Controversial topic: what does IQ tell us (if anything)

I'm sorry for my poor English. I keep saying things which can be understood in more than one way.
(this is not sarcasm).
 
I don't understand why people correlate IQ with wealth. You could have the highest IQ in the world, but no access to education, or ability to get a job so could remain poor. Or someone with a super high IQ might be too disabled, or even choose not to work.

On the other hand people with low IQs can make tremendous wealth through working up through a company or starting their own business which by luck or otherwise becomes highly successful.
 
I've seen plenty of well educated people that cant even hold a normal conversation without coming across as an idiot.
 
I'm sorry for my poor English. I keep saying things which can be understood in more than one way.
(this is not sarcasm).
Your doing fine. The "flexibility of interpretation" of English is one of its great strengths as a language. For English as a second language speakers, it can be a nightmare.
 
I did a test 11 years ago and they rated me at 145 and as in the 2% percentile of the population in Australia. It was a test in 10 different categories and it was hard. And I had do it in English! I'm a Swede. The best result was in ambidexterity and understanding literacy, where I beat the former "champ" by 50% on the first one.

Of course I always knew I was smart/clever/intelligent whatever you call it. But if I really was that smart, then I should've done something better of my life. Circumstances all the way, it didn't happen. I taught myself to play classical guitar and how to use computers, I read about space and ...well...everything. I've always been curious. And then I drink a hell of a lot of beers.

But to take those numbers to heart, I think I laugh at it and take it with a BIG pinch of salt. There are lots of ppl out there without those numbers in their CV and they seem to do ok?

I have a steady work and a family, so I don't regret things. 145 is probably 110, maybe 78 when I try to have a discussion with Borrucio. :)
 
Hey I taught myself Piano, music production, recording, building computers, maintaining them and installing all the software's, at age 7 I knew everything about the solar system, in my early teens I was already reading a doctors medical text book and understanding everything ....

Yet all my grades were above average and I get to spend my life as an unmotivated unemployed bum on benefits.
 
Because reasons.
 
IQ & the ability to perform well on abstract tasks is far less important than social intelligence. I'd rather be able to maintain healthy relationships than solve for x.

Langan's a perfect example of why high IQ is not particularly useful. He can do all sorts of calculations in his head but still comes off as a blathering idiot in many regards. Likewise, Bobby Fischer (former World Chess Champion) supposedly had an IQ of 160 or so but he rantings later in life could easily be confused with those of an angry homeless man with an IQ half of his.

Sidenote : the course of my life might have been quite different had my IQ been a bit higher. A few years ago I was rumaging thru my mother's house & found some old documents showing my mother had applied for me to goto a fancy gifted school in NYC at age 6. Unfortunately I got (IIRC) around 137 or 138 on the IQ test & I needed to be 140 (IIRC it was 140) to get into that school. So instead I went to a crappy public school where I had a lot of social issues & ended up dropping out & attending a string of boarding schools where I barely got an education as they were run more like prisons.

However, there is no saying this was necessarily all bad as I had many unique experiences I wouldn't have gotten in the smart-kid school.

IQ tests measure the ability to test well on IQ tests.
Agreed.

Blaming a group's "culture" for failing to help them perform well on IQ tests or succeed in life is dangerously close to racism which, I'll remind everyone in the thread, is a touchy subject here at CFC and will be monitored closely.
Culture is not the same as race.

For example Italian-American culture is very different than Italian culture (its worse).

The culture someone grows up in is definitely going to affect their aptitude.

Seems to me that poverty / wealth is the strongest correlating factor in predicting both success in life (whatever that is), and IQ test performance. That's not to say there aren't other factors, but the economic variable is the most potent of them all.
Probably wealth & a functional social/family structure. Plenty of rich kids grow up to be screwed up. Broken homes affect kids rich or poor. One of the worst things about poverty is how it damages families & communities.
 
What is this 'relationship' thing you speak of? I do not understand.
 
Whenever I see mention of IQ scores, I am always reminded of a TV show I saw years ago about young kids being tested by MENSA.

One particular scene sticks in my mind.

Tester: Is an insect an animal?
Kid: Yes
Tester: No, an insect is not an animal, insects and animals are different
Kid: But an insect is a type of animal
Tester: No, it isn't
Kid: Er...OK

So, who tests the testers?
 
This brings back memories of one of my junior high English classes (Grade 8). We were supposed to write an essay about something - the teacher said it could be about anything, so I wrote about space (I was always sneaking science and science fiction into my other assignments as much as possible).

When I got it back from marking, I saw that the teacher had docked me marks for capitalizing "Earth." I asked her why she did that, when she hadn't docked me marks for capitalizing "Saturn."

"Well, Saturn is a planet," she said.

"So is Earth," I told her.

She gave me a look that would proverbially peeled paint, and changed my mark. She was not happy.
 
there is x amout of information. To digest, average Joe neeeds 30 minutes. Average genius, probably 15 minutes. Guys like Langan, maybe 5 minutes.

In other words - how fast can you read a book? How long does it take for you to digest 100 pages of Wittgenstein or any other similar upper class philosopher. Wittgenstein supposedly had 190 iq himself.

I don't like the different ways "intelligence" gets categorized because it makes it a noisy thing just to say.

For example, the ability to speed read and process information in a book is limited by cognitive talent, but any given person who isn't an outlier can drastically improve at it. It's conceptually similar to sprinting speed. You or I could train at it and get pretty fast, much faster than lay people, maybe even top 15% in the world or something, but it's unlikely we have the genetics to beat Usain Bolt.

So what is an IQ test measuring? A combination of cognitive ability and knowledge relevant to the IQ test, the latter being problematic unless the knowledge required is demonstrably useful to the purposes of the test (IE if your job requires knowledge of chemistry then it would be pretty important for a test for that position to focus on said requisite knowledge).

So what's intelligence? The combination of genetic cognitive ability and knowledge in application...I guess? Measuring that is pretty noisy, depending on what knowledge you want to favor.
 
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