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This article is very hard to digest because of the writers switching of "intelligence" and "IQ". Intelligence =/= IQ. IQ is a score on a test, and intelligence

by OmegaHN 14y ago

This article is very hard to digest because of the writers switching of "intelligence" and "IQ". Intelligence =/= IQ. IQ is a score on a test, and intelligence is a vague set of mental skills and processes to solve problems of varying degrees and subjects. To say that they are equal is like saying that athleticism is equal to the number of pounds you can bench. If the writer is talking about IQ, then these investigations aren't interesting, as IQ is a very small subset of intelligence (the ability to solve those types of problems on a test, which you can easily train for). If the writer is talking about general intelligence, then the writer really shouldn't be mentioning IQ at all, as it is notorious for being confused as actual intelligence.

slurgfest 14y ago
Any argument containing the word "intelligence" at all is hard to digest, because the idea is so totally vague as to be useless. Unless you operationalize it as something measurable. Such as IQ. There is no point talking about intelligence in the abstract unless you can actually say what you actually mean in such a way that 30 readers won't develop 30 completely different interpretations of what it is you are saying. What is "actual intelligence"? And let's not, like Humpty Dumpty, say that words mean just what we choose them to mean.
Xcelerate 14y ago
Without a consistent, objective definition, "intelligence" makes no sense. If you would like to dissociate IQ and intelligence, go ahead, but IQ is a metric that has correlations with many other factors (test performance, income, a whole slew of things really).
- OmegaHN 14y ago
  Correlations mean almost nothing. Just going off your list: -IQ:Test Performance - Of course. IQ is a grade off of a test. It correlates with itself. If you mean tests such as the SAT or tests in a school, then yes, IQ does help somewhat with that, as it was designed to (the first IQ test, created by Alfred Binet, was designed to find students who would not do well in a regular school environment). However, do high test scores mean high intelligence? Not necessarily, as most test scores can be improved drastically with a class focusing only on the test, showing different tricks that the test maker's use. Same with IQ tests. -IQ:Income - Income (generally) means higher education level, and modern education teaches the general forms of questions asked on tests, such as the IQ tests. Education trains the mind to think along the lines of what the IQ test uses to grade performance. Also, spoken another way, if IQ (which is "intelligence") correlate with income, then one can say that income correlates with IQ ("intelligence"). If this correlation is weak, then it is meaningless. If it is strong, then that is a very strong evidence for eliminating the lower classes to raise the "intelligence" level of a nation. Most other factors follow along these lines. The problem with correlation is that it is not, in any way, a suggestion or a proof of causation. There can be infinitely many other factors that can be influencing the two. I do agree that without a consistent, objective definition, one cannot possibly study intelligence. However, IQ is not a good definition of intelligence. At best, it tests "academic" intelligence, and at worst, it tests test-taking ability. Taking from Wikipedia: >"Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person's intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions, and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen, somewhat different, definitions." -APA report quoted in the article.
  - Xcelerate 14y ago
    The examples you gave exactly match my intentions. I'm not sure where we are disagreeing, unless you are interpreting the phrases "intelligence" and "intelligence quotient" as more exclusive than most people. If that is the case, give me your definition of "intelligence", and we'll see where we go from there.
    - OmegaHN 14y ago
      I'm saying that interpreting IQ as intelligence is extremely narrow-minded and misleading to the general public. There is absolutely no evidence that IQ is a decent measure of intelligence. My point is that intelligence is a much broader subject than simple IQ, and using IQ as a measure of intelligence will produce both false positives (by training for the exam) and false negatives (by not targeting other areas of intelligence than the specific area used in some types of academia). I am not saying that there is a specific definition of intelligence that is good. I am saying that IQ as intelligence is not good. I wouldn't have a problem if people did use the terms "intelligence" and "IQ" so interchangeably. If the linked article talked only about IQ, then I would have no problem, but the article specifically talks about intelligence, and then uses studies on IQ to try to makes points about intelligence. By the way, if you are looking for a better theory of intelligence (which is beside my point), then you should look at Cattell-Horn-Carroll Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattell-Horn-Carroll_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattell-Horn-Carroll_theory) as an example.
      - anthonyb 14y ago
        > There is absolutely no evidence that IQ is a decent measure of intelligence. Other than it correlates with all sorts of positive life factors, you mean? Like health, earning power and lack of a criminal record? Nobody is saying that IQ is intelligence, including the author of the article. But it's a fairly large component of it.
mkaltenecker 14y ago
This is how it works in practice (at least for psychologists and sociologists): 1. You have some definition based on some theory or hypothesis or something. You have to argue why your definition is meaningful and relevant. 2. You try to operationalize (i.e. turn it from a fuzzy concept into something measurable) that definition as best you can while always keeping an eye out for and discussing – at length – any and all limitations you can think of (of which there will always be many). 3. You use your operationalization to create measures. 4. You collect data with your measures, analyze and interpret it. So there really isn’t much of a need to explicitly differentiate between intelligence and IQ in scientific writing. You might want to for the sake of clarity, but that difference is always implicit. It’s always clear (at least to other psychologists or sociologists) that when the author is writing about empirical results with regards to intelligence, she means intelligence as previously defined by her, with her operationalization and determined by her measures and analytical techniques. When I write about my little presence (= the sense of being somewhere, even if you are not actually there, e.g. when you are in a virtual environment) questionnaire I do not write “Presence Index Score” when I write about my results (at least not every time) – I will mostly just write “presence”. That I’m actually talking about the “Presence Index Score” is implicit. But you are right – that difference is not obvious to anyone else and can, at times, even be confusing for experts.

