Physics Guy wrote:One basic question concerns the innateness of IQ—its supposed un-trainability. In fact one can improve one's IQ score significantly by practicing the specific kinds of questions that appear on the tests. The only reason that IQ can be said not to improve with education in that way is that people just don't practice for IQ tests, because they would really have to go out of their way to do that. The questions on IQ tests are weird challenges that never come up in normal life. If there were any cross-training effect on IQ tests from real-world intellectual tasks, the claim that IQ is unaffected by education could never be made. Given this lack of influence of real-world intellectual skills on IQ, the converse claim that IQ nonetheless contributes generally to all intellectual tasks is eyebrow-raising.
Another basic pronblem for me is that reification is a much subtler issue than the IQ literature I've read seems to realize. As an analogy for what they're saying about intelligence, consider wealth. Some people are rich and some are poor, and it's arguably possible to determine a net financial worth for a person in order to quantify just how rich or poor they are. In that sense okay, wealth is a thing. And it's an important thing precisely because it is a general thing. One's ability to buy a yacht, or an election, doesn't depend much on what particular form one's wealth takes. The bottom line net worth is what matters.
And if you hear someone say all that about wealth, then so far, so good. Wealth is like that. If someone starts talking about the difficult issues involved in carrying your wealth around, though, or in storing it, then you have to do a double take. Do they imagine that wealth is gold coins? Bales of hay? Just because wealth is real, in a sense, doesn't mean that it's real in the way that gold coins or hay are. In some ways it's a thing but in other ways not, and if you casually treat it as a thing in one way just because it's a thing in the other, you're going to have a bad time.
Just to clarify a few things about what Murray actually says, he does not say tbat g is a literal real thing that literally cannot be changed in the way that, say, phycists say electrons are literal real things with literal negative charges. Rather, "g" is a model with explanatory power of how we perform across the board on complex mental tasks.
He doesn't say g can't be changed as if that were a fundamental property of the universe. Rather, he says that according to the psychological research, it is difficult to change it much. Of course you can't score well on the ASVAB if you've never been exposed to Algebra. Nobody claimed that you could. Duh. It's just that in America, almost everybody who takes the test has in fact had a few years of Algebra.
According to Murray, the research indicates that if you study for the ASVAB it does in fact improve your score. However, if you take the test 6 weeks after you stop studying, your score will likely revert. It is important to understand that when talking about all of Murray is just describing in broad terms what the research indicates. He says that being adopted into a better environment to grow is in fact proven to raise your IQ.
Have you seen the documentary, "Hoop Dreams"? It follows the life of a couple of gifted inner-city kids who dream of being NBA stars.
Although they are from inner city Chicago they come from good homes that value education. They are tall, strong athletes who have clearly eaten well their whole lives. They don't get in trouble with the law or do drugs. They get basketball scholarships to one of the best private high schools in Chicago.
At that point, what disadvantages do they have? They are going to a school with a bunch of privleged rich kids where they are treated like gods; they are getting the best high school education money can buy.
One of them becomes one of the top basketball recruits in the country. As a high school senior, everybody believed one day will be an NBA star. He gets a full ride scholarship to a prestigious college, but according to NCAA rules, if he isn't in the top half of his class, he needs to hit a minimum score on the SAT to prove that he has any business being in college. After attending one of the best high schools in the country for 4 years, he still can't pass the SAT. The university hires top-tier tutors to help him study for it, and he STILL needs 2 or 3 more attempts to meet thi minimum standard.
All IQ tests are at best approximations of "g", which in and of itself isn't a real thing but rather is just a way of modeling intelligence that turns out to have predictive power.
If somebody studies a lot so that they do well on these tests, they can probably work hard and succeed at other intellectually challenging things too. But if you work hard at a top-ranked high school and still can't get a modest SAT score, don't count on hard work to get into law school.
I don't think Murray would take issue with anything I just said. Don't confuse EA's strawman with what TBC actually says.