But then when I ask for a definition of INTELLIGENCE you give me the definition for GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. I say that IQ doesn't cover all of what we recognize as intelligence.
- You disagree with me by saying that perception correlates well with test outcomes but in a later post agree that Dennison found that the correlation was weak for starters and only improved over time. Dennison only claims correlation to objective intelligence, which more or less agrees with my contention.
- You agree with me by limiting your definition of INTELLIGENCE to the smaller subset, GENERAL INTELLIGENCE.
My contention was only that GENERAL INTELLIGENCE or objective intelligence is not the same thing as intelligence generally. Huffcutt & Arthur would seem to agree with my point as does Dennison, as do you at some points in spite of your objection here.
I generally agree with what you're saying here.
People's notion of "intelligence" isn't as stringent (or frankly correct) as the scientific general intelligence. That's part of the reason that intelligence only correlates with general intelligence. Whilst it's important that people's heuristic understanding of intelligence correlates with general intelligence (because it helps showing general intelligence is grounded in reality), nobody would expect a heuristic understanding to be identical to a scientific term.
As for "IQ doesn't cover all of what we recognize as intelligence", "I.Q." not covering what is heuristically understood as intelligence does not mean we should make it match the heuristic understanding. As you've expressed multiple times, you think that "leadership skills" and "humor" should be included in a definition for intelligence, both of which don't cleanly test for I.Q. because of their learned components, hence why the more scientific general *shouldn't* perfectly correlate with the layman's definition of intelligence (i.e. what you see as "intelligence" isn't actually intelligence -- your colloquial understanding of intelligence isn't completely correct). Again, whatever intelligence factor there is in "leadership skills" and "humor" is *already* built into the definition of general intelligence. I believe this addresses the argument you made in the Bobby Fischer section, too (i.e. "raging" and "deluded" are heavily influenced by learned information).
Integrating multiple cognitive abilities in the service of solving a novel problem is also learned. Understimulated children often demonstrate cognitive deficits.
Studies will attempt to control for this by limiting the learned skills (or impact thereof) required to complete the I.Q. test. But the gravity of the skills is going to be far less than the learned, lived experience that would warp the intelligence measurement of things like "leadership skills" and "humor". If someone attends training, seminars and 1-on-1 coaching for leadership skills, and is compared against someone who has never had those experiences, how is that a valid test for intelligence when "leadership skills" here are heavily influenced by learned material? That would clearly a 'what do you know?' test, as opposed to general intelligence test.
It would be like giving an English test to an African tribe, one of which has never seen English before, and concluding that they have zero I.Q. because they couldn't answer anything. Clearly, you need to control for learned knowledge. Likewise, "leadership skills", "humor" etc. suffer, to some degree, from this problem, too.
I don't think most would agree with your assertion that IQ tests are only or even mostly interested in the heritability of general intelligence. Yes, that is the primary interest of the eugenicists you cite, which makes sense because their mission is to justify their assertions of political supremacy with some kind of objective measure of genetic superiority. However, the general figure for the heritability of IQ, according to the APA is 0.45 for children, and rises to around 0.75 for late adolescents and adults. Heritability measures in infancy are as low as 0.2, around 0.4 in middle childhood, and as high as 0.9 in adulthood. That is, stripped of influences of environment, genetics only show a weak correlation to IQ. I think its fair to say that most psychometrists, absent those tainted by political agenda, are trying to assess the whole picture, not genetic general intelligence alone but also the influence of environment and the relationship between the two.
Firstly, stop Ad homming people. Nobody of a logical mind cares who or what they are. What matters is whether they are correct or not.
Secondly, I.Q. tests by function do assess the genetic component of I.Q. That might not be the primary interest or even an interest of administering the test, but if you're controlling for learned knowledge, that's what they'll end up testing (to a high degree).
Thirdly, I actually pretty much agree with your quoted estimations of I.Q. heritability. Just to be clear: the environment does influence I.Q., especially in younger people wherein it is the dominant determinant of I.Q. So, to address your main concern with what I wrote, we don't want to be measuring purely the environment for I.Q. We don't want to test purely for learned knowledge that was acquired outside of the I.Q. test -- that's the environmental effect we absolutely don't want in an I.Q. test. Instead, we want to be measuring for I.Q. whilst limiting the impact these purely environmental impacts will have on the test.
I think you have circled around to agreeing with me. IQ can't capture all of what we call INTELLIGENCE including things like leaderships skills.
