Talk:IQ test controversy

Ashkenazi Jews/other European Ethnicties and east asians updates
Hello. This is generic message I will be placing on several IQ-related atricles that have touched on Ashkenazim Jew IQ. Much is being written/compared/correlated on wikipedia regarding ashekenazim, much of which is incorrect given most modern research regarding it.

The modern interpreation of Ashkenazim IQ is that Jews have slightly higher verbal and mathematical IQ than the average white population and the same or lower IQ in perceptual and spatial. The below letter, compiled with data and written by Richard Lynn, shows that the IQ of diasporic A. Jews just in Verbal IQ is approximately 107. Not only is this substantially lower than many other studies in the past that relied on flawed non-representative samples and had small sample sizes, but it is merely the verbal IQ. One of the main trends of the A.Jew IQ has been very high verbal, with everything else being at least somewhat lower than that, meaning that this data suggests that the IQ of A.Jews may actually be significantly to slightly lower yet. In any event, most assertions being made on wikipedia are completely offbase and needs to be re-written with the understanding of these more recent studies and extrapolations of the experts in IQ, such as Lynn. I'm writing this in hopes people will take it open themselves to clean up wikis related to Ashkenazim since I really don't want to go to the trouble of running down every wiki and editing it myself.

Lynn has also now compiled a list of European nations/ethnicities and their respective IQs. The Dutch, Germans, and Poles all have approximately the same IQ according to the data as A.Jews, which throws even more monkey wrenchs into the wikis I've been reading, ones that say things like Jews success in field X could be linked to higher IQ. If this were the case, their would be way more German, Dutch, and Polish Nobel laureates. This is just an example. Basically, A.Jews, according to the accepted and recent interpretations, slightly exceed several European ethnicities and are essentially the same as many others. Further, now that Lynn has taken the time to break down IQs by ethnicities, all wikis generally related to IQ should include the data if they cite Ashkenazi IQ in the wiki. It smacks of some kind of racism to only single out A.Jews as an ethnicity and not others when we have the data on others. this seems to be a repeated bias I see on IQ-related wikis.

It should also be noted that both Flynn and Lynn have found that when correcting for the FLynn-effect, the East Asian IQ advantage drops to statistically negligble or close to. Again, this is the recent findings and wikis should reflect such. In any event, here is the cite/info-filled letter.

Dr. Richard Lynn The Intelligence of American Jews Sat Feb 14 01:24:26 2004

The Intelligence of American Jews Dr. Richard Lynn University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland http://www.rlynn.co.uk

Summary. This paper provides new data on the theory that Jews have a higher average level of verbal intelligence than non-Jewish whites. The theory is considered by examining the vocabulary scores of Jews, non-Jewish whites, blacks and others obtained in the American General Social Surveys carried out by the National Opinion Research Centre in the years 1990-1996. Vocabulary size is a good measure of verbal intelligence. Jews obtained a significantly higher mean vocabulary score than non-Jewish whites, equivalent to an IQ advantage of 7.5 IQ points. The results confirm previous reports that the verbal IQ of American Jews is higher than that of non-Jewish whites.

Introduction

It has often been asserted that Jews have a higher average level of intelligence than non-Jewish whites of European origin. Herrnstein and Murray (1994, p.275) have written that "Whenever the subject of group differences comes up one of the questions sure to be asked is 'Are Jews really smarter than everyone else?' ” and their answer to this question is an affirmative. Eysenck (1995,p.159) asserted that "As far as Jews are concerned, there is no question that they score very highly on IQ tests". Levin (1997,p.132) has written that “in every society in which they have participated, Jews have eventually been recognised (and disliked for) their exceptional talent”. Seligman (1992, p.133) writes of "the extraordinarily high Jewish g levels”.

Despite these assertions, the purported high IQ of the Jews has never been systematically reviewed and is not even mentioned in recent textbooks on intelligence, such as those of Brody (1992) and Mackintosh (1998).

There have nevertheless been a number of studies of the intelligence of Jews in the United States. Among those who have discussed this question, there is a general consensus on two points. First, that Jews have a higher average IQ than gentile whites (this term is used for non-Jewish whites). Second, that Jews are stronger on verbal ability than on visualization and visual-spatial ability. Beyond this, there is a considerable range of conclusions. A review by MacDonald (1994,p.190) concludes that “taken together, the data suggest a mean IQ in the 117 range for Ashkenazi Jewish children, with a verbal IQ in the range of 125 and a performance IQ in the average range”. Storfer (1990,p.314) writes that “Jewish people, considered as a group, tend to excel in some cognitive domains – for example, verbal and numerical ability – but not in others, as witness their unexceptional performance on certain types of spatial or perceptual problems. Storfer concludes that American Jews have an average IQ of about 112 on the Stanford-Binet, largely a test of verbal ability.

