Tapsearch Com EditorDavid Brooks on IQ
September 15th 2007 14:19
Steve Sailer runs and goes after David Brooks's assertion that IQ has waning influence in the scientific world.
Sailer's got a point, but I think he conflates Brooks's column, which focuses more on scientists, with IQ expertise among journalists.
Brooks is mostly right. Scientists are indeed learning to break down "g," or general intelligence, into smaller and smaller factors. Brooks himself notes that the factors tend to correlate with each other -- the kids in advanced English tend to overlap with the ones in advanced math.
But he severely understates what g alone is capable of.
He pretty much invents a controversy:
Some people think intelligence is the ability to adapt to an environment, others that capacity to think abstractly, and so on.
I've read a lot about IQ, though I'm no expert, and I can safely say I've never heard anyone claim IQ was "the ability to adapt to an environment." The latter definition, to my experience, is the accurate one. It's mental horsepower.
And this statement is objectively false:
It measures something, but it’s not clear...whether it’s good at predicting how people will do in life.
As The Bell Curve amply demonstrated, IQ in fact correlates quite strongly -- better than parental income -- with a whole variety of wellness indicators, including income, incarceration, illegitimate childbearing, etc.
Sailer's got a point, but I think he conflates Brooks's column, which focuses more on scientists, with IQ expertise among journalists.
Brooks is mostly right. Scientists are indeed learning to break down "g," or general intelligence, into smaller and smaller factors. Brooks himself notes that the factors tend to correlate with each other -- the kids in advanced English tend to overlap with the ones in advanced math.
But he severely understates what g alone is capable of.
He pretty much invents a controversy:
Some people think intelligence is the ability to adapt to an environment, others that capacity to think abstractly, and so on.
And this statement is objectively false:
It measures something, but it’s not clear...whether it’s good at predicting how people will do in life.
As The Bell Curve amply demonstrated, IQ in fact correlates quite strongly -- better than parental income -- with a whole variety of wellness indicators, including income, incarceration, illegitimate childbearing, etc.
| 62 |
| Vote |
Add To: 
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Anonymous
Please do read a little bit more so that you can find all those that accept this definition. I know my English isn't good enough to disccuss with you; but please take a look at the studies in the Web of Science or PsyInfo and you will see.