IQ score!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

When you exercise your pattern-recognition skills, they are sharper and better. This is why, for many years, the prevailing belief was that intelligence peaks in the early 20's and declines thereafter. It turned out that more people are more intelligent toward the end of their college years than they will ever be again, because they stop exercising their brains after they graduate.

Both hopeful and depressing, wrapped into one.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

When you exercise your pattern-recognition skills, they are sharper and better. This is why, for many years, the prevailing belief was that intelligence peaks in the early 20's and declines thereafter. It turned out that more people are more intelligent toward the end of their college years than they will ever be again, because they stop exercising their brains after they graduate.

Both hopeful and depressing, wrapped into one.

Brain plasticity may decline at a certain age, but if you maintain it from the get go, it's not a big deal.

Honestly, playing the crossword and the sudoku grid when you go to work and playing guitar or piano when you get home after work, along with light exercise, will keep your mind mostly sharp throughout your existence.


Twid,
reminding you that he personally knows scientists who research this.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

Also:


MODERATE

alcohol consumption is protective against late age cognitive decline.


Twid,
Extremist

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Exactly. Iq test results have to be recalibrated every some odd years because the new average will increase compared to the old one. But the test's average must always be 100. Get stephen hawking to build you a time machine go back 50 years get scored as a genius.

I heard this doesn't happen as often as you'd think it should, hence the increasing trend--as long as education gets better.

That's why I said "some odd." I didn't want to give a fixed amount of time, since progress and regress in thinking ability isn't a constant.

Either way, before anyone can say something sensible about "it's calibrated so the average is 100", you really need to find out the average of WHAT. It could be 10 years ago.

In fact, I suppose there is a stronger urge to recalibrate when the scores have gone down than when they go up. So that's a bias for higher numbers right there.

The average is constant. 100 is chosen because it essentally means "one" as in 100/100. There is no urge to recalibrate unless the average score changes. Like I said before, it's a measure of intellectual age vs. physical age. Your average person should be at 100% but there will be outliers. There will be people who fall in the 137% range and others who fall in the 58% range.

It's well-known that you can simply train for IQ tests. Just do a couple of online ones and you're going to score higher already.

Similarly as to how you can (and should) train for aptitude tests when applying for certain kinds of jobs.

I agree with this statement. you can't really test for how smart someone is. Sometimes you just know. And I have no problem with saying "this dude/chick is smarter than me." I think that is a healthy reaction, unless they are really good bullshit artists.

I'm reminded of the SATs actually. I scored a 1300 even. Not bad. Not genius. The only thing that was good for was a sliding scale: "ok, this guy hates homework. But he understands his native language and mathematics to this degree. What colleges is he elligible for?" Also note, that in my day, top score for SAT was 1600. Now, with my youngest sister's generation (I was born in 1981, she in 1996), it is 2400, or someting like that. They test for scientific rational ability now. Which offers me hope. Because any motherfucker can be a well spoken tool who can add and subtract.

Weird! I remember when it was a BIG deal that my friend scored 1600 on his SAT... the highest score in Oregon, ever. And then a few years later his schizophrenia set in.

IQ is, by far, no kind of accurate measurement of real intelligence, or potential for success. People with extraordinarily high IQ scores are rarely highly successful... in fact, they are far less likely to be highly successful than people with average IQ scores. I think that's because IQ measures a specific kind of logical puzzle-solving, exclusively, and frankly, IME, most people who score very high on that type of logic are soaring frightfully near autism. The most successful, brilliant people I know fall into the "subgenius" category; enough puzzle-solving ability to possess acute critical analysis skills, and enough human acuity to apply that knowledge in a useful and accurate manner.

[Triple Zero]

Either way, before anyone can say something sensible about "it's calibrated so the average is 100", you really need to find out the average of WHAT. It could be 10 years ago.

In fact, I suppose there is a stronger urge to recalibrate when the scores have gone down than when they go up. So that's a bias for higher numbers right there.

The average is constant. 100 is chosen because it essentally means "one" as in 100/100. There is no urge to recalibrate unless the average score changes. Like I said before, it's a measure of intellectual age vs. physical age. Your average person should be at 100% but there will be outliers. There will be people who fall in the 137% range and others who fall in the 58% range.

You say that very confidently, but how do you know, is there a standards body? And still, the average of what ?

I checked Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iq#Mental_age_vs._modern_method

"When an IQ test is constructed, a standardization sample representative of the general population takes the test. The median result is defined to be equivalent to 100 IQ points. In almost all modern tests, a standard deviation of the results is defined to equivalent to 15 IQ points. When a subject takes an IQ test, the result is ranked compared to the results of normalization sample and the subject is given an IQ score equal to those with the same test result in the normalization sample."

Which is all very nice and all, but there's so many IQ tests floating about (not just online), I can't remember ever having seen any credits or sources about how it was created. How do I know I didnt take a test that was standardized for Americans? Or for the 1980s? Or by some psychometrist that just didn't know his shit? How do they standardize the rectal examination part of it anyway and what does it matter for how smart I am?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

When you exercise your pattern-recognition skills, they are sharper and better. This is why, for many years, the prevailing belief was that intelligence peaks in the early 20's and declines thereafter. It turned out that more people are more intelligent toward the end of their college years than they will ever be again, because they stop exercising their brains after they graduate.

