Do ICQ Tests Measure Intelligence?

[Dooga Blackrazor]

I was looking over the IQ threads and I found them quite interesting. But something I've always wondered is how are ICQ tests sufficient? They measure how intelligent you are?

Dictionary.com defines intelligence as: The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.

ICQ tests ask you a various assortment of questions based on different categories. In reality doesn't the test just tell you how much information you know. When in reality it wouldn't be testing your intelligence at all. For example it asks you to solve a math problem? But maybe your an English major. Who is to say if taught you couldn't easily acquire the abilities to solve the problem if you were taught?

Also when I was younger I got a 139 on an online test. The most recent one I took was probably I year ago I got 109. I'm going on 16 in April so my age problem lowers my ability to get accurate results I'm guessing?

I suppose I'm being a bit obsessive. Probably because I use my intelligence and wisdom as a method to increase my ego to survive the brutal High School world. Its working for me.

Anyway thanks to those who respond. Also for those curtious people who try and explain it in simpliar words its fine. I'd rather have difficulty grasping whatever concept you are explaining and learn something than not learn something at all because it was made easier for me.

 

[Vosh]

The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.

That's pretty on the money.

There is no shortage of IQ test websites that return results that are 20 times higher than the real score so that you will send money for the rest of their services. One website told me my IQ was 180. I happen to know I'm nowhere near that smart, but I was smart enough to know it. That was my first experience with one of these sites trying to entice me to send them money so that I could see "the rest of my results" and then I started hearing about it from other people. Caveat emptor, they say. Fools and their money are soon parted.

Taking the mensa test might help you gauge your intelligence. Also, an IQ score should be arrived at by taking several, perhaps 5, IQ tests over a period of time and then averaging everything out. People like to grumble about the validity of intelligence tests; but like the MMPI, which psychologists allow can't tell you everything about someone personality as if you had mind melded with them, but it's close enough! If you score 180, probably you're fairly bright. If you score 80, probably you are not.

There are personality quirks that are hints suggesting being above average. Above average ppl. don't take things personally, insults or compliments. They have their own thoughts about things (don't care if they're the only one laughing out loud in the theatre or at a joke -- or not laughing). They judge things from a clinical point of view instead of an emotional one. They have their emotions, but they're emotions don't have them. They're resourceful when it comes to dealing with stress (one study of Vietnam vets suggested that Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome was more prevalent among soldiers with below average intelligence -- the psychologists wrote that they thought one explanation might be that the smarter ones, while no less horrified by what they experienced, were more resourceful at coping). They don't drop 10 dollar vocabulary words when a 2 dollar one will suffice. Just some things I've noticed...

It's still true that tests in school only measure the ability to take tests. If you want me to elaborate on that, let me know. Not enough space here!

 

[Nachtwolf]

They measure how intelligent you are?

Dictionary.com defines intelligence as: The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.

IQ tests do measure the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge. However in the strictest sense, IQ tests do not measure intelligence - they measure, to the best of their ability, "psychometric g," which is the underlying construct inherent to every known mental ability - spelling, reaction time, memory (digit span), and reasoning; you name it, g is part of it.

(In my opinion as a layman, true intelligence is probably not exactly g, but instead a combination of g, visuospatial ability, verbal ability, and a host of other factors. This is analogous to strength not being total muscle mass but instead muscular development over specific as well as general areas.)

This stated, however, the way everyone uses words, intelligence and g are essentially the same thing, and, judging by the importance of g, this isn't an oversimplification. It's largely just an academic footnote but hopefully it'll obviate confusion.

Who is to say if taught you couldn't easily acquire the abilities to solve the problem if you were taught?

It just doesn't work out that way. People who score badly on tests of mathematical aptitude also tend to score poorly on tests of verbal ability. This is the essence of g: Suck at one thing? Suck at most things.

