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I still do not understand why we are wasting scientific resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intellig

I still do not understand why we are wasting scientific resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence. After over a century of psychometric research in cognitive abilities and intelligence, what do we have to show for it? Whose life has actually improved for the better? Have the benefits from such research, if any, outweighed the amount of harm that has already been caused?

bofadeez 1y ago
Psychometrics has clear value. Cognitive ability predicts academic/job performance (Schmidt & Hunter 1998, Psych Bull), and standardized tests reliably forecast college outcomes (Kuncel, Hezlett & Ones 2004, Science). Conscientiousness adds further predictive power (Poropat 2009, Psych Bull). The science is robust. The issue is the discomfort it causes, not lack of benefit or predictive power.
- shermantanktop 1y ago
  Intelligence testing is not widely used in employment hiring, despite many attempts. Why is that?
  - bofadeez 1y ago
    Of course it is[1]. Every single method used to screen a candidate is essentially testing for general mental ability. Being admitted to an Ivy League school is basically an IQ test. Interviews are basically IQ tests. Employers want to hire smart people. The fact that his is even a debate is crazy. [1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-10661-006 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-10661-006
    - rixed 1y ago
      Your definition of an IQ test seems to be so vague as to be meaningless. Last time I passed a job interview, on several rounds of interview not one was about general intelligence, or general knowledge, or general anything. It was about my ability to solve the kind of problems they were solving and I had some experience solving. Last time I failed a job interview it was because of a bad culture fit. I have not looked at the numbers, but I would suspect Ivy league admissions to be more correlated with wealth / geography than possibly anything else, but you probably square that with a belief that intelligence is hereditary as wealth is. IQ tests measure the ability to solve quickly some abstract problems in an exam-like situation. There is certainly a use case for that, but thinking it captures the whole of "cognitive ability" is like thinking that duolingo captures the whole of litterary. By the way, anytime one can't understand why $DEBATED_TOPIC is debatable should be an indication that one should switch to a slower though process.
      - Avshalom 1y ago
        >Your definition of an IQ test seems to be so vague as to be meaningless. This is actually like one of the primary tricks of the IQ perverts. They'll take literally any test, run the results through a transformation function to get it into their bell curve, and start making claims about how IQ correlate with This-Or-That based on it.
        bofadeez 1y ago
        If you dismiss IQ research, you might as well disregard all of psychology. The psychologists who developed intelligence tests were pioneers in using the statistical methods (e.g. factor analysis) that now underpin the entire field. IQ is defined more precisely than almost any other psychological construct. Discarding it leaves you with poorly defined concepts and no clear way to handle them. [1] [1] https://youtu.be/D7Kn5p7TP_Y?t=47m50s https://youtu.be/D7Kn5p7TP_Y?t=47m50s
        Avshalom 1y ago
        Oh for fuck's sake. So: the people that developed intelligence tests were not psychologists; lies, damned lies and statistics; "pioneering" the idea of using math doesn't mean that people using math today are doing the same thing; whatever the definition of IQ might be is irrelevant because "IQ tests" are not rigorously defined; however precisely IQ is defined is also irrelevant because it's supposedly just a proxy for "g"; psychology is not psychometry and so discarding IQ does nothing to the field of psychology.
      - bofadeez 1y ago
        In practice, intelligence tests don’t depend on the specific questions asked. If you let a group of people generate their own questions, pool them together, sample randomly, and then rank scores, the same individuals would tend to rise to the top. This is because people with higher general cognitive ability perform better across virtually any cognitive task, a phenomenon first documented by Spearman (1904) and repeatedly confirmed in psychometrics research (e.g., Jensen 1998; Deary 2012).
  - gruez 1y ago
    Because the supreme court ruled that it's racist to do so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
    - d1sxeyes 1y ago
      No, the Supreme Court ruled that you have to have a concrete business reason for implementing a test that is disproportionately likely to favour one ethnic group over another: > The touchstone is business necessity. If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited.
      - bofadeez 1y ago
        So the NBA is discriminating by using physical tests that require height? Any kind of skill-based testing is obviously racist. Thanks for teaching me.
        olddustytrail 1y ago
        The NBA doesn't discriminate by height. They have chosen players that are 5'3" over players who are 6'6". You're welcome for me educating you.
        bofadeez 1y ago
        Oh you're right, it is very diverse in the NBA in terms of height and race. Not at all dominated by tall guys. The Duke Power Company had as many black people in management as the NBA has short players. Your argument is not even internally consistent.
        olddustytrail 1y ago
        That is discriminating by ability not height. It happens to be easier for taller people to have that ability but that's secondary.
