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A Woman’s Story

raganwald.posterous.com

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Re: A Woman’s Story

#31

Post by superxor »

rmc wrote: post #25
mhartl wrote: post #9

There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out that it’s the baker who rides a bicycle and the mechanic who lives in the house with a red door. There were some strange questions where she was given a sketch of a three dimensional figure such as a cube with some missing pieces, and she had to guess which s…

This is essentially an IQ test, and what they discovered was that Gwen was highly intelligent. They then did the smart thing and judged her based on her demonstrated aptitude rather than on the prevailing prejudices of the day Actually, if you read the whole thing, they didn't believe her "demonstrated aptitude" because of their "prevailing prejedices". She had to fight to get them to see her demonstrated aptitude. M…

+1

great info, thanks

Re: A Woman’s Story

#32

Post by moldbug »

mhartl wrote: post #9

There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out that it’s the baker who rides a bicycle and the mechanic who lives in the house with a red door. There were some strange questions where she was given a sketch of a three dimensional figure such as a cube with some missing pieces, and she had to guess which s…

Note also that the methods of 60 years ago (a) discovered Gwen's ability, (b) promoted her to a commensurate position, (c) gave a productive citizen a genuine sense of achievement and accomplishment. All in a period which was universally racist and sexist by today's progressive standards.

Now? Gwen's intelligence would probably also be detected, if by less straightforward and reliable methods. Because her African X chromosomes confer not one but two Diversity Points (tm), every institution she came in contact with would have a strong bureaucratic incentive to promote her not only to her actual abilities - but beyond them.

As a result, she'd be very likely to end up placed in a position where rather than leading enterprise IT projects, she was competing with (say) top-notch particle physicists. Lacking (like almost all of us) the mental horsepower to perform at this level, she would constantly feel like a fraud, and her colleagues would constantly suspect her of being a fraud. A suspicion which would be correct, though you couldn't really say it was her fault.

Lesson: be careful about hating on the past. Often the past looks pretty retarded by the standards of the present. Often the converse is the case as well.

Re: A Woman’s Story

#33

Post by Anechoic »

mhartl wrote: post #9

There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out that it’s the baker who rides a bicycle and the mechanic who lives in the house with a red door. There were some strange questions where she was given a sketch of a three dimensional figure such as a cube with some missing pieces, and she had to guess which s…

in the state of California it is illegal to give a black child an IQ test even when administered by a school psychologist as part of a professional assessment

The issue is that IQ tests were found to be culturally biased against black students and therefore responsibly for placing those students on special-ed tracks that were not appropriate. See: http://www.rcselpa.org/docs/policies/Section%20III%20Evaluat...

This abstract indicates that black students seeking placement into gifted classes are exempted from the ban: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/93/1/31.abstra...

Re: A Woman’s Story

#34

Post by jbooth »

mhartl wrote: post #9

There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out that it’s the baker who rides a bicycle and the mechanic who lives in the house with a red door. There were some strange questions where she was given a sketch of a three dimensional figure such as a cube with some missing pieces, and she had to guess which s…

"unfounded prejudice is unstable in a competitive market for labor."

Did you ever see that study in France where they submitted the same exact resumes with Christian names and Arab names? I'll let you guess as to the results.

Re: A Woman’s Story

#35

Post by moldbug »

rmc wrote: post #25
mhartl wrote: post #9

There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out that it’s the baker who rides a bicycle and the mechanic who lives in the house with a red door. There were some strange questions where she was given a sketch of a three dimensional figure such as a cube with some missing pieces, and she had to guess which s…

This is essentially an IQ test, and what they discovered was that Gwen was highly intelligent. They then did the smart thing and judged her based on her demonstrated aptitude rather than on the prevailing prejudices of the day Actually, if you read the whole thing, they didn't believe her "demonstrated aptitude" because of their "prevailing prejedices". She had to fight to get them to see her demonstrated aptitude. M…

That's because in the past, the IQ tests were not fair, objective and colour-blind, but were set up in such a way as to bias against poorer people (which will be mostly black in the USA).

Is this a conspiracy theory? It sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory to me. Just sayin'.

Conspiracies do happen. However, when you're trying to persuade me of a conspiracy theory, the burden of proof is high. I expect links - lots of them - and good ones. Try to avoid linking to frauds:

http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/06/did_stephen_jay_gould_f...

FYI, the most accurate IQ tests available at this time were Raven's matrices:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravens_Progressive_Matrices

I think these have lost some reliability because of a training effect from the general popularity of cognitive brainteasers (probably the cause of the Flynn effect). However, it would be interesting to hear someone explain how they were designed by racists to be racist. (Wikipedia tells me they were originally the Coloured Progressive Matrices, which does sound mighty suspicious...)

Re: A Woman’s Story

#36

Post by barrkel »

moldbug wrote: post #32
mhartl wrote: post #9

There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out that it’s the baker who rides a bicycle and the mechanic who lives in the house with a red door. There were some strange questions where she was given a sketch of a three dimensional figure such as a cube with some missing pieces, and she had to guess which s…

Note also that the methods of 60 years ago (a) discovered Gwen's ability, (b) promoted her to a commensurate position, (c) gave a productive citizen a genuine sense of achievement and accomplishment. All in a period which was universally racist and sexist by today's progressive standards. Now? Gwen's intelligence would probably also be detected, if by less straightforward and reliable methods. Because her African X c…

So, in essence, black people today are "likely" incompetent at their jobs because of affirmative action?

