*
One of the major limitations of IQ as a measure of general intelligence is that it is an ordinal scale, not an interval scale.
As an ordinal scale IQ is based on rank order of magnitude, so that a person with more IQ points is higher ranked than someone with fewer IQ points. But the scale's interval of the 'IQ point' has no consistent value, and strictly speaking cannot be subjected to comparative mathematical calculations.
This is because the magnitude of difference between adjacent IQ points is not known and is presumably uneven - such that the difference in test performance of 15 IQ points between IQ 130 and 115 may be different in magnitude from the difference of 15 IQ points between IQ 70 and 85 (and also differences in IQ test perfomance are themselves not usually or necessarily measurable on a meaningful interval scale).
*
This is because IQ scores are constructed by doing an IQ test on a nationally representative group of people, putting the tested sample into rank order (hence ordinal scale) according to their score, then projecting the rank ordering onto a standard distribution curve with an average of 100 and a standard deviation of usually 15.
*
However, if IQ could be rooted in an objective value such as reaction time, then ratios of differences between IQs could be expressed; for example, the difference between Subject A and Subject B could be said to be half or double the difference between Subject A and Subject C.
For example, Silverman gives the modern average reaction time for men as 250 milliseconds with a standard deviation of 47 - which implies that the distribution of reaction times is sufficiently near-normal (at least near to the mean) to make this summary statistic valid.
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/objective-and-direct-evidence-of.html
If we assume that these reaction times sample were representative of the UK population (of course they are not!), this would mean that Silverman's data could be used to generate a new type of IQ - the reaction time IQ or rtIQ using the same method as current IQ (mean of 100 and SD of 15):
rtIQ
156ms = 130
203ms = 115
250ms = 100
297ms = 85
344ms = 70
And each rtIQ point corresponds to (47 / 15) approx 3 milliseconds difference in reaction time.
*
The rtIQ would be an interval scale - based on the real magnitude of reaction times but expressed in terms of percentages, which would preserve the mathematical differences between the original reaction times measures in milliseconds.
This means that rtIQ measurements cannot be used to say something like A is 'twice as intelligent' or 'half as intelligent' as B - in other words cannot be used to describe ratios - but could be used to say, for example, that the difference in rtIQ between 115 and 130 was half of the difference between rtIQ 70 and 100 - something which cannot be done using the current ordinal IQ measurements.
***
Speculative note: Ratios between numbers on an interval scale are not meaningful, so operations such as multiplication and division cannot be carried out directly.
However, the question arises whether rtIQ is not only an interval scale, but could be regarded as a ratio scale - since it is based upon a measure of time which is indeed a ratio scale such that four seconds is twice as long as two seconds.
If rtIQ is regarded as a ratio scale, then it would be true to say that a man with rtIQ would be somewhat more than twice as intelligent as another with rtIQ of 70, because a reaction time of 156ms is more than twice as quick as 344ms.
This would further imply that the range of human intelligence would be a little higher than twofold (as measured by rtIQ that includes approximately ninety-six percent of the population (plus and minus two standard deviations).
*
Furthermore, the use of rtIQ sets an absolute upper limit or cut-off to human intelligence - which is the physiologically-constrained minimum reaction time - representing the maximum speed of processing of which the nervous system is capable.
And, in fact, this upper limit would probably not be much higher than represented by a reaction time of 150ms - somewhere between 100ms and 150ms but closer to 150 than 100; since this seems to be close to the minimum time required for the physiological processes of nerve transmission (and muscle response) to be accomplished.
This would mean that the distribution of reaction times at the high intelligence end would be non-normal, and rtIQ would have a plateau. If rtIQ points continued to imply 3ms differences in rt, then the maximum rtIQ would be reached somewhere between 130 and 145.
*
All this usage of reaction time as a ratio scale would make sense if, and only if, general intelligence was conceptualized in terms of something-like nervous system processing speed - akin to how 'fast' a computer is.
Clearly rtIQ is not exactly the same concept as general intelligence has been (rt is a smaller, sub-division of 'g' - although, presumably, significantly correlated with it) - and so would involve a re-definition and require replication of much of the predictive and discriminative research which has been done on g.
*
Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Monday, 25 February 2013
Relationship between intelligence and life history speed: population and individual levels
*
The relationship between population and speed of life history is probably somewhat complex; but (as far as I understand the matter) I think it could be summarized by saying that:
1. At the population level, there is usually a correlation between higher intelligence and slower life history speed.
(This is presumably due to natural selection, historically, in situations where both higher intelligence and slower life history are, on average, adaptive.).
But:
2. At the individual level, within a population, intelligence and life history speed are uncorrelated.
Or, more accurately, intelligence and life history speed are dissociated at the individual level; such that a highly intelligent person may have either slower or faster life history; and the same applies to low intelligence persons.
*
The dissociation can be seen in two stereotypical male high intelligence types: the sexually aggressive business executive or politician (fast life history - urgency of reproductive effort leading to early sex, multiple partners, more children with lower/ zero investment per offspring); versus the nerdy professor (slow life history - delayed reproductive effort, late marriage to single partner, few children with high investment per offspring).
*
The dissociation is, presumably, caused because while intelligence and personality are inherited, life history is triggered by the environment, by some experience (probably) early in life.
Or, an individual's specific life history trajectory is selected-from a certain range of possible life history speeds.
The range of possible life history speeds is innate and inherited, but the specific life history speed which is embarked upon is a consequence of environmental cues, triggers or stimuli.
*
This implies that fast life history parents often have slow life history children and vice versa.
And this means that life history is different from intelligence and personality, because childrens' intelligence and personality is, on average, similar to their parents'.
(Yet, at the same time, some populations will have different average life history speeds from others; and a different average range of life history speeds.)
*
The relationship between population and speed of life history is probably somewhat complex; but (as far as I understand the matter) I think it could be summarized by saying that:
1. At the population level, there is usually a correlation between higher intelligence and slower life history speed.
(This is presumably due to natural selection, historically, in situations where both higher intelligence and slower life history are, on average, adaptive.).
But:
2. At the individual level, within a population, intelligence and life history speed are uncorrelated.
Or, more accurately, intelligence and life history speed are dissociated at the individual level; such that a highly intelligent person may have either slower or faster life history; and the same applies to low intelligence persons.
*
The dissociation can be seen in two stereotypical male high intelligence types: the sexually aggressive business executive or politician (fast life history - urgency of reproductive effort leading to early sex, multiple partners, more children with lower/ zero investment per offspring); versus the nerdy professor (slow life history - delayed reproductive effort, late marriage to single partner, few children with high investment per offspring).
*
The dissociation is, presumably, caused because while intelligence and personality are inherited, life history is triggered by the environment, by some experience (probably) early in life.
Or, an individual's specific life history trajectory is selected-from a certain range of possible life history speeds.
The range of possible life history speeds is innate and inherited, but the specific life history speed which is embarked upon is a consequence of environmental cues, triggers or stimuli.
*
This implies that fast life history parents often have slow life history children and vice versa.
And this means that life history is different from intelligence and personality, because childrens' intelligence and personality is, on average, similar to their parents'.
(Yet, at the same time, some populations will have different average life history speeds from others; and a different average range of life history speeds.)
*
Thursday, 7 February 2013
What is the main selection mechanism causing the 'dysgenic' decline in intelligence over the past couple of centuries?
*
It seems very probable that general intelligence (or 'genotypic IQ') has declined by more than one standard deviation since late Victorian times, and presumably even more since about 1800 when the Industrial Revolution began to become obvious and these changes probably began.
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-over-promoted-society.html
But what was the cause?
*
Using reaction time data, the decline in genotypic IQ is of-the-order of 1.5 IQ points per decade - that is about 15 points in a century - or one standard deviation.
(This rough estimate of the size and rate of decline in 'g' has been replicated by a more sophisticated and completely different - as-yet unpublished - analysis of reaction time trends that I have seen.)
In other words, the average Englishman from about 1900 would be in roughly the top 15 percent of the population in 2000 - and the difference would be even larger if we went back further towards 1800.
*
These numbers are not intended to be precise - indeed real precision (in the sense of exact accuracy) is not available in IQ studies for many reasons to do with the difficulties of truly random and sufficiently large population sampling; and the fact the IQ points are not on a 'ratio scale' but are derived from putting a population sample into rank order on the basis of (usually) one-off testing.
But anyway, I think that a decline of 1.5 IQ points per decade is probably too fast to be due purely to the effect on gene frequencies of differential fertility between people of different intelligence levels.
No doubt the measured decline is substantially to do with the fact that higher intelligence is correlated with lower fertility; but within this, I think there must be at least two explanations operating at the same time.
*
Differential fertility would lead to a decline in intelligence - let's say - by a reduction in the proportion of high IQ genes in the population.
This happens mostly because since the Industrial Revolution almost-all children that are born will survive; so reproductive success becomes almost-purely a matter of fertility; and the most intelligent sectors of the population are the least fertile, and less fertile with each generation; until eventually (i.e. for the past several decades) the most intelligent people are sub-fertile, below two offspring per woman - so that the genes which make them most intelligent will decline with each generation - first declining as a proportion of the gene pool, and then declining in absolute prevalence.
*
My suggestion is that the additional mechanism of decline in intelligence is the opposite of the above: an increase in the proportion of low IQ genes in the population.
*
There is, I suggest, a difference between high IQ and low IQ genes.
High IQ genes have (presumably) been selected for in the past because they increased intelligence, and thereby (under ancestral - especially medieval - conditions) increased reproductive success.
*
But low IQ genes are spontaneously occurring deleterious mutations. These were not 'selected for'; rather it was a matter that selection failed to eliminate them.
In technical terms, the mechanism for low IQ genes is mutation-selection balance.
*
The idea is that before the Industrial Revolution, individuals with a higher mutational load had lower-than-average reproductive success due to very high (near total) childhood mortality rates among those of lowest intelligence.
But after the Industrial Revolution got going, and mortality rates declined for the least intelligent so that even the poorest families usually raised several-to-many children, then there was a double-whammy dysgenic effect: a reduced proportion of high IQ genes with each generation (due to progressively lowering fertility among the higher IQ) and also an increasing accumulation of IQ-damaging deleterious mutations with each generation.
So that (roughly speaking) since the Industrial Revolution, individuals with the greatest mutational load (IQ-harmful genes) have been initially been above-replacement fertile (having on average more than 2 surviving children per woman, for the first time in history perhaps), and also differentially more fertile than those with the least mutational load.
*
So that compared with 150 years ago there are a lower proportion (and a lowering absolute amount) of IQ-enhancing genes in the gene pool of England, plus a higher proportion and accumulation of deleterious IQ-damaging mutations.
*
And this double-whammy effect is, I think, why the general intelligence has declined so rapidly and so much in England over the past couple of centuries.
***
NOTE: The focus upon accumulation of deleterious genetic mutations due to relaxation of the selection effect of childhood and early adult disease and mortality (which had previously served as a sieve of strongly fitness-reducing mutations) was something I got from Narrow Roads of Gene Land: evolution of sex, Volume Two of WD Hamilton's collected papers. One aspect is that such relaxation of selection is probably unprecedented in human history - indeed, it is possible that recent post-Industrial Revolution conditions may have generated a positive selection in favour of deleterious mutations (amplifying their frequency, at least up to the point when they become fatal or induce sterility). At any rate, the quantitative effect of this process of accumulating deleterious mutations in a population is only imprecisely measurable (I believe); whereas the quantitative effect of differential fertility on differential IQ is pretty well understood, and fairly precise measurements of the effect size are possible.
*
It seems very probable that general intelligence (or 'genotypic IQ') has declined by more than one standard deviation since late Victorian times, and presumably even more since about 1800 when the Industrial Revolution began to become obvious and these changes probably began.
http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-over-promoted-society.html
But what was the cause?
*
Using reaction time data, the decline in genotypic IQ is of-the-order of 1.5 IQ points per decade - that is about 15 points in a century - or one standard deviation.
(This rough estimate of the size and rate of decline in 'g' has been replicated by a more sophisticated and completely different - as-yet unpublished - analysis of reaction time trends that I have seen.)
In other words, the average Englishman from about 1900 would be in roughly the top 15 percent of the population in 2000 - and the difference would be even larger if we went back further towards 1800.
*
These numbers are not intended to be precise - indeed real precision (in the sense of exact accuracy) is not available in IQ studies for many reasons to do with the difficulties of truly random and sufficiently large population sampling; and the fact the IQ points are not on a 'ratio scale' but are derived from putting a population sample into rank order on the basis of (usually) one-off testing.
But anyway, I think that a decline of 1.5 IQ points per decade is probably too fast to be due purely to the effect on gene frequencies of differential fertility between people of different intelligence levels.
No doubt the measured decline is substantially to do with the fact that higher intelligence is correlated with lower fertility; but within this, I think there must be at least two explanations operating at the same time.
*
Differential fertility would lead to a decline in intelligence - let's say - by a reduction in the proportion of high IQ genes in the population.
This happens mostly because since the Industrial Revolution almost-all children that are born will survive; so reproductive success becomes almost-purely a matter of fertility; and the most intelligent sectors of the population are the least fertile, and less fertile with each generation; until eventually (i.e. for the past several decades) the most intelligent people are sub-fertile, below two offspring per woman - so that the genes which make them most intelligent will decline with each generation - first declining as a proportion of the gene pool, and then declining in absolute prevalence.
*
My suggestion is that the additional mechanism of decline in intelligence is the opposite of the above: an increase in the proportion of low IQ genes in the population.
*
There is, I suggest, a difference between high IQ and low IQ genes.
High IQ genes have (presumably) been selected for in the past because they increased intelligence, and thereby (under ancestral - especially medieval - conditions) increased reproductive success.
*
But low IQ genes are spontaneously occurring deleterious mutations. These were not 'selected for'; rather it was a matter that selection failed to eliminate them.
In technical terms, the mechanism for low IQ genes is mutation-selection balance.
*
The idea is that before the Industrial Revolution, individuals with a higher mutational load had lower-than-average reproductive success due to very high (near total) childhood mortality rates among those of lowest intelligence.
But after the Industrial Revolution got going, and mortality rates declined for the least intelligent so that even the poorest families usually raised several-to-many children, then there was a double-whammy dysgenic effect: a reduced proportion of high IQ genes with each generation (due to progressively lowering fertility among the higher IQ) and also an increasing accumulation of IQ-damaging deleterious mutations with each generation.
So that (roughly speaking) since the Industrial Revolution, individuals with the greatest mutational load (IQ-harmful genes) have been initially been above-replacement fertile (having on average more than 2 surviving children per woman, for the first time in history perhaps), and also differentially more fertile than those with the least mutational load.
*
So that compared with 150 years ago there are a lower proportion (and a lowering absolute amount) of IQ-enhancing genes in the gene pool of England, plus a higher proportion and accumulation of deleterious IQ-damaging mutations.
*
And this double-whammy effect is, I think, why the general intelligence has declined so rapidly and so much in England over the past couple of centuries.
***
NOTE: The focus upon accumulation of deleterious genetic mutations due to relaxation of the selection effect of childhood and early adult disease and mortality (which had previously served as a sieve of strongly fitness-reducing mutations) was something I got from Narrow Roads of Gene Land: evolution of sex, Volume Two of WD Hamilton's collected papers. One aspect is that such relaxation of selection is probably unprecedented in human history - indeed, it is possible that recent post-Industrial Revolution conditions may have generated a positive selection in favour of deleterious mutations (amplifying their frequency, at least up to the point when they become fatal or induce sterility). At any rate, the quantitative effect of this process of accumulating deleterious mutations in a population is only imprecisely measurable (I believe); whereas the quantitative effect of differential fertility on differential IQ is pretty well understood, and fairly precise measurements of the effect size are possible.
*
Friday, 30 November 2012
Who is NOT over-promoted, in the over-promoted society
*
Continuing from
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-over-promoted-society.html
*
In a world of declining general intelligence, not everybody is over-promoted with respect to intelligence.
Some people have the level of intelligence which would have been commensurate with their position in society about a hundred years ago.
Who are these people?
*
They are those of very high intelligence (by modern standards) but low conscientiousness and agreeableness (low empathizing).
In other words, they are intelligent people with awkward personalities that mean on the one hand they do not get promoted (because they have awkward personalities); while on the other hand they do not want promotion (because they know enough to recognize that that they are not capable of functioning properly at a higher level than they already are at. Not that others could do better - they cannot - but that they themselves could not do the job properly.).