  - mothballed 1y ago
    It's used by police, because if you're too smart you might refuse tyrannical orders. Whoops, I meant, you would get bored. https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
    - jurking_hoff 1y ago
      [dead]
  - avazhi 1y ago
    Actually it is, if you're talking about white collar knowledge economy jobs, like law jobs. Top tier law firms routinely give either actual IQ tests or IQ test-like assessments during interviews.
  - ACow_Adonis 1y ago
    I don't know where you live, but it quite clearly is where I'm from. Oooh, to be sure they don't call them IQ tests explicitly, but the psychometric capabilities and performance tests they've gotten me to do (mathematical, logical, verbal, reasoning etc) are pretty obviously IQ proxies.
gruez 1y ago
>resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence. "arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence" correlate very well with objective metrics like educational attainment and income. >the amount of harm that has already been caused? Like what?
- kulahan 1y ago
  It’s just more of that unbelievably annoying modern attitude that doing no harm is more important than doing good.
  - rixed 1y ago
    I don't see what harm these tests are doing, but I don't see the good either. Could you elaborate?
    - kulahan 1y ago
      It stratifies people, so anyone in a strata that isn’t the best is azhkchually being harmed by not being rated equally to everyone else.
      - rixed 1y ago
        You did not answer my question, which was in good faith; instead you seam to keep using a sarcastic way of discussing that we try to avoid here.
        kulahan 1y ago
        Yes I did. “Why is this bad” “Because it stratifies people, which has the effect of saying some people are better than others in some way”. I’m not being sarcastic towards you, I’m being sarcastic towards people who think this is truly harmful. I apologize - I should’ve made that more clear.
cm2012 1y ago
It is generally good to have an understanding of how the world actually functions.
- hirvi74 1y ago
  > how the world actually functions In a cruel and inhumane manner virtually devoid of all empathy and compassion for our planet, the life our planet supports, and for each other? I honestly wish I didn't understand how the world actually functions.
  - cm2012 1y ago
    The ostrich approach is certainly an approach!
    - hirvi74 1y ago
      I'm afraid my head is too far up my own ass, but I should probably give the sand a try...
sctb 1y ago
In clinical contexts, cognitive tests are used for diagnostic purposes. They are important to determine exactly what sort of ongoing care and support the person needs in order to thrive. In these sorts of contexts, it's not hard to imagine the utility in knowing someone's cognitive ability. It's also not arbitrary—a good cognitive test will give insight into the ability to perform everyday cognitive tasks.
- hirvi74 1y ago
  > In clinical contexts, cognitive tests are used for diagnostic purposes. I'm not certain I agree. If anything, cognitive tests can be used as a single point of datum, but to my knowledge, no condition can be diagnosed via a cognitive test alone. Of course, I could be mistaken. I wish administered the WAIS-IV on top of many other tests for an ADHD diagnosis. > They are important to determine exactly what sort of ongoing care and support the person needs in order to thrive. Interesting, upon my receiving my diagnosis, I was not provided any support nor would I declare I have thrived. Obviously, n = 1. I was merely given the social approval to take pharma-grade speed and thrown back to the wolves. > It's also not arbitrary—a good cognitive test will give insight into the ability to perform everyday cognitive tasks. That's the part I believe I am clearly missing. These tests provide insight into the ability to perform everyday cognitive tasks better than one's history of already performing various tasks? It's not as if someone with a perfect SAT score takes an IQ tests and then is met with the sudden reality that they are mentally disabled nor vice versa. What do these tests tell us that we already do not know? If I want to find someone with high mathematical abilities, then I would administer a math exam. Reading? Reading exam. Chess? Chess tournament. And so on...
  - ACow_Adonis 1y ago
    Honestly, imo clinically in aggregate the actually score itself provides very little information beyond what a 5 minute conversation would achieve, and the result could be better thought as bordering on 5-6 level categorical variable rather than a gradient due to their biases and inherent individual patient variance on performance and test taking context. The sub-sections of things like the WAIS can be of some value for identifying specific abnormalities or deficiencies, but as you said, is probably of more value clinically to split them out into separate tests/activities rather than to group them all together into an aggregate score. It's a bit like judging athletic ability and skill by BMI and fat percentage rather than just playing an opponent in tennis to find out if they're a good tennis player.
aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
