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Is IQ a piece of private information? Does everybody in the country get an IQ test in school? Can we just look that up in the public records? It sure would be

Is IQ a piece of private information? Does everybody in the country get an IQ test in school? Can we just look that up in the public records? It sure would be useful if it was public and universal. For tracking the effects of lead poisoning for one. Or just factoring it into any big study. We might find something unexpected.

raincole 3y ago
[flagged]
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  It's almost as if circumstances matter and we should be looking for ways to improve :thinking:... I don't think anyone would classify white people from the US from the 1900s as mentally handicapped but, well, at least someone else said that and it wasn't me. > Over the past 100 years, Americans' mean IQ has been on a slow but steady climb. Between 1900 and 2012, it rose nearly 30 points, which means that the average person of 2012 had a higher IQ than 95 percent of the population had in 1900.
  - raincole 3y ago
    And if the public (sometimes even people in academia)'s reaction to any data they don't like is outrage, how could we look for ways to improve anything?
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  reminds me of those comic where the adult explains to the kid that every physical attribute was explained by genetics and then stumbles over his words trying to explain cognitive ones as inherently different was just a funny perspective I’m not trying to start a pogrom with this observation
  - swayvil 3y ago
    If we neutered everybody who scored under 130 IQ, what do you think society would look like in 3 generations?
    - whatshisface 3y ago
      It'd collapse from underpopulation and there'd be no guarantee that the survivors would be any smarter because "smart genes" interact in complex and nonlinear ways - if they didn't we'd have already evolved to a point they did due to the strong selective pressures already acting on us.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
aidenn0 3y ago
IQ being public might be problematic; I've heard from more than one lawyer that one ought-not use IQ as a hiring filter, unless you have evidence that the IQ test is not biased against any protected groups. Indeed, hiring from more selective universities is, to a certain degree, a way of laundering hiring based off of IQ, since you can pass the buck to the university itself to not be racially biased.
- PartiallyTyped 3y ago
  There are some races with average scores of 70. Can you believe it? Why of course I am talking about "white america" in 1900s [1]. [1] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/03/smarter https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/03/smarter > Over the past 100 years, Americans' mean IQ has been on a slow but steady climb. Between 1900 and 2012, it rose nearly 30 points, which means that the average person of 2012 had a higher IQ than 95 percent of the population had in 1900.
  - uoaei 3y ago
    Goodhart's law strikes again. As soon as IQ becomes a measurable thing, populations that measure it will act in ways that increase it. Shocking, I know.
    - swayvil 3y ago
      It's interesting how closely tied "goodness" and "intelligence" are. To make a mistake is to be a bad person. To be stupid is to be bad. I can call you weak. I can even call you ugly, cowardly or a flibbertigibbet. But if I call you stupid look out! Like our whole worth as humans is summed in our ability to talk smart and solve riddles like a trained animal. Which seems pretty stupid.
      - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        It will seem even stupider once computers can convincingly do all the "intelligent" things better than us. In fact, they can already seem smarter, even when they're not. Maybe we can move on to prioritizing humans on other criteria -- like how nice they are to each other, how good they are at making nice art, or skiing an amazing line down a mountain, etc.
harry8 3y ago
IQ is only useful for scores well below average to indicate the subject of the test has a serious issue. Any score approaching average or any amount above is not at all useful to indicate anything beyond the subjects' skills at taking IQ tests. It translates to and indicates nothing compared to another mostly average or above score. Psychologists (mostly) want to scream abuse at you about pointing this out. Then have steam shooting out of the ears when you bet them your IQ is higher than theirs and that also, in itself means nothing. There's no magic formula or spell that let's you understand a human faster, better or more accurately than spending the time talking, reading and listening to what they've done and what they think. There is no way to make it objective. IQ is so much bullshit. Probably why it turns up so often in racist screed masquerading as science. Burn it all down.

raincole 3y ago

[flagged]

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
It's almost as if circumstances matter and we should be looking for ways to improve :thinking:... I don't think anyone would classify white people from the US from the 1900s as mentally handicapped but, well, at least someone else said that and it wasn't me. > Over the past 100 years, Americans' mean IQ has been on a slow but steady climb. Between 1900 and 2012, it rose nearly 30 points, which means that the average person of 2012 had a higher IQ than 95 percent of the population had in 1900.
- raincole 3y ago
  And if the public (sometimes even people in academia)'s reaction to any data they don't like is outrage, how could we look for ways to improve anything?
yieldcrv 3y ago
reminds me of those comic where the adult explains to the kid that every physical attribute was explained by genetics and then stumbles over his words trying to explain cognitive ones as inherently different was just a funny perspective I’m not trying to start a pogrom with this observation
- swayvil 3y ago
  If we neutered everybody who scored under 130 IQ, what do you think society would look like in 3 generations?
  - whatshisface 3y ago
    It'd collapse from underpopulation and there'd be no guarantee that the survivors would be any smarter because "smart genes" interact in complex and nonlinear ways - if they didn't we'd have already evolved to a point they did due to the strong selective pressures already acting on us.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

aidenn0 3y ago

IQ being public might be problematic; I've heard from more than one lawyer that one ought-not use IQ as a hiring filter, unless you have evidence that the IQ test is not biased against any protected groups. Indeed, hiring from more selective universities is, to a certain degree, a way of laundering hiring based off of IQ, since you can pass the buck to the university itself to not be racially biased.

PartiallyTyped 3y ago
There are some races with average scores of 70. Can you believe it? Why of course I am talking about "white america" in 1900s [1]. [1] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/03/smarter https://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/03/smarter > Over the past 100 years, Americans' mean IQ has been on a slow but steady climb. Between 1900 and 2012, it rose nearly 30 points, which means that the average person of 2012 had a higher IQ than 95 percent of the population had in 1900.
- uoaei 3y ago
  Goodhart's law strikes again. As soon as IQ becomes a measurable thing, populations that measure it will act in ways that increase it. Shocking, I know.
  - swayvil 3y ago
    It's interesting how closely tied "goodness" and "intelligence" are. To make a mistake is to be a bad person. To be stupid is to be bad. I can call you weak. I can even call you ugly, cowardly or a flibbertigibbet. But if I call you stupid look out! Like our whole worth as humans is summed in our ability to talk smart and solve riddles like a trained animal. Which seems pretty stupid.
    - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      It will seem even stupider once computers can convincingly do all the "intelligent" things better than us. In fact, they can already seem smarter, even when they're not. Maybe we can move on to prioritizing humans on other criteria -- like how nice they are to each other, how good they are at making nice art, or skiing an amazing line down a mountain, etc.

harry8 3y ago

IQ is only useful for scores well below average to indicate the subject of the test has a serious issue. Any score approaching average or any amount above is not at all useful to indicate anything beyond the subjects' skills at taking IQ tests. It translates to and indicates nothing compared to another mostly average or above score. Psychologists (mostly) want to scream abuse at you about pointing this out. Then have steam shooting out of the ears when you bet them your IQ is higher than theirs and that also, in itself means nothing. There's no magic formula or spell that let's you understand a human faster, better or more accurately than spending the time talking, reading and listening to what they've done and what they think. There is no way to make it objective. IQ is so much bullshit. Probably why it turns up so often in racist screed masquerading as science. Burn it all down.