(1) Consider
the following extraordinarily cost-efficient proposal for measuring IQ. It applies around the globe, and requires
no expensive testing.
Criterion: IQ, as assessed by this test, is based exclusively on surname. Those with surname beginning with “A” are classified as less
intelligent (by a factor of 8.9) than those with a surname beginning with
“B”; and so on, through the
alphabet.
Sociological result: Aaron Aardvark hates this; Zoe Zzyzzyva thinks it’s fine.
-- But then, they would, wouldn’t they?
[NB: This is no
idle fable, but a mnemonic representation of what has seriously been objected
to present practices. For order in
the alphabet, read class standing.
Yet already, even at this caricatural level, there is a serious
epistemological problem involved.]
(2) OK so -- we
seriously try to do better in
devising a test that is not self-fulfilling. Only … before we can come up with clever schemes to measure
something, and evaluate each test on how well it accomplishes its goal, we need
to know what we are measuring -- antecedently,
independently of the tests (which, at this stage, are themselves being tested.)
The scientific datum for which this insufficiently
appreciated epistemological problem
has most starkly been brought home to me, is the matter of the Age of
the Earth. Estimates have
fluctated by many orders of magnitude over time; nevertheless, current scientists are confident of the value
they give (to several purportedly significant figures). But the problem is … how can you
even talk about such a thing, unless you have (a) a suite of several
planets (b) a known accurate value
(necessarily, given by God) for the age of each. Given that, you could test your methods (though that would
still be hard); absent that, what
are we even talking about.
(Note that the concept of God is here brought in, not for
theological reasons, but for epistemological reasons.)
So, posited, that we mysteriously receive, from a cloud or
Mt Sinai, a list containing the names of everyone on earth, labeled with a
number: a number which purports
(though the ancient pre-Mosaic proto-Hebrew is somewhat difficult to interpret)
to represent the absolute level of Intelligence, as viewed by God.
Naturally concerned whether “intelligence” be the best
translation of F’n(b)rkk(hhh)blx, we run a sanity check: and sure enough, Shakespeare and
Einstein come out scoring much better than Donald Trump. So far so good. (Oddly, P.G. Wodehouse
turns out to outrank them both;
but that is an enigma for another time.)
Now, however, our task is more problematic. Instead of cooking up some
clever-seeming tests (think: tests to measure gravity-waves in physics, while
somehow discounting the rumble of the passing milk-truck), we have to come up
with … something … which will somehow
manage more or less to match desiderata given ex cathedra. -- And
no, the problem here has nothing to do specifically with psychology. Physics sets itself the same task when
it tries, on principled theoretical grounds, to predict (retrodict) the measured values for e.g. electron, proton,
and neutron mass or radius-- these values being taken, for practical purposes, as
God-given (though they are subject to change, and have indeed recently been challenged). -- The problem in psychology is, to be sure, more difficult
again on another dimension, in that the God-given number here is, as given,
Delphic and ineffable; we have no
prior certainty about, say, the IQs of familiar objects such as coffee-cups,
pigs, and Donald Trump, whereas we do feel quite at home weighing such items,
and serenely reckon that the same notion of ‘mass’ applies to electrons as well, without
changes.
That serenity may be ill-founded. In a flavor of the philosophy of science that had its run of celebrity, the meaning of a measured quantity was inextricably tied in with the method of its measurement. (This is a subclass of verificationism.) By that criterion, the “mass” of the proton and the “mass of a galaxy” bear no simple relation to each other, nor to the mass of a cat.
* * *
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* * *
[Note: Early in
1967, word came down from the scientific mount, that an objective intellegence touchstone had indeed been discovered, upon which
Wechsler and Stanford-Binet and all the rest were but parasitic:
this being, how fast the neurons could react.
At first reading, that sounded convincing; although a back-brain reservation
said: Doesn’t the pattern of reaction matter? We know plenty of fools who respond on
a hair-trigger.
-- And how do I recall the date, after all these years? Ah, thereby hangs a tale!! (Shout-out to W.S. of Leonia.)]
(3) And now
supposed that, along with the values of what we agree to call an “Intelligence
Quotient”, God gives us -- as a bonus -- a GQ or Goodness Quotient for each listed individual. -- A hasty check again is somewhat
reassuring, with Shakespeare and Einstein coming out slightly above average,
and Donald Trump at rock bottom.
But we never imagined there could be a number for such a thing. And how shall we ever devise tests to measure it?
(4) That last
was a Gedankenexperiment, of uncertain application. Yet here, from a former trader at Salomon Brothers, is
testimony to the power of a single number to symbolize a vast value:
Being paid was a sheer misery for
many. [Note: And this, despite the
fact that they were paid very well.]
On January 1, 1987, 1986
would be erased from memory except
for a single number: the amoung of
money you were paid. That number
was the final summing-up. Imagine
being told you will meet with the divine Creator in a year’s time to be told your worth as a human
being. You’d be a little edgy
about the whole thing, wouldn’t you?
That’s roughly what we endured.
-- Michael Lewis, Liar’s Poker
(1989)
(Notice again how the Almighty is brought in -- not by any
means for religious reasons, but simply as a touchstone, to help make sense of
it all.
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