According to the Nova Scotia News, one of the major uses of IQ testing today is to determine the IQ of convicted felons like Robert Pickton in order to determine if they were mentally able to commit the crime. Robert Pickton’s IQ was 86, deemed by the defense team to be too low to be able to understand the nature of his crimes. What they failed to mention was that the world famed artist Andy Warhol also had an IQ score of 86 and he went on to be one of the most famous modern painters.
Intelligence testing has been used for questionable reasons over the years. It was used in the early 20th century to screen immigrants pouring into Ellis Island. Immigrants were sent home if they failed the test. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, the US passed compulsory sterilization laws aimed at reducing the numbers of the “feeble-minded” and based the sterilization on the results of intelligence testing. Nazi Germany used IQ testing as part of their eugenics program and sterilized individuals based on their IQ scores. In the 1950s, IQ tests were embraced by the public school system as a way to shunt students into general or advanced classrooms.
- Published:
- October 27, 2007 – 10:10 am
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- By Christine
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American Nobel Prize-winning scientist, James Watson, created more controversy recently around the racial issues in IQ testing by being quoted as saying he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours whereas all testing says not really.” After his comments caused an outrage, the Nobel Prize-winning scientist denied saying those statements, stating, “There is no scientific basis for such a belief.”
According to allAfrica, it doesn’t matter whether or not he said such statements because this argument has always existed in one form or another since the invention of IQ testing and since comparisons have been made between racial groups. There have been white scientists who actually have written essays saying that blacks do worse on intelligence testing than whites. One wonders how a white child would do in Nigeria eating Nigerian food, drinking Nigerian water and going to Nigerian schools. In fact, Nigerian children tend to do very well when sent to America to learn. The problem is the way the IQ is tested. It doesn’t test environment very well and is geared toward the Western, predominately white, cultures. The article states that intelligence as defined by the intelligence testing is more related to nurture than nature.
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- October 25, 2007 – 7:49 am
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- By Christine
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Arguments about race and IQ show up about once every ten years and always seem to cause a fuss. The real question is, however, do they really mean anything? The evidence appears real that IQ does differ between racial groups and that blacks score on average fifteen points less than Caucasians and that the Chinese and the Japanese score higher than either of the other races. The argument is that the conventional way we measure IQ is heavily culture-dependent. A test that is fair to Caucasians may not be fair to those whose cultural heritage is different. There are some tests, according to the Times Online, actually do contain biases that may disadvantage certain individuals. Those who believe that IQ doesn’t matter have an uphill battle with the large body of evidence showing that IQ is linked to success in life, both educational and economic. This is why the IQ gap narrows when socioeconomic status is taken into account. Even though there are some who say IQ tests are unfair, it’s hard to disregard the fact that IQ predicts success to the degree that it does. But do the group differences really matter? Group differences tell us nothing about the individual and the distribution curves for all groups overlap so that the range of scores within each group is much wider than the differences between them. Charles Murray, author of the 1990s book, “The Bell Curve” responds by saying that the only answer was “an energetic and uncompromising recommitment to individualism.”
- Published:
- October 23, 2007 – 4:35 pm
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- By Christine
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