Such not-over-promoted people actually understand what they are doing at the level at which they are doing it; and can provide a critique of what has happened and what has gone wrong.
*
I don't want to be too specific - but the handful of people I know who are potential geniuses (or unrecognized geniuses) are all functioning at lower levels than would have been commensurate with their abilities 100 years ago. (This is, I think, due to the trend for requring ever higher levels of docility, obedience and friendliness/ non-abrasiveness from employees of bureaucracies).
And I know of many more people of very high intelligence who are at the level where they would have been 100 years ago - but (becuase of the general delcine in g) are consequently of one-standard-deviation-plus higher in intelligence than their modern co-workers at the same level.
Also, I know of quite a few people of very high intelligence who are pretty much unemployable in modern conditions - however, perhaps that was always the case, perhaps there always were such people.
*
Continuing from
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-over-promoted-society.html
*
In a world of declining general intelligence, not everybody is over-promoted with respect to intelligence.
Some people have the level of intelligence which would have been commensurate with their position in society about a hundred years ago.
Who are these people?
*
They are those of very high intelligence (by modern standards) but low conscientiousness and agreeableness (low empathizing).
In other words, they are intelligent people with awkward personalities that mean on the one hand they do not get promoted (because they have awkward personalities); while on the other hand they do not want promotion (because they know enough to recognize that that they are not capable of functioning properly at a higher level than they already are at. Not that others could do better - they cannot - but that they themselves could not do the job properly.).
Such not-over-promoted people actually understand what they are doing at the level at which they are doing it; and can provide a critique of what has happened and what has gone wrong.
*
I don't want to be too specific - but the handful of people I know who are potential geniuses (or unrecognized geniuses) are all functioning at lower levels than would have been commensurate with their abilities 100 years ago. (This is, I think, due to the trend for requring ever higher levels of docility, obedience and friendliness/ non-abrasiveness from employees of bureaucracies).
And I know of many more people of very high intelligence who are at the level where they would have been 100 years ago - but (becuase of the general delcine in g) are consequently of one-standard-deviation-plus higher in intelligence than their modern co-workers at the same level.
Also, I know of quite a few people of very high intelligence who are pretty much unemployable in modern conditions - however, perhaps that was always the case, perhaps there always were such people.
*
How to simplify over-complex systems (in an over-promoted society)
*
[Following from http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-pyramid-of-technology-and-of.html ]
In the long run, institutions cannot be more complex than the understanding of their leaders; thus, because the intelligence of leaders has declined, institutional complexity must reduce.
But the complexity must be reduced by great individual (specific human) reformers building-up complexity from core principles which they can understand
- and not therefore by condensation of the complexity into simplified general schemata (however this condensation might be attempted, by whatever means - currently usually statistical).
Building-up is the only thing that works because it preserves core functionality.
*
A positive example of what must happen was the method by which the complexity of Christianity was reduced by The Reformation, while preserving 'functionality' (salvation).
Since the Christian tradition had become so corrupt in the West, the religion was simplified to scriptural principles (by the inspired work of individual geniuses) and re-built from that base.
*
But the many recent institutional simplifications I have experienced professionally in education and health services have been damaging failures, precisely because they fail to preserve core functionality.
(e.g. Health service 'reforms' which severely damage the doctor-patient relationship and impose government objectives; teaching 'reforms' which reduced the amount of teaching and increase class sizes; college admission 'reforms' which impose inverse discrimination; research 'reforms' like peer review and research evaluation systems, which punish truth-seeking and truth-speaking.)
The failure to preserve core functionality is denied and lied about, and core function is redefined and redefined ('mission statements'); but the destruction is real, of course.
*
[Following from http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-pyramid-of-technology-and-of.html ]
In the long run, institutions cannot be more complex than the understanding of their leaders; thus, because the intelligence of leaders has declined, institutional complexity must reduce.
But the complexity must be reduced by great individual (specific human) reformers building-up complexity from core principles which they can understand
- and not therefore by condensation of the complexity into simplified general schemata (however this condensation might be attempted, by whatever means - currently usually statistical).
Building-up is the only thing that works because it preserves core functionality.
*
A positive example of what must happen was the method by which the complexity of Christianity was reduced by The Reformation, while preserving 'functionality' (salvation).
Since the Christian tradition had become so corrupt in the West, the religion was simplified to scriptural principles (by the inspired work of individual geniuses) and re-built from that base.
*
But the many recent institutional simplifications I have experienced professionally in education and health services have been damaging failures, precisely because they fail to preserve core functionality.
(e.g. Health service 'reforms' which severely damage the doctor-patient relationship and impose government objectives; teaching 'reforms' which reduced the amount of teaching and increase class sizes; college admission 'reforms' which impose inverse discrimination; research 'reforms' like peer review and research evaluation systems, which punish truth-seeking and truth-speaking.)
The failure to preserve core functionality is denied and lied about, and core function is redefined and redefined ('mission statements'); but the destruction is real, of course.
*
The pyramid of technology, and of intellectual functions
[Following on from http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-over-promoted-society.html ]
There seems to be a pyramid of technology which corresponds to a pyramid of intellectual functions in large complex modern societies.
The peak of the pyramid is the high level of general intelligence (g) needed to make qualitative improvements in social functioning: breakthroughs.
This is the pyramid:
What I am talking-about are those key factors which could be termed 'technology' in the broadest sense:
these would include forms of social organization (government, religion), food production - including agriculture, warfare and defence, and so on.
Whatever are the key functions upon which society depends.
The pyramid is most obvious for those complex technologies which led to the emergence of modern societies (the technologies of the linked agricultural and industrial revolutions) and upon which modern societies depend.
Modernity arose due to frequent breakthroughs and improvements - these breakthroughs in 'technology' enabling production to outgrow population growth for many generations.
But underneath it all was the breakthroughs.
So the breakthrough is the invention of something qualitatively new - some piece of machinery, some concept, a form of organization... This (as a rule) requires genius - a combination of very high intelligence and creativity.
This breakthrough is then incrementally improved - this does not require such high intelligence, nor does it require creativity - but can be done by 'trial and error'.
Sooner or later the entity (the piece of technology, the social institution) will wear-out, get broken or dissipate entropically, and need to be replaced - this may require workshops, factories, systems of apprenticeship, colleges - these need to be generated and made to work.
And, as it is being used or operating, from time to time the entity needs to be repaired. This is easier than replacing it, and the repair process may be broken down into specific checks and tasks.
But simply operating the entity, working the technology or working-in an institution, requires less capability than repair.
Nonetheless, there are people who cannot operate; they lack the requisite ability - they are sub-functional with respect to that specific 'technology' (although they may be functional for other technologies).
So, if we think of a gun; there was the breakthrough of the concept of a gun, what it could do and how; there was the incremental (trial and error) improvement of this basic breakthrough until there were functional guns - and the continued incremental improvement (and specialization) of these guns.
Then there is the matter of manufacturing and replacing guns; then below that there is the function of maintaining a gun (regular cleaning, oiling etc).
Then below that there is the function of shooting guns (so the hit the target, and so they do not kill the operator).
Below that again are sub-functional people - e.g. who cannot shoot the guns accurately, or who shoot them on impulse or for a joke; and these people are a liability because they may shoot themselves of the people on their side. Indeed, they are 'more trouble than they are worth' because they require such a high degree of supervision in order to prevent them inflicting damage.
If we think of an abstract field like science; there are the creative geniuses who make breakthroughs in theories or discoveries; and there are the non-creative intelligent people who may incrementally improve and refine these breakthroughs.
Then below that are the structures of education and apprenticeship which create the environment within which this can occur, and from which the higher level people may be generated - for example the people who work in (properly functioning) colleges and research institutions.
Below that are the people who use the products of science to make and do things (applied scientists, engineers, doctors, technologists);
and below that are the people who use what these makers and doers generate (e.g. skilled craftsmen);
and below that are the users;
and below them are people who cannot use science safely or appropriately - and must have it done for them, or not at all (e.g. children, and other people who lack the intellectual requisites).
This pyramid is also a hierarchy of general intelligence (g).
Intelligence is not the only important factor (personality - for instance - is very important) but intelligence is a vital and constraining factor in the above hierarchy.
If the required level of intelligence for the required function is not met - then the function will not be done.
So if we cannot repair and replace a piece of technology or a social institution (like medicine, or engineering); then when it breaks (due to wear and tear, or sabotage) it cannot be mended or re-made, and is lost.
And as a society's average intelligence declines, as has happened in Western Europe, then it has a major impact on the above pyramid.
What happens initially is the over-promoted society; where the lack of intelligence means that people end-up at a level one (or two) categories too high for their cognitive abilities.
Those whose job is to make breakthroughs can now only make incremental improvements - they cannot do their core job. Therefore breakthroughs dry-up - and the whole basis of modern societies is lost.
But because breakthroughs are needed there there is a pretence of breakthroughs - and ideas that are just random variations and inversions and recombinations of what already exists (mere novelties) are spun as breakthroughs.
Those whose role is to make incremental improvements are unable to function above the level of replacements and repair of already existing entities - so established things don't improve gradually as they used to.
They change but don't improve - therefore they get worse.
Perhaps this contributes to the fact that so many able people have given-up on trying to improve functionality, and lapsed into fashionability and careerism.
Those who are supposed to repair and maintain stuff cannot really understand how it works - so repair becomes reduced to maintenance, and the following of predecided procedures.
And the fact that so many people are over-promoted (for lack of anyone better) can lead to a deficiency of mere operatives - who may be inadequate either intellectually, or in terms of personality.
These are, in fact, sub-functional individuals who are being used for lack of anyone else.
And still there is a large and expanding 'underclass' of those unable or unwilling to perform any of the functions required by modern society.
All this is due to complexity.
If the technology is less complex, if the institutions are less complex, then people can perform at their proper level.
Except for breakthroughs which are necessary to modernity, but now very rare or absent - as those of the highest level of intelligence have all but disappeared.
So, what will happen is that things will get less complex - technology, society will simplify - because things cannot be sustained at the current level of complexity.
There seems to be a pyramid of technology which corresponds to a pyramid of intellectual functions in large complex modern societies.
The peak of the pyramid is the high level of general intelligence (g) needed to make qualitative improvements in social functioning: breakthroughs.
This is the pyramid:
Breakthrough (qualitative)
Improvement (incremental)
Replacement
Repair
Maintenance
Operation
(Sub-functional)
What I am talking-about are those key factors which could be termed 'technology' in the broadest sense:
these would include forms of social organization (government, religion), food production - including agriculture, warfare and defence, and so on.
Whatever are the key functions upon which society depends.
The pyramid is most obvious for those complex technologies which led to the emergence of modern societies (the technologies of the linked agricultural and industrial revolutions) and upon which modern societies depend.
Modernity arose due to frequent breakthroughs and improvements - these breakthroughs in 'technology' enabling production to outgrow population growth for many generations.
But underneath it all was the breakthroughs.
So the breakthrough is the invention of something qualitatively new - some piece of machinery, some concept, a form of organization... This (as a rule) requires genius - a combination of very high intelligence and creativity.
This breakthrough is then incrementally improved - this does not require such high intelligence, nor does it require creativity - but can be done by 'trial and error'.
Sooner or later the entity (the piece of technology, the social institution) will wear-out, get broken or dissipate entropically, and need to be replaced - this may require workshops, factories, systems of apprenticeship, colleges - these need to be generated and made to work.
And, as it is being used or operating, from time to time the entity needs to be repaired. This is easier than replacing it, and the repair process may be broken down into specific checks and tasks.
But simply operating the entity, working the technology or working-in an institution, requires less capability than repair.
Nonetheless, there are people who cannot operate; they lack the requisite ability - they are sub-functional with respect to that specific 'technology' (although they may be functional for other technologies).
So, if we think of a gun; there was the breakthrough of the concept of a gun, what it could do and how; there was the incremental (trial and error) improvement of this basic breakthrough until there were functional guns - and the continued incremental improvement (and specialization) of these guns.
Then there is the matter of manufacturing and replacing guns; then below that there is the function of maintaining a gun (regular cleaning, oiling etc).
Then below that there is the function of shooting guns (so the hit the target, and so they do not kill the operator).
Below that again are sub-functional people - e.g. who cannot shoot the guns accurately, or who shoot them on impulse or for a joke; and these people are a liability because they may shoot themselves of the people on their side. Indeed, they are 'more trouble than they are worth' because they require such a high degree of supervision in order to prevent them inflicting damage.
If we think of an abstract field like science; there are the creative geniuses who make breakthroughs in theories or discoveries; and there are the non-creative intelligent people who may incrementally improve and refine these breakthroughs.
Then below that are the structures of education and apprenticeship which create the environment within which this can occur, and from which the higher level people may be generated - for example the people who work in (properly functioning) colleges and research institutions.
Below that are the people who use the products of science to make and do things (applied scientists, engineers, doctors, technologists);
and below that are the people who use what these makers and doers generate (e.g. skilled craftsmen);
and below that are the users;
and below them are people who cannot use science safely or appropriately - and must have it done for them, or not at all (e.g. children, and other people who lack the intellectual requisites).
This pyramid is also a hierarchy of general intelligence (g).
Intelligence is not the only important factor (personality - for instance - is very important) but intelligence is a vital and constraining factor in the above hierarchy.
If the required level of intelligence for the required function is not met - then the function will not be done.
So if we cannot repair and replace a piece of technology or a social institution (like medicine, or engineering); then when it breaks (due to wear and tear, or sabotage) it cannot be mended or re-made, and is lost.
And as a society's average intelligence declines, as has happened in Western Europe, then it has a major impact on the above pyramid.
What happens initially is the over-promoted society; where the lack of intelligence means that people end-up at a level one (or two) categories too high for their cognitive abilities.
Those whose job is to make breakthroughs can now only make incremental improvements - they cannot do their core job. Therefore breakthroughs dry-up - and the whole basis of modern societies is lost.
But because breakthroughs are needed there there is a pretence of breakthroughs - and ideas that are just random variations and inversions and recombinations of what already exists (mere novelties) are spun as breakthroughs.
Those whose role is to make incremental improvements are unable to function above the level of replacements and repair of already existing entities - so established things don't improve gradually as they used to.
They change but don't improve - therefore they get worse.
Perhaps this contributes to the fact that so many able people have given-up on trying to improve functionality, and lapsed into fashionability and careerism.
Those who are supposed to repair and maintain stuff cannot really understand how it works - so repair becomes reduced to maintenance, and the following of predecided procedures.
And the fact that so many people are over-promoted (for lack of anyone better) can lead to a deficiency of mere operatives - who may be inadequate either intellectually, or in terms of personality.
These are, in fact, sub-functional individuals who are being used for lack of anyone else.
And still there is a large and expanding 'underclass' of those unable or unwilling to perform any of the functions required by modern society.
All this is due to complexity.
If the technology is less complex, if the institutions are less complex, then people can perform at their proper level.
Except for breakthroughs which are necessary to modernity, but now very rare or absent - as those of the highest level of intelligence have all but disappeared.
So, what will happen is that things will get less complex - technology, society will simplify - because things cannot be sustained at the current level of complexity.
The over-promoted society: Bishops and other religious leaders
*
In an over-promoted society, where the majority of people can do their jobs but do not understand them
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-over-promoted-society.html
problems become obvious when there is change or crisis.
*
I shall use the Church of England as an example. There has been a substantial decline in the intelligence of people in Britain: what has been the effect on the church?
Well, the people running the church, the Bishops etc, used to be among the most intelligent members of society; and they were cognitively capable of understanding it, and of repairing it.
As intelligence declined (and as the church declined too, and became less able to attract the most intelligent) the people running the church could no longer repair it - but they could maintain it.
So long as nothing went wrong, so long as they didn't try to modify the church - things were fine.
So long as the leaders were humble enough to recognize that they their predecessors were superior in understanding, then matters went on without much of a problem.
*
But the trouble with the over-promoted society is that it has a world view of progress, that things are getting better, and that therefore that frequent and radical change is necessary.
So, the leaders are incapable of positive change - because they don't know how to repair their institution, and are cognitively incapable of learning - are no longer humble, but consumed by their vision of progress.
They change things, and things very obviously begin to fall apart. They modify, they modernize the church...
*
If the modernized church was an aeroplane we could observe that it is grounded, unable to fly - yet, because it is a church not a piece of technology, the people who have wrecked are able to claim they have improved it.
The aeroplane may not be able to fly - but look! It can be used as a cafe and clubhouse!
