The Latest On Intelligence

This is how it works in practice (at least for psychologists and sociologists):

1. You have some definition based on some theory or hypothesis or something. You have to argue why your definition is meaningful and relevant.

2. You try to operationalize (i.e. turn it from a fuzzy concept into something measurable) that definition as best you can while always keeping an eye out for and discussing – at length – any and all limitations you can think of (of which there will always be many).

3. You use your operationalization to create measures.

4. You collect data with your measures, analyze and interpret it.

So there really isn’t much of a need to explicitly differentiate between intelligence and IQ in scientific writing. You might want to for the sake of clarity, but that difference is always implicit.

It’s always clear (at least to other psychologists or sociologists) that when the author is writing about empirical results with regards to intelligence, she means intelligence as previously defined by her, with her operationalization and determined by her measures and analytical techniques.

When I write about my little presence (= the sense of being somewhere, even if you are not actually there, e.g. when you are in a virtual environment) questionnaire I do not write “Presence Index Score” when I write about my results (at least not every time) – I will mostly just write “presence”. That I’m actually talking about the “Presence Index Score” is implicit.

But you are right – that difference is not obvious to anyone else and can, at times, even be confusing for experts.

I'm saying that interpreting IQ as intelligence is extremely narrow-minded and misleading to the general public. There is absolutely no evidence that IQ is a decent measure of intelligence. My point is that intelligence is a much broader subject than simple IQ, and using IQ as a measure of intelligence will produce both false positives (by training for the exam) and false negatives (by not targeting other areas of intelligence than the specific area used in some types of academia).

I am not saying that there is a specific definition of intelligence that is good. I am saying that IQ as intelligence is not good. I wouldn't have a problem if people did use the terms "intelligence" and "IQ" so interchangeably. If the linked article talked only about IQ, then I would have no problem, but the article specifically talks about intelligence, and then uses studies on IQ to try to makes points about intelligence.

By the way, if you are looking for a better theory of intelligence (which is beside my point), then you should look at Cattell-Horn-Carroll Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattell-Horn-Carroll_theory) as an example.

While not completely the same or as limited in scope, I have come across this a number of times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Transracial_Adoption_...

It says a lot about it. For instance:

"She examined the IQs of Black and mixed- race children averaging 8.5 years of age who were adopted by middle-class families who were either Black or White. The children who were of half-European origin had virtually the same average IQ as the children who were of exclusively Black origin. Hence European genes were of no advantage to this group of 'Blacks.' Children (both Black and mixed-race) adopted by White families had IQs 13 points higher on average than those adopted by Black families, indicating that there were marked differences in the environments of Black and White families relevant to socialization for IQ; indeed, the differences were large enough to account for virtually the entire Black–White gap in IQ at the time of the study."

It says less about Jews in particular, which I'd guess is because of a lack of data. There's not a heck of a lot of Jews up for adoption, relative to blacks. But it does note:

"It is important to note that even at the highest estimates we have of Jewish IQ, Jewish accomplishment exceeds what would be predicted on the basis of IQ alone. Nisbett (2009) has argued that the numbers of Jewish Ivy Leaguers, professors at elite colleges, Supreme Court clerks, and Nobel Prize winners are greater than one would expect even if average Jewish IQ were 115. He has also noted that remarkable as the superior achievement of Jews is, the achievement difference between Jews and non-Jews is far less extreme than differences between groups in many other comparisons that cannot be explained on purely genetic grounds, such as the achievements of the Italians versus the English in the 15th century, of the English versus the Italians after the 18th century, of Arabs versus Europeans in the 8th century, of Europeans versus Arabs after the 14th century, and of New Englanders versus Southerners throughout American history."

While it is certainly plausible that there is some big genetic influence on intelligence due to ethnicity, like there is in athletics, we have yet to find convincing evidence of it.