"Cecil Moore" wrote in message
om...
Tom Donaly wrote:
Anyone who thinks that there is a test that measures "intelligence"
isn't smart enough to belong to Mensa.

What is measured is IQ (intelligence quotient). The
field of IQ measurements is approximately as mature
as the field of radio having been around for more
than a century.


psychiatry has been around hundreds of years and it's still considered
primitive by many. relativity has also been around 100 years, and it's
still pretty damn speculative.

and IQ is not intelligence. it has a 0.9 correlation with g factor as i
recall.

psychometrics have biases too. for instance, if the test uses the term
"quarter" as a unit of currency, the test is tied to the US and a few other
countries. a test that uses integer sequences like the Fibonacci is going
to be easier for a mathematician, who is trained to look for those patterns.
a test which uses analogies from 18th century English literature is not
going to be accessible to some people from Asia.

i could go on and on. some of my criticism is not leveled at
Stanford-Binet, but psychometrics in general.

also, i'd hope that whoever wrote the test is significantly smarter than me.
if not, what is the point? that dumb people can invent questions that i
can't answer?

Gravity

http://www.us.mensa.org http://www.mensa.org.uk
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp

gravity wrote:
psychometrics have biases too. for instance, if the test uses the term
"quarter" as a unit of currency, the test is tied to the US and a few other
countries.

As a matter of fact, I took both the American and English
IQ tests when I took the MENSA tests. My percentile rating
was twice as good on the American test with its dollars
and cents as it was on the English test with its pounds
and shillings. Obviously, those tests are biased. The
English language is a prerequisite, for instance.
--
73, Cecil http://www.qsl.net/w5dxp