Books

Will We Be Smart Enough? A Cognitive Analysis of the Coming Workforce

Earl Hunt

Hunt's book provides succinct, lucid presentations of our best scientific understandings of thinking, intelligence, job performance, and how to measure them. Only by comprehending and applying these understandings to develop sound educational and instructional strategies can we create a capable workforce for the digital age. --John T. Bruer, President, James S. McDonnell Foundation

Earl Hunt applies keys insights from cognitive psychology and from the psychology of measurement to issues of workers and the workplace. His book constitutes a valuable contribution to, and synthesis of, an important area of study. --Howard Gardner, Harvard Project Zero

Will We Be Smart Enough? andThe Bell Curve Controversy

What about [The Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray] caused The New York Times to refer to it as the most controversial book of 1994, and to Murray as the most dangerous conservative in America? The answer is that they took an extreme position on a number of controversial issues [regarding intelligence and genetics]....My conclusion is that we have to do something to increase the amount of cognitive skills in the coming workforce and that, in many cases, we know what to do. Herrnstein and Murray claim that nothing can be done. I disagree....When it comes to improving the cognitive skills of the workforce, this is an area where everyone, whites and blacks, Latinos and Anglos, government programs and private enterprise, has got to get their act together. We do not know the perfect way to proceed. We do know how do some things that will help. Let us make the effort (and spend the money) to do them. --from the Afterword

Earl Hunt is professor of psychology and adjunct professor of computer science at the University of Washington.