I started doing some research into the idea of intelligence. Is intelligence really measurable? Is intelligence important, or do other characteristics matter more? Nature vs nurture?
This topic makes people very emotional, but I will do my research intelligently.
Epiales 
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/city.htm
http://destructure.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/myth-1-the-achievement-gap/
http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2010/10/achievement-gap-achieved-household.html
These may interest:
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/city.htm
http://destructure.wordpress.com/2011/01/15/myth-1-the-achievement-gap/
http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2010/10/achievement-gap-achieved-household.html
Linda Gottfredson at the U of Delaware has spent a large part of her career on your question:
http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/
Thank you!
There is a “mini bell curve” book that is much easier to read than BC, by someone named Seligman, named “A Question of Intelligence: the IQ debate in America” or something like that. Its thesis is that it is highly significant. It must be rare now; new was $107 on Amazon a little while ago, but there are numerous cheap used copies there. Readable in a day or two, maybe an afternoon.
The con side might be Stephen Jay Gould’s _The mismeasure of man_, a bit of a slog.
A briefer and more entertaining contra argument is kind of obscured in a review of another book,
http://www.culturewars.com/2008/BrooklynExistentialism.html
you have to read into it a bit before you come to the intelligence testing part.
I read The Bell Curve and Mismeasure of Man many years ago. Perhaps I should read both books again.
I don’t know if intelligence can be measured accurately. After all, who sets the standards for declaring one intelligent? If your I.Q. is higher than mine, does that make you smarter, and in what area?
For example: My sister-in-law is a college graduate in education. Surely she must be intelligent, especially if a university declared her smart enough to teach others correct? However, her career is currently in fast food, not teaching. This is the same woman that could not find the post office in a town in which she has lived in for over 30 years.
I would have to question the whole intelligence measuring system based on things like this.
It is my belief that just because you can pass a test of some sort, that it is not an automatic qualifier or even a practical measure of one’s ability to think more intelligently than anyone else.
Everyone is intelligent in the things that they believe to be important to them personally.
You might want to do some reading in the references above. Teacher colleges are not much of a measure in that they tend to have the lowest standardized test scores but highest GPAs in most colleges, so the curriculum can’t be that difficult, therefore passing it does not imply great intelligence. Colleges have all kinds of numbnuts curricula now.
Seligman’s book and the Culture Wars article represent opposing POVs of manageable length on this Sb.
That’s funny, Steve; you doubt that intelligence can be measured accurately yet measure your SIL’s. How do you do that?
In my post I never made mention of whether or not she was intelligent. I merely pointed out a couple of facts. First, that she was educated by a university. Second that she has no navigational skills. It was intentionally left open for you to draw your own conclusions about het intelligence. And while you are drawing your conclusion, please share with the rest of us your method for measuring this woman’s intelligence.
You said “surely she must be intelligent.”
Yes speaking facetiously of course.
How was I supposed to know that you were being facetious?
Intelligence…..
2nd try at posting this – 1st doesn’t seem to have “taken:”
So interpretation of “surely she must be highly intelligent” is a measure of intelligence. See, it can be done. Thanks for demo.
Another claim that you can measure intelligence – with a single item (interpretation of “surely she must be highly intelligent”) – so it can be done. Thanks for demo.
You just tested intelligence with a single item.
I think the interpretation of a facetious question of one’s intelligence as perceived by one who would make the “assumption” that a college graduate was indeed intelligent, could not possibly be intelligently taken as a practical demonstration of a realistic measure of intelligence. However, if by the assumptions of others’ is where we are to collect this evidence of measure, then maybe we should be “measuring” our own intelligence.
In order to “measure” anything, one must have a basis of comparison, or standard unit to measure against. Since intelligence is learned, and there are no all-knowing beings physically here, then how do we measure intelligence accurately? Since intelligence is neither consistent nor constant, how do you measure it, and does it change? If so, then what is the measured change based upon?
Overall, I think intelligence is a matter of perception, and cannot be accurately measured.
Furthermore, I think people tend to confuse being educated with being intelligent.
There is a profound difference between the two depending on the areas of study in which one has gained their education. Even still, an educated person, may not be as intelligent as an uneducated person in some aspects of life.
