"Richard Norman" <rsnorman at mediaone.net> wrote on 29 Jun 2001
in message news:uV%_6.6290$8O2.104409 at typhoon.mw.mediaone.net:
[snip]
> Sociological data, and any information about human behavior
> for that matter, is the result of interpreting what you
> observe. And that interpretation is fraught with all kinds
> of bias, intentional or subtle, based on personal models of
> what people are like and what makes people behave.
[snip]
True.
In case of the IQ, however, it should also be obvious, that the
data, on which you base your interpretation, are also fraught
with this and that. Nature has no concept of IQ or intelligence.
IQ is what you get when you apply IQ-tests. It's not what you
get when you measure intelligence. Intelligence is what you get
when you interpret the outcome of an IQ-test.
Moreover, IQ-tests are *designed* to give you a nice Bell-curve.
If a given IQ-test yields an average of 100 points for men, and
95 points for women, it is quite obvious that the researchers
that conceived this test, thought that women are not as
intelligent as men.
In Psychology, this is a never-ending discussion. It's women vs
men, blacks vs. whites, rich vs. poor, etc. My advice: Before
you shell out thousands of $ for a MRI study looking for
correlates of IQ-differences, you should first consider whether
those IQ-differences are factual.
Bob.