My own IQ is somewhere around 170. I compose excellent music (I get rave reviews from friends and strangers) I write excellent poetry, I write and draw and win video game tournaments, and I'm a physics major. I am (perhaps obnoxiously) good at everything, and am a perfect example of how g works - these various skills and abilities seem disparate, but g is present in all of them.

Also when I was younger I got a 139 on an online test.

I've discussed this subject with a professional psychometrician (he administered IQ tests for a living). According to him, and every other source available to me, online IQ tests are bunk.

Above average ppl. don't take things personally, insults or compliments.

In my opinion, this has far more to do with Field Independence than intelligence. In my experience, intelligent humanities majors (who tend to be Field Dependent) take everything personally.

According to Chris Brand and others, some giveaways for g are:

* Attractiveness
* Talking speed & vocabulary
* Breadth and depth of interests and knowledge
* Height and slenderness
* Myopia (wearing glasses)

Of course, the correlations between these things and g are small, so someone could display each and every one of them and still be a blithering nimrod.

the smarter ones, while no less horrified by what they experienced, were more resourceful at coping). They don't drop 10 dollar vocabulary words when a 2 dollar one will suffice.

Actually this can go either way. Someone who uses large words and complex or archaic grammatical forms isn't going to be of below average intelligence, so the question is whether he is "a little smart or a lot smart." The key to reading people who toss around hefty vocabulary is to try and figure out why they are doing this. If they're doing it to prove to themselves how smart they are, they're probably just maladjusted geeks in the 100-130 range. But they may do it simply because it's natural to them; birds don't fly to show off. Many times I'll make an effort to talk down to people and they'll still complain that I'm confusing.

Personally I have found this style of writing to be most advantageous to me, since a more lackadaisical style encourages disrespect and a more poetic style is confusing. Sadly, people generally lack the logical ability and motivation needed to separate the text from the cover of a book, and the most effective way I've discovered to convince people of my views is to make them fear to even think of disagreeing.


--Mark

 

[Dooga Blackrazor]

Thats quite interesting. Thanks for the posts. I'm assuming its possible to increase your IQ? Is there any age where an IQ level would reach its prime so to speak and then not increase as rapidly?

Anyway I guess my IQ whatever it is doesn't have much significance. Most if things I do get accomplished. If they don't its usually because I don't care as much as I thought and don't put a lot of effort in them. I'm one of those people who can grasp almost everything but not always quickly - which causes me to ignore somethings.

Also to Vosh the thing on post tramatic stress disorder. That would have exceptions right? Because J.R.R. Tolkien is said to have suffered from it from it during war time which caused him to be sent home. I'd assume being such a writer he wouldn't be below average intelligence. Or perhaps he somehow tricked people into thinking he had it. Well this is interest.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Well you do have to remember that g is the cognitive loading of a particular subject, so it's not really true that "suck at g, suck at everything". Someone could be quite strong at verbal things for example, but poor at understanding abstract relationships.

Your own gifts are quite remarkable and rare. There is a theorem called regression toward the mean, which says if you have something far out on the tail of a normal curve, the probability that an unrelated but linked thing will also be far out on its curve is small. Example: the children of extremely tall parents are likely to be a little shorter. But also the parents of an extremely tall child are likely to be a little shorter. The point is not children and parents, and it's not causal. It's just the result of sampling from two different populations. If the second curve is not causally related to the first, then the second draw will be random and tend toward the mean.

 

[Nachtwolf]

Originally posted by Dooga Blackrazor
I'm assuming its possible to increase your IQ?

The short answer is "not really." Psychometric g fluctuates somewhat from day to day, but despite our best efforts, we haven't found any way to increase it environmentally. This is one of the big reasons why eugenics is so important - it's really our only option if we as a society want to increase our intelligence or even keep what we have now.

That would have exceptions right?

It's just a general trend, the same way it's a general trend that criminals tend to be of low intelligence. As it happens, criminals score around 8 points worse than non criminals on IQ tests and have a mean IQ near 93. This means that around 2 out of every 3 criminals is less intelligent than the average person, but 1 in 3 are more intelligent.

it's not really true that "suck at g, suck at everything".

