Are I.Q. tests good for measuring general intelligence, or are they inherently flawed?

[Sir Dookface McFerretballs]

I personally think they are massively flawed, biased, and simplistic, with many often focusing too much on mathematics or scholastic memory retention and not enough on actual "intelligence" as a whole.

I think the only thing an I.Q. test measures is how well people can do on an I.Q. test.

I think they are biased and often miss the mark completely when it comes to general intelligence outside of isolated schooling or mathematical related situations.

What do you fine people of Off Topic think?

[Tiberius]

Guys, are ppl in hungary always hungry?

[Jeff]

Unless they're given in the presence and with the aid of a psychologist versed in giving IQ tests, yes, it's unreliable. I've taken many both with and without a psychologist.

[Mauserich]

I made a few. You can do them on the Internet. My impression is they are very focused on the modern concerns of technical work life. So only a small subset of human skills are tested.

[AdahnGorion]

That depends on your world view.
Do you think there is only one type of intelligence?

Most people refer to Stanford-Binet when they say they have 91 IQ or 108
Both of those are within the avarage spectrum.

I personally think it is a very flawed system, I also think Wechsler is flawed. The initial idea was to be able to test if children was age appropriate in terms of the task performed (but it is just extremely unrealiable)

Say we have a person, that can´t speak, that could drastically change the outcome of a test.
It wants to claim, that it looks for fluid reasoning, these are abstract problem solving and general knowledge (these are in some ways also cultural/etnical based)
There are test on the working memory and Visual spatial processes as well...

Math, geometry and word problems are also a part of the test, both in verbal and nonverbal... but the issue is, that it is streamlined towards the avarage neurotypical person and that it does not take into account the enviroment, other skills and overall life viability functions.

Then again.. I am also biased.. mostly by people such as Gardner. His teory of multiple intelligences are just much broader and in my opinion more fair for everybody.

Stanford Binet´s model rely on the views, that intelligence is a static cognitive capacity that people are born with.
Gardner´s theory is not static in that view and accepts, that some aspects are stuff that are learned, rather than "known".

Gardners theory also have some issues ofc.. but the thing is.. it is a matter of subjectivity and your world view.

Looking from a modern neuroscientific apparoch, I would argue, that intelligence, is depending on the context that an indivudual is living in and the bias that said enviroment have.

Ie. Using the Stanford-Binet on a traditional tribe in ie. South Africa. that lives away from modern tech, might actually score very low, not because they are stupid, but because they don´t have the knowledge, that the test wants to test... they don´t need it to survive or to live a good life.

I´ve seen people scoring low avarage on a stanford-binet IQ grow up to get a masters in sociology..... Nobody would call her "low avarage" anymore.. I reckon if she took a test now, she would most likely score avarage or just above..


When we talk about people outside the avarage spectrum, then stanford-binet is extremely unreliable, even more so when we venture further down or up..
I scored in the Superior spectrum of the stanford-binet as a teenager and as an adult, I had high avarage (one question can make a huge difference) the teen test are very unreliable and as I said.. it has a static view on people´s IQ and what IQ even is.

One of Binet´s fears with the test, was that children with development delay, would be "labeled" and "stuck" on being "dumb"

When I was a teenager, I worked with a person that scored 138 on the stanford-binet test (I was very young, working in a local tech shop) he had a mind like a 8 year old... He was neurodiverse, but had huge issues functioning in social aspects and could easily lash out, if stressed (I saw him smash a radio to bits, because one screw would not do as he wanted)

Back then I had no clue about why he acted like he did and ofc.. like many sadly do today, labelled him.. But he was superior in many aspect of the work he did, he knew everything about those radio´s and could fix just about anything related to it.

He could also do math on a level, I have never seen to this day...


My point here is. We are all diverse, we all have different things we are good at, but standard IQ test like Stanford-Binet, do not take into account that you can change and is shallow in its approach.