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Empowering Men:
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Psychologists and Women
Don't Have the Brains to Study Intelligence
© Peter Zohrab 2010-2017 |
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As is well-known, the academic field
of psychology has
its historical origins in philosophy. There is more than
one aspect of modern psychology which makes me think that, when the
split between philosophy and psychology occurred, the people with
the analytical skills stayed in the field of philosophy, and the tradition
of conceptual analysis was lost to psychology. I discuss one
of these aspects below: the issue of intelligence.
(My first encounter with a psychologists was also not an encouraging
one. The first time I joined Mensa, I had to sit two IQ tests
-- the first one at home and the second one in a university psychology
department. Both scores were high enough to join, but the one
I had done at home produced a higher score than the one I did under
the Mensa psychologist's supervision. I was not impressed when
he said that I must have cheated in the test I had done at home --
both because I knew I hadn't cheated, and also because it was clear
to me that, prima facie, there must surely be several possible
explanations for such discrepancies!)
Having come across the website Human
Intelligence, I noted that its most controversial content seemed
to be limited to the issue of race and intelligence. The issue
of sex and intelligence was totally absent. So, with the encouragement
of Jonathan Plucker, I prepared something that could be used to start
a section on this topic.
I present below my contribution, together with comments from an
anonymous female reviewer, and my comments on her comments.
First, however, I present Jonathan Plucker's final email on my contribution:
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PZ: There is no doubt that Jonathan Plucker is endorsing
the verdict of the (apparently female) anonymous reviewer. Therefore,
the negative comments I make (below) about her review must reflect on
him, as well. He even says that the reviewer "gave it a careful
read", when, in fact, her comments totally ignore all the substantive,
as opposed to introductory, points which I made. Either Plucker
is no more competent than she is, or the politics involved are such
that he was forced to pass my contribution to her for review, and that
he is not in a position to override her verdict. I have written
elsewhere on the power and control which
female academics exert over male academics. |
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PZ: If the above comment had been made in
good faith, it would have been followed by a suggestion as to what other
views should be included -- giving me an opportunity to include them.
In fact, as other comments make clear, this woman is only interested
in finding grounds to reject my contribution. |
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PZ: A good, but minor, point. I am a
bit lazy with style-sheets, because of having had to cope first with
Linguistics styles, then with Legal styles, and later with Psychology
styles. It seems ludicrous to me that these fields can't all use
the same styles, or refrain from policing styles altogether. However,
the styles could easily have been tidied up later. |
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PZ: Again, this is not a constructive criticism.
Dictionary compilers are professionals in the field of distilling the
meanings of words in ordinary usage, and the Oxford range of dictionaries
is the standard for one large section of the English-speaking world.
If this woman had wanted to be constructive, she could have given some
examples of what alternatives she was referring to. |
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PZ: This is a ludicrous question. The
fact is self-evident. |
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PZ: Here the woman betrays the fact that she just
has not understood my point. Only an idiot could think that Psychologists
can redefine the ordinary English word "intelligence" as they
see fit. If they redefine it, then what they are measuring is
not the same thing as other people expect them to be measuring.
The educated way to use words is to use them consistently, and in the
same way as your audience does, so that you appear to the audience to
mean the same thing as you actually do mean. If you randomly change
the meanings of the word you use, you just cause confusion and misunderstanding.
For example, the British television quiz game "The
Chase" features at least one expert at general knowledge (Mark
Labbett) who considers that having extensive general knowledge is a
sign of "intelligence". If "intelligence" tests
test general knowledge (as I recall that some of them used to do), then
they are testing "intelligence", as Mark Labbett uses the
term. However, my understanding is that Psychologists have decided that
testing general knowledge is culture-specific, so they have formulated
modern "intelligence" tests which do not test general knowledge.
Since they no longer test general knowledge, modern "intelligence"
tests no longer test the same "intelligence" that was tested
by earlier tests. So either earlier tests tested "intelligence"
or modern tests test "intelligence" -- they can't both test
"intelligence" to the same extent!
Psychologists can, and do, devise various tests, but it
is not up to them to devise a test and then to declare authoritatively
that what that test tests is "intelligence". In any given
"culture", it seems reasonable to assume that person A is
more "intelligent" than person B if person A has more general
knowledge than person B. The fact that societies typically contain more
than one culture has caused Psychologists to exclude general knowledge
from "intelligence" tests. That may or may not have been a
good decision, but it does mean that modern "intelligence"
tests no longer tests "intelligence" as well as older tests
did. The same applies if Psychologists have been systematically excluding
items that women tended to answer less well than men did.
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(PZ: See my comments above). |
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PZ: She asks, "Why?" when my very next
sentence goes on to answer her question. She has clearly not taken
the time to read my proposal carefully. And then Plucker hypocritically
says that she has given my contribution a "careful read"! |
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PZ: The woman fails to comment on any of the substantive
evidence (sections 1, 2, & 3) which I refer to.
emotional |
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PZ: I have no objection to reading "The Mismeasure
of Man", but Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man
makes it clear that it is essentially a liberal and political polemic,
rather than a directly relevant piece of work.
It is ludicrously arrogant of this woman to suggest that I take
a different "starting place" (i.e. the Study of Mathematically
Precocious Youth) -- given that she has totally failed to comment on
any of my three substantive "starting places." I certainly
would have had no objection to reviewing that area as well, but she
has given no evidence to support her implication that I should just
ignore my existing "starting places".
It seems likely that the Human Intelligence
website has absolutely no intention of exploring the issue of Sex and
Intelligence, because the Feminists involved in running that website
are aware that the conclusions resulting from such a discussion might
be inimical to their political objectives.
There is also the issue of the definition of the word "intelligence",
on which the website implicitly takes a stance which my contribution
attacks. That was always going to make the acceptance of my contribution
problematic -- but my aim in life has never been to kowtow to academics
in order to receive the benefits which they can bestow as a reward for
subservience!
See also:
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Latest Update |
10 November 2019 |
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