Stephen Black wrote: > Now that Allen has clarified his interest, let me have a crack at > answering it. I would say that the claim that conventional IQ tests > are biased by being culture-bound is essentially correct. But that > doesn't necessarily make them invalid. IQ tests were developed for a > specific purpose: to predict specific kinds of performance in a > particular kind of environment, notably school achievement and, > perhaps, later success in life as measured by socio-economic status, > occupation, and other such indicators, in an urban, industrialized, > Western and even white society. For a relatively brief test > administered at an early age, it does remarkably well at such > predictions. But it doesn't claim to predict other kinds of > performance in other kinds of environment. It may be unfair to a kid > from the ghetto compared with a middle-class one to ask whether he > knows what a "sonata" is or to explain why cheques must be signed. > But it turns out that for functioning successfully in an urban, > industrialized, Western society, kids who know such stuff do better > than those who don't. Make the test culture-fair and it loses its > predictive power. > > So IQ tests are undoubtedly biased but are still valuable for their > narrowly-defined purpose. But use them to predict something else-- > say, survival in the high arctic or on the streets of inner-city > Detroit-- and knowing about sonatas and cheques is unlikely to have > much predictive power.
While I accept that it is difficult, if not impossible, to produce IQ tests free of culture bias, I think Stephen undersells their validity. Studies of identical twins reared apart from an early age, twins reared together, large-scale studies of adopted children, and of siblings reared together, indicate that the concept of �intelligence� as measured by standardised IQ tests has a basis that largely (though not wholly) transcends alleged class bias and the notion that they are more a measure of learned knowledge than of intelligence. N.B. Bouchard et al deal with a couple of common objections to twin studies in: Thomas J. Bouchard Jr.; David T. Lykken; Matthew McGue; Nancy L. Segal; Auke Tellegen (1990), �Sources of human psychological differences: the Minnesota study of twins reared apart�, Science, Oct 12, 1990. http://www.duke.org/library/intelligence/bouchard.html For more detailed studies-based discussion of this issue, see the sections on the influence of rearing environments and of social class on IQ in: Rowe, David C. (1994), *The Limits of Family Influence: Genes, Experience and Behavior*, pp.105-114, 145-161. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.human-nature.com/esterson/index.html www.butterfliesandwheels.com/articleprint.php?num=10 --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
