More
discrimination against high IQs
There are reports of Government plans to make grants for 'further
education' (as it is called) dependent on the family of the recipient
having what is regarded as a 'low income'. Scholarships used to
be awarded in relatively small numbers, to those who did best
in the exams, even if their parents were wealthy, but the whole
point of an egalitarian system is to discriminate against
those with the greatest natural ability.
A spokesman
was quoted as saying that in future grants would only be given
to those who deserved them - on what grounds? By virtue
of having a low IQ?
In spite of
all the social engineering and redistribution of income that has
gone on over the last half-century, it is probably still the case
that a high proportion of those with IQs above about 130 (remember
this is about 3% of the population, compared with 97% of the population
having IQs below 130) come from families which are regarded as
'well-off' and 'deserving to be penalised'. It is also probably
the case that the higher the IQ level you are talking about, from
130 up to 180 and over, the higher the proportion of people with
such an IQ who are not the offspring of families sufficiently
unsuccessful to 'deserve' grants.
It is already
the case that young graduates are leaving university with debts
of about £20,000 which will take them years of their earning
life to pay off, and that the age of first-time house buyers is
rising accordingly. Another 'well-deserved' handicap for the high
IQ population, which now has to go to university to collect a
worthless degree simply so as not to be at a disadvantage, because
nearly everyone else has a worthless degree as well, and employers
would be penalised, in many cases, if they were to take on a non-'graduate'
in preference to a 'graduate'.
The determination
to discriminate in favour of those from state schools, as opposed
to independent schools, is an almost open expression of the discrimination
against high IQs which has been going on since the inception of
the Welfare State. Cambridge is now aiming at a quota of 65% intake
from state schools. But by now very few entrants with really high
IQs will reach it from such sources, for the following reasons:
(1) The
hostility of state schools to innate ability ensures that any
of their former pupils with a high IQ who does apply to Cambridge
will have psychological problems, which are likely to be increasingly
severe at increasing levels of IQ. Many will have 'dropped out'
of the long-drawn-out agony of the 'educational' system at state
schools before reaching the age of university entrance.
(2) The population of those with IQs above about 130 is about
3% of the total population, and that might easily be entirely
accommodated among the 7% who attend independent schools. It
is probable that, at IQ levels above 130, the disproportion
between the percentage attending state and independent schools
is increasingly great. For one thing, the higher the person's
IQ the less likely it is that their parents, who are themselves
likely to have a high aggregate IQ, will constitute a family
unsuccessful or thoughtless enough to send their offspring to
a state school. Furthermore, the number of scholarships and
grants available at independent schools has been increasing,
and the more obviously exceptional a person is, the greater
the likelihood that someone will make the necessary effort to
get them into an independent school, even if they are born in
a family which could not otherwise afford it.
So discrimination
against independent schools is an effective way of discriminating
against the high IQ population, and discriminating most severely
against the highest levels of IQ.
Celia Green
October 2002
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