I see intelligence as the application of a person's ability (whether innate or acquired) to accomplish a task in a manner exceeding the average person's ability to accomplish said task. — Benkei

Nonsense, intelligence is not about how well one can perform a task, its about how quickly one can learn to perform a task.
Though of course, if a person demonstrated to be able to perform a task, that person must at least have the intelligence required to learn to perform that task within the time that person has been living.

that's a definition, which I disagreed with above. Stating it's nonsense isn't an argument. If I take 5 years longer to become better at chess than you, people will think I'm more intelligent than you irrespective of the speed at which you initially developed. An IQ test tests results not learning ability any way so I'm not even certain you base this on. The ability to learn is a type of intelligence but learning languages is totally different than learning football and cannot be caught in a single measurement.

This is strange. We pride ourselves as being human, distanced from the rest of the animal kingdom by our brain and what it can do. Why begrudge people with high IQs? That's like hating yourself for being smart.

the whole IQ idea is based on a fundamental category error that intelligence is something that can be measured. — MetaphysicsNow

We do measure it, so it can be measured. How accurately it can be measured, especially when measured interculturally, is still being discussed. Another thing is what can be concluded from the measurement, wich is also still under discussion.

How about the sex difference in IQ? — tom

The differences in average iq between men and women are less than the standard deviations. Meaning that the differences in iq between men and women are less than the differences among men and less than the differences among women.

My understanding of statistics is not sophisticated enough for me to figure it out. — T Clark

At least you seem to understand the nessecity of understanding statistics in order to say something sensible about statistical data on iq.

Maybe 20% of students in school need to be very well educated so that they can serve the interests of a technologically complex society under the control of an elite. 20% of the students are getting an excellent education, more or less.

If 80% of students are getting a run of the mill education, it is because more is not deemed necessary. A lot of today's students are not going to be doing complex tasks that require insight and theoretical thinking. This is a long-term trend, observed for the last 50 years, or so. — Bitter Crank

I disagree, I think all children need to be well educated. Wich isn't to say they all should be educated the same. Well educated to me means, best suited for the child, not the highest degree of complexity of the material tought. Since only if we provide children with the best education suited to them, they may reach their max potential.

that's a definition, which I disagreed with above. Stating it's nonsense isn't an argument. If I take 5 years longer to become better at chess than you, people will think I'm more intelligent than you irrespective of the speed at which you initially developed. An IQ test tests results not learning ability any way so I'm not even certain you base this on. The ability to learn is a type of intelligence but learning languages is totally different than learning football and cannot be caught in a single measurement. — Benkei

If we talk about intelligence in relation to iq tests, you don't get to choose the definition. It's given by the tests. Now if as you suggest, intelligence is merely about learning rather than learning speed, then why do intelligence tests apply a correction for age?

Sure you could argue that there are skills that require intelligence to learn that are not measured in iq tests, but I don't see how thats relevant to anyting I stated.

The differences in average iq between men and women are less than the standard deviations. Meaning that the differences in iq between men and women are less than the differences among men and less than the differences among women. — Tomseltje

The difference is a lot less than the standard deviation, being approximately 0. The SDs are not the same though.

We do measure it, so it can be measured.

IQ tests measure one thing, and only one thing, uncontroversially: the ability to take an IQ test.

@creativesoul

You figure the IQ tests are responsible for how they're put to use

Of course the IQ tests themselves are not responsible for anything, it is those who believe them to be measuring something other than an ability to take an IQ test that are responisble.

The category mistake is to take an abstract, and very complex concept like intelligence and presuming it to be something akin to a name for a property of human beings that comes in amounts and is measurable, like their mass or height.

But it isn't testing that condemns children to mediocrity, it's the aim of education In the present society.

