QUOTES XI
Quotations about
THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLIGENCE
In times when psychology has come to acknowledge the centrality
of 'cognition' to its concerns {see also Quotes XIII}, it may
seem unlikely that any psychologist would be found disputing the
importance of intelligence. Intelligence and intellectual differences
have usually been thought key features of the human condition-and
of the cultural achievements and social structures of the modern
West. Yet disagreement between experts can indeed be found, especially
when it is asked:
1) whether we too easily play down the emotional, motivational
and conative aspects of human nature;
2) whether measured intelligence (most commonly 'IQ') matters
much to individuals; and
3) whether having a certain level and range of intelligence (or
IQ) is important to the functioning of human societies as we know
them. [Intellectual differences between people may contribute
substantially to the markedly hierarchical socio-economic ordering
of Western societies {see Quotes XXIII}. They may also contribute
to the social dominance hierarchies of those other, non-Western
societies that do not tolerate the blatant use of physical force,
nepotism, personal corruption and ideological indoctrination as
ways of sustaining their ruling elites in power.]
Some ways in which intelligence is 'important' may be readily
conceded. Intelligence seems to be more important statistically
than other variables in accounting for human variation; and it
usually looks more interesting than other psychometric or sociometric
variables in its wider links to other variables that are themselves
better agreed to be 'important'. Yet there remains the question
of how to interpret such correlations in terms of likely
patterns of causation. Do the correlations arise because of the
operation of still-more-important underlying variables? What
is it that really differentiates people? Is it differences in
parental devotion, disposable income or domestic happiness; or
differences in luck; or differences in some other psychological
variable? {Such a variable might be 'the new IQ derived from
Piaget'-see Quotes XII; or the extraversion that makes
for fun (and for somewhat greater educational success in primary
school); or the non-neuroticism or conscientiousness
that are so often associated with success in the worlds of the
uniformed services and business respectively.} Are IQ's correlates,
when properly considered, mere epiphenomena of quite other
individual and social processes with which psychologists should
really show more concern?
Sometimes dismissals of the importance of intelligence and IQ
actually reflect doubts about the existence, nature
or origins of IQ-type differences- matters dealt with in
Quotes VIII, IX and X respectively. Again doubts about the intelligence
being necessary for socio-economic progress sometimes arise particularly
with regard to group (e.g. national) levels of achievement-dealt
with in Quotes XXIV. The Quotes in the present Section thus concentrate
on the links between individual intelligence and other
variables that are measurable in principle at an individual level.
In particular, it is asked whether IQ is a substantial predictor
of educational and occupational attainment. {The relevance
of intelligence level to law-abidingness is specially considered
in Section XVI; and the degree to which intelligence is involved
in genius is covered in Section XVII. The wider relevance of
intelligence differences to the human pursuit of such political
goals as liberty, equality, fraternity and justice is left to
Quotes XXVII and XXVIII. The merits of psychological testing in
general are considered in Quotes XXX.}
*********************************************************************
For more coverage of the importance and practical relevance (especially
in education)
of individual differences in intelligence, see:
BRAND, C.R. (1996). The g Factor.
Chichester : Wiley DePublisher.
[The book was first issued, in March, but then withdrawn by the
'publisher' because it was deemed to have infringed modern canons
of
'political correctness.']
For a Summary of the book, Newsletters concerning the
de-publication affair, and others' comments
and reviews, see the Internet URL sites:
http://laboratory.psy.ed.ac.uk/DOCS/crb/internet.html
http://www.webcom.com/zurcher/thegfactor/index.html
For Chris Brand's 'Get Real About Race!'-his popular exposition
of his views on race and education in the Black
hip-hop music magazine 'downlow' (Autumn, 1996)-see:
http://www.bhs.mq.edu.au/~tbates/intelligence/Brand_downlow.html
*******************************************************************
INDEX
Page
(i) Voices from the past 4
(ii) General claims about IQ-type intelligence in particular
8
(iii) Intelligence and educational attainment 15
(iv) Intelligence, occupational success and social mobility.
19
(v) Intelligence and society. - And what
the people say. 24
Epilogue
(i) Voices from the past
"The soul, besides other things, contains intelligence;
and the head, besides other things, contains sight and hearing;
and the intelligence, mingling with these noblest of the senses,
and becoming one with them, may be truly called the salvation
of all things."
PLATO, Laws.
"Natural ability without education has more often raised
a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability."
CICERO.
"For several thousand years-even in classical Greek and Roman
times, and among the ancient Chinese (P.H.Dubois, 1970, A History
of Psychological Testing, Boston : Allyn & Bacon)-it has
been recognized that there are individual differences in cognitive
abilities, and that these differences have something to do with
the roles and behaviors of individuals in society."
J.B.CARROLL, 1993, Human Cognitive Abilities.
Cambridge University Press.
"The prime author and mover of the universe is intelligence."
Saint AUGUSTINE.
"....the proper function of the human race, taken in the
aggregate, is to actualize continually the entire capacity possible
to the intellect: primarily in speculation; then, through its
extension and for its sake, secondarily in action."
DANTE.
"[True genius] is a mind of large general powers accidentally
determined to some particular directions."
Doctor JOHNSON.
"[The epic drama, Faust] is truly the lifework of
the versatile poet, dramatist, novelist, philosopher, statesman,
scientist, art critic and theater manager, Goethe."
Thesaurus of Book Digests. New York : Avenel, 1977.
"Really to inform the mind is to correct and enlarge the
heart."
JUNIUS (alias Sir Philip Francis), c. 1770.
"I care not whether a man is Good or Evil; all that I care
is whether he is a Wise Man or a Fool."
William BLAKE, Jerusalem.
"If [the poet] Shelley [who had great respect for science,
and undertook quite dangerous chemical and electrical experiments]
had been born a hundred years later, the twentieth century would
have seen a Newton among chemists."
A.N.WHITEHEAD, 1926, Science and the Modern World.
"{In 1853, Macaulay spoke in the House of Commons} 'against
the superstition that proficiency in learning implies a want of
energy and force of character; which, like all other superstitions,
is cherished only by those who are unwilling to observe facts,
or unable to draw deductions'."
G.O.TREVELYAN, 1881, The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay.
"You have made a convert of an opponent in one sense, for
I have always maintained that, excepting fools, men did not differ
much in intellect, only in zeal and hard work; and I still think
this is an eminently important difference."
Charles DARWIN, 1870, in a letter to Galton
after reading Galton's Hereditary Genius.
"Intelligence is quickness in seeing things as they are."
George SANTAYANA (American philosopher), 1920.
"The infamous times you call the Dark Ages were an era of
intelligence on strike, when men of ability went underground and
lived undiscovered, studying in secret, and died, destroying the
works of their minds, when only a few of the bravest of martyrs
remained to keep the human race alive."
'John Galt', hero of Ayn RAND's Atlas Shrugged.
New York : Random House.
"Perception seems to be shot through with intelligence."
Irvin ROCK, 1983, The Logic of Perception.
"We care morally about the fate of animals because they have
some ability to engage successfully in intelligent, purposive
activity; but we rank human beings above animals and some animals
above others because their abilities to achieve high standards
of performance are greater."
Oliver LETWIN, 1987,
Ethics, Emotion and the Unity of the Self. London : Croom
Helm.
"Like pearls from oysters, [a great chef's dishes] result
from lonely struggling effort, and also from intelligence and
quite exceptional intuition."
Egon RONAY, 1988, quoted.... in Private Eye, 1 iv.
"Every time we make a value judgment on someone's behaviour,
we are evaluating that person's intelligence, and rating him (or
her) as smart or not so smart."
