IQ and the Wealth of nations

[Issaiah1332]

Upon reading about smith I cam across this, and was curious if any of you would agree with the assessment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ_and_the_Wealth_of_Nations

[Demogorgon]

Nom it is a load of shit. Given that IQ tests suffer from severe cultural bias, you can not readily compare different countries.

And besides there were a hell of a lot of research flaws in that anyway

[black magick hustla]

i dont think iq tests suffer from several "cultural bias". i took a similar test while i was living in mexico, and it was just standard cubes and geometric figures.

Well, you could make an argument for that. But then, math, written language, scientific procedures, etc, are "biased" and therefore we should look them down because the foims we learn at school today are obviously western models.

i am not defending the thesis of the book, but i hate when leftists make up bullshit reasons for everything.

Its like saying written language is "biased" because most written glyphs today are derived from western systems of writing.

[Demogorgon]

i dont think iq tests suffer from several "cultural bias". i took a similar test while i was living in mexico, and it was just standard cubes and geometric figures.

Well, you could make an argument for that. But then, math, written language, scientific procedures, etc, are "biased" and therefore we should look them down because the foims we learn at school today are obviously western models.

i am not defending the thesis of the book, but i hate when leftists make up bullshit reasons for everything.

Its like saying written language is "biased" because most written glyphs today are derived from western systems of writing.
No the tests have a clearly documented Euro-Centric bias. For example when they were tried in Australia Whites were getting far higher scores than the Aboriginal people. It was realised that the cultural bias was causing this and a new Aboriginal-oriented test was devised in which they scored very highly and White Australians did very poorly.

Cultural bias is anything but an excuse. The tests (notwithstanding other flaws) simply do not have universal applicability.

[lombas]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_bell_curve

[black magick hustla]

No the tests have a clearly documented Euro-Centric bias. For example when they were tried in Australia Whites were getting far higher scores than the Aboriginal people. It was realised that the cultural bias was causing this and a new Aboriginal-oriented test was devised in which they scored very highly and White Australians did very poorly.

Cultural bias is anything but an excuse. The tests (notwithstanding other flaws) simply do not have universal applicability.

That is really vague

As i said, tests are culturally biased in as much as mathematics, scientific methods, language etc, were molded under western values. because their current versions are western, and have been trhought out by the west for the last hundreds of years, it makes sense western kids are more attuned to this trends. obviously someone that reads much more, does more math problems, etc, is going to have better iq scores than a poor aborignal.

however, shouting about "cultural bias" in this tests is stupid. just because western people happen to read and do more math problems doesnt means the tests need to be changed so that people who dont do as much math and reading do better.

[Demogorgon]

That is really vague

As i said, tests are culturally biased in as much as mathematics, scientific methods, language etc, were molded under western values. because their current versions are western, and have been trhought out by the west for the last hundreds of years, it makes sense western kids are more attuned to this trends. obviously someone that reads much more, does more math problems, etc, is going to have better iq scores than a poor aborignal.

however, shouting about "cultural bias" in this tests is stupid. just because western people happen to read and do more math problems doesnt means the tests need to be changed so that people who dont do as much math and reading do better.
You still aren't getting it. The questions are constructed with Europeans and Americans in mind. For example a lot of the tests have you work out problems based on dice. That is a damn site harder for someone in a culture where western style dice are not common, is it not?

[Apollodorus]

Yeah, well if I had spent all my life either in hard manual labour, fitful sleep or crippling sickness with no medication: I would be feeling very tired, fatigued, light-headed and completely non-committal when it comes to 'Which shape fits into the tessellating pattern? Is it A, B, C, or D?'

So no, I do not agree.

[Morpheus]

The inventor of the IQ test explicitly said it should not be used to measure intelligence.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Id say IQ tests don't necessarily cater to Europeans, but to people with certain types of learning styles, and certain ways of recalling memmory.
Which is something those tests can't help, because you're supposed to have memorized a certain amount of material before taking the test, through the primarily text-reading way of learning. So this test is one of text.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Actually Apollodorus said it best.