Intelligence and Education
I’ve noted a few times that the political center needs to come to grips with research on genes and intelligence or we risk ceding the field to people with scary impulses and frightening goals. I think something like what the center-left position should be is reasonably well articulated by Richard J. Haier. Haier is a professor emeritus in the University of California at Irvine medical school, editor in chief of the journal Intelligence, and he was one of the signators of the Mainstream Science on Intelligence: An Editorial With 52 Signatories, History, and Bibliography in 1994.
Here is a recent article by Haier:
Historically, assaults on intelligence research were launched as a reaction to studies that suggested that average intelligence test scores were lower for some disadvantaged and minority groups. Combined with the possibility that intelligence might be genetically determined, this incendiary combination resulted in efforts to discredit the validity of intelligence tests and genetic studies. Concurrently, there was a single-minded focus on environmental factors as the predominant, if not only, influence on differences in mental abilities and the cause of achievement gaps.
This has led to 50 years of earnest and expensive but largely futile attempts to reduce education achievement gaps. These include focuses on early childhood education, raising students’ expectations, smaller classes, better teacher training, more testing and greater accessibility of challenging classes. Such interventions should not be expected to reduce gaps appreciably given the consistent research that shows that such variables do not influence academic achievement all that much – especially compared with the large effect of a student’s intelligence.
Education is for individuals. It does not matter if there are average intelligence differences among groups defined by poverty or race because there is more overlap than separation. As in modern medicine, any genetic influences, although real, are best thought about as probabilistic rather than deterministic. Basic neurobiology is the same for all humans, and both genetic and neuroimaging research connects neurobiology to intelligence. Understanding the complexities of how this works has potential for designing ways to improve mental ability and maximise education for all students, irrespective of background.
No one is well served by education reforms that neglect research findings on the nature of intelligence and its central role in student achievement. Neuroscience and intelligence research cannot solve all the issues of failing schools and education, but it is time to follow the data and add what we know from these perspectives to discussions about what research to fund, and what reforms to try next.
(The bolding is mine.)
While this may be anathema to much of our educational and academic establishment, it is, from what I can tell, pretty close to the position of the best -known researchers in the field like Stephen Pinker and James Flynn. Which is to say, the position is mainstream science on intelligence.
Unless we have reason to believe the scientists are wrong, we ignore that at all of our peril.
Trying to tease out the genetic or environmental components of “intelligence is usually a way to define a group as inferior for reasons. As you say, education is for individuals, and we first need to make it accessible to everyone.
By the way,as an illustration of your point about using genetics to define intelligence, I had an argument with my RWNJ ex-husband about the idiocy of using genetic tendencies to define intelligence of anyone. His clever comeback was, well, suppose women ARE less intelligent than men. My answer is still: which woman? which man? And what are you using go define “intelligence” ? Always ask cui bono when people try to use science to define others. In what conditions?
All individuals are equal, but some individuals are more equal than others.
Orwell, Read my Animal Farm.
Carol,
” is usually a way to define a group as inferior for reasons. ”
No. Most people with any intelligence have a genuine interest in understanding the world. Scientists have that same interest.
Understanding the world better allows us to know what can be improved and what cannot and where to put scarce resources. Intelligence appears to be similar to any number of physical and mental characteristics that are strongly guided (fr lack of a better term) by genes, which in turn come about because of the selective pressures and luck faced by one’s ancestors.
And of course, the selective pressures and the luck faced by your ancestors were different depending on where they were situated geographically.
The result is that people whose ancestors are from different parts of the world have different susceptibility to different outcomes. For example, when my wife was pregnant, she was over 35 so the OB GYN suggested genetic tests. But to avoid wasting resources, the genetic tests were tailored based on where her and my ancestors were from. It doesn’t make my wife and I either better or worse people that the then embryo was tested for Tay Sachs and not sickle cell anemia. Only an idiot would have decided, based on our ancestry, that we should focused on sickle cell anemia and not Tay Sachs.
But it isn’t just susceptibility to diseases. It turns out that for some diseases, a different course of treatment may be better if one’s forebears hail from region A rather than region B. Knowing this can save lives.
There are indications that where your ancestors were from may affect the rate at which your children mature. Haier’s quote discusses differences in cognition. But cognition can vary according to absolute levels, as well as degrees in different areas.
