NationStates Jolt Archive

There are a couple of IQ posts around. I do what I can to ignore them, but now there are two. That crossed my line. IQ is a sham. At best it is questionable, and at worst..well yeah, worse than questionable. You simply cannot quantify something like intelligence, let alone with a 15 minute test. I refuse to take one, or entertain self-congratulatory fools who do. That is all.

People feel better when they see something qualified in numbers.

Couldn't you have said that in one of the other IQ threads?

Couldn't you have said that in one of the other IQ threads?
Those threads are pretty long... plus, if his comment is in one, people who don't go to that thread will miss out on it.

They're known for their inaccuracies. To be honest, I'd recommend everyone took IQ test results with a pince of salt, especially since, in the past, they have been used to vet immigrants and army recruits for their IQs using tests which are hugely biased.

I've never taken an actual IQ test, but the one featured on the Danish Mensa site only focused on patterns...I certainly think there is more to intelligence than that. What do real IQ tests contain...has anyone taken one?

i don't really care, myself. if its used in job interviews and wasn't reliable, and stopped me from getting a job, then i might care. but i don't.

however, an important thing to remember is that if everyone is taking the same test, it doesn't matter so much what number you get, but that people have a numerical basis for comparison

It is just another penis extension in a world full of them. Puremetal, you are right. If somebody sold pills that would increase your performance in IQ tests but make no impact on any other aspect of your life, people would buy them. It just shits me off when I see some net-rat asking people IQs. As far as Psychology is concerned they are not at all unlike Myers-Briggs Type indicator tests. Intereting labels entirely irrelevant to anything but themselves. Also, the reason I didn't post in the actual thread is because I feel less dirty posting a new thread. Otherwise I would feel as if I was somehow participating. anyway I think it is about time for : [/RANT]

depends. Gardners theory of multiple intelligences makes alot of sense. The issue isn't in IQ. It is in the tests for it. IQ can exist and we just have no good way of measuring it.

Maybe we should market those pills and make a fortune!

What's the problem? They simply grade your ability to perform certain tasks, like any other test. They're just a little more abstract than most. Incidentally, real ones don't take 15 minutes, but the timing is a part of the test; you're not supposed to finish it in the time allowed.

As for whether intelligence can be quantified - there is no concrete definition of "intelligence". That's one of the problems facing AI researchers, really; every time they develop a new system that can perform some task as well as (or better than) a human then it either stops requiring intelligence (eg. remembering long strings of numbers) or it isn't intelligence because of the way the computer solves the problem (eg. playing Chess). The implication being, of course, that only squidgy biological (and preferably two-armed bipedal) things can be intelligent.

Couldn't you have said that in one of the other IQ threads?

That would have required an above-average IQ.

You simply cannot quantify something like intelligence, let alone with a 15 minute test.

Nowadays, nobody thinks you measure the whole intelligence with an IQ test. Nobody you can take serious, that is. All it does is giving a kind of measure as to how likely you are to be successful in school, and ("therefore", I might add), how likely you are to get into a higher level job (management and such)*. And it does a good job at that, because the questions and the scoring is made so to reflect just that. Of course, for a real understanding of anybody's intelligence, you would also take other things into account. EQ comes to mind, but we might find a lot of other numbers...



* What a bitch of a sentence.

I think we'd all be better served by IQ tests if they were more explicit about what they were trying to measure. Analytical reasoning? Problem solving skills? It makes sense that you could measure those, and they're probably worth measuring.

I can see the value in measuring our mental aptitude. Rather that force people to go out into the world to succeed or fail on their merits, you give them a hint in advance of the sorts of areas in which they might be more likely to succeed.

the notion ,and definition of intelligence is the mere probleme,
not the triggered reaction

I can see the value in measuring our mental aptitude. Rather that force people to go out into the world to succeed or fail on their merits, you give them a hint in advance of the sorts of areas in which they might be more likely to succeed.

some Tickle tests were good for that, giving you (in the full reports) a rundown of the areas you scored well in, etc. here's a couple of mine (clicky (http://www.hlj.me.uk/about/IQ.htm))

That would have required an above-average IQ.

