A New Study Shows IQ to be a Myth

LINK - IQ a Myth, Study Says

Can a moderator PLEASE move this to the 'Science and Technology' section...no clue how it ended up in the Fragile Earth section.

“When we looked at the data, the bottom line is the whole concept of IQ — or of you having a higher IQ than me — is a myth,” said Dr. Adrian Owen

“If there is something in the brain that is IQ, we should be able to find it by scanning. But it turns out there is no one area in the brain that accounts for people’s so-called IQ. In fact, there are three completely different networks that respond — verbal abilities, reasoning abilities and short-term memory abilities — that are in quite different parts of the brain,” Owen said.

IQ tests do not properly determine an individual's level of intelligence. The reification of intellectual acuity into a scalable number so easily defined by IQ tests is inaccurate; it's much more complex than that.

These recent results are in line with late pundit Stephen Jay Gould's views on biological determinism and intelligence testing. In his book the The Mismeasure of Man he provided a critical review of the reasoning behind the Bell Curve and IQ testing (notably the g factor).

The two fallacies that are present concerning the principles of IQ testing are: reification and hereditarianism. The hereditarianism fallacy claims that intellect can be passed on, through genes, to the progeny of a person. The degree to which it is heritable is clearly been exaggerated by the most avid hereditarians (Gould, 1996). The first fallacy doesn’t take into account environmental effects, which can greatly outweigh any genetic effects passed on from parent to child. It doesn’t allow for opportunities for improvement of intellectual capabilities through proper education. The second fallacy is the misassumption that if hereditary explains a certain percentage of variation among individuals within a group; it must also explain a similar percentage of the difference in average IQ between groups (Gould, 1996).

In conclusion the study determined that three factors - reasoning, short-term memory and verbal ability - form one's "cognitive profile" and that unlike a trait like height which can be measured almost precisely, intellect is not a single, scalable, immutable number, so easily defined by IQ tests.

reply to post by IEtherianSoul9


This will be a great read for people with low IQ's I was tested with an above average IQ but I got really lost after reading the first couple sentences.

Before too many start in on this thread about the values of IQ's let me first say that some of the stupidest people I have ever known were at university.

Second, my IQ has always been at least a B+. (@ 88)

When Mensa gets hold of this, someone is going to have alot of explaining to do.

I think this makes sense.

There are many ways a person can be "smart" ie common sense, memorization, problem solving...

Many of those categories are like apples and oranges, how can you score one against the other?

Originally posted by Aleister
When Mensa gets hold of this, someone is going to have alot of explaining to do.

I just hope they use small words.

Science should always match reality.

We are all equally capable.

Right.

Mayhaps *I* am not smart enough to understand this- but they are saying that IQ consists of 3 things.
Short term memory. Reasoning. Verbal ability.

Stop right there. Spatial visualization, mathematical, and emotional intelligence are ...What?

I do not know about those researchers or participants but maybe they designed a study to show them what they wanted to see, manipulating definitions in the process, but I have a friend who is a MONSTER mind. He seems to know EVERYTHING about computers there is to know...and I have another friend who is a math genius who's now a nuclear physicist, and then I have a couple who know more than 7 languages each- fluently.

So if IQ doesn't exist, what makes those folks so brilliant? What would you call them, if NOT high IQ? You'd have to call them SOMETHING because they are more capable by far, than most.

So let's go make some new terms and new definitions and scrap the old one, just so we can feel better about ourselves for a while?

And, since there is no IQ, let's quit feeding and changing the diapers of those we've measured as having extremely low IQs. They should be able to do it by themselves, right? Because of this study? I mean, it just changed everything, right?

A decent test should take into consideration all the aspects of intelligence. A specialized brain can be confused with an intelligent one.

Originally posted by IEtherianSoul9
LINK - IQ a Myth, Study Says

I think this has been known for a very long time.
I also think it is generally accepted that the very undefinable thing we call "intelligence" is so multifactorial (math, language, drawing, music, "common sense", 3d shapes, etc...) that it is silly to assign just one number to score it all.

However, IQ tests do put a whole bunch of these types into a single test, so such a test would be an examination of parts of each of those abilities as a part of the whole.
In this way, IQ could be a reasonable test of how "well rounded" a person is in their thinking ability. Savants who are geniuses in one area of thinking, worthless in others, would do badly. A person who does rather OK in many different areas of brainwork would score highly.

But of course, IQ tests then end up just being a measure of how well one does IQ tests.

For what its worth, many decades ago I did the "Worlds hardest IQ test" in OMNI magazine, and scored 150.
But in the real world, it doesnt mean much.

