts, were well ahead of the black subjects. >I am not opposed to the discussion because I dislike racism - which I do - >but because I know that the entire "intelligence" concept is being re-modelled >for the moment, and broadened. This discussion is interesting - adding new social, >spatial, intuitive and a lot of other aspects to it. It is possible (I think) >because the medical studies of the brain functions is only now starting to >advance. The idea of basing extremely far-reaching conclusions as to entire >collectives on the old "one-dimensional" IQ test seems to me to be >adventurous. It is not extremely far-fetched to warn for a possible >"racist conclusion fallacy" as a result. While that is not logically far-fetched, you also do not know as yet what's going to happen, do you? I mean, the evidence of Jensen suggests that the new more precise tests may well distinguish more sharply between racial or other types of groups - not less so. However, one might also hope that when the notion of intelligence is sufficiently ramified, it will be found that along some measures, blacks do as well or better than whites, as well as doing distinctly worse along others. >When you mention earlier US racism, it is, of course, Europeans that have >perfected it. The history of the blacks in the US is a sad story, but the >history of the Jews in Europe is much. much worse. Nothing comes close to this. >And what is tragic - and might give anyone a sense of deja-vu in this >discussion - is that German Nazi anthropologists did the same measurements of >Jewish heads and came up with the same conclusions - they are small, the policy >of exterminating them is well informed. These results went into text-books in >anthropology and stayed there for a long time after the Nazis had been >defeated. Everyone now realizes that this was politics dressed up as "science". If the Nazis had done their homework, they perhaps even back then would have known that Jews, generally speaking, do much better than other white people - right up there with orientals! >On a personal note: If science people start doing these studies again, I am not >very happy that they draw "racial" conclusions from them. I think that every >single race has a bell curve - whatever intelligence is, it is normally >distributed among us all Of course it is normally distributed in any group you care to identify. But there is no inherent reason why it should be distributed uniformly among all racial or any other genetically distinct groups. Biology just doesn't work that way. Nature discriminates - it hasn't heard about "equality", you know? Nature doesn't give a damn about ideology. Consider the case of disease, e.g. Geneticists can tell you about genetically distinct groups among whom certain diseases are literally unheard of, while right down the road a bit, where another genetic group lives, it is rampant. This sort of thing happens all the time and is exactly what you'd expect when you know even a modest amount about genetics. There is absolutely no a priori reason why the same shouldn't be true with regard to mental functioning of various kinds. It is quite true that words like 'intelligence' tend to carry a value connotation: to be "more intelligent" is to be able to do "better" at certain kinds of things. The reason the word 'better' is applied is obvious enough: it is desirable to be able to calculate more rather than less quickly and accurately, to draw inferences more rather than less precisely, and so on and so on. But the fact that value words are applied does not mean that the area is inherently ideological. The ability to run faster is also not surprisingly highly valued by lots of people, indeed by virtually everyone at the margin. (That is: while a lot of us certainly wouldn't go to much trouble to become faster runners, very few of us wouldn't prefer to be faster than slower, costs to us being the same.) And the ability to run fast is somewhat correlated with race, as the Olympic competitions make pretty clear. Have a look at the racial composition of North American basketball teams, compared, say, with hockey teams, tenns, etc., and you will see marked disparities in racial composition. Why should any of this be a surprise? Only if one is a really head-in-sand Aristotelian will one be a priori persuaded that somehow convinced that once you get down to the species level, all individuals must be identical, or at very least that the variability within any distinguishable subgroup with regard to any given characteristic must be the same as any other distinguishable subgroup. But, as I say, a fairly rudimentary knowledge of genetics is enough to persuade any impartial onlooker that the Aristotelian expectation is simply a mistake. Indeed, it's the other way around: what we'll expect is considerable variability correlated with genetically distinct groups. That's the way we can expect things to go: Nature, as I say [only it isn't "I" - it's geneticists of my acquaintance] - doesn't give a damn about ideology, liberal or any other. __________________________________________________________________________ Jan Narveson (Professor) Department of Philosophy, University of Waterloo; Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1 (519) 888-4567-1-2780# (from touch-tone); or 885-1211, ext. 2780 (via switchboard); FAX (519) 746-3097 Home: (519) 886-1673 (answering machine) e-mail: jnarveso@watarts.UWaterloo.ca ========================================================================== >From: "Eleftheria Maratos-Flier" >Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 16:40:13 EST >Subject: IQ -- Once upon a time there was a TV commercial, for Certs, I think. It went something like: "It's a candy mint. No it's a breath mint. It's two, two, two mints in one! IQ is like that. It's genetic. It's environmental. It's both, anybody who has done even minimal research in the area discovers this. How genetic and how environmental no one can know because the appropriate experiments can't possibly done. And while IQ can be measured it isn't clear that it correlates with anything that has meaning in the real world. Is there data that it correlates with contentment, financial success, personal success? Does it correlate with the ability to be a good biomedical researcher? A good gardener? A good mother? Perhaps IQ measurements in ethnic or racial groups correlate with the overall success of the group. Perhaps there are proportionately fewer Greek biomedical researchers than Jewish or Chinese biomedical researchers because the Greek ethnic group has a lower IQ. As a person interested in individuals should I find anything of more than an academic interest in these correlations? Should I think less of the post-doc from Ghana than the post-doc from Shanghai? Come to think of it should the first lab director who hired me have avoided interviewing me because my name wasn't Daqing Xhu or Debra Shapiro? Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, M.D. ========================================================================== >Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 17:30:30 -0400 >From: jnarveso@watarts.UWaterloo.ca (Jan Narveson) >Subject: Re: genetics and stuff like that ... >And while IQ can be measured it isn't clear that it correlates with >anything that has meaning in the real world. Is there data that it >correlates with contentment, financial success, personal success? Does it >correlate with the ability to be a good biomedical researcher? A good >gardener? A good mother? This is not, alas, a good argument, although it is not entirely clear what it is an argument for. But if we take the first sentence literally, then what she says is just false.. To begin with, let's talk about correlations of results on IQ tests with things, rather than, straightaway, of "IQ" with the sort of things Dr. Flier mentions here. We can then say, first, that the results of those tests do correlate very well with performance in the specific areas of mental functioning that they are designed to test for. -- That's important, for it has, after all, been questioned; and if it were true that the scores didn't even correlate with such things, that would show that the tests were worthless. But they do correlate very well with them, and they are by no means useless. Thus, People with very high IQ's will grasp inferences much more quickly and accurately than those with low, etc. Then, next: as to correlating with valued things, no problem: virtually anyone would rather be better than worse at almost any of the mental capabilities that IQ tests test for. We would all like to be more intelligent than we are, I expect, and we admire those who are so. Intelligence is very, very far from being the only admirable kind of personal quality there is, however - to put it very mildly. There can be brilliant villains and stupid but highly virtuous people, and the reverse as well. But there are no stupid geniuses [being careful to note the existence of "idiot savants"; but the sorts of things we think of as "genius" just aren't as narrow as the sorts of things idiot savants are spectacular at]. We can expect IQ to correlate pretty well with things like being a great philosopher: Plato, Kant, Hume - these were extremely intelligent men, and no doubt if there had been IQ tests they would have scored high on them. Does IQ correlate with anything that "matters"? Apart from the fact that intelligence itself DOES "matter", to virtually anyone, we should next note that we would expect IQ to correlated quite differently with each of her examples: contentment [fairly low] financial success [yes, pretty much; except in the rare case where one has inherited a great deal of money, or in the more frequent cases where the abilities leading to success don't have much to do with intelligence; but there are plenty where they do - e.g., in the finance world] personal success? [very hard to say, for the general notion is too indefinite; but prima facie, not very] the ability to be a good biomedical researcher? [yes, modestly] A good gardener? [no] A good mother? [no, although below a certain point mothering activities would be impossible to perform; but above that, she's surely on pretty good ground] What this proves is what we should surely expect: different good things call for different personal qualities, many of which have little to do with raw intelligence. On the other hand, a good many good things do call for intelligence, and more of it is, other things equal, going to enable you to do better. >Perhaps IQ measurements in ethnic or racial groups correlate with the >overall success of the group. Perhaps there are proportionately fewer >Greek biomedical researchers than Jewish or Chinese biomedical researchers >because the Greek ethnic group has a lower IQ. While I should think that very doubtful, I would just make the observation that somebody made quite awhile ago: look at a list of the set of Noble Prize Winners in Physics over the years, and you can't help noting that the incidence of oriental or Jewish people is remarkably high, while that of black people is, I think, still at zero. The probability of a top physicist being Jewish or Oriental, in the west, greatly exceeds the incidence of orientals and jews in the populace at large. >As a person interested in individuals should I find anything of more than >an academic interest in these correlations? Well, a major lesson that people like Arthur Jensen have been trying to teach us all is: yes, we certainly should. We should not, for example, expect that a program trying to turn little black children into mathematicians and physicists will meet with success, whereas programs exploiting some of their other capabilities can expect to meet with it. That's surely important. Whereas the ideological egalitarian will insist on devoting massive resources to "proving" that blacks can be just as good as physics as anyone else ... inducing much misery among the black students selected for this purpose, as well as those attempting to force-feed them. Knowing a good deal about the specific capabilities of the group one is dealing with would be very helpful to anyone trying to enable the people in that group to do well. Should I think less of the >post-doc from Ghana than the post-doc from Shanghai? Come to think of it >should the first lab director who hired me have avoided interviewing me >because my name wasn't Daqing Xhu or Debra Shapiro? Of course not. But he also shouldn't be surprised if a fairly high incidence of people from recognizably distinct groups by logically irrelevant criteria doing a heckofa lot better in the interview than people from other distinct groups. In particular, he should not think that he must be "discriminating" against somebody if that does happen. The massive research into IQ and various other things can clue him in usefully on such matter. A final note: the squabbles about IQ in particular are tremendously misleading and of rather modest relevance to a much more important general point. IQ is of interest because intelligence is a desirable thing; but there are lots of other desirable personal qualities and abilities. Now, a more general question can be asked about the whole lot of such qualities: are they influenced by genetics? Granted the conceptual difficulty of making precise statements about such things, it remains that many of them could very well be, and probably are, very strongly influenced by genetic factors. Most of us will never, no matter how hard we practice, no matter who our teachers are, no matter how much effort is expended by any number of people, become even expert violinists, let alone Midoris or Heifetzes. Most people will never become Magic Johnson on the basketball court, will never be able to come anywhere near to Donovan Bailey at the 100-metres dash, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc.: the fact is that genetics has a hell of a lot to do with the differential incidence of a hell of a lot of desirable abilities, and this is something one ignores or denies at our general peril. Trying to make judgments about one's own capabilities is a difficult matter, of course, but we can often be very confident about a