Agylen

Regarding this debate over GWB's supposed low or high IQ, I agree with Doc:
all of this talk about IQ and standardized scores like SAT don't mean
shit. More: the whole concept of ranking human intelligence on a
linear, monodimensional and supposedly invariant scale is a load of
bullshit.

This is what Stephen Jay Gould wrote on the subject:

But ranking requires a criterion for assigning all individuals to their proper status in the single series. And what better criterion than an objective number? Thus, the common style embodying both fallacies of thought has been quantification, or the measurement of intelligence as a single number for each person. This book, then, is about the abstraction of intelligence as a single entity, its location within the brain, its quantification as one number for each individual, and the use of these numbers to rank people in a single series of worthiness, invariably to find that oppressed and disadvantaged groups — races, classes or sexes — are innately inferior and deserve their status. In short, this book is about the Mismeasure of Man.

Stephen Jay Gould, The Mismeasure of Man

(Originally posted on Sept. 29th, 2002)