Misology in America Part 1

Misology in America
By Robert E. Reis

Misology is the hatred of objective knowledge gained by the scrupulous use of the scientific method when it contradicts the political goals, ideology or religious faith of the misologists.

Misologists dominate the discussion of public policies in several areas in the modern world.

In the United States misologists predominate in the media, the universities, the schools, and among the elected politicians and the clergy.

Can I prove that misologists rule the United States?

There is a scientific field with a century of scrupulously amassed objective knowledge that is directly related to the optimum design of important social policies. This scientific field is reviled in the media, the universities, the schools, and by the elected politicians and the clergy.

Psychologists who have been studying human mental ability have discovered there is a general mental ability factor that is measured by all tests of mental ability.

The general mental ability factor is measured by I.Q. tests.

Scores on I.Q. tests predicts important differences in valued life outcomes when applied to large numbers of people who have identical scores.

Correlations between I.Q. scores and real world outcomes exist in school performance, job performance, socioeconomic advancement, occupation, income, social pathology, health, longevity, success and failure. I.Q. scores do not correlate meaningfully with subjective feelings of happiness or unhappiness.

Correlations with I.Q. vary systematically by outcome. Correlations with I.Q. are higher when tasks are more complex. When jobs are ranked by overall complexity of work, the correlations between IQ and job performance rise.

IQ 75 signals the ability level below which individuals are not likely to master the elementary school curriculum or to function independently in adulthood in modern societies.

IQ 85 is an important minimum threshold. The U.S. military sets its minimum enlistment standards at this level. The U.S. military has experimented with recruiting men of IQ 80-85, but it found that such men could not master soldiering well enough to justify their costs.

IQ 105 is the minimum threshold for achieving moderately high levels of success. People above this level are competitive for middle-level jobs (clerical, crafts and repair, sales, police and firefighting), and they are good contenders for the lower tiers of managerial and professional work (supervisory, technical, accounting, nursing, teaching).

IQ 115 marks the ability threshold for being competitive as a candidate for graduate or professional school in the U.S.

In a world where political and social policies were made by people who were honest seekers of wisdom and truth, tests that measured the general mental ability factor would simply be useful tools to direct young people into educational programs for which they were best suited.

But political and social policies are not made by people who are honest seekers of wisdom and truth in the United States.

Only the most extreme misologists deny that scores on IQ tests correlate with important life outcomes. But all misologists pretend to be unhappy with this fact and support explanations of this correlation which deny the reality of innate differences in mental abilities among humans.

Some misologists assert that IQ is an illusion invented by the privileged classes to preserve their privileges. For them IQ is an arbitrary, socially constructed label. The privileged classes simply label behaviors that they like or perform well as intelligent and then get society to reward these behaviors as forms of merit. They deny that real differences in mental competence exist and argue that mental ability tests should be outlawed and that everyone should be forced to treat everyone else as equally intelligent.

A larger group of misologists admits that IQ differences reflect real differences in capability, but they argue that this higher capability consists only of having learned more. They deny that individuals differ in any underlying ability or aptness in learning. They assert that children from more privileged families have more opportunities to amass intelligence, which they can then use in adulthood to get better jobs.

Both schools of misologists agree that IQ is a channel through which social advantage and disadvantage are passed on across generations.

All misologists adhere to the social privilege theory of IQ.

Social privilege theory predicts people will be similar in IQ to the extent that they share the same socioeconomic advantages and disadvantages. For them, individuals who grow up together should be much alike regardless of how genetically similar they are. Identical twins are 100% genetically similar. Adopted siblings raised in the same home are 0% genetically similar. Social privilege theory predicts that the IQs of all the children raised in the same home will be similar.

Social privilege theory’s prediction has been proven to be false. Behavior geneticists have shown that, by adolescence, adoptive siblings are no more alike than strangers, but identical twins raised separately are highly similar in IQ (correlation of almost .8) and, indeed, are much more similar than fraternal twins reared together.

Studies have proven that family members are no more alike in IQ by adulthood than their genetic relatedness would predict.

