COME ON!!! You think that I'm not going to be a good NFL quarterback because I scored below average on a Wonderlic test??? There are WAY more reasons to think that I will flop in the NFL than just my ability to correctly answer 50 questions in a 12 minute time span!!!
I was reading an article today on ESPN.com about Tim Tebow and his Wonderlic test score. For those who don't know, it's a test that the NFL administers to potential draftees in order to measure an individual's learning and problem-solving abilities. Tebow scored 22 out of 50.
The article was, in a word, ridiculous. On one hand, it seemed like they were trying to make Tebow look like an idiot (even though Jimmy Clausen, another potential draftee, scored a 23). On the other hand, they showed scores of Hall of Fame QB's like Dan Marino (15) and Jim Kelly (15), and a potential Hall of Famer in Donovan McNabb (14), while other non-notable QB's scored much higher.
What did I learn from reading this article (besides how to subtly apply bias)? This Wonderlic test does nothing to show anything to do with football. That's what I'm thinking. Really, all it does is show the dangers inherent to relying on standardized tests. More on that in a bit.
Well, if you pay attention to sports at all, you know that Tim Tebow is a lightning rod of controversy. This is in part due to the hype that has been given to him by the media (particularly ESPN), the success he's had both as part of the Florida Gators and as an individual, and his outspokenness about his religious beliefs.
Anyways, after reading the article, I got sucked in to reading the user comments. Note to readers- try to avoid reading user comments on ESPN.com. You have to filter through 100's of posted comments to try to find a nugget of rational thought, and that thought is quickly washed away in a sea of hostile flame. Seriously, who thought it would be a good idea to have a forum of sports fans of different loyalties left to themselves? It reminds me sometimes of Lord of the Flies or the Condemned- it's like a social experiment to see how far humanity will fall when left to our own devices.
Tebow articles in general remind me of that old hockey adage- I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out. With Tebow, it's like I went to a religious discussion and football talk broke out. So on this discussion forum, people were going back and forth on the topic of religion, and how people that believe in God are idiots, and how God is like Santa Claus for adults...you know the drill.
Somehow, some way, I was able to locate some champagne in the swill- a couple articles dealing with links between I.Q. and religiosity. And I read them. You can read them too! Just remember, you can't believe everything you read.
They lead to some interesting thoughts. And I'm not saying that I disagree with the conclusions (that atheists/agnostics tend to score higher than people of religious persuasion). Rather, I have some food for thoughts. Or is it foods for thought? Maybe I'll just stick with food for thought. Or I could charge you a penny for my thoughts.
- First of all, what kind of intelligence is being measured? Tests are designed to measure a certain attribute or quality. When I take a test in my Social Welfare policy test, my teacher is forming that test with certain facts/questions/lines of thinking in her mind that she wants me to know. As a test taker, my responsibility is to focus on learning those things so that I can score well enough on the test to get a good grade. This is not necessarily an indication of how much I know about social welfare policy, or even how much I know about anything- it is a measure of how much I know about how much the person who designed the test thought I should know.
Standardized tests measure a certain type of intelligence, and that type of intelligence has sort of become (really, this makes so much sense that I hesitate to even type it) the standard. We acknowledge the genius of others- Beethoven, Michelangelo, Slash- but it seems to be always in the context of their field only. Because their intelligence does not fall within the boundaries of what we are taught to perceive as intelligence, we often fail to think of it in those terms.
Does this picture suggest intelligence to you?
- Secondly, there is the issue of causality to consider. We can't determine (in this case) if the chicken comes first, or the egg. Maybe some people are drawn to atheism because of the things that they have learned throughout their educational careers. Or maybe they press on to learn more about those things because their belief system is already in place. It's interesting to see both sides- you read about people that converted from Christianity to atheism because of (blank). Then you read about people that were atheists and then became Christians because of (blank). What I'm saying is that we can try to imply quantitatively and objectively all we want- but there is a subjective element to human behavior that we cannot necessarily measure with the Wechsler Intelligence Scale.
It reminds me of a discussion board I was on where there was a high school kid who was an atheist, and a fellow atheist said something like 'see, even the high school kid gets it'. And I said 'it's no stretch for that to happen in a godless environment like public schools'. I didn't say that as a knock or slight to the young man- but it's no different than people in medieval England having Catholic beliefs. Or someone having U-M graduates for parents growing up rooting for the Wolverines. As the great warrior-poets Project 86 said so eloquently, "Who I am, who I'll be, has been decided for me". So much of who we are is shaped by forces beyond our control. And that leads me to my next point...
- A third factor, which cannot be necessarily accounted for, is how each individual person and their environment interact. Of course there are predictable patterns in many situations. But the beauty of human behavior is that there are just as many inpredictabilities, due to the complex interaction between nature and nurture. That means that the biological capabilities to learn are not necessarily represented in an I.Q. score- because our learning is affected by so many other factors than our own personal ceilings.
Atheists have higher I.Q. scores than Christians. What does that mean? I don't know. All I really know is that it is much more complex than "People that believe in God/don't believe in God are idiots".
As for Mr. Tebow, I wish him the best in his future endeavors. He seems to hold fast to his convictions in an environment that tries to engulf young men into thinking they are bigger than life. Is he flawed? Of course he is- he's human. But as long as he is remaining true to himself, and trying to be who he is, I believe that he should be worthy of our respect, not our scorn.
PICS:
Tebow- http://16thandhighland.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/teblow2.jpg
Slash- http://www.wilsdomain.com/wp-content-photos/images/Slash-Saul-Hudson.jpg
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