There are also differences between genders. From what I have read, males and females have roughly the same average scores on IQ tests, but males have much greater variances. Thus, more geniuses and more people at the very bottom of the scale. (An older example, but with large n: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289603000539) So you should observe differences in overall life outcomes, on the average.
Also, I noted roughly the same average scores. Again, from my reading of the literature on cognition (and I am certainly no expert), averages hides a myriad of differences. On average, there are differences in gender performance depending on whether one is testing spatial cognition, verbal cognition, etc. And it also seems to matter at what age kids are tested. Females mature faster. Apparently when younger kids are tested, females have a slightly higher average. When older kids are tested, males have a slightly average.
And then we get to the fact that averages do not define the individual. But they do give us an idea of how correctable various outcomes we observe might actually be. For example, roughly the same average plus a much wider variance in cognition is an input that is pretty compatible with the outcome of men earning more (among those who manage to survive to and function in the business world) combined with more men having at the bottom, being homeless and completely unable to function in the business world.
Carol,
One follow up. I did mean to add…. in the case of differences between men and women, the reasons for the difference, of course, are not related to different geographic locations. Two siblings, one male and one female have ancestry from the same place.
However, evolutionary pressures are different on males and females due to the reproductive roles both serve. Men, simply put, have been more expendable, just as sperm is far more expendable than eggs. On average, at any point in time, the percentage of men who reproduce is smaller than the percentage of women who reproduce. That’s an input that leads to a very clear output –> greater selective pressure on males, which leads to more risks.
60 Minutes spot some years ago: Aborigine children in Australia who did not go to school can look at 25 random shaped stones on 25 squares for two minutes — we throw stones into a pail — they take them out and put them back on the same squares.
Mmm. With “abstract” education we lose something — we must gain something — towards higher-IQ scores for those with better economic backgrounds?
Neanderthals were fully grown and mature by 12 years old. They therefore had to be more instinctive and less open to adapt mentally. We are designed to take 6 years longer to hang around and more loosely program more variably (now you know what to when your parents criticize your for hanging around loosely kids).
Gives me second thoughts if pre-pre-K is automatically a plus — maybe for future academic (and IQ test) performance.
Which leads me to:
Berkeley sociology professor Martin Sanchez-Jankowski discovered while spending nine years at street level in five New York and Los Angeles poverty stricken neighborhoods that ghetto schools fail because so many students — and faculty! — see nothing sufficiently remunerative waiting for them in the US labor market when they graduate to make it worth making any serious effort now.
Better paid Chicago Teachers Union teachers as we well know do not fit that description. You get why you pay for.
I fail to see how students in poor, crime ridden neighborhoods are going to be elevate by an influx of lower paid, higher turnover teachers whose charter management is motivated by profit. They won’t get what we don’t pay for.
As is true in almost every concern, rebuilding labor union density — rebuilding wages and benefits — is the true answer to rebuilding poor side of town school performance. :-O
http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/martin-sanchez-jankowski
Dare I say “the science is settled” — there are group differences. The vast majority of sprinters are Black (I think fewer than 10 non-Blacks have run the 100m in less than 10s.) and Jews account for an outsized portion of Nobel Prizes.
The science is not the problem. Ignoring it is a problem, because we try to force equal outcomes with unequal input, doing more harm than good. When California voters outlawed racial preferences for State colleges, Black graduation rates increased.
https://www.nas.org/articles/The_Effects_of_Proposition_209_on_California_Higher_Education_Public_Employ
Prior to Prop. 209, many Blacks would get into UC colleges for which they were unprepared, flunked out, and were left with nothing but student loan debt. Now, if they get in, it is because the admissions officers think they can do the work to graduate.
The other side of the problem is accepting the science as an excuse to make snap judgments. It has been proven repeatedly that given two identical resumes, one from John Nguyen and the other from Datreon Johnson, one will go to the top of the stack and the other to the bottom.
That is wrong. But perhaps one of the reasons it happens is Affirmative Action. If admissions are race-biased, and teachers go easier on Black students, and employers are more lenient evaluating Black employees, then two identical resumes will NOT represent equal abilities and achievements.
Both ends are wrong. It is just as wrong to treat a person better because of his race or ethnicity, as it is to treat him worse because of his race or ethnicity.
