Talk:Intelligence quotient

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When I was 16, I took an IQ test and scored 120.

I am now 46, and last week I took a different test and scored 121. What do people make of that?


Answer:

IQ should not change with age so your result is perfectly correct. Ironically many internet sites that check IQ report higher than average results. (perhaps only those of a higher IQ access this sort of thing!)

[edit] recent changes

I deleted the word "large" before meta-analysis because it is not necessary. Meta-analyses are inherently large and this word made the statement sound biased toward the results of the study, or at the very least made the sentence sound awkward. If anyone thinks it is necessary, feel free to add it back!


I note my point on changes to individual test scores was changed and moved; I don't fully agree with all the changes (as the question may well be a question of degree, with those with learning disabilities, being the primary subjects of the research with which I'm most familiar, showing the most significant change), but I will check some citations and make the changes after I see what other thoughts people have.

I note there are some internal inconsistencies in the article on heritability; I'll leave this to others to sort out, but the added detail here doesn't hurt.

I will add citations to the notion that differences between clusters have been converging as well. It's probably useful to have citations on both sides of that dispute.

Smawnmahlau 01:31, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I thought that text was about the Flynn effect -- so I replaced it with a direct description of the Flynn effect. I'm not familiar with the data on IQ testing and learning disabilities outside of the classfication of mental retardation. Some citations would be great. --Rikurzhen 03:38, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] shared family effects on personality

anon's edit summary: it is no where agreed that shared-environmental factors have no affect on personality and many studies have shown the opposite. More can be read on this in "nature vs. nurture"

it appears that both Harris 1998 and Plomin & Daniels 1987 agree on this. Harris 2006 recaps the conclusions. i have seen no studies or editorials which disagree with these conclusions. unless the conflicting opinion that there are in fact shared environmental effects on personality is found in the contemporary literature, then there's no reason to cast doubt on that conclusion in this article. --Rikurzhen 01:48, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I dont have a reference for you right now, but it doesnt make any logical sense whatsoever that non-shared environemtnal factors can have an affect on personality, but shared environmental factors, such as family, can not. This goes against most modern psychological analysis which considers many aspect of our personality developing from early childhood experiences, including those who influence us most at such an early stage in development. I havent read those studies and I don't know if they are avaliable on-line, but there are obviously numerous widely-supported sources contradicting such "conclusions" from those of Harris and Daniels. 69.157.112.58 23:41, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems counter intuitive, but that is the result that behavior genetics researchers find. Harris, et al are not the original researchers but rather they are summarizing a body of literature. Keep in mind the conclusion is not that shared environmental effects can't affect personality, only that they tend not to in the general population. No doubt uncommon/extreme environments would affect personality. --Rikurzhen 23:45, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

According to conclusions from those sources, shared factors appears to not have an effect in the general population, but again, this is against most modern psychoanalysis which states that for all people, influences of our early childhood experiences generally last for the entirety of our lives. As for the neutrality and factual accuracy tab, it is mainly there because of numerous sections where there is no supported source or contains a biased POV, especially in terms of "racial" studies. There are numerous statements where IQ is replaced by "intelligence" and "cognitive ability" for instance and it isn't widely accepted that IQ accurately defines these (with themselves even difficult to define). 69.157.112.58 00:08, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Re: IQ/intelligence. You are correct in the facts, but mistaken in your interpretation. An IQ difference which is not merely a product of test bias or some other artifact is necessarily a difference in "intelligence"/"cognitive ability". The non-equivalence of IQ and intelligence merely implies that there can be an intelligence difference that is not detected by IQ.
I don't see any other specific problems. --Rikurzhen 00:28, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, since "cognitive ability" and intelligence are themselves grey areas, IQ really isn't the same thing and in my opinion it is really a measure of ones experience to information or knowledge gathered in a lifetime and how well this has been retained and/or is utilized. When speaking of "cognitive ability", you are also speaking in a way of the intelligence "potential" of people which is currently impossible to identify (especially if you beleive in the notion that we only use 10% of the full capability of our upper brain fuctions). Just thought I'd share my opinon on that matter. 69.157.112.58 06:55, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Call it whatever you like; perhaps IQ only measures fitzwibble, but if so then fitzwibble is highly heritable, correlates with brain size, predicts outcomes in school, and indeed has more impact on life outcomes than any other psychometric variable thus far discovered. Ultimately, the nomenclature argument is a red herring. Harkenbane 05:45, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

The article's statement that "general intelligence plays an important role in many valued life outcomes" (and a number of statements carrying a similar assumption) makes the same error that Harkenbane makes when s/he states that 'fitzwibble' (the thing the IQ test measures) "has more impact on life outcomes than any other psychometric variable thus far discovered". In lieu of a body of evidence not disclosed in the article, no it doesn't, and no it doesn't. Or at least there's no particular reason to think that it does. The evidence suggests that the two correlate, not that one "plays a role" in the other or that one "has (great) impact" on the other. It amazes me that both large parts of the article, and a large part of the discussion about the ideas expressed in the article, miss this basic point, acknowledgment of which would surely be fundamental to this topic being regarded as serious science. (Although I concede the article does refer to the Gould book, which makes that point.) In its most basic form: there is an enormous proved correlation between people carrying umbrellas around, and the streets being wet; but we aren't going to dry the streets by encouraging everyone to put those umbrellas away. Unless I'm Robinson Crusoe here, I think that the article should dedicate less length to the 'is it genetic? is it environmental?' question, and more to the general topic of, to put it bluntly, whether IQ testing is real or junk science; e.g. whether a particular number assigned to an individual as a result of IQ testing, actually tells us anything useful about the individual (scil: ... that we wouldn't already know by looking at other available data about that person). 211.30.154.175 15:02, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the above (User:211.30.154.175) until you suggest the article be focused on "is it genetic? is it environmental?" - I think it suffers from too much of that and the heritability article discussed some of this, and would rather see this article focus on the practical side of what is the IQ test, how is it administered, how is it used - note the whole "practical validity" section is really a discussion of "g" and advocacy for using tests in ways that are generally not favored rather than a discussion of how a psychologist would use a test the way it is generally used and why. I've made some attempts to fix the current problems or round them out based on my own understanding, but probably can be more useful on the practical aspects than on all the theoretical hyperactivity. Sam 15:26, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

211.30.154.175 comments are based on partial understandings of this subject and of the interpretation of studies of correlation. On this matter, the contents of the two collective statements [1][2] are a useful starting point, but are somewhat dated. Sam, IQ tests have utility to researchers and clinicans in a variety of settings, but the solution to this fact is to add more, not less content about each use. --Rikurzhen 19:10, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] dispute tag

Fifteen points lower than what IQ? This doesn't make sense. "Research in Scotland has shown that a 15-point lower IQ meant people had a fifth less chance of seeing their 76th birthday, while those with a 30-point disadvantage were 37% less likely than those with a higher IQ to live that long. [24]"

it is necessary to have an actual (specific) dispute in order to put a dispute tag on a page. --Rikurzhen 23:47, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Junk Science

Why is it POV to think that IQ is junk Science?

"Junk science," of course, refers to work that is considered unscientific by an overwhelming majority of experts. --Nectar 10:26, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
hence IQ has a link to Junk Science...
No. Harkenbane 05:40, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
If you insist on adding the link to junk science I have also added a similar link to the theory of multiple intelligences which is more controvertial than IQ.
The consensus with researchers is that the "g" theory is supported by decades of research and has great validity. On the other hand, multiple intelligences and triarchic theory of intelligence have little to no support, and most of the research goes against those theories. As such they may be considered "junk science".--Guillaume777 04:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Different backgrounds mean different scores

Education affecting IQ tests....

