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Maybe the theory is strange to you, but the correlation is real. Ability to solve these puzzles correlates with ability in a diverse range of cognitive abilitie

Maybe the theory is strange to you, but the correlation is real. Ability to solve these puzzles correlates with ability in a diverse range of cognitive abilities, including things like ability to write poetry that initially seem impossible to measure. It is even correlated with height! No one cares about the ability to score well on IQ tests. They care about the things an IQ test can predict.

andybak 4y ago
> They care about the things an IQ test can predict. They are good at predicting the ability to do IQ tests! Seriously though - aren't they still fairly controversial? I have strong doubts on an intuitive level.
- brian_cloutier 4y ago
  They are controversial within popular culture but the idea that "Ability to solve these puzzles correlates with ability in a diverse range of cognitive abilities" is not controversial within the relevant scientific community. Here's a nice short book which cites a lot of literature: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-That-Matters-Stuart-Ritchie https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-That-Matters-Stuart-Ritc... There's even a vox explainer on it, hard to believe they would publish this today: https://www.vox.com/2016/5/24/11723182/iq-test-intelligence https://www.vox.com/2016/5/24/11723182/iq-test-intelligence
  - andybak 4y ago
    OK. A few off the cuff objections: 1. It seems fairly widely reported that you can practice at IQ tests and get better. Are there any studies confirming or denying this? I presume you'd agree that if true it rather kills the validity of IQ tests dead. 2. I have ADHD and I'm acutely aware of how environmental factors affect my performance in many tasks. How do you square this with the idea that they measure an objective innate quality? 3. How do you account for the Flynn Effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect - are people getting smarter? 4. What's your thoughts on the argument that it's impossible to create genuinely culture free tests? This was something I was taught at college and it made sense to me then. Has it been debunked? Conclusively? 5. Steven Jay Gould wrote an entire book critiquing IQ tests : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man - do any of the points he raises stand up to scrutiny?
    - brian_cloutier 4y ago
      Correct me if I'm wrong, but (1) and (2) and (4) all seem to come from a place of believing that if a test is not 100% accurate then it is useless. Hopefully when I phrase it that way you can see why none of these objections "kill the validity of IQ tests dead". (3) is very interesting and there is not yet any agreement as to what is causing it. Flynn seems to have thought our culture is slowly becoming better at training us to think abstractly. There's some evidence for this: one Australian study found that over 20 years the students in a set of schools became better at a vocabulary test but did not improve at all in processing speed. This is not what you would expect to see if the improvements were due to better nutrition or less environmental lead. For (5), haven't read it. He's stunningly erudite and a careful author though, it's worth taking him seriously. Do you have some examples of points he raised?
    - solveit 4y ago
      1. No, it only kills the validity of IQ tests for which the examinee has practiced, and only if the amount of practice is unknown and the amount of improvement is large and unpredictable. Nevertheless IQ tests correlate with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks. 2. Environmental factors affect everything. You try to standardise them as much as possible for an operational definition of the thing you're measuring. You will never succeed completely. Nevertheless IQ tests time correlate with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks. 3. Not sure anybody really understands what's going on with the Flynn effect. Nevertheless IQ tests correlate with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks. 4. I'm sure it is in fact impossible on some level to create genuinely culture free tests. If we're going to be anal about this, this is a consequence of the various no-free-lunch theorems in statistical inference. For any culture/person/algorithm there are problems where they'll do better relative to others, and problems where they'll do worse. Nevertheless IQ tests correlate with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks. 5. I'm sure they do, but I haven't read the book and the summary in the Wikipedia article is too vague to tell. None of these objections actually engage with the parent comment's assertion that "Ability to solve these puzzles correlates with ability in a diverse range of cognitive abilities".
- Sharlin 4y ago