I don't agree "leadership skills" is an accurate measurement of I.Q. Some parts of leadership skills are probably aspect of general intelligence, but that isn't a reason to test for "leadership skills" specifically. So whilst I agree that I.Q. doesn't specifically measure for "leadership skills", measurement of I.Q. would be *worse* if it did.
I can see that some important qualities might be reflected by IQ. I have never seen an IQ test variant that quantified humor or empathy. I don't agree that such qualities must necessarily or naturally flow from general intelligence.
I don't know how many ways I can make this point, but we'll see:
If I attended multiple seminars for humor analysis, if I watched sitcoms daily, if I spent time in a bar testing my stand-up routine on people, would not those experiences influence my ability to produce humor? Would I not have an advantage in learned knowledge if we tested for humor, especially against someone who didn't do these things?
Do you see the difference between "learned knowledge" and general intelligence?
I'm not demanding an explanation, I'm illustrating the limitations of objective intelligence assessment. We are able to perceive differences in intelligence that we have no hope of quantifying within the limited scope of verbal measurement.
We don't need to answer this "why" in order for I.Q. to be a valid metric. The limitation you illustrated isn't relevant to the thread.
You'd have to define performance more specifically. The bell curvers were defining performance as holding a job for men and bearing children within wedlock for the ladies. Kirkegaard's survey was looking at education level, occupation level (*), and income level as measures of performance. I think IQ probably is a better or best predictor for educational, occupational, and financial attainment but again, all those measures fall within a certain Western paradigm. We want to be careful not to mistake such metrics as a measure of human worth or an indicator of superior ability.
*I do wonder how "occupational levels" were measured and what biases revealed therein.
By performance, I mean ability to perform at work, ability to make income and ability to become educated.
I also think that bearing children within wedlock is a desirable life outcome for ladies (and society). However, this is absolutely debatable (and probably requires its own thread).
So, one of the in-built premises of my argument is that civilizations are desirable. When you keep mentioning "Western paradigm", I'm already positing that civilizations are preferable to things like nomadic tribes (so this "Western paradigm" would apply to non-Western areas, like Saudi Arabia and China). In order to keep these civilizations functional, people need to become educated, work jobs and acquire income. I prefer, as do most people, to live in a house with running water, electricity, medicine, disposable income etc. as opposed to anything else. Yes, I do think that is superior and more valuable to the alternatives.
"Occupational level was typically measured by
such occupational scales as Duncan Socioeconomic Index,
International Socioeconomic Index of Occupational Status,
NORC prestige scale, etc" -- Page 406 under the heading: '5.1.1. Socioeconomic success'
So, there's is a racial component to your assertions. I don't know how you could possibly make such an assertion while failing to control for Western values. Your definition of general intelligence may correlate with educational, occupational, and financial attainment but I assume that Bushmen are just as able to demonstrate their fluid ability to integrate multiple cognitive abilities in the service of solving problems within the context of the Kalahari as we are in the context of some Western metropolis. I likewise assume that if the Mbuti were running the tests for cognitive abilities, big city white boys might take a significant hit in the scoring.
I may not be able to find a specific example of a Mbuti neuroscientist, but the stated avg IQ score across all of sub-Saharan Africa is only 71 and nevertheless we see some prestigious neuroscientists excelling in Western cultures. I do assume that some excellent individual Mbuti are entirely capable of such achievement given the right environment but if I'm reading you right, you don't.
I have used a racial example but that is not part of my "assertions". You can agree that I.Q. is a valid metric without believing that human races exist.
I don't particularly know about Pygmies, but I have done a small amount of research on Aboriginal Australians. They actually have a superior level of spatial awareness. If we were to use the same distribution as I.Q. test data presents, Aboriginal Australians have 119 points, which puts them above an entire standard deviation of the global average (can't find my source on this though). If you were to set-up a test that measured spatial awareness, Aboriginal Australians would almost certainly do the best. However, that doesn't mean they are intelligent or that it makes sense to measure intelligence through spatial awareness levels.
Clearly, if you find the Mbuti people who are five standard deviations (1 / 1744278) above their race's I.Q (you couldn't even find them lol), they are intelligent enough to become competent neuroscientists. This is not surprising. This doesn't meant that all Mbuti people are capable of becoming competent neuroscientists. This is why we don't use anecdotes.
FYI you referenced above that I.Q. is mostly genetic in adults. I don't know why you've decided to argue now that the environment could make for this gigantic gap in I.Q, when you don't even agree with that yourself based on the research you quoted.