IQ, Intelligence and Social Engineering
In a recent set of 3 articles 1, 2 and 3, in the Wall Street Journal, Charles Murray makes a series of provocative assertions and proposals concerning education in the United States. In short order, he argues:
1. By definition, 50% of the human race has below average intelligence.
2. Even the highest quality education cannot overcome basic
intellectual limitations in individual students
3. We need to simply accept these facts and restructure
education to embrace them by:
-Recognizing that a large minority of students will NEVER meet basic academic standards for reading, math and science in high school as they are now defined
-Recognizing that far too many American students go to 4-year-colleges despite the fact that they simply do not possess the basic intellectual capacity to benefit from that experience in any meaningful way
-Dramatically increasing the focus on high-paying, high quality vocational education both in high school and beyond
-Refocusing advanced education on moral values and responsible action for those of high intelligence who will both benefit from that education and develop a corresponding sense of responsibility to live their lives to a higher standard for the general good of humanity.
A bit of background on Murray is warranted. He has written extensively on the importance of IQ in determining social policy with his most famous work being The Bell Curve with his colleague Richard Herrnstein. Both the book and its authors have been lauded and vilified for trumpeting the importance of individual and group differences in intelligence in modern society.
That being said, I would like to focus Murray’s current argument concerning education. I think he accurately lays out several points, then radically misses others. I should mention at this point that my own training and background is in research psychology and I’ve both taught and thought on the subject of IQ a fair amount myself.
Point 1: By definition half of the human race has below average
intelligence.
This is Murray’s strongest and most obvious point. Because, like many other aspects of human behavior, intelligence in the population is distributed in the classic bell-shaped (normal) distribution, then just about half of us are above the mean and half are below. It is important to be clear here that Murray is explicitly NOT talking about scores on any given test, IQ or otherwise. He is making an accurate statement about the nature of human intelligence itself. Just as our changing understanding of gravity over time has had no impact on the fact of gravity’s existence and characteristics, our changing understanding and measurement of human intelligence has had no impact on the existence and characteristics of that phenomenon.
Point 2: Even the highest quality education cannot overcome basic
intellectual limitations in individual students.
This is also completely accurate. Individual intelligence sets intellectual limits beyond which a person cannot pass, just as limitations in athletics, musical ability, etc. set boundaries regardless of whatever environmental experiences (education/training) may be provided.
Point 3: Given limitations in intelligence, we need to simply accept the fact that some significant minority of US school children will never achieve even minimal proficiency in math, reading and science regardless of how well they are taught or what level of resources we throw at schools.
Again true. Despite rhetoric and federal mandates (like No Child Left Behind), some children simply can’t academically cut it and never will in ANY school.
Given these points, the fundamental question that arises is: how do we accurately determine who these individuals are? If we could do this, we could choose much more effectively how to expend our resources in education.
Here’s where Dr. Murray and I part company. He firmly believes that:
a) we have a solid screening mechanism in existing standard general IQ tests, and b) assuming we can measure it accurately, IQ is the primary criterion for success in school. I’m sure he’s wrong on the first count, and I’ve a strong hunch he’s wrong on the second.
Both of these problems center on what behavioral scientists often refer to as predictive validity. In short, if your test measures what you think it does, then a given score on that test should accurately predict how you would perform on the tasks/abilities the test measures. Think of a test for a pilot’s license. A higher score should indicate a better pilot. If you apply this logic to IQ tests, however, you run into a problem. We know what a good pilot is and what skills and abilities differentiate a poor pilot from a good one. We’re a whole lot less certain in answering these questions about intelligence. What exactly marks an intelligent person? What skills and abilities do these individuals possess that less intelligent individuals do not? We can make these distinctions at the extremes of intelligence pretty easily. Someone with an IQ score of 140 (”genius” level) thinks and behaves profoundly differently from a person with an IQ of 75 (mild mental retardation),and no amount of education is going to change this in any meaningful way. But we could likely figure this out just as well without IQ tests at all.
