Today's graph

[andrewducker]

Can anyone tell me if these kinds of results are cross-cultural and cross-temporal?

Comments

[matgb]

I have seen other evidence and datasets that can lead to similar conclusions; high acheivers in some academic fields (especially sciences), low acheivers and the prison population, etc.

It's something that needs to be looked at, but very important it's looked at carefully, just because there might possibly be far fewer females with IQ above 140 doesn't mean they can't/don't exist (given I live with one, for example).

But it also might show a bias in what IQ actually measures, it's a particularly narrow form of intelligence that I've neve given much credence to.

[andrewducker]

I'm not sure it's that narrow. There's a 0.8 correlation between IQ and both GCSE and SAT scores. Plus fairly strong correlations with work effectiveness (in jobs requiring intelligence). It's not _everything_, obviously, but I get a little fed up with the "It's meaningless!" crowd.

[matgb]

Yes, but both GCSEs and SATs judge academic intelligence, and define "jobs requiring intelligence" without making a value judgement about what intelligence is.

Seriously, I score incredibly highly on most intelligence scores, including IQ papers, but I'm useless at a lot of things others are very good at.

As an example, I'm "smarter" than my car mechanic, but he can open up the bonnet, fix the car quickly, and put it back together again.

I've helped rebuild an entire engine and it still makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Same applies to other non "intelligence" based skills; why is a very good farmer less intelligent because (s)he understands when to plant, when to fertilise, when to harvest, how to judge the weather, etc?

[andrewducker]

They aren't less intelligent for knowing things - they may well be less intelligent if they don't understand those things, and simply learned them off by rote.

When it comes to not understanding certain things (like car engines) in my experience that pretty much always comes down to bad teaching. I've yet to find anything I can't understand given a decent teacher/reference. Car mechanics simply spend a lot of time delving into this stuff, and are fascinated by it, so of course they understand it better.

[random-redhead.livejournal.com]

Anyone can learn anything with the right teaching. You have the confidence and self assurance to seek out the right teaching, not be put off by not gaining from the teaching style you are first offered.

Is solving mathematical equations learned by rote? A complex system of knowing what to apply where, which of ~16 thingies to use. Because it is on a blackboard or computer screen it is awarded more value than something in a field.

Computers are just a matter of delving into that stuff, being facscinated by it (from an early age) so of course you understand them better.

[andrewducker]

I'm not convinced that anyone can learn anything. There are some bits of maths that require thinking in ways that I can't see me being able to master. I'm not going to be an organic chemist because there are far too many individual things to memorise, rather than abstract concepts to understand (which I'm much better at). I do agree that most people can learn the majority of things that we encounter - if it weren't for the awful teaching a lot of us get.

Solving mathematical equations isn't rote if they're more than the simple puzzles you get in school. You have a problem, and a bunch of different tools to attack it with - the skill is in knowing which ones to use to attack which bits of it with, and in understanding how it all goes together. I know that I do better at work than many of my colleagues because I can hold bigger abstract structures in my head and see how their interlock and interact with each other.

IQ seems to be based on a mixture of how much stuff you can hold in your head, how well you can spot patterns, how much you can manipulate at once, and how fast you can do all of the above. Intelligence, to me, is all about the pattern matching and extrapolation - recognising that you've seen something before, coming up with ideas about why you're seeing the same thing again, and finding methods of dealing/manipulating it.

[ms-cataclysm.livejournal.com]

I did some reading about this when I had recruitment responsibilities which I dimly remember and will try to summarise.

Almost any form of IQ measurement is problematic. The "pioneer" who invented the term IQ was later exposed as faking his results.So,the first issue is whether there is actually a meaningful result in the first place.

It's generally agreed that IQ tests are culture specific and culture dependent, although some modern tests are supposed to be better than the earlier ones. Results are generally considered to be more reliable in the 90-120 range -if someone is at either end of the scale, it is much harder to assess them .

The 11 plus exams have changed over the last 80 years but the general trend is that girls do relatively better each year while boys do relatively worse.

Opinion is divided as to whether this is the result of social improvements for girls or worse social conditions for boys or something else entirely .

I'd expect a more recent Scottish result to be flatter with markedly fewer sub 90 boys , fewer sub 90 girls and more over 115 girls.