  As far as I know they’re mostly controversial because it’s politically incorrect to claim that a wide variety of cognitive skills correlate well with a single variable measured with a simple test. But IQ as measured with a progressive matrices test does seem to have real predictive power, although no correlation is ever 1.0, of course.
  - version_five 4y ago
    I mention above, it's not the existence of the correlation that's a problem. Whether or not its "statistically significant", it's wrong to use correlations for deviation making on the individual level, because they are just stereotypes, they're not necessarily true. For population studies or something, sure, but same as you can't tell someone that just because someone with their personal attributes and history is statistically likely to be a criminal so they must be, you shouldn't be telling people they're dumb based on some abstract instrument just because its outcomes exhibit a correlation
- PKop 4y ago
  The controversy stems from the egalitarian cultural assumption of modern western liberal democracies that humans are generally equal, "blank slates" and intelligence, skills, intellectual abilities etc can all be cultivated through institutions and technical processes to produce generally the same outcomes for most or all. A similar dynamic is observed with propaganda around saying everyone can "learn to code", as if we just need to figure out the educational algorithm and we can teach everyone to think the same way or be capable of achieving same intellectual skills. IQ tests, or any standardized tests for that matter, blow up this assumption as do aggregated data showing differentials across groups or even nations, and that intelligence as even crudely measured by IQ tests which is just a proxy for something that isn't so precise, still correlates with general positive outcomes in life such as earning potential, health, career success, national achievement in science etc. It is also not politically correct that this dynamic is largely a biological phenomenon, that intelligence like many other physical characteristics is heritable. This is why generalized IQ tests were banned from job interviews because not everyone scored the same, which is politically incorrect and unacceptable in our current political climate. Basically for the liberal "left" which dominates western culture, "equality" is almost a religious belief, in opposition to any acknowledgement or even promotion of hierarchies, or recognition of inequality as an objective reality of human existence. Anything that undermines "equality" and points to natural hierarchy is "controversial" not allowed.[0] [0] A random example, but there are many, of unacceptable differentiation when it comes to group cognitive outcomes. And elimination of standardized tests or advanced classes in the name of "equality" and against any instances of "inequality" https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/04/california-math-class-detrack-race-equity/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/04/californ...
- dirnctiwnsidj 4y ago
  They are controversial amongst laymen, as evidenced by the discussion here. They are not controversial at all amongst psychologists. The notion that IQ tests have predictive power is about as settled as the notion that "people get sad sometimes".
  - andybak 4y ago
    Luckily Psychology has an iron-clad reputation for intellectual rigour. /s
klabb3 4y ago
> they work shockingly well For what? (Correlations are interesting scientifically of course, but for everyone else?) > No one cares about the ability to score well on IQ tests. Except for Mensa and their applicants. I don't mind IQ research. I do mind exclusive clubs for the sake of exclusivity, and especially those that are (supposedly and explicitly) genetically determined entry criteria. It smells bad.
- netjiro 4y ago
  > I do mind exclusive clubs for the sake of exclusivity, and especially those that are (supposedly and explicitly) genetically determined entry criteria. It smells bad. ? what is your stance on, e.g., competitive sports teams ?
- version_five 4y ago
  I don't mind research or clubs. If people want to have their own little puzzle club or whatever, that's entirely their right. And research into human intelligence is interesting wherever it goes. What I'm skeptical of is applying stereotyping - and that's what this is, it's s predictive model that's based on averages, not the individual - to any kind of real decision that's any more weighty that letting you into a club. Like education decisions for example.
  - PKop 4y ago
    Ok, but individuals can all take these and other tests no? It is not only stereotyped assumptions around group averages applied to individuals. It is also aversion or even policy regulation against even giving tests and acting on the results towards individuals, as this entails inevitable discrimination when the natural and unavoidable hierarchy of human abilities is observed.
- viraptor 4y ago
  Not quite genetically. You can train yourself in solving those puzzles. Although it undermines the whole idea of an IQ club for me.

