[quote]lothario1132 wrote:
Elkhntr1 wrote:
I hear ya Vroom. I live there and I’m learning to live with it. Thank the Pink Bunny for the Salazar Brothers!
LOL!!! Is this the Pink Bunny from one of the religion threads?[/quote]
Lothario yes it is, your arguments have made me a believer. I like the fact that he is profficent in the martial arts and kicks big time ass!
[quote]Professor X wrote:
Even if that is the case, this is not an IQ test. It is a test of knowledge specifically about ethics and conduct within that military force…which means it shouldn’t even be completely comparable across two different sections of the military.
ie. “what is the military code of conduct for…?”
“who was the …to…and then…within his…as he…?”
If this is what has been used to justify an IQ, you all have been hosed if you believe it in terms of how smart either one is. You have to study for these. You don’t have to study for an IQ test. Bottom line, why is anyone still bringing this up?
[/quote]
Well, I brought it up to correct the misimpression it was the ASVAB.
As for the actual tests used and the justification, here is the relevant excerpt from the article (without internal links):
http://www.vdare.com/sailer/kerry_iq_lower.htm
EXCERPT:
Then three weeks ago, a minister in Florida named Sam Sewell, a Navy veteran and Mensa member who works with gifted children with learning disabilities, pointed out to me that, although no one in the press had noticed it, the Kerry campaign had posted on the Web the Senator’s score on the IQ-like test he took when he applied to join the Navy as an officer on February 18, 1966.
After interviewing military psychometricians and reading Defense Department reports from the 1960s on the development of the tests, I can now compare Kerry’s score on the Navy’s Officer Qualification Test to Bush’s score on the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test.
Kerry’s PDF file on JohnKerry.com is blurry, but it appears to read:
Form: 7
Raw Score: 58
Stand [?] Score: 50
To help me make sense out of this, a retired Navy psychometrician advised me to buy from the National Technical Information Service a 1961 technical bulletin called “Development of the Officer Qualification Test, Forms 7 and 8” by Smith, Guttman, Proctor, and Sharp of the Bureau of Naval Personnel.
According to this documentation, the Form 7 of the Navy’s OQT that Kerry took in 1966 was a 90-minute pencil and paper test consisting of 35 verbal analogy questions, 30 mechanical comprehension questions, and 50 arithmetic reasoning questions.
Kerry got 58 out of 115 questions right, or 50.4 percent.
The bulletin explained that,
“The Verbal Analogies section emphasizes understanding of conceptual relations rather than knowledge of vocabulary. The Mechanical Comprehension section calls for ability to understand mechanical principles and ability to apply them to visually presented problems. The Arithmetic Reasoning section measures skill in arithmetic reasoning and problem solving, and requires an understanding of basic arithmetic processes.”
In the validation process, the test was found to have a satisfactory correlation of about 0.6 with various measures of success in Officer Candidate School.
To standardize this new version of the test when it was developed in the early 1960, it was given to “approximately 1600 applicants to OCS [Officer Candidate School].”
The mean raw score (i.e., number of questions answered correctly) of the preliminary norming group on Form 7 was 57.11?almost identical to Kerry’s 58?with a standard deviation of 16.14. In other words, Kerry finished almost exactly at the 50th percentile.
(Technically, the “50” on his record appears to refer to his “Navy Standard Score.” This is a bell curve-based scoring system where the midpoint is 50 and each standard deviation is 10, so that a score of, say, 60 would fall at the 84th percentile and a score of 70 would fall just below the 98th percentile. In Kerry’s case, though, the differences between percentile and Navy Standard Score don’t matter, because the midpoint for both scales is 50?his score on both.)
It’s possible that the test slightly underestimated Kerry’s overall cognitive ability?if he is a stronger verbal thinker than mathematical or visual thinker. And this seems likely. He was political science major at Yale and then went to law school, a typical verbalist’s career path.
The Navy test was tilted in the opposite direction. When the Navy’s OQT was revised in 1961, the number of arithmetic reasoning questions was boosted from 20 to 50 because of “a study by Wollnack and Guttman (1960), which found that quantitative reasoning items were the most valid predictors of OCS performance.”
During the 3.5 month-long Officer Candidate School, Kerry outperformed his test score, finishing 80th out of his class of 563.
I found two other class ranks for Kerry. In a ten-week class on damage-control, Kerry ranked 17th out of 33 (p. 2 of this 5 megabyte PDF). In a three-week Command and Control course, he ranked 7th of 22 (p. 4).
So, if Kerry is about as smart as the average applicant to the Navy’s Officer Candidate School, how smart is he?
It’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of. To take the test, applicants were supposed to be college graduates, or on track toward a four-year degree, or be high scorers on the IQ test for enlisted men, the AFQT. The average IQ of a college graduate is typically close to one standard deviation above the national mean, over the 80th percentile. Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve, told me that, in the huge National Longitudinal Study of Youth that was featured in his book, the average college graduate’s IQ, as measured by the AFQT, was 114.
