Is IQ a myth?

Monday 19 June 2023

It is over 40 years since the publication of The Mismeasurement of Man in which Stephen Jay Gould, a former President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, completely debunked the myth of IQ.

This is the myth that there is some underlying characteristic of the brain that is the causal basis of intelligence that is measured by IQ tests.

 It is the myth that this non-existent characteristic, is “inherited, or at least inborn”, which its chief proponent, Sir Cyril Burt, declared is “incontestable”, when it is nothing of the sort!

Reasoning in a circle occurs when the proponent argues from a thing back to that same thing. In Burt’s case, from the assumption that intelligence is hereditary to the conclusion that intelligence is hereditary. Not only was Burt atrociously guilty of circular reasoning, but, as Nicholas Mackintosh, Professor of Experimental Psychology at Cambridge, concluded, Burt, who died in 1971, had fabricated his data.

It is no help at all that the myth persists. The danger is encapsulated in Burt’s fatalism, “Neither knowledge nor practice, neither interest nor industry, will avail to increase this general intellectual factor”. All my experience proclaims this to be a perverse falsehood.

Pictured: "It is over 40 years since the publication of The Mismeasurement of Man... completely debunked the myth of IQ."

Even if most people accept that some part of intelligence is hereditary, environment remains the key. One simple fact demonstrates this: the heritability of stature is high, but average heights continue to increase.

25 years ago, when I was awarded planning approval in the green zone for a school, I submitted to the committee a list of 53 case studies of students who had previously failed in the then existing school environment, but who had subsequently succeeded. 

Some of those written off as incapable of studying for A level, passed with very good grades, and went on to obtain a top first at degree level. Change the environment and you change the outcome.

When you start with a student, you must find out what they know, find out what they don’t know, and teach precisely in the gap between the two. Lev Vygotsky called it the zone of proximal development. That is where you teach, and nowhere else. 

Once you direct your energies into that gap, the progress is steady and rapid.  I do not know a single student that does not progress.  The turnaround can be remarkable.

Pictured: "Some of those written off as incapable of studying for A level, passed with very good grades, and went on to obtain a top first at degree level. "

What is it that IQ tests measure? By design, they create a bell-shaped distribution; hence, IQ tests measure what they are designed to measure – variation in a population regarding a specific test. They can be very useful as diagnostics. 

True intelligence is manifested in effectiveness. Certain kinds of adaptation are important to modern society – such as a degree of mathematical competence.  But that was not always the case.  Two hundred years ago, most people were illiterate, but that did not manifest as a lack of effectiveness. 

What is intelligence? I see it as a trained memory. Intelligence is the accumulated knowledge of concepts and skills acquired with learning over time.  It is exclusively a product of education.

Our contemporary world has invented devices that if applied efficiently can and do alter the learning experience and make the acquisition of effectiveness accessible to all.  These are the whiteboard, on-line video and, above all, the database. With these tools, we are now transforming the educational environment, and exposing the myth of fatalism – you don’t learn, and you never will learn – for what it is – a myth.