Intelligence Quotient ('IQ'): Issues & Experiences
- Thread starter rynner2
- Start date
Rosebud
Ephemeral Spectre
- Joined
- Apr 10, 2011
- Messages
- 421
I'm another one with the high IQ/myopia combination. I wonder if there is a link; i.e. those who can't see the board properly early in life quickly develop strategies to work around the problem and end up able to store more information directly into the memory?
I am ashamed to say I have followed this thread for a few days now and had decided to not admit to Mensa membership, even under torture.
In my defence, I only joined after moving out of London. Everything there is rushed, should have been done yesterday and hurry up. Upon my arrival in this village I realized that, despite being on crutches, I was still faster than most - especially mentally. There was a test evening in a nearby town so I booked a place. A week later my results came through along with a membership pack, so I signed up.
I swore my children to secrecy and never mentioned it in conversation, but it did embolden me to go to University, which I don't regret.
I am ashamed to say I have followed this thread for a few days now and had decided to not admit to Mensa membership, even under torture.
In my defence, I only joined after moving out of London. Everything there is rushed, should have been done yesterday and hurry up. Upon my arrival in this village I realized that, despite being on crutches, I was still faster than most - especially mentally. There was a test evening in a nearby town so I booked a place. A week later my results came through along with a membership pack, so I signed up.
I swore my children to secrecy and never mentioned it in conversation, but it did embolden me to go to University, which I don't regret.
Coal
Account Retired
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Messages
- 9,852
That's an interesting notion.
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2004
- Messages
- 29,622
- Location
- Out of Bounds
I recall seeing articles and papers citing a myopia / IQ correlation as far back as the 1960's. I'm not sure what the current thinking may be on this issue.
Not all high-IQ / Mensan folks require vision correction, but I've consistently found far more of those that do are nearsighted rather than farsighted.
Not all high-IQ / Mensan folks require vision correction, but I've consistently found far more of those that do are nearsighted rather than farsighted.
Coal
Account Retired
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Messages
- 9,852
That could also be the greater amount of reading done by a higher IQ person, affecting how the eyes develop (say).
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2004
- Messages
- 29,622
- Location
- Out of Bounds
In my case - not just 'yes', but 'HELL yes' ...
By the year preceding my 'explosion into Kid Brainiac' (cf. earlier post) I'd trained myself to literally 'pantograph' the teacher's arm / hand movements at the blackboard onto my notebook paper for later parsing into words and numbers. Once accustomed to the teacher's personal 'hand movement coding', I could often just jot down a number or word rather than a graphical imitation of the writing motion(s).
Memory has a lot to do with it. First, one has to learn how to efficiently / effectively manage memory 'inputs' on the front end (attentional focus; care with details; consistency checking).
Second, one has to develop memory management skills relating to 'organization', 'indexing', and recall.
Third - and perhaps most importantly - one has to develop reliance on imagination (in the broad sense of internal visualization / conceptualization). Phrased another way, you have to learn how to develop a good 'local copy' and then work with it on your own.
These are the very skill sets educators like to think they're imparting to students early on. These are also the skill sets most vulnerable to evasion or degradation in modern life, and the ones I find more and more lacking among children and younger folks.
My stock explanation is to invoke a physical training analogy. You develop muscles by working against resistance. You develop agility by overcoming time pressures and maintaining coordination in your actions. For me the resistance was my perceptual deficit, and the need to keep up with everyone else forced me to develop agility.
Coal
Account Retired
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Messages
- 9,852
I'm going to slightly disagreeIn my case - not just 'yes', but 'HELL yes' ...
By the year preceding my 'explosion into Kid Brainiac' (cf. earlier post) I'd trained myself to literally 'pantograph' the teacher's arm / hand movements at the blackboard onto my notebook paper for later parsing into words and numbers. Once accustomed to the teacher's personal 'hand movement coding', I could often just jot down a number or word rather than a graphical imitation of the writing motion(s).