(A quick summary of IQ scoring: Scores are assumed to fall according to a “normal distribution,” or bell curve, with the average score at 100. Each standard deviation is 15 points. So, a 115 IQ falls at the 84th percentile and a 130 IQ at the 97.7th percentile.)
Perhaps a better way to estimate Kerry’s IQ is to look at the average SAT scores of military officers.
A second Navy psychometrician told me about a major study he had conducted:
“I looked at the SAT scores of new officers from 1975 through 1985, by separate fiscal year. For each of the eleven years examined, new officers in the Navy had the highest SAT mean scores (on SAT-Verbal and SAT-Math) among all four services. Overall, including all officers commissioned from 1975 through 1985 combined, SAT scores were as follows:”
1975-1985
SAT-Math
SAT-Verbal
Total
Recentered * (post 1994 scores)
Navy
584 (M)
519 (V)
1103 (T)
1188 (Recentered Total)
Air Force
557 (M)
494 (V)
1051 (T)
1132 (Recentered Total)
Marines
531 (M)
487 (V)
1018 (T)
1113 (Recentered Total)
Army
522 (M)
479 (V)
1001 (T)
1098 (Recentered Total)
Male high school seniors
495 (M)
437 (V)
932 (T)
1032 (Recentered Total)
[* The “recentered” column converts these average scores into the easier scoring system that the College Board adopted in the mid-1990s.]
So, the average SAT score for Navy officers was 1103 (old style).
Of course, the SAT isn’t taken by high school dropouts, nor by students who don’t intend to go to college. So the true national average would have been much lower, probably around 800 under the old (uninflated) style scoring system.
Can we convert the average Navy officer’s SAT score of 1103 into a rough IQ? There’s a reasonable correlation between SAT and IQ.
The standard deviation of the SAT was around 230 back then, so if the typical Navy officer scored 1100, or 300 points above the estimated national average of 800, then his IQ was about 1.3 standard deviations above the national average IQ of 100 – roughly 120, or maybe a little higher, which is in the low 90s on a percentile scale.
Of course, Kerry’s OQT score was average for applicants for Officer Candidate School, not for officers, who presumably score better than those who flunk the test. This suggests he might have scored under 1100 on his SAT.
Another complication: it’s not clear whether the applicant pool was stronger or weaker when Kerry’s version of the test was normed in 1961 than in this 1975-1985 period for which we have data.
The draft was in effect in 1961, so many young men chose to volunteer to be an officer rather than to be drafted into the enlisted ranks. The late 1970s in contrast, were the early years of the all-volunteer military. Recruiting was notoriously difficult and the quality of the military drooped. But then, in the Reagan 1980s, pay increases and revived patriotism brought in better recruits.
An SAT score of 1100 for Kerry seems low, however, because that might have been low enough to keep him out of Yale, which he entered in 1962. I don’t know the average SAT score at Yale at that time, but The Bell Curve reports that in 1960, the Harvard freshman class averaged 1373.
Yale turned down Former Senator Bill Bradley, who challenged Al Gore for the Democratic nomination in 2000, despite being an outstanding basketball player, because his SAT-Verbal score was only 485. Bradley was accepted by Princeton and became a Rhodes Scholar. But, although he built a good reputation in the Senate, his dull style during his dismal 2000 Presidential campaign certainly did not disprove his SAT score?s validity.
Two years after Kerry’s admission to Yale, Bush slid into Yale too. According to a 1999 article in The New Yorker, he had a 566 Verbal - 640 Math, for a 1206 total (which would be about 1280 today). Combined with Bush’s mediocre grades in prep school, this meant he was left sweating over whether he’d get in. During spring break in 1964, Bush downplayed expectations by telling friends how much he looked forward to attending the University of Texas, which was his “safety school.”
Kerry, being a Forbes, had family pull too?but certainly no more than Bush, whose father and grandfather were Yalies. And the latter, Prescott Bush, had been U.S. Senator from Yale’s state of Connecticut until the year before.
During the 1960s, Yale tightened up entrance requirements for sons of graduates considerably, especially in the year after Bush was admitted. The late historian Jim Chapin, who taught at Yale during those years, told me that the intellectual quality of his students leapt upwards the next year.
This sudden arrival of so many brainy, bookish, leftwing nobodies may be a major reason Bush became so alienated from Yale during his later years there.
Still, it’s important to keep in mind that Kerry was admitted two years before Bush?when admission was even less meritocratic.
(By the way, there is a web page out there that claims that Kerry’s SAT score was 1190. That’s not implausible, but, unfortunately, the site provides no supporting evidence whatsoever, and I wasn’t able to find any confirmation on Google.)
What kind of IQ does Bush’s 1206 SAT imply?