And yet, claim the leaders, although it no longer flies it is still an aeroplane!
*
Intellectual decline continues, and the next generation of Bishops and church leaders comes along, and they are people who can neither repair nor even do routine maintenance...
So we get Bishops who are like untrained mechanics armed with monkey wrenches and let loose on some piece of intricate high-tech machinery.
The results are predictable - wreckage.
*
But in the over-promoted society with the religion of progress, the cause of the wreckage, the reason for the wreckage, is concealed from the wreckers.
The monkey wrench wielding incompetents blame the wreckage of the church either on the people who wanted to leave it as it was, on the basis that we moderns who cannot even repair it, very obviously lack the competence to rebuild it - these are the Prayer Book conservative and Anglo-Catholics; and/ or they blame the wreckage on those who want to simplify the church (leaving the core) to the point that we can understand, repair and maintain it (roughly-speaking, the conservative evangelicals).
*
But the wreckers are shielded by their incompetence: and this incompetence is due to inability.
The sexual liberation issues that have first divided then corrupted the CoE are really, really simple compared with the theological disputes of the past. They are no-brainers.
Using the standard evaluative methods of the church; the answers are very clear, very easy, unambiguous.
And yet the current Bishops cannot see this; cannot follow simple reasoning based on tradition and scripture (and the traditional interpretation of scripture).
The will not acknowledge their own intellectual incapacity, and - even worse - their own worldly corruption compared with the great Christians of the past whose work they are overthrowing, wrecking.
*
Incompetence is itself not an evil, and is anyway unavoidable in a declining society.
But when incompetence is denied it leads to pride which is the worst evil: that is the current situation.
*
The level of cognitive incompetence among church leaders is now so extreme as scarcely to be exaggerated.
This elite are able not to understand matters which used to be within the grasp of most of the population.
*
The Church of England leadership look at the doctrines of 2000 years of Christianity and they regard them with utter incomprehension.
They cannot imagine how any good and reasonable person could hold such ideas - they regard these ideas as monstrous.
They regard any modern person who holds these traditional Christian ideas as vile.
*
Since their own competence is, for the Bishops and other leaders, beyond question; the problem is those who challenge the results of their incompetence: those who point out that a church which used to fly is now merely a cafe and club; and even worse, a cafe and club with rapidly declining attendance.
*
But a church is about flying, not catering.
A church that can fly even two feet above the ground is still a church - but a church which is grounded and functions as something else is not a church: not at all, not even a little bit.
*
The vast majority of the Bishops and Christians leaders are not just mediocre Christians (we are all that) but not Christians at all, since they have redefined Christianity on non-Christian grounds; and their church organization is not a church at all, since it has discarded religious criteria.
At root this is a matter of sin, of apostasy; but the ground for this, and its swift and nearly-complete corruption, is a matter of over-promotion, of intellectual decline; as is the crisis of leadership in all domains throughout the West.
Once we recognize the fact of substantial intellectual decline, decline in general intelligence, then much becomes clear.
*
Bishops - it is apparent - do not understand the church, they do not understand the millennial sweep of Christianity - hence they cannot help but wreck it whenever they try to make any change and whatever their motivations might be.
As always, repentance must come first; they must repent their actions (and words, and thoughts) in recognition of their own reckless incompetence; and must pray for guidance.
*
The Christian Church in general does not depend on cognitive ability - but the Church of England, specifically, has done.
We must lean to do without it; and all the tools are there to enable this - we have scripture and we have tradition, thus we have the traditional understanding of scripture.
If only we are humble enough to be guided by it.
*
In an over-promoted society, where the majority of people can do their jobs but do not understand them
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/the-over-promoted-society.html
problems become obvious when there is change or crisis.
*
I shall use the Church of England as an example. There has been a substantial decline in the intelligence of people in Britain: what has been the effect on the church?
Well, the people running the church, the Bishops etc, used to be among the most intelligent members of society; and they were cognitively capable of understanding it, and of repairing it.
As intelligence declined (and as the church declined too, and became less able to attract the most intelligent) the people running the church could no longer repair it - but they could maintain it.
So long as nothing went wrong, so long as they didn't try to modify the church - things were fine.
So long as the leaders were humble enough to recognize that they their predecessors were superior in understanding, then matters went on without much of a problem.
*
But the trouble with the over-promoted society is that it has a world view of progress, that things are getting better, and that therefore that frequent and radical change is necessary.
So, the leaders are incapable of positive change - because they don't know how to repair their institution, and are cognitively incapable of learning - are no longer humble, but consumed by their vision of progress.
They change things, and things very obviously begin to fall apart. They modify, they modernize the church...
*
If the modernized church was an aeroplane we could observe that it is grounded, unable to fly - yet, because it is a church not a piece of technology, the people who have wrecked are able to claim they have improved it.
The aeroplane may not be able to fly - but look! It can be used as a cafe and clubhouse!
And yet, claim the leaders, although it no longer flies it is still an aeroplane!
*
Intellectual decline continues, and the next generation of Bishops and church leaders comes along, and they are people who can neither repair nor even do routine maintenance...
So we get Bishops who are like untrained mechanics armed with monkey wrenches and let loose on some piece of intricate high-tech machinery.
The results are predictable - wreckage.
*
But in the over-promoted society with the religion of progress, the cause of the wreckage, the reason for the wreckage, is concealed from the wreckers.
The monkey wrench wielding incompetents blame the wreckage of the church either on the people who wanted to leave it as it was, on the basis that we moderns who cannot even repair it, very obviously lack the competence to rebuild it - these are the Prayer Book conservative and Anglo-Catholics; and/ or they blame the wreckage on those who want to simplify the church (leaving the core) to the point that we can understand, repair and maintain it (roughly-speaking, the conservative evangelicals).
*
But the wreckers are shielded by their incompetence: and this incompetence is due to inability.
The sexual liberation issues that have first divided then corrupted the CoE are really, really simple compared with the theological disputes of the past. They are no-brainers.
Using the standard evaluative methods of the church; the answers are very clear, very easy, unambiguous.
And yet the current Bishops cannot see this; cannot follow simple reasoning based on tradition and scripture (and the traditional interpretation of scripture).
The will not acknowledge their own intellectual incapacity, and - even worse - their own worldly corruption compared with the great Christians of the past whose work they are overthrowing, wrecking.
*
Incompetence is itself not an evil, and is anyway unavoidable in a declining society.
But when incompetence is denied it leads to pride which is the worst evil: that is the current situation.
*
The level of cognitive incompetence among church leaders is now so extreme as scarcely to be exaggerated.
This elite are able not to understand matters which used to be within the grasp of most of the population.
*
The Church of England leadership look at the doctrines of 2000 years of Christianity and they regard them with utter incomprehension.
They cannot imagine how any good and reasonable person could hold such ideas - they regard these ideas as monstrous.
They regard any modern person who holds these traditional Christian ideas as vile.
*
Since their own competence is, for the Bishops and other leaders, beyond question; the problem is those who challenge the results of their incompetence: those who point out that a church which used to fly is now merely a cafe and club; and even worse, a cafe and club with rapidly declining attendance.
*
But a church is about flying, not catering.
A church that can fly even two feet above the ground is still a church - but a church which is grounded and functions as something else is not a church: not at all, not even a little bit.
*
The vast majority of the Bishops and Christians leaders are not just mediocre Christians (we are all that) but not Christians at all, since they have redefined Christianity on non-Christian grounds; and their church organization is not a church at all, since it has discarded religious criteria.
At root this is a matter of sin, of apostasy; but the ground for this, and its swift and nearly-complete corruption, is a matter of over-promotion, of intellectual decline; as is the crisis of leadership in all domains throughout the West.
Once we recognize the fact of substantial intellectual decline, decline in general intelligence, then much becomes clear.
*
Bishops - it is apparent - do not understand the church, they do not understand the millennial sweep of Christianity - hence they cannot help but wreck it whenever they try to make any change and whatever their motivations might be.
As always, repentance must come first; they must repent their actions (and words, and thoughts) in recognition of their own reckless incompetence; and must pray for guidance.
*
The Christian Church in general does not depend on cognitive ability - but the Church of England, specifically, has done.
We must lean to do without it; and all the tools are there to enable this - we have scripture and we have tradition, thus we have the traditional understanding of scripture.
If only we are humble enough to be guided by it.
*
The over-promoted society
*
I am now pretty much convinced that average and peak general intelligence (g) has been declining in the West for at least the past 200 years - and the rate of decline is at least half a standard deviation (circa 8 IQ points) per fifty years.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/convincing-objective-and-direct.html
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/taking-on-board-that-victorians-were.html
I have recently become aware of further evidence that the above is pretty much correct - but this is not yet published.
*
What this means is that we are living in an over-promoted society.
We have inherited social structures from earlier generations, with social roles dependent upon certain minimal cognitive capacities - but we lack sufficient people with the requisite cognitive capacity to fill these social functions, therefore although people can do their jobs and functions, they do not and cannot understand these functions.
Therefore when anything goes wrong or when any change is required, people will necessarily wreck what they have inherited.
*
It has been like giving a bunch of ten year old kids modern guns, tanks and aircraft - they can certainly shoot guns, many could drive tanks, and a few could fly aircraft - but they cannot maintain or repair the stuff - and certainly they cannot replace it.
They simply cannot do this - whether they wanted to or not (and mostly they can't be bothered, and would rather do other things anyway).
*
Modern people are the same with their cultural inheritance. Not just technology but religion, science, the education system, politics, administration and management, literature, music, fine arts... you name it, we have wrecked it.
We wreck it because the majority of people who do these things cannot understand them; therefore necessarily cannot maintain, repair or replace them.
*
Compared with (say) 100 years ago - our premier intellectuals are like their school teachers, our school teachers are like their foremen, our skilled workers like their semi-skilled, our semi-skilled workers are like their peasants, and our unskilled workers are unable (and unwilling) to do anything useful at all.
(I mean they cannot do anything useful in the modern society which we have inherited - in other societies they might perform valuable work.)
*
And this continues.
There is no reasoning with these people - they cannot follow reason - they are over-promoted, they just cannot understand.
*
What is to be done?
Start again, simplify, build-up from the ground.
But that will happen anyway, willy nilly...
*
Note on the phrase 'willy nilly'. From Christopher Tolkien's glossary to Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale: Medieval English possessed special negative forms of some common verbs; see nys, nas, nere, noot [ nys from ne is, is not; nas from ne was, was not; nere from ne were, were it not; noot from ne woot, I do not know]... The phrase 'willy nilly' still contains one: 'will I, nill I' or whether I wish it or wish it not.
*
I am now pretty much convinced that average and peak general intelligence (g) has been declining in the West for at least the past 200 years - and the rate of decline is at least half a standard deviation (circa 8 IQ points) per fifty years.
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/convincing-objective-and-direct.html
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/taking-on-board-that-victorians-were.html
I have recently become aware of further evidence that the above is pretty much correct - but this is not yet published.
*
What this means is that we are living in an over-promoted society.
We have inherited social structures from earlier generations, with social roles dependent upon certain minimal cognitive capacities - but we lack sufficient people with the requisite cognitive capacity to fill these social functions, therefore although people can do their jobs and functions, they do not and cannot understand these functions.
Therefore when anything goes wrong or when any change is required, people will necessarily wreck what they have inherited.
*
It has been like giving a bunch of ten year old kids modern guns, tanks and aircraft - they can certainly shoot guns, many could drive tanks, and a few could fly aircraft - but they cannot maintain or repair the stuff - and certainly they cannot replace it.
They simply cannot do this - whether they wanted to or not (and mostly they can't be bothered, and would rather do other things anyway).
*
Modern people are the same with their cultural inheritance. Not just technology but religion, science, the education system, politics, administration and management, literature, music, fine arts... you name it, we have wrecked it.
We wreck it because the majority of people who do these things cannot understand them; therefore necessarily cannot maintain, repair or replace them.
*
Compared with (say) 100 years ago - our premier intellectuals are like their school teachers, our school teachers are like their foremen, our skilled workers like their semi-skilled, our semi-skilled workers are like their peasants, and our unskilled workers are unable (and unwilling) to do anything useful at all.
(I mean they cannot do anything useful in the modern society which we have inherited - in other societies they might perform valuable work.)
*
And this continues.
There is no reasoning with these people - they cannot follow reason - they are over-promoted, they just cannot understand.
*
What is to be done?
Start again, simplify, build-up from the ground.
But that will happen anyway, willy nilly...
*
Note on the phrase 'willy nilly'. From Christopher Tolkien's glossary to Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale: Medieval English possessed special negative forms of some common verbs; see nys, nas, nere, noot [ nys from ne is, is not; nas from ne was, was not; nere from ne were, were it not; noot from ne woot, I do not know]... The phrase 'willy nilly' still contains one: 'will I, nill I' or whether I wish it or wish it not.
*
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
What can be done about the Genius famine?
*
I seem to have evolved such a distinctive view of the nature and effect of Creative Genius that I don't suppose anyone else holds any similar views...
And, in the end, I am ambivalent about Genius. Clearly Genius is such a powerful weapon that it can scarcely be trusted in the hands of a fallen Man.
Genius is thus more likely to lead to harm than good, for the same reason that any machine will usually do more harm than good.
*
But if the modern world has been necessarily based on the work of relatively few Geniuses - as I believe it has; and if Genius is disappearing fast - as I believe it is; then what would be a rational response of a pro-modernizer to the situation.
What is actually happening is not rational, because in fact the modern world has become (and is becoming more so) hostile to Genius; so that the relatively few who emerge are usually kept from having any chance of influence.
This happens passively by bureaucracy and actively by Leftism (pretty much all of the Leftist 'moral' priorities will have the net effect of making it harder, or impossible, for a Genius to get into any position of influence or be taken notice of).
*
So on the one hand there is a 'famine' of Genius - which afflicts the science, technology, the arts, politics, philosophy, law... pretty much everything with very few people of that sort within the fields
But on the other hand, there is near zero awareness of the rapid and (from a modernizing perspective) catastrophic decline in Genius.
*
Take classical music. There are essentially zero geniuses operating in composing Western classical music nowadays, although there used to be many; and this has been the situation for many decades; and indeed the kind of people who might potentially do work of genius are utterly absent from these social systems - yet nobody ever talks about this.
Or in academic scholarship. In the vastly bloated British university systems, not only is there essentially nobody doing work of Genius (I can think of just one); but there is probably nobody who would even be capable of having a shot at Genius-level work: the people are just the wrong kind of people altogether.
In the first place, they are not even trying to do the best work of which they are capable - so it is not going to happen,
In the second place they have the wrong personality type: conscientious, obedient, empathic, following of established rules...
In the third place they are of lesser intelligence compared with the past.
*
Nothing much can be done about the demographic decline in intelligence; and the process continues.
However, it would, in principle, seemingly be possible to compensate for this - for a while - by a better 'search process': a more effective way of unearthing more individuals from the declining pool of potential geniuses and giving them a better chance of coming through to a position where they might attain the best work of which they were capable - and then taking some notice of it.
Yet, to write that paragraph is to see that it will not happen, and also perhaps why it will not happen.
How could a society which is root and branch hostile to the kind of person who might (but probably wont) become a Genius, do anything of the sort?
And there is the paradox of organizing society to encourage the emergence of the disorganized and disorganizing and disruptive.
*
But if something of the sort was actually put into effect (and this might well be a plot for a science fiction novel, perhaps by Philip K Dick), then it could happen by means of a program of psychological profiling and testing rather like the process which already exists for discovering talent in musical performance.
That is, a multitude of individual coaches, teachers or Maestros who would take on promising youngsters for training; and a variety of competitions aimed at evaluating both achieved performance and (more important) potential.
The framework is that what is happening is that talent is being discovered then developed to a point where the talent can take-over its own development.
*
The apprentice would need to find, and trust, a Master.
The Master would need to want to find, and work with, the best apprentices.
The Masters would be in control of the system.
Because only the Masters can see what is going on.
But aside from that, there is no 'system'. No formal requirements. No standard progression. No accreditation of any significance.
*
Very individualistic, very elitist, very esoteric.
It sees talent and the potential for Genius as essentially innate.
If you haven't got it you can't do it; and if even you have, you probably won't.
*
The only place I think anything of this sort continues (at least until recently) in the scholarly world is mathematics in some countries - where there exists a system of competitions for sifting the general population, identifying then developing the small number of kids who show special mathematical talent.
