STERNBERG'S "TRIARCHIC" THEORY OF INTELLIGENCE

Although I am a psychometrician by trade, my specialty is the measurement of attitudes and personality rather than the measurement of ability so I don't regularly follow the academic literature on IQ. I have been doing a bit of catch-up reading lately, however, and continue to be amazed at the gyrations Leftist psychologists go through in order to reach ideologically acceptable conclusions. One of the people best known for disparaging the importance of IQ (general problem-solving ability) is Robert Sternberg. He acknowledges the reality of IQ but says it is only one of three types of important mental functioning that can be measured.

But the other two he puts forward are pretty desperate proposals. The second one he himself summarizes as "street smarts" so is nothing more than knowledge of a particular culture or environment -- and nobody has ever disputed that you need both intelligence and knowledge to solve problems well. So while knowledge is important, to refer to it as an "ability" is evasive. And his third alternative is creativity -- which again seems reasonable at first. The problem with creativity, however, is that there appears to be no such thing. Different indices of creativity often fail to correlate with one another. You can be creative in one field and not in another. I myself, for instance, am highly creative at scientific writing or I would not have 250+ academic papers in print -- but I would not be able to write a novel for nuts. So although problem-solving ability is demonstrably general -- which is why we have the concept of IQ -- creativity is not. So Sternberg is still left with IQ as the single useful generalization about abilities.

And the criticisms of his work simply seem to have driven Sternberg to retreat further and further into dishonesty. He simply ignores whole bodies of data -- including things he had acknowledged in his own earlier work -- as Linda Gottfredson (PDF) points out.

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FROM BROOKES NEWS

Iran's role in the recent uprising in Iraq Iraq uprising planned and funded by Tehran's murderous Mullahs who have put al-Sadr on their payroll.
"My Battalion is Right in the Middle of Sadr's Challenge" Iraq is not the disaster bad news that you are seeing on CNN and other networks.
How the left debased the 9-11 tragedy and turned it into a Bush-bashing media carnival Not content with politicizing the deaths of their own loved ones, these people had the gross indecency to try and politicise the deaths of others whose closest relatives are still grieving.
No Excuse This Time Around It's so bad it's almost impossible for any speaker who is Jewish or from Israel to speak on campus. The Arab coalition and their clueless, Jew-hating supporters are strong and the universities have been greatly weakened by the politically correct dribble that is being taught to the students there.
A socialist journalist bags laissez faire and tax cuts Defending the free market from a journalist's vicious libels.

Details here

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ELSEWHERE

Under the heading "The wimps of war" Dick McDonald points out in his latest posting that those who blame GWB for lack of foresight about Iraq were themselves spectacularly wrong in their predictions about Iraq.

Energy bill illusions: "Why must the government establish a 'coherent energy policy?' Generally, we've left decisions about energy investments to private investors. Five- or ten-year economic plans are traditionally the stuff of Russian Politburos, not American presidents. It's amazing to hear Republican politicians argue that, absent some guidance from Washington, businessmen will blindly stumble through the marketplace, unable to intelligently invest in the energy sector absent some sort of congressional blueprint. It's also insulting to one's intelligence to hear politicians claim that, absent political interference in the marketplace, consumers will not have the faintest idea how to conserve energy or even be aware of the benefits of doing so in the face of high prices."

Leftists think they are superior beings: "Will Hutton, Britain's foremost critic of capitalism and an outspoken advocate for affordable social housing, is married to a property developer who has made a fortune out of selling and renting inner-city properties, often at rates which local council housing officers describe as exorbitant."

I have just put up here Chris Brand's most recent postings -- on sex differences, Leftist universities, Muslims, Femiloons and a BIG climbdown from Leftist theory by British teachers. Teachers don't like enforced equality when it puts them out personally.

The wicked one has some Irish jokes. Get them while they are still legal.

My recipe for today is for Korma -- a classic Indian curry. See here.

For more postings, see GREENIE WATCH and POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH

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The Left have always wanted more spent on welfare and made "Fascism" a swear-word. President Bush deposed a brutal Fascist dictator and sponsored a big expansion of welfare. But instead of being admired by the Left, he is hated with a passion. What does that tell you about the Left? It tells you that they have no principles at all: That everything they have ever claimed to stand for is fake.

America is engaged in a titanic struggle with hate. The American Left hate America, much of Europe hates America and, most of all, the Islamic fundamentalists hate America. Fortunately America is -- in every sense -- the world's strongest country.

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