3 ms·

Just a bunch of nutcase, leading questions. "If IQ doesn’t matter or doesn’t exist, then why is it the single largest statistical predictor of life trajectory?

• quoderat 18y ago
  What does my blog subtitle, which I merely found amusing, have to do with the content of my musings and/or ideas? You're right, some of the questions are leading -- though I really doubt you can predict my views from them, even though I am sure you think that you can. And, yep, it's my blog and that's the way it goes. However, they are questions that people shy away from, even though they matter. But, if you require peer-reviewed evidence that IQ is a pretty good predictor of life trajectory, there's plenty of that for the IQ question you cited: http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/1198gottfred.html http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intellig... http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/322/7290/819 http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/322/7290/819 http://ijo.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/45/5/574 http://ijo.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/45/5/574 And then, anecdotally, there's people like Feynman who didn't have a particularly large IQ who still excelled. Make of that what you will. I asked the questions not to satisfy my notions of their answers, but to get them out there. If the evidence is against me, then so be it. When the evidence changes, I change my mind. What do you do? And, you're the first to call me a nutcase. Congrats! From you, it's a badge of honor.
  • gm 18y ago
    If the questions were asked honestly, then you would have cited your sources. To be honest, I really don't care about neither the IQ issue nor about the answer. I just thought the questions themselves were very leading. The answers don't matter, the way the question is asked is the whole point. As to the comment about me... Well, ok. If it makes you happy go for it, I'm glad to help make your day better. I'll give you a badge of honor, why not?
    • quoderat 18y ago
      Ooh, is it shiny?
  • Tichy 18y ago
    I think the issue is not whether IQ is a good predictor of success, within the system of it's application (for example the military screening new employees). The issue is whether this equates intelligence. Rephrased: there would probably be less of an issue if it IQ was really "SP" (Success Predictor), not "Intelligence Quotient". It might seem like the same, but I don't think it is: throw a Harvard graduate into the middle of the jungle, and he might fare rather badly. On the other hand, throw a perfectly successful jungle inhabitant into the middle of Harvard and he might also fare rather badly.
    • dominik 18y ago
      On the other hand, throw a perfectly successful jungle inhabitant into the middle of Harvard and he might also fare rather badly. To the contrary, I think the denizens of Harvard might fare badly, not the perfectly successful jungle inhabitant. Professors got nothing on panthers.
      • Tichy 18y ago
        That's what I said: the professor will get eaten in the jungle, the junge inhabitant will get run over by a car in the city. Obviously IQ tests measure something: at the very least, they measure performance on IQ tests. The controversy starts when people claim to measure "intelligence". Might be fun to design a "jungle IQ test".
  • DaniFong 18y ago
    It's not just Feynman -- there's a rumor that someone scored the whole Caltech physics faculty and they did mostly average. I think the flaw is that IQ tests look for people to find answers that correspond to the limited, simple mental models of the test makers (other people), very quickly and accurately, which is probably irrelevant, if not actively harmful, to the values that habits that make a good scientist.