If modern society was concerned with its own continuation - which very clearly it is not, instead being devoted to its own extinction - then something of this kind would need to occur to locate and empower sufficient numbers of Geniuses to maintain the frequent and relevant breakthroughs necessary to enable continued growth in efficiency and capability.
But instead we have public relations which convinces everybody who matters that everything is fine and getting better.
*
I seem to have evolved such a distinctive view of the nature and effect of Creative Genius that I don't suppose anyone else holds any similar views...
And, in the end, I am ambivalent about Genius. Clearly Genius is such a powerful weapon that it can scarcely be trusted in the hands of a fallen Man.
Genius is thus more likely to lead to harm than good, for the same reason that any machine will usually do more harm than good.
*
But if the modern world has been necessarily based on the work of relatively few Geniuses - as I believe it has; and if Genius is disappearing fast - as I believe it is; then what would be a rational response of a pro-modernizer to the situation.
What is actually happening is not rational, because in fact the modern world has become (and is becoming more so) hostile to Genius; so that the relatively few who emerge are usually kept from having any chance of influence.
This happens passively by bureaucracy and actively by Leftism (pretty much all of the Leftist 'moral' priorities will have the net effect of making it harder, or impossible, for a Genius to get into any position of influence or be taken notice of).
*
So on the one hand there is a 'famine' of Genius - which afflicts the science, technology, the arts, politics, philosophy, law... pretty much everything with very few people of that sort within the fields
But on the other hand, there is near zero awareness of the rapid and (from a modernizing perspective) catastrophic decline in Genius.
*
Take classical music. There are essentially zero geniuses operating in composing Western classical music nowadays, although there used to be many; and this has been the situation for many decades; and indeed the kind of people who might potentially do work of genius are utterly absent from these social systems - yet nobody ever talks about this.
Or in academic scholarship. In the vastly bloated British university systems, not only is there essentially nobody doing work of Genius (I can think of just one); but there is probably nobody who would even be capable of having a shot at Genius-level work: the people are just the wrong kind of people altogether.
In the first place, they are not even trying to do the best work of which they are capable - so it is not going to happen,
In the second place they have the wrong personality type: conscientious, obedient, empathic, following of established rules...
In the third place they are of lesser intelligence compared with the past.
*
Nothing much can be done about the demographic decline in intelligence; and the process continues.
However, it would, in principle, seemingly be possible to compensate for this - for a while - by a better 'search process': a more effective way of unearthing more individuals from the declining pool of potential geniuses and giving them a better chance of coming through to a position where they might attain the best work of which they were capable - and then taking some notice of it.
Yet, to write that paragraph is to see that it will not happen, and also perhaps why it will not happen.
How could a society which is root and branch hostile to the kind of person who might (but probably wont) become a Genius, do anything of the sort?
And there is the paradox of organizing society to encourage the emergence of the disorganized and disorganizing and disruptive.
*
But if something of the sort was actually put into effect (and this might well be a plot for a science fiction novel, perhaps by Philip K Dick), then it could happen by means of a program of psychological profiling and testing rather like the process which already exists for discovering talent in musical performance.
That is, a multitude of individual coaches, teachers or Maestros who would take on promising youngsters for training; and a variety of competitions aimed at evaluating both achieved performance and (more important) potential.
The framework is that what is happening is that talent is being discovered then developed to a point where the talent can take-over its own development.
*
The apprentice would need to find, and trust, a Master.
The Master would need to want to find, and work with, the best apprentices.
The Masters would be in control of the system.
Because only the Masters can see what is going on.
But aside from that, there is no 'system'. No formal requirements. No standard progression. No accreditation of any significance.
*
Very individualistic, very elitist, very esoteric.
It sees talent and the potential for Genius as essentially innate.
If you haven't got it you can't do it; and if even you have, you probably won't.
*
The only place I think anything of this sort continues (at least until recently) in the scholarly world is mathematics in some countries - where there exists a system of competitions for sifting the general population, identifying then developing the small number of kids who show special mathematical talent.
If modern society was concerned with its own continuation - which very clearly it is not, instead being devoted to its own extinction - then something of this kind would need to occur to locate and empower sufficient numbers of Geniuses to maintain the frequent and relevant breakthroughs necessary to enable continued growth in efficiency and capability.
But instead we have public relations which convinces everybody who matters that everything is fine and getting better.
*
Neglected genius?
*
The neglected genius, unrecognized during his lifetime is a standard concept in modern discourse. Yet good examples are exceedingly rare.
(Or unrecognized during her lifetime, since it has been a tenet of feminist theory that there were/ are numerous unrecognized female geniuses. However, I don't think that forty years of feminist - ahem - scholarship has come up with a single new example.)
*
Of course it takes a while, usually a matter of decades, for somebody to become really famous - but the genius who was essentially unknown and disregarded during their lifetime and only emerged after death is pretty rare considering the cultural currency.
In classical music, among the certainly first rate, there is probably only Schubert (the example comes from Karl Popper's autobiography).
In poetry, perhaps Emily Dickinson would count; probably William Blake (although well known for his art work).
But some of the supposed examples, such as Van Gogh or Mozart are simply untrue - Van Gogh was well known (and sold his work) and Mozart extremely famous during their lives - dying in insanity or poverty is not the same as being unknown; and of course when somebody dies young there has not been enough time for their reputation to be consolidated.
*
Reputations rise and fall, of course - and there is dishonest boosting and denigration - but in general geniuses are (or have been) known and recognized by their contemporaries - although not necessarily given pride of place.
Fashionable and powerful figures are always in evidence - e.g. Spohr in classical music seems to have been regarded as first rate in Victorian times while Mozart was neglected for a while (seen as a composer of pleasant trifles - rather as we might regard J.C. or C.P.E Bach).
But while trajectories are various, the specific notion of an obscure and neglected genius who lived a full lifespan in the wilderness and was only recognized by posterity is, in fact, a very rare bird.
*
The neglected genius, unrecognized during his lifetime is a standard concept in modern discourse. Yet good examples are exceedingly rare.
(Or unrecognized during her lifetime, since it has been a tenet of feminist theory that there were/ are numerous unrecognized female geniuses. However, I don't think that forty years of feminist - ahem - scholarship has come up with a single new example.)
*
Of course it takes a while, usually a matter of decades, for somebody to become really famous - but the genius who was essentially unknown and disregarded during their lifetime and only emerged after death is pretty rare considering the cultural currency.
In classical music, among the certainly first rate, there is probably only Schubert (the example comes from Karl Popper's autobiography).
In poetry, perhaps Emily Dickinson would count; probably William Blake (although well known for his art work).
But some of the supposed examples, such as Van Gogh or Mozart are simply untrue - Van Gogh was well known (and sold his work) and Mozart extremely famous during their lives - dying in insanity or poverty is not the same as being unknown; and of course when somebody dies young there has not been enough time for their reputation to be consolidated.
*
Reputations rise and fall, of course - and there is dishonest boosting and denigration - but in general geniuses are (or have been) known and recognized by their contemporaries - although not necessarily given pride of place.
Fashionable and powerful figures are always in evidence - e.g. Spohr in classical music seems to have been regarded as first rate in Victorian times while Mozart was neglected for a while (seen as a composer of pleasant trifles - rather as we might regard J.C. or C.P.E Bach).
But while trajectories are various, the specific notion of an obscure and neglected genius who lived a full lifespan in the wilderness and was only recognized by posterity is, in fact, a very rare bird.
*
Is the lack of modern geniuses because there are no big things left to discover?
*
One of the most frequent arguments about the lack of modern geniuses hinges around the assertion that it was easier for geniuses of the past to make a mark and influence history, because there were so many 'low hanging fruit' - major discoveries just hovering there waiting to be plucked.
But nowadays, so the story goes, the early, easy, major discoveries have already been made; what now remains to be discovered is both harder and more minor - so that a modern person of equal genius to a famous figure of the past appears to make a lesser contribution.
*
Such an argument seems to assume what is false - that the quantity of human geniuses is constant in all times and places and among all people.
Nonetheless, let us assume it is correct: what then?
*
The importance of genius in human history - and specifically in modern society - is that the major discoveries (the breakthoughs) are so great and so fundamental that they enable a new wave of 'growth' to be built upon them.
But if we have actually (as the above argument asserts) run out of major discoveries to make; then the growth which depends on major discoveries will come to an end.
And since modernity depends on growth - specifically growth in capability and efficiency of productivity - then modernity will halt, then reverse.
*
So, the end of genius means the end of modernity; whether the cause is that we have run out of geniuses, or because we have run out of major things for geniuses to discover.
Either way, the consequences are the same.
*
One of the most frequent arguments about the lack of modern geniuses hinges around the assertion that it was easier for geniuses of the past to make a mark and influence history, because there were so many 'low hanging fruit' - major discoveries just hovering there waiting to be plucked.
But nowadays, so the story goes, the early, easy, major discoveries have already been made; what now remains to be discovered is both harder and more minor - so that a modern person of equal genius to a famous figure of the past appears to make a lesser contribution.
*
Such an argument seems to assume what is false - that the quantity of human geniuses is constant in all times and places and among all people.
Nonetheless, let us assume it is correct: what then?
*
The importance of genius in human history - and specifically in modern society - is that the major discoveries (the breakthoughs) are so great and so fundamental that they enable a new wave of 'growth' to be built upon them.
But if we have actually (as the above argument asserts) run out of major discoveries to make; then the growth which depends on major discoveries will come to an end.
And since modernity depends on growth - specifically growth in capability and efficiency of productivity - then modernity will halt, then reverse.
*
So, the end of genius means the end of modernity; whether the cause is that we have run out of geniuses, or because we have run out of major things for geniuses to discover.
Either way, the consequences are the same.
*
Monday, 17 September 2012
P or not-P: the lack of a characteristic cognitive style in low trait Psychoticism?
*
High trait Psychoticism is in bold font; Low trait Psychoticism is normal font.
1. Cold - versus warm, charming
2. Aggressive - versus submissive
3. Egocentric - versus follows groups expectations
4. Unempathic - versus socially-expressed agreeableness, empathy, sympathetic
5. Tough-minded (i.e. impervious to events) - versus tender-minded, strongly affected by experience/ people
6. Antisocial - versus gregarious, needs other people
7. Impersonal - versus life consists of intense, direct relationships
8. Impulsive (behaviour dominated by current emotions) - versus conscientious.
9. Creative - versus applies peer approved, learned rules and traditions
*
My assumption is that ancestral humans were high Psychoticism on average - for example, anthroplogical accounts of recent hunter gatherers show that they exhibited extremely high trait Psychoticism behaviours.
Therefore high P is the baseline, and low P is something that evolved more recently - probably due to multiple generations of selection in complex/ agricultural/ high latitude societies.
So - high P is the original and natural state for humans.
*
But what unifies all the behaviours characterized as high Psychoticism?
My answer is that the specific behaviours of high P are all products of a characteristic mode of thinking or cognitive style.
And this high P cognitive style is similar in form to the mode of early childhood, dreams, trances, delirium, psychedelic drugs, and psychotic states - except that it may occur in an adult, alert, aware and fully-orientated person.
Also - this high P cognitive style is that which is characteristic of creative genius - a fluid, multiply-valenced, widely-associated style of thinking with direct links to behaviour.
*
It is the cognitive style of High-P which leads to the apparently self-contained, self-confident person, of high self-esteem; interested-by, absorbed-by, motivated by their own vivid and emotionally-engaged subjective, imaginative experiences - thus not easily influenced, nor easily-deflected from their chosen course of action.
*
This leads onto the question of what is the characteristic cognitive style of 'Not-P', or low trait psychoticism?
The answer is that there is no single characteristic style of low-Pychoticism; instead it encompasses a variety of cognitive style, which are united not by similarity but by the fact they are not-P.
*
This can be clarified by an analogy of Poetry versus Prose: Poetry represents high-P while Prose represents low-P.
Poetry can be defined in terms of characteristics like rhythm, rhyme, alliteration; by prose is merely defined as Not-poetry: there are innumerable styles of prose.
So we get Poetry versus Not-Poetry: P versus Not-P:
Thus Poetry has a positive definition in terms of what is is; but Prose has only a negative definition: as being something other than poetry.
There is therefore no characteristic form of Prose, its forms are unbounded, you cannot say prose is 'like this' in the way that can be done with poetry.
*
So, non-Psychoticism, or low-Psychoticism forms of thought are not like the cognitive style of early childhood, dreams, trances, delirium, psychedelic drugs, and psychotic states... but what there are like cannot be briefly stated, and will vary according to circumstance.
*
Another, and psychologically-related, example is comparing the characteristically natural, spontaneous way that people behave (for example as young children) can be contrasted with formal manners, etiquette, courtesy or social protocols.
There are innumerable different systems of manners - there is not a characteristic style of manner. And manners must be learned for each specific human society and typically for specific niches within society (e.g. different manners for the two sexes, ages, classes, or occupations).
*
I believe that it is precisely because high Psychoticism is natural and spontaneous that it is the mode of thinking which drives creative genius - which offers least friction, and harnesses the primary motivations; while by comparison other modes of low-P thinking are learned, artificial, shallow, and less driven.
*
NOTE: Regarding Psychoticism as original, primary and spontaneous entails a re-framing of the Big Five traits of Agreeableness (essentially same as Baron Cohen's Empathizing) and Conscientiousness. these become outcomes of an evolved reduction in Psychoticism, rather than positive things in their own right. In particular, there would not be a specific mode of thought characteristic either of Agreeableness/ Empathizing or Conscientiousness; rather they would be the outcomes of learned forms of thinking.
*
High trait Psychoticism is in bold font; Low trait Psychoticism is normal font.
1. Cold - versus warm, charming
2. Aggressive - versus submissive
3. Egocentric - versus follows groups expectations
4. Unempathic - versus socially-expressed agreeableness, empathy, sympathetic
5. Tough-minded (i.e. impervious to events) - versus tender-minded, strongly affected by experience/ people
6. Antisocial - versus gregarious, needs other people
7. Impersonal - versus life consists of intense, direct relationships
8. Impulsive (behaviour dominated by current emotions) - versus conscientious.
9. Creative - versus applies peer approved, learned rules and traditions
*
My assumption is that ancestral humans were high Psychoticism on average - for example, anthroplogical accounts of recent hunter gatherers show that they exhibited extremely high trait Psychoticism behaviours.
Therefore high P is the baseline, and low P is something that evolved more recently - probably due to multiple generations of selection in complex/ agricultural/ high latitude societies.
So - high P is the original and natural state for humans.
*
But what unifies all the behaviours characterized as high Psychoticism?
My answer is that the specific behaviours of high P are all products of a characteristic mode of thinking or cognitive style.
And this high P cognitive style is similar in form to the mode of early childhood, dreams, trances, delirium, psychedelic drugs, and psychotic states - except that it may occur in an adult, alert, aware and fully-orientated person.
Also - this high P cognitive style is that which is characteristic of creative genius - a fluid, multiply-valenced, widely-associated style of thinking with direct links to behaviour.
*
It is the cognitive style of High-P which leads to the apparently self-contained, self-confident person, of high self-esteem; interested-by, absorbed-by, motivated by their own vivid and emotionally-engaged subjective, imaginative experiences - thus not easily influenced, nor easily-deflected from their chosen course of action.
*
This leads onto the question of what is the characteristic cognitive style of 'Not-P', or low trait psychoticism?
The answer is that there is no single characteristic style of low-Pychoticism; instead it encompasses a variety of cognitive style, which are united not by similarity but by the fact they are not-P.
*
This can be clarified by an analogy of Poetry versus Prose: Poetry represents high-P while Prose represents low-P.
Poetry can be defined in terms of characteristics like rhythm, rhyme, alliteration; by prose is merely defined as Not-poetry: there are innumerable styles of prose.
So we get Poetry versus Not-Poetry: P versus Not-P:
Thus Poetry has a positive definition in terms of what is is; but Prose has only a negative definition: as being something other than poetry.
There is therefore no characteristic form of Prose, its forms are unbounded, you cannot say prose is 'like this' in the way that can be done with poetry.
*
So, non-Psychoticism, or low-Psychoticism forms of thought are not like the cognitive style of early childhood, dreams, trances, delirium, psychedelic drugs, and psychotic states... but what there are like cannot be briefly stated, and will vary according to circumstance.
*
Another, and psychologically-related, example is comparing the characteristically natural, spontaneous way that people behave (for example as young children) can be contrasted with formal manners, etiquette, courtesy or social protocols.
