On Sun, 07 May 2000, QueeneMUSE@aol.com wrote:
> Spike writes:
>
> > Gould has an axe to grind in that book. He seems to promote
> > the notion that there is no legitimate measure of absolute intelligence:
> > therefore the whole idea of I.Q. is misguided. I disagree with him
> > on that.
>
> Hope the ax is gettin' sharper. I totally agree with him, IQ scoring is a
> bogus idea. However, it's the measuring techniques are suspect, not the level
> intelligence.
I think the biggest problem with IQ measurements is that they are very
poor at resolving the delta between theoretical and effective
intelligence. Theoretical IQ (what they usually measure, since it is
relatively easy to create metrics) appears to isolate specific processing
cortices. Unfortunately, I think effective IQ is determined more by how
well all the parts work together. I've met a lot of people with high IQs
that exhibited rather average intelligence in practice, and people with
average IQs that exhibit above average intelligence in practice.
We are very good at measuring the theoretical capacity of many
aspects of the brain, but are very poor at measuring how much capacity is
lost due to inefficiencies in the complex integration of these abilities
i.e. the performance of the network is as important as the peformance of
the processor at each node. Average parts and excellent integration may
produce as good or better results than excellent parts and average
integration.
I do think that concepts such as "emotional intelligence" are really weak
attempts to create metrics for integration aspects of intelligence. In
other words, the "multiple intelligence" people may be tangentially
correct in spite of themselves.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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