In Our Time - Intelligence

Episode Date: July 1, 1999

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss a question that has stalked the twentieth century: Intelligence. Since the first IQ tests were invented in 1905, the question of what makes Homo Sapiens stupid and what makes him clever has involved human kind in sterilisation, racism and misery. How do we define intelligence, how do we measure it; what are its origins and how do we uncover it? But are we any closer to understanding what this elusive quality of intelligence is? The debate still rages as to whether we are born with it or whether intelligence is something we develop as we grow, and evidence for either camp seems to pile up almost daily. With Dr Ken Richardson, educational psychologist, former Senior Lecturer, Open University and author of The Making of Intelligence; Professor Michael Ruse Philosopher of Biology, University of Guelph, Ontario and author of Mystery of Mysteries: Is Evolution a Social Construction?

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, today we're looking at a question that, in the words of one of our contributors, has stalked the 20th century. Intelligence.

Since the first IQ tests were invented in 1905, the question of what makes Homo sapiens stupid and what makes him clever, has often involved humankind, racism, hubris and misery. But are we any closer to understanding what this elusive quality of intelligence is? The debate still rages as to whether we're born with it or whether intelligence is something we develop as we grow,

and evidence for both seems to pile up almost daily. Joining me today is the educational psychologist Dr. Ken Richardson, until recently he was senior lecturer at the Open University and is the author of Understanding Intelligence and The Origins of Human Potentially, and a new book called The Making of Intelligence. I'm also joined by Professor Michael Ruse of the University of Gulf, Ontario. He's a philosopher of biology and the author of Mystery of Mysteries.

Is evolution a social construction? Ken Richardson, how briefly, if that's possible, would you define intelligence? I see intelligence as the mental abstraction of the complex informational structure in the spheres of our activity. Take driving, for example, your decision to... overtake a vehicle in front isn't simply based on the association with your speed of approach to it. You've got to make decisions based on whether or not there's traffic coming in the opposite direction, and that depends on the length of a straight road ahead of you, and if there is something coming, you have to judge it speed and distance,

and also be aware of your own rate of acceleration and so on. So there's complex layers of information that have to be taken account of in making decisions of that kind. And in making that decision, of course, you're using the current information and attempting to match it against a mental representation or a kind of mental model built up from previous experience in that domain. Why do you think the subject, it's your phrase, stalk the 20th century, why do you think it has stalked the 20th century? It's been a question of deep controversy, an issue of deep controversy,

right from the beginning of the century really, and especially from the foundation of intelligence tests. The early IQ testers were using the tests to establish, if I can quote, the founder of the Anglo-American intelligence test, Lewis Termin, he said, we must preserve our state for a class of people worthy to possess it. That pretty much states what the intentions of his IQ test were. And it's that kind of implication of intelligence testing that's reverberated down the century and we still hear them today.

Michael Rousse, why do you think, it's been such a controversial subject. Well, has it been a controversial subject? It's certainly at one level it has. Incredibly controversial just recently in America with the book the Belker, for instance. Well, sure. And so have many other things being controversial, whether they be politics or these sorts of things.

Sure, but we're talking about intelligence. Yes, I know that. But first of all, I want to question whether it's always been that controversial. My suspicion is that a lot of people basically accept intelligence, except intelligence testing and are happy with it. And I'm wondering, Ken, whether somebody like you isn't a bit of, I won't say a fringe figure, but certainly a minority figure who is dissatisfied with it and trying to push the idea that we're all dissatisfied with it

or that this is a big thing which has been ongoing, etc., etc. Well, I think the debate is pretty evenly split in terms of numbers, and I don't think I'm that much of a fringe figure. As you know, I mean, intelligence tests were used in the 11 plus again, examination in this country for many years. And then they were dropped. And many people who have formerly been in favour of IQ tests have then turned against them. Do you think that the intelligence test, the IQ test, which refers to us in 1905,

Michael, do you think they tell us something concrete about the individual who is tested? Yes, my argument would be, or my feeling is that they do. I really do think that humans are intelligent. but I expect to find variation in intelligence, just as you find variation, say, in physical nature, in sports ability and all of these things. And Ken, you surely know from a biological point of view that variation is the name of the game. So if intelligence didn't have variation, it would have to be a very strange biological phenomenon. So I expect to find variation.

