From IQ Fetish to Virtue Culture Creation

We need a new vision for competitive human excellence

Insofar as some elites suffer from an IQ fetish, I’d like them to move towards a focus on creating educational communities dedicated to the creation of virtue cultures instead.

Human flourishing is all that matters. If what we are focused on does not ultimately improve the human condition, I’m not interested. As parents, we want our children, grandchildren, and descendants to flourish. For those of us who care about the rest of humanity, I apply a similar standard: Will this lead to widespread human flourishing?

My focus on entrepreneurial solutions has led me to emphasize two broad categories of solutions which have the greatest potential to improve the human condition:

1. New jurisdictions to create widespread prosperity.

2. New subcultures via education and community to enhance flourishing after we achieve prosperity.

While both high human IQ and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) may certainly contribute to these goals, there is no guarantee whatsoever that IQ nor intelligence on its own will contribute to human flourishing generally, nor to these goals in particular.

The Marxist episode, wherein most of academia has been sympathetic to Marxism, the most successfully murderous ideology in history, for a century now, should disabuse us of human intelligence as a sufficient foundation for ensuring human flourishing. If one wants the comedy version after the tragedy of Marxism, one could look either to the woke madness of the past decade, or the “rationalist” communities’ “long-termism” leading to SBF. No, thank you.

And while I’m not an AGI doomer, on a banal level AI could simply amplify existing pernicious influences - Garbage In, Garbage Out (GIGO) at an ever accelerating pace. Maybe we get astonishing new drug discoveries plus an ever greater percentage of the population addicted to AI slop?

Data geeks often believe that the ability to digest and analyze arbitrarily large amounts of data will lead to significantly better solutions to human problems. Pattern matching! But if key data are currently invisible and ungathered, illegible to digital systems, why should we believe it will become visible to systems trained primarily on digital content? My favorite example here is my hypothesis that, due to addressing evolutionary mismatch issues, microschools will see lower rates of adolescent mental illness - but insofar as we don’t gather this information, it is invisible to anyone limited to gathering prior-existing data.

Thus insofar as there is a propensity for anyone to be focused on “intelligence” per se, I quickly lose interest. If we are not focused on human flourishing, we are playing the wrong game.

An Example of the IQ Fetish in Education

A friend recently sent me Douglas Detterman’s 2016 article, “Education and Intelligence: Pity the Poor Teacher because Student Characteristics are More Significant than Teachers or Schools.” From the abstract:

“Over the last 50 years in developed countries, evidence has accumulated that only about 10% of school achievement can be attributed to schools and teachers while the remaining 90% is due to characteristics associated with students. Teachers account for from 1% to 7% of total variance at every level of education. For students, intelligence accounts for much of the 90% of variance associated with learning gains.”

I’m reminded of Edward Gibbon’s 1776 quip in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,

“But the power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy, except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.”

Which struck me as apt then just as now. Of course teaching those who do not want to learn is mostly a waste of time. I’m always surprised that this isn’t more obvious to everyone.

That said, I don’t find Detterman to be a reliable narrator. Most annoying is his summary of a study of 10,500 Swedish twins which found that

“ . . . once all genetic and shared environmental factors were controlled for, the association between music practice and ability disappeared—in other words, the twin who trained more did not possess better music abilities. This was despite the fact that some intrapair differences between twins were as great as 20,228 hr —a practice amount considerably higher than that reported for many highly skilled experts, including musicians.”

What? Deliberate practice makes no difference with respect to music abilities?

It turns out that of course those who engage in extensive practice are much better at performing music than those who don’t. What the study found is simply that with respect to the ability to perceive differences in tones, rhythms, and melodies, practice did not make a difference - the ability to perceive music with a certain acuity seems to be hard-wired. Moreover, not surprisingly, those with more ability are more likely to practice. But it remains true that practice leads to superior performance and, again not surprisingly, the brains of those who have practiced extensively are different than those who have not:

Furthermore, several imaging studies—some with longitudinal designs—have suggested that music practice as well as other forms of long-term deliberate practice induce plastic changes in the involved brain regions (e.g., Bengtsson et al., 2005). However, music abilities measured here can presumably be regarded as more general sensory capacities used to process musically relevant auditory information. In contrast, the skills that improve from playing an instrument may be more domain specific, involving the acquisition of instrument-specific sequential motor skills, score reading, and memorization. It is likely that the observed effects of music practice on the brain predominantly reflect the development of such specific skills, rather than the improvement of a general ear for music.

