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> There is plenty of psych research out there pointing out the potential issues with IQ tests so I won't rehash them here. I would honestly be interested in so

> There is plenty of psych research out there pointing out the potential issues with IQ tests so I won't rehash them here. I would honestly be interested in some arguments and references on this topic. As far as I am aware, the g factor > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_factor_(psychometrics) is one of the best researched psychometric values. The problem with IQ tests to my knowledge is rather that a lot of jobs don't require a lot of (IQ) intelligence; too much intelligence is actually rather a drawback.

_heimdall 3y ago
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6927908/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6927908/ Wish I had better links handy that I could share right now, but this is a decent overview with plenty of further references. My wife has the psych degrees so I will probably butcher this trying to explain more deeply, but here goes nothing. The g factor is one concern, though as far as I'm aware its more of a detail than a fundamental problem. There have been complaints related to racism, though in everything I've seen the issue is actually how the IQ results are used rather than a problem with the test itself. My understanding of the more fundamental problem is related to how IQ tests attempt to quantify intelligence as a reliable predictor of future success. The tests ultimately assume that quantitative, rather than qualitative, measures are the right predictor to use. The tests also lean heavily analytical, biasing the test against anyone who is more "right brained". With regards to prediction, its extremely difficult to show any predictive accuracy without a logical loop. IQ tests are already used as screening metrics before one is given some opportunities. There isn't any way that I known of to tease that data apart and see how the person would have succeeded without the IQ test being used. Again, this is definitely a layman's understanding if the issues. I'm not in the psych field so someone here may very well be able to correct me where I've gone off the rails. I know I have listened to plenty of conversations between my wife and colleagues, grad students, etc that convinced me that there are good reason for IQ tests to be in question.
- aleph_minus_one 3y ago
  Thanks for the paper link. > My understanding of the more fundamental problem is related to how IQ tests attempt to quantify intelligence as a reliable predictor of future success. This was indeed the original motivation in the past. The fact that most variants to define the concept of "intelligence" in some kind of replicable test lead to to the observation that all of these concepts are strongly correlated with the g factor, so in my opinion the evidence is on the side that we formalized "intelligence" mostly correctly. Now that we have a decent measurable concept of intelligence available, we can actually do studies with which other things (such as "future success") intelligence/IQ is correlated. And here the results are in my opinion, well, ... somewhat complicated. For example, as of today, it is quite well-known that if you consider having a steep career as "success", it's rather that being in the dark triad is quite helpful. Another example: it is well-known that attractive people are often thought by other people to be more smart than they actually are (halo effect; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect#Role_of_attractiveness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect#Role_of_attractive... ; see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereotype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereo...). Thus: the problem rather seems to be that intelligence/IQ is not a predictor for quite some things that people would love it to be associated with. But this is in my opinion not a problem with IQ, but with social expectations.

_heimdall 3y ago

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6927908/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6927908/ Wish I had better links handy that I could share right now, but this is a decent overview with plenty of further references. My wife has the psych degrees so I will probably butcher this trying to explain more deeply, but here goes nothing. The g factor is one concern, though as far as I'm aware its more of a detail than a fundamental problem. There have been complaints related to racism, though in everything I've seen the issue is actually how the IQ results are used rather than a problem with the test itself. My understanding of the more fundamental problem is related to how IQ tests attempt to quantify intelligence as a reliable predictor of future success. The tests ultimately assume that quantitative, rather than qualitative, measures are the right predictor to use. The tests also lean heavily analytical, biasing the test against anyone who is more "right brained". With regards to prediction, its extremely difficult to show any predictive accuracy without a logical loop. IQ tests are already used as screening metrics before one is given some opportunities. There isn't any way that I known of to tease that data apart and see how the person would have succeeded without the IQ test being used. Again, this is definitely a layman's understanding if the issues. I'm not in the psych field so someone here may very well be able to correct me where I've gone off the rails. I know I have listened to plenty of conversations between my wife and colleagues, grad students, etc that convinced me that there are good reason for IQ tests to be in question.

aleph_minus_one 3y ago
Thanks for the paper link. > My understanding of the more fundamental problem is related to how IQ tests attempt to quantify intelligence as a reliable predictor of future success. This was indeed the original motivation in the past. The fact that most variants to define the concept of "intelligence" in some kind of replicable test lead to to the observation that all of these concepts are strongly correlated with the g factor, so in my opinion the evidence is on the side that we formalized "intelligence" mostly correctly. Now that we have a decent measurable concept of intelligence available, we can actually do studies with which other things (such as "future success") intelligence/IQ is correlated. And here the results are in my opinion, well, ... somewhat complicated. For example, as of today, it is quite well-known that if you consider having a steep career as "success", it's rather that being in the dark triad is quite helpful. Another example: it is well-known that attractive people are often thought by other people to be more smart than they actually are (halo effect; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect#Role_of_attractiveness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect#Role_of_attractive... ; see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereotype https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_attractiveness_stereo...). Thus: the problem rather seems to be that intelligence/IQ is not a predictor for quite some things that people would love it to be associated with. But this is in my opinion not a problem with IQ, but with social expectations.