I have a similar view. The only thing that holds me back from chucking it out in total is the research showing a bunch of better life outcomes correlated with IQ.

I'm open to being set straight on this point but my understanding is that research is largely apart and of a better quality than the more race bating stuff of 'The Bell Curve' crowd.

Edit: Full disclosure, I am really shooting from the hip here so please go easy. This is an issue I've bumped into a couple times and have never gone super in-depth on.

There's something I've read about IQ where the correlation you speak of only applies to the, say, lower half of the range. I.e. someone with an IQ of 90 will do better in life than one with an IQ of 75, but you won't find a significant difference when comparing 110 and 125.

So basically IQ "works" in the lower range, and this shows through as a weaker correlation across the entire range, even though it is meaningless in the upper range.

This would then make sense too -- in the low end, IQ is affected by things like malnutrition, lead poisoning, and the like, which happen to people who live in areas where everyone are having worse life outcomes, but not because of their IQ.

I wish I had a reference for this hypothesis but I lost it. if someone does please hit me up.

> but you won't find a significant difference when comparing 110 and 125.

IQ is the measurement of how capable you are at abstract learning. So a lower IQ will lock you out of certain jobs, at least on merit alone. Like you won't be a university math professor with a 110 IQ, but you'd probably be a fine nurse. A 75 IQ locks you out of basically any job. I believe the military found that ~83 is the lowest IQ that is trainable for the most rudimentary job.

But having a high IQ is in-and-of-itself, not a guarantee of success, because socio-economic factors can also lock you out of certain jobs. 100 years ago, being a woman was enough to prevent you from being a university professor, regardless of your IQ. And even today, you still have to be born in the right country to the right parents to have the chance to be a doctor or something.

However, there is a pretty big difference between a 110IQ and a 125. That's a 1.5 standard deviation improvement. That's like comparing an American man who is 6'1 to one who is 6'6.

I'm aware there's a big difference in IQ test performance between 110 and 125. What I'm asking is if this IQ test performance truly translates to real life, the way the difference between 75 and 90 does.

This seems to hint no: https://medium.com/incerto/iq-is-largely-a-pseudoscientific-...

Social skills, family background, and physical looks correlate far more with success than raw IQ. Raw IQ is overrated. See e.g.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/20628656?seq=1

~125 eases entry into well-paid middle class jobs. Over 140 people start to seem weird by median standards. Over 160 they can seem very weird indeed, and are likely to become isolated without a compatible environment. So they're just as likely to fail spectacularly as to become innovative successes.

If you test a population, regardless of the test, certain people will always do better on average. So IQ is real. Out of all the studies done in the social sciences, IQ is by far the most conclusive.

But the other half of the story is the myth of the genius. The idea that intelligence provides all the answers. It does not. Terence Tao, a child prodigy with an IQ of 230 (apparently), would know. [1]

Talking faster is like running faster. If you're a stand-up comedian or chasing a purse snatcher, you'll have an advantage. But neither would make life any easier unless you deliberately reinforce your talents with hard work and pursue paths where you maintain an advantage.

The world seems to be built around normal folk. Being average isn't that bad. Of course, now we must define average. No one is truly average. We're all over the place.

[1] https://terrytao.wordpress.com/career-advice/does-one-have-t...

Then call it a "successful in capitalist society" test.

The current name implies it is a measure of a fairly poorly defined thing, general intelligence. So yes, I think changing the name would be a good idea.

Of course there is a reason when neurologists do tests for cognitive decline or deficiency they use a range of tests, IQ being only one of several employed.

Chess grandmasters don't make great mathematicians. Similarly, great warriors may not become great scientists. I don't see a lot of people making jumps from one technical field into another. They make a jump from one technical field to a general field, like politics or Venture capital.

Reminds me of one of my favorite comics from Saturday Morning Breakfast cereal

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2010-01-29

How is it not well defined when we can observe positive correlations between unrelated cognitive tasks?

How are IQ tests "easily gamed"?

I suspect that is only true for really smart people :)

As a child who was tracked into gifted classes since elementary school, I vividly remember whole lessons dedicated to strategically taking standardized tests.

An example of a tricky question we learned to answer correctly: "1. Big is to bigger as little is to ____" is "A. tiny," not "B. big", because the question is looking at changes in intensity, not just increasing size.