Linda Gottfredson, co-director of the University of Delaware-Johns Hopkins Project for the Study of Intelligence and Society, told me:
“I recently converted Bush’s SAT score to an IQ using the high school norms available for his age cohort. Educational Testing Service happened to have done a study of representative high school students within a year or so of when he took the test. I derived an IQ of 125, which is the 95th percentile.”
In other words, only one out of 20 people would score higher.
Charles Murray came up with a similar result:
“I think you’re safe in saying that Dubya’s IQ, based on his SAT score, is in excess of 120, which puts him in the top 10 percent of the distribution, but I wouldn’t try to be more precise than that.”
This suggests that applicants to the Air Force Academy averaged about 122.5 (halfway between one and two standard deviations above the average), putting Bush in the 125-130 range – a little better than his SAT score would suggest.
By way of comparison, Bush’s 2000 opponent Al Gore scored 134 and 133 the two times he took an IQ test in high school, putting him just under the top 1 percent of the public.
Not surprisingly, the former vice president’s’ SAT scores were also strong but not stratospheric: Verbal 625, Math 730, for a total of 1355, which would equate to the upper 130s in IQ.
We can compare Kerry’s 50th percentile performance to Bush’s performance on the different but reasonably comparable Air Force Officer Qualifying Test.
On January 17, 1968, Bush took the AFOQT. (Just to keep our military acronyms from getting tangled up in a SNAFU, the AFOQT is different from the AFQT or Armed Forces Qualifying Test, which is the IQ portion of the ASVAB or Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery that all applicants for the enlisted ranks take.)
This AFOQT then consisted of 13 subtests that were aggregated into five composites.
Here are Bush’s percentile scores (p. 25 of a huge PDF on the USA Today website):
Test Composite
Percentile
Pilot Aptitude
25
Navigator Aptitude
50
Officer Quality
95
Verbal Aptitude
85
Quantitative
65
Bush took the 1966 version of the test. I couldn’t find the technical report on that revision, so I bought from NTIS the report on the 1964 revision, “Development and Standardization of the Air Force Officer Qualifying Test-64,” by Dr. Robert E. Miller and Dr. Lonnie D. Valentine, two prominent psychometricians at the Lackland Air Force Base.
The percentiles are based on the scores of Air Force Academy candidates during 1955-1960. (To be technical, the 1964 version of AFOQT was renormed using the huge 1960 Project Talent study of high school seniors, but the percentile scores continued to reflect the scores of applicants to the Academy at Colorado Springs.)
This baseline group would appear to be fairly comparable to the Naval OCS applicants against whom Kerry scored at the 50th percentile. The Air Force norm group was typically younger, being high school seniors, than the Navy OCS candidate group, but applicants to the Academies tend to be a little more elite than OCS applicants. For example, the average SAT score of today’s Air Force Academy students is 1292 (using the easier post-1994 scoring system), compared to the recentered 1132 of the average Air Force officer during the 1975-1985 period.
How did Bush do? In estimating his IQ, we can probably throw out his high score (the 95th percentile on Officer Quality) and his low score (25th percentile on Pilot Aptitude) because those tests don’t measure IQ very directly. Instead, we should concentrate on his Verbal Aptitude (85th percentile), Quantitative (65th), and Navigator Aptitude (50th). In fact, those three are fairly similar in subject matter to the three parts of the Naval OQT that Kerry took: Verbal Analogies, Arithmetic Reasoning, and Mechanical Comprehension, respectively.
The Officer Quality score was derived by combining Bush’s score on the 60 item Quantitative Aptitude subtest, the 60 item Verbal Aptitude subtest, with the 100 item Officer Biographical Inventory. The latter was a personality test that asked about “past experiences, preferences, and certain personality characteristics related to measures of officer effectiveness.” It inquired into enthusiasm for sports and hunting, and was only vaguely correlated with IQ.
(A retired Air Force test psychologist told me that this section was later dropped because women did very poorly on it, and urban and suburban youths didn’t do as well as country boys. “It was politically incorrect, but”?he recalled wistfully?“It was a predictor of success as an officer.”)
Judging from his scoring at the highest percentile possible on Officer Quality, Bush must have absolutely nailed the Officer Biographical Inventory test, as you might expect coming from his ultra-competitive family.
In contrast, his not having any flying experience dragged down Bush’s 25th percentile score in “Pilot Aptitude.” He would have scored poorly on the Pilot Biographical Inventory and on Aviation Information, two of the seven subtests for this composite. Many of the other subtests focused on three dimensional imagination capacities, such as the “Visualization of Maneuvers” component. These are valuable mental skills, no doubt, but not ones called upon much in the Oval Office.
So, if you take the average of Bush’s percentile scores on the three composites most similar to the test Kerry took, Bush scored at the 67th percentile, a little better than Kerry’s 50th percentile.
