Blacks have on average the lowest IQ scores by far. And it can’t just be raised by education. This relatively low IQ results in the violence of black on black crime that crushes the cities blacks are the majority in. You need to address the low IQ and expectations for what is a practical outcome. Btw 1964 Affirmative Action legislation gave legal protections to all but straight white males: so that group has had less equal opportunity and protections for the last 60 years: 3 generations. Try harder to be honest.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. IQ is measured using tests that were created to measure something that we call intelligence. But even the experts creating the tests don't have precise definitions of what intelligence is, or is not. Ideally, such a test measures inherent "intelligence" apart from environmental factors. But that is all but impossible to accomplish.
And, are IQ test biased for and against certain cultures and backgrounds? Absolutely. It's not intentional, but it's unavoidable.
The trouble with statistics is that, while they can tell us a lot, they can also mislead us a lot. How intelligent are blacks? Whites? Asians? Hispanics? You can look at averages, but don't forget that, no matter what average you have in hand, there are blacks, Whites, Asians and Hispanics who are extremely smart, capable and accomplished. Also, among all those groups, there are those who are abject failures. And everyone in between, which is most of us.
So, what do those statistics tell us about individual blacks, or any other race? Essentially, nothing. As a co-worker once said to me, "According to the law of averages, a person with one foot in a bucket of ice water and the other foot in a fire, is comfortable."
We do know that the SAT's and similar tests are good predictors of academic performance regardless of the ethnic identities of the testees. These tests probably measure combinations of innate intelligence, lifetime intellectual development or losses, and training on similar tests prior to taking the official ones. The question of how much of the score is due to innate ability is of interest, and has been raised by Glenn Loury, but the tests do predict how well people will do in traditional academic programs.
I certainly agree with that. I sometimes wholeheartedly agree with Glenn, and sometimes fully disagree. So, which one of us is the smart one?
My point was that an IQ score is only good for just so much. And, there's different kinds of smart. I have said many times that ignorance consists of not knowing something; stupidity is in not knowing that you don't know it. I am expert at a few things, and very ignorant of everything else. I like to think I know which is which.
I have another expression: The more sure you are that you are right, the more likely you are to be wrong. That is because, once a person is convinced that they fully comprehend, they stop assessing, modifying, and validating. And that increases the chances of being very mistaken. I try to be in perpetual doubt about pretty much everything. Not because I'm insecure, but because I want to be receptive to both supporting and conflicting information.
So, what is IQ, and can it be accurately measured? I am quite sure that I don't really know.
Have you read Freddie DeBoer's recent book "The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice"? He explains just what cognitive ability is (what an IQ score purports to measure) and how essential it is to educational and professional achievement. Well worth reading.
P.S. DeBoer is a dyed-in-the-wool classical Marxist, so no knuckle-dragging right-winger.
Thanks for the info. It sounds as if the book might frustrate me, but I think I need to read it.
There is the old saying, "Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result." As our public schools continue to fail, the solution that educators offer is to do still MORE of it.
It bothers me that we think of intelligence as linear, something that can be measured on a linear scale. Intelligence is spatial: A person can be very smart about this thing over here, and ignorant about that thing over there. There are different means by which people assess reality. None is necessarily more valid than the others. Yet one approach might measure out well on and IQ test, and another measure low.
I was a public school teacher for six years, and came to recognize the obvious. Each student is unique. Some will learn academically, which is to say they will absorb what they are taught and be able to reliably repeat it back. That student may, or may not, have the ability to extrapolate beyond what he has been taught. Other students are less academic but show clear ability to intellectually project possibilities and draw conclusions beyond what they have been taught. And, frankly, many students just don't care and just don't learn. They may or may not have a high IQ. If they don't care, they don't learn. I was very surprised to find that one such student, who consistently failed in all his classes, had one of the highest IQs in has class.
The biggest failure of progressivism is the premise that we are all alike; it's just our experiences that vary. That is pure BS. And that is the biggest failure of public education.
Here's an essay I wrote that gets at this. It's about freedom, but still gets at the heart of what we're discussing here:
You're confusing (I HATE 'conflating') IQ with qualities of creativity, intuition, memorization, inference, understanding, and a host of other variable abilities and talents which make us unique and uniquely human.
IQ measures raw processing power. Think of it as the rate at which brain cells register and transmit impulses. There is a "blink test" which correlates reasonably well to measured IQ. A light is flashed and the subject presses a button as soon after the flash as possible. Faster reaction time, quicker brain response, higher IQ. Pretty simple really.
