I must be lordhelmotically fbwcicidal to start another race-and-IQ debate here.

But I came across this article from a few years back:



I found a bit more about the Larry P. v. Riles case on Wikipedia and in an old college course's online notes:


Those class notes also include a summary of the Griggs v. Duke Power case, which greatly reduced the use of IQ tests in most businesses' hiring decisions, since the tests had a disparate impact on Blacks:



Many government agencies apparently wanted to continue using IQ tests in hiring, and developed a system of race-norming -- basically setting different thresholds for different races. This practice was banned by the Civil Rights Act of 1991.

For debate:

Should African American students be barred from receiving IQ tests to determine special education placement?

Should IQ tests be banned altogether for special education placement?

Should IQ tests be banned from use in hiring decisions? Or for eligibility for advanced placement classes?

Should African American students be barred from receiving IQ tests to determine special education placement?

Nobody should be given IQ tests which determine, by themselves, educational placement. They can be part of the process used to make these decisions, when used properly and seen for the very limited tools that they are. This is the heart of Larry P. v Wiles, I think.



(Bold added for emphasis)

Placing a student in special education -- or, for that matter, in classes for the gifted -- based only on an IQ test is using a very blunt instrument for a very delicate task.

In addition to this, the fact that the IQ test was based on an all-white population may mean that it is less than perfectly adapted to a mixed population. (I do not state this as fact, but it certainly seems probable that tests designed by members of one ethnic group may have some form of cultural bias which makes them less accurate when applied to other ethnic groups. Making sure that an IQ test has been standardized for the entire population can certainly do no harm, and may make it more meaningful.)

Should IQ tests be banned altogether for special education placement?

I have said above that they should never be used alone to determine education placement. There must be other considerations, such as the student's background, resources, emotional condition, and so on. In order to ensure that there is No Child Left Behind, we must treat each student as an individual of great complexity, not a number on a score card.

Should IQ tests be banned from use in hiring decisions?

It's difficult to see how you could prevent a company from making sole use of IQ tests for hiring purposes. They are also free to base their hiring decisions based on the astrological sign of the applicant. (If we're talking about the government hiring or firing people, that may be a different story.) In both cases, such a company would be acting foolishly and against its own interests. Clearly, it makes more sense to base hiring on the ability of the applicant to do the job. An IQ test may be a small part of the process used to make such a decision, but its use should be very limited indeed; much more so than in the education system, I would think.

Or for eligibility for advanced placement classes?

My answer to this would be identical to my answer for placement in special education. Not banned, but used wisely.

Oh, goody, another race/IQ debate! These always turn out well.

Should African American students be barred from receiving IQ tests to determine special education placement?

I have mixed emotions about this one. Overall I'd say no, I don't think so. IQ testing should be one small portion of the overall picture. I think they are a legitimate tool to assess the student's abilities, but we do have to change the way IQ tests are viewed and presented. Perhaps the name should change as well. When I was in elementary school, IQ test that was considered to determine one's aptitude and it was a hard, set thing, like blood type. Through the years they've ascertained that isn't the case. IQ scores can change significantly with education and training. I remember reading a personal account of a mother who was told that her child was borderline retarded when he entered the first grade. She worked with him, and by the time he entered Medical School his IQ was tested again and (if memory serves, it might have been a bit more or less) it had raised over 40 points in fifteen years. Once he finished Medical School, she told him for the first time of his prior "mental handicap" assessment. Had he known before, it might have changed the way his life turned out because he would have been riddled with self-doubt. That is my reservation with IQ testing. A person's future is determined more by their own personal expectations than anything else. If a test tells them they are average or below, they might believe that this is their level of ability. That might be true of the adults around them as well...expect little of a child and they will absolutely meet that expectation. Likewise, if they test high they might conclude that they don't have to work very hard, and fail to be successful.

But what an IQ test will determine is the placement level for where the work must start, how much work must be done and in what direction that work must go. If a child scores low on an IQ test, that might be indicative of anything from a learning disability (and a child can even be simultaneously gifted and have a learning disability), to a stagnant home and/or school environment, to an actual inherently low level ability to process information.

Should IQ tests be banned altogether for special education placement?

No.

Should IQ tests be banned from use in hiring decisions? Or for eligibility for advanced placement classes?

I see no reason why IQ tests should be administered to determine eligibility in advance placement classes. That's entirely performance related, not "aptitude" related. Prior performance in the classroom would be indicative of future success. Hiring decisions? I don't know why that would matter either, but I don't think the government should BAN that. If a business takes personal pride in highering only Mensa candidates that's up to them.

Should African American students be barred from receiving IQ tests to determine special education placement?
I'm not a big fan of tracking, especially by anything except targeted ability testing.

Depends on the age of the child, but this has little to do with race in my opinion and the answer in nearly all cases is that this is just lazy.

As Mrs. P has already noted IQs can and do change.

I have always poo-pooed the idea of inherited academic talent.

A Star Is Made
Proficiency comes from practice not birth, that's the overwhelming truth.

Should IQ tests be banned altogether for special education placement?
After elementary school I'd say yes, it's time to get more specific on a child's skill deficits and work them directly.

Should IQ tests be banned from use in hiring decisions? Or for eligibility for advanced placement classes?
Private business should be able to engage in any silly, non-discriminatory hiring practices they want. I wish somebody would give me an IQ test... and the manager too just to show him who's boss.

AP is about ability in a particular subject. I took AP for seven classes or so, but no way was I taking AP language of any kind. IQ has nothing to do with it.

GREAT QUOTE sir.
I love this one.

I believe that schools must have some means by which to place students, but are IQ tests the answer? I don't know.