On scientific front, it's very useful. Its use outside of academia is has however been very problematic. There are studies that empirically measure drop change cognitive ability from lead poising, oxygen deprivation, sleep deprecation, post-burnout, environment distraction, noise pollution, temperature, aging, drug and alcohol use during puberty, smoking, school teaching style, etc. etc. Notable is that these are either population metrics or compare each individual with themselves. This is what IQ and other similar tests were meant for. Comparing one person with another is nonsensical and a flawed use of these metrics. This is where where IQ has fallen and become a rather bad metric. People are familiar with the problems scewing results. IQ test performance and education level is highly correlated, which is supposed to be compensated for in the final score. But poor education quality in certain regions make the statistics easily used to argue quite unsavory ideas.
- bofadeez 1y ago
  You can create a proxy for IQ by simply asking a group of people to invent their own questions, summing them together, randomly sampling from those questions, and then rank ordering the outcome. High IQ people will score in the top percentile for any set of questions. That's the whole point.
  - michaelt 1y ago
    Do you have a citation for this? It sounds pretty unlikely to me. I'm pretty sure if I asked a group of people to invent their own questions I'd get a load of general knowledge questions about music, sports, and popular culture.
    - bofadeez 1y ago
      This is a talking point from an old university class lecture interpreting factor analytic data on personality and IQ [1]. In practice, intelligence tests don’t depend on the specific questions asked. If you let a group of people generate their own items, pool them together, sample randomly, and then rank scores, the same individuals would tend to rise to the top. The high IQ people would cluster toward the top with a correlation of 0.9. This is because people with higher general cognitive ability perform better across virtually any cognitive task, a phenomenon first documented by Spearman (1904) and repeatedly confirmed in psychometrics research (e.g., Jensen 1998; Deary 2012). [1] https://youtu.be/D7Kn5p7TP_Y?t=47m50s https://youtu.be/D7Kn5p7TP_Y?t=47m50s
isodev 1y ago
Because as a race, we’re curious. It’s a way to improve ourselves. Facing a challenge like this leads to learning, innovating new tools and techniques, greater understanding of how we are, how we work on the inside.
aerhardt 1y ago
There are plenty of benefits to studying it, and plenty of downsides to not studying it. I recommend “The Neuroscience of Intelligence” by Richard Haier from Cambridge Fundamentals of Neuroscience in Psychology for a comprehensive, accessible, and modern review.
- hirvi74 1y ago
  I think have read this before. Wasn’t he trying to find neuroscientific evidence to support IQ via neuron transmission rates and whatnot? Or was it grey matter volume? Regardless, I am still skeptical of a lot of neuroscience research, as well. I feel that neuroscience often suffers from the same issues that psychology does —- where correlation apparently equates to causation.
raincole 1y ago
If you view academics through this kind of lens most of them should be disband. Like practically everything outside of STEM. Actually 90% of math and science too. A great part of science breakthroughs is mostly made by people who just want to know more, for the sake of knowing more.
riazrizvi 1y ago
It’s just a business, and it sells because institution leaders find it useful to have some convincing ideas to back up their positions, then the cottage industry it spawns defends it, and we all arrive in the world with established ideas like this in play. There are many little distortions like this in society that experience eventually puts the lie to. It’s the landscape to navigate, to play along with. A huge part of what makes a strong society is how many of us know what the game is, who can also put on a good performance of it. Imagine being in an improv group and people keep calling out that it’s pretend.
georgeburdell 1y ago
Long term programs such as Duke’s TIP have provided significant evidence that kids who score highly on the things they measure are correlated with high levels of professional achievement, such as patents. It makes sense to identify talented individuals and provide them with the resources they need to reach their potential https://today.duke.edu/2016/06/whenlightningstrikestwice https://today.duke.edu/2016/06/whenlightningstrikestwice
- hirvi74 1y ago
  Why wouldn't those children have such an outcome? Modern life is a series of gatekept outcomes. Perform well in early education => access to better universities, better universities => access to better experiences/careers, better experiences/careers => access to higher income, better income => ..., etc.. Who is more likely to have more time and the means to develop patents? The high income/high intelligence person who pays for others to do various chores, labors, and services for them so that they may focus on their work, or the people deemed unworthy by society who spend their time performing the chores, labors, and services for the high income/high intelligence person? I believe intelligence alone is worthless, if not dangerous, without altruism and empathy. As I type this very message, somewhere in the world, there are people being torn to shreds, families destroyed, etc. by various contraptions designed by some of the most intelligent people on the planet. While unintelligent people may have less potential to change the world in a positive manner, it is apparent that those same individuals have less potential to change the world in a negative manner, as well. Whatever potential these children have, I believe it's imperative that we are damn certain those children have the moral and ethical composition deserving of their potential, at least, that is my starry-eyed opinion.
alphazard 1y ago
> Whose life has actually improved for the better? High-IQ children in low income families. In so far as they are targeted by social programs that give them better educational opportunities.
