les ailes de mon coeur lourd

Ce matin, Mailloux remet ça, et il donne les noms des psychiatres qui auraient produit l’étude dont il parle: Suzuki et Gutkin.
Une recherche très sommaire permet de trouver l’information suivante:

What About Racial and Cultural Bias?

There is a strong feeling by many that intelligence tests are racially and culturally biased (Scheuneman, 1987), suggesting that no one intellectual assessment tool can be used for our diverse population (Greenfield, 1997). Early intelligence tests were often normed on middle class Caucasians in a particular geographic region. This simply isn’t done any more, and most current tests systematically ensure they are not biased. However, bias is different than fairness. Bias is a statistical concept, and it refers to the extent to which validity coefficients are the same for different populations. The results of these analyses reveal that intelligence tests predict various outcomes just as well for most any racial or ethnic group. This finding has been used to argue that certain minority groups, especially African-American and Latino groups, are less intelligent than European-American groups (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994). Proponents of this position will argue that an unbiased test, one that holds up statistically across groups, reveals that racial or ethnic group IQ differences are the result of inherent intelligence differences between groups. This is where the error in reasoning takes place. Yes, certain minority groups score consistently lower on intelligence tests than European-Americans, but the cause, in our opinion, has to do with the concept of fairness. Most intelligence tests measure crystallized abilities, those abilities acquired through formal and informal experiences and education. By definition, these abilities are inseparable from prior learning or achievement, so they cannot be true measures of innate ability. Those who have enriched backgrounds and educational experiences typically score better on crystallized measures than those who come from impoverished or varied backgrounds. Does this mean the former children are smarter? We think not.

Those who use group differences to draw conclusions about racial group intelligence tend to ignore within-group variability and often collapse different abilities into a global IQ score for subsequent group comparisons (Suzuki & Valencia, 1997). For instance, we typically use language to measure crystallized abilities, so anyone whose primary language is not English, or those who use colloquial or nonstandard forms of English, will be less likely to do well on crystallized tasks or any other tasks requiring verbal facility. Intelligence test scores are intimately related to academic achievement in a reciprocal fashion (Ceci & Williams, 1997). If one has a good education and enriched environment, one will probably score better on intelligence tests. However, if one has a limited experience and education, one will not score as well. For these reasons, intelligence tests can be unfair for children of color or cultural difference, but the unfairness is not statistical, it’s the result of the clinician’s error in interpreting a low crystallized score as being the result of low intelligence. Ever since Binet and Simon developed the first “true” intelligence test, our intelligence tests have been unfair to some groups, individual people of cultural or linguistic difference from the overall normative population.

Removing crystallized measures would reduce this probability, and this has been advocated by some test developers (e.g., Kaufman & Kaufman, 1993; Das et al., 1994). However, neuropsychological research suggests our left hemisphere specializes in verbal and crystallized abilities (Groth-Marnat et al., 2000; Hale, Fiorello, Kavanagh, Hoeppner, & Gaither, 2001; Rourke, 1994), and eliminating measurement of these abilities would leave out crucial brain functions. We recommend the use of crystallized measures with careful interpretation. When low crystallized scores are obtained we attempt to determine whether the score is related to an auditory-verbal learning disorder or limited experience and education. To accomplish this, we typically administer measures of new verbal learning and memory (e.g., Children’s Memory Scales; Test of Memory and Learning; Wide Range Assessment of Memory and Learning). If the child can encode, store and retrieve new verbal information as well as her peers, then we might conclude that the deficit is more related to limited prior experience and education. Critical in this determination is an examination of the child’s current home and classroom environment. If Spanish is the primary language at home, the child may still have difficulty with new verbal learning and memory. In addition, thorough developmental histories, acquired from parents, teachers and archival record review, can help determine whether the child has a learning disability, limited experience and educational opportunity, or both.(réf)

Ce n’est pas la première fois que des pseudo-études scientifiques sont utilisées pour justifier le racisme. Toutefois:

C - Les bases pseudo “scientifiques” des théories racistes

Largement démenti par les études scientifiques sérieuses et récentes, le racisme pseudo scientifique ou plutôt la pseudoscience raciste, s’est longtemps appuyée sur la tentative de démonstration qu’il existerait des différences naturelles, innées, impossibles à compenser par l’éducation, l’influence du milieu ou les conditions de vie, entre des groupes humains classés en terme de race et caractérisés sur le plan physique par la couleur de la peau, la morphologie, la physionomie etc…

Toutes les études scientifiques et ethno historiques démontrent :

• qu’il n’existe pas de barrières biologiques entre les différentes communautés humaines (nous appartenons à la même espèce) donc pas d’incompatibilité au niveau des transfusions sanguines, de la reproduction, des dons d’organes, de la transmission des maladies.
• que tous les humains ont un patrimoine génétique commun à 99%.
• que les cinq milliards d’êtres humains sont issus d’un même groupe originaire très probablement d’Afrique de l’Ouest, composé de quelques milliers d’individus (donc nous sommes tous cousins et tous africains !).
• que si certaines compétences ou performances ont pu être développées par certains groupes en fonction du milieu où ils vivaient et de leur évolution culturelle, il n’y a aucune impossibilité pour d’autres groupes à acquérir et développer ces compétences ou performances dans un environnement identique, à une échelle de temps très rapide d’une ou de deux générations.(ref)

D’une manière plus générale, le débat sur la validité des “tests d’intelligence” n’est pas nouveau non plus. Tout le monde avec une once de jugeotte sait bien qu’on ne peut pas du tout évaluer l’intelligence avec des tests, d’autant plus qu’on ne s’entend même pas sur ce qu’est l’intelligence. Je vous suggère d’ailleurs la lecture de l’article complet à ce sujet, mais surtout à faire vos propres recherches. Ne vous laissez pas bourrer par des “études” et “la science”…..c’est la mode, même le gars qui vend des brosses à dents à la télé a un sarrau….faut pas nous prendre pour des cruches quand même. …. quoique je vous invite à aller lire le forum de radio-canada au sujet de l’intervention de Mailloux à TLMEP……: jamais vu un ramassis d’incultes, d’illettrés et d’ignorants comme ça. C’est pathétique.