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    By Anneli Rufus, AlterNet
    November 2, 2011
    http://www.alternet.org/story/152944/iq_blackout%3A_why_did_studying_intelligence_become_taboo

    Scholars used to avidly study human intelligence. They measured cranial capacity. They administered IQ tests. They sought to define what intelligence was and who had more or less of it and why.

    These days, not so much. Somewhere along the way, the very idea of intelligence became politicized. Its legitimacy as a field of study, as a measurable quality -- on par with height, eyesight and hand-and-eye coordination -- and as a concept came under fire. Talk of "brainpower" and "smarts" ebbed as scholars proposed "multiple intelligences" -- such as musical, spatial, interpersonal and intrapersonal -- rather than whatever had hitherto been called IQ. An IQ blackout has descended. When researchers talk about IQ at all, the big question is whether it's inherited, and if so, how much. IQ now faces fierce competition from SQ and EQ, social and emotional intelligence, two burgeoning theories.

    Why are our minds and their capabilities among the most taboo topics in 21st-century academia?

    "I believe there are a number of factors involved," says Dennis Garlick, a postdoctoral researcher in psychology at UCLA and the author of Intelligence and the Brain: Solving the Mystery of Why People Differ in IQ and How a Child Can Be a Genius (Aesop, 2010). "Certainly a major factor is the race issue. Arguing that the races differ in IQ has tainted the whole field, and many researchers and commentators would prefer to just avoid the area for fear of being labeled racists."

    Much of that taint and fear dates back to the work of UC Berkeley psychologist Arthur Jensen, whose writings in the 1960s linking differences in cognitive ability with differences in race sparked protests on the Berkeley campus and outrage in the scientific community that echoes to this day.

    "The most important fact about intelligence is that we can measure it," Jensen wrote in his most famous work, "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?" published in the Harvard Educational Review in 1969.

    "IQ is known to predict scholastic performance better than any other single measurable attribute of the child," Jensen wrote.

    Asserting that intelligence is "heritable" -- that it's mainly in our genes -- he then warned against making racial generalizations: against, in a sense, being racist.

    "Whenever we select a person for some special educational purpose ... we are selecting an individual, and we are selecting him and dealing with him for reasons of his individuality. ... Since, as far as we know, the full range of human talents is represented in all the major races of man and in all socioeconomic levels, it is unjust to allow the mere fact of an individual's racial or social background to affect the treatment accorded to him."

    Jensen then went on to advocate diversity, although not quite in the same way we do today.

    "Schools and society must provide a range and diversity of educational methods, programs, and goals," Jensen demanded: In other words, diversify the curricula, not necessarily the faculty or student body.

    "Jensen is still greatly respected by many traditional intelligence researchers," Garlick says. "By 'traditional intelligence researchers,' I mean researchers who still value IQ and continue to do studies that evaluate the effectiveness of IQ in predicting outcomes, or studies that examine possible mechanisms that may cause differences in IQ. However, due to the unpopularity of Jensen�s findings, this group of researchers is now very small.

    "The major move in response to Jensen�s findings hasn�t been rigorous and compelling research to try and disprove his hypotheses and findings. Rather, it has led to an exodus of researchers away from the area, and a drying up of grant funding and research positions for researchers interested in IQ."

    <end of excerpt>




    "To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle." - George Orwell
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    What's missing seems to be any evidence that intelligence isn't being studied or that it is taboo. It seems like IQ tests are widely used and there is quite a bit of academic literature about the subject.

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    Originally Posted by passthepotatoes
    What's missing seems to be any evidence that intelligence isn't being studied or that it is taboo. It seems like IQ tests are widely used and there is quite a bit of academic literature about the subject.

    Well, just because IQ tests are widely used for individuals doesn't mean that researchers are using them to study IQ differences between different populations or why differences might exist.

    Personally, I think that the idea that differences exist makes people very, very uncomfortable, and that this discomfort is at the heart of the taboo. Admitting that differences exist means that a small portion people have a big and critical advantage from birth. Unlike wealth or social standing, the IQ advantage will never go away, barring a catastrophic disease or accident.

    It's clear that smart people have a huge advantage. While gifted athletes or gifted actors also have advantages, their gifts have a limited range of application. This statement isn't true of people who are cognitively gifted --- high cognitive ability can be applied in a huge range of areas.

    I think that this is why our society is uncomfortable with the idea of cognitive giftedness and IQ in general. It's discomfiting to think that a small number of people can, simply because of the way they were born, have so many more options than others who are less intelligent.

    US society has become more egalitarian over the last 150 years or so. I think it's natural that, as we decreasingly tolerate biases based on sex, race, and other similar factors, it's natural to want to extend opportunities (like a college education) to people who had previously been shut out for all the wrong reasons.

    But I think we've made a mistake in how we apply that extension of opportunity. By pushing everyone to go to college and downplaying other options, we overlook the fact that some people just aren't suited to getting a BA. This isn't because they're Hispanic or female or poor. It's because they just aren't smart enough. Yet somehow, this fact gets tangled up with ethnicity or sex or economic background and the real reasons for why Johnny really ought to be thinking about another career path get lost in the scuffle.

