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Unless you are an outlier on either side of the spectrum (e.g. 80 or 150), IQ isn't very indicative of anything. And why would anyone believe it should be? Do

Unless you are an outlier on either side of the spectrum (e.g. 80 or 150), IQ isn't very indicative of anything. And why would anyone believe it should be? Do you really think a test with a relatively small set of questions, written by a biased group of individuals is going to be representative of human intelligence? It baffles me that IQ is used as any kind of meaningful measurement beyond showing whether someone is mentally retarded or a prodigy.

chrisco255 7y ago
It's strongly correlated with outcomes in life and better than any psychological test we have. First we should understand that IQs and life outcomes follow normal distributions and there's plenty of exceptions to the rule...but as a general trend, the relationship is indisputable. This has been studied for over a century. This suggests that IQ tests are fairly good at gaging mental faculties. Height gives an advantage in many ways across human society. This is a physical attribute that we have little control over, yet it influences outcomes in jobs, social interactions, sports, dating, etc. Height also follows a normal distribution across populations. There is no reason to believe that mental faculties do not have similar physical mechanisms and that a normal distribution does not exist across populations. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120329142035.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120329142035.h...
- codesushi42 7y ago
  It's strongly correlated with outcomes in life and better than any psychological test we have. Your IQ is correlated with your parents' IQ. But so is your social status, physical appearance and wealth. IQ is not independently responsible, and it's covariant with other heritable traits.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    It's trivial to study the effect of IQ independent of socioeconomic background. You can segment your study based on these factors. You can also look at outcomes among siblings. IQ is strongly correlated independent of all these factors. It's been studied for over 100 years. It's been sliced every way you can think of.
    - codesushi42 7y ago
      Says you. But in reality what you're claiming as undeniable truth is actually debatable, and there are plenty of studies to the contrary.
      - chimi 7y ago
        Says the research. In response to your point a few posts up about explaining correlations with IQ being the parents influence, IQ is also correlated to social mobility. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3248886/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3248886/ "Childhood IQ and achieved education level were significantly and independently associated with upward mobility between the ages of 5 and 49-51 years. Only education was significantly associated (positively) with upward social mobility between 5 and 25 years, and only childhood IQ (again positively) with upward social mobility between 25 and 49-51 years. Childhood IQ was significantly negatively associated with downward social mobility. Adult height, childhood housing conditions, adverse events in childhood and sex were not significant determinants of upward or downward social mobility in this cohort."
        codesushi42 7y ago
        Nope. https://heckmanequation.org/resource/i-q-isnt-everything/ https://heckmanequation.org/resource/i-q-isnt-everything/ Stop falsely claiming that your "facts" are irrefutable.
        seventhtiger 7y ago
        No one has claimed those facts are irrefutable. They are claiming that they simply haven't been refuted yet. I can tell you exactly how to refute those studies. Perform a controlled scientific study that disproves those results. Let me tell you, if you really believe in it, you could be a superstar academic and you sell a lot of books. Disproving such a large body of research would be a big achievement, especially one as unpopular as IQ.
        7y ago
- AlexCoventry 7y ago
  Figures 1 and 2 of https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2007-zagorsky.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2007-zagorsky.pdf strongly support the idea that it's the outliers which have the biggest impact on the correlation between iq and income/wealth; specifically, the low-iq outliers.
SopaDeMacaco 7y ago
Found the 80 IQ who can't live with the fact that he's not special. IQ tests are based on this thing we invented a while ago, the SCIENTIFIC METHOD, there's no bias in it.

chrisco255 7y ago

It's strongly correlated with outcomes in life and better than any psychological test we have. First we should understand that IQs and life outcomes follow normal distributions and there's plenty of exceptions to the rule...but as a general trend, the relationship is indisputable. This has been studied for over a century. This suggests that IQ tests are fairly good at gaging mental faculties. Height gives an advantage in many ways across human society. This is a physical attribute that we have little control over, yet it influences outcomes in jobs, social interactions, sports, dating, etc. Height also follows a normal distribution across populations. There is no reason to believe that mental faculties do not have similar physical mechanisms and that a normal distribution does not exist across populations. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120329142035.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120329142035.h...

codesushi42 7y ago
It's strongly correlated with outcomes in life and better than any psychological test we have. Your IQ is correlated with your parents' IQ. But so is your social status, physical appearance and wealth. IQ is not independently responsible, and it's covariant with other heritable traits.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  It's trivial to study the effect of IQ independent of socioeconomic background. You can segment your study based on these factors. You can also look at outcomes among siblings. IQ is strongly correlated independent of all these factors. It's been studied for over 100 years. It's been sliced every way you can think of.
  - codesushi42 7y ago
    Says you. But in reality what you're claiming as undeniable truth is actually debatable, and there are plenty of studies to the contrary.
    - chimi 7y ago
      Says the research. In response to your point a few posts up about explaining correlations with IQ being the parents influence, IQ is also correlated to social mobility. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3248886/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3248886/ "Childhood IQ and achieved education level were significantly and independently associated with upward mobility between the ages of 5 and 49-51 years. Only education was significantly associated (positively) with upward social mobility between 5 and 25 years, and only childhood IQ (again positively) with upward social mobility between 25 and 49-51 years. Childhood IQ was significantly negatively associated with downward social mobility. Adult height, childhood housing conditions, adverse events in childhood and sex were not significant determinants of upward or downward social mobility in this cohort."
      - codesushi42 7y ago
        Nope. https://heckmanequation.org/resource/i-q-isnt-everything/ https://heckmanequation.org/resource/i-q-isnt-everything/ Stop falsely claiming that your "facts" are irrefutable.
        seventhtiger 7y ago
        No one has claimed those facts are irrefutable. They are claiming that they simply haven't been refuted yet. I can tell you exactly how to refute those studies. Perform a controlled scientific study that disproves those results. Let me tell you, if you really believe in it, you could be a superstar academic and you sell a lot of books. Disproving such a large body of research would be a big achievement, especially one as unpopular as IQ.
        7y ago
AlexCoventry 7y ago
Figures 1 and 2 of https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2007-zagorsky.pdf https://www.gwern.net/docs/iq/2007-zagorsky.pdf strongly support the idea that it's the outliers which have the biggest impact on the correlation between iq and income/wealth; specifically, the low-iq outliers.

SopaDeMacaco 7y ago

Found the 80 IQ who can't live with the fact that he's not special. IQ tests are based on this thing we invented a while ago, the SCIENTIFIC METHOD, there's no bias in it.