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Dave25983ParticipantWell, I’m not sure even where to begin, but I’ll begin by asking: who do you think wrote these intelligence tests in the first place? I would not put much stock in IQ testing, because it’s pretty much impossible to engineer a culture-neutral test, let alone one that compensates for factors such as language, social standing, etc. If you’re testing two white guys from the same neighborhood, okay maybe the results are comparable. Maybe. But how could you possibly create an unbiased test that would fairly evaluate a white guy from, say, New England and a black guy from Morocco? The universe contained within these intelligence tests is a pretty narrow and artificial one, and I would argue that this universe is deeply culturally biased, unintentionally, by the person devising the test. For example, one of the things these tests attempt to quantify is one’s ability to abstractly analyze spatial relationships. I actually test very highly in this regard, yet I’m really terrible at tasks which you’d think this skill is necessary, such as carpentry. But it’s easy to envision a blue-collar intelligence measurement which requires basic carpentry skills, and by those standards I’m probably not a very smart guy. So which ‘test’ is more accurate? The burly blue-collar guy would say that since even after I measure the wood three times I still cut it to the wrong length, I mustn’t be very smart with spacial relationships. And within the universe of his test, he’s probably right. Perhaps this isn’t quite the best analogy, but the point I’m trying to make is that these tests really don’t map well into the real world as many people would lead you to believe. Regarding your last point: I try not to assume that everyone else in the world is a white male American. Does that make me politically correct?
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Name : Dave25983, Gender : M, Race : White/Caucasian, Religion : Agnostic, Age : 38, City : San Diego, State : CA, Country : United States, Occupation : Engineer, Education level : Over 4 Years of College, Social class : Upper middle class,- AuthorPosts