This topic has been coming up a lot around BAUT and I thought it was a good idea to see what it's about.

The controversy comes in the IQ tests. Some think it is an inaccurate way of measuring intelligence. I think the only good thing intelligence can be used in is to solve a problem. For this a lot of pattern recognition, data processing, abstract-thinking, creativity, etc is needed. Since IQ tests involve usage of these skills, they cannot be too much off as a reasonable measure of intelligence.

Of course, a base definition of intelligence itself is required for this question to have any meaning.

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A slight inclination of the cranium is as adequate as a spasmodic movement of one optic towards an equinine quadruped utterly devoid of any visionary capacity.

Of course it can, obviously; those who say otherwise are just denying reality because reality happens to be unfair and they prefer to project an image of a fair world even though it's false. It's no different from filling kids' heads with that tired old "everybody's got some special talent" crap and telling them that "there's someone for everyone", as if that could seriously protect them from the realities of uneven talent distribution and unequal romantic prospects.

To further complicate this already impossible task is this. Who decides?
The Wall Street banker needs a set of very different survival skills than a Tropical rain Forrest inhabitant. That tropical Forrest dweller has the ability to adapt does the other...? well yes. He might have. Will he ever need to? No. So two very different skill levels emerge. With breding and culture we polarize our point of view. It does not measure inelegance.
The survival of humanity is perhaps a direct result of our ability to be flexible. The want to survive is very strong and we adapt very well to all of Earths extremes.
For me the standard IQ test is tainted with irrelevance..
I too, agree with the point we should not tell children lies. Life is hard. Get used to that. Its true.

Some aspects of inteligence can be measured. How accurate those measurement are is an open question at this point.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

True, different skills. But both of these professions involve use of problem solving skills.

What type of irrelevance?

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A slight inclination of the cranium is as adequate as a spasmodic movement of one optic towards an equinine quadruped utterly devoid of any visionary capacity.

To echo aspects of what others have said (this is just my opinion, I'm no expert), some quality or qualities called "intelligence" can be measured, and given that the tests are testing fairly specific things (like certain facts and certain things like pattern recognition), they are probably pretty accurate. But, that leads to the question, so what? Are those measures good predictors of anything, beyond how one does on an intelligence test? The measures that make you a good computer programmer or brain surgeon are not necessarily those that make you a good farmer or a hunter-gatherer, or for that matter a good parent, spouse, or citizen.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Just having a debate about this on another forum. The question is a matter of precision. It would be rather easy to tell the difference in intelligence between someone with a (measured) IQ of 60 and someone with a (measured) IQ of 120. And that without even having to define intelligence precisely. The problem is with differences that are a lot closer than that.

Between widely different IQ tests, there may be small variations in results, but generally, the results will be close. The precision of the results from the tests depends upon the precision of the definition of intelligence.

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Reality: What a concept!……………………..><Ç(((Ç°>

On a somewhat lighter (and maybe heavier) note concerning this subject, a student writer for a high school newspaper got in a lot of trouble, causing the principal to confiscate the newspaper.

http://www.ajc.com/blogs/content/sha..._over_e_c.html

He wrote a piece in the spirit of Swift, noting that stupid people seem to reproduce more than smart people and something needed to be done. He suggested just putting the lower 1/4 out of their misery.

Principal had a cow at that, even knowing it was an obvious joke.

The editor of that paper wrote another piece criticizing the school's beauty pageant, which also didn't go over too well.

-Richard

Accuracy is one problem, a very serious problem when you are making decisions about one individual, because at the level of the single individual they can be exceedingly inaccurate.* If someone panics when doing a test under time pressure, it won't be just a couple of points they are down. But statisticians looking at the results for many individuals may believe that these errors tend to average out, over the populations.

But unfortunately they don't. There are systematic differences between population groups in accuracy of the tests. We might say that the differences between individuals according to their experience of doing problems written on paper, their experience of doing tests under time pressure, their ability to understand the problems in the manner presented to them, etc, will average out. Practice in doing the tests also seems to increase scores. But the reality is that there are systematic differences in these things between groups of the population. The disadvantaged are less literate, not because they are less intelligent, but because they are disadvantaged. And this will substantially impact on their ability to perform in the test.

As Stephen Pinker points out, it seems likely that people who live in difficult, complex environments with a high selection pressure are more intelligent than people who live in protective societies with low mortality. He says that in his experience New Guinea natives are a lot more switched on than typical Americans. I wonder what kind of test would be a reasonable measure of the intelligence of a New Guinea native with no formal western-type education. Nor does it surprise me that Jews perform so well, they have had very strong selection pressure on them.

* I was especially unamused by the result of a test which said that I wasn't clever enough to go to a [high] school I was already at, where I was top of the class and advanced a year group. We used to do systematic intelligence testing in Britain in order to select which school people would go to at age 11.