I am in complete agreement, but I see the ethos of IQ testing as part of supporting and maintaining exactly those aims, and it is those aims and the support system with it that need to be challenged, and that involves challenging piecemeal the individual supporting elements, such as the idea that IQ tests actually measure anything more than an ability to take an IQ test. Given your other posts on other threads, I am certain you need no lessons in history from me, but just consider that the current educational systems in the West started life because the financial elite - for whom education was largely reserved - were virtually forced, in order to maintain their privilege, into handing out a few social crumbs to those that produced their wealth. Elitism has always been an ethos in Western educational systems and IQ testing spuriously bolsters its standing.

that's a definition, which I disagreed with above. Stating it's nonsense isn't an argument. If I take 5 years longer to become better at chess than you, people will think I'm more intelligent than you irrespective of the speed at which you initially developed. An IQ test tests results not learning ability any way so I'm not even certain you base this on. The ability to learn is a type of intelligence but learning languages is totally different than learning football and cannot be caught in a single measurement. — Benkei

But I'd assume there are ways to test long term learning acquisition skills. While it might not be testable by administering a single 1 hour exam, there would be some way to conduct a long term study, perhaps by charting progress in educational settings. And there's not going to be any way to stop people from using those results to support various ethnic based theories, and those conclusions will of course be subject to the same objections that people make when referencing IQ tests, which is that there are too many uncontrolled environmental variables to make any genetic based conclusions.

And the only thing that IQ tests have ever been able to tell about anyone is how good or bad they are at taking IQ tests. — MetaphysicsNow

It should be mentioned somewhere here that the 'best' IQ test, the Stanford Binet, is individually administered. It's not a paper and pencil test. There is some cultural loading in it -- like the question on the adult version, "Who wrote Faust?" Do you get extra points for asking the examiner "Which Faust -- the English one (Marlowe), the French opera (Gounod) or the German one (Goethe)?"

Asking an American "Who was Batman?" or "What was Superman's name when he wasn't Superman?" would be the equivalent of the 1910 French question about Faust.

An aspiring young violinist from Kansas gets off the bus in New York City and asks the first passerby "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" The New Yorker says, "Practice, practice, practice."

Testing is not a useless racist exercise. — Bitter Crank

You're right. I misstated. What I should have said was that the results of IQ testing research are often used, by others, to support theories and political positions that claim that there are genetic differences in intelligence between races.

On the other hand, I was a psychology major many years ago. One of the classes I took was in psychological testing. As part of it, we created our own questionnaires. Then we had them filled in by students, tabulated them, ran some statistics, and presto! discovered some new psychological characteristic. The lesson I learned - any test measures something, whether is has any explanatory value or gives any insight. That's where I first came across the word "reification," granting reality to something that only exists in our minds.

This comment is the sort that can derail a discussion. — Bitter Crank

I trust your judgment on this kind of thing, so I've thought about it. You may be right. I still think my response was correct - many people don't like IQ testing because it is used as justification for racial prejudice. I was probably heavy-handed.

Asking an American "Who was Batman?" or "What was Superman's name when he wasn't Superman?" would be the equivalent of the 1910 French question about Faust. — Bitter Crank

So, is the correct answer "Clark Kent" or "Jorel?" Or George Reeves, or Christopher Reeves. Please, not Dean Cain!

Most people are given paper and pencil IQ tests which are mostly achievement tests. That's the kind of test we all took when I was in school -- not the individually administered Stanford Binet test. For one thing, the subject has to read the test (an achievement in itself). Two, he has to be accustomed to formal test taking -- sit, pay attention to what you are doing for maybe two hours, don't fall asleep, etc. Third, the subject has to figure out abstract questions about drawings in the test -- like which of these "unfolded" pieces of paper makes which folded up solid shape?" and so forth. Subjects who are doing well in school are going to do better on this kind of test than students who are not doing well in school, regardless of actual, innate intelligence.

I am in complete agreement, but I see the ethos of IQ testing as part of supporting and maintaining exactly those aims, and it is those aims and the support system with it that need to be challenged, and that involves challenging piecemeal the individual supporting elements, such as the idea that IQ tests actually measure anything more than an ability to take an IQ test. — MetaphysicsNow

We could all write a 10 volume encyclopedia about what is wrong with the education system, and it would probably all be true.