“I fail to see how students in poor, crime ridden neighborhoods are going to be elevate by an influx of lower paid, higher turnover teachers whose charter management is motivated by profit. They won’t get what we don’t pay for.”
Perhaps teacher’s pensions should be funded directly from their own student’s income. A small percentage of each person’s pay is deducted from his pay (a tax), and that money goes into the retirement funds of his teachers. That might give teachers a bit of incentive to up their game!
Well, Kimel, there is intelligence and there is intelligence. The intelligence of the studies is the same as the intelligence that causes “school reforms” to fail. While a few individual teachers do magic.
The “studies” intelligence is also related to (but not as intelligent as) that which produced the “game theory” that showed the United States should atomic bomb the Russians before they acquired an atomic bomb of their own. Fortunately less intelligent people who happened to be in power thought that was a bad idea.
As for the intelligence that says things like “we ignore that at our peril”… well it does sound a lot like “we have to kill them before they kill us.” You see, MIke, all of your ‘research” leads toward the same tedious conclusion. But don’t worry, someone will pick it up and run with it…. at our peril.
Run,
Animal Farm is an allegory about communism, Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron is a more relevant take on what you need to do to ensure equal outcomes.
DD,
Just about everyone can contribute. But forcing everyone into the same slot helps nobody, not even the people who naturally fit into that slot, since it cripples much of society.
Warren,
I can certainly agree with this:
“It is just as wrong to treat a person better because of his race or ethnicity, as it is to treat him worse because of his race or ethnicity.”
coberly,
How exactly did you get there from what I’ve written? Please, quote what I’ve written.
Mike:
Where did I say anything about equal outcomes? If you wish to trot out your knowledge; by all means do so, do not tie me to something I did not say.
You mentioned a book that is an allegory for a society that claims to promote equal outcomes but doesn’t. I replied by mentioning a short story that is an allegory for a society that actually does arrive at equal outcomes.
I took a statement by EM which is a take off from a statement made in Animal Farm. I took it no further nor did I imply anything else with that statement. Perhaps you can read my mind and know where I was going with that simple statement; but, I doubt it.
I’m a PhD geneticist. I’ve authored or co-authored nearly 100 scientific articles, most of which involve genetics and molecular biology. I teach genetics to medical students and graduate students.
In humans, the traits of high intelligence and good judgement are unlinked. This fact is evidenced in the post and some of the comments.
Yes, intelligence has significant heritability. It is also influenced by culture and nutrition.
Yes, most people won’t be plasma physicists. Most people won’t be concert violinists. Most people won’t be major league pitchers. So what?
Does this mean that it is futile to offer high quality education to everyone in America? No. Not if you rely on science. High quality education doesn’t mean everyone takes the same classes. It never has and it never will. What it means is maximizing each person’s potential.
As Simone de Beauvoir has said “When an individual is kept in a situation of inferiority, the fact is that he does become inferior.” I firmly believe that we could only measure or test human intelligence if all humans would have the same environmental conditions; if each human would have all its emotional, economic, intellectual, social and physiological needs equally covered since birth. Then and only then, we could sit down and test to see if there is any factor that makes one person cleverer than other, and even then we would most probably find out that some would be more intelligent in certain areas when others would excel in others.
The problem is that we are only considering valuable intelligence, the one that is profitable for the societies we have built: societies divided by race, religion, class, and status. So, how clever are we, humans, as species?
Joel,
Unless I missed something, your position is essentially the same as Haier’s other than your comment on good judgement. And as I noted, it seems to be shared by most people in the field.
I am frankly not smart enough to figure out if you were commenting on my intelligence or my judgement (or perhaps both). Of course, if I got something wrong, it would be nice if it were pointed out. I am not too stupid to learn (I hope).
“[The] traits of high intelligence and good judgement are unlinked.”
I’d love to see that study!
Warren,
I don’t know about good judgement, but I have stumbled on a few studies that show a negative association between intelligence and conscientiousness. Recent example:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092656616300162
I have a few thoughts about such papers based on my limited understanding of the statistical process involved but it is sufficiently distant from anything resembling an area of expertise for me (and I don’t have the time to spend extending my expertise in that general direction) that I am not willing to comment beyond this: wait a few years to see whether these studies survive the test of time. In particular, watch the definition of conscientiousness.
