|
|
 | | From: | Wolf Kirchmeir | | Subject: | Re: Racial Differences in Intelligence | | Date: | Wed, 05 Jan 2005 10:18:50 -0500 |
|
|
 | Schorsch wrote:
> http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/mainstream-on-iq
>
> Mainstream Science on Intelligence
> The Wall Street Journal
> December 13, 1994
>
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Since the publication of "The Bell Curve," many commentators have
> offered
> opinions about human intelligence that misstate current scientific
> evidence. Some conclusions dismissed in the media as discredited are
> actually firmly supported.
>
> This statement outlines conclusions regarded as mainstream among
> researchers on intelligence, in particular, on the nature, origins, and
> practical consequences of individual and group differences in
> intelligence. Its aim is to promote more reasoned discussion of the
> vexing phenomenon that the research has revealed in recent decades. The
> following conclusions are fully described in the major textbooks,
> professional journals and encyclopedias in intelligence.
>
> The Meaning and Measurement of Intelligence
>
> 1. Intelligence is a very general mental capability that, among other
> things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems,
> think
> abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from
> experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic
> skill, or
> test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper
> capability
> for comprehending our surroundings--"catching on," "making sense"
> of
> things, or "figuring out" what to do.
IOW, it's a suite of abilities, which may or may not correlate with each
other, interact with each other, depend on each other, etc. Whatever,
it's clear thay are learned/developed to different degrees by different
learning regimes (ie, personal histories of education, etc.)
> 2. Intelligence, so defined, can be measured, and intelligence tests
> measure it well. They are among the most accurate (in technical
> terms,
> reliable and valid) of all psychological tests and assessments.
> They do
> not measure creativity, character personality, or other important
> differences among individuals, nor are they intended to.
[...]
I know. but I'm not blinded by statistical validity, as you and many
other believers in IQ test seem to be.
"Reliable" and "valid" merely means "replicable results", which isn't at
all surprising. _Any_ objective test of human behaviour(s) can be made
reliable and valid. Just run it on a large enough random sample of
people, and you'll get your bell curve, after which you can "place"
individuals on the curve depending on their test results. So what? To
say that someone scores at/above/below average on an objective test is
meaningless in and of itself.
As a teacher, I had many, many objective tests foisted on me and my
classes. One of the most interesting was a vocabulary test that had been
normed on southern Ontario, urban students. My classes not only "failed"
this test, they did so by answering incorrectly about 20% of the items -
but almost all my students agreed on the "incorrect" answer. IOW, they
just used words differently than their S. Ont urban fellows. And that's
the problem withn any objective test, including IQ tests - it's valid
_only_ for the demographic on which it was normed. It's simply silly to
assume that it applies to different groups with different histories. And
to use it to compare different groups is not only silly, it's
pernicious. As for its meaning even for the demographic on which it was
normed - well, that's another issue.
The problem with any test whose results fall on the bell curve is
simple: the curve tells you that there are many factors at work to
produce the results, but it tells you nothing at all about how those
factors are related to each other or to the results obtained.
In fact, if a bell curve results, that should be a signal that a great
deal of (very difficult and tedious) analysis and further testing is
needed in order to discover those factors and figure out their
relationship. In some areas of behavioural analysis, that's recognised,
and a great deal of effort has goine itno devsisng
experimentsl/observational regimes that will isolate the presumed
factors at work in producing the complex behaviour under study. But it
ain't easy. The problem is that numbers that fall on bell curves hide data.
Eg, the marks for a class are "averaged" over many tests and assignment
results. Usually, you get a bell curve. Consider two students who are
"average" - one may do excellent work of one type, and very poor work of
another; and contrariwise for the other. Or both may do average work on
all types of assignments. The mark cannot tell you this. The mark
_hides_ the data, and so is useless and often pernicious in its effects.
(Several jurisdictions have recognised this, and require lengthy
annotations on the report card by the teacher; but then why use single
a mark at all?)
So, the rest of your post, no matter how carefully correct in a
technical sense, doesn't help persuade me that intelligence as defined
above is a useful concept. On the contrary - it confimrs my suspicion
that "intelligence" is one of the vaguest, least useful concepts in
psychology. Better to break up these tests into carefully specific ones
- and that, from my reading on the matter and my practical experience in
"evaluating" students, is a very, very difficult task. Even the terms
used, such as "problem solving", refer to suites of abilities.
Etc.
|
|
|