    Then, on top of that, many, many people really don't want to admit that someone might not be smart enough to go to college, as though it was somehow stripping a person of opportunities. This is a very hard and painful thing to do, but if we're honest, we'll admit that those opportunities were never really there to begin with for some people, because some just don't have the ability for a college education.

    Admitting that some people are smarter than others implicitly means that the less bright ones have fewer options in life. Our society, which has always focused on opportunities for individuals, is uncomfortable with admitting this fact. It's hard to talk about equal opportunity when people with IQs over 120 or 130 have so many more options than everyone else. It's even harder when you know that the advantages are all internal, weren't earned, and won't go away. Again, this is all painful stuff for a society striving to be more egalitarian. But that doesn't make it less true.

    Philosophically yours,

    Val (who must go make a pie now; this isn't as well-written as I'd like and I may edit/expand later).

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    There isn't any evidence in the article that intelligence isn't being studied. If the idea is that it is no longer a safe or popular choice to engage in eugenics research - well, let's hope so!

    There has been quite a lot of buzz in the media for the last few years that college has been oversold and isn't for everyone so that's hardly a novel idea. The giant leap in logic comes from assuming the reason why most students aren't finishing college is because they aren't smart enough. If it was about smarts you'd think SAT, which basically stands in for IQ testing in the process, would be a much better predictor of college success, when in fact it is pretty lousy.

    If it was about smarts we'd find that students of equal capabilities would graduate at the same rates whether they chose to attend a public state institution or an elite private. Instead students with the similar GPA and similar high school record are much more likely to graduate if they attend a school with higher graduation rates.

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    The Emperor's New Clothes.

    It's not the idea that some people might be more intelligent, it's that some people might not be intelligent. Nobody wants to think that they might be stupid, and in this era of equality as opposed to equal opportunity, it simply isn't allowed.

    I read a newspaper article about Obama's bill involving NCLB, which said that the President's bill would have required all students to test above average, but that language was removed from the bill being considered. To be fair, I have not read the bill in question to see if it actually said that, but I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at the old joke come true. We just can't have any below-average children, you know.

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    �I been reading without opinions 'cause I can't think of no answers. �Just wanted to plug this article I'm reading that defends the NCLB.
    http://www.aecf.org/~/media/Pubs/Initiatives/KIDS%20COUNT/123/2010KCSpecReport/AEC_report_color_highres.pdf

    P 12 says we need 60% of our population to have a four year degree by 2025 to be globally competitive. �Currently we have 30% educated thusly, putting us #2 in the world, but if you count only our newer younger generation of workers we're # 6 in the world. �

    The education gap leads to a productivity gap. �If US students had met the educational achievement of other countries between 1983 and 1998 our GDP in 2008 could have been 1.3 - 2.3 trillion higher. �

    They say the problem is in at the end of third grade when you stop read and start reading to learn. �Textbook makers assume you can read by then. �If you can't, you'll be lost and be at risk for a drop-out and a criminal. �

    K. �Fine. �I agree with all that. �How does it help to water everything down? �I can see. �If there was a way to dis-engage from an educational timeline-that would work! �It's so tricky. �Who's going to pay to support somebody while they take longer to finish school? �Who's going to level the playing field so that the hairdresser earns as much as the banker? �Who wants to pay for the hairdresser's kids healthcare? �Who wants to quit watering down the education so somebody can make more reliable medicine so that it's free to heal people, free to feed people, and free to travel on vacation with free, earth-friendly fuel. �Why don't we have the technology? � And where's my rocket pack?


    N.E. way, there's the other guy's point. �^^

    ** I guess education is social engineering because how else is it fair that the �busboy's kids can't have healthcare but the senator's daughter gets an inground pool. �So it's not fair to take from a family that earned it legally to give to the needy. �But how is fair to the GT to turn education into merely social engineering when it should be a natural opportunity? �It's that attitude of needing to "take someone down a peg" that's holding people back. �


    Youth lives by personality, age lives by calculation. -- Aristotle on a calendar
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    Hey spammer! I always knew the answer to everything was New Jersey. If I ever asked mamma a question and she didn't know the answer, such as "what's for dinner?" she'd answer "New Jersey, the answer to everything is New Jersey."


    Youth lives by personality, age lives by calculation. -- Aristotle on a calendar
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    I don't think that studying IQ has become taboo. I think what has fallen out of favor is the idea that IQ is predominantly genetic, the complexities of one's environment and experiences have a lot to do with how IQ is expressed in a person.

    Because of that, there is much more focus on how to ameliorate the environmental issues--which is where the research should be!

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    The article goes on to point out that historically, less intelligent people have been denied educational opportunites and were even victims of mass extermination at the hands of the Nazis.

    We should take a deep breath and admit that the world needs less intelligent people. We can't all be physicists, for crying out loud. We need menial workers. We need mid-level bureaucrats. Remember Brave New World?

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    The article assumes everyone is equally productive and that is not true.

    It also assumes that societies are equally effective at providing the right environment for its highly productive people and that is not true.


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