This isn’t an apples to apples comparison, so you can’t say that Bush would have done better than Kerry on the same test. But this doesn’t provide any evidence in support of the common assumption that Kerry has a much higher IQ.
The standardization report by Miller and Valentine says that the “officer population” that provided the percentile scores was about one standard deviation better than the average 12th grade male on the Verbal subtest and about two standard deviations better on the Quantitative test.
This suggests that the 50th percentile among the norm group of Air Force Academy applicants had an IQ of about 123, thus putting Bush in the 125-130 range?a little better than his SAT score would imply.
BB you’re a fucking machine! Do you need a job? LOL I need to find someone as resourceful and driven as you are to work for me.
Yeah yeah, but that was before he destroyed all his brain cells by abusing alcohol and coke…
I live in a blue state. All of our dumbest, shittiest areas voted blue. There are a lot more dirtballs than people.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Well, I brought it up to correct the misimpression it was the ASVAB.
Can we convert the average Navy officer’s SAT score of 1103 into a rough IQ? There’s a reasonable correlation between SAT and IQ.
The standard deviation of the SAT was around 230 back then, so if the typical Navy officer scored 1100, or 300 points above the estimated national average of 800, then his IQ was about 1.3 standard deviations above the national average IQ of 100 – roughly 120, or maybe a little higher, which is in the low 90s on a percentile scale.
Of course, Kerry’s OQT score was average for applicants for Officer Candidate School, not for officers, who presumably score better than those who flunk the test. This suggests he might have scored under 1100 on his SAT.
Another complication: it’s not clear whether the applicant pool was stronger or weaker when Kerry’s version of the test was normed in 1961 than in this 1975-1985 period for which we have data.
…
This suggests that the 50th percentile among the norm group of Air Force Academy applicants had an IQ of about 123, thus putting Bush in the 125-130 range?a little better than his SAT score would imply.[/quote]
While I do have to give you credit for the amount of research you do (which seriously makes me wonder why you have quite this much time on your hands unless this info is alligned with your job, don’t take that personally because I research a lot myself…but damn), this entire article is nothing but uselss assumptions. The test for officer’s training school is not like the SAT directly and since when does the SAT correlate directly with IQ scores? I have read material that suggests that most grad school graduates have an IQ that averages in the 140’s. That doesn’t make me scream with delight at a score in the 130’s considering I believe that to be about average for most college graduates. A does not equal B which does not equal C. Not only that, but this is two different sections of the military over two different time periods. I shouldn’t even have to point out how flawed that makes most of these assumptions. Bottom line, none of these tests are “IQ tests”. Even the ASVAB, which would be the closest, is used most as an aptitude test to determine what someone is good at. This seems like a massive stretch to make more out of information than is warranted. I am not sure why the effort was put forth…unless that alone is very telling.
Prof X –
I didn’t have to do any research. I had a link to the article saved in my email folders. All I had to do was remember it was there, which didn’t take too much time at all.
As for the correlation, SAT is correlated to IQ. I used to teach for the Princeton Review, and did an article on the SAT for my college paper back when I was editor. Certain sections are more highly correlated than are others – sadly, the verbal analogies, which are being phased out because they do not produce politically correct results, correlate most strongly to IQ.
With the analysis of the tests, you’ll note that the author discarded certain sections of the test that did not correlate with IQ – pilot training for Bush, for instance – and focused on those that did correlate.
Then, in order to approximate (note, it’s an approximation, which the article makes perfectly clear) the IQ that would be represented by the scores for those sections, he used the standard deviations compared to the IQs of the populations taking those tests. As a cross-check, he compared SAT scores for those groups, and also showed the correlation between the tests for Al Gore, who had IQ scores that were released.
Bottom line is that he made a pretty good showing of their approximate scores – and I would trust Charles Murray’s analysis, which was in the excerpt as a quote, very highly.
NOw, as to the approximate scores, the most important thing isn’t to show that they were geniuses. THat was not the issue. THe issue was that people were claiming that Kerry was a very high IQ candidate while Bush was a moron. THe author made a good argument that they were approximately even, and that both were approximately in the top 10% of the country.
While this might not be impressive to you, I think it’s a good showing that Bush is smarter than a whole lot of the people out there who enjoy calling him a moron.
Heh, I have to say it again, Bush may have been smart once, but he destroyed most of his brain cells. Sorry, we need a retest…
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
While this might not be impressive to you, I think it’s a good showing that Bush is smarter than a whole lot of the people out there who enjoy calling him a moron.[/quote]
I’ll give you that. I don’t personally consider him a total moron. I may dislike some of the things the administration does or the way they handle situations, but like most politicians, he is simply a man who will bend the truth in the name of politics. I would like someone to show me a politician who they think is absolutely honest and has not done this (I also think many are blinded to this simple fact due to party affiliation wars). I think many people are split as far as whether they like or dislike him and that this affects what is often heard in the way of insults. The truth is, however, no other president needed anyone to confirm their IQ in this manner. That says a lot regardless of how you may try to smooth this over. Before he was originally elected president, I doubt most would have labeled him as “smart” even though his father commanded much more respect as far as his overall presence.
