A New Study Shows IQ to be a Myth

eugenics much?

all members of mensa need to read this,

i'm suprised given how intelligent they are supposed to be they didn't figure this out themselves

This looks like one of those studies done by the No Child Left Behind agenda.

How to remove the bell curve:

step one. Find someone with lots of money. Usually a rich dad with a dumb kid, and he's trying to get this one grafted into an ivy league school.
step two. Organize a research study nullifying the IQ level.
step three. Publish, and market.

Next thing you know, SAT scores are obsolete. Benchmarks and bars to raise? Who needs them when you have money? Money is the new marker then. Your DQ, or dollar quotient.

IQ is relative. Half of the population is going to be below it, and a few percent of them are going to be using it to snob everybody else. 100 is the midpoint. It all depends on the test and training. With enough training you can memorize the answers and pass every time. Who believed in the magical IQ fairies anyways, except the chronically academic?

Whatever. Stupid people were made for education. It keeps the teachers employed.

reply to post by Pedro4077

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

They are likely dead given your scenario. I'm not sure it (your scenario) is really applicable to an IQ test though.

IQ has never been a measure of success in life though. I recall seeing some studies and TV shows that showed people who had a gifted level IQ were no more likely to be "successful" than anyone else. People are very complicated.

V

Originally posted by winofiend

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

It depends on the brainiac what they do. I know some gifted guys, they cry for all humanity and take responsibility beyond their dues to save other people from their fate. Those are the ones that grow to be community leaders in compassion. And then there are the evil geniuses out there who use their intelligence to categorize the world and ignore their potential. They look so clean on the outside, but their attitude inside is contempt.

If they have never been taught to think for a test how can you measure their fast or slowness? Maybe english is a second language, maybe they're Mayans from another time line and zero is not a part of their math system, maybe they don't know French or music or the-way-the-westerners-do-it.

Honestly, my budding psychic senses got me to go, "I guess I'll go to the person who asked the question what the answer is. They're still alive and I won't get punished if I'm wrong, and there is no incentive to be right." Where playing stupid is smart, can you believe it? And in my mind, I'm connecting with that eternal truth that has the right answer in the future. It might come from a strange source. Have you not seen the scribbles they do in physics and chemistry? Oh my gosh it could be anything if the rules are set up a certain way. I could be looking at a magical square of Mercury and the numbers correlate to the next launch coordinates of some military somewhere. It could be his phone number. I don't know. We create our world, and the results of our own logics.

IQ has a lot to do with exposure to knowledge, and that comes from a group. The training to pass an IQ test, it's a learned skill. It's a discipline.

Life is more than winning the tough questions in Jeopardy. My brain needs not come out of a box; it's bespoke for my protection. I have to be more variable than a computer to survive now.

Stupid is; as stupid does...

~Momma Gump~

reply to post by IEtherianSoul9


I think life is the myth and it's nothing like what we were led to believe. I have a strong feeling quantum physics will help to reveal some of our secrets and correct some of the lies.

I feel what's been labeled "IQ" comes from wisdom (knowing) and not intelligence (learning/regurgitating). Now, where does innate wisdom come from? Maybe the age of our soul?

But I've always felt like an old soul who has been here, done it and even got the tee-shirt (but since lost it )

Interesting link I had favorited a while ago:
phys.org - Intelligence and rhythmic accuracy go hand in hand...

People who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time, new Swedish research shows. The team that carried out the study also suspect that accuracy in timing is important to the brain processes responsible for problem solving and reasoning.
..........
“We know that accuracy at millisecond level in neuronal activity is critical to information processing and learning processes,” he says.

They also demonstrated a correlation between high intelligence, a good ability to keep time, and a high volume of white matter in the parts of the brain’s frontal lobes involved in problem solving, planning and managing time.

"All in all, this suggests that a factor of what we call intelligence has a biological basis in the number of nerve fibres in the prefrontal lobe and the stability of neuronal activity that this provides,” says Fredrik Ullén.

I also think these're interesting:
www.livescience.com - IQ Tests Measure Effort, Too...

.....The researchers found that incentives noticeably boosted IQ scores, with the increase most pronounced for test-takers who had posted lower IQ scores when not given incentives.
........

healthland.time.com - The Key to Health, Wealth and Success: Self-Control...

..........
Problems surfacing in adolescence, such as becoming a smoker or getting pregnant, accounted for about half of the bad outcomes associated with low self-control in childhood. Kids who scored low on such measures — for instance, becoming easily frustrated, lacking persistence in reaching goals or performing tasks, or having difficulty waiting their turn in line — were roughly three times more likely to wind up as poor, addicted, single parents or to have multiple health problems as adults, compared with children who behaved more conscientiously as early as age 3.
..........

www.newscientist.com - Rejection massively reduces IQ...