given case - such as our own - that we simply don't have what it takes to excel greatly at this, that, or the other, whereas we can expect, with work, to do pretty well at some other things, and so on. These are all intrinsically individual matters -- genes work on the organism whose genes they are, not on anybody else's - but there is, as I have noted before, just no reason to be surprised if there is also a fair amount of correlation among genetically distinguishable groups. (Indeed, we would be really astonished if there were none, when one thinks about it.) ========================================================================== >Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 18:28:32 EDT >From: Steven Horwitz >Subject: IQ, race and genetics For Jan Narveson: If IQ is a product of both genetics and environment (and I believe that it is), why is it so certain that programs designed to encourage young blacks to go into the sciences will be failures? Isn't it possible that the dearth of black Nobels in Physics is due to a school system lacking the resources and attention to encourage such an interest? I'm surely not proposing state intervention here, only suggesting that, for example, a black physicist who made a tidy sum and decided to privately fund scholarships or a magnet school for young blacks interested in science, might have no reason to expect failure. To argue a priori that such resources will be wasted sounds dangerously close to arguing that IQ is almost totally genetic and racially-driven in its genetic operation. That is some dangerous ground that I am hesitant to walk upon. My apologies if I misunderstood your argument on this. Steven Horwitz Eggleston Associate Professor of Economics St. Lawrence University Canton, NY 13617 TEL (315) 379-5731 FAX (315) 379-5819 EMAIL shor@music.stlawu.edu ========================================================================== >Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 16:36:12 -0700 >From: Barry or Michele Fagin >Subject: Re: IQ -- >Once upon a time there was a TV commercial, for Certs, I think. >It went something like: "It's a candy mint. No it's a breath mint. It's >two, two, two mints in one! > >IQ is like that. It's genetic. It's environmental. It's both, anybody >who has done even minimal research in the area discovers this. How >genetic and how environmental no one can know because the appropriate >experiments can't possibly done. Not my field, but secondary sources I've read have indicated that it is leaning toward genetic factors being a stronger component than environmental. Obviously, if you lock an extremely bright kid in a closet from birth, you won't have much. >And while IQ can be measured it isn't clear that it correlates with >anything that has meaning in the real world. Is there data that it >correlates with contentment, financial success, personal success? Well, yes, that's what the entire book *The Bell Curve* is reporting. It reports the results of the New York Longitudinal study which shows that it does indeed correlate very highly, more highly than socio-economic status and education, with things like, lack of poverty, lack of crime, lack of welfare dependency and well > Does it correlate with the ability to be a good biomedical researcher? >A good gardener? A good mother? being a good mother (to the extent that not abusing your child is being a good mother. Probably, it correlates very very highly with being a good biomedical researcher. Look around. How many of your really good colleauges do you think have IQ's under 90. >Perhaps IQ measurements in ethnic or racial groups correlate with the >overall success of the group. Perhaps there are proportionately fewer >Greek biomedical researchers than Jewish or Chinese biomedical researchers >because the Greek ethnic group has a lower IQ. >As a person interested in individuals should I find anything of more than >an academic interest in these correlations? To the extent that this information is used or not used in good or bad public policy, yes. >Should I think less of the >post-doc from Ghana than the post-doc from Shanghai? Obviously not. Statistical pictures tell you nothing about individuals. (Well, actually, the one from Ghana probably had to overcome some pretty amazing hurdles to get that far, so perhaps you should think more of her.) >Come to think of it >should the first lab director who hired me have avoided interviewing me >because my name wasn't Daqing Xhu or Debra Shapiro? Only if he or she was hopelessly insane. -Michele Fagin Member of Families Against Internet Censorship: www.rmii.com/~fagin/faic, email faic@rmii.com ========================================================================== >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 09:36:40 EDT >From: Steven Horwitz Thanks Jan. In response, I would only say that I completely agree that there is a strong genetic component to intelligence/IQ. However, I don't believe that race is a marker for that genetic component. I don't accept the argument that trying to teach physics to members of certain races (if race as a category is even sensible, as many are asking these days) is analogous in anyway to trying to teach a squirrel or chimp to speak like an adult human. The fact that race and IQ may correlate empirically may be due to a variety of factors other than genetics. And the genetic component of IQ may well be independent of race. Why believe that it is "blackness" or "whiteness" that is the biological factor at work? Steven Horwitz Eggleston Associate Professor of Economics St. Lawrence University Canton, NY 13617 TEL (315) 379-5731 FAX (315) 379-5819 EMAIL shor@music.stlawu.edu ========================================================================== >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 09:53:37 -0400 (EDT) >From: "Peter G. Klein" On Thu, 12 Sep 1996, Eleftheria Maratos-Flier wrote: > As a person interested in individuals should I find anything of more than > an academic interest in these correlations? 1. In a world of imperfect information, knowing the distribution of individual characteristics across groups can tell you something, on average, about particular individuals. For example, men are taller on average than women, although some women are taller than some men. If I had to choose players for a basketball team knowing nothing about them other than their gender, I would choose male players first. In Bayesian terms, the expected value of a player's height conditional on the player's gender is not the same as the expected value of the player's height without knowing gender. Stated differently, gender is not a perfect predictor of height, but it does improve the prediction. Thus, knowledge of observable group characteristics can be useful even if we judge individuals -- whenever we can -- strictly as individuals. 