I wrote "suck at g, suck at most things," and I stand by that statement.

Your own gifts are quite remarkable and rare.

Yes. The probability that my IQ would be as high as I claim is somewhere in the neighborhood of one in ten thousand. The probability that I am lying is almost certainly higher. Frankly I think IQ stops being meaningful past 160 - the tests work best on people below 130, and as your intelligence gets higher, it becomes more difficult to design accurate tests.

There is a theorem called regression toward the mean

I love Francis Galton.


--Mark

 

[recon]

I actually played around with this IQ test available online. I was aghast to find out that its ceiling score was only 145! On my first try, I scored 143.

I have never taken a proper IQ test before, but I am pretty sure that it is around 120. But I can't really be sure. To give you a scope of my capabilities: I once beat 10,000 students to a prize in a mathematics competition. I am also having trouble at my school (which does not provide advanced placement classes).

So I do think that I deserve to label myself as having above-average intelligence.

My experience is that online tests are downright inaccurate.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I believe there's a Raven Matrices test online, not one of those phoney commercial ones. Google on raven matrices.

 

[Nachtwolf]

I just tried that and found 566 hits for sites about it or sites advertizing versions for purchase, and I have no idea which would offer a free online test. Do you remember anything else about the site? Which terms would narrow the search?

--Mark

 

[selfAdjoint]

I'll look around. I remember the large number of returns when I did it last year and I had to fool around with a few before I found what I was looking for.

 

[Julian Solos]

It may be beneficial to know that by definition, IQ score of 100 is the average. Some must score higher than 100 and some lower than 100 in any sample group. It just doesn't happen that everyone in a sample group scores higher than 100. Some are bound to come out "dumber" than others.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Quite true. As I've said before, the relative IQ's between ethnic groups don't mean there aren't geniuses and dolts in all groups.

 

[Nereid]

Nachtwolf wrote: *SNIP This is one of the big reasons why eugenics is so important - it's really our only option if we as a society want to increase our intelligence or even keep what we have now.

A certain Austrian gent in the last century agreed with you (though you likely weren't born before he died) and decided to do something about it. You might have heard of him. IIRC, the KKK also agrees with you.

 

[Evo]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
My own IQ is somewhere around 170. I compose excellent music (I get rave reviews from friends and strangers) I write excellent poetry, I write and draw and win video game tournaments, and I'm a physics major. I am (perhaps obnoxiously) good at everything, and am a perfect example of how g works - these various skills and abilities seem disparate, but g is present in all of them.]

You're joking, right? No intelligent person would be so self aggrandizing.

When I was 11, I was put through IQ tests & interviews with psychologists in an attempt by the school I attended to try to figure out why I was so "odd". I don't know what my current IQ is, but at age 11, I was told my IQ was 185, I can't confirm that, maybe my mother can, I didn't know what that meant at the time. My parents were called in and told that I should be placed in a school for the academically able, minimum IQ requirement to even be considered was 140. But you know what? I can't hold a candle to the majority of the people on this forum as far as knowledge goes. IQ tests may show a capacity for understanding, and a smattering of math, but by itself doesn't mean squat. So don't let a high IQ go to your head.

Many times I'll make an effort to talk down to people and they'll still complain that I'm confusing.

OMG, "talk down" to people? Condescension is such a lovely quality...

Nachtwolf, maybe you are smart, but you really need to work on your personality.

 

[Nachtwolf]

Originally posted by Nereid
A certain Austrian gent in the last century agreed with you (though you likely weren't born before he died)

No, he didn't. If he did, his party wouldn't have outlawed IQ tests.

and decided to do something about it. You might have heard of him. IIRC, the KKK also agrees with you.

*Gasp* They agree with me about the Earth being round, too! And I'll bet you think the Earth is round, too! We all have so much in common. We should have tea together sometime.

