Intelligence and how to get it

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…me in most countries of the world, resulting in the need to renorm IQ tests every half generation or so. All these data and more can be found cited to primary sources in Intelligence and How to Get It: Why Schools and Cultures Count by Richard E. Nisbett, http://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-How-Get-Schools-Cultures/... a recently published book that is well worth a read.

…d patients with selective deficits in learning, is a familiar line of evidence for cognitive modularity. A good recent discussion of cognitive modularity can be found in What Intelligence Tests Miss, http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=97803001238... a book I've cited to HN before by a psychologist well familiar with the mainstream psychometric tradition and its limitations. "To varying degrees, some individuals have this capacity, and others do not." Is the statement here that some people have NO capacity to learn? "To be sure, there is much debate about Gardner's theory in the literature, with contenders for and against. Nonetheless, empirical evidence has not been robust. While the theory sounds nice (perhaps because it sounds nice), it is more intuitive than empirical. In other words, the eight intelligences are based mor…

This article is both is both fallacious and intellectualy dishonest. Richard Nisbett cites each of these groups in his superb recent book, “Intelligence and How to Get It.” Dr. Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, argues that what we think of as intelligence is quite malleable and owes little or nothing to genetics. Nisbett actually writes, "The evidence of the adoption studies indicate that postnatal environmental factors - biological and social ones combined - probably outweigh the genetic ones" (p. 79). On another page, "The environmentalist camp estimates heritability to be .50 or less... And I agree with these scientists - in fact I suspect heritability may be even lower than .5" (p 21) In both quotes Nisbetts uses couched language to suggest that heritability may be lower than .50. Kristof then morphs th…

" Richard Nisbett cites each of these groups in his superb recent book, “Intelligence and How to Get It.” Dr. Nisbett, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, argues that what we think of as intelligence is quite malleable and owes little or nothing to genetics. " Stephen Pinker argued very persuasively in The Blank Slate that this is not the case. Brains are malleable to some degree, but genetics are still very important. One of the more convincing pieces of evidence is the similarities in the abilities of twins raised in separate families. He recounted case studies in which identical twins who had never even met each other both had the same proffession, favorite hobby and even shared odd habits, such as wearing a rubber band around their wrists More bluntly, if intelligence "owes little or nothing to genetics", why is i…

It looks like several journalists need to read the new book Intelligence and How to Get It by Richard E. Nisbett, http://www.wwnorton.com/catalog/winter09/006505.htm which I am reading just now. Nisbett reviews the best recent literature on IQ testing and what it means, and punches holes in the fallacious reasoning used by many advocates of a strong hereditarian view of influence on IQ. A really good book for background reading on IQ testing and how it works is IQ and Human Intelligence by N. J. Mackintosh, http://www.amazon.com/IQ-Human-Intelligence-N-Mackintosh/dp/... which includes very clear explanations of how IQ tests have developed historically, how they are currently constructed and validated, and what we still don't know about human rationality despite a century of IQ testing.