[lbo-talk] IQ and politics

[ravi]

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> Miles:
> 
>>It's a pretty good proxy for academic ability.  It doesn't really
>>measure everyday, practical intelligence very well.  (The "book
>>smarts"/"street smarts" cliche is apt here.)
> 
> 
> I'm sorry but you are plain wrong.  The correlation between IQ and academic
> "ability" - if any, is not empirical nut by definition.  That is to say,
> people who score low in IQ-like tests are not admitted to the academia and
> thus cannot provide counterevidence or at least the counterevidence they may
> provide does not weigh as much as the supporting evidence.
>

oh no, not the IQ thread again ;-).

wojtek, ranking by IQ could correlate well with ranking by academic
performance, for those who do get admitted. unless you are claiming that
it is in fact those at the bottom of the IQ chart, who are denied
admission, that may turn out the smartest at academic performance.

i had a few outstanding questions for miles, the last time this thread
came around. i do not think he responded to them, perhaps because like
others he found the thread tiring. in my response to him, i had provided
various pieces of information showing that the correlation between
standards testing (which i used as a substitute for IQ) was very poor.
some examples: boys scored better than girls in standardized tests, but
girls do better academically (at the college level).

	--ravi