Mike
it’s what you have been saying since you started on this trip.
knowing what i think i know about intelligence i can say without meaning any insult that i think it is very unlikely that you have the intelligence to understand that is what you have been saying. most people don’t.
Well, that was fun. Got 89th percentile for “contentiousness.” I guess on that one, I don’t fit the curve. However, I see some of that in my own kids. Very smart, but don’t do their homework. (Drives me crazy.) I’ve seen seemingly intelligent people take two vacations every year, buy a new car every two, and save little or nothing for retirement. Of the Polgar sisters, the oldest and youngest say the middle sister was the most talented, but didn’t work as hard, so did not achieve as much in the sport. Perhaps when things come easily in one’s youth, one never learns to work hard, because he beats his peers without trying.
That is also why I like commenting here. Mostly intelligent people with whom I disagree. So it requires me to read articles, laws, and books in depth. Discussions in which everyone agrees, in which no-one bothers to check facts, or make logical arguments, or points out logical fallacies, is simply boring.
But back to the paper…. I find rather interesting is that they try to “predict” cognitive ability from the personality scores, not the other way around. Perhaps that is just speaking in Statistician, but to this Engineer/Scientist, it would seem that cognitive ability develops before one’s personality solidifies.
Also, they found that, for those in full-time employment, cognitive ability was negatively correlated with contentiousness. This may be a similar effect. If you are better than your peers without working hard, is it worth the effort to work hard? (That correlation was not seen in those without full-time employment.)
“Our results can thus be interpreted as supporting the intelligence compensation hypothesis (Moutafi et al., 2003), which assumes that, on the labor market, people can compensate comparatively low cognitive ability with high Conscientiousness. By contrast, more cognitively talented persons fulfill their job requirements more easily and do not therefore need to be as conscientious.”
It’s could just be a matter of diminishing returns.
It could also be boredom. People get bored with tasks that do not challenge them, and people with greater cognitive ability are more likely to not find a task challenging, so they are less contentious about it.
Here’s a great example — the idea that Black and Hispanic kids need teachers that look like them more than they need competent teachers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/nyregion/ny-regents-teacher-exams-alst.html
Huh????
“:And of course, the selective pressures and the luck faced by your ancestors were different depending on where they were situated geographically.”
Where did this gem come from?.
Joel.. .thank you for an intelligent response to Mr. Kimel’s implied theories of race, culture, and intelligence.
Specifically:
“What it [high quality education] means is maximizing each person’s potential.”
Mr. Kimel,
You cite an excepted piece by an academic researcher, a neuroscientist from a well known and highly regarded university, and on ending you then say:
“Which is to say, the position is mainstream science on intelligence.
We ignore that at all of our peril.”
A) Which”position” of the mainstream science in the excerpted piece are you referring to?
B) Who are you referring to as “we”? Do you mean the political establishment which each State and Educational district in each state defines funding and curriculum, emphasis of education? or what?
And what do you propose be done to stop ignoring “mainstream science of intelligence”? In other words, what is the constructive point of your post or is there one?
By the same token we can also cite mainstream science on the effects of fossil fuel consumption rates and then also say “we ignore .. at our peril”. In which case I also then ask in the same vein what is your proposal to stop “ignoring” ?
In simple English what is your point? Or is there any?
Warren,
As I said… kick back, wait a few years, and watch the definition of conscientiousness in that particular subsection of the intelligence literature. One doesn’t have to be an expert to recognize signs of weakness.
Longtooth,
Stay with the program. When my wife was pregnant, the OB GYN had the fetus tested for Tay Sachs and not Sickle Cell Anemia based purely on the fact that my wife and I both descend from areas where nobody is concerned with getting malaria.
The first link in the post is to a 20 year old document entitled “Mainstream Science on Intelligence: An Editorial With 52 Signatories, History, and Bibliography” and as noted in the post, Haier was on of the signators. I am not in the field, but there are seven names on the list who I recognize based on a passing familiarity.
Whether you agree with the document or find it to be vile, it is readable and accessible to a lay person and too short to be boring. Which is to say, a lay person can go through it and understand what the document is claiming.
Of course, it may that the signators of the letter are lying and their position is not or was not mainstream science on intelligence.
I understand you would have difficult figuring out my point given that I have cleverly hidden it in the first sentence of the post.
