Intellectuals and Race (12 page)

While controversies about race and IQ focus on explanations for the differences in median IQs among groups, the magnitude of those differences is also crucial. Research by Professor James R. Flynn, an American expatriate in New Zealand, concluded that the average IQ of Chinese Americans in 1945 to 1949 was 98.5, compared to a norm of 100 for whites.
¹⁴
Even if we were to arbitrarily assume, for the sake of argument— as Professor Flynn did
not
— that this difference at that time was due solely to genetics, the magnitude of the difference would hardly justify the kinds of drastic policies advocated by eugenicists.

In reality, the occupational achievements of both Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans exceed those of white Americans with the same IQs. Japanese Americans were found to have occupational achievements equal to that of those whites who had 10 points higher IQs than themselves, and Chinese Americans to have occupational achievements equal to those of those whites who had 20 points higher IQs than themselves.
¹⁵

In short, even though much research has shown that IQ differences matter for educational, occupational and other achievements,
¹⁶
the magnitude of those differences also matters, and in particular cases other factors may outweigh IQ differences in determining outcomes. Incidentally, other IQ studies at different times and places show people of Chinese and Japanese ancestry with
higher
IQs than whites,
¹⁷
though the differences are similarly small in these studies as well.

The importance of other factors besides IQ is not a blank check for downplaying or disregarding mental test scores when making employment, college admissions or other decisions. Although empirical evidence shows that Chinese Americans and Japanese Americans tend to perform better in educational institutions than whites with the same mental test scores as themselves, other empirical evidence shows that blacks tend to perform
below
the level of those whites with the
same
test scores as themselves.
¹⁸
Clearly, then, with blacks as with Chinese and Japanese Americans,
other
factors besides IQs have a significant influence on actual educational outcomes, even though these other factors operate in a different direction for different groups.

None of this means that mental tests— whether IQ tests, college aptitude tests, or others— can be disregarded when it comes to making practical decisions about individuals, even if they do not justify sweeping inferences about genes or discrimination. When deciding whom to hire, admit to college or select for other kinds of endeavors, the relevant question about tests is: What has been the track record of a particular test in predicting subsequent performances— both absolutely and in comparison with alternative criteria? It is essentially an empirical statistical question, rather than a matter of speculation or ideology.

The issue is not even whether the particular questions in the test seem plausibly relevant to the endeavor at hand, as even courts of law have misconceived the issue.
¹⁹
If knowing fact
A
enables you to make predictions about outcome
B
with a better track record than alternative criteria, then plausibility is no more relevant than it was when wine experts dismissed Professor Orley Ashenfelter’s use of weather statistics to predict wine prices— which predictions turned out to have a better track record than the methods used by wine experts.
²⁰

Even if IQ tests or college admissions tests do not accurately measure the “real” intelligence of prospective students or employees— however “real” intelligence might be defined— the practical question is whether whatever they do measure is correlated with future success in the particular endeavor. Despite numerous claims that mental tests under-estimate the “real” intelligence of blacks, a huge body of research has demonstrated repeatedly that the future scholastic performances of blacks are
not
under-estimated by these tests which tend, if anything, to predict a slightly higher performance level than that which actually follows, contrary to the situation with Chinese Americans or Japanese Americans. While blacks tend to score lower than whites on a variety of aptitude, academic achievement and job tests, empirical evidence indicates that those whites with the
same
test scores as blacks have, on average, a track record of higher subsequent performances
than blacks, whether academically or on the job. This includes academic performance in colleges, law schools, and medical schools, and job performance in the civil service and in the Air Force.
²¹

Nor is this pattern unique to American blacks. In the Philippines, for example, students from low-income and rural backgrounds have not only had lower than average test scores, but have also done worse academically at the University of the Philippines than other students with the
same
low test scores as themselves.
²²
In Indonesia, where men have averaged lower test scores than women, men with the same test scores as women have done poorer academic work than women at the University of Indonesia.
²³

A long-range study by Lewis Terman, beginning in 1921, followed children with IQs of 140 and above in their later lives and found that those children who came from homes where the parents were less educated, and were from a lower socioeconomic level, did not achieve prominence in their own lives as often as other children in the same IQ range who had the further advantage of coming from homes with a higher cultural level.
²⁴
In short, other factors besides those captured by IQ tests affect performances in various endeavors— and affect them differently for different groups. But one cannot just arbitrarily wave test results aside, in order to get more demographic “representation” of racial or other groups with lower test scores as employees, students or in other contexts.

A growing body of empirical data shows that black students mismatched with the particular colleges or universities they attend fail or drop out more often than other students at those institutions— and more often than black students with the same test scores or other academic qualifications as themselves who attend academic institutions where the other students are on a similar academic level.
²⁵
The problem is
not
that these black students are “unqualified” to be in a college or university. They may be highly qualified to be in some college or university, but are mismatched with the particular college or university that has admitted them for the sake of demographic “diversity” by disregarding test scores and other academic qualifications.