Murray/Herrnstein's "The Bell Curve" is still the standard for understanding IQ in America and all its complex social implications. DeBoer's "Cult of Smart" on the other hand, quickly and ably accepts that IQ is highly heritable and that it matters HUGELY—on an individual basis—in education. He explicit denies the existence of and refuses to discuss group differences (racial, ethnic, sex), and he can do so because it's simply not germane to his argument. For an educator, I think DeBoer's book is the more relevant and important. Should you wish to more fully understand IQ and how it is measured and distributed across America, Murray and Herrnstein are excellent guides.
"And, are IQ test biased for and against certain cultures and backgrounds? Absolutely. It's not intentional, but it's unavoidable."
You provide no evidence for this claim. To claim that a test is "biased" against black testees means that it is not a valid predictor of black testees' performance. This is not true. SAT's, ACT's, Miller Analogy Tests, and other ability tests are strong predictors of academic performance, especially when coupled with high school GPA's, and this is why colleges have used them.
If SAT's plus GPA's were biased towards black high school graduates seeking admission to colleges, we would expect to see more black students who scored low on the tests going on to succeed in college (thereby exceeding expectations set by their test scores and their high school GPA's). We do not see this happening. High school students of any color who score low on college admission tests and have low GPA's are less likely to succeed in college and more likely to drop out before completing their degrees than are students with higher high school GPA's and higher test scores.
The combination of these numbers does not explain ALL of the variation in who succeeds in college and who does not, but the predictive validity of the tests plus GPA is high. This is a matter of fact, not of opinion. It happens to be a fact that many people would prefer to deny, because it might mean that black students are innately inferior intellectually to whites, Chinese, and so on, and that white students are inferior to Chinese and so on. Reality is not always what everyone wants it to be.
It is true that "innate general ability" is the thing that we are trying to measure with IQ tests, and we still need another measure to define what we mean by ability. IQ scores at the low end of the range reflect peoples' abilities to function independently and to benefit from training in basic life skills, for example. At the higher end of the range, which is what Loury is generally talking about, IQ tests and college admission tests combined with measures of past achievement predict performance in academia and knowledge-based careers. The best predictors of performance in jobs are tests that measure abilities that will be needed in those jobs, so SAT's are not generally used to select people interested in skilled trades. Another example would be Art or Music careers, for which auditions and portfolios are used to predict performance.
It is wonderful that you are open to various viewpoints, but with respect to the predictive validity versus invalidity or "bias" of tests, this can be determined by observable outcomes. People who have low SAT's and low high school GPA's have much lower odds of succeeding in college than people who have high ones, and this is a fact.
Excellent explanation of the predictive validity in academic performance associated with IQ and GPA. You managed to make a complex and confusing relationship crystal clear—nice work!
That is why I used the word “average”. It tells us that, on average blacks have the lowest IQ scores. Also tells us that on average Asians have the highest IQ scores. And while not perfect, IQ scores are the best measure of intelligence and widely accepted across time and space. (“Widely” doesn’t mean “universally” or “always”)
(ON AVERAGE!) Ashkenazi Jews have East Asians beat by around 7-10 IQ points (1/2 to 2/3 of a standard deviation). I know of no human racial/ethnic group with higher average IQ than Ashkenazi Jews who shine in verbal acuity although I believe East Asians are somewhat more adept in crunching math and visuospatial tasks.
This seems related. “The analysis revealed two distinct subgroups within the remains: one with greater Middle Eastern ancestry, which may represent Jews with origins in Western Germany, and another with greater Eastern and Central European ancestry. The modern Ashkenazi population formed as a mix of these groups and absorbed little to no outside genetic influences over the 600 years that followed, the authors said.
Some disease-causing mutations that are widespread in modern Ashkenazi Jews are suspected to have been introduced by members of the founding group long ago. The team found some of these mutations in Erfurt as well, indicating that the medieval Ashkenazi population indeed originated from an extremely small set of founders.
Further evidence came from mitochondrial DNA, which is part of the genome transmitted only from mothers. Analyses showed that one third of the Erfurt individuals descended in their maternal line from a single ancestral woman, again highlighting how small the founding population must have been, the authors said.” https://hms.harvard.edu/news/ancient-dna-provides-new-insights-ashkenazi-jewish-history.