2. Modern public policy is founded on the belief, taken as self- evident truth, than the distribution of intelligence, ability, honesty, etc. is the same across different groups. In the absence of discrimination, then, we would expect to find each group represented in each profession according to its share of the general population. If a community is 75% Hutu and 25% Tutsi, for example, about 75% of the mathematicians would be Hutu, about 25% of the janitors would be Tutsi, and so on. If, say, nearly all the mathematicians were Tutsi, then this would be prima facie evidence of anti-Hutu "racism" in education, calling for affirmative action, subsidies, Hutu magnet schools, etc. Evidence that mathematical ability were not evenly distributed among Hutu and Tutsi would be an argument against such policies. Peter Klein ----- Peter G. Klein Economics, University of Georgia, 147 Brooks, Athens GA 30602-6254 706/542-3697 (voice) 706/542-3376 (fax) 706/542-1311 (secretary) ========================================================================== >From: kurt@wickman.pp.se >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 16:24:37 +0200 Michelle and Jan, I do understand the frustration about political correctness making it impossible - or at least not easy - to discuss a number of questions in a honest way. The strange adjustments of many blacks to the US welfare system should have been discussed openly and with name-naming since long, in the interest of all. Politics like "positive discrimination" and all that is just as bad. Believe me, I share that feeling of frustration over many such issues - that is what I mean that I think that all questions always should be open for discussion. It is true that nature is not egalitarian, I share that opinion - though I am sure you are aware that the issue can be argued both ways: the Russian anarchist Kropotkin wrote a whole book arguing that nature is egalitarian. But I also hold the opinion that a reduced form of egalitarianism is both natural and necessary: everybody's equal chance to take part. Of course, it is hard to find anyone that would contradict that. But I feel it is important to say it in this context. Are blacks different from whites, and less intelligent as a group? Maybe, but my instincts tell me to doubt it. I do not go thru the problems with definitions of concepts again, but let me add another aspect to Jan's observation of blacks running faster in The Olympics. Maybe it could be better explained by different sub-cultures developing certain interests more than what is done in other groups? A couple of observations to substantiate this: the world record for 200 meters was held by an Italian (white) for about 20 years, and was broken by a black only this year. And even more puzzling: pole vault. The technique there is fairly complicated, but can be learnt by anyone that is really interested. The only thing that can't be learnt is that you have to run fast - you must have the talent to run 50 meters in about 5 seconds or better. That is then decisive for success - but all the pole vaulters I know of are whites - actually, I haven't even heard of a black pole vaulter. Why? My tentative answer would be that different sub-cultures in a society tend to develop specific skills where they try to excel. The automatic "scanning" of "100 meter talent" in black groups is probably more efficient than in white groups. And only a very small difference in efficiency could produce major observed differences. Anyway, I don't think that this type of observations can be used to prove that different groups are very different from one another. One "life-observation" that I think I have made, is that people in what is socially regarded as low-status work quite often are happy in their life. Why? I think their preferences in life have been fulfilled in their choice of work - meaning they developed just enough intelligence to reach that goal. When we say that people are different, quite often we mean that they have different preference maps. What does that tell you about their IQ? Very little - some people in low-status jobs develop qualified intellectual interests. They might have expert knowledge about for instance chess or Indonesian tribes, i e activities normally associated with a high IQ. All the best Kurt Wickman ========================================================================== >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 11:01:17 EDT >From: Steven Horwitz Jan writes: >What you say below is, of course, dead right! Sorry: I certainly didn't >mean to make race a "marker". I just wanted to say that we shouldn't be >surprised to find pretty strong correlations between race and performance >along various variables. In the special case of physics and math, one's >expectation of success at getting lots of, or even appreciable numbers of, >black students up to even moderate levels of competence at calculus, say, >shouldn't be great. Agreed, as long as the reason isn't racially-driven genetics. >No, these messages are meant for the administrators of programs predicated >on the assumption that All People Are Equal. And that is the real point, and I think the most crucial message of *The Bell Curve*. Steve ========================================================================== >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 09:09:02 -0700 >From: Barry or Michele Fagin Kurt, >let me add another aspect to Jan's >observation of blacks running faster in The Olympics. Maybe it could be better >explained by different sub-cultures developing certain interests more than >what is done in other groups? I am inclined to agree with this observation because, as you note, the differences can be explained by cultural differences. I am not inclined to doubt differing IQ across races because the evidence for that is not antecdotal, cannot be explained by other factors and is substantiated in numerous studies. (The only criticism of those studies is that the tests are race-biased and I have spent enough time looking into that to believe that those claims are not substantiated.) >Anyway, I don't think that this type of observations can be used to prove >that different groups are very different from one another. I agree, but 30 years of statistical data can. > One "life-observation" >that I think I have made, is that people in what is socially regarded as >low-status work quite often are happy in their life. Why? I think their >preferences in life have been fulfilled in their choice of work - meaning they >developed just enough intelligence to reach that goal. When we say that people >are different, quite often we mean that they have different preference maps. >What does that tell you about their IQ? Very little - some people in low-status >jobs develop qualified intellectual interests. They might have expert knowledge >about for instance chess or Indonesian tribes, i e activities normally >associated with a high IQ. The points you raise here are, oddly, addressed in another book by Charles Murray, *In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government*. He talks about what brings "happiness" in life and basically concludes that being challenged at just the right level is part of that. If you play chess, you want to play someone who challenges you but that you have some chance of beating. Playing a significantly weaker or stronger