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The idea of IQ, or intelligence quotient, was originally formulated as measure of a person's innate intelligence. It was supposed to be something you were born

The idea of IQ, or intelligence quotient, was originally formulated as measure of a person's innate intelligence. It was supposed to be something you were born with, and not something that would change with the environment. This is just the latest study that shows that IQ is, in fact, sensitive to one's environment, and can change. I hope people will someday learn to avoid taking IQ tests as these unquestionable measures of how smart someone is, or ever will be.

jamesbressi 17y ago
Very well put @rauljara -- The argument about SATs and IQ tests seems to come up almost weekly on here. To add to that fire, I also don't believe that GPA has much to tell about someone's performance and capabilities (don't get me wrong, in some ways it does, but now how companies like Google use it to "weed" out applicants).
amichail 17y ago
A CPU can slow down dramatically when it gets hot. That doesn't mean CPU maximum speeds are unimportant.
- pohl 17y ago
  True, that. Now if only we had a valid metric for one's mind's maximum speed. IQ ain't it.
Matti 17y ago
"Test-Score-Differences Fallacy 1: Nonfixedness Proves Malleability This fallacy uses evidence of any fluctuation or growth in the mental functioning of individuals as if it were proof that their rates of growth can be changed intentionally. IQ level is not made malleable by any means yet devised (Brody, 1996), ..." - Linda Gottfredson, Logical fallacies used to dismiss the evidence on intelligence testing http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2009fallacies.pdf http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2009fallacies.... (PDF page 24)
- Alex3917 17y ago
  So you are saying that iodine deficiency does not cause a decrease in IQ?
  - crystalis 17y ago
    The traditional view is similar to IQ as an empty glass. You can fill it up to the top, but once you're there, you've maxed out on IQ itself. Different people have differently sized glasses, and there are many things that clearly affect the rate or amount of fill, just as there are many things that affect height. However, there are few things that indicate that they are increasing the potential IQ. Losing a tire in my car won't make me lose any horsepower, but it's not going to be the same ride.
    - tokenadult 17y ago
      The traditional view is similar to IQ as an empty glass. Actually, the view of behavioral geneticists, including those with whom I have a weekly discussion of current research, http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/fall09/mcguem/psy8935/default.htm http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/fall09/mcguem/psy8935/defau... is that each individual has a "reaction surface," a range of possible behavioral responses genetically endowed for that individual depending on what environmental influences that individual encounters. NO ONE active in the field of behavorial genetics claims to have proved that many individuals today have maxed out their potential for intelligent behavior. There may be (as yet unknown) interventions that could massively change IQ at the individual level.
      - rkts 17y ago
        No one has proved that technology won't one day make everyone grow to 6 feet and live 200 years. In fact that could quite plausibly happen. But you'd still be a fool to count on it.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- 17y ago
jon_dahl 17y ago
The best example of this is the Flynn Effect - IQs have dramatically risen over time. Either our ancestors were dullards, or the IQ test measures something other than innate intelligence. "If American children of 1932 could take an IQ test normed in 1997 their average IQ would have been only about 80.[2] In other words, half of the children in 1932 would be classified as having borderline mental retardation or worse in 1997." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)
- Daniel_Newby 17y ago
  No, mental retardation is defined by poor functioning in everyday life due to widespread mental deficiencies, or due to profound focal deficiencies. A focal deficiency in IQ alone has to be quite severe before it substantially impairs life skills. Living well mostly requires talents like working well with other people, procedural memory of how to gather and cook food, manual dexterity, learning and ignoring extraneous stimuli, episodic memory, and so forth. These talents do not depend strongly on the symbolic reasoning skills measured by IQ tests. Your confusion arises from treating correlation as causation. Mental retardation is commonly caused by genetic or developmental problems that cause global brain changes, producing deficits in many or all talents. This usually includes the specialized brain circuits involved in symbolic reasoning, lowering the IQ. So in a population with shared genes and environment, low IQ is strongly correlated with mental retardation, but neither is caused by the other. "Either our ancestors were dullards, or the IQ test measures something other than innate intelligence." The Flynn effect proves what we already knew, that human development is partially driven by the environment. Few serious scientists thought that each human is born with a exact fixed amount of smarts, like every atom of iron-56 has 55.93 AMUs of mass.