Blacks have on average the lowest IQ scores by far. And it can’t just be raised by education. This relatively low IQ results in the violence of black on black crime that crushes the cities blacks are the majority in. You need to address the low IQ and expectations for what is a practical outcome. Btw 1964 Affirmative Action legislation gave legal protections to all but straight white males: so that group has had less equal opportunity and protections for the last 60 years: 3 generations. Try harder to be honest.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. IQ is measured using tests that were created to measure something that we call intelligence. But even the experts creating the tests don't have precise definitions of what intelligence is, or is not. Ideally, such a test measures inherent "intelligence" apart from environmental factors. But that is all but impossible to accomplish.
And, are IQ test biased for and against certain cultures and backgrounds? Absolutely. It's not intentional, but it's unavoidable.
The trouble with statistics is that, while they can tell us a lot, they can also mislead us a lot. How intelligent are blacks? Whites? Asians? Hispanics? You can look at averages, but don't forget that, no matter what average you have in hand, there are blacks, Whites, Asians and Hispanics who are extremely smart, capable and accomplished. Also, among all those groups, there are those who are abject failures. And everyone in between, which is most of us.
So, what do those statistics tell us about individual blacks, or any other race? Essentially, nothing. As a co-worker once said to me, "According to the law of averages, a person with one foot in a bucket of ice water and the other foot in a fire, is comfortable."
We do know that the SAT's and similar tests are good predictors of academic performance regardless of the ethnic identities of the testees. These tests probably measure combinations of innate intelligence, lifetime intellectual development or losses, and training on similar tests prior to taking the official ones. The question of how much of the score is due to innate ability is of interest, and has been raised by Glenn Loury, but the tests do predict how well people will do in traditional academic programs.
I certainly agree with that. I sometimes wholeheartedly agree with Glenn, and sometimes fully disagree. So, which one of us is the smart one?
My point was that an IQ score is only good for just so much. And, there's different kinds of smart. I have said many times that ignorance consists of not knowing something; stupidity is in not knowing that you don't know it. I am expert at a few things, and very ignorant of everything else. I like to think I know which is which.
I have another expression: The more sure you are that you are right, the more likely you are to be wrong. That is because, once a person is convinced that they fully comprehend, they stop assessing, modifying, and validating. And that increases the chances of being very mistaken. I try to be in perpetual doubt about pretty much everything. Not because I'm insecure, but because I want to be receptive to both supporting and conflicting information.
So, what is IQ, and can it be accurately measured? I am quite sure that I don't really know.
Have you read Freddie DeBoer's recent book "The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice"? He explains just what cognitive ability is (what an IQ score purports to measure) and how essential it is to educational and professional achievement. Well worth reading.
P.S. DeBoer is a dyed-in-the-wool classical Marxist, so no knuckle-dragging right-winger.
Thanks for the info. It sounds as if the book might frustrate me, but I think I need to read it.
There is the old saying, "Stupidity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result." As our public schools continue to fail, the solution that educators offer is to do still MORE of it.
It bothers me that we think of intelligence as linear, something that can be measured on a linear scale. Intelligence is spatial: A person can be very smart about this thing over here, and ignorant about that thing over there. There are different means by which people assess reality. None is necessarily more valid than the others. Yet one approach might measure out well on and IQ test, and another measure low.
I was a public school teacher for six years, and came to recognize the obvious. Each student is unique. Some will learn academically, which is to say they will absorb what they are taught and be able to reliably repeat it back. That student may, or may not, have the ability to extrapolate beyond what he has been taught. Other students are less academic but show clear ability to intellectually project possibilities and draw conclusions beyond what they have been taught. And, frankly, many students just don't care and just don't learn. They may or may not have a high IQ. If they don't care, they don't learn. I was very surprised to find that one such student, who consistently failed in all his classes, had one of the highest IQs in has class.
The biggest failure of progressivism is the premise that we are all alike; it's just our experiences that vary. That is pure BS. And that is the biggest failure of public education.
Here's an essay I wrote that gets at this. It's about freedom, but still gets at the heart of what we're discussing here:
https://donewithparties.com/how-free-are-you-2/
You're confusing (I HATE 'conflating') IQ with qualities of creativity, intuition, memorization, inference, understanding, and a host of other variable abilities and talents which make us unique and uniquely human.
IQ measures raw processing power. Think of it as the rate at which brain cells register and transmit impulses. There is a "blink test" which correlates reasonably well to measured IQ. A light is flashed and the subject presses a button as soon after the flash as possible. Faster reaction time, quicker brain response, higher IQ. Pretty simple really.
