IQ study caps off theory

Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.

The discovery, like so many great scientific advances, was accidental.

At first it was dismissed as a diverting coincidence, then as a meaningless correlation without causal significance.

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Then a human resources professional, administering an IQ test saw a subject's analytical ability decline from the first half of the test to the second, and began looking for a possible cause of the apparent drop in intelligence.

Dr. Amy Handleman, the HR professional, probed her own recollections to determine what might have occurred during the 10-minute break in the testing. Her subject had just gone outside for a breath of fresh air. He hadn't eaten or drunk anything; he hadn't smoked a cigarette; he hadn't used the restroom.

Yet the difference between the scores of the first and second halves of the test indicated his IQ had dropped 20 points. Handleman strained to remember what might have been different. The subject had sat in the same chair, with the same light, using the same pencil, wearing the same clothing – the same clothing!

Then it came to her that when he resumed the testing, the subject had turned his ball cap backwards.

Recognizing the dangers of generalizing from the particular, Handleman observed many other subjects: A few had no caps; some wore ball caps with the bills forward; some wore them backwards. She even drafted co-workers into her experiments.

The results were consistent with her initial observation, and she at last conveyed her concern and her raw data to Dr. Howard Bashford, director of the famed Institute for Discovery of Intelligence Occlusion or Termination.

Institute staff raised the arguments of coincidence and chance correlation, but Bashford, showing the perspicuity that elevated him to prestigious job he held, overruled them. He demanded a series of meticulous, controlled, double-blind experiments that would not only replicate Handleman's work but also factor in everything from the materials used to make ball caps to their positions on the wearers' heads to date and time of day of testing.

Results of the studies, revealed here for the first time, were astounding. The most salient findings included:

• The decline in standardized test scores – SAT, ACT, GRE, as well as high school achievement – coincided with the increasing prevalence of the ball cap as a fashion accessory.

• Merely wearing a ball cap while taking the Stanford Benet IQ test reduced analytical ability by 10 points.

• Turning the cap backwards while taking such a test dropped analytical ability another 20 points. (Scores were even worse if the cap in question sported a plastic adjusting strap.)

• Adults wearing ball caps with the bills askew, like 10-year-olds returning from a Little League Game, registered no discernible intelligence at all. (Bashford believes this may account for the intellectual vacuity of most hip-hop ''lyrics.'')

• There was no apparent loss of intelligence when the caps were worn for utilitarian purposes: to shade the eyes of ball players, golfers and farmers; to block solar ultraviolet radiation; to make female joggers look cute.

''This is no small matter,'' Bashford told us, ''and we owe Dr. Handleman a debt of gratitude for bringing it to our attention. Our economists estimate that the loss of productivity attributable to the improper wearing of ball caps is costing the United States billions of dollars annually.

''We can look for further economic decline as the caps' popularity reduces the number of students capable of pursuing careers in engineer and science. Ultimately, our national security – indeed, our foundational civic institutions – may be at risk.''

He noted, as an example of the latter, that a high-level judge in Nebraska was issuing questionable rulings until it was discovered that his law clerk was briefing cases while wearing a ball cap – backwards.

Handleman said she also saw social costs in the ball cap phenomenon.

''The only place you see people doffing their caps as a sign of respect today is on the golf course,'' she said. ''People wear the things in theaters and restaurants, in high school and college classrooms – even at the family dinner table.

''This decline in civility surely is a function of diminished intelligence and may be linked to antisocial behavior. Further study is needed.''

In fact, Bashford said such research already is under way, exploring whether there is a relationship between criminality and improper ball cap wear. Another avenue of research lies in other headgear relationships, such as the question of why some youths wear wool watch caps or ear flap caps in the heat of summer.

''Does such headgear cause low intelligence or criminality, or does low intelligence cause the kids to wear the caps?'' Bashford mused.

''We're also looking at the effects of cap construction,'' he continued. ''Early indications show significant differences in the effects of well constructed, classic, wool ball caps and of those manufactured from cheaper, synthetic materials. Those with plastic adjustment straps are particularly suspect.

''It's terribly worrisome. Imagine what might happen if it became acceptable to wear ball caps in business settings or – worse yet – in government. What might happen if the people making our laws in Washington, D.C., began to wear the things. It's just ... it's just ... well, the thought makes it difficult for me to maintain my scientific detachment.''

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