Quality is Superior to Quantity, and the principle applies across the board

(Update: In connection with Hermes's entry, be sure to read the VFR entry on the subject, and particularly Mark J's comments.)

Over at Wise Man's Heart, Hermes has [finally! ;)] put up another great post. I recommend that you go read it, as well as the lengthy comments he's gotten to the post. All of it is good. Some of it is a little more negative than my personal attitude generally will abide, but it's all good, as I said, and well worth the read.

But I'd like to focus my attention on one aspect Hermes brings out in the post, and to ask Hermes (or anyone else who has the answer) one of those politically incorrect questions that many of us seem to shy away from asking...

First of all, let me say that I do admit a little disappointment at going to Hermes's blog and finding that no new entry has been added in awhile. But why? Because of the quality of his posts. In other words, Hermes, I'm learning quickly that the quality of your posts makes it well worth my while to check your blog for new entries on a regular basis.

Now, I have to ask the politically incorrect question. Hermes mentions that he and his fellow medical students were required to take an IQ exam prior to being admitted to medical school. The question is this: Do you know whether the standards with regard to the IQ exam are different concerning "minorities?" For instance, when I was in the Air Force years ago, I learned from two female co-workers (an African American, and a Cuban American) that the grade requirements for acceptance into officer's training school were lower for them than they were for me, based, of course, on their minority status.

This knowledge precipitated a heated exchange between myself and the ladies mentioned wherein the bottom of their argument was that this policy was acceptable because they didn't have the same educational opportunities that I had growing up. My response to this nonsense was simply this: If you think I had more "educational" opportunities than you had growing up, you are sadly mistaken and deluded. Indeed, and as I further argued, what they were saying in actuality was that it was they, not I, who had more educational advantages given them (not earned), and those perceived advantages for them would follow them around for the rest of their lives. But the higher point was that by lowering the standards for entry into officer's training school, this could do nothing but lower the overall quality of the leadership of the U.S. Military, which, of course, results in a sub-par military; at very least a sub-par officer corps.

Now, I don't recall whether the conversation ever got around to discovering whether this disparity in standards (one reason for this is because the conversation got cut short when accusations of bigotry and racism were carelessly cast about concerning another co-worker who was arguing the same points I was, just a little more forcefully, and who was called before the commander who ultimately determined that there would be no more talk of different standards applying to different groups) applied to different groups carried over into the actual grading of achievement once a minority applicant was actually admitted by a lower standard, but it seems to me that to be consistent in the lowering of such standards, that this would have to be the case, or the final outcome.

So once again, the question is this: Do any of you know whether different IQ requirements, and/or, different grading standards are applied within the medical field to applicants and students enjoying "minority" status? Quality in the medical field is superior to quantity of minority applicants accepted. And you can quote me on that.

As I recently explained to my gymnast daughter (who has shown a capacity for making most of the requirements of the next level, albeit somewhat inconsistently at this point), who wants to advance to the next level so badly she can taste it, and has expressed that she hopes her instructors will move her up: "Your instructors don't determine when you advance; you determine when you advance, and don't you ever forget it." The point being this, that irregardless of what she achieves or doesn't achieve in gymnastics or anything else, I don't want her ever thinking her achievements based in anything other than a combination of God-given talents and hard work on her part in developing those talents. I certainly will never encourage such an attitude in any of my children. And those of you that do, or will, should be ashamed of yourselves! And you can quote me on that as well.