Q&A: Race and the Psychometric Exam
Race and the Psychometric Exam
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I’m currently reading your book Truth and Not Stable. In the sixth part of the book, you discuss the psychometric exam, and point out that although the connection between success on the psychometric exam and success in one’s field of study is not absolute, this uncertain prediction is still preferable to analytic perfectionism. I definitely agree, and I think universities have the right to accept the students they believe have the highest chance of succeeding.
On the other hand, I saw that you wrote elsewhere that if a university doesn’t accept someone because of their light skin color, that is racism. I agree with that too. The question is: what happens if a study comes out showing that people with green skin color will, on average, be less successful as psychologists? Why wouldn’t it be legitimate for a university to raise the bar for people with green skin color who want to be admitted to psychology studies?
Thanks, and have a good week.
Answer
Such a study is not relevant. Each student should be evaluated on his or her own merits, since there are talented and untalented people in every population, even if there are differences between the averages. If there is no way to test individually, then there may perhaps be justification for using a stereotype, as the army does with its quality rating score (though there there is no justification, because they do have the ability to test).
Discussion on Answer
See columns 226 and 228.
Nice, I liked that a lot. It explains for me the difference between saying “I don’t know” and saying “I think there’s a 50% probability,” which I always found hard to distinguish between.
Still, I’d appreciate it if you could translate that into our case. Is relying on race a “legal” problem or a “probabilistic” one?
And why is relying on race more similar to the case of the 99 prisoners out of 100 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 essential connection to talent, whereas a psychometric exam is a direct and relevant test of the variable in question (talent). From another angle: it is unreasonable not to give someone a chance because he was born into a certain race, even if he is talented, but with the psychometric exam it is in your hands. Also, race is similar to a present majority, though not completely.
What does it mean to “evaluate a student on his own merits”? Why is a psychometric exam a better test than checking population group / economic situation at home / sex, etc.? There are also talented and untalented people at all the different psychometric score levels.
A person doesn’t choose his level of intelligence any more than he chooses his skin color. Why is that a legitimate test, but this is not?