science

The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy

The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy rather than just read about it. In short: The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy is a book published by Smith College professor emeritus Stanley Rothman and Harvard researcher Mark Snyderman in 1988. Claiming to document liberal bias in media coverage of scientific findings regarding intelligence quotient (IQ), the book builds on a survey of the opinions of hundreds of North American psychologists, sociologists and educationalists conducted by the…

Key takeaways

The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy is a book published by Smith College professor emeritus Stanley Rothman and Harvard researcher Mark Snyderman in 1988. Claiming to document liberal bias in media coverage of scientific findings regarding intelligence quotient (IQ), the book builds on a survey of the opinions of hundreds of North American psychologists, sociologists and educationalists conducted by the authors in 1984. The book also includes an analysis of the reporting on intelligence testing by the press and television in the US for the period 1969–1983, as well as an opinion poll of 207 journalists and 86 science editors about IQ testing.

Introduction Snyderman and Rothman originally conducted their survey in 1984 because they felt that intelligence testing had been portrayed in the media as being in direct opposition to egalitarianism. They described the IQ controversy in terms of two conflicting sets of values in the US: egalitarianism, favouring equal opportunity, and meritocracy, favouring individual differences. In the 1960s, in the light of the civil rights movement, an environmental view of intelligence differences, de-emphasizing heritability, had become prevalent. In their view equality of opportunity had been transformed to mean equality of outcome, to the detriment of more able individuals. As they wrote:

The danger inherent in egalitarianism is that a philosophy of human rights may be extrapolated into a theory of human nature. That individuals should be treated equally does not mean that all individuals are equal. Whether as a result of accidents of birth and environment, or through strength of will, people differ in abilities of all sorts. As a consequence, they wrote that attitudes to intelligence testing had changed:

Intelligence and aptitude tests have fallen into disfavor among the literate public, as have attempts to define intelligence. However intelligence is defined, the suggestion that individual differences in intelligence, like individual capacities for painting or composing, may have a genetic component has become anathema. Snyderman and Rothman claimed that the media had misrepresented the views of experts, so that the public now believed that it was impossible to define intelligence, that IQ or aptitude tests were outmoded and that environmentalism and hereditarianism were incompatible points of view. As they wrote:

Most significantly, the literate and informed public today is persuaded that the majority of experts in the field believe it is impossible to adequately define intelligence, that intelligence tests do not measure anything that is relevant to life performance... It appears from book reviews in popular journals and from newspaper and television coverage of IQ issues that such are the views of the vast majority of experts who study questions of intelligence and intelligence testing. The purpose of their survey was to challenge what they considered to be the media's portrayal of intelligence testing. Their study had three parts:

A questionnaire with 48 multiple choice questions sent to 1020 academics in 1984 (661 replies), reported in Snyderman & Rothman (1987) An analysis of all coverage of issues related to intelligence tests in major US print and television news sources (1969–1983) conducted by 9 trained graduate students An opinion poll of 207 journalists concerning their attitudes to intelligence and aptitude tests (119 replies); 86 editors of popular science magazines were also polled (50 replies) The 1020 experts were chosen randomly from the following professional bodies:

American Educational Research Association (120) National Council on Measurement in Education (120) American Psychological Association: Development psychology division (120) Educational psychology division (120) Evaluation and Measurement division (120) School psychology division (120) Counseling psychology division (60) Industrial and organizational psychology division (60) Behavior Genetics Association (60) American Sociological Association (education) (60) Cognitive Science Society (60) The 16 page questionnaire had 48 multiple choice questions spread over 6 different sections:

The nature of intelligence (1-10) The heritability of intelligence (11-14) Race, class and cultural differences in IQ (15-23) The use of intelligence testing (24-33) Professional activities and involvement with intelligence testing (34-40) Personal and social background (41-48)

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy

In research: The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1988 non-fiction books, Books about human intelligence, Books about media bias, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy in simple terms?

Why does The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on The IQ Controversy, the Media and Public Policy.