[parthenia14.livejournal.com]

1932? Really?

Probably doesn't apply today, at least not to that extreme.

Oh wait wait wait. It's how they plotted the graph. Looks a bit neat.

[andrewducker]

That's what I'd like to know. I have one massive study, I'd like to know if the figures have changed since then, or if this is a constant. I'm looking for another study that's more recent, or cross-cultural.

[innerbrat]

IQ is a load of bollocks.

I mean, that's my own personal opinion, but.

Sorry, just read your above comments. I don't change my opinion, but I wouldn't have commented at all if I had read the comments first. It was rash of me.

[andrewducker]

I'm curious as to why you think it's a load of bollocks though. Anything with a 0.8 correlation that seems to make up 58% of maths results at GCSE, 48% of English results and 18% of Art results - there's clearly _something_ going on there. It may well be presented badly a lot of the time, but I'd find it very hard to argue that it was just randomness.

[innerbrat]

I don't know where those numbers themselves come from, so I can't comment themselves.

I do know that IQ tests were originaly designed to highlight stage of educational development in order to improve teaching, which works a priori on IQ not being innate.

I do know that Cyril Burt's work on twin studies that seemed to show an innate IQ became highly controversial as it came to light the data may have been faslified.

I do know that IQ tests were developed in directions intended to 'prove' certain a priori assumptions about innate 'intelligence' being pooled in certain classes and races.

I am extremely suspicious of the idea that the diversity of human mental processes can be delineated to a singular one dimensional scale, as this directly conflicts with my experience with people. Nevertheless, this is what an 'Intelligence Quotient' claims to be able to do.

Tied into this, I have never seen 'intelligence' succinctly defined in any way that doesn't boil down to 'does well on IQ tests'.

I do know that my own IQ as tested over some years as a child varied across 30 points, which elsewhere in the scale is something like the difference between an average person and a classifiable moron, or in the other direction, a near-genius.

I also know that a number of studies on child development and learning seem to imply that the narrative of a single innate intelligence is in itself harmful to development; a child who is told they are 'clever' or have a high IQ, often proceeds to do perform less well than a comparable child who is congratulated on trying hard. I find this concurs with my own experience and anecdotal evidence from others.

It's not that it's just randomness - obviously if you have a particular ability, and the right educational background to do the kinds of English, mathematical and spatial problems that are found in IQ tests, you may benefit from the same educational processes that push you to perform well at GCSE.

Consider - I had to 'pass' an IQ test when I was twelve in order to go to Grammar school. Those of us who went to the Grammar School did better at GCSEs than those who 'failed' and went to the Comprehensive. Can you really argue that is wholey because of our innate intelligence?

[andrewducker]

To answer in no particular order (especially as you didn't number them :-> )
I don't believe the ideology behind something's development affects how close it is to the truth.

I don't believe that the effects of knowing it about it affect how close it is to the truth.

I don't believe that the misuse of an idea in a socially detrimental manner affects how close it is to the truth.

I do agree that the idea of "intelligence" is one that is frequently incredibly vaguely defined - and that "IQ" captures only one facet of this, which is easily tested in a short period, and is thus obviously going to miss out on wider issues.

I do believe that IQ is an interesting measure, which is measuring something - or rather, a group of somethings (memory, spatial reasoning, pattern matching, simple language use). And that there is _on average_ a relationship between these things and the general ability to understand things and reason about them. But also that it is going to vary from person to person.

My own IQ has been tested a few times and come out between 134 and 138 each time. I have no idea how normal that is.

I do know that it varies with education - and that the heritability increases as education levels do, so that iq is hardly heritable at all amongst those with little education, but once you provide decent levels of education the genetics seem to have more of an effect.

You seem to be attacking the idea that IQ is everything, which isn't one I'm promoting at all. I'm not an idiot, and I have done a fair chunk of reading into this (intelligence, minds, brains, etc. being one of the things that fascinate me). I totally agree that there are problems with some of the views of intelligence and IQ, and the uses of some of the data. I just don't think that that makes it anywhere near rubbish.

[jarkman.livejournal.com]

My impression was that the idea that men had a slightly wider variance of IQ than women was moderately mainstream these days. I can't quote you anything definitive, but wikipedia has some pointers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_intelligence