Memory has a lot to do with it. First, one has to learn how to efficiently / effectively manage memory 'inputs' on the front end (attentional focus; care with details; consistency checking).
Second, one has to develop memory management skills relating to 'organization', 'indexing', and recall.
Third - and perhaps most importantly - one has to develop reliance on imagination (in the broad sense of internal visualization / conceptualization). Phrased another way, you have to learn how to develop a good 'local copy' and then work with it on your own.
These are the very skill sets educators like to think they're imparting to students early on. These are also the skill sets most vulnerable to evasion or degradation in modern life, and the ones I find more and more lacking among children and younger folks.
My stock explanation is to invoke a physical training analogy. You develop muscles by working against resistance. You develop agility by overcoming time pressures and maintaining coordination in your actions. For me the resistance was my perceptual deficit, and the need to keep up with everyone else forced me to develop agility.
...one might argue your IQ facilitated this process.More to the point, no-one has yet figured out how to raise anyone's IQ with any kind of exercise. It'd be great if a way can be found. Software programs to do this turn out only to make you better at those programs, this doesn't transfer to IQ, a more general ability.
However (comma) you can make the best of your innate ability in this respect and I'd suggest a myopia forces those who otherwise wouldn't get the best (brain) training environment (say a less than perfect school or limited access to other extra curricular resources), to train themselves to the best of their ability as you describe.
In short you can reduce IQ during upbringing (poor diet is a factor for example, as is a home environment that has limited resources for learning, something as simple as 'no books') but you can only, as far as anyone has yet discovered, bring IQ up to the potential that is there in the first place.
Unless you've discovered something new. If you have, patent it now, truly, I'm not being sarcastic. It's an interesting notion indeed.
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2004
- Messages
- 29,622
- Location
- Out of Bounds
I'm glad it turned out OK for you in the end. I've known folks for whom it didn't ...
I don't think I've ever encountered anyone with a childhood myopia problem who got diagnosed so late (age 13).
I've long suspected that timing (with regard to maturation / personal development in childhood) is a factor - particularly with respect to how it affects interplay between (e.g.) 'intellectual' and 'social' development.
In my case, my accelerated 'mental' skill sets were unleashed while I was still learning how to fit in socially. This, I believe, is why I immediately suffered a near-breakdown in understanding my relationship to / with my classmates.
In other words, I got pegged as Kid Brainiac while still developing my 'social self'. My interest in learning was innate, but I was to some extent kept on track (and / or occasionally stymied) by social reinforcement for this ascribed role.
I've often wondered how it would have gone if I'd not been diagnosed until later. I suspect my story would then have resembled yours. (... and, just for clarity, I'm not insinuating I would have considered that outcome 'worse', but simply 'different')
- Joined
- Jul 19, 2004
- Messages
- 29,622
- Location
- Out of Bounds
I'm going to slightly disagree
More to the point, no-one has yet figured out how to raise anyone's IQ with any kind of exercise. It'd be great if a way can be found. Software programs to do this turn out only to make you better at those programs, this doesn't transfer to IQ, a more general ability. ...
One must distinguish between 'innate capabilities / capacities' and 'ratings / measurements (purportedly) descriptive of those capacities' extent'. IQ relates solely to the latter ...
It was my 'innate capability' I pumped up in response to deficit / disadvantage / duress. As it happens, the skills whose development I thereby accelerated were squarely among the skills necessary to blow the top off pro forma instruments and measurements (i.e., IQ tests and scores).
That's why the precocity factor has long been an issue in IQ testing and scoring. IQ scores are normalized with respect to one's age cohort. Some kids can outperform their peers on tests so much and so early they get assigned stratospheric scores, only to settle back toward the mean once they become adults being compared to other adults, who (figuratively speaking) have collectively 'caught up' or 'closed the gap' in the mean time.