Both hopeful and depressing, wrapped into one.

Brain plasticity may decline at a certain age, but if you maintain it from the get go, it's not a big deal.

Honestly, playing the crossword and the sudoku grid when you go to work and playing guitar or piano when you get home after work, along with light exercise, will keep your mind mostly sharp throughout your existence.


Twid,
reminding you that he personally knows scientists who research this.

I have one word for you, dear:

Hirley0.

[Jenne]

Game, set, match?

Also:

Also:


MODERATE

alcohol consumption is protective against late age cognitive decline.


Twid,
Extremist

Noted, approved.  *nods*

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Tripzip, there is no standards body that regulates IQ testing. Consider it a form of witch doctory, at the best.

If you want a reasonably standardized comparison, start with the version your local university administers.

[Phox]

I think he means that everyone taking making and/or judging IQ tests is working together to make every individual feel either stupider or smarter than they are with some specific goal in mind, like putting the stupid people in charge of decision making and destroying the selfesteem of those smart enough to actually make the world a better place.
I think rong stopped taking his anti-paranoia medication.

This theory of his (or mine if i was wrong about what he meant) requires a level of coordination and planning and secrecy that makes it highly unlikely, especially when compared with my nul hypothesis: nobody knows what they are doing and the only driving forces behind the state of the world are incompetence, stupidity and shortsightedness. Every single good thing that has happened ever was either someone accidentally doing something right and retrospectively convincing themselves that they meant to do that all along, was a bad idea from the beginning but surprisingly came out good, or has caused more harm in the long run than it ever did good.

There is more to success than having a high IQ; being smarter than others merely sets you up so that you will never have to learn discipline, try hard or develop a good work-ethic.
i.e. If everything is easy you become lazy.

Yes, as I said before, gaming individual scores is quite possible, and probably happens, though the elaborate hypothesis you've detailed is quite unlikely.

However, I do not see the purpose of deliberately fucking with the average, because from the way rong was wording it, (so far as I can tell),  it wouldn't be making the dumber people look smart and the smart people feel dumb, but making the average appear higher or lower than it actually is, whatever that entails.

(Again, I could be wrong in my interpretation, but that is what I can gather from rong's comments.)

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Game, set, match?

Also:

Also:


MODERATE

alcohol consumption is protective against late age cognitive decline.


Twid,
Extremist

Noted, approved.  *nods*

I enjoy the concept extremely, but as with all arenas in the intellectual stimulation game, context and association are indivorcable from effect.

[Jenne]

How does all this factor in with things like the GATE exam, is what I'm wondering?  I mean, IQ points don't mean fuckall unless it's relatable to real-life shit that goes somewhere.  I'm sure there's plenty of folks that hold their dicks in their hands all fucking life long that have some sort of awesome ability to count straws once they fall on the floor directly from the box.  Etc.

Measuring mental acuity should also take into account the applicability of the present mental ability as well.  I guess.  Is what I mean.

I don't mean to bring down the level of conversation ITT, but I get itchy over assessment numbers that are so very fucking controversial at the same time as they're so very plastic in terms of use, manipulability and manufacture.

There's few industry standards that are accepted as to what a fucking IQ even means, let alone is USEFUL for.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I get teh sense that IQ is just a number that people just accept and allow others to brag about.

Last time I took one, I scored 136. I doubt that is an accurate measure, since I only consider myself at the top end of average. My own guess would float in between 110 and 120. This was also several years ago.

I think most standardized tests for intelligence are useless without context.

[Nephew Twiddleton]

I get teh sense that IQ is just a number that people just accept and allow others to brag about.

Last time I took one, I scored 136. I doubt that is an accurate measure, since I only consider myself at the top end of average. My own guess would float in between 110 and 120. This was also several years ago.

I think most standardized tests for intelligence are useless without context.

The only standardized test that I excelled at was the MCAS (MA state requirement for graduation from high school). Class of 2000 was the test group for it, so it had no bearing on whether we graduated or not.

I remember my results:

Math was abysmal.
English indicated that while I articulated my thoughts very well and had a good grasp of the language, I needed to stay on topic (which I intentionally deviated from)

ETA: Math was abysmal since I opted to fill in the bubbles to spell out "Fuck you"

[Cain]

As I recall, the original design of the IQ test was devised in order to help identify seriously retarded children in the French education system.

I think it would be fair to say the test has been stretched beyond all meaning and far beyond it's original purpose by this point.  It's rather akin to doing physics, while doing all your measurements using a 30cm ruler.

[rong]

What I was getting at is I realized that a persons opinion of how smart (or dumb) they are can have dramatic influence on their decision process and personality.  To artificially inflate or deflate iq scores would then be a method of social control.  Applied dunning-kruger effect, if you will

Sounds paranoid, I know.   But we have supporting evidence that scores are too high.

Even if not deliberately controlled, the score has an influence.

I can't be the only person who has endured a stupid person that thought they were smart.