Posted by Racer on March 22, 2006, at 19:37:29
In reply to Re: Mensa and Intelligence Testing, posted by special_k on March 22, 2006, at 17:58:14
The whole Intelligence Quotient is a long standing discomfort of mine, which I won't go into here right now. Suffice it to say, it's something I've thought about.
My two comments:
Define "intelligence?"
You can't, because there really isn't any one definition. Unless, of course, you're eight years old and can say, "It means 'smart'"
And keep in mind the original purpose of the tests -- one which I think was and is appropriate and rather progressive: it was about making education available to more children. Before the IQ test came along, a lot of kids were catagorized as uneducable, due to mental retardation, when in fact it was cultural factors, or vision or hearing loss, or other factors totally unrelated to intelligence. Today, we don't think of that in the US, and probably not in Oz or NZ, either. There is a promise of free, public education, with special education for those who require it. That wsn't the case not all that long ago. The IQ tests were meant to show which of the kids really could learn, and to get an idea of how much they could learn.
Nowadays, though...
So, sometimes things get perverted from their original purpose. Kinda like how the internal combustion engine somehow became a Ferarri...
poster:Racer
thread:622738
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20060322/msgs/623464.html