I think that this is very important. An un-educated person is not going to score as higly on an IQ test as an educated person.


Also, Asians may score higher on an IQ test while in Asian culture and their children may maintain the higher scores for a generation or two in America, but eventually their scores fall to the level of the general American population. Not a happy scenario. It also seems to largely explain the .4 correlations ( except for identical twins - raised together - like testing the same guy twice.)

[edit] questions

what is the HIGHEST IQ someone can have??

i have some questions connected with the discussion on the validity of the test. it seems quite reasonable for me to expect a) that people who have done many tests will ameliorate (even slightly) their results b) ppl who have studied certain fields related with the iq exams, such as maths or formal logic will have a comparative advantage towards those who have not.

in short can (at least to a certain extent) the iq tests considered as a technique one can learn?--Greece666 23:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Yes, "teaching the test" is a common problem in the IQ arena, and indeed the Flynn Effect may simply be a result of everyone developing greater test-savvy. Fortunately there are so many kinds of IQ test batteries that teaching to the test is rarely a problem except in instances where individuals know the exact test they will be taking and can study it beforehand. For instance, Jensen's The g Factor points out that vocabulary tests are excellent at measuring intelligence (or g), and I can only assume that they should be useful on individuals in fields like math or logic. So the problem you bring up is meaningful, but not insurmountable. Harkenbane 05:52, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
This article generally focuses on a lot of academic debate over the meaning of IQ scores rather than the practical elements relating to why people use IQ tests, how they are designed, and what kind of problems they are meant to help with. Even if someone trains themselves in a way that improves their overall score, they are unlikely to train themselves to close gaps between scores of component parts of the test (e.g., Verbal Comprehension and Processing Speed) without effectively addressing the underlying learning disability causing the discrepancy. And that is precisely what the test is designed to help do! This kind of training, to address deficiencies identified by the test, will regularly add 20 points or more to the IQs of people with dyslexia as they grow up (and in many individual cases, the increase can be even more pronounced). I've tried to make some changes to reflect the more practical side of these tests. Smawnmahlau 14:22, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Highest Recorded IQ's

I have wikified the entries in the highest recorded IQ's section. There are a few problems with that particular section

  • There are no citations/references regarding where those particular values have arrived from.
  • There is a discrepancy regarding Garry Kasparov - since it has 2 entries with 185 and 190.. this is fishy!
  • I personally think that this list is too long..
  • I am not able to find a single reference to Tom Stofmeel (either on Google or on wiki).. will somebody please cross-check this particular name and find out who he is?
  • John Locke needs to be disambiguated.. which John Locke is being referred to?? same case with William Pitt.. needs disambiguation.

--Rev.bayes 02:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree. This is a article about the concept called "IQ" - not conjectures about what historical figures would have scored on an IQ test. Not really sure the point of the list.

Quite. Why on earth is, for example, Archimedes in there? Who 'recorded' his IQ? Did he take the Stanford-Binet IQ test, or Raven's Progressive Matrices?

Vhata 10:14, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Agree this should be drastically shortened, or even removed completely (just incorporate a few well sources examples into the main text). A section like this just invites the vandals/hoaxers. Petros471 11:09, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
I think that this should be completely removed, since there have been quite a few vandalisms in this section - and it makes very little sense to keep this highly unverifiable section. --Rev.bayes 00:16, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Agree on deletion; the meaning of a one-time individual test score is questionable on several levels (for example, vos Savant's IQ purportedly has been tested at levels from 160 to 228, but only one is listed here; while test-retest data may be overall relatively predictable, individual instances can vary radically). Other entries are attempts to deduce scores from behavior, a questionable enterprise, rather than actual test data. So you have two types of data, both questionable. Smawnmahlau
Absolutely.. perhaps a couple of sentences stating some of the highest recorded IQs have been x & y, and there has been attempt made to assess IQ scores of famous scientists/thinkers in society and some of the scores are a, b & c..
An IP address added Tzipi Livni to the list of highest recorded IQs having an IQ of 254.. As of right now, I am reverting this edit since this is unverifiable.. Perhaps a reference will convince us otherwise. --Rev.bayes 19:34, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I commented out the entire section, inasmuch as only three or four of the enumerated IQs, and those supra have noted, are actually verifiable and recorded; we might do well to include information as to historical estimates somewhere, but surely this section isn't the proper place. In any case, I think we probably ought to incorporate the MvS Guinness record into the text, but I can't imagine that we should include much more. I certainly think the suggestion of perhaps a couple of sentences stating some of the highest recorded IQs have been x & y, and there has been attempt made to assess IQ scores of famous scientists/thinkers in society and some of the scores are a, b & c is an excellent one, and I'll likely try to formulate such sentences. I'm glad to see that others find this section to be unencyclopedic and unverifiable; I've been wanting to remove/considerably shorten it for the last several days but feared that there'd be much recalcitrance. Joe 16:11, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I added a small paragraph; it's not very good, if only because it's very difficult to say how meaningful contemporary assessment of, for example, Leibniz and Goethe are (as our articles notes, standard devs are of paramount importance). I don't really know what to make of the paragraph I added, but I'll hope others will edit it mercilessly. Joe 18:10, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Looks good. I tried to pretty up the grammar. I haven't reviewed any of the references, but it looks like you did. Sam 21:54, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I had always heard that 200 was the max. Very high IQs also seem to be associated with many problems - insanity,etc. My mother said a high IQ was a curse not a blessing.

[edit] race and intelligence

There have been several changes to the Race and Intelligence section over the last couple of weeks, some of which have been reversed, and a number of questions about the language and the lengthy quote inserted in particular. I checked the language quoted, and discovered that it was not really what the APA Statement said, but left out about half the conclusion and drew bits of the report out of context. I made a number of small changes to the section, mostly additions from a practical point of view, but also made two substantial changes to this section, as follows: (1) I changed the quote to the full and verbatim conclusion of the APA Statement, as follows: "Explanations based on factors of caste and culture may be appropriate, but so far have little direct empirical support. There is certainly no such support for a genetic interpretation. At present, no one knows what causes this differential." (2) I changed the statement on genetic influence to specifically parrot the APA conclusion as closely as possible, thus: "An additional focus of the scientific debate is whether group differences are entirely caused by environmental factors or whether they also reflect a genetic component, as is suggested by Jensen. Jensen 1972. However, the APA Statement rejected the idea that the 'Black/White differential in psychometric intelligence is partly due to genetic differences,' stating that '[t]here is not much direct evidence on this point, but what little there is fails to support the genetic hypothesis.'" Smawnmahlau

quoting the APA report is fine, but that particular section was criticized in commentary that accompanying its publication. Also, jensen 1973 is a very old reference. rushton and jensen 2005 is the most current. Several other mistakes were added along with these changes, such as the claim that east asians living in north america score lower than whites (the opposite it true), and the claim that correlations between outcome variables and IQ are different between races -- IQ is/was an equally good predictor of outcome variables across races. I'll try to fix these when i have time. --Rikurzhen 21:53, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
It all comes from the APA report, including the cite to Jensen 1972 - the APA Report was specifically disagreeing with Jensen 1972. Perhaps I could have been clearer there.
The lengthy quote that was there (in the footnote) just looked wrong when I looked at it, so I checked it, and it really was quite far from the actual report, and even misleading, so I just pulled out the report, culled a few pieces, and tied them down. The mangled quote was probably the result of repetitive editing by different hands.
I do think that correlations vary between races, both as described in the report and in the scholarship I've seen in general, stronger in some cases, weaker in others, though generally showing some significant level of correlation within each group. Smawnmahlau 22:50, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
If the correlations "vary between races", I take this to mean that they are smaller or larger for one group than another. My understanding is that for most outcomes (at least before affirmative action) the correlations were indistinguishable (the regressions were the same), indicating equivalent predictive validity across groups. --Rikurzhen 04:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

actually, quoting at length from the apa report is probably inappropriate for a summary section such as this. we need only a short paragraph to summarize the top three points about this topic. because of the controversy surrounding the apa's treatment of it, the quotation isn't helpful. --Rikurzhen 05:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