I think that there are big difficulties, as you point out, in measuring it, but I'm not sure that there are insuperable difficulties. But back to this measurement, which hasn't quite been answered, what do you think IQ measures that's important to be measured? Could you define that for it? I think IQ measures mathematical ability, linguistic ability, I mean, depending on the particular test which is being offered. And, of course, these days, there isn't necessarily just one test which is going to be offered. You're going to offer a battery of tests. What you're going to try to ferret out is maybe social abilities or things of this nature. And these can all be tested. I think they can, yes. I mean, for instance, last year, I've got a son who is in Canada, he's in a French immersion program. He's having a lot of trouble with reading. And so last year, we had him tested by educational psychologists like you can. And now, they didn't just give him, or the woman who administered it, didn't just

give us one test. I mean, what we did was what she did, where she tested for his mathematical ability, she tested his linguistic ability, when it was clear that he was having reading problems, She invoked a different kind of mathematical test, which was going to be non-verbal, and all of these things. So I really don't see, I mean, at one level, what the problem is. That's a fair point. If intelligence tests give as much as Michael has given an instance of in an anecdotal, but obviously accurate and widespread,

one imagines examples like that, if they're measuring those things, mathematical ability and linguistic ability, why do you seem to think that we would be better without them? Well, it's a question of what underlines the learning of the mathematical ability, linguistic ability or whatever, and this is where IQ testers themselves very much disagree. I mean, among most IQ testers, it's measuring some, in my view, rather mythical internal energy, which they call G, a kind of general psychological ability force, which they call G, it's entirely hypothetical, and even recent texts will tell you that they don't really know what it is. Now with IQ, we get a number, but we don't know what it actually signifies. But are you denying that, for instance, some people are better at math than others,

have more innate ability at it than others? Well, whether or not they have more innate ability than others, I don't know, because I don't know what you mean by that. I certainly agree that some people are better developed mathematically than others, and some are better developed linguistically than others. But here you're talking about special abilities. is language ability. You're not talking about intelligence as it's normally

conceived in the literature and in research as this thing, this underlying entity or force, which is what most people understand. You go much further than this, though, don't you can? In your book, The Making of Intelligence, you say that IQ tests should be banned. Now that's a long

way to go. Why do you suggest that? Well, they don't actually tell us anything. They don't actually add information to that which can be gleaned by, say, the average teacher. This has been shown in research. The average teacher, when asked, can predict future school attainments of all their pupils far more accurately than an IQ test. Why don't we just ask teachers? Michael Roos, you call yourself a genetic determinist. So you see intelligence as an innate,

inherited characteristic, do you? Yes, I think I do. I, I mean, innate inherited characteristic, But of course, don't forget, innate always means innate as it develops in environment. I mean, we're innately humans, for instance. I mean, we're innately of a certain size, but we all know perfectly well that if we're fed well when we're young, we're going to be taller than otherwise. So I don't think anybody is going to be determinist in the sense of saying one gene, one characteristic, or something like that. But you do think intelligence is something we're born with. Well, yes, but you see.

And the intelligence we have, we are born in. me into a corner, which I don't want to defend. No, no, you're trying to back me into a corner of saying, I believe that there is one thing like height or something like that, that, you know, we've either got or we've got on a certain scale. What I'm saying is I think that there are certain abilities that we have. I think that we vary in our innate capacities to develop these, but of course the environment's going to be important as well. But I'm just trying to, I'm not trying to back anybody into a corner. I'm just trying to understand it. I'm just trying to understand it. Do you think, intelligence in evolution has developed in human beings in the same way as for instance the eye has done? Absolutely, absolutely. Of course it has. And as I said,

the thing I would want to stress is the social area. I think that intelligence has evolved in humans because we are a highly social species and highly social species need adaptations in order to get on as social species, yes.

Over the last about four million years, our brain size has tripled. Do you think that intelligence has driven that? No, I don't think intelligence has driven that, but I think that intelligence is an adaptation which we have developed, thanks to natural selection. There had to be some reason for intelligence because big brains are expensive adaptations.

For instance, in order to maintain a brain, you need a fairly rich protein diet, for instance. So there had to be a good reason for it, and I think that the way that we've developed socially is the key. What about this? What's your reaction to the idea that intelligence is innate, that we're born with intelligence, that it's inherited characteristic and that it involves the same as the eye? Well, my position is that intelligence evolved to deal with highly changeable environmental circumstances. And this puts a different light on the notion of adaptation.

