TV Review: "The National IQ Test" (rant)
Aug. 7th, 2002 07:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lederhosenWhat is 'junk science'? Something like this: "Using a semblance of science, without its rigor, to sell rubbish 'facts'."
It's easy to do: make up a few factoids that appeal to your audience's prejudices and fears. Tell 'em what they want to hear, what they already know. Make it scientific, and let them clap themselves on the back for being clever enough to 'know' these things before the scientist told them so.
Because science is about asking questions, "Is this true?" And the vast majority of people, I'm beginning to suspect, don't want to know what the truth is. They want to be confirmed in their own attitudes. They don't want to have to change themselves, or come to terms with the hard things.
So, what would you like to hear?
There is a simple and effective cure for cancer. Using ingredients found in your local supermarket, you can not only send it into remission but ward off heart disease at the same time, boosting your life expectancy to well over 100.
Alpha-beta-gamma-what-the-hell-hydroxyls will make your face 13% less wrinkled.
Using Viagra will make you into a sex god.
Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus.
Safe-sex practices are unnecessary because AIDS isn't really a contagious disease, it's caused by anti-AIDS therapies. (No, really, there are people who believe this.)
The existence of 'irreducibly complex' biological systems proves that life on Earth was created, not evolved.
But perhaps the most insidious form of junk science is the one which starts with a grain of truth. The left-brain/right-brain mythology, for instance.
Take a verifiable fact - the two halves of the brain do behave somewhat differently, although the difference is nowhere near as great nor as clear-cut as pop science makes out. Then vastly exaggerate this fact and use it to explain the whole world. (And if you can't make the conclusions match your own prejudices, you're just not trying. Or maybe you're too right-brained?)
One of the most annoying examples of this is IQ testing. 'Intelligence' is a complex, many-dimensional, highly subjective trait - and the IQ testers will mouth something along those lines very softly before proceeding to give the impression that IQ equates to intelligence.
As originally conceived, IQ testing is not an unreasonable idea. It was intended as a first-round screening measure, to pick out students who might be doing exceptionally well or badly - as you might look for exceptionally fat or thin students as an obvious sign of poor health.
Then, and this is the important part, you go onto the second round. Individual attention to the ones who do very well or very poorly, to determine just _why_ they got such a score and what should be done about it. Maybe little Johnny is partially deaf, and couldn't hear the instructions properly. Maybe he's dyslexic. Maybe he's from a different country and so does poorly on the culture-specific questions. Maybe he has a bad memory. Maybe his pencil broke. Maybe he just doesn't handle tests well.
These are important things to know, and time-intensive follow-up will identify the problem areas and suggest what might be done about them. Get Johnny's ears checked. Give him practice in test-taking until he loses his nervousness. Give him a new pencil. Properly done, IQ testing will pick out the ones who need this more intensive follow-up. But it was *never* intended as a meaningful stopping point. You might as well say "OK, little Stevie is fatter than usual, so he'll probably get heart disease and die young. Next!"
And is IQ used the way it was intended? Hell, no.
#1: In several states across the US, IQ score is used as a part of the definition of mental retardation that determines whether somebody can or can't be subjected to capital punishment. Why? Probably because 'mental retardation' is, in the end, a subjective judgement. We can't appear to be executing people or sparing them on the basis of a subjective judgement, so we plug them into the Magic Number Box and let it decide for us. Never mind that the result is a good deal _less_ useful than a subjective judgement by a real psychologist.
#2: IQ ratings used to determine suitability for jobs.
#3: IQ ratings used as an excuse for very sad people to congratulate themselves on their 'genius level IQ'.
#4: Proctogenerated IQ ratings for celebrities who never took IQ tests, used to prove God-only-knows-what. My stepson, who is a very bright lad, came home yesterday informing me that "Marilyn Monroe was a cockroach smarter than Albert Einstein", because (supposedly) she had three more IQ points and that's how bright a cockroach is. (I'm fascinated to hear how one tells the difference between, say, IQs 3 and 5.)
Now, let's talk about what I watched last night. A program, idea lifted from a similar show in the UK, run in collaboration with what - for want of a better word - I shall call a newspaper. People competing via Internet, SMS, or sitting in the studio audience.
The studio audience. Seated together by categories:
Teachers.
Celebrities.
Students.
Blondes. (All female. Apparently there are no blonde men or, more likely, titling them "blonde women" would've made somebody look like the misogynist prat they are.)
Builders.
Kiwis. (For those not in the know, 'kiwi' = derogatory term for a New Zealander.)
Seventy-six questions, padded out by an inane compere (whose own score was never divulged) and copious ad breaks to run for something like three hours. Compere took every opportunity to take cheap shots at blondes, New Zealanders (I'm sorry, there's only so many times you can hear somebody asked to say 'fish and chips' or 'six' before the sparkling originality wears off), etc etc. We managed to roll in racism ("90? You must be from Samoa!"), sexism (see above) and a slight whiff of homophobia (the Footy Show contingent who still, after all these years, manage to enthrall audiences by dressing up in frocks in that strange macho ritual whereby you impersonate a poofter to make it clear that you're not. Why, God, why?)
And at the end, of course, each group's score was read out, and gigantic mountains were made out of tiny molehills. Did you know that the average NSW participant scored a whopping 4 points more than the average Victorian? Hence, NSW must be a smarter state! Never mind that no attempt was made to get a representative sampling, or that 4 points - even if the sample size was large enough for statistical significance - is piddlingly small.
And yes, the blondes did badly. You know, if you start by grouping people according to a stereotype associated with stupidity, and then spend the entire evening harping on that stereotype, damn right they're going to do badly. Why don't we just step right out and say it: Girls can't do math! Pretty is the enemy of smart! Venusians don't have spatial perception skills!
*seethe*
And at the end, the inevitable "If you scored over 140, you ought to go join Mensa!" The combination of smugness and a ghetto mentality - I can't think of anything less appealing.
Rant over... for now.
It's easy to do: make up a few factoids that appeal to your audience's prejudices and fears. Tell 'em what they want to hear, what they already know. Make it scientific, and let them clap themselves on the back for being clever enough to 'know' these things before the scientist told them so.
Because science is about asking questions, "Is this true?" And the vast majority of people, I'm beginning to suspect, don't want to know what the truth is. They want to be confirmed in their own attitudes. They don't want to have to change themselves, or come to terms with the hard things.
So, what would you like to hear?
There is a simple and effective cure for cancer. Using ingredients found in your local supermarket, you can not only send it into remission but ward off heart disease at the same time, boosting your life expectancy to well over 100.
Alpha-beta-gamma-what-the-hell-hydroxyls will make your face 13% less wrinkled.
Using Viagra will make you into a sex god.
Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus.
Safe-sex practices are unnecessary because AIDS isn't really a contagious disease, it's caused by anti-AIDS therapies. (No, really, there are people who believe this.)
The existence of 'irreducibly complex' biological systems proves that life on Earth was created, not evolved.
But perhaps the most insidious form of junk science is the one which starts with a grain of truth. The left-brain/right-brain mythology, for instance.
Take a verifiable fact - the two halves of the brain do behave somewhat differently, although the difference is nowhere near as great nor as clear-cut as pop science makes out. Then vastly exaggerate this fact and use it to explain the whole world. (And if you can't make the conclusions match your own prejudices, you're just not trying. Or maybe you're too right-brained?)
One of the most annoying examples of this is IQ testing. 'Intelligence' is a complex, many-dimensional, highly subjective trait - and the IQ testers will mouth something along those lines very softly before proceeding to give the impression that IQ equates to intelligence.
As originally conceived, IQ testing is not an unreasonable idea. It was intended as a first-round screening measure, to pick out students who might be doing exceptionally well or badly - as you might look for exceptionally fat or thin students as an obvious sign of poor health.
Then, and this is the important part, you go onto the second round. Individual attention to the ones who do very well or very poorly, to determine just _why_ they got such a score and what should be done about it. Maybe little Johnny is partially deaf, and couldn't hear the instructions properly. Maybe he's dyslexic. Maybe he's from a different country and so does poorly on the culture-specific questions. Maybe he has a bad memory. Maybe his pencil broke. Maybe he just doesn't handle tests well.
These are important things to know, and time-intensive follow-up will identify the problem areas and suggest what might be done about them. Get Johnny's ears checked. Give him practice in test-taking until he loses his nervousness. Give him a new pencil. Properly done, IQ testing will pick out the ones who need this more intensive follow-up. But it was *never* intended as a meaningful stopping point. You might as well say "OK, little Stevie is fatter than usual, so he'll probably get heart disease and die young. Next!"
And is IQ used the way it was intended? Hell, no.