jamesbressi 17y ago

Very well put @rauljara -- The argument about SATs and IQ tests seems to come up almost weekly on here. To add to that fire, I also don't believe that GPA has much to tell about someone's performance and capabilities (don't get me wrong, in some ways it does, but now how companies like Google use it to "weed" out applicants).

amichail 17y ago

A CPU can slow down dramatically when it gets hot. That doesn't mean CPU maximum speeds are unimportant.

pohl 17y ago
True, that. Now if only we had a valid metric for one's mind's maximum speed. IQ ain't it.

Matti 17y ago

"Test-Score-Differences Fallacy 1: Nonfixedness Proves Malleability This fallacy uses evidence of any fluctuation or growth in the mental functioning of individuals as if it were proof that their rates of growth can be changed intentionally. IQ level is not made malleable by any means yet devised (Brody, 1996), ..." - Linda Gottfredson, Logical fallacies used to dismiss the evidence on intelligence testing http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2009fallacies.pdf http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/2009fallacies.... (PDF page 24)

Alex3917 17y ago
So you are saying that iodine deficiency does not cause a decrease in IQ?
- crystalis 17y ago
  The traditional view is similar to IQ as an empty glass. You can fill it up to the top, but once you're there, you've maxed out on IQ itself. Different people have differently sized glasses, and there are many things that clearly affect the rate or amount of fill, just as there are many things that affect height. However, there are few things that indicate that they are increasing the potential IQ. Losing a tire in my car won't make me lose any horsepower, but it's not going to be the same ride.
  - tokenadult 17y ago
    The traditional view is similar to IQ as an empty glass. Actually, the view of behavioral geneticists, including those with whom I have a weekly discussion of current research, http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/fall09/mcguem/psy8935/default.htm http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/fall09/mcguem/psy8935/defau... is that each individual has a "reaction surface," a range of possible behavioral responses genetically endowed for that individual depending on what environmental influences that individual encounters. NO ONE active in the field of behavorial genetics claims to have proved that many individuals today have maxed out their potential for intelligent behavior. There may be (as yet unknown) interventions that could massively change IQ at the individual level.
    - rkts 17y ago
      No one has proved that technology won't one day make everyone grow to 6 feet and live 200 years. In fact that could quite plausibly happen. But you'd still be a fool to count on it.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
17y ago

jon_dahl 17y ago

The best example of this is the Flynn Effect - IQs have dramatically risen over time. Either our ancestors were dullards, or the IQ test measures something other than innate intelligence. "If American children of 1932 could take an IQ test normed in 1997 their average IQ would have been only about 80.[2] In other words, half of the children in 1932 would be classified as having borderline mental retardation or worse in 1997." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect)

Daniel_Newby 17y ago
No, mental retardation is defined by poor functioning in everyday life due to widespread mental deficiencies, or due to profound focal deficiencies. A focal deficiency in IQ alone has to be quite severe before it substantially impairs life skills. Living well mostly requires talents like working well with other people, procedural memory of how to gather and cook food, manual dexterity, learning and ignoring extraneous stimuli, episodic memory, and so forth. These talents do not depend strongly on the symbolic reasoning skills measured by IQ tests. Your confusion arises from treating correlation as causation. Mental retardation is commonly caused by genetic or developmental problems that cause global brain changes, producing deficits in many or all talents. This usually includes the specialized brain circuits involved in symbolic reasoning, lowering the IQ. So in a population with shared genes and environment, low IQ is strongly correlated with mental retardation, but neither is caused by the other. "Either our ancestors were dullards, or the IQ test measures something other than innate intelligence." The Flynn effect proves what we already knew, that human development is partially driven by the environment. Few serious scientists thought that each human is born with a exact fixed amount of smarts, like every atom of iron-56 has 55.93 AMUs of mass.