Re: IQ AND RACE. The taboo subject.

Carolyn Jean Fairman (cfairman@leland.Stanford.EDU)
24 Feb 1995 14:09:18 -0800

Stephen Lajoie <lajoie@eskimo.com> wrote:
>Jan-Peter de Ruiter <ruiter@ruls41.LeidenUniv.nl> wrote:
[snip]
>>Obvious? I think it is dead obvious that poor people score lower on
>>IQ tests than rich people. You need big money to go to school and
>>learn to score high on IQ tests!
>>
>>(Ever thought longer than 2 seconds about the difference between causality
>>and correlation?)
>>
>>JP
>
>People with no education at all have been known to score quite high on IQ
>tests. And the test are designed to not test what you know, but how fast
>you think.

But they also test how well you think in certain *ways*, especially
pattern matching, puzzle solving and logic.

These are all easily taught in games, if you have the time money or
knowledge that thye are important skills.

>It is obvious that you have cause and effect mixed up in this instance.
>You are assuming that high IQ scores can be attributed to only learning
>how to take the test.

It is a signifigant factor. Yes, some kids come out of the womb
interesting in Legos and counting, but that would be the top .01%
anyway. The rest of the kids are heavily influenced by the games
their parents play and what is valued by the parents and their
culture.

>While on some standardized test this can be true (I took one test every
>year, and had memorized the answers...) well written test and good test
>practices would minimize this effect.

I agree that they try to. I really think this is the case. But
fundamentally, if you look at what is tested in IQ tests, it can be
taught.

Campare kids in random daycare or home care watching random TV or
being in a Montessori pre-school, and I'm sure the Montessori
_trained_ kids do better on the things tested in IQ tests.

-- 

"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."--anon.

Humanism is the radical notion that all people are human.  Replace the

Golden Rule with the Empathy Principle--feel what other people feel in

response to your actions.Carolyn Fairman<cfairman@leland.stanford.edu>