opponent isn't fun. Jobs are similar. Part of the point of *The Bell Curve* is that the challenges in life that lead to happiness are disappearing for lower intelligence people, partly because of unnecessary complexity created by government regulations and such. It looks to me Karl, like you need to read some of this stuff. I think you would find it interesting and helpful in hearing ideas that relate to what you're coming up with yourself. Regards, Michele Fagin Member of Families Against Internet Censorship: www.rmii.com/~fagin/faic, email faic@rmii.com ========================================================================== >From: "Eleftheria Maratos-Flier" >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 11:56:05 EST Jan Narverson writes: >>. To begin with, let's talk about correlations of results on IQ tests with things, rather than, straightaway, of "IQ" with the sort of things Dr. Flier mentions here. We can then say, first, that the results of those tests do correlate very well with performance in the specific areas of mental functioning that they are designed to test for. --<< Yes, it correlates with the specific areas of mental functioning it is designed to test for but this correlation doesn't do much for any given individual. Plenty of people with high IQs (e.g. over 140) turn out to be surprisingly unsuccesful in the real world and plenty of people with relatively low IQs (e.g. 100) turn out to be succesful. >>That's important, for it has, after all, been questioned; and if it were true that the scores didn't even correlate with such things, that would show that the tests were worthless. But they do correlate very well with them, and they are by no means useless. Thus, People with very high IQ's will grasp inferences much more quickly and accurately than those with low, etc.<< Yes BUT once you are out of the academic world and in the world of jobs nobody cares about your IQ. What employers care about is performance. And over fairly large ranges of IQ many other things are going to contribute to performance; things like consistency, ability to deal with frustration, ability to get along with others. In a biomedical lab someone with an IQ of 110 may in fact perform better than someone with an IQ of 150. >>>We would all like to be more intelligent than we are, I expect, and we admire those who are so. Intelligence is very, very far from being the only admirable kind of personal quality there is, however - to put it very mildly.<<< On this list I suspect this is true. But in my life experience I've met enough people who could care less about intelligence to say that there are many people who are of only average intelligence and aspire to no more. >>We can expect IQ to correlate pretty well with things like being a great philosopher: Plato, Kant, Hume - these were extremely intelligent men, and no doubt if there had been IQ tests they would have scored high on them.<<< Sure, but this is a limited form of very abstract intelligence you are dealing with. Not everyone is going to go and do philosophy or not only because they can't but because they also aren't interested. What about famous musicians, artists or even writers. There isn't any reason to think that a particularly high or even an above average IQ is required for artistic success. >>Does IQ correlate with anything that "matters"? Apart from the fact that intelligence itself DOES "matter", to virtually anyone<< If you had the opportunity to meet some of my patients -- very nice, well functioning succesful people, you would discover that there are many people for whom intelligence really does not matter. >>contentment [fairly low] financial success [yes, pretty much; except in the rare case where one has inherited a great deal of money, or in the more frequent cases where the abilities leading to success don't have much to do with intelligence; but there are plenty where they do - e.g., in the finance world]<< My intuitive sense is that this isn't true -- unless you are talking about extraordinary wealth. There are plenty of financially succesful garage mechanics, in fact my garage mechanic makes more than I do. You can extend garage mechanics to many service trades -- gardereners, restaurant owners, contractors, plumbers, electricians, where people can be very succesful financially, and where the sorts of skills that IQ tests for a quite irrelevant to their success. >>>While I should think that very doubtful, I would just make the observation that somebody made quite awhile ago: look at a list of the set of Noble Prize Winners in Physics over the years, and you can't help noting that the incidence of oriental or Jewish people is remarkably high, while that of black people is, I think, still at zero. The probability of a top physicist being Jewish or Oriental, in the west, greatly exceeds the incidence of orientals and jews in the populace at large.<< But being a top physicist is one of the few areas where the mental skill measured by IQ correlate with the skills required for job performance. >>>Well, a major lesson that people like Arthur Jensen have been trying to teach us all is: yes, we certainly should. We should not, for example, expect that a program trying to turn little black children into mathematicians and physicists will meet with success, whereas programs exploiting some of their other capabilities can expect to meet with it. That's surely important. Whereas the ideological egalitarian will insist on devoting massive resources to "proving" that blacks can be just as good as physics as anyone else ... inducing much misery among the black students selected for this purpose, as well as those attempting to force-feed them. Knowing a good deal about the specific capabilities of the group one is dealing with would be very helpful to anyone trying to enable the people in that group to do well.<< Well this would lead to the conclusion that different types of education should be targeted to different racial and ethnic groups, wouldn't it? I would rather see education targeted to individuals. >>Of course not. But he also shouldn't be surprised if a fairly high incidence of people from recognizably distinct groups by logically irrelevant criteria doing a heckofa lot better in the interview than people from other distinct groups. In particular, he should not think that he must be "discriminating" against somebody if that does happen. The massive research into IQ and various other things can clue him in usefully on such matter.<< I completely disagree. An employer looking at potential post-doctoral fellows has infinitely more useful data to go on than the racial or ethnic group of the applicant. One can evaluate college and graduate school course performance and laboratory skills. Postdoctoral fellows usually come equipped with several references. Given this information taking ethnicity or race into account is definitely discriminating on the basis of race. >> IQ is of interest because intelligence is a desirable thing; but there are lots of other desirable personal qualities and abilities.