To the OP, thank you for these chicken/egg discussion opportunities. Maybe some will leave here slightly more educated, but not necessarily more intelligent than before. LOL
Three “I thinks” and an unsupported highly contentious premise (“intelligence is learned”).
“Three “I thinks” and an unsupported highly contentious premise (“intelligence is learned”).”
The term “I think” is because I was stating a personal opinion. It would be arrogant and foolish of me to state these things as fact.
Do you think that intelligence is not learned? Please share your belief on this, and why, and if you could provide example of the contrary. I could see evolutionary explanations possibly coming into play here, and maybe “some” scientific data, but I would like to hear your opinion in particular about the origin of intelligence and your ability to measure it.
Here is my reasoning behind the “contentious premise”.
When we are born, we lack intelligence, and some physical coordination. We gain intelligence through education whether it be formal or by experience or example.
Therefore, “in my opinion” intelligence is learned.
Do you believe otherwise? Please enlighten us.
I don’t know anyone who thinks intelligence is not partly the result of environmental influences, including education. It is probably also partly the result of brain structure and function. This is supported by inability of people afflicted with severe microcephaly to, say, learn the alphabet.
Learned material is readily testable. Engineering licensure and medical specialty boards do it all the time despite the fact that all-knowing standard exists.
Learned material is an example of education, but not necessarily intelligence.
You said “Since intelligence is learned,” and “Learned material is an example of education.” It follows from your statements that intelligence would is an example of education. Educational outcomes are readily measured by testing, therefore intelligence is readily measurable by testing.
No one I ever heard of would disagree that measurable intelligence is at least partly from experience (learning) but 50% heritability of variation in IQ is a probably a low estimate by most studies, such as Bourchard’s Minnesota Twin Study.
Interesting…this is a great thread.
Science is not a democracy but this opinion in WSJ was signed by a number of investigators in the field, in the wake of the _Bell Curve_ controversy:
http://www.psychpage.com/learning/library/intell/mainstream.html
The military did an experiment in the significance of intelligence testing during Vietnam, or rather in acting on the basis that the tests didn’t mean much. Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, pretty much came up with and promulgated the idea.
I am not able to find personal recollections that were once on the web, of troops who had “McNamara’s Moron Corps” integrated into their combat units.
http://www.salon.com/2002/05/30/mcnamara_3/
Click to access webG1318.pdf
Maybe high intelligence is like pornography: I know it when I see it. Stupidity is the same way; some people simply have a knack for doing things that most people would consider stupid.
That’s a little nihilistic IMO but you seem to have put some thought into it.
More “inspiration of the staircase,” though it looks like this is thread is about kaput:
Primitive man might have said fever is like pornography: I know it when I see it, but cannot explain its biological (resting on physical or chemical) basis or measure it. We now can not only measure it, but have a good idea about its hard-science mechanisms.
It would be remarkable if a paper-and-pencil test crudely attempting to measure what can be recognized but not defined, could be shown to correlate significantly with a physically measured biological process, but that is what appears to have happened with positron emission tomography and cognitive function (the PC term for IQ):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20854619
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2970247
Both these papers correlate PET scan results with loss of intellectual functioning in disease states. There is another having to do with Huntington’s disease.
It is also remarkable that no one seems to have lined up a bunch of normal people and correlated IQ or other cognitive ability testing with PET scan results. One might suspect that this has been done but the results are so politically inflammatory that they cannot be published.
We accept the fact that some people’s genes give them exceptional liver function, while others suffer from weak liver function. We are reluctant to consider that fact some people have exceptional brain function and others have weak brain function.
The two most common arguments I hear against the idea of an intelligent quotient have little to do with the science of mental cognition.
The first argument is a strictly emotional appeal: IQ tests have been misused to justify genocide.
The second argument is anecdotal: “I know someone who scored ____ but is now _______.” The tests are not perfect predictors of life outcome, so IQ is completely irrelevant.
Neither argument debunks the idea that cognitive function varies among people.
I don’t remember IQ tests being used to justify genocide.
This might help explain Steve’s SIL:
http://anepigone.blogspot.com/2009/03/iq-estimates-by-intended-college-major.html
“Education is at the bottom of the degree fields not typically offered at vocational schools.”
Here are 2 more links that might interest. Of particular interest, in the 2nd, is Wiley’s treatment of Brand’s book:
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris1998a.html
http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~cfc/Chabris1998b.html