By definition, adaptation is adaptation to have fixed environmental structure to something that's consistent and durable. Now when organisms started to evolve into more complex environments, they needed a completely kind of regulatory system. One dealing with one that furnished adaptability, not just adaptiveness, and that intelligence takes off in evolution when with the expansion, the gradual expansion, through various levels of regulation of adaptability. and this, of course, reaches its highest point in human social interaction, which is constantly changing. Consider, for example, two humans helping each other to carry a wardrobe downstairs, something that no other species is capable of, which is commonplace in our species. The amount of data and the rate of change of input of that data

is something that we required our particularly large brains to deal with. and special social regulations to deal with. So it's change in adaptability that intelligence is for not fixed adaptedness. But do I disagree with this, Ken? You see, okay, change in adaptability. But you're conceding or you're allowing that humans have evolved with organs which enable them to be highly adaptable to deal with changing situations, whether they're social or environmental or both.

So why are you now then starting to pull back and saying yes, but don't ask me to test this or something like this? I say, for instance, that humans have clearly evolved to be bipedal to walk on two legs rather than four. I could surely test this if I'm an orthopedic surgeon or somebody interested in kinematics or something like this. But when it comes to intelligence, you want to say, no, go no further, this is not on. Now, why are you drawing, say, a distinction? I mean, humans walk on two legs, cats on four. That's a difference. That's innate. Some humans run faster than others.

But when it comes to intelligence, you want to pull back from testing, from measuring, and these things. And I think what you're doing is for good social reasons, but I'm not sure that good social reasons are enough. I don't pull back from measuring in principle. I simply stress that we need to know what we're measuring. Humans adapt to the world through cultural devices, and this is why we've managed to evolve historically, to change historically in the world so quickly, that when humans, as few as two humans, interact together around a task, they've also creating a new kind of environment, a social environment, which needs to be regulated. And by a process of joint negotiation, they develop rules, implicit rules. of others should negotiate together. You'll if to rock, you take one side, I'll take the other.

Those kinds of what I call cultural tools or cultural devices have become far more complex, of course, in the course of human history. So now they include not just simple hardware tools, but also things like computers and also the rules of social life. And all the principles through which economic production is organized on a national and international system. All those things are cultural tools. Now, we steeped in those cultural tools from

birth. They become the vehicles of our cognitive expression dictate the very form of our knowledge and of our forms of thinking. Now, that's why intelligence is so difficult to measure, because it's not simply a question of trying to strip away the cultural clothing to get the sort of naked intelligence underneath. The cultural clothing is the intelligence. But that still doesn't answer your question. Yeah, well, there's two things. I mean, I'm not, I mean, I agree that we're cultural, but I'm not so sure that we're that far from biology. I'm still obsessed with sex nonstop, whether it's biology or culture or whatever. So I'm just not sure that I'm that different from an animal in that respect. But even if you give culture the high position

that you want, I'm still not hearing from you arguments as to why it's impossible to try to measure not just necessarily one kind of intelligence, but intelligence generally. What it seems to me you're saying is these are terribly difficult problems, so let's not do it. You fear that there's an ideology under this, Michael, is that people are

afraid of where the evolutionary explanation for intelligence takes them, that it has taken some people into the area of saying that there are differences in intelligence between people of different coloured skin, between people who are culturally divided, as we all

Now, in the 19th century, Herbert Spencer wasn't alone in arguing that colonialism was justified because the more intelligent people were taking over the less intelligent people, and that keeps recurring. Now, in a sense, does your view of innate intelligence, I mean part of evolution, does that lead to that? I don't think it does at all. I was interested when you introduced the program. Intelligence was being presented as something which had caused all these problems, or intelligence testing.

Surely there's also the flip side to this. I think that intelligence testing has been used for good in this century. I mean, for instance, in the 1950s when I went to school, I was given opportunities that my great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were not given, who had to leave school at 14, who went straight into the regular army, who didn't go to grammar school, didn't go to university. And at one level, I'm very glad of intelligence tests.

I think that it did cause social changes which were for the good. But on the other side, the fact is that again and again again, this century, last century, in previous centuries, whole peoples were attacked and very often almost eliminated, or the attempt was made to him because it was confidently thought, and it was thought to be confidently provable, that they were of less intelligence. That has happened again and again.

