Max, I think you are under-appreciating the viciousness of the term "intelligence." Not only it is a substitute for the discredited "moral worth" but also the one that pretends to scientific objectivity by ritualistic application of scientific techniques (such as factor analysis).
The intention behind using that evil term is to portray someone's value judgment about other people's 'worth' as an objective assessment of those people's cognitive capacities.
The term "intelligence" represents a general level of cognitive capacity that can be quantified and thus compared on a linear scale e.g. "my intellgience is bigger than your intelligence." Without that uni-dimensional linearity, the concept looses its judgmental appeal. Consider, for example, that there are not one but two types of intelligence, say alpha-type and beta-type. Juggling with two sets of numbers makes moral judgments rather difficult. Suppose that you are high on beta and low on alfa, and I suck on beta but excel on alfa. Can't tell from that who has a bigger 'worth', unless you attach some sort of weights to these two types - (e.g. as in saying that math skills require more "intelligence" than say playing music.)
To express human "intelligence" as a single number, we must employ some data reduction technique that combines multiple observations into a single quantity. It is so, because "intelligence" is not directly observable, and we hope to infer its existence from its indicators, that is, performance of different types of tasks. Thus, we must somehow combine the quantified measurements of a person's performance on different tasks into a single statistic, such as the mean.
Now the trick is that if used the unweighted mean, we would end up with an "uninteresting" number i.e. one that is similar for different types of people. To illustrate that, suppose that you scored 70 on the task beta and 30 on the task alhpa (out 100 possible), so your mean "intelligence" score is 50. Suppose furthermore that I scored 30 on beta and 70 on alpha, so my mean score is also 50. Following that drift, simple averaging will lead to a conclusion that most people are more or less equal in their "intelligence" (except for people with brain damage or otherwise deficient).
Such a conclusion is an abomination to the intellectual community that equates hierarchy with rationality. They need a set of numbers that arranges every individual on a hierarchical scale, from high to low. That task can be accomplished by weighting or assigning different weights to diffrent tasks and abilities.
Suppose that alpha task requires the ability to process numerical data, whereas the beta task requires high level of psychomotor cooridiantion (e.g. required to play a musical instrument). Suppose furthermore that the cabal of Ivy-league intellectuals, government officials, and assorted wealthy people has decided that processing numerical data is a more valuable skill than psychomotor coordination by the factor, say, 3:1. Hence the "weight" of the alpha task is 3, but the weight of the beta taks is 1. Now simple math can "confirm" that my intelligence is bigger than your intelligence:
I: (1*30 + 3*70)/2 = 120 You: (1*70 + 3*30)/2 = 80.
That is the basic logic of ALL inteligence testing - in real life, the calcualtion of weights is a bit more tricky and obscure - usually by using the statitistical data reduction technique known as factor analysis that produces "factor loadings" or weights (ranging from -1 to +1) that are attached to different indicators. From the mathematical standpoint, factor analysis is a system of linear equations of the form y=bx where y represents the unknown parameter (in this case mental ability), x is the observed value (in this case, a score obtained on a task performance), and b is the coefficient representing a linear relationship between x and y.
So if we have multiple observations of the latent quantities, such as mental abilities, we would write
y1=b1*x1 y2=b2*x2 etc. where x's represent observed (given) scores and bs and ys are unknowns.
Now, it is clear that this system of equations cannot be solved (i.e. does not have a unique solution) because it is "underdetermined" i.e. it has more unknowns than equations. To solve it, we must make certain arbitrary assumptions about the unknowns that reflect nothing but our beliefs. For example, assuming that y1=y2 is the mathematical expression of the researcher's belief that there is only one intelligence type (because many types would be politically incorrect for that bunch). Second, the researcher can assume that one of this task is a true and direct measure of that unknown intellgence type, hence b1=1. And presto, with those two magic assumption we can now do what just a moment ago was mathematically impossible:
assume y1=y2=y; b1=1
y= 1*x1 y= b2*x2 so we we can "solve" for y and b2 since x1 and x2 are emprically given.
Of course in reality the math is a bit more complicated, especially with the so-called "confirmatory factor analysis" - but still based on the same principle of a priori fixing certain parameters to "determine" the system. So the bottim line is that the factor loadings or weights attached to different performance measures depend on those apriori decisons made by the researcher. Which proves my point that "intelligence scores" are determined by the cabal who crunches these numbers - as argued above.
In sum, the concept of "intelligence" is intrinsically evil, whether or not used in conjunction with "race." It is quite conceivable that diffrent races have different combinations of skills, some of them grounded in biology others in cultural traditions. It is only when we start "weighting" these different skills as more or less "valuable" - as all intellgence tests do - that we claim that different races have different "worth" based on their different "intelligence." So the concept of between-races diffrences is value-neutral; it is the concepto fo hierarchically arranged intelelctual capacity that forms the core of th eintelligenbce concept that is evil.
I can go as far as saying that mental testing is morally equivalent to nazi human expriments and experts who do that should be tried for crimes against humanity. Which is consistent with the point I have been repeatedly trying to get across on this list that intellectuals are evil inasmuch as the form of rationality and the form of power relations are one (both based on hierarchal arrangement from less powerful/rational/abstract to more powerful/rational/abstract).
wojtek
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