Difference between revisions of "Intelligence testing"

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'''Intelligence testing''' began in an organized way in the early 20th Century with the [[Stanford-Binet]] test. The purpose was to form an estimate of a person's aptitude before investing time and money in their education.
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Come on Conservapedia! You're looking more ridiculous than usual by not reporting this! You've reported on pretty much everything else about Iran, so why not the fact that BUSH LIED TO US!?!?!?!?!!?
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WASHINGTON - First Iraq, now Iran. The United States has operated under a cloud of faulty intelligence in both countries.
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ADVERTISEMENT
  
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At the time these tests were developed, medical science and psychology were
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In a bombshell intelligence assessment, the United States has backed away from its once-ironclad assertion that Tehran is intent on building nuclear bombs.
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in their infancy. Ideas such as [[eugenics]] still had currency, and intelligence tests were used to weed out so-called "defectives".  
 
  
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Testers classified people as idiots, imbeciles, morons, normal, above average, and geniuses on a numerical scale based on [[mental age]]. For children, dividing the mental age by chronological age produces the [[intelligence quotient]] (IQ) used for placement in slow or rapid classes.
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Where there once was certainty, there now is doubt. "We do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons," the new estimate said Monday.
  
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In the United States, intelligence tests were to classify recruits and draftees for service in World War II. The more technical jobs were assigned to men with higher scores. Sociologists also noted racial differences in IQ scores, and some supposed that these differences were inherent. A controversy over this matter has raged ever since.
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Compare that with what then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte told Congress in January. "Our assessment is that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons."
  
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Open questions for psychologists and sociologists focus on what produces differences in [[intelligence]], whether intelligence can be developed or stunted by upbringing and education, and why different [[race]]s or cultural groups have significantly different scores.
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Just last month, President Bush, at a news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said, "We talked about Iran and the desire to work jointly to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions, for the sake of peace."
  
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The two main reasons given are:
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More ominously, Bush told a news conference Oct. 17, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
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#that there may be inherent differences between the races
 
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#that upbringing, education and social factors can skew the results
 
  
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==Liberal bias==
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Asked then if he definitely believed that Iran wanted to build a nuclear bomb, Bush said, "Yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon."
  
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The field of intelligence testing has been acrimonious and contentious. Researchers such as [[Arthur Jensen]] and [[Charles Murray]] have been pilloried in the mass media, accused of maintaining views which different or even opposite of their actual views. <ref>Evolution advocate Gould portrays Murray as saying intelligence can be measured with a single number; Murray, of course, makes it clear in his book (as well as in a follow-up retort to Gould) that intelligence is too complex to be measured with a single number. </ref>
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Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said the president made comments like those "because he was describing the threat as the intelligence community itself had been describing the threat both publicly and in their briefings to him."
  
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One professor had to come to Jensen's defense, after [[Stephen Jay Gould]] attacked him in print:
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Intelligence officials advised Bush several months ago that they were reevaluating their assessments about Iran. They came to the White House last Wednesday and briefed him on their new findings.
  
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:I object to Gould's tendency to visit the alleged sins of early investigators on present day investigators. If Goddard, Brigham, and others once tended to view various human races as relatively superior or inferior in intelligence and therefore relatively worthy or unworthy, this does not mean that present-day investigators, like Jensen (1980) or Rushton (1995), are necessarily guilty of such views. In fact, from my personal acquaintance with Jensen and his publications, I can attest that he does not view the African race (if one accepts that it is a race) as in any way less worthy than other so-called races. [http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/~reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/carroll-gould.html]
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The intelligence flip-flop recalled the embarrassing reversal that Bush was forced to make on whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The conviction that Saddam Hussein had such weapons was one of the factors behind Bush's decision to invade Iraq. It since has been determined that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.
  
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[[Charles Murray]] said:
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Democrats on Monday did not hesitate to suggest an Iran-Iraq comparison.
  
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*As soon as anyone argues that racial differences in intelligence are authentic, not an artifact of biased tests, everyone decodes that as saying the differences are grounded in genes. It is a non-sequitur, but an invariable one in my experience. America's intellectual elites are hysterical about the possibility of black - white genetic differences in IQ.
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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats had requested the new Iran assessment "so that the administration could not rush this Congress and the country to another war based on flawed intelligence."
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*As you know, The Bell Curve actually took a mild, agnostic stand on the subject. Dick Herrnstein and I said that nobody yet knows what the mix between environmental and genetic causes might be, and it makes no practical difference anyway. The only policy implication of the black - white difference, whatever its sources, is that the U.S. should return forthwith to its old ideal of treating people as individuals.
 
