NYT's Nick Kristol weighs in to the debate about I.Q. and success in the world. He seems to think that it is not that important and cites the work of Dr. Richard Nisbett.

“I think the evidence is very good that there is no genetic contribution to the black-white difference on I.Q.,” he said, adding that there also seems to be no genetic difference in intelligence between whites and Asians."

Kristol cites "education, education and education" as being imperative and
the success stories of three different ethnic groups in America and then comes the clincher.

What’s the policy lesson from these three success stories?

It’s that the most decisive weapons in the war on poverty aren’t transfer payments but education, education, education. For at-risk households, that starts with social workers making visits to encourage such basic practices as talking to children. One study found that a child of professionals (disproportionately white) has heard about 30 million words spoken by age 3; a black child raised on welfare has heard only 10 million words, leaving that child at a disadvantage in school.

Yikes. Just what America's poor need, a new army of social workers. They'll help just by "talking" to them.

The next step is intensive early childhood programs, followed by improved elementary and high schools, and programs to defray college costs.

Haven't we been trying to "improve" our schools for several decades now, by spending billions more money on teachers. And yet, educational achievement and competence is still lousy. Oh well, as long as we "help defray college" costs.

More important than I.Q. says Nisbett, is "drive and perservance." But how does he know the two are very much connected? No doubt there are some lazy intelligent people, but aren't some dumb ones lazy too?

The I.Q. debate has cooled since the appearance of Richard Hernstein and Charles Murray's "The Bell Curve," which didn't shrink from the differences in I.Q. between racial and ethnic groups. The book was met with hysteria from the left because it recognized the inheritability of intelligence. Whether this is genetic or familial and cultural remains something of open question.

But the stubborn fact remains that certain ethnic groups get lower scores I.Q. tests than others. The response to this fact, should be "so what?" Standard deviation should tell "smart" people that there is no knowing how smart or stupid a person without testing them INDIVIDUALLY. That is to say, everyone should be judged on their OWN merits.

The idea that an army of social workers forcing their way into people's homes or spending trillions on urban school districts will equalized group I.Q. differences is, dare I say, idiotic.

Better to take the approach Charles Murray recommends, that even those on the lower end of the I.Q. scale can have "a valued place" in our society. Anyone who has the "drive and perserverance" to show up for work day in and day out deserves our respect. Those who have high I.Q.s and sit on their asses, expecting to be treated like royalty, don't.