From the article:
"The American Psychological Association created a panel of eminent researchers to write a summary of what was known about intelligence, which would presumably contradict many of these claims."
"...would presumably contradict" is right, of course, because the APA is one of the most political organizations in America. An article published in The American Psychologist (the APA's own journal) describes how "a past APA president urged psychologists to advocate radical leftist positions and 'explicitly blend our data and values in order to make strong arguments for the kinds of [radical] change we think is necessary.'"
The people the APA chooses as "eminent researchers" to summarize "what is known" just aren't going to include anyone who doesn't promote their political agenda, leading Willingham to the "would presumably contradict" comment. What they would "find" would be a foregone conclusion, by policy, given the nature of the APA.
A study was conducted in which a liberal, a conservative, and a centrist independently rated the political leaning of articles published by the APA in The American Psychologist. The results, published in The American Psychologist itself, found the APA's published articles to be 97% liberal vs. 3% conservative, with a 93% correlation among the different raters.
This doesn't make any particular claim about IQ right or wrong, but it does mean that you might want to take the APA's word about "what is currently known" about a politically controversial issue with a grain of salt. If other things had been found (and they have), would the APA's hand-picked "eminent scientists" be sure to tell you?
"...would presumably contradict" is right, of course, because the APA is one of the most political organizations in America. An article published in The American Psychologist (the APA's own journal) describes how "a past APA president urged psychologists to advocate radical leftist positions and 'explicitly blend our data and values in order to make strong arguments for the kinds of [radical] change we think is necessary.'"
The people the APA chooses as "eminent researchers" to summarize "what is known" just aren't going to include anyone who doesn't promote their political agenda, leading Willingham to the "would presumably contradict" comment. What they would "find" would be a foregone conclusion, by policy, given the nature of the APA.
A study was conducted in which a liberal, a conservative, and a centrist independently rated the political leaning of articles published by the APA in The American Psychologist. The results, published in The American Psychologist itself, found the APA's published articles to be 97% liberal vs. 3% conservative, with a 93% correlation among the different raters.
This doesn't make any particular claim about IQ right or wrong, but it does mean that you might want to take the APA's word about "what is currently known" about a politically controversial issue with a grain of salt. If other things had been found (and they have), would the APA's hand-picked "eminent scientists" be sure to tell you?
[ See a lot of Philip Tetlock's articles on the topic (use Google Scholar, I'm lazy.) Also, see this in The American Psychologist on the APA's own website: http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=fulltext.journal&jco... ]