4 ms·

No, it's not a garbage metric. The idea is popular with those who don't know the literature. Christopher Hitchens wrote 'there is an unusually high and consiste

No, it's not a garbage metric. The idea is popular with those who don't know the literature. Christopher Hitchens wrote 'there is an unusually high and consistent correlation between the stupidity of a given person and their propensity to be impressed by the measurement of IQ'. In this case, a wonderful putdown by and for people who don't know any better and certainly not the scientific literature. Check out the studies in polygenic analysis that's showing how cognitive ability, personality and health rely on common genetic pathways. There are overwhelming correlations between intelligence and real life measures. https://dspace.ut.ee/bitstream/handle/10062/47823/strenze_tarmo.pdf https://dspace.ut.ee/bitstream/handle/10062/47823/strenze_ta... https://archive.ph/PCvgk https://archive.ph/PCvgk https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/11/10/031138 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2015/11/10/031138

CuriouslyC 7y ago
IQ measures very specific things, in a very specific way which is biased towards people who made the test. It doesn't measure overall capability, and it's quite easy to teach people to take the test, resulting in 15-20 point increases in score after a few months of practice. Usually, it's racist elitist assholes who hold IQ up as this important measure, mostly because malnourished people from different cultures who aren't white don't tend to do as well, thus confirming their cherished desire for aryan superiority. Try surviving in the Australian outback and tell me how stupid aborigines are...
- edanm 7y ago
  Do you have any source to back what you wrote up? Because basically anyone who's studied this area disagrees with this. Just a few points: 1. Managing to raise someone's score on an IQ test is considered basically impossible. 2. Why would you think tests are biased towards the people who made the tests? IQ tests are generally worked on quite a bit, and there is extensive literature showing that they work (and they're not just tested on one subpopulation). 3. There are lots of different kinds of IQ tests, actually, and they correlate with each other. So they don't test very specific things - different tests go about this in different ways. 4. "Usually, it's racist elitist assholes who hold IQ up as this important measure [...]" I mean, no? Basically every scientist researching this agrees that IQ works. You're just flat out wrong.

CuriouslyC 7y ago

IQ measures very specific things, in a very specific way which is biased towards people who made the test. It doesn't measure overall capability, and it's quite easy to teach people to take the test, resulting in 15-20 point increases in score after a few months of practice. Usually, it's racist elitist assholes who hold IQ up as this important measure, mostly because malnourished people from different cultures who aren't white don't tend to do as well, thus confirming their cherished desire for aryan superiority. Try surviving in the Australian outback and tell me how stupid aborigines are...

edanm 7y ago
Do you have any source to back what you wrote up? Because basically anyone who's studied this area disagrees with this. Just a few points: 1. Managing to raise someone's score on an IQ test is considered basically impossible. 2. Why would you think tests are biased towards the people who made the tests? IQ tests are generally worked on quite a bit, and there is extensive literature showing that they work (and they're not just tested on one subpopulation). 3. There are lots of different kinds of IQ tests, actually, and they correlate with each other. So they don't test very specific things - different tests go about this in different ways. 4. "Usually, it's racist elitist assholes who hold IQ up as this important measure [...]" I mean, no? Basically every scientist researching this agrees that IQ works. You're just flat out wrong.