That's why I don't put much stock in the recurrent news stories about some 5-year-old maxing out an IQ score. It really only means they're 'way out front early on in a virtual marathon. It doesn't mean they'll score that far out on the statistical extreme at the (developmental) finish line.
Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2001
- Messages
- 51,775
- Location
- Inside a starship, watching puny humans from afar
Same here. I can't seem to remember things if I have no interest at all in the subject matter. It's like an aversion.I was another who had some trouble over my IQ score, not with employers but at school. I was a weird kid (hence I was always being tested for this and that) and had trouble conforming to the program. When they found out my IQ score, many teachers just assumed I must be lazy and/or rebellious and was treated as such.
I was neither (well, maybe a little rebellious
I had/have real problems with becoming a performing seal.
There are lots of nerdy people who can reel off obscure bits of information that are (frankly) deadly dull. How or why did they commit that to memory? I wouldn't. I filter out the bits I don't care about.
mikfez
Generally Bewildered
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2006
- Messages
- 497
- Location
- East Yorkshire
I had an eye test at school when I was around 11 which showed me as myopic but we moved a few weeks later and it was forgotten about.
I still have problems with socialising but it only bothers other people.
I've spent my life just going along with things - not striving for anything and staying clear of anything to do with team work.
Last edited:
mikfez
Generally Bewildered
- Joined
- Aug 17, 2006
- Messages
- 497
- Location
- East Yorkshire
Welcome - just how big is this Mensa closet I wonder?
Coal
Account Retired
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Messages
- 9,852
I agree and didn't mean to suggest otherwise. All such scores are (have to be) normalised.
It's the case that you can 'hot house' a child's IQ to get them ahead of the pack (cohort), but they fall back to their "natural IQ" once they enter real life. (It can almost seem like children only really becomes themselves once out from under their parents.) Heritability of IQ also follows this pattern with (iirc) it being around 0.4 in early life but edging up to 0.65 in later life.
Absolutely. It can also be hard to differentiate between very well developed memory skills and problem solving skills, especially at an early age.
We had one such in the eldest Coalette's class, a real genius...except her SAT scores were lower than the Coalette's (I can read upside down script quite well), but her parents really really wanted it to be true. She was always one year ahead of her cohort academically. I don't think they did her any favours, she was socially quite mal-adapted and went through several secondary schools as she didn't 'fit in'.
Coal
Account Retired
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Messages
- 9,852
68% of the population lie between an IQ of 85 and 115. An IQ of 84 is borderline untrainable in the real world.
brownmane
off kilter
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2019
- Messages
- 4,691
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
Formal IQ testing is suspect for people who can't read well or have not had access to good education.
The more your take an IQ test, the higher your numbers. The more exposed to experiences the better you perform.
A couple of articles with explanations about what IQ testing can and cannot measure:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/iq-scores-not-accurate-marker-of-intelligence-study-shows/
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/do-iq-tests-actually-measure-intelligence
Mythopoeika
I am a meat popsicle
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2001
- Messages
- 51,775
- Location
- Inside a starship, watching puny humans from afar
Andy Warhol's IQ was tested to be 86.
I suspect that he didn't give a toss and deliberately messed it up. He was actually a pretty smart man.
Coal
Account Retired
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Messages
- 9,852
[From 'In the Know' by Warne, a tremendously useful and readable book about the nonsense surrounding IQ and the testing of it, via my memory].
IQ tests are designed to measure 'general intelligence' (G) defined as the ability to solve novel problems without previously acquired knowledge (Gf) and also with previously acquired knowledge (Gc). IQ is a measure of G, this is analogous to 'length' being measured in 'cm'.
As such, tests designed to do this accurately are so well validated and verified that if you wish to discount this vast body of data you literally have to discount all other psychology trait science as nothing else is so well proven. As a trait, G is also one of the most heritable, with some 60-70% of the variance in it being correlated to parents' G's.
This stated, a genius can be born to under average G parents and quite low IQ children born to above average G parents and this happens often enough to be noticeable.
