Near "Infinitely Alterable" Intelligence

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Economy
Posted on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 08:09:00 AM EST
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Bell Curve Sully:

[I]ntelligence is not infinitely alterable. My point was that growing inequality will be very, very hard to prevent or restrain in the face of these factors.

What factors? The fact "IQ" (No, IQ does not accurately measure intelligence, which is impossible to define anyway) is significantly alterable, but not "infinitely alterable? Really?

More . . .

Sully refers to a Nick Kristof column that states "this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited . . . is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong. . . . Eric Turkheimer of the University of Virginia has conducted further research demonstrating that in poor and chaotic households, I.Q. is minimally the result of genetics — because everybody is held back. “Bad environments suppress children’s I.Q.’s,” Professor Turkheimer said."

Sully pretends that Kristof supports his retrograde Bell Curve views. The new research cited by Kristof in fact demolishes his views. Sully seems incapable of seeing that he has been pimping pseudo science racism. And for that, he remains to me Bell Curve Sully (not to mention Fifth Column Sully.)

Speaking for me only

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Near "Infinitely Alterable" Intelligence | 40 comments (40 topical)

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This by now sterile argument between (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by Dr Molly on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 09:28:38 AM EST

'environmentalists' and 'hereditarianists' on issues like the heritability of IQ (and other issues) has been used and abused for decades. It is a strawman, known well by evolutionary biologists, and used to justify 'scientific racism' and other uses/abuses of genetic data. They used to do it with craniometry and measurement data, now they make the same arguments using genes.

Virtually every trait is affected by both genes, development, and environment.

Other past uses: justify ideas that women's brains can't work like men's; justify that Native Americans are inferior to whites; justify rape; justify subsets of the population as 'born to be violent and criminal'; etc.

History and sociology of science.

IQ is just one test. (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by Fabian on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 09:48:00 AM EST

It may be the most available test for research purposes, but it is only one test.

I've been doing the Special Ed thing as a parent now for four years (and Early Intervention before then) and I know that my kids are evaluated on multiple things. You can be innately brilliant but dysfunctional for any number of reasons.

Yikes, I almost missed this post (5.00 / 1) (#3)
by andgarden on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 09:50:44 AM EST

because of some time stamp funny business on the FP.

Even presupposing that Sully is right about IQ, and I don't think he is, it doesn't follow that making society more equal is somehow impossible.

Anyway, it's clearly racist Sully, above all else.

Me too (none / 0) (#6)
by Demi Moaned on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 10:06:51 AM EST

When I checked earlier, "WaPo Editorial Calls For Torture Investigations" was the next BTD story after Thursday Night Open Thread. Now this story shows up between the two.


It happens periodically at TL (5.00 / 1) (#9)
by andgarden on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 10:16:32 AM EST

I know that the editors occasionally decide that the want an older post to appear above a new one, but doing it this way, without any indication that there are newer posts below, is pretty reader unfriendly. It also causes even the most attentive of us to miss posts.


: I'd say you are amongst the most (none / 0) (#16)
by oculus on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 11:33:38 AM EST

attentive. You're here! But yes, this post wasn't here, then it was. In a similar vein, a post was here a month or so ago, I commented on it, and then it disappeared. Magic.

Equality is impossible... (none / 0) (#13)
by kdog on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 10:30:42 AM EST

with each and every individual posessing different talents, different strengths and weaknesses, different capabilities...whether it's nature or nurture that causes the inequality.

What we should be striving for is equality under the law for every individual, not equality of ability, which is impossible unless you want to handicap people.

I think when people say equality they really mean equality under the law...but there is a difference.


In ALL "academic" testing, correlations (5.00 / 2) (#8)
by tokin librul on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 10:12:57 AM EST

between students' scores on IQ and other standardized tests, and the socio-economic status of the parents approaches 1...

That's all you need to know about the "reliability" of testing...

Please, Define "intelligence?" (5.00 / 2) (#10)
by tokin librul on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 10:17:49 AM EST

Rather than believe our genetic code means something they imagine that some magical force exempts intelligence from heredity.

