One of my best friends is doing research right now into intelligence tests in general.

What he has found out is amazing: basically, there is no science at all that backs up any claim that people differ in 'amount' of intelligence (other than people with brain damage). Intelligence testing began after the influx of immigrants in the early 20th century, when schools needed to filter students into tracks. But the initial tests were just for finding retardation. But we've had it around so long - the idea of IQ testing, etc., - everyone's grown to assume it is reality, though it is not.

Anyway, I hope my friend turns his research into a book. This kind of 'who's smarter' "science" is incredibly damaging and specious. I have been suspect about our measures of intelligence my whole life, ever since the "smartest" boy in my high school turned out to be as interesting as an old brick.

Whatever happened to the Harry Belafonte classic "Man Smart (Woman Smarter)"? I trust his calypse wisdom more.

Rushton rears his ugly head again ... he is such an embarassment to an otherwise good psych department....

i used to work in the psych department at UWO where he "teaches"/does his "research". the university is in london, ontario, and IS very conservative. lotsa old money. anyway, they protect him quite well so he can spew his drivel without consequence.

a former girlfriend of mine went through his data once and his stats don't exactly support some of his arguments for the race-based stuff. i'm sure this one isn't much better.

also, in the dept is a poster of all dept members' academic lineage. rushton can trace his directly back to francis galton, the father of eugenics. nasty nasty stuff....

Its my understanding that studies such as this often show a dispersal pattern along a classic bell curve. For men that pattern has longer tails at both ends. I.E. men have more geniuses and more idiots as well. Whereas women have shorter tails on both ends with a greater number of women having average intelligence.

Any study that purports inherit physiological differences between racial or gender groups can be said to “trace his directly back to francis galton, the father of eugenics. nasty nasty stuff....�
Such prognostications feed a anti-intellectual, ill-liberal environment in contemporary academe. Larry Summers type executions can only have a chilling effect on free inquiry.

I live in London, ON and went to UWO; the poster above is completely correct about how conservative the university is. Rushton is a bigot with self-esteem problems -- instead of just spewing his crap like the rest of the bigots, he has to dress his up in academic jargon in the hopes that someone, somewhere will take him seriously.

I'm sorry he's infesting the place. I volunteer to be his counterbalance.

I think Fitz has it--I havent seen Rushton's study, but the point about what happens at the thirds standard deviation explains why there are more male genius' (and idiots) than women genius' and idiots. Unless Rushton is arguing the means are different, variance alone explains the genius point.

I go to UWO. The university does indeed protect his right to "free speech" and ignores the fact that he is a complete embarassment to the university. To which I say, what does it matter if UWO gave Morgantaler an honorary degree last year if they're going to allow shit like this?

There was an article in our student paper, The Gazette, today. Let me add a few details:

In 1989, he claimed that Asians ranked the highest in "intelligence, sexual temperament, and social organization," followed by whites and then blacks. The University Students Council voted to ban him from teaching, and the administration defended his right to free speech.

I wouldn't take him seriously, and the funny thing is that the professors at UWO don't seem to take him seriously either.

Dr. Corless, chair of the Applied Math and an awesome professor, said this: "First, there is an unspoken and wrong assumption that people can measure, or even find, actual sex differences uninfluenced by the environment or society. That's just wrong. Show me a group of women today who have grown up in an environment free of bias. Look anywhere in the world, in any culture, and you just won't find it. If you think our cutlure, this open and tolerant culture in Canada, has no bias against women, you are wrong." He concludes by saying that IQ is a poor measure of intelligence, because "the bottom line is, and this has been known for a very long tim, IQ tests measure the ability to do IQ tests. That's it."

A few professors have questioned his motives and who gains from his research, and who is funding it. Rushton won't reveal that. They criticised his use of the SAT, calling it inherently biased.

Most hilariously, Dr. Bailey, a Biology professor, said this: "Philippe Rushton has once again demonstrated his unwillingness or inability to evolve in his understanding of evolution, genetics, and human behaviour. I have given up debating him and just marvel at the longevity and consistency of his willful ignorance."

Luckily, Rushton is a joke, and thankfully, most of us at UWO know it. The university will keep supporting him, of course, but Mansfield gets support too, and that doesn't make him less of a joke.

prairielily: he (Rushton) actually went a bit further than you discuss--as far as measuring the penis'of different ethnicity and attempting to correlate that variable to other variables. Look at it like this: Rushton is the price a university has to pay for academic freedom.

I suspect it's also a question of failure to analyze the data thoroughly. I don't recall where I saw it, but someone else saw the study and pointed out that, since more women than men take the SAT. If we assume that the people taking the SAT cluster on the right side of their respective bell curves, than it makes perfect sense that women would do worse: the men corresponding to the women in intelligence aren't taking the test, so you create the illusion that men do better than women.

Statistics really are a great tool, but if you're not very careful, they can lead you astray in short order.

I'm not quite on the "they're all useless" side of the intelligence test debate, but the tests are definitely over-rated by some, unequal in their validity, and complicated to interpret. Some of the history is also quite amusing or sad, depending on how dark your sense of humor is. The first intelligence tests were devised by a researcher who was convinced intelligence was mostly learned, and who wanted to identify young children who needed special help, early tutoring or whatever, to catch up with their peers.

