Customer Reviews

A Question of Intelligence: The IQ Debate in America

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Part journalism and part personal essay, this fine little book is readable and, given the strong stand it takes, surprisingly mild. It makes an excellent choice for anyone who wants a quick summary of the issues, even if the reader disagrees. Of special interest to me were the revelations about the limitations of the case against Cyril Burt and the NY Times and other media's non-journalistic failure to review the books that have shown those limitations. The personal material on Jensen was enjoyable. Again, from the media he would seem to be a monster, not a liberal leaning nice guy. And the fact that he had to have special police protection for years is astonishing. The paperback was published in 1994 and it is now 1998. Perhaps the dogma against IQ measurement is weakening, for it seems to me that more and more credibility is being given to the fact that we are after all biological organisms. How long will it be until all of Seligman's points (which are the same as the overwhelming majority of experts on intelligence according to research by Snyderman) are accepted by the general culture?

I don't quite understand why this volume has seemingly received so little attention. I found it quite excellent in presenting a fair case to both sides of the 'debate' - which is rarely actually is - while still taking a considered position in support of IQ testing and its great value for society both as social predictors for individuals AND groups as well as in helping to formulate public policy at many levels.

Seligman doesn't hesitate to review authors and scientists and their work who are branded by liberal media as 'controversial' (read: anyone or any material that media disagrees with) and easily leads the reader through these people and works.

The author also takes on the black-white IQ issue and forthrightly demonstrates that there is indeed an IQ differential there of at least one standard deviation - and often TWO stand deviations - with blacks typically ranging 15-30 points below whites. He also fulsomely demonstrates that variability in IQ is 50-80% hereditary. Additionally, he points out that IQ and fertility are negatively correlated - i.e. that the least intelligent within society have the most children. These facts are of incalculable importance in assessing the American gene pool's current and future predicament - and no doubt charting the likely fate of civilization and culture too.

Seligman's book ought to be required study material in a whole range of academic disciplines, in addition to 'The Bell Curve'.

I recall reading 'The Bell Curve' in its entirety, which was published a little after Seligman's book (I believe), it was nowhere near as interesting and readable although it was vastly more detailed with statistics, tables, charts, etc. It is one of those works that is much cited but rarely actually READ.

Seligman cites the work of Richard Lynn here and there. Lynn has since published at least six of his own works, all of which are very important in this area, but are probably mainly only read by specialists.

Seligman writes brilliantly, and makes what could be a very technical discussion interesting & understandable. Seligman frames the controversy and how IQ tests have gone from being viewed as a liberal means to ensure a true meritocracy, to being demonised as oppressive. Seligman notes that part of this is because the results show individual and group differences, which goes against the egalitarian ethos that anyone can achieve whatever they set their mind too. Seligman also notes that the fact that ethnic groups differ in average performance has been particularly troubling and been one of the sources of opposition to them.

Seligman makes an excellent case that the tests do actually measure something that has real implications for a person's academic and even occupational performance. He addresses the common distinction people make between 'book smarts' and 'street smarts' and theories of multiple intelligences. He shows that accusations that the tests are biased are mislaid.

The portrayal of IQ tests in the media is something Seligman notes is particularly one-sided. He draws on the Snyderman, Rothman survey which shows the media portrayal is very different to that of the majority of psychologists, and political reasons have lead to this distortion.

The chapter on Jensen is great, as it provides some insight into the mind and motives of someone who has been unfairly demonised.

Seligman even deals with fears of eugenics, noting that the idea of equal rights under the law does not require everyone to have equal ability.

The book ultimately makes the case that IQ testing is a valuable tool. Group differences may exist, but individual performance overlaps and their suppression is not helping anyone.

Perhaps the most enjoyable portion of this book for me was the chapter on Jensenism. Frankly, it was great to read something about that man that didn't characterize him as a monster or impugn his motives - it was just an insightful description of how he got to where he is. Who would have thought Jensen was a social worker at one time?

I believe the strengths of the book are when the writer reports/describes experiences or research in a somewhat objective fashion. However, I found myself frustrated with his synthesis of this information. When he tried to tie things together or make conclusions, he often stated questionable assumptions with more conviction than seemed warranted and assumed that readers would of course agree with his unexplained logic. I found the section on IQ and social skills to be particularly weak. For example, he characterizes "shyness" as being ordinarily presumed to "reflect psychological disturbances." I'm sure the many introverted individuals who read that statement were thrilled by that thorny assessment. It was at such times in the book that I was keenly reminded that the author is after all a journalist and not a social scientist.

In summary, the writer does an admirable job of trying to make some tough material easier for mass consumption, but it's a two-edged sword, as certain segments feel regirgitated and dry (reaching beyond the author's scope of expertise) and other sections make questionable inferences or do not put forth persuasive arguments.

While I don't agree with Seligman on everything, this is far and away the best introduction for the general reader to the enormous literature of the IQ controversy. It's superbly readable, and, amazingly enough in this age of bloated books, short.

Steve Sailer

This book lays out the details of IQ's relationship to the real world in a clear concise and amusing form. Daniel Seligman (from Forbes) has a gift for keeping it readable and engaging.

It should be noted that this book doesnt hedge with the usual overly strained qualifications about I.Q. What I mean is if the bulk of the scientific literature on the topic supports a conclusion, daniel reports it as such without making massive unwarranted qualifications so as to remain politically correct or not to disturb certain groups.

The only (necessary) downside is a foray into what were considred Hoaxes in the literature (The Burt Affair). These are necessarily boring but the author makes a fair attempt to keep it interesting. Which is why 4 stars.