- hirvi74 1y ago
  So, without IQ it would be impossible for social programs to give better educational opportunities to exist? And on that same note, and this a genuine question, how much evidence supports that better educational opportunities truly manifests into the outcomes we socially desire? I'd be leery of anyone that claims that the only reason they were able to become a doctor, lawyer, etc. was because of being in a gifted program or something similar. As far as I am concerned, I firmly believe the truly talented will create their own environment within reason. Take Von Neumann, for example. He was god-like in abilities. I am certain someone of his caliber did not need better educational opportunities in order to be exceptional. The man was, by all accounts, born exceptional. Also, I am not certain that giving better educational opportunities to the bright is better than giving better educational opportunities to the disadvantaged, but I will admit I am likely too ignorant on this topic to have an informed opinion.
  - msgodel 1y ago
    Children from low income families tend to do poorly. Being able to measure their IQ helps demonstrate when it's more environment than genetics which strengthens the argument for improving their environment. Without this educational opportunities would primarily be given to the obviously/observably bright and advantaged children since their parents can afford it.
    - hirvi74 1y ago
      Wait, I thought IQ and income were highly correlated. I also thought IQ was highly heritable? In fact, I thought the heritability was sooooo high and environmental factor played a very minute role in the outcome of one's IQ? (I am being sarcastic, of course.) > Without this educational opportunities would primarily be given to the obviously/observably bright and advantaged children since their parents can afford it. Hell, for any highly intelligent child, I say drop their asses off the public library. The truly smart ones will find their way, and the environmentally gifted will not. We do not need special programs for these kids. Special programs equate to more busy, bullshit work. A high IQ earns one more worksheets and homework. Education, at least in the USA, is rotten to the core. I am not convinced more of it is better. Do not mistake me though, I do not believe more knowledge and wisdom are worthless. I am just saying the education system rarely provides either. I feel like people miss the echelons of IQ. IQ might have predictability, but the more narrow one focuses, the worse it gets. For example, let's taking programming. Something near and dear to my heart and to many others on this site. If one is capable of learning how to program, then their IQ is clearly sufficient enough to be a programmer. Past that point, I would not be willing to bet that a higher IQ would necessarily translate into a better programmer. It's like being in tall and playing basketball. Being 6'5 is better than being 5'5 in the NBA. However, being 6'7 vs. 6'5 much less advantageous. If anything, I think we should start highly selecting for more altruistic and empathic children. Intelligence is not exactly uncommon. An IQ of 130 puts one in the 98th percentile. With a world population of 8.142 billion people, that means there are roughly 162.84 million people at or above the 98th percentile. I am not certain there are 162.84 million people out in the world making a big difference.
geor9e 1y ago
I just think they're neat.
- hirvi74 1y ago
  Nothing wrong with that if you find personal joy in them.
rayiner 1y ago
It’s not an arbitrary concept. It’s reliably measured and correlated with lots of factors we care about: https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11683192/iq-testing-intelligence https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11683192/iq-testing-intelligen... The benefits have been huge. The Chinese realized this a thousand years ago when they invented civil service exams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination.
- hirvi74 1y ago
  A lot of things are correlated. Let me know when causation is determined. Also, your Vox link was pay-walled, but nevertheless, I am fairly well versed in some of the data. I have my own archive of research on this topic for what it is worth (not likely much). Any hoot, the correlations, while positive, are nothing to write home about in my opinion. Sure, IQ might have more breadth of predictably, but it definitely lacks depth of predictably compared to more granular models depending on the domain. For example, IQ is not a better predictor of chess performance than say a chess tournament.
  - Jensson 1y ago
    > For example, IQ is not a better predictor of chess performance than say a chess tournament. So we should determine who to give chess lessons to with chess tournaments? That seems pretty dumb. There are many times where we don't want to select for current ability but for potential ability, and then a direct test like you suggest is a much worse predictor than IQ is.
    - hirvi74 1y ago
      > So we should determine who to give chess lessons to with chess tournaments? That seems pretty dumb. By your logic, we could even declare grandmasters based on IQ scores alone without anyone needing to play. Clearly that misses the point of skill assessment. History also doesn’t support the claim of potential ability all that well, in my opinion. Lewis Terman’s study tracked high-IQ children across several decades. Many of the children went on to lead ordinary lives and did not reach noteworthy achievements. However, two lower-IQ children that were excluded went on to become Nobel Prize winners. IQ alone does not seem to be a robust predictor of domain mastery.

