EYE ON IQ

I agree with Edward Dmytryk’s opinion that the Stanford-Binet Test is indicative of a person’s education, not his or her intelligence (“The Secret IQ Diaries,” by Richard C. Paddock, July 30). However, what I’ve heard indicates that the test measures past experience, not intelligence.

Around 1930, I took an IQ test for a job as a page at Milwaukee’s public library. I think I scored 132. After the test, some of us gathered in the lobby and exchanged answers in an attempt to discover what errors we had made. Then in 1942, when I entered the Army, I was given the identical test. I don’t think I was any smarter; I just had more experience, and I scored, best as I can recall, in the 160s.

It would be interesting to take the test again now. I’m sure I’m neither smarter nor less bright, but I’ve had much more experience and education since the ‘40s, and I’d be willing to place a bet on a 182 or so.

Sol H. Marshall

Panorama City

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Paddock manages, in one paragraph, to offend people in quite a few respectable occupational areas: “Brilliance was no guarantor of success . . . . [Some] “tended bar, drove trucks, worked as lab technicians, accountants, clerks, police officers and firefighters.”

So Lewis M. Terman, the inventor of the modern-day IQ test, made the IQ tests “look good” by publicizing the accomplishments of doctors and professors, not those of clerks and firefighters. Well, really! Since when is it safe to assume that firefighters are “not successful” and all doctors and professors are brilliant? What a lot of arrogant claptrap. I most certainly want a firefighter defending my property against destruction, rather than a doctor, professor or lawyer, whatever their IQs.

D. Kentnor

Yucaipa

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In describing the people in Terman’s study, Paddock states, “They got divorced, committed suicide, were alcoholics or homosexuals at about the same rate as the general public.”

Why not change the word homosexuals to heterosexuals ? Heterosexuals certainly have a higher rate of divorce than gays and lesbians, considering that the latter are denied the right to marry. Many heterosexuals are quite adept at becoming alcoholics, as a visit to any Twelve Step meeting will verify.

Paddock may want to go the extra step next time and determine how many of the two-thirds who graduated from college were gay and lesbian, rather than resting on tired stereotypes.

Theresa Lamm

Los Angeles

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I was appalled by Dmytryk’s self-serving description of his behavior 50 years ago during the period of the Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy-House Un-American Activities Committee inquisition. Dmytryk betrayed his friends and debased himself by groveling before the committee in an effort to save his career.

Dmytryk may try to justify his behavior, but those of us who lived through that period and impartial historians know the truth.

The heroes he betrayed--Dalton Trumbo, Waldo Salt, Ring Lardner Jr., John Howard Lawson and others--will always be known as the with the guts to stand up to the inquisitors, and Dmytryk’s name will be forever tarnished.

Mildred G. Kramer

Los Angeles