Posted on 05/02/2009 5:59:31 PM PDT by coloradan
Sigh.
I get so tired of this. Reality consists of what we have developed the ability to measure. (Or more accurately, what we believe we can measure.)
If we cannot measure it, it does not exist. This is remarkably like looking for your car keys under the streetlight even though you dropped them in the shadow.
Brain drain read........;o)
I like it !
7 (obviously).
Lol, I quit Mensa... because they were boring!
IQ tests measure something. But what?
Why is it that people who do very well on verbal analogies tend to do well on tests like the Raven’s Progressive Matricies, an example of which was posted above?
Well, the only condition for membership in the Prometheus Society is an IQ of rarity 1/30,000 or more, or IQ above >~160. There’s also the Triple Nine Society (1/1000 rarity, IQ >~150, and the Mega Society, rarity 1/1,000,000, or IQ >~176.) If you found Mensa boring, maybe one of these others is just a barrel of monkeys in comparison.
With you I can believe that ..........almost done with the review my friend.
...long 5 weeks of interference I have to apologize for !
“If we cannot measure it, it does not exist.”
Shirley you jest.
I agree that IQ tests measure something.
But is it intelligence? Intelligence tends to be defined in practice as what is measured by IQ tests, as good an example of circular reasoning as I can think of.
FWIW, I signed up for Mensa some years ago. Took two IQ tests, and they came back with an over 40 point difference. Turned out the higher one was a test where the tester read a long complex essay about an obscure subject, in this case priests of the classical Greek (pagan) religion, and then I answered a lot of questions about the subject.
I guess I aced that one. What nobody asked me about was my reading habits. I’d read a book on the subject about a week before and could probably have gotten about the same IQ score if they hadn’t read me the essay!
BTW, attending Mensa meetings will do a dandy job of convincing a person that if IQ measure intelligence there are a lot of stupid intelligent people out there, or at least at Mensa meetings!
LOL. It appears I qualify for the Prometheus Society and dang near for the Mega Society.
See post #11 for the reason why.
It’s not so much a case of circular reasoning as it is a matter of definition: intelligence is defined as whatever it is that IQ tests measure. But, (in the article) you can see that there are a bunch of things that correlate (and that anti-correlate) with IQ, that seem not directly related to whatever it is that IQ tests measure.
THANK YOU!
I need to see what my scores are pout after going through The heart-lung machine for blood circulation
The correct answer is 42.
Okaay.
Cheers!
I find it hard to value the opinion of an writer upon this subject who confuses fundamental terms. As anyone with any sort of classical education would know, these terms are reversed. Induction evaluates correlations and deduction evaluates relationships.
The use of strongly correlating positives to indicate a likely truth is the very meat of the inductive process. If a brief review of recorded rainfall fairly matches my personal recollection of coming home to find a wet front lawn, then tomorrow's discovery of a wet lawn would, inductively, suggest that there had been rain (though there is a remote possibility that the wife watered the lawn). Pure induction does not consider relationship. The best demonstrative example to which I can point is Al Gore's famous CO2 chart. He graphically plots a parallel between CO2 levels and global temperatures without considering the relationship (causative, with CO2 chasing temperature). He uses an inductive argument to suggest a relationship which his induction does not actually indicate. Such is the nature of the inductive method.
Deduction, on the other hand, consists of describing and evaluating the relationship of the various objects of study through a series of propositions. The discharge of a deductive argument, in fact, is a process of evaluating the relationships existing among the propositions themselves. If I know, priori, that there is a causative relationship between water and grass such that water makes grass grow (oversimplified of the purpose of argument), then the evaluation of that causative relationship by way of modus tollens (hey, it didn't rain and you didn't water the lawn - now the grass is brown) and modus ponens (I don't know if you watered the lawn or if it just rained, but the grass looks great) indicates that I should probably tell the wife to water the lawn on dry days IF I desire grass growth.
This article altogether reads as though it were written by someone with Aspergers, which it likely was.
The allegation that Mensa uses ONLY “culture-loaded” tests is simply false!
As a Mensa test Proctor, I administered a “CULTURE FAIR” test battery (3 tests) to two candidates on the morning of April 25, and a colleague tested 3 more candidates with the standard test battery in the afternoon. This was the second time I administered a CF battery this year.
We do not allow any candidates to re-take any test, but they can be admitted based on a qualifying score on any ONE of over 200 different tests of general intelligence - including the 5 that we administer.
Any candidate can elect to take the culture fair test, or (for a new $40 test fee) can take the alternate test battery for a second attempt to qualify. However, the CFB takes longer and is more expensive for us to give, so we prefer to offer the standard battery.
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