bofadeez 1y ago

Psychometrics has clear value. Cognitive ability predicts academic/job performance (Schmidt & Hunter 1998, Psych Bull), and standardized tests reliably forecast college outcomes (Kuncel, Hezlett & Ones 2004, Science). Conscientiousness adds further predictive power (Poropat 2009, Psych Bull). The science is robust. The issue is the discomfort it causes, not lack of benefit or predictive power.

shermantanktop 1y ago
Intelligence testing is not widely used in employment hiring, despite many attempts. Why is that?
- bofadeez 1y ago
  Of course it is[1]. Every single method used to screen a candidate is essentially testing for general mental ability. Being admitted to an Ivy League school is basically an IQ test. Interviews are basically IQ tests. Employers want to hire smart people. The fact that his is even a debate is crazy. [1] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-10661-006 https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1998-10661-006
  - rixed 1y ago
    Your definition of an IQ test seems to be so vague as to be meaningless. Last time I passed a job interview, on several rounds of interview not one was about general intelligence, or general knowledge, or general anything. It was about my ability to solve the kind of problems they were solving and I had some experience solving. Last time I failed a job interview it was because of a bad culture fit. I have not looked at the numbers, but I would suspect Ivy league admissions to be more correlated with wealth / geography than possibly anything else, but you probably square that with a belief that intelligence is hereditary as wealth is. IQ tests measure the ability to solve quickly some abstract problems in an exam-like situation. There is certainly a use case for that, but thinking it captures the whole of "cognitive ability" is like thinking that duolingo captures the whole of litterary. By the way, anytime one can't understand why $DEBATED_TOPIC is debatable should be an indication that one should switch to a slower though process.
    - Avshalom 1y ago
      >Your definition of an IQ test seems to be so vague as to be meaningless. This is actually like one of the primary tricks of the IQ perverts. They'll take literally any test, run the results through a transformation function to get it into their bell curve, and start making claims about how IQ correlate with This-Or-That based on it.
      - bofadeez 1y ago
        If you dismiss IQ research, you might as well disregard all of psychology. The psychologists who developed intelligence tests were pioneers in using the statistical methods (e.g. factor analysis) that now underpin the entire field. IQ is defined more precisely than almost any other psychological construct. Discarding it leaves you with poorly defined concepts and no clear way to handle them. [1] [1] https://youtu.be/D7Kn5p7TP_Y?t=47m50s https://youtu.be/D7Kn5p7TP_Y?t=47m50s
        Avshalom 1y ago
        Oh for fuck's sake. So: the people that developed intelligence tests were not psychologists; lies, damned lies and statistics; "pioneering" the idea of using math doesn't mean that people using math today are doing the same thing; whatever the definition of IQ might be is irrelevant because "IQ tests" are not rigorously defined; however precisely IQ is defined is also irrelevant because it's supposedly just a proxy for "g"; psychology is not psychometry and so discarding IQ does nothing to the field of psychology.
    - bofadeez 1y ago
      In practice, intelligence tests don’t depend on the specific questions asked. If you let a group of people generate their own questions, pool them together, sample randomly, and then rank scores, the same individuals would tend to rise to the top. This is because people with higher general cognitive ability perform better across virtually any cognitive task, a phenomenon first documented by Spearman (1904) and repeatedly confirmed in psychometrics research (e.g., Jensen 1998; Deary 2012).
- gruez 1y ago
  Because the supreme court ruled that it's racist to do so https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griggs_v._Duke_Power_Co.
  - d1sxeyes 1y ago
    No, the Supreme Court ruled that you have to have a concrete business reason for implementing a test that is disproportionately likely to favour one ethnic group over another: > The touchstone is business necessity. If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited.
    - bofadeez 1y ago
      So the NBA is discriminating by using physical tests that require height? Any kind of skill-based testing is obviously racist. Thanks for teaching me.
      - olddustytrail 1y ago
        The NBA doesn't discriminate by height. They have chosen players that are 5'3" over players who are 6'6". You're welcome for me educating you.
        bofadeez 1y ago
        Oh you're right, it is very diverse in the NBA in terms of height and race. Not at all dominated by tall guys. The Duke Power Company had as many black people in management as the NBA has short players. Your argument is not even internally consistent.
        olddustytrail 1y ago
        That is discriminating by ability not height. It happens to be easier for taller people to have that ability but that's secondary.
- mothballed 1y ago
  It's used by police, because if you're too smart you might refuse tyrannical orders. Whoops, I meant, you would get bored. https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836 https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...
  - jurking_hoff 1y ago
    [dead]
- avazhi 1y ago
  Actually it is, if you're talking about white collar knowledge economy jobs, like law jobs. Top tier law firms routinely give either actual IQ tests or IQ test-like assessments during interviews.
- ACow_Adonis 1y ago
  I don't know where you live, but it quite clearly is where I'm from. Oooh, to be sure they don't call them IQ tests explicitly, but the psychometric capabilities and performance tests they've gotten me to do (mathematical, logical, verbal, reasoning etc) are pretty obviously IQ proxies.