Abbie F. Salny, 1988, in his Foreword to V.SEREBRIAKOFF,
A Guide to Intelligence and Personality Testing.
Carnforth, Lancashire : Parthenon.
"When intelligence is recognized from the observation of
behavior, one is not just observing behavior. One is observing
behavior in a context. Intelligence is manifest to the
extent that the behavior signifies awareness or consciousness
of this context. On this basis, intelligence is simply the degree
of awareness or consciousness of the whole context of existence....
A related but less complete definition would be that intelligence
is the total amount of information available to the individual."
D.L.ROBINSON, 1989, International Journal of Neuroscience.
"In [Mrs Thatcher's] assessment of other people, she employs
one constant benchmark which is revealing of her strengths and
weaknesses. Never does she mention speaking or management ability.
'Sheer brain power' is all that matters. Her appointees to high
positions who did not appear at first glance to pass her "Is
he one of us?" test were almost invariably those of clearly
outstanding intellect - Reggie Maudling, Ian Gilmour, Chris Patten."
Robin OAKLEY, 1989, The Times, 3 v.
"I now think that there is some correlation between the most
effective clever people and eventual spirituality.... Both Neumann
[(1903-1957) who invented the modern computer and prevented Stalin
being succeeded by Beria] and my daughter [by far the cleverest
and best person in my immediate circle of family and friends]
chuckled in the last stages of their cancer as they surprised
their families by turning deeply religious."
Norman MACRAE, 1989, Sunday Times, 24 xii.
"After [his] marriage, [the American composer, Charles Ives']
business career and his creative maturity bloomed together. With
a partner he founded Ives & Myrick, which [by 1915] had grown
into the largest insurance agency in the country.... At the same
time, he gave himself completely to his most visionary musical
ideas." Jan SWAFFORD, 1992, The New Guide to
Classical Music. New York : Random House.
"Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, through intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ignorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister."
SU TUNG-PO (1936-1101)
'On the birth of his son',
translated by Arthur Waley
170 Chinese Poems, 1918.
"Stupid men are often right. They have the advantage of understanding
essentials."
Lord Charles Beresford.
"It's good to suffer. Don't complain. Bear, bow, accept-and
be grateful that God has made you suffer. For this makes you better
than the people who are laughing and happy. If you don't understand
this, don't try to understand. Everything bad comes from the mind,
because the mind asks too many questions. It is blessed to believe,
not to understand. So if you didn't pass your exams, be glad of
it. It means that you are better than the smart boys who think
too much and too easily."
'Ellsworth Touhey', in Ayn RAND's
The Fountainhead.
London : Cassell, 1947.
"Theories about intelligence usually over-rate the value
of intelligence. Brains are useful, but moral character makes
a higher contribution to society, and altruism ought to be admired
as much as personal achievement."
Mary KENNY, 1984, Sunday Telegraph, 26 viii.
"[Colonel-Genera Volkogonov, the official biographer of Stalin,]
said people frequently underestimated Stalin's intellectual powers
and pointed out that he ran the Soviet Union for three decades
without ever having a secretary, a speech writer or any confidant;
and during that time he wrote thirteen volumes of published works,
and two unpublished, all in long-hand."
Nicholas BERESTON, 1989, The Times, 11 iii.
"Keen concern with the intellect is not in the best interests
of a balanced and healthy life."
Joan FREEMAN (President, 'European Council for High Ability'),
1989, Sunday Times, 30 iv.
(ii) General claims about IQ-type intelligence in particular
"....at least one mental character of the highest 'civic
worth', namely intelligence, can be reliably measured and appears
to be inherited."
Reported (as a finding of McDougall, Burt and Flugel, 1907, from
a study conducted at the Dragon School, Oxford) by Cyril BURT,
1952, Intelligence and Fertility.
"The chief determiner of human conduct is the unitary mental
process which we call intelligence.... ....The intelligence controls
the emotions and the emotions are controlled in proportion to
the degree of intelligence.... It follows that if there is little
intelligence the emotions will be uncontrolled and whether they
be strong or weak will result in actions that are unregulated
, uncontrolled and, as experience proves, usually undesirable.
Therefore, when we measure the intelligence of an individual
and learn that he has so much less than normal as to come within
the group that we call feeble-minded, we have ascertained by far
the most important fact about him."
H.H.GODDARD, 1919, Psychology of the Normal and Subnormal.
New York : Dodd, Mean & Co.
"[Intelligence, to the psychologist] is intellectual, not
emotional or moral....; it is not limited to any particular kind
of work, but enters into all we do or say or think. Of all our
mental qualities, it is the most far-reaching.... Fortunately
it can be measured with accuracy and ease."
Cyril BURT, 1933, in a BBC radio broadcast.
"[Terman's 1000 Californian 'Whizz Kids', identified c.
1930 as having IQ > 140] were, on average, at each age, taller,
heavier, healthier, more athletic, as well as being much more
advanced scholastically than the matched control group...... They
were rated by teachers, peers and other contacts as having greater
perseverance, self-confidence and a greater sense of humour than
the matched controls.... They were keen on collecting and were
more knowledgeable about play and games.... Teachers rated their
preferences of character and their social attitudes as more wholesome,
and they were rated as having much greater emotional stability....
In follow-up studies they went into better jobs, earned a higher
income, and had superior achievements in the arts, in science,
and in all practical human endeavours, than the average individual....
They were....less delinquent and had less marital problems....
The Whizz Kids exercised more forethought, were rated as better
leaders, and they were considered to be more modest.... "
V.SEREBRIAKOFF (President of UK Mensa), 1988,
A Guide to Intelligence and Personality Testing.
Carnforth, Lancashire : Parthenon.
"Enough has already been learned [from my researches] to
demonstrate that children of IQ 140 or above are potentially a
nation's most precious asset. The demonstration that this is true
should be well worth the $150,000 which the research....has cost
to date."
Lewis M. TERMAN, 1947, Psychological Approaches to the Biography
of Genius. London : Eugenics Society and Hamish Hamilton.
"Intelligence will enter into everything the child says,
thinks, does or attempts, both while he is at school and later
on." Sir Cyril BURT, 1947.
"Despite the many shortcomings of an IQ score, no other measure
has been found to be related to so many other behaviors of theoretical
or practical significance."
E.ZIGLER & V.SEITZ, 1982, in B.B.Wolman,
Handbook of Human Intelligence. New York : Wiley DePublisher.
"Not only do personality differences affect intellectual
development, but intellectual level also affects personality development."
Anne ANASTASI, 1983.
"....Luria's and Piaget's theories refer to similar psychological
processes. It also appears that cognitive development, as described
by those authors, is related to psychometric intelligence."
Rhona STEINBERG & J.S.SCHUBERT, 1984,
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 37.
"....there are few human endeavours that could not be included
in
the domain of intelligence, if one considered all of the correlates
of 'g'."
Sandra SCARR, 1985.
"....intellectually gifted children tend to be above average
in such qualities as self-sufficiency and independence, energy
and enthusiasm, and sociability (Janos & Robinson, 1985)."
J.RADFORD, 1990, Child Prodigies and Early Achievers.
New York : Free Press.
"....conservatism has, at least within that slice
of the past that is known to social science, been associated with
rather modest levels of general intelligence."
C.R.BRAND, 1986, in S. & Celia Modgil, Hans Eysenck: Consensus
and Controversy. Brighton : Falmer.
