That’s not entirely true. Whether or not something “is” known to work or to fail often determines whether you “ought” to do it.
The IQ research cuts against the grain of our culture’s belief in equality and hard work, so nobody really likes it and even mentioning IQ in many contexts is socially dangerous. However, the IQ research is generally considered to be the strongest and most conclusive body of evidence in the social sciences. Trying to equalize the effects of IQ using education doesn’t work.
Whether or not something “is” known to work or to fail often determines whether you “ought” to do it.
Not at all. Knowing that doing X causes Y only informs that if you want result Y, the way to achieve that is by doing X. It doesn’t tell you whether Y is desirable or not.
Hence, if a society wants maximum productive efficiency, and allocating more resources to their most intelligent members is the most effective way to achieve that, then yes, allocating more resources for them, and less for less gifted individuals, is the way to go. On the flip side, if a society wants, let’s say, to maximize equality of outcomes among its members, then they’ll completely ignore that means, and look for the method that will provide that outcome.
The decision about the “ought”, then, is what truly determines which “is” will be chosen, not the other way around.
That’s true, but in the actual case society(1) wants to maximize equality of outcomes among its members, and we’ve spent decades looking for a method that will provide that outcome, and nothing we’ve come up with works(2). You might think we “ought” to be doing that, but the judgement is now between “we should continue to pursue this value, knowing that it’s never worked before and we have no reason to believe that it will start working any time soon” and “we should pursue other values that seem to be achievable”—which is a very different judgement.
(1) or the segment thereof that controls education policy
(2) There are a lot of marginal claims of questionable statistical and practical significance that never seem to scale up, but “nothing works” is a reasonable summary.
And “is” doesn’t determine an “ought”.
That’s not entirely true. Whether or not something “is” known to work or to fail often determines whether you “ought” to do it.
The IQ research cuts against the grain of our culture’s belief in equality and hard work, so nobody really likes it and even mentioning IQ in many contexts is socially dangerous. However, the IQ research is generally considered to be the strongest and most conclusive body of evidence in the social sciences. Trying to equalize the effects of IQ using education doesn’t work.
Not at all. Knowing that doing X causes Y only informs that if you want result Y, the way to achieve that is by doing X. It doesn’t tell you whether Y is desirable or not.
Hence, if a society wants maximum productive efficiency, and allocating more resources to their most intelligent members is the most effective way to achieve that, then yes, allocating more resources for them, and less for less gifted individuals, is the way to go. On the flip side, if a society wants, let’s say, to maximize equality of outcomes among its members, then they’ll completely ignore that means, and look for the method that will provide that outcome.
The decision about the “ought”, then, is what truly determines which “is” will be chosen, not the other way around.
That’s true, but in the actual case society(1) wants to maximize equality of outcomes among its members, and we’ve spent decades looking for a method that will provide that outcome, and nothing we’ve come up with works(2). You might think we “ought” to be doing that, but the judgement is now between “we should continue to pursue this value, knowing that it’s never worked before and we have no reason to believe that it will start working any time soon” and “we should pursue other values that seem to be achievable”—which is a very different judgement.
(1) or the segment thereof that controls education policy
(2) There are a lot of marginal claims of questionable statistical and practical significance that never seem to scale up, but “nothing works” is a reasonable summary.