Rejection can dramatically reduce a person's IQ and their ability to reason analytically, while increasing their aggression, according to new research.

"It's been known for a long time that rejected kids tend to be more violent and aggressive," says Roy Baumeister of the Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, who led the work. "But we've found that randomly assigning students to rejection experiences can lower their IQ scores and make them aggressive."
..........

I went over the OP's link again and what it seems they're saying is that IQ is a poor measure of "intelligence" because intelligence is many things and it's hard to measure all of them. It implies that even if you have a high IQ you might be low on other forms of intelligence.

Thought:
If a job requires a person to have high IQ then that's what the employer will look for. And since there're other kinds of intelligence, the employer might look for those too. While this allows for more opportunity so everyone can be given a chance, it still means you need to be capable.

Hey, all tools get improved. The current IQ test may now not be seen as definitive, but another will be elaborated. Until that is also seen too shallow.

I'd still rather take those with higher IQ results as 'closer to clarity'. The trick to life is too know no knowledge is complete. Generally this avoids blind partisan loyalty over avoidable cliffs....

Metaphors last longer than facts.....

reply to post by IEtherianSoul9


I agree with this. My whole life people have told me I am "smart". But I am not. I have good memory and good verbal skills. I don't have the reasoning skills that someone who is typically considered "smart" has.

Not that I am an idiot. Just that I am nothing special. We need more studies that indicate such.

A myth, huh?
I'm all for anything that ends the IQ dick-measuring sessions on forums all across the Internet. Everyone has a score of 130 or higher, if the anecdotes are to be believed.

The IQ test is actually supposed to determine a persons ability to obtain intellect rather than their current level of intellect, nonetheless it is useless.

You see the intelligence quotient determines nothing at all, a person is exactly as intelligent or capable of intelligence as they need to be. It seems to be common practice to assume that an accomplished scientist is worth more than the janitor that cleans his laboratory because it is assumed the scientist smarter and more valuable to society, but this is a false assumption. Could the scientist accomplish as much without those to clean his work space? If the scientist needs the janitor then the janitor is equally responsible for the accomplishments of the scientist for without him the scientist could not have accomplished.

You see the scientists workspace needs to be clean, at least in this example, and it takes time to clean it. If the scientist spent his time cleaning then he would have less time to dedicate to his research and thus he would not be able to accomplish as much within his lifetime. Thanks to the janitor the scientist was able to dedicate more of his time to research and contribute his accomplishments to society. The janitor is equally as valuable as the scientist, yet society refuses this simple truth and pays the scientist six figures while the janitor worries if he'll be able to feed his family.

Society falls apart at the seems because we refuse to accept the truth behind equality. Society falls apart at the seems because of our arrogance in assuming we know how to place value upon one thing or another when clearly we have no idea what we are doing. We throw away our most valuable, people, in favor of shiny trinkets and false ideologies.

Originally posted by alfa1

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.

Actually no. There is something specific and quantitative known, I believe as 'g' factor.
Technically it is the effect of the first "principal component' (en.wikipedia.org...).

Imagine you measure a large number of people in a significant number of cognitive areas and score them individually---exactly those 'multifactorial' measures.

What could happen? The performance on any one particular subtask is uncorrelated with performance on other subtasks, and somebody's "IQ" is just the sum of these. However, this is not the case. People who perform well on a subset of tasks, are also statistically much more likely to perform better than the median on the other tasks. Like it or not, a research mathematician is more likely to perform well on word analogies, and even low-level things like certain neurological reaction times, than an average joe or jane off the street.

The strength of this phenomenon is 'g' or general intelligence. Now the question is what is the brain mechanism behind it. The research in question is not disputing existence of this correlation and is measurement 'g' (foolish as it is a measured phenomenon known for decades) but figuring out the specific mechanism biologically. It doens't mean "IQ" is a myth (more specfically the correlation of subtask performance), it means that it is a myth that there is an particular sub organ of general intelligence.

Now, of course much of the definition of "cognitive subtasks" has been done in light of this phenomenon. If you measure task performance on things such as (hypothetical, this is not based on research knowledge but just guesses) catching a baseball, juggling, singing on key,, perhaps face recognition or all sorts of other things, you would find a much lower correlation with 'g', except among people who have clear general developmental diseases.

Edit: 'tapping rhythm' performance actually is correlated with general intelligence (article above). Is this why math and music go together? Maybe the drummer is actually the genius of the band, but nobody can tell since they never see him sober.

Originally posted by Symbiot
The IQ test is actually supposed to determine a persons ability to obtain intellect rather than their current level of intellect, nonetheless it is useless.

