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Judge Rules That Police Can Bar High I.Q. Scores
An anonymous reader writes "A Federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a man who was barred from the New London police force because he scored too high on an intelligence test. Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected." Update: 04/16 22:01 GMT by T : Mea culpa. This story slipped through; consider it a time-machine / late-April Fool's day joke, please.
Published: September 09, 1999
First class people choose first class people; second class people choose fourth class people; third class people choose ninth class people; and so on; and so on.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Published: September 09, 1999
This happened almost twelve years ago...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Next I propose they develop a skin pigmentation test. Those with too much skin pigmentation, too colored let's say, are to be barred from the police force. Naturally this would also be ok since the same standard was applied to everyone, right ?
"Published: September 09, 1999" This is pretty much oldest news I have seen here.
I understand the judge's ruling, everyone is treated identical so everything is fine.
But is there a rationale for accepting only candidates in a specific IQ range?
This happened in 1999.
In other news, they won't hire anyone who's too black, or too female, or ... or ...
Applying a standard as such across the board without legitimate reasons is completely wrong. There are some legitimate reasons. Hiring a quadriplegic, a blind man, or a deaf mute to patrol may not be quite the right choice. They could be considered for equivalent (pay and status) positions. Refusing people because they are too smart, too strong, or too ... well ... any favorable trait, is insane.
Or maybe we have it. Management scored too low on sanity tests.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Well, as it's old news, here's an old joke to go with it: "Why do policemen always go around in threes? One that can read, one that can write, and one to keep an eye on the two dangerous intellectuals."
Seriously? At a minimum slashdot editors should check when the news happened before posting it.
It's likely just a way for them to avoid an age-discrimination lawsuit. Law enforcement, like the military, generally doesn't recruit new people past their early to mid 30s. If he's new, by the time he'd hit 20 years on the force, he'd be staring down 70 (he's 48, according to TFA).
and want his news back!
Good thing he didn't get the job. Because Mr Jordan then went on to write a series of very successful fantasy novels, gaining fame and legions of devoted Rand-Fans world wide. ALl this before his sad and untimely passing.
Huh?
OK, so if we institute a law to not allow people with dark skin to be police, it's okay, because this filter is being applied to everyone? Last I checked, this is how we form subsets. Define A = {p | p is a person and p has an IQ 170} Define B = {p | p is a person and p has white skin} These are completely analogous, therefore only allowing police officers from set B should be an OK law. I think we should institute a new law: Person x can only write laws if x is in the set {p | p is a person and p understands basic set theory}. QED
Timothy you are an idiot.
I take it slashdot uses the same policy.
I'm going to invoke Godwin's Law here. The Nazi's applied the same standard to everyone they sent to the camps too....
Huh?
In other news, Y2K expected to cause internet crash, hyperinflation, mass suicides, and martial law!
If it is natural to die, then to hell with nature. --FM 2030
Scientist discovers that sun doesn't move around the earth after all.
Retro-slashdot.
Okay, as others pointed out... this story is 12 years old. But a larger issue is that the story is strictly a report of the legal ruling - it doesn't even touch on the (likely) flawed reasoning behind New London's policy. I realize Slashdotters tend to pride themselves on not reading the articles (or, often, even the submissions) - but even if this story were current, it'd be hard to have an intelligent discussion / discourse / debate over this without more information.
#DeleteChrome
This raises interesting OLD legal possibilities...
Hey, did you guys hear about that guy from Finland who wrote his own operating system? What a cool little project....
Huh?
For oldest necro post--13 years?
Dude, where's my packet?
There are a few factors at play here...
Often, people with a higher IQ will have been pushed down an academic path and had less time to do things like play with other kids.. They also often get shunned by other kids because they spend more time doing schoolwork.
As for arrogance, someone who is predisposed to being arrogant will use any aspect of themselves to demonstrate their superiority to someone else, be it intelligence, physical strength, money etc.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
> Nazi's
Why the possessive apostrophe?
if they could apply the same reasoning to require a minimum serum testosterone level. Or maybe a maximum level of integumental melanin. After all, the same test applies to everyone.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Its now 1999 again. Buy apple stocks.
He does not want to lose eligibility with the New London police.
To be fair, the correct interpretation of "equal protection under the law" has been a matter of confusion since the day the 14th Amendment was passed. In your particular case however, there is additional law that states that race is one of the protected classes that cannot be discriminated against in nearly any circumstance. So the courts would cite that, and punt on the constitutional issue.