That seems to be what you're writing. And it doesn't look good.

Re: A Woman’s Story

#37

Post by raganwald »

moldbug wrote: post #35
rmc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is essentially an IQ test, and what they discovered was that Gwen was highly intelligent. They then did the smart thing and judged her based on her demonstrated aptitude rather than on the prevailing prejudices of the day Actually, if you read the whole thing, they didn't believe her "demonstrated aptitude" because of their "prevailing prejedices". She had to fight to get them to see her demonstrated aptitude. M…

That's because in the past, the IQ tests were not fair, objective and colour-blind, but were set up in such a way as to bias against poorer people (which will be mostly black in the USA). Is this a conspiracy theory? It sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory to me. Just sayin'. Conspiracies do happen. However, when you're trying to persuade me of a conspiracy theory, the burden of proof is high. I expect links - lots…

Is this a conspiracy theory?

At the risk of dragging this thread back onto the topic of the story...

The story describes a number of people who put obstacles in Gwen’s way. None of them are described as being malicious, none of them got together and “conspired.” Some of them genuinely thought they were acting in Gwen’s best interests.

So if someone says that IQ tests were set up in such a way as to create bias, perhaps we can believe that yes they were biased, and possibly deliberately so, without thinking about conspiracies or racism, just people attempting to do what they thought at the time was in everyone’s best interests.

Re: A Woman’s Story

#38

Post by phillmv »

moldbug wrote: post #35
rmc wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is essentially an IQ test, and what they discovered was that Gwen was highly intelligent. They then did the smart thing and judged her based on her demonstrated aptitude rather than on the prevailing prejudices of the day Actually, if you read the whole thing, they didn't believe her "demonstrated aptitude" because of their "prevailing prejedices". She had to fight to get them to see her demonstrated aptitude. M…

That's because in the past, the IQ tests were not fair, objective and colour-blind, but were set up in such a way as to bias against poorer people (which will be mostly black in the USA). Is this a conspiracy theory? It sounds a lot like a conspiracy theory to me. Just sayin'. Conspiracies do happen. However, when you're trying to persuade me of a conspiracy theory, the burden of proof is high. I expect links - lots…

It's not a conspiracy theory.

>However, it would be interesting to hear someone explain how they were designed by racists to be racist.

No one in this thread has claimed this. Stop trying to invent a polemic.

It just turns out that whatever IQ does measure correlates heavily with income and where you were born which in turn correlates with race.

Re: A Woman’s Story

#39

Post by lambda »

mhartl wrote: post #9

There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out that it’s the baker who rides a bicycle and the mechanic who lives in the house with a red door. There were some strange questions where she was given a sketch of a three dimensional figure such as a cube with some missing pieces, and she had to guess which s…

> Nowadays, it is illegal in the U.S. to give IQ tests to job applicants

Citation needed.

It is legal (at least based on the guidelines provided by the US Department of Labor: http://www.onetcenter.org/dl_files/empTestAsse.pdf) to give people all kinds of tests as long as (a) they do not select against certain protected traditionally disadvantaged classes more than it does for the average applicant or (b) if it does, there is a demonstrable link between the test and ability to perform job functions (so, for instance, a test of strength in a job that involves lots of lifting may select against women, but if strength is highly correlated with job performance, that is OK).

IQ tests are actually a fairly poor test for many jobs, and they can test many things besides just intelligence (for instance, knowledge of the English language or cultural trivia). For a blue-collar job, an IQ test may disadvantage people from a different cultural background or who don't speak English as a native language, without actually being particularly relevant to job performance. One of the cases that has come up many times is in fire departments, in which written tests are given and used to screen out applicants who score below a certain level, when much of the knowledge tested is not actually all that important to the job.

These days, for a programming job, you would give a more specific test of programming ability. At the time, given that there probably weren't a lot of people with training or experience programming who could be hired, an IQ test was probably a reasonably good generic stand in for the aptitude to learn and think critically.

Re: A Woman’s Story

#40

Post by moldbug »

Anechoic wrote: post #33
mhartl wrote: post #9

There were a lot of questions about numbers such as guessing the next number in a sequence. There were some logic puzzles, the kind where you have to figure out that it’s the baker who rides a bicycle and the mechanic who lives in the house with a red door. There were some strange questions where she was given a sketch of a three dimensional figure such as a cube with some missing pieces, and she had to guess which s…

in the state of California it is illegal to give a black child an IQ test even when administered by a school psychologist as part of a professional assessment The issue is that IQ tests were found to be culturally biased against black students and therefore responsibly for placing those students on special-ed tracks that were not appropriate. See: http://www.rcselpa.org/docs/policies/Section%20III%20Evaluat... This a…

"Were found." Passive voice. Following the link, we discover that the "finder" is Judge Robert Peckham in 1979:

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/17/us/robert-f-peckham-72-inf...

No offense, but who the fsck is Bob Peckham? And why should anyone in 2012 care what he thought in 1979? BTW, he was in a position to "find" because LBJ made him a judge in 1966. Hear LBJ's enlightened racial perspectives here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1rIDmDWSms

I also like how IQ tests are racist against dumb black kids, but not smart black kids. That's some awful specialized racism you got goin' on there.

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