With a properly large pool of banked questions, repeated taking of IQ tests leads to only a small improvement in scores, some 10% or so, then it plateaus. The old argument about not using IQ tests because it's unfair to those whose parents can afford coaching can be overturned with a couple of days practise testing and some mild coaching about only spending so much time on one problem before moving to the next or, as this is known, 'exam technique'. Not beyond the whit of any school.
If someone wishes to define 'intelligence' as something else, then they are free to do so and set up their own tests...but to use measures of IQ in one breath and then immediately use it in a context where 'intelligence' is implied to be 'some other thing', is equivocation at best...some might say.
This would be like saying that using 'length' doesn't measure 'mass', so 'length' is a useless way of doing this...
Of all the currently validated character traits the one that correlates most highly with life efficacy (typically the proxy is material wealth) is G, although the correlation is not massive (iirc 30%)
Nothing else comes close. Trait conscientiousness comes in a distant second (iirc), broadly speaking that's 'organised and hard working'. It also make sense in the context of 'G' because hard workers tend accumulate more knowledge so they get better at solving problems with it (Gc), which luckily offsets the normal decline of Gf as one ages.
There is also (iirc) there a slight positive correlation with 'agreeableness' and a slight negative one with 'emotional stability'. There a decently high correlation with 'integrity', about the same as 'conscientiousness' - but those two things co-correlate quite well. Hard working organised people tend to be honest.
The big issue is (sorry) a psychological one. Firstly there's something of a zeitgeist (in the UK) that anyone can be whatever they want. This is clearly nonsense, but IQ testing might challenge this rather more directly. Worse, I suspect, is that were we to make more use of G in education it would rapidly become clear that children with few opportunities are being shafted by shitty schools and poor teachers.
Also, no-one want to confront the stark reality that they are not the genius they think they are, despite the fact their life is generally reasonable evidence to the contrary anyway.
Ah, say people, (usually triumphantly) 'so IQ isn't everything?
Of course not. Having rich parents, being sent to good schools, having opportunities for good jobs where other folk have none, getting a job via the old school tie...do help one along rather. We might call this 'fortunate' or 'unfortunate' or 'lucky' and 'unlucky'.
It turns out 'luck' is a really big factor, arguable the biggest, and no-one really wants to confront that either...especially those with good luck, as they want to think it was all their own work. And round and round we go.
Endlessly Amazed
Endlessly, you know, amazed
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2020
- Messages
- 1,379
- Location
- Arizona, USA
From @brownmane's post: Do IQ Tests Actually Measure Intelligence? | Discover Magazine
“(IQ tests) are culturally, linguistically and economically biased against minoritized students, in particular Black, first and foremost, and then Hispanic,” says Ford. “If these tests were not biased, we wouldn’t have different IQ scores along racial and ethnic lines — but we do. It’s an indication that there is something wrong with these tests, not with us.”
(IQ is not my field. My comments below are about the US.)
I find a disturbing lack of logic in the above quotation. It gives no further information, but rather assumes that if a black or Hispanic person scores low, than it is because of a problem with the test, and is not an accurate measurement of the person. WTF. If this test is biased in favor of whites, then I deduce that Asians are much like whites, because they score similarly in the US. If one rejects the scientific conclusions, then let the rejection be based on facts and not ideology.
Different IQ tests exist, and they are designed to measure in different ways. The visual and conceptual aspects require almost no written, verbal ability. This greatly reduces the possibility of any conjectured cultural bias.
If some subcultures in the US do not have access to or value prenatal care (nutrition, health care, eliminating alcohol and recreational drugs during pregnancy), do not spend time with their children (reading, explaining, engaging, exposing to different real-life situations), and punish members for “acting white,” then this is likely to be reflected in their children’s IQ scores. As well as life successes. I was raised in extreme urban poverty and went to school until college with many minorities: black, Latin, Asian. I was in a unique opportunity to observe these socially uncomfortable facts over decades and hundreds of individuals.