After initial placement, students' performance will speak for itself. IQ testing basically gives arbitrary "can do" notions to kids, of which I don't see the value. Sure- bright people may have the ability to do great things, but how many people in US history have flittered that away? How many "great" Americans weren't geniuses? It's impossible to tell I'd suppose.

IQ tests do not measure intelligence directly, since intelligence (unlike height or weight or eye colour) is an applied faculty. They measure the ability to pass IQ tests.

Compare strength. It's an overall concept, but we have to use derived measures for it - how much weight can a person lift? How far can they lift it? How long can they hold it? The ability to arm curl heavy weights tells us nothing about how strong someone's legs are; nor does a leg press tell us how strong someone's arms are. So, the judges on the Strongest Man In The World use a mix of different tests and excercises to measure strength.

IQ tests do attempt to measure verbal, spatial and reasoning powers, but when they were being developed, they had to be tested and retested and refined to balance the different types of intelligence the measure.

Plus, the strict examination conditions under which they are carried out just don't suit some people. (I bet we all know a kid at school who was top of the class on coursework but fell apart when they had to sit a test - it might even have be us.)

Even then, an IQ test score of "100" doesn't mean you got 100 questions right, or accumulated 100 points. Instead, it's an artificially set score which represents the average score in the tests - it's a statistical construct. If the statistical sample does not accurately reflect the racial mix of a population, then one has to question it's value.

To coin an old phrase - measuring intelligence by exam results is like measuring digestion by turd length. They can be a useful indicator, but anyone who uses them alone is going to get messy.

Should African American students be barred from receiving IQ tests to determine special education placement?

Not barred, no, but other parameters should be used as well.

Should IQ tests be banned altogether for special education placement?

Not banned, just used as one part of a whole toolkit.

Should IQ tests be banned from use in hiring decisions? Or for eligibility for advanced placement classes?

Again, not banned, but used as part of a battery of tests e.g. in hiring decisions, things like Myers-Briggs or other such personality typing models might be more useful than IQ. It doesn't matter how smart you are, if you can't work with other people without annoying them or having nervous conniptions yourself (or both), you're worse than useless.

Yes, that seems reasonable, so I don't know why the Union City school district thought that they needed to withhold the test from an African American student. They could have weighted it less than other factors, or given it no weight at all.


From what I've been able to piece together of the story, the IQ tests available in the early 1970s (when the Larry P. v. Riles case started) were thought to be "culturally biased" against Blacks. (Some?) California school districts made it a policy not to use these tests on African Americans until a "race-neutral" test could be prepared and validated. That still hasn't been done, thirty-some years after the case was initiated.

Personally, I haven't seen any evidence that modern intelligence tests are "culturally biased" against African Americans. Are African Americans performing, on average, worse than whites? Yes, but there are better explanations than racist tests: worse schools, poverty, parents with less time to invest in educating their children, even stereotype threat.

I guess my point is that if California is waiting for an IQ test that eliminates the gap between whites and blacks, they're being foolish. Don't throw away a useful tool for determining what class would most benefit a young child, just because of statistical differences between races.


A reasonable analogy, but I think it understates the usefulness of intelligence testing. The fact is that the subtests for different abilities in validated IQ tests are well correlated with each other. If a test subject scores anomalously badly in a subtest, that's often reason to look for a specific learning disability. But more commonly, people who do well (or badly) in one test will do similarly in other tests. The simplest explanation is that there's some mental resource that's common to all of the cognitive tasks that are being tested.

The SAT and GCSE both have a correlation of about .8 with IQ tests, which is about as well as any two IQ tests correlate with each other. That means that the SAT essentially is an IQ test, whether they brand it that way or not. Should SATs be used at all in the college admissions process? Interestingly, I see that Charles Murray now says "no." I'm not sure I agree with him, but his essay is food for thought.

The only racial aspect to this tends to be that many people believe blacks have a congenitally lower IQ.

Naturally we find that somewhat offensive.

I view it more as symptomatic of our often ham-handed educational tracking system. Which instead of measuring around a student's ability to perform in a particular class, tries to get a one-size-fits-all read on whether this student is slow, fast or average.

I see no reason why that kind of thinking has any validity beyond very early childhood where true learning disorders can be diagnosed.

Everything else is the whole point of education. They don't know... duh.

So teach them.

I agree. In fact in CA where liberals pushed through a “no IQ test” policy many years ago for all black students it has done nothing but hurt many very smart kids.

Be aware that “tracking” systems use much more than the IQ or any particular test and are a good thing. They allow very smart kids to be put into classes where they will be challenged. It also gets kids who need more help into classes where they can get it.

Should African American students be barred from receiving IQ tests to determine special education placement?


No, I find that a tad bit ridiculous. Everyone should receive the same test to determine placement, otherwise you
have an unbalanced system.

Should IQ tests be banned altogether for special education placement?

Id say no, because it is a good tool for measuring intelligence, I always enjoyed taking them, but in any
case I think its a tried and true method for measuring intelligence, and for placement in an education
system it can do a lot to help determine the academic abilities of any given student.


Should IQ tests be banned from use in hiring decisions? Or for eligibility for advanced placement classes?

Here I don't know, I guess it depends on the job. IQ can be irrelevant in countless positions in the work force, and even if it is
essential that someone is smart or knowledgeable for a certain position there are various ways to measure intelligence, and an IQ
test in turn should only be used as a guide to help the employer determine who they are hireing, but there are not many positions
where IQ would be the sole determining factor for an employer, but again it does depend on the job.

For example my IQ ranges from about 125 to 145 depending on the test I take, Thats high but I have ADD unfortunately, so my position as a captian of a big
ship or even a salesman in a busy shop would be more dependent on my ability to think quickly than my IQ. On the other hand there are many
things where my having ADD becomes less of a factor and IQ becomes more important, so it really depends on the Job because there are many different ways to measure intelligence, and various jobs require various skills.