I don't think there was ever a "golden age of education" -- in the US, Europe, or anywhere else, where the aims of the educational system were altogether benign. Societies made up of layers of increasing assets (bottom to top) are not inclined to operate egalitarian, 'open-ended' asset-sharing school systems. All of us live in that kind of society, and we all have been through school systems which are designed to maintain those layers of assets (or privileges).

The technological changes that took place during the 20th century in communication (commercial radio, television, film, recordings, print, etc.) and the economic changes that gradually eliminated a lot of unskilled factory labor--and even quite a bit of skilled white collar work--has left schools with a new and very difficult problem, which has by no means been solved: What do we do for all these students (millions) who are unlikely to find good jobs with good pay?

Like I said, some people (maybe 15-20% of the students) will need very good education to perform very good jobs, and they will get a good education. The rest... screwed from the get go whether they are as smart as whips or as dumb as oxen.

The kind of school that is designed for maximum benefit for each student, K-16, when described comes off sounding more like Alice in Wonderland, these days, than what is going on behind the brick walls of the little red school house.

I don't think everybody is born with the same intellectual potential, but everybody enjoys learning, growing, making the most of what they have, and being able to do interesting things with whatever talents they have. UNFORTUNATELY society is neither prepared nor interested in arranging its affairs to facilitate that happy outcome.

So, I knew Clark Kent. Jorel? Who? I wouldn't have been able to say who played Superman if my life had depended on it, though I did see a Batman movie, a while back. I liked the Superman comic books from my childhood.

We had comic books and radio. Later television with 3 fuzzy channels. I think young children are smarter today because they don't have to depend on the drugstore's supply of comic books for stimulation. There are so many other forms of mental stimulation children get these days -- their mothers piping Mozart into their uteruses, gadgets in their cribs, TV without end, IPads, smart phones, electronic games (no Parcheesi for today's little Einstein), day care, pre-school, year round kindergarten, babies blogging before they can walk, etc.

many people don't like IQ testing because it is used as justification for racial prejudice — T Clark

People do use IQ for that purpose, true enough. Plus
school performance
crime rates
unemployment
drug use
vocabulary
clothing styles (only a moron would wear something like that in public...)
imprisonment rates
absentee fatherhood
riots
school integration and school segregation
racial intermarriage

I mean, it isn't like people who are racially prejudiced are unable to find material which supports their point of view. And none of their evidence needs to be true, either.

I knew Clark Kent. Jorel? Who? I wouldn't have been able to say who played Superman if my life had depended on it, though I did see a Batman movie, a while back. I liked the Superman comic books from my childhood. — Bitter Crank

My mistake - Kal-el was Superman's Kryptonian name. Jor-el was his father. There were a lot more actors than the ones I listed. George Reeves was the Superman I grew up with. He was on the TV show. He was the flabbiest of all the Supermen.

Do you deny things such as abstract reasoning, spatial reasoning, ascertaining meaning from context, pattern recognition, etc.?

Are you saying that these things are not measurable or that they're not a measure of human intelligence or both? Something else perhaps.

What is human intelligence on your view if it's not cognitive abilities?

I know IQ tests aren't some absolute measure of "intelligence", but I think it does a good job overall. I think people criticize the IQ tests more than necessary, based on intelligent people that it failed to recognize. For example, by bringing up people like Richard Feynman who is arguably one of the most intelligent people out there in history of science but scored rather average on IQ test, they think they completely proved the IQ to be illegitimate or something. Sure, IQ test is not flaw-free, but that does not mean it's worthless.

The difference is a lot less than the standard deviation, being approximately 0. The SDs are not the same though. — tom

Sure, the point however is, that as long as the difference between the averages are less than either standard deviation, the two groups are more alike than different from each other.

IQ tests measure one thing, and only one thing, uncontroversially: the ability to take an IQ test. — MetaphysicsNow

Sure, though that doesn't mean that the result doesn't say anything about intelligence. Since we don't have any better means to measure intelligence, that is what we use.

