Tom, At 08:27 03/11/02 -0600, you wrote: (KH) >> The Bell curve isn't 'used' in intelligence testing -- it's a consequence >>of it. (TL) >Keith, I think not. > >Can't remember the source, but I believe it's the other way around. The test makers established the mean at 100 and the SD at 15 (at least on the Wechsler) and then normalized the test to fit a bell curve with those characteristics. That's how tests are constructed. You assume a bell curve and then work backwards to the actual elements of the test. Elements of the test that disrupt the curve (questions or tasks that are negatively correlated to the overall score, in other words) are customarily excluded as inappropriate or "inaccurate."
Please see my reply to Stephen Straker on this. Yes, there's a certain amount of arbitrariness in the selection and weightings of the components within an IQ test in order to arrive at a symmetrical bell curve but, nevertheless, the final result has a linear correlation with mental ability which, for most intents and purposes is a good guide as to general ability in life. And it's not only practicable but it's heritable -- and so it has some relationship with genetic hard wiring in the brain. (TL) >Bruno Bettelheim had a favorite saying: "The end is in the beginning." If you start out with what the testers (or their paymasters) think is important, then you will arrive at a measure of those very characteristics. Because these factors are culturally determined, they are usually unexamined. The original paymasters of IQ tests wanted an efficient method of selecting infividuals who were going to be trainable at certain tasks. In so far as the tests seemed to work then that was all that was necessary at the time. They weren't considered to have anything fundamental about them.(There's not a great deal that's fundamental about IQ now -- but at least it's a measurable, repeatable figure which has heritabiliy and can thus be used scientifically. (TL) >A Buddhist, for instance, would quickly tell you that since "mind" is an illusion, you are attempting to measure an illusion. > >Thus to say, as you did, that Gardner's hypothesis is "fiction", whereas "intelligence" is something more substantial, more valuable, merely because it is more easily testable, may simply reflect nothing more than a preference for easy to measure factors. Because g can be measured more easily than Gardner's multiple intelligences does not make it any more worthwhile as a measure of significant personal characteristics. It is simply easier to test. Nobody wishes any illwill against Gardner's hypothesis, least of all me, if it serves a purpose. By "fiction" I did not mean that any of Gardner's Multiple Intelligence didn't exist (as abstractions), but that they were products of a creative mind (Gardner's) rather than having any direct relationship with anything. I should not have used that particular word, I suppose. The trouble is that Gardner's Intelligences are rather a cocktail of quite different parts of the brain -- cerebral (cortical), emotional (limbic), body-control (cerebellic) which were laid down and developed as independent units many hundreds of millions of years apart. IQ, on the other hand, is almost entirely devoted to problems involving the inter-relationships between the three main processing areas of the cortex -- the most recently evolved part of the brain. The above doesn't rule out Gardner's Multiple Intelligences for those who might find the hypothesis useful but it's far from being anything that can be a reliable basis for anything else outside the parameters of the particular intelligence being considered. Whereas the "g" of a well-designed IQ test has considerable generality among many different skills. (TL) >Again, let me suggest (only partly in jest) that using a single number to represent something as complex as mental capacity is akin to distilling a symphony to an average note of an average duration played on an average instrument at the average dynamic, thus allowing the audience and musician to go home early and sparing them the mental and musical effort of engaging the actual work. Yes, I agree, and IQ was (and is) never meant to be more than a useful (albeit reasonably accurate) guide for general ability. In real life, a great deal more needs to be added. (TL) >From an evolutionary standpoint, there are considerable problems with g. It seems to measure the ability of an individual to rise in wealth and power within the social structure of our late western civilization, but whether it enables the *species* to perpetuate itself on a long-term basis within the biosphere is highly questionable, in my mind. Yes, the latter *is* more questionable -- but have you any better concept or strategy to guide us when considering who should be paid attention to? Has anybody else got a better idea? (TL) >One of my previous posts queried whether rapacity and "g" might be correlated. That query was only partly in jest. Historians may very well look back to our g-rewarding society and attribute much of the war and misery of our time to a high concentration of "intelligent" people in in powerful positions. Well, I don't want to "escape" from anything I've said before but, with a great deal more words at my disposal, I would have gone on to say that when I talk of a meritocratic 20-30% being desirable for the smooth running of modern society (and perhaps 30+% in the future) I would have said that they don't necessarily occupy every top position. Most high IQ people (in my experience) don't necessarily want the sort of emotional power that despots and politicians seem to need -- but they're certainly necessary very close to the top. I would suggest that most of the war and misery throughout history has been caused by individuals with deep emotional needs rather than being anything outstanding intellectually. I would suggest, for example, that Hitler and Stalin were probably a little more intelligent than the mean (maybe IQ 110 or so) but nothing that could be called highly intelligent -- both would have been made mincemeat by FWers in any intellectual discussion. (But, of course, that was not what they were good at!) 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:khudson@;handlo.com ________________________________________________________________________