MIT psychologist Howard Gardener has made a suggestion that makes pretty good sense to me, but which is functionally 'untestable.' Paraphrasing, Gardener, who holds there are at least 8 kinds of qualifiable intelligence, suggests that intelligence is the capacity of an individual to marshall all their attributes and gifts to the task of survival.

I know it doesn't help if yu wanna use 'intelligence' as a disqualifying variable, designed to exclude certain individuals or members of certain groups from equal participation in the products of the social commons.

But there is is.

missed this (none / 0) (#35)
by connecticut yankee on Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 02:42:01 PM EST

You can define any measurement in such a way that it is useless to measure it. That's just fun with dick and jane. It's semantics.

This issue is amusing because it's so political. Each side wants genetics to bolster certain claims and then they want bundle it up and throw it into the sea. Genetic links for sexual orientation, or IQ categories, or athleticism have defenders and detractors on either side of the aisle.

Variation exists. It's pandora's box. It's already happened. It like charging a hurricane with a hate crime.


Sheesh (none / 0) (#36)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 07:18:26 PM EST

"This issue is amusing because it's so political."

That's why it is not amusing.

"Each side wants genetics to bolster certain claims and then they want bundle it up and throw it into the sea."

So you don't have a side on the politics of this?

"It like charging a hurricane with a hate crime."

Charles Murray is not a hurricane. You are a good example of a little knowledge being dangerous.


hmm (none / 0) (#38)
by connecticut yankee on Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 10:09:09 PM EST

More insults. Why am I not surprised?


: Please (none / 0) (#39)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 10:15:37 PM EST

remove yourself from my threads Connecticut Yankee.

Human intelligence (5.00 / 1) (#20)
by Addison on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 01:01:58 PM EST

We shouldn't fool ourselves. Human intelligence, to a great degree, is determined by genetics. It's dumb to think otherwise. It is why human beings are more intelligent than guinea pigs or parrots or iguanas or ants.

But the band of human variation -- barring a true structural or chemical disorder -- is by all observable means so narrow and so untied to race or geography that we have to assume that what we've been told about the plasticity of the human mind (all human minds) being the basis of intelligence is accurate. And so intelligence -- by its very nature -- is alterable.

Who's fooling themself? (none / 0) (#22)
by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 01:40:28 PM EST

People who focus too much on rhetorical devices (none / 0) (#24)
by Addison on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 02:02:28 PM EST

And who would that be? (none / 0) (#27)
by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 02:33:30 PM EST

Oh Lord... (none / 0) (#29)
by Addison on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 02:46:56 PM EST

The second response was out of annoyance that you had decided to look at the window dressing of a well-known rhetorical framing device instead of actual substance. Who even knows why.

I think it's obvious that my comment argued that even though genetics is obviously at play with human intelligence as compared with other species, we shouldn't be fooled into thinking that this was notable within the species. That, in fact, plasticity in the human mind was the main driver of what we call "human intelligence" and as such the major genetic component of intelligence is something that all humans share.

I hesitate to repeat this all, since it was so clear in the first place.

Your major problem appears to be that the "while" was assumed after the "we shouldn't fool ourselves" instead of explicitly stated. As in, "We shouldn't fool ourselves. While human intelligence..." to show that it was what people were being fooled about.


Amazing (none / 0) (#32)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 07:22:34 AM EST

"The second response was out of annoyance that you had decided to look at the window dressing of a well-known rhetorical framing device instead of actual substance. Who even knows why."

You really don't know why? My gawd.

look in the mirror.


I was commenting... (none / 0) (#33)
by Addison on Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 10:35:38 AM EST

...keeping in mind the conversation in the thread, the one that was going back and forth, not just your post. I guess if you feel that every comment discusses solely the main post you could make that mistake. But I wasn't. There was, by that time, plenty of discussion and I was referencing ideas brought up in that wider discussion.

The comment was, actually, originally a reply to one of CY's posts, but it had expanded beyond that so I cut and pasted it into a top-level reply instead. Again, the point of the comment was clear -- and probably something you agree with -- and so no, I "really don't know why" you've devoted three replies now to a comment without bothering with the obvious substance.