<< Actually I find personal qualities and abilities (all of which have both genetic and environmental components) much more interesting than IQ. I'm fascinated that everyone is so fascinated. Granted for children it may be a predictor of academic type success. But for any adult with a personal history I think it is pretty unimportant. Best, Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, M.D. ========================================================================== >From: "Eleftheria Maratos-Flier" >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 12:08:42 EST Peter G. Klein writes: >> 1. In a world of imperfect information, knowing the distribution of individual characteristics across groups can tell you something, on average, about particular individuals. For example, men are taller on average than women, although some women are taller than some men. If I had to choose players for a basketball team knowing nothing about them other than their gender, I would choose male players first. In Bayesian terms, the expected value of a player's height conditional on the player's gender is not the same as the expected value of the player's height without knowing gender. Stated differently, gender is not a perfect predictor of height, but it does improve the prediction. Thus, knowledge of observable group characteristics can be useful even if we judge individuals -- whenever we can -- strictly as individuals.<<< I do biomedical research. I get to hire lab assistants and post-docs. Fortunately IQ never comes up in the hiring process! I can look at their grades, publications, recommendations. This information may be imperfect but it's a heck of a lot better than the IQ. >> 2. Modern public policy is founded on the belief, taken as self- evident truth, than the distribution of intelligence, ability, honesty, etc. is the same across different groups. In the absence of discrimination, then, we would expect to find each group represented in each profession according to its share of the general population.<< I think modern public policy is both racist (because of it's focus on race and stupid. Was it perchance developed by people with particularly low IQs? Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, M.D. ========================================================================== >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 09:07:41 -0700 (PDT) >From: Fred Foldvary On the issue of African/Americans & IQ, have the tests differentiated US-born Blacks from West Indies and African immigrants? There is a cultural difference, and I have been told that Caucasians treat the immigrants differently too. Fred Foldvary ========================================================================== >From: "Eleftheria Maratos-Flier" >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 12:13:12 EST Steve Horwitz writes: >>And that is the real point, and I think the most crucial message of *The Bell Curve*.<< One significant point that I don't remember seeing addressed in "The Bell Curve" is the overall financial and educational success of black immigrants from Carribean Islands. Thomas Sowell has written about this. Granted they aren't nuclear physicists but over all the immigrant black population has done very well. If race and genetics are so important, well why is that? Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, M.D. ========================================================================== >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 13:18:41 -0400 >From: holcombe@coss.fsu.edu (Randall Holcombe) Eleftheria Maratos-Flier writes: >I do biomedical research. I get to hire lab assistants and post-docs. >Fortunately IQ never comes up in the hiring process! I can look at their >grades, publications, recommendations. This information may be imperfect >but it's a heck of a lot better than the IQ. How do you know? It would be interesting, after the fact, to find out whether those you hired based on other characteristics had higher IQs than those you didn't. Because IQ never comes up in the hiring process, you really don't have any evidence on how reliable an indicator IQ might be. Randy Holcombe ========================================================================== >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 13:25:54 EDT >From: Steven Horwitz Eleftheria writes: >>>And that is the real point, and I think the most crucial message >of *The Bell Curve*.<< > >One significant point that I don't remember seeing addressed in "The Bell >Curve" is the overall financial and educational success of black immigrants fr >Carribean Islands. Thomas Sowell has written about this. Granted they >aren't nuclear physicists but over all the immigrant black population has >done very well. If race and genetics are so important, well why is that? I don't know if that question was aimed at me or at Jan or someone else, but it doesn't pose a problem for me. I don't think race is important at all, and genetics matter but are independent of race. I do think that broadly cultural issues DO matter, as do the incentives and disincentives created by political and economic institutions and regulations. The answer to Eleftheria's question may well be that there are cultural differences at work here, and those cultural factors may be affected by social policy. Are the families of Carribean immigrants more likely to be positive forces than those of African- Americans? One other thought - we are of course glossing over regional differences among African-Americans as well. Many of the problems faced by blacks in the northern US are less present in the south. Perhaps the prominence of the church in the lives of blacks in the southern US is a relevant factor - as might be religion in the lives of Carribean immigrants. ========================================================================== >From: "Eleftheria Maratos-Flier" >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 14:38:33 EST >>How do you know? It would be interesting, after the fact, to find out whether those you hired based on other characteristics had higher IQs than those you didn't. Because IQ never comes up in the hiring process, you really don't have any evidence on how reliable an indicator IQ might be. Randy Holcombe<< I was replying to using IQ as an indicator. If all you have is IQ the only thing you know about a person is how well they perform on a test that measures a certain kind of abstract reasoning. If you have data on publications and recommendation you have data on how well they perform in the real world. I don't know the IQ of any of my employees or colleagues and I don't know of any study that looks at IQ and specific job performance, so I can't tell you if IQ correlates. But my practical experience is such that I while I would be very leary hiring someone knowing only their IQ (consider the Unabomber) I have no problem making a hiring decision based on prior performance and recommendations. Eleftheria Maratos-Flier, M.D. ========================================================================== >Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 15:29:41 -0400 (EDT) >From: "Peter G. Klein" On Fri, 13 