From: Darin Sunley (rsunley@escape.ca)
Date: Tue Aug 10 1999 - 23:24:24 MDT
Edd111@aol.com wrote:
[snip]
> is the staid, old verbal/spatial reasoning
> aspect of IQ.
[snip]
> IQ is now defined to measure other things in
> a person, viz. Creativity, Kinesthetics, Music Ability, etc.
[snip]
> their own 'intellectual
> abilities'.
I disagree completely. The only reason "IQ is now defined" as ANYTHING other then
"verbal/spatial" reasoning is that a bunch of social psychologists in the mid 70s
decided how unfair it was that only people with good spatial/verbal abilities got
to call themselves "intelligent", as if intelligence was ever anything more then
one's result on a spatial/verbal abilities test.
Much as people are not entitled to their own "facts", people are not entitled to
their own "intelligences." There are hundreds of perfectly good words to describe
creative ability without using the word "intelligence", which already had a
perfectly coherent meaning. The only reason people push for the label of
"intelligence" for their particular mental strong suit is the ridiculous notion
that an ability isn't "real", or "legitimate" unless it's been "canonized" as a
form of "intelligence".
This issues actually harkens back to the beginnings of modern psychology. Binet's
test was exactly what's been described: a test of spatial and verbal ability,
graded against the results of one's peer group. It was only with it's adoption by
a bunch of quacks at Stanford (hence Stanford-Binet) that the meme formed in
(American) psychological thought that the "intelligence" score described an
inherent trait that denoted social superiority.
What's wrong with using the word "abilities" to describe abilities?
Darin Sunley
rsunley@escape.ca
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