Is "IQ" Science?
(Update: Hat tip to Pro6 for this NewYorker article)
(Update2: Another great article that gets closer to my point about scientific legitamacy, but tackles it from both ends: IQ and "race".)
Whatever you call IQ, don't call it science.
I have recently had a few discussions with colleagues about intelligence testing and the racial correlations researchers have drawn from various studies of IQ. Cnulan has covered alot of these controversies well in various posts.
Many of the people in these conversations take the social conclusions drawn or implied from these studies at face value and as fact. The assumptions is that these studies are science, and thus a large psychological weight is placed on their implications or conclusions.
Any study, statistical or not, that you may peruse is not, in fact, science. The field of IQ is pseudo-science at best, and to consider conclusions drawn from such studies as fact because of the authoritarian veneer of science placed upon IQ practitioners is simply wrong.
Why isn't "IQ-ology" science?
Let's start by what is being measured. Just what the heck is IQ? From what I have seen, it is the score that is given to a subject after said subject answers a series of exam questions. The definition of IQ is fully subjective, and depends on who makes up the questions. There is no way to objectively and logically derive the definition of IQ. It depends upon the bias of those who make up the exams and the weight that they assign to a subject's responses. That is why people say that since white guys have made up most of these questions, these exams are strongly biased toward european cultural memes.
By contrast, the gravitational constant, the mass of an electron, and the speed of light are all quantities that can be objectively measured and fit within a theoretical framework which allow them to objectively derived. No committee of guys in white coats agreed on c, the speed of light. There is an extremely specific definition of what c is, which is based on concepts which are themselves objective and logical. IQ is nothing like this.
I realize that social sciences by their nature can lean away from objective quantities and objective measurements, but when the item of measurement is absent of objectivity, social sciences become social "sciences". Any measurement could be held up as science if this is not the case. Measuring "mackadociousness", or "MQ" is science under the standard that we give "IQ". Credit scoring is science. Any man with a yardstick is a scientist.
Another reason I reject IQ as a science is more fundamental. Scientific conclusions or "facts" should deliver predictions that are observable by independent parties. These predictions should be specific and repeatable. What does IQ predict? What repeatable predictions have IQ-ologists made that can be verified by independent parties? I know of none.
By predictions, I'm not talking about a Johnny Carson swami-type of prediction, but specific outcomes being forecast based on specific inputs/conditions.
A controlled environment. Some think that IQ predicts educational achievement and "success", but where are the controlled conditions to prove this? How do you eliminate these factors enough to make a prediction that is observable? You can't and maintain a modicum of legitmacy.
Without predictable results and specificity around the measured quantity, calling IQ-ology and results derived from IQ studies science and fact is raising this pseudo-science to a level of authority is has not merited.
Shizi
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Reader Comments (1)
IQ has proven its mettle as a tried and tested method for sorting people out. It's one of those "hidden in plain sight" bellweathers that confirms the existence of an elite that concerns itself with such matters and utilizes "difference" as a vital lever for social governance.
May not tell us anything useful about reality, but certainly tells us much that is useful about the workings of "consensus reality".