June 15, 2009

• Intelligence

  Socrates_Cafe's posting this week describes the nature of Intelligence and how it is measured. I started to write a comment but it got so long, that I've posted it here as an entry.

  Here's what Soc had to say:
  A characteristic of Humans is their superior intelligence - or at least we tend to think so. There is little doubt that, at least in Human terms, we exhibit a much higher range of intellectual skills than even our nearest non-human cousins.
  This ability to reason, to think abstractly, to learn and use language, to be creative, to acquire knowledge seems to be the paramount human trait.

  Intelligence has been defined as:
  A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on", "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do. [ A statement signed by 51 modern intelligence researchers in 1994 ]

  Of course our tendency to measure and compare each other has led humans to try to develop some tools for measuring intelligence. One of the first to do this in a practical way was a Swiss named Alfred Binet who had the task of sorting out children whose intelligence was questioned. He devised a test based on the knowledge and tasks he thought a child should be able to exhibit, using standard questions and even objects he borrowed from his daughter's doll house.

  He gave the test to lots of "normal" children of various ages and developed a standard based on what he observed children could do at various ages. A child 10 years old that could do what a "standard 10-year-old" was ranked with an intelligence quotient [IQ] of 100. He was mostly concerned with "sub-normal" children and would rank a 10 year old child who could do only 90% of those things the standard called for as having an IQ of 90. If the child could do 110% of those things expected at his age, his IQ would be 110 and so on.

  Binet himself and many psychologists since his time have greatly improved his simple test, made it more adaptable to adults and attempted to remove cultural bias. For example if one of Binet's tests was to identify the tiny ceramic toilet he had borrowed from his daughter's dollhouse and the child he was examining was from a rural area that used only outhouses, the child should not be marked down for not knowing what something he had never been exposed to was.

  During the First World War (1914-18) the U.S. Army gave all those young men (hundreds of thousands of them) that were drafted a paper IQ test known as the "Army Alpha Test". Among other things this test showed that IQs didn't vary much - most of the takers were in a pretty narrow range and scores tended to taper off pretty evenly for both high and low IQs. When graphed, this became the famous "Bell Curve" of human intelligence. The test givers were satisfied to find that their prejudice against Blacks was "proved". Most African-Americans were at the low end of the curve. Many years later a new generation of psychologists looked at the data and pointed out that Northern and Urban Blacks averaged higher scores than Southern and Rural Whites. This was one of the first strong considerations of the part Culture plays in the making and taking of IQ tests. This very difficult obstacle to measuring universal intelligence has never been completely overcome.

  In modern times, the measurement of high and low intelligence has been well studied as have the effect of genetics, race, and environment. The comparison of IQ averages to race has been the most controversial. Since there are almost no humans of "pure" race available to study, it is unlikely that race will ever be proved to be an intelligence factor.
  Individual genetic heritage is probably a factor in how smart you are, but nurture seems to override nature here. Not only is the impact of what you've been exposed to more important, but also the Mores of your sub-culture. If your parents expect you to be studious and smart and demand/encourage the behaviors listed by all those psychologists I mentioned at the beginning; you are probably going to score much higher on IQ tests than your goof-off neighbor's children.

  A culture or nation that encourages intelligence and learning is probably going to last longer and be more successful.
  The Chinese - one of the world's longest lasting cultures - used a sort of written examination to recruit its administrative leaders for several hundred years. The last Imperial Rescript Examinations were give in the early twentieth century.

  Political leaders seem to be most successful (here in the US at any rate) if they are not too much above the norm - just enough to stay ahead of their rivals. Very intelligent people have commented that they have had trouble communicating and relating to others. Very high intelligence is very rare, however. Most of us are within 25 or thirty points of the 100 (average) IQ. Only about six million Americans (2%) are eligible to join Mensa (min IQ - 134) but a much smaller number - only about three hundred thousand (.1%) can join TNS or ISPE (min IQ 154). Marion Vos Savant (IQ 200+) is really one of a kind.
  There is not really that much difference in lower IQs either and being a little slow on IQ tests does not seem to be an insurmountable handicap.

  How smart would you like to be? Why?

  Here's my comment:

  I think part of this article was to show how much alike in intelligence humans are, but perhaps Soc didn't stress that enough. The "Bell Curve" is pretty high, indicating that the vast majority of humans fall within ten-fifteen points on either side of the 100 norm. If only two percent of the population are more than thirty points from the norm (on the high side) and only .1 percent are 50 points from the norm - that's not very many people.
  Those high IQ societies like Mensa are mostly social clubs with "How you scored" as their only criteria for membership. It's considered bad taste to compare your IQ with anyone else's and Mensa, at least, will not even release the scores from their admission tests - it's strictly pass-fail.
  Being smart is not necessarily a ticket to success - many super-smart people, members of TNS or ISPE, for example, report having a lot of trouble as youngsters with their social relationships and Asperger's syndrome (a type of high-function autism) is not uncommon.
  Incidentally, if you want to watch a TV show where they do a pretty good parody of Asperger's; watch Bones. House is another, but Hugh Laurie doesn't do Asperger's as well IMHO
  I have taught students with very advanced Asperger's. In a classroom they have the potential to be very real problems. Imagine having Einstein in your normal math class - a frantic, immature, very grumpy Einstein.
  Note: The guy who killed the guard at the Holocaust Memorial was, for a brief time, a Mensa member.

  I was fortunate enough to teach a number of very bright young people when I was working. They were fascinating, but sometimes a handful. Some were pretty arrogant, but the two smartest (One went with NASA and the other was pulled from his college to help design atomic subs - I don't think he ever bothered to finish even his BS degree) were pretty quiet and certainly did not impress their fellow students. My wife also specialized in teaching gifted kids - one of hers developed the software that drives your hard drive and another became a famous - very famous - model and TV personality.
  On the other hand (This is unfortunately true) I taught a mass murderer - also pretty bright.

  When I was young and first taught HS, I was assigned some "special " classes. Kids who were not supposed to be able to learn very much. I think the lowest IQ I ever taught was 63 - which is pretty slow; but the girl was really very sweet and well adjusted. She already had a job in a child-care nursery but needed that HS diploma to satisfy some ridiculous requirements. We were able to get her through all the required credits and tests to graduate. Those were before the "no child left behind" movement, when a HS diploma still had some meaning. During my teaching career I was often able to set my own class schedules. I always assigned myself at least one "special Ed" class to sort of offset the Advanced and Exceptional classes. I'll pat myself on the back a little and claim I did a pretty good job of launching them into our society. Teaching them was not a chore - it was as much fun as teaching the bright kids.

  • 3:22 pm
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