Yes.

Very simple answer, but it does depend on how you define intelligence.

If you define it as the ability and speed with which information is aquired and put to use; then yes, intelligence can definitely be measured.

If you define it with all kinds of goofy, new age, pop psych, fluffy politically correct terms and ideas, (such as emotional intelligence and similar garbage) then it becomes impossible to get a handle on the definition, much less measure it. Which is really what proponents of such gibberish want; so everybody can be equal and noone is offended by having the fact that they are dumb as rocks called out.

Next question please.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

We can't conveniently measure intelligence, no. But as Noclevername suggested, we can measure aspects of intelligence. Problem solving (Mensa/IQ), general knowledge (SAT type tests), ability to take tests (all of the above).

Where "we" trip up is by equating testing ability (of various kinds) with intelligence. There may well be a correlation between tests and intelligence, but they're not equivalent.

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And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

I think we can make a fairly accurate measure of intelligence.

However intelligence by itself cannot accurately predict success.

Intelligence alone does not account for self-motivation and drive and a willingness to take risks - which are all pretty significant factors in the success of an individual. Far stronger factors than basic pattern recognition.

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Spock Jenkins of the Vulcan Jenkins'.

Very good distinction. I think a lot of people so strongly resist the measurements because of what they think it says about them. All it says is you have x ability to assimilate and process information. It does not make you a winner or loser or most likely to succeed or most likely to live in a van down by the river.

But people make it mean so much more, then out of fear of how it might apply to them, obfuscate/complicate the issue to the point of paralysis.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Are you SURE principal knew it was a joke?

Some people have no sense of humor. Some others check theirs in when they arrive to work.

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Fiction has to be plausible. Reality is under no such constraint.

One of my questions concerns the decoupling of a general concept of intelligence from the evolutionary idea of differential reproductive success in a local environment. Intelligence, no matter how you slice it, is like a lever; to estimate it you need a fulcrum, whose position will vary depending on the local conditions, or may not exist at all. As a homely example, if two people (one can swim well, one has never learned how) fall out of a boat in the middle of a storm in a lake, it is much more likely that the one who knows how to swim will survive to get to the shore. 'General problem solving ability' is much less valuable in this instance than strength and previous experience. All I mean by this is that intelligence is not necessarily a universal positive; there are times when the selection process can look right through it, or even select against it.

I also have a question about the determination of IQ itself, stemming from my ignorance of the minutae of its measurement. While looking at articles here and there I ran across mention that written IQ tests are designed to produce a normal distribution of outcomes. Is there any a priori reason (beyond the central limit theorem) to assume that such measurements are inherently closely related to the normal distribution? I mention this because I have seen arguments about intelligence ranking among populations and the distribution of 'geniuses', using the small difference in mean scores to extrapolate the numbers of smarties out four or five standard deviations. Looking at the size of those statistical tails is critically dependent upon the actual population following a normal distribution. If it does not, then such extreme extrapolations are unjustified.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

One of the reasons that IQ tests try to focus on pattern recognition and generic computation is to try and isolate as much of the cultural background out of the picture as possible.

Comparing skillsets is trivial, intelligence can be derived from how well those individuals mastered those skillsets from the time of their first exposure to them to the time they learned to put them to use.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

I'm not sure I understand your point here. Not a cut, by any means, it just isn't penetrating my noggin.

This, on the other hand, does go back to my first question, which asks if the mere fact of such isolation skews the results, since success takes place in a local time and place, not some abstract space.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

The result is less important than the process. How quickly, and how ably can a person learn to assimilate, immitate, and then innovate, skills that they're exposed to.

How well do they absorb information, how well do they process and apply it, and how well do they do when the time comes to improvise with those skills based on circumstances to which they weren't expressly trained to handle.

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The last time I felt a warm fuzzy feeling, I was informed by my doctor that it was just gas.

Very simple answer, but it does depend on how you define intelligence.

If you define it as the ability and speed with which information is aquired and put to use; then yes, intelligence can definitely be measured.

If you define it with all kinds of goofy, new age, pop psych, fluffy politically correct terms and ideas, (such as emotional intelligence and similar garbage) then it becomes impossible to get a handle on the definition, much less measure it. Which is really what proponents of such gibberish want; so everybody can be equal and noone is offended by having the fact that they are dumb as rocks called out.

Most common forms of IQ testing tend to focus on fairly limited definitions of intelligence. However, despite the psycho-babble component, there are different forms of intelligence. I've known people who are geniuses when it comes to dealing with mathematics and/or science who are morons when it comes to dealing with people (a stereotype that is sometimes true). Some people couldn't solve a calculus problem if their life depended on it but have a high degree of mechanical aptitude. My brother in law can fix just about anything (he's a retired pipefitter) even though he never finished the 10th grade.