andybak 4y ago

> They care about the things an IQ test can predict. They are good at predicting the ability to do IQ tests! Seriously though - aren't they still fairly controversial? I have strong doubts on an intuitive level.

brian_cloutier 4y ago
They are controversial within popular culture but the idea that "Ability to solve these puzzles correlates with ability in a diverse range of cognitive abilities" is not controversial within the relevant scientific community. Here's a nice short book which cites a lot of literature: https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-That-Matters-Stuart-Ritchie https://www.amazon.com/Intelligence-That-Matters-Stuart-Ritc... There's even a vox explainer on it, hard to believe they would publish this today: https://www.vox.com/2016/5/24/11723182/iq-test-intelligence https://www.vox.com/2016/5/24/11723182/iq-test-intelligence
- andybak 4y ago
  OK. A few off the cuff objections: 1. It seems fairly widely reported that you can practice at IQ tests and get better. Are there any studies confirming or denying this? I presume you'd agree that if true it rather kills the validity of IQ tests dead. 2. I have ADHD and I'm acutely aware of how environmental factors affect my performance in many tasks. How do you square this with the idea that they measure an objective innate quality? 3. How do you account for the Flynn Effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect - are people getting smarter? 4. What's your thoughts on the argument that it's impossible to create genuinely culture free tests? This was something I was taught at college and it made sense to me then. Has it been debunked? Conclusively? 5. Steven Jay Gould wrote an entire book critiquing IQ tests : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mismeasure_of_Man - do any of the points he raises stand up to scrutiny?
  - brian_cloutier 4y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but (1) and (2) and (4) all seem to come from a place of believing that if a test is not 100% accurate then it is useless. Hopefully when I phrase it that way you can see why none of these objections "kill the validity of IQ tests dead". (3) is very interesting and there is not yet any agreement as to what is causing it. Flynn seems to have thought our culture is slowly becoming better at training us to think abstractly. There's some evidence for this: one Australian study found that over 20 years the students in a set of schools became better at a vocabulary test but did not improve at all in processing speed. This is not what you would expect to see if the improvements were due to better nutrition or less environmental lead. For (5), haven't read it. He's stunningly erudite and a careful author though, it's worth taking him seriously. Do you have some examples of points he raised?
  - solveit 4y ago
    1. No, it only kills the validity of IQ tests for which the examinee has practiced, and only if the amount of practice is unknown and the amount of improvement is large and unpredictable. Nevertheless IQ tests correlate with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks. 2. Environmental factors affect everything. You try to standardise them as much as possible for an operational definition of the thing you're measuring. You will never succeed completely. Nevertheless IQ tests time correlate with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks. 3. Not sure anybody really understands what's going on with the Flynn effect. Nevertheless IQ tests correlate with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks. 4. I'm sure it is in fact impossible on some level to create genuinely culture free tests. If we're going to be anal about this, this is a consequence of the various no-free-lunch theorems in statistical inference. For any culture/person/algorithm there are problems where they'll do better relative to others, and problems where they'll do worse. Nevertheless IQ tests correlate with performance on a wide range of cognitive tasks. 5. I'm sure they do, but I haven't read the book and the summary in the Wikipedia article is too vague to tell. None of these objections actually engage with the parent comment's assertion that "Ability to solve these puzzles correlates with ability in a diverse range of cognitive abilities".
Sharlin 4y ago
As far as I know they’re mostly controversial because it’s politically incorrect to claim that a wide variety of cognitive skills correlate well with a single variable measured with a simple test. But IQ as measured with a progressive matrices test does seem to have real predictive power, although no correlation is ever 1.0, of course.
- version_five 4y ago
  I mention above, it's not the existence of the correlation that's a problem. Whether or not its "statistically significant", it's wrong to use correlations for deviation making on the individual level, because they are just stereotypes, they're not necessarily true. For population studies or something, sure, but same as you can't tell someone that just because someone with their personal attributes and history is statistically likely to be a criminal so they must be, you shouldn't be telling people they're dumb based on some abstract instrument just because its outcomes exhibit a correlation
PKop 4y ago
The controversy stems from the egalitarian cultural assumption of modern western liberal democracies that humans are generally equal, "blank slates" and intelligence, skills, intellectual abilities etc can all be cultivated through institutions and technical processes to produce generally the same outcomes for most or all. A similar dynamic is observed with propaganda around saying everyone can "learn to code", as if we just need to figure out the educational algorithm and we can teach everyone to think the same way or be capable of achieving same intellectual skills. IQ tests, or any standardized tests for that matter, blow up this assumption as do aggregated data showing differentials across groups or even nations, and that intelligence as even crudely measured by IQ tests which is just a proxy for something that isn't so precise, still correlates with general positive outcomes in life such as earning potential, health, career success, national achievement in science etc. It is also not politically correct that this dynamic is largely a biological phenomenon, that intelligence like many other physical characteristics is heritable. This is why generalized IQ tests were banned from job interviews because not everyone scored the same, which is politically incorrect and unacceptable in our current political climate. Basically for the liberal "left" which dominates western culture, "equality" is almost a religious belief, in opposition to any acknowledgement or even promotion of hierarchies, or recognition of inequality as an objective reality of human existence. Anything that undermines "equality" and points to natural hierarchy is "controversial" not allowed.[0] [0] A random example, but there are many, of unacceptable differentiation when it comes to group cognitive outcomes. And elimination of standardized tests or advanced classes in the name of "equality" and against any instances of "inequality" https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/04/california-math-class-detrack-race-equity/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/06/04/californ...
dirnctiwnsidj 4y ago
They are controversial amongst laymen, as evidenced by the discussion here. They are not controversial at all amongst psychologists. The notion that IQ tests have predictive power is about as settled as the notion that "people get sad sometimes".
- andybak 4y ago
  Luckily Psychology has an iron-clad reputation for intellectual rigour. /s

klabb3 4y ago

> they work shockingly well For what? (Correlations are interesting scientifically of course, but for everyone else?) > No one cares about the ability to score well on IQ tests. Except for Mensa and their applicants. I don't mind IQ research. I do mind exclusive clubs for the sake of exclusivity, and especially those that are (supposedly and explicitly) genetically determined entry criteria. It smells bad.

netjiro 4y ago
> I do mind exclusive clubs for the sake of exclusivity, and especially those that are (supposedly and explicitly) genetically determined entry criteria. It smells bad. ? what is your stance on, e.g., competitive sports teams ?
version_five 4y ago
I don't mind research or clubs. If people want to have their own little puzzle club or whatever, that's entirely their right. And research into human intelligence is interesting wherever it goes. What I'm skeptical of is applying stereotyping - and that's what this is, it's s predictive model that's based on averages, not the individual - to any kind of real decision that's any more weighty that letting you into a club. Like education decisions for example.
- PKop 4y ago
  Ok, but individuals can all take these and other tests no? It is not only stereotyped assumptions around group averages applied to individuals. It is also aversion or even policy regulation against even giving tests and acting on the results towards individuals, as this entails inevitable discrimination when the natural and unavoidable hierarchy of human abilities is observed.
viraptor 4y ago
Not quite genetically. You can train yourself in solving those puzzles. Although it undermines the whole idea of an IQ club for me.