Murray/Herrnstein's "The Bell Curve" is still the standard for understanding IQ in America and all its complex social implications. DeBoer's "Cult of Smart" on the other hand, quickly and ably accepts that IQ is highly heritable and that it matters HUGELY—on an individual basis—in education. He explicit denies the existence of and refuses to discuss group differences (racial, ethnic, sex), and he can do so because it's simply not germane to his argument. For an educator, I think DeBoer's book is the more relevant and important. Should you wish to more fully understand IQ and how it is measured and distributed across America, Murray and Herrnstein are excellent guides.
"And, are IQ test biased for and against certain cultures and backgrounds? Absolutely. It's not intentional, but it's unavoidable."
You provide no evidence for this claim. To claim that a test is "biased" against black testees means that it is not a valid predictor of black testees' performance. This is not true. SAT's, ACT's, Miller Analogy Tests, and other ability tests are strong predictors of academic performance, especially when coupled with high school GPA's, and this is why colleges have used them.
If SAT's plus GPA's were biased towards black high school graduates seeking admission to colleges, we would expect to see more black students who scored low on the tests going on to succeed in college (thereby exceeding expectations set by their test scores and their high school GPA's). We do not see this happening. High school students of any color who score low on college admission tests and have low GPA's are less likely to succeed in college and more likely to drop out before completing their degrees than are students with higher high school GPA's and higher test scores.
The combination of these numbers does not explain ALL of the variation in who succeeds in college and who does not, but the predictive validity of the tests plus GPA is high. This is a matter of fact, not of opinion. It happens to be a fact that many people would prefer to deny, because it might mean that black students are innately inferior intellectually to whites, Chinese, and so on, and that white students are inferior to Chinese and so on. Reality is not always what everyone wants it to be.
It is true that "innate general ability" is the thing that we are trying to measure with IQ tests, and we still need another measure to define what we mean by ability. IQ scores at the low end of the range reflect peoples' abilities to function independently and to benefit from training in basic life skills, for example. At the higher end of the range, which is what Loury is generally talking about, IQ tests and college admission tests combined with measures of past achievement predict performance in academia and knowledge-based careers. The best predictors of performance in jobs are tests that measure abilities that will be needed in those jobs, so SAT's are not generally used to select people interested in skilled trades. Another example would be Art or Music careers, for which auditions and portfolios are used to predict performance.
It is wonderful that you are open to various viewpoints, but with respect to the predictive validity versus invalidity or "bias" of tests, this can be determined by observable outcomes. People who have low SAT's and low high school GPA's have much lower odds of succeeding in college than people who have high ones, and this is a fact.
https://www.newsweek.com/when-race-trumps-merit-how-pursuit-equity-threatens-lives-opinion-1794872. Saw this today on realclearpolitics and looks related to the discussion on tests.
Yep! When I was a college student, there was a slogan "Don't trust anyone over 30." I am thinking, "Don't trust any doctor under 50."
Thanks for forwarding the article--Heather MacDonald's articles are always worth reading.
Excellent explanation of the predictive validity in academic performance associated with IQ and GPA. You managed to make a complex and confusing relationship crystal clear—nice work!
Thanks, Richard!
That is why I used the word “average”. It tells us that, on average blacks have the lowest IQ scores. Also tells us that on average Asians have the highest IQ scores. And while not perfect, IQ scores are the best measure of intelligence and widely accepted across time and space. (“Widely” doesn’t mean “universally” or “always”)
(ON AVERAGE!) Ashkenazi Jews have East Asians beat by around 7-10 IQ points (1/2 to 2/3 of a standard deviation). I know of no human racial/ethnic group with higher average IQ than Ashkenazi Jews who shine in verbal acuity although I believe East Asians are somewhat more adept in crunching math and visuospatial tasks.
This seems related. “The analysis revealed two distinct subgroups within the remains: one with greater Middle Eastern ancestry, which may represent Jews with origins in Western Germany, and another with greater Eastern and Central European ancestry. The modern Ashkenazi population formed as a mix of these groups and absorbed little to no outside genetic influences over the 600 years that followed, the authors said.
Some disease-causing mutations that are widespread in modern Ashkenazi Jews are suspected to have been introduced by members of the founding group long ago. The team found some of these mutations in Erfurt as well, indicating that the medieval Ashkenazi population indeed originated from an extremely small set of founders.
Further evidence came from mitochondrial DNA, which is part of the genome transmitted only from mothers. Analyses showed that one third of the Erfurt individuals descended in their maternal line from a single ancestral woman, again highlighting how small the founding population must have been, the authors said.” https://hms.harvard.edu/news/ancient-dna-provides-new-insights-ashkenazi-jewish-history.