How about a person's ability to propound original ideas and to reason critically? Who is more likely to be intelligent, one of the numerous MENSA members who scores 140 on the IQ test and is unable to even read a single book on any complex subject let alone make thought-provoking claims or a person who published an original and a conceptually nuanced dissertation on Mathematics?
You are invoking a theoretical situation to support your palpably defensive claims.
Why wouldn't a Mensa member with an IQ of 140 be able to read a "complex" book on a subject or make a thought provoking thought? This contention is immaterial.
If intelligence is to be defined as an ability to solve complex problems
You are misconstruing my definition. Nowhere did I state that it boiled down to problem solving alone, although I do maintain that IQ tests generally measure one's ability to solve abstract problems in a timely manner.
Being able to acquire, understand, and utilize information is another aspect of intelligence, formally known as crystallized intelligence.
, then it can certainly be measured by how a person performs in activities that clearly involve solving such puzzles.
True enough.
There is no doubt that typical IQ test problems are simplistic in comparison to the many abstruse conundrums that professional academics work with.
What makes you think that the intelligence one utilizes to solve an IQ test is not the same as that applied to more "complex" problems? After all, logic is logic and pattern recognition is pattern recognition. This universal intelligence is the underlying factor some eminent scientists call
g.
I don't quite understand what you're getting at, but I have a hunch that it involves a highly inaccurate and misconstrued view of contemporary psychometric testing.
As a matter of fact, you're offering us a far clearer indication of your own intelligence in this very thread than any of your IQ test results may!
...What? Alright.
Either way, this is completely irrelevant.
What supporting rationale can you provide for such a strong claim? What non-controversial, scholarly authority can you cite in its support?
First of all, I did not know that "controversy" in science was looked down upon, and that one couldn't cite "controversial" works; that they are 'invalid', so to speak. I suppose the liberal agenda rearing its ugly head even in the scientific community should not come as a surprise. After all, it occurred in the Soviet Union, why not the United Socialist States of America?
I don't need to cite any "non-controversial" authority. I have stated my position and stand by it.
On a side note, the so-called "controversy" does not apply to the genetic basis proponents of intelligence alone, but to the entire topic of intelligence, which some wishful thinkers believe does not apply to humans, even though we see it in every other organism. According to your logic, nobody should cite any sources when it comes to IQ because controversy may be hidden anywhere.
If you don't accept the theories on intelligence propounded by such respected scientists as Spearman, Jensen, Murray, Lynn, et al., you are free to do so, but you cannot reject my use of their works offhand, and must provide counter evidence or a reasonable refutation.
That's a clever way to reiterate the foundationless assertion that nature intelligence exists and IQ tests indicate what one's natural intelligence is!
"Foundationless"? Genetic IQ is only gaining ground in the scientific community, and it does so despite the vociferous clamor of the ideological left.
Generally the proponents of your thesis, like Herrnstein and Murray would be inclined to say that a person's IQ test scores don't change and that is why natural intelligence exist. Yet you hold that any person who in the past received low scores and now consistently scores highly must have had a high intelligence to begin with. The trouble is, the argument from the consistency of test-takers' scores throughout their lifetime was what granted a foundation for the claim that there is 'natural intelligence' in the first place. Again, as common of numerous partisan defender's of the existence of intelligence and viability of IQ tests, you've reasoned in a decidedly circular manner.
I do not claim to be an expert on the matter, and my interpretation of certain works may be incorrect, but my logic in this regard is not circular.
What scientists who hold the genetic position state is that consistency on IQ tests is due to
g, but they do not claim that every psychometric test has an equally strong correlation with
g, nor that IQ scores cannot be improved, only that these improvements do not have any impact on
g.
It is not unusual for a person's IQ to rise or fall by as much as ten points depending on their physical and mental condition, although anything more than ten is generally considered reliable. This is what I meant.