A study at M.I.T., for example, showed that the average black student there had math SAT scores in the top 10 percent nationwide— and in the bottom 10 percent at M.I.T. Nearly one-fourth of these extraordinarily high-ranking
black students failed to graduate from M.I.T.
²⁶
More generally, students with a given mathematics level succeeded in getting science, technology, engineering and mathematics degrees more often at academic institutions where the other students were at comparable academic levels.
²⁷

It has been much the same story in law schools. At the Georgetown University Law School, for example, the median test score of black students on the Law School Aptitude Test was at the 75th percentile— hardly “unqualified”— but that score was lower than the score of
any
white student admitted to this elite law school at the same time.
²⁸
Studies at a number of law schools indicate that black students admitted with lower qualifications than other students not only do less well academically while in law school but fail the bar examination more often than either the white students at their law school or black students with the same academic qualifications as themselves who attend law schools where the other students have academic qualifications similar to their own.
²⁹

In short, ignoring test scores and other academic qualifications when admitting minority students turns minority students with all the qualifications for success into artificially induced failures, by mismatching them with the institutions that admit them under lower standards.

A common finding among groups with low mental test scores, in various countries around the world, has been an especial lack of interest and proficiency in answering abstract questions. A study in England, for example, showed that rural working class boys trailed their urban peers more on abstract questions than on other kinds of questions.
³⁰
In the Hebrides Islands off Scotland, where the average IQ of the Gaelic-speaking children was 85— the same as that among blacks in the United States— the Gaelic-speaking youngsters did well on informational items but trailed their English-speaking peers most on items involving such abstractions as time, logic, and other non-verbal factors.
³¹
In Jamaica, where IQs averaged below normal, the lowest performance was on the least verbal test.
³²
A 1932 study
of white children living in isolated mountain communities in the United States showed that they not only had low IQ scores over all, but were especially deficient on questions involving abstract comprehension.
³³

Indian children being tested in South Africa were likewise reported as showing a “lack of interest in non-verbal materials.”
³⁴
Lower class youngsters in Venezuela were described as “non-starters” on one of the well-known abstract tests used there.
³⁵
Inhabitants of the Hebrides likewise gave evidence of not being fully oriented toward such questions.
³⁶
Black American soldiers tested during the First World War tended to “lapse into inattention and almost into sleep” during abstract tests, according to observers.
³⁷

That black-white mental test score differences in America are likewise greatest on abstract questions
³⁸
is hardly surprising, in view of this common pattern among groups that score low in various countries around the world, regardless of the race of the particular group. But the fact that low-scoring groups tend to do their worst on abstract questions is also contrary to the claim made by some critics of mental tests that group differences in scores on these tests are due primarily to the words used in these tests or to the culturally loaded subjects in the questions. However, an interest in abstractions is itself something characteristic of particular cultures and not of others. When H.H. Goddard said of the immigrants he tested at Ellis Island that they “cannot deal with abstractions,”
³⁹
he overlooked the possibility that they had no real interest in abstractions.

Even if those who take mental tests try to do their best on abstract questions, as on other questions, a lifetime of disinterest in such things can mean that their best is not very good, even if that is not due to a lack of innate potential. If Asian American youngsters were to do their best playing basketball against black American youngsters on a given day, their best might not be nearly as good as the best of youngsters who had spent far more time on this activity before. Similarly if black youngsters try their best on a test measuring mental skills that they have not spent as much time developing as Asian youngsters have.

Neither genes nor a biased test is necessary to explain such results. If there were some group which assiduously pursued intellectual development
and yet ended up with low IQs, the case for genetic determinism might be overwhelming. But there seems to be no such group anywhere.

If one chooses to call tests that require the mastery of abstractions culturally biased, because some cultures put more emphasis on abstractions than others do, that raises fundamental questions about what the tests are for. In a world where the ability to master abstractions is essential in mathematics, science and other endeavors, the measurement of that ability is not an arbitrary bias. A culture-free test might be appropriate in a culture-free society— but there are no such societies.

Nor is the importance of particular kinds of abilities constant over time, even in the same endeavors. Criteria that might have been suited to selecting individuals to be shepherds or farmers in centuries past may not be adequate for selecting individuals for a different range of occupations today— or even to selecting individuals to be shepherds or farmers today, in an age of scientific agriculture and scientific animal husbandry.

Whether or not whatever factors make for high or low mental test scores make these tests a good measure of innate mental potential, what matters from a practical standpoint is whether those factors are important in education, in the economy and in life. Disregarding test scores, in order to get a higher demographic “representation” of black students in colleges and universities, for example, has systematically mismatched these students with the particular institutions in which they have been enrolled.

When the top tier colleges and universities accept black students whose test scores are like those of students in the second tier of academic institutions, then those colleges and universities in the second tier, which now find themselves with a smaller pool of black applicants whose qualifications are suited to their institutions, are thus left to accept black students whose test scores are more like those of students in the third tier— and so on down the line. In short, mismatching at the top tier institutions has a domino effect
across the field of academic institutions, leading to far higher rates of academic failure among black students than among other students.

A widely-praised book on the effects of affirmative action in college admissions—
The Shape of the River
by former college presidents William Bowen and Derek Bok— claimed to have refuted this mismatching hypothesis with data showing that black students “graduated at
higher
rates, the more selective the school that they attended” (emphasis in the original).
⁴⁰
But what would be relevant to testing the mismatching hypothesis is the
difference
in test scores between black and white students at the same institutions— and this difference has been less at Harvard (95 points on the combined SAT test scores) than at Duke (184 points) or Rice (271 points).
⁴¹
Other data likewise indicate that black students graduate at a higher rate in colleges where their test scores are more similar to those of white students at the same institutions.
⁴²
As Bowen and Bok themselves say: “There has been a much more pronounced narrowing of the black-white gap in SAT scores among applicants to the most selective colleges.”
⁴³