Overall, a great introduction to the real world applications of intelligence and psychometrics for people who do not wish to go in-depth into the topic like "The Bell Curve" book did.

This is an excellent book for the understanding of intelligence and its issues. The author provides a good overview on the many aspects on intelligence, IQ tests and the debates around these issues.

In my opinion, the best part of this book is chapters 7 and 8. Chapter talks about "Nature and Nurture." Nature is very much stronger a factor on intelligence than environment (or nurture). Chapter 8 talks about identical twins separated at birth and raised in very different environments, and after dozens of years reunited. Psychologists discovered that these twins have very similar IQs, personality, and characters. This proves that intelligence and personality are 'encoded' in our genes.

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in understanding not only about IQ and its debates, but also about why many social engineering prgrams failed.

In my view, intelligence is given by God. Those of us who have more should not be proud, because we did not sweat to get it. Those of us who have less should not feel ashamed. We all need to work hard throughout our lives and respect one another. All are precious in the eyes of God.

It is too bad that this book is out of print, but many low-value books are popular. I recommend this book to anyone who is open-minded.

Daniel Seligman's book predated the 1994 "The Bell Curve" by two years. In all its essential form, it states the same facts and conclusions.

What is IQ? (Intelligence Quotient)
Is IQ real, tangible, measurable?
Is there consensus among IQ experts?
Can an individual or groups IQ be measured?
Does an individual's IQ vary over a life-time

In modern science, we know it is dependent on the so-called O.E.M. method.

#1. Observation
#2. Experiment
#3. Measurement

Seligman is not a professional, full-time IQ tester, the Psycho-metricians. He is simply writing a summary about the known and un-known of IQ.

Readers will be surprised to know that there is a consensus among professionals on the IQ debate. This consensus has been building up in the academic literature for the last 50-100 years.

Humans are created by Nature. Nature created the Earth-Moon-Sun-Cosmos.

Humans are an evolved chimpanzee. All life on Earth share a common-universal descent.

IQ or general intelligence is a product of Nature that Humans evolved to survive against the harsh natural environment.

God-- Good--Goood is purely a human-creation out of ignorance and know-nothing. Nature created Life-Earth-Sun-Cosmos. Nature granted humans a brain-body.

IQ can be tested and this is a great book on the latest findings. Are all the claims True. Are they False. Please read the book and judge for yourself whether it's True-False

Intelligence obviously has something to do with heredity and not all individuals are equal in intelligence, nor are they, nor will they ever be equal in anything else. The pretense that they are is no more than an equivocation of "equal" or a wish that everyone be given equal potential. Equivocations are fallacious if not poetry and the wish is one that cannot come true.

However, intelligence is a difficult thing to define. Tests like the WAIS that Seligman took while researching for this book might test some aspects of intelligence, but they do not test all aspects--to make the statement that they do is to imply the pretense that intelligence is easily definable, that we know the complete definition now, and that the eleven subtests of the WAIS fully test all components of that complete definition. That does not mean that tests should not be given. But it does mean that the contention that they cannot be improved and made more accurate and complete is assumptive. Not that Seligman makes this exact claim, but it follows from the tests' incompleteness (and the lack of an exact definition of what we are testing) that generalizations based on correlative data from them may be grossly in error.

Most of Seligman's arguments rest on the assumption that the tests are definitive. In the best cases, Seligman uses the data to argue that a portion of intelligence is hereditarily determined. This is a help for those inclined to tabula rasa explanations of mind. In the worst cases, Seligman argues race generalizations regarding intelligence, and even quotes cranial capacity explanations. The race generalizations put intelligence rankings in the descending order of Mongoloids, Caucasoids and Negroids.

However, Seligman then spends half a chapter discussing Jewish superiority on intelligence tests, and does a comparison and contrast between Jews and Asians. If, for example, cranial capacity was the causative agent in intelligence differences, and Mongoloids have larger cranial capacities than Caucasoids, then Caucasoids, of which Jews are a subset, should not score higher on intelligence tests. So, either cranial capacity is not the most important factor, it is not a factor at all, or the intelligence tests ranking Jews higher than Japanese are incorrect.

There were a number of these types of inconsistencies in argumentation throughout the book. In one chapter, a particular explanatory factor would be proposed, only to be at least implicitly argued against in a later chapter.

The most engaging part of the book was the section discussing studies performed in Minnesota on Twins. These studies further cement the hereditary nature of intelligence. They do not help in the unfounded race generalizations made throughout the book though.

Most likely, intelligence, whatever it is exactly, is determined hereditarily and environmentally, and the determination happens as a complex system, with hundreds of thousands of variables. The hereditary differences must have specific causes; there must be structural variances in the brain that give someone more intelligence in specific areas than someone else who might be similar in most other respects. Cranial capacity seems like a simpleton argument to me. Almost like saying, "If there is good stuff inside there, there must be more good stuff if it is bigger." Cranial capacity arguments relative to body mass are even more ridiculous, and mean that other species would far excel humans in intelligence and that midgets would necessarily be the geniuses among humans.

We have no idea what the structural differences are within the brain and we won't until we know specifically what intelligence is. Before we can do that, we have to solve the consciousness problem. If we do not know how consciousness occurs, we cannot know how a subset of consciousness--that which we term "intelligence"--occurs.

Intelligence differences are likely larger between individuals of the same race than are interracial variations. Surely part of the definition of intelligence is applied intelligence (as Seligman admits). Each race has pockets of incredible applied intelligence (from individual examples to societal examples) and pockets of very slight applied intelligence. These facts also seem to undermine racially superior hereditary generalizations.