What happened to the old and widely correct saying:
"IQ tests measure how well you do on IQ tests!"
Sayings do not constitute science. IQ tests measure group factors and _g_. If these were worthless, there would be no concern over IQ tests and they would have vanished long ago. They persist because they measure a fundamental variance in human ability and are useful both for prediction and explanation of differences in such important matters as rate of learning, ability to perform tasks that are limited by intelligence thresholds, academic performance, and job performance.
1) There has never been a consensus what 'intelligence' actually means. The one that I can best subscribe to is Piaget's. To paraphrase him: "intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do".
Please give a reference for the above. The quote you gave has been attributed (by Jensen) to Carl Bereiter.
2) IQ tests measure convergent intelligence and there are only a very few tests around which measure divergent intelligence (the closest to creativity).
Please tell us what recognized psychometric texts confirm your assertion. I am more familiar with the literature than most people and have yet to see a single discussion that asserts anything about "convergent intelligence." Would you provide a definition and a source for the definition? Thank you.
Creativity is at least as, if not more important, than analytical thinking, verbal abilities and all the other classical IQ test areas.
Lots of things are important to human life, including honesty, beauty, health, charm, persistence, and zeal. None of these diminish the importance of the others, nor of intelligence.
3) There are no good tests around that measure abstraction skills. This ability is definitely one of the key factors that distinguishes a mere high IQ person from an "intellectually intelligent" person. The same is true for people with average intelligence.
Why do you offer such assertions without providing names and validation findings? We would be interested to know the names of those "good tests" and to see data which compare their ability to predict against the ability of _g_ to predict in areas such as learning rate, job performance, academic performance, income, SES, etc.
4) The most viable numbers on the nature-nurture debate are 60% to 80%. This can mean a difference between an IQ of 78 and 130!
I think you have already been taken to task for the above nonsense.
6) The practicing side is widely underestimated in IQ tests. Langauge abilities fall in this category. For example, I do not think that Arnold Schwarzenegger would either in English nor in German (his mother tongue) achieve 85% of the result that he achieved when he was 20 (before he moved to the US). His English skills never reached his mother tongue level and his mother tongue level has deteriorated since he moved to the US, 30 years ago.
What is the definition of "the practicing side?" Is this a scientific term? I note that you were critical of the term "intelligence." Is "the practicing side" more precise?
7) There have been several racial crossing studies which show that there is no significant difference in IQ between races (eg. Eyferth 1961, Tizard 1972, Scarr and Weinberg 1976)
What is a "racial crossing study?" Perhaps a study of Michael Jackson from childhood to present?
Scarr and Weinberg conducted a transracial adoption study (there was no mention of racial crossing in the papers I read). The report in 1976 showed the effects of shared environment, which were assumed to be permanent. Somehow you forgot to tell us about the follow-up study in 1986. Why? The report then found that the shared environmental factor was zero. It is now known that the shared environmental factor is present in childhood, but that it vanishes around age 12 to 17. (Plomin gives age 12.)
The major question of this thread, however, remains an ethical one, particularly when it comes to cross-racial studies.
What is a "cross-racial study?" Psychometricians usually speak of within group and between group studies. I assume you mean "between group," but you used "racial." Various population groups are known to have different mean values of intelligence.
The questions are: What is the purpose of these cross-racial IQ studies? Why are people doing them? What knowledge do these studies add that is of any value to anybody?
People study between group factors in order to understand the subject of intelligence and in order to create tools that can explain the variances that are observed in both individual and group performance. The same considerations apply to other between group studies, such as are common in medicine and physiology.
One example of what has been learned from population group studies (but must be ignored by politicians and academics) is that _g_ cannot be changed by any macro environmental conditions. No form of education, or change to family environment (even adoption) will cause a change in adult _g_. This tells us that attempting to produce equal test scores for schools with different population group weightings is impossible. Kansas City and Detroit have spent huge sums of money trying to demonstrate that poor school performance is the result of low budgets. They were not able to raise test scores for the simple reason that it is not possible to create tests that require thought but which do not tap _g_. Save the money. Washington, DC has one of the highest per student spending rates in the nation and the lowest test scores.
I cannot see any potential benefits of these cross-racial studies that would outweigh the damage that they create in society.
Your assertion of damage is unsupported. There is no damage.
"Now, winning the Nobel prize is one thing, but winning it with an IQ of only 125, that is really something!" - Richard Feynman
The claim that Feynman had an IQ of 125 was included in one of the books of Feynman stories written by Ralph Leighton. There is no information in the book that tells us anything about the test, such as its name, how it was given, its validity, its standard deviation, etc. Without that information, the claim is simply silly (even if Feynman believed it). Jensen was asked about the 125 claim; his reply has been copied here more than once, so I will not bother to do it again. In essence, Jensen said that the claim was very unlikely to be correct. People who want to rail against IQ, however, are quick to latch on to this as if it were a scientific fact.
If you enjoyed the Feynman stories, as I did, may I suggest that you read (presumably again) the one on page 60 of
What Do You Care What Other People Think?
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This is not a question of denial. I believe that the results are correct and certainly do not believe that anybody tinkered with the IQ test results. I am not so sure about their other studies which 'prove' that lack of IQ is hereditary. The problem remains what good these studies do. They certainly do not produce any scientifically important data, but can create harm.
Your wording is odd, so I have to guess that you do not believe that the variance in IQ is attributable to genetics. If so, I would like to suggest that your opinion is at odds with the findings of very well conducted research that has shown the value of h^2 as a function of age and which has shown that it can be demonstrated by multiple independent methodologies. Your assertion that scientific findings (such as the value of h^2) cause harm is a personal opinion, not a fact.
What do you think most people will think reading these test results? Will they think
A. or B.
Hmm, what do you think?
I think that there are differences in mean IQ for a number of population groups and that the within group differences are caused by genetics, just as the between group differences are caused by genetics at rates that are a function of age (70% in young adults, rising to 80% or more in older adults).
