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.