I see intelligence as the application of a person's ability (whether innate or acquired) to accomplish a task in a manner exceeding the average person's ability to accomplish said task. — Benkei
the whole IQ idea is based on a fundamental category error that intelligence is something that can be measured. — MetaphysicsNow
How about the sex difference in IQ? — tom
At least you seem to understand the nessecity of understanding statistics in order to say something sensible about statistical data on iq.My understanding of statistics is not sophisticated enough for me to figure it out. — T Clark
Maybe 20% of students in school need to be very well educated so that they can serve the interests of a technologically complex society under the control of an elite. 20% of the students are getting an excellent education, more or less.
If 80% of students are getting a run of the mill education, it is because more is not deemed necessary. A lot of today's students are not going to be doing complex tasks that require insight and theoretical thinking. This is a long-term trend, observed for the last 50 years, or so. — Bitter Crank
that's a definition, which I disagreed with above. Stating it's nonsense isn't an argument. If I take 5 years longer to become better at chess than you, people will think I'm more intelligent than you irrespective of the speed at which you initially developed. An IQ test tests results not learning ability any way so I'm not even certain you base this on. The ability to learn is a type of intelligence but learning languages is totally different than learning football and cannot be caught in a single measurement. — Benkei
The differences in average iq between men and women are less than the standard deviations. Meaning that the differences in iq between men and women are less than the differences among men and less than the differences among women. — Tomseltje
IQ tests measure one thing, and only one thing, uncontroversially: the ability to take an IQ test.We do measure it, so it can be measured.
Of course the IQ tests themselves are not responsible for anything, it is those who believe them to be measuring something other than an ability to take an IQ test that are responisble.You figure the IQ tests are responsible for how they're put to use
I am in complete agreement, but I see the ethos of IQ testing as part of supporting and maintaining exactly those aims, and it is those aims and the support system with it that need to be challenged, and that involves challenging piecemeal the individual supporting elements, such as the idea that IQ tests actually measure anything more than an ability to take an IQ test. Given your other posts on other threads, I am certain you need no lessons in history from me, but just consider that the current educational systems in the West started life because the financial elite - for whom education was largely reserved - were virtually forced, in order to maintain their privilege, into handing out a few social crumbs to those that produced their wealth. Elitism has always been an ethos in Western educational systems and IQ testing spuriously bolsters its standing.But it isn't testing that condemns children to mediocrity, it's the aim of education In the present society.
that's a definition, which I disagreed with above. Stating it's nonsense isn't an argument. If I take 5 years longer to become better at chess than you, people will think I'm more intelligent than you irrespective of the speed at which you initially developed. An IQ test tests results not learning ability any way so I'm not even certain you base this on. The ability to learn is a type of intelligence but learning languages is totally different than learning football and cannot be caught in a single measurement. — Benkei
And the only thing that IQ tests have ever been able to tell about anyone is how good or bad they are at taking IQ tests. — MetaphysicsNow
Testing is not a useless racist exercise. — Bitter Crank
This comment is the sort that can derail a discussion. — Bitter Crank
Asking an American "Who was Batman?" or "What was Superman's name when he wasn't Superman?" would be the equivalent of the 1910 French question about Faust. — Bitter Crank
I am in complete agreement, but I see the ethos of IQ testing as part of supporting and maintaining exactly those aims, and it is those aims and the support system with it that need to be challenged, and that involves challenging piecemeal the individual supporting elements, such as the idea that IQ tests actually measure anything more than an ability to take an IQ test. — MetaphysicsNow
many people don't like IQ testing because it is used as justification for racial prejudice — T Clark
I knew Clark Kent. Jorel? Who? I wouldn't have been able to say who played Superman if my life had depended on it, though I did see a Batman movie, a while back. I liked the Superman comic books from my childhood. — Bitter Crank
The difference is a lot less than the standard deviation, being approximately 0. The SDs are not the same though. — tom
IQ tests measure one thing, and only one thing, uncontroversially: the ability to take an IQ test. — MetaphysicsNow
The groups are quite different. Their standard deviations are different. — tom
Both - I see it as the same category mistake as the overarching category mistake concerning intelligence in general. Sure, one can try breaking down intelligence into parts, but those parts you mention are complex concepts in themselves - after all, what is abstract reasoning, for instance? We can probably all give examples of abstract reasoning - playing chess, proving mathematical theorems, constructing an argument for metaphysical idealism, planning a holiday.... - but that does not entail that they all have some feature in common that comes in amounts and can be measured. It's tempting to say "well, we canincrease our ability to reason abstractly, so it must come in amounts that can be measured" - but here "increase" arguably just means "improve" and the same problem arises, what counts as improving abstract reasoning, and what makes one believe that it is just one ability in any case? I can become a better chess player by, amongst other things, learning a few more chess openings, understanding a little more about endgame scenarios and how to manipulate towards them from a middlegame.... Compare that with how I would become better at giving arguments for metaphysical idealism - probably not a great deal in common. There may be some analogies that can be made (knowledge of chess opening theory = knowldege of previous attempts to prove idealism) but the crucial thing here to remember about analogies is that things which are analagous are precisely not one and the same thing. It begins to look a little forced to insist that there must be one measurable ability underlying all this, and what is the motiviation for doing so?Are you saying that these things are not measurable or that they're not a measure of human intelligence or both?
You're right. I misstated. What I should have said was that the results of IQ testing research are often used, by others, to support theories and political positions that claim that there are genetic differences in intelligence between races. — T Clark
But that's to assume that intelligence is something that can be measured, and simply to say that it is because we measure it with IQ tests is a petitio principii.IQ tests measure one thing, and only one thing, uncontroversially: the ability to take an IQ test. — MetaphysicsNow
Sure, though that doesn't mean that the result doesn't say anything about intelligence. Since we don't have any better means to measure intelligence, that is what we use.
How else do you explain the 6 point difference between Asians (of the far eastern variety) and Europeans?
But that's to assume that intelligence is something that can be measured, and simply to say that it is because we measure it with IQ tests is a petitio principii. — MetaphysicsNow
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