51–60 of 172 posts
Great quote from page 8 of the actual report: "In particular, there is clear evidence that school affects intelligence."
This article is very hard to digest because of the writers switching of "intelligence" and "IQ". Intelligence =/= IQ. IQ is a score on a test, and intelligence is a vague set of mental skills and processes to solve problems of varying degrees and subjects. To say that they are equal is like saying that athleticism is equal to the number of pounds you can bench. If the writer is talking about IQ, then these investigat…
Without a consistent, objective definition, "intelligence" makes no sense. If you would like to dissociate IQ and intelligence, go ahead, but IQ is a metric that has correlations with many other factors (test performance, income, a whole slew of things really).
-IQ:Test Performance - Of course. IQ is a grade off of a test. It correlates with itself. If you mean tests such as the SAT or tests in a school, then yes, IQ does help somewhat with that, as it was designed to (the first IQ test, created by Alfred Binet, was designed to find students who would not do well in a regular school environment). However, do high test scores mean high intelligence? Not necessarily, as most test scores can be improved drastically with a class focusing only on the test, showing different tricks that the test maker's use. Same with IQ tests.
-IQ:Income - Income (generally) means higher education level, and modern education teaches the general forms of questions asked on tests, such as the IQ tests. Education trains the mind to think along the lines of what the IQ test uses to grade performance. Also, spoken another way, if IQ (which is "intelligence") correlate with income, then one can say that income correlates with IQ ("intelligence"). If this correlation is weak, then it is meaningless. If it is strong, then that is a very strong evidence for eliminating the lower classes to raise the "intelligence" level of a nation.
Most other factors follow along these lines. The problem with correlation is that it is not, in any way, a suggestion or a proof of causation. There can be infinitely many other factors that can be influencing the two.
I do agree that without a consistent, objective definition, one cannot possibly study intelligence. However, IQ is not a good definition of intelligence. At best, it tests "academic" intelligence, and at worst, it tests test-taking ability.
Taking from Wikipedia:
>"Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person's intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions, and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen, somewhat different, definitions." -APA report quoted in the article.
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Not sure if this is true, but I heard recently that the best predictor of IQ is actually the gene that controls determines the size of your mom's vagina, because that is what mediates the risk of brain cell loss due to lack of oxygen at birth. Kind of a funny, but also quite telling about the state of genetics.
That is funny, but babies "breathe" through the umbilical up to several minutes after birth, so I'm sure it has nothing to do with "brain cell loss" or oxygen.
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A mental test, perhaps, to determine if something truly is "obvious": if the fact is reversed, and you can come up with a reasonable sounding explanation for the reverse, then the original fact is not obvious. In other words, only consider something obvious if you could not explain the opposite.
A mental test, perhaps, to determine if something truly is "obvious": if the fact is reversed, and you can come up with a reasonable sounding explanation for the reverse, then the original fact is not obvious. This experiment has been tried, by a scientist who presented the exact opposite of various findings to undergraduates, who were readily able to invent rationales for the counterfactual statements, as reported i…
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Without a consistent, objective definition, "intelligence" makes no sense. If you would like to dissociate IQ and intelligence, go ahead, but IQ is a metric that has correlations with many other factors (test performance, income, a whole slew of things really).
Correlations mean almost nothing. Just going off your list: -IQ:Test Performance - Of course. IQ is a grade off of a test. It correlates with itself. If you mean tests such as the SAT or tests in a school, then yes, IQ does help somewhat with that, as it was designed to (the first IQ test, created by Alfred Binet, was designed to find students who would not do well in a regular school environment). However, do high t…
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Both scientific and athletic achievements have an alternative explanation: culture. If there was a good sample of adopted children from a group with such achievements, one could examine these hypotheses in more detail.
That's an incredible statistic. If the cause is cultural then it's a wonder there isn't a plethora of books advising on how to raise children the Ashkenazi way. Are there any such books?
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That is funny, but babies "breathe" through the umbilical up to several minutes after birth, so I'm sure it has nothing to do with "brain cell loss" or oxygen.
That's assuming the birth goes correctly though. If the umbilical cord is wrapped around your neck and you're coming out breech then that's another story. My understanding is that it has a large effect in a small number of cases.
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People always ask this incorrectly. The real question is "To what degree does genetics determine the difference of average IQs between groups." The link between genetics and IQ is near 100% in an absolute sense, as tapeworms and dogs generally will score a 0 on any test. Even the worst possible environment...say, repeated concussions to the head via a hammer, will still result in a human scoring far above any non-hum…
Even the worst possible environment...say, repeated concussions to the head via a hammer, will still result in a human scoring far above any non-human. I'm pretty sure you're wrong. I think research suggests that dolphins, parrots, bonobos and some other animals have tested higher than humans.
There will of course be exceptions, but a brain damaged but somewhat functioning human will always score better than a non-human at human-designed intelligence tests.
The argument isn't that a dolphin or bonobo isn't potentially smarter than a brain damaged human, but that by designing our tests for human use we are explicitly excluding non humans.
Statements like “when babies from poor families are adopted into wealthy families, their IQ goes up” are almost devoid of information because the IQ test itself favors the type of “intelligence” valued by the educated, wealthy class.