As far as the SAT, I am interested in why you think verbal analogies correlate so strongly to overall IQ when there is such a large issue with social cultural bias. I would also like to continue discussing how the SAT directly relates to IQ. I personally would think the SAT a culmination of information learned and not a test of how much potential a person has to learn. There is a big difference between the two and the education received from grade 1 would be the most to blame for the final result when someone is in highschool…NOT their IQ.
For instance, I thought I truly sucked at math. I had some of the worst teachers all of the way through school. Going to “magnet schools” where many of the kids (at the time) seemed to have parents who contributed to much of their education behind the scenes, some of my teachers went as far as to simply not teach portions of info and see if you could figure it out on your own. This was back in middle school (we were taking algebra at the time). I thought I was a mathematical moron. That pretty much didn’t change until I got to college, had one of the best professors I have had in my life teaching calculus. I ended up nearly making math my minor and started tutoring other students in the same classes I was taking at the same time. Needless to say, I didn’t do as well in the math portion as I did in say, reading comprehension. That was because no one ever filled in the gaps until I got to college and dealt with someone with a similar cultural background. That means I put little stake in SAT scores as far as IQ is related specifically. I am not sure why anyone would.
Prof –
I’m just going on memory right now – I’ll have to see if I can find any references to back up my recall.
However, the math sections of the SAT don’t correlate especially well with IQ. You have to get to higher levels of mathematics before mathematical ability will start to track IQ (I’m refering to the concept of “g”, which is psychologist shorthand for general IQ). Most people can master the basic rules of arithmetic, algebra and geometry necessary to perform well on the SAT, provided they put enough time into studies (or have good teachers).
Verbal analogies, however, seem to do a much better job of correlating to “g”. Being able to see various shades of meaning and inter-relationships between two words (which are really just two concepts) seems to be a skill that correlates very well to g.
On a general note, I will also say that, in response to vroom’s jest, I’ve also read that IQ can change over time – not hugely in general, but it can – depending on the quality and quantity of the mental stimuli that you provide yourself (short lesson for parents: make your kids read – and read at or above their supposed levels).
ADDENDUM: I should also say that the most pronounced changes in IQ, when they are measured, are seen at the two ends of the age spectrum – children and the elderly. At the age people take the SAT, you don’t see much movement. That’s why MENSA will accept SAT scores in lieu of taking their IQ exam, but won’t accept childhood IQ tests (they have a list of tests they will accept – if you’re interested, you can check their website).
[quote]vroom wrote:
Heh, I have to say it again, Bush may have been smart once, but he destroyed most of his brain cells. Sorry, we need a retest… ;)[/quote]
vroom:
I hope you are kidding! Otherwise, I would like you to back up your statement with some facts.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Verbal analogies, however, seem to do a much better job of correlating to “g”. Being able to see various shades of meaning and inter-relationships between two words (which are really just two concepts) seems to be a skill that correlates very well to g.[/quote]
I am actually more interested in why cultural differences seem to be factored in as an afterthought. I would think this would play a HUGE role along with the education available to certain ethnic groups.
Some good stuff on the SAT and correlation to g:
http://www.gnxp.com/MT2/archives/2003_frey_and_detterman_IQ_SAT.pdf
BTW, here is a link to a page showing the requirements of several High-IQ societies, including Mensa and Sigma on various tests – they all accept SAT and GRE (going to the specific society’s website will reveal more tests they accept in lieu of their own):
http://members.shaw.ca/delajara/criteria.html
And here’s an interesting article looking at some social factors that affect IQ tests generally:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Verbal analogies, however, seem to do a much better job of correlating to “g”. Being able to see various shades of meaning and inter-relationships between two words (which are really just two concepts) seems to be a skill that correlates very well to g.
I am actually more interested in why cultural differences seem to be factored in as an afterthought. I would think this would play a HUGE role along with the education available to certain ethnic groups.
[/quote]
Prof:
That’s more of a critique against the concept of IQ tests generally, rather than a critique of the correlation of SAT to IQ.
Above I linked to an article that claims that as much as 50% (and at least 30%) of the IQ score can be attributed to non-genetic factors. It’s an interesting article, but the debate between those who view genetics as completely determinative and those who think environmental factors weigh very heavily into IQ is still raging.
Here’s another interesting link to a page about “Intelligence.”