That makes sense; the section could be limited to a note that the extent and potential causes of differences in test scores between different races and ethnic groups have been a hotly debated subject, with a reference. I'm not sure more than that is needed. As I look at this, there is also a section on the APA report itself, and having just read the report, that section doesn't hit the mark very well. It may make sense to move some of this stuff down there. In any event, if the APA is to be quoted, I'd quote the full conclusion. On the correlation of race and various outcomes (SES, education, etc.), if you can identify a constant between races I think you've got an easily published article, but I think the bulk of the scholarship to date is going to focus on the persistent over-achievement of Asian-Americans based on what would be predicted from IQ scores alone. Sam 21:47, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
I note the misquote has been reintroduced. Please, if we're going to cite the conclusion, it makes sense to cite the whole conclusion. If you want to cite the additional language from the body of the report, please don't put it out of order after elipses, and consider the overall context of the language cited. That is a misquote. I continue to think that a radical shortening of this section to one to two sentances is preferable, keeping that controversy in a place where it can be fully discussed and keeping this article more focused. Otherwise, I think this paragraph will suffer from continual enlargement to try to avoid POV. I note that other edits that tried to balance the POV have been removed from the summary. Sam 13:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure which version was up at the time of your comment, but it seems better now. I think it's worthwhile to keep it a concise summary, so I've removed "researchers debate whether this group variance has stayed consistent or has decreased since measurement began" because, for practical purposes, it adds no information. The statement that had been added to this sentence doesn't have enough support from experts to be presented so prominantly: "The findings of this field are often thought to conflict with fundamental social philosophies, and to be based on biased and questionable test data, and have thus engendered a large controversy." The APA report summarizes:

From an educational point of view, the chief function of mental tests is as predictors. Intelligence tests predict school performance fairly well, at least in American schools as they are now constituted. Similarly, achievement tests are fairly good predictors of performance in college and postgraduate settings. Considered in this light, the relevant question is whether the tests have a "predictive bias" against Blacks, Such a bias would exist if African-American performance on the criterion variables (school achievement, college GPA, etc.) were systematically higher than the same subjects' test scores would predict. This is not the case. The actual regression lines (which show the mean criterion performance for individuals who got various scores on the predictor) for Blacks do not lie above those for Whites; there is even a slight tendency in the other direction. Considered as predictors of future performance, the tests do not seem to be biased against African Americans.[3]

--Nectar 20:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The quote in question was deleted in its entirely after I posted my comment, which is good. I've made a few additional changes to the section along your lines. I actually liked the "researchers debate whether this group variance has stayed consistent or has decreased since measurement began", but have incorporated the thought, that the clusters do not appear to be "fixed", by changing a sentence to indicate that there has been much research on both "the extent and causes" of the clustering, rather than just the "causes". Shorter, more concise, gets the point across. I also rephrased the first sentence some to say what I think was already being said, but more concisely. Sam 20:52, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Practical Uses and Interpretation of Test Scores

Looking at this, I think the whole article could use a section focused just on the practical uses and interpretation of test scores. These broad statements about components generally correlating, and generally being stable over a life, mask all the interesting details that make these tests useful. Likewise, understanding what each of the discrete components seeks to measure would make this a loss less abstract. Sam 22:02, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] what binet wrote

Notably, Binet himself made no claim that his test properly measured innate intelligence. He stated in his paper New Methods for the Diagnosis of the Intellectual Level of Subnormals that

"This scale properly speaking does not permit the measure of the intelligence, because intellectual qualities are not superposable, and therefore cannot be measured as linear surfaces are measured, but are on the contrary, a classification, a hierarchy among diverse intelligences; and for the necessities of practice this classification is equivalent to a measure." [4]


the quotation does not support the no claim contention. the quotation is about the fact that IQ is not a ratio scale -- about how it measures -- not what it measures. --Rikurzhen 05:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] State your qualifications

Would we accept an entry about heart surgery from anonymous users? Probably not. Why is intelligence different? Psychologists go to school for several years, receive training, mentoring, feedback, and take licensure exams before they are given the opportunity to comment on IQ and intelligence. I’d like to know if any of the contributors here have been state-certified or licensed to make expert statements about this topic.

Please sign your comments, so we at least know which anonymous person you are today! I'm just a guy without any particular qualifications who agrees with you on this, in particular because I happened to be raised by people who were qualified to deal with some of these tests and have spent a good part of the last decade dealing with some truly excellent physchologists at two major academic institutions. So, take whatever I have to say with the appropriate grain of salt, though I've also got a phenomenally high IQ, so those of you who worship IQs will want to listen to every word. Sam 20:26, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
Notably, our cardiac surgery article (one I readily concede to be of substandard quality, irrespective, even, of its paucity of references) has been frequently edited by anons, who have contributed better than one-third of the content. With respect to the larger policy question, though, see the WP:EE proposal, which properly notes that, even as experts may be of great use to the project, their views apropos of the formulation of articles oughtn't to be categorically implemented (viz., no appeals from authority) one should also consider that, whilst experts likely are sufficiently familiar with their respective areas as to be able to adduce relevant external references, they also are more likely to deal cursorily with elementary issues that an encyclopedia, to be useful, likely should cover in more depth. Joe 20:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ICUE

The intro speaks of ICUE, but does not explain that alternative spelling. Is this a silly joke (which would say something about the author's IQ :) )? DirkvdM 07:27, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] reliability of various test

At the reference desk, someone asked if there is an organisation that determines which iq tests are to be taken seriously. I suppose there is a load of bull out there, so that makes it a good question and I don't see the answer in the article. DirkvdM 08:00, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

AFAIK, the most reliable IQ tests are individually administered by trained professionals. The question asked appears to be getting at "group" administered tests, such as those found online. --Rikurzhen 08:08, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
You seem to suggest that only individually administered tests are reliable, but for the Mensa I did a group test (which got me in), and I suppose they know what they are doing. But the question is (apart from how the test is administered) if there is an organisation that determines which tests are 'official'. How does one determine that? For example, I did some tests from a book by Hans Eysenck and the article suggests an eminence that should make it reliable (in which case I score around 150 :) ). But how can I know for sure? Also, can any test in a book (or on the Internet as you mention) be reliable? DirkvdM 08:36, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
Reliability is empirically established. To use a food analogy, being "reliable" is not like being "organic", but like being 99% fat free. Reliability is determined by several criteria against which a test can be subjected. Most tests are probably reliable. Validity is probably the more important criteria. Because each test maker would establish validity and reliability while building their tests, I doubt that there's any standard secondary certification. --Rikurzhen 05:13, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Right, I meant validity. I don't get the food analogy because I'm not from the US. :) You probably assume a mindset I don't have (eg, 99% fat free is not necessarily a good thing to me - I actually even eat loads of fat). Anyway, it still seems to make sense to have an organisation that checks on the validity of tests. I could devise a test and publish it, couldn't I? DirkvdM 10:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Economic and social correlates of IQ