Yes. And it's still happening. I mean, I'm not, well, it is. It is. It is. The book The Bell Curve by Murray and Harnstein, which sold massively in America and caused a controversy here and everywhere, actually posited the idea that black people in America scored lower on IQ tests, therefore they were of lower intelligence. So it's very much in the air at the end of this century. We know from the battles that are going on in Europe, actually, one of the battle cries are.

These Albanians are of lower intelligence. That is still a war cry. I mean, it's part of what's going on. I don't think we need be necessarily at the heart of this discussion, but you've brought it up and it is part of it. Ken Richison, what's your view of that? Well, yes, it's one of the reasons that the question of intelligence has stalked the century. I mean, it has had this effect on people and is indeed one of the ways in which racism in this century became institutionalized.

But, Ken, that's just not true. Racism was institutionalized long before this century came along. I said one of the ways. I said one of the ways. Yeah, well, people used intellectual. then to reconfirm their beliefs, their prejudices and these things. But the answer is not to say, let's ban them. The answer is to say, let's do it better to show that this is wrong.

I mean, in the 1930s, the Nazis used genetics to prove, you know, I'm putting quotes around it now, to prove that Jews were genetically inferior. Now, the way out of this was not to ban genetics, but was to do genetics properly so that today anybody who says that Jews are inferior because of their genes, is not just morally wrong, they're scientifically ludicrous. Now, what I'm saying to you is, surely the answer is not to put your head in the sand and say ban intelligence tests, et cetera, et cetera, the answer is to say, let's do it better, let's show that the bell curve or these other things

are just completely wrong, and that's what people have done. What I'm saying, Michael, is not to ban measurement in principle. What I'm saying is to ban measurement when we don't know what's, the measurement is actually measuring. We still can't say when you get a score of 115 with one person, a score of 95 with another person, what the differences are actually differences in? I think that's where the priority should lie

in actually elucidating the nature of the cognitive system. But don't you think you're fighting? Now, you're fighting yesterday's battles. You yourself have said the 11 plus has gone in the old form and these things. If you were making this argument in the 1950s, I'd have a lot more sympathy for what you're saying. But as we go into the year 2000, it's a lot more subtle than it used to be. Well, I agree that individual education psychologists are rather more subtle than simply taking a bald,

administering a test and then taking a bold score as the basis of their decisions. But the point is that when they get that score, they still don't know what it means. That's what I think is wrong. And that's what I think leads to a lot of mischief. For example, one of the greatest puzzles to IQ-10. testers at the present time is why IQ scores have increased relentlessly over the last 20, 30 years in countries where IQ testing has gone on, in some cases by as much as 15 percentage points. This shouldn't happen with an innate intelligence potential.

Why? Why? Why? The answer is that the intelligence tests are actually measures of social class affiliation, basically middle class social affiliation. a minute. There's been a very large increase in the middle class over the last 20, 30 years. No, hang on a minute. So more people are educated in such a way that it makes them better able to

pass the tests, like that remarked by boring that intelligent tests, they test people's ability to pass intelligence tests and nothing else. Well, yes, I mean people are moving into middle class cultures. They're reading more, they're becoming more literates, and they're generally becoming... It doesn't market intelligence, because there

Let's go back to what you said, much. There are many, many different sorts of intelligence. You could get, if you've played any games when you were young, you know the quite incredible speed of intelligence of some footballers or progrip players, whichever you want to say, and yet, whichever example you wish to choose, and the way they can pass, get trap, direct a ball, which I think employs a massive intelligence,

but perhaps ask questions about triangles and rectangles and so on, they wouldn't do particularly well. So I think that in that sense, the intelligence sets that we've been talking about do have had, I agree with Kenya, have had a very specific brief, and I think they've had a specific purpose. It's mainly as Plato from Plato

as the idea was, to use them to cream off those who would be the rulers. Or to spot those who've got the potential to be the rulers. Doesn't that in itself? Well, I think that's the problem. Why is it a problem? I'd rather be ruled by somebody of intelligence than somebody who's stupid. They are not...

People are often nicer than people are intelligent people. I don't necessarily want to be ruled by somebody who's nice. I do. I want to be ruled by somebody. No, neither to say one. But you're mistaken in suggesting that an intelligence test is actually identifying potential. Can I just move it to a different direction here? Now, Michael Rousse, do you think that intelligence has a basis in human physicality?