A dominant culture exists in the US. It is coincidentally white; but it is defined to some extent as middle-class and literate. It requires at least normal IQ. Any person of any cultural, ethnic, racial, or religious background is excluded not only by bias from others, but also more importantly by bias from their own background and from their own internalized sense of self. Bias from outgroup others is real, but I think that ingroup bias and culture are the more important contributors.
Here is the link to Child Prodigies | Page 3 | The Forteana Forums
As did @Coal, I have observed that people blame poor outcomes on external factors, but almost always attribute success to their own efforts.
“Denial of any genetic component in human variation, including between groups, is not only poor science, it is likely to be injurious both to unique individuals and to the complex structure of societies.” (Rushton & Jensen, (2005) p 285)
Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf (udel.edu) (especially Table 3; see also p 283)
Studies of IQs of transracial adoptees adopted by Whites: partially... | Download Table (researchgate.net)
Let the roasting begin!
“(IQ tests) are culturally, linguistically and economically biased against minoritized students, in particular Black, first and foremost, and then Hispanic,” says Ford. “If these tests were not biased, we wouldn’t have different IQ scores along racial and ethnic lines — but we do. It’s an indication that there is something wrong with these tests, not with us.”
(IQ is not my field. My comments below are about the US.)
I find a disturbing lack of logic in the above quotation. It gives no further information, but rather assumes that if a black or Hispanic person scores low, than it is because of a problem with the test, and is not an accurate measurement of the person. WTF. If this test is biased in favor of whites, then I deduce that Asians are much like whites, because they score similarly in the US. If one rejects the scientific conclusions, then let the rejection be based on facts and not ideology.
Different IQ tests exist, and they are designed to measure in different ways. The visual and conceptual aspects require almost no written, verbal ability. This greatly reduces the possibility of any conjectured cultural bias.
If some subcultures in the US do not have access to or value prenatal care (nutrition, health care, eliminating alcohol and recreational drugs during pregnancy), do not spend time with their children (reading, explaining, engaging, exposing to different real-life situations), and punish members for “acting white,” then this is likely to be reflected in their children’s IQ scores. As well as life successes. I was raised in extreme urban poverty and went to school until college with many minorities: black, Latin, Asian. I was in a unique opportunity to observe these socially uncomfortable facts over decades and hundreds of individuals.
A dominant culture exists in the US. It is coincidentally white; but it is defined to some extent as middle-class and literate. It requires at least normal IQ. Any person of any cultural, ethnic, racial, or religious background is excluded not only by bias from others, but also more importantly by bias from their own background and from their own internalized sense of self. Bias from outgroup others is real, but I think that ingroup bias and culture are the more important contributors.
Here is the link to Child Prodigies | Page 3 | The Forteana Forums
As did @Coal, I have observed that people blame poor outcomes on external factors, but almost always attribute success to their own efforts.
“Denial of any genetic component in human variation, including between groups, is not only poor science, it is likely to be injurious both to unique individuals and to the complex structure of societies.” (Rushton & Jensen, (2005) p 285)
Rushton-Jensen30years.pdf (udel.edu) (especially Table 3; see also p 283)
Studies of IQs of transracial adoptees adopted by Whites: partially... | Download Table (researchgate.net)
Let the roasting begin!
Last edited:
Coal
Account Retired
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Messages
- 9,852
There's at least three a priori assumptions in that statement. (1) that no racial differences in IQ exist (2) that any such differences might be socio economic, as there is a reasonable link between nutrition as a child and eventual IQ, it's a brain development thing and (3) that the tests contain language based questions in the language of the participants...or not.
I referred to Warne's book in my post because it comprehensively examines all such criticisms with a lot of sound references and several discussions and data sets that most people would simply shout over irl.