#1: In several states across the US, IQ score is used as a part of the definition of mental retardation that determines whether somebody can or can't be subjected to capital punishment. Why? Probably because 'mental retardation' is, in the end, a subjective judgement. We can't appear to be executing people or sparing them on the basis of a subjective judgement, so we plug them into the Magic Number Box and let it decide for us. Never mind that the result is a good deal _less_ useful than a subjective judgement by a real psychologist.
#2: IQ ratings used to determine suitability for jobs.
#3: IQ ratings used as an excuse for very sad people to congratulate themselves on their 'genius level IQ'.
#4: Proctogenerated IQ ratings for celebrities who never took IQ tests, used to prove God-only-knows-what. My stepson, who is a very bright lad, came home yesterday informing me that "Marilyn Monroe was a cockroach smarter than Albert Einstein", because (supposedly) she had three more IQ points and that's how bright a cockroach is. (I'm fascinated to hear how one tells the difference between, say, IQs 3 and 5.)
Now, let's talk about what I watched last night. A program, idea lifted from a similar show in the UK, run in collaboration with what - for want of a better word - I shall call a newspaper. People competing via Internet, SMS, or sitting in the studio audience.
The studio audience. Seated together by categories:
Teachers.
Celebrities.
Students.
Blondes. (All female. Apparently there are no blonde men or, more likely, titling them "blonde women" would've made somebody look like the misogynist prat they are.)
Builders.
Kiwis. (For those not in the know, 'kiwi' = derogatory term for a New Zealander.)
Seventy-six questions, padded out by an inane compere (whose own score was never divulged) and copious ad breaks to run for something like three hours. Compere took every opportunity to take cheap shots at blondes, New Zealanders (I'm sorry, there's only so many times you can hear somebody asked to say 'fish and chips' or 'six' before the sparkling originality wears off), etc etc. We managed to roll in racism ("90? You must be from Samoa!"), sexism (see above) and a slight whiff of homophobia (the Footy Show contingent who still, after all these years, manage to enthrall audiences by dressing up in frocks in that strange macho ritual whereby you impersonate a poofter to make it clear that you're not. Why, God, why?)
And at the end, of course, each group's score was read out, and gigantic mountains were made out of tiny molehills. Did you know that the average NSW participant scored a whopping 4 points more than the average Victorian? Hence, NSW must be a smarter state! Never mind that no attempt was made to get a representative sampling, or that 4 points - even if the sample size was large enough for statistical significance - is piddlingly small.
And yes, the blondes did badly. You know, if you start by grouping people according to a stereotype associated with stupidity, and then spend the entire evening harping on that stereotype, damn right they're going to do badly. Why don't we just step right out and say it: Girls can't do math! Pretty is the enemy of smart! Venusians don't have spatial perception skills!
*seethe*
And at the end, the inevitable "If you scored over 140, you ought to go join Mensa!" The combination of smugness and a ghetto mentality - I can't think of anything less appealing.
Rant over... for now.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-08-06 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-08-06 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-08-06 05:23 pm (UTC)Now I understand why everyone at work is going on and on about their IQ's today, with blondes and kiwi's and Eddie McGuire being mentioned here and there.
I think a large percentage of the population has crayons up their noses.
I really dislike Eddie McGuire, but not as much as I dislike Mike Monroe.
Amen !!!
Date: 2002-08-06 07:15 pm (UTC)Ahh, I wish I could rant that coherently. That was beautiful. If "Big Eddie, Da Prez o' Collingwood FC" sends his stormtroopers your way for that one, I'm heading to Victoria Park (CFC's home ground) with a box of matches, a can of petrol and a team of building inspectors. Bravo. :)
Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Acorns
I see. *thoughtfultailswish* So according to him, women are actually Squirrels.
That makes sense, I think...
("Ooooh...*comehitherflick*...could you move a few boxes for me? *chittergiggle* You KNOW I love it!")
no subject
Date: 2002-08-07 02:52 am (UTC)Oh $DEITY...
Date: 2002-08-07 09:13 am (UTC)I had a professor in college. If we're looking at that stooopid test, he'd run circles around everyone in that program---and most everyone in Mensa for that matter. He was teaching the Science, Technology and Society course, and devoted one class hour to intelligence. Two sentences stay in my head: "Intelligence is a multi-faceted gem." (I.e. being able to solve third order diff equations with a glance isn't the whole of it.) And if that isn't enough for you: "The correlation between intelligence and happiness is negative." See, in that case it may be harder to believe what you want to believe.