Solving math problems, dealing with people, and mechanical aptitude represent different types of intelligence, IMO. No one test or number is going to measure that.

Not long ago, I was watching Yo Yo Ma play a complex cello piece with an orchestra. He played this piece entirely from memory. Musical ability on that level is, I suspect, more than rote memorization. I'd say that Yo Yo Ma is a musical genius whether he can fix things or solve math problems or not.

Maybe an analogy is picking the best baseball player. What statistic do you use? Or what blend with what weightings? How about a 25 game winner with a 2.5 ERA but a .124 batting average? Do you put him in to pinch hit?

It is also possible that a simple definition does not exist. Wishing it to be so does not necessarily make it so.

There are a lot of scientific types around here, quite a few who sound bright as heck to me. My guess is that most of them make a lot less money than Donald Trump, or wield much less power than George Bush. If a practical measure of intelligence is set as how rich you are, or how many people you control, ussins ain't too bright. I've noticed that lots of people who actually run the show seem to be of strictly middlin' brains on the Mensa scale, but relatively few Menses are turning civilization's crank. So to speak.

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If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

But they keep the whole world flowing along!

...Sorry.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Which just proves I, for one, ain't all that bright. If I was, and really wanted to make money, I would have been a plumber or an auto mechanic, not a chemist.

And by Mike's money-IQ test, professional athletes and Hollywood actors must be real smart!

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

O.K.: Have you read Gould's book?

Paris Hilton must be a genius!

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Just because someone winds up in a position of power, doesn't necessarily mean they'll be good at it, or got it by being smart. All that takes is popularity, which often comes unearned.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

So you think becoming popular is easy?

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"A witty saying proves nothing" Voltaire.
"All your bias are belong to us" Ara Pacis.

Depends on how you get that way. For some, it's just a side-effect of the way they look, what family they're born into, etc. Others work at it. Mostly unsuccessfully.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

Popularity depends on behavior, so it takes skill and work, but that doesn't mean the only way to learn the skill and do the work is with conscious effort. You also naturally get better at anything you do often, even to the point that it "comes naturally", and an outgoing personality will do what amounts to practicing its people-skills more just because (s)he likes doing it, thus building up more skill than someone doesn't spend so much time that way. Other explanations (such as "looks" and "family") don't explain people whose "popularity" is too high or too low for the attribute in question. Saying it's about anything other than just being good at dealing with other people usuallyseems to be deflection due to jealousy.

About incomes, actually, higher ones do go to more intelligent people, to a greater extent than income is related to education level or parental wealth. Of course examples to the contrary are famous, but famous also mean rare; anecdotes don't dictate population statistics.

Damn right I'm jealous! But I've also observed people who act like total <word removed>s, but because of their looks, wealth, family name or other nonbehavioral factors the crowd lets it slide. So it's not just behavior.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

It's clear there are many different types of intelligence, which is a good thing in terms of survival of the species since it results in division of labor and incredible diversity in creative endeavors. However, linking intelligence to income is a very tricky thing because societal values are involved here. Why do professional athletes make more money than scientists? The answer is because society--wrongly, I believe--makes value judgments establishing a hierarchy determining which skills are most and least valued. The highest paid are not necessarily those contributing the most to humanity. Also, sometimes there is a necessary give and take, such as with the stereotypical genius who is very unskilled in getting along with other people. Some of that may come from the fact that the genius thinks in a manner inherently different from most other people and therefore has trouble relating to them and vice versa. Mozart died penniless partly because he had trouble relating to other people, yet he produced some of the greatest music of all time. Would it be better if he had been "better adjusted" but didn't give the world that music? We also need to realize there is a huge amount of unrecognized talent and intelligence out there. I know many very creative types like myself who just are no good at business and finance. In many cases, especially Hollywood, the people who make a lot of money are the ones with skills in marketing more so than those with skills in performing.

I happen to be one of those people who can act in "word removed" type ways and get away with it, largely because I have actively cultivated a reputation as an eccentric. It's not due to looks or wealth so much as the freedom that comes with branding oneself as a creative type. Whether that constitutes a form of intelligence--I have no idea.

The popularity and intelligence discussion reminds me of Paul Graham's essay on why nerds are unpopular. He concludes it is because they have bigger (intellectual) things to be concern of rather than divert all their intelligence on being popular.

Concerning why scientists get earned less than a football player, I think that is a byproduct of a Capitalist system. It is not entirely based on who does the most important job, but rather which job will be most needed (i.e. demand). Also, keep in mind there are way more scientists than professional athletes. In the case of an aspiring athlete and an aspiring scientist, the scientist will probably have a higher chance of fulfilling his/her goal.

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A slight inclination of the cranium is as adequate as a spasmodic movement of one optic towards an equinine quadruped utterly devoid of any visionary capacity.