"This study tested the hypothesis that psychopaths identified
in a clinical population are characterized by no greater difficulties
in controlling impulsiveness, planning ahead, and exercising flexibility
(such as accomplishing cognitive shifts and avoiding perseverations)
than are non-psychopathic, so-called normal controls selected
from the same population.... One of the important features of
the present study was attention to the role of intelligence in
modulating performances on tasks thought to assess frontal lobe
functions. [There were] significant effects of intelligence regardless
of group assignment.... Undetected differences in intelligence
between comparison groups, such as in the Gorenstein (1982, J.Abnormal
Psychol.) study [in which male psychopaths appeared to lack
frontal lobe integrity] could constitute a source of uncontrolled
variance. Both Heilbrun (1982, J.Consulting & Clinical
Psychol.) and Sutker et al. (1983, Psychol.Reports)
reported that intelligence is an important moderator influencing
behavior among psychopaths." Patricia B. SUTKER & A.N.ALLAIN,
Jr., 1987, Journal of Abnormal Psychology 96.
"It seems very likely that no other mental ability factor
or combination of factors, independent of g, has as many
educationally, occupationally, and socially significant correlates
as g."
A.R.JENSEN, 1987, in R.Ronning et al., The Influence
of Cognitive
Psychology on Testing. Hillsdale, N.J. : Lawrence Erlbaum.
"All told, g is to psychology what carbon is to chemistry."
C.R.BRAND, 1987, in S. & Celia Modgil, Arthur Jensen:
Consensus and Controversy. Brighton : Falmer.
"Intelligence is an extremely important aspect of personality,
and moderates and influences the expression of all other dimensions
of personality."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1989, Personality and Individual Differences.
"[Long-stay and community-resident] schizophrenic patients
were individually matched for age, sex and education with a healthy,
normal subject [in Scotland]. Both schizophrenic samples scored
significantly lower on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale than
their respective control group [by, respectively, 31 and 13 IQ
points]."
J.R.CRAWFORD et al., 1992, British Journal of Psychiatry
161.
"Contrary to certain stereotypes attached to athletes and
intellectuals, physical co-ordination is positively correlated
with IQ. Technical studies done by the US Department of Labor
report a correlation of .35 between co-ordination and cognitive
ability."
Daniel SELIGMAN, 1992, A Question of Intelligence:
the IQ Debate in America. New York : Carol (Birch Lane).
"I hate the impudence of a claim that, in fifty minutes,
you can judge and classify a human being's predestined fitness
in life. I hate the pretentiousness of that claim. I hate the
abuse of scientific method which it involves. I hate the sense
of superiority which it creates and the sense of inferiority which
it imposes. And so, while I honestly think that there is a considerable
future for mental testing, if it is approached with something
like the caution employed by the editors of the army report {by
the US Army in 1922}, I believe also that the whole field is destined
to be the happy hunting ground of quacks and snobs if loose-minded
men are allowed to occupy positions of leadership much longer."
Walter LIPPMANN (American columnist), 1922. Reprinted in
N.Block & G.Dworkin, The IQ Controversy. New York
: Pantheon.
"Every normal man, woman or child is....a genius at something
as well as an idiot at something.... The preceding considerations
have often appealed to me in looking at a procession of the Unemployed,
and hearing someone whisper that they are mostly the Unemployable.
That they are so actually I cannot help concurring. But need they
be so necessarily? Remember that every one of these, too, is
a genius at something - if we could only discover what. I cherish
no illusion, indeed, that among them may be marching some 'mute,
inglorious Milton, some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood'.
For these are walks in life that appear to involve a large amount
of g. But I am quite confident that every one of them could
do something that would make him a treasure in some great industrial
concern. And I see no reason why some should not have even become
famous, in such occupations, for example, as those of dancers,
jockeys, or players of popular games."
Charles SPEARMAN, 1925, addressing the British Association.
"That the conventional intelligence test has failed to predict
who will do outstanding work in science (or any other field) there
is little question. McKinnon's work is the most telling in this
respect. He finds little or no connection between adult IQ and
adult achievements above a minimum level, which lies somewhere
in the region of IQ 120."
Liam HUDSON (soon afterwards Professor of Education,
University of Edinburgh), 1966. Contrary Imaginations.
London : Methuen.
"Intelligence must not be confused with IQ as measured by
an IQ test."
W.BODMER (medical geneticist), 1973.
"....regarding IQ tests as measures of 'intelligence' is
nonsensical."
L.J.KAMIN, 1981.
"The age of individually administered intelligence tests
is finished. The end of an era is sad in some ways. I recall with
nostalgia the thrill of learning how to administer the Wechsler-Bellevue,
"the best test of intelligence available", when I was
a graduate student 34 years ago. Almost all that I learned then
has subsequently proved to be untrue....including now the value
of the Wechsler tests."
J.D.KRUMBOLTZ, 1984, Personality & Individual Differences
4.
"....there is little reason to think that IQ tests are a
representative selection of important tasks."
J.BARON, 1985, Rationality and Intelligence.
Cambridge University Press.
"....in the face of indications that a large and persistent
average black-white difference in [intelligence] may indeed exist,
more people are beginning to dispute the assumption that differences
in intelligence are...of much practical significance, especially
outside school settings." Linda GOTTFREDSON, 1987, Behavioral
& Brain Sciences 10.
"Existing tests of gf (i.e. fluid general
intelligence) perhaps give a slight edge to the person who is
able to rape reality rather than to cherish it."
C.R.BRAND, 1987, 'The importance of intelligence'. In S. &
C.
Modgil, Arthur Jensen: Consensus & Controversy.
Brighton : Falmer.
"In general, the complexity of the cognitive functioning
that a person is capable of appears to be unrelated to measured
intelligence, whereas the extent to which complex cognition actually
occurs is very markedly influenced by contextual and situational
factors, and especially by the individual's possession of particular
items of organized knowledge.... ....there are no firm grounds
for concluding that knowing about a person's measured intelligence
provides any basis at all for saying how or why that individual
performs well or otherwise, or for identifying the detailed reasons
underlying the person's success."
M.J.A.HOWE, 1988, British Journal of Psychology 79.
"The intelligence testing movement at the beginning of this
century was not simply like Nazism in its racialist aspects -
it was its ideological progenitor." John RUST & Susan
GOLOMBOK, 1989, Modern Psychometrics. London : Routledge.
"IQ is a masturbative attempt to create a pseudo-scientific
version of the soul, to fabricate some sort of stable mental essence.
As an intellectual concept it has the rigidity and credibility
of the goodness we are told resides in Mars bars."
A Guardian correspondent, quoted by
Stephen BATES, 'Intelligence Quotation 2',
Weekend Guardian, 18/19 vii 1993.
"In Emotional Intelligence (Bantam), author Daniel
Goleman maintains there may be a more accurate predictor of success
than IQ: how completely a person manages his or her emotions.
Goleman quotes Aristotle: "Anyone can become angry-that is
easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree,
at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way-this
is not easy." According to the book, emotionally competent
people can recognize their own emotions; they know they're happy
or sad, and why they feel that way. ....How much of emotional
intelligence is learned and how much is innate?....Fortunately,
most of the skills identified by Goleman fall under the heading
of simply good parenting....you help [children] learn what you
do when you're mad....you don't kick your brother, you definitely
don't bite Mom."
Lisa M. SODDERS, 1996, Topeka Kansas, 18 iii.
"To many people the task of 'picking winners' in horse races
{as used by S.Ceci, cited by M.J.A.Howe, above} is not likely
to be seen as a particularly relevant criterion of 'general practical
competence' in the everyday world. It seems unwise, therefore,
to imply [as had a previous correspondent] that recent work [finding
no relation between IQ and 'picking winners'] has seriously undermined
the findings from decades of study of 'general intellectual ability'."