What Murray is talking about are comparatively more subtle distinctions on the order of 10 to 15 points on a standard IQ test. So, for example, he argues that in order to benefit from a typical college education, a person likely needs an IQ of about 110 (100 is average), and 115 would be better. In contrast, an elementary school child with an IQ of 95 may well be too stupid to ever pass the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test for reading in 4th grade.
My point here is this: Right now, despite its legitimate importance to academic performance, behavioral scientists simply do not know enough about intelligence to design a test of intelligence that would support the level of fine-grained distinction that Murray is making.
The second problem concerns the general power of IQ to predict success in school. Here the picture is clearer: in short, IQ score is a very good predictor of success in western schools. A score on a standardized IQ test may, in fact, be the best single predictor of success in western schools.
The problem is that this isn’t the whole story. Even given it is the single best predictor, by itself IQ still isn’t that powerful. The statistical argument is a bit esoteric, but try it this way. If you add up all the different factors that could reasonably be expected to influence school performance (IQ, nutrition, illness, study habits, motivation, stability of home-life, quality of school, drug/alcohol use, etc.) and assume that all those factors together sum to 100% of the things that can influence school performance, IQ by itself accounts for about 25% of that theoretical 100%. That’s more than any other single factor that we can reasonably measure, but it’s still only 25%. That means 75% is left to all those other things we just mentioned. If we apply this to Murray’s argument, we can see that not only are the finer-grained distinctions he recommends difficult to make, even if we are successful, the majority of factors determining school success is still completely up in the air.
OK. On to Murray’s next point: dramatically increasing the focus on high-paying, high quality vocational education both in high school and beyond.
As far as his assertion that far too many American kids go to 4- years of college, I think he is absolutely right. Some sort of college degree has become the accepted entry ticket to the kind of stable, well-paying jobs that we want our kids to have. Except it’s not. As an example, a Master Electrician requires no college degree and makes about $50,000 a year in the US. Journeymen make about $40,000, and apprentices make about $30-35,000. Now ask yourself, how much that C+ average BS in business from some middle of the pack college is worth. If you’re still not convinced, open the phone book and try to find an electrician or plumber or carpenter who isn’t booked 2 or 3
weeks (or months) ahead. Murray recognizes this and rightly calls for greater emphasis on skilled trades education at the high school level and beyond. What bothers me is his assertion that we need to do this because much of our population is too stupid to benefit from college, and that skilled- trade work clearly requires a lower level of intellectual capacity than does college. He simply has no evidence for this assertion, and it strikes me as the intellectual elitism of which academics are constantly accused.
I also agree with Murray that as a result of the pressure to admit pretty much anyone with money (loaned or otherwise) to college, the intellectual experience of a college education is in danger of disintegrating entirely. I teach college for a living and based on my experience and that of my colleagues, a depressingly large number of students (and often even their parents) simply neither know nor care about the larger goals or values of higher education and see college as the 4- year hoop one must jump through to obtain a higher salary. Murray effectively argues that this belief is both increasingly incorrect and profoundly destructive to the intellectual climate on campus, but he insists on tying these problems predominantly to individual differences in intelligence and our cultural unwillingness to recognize them. Yes, there are some students on US college campuses who simply lack the basic intellectual skills to be there, but the assertion that this accounts for the majority of the apathetic, disinterested and poorly performing students is profoundly overstated and unsupported. Again, intelligence is simply the first among MANY variables that predict success in college.
One additional variable that certainly asserts a powerful impact on student performance is student motivation. Independent of their ability to comprehend college level material, a good chunk of the traditional 18-21-year-old student body would fundamentally rather be doing something else with their time. This desire may be a function of being overwhelmed by tasks some are ill-equipped to master, but it is likely also an issue of young-adulthood in U.S. society. Many traditional college students quite understandably have greater interest in material goods and social activities than issues of philosophy. One admittedly unsystematic measure of this is returning older students who are actively seeking the courses and knowledge they once dismissed as irrelevant to “real” life. A recent psychological research paper(discussed and referenced here) focusing on the importance of motivation and self discipline for academic sucess provides more rigorous evidence.