The really funny/sad/alarming/ridiculous thing about this, is that today, it could be true!
There's many alternative explanations for your observation, but I'll offer just two:
As for having "little regard for their fellow humanity (sic)", well, even someone of only average intelligence would think that half the people in the world are stupid. Imagine what Feynman felt like.
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A little google research reveals that the policy at the time was enacted because they believed that smart people would get bored with police work and quit the costly training program or quit the job shortly after the costly training program despite the fact that there has never been a correlation between IQ and job satisfaction shown (according to the article....I didn't try to determine if that was true).
As to how it worked....They used some sort of standard entrance exam to identify candidates and only gave interviews to applicants who scored within a certain range. The really scary part was that the man's "high" IQ was only 125. That still places him within 2 standard deviations of the mean of 100 (i.e. 70-130) which is where 95% of folks are generally considered to lie. This means that more than 1 person out of every 50 (and, injecting some of my own bias, likely a higher percentage of college educated people with broad experiences) are banned from serving because they're "too smart". We're not talking about geniuses here they're just bright people.
Based on some of the decisions I've seen made by police in the past perhaps this isn't the best entrance test.
but last decade's?
was dumb cops that will just blindly follow orders without conscience, someone smart enough to use critical thinking would probably get other officers, and government officials in to trouble.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
I hear Congress has IQ limits as well they are just a bit lower.
Here's a quick tip. If the header at the top of the page for TFA says Archives, take a second look before posting the story.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
It seems to me he has to be really intelligent to have planned ahead like this.
Next time you hear cops saying how much pay and respect they deserve, remember this.
Not even McDonalds turns down employees for being too smart. I don't think there's any other "profession" on the planet that would try something like this, let alone go to court for it.
Intelligence: Anyone scoring too high is disqualified.
Color: Anyone scoring too black is disqualified.
Religion: Anyone scoring too Jewish is disqualified.
Orientation: Anyone scoring too heterosexual is disqualified.
Gender: Anyone scoring too female is disqualified.
Yup, the criteria are being applied equally to everyone making it entirely fair.
FWIW, way back when this story was news instead of history I asked my county's Sheriff about the rationale behind this kind of thing. He explained it thusly:
"Suppose you're an officer and you're called to a convenience store robbery. When you arrive, you find the clerk on the floor has been shot and will certainly die if you don't render aid immediately. Meanwhile, you see the robber escaping in your neighbor's car so you know it's stolen. This fits the MO of an armed robber who's been in the region for a few weeks, never strikes in the same town twice, and always kills the clerks he robs. There are no witnesses. If you render aid to the fallen clerk the criminal will escape and will almost certainly kill again, but if you pursue the criminal the clerk will certainly die and you may not succeed in apprehending the criminal anyway. What do you do?"
I immediately responded that I'd pursue the criminal. He went on to explain:
"It's not really important which option you choose because in the end some innocent is going to die. What's important is that you quickly choose a response and follow it through to the end. The rationale behind not hiring those of exceptional intelligence is that they'll waste time thinking through their options hoping to find the optimal solution when there really isn't one instead of just springing into action."
It's horribly flawed logic, but that's the general consensus among law enforcement so it's self-reinforcing. You can't promote thinking leaders from within a force that doesn't include thinking officers.
Warning: This signature may offend some viewers.
If you can't bother to RTFA, you shouldn't be posting stories
What was the follow up to this story? It says he tried to appeal. Did he get it?
I accidentally the Nazi's. Do you think they will want them back?
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
As for having "little regard for their fellow humanity (sic)", well, even someone of only average intelligence would think that half the people in the world are stupid. Imagine what Feynman felt like.
I often have, among others. Feynman loved to teach. I asked an ex professor friend of mine if he'd heard of him. He said he didn't, until he said, "Oh yes, he teaches concepts!"
I.Q. is flawed because while memory is great, what makes someone intelligent is what they can create. If you understand the concepts, then the rest falls into place quickly and easily. If you only "memorize" parameters and processes, then you can't as easily create a solution to a different but related problem. (Like with division, I got in trouble for doing it "my" way, but it showed I knew what I was doing. They wanted me to use their process and memorize it, but it didn't help me understand what exactly what all of those numbers meant in the real world.) You don't discover for yourself, which is the joy in learning. He was indeed a great teacher, and I think he could teach anyone almost anything, provided the time and that they weren't retarded. Even then, you might be surprised. As Mr. Miyagi said, "No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher." All you need to teach anyone something is their interest.
