"Everything about IQ's crispness and neat classifications fit perfectly with the American hunger for enhanced social, academic, and business efficiencies." (p. 38)
At this point in his argument, Shenk is discussing the idea of Americans' obsession with an easy means of "classification". This obsession that has historically always been something that not only Americans feel the need to do. It is human nature to want to group things, in this case people, together by "class" so that they are more easily identifiable and easier to understand. This however, Shenk argues, is not fair or at all accurate. In every situation there are so many variables to the reason for their scores that the score is overall incorrect.
Do you think that it is fair that people are still so much judged on their score on either an IQ or ACT test today even when we understand the circumstances? Is it worth having the quick fix of compartmenalizing people to judge them on an instantaneous basis? Could there be a potential biological solution to classifying people in a more genuine manner?
Hannah Perl (hannahperl94@gmail.com)
Having recently completed the college application process, I found myself in generic information sessions with counselors mentioning their newest approach to a 'holistic' review for all applicants. What this meant to me, was not that college admissions officers all of a sudden care to spend more hours working. Instead, I realized that there is some hope out there for future generations of students who excel in leadership positions and study skills regardless of their ability to perform. Colleges are slowly understanding that an ACT or SAT or even AP score does not define who we are as applicants. At the same time, without ACT or SAT all together we would have virtually no method for distinguishing our academic abilities in a consistent manner nation-wide. This is why Carl Brigham wrote that all intelligence tests are "one of the most glorious fallacies in the history of science" (39). It's a necessary evil for the time being, for we need some form of standardized academic comparison. What Shenk in his book points out is that there is a big difference between pinpointing individual potential and measuring achievement thus far. He writes, "predicting how most kids will do is entirely different from declaring what any particular kid can do" (41). This alludes to another major downfall of IQ testing. They simply mark a single moment in time for an individual. We have to remember that IQ test scores can continually change, especially increase with a little extra attention. The biggest reason IQ testing could be considered unfair is because you cannot chose where you are born and what environment you grow up in. Yet, "IQ scores correlat[e] inversely with a community's degree of isolation: the higher the cultural isolation, the lower the scores" (41). And, naturally as children, development occurs when our environment demands such development. The perfect example of this is to look at IQ scores from the 1900s and compare them to today's IQ results. On average 98% of test takers score higher than the average in 1900. The ever-changing societies we live in demand more from each of us as humans. Our genetics have not changed, our environments have.
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