In the "Economic and social correlates of IQ" tables, one entry is "US population distribution". Isn't that supposed to be the same all over the world? And does this mean the figures are all for the US, ie based on a US study? If so, that should be mentioned explicitly because it is about social qualities, which have a different significance in different countries. For example, at what age people get married and how easily they divorce. And the meaning of 'poverty' depends very much on at which country you look. By the way, a comparison of this correlation between different countries would be very informative, indicating how much your chances of economic development depend on intelligence (rather than wealth at birth), but that's a different issue. DirkvdM 08:22, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

All of the data from table 2 is from a study of a sample representative of the United States population. Values from table 1 are (AFAIK) representative of developed countries. --Rikurzhen 05:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
'AFAIK' isn't really good enough. Do you know who added the table? Wikipedia is a bit too slow now to check that. But I'll add the other bit now. I am now a bit suspicious that much of the other information is also specifically about the US. This is rather a big problem on the English Wikipedia. The US is so big that people from there have a tendency to think they represent the world. There is reall no way to correct such errors, unless you can track down all editors and ask them, which would of course be way too impractical. DirkvdM 10:11, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
Table 1 values come from the APA [5], but they're ambiguous about which studies they are summarizing. --Rikurzhen 16:29, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


In the table, some rows do not add up to 100%. Are they not supposed to? Or am I missing something?? Ramki 18:44, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

No they're not supposed to add up to 100%. Each value is the percentage of people in that category who meet that criteria, not the fraction of people who meet that criteria who fall in that category (which would add up to 100%). --Rikurzhen 19:08, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


Unless I am reading the table wrong, or I have forgotten my statistics, aren't the correlations ( except the .86 for identical twins ) almost worthless ( not demonstrate much correlation). Some relationship but not overwhelming. [ Looked up correlations - for social science .4 seems okay - shows that social science and science shouldn't mix maybe. There are so many "other factors" that IQ being correlated to anything is not very scientific. ]

[edit] People lying about their IQs

If 100 is the average IQ how come so many people are lying online and saying they have IQs of 140-170?

1)Just because there is an average doesn't mean there aren't people above the average.
2)It isn't that difficult to think of reasons for people lying. Raoul 19:16, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
An IQ of about 150 IQ (15 sd) is about 1/1000. In the world that means there are 6 million people with an IQ >= 150.
But more likely (as pointed out) is that almost no one will willingly associate themselves with the label below average in regards to intelligence. I remember reading a studying saying that approximately 95% of Americans claim to have above average IQ.
AmitDeshwar 21:52, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Actually, an IQ of about 150 is about 3.15-3.30 SD (depending if you use 15 or 16 points as a SD) from the norm, although it does translate to about between 1/1125 and 1/2330 (for SD15 and SD16 respectively). As far as the rest, you are of course absolutely right.--Ramdrake 22:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

To quote from the Mensa International article:

Because different tests are scaled differently, it is not meaningful to compare raw scores between tests, only percentiles. For example, the minimum accepted score on the Stanford-Binet is 132, while for the Cattell it is 148.

On the Cattell scale, an IQ of 150 translates to around 1/50 (2%), or 120 million people worldwide (6 million in the US) ... that's why the high IQ societies all use a percentile for membership, rather than a number. OTOH, given the chance, most people would rather say their's is 151 (Cattell) rather than 135 (S-B) because it sounds more impressive. --141.156.232.179 22:06, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The need for online IQ tests

It would be a good idea to have example IQ tests online or linked to this page so that people can actually see what IQ tests actually *are*. --NukeMason 09:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

I was reading throught this discussion again (yes, I have way TOO much time to deal with). One of the issues that I have about the use of IQ tests and the like is that the article is likely to be very unscientific without having some kind of discussion that shows case studies of how it is that IQ is assigned to specific people based upon a specific test conditions and results. Anyhow, the point I made above (that no-one has responded to, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that there should be a specific test taken so that everyone can take the test, and actually work out their own IQ to see what is being done mathematically, to get a feel for how non-linear statistical effects might make a big difference to IQ results).

I hope that some of the above makes some sense.

--NukeMason 23:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand what you're saying, but a problem I've noticed is that most online IQ tests are either poor indicators of IQ or have costs attached. Finding a decent IQ test is pretty unlikely. If you want to add examples of online IQ tests (purported), and list them as such, that would probably be fine. There's one flash based one at "www.highiqsociety.org/iq_tests/"; I personally think it's pretty poor because it uses knowledge (achievement, I guess) based questions and memory questions in addition to pattern recognition; it also uses a time limit for each question. There are a few extra ones at tickle.com and related websites that are probably even less valid. "High-IQ" tests are less common; I don't know how valid the tests at "http://paulcooijmans.lunarpages.com/p/gliaweb/tests/" are; they have costs but it seems like the author is sensible. Maybe it's pseudoscience, maybe not; I can't pass judgment. If anybody wants to add those, they can go ahead. Hope that helps a little... Robinson0120 02:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The need for links to references

Throughout the text, several references are mentioned within the text but there are no links to most of them. From a practical view point, is it not desirable to see such links? --NukeMason 09:27, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

The section on IQ testing gives the following link which has been cited as a hoax: http://www.lovenstein.org/report/ Check THIS out http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/lovenstein.html --Tomtom22 00:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Light Hearted Humor

Off the top of my head, I can think of two fictional charcaters with high IQs, Commander Keen with an IQ of 314, and Shredder from TMNT with 675. It would be funny if there were a section pondering the probabilities of their IQs, in a comical fashion, much like what happened with Santa Clause. One example would be the percentage of people likley to have an IQ of 675, things like that :) Lovok 13:00, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


.............

24.208.54.114 05:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Include online IQ tests at your own risk

Junk external links on this page (if the definition of "junk" is "unprofessional, unethical, and meaningless to the psychological community") have little place on a page that claims to describe the measurement of intelligence. If you haven't yet discovered the difference between standardized tests like the Wechsler Scales and the top 25 results of "iq test" on Google's search engine then you need to attend, at minimum, an entry-level class in graduate school. Profesionally designed sites deserve their place in the Wiki sun far more than sophomoric attempts at mimicry. BrainDoc 02:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

An intro undergraduate course would be sufficient, graduate study isn't necessary to learn the difference between standardized and "good luck, sucker!"

[edit] Why is Gould given prominence in this article? Gould was not an expert on intelligence.

Why is Steven Jay Gould given his own section in most wikipedia articles, including this one, when it comes to "intelligence" and related fields? It appears that either some think that Gould was an expert in the field or want, to at least, leave that impression. He wasn't, as far as I know.

