Symbols and Tests

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In our adult forum last Sunday, we discussed symbols. After looking at a few frequently used Christian symbols, we turned to those we carry with us personally whether we carry them in our pockets, on our lapels or bodices, or in our minds. Our conversation was mostly light and uncritical, except when we talked about the cross and the fish, both of which retain their earlier meanings for many people of faith but, under the banner of Christendom, developed belligerent meanings and uses that put people who are not Christian on guard.

One further tendency of the symbolic also raised warning flags. From amulet to sacrament, the use of symbols always threatens to supplant the realities those symbols were meant to represent and reinforce. The outward expression of an inward truth, over time, tends to take over that truth itself and replace it.

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I.Q.: a Number Signifying What?

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I appreciated Nicholas Kristoff’s recent article on the malleability of I.Q., the measure of something that has something to do with intelligence, we think, maybe. What I applaud in Kristoff’s piece is his insistence that we no longer accept the notion that I.Q. is genetically determined. Hear, hear!

The following paragraph, however, has continued to disturb me since I first read it:

Professor Nisbett provides suggestions for transforming your own urchins into geniuses — praise effort more than achievement, teach delayed gratification, limit reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity — but focuses on how to raise America’s collective I.Q. That’s important, because while I.Q. doesn’t measure pure intellect — we’re not certain exactly what it does measure — differences do matter, and a higher I.Q. correlates to greater success in life.

Here’s the problem: “we’re not certain exactly what it does measure.” Oh? But it “correlates to greater success in life,” whatever that means and however such success is measured once we determine what it means.

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