"The Bell Curve," [...] argued not only that I.Q. was genetically determined but that it amounted to destiny, predicting your job performance, your financial prospects, even how likely you were to commit a crime or become an unwed mother.
Life sucks. Deal with it.
The fact is, Charles Murray is correct: IQ does predict your job performance, financial prospects, likelihood of criminality, and probability of becoming an unwed mother. It predicts these in the same sense as whether of not someone has the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes is a predictor of whether they will die of breast cancer -- there are lots of factors, including dumb luck, but it's one of the largest.
Can we do something about this? Absolutely: If someone carries the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, we can recommend that they undergo routine breast cancer screening from an early age. If someone has a low IQ, we can pay special attention to them in school to make sure that they're not falling behind.
What we decide to do is a matter of public policy. Some states provide free breast cancer screening to everybody; others provide free breast cancer screening to anyone with a family history of the disease; others don't provide free breast cancer screening at all. Similarly, some states "stream" children into classes with other children with similar IQs; some states put everybody into the same class but perform testing so that teachers know which students are more likely to need help; and some states just throw all the children together without making any attempt to distinguish the high IQs from the low IQs.
Some people are born stupid. But pretending that we're all equal won't fix that. The first step towards dealing with it is to recognize that life sucks.
Life sucks. Deal with it.
The fact is, Charles Murray is correct: IQ does predict your job performance, financial prospects, likelihood of criminality, and probability of becoming an unwed mother. It predicts these in the same sense as whether of not someone has the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes is a predictor of whether they will die of breast cancer -- there are lots of factors, including dumb luck, but it's one of the largest.
Can we do something about this? Absolutely: If someone carries the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes, we can recommend that they undergo routine breast cancer screening from an early age. If someone has a low IQ, we can pay special attention to them in school to make sure that they're not falling behind.
What we decide to do is a matter of public policy. Some states provide free breast cancer screening to everybody; others provide free breast cancer screening to anyone with a family history of the disease; others don't provide free breast cancer screening at all. Similarly, some states "stream" children into classes with other children with similar IQs; some states put everybody into the same class but perform testing so that teachers know which students are more likely to need help; and some states just throw all the children together without making any attempt to distinguish the high IQs from the low IQs.
Some people are born stupid. But pretending that we're all equal won't fix that. The first step towards dealing with it is to recognize that life sucks.