Then you miss the true significance (none / 0) (#37)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 07:18:59 PM EST

of this debate.


Look... (none / 0) (#40)
by Addison on Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 10:59:57 PM EST

...I have had the privilege of teaching a large number of non-white, non-Western kids. I had firsthand experience seeing the stupidity of applying upper-class white American cultural norms to students outside that demographic. And I have seen, up close, kids that were brilliant but might not ace the SATs because during the verbal testing section they didn't know what a yacht was, let's say, because they lived in a desert. So if the implication is that I don't understand what that particular debate is about, I resent that.

I chose not to participate in the debate on Andrew Sullivan's terms. He doesn't know anything about education, he doesn't know anything about intelligence, he doesn't know anything about students. He has never been a teacher that I know of. I dismiss him and I dismiss his terms. My dismissal should be assumed. I chose to participate in the discussion on my own terms, with what I've learned firsthand about intelligence across cultural and racial boundaries.

In short, having some experience in cross-cultural education and intelligence I refuse to set up the debate with me on one side and Sullivan/Murray on the other -- and watch my words and phrasing accordingly -- because then I'm arguing with and using the terms of a political phantom devoted to racism. I'm just going to comment sans consideration of them.


: Then you lost thre debate (none / 0) (#41)
by Big Tent Democrat on Sun Apr 19, 2009 at 09:50:35 AM EST

in political terms.
The word racist is important here to kill the Murray and Sullys of the world on this.
If you can't fight the fight, then why walk into the ring?
you act as if there is a reasonable debate out there waiting for your contributions. there isn't.

Thats possible (none / 0) (#34)
by connecticut yankee on Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 11:12:31 AM EST

So you say that we each have a projector that creates an idential "mind" and then assume that each projector has no variation unless it is a crude and obvious flaw... removing it from mainstream comparison.

But then how would evolution operate on a mind of that nature? I assume that earlier humans had a projector mind as well and yet some kind of pressure still led to us. To me it sounds like plasticity is a form of soul. Once created, its beyond selection pressure.


I don't think Sullivan is racist (none / 0) (#4)
by Steve M on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 09:52:12 AM EST

(although he's an enabler), I think he is just desperate for a way to support the standard conservative argument that people deserve their outcomes and therefore we shouldn't try to do anything about them.

: Probably true (none / 0) (#5)
by Dr Molly on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 09:56:12 AM EST

But he is falling back on the same 'abuse of science' arguments that many racists have used in the past for various agendas. Fine line, I guess.

: Yes (none / 0) (#11)
by Faust on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 10:18:23 AM EST

Racism as awful as it is is just one more form of entitlement. I'm entitled to be your overlord and master because: blah blah blah. Intelligent people are entitled to be overlords over the stupid because: blah blah blah.
Eventually this all gets us to Brave New World one way or another.

: Well (none / 0) (#17)
by Cream City on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 11:35:14 AM EST

if one says racist things, that is a racist action, and that makes someone a racist. Now, if one is a Racist for a Day, that may be different. But if one says it day after day, and even twists the words of others in a rather desperate move to bolster one's racist statements -- that's a racist.

I think this is an issue (none / 0) (#7)
by connecticut yankee on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 10:10:54 AM EST

where both sides routinely overstate their argument. But the extreme environmentalists are like communicating with the creationists. Rather than believe our genetic code means something they imagine that some magical force exempts intelligence from heredity.

They do this because just as a creationist is defending biblical inerrancy, they are defending the belief in an absolute egalitarianism. It's mystical. An effort to remove us from the animal kingdom. Our brains certainly did evolve, uh, that's how we got there. To imply that there is no current genetic variation implies we reached some perfect form and everything stopped.

Now, on the other side you have crazy racists, but I expect strange behavior from them.

Hey cy. (5.00 / 1) (#12)
by Dr Molly on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 10:24:42 AM EST

It's not that I meant to say that genetics doesn't mean anything or that it's all environment. I'm a biolgist for crikey's sake. Genes mater. It's just that it's a lot more complicated than the way most people state it.

