IQ. So what?
I don’t know if my IQ was tested. Needless to say, I don’t know what my IQ is. I do know that I was awarded a BA in microbiology with honors at the age of 22, a PhD in genetics at the age of 27, a tenure track assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the age of 32 and served as a medical school professor for 37 years. IQ? I don’t know.
“As so often happens, a short cut evolved into the standard of practice. Moderate correlations have been found between IQ scores and school grades and occupational success. But correlations are not proof of causation and even those findings may have been skewed by publication bias and poor research design. In other words, the validity of IQ tests as a predictor of performance is questionable. This is not to say that IQ scores are therefore inherently invalid. Only that their meaning and usefulness are not unambiguously clear.”
I’m not in MENSA, so I can’t be bothered with IQ.
IQ correlates
I’m interested in hearing how many AB readers have ever had IQ measured. I never did and I can’t remember it being a generally offered test of any kind. For sure at no time have my 4 kids been given any test specifically to measure IQ. Are there on-going general testing programs purporting to measure IQ?
I think all of my freshman class in high school was tested, around 1965. The school used the test to place us in three tracks: honors, regular college prep and shop classes. I don’t know if our parents were told our IQ, I didn’t hear a number back then. This was a Catholic high school, so I don’t know what the situation was in public schools.
Fast forward 40 years and I was taking a teacher accreditation class. We took an IQ test and I did see the score. So, I think these IQ tests are still around and available.
Jim:
Multiple times tested. Military does those tests also. They classify you that way and you get a potential MOS.
MENSAs tend to be, ahhhh … socially awkward, across a wide spectrum …
Ten Bears:
So, I am socially backwards?
Ten Bears:
I have been accused of such as a book reader and socially shy.
Back in the early 50’s we were tested for just about everything. I know one of the tests was “IQ”. I also had another one-on-one testing session that was similar to the IQ test. No numeric results were given out to my knowledge. “Gifted” was the term used then. In HS we got MBTI and general aptitude testing as well, and those results they did discuss with students individually. I am pretty sure the IQ tests I had were the ones criticized as being more a test of vocabulary and math skills rather than basic smarts.
Jane:
Went through the same in Grade school (K-8 grades). First tests were in 7th grade and then again in 8th grade. High School nothing. Testing in the military and then I was found to be literate and trainable. MOS was in the 2800s. I could really shoot and they gave me something different to do. Guess it was for the best. They did treat me differently.
Joel:
How quick can one adapt? IQ seems to a test of what you know at the present time. Potentially, one has to take the knowledge they have using it to be a part of the present dynamics.
So much of what we have learned and use today is becoming outdated by what changes are occurring around us. Can you adapt, improvise, and over come? IQ is a measurement of today. What about tomorrow or the next year?
@Bill,
The IQ test is intended as an “intelligence” test, not an aptitude test or a credentialing exam. As such, its results are supposed to measure a quality unmoored from specific tasks.
The SATs, ACTs, GREs, MCATs, etc are aptitude test to measure the probability of success college, graduate school and medicals school. I took the SAT, ACT and GRE.
“Intelligence” is another one of those words, like faith and insanity I have trouble with: which is it? Innate aptitude or … something else. What value is a record time for essay answers to five to five one hundred word questions about a three thousand word essay? Or solve algebraic equations at a glance?
And how did this happen!? Is nature or nurture … ?
@Ten,
That’s why I put the word intelligence in scare quotes.
Joel:
The SAT was a bit different than the others. I was not measured as a genius in any of them. Just intelligent and capable if I put my desire to it. Some stuff bores me. The USMC measured me at 141. My brothers and sister are similar. We excel in different areas. Did the ACT and SAT plus whatever else they wanted me to take.
I was always amazed by my teachers and profs. They instructed me or taught me how to do certain things from which I grew. Numbers were fascinating to me.
IQ tests were initially used to identify intellectual developmental deficits. The notion of “high IQ” came later. I was tested in second grade because my teacher suspected I was — to use the terminology of the early 1950s — retarded. The test told them I was not developmentally delayed, just bored to death. The next year they put me in a mixed third/fourth grade class with individualized instruction. The following year they skipped me into fifth grade. I don’t know what my “score” was but it became a ticket to treatment as a “gifted” child and later lectures in high school about being an underachiever.
Tom:
You speak at a different level than most do. You do understand manufacturing and throughput, areas I spent years in accomplishing for various companies.
The sad part of what you talk about in Grade or Grammer school as they used to call it, is being laughed at by the others in your class and a teacher who makes light of it. That lasted till I pushed back with the knowledge I obtained from reading. Sometimes it was just better to listen and say little.