You're joking, right? No intelligent person would be so self aggrandizing.

I know other brilliant people who are open about it. There will always be those who feel offended by such candid admissions, yet I can’t help but find their discomfort amusing.

OMG, "talk down" to people? Condescension is such a lovely quality...

Hahaha! At the risk of coming off as even more of a meanie, I'd like to point out that sarcasm is generally considered condescending. And of course so is this:

you really need to work on your personality.

How shockingly rude! My brain reels in dismay from your bluntness!

On a more serious note, I have different motivations and goals from most people. I don't view this bulletin board as a personality contest in which the more people like me, the better, since I don't derive my self esteem from the approbation of others and am perfectly comfortable when people say "you're a jerk, but I think you're right."

So, Evo, let me ask you (since Nereid is having a little trouble getting past knee jerk prejudices) what do you think about dysgenics? Have you an opinion on the statement that "intelligence is partially genetic, and if the smart people are out-reproduced by the dummies, this will have a negative impact on society?"


--Mark

 

[Nereid]

Eugenics?

Nachtwolf: "...This is one of the big reasons why eugenics is so important - it's really our only option if we as a society want to increase our intelligence or even keep what we have now."

Nereid: "A certain Austrian gent in the last century agreed with you [...] and decided to do something about it."

Nachtwolf: "No, he didn't. If he did, his party wouldn't have outlawed IQ tests."

Perhaps 'eugenics' has a different meaning in the English spoken where you live. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, it's "The study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding."

A quote from http://www.yale.edu/opa/v28.n21/story10.html:
"Eugenics describes the process of supposedly strengthening the human race through selective breeding. The Nazis ordered forced sterilization of individuals suffering from diseases thought to be hereditary, among them schizophrenia, epilepsy, alcoholism, manic depression, hereditary deafness or blindness, severe hereditary physical deformity, Huntington's chorea and congenital feeblemindedness."

Perhaps you have a different view of what happened in Germany at that time?

 

[selfAdjoint]

Nereid, the Nazi breeding program was based on an unscientific race mystique. The Nazis were contemptuous of science, and really of rationalt=ity in general.

Eugenics doesn't cause holocausts, people cause holocausts.

(Not that I am defending any use of eugenics, it's just your guilt by association argument that bugs me.)

 

[Nereid]

SelfAdjoint,

Point taken. I know I get emotional about this, it's almost always guaranteed to set me off.

A debate about eugenics may be a good idea - Nachtwolf, would you like to start a thread?

 

[Moonbear]

I don't believe there is much heritability to intelligence. You can have two complete idiots breed and somehow wind up with a wonderfully intelligent child, quite possibly because that child had to learn how to fend for his/herself early on. Or, you can have two intelligent or successful people wind up with a complete idiot for a child because they've just handed everything to their kid without ever making him/her work for it or think about anything (e.g., Paris Hilton). I really think most of our potential for achieving a certain level of intelligence is experience-based.

Much of what is addressed in IQ tests is not how many vocabulary words you know or how many syllables they have, or whether you can solve multivariable calculus problems, it's about how well you recognize patterns and relationships among things. It's not about how much you can memorize lists of facts, it's about how well you can problem-solve. Whether they are predictive of performance in school or work depends largely on what skills are important for your classes or job. Most people can get through high school without ever learning anything other than rote memorization of gobs of facts. The way colleges have been dumbing down their grading curves, you can get through a lot of college courses the same way. Frighteningly, I've seen the same work for medical school. Complete idiots who couldn't problem-solve their way out of a paper bag can pass med school classes with flying colors because they can memorize insane amounts of facts just long enough to regurgitate it onto a fill-in-the-bubble exam. Same with a number of jobs. If your job requires just following the boss' orders, then you're going to do very well if you're not thinking too much about things. However, if you need to understand relationships between concepts, find creative solutions to problems, or even recognize there are problems that need solving, then those situations start to sort out the wheat from the chaff.

