It is one of the great contradictions in American society: We preach equality and then try to find as many ways as possible of demonstrating inequality. Essential to the heart of any democracy is a belief in the essential equality of all citizens û before the law and in the ballot booth at least. And it is also a fundamental tenet of Christianity (in this mainly Christian country) that we are all equal in the eyes of God. And yet, we all also know that this is not true, that we are not all equal. Some of us are smarter than our neighbors, and some more virtuous and some more mentally stable. And many of those people who consider themselves to be among the smarter, better, saner portion yearn to be able to prove this fact, possibly to themselves and no doubt in many cases to the world at large. Thus was born the industry of testing. This paper examines some of the important issues involved in the giving û- and valuing -- of IQ tests, arguing that while they do in some cases allow for a determination of which people are smarter than average, they do far more harm than this limited good compensates for.
Very few Americans will make it through their lives in the 21st century without taking some form of intelligence test. Most of us accept these tests as a stressful but necessary part of everyday life in our age. We like the idea that our surgeons have done well on the MCAT. We want to think that our president has a higher IQ than other world leaders. Because standardized tests of various sorts are so common in our lives, we do not often take the time to examine them critically, to ask about the ways in which they may be biased or even if they are actually testing what it is that they proclaim to be measuring. However, anyone who has examined the discrepancies by racial group on standardized tests has to at least consider some the problems inherent in these tests. The proposal now on the table for the University of California to stop u...