Wednesday 30 June 2010

Use Your Intelligence

Lower IQ in Africa?

I have never taken an IQ test in my life, and I question whether anyone who sets any store by them is sufficiently intelligent to be allowed out alone, if at all. The whole thing depends on “mental age”, whatever that may be. The IQ of children in numerous countries has “improved” dramatically over the years when IQ tests have been set, and therefore taught to, in schools; indeed, this never fails to happen.

The publications of Mensa are a particularly rich seam of amusement. “More people than you might think are above average”? I’m guessing about half of them. “One person in twenty is in the top five per cent”? You don’t say! And so on.

But never try and tell the “I have a high IQ” lot any of this. They are even worse than the Oxbridgers. At least you have to do something first to get into Oxbridge and then to get a degree there, even if you do only have to do it at a very early age (there is no excuse for still dining out on it even a very few years, never mind decades, later), and even if it does only make you the equal of the ninety-fifth best Etonian in his year.

You wouldn’t have to, and indeed never could, do anything to get a high IQ, if such a thing really existed. Having it would be no cause for congratulation, never mind for self-congratulation or for the creation of an international society for mutual congratulation.

1 comment:

  1. It is interesting that the authors of the article cite Richard Lynn, who is basically a neo-eugenicist. There, I said it. I am not sure what else you could say about a man who said:

    "If the evolutionary process is to bring its benefits, it has to be allowed to operate effectively. This means that incompetent societies have to be allowed to go to the wall.”

    "This is something we in advanced societies do not at present face up to ... . For instance, the foreign aid which we give to the under-developed world is a mistake, akin to keeping going incompetent species like the dinosaurs ...”

    Eugenics has already made a comeback and it is something Catholics in particular will have to contend with, since throughout history the Catholic Church has been the institution most consistently opposed to eugenics and similar ideas.

    This will likely mean opposing some scientists and some people on both the Left and the Right. But I don’t see any other option, as advances in the biological sciences are setting the stage for the massive abuse of biotechnology and genetics.

    Get ready to be called “sentimentalists” “Luddites,” “cavemen,” etc. by those who only care about scientific “pragmatism.”

    More on topic, isn’t it interesting that the same folks who go on and on about there being too many Africans and other non-white people are also the folks who push environmentalism and other anti-development policies on the Third World that create the conditions for famine and disease to run rampant?

    ReplyDelete