As for this nonsensical discussion of eugenics and stupid people breeding, it's basic population genetics that stupid people have more children. If they are truly that stupid, they probably aren't very good parents, and therefore, they need more children to ensure any of their offspring survive to reproductive age. However, where this falls apart is in our society who keeps coddling the idiots rather than forcing them to take responsibility for their own bad choices. We give them handouts, send the children off to be raised by more competent parents, pay their medical bills, etc. On the other hand, there's nothing you can do to make more intelligent people have more children. They are going to do a very good job raising just one or two and know that if they had more, they couldn't give the kids the time and attention they need to develop into responsible adults. But, the biggest limitation to this whole notion is that intelligent women just can't find intelligent men to breed with (Sorry, couldn't resist that last line.)

 

[selfAdjoint]

The heritability of g, based on twin studies is between 50% and 70%. That is percent of variance between individuals accounted for by heritage.

You are right about the difference between memorizing "gobs of facts" and problem solving. Education is structured to be of use to the great middle bulge of the bell curve, and those folks can manage the first task but are weak on the second.

The highest intellectual professions require both. Witten is a top theoretical physicist partly because he knows so many things about physics and especially mathematics that others don't, but also because he can deploy all that he knows effectively to solve problems.

 

[Evo]

Moonbear, great post. It's so nice to see an intelligent argument stated without the ranting, raving and pontificating which is all too prevalent here.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Firstly IQ does change because they adjust the mean average, every so often, to reflect the growing learned'ness of the population.

Secondly, take a person like myself, some of you have some idea of some of what I do know, (time did that) but what most of you probably didn't know about me is the anxiety that I had (when I was younger) while taking tests, I can easily recall my Calculus test, how I sat in the auditorium, prior to entering into the examination room, calm, cool, list of equations in my hand, knew them all "Off by Heart" no Problemo...two minutes later...I'm in the testing room, test in front of me, need one of the Equations that I had, two minutes past, been looking at, couldn't, for the life of me, get it to re-surface in my brain, palms sweating, nervousness, complete (or near enough) loss of the ability to recall any of the math I needed...

Only reason why I passed was because my Prof. knew of the classwork I had done, and knew that I did know the subject matter waaaay better then that test revealled...

IQ tests prove that people who take IQ tests, like tests, and are good at tests...I'm not one of those...but neither am I stupid...

BTW Nachtwolf Please, tell us all how gravity works, from the beginning, please...(how is the center of the Earth pressurized? please) {I ask cause I want to know that you can "go where no one has gone before", not just repeat-repeat-repeat-repeat-repeat-repeat repeat...AKA parrot...been first at anything? Originality in music is a bit like originality in painting...means something, but not everything}

 

[Evo]

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
IQ tests prove that people who take IQ tests, like tests, and are good at tests...I'm not one of those...but neither am I stupid...

Exactly! I read recently of a Nobel Prize winning scientist whose IQ test results were rather low (I think it was in an article about Mensa, he didn't qualify). He just doesn't test well as his mind is on too many things at once.

An IQ test is nothing more than an aptitude test. It really is not a test of overall "knowledge" or the ability to expand on that knowledge. A low IQ test score cannot be an assumption of low intelligence because it could simply be that the person doesn't test well, is too nervous, etc...

I scored high because I test well. I have a logical mind which allows me to excel in these types of tests. I have (or at least had) an almost photographic memory. I know a lot of "facts", however I do not have the ability to take those facts and make something more out of them. I have a high IQ, so what, it's meaningless.

To me, the true test of intelligence would be to give someone a few facts or objects and then see what they can create from them. It is the visionary thinkers and creators that I look up to, and admire.

Until they come up with an IQ test for these abilities, the current tests (IMHO) are just an assessment of basic skills.

 

[Nachtwolf]

Moonbear, great post.