Brother, of all things in this world I am not certain about, your point is not hidden.
Mr. Kimel,
I’m afraid I still don’t know what your point is. You said this 1st sentence was the point of your post:
“I’ve noted a few times that the political center needs to come to grips with research on genes and intelligence or we risk ceding the field to people with scary impulses and frightening goals.
It doesn’t at all tell me anything about the point of your post. Let me be clear on why it doesn’t..
The “political center”… not the left or right side of center? What reason the distinction and explicit “center”.? Is it the political center that is the problem? What makes the center the problem if so, and why aren’t the left of center and right of center a problem? I have no idea what you mean by or imply by the “political center” or even what politics you’re referring to by “political center”.. Do you mean the political center doesn’t do a good job of providing funding or curricula or training for teachers and schools or what? How does politics get into the subject of intelligence and genes or genes and education or intelligence and education? From your understanding.?
My understanding is that local school districts and individual state politics decide what education to provide students in their districts and states. To the best of my knowledge politicians and local / district school boards based their decisions on ideologies and whether they want to pay more taxes or not. What is it you understand? You didn’t make any point at all in this part of your statement, or the next part which hangs on the 1st part: . .
“… needs to come to grips with research on genes and intelligence ..”
What does “come to grips with” mean? Are you saying perhaps that genes have something to do with intelligence as I thought at least 90% of people pretty well know this without research to tell them this, though research does sort of put a seal on it. Though I think the research hasn’t determined the degree by which genes determine intelligence relative to environmental influences… as best I can tell from the article you cited (not the part you posted, but the whole article) as well as all other research on the topic, research isn’t saying genes determine intelligence… but that it’s only one of several factors. Research hasn’t even determined how much of which factors apply in any case.
So what “grips” from research are you saying we need to deal with? I have no idea what you’re meaning is by this statement, or what your point is at all. You’ve made no coherent point…
“…or we risk ceding the field to people with scary impulses and frightening goals.”
I can only infer what you might mean by this “or else” conclusion, but my inference may not be at all what you’re inferring so I have no idea in fact what you’re implying or inferring by the “or else” statement. What “scary impulses”? Can you be explicit? What “frightening goals”?. Can you be explicit? In fact why aren’t you being explicit? What reason for not being explicit?
And I still have no idea what your wife’s genealogy (or yours) has to do with intelligence and genes… you brought genetic disease probability into the subject (genes and intelligence) out of the blue from nowhere so I fail to see what disease probabilities from inherited genealogy has to do with genes and intelligence or intelligence and education?
I’m not a bit obtuse Mr. Kimel. You have made no point at all .. what you have done is infer or imply something .. perhaps its code for what your real point is.. which others may know how to decipher your code, but I’m not in that group who are “in the know” of your coded message if that’s what it is. If it’s not a coded message of what you mean and what your point is, then by all means be clear so normal “intelligent” people know what point it is you’re trying to make. I don’t want to put words in your mouth by trying to guess what your point is, so why don’t you just make the point clear and intelligible? What ever it is.
That is correct. Certainly not a bit.
Perhaps less settled than you believe.
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/6/15/15797120/race-black-white-iq-response-critics
Lord,
I read the Vox piece. I believe the big name there is Turkheimer as I’ve read his papers before and I’m not in the field. If I understand Turkheimer’s position correctly as stated in Vox, it basically comes down to this: noticing the difference between intelligence test scores between any two groups is the same as noticing that the Jews are different, and that makes Turkheimer very uncomfortable as a Jew.
I can appreciate his point. The idea that there are differences of any sort between groups is an uncomfortable idea. (And I also happen to be Jewish, for what little that’s worth.) But that isn’t an argument for whether something is true or not. It is at best a poor argument for not digging too deeply into a subject. But as Pinker pointed out when discussing a different paper, the Cochran-Hardy-Harpending hypothesis that makes a lot of people twitchy comes straight out of noticing differences in the prevalence of diseases between various groups.
Which is to say, to keep Turkheimer from being uncomfortable, we need to prevent people from looking into the various strains of malaria, gaucher’s and torsion dystonia. And that’s just what is mentioned in C-H-H (off of memory). You don’t need to be a geneticist to see that Turkheimer is making a Galileo era Cardinal’s complaint against telescopes rather than making an argument that the celestial spheres are perfect.