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Stuart

hi there. great books. great blog.

i thought this might be of interest, a recent story here in the UK;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4785574.stm

Captoe

I've gotten incredible heat from visitors for having a book called The Bell Curve Debate http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812925874 on my bookshelf at home.

Leprosy indeed.

Bruce Hutchinson

While I'm not going to defend The Bell Curve in any way (I've never read it), I do think it's a terrible mistake to link genetics with biological determinism. Stephen Pinker does an excellent job discussing this in The Blank Slate.

Mark Dery

Who's linking _The Bell Curve_ and genetics? The latter is science, *the* flagship science of our age; the former, racism in a lab coat instead of a white sheet.

Mark Dery

I can't resist asking, Steven: Have you ever had an IQ test? The unexamined aspect of such tests is the psychological fallout they have on those who take them, then learn the results.

evil cat

Thanks for pointing this out. I've read "Everything Bad" and "Mind Wide Open" and occasionally read your blog. I too was, um, surprised to see "The Bell Curve" on your bookshelf, but I now completely understand (and agree with) your logic. To Mark Dery: Johnson mentions in Mind Wide Open (I think, I don't have passages on me that I can quote) that he knows he has a very well-organized brain (I believe a measure of good intelligence), but no particular region stands out like it would with an Einstein or Mozart. I think in reality, the level of success somebody achieves depends more on their personality than their I.Q. after a certain point, i.e. a very ambitious and determined person with a score of 100 could very well do "better" than a lazier personality with a score of 125. Of course, this won't work in extreme cases (say below 90 and above 150 or so).

Bill Dauphin

"The unexamined aspect of [IQ] tests is the psychological fallout they have on those who take them, then learn the results."

Hmmm... there's fallout and then there's fallout. When my daughter was preparing to enter grade school, we had her tested for the purpose of placing her in a gifted class. Years later she was diagnosed with brain cancer. When her oncologist told her mother and me that the combination of surgery, chemo, and radiation it would take to save her life might take 5 or 6 points off her IQ, imagine the "psychological fallout" of knowing that, having tested in the high 150s, she had plenty of "margin."

(She's cancer-free and doing fine now, BTW.)

san

Isn't IQ only of abstract interest? My IQ was tested in my late teens; Wechsler would put me in his highest classification. I know my life, and I know my IQ score, so I have to know that my intelligence has greatly enriched my life -- the one I lead inside my head -- but I doubt anyone else can see that. My IQ score isn't a made-up number, but I can't see what practical significance it has; it's tantamount to a made-up number.

Steven Johnson

To Mark's question, I took a few IQ-like tests as a kid, though I don't remember a specific score associated with them. And then I took a few informal ones on the computer when I was writing Mind Wide Open.

But let me be clear: I don't think that IQ tests are terribly helpful in their assessment of individual people, particularly when you're using them to figure out if they'd be a good employee. There are obviously plenty of other kinds of intelligence that are relevant to professional (or personal) success. But I do think they're interesting and relevant in measuring social and cultural change in a society. So if you're trying to figure out whether to accept kid x or kid y for college, I wouldn't emphasize IQ scores, though perhaps they could play a role. But if you're trying to track the changes between generation x and generation y, IQ's a very interested metric, though again, not the only one.

James Fletcher Baxter

Consider:
The missing element in every human 'solution' is
an accurate definition of the creature.

Human knowledge is a fraction of the whole universe.
The balance is a vast void of human ignorance. Human
reason cannot fully function in such a void; thus, the
intellect can rise no higher than the criteria by which it
perceives and measures values.

Humanism makes man his own standard of measure.
However, as with all measuring systems, a standard
must be greater than the value measured. Based on
preponderant ignorance and an egocentric carnal
nature, humanism demotes reason to the simpleton
task of excuse-making in behalf of the rule of appe-
tites, desires, feelings, emotions, and glands.

Because man, hobbled in an ego-centric predicament,
cannot invent criteria greater than himself, the humanist
lacks a predictive capability. Without instinct or trans-
cendent criteria, humanism cannot evaluate options with
foresight and vision for progression and survival. Lack-
ing foresight, man is blind to potential consequence and
is unwittingly committed to mediocrity, collectivism,
averages, and regression - and worse. Humanism is an
unworthy worship.

The void of human ignorance can easily be filled with
a functional faith while not-so-patiently awaiting the
foot-dragging growth of human knowledge and behav-
ior. Faith, initiated by the Creator and revealed and
validated in His Word, the Bible, brings a transcend-
ent standard to man the choice-maker. Other philo-
sophies and religions are man-made, humanism, and
thereby lack what only the Bible has:

1.Transcendent Criteria and
2.Fulfilled Prophetic Validation.

The vision of faith in God and His Word is survival
equipment for today and the future.

Human is earth's Choicemaker. Psalm 25:12 He is by
nature and nature's God a creature of Choice - and of
Criteria. Psalm 119:30,173 His unique and definitive
characteristic is, and of Right ought to be, the natural
foundation of his environments, institutions, and re-
spectful relations to his fellow-man. Thus, he is orien-
ted to a Freedom whose roots are in the Order of the
universe.

- from The HUMAN PARADIGM


Orli

To Captoe:

"I do think it's a terrible mistake to link genetics with biological determinism."

How can you separate genetics from the concept of biological determinism? I'm not sure I understand your point and I'm curious to hear more.

Some say that biological determinism is laregly a myth. (See Dr. Nancy Andreasen's excellent book "Brave New Brain.") But this doesn't seem to me to be the point that Pinker is making in "Blank Slate" (though I haven't finished the book).

Anono

"A bunch of largely conservative folks embraced the argument, and particularly embraced the premise that IQ was rigidly determined by genes, which is the basis for the entire book."

That's quite an oversimplification. Murray and Herrnstein do argue that genes play some role in IQ (just do nearly all mainstream scientists), but they admit that environment plays a large role as well. Not only do they admit it, they say in one place that if the reader thinks IQ is completely genetically determined, then the authors haven't done a good enough job presenting all the evidence for environmental influence.

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      Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation
      An exploration of environments that lead to breakthrough innovation, in science, technology, business, and the arts. I conceived it as the closing book in a trilogy on innovative thinking, after Ghost Map and Invention. But in a way, it completes an investigation that runs through all the books. Sold more copies in hardcover than anything else I've written.

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      The Invention of Air
      The story of the British radical chemist Joseph Priestley, who ended up having a Zelig-like role in the American Revolution. My version of a founding fathers book, and a reminder that most of the Enlightenment was driven by open source ideals.

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      The Ghost Map
      The latest: the story of a terrifying outbreak of cholera in 1854 London 1854 that ended up changing the world. An idea book wrapped around a page-turner. I like to think of it as a sequel to Emergence if Emergence had been a disease thriller. You can see a trailer for the book here.

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      Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
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      Mind Wide Open : Your Brain and the Neuroscience of Everyday Life
      My first best-seller, and the only book I've written in which I appear as a recurring character, subjecting myself to a battery of humiliating brain scans. The last chapter on Freud and the neuroscientific model of the mind is one of my personal favorites.

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      Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software
      The story of bottom-up intelligence, from slime mold to Slashdot. Probably the most critically well-received all my books, and the one that has influenced the most eclectic mix of fields: political campaigns, web business models, urban planning, the war on terror.

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      Interface Culture : How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate
      My first. The book I wrote instead of finishing my dissertation. Still in print almost a decade later, and still relevant, I think. But I haven't read it in a while, so who knows what's in there!

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