ADDENDUM: I wanted to note that I can’t get the article in which I remember the claim being made that g correlates most strongly with verbal SAT. It was an Atlantic Monthly article, but I am not a subscriber and can’t access their archives. However, if you examine the article on SAT correlation to g you’ll note that verbal subscore correlates more strongly than does mathematical subscore. That’s about as much as I can offer now, though if look at what ETS has to say it claims the SAT hasn’t been an “IQ test” per se since the reading comp sections were added. If you subtract those, what you’re left with (discounting the writing sample) over the time period are antonyms (pure vocab, have since been dropped from the SAT but not the GRE), “sentence completion” and analogies.
Here’s an old (about 10 years) article on intelligence from the Wall Street Journal – I remember reading this way back when:
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
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.
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.
While there are different types of intelligence tests, they all measure
the same intelligence. Some use words or numbers and require specific
cultural knowledge (like vocabulary). Others do not, and instead use
shapes or designs and require knowledge of only simple, universal
concepts (many/few, open/closed, up/down).
The spread of people along the IQ continuum, from low to high, can be
represented well by the bell curve (in statistical jargon, the “normal
curve”). Most people cluster around the average (IQ 100). Few are
either very bright or very dull: About 3% of Americans score above IQ
130 (often considered the threshold for “giftedness”), with about the
same percentage below IQ 70 (IQ 70-75 often being considered the
threshold for mental retardation).
Intelligence tests are not culturally biased against American blacks or
other native-born, English-speaking peoples in the U.S. Rather, IQ
scores predict equally accurately for all such Americans, regardless of
race and social class. Individuals who do not understand English well
can be given either a nonverbal test or one in their native language.
The brain processes underlying intelligence are still little
understood. Current research looks, for example, at speed of neural
transmission, glucose (energy) uptake, and electrical activity of the
brain, uptake, and electrical activity of the brain.
Group Differences
Members of all racial-ethnic groups can be found at every IQ level. The
bell curves of different groups overlap considerably, but groups often
differ in where their members tend to cluster along the IQ line. The
bell curves for some groups (Jews and East Asians) are centered
somewhat higher than for whites in general. Other groups (blacks and
Hispanics) ale centered somewhat lower than non-Hispanic whites.
The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100; the bell
curve for American blacks roughly around 85; and those for different
subgroups of Hispanics roughly midway between those for whites and
blacks. The evidence is less definitive for exactly where above IQ 100
the bell curves for Jews and Asians are centered.
Practical Importance
IQ is strongly related, probably more so than any other single
measurable human trait, to many important educational, occupational,
economic, and social outcomes. Its relation to the welfare and
performance of individuals is very strong in some arenas in life
(education, military training), moderate but robust in others (social
competence), and modest but consistent in others (law-abidingness).
Whatever IQ tests measure, it is of great practical and social
importance.
A high IQ is an advantage in life because virtually all activities
require some reasoning and decision-making. Conversely, a low IQ is
often a disadvantage, especially in disorganized environments. Of
course, a high IQ no more guarantees success than a low IQ guarantees
failure in life. There are many exceptions, but the odds for success in
our society greatly favor individuals with higher IQs.
The practical advantages of having a higher IQ increase as life
settings become more complex (novel, ambiguous, changing,
unpredictable, or multifaceted). For example, a high IQ is generally
necessary to perform well in highly complex or fluid jobs (the
professions, management): it is a considerable advantage in moderately
complex jobs (crafts, clerical and police work); but it provides less
advantage in settings that require only routine decision making or
simple problem solving (unskilled work).
Differences in intelligence certainly are not the only factor affecting
performance in education, training, and highly complex jobs (no one
claims they are), but intelligence is often the most important. When
individuals have already been selected for high (or low) intelligence
and so do not differ as much in IQ, as in graduate school (or special
education), other influences on performance loom larger in comparison.
Certain personality traits, special talents, aptitudes, physical
capabilities, experience, and the like are important (sometimes
essential) for successful performance in many jobs, but they have
narrower (or unknown) applicability or “transferability” across tasks
and settings compared with general intelligence. Some scholars choose
to refer to these other human traits as other “intelligences.”
Source and Stability of Within-Group Differences
Individuals differ in intelligence due to differences in both their
environments and genetic heritage. Heritability estimates range from
0.4 to 0.8 (on a scale from 0 to 1), most thereby indicating that
genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ
differences among individuals. (Heritability is the squared correlation
of phenotype with genotype.) If all environments were to become equal
for everyone, heritability would rise to 100% because all remaining
differences in IQ would necessarily be genetic in origin.
Members of the same family also tend to differ substantially in
intelligence (by an average of about 12 IQ points) for both genetic and
environmental reasons. They differ genetically because biological
brothers and sisters share exactly half their genes with each parent
and, on the average, only half with each other. They also differ in IQ
because they experience different environments within the same family.
That IQ may be highly heritable does not mean that it is not affected
by the environment. Individuals are not born with fixed, unchangeable
levels of intelligence (no one claims they are). IQs do gradually
stabilize during childhood, however, and generally change little
thereafter.
