4 ms·

>resources trying to stack rank humans on arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive ability or intelligence. "arbitrarily defined concepts like cognitive abi

by 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.
        rixed 1y ago
        Apologizes gladly accepted. But maybe my question was not clearly phrased - it was not "Why are tests bad". You contrasted "doing no harm" with "doing good" and I wanted to ask what good have IQ tests done. Because to me the harm is kind of obvious (overinflating the importance of one criteria and ideological agenda) but the good not so much (obviously, I'm not questioning the good of any cognitive ability per see, I'm questioning the good of assigning a numerical value to it and making it a characteristic of some individual).
        kulahan 1y ago
        Oh, I see. A good IQ test would be a good way to help our most promising children get the largest head start. It could help point out adults in your own company that have some type of potential. It could be used for scholarship purposes. Stuff like that.
        hirvi74 1y ago
        > A good IQ test would be a good way to help our most promising children get the largest head start. If that were true, then why are they not administered to every child? IQ tests appear to only to the potentially disabled and potential precocious. If a child is already showing signs of precociousness, then what would an IQ test present that was not already observed? > It could help point out adults in your own company that have some type of potential. I highly doubt adults at a company have hidden potential that is unknown. Underused? Sure. It's not like the companies have some sort of hidden genius that no one knows about. If one were a genius, it would have likely been apparent far earlier in their life. > It could be used for scholarship purposes. Do you really believe we should be awarding scholarships for meritless human attributes? Why not offer scholarships to other human attributes like height, weight, and beauty while we are at it? That's thing about IQ, according to the research, it's like eye color, skin color, etc.. There isn't a damn thing one can do to change it (positively). So, I am not certain I am comfortable offering scholarships on raw IQ alone. In fact, isn't the entire purpose behind grades, standardized testing, etc.? (Yes, I am aware the early SAT was a psuedo-IQ test, but that ended in the 80s or 90s, I believe. ACT was never truly comparable to my understanding.)
tshaddox 1y ago
So is the goal to predict someone’s future income? Or to inform someone of how much money they supposedly should be making based on their test results and the supposed correlation between test results and income? Surely the test results aren’t being used anywhere to actually determine people’s income.
- rasebo 1y ago
  The goal is to predict if, for example, someone is better suited to sweeping the floors vs working with complex systems. Both are useful and respectable jobs but you both want an individual who can actually do it, not someone who just thinks they can, and someone whose capabilities won't be wasted on too simple tasks. These tests are great tools to help you figure out future performances of said individuals, as well as their satisfaction on the job/task. A mismatch will cause impact both for the individual and the company/military unit/etc.
  - bofadeez 1y ago
    The US Army requires a minimum AFQT percentile of 31 for enlistment which, based on standard IQ norms (mean = 100, SD = 15), maps to roughly an IQ of 85 (one standard deviation below mean). I.e. if you have an IQ below 85 you can't even sweep up the floor for the army
    - nostrebored 1y ago
      And it’s because they found that using people below that threshold for _any purpose, including canon fodder_ has disastrously bad outcomes.
      - bofadeez 1y ago
        Around 50 million Americans fall below this threshold and are positively counterproductive for ANY military purpose, no matter how menial, no matter the shortage of recruits.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
danielpoer1098 1y ago
[dead]

by gruez 1y ago

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.
      - rixed 1y ago
        Apologizes gladly accepted. But maybe my question was not clearly phrased - it was not "Why are tests bad". You contrasted "doing no harm" with "doing good" and I wanted to ask what good have IQ tests done. Because to me the harm is kind of obvious (overinflating the importance of one criteria and ideological agenda) but the good not so much (obviously, I'm not questioning the good of any cognitive ability per see, I'm questioning the good of assigning a numerical value to it and making it a characteristic of some individual).
        kulahan 1y ago
        Oh, I see. A good IQ test would be a good way to help our most promising children get the largest head start. It could help point out adults in your own company that have some type of potential. It could be used for scholarship purposes. Stuff like that.
        hirvi74 1y ago
        > A good IQ test would be a good way to help our most promising children get the largest head start. If that were true, then why are they not administered to every child? IQ tests appear to only to the potentially disabled and potential precocious. If a child is already showing signs of precociousness, then what would an IQ test present that was not already observed? > It could help point out adults in your own company that have some type of potential. I highly doubt adults at a company have hidden potential that is unknown. Underused? Sure. It's not like the companies have some sort of hidden genius that no one knows about. If one were a genius, it would have likely been apparent far earlier in their life. > It could be used for scholarship purposes. Do you really believe we should be awarding scholarships for meritless human attributes? Why not offer scholarships to other human attributes like height, weight, and beauty while we are at it? That's thing about IQ, according to the research, it's like eye color, skin color, etc.. There isn't a damn thing one can do to change it (positively). So, I am not certain I am comfortable offering scholarships on raw IQ alone. In fact, isn't the entire purpose behind grades, standardized testing, etc.? (Yes, I am aware the early SAT was a psuedo-IQ test, but that ended in the 80s or 90s, I believe. ACT was never truly comparable to my understanding.)

tshaddox 1y ago

So is the goal to predict someone’s future income? Or to inform someone of how much money they supposedly should be making based on their test results and the supposed correlation between test results and income? Surely the test results aren’t being used anywhere to actually determine people’s income.

rasebo 1y ago
The goal is to predict if, for example, someone is better suited to sweeping the floors vs working with complex systems. Both are useful and respectable jobs but you both want an individual who can actually do it, not someone who just thinks they can, and someone whose capabilities won't be wasted on too simple tasks. These tests are great tools to help you figure out future performances of said individuals, as well as their satisfaction on the job/task. A mismatch will cause impact both for the individual and the company/military unit/etc.
- bofadeez 1y ago
  The US Army requires a minimum AFQT percentile of 31 for enlistment which, based on standard IQ norms (mean = 100, SD = 15), maps to roughly an IQ of 85 (one standard deviation below mean). I.e. if you have an IQ below 85 you can't even sweep up the floor for the army
  - nostrebored 1y ago
    And it’s because they found that using people below that threshold for _any purpose, including canon fodder_ has disastrously bad outcomes.
    - bofadeez 1y ago
      Around 50 million Americans fall below this threshold and are positively counterproductive for ANY military purpose, no matter how menial, no matter the shortage of recruits.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

danielpoer1098 1y ago

[dead]