When I read this information in the original paper, I felt misled by Detterman. Ok, so practice does not improve one’s ear for music, but it DOES transform everything related to actually playing music. Yet he summarizes this by claiming that there is no impact of music practice on music ability? One twin can play exquisite music through years of training and the other can’t play any music at all. Yet because their ability to hear tones is similar, we conclude that there is no impact of music practice on music ability? WHAT?

He is explicitly using the apparent genetic foundation of the ability to perceive musical tones as an analogue to what he regards as the genetic foundation of IQ (He is founder and editor-in-chief of Intelligence from 1977-2016). But then to ignore the vast and obvious difference in deliberate practice in music and the ability to play music is to ignore the potential for deliberate practice in education and various outcomes.

Yes, teaching in compulsory public schooling has little impact. But it is a VERY different claim to suggest that deliberate practice has no impact. Kids who are forced to learn things they don’t want to learn don’t learn very much. A human being (at any age) who is highly motivated to develop personal skills can achieve extraordinary things.

Is Education about Teaching?

The other stunning remark by Detterman is this,

Perhaps the best argument for why we have ignored what is most important for understanding educational achievement is that education has not changed for as long as there has been formal education. Historically, the greatest educational innovations have been the printed book and the blackboard. This is a sad commentary on education but entirely true. If Plato or Aristotle walked into any classroom in any school, college, or university they would know exactly what was going on and could probably take over teaching the class (assuming they had a translator).

Clearly he regards education as a matter of “teaching” to such an extent that he can’t even imagine an alternative.

Yet for the roughly 800 years of classical Paideia, from the time of Plato to the fall of Rome, moral formation through embedding the child in a culture focused on exalting moral ideals was the primary purpose of education. In the original Greek version, training in music and athletics were co-equal with a limited academic education, which included basic reading, writing and math, along with reciting poetry and philosophical disputation. Very little of this was “taught” in the sense intended by Detterman. Indeed, scholars typically see Plato’s dialogic style as a model for his pedagogy.

A scholar of Greek antiquity describes the fundamental purpose of education in antiquity:

The philosophers aimed to create good men through technical discussions of philosophical questions on a broad range of subjects. The aim of education was the betterment, and nurturing, of human souls, through a life of contemplation. This is achieved in a community of like-minded souls, who have the time and resources to devote themselves to contemplation. Students learn not a curriculum, but they learn to be like Socrates and like Plato. They learn wisdom through keeping company with the wise.

Because Detterman assumes that teaching for content transmission has always been the goal of education, he has misunderstood the original goal and method of education in antiquity. He therefore incorrectly assumed that “education has not changed for as long as there has been formal education.”

Detterman’s focus on “Education and Intelligence” reflects a common contemporary focus on “education” as “teaching academic skills” and his article shows that student intelligence is much more important than are teachers or schools (given that framing of what education is). Insofar as mainstream policy discussions have been focused on the presumed role of schooling in teaching academic skills, he is addressing a mainstream understanding.

Yes, schools and teachers are not very effective at teaching academic skills. Student characteristics matter more than do school or teacher characteristics - IF one believes that education is primarily about teaching academic skills. On the other hand, if education is primarily about enculturation, embedding a young person in a set of cultural norms designed to direct them to human excellence, then it may be profoundly impactful. My favorite example is the fact that Utah has the highest rates of social mobility in the US despite having the lowest per capita education spending - hello, Mormonism is much more effective at producing social mobility than is schooling. (For links to some of the academic literature pointing greater malleability in character than IQ, see Rob Henderson, “Improving Character is Easier than Improving IQ.”)

Moreover, at the end of the day, human flourishing is what matters, either individually or collectively. And character virtues support human flourishing (see Plato, Aristotle, and positive psychology).

The IQ Fetish as a Temporary Distortion Due to the Failure of Public Education

For the past 50 years, improving educational performance, as reflected in test scores, has been the dominant thrust of education policy for decades. From the 1980s’ “A Nation at Risk” under Reagan to GW Bush’s “Leave No Child Behind,” the game has been about improving test scores.

With respect to college admissions, bitter disputes about “affirmative action”, whereby lower scoring minorities—including black and Hispanics—would be given boosts over higher scoring whites and Asians.

The failure of immense expenditures and countless waves of reform in public education, combined with the failure to bring average scores of black and Hispanic students up to the levels of white and Asian students, has now energized generations of intellectuals to document the importance of IQ with respect to educational outcomes. Detterman is part of this long tradition.

