'general intelligence'

[harder at COCO.IHI.KU.DK]

Dear Funknetters, with special reference to Ramin Akbari:

A cautionary remark, provoked by the issues involving the concept of
intelligence raised by Ramin Akbari:

Over Christmas I (belatedly) read 'The Mismeasure of Man' by Steven J.
Gould, which I think should be compulsory reading for any academic who uses
the word 'intelligence' in a professional context. The main point of the
book is to do with the sad history of (pseudo-)scientific racism, but
perhaps more fundamental in a scientific context is its meticulous
discussion of a fallacy that has plagued discussions on intelligence
throughout the history of the concept. The fallacy is a form of
reification, in which the investigator goes from a serious of (possibly
subtle, interesting and scientifically valid) measurements to the inference
that there is a single (immutable as well as hereditary) aspect of reality
underlying the measurements. Before nominating 'intelligence' as one of
four basic concepts characterizing human individuals, one should take the
rather scary history of the concept into consideration. The point is NOT
that there is no reality to intelligence, but rather that there is so much
complex reality to it that it would be extremely dangerous to start off
with it, thus taking for granted that we know what it is (even if
short-term memory or 'band width' offers interesting perspectives). An
analogy: we would probably feel that it is possible as well as (for some
purposes) intersting to offer a general evaluation of someone's 'physical
fitness' or 'health' or 'sense of humour' - but few of us would take the
step to saying that any of these was a monolithic basic property of an
individual. This, however, has been the standard assumption for
intelligence.  --Peter Harder