At least one indicator changing in our favor

David Brooks has a great Op-Ed in the New York Times (requires subscription, probably) on the diminishing influence of I.Q. as a measure of intelligence.

While the conception of the intelligence quotient had some basis in observable fact, Brooks suggests that it was always a bit inelegant and opaque in describing such a complex characteristic. The measure couldn’t explain global changes in IQ, nor could it account for environmental factors that influenced its results (like living in a loving home).

Similar things could be said for most of the ways we measure and evaluate the public impact of arts and culture. While we have evidence of tangible impact on economics, workforce, civic participation, and the like, these feel like inelegant and opaque placeholders for the larger importance of creative experience.

Brooks brings it home with his last two paragraphs, suggesting how the larger implications of this decline of the IQ. Says he:

The cultural consequence is that judging intelligence is less like measuring horsepower in an engine and more like watching ballet. Speed and strength are part of intelligence, and these things can be measured numerically, but the essence of the activity is found in the rhythm and grace and personality — traits that are the products of an idiosyncratic blend of emotions, experiences, motivations and inheritances.

Recent brain research, rather than reducing everything to electrical impulses and quantifiable pulses, actually enhances our appreciation of human complexity and richness. While psychometrics offered the false allure of objective fact, the new science brings us back into contact with literature, history and the humanities, and, ultimately, to the uniqueness of the individual.