Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
Not to mention that IQ tests mostly measure your ability to perform well on IQ tests. Which is at least somewhat correlated with practising these tests.
by someone (s0me1smail(a)gmail(d)com) on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 08:04:10 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Or that they generally rely on the sort of pointless puzzle solving that makes me want to stick the pencil through my eye, which I'm pretty certain doesn't help performance.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 08:08:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Nor do they improve understanding of statistics : IQ tests are calibrated for the US usually, for the OECD at most, so the idea that "the top 2%" would be uniform around the world, leading to "120 million smarter people", would be shaky at best.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 08:11:24 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Any tests I have seen (a long time ago) were also quite culturally specific (which comes in handy if you want to prove e.g. that blacks have lower IQs than whites).  At best they are a highly reductive test for very specific capabilities, some of which can be learned/conditioned, and many of which aren't much used in most real life situations.

notes from no w here
by Frank Schnittger (mail Frankschnittger at hot male dotty communists) on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 08:17:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]
It's more they're a very limited test of a very specific and narrow range of rather abstract abilities.

Being able to rotate complicated objects in your imagination is more of a freaky talent than a useful one.

Psychologists use a more general concept called 'g', which is short for 'general intelligence' and seems to be almost impossible to test for.

I have a very arbitrary rule of thumb for estimating practical intelligence, which is predictive ability and modelling sophistication.

Given a set of circumstances - which could be emotional, or economic, or scientific - intelligent people are better at guessing what happens next than less intelligent people, even with identical levels of previous experience and knowledge.

Traditional IQ seems to be more interested in abstract symbol manipulations and certain kinds of pattern recognition, and they don't necessarily correlate with prediction and modelling except in very specialised and limited ways.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 08:36:07 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Not to mention that IQ tests mostly measure your ability to perform well on IQ tests. Which is at least somewhat correlated with practising these tests.
by someone

 There is a bit more to be said for them than you suggest here (which doesn't mean to say that I'm a hard-line advocate of IQ tests). I seem to recall reading that some research had shown that there was little gain after about three practice sessions - maybe there's some more recent research. In general, cf. a crtic of them:


Harvard professor and paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould argued that intelligence tests were based on faulty assumptions and showed their history of being used as the basis for scientific racism, although did not at any point attempt to scientifically refute intelligence tests.
...

Gould did not dispute the stability of test scores, nor the fact that they predict certain forms of achievement. He did argue, however, that to base a concept of intelligence on these test scores alone is to ignore many important aspects of mental ability.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient#Criticism_and_views

I think most people would agree with the latter point, including those advocating IQ tests.

Cf.:


In response to the controversy surrounding The Bell Curve, the American Psychological Association's Board of Scientific Affairs established a task force in 1995 to write a consensus statement on the state of intelligence research which could be used by all sides as a basis for discussion.
...
In this paper the representatives of the association regret that IQ-related works are frequently written with a view to their political consequences
...

The task force concluded that IQ scores do have high predictive validity for individual differences in school achievement. They confirm the predictive validity of IQ for adult occupational status, even when variables such as education and family background have been statistically controlled. They agree that individual differences in intelligence are substantially influenced by genetics and that both genes and environment, in complex interplay, are essential to the development of intellectual competence.

ibid.



Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 10:03:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]
For a critique of IQ and Intelligence studies (sic) read The Making of Intelligence by Prof. Ken Richardson, Col U Pr, ISBN 0-231-12004-4.  It's a quick read and, to my mind, devastating.

The following is me.

Putting it bluntly:

  1.  the IQ people's research methods are shoddy.  There are no statistically valid, long-term, double-bind studies.  

  2.  there is no generally accepted definition of Intelligence

  3.  The highest IQ [See 1, above] does not help if you're dead, by the age of five, from starvation.  Thus, we see the influence of the particular environment.  Once environment is given a role the whole notion of "innate" or "genetically based" Intelligence [See 2, above] as a predictor is meaningless.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 12:29:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Is this the best place for a nature v. nurture debate?  If so, can we move on to angels and pinheads when you are finished?  

There are intelligent people; there are unintelligent people.  There are beautiful people; there are ugly people.  There are ambitious people; there are unambitious people.  How did they get that way?  The possibile exlanations and combinations of explanations are infinite.  All methods for measuring these charateristics are subjective.  And what is intelligence or beauty?  Are they totally subjective?  But then why is it clear to most people that Obama is intelligent and Bush is not?  We must agree on some basic qualifications, right?  

And surely we can all agree that a President should be intelligent.

Also - I test miserably.  

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 12:47:32 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I just thought I'd suggest that Obama's 130 score was more than enough to provide the basis for outstanding real-life performance, given such qualities as self-discipline, etc. - and look what happened ! Some would accuse me of trying to "hijack" the diary :-)

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.
by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 12:57:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Putting it bluntly [mistakenly :-)]:

   1.  the IQ people's research methods are shoddy.  There are no statistically valid, long-term, double-bind studies.

 There is more than one valid way of doing studies and those developing IQ tests have used a variety of approaches. So there is debate in an area of studies about people - what a surprise!  


  2.  there is no generally accepted definition of Intelligence

So what ? We recognise many things without being able to give a precise definition of them.  Define "games".  Those developing IQ tests have put forward definitions which are as reasonable as most definitions in the social sciences.