gruez 1y ago

>resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence. "arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence" correlate very well with objective metrics like educational attainment and income. >the amount of harm that has already been caused? Like what?

kulahan 1y ago
It’s just more of that unbelievably annoying modern attitude that doing no harm is more important than doing good.
- rixed 1y ago
  I don't see what harm these tests are doing, but I don't see the good either. Could you elaborate?
  - kulahan 1y ago
    It stratifies people, so anyone in a strata that isn’t the best is azhkchually being harmed by not being rated equally to everyone else.
    - rixed 1y ago
      You did not answer my question, which was in good faith; instead you seam to keep using a sarcastic way of discussing that we try to avoid here.
      - kulahan 1y ago
        Yes I did. “Why is this bad” “Because it stratifies people, which has the effect of saying some people are better than others in some way”. I’m not being sarcastic towards you, I’m being sarcastic towards people who think this is truly harmful. I apologize - I should’ve made that more clear.

cm2012 1y ago

It is generally good to have an understanding of how the world actually functions.

hirvi74 1y ago
> how the world actually functions In a cruel and inhumane manner virtually devoid of all empathy and compassion for our planet, the life our planet supports, and for each other? I honestly wish I didn't understand how the world actually functions.
- cm2012 1y ago
  The ostrich approach is certainly an approach!
  - hirvi74 1y ago
    I'm afraid my head is too far up my own ass, but I should probably give the sand a try...

sctb 1y ago

In clinical contexts, cognitive tests are used for diagnostic purposes. They are important to determine exactly what sort of ongoing care and support the person needs in order to thrive. In these sorts of contexts, it's not hard to imagine the utility in knowing someone's cognitive ability. It's also not arbitrary—a good cognitive test will give insight into the ability to perform everyday cognitive tasks.

hirvi74 1y ago
> In clinical contexts, cognitive tests are used for diagnostic purposes. I'm not certain I agree. If anything, cognitive tests can be used as a single point of datum, but to my knowledge, no condition can be diagnosed via a cognitive test alone. Of course, I could be mistaken. I wish administered the WAIS-IV on top of many other tests for an ADHD diagnosis. > They are important to determine exactly what sort of ongoing care and support the person needs in order to thrive. Interesting, upon my receiving my diagnosis, I was not provided any support nor would I declare I have thrived. Obviously, n = 1. I was merely given the social approval to take pharma-grade speed and thrown back to the wolves. > It's also not arbitrary—a good cognitive test will give insight into the ability to perform everyday cognitive tasks. That's the part I believe I am clearly missing. These tests provide insight into the ability to perform everyday cognitive tasks better than one's history of already performing various tasks? It's not as if someone with a perfect SAT score takes an IQ tests and then is met with the sudden reality that they are mentally disabled nor vice versa. What do these tests tell us that we already do not know? If I want to find someone with high mathematical abilities, then I would administer a math exam. Reading? Reading exam. Chess? Chess tournament. And so on...
- ACow_Adonis 1y ago
  Honestly, imo clinically in aggregate the actually score itself provides very little information beyond what a 5 minute conversation would achieve, and the result could be better thought as bordering on 5-6 level categorical variable rather than a gradient due to their biases and inherent individual patient variance on performance and test taking context. The sub-sections of things like the WAIS can be of some value for identifying specific abnormalities or deficiencies, but as you said, is probably of more value clinically to split them out into separate tests/activities rather than to group them all together into an aggregate score. It's a bit like judging athletic ability and skill by BMI and fat percentage rather than just playing an opponent in tennis to find out if they're a good tennis player.