J.D.HANDYSIDE, 1987,
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 40.
"The theory of multiple intelligences (H.Gardner, 1983, Frames
of Mind) highlights the attractive idea that there are qualitatively
different kinds of cognitive processes subsumed under the umbrella
term 'intelligence'. However, to the extent that it argues that
cognitive ability in one domain has no predictive value for ability
in other domains, it is fundamentally inadequate."
M.ANDERSON, 1987, Bulletin of British Psychol. Socy. 40
(A 103).
"....highly intelligent children are more task-oriented,
e.g. less distractible and more controlled than their average-intelligence
counterparts. In the Matching Familiar Figures Test, gifted children
not only gave a higher percentage of correct answers, but also
showed longer reaction times.... In sum, high intelligence, as
assessed in our sample, seems to be related to a specific behavioural
style profile characterized by low distractibility and high persistence."
T.CZESCHLIK, 1993, European Journal of Personality 7 (Wiley
DePublisher).
"Dorner et al. computerized the problems facing a city
manager of a mythical town called Lothausen; over a thousand variables
are identifiable in this task, interacting with each other, and
the subject's success is measured in terms of the amount of revenue
at the end of the simulation. They found no correlation
between success in this task and IQ. However, the Dorner studies
are hardly surprising: the reliability of the task is probably
quite low, and the range of ability quite limited. Once could
not have expected a high correlation with IQ, particularly as
such a very lengthy task would require high motivation, and probably
cognitive abilities other than IQ, but not tested."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1995, Genius: the Natural History of Creativity.
Cambridge University Press.
"IQ does predict educational and occupational success (and
much else besides), rather better than the popular alternatives
of social class or family background."
N.J.MACKINTOSH, 1995, 'Insight into intelligence.' Nature
377, 19 x.
(iii) Intelligence and educational attainment
"To argue that wherever attainments are meagre, ability
must also be low, will always be precarious. Poor health, poor
homes, irregular attendance [at school], lack of interest, want
of will - these are far commoner as causes of inability to spell
and calculate than are inherent weakness of intellect and genuine
defect of mind. Certainly, the dull are usually backward; but
the backward are not necessarily dull."
Cyril BURT, 1921.
|
"It is often overlooked in present-day debate in educational
circles that the attempt to measure intelligence, in which Burt
played so prominent a part, so far from being an attempt at conserving
upper and middle class privileges, constituted an attack on these
interests. If talents are, at any rate so some extent, innate,
so the argument ran, then it would be iniquitous to debar working-class
children from educational opportunity merely because their parents
could not afford to pay for adequate schooling and tuition."
Anita GREGORY, 1975, introducing Sir Cyril Burt's ESP and
Psychology. London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
"Just what [the Thorndike Test] measures, I do not know.
Whether it is intelligence or not it is hard to say until one
defines exactly what one means by intelligence. But I do know
that it indicates more definitely and accurately than anything
we are familiar with whether the boy will succeed in Columbia
College {in New York, soon to be Columbia University}.... Since
the introduction of the Thorndike Test the percentage of men who
are forced out on account of poor scholarship has been cut in
half, although our scholarship requirements have been lifted during
this interval."
Dean HAWKES, 1924, Columbia Alumni News 15.
"Children with low IQ's almost always do poorly in school,
while children with high IQ's cover the range from excellent down
to poor. For school work, as for many other correlates of IQ,
intelligence is necessary but not sufficient. Another way to put
this is to say that a low IQ predicts poor performance more reliably
than a high one predicts good performance."
R.J.HERRNSTEIN, 1973, IQ in the Meritocracy. London :
Allen Lane.
"IQ at age five-and-a-half accounts for 50% of the variance
in Mathematics scores at sixteen-and-a-half years of age. This
is a sobering finding for those educational advisers who have
been abandoning the use of tests of general intelligence over
the past few years."
W.YULE et al. (reporting on their study of children growing
up on
the Isle of Wight), 1982, Personality & Individual Differences
3.
"....Although g(eneral intelligence) cannot account
for all the variance in educational level, it accounts for more
than any other sources of variance, independent of g,
that we have been able to discover." A.R.JENSEN, 1986,
Journal of Vocational Behavior 29.
"Achievement motivation and general ability [tested by Advanced
Progressive Matrices] showed a very strong influence on scholastic
achievement [in 1138 students at Kasetart University, Thailand].
Adjustment, especially home adjustment and health adjustment,
showed slight influences, whilst social adjustment and emotional
adjustment did not show any influence at all."
A.PETCHPUD, 1988, to 24th International Congress of Psychology
in Sydney (T187).
"There is a substantial minority of angry parents, who
see their children of moderate ability {having 'failed' the eleven-plus
examination, with its IQ component} deprived of any opportunity
of a grammar school education. There is good reason for believing
that many such children would achieve more in grammar school than
the theoretically more able children from poorer homes."
A.MARWICK, 1968, Britain in the Century of Total War.
(Citing as authority Professor Peacock, Dept Economics, Univ.Edinburgh,
1964.)
"....the IQ was 'validated' by selecting the items so that
they would predict 'success' at college - [and thus it] is 100%
a statistical artefact of this method of validation."
H.PUTNAM, 1973, Cognition 2.
"....concepts of intelligence refer to measures developed
in particular school-related contexts for children and young adults,
measures which do not validly assess the multidimensional adaptive
functioning of mid- and later adulthood."
R.N.EMDE, 1982, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
23.
"As we do no good for the sick by shattering thermometers,
we do no good for the deficient by proscribing the use of those
instruments that measure the extent and distribution of their
deficiencies."
D.N.ROBINSON, 1981,
Personality & Individual Differences 2.
"The early testers believed that tests would open doors to
disadvantaged people, not close them. And that, by and large,
is what tests have done, enabling millions of people from poor
or deprived backgrounds to develop their abilities better than
the circumstances of birth would otherwise have allowed."
R.J.HERRNSTEIN, 1983, New Scientist, 28 vi.
"A question naturally arises about the motives of white middle-class
liberals who criticize the use of tests in education.... It is
surely not coincidental that the children of middle-class parents
are, on average, less intelligent than their parents.... Middle-class
parents have a selfish interest in minimizing the use of measures
of the general factor [g] and dismissing the importance
of its correlates."
L.G.HUMPHREYS, 1986, Journal of Vocational Behaviour 29.
(iv) Intelligence, occupational success and social mobility.
"In the very first issue of the Journal of Applied
Psychology, which appeared in 1917, Terman describes a study
in which he used a variation of the Stanford-Binet intelligence
test to predict the success of police officers and fire fighters
in San Jose."
F.J.LANDY & D.A.TRUMBO, 1980, The Psychology of Work Behaviour.
Homewood, Illinois : Dorsey.
"In a study by Ball (1938), ratings on a standardized scale
of occupational status were obtained for a sample of about 200
men who had taken a group intelligence test when they were children.
The time interval between the testing and the measure of status
was 14 years in some cases and 19 years in other cases. For the
group with a 14-year interval, the correlation between IQ and
occupational status was .57, whereas for the group with a 19-year
interval the correlation was .71. The higher correlation for the
latter group, which was the older group, suggests that with time
there is a tendency towards achieving a closer correspondence
between occupational status and tested intelligence."
H.L.MINTON & F.W.SCHNEIDER, 1980, Differential Psychology.
Monterey, California : Wadsworth (Brooks/Cole).
"[By the mid-1950's, the men in [Lewis] Terman's 'Gifted
Group' (mean IQ 151 in childhood)] had above-average incomes.