Insofar as they have been fighting egregious falsehoods (i.e., that IQ doesn’t matter) and injustices (i.e., that higher scoring Asian students are rejected at selective universities while seats are given to much lower scoring blacks), their battles have been necessary. They would say that insofar as coalitions against discussing IQ in education and support for affirmative action in college admissions are still in place, their efforts continue to be essential. Yes, this is true.

At the same time, some from this tribe veer off into what strikes me as an IQ fetish when they focus on IQ as the only human variable that matters. To his credit, when I posted about the “IQ Fetish” on Twitter, Charles Murray, of Bell Curve fame, responded with the usual content about how much IQ matters. Yawn, yes, of course it does. When I explained that I’m a libertarian striving to promote the cultivation of voluntary virtue communities in education he calmed down (that has been another theme of his writing, sadly eclipsed by The Bell Curve).

IQ Fetish and Tech

The other huge distortion in our perspective is that we happen to live in a time in which STEM talent is heavily rewarded in the marketplace of talent. As a geek, hurrah! Revenge of the nerds is here!

That said, only a small percentage of careers require significant STEM abilities. Tech geeks live in a world in which the other respected people are either great entrepreneurs and/or tech geniuses. But only a small percentage of people are even interested in such careers. The vast majority of people do not need to learn much math, and even less science. On the other hand, they do need to learn how to become responsible adults, capable of mastering their appetites and engaging in sufficiently responsible behavior to maintain personal and professional relationships.

Look, as a kid who was good at math, I have an ongoing fascination with great mathematicians past and present. But I also grew up in a working class household where what really mattered was whether you could make a living and be a decent family member. Someone who could successfully build a small business, a dry cleaner or a roofing business was more highly respected than people who were good at school (see The Millionaire Next Door for evidence that such small business owners were more likely to be “B” students than “A” students).

Look, as a kid who was good at math, I have an ongoing fascination with great mathematicians past and present. But I also grew up in a working class household where what really mattered was whether you could make a living and being a decent family member. Someone who could successfully build a small business, a dry cleaner or a roofing business, was more highly respected than were people who were good at school (see The Millionaire Next Door for evidence that such people were more likely to be “B” students than “A” students).

Moreover, no matter what happens with robotics and AI, it will still be valuable for people to be decent, responsible human beings. At this point, I see all progress in AI as largely orthogonal towards addressing these key human issues.

What Are We Working On, Anyway?

The ability to take initiative and be agentic, to make wise decisions about one’s life, to master one’s appetites to avoid addiction and indulgences that are unhealthy, the ability to develop and maintain healthy relationships with others are all likely to continue to be valuable human characteristics long into the future.

On the other hand, no matter how materially wealthy we are, if people are passive, prone to addiction and harmful self indulgence, and can’t develop and maintain healthy relationships, then humanity is doomed.

Some are excited by the notion of the cost of living continuing to go down, with robotics and AI bringing a material standard of living currently available only to the wealthy soon available to all. Of course, by historical standards, we are already there, with those below the U.S. poverty line experiencing extraordinary material wealth both by global and historical standards.

To put it bluntly: Imagine currently overweight Walmart-shopping welfare recipients buying flat screen TVs and bringing them home in Toyotas, living in 1500 square feet. Now imagine that in thirty years, they might be living comfortably on UBI and be Ozempic-thin, buying elaborate home theater systems, with robotic servants cleaning their 10,000 square feet homes, while being driven absolutely anywhere they want to go by next gen Teslas. Let’s throw in 10 cruise ship vacations every year. Okay. But the question is: are they more likely to be happy and well?

I would say if and only if they are agentic, capable of self-mastery, and are embedded in healthy, positive cultures and relationships.

I say this as someone raised in a largely dysfunctional working class culture - if we are raised in a dysfunctional culture and have dysfunctional habits, no amount of material prosperity will lead us to flourishing.

Among the young we have a loneliness crisis, a relationship crisis, a marriage crisis, a fertility crisis, a youth mental health crisis, an addiction crisis, and so forth. Will new and improved AGI slop help with any of this?

In the meantime, we continue to force most kids to attend a schooling model that is such an evolutionary mismatch that all of the above-mentioned crises are exacerbated (if not caused) by the actively damaging K-12 years.

The next domain of elite competition needs to transcend IQ fetishism, be it human IQ or software “IQ,” and level up to the creation of better subcultures at scale. If either human IQ or AGI helps us improve human flourishing, then hurrah!

But I don’t see compelling evidence that “intelligence” per se, disconnected from wisdom and a direct commitment to human flourishing, will get us there.