IQ: Measure of intelligence or total BS?

[EGarrett]

Is the concept of IQ legit?

[hgc]

Is the concept of IQ legit?


I suppose an IQ test measures something. But since no one can seem to agree on what "intelligence" is, I don't see how you could possibly reduce it to a number or measure that number in a way that is significantly meaningful. Sure, you can bet that someone measuring 145 is probably a lot smarter than someone measuring 90, but you probably didn't need an IQ test to find that out about those 2 particular people.

I suggest reading Gould's slapdown of Herrnstein & Murray's The Bell Curve to get a better argument about it. Sorry for no link, but I don't think it'll be hard to Google up.

[slingblade]

Just my opinion, but I think a lot of what IQ tests measure is pattern recognition.

Anecdotal personal evidence, but my IQ goes up every time I take an IQ test, because I get better at recognizing the patterns in the questions.

Last time I took one was at college. Stanford-Binet. My IQ is supposedly 156. Previous scores have ranged from 130 (when I was around 10) to 156.
I think once I got a 165, but that was an online quiz.

I don't think any of it shows much that's reliable or indicative of more than my skill at recognizing patterns. I certainly don't think it reveals much about my intelligence at all. And I'm sure those numbers are wrong, wrong, wrong! :D

[Jorghnassen]

Bpesta22 will be drawn to this thread in 3... 2... 1...

[Steven Howard]

And here's some background reading, from the ... enthusiastic discussions on this topic in SMMT late last year:

IQ Tests (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=51699)
Intelligence, Critical Thought Capacity, and Heridability (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=60544)
Of "In-Group" & "Race" (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=63421)
What's your measured IQ? What do you think it means? (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=65548)
Scientific American and Spearman's g (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=65811)
Science as racism? (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=68576)
$50 donated to JREF in your name for some peer review (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=68648)
IQ Test Time (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=68692)

I think that was most of it.

[Tez]

"Battle of the Brains" - supposedly testing conventional IQ and comparing to other types of IQ - was vaguely interesting (for me at least - though probably coz I know one of the "winners" and wouldnt consider him particularly exceptional)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4035283636702937444&q=battle+of+the+brains

[Dustin Kesselberg]

I.Q. tests measure ability to take I.Q. tests.

[Dancing David]

They measure a certain quality of a general term intelligence. I agree with Dustin.

They do not predict success in life, work or academics (well maybe acedemics).

When they quote correlations above 65% I will get interested.

[Beerina]

I recall a college admissions guy telling me that if they knew your SAT and your high school grades, they had an excellent ability to predict your success as a college student. Which makes some sense -- if it measures general intelligence in some mildly accurate way combined with your demonstrated history of how hard you work academically.

[Ove]

One of the biggest kooks i have debated in here once coldly informed me that he had scored 165 in a MENSA test, like that prooved anything. :) There is also an old saying that demonstrates the principe quite well: "Knowledge i knowing that the tomato is a fruit." Wisdom is not using it to make Fruit Salad" (Danish fruit salad is a dessert with apples, pears, oranges bananas etc. with some chocolate lumps all soaked in a vanilla flavoured custard -yummm)

[Crossbow]

Is the concept of IQ legit?

IQ tests are very good at determining how well someone can score on an IQ test,
beyond that, I doubt that they have much value.

If one doubts the above statement, then I suggest that one attending a few 'Mensa' functions to see the actual value of IQ tests.

[Ladewig]

There have been a number of IQ threads in JREF already. The topic hasn't been discussed as much as gun control, but it has generated a remarkable number of posts.

[steverino]

[QUOTE=Ove;2568212]One of the biggest kooks i have debated in here once coldly informed me that he had scored 165 in a MENSA test...QUOTE]

Any idiot can CLAIM a high score on this forum.

[EGarrett]

"Battle of the Brains" - supposedly testing conventional IQ and comparing to other types of IQ - was vaguely interesting (for me at least - though probably coz I know one of the "winners" and wouldnt consider him particularly exceptional)

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4035283636702937444&q=battle+of+the+brainsFascinating. I've never seen this.

[Wat Tyler]

Y'all can put me down among the skeptics on this.

Like others have already said, I have found that my scores on IQ tests have risen over time - because in previous tests I have been exposed to types of problem that I have never encountered before, and can thus solve them more easily the next time I encounter them.

If I've seen the type of problem before, I do well, but if I've never seen the type of problem before, I don't.

I have a fairly high IQ (iirc 152) according to the last IQ test that I sat, but I also know that my ability to solve novel problems is much lower than that figure might suggest, and my good memory artificially inflates my 'IQ'.

The only thing that they measure is a person's ability (innate and experience-based) to take an IQ test, and imo the value of previous experience (encountered throughout the testee's Life®) renders IQ tests utterly unreliable.

