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Originally Posted by tommac
So doesnt that make my questions even that more important?
Maybe the answer to my questions are that IQ makes no difference in how you will effect the civilization that we live in.
But it seems that we cant even discuss IQ without people getting offended.
I merely asked the questions ... not because I feel I am superior ... I am not ... I think I am smart but I am not a genius and am often humbled on this board and in life. But I am willing to ask the quesiton.
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And again we're back the crux of this argument. Tommac is taking the position the IQ measures something that can be used to rank people as "intelligent" or "dumb." I have argued that it does nothing of the sort and that intellectual capability is inherently non-quantifialble, especially in as simple-minded a manner as IQ tests attempt to do in reducing it to a single number. Again, I can only refer you, Tommac, and others to Gould's The Mismeasure of Man. Two relevant quotes:
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Originally Posted by Gould, pg 24
The argument begins with one of the fallacies--reification, or our tendency to convert abstract concepts into entities.. We recognize the importance of mentality in our lives and wish to characterize it, in part so that we can make the divisions and distinctions among people that our cultural and political systems dictate. We therefore give the word "intelligence" to this wonderously complex and maltifaceted set of human capabilities. This shorthand symbol is then reified and intelligence achieves its dubious status as a unitary thing.
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Later on the same page
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Originally Posted by Gould, pg 24
We now encounter the second fallacy-- ranking, or our propencity for ordering complex variation as a gradual ascending scale....But ranking requires a criterion for assigning all individuals their proper status in the single series. And what better criterion than an objective number? Thus, the common style embodying both fallacies of thought has been quantification, or the measurement of intelligence as a single number for each person. This book, then, is about the abstraction of intelligence as a single entity... its quantification as one number for each individual, and the use of these numbers to rank people in a single series of worthiness, invariably to find that oppressed and disadvantaged groups--races, classes, or sexes--are innately inferior and deserve their status. In short, this book is about the Mismeasure of Man. (bolding mine)
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Gould basically documents how through history people trying to measure intelligence went about it backwards. They identified undesirable traits (usually associated with class, race, job, sex, etc) and assumed that these traits were correlated with low "intelligence." They then identified "stupid" people by this external standard and devised tests (usually without realizing what they were doing) that confirmed those biases.
So, to get back to the topic, can one correlate behaviours and characteristics with intelligence. I agree with Gould and say the answer is resoundingly no. To correlate you need something measurable. Intelligence is not measurable in a way that allows for meaningful correlations. IQ tests and Spearman's "g" are no exceptions to this. They are merely the latest in a long line of outdated and/or faulty science that traces back to measuring brain weights and cranial volumes.
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"I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind." - William Thompson, 1st Baron Lord Kelvin
"If it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be, but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" - Tweedledee
This isn't right. This isn't even wrong. - Wolfgang Pauli
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