Although I have little if any real science to back this up, I can offer the anecdotal evidence that the majority of high IQ people I know are collectively dumber than a box of rocks. They are quite knowledgeable when it comes to certain fields of expertise but just can't hack Real Life. They're arrogant jack-asses with little regard for their fellow humanity.
Ignorance is merely "lack of knowledge". Stupidity is wanting to stay ignorant. (for whatever reason, including some form of ignorance or overconfidence) Stupid does not mean dumb, which is more of a retardation. There are a LOT of intelligent, stupid people. I think most are likely just ignorant of the fact they aren't half as wise as they think.
Related comic...
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Dude. What the fuck are you on?
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
I heard Micheal Jackson died!
Wait, you can't invoke Godwin if you're the first guy in the thread to mention Nazis, that's just ... incestuous!
..did you tell them about Haiti? And Japan?
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
Cops are so fucking stupid. Good.
slashdot is a pro-conservative site
Read a few intelligent design related threads, and let me know what you say then.
I got lost apparently and forgot to finish with the thought that I think Feynman wasn't an intelligent, stupid person, but rather "well rounded". I would surmise that what he "felt like" was not that even half the world was stupid, as he could get most of those he came into contact with to understand... he was very good at that, as that is what he did.
Thank you nagging girl friend for interrupting me! (lies, I know, they don't exist if I am here, but I have to put down some excuse right?)
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Well, since this is 1999. Doesn't it depend on what the definition of "race" is? More importantly, if intelligence is at all hereditary, then he is being discriminated against because of his ethnic background (since ethnicity is essentially a closely shared hereditary line).
The Civil Rights act says differently.
Why? Its not the same.
It is the same, but not the same.
Shouldn't idiots be baned from the decision making of Slashdot? I mean, this aleged police rule is the rule for Slashdot moderation?
Because he's attempting to 'pass' the police IQ test?
Not everything that can be measured matters; Not everything that matters can be measured.
It's too easy to turn it around and have dumb people claiming discrimination.
But I've been the target of similar discrimination. I'm white and I'm smart but I've found myself in situations needing a minimum wage job. I've applied to flip burgers. I didn't have a chance in hell. Rational being that based on my profile I wouldn't last very long in the job. It's still discrimination.
Everyone knows that smart people don't like donuts and would never fit in.
that police are filtered out by intelligence. I heard it was because a) intelligent cops are more likely to abuse their power, b) cops need to react before they think. Less intelligent cops can be trained to react but you cannot teach an intelligent person to not think.
The problem is that in the end I have no respect for cops.
I was denied a job because I aced the test. First I was told I failed. When I didn't believe that, I went to his superior. He said that my scores were too high. I didn't let on that I was told I had failed. I then confronted him with what I was told earlier. I got the job.
Right at two years I was transferred to a position that no longer existed. They fired me and then fought to deny me unemployment benefits. I argued my case at the unemployment office and won. I pointed out that I was hired under a veteran's program and that they had to keep me on the job for a minimum of two years or they don't get federal funds. I showed that all other veterans hired under this program lost their jobs at two years, and they too were transferred to a non existent job classification and had their unemployment benefits contested. ( I knew the other veterans in this region who were hired under this law).
I wasn't aware that communists, homosexuals, gypsies, and jews were a different color.
Sure, their souls are pitch black, but outside they're more or less the same color as any other German.
Wow, Scientology always finds new ways to shock me as to how far they'll go.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
OMG! How?!?!
Life mimics fiction! A quote from the film Payback:
"Crooked cops. Do they come in any other way? If I'd been just a little dumber, I could have joined the force myself."
so as long as all blacks are barred or all gays or all woman than its ok?
I do hope this gets looked at by the higher courts, more for amusement's sake. Generally, the federal courts are required to protect against discrimination (or at least apply strict scrutiny) only when a statute or test involves a "suspect classification". What exactly does that phrase mean? Sandra Day O'Connor would have said that it meant any characteristic that was immutable to a person's identity (race, gender, etc.). I don't think we can be entirely confident that this is still the way the current Supreme Court would analyze the issue though, considering that they are hesitant to rule on cases involving sexual orientation. So, even though intelligence is almost certainly an immutable characteristic (barring intentional brain damage), the question is.....is intelligence a suspect classification for the government to use to discriminate?