This brings us to Dr. Murray’s final suggestion concerning the education of that intellectual elite that we have now identified as capable of absorbing higher education. Again, his position is that these are the individuals who are going to end up running things,so as a society we must do all we can to ensure that they are well-educated to take up this responsibility.
My first problem is simply that I don’t believe we can identify that intellectual elite effectively. My second problem is that, even if correctly identified, there is no clear evidence that the intellectual elite either do now or will, in the future, be running things. This is the point that really bugs me. It’s hard not to see this as old-style class warfare. It sounds to my ear that Murray is saying that the great majority of us are simply too stupid to make good decisions for ourselves, and we should just stick to nice, solid trades like building houses and leave the real thinking to the few smart folks. This not just incorrect; it is profoundly dangerous and inflammatory.
Be smart. Be human.
Grant
February 9th, 2007 01:00
I am reminded of Asimov on Intelligence.
February 9th, 2007 11:37
Excellent post!
Even in the salaried professions, I can advance my career further by accumulating certifications than I can by pursuing an MBA.
February 9th, 2007 15:32
Well don’t you KNOW? Those with larger foreheads are far more intelligent than those with smaller ones! That’s all you need to tell the PhDs apart from the trade-school types.
Is this guy for real?
February 10th, 2007 10:41
Rick,
Thanks. It’s a topic that is both hated and often misunderstood by many people and I wish guys like Murray would push a social agenda less and a balanced presentation a bit more. Bottom line is that IQ is important and should be used in evaluations of intellectual competence, but pushing it as the be-all-end-all solution for society’s ills is not scientifically valid and is pretty much guaranteed to get you hated (rightfully so) by the majority of society.
-Grant
February 10th, 2007 10:44
Hi Elena,
Crap. I’ve always had a smaller than avergage head………:)
Grant
February 10th, 2007 11:16
Stat guy here.
I’m staring at Hernstein&Murray on my book shelf right this second.
Interesting assumption made in this sort of ’study’ is that there is actually a true gaussian distribution (ie bell curve) of IQ. In fact- there is no a priori reason to believe this whatsoever. What (super?)natural constraints say that there should be equal numbers of idiots and geniuses?
Obviously there are none.
I’ve always found this this assumption to be quite amusing. Why not a gamma distribution? How about a double-secret dual gaussian with a Weibul special sauce? Just because it ‘feels right’ to say that intelligence is normally distributed doesn’t mean it is so.
For those who wish to think about this further, is the age of the population of the earth as it currently stands normally distributed? Wealth? Weight? Shoe size?
So, if we reject this assumption (validly in my opinion) then the whole 7 bajillion pages of Bell Curve are a non-starter.
February 10th, 2007 12:38
Hey Flip,
OK, I THOUGHT you stat guys had pretty much determined it was a normal distribution. I have to admit I never knew exactly HOW this had been done, but I’d been working under the assumption (for several years now in fact) that this was accepted as at least a VERY solid assumption . If we really don’t at least have a VERY good guess that the distribution is normal, then of course you’re right. The whole enterprise goes out the window. Here’s my question. Wasn’t Herrenstein a statistician? Murray (and apparently me) could get this wrong, but the statisticians shouldn’t. Can you explain a bit why the normal assumption is unwarranted and why it is still accepted as gospel by even most psychologists?
Thanks much
Grant
February 10th, 2007 14:04
OK - I had sort of ripped this out of my previous post.
You’re right, these guys are statistically sophisticated. It would be a foolish mistake to make.
And, in all honesty, I may be crazy ass wrong here, but the trick is that the test produces normal results. The old joke that “IQ is defined as that which is measured by an IQ test” - i.e. sure, IQ test results may be normal, but that doesn’t mean that they’re testing ‘intelligence’ as one might define it.
Back to distribution of age- we can create a transformation of that distribution to make it ‘normal’ (devaluating younger ages might be one approach). That now means that what we have is what we’re interested in measuring (age) transformed by some unknown (to us) means to create a (weeee happy happy) normal distribution.