by OmegaHN 14y ago

slurgfest 14y ago

Any argument containing the word "intelligence" at all is hard to digest, because the idea is so totally vague as to be useless. Unless you operationalize it as something measurable. Such as IQ. There is no point talking about intelligence in the abstract unless you can actually say what you actually mean in such a way that 30 readers won't develop 30 completely different interpretations of what it is you are saying. What is "actual intelligence"? And let's not, like Humpty Dumpty, say that words mean just what we choose them to mean.

Xcelerate 14y ago

Without a consistent, objective definition, "intelligence" makes no sense. If you would like to dissociate IQ and intelligence, go ahead, but IQ is a metric that has correlations with many other factors (test performance, income, a whole slew of things really).

OmegaHN 14y ago
Correlations mean almost nothing. Just going off your list: -IQ:Test Performance - Of course. IQ is a grade off of a test. It correlates with itself. If you mean tests such as the SAT or tests in a school, then yes, IQ does help somewhat with that, as it was designed to (the first IQ test, created by Alfred Binet, was designed to find students who would not do well in a regular school environment). However, do high test scores mean high intelligence? Not necessarily, as most test scores can be improved drastically with a class focusing only on the test, showing different tricks that the test maker's use. Same with IQ tests. -IQ:Income - Income (generally) means higher education level, and modern education teaches the general forms of questions asked on tests, such as the IQ tests. Education trains the mind to think along the lines of what the IQ test uses to grade performance. Also, spoken another way, if IQ (which is "intelligence") correlate with income, then one can say that income correlates with IQ ("intelligence"). If this correlation is weak, then it is meaningless. If it is strong, then that is a very strong evidence for eliminating the lower classes to raise the "intelligence" level of a nation. Most other factors follow along these lines. The problem with correlation is that it is not, in any way, a suggestion or a proof of causation. There can be infinitely many other factors that can be influencing the two. I do agree that without a consistent, objective definition, one cannot possibly study intelligence. However, IQ is not a good definition of intelligence. At best, it tests "academic" intelligence, and at worst, it tests test-taking ability. Taking from Wikipedia: >"Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person's intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions, and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen, somewhat different, definitions." -APA report quoted in the article.
- Xcelerate 14y ago
  The examples you gave exactly match my intentions. I'm not sure where we are disagreeing, unless you are interpreting the phrases "intelligence" and "intelligence quotient" as more exclusive than most people. If that is the case, give me your definition of "intelligence", and we'll see where we go from there.
  - OmegaHN 14y ago
    I'm saying that interpreting IQ as intelligence is extremely narrow-minded and misleading to the general public. There is absolutely no evidence that IQ is a decent measure of intelligence. My point is that intelligence is a much broader subject than simple IQ, and using IQ as a measure of intelligence will produce both false positives (by training for the exam) and false negatives (by not targeting other areas of intelligence than the specific area used in some types of academia). I am not saying that there is a specific definition of intelligence that is good. I am saying that IQ as intelligence is not good. I wouldn't have a problem if people did use the terms "intelligence" and "IQ" so interchangeably. If the linked article talked only about IQ, then I would have no problem, but the article specifically talks about intelligence, and then uses studies on IQ to try to makes points about intelligence. By the way, if you are looking for a better theory of intelligence (which is beside my point), then you should look at Cattell-Horn-Carroll Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattell-Horn-Carroll_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattell-Horn-Carroll_theory) as an example.
    - anthonyb 14y ago
      > There is absolutely no evidence that IQ is a decent measure of intelligence. Other than it correlates with all sorts of positive life factors, you mean? Like health, earning power and lack of a criminal record? Nobody is saying that IQ is intelligence, including the author of the article. But it's a fairly large component of it.

mkaltenecker 14y ago

This is how it works in practice (at least for psychologists and sociologists): 1. You have some definition based on some theory or hypothesis or something. You have to argue why your definition is meaningful and relevant. 2. You try to operationalize (i.e. turn it from a fuzzy concept into something measurable) that definition as best you can while always keeping an eye out for and discussing – at length – any and all limitations you can think of (of which there will always be many). 3. You use your operationalization to create measures. 4. You collect data with your measures, analyze and interpret it. So there really isn’t much of a need to explicitly differentiate between intelligence and IQ in scientific writing. You might want to for the sake of clarity, but that difference is always implicit. It’s always clear (at least to other psychologists or sociologists) that when the author is writing about empirical results with regards to intelligence, she means intelligence as previously defined by her, with her operationalization and determined by her measures and analytical techniques. When I write about my little presence (= the sense of being somewhere, even if you are not actually there, e.g. when you are in a virtual environment) questionnaire I do not write “Presence Index Score” when I write about my results (at least not every time) – I will mostly just write “presence”. That I’m actually talking about the “Presence Index Score” is implicit. But you are right – that difference is not obvious to anyone else and can, at times, even be confusing for experts.