On Sat, 19 Apr 2014 05:25:26 -0700, Miguel Roig wrote:
Those of you who contributed and/or followed the recent
thread on IQ and g may be interested in reading the following
article in Slate:
Yes, IQ Really Matters: Critics of the SAT and other standardized
testing are disregarding the data.
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2014/04/what_do_sat_and_iq_tests_measure_general_intelligence_predicts_school_and.html
First, I'd like to thank Miguel Roig for bringing this to our attention.
At the very least, it provides Tipsters some sense of what psychologists
who appear to be involved in these issues are saying to the general
public.
Second, it should be noted that the authors of the Slate article are:
David Z. Hambrick is a professor at Michigan State University and
an associate editor of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
Christopher Chabris is a psychology professor at Union College and
co-author of The Invisible Gorilla: How Our Intuitions Deceive Us.
I don't know whether these people are expert in either intelligence
research or research on academic achievement during college/lifetime
or psychometricians or even scholars about the topics they are
writing about (though this has not stopped other psychologists from
writing articles and books about topics they have limited knowledge
of). I point this out because it is unclear to me how fair or
comprehensive
their presentation (I admit, I'm not expert in these areas either but I
do
know that article writers have to be selective in what they present and
what they do not present, especially in describing opponents and the
support for their points).
If we're just BS'ing (y'know, like undergrads on topics that they have
limited knowledge about but strong opinions about what they think
is right and wrong -- it really is amazing how often they think that
they
have made a hitherto unknown criticism or insight until they look at the
literature and find that not only has the point been made but has
already
been dismissed because of new data or knowledge), then having
a deep level of knowledge about these things is not important.
Seriously, if one does not know the articles/research being cited
in the article but still want to attack it, one cannot take the ignorant
attack seriously (unless one is involved in cheerleading and mainly
just saying "Hurray for our side!").
As I read through the article my first reaction was that I wanted to
read the cited research but not because I thought it might have been
misrepresented but because I was unfamiliar with it and would want
to know it better before I accepted or rejected the assertions made
by Hambrick & Chabris.
But maybe some might think doing so is too much work to do,
especially for a presentation in a non-academic forum.
(3) It is interesting that there are 741 comments and 225 people
listening. Some of the comments represent knowledge of the literature
and an understanding of the issues, some represent ignorance and
bluster, and some fall in-between. It probably is worthwhile to go
through the comments to see how many are well-informed, how many
are just reflexive reactions associated with a particular ideology,
and how many just don't make any sense whatsoever (when everyone
is allowed to speak, not everyone will have something worth saying;
my favorite example of this comes from the movie "Tropic Thunder"
where our intrepid "heroes" are trying to figure out how to break into
a drug processing plant in the jungle to rescue the character played
by Jerry Stiller -- Jack Black's suggestion starts out with "This might
sound crazy but I have a plan" to which one response is "Well at
this point crazy is better than nothing" but it really does turn out to
out of touch with reality crazy and is never spoken of again in the
movie).
(4) Previously on Tips I have provided some analyses about the
richest people in the world as identified by "Forbes" magazine and
have pointed out that if one correlates their wealth (in billions of
dollars) with years of education one would get a negative correlation.
One reason for this is that our richest people are often college
dropouts. For a list of college dropout billionaires, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_college_dropout_billionaires
Quoting from the Wiki entry:
|The average net worth of billionaires who dropped out of college,
|$9.4 billion, is approximately triple that of billionaires with Ph.D.s,
|$3.2 billion. Even if one removes Bill Gates, who left Harvard
University
|and is now worth $66.0 billion, college dropouts are worth $5.3 billion
|on average, compared to those who finished only bachelor's degrees,
|who are worth $2.9 billion. According to a recent report from
|Cambridge-based Forrester Research, 20% of America's millionaires
|never attended college.[3]
The entry also points out that the net worth of dropout billionaires
is US$ 246 billion (though the list it is based on is not exhaustive).
Consider the implication: all those factors that predict success in
college, including completion, are likely to be negatively correlated
with becoming a billionaire. This might suggest that high levels
of intelligence or "g" might actually interfere with being wildly
successful in the real world (if the metric for success is net worth).
Perhaps other capabilities such as Machiavellian social skills,
being ruthlessly opportunistic, knowing who is "smart" and then
exploit them for your own purposes (the "Every boss should own
at least one Ph.D." situation; consider how many Ph.D.s the
college dropout billionaires *cough*Steve Jobs*cough* employ),
and other social, political, and economic skills. And maybe throw
in a little psychopathy to spice things up. Perhaps there is certain
myopia that researchers have when they are concerned with academic
success because they are, well, academics.
Academic success clearly is not needed to become fabulously
wealthy (which in turn makes one very powerful in social, political,
and economic terms -- "money makes the world turn round").
The politically influential Koch brother both have masters degrees
as their highest level of education (according to Wikipedia,
David is the wealthiest resident of New York City as of 2013).
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
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