Herrnstein and Murray (1994, p.275) reach a similar conclusion “A fair estimate seems to be that Jews in America and Britain have an overall IQ mean somewhere between a half and a full standard deviation above the mean, with the source of the difference concentrated in the verbal component” (1994, p.275). In the sample they analysed, Jews had an average IQ of 112.6 in relation to American whites on four verbal subtests (word knowledge, paragraph comprehension, arithmetic and mathematics) of the AFQT (Armed Forces Qualification Test). Their estimate of a Jewish advantage of between a half and a full standard deviation is equivalent to an IQ range of 7.5 to 15 IQ points. The estimates proposed by Storfer and Herrnstein and Murray are similar but much lower than that suggested by MacDonald (1994).

Despite the widespread consensus on the high Jewish verbal ability, not all studies have shown that Jews have a higher verbal IQ than gentiles. Furthermore, virtually all the existing studies are unsatisfactory because the samples have been unrepresentative, very small or for other reasons. An early study carried out in the mid-1920s of 702 Jewish and 1030 non-Jewish white 9-13 year olds tested with the Pintner-Cunningham test (a largely verbal test) by Hirsch (1926) found the Jewish children obtained a mean IQ only 1.5 IQ points higher than the gentiles. However, at this time a number of Jewish families spoke Yiddish as their first language and this would have handicapped the children to an unknown extent. A later study by Shuey (1942) of students entering Washington Square College in New York in 1935-7 tested with the American Council Psychological Examination, a test of verbal abilities (with subtests of completion, arithmetic, artificial language, analogies and opposites) found that 764 Jewish freshmen scored 1.2 IQ points below 236 non-Jewish whites. All the students were native born, possibly suggesting that the performance of the Jewish students was unlikely to have been depressed by unfamiliarity with the English language although some of these may still have been speaking Yiddish as their first language.

Furthermore, Jewish and gentile students at this college cannot be regarded as respresentative of their respective communities. A more recent study by Hennessy and Merrifield (1978) with an impressive sample size of 2,985 Jewish, gentile, black and Hispanic college bound high school seniors found a difference of less than 1 IQ point between Jews and gentiles on tests of verbal ability and reasoning but the sample may not have been representative of the populations.

Another problem with a number of the studies that have found that Jews have higher verbal IQs than gentiles is that several of them are based on very small sample sizes. For instance, Seligman (1990, p.130) writes that “Jewish verbal superiority appears unmatched in any other ethnic group. An often-quoted 1970 study performed by the Ann Arbor Institute for Social Research shows Jewish tenth-grade boys with an average verbal IQ equivalent of 112.8 (on the Stanford-Binet metric) about three quarters of a standard deviation above the average for non-Jewish white boys”. This is the Bachman (1970) study in which the number of Jewish boys was 65. In the Herrnstein and Murray (1994) data set in which Jews obtained a mean verbal IQ of 112.6, the sample size was 98 and was not drawn to be nationally representative. There is only one study of the intelligence of American Jews in the last half century which appears to be representative and had a reasonable sample size. This is Backman’s (1972) analysis of the data in Project Talent, a nationwide American survey of the abilities of 18 year olds carried out in 1960. The study had sample sizes of 1,236 Jews and 1,051 white gentiles (in addition to 488 blacks and 150 Orientals). IQs for six factors were calculated. The mean IQs of the Jews in relation to gentile white means of 100 and standard deviations of 15 were as follows: verbal knowledge (described as “a general factor, but primarily a measure of general information” and identifiable with Carroll’s (1993) gc or verbal comprehension factor - 107.8; English language – 99.5; mathematics – 109.7; visual reasoning (“a measure of reasoning with visual forms”) – 91.3; perceptual speed and accuracy – 102.2; memory (short term recall of verbal symbols) – 95.1. These results are consistent with the general consensus that Jews perform well on tests of verbal ability (although not of English language) and mathematics and less well on visual and spatial tests but the verbal IQ of 107.8 is towards the low end of the estimates of Jewish verbal ability suggested by Herrnstein and Murray of an IQ between 107.5 and 115. However, the differences in the IQs for the various abilities are so great as to raise doubts about the results.

The existing state of the research literature on the IQ of American Jews is therefore that some studies have shown that their verbal IQ is about the same as that of gentile whites while other studies have shown that it is considerably higher at 107.8 (Backman, 1972), 112.6 (Herrnstein and Murray, 1994) and 112.8 (Bachman, 1970). However, the last of two of these studies have sample sizes of fewer than 100. There is room for more data on the IQ of American Jews, and it is to the presentation of this that we now turn.

Method

The American National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in Chicago carries out annual surveys on approximately 1,500 individuals in continental United States (ie. excluding Hawaii and Alaska). The samples are representative of the adult population of those aged 18 years and over except that they exclude those who cannot speak English and those resident in institutions such as prisons and hospitals. Full details of the sampling procedures are given by Davis and Smith (1996).