....when the median earnings of American professionals and managers
was around $6,000, the men in the Gifted Group {though still only
around age 35} made $9,640 on average."
Daniel SELIGMAN, 1992, A Question of Intelligence:
the IQ Debate in America. New York : Carol (Birch Lane).
"Greatest inter-generational mobility in occupational status
was reported by subjects who obtained high scores on both the
IQ measure and the Machiavellianism Scale, but least upward mobility
was reported by subjects who scored in the Low IQ- High Machiavellianism
quadrant (p<.001)."
J.C.TOUHEY, 1973, British J. Social & Clinical Psychology
12.
"{In our study of 200 Indian farmers, we found a correlation
of .40 between farmers' economic growth rates and their measured
intelligence (using Raven's Progressive Matrices).}.... Overall,
then, the major conclusion to be drawn from the present study
is that Indian farmers are very much like the businessmen of the
West. The better motivated and the more intelligent make the most
material progress. There appear to be some invariants in human
nature after all that strongly underlie and, hence, strongly limit
what we can do in bringing about a better world."
S.SINGH & J.J.RAY, 1980,
Economic Development & Cultural Change 29.
"[In F.L.Schmidt & J.E.Hunter's analyses of 535 occupations
in the USA] the correlations between verbal and mathematical
reasoning abilities and occupational competence were highest for
managerial and professional jobs, lowest for semi-skilled and
unskilled ones; but, even in the latter case, they were still
high enough to have practical impact. For skilled workers - white
collar or blue-the correlations were highest for jobs like repairman
in which problem- solving is an essential element; lowest for
jobs like dental hygienist in which routine procedures are followed."
Barbara LERNER, 1983, 'Test scores as measures of human capital'.
In R.B.Cattell, Intelligence and National Achievement.
Washington, DC : Institute for the Study of Man.
"Hunter & Schmidt (1982) have....estimated the cost-effectiveness
of using tests for job selection on a national scale. They estimate,
for example, that the difference in yearly productivity between
(1) random assignment of the workforce to jobs, and
(2) assignment based on a test with an average true validity
of only .45- applied in a working population of 90 million-would
be about $169 billion." A.R.JENSEN, 1984.
"Recent studies have shown that ability tests are valid across
all jobs in predicting job proficiency.... if cognitive ability
tests are combined with psychomotor ability tests, then the average
validity is .53.... for entry-level jobs, predictors other than
ability have validity so much lower that substitution would mean
massive economic loss."
J.E.HUNTER & Ronda F. HUNTER, 1984, Psychological Bulletin
96.
"....the personality traits that contribute to being a good
researcher and to being a good teacher are independent.
The only variables loading positively on both dimensions are intelligence
and leadership...."
J.P.RUSHTON & H.J.MURRAY, 1985,
Bulletin of the British Psychological Society 38.
"The predictive validity of g generally increases
with job complexity and is highest in those occupations involving
the least automatization of performance demands, and the greatest
amount of specialized training, constant new learning, judgment,
novel problem solving and responsibility."
A.R.JENSEN, 1986, Journal of Vocational Behavior 29.
"For Keith Hope's study, As Others See Us [1985, Cambridge
University Press], a random sample of some 600 Scottish boys (and
an equal number girls....) who had been tested when they were
11 years old were followed up when they were 28..... The results
are broadly similar to those of Jencks and others for the United
States.... Sixty per cent of Scottish inter-generational social
mobility is explained by IQ"
John RAVEN, 1986, American Journal of Education.
"Data show that at most only 10 to 20 per cent of the general
population possesses the intelligence level required for minimally
acceptable performance as a physician. This contrasts with percentages
of around 40 and 80%, respectively, for general duty nurse and
licensed practical nurse. The occupation of physician is singled
out here because it has been a favourite example, among academics
seeking to debunk the importance of intelligence in social life."
Linda S. GOTTFREDSON, 1986, Journal of Vocational Behavior
29.
"On average, American workers can tell themselves that their
pay would be 20% higher (or lower) if their g rating was
one standard deviation higher (or lower)."
Daniel SELIGMAN, 1987, Fortune, 3 viii.
"The correlation between a boy's teenage IQ and his adult
occupational status is a potent .65 (McCall, 1977, Science
197; Waller, 1971, Social Biology 18). Between his
father's occupational status and his own at middle age [it is]
a relatively modes .35 or .40 (Duncan et al., 1972, Socioeconomic
Background and Achievement). The dollar value of IQ differences
has been pointed up in a sizeable number of studies. A Census
Bureau study of veterans tested in 1964, when the men were in
their early thirties, showed that a 15-point IQ differences had
translated into an 11 percent earnings difference (Jencks et
al.,1979, Who Gets Ahead?). One famous study examined
the careers of brothers who grew up together in Kalamazoo, Michigan,
and had similar educational levels....an adolescent IQ difference
of 15 points was associated with a 14 percent average difference
in earnings at ages 35-39, even when the brothers had the same
amount of education (Jencks et al., op.cit.)....
....By law, the lowest 10 percent of the population (roughly those
below IQ 80) are not allowed to enlist [in the US Armed Forces].
In the early 1990's, with the armed forces cutting back in size,
the group between the 10th and 30th percentiles was also pretty
much screened out. The result was a substantial increase in the
quality of recruits. Says a 1989 Defense Department report: "Service
members with high scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test
and with high school diplomas display behaviours that benefit
the Armed Forces....People with high AFQT scores are likely to
achieve skill proficiency earlier in their first enlistment than
those with low scores." ....in addition [higher-scorers]
do better on detailed measures of "hands-on performance."
"AFQT scores have been found to predict the success rate
of soldiers performing operator maintenance on the TOW launcher,
a wire-guided missile system....In a tank gunnery test....soldiers
{above IQ 105} hit 67 percent of their targets, while soldiers
{of IQ 80-90} hit only 53 per cent. [Compared to lower-scoring
teams, higher-scoring] teams scored 75 percent more tank equivalent
kills using the M-60."
Daniel SELIGMAN, 1992, A Question of Intelligence:
the IQ Debate in America. New York : Carol (Birch Lane).
"Anybody who devotes himself to making money, body and soul,
can scarcely fail to make himself rich. Very little brains will
do."
Samuel SMILES, 1859, Self Help.
"The widespread assumption among all parties to the debate
that IQ is an important determinant of economic success does not
rest on compelling empirical evidence. Quite the contrary."
S.BOWLES & H.GINTIS, 1976, Schooling in Capitalist America.
London : Routledge & Kegan Paul.
"....the great majority of all jobs can be learned through
practice by almost any literate person.... How hard people work,
and with what dexterity and cleverness, depends on how much other
people can require them to do and how much they can dominate other
people."
R.COLLINS, 1979, The Credential Society. New York : Academic.
"Strong performance on IQ tests is simply a reflection of
a certain kind of family environment, and once that latter variable
is held constant, IQ becomes only a weak predictor of economic
success."
S.ROSE, L.KAMIN & R.C.LEWONTIN, 1984, Not in Our Genes.
Harmondsworth : Penguin.
"....hard work in school is the great equalizer; it can substitute
for talent."
T.M.TOMLINSON & H.J.WALBERG, 1986, in their own edited volume,
Academic Work and Educational Excellence. Berkeley : McCutchen.
"I seriously doubt that Jensen's IQ, or that of any other
great scientist, does justice to the scientific contributions
made."
R.J.STERNBERG, 1987, in S. & Celia Modgil, Arthur Jensen:
Consensus and Controversy. Brighton : Falmer.
