Why IQ tests suck at testing
There is a very easy intelligence test:
The lower the trust in IQ tests, the more intelligent someone is ;)
This is a reply to @shayne post about IQ here: https://steemit.com/science/@shayne/hello-steemit-let-s-talk-about-iq Read it before you read this because it is a pure comment, just grown big.
So let this 120 IQ bearer tell you something:
IQ tests measure what scientists think are signs of certain traits that correlate with intelligence.
Or something like that. It is a 3-level guesswork.
For example in my 3 tests I scored 117, 119, 121 IQ.
I can tell you the reason why the last one was higher then the other two: Because it was the only one that included text reading.
If you have ever done an IQ test you know they are time limited - you are not supposed to end all "questions". Only 2 or 3 of 100 people finish a unit before time is up, if at all.
Yet in the reading example I finished. Then I read that text again to control my answers. One other person finished in that time.
Then I finished the 2nd run and looked around. Still only we 2. Then, at the end of time, 2 minutes later, a third one finished.
As you can see from this I would have been able to do nearly double the amount of the work requested here then 95% were able to (there were 60-70 people).
Does that make me more intelligent? Heck no, I am just a very fast reader because I did a lot of reading.
Same is true for the other parts of the test: You can train them. I never did, but I heard others talking about how they trained the dice thing etc.
That IQ tells nearly nothing how you will perform in a certain environment. By the way, I had to repeat school year 8 because of bad marks. A few years later I finished school in the upper 20% or even better.
But there are even more important things
One is that the IQ is not stable. It heavily depends on the condition e.g. of learning. A 10 year old with IQ 80 can end school with IQ 120 and vice versa. One parent die? That lowers end of school IQ by 13 points. Divorce is 8 points. (I just guess here, if I remember the study right it was even more.)
Even grown-ups can dramatically change their IQ by 20 points or even more, and I don’t mean by training the tests.
For those reason
difference of IQ scores between ethnic groups
does not mean a thing. Very likely that is based on the conditions.
It can even be a scale error. Remember what I wrote above? 3 level of indirectness?
There was a group that was horrible at one certain part of IQ tests. Some “primitive” people with nearly no contact to “civilization”.
The part was where you had to orient those open-plan cubes / detect which plan is which figure.
Guess what the reason was? They didn’t know cubes. They didn’t know right angles because everything they were used to – nature, in a desert – was rounded. They even lived in round huts if you wanted to say that ;)
But these people were outpacing every other group in a different part of the test at the same time. I can’t remember what it was, but you can put it like that: The test says more about the tester then the tested!
IQ tests are a basic metric based on western standards and ideals of intelligence. We don't really have anything better right now as far as I know. Just because your iq changes a few points between tests doesn't mean the entire system is bad
Good post. This is not so different from what I was trying to say and using my wife as an example when I replied to the other post. You went into more detail and I agree with you here. This was basically what I have concluded as well.
I resteemed the other, and this is complimentary to that so I am resteeming this one as well.
Thank you I guess ^^ I have never seen the $ jump up that fast (or, possible, that much). The power of 1000+ followers, I guess.
Yes, you are now above 1000 if you didn't catch it!
You are one of my best Devil's advocates. I can generally count on you to try to poke holes in the things I write. This doesn't bother me one bit. It keeps me on my toes, and likely helps me in the long run. So while we often don't agree (which I like) I did want you to know I appreciate you.
That said... just keep plugging along with articles like this and your own thoughts and you'll build up the followers. I started when payouts were huge in July and often got $0 for my posts.
You'll get there, just keep doing what you do.
I'd resteem a lot more posts, but then my blog would be pretty pointless. :) So I'm picky about what I resteem.
Yeah, I wish there was some sort of "secondary" resteem. Like a 2 part view - left side your writings, right side your resteems.
I fully give that back here! Sometimes I cannot follow you at all, but it's still fun. I may totally disagree with you, but I know (and see) that your opinion is not based on sand (or what
Haha, yes. I have a hacker mind at this. My eyes always get drawn to the small things that don't fit. I am a good bug hunter.
Yeah I did a post thanking people for 1000 followers when I hit it. :)
In the end IQ has little to do with success in life anyway, no good being super smart and pissing everyone else off. Thats where EIQ (or just EQ) comes in; Emotional Intelligence Quotient.
EQ measures how well a person recognises their own emotions and the emotions of others, and how appropriately they react. Someone with low EQ may not realise the person they are talking to us getting upset, and will carry on with inappropriate converstation. Or someone with low EQ might not recognise their own emotions properly and might have uncontrolled mood swings and behaviors.
As humans are social animals, and we often need to work together to be successful, having EQ is far more important than IQ. If you are the one in the group that everyone likes and values, can give direct but compassionate feedback and is always there when people need a confidante, you have a much higher chance of sharing on group success.
The good news is EQ is easier for most people to improve, than IQ.
I agree. It feels good to say we've measured things and know what they are but the test has always been flawed.
I have taken two of them in my life that were legitimate. (For Mensa).
The first time I was really stoned and scored a 138.
I thought oh man I can do better than that I was high.
Took it sober the second time.
Score was 138. Haven't taken one since.
lol
Maybe the drugs helped you in the 3D and number-row parts?
I'm not sure lol.
Always thought that story was funny.
Anyway, great article. Sending you a follow.
I find it funny when they make you complete series of numbers. You learn that kind of stuff in college mathematics. Fibonnaci is much easier to spot if you learned about it already :D.
Where did you do an IQ test in Germany btw?
When searching for Ausbildung they tested. One was at Umweltbundesamt (I think the reading one), one at a big Company in Halle. Third I can't remember.
ah, ok. Are they comparable to the test you do in the Musterung?
I don't think I did that. I was thrown out ;) I had to go to Dresden for a check one week before the big flooding there. t3??
Since I didn't want to the army, that was OK.
I declined military service as well but I did it pretty late and it was declined, so I had to go to the army for a month.
The Bundeswehr is actually much more chilled then you would expect. It has that feeling of a Jugendherberge school trip. I openly spoke about that I would only go to war if we fight against America, not with them. Two of the half-american soldiers were crying but most of the others (including officers) laughed in appreciation. Officially you are not allowed to make political statements as a soldier, but our military hates the American wars in which German soldiers die.
I got a really nice quote from my time there: If you are going to war, it does not matter that you are willing to sacrifice your own life, it matters that you are willing to sacrifice someone else's life.
It means that it is easy to be willing to throw your life away for a cause. It is much harder to kill someone for your convictions.
Thank you for saying this! More and more, I feel our compulsion to measure everything is a futile distraction from everything that actually matters in life. Especially subjective things measured objectively, like intelligence, yielding measurements that people use to inflate their egos or put themselves down.
I just wanted to add that it's also helpful to consider the origin of the test in the first place:
https://www.verywell.com/history-of-intelligence-testing-2795581
Specifically, it was invented to help the French government identify school children who needed special assistance. Binet himself (one of the inventors) actually believed that the should never be used as a single, permanent measure of intelligence - there's more detail in the article. Could be part of the reason it's not static and that we see it change in people all the time.
Good reply though, I agree with the points you bring up :)
I love your answer because I believe that the test can only be a reflection of the people creating the test. As a comparison, a long time ago, the scholars believed the Earth was flat and anyone who believed differently was an idiot. What if in a few more years we discover that the IQ tests we currently use are nonsense and that the people we believed to be less intelligent were actually more intelligent than the people making the tests and those with supposed higher intelligence?