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IQ is a measure of how well you do IQ tests. The background knowledge that is required to do that is not really related to the outside world, unless you're a We

IQ is a measure of how well you do IQ tests. The background knowledge that is required to do that is not really related to the outside world, unless you're a Westerner. Put a Masai (Maasai) cattleman next to a university graduate and give them the same IQ test. I venture to say that the uni graduate would win hands down. But the next test would make meaningless his 'western' background knowledge. Put the Masai cattleman and the university graduate in the African countryside that covers the background knowledge that the Masai requires for his livelihood and leave them there. Go away and come back three months later. I venture to say that the Masai man would be fit and healthy. The uni graduate would very likely have perished.

expazl 4y ago
> The background knowledge that is required to do that is not really related to the outside world, unless you're a Westerner. The "background knowledge" is an odd term to use, since it's neither knowledge nor a background to anything, but anyways, the "background knowldge" ins't even useful to westerners. It's not in and of itself useful at all, and that is sort of the point. Most IQ tests are simple pattern recognition and deduction tests, because pasterns are simple and universal. > IQ is a measure of how well you do IQ tests We completely agree. They aren't intended to test anything except give you a score quantifying how well you do on IQ tests. On their own they are completely useless and irrelevant. Like a Scale that doesn't state any units, you might weight yourself and go "oh, I weigh 12.3 somethings" and that's not really relevant to anything. The usefulness of IQ comes entirely from the fact that we can correlate the score with other things. Just like the kilogram as a unit used in quantifying mass is useful because suddenly we can use it to correlate your score on the scale with risk of getting diabetes and other things. IQ-score isn't a measure of knowledge, it isn't a measure of smartness, and it won't even correlate perfectly with how people would arrange people based on a perceived intelligence (though here id does get close). An IQ-score is just a score of how well you do in IQ-tests. But since there is a great deal of correlations we can draw from those correlations it's an extremely useful score. But of cause it comes under attack constantly by people who fell they are smarter than what the score suggests they are, and they might very well be smarter, maybe they are just not good at pattern recognition and deduction, that doesn't mean you're dumb. Just like weighing above a certain limit might mean you statistically have a larger change of having diabetes doesn't mean you automatically have it. But it's literally dumb when these people go out and try to argue that weighing things with scales doesn't work because they got diagnosed with diabetes even though the scale says their below the at risk group.

expazl 4y ago

> The background knowledge that is required to do that is not really related to the outside world, unless you're a Westerner. The "background knowledge" is an odd term to use, since it's neither knowledge nor a background to anything, but anyways, the "background knowldge" ins't even useful to westerners. It's not in and of itself useful at all, and that is sort of the point. Most IQ tests are simple pattern recognition and deduction tests, because pasterns are simple and universal. > IQ is a measure of how well you do IQ tests We completely agree. They aren't intended to test anything except give you a score quantifying how well you do on IQ tests. On their own they are completely useless and irrelevant. Like a Scale that doesn't state any units, you might weight yourself and go "oh, I weigh 12.3 somethings" and that's not really relevant to anything. The usefulness of IQ comes entirely from the fact that we can correlate the score with other things. Just like the kilogram as a unit used in quantifying mass is useful because suddenly we can use it to correlate your score on the scale with risk of getting diabetes and other things. IQ-score isn't a measure of knowledge, it isn't a measure of smartness, and it won't even correlate perfectly with how people would arrange people based on a perceived intelligence (though here id does get close). An IQ-score is just a score of how well you do in IQ-tests. But since there is a great deal of correlations we can draw from those correlations it's an extremely useful score. But of cause it comes under attack constantly by people who fell they are smarter than what the score suggests they are, and they might very well be smarter, maybe they are just not good at pattern recognition and deduction, that doesn't mean you're dumb. Just like weighing above a certain limit might mean you statistically have a larger change of having diabetes doesn't mean you automatically have it. But it's literally dumb when these people go out and try to argue that weighing things with scales doesn't work because they got diagnosed with diabetes even though the scale says their below the at risk group.