While it's a vexed question how to even measure to what degree genetics influence intelligence, it is quite clear that none of the intelligence tests measure genetics only; there is plenty of research which shows assorted environmental influences to have enormous impacts on test results (the Flynn effect being perhaps the most dramatic example of an effect which is huge, which we don't understand at all, but which can't possibly be genetic).

On men vs. women specifically, some early IQ tests showed women consistently scoring higher than men. Since those results were obviously wrong, the researchers adjusted the tests, removing some questions on which women did better than men and adding more questions similar to those on which women did worse, until the scores started coming out even. The history is certainly worth looking at, for anybody who wants to either use or criticize this stuff.

Stephen Jay Gould's book "The Mismeasure of Man" debunks the kind of ridiculous speculation engaged in by Rushton.

Ah, yes, Rushton. Check out the Wikipedia entry on him, re his assertion of an inverse correlation between penis size and intelligence. "It's more brain or more penis. You can't have everything." Could Rushton be trying to compensate for a shortcoming?

Four more IQ points is not what makes or breaks a career. One blogger, Michael from Half Sigma, crunched the General Social Survey for links between IQ and success. He found that the smartest people: don't earn more money, are more likely to be celibate if unmarried, have lower sex drives, and are less athletic.

And, it turns out that the smartest men are the most likely to have paid a prostitute for sex.

This guy still thinks "The Bell Curve" is valid when that bit of statistical silliness was debunked when I was in grad school in the late 70s.
If the good prof is taking suggestions, I would suggest he explains how he operationalizes race or even defines it.
To quote someone far wiser than this bit of intellectual flotsam, "Race is a pigment of the imagination"

Wasn't there a study done that showed people did better all around on tests when they entered their information (gender, ethnicity, etc) after taking the test as opposed to before it? I don't know how conclusive the results were, but it seemed as though that played a factor. How were this guy's tests administered?

I totally agree with prairielilly.. There's a lot of us up here in 'Canuckistan' who're embarrassed as hell that this guy teaches at one of our universities...

Maudian, I believe the study showed that women and minorities scored comparably with white men if they didn't fill out demographic data beforehand, but worse when they did. There wasn't any appreciable difference for white men either way. I can't seem to find the study to back this up, though. I think I saw it somewhere on Feministing in the comments, if that helps.

This is a nice takedown of Rushton and the past flaws in his research.

Huh. I was taught in psych class that IQ doesn't actually measure intelligence. Also IQ increases during a person's life, so the middle-aged male authors of this study should defer to women senior citizens if they really believe what they are saying.

Wasn't there a study done that showed people did better all around on tests when they entered their information (gender, ethnicity, etc) after taking the test as opposed to before it?

Yes there was. The authors of the study called this "stereotype vulnerability".

"Men and women are equally smart; this guy suggests men are smarter than women; therefore, this guy is obviously a whacko."

Does your argument against his claim that men are smarter than women really start with the "premise" that men and women are equally smart.

It is not implausible on its face that evolution has selected men for IQ and women for some other desirable trait. I have no idea, so I don't take a stand. BUt apparently having no idea doesn't bother you - who needs rational argument when you have absolute faith in the tenets of modern liberalism?

Wasn't there a study done that showed people did better all around on tests when they entered their information (gender, ethnicity, etc) after taking the test as opposed to before it?

I don't know about that, but I know that girls do worse on math tests if they're told before the test that boys get better results on it.

It is not implausible on its face that evolution has selected men for IQ and women for some other desirable trait.

The study has shitty controls and is contradicted by countless existing studies that find that cognitive differences between men and women are negligible. Hence the hypothesis you give is just wrong. It's alright for hypotheses to be wrong - science is all about falsfication. The problems begin when you keep asserting the hypothesis after it's been disproven.

It is not implausible on its face that evolution has selected men for IQ and women for some other desirable trait.

No, it isn't implausible, but if that's the truth I think some evidence would have shown up by now.

As the editor of a trade magazine and Website for engineers, I’ve been following these so-called studies about gender or ethnic stereotypical capabilities. It’s a constant barrage of “women can’t do well in math and science� or “white guys can’t play basketball.� Where do these “studies� come from? Obviously, because the people running them get funding. But why do they get funding? Based on a study reported in the Washington Post, a phenomenon called "stereotype threat" causes people prompted to think about negative gender or racial stereotypes to conform to them while the stereotypical thoughts are fresh in their minds. If you are prompted to think you won’t do well in a math test or a in 100-yard dash, you probably won’t. The so-called “study� that you cite is just another attempt to try to discourage women or minorities from trying to accomplish as much as they might.

What was most brazen to me (I don't think anyone else has picked up on this) is how researchers (not just this chump) conduct correlational studies that by definition cannot show causality, then fill their reports with "because" statements. Girls aren't as smart because.... when nothing in their research was designed to show causality.

It's like saying ice cream sales are higher when the temperature is higher. Correlation, but not causal. You can't sell more ice cream that causes the temperature to rise.

In the off chance he's actually measured something reproducable, it could very well be because women are more ignored in public schools, aren't given opportunity, are dropped more on their heads as infants, etc. It could be fucking anything.

But he's much more at home making up his own answers. So sad science is represented by this tool.

"No, it isn't implausible, but if that's the truth I think some evidence would have shown up by now."

Right, except that (as people in this thread have shown) there are (a) difficulties in producing anything that could be evidence (sample biases, cultural biases) and (b) a lot of people who will just reject any evidence outright because it contradicts their foundational premise.