ohwilleke

There is something to that. Certainly, no mainstream psychologist would propose that an IQ score is a full description of an individual. IQ is a good grounds for capturing academic ability, which happens to be very important for socio-economic success in our society. I also think that while IQ tests can be fairly simple (and are probably inaccurate at the extremes for that reason) that they are measuring abilities more complex than they are indicating. It is a bit like using the number of pieces each player has left in a chess game to measure whose winning --- in the middle or late stages of the game it can be a fairly good proxy for whose winning despite the fact that it misses the much great subtlty involved in the game itself.

Part of the issue also, is that there are few other well defined measures of individual mental make up that have such a clear "good" and "bad" associated with them.

Extroversion is good for sales people, but bad for a mathematician who thives on introversion. High rates of idea generation (which appears to dissolve into manic-depression at the greatest extremes)can be good for a creative writer or a teacher, but utterly frustrating to a dentist or operations manager who suceeds by reliably doing the same thing over and over again day after day (which can dissolve in the extreme into obessive compulsiveness). "Novelty seeking", a well defined trait associated with people who like to jump out of airplanes and race cars and the like, is fine for a special forces soldier, but highly undesirable in a bus driver. A "type A" personality, may be good someone who trades stocks on the NYSE every day, but terribly bad for a psychological therapist.

ps418

It seems we are in substantial agreement then.

However, I do want to comment on a couple of things. First, it does not matter to me (personally) who was or was not a recipient of Pioneer Fund money, or whether or not they have an overt political agenda.

And I have seen no evidence that belief in high heritability of intelligence amongst intelligence researchers is correlated with a conservative political stance, or with racist beliefs. On the other hand, it does seem to me that almost all of those who deny any significant contribution are politically to the far left. (I would describe myself as liberal, BTW) Those who deny any role to genetics are every bit as 'politically' motivated as the vocal conservatives on 'the other side,' and are likewise guilty of some shameful behavior, such as completely unjustified claims of racism and bigotry and pro-eugenicism (if thats a word).

Obviously though, there is no way this issue could not be 'politicized' to some extent, because assumptions about intelligence, innate abilities and environmental influences underpin so many political issues. Which makes it all the more important that we evaluate these assumptions objectively, using accepted statistical tools and methods, rather than seeing who can shout the loudest.

I can not agree with that. After all, the review you are referring to was written in 1995, long after Bouchard began publishing his own data on monozygotic twins reared apart. But even if I did "find ample circumstantial evidence to suspect that his conclusion were derived before his research was made," it would not give me good reason to doubt his conclusions. After all, sometimes research cofirms already-held beliefs. And again, Bouchard's data set is one of many data sets demonstrating the high heritability of intelligence.

Murray was not an expert in the field of psychology, true, but his coauthor was. But more importantly, the Bell Curve was not a presentation of new findings on intelligence, it was a discussion and analyses of the poltical implications of existing psychological research.

Nothing in my reading (so far) suggests that this is the case. My reading of the professional journals --everything from Nature Genetics to Human Biology to Twin Research to the American Journal of Human Genetics to Intelligence -- leads my to conclude that the statement with 53 signatories does accurately represent a firm concensus.

Patrick

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: ps418 ]</p>

echidna

Interestingly from the article : Mainstream Science on Intelligence,

Maybe item 22 is the most important of all & almost slips through in the fine print. I think it can be paraphrased that within a racial-ethnic group, IQ differences are significantly attributable to genetics differences within that racial-ethnic group. But it can not be concluded that IQ differences between racial-ethnic groups are significantly attributable to genetics differences between those racial-ethnic groups.

This is a crucial distinction & probably defuses much of the race debate side of this argument. Frustrating that it appears as item 22 of 25, but no matter.

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: echidna ]</p>

echidna

Ohwilleke, you seem to limit IQ tests more to testing academic ability & I would tend to agree (I am also somewhat cautious as to their accuracy), and yet the article “Mainstream Science on Intelligence”, defines intelligence as :

But then further …

“measure it well” ?

Personally I find that #2 is quite incongruous to the definition as given in #1. From what I have read, IQ tests are the best possible approximation or indicator of #1, but I wouldn’t be so bold as to say they do it well, maybe “as well as currently possible”, but not just “well”.

