Obituaries: Good Riddance to an Idiot

One of the stupidest people who ever walked the earth, Arthur R. Jensen, who thought there were genetic reasons for "intelligence," especially among the so-called races, finally kicked the bucket. He was 89 years old.

His ideas about "I.Q." were filthy and racist, but he had followers among "academics" like William Shockley and the equally repellent duo of Richard Hernnstein and Charles Murray. Some have said this overpaid academic was merely "misunderstood," but I.Q. tests are used primarily to screen children for special education services and don't actually measure the elusive "intelligence." Jensen and his ilk were wrong, and what they peddled was extremely damaging.

Not to mention the fact "race" isn't a biological construct anyway but a sociological one.

From the obit:

In the article, Professor Jensen posited two types of learning ability. Level I, associative ability, entailed the rote retention of facts. Level II, conceptual ability, involved abstract thinking and problem-solving. This type, he argued, was roughly equivalent to general intelligence, denoted in psychology by the letter “g.”

In administering I.Q. tests to diverse groups of students, Professor Jensen found Level I ability to be fairly consistent across races. When he examined Level II ability, by contrast, he found it more prevalent among whites than blacks, and still more prevalent among Asians than whites.

Of course, many people think "brainy" people are those good in math and science. That is just bullshit. Many people are knowledgeable in a narrow subject area but know little of other subject areas.

As I mentioned, I.Q. tests, which are being phased out in schools in favor of something called "response to intervention," aren't designed to tell us who is "smart" and who is "stupid" but is merely a screening tool. Plenty of children who are actually average intellectually qualify for special education services because they are behind grade level in math and/or reading. Their I.Q. scores will show below 70, I believe it is, for the cutoff for special education services although they are perfectly "normal" otherwise.

Thanks to widespread poverty among minority groups, they are disproportionately represented in special education. It has nothing to do with being "smart" or being "stupid."

I have always taken the interpretation of I.Q. scores by so-called academics and politicians with a huge grain of salt.