aDyslecticCrow 1y ago

On scientific front, it's very useful. Its use outside of academia is has however been very problematic. There are studies that empirically measure drop change cognitive ability from lead poising, oxygen deprivation, sleep deprecation, post-burnout, environment distraction, noise pollution, temperature, aging, drug and alcohol use during puberty, smoking, school teaching style, etc. etc. Notable is that these are either population metrics or compare each individual with themselves. This is what IQ and other similar tests were meant for. Comparing one person with another is nonsensical and a flawed use of these metrics. This is where where IQ has fallen and become a rather bad metric. People are familiar with the problems scewing results. IQ test performance and education level is highly correlated, which is supposed to be compensated for in the final score. But poor education quality in certain regions make the statistics easily used to argue quite unsavory ideas.

bofadeez 1y ago
You can create a proxy for IQ by simply asking a group of people to invent their own questions, summing them together, randomly sampling from those questions, and then rank ordering the outcome. High IQ people will score in the top percentile for any set of questions. That's the whole point.
- michaelt 1y ago
  Do you have a citation for this? It sounds pretty unlikely to me. I'm pretty sure if I asked a group of people to invent their own questions I'd get a load of general knowledge questions about music, sports, and popular culture.
  - bofadeez 1y ago
    This is a talking point from an old university class lecture interpreting factor analytic data on personality and IQ [1]. In practice, intelligence tests don’t depend on the specific questions asked. If you let a group of people generate their own items, pool them together, sample randomly, and then rank scores, the same individuals would tend to rise to the top. The high IQ people would cluster toward the top with a correlation of 0.9. This is because people with higher general cognitive ability perform better across virtually any cognitive task, a phenomenon first documented by Spearman (1904) and repeatedly confirmed in psychometrics research (e.g., Jensen 1998; Deary 2012). [1] https://youtu.be/D7Kn5p7TP_Y?t=47m50s https://youtu.be/D7Kn5p7TP_Y?t=47m50s

isodev 1y ago

Because as a race, we’re curious. It’s a way to improve ourselves. Facing a challenge like this leads to learning, innovating new tools and techniques, greater understanding of how we are, how we work on the inside.

aerhardt 1y ago

There are plenty of benefits to studying it, and plenty of downsides to not studying it. I recommend “The Neuroscience of Intelligence” by Richard Haier from Cambridge Fundamentals of Neuroscience in Psychology for a comprehensive, accessible, and modern review.

hirvi74 1y ago
I think have read this before. Wasn’t he trying to find neuroscientific evidence to support IQ via neuron transmission rates and whatnot? Or was it grey matter volume? Regardless, I am still skeptical of a lot of neuroscience research, as well. I feel that neuroscience often suffers from the same issues that psychology does —- where correlation apparently equates to causation.

raincole 1y ago

If you view academics through this kind of lens most of them should be disband. Like practically everything outside of STEM. Actually 90% of math and science too. A great part of science breakthroughs is mostly made by people who just want to know more, for the sake of knowing more.

riazrizvi 1y ago

It’s just a business, and it sells because institution leaders find it useful to have some convincing ideas to back up their positions, then the cottage industry it spawns defends it, and we all arrive in the world with established ideas like this in play. There are many little distortions like this in society that experience eventually puts the lie to. It’s the landscape to navigate, to play along with. A huge part of what makes a strong society is how many of us know what the game is, who can also put on a good performance of it. Imagine being in an improv group and people keep calling out that it’s pretend.

georgeburdell 1y ago

Long term programs such as Duke’s TIP have provided significant evidence that kids who score highly on the things they measure are correlated with high levels of professional achievement, such as patents. It makes sense to identify talented individuals and provide them with the resources they need to reach their potential https://today.duke.edu/2016/06/whenlightningstrikestwice https://today.duke.edu/2016/06/whenlightningstrikestwice

hirvi74 1y ago
Why wouldn't those children have such an outcome? Modern life is a series of gatekept outcomes. Perform well in early education => access to better universities, better universities => access to better experiences/careers, better experiences/careers => access to higher income, better income => ..., etc.. Who is more likely to have more time and the means to develop patents? The high income/high intelligence person who pays for others to do various chores, labors, and services for them so that they may focus on their work, or the people deemed unworthy by society who spend their time performing the chores, labors, and services for the high income/high intelligence person? I believe intelligence alone is worthless, if not dangerous, without altruism and empathy. As I type this very message, somewhere in the world, there are people being torn to shreds, families destroyed, etc. by various contraptions designed by some of the most intelligent people on the planet. While unintelligent people may have less potential to change the world in a positive manner, it is apparent that those same individuals have less potential to change the world in a negative manner, as well. Whatever potential these children have, I believe it's imperative that we are damn certain those children have the moral and ethical composition deserving of their potential, at least, that is my starry-eyed opinion.