In short, I don't think it should be banned in either job or education placement, but particularly in job placement its use can be rather limited, again depending on the job.

Naturally. I don't think that blacks have a congenitally lower IQ. As I mentioned earlier, there are plenty of non-genetic reasons that can explain the gap between average black and average white scores. And I've known plenty of black people who are smarter than me.

But let me play the devil's advocate and ask: what if there were genetic differences in average talents or temperaments? Steven Pinker cited this as his dangerous question for Edge.org last year. We currently don't know much about how genes build our brains, but it's conceivable that a few dozen genes will be found that explain most of the heritable IQ variance. (I've read that about five genes account for most difference in skin color, and that one of those is only a few thousand years old.) What if the "high IQ" genes are more common among "whites" or Asians or Ashkenazi Jews, and less common among Africans?

Would it matter? Would it mean that we should ban IQ tests?


Ted, can you tell me where you read this? I don't think it's true that California withholds IQ tests from black students, other than in the case of assignting them to the "slow" track. You might have gotten the idea from me where I sloppily wrote: "(Some?) California school districts made it a policy not to use these tests on African Americans until a "race-neutral" test could be prepared and validated."

But again, as far as I know, that only applied to programs like the "educable mentally retarded" track that didn't spend much time on things like reading and writing. If black students were prevented from being tested to qualify for "fast" track classes, I haven't heard of it.

I've never been a fan of denying the uncomfortable truth.

Sure, there a hereditary component to IQ though typically most of us are by definition, average. I don't think we should outright ban IQ testing. I think it should be used carefully.

I really don't see an common educational use for it beyond the second grade or so. If a person has a serious learning disorder, you ought to know by then. Otherwise our education system should use subject-by-subject proficiency testing to get a nuanced and therefore more useful view of a child's strength and weaknesses and them work to improve them.

I think that playing catch-up is nearly always more valuable than holding a child back.

Good call, but if we can't hold kids back... how do we punish/prevent apathetic kids (and or parents?). In my day (no... I'm not that old, but somehow I feel like some things have changed in the over a decade since my public school days) if someone got held back it was horribly embarassing for the kid. It was a motivator for MANY kids I knew.

IQ testing, however, I'm not sure really serves any real purpose. I think testing kids when going into Kindergarten on things like cognitive skills, reading, etc all serve the purpose. THEN- std testing at certain grade levels know you where to put the kids in the next grades (i.e. math, reading, etc). Over time, you learn where kids do well and not. How does an IQ test ever prove that?

I believe that all of you realize, and probably even smile as I type this, that I'm not a genius. However- I always did very well in school? Why? I worked hard. In college I didn't always make the dean's list, but I worked full time... and still kept my partial scholarships (which sadly usually equated to Mardi Gras $$). How did I get the money that I blew on Hurricanes and Handgrenades (Tropical Isle, NOLA)? Hard work in school.

My sister is the same way, as I'm sure are about a billion kids, probably some of whom have ended up on America's debate. I don't even like the word "over achiever". It insinuates that somehow we've exceeded our ability. Did God put some ceiling on our intelligence level?

Isn't intelligence, to a certain extent, learned and/or cultivated? Sure- innate ability helps, but can't smart people slide into an abyss and of course less talented people work their "meager mind muscle" into something a little more shapely?

Should African American students be barred from receiving IQ tests to determine special education placement?

No, but this should be done with care. As Turnea has noted, at an early age is desirable.

Should IQ tests be banned altogether for special education placement?

No.

About the only disability tied to directly to IQ is mental retardation – not autism, learning disabilities - like dyslexia - emotional disturbance, orthopedic handicaps, blindness, visual problems, or hearing impairment.

The IQ cutoff point for mental retardation is two standard deviations below the mean. That would be below 70, but can be extended to 75. Other factors are taken into account when determining mental retardation.

Definiton of and other information about mental retardation.

Mental retardation is then broken into four categories:

Mild = 50 to 75 IQ

Moderate= 35-55

Severe = 20 to 40

Profound = 20 to 25

http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/...retardation.jsp

Note: Overlaps in scores are due to standard error of measure (SEM) on tests. It also extends upper point of mental retardation to 75 from 70. SEM is much like margin of error in polling.

The problems come in with that group of students who fall between the cracks. The average IQ is 100 and the normal range 110-90. What happens to those with IQ’s lower than 90, but higher than 75? Some school districts have moved these students into "transition" classes that often include learning disabled, emotionally disturbed and behavior. In my opinion, this is a recipe for disaster, but it saves money and mostly satisfies the state. Instead of transition, we quikte often get a permanent dumping ground.

Should IQ tests be banned from use in hiring decisions?

One of my first education professors described IQ as "the ability to do school work."

Work is not school.

No. IQ tests should be standard measures like the Wechsler and the Stanford-Benet and should be administered by licensed examiners. I doubt employers have the resources to administer these tests.

Interest and aptitude tests might be useful, but should be used cautiously fairly and in conjunction with other factors like experience and interviews. The task is to match interest with ability to find a fulfilling job for the applicant that meets employer's needs.

BTW: Here’s another interesting link to mental retardation, to The American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, formerly The American Association on Mental Retardation for those who might wish to pursue this further.

More Information on Mental Retardation

BTW II: IQ measures obtained over the internet are probably not valid, because administration doesn't follow prescribed protocol involved with Wechsler or Stanford-Benet. If, for example, someone takes the same online IQ test a number of times, the “practice effect” sets in. Second and third attempts probably yield higher, but not necessarily more accurate results.

Edited to fix links and other problems.