I find it extremely hard to believe that this reflects mainstream thinking in the psychology profession. Patrick, your thoughts ?

ps418

Yes, this does diffuse much of the argument. And it may suprise you to see what the Bell Curve said on this very issue. (remember what I said about many of the critics not reading the book? ) The authors did not argue, as you supposed initially, that genetics accounts for all or even most of the between-group variance in IQ scores, although they do say that genetics probably accounts for some of the between-group difference.

They stated: "it seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on the issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not yet justify an estimate" (p. 311). This bit was quoted in the Bouchard review you posted, which itself said:


Patrick

ps418

Echidna,

I know its pretty much a moot point, since you now seem to agree, but aparently there were even more studies than I thought. According to Plomin and Kosslyn (2001) "[d]ozens of studies, including more than 8,000 parent-offspring pairs, 25,000 pairs of siblings, 10,000 twin pairs and hundreds of adoptive families, all converge on the conclusion that genetic factors contribure substantially to 'g'" (Genes, brain and cognition, Nature neuroscience 4, p. 1154; references ommitted).

Patrick

ps418

I dont see any incongruity between 2 and 1.

I think (not sure) that "measure it well" refers to the fact that IQ is a excellent predictor of outcomes in areas which one would think are dependent upon intelligence. According to Plomin (1999) 'g' is "one of the most reliable and valid measures in the behavioral domain; its long-term stability after childhood is greater than for any other behavioral trait, and it predicts important social outcomes such as educational attainment and occupational levels far better than any other trait" (Genetics and general cognitive ability, Nature 402 supp., p C25).

Patrick

echidna

Involves ability to :

Reason
Plan
Solve problems
Think abstractly
Comprehend complex ideas
Learn quickly
Learn from experience

Not merely :

Book learning
Narrow academic skill
Test-taking smarts

Patrick, to me it is a Catch 22, that to be “culturally fair” a Raven’s Progressive Test needs to be non-verbal. If I understand correctly, I find it very hard to believe that the concepts listed above (as they are written !) can be adequately captured without words.

Interestingly this site, <a href="http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/Locations.html," target="_blank">http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/Locations.html,</a> correlates a higher Flynn Effect amongst non-verbal (ie. Ravens) tests.

echidna

For another amusing page from this site, <a href="http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/NationalIQs.html," target="_blank">http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/NationalIQs.html,</a> lists national IQ’s, note the USA is standardised at 100. I’m not entirely certain if I should be worried or relieved that Australia doesn’t even feature.

Patrick, you quote the BC as "it seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on the issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not yet justify an estimate".

OK I'm somewhat relieved, and yet Murray makes little or no effort to highlight this crucial distinction. Neither does he make any attempt to distance himself from many individuals associated with the Pioneer Fund, or Eugenics organisations which widely use his book to support a strong racial cause to IQ performance.

Certainly the many times I have come across it (such as the start of the month), the BC is quoted as supporting that blacks have lower IQ’s than whites due to genetic differences. I find it highly suspicious that Murray does not seem keen to distance himself from this claim, certainly amongst the most common criticism levelled against him. He does not clarify it in either lengthy post-BC article.

I cannot help but feel that Murray’s own economic biases leave him deliberately silent on this most contentious issue & I cannot help but wonder if things would have been clearer if Herrnstein had not passed away a month before publishing.

echidna

Maybe the argument is passe by now, but another strong disclaimer of a racial link to IQ comes from that comparison of European national IQ’s, <a href="http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/NationalIQs.html" target="_blank">http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/NationalIQs.html</a> Despite it’s numerous political boundaries Europe is relatively racially homogeneous, certainly as compared with the African / European dichotomy anyway.

Nonetheless, a full 13 points between Germany and France sharing a common border ??? Bearing in mind that these are culture-free tests …

I’m sure that better ethno-demographer than I can find more solid examples why Europe’s relative racial homogeneousness simply doesn’t stack up as supporting a strong racial link to IQ performance.

Once again, I find that even the BC’s disclaimer ("it seems highly likely to us that both genes and the environment have something to do with racial differences. What might the mix be? We are resolutely agnostic on the issue; as far as we can determine, the evidence does not yet justify an estimate"), significantly misrepresents that that mix may be high.

I realise that one cannot refute racial causality to IQ in a single page, however such dramatically varying IQ performance on roughly equivalent socio-economic subjects and roughly equivalent racial groupings, to me strongly suggests that any causal link between IQ and race is minimal. To me the BC's words “highly likely” are very misleading.

[Fix link ?]

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: echidna ]</p>