"John Edser"  wrote in message
>
> I agree IQ has been misused. However, those
> that misuse it will never admit such. The
> establishment just blunders on, irrespective.
>
Accusations of "misuse" of IQ tests are frequently flung about.
>
> My main point is: scientific theory must be
> tested against nature and not just dictate it.
>
This is very important. Some science is just descriptive, but to get
anywhere really interesting you must make predictions.
>
> This means that IQ MUST, at the very LEAST,
> correlate with a proven RANGE of KNOWN
> abilities to even BEGIN to be a recognised
> test for "intelligence. This has never been
> the case. No evidence exists that IQ can
> be correlated with a range of proven excellence.
>
IQ does correlate with many things (notoriously, race). It also correlates
well with teachers' subjective impressions of which children are
"intelligent". Performace on the same tests has also improved over the
years, the Flynn effect. So the tests are measuring something, the question
is, exactly what.
>
> Within any trading society, a DIVERSITY of
> intelligence types is more important than
> lumps of the same type. However, the ivory
> tower academics think that only their view
> of the world reflects "intelligence" and misuses
> tests that reflect how _they_ think.
>
Of course. Academic work rightly has a high status. However academics are
not the best paid people on the planet - other skills are more useful to
wealth generating companies. So we shouldn't be trying to force children who
have no aptitude for academic work into an academic mould.
What IQ tests mainly measure, in my opinion, is attitude to education. This
would account for the Flynn effect, because now good school reports are much
more a passport to university and jobs than they were previously.
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