Much is also made of what IQ tests measure, and whether they measure anything important. Surely they measure the brains necessary to compete effectively in a modern society.
They also line up well with many other things.
The lower the IQ, the more likely the person is to do stupid things - go to jail or prison, commit crimes or lots of crimes, have kids out of wedlock or as a teenager, parent multiple children by multiple partners, be a lousy parent to your child if you're female or refuse to support the kid if you're male, go on welfare, engage in domestic violence, have poor to low morals, join a street gang, shoot someone or get shot, refuse to plan for the future, drink or take drugs, die young, never go to the doctor, engage in extremely risky behaviors, fall victim to injurious or life-threatening accidents, refuse to engage in healthy behaviors such as eating properly and exercising, etc.
The lower the IQ, the stupider humans tend to act. The higher the IQ, the smarter humans tend to behave. These differences are most marked in a modern industrial capitalist urban society, and may not be so relevant in a tribal or village culture with strict behavioral norms.
Studies in prisons confirm that prisoners have lower IQ's than the norm. In particular, they tend to have lower verbal IQ, while their performance IQ may be normal. This performance IQ > verbal IQ pattern is also seen in sociopaths.
These correlations hold across races, at least for Whites, Amerindians, Polynesians, Hispanics and Blacks (I'm not sure about Asians). It's not just a Black thing.
Holding IQ constant, the Black violent crime rate does not differ dramatically from the White rate (Gordon 1987). This is one reason I strongly support efforts to raise Black IQ.
IQ is meaningful. If you meet someone with an 80 IQ, they won't come across as a rocket scientist. If you meet someone with a 140+ IQ (like all of my siblings and my mother), they won't come across as retarded or slow.
If IQ were the fallacious, nonsensical and worthless measure the Cultural Left says it is, we would regularly meet 150 IQ people who were dumb as rocks, and the universities would be crawling with 80 IQ Phi Beta Kappas.
That doesn't happen.
References
- R. A. Gordon 1987. SES versus IQ in the race-IQ-delinquency model. International Journal of Sociology & Social Policy 7:30-96
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