Keith, I can explain Bush easily -- his Dad and cronies got him there! (From all accounts, Bush would certainly score well on a Sociability Quotient. But the obvious fact that this President is probably no more than about average in IQ, and possibly somewhat less, seriously dents my credibility in the present type of electoral system.)
Arthur, My view is that one doesn't have to have a high IQ to govern well. There may even be an inverse relationship. Have you talked, or tried to talk, to some Mensa types lately??? -----Original Message----- From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, July 21, 2002 3:06 PM To: Ed Weick Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: High-IQ bouncers (was Re: Eugenics II) Ed, At 10:12 21/07/02 -0400, you wrote: (EW) <<<< As I'm sure you recognize, Keith, this raises enormous ethical questions. But leaving that aside for the moment, what might be the end result? A world divided into "smarts" and "stupids"? A trivialization of intelligence? Would it really make the world a better place? >>>> I don't know what the results would be. I'm certainly not advocating selection for intelligence. All I'm saying is that if it's going to be possible for potential parents to select their embryos for intelligence, then they'll probably do so, almost whatever the authorities may say or try to do. By coincidence, as soon as I'd downloaded your e-mail it was (afternoon) dogwalk time and I read an article in today's Sunday Times which shows that something very close to eugenics is already taking place in IVF clinics in both America and England (and surely in Canada, too). But I haven't time to scan this in what remains of today so I'll leave this until tomorrow. (It's a very interesting/worrying article -- the result of a Sunday Times investigation -- and contains a hint of the beginnings of selecting for intelligence in an indirect way.) (EW) <<<< And, as I'm sure you know, intelligence is rather elusive stuff. People with relatively ordinary IQ's (George Bush?) have done quite well, whereas many people who have scored highly have not gone anywhere. A program on public television (I believe) some time ago revealed that the kid who scored the highest IQ ever recorded in the US school system is now a middle aged bouncer. Another kid who scored nearly as high is a middle aged biker. Very often, people will not choose to be what proponents of IQ think they should be. One of the kids I went to school with did extremely well on IQ tests. Great things were expected of him. He chose to become a commercial fisherman, perhaps accomplishing no more than depleting salmon stocks more rapidly than other fishermen. >>>> I can explain Bush easily -- his Dad and cronies got him there! (From all accounts, Bush would certainly score well on a Sociability Quotient. But the obvious fact that this President is probably no more than about average in IQ, and possibly somewhat less, seriously dents my credibility in the present type of electoral system.) Yes, examples of the sort of under-achievement by the high IQers you mention are well known. But generally, high IQers do well. The classic research is that of Lewis Terman's longitudinal study of "gifted" children which started in 1921 (1528 California children with Stanford-Binet IQ results of more than 140 -- averaging 152) and followed through right up to the late 50s (Terman & Oden, "The Gifted group at Mid-life", Stanford UP, 1959). As well as IQ, the achievements of the group was well above the average in every conceivable positive respect (inter alia, numerous listings in "American Men of Science" and "Who's Who"). However, one curious result (which accords with the point you've made) is that looking at the top and bottom 20% of the gifted group alone in terms of achievements or professional or public recognition then the range of IQs from top to bottom was only 6 points! Hence your bouncers and fishermen! Not many of them maybe, but certainly still very bright. (EW) <<<< There are also issues of drift and shift. Who is to say that a kid with a high IQ will breed with another with a high IQ? Maybe she will fall in love with one of the stupids, and his genes will dominate the next few rounds. I absolutely loath the thought of the state determining who can breed with whom. That would be taking Hitler's world to the extreme. >>> In the Terman study, the children with IQs of 140 went on to marry women with an average IQ of 125 (and they had children with average IQs of 133). I think this is technically called "assortative" mating and is generally the case for everybody -- like tends to marry like. (I seem to remember from some studies I read yonks ago that the difference in IQ between a man and his wife is generally less than the difference between the man and wife's respective siblings. As to the state being involved, that went out a long time ago. (That raises an interesting point. A study must have been made of the German pre-war breeding experiments, but I haven't come across one. Perhaps it was not on a large enough scale to warrant meaningful follow-up. I don't know. Perhaps a FWer knows.) As I cheerfully maintain many times on this list, the customer is king these days and if there is to be a eugenic future then it will be due to voluntary decisions by parents in deciding to select embryos for this quality or that, not because of state directives. Keith ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------ Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ________________________________________________________________________