You're right that there are evangelicals on both sides.


Nobody says that (5.00 / 1) (#14)
by gyrfalcon on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 10:35:39 AM EST

I know of nobody who argues intelligence is exempted from heredity. What Murray and Sullivan want to believe, however, is that -- let's be frank -- white people as a "race" are genetically smarter than everybody else.

There is no IQ test and probably never will be one that can accurately measure innate intelligence. The scores on these tests always have been and probably always will be heavily affected by the degree of intellectual stimulation in a child's environment, and even more insidious, the language skills prevalent in that environment.

Secondly, we've known for a long time that the expectations and psychological/emotional environment have a huge impact on test scores of all kinds.

Here's a fascinating article in the NYTimes from January that reported on a very limited experiment on test scores (this was on adults 18-60) that showed a significant jump in test scores of African-Americans pre- and post-election. Here's the nut graph:

"On the initial test last summer, whites on average correctly answered about 12 of 20 questions, compared with about 8.5 correct answers for blacks, Dr. Friedman said. But on the tests administered immediately after Mr. Obama's nomination acceptance speech, and just after his election victory, black performance improved, rendering the white-black gap "statistically nonsignificant," he said.


modern iq tests arent the issue. (none / 0) (#15)
by connecticut yankee on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 10:51:13 AM EST

We will very likely understand the genetic basis for intelligence in the future. There will very likely be found advantageous and disadvantageous traits and measured values that impact intelligence. These will likely be distributed unevenly and likely have some regional relationships. That's my opinion anyway. Whether environment trumps genetics, or by what margins, I have no idea.

As for IQ tests, those are crude instruments. They'll need some pretty sharp methods if they want to tease out the differences between population groups, in my opinion. And the results may not be what they expect.

But that differences between populations are possible, I think is obvious.


: When you get there (5.00 / 2) (#18)
by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 12:00:25 PM EST

"We will very likely understand the genetic basis for intelligence in the future," then let's talk.
But to support the Bell Curvism that you defend is pretty despicable imo.
The mileage of others may vary.

Well... (none / 0) (#21)
by Addison on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 01:07:55 PM EST

...more to the point (maybe) is what Sullivan and Murray want to believe is that the things/ideas they hold valuable are coterminous with things you'd expect an intelligent person to possess. The expected outcome of possessing raw intelligence will be to become and possess something that they approve of. So an intelligent person will generally look like them. What a coincidence! The whole thing reeks of a solipsistic self-esteem exercise.


distortiion about white supremacy (none / 0) (#30)
by diogenes on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 04:43:53 PM EST

Actually, asians score higher on IQ tests than whites do. Murray doesn't dispute this. That'w why maybe we shouldn't worry so much about a disproportionate number of Asians going to MIT or into the California state universities, where affirmative action would discriminate against asians and in favor of whites.


No profanity please (none / 0) (#23)
by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 01:41:27 PM EST

And yes, you are defending them, with you sophistry and nonsense.

silly (none / 0) (#25)
by connecticut yankee on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 02:25:13 PM EST

They know genetic disease is distributed unevenly. They have also found beneficial mutations that are distributed regionally. But races are a pretty broad abstraction. The more interesting finds will probably be regional.

Evolution didnt stop because you feel uncomfortable. It split our recent ancestors into different species and we lived alongside them. It would have done the same with us given more time, which it likely wont get.


Silly (none / 0) (#26)
by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 02:32:38 PM EST

is having this discussion outside of the context of racist pseudo scientists like Murray who are selling racist claptrap.

But you want us to ignore all that.

That is your sophistry.


okay (none / 0) (#28)
by connecticut yankee on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 02:41:25 PM EST

bad racists! bad boy!


: Yes (none / 0) (#31)
by Big Tent Democrat on Fri Apr 17, 2009 at 05:50:25 PM EST

I have a problem with racists. You seem to have a different viewpoint on the matter.
What can I say?