[lit-ideas] Re: TGIF
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 20:47:24 -0400
> [Original Message]
> From: Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>
> To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: 8/26/2005 4:40:08 PM
> Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: TGIF
>
>
> > THE YEAR IS 1905
> >
> > One hundred years ago, today.
>
> > > Ninety percent of all U.S. doctors had no college education.
>
> > > 1 out of 5 U.S. adults couldn't read or write.
>
> > >The average I.Q. in 1905 was 90. Today it is 115.
>
> These hardly seem consistent. (It's the last claim I'm challenging.)
> 'Intelligence testing' had barely gotten off the ground in 1905; the
> term 'intelligence quotient' had not yet been coined; the refinement of
> Alfred Binet's work (which had only been completed in 1905) by Lewis
> Terman and others, work which resulted in the 'Stanford-Binet' test, was
> made known in 1916.
>
> What I'm suggesting is that if the first two statements are true, the
> third could not really be knowable, given not only the adjustments that
> would have had to have been made between any intelligence assessments
> done in 1905, and the various instruments used today, but the lack of a
> sufficiently large sample of the population who might somehow have taken
> an 'intelligence test.' The statistical insouciance here is fairly
> astonishing.
>
> In short, who and how many took 'intelligence tests' in the US in 1905;
> and how were 1905 numerical assessments of 'intelligence' made
> comparable with those made today?
>
Well, when I got the original it had a joke appended to the I.Q. entry.
The joke seemed kind of stupid, so I deleted that part and sent the rest.
I can't attest to quality or quantity of I.Q. tests in 1905. I would
imagine it's possible that I.Q.tests may have evolved to measure knowledge
less and ability more. However, I've read that tests are not necessarily
as meaningful as they're cracked up to be in any case.
Amago
> Robert Paul
> Reed College
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