
A Jigsaw Puzzle Was Given to Ellis Island Immigrants to Test Their IQ - dankohn1
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/puzzle-given-ellis-island-immigrants-test-intelligence-180962779/
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tyingq
It looks like part of the problem is that somebody simplified what the puzzle
was supposed to look like:
[https://intelligencegroup581.wikispaces.com/file/view/feat_p...](https://intelligencegroup581.wikispaces.com/file/view/feat_prof.png/139922425/827x679/feat_prof.png)

A bit easier when the pieces are the right shape, and the black ink isn't
missing or worn off.

Edit: Another historical picture with yet another configuration of the same
puzzle: [http://imgur.com/a/URP4m](http://imgur.com/a/URP4m)

Edit: Please note "Part of the Problem". I agree it still has issues.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Hm. Its still abstract. Without telling me "a face in profile" I could totally
misinterpret the blocks. That ear - wow. And the mouth - why isn't the paint
reflected in the shape of the block?

And who's to say how many took the test with the paint worn off?

Further, I'd say this has no fewer cultural references than any other IQ test.
Doing a block puzzle at all is cultural. Understanding that the ink and the
shapes were independent parts of the problem. That a face could be drawn in
profile. That a face can be represented just by eyes, lips, ears, and painted
mouth. That anybody would draw important conclusions about your future from a
child's toy.

~~~
throwanem
If we have a culture where doing block puzzles is a thing, what does a
potential immigrant's inability to understand the concept say about his
potential to assimilate?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
They'd learn. Its a human thing.

~~~
Danihan
Not beyond a certain imprinting age. See any story about feral children and
their inability to integrate.

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wand3r
Immigration is a lot like hiring. You want smart people with good cultural
fit. Not in the sense that everyone must be the same culture, but the ideals
and ethics of the two cultures must be rooted in similar things.

The puzzle is a bad implementation of the idea that we should test for
intelligence. Again, like hiring. This is the fizz buzz test with all the same
problems

~~~
golergka
> This is the fizz buzz test with all the same problems

What is your opinion on fizz buzz problems? I've found it to be a tremendous
help in the early interviewing process.

~~~
phaus
Here's my issue with it. I've taken a few programming classes. I could easily
write fizzbuzz as soon as I understood the syntax for loops. So, we're talking
day 1 of programming class. I could write it in like 4-5 different languages
right now. It would take some work, but I might even be able to figure out how
to write it in assembly. I still haven't written an actual program beyond the
simple exercises where you are trying to run a calculation and get a specific
output from the command-line.

I suppose it's good at filtering out people that don't even know the syntax of
a programming language, but do such people apply to programming jobs
frequently enough for fizzbuzz to be useful?

Edit: Didn't intend to offend people. I just can't comprehend why a person
would apply for a job when they don't know how to do it. I now get that it's a
bozo-check, I'm just surprised there's s need for it. I hire in a similar
industry and while we run into a lot of people that are obviously bad and or
inexperienced, they usually at least know the basics.

~~~
jstanley
Passing fizzbuzz isn't meant to indicate that the person is a good programmer.

Failing fizzbuzz is a quick way to indicate that the person is not a good
programmer.

~~~
ioulian
Failing the test is an indication that the person is 'not' a programmer.

You are mostly right, but are there any cases that a programmer wants to join
a company and he can't even write a FizzBuzz program?

I have asked that question to all the programmers that I've worked with (with
various levels of skill) and all of them can write it.

Is there any data on that? I would love to know if that test actually have
helped recruiters to identify bad programmers. Like if they can explain what
Ajax is and how it works, but fail to make a FizzBuzz program...

Sorry if it's a bit off topic

~~~
teej
> You are mostly right, but are there any cases that a programmer wants to
> join a company and he can't even write a FizzBuzz program?

Maybe I'm just being cynical but once you get involved in the process of
screening candidates you realize that people will literally apply to any job
regardless of their ability to perform it. So yes, there are thousands of
cases every day where someone wants a programming job and can't even write
FizzBuzz.

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JackFr
This is at least the second article in few weeks of self-congratulatory,
virtue-signaling-masked-as-history we've seen from Smithsonian.

From this article I see two takeaways:

1) Despite the tome of the article, this test seems reasonable. If we take as
given that we don't want to accept adults mentally incapable of caring for
themselves, this test seems reasonable, and the described level of exclusions,
less than 1000 for over a million immigrants, it seems very reasonable.

2) _HUMILITY_. The people operating Ellis Island 100 years ago were as self-
assured of their beliefs as is everyone reading this article today. Consider
how foolish we will look in 100 years.