Although the environment is important in creating IQ differences, we do
not know yet how to manipulate it to raise low IQs permanently. Whether
recent attempts show promise is still a matter of considerable
scientific debate.
Genetically caused differences are not necessarily irremediable
(consider diabetes, poor vision, and phenal keton uria), nor are
environmentally caused ones necessarily remediable (consider injuries,
poisons, severe neglect, and some diseases). Both may be preventable to
some extent.
Source and Stability of Between-Group Differences
There is no persuasive evidence that the IQ bell curves for different
racial-ethnic groups are converging. Surveys in some years show that
gaps in academic achievement have narrowed a bit for some races, ages,
school subjects and skill levels, but this picture seems too mixed to
reflect a general shift in IQ levels themselves.
Racial-ethnic differences in IQ bell curves are essentially the same
when youngsters leave high school as when they enter first grade.
However, because bright youngsters learn faster than slow learners,
these same IQ differences lead to growing disparities in amount learned
as youngsters progress from grades one to 12. As large national surveys
continue to show, black 17- year-olds perform, on the average, more
like white 13-year-olds in reading, math, and science, with Hispanics
in between.
The reasons that blacks differ among themselves in intelligence appear
to be basically the same as those for why whites (or Asians or
Hispanics) differ among themselves. Both environment and genetic
heredity are involved.
There is no definitive answer to why IQ bell curves differ across
racial-ethnic groups. The reasons for these IQ differences between
groups may be markedly different from the reasons for why individuals
differ among themselves within any particular group (whites or blacks
or Asians). In fact, it is wrong to assume, as many do, that the reason
why some individuals in a population have high IQs but others have low
IQs must be the same reason why some populations contain more such high
(or low) IQ individuals than others. Most experts believe that
environment is important in pushing the bell curves apart, but that
genetics could be involved too.
Racial-ethnic differences are somewhat smaller but still substantial
for individuals from the same socioeconomic backgrounds. To illustrate,
black students from prosperous families tend to score higher in IQ than
blacks from poor families, but they score no higher, on average, than
whites from poor families.
Almost all Americans who identify themselves as black have white
ancestors-the white admixture is about 20%, on average–and many
self-designated whites, Hispanics, and others likewise have mixed
ancestry. Because research on intelligence relies on self-
classification into distinct racial categories, as does most other
social-science research, its findings likewise relate to some unclear
mixture of social and biological distinctions among groups (no one
claims otherwise).
Implications for Social Policy
The research findings neither dictate nor preclude any particular
social policy, because they can never determine our goals. They can,
however, help us estimate the likely success and side-effects of
pursuing those goals via different means.
The following professors-all experts in intelligence an allied fields-have
signed this statement:
Richard D. Arvey, University of Minnesota
Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., University of Minnesota
John B. Carroll, U.N.C. at Chapel Hill
Raymond B. Cattell, University of Hawaii
David B. Cohen, U.T. at Austin
Rene W. Dawis, University of Minnesota
Douglas K. Detterman, Case Western Reserve U.
Marvin Dunnette, University of Minnesota
Hans Eysenck, University of London
Jack Feldman, Georgia Institute of Technology
Edwin A. Fleishman, George Mason University
Grover C. Gilmore, Case Western Reserve U.
Robert A. Gordon, Johns Hopkins University
Linda S. Gottfredsen, University of Delaware
Richard J. Haier, U.C. Irvine
Garrett Hardin, U.C. Berkeley
Robert Hogan, University of Tulsa
Joseph M. Horn, U.T. at Austin
Lloyd G. Humphreys, U.Ill. at Champaign-Urbana
John E. Hunter, Michigan State University
Seymour W. Itzkoff, Smith College
Douglas N. Jackson, U. of Western Ontario
James J. Jenkins, U. of South Florida
Arthur R. Jensen, U.C. Berkeley
Alan S. Kaufman, University of Alabama
Nadeen L. Kaufman, Cal. School of Prof. Pshch., S.D.
Timothy Z. Keith, Alfred University
Nadine Lambert, U.C. Berkeley
John C. Loehlin, U.T. at Austin
David Lubinski, Iowa State University
David T. Lykken, University of Minnesota
Richard Lynn, University of Ulster at Coleraine
Paul E. Meehl, University of Minnesota
R. Travis Osborne, University of Georgia
Robert Perloff, University of Pittsburg
Robert Plomin, Institute of Psychiatry, London
Cecil R. Reynolds Texas A&M University
David C. Rowe University of Arizona
J. Philippe Rushton U. of Western Ontario
Vincent Sarich, U.C. Berkeley
Sandra Scarr, University of Virginia
Frank L. Schmidt University of Iowa
Lyle F. Schoenfeldt, Texas A&M University
James C. Sharf, George Washington University
Julian C. Stanley, Johns Hopkins University
Del Theissen, U.T. at Austin
Lee A. Thompson, Case Western Reserve U.