We were also taught general test-taking strategies like budgeting time for an entire test, making an educated guess on, or skipping & returning to, tricky questions, and so forth. Getting explicitly taught these skills made me perform better on standardized tests. And families like mine, with the socio-economic resources to get their kids taught these skills, will do better on standardized tests--including IQ tests--as a result.

I remember during tests I'd get stuck at the hardest problems and stubbornly solve them only to run out of time on the easy questions and haphazardly answer them until the "pen up" was announced. At some point a teacher taught us how to maximize our scores resembling the strategy you mention and yes, it did help. We weren't smarter by any means, but had a better strategy to taking tests.

Easiest way to "game" it is to take it multiple times or practice/cram for it.

At least around here it seems people are allowed to take the Mensa test multiple times.

I never took the official one but I understand a lot of effort goes into constructing test sets that doesn't benefit from cramming but (except for getting used to the format, which you can do online) only on raw "processing power".

I'm not a scientists or a psychiatrist so take my word for just that: my understanding.

Also I note that from what I hear on HN it seems to be that in USA IQ tests contain both spelling and history questions which - in my ears sounds like something very different from a raw IQ test.

There are lots of tests out there that all correlate with general mental ability. Some of these, like mental rotation tests, benefit a lot from practice. Some of them, like Raven's Progressive Matrices, don't. The tests used in modern IQ tests are the ones where practice don't give much benefit.

Everyone does better at IQ tests if they repeatedly practice IQ tests. A lot of those rely on you being fast at identifying a repeating pattern but there's only a finite amount of them. You can learn a few of the complex ones that are harder for you and bruteforce a sequence into fitting it, and anyone can do that.

OK, I'm sure people will have better results on their 10th test than the first.

So I admit you can "game" the test somewhat, but I expect the effect to be minor, and largest for the more intelligent.

If there is real data on this I'd enjoy seeing it.

> You can learn a few of the complex ones that are harder for you and bruteforce a sequence into fitting it, and anyone can do that.

Anyone smart can do that :)

Here's an interesting randomized controlled study that shows nominal improvements when retaking the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-IV after 3 months and 6 months. https://sci-hub.tw/10.1080/13854046.2012.659219 There's a long discussion of how significant, if at all, those improvements were, which I only quickly glanced over. Apparently practice effects are well established, at least in principle, and there are some well known analytical and examination methods (albeit contended--part of the discussion compares and contrasts them) that attempt to correct for them.

People in this thread talk alot about gaming multiple-choice tests, but when I was given the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children at age 11 I mostly remember alot of pictorial and physical work (puzzles, blocks), mental arithmetic (e.g. 2, 3, 4+ digit sums), verbal memorization, and other visual and oral interaction, not much written material. And it was administered by a developmental psychologist in a 1:1 setting. I have no doubt such an examination might be susceptible to practice effects, but I'd be surprised if it were as significant as for common written examinations. In the county (state?) I went to school the gifted programs required a formal Wechsler or Stanford-Binet exam, which I gather was a far more common requirement than today. Perhaps that's too expensive of a gateway when you have legions of parents knocking down the door to get their child tested for specialized programs, or when concerned about bias--test every kid, rather than relying on teachers identifying a small number of children for additional screening and examination.

The simplest way to 'game' multiple choice based forms of IQ test is to guess the multiple choice options when you don't actually know the answer. This isn't likely to allow you to fake genius, but will boost your score relative to a majority who don't attempt all questions unless there's a very well-designed negative marking scheme.

Willingness to guess answers to ensure the whole test is completed probably is associated with many of the success outcomes associated with higher IQ scores, but it isn't exactly what most people would consider to be intelligence.

You learn to look after patterns.

No different that "grinding" leetcode problems, IMO.

If you do enough, you start to see a lot of similar patterns, over and over.

From there, even if you don't truly know what pattern is right, you can at least do some exclusion - like with multiple choice.

I love the way a whole area of academic endeavour is put in its place. You simply haven't read the literature.

Like it or not hundreds of studies have demonstrated that IQ is predictive of life success across many domains.

https://archive.ph/PCvgk

how is putting an emphasis on general intelligence a talking point for racists?

Because the data strongly suggests that racial differences in general intelligence exist and exist due to genetic differences between populations. This idea makes certain people almost foam at the mouth (I've witnessed this personally and I'm only barely exaggerating).

Stephen Hsu, former VP of research at MSU for example was recently "canceled" from his job because he stated - in a very milquetoast and reasonable way - that even though he's aware that this kind of thing has been used to oppress people in the past, studies (specifically genome wide association studies) suggest that racial differences in intelligence are real and largely due to underlying genetic differences and not just socio-economic factors.