I have to wonder about the applicability of IQ tests at all. Suppose someone scores, say, 100 (average) on an IQ test. What does that really tell us? What do we KNOW this person cannot do now that we know that? Nothing. We know he may have more or less aptitude towards something, but we don't really know whether he can actually do it, or not. The only way we can know is by actually doing it. Go back to Mrs. P's story:



Once he finished Medical School... after having been previously determined to be retarded. No, one cannot determine anything from these tests. Further, it heads us down a path we probably don't want to go. Gattaca, anyone?

Humans can achieve anything, if they just decide they can. IQ tests measure absolutely nothing about determination, and therefore tell us nothing about what one person can or cannot achieve. I'd be willing to bet there are more intelligent 'failures' out there than there are below average over-achievers.

Should the playoffs leading to the world series be abolished because it creates sets of winners and losers? I think IQ tests should be left alone since all one has to do to minimize its psychological trauma is look at it in a revised cultural context, as a game. Make sure your children learn that it is simply a party quiz that happens to have taken on a more serious historical role, but now just languishes as a laughable pseudoscientific artifact, like phrenology. It possibly could be a followup to trivial pursuit at a party, but in reality, because it is still unclear exactly what is being measured or whether other important attributes are not, it has no serious scientific measurement to offer.

That's just not true, though. A lot of things are highly correlated with IQ. Dropping out of high school, being unemployed, or in poverty, incarcerated, even divorced. I read about a study of Scottish children who had gotten IQ tests in the 1930s. Researchers went back sixty years later and tracked most of them down, those still living and those who had died. Their childhood IQ scores had a small but significant correlation with important health outcomes. Death by car accident was especially well correlated with low IQ, but so were other things you might not expect, like heart attacks.

IQ predicts a lot of things very well. That's why it's stuck around for the last hundred years, while phrenology has gone the way of phlogiston and the aether.

Should African American students be barred from receiving IQ tests to determine special education placement?

Should IQ tests be banned altogether for special education placement?

Should IQ tests be banned from use in hiring decisions? Or for eligibility for advanced placement classes?

IQ testing has a history of being used as a racist club against Black people. I'd be careful about how much weight is given to the IQ test.

I can see its usefulness in making good decisions about a child's education placement. I can also see a nightmarish situation of sticking kids into the wrong environment, not that this is anything new. Childhood is often nightmarish. Adults can be so stupid.

As for hiring, I'm curious about the IQs of the hiring class. I'm not sure there are any brains in there at all. I like the commercials with the monkeys running corporations, how apt. Get a Caveman!

It's a demonstrated fact that lazy thinkers love to depend upon paper-based tests to metric other people. Keep that in mind. You can't trust these clowns, and other people scare the dingles out of 'em. It probably goes back to childhood.

I remember my first year of college (LONG time ago). I took a psychology class with a black professor who wanted to demonstrate how environment can influence the perception of questions and therefore influence test scores. I often wonder if he used the classroom as some sort of testing ground for a mass experiment. At any rate, we would all view and read the same material and lectures, then we would be tested on it. I had a straight A average, but I'll tell you, it was very hard for me to get a C in that class. I couldn't explain why the tests were hard...it wasn't as though I didnt' understand the questions, I simply couldn't figure out which answer was the right one (he always gave multiple choice tests). Meanwhile all of the black students were receiving A's with barely any effort. To them, the tests were easy.

I wish I could say I found this interesting at the time, or that it made me think at all. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. I was angry...but I can tell you years later, I now realize that was one of the most interesting classes I've ever taken. I actually lived psychology. I think there is something environmental that influences these test scores that can be taught....and that something favors non-minority test takers. Whether it's worth the effort to teach it or not might be another story...but I tend to think it is because IQ scores have been (generally) linked to the level of future success.



I agree. There are certain situations when I think IQ-type tests are warranted, though. They are rare, but Mr P took that sort of aptitude test before he could start training as a fighter pilot. I don't think that one is racially selective (it doesn't seem to be by the looks of the fighter community).

I don’t think IQ tests should be used at all in determining AP placement.

IQ tests are essential in diagnosing mental retardation. The two standard deviation below the mean score, necessary to be classify people mildly retarded, is significant. Special education students are eligible from ages 3 to 21. Retardation is usually diagnosed early in the game. The process is sometimes started by parents, who notice a delay in development - toilet training, for example.

Moderate retardation = 3 standard deviations below the mean
Severe retardation = 4 standard deviations below the mean
Profound retardation= 5 standard deviations below the mean.

With that much deficiency, it is hard to skew results. Added protections include adaptive behavior testing, annual ARD (admission review and dismissal meetings), mandated by federal law, and individual instruction plans - something I think should be done in general education - add further safeguards.

Because of the two standard deviation threshold, few mistakes are made in diagnosing mental retardation. Mental retardation cuts across all racial and socio-economic groups. It is an equal opportunity disability.

The nightmarish situation you mentioned, AM, occurs in what I described in the paragraph below yesterday.




There is a difference between aptitude tests and IQ tests.

http://www.careerexplorer.net/aptitude.asp

Note: There are some individuals that cannot be tested, at least with conventional measures. This would include, for example, cerebral palsy victims with impairments in all four limbs and inability to speak. Students with multi-disabilities also create a whole different set of problems.

There are various other stronger associations for all of the parameters you have mentioned, thereby diluting the significance of the IQ test as a predictor of any one of them. And of course, associations as such can not be construed as causality, in any case. If I remember correctly, the test "predicted" many of the associations simply because it was relied on at various times as a means of selection, either intentionally or inadvertantly. That is why the value of the test has been marginalized by many scientists because its use helped create some of those associations to begin with.

I'm not trying to argue for some kind of biological determinism. Of course there are other factors that influence life's outcomes. Parents' socioeconomic status is a big one. But that doesn't make the IQ correlations go away.