I heartily recommend the interested buy a copy.
brownmane
off kilter
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2019
- Messages
- 4,691
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
Crap I lost my attempt at reply. Stupid phone and me not knowing how to put multiple quotes in. So I have to start over
.
@Endlessly Amazed, I really have to read my links closer lol. I was making a reply to @Coal's comment regarding the statistic of the percentage of population in the average of IQ (85-115) and stating that a person with 84 is borderline untrainable.
These are descriptions of ranges of IQ and not a description of a person. To use only these numbers to try to assess a person's ability to function successfully in society is imo not a useful tool.
I have no knowledge of IQ testing and my only experience was in public school when we were given testing of which we were never given our results. I assume they were IQ tests. These were written and no verbal. If you didn't understand the written instructions, you couldn't answer anything of the test. And they were timed, so you couldn't complete the test either.
Would I have scored better on the questions that I couldn't complete? I don't know. Were the questions random in that they tested verbal vs visual vs comprehension, or whatever the questions were testing in no particular grouping? I don't know. But I know that the questions were grouped with same or similar tasks until you moved onto another component. I am not good with spatial recognition, so that is basically where I stopped in the testing. Because I couldn't answer. So were these really a good form of testing? I don't think so.
Hihohiho of to work.
.@Endlessly Amazed, I really have to read my links closer lol. I was making a reply to @Coal's comment regarding the statistic of the percentage of population in the average of IQ (85-115) and stating that a person with 84 is borderline untrainable.
These are descriptions of ranges of IQ and not a description of a person. To use only these numbers to try to assess a person's ability to function successfully in society is imo not a useful tool.
I have no knowledge of IQ testing and my only experience was in public school when we were given testing of which we were never given our results. I assume they were IQ tests. These were written and no verbal. If you didn't understand the written instructions, you couldn't answer anything of the test. And they were timed, so you couldn't complete the test either.
Would I have scored better on the questions that I couldn't complete? I don't know. Were the questions random in that they tested verbal vs visual vs comprehension, or whatever the questions were testing in no particular grouping? I don't know. But I know that the questions were grouped with same or similar tasks until you moved onto another component. I am not good with spatial recognition, so that is basically where I stopped in the testing. Because I couldn't answer. So were these really a good form of testing? I don't think so.
I am having a really difficult time with this post as I keep losing portions of it and keep hitting a random button. I will have to continue later.
Hihohiho of to work.
Last edited:
Endlessly Amazed
Endlessly, you know, amazed
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2020
- Messages
- 1,379
- Location
- Arizona, USA
Crap I lost my attempt at reply. Stupid phone and me not knowing how to put multiple quotes in. So I have to start over
@Endlessly Amazed, I really have to read my links closer lol. I was making a reply to @Coal's comment regarding the statistic of the percentage of population in the average of IQ (85-115) and stating that a person with 84 is borderline untrainable.
These are descriptions of ranges of IQ and not a description of a person. To use only these numbers to try to assess a person's ability to function successfully in society is imo not a useful tool.
I have no knowledge of IQ testing and my only experience was in public school when we were given testing of which we were never given our results. I assume they were IQ tests. These were written and no verbal. If you didn't understand the written instructions, you couldn't answer anything of the test. And they were timed, so you couldn't complete the test either.
Would I have scored better on the questions that I couldn't complete? I don't know. Were the questions random in that they tested verbal vs visual vs comprehension, or whatever the questions were testing in no particular grouping? I don't know. But I know that the questions were grouped with same or similar tasks until you moved onto another component. I am not good with spatial recognition, so that is basically where I stopped in the testing. Because I couldn't answer. So were these really a good form of testing? I don't think so.
I am having a really difficult time with this post as I keep losing portions of it and keep hitting a random button. I will have to continue later.
Hihohiho of to work.
@brownmane - Hiho no problemo. Thanks for the fuller explanation.
