/edu/ - Education

It's bullshit. Think about how complex the human brain is, how some people are able to do shit like multiply huge numbers instantly, have photographic memory, then you have stuff like synesthesia, hallucinations, etc. Basically, it is uncontroversial that the brain is both very very complex and still largely a mystery to us.

Now, do you think it is reasonable to think that such a complexity can be represented by a single number? It's absurd. It's akin to saying we can come up with a numerical, hierarchical classification of planets with Earth scoring a 100, and then others scoring below or above that depending on various qualities. But what would it mean if Earth is 100 and Mars is 35, and Mercury is 10? Absolutely nothing, because lots of information is lost. Is it atmosphere, soil quality, presence of water, of organic material…? We obviously can't test every single aspect of a planet, because it is too much to do and we are unable to do it. IQ was designed in the same way, European (white) males are taken to be the standard against which others are tested. Europeans designed the test, and Europeans are best at taking it.

But we don't even have to go that far. We can use the IQ-ist framework to ask how can someone of presumably average (or even above-average) intelligence invent a test that can test someone who is far more intelligent than the test maker? In other words, the intelligence test still has to be devised by a human, and the human who devises it knows all the answers to the questions. Therefore, the person who invented the test cannot ask questions that they themselves can't solve, while someone of a superior intelligence may be able to.

>>1815
Yes, look at your own map, most blue countries/regions are descended from Europe: Canada, US, Argentina, Europe, Russia, Australia. China and Japan are outliers, if anything it proves that one can train for the test, and that is what they do, they literally train how to take these standardised tests. Both China and Japan have cultures where academic success is respected and something that people strive for, so of course those countries will have higher test AVERAGES, because there are simply more of them who do well.

IQ is a bit meh. Of course, there are various aspects to what is considered intelligence; so even if you have good measures for the aspects, it's somewhat arbitrary how you weight them. Extremely bad results can tell you whether somebody is disabled. We know IQ tests aren't perfect, the weighting issue aside. There are programs for solving IQ tests, yet this doesn't give us a general simulation of human intelligence.

The way IQ talk is used in political discussion – as a cause, not as both cause and effect – is asinine. If you are malnourished and live in a polluted area, you get brain-damage from that, no matter how great your genetic potential is.

There is some correlation between very good IQ results and doing well in school. But it doesn't make sense to obsess over two people being ten or fifteen points apart. IQ test results are NOT stable over life, that's a big lie that I suspect people tell who know better and who want to score above the herd. You can definitely practice for these tests and improve by twenty to thirty points. I don't think you can get from 80 to 150 though.

>>1810
Your argument about test-making and solving assumes a symmetry that isn't there. I can create a vocabulary test against a dictionary without having perfect memory about what's in the dictionary myself. I can set a higher time-limit for myself as a test-maker than I allow for the test-taker and I can allow myself to use certain tools that I don't allow the test-takers to use. I can make very hard puzzles about shoving pieces around by going backwards from the solution, that doesn't mean I can solve puzzles of similar complexity myself. It's easier to multiply prime numbers than to be shown the result of that multiplication and having to find the prime numbers from that.

>>1810
>IQ was designed in the same way, European (white) males are taken to be the standard against which others are tested.
I’m not incredibly pro IQ or anything but this is such a bullshit argument. IQ was created by the school board to identify students with learning disabilities.

>>3036
>IQ was created by the school board to identify students with learning disabilities.
The original IQ test as created by Binet, yes, it was meant to identify children with learning disabilities. But then the Americans took it, and created the Stanford-Binet scale, among others. That is the IQ test we talk about and know today.

I'm not talking out of my ass, I got my info from pic related. It's a good book and you should read it.

>Your argument about test-making and solving assumes a symmetry that isn't there.
My point is that the test (actually, in the beginning there were two tests, for literate and illiterate people, it's actually a very interesting story, but I digress) was designed in a way that it presented people with problems and then timed them on how fast they're able to complete the tasks, if at all. Now, why would the test-creator assign tasks that he himself cannot solve?

The original IQ test asked things about days of the week, about American culture, asked them about radio, etc. basically, it tested white, middle-class intelligence. Poor whites also did poorly on the tests. The test didn't test "intelligence", but integration into American society, it asked questions that the test-makers knew the answer to.

And I ask again, how can someone ask a question they themselves can't answer and then judge someone on the validity of that answer?

>>3042
>how can someone ask a question they themselves can't answer and then judge someone on the validity of that answer?
That question was already answered ITT, you are just too dumb to get it :/