Your view that IQ testing has been "marginalized" as "pseudoscience" is a popular one, but it's not widely held by scientists who have actually studied the field. In the wake of The Bell Curve, the American Psychological Association created a task force to get the consensus view of those scientists. They rejected the idea that there's some genetic factor that makes Blacks score lower on IQ tests, but they agreed that IQ and g, the general intelligence factor that it measures, are valid concepts. Here's another statement from 1995, co-signed by 52 mainstream researchers in intelligence:


Finally, a survey of the field published in Scientific American. This is the mainstream scientific view.

Teen mothers tend to have children with lower IQs. Women with poor prenatal care tend to have children with lower IQs. Blacks have lower IQs, on average, not due to any genetical difference, but due to behavioral differences. IQ is flexible, but it helps to be born to a woman betwen 20 and 35 who has avoided abuse of drugs, recieved proper nutrition and appropriate medical care. As long as blacks have more births to teenage mothers their IQ, on average, will be lower. Nothing to do with being black. Compare IQs of children of women who gave birth at approximately the same age, with similar prenatal care and comparative drug abuse history and you will find similar IQs regardless of race. We should not ignore IQ differences between different demographic groups, we should study why those differences exist.

IQ is a strong predictor of future success. Not many doctors with an IQ of 80. None I would go to.

When I was in school and did poorly on a test I did not blame it on the test.

From http://www.nd.edu/~cwillard/aera2001.htm

Another entry in a consistent and well established pattern of bias, prejudice and racism courtesy of deng.



I don't have anything else to add to this "debate." Threads calling into question the intelligence of African-Americans are well-established on this board. Some actually bring a modest amount of worthy discussion to the table. Sometimes.

http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...c=2443&st=0

http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...?showtopic=2694

http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index...?showtopic=5631

I look forward to the day when someone starts a thread that asks is the strange fascination that (predominantly) White males have with the supposed intellectual inferiority of Blacks based on something more than their own narcissistic self-love of themselves and their own misguided superiority complex?

Hmmmm I find your finding to be flawed. I am the daughter of a teenaged mom. She was 19 when I was born. Now, before you start saying, "See....doomed planet is from a teenaged mom." let me tell you this. I was shlepped around the country from a young age. We moved so much that I went to about a dozen schools. My brother went to even more than that. And my brother, who is three years older than me (do the math to see how old mom was when he was born) is highly gifted in the field of mathematics. In fact, if he hadn't gotten into pot and alcohol in his teenage years, I'm sure he would have gone into a highly specialized field and done well.

To make some sweeping statement about young mothers is absurd. Women are physically most capable to have kids in their teenage years. Sure, being older is better in terms of other factors. I was 26 and 28 when I had my little cubs and sure, they're smarter than any kids I've ever met..... However, environment plays a huge factor. Often times, teenage moms are just not mature enough to see that their kids get the right "stuff" (academically, emotionally, physically). And that may be why your statistics point in such a way. We come into this world with a degree of potential. So many factors determine whether or not the potential is fully realized.

IQ tests are good, but not the end all. There are many types of intelligence that are important: Natural, Musical, Logical-Mathematic, Existential, Interpersonal, Linguistic, Intra-Personal, Spatial. In regards to my two boys, one definitely has a higher "mathematical" intelligence, while the other one has markedly higher "Inter-Personal" intelligence. Who's to say which one is "smarter".

These comments were made in reply to deng, but I feel the need to defend myself as the narcissistic white male who started this topic. (I'll do this using an unusual number of first person singular pronouns.)

I read the old threads before starting this one. I hadn't participated in them because I hadn't found this site yet. I hate racism, so seeing how much racist junk had been posted in the earlier threads, I thought carefully about whether I should start this one at all. I finally did because I was just so puzzled by the news story about the child whose school refused to give him an IQ test because he was black. Why would they do that?

Then I went back to the 30-year-old court ruling that put this policy in place, and found that there was a real problem that they were trying to solve: the disproportionate "slow-tracking" of Blacks into classes where they weren't expected to learn reading and writing. That's the wrong that the court was trying to right.

I thought we might be able to have a constructive debate around the policy the California schools were following, and the science that supported it. I'm not sure I was wrong...


I've long been interested in intelligence testing and IQ -- no doubt another reason I started this topic. I was tested as a young child for admission to a "gifted and talented" elementary school program. Later, I was a National Merit Semifinalist, which means that I scored in the 99th percentile of the PSAT. That sort of thing can go to a boy's head, but I tried not to let it. I couldn't really attribute my performance to hard work; I was an exceptionally lazy student. I settled in on the idea that these tests are basically meaningless: instruments that measure test-taking ability.

I'd also heard of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences. His work was embraced remarkably quickly by educators after he wrote a book about it in the early 1980s. I didn't read Gardner's book, but I was (as an early teenager at the time) a huge fan of the essays of Stephen Jay Gould. His book, The Mismeasure of Man, criticized intelligence testing along similar lines. Gould often claimed that the mathematical tools of principal factor analysis were being used in such a way as to require a general factor (that is, g) to appear, whether or not there was any validity to such a construct. He called this the "reification fallacy," and because he's such a good and forceful writer, this became conventional wisdom.

But I later learned that Gould was wrong on this, and stubbornly so. Personality tests have a similar history to IQ tests, and have been analyzed using the same statistical tools of factor analysis. Yet personality tests don't show a single large principal component the way that intelligence tests do. Typically, personality tests break down into at least five factors: extroversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and emotional stability.

The biggest problem with Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory is the strong intercorrelation of several of his intelligences. Logical-mathematical, linguistic, and spatial skills are all correlated with each other to such an extent that an honest assessment of the data fairly compels you to notice the common factor. This common factor is what Spearman called g, and it's what IQ tests are designed to measure.