Probably because it's useful to use his criticisms to address or encompass other criticisms of IQ. I've seen the "Mismeasure of Man" a lot throughout my readings about IQ, and since his statements have an impact on public opinion, he does deserve some mention.Robinson0120 02:36, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Standard deviation differences not mentioned

Wikipedia articles on IQ and its tests seem to completely ignore the differences in standard deviations used in different tests. This makes the statements about point differences somewhat meaningless as the used standard deviation is not mentioned. Petruspennanen 15:09, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Race and IQ

Sorry first time contributing so forgive me for any signs of being a newbie, but I believe that the words "higher income caucasians seem to produce higher scores on IQ tests than black loser classes" is racially insensitive especially on such a controversial article.Ghostbearkhan 15:41, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, some smart-aleck was probably at work here. The wording has been corrected. --Ramdrake 16:14, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I removed it completely. --Rikurzhen 17:55, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
I certainly won't complain. :)--Ramdrake 18:08, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi! It's back...I just read and saw it at 0753 Greenwich Mean Time, 25 August 2006... just thought you should know. -Justin Bello

Strange, I don't see it.--Ramdrake 12:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] IQ score distribution

Why was this section taken out? I can't find any reasoning behind it being removed, and it was in my opinion the most useful part of the article. --GraveCow

[edit] Merge from IQ test controversy

See Talk:IQ test controversy. Arbor 08:48, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Nobody disagreed, so I killed that page and redirected it here. There was not much there that was not already here. I renamed the Social construct section into Controversy, so that headline now also includes MoM. I don't know why we need The view of the APA. It just repeats what this article says anyway, the only controversy it highlights is a debate about the genetic explanation of between-race differences in intelligence, which is covered ad nauseam elsewhere. I propose to kill that section; the implicit "appeal to authority" of that section would properly appear as footnotes to the other claims in this article. Arbor 12:24, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
Lack of dissenting opinions notwithstanding, I seem not to have followed standard procedure and consequently undid my merger. So I slapped on the proper merging templates on both pages. These will remain for 5 days, after which, triumphantly, I will re-perform the merger. Arbor 07:17, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I agree, they should be merged. However, the controversy article needs significant clean up. For example: the political ramifications of IQ scores are not a problem with IQ tests. They are a political debate,not a pyschological one.--Marvuglia 21:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Just make sure that you don't make the article so politically correct that it strays from science. Assuming all people looked similar millions of years ago, it would be surprising if the only changes that evolved since then were those obvious to the eye such as the visual differences between people of different race. --Jagz 17:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Could you be a bit clearer on what you mean?--Ramdrake 18:18, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
No. --Jagz 19:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
The subject of this article is IQ and not just IQ Test Controversy so it doesn't need to be cleaned up until it is merged into this article if such a merger is going to happen. --Jagz 19:30, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. That's much clearer.--Ramdrake 19:33, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I copied the IQ Test Controversy article into this article. --Jagz 16:00, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Worldwide Tag

Do I have to explain it?100110100 05:43, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it would help a great deal.

The American Psychological Association is a worldwide organization. I'm Canadian and a member. Now the "World Series" of baseball, that is another topic.--Marvuglia 07:09, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Under Wikipedia standards, is it appropriate to keep this tag in the article if justification for the tag was not provided initially, the reason for the tag is not obvious, and when justification is requested, it is not provided?

[edit] List of Public Figures and their Reported IQs

I would find something like this to be valuable. The study of Nobel Lauriates and their average IQ gives one indication o fthe IQ of certain public figures. SAT scores of public figures give another indication.

Does anyone else have an idea of where such information could (reliably) be found, or a perspective of the value of this.


Starnge how the "best and the brightest" get us into so many problems - problems that a dummy would be smart enough to avoid.

[edit] Race and intelligence 2

Ernham, please take a look at this reference before you say again that all those racial correlations are "factual": [6]

I'm not spend hours combing through that. I've read through 7 some pages and not come across anything informative, just lots of non-scientific historical garbage. The facts of the matter are as follow:
Gould makes argument that race and brain size are not correlated. Gould makes argument that even if they were correlated, there is no evidence that brain size and IQ are correlated.
Since Gould's book, we now have the facts of the matter. Brain size IS correlated with IQ; race IS correlated with brain size.
First http://cogprints.org/1369/00/IQTAN2.pdf study and dozens of others have shown the correlation between brain size and IQ.
(Harvey, Persaud, Ron, Baker, & Murray, 1994) shows that not only does brain size correlate with IQ, but that also race correlates with brain size, close to exactly the same that was seen in earlier studies that weighed brain sized of different races after death.

Actually, the publication you're referring to: Volumetric MRI measurements in bipolars compared with schizophrenics and healthy controls. published in Psychological Medicine (1994, vol. 24, no3, pp. 689-699) says nothing of the sort. What you're referring to is the interpretation that J.P. Rushton made of the data, interpretation which has been heavily criticized in several publications (I would list them here, but it seems you do not appreciate my references, so I will spare myself the work).--Ramdrake 21:46, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Second
Both of Gould's previous arguments are thusly incorrect and based on absolutely nothing.(race being defined as our modern generic version of it Caucasoid, Mongoloid, Negroid, been primary races)
Now substantiate your argument why this is not a valid addition to this wiki, and not by throwing a hundred page history papaer in my face.Ernham 17:35, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Reading material for you, and not 100 page history texts full of non-sequitur and ad hominem: http://cogprints.org/1369/00/IQTAN2.pdf Ernham 17:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

The reference I gave you is something like 20 pages only. It's a major review in the field of anthropology. In it you'd learn:
1.Beals et al, (Beals, Kenneth L., Courtland L. Smith, and Stephen M. Dodd. 1984. Brain size, cranial morphology, and time machines. current anthropology 25:301–15.) to whom we owe the most comprehensive study on skull size (and by inference brain size) found that brain size varies by latitude much more (stronger correlation) than it does by race. Head geometry is a matter of climate, not race.
2.Several recent studies, among them one on twins [7] found out that brain size seems correlated with IQ when twins were raised in different environment (i.e. separate families), but the correlation doesn't exist in twins raised in the same environment.
Thus, the literature supplies examples of research that contradicts your "facts". Thus, at best, they are the findings of "some" researchers. Therefore, your affirmations: Brain size IS correlated with IQ; race IS correlated with brain size. are not facts, but merely findings of some researchers. For the record, Gould isn't "debunked", although I wouldn't say he was positively right across the board.
QED--Ramdrake 17:52, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


I can't find a pdf of this one: Harvey, Persaud, Ron, Baker & Murray, 1994. basically confirms other tests on racial brain size difference via MRI. The other ways being weighing at death, primarily. You have a cite involving skull size and altitude, which frankly has no bearing on anything whatsoever. We are talking brain size, not head size, which are only very, very weakly correlated.Ernham 17:57, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
As suspected, it doesn't seem like you have any valid counter-arguements, going as far as to cite completelt unrelated material to defend the indefensible. Ernham
First and foremost, please be civil. Skull size has been used as a reasonable proxy for brain size or over 150 years. Second, your citation is but one that finds a correlation of brain size to IQ. Others do not. Thus, your "correlation" is a finding, not a confirmed fact. Lastly, even advocates of the racial hypothesis have tried quoting Beals to try to defend their view of a racially-ordained difference in brain size, so I don't think anybody thinks it's irrelevant. These counter-arguments are all that's needed to prove your facts aren't facts, but findings of some researchers. That's all.--Ramdrake 18:19, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


