Saturday, February 4: Commenting is closed on this post. See Part II, Intelligence: Some Research.
2/3/06 — Next post: Studies pro and con.
***scroll down for lots of updates***
In 2006, we can openly discuss whether homosexuals should be allowed to marry and adopt children. We debate whether teenage girls have the right to slaughter their unborn in the womb without parental permission. Our tax dollars pay for a government school system that shows films to middle-schoolers on how to use condoms.
Each of these topics is considered fit for general consumption. But there’s one thing that people don’t talk much about in America: cognitive differences among the races.
Intelligence and whether it is inheritable are taboo. If you even hint at it in “polite” company, people get nervous. “We shouldn’t be talking about this.”
Generally, some races are “smarter” than others. Although study after study after study shows otherwise, some people deny differences exist. Others accept it. People who accept it argue among themselves about what causes the differences: nature or nurture. Is intelligence passed on through genes, or does it depend on how/where an individual grows up?
If I wanted to pull a Margaret Sanger, I’d say that “less smart” races ought to produce fewer offspring, but I don’t and will never believe that.
Researchers have concluded that intelligence is both inheritable and affected by environment. Why is talking about this so important? Because how intelligent we are affects our lives (as well as others). You don’t need to be Einstein to live a good, decent, and productive life, but high cognitive abilities give us extra “fuel” to think critically and use reason to make good decisions that take into consideration the long-term consequences of our actions. That’s only one of a multitude of reasons.
Discussing cognitive abilities is also important because it can and should lead us to ideas on how to raise abilities in individuals, which brings me to the focus of this post: tests that measure general intelligence, or g, as it’s known. We’re always reading about some fire or police department concerned that black applicants are scoring too low on civil service examinations. We also read that such tests are discriminatory. Instead of figuring out how to raise these scores, the people making the decisions almost always choose to rig the test to get the politically correct result.
I’ve written about dumbing down tests on occasion. For instance, the Denver Fire Department hadn’t hired a black applicant in five years. Last year they decided to hire a consulting firm to develop a new test, and I surmised they planned to make the test easy so more minorities could pass it. I wanted to know exactly how they proposed to do that. What was it about the test that needed changing? What did the test measure and was it important for the job?
To me, that is the main point in all this. The differences exist, but how important are they on the job, for example? I believe that is what should be talked about, not a sweeping denial of the differences. There’s too much evidence to the contrary.
I made phone calls, spoke to people, conducted interviews, took notes — I wanted to write an attention-getting feature story on why the government was either dropping these exams or dumbing them down (changing them to pass-fail, watering down “hard” portions, reducing the g load, etc.). I blogged about it in a follow-up post.
Before I spoke to the people at a consulting firm hired by the Denver Fire Department, I did my homework. I spent a few hours searching for and reading stories and studies about standardized tests, civil service exams, etc., and I came to a preliminary conclusion. Such tests, designed to measure general intelligence, are said to be g-loaded. For reasons rarely talked about, whites generally outperform blacks on such tests. To put it another way, whites generally have higher cognitive ability than blacks.
Now such a statement is controversial, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. You’ll find studies to support it and studies that attempt to prove it false. Now here’s the really sad and ignorant part: any white person who writes a paper to support the statement is branded and dismissed as a racist, swept under the rug. Newspapers don’t write about these kind of studies, and if they do, it’s usually in the op-ed section where a liberal journalist can tear them down.
I hope to move beyond that. I decided not to write a story about this, but I think I should. At the very least, I’ll blog about my interviews with the consulting firm and Denver fire chief in subsequent posts.
Talking about this issue is also important because the inability to do well, or at least as well as whites, on standardized tests is the reason race preferences exist. It’s the reason gobs of money are spent on urban schools and others with a large black student body. No matter how much money taxpayers spend, student achievement test scores barely move and the black-white achievement gap never closes. It’s the reason a low-income white student outperforms a black student from an upper middle-class household.
We may not talk about this issue, but we’re aware of it. Black liberals are always accusing me of “dumping on black culture” and “putting down black folks” and other irritatingly vague charges, and no doubt they’ll do the same in this case. But it’s time to talk about it. I hate “affirmative action” and condescending “protected group” status.
This is the first of three posts I plan to write on this subject. In the second post I’ll discuss recent and relevant research on race differences in intelligence. I’ll post links to studies that conclude such differences exist and are inheritable and studies that attempt to prove differences are not inheritable. I’ll say at the outset, based on the literature, most researches pretty much agree that differences exist. The emphasis is on whether general intelligence can be improved and whether tests measuring cognitive ability are even relevant or necessary.