Moonbear's post was flat out wrong. IQ is well known to have a high heritability, as reported in Jensen's The g Factor. Jensen summarizes:

http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/science.htm --> Jensen

The broad heritability of IQ is about .40 to .50 when measured in children, about .60 to .70 in adolescents and young adults, and approaches .80 in later maturity.


The American Psychological Association seconds Jensen's analysis:

http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/science.htm --> APA on IQ

If one simply combines all available correlations in a single analysis, the heritability (h2) works out to about .50 and the between-family variance (C2) to about .25 (e.g., Chipuer, Rovine, & Plomin, 1990; Loehlin, 1989). These overall figures are misleading, however, because most of the relevant studies have been done with children. We now know that the heritability of IQ changes with age: h2 goes up and C2 goes down from infancy to adulthood (McCartney, Harris, & Bernieri, 1990; McGue, Bouchard, Iacono, & Lykken, 1993). In childhood h2 and C2 for IQ are of the order of .45 and .35; by late adolescence h2 is around .75 and c2 is quite low (zero in some studies).

Anyone who claims that IQ isn't strongly genetic is ignorant of these well established facts. Pay attention to Self Adjoint; he knows what he's talking about.


--Mark

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Humm if it is inherited then is it better to have had older parents? or younger ones? cause the Genes change over time, and so does the parental IQ...so...

 

[selfAdjoint]

Originally posted by Mr. Robin Parsons
Humm if it is inherited then is it better to have had older parents? or younger ones? cause the Genes change over time, and so does the parental IQ...so...

By "Genes change over time" do you mean mutation?

It is a bit questionable whether the physical underpinning of g is the same for juveniles as for adults. An important UCLA study of Finnish adult twins found a high correlation between g determined from WAIS IQ tests and volume of grey matter in the prefrontal cortex, measured by functional MRI according to an established procedure. I'll try to find a link to their paper, I think I linked to it before. The point is that deposition of this grey matter is only completed in the adult years. So juvenile g (determined remember as the principal component of the test answers) may be correlated with other brain functions/areas. This would explain Jensen's finding of a difference in heritability with age.

(Edit) The paper is \[PLAIN]http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/MEDIA/NN/genetics_article_NN.pdf[/URL]

 

[Evo]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Moonbear's post was flat out wrong. IQ is well known to have a high heritability, as reported in Jensen's The g Factor. Jensen summarizes:

http://www.childrenofmillennium.org/science.htm --> Jensen

--Mark

Nachtwolf, the website you refer to (childrenofmillennium.org) is your own personal website and is not a legitimate reference. I don't care that you search for and post anything you can find to support your views on there.

IQ can be increased simply by studying the types of questions that are on the tests. Moonbear is absolutely correct in what he said about children of people of low IQ's having children that can attain high IQ's and vice versa.

My opinion? Worrying about IQ scores is silly. Why are you wasting your time on this? It seems to me that the only people that worry about it are the people that aren't clever enough to actually invent, expand on, or improve upon things. They feel inferior to those that "can". (Ok, there may be others that need "validation" of their "superiority" for what ever reason, but again I ask "what is the point?") Wouldn't your energies be better spent elsewhere if you are so damn smart?

Stupid people (with high IQ's) have been worrying about being out bred by stupid people (with low IQ's) for a LONG time.

Here is a link to what I consider to be an outstanding paper on the subject. Outstanding in part due to the author's ability to remain entirely objective and to give equal consideration to both sides. He also backs everything he says with "valid" research, not the biased findings of "crackpots".

I suggest that you read through this thoroughly and try to digest the information contained.

http://psych.colorado.edu/hgss/hgsschapters/HGSS_Chapter21.pdf

*edit to add link*

 

[Nachtwolf]

Nachtwolf, the website you refer to (childrenofmillennium.org) is your own personal website and is not a legitimate reference. I don't care that you search for and post anything you can find to support your views on there.