Others of Gardner's intelligences like Interpersonal Intelligence or Body-Kinetic Intelligence are basically redefinitions of things that used to be called "skills" or "talents" as "intelligence." And Interpersonal Intelligence seems to have a large overlap with the personality trait of extroversion.

So while Gardner is clearly right that a unidimensional measure like IQ is inadequate to describe and rank people, he hasn't convinced many psychologists that his seven (now nine, apparently) categories do the job any better. His ideas are a lot more popular in the broader culture (especially with teachers) than they are with actual researchers in psychology or intelligence.

My last year in teaching special kids was spent (on special assignment after knee surgery) pre-auditing folders before Texas Education Agency (TEA) audited the district’s special education program. One of the forms that had to be in each folder was parental consent for testing. After the testing was done, a consent for initial placement – signed by parents - had to be in the folder.

I don’t think this is policy in Texas alone, because of federal involvement.

There are two types of special education audits.

State audits focus on the whole program, while federal audits are based on single issues, general civil rights violations.

During my active tenure, the feds audited my school based on a complaint that non-English speaking students - were being placed in special education classes when their real problem was a language barrier. The district had to demonstrate that the child needed special education or put them in a more appropriate setting.

We need to make sure that special education programs do not become dumping grounds.

I believe we all agree that tests, IQ and otherwise, discriminate against the stupid. Why should those with IQs over 120 dominate among those with PhDs while those with IQs of 70 are without representation among those with PhDs? Why does not the 14th Amendment not give the mentally deficient equal protection under the law? In order to avoid all bias we simply need a constitutional amendment that states, "No one should be deprived of employment or educational opportunities due to the fact they are dumber than a box of rocks."

I would suggest that if a culture inhibits the test taking abilities of those within that culture that the culture is to blame.



I look forward to the day when black racists stop attempting to get inferior black candidates employment and educational opportunities that they have not earned. That day may coincide with the day when our prisons are no longer filled with black high school dropouts. It may coincide with the day when black IQs approximate white IQs. It might coincide with the day when the percentage of black out of wedlock births is comparable to the percentage of white out of wedlock births.

Yes, that's why the news story in the initial post was so weird. The mother asked for the IQ test, and the school refused.


I totally agree.


Not all social problems are "cultural." turnea gave me a bit of education about that in the "cultural racism" thread. I'm not sure I agree with him on where to draw the line -- are only "shared values" part of culture, or should you try to account for actual behavior when it differs from those values? But I'm not going to further expose my ignorance by pronouncing on the failures of black culture when I don't know it firsthand and haven't done the research.


Is anybody (black racist or otherwise) actually doing that in this debate? A lot of people have questioned the usefulness of IQ tests, but I haven't seen anybody suggest the tests should be race-normed. I think you're arguing with a straw man.

Maybe I was wrong about constructive debate being possible on this topic. For some people, it all boils down to "you're a racist!" "no, you're the racist!"

Ah, nothing is more satisfying than entering a debate at precisely the right time.

In microeconomics, there is a fundamental tenant called the Law of Diminishing Returns. Simply put, the benefit of accumulating something, holding all else equal, diminishes with every additional unit.

A quick example: The first glass of water lessen thirst significantly, the second, less but a good deal, the third even less, etc.

I'm sure everyone is at least somewhat familiar with this concept already, so I will skip ahead as to why I believe diminishing returns is an appropriate characterization of IQ's effect on intelligence.

There are people in existence called "Mental Calculators." They have an extraordinary talent, the ability to do simple calculations with extremely large numbers, for instance, multiplying 43256 by 243254, using only their heads.

Now, one would imagine these geniuses to be heads and shoulders above the mathematical community. Surprisingly, these people are generally confined to competitions and stage performances rather than becoming professional mathematicians (although some do).

The reason is principally because preforming basic mathematical functions has a diminishing return on mathematical ability. That is, a person who can add and subtract has a significant advantage in mathematics over someone who cannot add or subtract. The person that can add or subtract really, really well has an advantage, but less of one, over a person that can add or subtract just at the average.

Lets take a more intuitive example. If you are about to get into a fistfight, would you rather be the person that can bench 100 pounds versus the person who can only bench 50, or the person that can bench 400 pounds versus a competitor that can bench 350?

The answer is, you would want to be the 100 pound bencher, because that extra strength is much more valuable at lower strength levels than at higher strength levels. Strength has a diminishing effect on your ability to fist-fight.

In comparative terms (perhaps inappropriate), you would rather be twice as strong as your rival rather than 14% (400/350) stronger.

So what does this have to do with IQ? Well, a lot. If this sort of analysis is correct, we would assume scoring much lower on the test is more meaningful than scoring higher on the test. The person that scores 100 has a greater advantage over the person that scores 70, than a person at 160 has over a person at 130.

If you can't lump triangles with triangles, there is probably something wrong with you. But if you can figure out extremely complicated puzzles, it doesn't mean theres something really right with you. In any case, the ability to solve IQ puzzles has a diminishing benefit on performance. (Or, perhaps, intelligence).

Continuing along this reasoning, we would come to the conclusion that IQ tests are probably useful in identifying children that need help. In cases of selecting students for subjects like advanced mathematics, I would stick to examinations that necessarily demonstrate these abilities rather than fumbling around with an IQ score. At the very least, its probably a whole lot more reliable.

Edit: Alas:

American Scientist

Referring to Deng's post, if IQ has a diminishing importance on performance, it might be wise to exclude the person that scores 60 or 70 from becoming a doctor. But the test doesn't tell us a whole lot about doctor potential at scores like 100.

That is weird, since school districts, at least the one I worked in, are eager to please parents and avoid law suits. Apparently this case applied only to California law, which in this case is different from Texas.





