[quote]JMB wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Is this conclusion based only on the testing of Americans? If so, the study is clearly flawed.[/quote]
It wasn’t a study – it was a consensus of academics studying intelligence.
[quote]JMB wrote:
BostonBarrister wrote:
Is this conclusion based only on the testing of Americans? If so, the study is clearly flawed.[/quote]
“This statement outlines conclusions regarded as mainstream among researchers on intelligence, in particular, on the nature, origins, and practical consequences of individual and group differences in intelligence. Its aim is to promote more reasoned discussion of the vexing phenomenon that the research has revealed in recent decades. The following conclusions are fully described in the major textbooks, professional journals and encyclopedias in intelligence.”
JMB
I think IQ tests are pretty out to lunch really. If you were to test someone who had never received any formal training, they would obviously score very poorly.
For example, you aren’t dumb because you have no reading skills if you never learned how to read.
I bet some people out there are very good at determining if someone, a stranger, is drunk, stoned, angry, depressed or otherwise in an agitated state. This can be a useful life skill in some situations, but nobody is likely to score highly in anything in this test – though it may help them survive.
Other people have an extremely honed sense of innuendo. Just about anything said or done can easily be related to sex, while most of the population would miss it. Again, though not scored in an IQ test, these folks might get laid more often that others.
When you meet someone you don’t know, do you honestly judge them by what they know or their level of education?
Perhaps better indicators, as examples, might be sense of humor, ability to pick up on subtleties, alertness, ability to adapt and power of concentration. Other important factors might be accurate self-assessment, determination, discipline and less qualifiable attributes such as potential.
I guess it is all about what you are trying to measure.
So, how off topic are we anyway?
[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
sadly, the verbal analogies, which are being phased out because they do not produce politically correct results, correlate most strongly to IQ.
[/quote]
That’s weird. I figured that section would have the least correlation, what with having to know the definition of big words (and small, tough ones).
I’ll admit this is personal because I scored 1340 and got about half of my analogies wrong. My score could have been higher!
I don’t know how many of ya’ll have taken an IQ test, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with learning. Doing a maze really quickly, or seeing how well you can memorize a string of shapes and replicate them is a lot better idicator of IQ. Or err… Wait… Those are actual things they use to test IQ.
Though I still think it’s nice that Bush is the first President since his father to have more people vote for him than against him.