I still believe in IQ, in terms of some have it, some ain't. The ability to discern new pathways is an evolutionary necessity, as are most of the attributes of someone considered to have a high IQ. Spatial skills, putting one foot in front of the other. Pattern recognition and what it means to survival or comfort (i.e. Where the best restrooms are). Something just emerges complete, and then is acted upon - Tesla played this one like a master violinist. That high and low IQ is real in most aspects of the human mind and condition seems obvious, so saying that something that is "different" enough to separate the Einstein's from the back-up shortstop on a minor-league team whose next priority is what reality show to watch is a myth sounds mythy fishy to me.

reply to post by alfa1


I loved that Omni Hardest IQ test, you had to mail your test pages in somewhere if I recall correctly, and they scored you against everyone else taking the test.. It was really fun to do, and I did so well on it that I will not brag but leave it to the imagination. Thanks for the memory!

Glad to see there is a study that has caught up to one of the things I have been saying for years. First and foremost, IQ tests only test current knowledge and the speed to which it is recalled. The better a person's recall (or photographic memory) the higher their IQ, provided they have been taught the material covered. For example, a 5 year old may have a grasp of addition and subtraction, but multiplication and division would be unusual concepts...algebra, geometry's theorems and proofs as well as trigonometry functions would be alien for a 5 year old and would not be tested by any sane IQ test for the age level.

Can a 5 year old do multiplication and division? Yes, of course they can. They can understand the rational behind it if properly explain to them as well. But doing so is not an indication of intelligence unless they can quickly figure out basic concepts such as multiplication is commutative just as addition is.

So basically knowledge is the sum of information that you know, IQ is how quickly you can access that knowledge and intelligence is how you adapt that information outside the original data. For example 1 x 3 = 3 is knowledge. Answering without calculating or counting on fingers is a degree of IQ, figuring out on your own that any number multiplied by 1 is always that original number is a level of intelligence...if you were told that fact, then it is knowledge and remembering that you were told it is IQ.

Hope I explained that well enough.

Originally posted by Aleister
I loved that Omni Hardest IQ test, you had to mail your test pages in somewhere if I recall correctly...

If I recall correctly you were allowed as much time as you wished to do the test, although they suggested about a month.
You were allowed to use any resources (calculators, libraries, dictionaries etc...) but you werent allowed to ask anyone else for help.
If you score highly, you could join the "Triple Nine Society", which I did, but the monthly magazine was just full of stupid wankers talking endlessly about what the logo should be, and internal political bickering.

Two sample questions...

What is the next number in this sequence:
5, 5, 3, 4, 3, 4, 4, 2, 3, 4, 5, .....

Pain is to bread as rue is to ____

You can find a scientific study on anything you want, that says anything you want!

This is just another study with no peer review comments.

True science has fallen a long way. Science can be bought in many types of currency from $$$ to Power and position.

This smacks of just another attack on those people most likely to see straight through Government lies. So it begs the question, who paid for this study.

It is a shame but it is the truth. For any study you need to find out who paid for it!

P

Bobby Joe and Peggy Sue from way down south might survive an Appocolipse - because they got those huntin and survival skills. Bobby Joe goes trappin Racoons while Peggy Sue teaches the young-uns to chop wood ect.

Meanwhile the highly educated folk in the City die off because all the shops are closed.

So who has the Higher IQ?

Originally posted by alfa1
Two sample questions...

What is the next number in this sequence:
5, 5, 3, 4, 3, 4, 4, 2, 3, 4, 5, .....

Pain is to bread as rue is to ____

edit on 22-12-2012 by alfa1 because: (no reason given)

Smart people will look at that and shake their head and ponder the fate of the lower classes...

Slow people will look at that and shake their head and wonder.. they'll google it. They'll try fiddling with numbers, and grab a calculator. They'll throw the calculator at the wall and scream at google for being useless. And then they'll wait in sheer frustration and hit F5 constantly until alfa1 provides the answers.

.... waitsf5f5f5...

o.O

Originally posted by Pedro4077
Bobby Joe and Peggy Sue from way down south might survive an Appocolipse - because they got those huntin and survival skills. Bobby Joe goes trappin Racoons while Peggy Sue teaches the young-uns to chop wood ect.

Meanwhile the highly educated folk in the City die off because all the shops are closed.

So who has the Higher IQ?

Uhh the cockroaches in this case, if all you're basing it on is the ability to survive in harsh conditions.

You never know, Robert Q. PortbellyRockerfeller might know how to fish....

I have to agree that IQ tests are severely flawed. Interest and curiosity play a bigger part in doing better at the tests than anything else. Desire to learn a desired type of knowledge and style of thinking effects the scores. I know I did well on the test because my perception matched that of those writing the tests. Confidence also plays a big factor in doing better on the test also. Environmental factors, proper diet for your genetics, plays another part in it as well as allergies to perfumes and odors.

Too many flaws in the whole system to say they are appropriate. Not everyone wants to be a rocket scientist either and their desire interferes with their ability to do good on tests. Seems like those willing to conform to the testing procedures of the world succeed. Compatibility with those already in these fields seems to be a must.

reply to post by IEtherianSoul9


Nyu Uh! My Stupidity is just as intellimigent as your smartness!

You don't actually believe this drivel, do you?