"'Smart' appliances incorporating microprocessors, robots,
computerized banking, automatic check-out lines, automatic inventory
control and many other similar technological advances are progressively
making it possible for many tasks to be carried out by people
of lower IQ than was heretofore needed."
W.R.HAVENDER, 1987, in S. & Celia Modgil, Arthur Jensen:
Consensus and Controversy. Brighton : Falmer.
"There is a general agreement among anthropologists and sociologists
of education that social status is so highly correlated with IQ
that it casts suspicion on IQ scores as reflecting intelligence
rather than socioeconomic status."
Frederick ERICKSON (Professor of Education, University of Pennsylvania),
1988, interviewed by D.Goleman, New York Times (Education
Life, Section 12), 10 iv.
"It is undoubtedly true that there are aspects of intelligence
in the....everyday sense of the word that are not reflected in
academic achievements. However, intelligence tests measure only
a narrow range of skills. They do not provide any additional predictive
information about a graduate's potential job performance, beyond
what is already available from existing academic performance measures."
M.J.A.HOWE, 1988, The Psychologist 1, i.
"....[Western intelligence tests] may be of use in industrializing
societies, but this does not mean that they measure any general
capacity of individuals. In fact, there is little evidence
that IQ scores bear much relationship to occupational success
or creative achievement in our own society."
Philip K. BROCK, 1988, Rethinking Psychological Anthropology.
New York : W.H.Freeman.
"As part of their study of practical intelligence, Sternberg
and his collaborators have developed measures of "tacit knowledge"
in various domains, especially business management. In these measures,
individuals are given written scenarios of various work-related
situations and then asked to rank a number of options for dealing
with the situation presented. The results show that tacit knowledge
predicts criteria such as job performance fairly well, even though
it is relatively independent of intelligence test scores and other
common selection measures. This work has its critics (Jensen and
Schmidt & Hunter, 1993, Current Directions in Psychol.
Science 2).
Extract from Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns - Report of
a Task Force established by the Board of the Scientific Affairs
of the American Psychological Association, 1995. Washington,
DC : APA Science Directorate.
"....most of the variance in 'rate of performance with
practice' is quite narrowly task-specific and does not
reflect a general learning ability independent of psychometric
g."
A.R.JENSEN, 1986, 'g: artefact or reality?' Journal
of Vocational Behavior 29.
"A total of 676 executives were counselled [and given psychological
tests, from 1988 to 1991]. [They were] about 42 years old and
had been with their last organisation for just over eleven years....
Job tenure {viz. staying in the same job for a long
time....} was enhanced by being:
less intellectual (i.e. less intelligent (Factor B, 16PF)),
less conceptual (T7, O.P.Q.) and less innovative (T8),
more emotional, less extroverted and less entrepreneurial....
[However,] executives who achieved higher salaries tended
to be:
more intelligent,
more willing to assume responsibility,
more people-oriented,
more entrepreneurial,
more experienced and
more able to promote themselves effectively."
Lea BRINDLE, 1992, 'Winners and losers in the career stakes'.
Human Resources, Spring.
"Arvey's (1986, J.Voc.B.29) job analysis is particularly
informative in showing that job complexity is quintessentially
a demand for g. His factor analysis of 65 job attributes
for 140 jobs in the petrochemical industry showed that the major
distinction among them was the degree of mental complexity they
posed for workers. The first factor, accounting for 45% of the
variance, was "Judgment and Reasoning."
Linda S. GOTTFREDSON, 1995, 'Why g matters: the complexity
of everyday life.'
"....[the US Employment Service's General Aptitude Test Battery
(GATB) turns out to be a strong predictor of subsequent performance.
Studies on the predictive value of the GATB for jobs have been
extensively reviewed for the Labor Department by industrial psychologists
John Hunter and Frank Schmidt....[they] estimate the validity
of standardized tests as predictors of job performance in intellectually
demanding jobs at about .53....When John Hartigan and Alexandra
Wigdor made their own assessment of the GATB for the National
Research Council, they significantly lowered Hunter and Schmidt's
high estimates. Yet they too found a significant correlation of
about .30 between test scores and job performance. Their conclusion
was that the GATB was a modest but reliable predictor of job performance,
and that it predicted better for some jobs than others."
Dinesh D'SOUZA, 1995, The End of Racism. New York : Free
Press.
(v) Intelligence and society.
{See also Quotes XXVII and XXVIII.}
"Heredity redistributes the genes which make for superior
achievement, high intelligence and great ability, and makes sure
that within a few generations none of the existing boundaries
between classes shall remain. If anything, it is social structure
which makes social divisions permanent."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1973, The Inequality of Man.
London : Temple Smith.
"Division of labour is a hallmark of an advanced society,
and this division largely takes place along intelligence lines."
H.J.EYSENCK, 1981, in H.J.Eysenck & L.J.Kamin,
The Battle for the Mind. London : Pan.
"....the radical left dismiss racial differences in intelligence
test scores, but then use the same test scores as evidence
that lead in the air is leadening the brains underneath the hair
of our young. The extreme right-wing claim that naturally-occurring
or inherited differences in intelligence test scores demonstrate
the innate superiority of their offspring, who are therefore
entitled to a massive input of environmental resources."
D.SHELLEY, 1984, Psychology News 39.
"Intelligence affects crime in that the individual of low
intelligence is less aware of long-run consequences, less willing
to defer present gratification, and less able to restrict impulsivity."
Linda S. GOTTFREDSON, 1986, Journal of Vocational Behavior
29.
"....in this society, women with IQs of 75 or below rearing
children is hardly less than a personal tragedy for their offspring,
who generally re-enact the pathetic life history of their parents."
A.R.JENSEN, 1989, 'A review of the Milwaukee
Project'. Developmental Review 9.
"IQ theory has seriously affected the lives of countless
millions of people in the twentieth century, and it is no joke
that, largely because of IQ theory a substantial proportion of
people, perhaps a majority, have left, and are still leaving,
school throughout the world, convinced they are incapable of learning
anything very serious."
K.RICHARDSON, 1986, Behavioral & Brain Sciences 9.
"....one's initial surprise at finding that intelligent people
tend to be socialists diminishes when one realises that, of course,
intelligent people will tend to overvalue intelligence, and to
suppose that we must owe all the advantages and opportunities
of our civilisation to deliberate design rather than to following
traditional rules."
F.A.HAYEK, 1988, The Fatal Conceit: the Errors of Socialism.
London : Routledge.
"[Some attach] a certain inherent value to a person depending
on that person's intellectual abilities. Personally, I value most
the standpoint that, although individuals differ in abilities,
this cannot be translated in terms of "inferiority"
or "superiority"."
W.E.CRUSIO (University of Heidelberg), 1990,
Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive 10.
"Before going on trial at Nuremberg, [13 Nazi leaders]
were subjected to a broad range of tests. Hermann Goering tested
at [IQ] 138; Franz von Papen at 134; and Albert Speer at 128.
The lowest of the Nuremberg defendants was Julius Streicher, the
gauleiter of Franconia, and even he was somewhat above
average with an IQ of 106. As the figures forcefully remind us,
it is a mistake to confuse IQ with human worth."
Daniel SELIGMAN, 1992, A Question of Intelligence:
the IQ Debate in America. New York : Carol (Birch Lane).
"The fact that IQ is correlated with [education, employment,
law-abidingness and achieved social status] is old stuff. But
the links are very weak [-on average explaining less than10 per
cent of the variance in behavior among a group of people]. Would
you want to make your entire national policy around something
that has less than a 10 per cent effect?.... IQ tests cannot be
said to measure most of what we need to know about intelligence.
