Ray Miller writes:
''RF's "conspiracy theory" of IQ testing is provocative, but falls to
Occam's Razor. Why invoke such an elaborate explanation when a
much
simpler one will do. People have tried for years to develop and
refine
tests that will identify people who are good at things. They have
been
driven by the market to do so, specifically by employers in the
market
for labor who want to hire the most capable people to fill their
jobs.''
I don't think you've read much of the history of IQ tests. They
were developed by academics often under government contract.
Both sides of this transaction don't follow simple market
principles (though more academics are for sale every year).
Also, there was/is a certain crusading attitude amongst the
IQ proponents that goes beyond mere response to incentives.
(Cyril Burt faked "twin studies" to "prove" that the English
lower classes were intellectually inferior. Herrnstein ignored
simple and legitimate arguments from other academics shedding
doubt on the validity of his research. Etc.)
Also, think about this issue from the point of a personnel
manager: how useful is an IQ test to your job? Not very.
You hire people for specific jobs and you want to
test their ability to do those jobs. You want to know if
they work well with other people and how well they present
themselves. Personal interviews and job-specific tests
are much more useful. (I read somewhere that pers. managers
dropped IQ tests before they were criticized for their
cultural and racial biases and general worthlessness. Too
bad I can't remember the reference.) Stephen J. Gould
argues that IQ tests are only useful for finding the extremes
(the developmentally disabled (aka retarded) or the total
geniuses). How is that useful to personnel managers?
BTW,driving to work I heard on NPR that Murray and
Herrnstein's book puts much more focus on the _class_
issue than on the _race_ issue and (to paraphrase the
reporter) "Americans have an even harder time discussing
class than race" so that the former issue has been ignored.
According to the reporter (since I waste too much time on
e-mail to actually read M & H's book and I don't want
to give Murray any royalties), the book blames the
widening gaps in the income distribution partly or wholly on
the alleged overbreeding by the underclass (white _and_ black).
Now, there's a return to the intellectual themes of the 1920s!
Maybe the KKK will make a comeback, too. Or has it already?
BTW, I've been pleased by the fact that establishment
figures such as the editorial writers for the L.A. TIMES
and BUSINESS WEEK have pooh-poohed M & H's book. Unfortunately,
there's a lot of grass-roots support for their type of ideas as
seen in California's soon-to-be enacted version of Nuremburg
by popular referendum.
in pen-l solidarity,
Jim Devine
[EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA
310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