I don’t think you are scoring many points with hyperbolic examples like the two above. Remember, average IQ is 100, the average range is 90-110 and retardation is two standard deviations below the mean or taking standard error of measure into account about 70 to 75. There are enough safeguards in place during public school years – parent input at ARD meetings, parental consent for testing and initial placement, adaptive behavior assessments, etc.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that people with below normal IQ's, regardless of ethnic issues, become PhDs or doctors, or for that matter lawyers or CPAs. God forbid one would become a teacher with IQs indicating mentally retardation or borderline retardation.

About all you are doing is exaggerating and finding an excuse to bash Black people, but as the late comedian Justin Wilson once said, “continue yourself.”

I believe that is a critical question.

There is something to be said for, shall we call it cultural behavioralism but the key is to put it in perspective.

It may look like black culture has a problem with teenage birthrates and out of wedlock births etc. until one actually looks at the data trends. Then we see that the black teenage birth rate has been declining faster than the comparable figures for white teens and that the out-of-wedlock birth rate for whites has been growing substantially faster from an initially lower base.

We see a lot more in terms of convergence over time than divergence and we also see it doesn't match at all with the IQ differences.

We see that the entire nation is experiencing a shift in behavior in these areas. Less teen birth, more out of wedlock birth.
U.S. Teenage Pregnancy Statistics


Do blacks have a higher rate for both? Yes.

Is it cultural?

To paraphrase the magic eight-ball.

"All signs point to no"

The trick is being able to tell a transient response from a stable one.

Nightimer



Of course you do, and perhaps you should start one.

Look, to tell you the truth I myself neither know or care whether or not blacks have lower Iq's that whites.

On another note this is not the 1960's. Do people still say things based soley on superiority complexes or racism? Absolutly Nightimer, and that will probably never change unfortunatly. However what has changed over the years is the fact that those who are racist are more evenly spread amongst whites and blacks than in any other time in History.

I know this for a number of reasons but primarily its that I grew up 30 minutes north of New Orleans, and went to schools that had a higher black population than white. For the most part people got along, however I as well as others were slapped around by some because we were white, at the same time I've seen many blacks slapped around, I fought in self defense but I guess my point is that in every age group, and in every race you have racism and ignorance.

Today Ive seen just as many blacks say things I figured was out of racism or superiority complexes as whites, so times they have definately changed, unfortunately people like Al Sharpton today take full advantige of the oppresions of blacks from whites in the past.

I'll be fair by saying you never said there are more racist whites than blacks, however lets be careful the claims we do make because what I find is that people are often wrong. I guess Its easy to say the reaon a white member made a commet in regards to blacks is because of racism or superiority complexes, but the fact of the matter is that his reply was in direct response to the topic of this forum, and given the subject of this forum you can expect a number of controversial things to be said, simple as that.

What is racist is lowering standards for certain groups and denying other groups equal protection on the law. The push to lower the significance of IQ tests is racist. It is being done by people to diminish the opportunities of whites and asians for the benefit of blacks and hispanics. In the long run it harms blacks and hispanics the most because it attempts to gloss over the ugly facts of lower IQs among those two demographics. The problems that lead to the IQ gap must be addressed; not swept under the rug. Instead of focusing on eliminating the IQ gap, something that would benefit many more blacks and hispanics than any affirmative action programs can accomplish, we must find ways to justify giving opportunities to less qualified individuals. All these colleges seeking diversity (at the expense of the 14th Amendment) are not helping the black and hispanic 18 year olds rotting away in our prison system. I believe that the IQ gap can be eliminated, it appears the "liberals" on this board disagree. Who is the racist here? My belief hinges on strong evidence that argues that there are no inherent cognitive differences between blacks and whites and others.

Of course, I am well used to the use of name-calling to censor the ideas and views of others. Particularly when those views oppose the current racist agenda that exists under the name diversity.

I suggest those who truly wish to fight racism donate here www.earstation.com/naawp

It isn't that you're wrong, Jobius. There is room for a constructive and civil debate about IQ tests. It isn't that it's a taboo subject. The problem is when the bigots among us see the thread as an opportunity to share with everyone their deeply held belief that Black equals Stupid.



Who is the racist here? Clearly the one without a SHRED of proof, but continuing to make inflammatory and unsubstantiated statements about Blacks and intelligence.

That would be you, deng. Same as it ever was.

First, Whites used physical bondage to subjugate Blacks and convince them of their inferiority. Then, Whites used Jim Crow and legal means to keep Blacks in an position of inferiority. Now the method of the supremacists is to convince both Blacks and themselves that they have scientific "proof" that they are intellectually inferior.

If White supremacists and their Uncle Tom Black lackeys can make Blacks believe they are less intelligent because they have "evidence" and scientific "proof then they will come to realize that if they do not succeed in life and acquire as much financial wealth and property as much as Whites, then they will accept it is because they are less capable. This will prove the theory that if Blacks are not successful it is their own fault.

This will allow White supremacists to get Blacks to accept their status as second-class citizens as something hardwired into their flawed DNA. It will also allow Whites who buy into this notion of Blacks born intellectually inferior to rule out prejudice as a factor for Black failure and pathology.

It is a deceitful trick and no Black person should fall for it.

Blacks should never believe because they or any other member of the Black race as a whole are intellectually inferior to Whites. deng has yet to cite a single link or source of his allegations, but facts aren't his thing. His thing is to convince
Blacks that they have low intellect and that--not racism--is the reason for their problems.

The intellect of Blacks cannot be measured on a collective basis. It must be measured on an individual basis.

For example, Whites are the principal producers, participants and consumers of pornography. Not just the tepid air-brushed porn of PLAYBOY, but the dark side and the rough stuff. When it comes to deviant sexual behavior the appetites of White pornography includes depictions of incest, necrophilia, coprophilia, rape, child molestation and zoophilia. One of the lovely things about the Internet is you're never more than a few clicks away from the sickest, scuzziest and most repellent acts of depravity possible.

