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sen_no_ongakuSome friends of mine have posted links to this opinion piece on education and intelligence:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
I'll assume you've read the article, and I'd like to offer something of a response and a critique to part of the piece; I'm less interested in his assertions about college and the job market.
Note also that it was written by one of the authors of The Bell Curve.
___
First of all, I contend with Murray's basic assumption that intelligence can be measured accurately and indisputably by one variable: IQ. Most cognitive scientists rebuke the very concept of a single "intelligence", claiming that there are many aspects to human cognition which, while related, are nevertheless distinct.
The author has anticipated this argument by claiming that there is some sort of general capability which scientists define as g. Fair enough. But the author never establishes whether or not "g" can even be measured, and is happy to assume that we will accept IQ and g are interchangeable despite offering no evidence that they are correlated.
Secondly, as a researcher with a strong background in statistics, Murray cannot but be extremely cognizant of the fact that "average" can mean many things, and failing to state that whether you intend "average" to mean "mean", "median", or "mode" robs you of the context you need to interpret data -- and that, in addition, lack of clarity as to what kind of "average" is generally a hint of an intent to obfuscate, if not mislead.
Nowhere in the article does Murray closely define "average".
More later, maybe.
[ETA 1/23/2007]: Another problem I have with his later pieces on higher education is that all of his assertions are predicated on the belief that the only worthwhile purpose of education is to make you fit to work -- and the implicit assumptions that a person is defined only by the job they hold, and that the job they are trained for is the only one they should ever have.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
I'll assume you've read the article, and I'd like to offer something of a response and a critique to part of the piece; I'm less interested in his assertions about college and the job market.
Note also that it was written by one of the authors of The Bell Curve.
___
First of all, I contend with Murray's basic assumption that intelligence can be measured accurately and indisputably by one variable: IQ. Most cognitive scientists rebuke the very concept of a single "intelligence", claiming that there are many aspects to human cognition which, while related, are nevertheless distinct.
The author has anticipated this argument by claiming that there is some sort of general capability which scientists define as g. Fair enough. But the author never establishes whether or not "g" can even be measured, and is happy to assume that we will accept IQ and g are interchangeable despite offering no evidence that they are correlated.
Secondly, as a researcher with a strong background in statistics, Murray cannot but be extremely cognizant of the fact that "average" can mean many things, and failing to state that whether you intend "average" to mean "mean", "median", or "mode" robs you of the context you need to interpret data -- and that, in addition, lack of clarity as to what kind of "average" is generally a hint of an intent to obfuscate, if not mislead.
Nowhere in the article does Murray closely define "average".
More later, maybe.
[ETA 1/23/2007]: Another problem I have with his later pieces on higher education is that all of his assertions are predicated on the belief that the only worthwhile purpose of education is to make you fit to work -- and the implicit assumptions that a person is defined only by the job they hold, and that the job they are trained for is the only one they should ever have.