From what you described, the tests sound like aptitude or IQ. I wonder why you and the other children were not given the results. I was raised in Indiana, USA, which historically does not fund education well. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, my classmates and I were tested for IQ I think 3 times before I was 14; and then one time in secondary school (ages 14-18). We were given very explicit instructions, verbally, by the RC nun giving the test, and then had the written instructions as well. If we had questions, we could ask the nun during the test. We were all told in much detail what our results were for each test, the good and the bad, and how to make the most of our abilities.
I think that IQ tests are useful, but certainly incomplete in assessing how well a person will function.
The tests when I was younger were all variations grouped by theme: reasoning grouped together, then a break, and then logic, break, math, break, 3-d visualization, etc. I think but don't recall clearly, that the test I took as a teenager was similar.
I tend to get engaged when I read anything which is presented as fact, but is actually ideology and social-engineering. In my country, this shift really was noticable about 10-15 years after President LB Johnson's (1960's) war on poverty and equality of educational opportunity. By the mid-1990's, in my opinion, it was extreme in US universities, and was the reason I left academia. All students were above average, etc.
I am in awe of you posting from a phone!
Last edited:
brownmane
off kilter
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2019
- Messages
- 4,691
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
I did not take that particular quote as just referring to a racialized person, but groups. As I understood it, the testing results indicate that racialized or marginalized groups scored, on average, lower and that the demarcation points based on ethnic and/or race were fairly clear. This I have also heard from other sources (but years ago, so I can't list).
Think of circles in a graph that indicates "white" subjects and the range of results, and then "black" subjects range of results circled on the same graph. I would see that the circles overlap, but that maybe the black group's range starts at a lower number and ends at a lower number than the white group's. This is how I understood that comment. To me, if that is the case, then there is a bias somewhere. Race does not equate to level of intelligence.
Endlessly Amazed
Endlessly, you know, amazed
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2020
- Messages
- 1,379
- Location
- Arizona, USA
"Race does not equate to level of intelligence." Sufficient evidence supporting or refuting this statement has not been published - at least as far as I am aware, but that is not very far as this is not my field. For any individual, this is true; for groups, this is not so clear. The means of different groups' IQ scores are different. All over the world. Perhaps thousands of studies, in different countries, in different languages, totaling millions of individuals. If one includes the military entrance testing (ASVAB in the US), then hundreds of millions across the world. Different contributing factors have been identified: genetic, cultural, socio-economic status, nutrition and environment, etc. After controlling for all non-genetic factors, a variance still existed which correlates to genetics.
I have probably no more than about 200-300 hours reading about this. Some for my doctoral studies, some just personal interest.
All groups' IQ dispersion around the mean show diminishingly small numbers at the left (lower) and right (upper) edges of the curve. This means that, theoretically at least, some individuals from any group can be found at the extremes. Enough individuals exist at the mean (average), the left of the mean (stupid zone), and right of the mean (smart zone) to make it hazardous to assign probable IQ to any individual based on group membership. Personally, I was taught almost everything about money and investment, which made me successful, from American blacks.
I have often wondered why people find it unacceptable that some groups are inherently less intelligent than others (Blacks, Africans), but that it is acceptable for some other groups to be inherently more intelligent (Jews, Asians). WTF. Aggregated results have meaning. We can't all be above average like in Lake Woebegone - an American radio show in the 1980's.
uair01
Antediluvian
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2005
- Messages
- 5,490
- Location
- The Netherlands
And AFAIK the situation is more complicated by differences in variance around a similar mean. It seems, for example, that men and women have similar mean IQ, but men have a larger variance. So there are more male geniuses but also more male crazies. And because the geniuses are more visible, there is the wrong impression of higher male IQ.
Last edited by a moderator:
Mungoman
Mostly harmless...
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2010
- Messages
- 3,267
- Location
- In the Bush (Peak Hill, NSW)
There will always be more intelligent and less intelligent, more wise and less wise people. What is the point to rearranging patterns, and choosing sequential situations?
