3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people missed work

So, the grandparent post is hopefully not betraying my actual thoughts on the matter too much, but I am indeed in the anti-IQ crowd. My thoughts on the matter:

- IQ scores are not a standard measure. There are several different internationally recognized IQ tests, but people who talk about their IQ scores tend to pick the one they do best on and declare that "their IQ."

- IQ scores measure performance on standardized tests. However, they are frequently misinterpreted as a measure of intelligence in general.

- As a result, certain people are motivated to practice for an IQ test, which seems counterproductive.

- Depending on the particular IQ test in question, one's performance on an IQ test stems from their present state of mind, and this is unavoidable. IQ tests, by design, are not concerned with this detail (although, historically, they did account for some crude concept of "metal age" compared to physical age. Which is itself problematic: what is this supposed to measure, again?).

- It is worth noting that IQ scores were originally propped up by the eugenics movement. For example, the most widely used test in the United States was based on the work of Lewis Terman, who at some point wrote "high-grade or border-line deficiency... is very, very common among Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest and also among negroes. Their dullness seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from which they come." Based on that information, there is a likely answer for the question I asked a moment ago.

- Obvious conjecture, but, IQ scores are not really useful in today's society? I have a few years still to go, but so far in my life, I have not once seen an IQ score trumpeted somewhere and thought "that is a useful measure for the discussion at hand." Not in a resume. Not in a debate. Not in a biography. Not in an advertisement. Not in a legal defence.

- So what motivation could we have? People in general gravitate toward answers that make it easier to distinguish the Self from the Other. For example, it took millennia for us to collectively agree the Earth orbits around the Sun. And long before IQ was an idea, René Descartes was a pioneer in trying to explain consciousness through science. To make this work, he was desperate to prove that humans are unique in having free will and intelligence. That animals are machines, over which we have free reign; that humans are special. Because we must be special. So, one of his ideas was that humans have an animal spirit, but we have the ability to control it. That we must control it. But, it is important to note, not all humans do.

- Tests, in general, are a problematic measure of intelligence. A better measure of intelligence will always be performance in regular day to day activity, analyzed by someone with no bias and an understanding of the context. Obviously this can't be standardized, which is unfortunate, but it does not follow that the next-best thing is actually a meaningful measure. Sometimes we humans must simply accept our limitations.

Hey, thanks for the detailed response, your last point is a very insightful one (not to me, though). What I have a problem with, is that generally the anti-IQ crowd (not you, since you do understand the nuances) tend to take the stand that IQ tests are imperfect or even wrong hence they also extend that to concluding that intelligence itself as a concept is flawed, basically the blank slate concept.

Now the last point that you mentioned is a very important. Most average people who make decisions (eg employers) are average themselves so that they fall back on what they know best ( sometime it's IQ tests, in the software world it's leetcode) and what they know best is not necessarily the best. So why blame the normies? (And I'm not denying that a lot of harm comes off it.) What is the alternative for a normie? As a general concept similar methods of gauging people (by normies) on other aspects (like trust) is also flawed, but that is the best they can manage.

All that complaints look similar to the idea that veganism is bad because vegans are annoying or that quantum mechanics is nonsense because some people believe in quantum healing.

I can name one field that justifies all IQ research that was and will be done: education. It has immense value there and can help guide policy on the issues of education and all related concerns such as discrimination.

Take your upvote.

Not least of which, the Rosetta Stone has three: Hieroglyphics, Demotic, and Greek.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone