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Ø IQ: Can psychologists
think?
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Crap
rating: *** |
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IQ is a socially-defined attribute measured by pen
and paper tests full of peculiar puzzles that are especially enjoyed by peculiar people. IQ tests are said to measure
intelligence. The term 'IQ' was originally coined by Stern (1912) and while
some believe it stands for idiotic questions – its technical meaning is
'incontinent quackery'. Hans Eysenck (who died recently aged 82, but with a
mental age of 79) liked flogging books full of this stuff. I am in possession
of both one of said books, and an IQ of zero.
Check out a few of the puzzles and you might see why:
Test 5 (32)
Underline the odd-man out.
captain frustrate house labour
swing
(The answer is apparently
'swing' as the other words each have three vowels. No points for choosing
'frustrate' for being the only word that cannot be used as both a verb and noun, or for choosing 'captain' as
being the only conceivable odd-man out).
Test 2 (5)
Underline the odd-man-out.
Jupiter Apollo Mars Neptune
Mercury
(The answer is actually Apollo
as he is the only Greek god among Roman ones. If you picked Apollo for being
the only space rocket among planets, you would still be correct but it would
just be a fluke. You would receive no marks for identifying Mars as the only
chocolate bar, Mercury as the only phone company, though - again - you could be
accidentally right for noticing that Apollo is the only word with adjacent
repeated letters in it).
Test 2 (3)
Underline the odd-man out.
lion fox giraffe herring dog
(The expected answer is 'herring', on account of its being a fish. No points
for choosing 'giraffe' for being the only vegetarian).
and so on... (from 'Know your own IQ' ,
1962, but reissued 1990 and still available)
I spotted these ambiguities in a swift flick through the
pages. There must be an awful lot more - some of them probably a lot more
awful.
These examples are all of a kind (ie. word games), as
they were the easiest to reproduce, but the type of skill and knowledge that is
required to qualify for a high IQ is broader, and rather arbitrary. Test 1 in
Eysenck's little pot-boiler requires past experience of: visuo-spatial pattern
recognition, rotation, symmetry, inversions etc., anagram-solving, brand names
of cars, famous poets, composers, geographical locations, latitudes of cities,
mythology, completion of number series etc. For a trait that is, according to
hereditarians 80% inherited, it is surprising how much knowledge one must acquire
to succeed at one of these tests.
And it is hard to believe that the IQ of the average
reader can be anything other than zero, in that I, for one, simply cannot bring
myself to complete a single page of puzzles, let alone an entire test. I am (adequately) intelligent and life is too
precious to be waste on nonsense like this.
Nobody with a skull-full of half-decent grey
matter could – surely - find IQ tests either rewarding or fun.. And
here's the problem: psychologists will use the terms 'IQ' and 'intelligence'
interchangeably.
(‘The National
British IQ Test’, compiled by Mensa’s current chairman, with breathtaking modesty
claims on its webpage that ‘It was put together by leaders in the
intelligence field’. No it wasn’t. Unless they can identify both the field
and the followers, the claim is patent nonsense.)
Provided you are not suffering debilitating brain damage,
then your intelligence is intact, and you can surely find some good,
constructive, or personally satisfying use for it; if you feel you have little
intelligence (because, say, you once did badly on an IQ test or 11-plus exam),
think again. We are all of one species and our brains are structured to
function in much the same way, whilst demonstrating a seemingly infinite
flexibility. We can all learn; we can also choose what to learn. If you can add
one and one, it is only a matter of time, practice, and the acquisition of new
techniques before you can handle calculus, hard sums etc. - if you are so
motivated. And motivation is a very big word (but not as big as
‘psychometrician’, ‘authoritarian’ or ‘patronising’).
The logical games involved in tackling a cryptic
crossword are not unlike some of the puzzles you will see in an IQ test (though
crosswords usually demonstrate greater sophistication and wit) but unless you
feel motivated by any particular challenge, and are familiar with the basic
techniques, you will not perform well at it.
'...the indication appears to be that a low
degree of motivation is not particularly harmful in doing intelligence tests
unless it is so low as to make the candidate give up altogether. This is rare
and almost certainly pathological...' Eysenck
(1962)
Clearly I am a sick man.
see also Intelligence, hereditarian
theory of; iq, racist theory of; Mensa
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