it's been used as a proxy, indeed, a very poor one. We have MRIs now; we do not need to rely on the innacuracies of such old measurements. Please join the 21st century.Ernham
Please present evidence, studies with cites that shows how much better MRI is for estimating brain size than skull measurements. Then, tell me how much of an impact this has when compared to the innate variance in brain size (which varies about two-fold from one end to the other of the spectrum) in the population. And, like I said, most studies that tried to demonstrate a racial difference in brain size relied precisely on such old, inaccurate measurements. Please take the time to familiarize yourself with the historical perspective of the subject you're discussing.--Ramdrake 18:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Do you even KNOW what MRI is? MRI tells you EXACTLY what the size of a given persons brain is even down to the decimal place! Cranium-to-brain correlation is thousands of time more innacurate. Ridiculous.Ernham 18:31, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I'm a biophysicist (M.Sc.) and a neurobiologist (Ph.D.) by training. Of course I know what an MRI is, possibly better than you. What good, tell me, is knowing the size of a brain is 1443.7 rather than 1440 cubic centimeters (say, one being possibly the precision of MRI whereas the other is more likely the precision obtained through external measurements), when by comparison the same human brain varies from one individual to the next from 1000-2000 cubic centimeters? Now, if your studies were to prove that the difference is mostly in cortical regions, even better mostly frontal or prefrontal, then maybe we're talking. Right now, you're just piling empirical observations one on top of another and trying to come up with a "fact" which isn't supported by all the evidence.--Ramdrake 19:00, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Piling up empirical observation is exactly what 99% of science is. You must have been asleep that decade you were supposedly in post secondary education. Gould often himself critized the innacruacy of using head size as a proxy for brain size, so I'm boggling at the fact you are now using that as very, very poor and unsuccessful argument, perhspas because you really don't have an argument. You are truly puzzling, as a "scientist" and as a debatorErnham 19:12, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes, empirical observation is the basis of it. Then, there is peer review, whether the model can make verifiable predictions, and all that. The racial hypothesis fails rather remarkably on all of these counts. And who said that head size specifically was used to measure brain size in the absence of MRI? The best method to evaluate brain size in the absence of MRI is to plug the openings of the skull and fill it with mustard seed or lead shot (lead shot is better as it is less compressible). That was the method Beals used. BTW, you still haven't proved any of your points, except that some researchers indeed found evidence concordant with what you say is fact. So I wouldn't claim victory yet if I were you.--Ramdrake 19:37, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
You lost your argument half a dozen edits ago, and now you just carry on veering off on tangets with your non-sequitur nonsense, not unlike your joke of "proof" you originally supplied. Quit wasting people's time.Ernham 20:18, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Fine if you say I lost the argument, but I care to disagree. Of course, that could be expected when one doesn't get the point at all.--Ramdrake 20:25, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
But just in case you might be interested to expand your horizons, here are a few more references:

[8],[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] So, next time you say that race correlates with brain size which correlates with IQ, please tak into consideration that this is but one possible interpretation and certainly not a fact as you were touting.--Ramdrake 21:27, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

(uncivil comment removed - offending editor reported)--Ramdrake 11:25, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

That's fine. Your actions have also been reported here: [18]. Have a nice day! --Ramdrake 23:54, 29 September 2006 (UTC)


[edit] The Mismeasure of Man not a controversial book?

It really has been almost since the day it was published. However, there seems to be a question here concerning whether Gould's book The Mismeasure of Man is regarded as "controversial" by those expert in the subject matter. Not sure what level of controversy has to be met but doingg nothing more than going to the wikipedia site for the book and copying the criticism section gives this:


The Mismeasure of Man has been highly controversial. The popular and literary press have mostly praised the book, while most scientific journals have been critical.[1] Among psychologists, the reaction has been largely negative. Hans Eysenck's[2] review called the book "a paleontologist's distorted view of what psychologists think, untutored in even the most elementary facts of the science."


Critics have accused Gould of selective reporting, distorting the viewpoints of scientists, and letting his viewpoints be influenced by political and ethical biases, and allege that many of Gould's claims about the validity of intelligence measures, such as IQ, contradict mainstream psychology.

  • Bernard Davis (1916–1994), former professor at the Harvard Medical School, and former head of the Center for Human Genetics, indicates that "While the nonscientific reviews of The Mismeasure of Man were almost uniformly laudatory, the reviews in the scientific journals were almost all highly critical." Davis describes the book as "a sophisticated piece of political propaganda, rather than as a balanced scientific analysis." On Gould's use of biological determinism and his understanding of intelligence testing, Davis states "Gould would prefer to combat the straw man of naive, 'pure' determinism, he fails to note that the science of genetics has altogether replaced this concept with interactionism."

On Gould's use of the concept of "reification" Davis adds:

"Gould's argument on reification purports to get at the philosophical foundation of the field. He claims that general intelligence, defined as the factor common to different cognitive abilities, is merely a mathematical abstraction; hence if we consider it a measurable attribute we are reifying it, falsely converting an abstraction into an 'entity' or a 'thing'—variously referred to as 'a hard, quantifiable thing,' 'a quantifiable fundamental particle,' 'a thing in the most direct, material sense.' Here he has dug himself a deep hole. . . . Indeed, this whole argument is fantastic. The scientist does not measure 'material things': He measures properties (such as length or mass), sometimes of a single 'thing' (however defined), and sometimes of an organized collection of things, such as a machine, a biological organ, or an organism. In a particularly complex collection, the brain, some properties (i.e., specific functions) have been traced to narrowly-localized regions (such as the sensory or motor nuclei connected to particular parts of the body)"[19]

On Gould's "highly selective" use of data, he adds:

"His historical account is highly selective; he asserts the non-objectivity of science so that he can test for scientific truth, flagrantly, by the standards of his own social and political convictions; and by linking his critique to the quest for fairness and justice, he exploits the generous instincts of his readers. . . . In effect, we see here Lysenkoism risen again: an effort to outlaw a field of science because it conflicts with a political dogma.[20]

Davis also points out possible political motivations behind Gould's attacks

"A left-wing group called Science for the People, of which Gould is a member, has been particularly active in campaigning against such studies. Instead of focusing, in the earlier tradition of radical groups, on defects in our political and economic system that demand radical change, this group has aimed at politicizing science, attacking in particular any aspect of genetics that may have social implications. Their targets have included genetic engineering, research on the effects of an XYY set of chromosomes, sociobiology, and efforts to measure the heritability of intelligence. Several years ago Gould co-signed their intemperate attack on E.O. Wilson's Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Now, in The Mismeasure of Man, he has extended the attack to cognitive psychology and educational testing, because they may reveal genetic differences."

Davis adds

"Gould is entitled, of course, to whatever political views he wishes. But the reader is also entitled to be aware of his agenda."[21]


  • Charles Murray in an interview in Skeptic magazine, claimed that Gould misrepresented his views.[22]
  • Arthur Jensen, a prominent educational psychologist, in a paper titled The Debunking of Scientific Fossils and Straw Persons.[23] made the following observation:
Stephen Jay Gould is a paleontologist at Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology and offers a course at Harvard entitled, "Biology as a Social Weapon." Apparently the course covers much the same content as does the present book. Having had some personal cause for interest in ideologically motivated attacks on biologically oriented behavioral scientists, I first took notice of Gould when he played a prominent role in a group called Science for the People and in that group's attack on the theories of Harvard zoologist Edward O. Wilson, a leader in the development of sociobiology. . .

Jensen also makes a complaint similar to Murray's when charging Gould with misrepresentations.

In his references to my own work, Gould includes at least nine citations that involve more than just an expression of Gould's opinion; in these citations Gould purportedly paraphrases my views. Yet in eight of the nine cases, Gould's representation of these views is false, misleading, or grossly caricatured. Nonspecialists could have no way of knowing any of this without reading the cited sources. While an author can occasionally make an inadvertent mistake in paraphrasing another, it appears Gould's paraphrases are consistently slanted to serve his own message.

Arthur Jensen, like Davis, suggested that Gould relies on information that is outdated while ignoring present research and information that does not support his conclusions.

