Jen Rinaldi York University Toronto ON Canada I intend to - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Jen Rinaldi York University Toronto ON Canada

 I intend to demonstrate that the systems we have built in order to measure intelligence are responsible for the construction of a fallacious concept of intelligence, and as such promote discriminatory attitudes.

 What is IQ Testing  Examples and sample questions  Key Players  Binet, Stern, Spearman, Goddard, Burt, Herrnstein and Murray  Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man  Construction of Intelligence  As singular, as biological, in relation to race, in relation to behaviour  Critique of Intelligence  As singular, as biological, in relation to race, in relation to behaviour  Implications  Surveillance, Immigration Act, military, education, people with disabilities

 IQ : Intelligent Quotient  SAT: Scholastic Aptitude/Assessment Test  LSAT: Law School Admission Test  GRE: Graduate Record Examination  No Child Left Behind Achievement Tests  EQAO: Education Quality and Accountability Office

 If 3x – 2 = 7, then 4x =  a) 3  b) 5  c) 20/3  d) 9  e) 12

 Frugal : Miserly  a) Confident : Arrogant  b) Courageous : Pugnacious  c) Famous : Aggressive  d) Rash: Foolhardy  e) Quiet : Timid

 Enervate:  a) Recuperate  b) Resurrect  c) Renovate  d) Gather  e) Strengthen

 Complete the following true/false questions in 60 seconds or less:  1) Two ducks and two dogs have a total of fourteen legs  A pie can be cut into more than seven pieces making four diameter cuts  Two of the following numbers add up to thirteen: 1, 6, 3, 5, 11

 Do these questions accurately or adequately represent intelligence?  Is there some aspect of intelligence that is not being measured?  Does a good score mean you are intelligent?  What happens when you take a test? What happens to the score?  Why do you need to take tests? Do you think the tests are important or useful in any way?

 French psychologist  Invented the first intelligence test.  Intended to identify students who needed educational assistance.  The Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale established the basis for IQ testing.

 German psychologist and philosopher.  Coined the term Intelligence Quotient, or IQ: score derived from standardized tests that are meant to measure intelligence.

 English psychologist.  Developed a model for measuring intelligence:  General intelligence factor (g): quantifies what standardized intelligence tests share in common.

 American psychologist and eugenicist.  Developed classifications for mental deficiency based on IQ scores.  Regarded IQ as static and inheritable.  Claimed low intelligence and moral depravity were related.

 English psychologist.  Claimed to be the inventor of factor analysis.  Used Spearman’s g factor to argue that intelligence is innate.  Used fraudulent research data to prove his theory.

 Written in 1994 by psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and scientist Charles Murray.  Chapters 13 and 14 devoted to the establishment of intelligence as genetic and the correlation between intelligence and race.

 Are you confused by any of the history or concepts?  What do you think about the theories these psychologists have developed?  Do you think the key players were motivated by good intentions?

 Biologist and historian of science.  Campaigned against creationism.  Opposed socio-biology on the grounds that the paradigm is reductionist.  Presents and critiques the development of IQ testing in The Mismeasure of Man

 Purpose of the book:  “response to bio - determinism”  IQ according to biological determinism: “genetically fixed and unitary intelligence, what is quantifiable or locatable”  “Biological determinism is, in its essence, a theory of limits. It takes the current status of groups as a measure of where they should and must be”

 Mismeasure’s account of IQ testing:  “the abstraction of intelligence as a single entity, its location within the brain, its quantification as one number for each individual, the use of these numbers to rank people in a single series of worthiness, invariably to find that oppressed and disadvantaged groups – races, classes, or sexes – are innately inferior and deserve their status”

 Fallacy of reification: “tendency to convert abstract concepts into entities”  Fallacy of ranking: “propensity for ordering complex variation as a gradual ascending scale”

 Does Gould go too far?  What do you think intelligence is? What do you identify as intelligence?  What do you think of people you would identify as unintelligent?  Do you think intelligence differs according to sex? Race? Class?

 Testing aided in the construction of intelligence as a singular entity. As long as intelligence can be targeted as something tangible and fixed, it can be measured. Those who swear by IQ testing argue that it is difficult, indeed impossible, to challenge measurements and quantities, for statistics are supposed to be value-neutral and unwavering.

 IQ tests were meant to measure something tangible, hence physical, in human beings. Intelligence thus came to be understood as part of our brain, and as something inherited, thus transcendent of environment and human control. Scientific studies allegedly provided evidence in support of this position. For instance, there were cases where twins shared the same level of intelligence even when each was adopted by a separate family and raised in a different social context. Cases like these seemed to be ironclad proof that context had no bearing on intelligence, indeed that intelligence was a biological given, innate and inflexible.

 As an established genetic trait, intelligence served as justification for racial inequality. Scientists made the case that intelligence could be generalized, that is, was a feature of race, and that black people were intellectually inferior to white people. Insofar as intelligence was measureable, it was possible to argue that one person is less intelligent than another, and as long as intelligence was innate, it was possible to contend that one race is intellectually inferior to another.

 F. Allan Hanson illustrates that “the ills of society- poverty, unemployment, unmarried parenthood, crime- are causally connected to the low intelligence of people who manifest them”. He goes on to say that intelligence justifies the affluence of the elite insofar as lower level intelligence is causally linked to poverty and moral depravity. IQ testing could be used, therefore, to determine who would be more predisposed to social deviance.

 Why do I keep saying ‘construction’? Do you think there is anything essential about intelligence, something not constructed?  What do you think of this construction of intelligence?  What is wrong with this construction, if anything?  Do you think IQ testing plays a role in shaping this construction of intelligence?

 Job performance depends on “common sense, intuition, experience, creativity and…social intelligence, that is, the smarts to work well with other people” ( Allman). IQ testing also ignores kinds of intelligence such as spatial, musical, and personal intelligences (Gardner). These very different ways of thinking challenge the notion that there is a singular, quantifiable intelligence. IQ testing cannot adequately measure intelligence because it is impossible to reduce intelligence to something that can be located and monitored according to a measuring tool.

 The scientific evidence for innate intelligence is unsatisfactory. Biological determinism is arguably meant only to immunize status quo, for it legitimizes social groups as the way the world should or must be. According to Gould, science is a social activity that reflects social movements and because of this science ought not to be simply trusted and reified. Instead, scientists should always question the assumptions driving them to confirm hypotheses that correspond with social trends.

 While scientific studies might find a correlation between intelligence and poverty or race, the correlation is not enough to make a causal connection. Indeed, factors that might have led to this correlation ought to be considered, such as variables found in one’s social context. Scientists who believe in the doctrine of innate intelligence err to the extent that they dismiss environmental factors that might give way to the correlation.

 Herrnstein and Murray argue: “upper class people on average are more intelligent than lower class people [and] this goes a long way in explaining the affluence of the one group and the chronic crime, dependence on welfare, unmarried parenthood, and other social problems of the other”. Arguments like these are deeply problematic insofar as they lay the blame for poverty on the innate immorality and low intelligence of the poor. Oppression and prejudice are excusable within this paradigm on the grounds that the oppressed persons can be genetically proven to be intellectually inferior.