Genes, Brains, and Human Potential The Science and Ideology of Intelligence

82 PRETEND INTELLIGENCE

score patterns are real intelligence and not artifacts of test construction
and people’s experience.
In this way, too, specifi c patterns of group diff erences can be engi-
neered in or out of test scores according to prior assumptions. For
example, boys tend to do better on some items, girls better on others,
whereas overall equality was deemed desirable. It was concluded that any
diff erences were due to “experience and training” rather than “native
ability.” Accordingly, as Terman and Merrill put it in the 1937 revision of
the Stanford- Binet test, items which yielded large sex diff erences were
duly eliminated as prob ably unfair.
It is in this context that we need to assess claims about social class and
race diff erences in IQ. Th ese could be exaggerated, reduced, or eliminated
in exactly the same way. Th at they are allowed to persist is a matter of
social prejudice, not scientifi c fact. In all these ways, then, we fi nd that the
IQ testing movement is not merely describing properties of people—it has
largely created them.
Some defenders may protest that, with advances in technology and sta-
tistical sophistication, IQ tests are far more scientifi c, and items more
objective, than they used to be. Yet they are still based on the basic as-
sumption of knowing in advance who is or is not intelligent and making
up and selecting items accordingly. Items are in ven ted by test designers
themselves or sent out to other psychologists, educators, or other “experts”
to come up with ideas. As described above, the initial batches are then
refi ned using some intuitive guidelines.

A PSEUDO- THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE

Galton had a hunch that intelligence is an all- pervasive natu ral ability,

varying like any physical trait, such as physical strength, but making

a diff erence in every thing we do mentally. Beyond that, he did not have

much of a clue about its properties. Others have tried to get over this

prob lem statistically, rather than describing actual functions. In 1904,

British psychologist Charles Spearman noted that schoolchildren who

did well or poorly on exams in one school subject also tended to do well

or poorly on others. In other words, the scores were correlated.

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