Of all the book's references, a full 27 percent precede 1900. Another 44 percent fall between 1900 and 1950 (60 percent of those are before 1925); and only 29 percent are more recent than 1950. From the total literature spanning more than a century, the few "bad apples" have been hand-picked most aptly to serve Gould's purpose.[24]

However this sampling may only reflect Gould's historical treatment of the subject, and his literary style of incorporating historical thinkers—such as Plato, Alexander Pope, Thomas Jefferson, and his profession's hero Charles Darwin—into his narrative. Percentages aside, Gould argued that he had "focused upon the leading and most influential scientists of their times and have analyzed their major works." (1981, p. 27)

In an article written for the April 1982 edition of Nature, Steve Blinkhorn, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Hatfield Polytechnic begins his criticism of Gould's work thus

"With a glittering prose style and as honestly held a set of prejudices as you could hope to meet in a day's crusading, S.J. Gould presents his attempt at identifying the fatal flaw in the theory and measurement of intelligence."

And adds the following criticism of Gould's attempt to mislead the lay public through the "careful selection, emphasis and juxaposition" of facts

"It is a masterpiece of propaganda, researched in the service of a point of view rather than written from a fund of knowledge. For the best propaganda requires not the suppression or distortion of facts but their careful selection, emphasis and juxtaposition. So, in a work which declares its concern to be with the notion of intelligence as a single measurable "thing" in the head, we find that two-thirds of the argument is given over to a careful reworking of early attempts to establish craniometric and anthropometric criteria of intelligence, and an admirably disturbing account of the Gadarene rush to press IQ tests into the service of social engineering in the USA in the first half of this century. As Gould rightly emphasizes, many of the uses to which tests were put made mockery of their original purpose."
"The final third of the book is the attempt proper to debunk the notion of general intelligence as arising specifically in the school of factor analysts starting with Spearman. But by this stage the reader has been presented with sufficient examples, sufficiently carefully examined, of racial and social prejudice in the work of scientists, of distorted data, fudged analysis and twisted interpretation as to the inexpert might establish a necessary connection. Add to that the soft target of Cyril Burt, some rather inaccurate observations on the role and effects of the 11+ examination system in Britain and a remarkably detailed account of antique methods of factor analysis, and you have all the makings of a lively, plausible, opinionated and zesty potboiler."[3]
  • J. Philippe Rushton, head of the Pioneer Fund, which funds research towards "the scientific study of heredity and human differences," accused Gould of "scholarly malfeasance" for misrepresenting or ignoring relevant scientific research, and attacking dead arguments and methods. Rushton also charges that Gould fails to mention recent discoveries made from Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) which show a 0.4 correlation between brain-size and IQ[4]
  • Hans Eysenck—who at the time of his death was the most frequently cited living psychologist—wrote that: "S. J. Gould's Mismeasure of Man is a paleontologist's distorted view of what psychologists think, untutored in even the most elementary facts of the science. Gould is one of a number of politically motivated scientists who have consistently misled the public about what psychologists are doing in the field of intelligence, what they have discovered and what conclusions they have come to. Gould simply refuses to mention unquestionable facts that do not fit into his politically correct version; he shamelessly attacks the reputations of eminent scientists of whom he disapproves, on completely nonfactual grounds, and he misrepresents the views of scientists."

Some nonspecialists have also been critical of Gould's methods. Steve Sailer, in his article for the publication National Review, concludes

"Gould's most famous and influential book was The Mismeasure of Man, which exemplified his trademark combination of antiquarianism and guilt by association in the service of character assassination. In it, he attempted to destroy the modern science of IQ by recounting the stumblings of 19th-century researchers working before the IQ test was even invented. Of course, that line of attack makes as much sense as trying to discredit modern astronomy by writing a book revealing that ancient astronomers thought the sun went around the Earth."
  • Finally, many of Gould's positions conflict with conclusions reached by the American Psychological Association, whose Board of Scientific Affairs has published a report finding that IQ scores do in fact have high predictive validity for certain individual differences.[25]
The matter here is not whether MMoM is controversial or not - according to Wikipedia rules, this epithet must be cited in order to keep it included. If you go ahead and call it a controversial book, it can be considered editorializing. If you write "so-and-so have called the book controversial", then all is fine. We just need somebody to whom to attribute those words. That's all.--Ramdrake 16:53, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
I tend to swing pretty far in the direction of removing uncited claims, but there has to be a line somewhere. If you demand citation and attribution for every claim, no matter how trivial, you need a footnote after every sentence clause or every noun phrase and the encyclopedia becomes unreadable. Or, as a reductio ad absurdum, if you need to attribute everything, you can't say anything without needing an infinite tower of meta-attributions: "New York Times reporter John Smith writes that CNN showed a video of a person they claimed to be George W. Bush, whom Jane Doe (a woman generally alleged to be a Harvard political analyst [citation needed]) claims to be the President of the United States of America, stated that withdrawing forces from Iraq would be a 'huge mistake.'" In this case, clicking on the wikilink for The Mismeasure of Man and seeing the numerous attributed criticisms in that article is enough to establish that the book is controversial. -- Schaefer (Talk) 20:49, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Ramdrake, first let me ssay that I agree totally with Schaefer's points. But assuming that it's just the way wikipedia wants this ... how and when does the citing standard apply? Does this requirement apply only to The Mismeasure of Man when cited as a controversial book but not to the Bell Curve and it's description as a "controversial book" in that same section? Or was that an oversight? Or something about the section topic ... again, I don't quite understand. In addition, I would like to point out that under the "Controversy" topic, the "Social construct" section is entirely unsourced .. using "some maintain" - "others maintain" - "many people" but never even going as far as giving even a name for any of those folks or a cite. Not a gripe as to the unsourced assertions in that section really - (since I knew that this was the case prior to reading it here) - but I am truly confused as to when and where the citing standard provided should be employed.
The others are obviously oversights. And no, I don't think every claim needs to be sourced. However, I think that character-defining claims should be sourced more often than not. or example, I don't think I need to source writing George W. Bush is the current president of the United States, but I would feel I need to source George W. Bush is one of the most-often decried US president in recent years. That being said, if you really think it's widely known and accepted without dispute that MMoM is a controversial book, remove the citation flag. I will certainly not go to war on this. :)--Ramdrake 21:54, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
Deal. But one point before I go. Saying that a topic is "controversial" is not making the value judgement you seem to imply. Noting that a book is "controversial" does not "decry" or deride that book or that author ... "controversial", as used here, is not good or bad tag. It's simply a recognition of an existing state of affairs.

obituary pieces around the time of Gould's death noted that MMoM was controversial. you can find them in google scholar. i can understand the need to cite sources for at least some claims that a book/topic is controversial, such as those where there is a disagreement about whether it is/isn't controversial (e.g. global warming). in this case, i see no disagreement. --Rikurzhen 01:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Klinefelter's Syndrome

Someone has gone through and added multiple references to Klinefelter's Syndrome in various parts of this article. I find it questionable whether this is notable enough for all these mentions of this, so I've removed one of the mentions, from the Brain areas associated with IQ section. Feel free to put it back, or whatever, if it's worth keeping. The text I removed: "Studies, conducted on one particular individual with Klinefelter's Syndrome indicates that visual IQ tests (pattern, shape, colour, mathematical series), computation, can be greatly enhanced by using puzzles such as WASGIJ's. Increased Visual IQ from around 110 to 155 is not impossible when such tests are conducted on some individuals with Klinefelter's Syndrome. Both individuals with Klinefelter's Syndrome and Triple X syndrome have an enhanced Parietal lobe which facilitates visual spatial thinking". --Xyzzyplugh 19:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Under Wikipedia standards, the Social Construct section needs it's sources.

The Social Construct section is almost entirely unsourced and may be mostly POV. In the first instance, this prevents others from weighing the material presented. In the second instance, the section needs at least radical revision. In either event, when this is the case, and according to Wikipedia standards for controversial topics, one should "supply full citations." This clearly has not been done by some of those initially contributing.