You know the old yarn about the GRE also, I presume? Its main use is as a predictor of Ph.D. completion. So, one could call it the “Ph.D. completion exam” in retrospect.
So, I guess making policy decisions based on some theoretically equitable distribution that may or may not actually measure what we’re really interested in seems suspect at least to me.
Note that I’m not arguing from the ‘multiple intelligences’ POV, just that I’ve ever been wholly impressed by arguments that ‘intelligence is normally distributed’.
Out of respect for the authors, I’ll re-read their assumptions.
February 10th, 2007 17:34
Hey Flip,
Thanks for the quick and thoughtful reply. Let me take it one step further. I get the problem, (IQ is what IQ tests measure) but as I understand it the entire claim about intelligence being normally distributed in the population is not based just on the IQ tests. I had been taught oh so many years ago that the components of IQ are normally distributed as well, independent of the IQ test itself. So for example short-term memory capacity, mathematical ability, spatial ability, etc. were found to be normally distributed in the population prior to the development of IQ tests which combine these abilities. Now this still doesn’t completely solve the problem because these components are largely as theoretical as IQ itself and these tests could be just as suspect. But I think it does meaningfully increase the data set supporting the idea of human intelligence being normally distributed.
Also, just to be clear for my own sake. I am not trying to defend Murray’s argument here. Even IF intelligence is normally distributed in the human population, he’s still just plain wrong on several other points. I’m mostly pushing this at this point to clarify my own thinking and knowledge of the subject.
-Grant
February 11th, 2007 17:42
Flip,
Nice. The “half of you are morons” always rubbed me the wrong way.
February 11th, 2007 17:42
Maybe it’s because I AM a moron? Oh teh Noes!
February 14th, 2007 03:35
“…the great majority of us are simply too stupid to make good decisions for ourselves, and we should just stick to nice, solid trades like building houses and leave the real thinking to the few smart folks.”
By all accounts the best Labourer is significantly smarter than the others and rises to forman. The electrician or plumber that charges three or more times the going rate and takes on half the work load of others is said to have a certain genius for his work such that he may never be needed again. To suggest that only supid people should do these jobs is to doom those that “do the thinking” to live in houses that fall down with electricity systems that burn out.
Inteligence is at best a marker of the ammount of effort required to be “average”!
February 14th, 2007 04:03
Why some people do better than others…
The first and most obviouse answer is that the most inteligent go furthest. Certainly Charles Murray would say so.
But the truth of the matter is that your success is roughly proportinial to……
February 14th, 2007 23:37
Lord Matt,
Welcome to BraveHumans.
Clearly there are intelligent people in all walks of life. I grew up working class, and am now an academic. The idiot ratio seems about the same in each. I’m always bothered by arguments such as Murray’s, not only due to their lack of scientific validity (as Grant points out), but also because it smacks of classist predjudice.
February 17th, 2007 17:29
Isn’t the key point in the discussion the question - “What is the most appropriate education for the proportion (whatever it turns out to be) who are relatively disadvantaged by ability (intelligence, dexterity, whatever) or social circumstances?
Those countries that outperform the US on education (i.e. Scandinavian countries) seem to do better at addressing the needs of disadvantaged groups. I suspect that in the US it is more of a social disadvantage issue than an intelligence issue.
The US has large groups of disadvantaged citizens and this is inevitably reflected in education performance where poor performance at the lower end pulls down the average.
Murray seems to be pointing towards the need for appropriate education for those who are not academically inclined. For example, Germany has really excellent vocational training. Murray’s solutions seem to point in this direction.
February 18th, 2007 23:56
Hi Gillian,
WELCOME TO THE SITE. PLEASE KEEP VISITING AND TALKING. You make an interesting point and turn Murray’s argument on its head to some degree. Murray would most likely argue that the US spends entirely TOO MUCH money on special needs individuals and needs to focus more money and resources on what are often called “gifted and talented” students. He WOULD like to see more vocational education, (and I agree), but my problem is designating those in the skilled trades as less smart than those who are in college. I can’t get around the class-warfare undertone of this claim and he simply has no basis on which to make it.