It defines people and provides statistics for studies - that is all.
It defines people and provides statistics for studies - that is all.
Endlessly Amazed
Endlessly, you know, amazed
- Joined
- Aug 6, 2020
- Messages
- 1,379
- Location
- Arizona, USA
I have a different view of it. If someone shows early ability, that ability should be nurtured and supported. If someone shows an intellectual weakness or lack of ability, that should be identified and remediated. That is one of the functions of IQ testing, or ability testing, or aptitude testing.
Aggregate data supports governments, school districts, etc., to make better decisions and better uses of public funds. Not just or not only theoretically.
Victory
Justified & Ancient
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2017
- Messages
- 2,268
- Location
- London
As a Jew I guess because our results are not because of "natural intelligence".
Any results would be because of the intense study from a young age of Talmud by Torah observant Jews.
It sharpens the mind encouraging imagination, logic, considering problems from various angles and also encourages the pursuit of memorising information.
For less observant Jews, academic education is usually highly encouraged by family and community.
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2002
- Messages
- 36,492
- Location
- East of Suez
One strand is that what you have very broadly named 'groups' are rather nebulous concepts that often conflate geography, genetics, caste and creed, and change both over time and according to the locality of utterance.
I always like to compare this to how the categories of hues, shades and colours vary from language to language. My light and dark blue may be your distinct голубой and синий. Some see distinction by type, others by degree—and the importance of the differences vary wildly by situation.
If you can hack through all that—and it's denser than most of us realise—I don't think most people find any differences that may lie beneath that heap 'unacceptable', they simply question the wisdom of highlighting them out of the suspicion that such disparities could be exploited to spread hate-fuelled ideologies.
It's not what you find but what you do with it.
Especially in modern multiracial democracies that are struggling to promote cohesion; where the chronic failings of government and education mean the masses can't distinguish diamonds from dunghills; where the gross generalisations of 'science' shorn of caveat and nuance that trickle down through a bowdlerising mass-media lead to actual bloodshed on the streets.
Not unacceptable, just pretty unhelpful.
If common sense doesn't show us, history can step up to the job: science most avowedly does not operate in a vacuum. Who is studying what, how, with whose funding and for what purpose are critical questions—any kind of sterilised neutral enquiry is vanishingly rare.
Last edited:
Mungoman
Mostly harmless...
- Joined
- Feb 25, 2010
- Messages
- 3,267
- Location
- In the Bush (Peak Hill, NSW)
Isn't that what Parents and Teachers do?
I sat for an Aptitude and IQ test as a15 year old and was informed afterwards - to my Fathers horror - that I would be best suited for factory work.
I have had many occupations during my 70 years on this Planet - from factory work building tractors, Riding trackwork for racing stables, working in an abbatoir, through to being a Librarian for 35 years, and studying Paleoanthropology and Archaeology purely as an interest through New England University.
I also studied and gained Diplomas in Land Management, Conservation, Agricultural studies and Horticulture.
'Their' interpretation of my results from this aptitude and IQ testing were misguided - and for some, misleading.
brownmane
off kilter
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2019
- Messages
- 4,691
- Location
- Ontario, Canada
Exactly. For some reason teachers and those who use them on children seem to blindly follow the numbers without seeing the child for what their interests and actual abilities are. I know it all has to do with funding and not children's best interests.
The child is then pigeonholed into what the numbers state and often is not exposed to anything different than, for example, factory work.
My one nephew at the age of 13 was told (he and his parents underwent a study, and so had various testing) that he wouldn't go beyond high school. WTF? He's looking a becoming a diesel mechanic (college education) when he's done high school.
People do find out what they are good at by exposure to different experiences.
I heard part of a radio interview on which a caller was expressing her dismay that hands on courses eg. woodworking, welding were being eliminated from school curriculum. Kids should have the opportunity to experience new things. Some are good at academics, and others at mechanical, manual studies, and others in creative artistic venues.