Will Communicating Expert Consensus Improve Public Perception of IQ?

Expert Consensus

Public views of scientific topics tend to vary depending on how well scientists communicate their findings. An enlightened populace is desired in every country and there’s no better way to achieve that than through the public acceptance of scientific facts. But it’s never easy to achieve this state of scientific enlightenment either because the public is impartial to the facts or the facts are too controversial for the public to accept.

Throughout the twentieth century the theory of evolution remained a controversial topic for it was perceived to challenge some fundamental tenets of religion. Vaccine efficacy, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), and climate change are the hot buttons of this century, and the public acceptance of their importance remains low. But as Bryan Caplan observes, consequences of poor understanding of scientific facts and basic economics get felt on the ballot as citizens vote for policies in which they have little to no knowledge about. The irrationality of voters evident through the preference of price controls and support for protectionist policies leads them to elect leaders who do their bidding, often at the expense of the economy and the greater good. Communicating facts to the public, especially the expert consensus, is one way of reducing this problem.

Communicating scientific consensus or expert agreement on a field can help convince the public of the facts. Stekelenburg and colleagues conducted a meta analysis to find out what effect such communication had on climate change, GMOs, and vaccines on the public. They found that “when people are not aware of the scientific consensus, communicating consensus may lead to an updated estimate of the scientific consensus, which in turn will act as a gateway to changing personal factual beliefs.”

The findings from the meta analysis were impressive which led me to think whether the same can be replicated in intelligence research. For instance, the authors observe that “a single exposure to scientific-consensus messaging had a significant positive effect on perceived scientific consensus (hedges g=0.55).” The communication of the scientific consensus on climate change had similar impressive results (g= 0.56), and GMO too (g = 0.56). Even though all findings were statistically significant, communicating the scientific consensus on vaccines had a much lower effect (g= 0.29).

Will communicating the scientific consensus on intelligence have any effect?

The Scientific Consensus on Intelligence

Climate change, GMOs, and vaccines are all controversial topics but none is as controversial as intelligence. In 1994, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray published the “Bell Curve” which aroused massive uproar from the public. Critics argued that the book “relied on outdated, pseudo-scientific notions of intelligence.” In response, Linda Gottfredson wrote an editorial consisting of 25 statements about intelligence, its measurement, group differences, and its correlates then invited experts in the field to sign it affirming the validity of those statements. Some of the statements included:

1. Intelligence can be measured and intelligence tests measure it well.
2. The spread of people along the IQ continuum can be represented well by the bell curve.
3. Intelligence tests are not culturally biased.
4. Members of all racial-ethnic groups can be found at every IQ level.
5. The bell curve for whites is centered roughly around IQ 100 while that of American blacks roughly around IQ 85.
6. IQ is strongly related, probably more so than any other single measurable human trait, to important educational, occupational, economic, and social outcomes.
7. Differences in intelligence certainly are not the only factor affecting performance in education, but intelligence is often the most important.
8. Genetics play a bigger role than does the environment in creating IQ differences among individuals.
9. There is no persuasive evidence that IQ bell curve for different racial-ethnic groups are converging.

Gottfredson’s findings were interesting since out of the 100 responses she managed to get, 52 accepted to sign while 48 declined to sign. Considering the controversy in the field, declining to sign did not mean the experts disagreed with the statements. Out of the 48 who declined to sign for instance, 7 thought “the statement did not represent the mainstream,” 11 were not sure, and 30 declined for other reasons. Excluding the 11, the remaining 37 responses were analyzed further. Three disagreed with 1 or 2 items on the list of 25, two disagreed with 3–5 items, and four disagreed with the statement’s conception of intelligence.

Six of them did not disagree with any statements but instead disagreed on the mode of presentation, four feared signing the statement, four mostly agreed but did not want to be associated with the statement or other signers, ten gave no explanation, and two did not want to sign at that particular time. Only 9 individuals out of 100 expressed a disagreement with any of the statements revealing that there is indeed an expert consensus on majority of the issues in the field.

A more recent survey of expert opinions on intelligence was published by Charlie Reeve and Jennifer Charles in 2008. The survey presented experts with a list of 49 items and asked them whether they agreed or disagreed with the statements. The authors observed that the:

Results indicate expert consensus that g is an important, non-trivial determinant (or at-least predictor) of important real world outcomes for which there is no substitute, and the tests of g are valid and generally free from bias.

Comparing expert views to those of mainstream psychologists, Reeve and Charles found different results:

A comparison of responses from experts and a group of applied psychologists reveals discrepant beliefs between these groups, primarily dealing with the primacy of g, susceptibility of ability tests to racial bias, and the potential value of ability testing.

The second finding is important because it reveals not only a gap in the understanding of facts between intelligence experts and the public but also intelligence experts and other psychologists. The nature of racial differences in intelligence was also contested among experts and psychologists, which implies that more studies need to be done.

Communicating expert consensus on intelligence

Communicating expert consensus to the public has a positive effect on their perceptions of expert consensus. However, communicating the consensus and changing minds are two different things. Unlike the communication of expert consensus which had larger effects on perceptions of the consensus, Stekelenburg found a smaller but statistically significant effect (g= 0.12) of the messaging on adoption of factual beliefs. People were likely to recognize the consensus but few went ahead to change their minds. The authors write that “effects on factual beliefs was smaller and might be practically relevant only if it can be magnified (e.g. with repeated exposure).”

For issues such as GMO and vaccines, the perceived risk prevents people from changing their minds despite the benefits of the technologies involved. Countries face droughts and famines but most people would still not adopt gene-editing technology even though the benefits far outweigh the risks. As Bryan Caplan observes, voter ignorance on issues like GMO might explain the persistence of bad policies in government as only demagogues who pander to the ignorance of the masses get elected and fail to adopt appropriate laws that reduce mass starvation.

As for intelligence research, scientific consensus converges on the importance of IQ in education, job performance, economic growth, and development. However, the perceived risks, mostly associated with the history of IQ testing, prevents many people from adopting these factual beliefs. Will repeated exposure to the expert consensus increase the adoption of factual beliefs about intelligence by the public and applied psychologists? Stekelenburg argues that two heuristics are important for that to happen; perception that consensus implies correction and a trust in experts by the public. Unfortunately, intelligence researchers aren’t trusted by the public and their findings are rarely perceived as correct. For public perception of intelligence to change, IQ researchers will need to inspire trust and expertise.

Notes:

1. Since 2020, I believe a lot has changed in terms of expert consensus on vaccines. People are more likely to distrust experts today than even before. This article recognizes the existence of the ongoing controversy with Covid-19 vaccines.
2. Expert consensus on climate change is widely excepted. However, I believe there are widespread disagreements as to what needs to be done to deal with the issue. This matter can be better understood from a geopolitics perspective.
3. I understand GMOs are pretty harmless. This article also recognizes other issues related to gene-editing technologies like patenting that might create stumbling blocks during adoption.