-Grant
February 20th, 2007 20:17
“designating those in the skilled trades as less smart than those who are in college”
Yes, Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences help us take a more open view on ’smart’. Perhaps Murray should clarify which concept of ’smart’ he is using.
I’m not sure about more resources for the top-ability groups. Not being American, I had the impression that the scholarship schemes took care of the top 5-10% of students - ensuring they get places in good colleges. No?
I think that there is a general principle that applies in many fields, that the most efficient way to lift the average is to pay attention to lifting the lowest performers - the ones falling through the net.
February 20th, 2007 20:26
Another wry thought about intelligence… Jared Diamond makes the claim in either ‘Guns Germs and Steel’ or ‘Collapse’ that people from Papua New Guinea are the most intelligent people he has met, and he has visited regularly for 20+ years to study and work with locals.
He notes that their lifestyle has selected for ability (including intelligence) right up to current generations, whereas more technologically advanced civilisations have been protecting the weaker elements for the past 2,000 years, thus weakening the gene pool.
Being a gifted writer and humane person, he succeeds in saying this in a balanced way that does not denigrate anyone. It becomes a straight forward cause-and-effect report of what happens when survival depends on a different set of factors for hundreds of generations.
February 21st, 2007 09:02
Thanks for the reading suggestions; I’ve just put them on hold at our library. It’s always interesting to see how an outsider writes about a topic. (Although, after 20+ years, perhaps he’s more of a participant observer.)
Murray is not an outsider from his theories; he would certainly place himself with the intellectually elite. I find his third article, in particular, demeaning to much of the population.
I do agree that American public education requires radical changes, but I find Murray way off base here.
February 21st, 2007 16:49
Gillian,
I would venture to say that culture is a prime offender in the U.S., too. It starts in the middle elementary grades. Although there are exceptions, some classes in today’s U.S. look down on academic achievement as not being “cool”.
Maybe one of the contributors with a more academic background can let me know if this is a gross misstatement, or valid point.
February 22nd, 2007 21:36
Hello first to Gilian,
Your example has a point, but its really difficult to say if one culture selects for intelligence and another does not. What natives in New Guinea likely select for is the ability to survive and thrive in that culture. These may not b the same traits or abilities that would do the same in Western culture. The idea that we are breeding ourselves into idiocy is not a new one (see for example the recent movie Idiocracy). I don’t think however that its really accurate. Despite what we might do to cushion the blow the world can still reach out and hurt us if we make consistently unintelligent choices. In short, Intelligence still generally wins in the end.
Next to Rick,
In the US this more of a sub cultural issue than a true characteristic of all or even most teens. Although the classic slackers exist and some sub-cultures actively discourage high academic performance, many teens are acutely aware of the importance of school performance in getting on with the next stage of their lives. They WILL try and get as high a grade for as little work as possible, but this is more of a human characteristic than a teen problem.
-Grant
February 23rd, 2007 11:57
Grant, thanks for the perspective. So, as in many things, the minority gets the press.
Rhetorical question: why do we permit that to happen? My fear is that these subcultural beliefs rise to the level of accepted behavior. So, how do we explain that the news outlets are covering the minority view, and not the overriding majority perspective?
February 23rd, 2007 22:01
Grant!
More fodder for thought..http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/02/23/teachers.demand.apology/
February 24th, 2007 13:33
Hi Rick,
I think this one is less about news outlets and more about schools and parents. For many years both common sense and lots of research has shown that the best way to increase school/student success is to increase both the amount and quality of contact between parents and the school. If most of the adult’s in a kid’s life are on the same page concerning school performance and expectations the kid in essence has no place to hide and begins to see the value of the work itself. A poor performing school that becomes a better performing school then makes news that is reported.
-Grant
February 24th, 2007 13:39
Hi Lakshmi,
Jobs loves to shoot his mouth off. I think the Union is over reacting and should be calling for interaction rather than an apology. Tenure and Unionization are both problems, but so is a close to 50% attrition rate within 5 years of starting in the California school system. The problems are big. the solutions likely need to be as well.
-Grant
March 10th, 2007 00:29
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