There are innumerable different systems of manners - there is not a characteristic style of manner. And manners must be learned for each specific human society and typically for specific niches within society (e.g. different manners for the two sexes, ages, classes, or occupations).
*
I believe that it is precisely because high Psychoticism is natural and spontaneous that it is the mode of thinking which drives creative genius - which offers least friction, and harnesses the primary motivations; while by comparison other modes of low-P thinking are learned, artificial, shallow, and less driven.
*
NOTE: Regarding Psychoticism as original, primary and spontaneous entails a re-framing of the Big Five traits of Agreeableness (essentially same as Baron Cohen's Empathizing) and Conscientiousness. these become outcomes of an evolved reduction in Psychoticism, rather than positive things in their own right. In particular, there would not be a specific mode of thought characteristic either of Agreeableness/ Empathizing or Conscientiousness; rather they would be the outcomes of learned forms of thinking.
*
Evil Genius
*
For a long while we have been living in a world where most instances of Genius, and indeed most of the most talented people, are evil in their net effect.
By evil I mean quite precisely destructive of virtue, beauty and truth - as these transcendental values are traditionally conceptualized.
This applies almost wherever you look: philosophy, prose, poetry, music, science - and in more modern areas like journalism and comedy.
I am particularly impressed by the extent to which so much of comedy has been an agent of evil - especially satire. And I mean the most accomplished, most creative and innovative comedy - the funniest comedy: how it has culmulatively and almost sytematically attacked meaning, purpose, hope.
At any rate, this is one of the biggest problems of Western culture - the extent to which its greatest exemplars were evil; hence destructive of the basis of their own pre-eminence.
Indeed, this seems the norm: there are exceptions, but the evil Genius is the usual kind of Genius.
*
For a long while we have been living in a world where most instances of Genius, and indeed most of the most talented people, are evil in their net effect.
By evil I mean quite precisely destructive of virtue, beauty and truth - as these transcendental values are traditionally conceptualized.
This applies almost wherever you look: philosophy, prose, poetry, music, science - and in more modern areas like journalism and comedy.
I am particularly impressed by the extent to which so much of comedy has been an agent of evil - especially satire. And I mean the most accomplished, most creative and innovative comedy - the funniest comedy: how it has culmulatively and almost sytematically attacked meaning, purpose, hope.
At any rate, this is one of the biggest problems of Western culture - the extent to which its greatest exemplars were evil; hence destructive of the basis of their own pre-eminence.
Indeed, this seems the norm: there are exceptions, but the evil Genius is the usual kind of Genius.
*
Friday, 14 September 2012
Evolution of Creative Genius in European populations
*
Why did the European population develop such a high concentration of Creative Geniuses growing and peaking sometime late-ish in the span between 1000 and 2000 AD?
*
Creative genius requires:
1. High general intelligence
2. High creativity - which is correlated with the personality trait of Psychoticism
(as described by HJ Eysenck).
*
There is a selection pressure for higher general intelligence in various overlapping situations: agricultural societies, complex societies (with specialization of labour and other functions), high latitude societies (with the problem of surviving through winter).
*
There is a selection pressure for lower Psychoticism in various situations which overlap with the selection factors for high intelligence.
High Psychoticism is in bold font; Low Psychoticism is normal font.
1. Cold - versus warm, charming
2. Aggressive - versus submissive
3. Egocentric - versus follows groups expectations
4. Unempathic - versus sympathetic, feels the emotions of others
5. Tough-minded (i.e. impervious to events) - versus tender-minded, strongly affected by experience
6. Antisocial - versus gregarious, needs other people
7. Impersonal - versus life consists of intense, direct relationships
8. Impulsive (behaviour dominated by current emotions) - versus behaviour dominated by predictions or weaker emotions.
9. Creative - versus applies peer-approved, learned rules and traditions
High trait Psychoticism supports creative genius; low Psychoticism makes a person more assimilable to large scale, complex human society.
*
Thus, a relatively complex agricultural society will - over time - tend to Increase Intelligence and reduce Psychoticism.
In other words, complex agrarian societies will tend towards a Smart and Tame population.
*
(In animal terms, perhaps a group of high-P types could be compared with a wild hunting pack of carnivores such as wolves; while a group of low-P types is somewhat like a herd of domesticated herbivores such as cattle; bearing in mind that when coordinated - e.g. in a stampede - cattle can kill a pack of wolves.)
*
Creative Genius requires both Intelligence and Psychoticism to be high - so eventually a complex agricultural society will become Smart but Tame - highly intelligent but uncreative.
However, it is possible that the selection pressure for increasing intelligence may (under certain circumstances) be stronger than the selection pressure for reducing Psychoticism: thus the smartening may happen faster than taming.
In such a situation, there would be a temporary period when the population was both intelligence and also creative.
This is the 'sweet spot' for Creative Genius.
*
On this basis, it is plausible that the European population underwent selection both for Higher Intelligence and lower Psychoticism during the medieval period; but that Intelligence increased faster than Psychoticism reduced, and led to a few centuries of Western Creative Genius, before the taming selection reduced creativity.
Other parts of the world had different experiences: for example, East Asia had a much longer history of complex (and peaceful) agrarian society - thus the population became, after many generations, much lower in Psychoticism as well as higher in Intelligence: to generate the Smart and Tame type of population. Presumably, at an earlier period than in Western Europe (after, presumably, a much earlier era when the more rapid selection for Intelligence led them to they hit the 'sweet spot' for Creative Genius).
*
And then, from about 1800, selection began to work against high intelligence due to a combination of declining child mortality rates differentially affecting most the less intelligent and declining fertility initially and most strongly among the most intelligent.
Probably, from about 1800, in Europe average Intelligence began to fall, and average Psychoticism to rise - and Creative Genius dwindled quickly (to become very rare by the mid-twentieth century).
*
The Creative Intelligence combination of high Intelligence and high Psychoticism has probably not happened in many populations in the history of the world; and seems likely to be an unstable and transitional state passed-through in moving between the more stable combinations of creative, chaotic, individualistic low-I/ high-P societies on the one hand; and stereotypical, ordered, communalistic high-I/ low-P societies on the other hand.
*
Why did the European population develop such a high concentration of Creative Geniuses growing and peaking sometime late-ish in the span between 1000 and 2000 AD?
*
Creative genius requires:
1. High general intelligence
2. High creativity - which is correlated with the personality trait of Psychoticism
(as described by HJ Eysenck).
*
There is a selection pressure for higher general intelligence in various overlapping situations: agricultural societies, complex societies (with specialization of labour and other functions), high latitude societies (with the problem of surviving through winter).
*
There is a selection pressure for lower Psychoticism in various situations which overlap with the selection factors for high intelligence.
High Psychoticism is in bold font; Low Psychoticism is normal font.
1. Cold - versus warm, charming
2. Aggressive - versus submissive
3. Egocentric - versus follows groups expectations
4. Unempathic - versus sympathetic, feels the emotions of others
5. Tough-minded (i.e. impervious to events) - versus tender-minded, strongly affected by experience
6. Antisocial - versus gregarious, needs other people
7. Impersonal - versus life consists of intense, direct relationships
8. Impulsive (behaviour dominated by current emotions) - versus behaviour dominated by predictions or weaker emotions.
9. Creative - versus applies peer-approved, learned rules and traditions
High trait Psychoticism supports creative genius; low Psychoticism makes a person more assimilable to large scale, complex human society.
*
Thus, a relatively complex agricultural society will - over time - tend to Increase Intelligence and reduce Psychoticism.
In other words, complex agrarian societies will tend towards a Smart and Tame population.
*
(In animal terms, perhaps a group of high-P types could be compared with a wild hunting pack of carnivores such as wolves; while a group of low-P types is somewhat like a herd of domesticated herbivores such as cattle; bearing in mind that when coordinated - e.g. in a stampede - cattle can kill a pack of wolves.)
*
Creative Genius requires both Intelligence and Psychoticism to be high - so eventually a complex agricultural society will become Smart but Tame - highly intelligent but uncreative.
However, it is possible that the selection pressure for increasing intelligence may (under certain circumstances) be stronger than the selection pressure for reducing Psychoticism: thus the smartening may happen faster than taming.
In such a situation, there would be a temporary period when the population was both intelligence and also creative.
This is the 'sweet spot' for Creative Genius.
*
On this basis, it is plausible that the European population underwent selection both for Higher Intelligence and lower Psychoticism during the medieval period; but that Intelligence increased faster than Psychoticism reduced, and led to a few centuries of Western Creative Genius, before the taming selection reduced creativity.
Other parts of the world had different experiences: for example, East Asia had a much longer history of complex (and peaceful) agrarian society - thus the population became, after many generations, much lower in Psychoticism as well as higher in Intelligence: to generate the Smart and Tame type of population. Presumably, at an earlier period than in Western Europe (after, presumably, a much earlier era when the more rapid selection for Intelligence led them to they hit the 'sweet spot' for Creative Genius).
*
And then, from about 1800, selection began to work against high intelligence due to a combination of declining child mortality rates differentially affecting most the less intelligent and declining fertility initially and most strongly among the most intelligent.
Probably, from about 1800, in Europe average Intelligence began to fall, and average Psychoticism to rise - and Creative Genius dwindled quickly (to become very rare by the mid-twentieth century).
*
The Creative Intelligence combination of high Intelligence and high Psychoticism has probably not happened in many populations in the history of the world; and seems likely to be an unstable and transitional state passed-through in moving between the more stable combinations of creative, chaotic, individualistic low-I/ high-P societies on the one hand; and stereotypical, ordered, communalistic high-I/ low-P societies on the other hand.
*
Saturday, 8 September 2012
The nature of understanding in a genius - understanding and creativity.
*
To be a genius is to understand, to understand is to have appropriated to the imagination.
And this appropriation is not so much 'mastery' as being-mastered-by that which is understood.
*
Most people's 'understanding' on most (or all) topics is at the level of accepting. Accepting what people say, accepting rules or laws or maxims - and applying them.
Everyday so-called-understanding is passive, submissive, sociable, empathic, ego-denying: moves from the outside inwards.
Hyper-intelligent people are typically no exception - they simply grasp, memorize and apply instructions more rapidly - they don't understand them.
*
But for the genius in relation to the thing about which they are a genius: understanding is an act of internalizing; making of the thing a part of themselves - no, it is more than this - it is to bring that thing within them, and give that thing life (or allow it life).
To understand a thing is, therefore, to have it inside the imagination and in connection with the mind and body - to observe and feel its growth and workings.
To understand is therefore to-be-possessed-by that thing.
Extreme 'understanding' of one's imagination is therefore psychosis: when a person is possessed by the reality of their own thoughts and hears the thoughts as objective voices, believes ideas as delusions - but genius is also to be possessed by (for instance) thoughts and ideas, but in a manner which can be moved-into and out-from.
*
And this is the basis of creativity.
To be creative is first to understand in this inner, imaginative and real sense - to feel the thing at work within and to have a relationship with it, indeed to be mastered by it - and then to perceive the implications of this real, lively, living, dominating thing within: to see what it means.
*
Thus the genius is at root a type of personality, and personality is a way of thinking.
The genius is rare because balanced between externally-dominated normality and the internally autonomous state of psychosis.
Compared with normality, a genius is possessed by his imagination, and this inner life is independent from normal social influence; but compared with a psychotic the mastering imagination of a genius retains significant communication with the external world.
*
(All of which is to re-state HJ Eysenck's perception that genius is a state of moderately-high Psychoticism; midway along the scale; where Psychoticism is a trait with the socially submissive, socially-engaged empathic, conscientious rule-follower is at the low extreme and an egotistical, psychopathic psychotic is at the highest extreme.)
*
To be a genius is to understand, to understand is to have appropriated to the imagination.
And this appropriation is not so much 'mastery' as being-mastered-by that which is understood.
*
Most people's 'understanding' on most (or all) topics is at the level of accepting. Accepting what people say, accepting rules or laws or maxims - and applying them.
Everyday so-called-understanding is passive, submissive, sociable, empathic, ego-denying: moves from the outside inwards.
Hyper-intelligent people are typically no exception - they simply grasp, memorize and apply instructions more rapidly - they don't understand them.
*
But for the genius in relation to the thing about which they are a genius: understanding is an act of internalizing; making of the thing a part of themselves - no, it is more than this - it is to bring that thing within them, and give that thing life (or allow it life).
To understand a thing is, therefore, to have it inside the imagination and in connection with the mind and body - to observe and feel its growth and workings.
To understand is therefore to-be-possessed-by that thing.
Extreme 'understanding' of one's imagination is therefore psychosis: when a person is possessed by the reality of their own thoughts and hears the thoughts as objective voices, believes ideas as delusions - but genius is also to be possessed by (for instance) thoughts and ideas, but in a manner which can be moved-into and out-from.
*
And this is the basis of creativity.
To be creative is first to understand in this inner, imaginative and real sense - to feel the thing at work within and to have a relationship with it, indeed to be mastered by it - and then to perceive the implications of this real, lively, living, dominating thing within: to see what it means.
*
Thus the genius is at root a type of personality, and personality is a way of thinking.
The genius is rare because balanced between externally-dominated normality and the internally autonomous state of psychosis.
Compared with normality, a genius is possessed by his imagination, and this inner life is independent from normal social influence; but compared with a psychotic the mastering imagination of a genius retains significant communication with the external world.
*
(All of which is to re-state HJ Eysenck's perception that genius is a state of moderately-high Psychoticism; midway along the scale; where Psychoticism is a trait with the socially submissive, socially-engaged empathic, conscientious rule-follower is at the low extreme and an egotistical, psychopathic psychotic is at the highest extreme.)
*
Monday, 6 August 2012
Pioneering studies of IQ - and the suppression of intelligence research
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
Pioneering studies of IQ by G.H. Thomson and J.F. Duff – An example of established knowledge subsequently ‘hidden in plain sight’
Bruce G. Charlton. Medical Hypotheses. 2008; 71: 625-628
Summary
Perhaps the earliest authoritative measurement of a social class gradient in IQ, with a stratification of occupations among the parents of children with different IQs, is seen in two fascinating papers published in 1923 and 1929 in the British Journal of Psychology. The authors were GH Thomson and JF Duff (both of whom were later knighted) and the papers’ main findings were confirmed by later researchers. Results of an intelligence test administered to 13419 children aged 11–12 were analyzed according to parent’s occupation. The average children’s IQ at extremes of social class among their parents included clergymen-121, teachers-116 and bankers and managers-112 at the upper end; while at the lower end there were ‘cripples and invalids’-94, cattlemen-93, hawkers and chimneysweeps-91, and the ‘insane, criminal’-88. More than 100 specific categories of parental occupations were then combined into 13 social classes, with their children’s average IQ as follows: Professional-112; Managers-110; Higher Commercial-109; Army, Navy, Police, Postmen-106; Shopkeeping-105; Engineers [ie. apprenticed craftsmen, such as mining engineers]-103; Foremen-103; Building trades-102; Metal workers, shipbuilders-101; Miscellaneous industrial workers-101; Miners and quarrymen-98; Agriculture-98; Labourers-96. A follow-up study compared an ‘intelligent’ group (IQ 136 plus) with a matched IQ 95–105 ‘control’ group. IQ testing at age 11–12 was predictive of teacher’s reports of higher levels of intelligence and health at age 16; and better performance in official examinations. The occupations of fathers, grandfathers and uncles were consistent with occupation being indicative of ‘an inherited quality’ (i.e. IQ) and there was regression from parents to grandparents and uncles among the ’intelligent’ but not among controls. Other findings included a wider variance in intelligence among boys than girls, and descriptions of the predictive value of IQ in estimating future education, examinations and health. Although the distribution, heredity and predictive value of childhood IQ measurements was once quite widely understood, for the last few decades IQ research has been regarded as morally-suspect and IQ scientists subjected to vilification, persecution and sanctions. Ignorance and misunderstanding of IQ is the norm among intellectual elites in schools, universities, the media, politics and public administration. Consequently IQ research is actively-shunned, and has near-zero influence on public policies. Since this area of science has been so comprehensively ‘disappeared’ from public consciousness as a result of socio-political pressure; it seems probable that other similarly solid and vital domains of scientific knowledge may also be ‘hidden in plain sight’.
***
Perhaps the earliest authoritative measurement of a social class gradient among the parents of children with different IQs is seen in two fascinating papers published in 1923 [1] and 1929 [2] in the British Journal of Psychology.