Success of virtually any kind depends on much more. Our studies
suggest that not having common sense can hamper your career. As
an employer, I'd take common sense over a few IQ points.... In
any field such as art, technology, teaching and science, creativity
is at least as important as IQ."
R.J.Sternberg, 1994, discussing R.J.Herrnstein & C.Murray's
The Bell Curve with W.F.Allman, US News & World
Report, 24 x.
"Observing a correlation between a noisy measure of parenting
skills, say, and some score on an ability test is a far cry from
discovering an immutable law of nature. ....The claim implicitly
advanced in [The Bell Curve] to have achieved a scientific
understanding of the moral performance of the citizenry
adequate to provide a foundation for social policy is breathtakingly
dangerous. ....Try telling the newly energized Christian Right
that access to morality is contingent on mental ability. Their
response is likely to be, "God is not finished with us when
he deals us our genetic hand.""
Glenn C. LOURY, 1994, National Review 46, 23, 5 xii.
"Poverty, in the US National Longitudinal Survey
of Youth [tracking 12,000 young people since 1979, when they were
14 to 22 years old], is eight times more common among whites from
poor backgrounds than among those who grew up in privilege -
yet it's fifteen times more common at the low end of the
IQ spectrum. Illegitimacy is twice as common among the poorest
whites as among the most prosperous, but it's eight times
as common among the dullest (IQ under 75) as it is among the brightest
(IQ over 125). And males in the bottom half of the IQ distribution
are nearly ten times as likely as those in the top half
to find themselves in jail."
Geoffrey COWLEY, 1994, 'Testing the science of intelligence',
Newsweek, 24 x.
"The most extensive clinical studies of neglectful mothers
have been conducted by Norman Polansky, whose many years of research
began with a sample drawn from rural Appalachia, subsequently
replicated with an urban Philadelphia sample. He described the
typical neglectful mother as follows:
She is of limited intelligence (IQ below 70), has failed to achieve
more than an eighth-grade education, and has never held....employment....
She has at best a vague, or extremely limited idea of what her
children need emotionally and physically. She seldom is able see
things from the point of view of others and cannot take their
needs into consideration when responding to a conflict they experience.
....The most extensive evidence describes the impulsiveness, inconsistency
and confusion that mark the parenting style of many abusive parents
[e.g. Smith et al., 1974, Brit.J.Psychiat. 125].
....The inconsistency can reach mystifying proportions: one study
of parent-child interactions found that children in abusing families
had about the same chance of obtaining positive reinforcement
for aggressive behaviors as for pro-social behaviors (Berger,
1980, Amer.J.Family Ther. 8). ....The reluctance of scholars
and policymakers alike to look at the role of low intelligence
in malparenting may properly be called scandalous."
R.J.HERRNSTEIN & C.MURRAY, 1994, The Bell Curve.
New York : Free Press.
"One evolutionary psychologist, Geoffrey Miller (1996, in
C.Crawford, Evolution and Human Behaviour, L.Erlbaum),
goes so far as to suggest that intelligence evolved as a courtship
device."
Marek KOHN, 1995, The Race Gallery: the Return of Racial Science.
London : Jonathan Cape.
"Today, as China is now known to have been embarked for the
past six years on a vast programme of eugenics (in the Peking
area), it is high time for the West to come to terms with IQ and
with what is to be done about it. The last Western country to
treat the g factor with as much contempt as do Britain
and the USA today was Nazi Germany. With awe-inspiring indifference
as to how to sustain Germany's national culture or win a world
war, the Nazis ensured the last great migration of intelligence
in the West-giving the USA 'the Bomb' in the process (e.g. Hobsbawm,
1994). (The Nazis thus reversed that original massive influx of
entrepreneurial talent from which Prussia had so benefitted after
the Massacre of St Bartholomew's Day in Paris.) Today, an equally
serious question confronts the West: Can the triumph of Western
liberal democracy be long sustained without taking intelligence
seriously? Although the London School view of IQ has survived
the Burt Affair, the importance of IQ and intelligence has still
to be properly recognized."
C.R.BRAND, 1997, 'The importance of intelligence in Western societies.'
Journal of Biosocial Science (Special Issue, eds N.Mascie-Taylor
& C.Brand).
What the people say.... and their masters
"When presented with ability, education
and social background as factors for [upward social] mobility
[in a poll reported by M.Harrop, 1980, Sociology 14] the
[British] public overwhelmingly chose ability as the most important
(79% of middle-class respondents and 62% of working-class); education
was a poor second, at 15% and 25% respectively. Even among those
who chose education as the most important, almost 70% saw the
quality of education being dependent upon individual ability rather
than social background. Hence the public have a very individualistic,
or meritocratic view of mobility - in some contrast to that of
most social scientists."
Ivan REID, 1989, Social Class Differences in Britain.
Glasgow/London : Collins/Fontana.
"[In our survey] only about 10% of American adults or of
Irish adults thought that the kind of intelligence measured by
intelligence tests matters more than anything else in life.
The proportions who believed it matters a great deal were
50% of American adults and 40% of Irish adults; while nearly twice
as high a proportion-over 20%-of Irish as of American adults thought
it matters very little."
Patricia J. FONTES et al., 1983, Irish Journal of Education
17.
"A belief in individual differences in mental ability is....about
as acceptable to most liberal opinion as a commitment to apartheid."
Mark COOK, 1984, Levels of Personality.
Eastbourne, Sussex : Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
"Miss Pauline Hyde, an out-placement consultant, told [a
session of a conference of the Institute of Personnel Management]
that many companies were probably making the wrong people redundant.
She said that the personality profiles of more than 200 redundant
executives indicated that they were significantly more intelligent,
conscientious and imaginative than all other groups of society,
but scored low in political and inter-personal skills."
Report by J.Spicer, 1987, The Times, 24 x.
"....the last twelve years have seen a peculiar inversion
in conventional notions about brains as they relate to the White
House. First came President Jimmy Carter to give intelligence
a bad name. Then came President Reagan to elevate thick-headedness
into some kind of mystical power."
Michael KINGSLEY, 1988, 'Brainily handicapped'. The Times,
30 vii.
{The 1992 Presidential Election victor had studied for a while
at University College, Oxford.}
"The late Leonid Brezhnev suffered clinical death in January,
1976, but was revived and ruled the Soviet Union in a virtual
daze for six more years, a Soviet historian [Mr Roy Medvedyev]
revealed yesterday [in Moscow News]. [Medvedyev writes:
] "he gradually found it more and more difficult to carry
out the most simple protocol functions and could no longer understand
what was going on around him".... The period of his rule
is now officially condemned as one of social and economic stagnation."
The Times (Reuter), 8 ix 1988.
"Particularly high importance is attributed [by business
studies graduates, five years after graduation] to self-organisation,
oral communication, the ability to learn quickly and to prioritise
issues.... Jobs in manufacturing industry seem to place particular
emphasis on....creativity, putting ideas into practice, evaluating
alternatives and critical thinking.... Particularly high demands
in terms of numeracy, teamwork and co-operation are made by jobs
in the commercial sector.... For those employed in the public
sector, high importance is attached to communication."
D.SMITH, T.WOLSTENCROFT & Jayne SOUTHERN, 1989,
Journal of European Industrial Training 13.
"Surveys consistently place intelligence, sense of humour,
creativity and interesting personality above even such things
as wealth and beauty in lists of desirable characteristics in
both sexes (Buss, 1989, Behav.&Brain Sci.12; G.F.Miller,
1992). ....Miller suggests that men and women dare not step off
the treadmill of selecting the wittiest, most creative and articulate
person available with whom to mate (note that conventional 'intelligence'
as measured by examinations is not what he is talking about)."
