The Catholic Message Board

Can the ability to learn be improved upon through practice and diligence, can it be diminished by neglect, or is it merely genetics, fatalism...?

I think it's like any other kind of "talent," where there are likely different levels of potential to begin with, but what really matters to performance is what you do with it. Thinking clearly and well involves some basic natural capacities which people have in varying degrees; but it also involves skills which must be learned and practiced. If you don't do anything with your capacities, you may be naturally gifted to such a point that you still seem "smarter" than many other people, but you've still left most of your endowment lying dormant. It's the same with musicianship, or with a sport, or with a skill like woodworking, or whatever.

I brought this up based on this video...

https://youtu.be/5vBLFchXCGY?si=cu568S93KrV4Mxcn

I haven't read Murray, but it's certainly possible that "IQ"--in the sense of innate capacities--is distributed in some sense unevenly along racial lines, so that some groups would tend to have higher beginning levels than others. Of course, IQ tests don't test for innate capacities, but rather developed capacities, so they wouldn't seem to show this. It seems like they'd be more likely to show cultural influences, so that if one race tended to be less educated than another for social reasons (poverty, oppression, whatever), the tests would reflect that. I don't know what Murray says about all this.

Not sure why the video prompted your particular question so I can't answer to that. It was a very informative video though. He was unfairly targeted by activists at the beginning of the video who probably hadn't read or listened to his arguments.

I thought he had good points to contribute to the discussion about how civilisation should progress.

His acknowledgement of elitist bias was spot on. That was from the 17 minute to 18.21 minute mark.

His explanation of how Trump got elected was quite enlightening. 47 minute to 49.05 mark.

Also his explanation of why old American white guys are so grumpy was interesting. The 58.10 mark.

I'm too old and tired to read his books but I'll definitely keep track of Charles Murrays contributions to the discussion from now on.

I'll continue watching the video later, but standard IQ tests, like S-B, measure what you have learned, not how well you learn.

Oh, I thought it tested one's ability to learn...

ProZak wrote: ↑Thu Mar 21, 2024 10:39 am Oh, I thought it tested one's ability to learn...

Binet himself did not believe that he was measuring inborn or permanent levels of intelligence; he believed that one’s IQ score could vary from time to time. He also believed that intelligence could not be defined by a single number; the ranking of children using such a scale was unfair.

The test was originally designed to measure whether or not he or she was gifted. It has changed over the years.