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I genuinely wonder sometimes if no one on HN has actually bothered to go through and take a full intelligence test. You get a multi-page report back with measu
by com2kid 8y ago
I genuinely wonder sometimes if no one on HN has actually bothered to go through and take a full intelligence test.
You get a multi-page report back with measurements of all types of cognitive functions. An IQ number is given, but it quickly becomes apparent that number is just a summary measure. Just as a 3.95 GPA doesn't tell what subjects a student is good in, a high IQ doesn't tell you what areas of mental strengths and weaknesses someone has.
That 3.95 GPA student may have had to spend 4 hours a day studying math, while being able to write beautifully structured long form English essays in half that time.
Maybe that student did great in stats and had a horrible time in discreet mathematics. Or vis versa.
Summary numbers are useful in that large variances can indicate overall trends, that 4.0 GPA student did better all up, but that student with a 3.0 GPA may very well be better in a given subject than the 4.0 GPA student.
Likewise, someone with a high IQ can still have weaknesses, it is just that to get the really high score, any weaknesses will have to be offset by strengths in other places.
If you are reading this an are interested in finding out an objective scientific measurement of what you are good and bad at, pay for a full psychological intelligence evaluation. It takes a long time, the testing is long enough that you probably want to do it over multiple days, insurance won't cover it, and it is rather expensive (I think I paid around $1500 for mine, maybe more).
At the end of it all you'll get an IQ number, and a better understanding of why one number does not represent a person's capability.
- MaxBarraclough 8y agoDon't follow. I didn't say that personality, or intelligence, is a single-dimensional variable.
- com2kid 8y agoI am more railing against the discussion of IQ as the definitive way to measure intelligence. Everyone down thread is arguing "Yes IQ! No IQ! Confounding factors!" It is as if people argued about someone's GPA in college while not paying attention to the subject's major, study habits, or natural abilities.
- debacle 8y agoThere is no other measure we have that tracks as well with intelligence.
- com2kid 8y agoThere is no single, easy to post about online, number. Intelligence is not single faceted. Posting and interpreting an entire psych tests worth of numbers is possible, but it is harder to have silly Internet arguments over subtly and nuance around a topic that requires research and education. The level of discourse talking about "IQ" reaches is the same as discussing a new vehicle by saying it has 300 horse power, and not mentioning if it is front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, or how many wheels the vehicle even has. Sure if the delta is large enough then it doesn't matter, but there is a serious trees/forest problem that happens with these topics of discussion.
- debacle 8y agoI feel like the only person confused is you. You're talking about trees (IQ isn't intelligence) when everyone else is talking about the forest (IQ and outcomes).
- jerf 8y ago"Intelligence is not single faceted." Intelligence is not single-faceted. However the evidence is overwhelming that those facets are far from uncorrelated. If you know that person X is very good with mathematics, you can guess with reasonably high probability that any given other facet of intelligence you may care to name is also likely to be high. People are diverse and brains are complicated and you can always find someone who is generally very intelligent but can't string three words together in writing, or someone who is generally incredibly stupid but has one particular measure very high ("idiot savant"). But in the general population all the intelligence measures are highly correlated, which means that something like an IQ number can exist and have significant, if not necessarily totally definitive, truth to it.