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>

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).

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.

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.

�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. �

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."

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!

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?

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.

[quote=ValIt's clear that smart people have a huge advantage.

US society has become more egalitarian over the last 150 years or so.

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.

[/quote]

I believe our society has become egalitarian in rhetoric, not in practice. It has of course become more egalitarian over time, but is still far from achieving that goal. US education shockingly unequal and is in fact designed to be unequal. Therefore, kids from wealthier families will always have more opportunities than kids from poorer families, regardless of there respective IQs. And, in fact, many many children in our country are implicit and sometimes explicitly told early on that college is NOT an option for them, regardless of their ability level.

And therein lies the challenge. Having a high IQ only provides a practical advantage to someone if their intelligence is properly nurtured from a young age. This is not true for many children and even if they have an above average IQ, they will not fulfill their potential if they are not provided with the proper tools for demonstrating their abilities.

Imagine, for example, a gifted child in a poor school who becomes bored early on, becomes a discipline challenge, etc. What becomes of that child if they don't have parents who can recognize the need for/afford educational testing, look for 2E, etc. Or a teacher that can tell the difference between gifted boredom and ADHD? That child becomes labeled a troublemaker, becomes an underachiever, may get in with the wrong crowd, drop out of high school, who knows? Even if she/he doesn't drop out, it is highly likely that they will finish high school and not have the credits or skills needed to get accepted to college. Is that child college material? She/he definitely could have been, but will likely never be.

Until the playing field is fair, we have no way of knowing whether someone is "not college material" because they don't have the cognitive ability to handle it or because they did not receive the appropriate lower level education to be successful there. And there are no visible signs that we are moving toward a fairer playing field anytime soon.

While I am all for presenting alternative options to young people, this systemic inequality is why I don't see how we can say that some people are college material and some are not in a way that is based "solely" on cognitive ability and is not heavily dependent on socio-economic or racial/ethnic position.

If the income gap is widening, then is society more egalitarian? Can the more talented, get so much more than the less talented?

There is a middle through high school here for the performing arts kind. DD's classmate older sister started there this year and the mother told me the math was weak. And I can understand that. It is about becoming a musical/dancing/actor star. And if you don't, too bad, waitress.

Because this is a performing arts school, the difference in success or not is dramatic (pun intended). But think of regular school. The really talented can become neurosurgeons or theorectical physists like Brian Greene. The rest, figure out a job, which may or not have benefits and the ability to buy a house and support a family.

I think that is the unspoken. Everyone wants their kid to have the shot at success. And putting certain kids in a special gifted programs does give them a better shot. Our principal is totally opposed of accelerated math (even though there are gifted classes and a similar school a few blocks away pushes the gifted agenda) I still like the school for a few reasons and just use CTY. But her attitude is really annoying for me, yet the parents of kids in non-gifted classes love her for it.

They out number us.

Ren

Lots and lots of schools have decreased or even eliminated their gifted programs.
Our local public school is ranked in the top 10% of California schools (OK, maybe that isn't much!!). I asked our principal if I could for next year start a math club for any kids who were interested. We could do math competitions 4th-6th grade. My son will be a 4th grader. He is really good at math and really wants to do that. I said that our family could donate the money for it, etc.
The principal was very nice but said he really needs a remedial math club and could I do that instead???
With No Child Left Behind, the schools need to bring EVERY kid up to some standard. Or they lose funding/money, etc. There is thus no incentive to encourage or support kids who have already met that minimum standard, like a gifted child.

A "remedial math club" is called "after-school tutoring" and the school is mandated under NCLB to provide it to students who are falling behind. No way that this should be considered your responsibility and no way that it should substitute for a competitive math club for student who are actually interested in math. Of course, all students who are actually interested in and excited about learning problem-solving strategies and techniques should be encouraged to attend the competition-focused math club, even if they don't seem likely to win any prizes.

How about a private math club??