And whining about IQ tests is generally an indication that one scored poorly on one. I'm not a fan of IQ tests myself, but you don't hear me bitching about 'em. ;)

This thread is not very intelligent.

well that statement wasnt very intelligent. People here are debating the validity of IQ tests which is indicative of an intelligent and skeptical response to them. I have a friend whose IQ on one test was 270, on the next it was 130, what does that proove? Also know another person who scored 70 on one test, his IQ then jumped up to 130 on another. I scored low on spatial ability yet Im (not to be arrogant, but its a statement of fact) brilliant at art and think in visual terms. IQ tests test the ability to solve puzzles and their results are distorted by the fact that some people dont react well to certain types of puzzles based on cultural and personal factors. IQ tests are far too "soft science" to give any reliable results.

Exactly, it is completely unreliable, and moreover a total sham. How can you possibly claim an IQ to be an accurate measure of you intelligence, when you could retake the same test and get a drastically different result? It's like a thermometre which offers self-conflicting readings. If they ever do find a way to quantify intelligence , it won't be with a multiple choice test. It would more likely involve some form of scanner. The former method is like putting seafood into boiling water to see if it cooks and thus proving that the water was in fact boiling. It's stupid. For all of the wonderfully clever amatuer psychologists offering their dxs on my alleged state of denial, here is an equally clever response: STFU.

And whining about IQ tests is generally an indication that one scored poorly on one. I'm not a fan of IQ tests myself, but you don't hear me bitching about 'em. ;)

I think I did take an IQ test when I was doing the classification tests after being commissioned in the Marine Corps. They never told me what the result was, but I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I don't obsess over it either.

I've never taken an actual IQ test, but the one featured on the Danish Mensa site only focused on patterns...I certainly think there is more to intelligence than that. What do real IQ tests contain...has anyone taken one?


The ones I had to take were over two hours long. They seemed to focus on how I thought about things and what I do when I'm presented with information. There were special sections for different kinds of processing: mathematical, geometric, linguistic, logical -- those kinds of things.

An important point about IQ tests is that they're culturally conditioned by those who write them. (BTW, this is one of the major factors in producing the illusion that some "races" are more or less intelligent than others.) "Intelligence" is a construct that's supposed to measure how adaptable a person is to problems and challenges, and how they use their mental facilities to accomplish that adaptation. In Western cultures that means something different from what it might mean in other cultures. There used to be a saying to the effect that if Aborigines wrote the IQ tests, Westerners all would be morons.

Also, it is becoming something of a cliche that our IQ tests measure only one form of intelligence. Even allowing that this cliche over-simplifies the matter and confuses "intelligence" with other forms of adaptational functioning, it's probably safe to say that intelligence really is multiform. Considering that the standard tests are closely wedded to a particular, cultural set of values, it would follow that they are intended to measure only the form of intelligence preferred by that set of values, a form most closely wedded (at least in theory) to academic achievement.

It should be possible to test "intelligence" by other means, recognizing that there are other ways for humans to apply their ability to use their mental facilities to adapt to challenges. Of course that probably would mean testing with a different set of challenges -- different kinds of challenges -- and IMO that would require the tests be written from the perspective of another culture.

All in all, if the questions you want to answer are fairly specific, and if they relate to the things that IQ tests can answer, and if the tests written properly, and are administered properly and in a controlled environment, and if they're graded and evaluated correctly, then I think IQ tests have a purpose and can fulfill that purpose. OTOH if the questions you want to answer revolve around some idea of "which person is a 'superior' person or a 'more intelligent' person or a 'better' person", then I think the questions are nonsense and any answers derived from IQ tests will also be nonsense.



As for those Mensa ads, in any language they're pretty lame: ego-stroking come-ons. They're meant to draw you in, not to tell you much of any worth. For all I know, they might follow up with a legitimate IQ test (although I have serious questions about the way they're administered and so on) but those tests in the ads appear to be meant for the single purpose of encouraging people to write to them. In their way, they're hardly better than those "personality tests" from Scamintology.

Ah yes, and the cultral specificism. They used IQ tests in Australia decades back to justify stealing Aboriginal children and 'assimilating' them in government run camps, simply because Aboriginals are less intelligent. The smartest people in the world are supposed to be Papua New guinean natives, because only the smart ones survive. Yet they seem simple to us. I'm sure they'd utterly fail an IQ test.

And whatever you do, don't fall for the Mensa IQ tests. They're geared towards giving you a very high score so you then feel obliged to join up. And pay them for the privilage.