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*But how many people know this? No one who hasn't read the book. Everyone went nuts about genes, so much so that most people now believe that race and genes is the main topic of our book. [http://www.eugenics.net/papers/mssel.html]
 
  
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==External links==
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"I hope this administration reads this report carefully and appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy vis-a-vis Iran," Reid said. "The administration should begin this process by finally undertaking a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran."
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*[http://www.eugenics.net/papers/mssel.html As the Bell Curves] - [[Charles Murray]] and [[Daniel Seligman]] - (Originally published in The National Review, December 8, 1997)
 
  
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==Notes==
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In the case of Iran, though, the White House has not dropped its suspicions that Tehran could pursue a nuclear bomb.
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<references/>
 
  
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[[category:psychology]]
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Iran continues to develop, test and deploy ballistic missiles, and its civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. "It can readily use the same technology to produce weapons-grade uranium," Hadley said.
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In rewriting the conclusions about Iran, the new estimate said Tehran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program but halted that effort in the fall of 2003 under the weight of international pressure. Importantly, the estimate said Iran has not restarted the nuclear bomb program.
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"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," the new estimate said.
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While key facts have changed, the administration's strategy has not.
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The White House says it will continue to try to build pressure on Iran to prevent it from ever acquiring nuclear bombs.
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"The bottom line is that for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions and with other financial pressure," Hadley said. "And Iran has to decide that it wants to negotiate a solution."
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Some analysts believe the new conclusions will be a roadblock for Vice President Dick Cheney and other hawkish members of the administration to be more confrontational toward Iran.
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"It's a good thing that we caught this before we marched headlong into another military conflict," said Jon Wolfsthal, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "This isn't the timebomb the administration made it out to be for the last several years."
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Wolfsthal said the conclusion that international pressure prompted Iran to halt its program "is the piece of information that we missed in Iraq" where Bush believed that Iraq's pursuit of WMD was continuing despite sanctions. He said the administration did not appear inclined to change its strategy toward Iran. He said that "suggests they can't take yes for an answer."
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EDITOR'S NOTE — Terence Hunt has covered the White House for The Associated Press since the Reagan administration.

Revision as of 23:11, December 6, 2007

Come on Conservapedia! You're looking more ridiculous than usual by not reporting this! You've reported on pretty much everything else about Iran, so why not the fact that BUSH LIED TO US!?!?!?!?!!? 

WASHINGTON - First Iraq, now Iran. The United States has operated under a cloud of faulty intelligence in both countries.

ADVERTISEMENT

In a bombshell intelligence assessment, the United States has backed away from its once-ironclad assertion that Tehran is intent on building nuclear bombs.

Where there once was certainty, there now is doubt. "We do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons," the new estimate said Monday.

Compare that with what then-National Intelligence Director John Negroponte told Congress in January. "Our assessment is that Tehran is determined to develop nuclear weapons."

Just last month, President Bush, at a news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said, "We talked about Iran and the desire to work jointly to convince the Iranian regime to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions, for the sake of peace."

More ominously, Bush told a news conference Oct. 17, "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Asked then if he definitely believed that Iran wanted to build a nuclear bomb, Bush said, "Yeah, I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon."

Bush's National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said the president made comments like those "because he was describing the threat as the intelligence community itself had been describing the threat both publicly and in their briefings to him."

Intelligence officials advised Bush several months ago that they were reevaluating their assessments about Iran. They came to the White House last Wednesday and briefed him on their new findings.

The intelligence flip-flop recalled the embarrassing reversal that Bush was forced to make on whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The conviction that Saddam Hussein had such weapons was one of the factors behind Bush's decision to invade Iraq. It since has been determined that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction.

Democrats on Monday did not hesitate to suggest an Iran-Iraq comparison.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats had requested the new Iran assessment "so that the administration could not rush this Congress and the country to another war based on flawed intelligence."

"I hope this administration reads this report carefully and appropriately adjusts its rhetoric and policy vis-a-vis Iran," Reid said. "The administration should begin this process by finally undertaking a diplomatic surge necessary to effectively address the challenges posed by Iran."

In the case of Iran, though, the White House has not dropped its suspicions that Tehran could pursue a nuclear bomb.

Iran continues to develop, test and deploy ballistic missiles, and its civilian uranium enrichment program is continuing. "It can readily use the same technology to produce weapons-grade uranium," Hadley said.

In rewriting the conclusions about Iran, the new estimate said Tehran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program but halted that effort in the fall of 2003 under the weight of international pressure. Importantly, the estimate said Iran has not restarted the nuclear bomb program.

"Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons program suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," the new estimate said.

While key facts have changed, the administration's strategy has not.

The White House says it will continue to try to build pressure on Iran to prevent it from ever acquiring nuclear bombs.

"The bottom line is that for that strategy to succeed, the international community has to turn up the pressure on Iran with diplomatic isolation, United Nations sanctions and with other financial pressure," Hadley said. "And Iran has to decide that it wants to negotiate a solution."

Some analysts believe the new conclusions will be a roadblock for Vice President Dick Cheney and other hawkish members of the administration to be more confrontational toward Iran.

"It's a good thing that we caught this before we marched headlong into another military conflict," said Jon Wolfsthal, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "This isn't the timebomb the administration made it out to be for the last several years."

Wolfsthal said the conclusion that international pressure prompted Iran to halt its program "is the piece of information that we missed in Iraq" where Bush believed that Iraq's pursuit of WMD was continuing despite sanctions. He said the administration did not appear inclined to change its strategy toward Iran. He said that "suggests they can't take yes for an answer."

___

EDITOR'S NOTE — Terence Hunt has covered the White House for The Associated Press since the Reagan administration.

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