The authors were Godfrey H Thomson and James Fitzjames Duff – both of whom were later knighted. The research was done from Armstrong College of Durham University in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England – Armstrong College later became a part of King’s College which then became the independent University of Newcastle [3]. Thomson was Professor of Education in Newcastle, then later moved to the Chair of Education in Edinburgh from where he provided ‘Eleven plus’ examinations for much of Britain [4] and [5]. Duff moved to Manchester University and ultimately returned to Durham to become Warden (equivalent to Vice Chancellor – the senior administrative position in UK universities) of the collegiate Durham division of the university [3] and [6]. Duff is credited with initiating Durham’s ascent from a tiny theological and teaching college to become one of the premier UK universities [3].
As well as the intrinsic fascination of these trail-blazing researches, the two papers provoke reflection on the effect on science of changes in the national socio-political ethos. The fate of Sir Godfrey and Sir James’s papers provides an example of how once widely-accepted knowledge, generated by very senior and prestigious establishment figures, can later become generally disregarded or even denied, despite abundant scientific confirmation and elaboration by later researchers.
It seems that even in modern times, and in a liberal democratic society such as the UK where information is freely and easily accessible, scientific knowledge can apparently be ‘disappeared’ when it comes into conflict with the dominant socio-political agenda: can become, as it were, ‘hidden in plain sight’.
The social distribution of intelligence in Northumberland
The 1923 Duff and Thomson study began when an intelligence test was administered on February 24 1922, to all children aged 11 and 12 at state elementary schools in Northumberland excluding Newcastle and Tynemouth; yielding an enormous sample of 13419 children (6930 boys; 6695 girls). Further information on parental occupation was provided by teachers. The children’s IQ was then tabulated according to their parent’s (implicitly father’s) occupation.
Average IQ was 99.6, 877 children had an IQ of 120 plus and 1337 had an IQ less than 80. Boys exhibited a slightly larger apparent standard deviation than girls (no specific numbers were given by the authors), with a greater proportion of the most intelligent children being boys (IQ 130-9 - 80 boys, 49 girls; IQ above 140 – 12 boys, 4 girls) and also a greater proportion of the least intelligent being boys (IQ below 80 – 715 boys, 622 girls).
Although private schools were not sampled, and consequently there were no children with parents of the very highest social classes, nonetheless the parents social classes ranged widely from clergymen, lawyers, teachers, chemists, bankers and managers at the top; to farm labourers, brewery and mineral-water workers, ‘cripples and invalids’, cattlemen, ‘hawkers and chimneysweeps’ and the ‘insane, criminal’ at the bottom.
The average IQ (rounded to the nearest integer) of the children of some well-represented extremes of social class among the parents was clergymen-121, teachers-116 and bankers and managers-112 at the upper end; while at the lower end there were farm labourers-94; brewery workers-94; ‘cripples and invalids’-94, cattlemen-93, hawkers and chimneysweeps-91, and the ‘insane, criminal’-88. In between, by far the largest number of parents was the 5659 coal miners (average IQ of children-98).
One surprising statistic is that the children of n = 16 ‘Doctors, dentists, vets’ [i.e. veterinarians] had a reported average IQ of only 102 – the same as builders and below plumbers! My guess is that (in this particular time and place) most rural or semi-rural resident ’doctors, dentists, vets’ who sent their children to state schools were not college-educated, but had instead been trained by apprenticeship: more like craftsmen than professionals.
More than 100 specific categories of parental occupations were then combined into 13 social classes, with their children’s average IQ as follows: Professional-112; Managers-110; Higher Commercial-109; Army, Navy, Police, Postmen-106; Shopkeeping-105; Engineers [ie. apprenticed craftsmen, such as mining engineers]-103; Foremen-103; Building trades-102; Metal workers, shipbuilders-101; Miscellaneous industrial workers-101; Miners and quarrymen-98; Agriculture-98; Low grade occupations, labourers-96.
Finally the parents occupations were divided into two simple divisions of ‘brain work’ having an average IQ of 107 versus ‘hand work’ having an average of IQ 99.
Duff and Thomson also comment that although there are striking stepwise average differences in IQ by parental social class, the parental occupation according to the 13 social classes only predicted child’s IQ with a Pearson correlation of 0.28. In other words, each social class contained a range of IQs, with considerable overlapping between classes.
Following-up the children of highest intelligence
The 1929 Duff paper was a follow-up of the highest-IQ children (IQ 136 plus) which were termed the ‘intelligent’ group with an IQ 95-105 ‘control’ group matched from the same schools. Parents and teachers were asked for information, but the replies were incomplete; and data was obtained on only 64 ‘intelligent’ and 28 ‘control’ subjects.
It was found that IQ testing at age 11–12 was predictive of teacher’s reports of higher levels of intelligence and health at age 16; higher career aspirations; and also better performance in the Durham School Certificate examinations, especially the highest levels of examination results.
Occupations of fathers, grandfathers and uncles were surveyed in terms of their social class. The most striking analysis was in terms of the percentage of fathers that were at the level of skilled labourer or higher: there were 64% of fathers in the intelligent group at this level and 28% of fathers in the control group. By comparison among the intelligent group 49% of grandfathers and 52% of uncles were at this level; while in the control group 33% of grandfathers and 40% of uncles.
Duff commented that this pattern was consistent with occupation being indicative of ‘an inherited quality’ with a regression from parents to grandparents and uncles among the intelligent – but no consistent regression among the average control group when the data as a whole is analyzed. He concludes: “Intelligence is not the sole factor that determines occupation; but that it is an important factor cannot be doubted.”
Science then and now
Reading the articles after eighty years there are striking differences when compared with modern practice. Most surprisingly there is no Reference section and only five footnotes (in the earliest paper). My impression is that this paucity is partly due to embryonic nature of the field – with very little prior relevant published research; and partly due to the fact that the authors were writing for a small, familiar audience of scientific peers, who did not need to have spelled-out precisely how this piece of research fitted into the development of the subject. In those days background assumptions were often simply taken for granted, rather than referenced. The methodology was, by modern standards, skimpy – supplemented with an offer to supply extra detail to ‘anyone interested’. The general tone of these papers is therefore somewhat like a letter addressed to other members of an exclusive club.
At this early stage in the science, researchers were almost simultaneously devising methods and applying them to gather data. The social class categories used were generated specifically for this paper, and apparently on ‘commonsense’ grounds – since no detail is given about the principles underlying the classification.
Yet, for all the apparent arbitrariness and subjectivism of style (as is seems to us nowadays), and the incompleteness of the follow-up study, these two papers seem to have been both prescient and essentially correct (as judged by subsequent knowledge) and their main findings have been substantially replicated or expanded:
1. It has been confirmed that men have a wider variance in intelligence than women – with a greater proportion of both high-scorers and low-scorers [7].
2. Although Duff and Thomson’s studies did not directly measure parental IQ, the authors’ assumption was that occupations reflected IQ. Many later studies have confirmed that there is a significant social class/occupational gradient in average IQ – the size of this gradient depending upon the degree of specificity with which social class is defined e.g. [8], [9], [10] and [11].
3. Thomson and Duff’s 1923 analysis demonstrated what later epidemiologists of the 1990s re-discovered for health and social class [12] – that socio-economic differences are not absolute or fixed in size; rather the gradient is much greater when socio-economic position is analyzed precisely than when measured imprecisely. Here there was a gradient of 33 IQ points from 121 down to 88 when 100-plus specific occupations are used; a gradient of 16 IQ points from 112 down to 96 when specific occupations are collapsed into 13 groups; and a gradient of only 8 IQ points from 107 down to 99 for the dual categories of head-work versus hand-work.
4. Childhood IQ has been confirmed to be predictive of future educational (and also occupational) attainments e.g. [13], [14], [15] and [16].
5. It has been confirmed that childhood measurements of IQ are predictive of subsequent health e.g. [9], [17] and [18].
6. IQ is confirmed to be substantially heritable, and exhibits regression to the mean consistent with the degree of heritability e.g. [13], [14] and [15].
The contemporary invisibility of IQ research
Duff and Thomson were both knighted, ending their careers as highly respected and influential figures in the UK educational establishment. The main findings of these papers from the 1920s have been amply replicated in the modern consensus on IQ [e.g. [20] and see above]. And the basic understanding of the distribution, heredity and predictive value of childhood IQ measurements which they pioneered was widely appreciated.
However, for the last few decades IQ research has generally been regarded as a morally-suspect activity and the candid discussion of IQ is taboo among the intellectual elites in schools, universities, the media, politics and public administration. IQ scientists have been – and still are – subjected to vilification, persecution and sanctions [15], [19], [21], [22] and [23]. This 80 year old knowledge is typically regarded by mainstream public discourse as surprising, shocking and controversial – or the facts may even be denied outright.
Consequently, despite its remarkable prescience and importance, this pioneering work on IQ, plus three generations of supporting scientific literature, is ignored or actively-shunned – and has near-zero influence on modern public policies.
Since this area of science has so been comprehensively ‘disappeared’ from public consciousness in the face of socio-political pressure, it seems probable that other similarly solid and vital domains of scientific knowledge may also be hidden in plain sight.
References
[1] J.F. Duff and G.H. Thomson, The social and geographical distribution of intelligence in Northumberland, Brit J Psychol 14 (1923), pp. 193–198.
[2] J.F. Duff, Children of high intelligence: a following-up enquiry, Brit J Psychol 29 (1929), pp. 413–438.
[3] E.M. Bettenson, The University of Newcastle upon Tyne: a historical introduction, 1834–1971, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (1971).
[4] G.H. Thomson, Education of an Englishman, Moray House, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (1968).
[5] Wikipedia. Godfrey Thomson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_Thomson; 2008 [accessed 10.07.2008].
[6] Sir James Fitzjames Duff. thePeerage.com: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe. http://thepeerage.com/p18060.htm; 2008 [accessed 10.07.2008].
[7] L.V. Hedges and A. Nowell, Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals, Science 269 (1995), pp. 41–45.
[8] M. Argyle, The psychology of social class, Routledge, London (1994).
[9] C.L. Hart, I.J. Deary, M.D. Taylor, P.L. MacKinnon, G. Davey Smith and L.J. Whalley et al., Scottish mental health survey 1932 linked to the Midspan Studies: a prospective investigation of childhood intelligence and future health, Public Health 117 (2003), pp. 187–195.
[10] D. Nettle, Intelligence and class mobility in the British population, Brit J Psychol 94 (2003), pp. 551–561.
[11] R. Lynn and T. Vanhanen, IQ and global inequality, Washington Summit, Augusta, Georgia, USA (2006).
[12] G.D. Smith, M.J. Shipley and G. Rose, Magnitude and causes of socioeconomic differentials in mortality: further evidence from the Whitehall Study, J Epidemiol Commun Health 44 (1990), pp. 265–270.
[13] L.M. Terman and L.H. Oden, The gifted child grows up: Volume 4 (Twenty five years follow up of a superior group), Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, USA (1959).
[14] A.R. Jensen, The g factor Praeger: the science of mental ability, Westport, CT, USA (1998) p. 15.
[15] R.J. Herrnstein and C. Murray, The bell curve, Forbes, New York (1994).
[16] G. Park, D. Lubinski and C.P. Benbow, Contrasting intellectual patterns predict creativity in the arts and sciences, Psychol Sci 18 (2007), pp. 948–952.
[17] G.D. Batty, I.J. Deary and G.S. Gottfredson, Premorbid (early life) IQ and later mortality risk: systematic review, Annals Epidemiol 17 (2007), pp. 278–288.
[18] L.S. Gottfredson, Intelligence: is it the epidemiologists elusive ‘fundamental cause’ of social class inequalities in health?, J Personality Social Psychol 86 (2004), pp. 174–199.
[19] H.J. Eysenck, Rebel with a cause: autobiography of Hans Eysenck, W.H. Allen, London (1990).
[20] U. Neisser et al., Intelligence: knowns and unknowns, Amer Psychol 51 (1996), pp. 77–101.
[21] I.J. Deary, Intelligence: a very short introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2001).
[22] L.S. Gottfredson, Applying double-standards to ‘divisive’ ideas, Perspect Psychol Sci 2 (2007), pp. 216–220.
[23] J. Malloy, James Watson tells the inconvenient truth: faces the consequences, Med Hypotheses 70 (2008), pp. 1081–1091.
Bruce G. Charlton. Medical Hypotheses. 2008; 71: 625-628
Summary
Perhaps the earliest authoritative measurement of a social class gradient in IQ, with a stratification of occupations among the parents of children with different IQs, is seen in two fascinating papers published in 1923 and 1929 in the British Journal of Psychology. The authors were GH Thomson and JF Duff (both of whom were later knighted) and the papers’ main findings were confirmed by later researchers. Results of an intelligence test administered to 13419 children aged 11–12 were analyzed according to parent’s occupation. The average children’s IQ at extremes of social class among their parents included clergymen-121, teachers-116 and bankers and managers-112 at the upper end; while at the lower end there were ‘cripples and invalids’-94, cattlemen-93, hawkers and chimneysweeps-91, and the ‘insane, criminal’-88. More than 100 specific categories of parental occupations were then combined into 13 social classes, with their children’s average IQ as follows: Professional-112; Managers-110; Higher Commercial-109; Army, Navy, Police, Postmen-106; Shopkeeping-105; Engineers [ie. apprenticed craftsmen, such as mining engineers]-103; Foremen-103; Building trades-102; Metal workers, shipbuilders-101; Miscellaneous industrial workers-101; Miners and quarrymen-98; Agriculture-98; Labourers-96. A follow-up study compared an ‘intelligent’ group (IQ 136 plus) with a matched IQ 95–105 ‘control’ group. IQ testing at age 11–12 was predictive of teacher’s reports of higher levels of intelligence and health at age 16; and better performance in official examinations. The occupations of fathers, grandfathers and uncles were consistent with occupation being indicative of ‘an inherited quality’ (i.e. IQ) and there was regression from parents to grandparents and uncles among the ’intelligent’ but not among controls. Other findings included a wider variance in intelligence among boys than girls, and descriptions of the predictive value of IQ in estimating future education, examinations and health. Although the distribution, heredity and predictive value of childhood IQ measurements was once quite widely understood, for the last few decades IQ research has been regarded as morally-suspect and IQ scientists subjected to vilification, persecution and sanctions. Ignorance and misunderstanding of IQ is the norm among intellectual elites in schools, universities, the media, politics and public administration. Consequently IQ research is actively-shunned, and has near-zero influence on public policies. Since this area of science has been so comprehensively ‘disappeared’ from public consciousness as a result of socio-political pressure; it seems probable that other similarly solid and vital domains of scientific knowledge may also be ‘hidden in plain sight’.
***
Perhaps the earliest authoritative measurement of a social class gradient among the parents of children with different IQs is seen in two fascinating papers published in 1923 [1] and 1929 [2] in the British Journal of Psychology.
The authors were Godfrey H Thomson and James Fitzjames Duff – both of whom were later knighted. The research was done from Armstrong College of Durham University in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne, England – Armstrong College later became a part of King’s College which then became the independent University of Newcastle [3]. Thomson was Professor of Education in Newcastle, then later moved to the Chair of Education in Edinburgh from where he provided ‘Eleven plus’ examinations for much of Britain [4] and [5]. Duff moved to Manchester University and ultimately returned to Durham to become Warden (equivalent to Vice Chancellor – the senior administrative position in UK universities) of the collegiate Durham division of the university [3] and [6]. Duff is credited with initiating Durham’s ascent from a tiny theological and teaching college to become one of the premier UK universities [3].
As well as the intrinsic fascination of these trail-blazing researches, the two papers provoke reflection on the effect on science of changes in the national socio-political ethos. The fate of Sir Godfrey and Sir James’s papers provides an example of how once widely-accepted knowledge, generated by very senior and prestigious establishment figures, can later become generally disregarded or even denied, despite abundant scientific confirmation and elaboration by later researchers.
It seems that even in modern times, and in a liberal democratic society such as the UK where information is freely and easily accessible, scientific knowledge can apparently be ‘disappeared’ when it comes into conflict with the dominant socio-political agenda: can become, as it were, ‘hidden in plain sight’.
The social distribution of intelligence in Northumberland
The 1923 Duff and Thomson study began when an intelligence test was administered on February 24 1922, to all children aged 11 and 12 at state elementary schools in Northumberland excluding Newcastle and Tynemouth; yielding an enormous sample of 13419 children (6930 boys; 6695 girls). Further information on parental occupation was provided by teachers. The children’s IQ was then tabulated according to their parent’s (implicitly father’s) occupation.