Well, Tickle has this interesting test I took that judges various abilities you have, how your intelligence works. It didn't tell me too much more than I already knew, however: that I'm incredibly fantastic at visualizing objects, as well as good at numbers, but rather bad with words. Was able to get the full analysis free for a short time, too, which was nice, since it proved to be intriguing. Not that I'm basing anything on it though.

(BTW, this is one of the major factors in producing the illusion that some "races" are more or less intelligent than others.)
It may well be that some races are better than others at any number of things, but political correctness largely prevents us from studying those differences.

I tend to use the ability to grasp formal logic as a proxy for intelligence. Not because I think that's the only form of intelligence, but because it's the only one I deem particularly valuable.

the reason its really a scakm is because of the fee for the result. i believe that if you catually pay, your iq goes down by 20 points, as yousalling for a scam.

Ok, the average IQ is 100, with a standard deviation of about 17. At 7 standard deviations, a persons IQ would be 219. The probability of this occuring is 156 out of every 600 quadrillion people (Doesn't happen). So, Pompous World, your friend does not have an IQ of 270. The world would require more people than it can possibly support before you friend would exist without a major genetic mutation.

The other problem your dishonest friend faces is the problem that no legit IQ tests score above 200, because there hasn't been anyone with a higher IQ to invent one.

Also, a high IQ means nothing, Beethoven had an IQ of 115 (above average, but unremarkable so), and look at what he did.

There are a couple of IQ posts around. I do what I can to ignore them, but now there are two. That crossed my line. IQ is a sham. At best it is questionable, and at worst..well yeah, worse than questionable. You simply cannot quantify something like intelligence, let alone with a 15 minute test. I refuse to take one, or entertain self-congratulatory fools who do. That is all.

Congratulations you have passed an intelligence test by refusing to take an IQ test.

There are a couple of IQ posts around. I do what I can to ignore them, but now there are two. That crossed my line. IQ is a sham. At best it is questionable, and at worst..well yeah, worse than questionable. You simply cannot quantify something like intelligence, let alone with a 15 minute test. I refuse to take one, or entertain self-congratulatory fools who do. That is all.
Actually, you can measure someone's capacity for logical reasoning. If someone scores high on one IQ test, chances are that they will achieve a similar score on similar tests. So there is a correlation, and there is undeniably a phenomenon going on that can be referred to as "intelligence" (though it only measures one type of intelligence).

I think GPN just scored bad on one and is trying to rationalize :p

And whining about IQ tests is generally an indication that one scored poorly on one. I'm not a fan of IQ tests myself, but you don't hear me bitching about 'em. ;)

You said that much nicer than I would have. :p Same here, I don't put much stock in such testing, so I tend to ignore them as well.

Ok, the average IQ is 100, with a standard deviation of about 17. At 7 standard deviations, a persons IQ would be 219. The probability of this occuring is 156 out of every 600 quadrillion people (Doesn't happen). So, Pompous World, your friend does not have an IQ of 270. The world would require more people than it can possibly support before you friend would exist without a major genetic mutation.


Wow, that's higher science... :rolleyes:

Something that happens only once out of zillion times can still happen in a population of, say, 100, or even 1. That's the nice thing about statistics.

I do agree, though, that this 270 guy must have misinterpreted how you score a set of IQ tests. You should average them, not add them all up. :D



Oh well, statistically my brains are 3% larger than the average man's, so...
or is that unwritten conclusion slightly questionable too? :p

Also, a high IQ means nothing, Beethoven had an IQ of 115 (above average, but unremarkable so), and look at what he did.
That's terrible reasoning.

Your conclusion is only logically sound if you assume (weak) that musical composition is somehow dependent on IQ, or (strong) that IQ purports to describe one's capacity to achieve anything at all of worth.

And that's patently false. Autistic people demonstrate that.

I know what I can do, and feel no need to whip out my IQ and measure it against anyone else's.

(my performance at University gives me an idea of how capable I am at learning/intelligent I am).

Internet tests are bogus.

The issue isn't in IQ. It is in the tests for it. IQ can exist and we just have no good way of measuring it.

You've missed the point: we have perfectly good methods of measuring IQ. They are called IQ tests.

The real question is whether IQ correlates in any real way to what we consider to be intelligence.