ApostateAbe
Veteran Member
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2002
- Messages
- 1,299
- Location
- Colorado, USA
- Basic Beliefs
- Infotheist. I believe the gods to be mere information.
Whatever suspicions you may have against the science of intelligence, one relationship was by design and can not be easily dismissed: the relationship of intelligence scores to educational achievement. Universities and colleges want high graduation rates among their students, but they also want graduates who have proved their intellect, so they typically admit based primarily on intelligence tests (SAT, ACT or GRE) and previous school grades. In other words, they want students with high IQs. Spearman's g (estimated by IQ) has about a 50% relationship to grades (Neisser et al, "Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns", 1996) and a whopping 86% non-linear relationship to SAT scores (Frey and Detterman, "Scholastic Assessment or g?: The Relationship Between the Scholastic Assessment Test and General Cognitive Ability", 2004).
Enter the politics of affirmative action. Blacks and Hispanics are poorer than whites and Asians. Racial differences in intelligence scores don't matter (just close your eyes and make this true). So, per the eyes-closed theory, the problem of racial economic inequalities can be fixed if we push more blacks and Hispanics into college, give them degrees, and make them just as qualified as whites and Asians to compete in the economy.
Next problem: blacks and Hispanics on average score significantly lower on the SAT/ACT/GRE and have lower grades (http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hsts_2009/race_gpa.aspx?tab_id=tab2&subtab_id=Tab_1). No problem: just lower the qualifying standards for blacks and Hispanics. A full standard deviation lower for blacks and almost as much for Hispanics.
Well, maybe it wouldn't be a problem, except the requirements are lowered for admission but NOT for graduation. Affirmative action is widespread among college admissions offices, but each instructor is the sole decider of whether a student passes or fails the respective course, and the professor is unlikely to take the same affirmative action policy as the admissions office. If the student does not pass the required courses, then the student does not graduate.
Intelligence matters in all college majors, but, in technical majors, raw intelligence matters much more. A student is highly unlikely to pass integral calculus, or statistics, or physics, if his or her intelligence scores are merely average. Those are tough courses even for the math nerds. There are exceptions, but, as a general rule, a person with seemingly near-average intelligence definitely should not be admitted to schools of such technical fields, regardless of ideological theory.
Affirmative action debates are often framed as though the policy is unfair to whites, but whites are not the greatest victims. They are not the resultant dropouts who are saddled with debt and no degree to help pay it off. When whites are not admitted to colleges for their low grades and low scores, this should be seen as a good thing for whites. They can instead go to trade schools or two-year colleges, and they can graduate easily without nearly as much debt. For those unlucky students admitted to four-year colleges without meeting the typical intelligence requirement, the outcome is likely to be much worse.
And this is not mere speculation. The data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows it (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_326.10.asp). Six years after being admitted to college, 62% of whites graduate, but only 51% of Hispanics and 40% of blacks graduate. If this is not a depressing statistic, then it should be. It means 22% fewer blacks graduate than whites after being admitted, and a random black college freshman probably will not graduate, instead leaving college with debt. Graduating with debt can be bad. But, having debt and NOT graduating... it means that the debt is not only burdensome but completely needless and much more difficult to pay off.
I have NOT discussed the theory of the genetics of the racial intelligence differences, as that is irrelevant. Whatever the cause of racial intelligence differences may be--bad childhood education, poverty, low self-esteem, lead poisoning, poor nutrition, genetics, whatever else--it doesn't change the numbers, and intelligence scores remain significantly predictive of graduation. So, this is not a conservative reason to oppose lowering standards according to race. It is a fully liberal reason. Most importantly, it is realistic.
Enter the politics of affirmative action. Blacks and Hispanics are poorer than whites and Asians. Racial differences in intelligence scores don't matter (just close your eyes and make this true). So, per the eyes-closed theory, the problem of racial economic inequalities can be fixed if we push more blacks and Hispanics into college, give them degrees, and make them just as qualified as whites and Asians to compete in the economy.
Next problem: blacks and Hispanics on average score significantly lower on the SAT/ACT/GRE and have lower grades (http://www.nationsreportcard.gov/hsts_2009/race_gpa.aspx?tab_id=tab2&subtab_id=Tab_1). No problem: just lower the qualifying standards for blacks and Hispanics. A full standard deviation lower for blacks and almost as much for Hispanics.
Well, maybe it wouldn't be a problem, except the requirements are lowered for admission but NOT for graduation. Affirmative action is widespread among college admissions offices, but each instructor is the sole decider of whether a student passes or fails the respective course, and the professor is unlikely to take the same affirmative action policy as the admissions office. If the student does not pass the required courses, then the student does not graduate.
Intelligence matters in all college majors, but, in technical majors, raw intelligence matters much more. A student is highly unlikely to pass integral calculus, or statistics, or physics, if his or her intelligence scores are merely average. Those are tough courses even for the math nerds. There are exceptions, but, as a general rule, a person with seemingly near-average intelligence definitely should not be admitted to schools of such technical fields, regardless of ideological theory.
Affirmative action debates are often framed as though the policy is unfair to whites, but whites are not the greatest victims. They are not the resultant dropouts who are saddled with debt and no degree to help pay it off. When whites are not admitted to colleges for their low grades and low scores, this should be seen as a good thing for whites. They can instead go to trade schools or two-year colleges, and they can graduate easily without nearly as much debt. For those unlucky students admitted to four-year colleges without meeting the typical intelligence requirement, the outcome is likely to be much worse.
And this is not mere speculation. The data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows it (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_326.10.asp). Six years after being admitted to college, 62% of whites graduate, but only 51% of Hispanics and 40% of blacks graduate. If this is not a depressing statistic, then it should be. It means 22% fewer blacks graduate than whites after being admitted, and a random black college freshman probably will not graduate, instead leaving college with debt. Graduating with debt can be bad. But, having debt and NOT graduating... it means that the debt is not only burdensome but completely needless and much more difficult to pay off.
I have NOT discussed the theory of the genetics of the racial intelligence differences, as that is irrelevant. Whatever the cause of racial intelligence differences may be--bad childhood education, poverty, low self-esteem, lead poisoning, poor nutrition, genetics, whatever else--it doesn't change the numbers, and intelligence scores remain significantly predictive of graduation. So, this is not a conservative reason to oppose lowering standards according to race. It is a fully liberal reason. Most importantly, it is realistic.
