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from the maybe-they-only-surveyed-the-nimnobs dept.
Why can we talk about PISA results, comparing the performance of students in school, but we are not allowed to talk about differences in IQ? Bring this subject up, and you are immediately accused of racism. And yet. And yet, if there are substantial differences in intellectual capability, might this not explain some of the world's problems?
An update of a massive "study of studies" is underway; this article summarizes the work to date, and provides links to the work in progress. A quick summary of the answers to the questions no one dares ask:
- Eastern Asia (Japan, China): IQ around 105
- Europe/North America: IQ around 98
- Middle East: IQ around 85
- Africa: IQ around 70
In the first instance, it doesn't even matter why there are differences. They may be genetic, or disease related, or nutrition related, or something else. If these differences are real (and the evidence is pretty strong that they are), then we need to deal with them. Imagine if the low IQs in Africa turn out to be fixable - what would the impact be, if we could raise the IQ of an entire continent by 30 points?!
Sticking our collective heads in the sand, because the topic is not PC, is not going to solve any problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @04:19AM (1 child)
Sigh, IQ isn't bullshit, it's just that it's a narrow measure of intelligence and there isn't usually any extra resources given to people who exhibit higher scores on the test. Around here the extra resources were given based on even less reliable testing done at an extremely young age. Any attempts to identify the gifted from the normal children before about age 10 are subject to huge problems where children with normal or below normal intelligence, but larger working memory get selected over the children that grow up to be the geniuses that create most of the interesting innovations.
IQ itself is mainly a measure of suitability to a particular academic system that was in place when the tests were first being developed. It doesn't mean that people with a lower score are necessarily unintelligent, it means that whatever cognitive abilities they have aren't necessarily ones that match with the test as designed and administered.
Because of that, people with lower scores tend to rail against the test as a horrible measure of intelligence when the real problem is that it's measuring something that's of less importance now than it was in the past when academic settings were more closely aligned to the traits covered by the test.
It's also a test that cannot be used across cultures in a meaningful way. It has to be normed for the population taking the test, hence these apparent discrepancies even in cases where they don't make sense. Asians are not statistically smarter than other groups. I've met many of them and they really aren't any smarter or dumber than other groups.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 03 2017, @05:08PM
there's a chance that doing A.I. .. errr ... IQ test alot will make you better at it.
a curious fact, for me anyways, i cannot "unhear" a language that i learned to understand.
thus, maybe a IQ test is a test that programs your mind and you cannot unlearn it.
if it is for a sinister purpose, just say: do this test and it will tell you how smart you are?