Robert M. Thorndike, Western Washington University
Philip Anthony Vernon, U. of Western Ontario
Lee Willerman, U.T. at Austin
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
The following professors-all experts in intelligence an allied fields-have
signed this statement:
Richard D. Arvey, University of Minnesota
Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., University of Minnesota
John B. Carroll, U.N.C. at Chapel Hill
Raymond B. Cattell, University of Hawaii
David B. Cohen, U.T. at Austin
Rene W. Dawis, University of Minnesota
Douglas K. Detterman, Case Western Reserve U.
Marvin Dunnette, University of Minnesota
Hans Eysenck, University of London
Jack Feldman, Georgia Institute of Technology
Edwin A. Fleishman, George Mason University
Grover C. Gilmore, Case Western Reserve U.
Robert A. Gordon, Johns Hopkins University
Linda S. Gottfredsen, University of Delaware
Richard J. Haier, U.C. Irvine
Garrett Hardin, U.C. Berkeley
Robert Hogan, University of Tulsa
Joseph M. Horn, U.T. at Austin
Lloyd G. Humphreys, U.Ill. at Champaign-Urbana
John E. Hunter, Michigan State University
Seymour W. Itzkoff, Smith College
Douglas N. Jackson, U. of Western Ontario
James J. Jenkins, U. of South Florida
Arthur R. Jensen, U.C. Berkeley
Alan S. Kaufman, University of Alabama
Nadeen L. Kaufman, Cal. School of Prof. Pshch., S.D.
Timothy Z. Keith, Alfred University
Nadine Lambert, U.C. Berkeley
John C. Loehlin, U.T. at Austin
David Lubinski, Iowa State University
David T. Lykken, University of Minnesota
Richard Lynn, University of Ulster at Coleraine
Paul E. Meehl, University of Minnesota
R. Travis Osborne, University of Georgia
Robert Perloff, University of Pittsburg
Robert Plomin, Institute of Psychiatry, London
Cecil R. Reynolds Texas A&M University
David C. Rowe University of Arizona
J. Philippe Rushton U. of Western Ontario
Vincent Sarich, U.C. Berkeley
Sandra Scarr, University of Virginia
Frank L. Schmidt University of Iowa
Lyle F. Schoenfeldt, Texas A&M University
James C. Sharf, George Washington University
Julian C. Stanley, Johns Hopkins University
Del Theissen, U.T. at Austin
Lee A. Thompson, Case Western Reserve U.
Robert M. Thorndike, Western Washington University
Philip Anthony Vernon, U. of Western Ontario
Lee Willerman, U.T. at Austin
[/quote]
More important to me, considering many of the strong racially oriented views within that passage, would be the racial background of these professors. There are many views that were held as truth for centuries that were nothing more than opinion. Not one study was shown to back up the claims made. I am seriously not trying to put the burden on you to find this info. I think you have done a good job at researching this, however, I hope you can see what I am getting at. If you can’t, then we really do have a problem.
I totally see your perspective, and I don’t have a clue about the racial background of the professors.
However, I want to point out how I interpreted the main thrusts of the article to which I think you are referencing.
There are measureable differences in performance among racial groups on intelligence tests;
We don’t know why those exist.
Point 2 is key, because it leaves ample room for explanations other than genetics – even a small environmental factor that worked solely against or for a certain group could have the effect of pushing the scores for that group higher or lower – I think this is especially poignant given the fact that dispersion across the IQ scores occurs within all the various groups.
I found the “status” argument in the article I linked above very interesting – it seems to me to provide a lot of support to Thomas Sowell’s cultural thesis (different cultures value academic achievements differently), while putting focus on the relative weighting likely done on an individual level (much like game theory).
Their either smarter or dumber. The test isn’t biased against green people or people from Uzbekistan.
I find that it correlates more closely with socioecnomic status. Poor black kids from the ghetto and poor white kids from the ghetto perform about the same. Break the stats down like that and then add in a litte for Oriental culture strongly pushing education, especially among the working class. Ask the owner of a local Chinese Buffett if their kid is going to med school/in med school. Assuming he speaks English. It’s quite interesting. (Shirt sleeve to shirt sleeve 3 generations… But social theory is for later)
Also how IQs have anything to do with sucessfully elading a country has piss to do with anything. Both of those guys are more intelligient than 75% of the country. Half the people who refer to them as dumb as truly moronic themselves. Remember the lessons for life about average people who do the right things achieving great results.
I, for one, never thought Bush was dumb. He was smart enough to take advantage of the things that his parents worked for to make good for himself. Yeah, he has daddy’s money and influence to do this, so it makes it alot easier for him than someone who doesn’t have this advantage. However, I know many people that are in the same position that are too stupid or too lazy to do the same.
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
Is this conclusion based only on the testing of Americans?