Average IQ was 99.6, 877 children had an IQ of 120 plus and 1337 had an IQ less than 80. Boys exhibited a slightly larger apparent standard deviation than girls (no specific numbers were given by the authors), with a greater proportion of the most intelligent children being boys (IQ 130-9 - 80 boys, 49 girls; IQ above 140 – 12 boys, 4 girls) and also a greater proportion of the least intelligent being boys (IQ below 80 – 715 boys, 622 girls).
Although private schools were not sampled, and consequently there were no children with parents of the very highest social classes, nonetheless the parents social classes ranged widely from clergymen, lawyers, teachers, chemists, bankers and managers at the top; to farm labourers, brewery and mineral-water workers, ‘cripples and invalids’, cattlemen, ‘hawkers and chimneysweeps’ and the ‘insane, criminal’ at the bottom.
The average IQ (rounded to the nearest integer) of the children of some well-represented extremes of social class among the parents was clergymen-121, teachers-116 and bankers and managers-112 at the upper end; while at the lower end there were farm labourers-94; brewery workers-94; ‘cripples and invalids’-94, cattlemen-93, hawkers and chimneysweeps-91, and the ‘insane, criminal’-88. In between, by far the largest number of parents was the 5659 coal miners (average IQ of children-98).
One surprising statistic is that the children of n = 16 ‘Doctors, dentists, vets’ [i.e. veterinarians] had a reported average IQ of only 102 – the same as builders and below plumbers! My guess is that (in this particular time and place) most rural or semi-rural resident ’doctors, dentists, vets’ who sent their children to state schools were not college-educated, but had instead been trained by apprenticeship: more like craftsmen than professionals.
More than 100 specific categories of parental occupations were then combined into 13 social classes, with their children’s average IQ as follows: Professional-112; Managers-110; Higher Commercial-109; Army, Navy, Police, Postmen-106; Shopkeeping-105; Engineers [ie. apprenticed craftsmen, such as mining engineers]-103; Foremen-103; Building trades-102; Metal workers, shipbuilders-101; Miscellaneous industrial workers-101; Miners and quarrymen-98; Agriculture-98; Low grade occupations, labourers-96.
Finally the parents occupations were divided into two simple divisions of ‘brain work’ having an average IQ of 107 versus ‘hand work’ having an average of IQ 99.
Duff and Thomson also comment that although there are striking stepwise average differences in IQ by parental social class, the parental occupation according to the 13 social classes only predicted child’s IQ with a Pearson correlation of 0.28. In other words, each social class contained a range of IQs, with considerable overlapping between classes.
Following-up the children of highest intelligence
The 1929 Duff paper was a follow-up of the highest-IQ children (IQ 136 plus) which were termed the ‘intelligent’ group with an IQ 95-105 ‘control’ group matched from the same schools. Parents and teachers were asked for information, but the replies were incomplete; and data was obtained on only 64 ‘intelligent’ and 28 ‘control’ subjects.
It was found that IQ testing at age 11–12 was predictive of teacher’s reports of higher levels of intelligence and health at age 16; higher career aspirations; and also better performance in the Durham School Certificate examinations, especially the highest levels of examination results.
Occupations of fathers, grandfathers and uncles were surveyed in terms of their social class. The most striking analysis was in terms of the percentage of fathers that were at the level of skilled labourer or higher: there were 64% of fathers in the intelligent group at this level and 28% of fathers in the control group. By comparison among the intelligent group 49% of grandfathers and 52% of uncles were at this level; while in the control group 33% of grandfathers and 40% of uncles.
Duff commented that this pattern was consistent with occupation being indicative of ‘an inherited quality’ with a regression from parents to grandparents and uncles among the intelligent – but no consistent regression among the average control group when the data as a whole is analyzed. He concludes: “Intelligence is not the sole factor that determines occupation; but that it is an important factor cannot be doubted.”
Science then and now
Reading the articles after eighty years there are striking differences when compared with modern practice. Most surprisingly there is no Reference section and only five footnotes (in the earliest paper). My impression is that this paucity is partly due to embryonic nature of the field – with very little prior relevant published research; and partly due to the fact that the authors were writing for a small, familiar audience of scientific peers, who did not need to have spelled-out precisely how this piece of research fitted into the development of the subject. In those days background assumptions were often simply taken for granted, rather than referenced. The methodology was, by modern standards, skimpy – supplemented with an offer to supply extra detail to ‘anyone interested’. The general tone of these papers is therefore somewhat like a letter addressed to other members of an exclusive club.
At this early stage in the science, researchers were almost simultaneously devising methods and applying them to gather data. The social class categories used were generated specifically for this paper, and apparently on ‘commonsense’ grounds – since no detail is given about the principles underlying the classification.
Yet, for all the apparent arbitrariness and subjectivism of style (as is seems to us nowadays), and the incompleteness of the follow-up study, these two papers seem to have been both prescient and essentially correct (as judged by subsequent knowledge) and their main findings have been substantially replicated or expanded:
1. It has been confirmed that men have a wider variance in intelligence than women – with a greater proportion of both high-scorers and low-scorers [7].
2. Although Duff and Thomson’s studies did not directly measure parental IQ, the authors’ assumption was that occupations reflected IQ. Many later studies have confirmed that there is a significant social class/occupational gradient in average IQ – the size of this gradient depending upon the degree of specificity with which social class is defined e.g. [8], [9], [10] and [11].
3. Thomson and Duff’s 1923 analysis demonstrated what later epidemiologists of the 1990s re-discovered for health and social class [12] – that socio-economic differences are not absolute or fixed in size; rather the gradient is much greater when socio-economic position is analyzed precisely than when measured imprecisely. Here there was a gradient of 33 IQ points from 121 down to 88 when 100-plus specific occupations are used; a gradient of 16 IQ points from 112 down to 96 when specific occupations are collapsed into 13 groups; and a gradient of only 8 IQ points from 107 down to 99 for the dual categories of head-work versus hand-work.
4. Childhood IQ has been confirmed to be predictive of future educational (and also occupational) attainments e.g. [13], [14], [15] and [16].
5. It has been confirmed that childhood measurements of IQ are predictive of subsequent health e.g. [9], [17] and [18].
6. IQ is confirmed to be substantially heritable, and exhibits regression to the mean consistent with the degree of heritability e.g. [13], [14] and [15].
The contemporary invisibility of IQ research
Duff and Thomson were both knighted, ending their careers as highly respected and influential figures in the UK educational establishment. The main findings of these papers from the 1920s have been amply replicated in the modern consensus on IQ [e.g. [20] and see above]. And the basic understanding of the distribution, heredity and predictive value of childhood IQ measurements which they pioneered was widely appreciated.
However, for the last few decades IQ research has generally been regarded as a morally-suspect activity and the candid discussion of IQ is taboo among the intellectual elites in schools, universities, the media, politics and public administration. IQ scientists have been – and still are – subjected to vilification, persecution and sanctions [15], [19], [21], [22] and [23]. This 80 year old knowledge is typically regarded by mainstream public discourse as surprising, shocking and controversial – or the facts may even be denied outright.
Consequently, despite its remarkable prescience and importance, this pioneering work on IQ, plus three generations of supporting scientific literature, is ignored or actively-shunned – and has near-zero influence on modern public policies.
Since this area of science has so been comprehensively ‘disappeared’ from public consciousness in the face of socio-political pressure, it seems probable that other similarly solid and vital domains of scientific knowledge may also be hidden in plain sight.
References
[1] J.F. Duff and G.H. Thomson, The social and geographical distribution of intelligence in Northumberland, Brit J Psychol 14 (1923), pp. 193–198.
[2] J.F. Duff, Children of high intelligence: a following-up enquiry, Brit J Psychol 29 (1929), pp. 413–438.
[3] E.M. Bettenson, The University of Newcastle upon Tyne: a historical introduction, 1834–1971, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK (1971).
[4] G.H. Thomson, Education of an Englishman, Moray House, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (1968).
[5] Wikipedia. Godfrey Thomson. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfrey_Thomson; 2008 [accessed 10.07.2008].
[6] Sir James Fitzjames Duff. thePeerage.com: A genealogical survey of the peerage of Britain as well as the royal families of Europe. http://thepeerage.com/p18060.htm; 2008 [accessed 10.07.2008].
[7] L.V. Hedges and A. Nowell, Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals, Science 269 (1995), pp. 41–45.
[8] M. Argyle, The psychology of social class, Routledge, London (1994).
[9] C.L. Hart, I.J. Deary, M.D. Taylor, P.L. MacKinnon, G. Davey Smith and L.J. Whalley et al., Scottish mental health survey 1932 linked to the Midspan Studies: a prospective investigation of childhood intelligence and future health, Public Health 117 (2003), pp. 187–195.
[10] D. Nettle, Intelligence and class mobility in the British population, Brit J Psychol 94 (2003), pp. 551–561.
[11] R. Lynn and T. Vanhanen, IQ and global inequality, Washington Summit, Augusta, Georgia, USA (2006).
[12] G.D. Smith, M.J. Shipley and G. Rose, Magnitude and causes of socioeconomic differentials in mortality: further evidence from the Whitehall Study, J Epidemiol Commun Health 44 (1990), pp. 265–270.
[13] L.M. Terman and L.H. Oden, The gifted child grows up: Volume 4 (Twenty five years follow up of a superior group), Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, USA (1959).
[14] A.R. Jensen, The g factor Praeger: the science of mental ability, Westport, CT, USA (1998) p. 15.
[15] R.J. Herrnstein and C. Murray, The bell curve, Forbes, New York (1994).
[16] G. Park, D. Lubinski and C.P. Benbow, Contrasting intellectual patterns predict creativity in the arts and sciences, Psychol Sci 18 (2007), pp. 948–952.
[17] G.D. Batty, I.J. Deary and G.S. Gottfredson, Premorbid (early life) IQ and later mortality risk: systematic review, Annals Epidemiol 17 (2007), pp. 278–288.
[18] L.S. Gottfredson, Intelligence: is it the epidemiologists elusive ‘fundamental cause’ of social class inequalities in health?, J Personality Social Psychol 86 (2004), pp. 174–199.
[19] H.J. Eysenck, Rebel with a cause: autobiography of Hans Eysenck, W.H. Allen, London (1990).
[20] U. Neisser et al., Intelligence: knowns and unknowns, Amer Psychol 51 (1996), pp. 77–101.
[21] I.J. Deary, Intelligence: a very short introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford (2001).
[22] L.S. Gottfredson, Applying double-standards to ‘divisive’ ideas, Perspect Psychol Sci 2 (2007), pp. 216–220.
[23] J. Malloy, James Watson tells the inconvenient truth: faces the consequences, Med Hypotheses 70 (2008), pp. 1081–1091.
*
Do elite US colleges choose personality over IQ?
Wednesday, 27 May 2009
Sex ratios in the most-selective elite US undergraduate colleges and universities are consistent with the hypothesis that modern educational systems increasingly select for conscientious personality compared with intelligence
Medical Hypotheses. 2009; 73: 127-129
Bruce G. Charlton, , Editor-in-Chief, Medical Hypotheses
Professor of Theoretical Medicine University of Buckingham, UK
Summary
The main predictors of examination results and educational achievement in modern societies are intelligence (IQ – or general factor ‘g’ intelligence) and the personality trait termed ‘Conscientiousness’ (C). I have previously argued that increased use of continuous assessment (e.g. course work rather than timed and supervised examinations) and increased duration of the educational process implies that modern educational systems have become increasingly selective for the personality trait of Conscientiousness and consequently less selective for IQ. I have tested this prediction (in a preliminary fashion) by looking at the sex ratios in the most selective elite US universities. My two main assumptions are: (1) that a greater proportion of individuals with very high intelligence are men than women, and (2) that women are more conscientious than men. To estimate the proportion of men and women expected at highly-selective schools, I performed demonstration calculations based on three plausible estimates of male and female IQ averages and standard deviations. The expected percentage of men at elite undergraduate colleges (selecting students with IQ above 130 – i.e. in the top 2% of the population) were 66%, 61% and 74%. When these estimates were compared with the sex ratios at 33 elite colleges and universities, only two technical institutes had more than 60% men. Elite US colleges and universities therefore seem to be selecting primarily on the basis of something other than IQ – probably conscientiousness. There is a ‘missing population’ of very high IQ men who are not being admitted to the most selective and prestigious undergraduate schools, probably because their high school educational qualifications and evaluations are too low. This analysis is therefore consistent with the hypothesis that modern educational systems tend to select more strongly for Conscientiousness than for IQ. The implication is that modern undergraduates at the most-selective US schools are not primarily an intelligence elite, as commonly assumed, but instead an elite for Conscientious personality.
***
IQ and C predict educational attainment
Evidence from a range of studies suggests that the main determinants of examination results and educational achievement in modern societies are intelligence (IQ – or general factor ‘g’ intelligence) and the personality trait variously described as ‘Conscientiousness’, self-discipline, perseverance or something similar (see Ref. [1] for review). IQ is (roughly speaking) that cognitive ability which enables people to think abstractly and learn quickly; Conscientiousness (broadly synonymous with perseverance or self-discipline) is the personality trait that enables people to work hard for long periods at dull tasks, to think before acting and to take a long term view.
I have previously argued that a combination of the increased use of continuous assessment (e.g. course work rather than timed and supervised examinations) and the increased duration of the educational process implies that modern educational systems have become increasingly selective for Conscientiousness (C) [1]. My argument is that, because C is not closely correlated with intelligence, then demand for increasing levels of C will inevitably lead to reduced selectivity for intelligence. Ever-higher levels of C will usually only be attainable by progressively relaxing standards for IQ.
If this reasoning is correct, it would be predicted that the most highly-educated and most educationally-selected people would be characterized more by their extremely-high Conscientiousness than by their extremely-high intelligence. More precisely, there would be a trend for educational selectivity to increase average ranking for C more than the average ranking for IQ.
Sex ratios at the most-selective US colleges and universities
I have tested this prediction (in a preliminary fashion) by looking at the sex ratios in the most selective elite US universities. My two main assumptions are: (1) that a greater proportion of individuals with very high intelligence are men than women, and (2) that women are more Conscientious than men.
Most IQ studies find a greater proportion of men than women among very high IQ adults. For example, the US national 2008 SAT results show a higher proportion of men than women scoring in the highest band for the most g-loaded sections (Critical Reading and Mathematics) [2]. This male domination of the highest scorers in IQ testing is consistent with IQ surveys going back over many decades [3] and studies of creative and intellectual genius [4] and [5]. I will therefore assume a higher proportion of men than women at levels of very high IQ. In contrast, current evidence suggests that Conscientiousness, especially the academically-relevant sub-trait of self-discipline, is higher in women than men [1] and [6].
On this basis alone, without any calculations, and if we assume equal proportions of men and women in the US population, no important differences in sex applications to college and a sex-blind policy of selectivity; it would be expected that there was a greater proportion of men than women at highly-selective elite colleges, and that the more selective the colleges the greater would be the expected proportion of men. By contrast, if there was an equal or greater-proportion of women at elite colleges then this would be consistent with C being more rigorously selected-for than IQ.
Predicted proportion of men at elite schools – on the basis of IQ
To make this exercise more precise, it is helpful to estimate the proportion of men and women which would be expected at highly-selective schools.
I have focused on predictions related to IQ because much more is known about IQ than C, and C cannot yet be quantified as precisely as IQ. An IQ of 130 is used as a plausible threshold for selectivity at elite universities: this is approximately two standard deviations above the average IQ and includes the top 2% of the population.
However, the magnitude of the expected sex differential is relevant, since if the expected sex differential was small it could easily be swamped by statistical noise, or by other relevant variables. The magnitude of the predicted sex differential depends on the assumptions of male and female IQ average differences and distributions.
There are three mainstream explanations of why there are more men than women among the population of very high IQ people.
1. Men have a higher average IQ than women, but the same variance. For instance, Lynn suggests that men have an average IQ about 4–5 points higher than women with the sexes having the same standard deviation (conventionally 15 IQ points) [7].
2. Men and women have a near-identical average IQ, but men have a greater variance in IQ than women (higher standard deviation). For instance Hedges and Nowell present Project Talent data that suggest men and women have the same IQ, but men have a standard deviation around 10% greater than women [8].
