Interesting reading on IQ

[wooderson]

After the Watson flap, it's surprising there was basically no mention of the Flynn Effect (or any other critical consideration of IQ) in the media -
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/12/17/071217crbo_books_gladwell

[Ron]

Great article.

Intuitively I've always known that IQ tests were flawed to some degree.

There will be some cultural context no matter how the test designed.

[hexidismal]

Intuitively I've always known that IQ tests were flawed to some degree.

Heck, yes. According to IQ tests I am a genius .. and I KNOW theres something very wrong with that.. hehe

[Balog]

CORRECTION: In his December 17th piece, None of the Above, Malcolm Gladwell states that Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, in their 1994 book The Bell Curve, proposed that Americans with low I.Q.s be sequestered in a high-tech version of an Indian reservation. In fact, Herrnstein and Murray deplored the prospect of such custodialism and recommended that steps be taken to avert it. We regret the error.

That's one hell of a difference.

[tyme]

It's funny that slandering Murray and Herrnstein is so PC that Gladwell wouldn't bother to check such a serious accusation. 

I believe Steven Levitt in Freakonomics offered data from adoptive families (not focused on mixed-race adoptions) that indicated the educational status of genetic parents does influence early academic performance (I vaguely recall that it might have been grade school performance that was measured), but that after high school the differences pretty much disappear.  Since educational status is not a heritable trait, that suggests that there is a genetic component to intelligence.

Gladwell should have stuck to a rant exclusively about IQ.  He seemed to be using his complaints about IQ to launch an argument about the near-irrelevance of genetics on intelligence, and I think that's not accurate.

IQ tests of infants?  Uhm, wasn't there a recent study with infant chimps doing better than infant humans on certain tests?  Next week: Gladwell proposes that chimps are being kept from their rightful place at the top of the food chain by cultural pressures.  And let's not pretend that any IQ test of infants have any connection to IQ tests of school-age children or adults.

[member1313]

As a psychology major, I can safely say that IQ tests, and even the SATs are inherently flawed. It's next to impossible to avoid certain confounding variables, such as cultural and social influences.

That's why IQ scores are given in a range of +/- 5 points. For example, my IQ is somewhere between 120 and 130. This confidence interval helps to account for flaws in the test.

[Bogie]

Smart people think that they can drink water, like out of a toilet.
 

[member1313]

Well, it's not like I'm stupid enough to believe this "bacteria" crap I've been hearing about. Microscopic bugs that want to kill me, my foot.

[roo_ster]

I have read both Murray & Flynn and Murray really comes out on top when it comes to hard data.  Flynn is a really nice fellow who has good intentions, but not-so-good data.

BTW, I saw a debate they had online (audio and later some video).  Murray handed Flynn his *expletive deleted*ss in a most gentle manner.  Though they are on opposite sides of the debate, they seem genuinely warm to one another.  It was an intellectual croquet match, not an intellectual knife-fight:
http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1425,filter.all,type.upcoming/event_detail.asp

Gladwell is guilty of not actually reading Muarray, or if he read him he misunderstood him.  As to how such a glaring error can occur, I address that in a comment on Gladwell's blog:

I think folks make unsupportable assumptions when it comes to the mainstream media. One of them is that articles are fact checked. I would suggest that not only is the vast majority of MSM articles not fact checked, but that the more prestigious the author, the less likely the article is to be fact checked.

I would further suggest that "facts" that conform to left-liberal prejudices are also less likely to be checked for accuracy.

Thus, you get Gladwell (high prestige author) pretty much equating Murray with Nazis (in accord with left-liberal prejudice) and the New Yorker going to print with the smear.