{Behav. & Brain Sci. article, c. 1994?}
"In a study conducted in San Jose (California), Okagaki and
Sternberg (1993, Child Development) asked immigrant parents
from Cambodia, Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as
native-born Anglo-Americans and Mexican-Americans, about their
conceptions of child-rearing, appropriate teaching and children's
intelligence. Parents from all groups except Anglo-Americans indicated
that such characteristics as motivation, social skills and practical
school skills were as or more important than cognitive characteristics
for their conceptions of an intelligent first-grade child."
Extract from Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns-Report of a
Task Force established by the Board of the Scientific Affairs
of the American Psychological Association, 1995. Washington,
DC : APA Science Directorate.
"[Women have perhaps been pushed] too far towards idealising
intelligence over attributes such as endeavour, energy and good
old-fashioned zest for life. We're in danger of over-prizing IQ,
especially as women and mothers."
Madeleine KINGSLEY, 1995, 'Forget your IQ.' She, iii.
Epilogue
"In years to come, any defender of IQ will be smugly
able to use the work of psychologists in the lead controversy
{about whether lead in petrol lowered children's IQ's} to prove
that objections to IQ tests are really ideological. When it suited
the Left to use IQ they did it-as much as the eugenicists once
did."
D.COHEN, 1983, Psychology News.
"Thanks to lazy industrialists and timid educational experts,
we [in Britain] know more about the state of the nation's teeth
than about the state of its intelligence."
C.R.BRAND, 1986, Times Higher Educational Supplement.
"To summarize the arguments that are brought forward and
that do not add up:
1. Intelligence tests are supposed to measure intelligence, and
intelligence is undefined.
2. The definitions of the quality intelligence are contradictory.
3. Intelligence tests only measure the subject's ability to do
intelligence tests.
4. Intelligence tests measure nothing at all. (The quality they
are
supposed to measure, intelligence, does not exist.)
5. The quality intelligence tests are supposed to measure,
intelligence, is not important.
6. Creativity is more important than intelligence.
7. Lateral thinking is more important than intelligence.
8. Other things are important as well as intelligence.
9. Intelligence tests are used to perpetuate race and class
privilege.
10. The statistical background of intelligence tests is faulty
and they are discredited.
11. Intelligence tests are unreliable....
12. Intelligence tests are unfair to underprivileged groups.
13. Intelligence tests have no predictive value at all.
14. Intelligence tests are self-fulfilling predictions.
15. Intelligence tests measure only the effect of social background.
16. Intelligence tests are of no value and can be disregarded.
17. Intelligence tests are used to label children.
18. Intelligence tests are used to prepare children for an unjust
society.
When we see these arguments lined up, we begin to see a degree
of overkill....
....I think that human intelligence is the most important thing
we know of in the universe.... That is my chief value, my prejudice.
What is yours?"
V.SEREBRIAKOFF, 1988, A Guide to Intelligence and Personality
Testing. Carnforth, Lancashire : Parthenon.
"[Freud] recognized the power of human intelligence and the
life force. Unfortunately, we know that intelligence is fought
over, like a beautiful woman, by both drives [eros and
thanatos], the one toward life and the other toward death."
Lowell RUBIN, 1991, in Joan Offerman-Zuckerberg,
Politics and Psychology. New York : Plenum.
"In Howard & Bray's (1988) longitudinal study of AT&T
managers, IQ and ambition contributed about equally to career
progress."
E.LOCKE, 1995, Personnel Psychology 48.
"Intelligence is the key to seeing into another person's
predicament....I would like God to be supremely intelligent."
Edna O'BRIEN, 1993, BBC IV UK
FINIS
(Compiled by Chris Brand, Department of Psychology,
University of Edinburgh.)
For more coverage of the importance and practical relevance (especially
in education) of individual differences in intelligence, see:
BRAND, C.R. (1996) The g Factor.
Chichester : Wiley DePublisher.
"The nature and measurement of intelligence is a political
hot potato. But Brand in this extremely readable, wide-ranging
and up-to-date
book is not afraid to slaughter the shibboleths of modern "educationalists".
This short book provides a great deal for thought
and debate."
Professor Adrian Furnham, University College London.
The book was first issued, in February, but then withdrawn, in
April, by the 'publisher' because it was deemed to have infringed
modern canons of
'political correctness.'
It received a perfectly favourable review in Nature (May
2, 1996, p. 33).
For a Summary of the book, Newsletters concerning the
de-publication affair, details of how to see the book for scholarly
purposes, and others' comments and reviews,
see the Internet URL sites:
http://laboratory.psy.ed.ac.uk/DOCS/crb/internet.html
http://www.webcom.com/zurcher/thegfactor/index.html
For Chris Brand's 'Get Real About Race!'-his popular exposition
of his views on race and education in the Black
hip-hop music magazine 'downlow' (Autumn, 1996)-see:
http://www.bhs.mq.edu.au/~tbates/intelligence/Brand_downlow.html
A reminder of what is available in other Sections of
'P, B & S.'
Summary Index for PERSONALITY, BIOLOGY
& SOCIETY
(This resource manual of quotations about individual and group
differences, compiled by
Mr C. R. Brand, is kept on the Internet and in Edinburgh
University Psychology Department Library.)
Pages of Introduction
3 - 11 Full Index, indicating key questions in
each Section.
12 - 14 Preface. - Why quotations? - Explanations and apologies.
15 - 51 Introduction: Questions, Arguments and Agreements
in the study of Personality.
-Some history, and a discussion of 'realism vs 'idealism.'
52 - 57 Introductory Quotes about the study of personality.
Sections
General problems
1 'Situational' vs 'personological' approaches to
human variation.
2 'Nomothetic' vs 'idiographic', 'subjective' and relativistic
approaches.
3 Personality dimensions - by factor analysis and otherwise.
4 'Superstructure' and 'infrastructure' - the 'mind/body problem'.
5 Nature vs Nurture? - Or Nature via Nurture?
6 The role of consciousness in personality and 'multiple personality'.
7 The 'folk psychology' of personality components.
Intelligence
8 The measurement of intelligence. - Does g exist?
9 The bases of intelligence. - What is the psychology
of g?
10 The developmental origins of g differences. - The nature
and nurture of g.
11 The importance of intelligence. - The psychotelics
of g.
12 Piagetianism: Kant's last stand?
13 Cognitivism: 'The Emperor's New Mind?'
Propensities
14 Neurosis, emotion and Neuroticism.
15 Psychosis, psychopathy and Psychoticism.
16 Crime and criminality.
17 Genius and creativity.
Popular proposals - psychoanalytic, phrenological and prophylactic
18 Psychoanalysis: 'Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire'?
19 Hemispherology: a twentieth-century phrenology?
20 Psycho-social Engineering: therapy, training or transformation?
Group differences
21 Age and ageing - especially, the role of g in 'life-span
development'.
22 Psychological sex differences. - Do they exist? Must they
exist?
23 Social class. - Does it matter any longer?
24 Racial and ethnic differences. - Their role in 'lifestyles'
and cultural attainments.
Ideological issues
25 The psychology of politics and ideological extremism.
26 The politics of psychologists and allied co-workers.
27 Equality and Community: the 'utopian' package of political
aims.
28 Freedom and Responsibility: the 'legitimist' package of political
aims.
Pragmatic questions
29 Carry on differentializing?
30 Carry on psycho-testing?
Appendix: Factor Analysis. - 'Garbage in, garbage
out'?
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