Pedantic nonsense. My sources are Jensen's summary of The g Factor and The APA Task Force report "Intelligence, Knowns and Unknowns." These essays can be found all over the web, at sites such as

http://home.comcast.net/~neoeugenics/apa.htm
http://www.mugu.com/cgi-bin/Upstream/Issues/psychology/IQ/apa.html

and

http://psycprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00000658/

Accept the fact that IQ is largely heritable, and move on.

My opinion? Worrying about IQ scores is silly.

Your opinion is predicated on ignorance. The facts are anything but silly - in fact they are of grim importance.

Whites are losing approximately 1.6 points per generation via differential fertility, blacks are losing approximately 2.4 points per generation from differential fertility, and, due to shifting demographics the country the national IQ is shifting roughly 2 points downward every twenty five years.

The IQ of the average criminal is 8 points lower than the IQ of non-criminals.

The profile of the typical neglectful or abusive mother is a woman with an IQ of 80.

IQ is a better predictor of future earnings than the social class into which you are born.

The average IQ of a nation correlates at 40% with the per capita GDP of that nation.

The minimum IQ needed to graduate from a 4 year university is 100. The average IQ of college graduates is 115, and their average fertility is around 1.7, while the average fertility of those in this country without a high school education is around 2.8.

We should expect that a shift of 3 IQ points downward (which at current rates of decline will occur before 2050) will increase the number of permanent high school dropouts, men prevented from working by health problems, children not living with either parent, men ever interviewed in prison, persons below the poverty line, children in poverty for the first 3 years of life, women ever on welfare, women who become chronic welfare recipients, and children born out of wedlock by approximately 20%.

The crucial importance of intelligence, and the current drain on our intelligence, overshadows all other political concerns and represents the greatest threat to civilization in the modern world. Unless we enact some form of eugenic program or take voluntary action to solve this problem, we are living in the last days of modern civilization.


--Mark

 

[Evo]

Originally posted by Nachtwolf
Pedantic nonsense. My sources are Jensen's summary of The g Factor and The APA Task Force report "Intelligence, Knowns and Unknowns." These essays can be found all over the web, at sites such
Accept the fact that IQ is largely heritable, and move on.

You really are a dim bulb. Heritability is only "moderate". See the link I posted if you need proof.

Your opinion is predicated on ignorance. The facts are anything but silly - in fact they are of grim importance.]

No, sweetie, you are the one who is ignorant...and unable to grasp reality.

You continue to spew off all of these irrelevant "statistics" of yours, but you fail to address any of the questions posed to you. You have not addressed any of the statements I made in the last couple of posts. You either did not read or are incapable of understanding the link I posted.

Which is it?

*edit, I saw the link was omiited on the original post, funny Nachtwolf did not mention this.* I guess he avoids reading anything that may prove him wrong?

 

[Moonbear]

The one universal truth about intelligence, no matter what board I'm posting on, seems to be that the perceived intelligence of my posts largely depends upon whether the reader agrees or disagrees with my points.

I'm not going to argue for or against the points made in the links above since they are clearly selected because they support the views of that site, and I don't have the time or inclination to delve into the peer-reviewed literature to determine for myself what the evidence really says.

For the sake of argument, let's assume the statement that the average IQ is dropping by 2 points every generation is true. What does that actually mean? It certainly doesn't mean the entire population because I know for a fact I haven't had my IQ tested every 25 years to include me in that population mean. So, could it simply mean the sample set is different? When I was a kid, IQ tests were administered primarily to the kids with a certain degree of aptitude in their classes as a way of determining if they were truly "gifted" for whatever reason the schools or parents had for wanting to know this information. If a kid just wasn't doing well in school, there didn't seem to be much point in confirming they had a lower IQ. But, if schools are now rounding up all the kids to test for whatever reasons they now have, a lower average could simply mean people who would have never taken the test 25 years ago now are being forced to take it. Also, what sort of variation are we talking here? Is this a statistically significant change in the mean? Or, are we talking down 2 points, plus or minus 6 points, which really means no change?