Learn how to spell its. -lysdexia 22:58, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
And you never misspell a word, now do you? And BTW, it's dyslexia. ;>

--Ramdrake 23:32, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Famous or notable high IQs

Where do the IQs listed in this section come from? Are the IQs listed adjusted for the Flynn effect or not? --Jagz 03:16, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

This should probably be made into a separate article because it shows bias towards those with high IQs. What about famous people with low IQs? --Jagz 15:18, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I removed the list. A lot of it looked like it came from this website's list of "estimated IQs" [26].-SpuriousQ 15:37, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revisions are atrocious

The "The definition of the IQ" and "Misconceptions about the IQ" sections are the worst things I've read on Wikipedia.

Care to explain "why"?--Ramdrake 23:01, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

"Misconceptions about the IQ" is indeed bad. The distributions of IQ in the very high low and especially the very high sections have often been seen to deviate from a Gaussian curve because many more individuals are found with very high IQs than are predicted. However, it had been noted that by constructing your IQ test differently, you can achieve any distribution you like. So, yes, most IQ tests do actually differ from the perfectly Gaussian distribution in the remote ranges, and this may mean general intelligence or IQ does, or it may just be a problem with the tests. For a more complete discussion of these issues, see: www.gifteddevelopment.com/PDF_files/a35.pdf. I could change this misconception to exactly the reverse, but that wouldn't address the complexity properly either. I think I will just delete it.

As far as the other misconception goes, I can't really see many people coming up with it. Perhaps it is a neccessary point that IQ is purely a statistical measure, but perhaps someone could rewrite this somewhat. Cathryn 10:29, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Troth and IQ

Pick points from linked articuli; write about behavred/personality/neurodisorders, sociopathy, eccentricity, ties with "great" emotional/social intelligence, faith[27], delusions, patients, self-control or restraint, aggression and pacifism, preferences such as vegetarianism or reading or collections, sexual behavreds, prejudices/postjudices/opinionation, goal-setting, [contra]humanistic outlook/misanthropy/filanthropy, political views, et cetera -lysdexia 02:10, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

It would seem that if you wanted a section devoted to this, it might have helped the cause if either more than a topic title was placed in the article or, if nothing was to be added except the topic title, the wisdom of whole project was discussed here first.


[edit] Repetition

Is it just me, or does the repetition between the introduction and "Components of intelligence" seem at least somewhat undesirable? It has been there for some time and no one has seen fit to change it, but it seems unfit for an encyclopedia to directly re-use sections within the same article. --Tiak 20:10, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] congats

I viewed this article a few months back and the improvements since then are enormous. The material as well as the NPOV stance and presention deserve a kudos. Just wanted to congratulate everyone who has been working on this.

Cosign. Good job all.

[edit] copyrighted material

In the "Review papers" section, most links refer to articles from Scientific American however the articles are hosted on another site. further investigation reveals that these articles at ScientificAmerican.com are for sale and under copyright protection. The reference to the cached copies should either be removed and corected to point to the protected original source, or removed completely. comments?

Not sure I follow you. The copyrighted material is not on Wikipedia; we just link to it. And we don't know that whoever maintains that site doesn't have the right to carry these papers on their site (actually, if they didn't, chances are Scientific American would have had them pull the papers quite some time ago). No?--Ramdrake 13:40, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I've contacted Scientific American to verify.
Not only that but the professor that authored the article most certainly has her own right to reprint. She also might have given a right of reprint to that university's site.
These are two very strong, very comprehensive references which are extremely germane to the subject. Why were they removed with the comment "Review papers : repeated content/no new content"?--Ramdrake 00:05, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
What value due these two articles bring anyway? Its just a regurgitation of the wiki. External Links should be used sparingly.
Do you want these article links deleted because they don't "bring" anything, because they're "fishy" or because of your concerns about the copywrites of the author and SA? Or all of the above ... since to this point it doesn't appear you defended any of the above with anything other than 'saying it's so.'
It so happens that these links are the same as two of the references on the page. So, the argument that does it in the end is simple, plain redundancy.--Ramdrake 17:42, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
They are the basis for a good part of the article's content, to start with. What do you have against those links, anyway? They are a reliable source, verifiable, and they have been part of this page for a very long time. Please ensure you gather consensus before you try to remove them again. And, please sign your post, with four tilde's.--Ramdrake 01:54, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
my fellow Canadian, four tides?
1) The problem I have is that they don't bring any value in the non standard section "review papers". What does "review papers" mean? If you didn't notice the links are repeated. They are foot noted. I don't have any objection to that.
2) After reading the articles I don't see the value add? nothing that isn't alreay covered.
3) The pages are also fishy. They are not from the original publisher or the author. AsI said. I contacted SA and waiting for thier response.

[edit] External links

Sites providing updated psychometrics information? Ramdrake, getting old? This wasn't mine. I don't like it!

What's wrong?

[edit] Moved social construct info to Social Contruct Section

Nothing more. Just in case there were questions.

[edit] Changes

I changed this part : "IQ correlates highly with school performance but the correlations decrease the closer one gets to real-world outcomes, like with job performance". This is false, in fact IQ correlates with school performance and job performance equally well. In fact, one of the table on the very same page states that the correlation with School grades is 0.5, while the correlation with job performances is 0.54 , meaning IQ correlates more with job performance than with grades.

--Guillaume777 04:21, 5 December 2006 (UTC)


.54 and .5 shold mean that IQ isn't the whole game. Having daddy own the business probably means more.

[edit] the scientist goal is to have good mesurement

i removed sentence: 'IQ scores are relative (like placement in a foot race), not absolute (like the measurement of a ruler).

There is obvious nonsense with positional foot race. What if evrybody will take part in this "race". Statistical analisis is for elimination of skeving data smpling.

[edit] Adopted siblings living together

The chart shows a correlation of 0 for adopted siblings living together, but the text says .32. Which is it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Readams (talk • contribs) 18:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

The difference is between children (.32) and adults (0). --W. D. Hamilton 19:13, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
This info together with cite to source indicating a zero correlation is also provided in the article --
Shared family effects also seem to disappear by adulthood. Adoption studies show that, after adolescence, adopted siblings are no more similar in IQ than strangers (IQ correlation near zero), while full siblings show an IQ correlation of 0.6. Twin studies reinforce this pattern: monozygotic (identical) twins raised separately are highly similar in IQ (0.86), more so than dizygotic (fraternal) twins raised together (0.6) and much more than adopted siblings (~0.0).[10] Plomin et al. (2001, 2003)
~~Dave~~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 63.3.10.2 (talk) 01:10, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Meaning of children's IQ scores

In "The definition of the IQ section" it says:

Originally, IQ was calculated with the formula 100 \times \frac{\text{mental age}}{\text{chronological age}}. A 10-year-old who scored as high as the average 13-year-old, for example, would have an IQ of 130 (100*13/10). Because this formula only worked for children, it was replaced by a projection of the measured rank on the Gaussian bell curve with a center value (average IQ) of 100.

So what do IQ scores of children mean now? Do the scores compare them to other children or everyone? Will the child be expected to have about the same IQ score when they are an adult? --Jagz 22:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

My take on it: Only to the extent that child doesn't move up or down in the bell curve (that is, learn more quickly or slowly than their peers). There are many children who see "jumps" and "plateaus" as they learn, particularly if they are overcoming learning disabilities. While test/retest statistics show a high level of consistency, the "average" cases is never the most interesting, and I know of multiple situations where a child's IQ has varied by more than three standard deviations as they grew up. Sam 01:56, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
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