alphazard 1y ago

> Whose life has actually improved for the better? High-IQ children in low income families. In so far as they are targeted by social programs that give them better educational opportunities.

hirvi74 1y ago
So, without IQ it would be impossible for social programs to give better educational opportunities to exist? And on that same note, and this a genuine question, how much evidence supports that better educational opportunities truly manifests into the outcomes we socially desire? I'd be leery of anyone that claims that the only reason they were able to become a doctor, lawyer, etc. was because of being in a gifted program or something similar. As far as I am concerned, I firmly believe the truly talented will create their own environment within reason. Take Von Neumann, for example. He was god-like in abilities. I am certain someone of his caliber did not need better educational opportunities in order to be exceptional. The man was, by all accounts, born exceptional. Also, I am not certain that giving better educational opportunities to the bright is better than giving better educational opportunities to the disadvantaged, but I will admit I am likely too ignorant on this topic to have an informed opinion.
- msgodel 1y ago
  Children from low income families tend to do poorly. Being able to measure their IQ helps demonstrate when it's more environment than genetics which strengthens the argument for improving their environment. Without this educational opportunities would primarily be given to the obviously/observably bright and advantaged children since their parents can afford it.
  - hirvi74 1y ago
    Wait, I thought IQ and income were highly correlated. I also thought IQ was highly heritable? In fact, I thought the heritability was sooooo high and environmental factor played a very minute role in the outcome of one's IQ? (I am being sarcastic, of course.) > Without this educational opportunities would primarily be given to the obviously/observably bright and advantaged children since their parents can afford it. Hell, for any highly intelligent child, I say drop their asses off the public library. The truly smart ones will find their way, and the environmentally gifted will not. We do not need special programs for these kids. Special programs equate to more busy, bullshit work. A high IQ earns one more worksheets and homework. Education, at least in the USA, is rotten to the core. I am not convinced more of it is better. Do not mistake me though, I do not believe more knowledge and wisdom are worthless. I am just saying the education system rarely provides either. I feel like people miss the echelons of IQ. IQ might have predictability, but the more narrow one focuses, the worse it gets. For example, let's taking programming. Something near and dear to my heart and to many others on this site. If one is capable of learning how to program, then their IQ is clearly sufficient enough to be a programmer. Past that point, I would not be willing to bet that a higher IQ would necessarily translate into a better programmer. It's like being in tall and playing basketball. Being 6'5 is better than being 5'5 in the NBA. However, being 6'7 vs. 6'5 much less advantageous. If anything, I think we should start highly selecting for more altruistic and empathic children. Intelligence is not exactly uncommon. An IQ of 130 puts one in the 98th percentile. With a world population of 8.142 billion people, that means there are roughly 162.84 million people at or above the 98th percentile. I am not certain there are 162.84 million people out in the world making a big difference.

geor9e 1y ago

I just think they're neat.

hirvi74 1y ago
Nothing wrong with that if you find personal joy in them.

rayiner 1y ago

It’s not an arbitrary concept. It’s reliably measured and correlated with lots of factors we care about: https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11683192/iq-testing-intelligence https://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11683192/iq-testing-intelligen... The benefits have been huge. The Chinese realized this a thousand years ago when they invented civil service exams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination.

hirvi74 1y ago
A lot of things are correlated. Let me know when causation is determined. Also, your Vox link was pay-walled, but nevertheless, I am fairly well versed in some of the data. I have my own archive of research on this topic for what it is worth (not likely much). Any hoot, the correlations, while positive, are nothing to write home about in my opinion. Sure, IQ might have more breadth of predictably, but it definitely lacks depth of predictably compared to more granular models depending on the domain. For example, IQ is not a better predictor of chess performance than say a chess tournament.
- Jensson 1y ago
  > For example, IQ is not a better predictor of chess performance than say a chess tournament. So we should determine who to give chess lessons to with chess tournaments? That seems pretty dumb. There are many times where we don't want to select for current ability but for potential ability, and then a direct test like you suggest is a much worse predictor than IQ is.
  - hirvi74 1y ago
    > So we should determine who to give chess lessons to with chess tournaments? That seems pretty dumb. By your logic, we could even declare grandmasters based on IQ scores alone without anyone needing to play. Clearly that misses the point of skill assessment. History also doesn’t support the claim of potential ability all that well, in my opinion. Lewis Terman’s study tracked high-IQ children across several decades. Many of the children went on to lead ordinary lives and did not reach noteworthy achievements. However, two lower-IQ children that were excluded went on to become Nobel Prize winners. IQ alone does not seem to be a robust predictor of domain mastery.