~~~
maldusiecle
Definitely super great to dismiss any appeal to morals or decency as "virtue
signaling." Definitely not the sort of nihilism that corrodes and destroys
civil society.

~~~
JackFr
Defining virtue signaling as the action or practice of publicly expressing
opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the
moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.

The tone and substance of this article is not to illuminate the practices of
the past in a relevant historical context, but rather to denigrate them and
celebrate our own era. "Look how far we've come."

~~~
maldusiecle
On the contrary, this article gives plenty of historical context: its entire
purpose is to place the entry test in the context, first, of the tests which
preceded it, and second, of the ideologies (eugenicist) which it reflected.

If all reflection on how far society has come are mere "virtue signaling," how
can you have historical discussions on moral issues at all? You'd have to
start with the premise that moral progress is impossible.

I'm not throwing around the word "nihilism," I'm using it because I think it's
clear that the implication of your style of argument is the destruction of any
kind of moral progress. Any society that is to progress morally must be able
to define what it is progressing from.

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diminish
>> As crude as the puzzle test may seem today, it reflected the belief that
healthy immigrants should be admitted

Jigsaw puzzles can be quite tricky, beyond the simple wooden one used in the
Ellis Island Immigrant test. The most difficult Jigsaw puzzles I have seen are
the ones made from Pictures of Picasso [1], Edward Munch [2], Salvador Dali
and other modern painters

[1] Picasso: [https://www.zestoy.com/oiloncanvas/jigsaw-
puzzle/zmtlltgg/1/...](https://www.zestoy.com/oiloncanvas/jigsaw-
puzzle/zmtlltgg/1/girl-with-a-mandolin-by-pablo-picasso.html)

[2] Munch: [https://www.zestoy.com/oiloncanvas/jigsaw-
puzzle/zoxpwnju/1/...](https://www.zestoy.com/oiloncanvas/jigsaw-
puzzle/zoxpwnju/1/the-kiss-by-edvard-munch.html)

[3] Ellis Island: [https://www.zestoy.com/englishinterstellar/jigsaw-
puzzle/zpf...](https://www.zestoy.com/englishinterstellar/jigsaw-
puzzle/zpfmdrso/1/ellis-island-immigrant-test.html)

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snissn
Would they break up families? To me that is the most immoral part of
immigration policies and having borders.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Kind of. The whole family could go back. Or they could decide to leave one
behind. It was sort of "Sophie's choice" as I understand it.

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djaychela
I think I'd have been deported - the facial profile that's made by the puzzle
is bizarre looking, the kind of thing that you'd do and be convinced you'd got
the wrong end of the stick.

~~~
strictnein
As another commenter pointed out, there was a face drawn on the pieces, which
made it pretty straight forward

[https://intelligencegroup581.wikispaces.com/file/view/feat_p...](https://intelligencegroup581.wikispaces.com/file/view/feat_prof.png/139922425/827x679/feat_prof.png)

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gjkood
> Within a decade, though, anti-immigrant, eugenic and racist forces would
> persuade Congress to pass the Immigration Act of 1924, which dramatically
> cut back immigration of Italians, Eastern European Jews and other groups
> considered undesirable.

I guess people with names like:

Leo Szilard

Enrico Fermi

Albert Einstein

Robert Oppenheimer

and so on.

For more such foreign names please refer to the Manhattan Project bios [1]

[1] [http://www.atomicheritage.org/bios](http://www.atomicheritage.org/bios)

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wavefunction
They were just testing immigrant fingers for aptitude on assembly lines.

I don't see why y'all are knocking the test, except for maybe the claim it
measured 'IQ' (which is a questionable concept in its own right.)

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hartator
I guess it didn't change much, it's just now Google which is judging fizz buzz
tests! :)

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mydpy
"We're going to call it 'extreme vetting'."

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alphonsegaston
This kind of history is what strikes me as so absurd about anti-immigrant
rhetoric about "doing things the right way." If the ancestors of wide swathes
of the American populations were judged by modern standards, they would have
been turned away. Instead, their great-great-grandparents solved a jigsaw
puzzle and had someone size them up to see if they "looked like they had TB"
before they were let in the door. Their entitlement to some kind of imagined
cultural patrimony is such an obvious historical fiction.