For the further sake of argument, let's say this really is a leftward shift in the entire distribution for the entire population. How exactly is this going to affect you or me or the population as a whole? Is the human species going to go extinct because we've gotten dumber? Humans will eventually go extinct anyway, that's just the way things work on this planet. Does IQ confer any particular selective advantage for members of our species? Well, if IQ is steadily dropping and heritable, as you argue, then it seems the converse is true. If there is a lower limit of IQ where survivability decreases, and it makes sense that there is, then it seems the trend will eventually reverse itself or the extremes will drop out.

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by Moonbear
(SNIP) For the sake of argument, let's assume the statement that the average IQ is dropping by 2 points every generation is true. What does that actually mean? (SNoP)

It means that the level of knowledge in our collective society is rising at an exponetial rate with the sheer volume of discoveries and inventions ongoing, it means that the tests have been advancing but the manner and ability to educate people, from youth, is not really changing as it cannot without changing the physical structures of people, it means that the average is indicated as dropping but that that may simply be as a result of the "other two ends" being stretched out even farther then ever before...hence why they tend to re-adjust the center of it, bell curve to the 100 %/tile it means more things then just that...

 

[Julian Solos]

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Benjamin Disraeli [?], quoted by Mark Twain; Henry Labouchére [?]


He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts – for support rather than illumination.

Andrew Lang.


Then there is the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches

W.I.E. Gates

From: http://alpha.fdu.edu/psychology/basic_concepts.htm

 

[selfAdjoint]

The one universal truth about intelligence, no matter what board I'm posting on, seems to be that the perceived intelligence of my posts largely depends upon whether the reader agrees or disagrees with my points.

Yes. It's called denial, and it always comes down to ad hominem insults, straw men arguments, guilt by association, and irrelevant put downs of statistics. The discussants are unwilling to couple to the substance of the argument, for whatever reason.

In fact the measured IQs around the world are rising and were rising during much of the 20th century. Better nutrition and better schooling (!) are the causes cited. It's called the Flynn effect after the man who discovered it.

And before someone says "See! Non genetic factors do matter!" note the difference between even an 80% reduction of variance and 100%.

 

[Evo]

Originally posted by Moonbear
The one universal truth about intelligence, no matter what board I'm posting on, seems to be that the perceived intelligence of my posts largely depends upon whether the reader agrees or disagrees with my points.

True, but I appreciate anyone that can state their opinion (whether I agree with them or not) without becoming unhinged, and I will complement them for that.

You will also find here that if you say anything with any certainty that you will be asked to furnish documented "proof" of what you are saying, which is why you will see so many references. Not to mention the links prevent copyright violations. But some people do get carried away.

Julian, you always make me smile. :)

Yes SelfAdjoint, IQ scores are actually increasing.

From the "link" I posted.

"with few exceptions, everyone acknowledges that raw IQ scores are increasing over time. The big debate is over why scores are increasing. Many including Flynn (1998) himself, suspect that there has been no real change in the anatomical and physiological substrates of IQ. Instead they argue that variables including increasing familiarity with test taking have driven the secular trend. This may indeed be true, but it poses a strong challenge to the interpretation of the genetic data on IQ – to what extent does the similarity among relatives measure real similarity in IQ as opposed to sophistication in test-taking?"

"Whatever the ultimate causes of the Flynn effect, the rise in IQ scores has been so strong that it cannot be plausibly caused by any known genetic mechanism of evolution."

"from a genetic perspective, one point is clear – humans are not just “born” with intelligence. Intelligence develops over time."

 

[Mr. Robin Parsons]

Originally posted by selfAdjoint
(SNIP) And before someone says "See! Non genetic factors do matter!" note the difference between even an 80% reduction of variance and 100%. (SNoP)

Humm I was adopted (was told from the beginning, best way!) so I can tell you that it helped me in NOT setting (sorta) genetic limtations upon myself, after all, I was NOT genetically the people who raised me, Well, actually I am, then again, so are you! (Hi Family!...AKA Cuz!)