When a scientific theory makes predictions that are proven to be false, scientists are supposed to admit that their theory is wrong. Social privilege theorists never admit that their theory is wrong. They are not scientists, they are misologists.

The alternative explanation of the predictive power of IQ tests is that these tests measure a general capacity for acquiring, processing, and applying knowledge of almost any type.

The general mental ability factor measures the ability to profit from instruction, think abstractly, reason, and solve problems.

Research has consistently shown that people with higher general mental ability factor scores on IQ tests are more educable and trainable, often learning 2-5 times faster than their less able peers when exposed to the same instruction.

People with higher general mental ability factor scores on IQ tests cost less to train per unit of skill or knowledge gained. They can also learn difficult material that less able individuals cannot, even when the latter are given more time and assistance.

Social privilege theorists predicts on the job performance evaluations will be correlated with family background rather than IQ. However, when objective standards of evaluation are used to evaluate work performance; the correlations between IQ and work performance increase.

Once again the misologists ignore the falsification of the predictions produced by their theory.

All large populations have IQs distributed as a bell curve. Most people have IQs in the middle of the range and the number of people with extremely high score or extremely low scores is small.

The average IQs of different groups of people living in the United States have been studied for many decades. In the case of African-American, IQ studies have been done for almost a century. Racial-ethnic groups differ in average IQ.

IQ test scores predict later school and work performance equally well in all groups for which there are enough data (whites, blacks, and Hispanic Americans).

The group differences in the distribution of IQ scores represent real group differences in mental ability, which produce comparable group differences in achievement.

People with IQs below 75 are unlikely to master the elementary school curriculum

18% of African-Americans have IQs below 75.
14% of Hispanic Americans have IQs below 75.
2% of White Americans have IQs below 75.

The United States military sets its minimum enlistment standard at IQ 85.

44% of African-Americans have IQs below 85.
34% of Hispanic Americans have IQs below 85.
13% of White Americans have IQs below 85.

56% of African-Americans could qualify for military employment.
66% of Hispanic Americans could qualify for military employment.
87% of White Americans could qualify for military employment.

IQ 105 is currently the minimum IQ for achieving moderately high levels of success. People above this level are competitive for middle-level jobs (clerical, crafts and repair, sales, police and firefighting), and they are good contenders for the lower tiers of managerial and professional work (supervisory, technical, accounting, nursing, teaching).

92% of African-Americans have IQs below 105.
82% of Hispanic Americans have IQs below 105.
60% of White Americans have IQs below 105.

Looking at the proportion of these racial/ethnic categories that have IQs over 105 and could qualify for midlevel jobs, managerial positions, and professional work shows:

8% of African-Americans have IQs above 105.
18 % of Hispanic Americans have IQs above 105.
40% of White Americans have IQs above 105.

IQ 115 marks the ability threshold for being competitive as a candidate for graduate or professional school in the U.S

2% of African-Americans have IQs that reach this ability threshold.

6% of Hispanic Americans have IQs that reach this ability threshold.

18% of White Americans have IQs that reach this ability threshold.

The IQ gap between blacks and whites in the United States has not changed since it was first measured nearly a century ago.

The black-white gap is no different at age of school entry than at age of school exit twelve years later.

Since IQ curves of all three racial/ethnic groups overlaps, it is impossible to know a person’s IQ by knowing their race.

Social privilege theorists assume that all people are born with equal potential. They use all correlations between parents and children in IQ, education, occupation, or income as proof that social disadvantage is the sole cause of lower attainments.

Behavioral genetic studies have shown that their assumption is contrary to the facts. They show that IQ, level of education and income level are all 40% or more genetic in origin.

Honest scientists would recognise the refutation of their assumption and revise their views; the social privilege theorists do not abandon their assumption.

The social privilege theory is not science; it is ideology. It is part of the integrated assertions, theories and aims of a political program. The social privilege theorists are not scientists; they are political operators.

Posted by Robert Reis on Tuesday, December 4, 2007 at 11:32 PM in Genetics & Human Bio-Diversity
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