IQ and intelligence

[The Return]

Intelligent Quotient (IQ) testing is a gauge of mental capacity and an important method of testing mental retardation by professionals in today's society.

The following ranges, based on Standard Scores of intelligence tests, reflect the categories of the American Association of Mental Retardation, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV-TR, and the International Classification of Diseases-10:

Profound mental retardation Below 20
Severe mental retardation 20–34
Moderate mental retardation 35–49
Mild mental retardation 50–69
Borderline intellectual functioning 70–79

As you can gather from the quote above, IQ testing is accepted by all major medical associations and organizations as a gauge of one's intelligence and intellectual functioning. The lower one scores on an IQ test, the closer one is to mental retardation, and vice-versa.

The above is fact and cannot be argued. No one with an ounce of common sense would suggest that reality was anything to the contrary. There have certainly been historical cases of misuse and abuse of Intelligence Quotient in the past, in order to dehumanize ethnic groups particularly in a time of hardship or war, or ignorance; but by modern standards this is no longer the case. Citizens living in the same nation and speaking the same language are fairly tested and gauged side-by-side. Is there anyone dumb enough to disagree with this?

[Quageschi]

People with "high IQ's" tend to denounce the IQ test as a true gauge of intelligence.

[harry_hardcore_hoedown]

This feels like some kind of crazy troll.

[KikoSanchez]

There is no true test of intelligence when you can teach people to score 10-20 points higher on it in just a few weeks. It's not like the person is actually getting that much smarter.

[T-zone]

IQ is a test for mental retardation. The reason this works is because if you actually do score 69 or below on an IQ test, it means you have trouble performing mental aerobics that most people do all the time.

Now, just like any broad test, it's not perfect. There are some people who score low and aren't mentally retarded. BIG DEAL. Statistical outliers are EVERYWHERE. Stop using a freak occurrence as your only argument against the test.

However, a high score on an IQ test doesn't really mean anything. I know people with high IQ scores who are idiots. Maybe they are really good at imagining the way knots are tied inside their heads, but they are idiots, seriously.

I don't think IQ is a good way of measuring "intelligence", because you can't really measure something as arbitrary as "intelligence", but it's a good way of telling whether or not someone is mentally retarded.

[i poop in your cereal]

One of the most widely renowned physicists, Richard Feynman, painter and author; An undeniable genius, had an IQ of 124.

Make of that what you will.

[DerDrache]

I've written extensively about IQ, so I don't think I'll be contributing too much to this thread.

I will point out a few things, however:

1) You should be aware that IQ scores are based on the population norm. The average score is arbitrarily set as "100", and then you tend to have relatively even distributions above and below it. To illustrate, if the majority was mentally handicapped (ie. by our current standards), then an "average" score (100) would indicate that you were mentally retarded. My point being: Nothing in an IQ score "calculates" whether someone is truly mentally handicapped, and to generalize, it does not offer any concrete indicator of someone's intelligence. Rather, an IQ of 70 was set as the legal and medical criterion for mental retardation, based on the norm, and based on how mentally handicapped people tended to perform on these tests. A score of 70 tends to be a good indicator of whether or not someone is retarded, but the score itself has no innate correlation with someone's cognitive ability.

2) IQ is not a static, determined number. This seems to be the most common misconception of laymen who discuss IQ, and ANY scientist will tell you that IQ is dynamic and can be influenced by a number of factors.

3) Living in the same nation and speaking the same language does not eliminate cultural bias in IQ testing. Within this nation, lifestyles and cultures can be completely incomparable, and although pidgin forms of English can be recognized as English, that does not mean that its speakers know the same level of English as those who speak "standard English".

Now, if you don't understand the implications of all of this information in regard to your original post...you should not be discussing IQ or intelligence at all.

[Sentinel]

There are several examples of folks with outrageously high IQs (150+) who amount to nothing in life, often taking menial jobs and having severe difficulty communicating with other people. "Intelligence" is itself vague. An IQ test is more a measure of one's ability to follow directions. True, it involves thinking, but, as other posters have pointed out, you can be "coached" to a higher IQ score in a week or two. Is a violin virtuoso "intelligent" in the same way that a master architect is? Or a great sculptor? Or a mathematician? Clearly not.

Mental retardation is the failure of a brain to function at a level which facilitates survival and communication with other humans. Thus, pegging it to a population average makes sense. In a world of Einsteins, you and I could be termed "mentally retarded." However, there is an argument to be made for a "floor value" of sorts; namely, mental retardation is when one does not have the mental capacity to take care of himself. I am on the fence between these viewpoints.

[CosmicZombie]

IQ test's don't work

[Zay]

Too many things affect IQ for it to be relevant to anything.

Iodized salt levels affect IQ:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/op...stof.html?_r=2

The IQ scores of most nations have been rising over the century. Humans don't evolve that fast, thus destroying the notion that IQ isn't heavily reliant on environment.
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/flynneffect.shtml

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...books_gladwell

also, stress makes you dumber:
http://health.usnews.com/articles/he...-thinking.html

I could go on and on.