   3.  The highest IQ [See 1, above] does not help if you're dead, by the age of five, from starvation.  Thus, we see the influence of the particular environment.  Once environment is given a role the whole notion of "innate" or "genetically based" Intelligence [See 2, above] as a predictor is meaningless.

This is just silly. Does any serious IQ proponent deny that the environment plays an important role ?

cf.


The task force concluded that IQ scores do have high predictive validity for individual differences in school achievement. They confirm the predictive validity of IQ for adult occupational status, even when variables such as education and family background have been statistically controlled. They agree that individual differences in intelligence are substantially influenced by genetics and that both genes and environment, in complex interplay, are essential to the development of intellectual competence.

Now, if you have any serious criticisms ... :-)


Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.

by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 01:33:20 PM EST
[ Parent ]
In order your argument commits:

  1.  Non sequitur: failure to meet the objection.  Either give examples of double-blind experiments or demonstrate why double-blind experiments are not necessary.

  2.  Appeal to Common Practice: validity is not achieved from 'everybody doing it.'

  3.  Argument from Ignorance:  The answer is Yes.

  4.  Argument from Authority: There are just as many, as just as good, Authorities (one cited) who object.

My statements stand.

QED.

(You see?  I can play the academic game too  ;-)

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 10:59:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

In order your argument commits:

   1.  Non sequitur: failure to meet the objection.  Either give examples of double-blind experiments or demonstrate why double-blind experiments are not necessary.

No, YOU were making the demand - it's up to you to show why that method, and no others, is necessary, and why other methods are inadequate, taking into account the complexity of the subject being investigated - we're not talking about testing a specific drug for example.

   2.  Appeal to Common Practice: validity is not achieved from 'everybody doing it.'

Another unreasonable demand, it's up to you to show why a universally agreed definition is necessary - unlikely in the social sciences, and why the usual definitions offered are (supposedly) clearly inadequate.


   3.  Argument from Ignorance:  The answer is Yes.

Again you're making the accusation, and mere assertion won't do, back it up with credible examples - which serious IQ researchers say this - and are they at all typical, or an unrepresentative minority? See the conclusion to the review of Richardson below.


   4.  Argument from Authority: There are just as many, as just as good, Authorities (one cited) who object.

Mere assertion, previously I cited a major critic, Gould, but showed that he conceded some key points, and I quoted from a report by the American Psychological Society, not just one guy, and they affirmed the key points Gould conceded.

Now let's look at your (one) guy, from whom you cite no evidence or arguments. He seems to be as careless with evidence as you, and like you, he argues against straw men - cf the concluding sarcastic comment:


The Making of Intelligence
By K. Richardson. Columbia University Press, New York, 2000.

Review snippets on the cover of my copy describe this book as a "whodunnit", a "quietly passionate polemic", and a "thought-provoking view". In what follows, I can only belabor what one reads between those lines: the frustrating absence of a balanced, scholarly treatment of intelligence.
...
Opposed to any hint of genetic determinism, he has no choice but to reject computational approaches to the field. He does this by citing critiques published in 1990 or earlier; connectionism, the main approach in use today, was developed in the mid-1980s. If you see no changes in your software since 1989, he may convince you. The one exception is his citation of Geoffrey Hinton (p. 99): "As one of the leaders in the field, Geoffrey Hinton of Carnegie-Mellon University, put it in an article in 1998: `I am disappointed that we still haven't got a clue what learning algorithms the brain uses.'" Though Richardson ends his paragraph with that quotation, he is truncating Hinton, who in the source goes on to say, "but let me say one more encouraging thing"; this is followed by a lengthy, enthusiastic discussion of a promising new approach. For Richardson, because connectionists have had nearly 20 years to figure out how the brain works, and haven't, it's time to give up (p. 100). Unfortunately, all Richardson offers as an alternative is a set of metaphors based on "hypernetworks" and the conclusion that intelligence is a terribly complex emergent property. He eventually may prove to be correct, but it is a bit early to concede.

His writing is clear enough, but the treatment of sources is fuzzy beyond belief. Studies are mentioned with or without citation, and if an author is identified, the work in question may or may not show up in the short, briefly annotated chapter bibliographies. Oddly, given that a number of works don't make it to the bibliography, at least three are included in two or more. One has the impression of chapters written rapidly, perhaps out of sequence, with remembered publications cited and no effort made to track down the rest.

In sum, if you believe that "intelligence" is clearly defined, can be accurately and unambiguously measured using standard techniques, and derives from explicit, invariant mental modules that are rigidly specified by structural genes impervious to environmental effects, then read this book; it will give you a much-needed jolt. Otherwise, Gould (1996) remains definitive regarding the policy side of IQ testing, and Elman et al. (1996) provides a far better account of how complex behaviors can arise through epigenesis.

http://jhered.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/93/6/462

My statements stand.

They're not even leaning drunkenly :-)


QED.

(You see?  I can play the academic game too  ;-)

and lose :-) - and by the way - how would you know ? unless you have a universally accepted definition of "academic" and "game" ? :-)

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice.

by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Thu Nov 13th, 2008 at 05:56:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Not to mention there is no standard definition of intelligence.


She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Wed Nov 12th, 2008 at 11:48:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Occasional Series