In the third post, I’ll consider your responses and the general conclusions of the studies. I’ll blog about possible solutions to the problem, how to raise test scores, and anything new and interesting I uncover from additional studies and your comments.
If you have anecdotes to share, inside information, or general concerns about the subject matter, leave a comment or e-mail me.
Related stories:
- Appellate court rules against Shreveport in race discrimination lawsuit (I e-mailed Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran with a couple of questions. In the next post, I’ll tell you what he told me.)
- ‘Jump-start’ the system
- Changes in police hiring weighed
By the way, I’ll be on the Treo for the next few hours, so typos will be fixed later.
Update (2:30 p.m.): Back to the desktop. I adore my Treo, but blogging with it is extremely difficult. Based on comments and e-mail so far, I want to make a few additional points:
1) Sorry to burst your bubble, but general intelligence isn’t some amorphous, hard-to-define concept floating out there in the ether. It is indeed a “thing” that can be measured. Nature or nurture? Does it matter? How much?
2) As always, I’m speaking in generalities. Generally speaking, whites score higher on g-loaded tests. That’s not to say that a black individual is incapable or has never scored higher on g-loaded tests than whites, or vice versa. It’s funny how some people are willing to accept group identity/generalities when it comes to victim status, skin color entitlements, and preferences, but unwilling to even discuss group identity/generalities in relation to cognitive abilities. Human nature is a powerful thing.
3) While all this talking and blogging about intelligence differences may seem academic, it has enormous implications on public policy, which affects everyone. Because blacks score disproportionately lower on certain tests, for example, should the government scrap the tests altogether? Dilute the g factor? Incidentally, government lowers admissions and hiring standards all the time. It is widely known and accepted that most colleges and universities, particularly graduate schools, have separate admission tracks for blacks and whites. Blacks are typically judged against black applicants, not the general applicant pool, which is patently unfair, condescending, and unconstitutional. This is what’s known as “affirmative action.”
Keep in mind as you share anecdotes that many employment tests have already been “dumbed down.” To assume that tests are as challenging as they were 50 years ago is erroneous.
4) I have been accused on innumerable occasions of “pandering to a white audience.” The risk inherent in discussing controversial issues on a public site is that some people will take advantage of this blog, using it as a soapbox and confirmation that their “racist” notions validated.
Well, I can’t help that. As far as commenting goes, I have one really big rule despite this long comment policy: don’t get personal and don’t insult me. Based on a completely unscientific hunch, I assume most of my commenters are white men. Black liberals are free to comment. What ends up happening, generally speaking, is blacks tend to get personal (especially the men) because they’re angry that another black person is saying these things and that some whites may consider me an authority on these topics. I understand the anger and frustration, and I am not an authority on anything except, perhaps, what makes a blog “good.”
Some — black or white — may use my posts as fuel for racialist fires, but that’s the risk I take living and expressing myself in a free country. There are millions of blogs out there. If this one raises your blood pressure, please surf elsewhere. Life is too short.
Finally, please read this entire post, others linked within it, and at least a few comments before you add your views. And reading a few posts in the archives wouldn’t hurt. Start with the Race Preferences category.
Later…One more point. The so-called bias in IQ tests doesn’t exist. These tests measure certain abilities as math aptitude, spatial visualization, and reading comprehension. Mathematical equations are not biased. It’s clear to me that some people are stuck in the 1970s-era “culturally biased” tests meme. If such a bias exists on American IQ tests, it’s against non-native English speakers in the verbal portions, not English-speaking black Americans.
Even later…In response to a “bigoted people will use subtle differences to explain the achievement gap that exists between the races” comment, implying that we shouldn’t even bring up the subject of race and intelligence (!), commenter Antonio writes:
I am black as well and generally disagree with LaShawn on many posts. But I believe it is important to have this conversation. I don’t think anyone is suggesting we return to the days of Plessy v. Ferguson or re-instill the notion that blacks are inherently inferior. But we must face reality. There is an achievement gap that is not going away. If we understand the root of the problem, then I think we all will be better armed to find and implement solutions.
In my opinion, parenting will be one key to breaking the cycle of under-achievement. Even if parents themselves are uneducated (like many were during the pre-civil rights movement era), they can still provide a wholesome and nurturing environment in which their children can develop. If an environment is created at home in which children are encouraged to achieve from birth, I suspect children will have a better chance at success. To achieve change, black folks are ultimately gonna have to alter their thinking on child rearing, as well as other matters.
Arguing that this discussion will give license to bigots and should therefore be halted isn’t going to change the fact that an achievement gap exists. The only way black folks will be able to change that fact is by actually improving our achievement levels.
This kind of calm and reasonable dialogue is what I hope to generate.