3. Men have both a higher average IQ and larger standard deviation of IQ than women. For instance, Hans Eysenck accepted Lynn’s estimate of about 4 IQ points difference in average IQ and also assumed that women had a standard deviation of 14 compared with the male standard deviation of 15 [4].
We can use these ball-park estimates as the basis for calculating approximate expected sex ratios at elite US undergraduate schools.
Therefore on the basis of IQ considered alone (Table 1), it would be expected to find a considerably greater proportion of men than women at elite undergraduate colleges. The prediction is that the most selective institutions would admit at least 60% men (and probably a higher proportion).
Table 1.
Demonstration calculations of the effect of plausible male versus female IQ averages and standard deviations on the proportion of men and women at elite colleges with threshold IQ of 130 for a US population with average mean IQ 100 (SD 15). Key: SD = standard deviation; M = men; W = women; av. = average.
Assumption Mean IQ (SD) Percentage IQ > 130 Predicted % men at elite college
M higher av. IQ than W: M 102 (15) 3.1% c. 66% W 98 (15) 1.6%
M > SD than W: M 100 (15.75) 2.8% c. 61% W 100 (14.25) 1.8%
Men higher av. IQ: M 102 (15) 3.1% c. 74% & >SD than W W 98 (14) 1.1%
So, any sex ratio less than this would imply that other qualities than IQ are actually determining selection; or alternatively that one or more of the assumptions are incorrect – for example there might be sexually differential patterns of application or selection.
Using the About.com: College Admissions web pages (http://collegeapps.about.com/ – up to March 2009) I generated a list of sex ratios (the percentage of men) at three categories of elite US colleges and universities: (1) Ivy League plus several comparably-selective private research universities; (2) The top 10 public universities; (3) The top 10 liberal arts colleges.
From Table 2 it is clear that almost all these 33 elite US undergraduate schools select approximately equal proportions of men and women with only two technical universities (Caltech and Georgia Tech) having a male sex ratio greater than 60%. If the assumptions hold, then the implication is that elite colleges seem to be selecting mainly on the basis of something other than IQ – probably Conscientiousness.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table 2.
Sex ratios at undergraduate level – percentage of men. Colleges with more than 60% men are marked with an asterisk.
Ivy League and similar private research universities
Brown 48%
Columbia 51%
Cornell 51%
Dartmouth 50%
Harvard 47%
Pennsylvania 49%
Princeton 53%
Yale 51%
Stanford 52%
Duke 51%
Chicago 50%
MIT 56%
*Caltech 71%
Top 10 public universities
Berkeley 46%
*Georgia Tech 71%
UCLA 45%
UCSD 48%
U Michigan 50%
UNC Chapel Hill 41%
Urbana Champaign 53%
U Virginia 45%
William and Mary 46%
Top 10 liberal arts colleges: (NB: Wellesley is essentially a women’s college)
Amherst 50%
Carleton 47%
Claremont–McKenna 54%
Grinnell 46%
Haverford 46%
Middlebury 48%
Pomona 51%
Reed 45%
Swarthmore 48%
Wellesley 2%
Williams 49%
It seems that there is a ‘missing population’ of very high IQ men who are not getting admitted to the most selective and prestigious undergraduate schools. The likely reason is that their high school educational qualifications and evaluations are too low, since these men probably lack the very high levels of C required to negotiate modern educational systems and achieve the very highest level of success (in the top 2% of attainment). These men with very high IQ but only moderate C are presumably attending a wide spectrum of less-selective and lower-ranked undergraduate schools, or (less plausibly) dropping-out of the educational system altogether.
A further factor may be that colleges are also selecting on the basis of high sociability, which can be measured as the personality trait of Agreeableness [1]. Agreeableness is higher in women. High Agreeableness would not be expected to lead to better educational performance, but instead would be likely to enhance an applicant’s resume with a record of participation in societies, charities and sports together with general friendliness and club-ability – these factors may well be counted in favour of a student and would also tend differentially to favour the admission of women.
My hypothesis [1] that Conscientiousness (and perhaps Agreeableness) count for more than IQ at the level of elite college admissions receives some support from this data set, and could be tested further by longitudinal studies which measured IQ and personality during childhood (rankings of IQ and personality tend to be stable throughout life), and followed-up students through the school and college examination and selection process to observe the interaction between these variables.
The implication is that modern undergraduates at the most selective US universities are not so much an elite for intelligence, as is commonly assumed, but more of an elite in terms of traits such as perseverance and self-discipline.
Acknowledgement
My thanks to Richard Lynn for his help and advice in preparing this editorial.
References
[1] B.G. Charlton, Why are modern scientists so dull? How science selects for perseverance and sociability at the expense of intelligence and creativity, Med Hypotheses 72 (2009), pp. 237–243.
[2] College Board SAT, 2008 College Bound Seniors.; [accessed 19.03.09].
[3] B.G. Charlton, Pioneering studies of IQ by G.H. Thomson and J.F. Duff – an example of established knowledge subsequently ‘hidden in plain sight’, Med Hypotheses 71 (2008), pp. 625–628.
[4] H.J. Eysenck, Genius: the natural history of creativity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1995).
[5] C. Murray, Human accomplishment. The pursuit of excellence in the arts and sciences 800 BC to 1950, HarperCollins, New York (2003).
[6] A.L. Duckworth and M.E.P. Seligman, Self-discipline gives girls the edge, J Educ Psychol 98 (2006), pp. 198–208.
[7] R. Lynn and P. Irwing, Sex differences on the progressive matrices: a meta analysis, Intelligence 32 (2004), pp. 481–498.
[8] L.V. Hedges and A. Nowell, Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals, Science 269 (1995), pp. 41–45.
Medical Hypotheses. 2009; 73: 127-129
Bruce G. Charlton, , Editor-in-Chief, Medical Hypotheses
Professor of Theoretical Medicine University of Buckingham, UK
Summary
The main predictors of examination results and educational achievement in modern societies are intelligence (IQ – or general factor ‘g’ intelligence) and the personality trait termed ‘Conscientiousness’ (C). I have previously argued that increased use of continuous assessment (e.g. course work rather than timed and supervised examinations) and increased duration of the educational process implies that modern educational systems have become increasingly selective for the personality trait of Conscientiousness and consequently less selective for IQ. I have tested this prediction (in a preliminary fashion) by looking at the sex ratios in the most selective elite US universities. My two main assumptions are: (1) that a greater proportion of individuals with very high intelligence are men than women, and (2) that women are more conscientious than men. To estimate the proportion of men and women expected at highly-selective schools, I performed demonstration calculations based on three plausible estimates of male and female IQ averages and standard deviations. The expected percentage of men at elite undergraduate colleges (selecting students with IQ above 130 – i.e. in the top 2% of the population) were 66%, 61% and 74%. When these estimates were compared with the sex ratios at 33 elite colleges and universities, only two technical institutes had more than 60% men. Elite US colleges and universities therefore seem to be selecting primarily on the basis of something other than IQ – probably conscientiousness. There is a ‘missing population’ of very high IQ men who are not being admitted to the most selective and prestigious undergraduate schools, probably because their high school educational qualifications and evaluations are too low. This analysis is therefore consistent with the hypothesis that modern educational systems tend to select more strongly for Conscientiousness than for IQ. The implication is that modern undergraduates at the most-selective US schools are not primarily an intelligence elite, as commonly assumed, but instead an elite for Conscientious personality.
***
IQ and C predict educational attainment
Evidence from a range of studies suggests that the main determinants of examination results and educational achievement in modern societies are intelligence (IQ – or general factor ‘g’ intelligence) and the personality trait variously described as ‘Conscientiousness’, self-discipline, perseverance or something similar (see Ref. [1] for review). IQ is (roughly speaking) that cognitive ability which enables people to think abstractly and learn quickly; Conscientiousness (broadly synonymous with perseverance or self-discipline) is the personality trait that enables people to work hard for long periods at dull tasks, to think before acting and to take a long term view.
I have previously argued that a combination of the increased use of continuous assessment (e.g. course work rather than timed and supervised examinations) and the increased duration of the educational process implies that modern educational systems have become increasingly selective for Conscientiousness (C) [1]. My argument is that, because C is not closely correlated with intelligence, then demand for increasing levels of C will inevitably lead to reduced selectivity for intelligence. Ever-higher levels of C will usually only be attainable by progressively relaxing standards for IQ.
If this reasoning is correct, it would be predicted that the most highly-educated and most educationally-selected people would be characterized more by their extremely-high Conscientiousness than by their extremely-high intelligence. More precisely, there would be a trend for educational selectivity to increase average ranking for C more than the average ranking for IQ.
Sex ratios at the most-selective US colleges and universities
I have tested this prediction (in a preliminary fashion) by looking at the sex ratios in the most selective elite US universities. My two main assumptions are: (1) that a greater proportion of individuals with very high intelligence are men than women, and (2) that women are more Conscientious than men.
Most IQ studies find a greater proportion of men than women among very high IQ adults. For example, the US national 2008 SAT results show a higher proportion of men than women scoring in the highest band for the most g-loaded sections (Critical Reading and Mathematics) [2]. This male domination of the highest scorers in IQ testing is consistent with IQ surveys going back over many decades [3] and studies of creative and intellectual genius [4] and [5]. I will therefore assume a higher proportion of men than women at levels of very high IQ. In contrast, current evidence suggests that Conscientiousness, especially the academically-relevant sub-trait of self-discipline, is higher in women than men [1] and [6].
On this basis alone, without any calculations, and if we assume equal proportions of men and women in the US population, no important differences in sex applications to college and a sex-blind policy of selectivity; it would be expected that there was a greater proportion of men than women at highly-selective elite colleges, and that the more selective the colleges the greater would be the expected proportion of men. By contrast, if there was an equal or greater-proportion of women at elite colleges then this would be consistent with C being more rigorously selected-for than IQ.
Predicted proportion of men at elite schools – on the basis of IQ
To make this exercise more precise, it is helpful to estimate the proportion of men and women which would be expected at highly-selective schools.
I have focused on predictions related to IQ because much more is known about IQ than C, and C cannot yet be quantified as precisely as IQ. An IQ of 130 is used as a plausible threshold for selectivity at elite universities: this is approximately two standard deviations above the average IQ and includes the top 2% of the population.
However, the magnitude of the expected sex differential is relevant, since if the expected sex differential was small it could easily be swamped by statistical noise, or by other relevant variables. The magnitude of the predicted sex differential depends on the assumptions of male and female IQ average differences and distributions.
There are three mainstream explanations of why there are more men than women among the population of very high IQ people.
1. Men have a higher average IQ than women, but the same variance. For instance, Lynn suggests that men have an average IQ about 4–5 points higher than women with the sexes having the same standard deviation (conventionally 15 IQ points) [7].
2. Men and women have a near-identical average IQ, but men have a greater variance in IQ than women (higher standard deviation). For instance Hedges and Nowell present Project Talent data that suggest men and women have the same IQ, but men have a standard deviation around 10% greater than women [8].
3. Men have both a higher average IQ and larger standard deviation of IQ than women. For instance, Hans Eysenck accepted Lynn’s estimate of about 4 IQ points difference in average IQ and also assumed that women had a standard deviation of 14 compared with the male standard deviation of 15 [4].
We can use these ball-park estimates as the basis for calculating approximate expected sex ratios at elite US undergraduate schools.
Therefore on the basis of IQ considered alone (Table 1), it would be expected to find a considerably greater proportion of men than women at elite undergraduate colleges. The prediction is that the most selective institutions would admit at least 60% men (and probably a higher proportion).
Table 1.
Demonstration calculations of the effect of plausible male versus female IQ averages and standard deviations on the proportion of men and women at elite colleges with threshold IQ of 130 for a US population with average mean IQ 100 (SD 15). Key: SD = standard deviation; M = men; W = women; av. = average.
Assumption Mean IQ (SD) Percentage IQ > 130 Predicted % men at elite college
M higher av. IQ than W: M 102 (15) 3.1% c. 66% W 98 (15) 1.6%
M > SD than W: M 100 (15.75) 2.8% c. 61% W 100 (14.25) 1.8%
Men higher av. IQ: M 102 (15) 3.1% c. 74% & >SD than W W 98 (14) 1.1%
So, any sex ratio less than this would imply that other qualities than IQ are actually determining selection; or alternatively that one or more of the assumptions are incorrect – for example there might be sexually differential patterns of application or selection.
Using the About.com: College Admissions web pages (http://collegeapps.about.com/ – up to March 2009) I generated a list of sex ratios (the percentage of men) at three categories of elite US colleges and universities: (1) Ivy League plus several comparably-selective private research universities; (2) The top 10 public universities; (3) The top 10 liberal arts colleges.
From Table 2 it is clear that almost all these 33 elite US undergraduate schools select approximately equal proportions of men and women with only two technical universities (Caltech and Georgia Tech) having a male sex ratio greater than 60%. If the assumptions hold, then the implication is that elite colleges seem to be selecting mainly on the basis of something other than IQ – probably Conscientiousness.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table 2.
Sex ratios at undergraduate level – percentage of men. Colleges with more than 60% men are marked with an asterisk.
Ivy League and similar private research universities
Brown 48%
Columbia 51%
Cornell 51%
Dartmouth 50%
Harvard 47%
Pennsylvania 49%
Princeton 53%
Yale 51%
Stanford 52%
Duke 51%
Chicago 50%
MIT 56%
*Caltech 71%
Top 10 public universities
Berkeley 46%
*Georgia Tech 71%
UCLA 45%
UCSD 48%
U Michigan 50%
UNC Chapel Hill 41%
Urbana Champaign 53%
U Virginia 45%
William and Mary 46%
Top 10 liberal arts colleges: (NB: Wellesley is essentially a women’s college)
Amherst 50%
Carleton 47%
Claremont–McKenna 54%
Grinnell 46%
Haverford 46%
Middlebury 48%
Pomona 51%
Reed 45%
Swarthmore 48%
Wellesley 2%
Williams 49%
It seems that there is a ‘missing population’ of very high IQ men who are not getting admitted to the most selective and prestigious undergraduate schools. The likely reason is that their high school educational qualifications and evaluations are too low, since these men probably lack the very high levels of C required to negotiate modern educational systems and achieve the very highest level of success (in the top 2% of attainment). These men with very high IQ but only moderate C are presumably attending a wide spectrum of less-selective and lower-ranked undergraduate schools, or (less plausibly) dropping-out of the educational system altogether.
A further factor may be that colleges are also selecting on the basis of high sociability, which can be measured as the personality trait of Agreeableness [1]. Agreeableness is higher in women. High Agreeableness would not be expected to lead to better educational performance, but instead would be likely to enhance an applicant’s resume with a record of participation in societies, charities and sports together with general friendliness and club-ability – these factors may well be counted in favour of a student and would also tend differentially to favour the admission of women.
My hypothesis [1] that Conscientiousness (and perhaps Agreeableness) count for more than IQ at the level of elite college admissions receives some support from this data set, and could be tested further by longitudinal studies which measured IQ and personality during childhood (rankings of IQ and personality tend to be stable throughout life), and followed-up students through the school and college examination and selection process to observe the interaction between these variables.
The implication is that modern undergraduates at the most selective US universities are not so much an elite for intelligence, as is commonly assumed, but more of an elite in terms of traits such as perseverance and self-discipline.
Acknowledgement
My thanks to Richard Lynn for his help and advice in preparing this editorial.
References
[1] B.G. Charlton, Why are modern scientists so dull? How science selects for perseverance and sociability at the expense of intelligence and creativity, Med Hypotheses 72 (2009), pp. 237–243.
[2] College Board SAT, 2008 College Bound Seniors.
[3] B.G. Charlton, Pioneering studies of IQ by G.H. Thomson and J.F. Duff – an example of established knowledge subsequently ‘hidden in plain sight’, Med Hypotheses 71 (2008), pp. 625–628.
[4] H.J. Eysenck, Genius: the natural history of creativity, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK (1995).
[5] C. Murray, Human accomplishment. The pursuit of excellence in the arts and sciences 800 BC to 1950, HarperCollins, New York (2003).
[6] A.L. Duckworth and M.E.P. Seligman, Self-discipline gives girls the edge, J Educ Psychol 98 (2006), pp. 198–208.
[7] R. Lynn and P. Irwing, Sex differences on the progressive matrices: a meta analysis, Intelligence 32 (2004), pp. 481–498.
[8] L.V. Hedges and A. Nowell, Sex differences in mental test scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals, Science 269 (1995), pp. 41–45.
*
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