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IQ 'a Myth,' Study Says
An anonymous reader send this quote from The Star:
"The idea that intelligence can be measured by a single number — your IQ — is wrong, according to a recent study led by researchers at the University of Western Ontario (abstract). The study, published in the journal Neuron on Wednesday, involved 100,000 participants around the world taking 12 cognitive tests, with a smaller sample of the group undergoing simultaneous brain-scan testing. '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, the study’s senior investigator... 'There is no such thing as a single measure of IQ or a measure of general intelligence.'"
I have an IQ of 150, am a member of a 3 sigma IQ society. But I cannot remember names, and if I had to do manual skilled labor, I would starve to death. There are people with a much lower IQ who I admire greatly for their skill sets and abilities that I will never have
-- MyLongNickName
... there are obvious trends that some people learn more and learn faster then others and I'm certain this can be measured at a gross level. I bet there are methodological flaws with the study that will be debunked soon.
The whole notion of IQ has been discussed ad nauseam here on the boards. We all know it's bullshit, so there's really no point in discussing it further.
> Rather, the study determined three factors — reasoning, short-term memory and verbal ability — that combined to create human intelligence or “cognitive profile.”
And IQ tests test 2 of those factors... reasoning (through math), and verbal (through written). They've just discovered that "memory" is important to "cognitive ability."
Saying that IQ is a myth is hyperbole. They've identified that it exists and that it has 3 (instead of 2) components.
Yeah, again. Seems every five years or so there's a book, article, or study saying that IQ is not a single thing.
Yawn.
The professor in my "introduction to psychology and brain science" course said "IQ is defined as what is measured by IQ tests." So it's not that it doesn't exist. The question is, what is it, and does it matter?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
When I was a child, I was diagnosed with having a really high IQ. As a result people have been telling me I'm a "genius" for most my life and always pushing me to "achieve my full potential" and crap like that.
It's nonsense. Maybe I'm smart, maybe I'm not. I think trying to measure that is crazy and impracticable. I'd rather be judged by what I do, not what some test says about me.
And frankly I don't really want to be judged at all. I think I'm doing OK with my life, and that's really all that matters. All this unnecessary categorising of people... it's all kind of pointless.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
I once taught a mixture of kids from so called "3rd world environments", who also had very low IQ scores compared to the typical "exposed" American kids.
In my 11 years of teaching, not once did our American kids score better than the "3rd world" kids at all! This was despite the fact that these poor kids had to learn English grammar. Heck, one of them even reminded me of a few math tricks that I employed myself while in school.
I once escorted one such kid to her parent, and it was a shock to hear her switch to some foreign tongue before switching to English in order to introduce me. This particular kid is now at BP in Texas, and still writes to me. Incredible!
There was a good point made that only people who aren't thought of as smart have anything to gain by joining MENSA. For example, if you found out Stephen Hawking was a member of MENSA you might just about manage a "well, figures" but if you found out Sarah Palin was in it you'd go "wow, never expected that".
“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."
Wow, the study's senior investigator said something this mind-numbingly dumb? Just because you can't find it using a machine that measures blood flow does not mean it isn't a meaningful concept. IQ definitely exists - it is a measurement. The question is whether it measures anything meaningful. But we wouldn't necessarily expect to be able to confirm that by sticking people in a magnet; it's a statistical question, not a question of blood flow in the brain...
Even the people that "invented" IQ didn't believe in it. It was designed to be a simple and useful measure of relative "intelligence" between people. Intelligence wasn't fully defined at the time, and the test was rigged to try to be fair, even when it was found to not be. Just by changing questions, I can change the relative performance of identified groups (woman and minorities two common groups to target). That was always known, and there are other limitations. This isn't a new position, and I didn't see anything interesting in the article.
Might as well be saying that shoe size is a myth because people have different widths for a particular size. That doesn't make the size a myth.
Learn to love Alaska
Then there is the fact that there is 0 correlation between success in life and IQ
Tell that to an intellectual disabled permos (defined as IQ 75 in Australia).
It is a long way from a perfect correlation, but to claim there is 0 correlation is rubbish unless you are choosing some fairly bizzare measures of 'success'.
Considering how little is know about the brain, current scanning technologies are more like radio telescopes looking at the sky. You can look, compare, theorize, but can't get any closer for validation.
They should just call it Pattern Matching and Spatial Reasoning Quotient. "Intelligence" is too ambiguous a term.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
IQ is an extremely good way of measuring problem-solving abilities, useful in fields such as Computer Science. If your IQ is 100 or under, you probably aren't going to be a good coder, ever. Just like, if you are less than 6 feet, you probably won't be in the NBA, ever.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
Dogs can be trained to do a lot of things, and therefore can be very "useful". So people feed them.
Cats almost can't be trained, they sleep or play around the whole day. An yet people feed them as well.
People don't feed their pet dog because it can theoretically be "useful". They feed it for the same reason they feed their cat.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
"Rather, the study determined three factors â" reasoning, short-term memory and verbal ability â" that combined to create human intelligence or âoecognitive profile.â
Uh... pardon me, researcher guys, but WTF do you think IQ tests typically MEASURE??? Hint: short-term memory, reasoning, and verbal ability!!!
The idea that IQ is bullshit, is bullshit. There is a very long and well estblished, very strong statistical correlation between high IQ and all three of these factors.
From what I read of TFA, whoever did the study doesn't know squat about prior research into IQ.
Granted: no one number can measure everything. And IQ doesn't pretend to. There is still a great deal of debate about what IQ actually means, in regard to a person's overall intelligence. But what is known is that the statistical correlation is very real, and no single, shoddy study, no matter how many participants, will make that go away.
Slashdot karma probably indicates different things for different people. Some people who post here are IT people, who bring a long history of mixed education and experience to the board. Other people are just interested readers who are excellent thinkers, and bring little more than intelligence with them. Other people manage to maintain high karma based on being funny. Some folk may not be especially smart, and may not offer a whole lot to any particular discussion, but they read much more than they write, so that when they do make a post, it's well thought out, and contributes something.
A high karma rating really only indicates one thing, when all is said and done.
You've posted some posts that were liked by more people than disliked.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I maintain karma by being a snarky ass trying to be funny, but then I get modded insightful for some reason.
One sentence paragraphs, starting sentences with conjunction, and splitting a subject between paragraphs are all signs of an imperfect grasp of English grammar, just as you are suggesting. By any chance are you a member of MENSA? ~
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