I also have a problem with the amount of questions based on linguistic knowledge - if a person is very intelligent (whatever that means) but has never read any of the novels, proverbs or plays that the test references, then their IQ will be recorded as lower than it should be.

[Ove]

Any idiot can CLAIM a high score on this forum.

Quite agree :) but i believed him because he seemed very sensible except on this one point where he was totally - hmmm can't find a word strong enough.. I was merely trying to make the point that you CAN be intelligent and superstitious at the same time.

I think that high intelligence has a tendence to narrow the mind. One of the most intelligent men in Denmark is a professor in Mathematichs. He can explain what Einstein meant, -at the same time he is completely helpless. His wife does all the housekeeping for him down to making sure his pants are buttoned. Once in a TV show they gave him a challenge. Take a standard VCR from the box. Read the manual, connect the thing to a TV and play the Tape.

He couldn't...

Put another way, some people know a bit about a lot of different things and some people know a lot about one single thing and then they don't know that much about anything else..

[Kerberos]

They measure a certain quality of a general term intelligence. I agree with Dustin.

They do not predict success in life, work or academics (well maybe acedemics).

When they quote correlations above 65% I will get interested.
What on Earth does a correlation above 65% mean in this context?

[Dancing David]

What on Earth does a correlation above 65% mean in this context?


Someone once said it was correlated 25% with wealth or success at work. That is not a significan correlation.

[The Atheist]

Broadly speaking, IQ tests do indicate a level of intelligence - you only have to look at the other end of the scale to see that. People who score very low scores are generally quite incapable of any complex tasks.

Someone with IQ 185 may be no "smarter" than someone with 120, but both will be smarter than someone scoring 80.

[Kerberos]

Someone once said it was correlated 25% with wealth or success at work. That is not a significan correlation.

You miss the point. What does it mean? To just say that there is a so and so many % correlation between two things is meaningless. It could mean that a person with above average intelligence is 25% more likely to have above average income (that is 75% likelihood), but it could probably also about one million other things. It all depends on what categories you use, like for example whether you treat IQ as a variable going from 0-200 or divide it into groups, and the same for income. Not to mention what exactly you are measuring % of. I assume that the 25% or 65% is supposed to say something about how strong the correlation is, not the degree of statistical significance since that's simply a question of sample size.

[steverino]

Broadly speaking, IQ tests do indicate a level of intelligence - you only have to look at the other end of the scale to see that. People who score very low scores are generally quite incapable of any complex tasks.

Someone with IQ 185 may be no "smarter" than someone with 120, but both will be smarter than someone scoring 80.

True. Just look at those "slow" guys you hear about who commit murder, the ones that certain do-gooder segments of society want to excuse. They say, "He had an 80 IQ, and didn't know what he was doing." So I guess in this instance the IQ is viable to qualify, and excuse, a criminal mind.

[hgc]

True. Just look at those "slow" guys you hear about who commit murder, the ones that certain do-gooder segments of society want to excuse. They say, "He had an 80 IQ, and didn't know what he was doing." So I guess in this instance the IQ is viable to qualify, and excuse, a criminal mind.


I wonder what they do about admininstering IQ test to people who don't read too good (sic). How fast does an otherwise not-moronic person score in double digits just because he hasn't acquired advanced enough reading skills to understand the questions. Do they provide the questions verbally?

To the extent that's a factor, I think reading tests are a fairly reliable indicator of someone's ability to read, and the effects on an illiterate's ability to work and function are well understood.

[The Atheist]

I've administered thousands of general cognitive tests which are pretty much IQ tests by any other name and those with the really low scores have been people who are just quite dense rather than having reading problems.

You're right, though, there will be some circumstances where that applies.

[Puppycow]

One of the biggest kooks i have debated in here once coldly informed me that he had scored 165 in a MENSA test...

Any idiot can CLAIM a high score on this forum.

True, but there are also clearly cases of some very smart people such as chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov who happen to believe in some pretty kooky stuff. Not to mention Bobby Fisher.

I think that "IQ" is one kind of intelligence, but that there is also "social intelligence" and "emotional intelligence" and other kinds that do not show up in the IQ test score.

It's kind of like, if you compare the heights of people, there might be a rough correlation with basketball ability, but there are also many other important factors that go into basketball ability besides height. The IQ test can only measure one aspect of intelligence, just as a meter stick can only measure one aspect of basketball ability.

[Dustin Kesselberg]

There are plenty of things that can skew IQ test results including reading ability, amnesia, dyslexia, or other disabilities that affect ones ability to perceive the test they are taking but who still have very high I.Q.'s. There are also probably a lot of people who are simply "good" at taking I.Q. tests. Good with puzzles and word problems but who aren't that bright at all.

[Steven Howard]

This will probably break Dave1001's heart:

Study finds no correlation between wealth and IQ. (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070424204519.htm)