The genetic differences could be down to socio-economic factors though, such as some of your ancestors having been slaves and restricted in how they could choose a partner.

Evolution works on far, far longer timescales than you're suggesting.

Not really. It works on the timescale that specific causes are affecting the genepool. Europeans with below average immune systems were removed from the gene pool virtually overnight by the black death. Native Americans famously never had the 'benefit' of this event.

Similarly, there was an enormous selective pressure on Black slaves in the Americas, so it's certainly possible some effects took only a generation to be reflected in the gene pool.

However, when it comes to intelligence, no strong evidence exists saying it is genetically predetermined. Culture and rolemodel of parents are far greater determinants, implying selective pressure is unlikely to affect the general intelligence of a subgroup.

I'm thinking that racism in root is the belief of superiority of one race over another. In the past, tests were designed in ways that (perhaps unintentionally) disadvantaged people of color (for example tests included [white] cultural knowledge). While better tests have been developed, if in the end they show that (even if only on average) there is a minor difference in test scores between whites and blacks, racists will point to it as definitive proof (with no care about the tests' external validity).

Can you please give an example of this supposed cultural knowledge? In particular one that PoC raised in the same country and having the same education would supposedly have a disadvantage in?

My memory of the claims I came across during my time in Educational Psychology Ph.D.: tests in the distant past (early 1900s) were often culturally biased (even if unintentionally). I couldn't quickly find examples, but the gist is language or customs more available to rich white kids than otherwise (think playing golf, polo, etc).

One quick post I came across when looking just now is about "oarsman" and "regatta", words more-likely to be familiar to rich white kids than otherwise:

https://www.clearchoiceprep.com/sat-act-prep-blog/the-most-i...

The complaint about "oarsman" and "regatta" is nonsense.

Supposedly it was racist. Supposedly the white kids are all out doing yacht races, so they alone would know the vocabulary.

That is ridiculous. The portion of the population of white kids that go yachting is minuscule. Practically all white kids don't even know a person who does that. Practically all white kids have never even been on a yacht.

The question was fair. It, and others like it, are a test of reading. If you read well and have read a large variety of books, you'll know the words. The whole point of the test is to see if a student has that sort of college-capable ability (Can you read very well?) so of course the question belongs on the test.

The same goes for polo. Nobody does that. The same is nearly true for golf, and I think the desire to watch Tiger Woods might flip any advantage toward the black kids.

Really, it's about reading.

Don't focus on whether it's racist or not - that's not the point. The point is that it is easy for test makers who are not cognizant of culture to slip in questions that to some degree are easier to answer if you have relevant knowledg ef a particular culture.

In my Ph.D. studies in Educational Psychology we were made aware of cultural bias. More than a hundred years ago, when people made tests to assess "intelligence" they may have not been so careful as we try to be now.

Are you sincerely willing to claim that it's impossible to create a test that doesn't make it easier for some subset of the population to outperform another?

It's desirable to create a test with cultural bias. College has a culture. Remember, the test is about the ability to do well in college. Awareness of the cultural expectations will increase the chance of success in college.

If a student couldn't be bothered to learn about the culture, he isn't a good fit.

That said, the questions really are about reading. If you read lots of books, not counting the ones for little kids, you'll have no problem with the questions.

Do you think it's desirable to maintain a college culture that is biased towards the children of people that have yachts?

Those people practically don't exist, so who cares? They are a rounding error, if that.

It is desirable to maintain a college culture that is biased towards people who read about lots of different things, including yachts. Reading is good.

The choice of reading material matters. I don't count "The Cat In The Hat" and "Teen Magazine" the same as "The Grapes of Wrath", "Hamlet", "The Scarlet Letter", and "As I Lay Dying".

The post you're responding to may have been alluding to the controversy around the book "The Bell Curve" and follow-on discussion, where the questions of race and intelligence became a real hot button.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bell_Curve#Allegations_of_...

Most of our attempts to quantify intelligence have shown a correlation with race. That's evidence of something- either bad tests with cultural bias, or differences in intelligence between races.

I think most people recognize that the latter idea would be really bad for society, and thus requires a pretty high bar of evidence to consider, and IQ tests are far from good enough evidence.

Which makes IQ a talking point for racists, and "general intelligence" an almost unfalsifiable defence against it.

Studying music will make you way better at music than studying sequences of ravens matrices will make you good at ravens matrices.