Sep 1996, Eleftheria Maratos-Flier wrote: > But my practical experience is such that I while I would be very leary > hiring someone knowing only their IQ (consider the Unabomber) > I have no problem making a hiring decision based on prior performance and > recommendations. Yes, of course, but that wasn't my point. Suppose you didn't have access to grades, publications, or recommendations. Then some other signal, such as group membership, could be better than no signal at all. We deal with individuals every day about whom we know almost nothing other than their height, weight, skin color, gender, nationality, etc. If such observables are correlated with other, underlying characteristics that we actually care about (ability, attitude, whatever), then those signals provide at least some useful information. Hence research on these kinds of correlations is valuable. Peter Klein --- Peter G. Klein Economics, University of Georgia, 147 Brooks, Athens GA 30602-6254 706/542-3697 (voice) 706/542-3376 (fax) 706/542-1311 (secretary) ========================================================================== >Date: 15 Sep 1996 22:30:44 -0500 >From: "Robert Sade" >Subject: IQ and performance The discussion of the relation of IQ to performance is pertinent to work I did over the past 15 years while I was dean for admissions at my medical school (until two years ago). I learned some very interesting things through my own investigations and through previously published reports. In brief summary they are: IQ correlates fairly well with performance on standardized tests (SAT, for example). Scores on standardized tests correlate well with other standardized tests (eg, SAT scores correlate well with MCAT [Medical College Admission Test] scores and with specialty board scores), but correlate less well with grades. On the other hand, grades correlate well with grades (those who have good grades in college are likely to have good grades in medical school), but correlate less well with standardized tests. This is not surprising, because standardized tests measure a different aspect of intelligence than do grades (which are related to attentiveness, perseverance, interpersonal skills, and so forth). The interesting finding that relates to this discussion is that THERE APPEARS TO BE NO RELATION BETWEEN ANY ACADEMIC MEASURE (grades or board scores [read: IQ]) AND PERFORMANCE AS A PHYSICIAN, as measured by clinical observations and opinions of colleagues and patients. (There are studies that similarly demonstrate no correlation between academic measures and performance of engineers and of researchers.) We have attempted to define what some of those other important characteristics are, at least for physicians. It turns out that the same sorts of characteristics that define what makes a good doctor also are useful in defining what makes a good astronaut, lawyer, professor, and even NFL player. They are character traits like enthusiasm, leadership skills, curiosity, intellectual honesty, emotional stability, motivation by the pursuit of excellence, creativity, and the like. (You can find more detailed discussion and some of the data in my papers: Sade RM, Lancaster C. The relation of undergraduate major to medical school admission and performance. J So Carolina Med Assoc 1983; 79:401-404; Sade RM, Fleming GA, Ross GR. A survey on the "premedical syndrome". J Med Educ 1984; 59:386-391; Sade RM, Stroud MR, Levine JH, Fleming GA. Criteria for the selection of future physicians. Ann Surg 1985; 201:225-230) Maratos-Flier is quite correct: IQ (at least as reflected in SAT, MCAT, and board scores) is interesting, but of very limited usefulness in predicting performance in real life. In my discipline, academic measures predict who will be the best medical students, but something different is needed to predict who will be the best doctors. Because of these findings, we have for some years used a radically different selection process for medical school applicants than the usual. We count grades and MCAT scores only in an initial screening to make sure the applicant can do the work of medical school. Then, those measures are put aside entirely, and final selection for admission is made on the basis of evaluation of the kind of personal characteristics EM-F has been talking about, including those listed above. Does it work? Are we producing better doctors? We don't know. It will take years to find out. But there is no question, to me, at least, that IQ, SAT scores, and other measures of academic ability and achievement are not very helpful in telling us who will perform the best professionally. Best regards. --Bob ______________________________________________ Robert M. Sade, M. D. Department of Surgery Medical University of South Carolina Charleston, South Carolina, 29425 ========================================================================== >Date: Mon, 16 Sep 1996 09:55:09 -0400 >From: holcombe@coss.fsu.edu (Randall Holcombe) Bob Sade writes: >Because of these findings, we have for some years used a radically different >selection process for medical school applicants than the usual. We count >grades and MCAT scores only in an initial screening to make sure the applicant >can do the work of medical school. Then, those measures are put aside >entirely, and final selection for admission is made on the basis of evaluation >of the kind of personal characteristics EM-F has been talking about, including >those listed above. > >Does it work? Are we producing better doctors? We don't know. It will take >years to find out. But there is no question, to me, at least, that IQ, SAT >scores, and other measures of academic ability and achievement are not very >helpful in telling us who will perform the best professionally. Hernstein and Murray discuss something like this in THE BELL CURVE where, as I recall, for purposes of discussion they use an example of trying to see whether weight is a factor in trying to predict the performance of NFL football linemen. They suggest that weight is so important that all the light people have been selected out, but among those who are linemen, there will be little if any correlation between weight and performance. They suggest that there is a statistical problem here because the group of people they examine (NFL linemen) have already been sorted based on weight. It appears that you are saying the same thing. First, you select people based on grades and test scores, selecting those with high IQs, and then you say IQ is not very helpful in identifying who will be the better doctors. That may be true among those high IQ people you have selected, because other factors are also important, but because you have selected only those with high IQs for admission, you have no way to tell how important IQ is. In fact, from your story, it would seem that high IQ is the most important factor, not the least. If IQ is correlated with the MCAT, as you suggested, and if you initially screen out all of those with low scores, you are telling us that under no circumstances would you consider those with low IQs, regardless of their other redeeming characteristics. Randy Holcombe ========================================================================== >Date: 16 Sep 1996 10:34:10 -0500 >From: "Robert Sade" Randy Holcombe says: *If IQ is correlated with the MCAT, as you suggested, and if you initially screen out all of those with low scores, you are telling us that under no circumstances would you consider those with low IQs, regardless of their other redeeming characteristics.