And if so, what are the most important factors? We've heard recently Einstein's brain, as occasion, some discussion because of its largest size, unusual physical attributes which you know more about than me, which seem, it has been suggested, look, this shows that a person of enormous intelligence and particular intelligence of Einstein

was assisted to this. It was because he had a brain like this. Now, is that just, how do you receive that information? I think that any biologist would expect that there's going to be some correlation somewhere, somehow. But what the physical basis is, I think is an area that we're really now starting to open up.

Just as, for instance, the physical basis, say, of things like sexuality and sexual orientation. We're now starting to realize that the hypothalamus is very significant here when it comes to, say, sexual orientation. And there really do seem to be differences between straits and gays and men and women over these things. But it's only in the last 20 or 30 years, even less than that, we're really starting to get a grasp on this. And so I don't think anybody...

Go on. You think that there will come a time where it will be possible to describe a part of the brain or the way the brain works as that part or that combination equals intelligence? I think it's certainly possible that that will happen, whether that's the most profitable thing for us to do it. At this point, I question. Whether I want to put a lot of grant money into it, I question. I certainly don't want to ban it like Ken does.

Oh, I don't want to ban anything scientific, Michael. You keep insisting I'm trying to ban things. All I'm trying to ban is pseudoscience. Now, there's a lot of december. delving about in the brain at the moment and there are claims about this or that region being associated with this or that deficit or enhancement in IQ. But basically there's still very little understanding about what this huge brain of ours is for. I mean there's huge cortex that we have, 85% of our brains that's tripled in size over a very short period of time. In my view,

it's there to support our social intelligence and most of the brain functions necessary to do that arise in interactions between brain parts. You won't find intelligence in any particular part of the brain. I'm fairly sure about that. The trouble is, Ken, every time I try to pin you down, you start to sound so reasonable. I mean, you say you just want to ban pseudoscience,

but what is pseudoscience? I mean, evolution 200 years ago was pseudoscience. Do you want to ban that? No, of course you don't. Do you want to ban work on intelligence? Apparently not. What you want to ban then is things that are people still using these things? Things that people used in the 1950s that by your own admission we moved on from, yet you want to ban them. Melvin quoted me as saying that I wanted to ban IQ test. That's what I want to ban, period, nothing else. In your opinion, Michael, can someone's intelligence, as opposed to their knowledge, can it be increased in their lifetime? Can it be increased in their lifetime? I don't see any reason why

training and education and these things. After all, I'm in education. That's my job. I think that certainly one can increase the abilities. One can develop what I think is in innate capacity. But of course, innate capacities are things that you're born with. Ken, what about you? Well, I question right at the beginning the notion of innate capacity. It's the notion that we have complex intellectual functions encoded in genes. I mean, just doesn't make sense, but that's a long story. Intelligence, especially human intelligence, is a

developmental phenomenon. Paraxal lawns, and yes, of course, it can be developed. Given that it doesn't seem to be no longer so important for our survival, do you think, or reproduction, do you think intelligence has stopped evolving?

I think that intelligence is very important for survival and reproduction. It seems to me that intelligence is something that we're using all the time in our social interactions, in our relationships with our parents and with our spouses or our partners or whatever. So, yes, I mean, I certainly think it's very important. Is intelligence still evolving? Are humans still evolving? Well, they are in some respects.

But if you say, are we now subject to natural selection in such a way that it's really going on and making a lot of difference in this way, I'm not sure. I suspect it is in certain parts of the world where culture is a lot less effective whether it's still evolving in England or Canada I think is an open question I suspect it might be I'm doing pretty well I've got lots of kids

Our current species arrived on this earth About 100,000 years ago The spectacular change that's happened in the species And in the species' abilities Over that period of time It's happened without any biological change whatsoever I mean this is because you Because human intelligence goes on at a completely different level, a sociocultural level.

We don't have, for example, the epigenetic biological regulations that give us wings, yet we can fly better than any birds. We have a very limited range of visions, sensitivities to limited range of wavelengths. The same applies to our hearing. Yet we can see and hear far beyond those biological constraints. because our intelligence goes on a different plane. Thank you very much. Thank you Professor Michael Ruse, and thank you, Dr Ken Richardson. And thank you for listening.

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