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I know what TM’s general view is on this and the logic that tends to sit behind it and in one sense I’m with them, but we differ in how we interpret the science on this (IQ). I’m quite the strong hereditarian myself but people vastly overemphasize its importance relative to other effect sizes.
They [almost] tend to think IQ has a causal direct link to some kind of meritocracy in the way they think about it. And I don’t like how they treat the matter in reference to other populations, because then everything goes haywire and becomes a shouting match.
Here’s where TM and I agree. Yes to two points:
Success requires mental ability.
Social rewards are often linked to this success.
But here’s where it makes implicit assumptions that are highly contentious. First it assumes people only labor for material gain. Human beings don’t solely labor for extrinsic reward and the corollary of that assumption is to assume that if human beings didn’t, the mass of them would simply sit around and vegetate. If I could make more money working at a call center than I do with my current employer, I still would not partake of that arrangement due to other factors at play. And in fact I’m prepared to abandon my present vocation for a less satisfying and more demanding job because of the way in which it aligns my priorities with family life.
And how do we rank IQ and merit in this sense? Along what axes? Is a call center clerk of less social value than an NBA player or a software engineer? Why do any of these racial or phenotypic distinctions matter except under the assumption that we’d want to live in a racist society. In the current paradigm it has about as much importance as height does (which is to say it’s not irrelevant at all, but it isn’t at the forefront of policy decisions in such regard). IQ in this sense is mostly irrelevant for the state of an individual to want to be what he is and pursue what he chooses for himself.
This brings to mind Bill Burr's joke (responding to claims that commentators over-index on black sportsmen's athleticism compared to whites and not their intelligence):
It doesn't matter if you don't labour for material gain. You have or don't have the advantages you have. If there's two groups of people competing for the few jobs studying 14th century Buddhist mandalas the ones with the higher IQ probably have an advantage.
No, the argument would be that almost everyone has to work because most of us don't have nest eggs and our economy doesn't favor the people who drew the short straw cognitively (who knows, maybe AI will flip this). And people naturally resent this.
Ah yes, the old "who's to say?" I think this is the fat acceptance of intelligence discourse.
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