Pinker, Round Two

In Sunday’s New York Times Book Review, Steven Pinker responds to my description of him as occupying the  “lonely ice floe of IQ fundamentalism”:

What Malcolm Gladwell calls a “lonely ice floe” is what psychologists call “the mainstream.” In a 1997 editorial in the journal Intelligence, 52 signatories wrote, “I.Q. is strongly related, probably more so than any other single measurable human trait, to many important educational, occupational, economic and social outcomes.” Similar conclusions were affirmed in a unanimous blue-ribbon report by the American Psychological Association. . .

A few things here are worth mentioning:

First, the editorial in question made a number of other arguments that, I think, most observers would agree fall on one end of the nature-nurture continuum: that all IQ tests measure the same thing, that heredity is more important than environment in determining it, that group differences are relatively unaffected by schooling or socioeconomic factors. It also said that the IQs of different races cluster at different points, with the average IQ of blacks falling about a standard deviation lower than that of whites, and that these differences show no sign of converging over time.

Second, two thirds of the editorial board of the journal Intelligence declined to sign the statement.

Third, the statement originally appeared on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal in 1994, explicitly in defense of “The Bell Curve,” a book whose supporters are typically quite happy to call one of the most controversial books of the past 25 years.

Fourth, fifteen of 52 signatories to the Wall Street Journal statement have had their research supported by the Pioneer Fund. For those who have not heard about the Pioneer Fund, here is a brief description of its history from “The Pioneer Fund: Bankrolling the Professors of Hate,” by the historian Adam Miller:

In 1937 the Pioneer Fund was founded by Wicklife Draper, whose New England textile fortune started the fund's endowment and helps finance it today. Harry Laughlin, the first president of the fund, was a well-known eugenicist who in 1924 was instrumental in pushing through legislation blocking U.S. Entry to Jews fleeing pograms in Russia. Before Congress he testified that IQ data proved that 83 percent of Jewish immigrants were born feeble-minded and therefore were a threat to the nation's economy and genetic makeup. Laughlin subsequently lobbied to keep those barriers in place, successfully cutting off sanctuary for Jews seeking refuge from the Third Reich.

    In 1922, Laughlin also wrote the Model Eugenical Sterilization Law which was adopted in one form or another by 30 states and resulted in the forced sterilization of tens of thousands of people in the United States.

    Among the fifteen Pioneer Fund-sponsored signatories were Arthur R. Jensen (who has cited the heritability of IQ to argue against interventions to boost academic performance of minorities), J. Philippe Rushton (who, since 2002, has been the president of the Pioneer Fund, and who has argued that the size of what he terms the “Negroid brain” is inversely related to that of the Negroid penis); Rushton's colleague Douglas Jackson (best known for arguing that men are significantly more intelligent than woman), and Seymour Itzkoff (a eugenicist who holds that blacks and whites have such distinct evolutionary histories as to belong to different subspecies).

Fifth, the APA’s own report on the subject,“Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns,” which Pinker suggests is in sympathy with his position, was largely directed against IQ fundamentalism.  For example, it noted that IQ results correlated well with total years of education—in part because high scorers receive encouragement, and are placed in "college preparatory" classes where their peers provide encouragement, too. The amount of education someone receives then itself has an effect on social status. ("In summary, intelligence test scores predict a wide range of social outcomes with varying degrees of success. Correlations are highest for educational achievement, where they account for about a quarter of the variance.") The paper points out that one reason intelligence scores predict occupational level is that "admission to many professions depends on test scores in the first place," and also explores the evidence that "workplaces may affect the intelligence of those who work in them." It delves into the Flynn effect, and the various possible explanations for it; and suggests that what little evidence is available "fails to support the genetic hypothesis" for the black/white differential in psychometric scores.

I don’t mean to suggest that Professor Pinker agrees with the more eccentric positions of the some of the 52 signatories. (Though the Pioneer Fund website does describe one of his books as a “must read”; the New Yorker, where I work, was less generous). The fact that ideas are sometimes supported by people with unsavory connections does not make them invalid. An ice floe is not necessarily a bad place to be. It’s just that if you are plainly floating on one, it doesn’t make much sense to insist that you are standing on solid ground.

Comments

[ティンバーランド]

ティンバーランド申請に必要なのは医師の診断書１通で、婚姻や手術の有無は問わない。「生物学的性別で生活することによる本人の苦痛」と、「希望の性別を表示することによる周囲の混乱の程度」を総合的に判断し、可否を決定。希望の性別情報を提供することが決まった場合は日弁連のＨＰだけでなく、会員が所属する弁護士会のＨＰなどでも、同様の表記をするよう求めている。日弁連の許可が出れば、心の性別に合わせて登録名を変更することもできる。

　ティンバーランド日弁連では「戸籍の変更まではしなくても、生物学的なものとは異なる性別での生活を希望する人もいるので、適切に対応していきたい」としている。

[ティンバーランド]

ティンバーランド申請に必要なのは医師の診断書１通で、婚姻や手術の有無は問わない。「生物学的性別で生活することによる本人の苦痛」と、「希望の性別を表示することによる周囲の混乱の程度」を総合的に判断し、可否を決定。希望の性別情報を提供することが決まった場合は日弁連のＨＰだけでなく、会員が所属する弁護士会のＨＰなどでも、同様の表記をするよう求めている。日弁連の許可が出れば、心の性別に合わせて登録名を変更することもできる。

　ティンバーランド日弁連では「戸籍の変更まではしなくても、生物学的なものとは異なる性別での生活を希望する人もいるので、適切に対応していきたい」としている。

[Ralph Libet]

Mr Gladwell,
If possible, could you please e-mail me at: gilaralphlibet@yahoo.com --- to discuss the work of my father, Benjamin Libet, ( who can be "googled" and/ or looked up on Wikipedia).
many thanks, Ralph Libet, M.D.

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[Psychometric test]

Absolutely, I do agree, I.Q. is strongly related, probably more so than any other single measurable human trait, to many important educational, occupational, economic and social outcomes”. On the other hand I disagree with who thinks that the color of the skin has any influence on the IQ. It's sad that nowadays there are still people thinking that way !

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