The NORC surveys collect a vast amount of information about the respondents' opinions on a variety of topics and also on their demographic characteristics such as their income, education, age, ethnic group, religion, etc.etc. The first items of information of particular interest to us are the respondents' religion and ethnic group. An analysis of these enables us to categorise the respondents as Jewish, non-Jewish white, black and other. The second item of interest is the respondents' score on a 10 word vocabulary test. Vocabulary is a good measure of both general intelligence and verbal intelligence. For instance, in the standardisation sample of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) the vocabulary subtest correlates .75 with the Full Scale IQ, more highly than any other subtest (Wechsler,1958) and the Full Scale IQ is widely regarded as a good measure of general intelligence or Spearman’s g (Jensen, 1998). We are therefore able to examine the vocabulary scores as a measure of the verbal and general intelligence of the four religious/ethnic groups.

As noted, the annual NORC surveys are carried out on approximately 1,500 individuals. A single year does not therefore provide many Jews. To rectify this problem we can take the results of a number of years and combine them. This gives rise to a further problem that the vocabulary test has not been administered in every annual survey. From 1990 onwards, the vocabulary test was given in 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994 and 1996. The data collected in these years are used to analyse the vocabulary scores of the four ethnic/racial groups.

Results

The results are shown in Table 1. Reading from left to right, the columns show the numbers in the four groups, the mean vocabulary scores, standard deviations and conventional IQs based on a gentile white mean of 100 and standard deviation of 15. Thus, expressed in this way, the Jewish group obtains a mean IQ of 107.5, significantly higher than the gentile whites (t=5.82); the blacks obtain a mean IQ of 89.7, significantly lower than that of gentile whites (t=17.89); the “others” obtain a mean IQ of 98.6, not significantly different from that of gentile whites.

Table 1. Vocabulary scores and verbal IQs of American Jews, non-Jewish whites, blacks and others.

Ethnic Group N Mean Sd IQ Jews 150 7.32 2.16 107.5 Gentiles 5300 6.28 2.03 100.0 Blacks 806 4.96 1.94 89.7 Others 219 6.09 2.37 98.6

Discussion

The results provide seven points of interest. First, they confirm the previous studies showing that American Jews have a higher average verbal intelligence level than non-Jewish whites. Second, the 7.5 IQ point Jewish advantage is rather less than that generally proposed and found in the studies reviewed in the introduction finding that Jews have verbal IQs in the range of 110-113 but is closely similar to the figure of 107.8 obtained in the Bachman study which is arguably the most satisfactory of the previous studies in terms of the size and representativeness of the sample.

Third, the present data has strengths in comparison with a number of previous studies in so far as they are based on a nationally representative and reasonably large sample size of 150 Jews and 5,300 gentile whites. The very close similarity between the present result and the Bachman result suggests that the best reading of the verbal IQ of American Jews is 107.5 (present study) or 107.8 (Bachman). These figures are well below previous estimates of Jewish verbal ability.

Four, an average verbal IQ of 107.5 would confer a considerable advantage for American Jews in obtaining success in professional work. There would be approximately four times as many Jews with IQs above 130, compared with gentile whites. This may provide a plausible explain for the 4.8 over-representation of Jews listed in American reference books of the successful such as Who’s Who, American Men and Women of Science, The Directory of Directors, The Directory of Medical Specialists and the like and calculated by Weyl (1989).

Five, the small difference of 1.4 IQ points between the non-Jewish whites and the “other” category is not statistically significant or very informative. The category is largely made up of Hispanics and Asians, which are themselves a heterogeneous category. Hispanics have mean IQs below whites (e.g. Herrnstein and Murray,1994), East Asians have about the same IQ as whites (Flynn, 1992) or slightly higher than whites (Lynn,1995), while South Asians have mean IQs lower than those of whites according to the calculations of Flynn (1992). Aggregating these groups produces a combined mean very close to that of non-Jewish whites.

Six, despite some three quarters of a century of research and quite a number of papers on the intelligence of American Jews there is still a lot of useful research to be done on this question. Probably the best approach would be to analyse Jewish abilities in terms of the construct of g and of the eight second order cognitive factors in the taxonomy of intelligence proposed by Carroll (1993) and the similar taxonomy advanced by McGrew and Flanagan (1998). These second order factors are fluid intelligence (reasoning), crystallized intelligence (verbal comprehension and knowledge), general memory and learning, visualization, broad retrieval ability, cognitive speed and processing speed. Probably all that can be concluded with a fair degree of confidence at present is that Jews have high crystallized intelligence (verbal ability) of which the vocabulary test used in the present study is a good measure and that on this ability their IQ in relation to gentile whites is approximately 107.5. The Backman (1972) provides IQs for several of the second order factors (given in the introduction to this paper) but these are so variable and in some instances so low as to raise doubts about their credibility. It is difficult to credit that the Jewish sample could have a non-verbal reasoning IQ of 91.3, and at the same time a mathematical IQ (“quantitative reasoning” in the McGrew and Flanagan taxonomy) of 109.7. It is also difficult to credit that the Jewish sample could have a verbal IQ of 107.8 while at the same time having a short term verbal memory IQ of 95.1. These results are in need of checking and replication. At present it is doubtful whether any conclusion can be reached about the intelligence of American Jews except that their verbal intelligence or, if this is preferred, their gc (crystallized intelligence) is about 107.5.

