IQ

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IQ
(dedicated to the memory of Alfred Binet and Louis Terman)
lyrics © 2007 by Dr. H. Paul Shuch
Sung to the tune of "Downtown," © 1964 by Tony Hatch

Before we can search for ETI, we have to define intelligence.

There is a test to help the brightest and best know how much they can do: IQ.
In just an hour, it gives us predictive power of success in school: IQ.
The numbers are indicative of cognitive potential,
And judging you before the fact is utterly essential.
Why waste our time
With students below the mean?
They are incompetent losers, or so it would seem.
Just use IQ. One meritocracy:
IQ. Knowledge must not be free.
IQ. It's just for me and for you.

Terman, Binet, and many others would say it is completely known: IQ.
Life is predicted, not at all contradicted, by one test alone: IQ.
We feel that education would be wasted on the masses,
And so we must reserve it for the able upper classes.
Democracy
Is lovely in theory, but
You know way up in your brain, and deep down in your gut
That it's IQ, helps to discriminate.
IQ, tells us who really rates.
IQ determines the fate of us all.

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