If you can think of it there's a pornographer that is willing to make your most perverse fantasy a reality. This is how porn became a multi-billion dollar business.

Might it be assumed since the overwhelming majority of producers, participants and consumers of pornography are White it is logical to think Whites are sexually obsessed, masturbate to the verge of blindness, and will screw anything that moves or doesn't move away fast enough?

Of course not. The deeds of a twisted few White freaks who screw horses, rape their own infants and hang up women like pieces of meat do not and can not be applied to the majority whom are repulsed by such behavior.

The sexual deviance of Whites cannot be measured on a collective basis. It must be measured on an individual basis.

The scheme to promote the unfounded notion of Black intellectual inferiority has taken hold in the minds of some Black people. It isn't easy to get a human being to hate themselves for who they are. One way to do so is to tell them over and over and over that they are stupid, that they are born criminals and they have no morals.

So what explains the fact that there are no shortage of stupid White people running businesses into bankruptcy and entire nations into poverty? Having sex with Blacks?

Blacks must take responsibility if they don't take advantage of the opportunities that exist to better themselves, but the deliberate attempt by supremacists such as deng to trick Blacks into accepting their delusions of intellectual inferiority is based on nothing but a racist motivation.

It is nothing but a con job.



Oh, I don't want to censor your ideas and views. I want them right upfront and out in the open. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let others judge you by your own words.

I think it's rather refreshing when people who think like you expose your petty little prejudices and incredibly insipid justifications for them. The naked honesty of a man exposing his biases without a pretense of political correctness is unusual these days.

By all means, please continue, deng. I don't have to exaggerate about your obvious and blatant racism. All I need do is repeat your own words. Others can reach their own conclusions.

For debate:
Should African American students be barred from receiving IQ tests to determine special education placement?
No, barring African-American students from receiving the tests, while still administering the tests to other students, would constitute racism. Unequal treatment based on race lacking any rational justification. (And no, a court order doesn't constitute "rational justification.")

Should IQ tests be banned altogether for special education placement?
No, but they should only be used as one element. One thing that hasn't been mentioned (or I didn't catch it), is that IQ tests can also serve to keep a child out of special education, by indicating that the kid isn't merely an organic rock, but rather suffers from a learning disability that can be effectively (and sometimes easily) addressed.

Should IQ tests be banned from use in hiring decisions? Or for eligibility for advanced placement classes? Hiring decisions? Of course not. Let the employer hire and fire for whatever reason she chooses. For AP classes? At what level? Beyond grade school, I don't see much point to using IQ tests for it, since the inherent aptitude of a student is already known, the only question for the smarter ones (i.e. AP candidates) is "can we get the kid fired up?" Which goes to the aformentioned "practice effect" (a wonderful book, btw, scrounge it up in your local library.)

Nighttimer



You don't? Actually it seems to me that you do, I would really like to see the exact phrases you think constitute racism in this forum on the part of Deng, and exactly why you think his comments are based off racism, rather than his honest opinion based on the research he has done. He seemed to speak civilly, and provided a link. This forum is about IQ test and what its proper application to both whites and blacks should be. He stated his opinion and left it there.

As I said in my last response to you here, (one you dodged) People do still say things based solely on superiority complexes or racism and that will never change, however if your a white and you make a comment on a black, that doesn't make you racist, so be careful how quick you are to scream Racist! Racist! here because you obviously don't know him personally, and neither do I. He very well could be, but I see nothing here that would lead me to believe that is true, and based on that I'm going to assume you have made equally drawn out conclusions on him in other forums, I've already seen you do it in regards to Ann Coulter, wasn't she a Hoar according to you Nightimer? Interesting stance you take given some of the things you say, very interesting.

The trouble with deng's conclusions is that they don't seem to be based on any real research at all. He took a couple of factoids and strung them together in a link of causality unbacked by the scientific consensus on the matter.

So far we have:

No link between culture and IQ.

A extremely tenuous link between the disparity in teen pregnancy and IQ. (Here I am generous)

And a downright counter-rational belief that diversity programs aren't helping minorities in the US gains better opportunities.

Guessing at motivations is a tricky business, but when one has so little real evidence or logic, the razor says look to the most simple explanation.

Our assumptions are often like a Rorschach test, we see what we want to see.

I'm sure it is inconclusive at this point that blacks on average have lower IQ's than whites. I haven't done much research on it myself other than the links I looked at here so I couldn't say for sure either way. I think in any matter of science the truth should be perused though, if something like that was proven or disproved information like that could be useful.

Very good point you made at the end of that post, Guessing at motivations is a tricky business indeed and we often do see what we want. In a different scenario, even If I was flat out told by a black that I'm ignorant, even if they went that far I'd consider it rude, but not necessarily racist. In this case nothing like that was even said from what I read. A very controversial and inconclusive point was made and again I don't know how much evidence there is for it or against it, but it was made in a civilized tone, and addressed the subject of the forum.

You confuse me deng. You criticize “liberals” for disagreeing with you. Despite the fact that you described your politics as “very liberal,” when you registered, I have yet to see much I recognize as liberalism in your posts. What gives? Did you accidentlly check the wrong box when you joined?

You are giving liberals a bad name.

Should African American students be barred from receiving IQ tests to determine special education placement?

No because this denies them the advantages of placement in the very programs many may need.

The banning of IQ tests for blacks by Calif. was well intentioned but stupid policy. I am not sure it has been removed yet.

Should IQ tests be banned from use in hiring decisions? Or for eligibility for advanced placement classes?
No and No – that said no employer I ever ran into gave one. For advanced class work what is generally looked at is work in similar subject in earlier grades. In the school in my town children have to have a 90% + average in mathe to be placed, the next year, in Honors math. This imo is the correct way to do this.