NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/rec/org/mensa/9034

Text File | 1993-01-02 | 4.1 KB | 94 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Eric Roberts)
Subject: Re: IQ Test?
Organization: Computer Science Dept., Univ. of Western Ontario, London, Canada
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 06:50:16 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Kjeld Hvatum) writes:
>
>>From: Eric Roberts <[e-mail]>
>>Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
>>
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Kjeld
>> Hvatum) writes:
>>>And vocabulary is one of the best single indicators of intelligence,
>>>according to a number of studies.  Some IQ tests are 100% vocabulary
>>>tests, including some of the tests Terman used in his famous
>>>longitudinal IQ study.  One frequently cited reason is that a person's
>>
>>Maybe they are a good measure of IQ, nonentheless, how that number
>>relates to ability of any kind remains to be seen.
>
>Vocabulary correlates fairly well with a range of other abilities.
>That's a fact, even if it's not clear why.

What evidence is there that it does?
>
>>>vocabulary is an indirect measure of the ability to learn new meanings
>>>in context.
>>
>>I don't agree.
>
>Fair enough, but you should know you're disagreeing with some of
>the foremost researchers of human intelligence today.
>

There are many researchers that disagree with them. I for one, fail
to see why intelligence tests are used in the first place.
No proof has been presented that they measure what they claim
to measure. The evidence available is limited to a few correlations,
mostly with school performace. Their impact on our society, however,
is great. I have often seen when people's lifes being destroyed
because of their use. Parents who think of their children as failures,
or teachers who give up on a student without ever attempting to
teach anything, all of this  because of some number on a test that
propably measures nothing at all.
In addition to this lack of proof, the objections raised against their
use are many. Why then are they still used in schools today?
If there was some medical procedure, and no research in support
of it existed, or was not at all convincing, if
many doctors presented evidence that itcould be harmfull, would its use
not be abolished, or at least halted till further research was done?
The IQ cult seems to have grown beyond being a science, it is now
a religion to many of its supporters. It is much like Darwin's theory
of evolution and the many scientists who believe in it, despite the
fact that such process in genetically impossible (or rather extremely
unlikely in a finite amount of time) among the evidence ignored by
them.

>>Just because a person knows the word VIRULENT does
>>not make him more intelligent.
>
>Yeah, but, as I'm sure you realize, it's a sampling test.  If the SAT
>vocab pool consists of 60,000 words, each of the 15 sample words is
>worth 4,000 words in the estimate, not just one word.
>
>I think you have a point if you're talking about trying to score near
>800 on the verbal SAT.   That requires a virtually perfect command of
>the SAT vocabulary pool.  I just think it's very unlikely that someone
>could have a very large vocabulary above the SAT range without a
>reasonably good coverage within the SAT range.
>

>>In addition
>>to this, little intelligence in neccesary to memorize words.
>
>The same could be said of each of the many other skills which
>add up to what we think of as intelligence.
>
>>The fact that a person is capable to finding a few antonyms, does not
>>, in the least degree, indicate that the person is capable of logical
>>reasoning of any kind. It may just indicate that he is a walkind
>>dictionary (or usually not even that much).
>
>Exactly.  It *may* indicate that, but usually it doesn't.
>That's what a less-then-perfect correlation means.