You see the intelligence quotient determines nothing at all, a person is exactly as intelligent or capable of intelligence as they need to be. It seems to be common practice to assume that an accomplished scientist is worth more than the janitor that cleans his laboratory because it is assumed the scientist smarter and more valuable to society, but this is a false assumption. Could the scientist accomplish as much without those to clean his work space? If the scientist needs the janitor then the janitor is equally responsible for the accomplishments of the scientist for without him the scientist could not have accomplished.

You see the scientists workspace needs to be clean, at least in this example, and it takes time to clean it.

Firstly, janitors don't clean scientist's workspaces other than the general offices.

Both are necessary and there is demand for both kinds of employment. The reason why a scientist is paid more than a janitor is that a far smaller fraction of people can do the work of the scientist compared to a janitor. Good Will Hunting is a movie, remember. In real life, if they traded places, what fraction of scientists would be successful janitors? 35%? What fraction of janitors would be successful scientists? 0.01%?

Though after the collapse of the USSR, people said that your taxicab driver in Tel Aviv might be a string theorist.

reply to post by L8RT8RZ

I am not disagreeing with your statements on IQ, I just feel that your stance on mediocrity could use some reconsideration. What a better way to live but stuck in the deep rut of mediocrity.

Originally posted by mbkennel
In real life, if they traded places, what fraction of scientists would be successful janitors? 35%? What fraction of janitors would be successful scientists? 0.01%?

Though after the collapse of the USSR, people said that your taxicab driver in Tel Aviv might be a string theorist.

Really? I believe that you are highly trivializing and stereotyping one's chosen or settled on, profession and attempting to equate it to one's intelligence. Probably a very poor analogy, in that respect.

How on earth, do you account for choice, then? A genius couldn't be caught dead, collecting trash???

Come on...

Originally posted by Variable



IQ has never been a measure of success in life though. I recall seeing some studies and TV shows that showed people who had a gifted level IQ were no more likely to be "successful" than anyone else. People are very complicated.

V

This is false. Large scale studies show significant correlation of IQ with outcomes, well above random fluctuation.

Originally posted by GoOfYFoOt

Originally posted by mbkennel
In real life, if they traded places, what fraction of scientists would be successful janitors? 35%? What fraction of janitors would be successful scientists? 0.01%?

Though after the collapse of the USSR, people said that your taxicab driver in Tel Aviv might be a string theorist.

Really? I believe that you are highly trivializing and stereotyping one's chosen or settled on, profession and attempting to equate it to one's intelligence. Probably a very poor analogy, in that respect.

How on earth, do you account for choice, then? A genius couldn't be caught dead, collecting trash???

Come on...

I meant what I said and not what you think I said.

I think you are asserting I am making some emotional or normative judgement. I am not, but reporting a phenomenon which is true. Prices are determined by competitive substitutability. Peyton Manning's value was very well established when his team had to substitute somebody random (but still far above any normal person's skill) and they lost nearly all their games.

Suppose some genius might decide he or she is fulfilled by collecting trash. The pay of a janitor is not set by the individual, but by the collective practices of the industry, and this genius will be competing for janitorial work with many other people who are not geniuses (and can janitor as well as the genius), and so will earn the wages of the janitor.

Generally people often tend to choose careers where they have the ability to earn more, and people with that ability, on average, will pursue them, and earning more is often correlated with the inability of others to do the job times the demand for the job.

Originally posted by mbkennel
Firstly, janitors don't clean scientist's workspaces other than the general offices.

Both are necessary and there is demand for both kinds of employment. The reason why a scientist is paid more than a janitor is that a far smaller fraction of people can do the work of the scientist compared to a janitor. Good Will Hunting is a movie, remember. In real life, if they traded places, what fraction of scientists would be successful janitors? 35%? What fraction of janitors would be successful scientists? 0.01%?

Though after the collapse of the USSR, people said that your taxicab driver in Tel Aviv might be a string theorist.

edit on 23-12-2012 by mbkennel because: (no reason given)

edit on 23-12-2012 by mbkennel because: (no reason given)

It is a false assumption that any one person is worth more or contributes more to society than any other. What the janitor contributes to science is what allows the scientist to contribute to science, without the janitor there would be little in the way of scientific advancement. The plague that ravaged the world during the dark ages, what was the cure? Cleanliness. Thanks goes out to the janitors of the world.

What society does is called theft. They take what the janitor contributes, but refuse to pay him for it. This is theft and society's woes are their reward. Refuse to accept equality? Hope you're happy with the world we live in after all you might be the next one staring down the barrel of a gun in a packed movie theater.


Edit: In all honesty there's no telling how many lives janitors have saved over the years. How many millions or even billions would've died from any number of diseases had it not been for the sanitary conditions provided by the worlds janitors?

reply to post by mbkennel


Ah. You are correlating intellect to perceived worth. Ability = Value...

So we are both right, if one makes a conscious choice to not chase "the dream"...