Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
"If there is something in the brain that is IQ, we should be able to find it by scanning."
The test group consisted entirely of politicians and the control group was Slashdot readers?
dreaded scurrilous bit-twiddler from Oklahoma
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
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.
The IQ test was not designed to be an absolute measure. It was developed by Alfred Binet as a way to rank between a group of children in a special education context. It gives only a relative measure between that group and does not give any absolute measurement of intelligence nor is it valid to compare IQs between different groups. The IQs assigned are only valid within the tested group.
The transition to it being an absolute measurement was pushed by the US military to test and measure recruits. This was a colossal screw up.
Google it. It's all there.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
I am a MENSA member but I hardly consider myself very smart. I mean, I'm kinda smart but I see lots of people that blow me away when it comes to various mental abilities. And none of them are MENSA members.
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!
Doesn't matter, they're both smarter than the schmuck giving out free food.
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...
IQ was for finding children with learning disabilities.
That's all.
The US Army are the ones who took it and turned it into a measuring stick and subsequently the US educational system followed suit.
See The Mismeasure of Man for a concise history.
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'.
.to everyone who's pride was hurt when MENSA rejected them.
Did they refuse you for confusing "who's" and "whose"? ;)
Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
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
I was a MENSA member for a very short while. They told me I had an IQ of 158. I didn't know what it meant, so maybe I wasn't that smart. I was smart enough to work out within the first 12 months that the overpriced annual subscription bought me nothing but a mag full of spam, and the opportunity to associate with a bunch of people who like to feel smart.
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...
How do you know someone is a MENSA Member? Do worry they will tell you.
MENSA has plusses and minuses.
For me it was a chance to solicalized, to be long to group that was like me. Think, what others did in high school, I did post college.
I meet many different poeple, from guys to could not tie their shoes but could talk about Choas Theory for hours, to wonderful people who open their homes and their lifes to stranges that only had a card or newsletter annoucing an event.
Myself, I hosted a monthly movie "night" in my apartment. It started on first Friday of month and lasted until the last person left or Monday. Via that meet many people, including one that became my wife. My freinds in Mensa found out of our weddings plans when we both changed our addresses and my wfie to be changed her name on month newsletter. It was nice receive a hand written note congratlating us in each of our newsletters.
I left Mensa after I figured out that I out grew the it. I gradulate from that part of my life.
On a side note - since I also was at one time part of the management of the local group, membership was broken down to about 5-10-85 split.
5% wanted the membership to prove themselfs. They did want the newsletter or any assocation, just a proof of making it.
10% as active. The came to events, helped with fund raising and other programs.
85% getting the newsletter and reading it and filling it aaway. These were the ones we kept trying to join in with 10% - it took me almost 5 years to start going to events and meeting people and become found I liked being with the 10%.
I found the time enjoyable. I was traveling alot, and found events in other parts of world that I drop in on while killing a weekend in a city that I did not know. Oh, and in Slashdot fashion - my mom, while I as living at home, found the test weekend and suggested that I take it.
I am a MENSA member but I hardly consider myself very smart. I mean, I'm kinda smart but I see lots of people that blow me away when it comes to various mental abilities. And none of them are MENSA members.
As a Mensan, you should know that it's not an acronym and should not by typed in all caps.
This is not a dig, but several of the people relating their experiences with MENSA seem to have some real difficulties with spelling, context, syntax, and the lot.
I really mean it when I say that I'm not fucking with you. It's just interesting.
And by the way, maybe this might make some of you self-appointed geniuses understand that many of the people portrayed by the media as idiots - aren't.
That is simply propaganda; and of course some public figures make it easier than others to stick them with that tag. But anyone with a track record of success has intelligence. Denying it because you don't agree with them politically is simply being completely intellectually dishonest.
And while you cannot control what people think or do - you can control your own actions. So, maybe not repeating or reinforcing obviously incorrect things might be something you can do to move public discourse forward.
Because if you are one of the ones out there that like to hold on to the fiction that George W. Bush or Sarah Palin are unintelligent; that is just stupid on the face of it. Arguing that they're stupid because it's an easy way to propagandize people is not helping *anything*.
I remember when W. was running the first time and I had a very intelligent friend (and actual former MENSA member) who believed this hook, line, and sinker.
All it took for me to completely convince him how intellectually dishonest he (and the media) was being was for two weeks to point out every time he misspoke. That's all it takes. Speaking like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan in public is a inborn talent that VERY few people have. It is NOT simply a function of high intelligence.
And if you are being completely fair about it; for a national level politician, George W. Bush is at least a better than average speaker.
And before you knee-jerk your reply - how many "smart" people do YOU know that could do as well as he did, under the kind of scrutiny and digging for flaws that was going on?
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
"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.