Supposed "intelligence" quotient

[Mycroft]

Short and sweet:

I have, in my life, known people with supposedly low IQs who consistently picked up on things I overlooked and whose friendship has been indispensable, and people with supposedly high IQs whose heads were so far in the clouds they were about as useful as a zero dollar bill. So what the hell are IQ tests measuring?

[JivinJeffJones]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

Short and sweet:

I have, in my life, known people with supposedly low IQs who consistently picked up on things I overlooked and whose friendship has been indispensable, and people with supposedly high IQs whose heads were so far in the clouds they were about as useful as a zero dollar bill. So what the hell are IQ tests measuring?

I suspect that IQ tests measure breadth of intelligence rather than depth of intelligence. However, I'm aware that I often offer ill-considered, fallacious opinions immediately upon discovering a seemingly snappy one-liner to deliver them in. So I'm probably wrong.

[ptgatsby]

Originally Posted by Mycroft

Short and sweet:

I have, in my life, known people with supposedly low IQs who consistently picked up on things I overlooked and whose friendship has been indispensable, and people with supposedly high IQs whose heads were so far in the clouds they were about as useful as a zero dollar bill. So what the hell are IQ tests measuring?

They measure your ability answer a set of questions. These questions are meant (in general) to produce two sets of numbers - gF and gC. These results are then used to compare to other test results and surveys.

They work well at predicting other results, such as job performance, academic achievement, rate of learning, bredth of knowledge, rate of information absorbtion, etc. In some cases, they have been shown to be among the best predictors of the above despite having no underlying association with them. (gF and gC measuring slightly different things, correlations may vary, some conditions, like job type/area of study, blah blah).

[Athenian200]

Well, they never claimed to measure your intelliegence, only your intelligence quotient. I would say that the tests measure a person's aptitude in math and language, but it can't measure perceptiveness or creativity. So that might be where the disparity exists. Also, the people with low scores might have just gotten questions they didn't happen to know the answers to, even though their intelligence is actually quite high generally. It could also have just been a hard test, or a bad day.

[Splittet]

It annoys me how people seem unable to accept that IQ tests try to measure intelligence, not creativity, how socially skilled a person is, if the person is a good one, is likeable, practical, skillfull, good in bed, with kids or whatever people think is important. It is like criticizing a physics book for not saying enough about baseball.

[ptgatsby]

Originally Posted by athenian200

Well, they never claimed to measure your intelliegence, only your intelligence quotient. I would say that the tests measure a person's aptitude in math and language, but it can't measure perceptiveness or creativity. So that might be where the disparity exists. Also, the people with low scores might have just gotten questions they didn't happen to know the answers to, even though their intelligence is actually quite high generally. It could also have just been a hard test, or a bad day.

There is a pretty high standard deviation (15 points) on IQ tests. However, it has been shown that the improvement gap (ie: not familiar with questions) is mostly present on people who had little to no formal training (ie: 3rd world country farmer), all the way to extensive preparation. And even then, the gF factor is pretty consistent. For most people, your IQ variates quite a bit less than the SD, no matter how much you prepare.

Short of cheating, of course

Originally Posted by Splittet

It annoys me how people seem unable to accept that IQ tests try to measure intelligence, not creativity, how socially skilled a person is, if the person is a good one, is likeable or whatever people think is important. It is like criticizing a physics book for not saying enough about baseball.

That's one thing that I find with IQ tests. Too many people get hung up on "intelligence" being the golden standard of a person. It measures what it measures, it correlates to what it correlates. So many things matter in life... Attacking the test or reading more into the test are just flip sides of that sensitivity to "IQ".

(I still want to take the KAIT to see how it's done. Too bad it's so damn expensive to get a "real" IQ test. BAH.)

[wildcat]

To regulate, to control, to have power, to own.

Money, power, beauty, intelligence.

A place in the kingdom to come.

You can always catch a fly. You either kill it or let it go.

[Natrushka]

I remember from sociology classes one of the things IQ tests measure is how well you've been socialized into that particular culture.

[Splittet]

Originally Posted by Natrushka

I remember from sociology classes one of the things IQ tests measure is how well you've been socialized into that particular culture.

There is a difference in correlating and measuring...

[The_Liquid_Laser]

I bet the Uni-bomber had a high IQ being a math professor and all. IQ is nice but it's not everything.