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Ask HN: Any Evidence Against IQ?

4 points by boa00 ↗ HN
I have no idea what to make of IQ in general, and I try to figure it out. Majority of the books/videos I found which at least try to rely on some scientific methods (e.g. research) are predominantly in favor of IQ and its reliability/importance.

Could you recommend any books/articles/videos which try criticize IQ tests from the scientific standpoint? Like tests being biased/unrepresentative, most experiments are not properly constructed and anything along those lines. Most of the arguments against IQ I found though relied mostly on personal experience/intuition (e.g. it’s too simplistic, intelligence is much more complex than that, etc), but I’d like to hear more ‘measurable’ criticism.

P.S. I’m not trying to prove or disprove anything; I just want to look at this from different points of view

4 comments

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offtop5
I'm of the belief absolute IQ doesn't really matter. If someone's lazy they're going to be lazy, and at least in times past a relatively low IQ person could still make a life for him or herself. It doesn't really matter if you're a super genius if the only job you can find is sweeping up dog droppings. There's some quote which speaks of brilliant minds toiling away in factories.

Then again, the factory worker should be able to own his or her own home. Unskilled labor is still important

rawgabbit
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4557354/

“ Supporters of IQ testing have been quick to point to correlations between IQ and job performance as evidence of test validity. A closer look at the data and results, however, suggests a rather murkier picture.”

TLDR. IQ tests measure the same thing that academic tests measure. It is debatable if IQ corresponds to job performance.