What I don’t like about IQ is that it tests you on mostly irreverent things. A doctor is going to be a genius at his field but a complete idiot at engineering. If you gave a doctor an engineering intelligence test he’ll get a low score.
Now, this is not to say groups of people aren’t more intelligent than others, there’s a reason Europe and America developed advanced civilisation while other places like the Amazon, many parts of Africa and the Australasian islands remained in the Stone Age prior to colonisation.
However, East Asia and the Middle-east did keep up and were at some points ahead of Europe(with the exception of Greece, most of Europe were forest tribes as well, comparable to 20th century Africa I’d say).
Europe may have just gotten lucky when it came to innovations. If whites were always the best, then why weren’t they the first to develop civilisation? Perhaps a change happened in European populations in the 15th century that changed its intelligence levels of way of life. Perhaps the black plague was a blessing in disguise? I don’t know the answer for certain.
I disagree. IQ test components test specific cognitive abilities, all of which contribute as a whole to intelligence (ability to perceive, comprehend, solve problems).
Some components test pattern manipulation ability, some test reasoning, some do comprehension ability. All these things ARE relevant to intelligence.
As to whether IQ tests are biased culturally, the creators try to filter that out. Being dumb as a rock does not always depend on one's culture but more on whether your brain developed well as you grew.
Yeah I’d agree, the fact that Asians scored higher than Whites seem to disprove the cultural bias theory in IQ tests.
IQ may be good at general intelligence, but it doesn't do well in specialised intelligence, which could be in several things.
You can put a 140 IQ lawyer in the middle of the Savannah and he won’t know what to do generally, he’d have to learn from the tribes living there who would be geniuses at living in that land since they’ve been there all their lives.
Specialised intelligence could be in anything really, and it relies on potential for the brain, where a high IQ would help as that would improve their learning skills but what is most required for specialised intelligence is practice.
A 70IQ person could outsmart a 160 IQ person if we put them in an area of advantage in terms of practice in a skill. However, a 160 IQ person could eventually outpace the 70IQ person in the skill, unless the 70IQ person has been practicing for decades.
The IQ tests I've seen are idiotic pattern recognition, where the pattern can be something as dumb as counting the number of lines in an image and calling that a "pattern" to predict the next one.
Something like that has little real world applications. Then again, I've never taken the "real" IQ tests you pay for, just free ones that claim to be authentic.
The 'free' online ones are garbage and are highly inaccurate. The real tests contains graduated ranges of questions / puzzles to solve, and various categories of mental abiities to evaluate. They are developed and calibrated against known levels of intelligences.
What I don’t like about IQ is that it tests you on mostly irreverent things. A doctor is going to be a genius at his field but a complete idiot at engineering. If you gave a doctor an engineering intelligence test he’ll get a low score.
Now, this is not to say groups of people aren’t more intelligent than others, there’s a reason Europe and America developed advanced civilisation while other places like the Amazon, many parts of Africa and the Australasian islands remained in the Stone Age prior to colonisation.
However, East Asia and the Middle-east did keep up and were at some points ahead of Europe(with the exception of Greece, most of Europe were forest tribes as well, comparable to 20th century Africa I’d say). Europe may have just gotten lucky when it came to innovations. If whites were always the best, then why weren’t they the first to develop civilisation? Perhaps a change happened in European populations in the 15th century that changed its intelligence levels of way of life. Perhaps the black plague was a blessing in disguise? I don’t know the answer for certain.
I disagree. IQ test components test specific cognitive abilities, all of which contribute as a whole to intelligence (ability to perceive, comprehend, solve problems).
Some components test pattern manipulation ability, some test reasoning, some do comprehension ability. All these things ARE relevant to intelligence.
As to whether IQ tests are biased culturally, the creators try to filter that out. Being dumb as a rock does not always depend on one's culture but more on whether your brain developed well as you grew.
Yeah I’d agree, the fact that Asians scored higher than Whites seem to disprove the cultural bias theory in IQ tests.
IQ may be good at general intelligence, but it doesn't do well in specialised intelligence, which could be in several things.
You can put a 140 IQ lawyer in the middle of the Savannah and he won’t know what to do generally, he’d have to learn from the tribes living there who would be geniuses at living in that land since they’ve been there all their lives.
Specialised intelligence could be in anything really, and it relies on potential for the brain, where a high IQ would help as that would improve their learning skills but what is most required for specialised intelligence is practice. A 70IQ person could outsmart a 160 IQ person if we put them in an area of advantage in terms of practice in a skill. However, a 160 IQ person could eventually outpace the 70IQ person in the skill, unless the 70IQ person has been practicing for decades.
The IQ tests I've seen are idiotic pattern recognition, where the pattern can be something as dumb as counting the number of lines in an image and calling that a "pattern" to predict the next one.
Something like that has little real world applications. Then again, I've never taken the "real" IQ tests you pay for, just free ones that claim to be authentic.
The 'free' online ones are garbage and are highly inaccurate. The real tests contains graduated ranges of questions / puzzles to solve, and various categories of mental abiities to evaluate. They are developed and calibrated against known levels of intelligences.
However, a high IQ person may learn faster with less practice, so time may not be a very important factor, or maybe quantity of practice is king.