this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2025
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I got 135 once as a kid, and then as an older kid, younger adult, studied up on and learned many of the flaws with IQ testing, one of many being that... you can study for them, and perform better.
That's not supposed to be possible if it is measuring some kind of fundamental, inherent quality about you that cannot meaningfully change.
Good point. Ultimately this leads me to question the existence of some fixed quality of intelligence. People are growing, adapting, and learning through their lives, so a fixed number defining general intelligence is likely a moot concept.
On top of the prior point lies another major issue with any sort of "general intelligence" test: defining "general intelligence". Intelligence comes in many forms: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, existential intelligence, and more. The IQ test does not test all forms of intelligence.
This being said, It is likely impossible to test all forms of intelligence in one test; and even if we could create this test, how would this test handle differently abled people. For example, a completely blind person would fail the visual intelligence portion every time (for obvious reasons).
IQ is highly correlated with life outcomes like income, life expectancy, employment, and crime. Maybe it doesn’t measure “intelligence,” but it measures something which appears to be very important for modern society. There are undoubtedly different forms of intelligence which are not measured by an IQ test.
This is a good point to bring up, but this correlation is still being debated: the causal connection between the IQ test and the correlation is unclear, and there is debate on whether the correlation is being constructed through bad data or analysis techniques. Because of this, no one can confidently claim whether IQ tests predicts good job performance, employment, etc.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4557354/
[Skip to the conclusion at the end to get the tldr, since this is a long scientific publication]
Thanks for the study. I agree on all points. This is the challenge with sociological research: it is unethical to conduct controlled studies. We will never have controlled IQ research. The study suggests we continue to perform better quality primary research, and I fully agree. Until then, as per the data in the study, the correlative evidence remains compelling. At least as far as sociological research goes.
I tend to think this research is more compelling and useful at the macro level. We should bear in mind that the correlative coefficient between IQ and income is only between 0.2 and 0.4. There are many other factors which also impact outcomes.