* This is quite true. In my comments about IQ, I didn't make the important point that IQ is not completely unimportant in professional performance. People with IQs of 80 or 90 will not make very good doctors, in all probability, because there is a certain amount of information that needs to be retained, processed, and accessed in taking care of patients, and those are things that IQ (standardized tests) measure well. That's why our admissions process has an initial screening phase that looks at academic performance. The reason IQ (standardized testing is not helpful in predicting performance of medical students once they become doctors is because of what statisticians call restriction of range. Your example of the NFL is a good one, as is the one I like to use, that height is a poor predictor (correlate) of performance of centers in the NBA, not because it's unimportant to be tall, but because all centers are very tall, so height doesn't count for much, and things like enthusiasm, leadership, technical skills count greatly for success. All medical students are smart; that's why success as doctors doesn't correlate with smartness, but with things like enthusiasm, leadership, technical skills, and the like. Thus, IQ (standardized testing) is important, but only up to a point, after which it is nearly useless (though most professions treat them, inappropriately, as if they were a gold standard of some sort). The most critical observation to make, though, is that whatever the distribution of IQ within or among racial or ethnic groups, the only thing that should count if any selection process is to pick or to produce the best people is individual performance. Best regards. --Bob ___________________________________________________ Robert M. Sade, M.D. Professor of Surgery Department of Surgery Medical University of South Carolina 171 Ashley Avenue Charleston, South Carolina 29425 Office telephone--803 792 5278; Page operator--803 792 2123; Office fax--803 792 8286; Home telephone -803 723 2148; e-mail--sader@musc.edu -------------------------------------- Date: 09/16/96 10:01 AM To: Robert Sade From: Randall Holcombe Bob Sade writes: >Because of these findings, we have for some years used a radically different >selection process for medical school applicants than the usual. We count >grades and MCAT scores only in an initial screening to make sure the applicant >can do the work of medical school. Then, those measures are put aside >entirely, and final selection for admission is made on the basis of evaluation >of the kind of personal characteristics EM-F has been talking about, including >those listed above. > >Does it work? Are we producing better doctors? We don't know. It will take >years to find out. But there is no question, to me, at least, that IQ, SAT >scores, and other measures of academic ability and achievement are not very >helpful in telling us who will perform the best professionally. Hernstein and Murray discuss something like this in THE BELL CURVE where, as I recall, for purposes of discussion they use an example of trying to see whether weight is a factor in trying to predict the performance of NFL football linemen. They suggest that weight is so important that all the light people have been selected out, but among those who are linemen, there will be little if any correlation between weight and performance. They suggest that there is a statistical problem here because the group of people they examine (NFL linemen) have already been sorted based on weight. It appears that you are saying the same thing. First, you select people based on grades and test scores, selecting those with high IQs, and then you say IQ is not very helpful in identifying who will be the better doctors. That may be true among those high IQ people you have selected, because other factors are also important, but because you have selected only those with high IQs for admission, you have no way to tell how important IQ is. In fact, from your story, it would seem that high IQ is the most important factor, not the least. If IQ is correlated with the MCAT, as you suggested, and if you initially screen out all of those with low scores, you are telling us that under no circumstances would you consider those with low IQs, regardless of their other redeeming characteristics. Randy Holcombe ========================================================================== >Date: Mon, 16 Sep 1996 12:04:05 -0700 >From: Barry or Michele Fagin Bob Sade writes: >The interesting finding that relates to this discussion is that THERE APPEARS >TO BE NO RELATION BETWEEN ANY ACADEMIC MEASURE (grades or board scores [read: >IQ]) AND PERFORMANCE AS A PHYSICIAN, as measured by clinical observations and >opinions of colleagues and patients. (There are studies that similarly >demonstrate no correlation between academic measures and performance of >engineers and of researchers.) This is all very interesting Bob, but I wonder if this would apply to a less restricted sample. What you are saying is that if you take a bunch of very very smart people (people applying to medical school are already almost certainly of very high IQ), then the thing that tends to further cull out the great from the not so great is something other than IQ. It's good that medical schools are recognizing this and I agree that this strategy is likely to produce better doctors, but I'm not sure that it refutes the broader implications in a sample with a wider range of IQs. You have already said that the first round of cuts goes to those with high MCATS and grades. I'm not sure an enthusiastic, curious, intellectually honest, emotionally stable, creative person who is highly motivated by the pursuit of excellence who has an IQ of 90 could become a doctor. I also think that such a person with an IQ of 135 would not only make a better doctor but a better busboy, cab driver and any number of other things. >Maratos-Flier is quite correct: IQ (at least as reflected in SAT, MCAT, and >board scores) is interesting, but of very limited usefulness in predicting >performance in real life. In my discipline, academic measures predict who >will be the best medical students, but something different is needed to >predict who will be the best doctors. I'm not sure any of us are all that familiar with real life. We keep talking about who makes the best doctors and research biologist and nobel prize winning physicist. I think I can say with certainty that this is not real life for the overwhelming majority of people. -Michele Fagin Member of Families Against Internet Censorship: www.rmii.com/~fagin/faic, email faic@rmii.com ==========================================================================