Race and psychometrics
Hello Rabbi,
I am currently reading your book “True and Unstable.” In the sixth part of the book, you refer to the psychometric test, and insist that although the connection between success in the psychometric test and success in academic subjects is not absolute, this uncertain prediction is still better than analytical perfectionism. I certainly agree, and I think that universities have the right to accept the students they think have the highest chance of success.
On the other hand, I saw you write elsewhere that if a university doesn’t accept someone because of their skin color, it’s racism. I agree with that too. The point is, what happens if a study comes out that shows that people with green skin color are, on average, less successful as psychologists. Why isn’t it legitimate for a university to raise the bar for people with green skin color who want to be admitted to psychology studies?
Thank you, and have a good week.
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What does it mean to “test a student for himself”? Why is a psychometric test a better test than a population/economic status test/gender test, etc. There are both talented and untalented people at all different levels of the psychometric test.
A person does not choose their level of intelligence just as they do not choose their skin color. Why is this a legitimate test, and this is not?
See columns 226, 228.
Nice, I really liked it. It explains to me the difference between the statement “I don't know”, and the statement “I think there is a 50% probability”, which I always had a hard time distinguishing between.
Still, I would appreciate it if you could translate this to our case. Is relying on race a “legal” or “probabilistic” problem?
And why is relying on race more similar to the 99 out of 100 prisoners who attacked the guard, than relying on psychometric scores?
Thanks
It can be explained in several ways. The simplest is that race is a random variable and has no intrinsic relationship to talent, but a psychometric test is a direct and objective test of the relevant variable (talent). Another angle: It is unreasonable not to give a chance to someone who belongs to a certain race by birth even if he is talented, but in psychometrics it is up to you. And race is similar to most common data (although not entirely).
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