And here is a link to the list of White ethnicities IQs: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2105519,00.html Ernham 04:07, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The average IQ in Israel is 95. Ashkenazis are about 1/2 of that population and other wiki articles say there is a point difference of 14 between them and Shepharim & Mizrahi which makes 95 the mean between them and 102 (virtually exactly that of Europeans in general) the real average Ashkenazi IQ. 137.103.147.25 (talk) 19:38, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Linda Gottfredson
Linda Gottfredson wrote:

Individuals in the top 5 percent of the adult IQ distribution (above IQ 125) can essentially train themselves, and few occupations are beyond their reach mentally. Persons of average IQ (between 90 and 110) are not competitive for most professional and executive-level work but are easily trained for the bulk of jobs in the American economy. In contrast, adults in the bottom 5 percent of the IQ distribution (below 75) are very difficult to train and are not competitive for any occupation on the basis of ability. 

Remember to source claims
Is genetic IQ controversial? You might find the statement "Mainstream Science on Intelligence," which was signed by 52 intelligence researchers and meant to outline "conclusions regarded as mainstream among researchers on intelligence," to be a useful source for verifying the statements already covered in race and intelligence: "Individuals differ in intelligence due to differences in both their environments and genetic heritage. Heritability estimates range from 0.4 to 0.8 (on a scale from 0 to 1), most thereby indicating that genetics plays a bigger role than does environment in creating IQ differences among individuals. (Heritability is the squared correlation of phenotype with genotype.)"--Nectarflowed T 1 July 2005 01:21 (UTC)

Size and scope of this article
N, I've tried to make this article a starting point for readers trying to learn about all aspects of the IQ test controversy. So I think all the links should go here, and I hope you'll add other links, as you run across related articles.

Sorry to roll back your changes, but I felt you were overlooking public perception of the heritability thing. I doubt one person in 50 could explain what a 0.5 heritability means. But everyone knows what whites are born smarter than blacks means.

We need to distinguish between what researchers are really saying, and how the general public takes what they are saying. Uncle Ed July 6, 2005 18:00 (UTC)

2 diemensional view delete
I am going to amend the bit where it says "The Bell Curve, which claimed that Blacks have a lower group intelligence than other racial and ethnic groups and suggested changing public policy as a result of these findings." Because too much focus on what the book says on african americans is not a proper view of the book, it makes a lot of statements about other racial groups, such as asians and jews.

Measure of speed
I deleted a paragraph at the end which asserted that IQ tests mostly test for mental speed rather than ability, this was at the most charitable interpretation misleading and at a more probable interpretation, false ( or at least that's what I think ). This is not a universally or near universally held postion, it's not even a mainstream postion, so I deleted it because it was just one point of view, I'll replace it with a brief statement to the effect of "Some feel IQ tests primarly test mental speed, rather than ability." Any objections?
 * If it's not referenced it probably shouldn't be in the article. I think it may be considered by psychometricians as a red herring, as longer times in this context may be due to less accurate visualizations of the problems (anyone can solve the problems without mistakes given enough time). --Nectar 09:41, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
 * I've put the information on cognitive speed back in but this time in the form of a subliminal message. Good luck finding it!

Merge into Intelligence quotient
This article contains (at best) a paragraph worth of material that is not already at Intelligence quotient. I would much rather have a good Controversy section there than a separate article here. If the Controversy section of that article ever overflows we can always factor it out again. Arbor 08:33, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree, this aritcle is worthless by itself. AmitDeshwar 22:02, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, attempting to copy this article back into Intelligence quotient, as a section called Controversy, I find that there is almost no material here at all that is salvageable. Anyway, I will simply redirect this article into the other, and smack a stub section template on the Controversy section there for now. Maybe I can write some new stuff for that section… Anyway, I hereby pronounce this page dead. Arbor 12:17, 21 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You need to follow certain procedures to merge, move, or delete an article. You should put the article back and follow the procedures here or here . --Jagz 01:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Done. Mergeto and mergefrom templates now festoon both pages, and I reverted my redirect. Arbor 07:18, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I copied this article into the Intelligence Quotient article; it will need to be cleaned up by the article "regulars". This article can be deleted. --Jagz 16:08, 14 October 2006 (UTC)