Are IQ tests an accurate way of determining intelligence? I know some people with high IQ's who don't particularly come off as intelligent, like Chris Langan, who said bigger heads, mean smarter people, therefore, men are smarter than women, as men have bigger heads. This isn't really that smart is it? What do IQ tests determine and what kind of questions do they ask?

Isaac Asimov has wrote something on intelligence which is interesting:

What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.)

All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine?

For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles - and he always fixed my car.

Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I'd prove myself a moron, and I'd be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.

Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: "Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?"

Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, "Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them." Then he said smugly, "I've been trying that on all my customers today." "Did you catch many?" I asked. "Quite a few," he said, "but I knew for sure I'd catch you." "Why is that?" I asked. "Because you're so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn't be very smart."

And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.

The intelligence the IQ test measures is for mathematical and logical minds, but I still think that there is more to intelligence. Social, athletic, musical and lingual intelligence and the sense of space (e.g. sense of direction) and oneself are sometimes ignored, but I think they're vital to the whole intelligent human being. I'm sure we all know of the stereotypical scatter-brained professor, who is logically gifted, but not necessarily so in the department of sports and social skills. Or on the other hand we have the cheerleader, who is athletically adept and is extremely good at social networking, but not the brightest bauble in the box. In my opinion, when you have a good balance of most of these, then I might consider you truly intelligent.

LSE evolutionary psychologist did tests, recently(i think) turns out atheist liberals are on average 8-10 points more intelligent then religious conservatives. The professor was a libertarian not a liberal.

Kind of a 'tell me something I dont know' scenario.

I just got my IQ tested during my psychological evaluation. They do test spatial intelligence.

Not much space according to your avatar :p

IQ tests are bull shit. I once took an "official" IQ test and scored 145.

I can tell you right now ... I'm no fucking Einstein, and in my opinion, the only people who want to quantify a person's intelligence are insecure douchebags.

I think it's obvious if you are above average intelligence just by talking to others. No need for a test.

The problem with IQ tests is that you can only test what some one knows or does not know. An attempt is made to make them generic in function, but our population is as diverse as our species. Can a 'Hillbilly' answer higher math questions? Can a farmer read and comprehend Shakespeare? Does an astronaut know how to operate a tractor? Can Mr. Goodwrench fix a radio? Can an Aborigine even read the test? Can you calculate the necessary fuel for a rocket to Mars? None of these people are stupid.

The results of any test can only be used relative to the environment in which they are given.

(October 20, 2011 at 5:19 pm)Cinjin Wrote: IQ tests are bull shit. I once took an "official" IQ test and scored 145.

I can tell you right now ... I'm no fucking Einstein, and in my opinion, the only people who want to quantify a person's intelligence are insecure douchebags.

When I was younger, I had my IQ Tested by a qualified expert. I was six. My score was 176. I only just found out about it fairly recently.

Of course, I know that childhood IQ Tests are calculated differently from adult IQ Tests, and I'd probably be a standard deviation or two below my childhood score.

(October 20, 2011 at 5:10 pm)Phaedra Wrote: I just got my IQ tested during my psychological evaluation. They do test spatial intelligence.

Spatial-temporal reasoning abilities are suppose to be a good indicator of intelligence.

Quote:Spatial-temporal reasoning is the ability to visualize spatial patterns and mentally manipulate them over a time-ordered sequence of spatial transformations.

This ability is important for generating and conceptualizing solutions to multi-step problems that arise in areas such as architecture, engineering, science, mathematics, art, games, and everyday life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatial-temporal_reasoning