Your entire argument thus far has a strong semblance to Steven Jay Gould's. This review by Arthur Jensen of Steven Jay Gould's book,
The Mismeasure of Man, has already been posted on this thread, but here it is again:
Arthur Jensen Replies to Steven Jay Gould
That is not true in all cases. The simplicity of the underlying test system and its questions allows for one to succeed by rote learning and without engaging in the cognitive abilities that you've listed.
I disagree. The tests are designed to require the use of these functions - how close they come to succeeding in this regard is another matter. I don't see how one can improve their IQ score simply by rote learning; surely, one would need to learn how to employ the requisite functions, which in and of itself is a type of intelligence. Nevertheless, this is addressed by Arthur Jensen when he discusses "specialized" intelligence as opposed to
g related intelligence, and is further discredited by the scoring consistency we observe.
In order to support this claim, you'd have to show that the only way a person can answer the test questions is by executing those functions and that no other skills or knowledge will allow him or her to perform well on the assessment.
I did not claim that using those functions is the "only" way to solve the test, only that this is what I define as intelligence. In order to be able to test for intelligence, we must have an objective definition of it, and this is my own, which happens to follow in line closely with the standard definition of general intelligence as proposed by Raymond Cattell.
I am curious, though, as to which other functions if not the above could one possibly employ to solve the tests?
As common of a defender of IQ test, you're making a number of controversial claims while providing little supporting rationale for them. Another tactic you employ is referencing to the ideas of controversial thinkers such as Jensen, Herrnstein or Lynn. The evidence for views for all of those authors is inconclusive, controversial and several of their key views have even been refuted by the American Psychological Association.
Which views have been refuted? Their core theories remain intact and are only gaining support.
It is senseless to merely regurgitate what Jensen may or may not have said on the subject. A real defense of an IQ test's indication of intelligence would require a definition of intelligence, a definition of the test and a careful juxtaposition of the two which suggests that the two entities are closely linked. Since you've done none of that, your conclusion rests on a dubious and a controversial viewpoint of one researcher who endorsed a certain partisan view on the subject of intelligence.
This is a common tactic amongst those who deny the validity of IQ tests. They project their own open-ended definition of intelligence in order to convince the less educated that no objective definition exists or can exist, and that the entire concept is worthless.
Can you provide any reason to believe that their discoveries accurately represent reality. Furthermore, can you cite one or more articles suggesting that the views on intelligence of at least one of these thinkers are supported by the consensus of professional psychologists?
I can (look at Lloyd Humphreys' twin study, correlation between brain size and IQ, positive correlations between tests, etc.), but I won't bother.
This strikes me as both an appeal to authority and an appeal to majority.
No, but he exposed a great deal of fraud and errors of reasoning implicit in the work of researchers you cited. For example, the abuse of the factor analysis method. Spearman's 'g' that also resurfaces in the work of Jensen performs a mathematical analysis of the scores people receive on their tests without providing any justification for why intelligence exists as a single entity in the first place.
All of these scientists (with the exception of Spearman, who died long before Gould's book was published) have defended their positions and addressed Gould's distorted representation of their research. Look at the review by Arthur Jensen that I linked above.
The claim that a person's IQ test results have a great deal to do with how they do in life is not questioned, what is impugned is whether the IQ tests indicate intelligence. A person's grades or standardized test scores commonly employed by universities also correlate highly with his success. However, many people who do earn high grades or test scores do so by virtue of their perseverance and industriousness rather than intelligence. There are many reasons why a person can succeed in life as there are many reasons why a person can do well on an IQ test and they do overlap. There is no reason to suppose that only intelligence is the reason for both. At any rate, you offered no support for that assumption.
Again, this is a problem that plagues the behavioral sciences: critics of genetic intelligence wish to obfuscate the definition intelligence or redefine it in such a way that it cannot be stipulated so as to give the impression that general intelligence cannot be tested. I am not going to defend against these disingenuous and ignorant tactics. Read the works of the scientists and let them support their own works, which they have consistently done.
To conclude, your definition of intelligence is incomplete and inconsistent, and seems to rest on the assumption that my own definition somehow precludes all of the "examples" of intelligence you have enumerated throughout your long winded post.
uch:
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