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.
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andrewducker) wrote2010-07-03 01:24 pm
no subject
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.