Sure, the point however is, that as long as the difference between the averages are less than either standard deviation, the two groups are more alike than different from each other. — Tomseltje

The groups are quite different. Their standard deviations are different.

The groups are quite different. Their standard deviations are different. — tom

I didn't say they weren't different, I pointed out that the differences within each group are greater than the differences between the two groups.

In other words, if you look at the bell curves, the surface area of the overlap of the groups is bigger than the 68% area of each group.

Are you saying that these things are not measurable or that they're not a measure of human intelligence or both?

Both - I see it as the same category mistake as the overarching category mistake concerning intelligence in general. Sure, one can try breaking down intelligence into parts, but those parts you mention are complex concepts in themselves - after all, what is abstract reasoning, for instance? We can probably all give examples of abstract reasoning - playing chess, proving mathematical theorems, constructing an argument for metaphysical idealism, planning a holiday.... - but that does not entail that they all have some feature in common that comes in amounts and can be measured. It's tempting to say "well, we canincrease our ability to reason abstractly, so it must come in amounts that can be measured" - but here "increase" arguably just means "improve" and the same problem arises, what counts as improving abstract reasoning, and what makes one believe that it is just one ability in any case? I can become a better chess player by, amongst other things, learning a few more chess openings, understanding a little more about endgame scenarios and how to manipulate towards them from a middlegame.... Compare that with how I would become better at giving arguments for metaphysical idealism - probably not a great deal in common. There may be some analogies that can be made (knowledge of chess opening theory = knowldege of previous attempts to prove idealism) but the crucial thing here to remember about analogies is that things which are analagous are precisely not one and the same thing. It begins to look a little forced to insist that there must be one measurable ability underlying all this, and what is the motiviation for doing so?

Of course, if you are some kind of mind-brain physicalist you might be able to argue that, on the basis of physicalism, all aspects of mentality must in principle be measurable. But then to defend IQ tests on that basis, you would need already to have established that physicalism is true and have gone further and actually identified the (presumably neurophysiological) mechanisms underlying these identifiable abilities you mention. So, even if one is a mind-brain physicalist, as things currently stand one is a long way from being able to say that IQ tests measure anything beyond an ability to take IQ tests.

You're right. I misstated. What I should have said was that the results of IQ testing research are often used, by others, to support theories and political positions that claim that there are genetic differences in intelligence between races. — T Clark

How else do you explain the 6 point difference between Asians (of the far eastern variety) and Europeans?

I didn't say they weren't different, I pointed out that the differences within each group are greater than the differences between the two groups. — Tomseltje

Irrelevant. The difference within males is greater than the difference within females.

IQ tests measure one thing, and only one thing, uncontroversially: the ability to take an IQ test. — MetaphysicsNow


Sure, though that doesn't mean that the result doesn't say anything about intelligence. Since we don't have any better means to measure intelligence, that is what we use.

But that's to assume that intelligence is something that can be measured, and simply to say that it is because we measure it with IQ tests is a petitio principii.

How else do you explain the 6 point difference between Asians (of the far eastern variety) and Europeans?

Well according to a pretty detailed comment on the
blog here, the way to account for it is to dispell its relevance on the grounds that the sample sizes for most of the studies were small and there were no control groups. But whether that's a viable response would depend on the studies you are referring to, if they are published online would you provide the links?

Irrelevant. — tom

irrelevant to what? It's quite relevant to clarifying my statement wich you seemed to dispute.

The difference within males is greater than the difference within females — tom

I didn't state anything disputing this, so why is it relevant to mention?

But that's to assume that intelligence is something that can be measured, and simply to say that it is because we measure it with IQ tests is a petitio principii. — MetaphysicsNow

Nonsense, research done under a set of definitions, and then pointing out those definitions to someone disputing them is not a circular argument.

If you mean something different when using the word intelligence other than as defined in iq research, you ought to define it. Otherwise I'm going to assume you were referring to the scientific definition. Sure iq research and what they say about intelligence have their limitations, but I'm not aware of a more sensible approach.