Comments on: Ableist Word Profile: Intelligence

By: Mirca

Mirca — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 05:12:38 +0000

Also really late to this party, also just read all of the AWD posts. Thanks so much for this one, especially the part (in post or in comments, I forget) which talks about communication difficulties being falsely linked to cognition difficulties. That’s an attitude I struggle with a lot, as a person who’s cared for an adopted relative with developmental disabilities, including a lot of difficulty with communication. I don’t know how I can talk to my cousin, but this post makes me want to keep trying.

And yeah, IQ is a bunch of bull. The concept of “intelligence” intersects interestingly with sexism, too, in that “rational, male” fields are privileged over “irrational, female” fields when determining intelligence. I am a physics major, and I am perceived to be more actually intelligent than my roommate, an english major. My field is Science and full of Smart People, and hers is just wishy-washy book-wanky crap that won’t do anything beyond landing her a job at McDonalds. Guess which is coded as male and which is coded as female?

By: kaninchenzero

kaninchenzero — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 14:17:07 +0000

you’re welcome, and thanks. unfortunately my source for the ringworm/Army IQ score correlation was Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man. my searches for other sources turned up only a journal article behind a paywall, “Early Twentieth-Century Biological Determinism and the Classification of Exceptional Students” by Steven Selden in Evaluation & Research in Education, Volume 8, Issues 1 & 2, 1994. (which info may or may not be helpful to you.)

but the quoted text in a google search on “army beta ringworm correlation” is tantalising.
kaninchenzero´s last [type] ..

By: Cynthia Armistead

Cynthia Armistead — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 04:08:59 +0000

I realize that you wrote it two years ago, but still – thank you so much for this post! I fell into reading the entire Ableist Word Profile series this evening, and as a result I’ve been reading parts of various posts out loud to the family. This one, though, had me seeing read and more emphatic than any of the others (so far).

I did a bit of googling, but can’t seem to find anything about the link between ringworm and IQ. I know this post is two years old, but would you mind sharing your source on that? I’d love to know more. I’ve requested a copy of Gould’s book from the library, but it can take some time for the things to arrive via the mailbox books program.

By: meep

meep — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:00:13 +0000

There is about a 50 point range in my IQ scores depending on what test you use. I went to one of those accelerated self-contained schools for 7 years that are supposed to be the Holy Grail of Exceptional Student Education. I performed pretty unevenly due to many issues related to ASD such as have been mentioned by others upthread. No one seemed to connect that to my dramatically uneven subscores.Even when I pointed out the discrepencies because I was struggling and didn’t understand why, I was mostly ignored and told to stop using this to hold myself back.
I definitely think the way we organize subjects says a lot about how we rank certain types of skills, how we determine what is “harder” and therefore requires more of this narrowly-defined intelligence. I tend to do very poorly with subjects that require spatial intelligence or lots of memorization without a logical framework. I think they should teach Geometry simultaneously with Algebra, Biology with Chemistry and Physics, so as not to make one type of subject a gatekeeper to a completely different subject. Get everyone exposed to evereything, provide help where needed and sometimes just let a subject go when necessary, maybe come back to it later but don’t let any subject become some sort of hurdle to letting the student pursue their interests. .
Just a random thought: the fact that most people score very consistently on subscores (except for one or two strengths or weaknesses) is used to justify the validity of an IQ score but I think that it might say more about testing ability being so influential to the scores if most people can score pretty similarly in a wide variety of content areas with exposure to different areas being variable.

By: Arrrrr

Arrrrr — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 03:26:11 +0000

Something that really bugs me about “intelligence” and IQ tests; they don’t take into account a persons empathy, their insight, their intuition, their differing ability to process different kinds of things (eg maths vs english), their different ability to learn in different ways, their retention of the knowledge they get, etc. I could go on for a while.

For example, I learn quickly in general, am generally good at “Getting it” when it comes to concepts, but my memory is SHOCKING, and I have a LOT of difficulty manipulating number-type stuff, and if I can’t write stuff down there’s no way I’ll get it.

Some people will find learning harder. Well, some people are born with red hair. It’s not some kind of fucking morality/personality flaw! (*yells inside head at a particular old highschool teacher*) Sometimes it’s not just because your student is lazy, doesn’t want to pay attention, or hates you, sometimes they are having trouble with your teaching style or this particular concept! But this is what people often assume.

I don’t know what it’s like, being looked down on for not learning things quickly enough. But I do know the frustrations of not being given an appropriate learning program (at least till my school finally relented and gradually accelerated me two years – oh, and they botched that, but lets not let my horrible bitterness at the education system seep through here). I got looked down on and taunted for different reasons, and probably not as badly. Still, I can sympathise. Intelligence is a horrible thing to be marginalised for – and worse, its perfectly acceptable to do so among most people.

By: hsofia

hsofia — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:12:36 +0000

Is this article saying that “intelligence” as a concept is a pretty recent (late 19th to early 20th century) concept? I would be really interested in finding more resources that look at the concept of intelligence in non US societies and further back in history.

By: Shiyiya

Shiyiya — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:02:11 +0000

if someone is being illogical, people will say “that person is stupid” and then if I correct them and say “neither intelligence or stupidity exist and neither do smart or stupid people” I will be told I’m “too PC” or whatever. I’m just hard pressed to find a replacement word when there is no replacement. There isn't a general replacement no, but depending on context there often is a better word - you said just there, someone being illogical, illogical would be the word to use! Just takes some work to figure out what you really mean. What I've been wondering is how valid it is to call an AI stupid, and if not what would be a better term. (Thinking of the NPC allies that fight with you in the flash game Sonny. The NPC allies who attack the SHIELDED enemies instead of the ones they can actually do damage on. Grr.) .-= Shiyiya´s last blog ..Letter from my Senator =-.

By: Christina

Christina — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:22:42 +0000

I don’t think you need to wonder- you’re reaching people one mind at a time, and I think you’ve been pretty successful judging from the comments here, even apart from the people who are too angry to take responsibility for their words. I think one of the hardest things is that a system is much less personal and palpable than a human being, but that’s who supports it, and that’s who can change it- individual human beings working together. Thank you for not giving up.

By: kaninchenzero

kaninchenzero — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:14:44 +0000

Yeah I get the politically correct thing too. Or that what I’m doing is worthy but idealistic and unrealistic and why bother? Which sometimes I wonder myself.

It’s a process, this working on internalized prejudices. I find I’m doing it constantly and there’s always more to do. I’m glad you found this useful.

By: Christina

Christina — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:04:10 +0000

I understand that, and thanks for responding. I guess it’s just harder for me because there is such a thing as people with learning disabilities, and you can point to them and say “here are people with learning disabilities”, rather than calling them “retarded.” But if someone is being illogical, people will say “that person is stupid” and then if I correct them and say “neither intelligence or stupidity exist and neither do smart or stupid people” I will be told I’m “too PC” or whatever. I’m just hard pressed to find a replacement word when there is no replacement. Just a concept and a system that must be torn down, replaced by appreciation for people’s varying patience/attention span in understanding certain things as opposed to others, or inclination/desire to understand them.

Anyway, thank you thank you for writing this post. I am trying to be more conscious of the habitual language and ideas I have of other people and this article was one of the really helpful ones. I linked back to it on my facebook as well.